Cuckoo

I loved my psychiatrist in Germany.  He was a tall, thin man with a long, white coat and short white hair.  The kind of glasses you push to the tip of your nose.  

In Germany you had to go and see a psychiatrist if you wanted your health insurance to pay for therapy.  I had an American therapist (Jewish to boot), but I had to go to this German psychiatrist quarterly to have him ask me the kind of questions I thought were once reserved for eye doctors: Better, worse or the same?

But usually he wouldn't get to those until the end of our 20-some-odd minute appointment.  Once my German became proficient enough, we talked art.  We talked politics.  He was a fan of Woody Allen movies (should this surprise for a shrink?) and wanted to know if Woody's voice in English sounded like his dubbing actor's voice.  (It doesn't).

During one of our conversations, I told him that I had started to realize a pattern: when spring started to spring, I started to get anxious.  My two major depressions both started late-spring.  Just when the flowers popped and the leaves popped and everything got that intense color of green they only get in spring.  Was this normal, I asked?  I mean, what time of year, generally speaking, do most people go nuts?  Spring.  Apparently.

I've always considered myself a sensitive person.  Most things I've ever found a talent at doing in my life have been an exploitation in some way of this sensitivity.  I'm a soft-shell gal who has to sometimes walk around with very heavy coats to keep from sucking up my environment too directly, too liberally.

So there are things that I have learned not to do.  I never watch the local news, no matter where I am.  Never.  My friends have to call me and tell me when school is closed for a snow day because otherwise I will have no clue.  

I won't go to movies where there is violence or suspense because it gets me spinning.  Whenever someone mentions Harry Potter my husband has to mention that we were reading it aloud to each other for a time but had to stop in the middle of book 3 because I started having nightmares.

Obviously, though, there are some things in life you can't control, you can't select out.  And for me, the highly, so sensitively cat-gut strung that I am, I cannot stop the earth's rotation.  I hibernate like it's nobody's business and then springtime comes and, even with all the devices in the world, I go anxious.  My energy goes furious.  Everything goes spinning faster, as though the little cuckoo inside the clock must come out every fifteen minutes instead of the hour.  Every hour is fifteen minutes and are we crazy yet?

Perhaps this is the way we humans are supposed to be after a long winter.  There's shit to get done, you know?  Though, life and weather not always cooperating, without the survival push, it is almost an autoimmune disease.  Fifteen minutes until the next pecking.  Anyone hungry for a little bird?

Creepy, Crawly, Crawdaddy?

Via an article in the NYTimes today, I found this amazing illustrated book-- The ABCs of Invertibrates.  It was illustrated by a mathematician who had a rare progressive brain disorder which, amongst other symptoms, manifested itself in a heightened artistic drive.  

Since I'm all excited about brain disorders in general (I think I nurse some myself), I of course find this fascinating.  Reminds me of a lot of the writing of Oliver Sacks who, by the way, is an avid collector of all sorts of weird stuff himself (and not just stories!)

Anyhow, go and browse these interesting and creepy illustrations.  Perhaps it will inspire you (or someone, anyone, please!) to do something about the doggerel rhyming texts.

Bye Bye Birdie

Well, it's official: Green will come. The tulips are pushing their dumb little heads up through the crusty gray surface of the earth. The garden hose, left out to freeze, is now uncovered. If it still works?

We all are beyond cabin fever. We take every small sign of spring as a miracle. We may believe in the eventuality of the calendar, but this winter tested our faith in it.

Should that hunger for spring lead us to the aisles of the grocery store, however, we must beware. The fruits of springtime are not yet here.

To wit, this article in the NY Times today tells of a disturbing connection between all those healthy, fresh foods we crave even on the darkest and shortest of days, and how they are killing songbirds. Yowza.

So, regardless of whether you think it doesn't matter for your health if you buy an organic or a conventional banana (after all, it's peeled anyway, some say), take a look at this article. Then, if you're so price conscious that the extra 10 cents a pound kills you, go buy your organic produce at Trader Joe's, which won't sting so much as buying at Whole Paycheck.

