Never listen to the lyrics

I have a confession: I've been listening to (bad) pop music. The reason why is pretty simple: I need to work out, and music with a beat helps that happen.

The thing is, while it always starts well - find song by pop artist so well known that even I've heard of them, play it, run -  at some point I accidentally set the volume too high, or start elliptical-ing too slowly, and before I know it, I've heard some of the lyrics.

And then, what with me being who I am, I can't hear the song again without my inner nerd (who is a separate, nerdier entity than my outer nerd (who is mostly just anti-social to the point of borderline misanthropic, which can easily be mistaken for nerdy by an outside observer)) cringing in horror.

TOP OFFENDERS:

In third place:

Rihanna's "Where have you been all my life."

This song actually isn't so bad. Repetitive, but OK.

One issue, of course, is the trouble in suspending disbelief when Rihanna sings about how she can't find a man to "love me all night long." If Rihanna can't find a man, the rest of us are in trouble.

My main problem with this song, though, is that for a while I kept hearing "Where have you been? / Cause I never see you out / Are you hiding from me, yeah? / Somewhere in the crowd"

as "Are you hiding from me, yeah? / Somewhere in the ground"

And now it always makes me think "noooo, Rihanna! Don't look for love underground! Sure, it sounds all sexy and romantic in my new teen romance about an ordinary girl and the brooding, mysterious zombie who loves her, but in real life it's a terrible idea!"

In second place:

Eminem (with Rihanna) "Love the Way you Lie"

This is a song about how sad it is when terrible, dysfunctional relationships come to an end.

That I could live with.

What I can't live with is Eminem singing "Now you get to watch her leave / Out the window / Guess that's why they call it window pane."

GAAAAAH!!!! NO!!! No, it isn't! Never say that again.

Is it just me, or is that line the lyrical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard? I find it hard to hear the beginning of the song, knowing that line is coming.

Also, this song forced me to face unpleasant truths about myself. Specifically, when I heard this line: "Cause when it's going good / It's going great / I'm Superman / With the wind at his back / She's Lois Lane."

and my immediate response was, "Well that's not a very good comparison. You don't even have to read the comics to know that Superman and Lois Lane have a complex and often difficult relationship."

Now how did I even know that? I don't know, but it disturbs me.

In first place:

Katy Perry's "Firework"

This song makes my sarcastic inner voice start up from the beginning. "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting throught the wind / Wanting to start again"

Is that, like, a known inner desire of plastic bags?

"Do you ever feel already buried deep / Six feet under scream / But no one seems to hear a thing"

The good news is that if you do feel this way, you probably won't be feeling this way for very long.

"If you only knew what the future holds / After a hurricane comes a rainbow"

I'm sure that's very comforting to the people who lost their homes and loved ones in the hurricane. Or would be, if it were at all true.

"Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow"

I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure this isn't something to look forward to.

"Boom, boom, boom / Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon"

Even brighter than the moon - an orbiting chunk of rock which gives off zero light of its own.

***

But I shouldn't mock this song. It has a very positive message for young people. No matter how terrible your problems are - whether you're a kid with cancer, or a kid whose parents have awful fights, or are currently being mugged, or if you're gay and afraid how people will take it, or even if you're overweight - there's still hope!  (I tease, but I bet a disturbingly high number of teen girls would prefer one of the other problems to "fat")

The solutions to the above problems, btw, if I understood the Firework video:
- Wander aimlessly around the hospital
- Intervene in your parents' physical fight (what could go wrong?)
- Be a magician (nobody appreciates whimsy like gangs of violent criminals)
- PDA
- Cannonball 

random, again

Adi had a birthday party in school. The party started with the teacher going around the room and various girls expressing their good wishes. Things like:

"I bless you to be happy and have everyone like you."

"I bless you to do lots of mitzvot and be smart and be a teacher."

"I bless you to eat lots of yellow cheese."

One girl's blessing was "that you marry a good guy." Which was pretty funny, because this was a seventh birthday.

The teacher (quietly) joked, "Yes, it's important to start praying for a good husband when you're seven," to which a student who overheard replied, "Nuh-uh! Not until you're eight!!"

