If these don't make you tear up, then you have no soul.

I donated $100 to the relief effort. At the moment, I thought it was so much (half my monthly allowance from my parents).

Now it seems like so little.

A while back, Lulu, Fifi, and I discovered that each of us has in our families of origin an adoption experience.  Lulu is an adoptee; Fifi's sister was adopted.  My family also had an adoption story--though we never called it that, really--before we adopted Mavis.  I thought it might be interesting to reflect on how those relationships influenced our daughters' adoptions.

My brother, Beauregard (ooh, I have fun making up these names!), was brought into my family when he was 7 years old.  It was the summer before I left for college.  I am ten years older than he is.  For comparison, I'm three years older than my sister and thirteen years older than my youngest brother.

Beauregard was part of our extended family, but I had never met him before the day he moved in with us.  The death of his previous guardian necessitated his move in with us. Technically, Beauregard was never adopted, for a host of complicated legal reasons I won't go into now.  But his move in was permanent, and we knew it would be, and we have considered one another siblings all this time.  In all the ways of the heart, he was adopted into our family for good.

I have never not considered Beauregard my brother.  We've never really argued, partly because we have such an age difference and little history over which to squabble.  For a long time, I just thought of him as my little brother.  And the same for him.  In almost every way, it's clear that the patience my mother showed him, the understanding of his grief, the immediacy with which she understood him as her own son, paid off for him.  Beauregard is happily engaged to a beautiful and wealthy fiancee (though I got official word only through Facebook--grr), with whom he travels the world, and he is very successful in his chosen field.  I think he's happy.

But I'll be honest: the relationship I have with him is not the same as it is with my other siblings.  For one thing, I never lived in the same house with him for more than a few months: that's probably the biggest barrier.  And his intelligence and talents (which are many) are of a different kind than those of my biological siblings and me.   He's also a much more outgoing, naive but bighearted, less sarcastic, more gullible and yet more giving person, in some ways, than my other siblings or I.

But the biggest reason is that in recent years, Beauregard has separated himself more and more from our family.  He is charming as hell with the rest of the world but aloof and distant at times with us.  Even as we exhort him to join us, he sulks in the corner on Christmas morning--that is, if he's there at all.  And if he is, it will be late, with a gift chosen at a convenience store for my mom and seldom anything for anyone else.  My cousins sometimes mention some big thing Beauregard is doing, and I startle because he had never shared that with me. When he does ask for my or my sister's help on something, he never thanks us, and he doesn't contact us unless he does need something.  My mother had to implore him, a few weeks after Mavis' referral, to send me an email of congratulations. The world finds him to be utterly charming, but our family, lately, finds him to be increasingly selfish and unthinking.  (And, of course, when I perceive him like this, I'm less likely to reach out to him, which of course is a vicious cycle.  So I'm not blameless either.  But my sister and I try.)

Does it sound familiar?  Of course.  Beauregard clearly has attachment issues.  He has sprung from girlfriend to girlfriend, afraid to go without; now he's engaged young.  His many charms--lapped up by teachers and community leaders--end, though, when he walks through our doors.  And I don't blame him, really.  At seven he lost his previous guardian, whom he had loved, as well as the extended family in the state where he had lived until he moved in with us.  Still, that family had been tough on him--picked on him, just because--and he had lost his birth family, too, of course.  A few years after he moved in with my family, my parents divorced, and he effectively lost his adoptive father as well.   Not to mention the few times I heard my mother, in anger and hurt, utter some of the truly meanest words I've ever heard her speak: to him.  She was very good to him--very good--except for a few terrible times when she, well, simply wasn't.   And I wouldn't be surprised if those words are the ones that landed hardest on his heart.

I always think of Beauregard when I read books about attachment.  It's clear that Beauregard's attachment was never fully secure.  Probably my mother could have done better; I know she didn't stay up reading books about adopting the hurt child.  If she had, though, would she have been frightened by what she read in them?  Would the picture of Beauregard, in the abstract--distant, often rude, often two-faced, even--have seemed like the picture of failed parenting?  Would it have seemed worth it?  I think adoptive parents worry this way a lot.  The other day a friend of mine, a bio parent only (but a kind person, really, one of the kindest I know), bristled at the notion of adopting an older child--"it's so hard," she said.  "I know a family who are raising their adopted child's children now."  The family had adopted the child at an older age.  She said this like it was an obvious reason to say no, I couldn't do that.  I wouldn't.

