I remember showing this work to my father, who assured me that yes, I most certainly could be POTUS one day.  Why did he leave India and come to this country with his battered suitcase of ragged underwear, if not for that very reason? My mother kept the silhouette essay, along with every other artifact from my past, in an overstuffed file folder in the study, and as time passed, I forgot about it – and my overreaching, unrealistic ambition – entirely.

Until yesterday, when America elected Barack Obama as our 44th President.

I couldn’t be prouder to be an American citizen than I am today. For eight years, I have cringed at the incessant flag-waving and accusations of anti-patriotism and crazy people in souped-up pick-up trucks with decals of Calvin pissing on everything in sight and licenses to hunt terrorists. Now, for the first time in ages, I can wave a flag along with the rest of my fellow citizens in honor of life as an American and a citizen of the world. I can imagine children of all colors looking at this man – this dignified, proud, hopeful, intelligent, articulate, uplifting new leader of ours – and seeing the possibility that they too, can rise above and beyond.

And then there’s the pure unadulterated shame of being Alaskan. Oh, we’re independent, all right. We won’t vote for a black man, but we sure as hell don’t mind voting for a old white crook. Because right now, Senator Ted Stevens, our erstwhile I’m-Not-A-Convicted-Felon-Until-I’m-Sentenced Senator, is actually leading the race against our current Democratic mayor, Mark Begich. Right now, Congressman-in-Perpetuity Don Young has apparently defeated Ethan Berkowitz and will serve his NINETEENTH term in the U.S. House of Representatives. And right now, the prodigal daughter “Just Shut Up” Sarah Palin, cleared of ethics violations, is on her way home, where she will no doubt be welcomed with cheers and sympathy.

Yes, Alaskans have spoken loudly – as loudly as it’s possible to speak with your head wedged up your backside, anyway. Never mind that some of us are hoping “Convicted Felon International Airport” will convey a certain edgy cachet to our summer visitors.  Never mind how we are going to have to try, once again, to convince friends and families Outside that Alaska is not actually a national holding colony for the lunatic fringe. Never mind that the entire world thinks we are a bunch of ignorant louts, hicks and morons, and rightly so. We had a chance to do what the rest of the country did – clean house – and instead, we chose to continue rolling in the dirt.  Behind the guns, Carharrts and duct tape, we’re not independent at all; we’re as dependent as it gets, clinging desperately to the corrupt old geezers that keep us in pork.

I used to tell people Alaska was different.  Sure, people are a little odd and rough around the edges, but there’s a good clean romantic wholesomeness about it that the rest of America could use. Well, not any more. The Last Frontier? More like the Last Front. Turns out we’re not so different at all when it comes to greed, handouts, and big-level corruption. If anything, we’ve set a new standard for denial and self-deceit. And with a little funding, we can even dress ourselves up at fancy department stores so you can’t even tell us from the rest of you.

To vote in some real change here in Alaska - now THAT would be some independent thinking.  Looks like once again the rest of the country is way ahead of us.

But he was surprisingly calm, and so was I, at least until he said to me, “Look at this cool stuff, Mama!” and – before I could really look – handed me a bag full of DRIED LOTUS SEED PODS.

For a moment, I thought I could hold it together in the face of my worst phobia. After all, the bag was labeled in some deceptive way, like “Potpourri”, not “Hideous Bag O ‘Fucked Up Shit.” And I couldn’t exactly scream and fling it away with the Bug standing there. But then I felt my hands go numb and I literally had a moment of light-headedness.

“Please put that back, honey,” I mumbled. “Mama really doesn’t like things with holes in them.”

I ask you: who in their right mind would pay for, let alone DECORATE with, these things? Do I hang baskets of snakes out on my porch, or leave ornamental tarantulas lying scattered among the dinner plates? Trust me, five years old or not, if the Bug takes up decorating with lotus seed pods, he’s out on his own.

***

Yesterday I took the Bug to JoAnn Fabric to buy the rest of the materials for his Halloween costume, because I’m not the kind of person who waits till the last minute or anything. Unfortunately, the store was filled with a bunch of other shoppers, who were just that kind of person. Assholes.

