The Race

Okay, so the 5K I did yesterday was not really a race, at least not for most of us who participated. It was more of a run. But there's a Seinfeld episode entitled "The Race," and I never miss an opportunity for a Seinfeld reference.

Anyway, yesterday I was up at the crack of dawn to get on the 6:09 a.m. train downtown. And when we got to Grant Park, where the event was being held, it was a mob scene. There were 30,000 people registered for either the 5K or the 15K, and they all had families and whatnot, so it was just a giant clusterfu@k of people.

By some miracle (that miracle being "cell phones"), I was able to meet up with my friend Farrah, who was the one who lovingly prodded me to sign up for this run. We started the race together, but I made it perfectly clear that she was free to pull ahead of me because she could run the whole thing and I couldn't. (I'm cool with it, really I am.)

The best and worst thing that happened at the start of that race was that the temperature was in the low 30s. The bad part about that was the obvious freezing-ness, and I was thinking that perhaps my first foray into organized running should have been on a warmer day. But the good thing was that my legs were frozen and I couldn't feel them, so I ran a lot longer than I thought I would. Of course, the fact that I was in a giant throng of other people running didn't hurt, either. You know, peer pressure and all that.

Shortly after I started I saw my marathon-running friend Katie on the sidelines, who also got up at the crack of dawn to come and cheer for me (and a couple of her other friends, but mostly me, I'm sure). I was glad she was at the beginning and I was still smiling, and not somewhere in the middle where I might say something embarrassing like, "Please kill me." Especially because I think the entire 5K was probably like a warm-up for a marathon.

So, Farrah and I ran together for awhile, and I was grateful that while we were running, she gave me some truly wonderful compliments about my blog. Because then I could be all, "See, I do have some natural, God-given talents, even if my current athletic endeavor isn't one of them."

Anyway, I ran about 3/4 of a mile, then walked, then ran and walked off and on until the end, as is my custom on the treadmill at the gym. Oh and by the way, running on a crystal-clear day next to Lake Michigan as the sun rises > running on a treadmill at the gym while trying to read slightly garbled closed-captioning on Oprah. (Math joke!)

And just to be accurate and appropriately complimentary, let me note that Farrah is much faster and fitter than I am, and she ran the whole thing.

I got to what appeared to be about two blocks before the finish line (but was probably less than that), and I was like, "I'm running the whole rest of the way!" And then shortly after that I was like, "No I'm not!" But I crossed the finish line running, and experienced a very brief period of I want to die before reuniting with Farrah to get in line for our chocolate fondue. And really, isn't the ability to rebound quickly the true definition of fitness?

But speaking of people who don't know the accurate definition of certain words, the race announcer described what we got as "an obscene amount of chocolate." What we actually got was a little plastic ballpark nacho tray with one corner filled with chocolate fondue and the main part filled with various dipping items. Now, let me be clear that I don't think I should have been eating more chocolate fondue than that, especially since I'm sure I consumed more calories than I burned during the run. I'm just saying that describing that as an "obscene amount of chocolate" was inaccurate. And since, as previously noted, my primary interests lie in the area of words and not in the area of physical fitness, I just think people should use more accurate vocabulary when they have microphones that 30,000+ people can hear.

My poor mom was stuck trying to chase after Nathan in that big-ass crowd. They did have a kids' area with a bouncy castle and some other games, but I think that got old quickly. I'm pretty sure she was ready to collapse by the time I finally reunited with her, again through the miracle of cell phones. And then the 5K experience was over and we went to breakfast at Yolk with Katie, where I had the strawberry pancakes con panna.

And now it's time for me to wrap this up with some important take-away lessons from my first 5K experience. And the most important take-away lesson is, pound cake and Rice Krispie treats are better to dip in chocolate fondue than fruit.

