Goin' Back to Cali...

Next week we are finally taking Mr. Na to California. I haven't been back since my darling husband whisked me away for my 35th birthday, where my friends threw me a surprise party two years ago. So, needless to say, it's a trip that's long overdue. I'm especially excited that some of my friends will be meeting Mr. Na for the first time.

I'll admit, though, it's gonna be kind of weird toting a kid around in a place where I lived out my suburban teenage angst, and it's not like I'll be able to visit some of my old haunts. But then again, most of my friends also have kids, so we're all in a different place right now in our lives.

So for now, I guess I'll just have to reminisce about some of my favorite watering holes.

My friends and I had a circuit of bars and clubs we frequented, including Boardners, where Mary and I once danced on tables while Slim Jim Phantom (formerly of the Stray Cats) watched from the next booth. Boardners was my neighborhood bar when I lived on Kingsley, above Hollywood Boulevard in 1987. The bartender there had a special concoction called "Lesbian Stewardesses On Mars" and we'd order a pint of it for $10 and it was guaranteed to fuck anyone up.

Long before Swingers, we were regulars at The Dresden Room for martinis and Marty and Elayne, who perform "Muskrat Love" better than the Captain and Tenille. (Elayne does such an amazing and convincing muskrat).

If we were really drunk, we'd go toThe Formosa Cafe, fondly known as "The Toilet". It's just one of those places where you ask yourself, "why did we come here again?"

For an irish coffee nightcap, we'd end up at Tom Bergin's where we once saw Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Philips and Jon Bon Jovi throwing back a few (can you tell which movie they had just made together?)

Since we were creatures of habit, we never quite felt right to deviate from the norm. So we'd try The Cat and the Fiddle (watering hole for every single A&R rep in Hollywood) or The Three of Clubs--but somehow our night would always end early and we'd be left wondering why we dared venture off our tried and true path.

All things change, and that much I've learned -- especially in Los Angeles where nothing is sacred. Even though I won't be bar hopping this trip, I'm looking forward to it in an entirely different way.

Le Freaks Next Door

I really hate our new neighbors.

They moved in last July when our old neighbors, who were actually very nice, decided to move instead of putting in an awful lot of money to add a bathroom upstairs. That's the problem with these old Craftsman bungalows...how a family of four or more manages to survive with one bathroom simply amazes me.

Anyway, when our old neighbors left, they told us that they had put together a little scrapbook about several of our neighbors: things like who has kids, who's single, etc. I thought that was kinda cute. I figured it was a nice ice breaker for the new people and a helpful tool at "pre-introductions".

I'm not the type of person who delivers homemade preserves on my new neighbors' doorstep or anything like that, but I smile and wave to people as I see them. So when I smiled and waved to our new neighbors, the woman simply scowled at me. I thought at first maybe I was mistaken, so I didn't take it personally. I figured, "whatever." It happened again last weekend at Starbucks. I was having coffee with a friend and they sat down at the table next to us. As soon as she saw me, she gave me her death gaze and I was just mortified.

To add insult to injury, the woman works during the day and the man works at night. I now know when the man wakes up (3:00 p.m. or so) because he plays the stereo FULL BLAST, and this is right at the same time Mr. Na goes down for his nap. Thankfully, my kiddo's windows don't face our neighbors' house.

However, this is the same time that I try and write or read. So regardless if I go up to my bedroom, or work in my husband's office or in the den, I can't escape this guy's loud music, and it's agonizing. Right now, he's in a disco groove...so I've heard everything from "You Sexy Thing" to "Freak Out!" and "I Want Your Love". I'm waiting for him to break out his Saturday Night Fever CD and then I'm going to go insane.

There's nothing I can do about this. I mean, it is the middle of the day, so it's not like I can go over there and ask him to turn it down; and honestly, if it was our former neighbors, I wouldn't feel nearly as put out as I am now. But because the woman throws me dirty looks every time I see her, I can't help but think about what horrible people live next to me. There's nothing I can do about the fact that she scowls at me either. I have to remember to give her one of my ultra-cheesy, fake smiles next time she lobs one over my way. "Kill her with kindness," Mr. Na's Pa says. No. I think instead I'll kill her with cheese. And on Monday morning, around 8:45 a.m., I'll be sure and crank up Barney.

The Saga Continues...

Today I learned that, even though the old lady hit my car last week, I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR MY DEDUCTIBLE until her fucking insurance company complies and pays the claim, even though the woman has already admitted guilt.

