I think I have a crush on Michelle Obama

In fairness and remembering issues from my journalism classes, I should and will give equal opportunity to both parties campaigning this fall. I won’t divulge my voter preference yet, but I do think I’ve spent way more time than necessary sizing up the Republicans. I am tired of watching Sarah Palin. Though I do wonder what she’d look like with contacts and think, “don’t her glasses get steamed over when she walks out of heated buildings into the Alaskan air?” I mean it does get cold there, right? Does she have anti-fog glasses? I leave the serious Palin pondering to my friend, Kate.

I still think Cindy McCain would make a great dinner guest, though I don’t know how I could invite her and  not her husband. Joe and John would have nothing to talk about except John’s several guest appearances on the Jon Stewart Daily Show. Maybe Joe and John could talk sports. (Joe found some great notes - from a collection of former Presidents’ writing on the subject of baseball from the Truman Library in Independence, Mo.) In a note dated March 26, 1975, speechwriter Orben wrote this for President Ford’s ad-libs for his presentation with a baseball season pass:

“There are a lot of similarities between baseball and politics. One of the worst things you can hear in baseball is: “You’re out!” Same thing in politics! . . . . .Politicians were saying WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR long before baseball fans ever thought of it!”

I don’t think we’ll have to worry about meeting the McCains any time soon. And that’s okay, for I have a new role model. I think she could be a great role model for all of America. Yes, it’s time to sum of my admiration for Michelle Obama.

But for the hairstyle Michelle wore on the night of her convention speech (too Sally Field, not there is ANYTHING wrong with Sally), I think Michelle is one class act. She’s smart and savvy and she relishes her role as a mother. She seriously seems like the mom you’d meet at the grocery store and could flip out datebooks or iPhones and set up a playdate for the girls. I just know my daughters would take to her Malia and Sasha.

Naturally, Barack’s campaign site has a bio on Michelle. She mentions her first job is being a mom to Malia and Sasha. That gets my vote for “mom of the year” not that I’m voting for just her, but I like her priorities. I like her style, her grace. She just seems regal and dignified, yet when prompted could just tell it like it is.  I think she would be a good grounding for Barack and his future endeavors.

Michelle will be in Kansas City tomorrow, I’m scheming now on ways to see her in person.

September 30th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Pressing Underarm Dilemma (or how to become European)

Maybe those European women have it right: no deoderant and no underarm shaving. I’m thinking I’m digging that low-maintenance approach. I mean, it’s not like my exposed legs, which I can now neglect because I’m not wearing shorts everyday. Another reason to enjoy fall weather.

See, my pressing under-arm dilemma started when my mother, probably getting one of those e-mail FEAR LETTERS that stated there was a link to aluminum in anti-persperants and breast cancer. “Makes sense,” I said when she related her concerns to me. I didn’t see anything on my trusty Snopes site and so I went out to the market and hit the organics section.

The organics section is a post for another day. Suffice it to say, I found an apricot deodorant stick claiming to be “pure, natural & organic.” It looked pretty and was for sensitive skin. It didn’t have that nasty toxic sounding ingredient list.

But when I got my new stick of dynamite odor-absorbing glory home, I did notice the secret weapon was Zinc Rincinoleate, which sounded Swiss-made or something like those cough drops in that commercial with the yodelers on Swiss Alps. But, no, Zinc Rincinoleate is derived from Castor Beans.

Yes, those beans that surface in the news every while when idiots try to poison people with ricin, which is MADE FROM CASTOR BEANS. I used the deorderant for barely a week, thought about calling the poison hotline to make sure I wouldn’t have any issues other than skin sensitivity, and then just plain went cold turkey on using deoderant at all. I don’t think my family noticed.

But I could tell I wasn’t at my freshest. There was no apricot smell when I’d lift my arms. So, I Googled again and discovered that the Cancer Society wasn’t quite ready to say there was a link to antiperspriants and breast cancer. That made me feel better. So better that on my next trip to the store, I went back to that deorderant aisle intent on getting a commerical deorderant sans antiperspirant. I’d be semi-cautious and I was fine with people seeing me sweat. Maybe it would come in handy for negotiations.

“She’s sweating! Get Out of Her Way!” or “My, Look How Hard She’s Working, She Must Have Mowed the Lawn For Her Husband Again.” (Which would have been sort of true until I put the WRONG, UNMARKED “old and last year’s BAD gasoline” in the mower.)

So, anyway, I scan all six shelves of women’s girly, frilly, feminine scented “anti-persperants/deorderants” and not a single one was deorderant alone. It’s like it’s a sin in our society to have puddles under our arms or heaven’s forbid, white patches from using a brand that is not “clear gel” or a ozone-killing aerosol.

In the end, I had to succumb to the wetness protection factor and get anti-perspirant. I wasn’t ready to go back to “organic” and it’s even distant connection to killing agents. Instead, while shopping with the girls, I had to buy the “Degree Girl fun spirit” because it had “Exclusive Ashley Tisdale cover song download inside!” on the package next to Ashley face’s, which the girls saw from more than 100 feet away.

