How Much Mourning Does A Child Molester Deserve?

That question was posed by one of my Facebook friends following the death of Michael Jackson, and my answer is probably none.

But I'm not mourning the creepy ghoulish ghost and accused pedophile he became in recent years. I'm mourning the cool, supremely graceful and immensely talented young man whose singing, music and transcendent dancing brought joy to so many people. I can separate the man and his apparently enormous personal flaws from his artistic and cultural contributions.

Similarly, I am a fan of Woody Allen's and Roman Polanski's films but abhor some of their behavior in their private lives. Woody Allen had a romantic relationship with and later married his stepdaughter, the sister of his other children, and was accused of sexually abusing one of his adopted children, and Roman Polanski had sex with a 13-year-old girl, but I can still appreciate their cinematic achievements.

The dual deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day (which happened to be my son's sixth birthday) hit me particularly hard, and I have been pondering why it affected me to such an extent. What I've come up with is that the demise of those two pop culture icons was like the death of a part of my past, my history, my childhood.

Both were ever present figures whose careers helped mark pivotal stages of my young life. When my friends and I played Charlie's Angels, I always wanted to be Jill Munroe, Farrah's character. I spent hours with a curling iron and a brush in front of my bedroom mirror painstakingly trying to recreate her glorious, flowing "winged" hairstyle with my own uncooperative preteen hair. And Michael Jackson's fantastic Off The Wall was one of the first albums I owned and was as inextricably linked to my entree into the teen years as lip gloss, Love's Baby Soft, my first bra, Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, and roller skating.

But I will say this: IF there is a hell and IF Jackson did sexually abuse children, then I hope he is there and will be joined by the parents who basically sold their children to him.

When Did Judging Get Such A Bad Rap?

I sometimes judge other parents. There, I said it. After reading this post at Suburban Turmoil I had to admit that, yes, I do sometimes make negative judgments about other parents, and I guess I'm supposed to feel bad about that. But I don't. So you can go ahead and judge me for that.

If I see a toddler drinking a bottle full of Pepsi, I judge. If I see someone smoking a cigarette with the windows up in a car full of kids, I judge. If I see parents smacking their kids in Wal-Mart, I judge. If I see a little kid not strapped into a car seat in a moving car, I judge. And, yes, if I saw a 2-year-old running around in a restaurant unattended, getting in the way of waiters and bothering other diners, I would negatively judge his or her parents.

None of that is to say I'm a perfect parent, not by a long shot, but there are definitely a handful of things I can honestly say I have never done and would never do with my children. Can't we all say that? I'm sure there are things I do that others would never do and would negatively judge me for. I say have at it. It's no skin off my back.

I felt the need to revive this ghost town of a blog to get that off my chest, because, inexplicably, I am now blocked from posting any comments at Suburban Turmoil, a blog that I'm a longtime reader of but infrequent commenter. I have never been blocked from anywhere on the Interweb. I have to admit, it kind of makes me feel like a badass. The few comments I've made there recently did disagree with Lindsay, but were, in my opinion, polite, so apparently she is just highly adverse to views that differ from her own. She also deleted one of my very civil comments and someone else's spot-on comment that I was able to read right before it vanished, but, oddly, she left some downright mean and nasty ones. Ah well, censorship is alive and well at Suburban Turmoil.

But much more importantly, HAPPY SIXTH BIRTHDAY to my sweet E.! We're heading to a kid's hands-on science museum today and then on to his favorite candy store so he can pick up a pack of candy cigarettes (OK, probably not, but they really do sell them there. They have all the "old school" candy like those little wax bottles filled with colored sugar water.) and then we'll stop at Toys "R" Us where he will be getting his final birthday present to end his long birthday week: a new Wii game. Yes, we finally own a Wii, and I'm pretty sure we were the last family on the planet to get one.

Twittering and Vlogging and Sexting, Oh my!

