Uh, just in the state…poop.
Got a little excited too early; no tax or Social Security benefits as this is a State ruling, not Federal. Also, no other states are requried to recognize the marriage. Though people from other states can come here to get married…then they have to go home and have it not be legal. Lame. Still, though, it’s a step toward all the dumb-ass states who have actually outlawed gay marriage to be forced down the road to make it legal anyway. The popular vote here in California was against gay marriage, but this is a constitutional issue - just like Brown Vs. Board Of Education. The people can vote all they want, like everyone voted against de-segregation…but if they vote in something ruled constitutionally illegal - too bad for you, suckas!!!!!
Ok. Still happy!!!!
Filed by Jenny on May 15th, 2008 under Gay Marriage! | Comment now »
YEEEEEEE! Go Get Married!!!!!
It’s a sad, pathetic state of affairs when basic human rights are LEGALLY denied to people because of their gender - in AMERICA - in 2008, no less. Retarded. But today California f-ing RULES, people!! And today Arnold isn’t such a bastard. Thank you, brave people who brought the lawsuit, thank you to the attorney who argued the case, thank you Supreme Court, and holy crap, gay kids everywhere - if you have been wishing this country wasn’t so stupid so you could marry your beloved then for pete’s sake go DO IT!!! Enjoy the Married Filing Jointly Status and take the extra money it gets you to go on a well-deserved vacation or something. I don’t know, I just feel like celebrating!! Obviously not everyone wants to get married, but if you do and you haven’t been able to because of the bigotry of some dumb-asses, then I hope you do it. And have big wedding and invite me becuase I love cake. Yes it took too long to happen, but I am going to remain positive and just be happy it finally did. At least here. And now where else is it? I forget - Hawaii and Vermont? Alaska? Those are good places. This is a good day!
Oh, and go see Young @ Heart. It’s this wonderful documentary about this choir of old people - like late 80’s and into their 90’s - led by this cool guy who teaches them to sing songs by Sonic Youth and Prince and Coldplay and The Ramones - it is so beautiful. I saw it Mother’s Day Night at the 9:40 pm showing and I was ALONE in the theatre, which I loved. Becuase I could clap and cry and cheer and eat the chocolate I smuggled in and lay all over the seats (feet off, of course, but I did lounge). GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It will make you feel so wonderful, and guilty about never having visited your grandma the year before she died. (Ok Maybe that’s just Jenny. Yeah, it’s true - I’m pretty awesome.) But still - wonderful. Go see it.
James Taylor is such a freak and we love her so. In the morning she puts one paw softly on each side of Tim’s face and bites his nose very gently, then licks his chin. Weirdo!!! But man what a cutie.
Ok, love you all, more later…….
Filed by Jenny on May 15th, 2008 under Gratitude and Love, Gay Marriage! | 1 Comment »
Weekend Bliss.
Last year for Mother’s Day Timmy took Lia to see Nana and Popst for the weekend and I got to stay home alone - and this year we did it again and can I just suggest to the moms out there in momville….DO THIS IF YOU CAN. Hole moly. I missed them, but a weekend to do anything I want, whenever I want? People. SO much writing got done. So much HGTV was watched late at night! On Friday night I cleaned the entire house without interruption. Which may sound dull, but I can’t tell you - to sweep and mop and vacuum and dust and scrub the tub and toilet and fold laundry with the cooking channel on for company and get it all done in one night so I don’t have to stress about it during the week? Dreamy. I LOVED it. I really enjoy housework sometimes - not the toilet part or the sweeping, but the rest is kind of fun. And folding laundry is downright therapeutic. So then I had Saturday free! I slept in till 9, ran a really long path to the ocean and through the forrest, came home and showered, walked to a new hair salon in our little town that has windows overlooking the ocean and I had long layers put in the back and for the first time since I was 12 - bangs! Side-swept bangs which I think look so good! I think. I’ll have to post a picture and get votes. I was feeling so sassy! Bangs can really change the way a person looks. I always do Fake Bangs by tucking my hair behind me ear which is so lame, so I took the plunge and it makes my forehead look smaller, they’re sort of longish and so pretty! So then I strolled over to the wonderful Cafe Luca and sat there and had an artichoke frittata and read the SF Chron and was going to drink an Odwalla Super Protein Chocolate smoothie which I LOVE, but then I ran into this one mom in line who I know from another pre-school who proceeded to tell me about her kids’ current battle with stomach flu, in DETAIL, including how many diapers she was changing a day and just exactly what the contents of those diapers looked like - the texture, etc. and needless to say Jenny got a Lemonade instead. WTF. Too much information lady!!! Still it was a beautiful day after Crazy left, and I sat out in the sun looking at the peek-a-boo view of the ocean, reading and eating my frittata . Then I walked home and unplugged the phone and wrote and wrote and wrote. Glorious. Then I took the bus and met a friend for dinner, where I had a cream of sweet onion soup which was delicious! I came home, put on my pj’s and watched SNL, then caught up on my Real Simple magazine and went to bed, where I stretched out and James Taylor and I snuggled and did not wake up till this morning at 9:30 am. I got up and ran to the ocean and through the forrest again and then showered and ate lunch and watched more bad tv and now I am about to write some more.
