My Dad | this woman's work

Crossposted from Facebook

Dec 152008

I did a meme on there and I’m copying it here not because I’m lazy but because I’m busy. That’s just how it is. Half the people I read on twitter are having eye twitches and headaches and stomach flus because December is NOT the most wonderful time of the year; it’s the most stressful.

Ok, onto the meme! The rule was to say 16 things about yourself but being a busy person in need of structure, I made it 16 holiday gifts that stick in my memory. If you’re stuck on coming up with a blog and want to be tagged, I hereby tag you!

1. My set of moomintroll books, which I got when I was five or six. I was very disappointed in them because I’d never heard of moomins. I didn’t read them for a couple of years until I was desperate for something to read and they were the only thing left unread in my bookshelf. Turns out I LOVE them and they remain among my most favorite of all books. Plus it gave me the internet handle I’d use for years. (moominmama)

2. We always got sets of books for the last night of Chanukkah and that’s how I got my Laura Ingalls set and this awful set of “Stories for Girls,” which convinced me that the teen years were going to suck because apparently the teen years made girls boring. My sister, I think, still has those books and she can confirm their unintentional hilarity.

3. One year I accidentally opened my sister’s Holly Hobby-branded Easy Bake Oven and she opened my Raggedy Ann dollhouse. We looked at each other horrified and my mom quickly switched the packages right. But for a minute the world tilted uncomfortably on its axis.

4. The first year Brett and I were together he asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I said, “Oh I don’t know. Just don’t get me something boring like, say, shoes.” As it happens, the package he’d already bought was shoes but the most comfortable, adorable shoes I ever had in my life. I still miss those wonderful, fabulous shoes.

5. For Christmas one year my inlaw’s got me a Bose CD stereo. We’d been struggling with some conflict between us and I hate to admit being this shallow but when they gave me the Bose, all was forgiven. Having a decent stereo to listen to my music on made my life immeasurably better so how could I not forgive them for all the petty (likely imaginary) slights? The Bose is getting a little trashed now because the kids are always slamming their CDs into it.

6. When I was 16 my dad got me a bright purple sweater and a white button up shirt printed all over with purple cowboys. Both of these things came from Express and he thought I shopped at Express (I mostly shopped at Limited but I did get my favorite black flippy miniskirt from Express). I was not gracious upon opening this because of the purple cowboys. I gave the sweater to my sister (purple! bright!) but ended up swiping it back when I grew back into wearing colors. (If you are a certain age, you probably had this sweater in some version, too. It had 3/4 length sleeves and came past your hips.) I had one in dark blue and one in black — it was an Express signature sweater. Remember?)

7. My ex-stepmom ( my little sisters’ mom) used to get us Ultima makeup kits every year. They were those big kits with several eyeshadows and lipsticks and stuff. This was the 80s when a person might wear four eyeshadows at a time so these gifts were much appreciated.

8. Last year for Chanukkah the kids got me six candle holders and two huge packages of scented tealight candles. The candle holders are clear glass in different colors and I love them. I loved getting to see which color I’d open up every night.

9. This is harder than I thought. Ummm, I got my giant Raggedy Ann for christmas when I was about five. I’ve written about her on my blog before.

10. I also used to get a Tender Love baby every Christmas. One year I got Kiss Me Baby Tender Love and one year I got Bless You Baby Tender Love. My sister had Happy Birthday Baby Tender Love. I can’t remember the other ones we got but this was back when you could just squeeze a doll’s stomach to make it do stuff and they didn’t need batteries.

11. Oh one year for Christmas we all got a shared gift — the complete Star Wars Deathstar. You know that three story building with all the guys. When we moved my mom accidentally left it in the attic and my brother is still really sad about that.

12. I think one of my favorite presents was the Ginny Sweet Shop I got when I was about nine. To go with my Ginny doll. I don’t know why I liked it so much since she was the only doll that fit into it. Which meant that basically she’d go to the Sweet Shop and sit there sadly alone.

13. Another year I got this great wooden kitchen set. I was maybe four? It had all the plastic food and little tin pots and a plastic sink you could pop out. It was, as the kids say, teh awesome. I sold it when I was about 12 for twenty-five dollars at a garage sale. I wish I had that kitchen set now but whenever I remember the parents gleefully piling it into the car (they exchanged looks and they were both grinning like mad), I feel ok about it. Because I know how I feel when I get an amazing steal for my kids at a garage sale and as I recall, I was pretty damn happy to get the $25.

