War is Hell . . .

But is it real?   My eight year-old thinks World War III is a video game.  Or something else Barney (the purple dinosaur) started as in "I hate you, you hate me, Barney started World War three."  Either way, he didn't understand that we don't want WW III.

Silly me, I tried to explain about WWs I & II.  Real wars, real fighters, real people died.  I talked about the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The bombing in Libya.

He wasn't getting it:  No, not like the fighters in Star Wars.  Not like the mega multiplayer Lego Universe.  Finally, he says - like George Washington and the Revolutionary War - with real people in uniforms.  Okay, we're getting closer.

Cursed

@#$%&*!   It finally happened:  I cursed at one of my boys.  Pushed to the brink by a surly demanding teenager, I blurted that he was a . . . well, use your imagination.

I'm not proud of this.  But I think he was pleased.  He has long-inquired why his dad and I don't curse, and particularly don't curse at the kids.   Teenager thinks we should.  Teenager says "all" (to be taken with a grain of salt) the other parents, and his coaches, do.  Even my mother has been heard using salty language.  But we don't, or, I didn't until today.

I suppose it's amazing that I've made it nearly 20 years without kids hearing my potty mouth.  It wasn't a conscious parenting decision.  Hubby and I never really discussed it.  It just didn't feel right.  That's not to say, I didn't mutter things under my breath or in my head, especially at bad drivers.  I did; it was just silent cursing.   If mom curses silently and no one hears it, is it cursing at all?   To my kid, apparently not.

The question is, now that I've transgressed, will I continue?  I hope not but I fear that the floodgate may have opened.  What the eff do you think?

PS In an email, I told hubby that our son was behaving like an a@#hole.  Hubby wrote:  "I don't like that language."  I guess I have to keep a clean mouth.

Pocket Change

Coins fell out of my jeans.  A quarter, a dime, a nickel.  Flashback:  the exact change needed to buy a hot lunch in my elementary school back in the day.  Those three pieces, together, always take me back to that lunchroom, with the ladies in hairnets, the mashed potatoes and whole milk.  My boys will not have any similar recollections.

Our elementary school does not have a kitchen with lunch ladies preparing meals.   Hot meals may only be ordered in advance through a service that delivers the requested meals, individually wrapped.   Payment is online by parents; the students never handle the money.   Of course it costs more as well - a still reasonable $2.50 for a full hot lunch.  It might even cost more to bring food from home.

I make lunches anyway.  The coins stay home.

Doctor's Orders: Lighten Up

This is interesting advice from my internist.  It was not what I expected.  According to the doctor, it is something she rarely says to patients. 

During my appointment, I was, as usual, lamenting my belly fat and torso shape. The quest to whittle my middle began in high school and has continued into middle age.  I carry, and always have carried, my fat in the waist and stomach.   Even at 16, I bemoaned my perceived thick ribcage.   By my mid-20s, I realized that the only way for me to lose weight was surgery for medical (not weight) issues.  I later learned that, surprisingly, pregnancy also worked – I was unable to eat throughout gestation.  

<p><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1499">Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></p>

Things are not improving with age.  Increasing exercise and decreasing food intake just doesn’t do it.   Tony Horton’s P90x routine kicks my butt six days a week.  Food logs with calorie counts detail a nearly starvation diet.  Not to make excuses, but I can’t exercise more or eat less. 

My doctor was not telling me to work harder to lose weight.  Rather, her recommendation was to ease up on myself about my body.   As she pointed out, poking the mildly bulging muscles in my arms and legs, I am in great shape.  I do all the right healthy things.   I am not actually overweight.  My issues stem from genetics and innate structure. In other words, the medical counsel was body-acceptance, which sadly still eludes me.  

It surprises me that, at this age, I still battle my own figure.   On the surface, I accept that I am short waisted with thin limbs and a larger bust:  an apple, an inverted triangle, an egg with toothpicks, whatever.   Per my Pilates teacher, I have tried to focus on my strength (and amazing legs).   But all I see in the mirror is belly fat.   I stare, I pinch, I poke, I suck in . . . and imagine ways to get rid of it.  I mentally calculate my thickness and how many inches away I am from a concave body (for the record,  . . . many). 

