Citizen Mom

KALE TO THE NO: The smoothie scourge must be stopped #housewifeconfessional

Y'know, I'm all for trying to be healthy and I like convenience foods as much as the next guy, but I just need to get this off my chest:

NO, I do not want a fricking smoothie.

NO, I don't care if you can't really taste the spinach or kale or turnip greens or freeze-dried sea monkeys or whatever the hell you people are all putting in your blenders every morning. I just skeeve drinking yogurt, the same way I skeeve squeezing yogurt from a tube. Nobody can use a spoon anymore? 

And while we're at it, no, I don't believe you when you swear it really tastes great even though it looks like Nickelodeon slime! Like a cup full of health! And the antioxidants! MY GOD, THE ANTIOXIDANTS!

What happened to eating your calories, not drinking them -- orange juice is the devil but now we're all supposed to act like our jaws are wired shut and have no choice but to turn our produce into spackle in a glass?* I suppose dirtying a juicer/blender/extractor every morning is meant to free me from the drudgery of a bowl and spoon, but I'll pass. 

Of course, many of you are happily living in smoothie wonderland, and that's cool. Sally has some recipes over on Real Mom Nutrition, so check 'em out.This banana-date thingie looks good, but note the absence of yogurt and kale. 

* Yes, I understand the dietary difference between empty juice calories and the bountiful nutritional richness of that spinach-flax-mango-kale-peanut butter concoction, but it's my rant. 

 

KITTY CAM: I want my MeowTV

 A story in the LA Times tells of a University of Georgia research project in which Kitty Cams -- which are exactly what they sound like, tiny video cameras strapped to the collars of house cats -- were used to document felines doing whatever the hell it is they do when they leave the house. 

I KNOW, RIGHT? 

The research seems to confirm what any cat owner knows already, that is, that our lovable furballs aren't just ignorant jerks who like to muscle their way onto the laptop keyboard while you're writing on deadline or hork up hairballs in the guest room. They're also pretty much violent, philandering assholes when outdoors, too:

Two thousand hours of footage later, the researchers say 44% of the cats went on attempted killing sprees and 85% engaged in dangerous behaviors such as crossing two lane streets and exploring tight spaces where they might get trapped. Perhaps most hurtfully, footage taken by four of the cats revealed that they keep a second family on the side.

I knew it! 

Oliver, my trifling tuxedo cat, is known to disappear for days at a time, then arrive like a guilty spouse just back from a Las Vegas weekend. And when he shows up at the doorstep he isn't dirty and hungry -- just tired, really really tired --  leading me to long suspect he's been making time with someone else.  

From the UGA project's website:

One of the most surprising things we witnessed was cats adopting a second set of owners. Four of our project kitties were recorded entering another household for food and/or affection! 

On their site, you can watch a collection of Kitty Cam clips, with awesome names like "Finding Tasty Chex Mix" and "Climbing and Peeping." 

Clearly I'm going to need a Kitty Cam, and a live web hookup -- I have the feeling The Oliver Channel would be huge. Though I suspect his video clips would come with NC-17 ratings and have titles like "I Killed A Bunny In Jersey Just To Watch Him Die" and "50 Shades of Oliver."

--

I caught this one in the social media streams of pal Gary Nielson. 

Joe Paterno, Penn State, and how our own errors in thinking let this happen

Updated: 

You can also read this on NewsWorks (and see other pics), and listen to  an audio portion from WHYY.

--- 

In my house, there isn’t a room that doesn’t bear at least some evidence of my relationship with Penn State. Since the child sex assault scandal began unfolding last year, only one piece of my Penn State collection went into the trash can. 

It was a dark-blue T-shirt, with a sketch of Joe Paterno’s face and the words LET GO AND LET JOE in white, a play on the old saw about turning your troubles over to the Lord, trusting he’ll handle everything. 

In hindsight, I see how deeply bizarre that sounds, and how perfectly it sums up how and why we got here. The shirt (bought at Cheesesteak Tees, I think)  just seemed funny, so ironically over-the-top that only another Penn Stater would understand. It went into the garbage when the thought of wearing it left me feeling disgusted and ashamed, and afraid of what else we didn’t know.

With the Freeh Report released, we know more than ever and it’s nothing short of horrifying. The report isn’t just a retelling of how there were “more red flags than we could count,” as Freeh said, nor is it about pinning it all on the dead guy as others insist (they’re wrong).

