Neighborhood potluck

A few readers have asked about our neighborhood potlucks. I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell about them.

It all started about two years ago when a neighbor's husband was out of town on an extended business trip. She was left alone with the kids and we thought she might enjoy some adult conversation, so we invited her to dinner. She offered to bring dessert. Her kids and our kids did their own thing and we adults sat at the table and visited. It was so enjoyable we repeated it the following week.

As our neighbor left after that second meal, she said "I'll host next week," and our weekly potlucks were born. A third set of neighbors joined us shortly thereafter. We have other neighbors out here who join us from time to time, but these three families are the core.

We alternate between our house and the first neighbor's house because they're big enough to accommodate the ten or eleven people who regularly meet. The host makes dinner, and the visitor brings dessert. The third neighbors bring drinks and a supplementary dish (mashed potatoes or biscuits or something).

None of us are outstanding chefs but showing off our cooking skills isn't the purpose of the potlucks. By now we're pretty familiar with each others' dietary tastes and limitations (one person is lactose intolerant so we don't prepare cheese-laden dishes, for example) and we cook around those parameters. Sometimes potlucks get canceled for a week or even a month if things are especially busy. The day also varies depending on everyone's schedules (right now we're meeting on Sunday evenings).

So yesterday was our turn to host. By cleaning the house on Saturday, it meant that Sunday all I had to do was cook. The nice part about having a crowd over twice a month is it means I'm forced to clean the bathroom and vacuum the floors at least that often.

Clean living room. (My dearest decorating wish someday is to get rid of the hideous blue carpeting the house came with and replace it with hardwood floors. We can't just strip the carpet out because there's nothing but concrete floor underneath. Ah well, for now I'm content.)

I tried a new recipe, pork chops with a wine sauce. Here I'm browning the pork chops.

Shortly before the guests arrive at 6 pm, I light all kinds of candles and oil lamps around the house, just for atmosphere. Mostly this is a winter habit since it's still daylight at 6 pm during the summer.

We say grace before dinner, of course. Here everyone is lining up to fill their plates. One of the families is LDS (Mormon) so I called them in advance and asked if a wine sauce would be okay. (Mormons don't drink alcohol.) Since the alcohol itself cooks off during the preparation, the wine sauce was fine. This is what I mean by being considerate of everyone's dietary parameters.

The adults tend to congregate around the kitchen table while the kids scatter elsewhere. Lydia knows firmly where she wants to be - someplace where something might accidentally drop on the floor!

We serve coffee or hot chocolate after dinner while I do a quick batch of dishes. Since we don't have a dishwasher, this means I'm less overwhelmed with cleanup after everyone leaves. Since all the guests tend to stay around the table, I'm not excluded from conversation.

Dessert this time was black forest cake with ice cream...

...which was eagerly anticipated.

I do a second batch of dishes afterward (coffee cups and dessert plates) and then I'm free to sit and visit with everyone.

No one stays terribly late - people have to get up for work and school the next day - but it's a pleasant way to connect with our neighbors on a regular basis. Sometimes we're all so busy during the week that this is our only time to see each other. We're blessed to live in a neighborhood where everyone gets along so well.

Here's a photo I took last summer where a wider circle of neighbors were being hosted by a new neighbor having a sort of open house. His campfire was perched on the edge of the slope of the canyon and the sun was going down behind us. I thought this photo turned out splendidly - click to enlarge.

Here's the dish I made last night, pork chops in white wine sauce.

Brown eight pork chops in oil; set aside.

White wine sauce:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 flour
1 cup dry white wine
4 cups chicken broth

Pour olive oil into saucepan over medium heat. Gradually whisk in the flour until the mixture looks like paste. Reduce heat and slowly add the wine. The mixture will thicken quickly. Slowly pour in the chicken stock, stirring continually. Add a little pepper, and rosemary to taste. (I don't add salt because the chicken stock is already salty.)

