"Tofu. Frickin' good food for frickin' tough kids."

"Tofu. Frickin' good food for frickin' tough kids. Ya dig."
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

Maya's new plastic purse

Maya invents her own "take them all out, put them all in" game.
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

Envisioning "If you sprinkle when you tinkle..."

State of the Union drinking games are being prepped all over the nerdy poly-sci/news junkie map today. Dubya gets a 5th Shot at the Big House. If we're to believe all the pre-speech bunk flooding the zone, healthcare will be the Bushies' new "reform" (wink, wink) issue. Healthcare. The Bushies. Yep, that's their new plan to get the public's attention away from Iraq. I just heard an economist eviscerate the early-release plan details. Think private health insurance becoming an increased tax shelter with crazy-high deductibles. Which also make the plans hopelessly expensive for very sick people. If you liked Social Security privitization from the Bushies, you're going to love their insurance fixes. Oh, and the Medicare prescription drug plan's going down in flames as we speak. I expect that Karl Rove is taking some time off from his own defense to personally stage-manage some town halls in important Congressional districts over the next 10 months. And I'm sure those Dems still in Congress are reving up their whines and groupthinkin' a slightly watered-down response. But at least they've got some experience with this hydra-headed monster. Healthcare reform. It didn't work in '93, it sure as shite ain't working in '06.

More importantly with regard to the SOTU, the DC gossip mill I'm sure is abuzz with leaks about Laura's box seats of "heroes". I'd also like to know about the "swag". Probably just beef jerky and Depends. Still, hard to believe that the whole showcase only began with Reagan in '82 inviting that crazy heroic dude who'd jumped into the Potomac to save a drowning flight attendant from an especially memorable plane crash. But then again, that guy's name was (is?) Lenny Skutnik. Having a Lenny is poetry that just writes itself. Reagan could spot that kind of poetry immediately, even as he tilted toward completely crazy. Dubya hasn't seen poetry since the bathroom walls in his old "irresponsible youth" time in bars and both kinds of clubs (country and strip). So tonite I expect some injured American soldiers, someone connected with Corretta Scott King (who passed away today), a country singer, 3 pharmaceutical industry executives, a seeing-eye cockerspaniel that defied the odds, someone's hooker date, and a copier repair guy who got lost and just tried to roll with it.

I'll be tracking the word usage tonite and getting ready for a full SOTU run-down tomorrow morning. Hope you take the opportunity to improve your own health policy as a result of not needing to watch - I got your back. Rock on.

I went to a truck pull and an Arena Football game broke out.

Best story of the morning - NPR's "Morning Edition" (David Kestenbaum) talked with folks in N'Awlins about a timeline of the Katrina flooding. It was compiled by a crime scene investigator looking at the time clocks stopped in flooded "dead spots" (the places where dead people were discovered). This has lead to definitive reports being somewhat revised and debated as it undercuts alleged defenses of the levees. Even the Industrial levee gave way long before water running over the top of a levee ("overtopping") would have knocked out a trench and caused the levee to fail. Bad designs everywhere, loads of liability to spread around. Scary accurate reporting. The kind I expect from NPR.

Over the weekend I tested out a low-brow, questionably-talented sports League. I owed my friend, Sockie, some sort of sporting event to settle a bet from our NFL pool. An Arena Football League game was my idea. The San Jose SaberCats vs. the Utah Blaze. Arena Football's got more sexual tawdriness and none of the self-awareness or occasional restraint seen in the NFL. They use a smaller field and have modified the rules to encourage much more scoring. They use cushioned sideboards to contain the action like in hockey and give the bloodthirsty fans the thrill of collisions that sound much worse than they are. A crowd of nearly 14,000 weirdos including us mostly filled the place. The overly-featured cheerleaders (the SaberKittens) line both end zones, even when the offense is looking to score on the goalline. Cannonfire and other audio assaults pour over the crowd constantly. A handful of facepainters and strangely-dressed suburban rebels sat in the best zones for inadvertent TV coverage fame.

