Would you believe . . . ?

The first thing you need to know is that we hardly ever watched TV when I was growing up. When I was really little, the TV was up on the top of a tall cabinet (seemed tall to me, anyway) and it was hard to see, but I remember Sesame Street and--my favorites--the Electric Company and Zoom. All public television, of course. There were also Saturday morning cartoons, which I watched from the test pattern until 10:00--except for Road Runner. I hated Road Runner and turned it off. The Jetsons was my favorite with Scooby Doo as a close second.

Then when I was a little older, I was allowed to watch the introduction to "Mission Impossible" just before heading off to bed. "Your mission if you choose to accept it . . . " Remember? And the briefcase with the photos in it and then the smoke at the end? I never actually saw the show but my dad watched it which is why I got to see the intro, I guess. Later I watched "The Waltons" and my sister watched "Little House on the Prairie" and we could watch game shows if we were sick. (My favorite was "Password," hands down.) Every now and then, we could watch "Gilligan's Island" when we got home from school. And my parents even let me stay home from church once a year to watch "The Sound of Music" on Sunday night. Anyway, the point is that I didn't grow up watching a lot of TV, which was actually a pretty good way to grow up.

But when C and I were first married, he introduced me to all the TV shows that I had missed. That first year, we had so much fun watching old reruns together. It was fun for me to watch them for the first time and fun for C to watch me watching them for the first time. I found out pretty quick that I had outgrown "Gilligan's Island" and that "Leave It to Beaver" was more interesting than entertaining. We laughed every day at "The Dick van Dyke Show" and "I Love Lucy." I fell in love with "Andy Griffith" and have now seen every episode umpteen times along with my kids. But one of the shows we watched together that first year was "Get Smart," which you probably know just came out in theaters as a movie starring Steve Carrell as Max and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99.

We went to see the movie tonight and had so much fun. It is silly, silly, silly but in a clever and nostalgic way. And of course, the last line of the movie? "Missed it by that much!" Lots of silly fun.

Pomp and circumstance and all that

We started with this: C and I had visions of graduation photos, announcements, a party to celebrate, maybe even prom. Mowgli had visions of skipping graduation altogether. Somehow, we managed to meet in the middle with a minimum of disappointment on both sides. When Mowgli wanted to know why he had to walk across the stage, I told him, "Because it's a rite of passage; you didn't have a bar mitzvah, so you have to do this." He maintained to the very end that it would be a much bigger deal if he DIDN'T graduate from high school. Fortunately, by Thursday afternoon, he seemed to decide to make the best of it and I think he actually enjoyed graduation day and the low-key gathering at our house later.


Here, before the ceremony, we have Mowgli and Boo, reversing roles.

And this is at the party afterward, as Mowgli opened his gift from Boo (a picture frame with a photo of both of them from last Christmas). The smile is awesome! A word about the outfit: We told him he could run upstairs and get more comfortable. We didn't realize he would get THAT comfortable! And no, that's not a UT shirt--it's a free shirt from a Houston Dynamo match.

Who's that masked ballerina?

I don't have the photos from Mowgli's graduation yet, so I'm posting photos from Boo's dance recital last weekend. She danced to " Masquerade" from Phantom. You may remember that her biggest grief in the move was the loss of her dance studio so this was an answer to prayer and the result of many, many tears. She had a great day! Boo is back center (second from left) in this first photo:

Sexism vs. racism

As I've told you, we've been obsessed with politics here . . . and I do mean obsessed. Mowgli and I have had many conversations about which is more insidious--racism or sexism. Mowgli's opinion is that sexism is more prevalent but that racism is more virulent. Mowgli also sees sexism as more benign and less dangerous, rarely seeing gender discrimination where I do. It's a generational thing. When Mowgli was about four, I took him to see a male pediatrician for the first time. He rolled his eyes and said, "Mom! Boys can't be doctors!"

I would love, love, love to see a female president and I do think that a lot of the sexism toward the Clinton campaign went unchallenged. When the frat boys showed up at her rallies with the signs that read, "Iron my shirts!" we all laughed. Can you imagine the uproar if those boys had shown up at an Obama rally with signs reading, "Shine my shoes!" And while female commentators denounced it, male pundits and comedians tended to give too much attention to Clinton's appearance, especially early on--what she wore, signs of aging, etc. Pantsuits became a joke, even though there is no good alternative for women. (By the way, what IS the female equivalent of khakis and a golf shirt? This stumps me ALL the time!)

Ultimately, though, I don't think that Clinton lost because she was a woman. After all, she was a woman when she was the front-runner, when she made all the big headlines, when Obama was considered a flashy upstart with no chance. She was a woman when she amassed the largest campaign war chest of all time, and she was a woman when she won millions of votes. No, I don't believe that sexism torpedoed her campaign.

Instead, I think she lost for all the same old reasons: she failed to read the climate of the country, she underestimated her opponent, she allowed infighting and conflict to drain her campaign of energy, she miscalculated the importance of caucus states and younger voters and her early vote for the war, she relied on an outdated top-down approach to campaigning, and she made some serious gaffes. When a woman can lose the White House for all the same old reasons that the male contenders do, we've come a long way, baby.

What just happened?

Don't get me wrong, I like Hillary Clinton. I always have. I think she's bright and articulate. She has a winning smile and, I believe, a genuine faith. I think she likes people and cares passionately about making the world a better place. I think I would enjoy having her as a friend or a relative. But last night just reminded me of all the reasons I didn't support her for president.

Several hundred people crowded into what looked like half a college gym to hear her speak. They were not allowed to bring in Blackberries or cell phones or any other device that might allow them to hear the news that Barack Obama had just been awarded the final four delegates that made him the presumptive Democratic nominee. Likewise, after the announcement about Obama, no one else was allowed into the venue.

Clinton was then introduced with enthusiasm as "The Next President of the United States"--remember that Obama had already gained the necessary votes to win the nomination--as the crowd went wild. This was no conciliatory speech. It was self-congratulatory from the beginning, then veered into veiled disgruntledness, casting doubt on the validity of Obama's nomination because of the Florida/Michigan fiasco (don't even get me started on that). C and Mowgli and I were all yelling at the TV--"What is she doing?" Jeffrey Toobin on MSNBC called it "the delusional narcissism of the Clintons." He might be right.

I've got a bad feeling about this . . .

Last weekend, we heard it for the first time as we were waking up on Saturday morning. At first, I thought it was the hum of faraway yard equipment. Then it sounded like some kind of quacking, but again, far away. Today, we got serious about trying to find the source of the noise and eventually we did--it's a muffled buzzing sound and it's inside the exterior wall of our bedroom. The exterminators come on Wednesday.

This is so not fair

They come to us from the factory completely defective. They can barely open their eyes and all they know how to do is flail around and cry. Even once they learn to hold their oversized heads up, they are still pretty useless when you think about it. It takes forever for them to learn how to do anything for themselves and in the meantime you sacrifice everything--sleep, sex, personal hygiene, brain cells--just so you can wake up again the next day and do it all over again.
But then this miracle happens. Eventually, they stop spitting up on you every time they eat, they finally get potty trained (something kittens learn in a matter of weeks btw), they learn how to talk and provide hours of entertainment. They even learn to chew with their mouths closed. But just when you've got the new-and-improved model--just when they become interesting conversationalists--just the kind of person you love to be around--and friendship looks possible, you have to send them away! It is so not fair.