We're Moving!!

Tales from the Tracks is moving to a new home - please visit my new address, below:

http://talesfromthetracks.com/

I'm in the process of creating the new site and would love to hear what you think. Feedback welcome!

Mon Petit Artist

It's been a crazy couple of days here. Gavin is sick again and hasn't been sleeping. And when Gavin isn't sleeping, no one is. So, due to mental and physical exhaustion, I'm going to keep this one short. Very short.

During Sick Day #1, Gavin got into the markers when I wasn't looking and decided to color a picture. Unfortunately, it wasn't on paper. Here is a view of my kitchen floor:


Leaving no canvas untouched, here is a picture of the artist's feet:

I hate you, George W.

So not only did our reject of a leader introduce a stimulus package that will have little ability to actually stimulate the economy, but he also neglected to send me my check!

My SSN ends in 00 - 20 and I paid my taxes (yes, I owed money - tear) via direct deposit. Sooo... I should have received my check by May 2nd, which was 4 days ago. I even went to the IRS' stupid "Where Is My Stimulus Payment?" tool and entered my info. Nothing! It couldn't even locate a check that was on its way. A friend suggested that perhaps George knew I was a liberal and wasn't very pleased with what I've been saying about him. I'm starting to think she might not be that far off...

To rub a half ton of salt in my gigantic wound, there is no phone number or email or ANYTHING where you can contact them to let them know that there has been a glitch. What if my stimulus check never comes? I need a 1-800 customer service number to dial!

I mean, I get it. The President occassionally lies. Or tells half-truths. Fibs, whatever. We've been here before and I'm not entirely (read: at all) surprised. But now we're talking about money, people - my money. $300 of it. If I'm not coming after this administration for the $4,700 they've cost me in taxes to fund the War, the least they can do is send me my stimulus check.

I fully intend on writing a complaint letter. Just as soon as I can figure out where to send it.

Crazy Eights

My friend Dette, over at Dance of Motherhood, asked me to participate in this game of Crazy Eights by sharing eight unusual or little known facts about myself. Ready? (That was rhetorical. If not, I suspect you've already closed your browser.) Okay, then. Here goes:

1. At the tender age of eight, I came in 3rd in the "Most Beautiful Eyes in Massachusetts" competition.

2. The 3rd place prize for said competition was originally a romantic weekend for two, as they were not anticipating that a child might place. When I did, the judges pulled some strings and instead awarded me my very first camera.

3. When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming an author. I wrote profusely and even "published" my own mini books (made entirely out of construction paper). My mother still has the very first book I ever wrote, entitled Watch the Flower Grow.

4. While in college, I was hired by a publishing company to write a book on dating and relationships. The cover of this book is bright pink.

5. I used to walk over a mile each morning in the snowy New England winters for my one true weakness... Dunkin Donuts french vanilla iced coffee. Oh, how I miss it living in the PacNW!

6. I'm of Eastern European descent. My great-grandfather fought in the Russian Revolution before coming over to America.

7. My son's name literally translates to "White hawk, defender of men." At his birth, my ex insisted that we'd destined him to a life of Dungeons and Dragons.

8. Last but certainly not least, I am now the owner of a brand new iPod shuffle, and I have Corrin from corrinrenee.com to thank for it! I was the winner of her most recent giveaway and honestly, it could not have come at a better time. The iPod I purchased in 2004 (yes, you read that right) had finally died and I was reluctant to buy a new one, as I am on a tight budget these days. My bus rides to work and jogs will now be so much more enjoyable because of my new shuffle. Thanks, Corrin! Everyone else, check out her blog. It's pretty snarky and quite great.

Now, the fun part, where I invite others to join and post eight things about themselves. But not so fast! First, here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random things about themselves.
2. At the end of your post, tag 8 people and include their names and their links. Please also post these rules.
3. Don’t forget to leave a comment on the blog of those you tag to let them know about this.


These people below are now tagged:
Observations of a Student
Mommies Home
Revolutionizing the Rat Race
Serenity Now!
Mother's Got a Dot Com
Reenashwina
Boogiemum
Health Nut Wannabe Mom

Say My Name, Say My Name...

My ex's mother came to visit this week and, in the vein of Santa Claus, brought a sack of gifts in tow. Gavin got his usual assortment of clothes, toys, and candy. Me, my ex, and Gavin also all received matching blue and white polos and the request that we take a family photo wearing our new threads. I thought it was a cute idea, albeit one I would never have decided to do on my own. My ex clearly stated that he wanted no part in this and would refuse a matching family photo. (I'll post the picture on here after we take it.)

Upon hearing of the matching polos that my ex's mother purchased for the three of us, my friend exclaimed, "Matching outfits are cute! You'll be like Destiny's Child." Please note that this is the same friend from the dumpster diving escapades.

I blinked. "Destiny's Child? You know that we're talking about me, my ex, and our two-year old son, yes?"

"I know."

I sighed at the ridiculousness. "Well, am I at least Beyonce in this crew?"

"Well, obviously," she said. Right, obviously, I thought, as I pictured Gavin shaking his little (diapered) booty.

