When I Grow Up

How do you know what you really want to be when you grow up? When you're little, you  a) think you can do anything and be fabulous at it, and b) don't consider factors like making enough money to "send your kids to  college" or "eat". When I was really little, say 4 or 5 years old, I wanted to be a garbage man ("sanitation engineer", I believe is the current terminology) and a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.


(Spoiler alert: This is not me.)

Interestingly, today I am neither of those.

I'm at the point where I'm looking at my career, and at the approximately 40 years that stand between me and retirement, and I say, "Is this what I want to be doing for that whole time?" Probably not. Plenty of lawyers and other professionals have some sort of mid-career change-up, so it's not a bad thing, or even uncommon, to think about doing something else.

But what would that be? And would any of the options be realistic enough to not eat ramen and save for the aforementioned retirement and multiple college educations for my children?

That's the big question. Doing something that's fulfilling and challenging and interesting, and yet be able to buy food and a house and have money left over for fun things, like vacations and Sephora (within reason)....

WHAT IS THAT THING?!?!

If you have the answer for me, I'm all ears. You get extra points if it involves pom-poms.

Moms, Stop Reading.

Really. Just stop. Not this post, mind you, because it's witty and delightful, but stop reading stuff on the internet. On the discussion boards, on babycenter.com, the emails that send you age-appropriate developmental information about your child, just STOP.

Why stop? "I can't do this in a vacuum," you think to yourself. "I need answers! What is this rash? Is it eczema or ringworm or scarlet fever? How much formula should I be giving my baby? Is she too scrawny? Is she too chubby? Is it wrong that she's not sleeping through the night at 5 months? Is she sleeping too much and not getting enough stimulation? Should I get a sling or a front carrier? If so, which one? Organic cotton? One sized for me and a separate one for my husband? One that requires Eagle Scout-level knotting skills? Is my infant autistic because she doesn't look me straight in the eyes? Is my infant needy because she only wants me to feed her? How long should I breastfeed? Can I use Target brand formula, or do I have to use organic if I don't want her to have to wear a C cup at age 7?"

Don't get me wrong, the internet is a wonderful thing. You can find answers for nearly every question, you can keep in touch with dear friends and family who live far away, you can become friends with people who you never get the chance to meet in real life -- you can be entertained, socialized, and educated with a click of a mouse.

But this information is overload is causing a problem. To wit -- this information overload is causing ME a problem. And I don't think I'm that different than you.

I find myself asking more questions and doubting my parenting abilities merely by reading other people's questions. "I've been nursing for 9 months, and co-sleeping, I'm going to have to wean now, is that going to be a problem for her overnight feedings?" I read on one discussion board. Which made my brain start spinning in dizzying circles -- "I've been nursing for a little more than six months, and frankly, I've had enough and am ready to be done, but maybe I should keep going because everyone else is? And maybe I don't love my daughter as much as other mothers because she sleeps in her crib in her own room, and has practically since she was born, and I don't wake her to feed her and I let her sleep from 7 pm until 7 am because, dammit, I just want to watch Mad Men and relax a little and not be awakened by every sigh and snort? I must be a bad mother." Also, reading other people's discussions about which place does the best job at installing your car seat and how it's IMPERATIVE to have a certified expert put your Chicco base in your backseat...makes me think, "Hmm, we just read the directions and installed it accordingly and looked at the level indicator and it seemed just fine...is she going to be decapitated if I get into an accident because I didn't pay someone at the baby boutique an extra $250? OHMIGOD!"

There is too much information and too many choices. How many apps do we need to track every movement our kid makes? A friend just asked me which app I use...and I blanched and felt like I was making up excuses for not having my homework done..."Well, we wrote everything down for the first two weeks, and once that check-up went well we, uh... kind of stopped tracking stuff because she seemed to have gotten the whole 'eating and peeing' thing down pat." Gulp. Do I really need to have a record of every bottle, poop, and pee from the first six months? I didn't think I did. But other people do, so that makes me wonder, am I falling short? Already? Wasn't it enough that I created a vast Excel spreadsheet to figure out which stroller I should buy? And that I even put in a pivot table? But what about the 2012 stroller models? Are they better the ones I researched? Is mine obsolete? It's like trying to stay ahead of the latest computer technology, but add to it the stress of FAILING as a parent and having your kid grow up WRONG or getting BROKEN, because of something YOU DID or didn't do.

