The countdown is on!

A week from today, my parents will be here! They had planned to come up back in June, but were unable to because Dad had to stick around and wait on the state legislature to play its games. So they are going to start a drive up to Jersey next Friday and arrive on Sunday. They are bringing, among other things, a painting that my BFF did for me back in December, as well as a rug for my living room that Mom swears I'll "love". So they'll be here for a little over a week, and it looks like Mike and I might just get an overnight getaway out of the deal! I think we'll wind up staying in NYC for a night, and hopefully go to a show (if we can get tickets to a good one).
They'll also be in town for W's THIRD birthday! I cannot believe he is turning 3 this month. It's incredible. We're doing a Cars-themed birthday party, since he adores the movie and anything having to do with it. He's super-excited about his (as he calls it) "McQueen party" and says that, when he turns 3, he will wear Big-Boy Underpants and get rid of his "woo woo" (his pacifier, which he has in bed at night). We'll see about that...

300th post

What better way to celebrate my 300th post as Little Miss Sew and Sow than to share a fabulous op-ed piece from the NYT?? This piece about Sarah Palin is brilliant-- especially the part about interrupting the networks' coverage of Michael Jackson's death... Thanks, Gail Collins, for putting my thought on paper! I've included my own comments in purple. Enjoy.

Sarah’s Straight Talk

By GAIL COLLINS

Published: July 3, 2009

Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Didn't anyone learn anything from Mark Sanford's piteously unprepared "remarks" about Miss Argentina?? Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.

“And a problem in our country today is apathy,” she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time ... to BUILD UP.” Huh?

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she’s not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon. Oh, thanks for clearing that up.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to ... resign.

“Life is about choices!” declared the nation’s most anti-choice politician.

People, what is going on with governors in this country? Are we doomed to see them go bonkers one by one, state by state? Oh, yes, please! Let's see, who's already managed to show his/her "crazy side"?

• Eliot Spitzer (awhile back, but still counts b/c of shock value)
• Rick Perry (come on, seceeding from the Union? Come up with a new idea! That's been done!)
• Rod Blagojevich (duh)
• Mark Sanford (do I even need to explain this one?)
• Bobby Jindal (his response to the "State of the Union" address was pretty wacky--especially the "set" for it)

The timing of Palin’s announcement was extremely peculiar. Not only did she interrupt the plans of TV newscasters to spend the entire weekend pointing out that Michael Jackson is still dead, she delivered her big news just as the nation was settling into Fourth of July celebrations. You’d have thought she didn’t want us to notice. That IS really strange that she did it at such a time... Seriously.

“I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity,” she said in a fairly typical moment. “I choose not to tear down and waste precious time, but to build up this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic free people!” How, pray tell? Specifics, please.

Palin has a year and a half left to go in her term of office. The political world had been wondering whether she’d run for re-election. The answer is no. And furthermore, it turns out that Palin believes that the only way her administration can “continue without interruption” is for her to end it.

Anyhow, no point in wasting precious time. 2012 approaches... So do mid-term elections. Might she be planning a bid for a national office? Something to think about!

One underlying theme in Palin’s remarks was that many ethics complaints have been filed against her on issues ranging from her alleged attempts to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state troopers to charging Alaska for her children’s travel expenses.

According to the about-to-be-ex governor, fighting all this negativity has cost the state “thousands of hours of your time” and $2 million “to respond to ‘opposition research.’ ” But now this is all water under the bridge. Every single unfair charge has been dismissed. (“We’ve won!”) And now that the battle is over and the time/money has been wasted, Palin is going to leave her job in the name of “efficiencies and effectiveness.” So, basically, she's saying the state of Alaska will be better off without her in charge. How does that translate into America being better off with her in charge??

“I cannot stand here as your governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of governor,” she said. But you did.

Perhaps there is some new and interesting scandal that Palin has yet to let us in on. (If so, I hope it involves a soul mate.) Otherwise, it would appear that this is all about her desire to start raising money and setting up operations for a presidential run in 2012. Her fans immediately interpreted the resignation as a canny move to get her back down to the lower 48, with as much time on her hands as Mitt Romney. (Mary Matalin called it “brilliant.”)

