Livingston, I Presume

News flash

Here's a stunning piece of information for the U.S. media: Not all Americans live in America. Some, in fact, live in crazy-ass places like Germany. While living in said crazy-ass places, Americans still have the right to vote, even for president. That means--for all you reporters who thought you were being so clever with your quips about the number of electoral votes in Germany (kein!) following the crowds of 200,000 or more who showed up to see Barack Obama in Berlin--that some of the people in that crowd just might have been Americans living in Germany or some other country nearby. Or they could have been traveling around the world and just timed a visit to Berlin fortuitously.

At any given time, four to seven million Americans live overseas. It's not a small number. If they were to vote in large numbers, it could make a real difference in the presidential contest. Is that why Obama went to Europe? Probably not. But he's a citizen of the world enough to know that expat votes would be a nice side effect. Somehow I'm thinking that John McCain--who apparently seems unable to remember that  Czechoslovakia hasn't existed for some 15 years now--is less aware of that possibility.

I'm just saying.

All right, Mr. DeMille...

I'm ready for my close-up.

In which I must, regrettably, use the word 'bling'

There have been some requests to see the anniversary gift, and I am nothing if not obliging.

It's the channel band closest to my heart. Sparkly, huh?

(The other ring I'm wearing, BTW, was purchased in Rio de Janeiro. Sometime I'll tell you that story, although now that I've said that you'll probably think it was a really interesting story and while I would classify it as interesting, I don't know if it's really interesting.)

So there's the bling!

(Also, how strange do fingers look when you can't see the whole hand? Robin, I could use some jewelry photography skillz training. Inquiring minds can try to figure out which of the rings pictured is our wedding set!)

Ten years! Ten!

Today is Chip and my 10th anniversary, but I got my gift last night. Mainly because I'm an asshole.

You see, I am...how do the French say it...a total control freak when it comes to our family's finances. Not like, "Oh, I'm sorry, but we can't buy that flatscreen TV right now," but "Nope, we're not buying maple syrup this week because we already bought olive oil and they're both expensive items." As if you could somehow put olive oil on your waffles while you wait for the next week. Welcome to my world.

Anyway, yesterday was the always-anticipated quarterly meeting at Chip's work, the one where bonuses are handed out if certain company-wide goals are met. Naturally, even though Chip had mentioned something a few weeks ago about wanting to do something special with this bonus in light of our momentous anniversary, I told him that we should be practical (like we always are) and use the money for things like painting the upstairs ceiling and getting dirt for the side yard. I'm a hopeless romantic like that, wanting us to buy topsoil to celebrate ten years of wedded bliss. (You mean that isn't the traditional gift?)

This time, Chip took a page from a playbook that my father has perfected over nearly 41 years of marriage. He nodded and smiled and said, "Yes, Dear" when I told him we should be sensible, even on important occasions like 10th anniversaries (because, as you know, they happen all the time). And then he went out and bought me a diamond anniversary band.

He was forced to give it to me early last night because I was badgering him about whether he had remembered to take his bonus check to the bank and deposit it. He kept saying cagey things like, "It's been taken care of" and "I took it to the bank" until I got all glower-ey and irritable as I crushed grape tomatoes and smashed kalamata olives for pasta sauce. He stopped what he was doing--reading the ever-scintillating Lego Magazine to our son--and calmly fetched a small package, which he handed to me with the following words:

"I would do it all over again."

Me, too.

Happy anniversary, my love.

OMG!

Have you seen this? My love for Joss Whedon is well established, so I was all over this web musical mini-series. Go watch it, and if you like it (bet you will), buy it on iTunes. Joss support is good.

Edited to add: Curse you, Joss Whedon! How are the rest of us semi-creative types supposed to have any hope when you've got more or less all the talent in the world?

Boy of summer

Do you remember when summer was this much fun?

Broadcast

If I could find a way to get this post into the hands of every teacher, doctor, politican, and parent in the world, I would do it. I would print it on a t-shirt. I would make it into the world's longest, most-accident-causing bumper sticker. I would hire a town crier to wander cities and read it aloud.

In her post inspired by AP coverage of a new European initiative to provide free fruits and veggies for kids--but only to defeat the evils of Fat Children and not because fruit and veg are a good thing in their own right for all kids, fat or thin--Kate Harding encapsulates perfectly (and with inimitable style) the exact thing that I have long been screaming at inanimate objects:

...I am 100% in favor of free fruits and veggies... Free fruits and veggies for everyone! Local, organic produce for all my friends! While you’re at it, bring back gym class and train future phys ed instructors to focus on encouraging the joy of movement instead of forcing everyone to move their bodies in exactly the same way, regardless of any pain (physical and/or emotional) it causes! Subsidize exercise facilities until they’re affordable for everyone! Create more bike paths! Clean up local bodies of water so everyone can swim for free! Build cities on the scale of human bodies instead of cars, and keep the streets safe enough for everyone to walk around! Ban high fructose corn syrup! Keep fast food and soda and junk food corporations out of the schools! Raise the minimum wage and shorten working hours so people have more time to cook and be active! KNOCK YOURSELVES RIGHT THE FUCK OUT creating an environment that makes it easier for everyone to eat a variety of fresh foods and get plenty of exercise!

But don’t tell me that’s going to make everyone thin — and really, really don’t tell me that making people thinner should be the main point of such a plan. It fucking infuriates me that with all of the many, many excellent reasons to do all the things I’ve just suggested, the only potential outcome that can muster the political will to enact any of it is weight loss. Fuck having a cleaner, safer, more fun environment that might lend itself to people generally feeling more energetic and vibrant (which might also lead to more productivity, for all the hardcore capitalists out there) — unless we can get rid of the fatties, it’s wasted money.