But I was thinking to myself, you know, yes.  I bet it was very hard for this family.  It breaks my mom's heart, too, sometimes, when Beauregard is in town and doesn't even stop by to see her.  But you know, if you think parenting is about navigating a narrow strait that has only one or two acceptable outcomes, maybe the road isn't for you.  I bet the grandparents of those children love them up one side and down the other.  I know my mother loves Beauregard, has a special tenderness for him that she doesn't have for her biological children.  She doesn't regret it.

What I admire most about my mother now is that she doesn't blame herself for Beauregard's withdrawal from us.  Sure, I think she sees now that there were some ways she could have done better.  But when he acts like a jerk now, as an adult, for the most part, she does a good job of not taking it to heart. She can see that he is smart and successful and competent in lots of ways.  That's one success, and she knows she's a huge part of that.  (I always think about those clearly competent, articulate, sophisticated, powerful, professional, funny, engaged, and so-called "angry" adult adoptees whose blogs so panic adoptive parents, and I think: if having a flawless relationship with one's parents is the only measure of success in life, then how many of us are successful, anyway?  Those adoptees look like successful citizens to me.  We should listen to them, closely, but we don't need to think of them as horror stories.) My mom can also see that if he can be smart and successful and competent in those ways, it's within his power to decide to reach out to the family that has, really, kept its arms extended to him.  She says now it's his choice.  He's an adult, a successful adult, and he can choose when he wants to. He knows she is there.  If it isn't now, maybe it will be later.   She's patient.  She's his mother.  She knows that as truly as she knows anything.

I admire that about my mother.  I think, when Mavis first yells "you're not my real mother" at me, it will hurt, yes.  But it won't hurt the way it would for someone who fears that adoption really doesn't make it so.  I'm 100% sure I'm her mother.  I'm also 100% sure that I always will be (and no, I don't mean I'm her only mother), and it's not conditional on how she treats me, in that argument or in any. Of course I'm going to work as hard as I can to secure her attachment so that these issues are as minimally intrusive as possible when she's an adult. I'll always be there, patient, doing my best but knowing that ultimately it's her own course that she charts as she grows.  Her story isn't mine, and only she gets to decide what it means.

Tá, não é barato (mas abaixo tem o que foi selecionado e os preços), mas vale a pena. Não sei se tem ainda, mas quando eu trabalhava na RG (Há dois anos, já, gente?! Credo...), o restô tinha um cardápio mais barato para o almoço, tipo uns R$ 40... e valia muito a pena. O ambiente, o atendimento... essas coisas de gente fiiiiiiiina!

Olha aí:
Menu anos 90
Salada de pato com brie e pinollis, R$ 24
Pudim de queijo meia cura, R$ 22
Penne com endívias, presunto cru e tomate seco, R$ 34
Camarão com molho gruyère e risoto de espinafre, R$ 80
Vitela recheada com alecrim e damasco, R$ 36
Folhado de coco, R$ 16
Pêra recheada com chocolate e pistache, R$ 14

Menu anos 2000
Gaspacho com guacamole, R$ 24
Rolinho de atum e wasabi, R$ 25
Magret de pato com molho de jabuticaba, R$ 43
Robalo com crosta de castanha do Pará e arroz créole, R$ 52
Medalhão com molho de três pimentas e batata dauphine, R$ 39
Zabaglione ao champagne, R$ 16
Tarte Tatin de manga e gengibre, R$ 16

Serviço
Bistrô Charlô
Rua Barão de Capanema, 440, Jardins, São Paulo - SP.
Tel. 11-3082 5553

Maíra Goldschmidt

Não adianta eu falar, você só vai acreditar nessa cagada vendo mesmo.

Para tanto, clique na imagem:

Cagada INACREDITÁVEL, não!?

por justiceiro

- Janine, to our driver

Can the crap of a good trip ever outweigh the trip itself? Well, in my experience, no. But it can come pretty close.

We finished our float down the Tsiribihina River without problems, pulling into a small village 2 hours east of the river's estuary around noon. The heat was ferocious and maybe it was this that set the tone for what turned out to be a thoroughly uncomfortable afternoon. We exited the canoes and walked up the steep river bank to have lunch in a small reed shack, simply furnished with rough wooden benches and a table, while Joseph and Coco set to work on preparing lunch. Even in the shade of the hut, we sweated freely. Combined with the throngs of staring, malnourished and dirty children that crowded around us and gawked openly at our every movement the atmosphere was oppressive.

