Cute (I think) lineup for a whodunit

Isn't this a cute and at the same time hilarious mug shot? If something's broken, it's definitely the one with the "ponytail." If someone's kvetching, it's usually the taller one.

Apple doesn't fall far...

When I first met Josh, almost 8 years ago, I think he thought my ethnicity was a novelty. One of our first dates was in Central Park, it was one of those free (but of course!) concerts. While sitting on the blanket and as I was feeling pretty good about getting to know him, he came up with a proposal for a game. How about I make a whole bunch of noises and you tell me if it's a word in Thai? he suggested. He completely jostled me out of my daydream into an indelicate reality. I was so offended, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I gave him a mouthful. Told him how offensive it was and that it was like making throwing up or other bodily funtion noises and asking someone if it meant something in his/her language - juvenile and uncouth.
We were able to move on from this experience because, as you know, a few years later, I have two beautiful children with this sometimes boorish idiot. Last night, one of our children told me she was going to say "goodnight" in Japanese. I got really excited, thinking that she picked up some Japanese from school. "Oookie ka ka ka da du" she says and I realize that she's making up sounds/noises. Then she says, I'm going to sing a song in Japanese. She belts out "Ode to Joy" but uses a bunch of non-sense syllables for the "lyrics". I can not believe the perfect pitch and melody and how long the "singing" goes on for. I guess she inherited her musical sense and sense of humor from Dad. I am now very concerned that she will soon tell fraternity-style potty and locker room humor types of jokes and humiliate me (as my husband often does). But it also means she will play a mean twinkle twinkle little star on the piano!

Confessions of a bi-polar blurter

I'm not proud of some of my shortcomings. One of them is that when I get angry, depressed or feel despondent about something, I often look to blame and insult. My poor husband is frequently the victim of such vituperative put-downs. "This marriage sucks!" I'll proclaim if I feel like he's screwed up with something.
Yesterday, my husband miraculously fixed our broken dryer. I admit that he's pretty handy and can fix many things, but this amazing accomplishment shocked me. I swelled with pride. And then it occurred to me, I should try to mitigate some of my past nasty comments so I told him, "This marriage rocks!" I expected at least a little smile but I got nothing.
The funny thing is that I think he's a unique (super-conceited?) individual.... impervious to both compliments and insults. Maybe a little more so with compliments. They don't actually affect (how great he already thinks he is). But really, my conclusion is that he is so much more intrinsically motivated than I am....hopefully he can pass that on to our kids.
Anyways, thanks for taking all of my wild mood swings in stride, Josh!
Sometimes, I do wish you could react outwardly to my comments. I know I sound like an immature pig when I say this, but I really wish I could get a rise out of you every now and again (without the surefire-brings-him-down-to-his-knees-as-he-cries-both-mercy-and-uncle; "I'm going to spend all our money!").

New skill

It's great to see cognitive skills develop in your kids. For the longest time, Sadie was oblivious to pronouns. Hold you, she would command me. Sit my lap, she would request. At 3 years old, she's mastered pronouns and now, I'm proudly announcing another new skill, transference.

Last night as I was tucking her in, she said that she was Cinderella. So we had to do all goodnights all over again with this new identity. "Good night Cinderella," I said. "Good night, Cinderella mom," she replied.

Late to the party, part six million

Previously, I had kvetched about not knowing about certain things that would either improve my quality of life or health that people (especially my in-laws) should have told me about (e.g. using a sonicare or electric toothbrush). Well I'm mad again! This time, it's over an electric blanket. We just got one and it feels so nice to slip into a warm bed. Why didn't anyone tell me about this because it seems like everyone has one! My sister in law touted the benefits once I brought it up, my father and mother in law confessed to having owned one, etc. The other day, we went to a birthday party and the door of one the bedrooms was left a crack open and what did I see? The unmistakable outline of controllers for an electric blanket.
OK - what else am I missing out on?!