It confirms things we didn't want to accept about all of the men running the university, including the one to whom they all deferred. It proves that “let go and let Joe” was the guiding principle at Penn State. It wasn't the law and it certainly was not compassion for those boys.

Those boys. Some the same age my son was when we took him to his first game, dressed him in PSU gear and waved to President Spanier as he passed by in a minibus on the way back from Beaver Stadium. Nobody cared enough to do anything for those boys.

Let go and let Joe.

Everyone knows Joe had an effect on people it is accurate to describe as religious.  A few words from him could revive exhausted THON dancers and shake loose money from donors’ pockets. His words certainly could have stopped Jerry Sandusky from abusing kids.

Penn State's motto is "Success With Honor."

Imagine the honor that would have come with the success of Joe being the coach who took a public stand for protecting children, the one who refused to tolerate the mere idea of a child abuser in his midst? But even the janitors at the bottom of the blue-and-white food chain knew no good would come of blowing the whistle. Blowing the whistle is the coach’s job.

To the Paterno family, which released its own statement, no sane adult would knowingly cover for a child sex predator. They say if Joe had “understood what Sandusky was,” he would have done more. No one really expects the Paternos to reject their patriarch. But.  

Realizing all this hurts. It makes me nauseated, it makes me ashamed I was part of that culture of unquestioning loyalty that let atrocities go on right under JoePa’s famous nose.

Does understanding all these things mean I don’t love Penn State, that I should take my diploma off the wall and send it back? No, it means I believe a better Penn State exists. That there is more good to be done. That I want to do better by its students than was done for those other boys, the ones Sandusky and his enablers destroyed.

A moment keeps coming back to me: Oct. 29, 2011, the weekend of that freaky Halloween snowstorm, when we joined a bunch of Penn State friends to watch the Illinois game. The group of us that had bonded over long nights in the Collegian newsroom gathered in a New Jersey living room to watch on TV, cheering and pointing out Joe to the kids.

Should we have known that would be the last time a big win would give us that kind of pride? That it would be the last time, probably for a long time, that Beaver Stadium would be that innocent universe of joy it became in the moments just after a win?

I’m involved in alumni groups, I mentor students, I give money and time back to my school. None of that changes for me. Some are calling for the football program to be shut down, if not the whole university. Penalties, charges, fines, yes, but dismantle Penn State? Of course not.

Letting the entire institution be defined by one person is our yesterday. I’d rather work to build Penn State’s future. Or maybe, just go back to the start. From the 1941 campus guide for freshmen, via Papergreat:

There is something in Penn State that goes on and on, unchanging even while buildings, faculties, and student bodies come and go. If you find out what that is, you will have found the source of the notable Penn State spirit and loyalty. 

Happy Birthday From The Best Ass In U.S. History (No, Not Mine)

via www.youtube.com

Three years ago today, I signed up for Twitter, beginning a love affair that now involves 2,368 people directly (952 I follow and my 1,416 charming, smart and gorgeous followers) and thousands more by association. For this, you can either thank or blame the editor who sent me a link to Ana Marie Cox's then brand-new feed and said something to the effect of, "I think you'd be good at this."

I'm certainly not as popular as Ana Marie, but I tend to my Twitter counts like an old man with his tomato plants, and have a very low "block" threshold. Also I can't bear to think about politics, cats or my pants quite that much. So it's all good.

This week also marks six years since I launched this blog, which has slowed somewhat but (like the blog world itself) definitely grown and changed because of Teh Twitter. There's so much more quick-hit posting because of the increase in mobile, plus microblogging/sharing sites like Twitter and Tumblr, and Facebook's ability to easily link from almost everywhere. So while it's meant not spending entire days sitting in front of my computer working on the blog, it's also meant I need to be more disciplined and focused on actually making time to think and write. I'm working on that.

Trust the process, I guess.

Love Me With A Feeling: The Queen Bee, Tonya Browne, Is Still A Buzz

Photo by Gary Korman

The in-between season, while the kid and husband are home on winter break, is always a slow time for me, but I have a piece in this month's Penn Stater Magazine about how live music -- Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet Band in particular -- got me through a long winter before graduation.

A .pdf of the story

The idea came from finding a bunch of Queen Bee clips on YouTube, at very, very long last. Here's Tonya Browne singing, and an early incarnation of the band playing, "Every Night About This Time" in 1990. I love how Mark Ross just kind of sways back and forth, the metronome keeping everyone in time. 

