I'm no Health Master, but .... - An Open Letter to Montel Williams and The Blender He Does Commercials For.

Dear Montel,

When The Girl was a baby, say 11 months old or so, when we went grocery shopping, like most parents, I had to keep my baby from losing her marbles. Sometimes I would give her a box of mac n chz to use like a maraca. Sometimes I would give her a lemon and then wait for her to bite into it so I could see her sour face. More often, though, I would go to the salad bar and grab a piece of steamed vegetable. Where we shopped at that time the store always had steamed cauliflower on their salad bar. The Girl would take the cauliflower and turn it into a slobbery mess with tiny little bites taken out of it. It kept her entertained for at least 1/2 of the shopping trip.

I would get two reactions. The first one was from people who would ask me why I gave her cauliflower. Why didn't I just give her a cookie instead. I would answer with "Why would I give my kid a cookie? She's never had one before." or "What's wrong with cauliflower." The other reaction, was the reaction I got most often. People would ask me how in the world I got my kid to eat a piece of cauliflower. My answer was simple, because I gave it to her. My baby didn't need cookies. My baby didn't need processed foods. Cauliflower was just fine.

This morning morning The Girl, who is now 14 her brother The Boy, age 5 and I were watching TV. We came aross an infomercial called "Best Blender Ever." (or something like that). I stopped on the channel because we make smoothies every morning and my blender doesn't have the power I'd like it to have. I heard you tell the audience that this blender is a great way to disguise vegetables. Then some woman came on and said it was a great way to hide vegetables from her twins. After that you were at some farmers market where you were teaching kids how to hide their vegetables.



Why do you need to teach kids how to hide their vegetables? Why not teach kids that vegetables aren't gross? Why don't we teach kids to eat well by not exposing them to processed foods until they've developed a taste for the things that they should be eating? OK, so you're argument here is that the kids you were talking to were already taught that vegetables are gross. I still maintain that teaching kids to hide the flavor is wrong. It has to be possible to teach kids that savory is yummy and that things don't have to be coated with sugar in order to enjoy them.

I'm not perfect. I don't always monitor what my kids eat, but what I have been successful at is making sure there are plenty of fruits and vegetables they can always eat. The Boy will knock back a box of Trader Joe's peanut butter sandwich  crackers, which is bad, but he'll also kill a basket of cherry tomatoes in one sitting or grab a carrot when he's hungry . The Girl puts waaaay too much sugar in her tea but I've also seen her grab a handful of spinach because she felt she hadn't had enough vegetables that day and was feeling like her body needed it. Both of my older kids are happy with having a piece of fruit for dessert.

I teach my kids that you have to have good food in you before you can put bad food in you. I don't go overboard and tell them they can't have any treats. I'm not the mom who only gives them fruit sweetened, gluten free, vegan birthday cake. But I am the kind of mom who makes sure they know the difference between food your body needs, and food your sweet tooth craves.

Cultivate their palates for what is good for them and they will crave what is good for them. Tricking them into eating their vegetables isn't the answer.

Thanks,
Andrea

Clowns are Drinkers, Too - A Dream

I recently changed jobs. I have the same employer, just a new job. I have a feeling that some weeks are going to be a lot busier and stressful than others, but overall I'm really excited about this new chapter in my life. Also with my new job, I am also working in a new office. My whole office moved into another building and we're in a brand new space. As far as offices go, my new office is pretty nice. Lots of natural light, nice colors, a great place to sit and have lunch - all things the old office didn't have. There are a few things to get used to in the new office, but overall the change has been a good thing. With my new job I moved to a new desk, but the first few months in the new office I was sitting next to the consumer affairs person, the person who gets all the complaints and concerns from callers who bought corked wine or who waited too long to drink their wine, not knowing that not all wines are meant to be aged. I don't know how the consumer affairs person stays so calm and doesn't break out laughing or get angry with the callers. I sit next to her when I see her in the break room. She's a really nice lady.

I had a dream that I worked for the consumer affairs department. My very first phone call was a very angry man who was upset that my company didn't do more to market to clowns. According to the man, clowns drink a lot and a lot of what they drink is wine. We are missing out on a whole lot of money because we don't specifically target the clown population. Clowns would buy our products if they knew about them, if they identified with them, and especially if they had a coupon for them. I asked the man if there was any specific brand of ours he thought clowns would like the most. He told me (although I don't remember what it was)  and so I transferred him to the brand manager that takes care of that brand. Then I hung up the phone and turned around. All the furniture in the room was gone. I left the room. I was barefoot. I saw my new boss setting up for a meeting. I told him I'd be right back because I noticed everyone had their shoes on but me. One guy was barefoot, but I didn't want to be associated professionally with this guy so I thought I needed to get my shoes back on. On my way back to the meeting I got lost in the office hallways and couldn't find the room I was going to and I was really concerned that I wouldn't be able to find the bathroom. I did find the bathroom, but everyone kept walking through my stall to get to their stalls. I had no privacy and my toilet was spraying water out of it and the floor was all wet and there was another toilet right next to mine and its lid kept knocking my seat.

