--...-.-.-Anybody Out There?..-.-

Crabmommy is tap-tapping...in Morse code...I have been trapped...for exactly O-N-E- Y-E-A-R in a cage on an island. And this is why I have not blogged. Why I became a not-blogger.

Yes it's true. I was kidnapped. Mom-napped actually. The PPP (Positive Parenting Police) conspired with the (West Coast NV [Non-Vaccinators] Collective) and decided they'd had enough of me badmouthing their scene to exactly 12 readers. Even 12 was too many! So they got me at the park, in broad daylight, stuck me in the back of a Prius under an organic hemp baby blanket and drove me away. At first, all I knew was darkness...But I could smell the ocean. They kept me in a cage, and let me out once a day for exercise. I tried to send you all messages via Morse code, but I guess none came through.

Mercifully, I managed to escape and now here I am safely stashed in my Portland apartment. Exactly one year later to the very day.

Whew!

My 12 fans, I cannot promise a return to mom-blogging. The mom-napping experience has left me raw and feeble, my words hesitant, my resolve crumbled into a tiny pile of...crumbled resolve. But I do hope at least to say HI and WOSSUP! And SORRY for the extreme silence and lack of explanations. I definitely thought of all of you as I sat in my cage on that nasty island off the Oregon coast, which looked like this.


Photo by Matt Niebuhr. Used with permission - All rights Reserved - Matt Niebuhr. www.mattniebuhr.com

How did I escape? LONG STORY. I think all that matters it that I'm home, safe, and sound.

You?

A Piu Tardo

My friends,

As you can see, the Crabmom just hasn't been able to crab at you properly the past months, and when I have it's been a little too serious and a lot unfunny. No doubt I have worn out the patience of my regulars who can see I'm just not the old Crabmommy they know and love (or love to hate). So I am taking myself on sabbatical. I will return; I don't know when exactly or for how long, but I will be back...This isn't goodbye forever, just a gathering of self away from blog, an attempt to attend fully to pressing matters in the so-called real world. I do have more to say (absurdly enough) on the subject of motherhood, but it will have to wait.

If you're feeling unspeakably blue about my imminent absence from the web, vivify yourselves by turning to other lifestyle gurus: may I recommend reading the latest installment of GOOP, whereby Gwyneth P. conscripts her money people—including a "wealth management" adviser, whatever that is—to offer financial advice to the "layman" (her word, not mine)... [No, I'm not sick of reading GOOP yet.]

Hoping you are all finding yourselves full of the bounty of fall's goodness...or at least, hanging in and on, by a thread, a rope, a satin ribbon. I don't either know what any of that means but it comes with all my

Very best wishes
Crabmom
p.s. I do hope to see you here again. Check back in a month...or two.

Feeling Crabby

I come out of my crabhole to mention this piece, which many of you have surely seen. It concerns the cocoon of neurosis and hysteria that continues to bind our collective parenting circle in this country...and no doubt in other countries too by now, countries in which real danger isn't imminent in the lives of middle class children and so parents fixate on hypothetical ones. This article--on whether children should be allowed to walk alone to school--is a timely one. Because after the reappearance of kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard, many parents are rethinking their decision to allow their kids to walk to the school bus...or home from a friend's. Because what if some insane lunatic chooses your child, at that moment, on that day...?

I understand what if. Duh. Becoming a parent is the ultimate what if act, one long series of what-ifs every single day and night. No doubt about it, motherhood is the most fearful enterprise of my life, and trust me, I am a feeble coward in all matters, but becoming a mother has brought out the total crabcoward in me: I continually scuttle into the darkness of my scared mommy-mind, debating the what-ifs...You moms and dads know what I'm talking about. I need hardly list for you the many hideous things that pop into a parent's mind daily, when it comes to children's safety. And it doesn't even have to be all that hideous to prompt us to spring into Safe Mommy mode, leaping to spot a tot on the monkey bars or gallumphing stupidly after a preschooler on her scooter, just in case she should happen to fall. No generation prior to ours has perfected the art of preempting a what-if before it even happens: we are masters at it, springing into action in advance of any danger....just in case...because, you know, it could happen.

And so one goes through the toddler and preschooler years reaching to stop something from happening before it even has a chance. And maybe along the way we relax a bit, deal with the scraped knee and the bump on the head. Or the broken arm, even. Because we realize these kids need to learn how to ride a bike or do the monkey bars or climb a tree. But then there comes a moment when a parent has to let a kid leave the house without him or her. And that's when, apparently, many of us draw the line, deciding that, in fact, our kids don't have to learn how to walk to school/ the bus stop/ wherever on their own. Because this time, it's not worth the risk.

But to model one's parenting style on fear-based thinking is surely just as sinister if not more so than actually dealing with fear itself, with the random, baseless, uncontrollable what-ifs of life. If we never let our kids walk to the bus stop/ ride a bike to a friends without Mom tailing him in her car/ take an airplane to see grandparents, alone/ play on the front lawn without being watched...our children will not grow up to be independent, able to take and assess risks, able to navigate through the world around them. If we teach our kids that they are a bunch of wussies and that they should be wussies because the world is a scary place, then we'll get fearful, nervous, freaked out, high-maintenance co-dependent children. We will get followers, not leaders, needy little twerps who break down at the slightest hint of hardship, adults who can't enjoy their lives properly because they don't know how to take control of their fears and insecurities...

All obvious...right? Less obvious, though, is where one draws the line as parents. At what point does the chance of a random Jaycee Dugard possibility trump the chance of teaching a child a measure of freedom? What risks are worth taking at what age? Nobody will give you the same answer with this one, and of course reasonable risk differs from place to place, child to child, age to age...there are too many variables to make a catch-all statement about this one. All I can say, for sure, is that it's extremely hard not to create total wussies in America today because few people are really assessing the risks properly: few people measure the what ifs of a pedophile/ kidnapper/ car accident with the what-ifs of over-coddling children, seeing the former danger as vastly outstripping the latter in every single case. Even though most readers of this blog and that NYT piece live in the safest possible neighborhoods, we still seem fixated on safety above all else. And yes, it's important to be vigilant and smart and careful. But it's not everything.

