rivka

We got home from Memphis last night. I'm in the office - the only day I'm coming in this week - and I must admit I'm kind of enjoying the peace and quiet.

I finally snapped at Michael's stepmother. As we were packing up to go she kept very persistently trying to get me to take Michael's bronzed baby shoes. I smiled and said nice things the first several times. "Oh, we'll definitely want them eventually, but I don't want to take them away from Bill." "Yes, but I really think Bill likes to have a reminder of Michael's babyhood around." She kept insisting: "Oh, don't worry about that. We've got plenty of reminders of Michael around." (Like the picture she hung back behind a cabinet, I guess.)

So finally I just looked at her without smiling and said flatly: "Betty, if you want them out of the house, then yes, we will take them."

So of course she backpedalled. And had the nerve to try this one out: "You just insulted me, saying that I want them out of the house." Uh huh.

Michael's father came in to talk with us about it. He said that he wouldn't take any amount of money for those baby shoes, but that we could have them if we wanted them. Although he would worry about them getting broken in transit. Anyway, he just wanted to make sure that we understood that they weren't trying to get rid of them. I felt bad because I really try not to put him in the middle, but.

Our flights home were beautifully uneventful. There didn't seem to be any increase in security at the main screening lines, and when I got pulled for secondary screening (I always do, because my artificial hip sets of the metal detector) the TSA who screened me seemed perfectly relaxed and easygoing. They had a TSA at the gate pulling some people aside for random pat-downs, but it was the most ludicrous security theater imaginable: he only stopped men, didn't stop anyone who had a ton of stuff to carry (presumably so he wouldn't inconvenience them too much), and only patted them down above the waist. He would've found someone carrying a gun in a shoulder holster, but that's about it.

Our kids are beautiful travelers. When I see other people dealing with screaming tantrums on a plane, I feel very lucky.

I did learn an important lesson about Colin and traveling, though. (Did I know this when Alex was his age and then I forgot it? Maybe so.) Yesterday I gave him solid food for breakfast at my in-laws' house, and then I nursed him throughout the day as we traveled home. He got frantically unhappy in the car on the way home from the airport; I nursed him again and he cheered up, so I decided to give him some solids even though it was already 8pm. And that boy ate: a full slice of deli cheese, three handfuls of Cheerios, a jar of baby food (chicken-apple compote, one of the higher-calorie options), and at least a quarter-cup of mango bits. He was starving. I think of solids as being kind of optional to his diet, replaceable by nursing, but it's now obvious to me that at this point they really aren't.

I have a big important meeting in an hour and a half, and I am nervous. To give you an idea of how important a meeting it is, I am wearing a blazer to work - something I do about twice a year. Some of you will be coming along in the form of a silver otter pin which you chipped in to give me at alt.polycon 12, so, thanks. It's nice to feel like my friends will be with me.

Now that I have a webcam on my work computer, I can show you what I look like when I'm trying to appear professional! Here I am:

Beige. Beige. Michelle Obama wore a lovely BEIGE dress to her first state dinner, and she looked gorgeous.

Too bad the Associated Press ran into a little problem with their coverage.

First lady Michelle Obama chose to wear a gleaming silver-sequined, flesh-colored gown Tuesday night to the first state dinner held by her husband's administration. She was tending to her hostess duties in a strapless silhouette with the beads forming an abstract floral pattern that was custom-made by Naeem Khan. [emphasis mine]

And they ran this picture alongside it:



...So it's not like they didn't have a visual aid to help them remember THE COLOR OF MICHELLE OBAMA'S FLESH.

(Via TAPPED.)

This morning I walked into the Institute and was not met by the customary blast of cold air in the lobby.

The air conditioning is out. So is the water. We have no working bathrooms and no cooling. It is August in Baltimore. This is a research facility in which people need to be able to, at a minimum, wash their hands.

Have they closed the Institute? No, of course not. Why would you think that? "Please use the restrooms in the Allied Health building."

I could go spend the morning in the library, and then the afternoon in the clinic. Except that I have to pump three times a day. When I'm at the clinic I pump in the room we use to see research subjects, which opens on to the waiting room and has no lock for the door. I put up a bunch of "do not enter" signs and pray, and I try not to have to pump there more than once a day. There's no private place to pump in the library, except maybe a bathroom stall. If bathroom stalls even have electrical outlets.

If I go home, I won't get anything done, because the kids will be there. I'd either have to pay the nanny and send her home (it wouldn't be fair to ask her to lose a day of pay without warning), or have her stay and try to keep the kids away from me while I hole up in my bedroom. pumping while she gives Colin bottles. That makes no sense.

Wait, okay, while I was typing this an e-mail came through from the COO:

As you all know, we have no water to the building. Campus Facilities is now saying that it will likely be back on in an hour. Meanwhile, one thing that is clear is that there is no safety water pressure in the labs. Therefore until further notice, please suspend all lab work that could possibly require safety water in an emergency.

We are still assessing overall building impact based on Campus Facilities repair predictions and will send more communications re: that soon – please let me know if you have any questions.

Okay, an hour. That's not so bad. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that the air conditioning will come back when the water does.

Fox News described Michelle Obama as Barack's "Baby Mama."

Just a couple days after the whole "terrorist fist jab" incident.

This election is just going to keep on digging out the ugliest, ugliest depths of the American psyche, isn't it?