Speaking of Gavin, we had another developmental breakthrough this weekend and I can't decide whether I should be proud or disappointed about it. Sometimes I think my boy is too precocious for his own (and my!) good. It was yesterday evening and Gavin had just come out of the bath. ("Bath" is a generous term for the activity, as Gavin is in currently in month three of a full-scale bath boycott. He is terrified to remove his diaper or to sit in a tub of water, so he literally stands in an empty tub, wearing his diaper, while I wash him by hand.)

Anyway, my ex and his mother were sitting on my couch while I attempted to comb Gavin's wet hair. Gavin was rather annoyed at me for trying to bathe him and was not interested in letting me groom him afterward.

He furrowed his eyebrows and moved his head away from my grasp. "Stop it, Erica!"

My ex started to laugh so hard he had to turn his head away. My ex's mother's eyes went wide and she looked at me, stunned. My jaw fell open.

Once my ex regained composure, he crouched beside Gavin. "Who is this?" he asked, pointing to me.

"Mommy," said Gavin sweetly and matter-of-factly. Maybe we had all just heard him wrong, I told myself.

"Does Mommy have another name?"

Gavin nodded. "Erica."

Hearing your child call you by your name for the first time is pretty jarring. It sounded so strange and so wrong to hear him call me that. It was like my identity and connection to my son had been stripped away with a single word. All at once, I hated my name.

"How smart of him to understand that Mommy has a name!" exclaimed my ex's mother. My ex had started giggling again.

"My name is Mommy," I said sharply, becoming exactly what I swore I never would. "Perhaps everyone should call me that, to make it less confusing for Gavin."

"I refuse to call you that," said my ex. "Plus, this is hysterical."

It became far less hysterical when we quickly discovered that Gavin knew Daddy's real name, too. My ex and I called a truce.

Gavin didn't call me by my name for the rest of the night or at all this morning. In his book, my first name is still primarily "Mommy." Of course, I can't help but continue to be both amazed and weirded out that my barely two-year old knows my proper name. Here's hoping he decides not to use it.

Leave My Idol Alone!

No, I am not talking about American Idol. I would never watch that show and, if I somehow happened to view it by accident, I would certainly never admit it publicly.

Rather, I am talking about my actual idol, Mr. Al Franken. Al is a pretty polarizing figure, admittedly, but he is a Harvard grad (like yours truly) and he is an unapologetic elitist (also like yours truly). That second statement may have been redundant.

He is also damn funny. SNL anyone? Stuart Smalley? "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog gone it, people like me!" He has taken on the guffawing buffoon that is Rush Limbaugh with a tenacity like no one else. He even titled one of his books Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Genius!

I own all of his books and have read each one from cover to cover, multiple times. I briefly considered putting an Al Franken poster on my the wall in my room but couldn't for two reasons: 1) It turns out, Al Franken posters are not so easy to find and 2) My ex is over quite frequently and likes to poke fun of my idol (I suspect he hates America).

Well, imagine my horror this morning when I was trolling the news sites and came upon this: Blogger Targets Al Franken in Minnesota Senate Race. A fellow blogger trying to take down my idol! It seemed too awful to be true.

But it is true. Some guy named Michael Brodkorb, whose sensationalist blog is entitled "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" (yeah, that's a neutral, fact-based site, I'm sure), recently "exposed" Al for some erroneous bookkeeping that prompted him to pay $70,000 in back taxes this week.

I have two major problems with this expose. First, I'm sure this was purely an accident. Al does not keep his own books - he has people to do that. If we want to blame anyone, let's blame his accountants. I bet they're Republicans, too! Second, while $70,000 sounds like a lot to this average Joe, it's a drop in the bucket for Al. Al is worth millions. $70,000 is to Al is what $5 is to you and me. It's an easy amount to overlook. How many times have you borrowed $5 and forgotten to pay it back? Once you got a reminder, though, I'm sure you paid it back promptly. As did Al.

I think this Brodkorb guy is only trying to stir trouble before a big election in Minnesota. I implore you to boycott such obviously biased, right-wing blogging and please...leave my idol alone!

Would You Care to Join Me for an Unbelievably Awkward Dinner Sometime?

I like reading the news in pretty much every shape and size I can get it. I like the traditional, high-quality journalism of The New York Times. I like the sensationalized drudge of CNN.com. But I especially like the fake, satirical news I find on The Onion.

I used to read The Onion regularly when I was in college. They made fun of recent, real news stories and had little regard for political correctness. Finally, I had found a group of writers as cynical as myself! However, since graduating nearly four years ago, I decided I needed to refine my tastes a bit more and replaced my daily dose of that pungent vegetable with an equally bitter, yet slightly more sophisticated, sampling of Maureen Dowd.

This morning, I stumbled upon The Onion again and remembered what I had been missing! I also remembered a particularly funny tale from college that I thought I would share here (as I have been laughing about it all morning):

During our junior year, my college roommate found herself the romantic interest of a markedly unappealing boy. My girlfriends and I teased her endlessly about this (since we were clearly very kind individuals) until my roommate felt quite uncomfortable being in this boy's presence.

One day, the ex and I were perusing The Onion and came across a story entitled, "Would You Care to Join Me for an Unbelievably Awkward Dinner Sometime?" The story is basically a mock-dinner date invitation from a very unappealing man depicting an even more unappealing date. Well, my industrious ex and I figured out a way to mask an email address so that it appeared to be coming from a different one. We could send email that seemed to be from someone else! I am sure you know by now where this story is headed...