People, I LOVE Mother’s Day!! And I love our clean house and my sassy haircut and my glorious daughter and wonderful husband who should be home any time and I can’t wait to see them! Time to one’s self is soooooooo wonderful. I took Lia for a week to Coloma a while back, but that didn’t really count for Timmy because he was working all week. He is due for some Maudi Time. He thinks he doesn’t need it, but when you are awake at 1:30 a.m. re-organizing the linen closet and blasting Antiques Roadshow and no one is giving you crap about it and you are having the BEST time - you realize time alone is very important. And that you need to get out more.
James Taylor went outside this weekend after her three-week in the house quarantine and she had a blast, too! She came when I called and had fun smelling all the new smells. Ah, kitty freedom. She loves it.
Happy Mother’s Day Everyone! Love your mama and call her up!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Filed by Jenny on May 11th, 2008 under Gratitude and Love, Kitty! | 4 Comments »
NEW PHOTOS UP ON FLICKR!!! NO JOKE!!!!
Yeee! There’s just a few, Timmy showed me how to do it tonight so these are just kind of a few I had the energy to do. Hope you like them!! Pretty soon we’re going to make the Flickr site just for friends, so you’ll have to sign in, I’m just a little worried about having images of Goosey up and stuff. Guess I’m watching too much Dateline. Anyhoo, I’ll let you know before that happens. More to come but aren’t they pretty??? Love you all!
Filed by Jenny on May 7th, 2008 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
National Foster Care Month… Apparently!
Happy Cinco De Mayo! And also, Happy National Foster Care Month!! Our love and admiration go this month especially to Sarah and Alex who are completing their Foster Parenting training classes…you two kick some serious A. Remember kids, there are over five hundred thousand children in America right now in Foster Care who anyone would be lucky to call their own, even if for just a while and often times forever. Adoption is not a good LAST resort, it is a wonderful FIRST resort and I wish Sarah and Alex all my love and happiness. Because kids are freaking awesome!!! I can’t wait to hear if Lia told that kid with the lame Chinese comment to stuff it. Oh and one last Lia story in honor of Foster Care Month: We were driving through the Safeway Parking lot last week and saw a lady getting in her car who looked like one of the moms at our pre-k. Lia was all, “It’s Monica - Hi Monica!!” We told her that is wasn’t Monica, but boy it sure did look like her, didn’t it? So yesterday in the car Lia says, ‘Oh, I told Monica about seeing that lady, and apparently Monica knows her - isn’t that funny?” No, Goose, what’s funny is that you use the word ‘apparently’ and you understand that ‘funny’ is another word for ‘ironic’. THAT is funny. And awesome. There are good links there on the side bar about Foster Care Month and First Place Fund For Youth. Foster a kid and you too could enjoy funny conversations like that in your car!!!
Happy Cinco, kids! Don’t get too drunky!
Filed by Jenny on May 5th, 2008 under Parenting, Foster Care | 1 Comment »
Super-Secret-Sleepover! James Taylor needs a shot! NPR is the best!!! Check me out, I’m a Chinese Guy!!!!! 32 B!!!!!!!
