Letter B

Heh heh, he said "duty"

One of the unforseen byproducts of spending much, much more time dealing with and talking about poop has been a general regression of our senses of humor. Gone are the days when we would trade urbane witty stories and clever bon mots over martinis with our sophisticated peers. Now there is a lot of maniacal exaustion-fueled giggling when Lowell lets one. Last night, while watching the nightly news we heard our president say the following regarding Hurricane Rita: "We don't ask for these things, but when they come, we have a duty." Matthew and i burst out laughing. Duty! Sounds like doodie! And man did they ever have a duty after Katrina (a big brick shaped one as my sister said when i told her the story). Hoo! Ha! *wipes tear from face*. Good times.

Having a baby changes everything. EVERYTHING.

A few weeks ago on a balmy friday evening, when the wildcard race was just starting to heat up, I walked through the living room on my way to the office. I noticed that my husband was not watching baseball, and yet he was completely glued to the screen.

Me: What are you watching?
Him: Supernanny. You would not believe this family, you have to see this...
Me: Are you telling me that you are watching Supernanny instead of the game?
Him: (pause) You're not going to put this on your blog are you?

Oh hell yes I am. It may take me a few weeks but there is no way I am letting this one go by without comment.

Buy this book

Our friend Marian has just published her memoir of 9/11. It is an intense book that recounts the story of the loss of her firefighter husband Dave and both the personal and the political aftermath. It is at turns gripping, harrowing, heartbreaking, incredibly tender and most remarkably, hilarious. I highly recommend it for you and all your friends. And their friends. Buy this book.
Recent review here; buy book here; listen to Marian on This American Life here.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state it self confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose

-William Shakespeare

Project Keep-Alive: Month Nine

Lowell has scared us all with his proclivity towards walking as soon as humanly possible. As of yesterday he's taken two independant steps in a row. (Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to scream and whoop very loudly and hopefully scared him from ever doing it again). He has been standing for very long steady periods and then taking at least one step for the last week or so. Since it seems we are on the verge of true mobility I've been taking a gander around the homestead and have discovered three words to describe it: toddler death trap. We have hot pipes and radiators for scalding, teetery furniture for crushing, wires and cables for electrocuting, OPEN SHELVING at baby level for god's sake - filled with, you guessed it, glass and china, for slicing and dicing. And that's just the living room. But anyway - back to the milestones. Lowell has said his first word. Or words, depending on if you believe us. He said dada to Matthew as clear as day after I asked him to say it. Clear as day, and then he did it again. But not after that in any consistant way. He does say "duh" at the dog consistantly though. Everytime he looks at her he says "duh" and then looks at me. Of course everything else in the world is a permutation of da, di, do, dee and day so who knows. I am reasonably sure though, that dog is the first addition to his vocabulary. Very, very, very exciting.

What else...? Eats everything in freaking sight except, strangely, cheerios. (He likes to feed those to the duh). He is cutting two teeth for sure on top, and possibly four since we just saw another nubbin today and he was up a lot last night. Now that he has choppers on the top aaaand the bottom he just loves to use them on everything. Especially mommy. but also daddy. And cribby. And playground equipmenty. Pretty much on everything except the pricey teething toys and the frozen washclothes mommy makes lovingly from scratch. Other milestones include some separation anxiety, understanding "no", proto-pincer grasp, and working out some simple algabraic expressions. What is most amazing to watch at this point though, is his emerging personality. Everyday his self gets a little bit more defined. What I like to observe most is his interaction with his dad. They are quite a pair. The second Matthew walks in the room Lowell breaks into a huge smile and wants to play. He really seems his happiest when his dad is doing some crazy thing to make him laugh, over and over and over and over again. Nobody else can make him laugh like Matthew. It is hilarious and touching and it makes life richer than I ever imagined. (I knew that I would love this experience, I knew that it would be wonderful but I had no idea how completely transforming it would be. How perfect and utter joy could surface in the middle of an ordinary day).

As far as stats (for those of you keeping score at home) he is 28.5 inches and 20 lbs 2 oz. Essentially the same size he was at 6 months so he has tableaued (sp?) nicely. Pretty much squarely average although everyone at the tot lot (what, you have not been to the tot lot? Oh you must go) still thinks he's a behemoth. That's the report at this juncture; we are all pleased with this quarter's growth and look forward to the busy holiday season and meeting our goals and projections for the year. Aloha from b-ville.

Katrina Relief Roundup

This is an excellent roundup of charities and organizations that are accepting donations for Katrina relief from the ladies of Fug.

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_fug_yourself/2005/09/a_momentary_fug.html

Wild Chihuahua Mayhem!