Oh, I meant to say, the most important take-away lesson is that sometimes you might actually end up liking something that you initially dreaded. A day later, amid much soreness, I'm willing to admit that I actually had fun at the run. I mean, like most things, it's better after it's over, but I had fun while I was there, too. I think I might actually sign up for another 5K, albeit a tiny suburban one at my gym the day after Thanksgiving.

And I'm happy I had that life experience. I'm not one for bucket lists, and I have no desire to do something extreme like climb Mt. Everest. I don't even care if I never get to go to whatever country Mt. Everest is contained in. (Oh, I just Wikipedia-ed it and it's on the Nepal-Tibet border. Great, Tibet. That's another issue I don't know anything about.)

What was I saying? Oh, yes, I'm not usually one to have a checklist of life experiences that I think I should have. That's just too much pressure. But I have now, in my adult life, done an organized competitive swimming event and an organized running event. And while I may not feel the desire to add a bike race to my list of life events (namely because I do not, in fact, own a bike), I'm glad I have done a swimming thing and a running thing.

The reason I'm glad to have these events under my belt is that I think it's good for you (or at least, for me) to do some things that don't come naturally. The thing is, I don't spend a lot of time on things I'm not good at (parenting excepted, because nobody feels good at that). There are things you have to do in life, namely compulsory education, and academia always came fairly easily to me. There are people who are not really book-smart, and those poor people are forced to endure the first several years of their lives in classrooms, being tortured daily by something they aren't particularly strong at. But school went fairly smoothly for me (the academic part, at least), and then, like everybody, I picked a career in my adult life that suited my talents. (This is actually not true initially, because I was an elementary school teacher, and that did not suit my talents. But that's a story for another post.) But eventually I picked a career that fit me, and in my free time I don't spend a lot of time on hobbies and interests that I'm really bad at.

The exception is athletic endeavors. You have to exercise for your physical health, and I find I need to exercise for my mental health as well. But I have never been a natural athlete. Even when I was chosen captain of the varsity swim team, I was picked because of my dedication to the team, and not because I was the fastest swimmer. My job was to try to come in 5th place in a race of 6 swimmers, to get my team that one extra point that might make the difference between losing and winning the meet. (Okay, I'm pretty sure that one point never made the difference, but I liked to think it would one day.)

So, I'm not good at sports. And all along I had this attitude like, I'm so terrible at running, and I'm humiliated that I have friends who run marathons, or can even run an entire 5K without walking, and I can't even run for 10 minutes straight. Please look away, you guys. But they all cheered me on, either on the sidelines or on Facebook, via e-mail, text, phone, etc. And at first I thought it was out of pity. But then I thought of some other area that I'm good at and other people struggle with. I thought of people who didn't go to college right out of high school, and are now going back and struggling to balance community college courses with their regular adult responsibilities. I don't look down on those people, and in fact I cheer them on and I applaud their efforts. I commend them for trying to do something that doesn't come naturally to them.

And I'm sort of the athletic equivalent of these older adult college students. And people are legitimately cheering me on, and not just out of pity. Because we all have to start somewhere, and wherever you start is good.

Living on the Edge

Why is it, just when you are ready to send your preschooler away to boarding school, something happens that makes you grateful for each and every minute you have with him?

So, yesterday Nathan, my mom, and I went downtown to Union Station to pick up my packet for this 5K that I did today. (More on the 5K tomorrow.) Anyway, we decided to make a day out of the trip and hang out downtown. We went to the Navy Pier Children's Museum.

While at the museum, Nathan and a larger girl, about 8 years old, had a head-on collision when they both ran around a blind corner. Since the girl was quite a bit older, he hit about her shoulder, which you wouldn't think would do that much damage. But after a brief moment of crying, Nathan sort of passed out on the floor, his eyes rolled back, and he peed on himself. (The peeing not being a major indicator of distress in and of itself, because, you know, he's three.) Somebody yelled, "Call 911!" and the rest was kind of a blur.