Maybe, just maybe, we're all better at this than we think we are. Maybe, JUST maybe, we don't need affirmations from strangers or breathless posts about the dangers of X and the benefits of Y to guide us through this journey of parenthood. Maybe mothers and fathers have been keeping their kids alive since time immemorial, and maybe most of them turned out pretty much okay. Maybe buying a stroller or a crib can just be a purchase, and not a life event. Maybe just reading the directions and using your own brain and the appropriate reference manual and calling your best friend or mom is enough, most of the time.

And maybe if we just stopped being on the internet frantically searching for information all day we'd have a little more time to just hang out with our kids...and that's apparently the best way to ensure that they don't grow up to be sociopaths (I think I read that online somewhere).

Missing the Point on Ann Romney

This whole Hilary Rosen/Ann Romney thing has once again brought up the whole SAHM/WOHM debate. And aside from the obvious concept that if women could stop fighting each other, we'd be running the whole damn world, I have a few things to say about it.

I agree with Rosen's point, although it was inartfully expressed. Ann Romney has not worked, at a job outside the home where she would earn a paycheck, a day in her adult life. That is true, an unassailable fact. Why do we have to bend over backwards to say, oh no, being a SAHM is work too, hard work? No kidding. Anyone who would dispute the fact that staying at home and taking care of five children is HARD, EXHAUSTING work, is an idiot. Let me tell you, I have two, and by the end of the weekend I'm ready for a breather.

However, Rosen's real point, which has been buried beneath the endless and pointless "who's a better mother/who works harder" debate is that Ann Romney cannot speak to the concerns of women who work outside the home. She cannot relate. I'm sorry, it's the truth - she can't. The mere idea of balancing the needs of your family and the expectations of your job is completely outside of her wheelhouse, to say nothing of having to actually "save" for something that you cannot afford to buy outright. And the fact that Mitt thinks she can, well...in my book it's further evidence that he's out of touch with what our nation really looks like, outside the bubble of wealth and privilege and religious doctrine and private equity. And someone who doesn't viscerally understand ever NOT being able to pay for something on the spot, whether it's medicine, food, education, a fun vacation or even a fabulous pair of shoes, shouldn't be leading the rest of us who do.

Ann Romney is blessed, in the sense that she has been able to make the choice, for herself and her family, to be the kind of mother who does not work outside the home, and take on all that accompanies that, for when your husband comes from wealth and has a net worth somewhere in the vicinity of hundreds of millions of dollars, no one is relying on her for a paycheck and dental insurance and a flexible spending account. I imagine there are many "middle-class" women who would also like to make the same choice. But they can't, because in most parts of the country it is very difficult, if not downright impossible, to be able to do that and still put food on the table, have a roof over your head, and pay for doctor's visits and ballet classes and in-state tuition for all of your brood.

Let's not pretend that Ann's choice is mine, for the main reason that I simply cannot allow myself to think about that choice seriously. I can't allow myself to think about quitting my job, because we would not be able to afford to pay back the grad and law school loans that I took out, we couldn't pay for extras like summer day camp and soccer and dance, nor would we be able to save in even a remotely effective way for things like college tuition and retirement. I simply don't have the luxury of considering that choice.

But let us also not pretend that staying at home with your kids is the same as going to work outside of the home. It is not. These are two entirely different things. Calling yourself the "CEO of your family" on your Facebook info page under "employment"...well, if that's true, then everyone should put that in there. Every SAHM, every WOHM, we're ALL CEOs of our households (although in mine, it's pretty much a shared position with my husband, and that's the way we like it). And we're all still mothers -- we all love our children and care for them and cook and clean (to varying degrees, to be sure) and shop and keep them alive and provide transportation and show up to things...some of us just have to not do it consistently between the hours of 8 am and 6 pm.  Let us not pretend that there is not a big difference between working outside the home as opposed to "inside." It's a whole other set of expectations, and an entirely different skill set. If we could actually discuss these issues and recognize the differences without everyone raising their voices, demanding respect for their particular path, maybe we could figure out how to make it so that it would be possible for more women to do what they actually want to do, not what their circumstances dictate -- by making child care more affordable, by providing for adequate social security to support us in our old age, by providing for alternative work schedules and job sharing, and by amending the tax code to accurately reflect what "wealthy" means in high-cost-of-living urban areas.

Let's all just stop dancing around everybody's feelings, trying to make sure everyone's language is sanitized enough so that SAHMs feel "respected" enough for what they do inside the home and take notice of Rosen's actual point. Ann Romney cannot speak for the majority of American women who cannot afford to make the choice to stay home, and for the issues that she could speak about, such as women's health (she's a breast cancer survivor) and birth control (she obviously was born with a uterus), she simply chooses not to. Let us avoid the distraction of "who loves their kids more" and talk about issues that matter, and try to elect someone who will make the country a better for place, for all mothers.

