Come On, Women! Where the Heck Are You?

Posted on February 24, 2012 by

My daughter recently volunteered to babysit an adorable five-month-old baby boy to help out a struggling family. Having been the mother of baby girls, my daughter was unprepared for how quickly she could get sprayed while trying to change his diaper. I told her about these little “tents” I saw in a Hallmark store. They are designed to fit over a certain part of a little boy’s anatomy to give the mother, or whoever changes the baby, time to take the old diaper off and put on a new one without getting a mouth full of pee. We both laughed about the clever little device.

That got me thinking about other little devices we women could think up for the big boys that might curb the number of unwanted pregnancies so we wouldn’t have this whole reproductive rights issue on our shoulders. We should share the burden because, last time I checked, women can’t get pregnant all by themselves. It takes two to tango, as they say. Yet only women are singled out as the “culprits” in unwanted pregnancies as if we are sultry seductresses preying on poor helpless men.

I have no idea what measures we could propose to hamper a man’s sex life, but whatever they are, they should be invasive and humiliating. After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? And the measures should be voted into law so men can’t wiggle (no pun intended) out of them. I’m open to suggestions. Mandatory vasectomies in certain situations shouldn’t be ruled out.

The problem is that these measures would be impossible to vote into law because men make up the vast majority of lawmakers. Women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought hard for a woman’s right to vote. According to the 2010 census, there are more women of voting age in this country than men of the same age. Why are women so underrepresented? Why have women so passively given up their voice?

I started following an excellent blog recently called Broadside. The author, Caitlin Kelly, said, “The last time I looked, American women do have the vote. But you’d never know it.” Men dictating what women can and cannot do with their bodies is nothing less than tyranny of the minority. It is long past the time when we women need to step up and vote into office some of the many competent women out there. If we won’t speak for ourselves, we let men do it, and we see where that is going. I have a huge knot in my stomach thinking that some of my rights could be abridged while a man gets to skate on by with no responsibility, for unless I missed it, only women’s rights seem to be the subject of political discussion these days.

But back to my original discussion, starting with those little tents. Ladies, are your brains working? Are you getting any ideas? No, no, don’t send them to me. Send them to the presidential candidates so they can see what they might be in store for when we women finally step up to the plate. They should be afraid. Very afraid.

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What a Bargain!

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

When I got the mail yesterday afternoon, I found a bargain book catalogue. Making a lovely cup of Earl Grey for myself, I propped my feet up, sat down and began to peruse the catalogue for books I might like to add to my collection. The following are some of the ones that didn’t make my list.

  • And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks.  Though written by two greats, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, the  blurb said this work of fiction ( thank God!) ” tells a hard-boiled story of bohemian New York during WWII, full of drugs and art, obsession and violence.” The authors were unknowns at the time and the manuscript was rejected time and time again and sat in filing cabinets for decades.  Aren’t we lucky to finally get access to it!  (My typing is dripping with sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell.)
  • What To Say To Get Your Way:  The Magic Words That Guarantee Better, More Effective Communication.  Don’t need it.  I already know those words and use them quite often.  ”Feeling Frisky?”
  • Never Be Lied To Again:  How to Get the Truth in 5 Minutes or Less in Any Conversation or Situation.  Now if they had a book entitled Never Lie Again:  How to Tell the Truth in Five Minutes or Less, I’d buy a bunch of copies and send them to the presidential candidates.
  • Spam:  The Cookbook.  I don’t need to elaborate why I’m not getting this one, do I?
  • 101 Things to Do With Canned Soup.  I can think of only one:  READ THE SODIUM CONTENT ON THE LABEL!
  • Totally Potato Cookbook.  Can you picture the people who would actually get excited about this cookbook?  Remember the children’s song “I’m a Little Teapot, Short and Stout?” Somewhere in that title is the answer to my question.
  • Collector’s Guide to Pez, 3rd Edition.  Darn!  Can’t believe I missed the first two.
  • The Encyclopedia of Wood.  Now I enjoy a good thriller as well as anyone, but I think this may be over the top, even for me.
  • The Plot to Seize the White House.  Yeah, me too.  I thought this was about current politics, but it’s really about a “shocking true story of conspiracy to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the early 1930′s.” I think what you and I were thinking it was about is even more shocking.

I’m only on page 9 and there are 80 pages, so I’ll have a few moadd books to add at a later time.

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Some Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Posted on February 22, 2012 by

During the course of this blog, I’ve shared many things about my life, but I’ve also left many interesting facts out. For example, I bet you didn’t know that I graduated at the top of my high school class when I was only sixteen, and then I took a break from my education and went to New York where I had bit parts in off-Broadway shows for a couple of years before I returned to school at the University of Connecticut. I was able to finish in three years and then went on to get my Ph.D. in applied mathematics at the University of Chicago. Though I was offered a high-paying job as an F.B.I. analyst, I turned it down to marry the love of my life and have his children.