We changed the ex's email address to look like Mr. Unappealing's. Then we pasted the text of this glorious Onion invite into the email body and - whoosh! - off went the email to my roommate. Pleased with our prank, we went to sleep.

The next morning, we were playing around with our new hacking skills and came to discover, to our horror, that not only did the masked email look like the fake address, but any replies to it actually went to the fake address! Like a bat out of hell, I flew out of the ex's room and raced back to my place. I threw the open the door to find my roommate hunched over her computer, looking miserable, with the email open.

"Don't respond to it!" I cried.

It turns out, she had been just seconds from clicking the send button on the response she had written - a response which would have gone directly to Mr. Unappealing, original email and all. When I blurted out what the ex and I had done, my roommate was initially pretty angry. Eventually, she came to see the humor in it, but swore she would get back at us. To this day, though, she never has - probably because she's terrified of my prank-playing retaliation.

Anyway, it's safe to say I'm back to reading The Onion.

A splash of irony with your morning coffee

In a speech from the Rose Garden this morning, the continual embarrassment that is our President chastised Congress for not doing enough to assuage Americans' financial worries.

"I repeatedly submitted proposals to help address the problems. Time after time, Congress chose to block them," Sir Incompetence said.

You mean kinda like the proposals to keep funding the war in Iraq? It is currently estimated that the war in Iraq has cost American taxpayers over $515 billion. $515 billion could go a long way to alleviating the problems Americans face regarding the housing market and student loan availability. To make this number even more real, $515 billion equates to approximately $4,700 per household. Your family has paid $4,700 in real dollars to support the war. Take a moment and think of what you could do with $4,700. Doesn't it make you angry?

However, instead of admitting mistake and ending a purposeless war that will bleed the pockets of Americans for years to come, President Bush carries on arrogantly as usual and selectively ignores information. Instead of acknowledging the billions of dollars we have been shredding since 2003, he attacks Congress for not doing enough to fix the economic mess our country is in.

Now, I'm not saying the recession was caused by the war in Iraq. Nor am I saying that we could have avoided the mortgage mess if not for the war. What I am saying, though, is that Congress would have a lot more room to fix it with that $515 billion in the bank.

If Bush wants to point fingers, he ought to start by pointing at himself.

Are you really talking about dumpster diving again?

Yes, I am. I'm talking about it because, after my initial post on the topic, this uptight, misophobic prepster went!

I did some research on the topic and learned about the people who get by via dumpster diving (and similar pursuits). What I found remarkably interesting is that most of these people, who are called "freegans," do not need to dumpster dive but actually do it as part of a greater lifestyle choice. According to that venerable reference site, Wikipedia, freeganism is "an anti-consumerism lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed. The lifestyle involves salvaging discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters that have passed, or in some cases haven't even passed, their sell by date, but are still edible and nutritious. They salvage the food not because they are poor or homeless, but as a political statement."


Freeganism was something I could support wholeheartedly (even if I did not become a freegan myself) and I wanted to see it in action. I coaxed my friend into going dumpster diving again.

After a few drinks - c'mon, you really didn't expect me to climb into a dumpster stone cold sober, did you? - we arrived out back behind the yuppie bakery where our infamous diving was to occur. I zipped my Northface jacket and threw my hair into a ponytail, certain my sporty look would blend nicely with any freegans we might meet.

A quick survey of the area told me I was wrong. There were three people there hunting for bread. Two had arrived on bicycle and the third in a small, old sedan. They all looked extremely crunchy but none appeared homeless or anything close. One guy looked slightly dirty, but in a very deliberate, I-could-shower-if-I-wanted-but-I-prefer-to-conserve-water type of way.

"What are you waiting for?" my friend said. "Hop in!"

I took a deep breath and hoisted myself over the side and into the dumpster. To my indescribable relief, I found that the dumpster contained bread - and only bread. There was no garbage in sight. In fact, every loaf of bread was wrapped in the bakery's fancy signature bag. It was dumpster diving for snobs! All of a sudden, my adrenaline kicked into high gear and the allure of free food overcame me. I began scavenging through the mountain of bread like a ravenous animal.

When all was said and done, I wound up with 10 gourmet loaves of bread and 5 bags of rolls in the trunk of my car. The excitement was still pulsing through my veins as I headed home. By the time I reached my apartment, however, my adrenaline died down and my rational neuroticism had returned. With the exception of the rolls, the bread was in unsealed bags. What if rodents had crawled into the dumpster? What if someone's shoes that touched the bread? Unable to shake my general craziness, I would up discarding the 10 unsealed loaves in the dumpster in my apartment building. I kept the 5 bags of rolls, since I decided they were safe to eat.

The next morning, my ex came over.

"Where did all of these rolls come from?" he asked, eyeing the bags on my counter.

I paused. I couldn't bring myself to admit I was now eating from a dumpster, no matter how socially conscious it made me.

"They were on sale," I said.

Of course, my ex occasionally reads my blog and he will find out where the rolls actually came from. It's easier to say it in writing than verbally. Also, my friend took a picture of me in the dumpster which I will begrudgingly share on here once we upload it off her camera phone.

Red, White, and All-Around Wrong

I was reading a new post on another great blog, Globally Rational, about the notion of "supporting our troops." The basic premise was that if we really supported our troops, we would care enough about their well-being to understand the effect this war is having on them and, consequently, bring them home.

