::Snuggy::

When Anna was born and we brought her home, she slept between us every night. At that time I was wearing my Patagonia capilene long-underwear as pajamas, specifically because they were extremely soft and I knew they’d be nice against her skin.

When it was time for her to move into her own room, into her crib, the best advice I got out of the 864 books I’d read on the subject suggested giving her a “transition” object, something that would help her feel safe and secure. I thought, what better than the very shirt she’d been snuggling up against for the first I’m-not-going-to-say-how-many-months of her life. So I sacrificed my long-underwear top: I cut off the long sleeves to protect her from getting them wrapped around her neck, and Anna became totally attached to what became known as “Snuggy”. She slept with Snuggy, she snuggled Snuggy, she WORE Snuggy (she LOVED that she could put the entire thing around her body). When we had some family photos taken on the beach for Christmas cards, Snuggy was there in the pictures because she refused to put Snuggy down. Snuggy went everywhere with us, from the library and the grocery store to every trip we made into Portland for supplies. Snuggy traveled by car and airplane on several trips to Boise, and to Spokane when she stayed with her Nana for a week at a time (twice) when Eric and I went to Alaska and then Hawaii. Then, when we took our big trip in the fall of 2003, Snuggy flew across the country with us to New York. Snuggy went to Central Park, the National History Museum, restaurants, galleries, stores…on subways and ferries and carousels, zoos….upstate NY, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Main….you get the idea. Somehow we managed to cover thousands of miles and and did not lose her. It was easy because Anna simply never let go of Snuggy. Snuggy was very well traveled and extremely well-loved.

Until… the darkest day ever. We’d moved to Spokane and were just having a regular Sunday when we heard an announcement on the local public radio that one of our favorite blue-grass bands was having an impromptu “concert” on the roof-top garden of a photography studio downtown. We decided to grab some lunch first and then we went to the show. By the time it was over, it was getting dark and Anna was tired and then...she realized that SNUGGY. WAS. GONE. We backtracked and looked and looked and made phone calls to the restaurant and the photographer and looked and looked and I took time off work the next day to go scour the parking lot where we’d gotten into and out of the car and we called the restaurant AGAIN. But it was no use: Snuggy was lost. I’m sure that we’d left her on the seat of the restaurant booth and someone, thinking she was just a piece of fabric, threw her away.

That was five years ago, and to this day, if Anna is very tired, she will cry and say how much she misses “big Snuggy.” I had, for some reason, saved the sleeves I’d cut off and tucked them in a drawer. So Anna still has two bits of Snuggy fabric to snuggle, but it’s not the same. Just the other night as she settled into bed, she said “What if” with big tears streaming down her cheeks, “someone found Snuggy and is using her as a RAG?!” OOOOOHHHHhhhhh rip my heart out and tap-dance on it. She is so afraid of losing the two remaining bits of Snuggy that she wants to have her dad make a “special box”.

I’m going somewhere with this, I swear.

Where I’m going, is that I have become obsessed, OBSESSED with finding that fabric. Be it another article of Patagonia’s “base-layer” clothing, or in plain fabric form, I would practically KILL for a good-sized piece of that mid-weight capilene fabric in Periwinkle blue. I want to make her a blanket using that (or VERY similar fabric), so that she could have her Snuggy back. Not because she needs Snuggy anymore; she is, after all, 8. But for sentimental reasons. So that she knows that I know how very important Snuggy was (and is) to her.

Of course, Patagonia only made that exact color one year (roughly 1995). I’m not even entirely sure what the fabric is; it’s mostly polyester, I think, but has the “hand” of a light-weight cotton or jersey. It’s not "slick" like polyester. I have, of course, checked the Patagonia website and all the usual outdoor retailers. I have checked E-bay to see if someone is selling their old long-underwear. I have even thought about writing to Patagonia and seeing if they just happen to have some of that fabric lying around a warehouse somewhere. Am I crazy??

But can you imagine her delight in opening a present Christmas morning and finding a Snuggy blanket?? It’s worth it to be crazy. If any of you have any ideas to help me find that fabric, I would be forever in your debt.

Squirrel Cop

One of the great pleasures in life, for me, is listening to This American Life. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is a weekly radio show (on public radio) that just basically tells real-life stories. The host is Ira Glass, who, aside from David, is the man of my dreams.

But that's not really why I love the show. No, I love it because it is witty, quirky and funny as hell. They come up with a theme and then tell stories around that theme, and it is so entertaining. I download the show onto my IPod so that I can listen to it whenever I want.

Yesterday I went to the gym, and to mitigate the torture that is the treadmill, I took my IPod to listen to an old broadcast of This American Life. The show I chose to listen to had the theme of "First Day." I'm probably breaking some serious copyright issues by sharing this, but if Ira Glass has to come to my door to personally punish me, well, that's a risk I am willing to take.