It's fucking embarrassing to even share a country with some of these people.

Edited to add: In the middle of a charming full-on rant, Scalzi offers this concise summary of the issue:

Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News have a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men.

My psychic prediction: If this can't be buried - and I doubt that it can - expect to see the right wing attempt to turn it around with bluster about "the real issue" being all those African-Americans who have children out of wedlock, and calling for Obama to denounce the "social pathology" of his people.

I am too sensitive of stomach to actually Google "the real issue" and "social pathology" to see if I've already been proven right.

Sheesh, volunteers.

I spent a few hours at church this morning, helping to renovate some of the Religious Education space. A number of jobs were on offer; I picked painting trim because it had the smallest amount of ladderwork. We were working in one huge room which is normally separated into classrooms by those horrible vinyl curtain room dividers, and there was a lot of trim - doorframes, bulletin board frames, and a whole bunch of built-in storage cabinets whose sliding doors had been removed. I picked a section of the room and spent twenty minutes or so carefully outlining my work areas with painter's tape, including the edges that were on the interior of the cabinet.

Just as I started painting, another volunteer came in and also picked Trim as her task of choice. She peered at what I was doing.

"Oh, you put tape all along there?" she asked, gesturing towards the cabinet.

"Yeah, it might have been a little bit of overkill on the inside edge, but whatever." The trim, it should be understood, is being painted a contrasting color from the wall paint. The insides of the cabinet are painted in the wall color. It's a strong contrast, so taping the edges inside the cabinet was only potentially overkill in the sense of "no one's going to care," not in the sense of "no one's going to notice."

"I don't think I'm going to tape it." She wandered over to the next set of cabinets. A couple of minutes later I was surprised to see her with a paintbrush already in hand.

"You're not taping any of it?"

"No." She called out to the Religious Education director, who was walking by. "Becky, I decided not to tape this. I think it will be all right."

"...Okay," Becky said. "I guess I'll just make you touch up the wall color, if necessary."

We painted. Time passed. And then, on Becky's next circuit through, Ms. Tape-free pointed out the quarter-inch edge where the trim comes out from the wall.

"I have a steady hand, but not that steady," she said, "so I'm not going to do that." She paused, and then said blithely, "I guess someone else is going to have to tape it."

And she meant it, too. She went on and painted only the front of the trim on her cabinet. And then she went on and painted only the fronts of the door jamb. She didn't want to bother with painter's tape, so she just plain didn't paint any of the little edges that came close to the walls.

I couldn't believe it. Becky, sadly enough, didn't seem to think that she could criticize someone who was voluntarily giving up her free time to paint the church. But... sheesh.

With practice, I have figured out how the intelligent mother reads the message boards at mothering.com. You find a couple of sane boards (I skim "Toddlers" and read "Learning at School" and "Learning at Home & Beyond"). Perhaps you look for second-hand Hanna Anderssen clothes in the Trading Post. You avoid the "Gentle Discipline" board unless you're feeling reckless and/or bulletproof. And you figure out which boards you personally should never, ever, ever open up even for a moment, or even let your eyes stray to the teaser subject line next to the board title. For me? That would be "Lactivism" and "Vaccinations."

Nothing good comes of relaxing that last rule. Nooooo-thing. But today I saw a subject line in the teaser spot, and I was weak.

I expect that this post will ultimately disappear - it's already been locked by the mods - and I want to preserve it just because otherwise it would be hard to believe that I really had seen someone say this - and other people agree with her.

Poor vaxed babes...

Whenever I am out and see other little kids, I automatically assume they have been vaccinated and all I can think is, "that poor child!" I think about the vaccines doing their dirty deeds inside the children. Especially when the kids don't have that "spark" that children should have...

And I occasionally think about something MT said once, about her sons not finding partners that have been untouched by vaccines. I think about how my ds is probably going to end up with someone that has been "altered" by vaccines.

Does anyone else do this? Or am I just a nut??

Later on, after some agreement (e.g., "There is a difference between vaxed and unvaxed babies. I know the "spark" that you're refering to. I try not to think about it anymore. But I also wonder about all the poor babies I see and I wonder who they could of been and how much healthier might they be had their systems not been tainted by vaxes.") and quite a few challenges, she clarifies that of course she doesn't think that vaccines are the only thing bad, evil mainstream mothers do to take away their children's spark:

There are most likely many other factors at play - parenting, food choices, other medications like antibiotics, etc. I think the mamas here on MDC are mostly (not ALL, but mostly) more holistic than most mainstream mamas, so know that the choices we make with our children affect their health.

My all-time favorite of the responses she got before the post was locked:

My dd was not vaxed, but don't worry - when you look at her and don't see that 'spark' you look for in children you can blame it on the fact that she was supplemented with formula when she was an infant.

(btw, I think she has a spark. Are you so sure other people see this spark in YOUR kids? Don't we all think OUR kids have 'the spark'?)

I might have more to say about this later, or I might not. Right now... I guess I just feel like this mindset is an important one to bookmark.



(Plus, it's a chance to use my other new icon. The text is tiny-tiny, I know: it reads "Pseudoscience: Is It Catching Up To Real Science?")

I didn't think I needed to spell this out in my own journal, but for the record: I do not exclude people from our NIH-funded research protocol on the improper grounds that they fail to meet my standards for social gentility.

Sheesh.