Recently it has come to my attention that some of my friends find my obsession with dogs, especially with my own dog, a little strange. They like Bella well enough, and they appreciate my love for her but I think that they thought after I had a baby that it would finally go away. By "it" i mean the classes, the agility group, the costumes etc. I never really noticed that a few looked askance because I am somewhat thick that way and mainly I talk to my sister about Bella and other dogs. Kara and I spent a good chunk of our childhood memorizing the AKC Handbook and dressing our dogs up and photographing them so this all seems like normal behavior to us. (Okay, Kara is seriously dogcrazy, but that makes her one hell of an enabler). So anyway when I told some friends that I had hooked up with a chihuahua meetup group that is starting in Brooklyn and further mentioned how happy I was that Bella might be able to make some new friends they started to openly tell me that they think I'm crackers. Ha!

This saturday was the first meetup and I was really excited. Not only were there some f-ing cute chihuahuas there were a whole bunch of crazy dog people who don't think things like surfing the net for chi pictures is strange at all. Bella was pretty psyched as she was the giantess of the group for once (she is a chihuahua mix). It really brightened my mood, which has been dark and stormy of late, and I am reasonably sure it brightened her's too. Her demotion to furst-born (get it?) since Lowell came along has been tough so it's nice for us to have some quality time together. I can't wait for the next one. I set up my first flickr photoset for this - enjoy!

Still angry, how about you?

I don't think I have ever sworn so much as I have in the past 3 or 4 days. I am having a total Tourettes moment where every time I see, hear or watch the news coming out of the hurricane zone I open my mouth and only !*&$^#&!!8#&$ comes out. And then I start crying again. What is really getting to me though, what is totally beyond the pale, is the needless suffering of children and babies. They are the most helpless of all and there are so many of them. It is just too fucking much, pardon my french. Every small face I see stabs me in the heart. The woman weeping over her baby suffering from heatstroke, the man clutching a listless three-week old screaming for formula, the distraught kids separated from their parents,- these images will be with me for a long time. The stories about healthy babies who made it throught the storm but have died due to mind-boggling incompetence are too heartbreaking to even think about. God almighty. It makes my brain break down and only rage comes out. And we haven't even seen the worst yet. There are going to be so many dead in New Orleans that could have gotten out if there had been even a half-hearted attempt to assist those without means to evacuate while the sun shined.

At least the media has FINALLY had its come-to-Jesus moment too. They are, for the most part, not letting officials off the hook and a few are doing some incredible reporting. Even CNN. It's shocking.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2125581/

And get out your ice skates, Satan, the ultimate neo-con asskiss is not going to take it anymore:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html

Oh, and just one more thing about that moron Michael Brown of FEMA. He got his job because he was Bush's former campaign manager's college roommate. Really.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12554964.htm

That's it for now. No more rage. Tomorrow there will be a break from the regular programming to bring you all a little chihuahua therapy. It helped me today.

from my wee pulpit

I am currently so distressed about the situation in New Orleans that I really cannot think of anything else. I am trying to turn this rage into something positive so please indulge me while i rant.

What we are currently seeing is a ugly blistering clusterfuck illustration of how we treat our poor and disenfranchised in this country. This situation would be completely different if it was a bunch of white, middle class families at the Superdome. I am sorry but that is the truth and we all know it. The director of FEMA himself said on NBC news regarding the deplorable conditions at the convention center today: "The federal government just learned about those people today [?!] and we are moving heaven and earth to get pallets of food and water to them. I've heard all day long the stories about people who were causing trouble, screaming and yelling about things, and just being thugs and then I hear about this group today, and I told my team I don't care what it takes you get stuff to them and you get it to them now." Um, yeah, I never knew that FEMA was there to make a value judgement about who they were saving. "Oh, it sounds like it's just a bunch of thugs left in New Orleans, that's what CNN is saying, so we don't have to move too fast". Holy f-ing God! I cannot believe that it is taking this long to get the absolute basics to thousands of people in such dire need. IT IS 5 DAYS LATER. FEMA and Homeland security had 24 hours notice of a Category 5 hurricane on Sunday and this is the best they can do? What's going to happen when they have no warning (like, oh, another terrorist attack)? I know that many people are doing their utmost but this is simply unacceptable They need to bring in troops, active duty, not just National Guard to restore order and protect people and get them out. But I guess that might be a problem since they're all in Iraq. I don't understand why this country is not coming to a standstill, why we all aren't completely focused on this like we were focused on 9/11. WHY IS THERE FOOTBALL ON THE NETWORKS? They couldn't bump some sorry-ass preseason games to give this unfolding tragedy the kind of coverage it deserves????? This is an utter, utter disgrace and I feel a deep burning shame that something like this could happen here.  I also feel completely powerless but I will use this tiny platform to spread information to you, my friends and family. Here is a list of links for where you can go to help, get better info and maybe a little comfort that others are equally outraged.

Help:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/national/hurricane-resources.html
http://www.hurricanehousing.org/
http://neworleans.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html

Info:
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/hurricane/katrina/blog_090105.html
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/nationalspecial/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_New_Orleans

Outrage:
http://www.dailykos.com/
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
http://leftofyall.blogspot.com/
http://www.thismodernworld.com/