Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I suppose it was too much to hope that I could enjoy the Olympics without having to talk about politics, but I was wrong.

I don’t even like sports, but last night during the opening ceremony, I kept getting teary.  Why?  Because the Olympics are one of the few moments that we share as human beings.  Chances are, eyes from ever single country on this planet are watching (or watched) the same thing I was watching.  Chances are good L’s family in China saw it too.

When ever Chinese person we knew was getting more and more excited about the olympics in Beijing, I poo-poo-ed  it.  I thought it was a big deal over nothing.  But when I saw it?  It was a big freaking deal.  It was something Chinese people could be proud of.

It was a moment where the country of China was saying “We want to be a respected member of the international community.  We want to play with the big boys.  We want your respect and admiration and we are willing to bend over fucking backwards and pay through the nose to get it.”

That moment, where the admiring eyes of the world watched one of the most spectacular performances I have ever seen, was not about the Chinese government.  It was about the Chinese *PEOPLE*.  One-fifth of the world’s population that has been trying to claw its way back into respectability for the last 35 years.  Can’t the Chinese people have a couple weeks where they can be proud of the massive accomplishments they have made in the last three decades?

Is the Chinese government fucked up?  Heck yeah!  They oppress their minorities, deny women and families their reproductive rights and force people to move for public work projects.

Is the Chinese government any more fucked up than the US government?  It depends on who you ask.  In case you are forgetting, the US government is responsible for this and this and this.  Oh wait, there is this and this and this and this.  Seriously, I could google US human rights abuses and misdeeds until my fingers bleed.

Do I wish the Chinese government would have saved the money they spent on the Olympics and spent it for their orphans or the poor or whatever?  Sure.  But I also wish the US government would save the $3 TRILLION dollars it is spending on the Iraq war to provide health care for poor people in America too.  Besides, I would rather watch the fireworks in China than watch US bombs blow people up.

You don’t like the Chinese government?  Fine.  Protest all you want.  Boycott Chinese-made goods.  Ooooh, maybe you won’t even watch the Olympics.   Is that going to do diddly-squat to change things in China?  Heck no, it won’t.

The Chinese government isn’t going to straighten up its act if we isolate and shame them.  What makes countries behave themselves is being a member of the larger community of developed nations.

When China grows up –and it WILL grow up eventually, because you can’t keep down a fifth of the world’s population if they have a lust for education and wealth like the Chinese — it will have to answer not only to the rest of the world.  The Chinese government is going to have to answer to the Chinese PEOPLE.  People who will eventually be relatively wealthy and educated and plugged in to the global community.
The Chinese people have tasted the Big Mac and they want more.  They want more and they want to be better, just like most of the rest of the citizens of this planet.

Sure some wrinkly old guys are trying to cling desperately to their party’s place in the corrupt power structure, but then, we have that here too.

China is changing faster than pretty much anywhere else on the planet.  It is impossible to predict what will happen there in 10 or 20 years, but I will go out on a limb and bet there is democracy in China in my lifetime.  (Not that democracy prevents human rights violations, as the US is so eager to demonstrate time and again.)  Things are changing there for the better and I expect the trend to continue, but it won’t happen over night.

It isn’t every day we get the honor of a truly global event.  This week, our family is going to enjoy watching the Olympics with the rest of the world.  You now, with all those people whose governments are imperfect but whose citizens hope for something better, just like us.

If you want to talk smack about Chinese politics, I am not going to provide the venue for it on my blog.  Not this week.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

So, Mr. A and I are not discussing the election.  At ALL.  It is like it doesn’t exist.  THis is good because I have been known to call him a Big Fat TRAITOR and get rather agitated about his defection to the Hillary camp in previous discussions.  Mr. A does not get agitated, even when I tried to convince him to change is vote again and again. 

I can’t help but feel like he sold me out by switching teams.  We have always agreed on politics before.  If he was a republican, I do not believe we could stay married. 

On with the questions:

4) Does your family (including any in-laws) know about and read your blog?

To my knowledge, no one on my side of the family reads my blog.  Mr. A’s older sister (SIL) and her husband (BIL) were informed of my blog’s existence by a friend who had met me before and who stumbled upon the blog randomly, I think.  Fortunately for me, BIL told me that he had heard of the blog so I could scrub it for all negative comments about him before he read it (Ha ha, just kidding! I don’t think I ever wrote any negative comments about BIL or that SIL here).  

BIL showed it to SIL who was apparently uncomfortable reading such personal information about me, so I don’t think she reads it regularly.  BIL reads from time to time and seems to particularly interested in my posts about MIL.  This is one thing we have in common (dealing with Mr. A’s mother in an inlaw way) and we rehash it endlessly when there is nothing else to do.

