Reviewed today:

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Is it the cussing? Am I dull as a butter knife and no one has known how to tell me? Pick me! (Jumping up and down, waving her arms around.)

Just for you:

* Last Friday (Oct. 12, 2007) there was another shooting outside of Jefferson High School. Two, in fact. No one was killed. Thanks, Jeebus. We appreciate your attention. (Please send good thoughts to the kids in my neighborhood, would you?)

* In spite of the violence, the tough schools, the white parents bringing their white privilege to the table (“We are here to save the neighborhood! To save you from yourselves! Do what we say!” etc.), the pitbulls, the jerks who look like an angry white mob, with red faces and bulging muscles in their necks at neighborhood meetings re: name change from Intercourse Ave. to Chavez Blvd. (my favorite line in the string of comments on that link was “Wacky Mommy, you ARE wacky.” Yeah, tell me something I don’t already know), in spite of the traffic, in spite of the meth labs and the police with their SWAT vehicles and all of that?

* In spite of all of that, when our (new & improved) realtor told us, “When people think of Interstate Ave. and North Mississippi, they have preconceived notions about prostitutes, drug use, gangs, and whatnot,” (she may not have said “whatnot,” it is just my favorite word lately) all I could think was, “What the fuck do you know, bitch?” and I really wanted to go all North Portland on her ass. Especially when she suggested that perhaps my neighborhood isn’t “all that” and perhaps we should wait until spring to put it on the market? After we remodel the kitchen?

* (I’m fucking not remodeling the kitchen. The kitchen is functional and the lighting is good. Go look here here and here to find out why pigs will need to zoom across the sky before I tackle another big project here. Edited to say: We have since found an awesome incredible painter and no, I won’t give out his number.)

* You know, when my realtor (who is a west sider, by the by) went off about hookers and guns I wanted to say something tactful at that point. Like, “Why don’t you stick it in my eye and then I’ll be able to see that you’re fucking me?”

* I do not feel that she was being positive enough.

* This is a great neighborhood, shootings and SWAT teams aside. Ten minutes from downtown Portland, 15 minutes from Vancouver, Wash. Several schools nearby that, while my husband and I may not always be so keen on them, are loved by a lot of parents, kids and teachers. These are schools, some private, some public, with waiting lists. We have the Mississippi and Alberta “arts districts,” with fancy restaurants, galleries and bars, right up the street. We have fancy-shmancy restaurants and coffee houses right in my neighborhood, up the street. A farmers market within walking distance. Several community centers. A fancy grocery store and a regular grocery store. Yadda yadda blip. And we have a nice house. I am sorry to be a jerk and brag, but it’s pretty, my house. And good-sized. It’s vintage, for pete’s sake — its celebrating its 100th birthday this year. We’ve babied it and it shows.

* It is “Old Portland,” whatever the hell that means. Some people are impressed by it, they’re all “oooooooooh, Old Portland.” But not our realtor.

* Anyway.

* We decided to fix her up even a little bit more, This Old House. Because we haven’t spent enough money here yet. New carpet, maybe some new landscaping, touch-up paint here and there, yadda yadda blip blip, and wait a couple of months “until the market isn’t so smooshy” to list it. My mellow was pretty harshed after we made this decision, especially since we’d already found a really decent house across town and of course in my mind I was there, in my new kitchen, drinking coffee, so I took myself out for coffee to get my mind off things.

* I was reading Andrew Merton’s bio/autobio of Princess Diana — so good, but so heartbreaking, of course — and drinking my boring little decaf. (It may have been caf. You will never know, will you?) These two idiots sit by me and one starts bragging loudly of how he screwed someone on this real estate deal. He wanted this house in my old neighborhood (Rose City/Madison South) and they offered them thousands under what they wanted, and the owner countered with how about this much, instead? and yadda yadda blip and, smugly, “We just out-waited ’em. They finally had to drop the price and ha ha ha! I want them to pay closing costs and ha ha ha!!! I am not fixing the whoozit, they need to pay for that, too…”

* At which point his friend, who may I say to his credit was not being all gleeful and smug, said, “Who much would it cost to fix the whoozit?”

* “Just two thousand, but fuck that! Ha ha ha.”

* At which point of course I rolled my eyes at him and was tempted to crack a chair across his head because next he started bragging about how huge the house was (3,200 square feet). And hello? You just ripped these people off, don’t gloat. Instant karma’s gonna get you, buddy. That’s a sweet deal you got in my old neighborhood. I don’t want my mom to have you as a neighbor, you jerk.

* Then he starts bragging about the East coast, and “Back there it would cost you…” And I’m thinking, dude, pay for the whoozit yourself, you scam artist.

* But I’m glad I ran into him because it made me realize that while I do like getting a killer deal (who doesn’t?) I do not enjoy the gleeful pride of knowing that I screwed someone over.

* So I do want to get a fair shake for our (beloved, beloved awesome pretty) house, and I don’t want to pay tens of thousands more than I should for our new house. But. I do not want anyone coming away from the deal feeling all, nyah, nyah.

