Do the Yak

Only in Boston would a photo of a baseball player getting a haircut make page 1 above the fold. It’s really rather cruel of the Globe. As a Sox fan living in the heart of Red Sox nation, I'm totally crushed by Damon’s defection but not surprised. My cynicism about baseball greed was cemented by Roger Clemens’ departure and the player strike, for which I blame everyone involved in the sport. I really don’t believe that it’s just about the money -- after the first few million, it’s just figures on a piece of paper, if you ask me. With 10 million a year, I can’t imagine there’s anything you would ever want to buy or do that you still couldn’t afford. I think it’s all about ego. Professional athletes are like movie actors or rock stars -- they struggle in poverty and obscurity for years, and then a lucky few make it to the top of their profession, when suddenly they’re mobbed by adoring fans, pursued by multimillionaire employers and flooded with money. But you know what? They get use...

A reader who saw my post on housework felt I was mocking her for paying someone to help her with scheduling, and stated her support for domesticity in general and Martha Stewart in particular. No offense, everyone -- we're all in this together! Let's all give ourselves a hand for doing at least two full-time jobs (parenting and running a household), in addition to whatever else we may occupy our copious free time with. Remember, it's WICKED HAHD . What I was trying to say was that, while maintaining some level of domestic cleanliness and order is important, we shouldn’t have to feel insecure because our homes aren’t as perfect as they could be, and we shouldn’t tie too much of our feelings of self-worth to how "nice" we’re able to keep our homes. And I do believe that a lot of these domestic-life-organization folks -- perhaps unintentionally, I admit -- play on our fears of inadequacy to sell their products. I was just trying to wring a little humor from the absu...

It's very easy to feel frustrated and inadequate about the state of our living quarters, especially when there are one or more little entropy machines running around. Some day our homes will look like the soothingly spotless and uncluttered homes of our older relatives. But not anytime soon. And it only makes you feel ten times worse if you try to get your domestic shit together with the assistance of a web site designed for that purpose (see Very Mom's post cited above). They're just like anything else in the retail world -- they're trying to entice you to get on board with their service or product by making you feel like a loser because you aren't on board. I refused to go beyond the initial retinal scan of Flylady because how can you trust someone to get you clean, serene and organized when their migraine-inducing web site is nothing of the sort? As for Motivated Moms (scroll down and click on the "free sample page" link), this just makes me mad beca...

It’s now official -- the Red Sox are going to suck next year, and we’re right back to where we were despair-wise before they won the World Series. I refer of course to the defection of Johnny Damon to the Yankees. The worst part isn’t that they gave him lots more money, which is SOP for Steinbrenner. It’s bad that, if you believe JD, the pathetically disorganized Sox management didn’t pursue him aggressively. It’s worse that JD we’ll have to see one of our favorite players in home whites in Yankee Stadium, quite possibly playing in another World Series while the Sox are catching up on sleep and golfing. We went through this before with Boggs and Clemens, though we didn’t love them as much as we love Johnny. The worst part is that he will, presumably with no qualms, adhere to the Yankee rule about hair: short on the head and none on the face. So now not only must we see Johnny in pinstripes, but also shorn of his very identity, willingly transformed into a girly-man for the sake of cash...

"The fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions." -- Judge John Jones, in today's ruling that shoots down the teaching of intelligent design in Dover, Pa. Way to go, judge. Some interesting posts on related topics: Answering your child's questions about religion when you're an atheist ( Tuckova ), and how sex messed things up right from the start ( Geese Aplenty ). Segueing onto the topic of kids and the provocative things they say... Sarah loves to threaten to poop on my head, while Becky has learned to use the word "diarrhea" with correct pronunciation and conversational context with her sister. It comes as no surprise that this theme is a favorite among the preschool set (see here and here ). Speaking of poop, when I forget somethi...

I just reread my earnest and tightly reasoned post on the complete retardation of intelligent design... well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it, but I still have to remember that it's usually more effective to deflate something with a well-aimed humorous jab than blast it into widely dispersed bleeding shrapnel with an IED, and yesterday's Doonesbury did a great job, and so did The Onion a while back. I think Garry Trudeau and Anna Quindlen should have gotten together (I assume it's a bit late in the day for Anna) and populate the world with their descendants, and at least one of them would become a scientist and find a cure for stupidity, or maybe unleash a new disease that would infect greedy and overly aggressive humans and make them die in infancy.