We bought scalped tix outside and ended up in the 6th row on the 20-ish yard-line next to a creepy Dad with binoculars trained on the SaberKittens while his 8-year-old-ish son tried to make sense of the confusing spectacle. On the other side of Sockie sat a hefty pair of high-fiving, freakishly-involved fans. People in the rows ahead of us acted as if they somewhat knew each other, like they'd met last season at a truck pull and lapsed into this poorly-trained posse. This was the Season Opener, and the SaberCats are next going on a 5-week string of Road games. Ouch - hard to build a fanbase that way.

Making the roster of the SaberCats is either a nearly last stop on a fading route (ex-NFL QB Stoney Case played in the 2nd Half) or a hard way to make a living for a young guy. Everyone on the field vamped like they have all the goods necessary for the jump to the NFL. Well, aside from the size, the speed and the superhuman talent.

The game started on a high note. Quite literally. An amazing National Anthem by a hefty African-American trumpeter that put a lump in even the grittiest throat. But that high lasted just 2:30 into the First Quarter. The SaberCats threw one to the corner of the endzone and the receiver held onto the ball as he crashed into an un-cushioned metal guardrail. He was on the ground amidst a swirl of medical and stadium personnel for the next 20 minutes. If there was any buzz in the place, it was dead after that. Oh sure, everyone did their best to fake it. They had a "Kiss Cam" play on the 4-sided center-ice scoreboard to hilarious (and humiliating) effect. The Blaze were a complete mess. Hell, we even stayed in our seats until just before halftime. But this game had lost us at "hello", the SaberCats went on to lose as expected, and I can say with assurance that I'll never go to another Arena Football game. This League should be put into a bag with a snake, and thrown into a swirling river. Amazingly, the AFL is celebrating their 20th Season this year. They may give dozens of good-hearted strippers a few easy shifts a few times a month. But they're not helping anyone with this crap.

Here's hoping that Bob Woodruff comes out alright from his injuries suffered in Iraq over the weekend. Rock on.

Sockie considers the absurdity of the Arena Football League, surrounded by doughy "real" fans.

 

Warm, only slightly damp, and Oprah-approved

It's a rainy day in San Francisco, and I'm still glad that I'm not James Frey. Collette will usually be our Friday nanny, but she's out of town this week. Maya's dismantling some toys as I get a few thoughts out for the day. Megan's been taking Maya out in the Park as we all love to do in the mornings here, but I was glad to have dibs on getting outside with her today. Some parts of the world are surely getting cold weather today. Not here. Not missing it much either.

Maya's not nearly mastered the confidence necessary to start walking on her 11-month Birthday. But every once in a while she forgets to hold on to something and she holds her standing position just fine. Then she realizes and grabs back onto support of some sort. Thankfully no hard crackin' headers taken, recently or otherwise. So maybe she's athletic. Or at least not clumsy. And maybe by her First Birthday we'll see some real steps. Expect that you'll hear of it first here.

I've been listening to podcasts of the Al Franken show occasionally, including on this morning's run. I expect that the Sundance boiled-down re-broadcasts are no longer being produced in part because Al's back in Minneapolis (broadcasting from the MiniIconic Foshay Tower). I've recently heard while buzzing through much of his show that 3 hours is often a lot of space to fill. Al's good much of the time, yet lameish and good-spirited when he's out on a limb with a bit that doesn't have a real pay-off. Today's show had a golden nugget early on, nonetheless. Al was riffing on how the FISA Court had only turned down 5 warrant requests since 1979, while giving the thumbs-up to 19,000. He went into a bit about how the 5 requests all came from one intelligence agent who kept trying to bug his wife because "she's cheating on me (SOB!)" with her boss, and then 4 other guys. Al's voice skills and timing are amazing. Stream it (go to iTunes). Well worth the time taken to download or listen through the first 10 minutes.

I think Maya's looking for some playtime assistance. Hope your own playtime is prodigious today. Rock on.

