Republicans Against Stimulus Package Take Note

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed Barack Obama's $819 billion stimulus package without the support of a single Republican, who worried that once states got used to a temporary infusion of federal money into education and Medicaid, it would be difficult to pull back. 

I don't know enough about the bill on its merits to say one way or the other whether it's good, although on the surface it makes sense to me to put money into the economy where it's needed most, and certainly education and health care are two top candidates for that. And I certainly feel better about my tax dollars going toward Pell Grants and rebuilding decrepit schools than to John Thain (formerly of Merrill Lynch and Bank of America), say, who saw fit to use $1.2 million of our money to redesign his office (including a $1,405 waste basket). Or to Wall Street, more generally, which used it to pay out bonuses many multiples larger than my annual earnings.

On the point of an addiction to federal funds, I can say this: there's a really simple and effective tool against making the federal government's temporary expansion permanent. As a parent, I use the same tool all the time. It's the word "no." And I know all about addiction. Over the winter break when we were visiting my family in Atlanta, Sam experienced a similar expansion of TV-watching hours, and it's been a bear of a habit to break since, at home, we're stricter than the 18-hour maximum he enjoys in the face of an ailing relative at his grandparents' house (no TV on school nights and 2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). Sometimes we have to spell out "N-O!." Sometimes we have to resort to "No, no, no!" (The glitch in my argument, I realize, is that at home we enjoy a benevolent dictatorship, not a democracy, and our two parental votes carry more weight than the Republicans' votes in Congress these days.)

Still, it goes without saying that if the country had said no sooner and more often, we wouldn't be in quite this deep of a predicament.

John Updike and Me

Much has been written about John Updike since his death yesterday, but I'm prompted to write still more to tell about an interaction I had with him when I was a New Yorker fact checker 15 years ago. As part of the magazine's special issue devoted to the movies in 1994, Updike penned a piece on dancer/actor Gene Kelly. It was my job to watch all the movies he mentioned and make sure that nothing was out of place. 

But something was. In his discussion of the 1949 movie On the Town, about three sailors on 24-hour shore-leave in New York, Updike followed Kelly (plus Frank Sinatra, Jules Munchin, and their gal pals) around the city, driving past, among other notable spots, the literary lions on the front steps of the New York Public Library. With Updike a literary lion more imposing than any statue, who was I to contradict him. But, having watched the movie a dozen times, re-winding and re-winding the scenes where they go around town in a taxi the size of your couch and had another fact checker double-check me, I finally, reluctantly, concluded that Updike had erred. Or else I was about to be made to feel really stupid.

I mustered my courage which, in those days, was pretty much lacking, called him up and said in my most polite, fact checkery voice that I hadn't been able to find the New York Public Library in the movie and that maybe he could point me toward it. 

"Oh, I'm sure you're right," Updike said, the wave of his hand almost visible over the phone. "I haven't watched that movie in years. I was just relying on memory." 

Only later did I find out that on the rare occasion a fact checker did have a quibble with the master, they were never to call him directly but were to go through his editor. 

I had the honor of writing about Updike a couple of years ago when we were featuring his 2007 reading of Terrorist on NPR's Book Tour, but I never spoke with him again. And I'd say it's a sure bet I've never again watched a movie as many times as I sat down with On the Town.

Obama's Day 4 and How I'm Feeling

Tuesday's inaugural events were just as uplifting as they promised to be. Never mind that I snagged a ticket for an honest-to-God SEAT, of all things, at 2 the morning of, what I loved best was looking not ahead of me (Obama was 2 inches tall from my vantage point) but looking behind at the shimmering sea (and I really do mean a sea) of people standing in the sunlight with flags that stretched as far as the eye would allow, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. I also loved that it was a day without cynicism. Beautiful people with really white teeth from L.A., (including Sheryl Crowe, whom I met but failed to alert that Julia wants to adopt her) were asking to have their pictures snapped with cell phones alongside overweight men from Greece and Upper Eastsiders wearing "W New York" baseball caps. 

