Cars

Cars was probably my least favorite of Pixar's generous gifts to the world. Still, as I watch it for the umpteenth millionth time, I find things I missed the first time. You know that minivan that passes Mac on the interstate while saying "Mimimi?" It has a mattress strapped to it's roof. Well, yesterday I noticed that when it shows the minivan pulling into the truck stop in the next shot, it shows the mattress sliding forward over the windshield and onto the pavement. It calls the question: Why, in a world without a people, where cars have lives and feelings, would a minivan strap a mattress to it's roof.

I learned long ago not to think too hard about the humanless world of Cars, but I appreciate the kind souls at Pixar who added that little detail for me to notice, even now. So nice.

Want to hear a funny Cars story? Baby was walking out of our building the other day, and an old man held the door open for him in the lobby. As he walked out, he muttered one of his favorite lines from Cars: "Crazy old grandpa car." Luckily, he speech was so garbled that only someone who spends all of her time with Baby and half of her time watching Cars would have understood it. I don't think he knew what he was saying, but I'm fairly certain he understood the sentiment behind it.

We'll work on it when I stop thinking it's hilarious.

Loneliness

I lived alone for a week while Baby and Husband were out of town. I wasn't lonely, really. I got bored a few times, and I got sick of searching for a job, but I wouldn't describe what I felt as loneliness.

Now Husband and Baby are back. Husband had to stay late at work yesterday and today so he missed dinner twice. As I washed the dishes from his welcome home slash Cinco de Mayo dinner, which I ate by myself, I felt lonely. As I put Baby's trains away for the tenth time today, I felt lonely. Even when Baby was being mind-bendingly cute, patting my cheeks and singing me songs, I felt lonely. At least I think I felt lonely. Maybe I was just hungry: baby-hungry or job-hungry or my-tooth-hurts-and-I-cringe-before-I-eat-anything-hungry.

In any case, something needs to change.

Uh Oh

My tooth hurts, even though I just went to the dentist. Should I live with a toothache for the rest of my life or go back to the dentist for another couple of hours under the drill?

Hard decision.

My Brilliant Teaching Philosophy

I am applying for a few teaching jobs that require me to submit a statement of my teaching philosophy as part of my application. My one-on-one teaching experience is substantial, but my college classroom teaching experience is limited. So I'm writing a teaching philosophy based pretty much on the type of teacher I want to be and not necessarily on the type of teacher I already am.

According to my statement of my teaching philosophy, I am one heck of a teacher. Apparently, I satisfy my students' curiosity at the same time as I feed it with questions. I mentor my students unique needs and I encourage them to mentor one another. I invite my students to engage in original research. I use new technologies in ways that are enriching and appropriate. As it says on my measuring tape, I am practically perfect in every way.

This whole experience has helped me remember some of my favorite teachers. Maybe I'm more polish-the-apple, eager to please than your average brown noser, but I remember my favorite teachers with a great deal of tenderness.

I look back on my teachers who were uninformed or lazy with a great deal of disdain. Funny, because I typically have a pretty high tolerance for ignorance and laziness. I don't take it personally when people don't send thank you cards or when a secretary doesn't know how to use a fax machine. But I still feel pretty annoyed with some of my high school teachers who didn't care enough to learn their own subjects, much less teach them. I had a high school course in Eastern European studies in which my teacher couldn't find Kosovo on a map, and this was during 1998. On the last day of class, we ate borscht. That was the extent of my education in Eastern European studies. It boils my blood because I'll never have that time back: Days and days when I had the time and energy to learn something new.

I'm not going to be that kind of teacher.

Home Alone

Two days ago, Husband took Baby to California for the week. As I recall, when McCauley Culkin found himself home alone, he started by freaking out (Scared Phase), then ate a lot of junk food and watched really violent movies (Indulgent Phase), then started cleaning the house (Responsible Phase). At some point he beat up the Christmas bad guys. I cycle through these phases in quick succession.

I start my days by sleeping in for a half hour (Mildly Indulgent); then I spend a LONG time showering, dressing, applying make-up, and dancing to my own non-toddler music (Wildly Indulgent); then I excercise (Responsible, even though it feels Indulgent to me); then I get on the computer and job search for three or four hours (Responsible) while I watch Season Three of Alias (Indulgent); then I check the locks on the doors, making sure that there is no cloned double behind it waiting to shoot me and start living my life (Scared, but it makes sense after you watch Alias); then I eat salad and grilled chicken for lunch (Responsible); then I waste time on e-mail and blogs (Indulgent); then I look at our finances and job search some more (Scared); then, while congratulating myself on the grilled chicken and salad, I go to the drug store to buy a bag of chips, which I manage to polish off on the way home (Indulgent).