To my mind, weighing the other what-if is just as important as weighing up the real physical risks attached with any measure of freedom a child will need, want, and require. What if I don't give her any freedom? What if I don't let her walk to the bus stop (when she's 8 or 9 or whatever age seems right at the time)? What if I don't let her have adventures on her bicycle with her little friends? What happens to her then? And what happens to me as a mom if I wander around compelled to invoke the specter of Jaycee Dugard and Etan Patz every time I consider allowing my kid some independence in her safe, safe, super-safe American life?

As we all know, overprotective hyperfreaked parenting is all-pervasive in our Nation of Wimps. And it is all too easy to become such a parent. It's an impulse I have to fight in myself all the time; sometimes I get wussy, but I strive to buck the heck up. Because the primary goal of parenting is to foster independence. That's our number one job as parents: to teach our children to live in the world. It's a crappy world in many ways, but we haven't colonized any other planets yet so we need to give our kids the chops to deal with where they are, and they aren't going to get those chops if they don't see them modeled by the adults around them.

I am heartened by moms such as Lenore Skenazy (who let her kid ride the subway alone because he was ready) and the mom in this Times piece who lets her second-grader walk to the (very close by) bus stop even though people around her constant undermine her decision and invoke what-ifs as though, in fact, they are probabilities and not wildly exceptionally unlikely possibilities. She calls her daughter's walk to the bus, "a political act," and indeed, it seems to be: not only does one have to be brave in the face of what-ifs when it comes to allowing the kids independence, but now apparently we have to be brave in the face of disapproving communities.

I'll try to think of these moms when it comes time for Crabkid (now almost 5) to take some steps out of the door without Mom and Dad. I'll have to think of these moms, because I don't see a lot of freedom around me. Not in my 'hood anyway. I never ever see 9-year-olds biking or skateboarding on our sidewalks without a mother or father in tow. My neighbors don't allow their son onto the front lawn by himself, even though he's in the 4th grade. I think that's scary. Don't you?

What independent moves beyond the house do you let your kids take? And at what age?

The Natural Mommy

Hi, splendid people!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I know this has become a lame recurring line. But I've been hiding something from you, something very big and very wild and very exhilarating, something you might not have expected from me:

I'VE HAD ANOTHER BABY!


!!!!!!


!!!!!!!!!


Got you there, didn't I?

No, no more babies here. Thank the Pope. But actually wild, exhilarating, un-Crabmommyish things have been afoot. People, the shocking news is as follows:

I HAVE BEEN STAYING IN A YURT.

I never thought I'd utter the word "yurt." It's a very un-Crabmommylike word. Like the word "staycation", "yurt" just isn't a word with which I typically associate myself. (Don't know what a yurt is? I forgive you! Go here for a gander.)

But, see, while I don't believe in sacrificing one's mental health and comfort and right to laziness as a parent, I've also got a healthy dose of guiltmommy in me, enough of a dose at least to ensure that we force ourselves into the great outdoors every summer. This is a promise I made myself. Because as a citymom with a minuscule pad, I am attuned to the fact that my tot doesn't get as much outdoorsyness as a mother might like her to have. And aside from enjoying a frolic in nature, our children will turn into mega-wimps if they don't partake of the bracing pleasures of wilderness life.

And that is why I forced Crabhubby to take us camping last year, as some of you will recall. And he actually enjoyed it. And Crabkid adored it. And I still got to boss everyone around, so I adored it too. And so this year, again we have been camping. Subsequently followed by a trip to a yurt. In a state park. This one. And it rocked. And don't you dare book it in August next year. There are only 8 of these particular puppies in this here park, and if one of you books the last one before I get to it, I will find out, and I will hunt you down and beat you senseless with a foam noodle.

The best thing about our yurt? The DVD player.

Oh dear, this nature campaign isn't going very well. Let me start over, because tongue out of cheek for a moment, connecting to the great outdoors does actually mean something to me as a parent. And so when the Forest Service asked me to pass on this cool link I accepted their request with great pleasure. Where The Other You Lives is a US Forest Service and Ad Council Public Service Announcement to get folks off their collective booty and into our splendiferous state parks. And even a crabby mommy like me is all for it.

Did you know U.S. children spend 50% less time outdoors than 20 years ago? That's dang lame, man! Does it mean in another 20 years, American childhood will be a wholly indoor venture? Yeesh!

Clearly we all know the benefits of getting our tots and tweens and teens out into nature, but few of us apparently get out and do it. So if you haven't done a camping/yurting/daytripping activity into a state park near you this year, and you are feeling guilty, go with the guilt! And nip out quickly before school starts! Or play hooky the first week. Seriously, little Champiqua will be just fine if she misses her one-on-one with the teacher and all the nonsense of the first week: she'll be far better off shaking her sillies out in a sand dune or on a river or up a redwood tree.

And did you know that if your teen knows how to use a compass, you will automatically receive a full semester of tuition from the Ivy League college of your choice? Talk about incentive!

Got you again!

Ah, but indeed, nature's bounty will only stimulate young Worthington's neural cortex in all the right ways, making it ever so much easier for him to concentrate on both his chess game and his Advanced Peace Studies curriculum in that seventh grade of prep school. Research has proven this abundantly. Plus being out there is just plain fun. The state parks are ridiculously amazing in this country, and this comes from a skeptical, cynical, meanspirited moaner.

