Ceci n’est pas une blog

Seeya. Wouldn't want to beeya.

I have said it before:  Aden Nak rocks my world. Over and over. In my post New Years myopic emotional haze, I missed his farewell to Dubbya. It's worth acknowledging even at this late date, lest we forget what we've been through for 8 long years.

There is no need to wait for history to obscure the details in a battle fog of conflicting punditry and rosy nostalgia. George W. Bush was, is and forever will be a miserable failure, from his ape-gait lumber to his spoiled child certainty to his ghastly inability to refrain from smirking when invoking the memory of the dead. But worse than that, he was an empty-headed creature. A pseudo-folksy front man for a band of Pollyanna armchair generals who see the world as their own personal political rutting ground. Men who thought the domino theory that worked so bloody well in Vietnam was worth trying again - only this time in reverse and in a region far less stable. Not that any of them were around to see the domino theory in action. Like Dick Cheney, they all had other priorities.

Read the rest here:  Clearing Brush by Aden Nak

Pink Cloud Mojito and Other Valentine’s Day Ramblings

While having dinner at the bar at Mucho recently with my friend Hilarie, we helped the bartender and chef concoct their new drink, a Pink Cloud Mojito. These martini glasses, filled with plumes of cotton candy are about to be liquified by the pouring of a minty lime and tequila mixture. Add a little John Cage music in the background and it's almost a Happening.

I have much to be thankful for this Valentine’s Day, not the least of which are two wonderfully scrumptious kids who rock my world every single day. I find myself envying the way my friends who aren't parents can navigate through life. There is the simple matter of time. With a 2-year-old boy and a nearly 12 year-old-girl, you can imagine what kind of time is left for me at the end of the day. Hint: nil. I consistently steal time from the administrative and logistical activities of keeping a household running for a chance to read, connect with friends or catch up on the few shows I TiVo. Bills don't get paid, refrigerator is empty, beds don't get made...all so I can come back to center on a regular basis. I often feel like I live in perpetual motion; chasing or being chased. The hyper-awareness that is required of me at all times is exhausting.

For all that I am drained by the constant juggle, I am also fed by the presence of these two beings, my children. It's difficult to articulate what it means to wake at 5 am to a little voice calling me. It is easy to describe the desperation to be left alone to sleep. The dizziness of having to stand erect and be present. The dread at having to spend 3 long hours with a demanding toddler with limited communication skills before the rest of the world is even conscious. But there is more, and it goes something like this:

It is an honor to walk alongside my children as they make this journey through life. To be the person they depend on to see them through. To watch my son learn how to use his body, to learn to speak, to learn how to use a spoon, to figure out how to wield his power over his environment and the things in it (including his mother!). To watch my daughter figure out who she is, what she believes in, how to negotiate complicated friendships. To see her explore where her boundaries are, deciding how much to give and how much to demand. To begin to see and admire both her sharp wit and generous spirit. To be her mirror as she defines herself as a woman, a lover and a mother. 

I am not at all sure what it means in the larger picture. Why have children? For whose benefit is it to bring more people onto an over-populated and environmentally deteriorating planet? (These questions are even more pointed in my case because I have managed to blow apart the panacea of the traditional family model twice over.) What I do know is this. For all it's challenges and personal sacrifices, motherhood remains the single most important and fulfilling thing that I do and that I am. Perhaps this goes without saying. But in a year where I have been brutally honest with myself about all kinds of things, my feelings about motherhood have not escaped scrutiny and analysis. I love being mom. I love who that makes me. I love my children — both as a concept and as individuals. I love the way they love me. I love the way they see me. I love the way we nourish each other. It is this love that I celebrate today, on Valentine’s Day. 

Do you know how they picked the Dalai Lama?!

Am I wrong? Isn't the Dalai Lama both the spiritual leader and the head of state of the Tibetan people? He is referred to as HHDL — His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is lauded as one of the great moral authorities on the planet. (And he sends those great emails about being centered, grounded and generally benevolent person, then threatens eternal damnation if you don't forward the message to 10 of your closest friends. Okay, okay, maybe I should check snopes.com.) 

Tenzin Gyatso is the 14th Dalai Lama. The Tibetan people believe all the Dalai Lamas are the same soul incarnate in different bodies. I was fascinated to read last week about the methodology by which they found this current HHDL.

The search for the present Dalai Lama commenced in earnest in 1935 when the embalmed head of his deceased predecessor is said to have wheeled around and pointed toward northeastern Tibet.