I think I've hit electronic communication overload. Reading a recent blog post about women dining together at a restaurant and Twittering away on their iPhones throughout the entire dinner turned my stomach. (Or maybe it was the nasty stomach bug that has invaded our home and methodically bitten each one of us in progression.) What in the hell is so important that you simply must get it out to all of your Twitter followers at that moment instead of conversing with your dinner companions? Are we more interested in Twittering, Skyping, blogging, vlogging, texting, sexting and Facebooking than actually being present in and fully experiencing our lives?

With that said, I joined Twitter. BUT only because I wanted to be a part of Rebecca's "Prose Hos" book club. The first book we're reading is "Geek Love" and it's one I've wanted to read for a while, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to read it and then discuss it with some cool smart folks. But that is my sole purpose for Twittering. I will NOT get sucked in and become one of those inconsiderate Twittering dinner companions. I don't even own an iPhone.

What kind of sick irony is it...

...that a man who was married to his true love for almost 62 years was taken from her on Valentine's Day?

My maternal grandfather died just before midnight Saturday, February 14 at the age of 92. The planet has lost a great human being, and I have lost my favorite person in the world.

Rest in peace, Grandpa. I miss you so much, but I know you'll be with me, always.

Not that he could ever take Barack's place in our hearts, but...

...his tank has taken the place of Barack's tank on H.'s bedroom bookcase.

Yes, we are now the proud foster family of an adorable, eight-year-old leopard gecko named, appropriately enough, Geico.

One of H.'s teachers asked for a volunteer to take the classroom pet gecko home during Christmas break. Naturally, H.'s hand immediately shot up, so we are now hosting a reptilian house guest for the next two weeks.

He is really low maintenance. He eats a cricket or two every two to three days, (And they must be alive, so we are also the proud foster family of four live crickets.) needs fresh water daily and requires a heat lamp to warm his tank 24 hours a day so he can bask in the desert-like climate he prefers.

In other news, my beloved 91-year-old grandfather is now in a nursing home (He was previously living in an apartment with my grandmother who could no longer care for him because his health rapidly declined.) and that has caused me profound sadness. I want to blog about it eventually, but not now.

He's given up the ghost.

It's ridiculous how attached one can become to a fish. He was officially H.'s pet, but I'm the one who fed him and cleaned his tank, and I'm the one who went online and found a mini heater for his 2.5 gallon home so he would be comfortable in his final days, and I'm the one who has been administering medicine to him and nursing him for the past couple of weeks in hopes of delaying the inevitable.

I think old age is what finally got him. A Betta fish's life span is 2-3 years, and we've only had him for a year, but there's no telling how old he was when we rescued him from the sad little plastic prison he was living in (if you can call that living.) I hate seeing all the Betta fish in those cramped containers at Wal Mart or pet stores, especially now knowing how social they are and how much personality they have. I just want to take them all home with me. But H. says she's not ready for a new fish yet, and I have to agree with her.

So we'll bury Barack tomorrow in a matchbox in the backyard in a spot selected by H. She's already made a grave marker from a plastic cup that says:

Here lies the fish of H.
R.I.P.

I asked her why she didn't want to put his name on the grave marker, and she said she didn't want people to think we had the president buried in our yard.

Speaking of fish...

I don't think Barack Obama is going to make it. Not the President-elect, the fish. My daughter's Betta fish to be exact. Yes, H. named her fish Barack Obama, and just to show how cool she is, that was way back in 2007 when the real Barack Obama was merely a twinkle in the country's eye, just one of the pack of hopefuls for the Democratic nomination.

Anyway, he's not doing well. (The fish.) He's been moping around his tank and he's taken to reclining on his side behind his little treasure chest, and that is so unlike him. He's usually very active and playful, always up for a game of follow-the-finger on the side of the tank. He's the most dog-like fish I've ever encountered.

I did a little Googling and found out that his condition may be due to poor water quality (Oh yes, I'm feeling extremely guilty for not changing his water weekly as is recommended.) or he may be suffering from a Swim Bladder disorder.

