Cold Spaghetti

First, it was the Nuovo Anno Art Show.  Actually, it turns out I didn’t photograph much of the art.  Huh.

In my defense, I was drunk off the giddy high of being out past 8pm.  Granted, Will was with me, eating a vat of peanut butter and chocolate chip gelato big enough to bathe in, happily playing on the computer with his friends in the back office.  But for most of the evening, it was adult conversation.

Emmy and I owe great thanks to Paul, who stayed in with Kate and Elliot.  We came back at 10pm to find Paul hoarse, having read 12 stories to the two sleeping buddies cuddled together on the couch.

Here are some things I picked up from this (big) Night Out:

– PlayhouseDisney.com is a good place to go for internet games for kids.  The “sandwich game” is recommended.

– Spanish speaking parents keeping their kids in French school is a good plan: you can cover more of Europe that way.

– Maternity leave can help you refocus on the good points of your job.

– Third babies are way chill.

Then, the following night was girls’ night.  It was pretty low-key, mostly because I volunteered my house  with the (almost) sleeping kids in the back.  This was my first real girls night in a long, long time, so I kept my eyes open for rules.

The first rule is to arrive.  This is actually more of a challenge than it seems: one of the assembly fell asleep while putting her child to bed and didn’t make it.

The second rule is that women should protect the fantasy that girls nights are big tickle parties between women wearing white panties.  In the future, we will do a better job of taking pictures of our underwear on the ceiling fan just to keep hope alive.

The third rule is married women with children are fascinated by the stories of what other adults do when they don’t have to worry about cleaning macaroni off the floor each night.  Sex clubs.  Tribute bands.  The knowledge of how to pay for a round of drinks.

That’s two nights out of the house, back to back.  I’ve officially met my quota of personal time for the next 3 years.

We’re shopping for a new host provider.

Need: ability to self-administer sites, good network capacity and storage, decent affordability, good communication when there is a problem.

And to Dreamhost… it’s one thing to have repeated outages for long spans of time (24 hours+).  It’s something else all together to report that ‘the problem will resolve in 5 minutes’ for the entire outtage.

Yesterday, I tried to do my civic duty to teach my kids about Martin Luther King Day and about the historic event of this Tuesday’s inauguration.

Or, rather, I showed Will a clip of the “I Have a Dream” speech.  Response: “Mommy, it looks… old.”  There was another comment, something related to the word “bored” but I’ve blocked it from memory.  We’re focusing on the positive in the Cold Spaghetti household.

Later, after a short description of what will happen tomorrow, I read the kids a book about the Office of President of the United States.

Okay.  What ACTUALLY happened was that I prepared to read them a book about being President.  Then I  waited on Kate while she went through the book herself, refused to share, and spent 2 minutes in time out after she ran away with the book shouting “WILL CAN’T SEE MY BOOK!”   Eventually we all sat down together to read it.

Little Betty Lou from Sesame Street sees the Big Black Car of the President go by and she dreams about all the things she would do if she were President.

Like give speeches to the United Nations.

And fly in Air Force One.

And work in the Oval Office.

And attend the Easter Egg Rolling on the White House Lawn.

And have a penis.

You think I’m joking, but I’m pretty sure I added that last part in, just to make sure they were listening.  And also because we’re all about honesty in this household.

But you know, maybe I’m wrong.  Granted, I’ve felt strongly that we would see an African American man as President before we’d see a woman in the same role.  But it happened so soon, and for a man who is approaching the Presidency from a rational perspective.  It’s wonderful and overwhelming and unbelievable. So unbelievable that everyone seems to believe that this IS a point of change, and that tomorrow, anything is possible.

I wanted my kids to understand that.

Instead, Will asks, “Mommy, is tomorrow a school day?”

“Yes, it is.  But when you come home, we’ll watch the new President speak on the computer.”

“Okay.  But can we play Lego Star Wars first?”

Check out the Photohunt website for more information and photographs.

Based on my last post, a friend of mine pointed out this Washington Post article by Rebel Dad comparing Mommy and Daddy bloggers where he asks, ‘do Dads whine less than Moms?’

Rebel Dad prudently offers the conclusion that Dads, though more and more active in the rearing of children and in many cases taking over roles as primary homemakers, just haven’t “earn[ed] our stripes yet.”  He ponders that Dads don’t get to whine as much because the gulf between the responsibilities of Mothers and Fathers in raising a child is too wide for the discourses to be the same.

Well, yes.  But there’s a lot more.