It got me thinking about phrases like "Support our troops!" and about patriotism in general. A popular criticism of the Left and of those who seek to end the war is that they are not patriotic and that, by questioning and evaluating the actions of our country, they are somehow less "American" than those who don't.

This is absurd and every time I hear such stupidity uttered, my blood boils just a little and I start to think that selective suffrage might not be such a bad idea. (Really, if you think thoughtful, fact-based analysis is equatable to treason, you ought to be disenfranchised.) Supporting your country blindly, without any deep understanding of the facts, is one of the most dangerous things a person could do, and, in my opinion, is about as un-American as it gets. A country needs its citizens to be educated, to engage in intelligent debate, and to keep its leadership in line so that they steer the country down the best track possible. When citizens neglect to be informed and critical, they become nothing more than pawns and they give their government power to make unilateral decisions that may be rooted in less-than-admirable motivations.

Another thing I can't stand is people who insist upon taking fashion cues from our flag. Aside from adding nothing to the debate, this color palette is just plain unattractive and serves as a signaling cue to me about the relative level of that person's intelligence. (Excepted from this comment are children. If you are under the age of ten, red, white, and blue apparel is perfectly fine.) Our country is not a sports team. You need not show your support by wearing our "team colors" and talking about how much "better" our country is than all the rest. Please stop rooting for the home team just because of where you live. If your "team" has problems, talk about those problems and propose solutions until the leadership has no choice but to listen.

Biohazard

I'm not sure if Gavin is consciously trying to kill me, or if it just happens to be an unfortunate byproduct.

When he started daycare a year ago, I knew he'd be getting sick more often. While my ex and I worked, Gavin spent his first year at home, under the nurturing care of his grandmother. My ex's mother had moved to Seattle from Phoenix so that she could help us by watching him during the weekdays. (As you can imagine, she remains one of my favorite people on the planet.) Being home, Gavin got sick very infrequently. Upon Gavin's first birthday, however, my ex's mother moved back down to Phoenix and Gavin started daycare.

I was prepared for some colds and perhaps the occasional rash. What I was not prepared for was the cauldron of germs I was about to plunge into.

It's not just that Gavin started getting sick (and, often, thoughtfully sharing the fun with me). It's that Gavin started getting sick quite creatively and often in ways I had never even heard of. Over the course of the past year alone, he's come down with the following (and I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting): pinkeye, norwalk virus, ear infections galore, and cellulitis (twice).

Cellulitis is by the far the craziest of all. In fact, what triggered me to write this post is the fact that we just returned from the pediatrician because Gavin has come down with cellulitis again. Cellulitis is an infection of the tissues beneath the skin and can occur in any part of your body. Gavin has had it in his left eyelid both times. Cellulitis is usually caused by a bacterial infection and is therefore easily treatable with antibiotics. The first time he had it, it came on suddenly. I went in his room to wake him up for daycare and this is what I found:

Scary, huh? Even scarier because it happened out of nowhere. He was seemingly fine when I put him to sleep the night before. Anyway, a visit to the ER and a week of strong antibiotics managed to clear this up. But I was already questioning myself and my (lack of) parenting abilities. My apartment was cleaner than most. Gavin received regular baths. How could he be this covered in bacteria this often?

To my dismay, he came down with cellulitis again this week. Same eye, same deal - a week of antibiotics to treat it. And while I worry about all these exotic illnesses my son manages to contract - the doctor assures me they're all very common but I think he's lying - my biggest concern is having to miss so much work as a result. I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to feel uncomfortable telling my boss that Gavin's sick again. I really just need to find a way to keep him healthy. I'd love to get him fitted for a hazmat suit and call it a day...

Dumpster Diving

It's no secret that I've been trying to save money lately. I've stopped purchasing my daily lattes, I've been bringing lunch to work, and I've replaced short driving trips with long walking trips (good for the environment, my body, and my wallet - everyone wins!). All in all, I'm quite proud of the ways I've been able to save a few bucks. Turns out, though, I have been missing a critical step: dumpster diving.

I found out about dumpster diving when I was talking with a friend this afternoon (a friend who will remain nameless, lest she kill me). As important back story, you should know that she is uber-stylish and is always decked out in fancy designer duds. She is a beautiful, successful girl and is far more fashionable than I could ever hope to be. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: So what did you and [other nameless friend] do after drinks on Friday?

Friend: (laughing) We actually went dumpster diving.

Awkward silence.

Friend: You don't know what that is, do you?

Me: Is it another way of saying "bargain hunting"?

Friend: (shaking her head in disdain at my utter lack of touch with my generation) No.

She went on to explain the act of dumpster diving, which, as it turns out, is exactly what it sounds like. At the end of the day, food shops generally discard their unsold wares. Often, the food items are untouched and kept cleanly in fresh plastic bags, before being placed into the dumpster. Once in the dumpster, they are ripe for the picking, and, best of all, they are free. My friend informed me that the best place to dumpster dive is at bakeries where you can score fresh-baked loaves of pricey gourmet bread like she did last Friday night. She also reassured me that she had lost neither her job nor her home (I asked).



