Category Archive

No more swim lessons at the outdoor pool in August.

Notice something about this picture?

I live in one of those little blue areas (the ones that aren’t water).

It is raining.

Amazing.

The irritating thing about living in Oregon is that you can never be certain that it will not start raining on you at any moment.  It is impossible to make plans that depend on it not raining.  You can’t count on weather being sunny and warm at any time of year.  In fact, if you do make plans for an outdoor activity, you have just increased your chance of rain by fifty percent. 

I understand that there was supposed to be some warm weather here while I was in California.  I wouldn’t know, I don’t keep up on the weather in places where I am not–unlike my mother-in-law, who always knows what the weather is in any given place.  My mother-in-law often asks me how my brother is doing with the weather in Maryland.  I don’t talk to my brother often (no offense to him, he’s just not much of a talker), and when I do, the weather does not usually come up.  It wouldn’t come up, unless there was a hurricane or something, in which case I probably wouldn’t be talking to him anyway because the phones were down.  Whatever.  I usually find out about the weather in Maryland from my mother-in-law, who has never been to Maryland.  That’s neither here nor there.  Where was I?  Oh, yes.  There might have been some kind of heat wave while I was gone, but now that I’m back and taking my kids to swim class at the outdoor pool [beats head against wall], the August sky bears a striking resemblance to the one I saw back in April.  It’s warmer than it was in April, meaning that we can go out without jackets and be perfectly comfortable (and usually dry), but it’s not the kind of weather that makes you want to put on a swimsuit and jump in the pool.  Princess Zurg takes it all in stride, but Mister Bubby was purple when he came out of the boys’ locker room.  The boy has no body fat, what can I tell you.

I actually find this weather exceptionally pleasant, so don’t get the idea that I’m complaining.  It’s only Mister Bubby who’s complaining and saying he doesn’t want to go to swim class until the morning dew has burned off (which should be at about 4:30 in the afternoon).

Speaking of swim class, I signed them up for lessons at the outdoor pool during the summer because a) it’s closer than the indoor pools, b) it’s summer and I’m not keen on spending summer inside a humid public pool building where I can feel the chlorine leeching into my skin and burning my sinuses, and c) there’s a playground right next to the outdoor pool, so I have something to do with the younger children while the older ones are off gallavanting in the water.  (Speaking of the playground, someone finally got the brilliant idea to build a fence around it.  A fence!  For an area where children play???  I’m flabbergasted!) 

What I don’t like about the outdoor pool is that, because it is a small pool and the locker rooms are therefore very small, there is always a huge line for the girls’ shower–because both girls and young boys whose mothers can’t (or won’t) let them use the boys’ room by themselves have to shower there.  Also, they all seem to have to wash their hair there.  With shampoo.  And conditioner, in some cases.  I don’t get it.  There are two whole showers, people, and forty-seven people who want to use them.  Rinse the chlorine out and put on your underpants.  What’s the big deal?

In other news, I have recently concluded that Elvis only wants to eat fruit that requires me to stop whatever I’m doing and cut it.  I cut up a whole canteloupe, he wants the watermelon.  I cut up the watermelon, and he wants the strawberries, which don’t usually need to be cut except that he insists on having the stems sliced off.  Or he wants an apple, which needs to be cut and peeled.  If the only fruit we had were grapes, he would probably want me to start slicing them, so I’m glad we don’t have any.

Speaking of fruit, Sugar Daddy bought some kiwis the other day.  We haven’t had kiwi fruit in our home for years, and he might have forgotten why that is.  It’s because my children LOVE kiwi fruit, but kiwi fruit does not love them.  Or rather, it does not love their digestive tracts.  I absolutely love kiwi fruit myself, but I have had to forsake it because I love my children’s digestive tracts more.  Or rather, I love not having to change kiwi fruit diapers more.  Of course, everyone who was in diapers when the kiwi fruit ban was instituted are no longer in diapers, and now that I think on it, the diaper-wearing children have probably never had kiwi fruit.  However, I am not, shall we say, as uninvolved in the events surrounding my older son’s digestive tract as I would like to be.  And so far all the other food sensitivities that the older children have are also present in the younger children.  And thus I am afraid to feed them kiwi fruit.  I shall have to eat it myself.

Thus endeth today’s blog, as I have a lot of housework and Harry Potter-reading to do, not necessarily in that order.

In Friday’s Oregonian:

Using brain-scanning technology, University of Oregon researchers have found an unlikely force at play in the minds of people paying taxes: Pleasure.

In their experiment, taxing people for a charitable cause activated the brain’s reward centers — the same areas that respond to such sources of delight as food and sex.

“Paying taxes can make people feel good,” said William Harbaugh, UO economist and co-author of the study. Previous research had established that voluntary giving stirs activity in the brain regions that process feelings of reward. The UO study, published today in the journal Science, is the first to show that involuntary payments can evoke the same reaction.

Well, this is certainly breakthrough research.  I wonder how they discovered this phenomenon.

In the study, researchers gave $100 to each of 19 female volunteers. The volunteers confronted choices about giving money to a local food bank or having money for the food bank taken from them involuntarily, like a tax. Researchers scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technology that can map surges in brain cell activity in specific parts of the brain.

The experiment helps explain the curious willingness of people to pay taxes, which has long puzzled economists.

In other words, a grand total of nineteen (19!) females got turned on by the prospect of having money they did not earn forcibly taken from them.  Sounds a little kinky to me.  But I’m not sure it explains the “curious willingness” of people to pay taxes.  If compliance under threat of imprisonment–and as a result of one’s income being automatically withheld rather than merely requested–can be characterized as “willingness,” I’m not sure where the mystery lies.  But let’s say it is a mystery.  I hardly think nineteen dames with nothing better to do than live in Eugene and volunteer for neurological experiments constitute a representative sample of the human population.  But can anyone honestly say it’s surprising that people felt good upon learning that a food bank was getting money?  Obviously, if you were to monitor their pleasure receptors while watching money going to, say, interstate highways, that would be introducing too many variables into the equation.  Even among nineteen female Oregonians, you’re going to have some conflicting philosophies.  Maybe some of them are cyclists.  Perhaps others are concerned that the money would be spent on actually fixing the roads instead of picking up litter and recycling it.  So that’s not a tenable research experiment.  But given that most tax revenues are spent on causes significantly less sexy–but no less essential to society–than feeding the hungry, can this experiment really be applied to the general subject of tax compliance? 

Also, I’m no scientist, but it would seem to me that if you wanted to measure what really goes on in people’s brains when they “pay taxes,” you would have to give them MRI’s while confiscating their own actual money, as opposed to the theoretical stuff.  But lying still for an MRI is difficult and time-consuming.  I imagine most working people aren’t motivated to fit it into their schedules.

But what the researchers were really trying to study was not tax-paying, but altruism.

The findings also could help resolve a long-standing debate about the motives behind altruistic behavior. One side asserts that the satisfaction gained from contributing to the overall public good drives people to give money, a motive known as “pure altruism.”

The competing view, known as “warm glow” altruism, holds that people give mostly for the ego-stroking feeling that their personal act of charity made someone else feel better. …

The experiment showed that both forces play a role in altruistic behavior. Subjects had no choice in the taxlike transfers of money to the charity, but they still experienced reward-related brain activity. That showed pure altruism at work, rather than warm glow altruism, since the subjects had no choice in the matter.

See, again, this might just be me, but it seems that if you have no choice in the matter and hungry children are eating, why not feel good about it?  Especially since it was free money to begin with.

Based on how strongly the subjects’ brains responded to receiving money or giving it to the food bank, the researchers found that they could predict how likely individuals were to donate. Those with higher brain activation when money went to the charity rather than to themselves were about twice as likely to give money voluntarily.

This is another Duh Moment.  If you’re heartless enough to begrudge hungry people food when it’s not even your money that they’re taking, it sort of follows that you aren’t going to willingly donate more money of your own accord.  But what do I know?  I was an English major.

Bottom line:  If you have to read something this week, don’t bother with Science.  Pick up this book instead.

When Portland makes the news, we like it to be for something other than our secret terrorist cells.  That’s why we are thrilled to announce that the second annual In The Driver’s Seat Road Rage Survey, commissioned by AutoVantage, found that Portland, Oregon is the most courteous city in the country–that is, it has the least road rage–at least according to the survey.  