Earthquake - a confession

A new person started in my office not too long ago. Today she and I got lunch together. She just moved here from a place that doesn't have earthquakes. They have hurricanes, but they don't have earthquakes. Hurricanes don't scare her, but earthquakes do.

She asked me if I'd ever felt an earthquake. Of course I have. I've lived in California all my life.

The biggest earthquake I've ever been in was 5.9 (or 6.1 depending on who you ask). I didn't feel it.

It was my 17th birthday, October 1, 1987.

I was in my bathroom. I was running late, of course.


It was my birthday so I made sure that I looked extra special in my blue eye shadow and jet black eye liner. I also had to make sure that I had enough mousse and gel to get the sides of my hair feathered and poofy at just the right height. I was drying my hair; hair dryer in one hand, giant can of aquanet in the other.

I heard the front door of the house open and my friend call my name. She was picking me up to drive me to school. A combination of her startling me and me running late caused me to drop my aquanet and hair dryer. I bent down to pick them up and CRASH! I hit my forehead on the doorknob to the bathroom. (Picture Sylvester the Cat with little Tweetie Pies flying in circles around his head after getting hit with a frying pan.)

I shook it off, grabbed my stuff and got into my friend's car. When we were about a block away from the school the earthquake hit. Maybe I felt it, I don't know. I certainly didn't recognize it as an earthquake. Maybe I thought we took a turn too quickly. Maybe I thought the steering in my friend's Celica wasn't working properly. Point is, I had no idea we had just experienced an earthquake.

A few minutes after I got to my first class the fire alarm sounded. We all marched out to the fields and hung out. I had no idea why. I asked someone. They told me it was because the fire department had to check the buildings. I asked why. I kept getting puzzling looks. I guess they all assumed I had felt the earthquake. Finally someone told me we had just had an earthquake, a big one. It all made sense.

About this time I noticed my head was a bit poundy feeling. I touched my head and it felt a little puffy. I grabbed my covergirl compact and looked at my forehead. I had a big welt on it; a big welt in the shape of a doorknob. I got a giant doorknob shaped goose egg on my forehead from when I hit my head on the door.

Confession - I was so embarassed about how I had gotten the bump on my forehead that for the rest of the day I told everyone I fell when the earthquake hit.

There's No Majesty in Cute - A Dream

The other night The Boy was having a hard time sleeping. He and I hung out on the couch after everyone had gone to bed. We ended up falling asleep on the couch for the night.

Scratch that.

He ended up sleeping there for the night. I ended up only kind of sleeping there for the night.

I know I slept, though, because I remember having a few dreams, however I only remember what one of them was about. I don't remember who was in the dream or where we were, only what happened.

We got a pet cheetah, but everyone was angry because we got a baby cheetah cub and not a full grown cheetah. Although the baby cheetah cub was very cute and less dangerous it was not what we wanted. We wanted an adult cheetah. Adult cheetahs, although not as cute, are more majestic than baby cheetah cubs.

What Might Be Right For You May Not Be Right For Some -- A Dream

I was hanging out at some house that was under construction. It was almost finished. Just needed some paint and such. I saw a freshly lit but discarded cigarette on a ledge. I grabbed it and took a drag off of it. It tasted gross so I smashed it and threw it out.

I heard my parents walking down the hallway so I ran to the bathroom to use some mouthwash. I didn't want them to know I had taken one puff off of a cigarette.

I didn't know it but Conrad Bain was fixing the shower head in the tub. He pulled back the shower curtain and started yelling at me for using mouthwash. He accused me of trying to hide the smell of alcohol. My parents were still walking down the hall towards me so I couldn't tell him it wasn't alcohol, but rather a cigarette. In my dream my parents don't mind alcohol but they hate cigarettes. Also in my dream, Conrad Bain hates alcohol but doesn't mind cigarettes.

I told Conrad Bain that I was rinsing my mouth out because I had slept with my mouth open all night and my teeth felt like they were wearing sweaters. He didn't believe me. He said he was going to tell my parents that I was trying to hide the red wine I had just had. I told him to go ahead. They wouldn't care. They would care about the cigarette though so I didn't want to hug them in case the mouthwash hadn't taken care of the smoke smell, which it hadn't.

