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Sunday, July 20, 2008
11:07:13 AM CDT
The View From My TV
What's with Al Gore's hair? On TV today he looks like he's got three or four chocolate colored stripes angling from the top of his forehead across the front of his hair to the back. The Hershey dips all seem to be the same distance apart, too. Come on Al, is this a lame attempt to lessen the amount of gray with low lights instead of high lights? While we're at it, what's with the shock and awe eyebrows? Has Tipper been getting out her tweezers while you were sleeping?
How about Greg Norman? Fifty-three? Call me crazy, but he doesn't look any older than he did the last time he played for the British Open. Replace his current baseball cap with his signature black cowboy lid and the Shark is back. I guess getting married to a 52 year old woman can help level the fairway. Okay, maybe it's the gale force wind. He's tied with last year's winner Padraig Harrington at seven over with most of the back nine to go. Harrington is ranked 14th in the world. Norman is ranked 646th in the world. Right now it's a head game. If he becomes the oldest geezer to ever win the trophy, it's because he got some pointers from the toughest pro athlete, mentally, who ever played [except for Tiger]. They didn't call Chris Evert the Ice Maiden for nothing.
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Saturday, July 19, 2008
1:13:41 PM CDT
The Governor of Illinois is Insane
The honorable Rod Blagojevich [BLA-GOY-A-VITCH] was swept into office on the heels of a corrupt Republican administration which eventually sent the former Governor [George Ryan] to prison.
In the midst of his troubles, Ryan became nationally known for slapping a moratorium on the death penalty.
That decision was a no brainer, when it became apparent from DNA testing that a whole bunch of prisoners on death row were innocent of any crime. The self-serving Ryan actually got someone to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize for that gesture. But it didn't keep him out of the slammer.
Of course, during the gubernatorial election, the Republicans didn't help themselves any by putting up a candidate with the same last name as the recently disgraced office holder -- Jim Ryan, no relation to Georgie boy. What were they thinking?
Since taking office in 2002, with a mandate for change, Gov. Blago's administration has also come under fire from the Feds for its own lengthy list of ethics and financial violations. It's not over yet.
He hasn't helped his own cause either, often acting like a southern sheriff who punishes people for not doing things his way. It is clear that he missed class the day they reviewed negotiation skills.
His father-in-law is a long time Chicago alderman, Richard Mell. They are no longer speaking, since Blago used his governor's power to shut down a landfill operation run by a family cousin of Mell's. An unnecessary and quite precipitous act.
He also refuses to live in the governor's mansion, preferring to charge Illinois taxpayers $6000 for each of his round trip plane rides to the state capitol from his home in Chicago. For ordinary souls, it's a two and a half hour car ride plus a few tolls.
He's now in a pissing match with the leadership of the General Assembly because he hasn't got a clue how to work well with others. He's kept them in session over holidays to force them to do as he wants, but the only thing to come out of this tactic has been a huge overtime tax bill for the citizens of Illinois.
After six years, his approval rating is at 13%, the lowest of any governor in the country.
Just last week, he may have finally lit the fuse that could blow his ass off. Assuming the lieutenant governor doesn't figure out a way to have him impeached before then, although he's been working on it for awhile.
Chicago's top copper, Jody [Not JUDY] Weis [WEESE not WHY-SE] has had a run of bad luck since he got the job six months ago. First of all he's from the FBI. That rubs city cops the wrong way. Then he fired almost all the top brass to clean house right after he got to town. Now crime is up 13 percent. And people are mad. So Weis had to face the Chicago aldermen who were pretty honking fed up with a lot, but mostly, I think, his perceived arrogance.
So Weis goes in front of the city council for some hot seat Q & A. And comes up with some high class mea culpas. You're right, crime is up. I would be upset too. Perhaps there are officers who are hesitant to act because they are afraid of lawsuits for brutality. He never lost his cool once. He never got defensive. He kept telling the aldermen that all their concerns were important. The guy deflected more bullets than a Clint Eastwood shootout. Instead of a messy confrontation. Nothing.
Score: Weis, 1, Opponent, 0
Apparently the governor wasn't aware of what a masterful job Weis had done during his grilling. Because the next day the guv tells the media that Chicago has become Crime City USA and he's going to send in the state police to clean the mess up.