Anyway, after we got our elastic and single fold binding tape, we went over to the decorating section to look at Halloween and Christmas stuff. I am a complete sucker for Christmas decorations (the shame!), and the Bug is currently fascinated by grotesque Halloween masks. So, after a strong warning not to touch any bags of hole-filled things, I left him browsing the Halloween aisle and went to peruse floating candles shaped like peppermints. When I came back, he was crouched gazing into a tiny tin haunted house adorned with ghosts and bats.

He didn’t say anything when he saw me, knowing my rule about not asking for stuff in stores. But I had a moment of remembering what it was like to be a child and my own fascination with miniature worlds, and how it felt to long for something you had no way to have.

“Do you want that, baby?” I asked. His eyes grew big, and he nodded.

I picked it up and looked at the price tag – $20 – then at a sign saying certain Halloween stuff was 50% off. “Okay, if it’s $10, we can get it. But if it’s not on sale, then it’s too much money.”

He promised to carry it carefully and brought it up to the counter gripping it so tightly his fingers were white. “Can you tell me how much this is?” I asked the cashier.

She scanned it and reported with a smile, “Seven dollars.”

The Bug’s face fell, and he took it off the counter. “I’ll put it back,” he said sadly. “It’s not ten dollars.”

When we got home that afternoon, we put the little house on the dining table and placed a tea candle inside. The Bug set a cup of water next to it, just like they do at pre-school when a candle is burning. Then, his face glowing with anticipation, he waited and waited and waited for it to get dark, so he could finally see what it looked like lit from within.

***
This morning, driving to pre-school, the Bug said to me (as they say, apropos of nothing), “Mama, I really like being a kid.”

“Why?” I asked. Normally the Bug is all about his violated rights as a preschooler, like his right to stay up all night, to eat Cheetos for breakfast, and in general to do Whatever I Feel Like.

“Because I get to love so many things. Animals, dinosaurs, candy corn. I wish I could stay like this forever.”

This was such a small and yet profound statement that I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I’m the one who’s supposed to wish he could stay like this forever; silly, loving, full of joy at a clear blue sky or a dog’s wagging tail or a little haunted house. How did he have the self-awareness, the comprehension of time passing, the sheer insight to feel the preciousness of his own life as a four-and-three-quarter year old? I didn’t know what to say.

“You know,” I told him finally, “you can always stay a kid in your heart.”

He pondered this statement. “And can I always love panthers?”

“Always,” I told him solemnly.

He grinned. “Okay. Now can we listen to ‘Kung Fu Fighting’?”

And for the million-and-eighth time, we did.

Yesterday, around 8:30 p.m., I told my husband it was time to start getting the Bug ready for bed.  Never a good sleeper, the Bug is even harder to wake in the morning now that it’s dark all the time.

“Okay,” he said casually.  Then he picked up the newspaper and uttered the eight words I dread more than anything.  “I just need to go to the bathroom.” 

Ten minutes later, I was gritting my teeth so hard, I had a cramp in my forehead. Just how long does one need to take a crap anyway?  I fully understand the joys of lingering on the throne, but as a parent, sometimes you just have to shit AND get off the pot.  And according to the results of my informal polling, it seems to be men who have a hard time getting the job done in a timely manner.   I’ve also noticed that men don’t seem to be able to hold it if necessary.  WHY?

2.  Thou shalt never finish a sentence, much less a conversation.

“Mama?”

“Honey, I’m talking to your father.  Please don’t interrupt.”

“Excuse me, Mama?”

“What did I just say?”

“But I said excuse me.”

“Yes, that was very polite of you, but you’re still interrupting.”

Which leads to a long discussion about when it’s appropriate to say excuse me, and when to just wait, and when you can hang on your mother’s sleeve in silent insistence that she pay attention right now.  By the time all that’s over, you’ve forgotten what you were talking about originally.

3.  Thou shalt utter phrases thou never expected to use.

Because I’m the grown-up.  It’s good for you, that’s why.  Go to your room.  Don’t give me that look.  You’re just hungry.  No, you can’t have donuts for dinner. Because I said so, that’s why.  We can’t always have everything we want.  I just want five minutes of peace.  

4.  Thou shalt not swear.

My son once asked me what the hell we were having for dinner.  And at the age of two, he burst out with “Jesus, I’m coughing hard!” 

