It’s the first day of summer! I have two items for your enjoyment today – keeping it short and sweet.
1. Read David Sedaris’ commencement speech at Princeton, courtesy of the New Yorker. (v. funny)
2. Check out the Office’s song, “Wound Up,” at iTunes. It was the free song of the week a couple weeks back, but still well worth $.99, in my opinion. “Let’s go to the beach tonight, with a bottle of wine …..”
See you tomorrow …..
Over the weekend, I read a Newsweek magazine snippet about the new book Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, by Linda Hirshman. (by the way, Amazon is offering a special deal if you buy the book along with Mommy Wars – marketing genius!) After scanning the editorial reviews at Amazon, my quick thoughts are: 1/ She’s likely right that women take on too much of the household work, and therefore, it is much harder to balance child care, housework and a fulfilling job. 2/ I’m not sure how you fix #1.
Yes, in an ideal world, the housework and the child care responsibilities would be evenly split – both parents would depart (with a smile) for exciting jobs each morning, and there would be no second-guessing of such decisions. But who are we kidding? Yesterday, I spent at least an hour on the phone following up on various household needs, and those phone calls resulted in two at-home appointments later this week. In addition, how does one leave a high-paying job (and I say high-paying because the assertion is that these women are well-qualified workers who are passing up great opportunities by staying at home) at 2pm in order to drive to soccer practice twice a week? and what about business travel, or typical “fulfilling work” business hours? (and as an aside, what becomes of the local school once the army of volunteers drops off because they’re all working?)
I realize that such a critique is unfair, having not read the book, but like the mommy wars themselves, I see no solution in the near future. Your thoughts?
My procrastinator’s list just got one (small) item shorter. Yesterday, on a rainy Father’s Day, we went to Winfield, IL, home of Planter’s Palette. Kind of a hike for us, but the plant selection is outstanding, and we’ve had great luck with all of our purchases over the years. Our front porch was looking like November – all blah, no signs of life – but now we have two lovely pots of cherry-bomb-red geraniums. Also picked up a hydrangea, a peony (for 10 days of splendor in June 2007), and a couple other perennials. Father’s Day ended with clear skies, birds singing (hopefully not from exhaust vents) and dinner (steak and potatoes, for it was Father’s Day) on the patio. Ahhhh, summer. Sometimes, it’s quite nice!
Thursday’s Chicago Tribune featured its annual picks for 50 best magazines. I thought it would be fun to start a poll on Fridays of five things. Since magazines are one of my obsessions …. the first Friday Five is favorite magazines!
So much to cover today – the odd entry is the telemarketing call I received last night (and I agreed to participate, because generally, I find these calls interesting). The topic? Gasoline – and my thoughts about brands of gasoline, and additives. By the end of the interview, I was really feeling bad for the guy. I had to tell him over and over that I had no opinion about the “best” gasoline brand. I tried not to laugh when he asked if I thought a certain brand would make my car run faster. (Yes, I think X brand will make it so much easier for me to get to 31 mph on the way to Target.) Beautiful? Today’s NYTimes House & Home article on kitchens. The “Something’s Gotta Give” kitchen is still the dream kitchen for many, including myself. Subway tile! Black honed granite! Someday, (unless a better kitchen lures me while I wait) I will have a close facsimile of that kitchen, I hope. More interesting was the movie’s director, Nancy Meyers, stating that she began to resent the house because it was drawing more attention than the movie. (True – I bought the DVD solely for the tour of the set.) And crazy? Did you catch the Daily Show last night, featuring Jason Jones’ interview with the truly nutty Erie, OH Democrat (Jean Miller: “Let the drunks have their time on the road.”) who wants to decriminalize drunk-driving on weekends. Her wacky statement that it left five other days for people to drive their kids to soccer left me stunned (but laughing, at her). Wow. How do they find these people?