Trying to define "perfidious" without bursting into laughter...

Everyone's agog this afternoon over the Oprah! smackdown of James "My Career's In a Million Little Pieces" Frey. I totally support Oprah's right to admit that she's pissed and to then rescind her endorsement of Frey's memoir. But MY GAWD did she bitchslap this poor newly-rich shmuck in front of the entire nation. I'm watching it now and it makes me so sad that this is the biggest story in publishing over the last number of years (Publisher's Weekly has sent out 2 email "Alerts" just this afternoon). What about all the other legitimate memoir writers out there currently? Has anyone run Dave Eggers through the ringer recently (sorry, Dave - the joke had to be made)? And will someone now finally shakedown Frank McCourt - no one's childhood can be THAT ethnic, can it? But in all seriousness - knock off all this sanctimonious dumpster diving before someone blows an actual gasket. If anyone needs a drink or 37 this evening, it's Frey. Here's hoping he resists the urge just because people are so enjoying knocking the stuffing out of him.

Didn't watch Dubya's presser this morning (no surprises there anyways) because I was holed up in a depressing downtown SF office building, taking my GREs by computer under what felt like the unbalanced eyes of an army of ready-to-blow secretaries with tazers in the side pockets of their Talbot's blazers. I'm considering a trip back to grad school and my old test scores were out of date. So as a penance, I was required to record for posterity how little of my 10-cent-Word of the Day calendar entries I could remember without a caffeine enema. Sheesh. Of course they let me get all cocky to start off with by giving me the chance to pontificate on a few essay questions. And then, BAM! Algebra, reading comprehension, square roots, antonyms and everything horrible except the embarrassment of having to take the test nude, hanging from the ceiling in gravity boots. In other words, I'm officially no longer as smart as I supposedly was 12 years ago. No surprise in that. I'll just blame it on too much Oprah! in the interim.

Much more on the first week of Megan's nannyness tomorrow. Hope your own stories are vetted and appropriately endorsed in the meantime. Rock on.

When all else fails, repeat.

Since Dubya can't stop lying about his illegal NSA spying program, I can only join the chorus of those chilled by his defenses. Today's visit to the previously unmentionable NSA (famously nicknamed "No Such Agency") should make news based on the sheer audacity of the Bushies' revisionism. But it won't. Still, Dubya now says that the people snared in this NSA net are "operatives placed in this Country" fully ignoring the fact that they are American citizens, placed here by no one aside from their ancestors. And then the NSA Director, General Michael Hayden, went on to say that if we'd had this program in place before 9/11, we might have discovered the plot and found some of the hijackers. Dick "Big Time!" Cheney's used that same false line of argument recently and it still stinks. Which entirely clouds the issue - none of the 9/11 hijackers were American citizens, the FBI has been shown to have known of the activities of many of those 15 foreign nationals, and their communications have been shown to be almost entirely domestic in nature. So unless this NSA program is entirely different than what they're admitting to, they wouldn't have found anything that they didn't already have before 9/11 even though the Bushies did absolutely nothing about it. Kapeesh? You would think that at least Hayden would have read "The 9/11 Commission Report" which entirely debunks his erroneous post facto claims. I've read the Report, and I can tell you as just one concerned observer that what we're seeing this week from the Bushies is a smokescreen. And a stinky one at that.

Blogger's going down for a "scheduled outage" just as I finally build up the steam for a hearty rant. Oh, well - I'll probably preserve more of the ozone layer by backing off for today. Hope your own environments are clean and clear. Rock on.

Mmmm...delicious kidneys

I see a hearty handful of stories making headlines this morning that I expect will become bigger and bigger in the all-too-near future. I'll try not to linger on any one of them too long, even though they all merit extensive discussion.