One of the things that has consistently been hard to see on this trip is the cruelty of the Malagasy people to animals. Elsewhere on our African travels, we've seen animals ignored, like the dogs and cats of Egypt, for example, or put to work, as with the dogs of the Lesotho or Malawi farmlands. In this latter situation, the animals are treated, if not like members of the family, at least with the respect they deserve as contributors to the communal or family good. But in Madagascar, dogs are treated with heartbreaking callousness. All over the country, we saw dogs literally starving to death. Their ribs and hips poking hideously almost through their skins, their eyes devoid of anything resembling life or hope. But it's one thing to see an animal starve - in this country, people live on such slim margins that perhaps they truly cannot afford to nourish anything beyond themselves, I won't judge that. It's another to see someone go out of their way to pick up a stone and hurl it at defenseless sleeping mutt, to laugh at its yelp of pain, to look for another rock or place a well-aimed kick if the yelp is not loud enough. We saw this a lot in Madagascar, and as much as I loved the place, I have no hesitation in condeming the Malagasy people for their cruelty in this regard.

So, maybe the post-river trip got off to a bad start when a starving mother dog wandered by our shack just before we sat down to lunch, trailed by a wobbling pup that could barely keep itself moving. As she sniffed the ground harmlessly, one of the kids gave her a kick that raised a pitiful howl that I'm surprised she had energy to give. Janine's face was pale with anger. "For a people that request so much compassion from the world, they sure don't have any for one of the few creatures beneath them on the food chain," she said with a clenched jaw. The next time the dogs came by, we called them over and fed them hunks of bread and left over spaghetti from our lunch, right in front of the kids, who were obviously hungry themselves. I have no idea if this was the just thing to do. I have no idea if it imparted a lesson to the watching children. 9 chances out of 10 that dog and its pup are dead today and we only prolonged the inevitable. But I can tell you that it felt like the right thing to do.

Even so, we were in a bit of a sour mood when our 4x4 pulled up to take us northwest from the river to Belo-Sur-Tsiribihina. As our truck was loaded, our guide Coco approached us with a request that we take on more passengers for the next half our journey - a tour of Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park. Apparently, the 4x4 rented by a French couple for their trip had broken down and they were now without means of transport to the park. Under normal circumstances, giving someone a lift anywhere wouldn't be a problem, but the road to Tsingy was a notoriously shitty 6 hour drive. Our Land Cruiser was big enough to comfortably carry our current party of 6 (driver, Coco, Janine and I and Valerie and Geraldine). But with 8, it would not be nearly as much fun. The four of us discussed the situation and agreed that we would certainly give the couple a free 2 hour lift to Belo-Sur-Tsiribihina. From there they could arrange onwards transport to Tsingy or take a Taxi Brousse down south to the big town of Morondava. We communicated this to Coco and off we went to pick up the couple.

When we found the couple at their hotel, Coco performed a neat little trick. Instead of advising them of our decision as we had requested, he pretended as if our conversation had never happened and trotted the couple out in front of us, making us explain ourselves to them and feel, of course, like complete jerks for not taking them with us to Tsingy. For Coco, of course, this was all about money - he could make more of it by cramming two more people into our truck. So with the two French travellers in front of us, he applied all the pressure he could to get us to take them on. And of course, eventually, we relented.

And it sucked. The two travellers were nice enough. But crammed into the truck like tinned weiners, our drive to Tsingy the next morning (which started at the ungodly hour of 3:30 a.m.) was as uncomfortable as I knew it would be. I've written extensively about bad African roads before, so I won't bore you with the details of the trench-like ruts and grave-sized potholes. Suffice it to say, the road to Tsingy from Belo-Sur-Tsiribihina was right up there with the worst I've seen in Africa. 6 hours of fatigued, nauseous jostling later and I really had a hate on for Coco for putting us in this situation merely to line his own pockets.