A witness has already been interviewed by both agencies, saying: "YES, THE OLD BIDDY HIT THIS NICE WOMAN'S BMW WITH HER CLUNKY, OLD TOYOTA CRESSIDA THAT HAS A FUCKING COW CATCHER ON HER FRONT FENDER AND STILL HAS OLD WHITE/GREEN WASHINGTON STATE LICENSE PLATES!" But I guess that doesn't matter.

See, the problem is, her insurance agency, also known as "Good Sam" -- a division of GMAC -- can sit on their asses for 30 days before paying out a claim. They don't have to play nice if they don't want to.

You know, the $250 isn't the issue here--it's the principle of the matter. Why the hell should I fork over the cash?

I'm pissed and secretly plotting revenge. I've already called the nice lady at GMAC who is supposedly working on my claim; but she has yet to return my call. Gee, I wonder why?

Needless to say, the codeine is wearing off and I'm having a hard time writing because I'm just so unnaturally bent right now that I'm ready to snap.

I did, however, finish reading Augusten Burroughs' Magical Thinking and I'm convinced if I use my mind, both the old lady and her insurance company's claims rep will suffer the consequences. I highly recommend the book, by the way. It's good for some page turnin' laughter, I guarantee it.

Time for some more chocolate...

Happy Valentine's Day!

I saw this on Terri the Mama's blog and couldn't resist sharing the love.

Happy Valentine's Day You Worthless Tramp.

The Curse of the Rooster

(Note: this is neither a monkey nor a rooster)


Chinese New Year marked the end of the Year of the Monkey and began the Year of the Rooster. It also marked the day my good fortune ran out and the shit hit the fan.

I really hope that whoever said "things happen in threes" is right; if not, I'm still screwed. I had three nasty things happen to me already, and we're only--what--two days into the new year?

On Wednesday, some old lady decided to plow into my car as she parked hers in the space next to mine, rendering what was left of my rear bumper useless. She took off, too, without leaving any sort of a note.

It wasn't the end of the world--all things considered. Mr. Na and I were out of harm's way, in Safeway. I was also lucky in that a good samaritan came up to me and offered herself as a witness. So, hey, fixing the car won't cost me a dime and my insurance company can hunt down and kill the old lady.

What sucked more was coming home to a crashed hard drive. I have to thank the stars in the universe that my marriage contract includes lifetime technical support. Once my husband pried me off the wall, he assured me he could save my manuscript. The additional problems, including my 3.6 gigabytes of music, 200 photos of Mr. Na (including the ones taken in Ukraine), and ours and my mother's financial files potentially fried forever...well, I suppose life goes on, no? I have only myself to blame for not backing up my files.

Finally--and while I had been dealing with this a few weeks before the Year of the Monkey ended--I had a huge chunk of my left ear removed yesterday and now my husband is calling me Van Gogh, or "Van Goat" to be more precise. (Van Goat is a Baby Einstein character that is currently teaching Mr. Na colors.) I have ten stitches in my heavily-bandaged ear and I'm living on codeine; but thankfully the doctors believe they took all of the melanoma cells so they won't spread to my lymph nodes and kill me. My second biopsy results should leave me "in the clear" next week...at least I hope so (and which is why I hope shit happens in threes). I guess I'm paying dearly for having spent my teenage years in southern California, without putting sunscreen on places like the tops of my ears.

This is going to be a long year, isn't it?

In the pink

So today, I caved in to mass marketing and purchased a new line of Pampers called "Feel 'N Learn". They're "advanced training" diapers designed for children to feel uncomfortable when they go in their diaper. But I've come to realize that diapers for Mr. Na's age set are actually gender specific and I find this little tidbit rather disheartening. The problem is, the diapers for boys are blue and have the Hulk or Spiderman on them, while the diapers for girls are pink and are plastered with one of the most recognizeable children's characters, Dora the Explorer.

Who decided that my child favors The Hulk or Spiderman over Dora the Explorer? And, may I ask, when the hell did my 2.5 year-old son have a chance to watch either superhero? I don't even think the old Hulk or Spiderman cartoons are on the air anymore, yet Dora the Explorer is on five times a day, five days a week on any one of the five channels within the Nickelodeon family.

I can just picture the deciding focus group who informed P&G about what's appropriate for boys and girls: some frigging NASCAR set who are too ashamed to admit their boy likes some girlie cartoon character who speaks Spanish and travels around with a monkey, for God's sake. Pshaw, I say! The girl may not be able to spin webs from her wrists, but she teaches my kid how to say "salta" instead of reinforcing the notion that it's ok to throw a temper tantrum because that's how one turns into a superhero.