Amen, Kate. Now let's get that message out there.

Something's gotta give

Sunday it was the deli meat. Monday it was the cat. Can the kids be far off?

I'm speaking of the delicate juggling act that all families perform, the one where you try like hell to make sure that everyone gets clothed, fed, ferried, and loved every day--sometimes more than once a day, even. Oh, and don't forget the household in general: it has to be cleaned, mowed, managed, and paid for. (That last one is the most difficult, of course.)

The addition of Emerson to the mix has made things more complicated, but I had felt until very recently that we had things well in hand. Then came that deli meat.

On Sunday we went to the grocery store, an epic journey that used to take maybe 90 minutes but now involves multiple trips to and from the house, a necessity of two adults if there are children involved, and an M.A. in logistics. The M.A. is largely to deal with the newly cramped back end of the van, which used to beckon invitingly to our many bags of groceries but is now occupied almost entirely by our excellent stroller and the inevitable "emergency highway kit". Fitting the groceries into the back now involves puzzling through how best to shove the bags into the available space without crushing anything.

We thought we had done just that until about 9 p.m. on Sunday evening, when I sat bolt upright from my television viewing slump and shrieked, "Deli meat!" Chip looked at me quizzically, as you might expect, but then he took on my panic when I reminded him that although we had purchased tasty sliced meats at the grocery store, we had not put any away. He ran upstairs and discovered the bag containing the meat (as well as some cheese and other comestibles) lodged behind the stroller. They had been baking there for several hours. Yum!

Still, no real harm done, and all members of the household were present and accounted for. Not so yesterday when I glanced over at the cat's dish around dinnertime. Curious, I thought, that Sotek had not eaten anything all day. The realization that I had accidentally locked the cat in the guest room all day loosed another stream of invectives. She was certainly glad to see me as she skittered out of the room, leaving in her wake a soiled towel on which she had been forced to do her business. (As an aside, how great of a cat do you have to have to make the effort to pull down a towel for the business-making? We don't deserve such a cat.)

Again, no real harm done, but it doesn't make me hopeful for the future. I found myself in bed this morning wondering when I could stop this crazy-making schedule and not have to choose which "extra" I want to do each day--"extras" being defined as such extravagances as flossing my teeth, putting on makeup, and applying sunscreen to my burst-into-flames pale skin. Yesterday I chose flossing and regretted it by the evening when the sun allergy caused my forearms to itch enough to make me want to rend my own flesh.

I know, I know. Poor me, right? It's not like I'm the only parent who feels this way. In fact, thanks to The Dad, I know that some of us feel worse. When produce and meat have the power to make you cry, you know you've reached some kind of parental milestone.

Small-town Montana

So everyone by now knows that Barack Obama chose to spend his Fourth of July in Butte, America. It's a fine place to spend the holiday, and by the looks of it, he had a good time. I'm glad to hear it. Still, if Obama had been looking for action on the little-known Second of July (and who isn't?), he'd have done better to come to my little town of Livingston. The Montana politicians know it will be a good party, so they all show up.

Which is how Livingston Enterprise photographer Angela Schneider got these two shots of Emerson (and the back of Connery's head) with the Chair of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee (or, as we like to call him in Montana, Max).

"Power to the babies, Max!"

"I'm so embarrassed. Mommy is using me as a political pawn to discuss with Max the brutal realities of the American healthcare system. See how Montana's Senior Senator is smiling politely? God, I could just die. Plus, I had really wanted to talk to him myself about the oppression of babykind, and now she's just hogged all the time."

And I thought I'd have to wait a while to embarrass her in public.

Broken promise

I've always told myself that I would never blog about my children's bowel habits. After all, junior high is hard enough without written evidence of bathroom indiscretions. And I'm sure that by the time Emerson and Connery are in junior high, kids will be able to download all relevant material into their Google BrainPan and use it against each other willy-nilly*.

That said, I can no longer keep silent on the subject of Emerson's butt. Put simply, she is the baby equivalent of John "The Biscuit" Cage from Ally McBeal, but instead of a fresh bowl, she likes an open diaper. She showed this proclivity early on, waiting to unleash her furies all over the exam table at her first pediatrician's visit at five days old. She has continued apace. When we stayed for a week in Great Falls, she hit the door frame from a good four feet away.

Her favorite trick is to let us get her all cleaned, balmed, and very nearly re-diapered and then do her extra business. The most immediate result of this little trick is that the fresh diaper is ruined and we have to get another one. (Don't you realize every one of those diapers costs 27 cents? We could have started a college fund by now!) Truly it pains my Scots-heritaged heart to waste diapers in this fashion. I can often be heard moaning softly by the changing table as she merrily sneezes and soils simultaneously.

Don't tell me to wait longer after feedings to change her. Believe me, I've done--and I do--that. Yesterday I waited some 45 minutes and included copious amounts of tummy time to move things along, but it wasn't until the diaper was opened that she chose to use it for what God intends diapers to be used for. And while I'm fast, I'm not usually fast enough.

There is one saving grace. While Emerson is like John Cage, her butt is like the Fire Swamp from the Princess Bride. Let me remind you of the key section:

"What are the three terrors of the fire-swamp? One, the flame spurt - no problem - there's a popping sound preceding each.  We can avoid that."

I'm not going to call it a popping sound, exactly, but there is a noticeable noise preceding most of her, uh, flame spurts. Still, when the noise is heard, one has only seconds to react. And usually those seconds are consumed by groaning and rolling my eyes heavenward because it's impossible to move the fresh diaper out of harm's way.

*Welcome, potential suitors! Please ignore this entry, as I'm sure by the time you're reading this in 2024 just before you plan to ask Emerson to Space Prom or whatever it is you have these days, we will have gotten this problem firmly under control. Honest.