BPA is BACK, as are the Christmas catalogs

BPA is back in the news. ABC ran another story on it tonight (click on title to this post to go to ABC's story). Independent experts have criticized the FDA panel that reviewed BPA products and pronounced them "safe." The criticism is that the FDA ignored numerous studies -- studies not conducted by the chemical companies -- that link BPA to cancer and a myriad of other health misadventures.

So BPA was naturally on my mind as I flipped through the numerous Christmas catalogs that hit my stoop a good week or two before Halloween every year. Today the "Bed, Bath and Beyond" catalog arrived. I love that store. (Do I hoard their 20% off coupons like M&Ms or nuggets of gold and forget, every time I shop there, to use them? Sure. But then, we're getting a little off topic.)









The catalog today featured the "Pasta N'More Microwave Pasta Cooker." This pasta cooker is plastic through and through. And we're supposed to blithely boil spaghetti noodles in plastic in the microwave? No f-cking way. This confounded me; it could not be true. So I did a little poking around to find out more about this plastic pasta death trap.

What I found was a demonstration video on the noodle cooker's website. It features a woman on the edge, unable to contain her frustration and rage when she attempts to boil noodles in her barren, black-and-white kitchen.

Now I am no cook, I'll grant you that. But folks, I can bring spaghetti to a boil without going to the brink. I can cook noodles and keep my composure. It's just not that difficult. Really. But since I'm still the blogging novice, I could not figure out how to download the actual demonstration video. Here is one video, though, from YouTube, albeit a little spoofed up by an Andy Warhol lover. You will still, however, be able to get my point: WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD BOIL SPAGHETTI IN PLASTIC IN THE MICROWAVE?



Just as I was beginning to feel a bit peculiar, wondering how many other weird products are out there that scores of people supposedly use on a daily basis, things I refuse to use or have never before heard of (like these "bling" BPA pacifiers) . . . I spotted another Bath & Beyond advertisement.

This one was for the "Nasal Cleansing 'Neti' Pot."

I just don't know what to think. Don't know what to say. I'm speechless. And the woman looks so happy. There are no words. So I will sign off now. It's time, anyway, for me to rub my Aladdin's lamp, wash my Ronco egg scrambler, and blow my nose.

Capital Gains and Other Oxymorons

CAVEAT: the post you are about to read is extremely political in content. Mature audiences only. Reader discretion is advised. The opinions expressed herein are solely those of this blogger and do not reflect the opinions of blogspot.com. Registered voters are encouraged to obtain independent counsel before casting their votes.

In these waning days before the election, I have been following the campaigns of McCain and Obama with a renewed intensity. Used to, I'd check drudgereport.com or "Most emailed articles from the New York Times" once at the beginning of the day and once before bedtime. Now? I'm all over it. Click, click, click. Besotted with and stalking him, Matt Drudge must think I am, harboring a huge crush.

The candidates are now repeating their tiresome Clarion calls with a new urgency, as if we hadn't heard them the third go-round. "The country is ready for a new erection." Or was it "nude erection"? Hells bells. Maybe they're saying "new direction." Through my bell-ringing migraines, I just can't decipher anything any more. All of this rhetoric has left my cringing ears exhausted, craving some truth and originality.

Obama says he wants to give tax "cuts" to the middle class by "cutting" the taxes of people who are no where close to the "middle," tax cuts for people who aren't paying any taxes now, anyhow. What's that about? It is axiomatic that you can't cut the taxes of a non-taxpayer. You can't cut a zero. In truth and in fact, Obama wants to expand the number of non-taxpayers. In truth and in fact, Obama says the government should send an annual check out to these non-taxpaying folks.

Perhaps it should. But Obama ought not cast an annual government pay-out to non-taxpayers as a tax cut. It is not only a factual impossibility, it is flat-out false, rendering a true, informed debate on the merits of his economic plan a wasted exercise in speculation and futility.

If you want to give a government hand-out to people who do not work or pay taxes, if you want to tax my hard-earned dollars and hand them over to folks who pay no taxes -- after I've busted my tail to earn those dollars -- just say so, Mr. O. I can handle the truth. But to call these checks a tax cut when they are anything but, is spurious and scurrilous, if you're in the mood to pontificate.