Half past Easter and down the path to Passover, it's a particularly a good time to think of those eggies that we love, dye, coddle and roast: don't let the hype fool you. The birdies, they not so happy with your spring.

Domestic (and otherwise)

The sun is shining today.  The temperature gauge in my car reads a desperately hopeful 59 degrees.  I kept the sunroof popped (except when driving by the two-day-old skunk roadkill, which requires a hermetic re-sealing).

Mostly idyllic.  Yet somehow, the domestic discontent has come home to roost.  

Last night, my husband sported home one of those white parcels which I know-- the second he walks in the door-- is from my mother-in-law.  Don't get me wrong.  I love those parcels.  In terms of gift-giving folk, my mother-in-law is tops on my list.  Always thoughtful, never in bad taste.  Most often using chocolate as packing material.  What could be wrong?

The package was addressed to my son, who almost leapt from his skin in excitement.  We opened it to find a cartoony, old-style dinosaur lunch box.  Inside, full and I mean FULL of easter candy... Oh, of course the good kind.  All those deliciously multicolored, foil-wrapped little swiss eggs-o-love.  A Lindt chocolate bunny.  On a bed of wood-spun, naturally-dyed easter grass.  Beautiful.  Stunning.  It's 6:15pm, my son's hungry, and I haven't started dinner.

We tried a sneaky approach.  We said "Oh, those are dinosaur eggs."  (Hey, not totally improbable... we had just been playing with dinosaurs expertly crafted out of Play-doh who were sitting on a nest of dino-eggs.  Anyhow, not as outlandish as you would think.

My son cries out, as if in pain, "That's chocolate!  Those are chocolate eggs!"  

Do you think he could smell the chocolate through the wrapping?  Jesus.  OK, plot failed. Three-year-old cannot be outwitted on this count (and, sadly, on fewer and fewer occasions). 

We let him have one, with the promise that we will bring them out again in the morning.

He isn't having any of it.  He's tugging furiously at my husband's leg as my husband robs the proverbial easter nest of its loot and transfers it into a ziploc bag.  My son begins to bay and squeal: "They're stealing my chocolate!  They're taking it from me!"

At once so desperate, so unjust a situation.  I couldn't not see it from his perspective.  I have to admit: I am the bad guy.  My husband looked at me with a sad, yet entertained look and I said, "OK, one more, and then they are going away until tomorrow morning."

And here I sit, evil mother.  Sometimes I don't seem to know when it's right to give in, and when it's right to stick to my guns.  I mean, come on!  My heart (and eyes, and thighs) delighted at the haul just as my son's had.  But then, being the adult, I had to say no.  I had to make the wise decision that if I let my son eat to his heart's content he'd bounce around like a baby on crack and then get so wound up that at the end of the evening there would be a giant temper tantrum, tears, and my feeling like I needed to be checked into a mental institution.

And in the hopes of avoiding all such occurrences, I reined him in.  I keep everyone on even-keel, even though half the time I'd like to join them on a bender or two, be it staying up late or playing the music loud or shoving my face with chocolate.  

I could tell you that it all probably stems from my childhood, and it probably wouldn't be wrong.  Still, somehow I feel like I have to find a little more of an erratic balance sometimes.  I don't know-- maybe it's the weather, the little tulips workin' hard for a livin', the promise of tomorrow's backhand slap of snow-sleet-crap.  

Or maybe it's the smell of that chocolate that's got me all worked up-- and, if you'll excuse me, hold that thought.  I must attend to my moronic cat who is trying to barf up a little piece of foil he found on the floor.  

Oh yes.

"Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well." -- Barack Obama 3/18/08

'nuf said.

BICADIBL

No, it's not an acronym for some prehistoric reptile with only two teeth.  It's the founding of a new blog!  Anke and I have had so much fun coming up with nonsense definitions for the Captchas on Blogger that we've decided to take it to the next level.

Thus, the founding of the BICADIBL, The Bilingual Captcha Dictionary Blog, at http://bicadibl.blogspot.com   ...So go on over and enjoy some of the first juicy tidbits and join in the fun with a morsel of your own.  It's meaning-making on a useless (but highly personally-rewarding) level!

Every cloud has a...

...microbial lining?