Realize that, sadly, ”Jesus Christ, where the fucking hell are the goddamn car keys?” is simply no longer an appropriate way to start the morning.  Palinize your vocabulary.  Darn, gosh, and heck are all acceptable substitutes: “Gosh darn it, where the heck did I put those silly car keys?”

5.  Thou shalt hide all thy gangsta rap CDs.

Unconscionably, instead of snuggling up with Tchaikovsky as all the pregnancy books recommended, I spent most of my nine months listening to Eminem and some truly foul-mouthed Dr. Dre songs. What can I say? The hook was really catchy. It’s really a wonder the Bug wasn’t born waving a gat and yelling “I’ma bust a cap in yo’ ass, mo-fo!” Bow-wow-wow yippy yo yippy yay.

6. Thou shalt not have hobbies. Or, if thou hast hobbies, thou shalt never complete a project.

My house is full of half-completed scrapbooks, jewelry, quilts and other orphaned craft projects. When I started making the Bug’s Halloween costume – a leopard – in July, my husband laughed at me. Actually, he laughed and said, “What the HELL is wrong with you?” Now it’s a week before Halloween, and based on the progress I’ve made, the Bug is going to have to be a drag queen instead.

7. Thou shalt give up thy slovenly eating habits.

Before we had the Bug, my husband and I used to consider crappy cereal a perfectly respectable dinner. Our friends’ kids loved to come over to our house just for the sugar fix. Now, I feel strangely compelled to try to feed the Bug a reasonable diet consisting of actual food groups. Meanwhile, my husband has a stash of Cocoa Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch hidden in the back of the cupboard, which he gets up early to eat on the sly. Oh, what I would give to eat a bowl of Cap’n Crunch out in the open.

8. Thou shalt set a good example.

“Put your boots under the bench, and hang up your coat properly,” I order the Bug every afternoon, as I fling my coat on the floor and kick my shoes across the hall.

9. Thou shalt maintain a sense of humor in all situations.

The other day at a restaurant, the Bug asked me – LOUDLY – how girls pee.

“They sit on the toilet,” I stammered stupidly. “You know that.” His preschool has a coed bathroom, sort of like on Ally McBeal, with two tiny toilets, and the kids often carry on lengthy conversations while seated on the pot.

“But where does the pee come OUT?” he persisted.

“I don’t think we need to…”

“Like when I pee, it comes from the hole in my bing. Do girls pee from the hair between their legs? And why do girl kids not have hair there?”

I stuffed his mouth with pasta and smiled weakly at the family next to us. “That’s enough questions, sweetheart.” In my head I was thinking, at least this will make a really good blog post.

10. Thou shalt overcome thy ridiculous fears.

Like fear of spiders, and of late night phone calls, and of going downstairs by yourself to the laundry room in the dark, even if you think there might be a creepy skeletal axe murderer lurking in the garage. Or of having someone vomit dinosaur oatmeal all over your hair.

It is now YOUR job, as the adult, to dispose of spiders, and to answer the phone, and to face off with the axe murderer, and to be puked upon regularly. Do it with pride and dignity.

During the Couric interviews she reminded me of an old high-school friend who had done too much acid. During the debate she reminded me of a cliquish teenager running for student council president. This, combined with the realization that in 15B years the planet will be roasted like a marshmallow in the red-giant expansion of the sun, makes me want to shoot myself right now.

*

Let her go please. Downtown Detroit. They would greet her and Toad like liberators.

*

McCain says: We must move our campaign out of Michigan, all is lost.

Palin: But Senator McCain, all is not loss, there are several hundred thousand more jobs , thousand of homes, millions in pensions and savings that can be lost in Michigan if we do press on and possibly win.

*

There ya go again Governor! When you think, you get in trouble. Pretty sure Sen. McCain didn’t pick ya because of your ability to think! I mean, criticizing Katie Couric – she asked the easiest questions. What the governor reads? And the governor couldn’t answer? OMG This would be funny if it weren’t so darned serious!

*

Would I prefer Charles Manson as a VP? — You Betcha

*

You hear that America, all Palin wants is that you stop asking questions. Nothing good ever comes from asking questions. Just bend over and accept it, already. No more questions.

