Half Changed World

It still takes my breath away to think that in just over a week, this man is going to be sworn is as President of the United States.  I'm sure he'll piss me off sometimes, but I really can't think of anyone else I'd rather have as President right now, even if there are people whose list of policies look closer to mine.

I think I've decided against taking the boys downtown, although it kills me a little to be so close and not to be there.  But we wouldn't be able to see a thing, and it's going to be cold, and they just don't have that much patience.  I took them to see him at the town meeting in Alexandria during the primaries, so they can tell their kids someday that they saw him.  (I'm told that my great-great grandmother Betsy Segal saw Mr. Lincoln when he came to New York to give his speech at Cooper Union and she was a little girl.)  One of my friends is having a kid-friendly party, so I think we'll go there, and watch on TV and wave flags, and read stories from Our White House.

I'm not going to any of the inaugural balls, but there are a couple of parties that I'm considering.  My boss is having a get together on the evening of the 20th, if I can figure out how to get to her house in Maryland from Virginia.

What are you doing?

After two years of making really complicated cakes for the office dessert contest (a golden cage and then a 7 layer cake), this year I decided to do something easy.  I made the eggnog variation of the New York Times' Brandy Alexander Pie.  And no, I still didn't win, but I didn't feel like I should have.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a Joyous Solstice.  I probably won't be posting again until after the New Year.  Stay warm, have fun, don't spend too much, take lots of photos, and I'll be back next year.

I got a kind email asking if I was ok, since I hadn't posted in a while.  Thanks for asking – I'm fine.  I had a business trip from Monday to Thursday, and then have been catching up with sleep, household chores, and hanging out with my family.  D had a sinus infection, which is responding well to antibiotics, and I've got a low-level cold.

Some odds and ends from the week:

• The meeting I attended was a conference of people working on economic policy from a social justice angle, mostly at the state level.  I came away even more depressed than I had been.
• The meeting was in Las Vegas, where I had never been.  I spent about $5 on slot machines, but otherwise avoided the gambling.  Someone told me that the hotels were at about 10 percent of their usual occupancy rates.  It ticked me off that the hotel we were at (Bally's) charged for both internet access and the gym.  My room had a view of the "Eiffel Tower."
• At home, we started getting Netflix on Tivo.  Very nice.  Watched The King of Kong thanks to Flea's review.
• Went to the local "Plan for Change" meeting this afternoon.  There was much confusion/disagreement about whether we were supposed to be picking national level issues to work on, or something local (and within our control).  Needed to leave before the end in order to pick up the boys from their playdate, but can't say I was overwhelmed by what I saw.

The New York Times gave a heck of a review to The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For. I love Bechdel's reaction. Dang is right.

I'm watching the movie of Sex and the City while I write this.  It's truly awful, and I say this as someone who was a fan of the series.  (I'm still watching it because I've got a pile of laundry to sort.)

I wonder who else falls into the intersection of people who read DTWOF and watch SATC.  While the characters are at close to polar opposites of the cultural spectrum (crunchy politically obsessed anti-materialist lesbians in Minnesota vs. fashion obsessed consumerist heterosexuals in search of true love in New York), the stories actually have a lot in common.  Both are soap operas, and both portray worlds where friendships between women endure over time in spite of relationships, jobs, kids, and everything else that life throws at you.  And, in spite of name of the show, most of the time SATC passes the Mo Movie Test — women talk to each other about things other than men (usually shoes, but I still think that counts).

So far this week:

• I’ve had a severely upset stomach;
• I managed to fall walking out of the house and sprain my ankle;
• I managed to turn on the parking lights on my car without noticing, and so the battery was dead when I went to go to work this morning.

I’m really looking forward to having another 20 or 30 percent of my brain back after next Tuesday.

Anyone going to the DC BlogHer event next weekend?  I’m interested in meeting people, but am not sure that I want to spend the $100 they’re charging for the actually conference.  Cecily is organizing a dinner for the night before so I may just go to that.

Phantom Scribbler posted today, asking where the cool kids are hanging out these days.  I told her I didn’t know, but I agreed that I’m finding less sense of community in the blogosphere these days.  I’m still writing, and still reading, but commenting less, and getting involved in fewer long conversations.  I’m still on a bunch of listservs too, but I’m wondering how much this is a matter of habit, rather than something that’s still important to me.