Can’t sleep. I’m watching Paula Dean cook her Southern Comfort food crap, and can I just pose a couple questions? First of all, this episode is a re-run of her house warming party for the house she and her husband had just finished building. In the kitchen there is an enormous brick fireplace, which is filled not with crackling cozy flames, but with a bunch of God-Awful fake-looking greenery. Did they not just finish BUILDING the damn house themselves? They built that fireplace on purpose! Don’t people usually fill fireplaces with fake flowers only when they’ve moved into a house and are stuck with one they do not like or want but there it is so they figure fake plants would fill it and kind of hide it? Did Paula actually build a fireplace specifically to put greenery in it? That’s just dumb. Ok and B. she is making some kind of cookie and she starts with a cup of white, all-purpose flour, and then she adds a stick of melted butter. Fine. But then she stirs those two things together with some pecans and actually says to the camera, “Mmmmm….doesn’t that look good?” in this really dreamy, serious voice. No, Paula. It does not look good. It is white flour and melted butter. It is glue with nuts in it.
Timmy’s birthday was a delightful success! A really wonderful family we now live near (our kids are in ballet together, their daughter is A-Dorable!) offered to have The Goose spend the night with them so I could take Timmy to see a live simulcast of This American Life in Redwood City. Lia and I faked him out and told him we were going to pick him up from work and go to Fresh Choice (Lia’s favorite) for dinner, and instead I picked him up with no Goose in the car seat, he was shocked! We haven’t been on a date in - I genuinely cannot remember. Over a year is my best guess. So we went out for Sushi and a Beard Papa and the show was AMAZING. It was pretty funny how we knew it was time to go in the theatre, all these real sensitive geeky people wearing sandals with socks and wire-rimmed glasses and no make-up and chunky Earth-toned sweaters and pleated slacks and long skirts and frizzy hair with no product in it were heading in, and we knew we better join our NPR brethren and go get seats. The highlight of the show? A ten year old girl (whose dad is fighting in Iraq right now) telling an Iraqi guy that she had been waiting three years to apologize to him, to any Iraqi citizen, for what America is doing to their home. Every f-ing hippie in the place was bawling. Except me. I was sobbing, not bawling. And also I am not a hippie.
Meanwhile, The Goose was busy having two bowls of pesto spinach pasta with our awesome friends and watching Spirited Away and playing dollhouse with her girlfriend and super cute older brother and falling asleep at like 8pm and also “Please” and “Thank you”-ing her way around the joint, and being all talkative and whooping it up and it made me so thrilled for her! (For two weeks we’ve been calling it the ’super secret sleep-over’) Nights like this are how I know she will be ok. It’s just in front of us that she freezes. When we aren’t around she is really, really good; confident, a nice kid, and she has fun! And according to pretty much everyone (unless they are totally lying to spare our feelings) she’s just really well behaved. Manners, all that. That is freaking awesome. I am so happy for her. I think if I can get her over the fear of - well, us - then she’ll be golden. But man, what a fun night. What kind friends, what a wonderful Goosey!
We made Timmy peanut butter cookies, too, using Nana’s recipe, and while they were nowhere near as good as the Nanster’s they were not bad! Also I gave him photographs I took of Goose at the beach wearing a Mermaid tail I sewed up like a giant sock. She is so cute, man I wish you all could see those pictures. Alas, someone I know won’t….oh never mind. Moping about it only gets my gloomy. All in all, it was a good birthday (I hope, you never know with that guy. Not much of a talker. Just like his Dad!) Now he is 36 and I am not older than he is anymore. Until January rolls around again.
A kid in Goosey’s class likes to pull his eyes down at the corners and say, “Hey, I’m a Chinese guy!” I told Goose to pull her eyes open vertically and say, “Hey, I’m a white guy!” but then I told her I was joking and really what she needs to do is clock that guy in the face. But then I told her that was a joke too and really she should trip him on his way to the bathroom. Then I told her that was a joke and then we had a nice talk about kindness and ethnicity and kids not knowing what they are saying and about how she is freaking AWESOME and that the kid who says it really actually is a sweet boy but that seriously she should slug him. So I’m sure it will all work out on Monday. Good times!
