Sassafrass

Just a little gift I picked up for Sarah Palin

 

I saw this at a garage sale over the weekend and immediately thought of the great need it could fill for Ms. Palin, who is stomping through the east coast on her Freedom to Speak Publicly About Incorrect American History Tour. As soon as I dig up her P.O. box number, I am totally shipping this 1987 gem her way. No need for a formal thank you card, Sarah! Your Fourth of July press stops should speak thanks enough.

Tonight at the dinner table, we talked about Prop 8

There were only a few minutes at a time today that I wasn't thinking about the same-sex marriage ban upheld by the California Supreme Court today. How could I not? Twitter and Facebook updates were explosive in response and I felt emotional all day to see how vigilant we must be to ensure that all people have the fundamental right to marry.

Then I wrote about it, knowing I would get the all-caps responses that I indeed got (and am getting). And wanting, in spite of the hate or ignorance or just ill-informedness or shelteredness that might be revealed in comments section, for the conversation to be opened.

After I picked up Lil E, we went over the details of other things present in our day -- how he ran to the sink to wash his hands in the bathroom, slipped, knocked his head pretty hard on the floor and had a goose-egg still swollen on his noggin;how the Spanish teacher wasn't there but really was there but by the time they realized she really was there, it was too late, and so they played on playground instead of having class today; how we would not be eating pizza on the floor in a picnic and would actually have to talk at the table together.

We did talk at the table. We shared our usual Four Things About My Day and the favorite parts of our day. He asks, as he usually does, what I'd been blogging about, and in the most age-appropriate language I could find, I told him.

We've discussed this all before. This time, I gave him the context of the November elections and the California Supreme Court review of the proposition. Then I asked him what he thought. I grew up having a valid voice over such issues at the kitchen table, and he has that, too. Even at four. Especially at four.

He listened. He made a pouty face. He shook his head. His eyebrows framed a wrinkled nose.

"What do you think?" I asked. [The whole convo after the jump.]

Yeah, that's right: I'm still talking about Inauguration Day

President Obama's already shaking stuff up in the Oval Office. This reminds me -- Did you love that he told reporters how happy he is that he will now "work from home"? This makes me wonder if there is some kind of official emblem-stamped silver tea set packed up with my wedding china and fourteen crystal cake plates that I should be taking my midday coffee on before I meet up with some prime minister of the interwebs or dignitary of high heels or some such.

Regardless of what kind of business he conducts at his desk and I conduct at mine, there are two things I know for sure:

1) I rarely can find the charger to my BlackBerry amidst the piles of extremely official paperwork (also known as the sweetest little clippings ever than my grandmother sends me as blog inspiration, fourteen Gymboree coupons, a pile of cards I collected at BlogHer '07 and blank CDs I swear I am going to burn with kickass playlists and photo montages...next week),

and B) this is not true for President Obama.

Oh, and also, 3) George W. Bush did not leave me any kind of message last week. There was a slurry text message at 2 a.m. about seven months that possibly could have crossed secure lines, but I will never know for sure.

While I am intensely watching Obama's intention to lift the "global gag rule" (I wrote about it here, and if you'd like to add your opinion in among the Bible quothers, please do), stem cell research funding, Guantanamo Bay closure and all kinds of other swift progress, I am also still riding high on how I spent Inauguration Day.

I was delighted to watch and cheer and eat oatmeal (yes, Quaker...of course) with some of my favorite Chicago mama bloggers -- the very talented and wise-cracking Jeanne from HouseInProgress, Danielle from  Foodmomiac, MJ from Chicagonista among them. These women have laughed and ranted and written about so many political issues that it just seemed ideal to sit among them in front of CNN, our laptops, coffee and maybe even a brunch-time cocktail or two. Here are a few postcards from the day in photos generously shared by Foodmomiac (because I can't handle a coffee cup, champagne and a camera all at once):

3 little things I loved about the inauguration

What a dreamy day. I felt so in love with the ceremony and celebrations, the hope and the accountability, the crowds of people cheering and the memory of all of those people there in spirit and in memory. And of course, I was head over emerald heels with the Obamas.

