Plate Spinning 101

September 24, 2009 By 8 Comments

I left my house at 7 am. My kids were barely awake (although the dog had peed twice outside and once on the kitchen floor). I’ll pick them up from school and the bus and throw a snack at them and coax them into completing their homework. Then I’ll change out of whatever I am wearing Hey? What the hell AM I wearing? I have no memory of putting this on today and into a dress and put on eye makeup which is hilarious and lipstick and go back to work only to return home with my mascara smudged, my feet sore, my lipstick chewed off and the armpits of my dress soaked through. The kids will be asleep and the dog will probably pee on the floor when I come in the back door.

It’s back to school night.

I can get up in front of any number of teenagers and carry on for hours with no preparation and not think twice about it. Getting up in front of their parents, and I think we can all agree that adults are generally a more receptive and polite audience than 15 year olds, for 10 minutes when I am prepared to the point of silly – think Powerpoint, handouts, and a memorized script – makes me bust out in flop sweat.

The ones who know what I’m going to say and are happy about it will be there, the ones who don’t know what I’m going to say but need to hear it won’t. Nobody will give me a hard time from my keyboard to god’s ears and people will generally be complimentary. Nobody has yet come to back to school night with an attorney in tow, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that someday. Two years ago a father took a cell phone call right in the middle of my presentation and I stopped talking and stared him down until he hung up. I can totally handle this.

But I don’t wanna.

Filed Under: Parent of the Year

Table For Two

September 22, 2009 By 5 Comments

I have a cold and yesterday I went home after work and ~~cleaned the house, prepared a healthy meal for my family, worked diligently preparing lessons for the next day and went to bed by 10 pm~~ got into bed and watched TV until I fell asleep during Jon Stewart.

A long time ago my mother in law gave me Kitchen Confidential, a book by “bad boy” chef Anthony Bourdain. I don’t remember much about the book, other than that I enjoyed it because I love books about food and travel and his book had both. I also remember that I was a little put off by his apparent need to portray himself as a bad ass trying to make good. It just didn’t ring true.



I still have the same feeling about Anthony Bourdain, that he desperately wants to project a hardened, New Yorker, former bad boy image, but it doesn’t bug me anymore.    I decided this yesterday based on the copious evidence I collected while watching 8 back to back episodes of No Reservations, Bourdain’s travel/restaurant/food show on the Travel Channel or, as I like to call it, my home away from home.

Bourdain loves food, loves travel, has an open mind about people, and genuinely wants other people to like him. He is almost puppy-ish in his enthusiasm. I actually find his evident need for the people he encounters on his culinary adventures to agree with his conclusions about what they are eating and approve of him in his endeavors a bit endearing.

This would probably irritate the bejeezus out of him, try has he might to remind his audience about his gritty chef days, his drinking, his drug use, his failed relationships, and his deep and abiding love of eating parts of animals that I wouldn’t even allow mentioned at my table, let alone served. Like feet. What the hell is with feet? Everywhere he goes someone serves him feet and he waxes rhapsodic about how great the feet are. THEY’RE FEET.

It’s fun to watch him eat weird stuff, the people he pals around with in the varied locales are generally fascinating (hello Russell Chatham and Jim Harrison in Montana. Those are some intense and crazy men, who, it turns out, love to cook and eat), and Bourdain takes the time to impart bits of wisdom about the local culture. Mostly, though, I keep watching because of Bourdain himself.   He aspires to stardom in a non-grasping, non whory kind of way, and this is probably as far as he’ll get – a few books and a successful Travel Channel Show – but that seems to be OK with him, I think.   He reminds me of some of my teenage students who are trying to figure out who they are and, before they find the real self, try on a bunch of hats. He seems to have taken off his chef hat, taken off his rebel hat (which didn’t really fit him anyway). I like the hat he has on now. It suits him.

Filed Under: Mama Like

Edumacate Yourself

September 21, 2009 By 11 Comments

I’m getting a little fed up with the frothy, sweaty, birther teabaggers yelling things that make no sense.

This kind of imagery not only makes no sense, it reveals the bearer’s ignorance.

For the love of Pete, folks, pick up a flipping book once in a while and learn something. If you are relying on anyone on television, with the possible exception of MacNeil/Lehrer, to give you the straight dope on any topic at all at anytime, you are a fool.

Some basics:

socialism

Pronunciation: \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1837

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

fascism

Pronunciation: \ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921

1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

communism

Pronunciation: \ˈkäm-yə-ˌni-zəm, -yü-\
Function: noun
Etymology: French communisme, from commun common
Date: 1840

1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2 capitalized a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.

from Websters.com

Nazism

“National Socialism, commonly called Nazism, German political movement initiated in 1920 with the organization of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP), also called the Nazi Party. The movement culminated in the establishment of the Third Reich, the totalitarian German state led by the dictator Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945. National Socialism was similar in many respects to Italian fascism (see Fascism). The roots of National Socialism, however, were peculiarly German, grounded, for example, in the Prussian tradition of military authoritarianism and expansion; in the German romantic tradition of hostility to rationalism, liberalism, and democracy; in various racist doctrines according to which the Nordic peoples, as so-called pure Aryans, were not only physically superior to other races, but were the carriers of a superior morality and culture; and in certain philosophical traditions that idealized the state or exalted the superior individual and exempted such a person from conventional restraints. “

From Encarta.msn.com

And just one more thing:

patriot

Pronunciation: \ˈpā-trē-ət, -ˌät, chiefly British ˈpa-trē-ət\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French patriote compatriot, from Late Latin patriota, from Greek patriōtēs, from patria lineage, from patr-, patēr father
Date: 1605

: one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests

Note that it doesn’t say, “one who loves his/her own interpretation of his/her country and supports his/her own personal interests above the interests of the other people in the country.”

Filed Under: Politics as Usual