Somehow, gender equality went down the road of ‘proving’ the sameness of one sex to another: I can do what you can do, therefore, we are equal.  So the ‘rights’ of women were earned by women adopting masculine behaviors to prove workplace equality.  (Consider the well-known statement made by Gloria Steinem: “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”)   To be successful, women have adopted a model of education and work life that mirrors the single man.  Activities associated with being a woman (marriage, babies, mothering) are seen as weak and inconsistent with professional behavior.  No one will take you seriously if you have a baby during your PhD because a man wouldn’t (physically) have a baby while doing a PhD.

It’s not just a bum deal for women; strict gendered roles are insulting to both sexes.

Here’s the thing: women and men are NOT the same.  One sex bears children and the other one doesn’t.  That biological difference needs to be taken into account for both to be equal.

Rebel Dad is 100% correct when he says that Dads don’t ‘whine’ as much as Mothers.  Because they can’t.  That discourse is feminine, reflective of the assumed responsibility of Mothers as parents.  Consider: a woman is shopping with a small child who is not behaving well, crying, fussing, whining… standard stuff.  People judge her parenting, blame her for not disciplining the child (even if she is trying to handle the situation) and may even make overall judgments about whether or not she is ‘working.’  If the same situation were playing out with a man, the response would be more empathetic; Dad has his hands full and doesn’t know what to do.  Both are patronizing, but associated with very different cultural responses reflecting very different gendered assumptions.

We Moms bitch more about parenting because when the chips fall down, the world looks to us to pick up the pieces.  Men can walk away, shrug shoulders in confusion, and just feign ignorance.  Women don’t have those options — or face harsh criticism when we do.  Coming to terms with being both a Mother and still be respected (as those hip, childless people we used to be) is a big part of Mommy blogging.  ‘Whining’ is one way to work it out.  Would Dads regain that same pre-fatherhood hipness if they whined in the same way?   No.  They work out their own parenting and gender conflicts in different discourse.

Moms are doing all we can, I think, to show that being a Mom IS hip and that the workplace, the academy, and society in general needs to accommodate our awesomeness.  All three are very slow in this acceptance, so pardon us if we feel the need to air grievances.

Just one more important point.  I remain deeply bothered about the initial questioning regarding ‘whining.’  Because asking whether Moms whine more than Dads is simply a thinly veiled open door for people to bitch about Moms.  AGAIN.  ‘Cause seriously, lady, you complain when you work and you complain when you stay at home.  Look, see?  Us men can handle either situation, and with less bitching!  So why don’t you just figure it out already?’

And that is the real whining we’ve all heard enough of.

Cold weather accessories taken out, as a rare necessity.  Also necessary: modeling them.

(The glasses influenced the Photoshop actions.)

Without a doubt, the best thing I have ever done for my career was have children.

Going completely against the words of my advisers (“no one will ever take you seriously if you have a baby while you do a PhD”) and in contrast to my departmental peers (almost all of whom are not only childless but single) — I got married and had babies.

And it was the best thing I have ever done, or could ever have done, for my career.

I work in Public Health, specifically in International Health, where I study things like poverty, development, gender, migration, and disparity.  In terms of methodology, I am a big believer in qualitative research in health; that we need people who actually unpack what all those health numbers mean so that we can be most effective in how we address health.  So when I walked into a rustic birthing facility with my visibly bulging 6 month pregnant belly to hold the hand of a young mother and help her labor — that woman gripped my hand and trusted me.  A year later, when Will crawled around the cement floor with other babies in the community meeting, women easily opened up to share stories of how they feed their children.  People approached me in buses and street corners, pushing Will in his stroller through the streets of Lima.  When I brought Kate into homes of newly arrived immigrants after Katrina, I compared nursing techniques with new Mothers struggling to figure out how to do it on their own.

What does it mean to be a Mother and work in International Health?  It means everything.  Being a Mother just breaks through all the differences that culture, faith, ideology, geography, wealth, and language build between us — although they may shape how we are Mothers, the visceral experience of pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and simply having a child is universal.

So there are no better people in the world to speak about issues like social justice, responsibility, activism, and the work of creating a better world.

You know what light bulb brought me to this conclusion?  Reading Jenny’s line about seeing Alejna and baby Theo for lunch, during which the baby “audibly soiled his diaper.”  The universality of the experience struck me — how that could have happened anywhere with any group of women and all the Mothers in the room would know the sound and share the response.  It reduces us all to the most fundamental of our qualities, that which makes us human: our ability and responsibility to care for each other.

To me, Jen and Mad‘s Just Posts are the internet representation of the important and relevant words of regular folks — and particularly of Mommy bloggers, who are routinely maligned and discounted as unimportant.  I know that writing about my family is important.  The personal is political — and the work I do living here, in this wounded city, is as important as any news about town, if not more.  Seeing similar experiences, thoughts, and challenges from others through Just Posts helps me see those same personal and political actions in so many other communities.  Finding them was a gift and has become something that I look forward to for inspiration.