Sigh. The truth is I graduated at seventeen somewhere in the top quarter of my class and got an English degree at UConn, married the love of my life (that part, at least, is true!) and we moved to rural Connecticut, lived across from the cow pastures, and I stayed at home, baking bread and raising kids.

The Supreme Court said it will review the Stolen Valor Act which makes it a crime to lie about receiving a military honor. A Federal Appeals Court found that it violates free speech rights. This will be an interesting case to follow because, as it stands now, it basically gives the government the ability to decide which lies it deems worthy of prosecution. While I think lying about receiving a service medal is despicable, I’m not sure I would want to say it isn’t protected by the First Amendment, I’ll be listening to the arguments very carefully.

The problem is that so many despicable things are protected under the First Amendment, you can’t start picking and choosing which things are too despicable. Its all in the eye of the beholder. For example, it was ruled that people could gather outside a military funeral and shout anti-military or anti-gay slurs. “The Supreme Court ruled decisively Wednesday that a fringe anti-gay group has a constitutionally protected right to stage hateful protests at the funerals of dead servicemen, saying ‘such speech cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.’” (Washington Times, March 2, 2011). That makes me spitting mad, but I still don’t think I want the government being the truth police. That’s a dangerous path to take.

Some argue that lying about the facts has never been supported by the First Amendment. If that were the case, it would shut the mouths of all our presidential candidates. Hmmm…maybe I need to give this more thought.

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Rejecting My Former Self

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

Interviewer: Let’s see here, Mrs. Okaty. You are applying for the job of mother. What experience have you had?

Former Self: None, Sir, but how hard can it be? I mean, we’re so much bigger than they are, right?

Interviewer: You would think, but actually, size doesn’t seem to matter. What qualifications do you have?

Former Self: Well…I have a college education, majored in English and minored in Anthropology. I can discuss the differences between austrolopithecus afarensis and australopithecus africanus. Oh, and I can quote nearly the entire introduction to Chaucer‘s  Canterbury Tales, in Middle English, no less. Would you like to hear me?

Interviewer: No, I’ll take your word for it. I’m sure those skills will come in very handy.  You’ll make your children, should we decide to give you any, very proud.

Former Self: Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there?

Interviewer: Let’s move on, shall we? How do you intend to pay for these children?

Former Self: Doesn’t the hospital take credit cards?

Interviewer: Ma’am, I’m talking about after the hospital. How will you financially provide for these children?

Former Self: Um…is this a trick question? I mean we have parents who will help. Haven’t you ever heard of grandparents? Duh!

Interviewer: Mrs. Okaty, I think you’re missing the point here. These are supposed to be your children, not your parents’ children. They will be totally your responsibility. No one else’s. Yours. Alone. Totally.

Former Self: …You mean forever?

Interviewer: Well, it might seem like forever, but your actual responsibility will end when they turn eighteen.

Former Self: That’s only five years younger than I am now and I feel pretty old already.

Interviewer: Believe me, you’ll feel a lot older before you know it.

Former Self: Jeez, I feel like I’m failing this interview and we really want those kids. I think they’d be kind of fun to play with.

Interviewer: Play with? I’m sorry. I thought you were interviewing for parenthood, not puppy adoption. Don’t worry Mrs. Okaty, all the other prospective parents don’t come in here any more prepared then you are. I don’t know why the Big Guy upstairs insists on these interviews. They’re really just a formality. I guess He’s hoping that some of you young people will realize how serious this parenting business is and plan a little better before you take the plunge. There’s no turning back, you know.

Former Self: So when my father said you could give them back before their third birthday, he was just kidding? Well, it’s good to hear that not many of us get rejected. I was beginning to worry. I’m not getting any younger and I want to get started on my brood so I can fit them all in.

Interviewer: Fit them all in? How many are you planning on having?

Former Self: Three. One of each, as my husband says…Don’t look so horrified. That’s a joke. You people don’t laugh much, do you?

Interviewer: Oh, we laugh more than you think. And the joke’s on you.

Former Self: I’m sorry, you were mumbling. Could you repeat that last part?

Interviewer: I said you are approved. Enjoy your life.

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It’s a Long Way Until November, and I’m Steaming Already

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

I wrote a post Sunday that I intended to publish this morning, but I thought I’d run it by my husband first before I hit the publish button. I usually don’t do that, but because this one was political in nature, I wanted to get my husband’s opinion. He said it was right on. He agreed with everything I wrote. Then he advised me not to post it. I reluctantly hit the trash button.

The fact that I even asked my husband’s advice means I already had doubts about the post. My husband said maybe I could rewrite it and leave out the politician’s name I was railing against. If I did that, the post would have been meaningless because it was the message of this particular candidate that made me so angry. I had to include his quotes, and then you would know who I was writing about. My blog posts have mostly been non-partisan, and changing now might alienate some of my readers and change the nature of my blog.  So I chose to delete the post.