Phantom did convince me to sign up for Facebook, which I had been resisting.  I guess I’m an old fogie or something.* I know, I’ve been hearing for years about how popular it is, but I was still shocked when it told me that there were 588 people in my gmail address book who had Facebook accounts.  I only attempted to friend about 50 of them, but that’s still a lot.  Obviously, not everyone who has a facebook account actually uses it, but 28 people use it enough to respond to my request to friend them within 9 hours.

* This summer, I decided that a good description of my precise state of being almost but not quite up-to-date is that I watched Dr Horrible, but I heard about it first on NPR.  Similarly, I’ve been blogging for four years, but this is the first social networking site I’ve joined.

We had a truly delightful Rosh Hashanah.  For the first time, my parents came down to spend it with us, so I was able to both share it with my family, and with my home congregation. 

On Monday, I went to D’s classroom and read them the story of Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride (which we discovered from the PJ library) and shared apples and honey with the class.   It was a nice chance to meet his classmates and the teacher. Unlike his old school, I don’t think D’s the only Jewish kid in the whole school, but he’s certainly the only one in his class. 

At services, the rabbi said that today is the birthday of the world, and N asked me how old the world was.  I told him we’d talk about it later, and at dinner we talked about how it was the year 5769 in the Jewish calendar, but that science indicates that the world is a lot older.  Somehow wound up promising the boys that we’d take them to Dinosaur National Monument someday.

It was a gorgeous day, so after services we went down to the beach and did tashlich, naming the bad things that we wanted to get rid of.  For the boys, it was mostly things like hitting and not listening.  I started with things like yelling and not listening, but when T offered up "cynicism" I had to ask for the bag of crumbs back.

Tashlich, 5769

Two weeks ago, I had the chance to testify before a Congressional subcommittee.  It was quite exciting, even though the room was more than half empty, and only four of the members of Congress were present.  The whole thing was a little surreal, though, because the witness invited by the Republicans used all his time to argue that the biggest challenge facing American families is high energy costs, and so that we should expand domestic production of oil (in ANWR and offshore).  The ranking member therefore asked each of testifying whether we’d support expanding domestic production.

While those of you read this regularly can probably guess what I personally think of that, my organization certainly doesn’t have a position on the matter.  So when it was my turn, I responded that I would decline to offer a position on an subject outside my area of expertise.  Representative Davis then commented that I had disqualified myself from ever running for Congress, as having opinions on topics that you know nothing about is an absolute prerequisite for members of Congress.

This week has certainly proved the truth of that observation.  I haven’t been blogging about the bailout because I don’t know what the right thing to do is, and I wish I had any confidence that anyone else really does.  I’m afraid that they’re all making it up as they go along, and we’re going to be left holding the bag at the end.

While I recognize the symbolic appeal of limiting executive pay, I think I’d actually rather see the banks commit to opening no fee bank accounts — tied to debt cards, but programmed not to allow overdrafts — for everyone in the country.

This made me laugh.  (No video, safe for work).

What I’m most struck by this year is how long it’s been.  The little baby who I came home to hug, who I pushed around the neighborhood under that impossible blue sky, who forced me to turn off the television and focus on my life… he’s now in second grade, and asking me hard questions.

The hearing I was at on the hill was delayed because of the remembrance ceremony, and while we were waiting, people started telling their "where I was" stories.  I do think there’s something very powerful about this shared experience, but I’m also glad that my children won’t have these stories to tell.

I do want to make it over to the Pentagon memorial at some point.  But not on a day when it’s full of politicians and cameras.

Last year.

Other’s posts today:

• Sue at inner dorothy
• uccellina at a bird’s nest.
• jackie at esperanza
• landismom at bumblebee sweet potato
• rj at procrastinet

I’m enjoying the new "genius" playlist on iTunes.  Like the random shuffle, it gets me to listen to things that I forgot I had in my collection, but it doesn’t have the hugely jarring transitions between totally different types of music (or the random spanish language lesson or hypnosis mp3 mixed in).

I haven’t been reading much with ereader, but I think that’s because my test case (Nixonland) is just too dense to read in 100 word increments.  I read all of Little Brother on it, and had no problem with the format.

I stink at Trism, but it’s quite addicting.  I haven’t actually been playing any of the other games that I downloaded.

Somewhere along the way it ate the videos I had on it.  Not quite sure why, but don’t care enough to spend the time required to figure it out.