What I cannot abide is deception. To call a thing that which it is plainly not just plain irks me. It's like the packaging I see on chicken at the grocery store. Big blue blurbs exclaiming "All natural*" entice me to buy the chicken, in the hopes I will not think beyond the illusion that these chickens were not plumped up with hormones and antibiotics while they lived out all the days of their lives caged.

Read what follows the asterisk, "no artificial ingredients added." This means what, exactly? Nothing whatsoever, it turns out, except perhaps that Tyson Foods or Pilgrims Pride did not add melamine to their chicken. Wow. This lemming is sold.

Obama says he will pay for his government hand-outs (can I say WELFARE without getting stoned?) by increasing the capital gains tax. But wait. Hold on a sec, Mighty O. "Capital gains" is an oxymoron, don't you know? Have you checked the value of your house lately, or your 401k? The word on the street, the word on Main Street, is CAPITAL LOSSES.

This is not to say I'm anti-Obama. I am not. I caucused for the man. But he ought to call his spade a spade. With every economy in free-fall and everyone's retirement savings account raped and marauded, no one has the time to dig in and parse words, pour over ambiguous policy positions, or ferret out the nuances and half-truths that lie in words like "*other revenue sources.*"

What does Obama mean when he says he'll finance these government checks to non-taxpayers with "*other revenue sources*"? The adage used to be "follow the money." Now we have to follow the asterisks.

To be sure, Mr. McCain has uttered a malaprop or two, with a few Freudian slips thrown in here and there. He's horribly stiff on the runway, robotic and flinty. At the last debate, he inadvertently called Obama "Senator Government." Even the Economist picked up on that one.

But I have scoured McCain's economic policies with the same vim and vigor I have Obama's, and I haven't found McCain calling anything something which it is altogether not. Try as I might, I've not found any pigs camouflaged in lip stick . . . at least not so far.

At my house, I can't get away with a single misstep, a single manipulation or sleight-of-hand. And I'm only running to beat the school's tardy bell. No press corps follows me around, recording my every word. There is only Mr. M, who soaks up every single word I have ever spoken since he landed on the planet Earth. It was bad enough when he gently reminded me that being angry with him does not give me license to say "God d-mn it." Ouch.

As I remarked in a previous post, I had hoped that his seeing the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" would leave a lasting impression on him. It did not. But when he is lurching towards meltdown mode, I still try to draw on the lessons of that true story. I try to reassure him, talk him down.

"Are we living in a subway bathroom? Are either of us sick with a terminal illness? Do we not have enough food to eat? No? Then [fill in the blank] is not a big deal."

I'm grateful that we're able to answer each other with "No, you silly-willy." The day may still come where, instead, we are saying, "Umm, well, no, not yet. At least . . . not today."

Mr. M's totally got my number. I should have named him Touche'. The other night he could see I was on the brink of mother meltdown, after he'd yet again splashed water all over the bathroom floor. "Mom. Mom. Mom. Are we living in a dumpster? Do we have enough to eat? Are either of us deathly ill? No? Okay. See, Mom? It's just like you're always telling me. The water all over the floor? It's no big deal. It's just not a big deal."

But this election, I fear, is a terribly big deal.
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This is Lawyer Mom. I am a LIBERAL. And I approved this message.*

*Click on the title to this post for a much better explanation of what's around the corner if we have a Democratic Congress approving a Democratic president's proposed tax plan.

There's a Bad Mood on the Mom

A quick post (really, I promise). Last Saturday night I tuned in once again to SNL for my Tina Feylin fix. And once again, I was completely thrown by yet another completely unpersuasive, bizarre car commercial:



Or . . . was it this one?



So thrown was I, in fact, that I completely missed this SNL skit (brought to you by Stiletto Mom, which she obtained courtesy of Clark Kent's Lunch Box; click the title to this post to go to Stiletto Mom, a great blog):



Hmmm. An annual period? That would surely make a werewolf out of a mom.