Don't know where to go? DON'T BE SO STUPID. I mean, ahem, The Forest Service's new website has loads of choice info and excellent resources. And you don't have to pussy out of it and stay in a yurt. You can stay in a tent too. We did that earlier in our summer. At this absurdly heavenly state park. It was swell, but rain on day three encouraged us to take advantage of Oregon's hippie side and reserve a night in a yurt for a subsequent foray (two nature sojourns in one summer! As you can see, I am becoming an outdoorswoman). The yurt was bloody excellent. Dora the Explorer is so much more fun to watch when you are actually exploring. Ahem, I mean, the sounds of nature and the bonhomie of family time was a thrill even for this jadedmommy.

So go here and learn more. And props to the Forest Service for putting this together. And props to the Forest Service for having one of my family in its corps: Crabkid's Uncle Dave is a smokejumper with the Forest Service. This is a seriously crazy job involving parachuting into forest fires. Shweesh!

I close this message with 2 pics, not of the yurt, but of a ghostly, spooky landscape in Oregon stumbled upon while we were out in the wild. The gray beach sky meshed with the gray sand. We staggered around as though in a dream. It was creepy and magical and astonishing. Even I was humbled, and as you all know it takes a lot to humble the Crabmommy.

So, go camping, go yurting [did I actually say "go yurting?"], but whatever you do get outside and take the whiny ones with you. They will pipe down when you threaten them with tales of brown bears being drawn to human wailing.

Camp on, dear friends, but here's my personal public service announcement, familiar to those who have heard it before: Please, for the love of Joseph Smith, don't wear a head lamp. I repeat: do not wear a dorky head lamp. It is just going wayyyy too far. And I will never forgive you for it.

Ultimately, here's the thing about camping: even if you don't enjoy camping, you will thank yourself for having camped. And, the little ones—they will thank you for it.

Any camping trips afoot, y'all?

Confusing, Dang It! It Dang Confusing!

Greetings, strangers:

Yes, you be strangers. Strangers be you, yes. Because: Absent Crabmmomy am I. I am Crabmommy, absent.

Okay, enough piffly feeble attempts to write what I once called a palindrome. In my previous post, that is. Entitled "Hot Dang It, It Dang Hot!" And I called it a palindrome. And someone corrected me in the comments and pointed out that nay, a palindrome must incorporate not mere words mirrored back and forth in a phrase, but actual letters. Like "Hannah." Or "Lisa Bonet ate no basil."

And so I mea culpa'd. And blamed it all on heat stroke. Which seemed fair enough at the time, it being 106 degrees here in Portland, which is a typically anemic sort of place when it comes to hotness. or heat. Or whatever they call it. See? The woman who once dared called herself Grammarmama has gone mushy in the head. The warmth has penetrated the soggy tissues of my brain and cooked them up.

Thankfully my good friend Fall From Grace corrected my anonymous correcting poster, who corrected my use of "palindrome" and suggested instead that what I did with that dang title was an anagram. Which of course it wasn't. Or isn't.

But the question, my chums, regarding the previous post's title is, IS IT, while not (obviously) an anagram, a palindrome of any sort? At first glance, one would say, NO. Because the back and forth patterning isn't of letters, but of whole words. Which is sort of cheating, innit? But still, fun.

The question of whether I can actually get away with calling this half-baked mirroring a palindrome or not has been peeping away at the back of my mind all through the day, as I set upon my mighty intellectual tasks of packing small people's lunches, frolicking in public swimming pools (which they CLEARED, because of a purported sighting of a TURD, I might add).

Anyhoo. Back to the topic at hand: I went and did what any graduate of literature and language from a top-notch university would do. I went to Wikipedia. And this is what it says:

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction (the adjustment of punctuation and spaces between words is generally permitted). Composing literature in palindromes is an example of constrained writing.

And I deduced from this esteemed Wikipedian writer (and we all know these Wiki-writers need no pedigrees nor lofty graduate degrees, but anyway): my phrase isn't a palindrome...or is it?

Let's take another look. Because there is this nugget lodged in the Wiki entry that makes me feel justified in calling anything I do a palindrome. Check it:

The word "palindrome" was coined from Greek roots palin (πάλιν; "back") and dromos (δρóμος; "way, direction") by English writer Ben Jonson in the 1600s. The actual Greek phrase to describe the phenomenon is karkinikê epigrafê (καρκινική επιγραφή; crab inscription), or simply karkiniêoi (καρκινιήοι; crabs), alluding to the backward movement of crabs, like an inscription which can be read backwards.

In case my bolding was not enough for you, the point of the entry is to state, unequivocally, that the Crabmommy can use the dang word "palindrome" whenever she dang feels like it. Because whatever I do on this blog is, quite literally "the backward movement of crabs," given that everything I write is a reflection on time spent, a rumination, crabby in more ways than one.

And as for the actual back-and-forth of phrases, unless someone comes up with a real figure of speech for it, I will coin one myself: the "Crabmommy Palindrome" is any phrase that reads forwards and backwards in whole word parts, because the writer is too dim to conceive of an actual letter-for-letter palindrome, but wants to show off anyway.

Does that satisfy you all, my discerning literate readership?

Back to the turd in the pool: Seriously, when one has paid one's public pool fare to frolic with one's tot of a hot day, one does not appreciate being kicked out of said pool after only an hour and all because of some purported turd, which they combed the pool for with a net...and even the second pool (our one, the deeper one) was closed on account of this chimeric, supposed, probably-hearsay turd in the shallow pool. Could Americans be more serious? You should have seen the faces of the lifeguards as they shut the pool down! They even had special purple turd-catching gloves. TURD AHOY! Me, I say, meh. A storm in a teacup. Or, more accurately, a drop(ping) in the [heavily chlorinated] ocean, if you will. If it were really out there, it would have floated to the top. Then you catch it, dispense with it, and let the kids back in. Don't you? That's my personal preference. Mind, I am the mom who took her tot swimming in a sewage stream.

