Demographics

Et tu, Walgreens?  I know I said that my childhood doctor thought I had a health history far more advanced in age than my actual chronological years would indicate, but I thought you knew me better.  I mean, I know you fill my prescriptions for asthma meds and even once, before a trip, tranquilizers, but a free AARP membership coupon with my purchase? 

I understand that the purchase was of hemorrhoid wipes and stomach acid reducer, but come on, lots of people my age have hemorrhoids and leaky esophageal valves.   Don't they?  

Parts

It's been said by mothers and fathers throughout eternity that good things start to happen when we stop looking for them or have, let's be honest, stopped caring whether they happen or not.  Well Mom and Dad, you were right.  Once auditions stopped causing me to gnaw my fingers off and wet my pants a little, I started getting work.  The scales of wisdom have tipped in your favor.

Five kinds of awesome.

Why did I eat that chicken salad? I knew it had been in the fridge too long, even though it smelled fine. I seemed to remember leaving it in the food processor on the counter for a few hours right after I made it, but I then refrigerated it and consumed some on crackers with no ill effects. So why did it turn on me so, causing vast digestive distress and dry heaving 12 hours after the final serving was eaten? Why, on top of a respiratory infection, did I have to get food poisoning? Because I'm apparently Homer Simpson, that's why. I could never stay mad at you, chicken salad.

Tragic and Unnecessary

Christian and I spent a while at the courthouse today, as we had to get fingerprinted for our adoption application, just in case we are hiding that we're international jewel thieves who need a third with really small hands to fit into those unreachable back corners of safes.  We had to wait for the fingerprinting technician and were sitting in the lobby when a young woman came in, pushing her shirtless two year old son in a stroller.  The lobby was for both the fingerprinting/gun permit office and for filing civil and small claims cases and restraining orders.  The woman approached the latter desk and spoke with the clerk, and attempted to communicate her story of an abusive ex-boyfriend and papers being served to her fraudulently, but, in her anger and frustration, she wasn't able to explain herself sufficiently to allow the clerk to understand and be of any assistance. She said over and over that she had been in a safe house when the papers had been supposedly delivered and that she was going to have to leave the state to escape her ex-boyfriend's violence.  She said that he was trying to get custody of his son, and she didn't know what to do.  The clerk kindly offered to call a detective to see if he or she could be of any help, and the woman sat down to wait.  

As this scenario was playing out, the woman's little boy had been playing with the rain cover of his stroller, to her intense annoyance. He hopped out of his stroller and was about to start pulling on his mother, so I started talking to him to distract him long enough to give her a chance to do what she needed to do.  I asked him question after question, and heard his answers around the thumb he was loudly sucking.  I said above that he was two, but that's because he told me that was his age, whereas he looked closer to four due to his size.  He and I spoke for a while about nothing, and, as I had my phone out, thought he might like to see pictures of the birds.  So, we looked at those for a while, and he was fascinated by the birds as well as the way the phone flicked through the pictures.  He came to my side at one point and wedged himself between my arm and my side, and I have no idea how he did it.  That a child that little wanted to attach himself to a total stranger and his mother seemed relieved to see it made me terribly sad. 

When she was leaving, she made an effort to tell us that she was going home to change her son into more clothes as he had had an accident with his lunch, necessitating his shirtlessness.  I shared that Shelly and I had taken the boys to the zoo and, when they both wet themselves to soaking, had dressed them in whatever we could find, so I understood insufficiently dressed little kids.  She left, and the kindly officer who was on front door duty, who we could see through the door but not hear, pointed at her son with a smile and she laughed at whatever it was he said.  Everyone tried to be so good to her, but I could see that the life she had made for herself and the choices she had been required to make had taken away her chances of normalcy.  

Upon seeing a girl like her, I couldn't help but think of how her life is laid out for her now, and how, unless she and her son are both incredibly lucky, he will end up exactly like her, or worse, his own father.  And how would they change their fortunes when they are obviously alone, without even anyone to go with them to the courthouse?  

Women like her break my heart and make me feel spoiled and selfish, and also make me wonder if what we've heard said is true, that the women who choose to keep their children when they become unexpectedly and unwelcomely pregnant are often the ones the least equipped to raise their children.  Were their mothers like them, insufficiently educated and taught that their only value is in what they can give to men?  

It does break my heart so.  I hope that our adoption will help break this cycle for one family, at least.

Deeply Hung

I have a massive Fair hangover.  Four Dr. Peppers, barbecue, onion burgers, fries, elephant ears, livestock allergies and a first prize ribbon!  

Eat it, acrylic whores. 

For he's my dear, my darling one...

Happy birthday to the only man on earth who could challenge Gene Kelly for the title of best backside in the history of asses. You are awesome in every way, not the least of which is how amazing you are with people of all ages, and kids in particular. You are willing to perform such feats as running incessantly up and down punishing sand dunes in order to entertain tireless nephews, and that makes you spectacularly cool, in my opinion and theirs. You never shirk at doing hard or tiring things if they will make other people happy, and you seem to derive great joy from seeing others having fun that you helped make. You're also so polite, and really think before saying anything to those who need to be handled a little more gently. Because of this, you make them feel as though they are respected, and that's more than they usually get in their daily lives.

Thank you so very much, too, for the incredible work you've done with Sasha. He's a completely different bird than he was a year ago, and that's utterly because of you. He's so happy and content and well-loved because you cared for him enough to make an effort, despite the very difficult times at the beginning. It makes my heart burst to see him raise his little foot to his neck and invite you to scratch it every night before he goes to sleep. You're a softie, which kills me. I'm sorry I make you occasionally watch Animal Cops. I just really like to see the bad guys get theirs.

So, my smiling and beguiling one, I hope that, despite having to stand in line at the DMV, this birthday is the happiest, because you deserve it.

All my love,
Suz

A Quote for the Ages

While seeing absolutely no irony in their own criticism of Obama's perceived inexperience, Republicans defending Palin's inexperience in the light of Democratic party comment about the same (from the Guardian) had this to say:

"Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn suggested that Palin's work on the parent-teacher association of her son's school gave her useful experience for the vice-presidency.
'Every woman in this room knows that if you can handle being a room mother… a PTA chairwoman, Girl Scout cookie mom, there's a lot of things you have the ability, the organisational skills, to handle. She transferred those leadership skills to the political arena.' "

Yep, that's exactly what qualifies a candidate for nomination to the Vice-Presidency, a mean hand with the Girl Scouts, those little bitches. So, apparently, all Obama would have had to do to prove his readiness for leadership was chair his girls' PTA.

We won't even discuss the hilarity of this same group of women calling for a moratorium on discussing Palin's family situation (both teenage daughter's pregnancy and husband's DUI) when Michelle Obama has been out and out called a racist by this same group because of her Princeton Master's Thesis. Oh pot, stop teasing the kettle.