After I finish every season of Alias, I will be so ready to beat up some bad guys.

I miss Baby.

Thoughts on Pain

I think pain is bad. I think the human species has evolved to the point that we can use our minds to stay out of trouble instead of our pain reflex. I think that it's time to develop a drug, intended to be administered at birth, that would basically be a forever-long full-body epidural. Paper cut? Pshaw. Amputation? Easy-peasy. Cage fighting? To the death. Torture? Pointless.

Today I skipped off the dentist at 2:00. I slumped home with my right cheek dragging on the pavement at 4:30, my mouth housing more fillings than actual teeth. I think my dentist gave me a triple dose of Novacaine after seeing my eyes fill with tears at the very sight of his scrapey hook tool ("We'd better give this one the wuss treatment").

It is now 7:45 and the lower half of my head is just starting to tingle -- and hurt. I'm considering taking another trip to the dentist's office to ask for another shot of the good stuff that will last me three days or so. I can take my meals through a straw for three days. I wonder if my nifty Real Job insurance would cover it.

Are there people who refuse anesthesia for dental work? Probably, right? I bet they keep a very strict flossing regimen. I know I do, now that I've learned the intimate details of a root canal procedure. They probably floss with barbed wire. Or maybe they don't floss, and every night they grind Pixie Stix into their teeth while they yearn for their next dental appointment. I wonder what it would be like to be them.

The natural childbirth advocates make sense: Heck, I'm a complete ninny about pain, and I cowgirled though labor until I was dialated to an eight. When Baby Two comes along, maybe I'll make it to eight and a half, and by Baby Ten, I'll have such steely nerves that I'll just perform the delivery myself while I'm marching in the Natural Childbirth Parade.

I also wear very uncomfortable shoes. Sometimes.

Pain. Hmm.

Sunshine

The sun was out today. I left my 200 pounds of laundry sitting in my hallway to go to Central Park with Baby. The street musicians were out in full force; the trees were full of blossoms; the daffodils were blooming; we shared a strawberry smoothie and a turkey sandwich. Now, I'm as cynical as the next law graduate, but that's ninety-nine percent happiness. It only could have been better if Baby had coming running up to me to spontaneously give me a hug and a kiss and an "I yav you, Mama." Oh wait, he did. One hundred percent.

Lately I've been hearing a lot of people complain about boring mom blogs that are all sunshine and strawberry smoothies. I agree that these kind of blogs can get a little tedious, but I can relate to moms who only blog about happy-happy joy-joy. It's not that bad things don't happen to stay-home moms. One hour ago, Baby dumped his cup of soy milk into my hair.

But the good times are so freakishly good, it's hard not to turn into a simpering mess of love. Babies do their best to keep our feet on the ground by dumping soy milk, unrolling toilet paper, and socking other babies in the teeth. Let's see, what else happened today? Oh yes, he screamed and strained at his stroller straps for ten blocks straight. At the end of the day though, and on thousands of blogs across the globe, all we remember is the sunshine and the strawberry smoothie.

Chewing Gum in the Shower

Yesterday I was feeling a little broke, so I started to mentally list the things that I loved to do which were free or cheap. Chewing gum in the shower topped the list. I love to chew gum in the shower. Is that gross of me?

If you've never chewed gum in the shower, you should. (This thing is fun, and fun is good).

Eating junk food while watching late night television was also on the list. I can't remember what else was on the list. It wasn't that long of a list.

Babysitters Club day

I can still tell you every permanent member of the Babysitters Club. There's the originals: Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey. Then there are the members who get added on in the later books: Dawn, Mallory, and Jessie. I think Mary Anne's boyfriend Logan becomes an honorary member at some point. I promise, I haven't picked up one of those books for at least seventeen years, and I haven't been reading those books to Baby. I don't think I was really obsessed with them either. I'd admit it if I had been, I really would.

Isn't it weird what you remember from the time you're a kid? Doesn't it sort of freak you out when you realize that you can still sing every word of every song from "The Little Mermaid," but you can't remember what happened on last week's episode of "The Office" (just kidding, I could NEVER forget what happened last week on "The Office")? But, you get my point, right?