I recalled an article on this habit of dumpster diving that I read last year in the NYT. It was about Yale undergraduates who would scavenge the leftover loaves from a dumpster near a popular bakery in New Haven. But those were undergrads. You only have to so much as think the word "free" and you'll have hundreds of students lined up (I know - when I was in college, I used to wait for hours during Ben and Jerry's free cone day. Upon graduating and starting to receive a salary, I finally realized that 2 hours of my time was worth more than the $3 I was saving). Surely, though, once people gain more sophistication and more money, they would abandon this grotesque hobby.

"You don't dumpster dive, do you?" I asked a friend who was a graduate student at Yale and far more mature than the undergrads described in the article.

"Only at the bakery," she said. "The bread is really good. And it's free!"

I shook my head. Two of the most sophisticated women I know had lit up with excitement while discussing the act of digging loaves of bread out of a dumpster. Was I missing something? Had the world simply gone crazy? When had eating garbage become chic?

I'm considering tagging along the next time my friends go. I'm intrigued enough to check it out and find out how one dumpster dives, since apparently, I've been missing out. I can't say I've warmed up to the idea just yet, but I'm keeping an open mind. In the meantime, it's store-bought bread for me.

Escape from Alcatraz

I've been sitting here all night, trying to decide what I wanted to write about, but my brain has been complete mush since the incident that happened this afternoon.

Calling it an "incident" hardly does it justice. What happened this afternoon could easily be ranked as the single worst thing that has occurred in my 25 years on this planet.

The day began rather typically and uneventfully. I awoke around 8 am to the sound of what I initially thought, in my sleepy stupor, to be someone clubbing a seal in the adjacent bedroom. I rubbed my eyes and soon realized it was not a seal being beaten out of its misery but Gavin, who was anxious to be freed from his crib and begin an action-packed day of destroying my apartment.

"Hi Mommy," he said cheerfully, seal-noises stopping as soon as I entered his room. "I all done sleeping. I come out."

I nodded obligatorily and toted my 31-pound boy into the kitchen to brew up some strong java. He insists on being ceremoniously carried out of his crib each morning and, while my aching 5'2 frame wants to say no, I haven't the capacity to hear whining before I've had my coffee.

The morning progressed like any other. I tried to clean the living room; Gavin dumped his toys everywhere. I lied down on the couch to rest; Gavin pulled me off the couch to play train tracks with him. I put a glass of water on the table; Gavin poured half of it on my computer.

He's a few months past two now and I've started to notice a shift in his behavior patterns. His listening skills have worsened dramatically. It's not that he doesn't hear me or understand what I am saying - it's that he has suddenly realized he is his own person and makes his own decisions. The popular decision of the moment? To do the opposite of what I tell him.

Not surprisingly, by 2 pm, I found myself putting Gavin in his crib for Time Out #48 of the day. I told him he was to be in there for three minutes, closed the door, and went back to the living room and sat on the couch. He wailed his displeasure, as he always does, and I waited patiently, knowing he would not let up before the three minutes were up. And that's when It happened.

All of a sudden, the wailing stopped. In its place came a huff, and a puff, and then a loud thud. Finally, I heard a few tiny giggles. The door handle jiggled. 'No,' I thought. 'This can't be what I think it is.' I pinched myself hard. 'Wake up. Oh god, wake up.'

Gavin came bounding down the hallway, still quite a slobbery mess but beaming from ear to ear.

"Hi Mommy!"

My jaw hung open and I'm sure my face was as white as a ghost. My life was unveiling before my eyes. Gavin had learned to climb out of his crib! No longer would I have the joy of naptime, the bliss of bedtime. I would lose those precious few hours each day where no one was whining at / pulling / drooling on me, the hours where I could be an adult, where I could be me instead of just Mommy. Gavin now controlled his own sleep schedule, and consequently, controlled me completely. The power dynamic - which admittedly, had not been in my favor to start - had definitively shifted.

"Hi, Gavin," I gulped nervously. "Aren't you supposed to be in a Time Out right now?"

"No, Mommy," he said seriously. "I all done. I climb out." He appeared very proud of himself and I think he expected me to congratulate him on his newest developmental achievement. My shock and horror had rendered me both immobile and mute, however, and after a few moments of silence, the only response I could muster was, "Mommy needs a drink."

And that is how my life changed irreparably today.

Don't Mess With the Jews

Happy Passover to all my fellow Jews out there! I wasn't aware of it being Passover until my grandmother asked if I was observing the holiday. (I responded smoothly as ever with, "What holiday?") In my defense, I am a self-proclaimed agnostic whose true Judaism boils down to a dark head of hair and a propensity to generally express far more emotion than socially appropriate. Oh, and bagels. I really like bagels.

Anyway, in honor of the holiday, which celebrates the biblical tale of the Jews' exodus from slavery in Egypt (basically, we kicked some serious Egyptian ass, courtesy of a plague or two... or ten), I just could not help but post this up. It's quite politically incorrect, but I think it's pretty funny. Apologies if I offend anyone with this...it's intended to be tongue-in-cheek.

Kids or Career? American Women Are Still Forced to Choose

When I had my son in early 2006, I was working for a boutique consulting firm in Manhattan. Months before his birth, my boss called me into his office to discuss maternity benefits.

“The firm has decided,” he said proudly, “to offer you two weeks paid maternity leave.”

