Why I Need to Watch More TV

Lots to do, but I've finally got the remote and the cherubim are nestled all snug in their beds before the Big, Staggering Post-Holiday School Morning. 

So imagine my surprise when I saw a promo for The Pit Boss (Animal Planet? TLC?) This new show is about a little-person ex-con who runs a little people talent agency and a pit bull rescue operation! 

Not only do I need to watch more mindless TV; I also need to blog more. Once again, Life has demonstrated that it's way too crazy and interesting not to take little mental notes (with the emphasis on "mental") along the way.

Just in Time for Halloween

My butt cheeks are filled to the brim with the goodness of immunoglobulin!

And how are you today?

It all started on a dark and stormy night. In fact, it was so nice that DH decided to leave the sliding door to our fenced yard open and let the dogs complete their evening ablutions at their leisure while he made a tasty chicken soup just feet away. Unfortunately, he fell asleep and left the door open for a couple of hours. I was not available to nag him because I'd long since fallen asleep reading on top of our bed upstairs (bad sleep hygeine, I know, but the textbook I was studying was like hardbound Ambien, and for some reason I felt it was important to man my post as I read so that I could periodically his "Sssshhh!" to Big Unit and Medium Unit, who were enjoying a spirited post-bedtime debate about whether the lady Mythbuster of the Discovery Channel show was hot).

That was enough time let the bat in....

And more importantly, to leave open at least a two-hour window for Stella Luna to flit from room to room, biting people with tiny, sharp teeth.

Or not.

Long story short, the bat buzzed my shrieking head at about 2:30 a.m. and landed on its belly in the upstairs hallway.

"It's looking at me!" whispered DH in a tiny voice, his jewels nestled up against his larynx.

Stella Luna blinked and turned his fuzzy brown head this way and that. Creepy.

"It says here we should throw a towel on it and catch it that way! If the bat seems tired," he continued reading from his iPhone, "help it into a low tree branch with a gloved hand."

Maybe s/he would like a mojito, too. (Italics for my brain talking.)

I, too, was hopping around the tiny hallway, ready to run screaming if Myotis lucifugus flopped any closer to my slippered feet. I threw the towel down; Stella Luna made the obligatory clicky-hissy-angry noises, but seemed stuck. I should have gotten my first glimmer of the dopiness of this plan when I noticed how small the bat was, trapped under a purple expanse of bath towel. After palpating the little f***er, I gathered the whole clicking, whirring bundle of angry bat in my gloved hands and charged out the front door.

At the edge of yard, I did what any red-blooded heroine would do: I shook out the bath towel and scurried back inside like a mentally challenged sandpiper.

Back inside, DH's stricken gaze met mine.

"The CDC says we're supposed to keep the bat!" he wailed, the anguished creases of his forehead illuminated by his phone.

I can live with the pain and expense of rabies shots for me (and DH, I guess). Even though they dose it by weight, the Four Units have suffered needle-sticks aplenty over the last few days. Not fun. Even though it's highly unlikely that any of us were truly exposed, we had to ask ourselves if we could leave anybody in the fam open to throat spasms, delirium, coma and death if we had the power to prevent it.

Hence, the butt(s) full of painful, rabies-free goodness. 

Happy Halloween, and remember: If you find a bat where you've been sleeping, catch it and keep it (dead or alive, so long as the skull is not crushed) for testing! And don't fix it a mojito!

Does Nadya Suleman Have One up on Mother Theresa?

Octoplets! Octuplets! Octuplets! Octuplets! Octuplets! Octuplets! Octuplets! Octuplets!

Cyber-reams of text have already dissected this troubled woman/family from every angle imaginable.

But something struck me about her remarks to Ann Curry (Thanks for giving this fruitcake a forum, NBC, then counting on vapid, squishy-brained individuals like me to check it out.) that took my reactions deeper than knee-jerk voyeurism.

When Curry asked Nadya Suleman the $64,000 question -- How would she feed 14 mouths? -- Octomom predictably invoked God:

“I will feed them. I will do the best I possibly can. And in my own way, in my own faith, I do believe wholeheartedly that God will provide in his own way."

Now, the diatribe against this woman's naivete, and her use of God in a situation that sounds more like something out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has been masterfully done all over the blogosphere.  