As overwhelmed and emotional and high as I felt with the day on the whole, I hope I remember these three things:

1. Malia cam and Sasha silliness. I adored that the first child of the first family is a real kid, texting and taking pictures and even handing over the camera to Joe Biden for a closer peek at her dad on centerstage. I loved that Sasha was as entertaining as Aretha in some moments. I've listened closely to what the Obamas have said about their views on parenting and I imagine many other people have taken pointers from their seeming centeredness and stress on the kids' (and their own) responsibility. I like that. Shining out from the adorable, brightly colored coats and coordinating gloves, it shows. And I totally want to be Malia's Flickr friend to see those shots.

2.  The poem. Ohhh, the poem. Is there any better ritual than commissioning such fine art to commemorate a day? Every single line is perfection. Is it too much to dream that one day Lil E will stand in front of a classroom, reciting this memorized poem for an oratory assignment? Or that he will study it in a college class, doodling around the edges of the copy in front of him, Xeroxed many times over? Maybe those are my own dreams, but I hope he one day appreciates the beauty of this one work by this one writer, who that day was welled up with her own emotion, and who proudly has Chicago ties.

3. The clear love. I watched the new president and first lady walk toward the White House during the inaugural parade and was struck (once again, this is not the first time) by their connectedness. Even as she changed hands to wave at opposite sides of the crowd, she never lost contact with his hand. In this lovely, sweeping, rhythmic motion, Michelle Obama released one hand from his to raise it in a wave while grasping his hand with her other. That tiny moment spoke so much and it made proud of the force of life she seems to be beside him. (And if you haven't seen it already, this head shaking take on their connection is quite funny. Someone please point this woman to the Urban Dictionary.)

I'm taking requests for a new political manifesto theme song

How do you even begin to describe what today feels like? Any words I have to offer are inadequate. Heartfelt but inadequate.

This morning, I am grateful to open my eyes to a new day, to hear something other than what we have heard too loudly, too gratingly, for too long. I know that change won't come as swiftly as we all might like or need, but I am hopeful. More hopeful in our government than I have been during most of my voting life.

Maybe it's that I have a child now. Maybe it's that I feel our nation teetering on the edge of a cliff where there is no reproductive justice left for women, no arts or P.E. programs left in schools, never enough healthcare for uninsured kids, too tight of a restriction on who gets to marry whom, too many opportunities to go to war again or drill again or deny scientists the chance to see what stem cells really can do again.

Maybe it's that I get chills that he will not remember a time when this country didn't have an African American man at its helm. Perhaps it is because there is so much good that can happen, might just really happen, will happen in the years ahead, and that gives me hope for my lifetime and for his.

I will be watching in awe and I am sure, with tears. I will be prayerful and celebratory and thankful to see this point in time with my own eyes.

I am so fucking happy that I will no longer feel the anger rise up in me every time I hear and belt out and drum my fingers on the steering wheel when I hear this song.

Because everything comes back to how I'm single now. And hot breakfast. OH! And the almost-President!

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster of endings and beginnin gs and transitions that have had me smiling and hands up and screaming with glee, dipping into exhaustion and emotion, and inhaling and exhaling slowly, slowly, deeply to try to find some sort of restful center. And all within minutes, maybe seconds. That's just this time of life, and after a weekend of good stuff -- being with my grrrls and seeing a phenomenal show and just lazing about with my boy in our PJs until noon -- I feel ready (and I am totally ripping this line off from an old friend's Facebook status, but I know he won't mind a bit...or won't once I remind him of that one - ahem - $50 poetry prize from sophomore year of high school) meeting the press and then facing the nation.

I am Christmas morning excited about the inauguration. Our t-shirts are clean and folded and ready to wear (a particular feat since the walls, steps and landings leading to our basement storage unit and laundry are covered in two inches of solid ice).

I will send Lil E off to preschool, where I am sure he will incite the wee ones into Oh-rock Oh-bama glitter-and-pipe cleaner inaug mania.  And then I will head over to that House in Progress for a little presidential hype of my own.

