Category: ms. malaprop

kids books i loathe: the eloise series by kay thompson

Posted on November 10, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i may surprise a few people with this next pick, a beloved 50+ year old chestnut. and i will say that i love the illustrations for this one. but i find our friend eloise incredibly irksome.

see, where zillions of people see spunky girl, i see spoiled brat. where zillions of people see cheeky young lady pulling pranks, i see girl who really is lacking proper supervision and guidance. where people see convenient plot device in absentee parents, i see little lady who lacks consideration for anyone else’s needs but her own — and a solid reason to call the division of youth and family services. pronto.

i really do not see anything uplifting about eloise. truly. i wish i did. like i said, i adore the illustrations, an ancestor to one of my favorite children’s books, olivia. i love a subversive heroine as much as the next girl — some of my faves include the aforementioned pig, clarice bean, junie b. jones, and beverly cleary’s ramona — some of whom i’ll discuss in my part of the month on books i love for kids. but i don’t see eloise as subversive. i see her as a sad little brat, what i imagine paris hilton would have been like if she had been abandoned in the plaza hotel with nothing but a know-nothing nanny. and i simply cannot enjoy her tales because of it.

BS hated this book so much that he banned it from the house. i’ve softened that a bit, as i don’t believe in banning books. EVER. so i told BC she is welcome to get the eloise books out of the library. but she must read them herself. i can’t wait to see her try.

Eloise

kids books i loathe: The Holes in Your Nose (My Body Science Series) by Genichiro Yagyu

Posted on November 9, 2007 by wrekehavoc

anyone who has kids knows that they all hit phases where they’re fascinated with their bodies. no, not the way high society women are fascinated (and repelled) and decide to undergo the knife; i mean fascinated by farts, snot, poop, bellybuttons, and anything else that might smell or be gross.

to that end, some clever japanese authors created the my body science series. some of the books, like Everybody Poops, translate ok and are funny to little kids (although frankly, they’re dull for grownups.) some of them, though, like The Holes in Your Nose, are simply gross and awful. i like talking about body fluids like the next person ( i threatened as much in my initial post on NaBloPoMo weeks ago), but reading through this book is about as much fun as eating your own boogers. which someone i know does. which is why i got this book in the first place. (i won’t name names, but he’s the youngest person in this house.)

i mean, who the hell cares if you can’t smell your own farts when your nose is stuffed (as this book shares, along with booger-eating gorillas and plenty of bloody noses)???

nope. even i, a grossologist (read: mom) can hardly stand this one.

in short, it blows.

The Holes in Your Nose

watch out; it's book theme time!

Posted on November 8, 2007 by wrekehavoc

so i’ve got myself a leitmotif, if you will, for the rest of the month. i’m thinking about children’s books, specifically ones i loathe (very few) and ones i love (too many to fit in one month.) i don’t think i can make a week of children’s books i loathe (although i am most interested in those that others loathe, so feel free to share in the comments section if you’re feeling cranky but don’t want to go to therapy this week.) but even i have a few that i really, truly cannot stand. and you might be surprised when you find out which ones they are — some are classics in children’s literature. yes, i will probably lose a friend or two over this, but some things just have to be said 😉

nevertheless, as much as i cannot stand these books, i would never, ever advocate book banning. i want to say that as loud and clear as humanly possible.

BOOK BANNING IS BAD.

i feel better now that i’ve gotten that part off my chest.

because i don’t want to be a beacon of negativity (Read: i already won class pessimist back in high school; i don’t want to win another such award in my life if i can help it), i am also including books that are great for tween girls and then books that are great for preschool boys. and, in the spirit of crazeeeeeeness, i even have a few that — hold on to your hat, mavis — are good for BOTH! you know, for those times when your partner is out on the town sitting somewhere with an umbrella in his/her drink sleeping with his/her co-worker working late or just plain not around and you need to read to two sleepy, teary kids. these are books that do the trick.

i mean, i had so much fun with this sort of thing and also this sort of thing, why not try it again?

