Sad

One of my favorite blogs to read daily has ended, and I feel so bereft. I loved it not because the blogger leads a glamorous life with exciting posts about her adventures around the world, but because she is a mom of 3 (although mostly grown) kids and loves to cook and putter around in her home. And she is a writer and I have such an affinity and admiration for those who make magic with words. She lives in one of my favorite cities in the world, in another country, and I loved all the local references to places there I have visited. I have never met this woman in my life, but feel like I know her and her family through her words and what she has shared of her life experiences. Very grateful for that as a total stranger given the privilege to know another total stranger but feel very connected.

She has decided to go "unplugged," disconnecting her Internet today and ending her blog after 16 months of posts about everything and anything. She writes:

Now I’m going to move on, unclench the tight grip this computer has over me and try to rediscover and enjoy other aspects of my life. Things that I have let fall by the wayside.

It is time for me to simplify.

That takes alot of courage and discipline! I know how much I depend on the Internet for my daily amusements and communications. But I admire her desire to simplify her life. I discovered her blog only a few months after she started it, and checking in with Meg became a natural part of my day, five minutes of chatty musings, recipes and inspiration from another Mom who'd already been through everything I am going through right now. The craziness of parenthood when the kids are small. And to know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and the tunnel isn't as long as you think it is and someday you'll yearn for those days again as she often does.

I hope she'll leave her blog up anyway, for those days when I want the comfort of familiar words (like watching a favorite movie I've already seen a hundred times). I wish I could thank her, but she's never taken comments or emails so I just hope she realizes that there are many of us who loved visiting her peaceful, tranquil site.

"Porcelain Mary" and Other Etiquette Dilemmas

Photo from Miss Conduct's blog

I love discovering new blogs that I really love. (Overuse of the word love?) I stumble upon other blogs all the time, independent or sponsored by some other entity, but rarely find one I want to revisit often. And I love when the blog has been around for a while, providing me with lots of entertaining backreading as well. Today, I happened upon Miss Conduct's Blog during some research on the subject of "etiquette" for my business blog.

Miss Conduct offers some very good advice about everyday etiquette; according to her bio, she writes a weekly advice column for the Boston Globe Magazine. People ask all sorts of questions, and I mean all sorts, and she answers them. And she has her own humorous anecdotes to relate. I have been laughing out loud for the better part of half an hour already.

I haven't backread very far yet, but here are two of my favorite "issues" so far: Popcorn at the Movies and Toilet Decor. I also like that her blog is regional (and not my own region of the country) and at the same time, universal. Good manners are never out of style anywhere, right?

I'm adding Miss Conduct to my list of faves today.

Love This

I just love this pic! The NY Times chose such a charming, intimate photo for it's cover page. Can you just imagine what the First Couple were saying to each other as they walked the parade route?! I love how they're holding hands.

Youth . . . Optimism . . . Energy . . . Family . . . Hope

These are some of the words I heard used over and over again on Inauguration Day. It's going to be so nice to have a First Family with children near the same ages as mine. Everyone who has kids knows that kids help you keep it real. They connect you to the world in so many ways that you never expected before you had them.

And I so admire the Obamas for having a grandmother who lives with them, helping to raise the children. How many families in this country are struggling to find affordable, reliable child care and are yet cut off from family members who could help provide this kind of support? Because it truly takes a village to raise a child. Coming from an Asian background, it is nothing but natural to me to see a wise, helpful Grandma move in to help with kids. My own parents live over an hour away, but will come on a moment's notice if needed to help out in any way with the girls or our other every day needs. That's simply how it's done in our culture, and likely the same in traditional African American culture as well.

Icky

From a blogger I follow daily and whose writing I admire, on watching Obama's inauguration:

The pastor is speaking now. He irritates me. He is sooo pompous and full of himself. I can feel huge ego emanating from him. Icky.

Thank God, he is done. Now Aretha Franklin is going to sing. Hopefully that will get the taste of that pastor out of my mouth.

YES, that is exactly how I felt watching him on Tuesday! Icky indeed. I am not into his books. I have never trusted him. Gave one of his books away when I received it as a gift (from someone I can't stand anyway).

I'm just glad Warren's bit part was at the beginning of the event rather than the end. The "rhyming reverend" Lowery gave a warm and even humorous (who says you can't smile and laugh in prayer?!) benediction to close out the event. Some have said his words were racist, but I wasn't offended (and I'm the "yellow" one). I liked him and his genuine words way more than Pastor Icky.

