Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Retreat.

The cabin is up north on Grand Traverse Bay, it's kind of back behind the woods a ways and every time we drive up (even as a kid when I'd go up to babysit for my favorite family) I get a tingly little head rush. For the first hour I walk around seeing what's different than the last time I was there and also taking deep breaths reminding myself to savor every moment. Especially now, when time away with Logan is so rare.

The place belongs to a friend of a friend. My sister in law once told me this little rule of thumb, "Friends of Friends Can't Invite Friends." Luckily no one told these friends about this rule because we'd be out of luck. Truly we could have gone anywhere and we'd be happy just to have the time away. But on the first day when it rained, it was nice to have an excuse to stay in all cozied up watching the water.

Getting The Robot to sit down and relax is not easy. He has a touch of the ADD mixed with a program malfunction that makes him constantly doing 23 things. Luckily the cabin acts as a sedative. He took it so easy I started to feel antsy, this is noteworthy since I am a champion loafer.

We spent a lot of time reading, sighing and watching for the eagles that have nested on the property. 

We watched scary movies and tried to freak ourselves out. It didn't really work. 

We did a pub crawl in Sutton's Bay which consists of four bars. We made it to three of them. We skipped the fourth since it looked like we'd hate it. We started our pub crawl at 4pm and were just in time to drink with the Early Bird Special Diners.

Fall is definitely the best reason to live in Michigan. Being up north in the summer has definite appeal, the slow pace, the smell of sunscreen and the sand sticking to your feet. I love going to dinner at crowded restaurants at the end of the day with lots of other families with kids who have been playing in the sun all day. Everyone gets dessert, even if you didn't eat all your dinner because, "We're on vacation."

Fall up north is quieter and, in my opinion, prettier, even on rainy cold days. Places that are usually packed with people are empty. Perfect for quietly remembering why you like being half of a couple with a Robot.

Then it's time to go home and about eight hours later you're screaming at the kids to "STOP FIGHTING AND START BRUSHING" at bedtime.

Serenity now.

I think you can see my dilemma.

Gone Fishing, by fishing I mean I'm not writing

Logan and I have managed to get away (not for a marathon) to the cabin we spent our honeymoon at years ago in northern Michigan.

It is so lovely here I just don't see how we can leave.

We have another day and a half where I plan to soak up the magic that is this little place on the bay.

Tuesday is a lot nicer up here.

Did They Eat It: Sausage & Egg Baked Potatoes

I'm not sure how to start this Did They Eat It. I'm still in awe over how everything went so terribly wrong...this should have been one of the easiest dinners I've ever made. It's essentially a twice baked potato.

The recipe, from Real Simple, said it would take 10 minutes of prep and 1hr 15 minutes total to be complete. I put the potatoes in at 5:10pm. Apparently these potatoes were filled with titanium. We didn't eat until 7:45pm. By that point we ate both cats and Maddie's arms. The recipe says it should take about 45 minutes to bake the potatoes and it took about 18 hours (1.5 hours) for us. I could have made a turkey dinner with all the trimmings....plus a couple extra for the neighbors.

Oh My God.

I did pick large baking potatoes so maybe it was my fault. Sorry family plus a guest we invited over for dinner. I'm not sure I'm ever going to effortlessly pull off dinner.

Anyway, I doubled the recipe because we invited Logan's coworker/friend for dinner and also because I think this recipe is generally meant as a brunch dish.

Get yourself four potatoes and scrub them. Does anyone else get itchy skin and eyes when they scrub baking potatoes? Every time I start sneezing and my eyes and skin itch. Logan claims this is a fake allergy, but if it was wouldn't I have the same reaction when I tried to do the laundry or clean the bathroom?

,

Poke your potatoes with a fork.

Put them in the oven, my oven mind you has never given me trouble cooking things in a normal amount of time. Apparently these potatoes were filled with gold and needed to get REALLY hot to cook through.

The recipe, as I mentioned, said it would take 45 minutes for these potatoes to cook. This is where the lies begin.

I don't know what this is going to be about...I guess it's about money.

So very little is going on over here I have cob webs on my hair, dust is collecting on my keyboard...I'm just sort of waiting for something to happen.

I told the girls at Broad Summit how I like to get up in the morning, get the kids off to school, unload the dishwasher, throw a load of laundry in, get dressed for yoga or for the day and then, I take my computer back upstairs and sit on my bed working on whatever comes up. "You stay in your bedroom for most of the day?" they asked, with concern.

And, yeah, I do. I know! I promised myself I'd stop but it's so cozy and the light is really good and I don't get distracted by the tv, or the rug that needs vacuuming or the fact that my front porch/mudroom could be a lot more efficient.