I realize that this is all some clever ploy to keep my kids in diapers as long as possible, since that's beneficial to the manufacturer. Mr. Na doesn't care if he pees in his Dora pants (and yes, I got him Dora pants). He barely feels it--and, since it's not soaking his jeans, he'd much rather play with his blocks than tell me he has to go potty. I only got them because we're planning a trip to LA at the end of the month, and I would much rather put him in thinner diapers than have him pee all over himself on the airplane, or take steps backwards from weeks of training and put him back in full-fledged diapers.

So there. Take THAT P&G! And THAT NASCAR people! I'm proud to write that for a limited time only, my son is wearing PINK DORA THE EXPLORER training diapers and he likes it!

So close, and yet so far away...

I wrote an entire chapter for my novel this week. This is a momentous announcement because it's something I haven't done in over a year. 5,044 words and 20 pages is quite an accomplishment for me. The only problem is, when I started writing about liberation, my characters refused to leave the ghetto! So, I'm giving them two weeks to clear out and to help the sick find their way to a Prague hospital before they themselves return to Germany.

I see light at the end of the tunnel. Now, if only my characters would agree.

My husband had a screw loose.

In his head.

Seriously.

But he's all better now.

Back in June, he had jaw surgery to correct his underbite and alleviate his TMJ. I can't help but comment on the fact that in the seven years I've known him, he's had five or six different surgeries; but I digress.

After he extracted a piece of bone from his jaw a few weeks ago (by himself, using the stylis for his phone), he decided to go back to the doctor to make sure nothing else was wrong. Sure enough, they found one of the four screws they used to pin his jaw together, sitting on top of the bone.

So, with Mr. Na in tow, I drove my darling husband to the doctor so that they could extract the screw and he could move on with his life.

I should probably admit the fact that I have a tendency to make my life harder than it actually needs to be. Today was no exception. I've been trying to get Mr. Na completely potty trained and it's been one of the most painful experiences we've had to endure together thus far. Mr. Na is poopie trained, thank God, but he's not yet pee pee trained. And as of late, he's decided that "big potties" scare the living shit out of him and he wants nothing to do with them. You would think I would have just slapped a diaper on his bottom so that I wouldn't have to worry about him peeing in his pants during the two hours we were in the Doctor's office.

But no. I didn't.

Instead, I dressed him in his Thomas the Tank underpants (and clothes on top of that, of course) and grabbed an extra change of clothes, in addition to his three trucks, his sippy cup, a Clif Bar and the six thousand other items I have to carry around whenever we go somewhere.

We had to leave in an hour--and between getting Mr. Na up, letting the dog out, feeding all of us, and taking a shower, I was reasonably confident we'd be late. I just can't move fast enough--especially before I've had any caffeine (though I am only drinking Green Tea now) and so as I climbed into the shower, hubby announced that I had left the dog outside.

By 8:00 a.m. hubby informed me that he had popped his prerequisite Halcyon for his impending surgery--something which would make him about as dopey as I usually am pre-caffeine. From the bathroom mirror, I barked orders for him to feed the dog and pack Mr. Na's "things" (see above list).

At five minutes to nine, I silently cursed myself for not leaving the house earlier, and openly bitched about rush hour on 99. I thought everyone took the 5? Why is 99 backed up? Darling husband was mumbling the words to "Go Ask Alice" while Mr. Na was playing "what's this?" in the back seat.

When we arrived, the first thing Mr. Na spotted was a fish tank. And wouldn't you know it? There were two "Nemos". But of course, in true toddler fashion, Mr. Na said, "Nemo! Poopoo? I hungy, Mama." All in the same breath.
"You have to go poopoo?" I asked.
"Nooooyeaaahhh," he replied (his standard response).
"Well come on, then, let's go," I said, tugging on his hand. A nurse directed us outside and down the hall.

The minute I got him in the stall, he wailed so hard it bounced off the walls and traveled down the elevator shaft behind us. I thought for sure all of Seattle could hear.

I tried everything: going first so that he could see no one was going to be swallowed up by a monster toilet; trying to convince him no one was going to be flushed; I tried bribing him with tootsie rolls in my bag; tried bringing out his trucks; tried begging; tried threatening. Nothing worked. He just screamed and cried and wanted up.

This happened three times during the span of our two-hour visit. I'd ask him if he had to go "poo poo" and he'd say "noooooyyyeaaah" and we'd trek back to the bathroom without success. Despite my darling husband's state of unconsciousness during the surgery, he swears he could hear Mr. Na down the hall.

