Brenda is fantastic

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but blogging is really a feast-or-famine kind of thing. You have a great weekend with time enough to think and read a book, and suddenly you have like 6 posts all thought out, including a societal indictment and discussion of good bras. This after the last month where you hoarded and scrimped anecdotes in a desperate attempt to make your life sound interesting, at least to yourself.

Well, I’ve discovered that hoarding good blogging material is a little like hoarding Thanksgiving leftovers — if you don’t use them right away, they go bad. So you might as well whip up a nice tall open-faced turkey sandwich and enjoy already.

Fantastic!

This weekend was marked on the calendar as “Brenda is Fantastic” weekend. I put it on the calendar so I would take it seriously. There are always things that need to be done, and making myself look and feel good is usually at the bottom of that list. That’s ok short term, but sometimes you need to invest in yourself in order to give as wholly to the other people who count on you. “Brenda is Fantastic” weekend started at 1:30 at Intimacy Copley Place in Boston. I’ve spent the last 5 years pregnant, nursing, trying to get pregnant, rinse and repeat. The body changes involved in that have made any investment in undergarments a losing proposition. That time is now over, and I was ready to invest.

I figured a really good bra would cost about $50. I added $25 on to my estimates to be safe. I had trouble imagining a bra could cost more than $75. The fitting was interesting. My fitter had a zip up dress so she could model the combination she was sporting that day. (In her defense, it looked great on her 10 months post-partum self!) She sat me down and gave me the lecture on proper care of my bradrobe. (I’m not making that word up.) Then she brought out the samples. I figured I’d start with two — one that would work under anything and one that would be very, uh, appealing.

None of the bras had price tags on them. This should have clued me in that I was in over my head.

I got two bras that were — are! Fantastic. They look awesome and make me feel awesome. One is extremely comfortable, and I suspect the other will be once I break it in.

But man, I totally and completely underestimated just how much a bra could cost. I’m pretty sure if I’d been shopping in a less, uh, intensive environment I wouldn’t have bought the more expensive one. I’m pretty sure if I’d seen a price tag, I wouldn’t have tried it on in CASE I liked it as much as I ended up doing. I find myself ashamed to have paid so much for something — this is a kind of indulgence I don’t really feel comfortable with. The more expensive bra cost $180.

I walked out of the store sort of shell-shocked into this mall that takes it for granted. The beautiful people all around me were likely all wearing $200 bras and $500 shoes. I looked around and I felt like I was all wrong: my shoes are a little scuffed, my pants are not designer. I was wearing makeup (unusual for me) but we’re talking Wet-and-Wild folks. My top, which seemed pretty in the morning, seemed dowdy and unsophisticated in the glare of the marble. My favorite courduroy jacket seemed threadbare in the soft lighting. My purse is hopeless — a $20 Target creation overflowing with children’s toys and touched by white wall paint in the corner. I hugged it close to my body hoping no one would notice me. As I hunted desperately for safe ground (aka Starbucks) I hoped no one would see me or call me out or notice how wrong I was. I wondered just what criteria the numerous lurking security officers used for escorting someone out. (One hopes more than a terrible purse.) I felt like there was exactly one part of my entire self that was ok for this place: the new bra.

These environments are set up to make you feel like you are not good enough. They also try to let you know that your failings are not permanent — if you spend enough money, pay enough attention and do the right things, you might perhaps hope to walk those halls between the Prada store and Monolo Blalik with confidence that you are all right. You are presented with the false hope that this is a winnable path to being acceptable.

I choose not to play that game. I vehemently reject the premise that “good enough” has to do with the right shoes and right clothes and perfection of physical attributes. It was a with a great sigh of relief that I crossed the busy street to Back Bay T stop, to a more normal world where I’m a perfectly ok person.

Did I mention I picked up “Twilight” to read during my sojourn? I enjoyed it as I switched from the Orange to the Red line. You see, I know Forks. My father lived there for a year when I was in my late teens. A boyfriend and I on a date had once wandered our way across the Olympic Peninsula, to many of the spots mentioned. I was that love-lorn teenager wishing to be called out as special in that tiny Northwest town. The bits about the sports — Volleyball etc. — ring very true. She must’ve grown up there too. So in addition to being a fun if flippant read, it made me rather nostalgic. Thank heavens I didn’t encounter it when I was 16 or I would’ve thought that FINALLY someone UNDERSTOOD me!