****

I love that the first question in the Home Front Command pamphlet about earthquake preparedness is, "How do you know an earthquake is happening?"

Just what I was going to ask first! It's like they read my mind.

****

A genuine parenting tip:

If you want to reprimand your children for their behavior, never start by asking questions you already know the answer to. Like, for instance, "Did you just shove an entire pancake in your mouth?" Because they're only going to either 1. lie very, very badly ("Mphlmmph!") or 2. helpfully physically show you that your suspicions were correct.

****

S got a new toy stroller for her birthday, as planned. The stroller came with us on the walk to daycare, and home from daycare, and over to pick D up from a friend's house, and..... etc.

On the one hand, it helps keep her walking (/running down the street giggling insanely to herself). Well, mostly. The other hand is the times that she decides she's tired of walking, but still can't bring herself to let go of the stroller, so we end up walking down the street looking like this:

Soldiers

Today I was bringing N and D to preschool (gan) - and not looking forward to separating from D, who usually likes her preschool but sometimes decides at the last minute that actually she doesn't - when suddenly we saw soldiers.

Lots and lots of soldiers. Heading into D's gan.

So naturally, this made D eager to get into gan, too. It says something when the addition of dozens of strangers carrying large guns makes a child find preschool more appealing.

Then the rest of the soldiers followed N and I to N's kindergarten. I don't think they were expected. The teacher tried to get the kids to stay focused through the end of what they were doing (I'm not sure what that was, but it involved a guitar), but naturally the fascination of REAL LIVE SOLDIERS YAAAAY was overpowering. Guitar always loses to gun (unless it's a guitar with a gun in it, in which case you not only have a gun but also have the element of surprise).

One of the little boys called out to the soldiers, "I dressed up as a soldier on Purim!"

In the afternoon, when I went to pick N up, I asked her what the soldiers had talked about. "Did they tell you what it's like to be a soldier?"

"A little bit."

"What did they tell you?"

"That they don't use their guns to shoot at each other."

****

Usually it's Viggy who brings the kids to their various preschool/daycare arrangements (it's not due to any laziness on my part, it's just that... oh wait, it actually was the laziness thing). But I've been involved a couple of times this week.

Yesterday I dropped off Baby S (who I should really just call S, since she's nearly 2). She was clinging to me the whole way. As we got closer to her daycare, I started to steel myself for a tantrum at drop off.

She wasn't happy when I put her down outside the daycare. Well, you know, she's young, and she still needs her Mommy, and it's normal for kids to have separation anxiety at such a young age, and... wait, is that juice they're drinking in there? JUICE!! JUICE!!!!!!! MOMMY!! JUICE!!!!

She was at the front door before I'd even rounded the corner.

****

Have I mentioned that N and the other sisters often call S "Reeda"?

Long story short, they became convinced several months ago that S wasn't speaking bad English or Hebrew - she was speaking really good, really fluent S-language, and they just needed to crack the code. The code being, apparently, "replace 90% of consonants with R."

So for the past few months, if we tell S something and she doesn't listen, N will helpfully burst in, "Nooo, you have to say it like this! 'Reeda, rour rou rike ra chocolate rarik?" (chocolate is the same in every language, and has always been a word S reacts well to).

Anyway. I guess it's not uncommon for children to get a funny nickname, even if usually it's the younger child who can't say the older one's name, not the older child convinced that the younger one is speaking an as-yet-unknown dialect. 

The age gap (random)

Today I had to kneel down on the floor to do something. I don't remember exactly what, but I think it involved convincing someone to put underwear back on.

Anyway, since I was down there, naturally a child decided to launch themselves on me, and then another decided that looked fun and joined in, until I had finally said "ow" the magic number of times and they released me.

Then they had to ask the question that I've answered many, many times, but which they still can't get their heads around: how can it be that Mommy is older than Daddy (by a whole year!) but that Daddy is stronger than Mommy?

(Daddy doesn't get all whiny just because he suddenly has 40 pounds of kid on his back. Daddy can carry two girls at once or sometimes even three girls at once. Daddy can even carry girls on the stairs. Not like Mommy, who says things like "my arms are tired" when she's only been carrying you for not even two minutes.)

