The Burrow

Mamacita's rant  over on her blog, Scheiss Weekly, covers the essentials.  I'm choosing to take a more nostalgic approach to this very serious problem... the problem of community supplies in the classroom. We're not talking about the box of tissues or bottle of hand sanitizer or chalk for the blackboard (markers for the white board?) that are logical for a classroom to share. We're talking about pencils and notebooks and folders.  The thought of buying it and having to give it away and receive something lesser in return makes my stomach ache.  But, I am getting ahead of the story I want to tell. Come back with me to 1959, as I enter third grade.  Mrs. Josephs was our teacher, and she was elegant, polished, sophisticated to my younger-than-everyone-else's eyes.  I was delighted to receive the list of "recommended supplies" and to thrust it into G'ma's hands the moment I got off the school bus. A return trip to the store was required.  I was in...

Kate Winslett doesn’t look like this    and she’s not afraid to say so: “I do not look like that and more importantly I don't desire to look like that.  I am proud, you know.”  The editorial staff of the British edition of GQ back in 2003 decided that she didn’t look quite right enough for their cover so they took to  Photoshop and got to work.  By the time that they were finished, Ms. Winslettt was considerably thinner…..smaller….less womanly.  It’s a beautiful picture, it’s just not Kate Winslettt. Titanic’s been re-released, and that must be why this story about her body gracing GQ’s cover has been all over Facebook of late.  I remember watching the movie with Little Cuter and her girlfriends, over and over and over again.  Kate gets naked and Leo draws her and her curves are lying there on the couch, Rubenesque in their fleshy wonderfulness.  For the first time in a long time, I didn’t need to interrupt their viewing wit...

I was 30 and pregnant.  I'd been passed over for a promotion and my career was stalled so I paid some attention to the ticking of my biological clock.  The baby grew, the job became more frustrating, and then TBG received his compensation package. He was moving up the ranks at Goldman, Sachs (back when that was respectable thing to say).  The financial services industry paid their employees on a scale unheard of in the social services sector of the economy then as it does now.  I've written about dollars vs praise  as incentives for performance before, and my point still stands.  The words are nice; the dollars pay the bills. We sat at the dining room table that night, for the first time truly thinking about whether or not I should return to work following the birth of our child.  My job was secure; I could take maternity leave and return without missing a beat.  The search for a full-time nanny would be stressful, but it could be done. This w...

It was hot and sticky in Chicago.  TBG and I wore shorts as we strolled down Michigan Avenue.  We looked like tourists and we didn't care.  There were others out and about who were similarly attired.  Khaki shorts and polo shirts were visible at every street corner.  Granted, my pink polka dot sneakers were just a bit outre but they certainly made me smile.  When I'm walking these days, every little bit of levity helps. Levity.... laughing but also a nod to levitating, which is what I'd like to do when I'm walking.  Pounding on the pavement isn't as much fun as it used to be.  But, I digress. Had I realized that the sartorial differences would have been so stark, I'd have taken photographs.  At the time, I didn't notice it at all.  Coming from Tucson, where comfort rules and bright colors are de rigueur, I wasn't startled by the prints and stripes and bright tight jeans on the pedestrians we passed on Chicago's streets....

I hired Linda.  We shook hands to seal the deal.  TBG and I  ran into her at the movies two days later. She hugged me. H David and Zanner were our friends for years.  He greeted me at the door with an enveloping bear hug. I didn't like either one. G'ma and Daddooooo didn't raise touchy-feely children.  G'ma says that the first unsolicited hug she received from me was when I came home from college for Thanksgiving vacation my freshman year. She remembers me pulling away from snuggles and cuddles..... I don't remember them on offer, to tell the truth. Perhaps my reluctance to get up close and personal for a greeting stems from Daddoooo's habit of ending every hug with a potch en tuchas .... a gentle smack on the buttock.  I knew he loved me. I never understood the smack. My parents did teach me the value of a firm handshake.  Five fingers clasping five fingers firmly, a squeeze designed to announce my presence but not intended to damage, eye co...