Having Nightmares

I went to bed last night haunted by the future, and Big Son went to bed haunted by the past.

I was still reeling from my conversation with my friend yesterday, thinking about how we`re raising our kids so haphazardly, with no particular language or cultural emphasis, and no long-range goals. We are bumping along day-to-day, and trusting the future to unfold in a satisfactory manner, whatever it may be. Where will our kids go to high school? Where will they go to college? Will they consider themselves Japanese, American, Japanese-American, or Americans in Japan? And what will be their main language? We don`t know.

Is it okay? If it`s not okay, what alternative do we have, since going back and forth between the two countries is a given, for Hub`s job, and I can`t imagine him ever changing jobs?

I was lying in bed, pondering all this, when Big Son said, "I still can`t believe Nobu died."

It`s been more than two years since Big Son suddenly lost his friend, but he brings it up every once in a while, usually at odd times.

"That was so sad," I said.

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, Big Son woke me up and asked me to turn on the bathroom light for him, because he was afraid of the dark. It has literally been years since he asked me to do this.

"What`s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

He nodded, his face white with terror.

"A person with no head was chasing me!"

So I turned on the light for him, and then I couldn`t fall back to sleep myself -- I kept seeing the person running around with no head.

And wondering if it was me.

Why is the goddamn SUN shining, when I`m in such a bad mood?

I had a long phone conversation with my boss today -- remember my little part-time job that I couldn`t talk about?

Let`s see....how can I write about the trouble it`s caused me? Okay, I guess I can`t -- I can just say that my husband called me, to say that he`d just had a very strange conversation with his boss about something the Japanese Consul General said, and it was all tied to a rumor that sprung from my getting involved in this particular endeavor. Does that make sense? No? Oh, forget it.

I`ll just shut up now. I would love to blog all about this problem, because it`s so pathetic and ridiculous, but I guess I can`t.

But what put me in a really bad mood wasn`t that -- it was something else my friend said, about how we really need to pick one country or the other for our kids or they`re going to end up as screwed-up people with no real identity.

My friend is Japanese American, from the Bay Area. He met his Japanese wife while he was working in Japan, but now they`ve settled back here and are raising their kids completely as Americans --- no Saturday Japanese school, no cultural identity problems. They will visit relatives in Japan, but the kids will go to high school and college in America -- that`s understood. They will be Japanese Americans, not Japanese.

As for our kids, I have some pretty big doubts that we are adequately preparing them to do well in either country. Their English has made great strides, but it`s still lagging a bit, and despite the Saturday Japanese school, they`re gradually losing their Japanese. They`re struggling in both languages, excelling in neither.

If we really are serious about them going to high school in Japan, in Japanese, we really should move back there at some point, instead of treading water here, he said. And he`s right.

But, there`s not a whole lot we can do about it, and the more that I think about this, the more I will just drive myself crazy.

So....I will stop, especially because now I`m afraid the bottom of my posts will get cut off.

Expect abrupt endings to my posts until I find and kill the dreaded cut-off bug.

Gardening at Night

(Bonus points to anyone who can identify the work referenced in the title of this post.)

While JW is kindly examining my template, to seek and destroy the bug that`s causing problems, I will keep this short, and update everyone on Amir, our gay Israeli gardener.

Amir still hasn`t finished doing the bushes in our (quite tiny) front yard. Some of them look great, others look half-done, and a few are tantalizingly almost done -- they are nicely shaped except for a few crazy branches growing straight up in odd places, like a man with a few patches of heavy beard on his otherwise clean-shaven face.

And two of them are....just stumps. There`s no other way to describe them. They`ll either grow back nicely, as Amir assured me they would, or we`ll replace them in the spring.

Today was garbage day, so Amir called last night to ask what time our green refuse is usually collected. I told him it varies, from week to week.

"Okay," he said. "I`ll come at 10:00 or so, to sweep up some of the branches. I just thought I`d let you know that I would be coming, so I don`t scare anybody!"

"It`s fine," I said.

"If any of the neighbors ask who I am, I`ll tell them, 'I`m the lover!' And they won`t know whether I am your lover, or your husband`s!"

He laughed. I laughed. He laughed more.

I had assumed Amir meant 10:00 am this morning, but last night, Hub came home and said, "Some guy outside is stuffing something into our trash barrels!"

Sure enough, there was Amir, sweeping madly in the dark.

At least he wasn`t pruning the bushes in the dark.

Um....I hope....

Question

Any tech-literate people know why anyone viewing my blog with Explorer can`t see the bottom of my longest posts?

And, more importantly, is there anything I can do to fix this?

Thanks!

Family Wedding Follow-up

After my post yesterday, someone emailed me to ask why I didn`t insist Hub go to my brother's wedding, if I knew his absence would cause problems with my brother and sister-in-law.

I decided not to make a big deal out of it at the time, because a few years before, my brother hadn`t made it to mine and Hub`s wedding.