But something about her unruffled recitation of the "God-Will-Provide" canard made me think of the late Mother Theresa. I mean, there's someone who knew about feeding multitudes against incredible odds. Surely, she held this same unshakeable confidence in God, right? Seriously, how else could she have showered the poorest of Kolkata's  poor with food, education, leprosy treatments, and love without an unwavering belief in the presence of God? Come on! She was Mother-Flipping-Theresa!

Well, not so fast. 

The Nobel Prize-winning nun left behind confessional letters that were published after her death. They revealed periods of unrelenting darkness in Mother Theresa's life, during which she felt pressure to "keep on smiling at God and all" in spite of a private, gnawing sense of emptiness and faithlessness.

"Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul," she wrote. "Love -- the word -- it brings nothing."

Wow. Who knows? Maybe these dark stretches of doubt stemmed from bearing witness to incredible, seemingly uncontrollable  human suffering in God's name for many decades.

Bear with me. I'm chipping away at a kernel of an idea here: If a woman publicly revered for faith in God her entire adult life -- whose "career" hinged on belief in God's ability to provide -- experienced such dramatic periods of burnout, does Octomom really stand a chance of remaining theologically chipper and optimistic?

And if she does sputter out in the faith department, does she have the character and maturity to soldier on, changing diapers and running a 24-hour mess hall in her cramped home even when it ceases to be fun and rewarding?

Maybe God (read: people of conscience who know they are being played, yet worry for these kids) will provide.  But even if her kids are food-secure, will Ms. Suleman be able to continue on as the guru of pure love who currently calls money "superfluous" and "just paper"?

 For the next 20 years? And in the face of her kids' probable ongoing health concerns?  

Maybe we've got her all wrong: maybe Octomom knows something that even Mother Theresa didn't.

I sure hope so for the sake of her megabrood.

Premature Hibernation

I didn't think it would happen so soon--the numbskulled, shivery epoch of possum-like slowness and mental sloth that typically befalls me from February to April. I thought I could man up and think my way out of a paper bag for a few more weeks, thus limiting the amount of time spent in the Dumb Zone. But nooo.

The diagnosis was confirmed when I was watching Caillou (a core symptom right there) with Little Unit and silently cursing myself because it was above freezing, surely not so cold to begin tubing out without even attempting to run around outside. 

But then it happened. 

"Sweet!" I said a little too enthusiastically when I realized what episode it was. (Having a canon of Caillou episodes in one's memory is surely also clinically significant; having a favorite, probably moreso. )

It was the one where Caillou's friend's older brother Billy totally rocks the house with his tuba. His marching band friends join in, and-- wait for it--they take the jam session to the street for a balls-out impromptu parade!

Rock on, Billy!

The Christmas Index, and...Awww, Hell if I Know

Who knew? PNC Wealth Management has been publishing an annual Christmas Index for 24 years. Just for fun, bean counters tote up the cost of every item in the carol "The 12 Days of Christmas."

The masterminds of the Christmas Index determine the prices of similar real-world items as stand-ins for those listed in the song when necessary. Those eight maids a'milking, for example, aren't really scrub-cheeked virgins in pinafores, but farm workers earning 2008 wages.

Before you dismiss the whole exercise as a bit of frivolity designed to make NPR listeners chuckle archly into their organic-cotton dinner napkins, take note: although relatively few of us are throwing French hens (fresh, not frozen!) into our carts at Costco, The Experts maintain that the Christmas Index actually does an okay job of reflecting larger trends in the economy each year.

The news this year is not great. Get the full scoop here.

Why, even the lowly partridge is up five bucks, from $15 last year to $20 this Christmas. And if you want a place for your fine feathered friend to roost, that'll be a cool $200: In '07, a pear tree could be had for $150.

So, my apologies in advance, giftees on my list. I just can't swing any of the thoughtful gifts in "The 12 Days of Christmas." In my desperation, I even clicked over to that old retail chestnut, Fingerhut. Surely, I could find some holiday tchotchkes there for a pittance....

But no. These days, they'll trick you out like your favorite Real Housewife in 10 easy payments.

But wait! They do have goats: Seven-eighths-length goats, to be exact. Must be some cute pygmy variety, de-horned and ready for companionship. It lacks the cachet of calling birds, but when was the last time you got cheese from a bird? And they'll cute up any live nativity, for sure.

Thanks Fingerhut, for getting me thisclose to the 12 Days of Christmas.