my name is cool

She tried to ban books.  She tried to BAN BOOKS! This offends me on so very many levels, especially now that I’m a future librarian.

For those that don’t feel like clicking through, here’s the pertinent information:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

I’m unable to put into words my deep and unwavering hatred of this woman, because I get a bit worked up and all that comes out is gibberish.  But just know this, book banners deserve to die.  They deserve to die on a flaming pyre of of their own propaganda.

And by the way, what book is NEVER on the banned book list?  Let’s see…it’s rife with violence, sexual themes, RAPE, INCEST, magic, racism, bad language, and abuse.  Any guess.  None?  THE BIBLE!  Yes folks, the bible is full of all of the very themes that book banners would lead you to believe are unsuitable for anyone to read.  Hypocracy for the win!

I regret that I have but one vote to cast against this woman.

My friend Virginia tagged me, and we all know how I love to do these!

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you: Virginia!
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking to them
5. Leave a comment for each tagged blogger to let them know that they have been tagged

6 Quirks about me..

1.  I have a BA degree in Study of Religion, and I’m an atheist
2.  I hate to put away laundry, which is why I always put off doing laundry
3.  Boxing movies are my favorite movie genre
4.  I can keep a secret
5.  Part of my first year of college was courtesy of a bowling scholarship
6.  I not only love grossman, but after almost 9 years, I’m still IN love with grossman.

And since I’m late coming to this, everyone I was going to tag has already been tagged!  LAME!

The parents are in town, and that means Date Night for me and Grossman! TWO date nights, actually, since we went out on Friday AND Saturday. Aaaaahhhhh…..date night!

Friday we went to Studio Movie Grill and saw Tropic Thunder. I highly recommend it. Grossman had Mushroom and Sausage pizza and I had a Garlic Chicken one, and we both split a bucket of beer. Precious beeeer! Good times. The movie was high-larious, providing us with numerous quotes to drive people crazy. After that we walked over to the Blue Goose for a couple of drinks before heading home.

Saturday night was even better. We both got all dolled up because we were leaving the burbs. We headed to the West Village for drinks and dinner. We each had a flight of wine at Cru Wine Bar; Grossman had the “European Vacation”, and I had the “Summer Patio Whites”. Mine was better. But we’re both such assholes, mocking the people swirling wine in our glasses, sticking our noses in the glass all “I detect a hint of honeysuckle, cigar, and cheese”. Best quote of the night #1 was when Grossman said “you can dress me up, but I’m still just me”. LOVE! That’s kind of an inside joke between the two of us, because we love to make fun of those people who get married and then think they’re going to change their partners. Especially those women who look at their husbands like they’re a project that they get to “fix”, and that they’re supposed to fit into some kind of cookie-cutter “husband and wife” mold as soon as the ring goes on the finger. You’re just setting yourself up for failure, and we’re going to point and laugh.

ANYWAY. We had dinner reservations at Pescabar at 8pm, and we walked in at 7:55 and naturally our table wasn’t ready yet. We were totally happy to have drinks at the bar though. We were just hanging, amusing ourselves watching people on dates (quote of the night #2: “yeah, that guy is a total goober”) and all of a sudden it’s 8:30 and we still don’t have a table. At this point, you have two options: you can get pissed off and let it ruin your night, or you can have another drink and make the best of it. We chose to do the latter. The manager came over and let us know that they were working on the table (the couple had paid but they were just lingering), and that our next round of drinks would be comped. Yay! You know what that means, right? Upgrade!! I’ll have the $15 glass thankyouverymuch.

So we started with an oyster shooter, and I have to say that Grossman wasn’t very enthusiastic about that. But once the waitress explained what was in it, he was totally on board. It’s a raw oyster in a shot glass filled with grappa, vodka, tomato juice, horseradish, and tobasco sauce, and it was GOOD! We also had the Arctic Char Crudo, which was arctic char with caviar and some kind of beet relish going on, and it was good as well. Not as good as the oyster shooter, but still tasty. For the entrees, I had the Crab Ravioli, and grossman had the Parmesan Risotto. Yah, you heard right. Parmesan Risotto. We’re at an Italian seafood place, and he has an entree sans seafood. And much to my chagrin, it was really really good. See, grossman and I have this thing where we order stuff at restaurants and then take bites of each others to compare, and then one of us is the winner and one of us is the loser. Well, I hate to admit it, but he won. He really really won a lot. Damn it.