I sat there quietly, a little surprised, and avoiding eye contact. The policy, as stated in the company handbook, was to offer employees who had been with the company 12 months or more a total of four weeks paid leave. Employees who had been with the company less than a year were not entitled to any paid leave. At the time of my son’s expected birth, my tenure with the firm would have been 11 months – just weeks shy of the year required for maternity benefits.

I thought back to the 14-hour days I was regularly putting in at the office (while very much pregnant, no less), the weekend work, and late night / early morning phone calls, and I couldn’t help but feel slighted. Was this all I deserved? Two weeks to rest, recuperate, and bond with my baby before returning, full-force, to the daily grind? Sure, I could take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave (thanks to the FMLA), but that wasn’t an option. I could barely get by on the pittance of a salary I did get. There was no way I could support myself and a baby in NYC, income-free. (In the end, I saved up all my vacation time and was able to take a total of four weeks paid leave before returning to work.)

Back then, I was angry at my firm for its lack of benefits, but in the two years since having my son (and subsequently finding a new job), I’ve had more time to reflect and realized that my initial anger was misplaced. My firm was doing what it was supposed to – running an efficient business and making money. It was our government – and perhaps, more broadly, our societal values – that deserved my ire. Why do we expect women to pop out babies and then return to work almost immediately with no time to heal and no time to bond with their children? The sad truth is, the American workforce is very much still a man’s world. The rules and regulations are geared toward men with a few crumbs thrown at women so that we don’t cry foul. But we should be crying foul! We’ve readjusted our expectations and our views of what is normal and good to the point where four weeks of paid maternity leave sounds generous.

It is not generous, though. Nor is it conducive to building a healthy society where individuals feel respected and valued, where people place as much emphasis on family as they do on career. It’s hard enough to balance the demands of work and parenting, and our policies toward parents certainly do not make it any easier. The message being sent is that those who are devoted and attentive parents wishing to spend time with their children are not as “serious” about their careers. That message is ridiculous. Why must we choose?

It is not like this elsewhere in the world. In fact, compared to other nations, the United States in embarrassingly stingy when it comes to providing parental benefits. In the Philippines, women receive over 8 weeks, fully paid; in Israel, it is 14 weeks. France gives new parents 16 weeks; Sweden, a whopping 16 months (at 80% pay). And the good old USA? We guarantee a grand total of zero weeks paid leave. The 12 weeks provided under the FMLA are unpaid.

The takeaway here is that, for as progressive a country as we like to think we are, the United States still has miles to go in terms of standing up for its citizens who choose to have both a career and children. We need to remove the conflict of work vs. family in this country and equip our people to not just be good employees, but to be good mothers and fathers as well.

(For a full comparison of parental leave around the world, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave)

Saving Money Gets Me High

Some recent life changes convinced me that it was time to reassess my budget. And, by reassess, I mean create.

I've always loved finding ways to save money. It's not that I'm cheap; it's more that when it comes to finances, I'm highly risk-averse. Of course, like most people, I can be pretty irrational in my habits. I will drop $300 on a pair of jeans without a second thought, but buy generic apple juice in order to save $0.15. (I get a euphoric feeling when the cashier at my local supermarket says, "Thank you for shopping here. You saved a total of $3.78 on your groceries today.").

So without further ado, I'd like to invite you all to join in on my fun. I've made some recent lifestyle changes that will help me spend my money more wisely and increase savings. I've also computed, on average, how much I expect this change to save me over the course of the upcoming year. I hope these tips can help and inspire you, too. I know they're pretty generic, but they really do make a difference. And if you have tips of your own, send me a shout.

1. Buh-bye, lattes. Hello, office drip. Being a Seattle-based office, it turns out we serve some high-quality java. It's just steps from my desk, readily available and comes with all the refills I can drink. And the best part? It's free! My lattes average $3.50 per day. Assuming I work 220 days next year, that's a savings of $770! To sweeten the pot even more (sorry, bad pun), I've started brewing coffee at home on the weekends, too. This brings my annual savings to $1,014.

2. Clothes do NOT make the man (they only make his mother). I care - perhaps too much - about the brand of clothing I wear. But my son doesn't. He sees no difference between a $50 shirt and a $5 one. The conclusion? Stop spending money on pricey baby clothing that he'll either outgrow or stain in a matter of months, if not weeks. Let's assume I buy him an average of 4 new shirts and 2 pairs of pants per month. Before, I was spending about $20 per shirt and $25 per pair of pants for him. Now I am spending about $8 per shirt and $15 per pair of pants. This brings my annual savings to $816.

3. Dispose of disposable income with a retirement account. Having too much disposable income sitting in my checking account is dangerous. It earns little to no interest while at the same time imploring me to spend it. If I could afford to use that money for expensive dinners, entertainment, and other superfluous purchases, I could certainly increase the amount of money that I contribute to my 401K plan. The best part about doing that is that the money is deducted before I ever receive my paycheck, so it's really easy to adjust to my new, self-imposed "salary." I was able to increase my 401K contributions for the upcoming year by $1500.

With just these three changes alone, I'll be saving an extra $3,330 this year!

The Surprise! Baby Club

After a full year of interacting with parents at my son's daycare, I have come to the conclusion that parents are generally crazy.

