The Day Tyra Went Political

Hello, my name is Kristina and I am addicted to ANTM. Last night, besides the other, more standard laugh-out-loud moments (cat fight between two brown girls from the "inner city" about whether an exotic dancer could really be America's Next Top Model and holier-than-thou attitude from Yale girl who looks like a horse), I was so amused by Tyra's blossoming social conscience.

Not only do the girls have to go around LA in a "green" vehicle made out of recycled tires and cardboard boxes and glitter, but at panel Tyra announced that smoking would be prohibited. Ha-ha! (like how Nelson says it on the Simpsons.)

Poor little models, no more smoking for 12 whole weeks. By the end of the season, I expect they will all be "plus size" models weighing in at 125 lbs or more. Heffers. Plus, the smoking ban should make for some more good cat fights among the little girls in withdrawal. Let's see how smarty pants Yale girl keeps her composure when she isn't allowed to puff away as she recites Ginsberg and performs coffee shop psychoanalysis on all her less-than-Ivy-league competitors.

I hope someone drops out of the competition because she just loves smoking more than she loves Miss Jay. That would be classic.

Blatant Lying for No Reason

Most of us learned at an early age that lying is bad. Children of divorce, I think, are more tempted to lie because it's less likely they'll get caught. You know, sometimes if Mom and Dad don't talk that much, lying is sort of a cinch, like in this precious gem of a moment: Dad brings 4-year-old Kristina to Montessori School. During the day, friend Kristina steals beautiful green plastic headband from the other Christina at Montessori School and hides it in her cubby. Mom picks Kristina up from Montessori School and asks where she got beautiful green plastic headband. Straight-faced, lying, 4-year-old Kristina answers "Dad bought it for me." See? It's so easy. Never mind that I accidentally broke the headband and then had to come clean that it wasn't mine and we had to buy other Christina a new headband. These are those teaching/learning childhood moments when most of us learned that, as a general rule, lying is bad.

That's not to say that all lying is bad. There are 3 kinds of lying that I usually think are OK:

1. White Lies. After I have this Pavo in November, I will probably look like shit for several days/weeks. It's OK if you tell me I look beautiful and glowing.
2. Exaggerating. Especially when it comes to telling or re-telling a story. Double especially when telling a story over cocktails. This is what makes life funny.
3. Puffing. Puffing is a sort-of legal term of art. Making your case sound better than it is while negotiating with the other side. Maybe this isn't really ok but in my world it is; I do it all day long.

But here's what's not ok. Blatant lying for no good reason. Here's the deal: if a person has personal time saved up at work for either sick or vacation, why not just take those couple of days you want off and enjoy them? Why on earth would you invent some elaborate story about having to stay home with a sick kid (who is 14 years old and perfectly capable of staying home alone) and then say you had to take him to the ER in the middle of the night for a throat culture? This lie is unnecessarily and suspiciously elaborate, not to mention just plain old unnecessary and stupid. Take the day off. Enjoy. Don't fucking lie to everyone in your office.

Obviously this person didn't go to Montessori School and learn at age 4 that blatant lies for no reason usually backfire and make you look like a total idiot. This person clearly needs some remedial lessons with a beautiful green plastic headband taking center stage.

The Upside of Earth's Demise

This morning I read a "blurb" (it wasn't really a complete article, just small box of text with a picture) in the Star Tribune about a new portion of the Arctic that has melted. I expected the text to be something about higher ocean temperatures, carbon footprints, and what will happen if the polar ice caps keep melting at this rate (it's bad, they say, very very bad).

However, as I began to read the blurb, I was surprised and somewhat disturbed to discover the true subject matter -- the potential for more widespread and cheaper trading due to decreased transportation costs if this portion of the Arctic stays melted! Glory of glories! While dozens of U.S. cities will be flooded and uninhabitable, at least it will be easier to to get lead-infested toys from China to the sad American children who have been orphaned by floods and hurricanes! There's always a silver lining.

I'm not even much of an environmentalist. Sure, I turn lights out when I leave the room, I recycle (mostly), and I like to buy organic and locally grown produce when feasible, but it's not my soapbox. Al Gore and Leo (and more recently Paris Hilton) have helped me come around a bit more to acknowledge that environmentalism is less remote of a cause than I once considered it. Environmentalists used to irritate me in the way that animal rights activists still do* -- "Is that really the best cause you can come up with? In the face of vast and immediate human suffering, is this really what you care about the most?" I have come a long way and am no longer bugged by environmentalism**, and have learned some things about how the things I am concerned about (poverty, disease, children dying from easily preventable illnesses, basic human rights) are related to efforts undertaken to reverse the course we have charted for Earth.

Reading this piece in the Star Tribune, I almost felt pangs of environmentalist in me. At first, I could not believe what I was reading...it seemed like something that would be on Weekend Update. "Fear not! Researchers have determined that, even if we are unable to halt or reverse global warming, it's ok because we'll be able to get more crappy shit from China at even cheaper prices!" Now, I feel both angry and saddened-- angry because I know some morons that read that piece will now actually believe there is an upside to global warming the melting of the Arctic and saddened because the fact that such an article was even written means that some people have given up altogether on trying to stop and/or undo the human contribution to global warming and have started to seriously consider ways humans can make our lives even easier once there is no ice left on the planet.