This doesn’t come as a surprise to Sugar Daddy, who thinks the reason that Portlanders aren’t outraged is that they’re not paying attention.  Specifically, they are not paying attention to the road, other cars on the road, various traffic lights and signs adorning the road, etc.  SD is, of course, the road rage capital of the Madhousehold.  I guess that as a native Portlander I’m more inclined to take driving frustrations in stride (my distaste for sharing the road with cyclists notwithstanding).  SD, on the other hand, was born in Los Angeles, which ranks as the third least courteous city in the country, which he attributes to the fact that Angelenos know how to drive and expect others to know how also.

So yesterday we were driving during rush hour to have my birthday dinner at the Olive Garden, which is more bourgeois than you’d expect from me, I know, but I was in a bourgeois mood yesterday.  Anyway, this car turned out of a parking lot on the left and pulled into the lane in front of us and turned on its right turn signal.  Which would have been fine, except we were in the left-turn lane with a green arrow and didn’t really want someone trying to merge to the right instead of turning left, which is technically what you’re supposed to do when you’re in the left-turn-only lane.  What you definitely aren’t supposed to do is park your car in the middle of the left-turn-only lane and wait for a break in traffic to the right of you whilst everyone behind you is still wanting to turn left while the light is green because, after all, that is usually the purpose of pulling into the left-turn lane in the first place, even in Portland.

Initially we were hoping that this was a case of someone accidentally hitting their turn signal in the incorrect direction because really, who makes the point of crossing a double yellow line to pull into the left-turn-only lane if one doesn’t really want to turn left?  Well, somebody does, because last night we saw with our very own eyes some cat in a compact Suzuki sitting in the middle of the left-turn-only lane with his right blinker going crazy, waiting for someone to let him into the right lane while the rest of us would-be-left-turners watched our arrow go from green to yellow to red.  So that you may fully appreciate the unbelievable wrongness of this situation, I have provided a helpful illustration:

Fig. 1.1 — Dumb Guy Merging Right

As you can see from the illustration, this “turn,” if you will, of events made SD most displeased.  He had a bad incident of road rage.  The dumb guy is lucky that SD is too courteous to get out of his car and smash dumb people’s cars with a sledge hammer because that is what he felt like doing.  (I assume.  Those Angelenos are famously petulant.) 

Fortunately, with some technically-illegal-but-also-technically-safe maneuvering on SD’s part, we were able to get to the restaurant and have a lovely dinner without incident.  Oh, wait, that was last year.

No, last night we did have a lovely dinner, but ’twas not without incident, as you will discover in your reading.

While we were all sitting at the table, I recalled that the last time we went to the Olive Garden was my birthday dinner two years ago, the eve before my trip to Virginia.  I was about four months pregnant with the baby who was now the toddler sitting next to me, chomping on a breadstick like she was people.  Two years ago at the OG Elvis was still talking.  One of his words was “Cwikey!”  Now he was dividing his time between standing on the (wheeled) dining chairs and running out into the lobby.  (No, we did not “let” him do any of this.  Crikey.)  I looked across the table at Princess Zurg and thought, “How pretty she looks.”  Then I watched her pick her nose.  Yes, this was last night.  As for Mister Bubby–well, MB spent the lion’s share of the evening in the Olive Garden bathroom.  And I wondered if the day would ever come when my relationship with this child was not framed by matters fecal in nature.

As for SD, he gamely divided his time between reining in Elvis and holding MB’s hand (um…figuratively speaking) in the men’s room.  He was the true hero of the evening, road rage notwithstanding. 

Which made up for the fact that his birthday card to me had a big red “40″ on the front.

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

You know you’ve made the right placement decision for your child when…

…you get a call from the school and it’s only her classroom teacher suggesting that she not wear the jeans that expose her rear end when she sits down.

Which reminds me, why don’t they make mom jeans for little girls?

Sugar Daddy:  Here, Mad, I’ll play you a song before you go to bed.  I’m trying to decide if I like it or not.

[Long pause in conversation whilst SD plays the song in question on iTunes]

Madhousewife:  It sounds like something you’d make fun of me for liking.

SD:  Well, that was my concern.

Mad:  Would it help if I told you that I don’t like it at all?

Not to kill the romance or anything, but wasn’t this an episode of The X-Files?

A story in this morning’s Oregonian reports that “less than one of every four pounds of plastic containers now gets recycled in Oregon.”  Really?  Crunchy, green Oregon, environmental pioneer of the nation?  I’m shocked.  Shocked!  How could this be?  Well, from what I could glean from the article–which is more about how the plastic manufacturers are trying to wriggle out of new regulations than it is about how irresponsible Oregonian are–the reasons are threefold:

1.  In the Portland metropolitan area, many kinds of plastic cannot be recycled.  (Too expensive.)

2.  Bottled water and sports drinks don’t carry a return-deposit, thus decreasing consumer incentive to recycle.  (This is the part where drinking soda becomes socially conscientious.)

3.  Mixed curbside recycling requires that recyclable materials be separated by a machine, which loses about 1,700 tons of plastic a year via mechanical errors.  (Hey, nobody’s perfect.)

Here’s the thing about recycling–everyone wants it to be a) convenient and b) someone else’s fault when convenience leads to a drop in recycling. 

When I was living in Portland 17 years ago (ouch–ahem, never mind) we had to sort our own recycling.  Only decadent Californians threw the whole mess in one giant tub.  Now we’re only required to separate our glass, and people complain about that. 

What is wrong with you, Oregonians?  You’ve all turned into a bunch of bike-riding, water-guzzling sissies!  Is the earth worth saving or isn’t it?  Huh?  Huh?

Just curious.

When it’s December in Oregon and it’s raining, you sometimes think that the sun will never rise again. 

That reminds me–I was reading in the newspaper that the FDA is calling for more detailed warning on antidepressants.  This is old news, but as I understand it, anti-depressants can lead to increased suicidal thoughts during the first few weeks of use, among people aged 18-24. 

This is just my armchair scientist talking, but it seems to me that if you’re really depressed and you start taking antidepressants and you don’t start feeling better, you will probably start feeling even worse and maybe want to kill yourself now, even if you didn’t particularly want to before.  I mean, seeking treatment is a hopeful act; not responding to treatment is depressing–tends to pop hope’s balloon, in my experience, but maybe that’s just me.  I’m not one to discount the side effects of powerful psychotropic meds, but I’m just curious how you’d study this supposed phenomenon.  Who’d be your control group?  And how many of these suicidal 18-24-year-olds were living in Oregon in December at the time?

Speaking of the newspaper and the useless tidbits I learn from reading it, I saw a blurb on this website that offers to deliver post-rapture postcards to your non-Christian friends and neighbors who will be “left behind.”  The standard postcards cost $4.99 each; a fancier version goes for $9.99, or you can opt for the super-deluxe option, which costs $799.99. This is just my Mormonish side coming out, but I think this operation might be a scam.  I think I’m just going to leave a note on my fridge:  “Gone to chase after the Rapture folks–back in a few–??”

I also read that the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is about $27,000.  The article went on to note that the average U.S. income is something like $47,000, so this might explain why more people are choosing to co-habit than marry these days (according to the latest Census, or something).  It was a humorous article, not meant to be taken seriously, but it got me thinking.  Specifically, it got me thinking, “Wow–do people really spend $27,000 to get married?”  Again, this is my Mormonish side talking, but you have to understand that I got married for free (not counting the fee for the marriage license, whatever that was).  I can easily understand others spending more, but $27,000–that’s like a down payment on a house.  But, you know, I’m cheap. 

Well, technically, only my wedding was free.  The reception cost money, but I don’t know exactly how much, since it was my mother-in-law that threw the party for us.  It was at her friend’s house, and as I recall, there were some decorations and a cake and some cookies and some crudités, I think.  And punch.  I can’t imagine it cost $27,000.  Oh, and then there’s the cost of film for the pictures my Dad took.  No offense to my Dad, who is a pretty good photographer, but I do regret not having formal pictures taken on our wedding day.  Not regret as in I’ll be lying on my deathbed crying over it, but you know, it would be nice to have some fancy pictures to show the kids and whoever.  Well, whatever.  What’s done is done!  (Or, what’s undone is…undoable.)

Maybe when Sugar Daddy and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary–assuming the Rapture hasn’t taken place–our kids will throw us a big $27,000 party.  And we’ll be old and cranky and criticize the younger generation for being so wasteful and extravagant.  Okay, we won’t.  They just better not be hitting us up for a loan afterward!

I finished Alias Season 5 last night.  It distressed me.  I need a new distraction.  Currently I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov, which is surprisingly engaging for a 900-page Russian novel, but, you know, sometimes you just need something a little lighter.  It is December in Oregon.  And it’s raining.

The following was stolen from CapnK8.  I steal a lot from her.  She doesn’t seem to mind.  Probably because she’s almost perfect.

