Fed up with Lewis & Clark and Thomas Jefferson — it’s all my kids have learned about American history at school so far (grades 4 and 7). So we’re watching Roots.
all power to the people,
wm
It’s true, what people say. The best time to catch up with your kid is right after school.
My 4th grader, yesterday afternoon: “The school counselor came in and we learned about segregation. Usually we just learn about bullying. We talked about why it’s not good to leave somebody out just because of… something. Some of us got stickers” (holds up his hand and shows me the sticker that’s plastered to it).
“Yeah, they’re scratch n sniff, they smell like Play-Doh. Then the kids got asked, How did you feel about that? And they were all, Oh, it was really bad, it was unfair. But really, they were lying. They were glad they got stickers and the other kids didn’t.”
me: “Do you think the lesson was maybe because of Black History Month?”
kid: “Nope. And that’s how we got… Punxsutawney Phil!”
And then we had a talk about Malcolm, and Dr. King.
i’m a peace-loving girl, right up to the point where two freaks break into the house and try to come after my family.
after that? all bets are off.
This is one crazy story. Glad she and the baby are both okay. (A fund is being established for Mrs. McKinley and her son, if you are so inclined…)
Lynda Barry, how I love thee. Let me count the ways:
1) In the beginning, there was Poodle with a Mohawk. (“He knew what people thought of his kind: ‘High Strung. ‘Spoiled Rotten.’ ‘French.'”)
2) Then there were Marlys and Maybonne, who always managed to comfort me as they comforted themselves.
3) There was the time I caught a special about Lynda Barry on cable TV. She was introducing an audience to some of her big paintings, and she was amazing, the way she talked about her art. “See? In this one, she’s saying, ‘Perdon?'” She was cracking herself up and I thought, You can be an artist and really have some fun with it. And if people don’t like your stuff, or say it doesn’t count, well, screw ’em. (Honestly, I was already getting that reaction from a lot of people about my writing. Too domestic, too much cussing, and then there was my complete and total refusal to re-write The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and claim it as my own. I do love Coleridge, Wordsworth and Donne, but my style is… my own style.)
4) I just really liked the way she put art + words together, and I loved how gritty her work was.
5) Lynda Barry is the best combination of fearless + goofy.
6) Her essay, “The Sanctuary of School,” is one of the finest essays I have ever read.
7) Just fyi: She went to the Evergreen State College. Their mascot is the geoduck. (Pronounced “gooey-duck,” for those of you not from these parts.)
8) She is friends with cartoonist Matt Groening.
9) My old friend Nina and I used to clip Lynda Barry’s cartoons out of the papers and mail them to each other, from the west coast to the east coast and vice-a versa-a.
10) You can pre-order her book, “Blabber Blabber Blabber.”
11) “Well, you little bad asses. How about that?” — Lynda Barry
Wacky Mommy, out.
It’s Tuesday, and about time for an update from the Wacky House:
* School has started. The kids are doing great (4th grade and 7th grade this year #wheretheheckdoesthetimego???.
* Steve took some vacation days here and there this summer, and is back to work. He can bike to work now. He’s still bloggin’ away, as you can see, and occasionally arguing with assclowns. (Currie, you really do work my nerves. And don’t think I’ve forgotten how you like to defend pedophiles like “homeless activist” Michael Stoops.) (Hell hath no fury, and memory, like me.)
* Do I have a job yet? No, I do not. I am planning to start working the phrase “as a former sex worker” into conversations, though. For example: “As a former sex worker, I can recommend the non-fat skinny vanilla latte.” That should lively things up.
* Will I be placed in a school this year? Will I remain unpaid and still-gainfully retired, writing away? We’ll see…
* Book is almost ready for publication, I’ll keep you posted. Still working on my Dear Late Granny’s cookbook/memoir. Bogged down a little, what else is new? Seriously. I spent about 400 500 617 hours pinning laundry to the line this summer and watering the garden and yard. Seriously. It rained today and I almost ran out and kissed the muddy ground I was so happy.