It was also a day without irony. When Obama mentioned patriotism as one of our country's bedrock values in his inaugural speech, it's the first time I'd heard the word in seven years without some internal eye-rolling. How luxurious, I thought, to be able to feel patriotic without all the fear and ideology that has loaded it down for so long.

On Day 4 of his presidency, Obama is busy being tough with terrorists and tough-minded about the economy. On Day 4, I am busy too, but, as you might expect, my sights are set closer to home. What to do, I wondered, upon coming downstairs to fix breakfast and finding that Mavis had pooped all over the rug pad (the rug was already removed due to same last Friday)? What to do about my own economics (no money in checking account) and my own weighty issues (ate too much on inauguration day and realized today why the pedi-cab driver was peddling so slow). In short, I'm feeling overweight and overdrawn. 

It's bad when in answer to your six-year-old son's begging to go out for a fancy sushi dinner you say that it's too expensive and he offers to chip in the $20 his grandparents gave him for Christmas.

(Sam has, incidentally, hypothetically spent that $20 four times already: once on the game Apples to Apples Jr.; once on taking his mother to the movie Hotel for Dogs (with popcorn); once on a portion of a video game for him and his little sister that he vows they won't play until they're both 20; and once in the form of a donation to help prevent polar bears from becoming extinct).

It's a hard lesson to learn that you can only spend the money once. 

Friends Talking in the Night Welcomes New Friends

Friends Talking in the Night has recently gotten comments from new readers. Welcome! Blogger isn't set up for me to respond to you individually, but I'm so glad you've joined the conversation! If you ever do want a personal response, please include your email address in your comment. Thanks--and keep reading. Suggestions are appreciated, too.

Publish Post

My Inaugural "Ball" is Already Famous

Here's an update to the post I wrote a few days ago about our little inaugural party. Our so-called Blue Ball might be Pluto in the Washington solar system, but we still made Politico! We're already having fun, and the open bar's not even open yet!

 

Notes from the Field of Momdom

This morning I was driving Julia to daycare and, as usual, we were listening to The Very Best of Sheryl Crow cranked way up. 

"Mom," Julia asked, looking sheepish: "Does Sheryl Crow have any kids?" 

"Yes," I said, "she has a baby girl," astonished that I've read enough issues of People to know. I figured J. would be pleased since she loves babies, especially of the female variety. But no. J. just wanted to establish Sheryl's bona fides because next she said: 

"I want her to be my mom." Pause. "But Sam likes you."

Where does that leave me, I wondered. Still, I had to know what's so special about Sheryl. 

Julia: "She can sing."

All I have to say is: my life ain't no disco.

Princess for a Decade; Queen for Life?

Anyone who's ever spent more than nine seconds with a three-year-old girl will know that I speak the truth when I say that in her world, everything is coming up princesses. Let's use Julia as Exhibit A. She wants to grow her hair "as long as Cinderella's." She can reel off the names of all the Disney princesses with the same facility (and sometimes more accurately) than Sam can spout Bo-Sox stats. Her movie choices run the gamut from Princess Diaries I to Princess Dairies II. For Christmas, she got a Cinderella plastic paper doll set, a Playmobil Cinderella set, a rhinestone-studded princess jewelry box, a set of tiny princess story board books, a princess dress, sparkly silver princess shoes and, since everyone knows that ballerinas are princesses in training, a leotard, tights, and ballet slippers. Mainly, she plainly states that her goal is to marry a prince (by which it is assumed she means a wealthy, handsome one).

As I write this, I think, What are her parents thinking that they would allow this toddler's values to lurch so dangerously off track? Instead of the dance class that she's starting this weekend, maybe we should hustle her off to auto mechanics class.

Thus far, her sensibility has led us the other way. Because of Julia's predilection for pink (and purple, but I can't go there), I find myself gravitating toward all things rosy hued. It was a small but, to me, noticeable act when, instead of buying black (always my default color) gloves on sale at J. Crew a few weeks ago, I went for fuschia. It reminds me of a story my friend Katy once told me about an off-the-charts sparkly pair of shoes that she once bought herself and wore relentlessly simply because they delighted her small daughter so. She says she still thinks it's one of the best investments she ever made.