I recognize that I, too, am a parent. And believe me, I will be the first to admit that I am most definitely crazy. The difference between me and those who I am referencing in this post, however, is that I am crazy in a slightly neurotic, endearing way. The aforementioned parents are actually crazy. As in, up in a tree, out of their mind, nuts.

The greatest explanation I can come up with for this difference between myself and them is age. I don't flatter myself to think that I am any more normal than they are. I just think I haven't had enough time to sufficiently harden in my ways. Flexibility and an easy going attitude, typical characteristics of youth, provide a wondrous facade of sanity.

Without a doubt, I'm younger than most of the parents I know - a lot younger. While some of my peers were starting law school and med school and others were taking Wall Street or Silicon Valley by storm, I was locked in a bathroom stall at the Manhattan consulting firm where I worked watching the word "pregnant" appear on a stick. Not exactly what my mother had dreamed of for her promising (and very much unmarried) first-born.

To everyone's surprise, including my own, I made the decision to keep the baby. At the ripe old age of 23 - not even two years after my Harvard graduation - I became a mother. Here is a picture of my son when he was first born (he's now two years old).



As my friend, Ryan, likes to say, I am an official member of the Surprise Baby Club. At the time of my induction, I was the Club's only member. I could not think of even one person I knew who had a baby, surprise or otherwise. It was one of those things that "just didn't happen" to people like me. Yet, it did. And I've come to embrace the choice that I made. Gavin is an intellectually curious little boy with a mischievous grin and a soft heart, and I still can't believe how lucky I am to be his mother.

As an ironic addendum to this post, I now have a companion in the Surprise Baby Club. Ryan's son will be turning two in October ;)

Book Recommendation: Predictably Irrational

I'd like to recommend a book that I am currently reading. Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely.

My fifteen-minute bus ride to and from work is my precious and scarce daily reading time, so when it comes to selecting a book, I'm a pretty demanding customer. It has to be a book that will both entertain and educate me, one that backs up it's claims with data, but not to the point where I feel like I am reading a textbook. It needs to be well-written and, above all, it needs to provide me with a new way of examining some aspect of life.

Predictably Irrational seems to fit the bill so far. Publishers Weekly provide a synopsis below:

Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, but as MIT professor Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics, people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why cautious people make poor decisions about sex when aroused, why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart and why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money. According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should, in fact, be based on our systematic, unsurprising irrationality.

Kind of like The Tipping Point with a bit more data...

Why I'm Supporting Obama

"If you switch your vote, I'm telling all of our friends that you're the reason Obama lost a delegate in Washington," my ex said as we walked into our district caucus. I was a delegate for Obama; my ex was an alternate.

"What? Why would you do that? This is a free country! I can vote for whomever I wish," I said.

"Sure," he said. "But you chose to represent people who voted for Obama. Wouldn't you feel bad if you betrayed them and voted for Hillary?"

Perhaps I would have felt bad if not for the fact that I felt pressured into voting for Obama and was still unsure of whether my heart was in it. Don't get me wrong - I liked Obama. I liked him a lot. The problem was just that I liked Clinton an equal amount and was having trouble deciding (or, for that matter, distinguishing) between the two.

My first instinct had actually been to vote for Clinton. Afterall, she was a strong, intelligent woman and I loved her proposal for universal healthcare. She was the first woman who had ever made a run at the American Presidency and who stood a solid chance of winning. In a country where the line between flaky and bitchy is razor-thin, Clinton walked it as adeptly as one could. Our country, it sadly seems, is not yet able to handle a strong, intelligent woman, but I would not be dissuaded from supporting her simply because ignorant white men would never vote for her over McCain or because some critics felt it necessary to sling mud at her for showing emotion.

It turns out, however, that I would be dissuaded by my own pride and insecurity about needing to be reassured that I was a member of the educated elite. As David Brooks in the New York Times proclaimed, "Barack Obama is an experience provider. He attracts the educated consumer...Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the less-educated, less-pretentious consumer."

My ex forwarded me the article.

Now, I shouldn't have been so self-conscious about that. First of all, my ex had an agenda. He supported Obama and was trying to manipulate me into doing the same. Second, implying that I was uneducated was clearly a joke - I mean, I had graduated from Harvard for crying out loud. So why did I suddenly feel so uncomfortable?

I started to question myself. I was a creative person capable of broad, optimistic thinking...wasn't I? Perhaps my support for Clinton said something about who I was. Perhaps I was really a just shrewd, tactical pessimist who couldn't see beyond the day-to-day minutia of my life. Perhaps my acceptance to Harvard had been a mistake!

A week later, my ex and I attended our precinct caucus. To my horror and dismay, I quickly learned that votes in this archaic process were cast publicly - by a show of hands! There was no privacy of opinion here. I would have to raise my hand and pledge my allegiance in front of my entire neighborhood.

When the voting finally took place, I raised my hand for Obama. I'm not sure if it was the watchful eyes of my ex, the ridiculous fear of seeming less educated than I actually was, or the possibility that I actually did prefer Obama when it really came down to it. Thanks to the confounding variables, I guess I'll never know.

I do know that I still really like both Clinton and Obama and that I will wholeheartedly support whoever wins the nomination (no matter what my ex or the NYT has to say). Go Dems!