The Brutally Honest Personality Test

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed piece in today’s Oregonian by Oregon superintendent of public instruction Susan Castillo:

We’ve all heard “All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten.”  This simple truth, that kindergarten is fundamental to lifelong learning, made author Robert Fulghum a multimillionaire.

In Oregon, the title would be “Half of What I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”–because only about 15 percent of our students are in full-day programs. [...]

Research, and the experience of other states, has shown that full-day kindergarten builds academic and social readiness for first grade.  In addition, these gains last throughout the early school years.  [...]

Full-day kindergarten is also a wise long-term investment.  If America is going to keep its competitive edge in the 21st century as technology and globalization transform the world we live in, we need to support education.

Of course, we need to invest more in our high schools, community colleges and universities, but if you really want to increase the number of engineers in the pipeline, you need to introduce kids to math and science when they’re 5 and 6.

Okay, where to begin.  I’m rather at a loss for words.  I just don’t know how many ways I can say it.

It’s.  KINDERGARTEN!

Let me make it clear from the outset:  I understand that many children start school at a disadvantage.  I also understand that our public school system in Oregon (and many other states) has serious problems.  My life is not so sheltered that I am oblivious to the struggles that people outside my small bubble face.

I happen to be a big fan of public education–at least in theory.  In practice I see way too many knuckleheaded educators who think the key to long-term success is cramming mass quantities of book-learning down kids’ throats at the earliest possible age.  (That and a personal computer in every kindergarten teacher’s lap.  Preferably an iBook.)  When Princess Zurg started kindergarten, her school was starting a new “intensive kindergarten” program for students who were “at risk.”  Understand that by “at risk” they did not mean at risk of winding up in prison by the third grade or at risk of going to bed hungry every night or at risk of flunking out of school before they hit puberty.  They meant “at risk” of not being able to read when they entered first grade.

Remember when they didn’t even start teaching kids to read until first grade?  If you’re younger than I am, probably not.  But for years and years and years that was standard practice.  Children didn’t used to go to kindergarten at all.  Those who did spent most of their time in the sandbox and eating paste.  Many of them started first grade not knowing their ABC’s.  And yet, by some miracle, most not only learned how to read but also graduated from high school, got jobs, and lived very successful lives.  (And hold on to your hats, kids–some of them…were even bottle-fed.  True story.  God’s witness.)

When I told a friend about PZ’s school’s “intensive kindergarten,” she said, “Well, they probably figure that these at-risk children are better off spending the day in kindergarten than at home or the day care center.”  She assumed that “at-risk” implied some kind of serious neglect, but this was hardly the case.  At that time we lived in an area that had a lot of low-income and Spanish-speaking families.  But low income and Spanish as a first language are not forms of neglect.  Also, while nearly all of the Spanish-speaking students qualified for “intensive kindergarten” intervention, most of the students who qualified were not Spanish-speaking.  PZ was one of only three kindergarten students who did not qualify for intensive kindergarten.  I talked to some parents of children who did qualify.  They were upset that their five-year-olds who had never attended any kind of school before were suddenly being thrust into a six-hour day of intensive academic training.  What part of “they’re five” did the school not understand?

Five-year-olds do not need to know how to read.  It’s nice if five-year-olds can read, but it’s not necessary.  Princess Zurg could read at five.  Has Princess Zurg been more successful in school than the children at her kindergarten who couldn’t read?  I think not.  PZ has yet to master the stuff that Robert Fulghum considers the key to success in life itself.  Stuff like “share everything.”  “Play fair.”  “Don’t hit people.”  “Clean up your own mess.”  Not a word in there about knowing how to read or do long division.  Nothing about “mouse skills.”  None of the stuff that usually comes up when people talk about preparing our kids for “competing in today’s global economy.”

Seriously.  Seriously, people.  Your five-year-olds do not have to worry about competing in today’s global economy.  They.  Are.  Children.  They need to eat a good breakfast and brush their teeth.  They don’t need to spend all freaking day in school.  They don’t need more instructional time.  They need more free time to discover things on their own.  They need more recess.  They don’t need their own computers.  They don’t need the burden of our nation’s economy on their shoulders before they’ve even entered the first grade.

If America is going to “keep its competitive edge,” it needs to have an educated workforce.  And it is so important for kids to start well.  But “starting well” has more to do with Robert Fulghum’s kindergarten curriculum than with No Child Left Behind.  (Do not get me started.  I am already worked up.)  Intensifying math and science instruction at age five (or six) is not going to increase the number of engineers “in the pipeline”–not if students are burnt out on school before they’re old enough to learn the stuff they need to know to be “competitive” later on in life.  I am sick to death of this attitude that the primary years of grammar school are your destiny.  Actually, I’m sick to death of this attitude that school itself is the primary factor in how well you do in life.

My older sister didn’t learn to read well until the fifth grade.  Did it damage her self-esteem and shake her academic self-confidence?  Absolutely.  She’s felt intellectually inferior her whole life.  Is she intellectually inferior?  No.  Did she drop out of school?  No.  She reads perfectly fine now and has her own business and runs her home with way more efficiency than her college-educated sister.  Her family has been through some financial struggles, to be sure.  But so have lots of other families I know–families where both parents went to college, some got Ph.D.’s and all of whom are in debt up to their eyeballs.  (My sister, incidentally, is not up to her eyeballs in debt because, despite the fact that she never had intensive kindergarten, she learned enough math to know that you don’t spend more than you earn.  How she managed that feat, heaven only knows.)  There is more to success in life than getting good grades in school.  There’s definitely more than getting good grades in kindergarten.  Freaking.  Kindergarten.  I’m sorry, but I can’t stop saying it!

I am beginning to understand why Idaho elected a homeschooler as its superintendent of schools.  Maybe there’s hope for that state after all.

There’s only one reason for a five-year-old to be in school all day:  he has no place else to go.  And if a five-year-old has no place else to go but school, he has bigger problems than math and science can solve.   I am 100 percent in favor of funding education.  I am 100 percent in favor of supporting families and helping parents support their children.  I am ZERO percent in favor of this ridiculous hand-wringing over not having enough five-year-olds in school continuously between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.  It’s stupid.  What part of “they’re five” do people not understand?

EDIT: 

I do think full-day kindergarten is a fine option–some children are ready for full-day school (especially if they’ve been in pre-school a couple years) and as several of you have pointed out, it’s convenient for parents who have to work all day (public school being much cheaper than childcare, for one thing)–but I’m against making it the standard.  And I’m totally against the notion that it makes for smarter, more successful (and “competitive”) human beings because that just isn’t true.  It’s not the program I hate–it’s the lies!

It’s that time of year again:  three weeks away from the election, and we are perusing Book 1 of our voter’s pamphlet, which covers state measures.  I believe there are nine measures we’re voting on this year, which is child’s play compared to the 17 or 26 we had in 2004.  At least there’s nothing about tort reform this time.  Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln, I detest reading about tort reform.  No, the measures this year are all pretty straightforward; I could vote on them with one hand tied behind my back.  Technically, I could vote with two hands tied behind my back, if I had an authorized agent to fill out my ballot for me.  But that will not be necessary.  I am blessed to have the use of both my hands, and my dominant hand is hangnail-free.

I don’t know how it is elsewhere, but Oregonians love them some voter initiatives.  This can be frustrating for people who live in Oregon but don’t like to vote on specific policies.  Every major election brings out droves of editorials on how effed-up it is that Oregonians can’t just leave the policy-making to the professionals; they have to get all involved in the law-making process.  Stupid Oregonians.  Don’t they realize that they don’t know what they’re doing?  My friend’s father used to get so frustrated with the number of initiatives he was supposed to vote on that he resolved to vote No on every last one, without even reading what they were.  But it wasn’t enough for him to Just Say No; he swore that with every punch of the chad, he would shout out, “NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!”  This was before Oregon moved to 100 percent vote-by-mail.  Vigorously punching chads and screaming “NO!” in the privacy of one’s own home just doesn’t have the same dramatic effect. 

Myself, I don’t have strong feelings about the initiative process, but I do prefer to read the measures before I vote on them.  In the event that I can’t make heads or tails of a specific measure, I like to read the “Arguments in Favor” and the “Arguments in Opposition.”  Well, I don’t actually like to read the arguments themselves, but I like to see who wrote them.  For example, if Planned Parenthood, NARAL and Right To Life are all opposed to a particular measure, it’s a pretty good bet that something is seriously amiss in this proposed law.  What that could be, I don’t know.  But if OSPIRG is in favor of the same law, then my choice is made.  [Punch]  “NO!”