* am Oregon girl.
* Mt. Hood fires need to go out. The air quality has been crummy, the sunsets and sunrises look a lot like L.A. and… I like trees. That mountain terrifies me, but I love it. Maybe the rain will help?
* in other family news, the youngest cat, Baby, has let the following be known (via his messenger, the youngest child, Wacky Boy): “He does not want his Chicken Coop to be called that anymore; he wants us to call it his ‘Man Cave.'” (Referring to Baby’s corner retreat in the library, where he keeps his scratching post, blankie, toys and catnip.)
* When my husband woke up our daughter this morning “it’s after 7! wake up!” she responded with this: “Fu…..” Her father’s response: “What was that?” Wacky Girl, fast on her feet, even when she’s sacked out: “I said ‘Ugh.'” Yeah, sure you did.
* This is the same girl who yelled, “Goddammit!” at her father when he got shampoo in her eyes, when she was not-quite-two. Steve: “Nancy, do you have any idea where she got that?” Me: “Nope.” (inside, heart swelling with pride, My girl.) (and really, aren’t you a little surprised that she didn’t yell, Goddammit, Steve!)
* what’s up with you??
— wm
love this. (interview with the late writer Grace Paley, from the Paris Review.)
INTERVIEWER: What were you doing before you became a published writer?
GRACE PALEY: I was working part time. I was hanging out a lot. I was kind of lazy. I had my kids when I was about twenty-six, twenty-seven. I took them to the park in the afternoons. Thank God I was lazy enough to spend all that time in Washington Square Park. I say lazy but of course it was kind of exhausting running after two babies. Still, looking back I see the pleasure of it. That’s when I began to know women very well—as co-workers, really. I had a part-time job as a typist up at Columbia. In fact, when I began to write stories, I typed some up there, and some in the PTA office of P.S. 41 on Eleventh Street. If I hadn’t spent that time in the playground, I wouldn’t have written a lot of those stories. That’s pretty much how I lived. And then we had our normal family life—struggles and hard times. That takes up a lot of time, hard times. Uses up whole days.
INTERVIEWER: Could you tell the story of the publication of your first book?
PALEY: I’d written three stories, and I liked them. I showed them to my former husband, Jess Paley, and he liked them, and he showed them to a couple of friends, and they liked them, so I was feeling pretty good about them. The kids were still young at the time, and they played a lot with the neighborhood kids, so I got to know the other mothers in the neighborhood. One of them was Tibby McCormick, who had just gotten unmarried from Ken McCormick, an editor at Doubleday. She knew about these stories, and poor Ken was more or less forced into reading them—you know, The kids are over at her house all the time, you might read her stories. So he took them home and read them and he came over to see me and said, Write seven more of them and we’ll publish a book. So that’s what happened. Luck happened. He also told me that no magazine around would touch them, and he was pretty much right about that too, although two of the stories in that collection were finally taken by Accent.
Dear You,
Sometimes, I get so personally attached to a writer, and/or the person’s book, that I just want to hug ’em and not let go and not share them with anyone. Mine, mine, mine. Do you ever get like that? Is it just me?
Anyway, that’s how I feel about Suzanne Beecher and her delightful new memoir/cookbook, “Muffins & Mayhem: Recipes for a Happy (if Disorderly) Life.” Mine, mine, mine. I bought a copy for my Kindle, read it on the iPad just now, and have a hard copy arriving in the mail in a few days.
Mine, mine, mine. But how can I hog her all to myself? I cannot. And so I will share this much with you:
Her book is funny, rich, inspired. Suzanne has been through a lot, and every time she ends up with lemons she just makes a pitcher of lemonade, then sells it by the glass. Her recipes are so yummy… I knew some of them from her blog, and have made several of them over the years (Crockpot Stuffing, Dolly Madison Muffins, Skunk Beans). I appreciate a girl who can cook and write, probably more than your average fan. Who knows why? Oh, wait…
I have written about her so many times here on The Blog (go search for “Suzanne” or “DearReader”), I’m like her one-woman fan club. But not. I have to share her with the nearly half a million readers who follow her book clubs. Also one time she sent me chocolate chip cookies, when I was working at Jefferson High School in beautiful Portland, Ore. I shared them with the students and some of the other teachers and staff. We took pictures of our Cooky Feast and mailed them to Suzanne. She is crazy for pictures. And her grandkids. And her bubble machine. And her pink flamingos. Also she is nuts about her husband. I’m just sayin’ — what a gal.