Verklemption and Redemption

He tied knot after knot in it, for at least an hour or so, when suddenly, without warning, Mr. M used his new jump rope to take me into custody.

Mr. M: "Mam, turn off your computer and put your hands behind your back!" (I complied.) "You are under arrest and I'm taking you into custody."

Me: "But why? What did I do wrong? I want to speak to my lawyer, Leigh, right now. Get her on the phone."

Mr. M: "Hold on a minute, mam. I need to check your i.d.," he said, as he fished an imaginary one out of my pretend pocket and examined it. "You are Leigh."

Me: "Yeah, well, get me on the phone. I need to talk to myself."

Sergeant M: "Well you can't right now. Do you understand?"

After being fitted with a "tracking device" (ever the sophisticate, Mr. M had a black plastic porcupine ring in his pocket for just this purpose. Note to self: when do these never-seen-before, peculiar toys manage to penetrate my household?) I was unceremoniously hauled up the stairs in my jump-rope chains. Throughout my ordeal, Mr. M gave a running narrative to his superiors about the particulars of his arrestee.

Using the plastic jump-rope handle as his walkee-talkee, he broadcast, "Repeat. I repeat. Female in custody. Purple shirt. Pajama pants with flowers. No shoes. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. And a little black on the top of her head."

Me (feeling a bit verklempt, and beginning to resist this arrest): "Whoa. Just a minute, sergeant. A 'little black' on the top of my head? What's black on the top of my head?"

Mr. M (briefly going out of character): "Don't worry, Mom. It's just the shade of your hair, right on the top. It's darker than the rest of your hair. Don't worry."

f@#$%$#@&%*!@#!

A little while later though, Mr. M, in a most unknowing and non-deliberate fashion, redeemed himself.

"Mom, you know those things that have long cords and they have different colors at the ends and they hook up to cars? You pump them and they, like, give cars power? (I'm nodding no, no clue.) They have spikey things on them and you squeeze them. You squeeze them really hard onto the cars. (Now I'm beyond baffled.) Mom! Come on. You know this! You squeeze them and one car gets connected to another car so the other car has power, so it can start!"

"Oh. Oh!" It finally dawned on me. "Jumper cables!"

Mr. M: "Right! Like you and me. We're jumper cables." Then he circled my wrists with his little hands. "See. We're connected now and you're getting my love."

Tailspins

There are good and bad things about being a parent. But there are so many more good things. It's a total kick in the pants. It's such a joy. And you don't have to make the same mistakes your parents made. Some not-so-good things? Remembering your own childhood neuroses and working through them again as you re-live them through your child.

Until I had Mr. M, I thought I'd forgotten most of my childhood. There just weren't a lot of details I remembered with much clarity, and I never had occasion to recall them. But since I've had him, the memories come roaring back. In particular, I remember how the tiniest thing could send me into a complete and total tailspin.
_________________

Me: Mom, what are we having for dinner tonight?

Mom: Liver and onions.

Me: Liver and onions? LIVER AND ONIONS? Earth's mantle, open up now, and envelop me into your core. I just can't go on.
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Me: Mom, it's been three weekends since I had a sleep-over with Allison. And she invited me for this Saturday. Can I go? Please?

Mom: No. She's not wholesome.

Me: Oh, God, no. No, no, no. My life is over. Let me die now right now.
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Probably a lot of these disproportionate reactions had to do with the fact we, as kids, had virtually no control over our lives. There weren't a lot of parenting books out there advocating choice. I'm not saying I'm a short-order cook and Mr. M has the run of the kitchen. But he does get a choice of green beans or spinach. It might be a choice between door of hell #1 and door of hell #2. But he does get to pick his hell.

My worst hell in childhood memory? When my mom made me get a haircut that I hated. And it did look awful. We have a family "portrait" that forever memorializes my horrifyingly short hair and my rage. I am wearing a yellow and brown, long-sleeved wool jumpsuit (she forced me to wear it; I loathed it and my hair. What was she thinking??) In retaliation, I took control. Got my power back. How? I refused to smile in every single picture. Every single blasted picture. (So, no, this is not me. This precious child is smiling.)