Fortunately Nathan came to almost immediately. He may not have lost consciousness at all. He seemed perfectly alert and coherent. We took an ambulance to Children's Memorial Hospital, where eventually several doctors proclaimed him perfectly fine. We had to stay for three hours for observation, during which time Nathan watched the hospital's continuous loop of children's DVDs and my mom and I played Angry Birds on our cell phones until the batteries died.

The doctor said that Nathan probably had a mild concussion, but nothing to warrant any follow-up medical care.

We were told to look out for any signs of further danger, such as Nathan being sleepy, having difficulty going to sleep, or acting goofy. Which pretty much sums up a day in the life of a three-year-old.

Finally we were released around 6:00, and we took a long, two-train trek back home. And all I could think was, "I don't care if he's naughty. I don't care if I spoil him. I don't care if nobody else thinks so, but he's the most perfect child in the whole world."

I also thought, "I'm never letting him out of the house again. I'm wrapping him in bubble wrap and keeping him indoors for the rest of his life."

Between Thursday's ridiculous school behavior and Friday's medical crisis, I think I experienced the full range of human emotion in a 48-hour period. And as much as I felt that maternal drive to do anything, anything to protect my child, I also felt frustration at how much motherhood leaves you exposed to such raw emotion. Once you have a child, you stick your heart out there to be battered and bruised, and soothed and warmed, to points almost beyond human tolerance. You are always living on the edge.

I didn't fully break down until the end of the hospital experience. When you're in the middle of the crisis, you move as if on auto-pilot. You think nothing. You just do what you have to do, and then you look up and it's like, "Wait, how did we get here?"

And even though I did let my mind go to some pretty dark places during the whole event, it wasn't until after it was all over that I realized how horribly things could have gone, and how lucky we were to be taking home a healthy child at the end of the evening. And I held his little head and breathed in his scent and said, tearfully, "Mommy doesn't know what she would do if anything ever happened to you."

Of course I let him sleep in my bed last night. Of course I no longer cared that he can't really stay in his own bed for a full night. I would have agreed to having him strapped to me 24/7 at that point.

By this morning, he was back to his usual shenanigans, which meant I was back to my usual frustrations. There's something in our brains that suppresses that constant, on-the-edge feeling that your child is always in imminent danger, and you go back to your day-to-day sweating the small stuff. This loss of perspective is really too bad, but we can't focus on the terrifying big things all the time. It's scary living on the edge.

The Weight Issue

Last week Chicago's favorite funny memoirist/raging bitch, Jen Lancaster, discussed a recent Marie Claire online column entitled "Should Fatties 'Get a Room' (Even on TV?)". Basically, the column was suggesting that a new show called Mike & Molly, which is about an overweight couple, actually promotes obesity. The column was pretty condescending toward the overweight, and the author stated that she was grossed out watching two people with rolls of fat making out. Also, the author, whose only experience with weight loss consists of having an eating disorder, offered the following easy-to-follow advice for all the clueless fatties out there:

I'm happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it's cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you're getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more.

Anyway, last week Jen Lancaster offered a rebuttal. She makes a lot of points in this rebuttal, including that we should all learn to love ourselves no matter what our size. Self-acceptance and body-acceptance are two of Jen's main platforms in her writing. She is not shy to admit she is overweight, and even has an entire book devoted to chronicling her weight-loss efforts, Such a Pretty Fat.

So, on the one hand we have the Marie Claire column that suggests that fat is disgusting. On the other hand, we have Jen Lancaster, saying that we should learn to love our bodies no matter what their size.

And the thing is, I don't agree with either of them.

To be sure, the Marie Claire column is an outrage. It's appalling that any major publication would allow an online column with the word "fatties" in the title. The author is disrespectful and condescending. And, as a person recovering from an eating disorder and a person who says she doesn't watch much TV, she should not have been picked to write this article.

Jen Lancaster is often pretty mean and crabby, but she doesn't take cheap shots. Her arguments are often well-reasoned, and she does give her opponent the benefit of the doubt.