Hot Dang It, It Dang Hot!

I thought it high time I used a palindrome in my post title.

And hot dang it, we've been sweltering here. Hence my inability to type. Heat, coupled with extreme laziness, has a profound effect on my blogging finger (I never learned to type properly so my pointer digit figures prominently in the formation of words from my keyboard). Poor blogging finger. It does not like 107 degrees in Oregon. I had to bathe it in ice and set in on the A/C for days at a time. As one of few people I know in Portland whose apartment blessedly possesses aircon—central aircon no less—the Crabhome became of late the locus of much neighborly cocktail activity, all and sundry from our street crowding into our pad to cool down. It was quite fun.

In other similarly earthshaking Crabby news, Crabgrandma has been here for two weeks attending to the small one, who at almost 5 is going through one of those stages of insisting on wearing winter clothes in summer, in a heat wave, no less. She digs them out from the basement, saying, "I think these [corduroy] pants are right for today" and "Please can you button this [thick wool sweater]." And Crabgrandma deals with the tedium of challenging and changing and generally engaging the tot in all her contrariness.

Me, I lie on the floor plotting future vacations to Sicily, or sit beneath our one shady tree with a gin and tonic, pondering the plural of gin and tonic. That's gins and tonic.

I'm having a dang good summer. You?

A Lousy Job?

I've been trying to think creatively about work. What jobs really are recession-proof? And more important, what jobs is this writer-mom qualified to go into to pull an income in troubled times? I have some writing work right now (more on that later) but I'm looking for something enduring and hourly, something I can do on a flex sched, 'cause my blogging butt has become extremely used to working on my own time in an ugly robe, looking like crap, and conducting a business life that involves zero co-workers. So what to do? Ladies, I think I've found it.

Nit-picking. Professional nit-picking. That's right; it is a real job. As the Times reports, unsqueamish ladies are making a tidy hourly rate "laboriously picking through people’s hair for lice and nits, or eggs — for a fee, of course."

I am heartened to learn that if you don't mind combine critters off the scalps of other people's tykes, you will find yourself a ready clientele, since "services as a professional nitpicker are more in demand as the tiny pests are showing up on schoolchildren’s heads with continuing regularity."

Since Americans tend to be a tad more freaked by bugs than most, it is only fitting that pro nitpickers have come to be, and as a wannabe-nitpicker I'm hoping even the recession hasn't caused American moms to do their own dirty work in this regard. Crabkid hasn't yet had lice, but I'm sure she will soon enough and I'm equally sure her curls will prove both a cozy home for lice and a challenge to the nitpicker to unsnarl. But it doesn't faze me. I'm not too bugged by little bugs.

What does faze me, though, is the notion of wearing a shower cap while at work. And you'd have to, right? Otherwise the lice would hop onto your scalp as an occupational hazard. Shower caps. Hmm. That's worse than a head lamp, surely. But hey, every job has its cons.

What do you think? Would you send your kid to a nitpicker if you could or would you save the $40 and DIY?

BPA, B.S.

It's been a while since Ive managed to make fun of GOOP, Gwynnie Paltz' lifestyle schmagazine. Sadly, Gwyn has developed a touch of sensitivity as regards being perceived to be a spoiled, patronizing tit; either that, or she's simply hired a publicist to help squelch the damage. The resulting GOOPy letters are filled with bonhomie towards the plebs and innocent content involving detox regimens that even plebs can afford, or sweet little cookie recipes that can make a mom on unemployment pretend she is Gwynnie for a day.

It's disappointing, from a satirical perspective, to see the vanilla flavor of Gwyn's newsletters. But in a recent eco-fabulous-themed newsletter filed under the subtly themed GET section of GOOP, Gwynnz dissed the BPA bottle, proffering some sort of water bottle called a "KOR hydration vessel" that is made without those terrible toxins. And of course is slender, minimalistically mod and design-y, and costs a pretty penny.

All of which reminded me that I have yet to rant against the BPA b.s. that has filled the mommy airwaves over the years. (So many rants! So little time!) Sure, none of us like to have our wee tots drinking from the noxiously perfumed plastic water bottles that come with their Hello Kitty lunchboxes direct from Guangdong, China. I too have bought into the pricey SIGG bottle scene. But equally, new info shows it won't kill our little muffins to drink out of something aside from a (very pricey) SIGG water bottle, or schmantzy baby bottle, for those of you with infants. As a mother who has newly invested in a $22 SIGG water bottle for Crabkid's summer camp, only to have the dang thing go missing in a week, it is heartening for me to learn that this whole BPA brouhaha is just a storm in a teacup.

Or at least, from one perspective.

Read this and also, this, a far chunkier essay. Both links came to me courtesy of George Mason University's STATS, a marvelous entity devoted to dispelling spurious scientific claims. Of course anyone speaking out against the BPA freakout gets an onslaught of attack, so the author of the second article has also written up a quite interesting Q&A.

And on the subject of junk science and the culture of parental fearmongering, I was most impressed by this breathtaking piece by Shannon Des Rochas Rosa at BlogHer, on autism cults. This comes from someone who experienced it from the inside. It's great to see more moms speaking out against cult websites like Generation Rescue, who profess to doing good but do so much harm. Vaccinate your children, you bunch of crazy culties.

Rant over. The monkey bars call (or rather, a certain someone is calling for Mom to take her to them).

This is the part where I ask you what you think of non-vaccinating or BPAs....but it's actually unnecessary b/c of course if you have a strong opinion, you will share it with me in the comments, as well you should, my lovelies!

Grace in Small Things

Some of you may recall one of the highly anomalous Crabmom post in which I, a crab-hearted being, attempted to write about gratitude. Sure, I'm grateful for many things. But I usually prefer to write about being ungrateful. Yes, when not chortling at bloody marvelous Christian music videos, or at Bret Michaels' reusable totes, or at reduxes of "Total Eclipse of the Heart," I like me some big ole' heaps of conflict and kvetching in my blog, in case you haven't noticed. Grumpaciousness inspires me.