My daughter is a goat

She eats anything and everything. When she was younger, frequently to my horror, I would find the most random and most horrendous thing in her mouth like a sequin, a piece of velcro or other chokables. Today, I had to restrain her from eating dry pasta that fell out of a box onto the floor. If my husband calls her over by name, she completely ignores him. If he yells, steak! she comes running over because she heard a magic word. If anyone is sitting at the dining room table, she comes begging and if you don't give her "a bite" (said in such a cute lilting voice), she will throw a tantrum. She gets over it quickly, and like a sharp-minded predator, she restrategizes, then moves on to look under the table for scraps.

She also destroys everything. She broke my DVD bay on the computer. She lost an online shopping basket 4 times (blame the horribly passe merchant that didn't use cookies?) by gleefully pressing the power key to suddenly shut off the computer. She broke my glasses. I can't find two gift cards that she decided were fun toys. She created deep scratches with who knows what implement, worse than a crazy cat on my coffee table. She's unplugged the cable box, the phone and other ulitilities after deciding that chewing on them wasn't good enough. On my dining room table, there are tons of brilliant pock marks created by pounding forks and other objects on the surface. I don't even think the Moh's scale of hardness applies to her, she can break anything hard. And today, I heard her making loud, obscene banging noises. I mosey on over and find her banging on a chair with wooden stick, each bang, creating a crater on the seat of a chair.

[CHEESEBALL UPDATE] I wanted to add that even though she's destroying everything and eating me out of house and home, I am madly and completely in love with her and can't stop giving her kisses and be completely in awe of her sweet chubby babyhood that will slip away too soon.

Husband or canine?

Yesterday, we had a couple over for an impromptu dinner. We enticed them with home-cooked steaks, one of Josh's specialities. I know it's hard to eat the meat close to the bone and the meat close to the bone is really very good, but is there another way to get to it aside from using your paws? I really was pretty embarrased. I think it made our proper guests a bit uncomfortable because they couldn't laugh about it with me. You can look at the image below and decide for yourself. Are you laughing or crying?

Part art, marketing and graffitti?

Last week, I borrowed by in-law's Prius to go shopping. I think it's a great little car. Any way, because they drove it from Vermont and it had snowed there, the car was pretty dirty. Of course some playful, unimaginative and compulsive person had to finger the words "WASH ME" on the rear windshield. But today I saw something interesting. Someone had fingered a website (URL) on someone else's car. A burgeoning viral trend?
Do I have to put myself on the "do not write" list?

Feel good plagarism

It was an exhilarating feeling, just as my daughter was falling asleep, she said to me, "There's no one in the world like you, Mom" and then she conked out. I thought it was the most heartfelt, most original, perfect, and sweetest thing in the world to hear. Just as quickly as my elation came, it left as I realized that technically, all she did was switch out a pronoun and parrot what I say to her almost every night as I tuck her into bed. "You're very special to me. There's no one in the world like you, Sadie."

Meatless in NY

A few weeks ago, I was treated to a most delightful, inimitable experience, brought to me by a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous, so I will refer to this person as, Miss Havisham.

Miss Havisham works at Google and had casually mentioned many a times how she eats for free. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, in-between meal snacks and even takes a free, Google-provided shuttle to work. In March, Miss H moved from SF to work in Google's NY office. The fringe benefits in NY aren't as good as San Francisco, I was told, but still this was a chance for me to have a Googly experience.

Can I come eat for free, I asked. I wasn't too excited about it, I envisioned a college dining hall. After I made plans to meet Miss H at Google, I even gave Miss H a hard time about it. How am I supposed to get there?! Who the heck works in Chelsea?! I bemoaned.