“Mom, you have to get this,” both girls exclaimed in their typical giddy shopping mode.

I just nodded. I knew I couldn’t sweat the small stuff — like smelling like “fun spirit.”

September 25th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

Setting up voice mail & other hi-tech operations

Okay, if you’ve noticed I’ve been very remiss in updating this site. I am not holding out that any media outlet will be paying me anytime soon to write for them. But I have my new friends on facebook and twitter and I just joined twittermoms today. (It’s a new social network for moms who use twitter, that program that has you answer just one question in 140 characters - “What are you doing today?” And I think they want to know what I’m doing besides the dishes and the laundry. Their tagline is: Moms who tweet: find, follow, lead, learn, love and share) I think I’m in that follow category.

And yesterday I got an iPhone as an early birthday present. Sorry, Verizon dude and your great network. I am breaking free of my PC background and embracing Mac (and at&t)! (There was a time when I swore by the Mac and then I married my PC-lovin’ husband and I started getting his hand-me-down computers. But I have been doing a little design work and I need the apple logic on my side. I need to be able to find files for heaven’s sakes.)

Yes, part of me wonders if I can justify having a phone with all the bells and whistles when I like don’t really go to meetings or have many pressing deadlines as a stay-at-home mom. But the other part of me, that geeky, want-to-be-in-the-know, Star Wars lovin’, Mac aspiring, not-yet-discovered writer, dapplin’ designer, twitterin’ mom and gadget girl wanna-be thinks, “Wow, this phone rocks! Who cares if I really don’t get a darn think done anymore I will always know what time it is in Jerusalem and can so effortlessly click my friends’ names and have the phone dial any one of their two or three numbers so I can tell them I’ll be 15 minutes late (although they already know that).

So once I’ve set up my voice mail or my “visual voicemail” whatever that is, I’ll return to write more frequently.

September 17th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

I think I have a crush on Cindy McCain

Normally, I don’t think much about First Ladies or prospective First Ladies. I saw Laura Bush and Jenna when they were in town for a book reading. But as a journalistic family we don’t contribute to campaigns so we must stay on the sidelines and out of fund-raising events where grassroots families just might hope to rub elbows with politicians.

And my status as a non-working — well I am working, just not getting PAID for it — housewife does not give me much cache to warrant time with well, anyone on the entire Atlantic Seaboard. Nevertheless, since this is the week of political intrigue, it’s not the Republican’s Vice President candidate Sarah Palin, who has me intrigued. It’s the would-be, could-be First Lady, Cindy, who seems to me just a bit bewitching.

I am always telling my husband that someone who I have just met reminds me of one of my 200 to 300 friends I’ve ever known (rough estimate, maybe high estimate since I really only have 70 friends on facebook. Er, here is your hint to go find me on facebook and become my friend!) It is really driving me crazy that I cannot quite figure out WHO I am reminded of when I see Cindy McCain.

She seems glam and classy, as well as she should when she’s coming out in a single, complete outfit that would pay our mortgage. She is a beer heiress and runs the family’s business, living in Phoenix, while her husband works in D.C. I can relate to running the house when a spouse is away for business. I respect their decision to keep their children’s lives as normal as possible. Their daughter, Meghan, seems well adjusted and has her own blog.

Cindy McCain has grace under pressure. See that cast on her right arm?

She got injured when she was shaking hands with a supporter in mid-August, aggravating a previous condition. Nine years ago she became addicted to painkillers after back surgery and went through treatment, she also had a stroke in 2004 due to high-blood pressure. She’s not quite had the charmed life, but she seems to be happy — as would any politician’s wife who’s seen their husband’s star rise to just votes from the White House!

But despite her flaws, she has been very philanthropic, similar in stature to Theresa Heinz Kerry, who was another First Lady hopeful four years ago. Even Snopes verifies the virtuous actions of Mrs. McCain. Her projects to eliminate land mines remind me of the well-regarded, late Princess Diana.

But as “Maverick” as Senator McCain is, I’m sure he’ll want no mention that his wife resembles a princess. How very unAmerican!

Cindy McCain and I have a connection, sort of. We were both in the same college fraternity. (It is a considered a sorority, but we were the first greek-letter fraternity know to women.) While I went to school in Manhattan (no, not that Manhattan, the one in Kansas), Cindy was at USC, so there’s no hope of seeing her at a college alumnae reunion.

But I think the real reason I like her, even thought I still cannot figure out WHO she reminds me of, is this image:

She’s holding Trig Palin, the infant son of VP candidate Sarah Palin, while Palin gave her speech at the GOP convention. I think Cindy McCain is a good, caring mother. That’s my standard for a person’s worth. I don’t know what she’d be like as a First Lady or if my crush is enough for me to vote for her husband, but I like her. I would really, really like to be her friend. I wonder if she has a facebook page?

September 4th, 2008 | Tags: , , | No Comments »