But, as I said, I can't get behind Jen's "Let's all love our bodies no matter what the size" movement. As Jen herself discovered in Such a Pretty Fat, you can love your body all you want, but the bottom line is that being overweight is unhealthy. Oh sure, not every single overweight person has health problems, but there is overwhelming evidence that being overweight increases your chances of having a number of unpleasant health conditions.

And the health-related reasons are why I still try to lose weight. I mean, yeah, vanity factors into my desire to be thinner. I fondly recall the days when my general middle region was the exact size of the organs and bones contained within it, and nothing more. The visual of a fat-free midsection is what keeps me going sometimes.

But really, at this point in my life, I am a married Midwestern housewife who sclubs around in jeans and a sweatshirt, and I don't feel the need to be supermodel thin. But I do want to be healthy, and that's why I just can't accept my body in its current state. I'm exhausted and almost unable to keep up with my child because it's essentially like I'm carrying around an extra 50-pound dumbbell with me wherever I go.

Every single person has physical imperfections, some of which are only visible to the person whose body they are on, and these slight physical imperfections are what we need to learn to love about ourselves. If your teeth are crooked or you have a mole you don't like, you should not obsess over that. If you have slightly rounder hips or a not-so-proportioned body, but you are within your ideal weight range, you should learn to accept yourself. But I don't think you should learn to accept your weight if it's a weight that increases your risk of health problems later in life.

For sure, losing weight is a battle, and it's nowhere near as cut-and-dry as Little Miss Condescending from Marie Claire suggests it is. And I don't think that watching fat people on TV is really going to encourage obesity. No matter what, using the term "fatties" is unacceptable, and it's appalling that the editors of a major publication would allow such an article to be published.

As is the case with most issues, everybody's attitudes/behaviors toward weight fall on a continuum. As is also often the case, neither extreme on the continuum is healthy. On the one end you have the Marie Claire columnist, who has battled an eating disorder and has an absolute disgust for even the slightest hint of overweightness. On the other end of the continuum, you have Jen Lancaster, who thinks you should love yourself no matter what your size. (Let me say that, as I have mentioned, Jen is aware of the health issues associated with being overweight. But in this particular blog post rebutting against the Marie Claire column, she does in fact espouse the attitude that you should love yourself no matter what your size.) And I think the middle ground on this continuum is really the right answer. Don't obsess over every physical imperfection, don't strive to be perfect, but don't accept an unhealthy weight either.

Now, getting to a healthy weight is by no means easy. Indeed, after battling depression, it has been the biggest struggle of my life. I'd like to write more about this struggle in a future post, because I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it. But for now, I leave you with the following take-aways:

1. Using the term "fatty" is never appropriate.
2. Don't accept any unhealthy physical condition or behavior that you can reasonably change and control.
3. As I said, learning to change that physical condition or behavior is by no means easy.

And those are my thoughts for today.

Rage Against the Washing Machine

I had a whole other agenda for today's post, something coherent and thoughtful, but then a bunch of petty shit went down, and now I'm too frustrated to write.

The title of this blog post comes from the fact that my washing machine decided to start leaking all over my laundry room floor, creating a vile, mildewy smell. Now, the thing is, water is my husband's arch foe. I think he sees water on the floor of the basement and imagines mold, which means a house we'll never be able to sell (when we decide to sell it someday), which means total financial ruin in spite of all we worked for all these years, and ... oh my GOD! I imagine all these tortured thoughts running rapidly through his head because I'm pretty sure it was those thoughts that manifested themselves in a middle-of-the-night turning on of the bedroom light and yelling.

So, I called my BFFs Sears this morning to come repair the washing machine. I call them my BFFs in total and complete sarcasm, because back in April/May/possibly June we had a situation whereupon it was virtually impossible for their appliance delivery service to figure out how to deliver an appliance for me. I swear, it was seriously like they had never done this before, with one misadventure after another as the dishwasher order got lost, a man came to install the dishwasher without it actually being in his truck, an inability to get a refund when we were charged twice, lions laying with lambs, etc.