I’ve long been intrigued by Karl Rove. Not his work, which is repellant in every way, but his face. It’s so squishy and soft and smooth, like he skipped purberty entirely and eats nothing but Peeps. He looks like the Pillbury Doughboy would look if he wasa real boy. In fact Karl looks just like a a blob of bread dough after it’s been rising, only pinker. No scars, no facial hair (just a few wisps of delicate head hair), no lines, just an uncanny fleshy, almost inflatable quality. For years all I’ve seen are photos cropped close around his face, so I was very surprised to discover he is not obese. I thought at least he was fairly tall or physically imposing albeit shapelessly gelatinous from the neck down, like the Horta or Jabba the Hut. My assumptions were shattered by a photo in Newsweek of Rove (all of him) standing next to Karen Hughes. I imagine Ms. Hughes is fairly tall, but Karl is definitely short. This explains a lot, actually. His unsavory inclinations may be due to a Napol...

...not the band, but something which should help us cope with small and highly infectious children. I might make one of these babies even when we’re all perfectly healthy. Becky is recovering from her first bad cold of the winter, which in her case often manifests itself in a scary-sounding croupy cough (or “barkies,” as we like to call it). We didn’t get medical attention this time because her breathing was still okay, unlike two years ago, when she had croup severe enough that she had, as the doctor termed it, “stridor at rest.” This meant that he could hear her trying to breathe from across the room and over the phone while I was talking to him. A steamy bathroom calmed down her parents a little but did bupkes for the croup. As anyone knows who’s been through this with a little kid, it’s pretty scary . So the doc did his hi-fi audio diagnosis and told us to take her to the ER in the wee hours, which is apparently when this illness is at its worst. A little epi-neb tr...

1. Vigorous exercise in a desperate attempt to regain my once-svelte figure. I realize only now that I’m lucky; since I’ve been pudgy all my life, I have nothing to mourn in the way of my long-lost pre-childbirth body, aside from some lower abdominal wrinkles that rarely see the light of day. So I don’t have to worry about not exercising, at least as far as looks go. Having a premature heart attack is another thing, so I actually signed up with two friends for a group intro to the glitzy weight room at our august institution. We’re all within shouting distance on either side of menopause and have nothing to prove to each other psychologically (i.e., subtle competition over abs or boobs), so we’re going into it with the attitude that if nothing else, we’ll get some laughs out of it. I might show up in pink fuzzy leg-warmers. To quote Breed ‘Em and Weep : “ I find it infuriating to read interviews with the celebrity mamas who say things like You just have to be committed to yourself an...

That magical time of year is here when I can do online shopping 'til I drop with no guilt whatsover (unless I do something silly like ordering from Brookstone's). Now that we have Amazon wish lists, it removes any embarrassment from stating exactly what you want and any uncertainty about what you'll get. Just as well I converted to Judaism. We buy the kids a few things and fire up the ol' menorahs (including the lumpy and dramtically multihued one that Sarah and I made together a couple of years ago). So we can just skip over the disturbing mall Santas, retail frenzy and other manifestations of Christmas, some of which are described by Mimi . As Wilma Flintstone says: "Doo doo doo doot do doooo... CHARGE it!" It's also the time of year -- actually before the time of year -- when we start expecting snow. We had about two inches a few days ago, which delights the kids but makes the grownups scowl because it refuses to melt. The reason is that it's been s...

Surreptitiously opened and sniffed containers of hairspray, deodorant, etc., so I can make my purchasing decision solely based on the scent of the product. I figure that effectiveness-wise, they’re all pretty much alike, but I’mthe one who's gonna have to smell the stuff all day, so it better not make me feel nauseous, cheap or tawdry. Been struck by the versatility of the female body and also my own lack of personal growth when I realized I was feeling the same mild embarrassment while purchasing nursing pads as I did the first time buying tampons. But not nearly as embarrassed as when I first acquired tampons, which involved casually depositing them into the shopping cart and hoping my father wouldn’t notice, or would at least refrain from ANY comment. Tried on the reading glasses, which I always thought were for poverty-stricken old people who couldn’t afford to go to an optometrist and get their glasses via prescription. Until last week, when my own optometrist recommended I...

Newsweek reports that a musical called "Infertility" is opening in New York. As one who went through all the exciting procedures implied by that phrase (which resulted in our wonderful Sarah), I'm sure this will be a major addition to the canon of theater. For some cheap laughs, check out the show's web site , which has cute little sperms to highlight your menu choices. I can't help it -- I immediately thought of a hit song for the show, to be performed by Cat Stevens (I mean Youssef Ibraham) in full Muslim garb: "Ovary Young." For real laughs, check out the novel " Inconceivable ." It's one of those books where people around me looked up in annoyance as I read it because of the snorts I couldn't stifle.