• The White House is now formally refusing to release photos of Dubya and Jack Abramhoff. There are around a dozen out there. Five of which Jack bragged to have kept on his office desk. Within a week, I'm sure we'll see at least one.
• The WashingtonPost scoops a story on how pharmaceutical industry lobbyists garnered a $22 Billion Medicare discount for their clients in this latest round of Congressional "budget cutting". That's Billion with a B. Nice work if you can get it.
  
• Katrina's forecasted destruction was spot on, and reached the White House 48-hours before the hurricane made landfall. The Bushies even saw a slideshow presentation that compared it to models of a smaller fictional storm. So Dubya's "I don't think anyone could have predicted the extent of the damage" was either an outright lie or an indication that he was not in the White House "Situation Room" when the presentation was offered by the Department of Homeland Security.
  
• Alito got through the Senate Judiciary Committe on a straight party-line vote of 10-8. I expect his full Senate vote will go 56-44 based on the reporting I've seen thus far (the only Dem to indicate he'll vote for Alito is Ben Nelson of Nebraska). That would be the second least bi-partisan confirmation vote since the 1880s. By the way, the LEAST bi-partisan since the days of James Garfield was Clarence "Is this a pubic hair on my Coke can?" Thomas (52-48).
  
• The newest misleading euphemism offered up by Dubya - "terrorist surrveillance project". The newest concern for the Bushies - "impeachment" - according to overly pessimistic reports surfacing yesterday. Alberto Gonzales tried to defend the program today by saying that even George Washington read intercepted mail during the Revolutionary War. I've seen overreaching before, but this one was pulled from the upper deck on an obviously foul ball. Let the rumblings begin - impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, uh, uh, uh...
• The oddsmakers for the Super Bowl have made the Steelers 3 1/2 point favorites. Seriously? Talk about blindly getting on the Bus. I'm currently in the Seahags camp, even before seeing this bit of silliness. But I suggest you wait for a serious adjustment of that line in the next 12 days before you drop your hard earned bling on one side or the other. Personally, I believe that gambling should be limited to wagers with friends. Like the kidney I won in college from a roommate on the Giants over the Bills.
  

I haven't mentioned yet a lifelong goal (actually two) achieved last Thursday. I was at a neighborhood Shell station, gasing up before hitting the road for Yosemite the next afternoon. As I was shocked to see my tank fill up by the automatic nozzle shut-off PRECISELY on $45.00, a driver at another pump drove off with the nozzle still lodged into her gas tank. No explosion, just crazy visual excitement. I should have bought a lottery ticket there. Hope your own random events are equally inspiring today. Rock on.

Yosemite has ROCKS! Or so the kids say.

Before I get into our weekend in Yosemite, I must give a brief comment or two on the Bushies' PR offensive this week in defense of their utterly illegal NSA spying program. Plainly, they're worried. So they've come out now with guns a blazin' in hopes of a public embrace of their overstepping. No one does staged bunk better than these folks. But I truly, COMPLETELY, believe they're screwed on this one. Why? We've got none of the details of the extent of the NSA perview aside from the sliver offered in the NYTimes story from last week that itemized how much the FBI pushed back on the so-called "tips" they were given to follow-up on. I don't live in DC. I haven't worked in this "Community" that dabbles in overriding the privacy rights of American citizens. Yet I to my very core distrust this cabal of thinktank goofball conservatives that feel as though (as Karl Rove re-introduced over the weekend) that national security is their primary political advantage. I sincerely believe that as more details come out, Dubya will look more and more like a dupe in the plans of his underlings. Either that, or he's a scary Nixon-update in the chosen guise of a churchy cheeseball. Obviously, he's not that smart. This is simply Big Brother little minions run amok. Since the NYTimes sat on this story for a whole year I will bet my right wing nut on the fact that they've got much, MUCH more to present in the weeks and months ahead. The Bushies are simply trying to flood the zone with this week's onslaught. Don't believe an iota of it. Unless, of course, you hate freedom.