But Tsingy was lovely. A forest of razor sharp limestone karsts (Tsingys) and deep canyons, eroded by water and time. We took a canoe ride down the Manombolo river gorge in dug out canoes, visiting bat caves and looking up at ancient grave sites where ancestors' remains were deposited in the limestone cracks that threaded through the sheer canyon walls. We lunched near the giant Tsingy forest (admonishing our driver when he went out of his way to whip with a stick a starving dog who wasn't even near us) and then took a 5 hour walk through its incredible grey rocky clefts, so sharp and thin that you can tap them and produce the "Tsing!" sound which gives them their name. The trail wound between slates of rock 30 meters high and underneath unfathomable massifs of stone. In these situations, we donned headlamps, crawled, slithered and felt our way back towards the sun. We inched our way up steel and rock ladders attached skillfully to the rock, often using caribiners and mountaineering harnesses to keep us safely on two feet. Finally, we were spit out onto the top of the forest for a panoramic view of its canopy in the late afternoon sun. It was a spectacular view; the yellow sunshine turning the thousands of cold grey teeth to warm shades of red and gold.

It was one of those travel moments that goes a long way to erasing bad memories.

***

"Coco is drunk," Janine said disgustedly. "And high. A good combination of both actually. He can barely stand."

It was true. Our valiant guide, who had stayed behind during our trip to the giant Tsingys in order to guard our belongings from thieves, was practically unconscious and when not unconscious, mostly incomprehenisible. Very professional indeed. Our opinion didn't improve when we heard that another group at our the campsite had been robbed that night. We ate dinner in a moody silence and barely acknowledged Coco when he showed up at our table later, noticeably red eyed.

The fun of this part of the trip had unfortunately been leeched away by the discomfort of the road travel, the unprofessionalism of our guide and our fatigue with the ceaselessly begging children, the mistreatment of the animals and the constant disrespectful use of the term "Vazaha" from even our own guides and driver. We were tired and we just wanted to move on. Valerie and Geraldine were sympathetic and wonderful and we admired them for their ability to shrug off the nuisances that were getting us down. But we still couldn't shake the blues. After dinner, while the French travellers went dancing at a club down the road from our campsite, Janine and I crawled into our tent and slept, exhausted physically and emotionally.

"I hope the baobobs kick ass tomorrow," I said with a yawn.

Janine murmurred something back. But it was the garbled mumble of someone already sleeping.

***

We drove and we drove and we drove. We left Tsingy on the first ferry across the Manombolo river after the standard Madagascar bush breakfast of charcoal tasting coffee, condensed milk and bread, the French delightedly spreading spoonfuls of the sweet, custard like milk over their baguettes. I couldn't bring myself to replicate their love of canned milk, but the ever-adventurous Janine tried it and confirmed that it was good stuff. I told Janine that she was crazy.

After a long day, we reached Madagascar's world famous Avenue of the Baobobs near the end of the afternoon. It was everything we hoped. The stately giants lined the road, rearing their strange trunks starkly against the riotous colours of the late-day sky. Many were over 20 meters. We strolled the avenue hand in hand between bouts of excessive picture taking. It didn't matter anymore that our guide sucked, that we still had two hours of crap road between us and our hotel in Morondava, that we'd paid a lot of money for a trip that hadn't fully lived up to expectations. We were here, now, in this beautiful place, and it was beautiful.

"Worth it?" I asked Janine, watching the sun disappear below the tree-studded horizon, leaving the baobobs silhouetted against a maroon sky.

"Totally." Janine said genuinely, squeezing my hand. "But I'm going to strangle the next kid I see hurting an animal."

Jason

Empiezo esta entrada, o mejor dicho, la continúo, para relatar brevemente los momentos clave el intenso día de ayer.

Fany comenzaba mi incorporación a Plurk con una pregunta de tintes filosóficos, en la que hubo cabida a un sinfín de propuestas, desde mi dilema del erizo a un montón de abrazos para subirle el ánimo (que no el karma).

momiator presentaba su nuevo proyecto blog, palotismo, con el objetivo de ponernos a todos palote, fuéramos heteros, gays, piedras o caballos. Pero poniéndonos serios, compartí una emotiva canción, con la que pudimos perrear y que provocó verguenza ajena.

Por la tarde, housito nos presentó su entrada más emotiva y, según él, la mejor que ha escrito. Mientras, Fany nos enseñaba el lugar donde se encondería un día de estos:

La tarde continuaba y otra disputa sobre el sabor del ketchup provocó que littlepollo prometiese un montón de regalos. A mi me tocaron unos chicles, porque odia que fume.