Hub and I got married in Japan: legally, in Tokyo in March of 1991, and then we had a big wedding hoopla in Kyoto in November of that year with the church and the reception and all the relatives, etc.

Now, my brother has always been my parent`s favorite child, and has always gotten exactly what he wanted from them --- with one notable exception.

"I`m sure Mom and Dad will buy my plane ticket for me," my brother kept saying to me, whenever I mentioned our upcoming wedding to him.

However, since my brother was no longer a starving student but a gainfully employed engineer, my parents decided he could buy his own damn ticket.

A game of "ticket chicken" ensued, and my brother lost. He couldn`t get one. He didn`t come.

Of course, lots of my family and friends couldn`t make it all the way to Japan, so we had a party in America a week later. My brother went to that event, and even gave a toast --- in which he pronounced Hub`s name wrong.

Soon after, my brother started dating the woman he would later marry, who managed to get rid of his frat boy attitude.

Then he started working on Wall St., and the attitude came right back.

Hey, what can I say -- that`s our family. We were raised by wolves.

Fun Without Hub

Last night, we went to a fellow blogger`s (and current neighbor`s) house, for a wonderful post-Thanksgiving feast.

One of the first blogs I ever read was Blogging Baby, where I first encountered the comments of this blogger, "Uncle Roger," and his wife, "Aunt Rachel." I was in Tokyo at the time, and never suspected that within a few months, we would move to San Francisco and end up living a few blocks away from them. Who woulda thought? Roger is now a paid contributer to Blogging Baby.

Daughter was invited to sleepover at a friend`s house last night, so she didn`t go, but Big Son and Little Son both had a great time. Little Son is exactly the same age as Roger and Rachel`s son, Jared, and Big Son....well, he played cards all night with Roger and his friends. I do mean all night -- we finally left after midnight.

Hub, um....didn`t go.

And on Thanksgiving Day, when we were invited to another neighbors` home, for the fried turkey?

Hub also didn`t go.

Hub and I have been together for more than two decades, and have been married for 15. I take it for granted that if I want to have any community social life at all, I am on my own to make friends and maintain them. For the kids`sake, as well as my own, I have always reached out and tried to join whatever community we`ve lived in.

In our neighborhood in Tokyo, it was me, not Hub, who pounded the mochi with the neighbors, and joined all the matsuri committees.

Last night, Hub said, "Just tell them I have to work."

"Sorry -- that excuse only works with other Japanese workaholics," I said.

But "I have to work" is Hub`s favorite excuse, and ever since he used it to get out of going to my brother`s wedding with me, he never fails to use it.

Actually, the first time he used it, it was very true: my brother`s wedding coincided with a huge Japanese government trade event, that Hub`s department had been planning for months and months, and he just couldn`t get out of.

So I flew to New York alone for my bother`s wedding, and Hub arrived to join me a few days later, and meet my brother and his wife and give them our wedding gift together.

Unfortunately, Hub`s choice (and my decision not to pressure him about it, to get him to change his mind) led to my relationship with my sister-in-law getting off on the wrong foot. She had asked us to be in the wedding party, but when Hub said he wasn`t coming, I was un-asked. There was no place for an unaccompanied married sister-of-the-groom among her bridesmaids, so I attended as an ordinary guest. When I went to join my parents in the receiving line after the ceremony, their wedding planner (or the church official, or whoever he was) asked me to please leave, because I wasn`t considered "immediate family." I told him I was the groom`s sister, but he was insistent that I didn`t belong there.

Last summer, when Hub told me that I was required to fly back to Japan to attend HIS brother`s wedding, I reminded him that he didn`t attend my brother`s -- and there was nothing he could say. I have nothing against Hub`s brother, but I just could not see the upside of attending a formal event with a jetlagged four-year-old in tow.

I had expected my in-laws to be upset that only Hub and Daughter attended the wedding, and the boys and I arrived in Japan for our visit a few days after the ceremony. But my mother-in-law implied that she was glad I had stayed away.

"It was so tiring, meeting the bride`s whole family. It was just as well you and the boys didn`t go!" she kept saying, with a smile of genuine relief. And as those of you who read my blog last summer know, she was incredibly nice to me during our whole visit.

The wedding truly must have been tiring for her. She`d only met the bride`s parents once before the wedding, and when she met the bride`s whole extended family at a formal Japanese hotel wedding, she must have been worried about what kind of impression she and her family were making.

All she needed to add an extra layer of worry was her big, loud, white gaijin daughter-in-law, with her massive boobs strapped into a kimono, braying incorrect, impolite greetings in her thickly-accented Japanese, while trying to shush her irritable, jet-lagged preschooler. Yikes!

I realized then that Hub probably gets most of his sense of social obligations from his mother, who is standoffish even by extreme Kyoto standards. His mother seems to have raised him to live by the words, When in doubt, stay out; it`s always okay to just stay away!