14. When we first moved back here Brett bought me a sweater pantsuit. I’m not kidding. It had light blue sweater pants and a light blue cardigan. I looked like a giant squishy blue marshmallow in it. I wore it on Christmas in honor of the day and then never wore the pieces together again. It was so not my thing being essentially sweatpants and a sweatshirt only in a very fancy knit. Brett got it for me because it was my first year as a stay-at-home mom and he wanted to indulge me in something I could wear around the house comfortably but still look nice. (The nice is open to opinion — it was really ridiculous.) I found out later that it cost something like two hundred dollars and that’s when he was making less than $20k/year. This is why he’s not allowed to buy Christmas gifts unsupervised. (At least his heart is in the right place!)

15. When I was ten I asked my mom for a classical music album. She bought me Mantovani and the Boston Pops (it was a double album). I felt very sophisticated when I would sit and listen to the orchestral version of Windmills of Your Mind. This was back when I thought classical meant violins.

16. The same year I got the moomin books we also got a shared present for the three of us. It was a set of four albums called Cock-A-Doodle-Doo and it was nursery rhymes. I was insulted. Wasn’t I long past the preschool age of nursery rhymes? But then later on I listened to them and loved them so that when we moved to Chicago, the record player and those records were in my room. (Along with the Gilbert & Sullivan album and Boris Karloff reciting Sleepy Hollow and all the Disney long-playing records.) I was happy to find Sharon Lois & Bram for my own kids because those records are long gone and I think every kid should have a foundation of nursery rhymes to be culturally literate.

Brushes with Evel greatness

Family 6 Responses »

Dec 022008

Tracy’s auction chronicles post today reminded me of something — Evel Knievel owed his career to my dad. Ok, that’s an exaggeration because after all Evel had the idea, he had the jumps, he had the bones to be broken but he was working for my dad when he first got started; Evel was selling insurance with him. My dad helped him get the money for his first jump by vouching so he could get financing. My mom typed up his PR letters. (Or maybe they loaned him the money for his first jump — I’m a little high on caffeine and my brain is not remembering things properly.)

We had a framed, autographed picture of him on his motorcycle jumping over barrels that hung in our family room — our friends were impressed. But I never got to meet him. Rats. That would have raised my cool factor a few notches in elementary school.

My dad said Evel was a nice guy (my mom concurs) but crazy (my mom concurs again). He said that at the beginning he had this whole routine where he’d jump barrels and a very small man (a little person) would replicate the jump with very tiny barrels. They’d both be dressed alike.

My parents both grew up in LA and if you grow up in LA you will have stories about the rich and famous. My mom’s stories include being mauled by Denny Miller (Gilligan’s Tarzan character). I found this out while enjoying this semi-wholesome sitcom one day after school. My mom wandered by with a load of laundry and said, “I went on a date with that guy — he was only after one thing.” (Being about ten I pictured that like this: He rings the doorbell holding flowers. She opens the door. He hands her the flowers and tries to rip open her shirt.)

She also used to party with Louis Prima and his band when she and her girlfriends would head to Vegas for the weekend.

Now my dad, I’ve always thought he should have a blog called “I dated Barbie and other tales from 1950s LA” because he dated Barbie-inventor Ruth Handler‘s daughter, Barbara, in high school. And he used to run around with Phil Spector back in the day.

Happy thanksgiving (if you celebrate!)

Blogging 4 Responses »

Nov 272008

I’m killing time before we go pick up Pennie (and her bread pudding!) and head over to my dad’s. Noah is on his computer and Brett is watching turkey cooking shows with Madison — as prep, I guess.

I’ve been thinking about overhauling Open Adoption Support to make it easier for people to use. I think I’ll need to do a fresh install on a new host, which will cost money but someone I know in real life said he might be able to help out with hosting. I’d like to run multiuser WordPress, specifically BuddyPress, although that’s in beta right now.

Drupal, the system I’m using now, has more features but it’s also really clunky and I’m afraid of doing stuff to it because it’s a big install and I’m afraid of breaking it. I just don’t have as much experience with Drupal. And I’m so busy that I don’t know if I can find the time to get in there and get some real expertise.

Thing is with multiuser WordPress is that I’m hearing you need a virtual server, which is more expensive than the kind of shared hosting most of us use for our typical domains. This is where the nice local person comes in. I’m hoping he can help me figure out what to do next because he’s techie.

(I’m not techie; I just play techie on the internet. I’m only techie compared to she-who-shall-remain-nameless who when asked what browser she used replied “google” and still has an aol account. I will add that several of my clients exist in this same “I browse with google” type bubble and that patient hand-holding is part of my services.)