I am leery of arguments that don’t address the substance of the message.  Arguments like “Measure such-and-such won’t solve anything.”  (That’s like those “War is not the answer” bumper stickers.  Yes, I get it, you don’t like war.  So what is the answer?  Anyone?  Anyone?)  That just makes me mad.  Doesn’t mean I disagree, necessarily, but I don’t like being treated like a kid who’s just asked where babies come from and gets told that he’s too young to understand.  I also don’t like when they argue against the Chief Petitioners of the measure instead of the measure itself.  “This initiative was brought to you by out-of-state interests!  MWAHAHAHAHAHA!”  (Or, as is more common in Oregon, “This initiative was written by Bill Sizemore.  Need we say more?”)

My favorite is the cat who writes under the auspices of fake special-interest groups like “Citizens for Ancient Prejudices” or “Committee To Advance Hate.”  Whenever there’s a social issue on the ballot, such as the 2004 measure defining marriage as a monogamous heterosexual union, he writes an “Argument in Favor,” posing as a religious nutburger and saying stuff like “Leviticus says God hates gays” and “Agree with us or BURN IN HELL!”  He writes four or five of these outlandish screeds at $500 a pop, so he obviously has time and money to burn.  (I just hope he isn’t using his SSI checks.  That would be wrong.)  He’s written a few more $500 ravings-of-a-fake-lunatic in favor of the proposed parental-notification abortion law this year.  While I’m not sure what gay people or Leviticus have to do with abortion, I am sure that all the undecided voters appreciate him cutting through the crap and revealing the hidden hand of the religious right in these assaults on our liberty. 

Several years ago, when we were preparing to move here from California, a friend of ours who was from Oregon told us that where Midwesterners were backwards and conservative, Oregonians were backwards and liberal.  Even though I’d already shifted to the dark side by that time, I still didn’t understand, quite, how such a thing was possible.  Wasn’t “liberal” the opposite of “backward”?  It only took a few months of living in Eugene to figure out how people could be both liberal and backward.  The proof was in the death threats received by an environmentalist who’d written a sarcastic letter to the editor denouncing bicyclists.  It was also in this reported exchange between a UO student who asked if it wasn’t both sexist and racist for the U.S. to bomb Pearl Harbor in World War II and the professor who replied, “Don’t talk in my class again, dear.  How did you graduate high school?”  And it’s also in the ramblings of a madman who thinks the only possible reason you could want to know about your minor daughter’s abortion is that you think Jesus spoke to you through your corn flakes this morning.

It reminds me of the 1992 election, when my college professor told the story of walking into the 7-Eleven (or the Piggly Wiggly, or whatever they had there), and some redneck asking him if that was his Clinton-Gore bumper sticker out in the parking lot.  My professor said that it was, to which the redneck replied, “I thought so.  When I saw it, I knew it had to belong to either a foreigner or a n—–.”  My professor ended the story by saying, “And thus I was reminded why it is that I’m voting the way I am in November.” 

I relayed this anecdote to a conservative friend of mine, who thought it was most unfair for my professor to lump every Republican in with this racist wacko.  I’m sure my liberal friends would take umbrage at being lumped in with people who can’t recognize satire or remember who exactly dropped the bombs on Pearl Harbor.  But such are the games people play during election season.  Which is why I recommend staying away from all newspapers and especially television until after November 7.

Trojan has released its first “Sexual Health Report Card,” and Oregon State University gets high marks.  (Hat tip:  Steve Duin of the Oregonian.)  It ranks fifth in a survey of 100 universities, which were graded on availability of condoms, contraceptives, testing, outreach, advice and sexual assault services.  (I don’t know about that last one.  Is that what the kids are calling it these days?)

Each school received a grade-point average.  Yale got a 4.0 (psh–what do you expect from those overachievers?), and OSU got a 3.4 (not bad for a school that ranks 87th on Washington Monthly’s school rankings), while University of Oregon got a 1.3 (quack quack!).  UO is where SD went to grad school, of course, during which I had two of our four children.  Just imagine, if we’d gone to OSU, Mister Bubby and Elvis might never have been born–and SD’s Ph.D. wouldn’t be worth the condom it was printed on.  But I digress.

Brigham Young University finished dead last, scoring failing grades in every category.  I have only two words for that.  Go Cougs!

BYU is one of the 76 schools surveyed that doesn’t provide free condoms.  (The students don’t really need them.  Guys on that campus only want one thing:  a wife.)  OSU is one of 24 campuses that does offer free condoms, thanks to student fees (woo-hoo!).  Campus health educator Malinda Shell says, “Part of our job is to make safer sex exciting.  We try to make things a little more interesting for students who are sexually active.”  Which is why OSU’s condoms are orange and black.  “You can show your school spirit at all times.”

UO’s director of health promotion, Paula Staight, says, “In college, we’re about risk reduction and harm reduction and not about abstinence.  The students are 18.  They’re adults.  We treat them as such.”

I’m going to pause the blog here and let you all read that last paragraph again.  Got it?  Okay, I’ll go ahead then.

Ahem.

“Adults” know how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  They’ve either had the birds and bees talk with their folks, taken sex ed in high school, watched a very special episode of Boy Meets World, or they’ve read a book or Cosmo article or two.  “Adults” are mature enough to take responsibility for their own sexual health.  They don’t walk around like horny doofuses, oblivious to what causes that swelling in their midsection or the burning sensation when they urinate.  “Adults” also understand that sex has emotional and psychological dimensions to it, with attendant issues that cannot be addressed by contraceptives and HIV testing.  And, most importantly–

“ADULTS” CAN BUY THEIR OWN FREAKING CONDOMS!!!

And here’s another newsflash, Jethro:  If you think the youngsters need university bureaucracy to make sex more interesting, you’ve been in academia way too long. 

I dislike Daylight Savings Time.  I understand the purpose of DST.  I just don’t like it.  The reason I don’t like it is because the sun stays up e-freaking-nough in the summer, at least in Oregon.  Here, it rises at around 4:45 a.m. and sets at around 10 p.m.  Don’t you think that should be enough daylight for any reasonable person? 

My children do not understand the concept of a clock telling you when it’s time to do something, such as wake up or sleep.  They wake up when it’s light and go to sleep when it’s dark.  Since there are a number of things I cannot do while my children are awake, I have to do them between the hours of 10 and midnight.  Which means that I end up going to bed really, really late even when I’m smart enough to want to go to bed early–which I admit isn’t often, but sometimes it happens–and I have to wake up at some ungodly hour to some big obnoxious sunshine and my three-year-old throwing a sipper cup at my head. 

Which means that in our house, DST doesn’t conserve as much energy as it kills.

Don’t cave in, Arizona!  Fight the power!

Dear Portland,

For the last thirty years you have been in denial.  Your population is growing.  Specifically, your car-driving population is growing.  I know.  Those SOB's.  You have the best public transportation system in the country and people insist on locking themselves in their little metal boxes and violating your clean air with that awful, non-biodiesel fuel.  Ew.  You build bike line upon bike lane–bike bridges upon bike bridges, for crying out loud–and you even spent public money holding cycling workshops especially for women so they would free themselves from their patriarchial automobiles and embrace the I-burned-4700 calories-towing-the-kids-to-daycare-on-the-back-of-my-Eros-Donna-so-I-could-arrive-at-work-dripping-with-sweat-and-mascara-running-down-my-face ethos that makes our city great.  All of this to send one simple message:  This isn't L.A. so get on the bus already, dammit. 

Only one problem–no one seems to appreciate your efforts.  I know, you do and do and DO for these people and this is the thanks you get.  Well!  You know what would show them?  Go ahead and just widen the freeway.  Heckfire, build a whole new one while you're at it.  Within no time this place will be just like L.A. and then they'll be sorry.  Then they'll see the error of their ways.  No, really, we–ahem, they will.

Sincerely,

Giraffedriver

* * * 

Dear Young Woman walking home from the bus stop yesterday afternoon,

Even if you weighed fifty pounds less–and girlfriend, I am not saying you should–but let's just say you did:  Wearing your pants so low that your thong shows is still not a classy look.  More to the point, wearing your pants so low that your thong shows in the front is always a Glamour Don't.  There's only one gal who can really pull that look off, and her name is Two-Dollar Whore.  That isn't you.  Trust me.  That isn't you.

Sincerely,

A Friend

* * *  

Dear Medco,

For the record, nine days without Zoloft is the breaking point.  Okay?  Sick experiment over?  Give me my drugs now.  NOW.  NOW!!!