When my husband came around, one of the nurses took us back to the recovery area to go over instructions. All I kept thinking was, "please, please, PLEASE don't pee now." He didn't, thankfully--as I think he was more intrigued by the ellusive screw they retrieved from my husband's jaw. It was all shiny and clean, and placed in a sterile bag as a memento.

Despite the failures, I have to hand it to him, Mr. Na stayed completely dry until we got home--three hours after we left the house.

And this was just another ordinary day for us!

I (Heart) February

According to the American Heart Association, Cardio Vascular disease, including stroke, claims more women's lives than the next seven causes of death combined--nearly 500,000 a year, nearly twice as many as all forms of cancer.*

February is American Heart Month and it's a great time to remind people to take a CPR/AED course to learn something that could save a life. It holds a special place in my heart (no pun intended) for two reasons:

Before I left the corporate world, I had the honor and privilege of working for an automated external defibrillator (AED) manufacturer. As a member of the marketing team, I met many survivors of cardiac arrest--something that, if untreated, can kill a person within minutes. Unlike a heart attack, there are usually no prior symptoms and a person loses consciousness, stops breathing and has no pulse. These survivors had been saved by good samaritans or trained responders who used an AED. At the time, AEDs were being installed in public locations--from airports like O'Hare International, to airlines, parks, ferries, train stations, ball fields, and schools. Nowadays, AEDs can be purchased by individuals for home use and it's remarkable to see my former company's vision attained: to have AEDs as accessible as fire extinguishers. Speaking with survivors and hearing their stories made me realize that sudden cardiac arrest can strike anyone at any time with little or no warning.

I also learned this first hand, when my sister died in August 2003. She was 40.

February 4 is "Wear Red Day" for women. Several landmarks, including the Space Needle and the Empire State Building will be illuminated in red to raise awareness in women. For more information click here.






Source: American Heart Association (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3016992)

Are You a Bibliophil?

One of my goals this year is to read a book a week--except for when I finally dig into Bill Clinton's autobiography. That might take awhile longer!

A few months ago, some friends turned me on to this site -- which is an awesome way to keep track of my personal library and look to see what books other people recommend. If you sign up (it's free), you can request me, LeFemmeMonkita, as a buddy. Plus, I love the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books" list.

Right now, I'm halfway through The Terezin Diary of Gonda Redlich. I'm so glad I found this book. I think I learned more from this man's journal than I did visiting Terezin last year. It's great information for my book, which the first draft, by the way, is nearly complete!

Knowing When to Say When

I'm mortified by the news of a 66 year-old woman giving birth in Romania. My God, the woman is a year younger than my own mother--who, thankfully, quit having children at 30. As much as I love The Nana being Mr. Na's nana, I couldn't picture her having a baby, for chrissakes.

Apparently the woman went through numerous infertility treatments before having a successful delivery. She delivered twins, however, one was born stillborn.

After I read the story, my first question was why didn't she adopt one of the 84,381 orphans available in her country? Especially since Romania banned foreigners from adoption.

I should have been a boy

It dawned on me today, as I was reading about the Allied air attacks over Germany during WWII, that I should have been born a boy. Girls don't like history--especially World War II history. It's icky. It's boring. It, like, happened so long ago.

I love it. I can't get enough of it. I mean, there's just something so cool about studying that time period. There are still so many lessons to be learned from everything that went down--yet our world leaders choose to ignore it.

I'm one of those weird women who enjoys watching the History channel. Yesterday, I got so completely psyched when I was channel surfing DirectTV and learned that we now have The Military Channel. Cool! Now I'm hoping they'll have a European Theatre Marathon!!!

Keep in mind, I'm not a patriotic war buff or anything like that. I think my love for learning about WWII reaches far deeper than singing about the Halls of Montezuma. It's more about figuring out how some psychopath brought all of Europe to its knees and managed to bring the world to battle. And how the entire world turned a blind eye to the extermination of 11 million people.

I always say that if I ever decide to go back and get my Masters it'll probably be in history...or nutrition! But for the sake of this discussion, I'd love to be an historian!! Maybe I can be both---an historian who eats well!

The Soundtrack of My Mind

Quick. Without thinking too much about it, what song is going through your head right now?*

For me, it's "Some Kind of Wonderful" by Joss Stone.

I don't like Joss Stone, nor do I like "Some Kind of Wonderful" but the song got lodged into my head from my aerobics class abs routine (ok, it's Jazzercise. Shut up.)