All of my new friends in San Francisco are either from the kids` school, or from my blog: two worlds in which Hub does not participate, and in which he doesn`t feel entirely comfortable.

And Hub, despite his government job in which he must deal with both American officials and the general public in English, prefers not to speak English at home, or with his friends. The idea of getting together with people on his day off and speaking English is slightly less appealing than having dental work done.

"Do I really have to go?" he asked me last night. He was unshaven, lying on the sofa, and watching one of his old samurai movies. "No," I told him, to his great relief, "you can stay home."

Last night, as I was having a great time, I realized that if Hub had gone, we would have left the party shortly after dessert. Hub would have caught my eye and tapped his watch at a decent hour, and rounded up the kids so he could get home to his sofa and his samurai movies.

Little Son wouldn`t have played with Jared until all hours, and Big Son would not have gotten to play cards with the grown-ups. I wouldn`t have enjoyed talking to Rachel as she washed the dishes, and I would not have gotten to take home the hambone, which is now boiling on my stove with some split peas.

I accept Hub for what he is -- someone who really does not like to socialize -- and I manage to work around this, and still be a social person, raising a social family.

I`ve stopped making excuses for Hub years ago, and leave him in his insular world in which he`s happiest. There`s nothing wrong with this -- it`s just the way he is.

But I`m raising the kids to understand that people are FUN to be around, and there`s nothing wrong with that, either.

----------------------------------------
I will conclude this longwinded post with an unrelated conversation I had last night with Little Son, who still needs prompting to say the appropriate polite words:

"Would you like some more ham?"

"No!"

"No what?"

"No HAM!"

Big Son Digs Kelp

We went to Monterey Bay Aquarium yesterday, per Big Son`s request.

It`s in an old sardine cannery -- anyone ever read John Steinbeck`s Cannery Row? The aquarium is right across the street from the Wing Chong Market and the La Ida Cafe , which of course are now glitzy tourist traps. By the 1950`s, overfishing had decimated the sardine population, and the whole place was abandoned. I kind of wish we could have seen the old abandoned buildings -- it was hard to imagine it under the tourist layer, and get a feel for the way it must have been.

This month, in Big Son`s science class, they were supposed to have watched a video about Monterey Bay, and taken notes, and then turned their notes into an essay. Big Son`s notes were a bit of a mess and practically useless, so we ended up doing much of his work from the Monterey Bay Aquarium web site. When he found out it was just a couple of hours away, he asked, "Can we go there?"

So we did, and speaking of sardines, it was crowded, crowded, crowded -- we felt as if we were back in Tokyo.

"This is just like the Shibuya Tokyu Hands on a Sunday!" I said to Hub, who rolled his eyes, because so many of my happiest Japanese memories involve shopping.

"What do you want to see first?" I asked Big Son. "The great white shark? The penguins? The otters?"

"The KELP!" said Big Son. "Come on! It`s over here!"

Big Son`s essay had been all about kelp, because that was all he could remember from the video.

So we spent a long time at the Kelp Forest exhibit, while Big Son told his younger brother and sister all about kelp. Alas, they weren`t so interested, and kept begging to move on.

Hub said Big Son was talking all about kelp in the car ride down, too. I didn`t know this, because I slept in the car. I was a bit, um...hungover from a great time at my friends` house the night before.

Their fried turkey was excellent, by the way -- I expected it to be greasy, but the meat inside tasted the same, and skin outside, which I usually don`t eat, was crispy and delicious. But no, I will not be starting our own tradition, and getting a turkey fryer to use on our tiny Tokyo balcony someday.

Okay, back to kelp. The Kelp Forest has a live web cam, which is now bookmarked so we can tune in whenever Big Son wants his kelp fix.

"There`s so many great things to do with the kids in California," said Hub. "We should try to do more, while we`re here."

So that is our early New Year`s resolution: take the kids to more places.

Now, let`s see if we can pull this off, or if our good intentions will disappear like the Monterey sardine industry.

Little Son`s Prayer

I just realized that I must have posted last night`s item after midnight, so it went up as today`s post. But I was purposely saving this one for today:

Little Son came home from his preschool with a Thanksgiving card, in which someone had helped him write the following:

I AM THANKFUL FOR TURKEY AND TUESDAY.

I will now very thankfully prepare and consume our ready-made immediate family midday dinner (Stovetop stuffing, instant mashed potatoes, the aforementioned Costco turkey breast fillets, Krusteaz cornbread, and Trader Joe`s frozen French green beans with teriyaki sauce). And then this evening some friends invited us over, and they are attempting a fried turkey for the first time -- I`ve never tried one, but I will surely do more of my eating at their place than mine. I`m thankful for turkey -- and hell, for ALL SEVEN days of the week.

Happy Thanksgiving, especially to every American who`s reading this blog overseas, and wishing they could be with faraway loved ones.