Today reminded me of a Babysitters Club book. It was about Kristy's younger step-sister, Karen (why why WHY do I remember her name) who has a really bad day. She spends the whole day counting all the horrible things that happen to her, and in the end of the book, her mom takes her out for ice cream, which evens the scales slightly. Oh, sorry, I should have given a spoiler alert.

I had a really horrible day. I was depressed like only a stay-home mom can be depressed, and ain't nobody can be depressed like a stay-home mom. And then at about 7:30 or so, things started looking up. And now, here I am, happy as a clam.

It helped that I was able to watch "The Office." With a bowl of ice cream. And a biggish lump of cookie dough.

Fire Marshall

Husband is officially the fire safety coordinator of his floor at the law firm. I think this is hilarious. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I think about this and I start to giggle. Here is a list of things that are NOT true about being fire marshall but that I WISH were true about being fire marshall:

1) Everyone has to use the title "Fire Marshall" when they address him
2) He is going to stage a fake fire in the building that everyone thinks is a real fire and which will result in a mandatory CPR course for the people in his office where further highjinks will ensue
3) He has to wear a badge and a fire hat to work every day
4) He got this job because his real name is Nerdy Von Nerditron and he constantly talks about what a good hall monitor he was in elementary school

Poor Husband to have such a mean, mean wife. Maybe I'll make him feel better by giving him a greater position on prestige in our home. I know: I'll strip Baby of the title of Apartment Fire Marshall and give that to Husband instead.

Subtraction

I have a little friend whose favorite subject in school is subtraction. She is seven years old. As I was dying of boredom today, trying to model proper napping behavior to Baby, I started thinking about subtraction. When I compare subtraction to addition, division, and multiplication, I think it's my favorite.

Now, for the family of talkative math enthusiasts who read this blog, I respectfully request that you (temporarily) mentally block everything you feverishly studied from 4th grade on. Try to remember how you felt about "math" back in elementary school when your teacher would give you mimeographed worksheets of arithmatic for homework. There were no negative numbers, no imaginary numbers, not even any fractions or decimals. Just sturdy round numerals lined up in neat little stacks.

Addition was easy. Stack five blocks on six blocks and you get eleven blocks. Add three more and you get fourteen blocks. Subtraction was a little more interesting. Instead of stacking blocks, you were knocking them off, sending them to block heaven. It took a little more thinking than plain old addition. Let's face it: It still takes a little more thinking. All that borrowing from the tens column to subtract from the ones column. That's tricky stuff. But it's usually not too tricky to do in your head.

Multiplication was pretty cool for a while, but after you memorized your times tables, well, then it was just spitting out the memorized answer. And if it was something you didn't memorize, like double or triple digit multiplication, it was just plain hard to do. It wasn't something that you'd want to do in your head unless you were my dad, who could do anything in his head.

And division was a pain from the very beginning. You were supposed to use backwards multiplication for short division, which made you go cross-eyed. And for long division, you were supposed to employ a senseless torturous process that involved arrows and "remainders." Blech.

Yes, subtraction. Still my favorite.

Stroller Rage

New York City brings out a psychological phenomenon in otherwise mellow mothers. We call it stroller rage.

I've never had road rage. In fact, I don't understand road rage. People who suffer from road rage confuse me. When I drove, if I yelled and screamed while driving, it was because I accidentally turned onto a one-way road or something. I cause road rage, I don't suffer from road rage.

When I'm pushing Baby around the city, there are some areas of the city that I have learned to avoid. Times Square is one of them. When I'm walking Baby in Times Square, I turn into a mean, mean person who does mean, mean things. Let's say you're a young bachelor who is desperately in love with his lovely girlfriend. You decide to take her to take her on a super-date to New York City. While wandering around Times Square you realize that Times Square would be the perfect place to present your girlfriend with the engagement ring that you've been carrying around in your pocket for weeks. You stop. You take a long look into Girlfriend's eyes. You clutch both of her hands. You step away, and drop to one knee.

Suddenly your clutch on Girlfriend's hands is wrenched apart by a swinging diaper bag. Before you know it, a mom and baby come between the two of you. Your moment, the moment you had hoped to relate to your grandchildren, is ruined forever. As you stare at this heartless woman, disappearing through the crowded, you hear her yelling over her shoulder, "This is New York City, buddy. Six million of us actually use the sidewalks to MOVE."