But as soon as I arrived, I realized it was heaven. First of all, everything is so gimmicky and cute. The hallways are really wide so that employees can go to and fro using scooters (wonder if they have special insurance [from AIG, heheheh] because of this?). There are video game consoles peppered everywhere. Special storage units against the walls stored toys like Legos, etc. There were many in process Lego sculptures presumably made by fun-loving Googlers. Not to mention the requisite game room with foos ball, exercise equipment and other distracting sundry. And this has to be the ultimate, the entire building is a metaphor for New York. For example, we picked up her mail at "Wall Street" and had lunch near "Central Park". It was a great system; a stranger to the Google building like me, could figure out where I needed to go by the "address".

But that's not all....the best experience of all was the free food. The variety! The amount! The exotic! Vegan! Raw foods! Imported foods! ALL PLENTIFUL AND FREE!!!!

Check out this picture of complete satisfaction:

I'm holding a fresh(!) rambutan and coconut juice. In front of me is a delicious vegetarian spread (curried seitan, grilled tofu, etc.), the white drink is my favorite cocktail -- vanilla soy milk with skim lactaid and get this, they even had my favorite hot sauce - Tobasco brand Habanero sauce. Whatever my greedy little vegetarian spice-loving organic lactose-intolerant heart desired was there for the taking. I could definitely get used to this.

Outside of Google, I struggle with being vegetarian. At Google headquarters, the endless and delicious options makes it a breeze to eat vegetarian.

If I worked at Google, I could totally see myself giving up meat.

Starstruck and washed up

A few nights ago, I attended a wonderful event, 2008 Glamour Women of the Year Award. It was incredibly inspiring to see these women honored for their courage, bravery and accomplishments. Please click on the link and read their stories. I'll tell you one of them that really touched me. A little 10 year old girl, went to court get a divorce from her husband who was abusing her. This happened in Yemen, where child brides are common and divorces are not socially acceptable. As her story was being told and as she accepted her award, I was sobbing. I couldn't help it but think of my own daughter, had our circumstances been different, would I sell her as a child bride?

On to a more positive note, the dinner after the award was a real brush with celebrity. Jane Goodall and Nicole Kidman were less than 15 feet away. Katie Couric was inches away. Condoleeza Rice was also close by. I was truly star struck. Oh and Hillary Clinton, Salmon Rushdie, Tyra Banks, America Ferrara, Barbara Walters, Natalie Portman were also there.

Another really memorable part of the night was the chimp call that Jane Goodall made as she accepted her award. She's an incredible person, as were all the women who won an award.

They all encouraged me, or rather everyone on the audience to follow our dreams. Sadly, I'm not sure what my dreams are and I might be totally washed up, since I'm in my 30s. Seems like anything good that these women did or if they got a calling, it all happened when they were really young.

XXX

This is too much! While I'm working, my kids' caretakers are encouraging my children to make lesbian porn. Blech!!! Daisee's lips are often full of boogies.

Museum quality kids

Ode to Joy

This really hurt my ears and warmed my heart when I heard Sadieeee (LOUDLY) hum Ode to Joy on the telephone "...la la la la la la..." while I was at work.

Smartvoter.org a great website

I'm proud to be a citizen of the United States. I've voted in every election, ever since I qualified.

I'd like to share a tip for New Yorkers, California, Ohio, and a few other states covered by http://www.smartvoter.org/ What a great website! I gave them $50 today.

Gasp!

As an update to my post on Blaze, I can not believe that funkins cost $20 a pop!
This leads me to believe that the lit up displays that I saw were done years and years ago (by cheap Chinese labor), stored in a "Christmas" attic and displayed and foisted on at $15 per person, once a year to unknowing citizens like me.