Anyway, on to my next stop. I got off at Harvard Square, with fading self-consciousness, and went to DHR to get my hair cut. Dale did an amazing job — I think this is the best cut he’s ever given me. I opted not to add some clarification to a rather vehement opinion Rob held about the middle ages (see also: completely monolithic society with total control over everyone — so not possible), and switched conversation safely over to “Red Dwarf” instead (they’re huge sci-fi fans).

And I emerged looking fantastic. I went home and had dinner prepared by my husband, got the kids in bed, and finished reading Twilight in the bath.

Truly, fantastic.

Not sure if you can really see the haircut -- I should've used a better backdrop

Explaining Facebook

Recently my mother-in-law and husband joined up on Facebook, adding themselves to the “everyone else I know” contingent. And in the last week or so, both have had questions or comments about it. So as a public service, I hereby offer this explanation of what the heck you do with Facebook.

1) What the heck does it mean when you post that you have “Mastery in Artichokes”?
Facebook offers a bunch of games like “Mafia Wars”, “Farmville” and “Fish World” — to name a few. These are cooperative games, so if I do something in my game, I can offer a “bonus” to all my friends on Facebook who also play. This creates an altruistic incentive for me to do things like announce my recent Artichoke victory. The other people who play the game can get points because of it.

Facebook games are funny things. They’re pretty simple to play. The way you “win” is by checking in on them regularly. They’re also highly interactive. For example, in Farmville you visit your friend’s farms (you can see what they’re doing with them) and help out in some way. You’d think this would be entirely the purview of time-wasting losers like me, but I’m continually surprised and amused by just who plays and how seriously.

You have three choices when your Facebook friends keep announcing they’ve found Lost Kittens. First, you could join the game. Why not? You don’t have work to do anyway. Second, if you choose not to join the game, the appropriate thing to do is politely ignore the posts and pretend you don’t notice that your friend just posted about finding a lost moose on a rollercoaster. Third, if you find them annoying (and who can blame you if you do), you can block all similar content by hovering over the offending post. A drop down will appear on the right and pick “Block Farmville” (or whatever is driving you nuts).

No more cats

2) Friend regret
So someone you vaguely remember from High School asked to be your friend. You thought she was nice enough 15 years ago. But once you friended her, you discovered that she keeps posting about Artichokes, church events, and linking to her boring blog. You don’t want to offend her by “un-friending” her, but you also really don’t care about the Advent Workshop (November 22nd after church! We’ll be making Advent Wreathes!). If you look at the image above, you can see that there is a “Hide (Name)” option. The person in question won’t know that you are “hiding” them, and you can still check on their wall if you want to talk to them about something or see what they’ve been up to.

3) Have you forgotten that I live across the country/will be taking care of our kids while you go this event?
Yesterday I sent out an invite to Prayer at the Close of Day tomorrow. My husband made a growly noise because since I will be there, he can’t be. My mom pointed out she lives 3000 miles away. But often times if you belong to a group (like our church group), invitations will go to all group members. I didn’t actually pick each and every person and send the invitation to them.

If you find Facebook is sending you too many emails (or not enough!) Facebook has very granular settings for controlling emails. Click on the “settings” link in the upper right hand corner when you are logged in. The third tab in controls notifications. Scroll through and make choices appropriate for how you want to be contacted:

More details than you ever wanted

Hopefully these will help you enjoy Facebook more. If you have any additional questions on how it works, please feel free to let me know!

The power of the internet compels you

Dear Internets,

I need help. I’m pretty sure what I’m trying to do is easy-peasy if you know how. I do not know how.

Here’s the sitch:

1) Our church has a good sound system, done in the last 5 years, connecting the microphone and speakers
2) I want to connect a device to that sound system to record the sermons
3) I suspect my 120 gig iPod would do the trick nicely
4) I don’t know how to hook the iPod up to the system

Am I right? If I have a cable/doohickey can I just plug my iPod into some sort of “line out”, press play at the beginning of the service, and then download audio off the iPod when I get home? Advice, please!