Now, go EAT, everyone. Remember, first helpings don`t have as many calories as second ones, so heap those plates!

Costco Pre-Marinated Turkey Breast Fillets

Need I say more?

Part of Daughter`s Prayer

Sorry -- I didn`t post every day, as usual. All two of you who are waiting with bated breath had to wait a little longer.

I`m still thinking about what the commenter said about my posts about Daughter. I know that sometimes what is intended is different from what is written, just as what is written is not always what is perceived. I have expressed concern in the past that I don`t write about Daughter as much as I post about the other two kids, but that`s just the way it happens.

The reason I`m concerned is that while I truly don`t think I`m ever being mean, I don`t think my mother ever thought she was being mean, either (and still doesn`t).

I am worried less about offending the sensibilities of an anonymous commenter than I am about offending Daughter herself in the future, if she ever reads what I`ve written here. But who knows -- maybe she won`t even be interested. After all, Hub knows I have a blog, and that I write about him, and he couldn`t care less, and almost never reads it.

So I guess I`ll keep doing what I`ve been doing, which is...utterly random blogging of day-to-day happenings, and let the chips fall where they may.

Last night, Daughter`s homework was also to write a prayer. Daughter asked me NOT to share her prayer with anyone, so unfortunately I can`t reproduce it in its entirety.

But I think I can share this: she began by writing, "In the name of the Father, and of the Sun..."

When I told her it was "son," not "sun," she was surprised. Okay, so it`s only been two years since I started bringing her to church, and English is not her first language, so I can see where she`s coming from, but.... I really do like that! She`s my little Shinto girl, worshipping the Sun God.

Hey, it`s in her blood.

Big Son`s Prayer

For homework this weekend, Big Son had to write "a prayer about his faith."

This is what he said:

Dear God,
Please give me more faith in you.
I can`t believe in you one-hundred percent because there is no proof that you igzist.

I corrected his spelling.

Feedback on a Comment

I got an interesting anonymous comment on that last post, and I`m trying to understand it.

I do like reading your blog, but... why do you write about your daughter like that? I mean, I know it's supposed to be funny, but it seems so mean-spirited and dismissive of her. It reminds me of the way my mom used to talk about me to other people, and how it used to hurt my feelings so much.

Now, my own parents, as I`ve written here before, are, um....not very nice. In fact, "dismissive" neatly sums up their parenting style. Not matter what I did, they compared me to someone who did better.

And their idea of motivating me wasn`t very motivating.

"You didn`t even START your book report yet???" I can still hear my mother`s voice. "I`ll bet Deneen [a straight-A student who lived across the street] has hers DONE already!"

My mother would follow up with, "You`ll never get yours done now -- it`s too late! You didn`t leave yourself enough time to do it -- you`re going to get an F!"

And she and my father would stand there giving me those withering looks, and shaking their heads.

It sounds horrible, but...I got used to it. I factored it in. At a very early age, I stopped expecting to get any appreciation or support from my parents. Besides, I got plenty of both from my grandmother, who lived with us -- in fact, I think she made up for whatever my parents took away.

However, because of my definitely dysfunctional relationship with my parents, and the THICK skin I developed as a result -- and combined with my snarky, sarcastic sense of humor -- it has occurred to me that I might be being "mean-spirited" and "dismissive" without even realizing it.

So I`m wondering what the "mean-spirited" and "dismissive" parts of my last post were?

To be sure, I am indeed very dismissive of the idea of Daughter having any religious fervor -- she is truly interested in the singing, and ONLY the singing, and admits as much herself.

Yesterday, she refused to go to communion because she didn`t want to cut into her singing time. During the mass, I had to prod her to stand and kneel at the proper times -- she wanted to remain seated, as I allow Little Son to do, but I told her, sorry, she was old enough to show some respect. She even fell asleep during the homily.

I wonder, is it "mean-spirited" to say she`s imagining herself strutting onstage in flashy, hoochie outfits, like her idols? (Oh, I forgot to mention The Cheetah Girls -- they no doubt figure in Daughter`s daydreams, too.) I do not mean that Daughter herself ever struts in hoochie outfits -- no, the closest she will come to that is wearing a demure holiday dress and singing on stage with her friends in the church hall, at the Christmas Faire next month.

But seriously, if you asked any of the preteen girls in her class if they wanted to put on tight-fitting outfits and be the next Disney Channel pop sensation, would any of them say NO?

This is not a "fishing-for-reassurance" post, so do not comment just to say, "I think you`re a GREAT mother," etc. I`m writing this blog with the idea that my kids are going to read it someday, so if I am "mean-spirited" and "dismissive," I would like to figure out how NOT to be.

So if anyone else, besides the anonymous commenter, has noticed me being mean, please let me know.

Oh, while I`m on the subject of Daughter, here`s one more story --

On the way home from church yesterday, she asked me, "What`s the blood thing called?"

"Stigmata," I said, still in a churchy mode.

