Now THIS is what I call sports

The final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee is this week. You can keep your Laker playoffs, your NFL draft picks and your Dodger bobbleheads. There is no finer sport than the all-American spelling bee (although heavy weight boxing is a close second).

Call me a dork but I've kept a list of some of the most random words that I've heard from past competitions. I often fantasize about using them at a fancy dinner party or even a family event (ideally when I'm upset at my father and then I can trounce him by using a word he can't even repeat). Here are some interesting ones:

Minuend
Chaffinch
Urceolate
Quodlibet

I don't have a competitor whom I root for in particular, but if I see a Latino contender I get excited. Happy that there is diversity in this sport but I'd love it if someone besides an Indian or Asian kid would win.

Does that make me too doctrinaire?

Stop growing baby!

Yesterday was a cause for tears as I bundled up several sets of onesies and bodysuits that Magnus no longer fits. He was standing next to me wearing only a diaper and I can see he is on the cusp of becoming a little boy. The baby flab is gone from his face and his legs are longer and slimmer now. I bit my lip and my eyes welled up with tears. Where the heck has the time gone? I just want to package him in bubblewrap and keep him as my baby forever. (Well, 20 years anyway).

Better get chugging on making another one.

Slightly better than castor oil?

I am taking an inventory of my diet and flaxseed oil has piqued my interest. For some reason, the mere name conjures up images of screaming young children being force-fed castor oil. Clearly I am projecting childhood insecurities on this poor derivative.

Consider the range of ills that flaxseed oil can help: sprains, high blood pressure, bruises, clots, asthma, psoriasis and dandruff.

Some researchers believe flaxseed oil can also help reduce cancer.

Can it help get me pregnant? Now that would be the clincher.

I Love me the Bookstore

I swear, nothing can get me giddy like walking into a bookstore (although a shoe store is a close second). On Sunday we went to Barnes & Noble so I could pick up "The Reader," as threatened in a previous post. I also was curious to see if Magnus would sit still for the children's book hour that they feature. Not so much. That boy loves to run and topple things over.

So of course I couldn't buy just one thing and ended up walking up and down every aisle. I spent the most time in the literature section gazing over all of the titles, analyzing the book covers. It took forever to decide on another novel. Finally, after much agonizing, I selected "Slowness" by Milan Kundera. One, he is one of my favorite writers, and two, I hadn't read any new works by him in at least four years. (Unless he went on hiatus and just stopped writing for a while...). Plus, Kundera is so great about how he structures chapters. They are generally never more than a page long, so you can read ten chapters in five minutes and feel like you have done something with your life.

I noticed a heckuva lot of fat people at the bookstore. Not the "you need to lose 40 pounds" kind of fat, but the kind where they were driving those little motorized carts to get around. For the first time in a long time, I felt skinny. Hmmm. May need to hang out there more.

Billy Bob Thornton: Ne'er Do Gooder

Most people, when they think about Billy Bob Thornton, probably think about how convincing he was in "Sling Blade" or what a creep he was in "Bad Santa." When I think about Billy Bob, I think about all the actors who died after they starred in a movie with him. They include:

John Ritter: Sling Blade, Bad Santa

Heath Ledger: Monster's Ball

Bernie Mac: Bad Santa

Charlton Heston: The Apostle

Billy Bob also kills the ladies, romantically. He is rumored to have dumped one wife for Laura Dern. They became engaged and then he dumped her for Angelia Jolie. He married Angelina Jolie but had sex with a therapist, which ended their marriage.

I am not sure what his next movie is, or who is in it, but the poor actors oughta beware.

You Suck!!!

So it's the Friday before a three-day weekend and the Company has declared that it is business as usual, aka, no leaving early.

Allow me to define: leaving early in our nonprofit parlance would be 3:00. Not noon. Not 12:30. Three o'clock. I'm talking walking out of this building two hours ahead of when we would normally leave.

Many of us work really long hours, sometimes weekends, and we are never allowed to get that time back. Comp time doesn't exist. You will show up and work like a slave and YOU WILL LIKE IT!!