Dessert was Paciugo. Oh man, Paciugo. Sooooo good! So we stood out on the sidewalk talking and people watching and we got to watch a dumbass back into another car (hahahaha) while gorging ourselves on chocolately goodness.

We got home around 11:45, and the parents and Kitten were in bed so Grossman and I grabbed some beers and headed to the bedroom (bow chicka bow wow). Heehee! But not really. What really happened was Grossman watched some Olympics while I pumped my massive boobs and read Dexter in the Dark, after which we were making out and I fell asleep and he ended up pretty much just using me for his own pleasure while I dozed. Yeah, we’re parents. That’s hott.

I kid, I kid. Thank you for the fantastic date, Grossman!!

I know I know, another stupid list Q&A post thing. Whatever. I really liked this one. It’s from the Very Good Taste blog (it’s British, and we all know how I like anything British), and it’s basically a list of 100 things that “every good omnivore should try at least once in their life”.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten (mine are bolded and some of them have notes in italics)
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (it was fried though, and almost everything fried tastes the same. In this case, it tasted like chicken)
6. Black pudding (part of a nutritious Irish breakfast)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (not a fan)
12. Pho (not a fan of pho either. I’d rather have bun)
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses (I’d totally try this!)
17. Black truffle (nummers!)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (I’m from Kansas, home of blackberry “wine”)
19. Steamed pork buns (I could totally go for these right now)
20. Pistachio ice cream (not a fan)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (I think I have to say no to this one. gross)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (I love mango lassi, but I’ve never tried salted)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float (not a fan)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I would totally have this given the chance)
37. Clotted cream tea (oh my god YES)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (I may have tried it IN something, but I’m not 100% certain)
41. Curried goat (this Indian dive in Culver City actually had this on the menu. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was pretty good)
42. Whole insects (I’ve had scorpions, ants, and crickets at Typhoon)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (I would totally try this)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel (I’ve had both eel sushi and garlic baby eels. Both are yummy)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (I keep trying it because it’s apparently an acquired taste. So far, not impressed)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi (Jamiesan explained this and it turns out, I’ve had it!!  yay!)
53. Abalone (I had conch in Belize, but I don’t know if that counts)
54. Paneer (saag paneer is my favorite curry dish)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (not a fan of the Big Mac, though)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (gin tastes like nail polish remover)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (dang, Voll Damm is only 7.2%)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (wtf?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (It depends on how “fresh” it is)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (cherry pleeze!)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini (I could go for one of those right now)
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (yummers!)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (It’s on my “bucket list”)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (omg now I want spam musubi)
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox (hello, my husband is jewish)
97. Lobster Thermidor (this sounds divine!)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Not too shabby! I’ve tried most of those things (some I eat regularly), and only 3 of which I won’t try at all.

And it’s all thanks to Grossman.  I’m not awake/alive enough to make a fab blog post, but I just wanted to let everyone know that we made it back from LA okay.

Some highlights and lowlights:

* Grossman is amazing with the baby (like you didn’t already know that)
* A sleeping baby on a plane is a beautiful thing
* Sometimes babies cry on planes and there’s nothing you can do about it
* I miss my bff Jamiesan so much that I want to cry
* I’m actually good with kids now, but I think it’s just because I have one of my own
* I love LA traffic because it’s predictable
* I wish we’d have had time to go to Nook, Gyu-Kaku, and La Salsa
* We have WONDERFUL friends that I love and miss
* Stuart hosts great parties
* Kitcat is a great baby, when she gets enough sleep
* When Kitcat misses bedtime or naptime, things can get ugly
* Grossman is a Rock Band super star
* I could probably eat my weight in spam musubi, spam fried rice, and red velvet cupcakes
* Black velvet cupcakes taste just as good as red velvet ones
* The first In N Out in over a year is an almost orgasmic experience
* Always pack more bottles than you think you’re going to need, because sometimes the boob just isn’t good enough.
* Flight delays suck, but flight delays with a baby are pretty much my least favorite things ever.
* Grossman is awesome, and had it not been for him, things might have resulted in a murder/suicide.