I also have a number of friends who read either because I a) told them about it or b) I met them via my blog or C) they stalked me (via google or by looking at their browser history when I was staying at their house like a certain Annie Malie).   At first, real life people reading my blog really freaked me out.  Now, it is no big deal.  

For the record, though, if I know you in real life and you are reading here, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.   Seriously, this will save all of us from very uncomfortable situations in which I complain about you, your feelings get hurt, and then we have to have some kind of painful confrontation in which you tell me how much I suck.   I hate confrontations.

5)  More pictures of your home projects!

Once we get more of the grunt work done, I have every intention of posting pictures and soliciting decorating advice.  Because I have been so project-focused, a lot of the house is pretty messy right now and you can’t really see the improvments like that.   I promise the pictures will show up in the near future.

6)  What do you like to fix for dinner? Do you have any easy, fast recipes you could share?  Does Mr. A like to cook any traditional Chinese dishes?

I try to cook a real meal 3 or 4 nights a week.  To me this means a main dish and two veggie or fruit sides. Or a single dish that incorporates a lot of veggies.

I particularly like to cook braised meat like (Sauerbraten), roast chicken or pork, and thai curries.  In the winter, I try to make one pot of soup a week and we also eat a lot of random stuff stir-fried with rice.  I don’t really use recipes for most things.  I have found two recipes this winter that I like, though.  Skillet Pot Pie and Balsamic Beef Stew.  I modify them both slightly (mostly I add more veggies), but you can get the jist.

Mr. A does cook Chinese sometimes.  He has about a 50/50 chance that I will like what he cooks if he doesn’t use a recipe.  His best dish is long noodles with ground pork.  We had those for Chinese New Year.  He learned that recipe from his sister and I don’t know what else goes into it.

More answers tomorrow.  

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Stupid Ohio.

Now you have reminded me why we moved to California.

And if Mr. A even has the tiniest THOUGHT of gloating about Clinton’s win, he will be nookie-free for a long, long time.

Motherflipping Ohio.  You let me down tonight.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Obama is going to be in town again tomorrow.  I sent Mr. A to try to pick up tickets for me, but after trying two or three different locations, it appears that they are all gone.

Damn it.  Now I really want to go, but I can’t!

In other news, home repairs continue.  Today, I replaced three doors.  For the first time in about three years, we have a doorknob on our upstairs bathroom.   If things keep progressing like this, the house will be much nicer than it ever was the whole time we have lived here.  Bathroom doors with doorknobs are only the beginning!  Soon we may even have a usable basement and clean garage!  There is no telling how far this may go!

We are also in the market for a new dining room table.  The one we have now was a slightly damaged one from pottery barn outlet.  It has served us well, but it doesn’t expand and only seats 6 people tightly.  I wanted to be able to have at least 8 people so we can occasionally as people over to eat without putting the kids on a plastic picnic table.

We rarely buy furniture, but we got a chunk of cash for our tax return, so we decided to go for it.

I ordered a table from Crate and Barrel online, which turned out to be a huge mistake.  I knew that if I returned it, I would sacrifice the $85 shipping fee, but I really liked it.   Unfortunately, I stupidly neglected to measure the dining room and the new table is too small.  I also neglected to read the return information, so if I want to send it back I have to send ANOTHER $85.  Or get a truck and take it to the nearest store.  

What a fiasco — totally of my own making because I didn’t take the time to read the details.   Now there is a giant box in my dining room waiting for me to find a truck.

Also, I still have to find another table.  What a hassle.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Many many years ago, I am guessing it was in 1984 (which would have made me about 8 years old), my parents took me to a political rally.   Both of my parents are pretty a-political (or rather they were way back then*), but I think they kind of liked Reagan. Apparently, the entire country liked Reagan it seems.

We went to the nearby train station where we saw President Reagan waving from the caboose of a train.  My parents had dressed my sister and I up in red, white and blue and had us paint big signs saying “Reagan and Bush!”  Those pictures will one day be used to blackmail me, I am sure.

While that rally clearly didn’t make me a Republican, I do remember the excitement of seeing The President.  To an eight year old, I think that is a pretty big deal. 

There was a rally with Senator Obama here today.  I had idealistic ideas about taking the girls so they could see a little bit of history being made.  Even though Mr. A and I have agreed to not dress them in campaign Tshirts until a democratic nominee is selected (after that, they may have an entire Obama wardrobe), it would still be fun to try to get their picture with Senator Obama.