Best Halloween ever

I always dreaded Halloween. And same with my husband. We'd like to blame our parents for not instilling a Halloween spirit. This is because a good Halloween costume, as well as Halloween decorations requires not only time, creativity but big $$$.
Last night, Josh and I went to a Halloween party where costumes were mandatory. Ever since the evite arrived and I accepted, I was very nervous about what kind of costumes we were going to wear. Hours before the party, we went to two different Halloween costume stores and almost left empty-handed. None of the costumes really appealed to us and the prices, even at 50% off seemed ridiculous. Finally, I convinced my sullen mate to get some face paint and that we would figure something out.
After we put the kids to bed, we were nervously pacing, thinking about what to do with our face paint. Ultimately, Josh was transformed to Frankenstein and I into a bunny. For the first time, our costumes weren't especially extra-lame. I even made a cotton tail out of cotton balls. But the best part about my costume was that I stuffed my bra and became a really big chested bunny. It was an inside joke, for those who knew me. Because they were so realistic, those who didn't know me, thought they were real -- as they didn't realize that that was part of my costume!
It was really fun and strange to be big chested for one night. I got a lot of attention. Even my friends seemed to like me a little more. But I also felt very self-conscious. I didn't know how I should be dancing or crossing my arms (under my big boobs, I found out from a real big-boobed friend) and I kept walking hunched, trying to hide my big rack.
The party was awesome. The host put an incredible amount of work into the decorations and setting. He had built a haunted house and a horrific maze to walk through -- fun and creepy!!! In front of his house, he erected a gigantic tent, full of delicious home cooked food and desserts as well as this really cool jet engine that generated heat for the tent. There were TVs/screens everywhere playing all sorts of horror movies. I even played Guitar Hero on Wii -- fun as heck! He even had professional DJ equipment and disco and strobe lighting in two separate dance areas. Oh and an open bar (Josh had waaaay too many drinks) and a professional tarot card reader who told me my fortune with the utmost persuasion to the point that I was spooked. Unbelievable that he doesn't charge for such efforts, I felt really guilty at the end and wanted to pay him something.
I had such a good time. I felt like a teenager; we came back home at 2AM!!! I told Josh that for the first time, I felt Halloween magic and felt inspired to think of ways to impart some Halloween spirit to our kids.

Nice hike

We (me, Daze and Josh) took a nice hike today at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. It was only a half hour drive but it felt like we were in a different region (New England-y) well as a time warp. The towns we passed through were so charming. Farms, horse country, etc. We saw some delicate looking trees with dainty pink leaves - it was like a cartoon/fantasy. Then we ate at the Katonah cafe, a cute little place with all sorts of people. Usually we end up eating with either loud Chinese people or other parents with kids, so it was nice to mix with the rest of the population. The only bad feeling was that Sadie was not with us; she was hanging out with my mom and sister. Any good experience or feelings I had while I was with Josh and Dase, came with a little guilt that I was cheating on her.

Almost....

These would have been perfect except one of us had to closed our eyes. Aw shucks!

Am I Bi-Polar?

Pirates

Fish

Crypts

Mastodon?

Dinosaur

Recently the hubby and I went to a very popular event in the Hudson Valley called "Blaze". Over 4000 carved pumpkins lit up, touts the website. There were some pretty impressively carved specimens as well as delightful scenes, like of dinosaurs, an underworld, pirates, etc. See our pics here or check out the website http://www.hudsonvalley.org/

Little dinosaur hatching. Cute!

Footprints

OK...now I have to tell you that Santa isn't real. Don't read on unless you like spoilers and don't mind knowing the truth, even if it's ugly.

WARNING: UGLY TRUTH AHEAD

I was very dismayed to find out at the end of the Blaze tour that many of the pumpkins are not real, organically (coming out of the earth) grown pumpkins, but manufactured, foam "funkins". Still hand carved though, the attendant assured me.

This little fact completely ruined my enjoyment and Josh's (but his only slightly). It did not seem to affect our four other companions. In fact two of them even felt relieved that they were not real. (Go figure!!!!) I felt misled, cheated and fooled. Wish I hadn't known, because prior to that, I was delighted, amazed and mesmerized. Do I need anti-depressants? You be the judge.

Nice picture

of my husband and daughter.