All things considered though, it's a pretty palatable song to have in my head compared to half the shit that gets trapped there. 90% of my day is focused on listening to kiddie TV so I'm constantly listening to "I'm the Map" or the Lazytown theme song (at which point I usually meander back into the den to check out Sporticus <---- and I KNOW you Mommies out there are doing the same thing. Ya know how many people come to my site because they Googled "Sporticus"? Try 20 in ONE day!!!!) Anyway, so if it has to be Joss Stone, so be it.

Don't you hate, though, when someone tells you the song that's in their head and then, like some freakin virus, it crawls into yours? My husband does that to me constantly and it pisses me off because they're usually songs that are in heavy rotation only in, oh, Michigan, for example. Just this morning, at breakfast, he told me he had "20th Century Fox" from the Doors stuck in his head; but to make matters worse, he made words up so that instead of the normal version, I had "She's a 20th Century Ots" in my head all day long.

"Ots"? You ask? "Ots" is the nickname of a stuffed Polar Bear named "Wilson". I dunno how Mr. Na got "Ots" out of "Wilson" but there you have it.

The first time I saw Dave Matthews in my gym, he was singing along to Andy Gibb's "I just Wanna Be Your Everything" (just the nauseating Bee Gees falsetto part, though). So when I came home and told the hubby, he broke into his (very good) Dave Matthews impersonation and sang "He's a Seattle-ite". Somehow those two merged together and camped out in my head for almost a full week. It sucked.

It finally went away when we spent the weekend laying new floor tile in the kitchen and had several CDs on in the changer--one of them being Dave Matthews's "Under the Table and Dreaming." My darling husband began to sing along (and I must say he has a fine voice...he even sang to me at our wedding); but of course, in his true fashion, he changed the lyrics to "A Typical Situation." The normal lyrics are:
"It's a typical situation of these typical times...too many choices..."
My husband's version was: "It's a typical installation of these typical tiles. Too many choices..." So of course, I'll never hear that song the right way again.

Which reminds me of one of my very favorite websites that specializes in misheard lyrics. I'll have to add the "Typical Installation" lyrics.

Meanwhile, I'm stuck with Joss Stone in my head...until something better (or worse) comes along.




*If your answer is "nothing," can you kindly tell me how the hell you can turn off your soundtrack?

Poops and Guffaws (aka Shits and Giggles)

If you haven't read Jon Stewart's America (The Book) yet, I strongly urge you to make it one of your "must reads" for 2005. I laughed my heinie off with the turn of every page (which is good because my heinie got a little bit bigger over the holidays...all that food, ya know).

The book is fashioned after any of the lame-ass classroom history books we, the bored out of our minds American students had to suffer through during our young lives, including discussion questions and suggested classroom activities at the end of each chapter. I was particularly fond of the following question from the "Congress: Quagmire of Freedom" chapter:
"Remember that old Schoolhouse Rock cartoon about the bill who sings a song about how he becomes a law? Hey, and what about the Snorks? Remember them?"
Or this suggested classroom activity, in the "Judicial Branch: It Rules!" chapter:
"Make a God's eye from popsicle sticks and yarn, then teach your students about the one true Judge: The Lord!"

Over the weekend, news sources cited two counties in Mississippi (yes, I sing it so I can spell it correctly) banned the book from its libraries because of its offensiveness--specifically the page of the nine Supreme Court Justices--all nude. On the opposite page, there are nine robes which readers can cut out and "Restore [the dignity of the Supreme Court Justices] by matching each justice with his or her respective robe; but on Monday evening, members of the Library Board reversed the ban. You can read this article to get more of the details.

Funny thing is, as Stewart pointed out, there are quite a few more tidbits in the book that could be deemed far more offensive than some cut and paste silly-ass nudies. Things like, oh, the mention of teabagging a prostitute or perhaps the quote from the Third Dutchess of Kent who, in response to the Boston Massacre replied, "Fuck with a motherfuckah's tea and the shit be on."

Either way, I'm sure glad the folks in Mississippi can now enjoy a few good shits and giggles.

A Year Without a Santa Claus

My Christmas was awesome last year. I got an e-mail from our facilitator in Ukraine, who wrote, "Pack your bags. You need to be here next week." I waited for those words for 17 months before I got to read them. No wait, it was more like four years.

This year was even better because I got to spend Christmas with our new son. It was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. The kid spent almost 30 minutes unwrapping his presents on Christmas Eve. Then he tried tearing into ours. Then he took stock of all his loot. He couldn't believe his eyes.

Hard to believe this time last year he was in the hospital in Ukraine. And when you think if "children's ward" what comes to mind? Perhaps some colorful wall murals, stuffed animals, mobiles hanging from the ceiling? You might smell anticeptic, but that's about as "foul" of a smell as it gets, right?

