scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

29.11.08

hungry hungry hippos (thanksgiving on saturday)

Turkey breasts (same problem as last year, but now we've had plenty of duck to make up for it)
Dressing (apples?)
Roast veg incl. butternut squashes and potatoes and carrots and onions (or, apples?)
Baby carrots glazed with either honey or maple as soon as i decide, and maybe also leeks? Hm. Sometimes i buy leeks without any planning, and then this happens.
Green bean casserole
Pumpkin custard
Preiselbeerens
Rolls
Strawberry jam
Pickles that might not be the supersweet ones

Edit: y'know, i think honey.

Labels: festivities, food

scrawled @ 13:59

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17.11.08

several americans and some french people in paris

for M, probably, old paris cemeteries. Am i right?

Musee Orangerie because Monet is supposed to be better in person, and i want to see if i agree

Musée des égouts de Paris because, seriously? Come on. Seriously? ... Hell yeah. (Plans to read The Count of Monte Cristo in French: none whatsoever. Plans to read Das Parfum auf Deutsch: ... well, a little bit.)

Not being ambitious with the travel plans. (Unlike with the reading plans. How does one say enfleurage in German?!? How will I know that?) Have seen Louvre, Versailles, C-E, Arc d. T., et c. Will have Very Ambitious and Mobile Toddler. Maybe with Stroller, maybe with only Babybackpack. (Toddler accepts Babybackpack more readily than Stroller at this time, but is now big and heavy, almost 22 lb. Wow.) Must remember to schedule wiggle breaks for Big E.

Labels: travel

scrawled @ 12:25

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10.11.08

sad face.

in which i am not sad enough to go all axydlbaaxr is longfellow, but too sad to be snarky: makeba obit

Labels: media, people

scrawled @ 16:40

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4.11.08

the baby can totally walk, you guys

Labels: milestones, toddler

scrawled @ 11:54

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do it now

Not voting, when you have the opportunity and the right to do so, is not a statement. Staying home because you are dissatisfied with the choices, because you don't want to wait in line, because you disagree with the whole system, for any reason at all, not going to the polls gives the same signal as apathy. It will not get you representation you will like any better. In a stable, established republic like the USA, it is not a form of political protest that will garner results, and all you can do is deliberately silence yourself.

And once you have deliberately silenced yourself, nobody is going to listen to you. Why would they, when they can ignore you while you sit on the sidelines? Not voting in solidarity with non-citizens or felons will not change anything. Not voting to protest electronic voting machines is not going to keep them from being used. Staying home to protest the long lines or the inconveniences or inaccessibilities means that that many more people are effectively disenfranchised and not heard. Not voting because voting is ineffectual in bringing about change is waiting for something that will never come. Not voting because neither candidate is perfect will affect nothing until you, yourself, run for office, because nobody will ever agree with you on everything. Staying home because you don't understand the issues through lack of time, or because you don't know the candidates' positions, can only show that you haven't even passed by a newspaper headline in months; Obama has been on the View and McCain has been on Letterman and if none of your friends are spam-emailing you with long lists of reasons, you're luckier than most people I know. Not voting because you are only one voice in a chorus of millions still removes the power of your voice from that chorus; every vote counts, every vote is the deciding vote, and we need every one. When you have the right and the opportunity to vote but do not, and particularly when you trumpet that you will not be voting, you allow those who win the election to do whatever they want with the vast resources that will be at their disposal, with zero oversight from you. Not voting because of the divisiveness and un-neighborliness it can cause mocks democracy. Not voting because by voting, you would be participating in and thus validating an immoral system perpetuates that very system - vote for the Socialist candidate to change the system, vote for the Green party candidate to shout your priorities, vote for Christ or for Gloria Steinem or for Rachel Maddow if you want; we have a write-in line - but by not showing up at the polls, you remove yourself from the entire conversation and insulate it against you.

Not voting because it's "the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people," well, it's still the best system we've got, so if you cannot support this but persist in thinking that something better will come along, i would love to hear when and how and why you think that change will happen - will it be something other than incremental and from-within? Will there be a revolution? Will the government one day just up and decide to go home, if nobody is telling it to? No. When someone is doing something immoral, how is it not better to say No than to not respond? Not voting because it dilutes responsibility for the atrocities our government commits does not abjure your responsibility, but affirms your complacence.