I am thrilled to join Jeanne and many other fabulous bloggers for the Quaker Oats inauguration brunch. We will be toasting the hope of a nation.  And we will be celebrating Quaker's own commitment to change in this country with their Start with Substance Campaign, serving up 1 million bowls of oatmeal to families in need in the year ahead.  (Join the Facebook group here.)

It's a great cause and a wonderful opportunity to watch the page turn for these United States (and I hope, I hope, our individual quality of life as well) with my people. It's also crazy (and perhaps a teense more enticing) that all this celebration and the ten others around the country have caused a little NYT controversy (ohhh, the former journalist in me loves it when journalists get all salty about bloggers).

Where will you be on Inauguration Day? I will be with some of my favorite smart, funny, political, progressive women friends --  in person and in spirit -- and taking my Obamas with a little oatmeal, brown sugar and buzz on.

Novembers past

One year ago today, I wrote this post. I never thought that launching Project: Life Change with the wise and loving CityMama would mean so much for me personally. I thought it was about quitting one job in hopes of getting another. Instead, I waved farewell to one life and got another. I'm no longer sad about that and one of the reasons I am where I am these months later is the vulnerability, rawness and courage other women who signed on for Project: Life Change bared in their own blog posts and comments. Another reason is all the support that emerged from places I never expected, including the corners of these surprising, ever-changing interwebs.

Two years ago today, I wrote about the breaking news of Brit and KFed breaking it off. Good Lord! That was only two years ago? It seems like two comebacks, seventeen sets of extensions, two stints in rehab, a disaster of a custody case and one disgustingly over-worn pair of ripped fishnets ago. Do you think Barack Obama's going to reign Britney in as a priority item in his administration or that he'll just hand that manila folder on over to Joe Biden to handle? Hell, maybe he will toss it on over to Sarah Palin. Seems like her speaking career may have tanked this week along with her shot at the (inevitable) presidency, so she might just speak Brit's language, y'all.

The day before that national news overtook anything else clearly less important in the headlines, I took Lil E to the polls. There, he expressed his interest in voting multiple times. Interestingly, this week, he did just that -- once in the car with me and once in his preschool classroom. You've got to love a Chicago kid, learning to vote early (as in toddler, my friends) and often (as in as many times as it takes to avoid a political meltdown from a kid who really just needs another fishy cracker one-hitter).

And because the universe loves to bring us right around to where we began, I also posted that week about a winter two years before. I put up pictures of a couple that had just become a family and baby who is now a boy. There was a lot of love in that cold and drafty room and I am quite grateful that the three of us shared that time in our lives together.

I am also grateful to page back and find these words by David Whyte and this magnificence by Rumi. These years and all these happenings later, I still need to be reminded of what's written here.

If you feel the need to dance around, then dance around in these (yup, Obamundies)

This morning, I'm prayerful one moment and giddy the next. I looked up from my laptop and saw the sun shining down from a glorious blue sky on a street full of yellow leaves and honestly, my first thought, "God is smiling down on us today. She thinks we did well."

And then in an instant, the giggles bubble up when I think of Lil E cheering this morning when he asked who would be President and I spelled out O-B-A-M-A.

I'm careful not to forget the impact and sadness of a that Prop 8 passed in California (how that happened astounds me) and all the work that has yet to be done to secure marriage equity, reproductive justice and health insurance accessibility. 

For now, though, I think that God or the goddesses or whomever is beaming along with us will give the nod if we do a little dancing today.

And hell, if we're going to dance, we might as well be dancing in these. (Take it easy, gentlemen, that's the year printed on there, not something you have to stress about customizing.)

Or these.

Or hell, why not these? It's for AMERICA, people!

This little light of mine

I'm going to let it shine.

This little light of mine.
I'm going to let it shine.

Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.

All around the neighborhood,
I'm going to let it shine.

All around the neighborhood,
I'm going to let it shine.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Let. It. Shine.