In response the Sun-Times ran a photoshopped picture of John Wayne from Rio Bravo with Blago's face in place of the Duke. There's a new cowboy in town who's going to get things done.
You might think Weis would take offense to the governor's insane accusation and subsequent offer to send state cops to the rescue. Hey, Weis -- you're incompetent.
Weis doesn't even blink. He says, why thanks, guv, we need all the help we can get.
Instead of a brutal smackdown, which the governor seems to relish, the only sound you heard was crickets.
Score: Weis, 2 Opponent, 0
Good thing the mayor is out of the country. First because he would have shot the governor himself for that little breach of politcal etiquette. Do not EVER embarrass the mayor in his house.
Second, Weis had to handle things without the mayor around to back him up, and the guy was a champ. Not once, but twice.
That's the good news. The bad news is that we're still stuck with a governor who needs medication.
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Friday, July 18, 2008
12:07:42 AM CDT
Well, It's Official. I'm A Certified Old Person.
I went to the Social Security Office today. It was time to sign up for Medicare. I hope death is this much fun.
In fact, I thought I might as well get fitted for a casket while I was out and about. Oh, wait. I forgot, I'm donating my body to medical science. Probably ought to take care of that paperwork one of these days.
I hate waiting in line. So I had put off doing this errand for a long time. Okay, just the last four days. Every day this week I managed to have to do something else. But this morning when I got up I just decided that I would spend the day getting this dreadful deed done.
But first I had to find the place. When I went to the web site there were directions that sounded like the office was located in a large mall. Turns out, it wasn't. I figured that out after putting ten miles on the car just driving around and around the mall's parking lot, looking for anything that said Social Security. But no luck.
I noticed a FedEx Kinko's across the street, so I went in to use one of their computers to check the directions which I would print out this time.
Turns out that's all FedEx Kinko's had -- one computer -- and some old geezer [probably younger than me] was reading the newspaper online. Unfortunately, no amount of lurking behind him seemed to make him feel inclined to budge from his appointed task, so I decided just to leave.
On the way out, I stopped a middle aged female clerk with a dyed black bouffant [Hello, the Sixties called -- they want their hair back] to find out if she knew where the Social Security Office was.
When I said Social Security, the words stuck in my throat. It felt like the first time I bought tampons. I was sure that any minute the cashier would lean into a microphone and shout, "Price check on feminine hygiene products! What are these? Extra Large?"
Instead, it turned out that the former Go Go Girl actually knew where the office was. "It's at the corner of Euclid and 83." That's all I needed. But then she tried to give me helpful directions. Go out here -- over here, not there, and turn left. Don't take route 45, See how it crosses over. Get on 83 and go South, no, wait, North on 83 and blah blah blah blah blah.
I figured it was only about a mile down the road so I just thanked her and eased on out the door. I think she was still talking as I left.
I found it. How could I have missed it? What is it about government buildings that sets them apart from others? Downtown they're all about dramatic columns, brass elevator doors and marble floors, especially if they wre built before the sixties. After that, they're all steel and glass with floor to ceiling windows and statues donated by Picasso out on a large pigeon cluttered plaza.
In the suburbs, giant buildings with soaring columns don't usually fit in with the local architecture. Instead you usually get a storefront operation at a strip mall. But for some reason, out here at the corner of Euclid and 83 the government tried to class up its act. They built a square glass box that looked like it was being held together from the top of the roof with bailing wire and string. There were large beams extending above the box with reinforced rods anchoring the beams to the top of the building. I shoulda took a picture.
As I drove into the parking lot I was mesmerized by how hideous this government attempt at modern architecture was. I kept thinking, "Someone got paid to design this place." Remarkably, this odd building was also stuck smack dab in the middle of a brick and clapboard neighborhood.
Kind of like building a castle with a turret in an area of Cape Cod homes. Oh wait, been there, done that.
But I digress.
I entered the building prepared for a long wait, since that's what Social Security means in English. I brought a fresh newspaper and a folder with reading material for a project I'm working on.
There was a large sign which gave instructions in three languages -- English, Spanish, and Polish. In case you still couldn't understand what it said there was a uniformed officer to read it for you. That's how he helped -- he read the sign out loud in the language you were most familiar with.
I was given a clipboard with a questionnaire to fill out. Then I had to wait until they called me. So I read the paper. There was a riveting article about all the different kinds of donuts you can eat. And the newspaper business can't imagine why they're losing money.
When my time came, I was directed to a window where a nice lady was sitting like a hooker in Amsterdam. She took my filled out questionnaire and then proceeded to ask me the exact same questions I had just answered on the questionnaire.
Oh, good I'm at the right place.
It didn't take very long. From the time I walked in to when I finished, I was there for about two hours at the most. Of course, even though it didn't take long, they made sure I had plenty of paper to keep myself busy trying to understand WTF everything means.
The bad news is that this process often takes all day.
The good news is that it only felt like it.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
6:52:33 AM CDT
There Is No Such Thing As Bad Publicity
Boy, have we been hearing from the folks who are up in arms about the cover of the New Yorker. The New Yorker, of course, is happy as a clam at a pig roast. Show me the money!!!!
I guess the biggest problem for people who hate the cover is that the cartoon seems to satirize Michelle and Barack as terrorists, instead of taking aim at the people who are perpetuating that notion -- blaming the victims, as it were.
Someone on a discussion panel made a worthwhile point. If, for instance, a person like Karl Rove had been depicted in the cartoon with a thought balloon over his head and the infamous "terrorist" Obamas inside it, perhaps the New Yorker's satiric intention would have been clear.
Incorporating the alleged origins of the rumors would have pointed the satire in the right direction.
Like The New Yorker gives a rip about explaining themselves.
They might as well include a banner across the top of the cover that says, "Hey, it's a joke!"
Clearly the drawing has succeeded in doing everything a political cartoon is supposed to do -- engage and enrage.
In the end, is the cartoon offensive? Yes. Is it provocative? Yes. Is it satire? Yes. Does it seem mean spirited? Yes. Is this a free country? Yes.
My first reaction was "Oh, geez, they've lost their minds." Then I noticed the fist bump between Black Panther Michelle and Osama Obama and I laughed. I don't know why that little gesture took me from a nose wrinkle of disgust to laughter, but it did. Perhaps it seemed to encapsulate the absurdity of anyone thinking they are the least bit subversive in any way.
Of course turnabout is fair play. What is the New Yorker going to do to satirize McCain? Show him as a guide at the Smithsonian Air Museum leading tours of the five planes he supposedly trashed, because he was such a bad pilot. "I dumped this little beauty into the ocean off of Pensacola." "I backed this one into a bomb on a carrier and killed over 100 sailors. Ooopsie daisy!" "This one I don't remember, oh, wait I was hungover." "Oh, here's the one I lost over North Vietnam. Better take a map next time."
How about we see him seated in the Oval Office, with his low class rank at the Naval Academy prominently displayed behind him. As he tries to make an important military decision, he suddenly realizes he missed class that day.
Or perhaps they could showhim in a POW camp playing cards, smoking cigars, and drinking brandy with his captors while his fellow prisoners are staring at him in various states of starvation.
Or standing at the podium giving a speech saying he's his own man, while being manipulated by Bush from behind a curtain, like a ventriloquist's dummy.
Meanwhile, what is lost in this shizzlestorm is that the controversial cartoon bears no relation to the excellent article about the Obamas inside the magazine.
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Monday, July 14, 2008
12:49:54 AM CDT
Two Tales From the City
Perhaps Two Tales From The Block I Live On would be more accurate.
I was sitting in my car, parked across the street from my house writing addresses on envelopes for a mailing I have to send out to the neighborhood about Commonwealth Edison, when one of my neighbors and her daughter walked by with their dog.
They came over to my window to see why I was sitting there when I could be in my driveway. After we exchanged hellos, I explained that I was too cheap to waste the gas and drive into my driveway.
After I asked her daughter if she was married and had children yet, only to find out she was home from her junior year in college, I called out to their dog, "Hey, Scout, how're you doing?" Scout is a mixed breed, a little German shepherd, a lot of other things. He's bigger than a beagle but smaller than a lab, and I've known him for years, since he was a puppy. So I was surprised when he didn't react to my voice like he used to. But since I hadn't seen him up close and personal in a long time, I just chalked it up.
"Oh, that's not Scout," my neighbor said.
"Whaddya mean that's not Scout?!" I replied.
"Scout died three years ago, this is Maya."
"How did you get another dog that looks exactly like Scout?" I asked, incredulous, "It's not like Scout was a purebred or anything."
"We found her at one of those doggy day events at PetSmart."