The only problem I see, aside from having to say I spent my day in my bedroom, is that not very much happens in my bedroom. (At least not things that I can write about.)(Hey-Oh!) So that's kind of a bummer.

Back in May we gave up our second car, and that's been going reasonably well.

Overall it works out reasonably well, there are really only about one or two times a week when I curse the lack of an extra car. Our friends are very kind about helping us out, picking up kids for things and helping us to juggle this experiment when necessary. We've also seen pretty clearly what a luxury (for our family and our lifestyle) having a second car is. Also interesting to note, two of our friends are also one car families, is this a recession trend?

Probably the best thing about cutting the second car payment and the related costs of it out of our budget, is we were able to put our finances back in a better place after the (painful) pay cuts we both took this year. That is incredibly empowering for someone like me who hates money and all the stress and uncertainty of it. 

Does anyone else feel like this? You cut items out of your budget and it seems as though that money just magically disappears into some other hole that needs to be filled (whoa...unintended sexual innuendo). I am a financial dolt, but we moved to save money and it was almost immediate that we took pay cuts. So thank God we moved of course but still it was kind of a blow.

Still, the fact that there's no car, and now it's a little cold outside for a bike, means my bedroom becomes even more appealing. Please send cats! I'm going to be a crazy cat person. Alone in my bedroom.

Okay I gotta go out to lunch or something. Do you want to have lunch?

Oh shoot, can you pick me up?

Damn!

Did They Eat It: Smoky Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup

Cooking has been slowly making its way back onto my radar. This could be because it's (not really but feels like) winter now and the cold makes it hard to want to leave the house. Or perhaps it was the cries of the children, "Pasta!? Again?" That triggered my guilt and need to put something good in the mouths of my children. Of course "something good" means something very different to me than it does to the children.

I had a craving for soup so I decided to browse Ree's new project Tasty Kitchen looking for a recipe for some form of Chicken Tortilla Soup. I'm guessing Ree does not work in her bed in her pajamas. I might try working at a desk, maybe then I'd be as productive as this woman. Only not.

I settled on Smoky Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup which sounded like I'd at least like it.

I bought a rotisserie chicken at Costco. $5.00! And no, I didn't feel a little silly buying razors, a chicken and a case of Sierra Nevada. I also bought a hunk of queso blanco.

If you ever want to either become a vegetarian or revel in your carnivorous status, might I suggest tearing a rotisserie chicken apart with your hands? wow.

Broad Summit 2009 : Feminism 101

I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to The Broad Summit this past weekend and I've been asleep ever since.

I called Logan Friday night and said, "I just don't know how I'm going to talk this much for the entire weekend." And he said, "Uh, you went away on a weekend with 30-ish women, what did you think was going to happen?" I guess I thought we'd IM each other. But thankfully we did not IM each other because it's kind of crazy to laugh so much at a computer screen. But laughing (a lot) with a group of women sitting all around you, that's okay!

We gathered at Boon Hotel and Spa in Guernville, California and I arrived with Jenny, Laurie, Chris and Susan via a very nice Toyota Highlander that Toyota trusted us to drive around in. Now that the car is safely back in their possession I can tell Toyota about my pesky habit of wanting to drift off to sleep whenever I drive on a long stretch of monotonous highway or about how I have had one accident while actually driving my car but I tend to bash my car into non-moving objects while going 10mph or less. Thanks Toyota!

Let's see, I had a massage, had a skincare consultation, ate really good food, learned a lot about wine, tasted a lot of wine & consumed a lot of wine. I took a nap with two other women (less sexy than it sounds) and gave my pants to another woman (also less sexy than it sounds).

I learned more about how people are making their websites pay them for their hard work and was inspired to keep focusing on making this site what I want it to be, without giving away content or being taken advantage of by corporations who see blogs as a free advertising service.

No wonder I've been sleeping for the last 24 hours.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of jealousy between women. How instead of trying to build each other up a lot of the time we seem to fall into a really ugly pattern of tearing down women we feel are more attractive, funny, friendly, successful, or whatever, than us. I see it on the internet, but I see it in my every day life even more often.

Recently I made a new friend, someone whose gregarious nature and love of having her picture taken really intimidated me. I even caught myself a couple of times resenting her ease in her own skin because I often feel so not at ease in my own skin and in front of the camera look incredibly hideous most of the time.

It dawned on me so clearly in that moment that while I can only be who I am, I can also choose to look at others and be inspired by their achievments, or sense of style, or personal drive, or sense of humor or ease in social situations. Or I can try to tear them down (mentally or by being bitchy and rude). I don't have to be someone I'm not, but admiring someone else for their talents doesn't minimize all the wonderful things about me.

I realize this sounds so simple and it is, and really all of this is not something we're entirely conciously aware of. But since I've realized this aspect of being a woman, I've wanted to hold all of my girlfriends closer and that makes me happy.

