Hot Girly Wheels

I need to write a cathartic snarkathon about my Weekend of Suburban Confinement, but I'll need a little time to pull that together. In the meantime, today's news, an LA Times article (shared with the Chicago Tribune) reports that Mattel—those pro-woman geniuses behind the Barbie doll—are launching the Polly Wheels line of toys this June. They combine Polly Pockets dolls with die-cast cars (Hot Wheels–style cars). Each car will come with a doll to drive it, and the chassis will be covered with frosted plastic. (Wait. Won't that crack when the cars crash?) This fall, Mattel will add fruit-scented cars. And just in time for the holidays, a racetrack set: "The winner of the game, the first car to make it up the shopping center's elevator to a boutique, is rewarded with a magnetic shopping bag that 'jumps' into the car."

Holy crap. Did they even consider just packaging some Hot Wheels cars with pink cardboard and painting those cars in "girly" colors? Maybe it would have worked. Instead, Mattel is cramming more "girls love to shop" nonsense down girls' throats. The news article is rife with sexist and patriarchy-laden bilge. One mother with both daughters and a son says, "You always feel bad making the stereotypes, but boys and girls play differently." (Oy.)

The guy from Mattel said the ideas for the Polly Wheels line came from girls themselves: "Girls were the ones who gravitated to this. Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ideas." A magnetic shopping bag that jumps into a car is simple? No, no, no, no. The simplest idea is Make the same cars and tracks in girly colors, too.

Mind you, I played with Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars when I was a kid. We had a couple orange strips of racetrack, so we could send the cars flying. And no, there were no boys in the house. I also scraped the paint off some of the cars, the ones that had a single color of paint. Die-cast cars look great in plain metal. Sometimes I painted 'em afterwards (solid, non-girly colors, maybe some pastels). And I'd sort out cars by color—the standard play-with-cars business. And never thought to send the cars to the mall or pretend that dolls were driving them.

I'm sure we had plenty of dolls, but toys that do something are innately so much more interesting than toys that sit there. Burger King gave Ben both the boy and girl toys in his kid meal the other day. The boy toy was a wheel launcher that sent a fat tire spinning across the room. The girl toy was a hard rubber doll with no moving parts that could be bent minimally (and emitted toxic plastic fumes). Over and over, the Happy Meal and other kids' meal toys bear this out: Girls get static toys that either (1) sit there and look pretty, or (2) can be put on to make the girl look pretty in pink plastic jewelry. The boys get cars and figurines with moving parts, things that do something.

Is this an anti-girl bias, to grumble about toys that require more imagination to play with? Or is it more of an anti teaching-girls-to-be-inert-fembots bias?

(Side rant: How come the Hot Wheels racetrack sets now all seem to require assembling 20+ parts into a set design and include a battery-operated component? Why don't they sell plain orange racetracks like they had in the 1970s? I liked being able to set up a long ramp heading down from the table, and having the loop-the-loop be a self-directed option. Those battery-powered accelerator things are so noisy.)

Scattershot approach

You know what? If I save a topic for later, I may completely forget it. So: Three smaller posts in one. Or maybe it's two in one. Or four.

Last month, I bought a set of beautiful, beautiful Wüsthof knives after using the same set of cheap-ass knives for nearly 20 years. The old ones came in a butcher block, which I like, but the knives themselves were of the "never needs sharpening" variety, with sharp little serrated teeth jaggedying up the blades. The new knives are a thing (or really, eight things) of beauty, with a good heft to the handles and razor sharp blades. One of the ickiest parts of cooking chicken (well, aside from the ickiness of raw chicken itself) was always the cutting/trimming. But the new knives, they slice through without effort. This makes me happy. You should see the way I peel and slice an orange with a santoku knife. If you can't afford a whole set of good knives, you might consider buying one high-quality big knife for heavy-duty kitchen use.

So, back on Valentine's Day, I wasn't trying to be wifely or traditional or spoil my man and boy with a home-cooked meal (I don't cook much). I was famished, there was no ready-to-eat food I was in the mood for, and it would have been cruel to order a pizza given the snowstorm. So I cooked some mashed potatoes (with butter, sour cream, and milk, plus some black pepper and rosemary) and chicken. Let me tell you how we made the chicken. (Mr. Tangerine manned the frying pan at the end and concocted a wonderful sauce.)

I joyfully sliced the boneless, skinless chicken breasts into crosswise thirds with my happy, happy knife, and sprinkled the nuggets with Penzeys salt-free adobo seasoning. (If you know anyone who should be cooking without salt, go to Penzeys Spices and buy them the gift pack of salt-free seasoning blends. One of my best friends gave me that for Christmas a few years ago, and it was one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. These seasonings let you cook without a recipe—just sprinkle from the bottle of your choice, and whatever you're cooking will taste terrific.) So, sort of a dry rub of the adobo seasoning. Adobo is a traditional Mexican and Filipino thing, though I think the authentic thing is, like, bone-in chicken stewed in a pot with vinegar and actual garlic. I like this non-stinky and super-easy version.

Dredge the seasoned chicken chunks in an egg batter (an egg mixed with a little water) and coat with bread crumbs (I use the store-bought can).

Heat a good-sized dollop of oil in a large frying pan, enough to fry all the chicken pieces. (I prefer olive oil. Though the cabinet where I keep it is poorly insulated—the cold is giving it a sludgy consistency! It still tastes the same.) Fry on medium heat for about 5 to 6 minutes, flip the pieces over, and fry 'em for another 5 to 6 minutes. Check one nugget for doneness because you can never trust that the outside appearance means the inside's actually cooked through, and you're paranoid about undercooked chicken and salmonella. (Or maybe that's me and not you.) When the chicken's cooked, transfer all the chicken to a plate.

Then open the fridge and take out a bottle with some really sweet wine you haven't finished because you're the only one in the house who likes sweet white wine, and you lose your taste for it after two glasses. (Mr. Tangerine won't drink the wine, but I'm glad he thinks of things like cooking with it.) Poor a good-sized splash of it into the pan, and reduce it over medium-high heat. (Meaning the liquid boils off and you're left with a brownish sauce with a light consistency.) Spoon that sweet, fruity goodness over the fried chicken nuggets, and moan with contentedness.

Tonight, we had no more potatoes, so I made couscous for the side dish. In a saucepan, add a cup of water, a sprinkle of salt, up to a teaspoon of olive oil, and a quarter cup or more of dried fruit (I had golden raisins and Bing cherries). Bring it to a boil. In the meantime, take a cup of dry couscous, mix in a teaspoon of cinnamon and a small handful of slivered almonds. When the pot boils, remove from heat, dump in the couscous and nuts, stir 'em up, and cover the pan while the couscous soaks up the water. Fluff with a fork after 4 or 5 minutes (otherwise it clumps up along the bottom and sides of the pan).

If you don't like sweet fruit flavors in your dinner food, then (1) you may be a deeply unhappy person and (2) you might not like either of these recipes. Me, I think dinner's always improved by fruit (you'll note the blog name is suggestive of a pro-fruit bias).

I've been catching a cold every two months. I have the mildest case of asthma, and just when I think I can wean myself off the Advair, I get another cold and make my airways a little cranky. So twice a day, I use that darlin' purple metered-dose inhaler of Advair. Inhaler instructions generally tell you to breathe the medication in deeply and hold it in...you know, like you're trying to get high off it. It is frightfully difficult to take this medicine in Mr. Tangerine's presence, because we joke around. I inhale deeply, place pinched thumb and forefinger by my mouth, and extend the imaginary doobie toward him. (If I don't, he tells me to quit bogarting the inhaler.) Then he takes an imaginary toke and comments that it is some good shit, at which point I laugh out half the medicine. Yup. Should really tend to my airways alone.

Plus, the Advair container looks like there'd be somewhere for you to put your weed in it, as per the classic Rob Schneider skit on Saturday Night Live. I can't say I've actually seen weed in the last two decades, but I still love that sketch. For my money, those few minutes contain more hilarity than the entirety of either Deuce Bigalow movie.

Bringing this post full circle—I'll bet Rob Schneider's mom used to cook chicken adobo, since she's a Filipina.

Oh! I went to my cousin's hors d'oeuvres wedding reception yesterday. (Thanks to all who chimed in on gift budgets. I learned that I have been underbuying for kids' birthday gifts all these years, but more generous with my cousins' graduations than many of you would have been.) One of the snacky highlights was a carrot/cheddar cheese dip—finely grated carrots mixed into cheese. I should eat more fresh veggies, so this is an ideal cheese dip. It's a Martha Stewart recipe, but I can't find it online. Martha's online recipe search function sucks. If you have this recipe, can you please share it?

Okay, audience participation time. Tell me about your favorite recipe that contains fruit or vegetables in a surprising way.

It's Freedom to Marry Week!

It really was like any other wedding. It rained all day. The flowers arrived at the very last minute. The photographer, who was hired without references out of sheer desperation, showed up in just a vest, without a shirt underneath. Granted, it was a nice vest, but still, my mother was there and I had had trouble convincing her to come to the ceremony as it was. Just minutes before I was to be married, I was sent to pick up not only my mother, but also the minister, who were at a distant hotel and didn't know how to get to the art gallery–turned–wedding chapel for the blessed event.

But, through it all, I tried to look at the upside of being distracted on my wedding day, keeping the nerves at bay. And, as if a present from heaven, the rain let up just before the event, and a bashful sun sent its rays through a break in the clouds. And once I saw my husband-to-be, in a handsome powder blue shirt and eyes overflowing with love for me, every other care of the day melted away.

