Yes, and he's wearing a thong, too

Random lady at the doctor's office, regarding Mr. Three: That boy has nail polish on!

8 facts

Wendy from Notes from the Windowsill got me with the 8 Things Meme. Heck, I'll bite. It's my first.

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Hard to say what to put on this list - my habits are mostly in the compulsive brand loyalty arena. I'm like James Bond that way (yeah just keep telling yourself that), his Sea Island cotton shirts being analogous to my Eddie Bauer mom t-shirts, I guess.

Besides the incessant swearing, I mean that's a habit, but anyone who's ever found themselves on this page or met me or, probably, flown overhead in a plane, knows about that one.

So here goes:

Fact: My favorite new word is "man-panty." It was coined by my husband when describing why he needs new swim trunks.

Habit: My favorite breakfast is leftover rice, plain yogurt, and Indian pickle.

Habit: I call my children "poodle".

Non-habit: I don't watch TV. Shave things. Or wear makeup, match my socks, iron, smoke dope, or change the litter box. (Two of these things I miss - guess!)

Fact: You could produce a blank, horrified stare on my face by saying "How about camping?" or by discussing shaving vs. waxing vs. Nair vis a vis one's bikini area. I got that same look when the "man-panty" thing came up.

Fact: Can't bake.

Fact: Scared of heights.

Habit: I spend money on bras, moisturizer, rice, shampoo, coffee, and perfume, but I buy cheap-ass cars, plants, soap, nail polish, beans, and pool toys. Fancy beer, the good canned tomatoes, organic chicken and shoes - I wait til they go on sale.

I tag:
Life O'Jaime
garish and tweed
Anger Hangover (who will probably kill me)
missing dust jacket
snaggletooth
SeanCJackson
and his DW: PumpkinSpice Knits
Strange Librarian

Are you hungry? Did you eat yet?

""

That's my new way of expressing dissatisfaction with something. My apologies to Angela Aylmore, the author of Blowing (Making Music) but when you give a book a title like that, you have to figure someone somewhere's going to use it as a comment.

It started when Token Boy Librarian nagged me because I was thirty seconds late relieving him on the children's desk. As I hurried to take over for his suffering self, I noticed Blowing on a display. I grabbed the book and, catching his eye, ever so subtly pointed at the cover and then at him. I totally forget sometimes that some kids can read. They should really never let me be around kids.



So today what's got me cranky is a new book called The Gulps. Written by Rosemary Wells and hideously illustrated by Marc Brown (of Arthur fame) (no, not Dudley Moore, you childless freak: Arthur, the series of books and the animated show on PBS about the aardvark who totally looks like a woodchuck or something), the book is one of those heavy-handed lessons about how delicious healthy food is and how wonderful you feel getting lots of exercise. Plus the plot is nonsense.

Synopsis: Overweight, hyper-consuming family goes on vacation. Their RV breaks down because it just can't hold their weight. They are taken in by the local farmer, and eat healthy delicious food and work on the farm until they slim down enough for the RV to start. Then they decide to take their vacation hiking the National Park instead of going to the amusement park.

Plot problems:

1. Have you ever heard of a vehicle not starting because there was too much weight on board? A vehicle that is not, say, horse-drawn?
2. They are staying at this man's farm, and working on it. Are they hostages? Are they paying rent?
3. After they have lost so much weight, which presumably takes a while, they are still on vacation, and take off to go hiking.

I think there's only one conclusion you can draw here: they are the 21st century version of the Joads, obese city dwellers evicted from their apartment who take to the road in their only remaining possession, an unreliable RV. When the RV breaks down, they are taken in by an unscrupulous farmer who exploits their utter lack of ability to fend for themselves in a non-urban landscape. At last, overworked and underfed, they get the wagon going again and escape to the hills, there to eke out a living selling change purses made from the hides of roadkill to tourists (We actually knew a girl who did this, her name was Madeline but everybody called her Roadkill. Sweet nickname, uh?)

Sermon problems:

I'm getting pretty damn sick of this pious food crap. Don't get me wrong - I am all for the healthy delicious food (it's all one word now, "healthydelicious," I've heard it repeated so many times). We don't own Cheetos. We put nori and cheese and apple chips in lunches as snacks. It sucks, believe me, but it's our responsibility - Bob's and mine. I don't want my kids developing a dependence on high fructose corn syrup - that shit is nasty. It bothers me when I meet children who think McNuggets are a meal.