X's & O's,

madhousewife

My mother-in-law will be visiting us over the next fortnight, so I will either be really scarce or I'll be on here every day, taking the free babysitting way too much for granted.  I love my mother-in-law and I love having her visit, but one of the reasons I'd love it if she moved up to
Portland is that I'm growing weary of her refusal to fly.  (Ride on an airplane, I mean.  I wouldn't want you to think I was making an unreasonable demand.)  The charitable part of me–the part I try to nurture whenever possible–understands that she has an irrational fear, and we all have irrational fears, and it isn't her fault that her irrational fear is really inconvenient, blah blah…that part of me is very sympathetic.  The impatient, self-centered part of me thinks she should try harder to get over it because not flying usually means (for her) taking the train, which means that the trip from Los Angeles to Portland takes about ten times longer and her arrival is always delayed by several hours.  And today it freaking snowed.  In
Portland!  I know!  And because it never snows here, people don't know how to drive in the snow, and also it can't stay dry long enough so it soon turns into a big sheet of ice, so venturing out in this weather in one's vehicle to pick up somebody at the train station downtown in the middle of the night is not the most comforting holiday activity.  Fortunately, we have life insurance.

What's wrong with Amtrak?  Seriously.  It's not a weather thing.  They were four hours late coming into
Los Angeles from freaking
San Diego.  There's no snow there.  There's no snow when it's ten hours late in the middle of freaking April.  A couple years ago she had to get off the train mid-trip because of some derailment or other train-related fiasco, and they put her on a bus.  The train had been running several hours behind schedule, but the bus got her here several hours earlier than we'd been expecting her.  Freaking Greyhound.  Leave the driving to them.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm sure train rides are nice–I'd like to take one sometime.  Just not if I'm in a hurry to get somewhere.  But I probably need to slow down myself, don't I?  Hmmph.  I have to go fold my twelve loads of laundry.  Maybe I'll just make like a train and do it tomorrow.

The baby shower went quite swimmingly, all things considered.  I decided to bag the whole "game" thing and let people be content with eating, socializing and dropping off their gifts.  Personally, I hate baby shower games.  I especially hate the one where they give you a piece of bubble gum to chew and then tell you to sculpt a baby out of it.  That's just disgusting.  (Beats the "poopy diaper" game for gross-out factor, seeing how you're involving actual body secretions.  ::shudder::  I won the poopy diaper game last time I played it, by the way.  I'm not entirely without skills.)  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yes, the party.  I made food and I exploited the kindness of yet another acquaintance, who babysat Elvis and his little sister while I went to Target and picked up a baby swing–which would have been difficult for me to do with a Baby Bjorn strapped to my chest.  Well, assuming the Baby Bjorn had a baby inside it.  Baby Bjorns by themselves are reasonably uncumbersome and don't interfere much with one's center of gravity.  I don't do the Baby Bjorn anymore, though, because I got me a Maya Wrap, which is not only more comfortable and functional, but it makes me look like one of those hip, earth-mother types who only buys organic produce and clothes her infant in hemp diapers.  It's the closest I've got to a Halloween costume.

More Stuff I Didn't Say Before I Had Kids

"No, that's part of my face.  It doesn't come off.  It stays on my face.  It stays on my face.  Ow!  Stop it!"

More Crap I Just Don't Get

Someone needs to explain to me the Portland news media's obsession with convicted panty thief Sung Koo Kim, the Tigard man who first came to prominence a couple years ago as a "person of interest" in Brooke Wilberger's disappearance.  It has long been established that not only is Kim not a suspect in the Wilberger case, he's not even that interesting.  He had nothing to do with Brooke Wilberger disappearing, but he's still on the news every other night, shuffling into court, wearing that orange jumpsuit and that creepy look of serenity on his face, a little half-smile that seems to say, "Prison is a lot cooler than living with Mom and Dad."  I understand that police found violent pornography on his computer's hard drive, and he's got an astonishingly large collection of stolen women's underwear (which they keep showing us–very colorful, lots of thongs), but enough already.  Really.  Is he the only panty thief in the state of
Oregon?  The only Korean panty thief?  What?

Time to clean the house.  I've been in abandoned movie theaters with cleaner floors.

Could anything be more festive than trick-or-treating with three young children in the pouring rain?  No.  And that is why I loooooove Halloween in
Oregon.

Speaking of Halloween, my husband had decided to go all "subtle" with his costume this year–as opposed to last year, when he went out in an electric blue page-boy wig and some of my more egregious wardrobe investments from the '80s (no miniskirts) and a painted-on mustache.  Trust me, the mustache is creepy enough by itself, but paired with the other two–I really didn't want to see him next to my kids.  I think he scared everyone, including them.  Anyway, this year he purchased a pair of vampire teeth that he glues over his real canines, and voila, that's his costume.  Which concerns me because either a) my anti-Halloween personality is dampening his sense of adventure, or b) that corporate culture is killing him spiritually.  Anyway, now he can't find his teeth, and I'm hoping that if he doesn't find them, he at least resurrects the blue page-boy.  I hate to see my man so freaking respectable.

So Friday night Sugar Daddy and I got to go out, and since we've seen the only movie out there worth seeing right now (Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit), we decided to do something a little different and went to a haunted house out in Hubbard.  SD was visiting a web site called rootsofallevil.com, and this haunted house attraction had the distinction of being scariest, so dude, where else could we go? 

On the way out of town we stopped at SD's new favorite taqueria, 3 Hermanos in freaking Tigard, so he could goad me into trying lengua tacos.  He is somewhat obsessed with getting me to eat stuff that is, from a philosophical standpoint, totally disgusting.  A couple weeks ago I got to taste blood sausage.  On Friday I tried lengua.  And you know, it was pretty tasty, no pun intended, but courage to take that first bite–and every bite after that, really–is basically mind over matter.  Afterward he congratulated me on my manliness.

So this haunted house out in Hubbard has a well-deserved reputation for scariness.  There are about 40 actors inside playing the undead and their respective murderers, and while they don't ever touch you, they get awfully close and have this disconcerting habit of sneaking up on you.  Okay, you know that it's all fake and nobody's really going to pull a chainsaw on you, but it doesn't help.  It was really scary.  Even SD said afterwards that it was terrifying.  I asked him why he kept laughing the whole time, and he said, "Because every time they scared me, they scared me so good."  He also said that he likes that I don't have that high-pitched girly scream but that I just sort of whimper pathetically when I'm on the verge of wetting myself out of fright.

He thanked me for indulging him, just like he did the last time he scared me seventy-five percent to death (last November's trip to

Magic
Mountain–holy crap, was that a year ago?)–and then he asked which took more bravery on my part, entering the haunted house or biting into that tongue taco.  I think there might be a chance in hell that I'll eat lengua again, but I'm not sure about the haunted house.  I told him to ask me again next year.

Speaking of scary stuff that makes you go into premature labor, our church's annual Chili Cook-Off is this Friday.  I'm concerned because SD has been so preoccupied with work stuff that he's hardly spoken a word about his chili-making plans.  I need him to make chili for the Chili Cook-Off, of course, because otherwise there won't be any there worth eating.  (Look, I would make it myself, but I don't want him to think I'm trying to emasculate him or something.)  If he doesn't end up making chili, I hope he at least wears the blue page-boy.  He has a reputation to maintain.  For me, anyway.

 I'm rather distressed today because my local talk radio station stopped carrying Larry Elder live and put him in the 9 p.m.-12 midnight slot.  He's been replaced by some local cat, who I'm sure is very nice, but I went through six years of Larry Elder withdrawal, waiting patiently for the day when he would get syndicated and picked up by a Portland station.  I've been listening faithfully, too, and this is how they repay me!  (Whoever "they" are.)  It's almost as bad as when the station that carried Dennis Prager went all Spanish-speaking and the Christian station that picked him up put him on between 1 and 4 in the morning.  Stupid Christians.  No offense to them.

You all have to forgive me, but I've only been back on the Zoloft for a couple days and it hasn't reached a therapeutic level yet.  That's why this is the worst time in the world to take away my afternoons with Larry.  I don't know how I'm supposed to drive or clean my kitchen or anything now–I'll have to start talking to my kids or something.

Last week the Madhousehold visited some of the grand attractions of our fair state,
Oregon.  We started on Tuesday with our first visit ever to the

Enchanted
Forest, which is visually a tad more obscured (because it's in a forest), has always suffered from that association.