*

Oh yah, ya jes get clobbered der do’n cha know! Come on you half wit! It had nothing to do with the questions you were asked! It comes down to the fact that you are an unqualified AIRHEAD!!!

*

Poor Sarah ! I’m sorry you are “getting clobbered” , but a very old wise man once said …. “life is not fair”. Just ANSWER the questions, Sarah and maybe you wouldn’t get clobbered. By the way, I am a 69 year-old Navy veteran who cares nothing about your connection with Joe-6 pack and everything in the world about your readiness to become President of The US of America. If you were Kay Bailey Hutchison or Olympia Snowe, I would be taking a long look at your running mate, but as it is, I will go with the young visionary for Illinois. Next time, come prepared be a good citizen and stay home.

*

HOLY COW !!! SHE MAKES OUR CURRENT IDIOT LOOK LIKE A SECOND COMING OF EINSTEIN !!!!!!!!

*

As a former SSgt who did a tour in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and South Korea, I’m voting for Obama. Facts aren’t lies.

*

I think the gloves need to come off where Sarah Palin is concerned. Treat her like any other candidate. Ladies – isn’t equality one of the reasons behind the women’s movement. Stop protecting her and making excuses for her. She is in no way ready to be Vice President let alone a heart beat away from the being the President. She looked like a cheerleader flirting with the football squad last night.

*

i felt that last night palin was just told “hey, be adorable for an hour and a half and you’ll do fine. if you don’t know the answer here’s a list of things you can say that may help.” some of those questions she didn’t answer at all… or was that “not answering in the way they want”. are you kidding me. i swear, if someone winks at me today i just may scream.

*

Just who does this woman think she is? How dare you question anybody you clueless twit.

*

Palin, please try to get another brain cell to keep the one you have company. When they say you are a “breath of fresh air” I think they mean empty headed windbag.

*

IDIOT !

“I WANT KISKEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” he wailed as I tucked him in. “I don’t want her to be dead!”

I felt so bad that I got under the covers with him. We talked about how the dog was at peace now and how she will always be part of our family. He sniffled and smiled a little through the tears.

Next came the philosophical questions. What does her spirit look like? Like a cloud-shaped dog, I told him. How does she get to heaven? Her spirit floats, I explained, and then resorted to that trusty old standby: it’s magic. Does she have to wear a collar? No, she never does anymore, or a leash.

Then, the mother of all questions: “Mama, when am I going to die?”

I felt like my heart was going to stop. NEVER! I wanted to yell. But I said something I hoped was soothing, like “Not for a long time, honey, and you don’t need to worry about it,” and that seemed to be enough for him.

I lay awake long after he’d fallen asleep clutching my hair in his fist. What’s a long time to a five year old? Did he think he, like the dog, would be put down if he got too sick? I didn’t want to give him more information than he needed, but how much did he need?

The next day, at his pre-school teacher’s suggestion, I read him a book by Mr. Rogers called “When A Pet Dies.” In typical Mr. Rogers fashion, it’s a gentle but honest guide to feelings at the loss of a pet, with photos of children hugging their cats and dogs, a pet funeral, and visits to the vet. A couple of the other children, knowing our dog had died, gathered around the couch to listen.

“You may feel sad or angry when a pet dies,” I read aloud. “Sometimes, you think you could have done something to stop it, but you probably couldn’t.”

And then I started bawling like a pre-schooler myself. The kids looked concerned and sympathetic. “Don’t cry,” DinoBoy told me. “You can get another dog at the pet store.”

“Where did your dog go?” asked a little girl.

“To doggie heaven,” I snivelled.

“Mama, don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve,” the Bug scolded. “You should use a tissue.”

As the children crowded close, breathing on me and trying to comfort me by patting with their chubby little hands, I started to feel a little better, or at least claustrophobic instead of depressed.

“Thanks, guys,” I said shakily. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

One of them tugged on my sleeve as I stood up to leave.

“Do dogs poop in heaven?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t think so,” I answered. “And if they do, people don’t have to clean it up.”

“Because it isn’t stinky!” crowed a little boy.

And we all smiled.