The short ceremony went without a hitch (except for us getting hitched at the end of it!), yet surprises still awaited us. At the reception, one of our guests with a severe nut allergy had a reaction to some mole sauce on his appetizer. Doctors were called for, our new-agey minister performed "reiki" over him, an ambulance arrived, and we were asked to return to our meals after our semiconscious friend was whisked away to the nearest hospital, almost 60 miles away. No one could eat, worried as we were. The day which was supposed to be about us, became suddenly about someone else. I felt cheated, but also guilty for such selfish feelings.

We heard late that evening, from a friend who accompanied him, that once our friend was poked in the thigh with an EpiPen in the ambulance, he recovered quickly. They both arrived back at the house we were renting early the next morning, tired and embarrassed. By that point, we were simply relieved and ready to begin married life, armed with stories we could retell the rest of our lives together.

So, you see, it really was like any other wedding, full of hope, love, challenges, and laughter.

Well, that and that the wedding was held in Provincetown, Massachusetts, between two men.

But that was the least significant in my mind of the events of the day...and hope those reading this agree.

Happy Freedom to Marry Week, everyone!

Dave Sullivan

Orange here: I wanted to write something for Freedom to Marry Week and asked my friend Dave if he had any ideas for me. He graciously offered to write a guest post about his wedding. Thanks, Dave, and Happy Valentine's Day to you and the mister!

My oldest and dearest friend—we became best friends when we were 14, lo these many (many!) years ago—is an expectant parent. Her partner is halfway through her pregnancy. Thanks to unenlightened restrictions on who can marry and how "parent" is defined, they must spend two grand so that the non-gestating mommy can legally adopt the baby whose conception she planned and was present for, whose first ultrasound picture she proudly e-mailed out last week. I don't see how it serves society that this baby's parents cannot be married, that they can't obtain the basic family protections of marriage without spending a boatload more money on legal fees. And sheesh, babies are expensive enough as it is without tacking on the cost of legal documents.

I'm resigned to the likelihood that next year's major-party nominees for president will both publicly state their opposition to same-sex marriage rights. But I am hopeful that by 2012 or 2016, support for gay marriage will no longer be considered political poison, and that state and federal recognition of marriage rights will blanket the land.

Introducing the book

Learning a new system can be fraught with anxiety...

Gift budgets

Lemme put it to a vote: How much would you expect to spend on each of the following gifts?

Wedding (nice reception)

Wedding (low-key, reception at home)

College graduation

High school graduation

Kid's birthday gift

(You'll note that Valentine's Day isn't listed. I bought some Tiffany crystal beer mugs. I think they're my gift to Mr. Tangerine and his gift to me. Holiday, shmoliday. I don't even get riled up about expecting a card any more.)

I'm asking about the gift amounts because a cousin of mine got married overseas, and I was not among the relatives who opted to travel to the wedding. The reception, such as it is, is an hors d'oeuvres–only open-house deal at my aunt's house, food made by the bride's mom and sister. My sister and I don't know what the standard expectation is these days. So?

Phobias

When I've got my car keys in hand (or pocket) and I'm walking past a deep storm-sewer drain, I always make extra certain that I won't drop them, and pause mentally to contemplate my reaction if I were to drop the keys down the drain. Am I the only one who's paranoid about this? Omigod! Google says I'm not! I feel better already. There are two of us. At least I'm brave enough to park my car next to the drain in my parking lot instead of steering clear of it.

Centipedes and millipedes (termed hundred-legged and thousand-legged motherfuckers by my sister) also freak me out. Boy, that was a rough summer the year the millipedes infested the neighborhood. And I'm glad my home is small enough that I can generally reach a shoe to squish a wall-climbing centipede. They move so fast! If one skitters down to the floor, there's little chance of finding it. Gotta get it on the wall. (And then use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for the resultant smudge.)

I recently found out that scorpions also alarm me. Here in the now-frigid Midwest, there's little chance of encountering a scorpion outside of captivity. But the other week, I had to check the genus and species of a couple scorpions for a paper I was editing. Seeing a couple pictures and reading a couple paragraphs at Wikipedia? I was undone. Ergo, I will never, ever move to the Southwest.

Plenty of people are afraid of heights, snakes, needles, public speaking, or spiders. What's your most unusual phobia?

Thrill-seeker

You know how you can tell if a kid displays sensory-seeking behavior? Maybe he can spin around and around and around without feeling dizzy. (Me, I get woozy after about two times around.) He actually asks to be tickled. (My mom thinks tickling is tantamount to torture, but her grandson loves it.) He might like to have a parent lie on top of his outstretched body, as if the parent is trying to crush him. (Mr. Tangerine thinks I'm too heavy to lie on top of him for any amount of time, but his kid thinks it's the bee's knees.) And this evening, said kid was lying in a shallow bath, demanding that cup after cup of ice-cold water be poured on him. (Torture! I know! And yet, he shrieks, then smiles and asks for more icy splashing.)

You think this kid will grow up and get hooked on bungee jumping, wrestling, extreme skiing, and manned crash tests?

Spam, spam, tasty spam

Every now and then, a spam subject line is so tempting, I can't bring myself to delete the e-mail. To wit:

Subject: Cornhole, Buckminster, Sambo and Hakio Hardturd were getting a little pissed that they were not seeing any game to speak of.

After the obligatory colorful image of a box of text touting a stock, there's the obligatory random sequence of text. Some of it's in Dutch, and for my money, there's no funnier language than Dutch. There's a little serious español. And then, we are treated to some of the finest English prose ever committed to bandwidth. The English bits, they're like little giggly treasures waiting to be discovered. I reprint the spam here in its entirety, for your edification:

Dit is geen verwijt naar de initiatiefnemers van de beelddatabank, want dit reflecteert uiteraard vooral interesse- en selectietendenzen bij dergelijke collecties in het verleden. zip Mirror528547NoneNone Prsaar-alpha-2.
Eenvoudige, herkenbare, transparante informatie die je op alle produkten terugvindt. Check out Expanded News.
Peterson, MD, Lt Col, USAF, MC; David M. Beeldcultuur in een digitale wereld. Een oranje of rode kleur is een waarschuwing. It has now been confirmed. Ahora es el tiempo para que los proveedores de cuidado de la salud examinen sus conciencias y consideren sus compromisos.
We just happened to forget about that room of ballots.
com vind je een link naar de browser Firefox, het bedrijf Firefox, en een bedankje voor en link naar de nieuwe website van Kevin Karpenske.
Dus, ik ging op onderzoek uit. Check out Expanded News.
And, what about you female boozehounds? Toch: fijne ontdekking.
zip Mirror52689413i386.
The Super-Piss Sponge holds even more urine than our Piss Bladder.
Ahora es el tiempo para que los proveedores de cuidado de la salud examinen sus conciencias y consideren sus compromisos. Authors are routinely instructed by the provider to disclose significant financial relationships and mention of investigational drugs and unapproved indications. Free NewsFree News Headlines, Summaries, Stocks and moreFree Newsletter serviceSend to a friendBranded with your look and feel.
Even when they were loaded, which was basically all the time, except when they were in various jails, they saw no moose whatsoever. Zoals ik hierboven al vermeldde, verse groenten, fruit, mager vlees.
Madsen, MD, MPH, COL, MC-FS, USA; Deborah Omori, MD, MPH, FACP, COL, MC, USA; Karen M.
It supports Windows and Unix-based operating systems.
Urban, MD; Richard A.
They say anything can happen in this land of frozen balls and frigid cakes, and this case just underscores that fact.
Roy, MD, MPH, FACP, LTC, MC; Jamie Waselenko, MD, FACP; Guest Faculty: Ronald E. PresentatieEen aantal mensen vroegen me of ik m'n presentatie beschikbaar kan stellen. Snoep en koekjes: ongezond, uiteraard.

-----------------

Now, if you Google those oddball English phrases and the subject line, they'll all take you to the same humor site. But you know what? I think they're funnier out of context.

"Why don't you just adopt?"

I'll bet you a dollar that every American woman who has struggled with infertility have been told at least once that she should adopt a child rather than pursue fertility treatment. Sometimes the suggestion is well-meant evangelizing from someone who has adopted and feels everyone should experience their happiness, but more often it seems to be someone who either has biological children or is childless. Couples using fertility drugs and procedures may be accused of being selfish or wasting resources.

Would you like to know why encouraging an infertile couple to adopt can come across as hurtful? Or are you infertile and wondering how to respond to exhortations to give up on fertility treatment and "just adopt"? I think you'll find this essay enlightening. A woman named Amy (who really ought to write a blog herself) wrote it yesterday in the comments thread at Bitch Ph.D.'s "Blog for Choice Day" post. With Amy's permission, her words are reproduced here:
_________________

"I don't really understand it either (having not experienced infertility myself). In this desperately overpopulated world, what drives people who want to be parents to do infertility treatments instead of adopting a child in need who's already here?"

Since you asked, here are a couple of potential reasons. (I'm speaking as a person who is actually interested in adopting, but wants to explain why it's hard to hear the "why not just adopt" question).

• Adopting can be difficult and time consuming in your particular state. You might have certain characteristics that would make pregnant mothers less likely to choose you, for instance, your age, or medical history, or marital history. You might have characteristics that disqualify you from most international adoption programs.

• You might have gone to your local adoption agency and been informed of the typical wait times in your state, and be worried about how long the waits end up being, and how many matches tend to fall through.