Breakfast on the Continent

Don't these series of photos of Daze look like she's some kind of blond ingenue in Europe? They crack me up.

Flying Dazee

I love this picture that I took of Josh and Daisy. She's channeling Superman or a mannequin. I have no idea how she can be so straight and erect.

Highly amused

Who knew that 3rd graders of the Scarsdale public school district could have so much sensitivity to the zeitgeist and aptitude for political satire?

Posted on windows in almost every shop in Scarsdale village are paintings that either won or received an honorable mention for a Halloween themed contest. The content of two such paintings?

One channeled the Edvard Munch "Scream" theme, a pale faced creature with the signature "O" for lips and a look of pure horror. However, the subject was clearly a woman with glasses and brown hair. "Scarah Palin" is her name. "You betcha, I'll getcha" was her scary quote.

Another one was a bat with big, pronounced, girly pink lips. "A bat with lipstick is still a bat", it read.

What would Emily Post think?

While waiting in the doctor's office with Dazee, I noticed a very well dressed and groomed mom with her son. She had on makeup, designer shoes, held an expensive handbag and carried a few designer label shopping bags. She just seemed so pulled together that I was shocked by what was to follow. At one point, her son came up to dear old Daze and was either going to strike her or did strike her or roughly snatched a toy away from her - I don't really recall the details. What was impressed upon my memory is that his designer-clad mom quickly swooped in and struck him, in an effort to stop him in action. She felt a little shock or maybe even embarrassed at her own behavior but overall, I think she felt justified in taking that action. She profusely apologized for his behavior. I thought that the apology was misplaced. I really did not mind that her less than two year old kid was going to hit mine or take a toy away from mine, I think that's normal behavior. I think her hitting her kid was more shocking than anything. I'd much prefer to see a kid lose self control than a well-groomed adult. Disturbing!!!

White Collar Crime

I just got back from the A&P with my husband who attempted white collar shoplifting, used me (unbeknownst to me) as his accomplice and got caught.
He "bought" 2 cans of ultra-premium pasta sauce ($8 per can) by placing them into his cart. He then used 2 coupons to get them for free. As he scanned each coupon, he handed them over to me to give to the cashier. During this transaction, I was not allowed to chit chat with him. I didn't understand why he was being so grouchy. My attempts to make friendly talk was met with aggressive shushing and belligerent waving of the hands. Any way, then he scanned another coupon and asked me to give that coupon ($4 off) to the cashier. His criminal mind was trying to scam $4 from innocent parties. The $4 off coupon was for the sauces that he already got for free. He wanted them to pay him!!! He wanted his net to be 2 jars of sauce and +$4!!!
The cashier stopped him dead in his tracks, called him out on it. "What?! You got the sauce for free, you can't use another coupon!" she chastised. Josh wasn't even embarrassed. "So? I know!" he bellowed proudly and took the coupon back. If I were her, I would've ripped up the coupon and scare him a little by calling the cops. In any case, I wanted to bury my head in the sand.

Girly girl

Dazi actually looks like a girl when I put her into this adorable Peter Pan collar shirt.

My little girl is all grown up

I took Saydee to a dance shop to pick out a leotard for her upcoming ballet class. We ended up getting this sexy little number.

Another refurbished item to add to the collection.

Despite my neck problems and fresh from the anger of my husband's last post, I need to do a little venting by blogging. A few weeks ago, I asked Josh to get me a copy of Ferber's sleep book. For some reason, he made me think that he was going to get it from Amazon, but he needed to save up enough books to order $25 worth of merchandise for the free shipping. That was the reason I gave myself for why it had been more than 3 weeks before I received the book. Flash forward to today: 1 month from the original request - when I get handed a worn paperback, the cover of which I don't even recognize! I flip to the copyright page and was enraged to see copyright 1985!!! I wanted a newer edition of the book ... not this used stupid 30 year old edition. What is wrong with the dr. of cheap?!