I'm Totally Not "King Ralphing" You - A Dream

Short Dream I had the other night.



Hubby, The Kiddies and I were hanging out at Buckingham Palace. Hubby's cousin was Prince William. No other member of Hubby's family was related to Prince William and nobody from Prince William's family was related to Hubby. The two of them were cousins, though. Prince Harry wasn't related to any of us (except for his brother, of course) but he was always walking around in the background not really doing anything other than taking off his jacket and hanging it on wall hooks.

The Duchess Kate kept to herself in her part of the castle. I got a hold of her private line, called her and asked her if she wanted to hang out with my yougest kid, Bean. Bean is only 5 months old. I thought she'd like hanging out with a baby. She accepted my invitation. We decided we'd drive to a playground on the other side of town.

When I got to the car we were going to use, she had installed a car seat. It was installed so securely in the back seat that I didn't have the heart to tell her that babies less than a year old needed to be rear facing in their carseats.

You're Gonna Pay - A Dream

I had a dream last night about Anthony Michael Hall, sort of.

I was dating this guy. He was a child actor who isn't doing much today. He looked just like Anthony Michael Hall, but it wasn't him. I couldn't remember his name. The whole dream I was trying to figure out what his name was without him knowing that I was trying to figure out his name. I thought that maybe if I could think of something that he was in, like a movie or a TV show I could look at the credits and find out. Every role I thought he had, though, turned out to be Anthony Michael Hall. Then I started thinking that I should just dump this guy and start dating Anthony Michael Hall. Then I resigned myself to thinking that if I couldn't have Anthony Michael Hall I would just be happy with dating the guy who people think looks like him and always confuse him for. He drove a big monster truck and he had to drive me home. The route took us through a rough part of town and we had to dodge bullets from people doing drive-by shootings for sport. After we got through the rough part of town we stopped for some beer and tacos and he held my hand. I looked through his wallet but still couldn't find his name.

A little disturbing, I'll give you that, but not as disturbing as the dream I had about Norman Gentle which I refuse to discuss as I'm trying very hard to erase the memory from my head.

Peekay - A Book Review

I just finished reading The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay.

I really enjoyed the book but at the moment I'm a bit mad at the estate of Mr. Courtenay and Ballantine Books.

See, I bought the young adult version, not the full version. I'm so mad. I feel duped. I want to read the whole thing but that would mean having to buy the book again. I'm afraid if the estate of Bryce Courtenay and Ballantine Books want me to find out what happened to Peekay, they're going to have to get me a free copy.

The book chronicles the life of a boy named Peekay. He has a pretty hard life in 1930's and 40's South Africa. He makes some interesting friends during the book that shape his life and his world view.

The book started out pretty grim. A little boy is sent to boarding school. He is the only kid of English descent there and gets hazed a lot. Throughout his life he meets people that guide, mentor and influence him. They teach him to stand up for himself and for others. They teach him to be confident in his convictions. He also learns, however, that life is not fair.
At the end of the version of the book I was reading Peekay is heading off to college. I felt cheated that the book stopped so abruptly. I wanted to read about how he got on in college, who he befriended and what kind of hardships he had to overcome, but noooo, I had to buy the condensed version.

Not cool, Ballantine Books and the estate of Bruce Courtenay. Not cool for making a shorter version. Pages upon pages were spent in this book telling the life of this little boy who appreciated when he wasn't talked down to and who proved he could learn 3 African languages, Taal, Latin and play the piano, and Ballantine Books thought it was a good idea to shorten it to a mere 222 pages, thus talking down to the young adult?

I'm going to keep whether I liked the book to myself. I was looking forward to how Peekay's life turned out and that a shorted version exists and I bought it on accident has spoiled it for me. If Ballantine can't give me access to the whole book I'm not going to tell them how much I enjoyed this story.

On another note, this book was turned into a movie, but I havin't seen it. If I had netflix I could rent it, but I don't. If I get the chance to see it, I will and update this post.

Bone Picking (appropriate title because someone called me a fat ass today)

In 2009 David Letterman announced on his show that someone was trying to extort money out of him. Rather than give in to the bully, Letterman fought back and fessed up. On his show Letterman announced that he was having an affair with his assistant and someone was trying to extort $2 million from  him. There are more details to the story. You can look them up yourself if you need to. I only gave you the cliff notes. I'm not condoning his behavior. Cheating on your partner is wrong. But what I liked about the way Letterman handled his situation was that he didn't see any reason to let an extortionist and bully change the way he did things.

It seems I've gotten myself a bully. Someone has been posting mean comments on my blog.