• You might decide to educate yourself about adoption more by reading birth mother blogs, in an attempt to understand all parts of the adoption triad. Through doing so, you might come to realize that adoption is not quite as morally straightforward as you once thought. That doesn't mean it might not be a great option, but it could end up being a much more complicated option than you once realized.

• But to be honest, I think the biggest reason for many people is that it's not as if most infertile people realize up front how long and expensive the road might be. It's not like you wake up infertile and then realize with perfect foresight that the road towards parenthood will take years and tens of thousands of dollars, no matter whether you go the adoption route or the infertility treatment route.

Instead, you might go to doctors and be told that likely you'll just need a little bit of help. Maybe one or two cycles with drugs, which doesn't cost much and doesn't take that much time. Maybe those don't work and you find you need something extra, but even the next step seems much more straightforward than jumping into adoption. It's not as if somebody wakes up one day and says "Hey, I think I'll spend a bunch of money and several years going through difficult and painful treatments to have a baby, because I don't want to adopt." You don't think that's going to happen to you. You don't think it'll have to go that far.

• The question you asked could just as well be asked of parents who conceive naturally instead of through infertility treatments. Why aren't naturally fertile people going out and adopting since there are so many children in need? Well, maybe because people just want to have a family by conceiving. Or maybe because people realize that it's not like there are a ton of kids sitting around waiting and all you have to do is just decide to adopt and blammo, it's a done deal. It's just not that easy. There are a million reasons why people don't adopt, as there are a million reasons why people do adopt. Why should infertile people be the ones who are supposed to carry the special moral burden of solving the "child in need" problem?

If I'd known 2 years ago what I know now, things would have been different. I'd have started the paperwork for adopting right off the bat. I'd have done the homestudy, filled out the essays and the questionnaires, sat through the multiple interviews, combed through the paperwork and signed everything in triplicate, called up my various financial and work institutions to get all of the paperwork in order. Adopting isn't exactly effortless or cheap. It's a huge, huge amount of work. It's an emotional roller coaster. It can be, and is, a wonderful, wonderful thing. But it's also a big commitment and I can't exactly fault somebody for wanting to think it through before jumping in.

I just don't think most people realize ahead of time that they will be that unfortunate minority who ends up needing so much help, time, money, and intervention to get pregnant. Doctors tend to be more optimistic than that. I also suspect that most people who have not adopted or who are not infertile just have no idea how much work really goes into adopting, and how it's not as if there's some child in need right around the corner who you could immediately let into your life overnight. Adopting is a different option than pursuing pregnancy, and it's not worse or better. It's different in a lot of ways, and can be a beautiful way to build a family. It's just different, period.

Maybe it's just one of those things that is hard to imagine unless you've been there, which is why Dr. B's admonishment to back off from getting snotty about other people's reproductive decisions is so right on. Being infertile sucks ass in so many ways, but it's even harder when you find yourself in the position of suddenly having to defend your own reproductive decisions. I imagine the same is probably true of women who have abortions, or women who choose not to have children, or women who choose to have 6 children. It'd sure be nice to see women supporting each other in their own reproductive journeys instead of judging each other for having too many kids, or too few kids, or needing an abortion, or needing infertility treatments, or whatever the hell decisions we each make. If we're lucky enough to make them.

Edited June 24, 2009, to say: Welcome, Salon Broadsheet readers.

Smitten

Everybody's favorite South African blogger, Tertia, has decided to copy me and write about cyber-crushes. She linked to me and has a zillion readers, so this blog got hundreds of new visitors yesterday. And not one of them left a comment! Either they don't know what Tertia sees in me, or they're just shy. If you're one of those people, don't be shy! (Unless you don't like me, in which case, feel free to remain in your Cave of Reticence.)

The topic got me thinking: I know what sort of women I'm drawn to in Blogtopia. Intelligence, mad writing skillz, a finely honed comic sensibility, liberal politics, a feminist bent, and a pissy attitude are all things that make me think, "Hey, I'd be friends with her in real life." But what sort of men do I like?

Basically, the most crushable men possess the same traits. But if a man shows signs of homophobia, that's a huge turnoff. The men who feel compelled to defend themselves against any hint that they might be gay? The men who wigged out about Brokeback Mountain not because it was, at heart, a chick flick, but because it featured men in love? The men who get a little too aggressive proving their "whoo, I like boobies" straight-man credentials? You can have them all.

I will take the ones who are honestly flattered if they get hit on by a gay man. Who aren't made nervous by the sight of men holding hands. Who take their son to the Pride Parade each June (as Mr. Tangerine does). Who are completely at ease with gayness in all its splendor and ordinariness. (And this doesn't mean they have a fondness for woman-on-woman porn. That's altogether different.) Who teach their children by example that homosexuality is nothing to deride, fear, or get into a tizzy about. Who aren't frightened that metrosexual grooming habits will make them "look gay."

Women who like men and men who like men may prefer different body types (tall, not tall, lean, muscular, dark-haired, blond, yadda yadda yadda) and different personality traits (macho, sensitive, funny, responsible, romantic, etc.). Does anyone else include "lack of homophobia" as a criterion for hotness in straight men, or is it just me?

Begone, zits!

It has only taken me 38 ± 2 years to find a product that seems to actually do something about a pimple. For real! Honest! I had one of those burgeoning red bastards, and instead of progressing volcanically, it's dwindling away to nothingness.

Yeah, it would be nice to find something that actually prevents blemishes, but I haven't found anything that works well. Not antibiotics, not ProActiv, not rosacea medication—nothing.

What's working now is the Desert Essence Tea Tree Blemish Touch Stick. It's a wee glass tube with a roll-on applicator to dispense this aromatic liquid that contains tea tree oil, lavender oil, and other herbal substances. I bought it at Trader Joe's, and it smells far better than the Herbal Blemish Stick from Burt's Bees. That one contains fennel oil, and I hate-hate-hate the smell and taste and yea, the very idea of fennel, anise, fenugreek, and licorice. Ben hates the smell of the Desert Essence one, but it dissipates and hey, he's not the one applying it to his face.

So if you're afflicted by the occasional zit, can't bear putting benzoyl peroxide on your aging skin, and can abide herbal aromas, try one of these herbal blemish stick dealios. I have a linen closet packed full of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, so it's not as if I'm one of those all-natural, herbal-friendly types. But these mini roll-on gizmos seem to defang zits, so I'm sold.

On this day, we remember...

Menarche. Yes, that's right. It was on a January 15, when I was 14 years old, that I got my first period. Mind you, that was at least a couple years after I read Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, an abomination in that the protagonist, the aforementioned Margaret, is in a tizzy as all her friends get their period by age 12 or ma-a-aybe 13. And of course, Margaret won't be kept waiting until age 14 or later, no, ma'am. Because that would be an unconscionable cruelty to the character!

Among my best friends in high school (who, I am delighted to report, remain my closest friends to this day), one got her period at 16 and another at 15. My mom was 16 when she started the monthly joy. Another friend got her first period at age 9 or 10—and at that age, holy lord of gravy! What girl is ready to deal with tampons or pads in fourth or fifth grade? With classroom disruptions for "May I go to the bathroom now?" Yeesh. Of course, I hear earlier menarche is more and more common these days, what with more body fat and perhaps hormones in the food supply. It'd be great if that Judy Blume book had never existed so those of us in the 14-and-after group wouldn't have felt so...pre-womanly. (Ah, puberty.)

If you saw Talladega Nights at one of those popcorn-selling emporia, you should rent the DVD. When Ricky Bobby's in the hospital and his friends come to sit with him while he's unconscious, in a scene added for the DVD, Michael Clarke Duncan's character reads to him from Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. A friend (the one with the age 9 or 10 period) and I nearly wept from laughing so hard. Yes, I've spoiled the joke for you now, but you'll still laugh if you remember the book from back in the day. I had to rewind and see it again...and I laughed again.

Scattershot approach

Hey, have you heard the story of how Vlad the Impaler came by his catchy nickname? I hadn't before I read Flea's post today. Wow! He was wicked! I mean, really and truly wicked.

What's the etymology of that word, anyway? Apparently it's derived from wicca. Well, that's hardly fair to wiccans. Wick, on the other hand, grew out of the Old English wēoce. Sure do love the eo combo you see in Old English.

I'm rather fond of El Niño winters in the Midwest. It was mighty cold at the end of November and beginning of December, but it's mostly been, like, 35 to 50 degrees since then. A (wicked) cold snap is in store in a couple days, but I want my unseasonable mildness back pronto! A non-white Christmas was just fine with me, as are non-white Januaries and Februaries. If it's not El Niño but global warming, then I suppose I'm obligated to deplore the mild weather. Though it sure is nice not to have to scrape ice and snow off the car so often.

What happens when a winter is warm and moist? The plants get addlepated. I hear some snowdrops have already bloomed in the Chicago area. The daffodils are sprouting (and the imminent cold snap will probably freeze their poor tender buds and screw us out of a flowery spring). I could swear I've seen leaf buds on some trees. And our vinca minor in the front yard has at least one periwinkle blossom. In January!

Ben's got a school friend over for the afternoon—a third-grader he knows from the playground. David's mom is taking her aunt to the doctor, so I've got the boys here. I like hearing peals of laughter from the other room. Do you think I should check on that, though? What the hell is so funny? Uh oh. Now it's quiet. That can't be a good sign. It's nice to have Ben diverted by someone else so I can tend to this poor neglected blog for a bit.

Let me close with a question for you. Hmm, what'll it be? Okay: If history was going to give you a salient nickname à la Vlad the Impaler, what would it be?