That woman is me.

Making scents of it all

It's a teensy bit dorky to title an entry with a pun, but it makes me feel witty, and I'm the boss around here.

I don't wear perfumes very often. I love scents, and I remember and respond to aromas as much as the next human being, but I guess I just haven't found a perfume that smells the way I want to smell all the time.

Right now my apartment smells like coconut curry. We had Indian food for dinner. It is a lovely smell when it comes steaming out of a kitchen, but it is not lovely when it clings to clothes and people. One time in high school I gave my friend a hug and she smelled like curry. I remember thinking it was gross.

I had a boyfriend once who always smelled like the hand soap that BYU used in all of its dispensers. BYU's soap wasn't bad smelling, it was just generically soapy. I'm glad he was so meticulous about washing his hands, but he must have really piled that soap on because he always, always smelled like that. Looking back, I think there was something kind of unsexy about that smell. Maybe that's why BYU used it.

You know what smells kind of good? Sweaty babies. Not sweaty kids, they stink almost as bad as sweaty adults. But babies, when they're still little milk monsters who wear over-warm jammies with feet attached, mmm-mmm. Go find one who just woke up from a hot afternoon nap. Find one whose mom bathes him pretty often but who doesn't lather him up with scented lotions and powders. Just bury your nose into his armpit and breathe in deep.

I know someone who naturally smells like unbuttered, unsalted popcorn, but not too strongly. That's a pretty good way to smell, day in and day out. But if I smelled that in a perfume bottle, I think it would turn my stomach. Actually, if I found a perfume called "popcorn" I don't think I'd open it.

From the Grouch Couch

It's really hard to plan fun activities to toddlers or cub scouts when you are a cranky mess.

Someone needs a snack and a nap, and it's not Baby.

Ash Wednesday

I don't think I ever saw anyone recognize Ash Wednesday with a ash mark on their forehead while we lived in Provo. I had read about it, but I didn't know it was really ever practiced. Well, it is in New York. I've probably seen twenty people today with the ash marks on their foreheads, including a stilettoed and iPhoned twenty-something, a homeless woman, and an NYPD officer.

Even though my religion doesn't commemorate Ash Wednesday in any particular way, I find the practice quite wonderful. I love seeing people showing outward signs of inward religious beliefs.

Nowadays, I think it also shows courage for a person to do so. It probably doesn't take quite so much courage in New York City where there are so many people from different religions milling around. I rarely notice anymore when I ride the subway with Muslim women wearing headscarves or Hasidic Jews wearing beards and side curls. If I do notice I enjoy it very much.

What I Loved about the Oscars

There were more than a couple of things I hated about the Oscars this year, but right now I'm basking in a post-Oscar glow that is overwhelmingly positive. Here are the highlights of the 2008 Oscars for me:

The hot chocolate, doughnuts, and ice cream that I inhaled while the glitterati of Hollywood had to endure a six-hour fast in the Kodak theater

The list of movies coming out in 2009 (which I can look forward to Netflixing in 2010)

Hugh Jackman's joyfulness and Australian-ness

The shout-outs to the actors and movies that weren't nominated for anything (which made the nominees look pretty good, by comparison)

Tina Fey plus Steve Martin

Freida Pinto's blue dress

The Meryl Streep worship

The realization that Amanda Seyfried had three simultaneous fathers in Mama Mia! and three simultaneous mothers in Big Love

The accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers taking a cute nerdy stroll down the red carpet

Home Decorating

Today I framed six little pictures to hang in the hallway of my apartment. It's 2:15 in the afternoon, I have a sink full of dirty dishes, I haven't prepared my cub scout den meeting, I haven't ironed Husband's pants, I haven't SHOWERED, but I am content. See, that's the nice thing about being completely inept, craft-wise. The small victories give an enormous sense of accomplishment.

I don't have much excuse for being such a home decorating idiot. As a rules-following Utah Mormon girl, I have probably received more training in this area than 95% of U.S. women. I have hot glued ruffles on things that should never have ruffles. Things like toilet seats. I have painted and written on wooden blocks of every conceivable shape and size: a pumpkin for "Happy fall, y'all," a rainbow for "Every day is a gift," a sled for "Whooshing you a Merry Christmas." Now that I think of it, that rainbow was pretty darn gay-rights/AIDS-awareness for an ultra-conservative Mormon youth group. Maybe it's still in my parent's basement somewhere.