Religion, Be Damned

Last week, my company brought in a facilitator to lead a day-long session on Relationship Building and Professional Networking. Sounds like a non-offensive, albeit boring, way to spend the day, right? Wrong. At first, the facilitator seemed quite amiable (perhaps a little too amiable for my liking), and he was fairly competent from what I had heard. In fact, I quite liked him at the beginning of the day's session and was looking forward to a productive and enjoyable day. Soon, however, my hopes came crashing down.

It was mid-morning, and our facilitator was waxing about the simplicity and ease with which we could all network. "We all have plenty of opportunities to network in our everyday lives," he said. "The key is to recognize and take advantage of them."

I nodded politely and wondered when the sandwiches for lunch would be arriving.

"Think about how many people you know from your church," he went on. I sat up. I did not know anyone from my church. In fact, being a Jew (and a secular Jew, at that), it turned out I did not even have a church. "Church is a great place to network. And if you don't go..." Okay, good! Whew. He was acknowledging that some people were not Christian or religious. "- you should start, if for nothing more than the networking it provides."

I blinked. This couldn't be serious. Didn't he just violate about eight company policies and/or federal anti-discrimination laws with that statement? I looked around the room, mouth open in shock, expecting looks of horror on my coworkers' faces. My coworkers, however, were sitting perfectly still, nodding occasionally so as to look interested. No one had even registered the innuendo, despite its utter lack of subtlety. When a statement confirms something one already believes or does, people are far less likely to immediately realize how it can be presumptuous and condescending for those who don't, as I suspected was the case with my Christian coworkers.

"I am NOT a Christian!" I wanted to shout at this facilitator. "How dare you assume everyone is Christian by default! How on earth could you know what my religious views are, or if I even have any?"

I did not shout, however. What I did do, though, was decide to make his job surprisingly difficult by asking inane questions and debating innocuous points throughout the rest of the day. ("Being genuine helps build better relationships? Oh? Do you have any data to back that up [you lunatic]?" - I left the lunatic part out, but bolded it in my brain.) I will add that the day proved remarkably more entertaining from that moment on.

Perhaps now would be a good time to tell you that my new favorite pastime, if you could even call it a pastime, has been taking on religious extremism and general ignorance, one crazy Bible-thumper at a time. I'm passionately agnostic (which is very much the same as saying that I am decidedly undecided) and currently regard the scientific method as the only path to true enlightenment. If someone can prove something to me, one way or another, I welcome it. Until then, I'm skeptical.

I've been active for some time on a particular message board - how that came to be is a story for another post - and have recently discovered the acute joys of taking snarky and well-articulated jabs at some of its fanatical members who would hold others to the same arbitrary moral codes that they impose upon themselves. Now, I have no problem with people living their own lives in whatever loony manner they see fit. What irks me, though, is when people deign to control the free will of others by judging them against religious codes to which not everyone subscribes. My philosophy? Everyone has the right to live their lives as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on that right for others. Laws should only exist to protect people from infringing on others' right to freedom (i.e. I can't legislate who you marry since it does not directly impact me, but I can legislate that you don't steal from me since it obviously does impact me). I guess, at heart, I may be more of a libertarian than I previously thought.

I wasn't always so anti-religion. In fact, as my best friend declares, I used to be a Zionist. I admit, there was a time in my life when I wanted to grow up, marry an Israeli soldier, and breed lots and lots of Israeli children. (I am not Israeli, so this grand plan would have also involved moving halfway around the world.) However, I've since grown up and, I'd like to think, matured. Rather than disliking specific religions, I now dislike the institution of religion and thus, dislike all religions - and all religious fanatics - equally.

How very egalitarian!

Welcome!

This is my first blog, so I'm not exactly sure how to begin. Okay, so that's not entirely accurate. I've started about five other blogs before, but none have gotten past three posts, so I really don't count them. This blog, though, is going to stick.

I've decided to try the whole blogging thing again for a few reasons. First, a good friend (and ex) has decided to create a blog empire (this will be explained in greater depth in coming posts) and, with my being an aspiring writer, I felt compelled to participate. He's even reserved Spot #4 for me on his site, Million Blog List (http://www.millionbloglist.com/). I am truly the envy of every blogger in Singapore right now.

The second reason I have started blogging again has to do with my ambitions of being a writer. The closest I've come to being a published author thus far is when I wrote a dating guide in college. (While entertaining, Hooking Up: The College Girl's Guide to Dating and Relationships is not about to get me reviewed in the New York Times anytime soon.) Thus, until I write my first real novel, blogging seems like a good way to keep my skills from gathering too much dust.

Finally, I've decided to blog so that my friends, family, random strangers, and, most importantly, my son, have a record of what the early years of being a new, young, and career-focused parent were like. Being a 25-year old, cynical, well-educated, Type A perfectionist who dislikes tardiness, messiness, confusion, and delay and who is raising a two-year old son with her ex, I typically find myself in some not-so-typical situations. (The other day, I actually heard myself utter the words, "If you flush your doggie down the toilet, you won't have her anymore," and had to wonder what had happened to my life.) Anyway, in short, I think my life will provide some interesting fodder to blog about - and I hope you agree! So, read on and enjoy. Feedback and comments welcome, of course. Just please be kind - I'm an ESFJ and don't handle criticism well. (Kidding.) (Sort of.)

Oh, and the title for this blog was inspired by one of my son's Thomas the Train DVDs. As you will see, Thomas has also become an - unfortunately - large theme in my life.