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Thursday, June 15, 2006

Singles

So it’s a very light blogging week around here, except maybe for that one 5000-word essay hogging all that space below.  It turns out that I have had precisely two unbroken days since the end of the semester in early May!  By “unbroken” I mean “not pockmarked with meetings, comprehensive exams, appointments with the vet, meetings, appointments with the orthodontist, meetings, conferences in Washington, appointments with attorneys, or meetings.” And this week Jamie has had not one but two half-days: yesterday, for the last day of school (yay!  Jamie moves on to the eighth grade!), and today at the Y, whose schedule is coordinated with other schools whose last day was today.  Well, you know I can’t very well sit around blogging while Jamie is building a giant mousetrap next to the stairs, or searching for his Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets computer game, or taking out every condiment in the refrigerator in order to make me a sandwich I most assuredly will not eat (even as I appreciate the thought!).  It’s been kind of like a weekend around here, in other words, and that means (among other things) playing a daunting memory game in which Jamie takes seventy or eighty of his wrestling men, stuffed animals, and assorted figurines out of the bins in his room, places them on the bed in groups of three or four, and asks me to introduce them all to Woody (from Toy Story).  The challenge lies in remembering all the names Jamie has given these creatures: you have to introduce the first three or four to Woody, then the next three or four together with the first three or four, then the next three or four together with the first six or eight, and so on.  And the names!  They include

Slurfy the Penguin
Steven O’Mallon
Ellie Allie Olive
Jaws of a Tiger
William Macacque
Mister Koosh-Duck
Adam Foote (a dog)
Robert Hayes
Lance Carter
Maurice Hanover (even though the figure is that of Marge Simpson)
Elvis Banks
Lauren Morrow
Obiwan Kenobi (a lemur)
Sam I Am the Duck
Lauren Morrow
Nick Hamilton
Glenn Close (a shark)
Brian Hunter (another dog)
Bob For Apples
Ramon Rinden
Tucker Martinez
Licorice the Camel
TV Woman Show
Jimbolay Habulay
Kevin Brown (a chihuahua)
Steve Irwin (a red-banded leaf monkey)
Cinnamon Allen
Alex Fernandez
Moonface
Crazy Wazy
Victor Pterodactyl
DeMarco Evans
Tom McCracken

as well as a whale named “Oakland Raiders” and two identical sharks named “Doug Balant” and “Doug Blount.”

So Nick, Jamie and I went to play some golf yesterday.  That went pretty well.  Jamie has a nice touch around the greens sometimes, and once hit a 20-footer; Nick drained two or three clutch six-footers while Jamie chattered in the background.  Today Jamie and I played mini-golf on the way to the Y, which reminded me that being part of the only twosome on a dilapidated little mini-golf course is one of the most forlorn “recreational” experiences known to humankind.  It also reminded me that there is a real golf tournament going on this weekend, and that I shot my 79 on Father’s Day last year and blew off the final round of the U.S. Open because I figured there was no way Retief Goosen was going to lose, since he’s just one of those guys like Hale Irwin or Curtis Strange or Andy North whose only majors are U.S. Opens, for reasons ill-understood by golfing science.  So I was wrong!  Goosen shot an 81 that day, and clearly needed tips from me on the whole breaking-80 thing.  This year I have a funny feeling about Ernie Els.  I also have a funny feeling that 285 will be good enough to win.  Not as bad as the 1974 Massacre at Winged Foot, mind you, but close.

I’m not golf blogging.  I’m just saying.

Anyway, enough about me and mine and the USGA.  Today I’d like to turn your attention to someone who does the exhausting single-parent drill as well as anyone, and who, in her spare time, basically invented feminist blogging back in 2000.  I’m talking, of course, about the lovely and very talented Lauren, formerly of Feministe, who has been invited to be a panelist at BlogHer.  However, it turns out that the invention of feminist blogging back in 2000 did not carry with it a million-dollar annuity, so Lauren could use your help getting there. Chris Clarke has created an Amazon account for her, and he even claims that he’s picking her up at the airport.  Then again, he also claims to have refrained from eating my halibut while I slammed tequila shots with Ward Churchill and arm-wrestled pole-dancers back in September, and that’s not true, because he definitely snuck a few forkfuls of fish while I wasn’t looking.  People have already donated enough to cover the airfare and such, but you know, there are incidentals, and Lauren definitely deserves an incidental or two.  So stop by, if you’d be so kind, and chip in for Lauren, feministe extraordinaire and inspiration to us all.

Posted by Michael on 06/15 at 01:31 PM
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