–Me

My choice of media

I’d like to start out by saying that I am clear that I’m the weird one here. Everyone else SEEMS to be in line, and I’m the one who just doesn’t fit in.

That said, I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND why people like depressing media. For example, through a miracle of babysitting, my husband and I got to go see “Where the Wild Things Are” on Friday night. (I would post a spoiler warning, but sheesh. If you haven’t read the book, which spoils the plot, then go get it right now!) The movie is sad and depressing, and does not cease to be sad and depressing. You have a lonely kid, an all-too-human and overstretched mom, a teenage sister in a loving but rather grim world. Then you get taken to a fantasy world where …. things are just as bad. In fact, bad enough to make the real world where people break your igloos and your sister ignores your pain and your mom is dating some guy seem much better than your fantasy world. So we conclude feeling just as crappy as we started. Actually crappier — I was in a good mood going in. But hey, it was visually lovely.

It’s a box office hit.

Why?

I get it: other people really like reading books and watching movies that make them feel horrid. I know I’m the weird one because I don’t. I just fail to fathom what about it feels good and makes you want more?

See, I understand WHY it is important to tell and hear stories about real things that are awful. I will sit down and read about the holocaust to understand how humans can be so brutal to each other and work to prevent it. I understand why it’s important that we know and see that humanity is capable of great evil. I listen to the news, even when I’d rather never heard again how some person strapped in a bomb-vest blew themselves up in a crowded marketplace full of sons and mothers and beloved uncles. But I turn on the news anyway and look at the world as it is, to the best of my abilities.

I do it with the same amount of joy and enjoyment that I have for dental hygiene, without the sparkly teeth afterwards. I do it because it is important and necessary and part of being a good citizen. I do not enjoy a minute of it.

So why on earth would I choose to watch movies that inspire the same sense of impossible despair? Why would I want to read books where people are horrible to each other and hurt each other and terrible things happen and at the end of the book, it’s still horrible and no one has learned and the sun will die someday? Why do people spend so much time imagining ways that we could be awful to each other that don’t really exist? What about this is satisfying? I read those books, and am usually glad I have, but I never desire to read them again.

It makes it very difficult for me to find media that suits. It’s hard to explain to friends. I often sum it up by saying that I don’t like violence. (I nearly vomited at the Serenity movie — I actually left shaking and crying.) But that’s not actually it. I’ll get through violence (as long as the folks writing it/showing it don’t seem to enjoy it too much) to get to redemption, learning and hope. I found Firefly generally fantastic. The body count in the Lord of the Rings is high, but so is the hope-count. One of my favorite books of the last decade, “The Curse of Chalion” by Bujold starts with a beaten, broken man who has experienced utter betrayal. But it ends up with redemption, healing, hope, love and victory. There are very bad things in it, but the people who ENJOY doing horrible things to other people are a minority, and they get theirs in the end.

I guess I feel that the world is sufficiently grim without imagining more worse things in it than actually exist. I choose to spend my imaginative time on seeing the world as, perhaps, a better place than it is, and humanity as generally loving and redeemable.

If you love those kind of movies or books I’m talking about — the dark depressing ones where it all seems futile — can you please explain to me why? What it does for you that makes you want to come back?

Happy birthday Frodo and Bilbo Baggins

Roads go ever, ever on

Today is the day that ought to have been my birthday, by all rights. Today is the first day of fall. More importantly, to my young self, today is Frodo and Bilbo Baggin’s collective birthday. Do you have any idea how much it would’ve mattered to me to be the SAME as those two notable halflings in such an important event? I used to try to work out with the time zones and Zaire (my place of birth) whether I had REALLY been born on the 22nd and this incontrovertible FACT was masked by my impossibly-distant place of birth. Or maybe bad record keeping. Or SOMETHING.

Of course now, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t have minded. I was three weeks later than expected. My due date was Labor Day. I used to think this just meant my mom was bad at counting, until I myself went a verifiable two weeks late with Grey. Sorry about that, mom.