Then, the story goes, a giant star-shaped fungus grew overnight on the side of the tomb. An auspicious cloud bank formed and a regent saw a vision of letters floating in a mystical lake, one of which — Ah — he took to refer to the northeast province of Amdo.

High lamas set off at a gallop and found a 2-year-old boy in a distant village. This child, they determined after a series of tests, was the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

I have to appreciate the absurdity of this information. I am as appreciative of mysticism and metaphysics as anyone, but it seems that this selection process leaves a wide margin of error. 

Read the whole article, Can You Choose Your Reincarnated Successor? and tell me what you think.

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Strings

These are a few of my favorite things (in no particular order):

1. The New York Times

2. A Dirty Grey Goose Martini shaken hard and icy cold

3. Sundays at the Whitney

4. The Rabbi’s Daughter by Reva Mann

5. The moment in Annie Hall where Alvie has to invent a new 

    word to express how much he loves Annie

6. Virabhadrasana II

7. Being deliriously tired and crawling into bed

8. Bernini's "The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa"

9. My new Fendi shades

10. Brussels Sprouts

11. The sound of my kids laughing

12. How a dog can be at once totally base and supremely 

      elegant

13. Viggo Mortensen

14. A good pea coat

15. Lucha Vavoom

16. The Brazen Head — San Francisco

17. “Let's Get Small”

18. Sharing a Stella with my shrink

19. Bodie

20. My Dyson vacuum

21. Moments of perfect clarity

22. Summers in Mammoth

Almost Famous

I was quoted on CNN.com today in an article about the 25th anniversary of the first Macintosh computer.

For graphic designers like Zoë Korstvedt, now a Los Angeles creative director, the evolving Mac, with each added feature, was ripe with ah-ha moments.

To tinker with a piece, play with the text, "to visualize on your computer was just insane," she said. "My colleagues and I wonder how we did it [their jobs] before."

No wonder, then, that when Korstvedt, 44, married her first husband in 1989, she used half of their wedding money to buy her first home computer: a Mac SE/30, for which she forked over extra bucks for an upgrade to a whopping 8 megabytes of RAM. Nothing compared to the 12 gigs she now has. "I was styling," she said with a laugh.

Read the article at:

Apple fans mark 25 years of Mac devotion by Jessica Ravitz

Impressions of a New Day

Today is the day the countdown calendars zeroed out. Today was the day we saw George W. Bush evacuate the White House in a helicopter. Today was the day when the change we elected to instill came to fruition. Today, the citizens of this country, and of the world, witnessed the inauguration of our 44th president. It is January 20, 2009 and Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America.

My son turned 2 this past Saturday and hasn't stopped whining since. I exaggerate, but suffice to say that this was a morning I would have loved to have to myself, my television and my computer. Instead, I grabbed what I could in between waffles and sippy cups of "apple jooooo", trucks, trains, cars and high dives off the club chairs, to catch whatever fleeting glimpses I could of the coverage as over 1 million people converged on the mall to participate in history. When I left the boy at pre-school, I listened to NPR, hanging on every word. On and off through my 20 minute commute and 30 mintues in the parking lot (unable to peel myself away) I wept. An old friend of mine told me the other day that saying the Pledge of Allegiance has new meaning for her now. I know how she feels.  For the first time in 8 years, I am proud to be American.

Some impressions from today:

First glimpse of Michelle and Barack leaving their hotel. They look happy and relaxed. Michelle looks beautiful. I love the dress.

Scene at the White House where the Bushes greet the Obamas. Suddenly George and Laura look small. Literally and figuratively.

I noticed how great Teddy Kennedy looked in his fedora. Very vital. Only to hear that he later suffered a seizure at the luncheon. I feel badly that this day was marked by that for him. We all know what it meant to him.

Maybe she was suffering from frozen vocal chords, but Aretha Franklin couldn't sing. I haven't checked out her hat, but from the descriptions I've heard, she can't dress either.

The premiere of Air and Simple Gifts, composed for the occasion by John Williams, performed by Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill,and Gabriela Montero was breathtaking.

Dianne Feinstein's voice was quivering, I am sure not because she was nervous but because she was so damn excited that this day had finally arrived.

Bush was booed when he took the stage. Someone told me a whole lot of people were audibly singning, "Nah nah nah nah, hey, hey, hey goodbye". That's got to be a historical first and certainly a hysterical one.

Cheney turns up in a wheel chair? Brian Williams said he resembles Dr. Strangelove. If you were Dick Cheney, wouldn't you do whatever it took...steroids...morphine...to STAND UP?!

