Snookums Passes the Audition

Snookums had an audition yesterday at Babytalk magazine, and today the modeling agency called to tell me she'd gotten the job! Pretty amazing considering she's only been on three auditions since I registered her with the agency a few months ago: Baby Gap, T.J. Maxx and now Babytalk. 

Tomorrow we'll have to get up at the crack of dawn to head into Manhattan. The shoot is in Central Park and the agency said Snookums will even get a trailer to hang out in! Call me a stage mother, but I just hope her modeling career takes off so her father can quit his job from hell and become her manager. 

Cacophony of Talking Toys

"Green triangle!" declares the turtle before launching into the first verse of "Camptown Races." 

"Hel-LO!" shouts the telephone. "It's for YOU!" 

"Wanna play?" asks the cell phone. 

"Red circle!" replies the turtle, and begins belting out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." 

"A is for apple," whispers the table. "B is for baby." 

"Mary had a little lamb..." chants the turtle. 

"The buttons on the phone go beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep," announces the telephone, to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus." 

"Let's count!" says the turtle. "One, two..." 

"...the buttons on the phone go beep beep beep," continues the telephone, "when you call your friends!" 

"I am Edison Wise Wings," announces the eagle. "Remember my children. Be grateful for what you have." 

Random Observations

• Sometimes when Snookums is nursing she rolls her eyes back in her head like a heroin addict. She slaps at my breast like a junkie trying to find a vein. 

• When Republicans talk about "energizing the base," it's not just a noun. It's an adjective. 

• McCain's losing formula: AGE + RACE = RAGE 

• Obama's winning formula: RACE - AGE = ACE 

New President Commits #1 Most Annoying Grammar Mistake!

I watched Obama's first press conference the other night. And while it was wonderful to once again see someone with a brain up there at the podium answering journalists' questions, things took a turn for the worse when Obama described his meeting with President Bush. 

"President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to visit him and Laura. . . " 

No, dammit, he invited Michelle "and me." Me, me, me, me, me! 

Welcome to My Brain

Hello there! Come right in. I know it's a bit cluttered in here. I hope you don't mind. Just push some of those papers out of the way and pull up a  chair. Fix yourself something to eat if you feel like it, while I think out loud here for a few minutes. 

Let's se. Where was I? Trying to pick a blog topic. The possibilities: 

-Obama's Victory. Could call it "Oh! Bama!" Of course, like the other 52 percent of the electorate, I'm elated, and -- like our next First Lady -- for the first time I'm proud of our country. Especially since I was so afraid of a last-minute Republican surge that I personally called 50 strangers in Indiana and Nevada the night before the election to BEG them to vote for change. 

Naaaa --- too obvious. Everyone's talking about our new, black president. Booooring! Need to find a different angle. 

Wait, what's that? That New Yorker article about psychopaths that I need to finish. OK, later, later. Concentrate...

-The Eighties are Back. About the aerobics class I went to the other day, and how cardio is the new aerobics. It's like the eighties again, but with a twist. The instructor was wearing a sweatband and we boogied to revved-up Janet Jackson tunes. Could end with the point that, just like 20 years ago, the most important man in the world is African-American (then: Michael Jackson. Today: Barack Obama). Could illustrate with a photo of Jennifer Beals from Flashdance. 

I hear my daughter's voice downstairs. I wish I could be with her instead of upstairs in front of this computer. Maybe I should look at the want ads for a while, get  a different job. Hmm... research chief at a travel magazine. Must have eight years' experience and speak fluent Spanish. Who are they kidding? Anyway, it's yes to the second, no to the first. Wonder if I have a shot... 

OK, Joan, OK! Back to work! 

What am I going to eat for dinner tonight? Rice and beans again? Dumplings from Panda Express for the third time this week? Maybe just  a few handfuls of granola straight from the box. It's so hard to cook anything with Snookums crawling all over the kitchen like a a potato bug. I need a new diet. Better yet, I need a chef who will prepare tasteful yet healthful meal made of organic ingredients, preferably vegetarian. 

Maybe I should buy that vegetarian cookbook by Mark Bittman, for inspiration. 

I can't believe my editor complained that my description of the leadership seminar was "too laundry-listy." Now she wants me to come up with another way of saying leadership has to be earned. Leadership is a two-way street? Leadership is as much bottom-up as top-down? Will non-native English speakers even understand this? Because it sounds kinda kinky if you ask me. 

Obama won! I almost can't believe it. The politics of hope beat the politics of fear. I wonder what my father would say if he were alive. 

The best response came from Maya, the eight-year-old daugher of my friend Jeanne in Chicago. When Jeanne told her daughter that for the first time, someone of African ancestry had been elected president, Maya said, "But we all have African ancestry." 

Amen, sister. 

Vote for Whitey

I've been volunteering for the Obama campaign, and while making calls from home tonight, I spoke to my first out-and-out racist: a 79-year-old man in Indiana who, when I announced myself as an Obama volunteer, started calling him a "nigger" and a "black bastard" and going on about how "blacks have destroyed this country." 

I hate the old "what about Hitler?" ploy, but I figured it was a pretty safe bet that this guy didn't admire Hitler, so I asked him if he would conclude that white people were bad based on the record of Hitler, a white man. He started using profanity and accusing me of being "rude" because I was from New Jersey. I knew it was a waste of time talking with him, but I was actually finding the whole thing pretty amusing, so I pointed out that I hadn't used any profanity or racial epithets with him, and here he was using them with me while accusing me of being rude based on what state I was from. 

He apologized, but the next thing I knew he was calling me a "nigger lover." 

"Do you live with a nigger? Do you live with a nigger?" he demanded. 

I refused to answer the question and asked him if he was planning to vote tomorrow and who he was going to vote for. (I wouldn't have bothered except that I was working from a script that wanted me to get answers to these questions.) He shouted, "I don't have to tell you that!" so I said, "Well, I'm going to put you down as voting for McCain -- the white candidate." Then I smiled and hung up. 

First Halloween

Snookums had her first Halloween the other day. She dressed up as a bumblebee (actually, I did it for her) and went to her father's office for a party for the families. I wore her in the Bjorn and tried to pretend my back wasn't hurting while I ate grilled cheese and cupcakes and other food I wouldn't let Snookums eat. Thank goodness she's not old enough to notice the hypocrisy. 

On Friday we gave out candy to trick-or-treaters. I'd bought peanut M&Ms, Jolly Ranchers, and Hershey's Kisses (dark chocolate). I ate most of the M&Ms myself and gave away nearly all the Jolly Ranchers. (One fat little girl who came to the door said, "I love Jolly Ranchers!" and took enough for three.) This year, the kids all had costumes -- not like what happened when I first moved to this neighborhood and the only kids who rang the bell were too old, and not wearing costumes. I remember asking one kid where his costume was. "It's in my backpack," he lied. "Well, go home and put it on and come back and I'll give you some candy," I replied.