I watched some of Oprah interviewing Tom Cruise (yeah, it was retarded) and I can’t believe I’m even asking this, especially of anyone reading this blog because I know none of you care or have any information for me on the topic but just in case: Has Nicole Kidman just sort of ditched her kids? What the hell is up with that? Anyone?
Ooohhh! I finally went to Victoria’s Secret, in my ENDLESS f-ing quest to find a good bra…I have been reluctant to go there, as they are so big into what I like to call ‘novelty bras’, leopard print, push-up strapless things, fake jewels, feathers….and frankly I just need something to hold the things up and out and not bug the crap out of me while I wear it. Oh, and also look kind of cute. So I got measured for the first time ever, and BIG NEWS!! I have indeed been wearing the wrong sized bra since…oh, let’s say maybe 8th grade? People! I knew it. I knew it!! I’ve been wearing a too-big size all this time and wondering why it rides up my back. Huh. So, I tried on a wonderful simple cotton/lycra underwire one in the proper size, and an angel chorus came down from Heaven and echoed in the dressing room stall and Goosey said “That’s a good one, Mama!” Apparently, I am the proud owner of a 32 B-sized chestal region. Who knew??? Clearly not me. Gina you were right. Those hookers at Victoria’s really know boobies. But crapcakes! Good bras are expensive!! I’m waiting a bit to make the investment but when I do…hooo Mama! Look out for Jenny’s no longer ill-fitting bra look! It’s sassy! You’ll be all, “What’s different about you, Jenny?” and I’ll be like, “Don’t pretend you don’t read my blog. Perv.” Not really. I’ll be happy to display the New Me anytime, anywhere! (Under clothes). Ahhh over the shoulder boulder holders. They are the greatest!
Ok. It’s 3am. I’ll try to sleep. Tomorrow gardening, a nice long run, then an SF Film festival movie with my car-pooling friend from up the street. Yippee! Then Sunday morning me and the awesome sleep-over mom are going to make like four hundred tea sandwiches at 9am for the ballet school high tea fundraiser. Then we’re taking Goose to see some middle school production of Beauty and The Beast. Why? Because we flaked on taking her to Disney Princesses On Ice in San Jose and I feel like crap about it! She really wanted to go but we were moving that weekend but I had promised her I’d take her and blah blah so there we are. It should be a hoot! We’re going with movie-date-carpool also awesome mom friend. Wow. Suddenly I’m like the social butterfly of America. Nice! I love this town! Oh, and one last thing? We were almost late to the super secret sleep over because we couldn’t find GD James Taylor! She was NOWHERE, it was freaky. Goose and I were like, “Uh….James? Where are you?” and no answer, until we finally heard this faint and pitiful “Mewwww!” and we tracked it down to Goose’s bedroom, and to her chest of drawers, and I pulled open one drawer - nothing. The next drawer…James pops up and shake her head and jumps out, all pissed off! She is totally insane. She’s one of those face cats in bed at night, like all in your face and wanting to be all smelling your ears and biting your chin and her breath is stinky but I love it!!! Ohhh and one last last thing - this one’s for you, Alex and Sarah…we rode the bus to the mall today and Lia got her first batch of real Legos!! She loves them! So does James Taylor who will probably choke on one pretty soon here. We got a postcard from the vet today. It says that James Taylor needs to come in on May 12th for a Feline Leukemia booster. Heh. Walkin’ on a country Road.
Nighty-night, kids!!!
Filed by Jenny on May 3rd, 2008 under Lia, Manners, Gratitude and Love, Movies, Weekend Fun!, Kitty! | 3 Comments »
Bristle Blocks and ballet and James!
James is a super pooper, right in her box, and is also so wild - she knocked over a potted plant on our dresser and dumped a bunch of potting soil into a basket of clean laundry. Jeez! Her eyes are all runny from a lingering respiratory infection but other than that she is so healthy and cute and soft and funny.