Missed that delectable Matt Bomer by mere hours

Today in Long Island City....This is where your television gets made, people -- in Queens.

A Note About My (Lack of Formatting)

Apparently, when I'm blogging "remotely", I don't have any formatting. None. I put nice spaces in there and everything, to make it pleasing to the eye, but it's all gone once the post goes live. I will have to work on this. Thank you for your patience, dear reader.

The Morning Train (alternative title: Amthrax)

Let me just preface this by saying that getting up early is not my thing. Getting up at 4 AM is most DEFINITELY not my thing. But here I am.

After moving to Boston, a condition of keeping my job at the gigantic financial institution that employs me, I have to return to New York approximately once a month. That is a very reasonable condition, in my opinion. Paying for travel and accommodations myself, well, that's less reasonable to me, but there you have it.

So here I sit on the 6:21 Acela to Penn Station. I love me some quiet car time, that's for sure, but unlike my last trip, I have a seatmate. (Note to self: taking a few bites of my tuna sub every time people boarded was a winner of an idea last time.) It's fine. He's quiet and nice. A little armrest wrestling (subtle, but noticeable), but not a big deal. However, there are about four people who keep hacking uncontrollably. There was a man who took over both seats by laying down across them and donning a sleep mask. My seat mate, in fact, tried to sit next to THAT guy, but Sleeping Beauty kept spouting off about how is was "very ill." So after 5 minutes of that, I got myself a travel companion.

I believe that I coined the term "Amthrax" on this journey. I haven't had the inclination to google it -- I'm sure someone else came up with it first, like most of my brilliant ideas -- but for the moment, it's one of my best turns of phrase.

This is going to be a quick trip, only staying one night and then back tomorrow evening. Not too guilt-inducing for the working mother, but hearing "Cat's in the Cradle" this morning on my drive to the train station did not make me feel exactly empowered or anything. That was just mean, Boston 104.7 FM. Don't do that again.

I do love riding the train, though. Silence (mostly -- in the quiet car, anyway). Pretty scenery (damn, those are some big houses, Connecticut!). The feeling of doing something positive for the environment, which is vastly outweighed by my smug self-righteousness as we zip past all of the rush-hour traffic on I-95.

 Happy Wednesday!

Accomplishing Something

Happy Day to me! I came in second in the Baseball Blogging Challenge. It was my first one, so I'll happily accept the silver...but next time, watch out. I'm in it to win it. Cheers to Miscellaneous Missives for coming in first! Well-deserved.

Speaking of accomplishing something...There are days where I just don't want to do anything.

Saturdays are often those days. I'm tired from the week, I don't feel like doing laundry or anything else that requires "standing" or "moving."

I had this feeling last Saturday, but I told myself, you have children, you can't just sit and drink coffee and mess around on the internet and not do anything for them for a while. So I went online and registered domain names for my kids...while sitting, drinking coffee, and (by definition) messing around on the internet. And since it was in their names, it was for THEIR benefit.

And then I took a nap, because that was a pretty big thing to cross off the list of parenting to-dos.

Boston Baked Baseball

***Last Post for the Challenge, if I did my math right!!! All 30!! If I didn't, well, then I'll have to figure out which one I missed and you can read it tomorrow.***

Wow, I've only been in the Boston area for six months and I can tell you, in no uncertain terms, that this town loves their baseball team.

And how.




They are really insane for their team. And with the accents, it's very cute when they say "Go Sawks!" Although if one of our daughters inherits that accent in its entirety, I may find it slightly less cute. (And it could happen - the oldest one says "aah-range" instead of "orange," and I blame that on living in New York during her formative years. However, she also says "uff-da," so I also think that parental practices do have some sway.)

It's been pretty great living here. We haven't spent a whole lot of time in the city, which is unfortunate, because I really love Boston. But where we are is pretty fantastic too.

It's really just beautiful. When we were thinking about moving here, we knew nothing about the surrounding area. We were ready to not live in a city (for the first time in almost EVER), and I think my husband and I both kind of had our hearts set on a Stars Hollow-esque small town. I was in desperate need of some quiet. As much as I loved living in New York, I felt as if my nerves were permanently jangled, and that I hadn't had a moment's quiet in my own home for more than four years. There was always, ALWAYS some sort of noise. Even in yoga class, you could hear the traffic going by or sirens wailing. I also wanted to live near the ocean, because if you have your pick between one town on the ocean and another an hour away, both with commuter rail access to downtown, why would you not pick living by the sea? LIVING BY THE SEA?!?! All of the time? Not just for a week on vacation? SOLD.