*********************************************

So Ira is interviewing this policeman, who is telling the story of one of his first days on the job, thirteen years prior, when he was a 23 year old rookie. They get a call regarding some sort of "animal invasion", so he and his partner go to check it out. They pull up to this big, beautiful house and ring the bell. The owner answers the door; he is around 30 years old and has an air of "money" about him, right down to the monogrammed silk pajamas he is wearing. He apologizes for calling, says "I usually handle these kinds of things myself, but my wife insisted I call. We were having a quiet evening, you know, when we heard this racket upstairs. Can you check on it?" So the policemen step inside. They look around; it's a beautiful house, gorgeous, and obviously brand-new. The fireplace is burning, soft music is playing and there are candles burning. It is obvious they'd been in the middle of a romantic evening.

The wife appears, and she is stunning. Long blond hair, bright blue eyes, brilliant smile and just and warm and friendly as can be. She offers to make coffee while the men assess the situation. The older cops says "Well, you know, this isn't really the sort of thing that we, as policemen, usually do...you should probably call Animal Control or something..." but the rookie is so smitten by the beautiful wife, that he steps forward and says "We can handle this."

So the man shows them toward a trap door leading to the attic. Rookie cop pulls out his flashlight and begins up the ladder, thinking he'll have to go into the bowels of the attic to find whatever critter is up there. He gets to the top and, with his flashlight illuminating the way, comes face to face with a squirrel. A nervy squirrel who, though no more than six inches away from this guy, stands up on it's hind legs and looks the guy in the eye, almost as if challenging him. The cop is so unnerved by this that he fumbles and drops his flashlight. The flashlight falls and hits the homeowner, who is standing at the bottom of the ladder looking up at the cop, and smashes directly onto his nose. The homeowner howls, blood is gushing everywhere, and the rookie cop freaks out and loses his footing. He falls, pancaking the guy below him. As they lay there, the cop on top of the homeowner, the squirrel bounces down the ladder, hops right on the cop's stomach and runs under the couch.

The cop gets up, chasing after the squirrel, and pulls out his nightstick. He intends to scare the squirrel out from under the couch, and he asks the woman for a box. She says "Sure, we just moved in. We have tons of boxes." So the cop gets down on his hands and knees and begins swiping under the couch with his nightstick. No squirrel. He tries again. No squirrel. Finally, he connects with the squirrel, who comes running out from under the couch and runs STRAIGHT INTO THE FIREPLACE. He immediately goes up in flame, but he runs back out of the fireplace, and BACK UNDER THE COUCH.

With smoke now pouring out from under the couch, rookie cop once more comes to the rescue. He tips the couch over on it's side and they see the squirrel there, who, in it's death-throes, has latched on to the bottom of the couch. He is, the cop says, "just a smoking piece of gristle." The cops grab the only thing available: two silk pillows. They start windmilling the squirrel and the couch, just "smearing" the burned squirrel all over the place.

Finally, they get the fire out. They look around and the place is just a disaster. The house is full of smoke and the fire alarms are blaring. The couch is upside down, smoking. There is a dead, charred squirrel attached to it. The silk pillows are toast. The ceiling and walls are covered in soot. The man is standing there holding a towel to his face with blood soaking his pajamas. And the beautiful, friendly wife? She is just looking around in total shock, crying. She asks, sobbing, "What have you done? How could you do this to my house?" It's like, he says, she's just ticking things off: "Dead squirrel. Pillows ruined. Need a new couch. Fire alarms going off. Husband is disfigured."

The husband is just standing there, shaking his head, saying "You know...you guys....it's not like you did anything wrong exactly. But...but you know, I just can't thank you for this."

As the story-teller says "You know, they call for a squirrel and end up with three, four thousand dollars worth of damage and a broken nose. And this was all within about 5 minutes."

*********************************************

So there I was, huffing and puffing on the treadmill, you know, a foot away from the guys on either side of me, trying so hard not to laugh that my eyes were watering and I'm pretty sure I was making funny noises from somewhere deep in my throat. I had to get off the treadmill and leave.

Now Ira, come and get me.

So much for "wordless Wednesday"

Today on my way to work, I was listening to NPR coverage of the "Big Three" auto executives who went to Capitol Hill to ask for a government bail-out to save their companies.

I thought to myself "Yeah, and I'm sure they stayed at the Holiday Inn Express while they're in Washington DC, right?"

Well, now the news is that they all flew to DC - to ask for billions of tax-payer money to save the companies that they ran into the ground - on PRIVATE JETS. Of course they did.

From cnn.com:
"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrystler and General Motors at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.

"It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. It kind of makes you a little bit suspicious." He added, "couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it."

Jet-pooled. *snort*

::wordless wednesday::

8 year old to be tried as an ADULT??

This is a dark subject for little-miss-sunshine here, but I just heard about this story this morning: an 8 year-old Arizona boy has been charged with two counts of murder after his father and a house-mate were found dead.


What is outrageous is that the state wants to charge him as an ADULT. He is EIGHT, people.

My 8 year old daughter has trouble comprehending the consequences of not feeding her bunny rabbit. As the mother of said 8 year old, it seems like not so long ago that she was in diapers; many 8 year olds need help making a sandwich for crying out loud. Eight year olds are CHILDREN. They can't possibly be treated (and punished) as if they have the mental capacity to plan and execute a crime such as murder, while considering the consequences.

