Wordless Wednesday: Brothers

Boys Like Pink Too

Do you see what I'm doing in the photo up there? I'm playing the role of Al Bundy, helping my son Deal put on some red glitter Dorothyesque dress up shoes. He was 2. It was his birthday party at a children's museum. Stop the judging. Pull up your jaw. Roll your eyes back into your head. Take a breath. He was 2, people. 2.

And you know what? Deal is 3 now, and his favorite color is pink.

Mac Daddy and I don't care. His favorite color will change 10 times before he hits grade school. Bird's favorite color changes almost daily or every time he grabs a new crayon from the Crayola box of 64. And if Deal is 54 and still loves pink, I don't care. In fact, Mac Daddy can rock a pink shirt. Hubba. Hubba.

My point is this: Shut up about my son's sexuality. He's a preschooler for cripe's sake. Really, should we be talking about sexuality at this tender age? I bet you wouldn't want me waxing about your 3-year old daughter's sexuality. Sounds dirty, right? Because it is! You are twisted people. Deal is not to be taunted, judged, or otherwise mocked. Deal is quite simply the sweetest child you will ever come to know. There isn't enough room in cyberspace to list the many ways he shows his utter sweet demeanor. And yes, I write this from the frustration stemming from multiple comments at school.

The fathers in preschool who guffaw at Deal's little "all about me" sheet that lists pink as his favorite color should take a good look in the mirror. You're deriding a child, assholes. Ditto to the moms who look in horror when Deal trapses around in those red glittery shoes at the children's museum. Some have even been brazen enough to flat out ask me if I'm okay with that. Gee, are you okay with your son's snot ridden hair and satanic laugh as he sticks his hand down his pants and then sucks his fingers, lady? Shut the hell up! Then those queen bee moms retreat to their little friends and whisper and point. Yeah, high school clearly is alive and well. The difference now is that I'm not the one being taunted. Don't fuck with me when it comes to my sons.

Do these same mothers and fathers denigrate little girls when they dress up in scrubs or a firefigher helmet? Do they sneer when girls like blue or green or other such colors we tag as masculine? And why do gender roles need to be so clearly defined? Does society tell us that girls cannot be assertive and boys cannot be sensitive? Au contraire, mes amis! Bird asked Santa for two dolls for Christmas when he was 2. He also had a pink toy stroller. He stuffed it full of super hero figurines and raced it around the house. Deal is rough and tumble and can wallop the heck out of a pitched baseball. Both of my sons cause a ruckus with their wrestling, sword fighting, and car racing. Well, that's the stuff they do with Mac Daddy. They are plenty happy coloring with me or doing a craft project or rocking out to Aerosmith for Dance Party USA.

I don't really give a damn what my boys become, as long as they are kind, genuine, productive, and smart contributors to society. I hope they have a good sense of humor and their dad's easy going nature too. I would be so ashamed if my sons grow up to be like those dads in preschool.

Deal loved those glittery shoes so much that he picked them out to give to his buddy Sarah for her birthday.

Children = Entropy

This is why I don't have more than 2 kids. This is how my living room looked after 2 five year olds and 2 three year olds took over and held me hostage in the bathroom. They could have at least banished me to the kitchen where there was wine.

My friend Caroline posted on Facebook about how her kids schemed every night about ways to wreck her clean house. A commenter left a remark that children equal entropy. I failed physics and pretty much every science class I ever took (I am really the only Indian in the whole world who is bad at math and science.) so I looked up the definition. Entropy: a measure of the disorder of a system. Systems tend to go from a state of order (low entropy) to a state of maximum disorder (high entropy). Mac Daddy and I = low entropy. Add children to the equation, FOUR of them, and you clearly have high entropy. They can't help it; it's a physical law just like gravity.

Oh hell, let's be honest, it doesn't take four kids to wreak such havoc. One can do that in a matter of seconds with the right super hero powers at play.

5:00 Fridays

Mac Daddy and I just enjoyed a much need and llloooonnngggg overdue date night. Yeah, we're so hip we go out in the middle of the week. Just like the clubbers in New York City who store shoes in their ovens instead of actually eating in. Or you might say our sitter was booked all weekend so we begged and pleaded to steal some of her time on a Thursday.

In any case, we enjoyed each other's company despite a seriously underwhelming dinner with mediocre service, strip mall atmosphere (granted, like everything else in Raleigh, it was in a dang strip mall), and blue hair patrons galore. I'm sure this establishment will be perfectamundo one day when we take out our dentures to slurp up the undercooked sweet potato cakes. On the bright side, I did have a near perfect dirty martini with Ketel One vodka and bleu cheese stuffed olives.

Had we been actually enjoying the restaurant we would have stayed for dessert. Something did, however, catch my eye that I just had to share with you (Apparently this joint would be a better bar that restaurant since its cocktails are superior to its food.).

Pineapple Upside Down Martini

1 shot rum (not the spiced stuff; go for light rum here)
2 ounces pineapple juice
1 shot Bailey's
1 shot butterscotch schnapps (also divine on vanilla ice cream as a grown up sundae treat)

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake it up a la Ric Ocasek. Pour into a chilled martini glass (I swear, we need an extra fridge just to have enough room to chill glasses to test all these cocktails.). Garnish with a wedge of pineapple (fresh, not the canned Dole variety). Dole has been voted off the island, remember?

Turn on some Jack Johnson and enjoy your upside down ride!