I remember the ride home in the backseat of the car and smiling smugly, victorious, as my parents discussed my out-of-character behavior. My dad asked my mom, "What the hell got into her? She refused to smile. Did something happen at school today?" My mom just shrugged helplessly, as if she had no clue. She so totally knew.
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Mr. M and I went to see the Pursuit of Happyness when it came out at the movie theater. I thought it would be good for him to watch, thought remembering that father's and son's true-story plight would give us both a little perspective when we needed it. I think, though, Mr. M might have been a little too young. I should rent it now, now that he's a little older.

In any event, I am fond of asking him, when he acts as if he is in the throes of a suicidal ideation: "Do either of us have a terminal illness? Are we sleeping in a subway bathroom? Do we have enough food to eat? (So far, all answers have been in the affirmative, thank God).

He doesn't respond with quite the gratitude I'd hoped the movie and these queries would engender. Although occasionally this line of questioning will bring him back down to earth. Tonight, though, there was no reaching him.

Tonight (and every Thursday night) is Pick-Your-Own-Bed-Night ("PYOB"). It's PYOB that is, if Mr. M gets "greens" all week long. Let me explain the system. At school, every kid starts out the day with a green card. If a kid persists in disobeying the teacher after a warning, he must pull his card and advance to the next level, which is a yellow card. After yellow, the kid progresses to red, in which case he must spend thirty minutes lunching in complete and total silence with the principal who works on her computer (at least, this has been my own, personal red-card experience).

So if Mr. M gets a green every day of the week up through Thursday, he is rewarded (not "punished") with Thursday night "pick-your-own-bed" night. This fun-filled evening means he gets to (1) eat pizza; (2) stay up late; (3) watch something wholesome with Mom in the "big bed" (like Little House or the Waltons) while eating popcorn; and (4) sleep with Mom. Oh, and he gets to buy his lunch in the super-sanitary school cafeteria on Friday (instead of taking his lunch from home, as he does Monday through Thursday).

.So, as you can imagine, when the weekly green streak is broken, Mr. M goes into major meltdown, as he did tonight. While he got greens on Tuesday and Wednesday (there was no school on Monday) of this week, on this date he drew the fatal yellow card. So all bets were off. This would not be a PYOB night after all. And, oh, the lamenting, the weeping that ensued

He's seven now and starting to think more deeply. After the bad news for tonight was confirmed, he went through what I call the several stages of kid-coping. First, denial. "I am TOO still sleeping with you." Second stage: depression. "Life is too hard. It is just too hard." Third stage: lethargy. He does not move from wherever he is sitting for at least 20 minutes. Fourth: a phase of intense negotiations. "But it isn't just that I don't get to sleep with you. I don't get pizza. I don't get to watch t.v. I don't get to stay up late. I don't get to buy my lunch tomorrow. It's just not fair! You should only take one of these things away. It was just one tiny little yellow, just one, out of the entire, whole week. Mom, please! Please!" Fifth: anger at Mom's intrasigence, followed by tears and sometimes, rudeness. Sixth: contrition and resignation. "Mom, sorry I was so rude to you a few minutes ago and said I'd turned my ears off. Will you forgive me? Will you still tuck me in and read to me?"

Unfortunately for Mr. M, I'd already taught him, gently mind you, that "life is not fair." So when he got to the negotiation stage and whined that "it just wasn't fair," I asked him if he thought it was fair that the economy is tanking and hurting my business, that I must wear reading glasses, try to keep wrinkles at bay, and pay the exorbitant light bill. To which he quickly replied, as he echoed my words, "But Mom. Remember! Life is not fair." "Yep," I said. "You're absolutely right. Life is not fair. I wish it were, but it's not."

Oops. He had just stepped in it. You could see the regret, at his having uttered these words, spill instantly across his face.