I thought I’d read just about every angle on the Presidential campaign, but apparently I missed this one:

Hillary Clinton Forum

Yes, here at last is that Mysterious Island of Pissed-Off Women that I didn’t think really existed: the liberal female voters so completely consumed with rage at the Democratic failure to nominate Hillary for President that THEY ARE VOTING REPUBLICAN TO SUPPORT SARAH PALIN.

For the first time in my life, I’m truly ashamed of my sister Vaginal-Americans.

Consider some of the hateful anger against Obama and the Democrats spewed on the Hillary Clinton forum when Sarah Palin was chosen (and this is a representative, if not underrepresentative, sampling of the posts there):

Buuuuurn Obama Buuuurn! What a slap in the face. If it’s Palin, I will put blood and sweat into campaigning for that team.

I am THRILLED if this is true. It will make it easier for me to vote McCain (which I would have done anyway). Now I’m excited! It’s not Hillary (she’ll be President in ’12)…. but it’s exciting none the less!

McCain has picked PALIN!!! I am THRILLED! AS for the Dums whining that she doens’t have experience running things–SHE HAS FIVE KIDS!! TRUST ME! SHE KNOWS HOW TO RUN THINGS! GOD BLESS MCCAIN/PALIN!!!

now you know I will be backing my girl. I admire Sarah and I think it is toooo cool that we were born the same year.

Well this lifelong Democrat is most certainly advocating a Republican vote!!!!

A woman VP is VERY exciting and it makes me advocate a Republican vote even more since Obama refused to allow the Democratic party, especially the women, the opportunity to make this history!!! Obama’s actions should be taken as absolute proof that he is a woman hater. Never did come to terms with all those unresolved abandonment issues.

Talk about cutting the baby in half and then throwing it out with the bathwater. Here’s a group of women so furious that they are willing to sell out all of their own – and their preferred candidate’s – hard-fought visions and ideals in order to vote for someone with the right working parts between her legs. How is supporting a woman who does not support women “supporting women”? If the cognitive dissonance doesn’t cause your brain to implode, the irony is enough to knock you senseless. As my father would say, “Grow up.” These comments – “my girl Sarah”? – sound like jilted vengeful prom dates, not adult women with their faculties intact.

Before anyone claws my eyes out, let me say that I have some solid feminist credentials. Went to a women’s college, marched a whole lot, read (and can still quote) Mary Daly. I still have my 20-something year old T-shirt from my college’s 100th anniversary celebration that proudly proclaimed us “100 years of castrating bitches.” I understand disenfranchised and disaffected and just plain dissed.

Believe me, I would love nothing more than to see Senator Clinton or another intelligent, educated, competent woman elected into office. But not just any woman, and certainly not an ultra-conservative right-wing Republican woman who will set women’s rights back at least 50 years if, say, she has the chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice.

Send me straight to Hell now, but how is changing your vote from Hillary to Sarah any different than saying that I am randomly interchangeable with Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer-prize winning Indian woman writer? That would be offensive (at least to Ms. Lahiri) and, I think most would agree, racist.

Similarly, it’s not ONLY offensive, it’s just plain sexist to claim that any white woman politician, let alone a right-wing Republican, can be substituted for Hillary Clinton with equal effect. That’s right, you crossover Hillary voters. YOU. ARE. SEXIST.

I’m going to hazard a guess that most of these women are white, because otherwise, they would understand that identity stems from many sources. I’m a working woman, but I’m also a minority. Throw in Alaskan, environmentalist, pro-choice, liberal, and you have an amalgam of issues, all of which are important and complex and intertwined. I’m not going to vote to support a crazy old ultra-conservative and his nutty sidekick just because she’s female, any more than I’m going to vote for a jerk like Dinesh D’Souza just because he’s Indian.

There’s still a lot of people out there who subscribe to the notion that women are too emotional to think rationally in a time of crisis. Sadly, some women really are.

Had she eaten a shrew or a squirrel, perhaps a dead bird? Had she jumped and pulled a muscle? Eaten gravel, which she had done a few weeks ago? The last time she acted odd, we took her to Pet Emergency, where they charged us a fortune to tell us she had indigestion. So we decided to wait till morning before acting.

In the morning she was no better, so we brought her to our vet. They ran tests, took x-rays, rehydrated her. She was “blocked up”, they said, but they didn’t know why. By evening, they suggested we take her to Pet Emergency for possible surgery, but the vet there hesitated to operate. We decided to give her another day to see what happened.