Frodo, Fall and I all twine together for a brief period this time of year. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings, this birthday on September 22nd is a critical milestone throughout the books. It’s during a grand birthday that Bilbo disappears in a puff of smoke from Hobbiton. Years later, on that birthday, Frodo grabs his walking stick and three best friends and heads off on desperate, epic quests that make dragons look like child’s play.

Um, it’s possible that these books were just a TOUCH influential on my growing self, ok?

But this time of year brings out the itching in my feet, too. My drive in apparently got the memo about it being the first day of fall. The low places – the mist-covered swamps by the sides of the freeway – have already put out their scarlet and vermilion banners, in anticipation of hordes of tourists coming to admire. The trees are heavy with their fruits. Apples and pears weigh heavily on pregnant limbs, hoping for eventual homes in pies and pastries. The boundaries of my mind get less definite, and I’m mindful of Bilbo’s warning: the road in front of your door connects to all other places in the world. Who knows, by stepping on it, where you will end up?

I admit to inflicting Tolkien on my son at the youngest possible opportunity. His fourth birthday is still eagerly anticipated, but already you can hear him sing, if you listen carefully:

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said
The chances the changes are all yours to make
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

The greatest adventure is there if you are bold
Let go of the moment that life makes you hold
To measure the meaning can make you delay
It’s time you stop thinking and wasting the day.

Placebo effect

The snot-plague is lingering, watching, just outside my peripheral vision. While Grey seems pretty ok (apparently he was fine yesterday – I overreacted. It’s hard to gauge when your kid throws up at the drop of a hat), Adam is not. No, he has a very sore throat. With white spots. And a fever. Alex, I’ll take “Strep Throat” for $200, please. He sees the doctor today.

But Thane is snotty and coughing. Grey is snotty and coughing. I… well, my throat just started hurting. Hmmmmm….

Now this is important. If you think taking Vitamin C, or Cold-eez, or Airborne is effective for helping prevent or diminish a cold, STOP READING NOW. Just stop.

Have you stopped? Good.

Anyway, the plague afflicting my house got me thinking about an article I read recently. Right here:
Placebos are Getting More Effective. Go read it. I’ll wait.

It’s a great discussion on how the positive effects of placebos are getting bigger — really significant!

I really, really wish that I could have a placebo right about now. Just one problem, of course. I’m too skeptical/over-educated to get one. I’m pretty sure that those cold prevention items: Airborne, Vitamin C, Cold-eez (although maybe NOT zicam) are placebos. Which is to say that if they’re your thing and you trust ‘em, they’re actually very effective against the cold. Quite possibly, they’re the most effective thing we HAVE against that wily virus. And I can’t take them, because I really don’t believe they’re effective except as a placebo. Which, I’m pretty sure, means that the placebo effect will be at best muted and at worst non-existent.

Wouldn’t it be great – and true! – if they actually sold a pill that was a well-marketed, universal placebo? One that was shown to reduce colds and flu by XXX%. FDA approved. Look it up on the internet and check out the active ingredients. Basically, a big ol’ benevolent scam so that people like me could take a placebo and not know it was a placebo. That got me to wondering how I would know that exists if it already does. And that got me thinking about the cold remedies that have been all the rage lately. What are they if not well-marketed placebos? Right. Well done, self. Way to talk yourself out of a whole therapy option.

Well, I totally plan on using the placebo effect for the gullible young people in my control. They’re actually not bothered by much, but if a sick day ensues I’m sure a few of these here pills (Pez) will fix it right up. Trouble sleeping? Here’s a nice glass of milk that has been scientifically proven to assist in sleep! And thanks to big pharma, I won’t be telling my sons lies. I’ll be telling them truths made so by their own minds.

I’m also planning on doing a complete cease and desist on expressing skepticism about anyone’s little wacky remedies. You think that what you’re doing makes you feel better and makes you healthier? You’re right. It does. Glad you’ve found something that works so well for you!

What wondrous things our bodies are!