I'm so unnerved. I think I may need to fake an embolism and hobble out of here early.

Like 4:30.

Yeah, I'm Rocking It

I am cranking 80s tunes on my computer and I don't even care that people are walking around covering their ears.

the old library

By some coincidence on Tuesday I found myself near the library where my mother took me every summer when I was growing up. I was pulling round the corner and the familiar yellow and gray building emerged to greet me like an old friend. But I was soon sad to see that a chain link fence bordered it and the grass had grown into tall weeds. The lovely neighborhood library where I discovered Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemmingway and Louisa May Alcott was gone.

Of course, there is a nicer and more modern library near our house which I have yet to visit. I just really love the old haunt. It was on a busy corner so there was always the buzz of traffic, pedetrians and car horns; walking in, you felt like you were retreating into another world. And that old leathery book smell, you could sense it before you actually pushed open the front door. There were high windows and in the afternoon, the sun made slats of light across the floor that warmed your skin. I remember vividly that some of books I loved, especially Paul Zindel's, were stashed in tall red racks that creaked loudly when you turned them. I always expected an annoyed look or the classic "shush" but it never came.

What will become of the old library? I wonder if the books I read found their way to the new location, or if they ended up discarded because they were already so old and falling apart when I first touched them. I wonder if the building will be torn down or turned into some symbol of modern life, like the ubiquitous juice bar. I long for that old feeling of leaving the world behind and running into the enveloping arms of authors and books. That's not something a Jambajuice or Starbucks can give me.

Yo go, Emma Thompson!

I have been an atheist for the better part of 15 years. Looking back on it I think I started out agnostic and atheism was a gradual evolution. Religion did not play a role in my upbringing, which is ironic given that my father hails from Iran and my mother from Mexico & both came from families with a good amount of religious overtones. We had the Christmas tree every year and ran around looking for Easter eggs but it was always about celebrating family vs a religious tradition.

It can be an alienating experience when you're asked about your faith and you tell people that you believe there is no supreme deity, no heaven or hell. I get perplexed stares. I suspect people want to believe that I'm rebelling against a strict religious upbringing. When I tell them I was never baptized and never attended church (minus going to weddings, funerals, and the couple of times when my mother probably felt guilty for raising a sinner and dragged me to a service), they simply can't believe it. "Are you sure?" a friend of a family member once asked. Um, pretty sure, yah.

I've learned to mind my tongue when people talk about their most recent church outing or baptizing their baby or their annual trek to the synagogue. I don't say anything when colleagues write passages from the Bible and post them in the kitchen or worse, in the bathroom stalls. I am not the slighest bit curious about their faith, nor am I keen to turn around and pitch them on the glory of atheism. Just tone down all the fervor so I can nuke my bagel in peace, please.

So I was super excited when I came across an interview that Emma Thompson did and the subject of religion came up. She is not only an atheist, she is anti-religioius, which takes it to the step I always tacitly avoid. She remarked, "I'm an atheist; I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an, and I refute them."

Preach it, girl! : )

uh oh, yo

There is a new season of the "Real Housewives" series, with which I have a love/hate relationship. Love to watch the series when I'm tired or have had a rough day and need something superficial to wind down. I loathe everything else about it. What does it say about our culture that each week, we watch these Botox-filled bimbos whine and complain that so-and-so was rude at the gala and hurt their feelings? What does it say about our society that their catfights make national news? What does it say about me that I actually know their names?

So the new spin-off is the housewives of New Jersey. Are you effing kidding me? I wanna watch Big Hair gossip with Big Hair who fights with another Big Hair? I wanna watch fat children and even fatter husbands at the golf course, wearing ugly shirts and yelling "yo?"

Eff yah!

Lorca, Lorca, Lorca

Another of my all-time favorite poems from Federico G-L:

Gacela of Unforseen Love

Nobody understood the perfume of the dark magnolia of your womb.
Nobody knew that you tormented a hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand persian ponies fell asleep in the moonlit plaza of your forehead,
while through four nights I embraced your waist, enemy of the snow.