But indeedy, there is stuff that warms my crustaceous heart. Here is a random sampling of things that make me smile: cacti in interesting pots; bison; tiny Japanese notebooks; nieghbors who give you things they've grown; nougat and assorted almond-based foodstuffs; miniature Mexican dioramas; sad music; fresh mint; stale Gummi bears...

Oh, and also the cute things my people sometimes get up to. I especially enjoy an accidental moment of sweetness. Such as when you download pictures from a camera, and you haven't downloaded from the camera in ages, and you find this:It could only have been taken by one human, of 4 and three-quarters, though perhaps a little younger than that when she took it. Maybe she meant to snap the shot of her toes; more likely it was just a mistake. And it's my favorite thing today.

What's yours?

*Less schmaltz, more substance coming back soon to Crabmommy. Empty promises, you think, but I'll be back.*

A Total Eclipse

You are thinking that's what's happening here at Crabmommy. The moon has been shrouded in darkness. The writing is obscured. Nothing to be seen at all.

But you are wrong. Out of the darkness and into the light, with this:

Some of you have seen this, no doubt. but some of us haven't. How genius is it? It renders me speechless. At least for a little while longer.

Bret Michaels Makes Reusable Bags!

OK. So my long-term fans are wondering WHAT GIVES with Crabmommy's blog. It has lately been very slim on the child-rearing stories and meaty on the random video weirdness, with Christians moondancing and personal trainers power-exercising on stainless steel kitchen appliances.

Don't you know the first thing about successful blogging by now, Crabmom? Don't you know it's important to stick to a consistent topic and audience and not confuse them with all this crapola?

Apparently not. because now I want to tell you that Bret Michaels, of Poison, of Rock of Love is selling reusable shopping bags on his website. With the words GOING GREEN ROCKS!

You may be asking yourself, why is Crabmommy visiting Bret Michaels' website? And the answer is HELL, I DON'T KNOW. Get your face out of my Google history. Sheesh. Can't I have any privacy here? Seriously, I don't know. I don't know what compelled me to go to Bret Michaels' website at 11 pm on a Saturday night. No, I do not have a thing for the man in the bandanna, ice-blue eyes notwithstanding.

But the more important question to ponder is how Bret Michaels and his peeps came up with the idea of selling reusable shopping bags with his brand on them. I mean, who is the market here?I have no answers. I can only say that truly, Bret Michaels is proffering said bags for $6.00 a pop. As his site says:

Celebrate Earth Day every day with Bret Michaels Going Green Rocks T-Shirts and Reusable Bags! They are available at a special price for a limited time!

Plastic bags leave a harmful impact on planet Earth, our reusable bags are an easy way to do a small thing that over time will have a big impact. Reusable bags are the ultimate multi-taskers, too. They are great for all kinds of shopping and make great travel totes in the car for snacks, books, toys, necessities and more. Our Going Green Rocks bags are a roomy 12-inches tall by 16-inches wide by 6-inches deep and can hold two gallons of milk and still have room for more.

Two gallons of...milk? Whaa? Truly is the internet priceless. Sometimes I forget that. I am so glad I remembered it tonight. Thanks for making me think, Bret. And for exposing me to fonts I never dreamed were possible.

It's Been a While...

...since I made fun of religion.

No additional words necessary:

Thanks to Libba for this priceless link.

Tone Your Glutes on Your Oven!

I think we all agree that Mary Campbell should be the winner of this *random* giveaway. So she is. Mary, contact me to get your yoga mat! Whoo hoo!

Hello, my charming friends,

Yes it's been a wee spell since I last posted. AND WHAT OF IT [insert defensive tone from blogger]! But while there is much to be sad about in the present economy, and in the news in general today, I can at least bring you a small bit of humor, a stainless steel kitchen upgrade, and the potential to use your kitchen to tone your tush here at Crabmommy. Courtesy of GE.

Indeedy, until July 6, 2009 you fine readers who still have a spot of cashola in your pockets can splash out and turn your kitchen stainless for the same price as the regular ho-hum finishes you plebby folk usually opt for.

More important, you can also use your new kitchen as a home gym, without any need of costly home workout equipment. It's a win-win. Check it, yo:
I think it's quite fun. And since I am married to an architect, it is certainly my moral duty to keep the building and reno profession in business. My husband may not have a job, but maybe you and yours do and thus perhaps you would like to do us all a favor and get yourself a spanking new kitchen appliance or three, pronto!

Please do peruse GE's products and discount info here.

Sadly GE isn't offering me a new kitchen for running this promo, but they are offering me a yoga mat. And since I already have two and this blobby blogging bod has no interest in either, I instead am offering said yoga mat and handy carrying case to a lucky reader, through this week. Sometime towards the weekend, or whenever I dang feel like it, I will pick at random a winner from the comments and soon your new yoga mat will be winging its way to you just in time for summer, when, as we all know, you most need to diminish that jiggly underarm flap and transform that squashy foamcore midsection from a mom-tum into a set of washboard abs.

I am also soliciting email for a new upcoming Crabmommy mini-series: Hire That Mommy! Or Hire That Daddy! For this I ask you to send me your resume, or your spouse's resume or your sister's or whoever in your family/friendship circle is presently unemployed. I will then post the chosen ones to my blog with a little intro about the advertised worker, and see if we can spread the word to all seven of my readers and thus, through the magic of the Information Super Highway, also knows as The Worldwide Web, get said person to perhaps find some new contacts and—you never know—maybe even a job.

Please send me interesting resumes only. Sex workers preferred, but all will be considered. Even Mormons.