But let me reiterate: it's our responsibility. Man, you should have seen my kids when I read The Gulps. They started out happy, then confused, then bored. It looks like a children's book, their expressions said, but it seems to be some kind of message to mom, telling her to put more vegetables on our plates.

I think the book is meant to get kids excited about vegetables (and farm work, though how that's supposed to play out in most kids' lives I do not get). And I think the adult reading the book is supposed to feel ashamed and inspired by their children's newfound vegetable boosterism, and run out to buy kale and asparagus and show those children just how delicious healthy foods are.

But in my case, it pissed me off.

Let me tell you something. Every year I grow peas. I like peas. They come up early and they're easy to grow. And every year when the peas are ripe, my children and I sit in the back yard and eat peas. It's lovely, straight out of Beatrix Potter. We tell stories about the little pea people in the little pea boats (or rocket ships, or giraffes) and then all the little pea people meet their agonizing fate in the rocky cave (or wormhole or vacuum cleaner) of a small child's mouth.

So for two weeks out of every year, my children eat, oh, 4 ounces of peas a day, and they rejoice in it. And ALL IT TAKES is ordering the seeds, tilling the garden, adding compost to the garden, planting the seeds, putting up supports for the plants, and watering and weeding for three months. Fuck that.

Well, no. Not fuck that. I like gardening. And I have the time to do it. But if I didn't, should I be obligated to feel bad? What if I was a single mom who worked two jobs and couldn't get to the farmer's market to buy fresh local produce so my children could have healthy delicious blabla - then should I feel bad? How about if I had a large family and a few foster kids, and my food budget allowed me to buy 5 pounds of Velveeta for every pound of fresh spinach - if I chose the processed cheese, should I feel bad about filling more stomachs with less nutritious food?

Rosemary Wells and Marc Brown say yes, I think.

Fuck them, and fuck everyone who would imply that the healthydelicious food is simply a matter of "making healthy choices". Piety and sneering comments about "priorities" overlook the economic realities of food in this country.

Instead of reading The Gulps or Hubert the Pudge (not as lecture-y, but with plot holes a 5 year old could spot), try Edward Miller's The Monster Health Book, which actually explains such concepts as energy and food groups to kids, without trying to dumb it down into a clunky parable. Instead of reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book, read "The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions Of Obesity", Michael Pollan's recent article on the Ag Bill in the New York Times Magazine. It explains why healthydelicious food isn't always (or often) a matter of choice.

Dinner tonight: brown rice, peas from the garden, locally caught bluefish. God, I could just strangle myself. It's a thin line between love and hate.

Happy Mothers

I was over on sweetney today and saw her link to this awesome piece of tornado video awesomeness. Why do I have an irrational need to see a tornado? Maybe it has to do with the point in the video when they pan upward and you can see the giant Finger of God descend from Heaven to FUCK SHIT UP. I'm an atheist but I still have a sense of the Divine.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I've never paid credit to the online mothers who, cough, choke, there's no other word for it -- **inspire** me. Cringe cringe yeah yeah, but seriously, last year this time, when Mr. Three was finally getting toilet trained and I was finally getting a little free time, I would read Tracey and SJ and Heather and Ayun and, well I mean, goddamn, here are women who make their own jam and devise creative, educational activities to distract their children when the kids are feeling grouchy and out-of-sorts...

Yeah kidding. These are women who make fun of their children, whom they love the bejeebers out of. And I thought, "I need a place to make fun of my children! I'll make me a blog!"

Mother's Day has come and gone. I would have written about this then but I was too busy eating smoked salmon in bed and Belgian chocolate on the couch and reading Wired (this is actually not a lie).

So anyway. It's partly about the librarian, but also it's partly about the neighborhood. Thanks for the funny, guys.



Oh and. I bought me a laptop (it's all Ubuntu and everything, I feel so clickety!) so I can screw around online while I'm on the porch watching the kids while they draw with chalk and talk to any random adult who strolls by. Cause that's what being a mom is all about, right?

Confutatis maledictis

Reflections upon watching Marie Antoinette:

That Kirsten Dunst sure is pretty. Can you make a whole movie about that?

Guess so.

Marianne Faithfull and Judi Dench have the same voice. Makes you wonder what Dame M was doing in the 60's while Marianne was busy horking off Mick Jagger.

Hey, there's that dog!



I want to sing "Marie Antoinette" to the tune of "Feliz Navidad". Da dee da-da-da.

Didn't anybody consider writing down some words for the characters to say before they all got out to Versailles?