More importantly, our family getaway to Yosemite National Park was a brief exposure to the seemingly boundless beauty California has to offer. Maya got to hang with her honorary "big Sisters" - Stella and Sylvie. And they were more than happy to give Maya a loving shakedown. Snow time was had. Games were played. Sights were seen. Everyone joined in the fun to whatever level they could reach. I tried to cross-country ski with Stella and Sylvie's very sporty Dad, Mike, but my equipment was only slightly worse than my own preparedness. Which means it was horrible. Gorgeous days and vistas filled in any prepartory gaps on my part, though. If you've not seen the sights of Yosemite that Ansel Adams so brilliantly captured, you really should make the effort to do so at the first available opportunity. There's so much of this country that I've not yet seen. But I must say that I feel more self-satisfied with my American-ness after seeing this undisputable National Treasure.

Our other new nanny, Megan, started this morning. Maya had no problem with the transition, unlike her Dad. Megan's warm, funny, and totally engaged - Maya went to her immediately. Which convinces me that I'm already losing my darling little girl. In a good way. See, having been the stay-at-home Dad for the past almost 11-months has meant that I've been there for everything. Any parent will tweak the percentages, but I'd say that my time with Maya has been 82% stunningly new and life-affirming. The remaining 18% is split somewhere between dorkishly unsure, irrationally pissed, and terrified at just how much I don't know how to deal with it. But that 82% has filled me with more love and pride than I ever imagined possible. Megan's great. Collette (our other part-time nanny) is great. I'm able to focus on my work. Sarah's able to do so, as well. So why am I so frickin' teary-eyed and surprised by separation anxiety? Must be that I'm psyched about the Steelers-Seahags Super Bowl match-up (BY FAR the best in years and years). Or maybe I'm just a wuss. Either way, hope your own spines are steely and seaworthy. Rock on.

Love all around Maya thanks to Mom, Jody and Sylvie (who looks about ready to plant a booger on Maya's welcoming melon).

Love all around Maya thanks to Mom, Jody and Sylvie (who looks about ready to plant a booger on Maya's welcoming melon).
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

Maya soaking up the stunning majesty of Yosemite Falls from a comfortable distance.

Maya soaking up the stunning majesty of Yosemite Falls from a comfortable distance.
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

Our SnowWoman, designed by Stella (not McCartney).

Our SnowWoman, designed by Stella (not McCartney).
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

Maya does her best to groom the trails at Badger Pass in Yosemite Nat'l Park.

CIMG4140
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

On the periphery of the Badger Pups ski school, Maya showed a willingness to tap into her 'Sconi genes and dive right into the fluff.

Maya preps for technical climbing and clean floor scootin'

We're somewhat frantically getting ready to hit the road for a weekend in Yosemite. I will be my first visit. Maya's, too. But she seems a bit more excited about our recently cleaned apartment (Faviola ROCKS!) than getting in the car for the 3-4 hour trip. So expect plenty of pics of Maya in nature and all that sort of thang once we get back into WiFi range, probably Monday. Hope your own domes are more than half-full. Rock on.

A lucky rainbow spotted over the Cliff House as seen from Ocean Beach.

A lucky rainbow spotted over the Cliff House from Ocean Beach.
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

"Giddy-up, Dad!"

"Giddy-up, Dad!"
Originally uploaded by emaggie.

Maya's new backpack is comfy on both ends of the horse. And we got it just in time for our upcoming trip to Yosemite.

"Does the 'Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism' count?"

A few issues that require a quick venting this morning...

• The White House is blocking the release of details concerning Jack "Off" Abramhoff's meetings with Bushie officials. Something to hide? Absolutely. As Frank Rich postulated this weekend, finding a photo with Dubya and Jack-off would be the new Clinton-Lewinsky hug. And I'm willing to bet a dozen jelly donuts that it's out there somewhere.
• The House Republicans got out in front of the train yesterday by releasing new lobbying ethics reforms. To call it a load of shite would be far too generous. Especially when you parse the details like the WashingtonPost did. Most astonishingly, if you couple a free trip, meal or happy ending with a campaign contribution - all's copacetic. So correct me if I'm missing the point here. If you give both freebies AND campaign money, you're good. If you give just freebies, bad. Reform? Jesus on a pogostick, can we please get on this issue and beat there crooks over the head with it!
  