"out of network" delight

I spent the last couple days seeing any kind of doctor I could find, to help make my neck feel better. And I realize there are quite a few people besides MDs who call themselves "doctor". The physiologist (not an MD), calls himself doctor, the chiropractor - doctor, the Qi Gong massage therapist - doctor, and of course, my husband "Doctor of Love". Anyway, I started with the Qi Gong masseuse, who did make my neck feel pretty good - a satisfying treatment for $50 an hour. But the next day I went to a specialized clinic where they had many different kinds of doctors: mostly out of network, but one on staff who was in network. They agreed to charge me in-network prices whoever I saw. The best part about this practice, was that they generally catered out-of-network style to local professionals from high-end lawfirms - and there was no waiting! Ever! So I started with the physiologist, who basically gave me a massage on my neck and shoulders, offered a shot of Lydocaine (I declined), and took an x-ray. The next day, I showed up while all the "doctors" were busy, so (since there's no waiting) the secretary took me over to a table, hooked some electrodes up to my neck, which started causing involuntary muscle spasms in my neck ... which didn't hurt, it just felt kind of odd; and especially odd for the secretary to have hooked me up. Anyway, when the chiropractor was free, he came over and gave me another neck and shoulder massage, cracked my neck, and then sat me in a massage chair. I'm planning on going back for more tomorrow: I like the attention, and odd as it is, these treatments (which probably get billed at $300 to the insurance) are less cost to me than the $50 an hour Qi Gong massage.

Please note that this entry was written by Cassandra's ghost-writer, since "my" neck still hurts.

Pain in the neck

The advice I received from my blog post on what to do with my neck was to take a nice warm bath and drink heavily. I asked my co-workers for advice and I got either chiropractor or masseuse. I'll ignore the blog advice for now and take my co-workers'. Today I will see someone who will give me acupressure and tomorrow I have an appointment with the chiropractor. I saw a posting on Craigslist of a guy who is willing to give massages to (only) females for $25/hr. A good scam, I thought to myself.

Mortified!

Yesterday my dear husband watched both our kids while I worked. He took them to meet me at the train station on my way back from work. Dazie's face looked sun-burned, but most noticeable was black patches of dirt and grime all over her face. She looked like a homeless kid. Sadie, meanwhile was wearing only a shirt. That's right, no pants and no underwear.
How could he let them out in public like that?!

Need a new neck

I have a really bad neck ache. I don't know how I got it but it's driving me crazy because I've had it for a week. What really exacerbates it is working on a computer, picking up my kids and living or breathing.
Any advice?

Freak show

OK did y'all see Palin speak last night? I feel like shit today for staying up late to watch her but I couldn't miss it for the world.

I'm very upset that she and her husband decided to bring their infant son (4.5 months) to the noisy, brightly lit convention late at night and used him as a prop to pass around to various people. I think the poor boy should have been at home sleeping. Then when Piper, her 7 year old daughter licks her hand and pats down her brother's hair, I was in hysterics. Also, I can't believe they allowed her to hold him for as long as she did. What if she dropped him?

It's going to be an interesting election. I don't think I can vote for either candidate. I feel bad for Hillary. I can think of so many if onlys...She must be so pissed about the Edwards affair not coming out earlier, maybe she would've won Iowa and change the course of history.

Why doesn't Bloomberg run for president?

Faster, higher, stronger AND screwed over

For the last 3 days, I have been non-stop obsessed over the Olympics. I love watching any and all events - particularly women's gymnastics; I've been following the dramas, trials and tribulations of the US and Chinese teams.
Oh and I love the side dramas too:

1. substituting a cuter girl to lip sync the Chinese national anthem during the opening ceremony.
2. the Spanish team stretching the outside of their eye lids to mimic chinky Asian eyes
3. the poor dancer who was going to be the only solo dance performer among the synchronized masses, falling to permanent paralysis during a practice the day before the opening ceremony because of a faulty platform
4. as well as the thousands upon thousands of poor washed up Chinese Olympic hopefuls, raised in a government run sports camp that never make it - either end up with injuries, paralyzed and always with no other skills to fall back on.