"No -- the GIRL blood thing."

"Oh! Period -- why?"

"Because T.`s already getting hers," she said.

This wasn`t too surprising -- T. is a tall girl who already wears a bra, and I suspect she repeated a grade somewhere.

"She`s early," I said. "Some girls are early."

"When will I get mine?" Daughter asked.

"Probably not until you`re thirteen or so," I said.

"Good! I don`t want it to start!" she said.

And I thought, I don`t want it to start, either. If there were any way I could freeze time and keep Daughter forever at nine years old, I would do it in a heartbeat.

The Cheetah Girls notwithstanding, I want to keep her young and innocent forever.

Bratz Angel

Daughter is suddenly very excited about going to church.

I used to have to bribe her, but not anymore -- she joined the school Christmas choir, and is walking around singing all the time. She figured out that going to church is an opportunity to belt out some hymns, and indulge in her new vocal passion in a place with indisputably great acoustics.

Oh, she looks like such a little angel, sweetly singing, "One Bread, One Body," with her eyes closed --- but I know in her mind, she`s Hannah Montana, strutting on stage in front of her adoring fans in a flashy, hoochie outfit.

Just as long as she never starts listening to Christian rock -- in that case, I`d have to get Hub to send her away to some Buddhist convent. (Do they even have those...? I`ve got to look into that.)

Weird Moment

I was walking home today, after taking Little Son to preschool.

I walked past a small house, on a very steep hill in our neighborhood. I was walking uphill, almost out of breath.

I saw a face at the window.

I made eye contact.

It was a frowning face -- there were many dark wrinkles in the brow area. The face continued to frown, even after I locked eyes with its gaze, as I kept on walking.

The face and I stayed locked together, for what seemed like an eternity.

The face belonged to a dog.

It didn`t bark -- it didn`t do any typical dog-like things.

I have never encountered a dog that could stare me down like that.

I continued to walk up the hill, thoroughly freaked out.

Rainy Monday --- No, wait, it`s THURSDAY. How come that keeps happening to me???

What day is it, anyway?

And what the hell is going on with my Google ads? After my recent spate of "pubic hair removal" ads, I seem to be getting nothing but anorexia/bulimia treatment ads. Everyone is going to think I specialize in eating disorders and bald cooters.

Google, when are you going to send me some ads linked to my "gay Israeli gardener" post?

Speaking of which, Amir has not returned. The bushes remain partially clipped, and his extension cord is still draped across the driveway. He took his tools with him, though.

Amir was really into his tools, no pun intended. (Well, okay....BAD pun sort of intended.)

He took one look at my little push-mower, and offered me the use of his electric mower to mow my lawn.

"No, thanks," I said. "Our landlord left us an electric mower, but I have it locked away because I don`t like it. I prefer to use the push-mower."

Amir looked at me as if I had just said, "Our landlord left us a washing machine, but I prefer to wash our laundry by hand, by the side of a river."

Anyway, it`s raining today, so I don`t think Amir will be showing up with his tools, electric or otherwise.

All this rain makes me think of...pee. Yeah, partly because of my post the other day about my swimsuit logo, but also because Little Son has a friend from preschool over today, and I had to help him get his pants back on after he peed.

It occurred to me then that Little Son almost never asks me for help in the bathroom anymore. My last baby is fully capable of doing it all himself -- even when he`s wearing his jeans with a belt.

I remember when my firstborn, Big Son, was a baby. I was at home fulltime then, too, and Hub was busy and hardly ever home, so the task of getting Big Son out of diapers fell on me.

I taught Big Son to take a little bit of toilet paper after he was he done peeing, and wipe the last few drops off his little penis -- nice and tidy.

One day, Hub saw him doing that, and was horrified.

"What have you taught my son to do?!?"

"I taught him to wipe off those last drops!"

"NOOOOO! You`ve got to teach him to SHAKE IT!"

"How the hell was I supposed to know that!?! I`ve never stood around studying a man pee before!"

So Hub managed to get Big Son to shake off the last few drops instead of wiping them, and I learned something that I could have gotten through life without knowing.

"You know," I said,"maybe Daughter and I could learn to SHAKE IT, too, and we could save money on toilet paper!"

Hub didn`t reply to that, but he looked as if he might barf -- a look that has grown familiar to me over the years.

Poor Hub.

Hey, in light of the way I torment the poor guy, isn`t it funny that I`ve never gotten any Google ads for marriage counseling?

A Cut Above the Rest

Okay, this blog is stagnating a bit lately, so I think it`s time we introduced a new character on the scene.

No, that wasn`t a lead-up to annouce a pregnancy, pending adoption, or even a new pet.

It`s even better: I hired a gay Israeli gardener to do the bushes. (No, NO! Not THOSE bushes! Oh, my god -- my readers have such dirty minds!)

I first heard about Amir from one of the moms at school, because he takes care of the house next door to her, and he likes to talk to everyone. He has a day job as a landscape architect and a bunch of degrees in horticulture, but does neighborhood yard work on the side. He sometimes hires guys to help him, but he does all the pruning himself, because he insists, "only I can do it right."

He quoted me a price that was much less what I expected to pay someone, to do the tall parts of the bushes where I can`t reach. At first I thought I could borrow the neighbor`s ladder and do it myself, but I`m kind of clumsy, so the idea of getting up on a ladder with a cutting tool didn`t seem very wise.

I`ve walked past Amir`s house many times without knowing it -- it`s just a few blocks away, and I always wondered what the hell was going on with it. Its small front yard is overflowing with all sorts of garden furniture and plants, some still in plastic nursery buckets. I realize now it`s a mish-mash of his passion and his business storage area. In fact, if I had seen only Amir`s house, I would probably never have hired him, but I saw the other house he works on and it looks fine.

Amir is tall and thin, with dark hair and green eyes. He has ADD, and likes to talk about it. He keeps saying, "I know I seem as if I`m on speed, but I`m really not taking any medication at all, even for my ADD."

He keeps referring to "my ADD," as if it were almost a living, breathing entity. He mentions it a lot.

I do not have the time to transcribe my entire conversation with Amir, and anyway, it wasn`t much of a conversation, because I think I got in two words for every hundred of his. And I`m usually a very talkative person.

Amir had an opinion on everything and everyone, and knew a lot of neighborhood gossip, too. At one point, he mentioned that he thought I would look better with long hair. Then I said we had guinea pigs, he begged to see them, and was as excited as a little kid. "You should make them have babies!" he said.

Somehow, we got on the subject of Hub, and I mentioned that Hub is sometimes mistaken for a gay guy in San Francisco, because of his preferred style of clothing. (In fact, some of friends have nicknamed Hub, Fashionista --- sssshhhh, don`t tell him, okay?)

"What if your husband really is gay? Would you mind? What would you do if you caught him with another man?" Amir asked breathlessly, while manically sweeping up branch clippings.

"I don`t know," I said. "It would depend on the situation."

"Good answer!" he said.

"Actually, I think that whether I caught him with a woman or another man, I would be upset about the same thing, that he had lied to me," I said.

"Ah, that`s the way I thought when I was younger. But you see, hurting people and being honest are two very different things," he said.

I thought about that, but he changed the subject and started going on about something else.

Today he clipped part of every bush -- he didn`t finish a single one.

"Sorry," he said. "It`s my ADD. I`ll be back sometime soon!"

My friend who introduced him assured me that he always comes back, and he always finishes the job -- at his own pace.

Oh, well -- I can live with half-clipped bushes.

But now he has me thinking about my hair....

All that Glitters

Yesterday I was going through the kid`s artwork, and thinking, how come no one makes stuff out of glued macaroni anymore?

I remember making all kinds of stuff, like Christmas wreaths. They were actually kind of pretty and cool-looking, spray-painted gold. I wish my parents had saved some of them, but they`re not very sentimental about things like that.

I wondered, do people these days not want to waste food, or something?

And then today, I was reading this story in the New York fucking Times, about how lots of yuppy-type New Yorkers flee the city for the suburbs so their kids can go to local schools, but then they end up being dissatisfied and putting them in private schools, anyway. The article contained this paragraph:

Other parents found the teaching in their public schools unimaginative. Susan Drews, 49, who lives in Yorktown Heights, in Westchester, said that art in the first grade at her son’s public school, for instance, involved “half-baked projects” like gold-sprayed macaroni glued to paper plates. “People went through the motions, they could claim there was an art program, but I didn’t feel it was very rich,” she said.

There you have it --- I am pining away for something that is considered "half-baked" and not "very rich."

That`s us, all right: not very rich.

But one way or another, I vow that I will get my macraroni wreath this Christmas, and hang it on our front door so all the neighbors will know exactly what kind of taste we have -- the kind that NY yuppies change schools to escape.

Heh heh heh.

Abbr.

I went swimming tonight, and noticed that some of the letters are beginning to peel off the brand label on the front of my swimsuit. It used to say, "SPEEDO," but now it just says, "PEE."

Is that why the other swimmers were keeping their distance?

Hmmmmm.

"Watermelon Slingshots"

I went back to Ross (Dress for Loss!) today, after yesterday`s faux pas.

Little Son leaned over in the cart, and fell asleep. I went to the pillow aisle and randomly grabbed a small green fluffy one to put under his floppy head -- and I ended up buying it because every time I look at it now, I will remember how cute he looked sleeping on it, clutching it and sighing into it. I figured it was well worth $4.99 for a souvenir like that.

Anyway, I decided to let him sleep for a while, since he was all tired out from a trip to the park, and hell, when do I ever have time to shop in peace?

So I went bra shopping. I couldn`t try on anything, since I couldn`t take the cart with a sleeping Little Son in it into the dressing room. So I just selected a few to take home and try on, since they`re returnable if you leave the tags on.

I no longer look at size labels when I bra-shop at Ross, since every brand is sized a little bit differently. One brand`s 34C is the size of another brand`s 38B. And some of them are irregulars that are cut funny, or have wacky size labels, anyway.

Without looking at labels, I picked out a couple of bras that looked as if they might fit, and be comfortable and inconspicuous.

That is how I ended up buying a DELTA BURKE bra.

I tried it on (not telling what size it is) and it fit fine, so I went to cut the tags off, and there was a photo of old Delta herself, smiling up at me.

"I was waiting for you!" she said. "I knew you`d officially join us PLUS SIZE gals one day! Welcome to your new TRIBE!"

"This must be an irregular bra -- the size label must be wrong," I said to her. "That must be why it ended up at Ross (Dress for Loss)."

"Oh, no, not at all, dear," she said, in her clying Southern accent. "It was just an overstock!"

I`m just kidding, of course. No, I don`t need anti-psychotic medication -- the cardboard lady attached to my bra was not really talking to me.

(But just in case, I cut her up with scissors.)

POSTSCIPT: When I went to search for the Delta Burke link above, I found a link to this woman`s blog, in which she describes going bra shopping at a Ross in Los Angeles:

It was like looking at watermelon slingshots for row after row. And everything was from the Delta Burke collection. I was like, "What universe am I in?" as I went through all the bras.

I just changed the title of this post, because I figured that the Universe wanted me to find the words, "watermelon slingshots" to make me feel even worse.

The World`s Most Adorable Xenophobe

Little Son and I were in my favorite store, Ross (Dress for Loss!), where I was trying on shoes. I was trying to find a more attractive pair of flip-flops, since I have resigned myself to the fact that my stubbed toe means I will never wear anything but flip-flops again for the rest of my life. Thank god, my pedicure still looks okay.

Little Son was sitting in the shopping cart. Another woman was trying on shoes, and she, too, had a little boy sitting in her shopping cart. Her little boy was singing a cute little song in Spanish.

"HEY!" said Little Son to the other boy, using his favorite word. "This is America! ENGLISH ONLY!"

The little boy stopped singing. His mother visibly recoiled.

And I recalled with horror, where I had heard those words before. In the summer of 2005 when we were newly arrived here from Japan, and I was trying to get Big Son and Daughter to use more English before their school started, I used to say it over and over at home, whenever they spoke to me in Japanese. How could Little Son possibly remember that?

But he had.

So, to cover myself, just so the woman wouldn`t think I was some anti-immigration fanatic teaching my kids to go around demanding everyone speak English all the time, I did the first thing I could think of doing: I started speaking to Little Son in Japanese.

"Chotto shizuka ni," I said to him, which means, "Be quiet." I told him he was bothering the other people.

"Mama! Stop it! I HATE JAPANESE!" he said putting his hands over his ears.

The woman`s angry face turned to one of confusion.

So I did the second thing I could think of: I got the hell out of there.

"He said this is America!" I heard the other little boy say in perfect English to his mother, as we fled.

Old Habits Die Hard

This morning, I went for a walk with some of the mothers from the big kids` school. When I got home, I logged in to check the election results updates, and saw that Rumsfeld had resigned.

I used to be a wire service reporter, for many years (actually, for too many years). I read the Rumsfeld news, and I couldn`t help it -- my face started twitching. I picked up the phone -- I just couldn`t help it. I had no control over my hand -- it was like something from Dr. Strangelove.

I called one of the moms with whom I`d been walking.

"RUMSFELD RESIGNED!" I said.

"NO WAY!" she said. "WOW!"

"Yeah, WOW!" I said.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" she said.

"I CAN`T BELIEVE IT, EITHER!" I said.

After I hung up, I checked to see what the stock market was doing, and the dollar, and then Treasurys.

It was kind of...anticlimatic. I felt as if I should be calling more people, and writing up their responses.

Am I beyond hope...?

Maybe I should be on medication.

It's a CONSPIRACY! It's an OUTRAGE! It's...gonna be all right.

I should have known something was wrong when I didn`t get any of the usual campaign junk mail, or the voter guides, or any of the other election-related printed matter in the weeks leading up to yesterday. But I barely noticed -- I was still coasting on my Halloween sugar high.

It was ugly, when the candy ran out. Last week, when my kids returned from trick-or-treating, they voluntarily surrendered all of their Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, knowing their mother would be in a better mood if she had her fix. When these were gone, I resorted to stealing other kinds of chocolate bars out of their loot stashes when they were at school -- I just had to get my daily dose of chocolate, or I would turn mean.

The bags of marked-down Halloween candy on sale at the supermarket were so tempting -- and cheap! Practically free! I could keep my chocolate habit going for weeks, if I just....