What the hell are those state prosecutors THINKING?? Where, exactly, would they even house an 8 year old? You can't exactly put him in with the general population of a prison, now can you?

Furthermore, this boy has never been in ANY sort of trouble before; not so much as a single disciplinary action on his record at school. Oh, AND there is now evidence of child abuse.

What this CHILD needs is help. He needs therapy and love. And where the hell is his mother?

I am outraged.

::my second (and final) husband::

The other day I read something, written by a woman who was extolling the virtues of being single after having left a bad marriage, where she said "My husband had complete control of the climate in the house, depending on his mood." This completely resonated with me, because my first marriage was exactly the same way. My ex (who is a wonderful person and one of my dearest friends) is very dark, very moody and a complete pessimist. I've written about our differences before, but the one that was unbearable for me to live with was the MOODS.


The slightest thing would set him off. It could be that, on the way out the door to go have a picnic at the beach, I had to run back in the house to get our toddler's sunscreen. It would just irritate the crap out of him that I'd forgotten it, never mind that I'd packed everything else for the entire adventure. The rest of the day would be ruined, him mumbling under his breath. Pretty much every single vacation or weekend get away we ever took ended up with him withdrawn, angry and brooding because he resented spending money on, say, a hotel room when HE would have been perfectly happy to sleep in a sleeping bag in the back of the truck.


It's not as if he was abusive (he is, in fact, a sweet, gentle man) but his anger and disappointment in me was painfully obvious. His dark moods took a huge (HUGE) toll on me, as I struggled to avoid anything that would set him off. In an effort to fly under his radar, I had become someone other than who I am at nature: essentially a big, galloping, happy Great Dane of a person. I realized that I spent more energy walking on eggshells than I did enjoying him or our daughter. If, god forbid, something happened out of our control, such as needing to purchase a new vacuum or the car needing repaired, it was as if a gigantic black cloud would settle on our house. It would figure that our first home together was a total money trap: leaking ceilings, broken pipes to the master bath, and a re-occurring and very expensive water pipe leaking in our driveway. I can't tell you how I dreaded telling him when I suspected something needed to be repaired.


I bring this up now because my situation now, with my wonderful husband David, could not be more different. Saturday morning we woke up to a freezing-cold house: the furnace was broken. Of course it happened on a Saturday which meant getting a repair man out to look at it took time and cost extra. Next, I noticed that the filter in the fish-tank wasn't working. The furnace guy came, fixed the problem, and David went to get a new filter for the tank. That afternoon it was obvious that the heater STILL wasn't working, so we had to have the repair guy come out again. Meanwhile, I was doing laundry and the sheets just would NOT get dry. I took half the load out and started it again. An hour later, they were still a cold, damp ball of flannel. There was no heat. My old fears kicked in and I cringed at the thought of having to tell David about this latest problem. So I pretended everything was fine and started the dryer AGAIN. And again. Finally, I had to admit that there was a problem and I worked up the courage to tell David.


Do you know what he did?

Nothing. Nothing!

No yelling, no swearing, no mumbling, no tantrums, no finding a way to blame ME. I couldn't believe it!! After he looked at the dryer and determined it was beyond his ability to repair, he did some research on whether it was worth fixing (it's an 8 yr. old dryer) or if it was time to replace it. We discussed it, a solution was reached, and that was it. IT DID NOT AFFECT HIS MOOD OR OUR DAY IN THE SLIGHTEST.

I am still a little stunned, to be honest. And when I told him how much I appreciated the way he'd handled the situation, he said "Well, I learned how NOT to do it from my father." He knows from experience that living with someone who gets angry over things beyond their control feels awful and that it is unproductive. And HE MAKES THE CHOICE TO BE DIFFERENT. This is an evolved human being.

And that, folks, is why I am keeping this husband forever.

::back on my soap box::

So yes, we elected a wonderful, dynamic new President, but the state of California passed Proposition 8, which will ban same-sex marriage. Guess which powerful organization took a special interest in Prop 8 and donated over $22 million to the cause: MORMONS. I just find this so ironic, coming from a church who's founding father practiced (and demanded that his followers do the same) polygamy. Now, I don't know the ages of Joseph's Smiths many wives, but I do know that his most ardent followers today? They prefer their wives to be as young as 11. They're more "pliable" that way. But two consenting, adult men wanting to legally declare their love for each other? Now that's just sick, isn't it??

I will never understand how followers of religion can say that marriage of any kind is against "family values". "But two men can't procreate!" they shout. Well, guess what? Neither can an 11 year old. Also? I know this comes as a shock, but not every one in this country adheres to the teachings of the Bible. How can one religion declare what is and what is not moral for the rest the people of this country?

Not surprisingly, there are millions of people in this country who are outraged, and tomorrow has been designated a national day of protest against Prop 8. CLICK ON THE "No H8" IMAGE to the left to find out if there is a gathering in your town. If there is, I urge you to GO!!! Marriage is a CIVIL RIGHT, not a special privilege granted only to heterosexuals.

Or, as David says "Gays should have the right to be as miserable as the rest of us."

I love that guy.