I don’t want to leave it alone until I at least say this: People can always find ammunition to support their beliefs, even using the Bible. What makes me very uneasy is when the person promoting those beliefs tries to make me think that his beliefs trump my beliefs because he operates on a morally superior plane. Beware of candidates who claim that their faith is the one sanctioned by God, and anyone who disagrees with them is not practicing the right brand of religion.

Mahatma Gandhi  said, “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” How sad is that?  And also how true.  This is not a government for Christians only. Even if we are a country of mostly Christian people, the tyranny of the majority is not what we are about. Sadly, even some Christians want to promote their brand of religion over other Christians, as if they have an “in” with God that those of us who disagree with them obviously don’t have. Good, moral people exist who practice many brands of faith or no faith at all except their faith in their fellow man, and they are fully capable of leading our nation. So when I hear a sanctimonious candidate promote his religious beliefs as what is best for everybody in our nation, that’s one person I will be steering clear of.

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My Anti-Bucket List

Posted on February 17, 2012 by

I do not have a bucket list. I can’t think of anything at the moment that I must do before I kick that old bucket. I always wanted to see whales out in the ocean, and I did that a few years ago, so I’m content. Besides, at my age, some of the things that were once on my bucket list are unattainable now. For example, I was an anthropology minor in college. I wanted to major in it, but my father thought I should major in something that would get me a job. So I majored in English. My engineer father didn’t see the difference. Anyway, I always wanted to go on a dig in Africa with Dr. Louis Leaky. Ain’t going to happen. I’m too old, and perhaps more importantly, Dr. Leaky has been dead for forty years.

Yesterday I was reading a blog that mentioned a writing prompt about making a reverse bucket list. In other words, make a list of the things you don’t ever want to do. That’s much easier. Several things come to mind immediately. For one, bungee jumping. The idea of jumping off a bridge with a giant elastic band tied to your ankles and dangling upside down over a raging river is not my idea of fun. I know, call me crazy.

Camping would be another thing on my anti-bucket list. I know many of you fellow bloggers would relish a camping trip to the Grand Tetons or the Appalachian Trail, putting up your tent and cooking over a campfire, but my idea of roughing it is staying in a hotel without a sleep number bed and no USA Today left outside my door. I love the Great Outdoors, but when nighttime begins to fall, I want to be back in the Great Indoors. You know, the one with an actual bathroom?

I once thought I wanted a Volkswagon Karmann Ghia, but besides the fact that they haven’t been made in nearly forty years, I’ve outgrown my desire for a little sports car. I’m a little claustrophobic, I don’t like speed, I don’t like to ride low to the ground, and getting in and out of those little cars with my old knees and hips is downright painful. I would prefer a fully loaded Buick LaCrosse ( actually, I’d prefer a Mercedes CLS63, but my son-in-law is an engineer with General Motors, so I want to appear to be a good mother-in-law).

What are some of the things you would never want to do?

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The Story of our Lives

Posted on February 16, 2012 by

Last year my husband bought me volume one of Mark Twain’s autobiography, a book of 736 pages in small type.  Two more volumes are forthcoming.  Most everybody knows that Mark Twain refused to have his autobiography published until 100 years after his death.  One reason was because he didn’t want to offend anyone still living, so he said.  The other reason was because he didn’t think it was even possible to capture his life in words.  He wrote:

 ”What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words!  His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.  All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, (which are but the mute articulation of his feelings) not those other things, are his history…These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written.”

How can we tell the story of our life except through our own interpretation, and doesn’t that interpretation keep changing?  So many events are lost to me, and the ones I remember look different each time I think of them, as if I’m seeing them through different lenses.  Yet each time they seem so real, as if I were living them again.  I understand what Mark Twain meant when he wrote about his life on the farm:

“I can call back the solemn twilight and mystery of the deep woods, the earthy smells, the faint odors of the wild flowers, the sheen of rain-washed foliage, the rattling clatter of drops when the wind shook the trees, the far-off hammering wood-peckers and the muffled drumming of wood pheasants in the remotenesses of the forest, the snap-shot glimpses of disturbed wild creatures skurrying through the grass,—I can call it all back and make it as real as it ever was, and as blessed.”

I have only to close my eyes and I am in my grandmother’s kitchen again on East 98th street in Manhattan, sitting at the table as she brought me a soft-boiled egg with a pat of butter in the cracked white egg cup.  I can hear the horns honking and the sirens screaming, I can smell the steamy pavement and feel the stillness of the summer air as I hung out the window and watched the traffic.  Yes, I can bring it all back to me, but I cannot write so you can see it the way I see it because it goes beyond words.  The feelings of my life are my story, are my history.

I have this picture of my mother when she was about the age my daughter is now.  My father captured her in a pensive moment early one morning as she sat by the window in her robe.  I wonder what she was thinking?  Her expression makes me think that she was deep in thought about her life.  I wonder how she interpreted that life?  What history was she writing in her thoughts and feelings?  We think we know the story of a person’s life, but we only know some facts, and even  those can’t be trusted.  History without feelings is empty.

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