Musings and Mirth

About Me

I spend way too much thinking about me. This is the blank space where that paragraph should be.

Lessons Hard Earned

My daughter Emma was effected by the recent election in a profound way, so much so that it made her want to run for Student Council as 5th Grade Vice-President. She was hope in a jar, this kid, all confidence and pride. She wanted to run even though she knew she might lose and Barack Obama was her role model. The wrote a great statement of purpose and was ready to go. But something happened along the way – there was an information lapse between what she was supposed to know to run and what she knew. I watched the school’s administrator putting up the posters one morning, Emma of course, hadn’t even mentioned to me that she had to make one. The administrator was snippy about it. “Everybody knew this stuff,” implying that Emma knew but blew it off because I guess that’s the kind of kid she is? Something she wanted this much she would blow off?

Well then there was the news of one minute speech I found out from another parent. Emma wrote a draft and the next day checked with the snippy administrator to see if one minute was the time limit, “you’re very late,” the administrator said. But Emma took that to mean she had one day to write it but something didn’t right with me about those words, “you’re very late.”

Nonetheless, Emma had put up her beautiful poster with the words, “Emma Stone. Reliable, Friendly, Totally Awesome.” She had written a speech and worked on the speech. In all ways she could be ready, she was ready. But of course, when we arrived that morning and the kids were gathered on the yard, Emma had no idea she was supposed to have to turned her speech in the day before.

When I got there the kids were assembled. No Emma to be seen. I asked the snippy administrator why Emma wasn’t there and she informed me that “all of the rules that you signed” stated that the speech had to be turned in by yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, I signed it. Emma shoved it in my face and I signed it but I hadn’t read it. The day she showed it to me was Halloween and I was workined a school fundraiser, working at the school as an aide and helping Emma get her costume in order. I signed it and counted on Emma to know the details.

Alas, I knew it was a major fuck up for a kid who has them routinely. She is super smart but somehow doesn’t have that part of the brain that remembers things she needs to remember. So I knew she would be more than disappointed; she would be devastated. I walked up the three flights of stairs to her class and waved to her to come out. She held it together until she got out of sight of the rest of her class and then my poor girl sobbed. She let it all go in a way she never has before. This was going to be brutal.

Her teacher, her kindly teacher, helped me to put her back together to salvage what was left of the day. And now I have to walk that line between wanting to throw a pie in the face of the administrator and knowing that Emma wasn’t prepared to really be in the student council if she couldn’t get it together. My own mind wrestled with resentment and rage and a desire to figure out a way to make it better for her so that this doesn’t happen again.

BACHELORETTE SHOCKER

LOL:

In Touch can exclusively reveal that DeAnna Pappas is back on the market, after breaking up with Jesse Csincsak, whom she fell in love with on The Bachelorette.

“I really felt like I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. I thought he was my fairy-tale ending” DeAnna tells In Touch. “But after the show was over and we settled in to our normal lives, I slowly came to realize that we are two totally different people and it wasn’t going to work out.” But DeAnna, who’s going to donate her engagement ring to charity, isn’t totally turning her back on love. “I still believe in love,” she says. “More than anything, I want to find someone I can spend the rest of my life with,” she adds.

The Best Homemade Hot Chocolate

The truth about me is that I secretly want to be a chef. I would love to be one of those great cooks out there who can make the most amazing things you’ve ever seen. I would love to have an SLR camera to shoot the stuff I make.

read more…

Drudge’s Conservative March

I just want to point out Drudge’s headlines today, seriously. I know he has rabid conservative readers to cater to, I get that, but Jesus, don’t they care about reality even a little?

Bruuuuuuuce Does it Again

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y6-PHB8Vm8[/youtube]

Man I love Bruce. It’s just been announced he’ll do a free show for Obama. Alls you gotta do to get tickets is sign up to volunteer for the campaign. This is righteous:

The Obama campaign has just announced that Bruce Springsteen will play a free, acoustic, set on the Parkway Saturday afternoon. The stated purpose is to assist voter registration and volunteer efforts, and, indeed, to get “preferred” tickets you¬†have to go to an Obama campaign office and sign up to volunteer. General admission is available via the web.

And did we say an acoustic set? So no E Street Band. Bummer.

For extra credit, tell us who will provide McCain with his musical theme?

Here’s excerpts from the Obama release:

“…Bruce Springsteen¬†an acoustic set at a rally on the Ben Franklin Parkway…

Free concert for Pennsylvanians will be huge opportunity to register voters and sign up volunteers; preferred tickets must be picked up at campaign offices.

The concert will take place on the Saturday before Pennsylvania’s voter registration deadline on Monday.

Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 20th and 22nd Streets.

A Non-Denial Denial

Remember in All the President’s Men when Ben Bradlee says that the White House has issued a non-denial denial? Well, here is another one. The cover story on today’s NY Times reports on John McCain’s gambling problem:

Mr. McCain’s spokesman, Tucker Bounds, would not discuss the senator’s night of gambling at Foxwoods, saying: “Your paper has repeatedly attempted to insinuate impropriety on the part of Senator McCain where none exists — and it reveals that your publication is desperately willing to gamble away what little credibility it still has.”

A non-denial denial!