Fascinating and apparently true, there be little critters up in the mesosphere (ahem, that's above the stratosphere, for those keeping score).

So, perhaps we should think twice about whether that white, untouched snow is really that much cleaner than the yellow snow....

Go read. It will do your brain good!

It's a Snowmergency!

OK, well maybe not really a "mergency" (as my son calls them), but we are all pretty much going bananas up here. Not only have we pulverized our previous snowfall total record (which, I may add, was set in the notoriously noxious winter of 1978), but we are apparently getting a little too loopy up here.

I would call it cabin fever, but, being that we all live in some form of modified suburbia, I'm not sure that that keeps to the spirit of the phrase. All I can say is that my gas fireplace (controlled by a switch, thank you very much) is workin' overtime.

I just went out a while ago to shovel the 10 feet from my driveway to my front door of its 8" of snow (underlayed with a stunningly beautiful 1/2 inch of ice) and it took me over a half an hour. After which time, aside from being in a slightly surly mood, I couldn't feel my fingertips.

Well, I had planned to go out and take pictures this morning of the gorgeous trees, branches encased in ice (they looked like wonderful, weird tootsie-roll lollipops) but alas, it was too cold. I was too much of a wuss. I could say something deep about the fleetingness of beauty and change and blah blah but truth is, most of what I can think of is "Thank God for the Attached Garage".

Then, I stumbled upon this post on the Isthmus (a local Madison free newspaper) web site titled, "We're one snowstorm away from anarchy" (make sure to read all the way down, it gets better and better) and almost peed my pants. I said almost, friends. Thank God I didn't. No one likes peecicles.

Down to Earth

So I know it's been a while since I've written a "real" blog post... and suddenly, kapow! I have ten million things I want to write about. And, of course, very little time to actually sit down and do it. Better that way than the other way around, I suppose!

Today I was reading a Richard Scarry book to my son for the umpteen-millionth time. (I say that with all love, because I do truly love Richard Scarry books, and I love that my son loves them). He requested a story that hasn't been on our top ten Scarry radar, called "The Accident". Now, there's nothing grand about "The Accident" per se. It has the usual Scarry cast of characters who get into an unfortunate pile-up because they were not looking where they were going. Then a fellow named Greasy George comes along and he does a predictably bad job at putting all the cars back together, equally combining the parts from all the cars and the motorcycle until each vehicle is absurdly cock-eyed.

Again, cute, but we've seen this kind of thing before. And then, in an aside, you see a voice coming out from under an engine hood. It's Seargent Murphy's radio. It says, "Come in, Seargent Murphy! Your little girl Bridget will not take her nap. Come home immediately!"

I've seen this page probably zillions of times, but today this little snippet just made me heave a happy sigh. I'm not sure when Richard Scarry wrote this story, but it was probably at least 30 years ago. And apparently back then mothers were getting fed up with their kids some days and calling in the big kahuna.

Sometimes I feel like a wonderful mother. Sometimes I feel like an hysterical knit-wit who doesn't even know how to garner the cooperation of someone 1/3 of her size. And sometimes I feel like I'm insane for getting frustrated and saying to my husband (as we all do, I suppose?) "Here. Here's your child. Now you deal with him!"

Somehow it's the collision of all these feelings that gave me some moment of clarity today. That, and the fact that, suddenly, my little guy is saying things like, "Hey mama! Come here! I have an idea!" and wanting to have his hands cleaned and even eating gasp! stir-fried chicken and vegetables over rice at the table and trying bamboo shoots and liking them. "Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo!"

Yet for all the progress today held, I still must type with the strains of evening protest in the background (doesn't want diaper on, doesn't want this set of pyjamas, wants those pyjamas) which makes me so annoyed and yet amused. Seargent Murphy, we have a problem indeed. Come in immediately!

O-bama-rama

Give this Barack Obama widget a fly...

Juvenile but satisfying!

Sarah Silverman's song "I'm F**cking Matt Damon"

Brushmasters

My husband is an inspiration. He has figured out how to play the national anthem on our electric toothbrush-- simply by by varying how open or closed he has his mouth.