Los memes sexuales aparecieron, las chicas no se masturban, los chicos somos unos pajilleros cualquiera, Pitipín es hembra y yo me decicaba a compartir grandes temas:

Con la noche siguieron los memes de sexo y la conversación por skype con housito se volvió una manera de intentar avergonzarme, cosa que no consiguieron. Ni la verdad sobre mi nick, decirme que parezco un nerd, compararme con unas gatitas calientes, japonesas y geek empollones; ni siquiera mostrar esta imagen consiguió apagarme:

Bueno con esto, libero mi cerebelo de semen y me deja continuar con mi vida. Sé que me dejo un montón el tintero pero cierro. Para más info, ¡Plurk!

Galería | Flickr

Dica da AmY

By Mell

Clique em "more" para ver todas as imagens:

Compilação dos cocôs :P

Emitido el 16 de Febrero de 2005

- La verdadera historia de la Biblioteca de la UJI

- Las chicas de reprografía y el correo del programa

Pablo: La verdad es que Pablo nunca me ha transmitido demasiado, pero creo que la elección de esta canción ha sido muy apropiada. He de reconocer que en esta gala le he prestado más atención que en anteriores, pero con este chico me pasa que lo veo muy lineal, siempre en lo mismo...me da la sensación de que ya he visto esta actuación...no tanto al principio, pero sí últimamente.

Virginia: En primer lugar me he horrorizado al ver el vestido de Virginia, al igual que en la actuación de "My Baby Just Cares for Me" Esta vez la han vestido con un saco de patatas, además en tonos marrones. Sin embargo, el peinado me ha gustado mucho. La puesta en escena...horrorosa. Señores de telecinco, Virginia es vuestra principal fuente de ingresos en este programa, al menos, ponedle una puesta en escena decente y no bajando unas escaleras. El estilo, distinto, al fin. Me ha parecido personalmente que lo ha hecho de maravillas, a pesar de que he captado un par de pequeñas desafinaciones, o me he parecido oirlas, no soy experto musical, solo una persona más del publico, pero me ha gustado mucho. Ha salido un poco del blues y del jazz y se ha metido más en un estilo de baladas, en castellano, que tampoco le va tan mal. Pero me he sorprendido mucho con los veredictos del jurado. Javier Llano me ha sorprendido, ya que nunca ha tenido buenas palabras para ella (He de admitir que tras la gala de hoy me cae mucho mejor la hermana de Javier Llano que él mismo), sin embargo con Risto me he quedado atónito. ¿Un fracaso? No he logrado entenderlo (que alguien me lo explique en un comentario por favor). Otra de mis inquietudes es...¿Habrá captado la niña azul la indirecta que Risto le ha enviado sobre los dos primeros puestos de Itunes Descargas? Por la cara que ha puesto, diría que sí. Finalmente, ¿Alguien me dice por qué Jesús solamente le pregunta si ha tenido polémicas o discusiones?

Mimi: Creo que ha estado correcta, pero no magnífica. Hubiese preferido que en sustitución a Mimi Noelia ocupase su puesto en la final. No me gustan ninguna de las dos, pero para gustos, los colores. Vocalmente, la he visto bien, pero sin más. Lo que ha subido mucho el nivel de la actuación ha sido la puesta en escena, posiblemente y para mi gusto la mejor de la noche, y de las mejores de este OT. Finalmente con Mimi me ha pasado como con Virginia, ¿Por qué ese vestido sábana?

Sandra: En primer lugar, llevo toda la semana escuchándo la siguiente frase, y, cómo no, en la gala también "Hawaii da Hey". Pensaba que la canción era "Highway to hell", me temo que me he equivocado. Después, el fuego ese en las antorchas y lo de soplar, me ha parecido un poco "chabacano", como de mercado medieval de fiestas patronales, un poco de teatrillo callejero. Finalmente, su actitud ante el veredicto de Risto, habrá decepcionado a muchos, supongo, ya que no es algo de lo que enorgullecerse. Al más puro estilo "Salsa Rosa" "si sigue hablando, yo me voy". No tengo palabras para describir como se me ha quedado la cara. Mimi ¿Por qué te has ido? Solo por eso, merecías quedarte. Sandra, has perdido los papeles.

Manu: No se si sólo me lo ha parecido a mí, pero en el comienzo de la canción...¿Ha estado gritando? Sí, me temo que eso no se podía denominar canto. Aunque la anatómica Cocó Comín parece que ha encontrado el por qué en su columna vertebral (¿Dónde si no? Todos los ignorantes como yo pensábamos hasta antes de conocerla que el sonido salía de las cuerdas vocales y eso...no de la espalda). ¿Esta mujer ha estudiado medicina? Que conste que lo digo con respeto, sus valoraciones son inentendibles, pero digo yo que útiles también. Bueno...los pantalones verde pantano me han dañado los ojos, por eso no le he prestado mucho atención...sí, estaba tomando notas. No lo ha hecho mal, aunque no ha sido su mejor actuación.