So here we are on the South Shore, in a town (not a suburb, it's really an honest-to-goodness almost four hundred year old little town surrounded by ocean on one side and houses and forests on the other).

I feel like I can definitively say it's not a suburb because it takes about a half an hour to get to the nearest Target.

And if it takes me buying Red Sox apparel for each and every family member to be able to keeping living where this is across the street, well, then, I'll just have to learn to love the red, white, and blue (and silver):

Cause I'm a Jay, Jay, Jay, Jay, Jayhawk

Today's post brought to you courtesy of guest blogger extraordinaire, Matthew.

My wife was kind enough to allow me to guest blog about the Kansas City Royals.

The Royals are a baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri, which I find disingenuous.  No one thinks of them as a Missouri team, they already have the Cardinals.  So, that's somewhat lame.  This happens to Kansas not infrequently.  The Chiefs are also based in Kansas City, Missouri.  This really kind of sucks for Kansas.  My entire family is from Kansas, so I really should know more about the Royals than that Zack Greinke was wasted there for several years (the Royals have sucked for some time, thought they apparently might actually be good this year).  The only other thing that comes to mind when I think of the Royals is this:

Admit it, that's all you can think of, too.  The Pine Tar Game is the only thing most people think about when they think about George Brett (even though he is in the Hall of Fame).

That's all I really have to say about the Royals.  So now it's time to talk about THE KANSAS JAYHAWKS, THE BEST BASKETBALL TEAM EVER TO EXIST, EVER!!

As I said, my entire family is from Kansas.  Both of my parents grew up in Kansas and attended KU.  They have framed newspapers from 1988 up in their house to this day.  If you don't know what happened in 1988, this happened:

That's all to say that I come by my love of KU Basketball honestly.

Now, KU plays Kentucky tonight for the national championship.  By the time this is posted, the game will probably be over and I'll either be catatonic with joy or grief.  When Kansas won in 2008 I jumped up and down, by myself, in the dark, while trying to figure out how to celebrate, given that my oldest daughter was asleep 10 feet away.

God, I love KU basketball.

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU!!!!!!

And that's your 2012 Kansas City Royals!!

**Blogger's note -- Or not. That's your 2012 Kansas Jayhawks! Let's just be honest about what this really is, sweetie.

It's a Burgh Thing

Pittsburgh gets a bad rap. Or at least it used to.

Many Americans think of Pittsburgh (please include the "h", otherwise you're talking about a town in Kansas) as a dirty, sooty, creaky old city with coal mines and steel mills and horrifying accents.

That's so not true. And it hasn't been for about 50 years. Except for the accents -- they are endearing to me but understandably may make your ears bleed. They invented and perpetuate the word "yinz". As in, "yinz guys goin' dahntahn?" Personally, I think "y'all" has more universal appeal, but when I'm in an airport or at Disney World and I hear a yinzer it makes me smile.

I love going to Pirate games, although I've only attended them at Three Rivers Stadium, which was blown up to make way for the new PNC Park (Pirates) and Heinz Field (Steelers). My in-depth knowledge of the team evaporated after the days of Andy Van Slyke, Barry Bonds, and Bobby Bonilla. Interestingly, that's also when they started to suck.

But I love the Pirates. The Bucs, as we call them. I love a team that doesn't have boatloads of cash and doesn't buy players, a team who plays with heart, if not always with skill. I also loathe the designated hitter. So, the Pirates are my team.

I am happy to swap out teams for the slot of "second favorite" in my heart. It's been the Brewers, the Nats, the Twins, not the Orioles, Mets, or Yankees, and it may be the Boston Red Sox (depending upon if we're here on the South Shore to stay). But number one will always belong to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The team:



The town:



Yinz really otter chekkit aht.

Things I miss about NEW YORK now that I'm a YANKEE

See what I did there?

We moved to Massachusetts about 6 months ago, 11 days before our second daughter was born. It was a hectic time, I'll just say that.

While I love it here, there are certain things that I miss about New York, and because I kind of need to go and use the treadmill while the baby is contemplating taking a nap, this is going to be quick:

1) Central Park. Every season, it's just lovely. Plus, on a summer evening, it's about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the city.

2) Sigmund Pretzel Shop, in the East Village. Homemade awesome pretzels with cups of dips, such as grainy mustard (tasty) and nutella (even tastier). And Vivi Bubble Tea, in Chinatown.

3) Curry Hill. Technically, it's Murray Hill, on the east side in the high-20s/low-30s, but it's chock full of awesome and inexpensive Indian restaurants. Love Bhatti, especially.