So there we were, basically waiting for the dog to take a shit. We joked about bringing her some prunes, or maybe Metamucil. At least the vet would have to do the clean-up, and we’d have her home by the weekend.

And then the vet called. She had a feeling something more was going on. She wanted to do an ultrasound. My husband and I consulted nervously. Our first dog, Kia, had an ultrasound and it turned out to be stomach cancer. Okay, we agreed, trying not to think how much it was all costing. What choice did we have?

That evening, the Bug and I stopped by the clinic to visit. Kiska lay in her kennel, an I.V. through her front leg. She gazed at us sorrowfully, not getting up. A bright orange sign hung on her door: MAY BITE.

Bite? Our sweet gentle girl who let the Bug do just about anything to her, bite? Then the vet called me in, and I could tell by her face she did not have good news. It was a mass, she said, in her small intestine. A mass? I asked. You mean a tumor? She nodded. They could try to remove it surgically, but if the cancer had spread, chances were it wouldn’t matter. Besides, she’s an old dog, and even if she survived the surgery, she might not make it through the recovery.

We wanted to know how much time she had, especially after we took her outside and she became lively and bouncy again. Could we take her home for the weekend? my husband asked. No, but we could probably bring her home for the night. The vet gave her a dose of pain medication to keep her comfortable while we called a close friend, also a vet, who said she could come to the house in the morning to put Kiska down. At least we’d have a little time to say goodbye.

But after a couple of hours at the house, it was obvious she wasn’t going to make it. She couldn’t settle down, wouldn’t touch food. Once she let out a whine that sent chills right down my back. The Bug worked on a puzzle next to her. The cat came over and rubbed against her, purring. We pet her and kissed her and told her how much we loved her. We cried until we couldn’t breathe. Then my husband took her back to the clinic. Later he told me she licked the vet’s face as the anesthetic was going in.

We’ve had at least one dog in our family for the last fifteen years. Now the house seems empty and quiet, with only a few visual reminders of her absence – tufts of the white fluff she was eternally shedding, her disgusting half-eaten rawhide. I listen for her irritating high-pitched bark at the back door, her cat-like lapping of water, or her tags jingling in the morning. Still, I reflexively put leftovers on the floor for her. As we enjoy the crisp cold sunny days that presage winter snow, I keep thinking we need to take her for a walk. Out of the corner of my eye I catch false glimpes of her, snoozing at the foot of the Bug’s bed, or more likely, with her head on his extra pillow.

She was such a part of our daily routine, one we didn’t realize was so important to the fabric of our days until now, when she’s no longer here. This was a dog who was young at heart until her very last day; we joked that if she had only one leg left, she’d run away on it. Of course we knew this day would come. We just didn’t know it would be so soon.

This morning, the Bug said it made him feel sad not to have her leaping at the door to come for a ride when we left. “Who will guard me at night?” he demanded.

Don’t worry, I told him. Kiska’s still guarding you, and she can see a whole lot better from where she is now.

And yet, today, while engaging in my current favorite activity – clicking fiendishly on link after link about the upcoming election until my eyeballs rupture – I happened upon this blog supporting Sarah Palin. Here is the blogger’s logic as to why Sarah would make a fab President, in a nutshell (emphasis on NUT):

Authenticity

According to this awestruck fan, Palin has that indefinable quality known as “authenticity”; she’s warm, genuine, and above all, not too smart or educated for her own good or ours. In the blogger’s words, she’s someone that “We the People can relate to!” (For instance, she leaves prepositions at the end of sentences, just like us!) It doesn’t hurt that she comes in a pretty package, either, as can be seen from some of the admiring comments accompanying her photos. There’s more: check out the link to an article on a British website claiming Sarah is the Princess American Di. And finally, the crowning glory of her credentials: “she is not a Lawyer!”

*insert mandatory shark-related lawyer joke here*

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. I’m a lawyer, and you know what I do for a living? I help old people, the most vulnerable and unprotected of our society. Sometimes, because they are too frail or frightened to drive to my office, I go to their houses, where I pick up their newspaper or feed their cat or eat things I never knew about like ox-tail soup, which no Hindu person should ever consume, so I can hear about their legal problems – their husband’s mental deterioration from Alzheimer’s, their son taking money out of their bank account, the mortgage they can no longer pay, the seemingly inevitable nursing home placement – and hopefully try to make it all better.