Anyway, an overly-friendly man who I'm pretty sure was a guy in India using a fake Texas accent scheduled my appointment. (Seriously, I know some Indian call center workers develop fake American accents to fool callers who hate calling India. As I have said before, I have no problem calling India.) The Sears repair guy did come today about halfway through his four-hour arrival window, and fixed our broken water pump in the washer. So although this was ridiculously expensive, it was an overall convenient experience, and it doesn't make for a very interesting blog post.

But then my kid got the worst report ever from preschool, which was just awesome because it was the one time my mom was with me to pick him up. It seems Nathan refused to wear his coat to go outside, despite the fact that all the other kids who wore coats got to pick something out of the treasure chest. His attitude was that he already got several treasure-chest-like items last week in goody bags that overachiever parents brought in for the class Halloween party (I'm paraphrasing here), so he didn't need another treasure. And he fought and he fought, and at one point he lay down on the floor.

And on a side note, he hit another kid with a plastic plate in the toy kitchen.

I was close to tears.

We had a standoff in the park district building just trying to get him to put his coat on to go out the door. It lasted about 30 minutes. Then at home he had a time out for getting in trouble at school, and my mom suggested he practice putting on his coat at the end of the time out. Somehow it transpired that he wouldn't get his lunch until he put on his coat.

This lasted at least an hour.

Finally he put on his coat, all excited and proud of himself, and we had to act like we were all thrilled too, and not that we were still mad that we spent the last 60 minutes of our lives with our entire self-esteem riding on whether or not a 3-year-old would put on a coat.

So anyway, I spent all day with a sort of low-grade, simmering anger.

It doesn't help that in the last 24 hours, I have read three outrageous stories on the Internet:

• Story 1: This woman, Jill, experienced a personal tragedy when her infant son died at 51 days old from a congenital heart defect. It just so happened that he died the day after he was circumcised, so she was harassed by anti-circumcision activists (or "intactivists") who claimed that the circumcision was what killed the boy. They protested at the hospital, and demanded interviews from Jill within 24 hours of her son's death. The badgered the coroner and called for an autopsy to try to prove that circumcision was the cause of death. In general, they turned every parent's nightmare into an even worse nightmare. And here's the thing: even if circumcision had been the cause of the son's death, you need to leave a grieving mother alone. Do you not think that every single mother who has lost a child doesn't partially blame herself, no matter how irrational? And also, are you stupid? The child had a heart defect that decreased his chances of survival from birth. Is that not his obvious cause of death? And finally, I think anti-circumcision activists need to mind their own business and let every parent make the circumcision decision for his or her own child. This is especially important because circumcision has some cultural and religious significance, and when you campaign against circumcision you are not respecting certain people's cultural and religious beliefs/traditions.
• Story 2: This woman, Monica, wrote a story about apple pie recipes on her blog, which was later completely lifted and re-published in Cook's Source magazine without the original author's knowledge. When Monica inquired about possibly getting paid a little something for the article that the magazine plagiarized, the editor responded with a completely condescending e-mail that stated (wrongly) that the entire Internet is public domain, free for the taking. The idiocy on the part of alleged professional journalists is maddening, but even more maddening is that there are people who are so jerky and mean.
  
• Story 3: This woman, whose name is not stated, allowed her 5-year-old son to dress up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween. When she arrived at her son's preschool at a Christian church, some of the moms gave her a hard time for letting her son dress like that. (Note that none of the kids had a problem with the costume.) These moms are idiots, and I'm just going to let "Daphne's" mom's rebuttal speak for itself: If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.