He is also the source of the following little ditty we sing to our son at toothbrushing time. Sung to the tune of "Take me out to the ballgame":


Take me out to the bathroom
Take me out to the sink
Bring me a toothbrush and some toothpaste
I don't care if the paste goes to waste
Let me brush my molars and canines
If they're not clean it's a shame
For it's one, two, three strikes you're out
At the toothbrush game!

Something makes me think that, aside from science, he has multiple callings in life.

Aah, it all becomes clear now...

From the NYTimes about the unseen, long-term effects of binge-drinking (italics are mine):

On a microscopic level, Dr. Crews has shown that heavy binge-drinking in rats diminishes the genesis of nerve cells, shrinks the development of the branchlike connections between brain cells and contributes to neuronal cell death. The binges activate an inflammatory response in rat brains rather than a pure regrowth of normal neuronal cells. Even after longstanding sobriety this inflammatory response translates into a tendency to stay the course, a diminished capacity for relearning and maladaptive decision-making.

I wonder who this makes me think of... hmmm....

More Heave-Ho, Less Ho-Ho

Since I can't bear to dissect the fact that I spent a good 6 hours of today working on presents for others (I knitted, bought, wrapped, packaged, carded, addressed and mailed... for SIX stinkin' hours!), I will supply you with some joyful distraction and some things that have given me a chuckle in the past few days.

1) This web site for snow blowers. I got a good giggle out of the copy on this one. "The snow will shiver in fear, not you!" Uh-huh. Go out there and show that snow who's boss. Er... or just finish clearing the path, you over-testosteroned dolt-freak!

2) Oh. My. God. Nothing says Christmas cheer like this. Make sure to watch the video clip. Hey, don't blame me. I wasn't out there looking for that special gift for the hunting enthusiast in my life!

3) "What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough." A review of the earliest episodes of Sesame Street, now available on DVD. Elmo is DEFINITELY prozacky. Read on.

4) Slimey Worm's MySpace page. Yup. A 38-year-old male living in Oscar's Trash Can. Notice the "friends"... Some people have way too much time on their hands! (Though if you ever see a copy of the book "Slimey to the Moon" snag it for me... I'll pay you back!) ;)

5) This gal kicks some major butt (see above comic)

Happy Holidays, y'all!

Too fine a point

Not sure where to start this, so I guess I'll start with the drive. Tonight, amidst the falling snow, I left my house, husband tucking present-crazed child into bed, mother and stepfather watching television in the basement. At almost 9:00 on a Thursday evening with two inches down in the last hours upon the almost foot of snow on the ground, did I really need to be out driving?

A girlfriend of mine is out of town for a few days and I promised her that I'd go by her house and pick up her mail and any packages that might have been dropped there. In fact, even when she goes out of town for only a couple of days, I always volunteer to do it. And I don't mind doing it. Somehow, perhaps, by visiting her house while she's gone I feel like I'm tending the friendship or visiting just a little.

Anyhow, as I drove into her neighborhood, I noticed a young man walking on the other side of the road. I was struck by such jealousy (though jealousy isn't the word)-- I wanted to be him. Suddenly I could read this stranger's gait and I knew: He's young, he's working something out as he slices through the snow. Sometimes you just need to escape into an outside where you can march the stupidity out of yourself and your thinking.

As I pulled into my friend's driveway, I noticed three hulking boxes which looked like elephants trying t0 "hide" behind the fake doric columns of her front porch. They looked so insipid! And somehow so sweet as well, like they were trying so hard.

I feel like that often myself, especially around my son. I am so filled with love for him, I could just be him. Then I remove myself and say this is the adult voice I use and the sensible thing I say to make sure you're safe and know boundaries all the while thinking Ha! If he only knew how we are all just pretending.

I loaded the awkward boxes into the back of my car, quickly rearranging my daily detritus (grocery freezer bag, pair of son's rubber frog boots only worn inside the house) and tossing them on top. Haphazard, but out of the snow. Not so silly and alone on the porch at least.