When he had to go to the hernia specialist for an examination to rule out a hernia, he was less than thrilled. "But Mom, I don't want the doctor to look at my private parts. It's not fair. [and on and on]." "I understand," I said, and explained to him that women, quite reluctantly, have to go to the doctor every single year to get their "privates" checked out. "But Mom!" he said. "Our stuff is on the OUTSIDE. Girls have nothing to look at. So it's a lot harder on us." Putting on my best wise-Indian, mother-unruffled, poker-face, I was able to manage a wistful nod.

Last night I got a kernel of insight from him. And can I say now -- without it seeming like I'm trying to tower over anyone as I climb up on a great big box of Tide -- that I don't think there is any such thing as quality time? That I am so very grateful for the quantity of time that we get to spend together, and that I get to hear his peculiar little musings and heart-felt questions because our time together is not rushed?

I think if I had to compress all of our time into an hour or two a day, at night, with a few hours on the weekend, that I would miss a lot. But maybe I'm just thinking out loud right now because the economy totally sucks and I'm worried I'll have to go back to work full-time if the restaurant and bar revenues continue to remain sharply down and people continue their cease-and-desists on going out and having a glass of wine at dinner. Drink, people. Drink! But I digress.

Last night he asked me, "Mom, does my face look weird? You know, for a kid's face, does it look weird?" This was so deja vu. When I was exactly his age, I was convinced that I was an alien child and that no one wanted to give me the bad news. All of my relatives had conspired to shield me from this horrible truth. Certain that I looked extremely peculiar, I used to look into the mirror and say to myself out loud, "Who are you? Who are you?"

So I could really empathize when he had the same doubts. "No," I told him, "you look completely normal. I thought the same thing about my face when I was a kid. And I promise I would tell you if you looked weird. But you don't. You look completely normal. Handsome, in fact."

Life is hard sometimes. These days, it's hard a lot of the time, for all of us -- even for those of us who are only just kids. I need to remember that more often, when it comes to the fun-loving, non-bill-paying, non-lunch-making mighty Mr. M.

Tina Feylin and the Mysterious Traverse

This weekend I tuned into Saturday Night Live to watch the latest Tina Feylin skit. And then I saw this bizarre commercial for a Chevy Traverse, which I totally do NOT get. It has stumped me. Which . . . I suppose . . . is the point.

Except let me say now that any intended point was lost on me. Any scenario I can conjure has nothing whatsoever to do with buying a Chevy Traverse or any car, for that matter.



The possibilities, as I see them:

1. Gay guy is in a budding relationship, and although it has just begun, he believes it to be his destiny. To romance his new partner, gay guy goes to great lengths, making dinner reservations and ripping off on a cleaning tear, even going so far as to brush the toilet bowl. And throughout it all, he is handsome and cheerful, smiling in every frame. Our happy hero is also an enthusiastic cross-dresser. He irons his dress in preparation for the big anniversary dinner with a gleeful exuberance rarely seen in more mature relationships.

2. Gay guy is masquerading as straight guy, serving as personal assistant to a wealthy woman. She can bring home the bacon. He'll fry it up in a pan. And do whatever else she wants him to do, 'cause she's a woMAN.

3. Gay guy drives Miss Daisy. At her advanced age, she is small, weak, and does not hear well. Hence, his duties have expanded to cover most household chores, including her telephone business. But she's always been a feisty old girl, and he gets a glint in his eye whenever he thinks of her.

4. Gay guy (this particular gay guy in our story, I mean to say, lest you think I mean ALL gay guys) is one of the bluntest tools in the shed, sadly, and earnestly plods on, trying to impress his partner by cleaning their house. There's ironing, scrubbing toilets, and much more, I'm sure. All of which would be impressive feats indeed, were (again, I say, this particular) gay guy not clueless about hygiene. But clueless he is, alas, as evidenced by the fact he has come into contact with a toilet while semi-naked and has no idea this is a major turn-off. Vomit-inducing, in fact, it is.

5. Gay guy is metrosexual guy. This thoughtful, renaissance man has successfully traversed the stereotypical gender divide we see most entrenched when it comes to the division of household labors. We are meant to be shocked and awed by our man's pecs and housekeeping prowess. But once again, that distracting toilet-cleaning segment bursts through the fantasy, as we watch our presumptive hero scrub-brushing a black toilet while semi-naked.