• N'Awlins Mayor Ray Nagin is unfortunately my new pick as the dumbest politician in America given his "chocolate" quote yesterday. I've never liked the guy even though I think he got the rawest deal in the history of raw deals by being abandoned by the Feds. But this dumbassity shall hurt that reconstruction more than another hurricane.
  
• And Paula Abdul's back on the sauce. As if she were ever off it. She missed a press event because of a so-called "eye infection". I expect Scott McClellan to be questioned rigorously today about what this may mean to the War on Terror. Which by the way, is still the dumbest name for a so-called war since the 100 Years War. Look it up.

Hope your own battles are better named today. Rock on.

Was Frey really fried or just a fraud? A new perspective.

Of all the things I should be doing at the moment, further reading about the James Frey story of inventing his own history is at number 843 of 847. Call it a brief break from my own "memoir in motion". But I was struck by the insider honesty of the piece I read on Publisher's Weekly site by Heather King who's also gone through rehab at Hazelden. I've had many shifting reactions to this story which I realize ain't exactly the most compelling story for people that think of writing as a chore in comparison with a calling. Nonetheless, Heather King's take now seems to me to be the most honest. Taken in double-dosage with the release of Oprah's next pick for her Book Club, I'm now entirely feeling like I've been messed with in previously promoting the style over the substance of Frey's shtick. In short, this guy is a fraud. But worth reading for the comparative analysis if for no other reason.

The Nannying begins

This morning with a slight degree of trepidation and buckets of glee, we left Maya in the capable hands of one of her new part-time nannies, Collette. Unlike so many new people Maya's encountered in the last many months, she went to Collette like a famished camper to a delicious cheeseburger. Collette's WAY too qualified to be taking what we're paying her - her regular work is as an occupational therapist who also helps kids with developmentally-delayed needs. But she's excited to work with Maya who was especially charming and cute both during the interview last week and this first morning. So I'm now focusing on my writing and a number of other projects that have been put off recently. We can now look back and appreciate how much we really struggled in our attempts to find someone we both felt was qualified and would accept what we were offering. "Flexibility" was formerly our chief requirement, and I now think that's what screwed us so royally. With this round of screening and interviewing, we stressed warmth and tried to be much more solid in our scheduling. That seems to have made all the difference. Well, that AND the luck of finding two women with way more to offer than what we'd met previously. Just when I was beginning to doubt that Craigslist would work for this endeavour, we were surprised by the power of such listing services. I'm glad to be a true believer once more - the next time I see Craig Newmark (THE "Craig" who hangs out at my favorite cafe, Reverie in Cole Valley, where I can once again hang my hat part-time), I'll be sure to give him a bearhug and playful noogie in thanks.

As both Sarah and I kept half-an-eye on The Golden Globules last night, I was struck by how much more interesting celebrity-types are when they're drinking versus sitting sedately and trying to look engaged. No surprise there. My favorite throw-away moment was when Bob Hoskins (nominated for his role in "Mrs. Henderson") was shown drunkenly licking his lips as Penelope Cruz introduced his performance - he looked like the biggest lech imaginable. That and when Matt "I'm NOT Johnny Drama" Dillon prodded Queen Latifa to read off the cue cards with a loose approximation of "I think it's your line, hon." True Gold in the unintentional sense of the evening. Otherwise, I couldn't have cared less. George Clooney gets my award for the best subtly-political acceptance speech. Hugh Laurie had the funniest speech (LOVED him in "The Black Adder" series from years back on the BBC, haven't paid any attention to his cantankerous Doctor role on "House" for which he won). Didn't stay up for the big awards, but I know that gay cowboys are raising a healthy crop of gold this season. That pleases me immensely. Hope y'all ranch a similar bumpercrop from yer own events today. Rock on.