The first one I got I laughed. It came from Charlotte, North Carolina. It was posted anonymously. It arrived on January 3 and the comment was made on the post where I wrote about why I don't eat Hostess Gem Donuts anymore.
It said "I think you're just a little too full of yourself miss perfect.Maybe you should look at your own bad habits before criticizing others." 
Good advice. Don't throw stones. Take the plank out of my own eye.

Then on Jan 8 I got a comment. It also was posted anonymously. This one came from Alameda, CA. It was in reference to a recent blog I posted about where I had to break up with a friend.
It read "maybe you were just so jealous of her because she was pretty and you are so ugly and dirty with disgusting grey teeth and the fattest celulite ridden ass. your greasy hair a constant reminder of your fiflth." (misspellings are those of the comment poster, not mine)
OK, this one was just mean.

I decided to change the settings on my blog restricting comments. The settings I had before allowed anyone to comment, even comment anonymously. I changed the settings so one had to sign in to post a comment. Today I got another comment on the same post listed in the paragraph above. This time the commenter, again from Alameda, signed in, but created an ID using my very own first and last name.
It read "She bested you because you KNOW she is better than you in everyway and every day. You secretly wish you were her. You are a pathetic person, no one even likes you they just tolerate you." (again, spelling mistakes belong to the commenter, not me.)

In response to this comment I restricted comments further by changing the settings to allow only those who followed the blog through google blogger could comment.

I wasn't thinking. I completely forgot about my other blog where I crochet on Muni and then write about it. I didn't change the commenting settings. When I got out of hula class tonight I found another comment. Now I'm only assuming this comment came from our friend in Alameda, but in fairness, my tracking software is not picking up this hit for some reason. Google is, but the other tracking service I use is a little under the weather at the moment. Given the spirit of the comment, though, I'm pretty sure it's from the same person.
It read "think I can't find you? You ugly stupid fat cow. Your crochet is as ugly as YOU ARE!!!
You must really hate yourself, I would if I were you.
Why don't you wear clothes that fit instead of looking like a stuffed sausage in everything you put on. Your ass is so hideous that I want to throw up when I see you."

When I was driving home from class tonight I was thinking that I should close my blog to all traffic except for that which is approved by me. By the time I got home, however, I had talked myself out of it. I'm just a regular, every day person.  That someone is spending his/her time and energy trying to bully me is both funny and sad. What a useless way to spend one's time.

So, I'm following David Letterman's lead. I'm behaving how I always have on my blogs. I will post what I want. I will write about my dreams. I will write about hula class. I will write my book reviews. I refuse to stop doing something that isn't illegal, immoral or wrong just because someone in Alameda doesn't like it.

And as for calling me fat? Tell me something I don't know. It's not like you're surprising me. The scale and I aren't enemies. I'm well aware of what it says.

If you don't like what I write, don't read what I write. 

For example,  I follow Ricky Gervais on twitter. Now, I disagree with him on a lot of things, but if I were really and truly offended by him I would stop following him. Nobody is making me read his tweets. I can read what he has to write about or I can ignore it. It's my choice. He doesn't care if I read his tweets or not.

The internet is a big. It is called the World Wide Web, after all. There's room enough in it that if you don't like me, you never ever have to hear from me. I'm easy to avoid.

So there.

The Descendants - Book Review



Just about every Mother's Day I do the same thing.  I rent a chick flick / weepy movie that I know Hubby won't want to see and I sit in bed, drink coffee, eat french toast and watch the movie. I've rented movies ranging from The Blind Side to The Wedding Planner to The Man Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain to Raising Helen to a whole host of other movies I've long since forgotten about. Last Mother's Day I watched The Descendants. Last Mother's Day I didn't watch it from bed, though. I was 5 months pregnant and it hurt my back to lie in bed for that long. I watched it from the couch.

I just finished reading The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings. I liked it. It was a pretty quick read. I think I finished it in just under 2 days.

It's about this Guy and his family. They Guy's wife was in an accident and was in a coma. It was part of her living will to not live by artificial means, so they take The Wife off life support. The Guy finds out that The Wife was having an affair. He's upset but feels it's necessary to give The Wife's lover a chance to say goodbye. While this is going on, The Guy also has to learn how to be a dad, not just a father to his two daughters, plus he has to figure out what to do with a bunch of land he inherited.

Like all books, the movie based on the book was a tiny bit different. There were a few tiny differences in how we learn bits and pieces about the characters. Those didn't bother me so much. You can't put every single detail into the movie and expect people to sit through it. For example, meh, I can't even think of a good example. Changing those tiny bits didn't really matter much.

There were two big things that weren't in both the movie and the book.