Alms for Architects

As the Crabhubby nears his final hours as an employed architect, I beseech you to think of him and those like him as you pass out your own remaining coppers. Here follows a few words from Crabhub coworker Jege, good friend and frequent visitor here at Crabmommy:
And you and yours? How's everyone faring in their chosen careers these days? Please, no happy "we're hanging in there" people or your happy comments will be removed by my site administrator. Complaints only.

Crabmommy Returns

Seattle is swell. Crabhub and I popped up from Portland by train for a few days and our visit coincided with that of a major celebrity: the sun. Yes, the sun deigned to shine upon us for at least a quarter of each day in Seattle. (Seattle-ites, don't get uppity about my sun-swipe: I live in Portland, so I'm clearly not a big sun-worshipper. We can either now argue over which has more gray or simply agree that neither is exactly the shiniest place on earth. Which is all FINE. We know it's fine. Keeps everyone else in Cali, right? But let's not do a whole Seattle-really-is-very-sunny thing right now in the comments...k?)

Ahem. Lost my thread there. Ah, right. Seattle! It's really a quite lovely city to visit. I like the way they do things over there: for example the toilet stalls all seem to have very low doors so you can select your preferred toilet bowl without having to go into the stall to survey it.

Seattle has many splendid things about it. The Central Downtown Library, designed by famed architect Rem Koohaas, is not one of them. Seriously, for all three architecty types who happen to read this blog, I must just let you know that I don't doubt that the otherwise highly attractive and intelligent city of Seattle paid an extraordinary amount of money for an architectural embarrassment to define its skyline. No that the outside of the building is so awful. It's the inside: so completely awful it is, full of stupid Deconstructivist high-concept-theory-crap angles that...fulfill what purpose, exactly? To make you feel ill? Claustrophobic. Frightened. Why? Is this a holocaust memorial? No. It is a library. Or at least I thought it was until I went to the restroom: up one of those scary steep highlighter-pen-colored escalators and emerged in a creepy tunnel bathed deep abortion-red, pulsing with the shadows of homeless people. No, I am not against homeless people. I am almost sure I will soon be one of them. But I think a person has the right to go to the restroom in a public library without physically brushing up against transient humanity-at-large. Impossible not to as one fumbles through a long dark clubby-red corridor. Wait! I think I get it now--the architect's vision is to bring uptight people into contact with downtown transience. Mission accomplished, Mr. Koolhaas!

Okay, archi-rant over. Sorry, I'm married to an architect. My marital lingo nowadays went from the early-days sweet nothings to chitchat involving words like "spandrel" and "cornice." Sigh. I guess everything must evolve. But at least we are still here, together, and occasionally dining like grownups in such places as Seattle's Boat Street Kitchen. What a nugget of a restaurant! Such crabcakes!! Go there.

I hope y'all had a good Mother's Day. My child cried on the phone to me during mine, telling me she missed me. My heart broke briefly; it's true. But I chose to take the episode as a straight-up example of how long overdue Crabkid's Special Time with Grandma is and how right we were to leave. Time with grandparents alone is important for all children and their parents and grandparents--or at least that's my ideal. And I feel lucky that my mom-in-law was so willing to fly in from Utah to provide us all with what we needed.

Plus Crabkid was so cuddly on return. It's so delicious to go away, miss your child, and then capture them for a smothering love festival on return.

You? How goes it?

Shhh! Mommy's Reading!

If you've ever asked yourself if you're a bad mother or second-guessed your maternal instincts even slightly, or if you get a tiny frisson of pleasure from discussing the bad judgments /lazy-assed performance/ not-so-hot mothering skills of the moms in your orbit, then Ayelet Waldman's new memoir is for you. Aren't you glad I didn't use the word "momoir"? So am I.

Ayelet's name has crossed my lips before on this blog here and here. She's the author of the Mommy Track mysteries, of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, of Daughter's Keeper, has four children, and still manages to look tremendously adorable. And so I deeply dislike admire her greatly. In fact I really do. She is brave and compelling and I am sure every one of you out there will agree that whether you subscribe to all Ayelet's ideas of familial love hierarchy or not, we mothers are all served well by those among us who are willing to engage the tricky parts of motherhood with bluntness and intelligence, instead of clogging the world of mommy media with yet more safe, peppy, rah-rah motherhood claptrap.

Ayelet's memoir Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace is just out. See her read from it here:

For those of you in California, Ayelet is doing readings all around the state the next couple of months. Check here for a sched.

Also just out is True Mom Confessions: Real Moms Get Real. Culled from her fabulous website, True Mom Confessions, where moms come to anonymously rant and confess crimes real or imagined, author Romi Lassally reminds us that we all say/feel/think shocking unmommy-ish, unwifely sentiments all the time. All of us. None of us are perfect and trying to be can make you even worse and witchier and crazier and guiltier and more miserable and therefore less available to our families. So cut yourself some slack, y'allz! And while you're at it, cut that other mom some too. That bad mom you were just talking about. The one brought Kool Aid to the picnic. (And can you believe she lets her kids watch that show? I agree, it really is inappropriate...)

See more on True Mom Confessions and Romi's readings and interviews here.

Off to Seattle to be childless on Mother's day, I am. What a bad mommy!

Spoil That Mommy!

Hi Chums,

As Mom's Day rolls around again I think back to last year's. It was just perfect.I got exactly what I wanted: a day to my crabby self, prowling the streets of my city toute seule.

I've never been a big one for all that MD gimmickry but now that I'm a crabmommy I'll take all the appreciation and worship I can get. This year promises to be a goodie since my mother-in-law is graciously flying in to watch Crabkid for three days while Crabhubby and I take a train to Seattle. I have never been to Seattle but it just a few hours from Crabcity, that being Portland, OR. I am most excited to travel by train; trains are so much more dignified than cars. Although you can't argue as much in them so that is definitely a con.