The hospital in Ukraine was a series of two- and three-story buildings on frozen grounds. We parked on the street alongside the hospital, across from a series of high rise apartment buildings built during the reign of communism. If you've ever seen projects or tenements in, oh, maybe the Bronx, Watts, Newark or South Capitol in D.C., the apartments in Ukraine made those look like palaces. There were stray dogs roaming through the streets, picking through various trashcans--at least those that weren't lit with fires for people to warm themselves or cook their food.

Lights weren't on during the day and so when we initially went to the "lobby" of the main building, it was dark. Someone pointed our translator to the "children's ward"-- a building on the far south corner of the hospital grounds.

Getting to that building was treacherous on the icy ground. And even where sections of paved path were dry, they were uneven and bulging from massive tree roots underneath.

One side of the building had a row of doors, almost like a walk-up for each room. The other side was the main entrance and stairwell, leading to the upper floors. The first thing I saw was a huge teddy bear mural painted on top of a Robins Egg Blue background. Then I looked outside the window as three orderlies wheeled someone on a guerney outside. The shapeless body underneath the sheet was more than just cold, it was stiff. I supposed the morgue was next to the children's ward.

Inside was as dark as the lobby of the first building we'd seen. A mixture of urine and feces permeated the corridor.

We were led into a physician's office, which seemed cozy, compared to the rest of the building, but that's not saying much. Everything in the building was as gray as the daylight outside. In fact, when they brought in our little boy, he was the only colorful thing about the place; and I mean that literally because they had dressed him in a bright yellow and red clown outfit that was three sizes too big for him.

Over the next few days, we had a chance to play with Mr. Na in his room because we assured the head physician that both of us had had the chickenpox as kids. His room was quarantined--and he shared it with two other babies and a nine year-old boy who was the pox culprit. There was no way to access his room from the inside of the hospital--we had to make our way outside and around to the other side of the building. The steps leading to the door were treacherous, if anyone could make it that far without sinking in a hole full of ice water.

Access to the room was through the bathroom, which smelled 8,000 times worse than the feces/urine combo in the hallway. It smelled like the entire hospital's sewage system was right there, in that 8'x8' yellow-tiled room with a toilet that was nothing more than a glorified hole in the ground.

Our son-to-be (Mr. Na) barely had the chickenpox, and looked a lot healthier than his roommates who were each covered in spots. To add insult to injury, they looked as though they had just returned from a paintball battle. Their faces were smeared with a blue iodine solution to minimize the pox itching. We nicknamed the little girl roommate "Bluebeard" and found the 9 year-old to be quite handy in terms of trying to quiet down the children. When they cried, he'd get up and rock them; and when the nurses came to change or feed them, he'd help. He was the only one in the room who wasn't an orphan, and his family would come by at least once a day to bring him treats or toys--all of which he'd share with the others.

Mr. Na had just turned 19 months when we met him on that day in January. He had been in the hospital for 21 days--a lifetime for a baby. He was there long before the boy with the pox came--and the staff figured he might as well get those, too, while he was recovering from bronchitis.

Santa managed to miss this little speck of rice on Earth and Christmas didn't come last year for him or for Bluebeard, or for the little baby boy who was always crying because he was always wet because the nurses never changed him. There were no twinkling lights. There wasn't a tree loaded with ornaments and lovingly wrapped presents stuffed underneath. There were no stockings filled with cookies or chocolates. Just a few community pacifiers and rattles that probably hadn't been washed since they were unpacked.

Even though Santa found Mr. Na this year, and more than made up for the two years he spent Christmas-less, I couldn't help but think about Bluebeard or the little baby boy who cried nonstop. I hope that families found them the way we found Mr. Na. I hope someone is showering them with the love that they deserve. And I hope this year, Santa found them too.

Top 10 Books I Read in 2004

When it comes to reading, I'm not the type of person who follows various bestseller lists for recommendations. I used to do that and wound up wasting my time reading a lot of crap. The DaVinci Code comes to mind.

From a reading standpoint, 2004 was a "word of mouth" year for me and I based my selections on recommendations from friends and fellow writers (and some who I consider both!) I hope that if you scan my list and you find yourself wondering, "did I read this?" you'll pick one of the following books up in 2005 because they're all really great and you can tell your friends they were recommended to you by a Seattle Simian.

One of my dear writer friends loaned me Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas and I appreciated the examples of books Maas used when illustrating a point of character, plot or narrative development--so much so, I wrote down 30 or so titles of books I had either read long ago or missed entirely.