In the book, but not the movie - the friend of the oldest daughter is this big Stoner Dude. In the movie his dad is killed by a drunk driver, just like in the book, but in the book he's also a major perv hitting on Stoner Dude's girlfriend. Because of this, Stoner Dude hates the fact that they are looking for The Guy's wife's lover. When they do find him, The Stoner Dude secretly calls The Wife's lover's wife and tells her all about the affair. I think that is an important plot twist that shouldn't have been left out of the movie. The Wife's lover was just going to go on like nothing happened? Was The Wife's Lover's Wife going to stay married to this guy. She needed to know. He's just going to cheat on her again probably.

In the movie, but not the book - The Guy has to sit down and decide whether to sign the rights to his inherited ancestral land away or keep it for his children. In the book he just decides not to sign. There isn't a big deal made about it. In the movie he takes off his shoes, stands on the 'aina and talks about his responsibility to malama it. He realizes that selling his land to the highest bidder will make him even more financially stable than he already is, but it will not make him richer. He has a duty, a kuleana to his Hawaiian ancestry to let the land take care of him. I was waiting for that chapter in the book and I didn't get it. I felt cheated.

I give it a . . . . . . .

Dear Readers - I have written quite a few book reviews. I need to come up with a rating system. I've been thinking about what to use. I'd like to be able to say "I give this book 3 plumerias out of 5" or something like that. I'll have to give it some thought. Thanks, a

 

 

So for now my conclusion is  - the book was good. it kept me entertained but if I lended it to someone I wouldn't be too put off if I never got it back.

Reeboks and Burgers - A Dream

Have you ever broken up with a friend?
I have once. I did it badly. It was messy.



I read an article in some woman's magazine about breaking up with friends many years ago. I had never heard of the concept. Sure I'd heard of people drifting apart, or people having fights and never speaking to each other again, but I had never heard of people having the "we have to talk . . . " conversation with regular friends.

I knew this woman. For a while we were kind of good friends. We worked together. We saw each other every day at work. We had lunch together just about every day. We hung out outside work as well. There was something about her, though, that left me feeling negative and drained.
Not really knowing if I wanted to cut off all ties with this woman I decided to take a little break from her.  She was a real negative influence on my life. It took her absence for me to realize that. I decided a break up was in order. I broke off all contact possible. I still had to work with her, though.

After about 6 months, our friendly "good mornings" turned into snide eye contact. We tried to ignore each other completely unless there was a chance that she or I could throw the other under some kind of oncoming bus. We were playing a super passive-aggressive Spy vs. Spy game that I was determined not to lose. I definately did not handle the situation correctly. While I don't think she would have responded well to the "we have to talk" talk, I still could have done things differently.

Then one day she left the company. For a few months I would see her on Muni as she had found work in the same neighborhood as our place of employment. Sometimes we'd say hello and sometimes we'd pretend we didn't see each other.  I haven't seen or spoken to her in years. We have no common friends so I don't know what she's doing these days.

I had a dream about her last night. Strange because I haven't been thinking about her. It was a work dream.

We were working at Hof's Hut, (which is a restaurant / hamburger joint / trying to be fancier than it is, but the burgers are pretty good kind of place. I worked at one of their locations when I was 19).
In my dream I couldn't get the time of my shift right. I always had conflicts with the time they wanted me to work. My x-friend kept taking all the good shifts, wearing super white reebok tennis shoes which for some reason really rubbed me the wrong way. She kept getting in my way and I couldn't serve my tables. I threw up my hands, said "fine" and left the restaurant, but not before pouring a glass of apple juice down the vent slats in her locker.

I wonder why I dreamed about her. I wonder why in my dream I let her best me. Do I have some unresolved issue with her? Do I have some unresolved issue with any of my current co-workers? I am feeling a bit stressed about a particular situation at my current job, but it has nothing to do with any conflict with anyone. I do feel bad with how we stopped being friends, but I'm not sorry we don't hang out anymore.

hmmmmm

(Paper) Bag Lady



Hubby, The Kiddies and I were coming home from Target this afternoon.

Earlier in the day The Boy asked if we could have tacos for dinner. Considering all he ever responds with when I ask him what he'd like for dinner is pizza, I decided to indulge him. Besides, everyone likes tacos, right?

Realizing we didn't have the dinner fixings for tacos we made an unplanned stop at Lucky.

You can probably guess, or at least you won't be surprised when I tell you that we are not the type of organized family what keeps a stash of reusable bags in the trunk. We have them and use them but they are usually kept in the little cubby under the microwave stand and not in the car. Needless to say, we didn't have any reusable bags to use for this trip to the market.
We bought our stuff and aside from the gallon of milk and 6 pack of beer I bought, we got paper bags for everything else.
The checker seemed perplexed when he asked me how many bags I wanted and I told him I needed as many as were needed for my groceries.