Let us now blame the patriarchy

I do like to read I Blame the Patriarchy from time to time (and I ought to update my blogroll one of these days). I never took a women's studies class in college, I've never read any of the core feminist books, and I'm solidly in the liberal feminist camp rather than a radical feminist.

I don't always agree with Twisty and her cadre of rad-fem commenters. For example, I'm married and have a kid, and think it's a net good. I do put on lipstick almost once a month...or several times a year, at least. I don't wear high heels, but it's possible I would for dressy occasions if my feet didn't object more strenuously than most.

But I've found it useful to absorb the basic rad-fem tenets by browsing at I Blame the Patriarchy, and it's opened my eyes to some of the crap that is endemic in our culture (and many, many others).

Case in point: Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the new Speaker of the House yesterday, the first woman to hold that post. How does Jay Leno address that in his monologue? He asks, "How much plastic surgery has she had?" Yeah, she looks a lot younger than most 66-year-olds. But her appearance is completely beside the point here. I mean, look at her predecessor, former Speaker Dennis Hastert. You wanna riff on somebody's appearance, why don't you seek out some punchlines in Hastert's blotchy bloat and ill-fitting suits? Oh, because he's a man, and ugly, out-of-shape men tend to get a free pass, even in TV-land. (Compare, if you will, the women and the men who do sports reporting and commentary on ESPN. Any women who aren't conventionally attractive and made-up? No? How about the men—are they all lookers?)

You know what I blame for this, of course: I gotta blame the patriarchy.

Sensual pleasures

(That's sensual as in definitions 1 and 2c. As Mrs. Wormer explained to Otter in Animal House, "Vegetables are sensual. People are sensuous." So this blog post here isn't about that sensuous business. Too, too obvious.)

After I took off my super-plush socks this evening, my thoughts turned to those sensual/sensory experiences that just feel so good, those mundane little moments that make body and soul rejoice:

• You're hot and uncomfortable, and you reach down and pull off your socks, freeing your toes and soles from their stifling incarceration.

• That first big stre-e-e-etch in the morning, when you sprawl your limbs beyond the full length of the mattress.

• After you raise the glass to your lips and inhale the heavenly citrusy aroma of fresh-squeezed orange juice, you take your first sip and let the juicy pulp bits party in your mouth before swallowing.

• You step under the shower spray, and in a few seconds your hair gets so saturated with water that you can't help but let the weight pull your head back (making you look like someone in one of those ridiculous Herbal Essences ads, but without all the hoopla).

• You've been trying to get just a few more things accomplished before you take a bathroom break (so efficient are you!), your bladder growing more distended by the minute, and you finally sit down and pee. Aahhhhh. A sense of well-being pervades your core.

• You're thirsty, your mouth feels absolutely parched, and that first sip of cold water slides down your throat, slaking your body's craving.

• A good washcloth scrubbing of your lower back, preferably administered by someone other than you.

• When you finally dislodge that dried-up booger that's been clinging inside your nostril, and can breathe freely without boogeral encumbrance.

What sensory moments make you happy?

Let us now mock baby names

A Midwestern couple with quintuplet babies had five chances to spell a name right and not burden the kids with an oddly cobbled-together assortment of letters. But lo! It appears that the letters K and Y are like crack cocaine to the Ferrill family, as they have named the children thusly:

Irelyn Kadyn
Kieran Skye
Landyn Konner
Layne Mykel
Drayden Karter

You might be thinking, "But Orange, that's exactly the right way to spell Kieran." Sure, it's a great Irish boy's name. Alas, Kieran Ferrill is a girl.

I can't believe they went with Drayden, when hardly anyone names their kid the more distinctive Kraken. It has two K's! They could always add a Y and make it Krayken. Krayken, Gryffin, Nessye, Boogyemyn—why not?

Updated: Let us also mock pet names. Increasingly, Americans are naming their cats and dogs Max and Jake and Samantha and Emma.

But wait! There's more! According to an NYT article on Jan. 7, the Venezuelans have a fresh approach to naming babies. Mao, Nixon, and Hitler! Backwards-spelled Susej, Rotceh, and Aleuzenev! Willderman and Yasterliski! Yusmery Sailing and her brother, Kleiderson Klarth! The hot-dog vendor who's the father of the last two says some of their siblings' names "came to me in my dreams. Their names will make them special in this life." (Aughh!)

I love the city

And I love my neighborhood. We went out for dinner tonight to celebrate the completion of my first ever book manuscript. I had a hankering for pasta with fresh tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, so we went to Anna Maria, which used to be a short walk from home but now is a short drive away. They haven't got a kids' menu, but they can make whatever you order (Ben wanted pasta with alfredo on one side, marinara on the other. And the desserts! Mr. Tangerine always gets the tiramisu, but was too full to finish it tonight. Ben and I shared the bomba al cioccolata, a blissfully light and airy, warm and moist square of cake, swimming in bittersweet chocolate sauce, with a dollop of whipped cream. It was all we could do not to lick the plate clean.

I love the area we live in because we're sequestered amid a zillion great restaurants, precious few of them part of mega-chains. Would have to drive a good 10 miles to the closest Olive Garden, but there are over a dozen Italian indies within a couple miles of us.

And I love the neighborhood because while we were at the restaurant tonight, there were five other tables with kids (this, at a place where the cheapest pasta dish costs $10.50). Three of the six families were of mixed races. One of the families had two dads. I like that none of these groups stick out as "other" here.

Sure, the city's noisy and congested, and snow turns black from exhaust along the roadway (although: hooray for it being 44 degrees on a late-December evening with no snow on the ground!), and real estate's small and pricy. But I wouldn't trade it for clean, peaceful, spacious homogeneity. I find homogeneity discomfiting.

The C-word

Mostly done with Christmas shopping, including buying my assigned ingredients to cook for Christmas Eve dinner at my sister's. Still not done with the book! Ha. Maybe I should work on that this afternoon.

Just wanted to report Ben's two finest remarks today:

• "Holy C-word!" (Because he's too genteel to use grown-up words and say "Holy crap.")

• "You know what's more fun than school?" he asked. "Christmas!" (Indeed.)

Mr. Tangerine and I are excited because my cousin's gonna give Ben the game of Operation—and we haven't played it in many a year! Man, I hope it's still fun. We'll find out tomorrow night what all Ben has in store for him from Santa—I've got all these toys and gifts sealed in shipping boxes and shopping bags, hiding in plain sight. Ben is none the wiser. But I don't really remember everything that's in those boxes. I hope Santa did a good job and Ben doesn't greet his goodies with disdain come Christmas morning...

Interjections!

Apologies for all the non-posting of late—that book deadline is December 27 now, and I procrastinate madly, but have had either the discipline or laziness not to be blogging up a storm in the pursuit of procrastination.

I am compelled to report Ben's latest mash-up of idioms. Are all six-year-olds prone to combining words and phrases like this, or is it just Ben?

"Holy lord of gravy!" he exclaimed this morning. And no, there is no gravy in the house. Just a saying...or two...or three. He was having a blast looking through a stack of old kindergarten papers, artsy things from last year. One item was his rendering of a train trip with Mr. Tangerine. Now, they rode the Amtrak from points north. Various commuter trains to the suburbs are called the Metra. The mash-up boy declared that the drawing paid homage to the time he and Daddy rode the "Ametra train." Refuses to acknowledge ever riding on Amtrak—nope, it's all Ametra, all the time.

Still haven't sent out my holiday cards. Why? Because his school picture was so cute, I wanted to include it in all our cards. So Mr. Tangerine scanned it in (shh! don't tell!) and I ordered a zillion prints via Apple's iPhoto. Paid extra for FedEx shipping so I could get my cards in the mail sooner rather than later. Well, them bastards inadvertently forgot to use FedEx (but not before sending me an e-mail giving me a FedEx tracking number), and said, "So sorry, we'll credit you for the express shipping, the pictures will be coming via untraceable regular mail." Then they followed up a few days later to say, "You know what? The carrier might have lost those pictures. We'll refund everything, and you can reorder your prints." Ten days after originally placing my order, I haven't received anything. My theory? Not only was the package not FedExed, it was never sent by USPS either. So I'll be heading to Walgreens (I wish they'd use an apostrophe) or somewhere and using one of those kiosk dealios to print the danged pictures myself. Which is exactly what I was trying to avoid when I ordered the pictures online in the first place, you know? Holy lord of gravy.

I'm not quite done with Christmas shopping—there are a handful of nieces and nephews who may well be receiving Target gift cards, because my gift-idea machine is all tapped out. Mr. Tangerine and Ben are pretty much done shopping for me, without having done a thing—I've been shopping for myself and getting things I want, and then they can give them to me for Christmas. The boots couldn't wait for the 25th—I started wearing those a couple weeks ago. Toasty warm! (They're the boot version of Merrell's Primo Chill slides that nestle my tootsies so splendidly.) It may be deemed highly unsentimental to buy one's own gifts, but (a) Mr. Tangerine works long hours and (b) who knows what I want better than me? I have also bought some thoughtful things for him, but he's mainly excited about the plasma TV that's coming this week. It's really his birthday present from months ago—he just didn't get around to ordering it until now. I'm not too excited about having a 50-inch screen in my living room (which we'll have to start calling the Plasma Parlor), but elsewhere in the blogosphere, somebody remarked that her new plasma TV would come in handy for making Greg House's blue eyes that much bigger and bluer. She's right! Not to mention Jim on The Office! And when some crossword fellas I know appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show next month, it'll be groovy to see it on a bigger screen. (Degrees of separation from Oprah: Two! If that's how you count it. If you know someone who knows a third party, is that one degree of separation or two? I've never been clear on that.)