here goes nuttin’::spittin’ into her hands::

G-d and Death

Posted on October 21, 2007 by wrekehavoc

as you can tell from a post or two, we’ve been struggling to understand the death of our five year old friend. BC and i went to a celebration of mason’s life yesterday. it was a lovely afternoon, filled with people’s remembrances of this little force of nature. i hadn’t even realized that he had met Queen Elizabeth II when she visited children’s national medical center, where the little dude got his treatment — the pictures are incredible. the most wonderful thing for me was hearing about the family’s life before cancer.

on a personal level, one of the hardest things for me as a parent is explaining to my child why G-d would allow such a glorious little boy to get sick and leave his family and friends at such a young age; honestly, i can’t even understand it myself. this morning, i saw our rabbi at hebrew school, and i asked her: what is the rabbinical explanation? cos i’ve searched and searched my heart, and i have a hard time telling my children that sometimes, G-d says no to our prayers. maybe i’m just a lax parent, but i really and truly want to believe that if there is some sort of Benevolent Being, that He/She would want to do better than that.

our rabbi, who i like very, very much, was so warm. yes, she said, there is a school of thought that feels that G-d is omnipotent and therefore sometimes simply says no. she, however, personally believes that G-d is omniscient, not omnipotent. G-d can’t change what’s happening; G-d can only try to provide us comfort and strength in situations that happen. G-d doesn’t make things happen in the world; G-d simply tries to support us.

at least, that’s what i thought i heard. i may be completely taking her out of context, in which case, i am soooooo sorry.

anyway, one of the loveliest gestures from the ceremony yesterday was receiving bulbs to plant in mason’s memory. and on the back of the instructions, there’s a quote from one of my most favorite books: St. Exupery’s the little prince. i’ll end with it since it makes more sense out of the situation than i or anyone else can.

In one of the stars I shall be living,

In one of the stars I shall be laughing,

And so it will be as if the stars were laughing

When you look at the stars at night.

You, only you, will have

stars that can laugh.

bridezilla strikes again

Posted on October 18, 2007 by wrekehavoc

your life must be really, really sad if you feel you must sue a florist for extreme disappointment, distress and embarrassment over the flowers from your wedding. apparently, there goes another person bringing down the legal profession because her flowers weren’t the right color. she wants more than her money back (and who the hell spends $27,435.14 on flowers alone???) — she wants revenge. if i were someone who provides services in the bridal industry, i would politely refer lawyers in love to other people. sure, i’d lose money, but a whole lot less than this.

in my humble opinion, she should perhaps get her money back (i’m sure she had a reasonable expectation that she should get what she paid for, so fair is fair), but nary a penny more.

at the risk of sounding ungrateful, i don’t even remember my wedding. well, not much. i remember being happy that it didn’t rain so that we could marry outside. i remember bees attacking my bridesmaids. i remember putting a “no madonna” clause into the DJ’s contract. (this was 1990, and i was not having any voguing at my party.) beyond that, though, the whole day is blurry.

and that’s why i marvel that people spend sooooo much money on absurd things. weddings are lovely, but why do people go overboard on a day they may not even remember? i love flowers, don’t get me wrong. but nearly $28,000 worth? some people don’t even make that in a year. set up a foundation, people. give it away charitably. if you’re so inclined, you can work it so that you get a tax break. but jeez — $28k for flowers? obscene. $400,000 for emotional distress?

priceless.

better health through pat diNizio

Posted on October 17, 2007 by wrekehavoc

okay, okay. pat diNizio has not, in fact, become my workout buddy (though if you’re out there, pat, c’mon by. we’ll swap some of that nasty exercise drink crap for something more motivational. like a mojito.) its just that this morning, i had a minor revelation, and it happened while working out and listening to the smithereens on my mp3 player.