(Hmmmm I wonder if the semi-magical aura I’ve applied to coffee counts. Darn it! Stop thinking about it! Ooooooohmmmmm…. coffffeeeee……. oooooooohhhhmmmmm)

Cloud change

This will look so outdated

I am here to tell you that the second age of personal computing is over, and the third has begun. This week, we bought a netbook. (Pauses for gasping intakes of breath!) (Is disappointed by heckler in the imaginary crowd shouting out “So what?!”)

“So glad you asked. Let me explain.”

My family got our first personal computer in 1982 or 1983. I was four. Mom and dad took the plunge in a very financially hard time, I believe because it was good for dad professionally. Also because my father is the earliest of early adapters (let us discuss the LD player, shall we?). That was the first breaker of the first wave of personal computing. That computer had a word processor (was it Wordstar 2000?). It booted from a 5 1/4 floppy. It hooked up to an electric typewriter as a printer. (We called them Doc and Olive — Olive was an Olivetti whose usefulness far outlasted Doc’s.) I remember a banner spelling out my name in huge letters, with each letter made up of smaller letters. We got this computer before I could read.

That first wave of personal computing involved dumb machines. There were no connections to anything. Files were moved (rarely) by floppy disk. Computer games were played by yourself at the computer. This went from 1982 until, in my world, 1995.

In 1995 we got a modem and AOL. It was a long distance call. I got an hour a week. I would carefully craft a bunch of emails, connect, send them out and get new ones in, and then spend the rest of my time in (relatively tame) AOL chatrooms. All this was still done on the big tower computers that dominated backrooms and offices — nests of cables slung heavy against dusty backboards.

This second age of computing — the connected but dedicated machine — is the one now passing.

We have an office. We’ve had an office since we first got married. This office has always had two big computers. (We share our finances completely, but we DEFINITELY have his and hers computers!) One of the computers always has a big monitor, a cutting-edge (read: extremely costly) video card and a lot of processing power. The other had these things five years ago (that would be mine). Lately, though, we haven’t been spending a lot of time in the office. It’s ALL THE WAY UPSTAIRS. It’s also not a very kid-friendly room. While Grey is entertained on his own computer (err… what?) Thane thinks the room is delicious. It is not a Thane-ok room. So the upshot is that when we go upstairs, it’s usually late at night and when we feel like hiding.

This poses lots of problems. There are now a bunch of things we can’t do without internet access. “What are we doing this weekend?” “Where is the party?” “Just what does ‘Onogaeshi imasu’ mean anyway?” “What can you do with kohlrabi?” These are all questions that we reflexively turn to the internet to answer. Google docs has most of our documents. Picasa has most of our pictures. Google calendar has the master data about our schedule. Gmail usually has several things in it that require action. Mapping is online. We do not have an encyclopedia set. So either we tromp upstairs, we wait, or sometimes we’ve brought our work laptops home.

Enter the netbook. It’s small. It’s light. It’s portable. It was relatively inexpensive. (If it gets damaged, we will be sad but not devastated.) It connects to that great googly cloud of information we need. It can run games. It has more hard drive space than my current tower.

I have a sneaking suspicion we will never buy another tower. Their day is over. We’re both programmers. But you know what? Both of our work computers are LAPTOPS. My laptop has enough power to run Eclipse and Flexbuilder and Coldfusion server and SQL Server Management Studio and WinCVS simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It’s not even specially tricked out — it’s the same laptop specs that our business folks have. Why would I want an immobile tower? I’ll turn our office into a peaceful craft space — a real retreat. Maybe I’ll even get an armchair for reading up there. I’ll banish the cables.

There was really only one reason we were hanging on as long as we did: gaming. My husband likes to play video games. But the video card on his last computer cost, I think, $600. The monitor wasn’t cheap, either. If our only reason to do this is games, we could probably buy TWO game consoles for what buffing up his computer cost.

Thus begins the third age of computing. This age will be small and mobile. Many devices will be able to access that part of the cloud they need. Instead of one big device intended to serve all purposes, we’ll have many smaller application-specific devices. We won’t have “my computer”. We’ll have the netbook, the laptop, the gaming console (which, if we aren’t there already, will handle your MMORPG too), the phone (which, God willing, will have our calendars and to-do lists on it). Many of our devices will do more than one of these. The netbook, for example, has a built in webcam and does Skype far better than the hard-to-reach upstairs tower.