(Some don't even know how to read!) They are separated from their parents at a young age, like 3. They're tortured on a daily basis and fed nationalistic propaganda with promises of fame and riches. Many get washed up at various ages (some as young as 8, as they're cast aside for more talented hopefuls), they end up disabled and/or impoverished. The Chinese are using a cruel numbers game on the race for Olympic gold. Nobody is approaching Olympic training this way so I can't see how in like 10 years, the Chinese will just win in every event. For every Cheng Fei, there are literally thousands who sacrificed their entire lives for unrealized dreams.

Still, watching the Olympians compete, it gives me such pride in the human body; what it can do with training and perserverance.

I'm generally lazy but I've been doing these intense 25 minute workouts every other day because it helps me sleep and keeps me sane. Tonight before I started my workout, I was ready to punch the wall but now I feel like giving my husband and the world a hug. I ran on an incline on a treadmill for 30 minutes straight. Then I did 4 sets of 50 modified sit ups. Now I'm ready for a cool shower and then I'm going to watch the Olympics. They really are torturing my sleep deprived mind and body by running events until 1AM.

Green Barley powder

Love love love love love my green barley grass powder/supplement. It tastes really bad, sort of like sawdust or grass, so I mix it with orange juice and it becomes palatable. It's been great for my digestion and I really believe in the health benefits.

In the background but not really

Here's a really nice picture of my friend and her son, although I've blotted them both out with blue happy faces (to protect their privacy and to further my point). What's really funny to me is that me and my children as well as her husband are part of the background (see red arrows). Normally people in the background are random folk that you would normally ignore should they show up in your photos. Well what happens if you know the background people? There should be a term for this.

Happy Birthday x2 Sadie!

Looking at how happy Sadie looked and felt at her birthday party makes my heart sing. She had been asking almost every day for the past few months in a hopeful voice, "Is it my birthday today?" or "When will it be my birthday?" And since my in-laws are coming to stay with us for a week, she can have another birthday party.

Diatribe on lawn

I hate lawn. I can't imagine anything more egotistical, useless, and unenvironmental. People in the suburbs spend so much time and energy trying to beautify their lawns by cutting it with these loud gas powered mowers (they also smell really bad), using obnoxious weed wackers and pesticides/chemicals as well as wasting so much water on them. It's become such a status symbol...the bigger and greener your lawn...the bigger your "fill in whatever blank you want." Josh says lawn appeals to our sense of orderliness and dominion over our surroundings. It's disgusting how we need to feed our egos to the detriment of our environment and common sense.

I want to get rid of our front lawn and replace it with a productive garden that can feed 3 families, but I'd be the laughing stock of Scarsdale. It makes sense to me.

I heard from someone that this is how American Indians feel about lawn, they're so perplexed why we would waste so much productive space on something so useless.

Joys of fatherhood

Me: My children bring me so much joy every time I see them.
Farnk: Yea, but that won't last long.
Me: What do you mean?! This feeling goes away?
Farnk: Yes, by the time they're 8, you won't feel the same way.

Extremely forlorn by this conversation, I turned to another individual who has grown children, Josh's aunt.

Me: I heard that by 8 years old children stop giving you joy. Is this true? Because I don't want to believe it.
Josh's aunt: What?! Who told you that? Your children always bring you joy. And when they become adults you feel so proud that they've become people.
Me: Farnk told me that.
Josh's aunt breaks into chuckles.

Short Aesop fable

Dazee: Let me try banging on your drums, er bucket. Sadie: Not so fast, less swift but stouter one.
Dazee: OK, I found some bigger and better drums right here.
Sadie: Er, can I try your drums?
MORAL: Share!