As we were leaving I saw this guy who didn't get a bag. He was balancing about (no exaggeration) 20 small items on top of a frozen pizza. I wanted to shout "get a bag, dude. It's only a dime."
Now, like I said, I use reusable bags. I use them about 90% of the time. Sometimes I don't bring them to use for my groceries on purpose. I use paper bags. They are great for recycling, compost, covering books, and making robot costumes. Paper bags are handy and sometimes necessary.

I am supportive of banning plastic bags. I also support charging a dime for paper bags. I am not opposed to leaving my reusable bags at home when I need to refill my stash of paper bags and I don't freak out if I forget my reusable bags and have to get paper.

A dime isn't that much money but charging for bags does make people stop and think about how many bags they waste and hopefully it'll teach them to take more positive steps towards not wasting resources.

Word to Your Mother. Love Your Sisters and Brothers. And Love Each Other . . . .

Over the years I've had a few Christmas rituals. Just me, no family involved.
Here they are in no particular order other than this is the order they came into my head.

• Since about 2002, when I got it as a gift, I've been reading Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris at least once every holiday season. It makes me laugh out loud every single time.
• When I'm driving in the car alone* I play the Holdiay CD from the Barenaked Ladies on volume 11 and belt out every song at the top of my lungs. *I also do this when my baby is in the car. She can't talk yet. She's won't tell. Also, when she's in the car I don't turn up the volume. Wouldn't want to hurt her little ears.
• Every time I hear the song Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses I sing along as well. Every year I tell myself I'm going to learn how to play it on my ukulele and it'll be my "go-to" song when I'm at holiday parties. People would say "C'mon, Andrea. Sing us a song and play your ukulele" and I'd whip out my uke and sing a great rendition of the song. (clip from youtube below. it isn't an actual video from the song but in my 3 minute search it's the only one I found without a stupid commercial before it)




• When I worked for The Food Whole a long time ago in another life we used to get $25 gift cards as a Christmas gift. With my gift card I would buy a big block of Torrone and a bottle of super meaty cab. I would enjoy both all by myself, in front of a movie that Hubby would probably hate, something weepy and romantic comedy-ish. I don't do this one anymore. Not super bummed about it, though. Life evolves. Things change.
• One tradition I totally miss, I fear is gone forever. I had this cassette tape. On this tape was "Feel the Warmth of Kevin and Bean's World of Christmas." Kevin and Bean were (and are) DJs from a SoCal radio station KROQ. When I was 20 I listened to them. When I was 20 they had a little Christmas special and made an LP during the special. I had a tape of it. I loved it. It  had the cast of Twin Peaks singing The 12 Days of Christmas.  I can't listen to the recording anymore. I blame progress. You can't stop progress. Cars no longer come standard with a cassette tape deck. Also I blame myself. I lost the tape somewhere between moving out of the flat I shared with roommates and moving in with my boyfriend (now Hubby). I miss it. I wish I still had a copy.




Time goes on, however. just as Toyota no longer makes a car that comes with a cassette tape deck.
I have to create new traditions and rituals.
It's OK though.


Merry Christmas.

Adminning - Book Review

Last week or so I was having a conversation with someone about the profession of Administrative Assistant. I started walking out of the room when she said that she knew all about how to be someone's assistant because she spent a summer answering phones, then wished I were walking faster when she ended with stating that career admins have no ambition to be or do anything else. Clearly I was speaking to someone who didn't know what she was talking about.

I'm an Executive Assistant. I know it's hard work. I know it takes the ability to be resourceful, adaptable, helpful, crafty, diplomatic, secretive and efficient. I also know that sometimes it's a thankless job. An Assistant's job is to make the Executive look good. Think of a duck. A duck looks peaceful and at ease above the water, but under the water its legs are moving furiously to get from  point A to point B. The Executive is the duck on top of the water. The Assistant is the duck under the water.

The person I was talking to was only seeing the top part of the duck and had no interest in learning about what was under the water.

Continuing with my theme of reading books that were turned into popular movies, I just finished reading The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. I enjoyed it. Unlike the last book I read (Forrest Gump), I liked the book a lot better than the movie.

The book is about a young woman named Andrea who recently graduated from college. She wants to be a writer. She takes an admin job at a fashion magazine in the hopes that working as an EA for the editor in chief of the magazine will be the most excellent resume fodder in the world and will be her ticket to her getting any writing job she wants.

