Moral Decline?

I'm as liberal as the next Chapel Hillian...I'm in favor of a woman's right to choose, same sex unions, equal pay for equal work, premarital cohabitation, sex ed in schools including contraception and abstinence, etc. Generally speaking, I try hard not to judge other people's behaviors, but this story just got me.

Mia Washington, 20, of Texas recently revealed that her twin boys, 11 months old, have different fathers. The mother said she thought they looked different and took them for a DNA test. She then admitted to her fiance (who is the father of one of the boys) that she had a fling with someone else (whom she is thankfully not identifying) at the time she got pregnant. (In case you were wondering, the technical term for this is type of twins is heteropaternal superfecundation.) Some studies show that up to 1-2% of all fraternal twins have different fathers. Others say it's one in a million. Her fiance has decided to raise both boys as his own. Ms. Washington has a 4 year old son from yet a different father and is expecting another child.

Despite my liberal views, I almost feel like this is a symbol of moral decline. I really cannot believe I am writing these words, but for some reason this story really set me off. Perhaps it's the pride exhibited by the mother that irritates me most. If it were me, I certainly wouldn't nationally publicize my promiscuity.

To put it simply, medical marvel, yes. Something I'd want to be famous for, no.

That Song

Every once in a while my family will become hooked on an artist, an album, a song. It starts innocently enough, a song that may or may not have been popular on the radio (generally speaking, radio stations are terrible here, with none that I have found playing anything interesting or progressive, but I digress) and may have inappropriate lyrics for the younger set. We buy the CD, and the song gets requested over and over and over again by passengers in the back seat of my car until every word is memorized and beyond.

The first such song I recall is "Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker (Uncle Kracker was later arrested as a sex offender in Raleigh, ewww). The lyrics had undertones of infidelity but an addictive phrase:
All you know is when I'm with you I make you free
And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea


The most recent artist, album, song combination is Jason Mraz, We Sing We Dance, We Steal Things. The song, "I'm Yours" is number 2 on the CD. "Play number 2" is the first thing requested in my car these days. The favorite phrase in this song is:
Open up your plans and damn, you're free

Personally, I think the interest in that phrase is the desire to say a "bad word" and get away with it. We also really like the way he scats and sings I'm Your-za...

Call it unenlightened, but I really don't understand a culture where a man can divorce his wife by saying "I divorce you" three times as they can in Saudi Arabia. Even worse, check out this story...divorce by text message. Good grief. I'd like to think marriage is more sacred than that in any culture.

WHERE do they come up with this stuff?

As I was working one day in my kitchen, I noticed someone in my house watching a show on Animal Planet called Groomer Has It. Basically, it's a reality TV show about dog groomers, competing against each other. There are catty contestants, strange tasks, and judges that try to create drama that shouldn't exist.

I mean really. Can we please go back to sitcoms?

Scrambled, please.

I have a question. What happened to all the different preparations of eggs? When I was a kid, we had eggs on the weekend only. There were poached, fried-over easy or sunny side up, scrambled, and the quirkiest of all, soft boiled in an egg cup. Hard boiled eggs were around for lunch, often diced in egg salad.
So here's the deal. We eat scrambled eggs. We eat hard boiled eggs. That's it. No soft boiled, no poached, no fried and certainly no egg salad. Trust me, I'm OK with all this, mostly because I don't like the other kinds, and I'm afraid of salmonella from undercooked eggs...but I'm wondering-do other people (besides my parents) still eat the other kinds?

Ash Lane House

My friend Alisa just posted a video about the house her family used to live in in Fresno. It made me recall my first childhood home, on Ash Lane.
My parents bought this house in 1966, a modest split level home on an enormous pie shaped lot on a cul-de-sac. It had 3 bedrooms, and mine looked out over the huge (flat, of course-this was the Midwest) backyard through eyelet curtains. In the yard there was a screened porch which hosted dinner at the picnic table every night in the summer, and lots and lots of grass to mow. There were 2 apple trees which bore rotten fruit, and 2 cherry trees which grew those super sour cherries wonderful for making pies.
There probably wasn't a more extreme example of suburbia around, but my somewhat sheltered "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle was not just a product of the just house, but rather the home. It could have happened anywhere.
Sentimentality towards our houses is well entrenched in our family, with my father driving us by the house he grew up in for 30 years after it was sold. When we moved from the Ash Lane house in 1979, we drove by every Sunday on the way home from church. I was completely devastated a few years later when I watched the house burn in a major fire, later learning that the family dog died in my old bedroom. Even worse, just last year I felt the horrific pain of the same owners when their son took his own life in the backyard.
I find it difficult to marry the extremes of memories, knowing the horrible memories the current owners must carry in their hearts. I hope they have had enough good times to outweigh the bad, and that I never forget the magic innocence of that life.

Facebook Friends-of Friends

So I'm a Facebook addict. I admit it. The interesting thing is that there is a whole subset of people out there that I have never met but I feel like I know.
I have about 80 friends on FB. They all have their own friends too, with some overlap. When I comment on a friend's status, their other friends can comment also. I get notice of these comments.
Over the last several months, I have become acquainted with these folks, ones I've never met but strangely want to meet now. I know their sense of humor, which I believe to be one of the most revealing human qualities. Love that. So all you friends of mine, when your Facebook friends come visit, let me know. I may just want to meet them.