The thing is, I think most people are good and kind. I think what makes idiots stand out is that they are so out of the ordinary. You shouldn't let the turkeys get you down, but that's easier said than done. But just to end on a positive note, I present the following:

This little boy, Aidan, is five years old and was recently diagnosed with leukemia. Fearing they would have to sell their house to afford Aidan's treatment, Aidan's parents decided to raise funds by selling Aidan's drawings of monsters on an Etsy shop called Aidan's Monsters. And they have raised enough money selling the drawings to keep the house and pay for Aidan's care! Here is a message from Aidan's family: While the donations and financial support have been an amazing blessing, we would like to especially thank everyone for all of the letters and support. Your words have been uplifting and inspiring to the entire family. Your words and support for Aidan have helped us in ways unimaginable. Aidan has been drawing more than ever, and we do our best to share all of your words with him. Your support has been keeping Aidan's and our family’s spirits up. Again, we sincerely thank you for this.

Faith in humanity: restored ... ?

Scientific and Industrious

My mom is here, and today we're taking her to my favorite Chicago museum, The Museum of Science and Industry. Originally I thought I wouldn't like the MSI, because I never really liked science, and so it was the last of the major Chicago museums that I visited. But once I went, I loved it! They have so much stuff! And it leans heavily toward the "industry" side, so they have stuff like giant full-sized trains, 747s hanging from the ceiling, a German U-Boat from WWII, and the world's largest pinball machine. Oh, and some adorable baby chicks, from which I learned that hatching out of an egg is actually a very long and laborious process, and not that little chicks just burst from eggs and spring to life.

So, you see, it's good to go to museums because you learn things. I learned, for example, that our vile and overpriced grocery conglomerate known as Jewel once started out as a quaint little tea shop. They have this area that is supposed to look like an old-timey main street, where they have the early versions of Jewel, Walgreen's, Marshall Field's (now Macy's), and some fairly nasty-looking dental offices. I love the antique main street. Guess who doesn't? My kid. It's next to the train exhibit, so my time at the antique main street is usually limited to what I can see on the way to and from the bathroom. But I did learn that Walgreen's was once a charming little shop with glistening things in the window, as opposed to the crappy and life-sucking store it now is. And Walgreen's of yesteryear advertised that they sold "drugs and surgical dressings," whereas today they sell Fla-Vor-Ice popsicles and giant boxes of Dots for 99 cents. Now, first of all, why was the average person needing to buy surgical dressings? Shouldn't those be sold at some kind of medical supply store? And did they sell any kind of effective drugs back then, like drugs that would cure your ailment instead of making it worse? Was it just morphine and leeches?

And so, we learn that through the efforts of scientists and industrialists, we can now have hideously florescently-lit Walgreen's that sell effective over-the-counter medications and overpriced toilet paper.

And now we are off to the museum!

Slow Cooked

If I'm gonna post every day, some of the posts are going to have to be daily recaps. Not every post can be some deep essay about a single subject.

So, today started with one of my least favorite activities, making a grocery list. I hate all the planning involved in food preparation. But, you know, as Weight Watchers will tell you, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Anyway. As I mentioned last week, I borrowed Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook from the library. So I decided to make this an all-Crock Pot week. My mom is visiting, which means we'll be out doing fun touristy things during the day, and it will be nice to come home to a nice, aromatic meal. Also we're both doing Weight Watchers, so we'll need to have food ready to preempt the ordering of takeout.

So, even though it's not your mother's cookbook, my mother and I will be eating 4 slow-cooked recipes this week: minestrone soup, split pea soup, chicken/potatoes, and a turkey breast.

Just to add a little more excitement to the day, it was picture day at Nathan's school. I was disappointed to see that the photographer would be taking full-body photos of the kids in front of a somewhat formal-looking background. Therefore, I would have to find a way to make Nathan's whole body look presentable, and not just his shoulders on up. So I bought him an outfit that cost like $25 at Target, but was ADORABLE with a little button-down plaid shirt and a train vest. So, of course he had to have dressy shoes, which were like another $16, and suddenly my attempt to use the school photos as cheap Christmas gifts didn't seem so cheap anymore. And plus, those little shoes were nearly impossible to cram my kid's feet into.