Today we had Kindergarten round up where the teachers spend time with the incoming Kindy kids and the teacher asked Goose if she has any brothers and sisters and Goosey says, “No, I don’t have any siblings.” Siblings. Nice one! She asked one of the other kids while playing with Bristle Blocks (remember those? I loved those.) “Are you here to check out the school, too?” Man I love that kid. They are working on their recital dance at ballet, and she is loving it. Summer is almost here - more City Days full of museums and aquariums and the Exploratorium and the Discovery Museum and the beach and Golden Gate Park…we are so so so lucky to live in our beautiful little town but be so close to The City. We love it, and we can’t wait to have an open house party!! Now we just need to find a free weekend to do it. Good luck it what I say to that!
More later, skaters….
Filed by Jenny on April 29th, 2008 under Lia, Kitty! | 4 Comments »
Tea Garden, A Collar For James, Timmy Mows The Lawn!! (Stop it, Steve.)
Tonight Dada was reading the last chapter of Charlotte’s Web to The Goose (second time through because she loves it so much) and she interrupts him and asks, “Is Charlotte like Nana?” and Tim says “Like Nana how?” and Goose says, “I mean with Wilbur, is she like Nana to him? Does Wilbur love Charlotte the way I love Nana?” And then Timmy and I cried for a while.
She’s in Heaven today, as Nana and Pop-Pop are here! We spent the day at the Japanese Tea Garden and generally walking around Golden Gate Park - there is just no more amazing park in the world. Well, of the ones I have been to. And I’ve been to some good ones. None of them compare as far as I can tell. It was such an amazingly perfect beautiful day in SF. Sunny, warm, cool breeze. I think Timmy had fun. We walked over to Irving and 7th and had Crepes at Ye Olde CrepeVine. Yum. Then we came back home and Nan and Pop gave Timmy his early birthday presents - a lawn mower (the manual kind, no fuel but manly or womanly sweat!!) and Nana got him this fantastic book on organic gardening. Nice! Timmy and Pop put the lawn mower together and he went out there and mowed the entire lawn! Which was no small feat, as it is sadly overgrown and pretty big - not huge, but big for a manual mower. By the power of Greyskull he got the whole thing done in like twenty minutes. Tomorrow we’re going to the beach and trying to avoid the hideous car show traffic. (Once a year our little airport is taken over by this lame-ass classic car show. Sheesh.)
Oh, Friday I kept overhearing these crazy Lake Woebegone type conversations around HMB and wanted to recap them for you, because they were so funny. Firstly, we were having lunch at our local bakery and this super old guy (Like at least 95. Old for real.) behind us was grousing to this other younger guy about how “Every time I order a sandwich or anything with chicken on it, it’s always this goddamned white meant and I’m just sick to death of it! It’s dry as a bone, tastes like sawdust, it’s goddamned ridiculous. I want some dark meat, some wings or something with some juice, no more of this crap-ass white, dry shit. Sick of it.” Made me laugh. Then on the bus ride home, we had the driver I like to call Rosetta Stone (though his real name is Joe) because despite his sort of regular-guy appearance, he speaks four of five languages fluently. Which sort of begs the question why the hell is he driving the freaking 17 bus back and forth all day but anyway…this one super old guy gets on at one point and Rosetta Joe calls out “Hey Charlie!” and Charlie says, “Hey ya Joe” and sits down. Then Charlie says, “Hey, Joe - you seen George today?” and Rosetta says, “Oh yeah, he’s taking the 11:15 lately. I picked him up, he looked pretty good. Said he’s feeling alright, gonna have some Albacore Tuna for dinner with some kind of sauce, I don’t remember what…” and all of a sudden the local town homeless lady pipes up, “Where’d he get the tuna? It sounds delicious!” and Rosetta is all, “Uh, I have no idea.” And then he starts talking to some woman in what sounds to me like perfect Portuguese. Man. That Rosetta Stone Joe. He kills me.
Hey Sarah, you and Alex kill me too with your amazing, beautiful talents and love! For Lia’s Adoption Day they made her these prints in frames of gorgeous children’s book illustrations, they are beautiful. Thank you soooo much, there is a card in the mail for you from Lia…and also, yeah, we need to have an open house and soon. It’s finally looking sort of - like a home I guess. I love it! Maybe June?