Una vez hecha esta valoración casera, reitero que soy uno más del público, no un experto de la música ni nada por el estilo, me gustaría hacer algunos comentarios de la gala.
En primer lugar me ha impresionado el 51% de los votos...¿Esto es un record señores y señoras? Me temo que sí. Vaya vaya...muchos creen que será Virginia (yo entre ellos). Ojalá que sí.
Después...no he terminado de entender los cartelitos de los profesores. ¿Qué necesidad tienen de hacer el payaso? Ah, se me olvidaba que Angel Llacer es el director, ahora lo entiendo todo muchísimo mejor. Me temo que este hombre necesita una tabla de horarios inmediatamente, se confunde de programas.
¿Por qué nos repiten los videos de los resumenes en las galas? ¡Veo dos veces lo mismo!
Por otra parte los interminables anuncios (creo que durante ellos Cocó Comín se sacó la carrera de medicina) y los maravillosos blue blue blue blue...se nota quien es el patrocinador. ¿Por qué no llamáis a la "Niña Azul" la Niña Blue? Ya sería el colmo. Aunque entiendo que alguien tiene que pagar los coches. (Ah no, que los pagamos nosotros con los sms).
Finalmente y por último, comentar que el duelo era muy muy previsible. Por cierto, entre quienes era...¿Mimi y Virginia? Ah no, Jesús, que lapsus. Con lo parcial y objetivo que tú eres...

Y bueno, si has llegado a leer hasta aquí y no has cerrado la página por la mitad, te felicito, tiene su mérito. Solo me queda decirte gracias. Y que puedes postear todos los comentarios que quieras expresando tu opinión. Sé que molesta mucho estar en disconformidad con un artículo y no poder replicar, así que estoy abierto a críticas. Un saludo, y a seguir disfrutando de Operación Triunfo.

Mike's a considerate dude. Here's his fatherly advice for competitors:

If you're 30 and ain't flipping bricks by now you wasting time
Get a job, DHL, FedEx, UPS is hiring
I can see your future nigga, it involves testifying

Wonder why he's recommending only delivery positions ... guess he's not talking to the shirt-and-tie type. Then there's this gem:

White girl, white girl, sittin' right beside me
You can call it Coco and refer to me as Ice-T

Ice-T and Coco, for newbies, possibly make up rap's most cartoonish, unappetizing, laughably sexual couple. It's like Ice-T pasted the lyrics from "Bitches Ain't Shit" into a Craigslist personal ad. She's essentially composed of four spheres and a head. He's old and crusty, with the facial hair that accompanies mandatory door-to-door visits when you move to a new neighborhood. We could show you a picture, but why choose just one?

Anyway. I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind II is out July 8. Color us excited.

MP3: Killer Mike - "10 G's" (via Fader)

[audio http://wordsworthmedia.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/killer-mike-10-gs.mp3]

TRAVELING WITH THE HOODLUMS

My friend P told me this tip, and I've found it works pretty well for air travel: dress your kid cute.  Make his or her hair look sweet.  Give him a cute suitcase stuffed with fun toys.  Basically, do what you can to maximize your child's ability to charm everyone on the plane before you even get in the plane.  We've gotten on flights and sat down and had a nearby passenger enthuse, "Oh, I get to sit by Mavis!" Mavis and Jasper had introduced themselves earlier while tromping around the terminal to burn off some energy.  All of this is wonderful for buying yourself some goodwill when your child is less than perfect on the flight.

For car trips, I'm lucky to have an exceptionally pliant child.  We use one of those car organizers that can hang off the back of your seat and cram various toys in the back of that, within her reach.  We also pull out snacks periodically as a bit of an activity, but try to do this before they are requested--so it seems like a fun surprise.  Carry a portable toilet seat for the kiddo in case she decides she wants to potty train while on the road, like ours did.  Play games like "what color do you think the next car is going to be?" and sing songs and purposely mess up the words, which cracks my girl UP.  Make lists of things, like "who are some of Mavis' friends?" or "what does Daddy like to do?" or "What are Mama's favorite foods?"  Mavis usually enjoys this kind of conversation.  Also, of course, make sure your road trip overlaps with nap time.