Put the pork chops in a crockpot and pour the sauce over the chops. Let the meat and sauce simmer for several hours. Pork chops tend to be tough when just pan-fried, so I like to simmer them slowly in a crockpot to make them tender. (Besides, this means the main dish is essentially done and I can concentrate on other things.) I doubled this recipe because we had so many people. I served it with rice and the neighbors brought mashed potatoes.

Anyway, that's the scoop on our neighborhood potlucks.

Living in the real world

I have a cell phone. It's a no-frills version that takes calls and receives calls. It doesn't take photos, connect to the internet, or send Twitter messages. Nor does it vacuum my floors, do the laundry, or wash dishes. All it does is takes calls and receives calls. Oh, and the only time it's turned on is when I'm away from home. Keep this in mind for a moment.

A few years ago, a friend got her first book published. There was much rejoicing in our writer's group over her success. But like all new authors, it wasn't just a matter of sitting on her laurels and watching the royalty checks roll in. No indeed. She had to deal with the bewildering intricacies of marketing her book since, after all, without marketing those royalty checks would never arrive.

To her credit, she learned a great deal about self-promotion, particularly utilizing the social networking options which were on the ascendancy. While I struggled to become published, she urged me to consider a MySpace page in order to "pre-market" myself. "Go to my MySpace page," she urged me, "and see how powerful it could be!"

So I went to her MySpace page. And I was appalled. I don't remember much of the details, but it seemed to me there was a lot of sleaze and skank from her followers that had nothing to do with her book. There were ads I would never have approved of and links to questionable websites.

And that was the end of my social network ambitions. That momentary glimpse of my friend's page turned me totally off MySpace.

Since then, of course, MySpace has fizzled but Facebook has boomed. And I'm getting similar pressures from all sorts of people to get "connected," not to mention endless invitations to become someone's "friend." Only this time I can't even view someone's Facebook page unless I, well, join Facebook.

The implication, of course, is that I'm just not hip and happenin' if I'm not "connected" via Facebook, Twitter, etc. I mean, let's face it - it was a big enough hurdle for me to even start a blog! And now you want me to "friend" utter strangers on a social networking site?

I know all my "connected" readers are protesting that it doesn't have to be that way. And I know you're right. My husband, who does have a Facebook page, assures me that all sorts of security measures can be utilized, and I only have to "friend" those who are truly friends. But I'm just not interested.

The biggest reason I'm not anxious to jump on the social network bandwagon is I plain don't have time. For Pete's sake, I have two kids, we homeschool, we have a home business, we have a farm. There's housework to do, music and sports lessons to attend, errands to run. I have columns to write and book stuff to work on. Who the heck has time for all that social network stuff?

But I'll admit I'm reluctant to join the social network craze because it strikes me as just one more step away from really connecting with people through face-to-face conversations or phone calls or even emails.

The reason I enjoy a blog so much is I consider it just an extension of my thought processes. Things I find amusing, tragic, interesting, inspiring, or otherwise worth sharing get posted. In a way you might even say it's a ministry for me. But most of all it's an outlet for stuff I want to get off my chest. I'm a writer, and when someone is a writer they are forever writing - in their mind if nowhere else. The writing that takes place in my head never stops. Literally. I'll be out feeding the cattle and mentally polishing a phrase. I've been known to bring my AlphaSmart into the barn with me while mucking it out, because if I'm working on a topic and sudden inspiration strikes, I have to write it down NOW. My writings and ramblings and rants (like this one) all end up on my blog.

Anyway, my friend Enola Gay recently wrote an excellent piece on how disconnected we are. She says, "As a thoroughly modern people, we have become disconnected. Oh, we are connected to many things - cell phones, ipads, computers, ipods, xbox, television, any number of electronic devises - but we are disconnected from real life." Ironically I read a couple articles this morning which confirms her point.