Probably I should be eating lunch, decorating the tree (just put it up yesterday, and thank the good lord of gravy that it's one of those pre-wired-with-lights fake ones—real ones drop needles, need watering, like to list to one side, and occasionally give me itchy eyes, plus you have to string the damn lights yourself, and I wish to never, ever do that task again), or, say, polishing that manuscript. All quiet on the house front, with Ben and his dad out playing football. See what I mean about the procrastinating? With 10 days to go until my deadline, and 8 days until all those Christmas presents need to be wrapped (not to mention acquired!), I have no business blogging right now. Oh, the sacrifices I make. (And oh, the rationalizations of a lifelong procrastinator. Jesus gravy!)

The N-word

Ben's hankering for an after-school snack. "Mom, can you get me some food? I want the N-word."

"No noodles!" I replied. He's had about five separate servings of ramen noodles, pasta, or mac-and-cheese in the past three days. N-nough is N-nough!

(If you're looking for perspective on Michael Richards' racist outburst, read Leonard Pitts' column in the Chicago Tribune, arguing against the use of that other N-word. Free registration required.)

June 29, 1912—December 1, 2006

Rest in Peace, Grandma

My grandmother died in her sleep early Friday morning. It took her 11 days of bouncing back and forth from death's door before she died. I spent several hours with her on Thursday, and she exhibited the agitation the hospice professionals often see when someone is near death. This agitation consisted of struggling mightily to get out of bed and "go"—looking back, I suppose she was convinced that heaven was just down the hallway, and she could go already if we'd only get out of her way. We couldn't, though—she didn't have the strength to walk unassisted, she was catheterized, and she would likely have fallen and caused herself physical pain. She was able to "go" about 12 hours later, resting peacefully with the aid of morphine and a sedative.

The old broad had a surprising amount of strength left that last day. This I know because she kept planting her feet against my legs and kicking, trying to dislodge me from the bedside so she could clamber out. I'll bet I'm the only one of her grandchildren she'd ever kicked—so yeah, special memories. (If I'm still alive at the age of 94, I hope I've got that much muscle tone and oomph left.)

Hospice volunteers assured me that I oughtn't take the kicking personally. It was a tremendous help to have a volunteer and the volunteer coordinator with us that afternoon. One of the nursing home's staff nurses (or a nurse's aide? not sure) showed amazing grace—holding Gram, comforting her, shushing her, nuzzling her—to help ease her out of the agitation. And this, despite a hot flash midway through! I hope she's there on Monday morning, when we return to the nursing home's chapel for the funeral service, because I'd like to thank her again in person. (Gram thought that was a huge selling point—"a place I can live that has a chapel where I can hold my own funeral? Sign me up!")

The Drama

Grandma's life had many dramatic highlights, from Day 1 to (roughly) Day 34,500. She always said she weighed a pound and a half when she was born, and was swaddled in a shoebox near the stove. I can't help but wonder about the accuracy of that measurement. Plus, she was born about 8 months after her parents married—perhaps she wasn't small and early, but they wanted to give the impression of premarital chastity? Or maybe she really was a preemie, and thrived despite the nonexistence of NICUs. She spent some of her childhood on an Indiana dairy farm, and her family later returned to Chicago.

During the 1918 flu epidemic, sickly-kid Gram escaped harm, but her healthy sister perished, leaving her an only child. When she was about 17, her father was getting dressed for work one morning and keeled over with a heart attack, leaving just two members of that family of four. (So sad!) He was only 40 or 41 years old—can you imagine?

As a young woman, she worked for a milliner (but wasn't too keen on hats later on life). She later married a man who became the sweetest grandpa in the world, but probably was a dreadful husband during the early decades. He was an alcoholic who once passed out in the street; someone came to the house to alert Gram. Eventually he pretty much stopped drinking, but I can't imagine how incredibly difficult it must have been to raise children with a husband like that.

She had a difficult delivery when her second child, my dad, was born. He was in a breech position, and he sustained a broken right arm and permanent nerve damage in the birth process. Gram and Grandpa used condoms in the years following this traumatic birth experience (which she told my sister about five years ago—she spoke so candidly in her last years); she must've been terrified when she became pregnant three years later. (Though there were no complications that time, fortunately.)

Grandma and Grandpa never owned their own house. Instead, until I was a teen, they lived in the upstairs of a two-flat owned by Grandma's stepfather, a cranky man whom she never cared for. Eventually my great-grandmother developed Alzheimer's disease, and Gram cared for her for as long as she could. Then the stepfamily whisked Nana off to a nursing home and opted for tube feeding. After her mother's death, my grandparents moved to a senior citizens' apartment building in the suburbs, where Gram was pleased not to have to answer to her stepfather/landlord.

Gram continued living there after Grandpa died about 14 years ago, and I think she appreciated having a place to herself finally. She had a live-in caregiver for five or six years, until about a year ago when she became too medically frail to live at home. She had five or six (or seven or eight) hospital visits over the past year, but enjoyed the nursing home she moved to. She could play bingo on the premises, and she could attend Mass any day she wished.

Her last hospitalization came a month ago, and the specialist physicians determined that there was nothing more they could do to improve her condition. They recommended that she enter a hospice program to receive palliative care, and I'm so glad that Gram agreed to it. (She was always remarkably pragmatic, though she definitely struggled with this tough emotional decision.) She lived only a few more weeks, but hospice arranged for palliative medications, and the staff and volunteers were so helpful to us family members, putting alarming things into their natural context within the end-of-life process. Gram hated the discomfort of IVs, so I know she was happy to avoid dying in a hospital, stuck with needles and hooked up to monitors.

Childhood Memories

I never liked the "clean plate club." When a grandma expects you to finish all the food on your plate, but she's cooked assorted Polish dishes and sauerkraut and you're a picky eater, it's just not happening. (I'm much more suited to my in-laws' tradition of "leave some on your plate for the spirits.") I preferred to focus on the lazy Susan in the center of the table.

Grandma knitted and crocheted, so we had cute little sweaters and ponchos (in the poncho's early-'70s heyday). She handcrafted Barbie clothes, which my sister still has. Did anyone else ever have a bra for their Barbie doll? Gram made one. She also crocheted a blue bikini; when crocheted bikinis came into vogue several years ago, I thought back to Barbie and Grandma's fashion prescience.

When I was young, Grandma enjoyed tending her collection of African violets, aloe vera (she'd snip off a piece as needed for medicinal purposes), and my favorite, the burro's tail.

In the basement of that two-flat, there was an old wringer washing machine. There were more treasures up in the dusty old attic. There were so many layers of enamel paint on the staircase up to the attic, the railings were smooth and shiny. (So much for preserving original woodwork!)

Eloquent Summary To Place It All in Perspective

We'll say our final goodbyes tomorrow morning. Grandma had a long life, but she liked to say, "I never thought I'd live this long." She raised three boys, and buried one of them five years ago. She got to see all six grandchildren grow to adulthood, and enjoyed her 12 great-grandchildren. I'm glad my son had the opportunity to know his last remaining great-grandparent, and to gain an understanding of death as a natural process. It was an honor for me to be able to share those last two weeks with my grandma, too. She was surrounded by her family during that period and received an outpouring of love before she died. And then when death finally came, it was peaceful and pain-free. Can't ask for more than that.

Out of the mouths of babes

The kid and I walked past Leather Sport's display windows en route to getting ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery (at the Boystown branch, where customers may fill the tip jar without fear of coercing the employees to burst into lame song) this afternoon. One of the mannequins was dressed in a leather mask, strappy leather vest, and a red bikini brief (with a book tucked in the front waistband, because after all, it's the holiday season, and books make lovely gifts).

The six-year-old exclaimed, "Look! A burglar wearing only red underpants!"

Really, a vest doesn't count as a shirt, so the kid's quite astute.

People I would make out with

1. Whoever invented online grocery shopping. I was just sitting here pondering the size of my grocery list and my extreme disinterest in getting out of pajamas and going shopping, and watching Mr. Tangerine fill a trash bag with crap toys nobody needs while simultaneously watching football on TV, and then I remembered Peapod. Just need to pick up some milk at the corner store, and Peapod will schlep everything else I need, first thing tomorrow morning. Love Peapod!

2. Whoever developed the concept of hospice care. Sign me up when I'm old and moribund, because this looks like the way to go. (Speaking of which, Grandma has often been likened to the Energizer Bunny, and is still hanging in there. Maybe a few more days?)

3. Whoever first concocted the Smoking Gun cocktail, with raspberry vodka, lemonade, and soda. Tastes like harmless raspberry ginger ale, but the waitress assured us that it wasn't a weak drink—just a delicious one.

4. Whoever honed the pecan pie concept.

5. Mr. Tangerine, though I'm kinda waiting for him to shave the beard. I miss his face.

Never mind

Eh, I'm not making pie this week. I'd have had to make the dough for the crust today, and have to find time to bake tomorrow, and know for sure if we were going up north for the holiday. My last remaining grandparent, my late dad's mother, is easing toward death.

A couple weeks ago, she'd ended up in the hospital yet again, and the medical specialists all agreed that there was really nothing more they could do to remedy matters, and they recommended that my grandma consider hospice care. So she returned to the nursing home that's been her home this year (and she likes it there—the staff adores her. The lunch lady pops in to visit every day, and a young maintenance guy checked on Gram this evening) a week and a half ago, agreeing to stay there and receive palliative care rather than returning to the hospital. We figured she had months to go, but she had a precipitous decline yesterday morning.