Then I realized that the doors opened at 8:30 and I usually don’t get up until 8:00.  And I would have had to take M out of school for the morning (thus no time to hear myself think today).  And we most likely would have had to stand in a couple inches of fresh snow while waiting to get in.  And they probably wouldn’t let me bring my stroller so I would have had to lug all 24 lbs. of bundled up L in her ergo carrier.

So I weighed the benefits of being a part of American history against being cold, tired and annoyed.  In the end, sleeping in won out.

Maybe next time.

  _____________________________________________________________________

*This was back before I tried to convince my swing-voter mother to listen to NPR.  She tried, but thought the droning was too boring.  So she started listening to Rush Limbaugh and became a crazy conservative Republican footsoldier.  Why can’t I just keep my damn mouth shut sometimes?

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

We don’t get to vote on super Tuesday.  It makes me sad, because tomorrow will be a historic day for this country.  Tomorrow, a white woman or a Black man will be chosen to run for the most powerful job in the Nation.  

I am voting for the world I wish we lived in.  I am voting for the world I want my daughters to grow up in.  I am voting for someone who will not only fix the mess we are in, but who has a vision for a better future.   I am voting for a country with integrity.  I am voting to make America a country I can be proud to call my home.

They try to say we can’t do it. 

Yes. We. Can.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I am rather surpised to find myself watching the New Hampshire primary results trickling in (54% in as I am writing this). 

I don’t like to watch a lot of political news reporting because I find it boring and not representative of the issues I really care about.  But tonight, as Clinton is holding a solid lead so far, I am excited.  I feel like the tighter the race, the better prepared the final nominee will be to go into the big election next fall. 

I will confess, after Obama won Iowa, I started to feel a little worried that maybe I should vote for Clinton instead.  Honestly, if the plugged Bill’s very experienced team right back into action, I think I would be pretty happy.  The Clinton years were a nice time in my life: jobs were plentiful, the economy felt safe, choice was not a huge issue, the environment wasn’t burning up in flames.  Of course, this could have been that the Clinton years were a carefree time in my life.  I was in high school and college so the world was my oyster.  It was also back before we had so much school loan debt.

(I am not turning on Obama, though I would dump him to vote for his wife.  As good of a speaker and as likeable as he is, Michelle Obama gives him a run for his money.)

The fact is, I would be happy to vote for any of the top Democratic candidates.  The areas where they differ are not that significant to me, when you get right down to it.  Once the primaries are over I will gladly campaign, donate and vote for the winner. 

It is kind of an exciting time to be a Democrat.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

This weekend we recieved a little more information from our agency regarding the baby’s development and where she was found.  It was sad, reading such a tiny snippet of information that had such a profound impact on this baby. 

The information we recieved included only a location and no names of who found her or what her condition was.  It only raised more questions for me:  Was she wearing clothes?  If so, what?  Who found her?  Was she sleeping? Crying? Looking around?  Was she out in the open and clearly visible?  Was she in a box or a basket or something else?  Who left her there?  They clearly chose somewhere that would be pretty safe, we think.   Did her parents live  nearby?  Did they watch until someone found her?  How did the police/orphanage estimate her birthdate? 

We will probably never know the answers to these questions.

I was going to write a long post about Blog For Choice day, but I don’t think I will now.  I look at this tiny baby’s picture and that is the only argument for choice I will ever need. 

I will be sharing the role of mother to this little girl with a woman who most likely was denied the right to choose her own reproductive destiny.  Choice is about being able to choose the number and spacing of your children if you choose to have any at all.  It is about being able to raise the children you birth or to have the freedom to make a plan for their care. 

I am pro-choice for my mother who had me when she was 17 in an unplanned pregnancy.  She had the freedom to decide to continue or pregnancy or have an abortion (I was born in 1976).  She took control of her life by choosing to have me and never had to resent her lack of options when life was difficult because of that decision.

I am pro-choice because I know how scary it is to face an unintended pregnancy.  While I didn’t choose an abortion when I found myself pregnant (even though I was working at an abortion clinic), I know how frightening and life-altering the choice to become a parent can be.

I am pro-choice for my daughters.  I want them to be in control of their lives, their bodies, and their futures 

I am pro-choice for my daughter’s first mother who should never have had to make the choice to abandon her daughter to an unknown future. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I just finished watching Barack Obama on Oprah. 

He made me cry.

He is almost too good to be true.  I am almost afraid to believe that a politician could survive American politics and come out the other side still idealistic and human.

I am holding my breath hoping he is for real.