As social networking matures and comes of age, we find it is counterproductive to the very thing it purports to do - namely, connect people. "Twitter and Facebook don't connect people – they isolate them from reality, say a rising number of academics," notes this article.

As if that isn't bad enough, it's coming out that Facebook and other such media can be detrimental when it comes to job prospects and employment because employers are checking out applicants' social media sites to see what kind of person they're actually hiring. And idiots that they are, people post things on Facebook which, frankly, should never see the light of day. What is it about a Facebook account which causes people to lose all their inhibitions and post photos of them partying and roistering and doing drugs? Don't they think a boss will ever see this?

"A Microsoft-sponsored survey from December 2009 found that 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human resources professionals say their bosses require them to research job applicants online. Seventy percent report they have rejected candidates after such sleuthing," notes this article.

The article gives an example of an employer deciding which of two highly-qualified candidates should be hired. The employer did an online search for both applicants. "Parsons's online photos caused Shaw to rethink her choice and to grapple with the slippery boundaries between public and private life."

Whether or not this is fair - that is, doing online sleuthing and snooping through a person's private background - it's now a reality. "Before posting information and photographs on Facebook, remember that in the virtual world, our houses are made of glass. Every piece of data is permanent and stored in a digital archive. More than half of employers cite provocative photographs as the biggest factor in the decision not to hire," notes the article.

Now I know there are probably millions of people (including my husband) who have squeaky-clean Facebook pages. Good for them. But I can't see ever becoming one of them. I prefer to keep my modern connections simple - a cell phone that does nothing but send and receive calls, and a blog as an outlet for my overflow writing. That's it.

Our girls don't have cell phones and probably won't until they leave home. (To be fair, neither has expressed an interest in getting one either.) But both are disdainful of the "connected" teens they see around them every day - teens shuffling along, heads bowed over their little machines, texting furiously and not watching where they're going. Teens who are incapable of writing a coherent sentence with proper spelling and punctuation. Teens who can no longer look anyone directly in the eye because it's been so long since they've had a face-to-face conversation with someone. And this is the "real world"?

Now you all must excuse me. It's our turn to host the neighborhood potluck, and I need to get the pork chops with white wine sauce simmering in the crockpot before vacuuming the house. After all, these are our neighbors - not "friends" on Facebook. It's much more fun seeing them face-to-face.

Country fashions for men

My husband was on the internet this morning when he suddenly burst out laughing. "You've got to come see this!" he called to me. The girls and I crowded around and we all burst out laughing too.

"View what is stalking the menswear catwalks over in Paris for next autumn," announces this Fashion website. And here, dear readers, is what the Paris fashion mavens interpret as (cough) "country" fashions for men.

Putting aside the fact that these models look too wimpy to muck out a stall, much less lift a hay bale or heft a bag of grain, do you honestly think a rural man would be caught dead wearing stuff like this?

Bwaaaahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

Matching neckerchiefs? Oh please!

A little southern humor

A reader sent this.
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How to Install a Southern Home Security System

1. Go to a secondhand store and buy a pair of men's used size 14-16 work boots.

2. Place them on your front porch, along with a copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine.

3. Put four giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazines.

4. Leave a note on your door that reads:

Bubba,
Bertha, Duke, Slim, & I went for more ammo and beer. Be back in an hour. Don't mess with the pit bulls; they attacked the mailman this morning and messed him up bad. I don't think Killer took part, but it was hard to tell from all the blood. Anyway, I locked all four of 'em in the house. Better wait outside. Be right back.
- Cooter

Disconnected

Here's an excellent essay by my friend Enola Gay called The Great Disconnect.

She writes: "When we were connected to our family, we were connected to our neighbors and we were connected to our communities. If someone was in need, we, as a family member, neighbor or community saw to that need. There was resolution and accountability. Taking care of each other was a matter of life and death..."

An excellent perspective. Go read the whole thing.