The hospice nurses and volunteers who visit Gram have indicated that she's been showing a number of textbook signs that she's near the end of her life now. The best guess seems to be that she has a few more days left. So I spent all day yesterday, this morning, and this evening visiting her, along with assorted cousins, cousins' kids, and uncles.

I think hospice care is a wonderful thing. It's not just for cancer patients—Gram's got end-stage congestive heart failure and she's 94. She seems pretty ready to die, and her body's slowing down—she's hardly eating or drinking, she sleeps most of the time, and she's not upset. She even seems slightly peeved that every time she peeps open an eyelid, somebody starts in on her with "Are you comfortable? Do you need anything? Do you want a sip of juice? Do you have any pain? Are you cold? Are you hot?" Invariably, she says she's fine. (She gets a little morphine to ease breathing difficulties.) The hospice approach seems orders of magnitude more humane than the average hospital death. No heart monitor beeping, no IV needle prickling in her vein, no being intubated, no hospital schedules, no pointless prolongation of life + suffering. The hospice volunteers and nurses are so incredibly helpful to family members, too, as the hospice approach is to ease the process of death for everyone involved. I truly believe my grandmother will have a good death, and she deserves no less after the long life she's led and the physical and psychic pain she's experienced.

It's exhausting, what with all the 30-mile drives and tapping into emotional reserves. Ideally, perhaps, Grandma would have died peacefully in her sleep after a really good day. Second best is dying when she's had time to prepare herself for it, when she's had all her family gathered around and saying their goodbyes, when the hospice protocol is focused on keeping her comfortable at all times. Hospice doesn't mean giving up hope—it means you stop expecting successful treatment of medical conditions and instead focus on giving someone the best and least stressful end of life possible. It really has been a moving experience so far, and I'm honored to be able to share some of that time with my grandmother.

Obligatory pre-Thanksgiving food post

Yes, I haven't been posting much lately. But I've been making progress on my book, so you can't make me feel guilty about substandard blogging.

I just reviewed the week's lunch menu with Ben, so he could choose which day he wanted to bring a lunch rather than buy hot lunch at the cafeteria. Wednesday, he's excited about hot lunch. Why? Salisbury steak. He exulted in Salisbury steak. He is jubilant at the prospect of eating Salisbury steak. Who can explain this?

Ben's little-man armpits occasionally stink a bit. I think it smells like...armpits. Ben? He has pronounced his armpit stank to be redolent of a burrito. Which begs the question: What the hell kind of burritos are they serving at the school cafeteria?

We'll be traveling up north (but not too far north) for Thanksgiving, to Mr. Tangerine's folks'. I'm going to make pecan pie. Two pies, actually—my mother-in-law requested two rather than one, "so we can have pie for breakfast." I like the way she thinks. I'm planning to make the pie crust from scratch for my very first time, breaking out the virginal rolling pin that has so far served only as a toy. I don't eat lard, and it's so hard to find a frozen crust made with vegetable shortening, plus...shortening? Eww. I don't like the concept. (Yes, I know most store-bought cookies and crackers and so forth are made with shortening, essentially. But I don't like to think about it.) So it was with keen interest that I read an NYT article this week about testing different fats in pie crust. The winner was apparently a combo involving duck fat (!), but an all-butter crust was a definite contender. And I love butter. So I borrowed a recipe from anarchist and pastry chef Emma Goldman, and we'll see if I can actually make a good pie crust. I just bought one of those U-shaped dough cutter gizmos (for cutting the butter into the flour) and some pie pans, so there'll be a lot of virginal baking tools popping their cherry this week.

The pies themselves will be basically my dad's modification of the pecan pie recipe from the Karo corn syrup bottle—only with a skosh more butter and triple the pecans. Because who wants corn syrup pie with a few wan little nuts suspended on top? I know that's how most people think of pecan pie, but we like it when the sweet goop is invaded by crunchy pecans. Num, num, num.

Ooh! If you have a Trader Joe's store near you, try the house brand of chocolate bar. The 500-g bar (that's more than a pound!) of bittersweet chocolate (48% cocoa solids—I thought I liked dark, dark chocolate, but I think bittersweet is the cusp beyond which I don't want to eat chocolate. Semisweet, bittersweet, good good good. Something with 72% cocoa solids? Meh. Yeah, so on Wednesday, I bought a giant bar of bittersweet chocolate with almonds. There are only 2 or 3 oz. left—but I assure you, I haven't eaten it all myself. Probably a 45/45/10 split among me/Mr. Tangerine/Ben. I just might make a habit of buying these jumbo candy bars. There's all that scientific evidence of salutary health benefits from various compounds in chocolate, right?

Damn. Now I'm thinking that maybe I should make one plain pecan pie and one chocolate pecan pie. I could buy a bar of, say, semisweet chocolate, melt it down, stir it in. What do you think? Do you think that if I'm not driving to your house with this pie, you couldn't care less whether the triple-thick pecan pie is laced with chocolate goodness? Ah, but there's something so reassuring and classic about pecan pie without chocolate, and it's certainly rich enough without the chocolate. Maybe I'll just nibble on the chocolate while making pecan pie—is that a sensible solution?

What I learned at the gym today

• If you (i.e., not me) wear a thong underneath your cotton stretch capri leggings when you work out, you may well end up with a stripe of sweat soak-through that traces your buttcrack. Just what everyone wants—even more of a reminder than the thong-facilitated wedgie itself that your sweaty asscrack is on the loose.

• If you (meaning me, in this case) work out with weights enough to add muscle tone, your metabolism slows magically, and you will find yourself losing weight the same week you bought a dozen Krispy Kremes. (Alas, I don't get into the gym between training appointments to do cardio, so that midsection flab remains problematic. Most of my pants are too baggy, dropping down at the waist and draping loosely around the butt and thighs. Except for those three pairs of pants I bought two years ago. Those fit great below the belly zone and in the rear, but there's still a little too much muffin-topping for my comfort. And the pants—too big and too tight—are all the same size!)

• A couple weeks ago, another health-club patron eavesdropped when my trainer and I discussed her performance in the marathon. The eavesdropper is one of those lunatic exercise fanatics who works out vigorously for three or four hours at a stretch, at least several times a week. She ain't right in the head, clearly. So the eavesdropper butts into the conversation and volunteers that she herself had finished the marathon in an enviable 3:21. Later, out of her earshot, my trainer says, "I know I passed her around mile 20. There's no way she finished in 3:21!" Today, the trainer reports that she found out the eavesdropper's name, looked her up in the standings, and learned that she's a damn liar who actually finished in 4:02. What would possess someone to boast of speed that she does not possess? The inevitable response to such boasting is, "Wow, that's impressive!" Does it not make her feel like a big ol' loser when she knows the truth is that she's much slower than that? Whatever. She's probably just nuts.

"TiVo destroyed my marriage!"

You can picture the cover illustration on a retro pulp-fiction dime novel with that title, can't you?

TiVo has many charms, and the company frequently adds little service enhancements to fine-tune the interface. That's all well and good, but Mr. Tangerine was trying to figure out why last week's episode of Heroes (which you should all be watching) wasn't waiting for him in the Now Playing list. He navigated to the place that tells you what's happened to one of your scheduled shows, and got this little explanation:

"This program was deleted because someone in your household removed it from the Now Playing List on Mon 10/30 at 10:58 pm."

You like how TiVo sows the seeds of interpersonal conflict? Odds are, Mr. Tangerine himself inadvertently pressed the Delete button and zapped his show. But TiVo's all suspicious: "Someone in your household—I'm not naming names, but I think you can figure out who—is clearly out to get you." It just strikes me as a little pissy and passive-aggressive. But TiVo can get away with that sort of behavior, because nobody throws TiVo out of the house. TiVo's place is secure. TiVo needs to get knocked down a peg or two.

Update! In a tizzy because he needed to see last week's episode, Mr. Tangerine downloaded it from iTunes. While watching it, he realized that oh, yeah, he watched it last Monday...and then deleted it from TiVo after watching it. And still TiVo casts blame broadly and sows dissension!

Cyber-Neologoliferation

Word geeks will want to read James Gleick's interesting article in today's NYT Sunday Magazine, "Cyber-Neologoliferation." Gleick writes about the updating and revamping of the Oxford English Dictionary and the rapid spread of neologisms via the Internet.

I don't know why an article on words would mangle three of them, though—in the online version, at least, two words near the end have lost their first letter—"emperature" and "annabes"—and what the hell is a "petrie dish"? I don't think Rob and Laura Petrie were bacteriologists.

Mm-hmm, that sounds about right

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
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What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

"I'm Peter Roskam, and I'm a loon"

In a suburban Congressional district (the 6th) outside of Chicago, two newcomers are vying for a seat being left vacant by the retirement of longtime GOP congressman Henry Hyde. The Democratic candidate, Tammy Duckworth, has a helluva bio: she lost both legs in Iraq, where she flew helicopters. Her tag line on her home page is "A lifetime of service, a voice for change." Okay, that makes sense. She's served in the military, and she's a Democratic looking to change how the country is being run.

Duckworth's Republican opponent is named Peter Roskam. He's campaigning from the hard right in a moderate Republican zone, and apparently many suburban Republicans are voting for the Dems this time around. (Hooray!)

