I accept my nomination...

...to be the president of all babies for nations near and far. If you don't vote for me, I will squeeze your "you know whats" with my oh-so-powerful vice grip.

Republicans: the Family Values Party? Right.

It's no surprise to anyone that the country is going into ever more massive debt. We need to cut corners to turn this thing around, nobody is arguing that point. Where we differ, however, is which corners should be cut. Those natsy ol' liberals like me want to make up some of the difference by making the richest people in our society actually pay taxes again.

Those family values loving Republicans like our buddy, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in the photo above? They want to take food out of schoolkids' mouths to save some cash. According to the article in today's Washington Post,

"The food stamp cuts in the House measure would knock nearly 300,000 people off nutritional assistance programs, including 70,000 legal immigrants, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Those immigrants would lose their benefits because the House measure would require legal immigrants to live in the United States for seven years before becoming eligible to receive food stamps, rather than the current five years.

"About 40,000 children would lose eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunches, the CBO estimated."

Meanwhile, according to the article,

"Republicans move in the coming weeks to cut taxes for the fifth time in as many years. Those tax cuts, totaling $70 billion over five years, would more than offset the deficit reduction that would result from the budget cuts."

I wonder who will receive those tax cuts?

The amount of dickitude exhibited by the Republican party staggers the imagination.

By the way, we have spent $216,884,337,742 (that number has jumped by several hundred thousand dollars as you were reading this sentence) on the war in Iraq. Maybe that's why we can't seem to find any money to feed 40,000 children.

Boo again...

Boo!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Harmless but freaky

I cannot deal with these bugs. They're freaking me out. They are total spazzes and they jump AT you not away from you.

WHOA! Where did that Autumn come from?

This morning it was rainy and windy. Leaves were falling out of all the trees. Pumpkins and paper ghouls and goblins were on everyone's porches. It's undeniable: Fall has fallen!

But my how quickly it got here! It seems like just yesterday I was scraping snow off of my front steps and waiting patiently for an alien peanut to arrive. It blows my mind that time can move this fast. Oh well, to my good friend Fall, I say "Welcome"!

BTW, don't miss the first staple of the holiday season tonight on ABC: The Great Pumkin Charlie Brown is on at 8pm EST. He will come this year, I just KNOW IT! :0)

Don't need words for this post....

Will the word "mutilation" scar my daughter's psyche?

Sylvie loves it when I play my electric guitar and sing to her. She lays in her crib staring at my moving fingers, smiling and laughing when I do a particularly crazy high note or hammer-on. It warms the heart, no doubt.

Her current favorite songs? Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) by Hendrix and Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) by the Pixies.

I love playing the Pixies for her, but it's a drag sometimes because I can only sing about half of the words without exposing her delicate ears to stories about someone boning their sister who is their daughter who is their favorite lover. Plus, they have no lips, they have no tongue. That could be scary for a three-month old.

So you see, it's a challenge.

What does green smell like to you?

Today we went to Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland. It's a totally beautiful park with manicured lawns, many trees and tons of plants and flowers. It also has an arboretum. The arboretum smelled like Hawaii to me...insert big sigh here. See Sylvie's massive excitement about being out in nature... then as soon as we got home she woke up...

In search of....

...the perfect black and white cookie. When I was a kid I used to go to Tarzana, CA every Thanksgiving and I always seemed to have a black and white cookie while I was there.
They were perfect: cakey and dense, not hard, vanilla-flavored cake, not lemon! The icing was soft in the middle with a slight crisp to the outside of it... very hard to describe. The cookies were from a grocery store there called Gelson's. Wonder if they still make the cookies?
When my mom was here last week we were on a mission to find one here. No luck. They were all too hard. Blech. The upside is that we found a great Jewish deli with yummy pastrami sandwiches (they even have a lower fat version of the pastrami which was super yum) and a great matzoh ball soup. We also found a real bagel place, less than 10 min. from my house.

Getting ready for cooler weather

Here I am with Mom, modeling the hat that Grandma Joan knitted for me!
It has a matching cardigan and the cardigan also has sheep on it.
I think I look just FABU. Grandma is currently making me a sweater with faux fur on it. It is PETA approved.

"Keep everyone afraid and they will consume"

I've never been a big Marilyn Manson fan. I really did enjoy all the hysteria and righteous uproar he caused in his time at the top of the charts, and he does put on one hell of a show in concert, but the music never really captured me.

Still, one thing Manson said has stuck with me for years. In an interview with Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine, Manson touched on an aspect of American culture that I had never thought about before, but have been unable to ignore since viewing the interview: the culture of fear.

In the movie, Manson says, "...You're watching television. You're watching the news. You're being pumped full of fear. There are floods, there's AIDS, there's murder. Cut to commercial. Buy the Acura, buy the Colgate...And it's just this -- it's a campaign of fear and consumption. And that's what I think it's all based on, is the whole idea that, keep everyone afraid and they'll consume."

