Too funny!!

This is cute! How many of these things have you said to your child this week?

There is a God

Of course, I knew that already. I am confident that He exists. It's just that the news that Mike Nifong was disbarred today has put me in an especially expansive mood. I abhor all forms of official misconduct, but I especially abhor prosecutorial misconduct. An overly zealous, say, health inspector might succeed in separating Joe Businessman from money he didn't want to spend, but an overly zealous prosecutor can do much more harm. It's not about money. It's about liberty and sometimes life. A prosecutor's first duty isn't to ensure that law enforcement's most likely suspects go to jail or to represent victims' interests. Nope, it's to finding the truth and representing the people's interest in maintaining an effective but fair judicial system. And in these respects, Mr. Nifong grossly failed the people of North Carolina. Being an attorney is a privilege that he no longer deserves. So he's not one anymore. Good.

Bariatrics, Part 1

Yesterday, I had a consultation with Dr. Michael Schweitzer at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bariatric Surgery. As you can see from a picture at Pumpkin's 5th birthday party, I'm a big girl. Lucky for me, he thinks I'm a good candidate for bariatric surgery -- fat enough to qualify, but not so fat or so sick as to be a huge surgical risk -- so we are going forward. I had been thinking about a gastric band because (1) it's easily reversible if need be, and (2) the surgery has a lower complications and mortality rate (which makes sense because you're not resectioning anything, but instead, just adding an implanted device). I was also concerned about constriction in a healing roux-n-y'd stomach being a problem for some of my meds. I'd heard from a roux-n-y patient that she had to crush all her meds before taking them for a few weeks, and darn it, I need those extended release meds! Extended release meds are uncrushable. Dr. Schweitzer assured me there wouldn't be a problem. So now we're going forward with the paperwork. Next stop: a medical necessity letter from my primary (not a problem), a nutritionist appointment and a psych eval. Meanwhile, I'm keeping on at Curves.

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 1

Best friends forever

My daughter was recently in a production of The King and I. She's only five and was in pre-K this year, but her preschool is part of a larger school that goes through high school. The Upper School did the production and asked kids from the Lower School and early childhood classes to participate.

It was a lot of fun for both of us. Obviously, when you ask young children to do something, you are really asking their parents to jump in, too, and I did. I sewed big silky pillows for the king's palace, mended the odd costume, and applied makeup to little faces. The experience took me back to high school and college productions, and I loved it. My daughter seemed to love it, too. While she was initially skittish about being up on stage in front of lots of people -- at least until I assured her that the lights would be so bright up there that she'd never see her audience -- she was sold as soon as she learned her best buddy was going to be in the performance.

DD was supposed to be one of the children of Lady Thiang. If you're familiar with the story, you'll know that Lady Thiang was the head wife of many and the mother of the Crown Prince. She sings the song "Something Wonderful," which is one of my favorite Broadway numbers. I very much like the young lady the school selected for the role, and I have to say she was wonderful herself with my daughter. And DD was crazy about her.

I received an email today from "Lady Thiang," who wanted to share with me something my girl had said to her backstage. By way of introducing these comments, let me say that most of the kids in the show were not Asian like my daughter, and so they had to be made up to look at least a little bit like Thai people. Beside using the brownish foundation and the exaggerated eyeliner on the kids, the powers that be decided that all the kids' hair needed to be sprayed with black temporary hair color unless unless they already had dark hair. This spray stuff was icky, looked fake (see the picture of DD and her best bud, who is a blue-eyed blonde) and according to the other moms, required a lot of shampooing to remove. DD's hair is very dark brown, so she was one of the lucky ones who escaped the paint sprayer.

Without further adieu, I quote "Lady Thiang's" email:

"[DD] looks up at me with an excited smile and says, 'Did you know I'm Chinese?'

Me: 'No way! I had no idea [DD]!!! That's so cool!'

'And I don't have to spray my hair because I'm already Chinese,' [DD] said proudly."

Art Linkletter said it best, "Kids say the darndest things."

Oh, and the production was outstanding. My unbiased opinion, of course.

Please tell me this is a joke

So I got an email today, which is, in part, pasted in below. (I've omitted any identifying information to protect the guilty.) I don't know this person. I have no idea how she got my email address.

Yes, there actually were pictures. Pictures of the clothed variety, i.e., not porn, showing the woman's face.

It may just be a come on, a way to get access to a lot of Paypal accounts. I doubt it contains spyware, as it made it past 2 different filters. No, I really do think some people feel a sense of entitlement to things like this. "Hey, if they can raise money for this little Sally's bone marrow transplant, maybe I can raise money for my mammoplasty!" Whatever. It just boggles the mind.

I NEED A BOOB JOB!!!
THIS IS NOT A JOKE, I NEED YOUR HELP
I AM 33 YEARS OLD AND I HAVE HAD 3 BABIES IN THE PAST 4 YEARS. MY BREASTS WERE SMALL BUT GREAT BEFORE I NURSED 3 BABIES. NOW THEY ARE DEF[L]ATED.... WE CAN'T AFFORD THE $5000.00 IT WILL COST TO GET THE SURGRY. I AM ASKING FOR JUST $1.00 (OR MORE IF YOU REALLY THINK I NEED NEW BOOBS) FROM EACH PERSON, WHO OUT OF THE KINDNESS OF THEIR HEART, OR WHO JUST WANT TO SEE THE AFTER PICTURES OF MY NEW BOOBS, TO SEND A DONATION:)

And so on and so forth.

This is wrong on too many levels to count

On the other hand, this video just might be a hoax. Knowing something about Southern California, however, it wouldn't surprise me if it were true that a Los Angeles mom paid $1300 at a tanning salon so her little one could have the Lohan Look for a school picture.