Have you made the switch from the second to the third age? Do you see it coming? Is there a compelling reason for that tower that I’m not seeing? What do you think?

The last scion of a great house

My state lost its senator this morning. You might have heard. I believe there were a few glancing mentions in a news organization or two.

I live in Massachusetts. I have lived in Massachusetts for 9 years now. But I’ll likely never be a Massachussan. I speak with an indistinguishable accent. (My husband and I were raised 12,000 miles or so apart. We have the same generic American accent.) I drink Starbucks, not Dunkin’ Donuts. Growing up, I thought the mob was about as real a threat as Bigfoot and the Windigo. I arrived when the Big Dig was a fait accomplis. I never expected to live here so long. I vote regularly in both local and state elections, but I feel a bit like an outsider looking in. I must’ve voted for Ted Kennedy, but I don’t remember doing so. To me, he was a politician with a national profile who had a bunch of good ideas and plenty of prior personal issues. The name Kennedy is no magic to me.

Some of the politicians in our commonwealth seem to be more like me, or at least less like the old-New England types. For example, our governor Deval Patrick has no accent and has lived in places outside “the hub”. I’m quite fond of my current state representative Jason Lewis, who is local enough to have spent five minutes selling his candidacy to me 1 on 1 and seems (in the local parlance) wicked smaht. I can connect with the Harvard/BU/Tufts folk who, like me, came to New England for college and stayed for the jobs.

But there’s the other Massachusetts – the thick accent, old boy, Irish-Catholic Massachusetts. For example, I can’t for the life of me figure out why Boston accepts a mayor who can barely string together a coherent sentence. Mayor Menino is an excellent example of this kind of New England politician. His power base is built on unions and knowing everyone, as far as I can tell. And for all this stumps me, it appears to be a very strong power base (although thank heavens he has real challengers this year – more power to them).

A friend of mine told a story about running for city council many years ago in Boston. Some of the “good ol’ boys” took her aside told her to be a good girl and not upset the boat. They told her that she had no chance and mentioned that friends of theirs ran the polling stations. Were there actually polling irregularities? Who knows. But the “interlopers not welcome” ethos behind her story rang very true. There seem to be areas of politics that are reserved for the third generation and connected.

Now, I am no better than a casual observer of local politics. It’s entirely possible that my perceptions are out of date and untrue. But I find myself wondering which side of this divide our new senator will come from. I worry that the choice of who we’ll get to vote for will be made in a smoky room filled with men from large families. I worry that the Democratic candidate offered to us will be the one whose “turn” it is. A special election does not have a primary. There is very, very, very little chance that Massachusetts will send a Republican to DC instead of that critical 60th Democrat.

I wish that Teddy Kennedy, who had plenty of time to think about his last days, had resigned in such a way that we could have found his successor in a more orderly fashion. I am glad that he didn’t name an heir, but I’m concerned that the decision will not be one that I, or ten-year outsiders like me, will have much to say in.

Edward Kennedy was the last scion of a great family. But in America, power is not intended to be inherited, father to son, or brother to brother. I hope that the Senator who next represents our Commonwealth will be a person of great intelligence, persuasion and integrity, and will somehow manage to represent ALL the Commonwealth. And I hope they will have earned the post on their own merits.

Blown Save

Last night was a perfect night for baseball. It had been hot during the day, but cooled as the sun touched down over the Coke sign as we arrived at Fenway Park. There was a sultry, warm-beer-and-humidity haze to the air, as is appropriate in July. A half moon went through shimmering colors as it rose just above the horizon and fell again. And I was in the bleacher seats, hands sticky with Cracker Jacks, watching the action unfold between attempts at the wave, the constant “I believe you’re in my seat” refrain, and Adventures With Beach Balls.