While I obviously don't object to this being in the newspaper (for me, 1st Amendment still trumps environmentalism), I do hope this won't actually be the way that the conversation about protecting the earth starts to turn. "Let's do what we can, but if that doesn't work, 3 cheers for Dora the Explorer with her little poisonous backpack on sale half-price at Walmart!" Somehow that slogan just doesn't flow as well as "Think Globally, Act Locally (or Watershed or whatever.)


*Animal rights activists should not come to my house. There are some very yippy dogs that live next door that woke me up at 7 a.m. this morning. They are lucky to still be alive.

**I am still bugged by some environmentalists. For example, people that want me to waste 5 gallons of water to fully wash out a small plastic peanut butter jar so that it can be recycled or people that judge me for throwing a piece of notebook paper in the garbage.

Games Fetuses Play

Every day Pavo is getting feistier. He is now pretty regularly active in the evening hours, kicking and punching and maybe somersaulting away as I try to relax after dinner. So, Eduardo and I have taken to playing a "game." We poke the side of my belly where we think one of Pavo's arms or legs is. And, then, sometimes, Pavo kicks back right in the spot where we poked. Awww...

It's sort of the in utero version of hide and seek. Of course it's endearing and kind of cool that we are able to "communicate" with him like this, although hopefully once he makes his grand appearance our communications will no longer be confined to poking and kicking. Unless he acts like a total little baby and needs a good poke to get it out of his system.

a little more digging...

I found a lab in Florida that will work with me to donate these stem cells. They send the equipment and a courier to the hospital to pick up the donation! I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and get the M.D. to sign off on it, but hope has been restored on the stem cell donation front. Hallelujah!

A Couple of Bummers

1) It appears I have lost the contest of all contests. The phone call should have come yesterday and alas, mine remained silent. A deafening, mourning silence. I will have to figure out another way to have lunch with my beloved Clintons. Isn't there some sort of Make a Wish foundation for people who aren't sick, but just really want something really badly?

2) Yesterday I asked my doctor about donating the cord blood stem cells to research so that Mr. Impending Arrival could begin his life by a) giving something back to the world and b) "sticking in Bush's eye from the moment he is born" -credit to Sylia Wilson for quote. Disappointingly, they are no longer collecting stem cells for donation in Minnesota because the U of MN has enough stem cells and doesn't need any more right now! On one hand this is good and encouraging news- to know that one of the top research universities in the world is stocked with plentiful stem cells for research purposes is great. But, it is sad that my great idea to bring the baby into the world chock full of hope for humanity and a political agenda has been foiled.

I bet if I would have won that lunch with Hillary and Bill, they would have known what to do about this stem cell cord blood conundrum. Any ideas?

Kick Off

I love football. I love the Vikings (both of Minnesota and of Erik the Red). Now it's football season and kick off is about to happen. It's a brisk day, utterly appropriate for the beginning of football season. And I am happy.

Fingers Crossed Everybody!

I need lots of luck and good thoughts sent my way for the next few days--until Tuesday, to be precise. I have entered what is, for me, the contest of all contests. The grand prize is lunch with Bill and Hillary. While this should sound like a cool prize to anyone with even a partial brain (I mean, even if you disagree with them or don't love them, anyone should be able to appreciate how interesting sitting down at the table with them would be), for me it is bigger than just "cool."

Meeting the Clintons in an intimate setting (not like that) has been a dream of mine for a long time. While I realize the possibility is very remote that I would actually win this contest, never before has it even been within the realm of possibilities to have lunch with the Clintons. And now it is. So, humor me and send lots of luck vibes to be through Tuesday. If I win, and you can prove that the luck you sent me helped me win, I might even bring you as my guest.

A dream is not a wish your heart makes...

...at least I hope it isn't!

I've been told and I've read that the further a pregnancy progresses, the more vivid the dreams become. But my dream last night was strange, even for me.

I dreamed that the father of my child was Steven Tyler. Of Aerosmith. In the dream, it wasn't just a one night stand -- S.T. and I weren't a couple, but we had an on-again, off-again thing and were good friends ready to raise a child together. Uhhhh.....wtf? I am not even a big fan of Aerosmith. If I heard "Crazy" or "Janie's Got a Gun" on the radio, I wouldn't turn the songs off, but neither would it ever occur to me to purchase an Aerosmith album. I wouldn't be surprised at all if I had dreamed that Bill Clinton or Keith Olbermann or even John Lennon was the father, but Steven Tyler?!

So far I have come up with a few possible explanations for why my subconscious would want Steven Tyler to be my baby daddy-

• a hope that my child will be artistic or musically inclined?
• my recent viewing of "E True Hollywood Story: Rock Star Wives"?
• a concern that my child's lips won't be full enough? (hardly likely, and the least of my concerns! Between Eduardo's and my lips, I am confident that baby will have a lovely mouth...)
• a refusal to acknowledge that, between being an attorney, a wife, a homeowner, and a mom, it is extremely unlikely that I will ever be a rock star groupie that drives across America following bands on tour? (not a goal that I have ever had, but nevertheless a "possibility" that seems more remote now than it might have 5 years ago...)

Other interpretations of this dream are welcome. Especially if Steven Tyler happens to be reading this.