"Is she a clone?" I couldn't get over the resemblance.
END OF RIVETING STORY NUMBER ONE.
START OF RIVETING STORY NUMBER TWO:
Before my neighbor resumed her walk with her daughter and their dog, she leaned over to tell me something that VIKTOR, our Soviet Bloc contractor/neighbor said to her. He built the ugly McMansion across the street from me. It didn't sell, so he and a large band of gypsies moved in so it wouldn't get ticketed for not being occupied or something.
A little back story: Viktor has a monster black Dodge hemi pick up truck. It's wide and long. He also has a driveway that's two cars wide and a garage that could park a helicopter.
But, despite all the room he has on his property, he insists on parking his monster truck opposite MY driveway, so I have to be careful not to hit him when I am backing out.
Meanwhile my neighbor has a one car width driveway and a one car garage. Her family has three cars whichcan fill up their driveway parked end to end. So her daughter's boyfriend has to park on the street. He often chooses to park in front of my house. As a result, his car is directly across from Viktor's driveway.
The other day Viktor asked my neighbor if her daughter's boyfriend would mind not parking directly across from his driveway.
To which my neighbor replied, "All right, but you may also want to move your truck since it's been blocking Mrs. Linklater's driveway for the past two years."
All of a sudden he didn't have a problem with where the boyfriend parked his car.
Do you know that tonight was the first night since he began digging the hole for the foundation of his vampire house over two years ago that his Dodge Hemi was actually parked in his driveway? Not directly across from mine.
So I guess I won't have to break off his rear view mirrors or key the doors after all.
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Saturday, July 12, 2008
12:30:02 PM CDT
Le Beure Monsieur, Por Favor
I love the taste of butter.
Okay, I said it. I admitted to my cholesterol clogging habit and frankly, I'm not ashamed.
If I had a choice between a bar of chocolate and a slice of plain white bread slathered with sweet butter, I'd take the bread and butter.
I will eat anything dipped in clarified butter especially when it's enhanced with a bit of fresh lemon juice. Artichokes for instance. And when there are no artichokes, I'm happy with whatever's around -- pickles, carrots, meatloaf. Anything I can dip is fair game. [Shut up, Remo; you, too, Chris.]
Time was, in my youth, I could put away an entire loaf of garlic bread, the homemade kind, as long as it was made with fresh garlic and sweet butter. I also recall eating at least ten ears of leftover, cold, Silver Queen corn the morning after a party my mother gave, because she had bought REAL butter for company and I felt like I had stumbled onto the motherlode.
I have made hollandaise sauce for myself for breakfast, just so I could spread it on toast, since the main ingredient in the recipe is a whole stick of butter.
When
I was a child I sat at the table watching while my frugal mother spent half an hour blending the
capsule of yellow coloring into the large round bowl of white, lard-like
stuff that was the margarine of the forties. I despised the taste of that egregious substitute for
butter as much as I loved the real thing.
Unfortunately, my mother had no appreciation for my sensitive palette when it came to butter. I hated margarine and let her know every time she went to the store. But margarine was less expensive than butter, and as a child of the depression, she thought buying the substitute seemed like a good way to economize. We could have multiple cars, live in an upper middle class suburb, ride horses, take all kinds of music lessons, go to expensive colleges, but we couldn't spendan extra dime or so for butter.
Her usual response to me over the years was that she was sure I couldn't tell the difference. Oh, yes I can, I told her again and again. She even tried to trick me and I always caught on to her little scam no matter how she tried to pull it off.
Nowadays they've come up with some tasty substitute spreads, none of which tastes like butter to me, but at least they don't have that horrible greasy aftertaste from my childhood. I can live with these fake versions when I have to, usually when I'm visiting a friend who has expunged all evidence of taste and flavor from his or her refrigerator in order to reduce their "bad fats."
Which brings me to a purchase I made yesterday. With my pronounced preference for the taste of butter, you would think I might be really fussy about the kind I eat, refusing local products and only purchasing the imported stuff from Europe.
I admit that butter quality has become an absurd discussion point among bakery chefs trying to one up each other for the best frostings, cakes, and cookies. I have some amateur chef friends who also like to expound on their expertise. These are the same people who can recite the percentages of cocoa in every brand of chocolate ever made.
Not me. Until now I've been happy with sticks of Land O Lakes. Since that's the main brand on the shelf at my store.