I understand. Perhaps I would have settled for a sensible heel yesterday when I purchased my inaugural ball shoes. Instead, I went for a pair of towering sandles that, when I brought them home, Julia could walk in far better than I. If having a son has dredged up my love of baseball and kindled a passing interest in Star Wars, it's as if having a daughter has given me permission to unleash my feminine side. It turns out it's ferocious.

I'm confident that Julia's pink period will pass just as it did for Sam (who, when we moved into our house three years ago when he was three, was disappointed that his new baby sister got the pink room and not him). But here's the but (every blog post has one, right?) After writing about Sam as a husband in training, or H.I.T., the other day, I have to set the record straight on Julia, too: I don't want to raise a princess any more than I do a prince. And I'm wondering if the ultimate expression of the sensitive man is being able to bring home the tampons for the woman in his life, what is the equivalent for raising a strong woman? Because while it's totally fun to indulge in the princess fantasy now, it would be wrong to send a daughter who still believes off to college.

Let me know what you think makes for strong, independent daughters. I'd love to hear from you.

Tuesday Night Fever

Washington, as anyone over the age of 16 minutes can sense, is suffering from a collective anxiety these days. You'd think that our nervousness might be over the deficit that's 12 zeroes long or the full-out war in the Gaza Strip, and of course good people are fretting over both. But neither the debate over the economic stimulus nor the need for a cease fire in the Middle East is the No. 1 preoccupation in town.

At the moment Washington is not about politics with a capital P but rather a form of office politics, the central question being how far away your personal planet is from the center of the solar system--a.k.a. the president. This distance determines not just your career but also your social life, where your kids go to school, and soon, I'm sure, which rescue league your dog comes from. 

All this is to say that whether you're a Bush person or an Obama person, what you're most likely thinking about right now is how best to position yourself. After all, what Republican wants to be the one to turn out the lights as the Bushes decamp for Texas? And what Democrat wants to be left behind at the non-profit that's been a holding tank for the past eight years when there's an actual country to run instead of merely to theorize about? The anxiety is so high among some of these government wannabees that they need a stunt double* to perform the extreme and, in a few cases, extremely embarrassing, maneuvers they're trying to secure a job in the new administration. There's also a secondary mania over snagging a ticket (or two, because who really wants to go alone?) to the inauguration itself. 

Our family is so outside the outer loop of the Beltway that we're just thinking about the same things we always dwell on: what garbage bag, doll's head, potpourri pouch, Star Wars Lego has Mavis chewed up and has she peed and/or pooped in Sam or Julia's room or simply thrown up?

Still, we're all excited about January 20th, when we may get to see the 44th president sworn-in on a Jumbo-tron somewhere down on the Mall--or, more likely, on a little TV in the warmth of the Five Guys Burgers and Fries at DuPont Circle if walking to the Mall turns out to be more Sissyphean than pleasurable. (The we here means my sister, Betsy, not Ralph, who's working.)

But come Inauguration Night, hey, we're (Betsy and me again) grabbing the sequined ring and going to a ball! It's being thrown by a friend of ours, and we're dressing up to go spend an evening in high heels with our closest buddies. It might not be celebrity-studded, but it will definitely be fun. 

"It's a lesser ball," I've told those who're interested. "Truthfully," I say, "it's probably your least ball." At least that's what I thought until I was set straight today by a friend, who explained that a ball is an official event, meaning that's it's being hosted by Barack Obama or Joe Biden, while a gala is an unofficial one. 

"In that case, I guess that makes my event a gala," I said. "

"Your event is nothing," she answered.

I'm not sure, but I think what she was saying was that if I were a planet, I'd be Pluto. And yes, I think she knows that Pluto has been demoted.

*My niece recently told Sam and Julia that actors use stunt doubles for kissing in movies because, you know, they might otherwise get germs--or they might already be married.