Between plaster and jasmine, your glance was a pale branch of seeds.

I sought in my heart to give you the ivory letters that say always, always, always: garden of my agony, your body elusive always, the blood of your veins in my mouth, your mouth already lightless for my death.

Ode to thee, 110 Pasadena Freeway

I must have traveled the 110 Northbound 5,000 times. I can only recall sitting in traffic once, when a fender bender slowed everyone's car to a crawl. Yesterday, I left the LA office to head to campus and was once again enthralled. Hardly a car on the road at NOON?

I think this strip of freeway is the ninth wonder of the world.

Damn you Def Leppard

For the record, I am not a fan of Def Leppard. Growing up, my friend Halleh was a total fanatic. She had a huge crush on the guitarist with the curly hair. I thought she was a fool. To me, there was no band on the planet more awesome than Duran Duran. I owned all their albums, plastered my walls with their photos from Teen Beat and, at age 12, was hard at work designing the dress for my wedding to John Taylor, the bass player.

This morning, the radio was determined to play every crappy song known to man. I was antsy and didn't really want to hear about the surge in Afghanistan on NPR, so I resolved to make the best of it and try to find songs that wouldn't make me drive headfirst into the median.

After flipping the stations to avoid Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield," some horrid Kelly Clarkson number and "The Land Down Under" from Men at Work (no shit), I settled on Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me." The song was halfway done, so I figured the agony would soon be over and Halleh would be proud that I was mature enough now to hear their music.

I've never really listened to the lyrics of the song, or any Def Leppard song for that matter, but for some reason I found myself paying close attention. I was getting onto my exit when the singer wailed:

"You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste, saccharine
Cause I'm hot, say what, sticky sweet
From my head, my head to my feet..."

I started to crack up and then old Joe hit me with it:

"DO YOU TAKE SUGAR?
ONE LUMP OR TWO????!"

OMG, one lump or two??? For real? I burst into peals of laughter and forgot that the exit has a sharp turn. After stopping to gasp for air I realized a truck was stopped dead in front of me. I hit the brakes with all my might and shrieked to a stop. The driver glowered and gave me the stink eye from his rearview.

I knew there was a reason I hated this band.

I don't do mini-series

For being such loyal customers, DirecTV has given J and I three months of free movie channels. I have no idea what the channels are or where they are located on the dial. By magic, I flip on the tube and they appear.

So one of the channels is airing the "Tudors" series. I have heard great reviews about it, and it's certainly interesting historical stuff, but after a long day's work and chasing the baby through the house, I just can't do a mini-series. I want to watch a two hour movie, subtitled or otherwise, and go to bed. Same thing with the John Adams series. J actually added it to our Netflix queue and I was horrified. "We're going to watch an effing eight hour mini-series about men in wigs? When do we get our lives back?"

I can't explain why I fear the mini-series. After all, I still devote time to watching a film. Perhaps it's the sheer amount of time that you have to invest from beginning to end. Either that or deep down, I feel that no mini-series can ever match the power of what is truly the greatest TV saga of all time, "The Thorn Birds."

Now, if that was running on Lifetime or WE, I'd be there in a second...

Aiming to read The Reader

Having a baby means J and I only see films via Netflix. Occasionally we will set up a date three months in advance if a film is opening that we really want to see, like "The Dark Knight." But that is a rare occasion.

This weekend we managed to catch up on our Netflix pile, which was starting to look like a stack of drink coasters. Finally got to see "The Reader." That damn Hannah is now stuck in my brain like an unwelcome obsession. Why was she more ashamed of being illiterate than being a Nazi prison camp guard? And all the showering? Now I find myself wanting to see photos of the various camps, so during lunch I peruse Wikipedia and Google and look for links. I feel compelled but I don't know why.

Concurrently I am reading "War Against the Weak," a historical account of America's eugenics movement and its aim to create a master race.