4) Having my dear friends be, at most, a cab or subway ride away. That was really nice. And at least eight really good yarn stores.

5) The Green Kitchen. This 24-hour diner was directly below our apartment. We got to know the waitstaff and delivery guys super well, to the point where the one waitress would see us outside in the morning and would run us out a handful of muffins for our daughter, and one waiter would bring us cups of coffee when we would linger on our stoop. I miss being able to order a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on an English muffin, with a side of super-hot fries, at 2 in the morning, and have it brought to our door in less than 15 minutes.

6) Walking everywhere. Hanging out with friends in the West Village until about 10 pm, then putting the little girl in the stroller and walking all the way home to the Upper East Side, with a stop or two along the way at Starbucks. Or the rice pudding place. Both are quite satisfying.


7) The feeling of all the tension in your body melting away as you cross the George Washington Bridge, heading out of town.

8) Taking tap class again as a 34 year old, and having many other women approximately my age in there, and nobody blinked an eye.


9) Things that are better in New York than anywhere else: Bagels (it's condescending but true -- bagels suck everywhere else in comparison). Pizza. Theater. Shopping. Delivery service for everything. Jobs in the financial services industry.

10) Things that are (surprisingly) cheaper in New York than anywhere else: Cab rides. Manicures and pedicures. Nannies (sometimes). Fake designer handbags. Certain real designer clothes (sample sales). Bodega flowers (a dozen roses of any shade for $9. They die in a day and a half, but you get what you pay for).



http://www.etsy.com/listing/44920676/i-heart-ny-but-hate-the-yankees-8x10

Minnesoter

I love Minnesota. I applied to law school there while I was living in DC, because I figured I loved the Midwest, I had been there once to be in a wedding and twice to catch a plane to Mexico for Spring Break, Minneapolis seemed like a nice city, and it was a top-20 school at a really cheap price.

Plus, I was kind of sort of seeing this guy and he lived there.

Anyway, I applied, I visited, I got in. I was set. So, I packed up my apartment in DC and sent most of it home to Pittsburgh with my dad, then I packed the remainder (including the pink guitar) and set off on my Colorado trip.

Interestingly, Sarah and I were supposed to go to the Blues Traveler concert with the aforementioned guy. As faithful blog readers will recall, the concert was cancelled, so we all hung out in Denver for the evening. Somewhere between the brewpub and the Diamond Cabaret (no, I'm not going to link to it, you can Google that one for yourself), he mentioned that he accepted a new job and was moving to Texas.

Huh. How 'bout that.

When I got to Minnesota, I was still not interested in having a boyfriend, I mean, really not interested. I was 23, and just wanted to go out and have fun and kiss boys. Then the first week of school I met a guy from Minnesota and he invited me to the Mill City Music Festival (he said it was supposed to be a "group outing", but interestingly nobody else showed up. Hmmm.). Fast-forward a year and a half, and I was engaged to my (now) husband, and we've been married for more than ten years.

So I'm thinking it all worked out for the best.

We planned to stay in Minnesota forever, but jobs (or lack thereof) took us to DC, then New York, and now Boston-ish. And my husband is very sad that his eldest daughter doesn't seem to have much of an affinity for the Twins or the Vikings, although he had hope for a while there because her favorite color was purple.

Alas, it didn't stick, and she now wears both a NY Yankees cap and a Patriots t-shirt with pride.

But I still love the Twin Cities -- I love the view heading north on I-35 as you see Minneapolis, all glassy and shiny looming in the distance. I love the houses on Summit Avenue near our old apartment in St. Paul, and lunch and coffee at Cafe Latte (and the orange ricotta bread - they still serve it on Fridays). I love walking around Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun, in every season. I love the drive to St. Cloud to visit my in-laws, where we would spend an hour and a half detailing how we would spend Powerball winnings. I love Lund's and Byerly's, because they're like Whole Foods but you can also buy things like Pop-tarts there. I love Rice Park and the Landmark Center in the winter, all twinkly with lights and covered with snow, because that's how it looked the night we got married.

The Nats

Strangely, I probably know more about the Washington Nationals than I do about any other baseball team, because the Washington Post is my very favorite newspaper of all time, and I read it each and every day. I can't help but read the headlines, even the ones in the sports section, and it is my understanding from carefully poring over the Lifestyle section that Ryan Zimmerman is both hot and a very nice guy.