Fenway Girl

For 8 innings I thoroughly enjoyed myself, with my husband by my side keeping me company. Then, the 9th inning, a blown save, a bunch of errors, and a game suddenly tied at 10:30 at night. We stayed through the 10th, but as the night got later and the algorithm for getting home got worse, I had to weigh my conviction that Thou Shalt Not Leave A Game Until It Is Over with the reality that somewhere between 5:30 and 7 am, one or both my husband and I would need to get up to tend to small people. We left after the bottom of the 10th, missing nothing I wanted to watch.

For the record, small people opted for 5:30.

Watching the game was mostly awesome. I really enjoy baseball. I really like getting to watch it live. We even had a babysitter in the person of my brother. My text-message-baseball-buddy was accommodating in making sure I knew why ‘Tek wasn’t playing and that Buehrle was setting a record for consecutive batters retired.

It also made me wistful. When you add another child to your life, for sure, something has to go away. The difference between having one son and having two has pushed a lot of the things I enjoyed off the cliff – my fingers sore from clinging to them so hard. One of those was baseball. In 2003 or 2004, on your average day I could tell you what time the game was, against which team, where we were in the standings, who the starting pitcher was and what the starting lineup was likely to be. I’d be able to handicap our chances against that night’s opponents and I’d have a strong opinion on the most recent trade.

Right now I catch headlines on what’s going on: Diasuke is taking the mantle of team snob from Manny, ‘Tek is beaten up and blaming Beckett, Papelbon is no longer automatic, shortstop is a problem position … but I can’t tell you how the Rays are doing without looking it up. Some of the names in the lineup are unfamiliar. I’m not quite sure where we are in the standings.

I just haven’t had the time or attention to pay to something I have loved. There is a wistfulness that comes from briefly touching on an activity that once consumed you to a greater degree. It’s like going out for a friendly “how ya doing?” cup of coffee with an ex-boyfriend you once loved passionately.

I can hope that this is just a breather in a long and ardent baseball relationship. I can hope to use my wiles to convince one or more of my sons that they really really love baseball and that we should listen to it on the radio alla time. I can hope that this, and other beloved pasttimes pushed off the same cliff of need, will return to me renewed for their fallow time. But right now? I miss my hobbies.

OK, I miss my hobbies more when they're not breaking my heart

This post brought to you by Starbucks Coffee

There’s a huge debate going on right now about Mommy Bloggers (a literary genre if ever there was one) and product placement. To sum up: lots of people read Mommy Blogs. These blogs are about daily living. If the blogs mention useful products in daily living, lots of people are introduced to the products in a positive, authentic way. This is hard to do in conventional media. Advertisers have figured this out, and started sending free products (and more!) to the mommy bloggers. Readers of Mommy Bloggers now get suspicious every time a brand name product is mentioned.

I’m personally suspicious that Amalah is on the payroll of Pactiv Corporation, a manufacturer of fine airplane plastic cups; a company clearly looking to branch out into a toy division.

It’s all just another salvo in the war between those who want to sell things and those who want to use their money for fripperies like college tuition and retirement.

I should mention, for the record, that this blog is no way supported by the “Blogola” industry. Accusations that I’m on the payroll of the Miss Wakefield Diner, White Lake State Park or Starbucks Coffee Company are entirely slanderous and I vehemently deny any such thing. Sadly.

Dear Starbucks,

Please consider sponsoring my blog. I have been praising you to the skies for, uh, about 15 years now. I drink your coffee every day. I mention that I’m drinking your coffee in every other Facebook update. If you send me a pound of Sumatra (ground for a flat bottom drip) and a coupon worth two mochas (Grande, two pump, non-fat, extra hot no whip mocha) a week, plus an allowance for one travel mug every two months, I’m you’re woman.

You should definitely consider my blog an amazing opportunity for you. I have a readership of roughly 5 unique hits a day, three of whom are related to me. Sadly, my mother and husband do not drink coffee, but maybe reading about it all the time in my blog will wear them down. My blog traffic has been steadily growing. In 6 months I’ve gone from an average of two a day to six a day! That means by retirement age I should have a readership of at least 30 a day. You can’t pass up numbers like that!

Really, think about it. I’ll be over here drinking Starbucks brand coffee while you do.

–Me

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