On the way back, I started to drive even more slowly, more deliberately. And I'm not sure it was out of a sense of safety, but rather, as though my wheels were working through something for me. I realized that I was listening to a classical piece that siphened me into it, and everything I saw was an extension of that listening, that movement of the car, the music. The snow is piled in drifts reflecting tangerine-colored light from the streetlights. All somehow so cozy and perfect and piled it seemed out of a movie, or a thought about winter, not actual winter itself.

Passing all the strung-up lights, the white deer were silhouetted and illuminated at once as they grazed upon the snow-wrapped yards. Dwarf pines swathed in frenetic dancing lights looked like little overdressed chihuahuas, blinking to themselves in that nervous way. All this man-made love and the snow arranging themselves together, working it out.

And that, perhaps, is exactly it. Working it out is beautiful and human and sometimes forced. And sometimes loveliness and grace just happens to settle up upon it-- upon the intention and the ritual and the routes of dailiness. Grace upon work. Work in the hopes of grace.

More! More! More!

There's a point at the end of Sesame Street where Slimy the Worm, bedecked in a sleeping cap (when did we stop using those?) implores to Oscar the Grouch: "Read more, read more! Read more Trash!" Oscar replies, "N0, Slimy. That was enough excitement for such a small worm. We'll read more tomorrow!"

Now when my son starts whining at us for something (yes, much of the time, books, but other stuff, too), we call him Slimy. "More, more, more!" we croon. It always makes him laugh. Now he's starting to use this mantra as well, and his two-year-old approximation of Slimy's voice, whenever he whines. Somehow it makes the whining more fun for both of us.

Now that it's getting dark out so early, we are often driving after dark, when Christmas lights are in their full bloom. He's in the back yelling, "More Christmas lights! More lights!" and I have to point them out to him as we pass. To tell the truth, I like looking at the lights, too. It's one of the least conflicted feelings I have about the season which is upon us.

***

I was somewhat dumbfounded by this rant on Slate.com by Christopher Hitchens, the notorious God-hater. I mean, I can understand the instinct to want strict separation of church and state. No government-sponsored Christmas trees or holiday programs or whatnot. I, personally, am not offended by them, but do acknowledge the criticism that they can be seen as endorsement of one religion over another.

Still, this guy really strikes me as joyless. And that's about the harshest thing I can say about anyone. He seems like a miserable human being. And his arguments, while some of them are not altogether without merit, are mirthless and unhuman.

Well, now he's taking potshots at Hanukkah. Not that I should be surprised, but I am taken aback. I wonder if it's because in general, I think public criticism of anything Jewish or even mildly Jewish is usually pounced upon and torn apart by the media. And while I think that some of that instinct is perhaps a little overdone (especially when it comes to legitimate criticism of Israeli policies or politics), I am also adamantly opposed to protecting hate speech. Period. That's why I could never join the ACLU.

Now, mind you, I know that this opinion is a controversial one. "Where do you draw the line?" people ask. Truth is, I'm not sure. But a line does have to be drawn somewhere for the health of our society, and it behooves us to think about this issue and debate it.

Anyhow, whether or not this rant constitutes hate speech (which I think it doesn't), it is still shocking and disconcerting. After reading it I felt horrible. Just horrible. Partially because I felt that he used an arithmetic which is not humane in its logic.

Then I found this response and felt better about the world again. Yes, thinking and feeling and knowing. Not to be warm and fuzzy about it, but looking for the light isn't that bad.

More light! Want more, MORE!

MamaH has not approved this ad

...but she still thinks it's freakin' funny. Good thing Huckabees is too conservative to get elected. At least he's making a joke of himself in more ways than one!

'Tis the season...

Let the games begin!

Ahem, let me rephrase that. As of November 1st: Let the games begin!

If you're confused, that is a true sign of your mental and fiscal health. You see, November 1st is the day that all things Halloween go in the bargain bin and wide swathes of nearly every store automatically pop up with tinsel, trimmings and light-diode-impregnated fake northern spruces.

Aah, the joys of the season that starts too soon, lasts too long, and drives the folks who work retail into lifetime Christmas music haters. Or is it "holiday" music haters?

Yes, as you can see, there is serious debate going on about whether the Wisconsin State "holiday tree" (dubbed so in the 1980's in a conniption of political correctness) should be renamed the "Christmas tree". Serious debate. Did I say that already?