[all photos credit Jessica Ashley, except Mama for Obama photos, credit Lil E]

Linkety Dinkety Doo: I haven't even gotten to Palin's shoes yet

Last week, during the Biden-Palin debate, I jokingly Twittered that I wished someone would please tell the Governor of Alaska to lay off the White Rain and Wet-n-Wild peach blush. I was kidding.

Sort of. But it is too easy to focus on Sarah Palin's appearance. While I'd like to do that in an ear-covering la la la, I can't hear what you're saying sort of way, I know it's not fair. It's not fair to focus on her make-up and up-do because what she is saying and what she stands for is so much scarier.

I want a woman in the White House, not just planning parties and hosting the holiday tours, but officially participating in the administration of this country (not unofficially as we all know many First Ladies have done). But I want a woman in office who is good for women. Sarah Palin isn't that woman.

This is only one of many, many reasons we're ardently, loudly, happily supporting Obama and Biden. In my fear of another eight years of Republican misogyny and in my attempts to downplay what is really on the line here -- reproductive justice, in particular -- I instead went right for the easy target.

Please, if you see me in Wal-Mart giving Sarah Palin a lecture on why should put back the Bonnie Bell tri-color eyeshadows already, just steer your cart past us. Instead, stop here, where much better stuff is being said on this election:

A Woman's Worth is written by author and blogger and single mother Goldie Taylor. I got this in an email forward from my mom's brigade of activist retired teachers and immediately went to the blog to read more. This post is worth reading and (yes, mom) definitely worth forwarding on.

The Repubs have mastered the art of co-opting feministing language for not-feminist agenda. Oh, and they've also gotten quite good at misquoting feminists as well. This one made me want to flood Sarah Palin's office with Starbucks cups printed with accurate quotes by activist women.

I want this t-shirt. Sometimes it just comes down to a simple tagline, right? A friend told me this week that she was going to download this on to postcards to pass out when election conversations inevitably turn into laments about how afraid we are. She said we need to keep the faith. And hey, I'll take almost any excuse to say, "Chill the fuck out, duder." (OK, I added duder...I can't resist that.)

This is also worth a laugh. And then some serious analysis on CNN or something. I mean, if you are lucid enough yet after Palin bingo. 

Linkety Dinkety Doo: My grrrls

Every week in my soul/sanity/muscle/motherhood-saving yoga class, my teacher begins by asking us to breathe out all we want to release from our week, to give back to the universe. And then she instructs us to breathe in all the goodness we want to fill up that space. This week, the goodness I want to breathe into the corners of my body and spirit comes from the women I know.

Many of you know the women I know. Many of you read them and have playdates with them and work with them. No matter how well or how long these women have been my grrrls, they continue to impress me with their ambition and writing and insights and sassafrassness and kick-assedness, whether they are moving through their own days and worlds or stirring up the tide throughout the universe.

Check these mamas out:

The fierceness and fire that are the MOMocrats.

The confessions and caffeine headaches kicked by Crazed Parent.

Ohhhh, the home reno and the hilarity that is House in Progress.

There is so so so much more of this to come. Well, as soon as I'm all stretched and Zenned.

Officially Obamaed

It began, this Super Tuesday in Chicago, a crabby day in our household. It is quiet here with my parents on one of those retired people extended vacations on white sandy beaches with a stack of books and pile of peel-and-eat shrimp, and so Lil E's whining echoed in kitchen over having milk-not having milk-having milk in THAT glass-no! juice! in THAT glass!, then in the living room over the same Curious George episode running for the third time this week and then on the floor over something in that high-pitched preschooler whine that is inaudible to adult ears...or at that point, necessarily ignored. I fixed the milk and then the juice and then the milk again, then flipped furiously through cable and then On Demand and then back to PBS for please-God-another-Curious-George that does not involve the effing supermarket hi-jinx or the camping trip with the ding-dong doorman and his persnickety little dog. And then, as I poured pink Cheerios, MOMMY! and a thank-you-God gallon of coffee, it occurred to me that maybe the boy's also disappointed he never got to cast a vote for John Edwards.

What? This is Chicago, people!