What follows, then, is a list of classics I've enjoyed this past year and some newer selections which I believe are also destined to withstand the test of time:

#1-4
Rabbit, Run
Rabbit Redux
Rabbit is Rich
Rabbit at Rest - John Updike
You can't read one of the above without reading the other three (g'wan, read the first one and you'll agree). Updike delves into the human psyche, creating characters so real, I felt like I knew and really HATED Rabbit. The series spans nearly four decades during Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's lifetime and Updike used some pretty sharp imagery with was consistent among all four books.

#5
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Easily one of the best books I've read. Vonnegut's matter-of-fact voice is suberb and the story borders on pee-in-your-pants funny to thought-provoking.

#6
1984 - George Orwell
How'd I miss having to read this in high school? Maybe it was assigned in my Junior year, which, quite coincidentally, was 1984--but it was also the year I cut so many classes that my GPA plummeted to a mere 1.8. Either way, I'm glad I somehow skipped it because it's much more meaningful to me now, as a wisened old monkey in a world full of crazy motherfuckers who remind me very much of Winston Smith's comrades. I've seen the movie, of course, with John Hurt (and as a matter of fact, I rented it again after reading the book) and always admired the Apple commercial (that was THE commercial that did it for me in terms of getting my shit together and going to college to study advertising) but none of these things holds a candle to Orwell's descriptions of a world so completely fucked up. Where Vonnegut spelled out the ruins of Dresden (by comparing it to walking on the moon), Orwell's storytelling placed the reader in a war-torn London without having to use one rubble-esque descriptor.

#7
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita is beautifully written, to the point where, as sick as it sounds, you (dear reader) start to feel sorry for the perv.
I can't help but read this book now and think of Jeremy Irons, because he brought Humbert Humbert to life, and I'm really turned on by his diction. He was perfect for that role.


#8
Dry - Augusten Burroughs
I loved this book from the get-go as I, too, aspired to be (a female) Darren Stevens from Bewitched. Having spent 16 years in advertising and PR (mostly in agencies, too...my God, how sick is that?) I felt so connected to Burroughs in this novel and I loved his depiction of the agency world; but beyond that, Dry is a great story about staying sane and sober, in a world that's often better lived-in completely sauced.

#9

Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Contrary to my review of Eggers's book, I found Burroughs's memoir so utterly fantastic, there were times I thought it was fiction. I couldn't believe his incredible story and I'm really looking forward to the movie's release in 2005.

#10
You Shall Know Our Velocity! - Dave Eggers
Eggers's characters and setting are so vivid, I often believed this was memoir, not fiction. I was amazed by his storytelling. I could have done without the cow part, but...hey, that's me. I hated the short story Eggers wrote about the Golden Retriever drowning in a river, too.



Other books I recommend:

Martin Dressler - The Tale of an American Dreamer - Steven Millhauser

Perfume - A Story of Murder - Patrick Suskind


The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

Merry Chrismukkah

My list is now on McSweeney's, co-authored by yours truly and her sig other. It was his idea--I just made it better.

I haven't had much to say lately, mostly because I've been suffering from sheer exhaustion. I guess this year finally caught up with me.

I hope to come back soon enough with some end-of-year lists. I'm working on the list of Top 10 Books I've Read and a list of Awesome People in 2004. Stay tuned.

Happy Holidays, Friends, and thanks for reading!

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

You know, it's kinda funny how, after eight years of living here, I bitch and moan about the weather and how dreary it is. Today was just one of those days where, if I had allowed myself, I would have stayed in pajamas and curled up on the couch to watch endless episodes of Thomas and Friends or Dora the Explorer, but instead, I mustered up everything I could and got myself and Mr. Na bundled up to leave the house for awhile.

I was in such a pissy mood, too. First, Mr. Na insisted on taking THREE Mega-Blok trucks--the kind that come apart in three pieces. So I'm toting my messenger bag, sippy cup, a bottle of water for me, my keys and his three trucks to the car and as I lift him in to the car seat, one of the pieces goes flying underneath. So while it's pouring outside and Mr. Na is demanding I retrieve his beloved truck piece, I'm crawling underneath my car to try and find it.

Then, halfway up the street, I realize I had forgotten my shopping list--something that is a MUST HAVE when you have a 2-1/2 year-old sitting in your shopping cart, playing slapjack with your hands. So I had to turn around, park, run back inside and grab the list.

Finally, I make my way back up the street and turn on my MP3 player. I've got a Phat Noise that holds 2800 songs and I use every single mega-byte of it. As I flip through my 30 or so "Discs" (folders of different bands or genres), I come across The Smiths and I am instantly transformed. There are very few bands who have that sort of seratonin-like effect on me.