Well, the real butter snobs finally got to me the other day. Along with the Land O Lakes at my grocery, I suddenly noticed row after row of brand names I'd only heard about on The Food Channel. Actually, a former friend was the first person I ever heard use "Plugra" correctly in a sentence.
But I passed on the very high end Plugra because it only came in giant bricks and I felt moderation was in order for my first foray into butter cuisine. So I settled for an 8.8 ounce tub of Kerrygold -- imported, pure Irish butter.
For something to taste it with I bought a small loaf of Boudin sour dough bread. [Despite my addiction, I haven't started eating butter right off the stick yet.]
Every day for the past three days, I've torn off a couple of pieces of the bread and swiped them across the top of the Kerrygold butter. [I live alone so I can do what I want.] I can get about five swipes for each chunk of bread. The bread gets smaller and smaller while the amount of butter increases with each bite.
I'm rather pleased at the amount of restraint I've shown, since there was a time when the entire loaf would have disappeared in one sitting along with the butter. Being older and unable to jam pack my stomach to overflowing anymore may be the real reason. Not that I haven't made an effort.
The butter is a beautiful bright gold color, which says to me it comes from cows that eat grass, not feed. It also doesn't melt at room temperature, a sure sign it hasn't been contaminated with canola oil to make it heart-healthy.
I must admit part of me wonders how they get the butter over here. Import the cows? Or is there an "oil" tanker crossing the Atlantic even as we speak?
I even took the extra step of going online to read up about Kerrygold, but I didn't get past the first page of their website, which had a large photo of a SIX pound value pack I could purchase for the low low price of 39 pounds, or was that dollars?
It sounded like too much sugar for a cent, to quote my great grandmother, who often said things that made sense until you began to think about it.
On the other hand, I wonder whether artichokes are in season yet.
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Friday, July 11, 2008
7:17:23 PM CDT
Breaking In The New Guy Part II
I guess da Mare took his top cop to the woodshed this week. Apparently Jody Weis got a loud dressing down about gangbangers getting a foothold at the Taste of Chicago over the Fourth of July celebration. Some people got shot when the crowd was headed to trains and buses on Michigan Avenue. When it was over, a girl was dead.
Since Weis got to Chicago six months ago, crime has escalated. But apparently crime is up all over the country. So you could cut him some slack and say the timing of his arrival was unfortunate. But he made it worse all by himself. His sweeping firing of almost all the commanders was brought up on the news tonight, yet again.
Because of the Fourth of July fiasco, he now has to publicly face the City Council shortly to answer questions by the aldermen. Besides the rise in crime, they're also pissed because Weis hasn't been keeping them in the loop when he decides to make high level personnel changes in their districts. That's a courtesty call at the very least. He hasn't been doing it.
He forgets that, unlike the FBI, which can ignore whining politicians, he has to pucker up in Chicago. You got to kiss 'em or they'll fark you.
I wonder if he talked to any former big city police chiefs about their recommendations for doing the job right, since he's never done it before.
Heck I would have gone to visit the notorious Mark Fuhrman who, for all his arrogance was still a good detective. Or Vincent Bugliosi, who was a very successful LA prosecutor and author of one of the best books about how the O.J. trial got so screwed up.
Of course, given the track record of the top cops in New York and LA and/or their departments, Weis may want to think about talking to somebody in a less "controversial" venue. Who am I kidding? Too late.
It's also way too late for Weis to make a good first impression. But he could make a bad one better. But I don'tsee that happening.
On the good news front, I found out that Weis is married. Thank goodness. Of course, he's married to a fitness trainer. So I can't rule out an S&M fetish.
What do you mean the media would have outed him by now? How about what happened to tall, dark, handsome and rich Jack Ryan, the ex-hubba bubba of Jeri Ryan, who played 7 of 9 on one of the Star Trek spinoffs. Jacko was running for office here in Illinois. He didn't think his divorce decree would be made public, when ta-da! it was. Turns out he liked to visit sex clubs, intimidating his wife to join him. There was more, but that was plenty. Needless to say he withdrew from the race.
Oh please oh please oh please -- I am so hoping that someone or something from somewhere surfaces to out Jody Weis.
Meanwhile, there are only oblique references to Weis' carpetbagger status. The cops don't talk about it in public. Although the head of their union said they werent happy when he was hired.