See a theme here? I think a trip to Border's is in store for this weekend. Must pick up The Reader and try to understand Miss Hannah more.

The Perfect Mother's Day

How sweet and thoughtful is J? Sunday, he packs up Magnus and I and whisks us off to the Long Beach Aquarium for some fish/moon jelly/shark/etc watching. Aquariums are some of my favorite places to visit so I was psyched. It was overcast but perfect weather for this kind of trip. Magnus insisted on walking near the exhibits so we plopped him down and he toddled for about three feet before being run over by a chunky Latina toddler (whose nickname, ironically, was Tiny. "Tiny!" her mother called out before it was too late. "Tiny, watch out for the BABY!")

We were soon ravished looking at all the brightly colored fish and drove to our favorite sushi spot in Playa which was unusually crammed. There was a couple next to us who were arguing but very diplomatically. The woman, with long Rapunzel-like hair, would lean in to her b-friend and hiss, "I don't LIKE when you talk to me like that." He would take sip of beer and then say softly, "I think, like, you are too sensitive about this. I am totally not giving you tone at all."

Magnus definitely likes girls. He turned around in his high chair to mac with the Asian waitress. She batted her eyelashes back at him and he cracked a huge grin, proudly displaying his seven teeth.

We came home and J tidied up the whole house, did the laundry and let me nap. I cooked a nice little dinner, Thai lettuce cups, we had a glass of champagne. The sun shone through the living room doors as we ate and laughed and all I kept thinking was perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.

I'll admit it

Anytime Steel Magnolias is on DirecTV, I will plop down and watch it.

If I had to choose

Three historical figures to invite over to dinner I think it would have to be:

Fidel Castro

Max Robbespierre (I would grill him about why he started out with such noble democratic ideals and good intent and threw it all away to be another jerky dictator)

Sylvia Plath (lots of ground to cover, she would probably stay well into the wee hours of the morning)

Lots of beer for this soiree.

Let's stay out of it, shall we?

I've been advised by some colleagues that a certain individual who likes to cut into our conversations and offer stupid and unsolicited opinions also makes the most inappropriate comments. She asked someone who has a handicapped sticker on her car what was wrong with her (during a meeting with her clients, no less.) You get the gist.

So I shouldn't have been all that surprised when this person asked me in front of half a dozen people how J and I are doing with making baby #2. How does she even know this is going on? Does she have a line on some new tea or position I don't know about? I think my look said it all and she kind of back-peddled: "Oh, uh, I guess, ha, that's none of my business, right? Doh, right?"

Riiiight.

an ethical dilemma

I hate the sound of Rachael Ray's voice but I have to say her recipes have often saved my (working mum's) ass. The one I am eyeballing has such a stupid name:

Mushroom minestronganoff (a genetic fusing of stronganoff and minestrone).

Why, why, why? It's about as inane as "stoup."

I like wine

I have been loving this blended little number. Fresh, round and fruity. I could use some oysters, too.

http://www.winelegacy.com/ItemDetail.aspx?Item_ID=82

Fridays are for Neruda

I've been thinking lately about one of my all-time favorite poems, "No Hay Olvido":

If you should ask me where I've been
I must reply: "It happens."
I must speak of the soil obscured by the stones
Of the river destroyed while still existing.
I only know things birds lose, the ocean left behind, or my weeping sister.

Why are there so many places?
Why does the day follow the night?
Why does the dark night accumulate in the mouth?
Why do the dead exist?

If you should ask me from where I come
I must talk of broken things
Of utensils far too bitter
Of great beasts often destroyed
And of my distressed heart.

Wooosh go the nerves

Now I can draw a breath: everything seems sorted and almost in place. Ditched the car that was breaking down and giving me grief (grief like $3,000), purchased new car that I secretly loved for years (but now notice everyone on the road seems to have!!), got the cat settled in for quickie surgery and have parent-units in place to watch baby while M the Nanny gets her ulcers treated.

AND I managed to elude the swine flu. For now.