6. Gay guy is simply a regular guy-guy. There is even the possibility that he believes himself to be straight. In fact, and let's be politically correct here, but for the fact he is exceptionally attractive, straight he might very well be. So straighten up, you skeptical girls. You only think he's cleaning house. In actuality, he fantasizes about you, dear girl, while he enjoys running about topless, indulging his fetishes for women's clothes, feather dusters, and toilet brushes.

7. Gay guy is brilliant. He is able to smile, make dinner reservations over the phone and brightly explain the purpose thereof, and fluffle clothes and iron them, all at the same time. Except that he does, as sullenly noted before, clean the toilet topless -- which renders the multi-tasking intelligence theory fairly implausible.

8. Cross-dressing gay guy is having an affair with an older man (an "OMILF") and he's making dinner reservations for their 6-month anniversary. He helps out around the house, just as you'd expect a wife or younger man to do. Like Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, he and his elderly suitor (in your mind's eye, insert dear Bruce here) have traversed, and indeed transcended, their massive age difference shamelessly, with pride, dignity, grace, and many photographs of same.

Oh, hell's bells. I give up. I have no idea what Chevy was getting at with this peculiar ad.

Maybe another Chevy Traverse commercial will reveal a common thread, help me figure out just why Chevy thinks its gay iron man will compel women everywhere to rush out and buy a new Traverse.



Nope. Still no clue.

And I have never, ever, not even in a drunken stupor, made a wish . . . that a shit-load of randomly-sized stilettos would pelt my car and rain down upon my head. Call me crazy.
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Unrelated postscript: my computer is resting on a wrap-around gel cold-pack as I type these words, no yolk. This post would have been up days ago if the computer were not on its death bed, spontaneously combusting and deleting my posts, willy-nilly, about, oh, every hour or so. If I disappear for a while, most likely I've gone off to bury the old Dell and find a new mate. I've got no "Gone Fishing" sign to hang up in my absence, but I will be back.

A Little GYN and Tonic

The mail man just delivered the only postcard I'll get this year. It was from the OB/GYN, naturally. All is well. But I knew that. It's not like they're going to send me an impersonal postcard through the mail saying, "Hey, guess what! Your pap? Trouble brewing. Call us immediately." Though all was not entirely well while I was there in the doctor's office.

I was escorted into an examination room and on the inside of the door hung a full-length mirror. This would later afford me a complete side-on view of the entire, exciting outing, if I so chose, and this was most discomfiting. When the doctor came in, I asked him just what was the specific purpose for this mirror. This threw him. He seemed a bit flustered, maybe even a little defensive. He said he had no idea why it was there, or who put it there.

"Look, doc," I said. "Do you like to watch yourself eating? No? Didn't think so. That's why you won't see many mirrors in dining rooms. The same principle holds here. So the mirror? It's entirely unacceptable. Take it down."

And he seemed to understand. I think he got the point because he promised he'd "get right on it."

Then I got a call from a nurse employed by my insurance carrier. This fellow said he wanted to educate me about the carrier's wellness programs. Except that he had no information to pass on; all he had were questions for me, like "Are you comfortable with your weight? Would you be interested in smoking cessation assistance?" Get out of town, man. But when he asked if I went to an "OB/GINEE" every year, I lost it. "What?" I yelled into the receiver. "An OB/GINEE? What the hell is that?"

Sorry, male nurse. If you can't say "Oh-Bee-Gin" I've got nothing to say to you, dude. Besides, I'm not real keen on answering personal questions about my habits and the status of my health from the insurance carrier who is currently covering me, even if it is under the guise of "wellness education." I don't think I'll be "educating" my trusty insurance company about the state of my "wellness." No thanks.

Then I got an email from a friend called "Washcloth." (the email is "Washcloth," not the friend). Seen it yet? Even if it's not true, it's pretty funny. I've cut and pasted it here:

I was due for an appointment with the gynecologist later in the week. Early one morning, I received a call from the doctor's office to tell me that I had been rescheduled for that morning at 9:30 AM. I had only just packed everyone off to work and school, and it was already around 8:45 AM. The trip to his office took about 35 minutes, so I didn't have any time to spare.