Besides the dressing down behind closed doors, the mayor was so ticked off about Weis' handling of the Fourth that he took one of his jobs away from him. He moved the current fire commissioner over to the position of head of emergency services. When there's a disaster, the former fire commish is now in charge.
That used to be Weis' second job title, along with top cop. It supposedly justified his 300k salary which is more than the mayor makes. I don't know what they'll do to justify his salary now.
After demoting Weis by promoting the old fire guy, the mayor announced the fire department's new leader. He's only the second black in that position, but surprisingly that's not what everybody's picking up on, even though the fire department has been rife with racism over the years.
The head of the firefighter's union was interviewed after the announcement. He made a big show of pointing out that the new Fire Commish [unlike the new top cop] "rose through the ranks, starting out as a regular fireman and working his way up. . .we can work with him." They have one of their own.
Point taken.
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Thursday, July 10, 2008
11:47:20 AM CDT
The State of Parenthood
I watched something pretty scary this morning.
A re-run of Oprah.
A re-run is scarier than the first time around because it means I know the outcome, but I'm still watching.
The train wreck on today's show was Martha Stewart's only child, Alexis, who, at 40-ish, has been trying to get pregnant. Something about her mom wanting a grandchild.
I wrote about the show the first time around too, but frankly, I don't care if I do it again. My memory being what it is and all.
Apparently Alexis tried making babies the old fashioned way when she was married -- without success. I'm sure like most women, she tried it several times the old fashioned way after her divorce, too. Nothing wrong with practice, practice, practice.
But time is running short. Her eggs are getting wrinkled. Since she is clearly a woman who typifies the way her generation thinks, she's decided she can do it by herself.
So she's eliminated the middleman, as it were, and taken the high tech highway. Sounds like every month she has been giving herself hormone shots to artificially stimulate the eggs to maturity -- no sense in having to wait for a relationship these days. Not when you can speed up the process, even though it means running the risk of getting ovarian cancer instead. Leave it to Mrs. L to throw a damper into all this.
After all the foreplay shots, Alexis has a romantic interlude with people in sterile gowns and gloves, who invade her ovaries each month and harvest the eggs, put one in a petri dish, look at it under a microscope, shove a needle into it with donor sperm, make sure the egg is fertilized, let it grow for awhile, then suck it up into a pipette and blow it back into her uterus.
Does Hallmark have a card for this?
The thing is, none of these sterile procedures is getting her pregnant. Surrogate anyone? Surrogate? Of course as Martha's daughter, a surrogate would be tantamount to substituting margarine in a good recipe.
Meanwhile, every
time Alexis goes through this drill, pardon the expression, you can chalk up another
month that she ups her risk of ovarian cancer. Sorry, I just had to bring that up because it is the elephant in the room.
Mrs. Linklater thinks she has a way to help.
Hey, you in the back there, stop laughing.
Mrs. Linklater's theory of how to get pregnant is based on the number of women who finally adopt a child, only to have their own naturally conceived baby arrive within a year. Those of you who have suffered through this before with Mrs. Linklater can skip to the end.
The secret? Pheromones -- the subliminal scents that rev up the babymaking hormones. Grease the rusty spigot with some mothering juices and voy-la, you're p.g.
Step One: Alexis should stop trying to look like a replicant from Bladerunner. On Oprah, her hair was cut so close to her head it looked like a helmet. This makes her appear very androgenous. Combined with her extremely heavy eye makeup, yet colorless lips, along with her above average height, and she could pass for a drag queen. Wrong pheromones.
Enough with the sexual ambiguity, she's got to go girly. Let the hair grow. Cultivate a natural look with less eye stuff and a little more pink on the lips. Wear dresses. You look girly, you feel girly. That way pheromones don't get confused.
Step Two: Alexis should stop hanging out with her menopausal mother every day. Or spending time with other goal oriented, career-driven women. Pheromones for babymaking do not thrive in that environment. If she wants to get pregnant, she needs to hang out with women who are already pregnant and having babies. They leak pheromones.
Step Two Part Deux: To help her pheromones thrive, Alexis should start watching Lifetime in place of Charlie Rose. She should begin taking long baths with candles. Without her Blackberry in the room. She should put down her Wall Street Journal and start to read "What to Expect When You're Expecting."