James Taylor is the freaking BEST CAT EVER!! We were walking past a neat pet shop on Irving today and popped in and they had really beautiful collars, break away and with little silver bells attached and the best part? Made in Italy, Hookers!!! Nice. Oh, when we were at the Tea Garden there was this European punk ass tourist guy who made a crappy remark about Americans right to our faces, Timmy and I. And you know? I thought to myself, “Uh, Dude - we didn’t vote for the a-hole who supposedly represents us and besides….don’t be a dick! Especially in the Japanese Tea Garden!” It got my back up. It reminded me of how much I love - you know, the ideals, the potential of America. What it could be. What it tries, in our best moments, to be. I love America, and I love being American. I have the luxury to afford that love, I am not poor or marginalized and am incredibly fortunate. But even still; I’ve been to many counties, and there is no other place I would rather live in forever. And also, California. There is no better State. I love California so much. I even love Going to California Disney, a whole land devoted to celebrating the greatest state in The Union! That place makes me so dizzy with affection for our Poppies and Quails and Redwoods and beaches and deserts and mountains and stupidly high real estate prices and all, but there is a reason for that. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth in a flawed but still great country who may soon have the leadership to once again help it strive for the greatness of it’s true potential. So to that dumb-ass tourist, I say this: “Don’t travel if you’re going to be a dick about it. Thanks!” I mean my God, who would do that? I would never go to another country and be all, “Uh, you guys suck. But thanks for the scones!” Lord. That guy was like a big spoiled brat.
Ok, off to sleep. Love you guys. Hope you all got to get out in the sun this weekend, it was so gorgeous and tomorrow looks great too. Oh, here comes my James! Oh….everyone, run out and get a cat. Quick!
Filed by Jenny on April 26th, 2008 under Tim L., Weekend Fun!, Kitty! | 4 Comments »
Hey Steve!
Hey! What show was your brother on where they redid the living room? Some decorating thing? Becuase our kitchen and living room are a disaster and I need help. From TV professionals. I have no idea what I’m doing in trying to decorate this place and if it was on a show they’d be all paying for it and crap. Right? Yeah. Ok. Do you like how I comunicate with you via my website and not privately? Nice. Nice!!!
Filed by Jenny on April 25th, 2008 under House Crap | 3 Comments »
Stephen Colbert have a hot dog with me.
Jenny is in love, kids. Pop-Pop and Brian installed illegal Dish TV reception to our house and the best part about it has become my enduring and passionate love for Stephen Colbert. Holy crap. If I had any - ANY - sympathy for the ‘Spirit Of The Olympics’ crap about brotherhood and yadda yadda, there was always the nagging thought they are being hosted this year by a government who American is way in bed with as far as a horrrid tangle of economic ties and therefore will not do anything to protest said government’s ongoing and BLATANT Genocide against the Tibetan people, not to mention Human Rights abuses which rival even ours, not to mention they are kicking people out of their family homes to build stupid crap for the Olympics…anyway, any sympathy I had for anything involving athletes or coming together as nations in brotherhood with the stupid torch and that poor girl in the wheelchair or any of it was dashed when Colbert put it this way:
“All China wants to do is equate the beauty and goodwill of the torch with the beauty and goodwill of their totalitarian regime - and these (Tibetan) monks are ruining it for them! And that hurts! I personally agree with Rose Pak, General Consulate to the Chinese Chamber Of Commerce who said of Tibet supporters, quote:
‘You do your thing and we do our thing. Why is it you have to disrupt our celebration when none of us went and disrupted their celebration?’ (NY Times April 9, 2008)
Good point - the Tibetan celebration of occupation by China has been uninterrupted for 57 festive years!”
Oh my God I love that man. LOVE him, do you hear me?
In Kitty news, I thought I was getting a bad cold: sore throat, watery eyes that also itch and are red, coughing, sneezing…uh. Yeah. I always sort of forget how allergic I am to cats. But I don’t care! I love James Taylor so much and I shall continue to rub her and kiss her face and pet her and brush her until my body surrenders it’s ridiculous reaction to the apparent dried saliva on her fur! (That’s what causes the allergic reaction, right? I think so.) I’m not feeling too great but again…who cares? She is flipping ADORABLE!!!
Happy Wednesday!