Roskam is running TV commercials in which he blabbers, "Tammy Duckworth will raise taxes; I won't. Tammy Duckworth will [blah-blah-blah] Social Security; I won't. I'm Peter Roskam and I approved this message because it's time for a change."

What the...? How would voting for a Republican candidate to replace a Republican after six years of a Republican congressional majorities and presidency constitute change, exactly? I don't suppose a far-right congressman would buck the Bush administration and fight for real changes in how things are run?

My guess is that focus groups said the electorate wants change. But just saying the word change doesn't make Roskam the candidate for change, now, does it?

Emergent ethnic identity

My six-year-old doesn't know much about social constructs of race—he knows that there's a huge spectrum of skin colors, but his innocent mind has not yet been sullied with labels. Recently, however, he's begun thinking of his own ethnic identity and reaching certain conclusions:

Ben: "I'm [light brown ethnicity] like Daddy."

Me: "All [light brown ethnicity]? You're not white, too? Like Mommy?"

Ben: "No."

Me: "Not even half?"

Ben offers helpfully: "My butt is white..."

My entire genetic and cultural heritage can be boiled down to pasty buttocks...which do indeed run in my family.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I went to a relative's wedding a couple weekends ago. During the Catholic priest's comments to the couple and the folks in the pews, he cited some data that have got to be complete hogwash. He said that 1989 U.S. Census data showed that while half of all marriages end in divorce, the figure drops to 1 in 1,100 when the couple shares the same religious faith.

Oh, really? First off, I don't know that the Census tracks religious beliefs. I don't see any mention of religion in this list of Census topics. And they don't currently count each year's number of marriages and divorces. So the source the priest cites sounds like hooey.

Then there's the issue of the actual data. Just 1 in 1,100 couples who are the same religion get divorced? That's funny. The divorce rate is higher among Baptists than among other religious groups or atheists, per the Barna Research Group's national study. Other research has shown that the South has a higher divorce rate than the rest of the country. Given that many Southerners are Baptists, I suppose that priest would have us believe that all those Southern Baptists getting divorced are the ones married to Jews, Catholics, or Presbyterians—and I highly doubt that's what's going on here.

It's insulting to have a clergyman cite evidence that—while he'd like to believe it's true—sounds highly implausible. The only concession he made was that 1989 data is a little outdated—but he stood by the findings.

I suppose some people believed what he said. These may be the same people who'll tell you about the kids who died—died, I tell you!—because of McDonalds ball-pit horrors like heroin-filled needles ('cause we all know that junkies never empty their syringes, and that they like to leave their syringes and drugs in children's play areas rather than hanging onto them) and poisonous rattlesnakes. (Astonishingly, at Ben's first acting class, another mom encouraged me to sit next to her...and proceeded to tell me both of these urban legends, no matter how assiduously I tried to work on a crossword puzzle instead of listening to her. She even poked me in the arm to regain my attention. And then she concluded by asking, "Can you believe that?" "No," I replied. "No, I can't.")

So, you think you're smarter than me?

You may be thinking, "Hah! That foolish woman has a faltering grasp of grammar. It's than I."

Au contraire, mon pest. A recent Language Log post linked to an older post explaining why either me or I is correct. Per the Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

"Than is both a subordinating conjunction, as in She is wiser than I am, and a preposition, as in She is wiser than me. As subject of the clause introduced by the conjunction than, the pronoun must be nominative, and as object of the preposition than, the following pronoun must be in the objective case. ...Some commentators believe that the conjunction is currently more frequent than the preposition, but both are unquestionably Standard."

So if you've been internally berating yourself every time you use "than me," cut yourself some slack. It's A-OK.

My name is...

Funny dialogue between Ben...jamin and me this morning on the way to school, while he dawdled despite the second bell having already rung. Actually, ring is the wrong verb here—the sound's a little closer to an air-raid siren than to a bell. Takes time off the end of my life every time it blasts the air when I'm too close to the loudspeakers.

Anyway, the boy was walking slowly through a frost-covered sward of weedy, trampled grass.

Me: Pokey! C'mon, Pokey.

Ben: My name's not Pokey.

Me: C'mon, Tim. (He asked yesterday why we hadn't named him that.)

Ben: My name's not Tim.

Me: C'mon, Toby. (He has a school friend by that name.)

Ben: My name's not Toby.

Me: C'mon, Toby!

Ben: (more vehemently) My name's not Toby!

Me: (Silently giggling to myself: "My name's Kunta Kinte!")

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you might be too young to recall Roots, the seminal 1977 TV miniseries based on the book by Alex Haley.

Ooh, I hear elections are coming up

Most of my ballot choices will be easy.

My Democratic congresswoman is in tune with my stances on all the issues, and in a heavily liberal district, she's likely to garner at leasst 70% of the vote. My U.S. senators—Barack Obama and Dick Durbin—aren't due up for reelection yet.

A lawyer friend gave me this link for bar associations' guidance on judicial candidates (with the advice to scroll down to find another link for the Chicago Bar Association's ratings listed elsewhere), so I'll print out whatever's there and take it to the polling place (conveniently located around the corner in Ben's school!).

For statewide offices, there are a bunch of Democratic incumbents to vote for. The only conflict here is that I'll have to hold my nose while voting for Rod Blagojevich. Sure, he tends toward corruption—that venerable Illinois/Chicago political tradition—but he's our corrupt politician. With his bold action on key issues near and dear to my heart—requiring Illinois pharmacists to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, initiating universal health care coverage for the state's children, and proposing universal preschool—he's built up plenty of good will. That keeps me from considering his GOP rival, Judy Baar Topinka. She's a woman, yes, but Blago's feminist political credentials are probably better than hers.

Then we have the Cook County races. The big one here is the battle for the Cook County Board President seat, and those of you who aren't from the Chicago area may not have heard about it. (Cook County includes the city of Chicago as well as dozens of suburbs, and has a population of 5.3 million. So this is a significant post.) The Dem incumbent, John Stroger, was fond of political hiring and maintaining a business-as-usual stranglehold on political reform. In the primaries, a County Commissioner with the delicious name of Forrest Claypool fought hard for the Democratic nomination, and I strongly supported him. (I didn't donate or volunteer, but trust me—in my head, the support was fervent.)

Anyway, about three weeks before primary election day in March, John Stroger suffered a massive stroke. His volunteers picked up the pace with phone calls, and a seriously ill man handily won renomination. Eventually, he made it out of the hospital and into rehab, and eventually, without ever seeing or speaking to the media, John Stroger issued a letter. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe someone wrote and signed it for him—who knows? The letter said, in essence, "I'm stepping down and I want my son Todd on the ballot in my place in November." His son Todd, whose political and executive experience is meager, who has never served on the County Board. The Democratic officials acceded to this wish, whoever it belonged to, and thus Todd Stroger is on the ballot.

His Republican opponent is Tony Peraica, and local Democratic politicians sent me a letter mentioning Peraica's anti-choice and anti-gay record. Which means Peraica's views are antithetical to mine—except that he supports the reform efforts, while Todd Stroger's whole raison d'etre is "politics as usual." Todd Stroger isn't even making much of an effort to define himself as a candidate—really, one is left to see a vote for Stroger as a vote for continuing the malarkey that's gone on, and the best way to further Forrest Claypool's reform goals is to vote for a right-winger.

So I might actually vote for a Republican. The last time I did that, it was to send a representative to Springfield, and I think he was a Rhodes scholar. Peraica's much less appealing than that guy—whoever he was—but Cook County needs some housecleaning, and continuing an unenthusiastic Stroger dynasty is repugnant to me. It would be lovely to write in Claypool's name on my ballot, but Peraica will have to fight for every vote he gets in a blue city. A friend pointed out that the County Board Commissioners tend to have a Democratic majority, and so Peraica couldn't do much harm on that front.

If you're in Cook County, what do you think about the Stroger/Peraica faceoff?

What mystery?

Just read the Salon interview with Richard Dawkins, whose book, The God Delusion, is ranked #6 in Amazon sales. I'm an atheist, like Dawkins, and always have been.

The most interesting part of the interview, for me, was the discussion of the grand "why" questions.

Dawkins says: ...Now, the mere fact that you can frame an English sentence beginning with the word "why" does not mean that English sentence should receive an answer. I could say, why are unicorns hollow? That appears to mean something, but it doesn't deserve an answer.

The Salon interviewer, Steve Paulson, rebuts: But it seems to me the big "why" questions are, why are we here? And what is our purpose in life?

Dawkins: It's not a question that deserves an answer.

Paulson: Well, I think most people would say those questions are central to the way we think about our lives. Those are the big existential questions, but they are also questions that go beyond science.

Dawkins: ...Those of us who don't believe in a god will say that is as illegitimate as the question, why are unicorns hollow? It just shouldn't be put. It's not a proper question to put. It doesn't deserve an answer.

Paulson: I don't understand that. Doesn't every person wonder about that? Isn't that a core question, what are we doing in this world? Doesn't everyone struggle with that?

Dawkins: There are core questions like, how did the universe begin? Where do the laws of physics come from? Where does life come from? Why, after billions of years, did life originate on this planet and then start evolving? Those are all perfectly legitimate questions to which science can give answers, if not now, then we hope in the future. There may be some very, very deep questions, perhaps even where do the laws of physics come from, that science will never answer. That is perfectly possible. I am hopeful, along with some physicists, that science will one day answer that question. But even if it doesn't -- even if there are some supremely deep questions to which science can never answer -- what on earth makes you think that religion can answer those questions?