But it's not consumerism these days, now we've got the President on TV trying to convince us that we need to abandon the specific prohibitions provided in the Constitution and allow him to station military troops--in a law enforcement capacity--in our cities. Why would he do this? Why, bird flu, of course! Be afraid of the deadly bird flu! The bird flu is coming to get you! Bird flu! Bird flu! Bird flu!

WTF???? What about SARS? What about Anthrax? What about Smallpox? What about Mad Cow Disease? This bird flu thing is just the latest in a long line of irrational fears used by this administration as a blunt object to bash the country into letting it do whatever the hell it wants, Constitution be damned.

Well, I'm not afraid of the fricking bird flu. I'm afraid of losing the remnant shreds of freedom and democracy I still have in this country. With this administration in office, that's a very rational fear to have.

It's Autumn!

Grandma Joan is here this week visiting from California! We had a great day today together as we got to hang out alot while mama went to some appts.
Check out the cool hat that Grandma Joan got me! I am ready for autumn's arrival.
I am getting very good at tummy time and did 20+ baby pushups. I love to smile at people.
More later....I need milk. NOW.

What a great news week!

First the meth Christian lady and now Tom Delay's indictment? What's next? GWB caught on tape, Kate Moss style, snorting a line of coke off of Dick Cheney's man boobs? God that would be the best EVER!

The Lord will provide....meth?

Holy crap this is funny.

So do you remember the woman in Atlanta a few months back who was taken hostage by the guy who shot up the courthouse down there? She convinced him to release her and turn himself in by giving him the Lord's word in the form of megaevangilist Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life.

Well, it turns out that the Lord wasn't the only thing driving her life; so was crystal meth. And, in fact, she gave the fugitive, Brian Nichols, some of her own stash to convince him to let her go. I wonder if that will make tonight's 700 Club?

This is funny because of all the religious wackos and preachers who went on and on and on about how Jesus worked through this book to save her and blah blah blah. Apparently Jesus was working his mysterious ways through some Methamphetamine hydrochloride. Well, the Jesus I know isn't a drug pusher, lady.

Got the "get a new singer" blues

Well, my band, My Life on Hold (MyLOH), hasn't played any gigs yet, and we've already got to get a new singer. Beat that, Spinal Tap! While we didn't get the high drama of a band member choking to death on someone else's vomit ("you can't really dust for vomit."), it's still a drag to have to go through auditions and all the crap that goes along with it.

Our singer had another band and a job that was taking up most of his time, so we decided (us and him, mutually) that it would be best for MyLOH to move on. I put an ad up on Craigslist and got several responses, so wish us luck.

BTW, if you want to hear two demos of our songs, go to www.myspace.com/mylifeonhold. Let me know what you think!

Rockin' birthday massage

Last night I got a most-good birthday massage as a present from Jenny for my birthday. God I love getting massages. No matter how long they are, I am SO bummed when the alloted time expires and I have to drag my sorry ass off that comfy table.

I decided last night that when I become rich, my first staff members will be two massage therapists who will work in shifts. Ah yes.

Who needs collagen!?

Who needs collagen!?
Originally uploaded by Xose.

It's me Jen, who's been uploading photos lately, even though it says Xose...
Sylvie's been quite a drool machine lately...check out those lips!
No need for collagen here :O)

enuf already

enuf already
Originally uploaded by Xose.

this is the post-bath oh-so-serious look that Sylvia is showing you.
mama is going to bed now; more blogging later.

How I spent my Tuesday

spatime
Originally uploaded by Xose.

I got to ride in the car today and go to Target.
We first stopped and got mama a coffee so she would not get a caffeine headache. I slept thru almost the whole trip and we bought my soon-to-be new cousin stuff for his baby shower!

I slept in the car coming home. The car is warm and cozy!
Then we came home and we discovered that the dryer died! Oy vey. So we called dad and we decided to get both a new washer AND dryer. So Wednesday mama and I are going appliance shopping. But, we also had to call the plumber as it seemed that the drain pipe for the washer backed up a bit here and there. So this Wedneday morning we had the plumber come here and snake the drain and he got rid of all the fuzz in the drain. yahoo! he was nice to me and his name was Fred.

But I digress, so yesterday I spent the afternoon with mama in the house and I did two great sessions of tummy time, talked to myself, then dada came home and we hung out and then after dada weeded the scary big weeds out of the garden, dada gave me a bath! See my photo. I love baths. I use nummy smelling soap that mama's friend Nadine gave her that is made from goat's milk.

I slept quite well.

Ok, gotta jump!

Time to take some chill time in my swing.

besos,

sylvia