As most women do, I like to take a little extra effort over hygiene when making such visits, but this time I wasn't going to be able to make the full effort. So, I rushed upstairs, threw off my pajamas, wet the washcloth that was sitting next to the sink, and gave myself a quick wash in that area to make sure I was at least presentable. I threw the washcloth in the clothes basket, donned some clothes, hopped in the car and raced to my appointment.

I was in the waiting room for only a few minutes when I was called in. Knowing the procedure, as I'm sure you do, I hopped up on the table, looked over at the other side of the room and pretended that I was in Paris or some other place a million miles away. I was a little surprised when the doctor said, 'My, my, we have made an extra effort this morning, haven't we?'

I didn't respond.

After the appointment, I heaved a sigh of relief and went home. The rest of the day was normal ... some shopping, cleaning, cooking.

After school when my 6-year-old daughter was playing, she called out from the bathroom, 'Mommy, where's my washcloth?'

I told her to get another one from the cupboard.

She replied, 'No, I need the one that was here by the sink, it had all my glitter and sparkles saved inside it.'

Never going back to that doctor. Ever.

I've never had that sort of misadventure with a washcloth, and probably never will. Mr. M won't even touch one, much less use one to store things. But if he did, it would probably be stuffed with rocks. And rocks . . . would be fairly hard to miss.

For me, it's all about feet. When I eagerly bound out of the house for my annual appointment with merriment and mischief-making, it's my feet I'm thinking about. I always, always wash my feet. (And NO, the feet in this photo are not mine; I bare my soul, not my body).

If I knew how to link to Happy Hour Sue's post about her latest excursion to the OB/GINEE, I would. But I don't. Though I have figured out how to link to a post through my title. So click on the title to this post and it will take you to hers. Check it out. You will so relate.

What Would You Do?

This will be a quick post. I'm trying to fashion a poll, get some advice for a fellow-mom. If you saw this, what would you do? ________________________

A mom volunteers at her school's cafeteria; she works on the line with other mothers, serving the children as they come through for lunch. Just before the shift starts, she chats it up with the school's employed cafeteria chief-of-staff who has taken a celery stalk from the community bin and is dipping it, with an ungloved hand, into the newly-mixed Ranch salad dressing. Cafeteria chief then eats the ranch-covered celery stalk. Okay-ish, so far-ish.

But as the conversation continues, cafeteria chief casually dips the same end of the bitten-off celery stalk into the Ranch dressing again. It appeared to be from sheer force of habit, as the chief double-dipped in a completely nonchalant, absent-minded manner. Volunteer mom managed to stay in the conversation using her best poker face, with limited success. Her shock and revulsion, she hopes, were not visibly apparent.
__________________________

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Ambien is a Buy

I've got CNBC on right now. It's as heartpounding as the movie Jaws. As I watch, Mr. M keeps moving his plastic shark across the tv screen. His prescience he knows not. The cover of this week's Economist is titled "World on Edge" and shows a lone figure on a huge cliff looking down, perhaps deciding whether to jump. When I realized there's nothing I can do to stop this financial 911, I decided I could at least try to understand some of it, get the lingo down, anyway. And who knows? I might get invited to a cocktail party. It could happen.

"It's the Vicks, look at the Vicks!" I kept hearing people screaming on CNBC. WTF? So I looked it up. It's the Chicago Board of Options volatility index, the "VIX," also known as the "fear index." And it was at a record high today, up 25%. No wonder, since we had an 800 point plunge in the DOW this afternoon before we nosed up 400 points. Only 107 stocks rose on the NYSE today, while 3,121 fell. Russia and Brazil suspended trading for a while. European banks are getting "bailed out" too, and Germany's Angela Merkel is eating crow.

