Face painting self-administered, for the occasion of her Gramma’s birthday. She wanted to write “Happy Birthday” on her face, but we convinced her that writing backwards into the mirror with grease pencils onto a fairly small surface area was a doomed, if imaginative, undertaking.
For the fun of it, here’s the self-administered face paint job circa two-and-a-half years ago. Bit of a shift in technique. Same joie de vivre.
Many of you watched or heard the President’s State of the Union speech last night.  So did my daughter, much to her great thrill (“We’re staying up late! To watch the news!” she said, with a frisson of excitement).  Throughout the speech, though, she was left with a great number of quesitons.  Some were easy to answer, some were stumpers. Judge for yourself:
She decided to try to take notes on the whole thing, but this proved more challenging than expected.
“I can’t write as fast as he talks,” she said, still utterly cheery. (We were staying up late! To watch the news!) Â Still, she made a valliant effort.
And so we enter the terrible threes. Again.
The variation on this theme? BOY! Who, like his sister, certainly isn’t limiting his contentiousness to his second year. All folks near young humans know that the phrase “terrible twos” is only in common usage because of the alliteration thing. Â Three years old is when most young humans hit their peak of INSANITY. Â Which he does daily, thankyouverymuch.
[For comparison's sake, his sister in the same shirt, a little over two years ago on her birthday.]
“Martin Luther King Jr, Birmingham Alabama, 1963,” by Ernst Haas.
One of my favorite photographs of Dr. King. Given the year and the setting (a jail), I think we can be fairly sure this was not just any jail, but a Birmingham one, and that the text being passed was one which included Dr. King’s now canonical letter.
Here are two past Dr. King-themed LD posts: A King among men, and It is the law of love that rules mankind. [Ed note, re: that second link: 'til I can fix it, imagine a photograph of Bayard Rustin in that question mark spot where an image should be. Fixed.]
Certainly you know of the calamity in Haiti. [Constantly updated Wikipedia page here.]
Here’s the whole of Bitch,Ph.D.’s post Help Haiti:
If you are among the many who wish there was something you could do to help Haitians right now, here is some advice in choosing organizations to support. Short version: send $, not stuff, and send it to organizations that were there before the earthquake.
The two easiest ways to donate:
Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5, which will be added to your next cell phone bill. Yele “is a grassroots movement that builds global awareness for Haiti while helping to transform the country through programs in education, sports, the arts and environment. Yéle’s community service programs include food distribution and mobilizing emergency relief. Grammy-Award winning musician, humanitarian and Goodwill Ambassador to Haiti Wyclef Jean founded Yéle Haiti in 2005.”
Text Haiti to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross, same deal with the $ charged to your bill next month.
In both cases my understanding is that the entire amount goes to the dedicated organization.
Other suggestions:
As I quipped on Twitter the other day — and that’s pretty much the main thing you can do on Twitter, quip:
3 kinds of menopause. Angry kind. Weepy kind. And chuck the broccoli over yer shoulder into the kitchen when yer son refuses to eat it kind.
Then I added:
Guess which kind I have.
Really, that was a rhetorical question. Thus the lack of question mark. The kids don’t lose any sleep at night wondering which kind of menopause Baba has, either. What I like to think is that they don’t lose any sleep at night worrying about it either.
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Mother of God, LD is up for a Bloggie!
Who knew?! Clearly not me.
If it weren’t for a friendly note from someone who found out about Lesbian Dad from the voting page, I’d have never, ever known.
Nominations opened January 1st, closed January 12th, and then randomly selected voters chose finalists from a list of the most-nominated weblogs. And yegods, LD made the cut for one of four “Best GLBT Weblog” contenders!
Knock me over with a feather.
People even been voting on this stuff for, like, almost a week already. Â Voting closes this coming Sunday, January 31st.
Here I was, in semi-retirement (right, well, I am prone to exaggeration), chewing over various dilemmas regarding how to write honestly through events — whether personal or global –Â that defy words and wear down the spirit, pondering how to continue to write about my kids when one of them is now aggressively literate. Â When my daughter looks at the WordPress admin page over my shoulder and asks, “Is that you, Lesbian Dad?” Â I still can’t tell if it’s an “Et tu, Brutus?” type of a question or a “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” one. Â Time will tell.
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