PS
Feel free to replace Jack with Diana.

Grease is the Word

The highlight of our summer trip to LA? Seeing the real deal Grease Lightning live, in person at the Peterson Automotive Museum. That's me and Bird in the photo (nevermind that my arm looks fat and mushy). He was pretty pumped to see it too but he melted down when I told he couldn't sit in it. Seriously, I practically hyperventilated and broke into song and dance when I spotted this vehicular treasure, much to my cool LA brother's dismay. I know all the moves. I committed them to memory years ago. Now I'm teaching them to Bird and Deal. Mac Daddy thinks I'm prediposing them to get the snot kicked out of them on the playground with such shenanigans. I say, Dude, Grease is the word.

I have written before about my embarrassingly bad taste in music.Where there is crappy music there are crappy movies. No brainer, right?

I am a sucker for girly movies. I secretly love when Mac Daddy has poker night so I can watch chick flicks without enduring his sneering and snickering (as he is known to do during my Gossip Girl guilty pleasure). Some of my best girlfriend time is with my pal Christy when we hang out in our pajamas and watch girly movies, wine in hand, chocolate within reach.

Here are some of my favorites. And note that the heady stuff like Schindler's List ain't making this list. This is pure cheese.

Grease - What girl who grew up in the 70s doesn't love this movie? Heck, what girl doesn't love this movie, period?! I had the trading cards, album, and even have my own Pink Lady jacket. really. I just wore it for Halloween last year. Grease kicks High School Musical's scrawny overly computer produced ass.

13 Going on 30 - Come on, so cute! I never watched Alias and thought Jennider Garner was a bit manly, but this movie made me love her.

Princess Diaries - We watched this and its sequel on a girls weekend. We were in our pajamas all day with a stack of Us Weekly magazines spread among us, chips and salsa within reach, Diet Coke by our side, and giddy, giddy girliness all around.

The Sweetest Thing - Oh, this movie almost made me long to be single again. Then I remembered I never had abs like Cameron Diaz or lived in a sweet apartment in San Franciso or looked as hot as Christina Applegate in a white shirt and pencil skirt so I quickly shed that envy. The penis song alone is worth watching this movie. Really. Funny. Stuff. Dang, now it's stuck in my head. The song, folks. The song.

27 Dresses - Worth watching just for the hot reporter guy.

Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful - Oh, the 80s. I was about 16 when these movies were out. I still love 'em 25 years later. Great soundtracks. Even people with good taste in music would say so.

Sex and the City - Clearly the year's best girlfriend flick. Seizure enducing handbag and shoe envy.

Mean Girls, Heathers - Wow could I relate to those movies. I was a four foot tall, 80 pound, smart girl runt. One guess where I fell in the popularity spectrum.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - I love Gossip Girl and Ugly Betty. Of course I dig this movie! And hell yes I'll be watching the sequel.

So tell me, what bad movies are lurking in your DVD collection? It's OK to fess up. You're in the cone of safety here, folks.

Streppers in the House

The boys are sick today. Double case of strep throat. It was mighty pleasant dealing with two throat swabs this morning. Yup, nothing better than pinning down your kid and prying his mouth open long enough to allow the nurse to get a reasonable swab without getting bitten. Took three tries, lots of tears, some screaming, gasping, kicking, pinching, and promises of ice cream. Mind you that I was the object of said kicking and pinching, not the inflictor.

Both kids are pumped up with drugs, tomato soup, and watered down mango juice now. Popsicles will be awaiting when they wake from their much needed slumber.

They are unusually somber today. I must admit, it's kind of a nice break. They are mellow and cuddly, not whiny and mopey. We have enjoyed the day snuggling with books and listening to tunes from my childhood, Free to Be You and Me. Bird is especially snuggly, which is something I see him outgrowing bit by bit each day, and it breaks my heart. Deal is a lap dog by nature while Bird has the constitution of a cat. We'll watch some TV cozied up under a down throw this afternoon. Maybe I'll go all June Cleaver on you and bake chocolate chip cookies.

In the mean time, it's a shame the boys are sick. But it is indeed nice to have some quiet time together. I have a sinking feeling that the rambunctious kids I know will be back in rare form all too soon. Quick, put away the lamps! (We've had a rash of broken lamps at our house. Add those to the Christmas list.)

PS
Be glad I posted the artful photo of the streptococcus bacteria. You might mistake it for abstract art even. If I had posted photos of the boys' throats you would have been left gagging. I spared you, dear readers. Then again, it could have been a great diet/appetite suppressant.

5:00 Fridays

Did you hear the news? This great nation of ours has turned B-L-U-E!!! Best of all, this red state of mine has voted BLUE for the first time in a generation; the last Democratic president elected in North Carolina was Jimmy Carter. Barack Obama has redefined what it means to have a case of the blues.

You might say that we live in a Blue Heaven right now.

And so today's cocktail is a toast, a cheer, a tip of my hat to the man, the President-Elect, Barack Hussein Obama.

Blue Heaven

1 shot of good quality vodka (I'm still using the organic Rain brand left over from a party.)
1/2 ounce of freshly squeezed lemon juice (No phony stuff tolerated here!)
1/2 ounce of blue curacao

Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake, strain, pour into a tall, skinny glass with a few ice cubes. I recommend some star shaped ice just for kicks. Garnish with a couple blueberries and a lemon twist.

Cheers, to my fellow Americans and world citizens who are jubilant at this change of tide!