However, I had it on good authority that the

, which has life-size replicas of scenes from various fairy tales and children's stories.  There's an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole you can crawl into, which becomes this long, very small tunnel, completely pitch-black until you come out a giant keyhole on the other side.  Elvis must have gone through there a dozen times.  I couldn't follow him because my adult-size, pregnant self probably would have gotten stuck, and that would have ruined the enchantment for everyone.  You can also visit the Seven Dwarfs' mine and climb into the mouth of a giant witch's head and come out on a slide.  Elvis did that about 37 times. 

Eventually we got to Western Town, which was a little less enthralling for the youngsters, who didn't care to have their pictures taken with Abe Lincoln (what he was doing in the old west, I'm still not sure, but he was very authentic-looking; even the beard was real).  SD and I did pose for pictures with Abe, and we got to wear Confederate uniforms and carry guns and everything.  Why we were posing with Abe Lincoln in Confederate uniforms with guns, I'm not sure either, but it was fun. 

Less fun was the Haunted House, which SD insisted on taking the kids to.  He was going to leave Elvis out of it, but the kid threw such a tantrum about wanting to go inside that SD and I both consulted our Bad Parent manual and concluded that it would be less traumatic just to take him after all.  I know, I know, you should never trust the Bad Parent manual.  I'm going to burn mine one of these days.  Well, anyway, the Haunted House was scary.  I don't know if I would have been scared all by myself, but walking through with Mister Bubby and Elvis and wondering what gruesome sights and sounds I was going to have to shield them from was terrifying.  Interestingly enough, I think Elvis was doing okay up until this skeleton head rushed at me and made me scream.  That was the beginning of the end, which unfortunately took much longer to come than one would expect.  I rushed through the rest of the evil tour trying to cover both my sons' eyes and yelling, "Don't look!  Don't look!"  I didn't look, but I can't vouch for the boys, who may end up in therapy someday wondering why their mother was such a freaking idiot.  Bad, Bad Parent manual.

Overall, however, the park was worth the price of admission.  It helped that it was a lot, lot cheaper than
Disneyland.

After leaving the park, we drove down to scenic Eugene, where we visited my good friend Melissa H. (she of the Hong Kong Chicken fame) and her family, who were to watch the kids whilst SD and I gallavanted off to Newport for our 3-1/2-year belated 5-year anniversary getaway.  First, though, I had a baby shower to go to, where I got to see some old friends and win a lot of candy bars playing a baby shower game.  None of them were candy bars I'm really crazy about, but I enjoy winning stuff anyway.  Well.  The next morning we met the H's for a swim at the Amazon Pool.  MB drew a picture:

(L to R, Mister Bubby, Elvis, Princess Zurg, Sugar Daddy and me.  I don't look very pregnant in that bathing suit, but I might be hiding a couple fetuses in my left arm and leg.)

After swimming, SD and I took off for
Newport, where he had booked us at a bed & breakfast that was a Big Secret That I Was Not To Know About So I Could Be Surprised.  Which I was, because I'm not into discovering big secrets that are supposed to be surprises.  We stayed at the Sylvia Beach Hotel for Booklovers, which is an absolutely delightful establishment.  Each of the rooms is decorated with a different author theme.  SD had originally wanted to stay in the F. Scott Fitzgerald room, but it was booked through September, so instead we were in Poe.  Which I suspect was cooler anyway, so I was hardly disappointed.  I have pictures of that too, but I can't freaking find them on my computer, so you'll have to use your imagination.  Perhaps that will be best anyway.  So whatever.  They have a wonderful family-dining style restaurant, Tables of Content.  The food is excellent, and we spent several hours in delightful conversation with three other couples we'd never met before.  I was sad to leave because I knew it would be at least a couple years before we could return, but next time we go we will certainly spend a couple more days there.  Maybe we'll get to stay in Fitzgerald then.  (I just know I'm not going to sleep in Willa Cather's room–too much frontier privation.)

So we returned to
Eugene the next day to reunite with children, but we also went on a dinner date with the (adult) H's to our favorite restaurant in
Eugene, Chef's Kitchen, where I had duck for the first time.  It was good.  (Quack.)  After bidding our final adieus to the H's (all of them), we took a little tour of our old haunts in
Springfield.  I found this more than a little depressing.  I'm not sure why.  I have many fond memories of our time there, but also a lot of un-fond ones, and I can't help mixing up the two into one big awful kind of memory of things I desperately miss and things I desperately wish had never happened.  Fortunately,
Springfield isn't a very big place and we went back to the hotel, where Elvis instantly fell asleep.  Score.

The next day we drove down to the Wildlife Safari in Winston.  The drive-through part of this park is very cool.  I got to see a lot of giraffes.  And ostriches, which are very cute.  And baby ostriches, which are even cuter.  The rest of the park is eh, whatever.  SD and the kids rode elephants.  Overall, the price-to-good ratio was not as favorable as that of

Enchanted
Forest, but when one place is dirt cheap and charming and the other place is expensive and south of
Roseburg, it isn't really a fair comparison, I guess.  The interesting thing was that on our way out of the park, looking for a place to eat, we saw this Noah's Ark Restaurant, which boasts among its many attractive attractions a full-scale replica of Moses' Tabernacle.  It's possible that the place was owned by some Jehovah's Witnesses, who had a Kingdom Hall right next door.  As curious as we were about what Watchtower Cuisine might consist of, we thought perhaps it wasn't the best choice to take tired, hungry and irreligious children.  Maybe next time.  You know, if we ever have occasion to be in Winston again as long as we live.  Which I don't plan on.

We had dinner at Denny's.  Then we went home.  Now SD is back at work and the children are back to making me old before my time.  Oh, wait.  They never stopped.

Looks like it's time to be stocking up on Sugar Daddy's beloved Ny- and DayQuil, before the Oregon Senate passes the prescription-only pseudoephedrine bill.  I haven't been too emotionally invested in this particular controversy, though I suppose my inner libertarian might have something to say about it, if she weren't already too busy fuming about property rights and the interstate commerce clause.  (Don't disturb her; she's not in a good mood these days.)  Personally, I don't use pseudoephedrine, even when I'm not pregnant or breastfeeding (in other words, eight years ago–just kidding).  Not because I have some wild notion that it's bad for me.  I just think cold medicines are useless.  I know, because I used to use them, and they never gave me any relief whatsoever, and I started feeling like a real chump, popping all these pills for nothing.  Now I do my head-cold suffering drug-free.  I get the exact same results, but I feel much more empowered.  (Which is the female version of feeling rugged and manly, in case that makes any more sense to you.)

SD feels differently, however, which is funny because ordinarily the man shuns medicine.  He gets a splitting headache, but he won't take anything for it.  He has really bad hay fever, but he won't take his Claritin.  He can be suffering incredible muscle pain (because he spent the day trying to take apart our ancient metal-of-unknown-origin planter with a hacksaw, or something equally stupid), but when I suggest he take some freaking Motrin already, he shrugs and grunts and shuffles off to some other part of the house where he can whine in peace.  (Like I asked him to stick a needle in his eye or something.  What he has against ibuprofen, I don't know.  Personally, I love ibuprofen.  Oh, ibuprofen, how I miss you.  But I'm getting off topic.)  He'll sometimes take Tylenol, which is ultra-safe for a very good reason (it doesn't do diddly-squat unless you have a fever, or it's laced with codeine), but in general, he really, really hates taking drugs of any kind.  Except NyQuil.  He swears by NyQuil.  It's a magic elixir for him.  As is DayQuil, for some strange reason.  I say "strange" because as far as I'm concerned, NyQuil is good for only one thing, and that's knocking you out cold, and if you're not being knocked out cold, you're wasting your time.  But to each his own.

Anyway, this new legislation distresses me only because when SD gets his next cold and has to see a freaking doctor to get his NyQuil, well, that's just never going to happen.  He's just going to rant and rave and whimper and moan until the darn virus runs its course–which, in the hotbed of disease that is
Oregon, could take months.  So I have to stock up now.  The problem is, I don't want to look like some crazy meth lab operator, so I gotta stay below the radar–you know, picking up a box here and there at different stores, taking advantage of all the loopholes in the current legislation.  But that's so much work.  I'm wondering, however, if meth dealers aren't at some point going to find it more profitable to deal in black-market Sudafed for men who are too rugged and manly to go to a doctor.  Maybe this bill is a good idea after all.

When the newspaper ticks me off, I must respond.  But not in the form of a letter to the editor.  Rejection from a non-paying market is especially difficult for me to bear.