*Because that is wrong.

* Really, really, really wrong.

* So now I feel more okay about the whole thing. We’re still selling, just not this weekend. Because that smug guy? The thief? He’s that way, but you and I are not that way, savvy? Are you with me on this, Internet? I know my readers, I know you’re decent people. The housing market is in a little slump here, and there are way too many “PayDay Loan”-type home foreclosures going on because some loaners are opportunists and jerks. People’s lives are getting ruined because of it. Which is messed up and not fair to anyone. Is that instant karma? No, not usually. It’s usually someone who desperately wants to own their own place, and housing prices here can be pretty intimidating, and even though they can’t afford it, the loaners are all, “Suuuuuuure you can, sign your life away right here and I’ll go ahead and keep two of your kids.”

* I have karma on the brain today. Then when I got home, my favorite guy next to Hockey God stopped by: the UPS Guy! He brought me Sharon Stiteler’s book, “Disapproving Rabbits.” It’s all pictures of rabbits! With funny captions! Man, oh man, did I need this book today. And he also brought…

* Richard Avedon’s “The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family,” with seventy-five images from the Smithsonian Collections. I just glanced through it — it’s spectacular.

* So more later on those three books.

* Let’s not crack open any heads out there, okay people?

Love,

WM

Reviewed today:

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I just wanted to be able to type that. I don’t get enough junk mail around here. No kidding, that’s the name of the film Hockey God and I watched last night — Live Nude Girls Unite! It’s a documentary about the strippers who unionized at the Lusty Lady club in San Francisco.

We like boobs around here, and unions. So it was the perfect film for us, no? (Their organizing efforts took place in ’96-’97 — the film is from 2000.) Here are their suggestions for how to unionize your sex shop, fyi.

Happy Sunday!

WM

Reviewed today:

It pains me to say this, Internet. But until I picked up a copy of “When French Women Cook,” Madeleine Kamman’s “gastronomic memoir” from 1976, I did not know how to make a pie crust. I longed to make blueberry pie. Apple. Chocolate. Lemon meringue! (That would have been a dazzling feat, requiring both the pie crust and the meringue, which I also didn’t know how to make.) Now, I can make a pie crust. No, I won’t tell you the tricks — you just have to buy a copy of this book or get it at the library.

Bon appetit!

Anna Jane Hays (author) and Linda Davick (illustrator) have put together the sweetest little book, “Kindergarten Countdown.” (Ms. Hays spent 29 years with Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop.)

Wacky Boy’s review: “I don’t want to read any more of those books.”

So I read it by myself. It’s a rhyme book, and goes over everything a kindergartener-to-be might be thinking about: backpacks, lunches, saying the ABC’s, sneezing, games and writing. The illustrations are adorable. Don’t be put-off by my son — he is just not interested in anything that is unrelated to dinosaurs or snakes. The book came with a little sheet of stickers — I think he’ll like those.

Who’s Rumi? Not Raffi! Rumi! The Sufi mystic Rumi is what is getting me through this first month of school. I really appreciate his works.

“Move Within”
Rumi

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Namaste.

WM

New products/old products/all kinds of products:

* Gillette Fusion: This razor bills itself as “the comfort of 5 plus the precision of 1.” I do not know exactly what that means. Hockey God sez: “The beard trimmer doesn’t work that well, but the razor is alright.” A winning endorsement.

* No matter what other lotions I try, I always go back to my old love, Kiss My Face “obsessively natural” A&E Ultra Moisturizer. It is thick, it works well, it smells good and it makes my skin silky and delightful. Plus it doesn’t make me itch.

* I will make an exception for the Mystery Product, the no-name tubes of stuff they gave us at the condos we stayed at in Vail. (And not little measly containers, either — they gave us full-size containers.) (Well, close to full-size.) No, there is no manufacturer’s name on the label. No, the front desk didn’t know where it came from. Everything, the sunscreen, shampoo, conditioner and lotion, all contain basically the same ingredients: cucumber extract, sea kelp, green tea, lavender extract, wheat germ oil, wheat protein, vitamins A, B & E. I brought home five tubes of each product and when it is all gone it will be a sad day at Wacky House. A sad, sad, cucumber extract-free day.

* Speaking of sunscreens, all summer we’ve been using Alba Botanica Sun Kids’ Sunscreen SPF 30 on the little blonde kids’ bodies and Water Babies UVA/UVB Protection Sunblock Stick 30 SPF on their faces. We’ve also used a pump sunscreen, Kiss My Face Sunblock SPF 30 Spray. It works just great, and is not aerosol.

kisses,

WM

Did you know it’s our anniversary next week? Nine years of happily married life!

My sister babysat for the kids last night — we went to clarklewis for dinner, it was a little fancy, but we sat at the bar to compensate. More on that later… The big news of the night was we made it to the theater — the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, right in the neighborhood. We saw Kwik Jones’s new play, “The Code.” It was fantastic. (He’s a Jefferson high graduate — say yes to local artists.)