The job is a soul-sucking job that she hates. Her boss asks her to do all sorts of crazy things like finding a recipe for that one dessert at a restaurant she really liked last week or researching how many ears of corn grow on a stalk intended for commercial sales, or locating a lost laptop left behind with the TSA at airport security, or get a table for 7 at French Laundry for the day after tomorrow (wait, those last 3 things are things I've done in my current job, the answer for the corn is "one" by the way). The difference between her and me is that I work for pretty nice people, the woman in the book worked for a mean mean person.

In the end she quit her job by telling off her boss, and yes, working for this woman made for fantastic resume fodder and it opened tons of doors.

I can't imagine working for someone as mean as the boss in the book but I did sympathize with the character Andrea. I totally rooted for her and I cheered her on the whole way through.

I didn't like her friends in the book. I thought the movie characters were better.

Overall, I liked it.

Fifty Shades of . . . I'm such a sucker. - Book Review

I'm such a sucker. I know I said I wasn't going to do it, but I did. I read the second and third books in the "Fifty Shades" trilogy. So frikkin' stupid. 

I wasn't looking for good literature. I wasn't looking for good sex scenes. I was looking for a fun, mindless story. I didn't get any of that. All I got was pissed off. Not that I'm the big expert on the Pacific Northwest or on kink, but I think the author got her information about the area and the subject matter from a combination of Wikipedia and Craigslist.

In my review of the first book I wrote that I wasn't going to read the second and third books because I knew what they'd be about. Turns out I was mostly wrong and the second book did have more of a story than the first, but it was still stupid and it irritated me. Where the second book irritated me, the third book downright pissed me off.

Here's this guy who can't let go of his past so he beats every woman who looks like his crack-whore mom, then he marries this young woman and controls every aspect of her life. She walks around in total fear that she's going to piss him off because he's got a fragile soul.

I think what pissed me off the most is that the lead female character lets the lead male character control her and boss her around and she doesn't have the balls to make decisions for herself. Sure, there are a few times where she shows some independent thought but it's always with the price tag of  "I wonder if  I'll get in trouble for this." I'm not addressing the sex stuff in the book. Whatever makes them happy in that area, well, who am I to argue? I'm not going to judge them there. I'm addressing the regular life stuff.

The girl totally lived her life in fear of pissing off her boyfriend-turned-husband. Sometimes, I'll admit, she lived her life in the hopes of pissing the guy off, but it still made me mad. What kind of life is that? That's no fun. Doesn't say a whole lot about the girl. 

Overall, all the characters in the book were people I didn't like and I'm glad they are not real people.

I Just Couldn't Embrace the Ape - A Book Review

 

Congratulate me. I finally made the switch. I got rid of my Blackberry and joined the real world and got myself an Android phone. I feel much smarter. Now what with my new smartness and all, I have two things. One is a budding addiction to Temple Run and the other is access to The Girl's Nook on my phone. Yes, I know I have Nook access on my computer, but I don't like reading books on my computer. And yes, I know that I could have had Nook access on my Blackberry but I didn't like how the program worked on that phone.

I've read two books so far. One is Princess Bride, but we all know that I read it before and disgraced myself at Powell's Bookstore in Portland. You can refresh your memory on the incident here.

The other book I read was Forrest Gump. I can't decide if I liked it. I know that books and movies often differ. Sometimes characters are combined and scenes, descriptions and back stories or omitted adapt a story for the big screen, but most of the time, the spirit of the book is still in tact.

The book Forrest Gump and the movie Forrest Gump were almost exactly, but not quite, entirely unlike each other.
In the book, Jenny marries someone else, Forrest's mama never sleeps with the school principal to get her son into school and she doesn't die. Forrest doesn't wear leg braces as a kid or run across country multiple times as an adult. He does get shot in the buttocks, though, and he does meet a few different Presidents. He also plays football starts a shrimping business.
Also, in the book, but not in the movie, Forrest becomes a professional wrestler, plays chess for money, lives with cannibals and goes into outer space with a male orangutan named Sue, who becomes his closest friend and confidant, which is probably why he has to drop out of the race for the Senate.

While the movie was a heart warming story with cute little catch phrases, the book has none of that. I found it hard to finish the book because it just kept getting more and more hard to believe, and not in a fun way.  Plus it was written first person in the voice of Forrest. That took a little bit of getting used to.

I didn't like it very much.

Peter Dinklage - 1, Regina George - 0 - a dream

I have more dreams than what I write about. Some aren't interesting. Some I can't remember enough to piece together a story, and some have subject matter that I don't want to put out on the internet. I have to have some secrets, don't I? I don't know if it was the pregnancy and baby hormones that had to work their way through my body or what, but my dream life kinda took a nap of its own the last few months. It's just now starting to come back.