That’s it in a nutshell.  More later when I’m not so braindead.

I don’t know what’s up with me lately, but I just can’t get a full night’s sleep.  I’d like to blame it on the baby, except that she’s a champion when it comes to sleeping.  In fact, I secretly think that she sleeps TOO much!  Grossman puts her down to sleep around 7:00pm, and we usually don’t hear a peep from her till around 5am when she just has a quick snack and then goes back to sleep till around 8.  She’s finicky about naps though.  Sometimes she’ll go back to sleep around 9:30 or 10 and sleep for a half hour or so, and sometimes she’ll be up till 11 and then sleep for an hour.  The afternoon is trickier, because she’ll totally need a nap around 2 but she’ll fight it.  And she’ll lose, because I’ll just set the timer for 5 minutes and let her cry it out, but she’s usually asleep in under 4.  And lately she’s taking ANOTHER afternoon nap around 5 for about a half hour or so.  Of course, all of those above naps are a crapshoot because sometimes she only naps for 15-30 minutes total in the morning, and maybe an hour tops in the afternoon, and other days she’ll take a 2 hour nap in the morning and then a 15 minute one in the afternoon.

Anyway, the point is, she’s a sleeper.  I however, am not.  I’d like to think that I’m wide awake at 4am because she used to have a feeding around 2-3am or so, and I’d just be wide awake in the middle of the night from that.  Except that she hasn’t needed a middle of the night feeding in weeks now.  If she wakes at that time now, I just pop a paci back in her mouth and she’s totally out.  But it’s really rare for her to wake at all before 5am.

So what’s my deal?  School hasn’t started yet so I don’t have any assignments due to fret over.  I’ll admit that I’m having some anxiety over the trip to LA this weekend, so maybe that’s it?  This will be our first time flying with a baby, yikes.  But that doesn’t explain why I’ve been waking up wide awake in the middle of the night for weeks now.  I used to wake in the middle of the night to pump because my boobs would be huge and leaking, but they seem to have adjusted to her sleeping-through-the-night schedule now, so that’s not it.

God, you’d think my writing would bore me back to sleep; what a snoozefest.  Like you care that I can’t sleep.  Hey, just be glad that I’m not talking about my stupid dreams like the one I had last night where I was on a cruise ship with some other people and there was a group of bad guys hunting us, and then I somehow ended up with a gun and I shot three people, and then we ended up hiding in a huge vat of noodles.

….was the last time I was ever not a mom.

August 3, 2007, was a Friday. I don’t know what all I did that day, but I know that I was in pain from a cyst that I didn’t know I had so I probably did a whole lot of nothing like sitting around chatting on the computer, watching tv, and once Grossman got home, I probably had a few drinks and played Warcraft till 2am. I was unaware that I was pregnant.

August 4, 2007. Saturday. I remember that Grossman and I both had a haircuts that day, and we had planned to buy a file cabinet for my office so that I could get organized before grad school started in 3 weeks. The pain in my side was so bad that I wanted to cry, and I could barely bend my leg to get my shorts on. I popped about a million advil throughout the day. We had lunch at Breadwinners in Dallas after the haircuts; he had the Smoked Salmon Bagel and we laughed about that, because in LA that would just be a Bagel with Lox. I’ve no idea what I ate, but I think I had a Bellini to drink, with an Advil chaser. Then we went to Staples and bought a file cabinet and I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even help him unload it.

We’d been trying to get pregnant, and I happened to have a pregnancy test in the bathroom and I thought “hey, maybe what I’ve been feeling the past weeks are ‘implantation cramps’ that I’ve heard about. Maybe I should take a test.”

*pees on stick*

Two minutes later… hello plus sign! What the hell!? There’s a plus sign!? Uhhhh….. hmm. That’s really faint though, like it’s barely there.

*walks into Grossman’s office where he’s playing Warcraft*

Me: “hey, does this look like a line to you?” (yes, that’s the clever way I announced to him that I’m pregnant. I rule.)
Grossman: “where?”
Me: “The vertical one. Does it look like a plus sign?”
Grossman: “I guess? Why? Does this mean you’re pregnant!?!?”
Me: “it does if there’s a line”
Grossman: “………. It’s really really faint though. Can you take another one?”
Me: “I don’t have another one. I’d have to go buy one.”
Grossman: *grabs keys* “Okay let’s go to the store!”

*pees on stick*

Yeah, there was no doubt about it. That was a plus sign! In that moment I went from not being a mom to being a (future) mom. Unbelievable.

We immediately opened a bottle of (really bad) champagne, toasted each other… and went back to playing Warcraft. Well, Grossman did. I tried, but the pain was so ridiculous that I ended up curling up on the couch and watching tv, and I finally gave it up and went to bed around midnight. And then I woke up around 1:30 in so much pain that I was freaked out that I was having an ectopic pregnancy. I woke up Grossman who took me to the emergency room, and I didn’t come home for the next four days. Because when I do something, I don’t half-ass it. I fully ass it. Pregnancy, pshaw! Pregnancy with a cyst and hospital stay and bed rest all within the first week of finding out you’re pregnant is the way to do it!

I went in to check on her this morning, and not only was she rotated 90° from where she started, she was on her belly! Asleep and on her tummy at the same time! Crazy kid. That’s the second time that she’s rolled from back to tummy, and I’ve missed both times.

She woke up about 10 minutes later crying and freaked out, like she had no idea how she got on her tummy and couldn’t figure out how to roll back over. CUTE!

It’s official:  Babygirl can turn on the mobile by herself.  And it’s REALLY cute!

I woke up to a weird clicking sound coming from the monitor, so I went to investigate.  And found Kitten flipped 180° and kicking at the buttons on the monitor control pad.  She had great precision too!  She knew exactly which one to kick at, and after a few tries she managed to nail it!  Her face totally lit up and she started smiling and laughing and talking at the mobile.  I wish my camera had a night-vision setting, because that was totally adorable and I couldn’t capture it on film, dang it.

Or an increasingly mobile baby.

There’s a mobile hanging in Kitten’s crib that plays music and nature sounds, and it also has a light and some stuffed animals hanging off it. For those without kids, to turn it on, you press the button for what you want to hear, and the light comes on and the animals move in a circle and there’s sound. The buttons are fairly large, and the animals are well over a foot and a half - two feet or so above her. When activated, it runs for about 15 minutes before shutting off automatically. Okay, that’s the backstory.

So she usually wakes up around 7ish and isn’t hungry, but she’s just hanging and talking to her stuffed puppy or chewing on the blanket and talking and laughing which I can hear on the baby monitor. I tend to just hang out in bed because sometimes she’ll talk herself back to sleep, so there’s no sense in me getting up.

This morning was no different. I woke up around 7:10 to the sound of talking and laughing coming through the baby monitor, and I’m kind of half in half out of sleep when it hits me: that’s the mobile on in the background. What the…? I think I’m just imaging it, so I listen harder. Nope, that’s the nature sound of the mobile! How the heck? I go into her room, and she’s totally flipped a 180. When I put her down last night after her 2am feeding (growth spurts, ugh), her head was towards the window. Now? She’s managed to scoot herself 180 degrees around and her head is facing the interior wall. And she’s totally laughing and kicking like crazy, so I’m guessing she managed to kick the button that turn on the mobile. But that’s not all! She’s also missing a sock. AND she’s holding one of the animals that’s from the mobile itself. What the hell is going on in that crib when I’m not around? Is she throwing parties in there or something? How did she get one of those stuffed animals OFF of the mobile?! I checked the other three on there, and they’re totally secure; I guess the froggy wasn’t and just fell off? There’s just no way she could’ve pulled it/kicked it off. No way!

Anyway, that was just a whole lot of funny craziness to wake up to. She did look happy and very proud of herself though (and very cute!)