The sins of the parents

There is an incident I remember from my youth. I was probably fifteen or sixteen years old, which would have been in the late 70’s. I happened to overhear a phone conversation my mother was having with a local store about some glitch with a product. The store representative was trying to make amends, and my mother thought the rep was being too generous for what was, she assured him, a minor issue. “Don’t undercut yourself,” she told him. “You guys have to make a living too.”

I think the reason that conversation stuck with me was because at the time, my father had started his own business and my parents were struggling through some extremely difficult financial times. It would have been easy for my mom to simply accept the store rep’s generosity, but she knew it could be a hardship on a small business. While she wanted to clear up the problem, she also wanted to be fair to the store about the issue.

And the funny thing is, I find myself repeating the exact same words whenever a similar circumstance arises in my life. “Don’t undercut yourself,” I’ll tell someone. “You guys have to make a living too.”

I recently re-read a very interesting book entitled “The Year of Living Biblically” by A.J. Jacobs. Jacobs is a secular agnostic Jew in New York City who – purely out of curiosity rather than religious suasion – decided to not just read the Bible, but live every possible rule and regulation as best he could.

The book is about his year-long experiment in living biblically. He devoted the first eight months to Old Testament living (since approximately two-thirds of the Bible is Old Testament), the last four months to New Testament living. He naively admits that he thought he could strip away the historical cloudiness surrounding the Bible and get down to the bedrock of biblical living. What a task. He found he couldn’t do it, at least within the time frame he gave himself.

He came away from his experiment not exactly persuaded as to God’s existence, but far less cynical and much more understanding about impact and influence the Bible has on billions of people world wide.

Anyway, in re-reading this book I was struck by Mr. Jacob’s analysis of Deuteronomy 5:9 – “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me…”

To be honest, I’ve always been disturbed by that passage. How unfair of the mighty Deity to punish innocent children for the sins of the parents!

But then it dawned on me: God doesn’t do that. He doesn’t have to. We do it all by ourselves. All the time. In our damned foolishness, by the stupid decisions we make, we easily punish our children to the third and fourth generation. Descendents who do not yet exist are impacted by our sins.

How? Easy. Just think of what your children – and their children – learn from you. Do they learn sarcasm? Hatred? Bitterness? Dishonesty? A sense of entitlement? Even our political affiliation has an impact on our children, and our children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.

I haven’t been able to get that passage out of my mind ever since.

Let me quote from the book. Jacobs writes, “This is a big recurring theme in the Bible: Children mimic their parents’ behavior, even the flaws, perhaps especially the flaws.” He continues: “I used to find this an appalling sentence. Why should God punish my grandson for my sins? It seemed outrageously un-American. What about everyone being entitled to a clean moral slate? And, yes, if you interpret this as a threat that God will smite your child with leprosy when you worship a carved idol, then absolutely it’s cruel.

“But I’ve come to appreciate it. The trick is, you have to see the passage as a warning that your moral failings will affect your kids’ ability to make the right choices. If you beat your son, he’ll be more likely to beat his son… What better deterrent could there be to bad behavior?

“You achieved immortality [in Biblical times] through your children and children’s children, who were physical extensions of you. The basic building block of society was the family, not the individual… a person’s actions reverberate through his descendants’ lives.”

Doesn’t that just stagger you? Once I realized the significance and truth of it, I’m blown away. Awed. Overwhelmed by the responsibility I, as a parent, have toward my descendents.

How we raise our children – the values we impart – the habits we encourage or discourage – the behaviors we model – the traditions we provide – the work ethic we emphasize – can impact several generations after us. How’s that for a scary thought?

My mother grew up under horrible poverty with a brutal alcoholic father. It would have been very, very easy for her to pass that legacy on to her children by marrying a brutal alcoholic man. But she didn’t. She was wise enough to recognize that breaking that legacy was up to her. She married a good man and raised four happy secure children. Because of her choice in a husband over 52 years ago, I had the wisdom to marry a good man and we’re raising happy secure children. We are now passing that legacy of security on to our future grandchildren. See how it works?