List as we head into the holiday

Family, The Story of My Life 3 Responses »

Nov 262008

I’ve never cooked the holiday turkey or hosted the dinner. We always go to my dad’s or to my inlaw’s and I’m more than ok with that. Tomorrow I’m in charge of bringing the soda pop — this I can do.
I am totally wired on caffeine from the strong coffee my friend served me. I mean WIRED. I mean I can barely focus on the computer screen. I am so not going to sleep tonight. I realized it was stronger than I thought after I already drank most of it and I was tripping over the conversation because my brain was going too fast. Then I got paranoid that I was babbling. I would be such a bad drug addict.
I had insomnia last night, too. Dang holidays.
I need to work on marketing again. (sigh) I’d really like to get some regular repeat gigs so I wouldn’t have to be constantly replacing closed out projects. I’m feeling a little burned out and just want to work for crying out loud.
And the economy? Scaring the hell out of me. Maybe it isn’t the holidays that are giving me insomnia.
Pennie might be coming to T-day at my dad’s tomorrow because she’d like to spend more holidays with us but she has other demands, too. I hope she can swing it. I also invited her to sleep over Christmas eve but again, she has a broad and busy life so we’ll see. More Pennie is more fun than less Pennie.
My dawnfriedman.com hosting account expired and I thought I’d switched it over to a new server but hadn’t. Oops. Now I know why it didn’t get any hits for a week.
My horoscope keeps telling me I’m going to be rolling in money soon. If the money doesn’t come through soon, I’m totally suing the astrologer. Or maybe I’ll just quit reading her column — I haven’t decided yet.
We bought light orange paint for our family room and then after Brett put the first coat on we noticed the color changed weirdly in artificial light. It went from light orange to neon yellow. Since the chip didn’t do that, we think they mixed the paint wrong. He got a new batch two days ago but now we’re paranoid. He’s going to paint this weekend and meanwhile we are living in chaos.
Did I mention that I’m wired?
Friday we are going to a left-overs potluck although we won’t have left-overs. Maybe we’ll just bring soda pop again. Saturday we’re having dinner with the inlaw’s to make up for missing Thanksgiving with them (they’re going out of town anyway). Sunday we will rest. Ok, I’ll work and Brett will paint but at least we won’t be social.
Quinn is getting lots of earrings. The girl deserves ‘em!

Happy thanksgiving for those of you who celebrate!

Being weird and homeschooling

Homeschooling 14 Responses »

Nov 072008

harriet4 Julia and I were talking homeschooling the other day (a big discussion/gentle debate) and she said, I like to think gently, that maybe I liked being the odd parent out and this had something to do with our homeschooling choice. You know, that much of my identity comes from going against the grain.

I’ve been thinking on this. It’s a charge I’ve had leveled at me before especially when I was a disgruntled teen with bad punk rock hair and questionable taste in clothes. It’s true that when I was a teenager that I reveled in my weirdness but that’s just it — I didn’t like to be weird; I was weird. And when I was a teen and grappling with my identity, I wanted to be very in people’s faces about it as teens will be.

So see, it’s not that my identity is wrapped up in being weird like a status symbol; it’s that I am who I am and I’ve learned to be proud of it as opposed to defensive and worried about it. Am I proud of being a homeschooler? Sure. I’m proud that we’re living out our values even though homeschooling has added to our challenges as a family (financially for the most part) and I don’t need that celebrated although it would be nice to have it accepted instead of questioned.

Back to being weird and how it relates to our homeschooling choices. I was an odd kid and pretty early on I figured it out as odd kids will do. It seemed like I usually wanted to do things differently than my friends or had interests that they didn’t share. I’m fortunate that I wasn’t the kind of kid who got harassed much and I’m sure part of this is that my mom (and I think my dad) like me an awful lot and told me so. What made me weird, I learned early on, was also what made me special so I never wanted to pretend to be something I wasn’t.

I think when it comes to intrinsic weirdness having confidence is what saves you from getting harassed. Also as introverted as I am (and this introversion certainly contributed both to my weirdness and my school misery), I do like people and my social skills were always good. You know, “plays well with others” and stuff like that. I’ve always had close knit friends and generally get along with people and my unhappiness with the social world at school had to do with the way I saw it and experienced it and not with how I was treated.

There are two bullies that stand-out in memory — one being some random kid in Chicago who used to follow me home from school and wash my face in the snow. I don’t know how it started or how it ended but I remember the feeling of trying to get across the wide open field between the school and our house during the blizzard of ’78. The snow was too deep for me to get across quickly, so I’d struggle huffing and puffing and praying he didn’t catch me. The other bully was in middle school, one Eric Bielke who was a big, dumb, mean guy and who had it in for me for reasons I still don’t understand. He’d wait for the Home Ec teacher to leave and then threaten to strangle me. But mostly I had my friends and things were fine as long as I was comfortable with feeling awkward, which I learned to be. Which is to say, again, that my misery wasn’t social misery.

Some weird kids, they have charisma and can wear their weirdness to the top of the pack (my first boyfriend, Joaquin, was one of these). But the rest of us have to make some choices: