Uterus Fruit

Being around Mack’s kids all day has made me a little wistful.  It could be that they’re just on their best behavior, but I doubt it.  They had a pretty knock down drag out fight while they were cleaning upstairs when they thought I couldn’t hear them.  In general, though, they’re really sweet, smart, and funny kids and it’s fun to hang out with them.

Granted, it’s been hot and they’ve just wanted to watch movies or play on the computer, which means I haven’t really had to come up with ways to entertain them (though I did paint their portraits on some gravel from the driveway).

But I was looking at them while we were waiting for our pizza and wondering what it would be like to look across the table at someone who looked both like me and not like me.  I’m a little envious of the recalcitrant brother for that.  I do feel like he knows something about life intrinsically that I just don’t.  And am afraid that I won’t.

Victory is Mine!

I just burped so long and loud that both kids gave me an appreciative “Aunt B!”

The best part?

I had a burp aftershock.  I let out my ginormous belch, got my kudos and then followed it up with another burp.

It was amazing.

Ha, it’s really a wonder people leave me with their children.  We’re burping.  We’re arguing.  We’re watching Rob Schneider’s masterpiece “The Animal” hoping they’re too young for the orgasm jokes.  We’re eating pizza.  We’re drinking pop.  We’re going for ice cream.  We’re doing our chores in the most amazingly half-assed way ever.

But no one is crying or vomiting or pooping themselves, so I call it good.

Is that a tiny spittoon?

Either Mack had won the Stanley Cup for miniature hockey or he has a tiny spittoon.

I’ve only been here 51 minutes and already, I have failed as a babysitter and a feminist.  SuperMousey (and is it just me or would it be awesome if her name was SouperMousey?) is having a fight with one of her friends and it seems apparent that, if SuperMousey is right that there seems to be nothing that’s spurred it between the two of them, her friend is trying to push her away and reject her first in order to spare herself the potential pain of losing SuperMousey when they get to middle school.

This had not occurred to SuperMousey at all.

And at first I felt all, well, look at me, Superior Insight Woman!

But now I’m feeling a little ooky about it.  I mean, shoot.  They’re eleven and here I am teaching SuperMousey to reward her friend’s indirectness and bullshitty refusal to talk openly about what’s bugging her.

These bullshit ways between us women, they start so young.

I’m also still mulling over this whole country music thing.  There’s an element there of this notion that a whole lot of people in this country believe that they have the right to live in an unchanging community that reflects their values and beliefs, no matter how wrong those beliefs are.

And I think what irritates me about commercial country music is its willingness to sell to those people back to them that same idea–that they have that right–even as the people doing the selling don’t believe it.  If there’s a reason good music doesn’t get heard on the radio, I do believe that that’s part of the reason.

I don’t know.  I guess this is where we go strolling through the ugly, unkempt part of my liberal, feminist garden, because, while I do believe we should tolerate everyone and try to really hear what they’re saying and treat it with some respect, there are just ways of being in the world that I think are clearly wrong and stupid.

If you think it’s okay for a dude in a bar to put a girl in the hospital just because you can’t tell if she’s a boy or a girl, then you are an idiot and I’m not sure I actually have any obligation to put up with that nonsense or to act as if it’s just one more valid opinion among many others.  For instance.

So, I guess I’m not the tolerant fount of tolerance I pass myself off as being.

I do try, though.  Most of the time.

A Question for the Ages

Why is everyone asleep on the couch?  I think the temperature is just fine in here, but maybe this is their subtle way of telling me that it’s too cold.