*****

You know what? Dawkins' interviewer thinks questions about humankind's grand purpose are a universal. They're not. I've never found reason to dwell on such things. I certainly don't "struggle" with these questions—I've scarcely even mused absentmindedly about them. I'll grant you that plenty of people do ponder the meaning of life, but then, plenty of people express a belief in a higher power. (To each her own.) I just might buy Dawkins' book.

Edited to add a link to Pharyngula, including a clip of Dawkins' appearance on Stephen Colbert's show.

Bulleted list

• I wanted to show you a picture of the snow-dusted shrubs in my front yard, but Blogger didn't cooperate. It's the first half of October, and this is not the Upper Midwest! WTF? I understand weather from Alaska is to blame. If you're reading this from Alaska, please put yourself in time-out. I froze my buns off walking Ben to school this morning.

• Wait, it's not Ben, it's Benjamin. He's decided he prefers his full name because it has three syllables. If he could legitimately stretch it to six syllables, he'd do it. Gotta respect a person who wants to take up more space in his world.

• The teacher's kid had emergency surgery yesterday, so the teacher's out all week. This is a matter of great delight to Ben...jamin. The writing, writing, more writing business is pushing his fine motor skills to their limit, if not the breaking point. Much drama. Damn, I wish it were easier for him. I don't want him to express fear and loathing of school, and he's so smart—it's just the fine motor skills. So anyway, his class is having substitute teachers all week, and so far they haven't been doing much in the way of teaching and assigning homework. During school yesterday, they drew pictures. Ben...jamin drew a portrait of his father entitled "Dad is mad." Hee! I'm delighted that he didn't assign the angry trait only to me. (And I hope the teacher's kid is doing okay. He's only 11.)

• Speaking of me, Ben...jamin had a bad dream this morning. He's inherited my proclivity for vivid, memorable dreams (Mr. Tangerine seldom remembers his dreams). In this particular dream, a creaking bathroom door scared him, as did the presence of me and my doppelgänger. One me was talking on the phone, while the other me was getting Ben ready for school. He was apparently a little freaked out because he couldn't ascertain which one was his real mom. What could this mean?

• Benjamin has acting class today. They're enacting a scene from the first Harry Potter (which I can't resist pronouncing the way Freddie "Boom-Boom" Washington pronounced "Mister Kotter") book/movie. The DVD's on its way from Amazon—we've never read or seen any of the installments. The kid's also signed up for tumbling class (with his best friend from school/cohort in hijinks) and floor hockey (with a girl from his class last year—she has lost six baby teeth already! It's a crazy look. I suspect Benjamin will hang onto his baby teeth for a long time—nothing's even loose yet. But his back molars have almost all emerged, finally—we'll see what the dentist says on Saturday. Speaking of the dentist, I was curious about her unusual first name and wondered what ethnicity she might be. So I Googled the name...and found her knitting blog and her MySpace page! Nothing she need be embarrassed by, but when you have such a unique name, it's hard to hide on the internet.) Wow, that parenthetical remark went off on a tangent. Anyway, lest you think I'm one of those parents who overschedules her child, let me clarify that each class cost $5 for 10 weeks (thank you, city taxpayers!), and Benjamin knows he can drop any class he wants to. But he seems to want to continue all three. Hey, that wasn't my plan!

• The joys of the Mirena IUD: Last week, I was at my wit's end, fretting about Benjamin's academic woes. Crying, losing perspective. Then on Friday morning, lo and behold, wicked cramps! It's not the end of the world—it was merely hormones! What I like about the progestin-releasing IUD (besides its awesome efficacy as a contraceptive) is that I had the PMS and I had the cramps, but...no period. Nothing. Not a drop or a spot to be seen anywhere.

• Hey, the snow's gone. Now everything's wet rather than snow-clad. But not to worry! The flurries will return. And I'd thought I was nuts for ordering Ben's winter coat and matching accessories (love those Lands' End squall coats for kids!) in September, but he looked quite dapper in his toasty-warm flame orange coat, gloves, and scarf this morning.

• You know what I'm doing right now? Procrastinating. I finally did sit down and do some work on my book yesterday, but haven't touched the project yet today.

The Foley follies

The Mark Foley imbroglio provides a much-needed reminder of the Chris Farley character, Matt Foley—the motivational speaker living in a van down by the river. Here's a clip with Christian Slater (though my favorite Matt Foley skit was the one with David Spade and Christina Applegate).

One disingenuous argument floated by the GOP mouthpieces a few days ago was that, gosh, they couldn't come down hard on Mark Foley for "over-friendly" e-mails because, gee whiz, they'd get accused of being anti-gay, and they're really not like that. That's total bull, of course—the party that pushes a constitutional amendment to forestall same-sex marriage is concerned about not coming off as anti-gay? Sorry, not buying it.

Another issue relating to this is that the problem wasn't that Foley is gay, it's that he made inappropriate advances to kids. For more on this distinction and the scapegoating of homosexuality in a case that's not about homosexuality, read Joe Solmonese's essay at the Huffington Post. Solmonese is the president of the Human Rights Campaign. He writes, in part (echoing my own thoughts):

The same GOP leaders who are trying to write gay people out of the Constitution chose not to investigate inappropriate sexual behavior because they were worried that they might be branded as homophobic? This has nothing to do with homophobia. This is about the sexual solicitation of teenagers. In fact, The Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90 percent of pedophiles are men, and that 98 percent of those men are heterosexual.

There's plenty more to say about Foley, Hastert, and the GOP media machine, but it's all been said elsewhere. Just wanted to remind you that homosexuality and homophobia are not at issue here, and those who suggest they're pertinent are trying to create a smokescreen. Turn on the fan and blow that smoke away, will you?

Hey, you're kinda cute online

Between the blog-cosmos and e-mail, you know what happens from time to time? You encounter kindred spirits, people who write things so clever or insightful that they seem to be channeling your own thoughts, if only you could write so eloquently. And thus ensues the delicious phenomenon of the intertubes-based intellectual crush.

Come on, 'fess up—you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? The intellectual crush may be someone you'd date in real life if you met them, or someone you wouldn't remotely be attracted to, or someone of a sex other than the one you're interested in (e.g., you're both straight people of the same sex, or you're a straight woman and he's a fabulous gay man).

If you like writing and you like reading, and you encounter the writing of someone brilliant and funny, oooh, that's juicy. I'll bet you can think of a couple people right now who fit your personal category of "brainy dreamboats who make you swoon in at least a hypothetical way." I don't know about you, but I'm apt to fall for people who have a ginormous vocabulary of $10 words and are adept at using these words correctly; wit is also essential. I can forgive the occasional typo, but I could never bring myself to have an online crush on anyone who doesn't write well.

The beauty of the internet crush is that on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog—or a man or a woman, or cute or plain, or sitting around in baggy pajamas. Rather, you can be judged on the merits of your mind. This opens the door to intellectual flirtations freed from the confines of reality. Some of you may remember having a straight girl's crush on another girl. (My most memorable one of these was around age 13, when an older girl who was a YWCA youth-group leader was just perfect—I craved her attention and, oh, how I wanted to be her.) I presume boys, as well as grown men and women, can get smitten with role models, too, aside from sexual orientation—I've witnessed a woman swooning over Tertia (and why not?) and a man swooning over Michael Bérubé (who wouldn't?).

And there are no geographic limitations—you can have internet crushes from thousands of miles away. You may have a particular interest in an abstruse topic that fascinates exactly nobody in your circle of friends and family—but online, you can mingle with a slew of like-minded people…some of whom may be eminently crushworthy because of their brainpower.

Most crushes are like chocolate sauce—your dinner is certainly complete without it, but it lends a sweet and intoxicating touch and enriches the experience in a most delicious manner. Sure, it'd be unhealthy to live on a diet of just chocolate sauce. But isn't it fun to cultivate a few intellect-based crushes, enjoy feeling smitten from time to time, and hone your flirting skills via e-mail and blog comments?

(Cross-posted at Bitch Ph.D.)

Exquisite Car

A week ago, Ben and I lunched on Giordano's Chicago-style stuffed pizza with a friend from out of town. It was such a treat to have another adult around on a weekday, providing cover for ordering a beer with lunch. Drinking alone with a kid just seems wrong, but it's so very civilized to have a drink at mealtime.

Ben, being six, is a teetotaler, so he drank ice water. When he'd finished his water, out of boredom or thirst, he walked over to the restaurant host to ask for more water, please. The host was so charmed, he gave Ben a gift: an Exquisite Car ("All Styles Are Wonderful!") emblazoned with the restaurant's logo. The car's a Smart car (neat!) that blasts loud music (grr!), and it came in a box rich in incomprehensibility (oh, sweet pleasure!). To wit:

"The both sides's car door can successively beat the on and off to shut"



Not clear enough? Maybe an illustration will help:



There are ample safety warnings in languages including broken German (wow! an umlaut on an E!) and Itkflian:



Not to mention a red warning box in English, with 10 lines of text packed within a 0.5x0.75-inch space:



In addition to a "Function Explain" diagram, there was also this clear illustration:



I have yet to witness this "bump up and go" business, and frankly, I'm disappointed. I was hoping to learn how to bump up and go.

Style counsel sought

You may have seen the Gap commercial featuring Audrey Hepburn, back from the grave to dance in skinny pants. While I can't abide the ad, I'm wondering about skinny jeans. Is there an age beyond which a woman must eschew the skinny-pants style? I have skinny legs, and wow, did I ever love wearing skinny jeans when I was about 15, but now I'm over 35. Is the cutoff for skinny jeans dictated by age or leg girth?