So, Nathan was thus appropriately clad and dropped off at school, and I had no more excuses but to go to the gym. I am doing this !@#$$% run on Saturday, and I just don't feel like it's going to go well. And then they sent this e-mail saying you had to at least run a 15-minute mile, and I'm like, what?!

Anyway, I went to the gym. And what better reward for going to the gym than to go on another pain-in-the-ass errand? So I went on this epic grocery-shopping trip to buy all these Crock Pot ingredients. Then on the way out, I saw police swarming this bank across the street. It turned out there was a robbery there, and the police shot one of the suspects. I have to say, even though I was across the street, I found the whole thing unnerving. And if I had had Nathan with me ... forget about it. I would have freaked out and left my giant cart of groceries right there in the parking lot as I drove away. Because if there's one thing I know, it's that you don't sit around and stare at a situation involving arrests and police standoffs. You especially don't whip out your camera and take pictures of the suspects, as the man mentioned in this article did. Because then you become a witness, and have to enter the witness relocation program. And I really couldn't pull off being a blonde. Also "Same Old Roberta" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Having survived my brush with crime, I got the groceries home, picked up Nathan, threw together a Crock Pot minestrone, set up the breadmaker for a nice wheat loaf, and finished my housecleaning. My home was thus prepared for the perfect olfactory experience to greet my houseguest upon arrival: a mixture of soup, bread, and a Bath and Body Works Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin air freshener.

So, now that my house was cleaned and my food was prepared, I had time to go out and vote. Because even though it has been 90 years since women got the right to vote, I still had to plan my trip to the polls around cooking and cleaning.

Anyway, I had this vision of teaching my kid all about the electoral process and doing his civic duty. But when I told him about going to vote, he said, "I HATE VOTING!" And then when we got to the polling place, there was a crazy line for the touchscreen voting, probably because there are 15 pages of voting, and afterward you have to review each one approximately 37 times. So in this long wait, Nathan entertained himself by throwing himself on the floor, and running up and down this wheelchair ramp that they had at the school cafeteria where I vote. Meanwhile, another little girl about his age just stood nicely next to her mom the whole time in the line.

Now, the one thing the poll workers tell you is not to remove your little activation card until you see this message that tells you it's okay to do so. And it's like, these voting mechanisms are designed to be fairly fool-proof, unless that fool is a 3-year-old. So, like two pages into the voting, Nathan yanks my card out and the receipt thing prints a big-ass "VOID." And I have to tell the poll workers that I violated the one and only rule of the electronic voting, which was not to remove your damn card.

After some confusion on the part of the workers, my machine was reset and I voted for about 4 of the important offices, then skipped the next 11 pages of judges because I didn't want Nathan to yank my card out again (though at that point he was banished to sitting on some kind of risers, probably there because this cafeteria is actually a cafetorium like my elementary school had).

Then we went to the car wash. I picked the mango air freshener, in case you were curious. (The only choices are cherry, mango, new car, and fresh 'n clean.)

Next we had a perfect airport pickup when we went to Midway to get my mom. We went home and, as I had hoped, her first words upon entering my house were, "God it smells good in here."

And the minestrone was good, and then we tried to get my kid to go to sleep for HOURS AND HOURS, which is my newest frustration, but that's a post for another day.

Look what I'm doing!

It's November, also known as National Blog Posting Month! And like last year, I'm endeavoring to post every single day in November. So I get to have this cool badge of a flying typewriter:


And I'm supposed to add myself to their November blogroll, but I can't figure out how, making me feel as technologically advanced as a person who actually thinks you can post to a blog using a typewriter. Because what the hell does "hover" mean?

Anyway, I'm posting every day in November.

And I was going to make this more than just an intro post, but my kid ... well, anyway, he got in the way.