By the time I came around about a few years later, her voice had both strengthened and refined (Their MySpace Player has a few good clips from that time, especially "Let Me Tell You What Love Is.") and the band had changed up a little bit to include Rene Witzke and Doug Bernstein, who later split for Nashville. Through the wonders of Facebook I've got back in touch with Rene and am happy to find him -- and his beautiful, multi-talented wife, singer Molly Countermine, of Pure Cane Sugar, Maxwell Strait etc. -- living, playing and raising a family in the State College area. Mark Ross's son is now old enough that he played with the band on a recent reunion gig (Ryan Jones blogged about it for the Penn Stater here), and "Sleepy" Jack Wilkinson is still banging away, God love him.

Longtime Citizen Mom readers know about Tonya Browne. From '06:

. . . am fondly remembering sneaking up to an apartment above the Shire in Cape May with Tonya and a few others, and getting completely hammered during the drum solo in "Too Tall To Mambo."

During the next song, three hoochies and a large bouncer-looking dude from the (now bulldozed) Wildwood strip club C.R. Fannie's come in. The girls start busting moves on the dance floor -- not stripping, though they were wearing assless jeans and the CR Fannie's logo was painted on their buttcheeks. Such helpful girls, bless their hearts.

After they left, we were all so loaded we just looked at each other like "did that just happen?"

The Blue Hornet Band, with Tonya out front, accomplished a lot: Not just regular regional gigs, several CDs and a large and loyal group of fans, but European dates and opening for B.B. King -- who was said to have been drawn out of his dressing room by the sound of Tonya's voice. Every band needs its legends, and that one is beloved.

My own personal legend is about the night we finally graduated, and both my parents and Pop Cesspool's folks sat around a table at Cafe 210West, toasting themselves on their accomplishment and rocking out to the Queen Bee. There couldn't have been more happy people in State College that night.

I'm grateful to Tina Hay and the Penn Stater for publishing the piece -- I was hoping it might be a catalyst for Queen Bee fans to find each other, and the music, again. Cue social media! 

I have plenty for which to thank Tonya, Mark, Rene and Jack -- and not just New Year's Eve '93 and '94 at the North Star Bar, though that alone would be plenty -- but the biggest may be that those shows ignited my love of live music and appreciation for the people who make it. Keep rocking.

For The Record: The version of "My Baby Loves The Way," on the MySpace Player, is my all-time favorite.

DAILY COLLEGIAN: Singing the blues, April 4, 1994

Prospect Park West: Sex in the City + Stroller

Sohn's novel lampoons a specific neighborhood - the ultra-yuppie, ultra-P.C, ultra-stroller-mobbed-out, beyond-parody Brooklyn neighborhood that's a byword for "smugness" and nice houses in the tri-State area. But she could just as easily be talking about parent populations all across the country - and online. These are the women who populate the "momopshere," those fabled helicopter parents who assume everyone shares the same level of fascination with their children's diets and can afford to worry about the provenance of a cloth diaper.

via jezebel.com[

I'm using this as a way to test the remote posting device on my TypePad blog, so forgive me if this comes out looking crappy.

OK here's the thing about this book: It's readable, and funny in spots, yet awful in that way a book so clearly written to be picked up for a TV show can be. This is what I imagine a Jennifer Weiner TV show would be like, except there'd be a fat chick whereas in this book there's one chubby woman, who also happens to be a complete psychotic freak. If you ever wondered whether the Sex and the City ladies would be as annoying as at-home moms as they are as singletons, the answer is yes. Also, at this point in 2009, the lux goods worship and obsessive wealth seems dated.

When I finished Prospect Park West, I gave it to my mom to read last Saturday at the Shore. "You can probably get through this tonight," I said. "Tell me if it's my imagination."

The next afternoon when we returned from the beach, she said "Yeah, I finished this one. The bit with her burning her hair off was good but it reads like it's a TV script or something."

Like I said, it'll make for pretty TV and cast properly it could be a "thirtysomething"-like phenomenon. But dropping lots of pop cultural and brand references (and there are too many in this book to count) into a book is not exactly the same as writing one. Or is it (see Mad Men)? 

And while there certainly are women who inhabit the same demographic and political structure as these women -- except perhaps Melora Leigh, an Oscar-winning actress married to a philandering Australian hottie -- none of them seem even vaguely real. There's plenty of internal dialogue and glances toward the usual parenting neuroses, but nothing that feels genuine.

UPDATE: Author Amy Sohn has a beef with anonymous, mean-spirited bloggers, even the ones who don't write anonymously and who actually read their entire book before writing a review. Sometimes the book just isn't very good, hon.

BREAKING: Chris Brown Withdraws From KCAs

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY

AP Music Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- There won't be any awkward Chris Brown moment at the Kids' Choice Awards - the embattled pop star has withdrawn his name from the ballot. Brown had been nominated for favorite male singer and favorite song for "Kiss Kiss" at the March 28 awards show on Nickelodeon. The nominations came shortly before his arrest for allegedly attacking girlfriend and fellow pop star Rihanna.

READ THE WHOLE STORY

PREVIOUSLY: Tell Brown To "Kiss, Kiss" My Mom Jeans

Tell Nickelodeon and Viacom: Chris Brown Is Not Welcome At Kids' Choice Awards

I'm on deadline today so am going to keep this one short and sweet: Despite being charged with two serious felonies in connection with the beating of his girlfriend, singer Rihanna, Chris Brown remains nominated for two Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. And he's using his MySpace page to beg for votes.

In response to questions by TMZ, which has been ahead of this story at every turn, the network is falling back on its kids-rule ethos:

A Nick exec tells TMZ Brown "was nominated by kids several months ago, and the kids who vote  will ultimately decide who wins in the category."

This may come as a shock to Nickelodeon and Viacom, but while the kids may pick the winners, the parents still pick what shows the kids watch, at least in this house. And I can say right now that if Chris Brown remains nominated for an award, I will not let my son watch the show and will encourage other parents to boycott the network.
It's pretty sad when TMZ is setting the moral standard on an issue, but there you go. Ironically, Brown is nominated for the song "Kiss, Kiss" with T-Pain, who went to jail in '07 -- for driving with a suspended license.
Some will rightly point out that when Jamie Lynn Spears, then the star of a top-rated Nickelodeon show, became pregnant a few years back, the network didn't ostracize her. True, though it's apples-to-oranges unless you hold getting knocked up in the same regard as beating your girlfriend up.
Which I do not.
I also do not ever recall seeing video of Jamie Lynn Spears leaving a nightclub at 3 a.m., the way we watched the underage Brown do in Miami last week. We already know about the bad judgment Brown showed by putting his hands on a woman, and the potentially worse judgment Rihanna has shown by taking him back. But those are their bad choices to make.

Nick has a chance here to make a better, more responsible choice. And if it can't see fit to, parents will.

UPDATE: As of Wednesday morning, this online petition has nearly 9,000 signatures and other media are picking up the story.

FACEBOOK: Page with Nickelodeon/Viacom info for parents

Happy Birthday, Daddy-O

Celebrating my Dad's 80th, with love from his Favorite. 'Cause you know I am. And he's the richest man I know.

Pencil Pushers

As I write this, the boy is headed off to school with his collection of Valentines for the kids in his second-grade class. We've finally moved beyond SpongeBob, and this time he's handing out  sports-themed foldover cards that come with a little temporary tattoo tucked onto the front. Last night, he sat at the dining room table with the list of names, and filled in the "To" and "From" spaces, fixing the valentines closed with heart-shaped stickers. He'll come home with a haul of cards, and if this year is like every other, a few holiday treat bags assembled by parents who are obviously more generous and ambitious than me.

Things being what they are today, no longer are the bags stuffed with candy. Thanks to dollar stores, the front aisles at Target, and retailers like Oriental Trading, sugary treats take second fiddle to other, non-caloric loot. (A similar phenomenon happens with Easter baskets, which I wrote about last year for the Inquirer but can't find online right now. Anyway.)

Obviously whatever candy there is inside those goody bag disappears first. And soon enough, these being cheap import trinkets, the little puzzles, yo-yos and mini kaleidoscopes are cast off like so much Happy Meal detritus, turning up on the floor of the car or at the bottom of the toy box.

All that remains are the pencils. They are everywhere, and they are multiplying.

A quick patrol around the house this morning netted 28 decorated goody bag pencils (pictured above), from glittery orange with dancing skeletons from Halloween to the ones stamped with GOD IS SO GREAT! from a CCD something-or-other. 

Yeah of course, pencils are a safe alternative to candy or McDonald's gift certificates that always end up lost before they're used. (Sorry, MaryRose!) And unlike those "relaxable dice," pencils probably won't end up sucked into the innards of your Dyson. But I beseech you, unless you're also giving out a pencil sharpener and a pack of Scantron forms in the the goody bags, please reconsider the pencils.

Next time, I beg you: Go with the wax lips.