Missed Connections

You: Extremely tall, cute accent, brown hair, 5-month-old son, in line at Target. Me: Extremely short, no accent, brown hair, 8-month-old son, blowing much bucks in the next line. We made our offspring wave to each other. I felt that Mommy spark — did you? PLEASE CALL.

No, seriously.

August 31, 2005 | Filed Under PoBCo | 2 Comments

Rock’n’Romp group on Flickr

I started a Flickr group for Rock’n’Romp today. Join it if you have pix of Rock’n’Romp, either Baltimore or DC, or if you’re an attendee.

August 30, 2005 | Filed Under auto-categorized | Leave a Comment

“That is SO going on my blog!”

OK, so since when is Neil Patrick Harris, like, the new Matthew Perry Junior?

And why hasn’t any body forced me to watch Gilmore Girls yet? It’s been YEARS, people, you’ve had millions of chances. I’m ashamed of you.

August 30, 2005 | Filed Under blather | 13 Comments

I get mail

Fellow Baltimore bloggers, various media personalities need your help, and they’ve asked me to solicit it. Apparently I am a major mover and shaker in the blog scene, although I have yet to receive that particular memo.

Nevertheless! Far be it from me to slack in my duties; I must bravely soldier on. And remember, only YOU can prevent … um … wait. Only YOU can help them reach their goal! And you heard it here first.

The Today Show will be featuring an Annapolis couple for their yearly wedding bonanza, to be hosted, planned and paid for by the Today Show and aspects of which will be voted on by the American viewing public. Charm City Cakes, employer of our very own Malice, is one of the bakeries competing to do the wedding cake. The show was supposed to air this morning, I believe, but will air tomorrow morning instead, so you still have time to watch and, more importantly, vote for their infamous pumpkin chocolate chip. And! You can see our awesome Mary Alice being interviewed by the glamourous Jennifer Franciotti on Channel 11. Probably at noon. I’m not sure. Please tape it, because I’ll be at work.

Home and Garden Television is looking for “unique, cool and creative projects designed and done by real people [specifically real, Baltimore-area people] without the help of contractors or experts” for a show called “Look What I Did!” Brian Heller, segment producer, asked me to spread the word via e-mail, but I am more comfortable blogging than cold-calling, as it were. The press release, should you be interested in appearing on HGTV, is available here, or e-mail me for it. Please tell him Supafine sent you.

I also have a request from Haunted Pussy, a “spooky freaktronic foursome with
two sexy lead singers like Heart having a nervous breakdown, a hunky guitar magician and a sexy ghost drummer.” Unfortunately, I see that their request for a venue willing to take a band with one day notice was for August 19 and 20th, so I am a bit late in posting this. Nevertheless, if you know of a good venue for any forthcoming concerts of theirs, I’m sure they would be eager to hear of it.

That’s all the mail for this week, friends. Baltimore is a without a doubt the place to be, and your opinions, home decorating projects, taste in cake, and knowledge of local dive bars is assuredly very coveted information. So don’t hide your light under a barrel! Partake! Share! Inform!

And tell them Supafine sent you.

August 29, 2005 | Filed Under check it out | 4 Comments

High time for a bulleted list

A little of that mundanity the kids are so hot for.

Owen taught himself to wave this week, too. He waves like the Queen of England: slowly, and a trifle confusedly, but with a smile.

He may not be “mobile,” per se, as in he can’t crawl around or toddle yet, but he’s damn exhausting nonetheless. He only wants what he can’t have: my beer, my keys, my book, my fork, my camera … and he’ll throw himself at whatever it is with all his might. And if I’m not there, he does a header onto the floor. So I have to be there everysingleminute to catch his big ol’ noggin before it slams into something.

Related point: He is still all about the standing. Being on his belly makes him cry. Being on his back makes him cry. But standing? He’ll stand and jiggle and bounce all the livelong day, if he can. It’s cute but exhausting since his sense of balance is zero, and anything he might hold onto could bring on tears if his little face collided with it. A long-ago victim of head trauma myself, I have frighteningly bloody visions of him losing the only two teeth he has in an awful coffee table accident. So he’s allowed to stand, but only if I’m holding his hands, and he doesn’t find that nearly as fun. Go figure.

Labor Day weekend is coming up. We’ll be going home to Ohio for Doctor D’s memorial service. I’ve never been to a funeral in my whole life, having been too poor for airfare and too first-trimester pregnant and too in denial to attend my grandfather’s last year. [There are two things I regret in my life; one is not trying harder to breastfeed Owen, and the other is missing my grandfather’s funeral.] This weekend we’re busting ass to make sure we’re there, though it’s probably the third-worst weekend for travel round these parts and both of us have to work that Friday. I’m not looking forward to the trip for obvious reasons, but it will be good to see my family and D’s again, and to pay my respects to a brilliant, loving and humble man.