The Choice of a New Generation

Michelle Obama, who've I written about before as my new "friend in my head," is about to receive the best 45th birthday present ever! She celebrated her real birthday two days ago, but can anyone argue that watching the husband you helped elect get sworn in as President of the United States isn't the most wonderful birthday gift?!

I am soooo excited about tomorrow and will spend as much of it in front of the TV witnessing history along with everyone else. I actually have friends who are in DC and will be part of the actual throng of well-wishers, but I'm ok with my front-row seat at home!

The voters of the United States of America did a very grown up thing last November by voting for change. Not the kind of change that looks and talks like what we already have right now, or at least for 12 or so more hours, but real change. You know it's a good thing when your friends in other countries are congratulating you and your nation for the choice we've made!

The thing about change, however, is that it always has to hurt a little bit. Or at least make us uncomfortable. I hope, when the post-inaugural euphoria dies down, that we don't give up immediately on Mr. Obama and the plans that he and his team have for us. I'm just so grateful that it's him at the helm, and hope everyone else will just get behind him for the long haul. Who knows what miracles will occur in the next four years?

New Pepsi . . .

Obama . . .

Old-school Pepsi

And now, slightly on- and off-topic: When I bought a twelve-pack of Pepsi in December because it was on sale, I noticed that the logo on the box and cans was new, in a retro-ish kind of way. Two seconds later I thought that it looked alot like the Obama campaign's logo. (Clever? Pepsi's capitalization of Obama's popularity? But if you think back (waaaaaay back), the Obama logo actually looks like the old Pepsi logo. The one you saw when you were about 4 years old on the one-liter bottles, the kind you never see anymore.)

Today, I remembered the slogan from the old Pepsi ads and commercials from the 80s. As Pepsi was then, so Obama is now: The Choice of a New Generation.

Enjoy tomorrow, y'all!

Images from Google Images

Plaid Stallions

Getting sick always sucks. But being sick during the holidays really sucks. So unfair. I wish I could have a do-over for the two weeks I was "out" (and still officially not 100% yet). All the things I didn't get to do, the friends I didn't get to see. Oh well, enough complaining. My blog's been calling out to me, begging to be updated, but I've ignored it because, you guessed it, I've been feeling sick lately!

Today's post was going to be a rant about some aspect of volunteerism in the parenting sphere, but then I changed my mind because that would just depress us all. Saving that for later! haha

Instead, I guarantee that I will bring a smile to everyone's faces (who is actually reading this). Everyone, I present the blog I go to whenever I need an honest-to-goodness laugh: The Plaid Stallions. Both the blog and the website are seriously fall-out-of-your-chair and pee-in-your-pants funny if you were a child of the Seventies. If you weren't, then it might be mildly amusing or even downright confusing. But if you lived it, you will love it!

I think if I were a male with a little more time on my hands (ok, alot more time) then I could have dreamed up this website. As it is, I have been obsessed with catalogs since I was a child. Obsessed. Apparently, so was the owner of Plaid Stallions. The only difference is that he kept alot of his catalogs and keeps finding more, and I don't have any of mine because my Mom threw them away.

The website name is Plaid Stallions: Rambling and Reflections on 70s Pop Culture. Plaid Stallions, in it's own words, is "mocking the seventies a catalog page at a time." Seventies toys, fashions, housewares, Halloween costumes, etc. are all there in living catalog color and even some vintage TV commercials. The blog is a daily feast of 70s gems such as:


and this:

(For more 70s "fashion" commentary, see my earlier post about this on my other blog.)

It's not always cheesy fun though. Sometimes I just have to smile really big when I see the toys from my childhood so lovingly revered:

I LOVED THIS TOY! I still have it, my girls play with it, and the elevator still works!

Received excitedly some of this for Christmas, either 1977 or 1978, only to have my Mom give it to the neighbor's child when we moved away. Still mourning the loss 30 years later.

And some days I even feel sad (again) about the toys I desperately wanted but never could convince my Mom to buy:

Barbie Airplane, as seen briefly at a birthday party in the mid-70s and always wanted, even now!

This website and blog brings back memories of pretty much my entire 70s life-- what my parents wore, what my brother and I played with for a whole decade, what we watched on TV, the colors and textures of the world around me.