It is ridiculous.   But I don’t know how to change.  These doctor’s orders may prove to be the most difficult to follow.

A Sheening Example of Nothing

For those who requested this . . . To the others, I apologize.

It’s difficult to discuss Charlie Sheen without being moralistic.  Or fatalistic.  Or disgusted.   And unsurprised.

Sheen always has been a Hollywood “bad boy.”  He was on Madam Heidi Fleiss’s infamous client list in the 1980’s and 90’s.   The “Wild Thing” in the film Major League was type-casting; Sheen even played baseball in high school. I always thought that Charlie Harper in Two and a Half Men was Charlie Sheen, albeit with co-stars, laugh track and producers.   He’s been arrested several times, is a known and admitted abuser of drugs and alcohol and has a string of domestic violence charges against him.  That he now fancies himself as the Hugh Hefner of our generation (erroneously believing we’re otherwise lacking) is no revelation.

The shock is that we’re listening and watching.  Sheen garnered one and half million Twitter followers in less than a week.  A book deal.  Hours of television interviews.  On-camera drug tests.  Video of his children being taken away by authorities.

Admittedly, he is colorful.  He has a way with words.  It must come from the tiger blood in him that propels him on one speed to be a rockstar from Mars . . . go.  He entertains . . . though I suspect, at this point, there is more laughter at him than with him. 

It is time to shut him up.  Jeff Rossin, move out of Sober Valley Lodge.  Piers Morgan, stop giggling with your homeboy.  Your interview was less than impressive, to say the least.  I changed the channel.  I won’t be watching you again.

Sheen glamorizes his hedonistic lifestyle (which, by the way, he is free to follow as long as all involved are consenting adults, no one gets harmed, and the children are not around).   Piers Morgan, however, crossed the line with:   “You’re entitled to behave however the hell you like as long as you don’t scare the horses and the children.” But feel free to beat up on the women? Was that his point?  The press titillates about life with the “goddesses.” No one addresses the misogyny (hatred of women) and misogamy (hatred of marriage). This is a man charged multiple times with violence against women, and particularly against the women closest to him – fiancées, wives and the mothers of his children.    The way he calls his live-in girlfriends “ the goddesses,” while purporting to put them on a pedestal, is just another method of dehumanization.  Just wait until they cross him.

Sheen sidesteps these issues. Instead, he rants about his contract rights.  Although I confess ignorance regarding the television industry and certainly Sheen’s contractual arrangements, by all accounts, CBS, the entity that pays for the show, cancelled production.   Morals clause or not, I suspect erratic behavior, admitted absence from rehearsal (or “practice” as Sheen denigrates) and fear for the safety of employees including Sheen, are grounds for suspension. 

Sheen’s diatribes and anti-Semitic attacks (and, yes, I do believe they were intended as such – one’s Hebrew name is not one’s given name in this country), however, are leveled at the Executive Producer.  Oddly, and never mentioned, is the fact that Sheen’s own manager also is a Producer on the show.   There’s more going on than meets the eye . . . or the mouth of Sheen.

There is, however, one thing to be thankful for:  unlike the real Tiger or Hef, Sheen never was anyone’s idol.  At least until now.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

My youngest examined a black and white photograph hanging in the hall.   Although it has been there his entire life, it seemed the first time he really saw the image of a woman holding an infant.  He looked at the photo, looked at me and struggled to make sense of the two.   Finally, hesitantly, he asked if the woman is me.  I said yes and the child is his almost-15 year old brother.

He was puzzled.  The woman in the photo has darker hair and looks a lot younger than I, he said.

He's right; I've aged a lot in the last 15 years.

Win, Winning, Winner

I'm not talking about Charlie Sheen, unlike everyone else.  In fact, we should all stop listening to him.  But that's for another post.  This is about my jury service.

I think I made money.  It lasted all of three hours (details to follow).  I spent precisely $3.50, not including gas and a cup of courthouse coffee.  I believe I will be paid $40.  The only downside is I didn't get to sit on a jury.  Details to follow . . .