Wouldn't it be great to live in Sofia Coppola's head for an afternoon? I bet it's like Kate's Paperie in there. I'd buy some pretty crap I didn't need, then I'd switch to Kirsten Dunst's head and go to the bar.

Is there a place in the cinematic tradition for a two-hour perfume ad?

Guess so.

I should find my copy of The Mirrorshades Anthology.

That surf guitar sound in "I Want Candy" is so great!

Sofia Coppola could have been one of my campers in the summer of 1985 in Maine. Those precocious little proto-hiptards loved Gang of Four. Otherwise, she's too young for this music.

We should rent Amadeus.

Today's Tom Sawyer

To: "My Neighborhood Librarian" ynl@blabla.blam
Subject: Todays Tom Sawyer
From: bob@blabla.blam
Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 21:22:58 +0000

Car
Shuttle bus
Plane
Car
(Mtg)
Car
Plane
Little Train
SHuttle Bus
Car
(Mtg)
Car
Shuttle Bus
Little Train
Big train
Shuttle bus
Other shuttle bus
Car
Home.

:b

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Mr. Librarian had a rough day Thursday - meetings in Norfolk, VA and Paterson, NJ. But he still had a sense of humor and an ear for song lyrics at 9:22 that night.

The calla lilies are in bloom again!

I said to myself that if I didn't come out Katharine Hepburn, the quiz was utter shit and I wouldn't post the results.

Your Score: Katharine Hepburn
You scored 28% grit, 33% wit, 47% flair, and 7% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.

Link: The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes.

So... I'm not all that "woman-like"? Jeez, last time I looked... Well. Hm. Isn't that hat disturbing, though? It looks like it's woven out of her own hair. Maybe it was, maybe she was the proto-Bjork!

And I believe this is the moment to mention the new me! Over there on the right with the yellow hair! My multitalented friend Sean drew it for me and every time I see it I have to do a brief, energetic, unbelievably dorky chair-dance. And Jaime, shut up, I am aware that it's verrrrry flattering... Sean remembers me from high school and doesn't see me that often nowadays, plus he's nice.

Three times two

Three times two, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

The rest of the photos in this batch.

One meatball

Got a picture book I don't like. Of course, there are plenty of picture books that don't do a thing for me. It's usually not worth my time to point them out. But One Green Apple by Eve Bunting actually cracked me up with its not-goodness.




Farah is about 10 or 11, new to this country, not yet speaking English. She feels that her headscarf sets her apart from the other kids, and she wonders whether she will ever fit in. Today, Farah's class is on a field trip to an orchard. Each child is instructed to pick one apple, and each child dutifully selects a red shiny apple. Farah picks an apple from a tree that looks the way she feels - a little stunted, a little different.

The class then runs down the hill toward a crooked wooden shack. Farah wonders who lives in the shack: a goatherd, chickens? Instead, we find a metal machine inside the shack. The teacher has each child put his or her apple in the machine. Farah is last. The teacher gives Farah's crummy little green apple a slighting look, then shrugs and has her chuck it into the machine.

The machine is turned on, and hurray! all the apples are now turned into delicious cider!

This has got to be the worst metaphor for assimilation I have seen since Marlo Thomas announced that we were all "Free to Be You and Me". Put each unique child into a big guncha-guncha machine, grind 'em to a pulp, then squeeze the pulp until a thin, palatable homogeneous mixture is obtained! Give us your tired, your poor!

Eve Bunting is a versatile writer who tackles interesting, diverse subjects and has an unerring eye for illustrators: Pop's Bridge and Smoky Night are terrific books (Hell, Smoky Night won the Caldecott!). My Special Day at Third Street School is a great gift for your favorite reading teacher. But One Green Apple is, as we say, not so good.

If you can't do the module than you'll have to try the slide

Hipster weddings. They're a dime a dozen, yeah? Gosh I'd like to be all *yawn* about that, but you know what? ANYTHING out of the ordinary makes weddings easier to take. For instance, these kids got a talented friend to make paper dolls of them for their wedding! That's pretty cool... Bob and I had a hayride at our wedding, and that did beat a unity candle.

But the question always crops up - your hip friends, the ones with taste and a few bucks? Whose apartment looks like a design museum? What the fuck do you get them as a wedding present? You could go to Takashimaya and buy something white and porcelain and perfect... but maybe you're a more personal type. Maybe white and porcelain says 'toilet' to you. But you don't want to get something that they will look at and say, "P.U!" And it happens, oh yeah. I've been married twice and I can tell you - there are gifts that you unwrap, coo over, and place gently on a high shelf to be admired forever, and then there are gifts that you unwrap, recoil from, and place gently, immediately on the curb.