Anyhoo. In anticipation of MoDay, I have guest-posted a series of my ideal presents over at Etsy. Because it is not enough to be childless and carefree for a few days of Seattle. It is not enough to have my mother-in-law go out of her way to ensure this break for the Crabparents. I want more. Always.

Do stop by and help these great vendors of vintage and handmade fabulosity. Its just astonishing how gorgeous Etsy's loot continually proves to be. Mothers, treat yourself or your mom or grandma to a dear little pair of vintage earrings or a cactus in a vintage lusterware pot or whatever your mommy soul desires. Or send your spouses and boyfriends and polyamorous partners over to the site in support of you, O wondrous selfless mommy-creature, you!

The only sucky thing about guesting at Etsy is that I get all bitter and annoyed that I cannot have it all, every last bit of it. My face gets all pinchy and sour as I pick out the products and then it turns pink with covetousness and then green with envy as I picture those who can actually buy any trinket they wish off Etsy, any day of the week. Then my face turns purple with rage. Just sharing!

Enjoy, my dear mom-friends. And do tell me, what do you want most of all for Mother's Day? Please don't answer "hugs and kisses." Those kinds of answers are not welcome on this blog and will be removed by my site administrator.

Help! There's a pirate on my blog!

Friends,

One of the very best things that has come out of my having a momblog these past few years is the reg'lar readers with whom I have forged new and surprising friendships. In the spirit of this happy event, I have asked one of my dearest and most unlikely readers to guest-post this week. Tony Park, whom some of you may know as "tonypark," also as "childless man from Australia" also as "tp" (thought that does not in this case refer to "toilet paper") is one such online treasure that I have had the pleasure of gabbing with online. Tony is indeed a childless man from Australia who somehow enjoys the Crabmommy musings. Tony is also a writer, of many books, thrillers set in Africa where he and his wife, Nicola, spend half the year, driving around in a land rover, drinking too much, bathing too little, and finding material for Tony's novels, such as Zambezi, Silent Predator and soon-to-be-publighed Ivory.

Ivory is a racy yarn about pirates off the coast of Africa, and I think it's very clever of Tony to have lately orchestrated an actual piratic (or is that piractic?) event for American readers, off the coast of Somalia, to coincide with the publication of his novel.

Following on from the recent comments of my last post, involving piracy, I asked TP, my resident expert, to post on the matter. And so I entreat you to read on, comment, and to visit Tony's website where you can buy his books and see a picture of him. He is very tall. He is also a major in the Australian Reserve. I am 5'2" in thickly soled Skecher sneakers. I am not at present involved in any military undertakings. As you can see we have a lot in common. Okay, take it away, Tony...

Avast, mommies and daddies… there be no talk of cute kids, Bristol Palin, baby showers or Gwyneth Paltrow on the good ship Crabmommy today. For this blog has been boarded (temporarily), by pirates!

Aye, the Crab has scuttled away across the floors of silent seas and I, Tony Park, have come here seeking answers (from what I’m assuming is a mostly female demographic).

My question for ye is, what is it about pirates?

In the comments on the Crabmommy’s last post, Ravi raised the whole idea of what kids–and adults–think about pirates. Simply put, it seems that fictional pirates are OK, but real pirates are bad. I’m good with all that, totally, but I want to know why.

My latest pot-boiler, “Ivory” (due for release in August), is about modern day pirates off the coast of Africa. No fewer than five of my female friends insisted, at corkscrew point, that I use their names as characters in the book and all were adamant that they wanted to keep company with the lead pirate (two added the further rider that their fictional alter egos must have exceptionally good legs).

Three more women paid significant amounts of money at charity auctions I spoke at last year to buy their way into the book. I later approached one of the successful bidders and offered her the choice of the last two unnamed female characters in the book.

“Would you like to be the PA to the managing director of a shipping company, or the pirate hero’s old girlfriend?” I asked, adding: “The ex-girlfriend is married, with two kids, but the pirate king has a one night stand with her anyway.”

“Duh,” replied the woman by email. “What do you think?”

I put the question of what it is that women find attractive about pirates to a twenty-year-old I know. Her take was that pirates reminded her of rock stars. “They drink, they sing, they wear leather and they, like, completely trash whatever place they land in.”

Interesting. Like some gender blender rock stars I could name, pirates don’t tend to conform to the more mainstream stereotypical definitions of manliness. Pirates wear pantaloons, puffy shirts and knee-high roll-top boots. Johnny Depp’s much-beloved (by chicks, at least) Captain Jack Sparrow further sports guy-liner and Whoopie Goldberg hair.

Taking on board the notion that someone like, say, Bruce Willis, will probably never be cast as pirate king, I wanted to give my leading seaman a sensitive side. He’s actually been forced into piracy by the current economic climate and is hijacking ships to help fulfil his life’s dream of renovating an abandoned hotel on an island off the coast of Mozambique. He steals paint and building materials and flat screen televisions, and has an eye for soft furnishings. He plots hotel room renovations in between raids on unarmed merchantmen.

Of course, as Ravi and Crabmommy mentioned in their recent comments, the fascination with pirates begins for most people at a very early age. As you parents may be aware, the Australian children’s music group, The Wiggles, has a pirate character called Captain Feathersword.

If using a feather as a sword isn’t a precursor to wearing eye makeup, then I don’t know what is, yet I have a mate whose son wouldn’t leave the house for two years unless he was dressed as the aforementioned Cap’n. (To the lad’s credit, he also carried a small plastic version of an earthenware jug, which he told me contained ‘grog’. “All pirates drink grog,” he assured me.)

Predictably, my fictional nest of pirates also includes one or two bad eggs, to remind readers that piracy is actually bad, and that not all pirates are like Johnny Depp and Errol Flynn.