Revenge--Even Hypothetical--Is the Best Medicine

Even though the bra-burning part of the 1960s turns out to be a myth, suffice it to say that the modern women's movement happened a long time ago, long enough, it seemed to me yesterday, that I was surprised to be treated like a woman who didn't know a nut from a bolt when I dropped off my car at the VW dealership for its 30,000-mile check-up. I shouldn't have been particularly surprised because ours is still a sexist society, starting with the way journalists sometimes wrote about Hillary Clinton during her campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee. I mean would Mr. Hillary Clinton ever have been described in newspapers as "shrill"?

The car experience was still galling me today when I went to the doctor for my 30,000-mile check-up. Why I told my GP that in Ralph's absence Sam carried my purse onto the plane when we flew to Atlanta for the holidays to free up my arms for Julia and two carry-ons, I'm not sure. But he easily topped my story by revealing that he was 1 of 20 kids in his family and that his 5' 3" mother, who was just as formidable as she was short, called each of her 13 boys "HITs," or husbands in training. She insisted that each one learn to cook, iron, and sew. On top of that, his seven older sisters trained their baby bro to buy their tampons, right down to the embarrassing price check screamed from the back of the store to the front. It made me realize that I have a lot of fundamentals to teach Sam before he gets sucked into some kind of macho force field. (After all, at six, he still kisses his mama goodbye in public.) 

But more than that, my doc inadvertently gave me just the right salve for my anger. I can take the car somewhere else for repairs, of course, but it won't ever satisfy me as much as imagining my Martens' VW man standing in line at the CVS with an armload of tampons, waiting for a price check.

Ring in the Old

As usual, the start of the new year was accompanied by a look back, including an entertaining interview with the Bush twins in People, on Malia and Sasha Obama. But one wrap-up that utterly baffled me was the In/Out List published last week by the Washington Post. It's not only that I hadn't heard of most of the things on the "in" list, I was also clueless about most of the "out" list, proving that I'm not just out, I'm out in the standing room section of the upper bleachers. I mean "LOLcats"? "Competitive cup-stacking"? "Gourmet Toast"? "Emphasizing. Things. With. Periods."? Please. The bafflement goes on. And on.

Just when I thought I hadn't been invited to the party at all, along came the ultra-hip SundayStyles section of the New York Times, which made me feel at least somewhat vindicated. For while the Post had declared absinthe--that sickly green liquid that made everyone in Toulouse-Lautrec's day feel so sickly green--soooo last year, the Times had a front-page story on its current popularity:

There are a number of bars in New York City these days that make cocktails with absinthe, mixing it with rum or tequila or gin to, um, complement the taste. A significant portion of them are on the Lower East Side and are the kind of bars that don't have a sign or a listed phone number...

I am declaring a moratorium on in/out lists. It's not just because of my incredible investigative work revealing a Styles war. It's because I'm fatigued by the idea that everything is disposable. It's definitely a lesson that Ralph and I are trying to un-teach Sam and Julia, who, up to now, have had the same toys bought and re-bought for them. And I think we're not alone. Most people I know aren't just thinking three times before spending money, they're also thinking a time or two before throwing anything away that could possibly prove to be useful later on. This includes good ideas. And it extends to the loaf of bread on the top of the fridge, gourmet or not. (Check out the food Web site Loulies, which recently had a post on not wasting food.) 

Recycling extends to fashion, too. The same SundayStyles section, in fact, had a photo feature on pulling one's vintage designer wear out of mothballs. While I don't have a Balenciaga coat hanging in the back of my closet or anything else designer save Isaac Mizrahi for Target, I did rummage through to find a J.Crew cardigan I bought 10 years ago. (Okay, not everything weathers well.)

Along with in/out lists, I'm also putting new year's resolutions on ice. While I'm all for striving to be better, I've come to think that most resolutions aren't so new as they are another example of recycling from last year--or last decade. Lose weight. Check. Get more exercise. Check. Spend more time with the kids. Check. It's just a compilation of all the things that make us feel less than good about ourselves--or even downright guilty. 

Last night when I was flipping through the January issue of Real Simple, I came across a resolution that I could actually buy into. It's "controlling the controllables." And, while they didn't come out and say it, I will: Try not to worry--or feel guilty--about the rest.