BOOKS WITH DIVERSITY BUT NOT ABOUT DIVERSITY

Hmm, this is a good question.   I like Umbrella, by Taro Yashima, which stars a Japanese-American girl but has nothing to do with her ethnicity.  I know I have more of these, but nothing is occurring to me off the top of my head.  I guess most of our books nowadays are about animals (Mavis' favorite), so people ones are less fresh.  If you're interested in books with diverse animalia, let me know, and I can be of great assistance.

ME TIME

Hm.  I play Scrabble and connect with friends on Facebook, which you can do for just seconds at a time.  I read while she plays (but feel bad sometimes for doing this). I keep an early bedtime for Mavis (though I'm afraid it may be slipping away); she's in bed each night by 7:00.  During the academic year, I have one morning a week of preschool when I'm not at work, and I meet a friend for coffee every week at that time.  I trade off with Jasper so that sometimes he gets the morning shift and I get the after-nap/before-dinner shift, or vice versa, and we can do things on our own.  Also, we have a house cleaner come every other week. And we have friends who like to play aunt and uncle to Mavis--when they offer, we let her spend a morning or afternoon with them from time to time (she's been home about 15 months now, and she welcomes it). Honestly, though, most of my free time is work time.  And what "me time" I have is mostly a sacrifice of time with Jasper.  Jasper and I were never a joined-at-the-hip kind of couple anyway (we always had lots of extracurricular activities we did on our own before Mavis came), so that's maybe easier for us than for some people.

GUILT

Mostly I don't feel guilty about what time I have to take for my work or myself, because it's so very obvious to me that I'm a better parent when I do.  I'm just too easily tired by pretending to eat a muffin that Mavis made in her kitchen for the 800th time to be the best I can be.  I feel the difference so strongly that it's easy to see how the extra time I take really does allow me to give her more.

RECIPES

I recommend having your partner or someone else cook.  :)  But if that doesn't work out, I like salad in a bag.   We also do our own pizzas somewhat often--nice because Mavis can help.  Okay, I confess: I hardly ever cook.  Jasper is in charge.  I do thrown things into a tortilla with cheese and call it a quesadilla and feed Mavis that.  I also feed her smoothies made from plain yogurt and fruit, and when she doesn't like the smoothie, I freeze it in a popsicle mold, and voila, she loves it.

ALAS

That is all I have.  What other questions do you have for us?  What else can you share with us about how you keep your kiddos busy?  I'm on summer vacation now and finding myself at a loss most days for clever things to do...please assist!

• Tracks

01  Oxygen
02  The Little Things
03  One Fine Wire
04  Bubbly
05  Feelings Show
06  Midnight Bottle
07  Realize
08  Battle
09  Tailor Made
10  Magic
11  Tied Down
12  Capri

• Bonus

13  Dreams Collide [U.K.]
14  Older [U.S.]

[dailymotion id=x5x8d7]
Colbie Caillat - Bubbly (acoustique)

Petite pensée pour Coralie qui est surnommé "coco", voilà un album pour toi. Tu diras Merci à Colbie ;)
Des chansons magnifiques qui vont passer en boucle chez moi, foncer vous le procurer !

Vantagens do Datsun:

-Dura dura dura e dura

-Leva porrada "a dar com pau" e aguenta-se

-Motor impecável.

-Barulho 5 estrelas, e então se for retirada uma tampa que está debaixo do Capô melhor ainda.

-Anda em tudo o que é piso, sendo uma "fera" na terra batida.

Desvantagens do Datsum:

-Nada a salientar

Vantagens do Ferrari:

-Rápido

-Carro de Luxo (só para alguns)

Desvantagens do Ferrari:

-Caro caro caro e caro

-Não anda no Pinhal

-Escavaca-se muito fácilmente

-Muito baixo para o cross (batem depois muitas pedras por baixo)

-Não presta para andar no meio do Borralho

Conclusão, Datsun 1200 é máquina!!! Ontem tive o prazer de andar num, não é para qualquer um ;) O piloto que o conduziu é um grande amigo meu (anda nas horas do Diabo a conduzir :mrgreen: ) e de certeza que também concorda que o Ferrari ao pé da "fera" é um cócó. Eu tive o prazer de o conduzir e é de referir que foi a minha primeira vez ao volante de um automóvel...muito fácil...pena foi ter aberto uma vala para couves com uma travagem feita :D

p.s. (aquele datsun da figura é o do nosso amigo David)

So many decisions to make... Do I retake my SAT for a better writing score? What subject tests do I take? Is the ACT necessary? How much money do I even have for this?