So that is why Alejna and I, with the gracious blessings of Jen and Mad (and also Su), have teamed up to carry their legacy.  We sincerely hope that people will continue to send us recommended reading from bloggers throughout the world who have written something that makes us all more aware, more committed, more involved.

I must be feeling a bit down.  That last post included the word “tight” twice with copious pictures of Paul working on the outbuilding, and yet, I let that golden opportunity pass.  Tight?  Golden? … aye, my heart’s just not in it.  So much for my reputation as the internet source for home improvement porn.

As I try to rev up for this year’s Mardi Gras season (we’re still working the Devo theme, despite Will’s ever-changing cast of character requests: Spider, Cowboy, Knight, and Luke Skywalker), I’m attempting to clean out my Aperture folder and properly archive and organize the photographs.  But you know?  It’s way more fun to play around studiously learn Photoshop techniques.

Remember Kate’s New Year Tai Chi?  Where she is terribly lit in intense direct sun?  The moves are so classically Kate that I wanted to see if I could improve the quality of some of the pictures.  Work with the captured moment, so to speak.

Here are the originals:

Then I decided to try and soften the harsh light and overall brightness of the image.  I played with curves, brightness, dodge and burn, and levels.  What I should have done was used one set of commands that I liked and then just applied the actions to the rest.  I didn’t.  I just went all willy-nilly and did whatver I liked as the mood struck.  Don’t expect anything earth-moving.

Yeah, I know.  Is that all?  Then, because I’m reading all of these artsy books about black and white photography, I decided to play around some more.

I think I like these last ones best.

Here’s hoping I get around to backing them up before Mardi Gras!

Meanwhile, the saga to save the outbuilding continues.  The hardie was on the corrugated metal sheets, which was taking up room where Paul needed to set up his saw, which he needed to finish the interior walls… etc., etc.  The bottom line is, work continues on getting the exterior done.  He’s almost done with one side, which he’s been doing from our neighbor’s yard.

Will loves Paul working next door because it means he can show off his climbing skills.

We’re venturing into the wild, now.  (Think it looks like a jungle?  Well, it’s like a cement parking lot compared to what it was before Paul cut it all back to work on the building.)

Yikes!  That is the tiny space between our outbuilding and the outbuilding of our neighbor behind us.  When we started, Paul couldn’t even get between the buildings (vines filled the space).  At least metal is an easy install.

This blog has been thrown into the hat for bloggie nominations!

I KNOW.

Who knew that just anyone could even get nominated?  Not me.  But then again, Ben Affleck won as Oscar, so maybe anything is possible?

The nominating process involves going to http://2009.bloggies.com/ , writing in “Cold Spaghetti” and the website (http://www.coldspaghetti.org/blog/), and giving your email address for a verification message.  When you vote, you have to nominate 2 other blogs for consideration for each category you vote within.

Here are some blogs that I nominated:

One Plus Two.  Jen writes eloquently about her work as director of a nonprofit agency serving the homeless, and she’s preparing a move to a jungle village in Central America.  I don’t think you need any other information for why she’s on my list of favorites.

Collecting Tokens.  Alejna is witty, eloquent, and very funny.  She also likes kick-ass women and pants.

The Show Must Go On.  Kitty writes beautifully and has great photos.  My favorite photos of hers are ones she posts from her film camera days — they have that deep, creamy feel that only comes from film (in my opinion).  Also, I’m buttering her up so that one day maybe she’ll come and work on some crazy health project where we are desperately seeking a nurse.

LaLoca.  I don’t visit the Washington Post site much anymore, because I trust that if something of interest is happening up there, Jenny will point it out.  Plus, her photography is creative and striking.

Liprap’s Lament.  Leigh reads more websites than anyone I know and somehow seems to do so before the posts are even published.  Then she compiles them all into summary posts on her own blog, with her own commentary.  Or, at least, that is what it seems like.  These days, I’ve come to prefer the first hit of local news through a good filter.

UPDATE… Oh My Heavens.  I forgot to mention Lisa, of Left Coast Cowboys, who I nominated in a bunch of categories, because I love Green Acres.  And because she makes me want to move to San Francisco, possibly to grow grapes and raise terriers.  She makes it all sound so beautiful!

Nominations END JANUARY 12th! So please consider going over and voting soon!

If you’re up for a little more, please consider visiting my friend, mentor, and all-around amazing Emmy… she wants to gather up her Honduran family for a big reunion and you can vote to help her do it.