Beautiful Birthday Girl

As I write five young ladies aged 12 - 16 are playing a game in my family room. Said ladies are here to help my most awesome daughter, Rosie, celebrate her 12th birthday.

Here are the things that make a tween birthday party complete:
- cheese puffs
- ABBA
- peanut butter cups
- balloons, streamers...etc.
- lemon meringue pie (which sadly did not turn out well)
- LOTS of louds voices and giggling
- pizza
- I Love Lucy
- sleeping bags, pillows and various stuffed animals

And when I say loud, I mean surprisingly, ear splittingly loud. I am always amazed at how loud girls can be when they get together. ARG and his friends were NEVER this loud.

Hubby has taken MiniMe out for a few hours so she won't be annoyingly underfoot. As much as I wish my children lovingly got along all the time, Rosie made it clear that MiniMe was not to be present at most of her party.

So I am here, holding down the fort. Being present, but trying not to listen too hard or cramp their style. Pretty soon I have to punch the dough and start rolling out the pizza pies.

I like to remember the night Rosie was born. I tried to explain to her today that I had wanted to do a water birth. The tub was full of warm water and I was hoping the heat and bouyancy would help alleviate some of the pain and discomfort. But instead I ended up on our living room floor because I couldn't walk after the midwife checked me mid-labor. I walked miles all day to bring on and strengthen the contractions, but I couldn't make it 15 feet once I was near transition.

We didn't know for sure she was  a girl, and we were SO HAPPY when she was! Her birth wasn't as long as her brother's, but longer than her little sister's. I suppose it was my easiest birth, if you can put those two words together in a sentence.

Rosie was a calm, beautiful baby and was always full of love as a little girl. I have precious memories of her cooing to me, "agoooo" before she could talk. But I knew what she meant. <3

Now she is becoming a strong, self-assured young lady who is an amazing dancer and artist. She is known for being kind, well mannered, but fairly silly. I love her so much.

Happy Birthday darling Rosie!

Not A Pity Party

I'll be 43 in two days.

These years I can barely remember how old I am because, who cares really? After forty, does it matter until you get close to fifty? I am just one of those people I used to think of as SO OLD! And like most folks, I don't feel old on the inside at all. Same old me in here, dealing with a more challenging body.

But I won't use this blog to kvetch about my sinuses, hashimoto's, plantar fascitis...etc.  I will not complain here about the insane amounts of driving I am compelled to do, or the craziness of helping ARG with high school. Moaning about money and schedules and annoying people....not today!

Instead, I decided on this upbeat, positive way to be grateful for my blessings:


10 Things That Don't Stink About My Life
(in no particular order)

- Where I live. Though it can be a mixed blessing (can you say fog?) living on the northern CA coast in a fairly rural feeling neighborhood is supreme. Many days it is gorgeous enough to stop me in my tracks.

- Watching my teenage son and preteen daughter as they evolve into adulthood. It is so deeply gratifying to see how strong they are, how original, and how creative. Seeing myself and Hubby in them is fun, but it is a joy to watch ARG and Rosie emerge as their unique selves. Getting deeply involved in fencing and ballet because of them is a cool life experience that I would never have gotten on my own.

- Lucy. Being greeted by an ecstatic sausage when I get home is lovely. She wags so hard her whole body wiggles and you can see the joy on her face. Sometimes she's so happy she whines.

- Ice cream. Specifically Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch and Americone Dream. I know this is totally sacreligious, but sometimes I feel life wouldn't be worth living without ice cream. Sad, isn't it.

- The warm, loving feelings and delicious sensations of cuddling and playing with my youngest daughter who is still soft, cuddly, innocent and silly (not to mention, she doesn't stink yet).


- The fact that my parents and Hubby's are alive and kicking. That is precious.


- Project Runway. I can't help it! I love that show! I've got Heidi Klum's lines memorized and I chant along each episode in my version of her German accent, "As you know, in fashion one week you're in, and the next week you're out!" I hate proliferation of the word "sexy" and the fact that the designers can't deal with real-life bodies. But that show is pure fun.

- Knowing that Hubby's got my back all the time, that he knows how to support me as I flail through life, that he loves me unconditionally with all my craziness.

- Fantasies about vacations. We may not end up going on all of them, but dreaming about future family vacations makes me to happy. Oh, the trips I could plan if we had enough dough. Current fantasies include Hawaii, Tahoe and Europe.

- Laughing. I love it. I need more of it. It is good medicine. Sharing a belly laugh with a loved one is just about my favorite thing in the world.

That's it! My official 43rd birthday Not-a-Pity-Party.

Most Tests are dumb

Well, at least the US History SAT2 Subject Test for high school.

ARG just took it yesterday, and I spent the last two weeks trying to cram useless bits of trivia about the 20th century in a (perhaps vain) effort to increase his test score. It seems that ARG's history teacher believes that American political though has not fundamentally changed since 1916, so he didn't really teach much more than the World Wars for the 1900's. This left him with a huge gap, as the 1/3 of the SAT2 US History test is on the 1900's. Hence my frantic efforts.

Some of the topics I found the most irrelevant and annoying:
- what was the slogan of the NonViolent Student Organizing Committee when the leaders changed in 1960something?
- what was Henry Clay's "American System"?
- be able to identify a quote as written by the IWW, NLU, AFL, CIO or Knights of Labor

I mean, who has ever heard of Henry Clay?

Out of 90 questions, a full 9 were analyzing political cartoons from an era - something requires very little historical knowledge, and lots of reasoning skills. In about the same amount of questions, the reader is asked to pick the statement which best describes a historical quote. Again, you don't really need to know history to do that - just good reading comprehension.

So basically, the test is a combination of questions that require little or no historical knowledge and questions testing the ability to memorize a plethora of minutia about historical events.


Poor ARG had to endure me constantly quizzing him about DuBois vs. Booker T. Washington, MLK and Malcolm X, Rachel Carson, the Harlem Renaissance, the Feminine Mystique, the Transcendentalist movement, the Whigs, the Populists, the Progressives, the Tet Offensive...etc.

While I think it is good, in general, to be aware of those people and movement, I truly do not think it is necessary to have complete mastery over every detail of them in order to understand US history and politics. After all, what is the purpose of history if not to inform decisions in the present? Knowing the exact founding dates, slogans and events related to every labor organization is not necessary to understand the general gist of the labor movement. I grew up a feminist, I understand feminism, and I never read or knew about the Feminine Mystique.

In the end, I've had to mostly agree with ARG's history teacher. Most of the themes from the 20th century can be easily learned by watching TV shows and documentaries. What's more, it is impossible to retain a zillion historical facts. The broad themes of history get lost in the detials. And so it all gets forgotten.

What a shame (for history and for us).