Well, speaking as a resident Jew, I can plead... PLEASE return it to being the Christmas tree. Holiday tree is just ludicrous. Unless, that is, some wild roaming sect of Jews actually does have a penchant for felling small trees and bedecking them with oil lamps or candles. If there is such a case, my bad. Otherwise, let's just take down the whole ruse of egalitarianism. Trees have nothing to do with Hanukkah, nor to my knowledge, with Kwanzaa.

Then, go ahead and put up a menorah, or a kwanzaa candle thing, and maybe a festivus pole for good measure. (Festivus-- what an awesome stroke of comic genius!) Just don't waste our time pretending that the 50,000-pound elephant in the room is not indeed a towering elephant. In a whispered tone: We know about Christmas. It's OK. You can have that. Just don't expect us to decorate it with stars of david and play dreidel beneath it.

***

OK, on from the substantive debate. Now it's time for the real meaning of this holiday, er, christmas, er, shopping season... prezzies! Lots of 'em!

Including these dumb presents and these all-time most dangerous presents. Yep, they're real, folks. Reminds me of the cornballer from Arrested Development.

***

Yes, that's about as substantive as it gets these days... I've been running around trying to get everything done, knitting everything I can get my hands on (gee, can't guess if that's displaced mothering instinct, can we?) and almost ran a stop sign the other day (no kid in car... keep your pants on!) because I had a very surreal Luis Bunuel kind of image in my head of knitting eyelashes. Very strange. Perhaps a few too many lattes in the pot?

100% More Cheese

OK, OK...

Let me just lick off my fingers from these natural Cheetos (No preservatives, No artificial flavors, No artificial colors) and type a couple of minutes....

Yes, the glamor life in the intervening month or so (or longer?) since my last little snippet has trodden by and I've had only the impulse to write, never the follow-through or the subject matter, for that matter.

Life has just been strings of little whack-a-doodle details with no coherent storylines and it sort of reminds me of an episode of the show "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel. I saw one the other week when my husband was out of town about conch farmers who have to go out and harvest kelp to feed to the conch. They scoot out on this little dinky motorboat and haul all this slimy, long, rope-like kelp onto the boat and have to cut it with sharp knives (that stuff is actually amazingly strong). Does this sound like a good idea? Wielding sharp knives on a wet, slippery boat? One of the cameramen ends up puking.

Anyhow, nothing nearly as risky, but perhaps as dumb. My 2 1/2-year-0ld son had to have eye surgery and was on all sorts of drops and steriods. I believe this was the beginning of my downfall, because in order to keep him content (and from rubbing his eye all the time), we coaxed him into short bouts of mania with new toys, stickers, books, even the odd blue lollipop or two. It's been more than a month where I have had to physically catch him and hold him down for 5 eyedrops a day (during the day mostly by myself). And let me tell you, that ain't fun. Not woeful, just not fun.

Let's see now... Umm... There's been the fact that my son is 2 1/2 and thinks defiance is uproariously funny... that's been a good one. Then there has been the cold that has been passed along and has taken up residence at the farthest crevice of my sinus system (sort of like the solar system without any of the cache) and makes anyone who talks to me on the phone want to immediately get off because it's too obnoxious and/or painful to listen to me snort and snuff through the conversation.

Plus, the only freelance job I've had in a while is a five-hour whopper writing copy about acrylic bathtubs. Now with 100% new American acrylic!

Yes, all these things. And not knowing what to do with my life (how is it that everyone is doing something important with a capital "i" and I'm knitting an itchy scarf and eating "natural" Cheetos at 1pm?) and also not knowing if I will have another child (bigger, scarier, let's-not-go-there-because-it-could-get-messy).

Yup. The world of meaning, knock- knock- knockin' down my (OH-- mustn't forget... Oh crap. Whatever it is, I forgot it). Door?

Hello?

How do you say "Ass-in-nine"?

A little late night nugget for your reading pleasure:

Bush's copy of his UN speech was accidentally posted on the Web, along with "idiot-proof" phonetic spellings. How do you say, "Doh!"?