Not to mention, where do I go? Do I stay here? Do I take off at 18 and go across the country to go to an arts school? Do I go to LA to pursue the acting thing during school? Do I do two years at State or UCSD or shoot for 4 years at a private school somewhere far away?

And all these decisions have to be made like, now.

Then after that it's what do I do? Double Major? Major in Theatre and starve? Give up the dream so that I can live comfortably? Take on two majors so I can do both? Am I comfortable leaving? Do I have the money to leave?

Dear Lord, please guide me here. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where to go or who I'm supposed to become and I don't feel stable enough to make that decision on my own.

But I have to. For once, no one can tell me exactly what to do with my life. I have to make these choices on my own. As a big girl. Scary.

85 ml de base lavante
4 ml de macérat de monoï
2 ml de glycérine
2 ml de silicone végétal
2 ml cc de phytokératine
10 gouttes he ylang ylang
5 gouttes clémentine
10 gouttes d'extrait aromatique de coco
1/4 cc de mica or

Pour un flacon de 100 ml. Mélanger les ingrédients à la base neutre. Bien secouer avant chaque utilisation.

While Ice is brushing young hater's like Soulja Boy off his shoulder, Coco continues to stay in the spotlight. We wish we could say that other than having an amazing (perhaps enhanced) figure and legendary business acumen ("pimpin T"), for the life of us - hell anybody - we can't figure out just what does Coco do.

All we can say is DAAAAAAAAM!

For all of you fans, just enjoy!

On Sunday morning, I went out to my car only to find someone had smashed the front passenger window! AAARRRRRRRHHHHH. Amazingly they hadn't taken anything although I think they must have been disturbed. The annoying thing was that the car was parked off road in our driveway!!! By sheer fluke, Alan's car was parked on the street and was untouched!

I think that these people know which cars to target - the basic ones that have no alarms...like mine! Like most cars, it has an immobiliser but no alarm as such. I don't think they were trying to steal the car, just steal items from it. If they hadn't been disturbed, they would have found Heather's ipod in the glovebox!

So that brought my otherwise nice weekend to an abrupt end.

In other news...it's been a very busy week so far. Here's a brief run-down.

Monday
Hamish had his first proper visit to his new school. He couldn't make the pre-arranged visits because of his operation, so the teacher said he could come in on Monday. Alan took him in and left him there for an hour. He loved it and is really looking forward to starting there in August. Alan left for Madrid.

Tuesday
Hamish had his nursery outing to Brewsters at Portlethen. It was really warm and sunny which made all the difference. My school friend Kirsteen gave birth to a baby boy called Tavish, a brother for her daughter Maisie. She lives in Perth so hoping to pop in and see her over the summer.

Wednesday
It was both kids' last day of school. Hamish had his sing-a-long at nursery which parents were invited to. My mum and dad came up for that too. It was very cute, they sang lots of songs and then said goodbye to Hamish and another girl who won't be returning to the school next year (it becomes all girls in P1).

Then it was down to Heather's school to pick her up. She had her school closing ceremony, it's quite a big deal, they all have to wear SMART uniform, polished shoes, tied back hair, etc. The head and the school governors give achievement awards to deserving pupils. Heather got one!!! She and one other boy were awarded an Effort Award for trying their best throughout the year. She doesn't always get 100% in spelling and maths tests but she really tries hard to. She gets very annoyed when she makes mistakes! I think with her coming from overseas into a new school and then doing so well, has obviously impressed the teachers. She was so chuffed as she's never really won anything before which was personal to her. So she came out all smiles, holding her certificate. To celebrate, we all went out for dinner.

Thursday
My mum and dad went back to Glasgow today, taking the kids with them for their summer vacation. They'll split the time between my parents, Alan's parents then Spain in August. I felt bad about packing them off but to be honest they'll have a better time down there, with cousins and friends they already have.

After I got home from work, with everyone gone, I went into town for a little late night shopping. Bought some shoes from Lou's shop then some smellies for Alan from the Molton Brown sale. Headed home then drove to the airport to pick Alan up from his trip to Madrid.

Friday
As the kids are away, Alan and I are going out for dinner tonight. We'll probably walk so we can have a few drinks. Actually this living in town lark is quite good!