I lived in DC twice -- once right after college (technically, I lived in Arlington [right across the street from this] and then in the barrio Alexandria), and then again after law school. I was graduating from law and grad school, and my husband and I both needed jobs, and what better place for lawyers who have public policy degrees than Washington, D.C.? My husband's first trip to DC was when we went out there, on tax day, to find an apartment with a lease that started on June 1st. He loved it, like I knew he would, and 6 weeks later we moved into the teeniest-tiniest apartment ever. It was right by Dupont Circle, and it was two stories with a beautiful wrought iron spiral staircase separating the living room from the bedroom. The staircase was fabulous, unless a) you fell up it and almost broke your knees (Matthew), b) you chose not to wear shoes and it left painful patterns on the soles of your feet (Bethany), or c) you were hungry or thirsty or had to use the bathroom and climbing or descending it was simply too much to bear (Bethany and the cats). The apartment would have been perfect for 1 person, or 2 people with not that much stuff.


I have lots of stuff.


Plus, two cats. It was pretty cramped. Luckily, we spent a lot of time taking late-night walks around Dupont, Kalorama ("If you don't know where it is, you can't afford to live there"), Georgetown, Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, and Embassy Row. We'd stop at Starbucks around 10 and then head on out, and not get home until 2-ish. Sometimes we'd stop for water or a Popsicle, just to liven things up a bit. We'd wander around and look at the embassies and talk about everything and nothing. This was pre-kids, btw, if you haven't figured that out yet. I liked to say I was going to faire l'exercice Français, because I would drink dark roast coffee and smoke cigarettes while I "worked out". If only I wore high heels while doing it, the look really would have been complete.


I have lots of fun stories about living in DC, and more memories than I can count. I would absolutely move back there because that's where every job that I really want resides, and there are many many people that I love who live there (or in the surrounding burbs -- yes, you, Jill).


Ok, here's the baseball part - the Nats came to DC while we were there. When we lived on Capitol Hill (after the Dupont apartment, this was a townhouse near Eastern Market and it felt like a mansion in comparison) we walked to the games at RFK Stadium, and it was awesome. 


Even the part where we kind of ran home in the dark so we wouldn't get mugged. 

Upcoming Blog Challenge

I found my new blog challenge. It involves tv, and that's all I'm going to say about it now.

But once the baseball challenge is complete, I will post the challenge and we will begin.

It will be SO WORTH THE WAIT...especially if you have cable or Hulu or small children or other indicators that television is your premium form of entertainment.

I guess this is about the Cardinals

I have so very little to say about this team...here goes:

The Cards play in St. Louis. My [very large bank employer] has a campus in St. Louis. If I win the half a billion dollar MegaMillions jackpot on Friday, I will quit my job with [very large bank employer] before the weekend is over. Frankly, before Saturday even begins. I will leave a voice mail and mail my computer back.

I am classy like that.

Speaking of classy, did you know that the Cardinals have some sort of "spirit squad"? I don't know much about MLB (obviously), and I'm always watching the dance team or cheerleaders at a sporting event rather than the actual "sports," but this seems weird to me.

Apparently I'm not the first one to wonder about this. As usual, Slate has some answers:

For decades, baseball spurned pompoms. The first American cheerleaders were men who worked the crowds at college football games in the late 19^th century; women didn't get involved until the '20s and '30s. In the years that followed, football and basketball players had their feats heralded by organized squads of cheering women, but baseball players had to make do with hollers from the crowd.

Baseball historians aren't sure why the sport went without for so long. But it was a handful of entertainment executives from the Walt Disney Company who helped initiate the change. When Disney purchased the California Angels in 1996, it added some bells and whistles: a six-piece Dixieland jazz band, zany sound effects for foul balls, and the Angel Wings Cheerleaders. The Angel Wings danced on the top of the visitors' dugout between innings, attempting to rile the crowd.

The crowd got riled. Apparently the Angel Wings dancers frequently blocked the views of season ticket holders behind the dugout; from the very start they were heckled and booed. Disney management quickly moved the dance team to a platform in the stands out in right field. From there they continued to lead "dance-offs" that tested the crowd's skills at the macarena and the chicken dance. The Angel Wings Cheerleaders were abandoned the following season.

Despite the shaky start, the Toronto Blue Jays have since brought in the J-Cru Fan Activation Team (now known as the J Force), and the Florida Marlins have introduced the Marlins Mermaids. San Diego has a dance team known as the Pad Squad—pronounced "Pod Squad"—which runs around the field at Padres home games, clapping and tossing T-shirts into the crowd. (Reaction from San Diego fans has been mixed.) The Expos had cheerleaders, too: Indeed, there were those who felt that the Molson EX Girls (who danced to Bananarama on top of the dugout) were an excellent reason to keep baseball in Montreal.