Palin was the subject of a devastating article in this month’s Vanity Fair by Todd Purdum, who wrote that McCain campaign aides found it almost impossible to get Palin to prepare for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric. And there is no sign, Purdum reported, that Palin has made any attempt to bone up on the issues so that next time around, she could run as a candidate who actually had some grasp of the intricacies of foreign and domestic policy. She's a female version of Bush 43. Her schtick is that she doesn't know anything about anything. Unfortunately, that's a turn-on for a lot of voters. Me? I'd like my president to be a little smarter than I am... I'm just sayin'....

So if she’s starting to run, it will be as the same reporter-avoiding, generalization-spouting underachiever that she was last time around. But with better clothes.

Now we know she not only doesn’t have the concentration to read a policy paper, she can’t focus long enough to finish the job she was hired to do.

On Friday, Palin said that finishing out her term would be just too easy. “Many just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and ‘milk it.’ I’m not putting Alaska through that,” she said.

Apparently, she’s going to put the rest of us through it instead. Beautiful finish.

A painful admission

The Supreme Court handed down a huge ruling today in the New Haven Firefighters case. I heard about this case a few months ago on NPR and it really riled me up. Apparently, the city of New Haven, CT, administered an exam to its corps of firemen for the purpose of determining promotions. The test was not a new thing; moreover, the people who were going to take the exam had received a syllabus and study information to help them prepare for it. It's not that there were no blacks that passed--38% of them did--it's that none of those passing scores were high enough to fill the certain number of promotion positions. So the city threw out the test results for everyone in order to avoid a potential lawsuit from minorities. What did they get in return? A lawsuit from the white firefighters (and 1 Hispanic) who should have, according to the test results, gotten a promotion. Wanting to avoid a lawsuit is no reason to ignore the law, SCOTUS said. So the Court, in its opinion today, was essentially saying that the results could not be ignored--not that the test was necessarily good or bad.
So yes, I agree with Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy. As much as it pains me to say that for the first four in that group, I think the decision (authored by swing-vote Kennedy) was a good and fair one.

Skatin' off into the sunset...

So Michael Jackson died today. I am feeling a rush of emotions right now. I have an overwhelming urge to say some totally inappropriate things, such as, "There won't be much for the embalmer to do..."
But I won't. Instead I'll just say that it's sad for his three young kids to grow up without a father. I'll also say that his talent was extraordinary and the music world is definitely better thanks to his amazing skills as a musician, singer and dancer.
One parting moment of inappropriateness-- as overheard by someone (who shall remain nameless) at his place of work (again, remaining nameless)...
"Wow, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett in the same day... That's like when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day..."

Just beachy

We did something totally out-of-the-ordinary for our family a few days ago--we went on a mini-spur-of-the-moment Vacation! On Sunday, after church, Mike asked me what I thought about going to the beach, as we all had a few days off from work/school. Hmm... So we went home, did a little research on the Shore, and created a little getaway! We stayed a little mom-and-pop motel in Point Pleasant, about an hour from our house. The room was actually two bedrooms, which was perfect with W, as he was able to go to sleep at his normal time and Mike and I were able to stay up later (as in, until 10). We were such "old folks," playing Yahtzee and watching The American Experience on PBS. It was so relaxing and enjoyable.
The boardwalk was a typical boardwalk, with the silly rip-off games and greasy, too-expensive food. However, there was a decent, albeit small, aquarium that we enjoyed. We got there just in time to see them feed the seals (they also brushed the seals' teeth!).
We ate lunch at a little diner that was surprisingly quite delicious. Mike was craving a cheeseburger, I had a chicken panini, and W had (no big shock) chicken tenders. With full tummies, we went to our hotel, where we had arranged early check-in so that W could get his nap. He was excited about the BIG bed (we barricaded him in with pillows), and went to sleep without a fuss. After naps, we headed to the beach. You have to pay a nominal fee for most beaches in Jersey, so we got our beach passes at the hotel and trooped down to the shore. The water was waaaay too cold (we didn't even get near it, though there were lots of dummies out frolicking in the waves). We instead sat in the sand and showed W how fun it was to dig in the sand.
He was skeptical at first. In fact, he hated it at first. But he quickly warmed up to the idea of it and soon had a great time.