But what does the DOW plunge mean to us in our everyday lives, assuming we don't have to cash in our 401ks any time soon? Not sure, but I know it means something. Oil is now going for under $100.00 a barrel, so at least we're getting some relief there. The "experts" say that while the DOW may be bad, the "credit markets" are the real concern, the ones to watch. When our banks can't give us mortgages, home equity loans, lines of credit, car loans, credit card loans, student loans . . . we will start to feel it. Nobody can buy, nobody can sell. This hits home. This, I can understand.

And even though I don't have anything I really need to buy or sell at the moment, I am sure feeling "it." Last week I took Mr. M to get his hair cut and sat with two stone-faced moms. When I checked my blackberry and mentioned the DOW was back up 400 points, you could see the relief on their faces. Indeed the three of us started chatting it up like we were old college friends. It was like I'd whipped out a bottle of wine from my purse and poured them both a drink. Everybody wants to talk about "it."

Yesterday afternoon I went to our local fried chicken favorite to pick up dinner. I debated myself at length about whether to spend another $1.99 on cobbler, went ahead and bought it, and felt guilty as hell about buying anything. This is entirely out of character for me. These are some weird-as-bat-sh-t days.

This morning I met another mom for breakfast at a local diner and the crowd was ominously light. My friend reported that our neighborhood Yahoo message board is flooded with moms trying to find days for their nannies -- can't afford to keep them on full time any more. After that I stopped by my usually-mobbed nail salon and only one other woman was there. Though we were complete strangers, she and I quickly began trading notes on whether Blockbuster was cheaper than Netflix for renting movies, whether DISH was cheaper than Charter for cable. "I've got to start cutting back somewhere," she said. I understand, I said. Me, too.

Instead of idling in the carpool lane, now I'm walking my kid to school in the mornings and walking to pick him up in the afternoons. And walking is a hell of a lot cheaper than what I used to pay my personal trainer (sorry, Julie, you were great, but I ain't got the dough). Normally I've got the AC cranked down to a comfortable 68 degrees while I languish in my flannel pajamas, every lamp in the house turned on. Come over now and you'll think you've walked into a dark sauna; very unsexy boxer shorts and a tank top are now my standard nighttime fare. When food goes bad, like my bananas did on Sunday, I've noticed I'm overreacting more than usual. Even more peculiar, I'm looking to salvage these babies by making banana bread. And I don't even cook. Well, yesterday I didn't, anyway.

In the old days, a few mere months ago, I'd send my sheets off to a local laundry that washed and ironed them beautifully, for next to nothing. Felt like I was Leona Helmsley when I fell into bed, without a care in the world. Not any more. Buying Mr. M's clothes from Hannah Anderson or Mimi Boden? Get out of town! Old Navy, here we come.

But where else can I cut back? Because really, going frugal is about the only thing that gives me psychological relief. We're turning into the Waltons family. No Barnes and Nobles for us these days, we're heading for the library. And popping in DVDs we own and have already watched, instead of renting new movies. Last night it was "Second-Hand Lions" (though let me momentarily digress and say Second-Hand Lions is our #1 family movie and we'd watch it over and over again no matter what). I'm doubling up on errands, not criss-crossing the city any more. But I can't stop getting my hair cut and dyed unless I'm prepared for a complete physical transformation, and I'm totally not. Here in Texas we call it the arrested-blonde-mom-emerges-one-month-later-as-brunette look. Sorry, but no matter what is happening in the markets, I will not look like Darlee Routier in the name of frugality.

And unless there is a gun against my head, I will never, not EVER, buy those horrible cork-screw flourescent light bulbs. I will continue my incandescents-hoarding quest. The flourescents emphasize dark circles. This is a well-known fact. Though I might start looking around for a hair dresser who's a little cheaper.

The internet is overflowing at the moment with articles about how we should cope with "financial anxiety." Most of them caution us to avoid vices like smoking, alcohol, and sleeping pills. One article suggested eating seratonin-releasing foods like tuna, turkey and bananas, and if you're having trouble sleeping, reading a novel before bed. Tuna and a novel? Umm, sorry, health experts. But I respond a lot better to stress with a beer, a big bath and a bowl of macaroni and cheese. In fact, an Ambien and some wine are sounding mighty fine.