Seemingly, cream-soup-lovin' Tricia is faced with this situation. And, clever girl, she hits upon A Book as the perfect gift. Here's her question...

"Do you have other recommendations for picture books that would make good wedding gifts? Something for the sparsely-decorated high-modern loft types, perhaps?"

Dude! All you have to do is ask! There are a ton of children's books that kind of you suspect weren't written for children. The art is way over the top good, or the story is clearly secondary, and I always fear that these books don't reach their intended audience. I'm always pushing the picture books on the grownups. Here are my suggestions:

If they're honeymooning in Paris: Adele & Simon by Barbara McClintock. Purely gorgeous, and the precision of the depictions will warm the cockles of the slightly OCD hipster heart.

If they really do live in a loft: Not a box by Antoinette Portis (reviewed earlier). Probably the most high-concept modern book in this bunch, and also charming. Now, in the review I linked to, the astute Fuse #8 mentions Dick Bruna, the creator of the mute, staring, nightmarish Miffy. Dick Bruna's books may be in the MoMA design store (actually, they're not, although the very confusing Art Fraud Detective is), but Dick Bruna's books are also boring to the point of coma. Do not be taken in.


They love the Scandinavian design? Follow the line by Laura Ljunkvist. So high-concept, even the web site deserves a design award.

If they're honeymooning at the beach: Drawn from life, Beach by Elisha Cooper is a quiet but entertaining book full of that kind of minutiae that adults and some kids find captivating... and Magic Beach by Crockett Johnson (the Harold and the Purple Crayon guy) is kind of a children's book aficionado schmuckbait item. But I'm putting it on Tricia's list because it's lovely. See, it was an uncompleted manuscript (hence fanbait) and has been published with all the pencil lines and erasures intact (mega-fanbait, ergo schmuckbait), but... it's a lovely story. Whatever the two little kids write in the sand is washed away by the waves and replaced by the real thing. Strong stuff about possibility and dreams (and also a good early-reader lesson, but that's not important right now).



Their idea of decoration is one exquisite piece of driftwood lying on the mantel: An egg is quiet by Dianna Aston. This book is beautiful and interesting and my kids sat still for it but I can't imagine many would. One of those picture books that totally caters to adults.

Their idea of decoration is an ironic collection of sock monkeys whimsically posed on their Bertoia chairs: 10 Little Sock Monkeys by Harriet Ziefert. There are a lot of sock monkey books out there, children, but surprisingly, most are kind of blah. This one is good, and Oscar: The Big Adventure of a Little Sock Monkey is good.

Park Slope residents? Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems OR The Neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews. Both have illustrations built on actual photos of actual Brooklyn.

High-modern with lots of color? Invisible by Katja Kamm. Have not laid my hands on this book yet, but I can tell by the cover and the reviews that this is one for the MoMA gift-shop crowd!


Secretly steampunk? Imagine by Norman Messenger. Oooh that's a good book. There's a lot to look at here, we're gonna buy it.

If they like puzzles and beauty: Flotsam by David Weisner. Anything by David Weisner is fascinating and mysterious, but this latest one is the best so far.

If they have a pulse: The Yellow Balloon by Charlotte Desmatons. One of the nice things about modern is that you can make what you want of it. Same can be said for The Yellow Balloon.



So, Tricia has gotten all the way through this list and she still doesn't see anything that's about, er, a wedding, I mean hello wasn't that the point?! and I have to say, Tricia is totally right. I blow. When people I know get engaged - people I love, even! people I'm related to! - I give them the not entirely lame but, you know, kind of... mass-market... Miss Spider Gets Married. And why? Because, except for 'mom and mum' and Uncle Peter, and various idiots who try to get the spunky main character to be a flower girl, NOBODY gets married in children's literature these days.

But ok, here we go:
African-American couple: Wedding by Angela Johnson.
Asian-American and Caucasian couple: Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding by Lenore Yook, good illustrations by Yumi Heo.
Jewish wedding: Beni's First Wedding by Jane Breskin Zalben. Pretty.
Navajo couple: Yes, Navajo. I told you there weren't many. Navajo Wedding Day: A Dine Marriage Ceremony by Eleanor Schick.


And, if you are truly truly desperate, there's always kitsch to fall back on:


A Wedding Is Beautiful (a Little Golden Book, complete with big-eye kids and the creepy suggestion that 4-year-olds are getting married).

Sorry, Tricia!