Here he is with his daddy, filling his dump truck with sand and shells.



He got really into running up and down the beach. We were flying his Elmo kite, which he thought was pretty neat.

On Tuesday, we found a practically deserted public beach further south in Bay Head. It was great. The tide had recently receeded, and we were able to collect some really neat shells.

It was pretty nippy and windy.


You can see how windy it was from the flags.


We got home by naptime on Tuesday. W was asking about the "'tel" and the "beech", which leads me to believe that he really enjoyed his trip and would be game for a repeat at some point in the near future.

Oink!

We had the End-of-Year picnic at school yesterday evening. There were lots of fun activities for the kids--sand art, spin-painting and face painting. W was leery of the face painting at first, so he decided to get his arm done. After standing in line for a while and seeing other kids getting their faces done, he decided to go for it. He wanted something "pink" so we went with a pig face.

It's June!

June just crept up on me! Memorial Day has come and gone, school's out... Sort of. Good news--I found out that I will be working at W's school this summer! After months of waiting, a slot came open, and they asked me to work. So that will make it MUCH easier to keep sending W to school through the summer. Routine and consistency is so important to him, so this is a fantastic opportunity for both of us to continue our daily grind.
My mom flew up on Wednesday for a last-minute-planned trip... As in, got her ticket on Tuesday. See, she and Dad were supposed to drive up to see us, but Dad had to stay in MS (ridiculous MS legislature), so it looked like a visit was off... Until Mom found a ticket that she could get with Frequent Flier miles! So she's here. She and I drove down to DC on Saturday morning to go to some museums--specifically the Smithsonian's Natural History museum. They have an exhibit going on right now that explores early North American European settlements from a forensic perspective. One of our distant-distant relatives was dug up and studied as part of the research. While we didn't see him on our visit (he's since been re-interred), there was a little blurb about how he had likely died of lead poisoning. Turns out, wealthier people generally died of such ailments, as most of their utensils and dinnerware was made of or coated with lead-- po' folks had wooden stuff. Very interesting.
Anyway, we did that, then went over to the American History museum. The last time I was in DC, it was closed for renovation. Well, it's open now. It's very... sterile. I enjoyed seeing Julia Child's kitchen, which is on permanent display there. Seeing the Star Spangled Banner was really cool, too. As for the new decor, however, I'm less than impressed.
After that, we backtracked and visited the National Gallery of Art. I love that place. It is so beautiful. We were in search of one of my favorite paintings, Renoir's Girl With a Watering Can. My mom has pictures of me standing beside it at ages 10 and 20. We were hoping to get a shot of me standing next to it in my 30th year. No such luck. I looked at their website and it seems that she is no longer "on display". Very interesting...
So then we went back to our hotel... The Ritz! My dad surprised us with reservations at the Ritz-Carlton because he was so bummed that he couldn't be up here with us. We relaxed a little bit, then set out for Georgetown, to one of my old haunts, Clyde's. Clyde's has great food and a relaxed atmosphere. I had a burger (I was craving it!) and Mom had crabcakes. Everything was delish. We strolled around a little bit, ducking into little shops here and there, but were so tired that we didn't last long. We hailed a cab back to the hotel and kicked back. I took a luxurious bubble bath in the gigantic tub and snuggled into the comfy featherbed. I slept like a rock.
Breakfast was huge, and delicious. I was only able to put away a fraction of what was on my plate, but enjoyed it immensely. We checked out soonafter, got our car, and made our way out of DC via some very interesting neighborhoods. We made it home in about 3 hours, thanks to my E-Z-Pass tag. It sure does save time when you don't have to stop to pay tolls with cash. With E-Z-Pass you just slow down a little bit and sail on through. Nice.
So we're home now. Mike and W survived our absence. The only time W really missed me was at bedtime last night. He wanted to sing "Baby Beluga" and Mike doesn't know the words/tune. But W's Smart Papa had a solution--call Mama! So there I was, standing in Barnes and Noble, singing "Baby Beluga" to my son over the telephone. The things we do for our children.

Amen, Uncle Jesse.