This weekend was an extension of that feeling and I'm incredibly grateful to Maggie, Laura, Aubrey and HelenJane for making it happen (with a little help from the Broad Summit Sponsors).

Most importantly, I did not catch my period from anyone.

(You can see a list of all the wonderful and inspiring attendees here and you can view other people's pictures from the weekend (because I was too busy picking my nose to take a lot of pictures) here.)

Annual Firehouse Pig Roast

A couple of weekends ago we traveled north to a little town called Goodrich where my sister in law's parents own an old firehouse they use to restore antique fire trucks. Yes it's a thing.

Once a year at the end of September they host a big party, roast a pig and let the kids look over the fire trucks they're currently working on restoring. My brother and his wife came to town this year so we had to go. Plus the scent of cooking pig made it impossible to resist.

I hope we get more pig roast next year.

Consequences.

I've hesitated to write about the current Roman Polansky "scandal" because I haven't been feeling very intelligent lately but I also wanted to be clear and concise in what I need to get out of me. Instead, you're going to get this I guess.

I'm assuming you all know about this thing. He raped a 13 year old girl in 1977 when he was 43. He admitted his guilt and when faced with jail time, because he raped a 13 year old girl orally, anally and vaginally, he fled the country.

I understand he had great personal tragedy in his life and it also appears from many accounts that the case was mishandled on quite a few levels. Unfortunate for Polanski, but moreso for his victim. The bottom line is raping a child will land you in prison. Or it should.

You can read the transcripts of the victim's grand jury testimony here.

I read this piece at The Village Voice and loved its tone. What Scorsese and All the Rest Know About Roman Polanski That Maybe You Don't.

And also this at Broadsheet, Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child.

Everyone's had a lot to say about this and I really have no clever new take but obviously this has hit a major raw nerve for me, given my own story.

When I shared my story I was sent all kinds of support that applied another layer of salve to the wounds that inevitably linger after being a victim of sexual abuse. But there were also some disturbing (to me) emails explaining how weak my father must have been as a person, possibly abused himself and how the best thing to do was to find forgiveness in my heart for him. (Or things with that running theme.)

Or worse a person who lamented the fact that sex should be "kept private", implying that being raped by my father was an act of sexuality and not abuse.

And with that I think I understand why this Roman Polansky case has gotten so deeply under my skin.

I like to believe we've all come a long way in understanding rape and child abuse. I also spend a lot of time wondering why so many girls are still abused every single day.

When people tell me to empathize with my father I question whether we understand as a society how terrible rape is and that men, even troubled men are accountable for their actions. 

When someone tells me I should be ashamed to discuss the fact that my father raped and abused me I wonder if our society will ever stop confusing Sex and Abuse.

When powerful people in Hollywood tell the world that Roman Polansky shouldn't serve time in jail for raping a child....

I think I understand why little girls will always be at risk and it makes me furious.

Why I should have gone to bed at 5:30 last night

Yesterday evening around 4:45 I sat down to check email on my phone and fell into a 20 minute coma. It was really a nap but the nap was so delicious it felt like I imagine some controlled substances feel. When I woke up all I wanted to do was get back into that place, I suppose you could say I was feeling a little like a junkie, for sleep.

I couldn't go back to sleep however because it was Curriculum Night at Max's school. Curriculum Night is the night you hear about all the things your kid is going to do that year and then you feel the crushing guilt that comes when all your best pals are Super Mothers and you're hesitantly signing up to drive for a field trip here and there.

I tried to silence my guilt in a cup of coffee from McDonalds.

I often say things that don't make sense, this is one of the prime reasons I avoid the phone like it has syphilis. I just can't be sure what I'll say.

As I walked around the classroom last night to find Max's desk, I realized someone new was sitting in his spot. I thought it was odd and so I joked, 'Are you adopting Max?'

He realized his mistake, laughed and began to move across to his daughter's desk.

IT COULD HAVE ALL ENDED THERE.

I like to tease my mother about (a lot of things) how when there's nothing to say she fills the silence with what ends up being nonsense. Like, for example, this inexplicable conversation at a restaurant.

Browsing the menu together.
Her: "Hey, look Meliss'! Philly cheese steak!"
Me: "Yes...there it is."
(Note: I have never expressed any opinion about a philly cheese steak sandwich pro or against.)

It would appear I have inherited this desire to fill silence with words and I have the added skill of making everything really awkward.

As the innocent father in this story moved to his own seat, I added, "Ha ha! I thought for a minute Max had a new dad and I was like, Yay!"

???????????????????????????

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so either worst pick up line, ever, ("I'm looking for a new baby daddy.") or I just implied I don't like my kid.

Both just excellent!

Obviously I should have just gone to bed.