see, yesterday wasn’t the best day ever. yes, i spent the day with jools, which always ends up being fun in a mommy gets to hang out with her little boy and do things she didn’t always get to do when SHE was 4-sort of day. other than a big bottle of gold glitter glue developing a HUGE hole on the side (i was so sleepy that i watched the glue ooze, caterpillar-slow, into a blob that ended up all over my hand. i didn’t mind having a sparkly hand for most of the day.), it wasn’t too eventful until the evening, when i went alone to mason’s viewing.

mason looked beautiful and serene, surrounded by things he loved and people who cherished him. he and his family have made a definite impact on our community, incredible considering they’ve been here for about a year and a half. i never know the right things to say in these situations; i only know too well that there really never are right words. words can’t reach into the places where you want to be, places that somehow make the pain a little less stinging, hollows where people’s hearts seem to have deflated. and you just want to give them air, and light, and love.

but the things that come out my mouth are so limited and pathetic. i just wish i could do and say more. give like he gave me. see, as i started my treatments, i would look at this child, this incredibly intrepid being, and realize — he’s going through something 100 times tougher. if he can be strong, i surely can be strong. and every time i saw him, my little superhero, i quietly cheered for us both. i remember how elated i felt when his eyebrows started growing back, gentle peach fuzz.

i’ve been struggling with this.

and so, this morning, i decided i need to do something. i need to get strong. really, really strong. see, there’s this drug-resistant staph out there, thanks to all those people insisting on using antibacterial everything coupled with purell and antibiotic abuse. (i wonder if we could start a campaign to get those things off the shelves?) and that’s especially scary news to people like me, who have compromised immune systems at the get-go. i wash my hands aplenty (howard hughes would approve), and i try to teach my kids decent health habits. i’m on antibiotics again thanks to another infection, and it scares me to think that a day could come when that won’t work.

so i’m determined to do what i can since there is so much in the world that i simply cannot control, cannot contain. i’m working out.

and there i was, on the elliptical, when the smithereens came on my mp3 player, which i let chug along at random. alone at midnight. and it all came together in my head. the epiphany. i need to do this. i need to do this. i can’t control the fact that i’ve CVID, but i can control my weight, my food, my health to some extent.

and i’ve got to. too many people depend on me.

i may never be as strong as a certain special little boy, but i’ll honor his memory by trying to be.

oh mercy, mercy me

Posted on October 15, 2007 by wrekehavoc

with sincerest apologies to marvin gaye.

today is blog action day. ~~because i’m a lemming~~ because i’m a bit distraught over the weekend’s events, it comes as something of a relief to write about something like the environment (which tells you how awful the weekend truly was)… although there is a part of me that wonders whether we are adding to the pollution in the blogosphere.

but i digress.

clearly, we need to use less, as my dear pal kellyo notes beautifully. i’ll try to tackle another piece, however picayune, of the puzzle.

recycling is a topic near and dear to my heart, especially on tuesdays when i start getting cans, bottles, cardboard, and the 57 editions of the washington post that BS has left under his chair ready for our friends in the recycling truck on wednesday. i dare not take them to the bins for fear i’ll get chastised by the Woman Who Haunts The Recycling Bins, she who informed me one day that some of my cardboard was not, in fact, cardboard. she wasn’t wrong, and i was chagrined, and now, i am pretty well informed about my paperboard and my cardboard. i’m strongly against segregation, but in this instance, i’ll try to keep the twain from meeting, so to speak. nevertheless, i’ll let my friends in the blue truck help me out in case i’m mistaken one day. i don’t want to be wrong on that and enter recycling hell. more importantly, i don’t want to eff things up and actually create more pollution than i would have if i left things well enough alone.

so i thought i’d share some of my favorite recycled products. just cos.

littlearth license plate handbags. i have been jonesing for a jersey plate handbag ever since i first laid eyes on one of these things on my thelma-n-louse trip to arizona with my pal murph. see — recycle license plates and make them a fashion statement. they should get prisoners working on THESE. correctional centers would actually MAKE money. (note to BS: the ho-li-days are coming…)

recycled aluminum wall clocks. these are SOOO cool, if you like mod-ren sorts of artsyfartsy stuff. which i do, of course. of course these look more like a craft i can take up one rainy day with the kids… speaking of the kids…

junkyard cats. these pups (no pun intended, though they also have dogs and other critters) are made from scrap and rejected garden tools, farm machinery, bicycle and auto parts, which is nice because it keeps them out of the junk heap. [note to self: contact them. your garage alone could furnish noah’s modern ark.]