The way votes are counted, Party A got X%, and Party B got X%, of the counted polls. To not vote for either (and to avoid "the lesser of two evils"), go to the polls, vote on your local elections (they're important too, and can have more impact on electronic polling machines, long lines at polling locations, and other forms of disinfranchisement, as well as all the other local issues and lower-level politicians, and there are many that could use your input!) and leave the Presidential box and/or any others blank, or write in a name of your choice (for example, Cynthia McKinney). By doing this, you show that you care about and are active in the political sphere, but do not approve of any candidate; avoiding the vote altogether shows none of these things.

And while I would vastly prefer it if Obama won by a historic, crushing landslide, if that is really and truly not the will of the American people, then so be it. I will still be glad to be a citizen. (I think. I hope.)

Work for change, if you want. Talk to your neighbors, to your communities. Speak out at City Council meetings. Write your representatives, even if every word condemns the whole system. There are many additional ways to make yourself heard. But going to the polls must (in this American system, when one has the right and the opportunity to do so) be the first and most basic step.

xposted: feministing, dailykos

Labels: politics

scrawled @ 00:01

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3.11.08

thirteen months

You were a tiny cheetah cub for your first proper Halloween: last year i don't think i even remembered which day it was. And at Fasching you were an alligator, for being so bitey. But now, everybody at baby group says so, and even the tagesmutter has commented on it - you are the fastest thing on four legs. So, cheetah, with a little furry hat and a black nose and a weird little animal-print outfit that i'm not sure if it was supposed to be a costume or not, originally, but it worked quite well. (Some of the other babies were a fairy and two pumpkins and a pirate, but you were the cutest.) You aren't really walking yet, or not to get places, or not deliberately - and if you didn't do the same thing in socks or barefoot or in nonskiddy shoes, well, we've tried everything - you don't like to let go. And that's fine. Caution. Nobody likes falling over. It's clear to look at you that you could walk if you felt like it, you've started walking anyway, and we dressed you as a four-legged critter on the last possible day because on Saturday (the day after Halloween) you walked six or seven steps, more than a yard, all the way over to Daddy. You can stand up unassisted, you can stand and eat, stand and drink, stand and point and yell, but then you sit down and crawl to get where you are going.

You have at least one molar - it's hard to tell, you don't like us sticking our fingers in your mouth so much - but you're getting much better at tooth brushing. Some nights, at least.

And you have many words: Mommy and Daddy and Doggie and Apple and Night-night, and at the tagesmutter's you have learned Woof-woof and Baby (both the same in English and German), and you can point and wave and have signs for Water and Milk and More and Bed and Up-Out. The signs are kind of sloppy but i'm not sure they are sloppier than the words: Water is pointing at your mouth with one finger, not three, for Milk you always reach towards me, and for More you point with one finger at your closed fist instead of bringing fingers together, but it kinda works. Communication is communication, i guess. Words you have said once: Kiwi, Kitchen, Noodle, Bear, Duck, Tiger, Bottle, Doll, and others i'm forgetting.

When we say to make the music box go or to cuddle the teddy or dance you do it. And you can nest the nesty-stacky cups, trying them each to see which fits in which, all five, and you can get all six rings on the ring pyramid. You know the ring-tone for Skype and look expectantly at the computer when it happens. When i say i am going in the kitchen or the bathroom or the big room you know where to find me. You had a big jingly bell and we took it away from you because you would not stop putting it in your mouth and it just fit so exactly we were afraid it would get stuck or you'd cut yourself on it somehow, and you saw where we put it and kept coming back, and then you saw that i took it and left the room and then you stopped looking for it there. When i say no, you look at me and shake your head. You like putting the alarm clock in the drawer on the nightstand, taking it out, putting it back, opening and closing the drawer over and over. Reading books over and over, turning the pages, pointing at all the pictures. You like to be tickled and danced with and turned upside-down. You like cuddling the dog and the stuffed animals and dolls and even the pictures of animals in your books. You like pushing your cart and the chairs and the toy bins, and sitting in the toy bins and the cart, and putting things in and out. You can roll the ball (albeit with very little direction) and when we roll it back to you, you fall on it like a star goalie. You like climbing stairs upwards and have, finally, under very close supervision, successfully come back down one flight of stairs feet-first. By now you are a champion at always climbing off the bed and the couch and the futon feet-first.

You have also started to understand no (see above, where you're shaking your head). And you've started having tiny wailing tantrums, you throw yourself on the floor and cry because i said you couldn't play with the knives in the dishwasher basket. Honey, that's not a reasonable thing to want. Sorry. When you want a pretzel, you can have a pretzel, we can read a book, sure, i'll pick you up, but when you want the laser-mouse to look at the pretty red light, not so much.

Labels: milestones, toddler

scrawled @ 10:00

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