With such a motley record, it's unclear what the future holds for American baseball cheerleaders. But cheerleading already has a firm foothold in the rest of the baseball-playing world. It's de rigueur at games in the Dominican Republic, where women in body stockings dance to recorded merengue music on top of the dugouts. In Korean baseball, football-style cheerleaders with whistles, megaphones, and pompoms get the crowd excited, while college games in Japan feature women dancing quietly with pompoms while men dressed in black lead the cheers.

The next time I go to the Dominican Republic, I am TOTALLY going to a baseball game.

That other town in PA

The Phillies.

Us Pittsburghers have an interesting relationship with Philadelphia. On the one hand, they are a built-in sports rival -- so we kind of hate them. Nothing makes a Pittsburgher madder (and belies a dearth of knowledge of mid-Atlantic geography) than when someone says, "Oh, you're from Pennsylvania! Are you an Eagles fan?" On the other hand, it's the cradle of liberty and all of that, and we have a bit of an inferiority complex that makes us play up our "blue collar" side in comparison to Philadelphians, who are effete or something because their city is bigger and older and richer and more prestigious (I guess). Then again, we acknowledge that between Pittsburgh in the west and Philadelphia in the east, in the middle lies Pennsyltucky...but even they didn't re-elect Rick Santorum last time he ran for Senate.

ANYWAY...Philadelphia is lovely, I've heartily enjoyed it every time I've been there. I love a good cheesesteak, and their street pretzels beat the hell out of New York's -- plus, they're shaped kind of funky, which is interesting. 

Their team name is dumb. They used to be the Quakers, which is way more interesting in my opinion. I would not go and see the Phillies play. But I WOULD go and see their AAA affiliate, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, who play in Allentown. But the most fascinating fact about Philadelphia sports team names comes from football, and I'm going to share it with you now.

Back in 1943, for one season, there was one professional football team in Pennsylvania (P-A, to those of us from there), and it was called the Steagles. Most of the football players were fighting in WWII, so they had to improvise. 

That may have been one of the last times Philly and Pittsburgh actually collaborated on anything other than the Pennsylvania Turnpike, or trying not to elect Pat Toomey.

Hey-ohh!!

Schlemiel Schlemazel, Hasenfeffer Incorporated!

We're gonna do it!



I love most things about Milwaukee, including (but certainly not limited to) Laverne and Shirley. I still want a sweater with a big swirly cursive "B" on it.

I used to go to camp in northern Wisconsin every summer, and spend a week or so in the Milwaukee suburbs (Brookfield and Wauwatosa) just hanging out with my friends. All through high school, those two weeks in Wisconsin were the highlight of my summer. (My parents have never met these people -- I had gone to a national church youth thing and met these kids and they said, you should come to camp with us. They sent me the form, I told my parents I simply had to go, and they filled it out and sent a check and bought me an airline ticket. Again, in retrospect, quite permissive, although it helped that I was pretty independent. At 13. The curse of the only child.)

So Milwaukee. City of festivals, technically, but also of brats and cheese and beer. I loved my time in Wisconsin so much that I went to college there (Go Badgers!), and if someone told me I was moving there next week I wouldn't complain. Great people, beautiful place.

The Wisconsin State Fair was my first real midwestern state fair. Probably not as much food on a stick as the Minnesota State Fair (simply not possible), but it was still fantastic. The cream puffs are to DIE for.

And the beer...oh, the BEER!! Everyone knows Leinie's, but not everyone knows Gray's. Gray's is the microbrew that got me hooked on really, really good beer. Made in Janesville, you simply can't buy it here on the East Coast. I know, I've tried.

I went to a few Brewer's games in the old ballpark, and had a blast. When you're 15, and it's a sunny day, and you're hanging out with your friends eating brats and nachos and drinking icy cold cokes, you're going to have a good time. Even if you know jack about baseball.

Wisconsin forever.

Seattle Morning

Did you know that the Mariners are owned by Nintendo? I think that's really cool.

They're also one of the only two teams (the other being the Nationals-formerly-the-Expos) that haven't ever played in the World Series. 

Poor Seattle. That's got to suck.

But Seattle is a fantastic city. I was out there in high school for a church thing and spent about a week and a half also visiting a friend of mine from high school who lived with his dad during the summers. His house was on Bainbridge Island, so I got to take the ferry out from the city and visit this fabulous place. It's remote, but not -- beautiful views and trees and the ocean all around...just, wow. 

His dad is an acclaimed architect, and his work was featured in one of the Not-So-Big House books. If you haven't seen these, I highly recommend them. They are beautiful, and I love the idea behind them, that functional space is more important than sheer square footage -- a concept that I think has been lost by most American home builders (and most Americans, frankly).