Obama's speech was more pointedly anti-Bush than I expected. He spoke effortlessly and powerfully, assuming the role of both our leader and our voice.

Tonight when the kids are asleep, I will crawl in bed and TiVo through the events, savoring a day we will not likely forget for generations. Let's hope Obama's presidency matches his inauguration in heart, soul and the spirit of an America we can be part of and proud of.

First Signs of Spring

Every once in a while, I find myself wanting to reboot. The complex and constantly moving parts of my life converge into gridlock. It's somewhat of an emotional response to challenges presented in the physical world. Or maybe parts of the conundrum are organically emotional. The close of 2008 was one of those moments. It's been a long year filled with turmoil. My M.O. has always been that in every crisis is an opportunity for growth. And though I think I might have hit new lows for a few days around New Years, a spark of hope remains. 

In the midst of one of the most devastating years in this country's history, at the end of eight of the most alienating years, we managed to pull together and elect (in a landslide), not only our first black president, but a man who embodies the spirit of hope. Both the person and the election of the person serve as a symbol of what is possible even at our lowest moment. Obama's mantra was, "Yes we can” and yes, we did.

I am reminded of something from my childhood. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City. Winters were long and some years were downright brutal. The cold and snow were charming through the holidays, but come February, one longed for birds chirping and long warm days. At one point every year, through the frozen, gray ground, new life would emerge — the first crocuses. Spring was coming. 

It never ceased to amaze me how something so warm and alive could grow from such barren, dead earth. And these crocuses would be the single living plant in the garden for weeks. Patience was still a necessity, but the brave blooms served as a beacon of what was to come. They were the promise of new life, new growth — the abundance ahead.

I am filled with the same wonder and relief at the inauguration of Barack Obama this Tuesday, as if it's the first sign of Spring at the end of a long, cold Winter. I am inspired to follow our national reboot with a personal one. If I weren't an atheist, I would say, "God bless America. God bless us every one”.

Delicious Toes

Mouse Day Afternoon

It often happens in the deconstruction of a family that the pets are the biggest casualty. In the complex business of building new households and routines, the children always come first, and with the extra attention they usually need in these circumstances, there is even less energy available for the animals. When the kids and I moved out of the house in June, we left behind our beloved Luna. She's a brindle pit lab mix and an extraordinary girl. Oliver spends plenty of time with her when he is with his dad. My daughter, Rachel and I barely see her. We took her to Mammoth in September. She's a wonderful hiker and swimmer and loves clearing the trail of menacing critters. We plan to take her to the tide pools in Palos Verdes to tangle with the crabs at low tide, but these are occasional outings and we've sacrificed our daily interaction with her. Rachel is passionate about most animals. Frankly, the loss of her dog is way more difficult to bear than the loss of her step-father. Her requests for a pet have been met with hesitation on my part. I'll explain.

In order to stay close to the beach (3 blocks), I moved us into a 2-bedroom apartment. It is in a lovely building with great facilities — pool, spa, fitness center, on-site management. But with 2 kids of vastly different ages, space is tight. I gave each kid a bedroom and I have the living room set up similarly to a hotel room. Anyone who knows me must know I have made a beautiful home. I love it here and thanks to excellent closet space, we make it work for us. That is, until we added two more members to the family.

I set Rachel on a research project to find out what the perfect pet for us would be. We considered, fish, geckos, frogs, turtles, gerbils, and hamsters. There were several criteria to consider — feeding, activity level, cleanliness, smell. After much consideration, we settled on two female mice. 

We read several places that we should buy from a breeder. I located one near us who had several litters coming up, but they wouldn't be ready for several weeks. While at the pet store to look at supplies, we fell in love with a teeny little brown mouse. Ignoring what we had read and not wanting to wait for the breeder's mice, we brought her home with a cowprint one — Mabel and Twitter, respectively. They were adorable. We were enchanted. On Day 2 we went out for a couple of hours and when we got home Mabel was dead. Hmmm. After some agonizing, we decided to return Twitter, bleach the cage, go to a different pet store and try again. This time we bought 3 mice, beige, orange and brown or Willow, Marmalade and Minka. We actually called Marmalade "Deranged" since she raced and chewed her way around the cage. Within 24 hours, she was dead. Not long after, Willow joined her. Left with only Minka, we had a decision to make. Mice can't live alone. They are social creatures and will eventually die of loneliness.