The other day the Oregonian ran a story about a child who had been put up for adoption by her teenage birth mother through Catholic Charities.  The birth father, also a teenager, had been aware of the birth mother's pregnancy but refused to acknowledge paternity or be involved in any way.  (From what I could gather, it seems they spent one night together way back when and subsequently went their separate ways.)  The birth father's mother was similarly uninterested in the girl's pregnancy, right up until the day the baby was born.  Then she suddenly had a change of heart, as did her son, and they asked if they could come visit the baby in the hospital.  The birth mother agreed but informed them that the adoption papers had already been signed.  (She had made them aware of her intentions long before; they just didn't care until now.) 

Well, long story still long, the born-again grandma and daddy fell in love with the baby when they held her, as people are wont to do with actual, live babies who are most likely related to them even if they didn't think so previously (that was before they saw how cute she was!), and they changed their minds about wanting to be involved in the baby's life.  Unfortunately, the adoptive parents had signed the adoption papers and taken the baby home from the hospital and named her and fell in love with her themselves (even though they didn't share any DNA with her, strangely enough) before the birth father decided to invoke his parental rights.  He discovered that the birth mother had lied about the signing of the adoption papers, which hadn't yet taken place at the time of his first visit to the hospital; it actually happened 24 hours later, which meant that three months after the adoptive parents took the baby home with them, a judge ruled that the birth father was entitled to his offspring because he'd been deceived.  The judge told the adoptive parents he was sorry about it, but that was the law.  I don't doubt that that is true.

I guess that I am just extremely unsympathetic to teenage boys who have one-night stands with girls they don't care about and who don't exhibit any sign of wanting to behave like decent, responsible human beings until they have the transforming experience of holding the tiny people their sperm helped create.  I won't go all Dr. Laura on you and say teenagers should never get custody of their children.  I just think that if you're a guy having unprotected sex with random girls and denying that you're the father and acting like a jerk and the girl decides to put your baby up for adoption, well, you're just crap out of luck.  If you decide at the last minute that you can't bear the indignity of your child being raised by a mature, married couple, I'm afraid it just sucks to be you.

That's if I ruled the world, of course.

I understand perfectly why most unmarried women don't give their babies up for adoption.  It would rip my heart out to do such a thing, even if I really felt it was for the best.  But what also rips my heart out is when a child is taken from the only parents she's known and given to someone whose only claim on her is chromosomal.  Yes, fortunately, the child was only three months old; it would have been much worse if she'd been older, but would that have made any legal difference?  I doubt it. 

Anyway, that story just made me sad.  What ticked me off was the letter to the editor today that took issue with the Oregonian's headline for this article, which said the ruling ended in "heartbreak."  Heartbreak for whom, the letter writer asked–certainly not for the biological father and grandmother.  No, certainly not for them.  God forbid the biological relatives should suffer the heartbreak of consequences stemming from their insensitive, shortsighted behavior.  The letter writer went on to point out that this way the child could be raised by people who looked like her and "shared her interests"–whatever the bleeping hell that's supposed to mean.  Then she said it was offensive to suggest that this professional couple would have made better parents than the teenage birth father, that such an assertion was nothing short of "social eugenics." 

I don't know about anyone else, but my instinct that this couple would have made better parents has little to do with them being professionals, or even so much with their age.  It has more to do with the fact that they entered this story wanting to be parents.  When they discovered there was a baby who could be theirs, they were delighted, not annoyed.  They made preparations and financial investments immediately, rather than waiting until they could see her in person and give her the old test-drive, properly assess if she'd suit their needs and so forth.  They cared for that baby and loved her for three months–a short period of time, but long enough for even the baby to form an attachment–until someone decided that maybe being a parent would be cool after all, so he took her away from them.  If characterizing that as heartbreaking is social eugenics, well, three cheers for social eugenics. 

I certainly hope that the birth father has undergone a remarkable growth spurt in maturity and that he is willing and able to provide for all of his child's needs; parenthood is certainly a transformative experience and even the most ill-prepared among us have been known to rise to the challenge.  And hopefully this couple will be able to adopt another child eventually, but that doesn't diminish their heartbreak.  They won't forget their first child just because they get a second, any more than birth parents would.  It's outrageous to suggest otherwise.

So they're recommending, once again, that
Oregon tear down its state mental hospital and build a new one.  I have only one thing to say about this:  It's about stinking time.  Remember that hospital in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest?  That's the

Oregon
State
Hospital.  For real.  The actual one.  And in case you're wondering, no, it doesn't look any better now than it did then.  Of course, they recommended 20 years ago that the place be torn down, but the state kept pouring money and patients into it anyway.  Will this dinosaur finally go the way of all the other dinosaurs?  We can only pray.

Well, you won't have Madhousewife to kick around for the next few days because I will be making my great tour of
Virginia and
Maryland.  I know I need this vacation because Sunday night I started missing my kids and I haven't even left yet.  Being how it's been seven years plus since I've been able to spend a day not changing anyone's diaper or going to the bathroom by myself, I view that sentiment less as extreme maternal love and more as extreme co-dependency.  We'll see what I'm really made of once I've gone 48 hours without getting someone juice.

And to those of you straight-A math students who deduced from my blog of yesterday that today is my birthday, thank you for the well-wishes.  I will eat some cake for you.  Okay, I'll eat it for all of you, since I like you so much.  I still have to decide where I want to go out to dinner tonight.  I've been eating a lot of Thai food lately.  Yesterday my husband came home with Thai food left over from his business lunch.  Some people get doggy bags; my husband gets a wife bag.  He knows how to keep me on his good side. 

See you next week, kids.

Princess Zurg Takes the Joke and Runs with It

Princess Zurg:  Why did you just call me Apple Cheeks?

 Giraffemom:  I used to call you Apple Cheeks all the time when you were little because you had such chubby, rosy cheeks, it looked like they were big apples that I could take bites out of. 

PZ:  And did you call my eyeballs Grape Eyeballs?

GM (laughing):  No, I never thought to do that.

PZ:  And my blood Juice Blood?

GM (laughing harder):  No.

PZ:  And my bones Candy Bones?

GM:  No.

PZ:  Why not?

GM:  I didn't have much imagination in those days, what can I say?

********************************************

So this weekend we went to the Saturday Market downtown.  I wasn't crazy about the idea at first because a) I don't like going downtown with kids and b) I'm no fun.  However, as is usually the case when I grudgingly go on an outing Sugar Daddy proposes, I ended up having a pretty good time.  This is how it goes.  At first it's a pain, then after 90 minutes or so, I think, "This is fun.  I'm glad we came."  Then a half-hour after that, I start thinking, "This was fun.  Soon it will be time to go home."  Then a half-hour after that, I think, "Okay, it's time to go home now."  Then two hours after that I think, "I hate it here.  Are we ever going to leave?"

We spent a truckload of money.  Not so much on the goods and trinkets that they sell at Saturday Market, most of which is a) really expensive or more often b) crap.  But we bought so much food.  The food is fantastic.  You know, if you buy the right kind.  I've decided that Pad Thai is my comfort food.  I could eat that stuff 'til my butt fell off.  In other words, forever. 

Princess Zurg got pizza because she's that way.  Mister Bubby and Elvis each opted for a Natural Foods Burrito.  Yes, that is the name printed on the booth.  I like natural food as much as the next person, but I'm of the opinion that if the selling point of your cuisine is that it's "natural" or "vegetarian," that usually translates to, "Tastes like paste, but damn is it ever healthy!"  The burrito the boys got consisted of organic black beans, brown rice, and Jack cheese rolled up in a wholesome whole wheat tortilla.  Absolutely nothing wrong with any of those four ingredients, but come on.  Come on.  Elvis spent a half-hour gnawing at the outside, and the black bean-brown rice-Jack cheese filling just stayed suspended in mid-air as the whole-wheat tortilla disappeared around it.  It was the
Cheshire burrito.  I'm not exaggerating.

Sugar Daddy got some Lebanese food, but then he decided he needed to have some sambusas.  MB wanted one, too, as did PZ, and SD wanted me to try one, so sambusas for all!  Cha-ching, cha-ching!  They were delicious.  Delicious.  Could have been organic, too, for all we know.  Some folks don't have to brag.

The main differences between Portland's Saturday Market and Eugene's Saturday Market is a) size, b) fewer booths devoted to hemp products, and c) the quality of the street performers.  Our favorite was this lady tap-dancer, but we also got a kick out of this cat who called himself Mr. Statue.  His entire body was painted silver, and he stood on the sidewalk like a, well, statue, until someone dropped some money in his bucket–then he'd reach down and shake the person's hand.  It was actually pretty eerie.  MB was too shy to give him money, but PZ was too intrigued to pass up the opportunity.  She was brave.

The weirdest act was this old Asian guy dressed in a well-groomed hobo outfit and top hat, playing an accordian.  Badly.  He looked like he was going to pass out any minute.  It was kind of creepy, especially the way he'd catch your eye and stare at you.

