My Favorite Song

My oldest friend, Molls, emailed me a song that her daughter and husband recorded. It's hilarious! Both Griffin and Bela got a huge kick out of it. The lyrics go something like "hey, hey, hey!" which are not too bad for someone who is not yet even three years old. Anyway, good luck to Miss Molly and her family as they will very soon welcome home a new little baby. I think it is a boy, but we shall see after 8/29!

Oh Come On Already!!!

For the past 15 minutes, I have had my cell phone open, ready and waiting for THE announcement. I predict it will not come until after 8:00 this evening, which would be a huge pain in the arse. It would also be very interesting since we will be entertaining tonight. Our friends are Obamaniacs and also very hip to this texting thing. I remember a few years ago when we were getting ready to go out to see a movie and Jodi told the babysitter to text her if she had a concern about the kids. Sheer brilliance! It should be interesting when four cell phones begin going off at the designated hour.

Anyway, I considered sending some of you fake text messages à la Wonkette, but I couldn’t decide who would be funny as the unreal veep choice (I was leaning toward Griffin; he has a lot of leadership qualities, although he would not be ready to serve, in a constitutional sense, for another 30 years). The Wonkette site is quite funny (for example, I like the word “fuckery”) but, on several levels, the “Obamatard” label turns me off. Evidently, the writer hasn’t read Tim Shriver’s excellent Wash Post piece about such hurtful words.

So... 28 minutes and counting. My cell battery is probably going to die if I keep this up. The other part of “Oh Come On Already!!!” is this neverending day. I’m exhausted because I’ve been keeping some late hours this week and I’m ready to do absolutely nothing more (although it might be hard to do less than what I’ve been doing all day).

I'm still hoping that Gore will somehow be the veep choice but Biden is growing on me. Check out this very nice op-ed by David Brooks today.

Promises, promises

When Griffin, Bela, and I came home tonight (and didn't have a bath), we watched a little bit of the Olympics and had a snack of brownies and milk. Of course, both children wanted more brownies (they are my chocolate-soaked spawn!) and I promised Griff that I would put one in his lunch for tomorrow. My dilemma now is that I either (a) fulfill the promise to my firstborn and deprive myself, (b) bake another batch! or (c) fail miserably in the promisemaking department, yet satisfy my sweet tooth (I think I have more than one actually). --also, can you tell that I've been working on writing test questions for my textbooks at work???-- Oh, what will I do? What will I do?

A Big Glass of Wine

Brett is working late tonight, and it's quite obvious that I'm the slacker in this relationship. Ordinarily, Griffin and Bela are in bed by 8:00; typically, they've been bathed. Ha! Not tonight. I've just put the kids to bed. I should now be cleaning up from dinner and making lunches for tomorrow. Instead, I am drinking wine, watching CNN, and blogging, but alas I am only me. Which reminds me, I found a couple of mom blogs today that made me laugh: http://www.whitetrashmom.com and http://finslippy.typepad.com/.
Anyway, after dinner, the little Picketts and I went for a walk around the neighborhood.
Depending on which of us you ask, it was
(a) a spy mission,
(b) an errand to return borrowed stuff, or
(c) "yellow??" (yep, that would be Bela's favorite word).
--on a side note, I read an article today that suggested it would be better blog writing to vary up the formats of my posts, which I don't disagree with, but at the same time that's more work... Golly, I am lazy. :) I don't even feel like re-working that sentence to make it make sense.
Anyhoo, despite the fact that I was dressed all in black like the bookish ninja I really am, Griffin thinks I am a terrible spy. Whatever! We did, however, meet the new neighbors, the Fletchers, who are very nice. Griffin and their kindergartener hit it right off. There are at least two other households that are new in Walnut Heights (and one has a neighor that waves! which delights me to no end!!!).

Going Negative

If there is one politician I like less than Joe Lieberman, it is Ralph Nader. I hate to go so negative on The Jolly Mama, but Nader's assertion that Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate is spurious. He has no knowledge of the innerworkings of Obama's campaign. His motive is simply to rile up the HRC supporters, so when Obama announces his true choice, the HRC supporters' will feel, once again, as if they have been cheated. Also, as long as I'm being so contrary, I really don't like Dan Abrams, who strikes me as an overgrown frat boy. I think he may have dyed his hair to look more like Anderson Cooper. Raaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Waiting...

I have a pan of brownies baking in the oven. Yummmmm... Brett is out shopping for a new suit. Griffin got to stay up late tonight as we waited for his new Pokemon pajamas to dry in the laundry. But, more than any of these, I am waiting for my text message from the Obama campaign, telling me who the choice for veep is going to be. I'm slightly obsessed with the idea that the call will come at any time. The other night I asked Brett if he thought the campaign would text me during the night. The next day at work I had forgotten my phone in the car, and ran out to get it, just in case. Tonight I heard a text message come in: the Obama campaign asking for me to donate my time. It's coming soon! Earlier today, MSNBC's Firstread was focused on Senator Joe Biden as the choice, making much of his comment that he had a "successful dump" and it is being covered this evening by Keith Olberman. We are living in a land of kindergarteners. Scatological humor! Hahaha. Anyhoo, I recently signed the petition to remove Joe Lieberman from the Democratic Caucus. I resisted signing the petition at first out of concern that it might be vaguely anti-semitic (afterall, there was no outcry when Obama appeared to be interested in choosing Sen. Chuck Hagel as his veep), however, as one of the recent petitioners states so well, "I simply hate this prick!!!!!" My hope is Al Gore (in part, because this was the last prediction of Tim Russert), but we shall see.

The 100th Post

This is my 100th blog post and it seems appropriate that I should make a big announcement in it. Luckily, I have some big news! Yesterday, for the first time in my adult post-college life, I cried in front of a boss. I was giving him notice because I've accepted another job. Although I've loved being a writer/editor, the new job will allow me to be at home more. Yippee!

The whole process has been incredibly angst-producing. I hope now that a decision has been made and a course set that I will be able to attend to some of the other things in my life, such as putting together new neighbor packets and the picnic flyer for the 'hood, and having a repairman

come out to fix our garbage disposal. We're going up north this weekend with our extended family for my mother-in-law's birthday, staying in Mackinaw City and visiting the island on Saturday. I'm very excited! It's been a few years since I was on Mackinac Island, and then not under the best of circumstances.

Part of the problem of deciding between the two jobs (besides the fact that I have only been at my job for six months) is that the two are very different with vastly different positives and negatives. One of the advantages of the new job is that it will be much easier to arrange for Bela to attend Griffin's alma mater nursery school next fall. See photo at left of G on graduation day with Renae, the director of Okemos Nursery School. It's a special little place, all because of Renae and her vision, imagination, and hard work. I also hope to be able to go on field trips with Griffin's kindergarten class, something I was not able to do while he was in nursery school, first because I had a napping infant, and then because I was stuck in my office. So, I'm hoping for the best and trying to believe that I've made the right decision. Wish me luck!!!