Whenever they ask this question, I like to bring up the story of Aunt Snan. It is one of N and D's favorite stories. It goes like this: when Mommy and Aunt Snan were little, Mommy was bigger and faster than Aunt Snan because Mommy was older and taller. But then when they got older, Aunt Snan got taller than Mommy and practiced running a lot, and now Aunt Snan is much much faster and stronger than Mommy.

N interjected at this point and said, "Right, like how D is stronger than me!" But I don't think D is really stronger than her just yet - D just knows how to fight. And with very rare exceptions, N does not fight at all.

(I have not yet told the kids the story about how Aunt Snan used to be afraid to hit Mommy, but then when they got older, Aunt Snan realized that now she can beat Mommy up with both hands tied behind her back (an ability she fortunately never had cause to use, as clever Mommy had come to the same realization years earlier...). Maybe I should tell that story, to Adi if to nobody else. Forewarned is forearmed).

****

N is also too honest for her own good. Today Viggy had to tell off N, D, and two of their friends who were walking home from school with us for running too far ahead.

Viggy: It's not OK to run so far ahead that we can't see you. You were so far that you couldn't even hear me telling you to stop!
N: No, we did hear you tell us to stop! But when we heard we just ran faster! *swings her arms happily to pantomime fast running*
(N's friend pulls N in for a huddle)
N: Oh. I mean that we only heard, like, a little of sound. But we didn't know.

****

I had to go to Adi's school today for a meeting with the school counselor over why Adi was missing notebooks from her bookbag earlier in the year. Fortunately, I've learned something since encountering the same problem last year, so instead of saying, "She's usually missing 20% of her school stuff? That's amazing! Man, I'm almost 30 and I'm still usually missing about half my school stuff," I said, "Oh, you're right, yes, of course, I'll be checking her backpack every night."

And when the counselor expressed surprise that Adi sometimes uses a notebook meant for one subject to take notes for a different subject, because "that is not normal for children. Children don't usually do that," I managed not to laugh, or to show her the paper I'd been working on while waiting outside her office - which was covered with a mix of attempts at proofs for math class, the grocery list, and random notes to myself.

(Poor Adi is actually not really like me at all in this regard. It's just that they have about 25 different notebooks, folders and workbooks to keep track of, with different combinations required on different days. I think she's doing very well, considering. Certainly the progress "we've" been making on the issue is more down to her abilities than my own.

OK, she's maybe inherited a teeny tiny bit of my airheadedness tendency to be distracted by more important things. Because when the counselor called her in so that she could see her bookbag, some of the notebooks in it weren't even hers.)

Anyway. Between that and work, my "smile and nod" muscles have been getting quite a workout. Which, I'll admit, they could definitely use. My overdeveloped "open your big mouth and say something 'clever' that will just get you into way more trouble than you're currently in" muscles are usually so quick to respond to any new challenge that the others have been rather neglected.

Reconciliation

First of all, it has to be said - BDE Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. (For my non-Israeli readers: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was a very, very well-known rabbi who was instrumental in rebuilding the Sephardi - that's Middle Eastern Jewish - religious community after the community's mass resettlement in Israel. He also was a former Chief Rabbi and started the Shas party. And he died this morning.)

I'll leave the eloquent eulogies to people wiser than myself. All I'll say is: Rabbi Yosef had a blunt, tongue-in-cheek style of speaking that meant he was mostly in the international media for saying bizarre-sounding things - but he did truly impressive work in setting up an entire school system, political party and socio-religious movement, he meant a lot to a lot of people (well over half a million people were at his funeral tonight, and that's in a country of under 8 million), and from everything I've heard, in his work here in Israel he was an extraordinarily kind person. Everyone who knew him in daily life, religious or not, Jewish or not, seems to have good things to say.

*****

And now for the story I'd planned for today - the story of my reconciliation with a young child after a fight over shoes.

It's not rare for the issue of shoes to lead to yelling in this house, due to the toxic combination we have here of 1. a rather large number of feet that need shoes each morning 2. a rather messy house (uhh... it's not usually like this! you just caught us at a bad time, is all) and 3. certain of our children who believe that shoes are a symbol of parental tyranny, and who choose to express their inherent right to self-definition by ignoring any request involving footwear.