Have you ever seen a dog wearing a diaper?  I saw someone walking this little, fluffy, white pooch wearing a diaper, complete with an opening for its tail, which wagged happily as though unaware that its dignity was being compromised.  "That's actually a really good idea," SD said.  I thought so, too.  I wish the dogs in our neighborhood were less concerned about looking "cool."

The gross-out moment of the day happened a little later, when I noticed that somebody had left a dirty diaper on one of the old battleship pieces they have displayed in concrete on the water front.  I thought that was an odd lifestyle choice.  Change your kid's diaper and leave it on a historical monument.  Okay.  It could have been the dog's diaper, for all I know, but since there was a wipe sticking out of it, I thought that unlikely.  Parents and dog-owners, please–if you must change your baby's diaper in public, please put the used one in an appropriate receptacle, i.e. not the old battleship on the water front.  Just a polite request from the less-disgusting elements of society.

We took the light rail, so we had a nice, relaxing trip home.  Well, at least as far as the park 'n ride.  Then it all went to hell.  But that's another story.  What I find amusing about the light rail is that in addition to advertisements, we now have a variety of short poems posted on the walls of the train for our reading enjoyment.  The poets ranged from Matthew Zapruder to the first-place winner of Oil of Olay's Fine Lines Poetry Contest.  Yeah.  I think that says it all.  More entertaining than reading the Passenger Rules but possibly less so than staring at your fellow passengers.  It depends on the time of day, I'm sure.

So yesterday I cleaned my fridge.  Yes, I am fishing for props, kids.  Go, me!  Woo-hoo!  I totally rock!  I'm still thinking of a suitable way to reward myself.

Sugar Daddy had a bad day so he didn't do the grocery shopping last night, like he usually does on Tuesdays.  That was okay, but then he asked if I would do it today.  Aaaauughhhh!  No, it's not an unreasonable request.  Lots of housewives do the grocery shopping.  Just not me (anymore) because I hate it.  Not just because I have to take the kids with me.  Even when I'm doing it alone, I get anxiety attacks.  I don't know why, but I abhor grocery shopping.  The day my husband makes so effing much money that we don't know what to do with it is the day I start grocery shopping on the internet and having Safeway deliver to my home.  Only not Safeway–some fancy schmancy grocery store that caters to people who make too effing much money and sells lots of organic crap that hasn't been genetically engineered.  My children will be all finished growing, but at least SD and I can live out our golden years in crunchiness, thumbing our noses at the
Third World and the unfashionable side of
Portland. 

Speaking of which, there's a big controversy over Wal-Mart's attempts to build a store on the side-of-Portland-that-has-no-Wal-Mart.  I think there might be a Wal-Mart on the other side of the river…somewhere…but most people I know make pilgrimages to Woodburn (an hour away) or Vancouver, Washington (an hour away) so they can shop at Wal-Mart.  This is a phenomenon I do not understand at all.  I understand Wal-Mart sells lots of cheap crap, which is appealing for lower-income families, but I've been a lower-income family, and I never found Wal-Mart to be worth the extra gas just so I could pay 30 cents less for diapers and dress my kids in Garanimals.  That's just me.  But I digress.

Lots of people in my neck of the woods don't want a Wal-Mart here because a) it will introduce a lot of new traffic in a place that needs new traffic like it needs a tract of crack houses, and b) it just doesn't fit in with our upscale image.  Oh, I forgot c) Wal-Mart is the Devil.  It really just boils down to good old-fashioned leftist snobbery.  Everyone in my income bracket has it, even if we are Republicans.  We can afford not to shop at Wal-Mart, so screw 'em.  And screw everyone who likes to shop at Wal-Mart because, you know, they're not our kind of people anyway.

I'll be totally candid–well, have I ever been anything but?  Don't answer that.  Anyway, back to candor, I haven't shopped at Wal-Mart since I was in college and there was nothing to do in that town but get drunk or check out the latest roll-backs.  Also, there was no Target there.  When SD and I got married, we were boycotting Wal-Mart because they treated their employees like crap, and for all I know they still are, but it's sort of a moot point because we had a Target, which was cooler anyway, and even in our poorest days we still applied the price-to-good ratio to all of our financial decisions.  I dislike shopping at Wal-Mart because it's crowded, it's claustrophobic, and–yeah, it's crowded and claustrophobic.  I just haven't seen the value in shopping there, but like I said, that's just me.  I can understand how others might feel differently. 

The letters to the editor in the Oregonian come down mostly against Wal-Mart, but a few say it's about effing time because they're sick of driving so far out of their way so they can get in on the great deals.  Frankly, I don't see why our side of
Portland can't have a Wal-Mart.  I just don't understand why Wal-Mart only wants to build in areas where the traffic is already so horrible we can't stand it.  They say they'll do everything possible to mitigate the traffic impact, but I don't believe them because there's only one way to mitigate the traffic impact on the area in question.  First, you don't build a Wal-Mart there, and then you add about six more lanes.  Somehow I don't think Wal-Mart's going to get behind that plan, even though it is sheer brilliance on my part.

I don't understand why they can't buy some land out in the less-congested parts of the county–I'm not talking about the countryside, but those areas that are zoned for business but don't have any thriving businesses there now.  After all these years of shaking my head over my friends' extreme devotion to Wal-Mart, I subscribe to the Field of Dreams philosophy of Wal-Mart construction:  if you build it, they will come.  It seems to me that if you buy into the pro-Wal-Mart arguments, it might make a little more sense to build one in an area that could use an economic shot in the arm and would be closer to where the people who would shop and work there actually live.  I can't think of a good reason why they want to build in this tony neighborhood unless they're trying to rehabilitate their image by paying a premium for real estate.  "Look, we're rich, too!  Just like you!"  I'm not getting it.

At the same time, I'm very self-conscious of that part of me I hate–the snob part that thinks Wal-Mart is too tacky even for me.  I like to think I embrace my inner plebeian.  If I'm not too good to feed my children macaroni and cheese out of a box, I shouldn't be too good for Wal-Mart.  Heck, I'll eat box macaroni and cheese myself, as long as there's some high-grade chili sauce on the side.  See, that's the problem.  I'm not afraid to embrace my inner proletariat as long as my inner bourgeoisie can wink and eat high-grade chili sauce.  I like thumbing my nose at the Man, but it's hard to tell who the Man is in this scenario, Wal-Mart or my snobby upper-middle-class fellows.  Unfortunately, I don't have time to pontificate any further, as I am not yet upper-middle-class enough to pay someone to do my laundry.  Or is it that I'm just too class-conscious to allow someone else to do my laundry?  These questions will all have to wait until after the towels are washed.

No, this is not my child.

This child belonged to a woman who couldn't be bothered to stop using meth while she was pregnant.  Her son, the boy in this picture, and his twin sister were born with serious medical problems, and they spent the first year of their lives in state custody, but because the state of Oregon places a premium on reuniting families, the boy, Ashton, returned to his mother's home when he was thirteen months old.  Presumably she was no longer addicted to meth.  Unfortunately she was still drinking.  Unfortunately she was also still involved with Ashton's father, a violent parolee who couldn't control his temper well enough to keep from abusing Ashton and eventually murdering him not two months later.

This is the picture I keep seeing in the paper as the Oregonian continues its coverage on the sweeping reform that's supposedly taking place in the Department of Human Services.  The people reviewing Ashton's case found "miscommunication, poor record-keeping and a failure of child protection workers to follow policy."  Big changes are already underway.  Human Services will now require that supervisors review reunification plans to make sure that "known safety threats" are addressed and that "parents have the capacity to protect their children."

Gee.  You think?

No one has to explain to me how overworked and underpaid these social workers are.  I'm sold on that.  Let's assume the Department of Human Services is underfunded in the child-protection department.  I have only one question.  Why?  Considering that public safety is a job government is actually supposed  to do, why did we not have the resources to protect an innocent fifteen-month-old when his biological parent didn't want to be hassled with it?  

I'm not saying the state of
Oregon spends its money frivolously *cough* cultural fund *cough*–that's not my point.  My point is that if
Oregon isn't funding its child-protective services sufficiently, what are they funding instead? 

I know money is going somewhere.  We have a very nice state-funded health care program here.  I'm not saying health care for the uninsured is an unworthy program.  I'm saying it's not as essential as the basic safety of our most vulnerable citizens.  I've been without health insurance.  It sucks.  I've been the working poor paying for private health insurance.  It wasn't cheap.  I've been on COBRA.  That's extra-not cheap.  I did it because I could,