So when I read that passage from Deuteronomy, I marvel at God's infinite wisdom. He gave us both the curse and the blessing of free will and free choice. We have the freedom to gift our children with every conceivable toy and teach them they are entitled to whatever they want without working for it. We have the freedom (until we’re caught, that is) to beat our children and teach them that love for their parents is entwined with pain and hatred.

We can teach our children that God is nothing but an invisible pink unicorn in the sky, utterly unworthy of worship and deserving of mockery. We are free to reject divine gifts and teach our children to do the same. We can teach our children that those with reverence for the Deity are stupid and mentally deficient. We can teach our children that religion is an opiate for the masses and intelligent, educated people have no need for God.

We can choose to marry a bad man and so teach our daughters that men are to be feared and hated. When it comes time for them to marry, they have no basis for choosing good men, and this curse is passed on to future generations.

We can choose to teach our sons that girls are not to be respected and they should do whatever it takes to release their animal urges upon them. This lack of respect translates into unfaithfulness in marriage with resounding implications for future generations.

See how it works? A curse indeed.

Or…

Or we have the blessing of free choice. We can choose to raise our children with discipline and faithfulness. We can choose to set the example of marital felicity. We can choose to insist upon respect and appropriate behavior from our sons and daughters that will be passed on to their own children.

We have the choice to teach our children that reverence for God is a wonderful thing. We can teach them that belief and surrender to the Deity takes away our ego-induced need to control others. We can teach them the comfort that comes with laying our burdens in the Almighty’s lap. We can teach them about Jesus’s sacrifice on our behalf.

When you think this through – how strong is the impact our behaviors and our choices and our decisions on future generations – you’ll be bowled over with the responsibility to make those behaviors, choices, and decisions good ones, ones that will be beneficial to our descendents.

This is where such nonsense as dressing up our kids like Playboy bunnies or in cone bras is so serious. I don’t mean to keep harping on these examples except that they so beautifully illustrate my point. These are all choices – and those choices impact our children, and their children, and even their children to the third and fourth generation.

For those with rotten upbringings who carry tons of baggage from bad parents (like my mother), you have the power to affect your descendants by raising your kids better than you yourself were raised. When my mother was beaten as a child, she vowed through gritted teeth never to do that to her kids. And she didn’t. As a result, her choices are impacting future generations yet to come.

So take heart, people. God does indeed grant us the ability to gift our descendents with our sins – or our blessings.

Random pix

On the way home from church last Sunday, this mist in front of the hills looked beautiful.

Pretty sunset clouds (these were in the north, not the west).

Wheat field, before:

Wheat field, after (after a light dusting of snow, that is):

Gimli (our bull) and Nebuchadnezzar (our steer), sparring.

Morning sun and shadows on a distant field.

When I feed the livestock in the mornings, Brit (our horse) and Gimli (our bull) often go head-to-head (or head-to-hoof) over food. Both are dominant critters. Brit is taller and can kick, but Gimli has force and a skull so thick it can practically be smashed with a sledgehammer (or a kicking horse hoof, about the same thing) without affect.

Brit lashing with front feet...

...and about to kick Gimli with her back feet. Gimli doesn't care.

Once all the bins are full, everyone settles down and eats peaceably.

Lantern and early-morning shadows:

Snuggling in the hay on a cold morning:

Duh...

Every morning I make Don's coffee. We have different hours (he's a night owl, I'm an early bird) so I'm always up first and consider it a wifely honor to make his coffee when he gets up.

Since he's the only coffee drinker in the house, we don't have a coffee maker, but instead just use a cone and mesh filter.

Yesterday morning I made Don's coffee then departed to feed the livestock and clean Matilda's pen. When I came back in the house half an hour later, Don said, "I don't know who's loopier. You, for forgetting to put coffee in the coffee filter..."

