Russians are upset with China because it’s been revealed that the Chinese have placed strategic missiles close to the border with Russia with no warning. Trump has been ordered to yank their chain in retaliation. 

So I finally ate the frozen pizza and. . .

. . . it was not amazing. It was seriously oversalted, which is weird because pizza is salty as it is, so how do you make it taste oversalted? Our local Imo’s pizza is a work of art compared to this frozen one.

I’m glad I tried, though. Midlife crises should be embraced. I bought groceries today, and most of what I bought was something I never get. I found myself in entirely unfamiliar aisles. 

The daycare teacher informed me, with a look of complete shock, that Klara despised macaroni and cheese and made barfing faces at it (or is it them?) but ate all of the carrots. 

“That was. . . very unusual,” the teacher said.

This comes on the heels of me reading Bringing up Bebe in one sitting yesterday, and I felt so proud of my superior parenting skills that I almost broke into a French accent. “Mais oui, vee, zee Ooropeans, do seengs tres different.”

So when I’m told at the daycare to “bring Valentines for the kids and here is the list of names”, what is it that I’m supposed to do?

Here’s what I don’t get from the book I reviewed in the previous post. Druckerman says that you can’t find in Paris the kind of instant bonding between women that you have in the US. I’ve lived in different parts of the East Coast and the Midwest. I’ve seen no instant bonding ever. In my experience, it takes Americans and Canadians a very long time to warm up to people and make them part of their lives. I always thought it was part of the culture and welcomed it because back in Ukraine everybody is very unapologetically intrusive and I’m tired of that. 

As I shared before, here in the Midwest people take their fear of bonding to new heights. Smiling at a fellow parent at daycare, the store or the music class results in people looking terrified and trying to flee the room. I’m not wearing a Ukrainian national headdress, so this can’t be because they dislike immigrants. 

This is why I’m so confused by Druckerman’s description of meetings with Americans when personal information is immediately revealed and private stuff is actively discussed. Hispanic people are like that, sure, but Americans?

This book was a huge fad a few years ago but I didn’t have a bebe to bring up at that point so I didn’t read it. Yesterday, though, I did and enjoyed it a lot. 

For those who don’t know: the author is an American immigrant in Paris who discovered that the way her French acquaintances raise their children is vastly superior to what the hovering, anxious, ultra competitive and permissive American parents she knows do. I’ve never met any American parents who behave like the ones she describes. Everybody I know belongs to an intellectually sophisticated class, and we are all already “French parents.” But I like the book anyway because it’s fun to read about people you never met and can’t imagine knowing. 

What I like about the author, Pamela Druckerman, is that she is a model immigrant. She is so excited about her new country, so happy to learn about it, so far removed from any attempt to lecture the locals on the right way to live, and so understanding of the fact that nobody in the new country owes her friendship, kindness and acceptance that one can only applaud her. Druckerman still practices her cultural rituals and hangs out with fellow immigrants but she understands that the children born in France should be free to absorb the French culture as much as they need to feel that they belong. 

Whether temporary or permanent, migration can either be a source of growth and learning something new or a source of constant frustration if you convince yourself that it’s beneath you to adapt. 

A colleague who is an immigrant from Mexico – and I repeat, a colleague, meaning she teaches at a public college in Illinois, got it? – turned out to be passionately pro-Trump. But what you’ll never guess is why. 

She despised Obama, she says, because he always reached for his wife’s hand when they were out in public, and that means he’s not manly. Trump, however, never pays any attention to his wife. That’s a real strong man!

It’s one thing to vote  for Trump or whomever. But to give control over the largest nuclear arsenal on earth because he treats his wife like shit – it’s nothing short of terrifying. If people at least knew to keep these things to themselves, but no, they think it’s ok to share them.

Now go and reread the first two words of the post to understand the nature of my predicament. 

Should Democrats confirm Gorsuch? I agree with every word of this brilliant piece. 

Simone de Beauvoir was right, there are men who are consumed with a jealous rage that women can get pregnant while they can’t. 

How to survive in intersectional feminist spaces? You’d think from this idiotic article that crowds of people are lining up to access intersectional spaces. It’s cute how some folks try to protect entrance to a group nobody wants to join anyway. 

Big tennis is not that different from academia. You can’t get people to retire until they are wheeled away on a hearse.  

Students make Freudian mistakes. Short and funny. 

I don’t know if this person is deranged or brilliant. Decide for yourselves if this is somebody to emulate. All I can say is that this is what the liquid economy wants. 

Students fall prey to an employment scam. Please share with your students. 

How much does a president cost? Not that much, actually. 

A blogger entreats Trump to be a man: “Be a man. A real man. One who doesn’t require to be told endlessly that he’s the best, the greatest, the biggest. One who isn’t compelled to ask for affirmation from people who couldn’t give less of a shit about things like the size of your inauguration crowd.” I wonder if this blogger ever met men because this is kind of the definition. 

California’s pensions are eating kids’ schooling. We have a similar problem with pensions in Illinois and it’s unsolvable because people who were promised they can retire at 55 with a pension of $2,500 a month will never relinquish this fantasy. They’ll happily devour kids’ lives instead. 
Another example of why highly popularized studies should not be trusted. 

Trump sandwich. 

There was this girl in high school who was a total jerk. Bullied other kids, tried to bully me with dumb antisemitic garbage, which is especially cute given that she’s Jewish. 

I thought, hey, people change, you can’t judge folks their whole lives by the way they were in high school. So I accepted her Facebook request. 

And now she’s littering my feed with dumb Trumpazoid screeds. 

This is a good life lesson.

I never manage to get anything done when I’m at home with Klara. She’s a very active, curious baby-almost-toddler and needs constant engagement. It’s not my fault that I never manage to do anything but I’ve still been feeling like a loser. It’s a daunting feeling of inadequacy that always leaves me annoyed with myself. My self-image is based to a large degree on being somebody who gets things done fast, so when it takes me 4 hours to wash 3 plates because I’m constantly interrupted, that doesn’t contribute to fostering that image. 

So I adopted the policy of small wins. I now congratulate myself internally for every tiny achievement and stroke of luck. Managed to press a button on the washer while rocking the pram? That’s effective! My favorite parking spot in front of the bookstore is free? Luck is on my side! Managed to entertain Klara by reading aloud the article I need to review? That’s brilliant!

It’s working. I already feel much more content with myself. I also play a game called “We are chic ladies” with Klara. We dress up and I do my hair and makeup and we go to a cafe where I have some very fancy coffee drink while telling Klara how chic and elegant we are. Nothing is easier than feeling dowdy and unimportant next to a baby, and that needs to be combatted.