This was a pivotal moment when backing out would have been easy. My disappointed daughter's doe eyes lured me to the breeder. We brought home the most adorable mice I could have imagined. One was blue (think Weimeraner). In fact, we named her Fay after William Wegman's famous Weimeraner, Fay Ray. The other had the markings of a Siamese cat. We named her Sagwa after the Amy Tan character. 

There is stark contrast between the "feeder" mice at the pet store and what I began to refer to as the übermice. Fay and Sagwa have big, soft eyes, enormous ears, long, thin bodies and thick, buttery soft fur. More than that, they have soul. I know, I know. I think I am crazy too, but these little creatures are adorable and affectionate. So much so, that two weeks ago we donated ordinary feeder mouse, Minka, to the ranch where we ride horses. Pat, the owner, has a menagerie of animals including an array of snakes and lizards, frogs, mice, rats, a dwarf bunny and chicks. 

This is where the story gets good.

Last night, Rachel and I set out to clean the cage. This, of course, is my least favorite part of mouse-ownership. I would make Rachel do the entire job, but it involves a lot of mouse crap and I worry about exposure to germs. So she does the less objectionable parts and takes the opportunity to exercise the mice while they're sprung. As she approached the cage to invite them out, she stopped in her tracks. 

"Minka?", she said. [Duh. Minka's not here anymore.] "OMIGOD MAMA THERE'S ANOTHER MOUSE IN THERE!" 

Alright, I am a reasonably smart woman. I am not easily rattled. But folks, there was a third mouse in the cage and it looked just like Minka. What ensued was about 15 minutes of near hysteria trying to figure out what the hell was going on. There were a few scenarios that looked something like this:

1. Minka decided she preferred to live with us and found her way from the horse ranch in PV to us in Hermosa Beach. That would require about 8 miles of walking and a rodentine GPS device. 

2. One of the breeder mice was secretly pregnant when we got her and gave birth, not to a litter of pups that resemble pink erasers, but a single adolescent mouse that looks like a feeder mouse. Since there had been no baby bumps present, and the new mouse had clearly been alive much more than one week, we quickly ruled this out.

3. Fay and Sagwa missed their playmate so much that they teleported her back from the ranch. 

4. Minka had gotten eaten by the rat at the ranch and what we were really seeing was an apparition as she came back to say goodbye.

As we debated these possibilities, the truth suddenly presented itself as I stood there watching the uninvited guest squeeze itself through the bars of the cage and into the wilderness of my daughter's room. It was a wild mouse who had found it's way into our house and then into the cage to shack up in the cushy pied á terre we built. Country mouse, meet city mouse.

Fortunately, my mom walked in to watch Olly so Rachel and I could go play Guitar Hero at a friend's house like the whole of America did yesterday. She became the thread of reason in the blanket of insanity. She quickly shut Rachel's door so the wild mouse was contained. After watching it flatten itself to the thickness of a 2-ply tissue, I wedged a towel in the threshold for added security. Rachel and I went out, bought four mousetraps, pretended to be rock stars, and in my case, drank heavily. When we came home, I set the traps, accessing the room from the balcony and sealed it off. Rachel slept in my bed. 

We hoped to hear the snap of a trap sometime in the middle of the night. Alas, we did not. In the morning, we cleaned out her room — a project which had been looming since we moved in, really. Leaving the door to the rest of the apartment sealed, we organized and decluttered. As we worked, Rachel heard it first. There was the very distinct sound of a mouse coming from her bathroom. It is a mixture of a gnawing and chirping sound. I grabbed a trap, put it in the bathroom, shut the door and did the old towel trick. We both breathed a sigh of relief knowing our guest was contained in the inner sanctum. 

Rachel and I agree our mouse days are over. The ROI is diminishing. Certainly, attracting wild mice into what is already a small apartment for it's inhabitants is unquestionably unacceptable. I called the breeder and she will take Fay and Sagwa back. We will have to play host for another week while she vacations in Cancun, as they will need to be quarantined upon their return to the mousery and that takes more attention than her mousesitter can handle. But that's okay. We will manage. The question we can't seem to answer is this:

WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE WILD MOUSE LOCKED IN OUR BATHROOM?!

I did it.

Today, I got back on the horse. It actually wasn't "the" horse, but it was "a" horse. I was much more nervous than I wanted to be. Apparently, I am more cavalier with my emotional life than my physical one. I a managed to trot and canter (albeit a gentle one). My frustration with the situation is evidence of my struggle in general with what I call "process". I tend to be enthusiastic to try new things and then frustrated when I don't master them quickly. The part in between feels chaotic and without foundation. I think this must be true of learning just about anything. Does that make me a bad student?