We went to the Book Thing today and only got 13 books.

I went to Rock’n’Romp yesterday and only took 7 pictures [Mark your calendars: Sept. 24 is the next R’n’R].

Owen ate potatoes today and only gagged once. I was beginning to fear my baby had been switched at birth … what kind of good Scotch-Irish child doesn’t like potatoes? Come on.

I’m reading yet another Tom Wolfe novel and hating it, because he uses ellipses … and em dashes! — almost as much as I do. And also the phrase “loamy loins,” which I find repugnant.

More blasts from the past this weekend. I’m sending a special shout-out to my pals from junior high and high school who’ve gotten back in touch. Hello! Thanks for reading! You’re lookin’ good!

It’s almost time for Family Guy, so I guess I’ll just cut it off here. Nothing of import happening … everything revolves around the little prince these days, and keeping my head out of my ass. Wish me luck.

August 28, 2005 | Filed Under daily grind | 1 Comment

Pom-poms? Why the hell not.

Read an interesting article in the Sun today [registration required. bugmenot90@mailinator.com, bugmenot]: Molly Shattuck, 38-year-old mother of three, wins a spot on the Ravens cheerleader squad.

It becomes even more interesting as we find out that she’s the second wife of Mayo Shattuck, CEO of Constellation energy; she’s got three beautiful children [and a nanny and a housecleaner]; she’s the “sexier” version of Martha Stewart, a SAHM who bakes bread in the morning and hand crafts floral wreaths in her down time; a socialite used to hosting parties of a hundred people in her “ginormous” house.

Part of me scoffs, of course, at a woman of her age doing something so frivolous as cheerleading, even if it is for a national team, and finding it hard to be all that awed, since she’s got hired help and an at-home gym in which to have multi-hour workouts.

But part of me is tired of scoffing at wealthy moms with hired help who decide to do something they want to do, even if it’s something I loathe or have zero interest in. Sure, I can’t imagine looking as cut as she does at 38, after birthing and nursing three children [or fuck, at my age after one]. But my lower-class jealousy, laziness and apathy is no reason not to say, “Hey, good on you, Molly Shattuck. You decided you wanted to do it, and you made it happen.”

Who am I to judge? Nobody. To each mom her own.

August 28, 2005 | Filed Under news | 4 Comments

Sleepin’ on the job

IMG_4859,
originally uploaded by
poetryandfamine.

Day care was closed today, so Owen spent part of the day in my office. He was just so dang charming that my coworker couldn’t resist photographing him.

I know the feeling.

August 27, 2005 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 5 Comments

Pastafarianism = Love

Julie at No Fancy Name is ordering Flying Spaghetti Monster stickers. Here’s our chance, brothers and sisters! Lets bring the light of His Noodly Appendage to the masses!

August 24, 2005 | Filed Under minutiae | 2 Comments

Applause for everyone

Owen taught himself to clap this week. It’s awesome.

August 24, 2005 | Filed Under baby | 4 Comments

I blame it on the Roman Empire

Watching a NOVA special on the origins of life got us all het up about these Christian firebreathers and their Big Book and One True Way and the impossible answers they want evolution to provide.

I just wanna say this: Some of my best friends are Christian. Religion has done an awful lot of good for mankind, especially in the “good works” arena.

But dumb blind faith, willful ignorance of facts, and one suspiciously recorded Good Book do not a scientific thesis make. Please, teach your children your religion. Put your faith in the Big Man in the Sky. But don’t pretend that “Intelligent Design” is anything more than fancy Creationism, and I won’t march into your church/synagogue/mosque demanding that you teach “the other side of the story” when you talk about Genesis.

Science and Religion can coexist. There could be an Intelligent Creator who made the Big Bang and set the world on its well-documented evolutionary path.

[But who made the Creator? If you can’t believe life arose from, say, amino acids under extraordinary pressure, as has been proposed, how do you propose I accept that a Creator was created? Or don’t you like to tango that way?]

But maybe there was not. My point is, religion belongs at home. It’s a very personal thing. Chances are you and I don’t agree on articles of faith, and that’s fine. But if you want to convince somebody, that’s what door-to-door evangelism is for, not public school classrooms. Your way is not everyone’s way, and it’s pretty arrogant to think that it is.

Let our teachers teach the science, the evidence — as we allow them to do for everything else, including chemistry, geology, physics, mathematics, etc — and you be the ones to teach your kids your morals, your values, your faith. That’s what parents do. Hard science, though, is best left to the scientists and teachers who have studied it.

August 23, 2005 | Filed Under politics | 13 Comments