laptop lunches lunchboxes. not just for kids (or vegans) only! do you have any concept of how much waste is created every day because we all use those little plastic bags or buy individually-packaged cookies or hohos or whatever it is you like in your lunch? yes, these lunchbox systems are made of plastic — it’s recyclable, although at this price, there ain’t no WAY you’re recycling it anytime soon. and they are so gosh-darn cute! if i weren’t afraid BC was going to lose these, i would snap one up in a second. instead, i am trying to reuse some of the little plastic containers i have amassed over the years to pack her lunches. inside a cute, tween-approved lunch sack, of course. (GAWD, mama, you embarrass me!!!) but one day…

now, since i’m just chanelling the hints from heloise chick (for the insane parent-set), some more recycling tips for you moms, dads, and caregivers out there.

1) you know how sometimes, you end up printing more pages than you wanted to off your printer or fax? stop telling the computer to piss off and save those pages. your kids can draw on them til the cows come home. don’t let that tree die in vain.

2) hey you working parents: you know how there’s always some forgetful person at the office who also prints a bajillion pages of things and then leaves them at the printer for a few days? i say, after two days, the statute of limitation ends. if the paper(s) hasn’t been claimed or put in a recycling bin, take THOSE home for your kids to use. my kids thought it was hilarious when they wrote official “mail” that had my company’s logo on it. i just resisted the temptation to actually mail that stuff…

3) all those little bits of crayon you have lying about, naked and too small to be held by even the tiniest preschool hand? make homemade crayons. jools loved coloring with his — it made automatic rainbows.

4) there are tons of things you can make from old computer stuff. i’m hoping i can get BC to make me a disco ball. hell, i’ll hang it from the rear view mirror of the Prius.

5) this one from BS, who has never considered himself terribly crafty: take old CDs or DVDs you don’t want. buy round cork, and glue it to the backs of aforementioned disks. Voila! you’ve got coasters. (and yes, we really, really DO have such coasters in our home. pity we’re so uncivilized that we hardly use them.) BS is such a dark horse. he’s crafty!

6) recycle clothes. (hint: they’re found at rummage sales, jumble sales, goodwill, garage sales…). organize a clothes swapping party with friends. (one of my clever friends does this. there’s always wine, so i’m always there.) i’m thrilled i have friends who take the clothes off my hands, and my friends seem happy that there’s less stuff to buy. happy happy all around. if you want to make money off them, then send them to a consignment shop. but the pain and heartbreak of that process sometimes is not worth the trouble. donate. it’s good for the earth, it’s good for your karma, and hell, it’s so freaking easy. (just don’t donate the things that are permanently covered in vomit. use those as cleaning rags.)

ok. all politics is local. all betterment starts with you. turn off your computer and change the world.

smart and smarter

Posted on October 11, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i luvz me some smart boyz…especially john cusack when he’s interviewing naomi klein. damn, i think he even took his own notes!!! stick it to halliburton, dobler!

(seriously, these two are people i would love to have beers with and chat about stuff. yes. that highly technical term. i iz a prowd produckt of the NJ educashun sistim. kindergarten thru grajuit skool, man.)

but seriously, you know, i used to think me some deep thoughts before i had kids. and i still am willing to go a little beyond the usual soundbyte. i sure am glad i spent plenty of hours in graduate school studying public policy and politics and Things That Matter. and i still do care. i really do. and when i watch interviews like this, i wonder whether my brain will ever return, whether anything i do on a daily basis means anything to the world.