I have heard, but don't really have time to confirm right now, that for all of its reputation for rain, Pittsburgh has more overcast days per year than Seattle. If that fact is true, I would not be surprised.

I was really into David Benoit in high school -- I'm really not sure why, the music is kind of cool but looking back I don't understand why I latched onto it so hard. But I do remember descending into Seattle, seeing Mt. Rainier sticking up through the clouds into the sky and cuing up this song on my Sony Sport Discman (you remember, the bright yellow one):

Clearly, I was a bit heavy-handed with my allegory, but that's kind of who I was when I was 15. And 21. And 24. And...

Anyway, I would live in Seattle - for a while, we thought about moving there, because there are lots of job opportunities for my husband and a surprising number of federal jobs that appeal to me there, as well. One downside, though, is that it's SO FAR from everyone we know, and now with the kids that would be pretty hard, I think.

Easy access to Whistler, super-fresh sushi, and reasonable commutes via ferry would ease that pain somewhat, however, so I'm not saying "no".

 

 

Diamond[back]s are a girl's best friend.

And I'm super excited that tomorrow is Monday, because Smash is on!!

 

Why can't we have a tv blog challenge? I promise my posts would be so much more on point.

Arizona baseball, yadda yadda...KATHERINE MCPHEE!!!

If the promos are any indication, it's going to be a good episode.

Monday nights at 10, on NBC...after the show where my boyfriend sits in a chair wearing a sweater and there are singers The Voice.

You come at the king, you best not miss. -- Omar Little

Crap. I missed posting yesterday. I was tired. I have no real excuse.

Anyway, in honor of my dear sister-in-law who is coming for a visit today (who is in medical school in Baltimore), I will write about the Orioles.


Bawlmer.

I have some pretty strong feelings about Baltimore. We used to live there. We still own a house there. I wish we didn't (we rent it out, but at a loss). Apparently, moving away right as the housing market crashed was not the financially savvy thing to do. Hindsight. Hopefully we'll get to sell it someday soon and come out close to even, because I'm not exactly planning to retire there.

I really don't like it there. The city politics are horribly corrupt, urban blight was practically invented there, and commuting to DC from there was on paper, not bad, but in practice, terrible.

It's like Pittsburgh, but awful.

Part of my negativity about the city likely stems from the fact that we bought a house and renovated it, and finished it right before we moved out, and during that year and a half of renovation that we did mostly ourselves we had a baby and commuted an hour and a half each way to DC for work and all of my friends and family were at least 40 miles away and we had very little money and people kept getting mugged outside...so I was exhausted and worried and broke and we had no help with the baby and few friendly faces. I was miserable there. I get that, realistically, this is not all ENTIRELY the city of Baltimore's fault (and in retrospect, there may have been some post-partum depression at play), but it frankly feels that way, and I can't untie my personal misery from the experience of living there.

The best thing about Baltimore (besides overuse of the word "hon" and beehive hairdos) is The Wire. It's the best television show ever produced, and won exactly ZERO important awards. People are idiots.

See, even writing about Baltimore puts me in a sh*tty mood.

The Wire was on HBO, and tells the story of the city via drug dealers, drug addicts, dock workers, cops, kids, the politicians, and the press.  It is the best show that you have ever, or never, watched. I guarantee this. It's remarkably true-to-life -- seriously, that stuff HAPPENS there -- and it will break your heart. Especially season 4.

The show also has some of my very favorite tv characters: Stringer Bell, Bubs, and Omar Little. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks Omar is fantastic. And Jimmy McNulty is a super-hot train wreck of a man. There is one of the most creative scenes I've ever seen on tv that takes place between Jimmy and his partner Bunk, where they walk you step-by-step through an entire murder scene using only gestures and the f-bomb, and you completely understand exactly what transpired. It's been written about extensively, and aptly described by one author as a "goddamn symphony of profanity".

The show will make you laugh, and cry, and think. It gives you hope and crushes it, and not necessarily in that order. If you haven't seen it, watch it from the beginning, you WILL NOT be sorry you did. Stick with it, even if Season Two isn't your favorite (sometimes it's not), it is absolutely worth it.

So, that's my tale of Baltimore.

All in the game, yo, all in the game.

(In the interest of equal time, I will also say that one of Matthew's favorite restaurants is in Baltimore, Golden West Cafe. They have awesome tater tots. It is definitely a redeeming feature of the city. That, and the cheapness and availability of crab. And Poe lived there. Yeah, I think that's about it.)