For those of you in Portland, the final show is 3 p.m. today (Sunday, Aug. 26th). If you can, go; if you can’t, try to catch this show when it plays again, or get on the mailing list to find out about the company’s other shows. It was tremendous, moving, and extremely well-acted.

Here’s a synopsis of the show. You can read a Trib story about IFCC and Studio 20 here. And you better have IFCC’s address, so you can get on their mailing list.

Mr. Jones was there last night, and on our way out I wanted to stop and say something, but what is protocol, people? I always feel a little starstruck around playwrights and actors. Do you stop and say, “Great show, I loved it”? or what? If you don’t say something, will they think you didn’t like it? Live theater can be an emotional experience — sometimes it takes me a bit to come back to reality after seeing a really good show, like this one. The actors, directors and playwrights know this, right?

Please advise.

Reviewed today:

(I have a new post up at Grasshopper New Media — it’s about family reunions. Check it out. wm)

So, so, so.

I try to think about Elvis
Memphis
Oprah in the afternoon
I try to think about palm trees
Fig leaves
The creature from the black lagoon
I try to think about high heels
And good deals
Anything to get me through
I just can’t concentrate
You’re all I think about these days

— “I Try to Think About Elvis”
Patty Loveless

I have a stack of books here as high as my left hipbone for review, and I just have not had the time to write any reviews. (Although I have been finding time to read.) Also, my concentration is shot. What with end of summer. Worrying about my granny. Getting back up to speed after a lazy, relaxing vacation. The season finale of “America’s Got Talent.” Excuses, excuses.

Generally, if I don’t like a book I don’t review it. (Stash under “Things My Dad Told Me”: If you can’t say something nice/don’t say anything at all.) But I’ll make two exceptions here.

Robert Wilder’s new book, “Tales from the Teachers’ Lounge,” (Delacorte Press, $23, 307 pages) lost me at “Here, I’ll start out by making fun of the special ed kids. Har! Har!” Rob, it’s not funny. Also, I only sort of liked his other book “Daddy Needs a Drink,” although I gave it a decent review here.

Second, “Husbandry: Sex, Love & Dirty Laundry,” by Stephen Fried (Bantam Books, $18, 177 pages) lost me at the first sentence:

“Let’s start with my socks.”

No, let’s not. And let’s not get into the politics of housework, how women are “genetically programmed” to be quicker-picker-uppers and how “the things that you stress about are not the things I stress about” and how if you’re rude to your wife you won’t get laid, etc.

Oh, and the whole “I would have gotten around to picking up my dirty clothes eventually, it’s just more important to you than it is to me.” As long as men keep leaving the shitwork for women, we will continue to be subjugated and our real work won’t matter (or get done) because we’re kept so busy with the shitwork. Excuse me — your shitwork.

So fucking pick up your socks and shut up.

Now — a book I loved. When I first glanced at Whitney Gaskell’s new book, “Mommy Tracked,” (Bantam Books, $12, 349 pages) I cringed a little. More about Jimmy Choos, right? Manolo Blahnik’s, and the new nanny, and the mojitos and yadda yadda. I cannot relate to those books, I really can’t. (Except for the mojitos.)

It’s not that book. Meet Chloe, Anna, Grace and Juliet, and their crazy, mundane, complicated lives under pressure in Orange Cove, Florida. I read the first chapter, then put it down to call the Pink-Haired Housewife, who I’d given my other review copy to.

“It’s like reading a really juicy grown-up Judy Blume book! Go read it!” Then I hung up and finished the book. The characters were believable, and engaging. One shoplifts compulsively, one is struggling to lose weight, one (a single mom) is scared of dating, one wants to have an affair on her husband, then doesn’t want to, then does want to… will she? It’s a soap opera, but, like any good soap, it’s trickier than just the drama.

You’ve got to have believable characters. We have to be able to relate to them. They don’t have to be perfect, but you have to care about them. Check, check and check. They moved me, these women. They were rich. They made me feel like I’m not alone out here.

And great news! Gaskell has written four other novels: “Pushing 30,” “True Love (and Other Lies),” “She, Myself & I” and “Testing Kate.” Yay!

(That’s a whole lotta exclamation points, no? WM)

Reviewed and mentioned today:

For this week’s review, we’re talking about “Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases”, by Paul A. Offit, M.D. Your unfriendly reviewers are Wacky Mommy and the Pink-Housed Housewife. To start, may I, WM, just say that the book is about Montana native Maurice Hilleman, but you wouldn’t know it from the title. I thought Offit was the big genius but he’s not. They need to add Hilleman’s name to the title. (They may have — we’re reading review copies.) (Also, there are no indexes in the review copies. I have found this vexing.) (more…)

Reviewed today:

Little reviews today — only one kid is home, the girl is at Grandma’s. The boy wants to blow up my computer. Must post, post-haste… (more…)