i know, i know: i’m raising children, so i must inherently believe that the world will continue and that i am doing my best to help to steer future folks on a decent, kind, and intelligent path. (case in point: i’ve been working really hard to teach my children that it’s ok to not agree with the President. in fact, it’s a patriotic thing, dang it. anyway, BC one day yelled at me when i said the word republican. mama, she hissed, don’t say that word– it’s a BAAAD word! and no, i am not making this up.)

but then, i see people like naomi klein and think my GAWD, i’m doing nothing except writing novels; raising children; supporting my local farmers as much as i can; driving a hybrid; blasting the beatles, the clash, and other assorted music from my car; dealing with a house that is just loaded with things to handle; and keeping myself from barking in the streets every time the effing secret service cars come by with dignitaries.

yep. i do a lot for the world. don’t i 🙁

sometimes, i listen to across the universe and contemplate what john lennon meant by the phrase: nothin’s gonna change my world. was he giving up and relinquishing his power in despair? or was he insisting that his personal status quo was some sort of nirvana, and nothing, by G-d, would alter it? i’d like to think that he wrote it in some sort of blissful state, a time when he found some personal peace. i like to cocoon myself from time to time and think how perfect my life is. i’m fed. i’m clothed. i’ve a home. i’ve a wonderful family. and while i have a health condition that requires diligent attention, i have access to high quality health care. nothin’s gonna change my world.

but see, there are so many people who are missing one or more of those things. and then some. so something’s gotta change my world. and it probably ought to be me.

where to start?

shadow of a doubt

Posted on October 7, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i’m getting material together to hopefully present at the first DC mortified show next month. (a friend of mine emailed me and told me about this. considering i kept copious journals throughout most of high school, i have a lot of fodder for such an enterprise.) after my first “audition,” i got some great and enthusiastic feedback. they were interested in certain threads of my teenaged life. of course, i’m not sure i want to go too deeply into one thread (one old but significant boyfriend), and i’m thinking more about another (about a less significant but terribly sad/funny boyfriend).

anyway, i met with one of the organizers yesterday to talk about what i’d found. after going through it all, i’m beginning to get a clearer picture of who i was as a teen, something which totally eluded me at the time. she’s really interested in my trying to glean from it all more about me — what i was feeling, who i was, why i was like that. i was pretty self-aware (although pretty clueless about why) at the time, so i’m digging it all up now. it’s sort of like self-analysis, and i can’t wait until a quiet moment hits and i have that aha! moment when i realize why i am like what i am today, based on my life as a teen.

but as i think about myself as a teen, it becomes incredibly clear what i wanted to be: a complex kid. i must have internalized tom petty in a big way. unfortunately, i think i hit a point where i was so complicated, i lost my own plot. some of the poetry i wrote back then completely baffles me.

and then i simplified, met BS, and the rest, as they say, is history 😉

Really Deep Thoughts

Posted on October 4, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i can’t get the damn thing to work in my widgets, but i can post it here! i’m participating in National Blog Posting Month, affectionately known as NaBloPoMo, a phrase also suitable for using in cursing situations. (i believe someone already coined the phrase NaBlo me.)

basically, one has to post every single day in November. so see, you get 30 full days of my nonsensical blather. 30 full days of hearing about body fluids. 30 full days of, gee, i don’t know. i think i’ll branch out a little bit though and take on topics some weeks. Really Deep Thoughts, as my girl tori would say. if you have any ideas about things i could tackle, feel free to share in the comments. please note that i won’t deal with nuclear fission, or even nuclear war in general since i took the latter up with Edward Teller in college and made a complete ass of myself on local TV in miami. and yes, my grandmother was watching. dahling.

and karin, beloved friend, i love you with every fiber of my being and have done so since Honors English at Rutgers, but i loathe william butler yeats, so he’s out of the question, too. in case you were wondering.

so make a suggestion. and, if nothing else, check out my page. i’ve got a jukebox i made with a mix i call 52 girls i took it down because jukeboxes apparently are a bad idea. wah.

you don’t have to think Really Deep Thoughts (or even be an English major) to figure out the leitmotif there.