D-Day

I spent my junior year of undergrad abroad in Montpellier, France. It was probably one of the more defining years of my life; I feel like it forever changed me. I not only mastered the language (which I have since lost), but I traveled all over Europe, alone and with friends, and my perspective on the world shifted dramatically.

While in Europe, I was obsessed with World War II. Never a historian, while there was I fascinated by the battle scars that still existed in 1994-1995. I felt like I was walking on hallowed ground; there was something there that haunted me.

But what resonates with me years later is the affection many older French people had for Americans--my host family's grandparents, little old people we'd meet in boulangeries, old couples who ran hotels...They repeatedly told stories of handsome and polite American soldiers from WW II who came into their towns and gave them a sense of hope that had been long lost. They had respect for our country and an appreciation for our involvement in the War. And these people where thrilled when they met us, as if we were somehow connected to these young men from decades past.

When I think of my daughter or future son out in the world, as American citizens, I truly hope that the tides will have turned by the time they travel and America will once again somewhat celebrated. I have traveled a great deal since our status has fallen, and defending your citizenship and disassociating yourself with your government certainly feels different from my experiences in France in 94-95.

(I never made it to the beaches of Normandy--my friend Deb and I ran out of money and I wanted to go to Auschwitz in Poland more--but I hope to go one day...)

Veteran's Day & my Grandma

When I was home last September (2007) after having just given birth, my Grandma told me the story of giving birth to her first baby, my mom, three days before D-Day while my Grandpa, who was in the military, was deployed overseas.

My Grandma was alone in the hospital. Estranged from her family and my Grandpa away, she went into the hospital to give birth to my mom by herself. The hospital was incredibly short-staffed because many doctors and nurses had been sent overseas to help tend to the men fighting in the Allied Forces. My Grandma was left alone in a hospital room with a nurse or two who'd check in periodically to see how she was. As my mom crowned, the nurses yelled at my Grandma to "keep the baby in" because the one doctor on staff "was in the middle of surgery and wouldn't be able to deliver the baby now!" So, my poor grandma was asked to do the impossible: hold back that baby that's coming out of you-know-where. Can you imagine?

The doctor arrived, my mom was born, and all was okay (believe it or not), but when I try to envision myself in a similar circumstance I get all twisty and uncomfortable inside. I know that in 1944 a husband would not have been in the delivery room and that natural birth, etc, had yet to have its renaissance, but even after my mom was born, there was my Grandma, alone in the U.S. with her brand new baby.

While the veterans of this country deserve to be celebrated on this day, it's essential to remember that these men and women don't exist as islands in this world. They're connected to families back home, and those families are also "serving" their country in myriad, bizarre ways that we can't even fathom. So today I'm thinking of you, Grandma, and the sacrifices you made for our country by being married to a man who served in the military for a large part of your marriage.

No wonder you're such a tough one!

lol bush

our days to mock George W are limited, but it seems like he's happy to give us fodder up until the last, grizzy moment of his 8 year rule.

click here for more hilarious photos and captions.

China-like ideas...

...that I had today:

Before seeing my family next, I think I'll go to therapy for one whole hour to purge myself of all the issues that have cumulated in the past 34 years! Yes!

No! I think I'll try to lose my last 6 lbs of baby weight by not eating for a whole five minutes! That'll show those love handles who's who, dammit!

On the other hand, maybe I'll run a marathon this weekend since I did run 3 miles this morning....even though I felt like dying the whole time. No worries, it's a great idea! It's totally going to work!

Or, maybe I'll try to clean up dozens of years of rancid air pollution so that Beijing's air quality will be Olympic-worthy by turning off some factories and restricting driving for a few weeks!

Brilliant!

i don't get satire? no, YOU don't get satire, New Yorker editors...

so, what's everyone's opinion about the New Yorker's "satirical" magazine cover? It has created some controversy.

i have listened to a lot of coverage about it on my overly liberal fave radio station NPR, but i have to say that those folks at the magazine are plain and simple elitest assholes. yes, new yorker editor, i understand satire and i get that this cover is satirical. in fact, i think your readership probably gets that not-too-subtle message as well. but, america (and by here i mean the masses) overall is not exactly well-versed in satire. let me explain:

in my high school english classes, i have taught a unit on political satire for the past five years. we read jonathan swift's "a modest proposal" and george orwell's 1984. we read the onion. we watch saturday night live skits and discuss the differences between comedy, parody, and satire. after a whole unit on this, i think most the students get it. but a few do not. understanding satire requires a lot of background knowledge and a decent set of critical thinking skills. if one does not have both of these qualities, that person is going to take something satirical on a literal level.

let me illustrate further: my first year teaching this unit, we decided to create a satirical school paper, a la the onion. students broke into groups to write articles, take polls, and create images/graphs for this said paper. we published it, and we didn't overtly write on the paper "DUDE--THIS IS SATIRE--DO NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY--IT'S A JOKE."

oh, but we should have.

my sweet little class project sparked chaos. non-American teachers get it b/c english wasn't their first language--they were offended. students started fighting b/c they took offense over the articles and polls. one of my best students came into my classroom and WHILE I WAS TALKING to another of my students, punched her square in the temple (have you ever heard anyone's skull rattle? it's not a pleasant sound) over the article this girl wrote which obliquely mentioned her. it was a total disaster. needless to say, i did NOT repeat that project in the following years.

with this in mind, i feel it was irresponsible for the New Yorker to publish such a cartoon, b/c although some of us will get that it's satirical, it will simply serve as fodder to encourage others' already strong (and ludicrous) opinions that obama is a muslim terrorist...even if TOLD that the image was meant to be satire, they're not going to care. they'll use it to justify their views. maybe those folks are hopeless anyways, but i'd like to think that they're not.

i will now descend from my soapbox.

Governor Spitzer and the Ring of Fire

Okay, here's a question for my ladies out there:

If your husband was revealed to have spent $8000 of taxpayer money on repeat rendez-vous with a prostitution ring (and asked the prostitutes to do "unsafe things"), would YOU stand beside him as he apologized to the public and his "family" (never saying "my wife")?

What the eff?

I have made it very clear to Adam that if he were ever found to be involved with a prostitution ring (I think those two words together are just fabulous...like whores playing ring around the rosie together in a big field...) that I would divorce his behind, take him for ALL he's worth, and make sure he had little to no rights to visit the babe quicker than you can say "wire tap, idiot!"

And geez, with NPR doing copious amounts of stories on the HBO series The Wire, who isn't convinced that there is a wire tap on everything and cops taking photographs from every car? As my illustrious upstairs neighbor would say (in threatening notes to me): Spitzer...."Duh!"