The first single I ever bought of The Smiths was a 12" of "What Difference Does it Make?" issued by Rough Trade in January 1984. For the longest time, I thought it was Morrissey on the cover, in blue sepia, holding a glass of milk (and I never made the correlation that Terence Stamp was the head bad guy in Superman 2). Either way, The Smiths alleviated any middle class teenage angst I carried around, though I'm sure Morrissey would be the first to roll his eyes at the mere thought of me. I wasn't some punk living on the Dole in Manchester--I was a 15 year-old Orange County KROQ groupie with a penchant for OP and Vans, not plaid pants and body piercings, though I preferred to run with the best of them (ahem: the best that Burbank could provide, that is).

Morrissey's nonepareil voice was the perfect accompaniment to Johnny Marr's guitar. Marr, who is one of the best 12-string guitarists--bar none (in fact my favorite Talking Heads song is "Nothing But Flowers" where Marr's 12-string kicks ass).

I had the pleasure of seeing The Smiths at the Hollywood Paladium in 1985. It was a hell of a show, only to end abruptly because a skinhead bounded up on to the stage and grabbed Morrissey. Thankfully, it was during the first or second encore. It was still sheer bliss.

While interning at Capitol Records in 1987, my boss stuck out her tongue when I put "Louder Than Bombs" in the tape player we shared. By the time "Oscillating Wildly" came on, she asked if she could borrow the tape.
"Take it," I said. "I'm getting the CD after work."

It's still one of my favorites after all these years, though I will say, my all-time favorite song is "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore." It has always been the song I listened to nonstop when shit went down for me, regardless of what it was: breakups, divorce, death, miscarriage--whatever.

The Smiths--to me--was one of those bands who, whenever I go to England, I stop and reflect, thanking the Queen and all of her country's problems so that a band so amazing as The Smiths could have fodder. It's really no wonder that God chastised Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People for never signing them.

Despite their breakup, The Smiths will always be a favorite.

As I drove in traffic this morning, listening to "Stop Me if You Think That You've Heard This One Before" I caught a glimpse of Mr. Na in the review mirror, head bobbing. He was in the zone.

You know, this kid's got good taste.

Whew! One more hurdle down. We survived court and Mr. Na is ours (again!)

What a crazy week--and one I don't want to re-live ever again.

On the plus side, I heard of this site and it's awfully nice to see others getting dumped on for a good cause.

I'm preparing my top 10 list of the best books I've read in 2004. Certainly, Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons won't make the cut; however,they give me hope that I could be, um, a better writer.

C and I saw The Incredibles last weekend. What an awesome flick! I had my doubts going into it, but was very surprised. I loved Edna (but who wouldn't, dahlink).

I'm debating on whether or not I should take Mr. Na to see Polar Express at the IMAX. I'm afraid his little brain will explode.

Well, here's hoping next week will be a lot less stressful.

We have a scheduled hearing tomorrow at our county's courthouse to readopt Mr. Na in the United States. And though, in theory, this should go a lot smoother than our court hearing in Ukraine last January (and even that wasn't so bad), I'm just beside myself with anxiety. I feel like I have so much more at stake right now because I've become so attached to this little guy, and I don't know what I'd do if I lost him.

The reason why we've chosen to readopt Mr. Na here in the states is so we can get a U.S. birth certificate; but more importantly, our only proof that Mr. Na is our child, is a foreign decree from a country that's steeped in crisis right now and if Ukraine had any cause to revoke foreign adoptions, we would be at the mercy of their government if we didn't have a U.S. birth certificate for him. We also live in a state that doesn't recognize foreign adoptions decrees (currently, there are only 26 states that do).

As I mentioned in previous posts, Mr. Na will retain his dual citizenship until he reaches the age of 18; however, Ukraine only recognizes Mr. Na's Ukrainian citizenship. And every year until he's 18, we have to fill out a four-page questionnaire and submit 10 photos of Mr. Na to the Ukrainian Consulate so they can keep tabs on his whereabouts (small price to pay for having the most awesome little guy in the world!)

On the plus side, tomorrow's hearing will be very cool (if all goes well...and I can't vouch that it will because I was too cheap to hire an attorney...so I could have fucked up every single piece of paperwork). Thinking about it reminds me of our hearing in Ukraine in January. The judge (who was a woman, by the way..and I thought that was pretty cool!) turned to me and said,

"Do you promise you will give this child a loving home? That you'll care for him and restore his health?"

My eyes filled with tears as I said yes.

So far, so good--but I'm in this for the long haul!