And for THAT – for being someone who spent NINETEEN YEARS of her life bothering to get an education in the hopes of making this a better world, my “elite” profession is maligned and scoffed at by some of the most curmudgeonly, mean-spirited, narrow-minded people imaginable. I’m too educated, too brown, too progressive; I’m a threat, a scourge, an affliction.

People like me, the oldest child of immigrant parents, TOO educated? I could go to school for the rest of my life and not feel I had learned enough about all the things I’d like to know. Theology, philosophy, psychology… I wouldn’t mind understanding organic chemistry either; all I ever managed to do was make jewelry out of my plastic molecule set.

And yet there are all these people out there who have NO intellectual curiousity or desire to know more about the world, and these people somehow consider themselves not only to know enough, but enough to RUN THE COUNTRY. Because Sarah Palin is ‘just like them”, and apparently she knows enough to be President. Here’s how one proud Sarah supporter described it: Sarah represents The People because there are way more parents of pregnant teenagers than parents of children with Harvard degrees.

That is sad on so many levels it would give Einstein a migraine thinking about it. My father begged and pleaded for me to apply to Harvard; why else did he come to this country with nothing but the clothes on his back, weighing 84 pounds, swimming and walking to get here from India, and work his fingers to the bone? At the time I refused to apply; I wanted to go to college outside of Boston. That I WOULD go to college, though, was never in question. Is that something to scorn in this new era of The People?

In fact, the whole attitude is really a remarkable display of overinflated self-esteem. I read about a study showing the more incompetent someone was as judged by their peers, the more likely that person was to view themselves as highly competent. In other words, one of the main traits of incompetent people is lack of judgment as to their own incompentency.

Well, the whole “dumb is the new smart” thing is getting really old and tired, folks. Want some plain talk? Here you go: wake up and smell the dog shit, as We the People say in Alaska. Sarah Palin is not “authentic”, any more than Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or any politician is “authentic.” Check it out: “authenticity” can be bought, for a price; it’s a marketing tool, for fuck’s sake.

What Palin IS doing is feeding an enormous desire of certain folks in this country to feel somehow in control in a time when the world appears to be spiraling out of our control. By putting someone “like us” in the White House, we’d be taking back our government! Showing them who’s boss! Rah rah rah. Meanwhile, she’s sold Alaskans down the river, leaving the McCain people to rampage and wreak further havoc in the mess of subpoenas and investigations she’s left us.

Just as lofty speech and an aristocratic pedigree isn’t a fool-proof indication of intelligence, neither is plain talk and a folksy manner a sure sign of being “one of us”. As I recall, people lauded the current White House occupant for his plain speech and down-to-earth manner. Too bad it turned out that he was really just dumb as a block of ice. Maybe dumber.

Politicians of all people should be judged on their merit, not on their ability to appear to have merit. And if Americans can’t see that, maybe it’s time for some new prescription glasses.

I finally saw “Kung Fu Panda” this weekend, which leads me to ask the inevitable question: is it so wrong for a woman to love a red panda? Because I am STONE IN LOVE with Master Shifu. He’s so stern, so tragic – and yet so cute and cuddly. And that happened even before I found out that his character is voiced by Dustin Hoffman.

For many reasons, I was totally against the Bug seeing this movie when it was released. It’s not like he needs more inspiration to run face-first into a brick wall, swing from the ceiling fan, or roundhouse-kick the refrigerator door closed. He and his little posse at pre-school are regularly separated from each other at least once a day for various pre-school infractions, like pretending to be cheetahs and hunting down innocent toddlers, or scaling the chain-link fence in a miniature version of “Prison Break”. The last time it happened, the Bug informed me quite seriously that he and his best friend DinoBoy were forbidden from playing with each other “FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!”

Plus, it’s clear that the majority of kid’s movies and television shows are nothing but a marketing vehicle for cheap plastic stuff that reproduces exponentially as soon as it reaches our living room and makes me despair for the future of our planet. Yeah, yeah, I know, you’ve heard it all before. That’s just the kind of mean old hard-ass mom I am.