In fact, let’s be honest about this. The good pirate is up there with the hooker-with-the heart-of-gold and John Grisham’s principled lawyers. Pirates always have and always will rob and kill and rape and pillage, so why do people dress their children as buccaneers and why do I have a book full of pirate wenches with names like Jane, Lesley, Sue, Lisa, and Kim?

Can someone please tell me what it is about pirates? Do you encourage piracy in the home?

A Heartbreaking Anecdote Revealing Staggering Genius

Since this is a mom blog, I like to indulge myself every so often with little snippets of the darnedest thing my tot does and says, as they are all wont to do.

Scenario:

Crabkid (age 4.5) climbs out of the bath. As always, I dry between her little toes and tell her that if we don't, "mushrooms will grow between them." Then I pretend to spot one and eat it. It is pink and delicious! But Crabkid appears to be outgrowing this sort of nonsense:

"That's not real," she says, full of scorn. "You always tell me things that aren't real."

"So what do you believe in?" I'm genuinely curious to hear the answer. Crabkid has always seemed skeptical about the usual fantastical things of childhood, politely listening to tales of Easter bunnies and Santa Claus but never really seeming to be swept away by the magic. "You believe in Santa Claus, right?" I test her. "And fairies?"

She shrugs, noncommittal.

"Tell me, what do you believe in?" I ask again.

"Chicken nuggets." And then she adds, "and people."

Isn't she a nugget of delight?

Why, thank you. I agree.

GOOP OFF! Gwynnie's ticked off with me!

It is a sad thing when the world commands so much of one's attention that one can't make good on one's promises: I had promised you I'd dissect every single GOOP newsletter that Gwynnie-pops Paltrow ever sent me, but I'm several newsletters behind.

But at least I used the pronoun "one" in the above paragraph, which gives one a certain a propos British tone, when one is speaking of a certain transplanted member of the Commonwealth. A certain member who sends out monthly GOOPy newsletters in order to share with the world her "incredible" and "very lucky, very unique life."

Anyhoo, in the latest installment of GOOP. I really feel Gwynz hit the nail on the head. Finally, she is actually talking to me, not above me or down to me, but to me.

Me, personally. Because this week's newsletter focuses on people who enjoy taking others down. It involves a very big, very German word, that Gwyneth wants one to rid oneself of: schadenfreude. This week, Gwyneth asks a bunch of her sages how we can stop being such bitchrocks, crabmommies and generally mean-o people who delight in the dressing down of others:

I’m curious about the spiritual concept of “evil tongue” (speaking evil of others) and its pervasiveness in our culture. Why do people become energized when they say or read something negative about someone else? What does it say about where that person is? What are the consequences of perpetuating negativity or feeling schadenfreude?

And I totally know she is talking about Crabmommy. Because Gwyn recently spoke the evil tongue in the media, jabbing back at those of those of us who have been speaking the evil tongue about GOOP:

F--k the haters! I saw this blog of people writing horrible things about me and for a second your ego is so wounded. How could people hate me, my intentions or what I’m trying to do? I’m a good person and I’m trying to put good things into the world.

Gawd, do you think it could really be me she's talking to? I am so totally hoping so! But there are a few of us who have GOOPed off on the lass, so I can't be sure she was talking to the Crabmom. No matter, either way this hit of pure schadenfreude I just received—in knowing that Gwyn has been made to feel like a toss (albeit only for a wounded second) about this pretentious, condescending new empire of hers—is wonderfully energizing. Almost like a trip to the gym! Thanks, Gwyn!

But hey, in all seriousness, when the laughter has died down we haters need to look deep within ourselves and see the negative energy we shoot at others for the pernicious awfulness that it is. Yes, I know there are people out there who think it's time I stopped dissing on the Gwyn. Including Gwyn herself. And lawd knows her Zen and Kabbalist sages wouldn't approve of my childish scoffing!!

The problem is I happen to think raining on smug people's parades is something of a social service. And it feels so good!

That was the devil speaking in evil tongues on my shoulder just there! Sorry! I really am trying to take the sages' advice to heart. Let me try again. Hmmm...let me see...can I hear the good voice deep within my inner aspect... the nourishing voice? The inner, nicer Crabmommy? Yes, I can....here she is:

"Hi, guys! I'm Crabmom's inner nourishing angel. I don't get out much, so excuse me if I sound a little shy and unsure of myself. Um, Crabmommy? Leave Gwyneth alone! Ignore her newsletter if you don't want it, and stop trashing something simply designed to be helpful, something designed to put good things into the world, something that comes from Gwyn's innermost aspect! OK?"

Me: "You mean the aspect that motivates her to share her 'very unique life' [sic.]?"

Angel: "What does 'sic' mean?"

Me: "It means there's no such thing as 'very unique.' We are all unique, each person on the planet as important and unique as the next. That's Zen 101, Gwynnie!"

Angel: "Hey! If you can't say anything nice, why don't you just say nothing at all! F--k you, hater!"

SPLAT!

Yes, that was the sound of me killing my inner angel. Once and for all.

I think it's fair to say I'm going a bit loopy and goopy over here. Enough nonsense! Here's the thing: I can't and won't stop reading my GOOP! For I don't keep reading that GOOP I will not be able to reap, albeit secondhand, the rewards that come from reading the words of someone privileged enough to tap the very greatest sages on earth in order to go very deeply and organically into her very nourishing inner aspect even if outwardly she sounds like a patronizing prig. Quite simply, if I don't got GOOP, I can't pick out my next sailor-striped tee, much less my next kitchen sink:

I have this incredible, blessed, sometimes difficult, very lucky, very unique life, and I've gotten to travel all over the place and to work and live in different cities. … I go on tour with my husband and go to cities I would never necessarily go to. So I started accruing all of this information. I am the person my friends call when they want to know: "I am redoing this bathroom, and I want a sink that looks midcentury, but a contemporary version of a midcentury. Where should I go?"

—Gwyneth Paltrow