So today, every child was ready with their shoes, except one (as usual, no points for guessing who). And after the third time that child wandered off to play ponies instead of tracking down her sandals (which were JUST HERE holy crap, how do they lose them so quickly???), I lost it.

What actually happened:

What happened as (apparently) perceived by some involved parties:

So obviously that was upsetting. And lead to traumatized crying rather than shoes being on feet (but it did immobilize the child long enough for me to put her shoes on for her).

As we left the house, I apologized for yelling, and got the following response:

This kid is too clever for her own good. Or maybe just too clever for my good.

Just to be completely clear, that's a request for a personal cell phone as a present for a fourth birthday.

And no, it won't happen, but she probably will get her number-two choice - the much more age-appropriate doll stroller (which will be, like, the twentieth we've bought. Doll strollers, doll clothes and crayons should not really be considered "toys" of the normal variety that you purchase and subsequently own for a substantial period of time - they're more like crackers or ice cream or something. Buy them, enjoy them, don't expect them to be here in two weeks.)

****

Also today:

8 pm: Bake special "healthy cookies" for Viggy, with oatmeal, squishy bananas, cocoa powder and just a pinch of sugar.

9 pm: Find self frantically searching for recipes for unhealthy chocolate cookies. Sometimes "healthy" foods are just a tease. Stupid non-fattening cookies. 

Make it stop

A couple of nights ago, I was talking to my Stistarsnan when she recommended a song. "It's a love song to Pluto from its moon, after they decided Pluto isn't a planet," she explained.

I listened. I enjoyed. And now it WON'T LEAVE MY HEAD. I mean, it's a good song, but enough.

I'm sharing it here in case this is one of those things where if you pass the curse on to other people, it will leave you alone. Also, you all should listen to this song if you haven't already, because it really is a good song. And it's a love song to Pluto from its moon - who could resist?

(the video can mostly be skipped, but try to catch the background pics at 1:25 and 2:30)

Book review - Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights (Novel)

The plot: A bunch of extremely reclusive people living on the moors, whatever those are, decide to adopt a random child of unknown origin, then proceed to abuse the hell out of it for the next decade. Unsurprisingly, this does not end well.

Also, there's romance of a sort, to the extent that the pathological dependence between two probably-sociopaths can be called "romance."

What I liked about this book:
- Very vivid, interesting characters and character development.

- It's always nice to see a book that can have a man and woman fall in love without making that the entire point of the story.

- Third and most important - this is the anti-Twilight.

I almost hate to hate on Twilight, because it's just too easy (also, because in my own bizarre way, I enjoyed the movies... ). But it can't be helped, Twilight is now the quintessential "oh dear lord that's a terrible message" popular romance (ending The Little Mermaid's lengthy stay at the top of the list). And Wuthering Heights is the antidote.

In Twilight:
I'm ignoring you = I secretly love you
"I'm dangerous" = "I'm interesting"
"I don't love you" = I really do love you.
"You're not safe with me" = I love you so much I literally couldn't live without you, but I'm willing to sacrifice my happiness to protect you.

In Wuthering Heights:
I'm ignoring you = I dislike you.
"I'm dangerous" = "I'm dangerous"
"I don't love you" = "I don't love you"
"You're not safe with me" = How stupid are you? Look, if you insist on continuing with this, it's going to end with someone getting a knife to the head.

What I didn't like about this book:
People kept dying of "oh hey time to die now" syndrome.

Is it too much to ask that if a character in their 20s has to kick the bucket, it be due to something other than delicate nerves? That's worse than dying from falling down the stairs.

***
Speaking of popular romance novels and Wuthering Heights, finally reading the latter made me appreciate additional creepiness in the former. Specifically, in novels by Cassandra Claire, who seems to enjoy comparing her male leads to Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff. That would be the same Healthcliff who is horribly abusive to his wife, deliberately warps children's minds, dedicates his life to revenge, kidnaps and abuses his dead love's daughter, plots a murder-suicide...

And, for the record, the book doesn't even describe him as particularly attractive.  There is really not one reason to compare your romantic male lead to "Heathcliff on the moors" unless it's in the context of him stabbing a puppy or something.

My score (for Wuthering Heights, not Cassandra Claire's books):
4.5 out of 5 stars.