While she's at it she should feel free to satisfy her cravings for ice cream or macaroni and cheese. Perhaps offer to babysit for her friends. The smell of infants is perhaps the most powerful pheromone for women trying to make babies. Even the nausea from poopy diapers has an upside. It's good practice for morning sickness.
My concern is that Alexis is going about this pregnancy thing with all the emotion of finding a good parking place. She's invested on an intellectual level, but doesn't seem to be in touch with her feelings.
Step 2.5: Have I mentioned hiring a surrogate? Adoption? A dog?
Step Three: No offense to the WASPs of America, but Alexis is like Sydney or any of those other boy names converted for girl use. They get shortened to Alex, Al, or Syd. Mrs. L thinks those kinds of neutral names are serious pheromone killers. Perhaps Alexis should try a new name for a while. Even better, she should apply for witness protection and try living a new life. Call herself Ashley. Live in a small town. Shop at Wall-Mart. Eat dessert at the Dairy Queen. Have drunken sex with a guy named Bubba in a pick up truck. Get pregnant.
Aha.
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008
8:16:44 AM CDT
Typical American Family Part II
Ah, yes, another heartwarming story of an American family.
An eleven month old baby girl was rushed to the hospital yesterday. But she died.
Her mother's boyfriend had taken her to his family's home for a visit. The baby's father is in prison.
Turns out hospital tests showed that the baby had a high level of alcohol in her system. What is Gerber putting in their food these days?
Let's contemplate a suitable punishment for this innocent child's death.
There isn't one.
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7:53:47 AM CDT
Just A Typical American Family
Today we have another example of why I stopped being a battered women's advocate.
Last week a women staggered into a hotel lobby where she worked and died of stab wounds. She left three kids.
Her husband was a person of interest, naturally. Soon he became a suspect. Yesterday he was picked up walking on a road in Indiana. He'd abandoned his car at a truck stop and was walking back to northern Illinois, reporters said. Or he may also have been walking to Florida, since apparently he has relatives there.
Here's the good part: he had previously spent several years in prison for trying to kill his first wife and attempting to abduct their daughter.
So why did this pretty, thirty-something latina marry an ugly 58-year-old white guy in the first place? And make babies with him? That's a
rhetorical question because there is no answer that ever makes sense.
She had recently filed for divorce and had an order of protection against this great American. But, like so many women who think they can control these guys, he probably called and she agreed to meet with him. Hello??!!! Why do you think they call it an order or protection? She probably thought that she could see him just this once and the order of protection would still be enforceable afterward.
Nope.
A long time ago I began to realize that if I can predict your behavior, you do not have free will. Of course in the eyes of the justice system everyone has free will unless you can prove you are crazy. Otherwise there might be nobody in jail.
Abusive men leave clues about their potential behavior. Five indicators include jealousy, isolating you, controlling behavior, verbal abuse, and threats to harm you, your pet, or your family.
You can follow the signs like breadcrumbs. Did I mention that one of the clues is PAST behavior, say doing time for murdering a previous spouse?
Eventually after all the emotional and physical bruising, death starts to loom as the final option, especially when you make the mistake of telling someone who hurts you that you're leaving.
But I owe him that much. Shut up. Just do it.
Of course, just as predictable are the women these mopes have battered. They don't believe a stranger who tells them that their lives are in danger. Almost always, they will ignore any and all warnings, until about the seventh time around -- assuming they live that long -- no matter how urgently you try to communicate the danger they're in.
Here's the part I loved -- when something abusive happened to these women, they'd get mad at ME because I was the one who warned them, instead of being angry at their abuser.
I've never had any one call me to say, "Sorry I ignored your advice. He threatened me and I got out just in time."
With one exception. There was one woman who actually did listen. She was afraid
to get a divorce from her drunk, abusive husband who used to shoot his
gun at the living room ceiling, because she had two kids. However, those kids were
boys, a guy magnet if you want to remarry, and she had a nest egg from
her parents. I told her she'd be married again in two years. She dumped
him and two years later married a guy she met at a scouting event.
Later she told me she remembered what I said and that gave her the
courage to do it. The difference was she was a neighbor who knew
me.
But nine times out of ten, battered women don't think your advice applies to them so they ignore it until after the fact.
After going through this rinse and repeat drill a few more times, I was burnt toast. And now there are three more children who don't have a mother because, unfortunately, as the old joke goes, she just wouldn't listen.
Written by jevanslink
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