accidental feminist

fear and loathing in skokie June 28, 2006

Only hours after promising Yosef that I would find a rental comparable to our current apartment in quality and price with an Aug. 1st move-in date, we’re in Skokie trying to maintain saccharian smiles that hide our deep-seated distaste for townhomes with partially finished basements and no formal eating area. Actually, it seems to me that architects assume that lower middle-class families must eat standing up/on the couch, because I can’t figure out where the hell you could even fit a table in one of these places. The worst part was waiting around 15 minutes between showings only to see the exact same townhouse configurations three blocks from each other. Oh, no, I’m sorry; I stand corrected: the second one had a free standing toilet and shower stall in the utility room next to the washer and dryer…I shit you not. The last tennants, I was told, utilized this charming set-up as a “Master Bedroom Suite” of sorts; and by “sorts” I mean, of course, “the sort that you might find in a crack house”. Charmed, charmed.

I would be a very sad and frustrated little woman right now if we hadn’t stumbled upon a little surprise later this evening. But for that…stay tuned, dear readers…

piaget would think this was funny June 25, 2006

Bassie: Daddy! Come here!

Yosef: One second.

(He goes into our room, then immediately comes out and approaches Bassie).

Bassie: That really was one second! I thought when people said “one second” they meant “one figuratively second”!

I’m glad to know that she is no longer simply performing the precocious pony show that we taught her and has moved on to truly being precocious without prompting.

“Cars”= Haven’t I seen this before? But with, like, people? June 18, 2006

Replace all instances of “doctor” and “plastic surgeon” with “race car”. Oh, and replace all shots of a squirrely and charming mid-career Michael J. Fox with some sweet CG animation. Done.

And if you don’t believe me, just look at the AT&T advertisement below the plot summary. Look out! It’s a “liminal message”!

(That wiki entry is pretty interesting. If only I’d seen it before I took “Post-Colonial Structures” with the infamously obtuse Homi Bhabha. This review, written by a person trying to explain why Bhabha is so difficult to understand, is itself a case in point. Dude, if you can’t even provide clarity when you write about this guy…)

another milestone down June 11, 2006

the girls on the last day of their first year of school:

Several kids I know (my niece and my step-cousin for two) had “pre-school graduations”. In fact, Bassie believed that she was, in fact, graduating from pre-school. If everyone’s having graduations whenever they damn-well please, though, then I demand a graduation party for finishing my first year of work at New Trier. I think Dina should get a “potty training” graduation. Maybe Justin can have a moustache graduation. Anyone else what to claim a “graduation”? We can all have a big open house at the community center next Sunday from 10-4. No presents; just your presence.

that’s how I roll June 5, 2006

Well, it’s almost 11 PM and I am still going strong, although I think I need another snack, a piece of fruit perhaps. This is precisely how I got my current job…after a nice little “sit-down” with the hubby during which we decide that something specific has to change (e.g. “It’s time for Rachel to go back to work” or, “If we don’t move from our current untennable tennanthood, we are going to gouge our eyes out and wander through Thebes, spiteful and degected for all eternity”), I go into manic-mode. I’ve got three Firefox windows open, each with multiple tabs. I’m emailing myself, I’m emailing realtors. I’m on Google Earth, I’m Google-stalking old friends on Google Earth (okay, that’s not part of the apartment search, but an inevitable bi-product of it). I will find us a super-sweet apartment/must-see duplex/quaint Victorian 3BR/1 Bath rental.

It’s like when I was a teenager, and all of the sudden I needed a hair cut. And then it had to be…I was like Jack Bauer: if the whole thing wasn’t over in 24 hours, you could consider me dead. I would even have the lapse of judgement to go to the Kmart hair salon (where I got my “feathered” haircut…and BTW, I only wish it looked as good as this) just to get it over with. That’s why, lucky for me, I have a husband who is the other side of Jack Bauer; not the “get it done at all costs” side, but the “I am always right…no really…always” side. Together we make one awesome hair-cutting, apartment-snagging, terrorist-fighting team.

Yeehaw!

she’s got this whole parenting thing all figured out June 3, 2006

I know it’s been a while, but this one is good, so hopefully it makes up for the absence:

Bassie: (Blah blah blah narrating something about some crazy concoction she’s making in her toy kitchen, I’m spaced out until she says…) Get it?

Me: Yes. (I’m sure I would have if I had been listening)

Bassie: (relieved) Oh, good. Because if you didn’t, you’d be like ‘What are you doing!?’, and then we’d have a power struggle…

Me: Yeah, good thing.

Bassie: Yeah, good thing.

I’m patenting a new form of parenting; it’s called “preemptive training”. I’m still working out the details, but basically it involves narrating your parenting choices to your infant so that by the time they are 4 1/2, they already know what you are going to do and act according to the most desirable outcome. I’m only just now getting my results, so I’ll have to keep ya’ll posted…