My apartment, which should be cluttered with wooden wall hangings and potpourri sachets, is cluttered with toy cars and peas. The peas aren't always there: Baby got a little carried away with his lunch. I'll clean them up after I take a shower. The toy cars are always there.

Quote from my sister' phone call

"Oh look, there's money under my rug! But it's not American money. It's Swedish money, and the rug's from IKEA. Maybe the rug created it."

Preschool

You might call it a preschool or you might call it a loosely organized babysitting co-op. I call it a preschool because I dig it when the other kids call me "Teacher."

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Baby and I get up at the crack of dawn and hustle to the Upper West Side for preschool. Five moms trade off hosting a week's worth of preschool in exchange for a month's worth of toddler-less Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It's a good trade in theory, although it's complicated by snow storms, germs, and conflicting schedules. In our four weeks of preschool, there's really only been two days where I've been able to enjoy alone time.

With a little bit of advance planning, hosting preschool for two and three-year-olds can be a total kick. As long as they're well-rested and well-supplied with graham crackers, they'll be up for anything. When I started running out of ideas, I just made them spin around in circles until they fell down. While I was spinning I got another idea (jumping on a mini-trampoline with toy cars). Baby is a little behind the others in his ability to sit still and listen to a story or learn a lesson, but he's getting better.

The best preschool moment, I think, was the week that we made noodle necklaces. When the moms came to pick the kids up, one of the boys told his mom to kneel down and bow her head. Then he pulled the noodle necklace out from behind his back, placed it over her head, and said, "Mommy, this is a present for you. You look beautiful." Then he kissed her on the forehead. I should add that he did all of this according to the strict instructions that I gave him while we were stringing the uncooked rigatoni on the dental floss. We even practiced. Am I the best preschool teacher ever or what?

True Beauty

I'm kind of lacking ideas to blog about today. Maybe I've been watching too much reality TV (hello? can we say embarrassing guilty pleasure?). I was going to do one of those list-y blog-y things where in the end you tag 200 people who are supposed to do the list-y blog-y things on their respective blogs, but I don't even have an interest in that today. My blog will remain a list-y blog-y virgin for yet another day.



Yeah, it must by the reality TV. Has anyone seen that new "True Beauty" show? After I watched the first episode, I got off the couch and slipped on the pile of brains that fell out of my head during the hour that I had watched it. Did I watch it again the next week? Yes, yes I did. I could give my excuses (nothing else on TV, DVD player maddeningly broken), but that fact remains that I watched it.



The idea of the show is that the contestants think they are being judged on their outer beauty, but they are actually being judged their outer beauty plus on . . . something else. The hosts say it's actually their inner beauty, but I'm not sure that's what it is. Basically, the judges watch all of the hidden video of those two contestants looking for moments when they fail to throw away litter or they belch really loudly. The person who does the greatest number of bad things gets kicked off and the person who does the fewest number lives to belch another day.



So, you see, at the end of the show, we will know who of this group of reality TV wanna-be stars was either the person with the fewest awkward moments or was so fabulously gorgeous that their inner beauty was never called into question.



I happen to think that "True Beauty" is actually based on a concept with a lot of potential. I mean, inner beauty, that's a pretty interesting topic and arguably one that has been fascinating smart people (people like, ahem, myself) for ages and ages. College courses are taught on the subject (although they are typically given names like "Philosophy 301: Ethics"). If someone gives hugs and snuggles to a complete stranger who falls off his bike, what does that mean, really? If someone who hardly has any money donates some of it to a fake charity, what does that mean?



I would have failed a lot of the inner beauty tests that the show sets up. When grown man falls off a bike, I honestly think, "you know, the biggest injury that guy just took was the hit to his pride, so I'm just going to walk on by and pretend that he did that on purpose." When someone at a table in a public place asks me to donate to their charity, I occasionally donate, but I usually don't. There may be people who live in the middle of New York City who give money to everyone on the street who asks for it, but I'm not one of them.

When I tabulate the multiplicity of ugly points to my character, my failure to donate to table-charities actually falls pretty low on the list. In fact, my tendency to watch pathetic reality TV shows comes a lot higher on the list than my failure to donate. Do I have my priorities mixed up?