For Real This Time

And now, for her next amaaaaazing feat... MACY WALKS, REALLY FOR REAL THIS TIME!

Imagine my surprise when I looked up from dinner preparations to see my daughter ACTUALLY WALKING toward me, unassisted and uncoaxed. Just walking down the hallway as if she'd been doing it (albeit with a distinct Frankenzombie gait) all her life.

It's official. Macy walks.

Macy Walks

Macy took her first steps, unassisted, this weekend--after a lot of practice aided by her walk-behind Pooh. Here's a little video demonstrating her mad (Pooh-assisted) skillz.

The cinematographer (oh yeah, that's me) would also like to apologize to Arlo for being a little testy and impatient with his attempts to get into the shot. Watching it now, several days after the fact, I can see that he was just in need of some attention. My irritation probably came from a dusty old place deep within the subconscious of a second child whose older sister was always hamming it up in the foreground. I'm just sayin.'

It's Only a Cut 'n Color (But I Like It)

Forgive the washed out cameraphone photo (which, incidentally, I find oddly flattering), but here's the new me.

Yesterday I went to Blaze Color Salon and got this layered 'do and a new hue, a lil' sumpfin to jazz up a tired old mama.

Ted (at least so far) is not a fan. I, however, rather like it. It's like I took the cream out of the coffee, you know? And then added a shot of Kahlua.

Urban nature adventure

Yesterday when I was driving back to work from my lunch break, something caught my eye off to the left of the car. I turned to look, and was amazed to see a red-tailed hawk flying along beside me. Right in the middle of town, on a well-traveled and thoroughly mundane residential road! Seriously, if my window had been open, I could reached out and touched his wing.

Completely enthralled, I continued down the road as this huge bird tracked along the road next to me. Because the hawk and I were traveling at roughly the same speed (probably around 15 m.p.h. by the time I slowed to watch him), it was almost as if he was flying in place, and I could really watch his powerful wings beating the air just outside my driver's-side window.

We traveled in tandem for just about fifteen seconds before the hawk zoomed ahead of me, headed for a tree in the parkway on the left side of the street--and then I saw what he was headed for. A squirrel was poised on the trunk of the tree, flicking its tail, seemingly oblivious to the predator closing in.

Thwack! The hawk made his move, but didn't quite manage to grasp the squirrel in his great talons. The squirrel jumped about three feet (I assume in mighty terror and surprise) straight out from the tree trunk before dropping to the ground and bounding away, and the hawk noiselessly drifted across the roadway ahead of me and swooped up to light on a telephone pole just off to my right. I half expected the hawk to turn his head and start licking himself, the way my cats do when they've pounced on something and not successfully captured it.

I've been so consumed with my To Do lists and activities and worries and tasks lately, it was a treat to connect with nature in such a visceral and unexpected way. It was a much-needed spiritual refresher, and a healthy reminder to appreciate the simple, real things in life--like hunger, and the narrow escape.

Not Photoshopped

McCain in 3rd Presidential Debate
Originally uploaded by stevegarfield

An actual moment in last night's televised debate. Purely for comic relief. And just to prove that I am a Fair and Balanced (har) blogger, I'll give a New Pi Co-op vegan cinnamon roll (trust me, it's currency) to anyone who can find an equally funny and unflattering Obama moment from last night's big show.

P.S. I am laughing so hard.

Boo! (Sigh.)

Some of you know how it has vexed me this year that, upon entering the kitchen door at my mom and dad's house, I have been greeted by George W. Bush's face, smirking at me from atop my parents' 2008 GOP calendar. Sigh.

I guess it's appropriate that Dick Cheney's visage greeted me on this October visit to Mom and Dad's... because what could be more scary than that? It was all I could do to refrain from shrieking with horror.

I love my mom and dad, and they are smart, goodhearted, hardworking people. That's why their political zeal for the right wing is so frustrating and perplexing to me. They (ahem) religiously defend the Right, even while these monsters stand on their backs and piss on their heads... along with a really big percentage of their fellow working-class, well-meaning American peers.

This is not a political blog. It's a personal blog. But this year, politics is personal. Because I love my parents, I feel it is my responsibility to spur on two or more of my fence-sitting or left-leaning pals to VOTE FOR OBAMA and to VOTE NOW. (Why two or more? To cancel out or exceed my parents' votes, which will surely be for the McCain/Palin ticket.)

All of our lives will be better with Obama as president--even the lives of those (like my mom and dad) who fiercely oppose him.

There is no 'r' in Washington.

I just can't stomach the notion of having a president who pronounces Washington as "Warshington." If I was on the fence politically at this point (though I'm definitely not), I'd rule out McCain for this reason alone.

Brother, can you spare $1,080.85?

I just opened the bill today from Arlo's trip to the emergency room last month. The grand total for three tiny stitches to the surface of a four-year-old's furrowed brow comes to $1,080.85.

Yes, that was one THOUSAND and some-odd dollars and cents. We are fortunate enough to have decent insurance, so we will only pay a small fraction of that total--but still. I can't believe that such a simple (though well done) procedure could cost ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Can you imagine what it must be like to get that ER bill when you don't have medical insurance?

Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Americans have lost their health insurance benefits (whether due to loss of employment, soaring costs, pre-existing conditions, or a host of other arbitrary reasons) over the past 8 years of the Bush administration, and the economic conditions for the middle- and lower-class continues to worsen even as medical costs skyrocket. This is just one small--but compelling--reason that I'm voting (er, voted, as my absentee ballot went in last week) for Barack Obama. The Obama-Biden plan promises to reduce the cost of insurance for ordinary Americans, and to make it more accessible for a wider number of people. And it will require that all children have health insurance coverage--so that no parent has to decide between emergency medical care and their own financial ruin, and no child will have to bear a scar on his face because his parents could not afford to take him to get stitches.