5:00 Fridays

I am an ENFJ.

The J is for judging, which does not mean judgmental, though I admittedly am. That's only because I feel like I have pretty good judgment, of course. J girls are planners. Make that Planners...with a capital P. I bet you anything that my friend Christy is a J. She's already got her vacations planned through 2019, and I know she's packed for her Disney trip...in November. J people are into multiple Big Os. Alright folks, minds out o' the gutter. The Big Os are Order and Organization. Duh! Anyone who knows me should know that. Nothing is more of a turn on. Wa wa wa, as Chachi would say. People like me like to have things planned and settled.

Um yeah, that's why Mac Daddy and I just planned a beach getaway this morning. We leave tomorrow. As in the DAY AFTER TODAY. That's order and organization for ya. The epitome of planning.

Note that pre-kids we traveled with no hotel reservations. We would literally land and head to a hotel that looked cool. This was a bad idea when we were traveling in New England when I was six months pregnant with Bird. We literally found a room in the third state we stopped in, and for that we still love Maine. Talk about no room at the inn. Who says Mary and I have nothing in common?

So yeah, now I need to pack for the beach for three people (Mac Daddy's on his own, dude), and the laundry is still in the basket. The dirty clothes basket. And it's almost 6:00 PM. Did I also mention that I've held out on buying a new bathing suit so I'm heading out after dinner to look for one? I dragged Bird along today to do some swimwear shopping, under the guise of a big, high fashion solo adventure with Mommy, but all we found were suits large enough to use as a tarp. Bird can't even count as high as some of the sizes we saw hanging on the racks today. I cannot imagine the size of the boobs that jostle in the suits we saw today. Ouch.

In honor of our beach trip, I present to you, the Sandy Beach.

Get yourself a Collins glass, one of those tall skinny ones. Fill with ice, but no too much. No sense diluting the rum as it melts. Now add the following and stir.

2 oz. coconut rum (I'm partial to Malibu because it reminds me of some crazy fun times with my friend Jen in grad school.)
1 splash Grenadine
Fill the rest of the glass halfway with OJ (pulp free, but go for the calcium enriched to make this a healthy option)
Fill the rest of the way with Pineapple Juice (Can someone tell me why this only comes in a can?)
Garnish with a slice of lime (You all know by now the importance of garnish. Consider it mascara for your cocktail. Everyone looks better with it.)

Add a fancy umbrella, put on your hottest non-mom bikini, turn on the Don Ho, light a tiki torch, nestle your red toes (natch) in the sandbox, and drink up!

Cheers! See you next week...if I decide to come back...

Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places. For Heterosexuals Only.

There are some lovely places in South Carolina. I even know some lovely people from there. Mac Daddy and I have spent lots of time in Charleston and Myrtle Beach and had a grand time. I've been golfing in Hilton Head. I've spent lots of money at the outlets. The palmettos are splendid, the Battery architecture divine, and the food scrumptious.

It's the people who leave a bad taste in my mouth. Rather, the politicians. And the "family values" lobbyists.

Apparently South Carolina does not want gay tourists. Their money is like Monopoly money, I guess. Apparently discrimination and intolerance are woven into the state creed. Read all about it here.

Why are family friendly and gay friendly still mutually exclusive? Bird has a friend with two moms. They're a family and gay. And for the record, they are awesome parents and amazing women. I'm lucky to count them among my friends. Bird thinks it's cool that his buddy gets to have two mommies. I think it's a fine lesson at an early age. It's not like they're telling their son to not play with Bird because his parents are heterosexual. Gasp!

I've worked in marketing for over 16 years. I've worked in the tourism industry and even worked with the gay market segment for a fortune 100 worldwide financial services company. My desk has been covered in tourism research, budget proposals, signed estimates, and invoices. There is always someone on the client side approving the work and writing the check. Like any job, there is a checks and balances system to ensure the direction and delivery of the work is appropriate, on target, on budget, on time, and um, what the client wants. Yeah, I'd add what the consumer wants too (it's the most important element, actually!), but unfortunately, clients rarely care about that. I love how this whole campaign got through the system with none of the powers that be knowing about it. Sounds like South Carolina has some infrastructure issues to iron out.

And here's my favorite part from a high school principal who'd rather quit his job than approve a gay/straight alliance club at his school:
“Our sex education curriculum is abstinence based,” Walker wrote in a letter to the school. “I feel the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance Club at Irmo High School implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes.”