 I had a part in some kind of play. Something Christmas-y and Dickens-ish. I was in a dance number with Regina George (not the Rachel McAdams who played RG, but RG herself) and some other girl I don't remember but she kind of looked like Stephanie Tanner (but not Jodie Sweetin). The day of the dance I asked the two girls to go over the dance with me. I had forgotten it and just needed a little reminder. Regina George told me she wouldn't go over the dance with me and that I was a loser and if I didn't know the dance I was just going to have to take my lumps and make a fool out of myself on stage instead. Then the other girl started yelling at me telling me that I was right on the cusp of either being cool or not. If I knew the dance and performed it well I would be cool, but because I didn't, I had made my choice. I wasn't cool, or pretty.

I knew I was cool, though, because right before all that happened, I was sitting in a large room surrounded by all the people trying out for the play. Peter Dinklage came up to me and sat down. In my dream we knew each other a little bit. I can't say we were friends, but I knew if he walked into a room and needed someone to make chit-chat with, he would usually come up to me, and I would usually come up to him. We were sitting at a table drinking beer out of fancy steins and some guy came up and sat down with us. He and Peter Dinklage knew each other, but I didn't know the guy. The guy started telling a story and during the story he started swearing up a storm. Peter Dinklage gave him the most evil eyes I've ever seen, then looked at me with super apologetic eyes. He told the guy not to swear in front of me because it was disrespectful. I was about to tell Peter Dinklage that I was a big girl and although I didn't like the swearing, I could handle myself. I decided not to say anything because I thought it would be disrespectful to Peter Dinklage. He was, after all, standing up for me.

Having Peter Dinklage as a casual acquaintance gives me way more street cred than being in a Dickens-type dance number with Regina George and Stephanie Tanner ever will.

Maternity Leave

I've been on maternity leave for a few months. I go back to work in a few short weeks. I'm looking forward to going back to work. I'm almost done being at home every day. I will miss my sweet little bundle like nobody's business, but think that getting back to work, having a regular paycheck and using my mind for things other than remembering the last time the baby ate or was changed is a welcome thought.

Before the baby was born I had visions what I would do with my time; fixing up the house, cleaning under things that haven't been lifted since we moved in almost 15 years ago, cleaning out that one cabinet that I've been meaning to clean out for the longest time, getting rid of the tons of clothes I don't wear anymore, cleaning out the garage.

Boy were those big dreams. The only thing that I've really done is the getting rid of clothes. The house is a mess. I can't keep up with the dishes. Laundry has been mocking me as it piles up and up and up and up.

It's hard to do all this stuff when every hour I have to stop what I'm doing to change a diaper, fill a belly, soothe some fussiness, and for the older kids, help with homework, fill out applications for Kindergarten and High School, make dinner, give baths, etc. I don't know how moms who have museum-clean houses do it. They must never ever sit down. They must never ever take time for themselves. They must never ever shower, never eat a hot meal, even if they cooked it themselves.They must never ever get to spend any time with their spouses.

I can't complain a whole lot though. Look at the mugs I get to take care of. I certainly do make cute babies.

Really, if you have any tips on how to get stuff done without losing my sanity, please pass them along to me.

Conversation at the California Science Center

Today I went to the California Science Center with my 3 sisters, my niece, Hubby and The Kiddies. We saw the space shuttle Endeavour. It was pretty cool.

Except for the Astronaut ice cream I was disappointed in the food, though. In looking for a bite to eat before going to see an imax movie about the Hubble telescope, I had the following conversation with an employee at the museum.
Me - Excuse me, I see a McDonalds over there. Do you have any other food here besides fast food?
Employee - There's a Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in the Rose Court.
Me - Do you have any food that's not fast food?
Employee - There's a Quizno's around the corner.
Me - So you don't have any food in this museum that isn't fast food?
Employee - No.

Milk Truck Ma'am

My birthday is in October, and through no fault of my own, it's also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For the last two years I've written about getting my annual mammogram. The one from when I turned 40 is here. The one from when I turned 41 is here.

I'm skipping my annual October mammogram this year. See, this year I have an excuse. My boobs are filled with fluid that I'm using to nourish my 5 week old baby. Here she is. She has a real live name that we call her, but on the internet we call her Bean.

 According to the Susan G Komen website, breastfeeding women shouldn't get mammograms because the breastfeeding tissue appears dense making it hard to get an accurate reading. The American Cancer Society says pretty much the same thing; one isn't discouraged from getting a mammogram, but they agree with SGK that the findings are harder to interpret.

I'll get a mammogram soon after I'm done using my body and my boobs as a milk truck. And don't worry, I'll be sure to tell you all about it.