"Oh no!" I exclaimed.

"...or me, for drinking it."

Once I stopped laughing, Don admitted he thought the coffee tasted a bit weak but didn't realize it was because there was no coffee in the filter. He had a nice refreshing mug of hot water instead.

Duh!

Dumpster diving

In the rural parts of our county, we have no garbage service. Instead, there are dumpsters located in various spots where people can put their trash. This is a blessing for those whose livelihood includes salvaging. I know there are a number of people who make a fairly decent living salvaging usable items from the dumpsters scattered around the county, either by cleaning stuff up and selling it, or by selling items to scrap dealers. It's all a tidy way to handle refuse.

People who have things they no longer want will leave the items beside the dumpsters (sometimes with little signs that say "Take me home with you, I work just fine" or "Free to good home" or whatever). We've taken a couple of bicycles the girls have outgrown and left them beside the dumpsters for another parent to bring home to his kid.

And we've had a number of lucky finds ourselves. One time shortly after we moved to Idaho, I was startled to find a beautiful and intact ladies' vanity table thrown away. The only thing wrong with it was one drawer was missing. So I fished it out of the dumpster, cleaned it up, and we've used it as a sewing table ever since.

Don took a dumpster run the other day. He came hurrying back, collected me, and we went to salvage an enormous load of aluminum siding that someone had dumped. Unfortunately they put the siding IN the dumpsters rather than piled NEXT to a dumpster, so it meant a lot of leaning over the filthy sides of the metal bins and eventually climbing in to hand stuff out.

But the haul was fabulous. We lost count but think we got about ninety sheets of siding. Don grinned about it for hours. What a bonanza! Outbuildings, here we come!

The truck tires compressed under all the weight.

Of course, once I got home I consigned every garment I was wearing to the wash...

Barefoot. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways.

A reader named Rob sent this essay written by someone named Beth Piana. The language is a bit salty but it's pretty funny.
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Growing Up Without a Cell Phone
Beth Piana

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning... Uphill...Barefoot... BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm less than 3 years away from 50, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 05 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car..We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD!!! Think of the horror...not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent...you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen...Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play...all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside...you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place! See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!
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Along these lines, here's an article sent by another reader about a mom who "unplugged" her teens for six months. The horror! Of course, her teens ended up appreciating the "good old days" a little better after that...

"My blackberry isn't working."

Here's a hilarious British comedy skit called My Blackberry Isn't Working. Too funny!

Stupidity never ceases to amaze me

A reader sent this email in reference to my Poor Little Girl post. I thought I would highlight it here as a classic example of how STUPID parents can be.
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I remember one Halloween many years ago taking my children around the large block we lived on dressed as cowboys, kitty cats and the like seeing a little girl, with her mom, dressed as a playboy bunny, complete with ears and tail. Her little body suit was brief and tight and revealing and she couldn’t have been older than 8 or 9 years old. I wonder how she grew up.
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I wonder too. Honest to goodness, don't these parents have any brains?

We have a neighbor who has no children of her own. A few years ago she worked at a local Head Start preschool. (I emphasize preschool. As in, under five years old.) One time just after Halloween she asked me, "Just what are Bratz dolls, anyway?" Turns out a number of mothers had dressed their little darlings like Bratz dolls for Halloween. (Between ourselves, my husband and I used to refer to them as Slutz dolls.)

The wonder about the commercial success of Bratz dolls is not just that they were popular; it's that the parents were buying this crap for their daughters. I don't get it. I absolutely don't get it. Why would parents buy their girls dolls that look like skanks? Much less willingly dress their daughters to look like members of the world's oldest profession?

Ironically some of what I address in The Simplicity Primer is just that - the stupid choices people make that will sabotage the chances of their children growing into stable, productive, balanced adults. Trust me, dressing your little darlings in cone bras or Playboy bunny outfits is not a smart choice. Duh!

Okay. I'll calm down now.