Can someplace explain this sex ed math to me? How does being gay equal having sex? Somehow all those straight kids aren't thinking about the birds and the bees? Are only gay people having sex? How exactly do we explain those 9100 teen pregnancies in South Carolina last year to girls ages 10 to 19?! No, you don't need reading glasses from the Walgreens aisles; it says 10. As in FIVE YEARS OLDER THAN MY SON! And isn't the word "straight" inherently setting up the the opposite to have a negative connotation?

Hmmm...seems to me that South Carolina has bigger fish to fry than gay people eating off the same forks and sitting in the same horse drawn carriages as the rest of us? Do you suppose restaurants have a separate set of dishes for brown people? Where does it stop? For that matter, where does it begin? What makes this attitude and blatant intolerance OK? What really irks me is that this mentality is not leaking its way into the next generation, it's being poured into their minds. Nevermind that South Carolina has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country. What are we going to do about it? Knock, knock. Does anyone care?

And we wonder why sterotypes are not so far from the truth.

Look, I'm brown. Don't think for a minute that I'd stop and ask for directions at a podunk gas station in South Carolina. I've gotten "the look" at boutiques on King Street, and that's with a Fendi bag on my arm (no doubt the lousy retail shop girls making all of $6.14 an hour thought was a fake). My point is that ignorance ignites racism. Stereotypes go both ways. Perhaps my vitriol isn't helping matters, but damn it, I'm mad. After all, South Carolina still sells t-shirts that say something about "the War of Northern Aggression." The rebel flag flies high. Seriously, get over it. There's another war going on right now folks, that's not just in any way.

I'd like to see the looks on the jowled faces of Oran Smith and David Thomas once the Wiccans show up toting cauldrons, chalices, wands, and incense. Wouldn't it be delightful to hold a Wiccan esbat to celebrate the next full moon in Columbia?

Perhaps secession was not such a bad idea. What do we do with the incorrigible state to my south? Apparently it doesn't want to play by the rules.

My Mom the Democrat

Liz, of Mom 101, Cool Mom Picks, and Momcrats fame, wrote this article that I just read in my new issue of Brain, Child. I actually laid in bed with Casey, my shaved Persian cat, purring upon my chest, while I read the whole magazine. Cover to cover. Ads and all. This story, for obvious reasons, was my fave. 

Mom-101: My Daughter the Democrat

I knew I liked Liz even before I found out she's my buddy's buddy. Yeah, that's what you call some bloggy sucking up. Only I mean it. No brownie points to be had here, but brownies would be nice. 

My mom is a die-hard Democrat.  You'd know that about her in the first, um, .002 nanoseconds of meeting her. When she met Bill Clinton at a book signing she called me in a tizzy telling me she'd never wash her right hand again. After his antics during the primaries, she scrubbed her hand with Lysol. My mom can't drive or swim or ride a bike, but she can manage to get herself wherever she needs to go to cast her vote. Nothing lost on her American citizenship. My mom definitely has a dossier on file with the Department of Homeland Security. Her phone must be tapped, unless she's on a party line with a tap dancer or a cow that types clickety clacking all the while we talk. 

My mom is the original Obama Mama. Check her out here. She's the one in the middle with her signature ginormous earrings about to signal lift off and even bigger purse. And note that the woman is always high fashion. She's the one who walked into my house when Bird was 8 days old and proclaimed that I needed to wear mascara every day to make myself feel better. This was, of course, a ruse just so she could stand to look at me. Nevermind that I had a newborn who couldn't breastfeed and a house under construction while she had a mom, sister, and a nanny when I was an infant. Do I sound bitter? Nah. Maybe just a tad. Until I saw this photo of my mom I had never seen her in a T-shirt. Ever.

And damn, I am so proud of her. 

Teaching your kids about political values is no different than teaching them about the values and morals you believe in general. In my case, the blue apple didn't fall far from the tree. If everything goes my way, neither Bird nor Deal will come home from college as Alex P. Keaton.

I'm meeting with the NC head of the Obama campaign tomorrow and taking Bird with me. When I kissed him good night I told him about the meeting and said that he's going to wear his Yes We Can! shirt.  Sleepy eyed and nestled under the covers, he stuck out his little hand and gave me a thumbs up and an incredulous grin. 

That's my boy.