She is such a good writer, my Internet friend Suzanne. Inspirational and funny, poignant and assertive, business-savvy and artistic, compassionate and not-at-all-perfect. But she’s perfect to me. And if she wasn’t all the way in Florida, and I wasn’t all the way out here in Oregon, I’d go give her a big hug right now.
Only she would probably say, Honey, it’s 11:17 p.m. on a Monday night, shouldn’t you be in bed? Heehee.
Go buy her book, and buy a couple of extra copies to give as gifts. Knowing Suzanne, she will send you a free autographed bookplate and a bookmark.
Bon appetit!
Wacky Mommy
ps — private note to my son, who is very much a 9-year-old: Darling. When I tell you, Go to bed, please go to bed. Do not go stick Silly Putty in your sister’s hair, instead. That is just naughty. We had no choice but to cut it out, and now her hair is all… hunky in that spot. It’s in hunks now. Hunks of hair. Love you so much, Mommy
I took my daughter shopping yesterday. At the mall. At the huge, big mall where people cough right in your face and shove in front of you in line and where you suddenly think fifty-eight dollars doesn’t seem at all too expensive for a scrap of fabric made by a little child in a foreign country.
I love my girl. And we needed some clothes. She is growing tall, tall, tall like Mommy and nothing fits. Me, I just need to lose some weight, that would be a splendid idea. I have exactly one pair of jeans and they’re shredded. (Lots of dress slacks, but no damn jeans.) (No, I couldn’t find any jeans that fit, thanks for asking. But I found some other stuff and so did she, mission accomplished. Woo-hoo.)
Number of children I saw folded awkwardly in the compartments under the stroller, while younger siblings jumped around in the stroller above them: 2
Number of jumping kids I saw standing up in strollers, while their parents pushed them around (not same kids as first category, I guess that would add 2 to the total): 3 (or 5)
Number of toddlers I saw take headers down the escalator: 3
Number of them that screamed: 3
Number of parents that aided them: 0
Number of women that snapped “Watch it!” at me after they cut in front of me: 1
Number of Easter Bunnies I saw: 1
Number of grown men wearing bunny ears and taking photos of the Easter Bunny and screaming kids: 1
Number of photog assistants that weren’t forced to wear bunny ears and looked relieved about it: 1
Number of restaurants/kiosks we went to get get coffee, snacks, bottled water, lunch and more coffee: 5
Number of bottles of wine I purchased for home consumption: 2
Number of times my daughter and I told each other, “You’re stressing me out”: Um. 4? Or 6. Or 4.
Conversation I overheard between a grown daughter and her mother (re: 3-year-old granddaughter): “You can’t just leave, Mom! You can’t just take her and leave and then disappear and I don’t know where you are! You tell me, ‘Tina, I’m leaving!’ okay? Then I’ll know you’re gone. You just give me a heart attack when you do this, Mom!”
2nd conversation, this time between same mother and 3-year-old: “I know I said I’d take you to the Disney store, but we’re shopping for me first. Me. It’s my turn!” “No, my turn.” “No, my turn!” (wailing.) “OK, we’re going home now, are you happy?”
Conversation I overheard between a mother and her teenage daughter, who the mom had backed up against a wall: “You wanted the whole shopping experience, didn’t you? So you got it. This is it!” “Mom, everyone is staring at you.” (We were trying not to, I swear to you. I was doing eye-avoidance all day like crazy and so was Wacky Girl.)
We’re thinking online shopping is the way to go. Except when it comes to jeans.
, Barnes and Noble or Powell's Books.
Also available for Kindle
.