Still, no matter how much I try to stop him from seeing the relentless commercial drivel aimed at marketing garbage to kids, he somehow finds out about it. “Captain Jack Sparrow!” he crows in the cereal aisle. “Darth Vader! Power Rangers!” It drives me crazy, and I vow on a daily basis that I am not going to let my child be sucked into anything that is created entirely to perpetuate Happy Meals.

And then I made the mistake of going out with some friends for a single afternoon, and my husband took him to see “Kung Fu Panda” without a second thought. See what happens? You let down your guard for a split-second, and the terrorists have their way.

From that day forth, I’ve had to listen to endless discussions about Master Shifu and Tai Lung and the one-hundred-twenty-fifty-four rhinos he massacred, and above all, Master Tigress, because apparently Angelina Jolie’s voice alone is enough to seduce a four and three-quarters year old into worshipping her. I’ve witnessed countless demonstrations of kung fu poses and heard the word “Skatoosh!” more times than I’ve heard Sarah Palin say “Thanks but no thanks.”

So this weekend, our local theater-pub was showing a second run of “Kung Fu Panda” and the Bug, with his sixth sense for cartoon features, somehow found out, and suddenly I was engaged in a vicious conspiracy to see this movie with him and BFF DinoBoy and DinoBoy’s little sister and their mom. And off we went, but not before stopping in at Value Village to find a Master Tigress and Master Monkey for DinoBoy.

We got to the theater, where the Bug and DinoBoy greeted each other as if they hadn’t seen each other since the Pleistocene, rather than 18 hours earlier at pre-school; in other words, they started talking loudly and simultaneously about totally different things. Plastic Masters were distributed, kids were settled in their seats, and the movie began.

And I was hooked. It’s been a while since I’ve loved a kid’s movie the way I enjoy some of the old Disney movies. I liked “Ratatouille” and “WALL-E”, but seeing them with an actual child made me realize how much kid’s movies are directed toward adults these days. And if not, they seem dumbed-down or facile, underestimating what kids can and can’t handle. It really is hard to strike just the right note in an animated film, which would be somewhere between snarky and sappy. “Toy Story” did it, I think. So does “The Lion King”, “Ice Age”, and “Aladdin”. Another favorite of mine is the little-known “The Iron Giant”. I thought “The Wild” was terrible, like “Madagascar” on a bad acid trip. And some movies, like “Cars” – possibly the most boring movie ever after “The English Patient” – aren’t interesting for kids OR adults.

But “Kung Fu Panda” met all of my inner child’s requirements in spades, and most of my adult ones too. It was like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Panda”, hitting all the right notes at the right moments, and some of the animation was downright stunning. It’s not brilliant or new, but kids don’t want innovation; it’s their bored parents that need it. All my son really wants to see is some animals doing crazy shit. And if a big fat panda can become a Dragon Warrior, surely I can drag my sorry ass to a Pilates class once a week.

I left the theater yelling “SKATOOSH!” with DinoBoy and the Bug and feeling like a kid again. “Isn’t that the bestest movie ever?” the Bug demanded on the way home, clearly thrilled that his mother had done the unthinkable: changed her mind.

I just shouldn’t have tried that split-kick in the parking lot.

This morning I got up feeling like my head was about to explode thinking of all the things I have to do. The tub was full of freezing cold water and half a million toy animals from the Bug’s bath last night. Nothing wakes you up in the morning like sticking your hand in icy old bathwater to fish a kimodo dragon out of the drain.

The Bug needs to get his annual check-up for school. I need to call his drum teacher about resuming lessons. The dog needs her prescription filled. The cat kept me awake by meowing all night because his water bowl was empty. The kitchen sink is full of unwashed dishes. The recycling needs its own apartment.

There’s more. A lightbulb in the bedroom is out, and because my husband’s out of town and I can’t reach it myself without a ladder, I got dressed in the dark and came to work wearing a shirt which I thought was black but actually turned out to be purple. And let’s not even talk about my office, which looks like Hurricane Ike made a pit stop in downtown Anchorage.

I know these are petty irritations compared to the larger demons out there in the world, but they all add up to the mental equivalent of a giant hairball. I just want to cough it all out of my brain somehow.

Hack, hack.