this woman’s work

Well, they make me smile when I get paid out on the 15th, that’s for certain, but the other time they make me smile is when a particularly good one comes in. Most of the time the ads are just innocuous but sometimes they are awesome and then I hit “approve” with a flourish!

I emailed the marketing rep for the ad for From the Top to tell her that I love the show and would definitely be watching their Live from Carnegie Hall taping. (It’s the first time I was so moved by a blogad to write the rep.) The rep wrote back and asked if I wanted a DVD to review. Now lately the only solicited reviews I do are for Mother-Talk because I’m friends with the organizers because it seems like a conflict of interest with Get Them Blogging but heck, I love this show so I said yes.

Noah and I watched part of it yesterday and really enjoyed it. The reason I like listening to From the Top with him (and the reason I like some of the PBS shows like Fetch! and — back when it was on our station — Zoom) is that I like Noah to have lots of examples of regular kids being competent and smart. It helps, too, that PBS shows are notoriously diverse and also that there are usually just as many smart girls as smart boys.

It seems like a lot of media paints this great divide between children and grown-ups. Worse, it shows them not just divided but at war and often if it’s a kids’ show, the grown-ups are buffoons. I hate that. I like media where the kids (and adults) are smart, respectful of each other and where the kids’ interests and passions matter.

Now I’m not really a devotee of classical music. I grew up hearing it a lot (my mom loves it) and I like it — play it on the radio, have a handful of CDs — but I don’t adore it the way I do my beloved jazz and showtunes. Noah might grow to love it but for now he’s happy to listen to it but doesn’t seek it out. However he is a fan of music and has always been intrigued by musical instruments. (As an aside, I really thought he would want to play an instrument because at Madison’s age he was starting to identify different instruments when we listened to CDs but so far he’s absolutely refused the opportunity.)

Even with our classical music handicap, we both really enjoyed watching From the Top. We liked meeting the kids who make the music and Noah was especially impressed by the 10-year old cellist in the first episode. What I’ve always liked about the radio show is these kids are brilliant musicians but they’re also kids and the show reflects that. They make jokes, they complain about their siblings and they have other passions — skateboarding or painting or rock and roll. It helps make it clear that classical music is not a rarefied interest and also shows that you can be accomplished at something without giving up everything else.

We will definitely be TIVO’ing the episodes that aren’t on our review DVD and I encourage y’all to check ‘em out, too.

She’s got an order for you: Go vote for Kiri Davis’s “A Girl Like Me”!

Kiri Davis did the amazing short film I talked about before and now she’s up for a $10,000 scholarship at Cosmogirl. Go and vote!!! Then spread the word — she’s way behind as of this posting and I’d love to see her win!

Thank you thank you, kind bloggers who named me a thinking blogger! One of the best things about those posts (besides the traffic — I’m a hit whore) is finding new blogs I didn’t know about. In that spirit, here are the best blogs you might not know about it! (And also this forces me to narrow down my enormous feed list!) And I’m not going to let myself choose adoption blogs because there are too many of you that I adore and I just can’t narrow it to five.

1. My Beloved Becca — I know I link to her a lot so you’ve probably already clicked through. I pick her for two reasons: The first is that I love her love of pop culture and her smart take on it all and two because I know she’ll be annoyed by my choosing her so I had to do it. Heh. But she is a right smart cookie and she doesn’t blog about adoption (because she hasn’t adopted) or writing (although she is a writer) but she blogs about a lot of other stuff I like reading about including books, television, Hollywood gossip and the New York Times and stuff I don’t really much care about like the Red Sox.

2. Kidneys and Eyes — Julia’s kids have “an eye disorder called Ocularmotor Apraxia and Autosonomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney disease.” Gage just went through a kidney transplant (with flying colors, I might add!) and Quinn will need one in the future. Julia’s discussion of parenting through the maze of special need/special medicine is inspiring and I’ve learned a lot about every day mothering because of her grace in extraordinary circumstances.

3. Rachel’s Tavern — I know, I know, I just linked to her. Call it a cheat if you like but if she’s not in your bloglines, she should be. So there.

4. Abortion Clinic Days — If you care about adoption reform, you have to care about reproductive choice. You don’t necessarily need to be like me (you know, rabidly pro-choice) but when we’re talking about pregnancy crisis, it’s important to keep our eyes on every option a woman has. This blog illuminates the complexity of abortion rights with heart, humility and bravery. I adore them.

5. Kali_Mama — This is a woman here in town. She’s an artist and she’s a mom and she has three amazing little boys. I admire the brave forays she makes into the deepest recesses of her artistic mind and her nifty knitting. Read her for fun! Read her for inspiration. She’s a thinking blogger with style! Only you can’t comment over there unless you have a xanga account. Sorry about that.

Thanks Shelli!

I really love the OpEd I put up this month at Literary Mama. And we’ve opened comments over there so please leave one of you’re so inclined!!!

My new imaginary boyfriend. Even though I don’t really have any idea who he is.

So that I could boycott it. This reads like a joke:

I received a letter this morning from Jennifer Daniel Collins, an attorney at Faegre & Benson that represents The National Pork Board. It stated, for the most part, that my use of the phrase “the other white milk” violates their trademark on the phrase “the other white meat.” As such, they’ve demanded that I remove the shirt, demanded that the image of the shirt be removed from any site I know of, demanded that I destroy any shirts that exist with the logo and demand that I not at any point in the future use the phrase in a commercially profitable way.

from The Lactivist

You’ve got to read the whole thing to really get a feel for the complete idiocy of this threatened lawsuit.

Un-freakin’-believable.

Any Columbus area noise happening about this (The Lactivist is written by a central Ohio mama)?

Want to see my favorite? This one. Because those little girls are my mom and my Aunt. (The one on the right is my mom. Isn’t she adorable?) Remember you can click to make ‘em bigger!

My sister has new cards up at her site including Valentines and ones for dog lovers. (KimKim! I’ve told her to make a pug card!)

She’s trying to get a card rep right now so she can sell her work in more shops. Check ‘em out — they’re pretty!!

I wanted to point out that a wrung sponge uses her super librarian skills to share great books with her readers. Those of you who are looking to add to your multicultural collection will be especially pleased to add her to bloglines (if she isn’t there already). I find her very useful!!!