So, following the advice posted by fish nerds experts on their nerdy informative fish websites, I changed his water and he's on a three-day fast from his Betta pellets. If that doesn't work, I'm to add a pinch of salt to his tank and feed him bits of the inside of a cooked pea. And if that doesn't work, surgery might be necessary. I kid you not -- fish surgery. How is that even performed? Instead of an oxygen mask, does the patient wear a tiny water mask? Don't get me wrong, we adore Barack Obama, he's practically a member of our family. I'll do the salt thing and the pea thing, but I will draw the line at surgery.

Keep your fingers crossed for the little guy. He's a fighting fish, so hopefully that fighting spirit will pull him through. However, I've already told H. to prepare herself for the worst.

You know, when I think about it, he started his downward spiral the day after the election. Let's just hope this isn't a terrible omen about the future presidency of the real Barack Obama!

Blue Fish in a Red Pond

GOBAMA!

Writing Class Week 5: Nonfiction

I'm skipping Week 4 (fiction) for the moment, because I'm still smarting from the stinging, albeit completely deserved, criticism I received from my instructor about the assignment I turned in. It really was pretty bad. After I do some major re-writing and employ her suggestions, maybe I'll be brave enough to post it here.

In the meantime, this past week we talked about nonfiction and one of the exercises was to write about a momentous first in our lives: a first love, a first home, etc. So I chose...

My First Kiss

A silly game had developed among us sixth graders at Holy Spirit School. Every so often a brave boy and girl from our class would agree to kiss each other after school.

One day in early December it was my turn, and there was no question who my kissing partner would be. He would be the boy I was "going with" at the time: Mike W.

Mike, it was universally acknowledged, was the cutest boy in sixth grade. His dark brown hair was always perfectly winged and his brown eyes positively sparkled. His skin was inexplicably tanned year round, he had a movie star smile, and he rocked his Members Only jacket like no one else. He also made frequent trips to the Principal's office (she was an ex-nun who was greatly feared for her severe paddlings) so he had the bad boy appeal going for him, too. And if that wasn't enough, he was in fabulous shape because he was a runner -- he ran marathons for Christ sakes! Needless to say, I felt like the luckiest girl in school that I was the one he chose to "go with."

Going together basically involved a boy asking a girl to "go with" him and the girl agreeing. Going together meant that you had a guaranteed partner for couple skating on Saturday afternoons at the skating rink, and it told the rest of sixth grade that we "liked" each other and that we were off limits. "Liking" someone was the highest form of affection for us 12-year-olds.

We decided we would do the deed inside a walled garden behind the nuns' residence. It was adjacent to the Catholic school we attended, and it was an area expressly forbidden for students. We only knew from peeking through the gate and through cracks in the wall that it was a peaceful place designed for quiet contemplation and meditation. The garden contained a fountain, several varieties of roses, bird feeders and bird baths, concrete benches and small statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Francis of Assisi. I'd like to think we picked that spot because of its romantic qualities, but the truth is probably that we chose it because the high, stone wall surrounding it would shield us from the prying eyes of our classmates.

As Mike and I walked together, clammy hand in clammy hand, in awkward silence, I was aware that I was in the midst of a rite of passage in the making. I made a conscious effort to fully drink in the moment and firmly commit it to memory.

We quietly opened the gate and entered the garden, our nervousness heightened by the knowledge that if we were caught, there would be dire consequences indeed. Simply being in the nuns' garden was bad enough, but making out there? That was unforgivable!

We didn’t get too far inside when we stopped and faced each other. Before we could change our minds, he closed his eyes and turned his head to one side and I turned mine to the other -- like I had practiced with the palm of my hand many times before -- and we gently touched lips, lingering for a perfect, brief moment. His lips were warmer and softer, with more give, than I expected. They were a vast improvement over my hand. And then it was over. The kiss was exactly as I described later that night when I excitedly wrote about it in my diary: short but sweet.

Not long after the kiss we stopped going together, I can't recall the reason. After we graduated from eighth grade and headed off to different high schools, I never saw Mike again. I often think about him and wonder what he’s doing now. Is he married? Does he have kids? What kind of job does he have? And I wonder if he remembers me and if he remembers that kiss.