But no, I didn`t give in and buy more. The candy is all gone, I stepped on the scale over the weekend and screamed, and I am now adjusting, very slowly, back to normal life on a normal caloric intake, eating food that does not come in a lovely orange wrapper (...oh, that brown crinkly paper in the bottom, that I would lick...just one little lick, is that asking too much??? siiiiiigh...).

I`m in a bad mood. I`ve never been a smoker so I don`t know what it`s like to quit smoking, but I imagine that most people feel the way I feel after SWEETS WEEK is over.

So when I went to to cast my vote in yesterday`s election, and the toothless old gent manning my neighborhood polling place told me I WAS NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE, I couldn`t help it -- I beat him to death with a tire iron.

No, just kidding -- but I was in that kind of mood.

"What did you say your name was, miss?" said the toothless old gent. Well, to be fair, he did have a few teeth, but not many.

The other poll volunteer was a young, cheerful woman. "Here, let me look," she said, giving me a smile to calm me down, and sort of an eyebrow gesture that suggested mine wasn`t the first name and address the old man couldn`t find.

But I wasn`t there.

I told them where we lived, and they verified that I was indeed at the right polling station -- in a garage around the corner from our house.

"This same thing happened last year!" I said. "I have registered to vote here THREE TIMES now!"

Last November, we had only been here for five months -- long enough for me to register to vote, but apparently not long enough for my registration to have been properly recorded. So last election day I filled out a provisional ballot, and took another voter registration form, filled it out, and mailed it right away.

A few weeks later, I got a notice that my provisional ballot had not been accepted because I was not a registered voter. WELL, DUUUUH! The notice had another voter registration form with it, and I filled out that one, too, and mailed it back.

So, after filling out the voter registration form THREE times, and still not appearing on the voter rolls, can you understand why I beat that poor old man to death?

I filled out another provisional ballot yesterday, and I expect another "...sorry...because you are not a registered voter..." letter to come. In the meantime, I will figure out where to send some very nasty complaint letters.

In the end, though, I can`t complain about how this election turned out, without me.

I`m sorry I didn`t get to add my piss to the ocean, but I`m glad America is getting a sea change.

Sleeptalk

In the middle of the night, Little Son suddenly blurted out, "Those are the animals who are my FRIENDS!"

I just wrote that down, so I won`t forget it.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow...I Hope

I`m still seeing the "Eliminate Pubic Hair" Google ad.

I think I need to make it go away somehow, perhaps by writing about other wholesome activities, such as killing backyard rodents again.

The post that triggered the personal grooming ads was this one, which originally appeared on Cape Buffalo`s site as part of the blog exchange -- I just repeated it here a few days later to make it appear in my database.

After she ran my post, Cape Buffalo got a Google ad for this. Who would buy that? Anyone know anyone?

I bet that product would really get me some interesting looks in the YMCA shower room.

Who Stole Our Garbage?

I went to take our trash barrels out to the curb, and was astounded to find the green one....empty!

For those of you who don`t live in the Bay Area, let me explain our garbage system: the black bin is strictly for noncompostable, nonrecyclable garbage. The blue bin is for recycling: paper, metal, glass, and plastic numbers one through five except for three. It`s a bit tricky, but you get used to it.

The green one is compostable matter: yard waste, and yucky, smelly stuff. This week, ours was especially rancid, as it contained some greasy chicken bones and skin, and the old damp pine shavings from the bottom of our guinea pigs` cage.

Someone took all that.

WHO???

All I can imagine is that someone is going to use it for a nasty prank. It didn`t even contain any paper waste, from which they could have gleaned credit card or financial information (and I tend to be very careful about disposing of that kind of stuff, anyway).

I told my parents about it, when I called them to say hello tonight.

"You`d better lock your doors! You have a thief prowling around your house!" they said in unison.

"Yes -- a garbage thief. They`re welcome to it all," I said.

My parents are planning a visit here next month, and now they`re very worried about our thief.

To be sure, I don`t like the idea of a strange person poking around in our driveway, for any reason, but anything that unsettles my parents at least makes life more...interesting.

If anyone else has any stories about smelly compostable garbage getting stolen in San Francisco, I would like to hear them.

I Hereby Sentence You to 15 Years to Life - You May Kiss the Bride

Happy Anniversary, Hub. Fifteen years ago this week, we had our big wedding celebration. The amazing fact that neither of us remember the actual date is a testament to just how unsentimental we are -- we were made for each other!*

(*Plus, we observe the anniversary of the day we met -- Sept. 21 -- as well as the anniversary of our LEGAL marriage -- March 22 -- when we went to the U.S. Embassy and the Akasaka Ward Office in Tokyo, and became a recognized man-and-wife duo by the authorities of both our countries. Combined with three kids` birthdays, that`s enough celebration for anyone.)

I am procrastinating -- tonight, Hub asked me to proofread a long, boring speech he has to give at a big Japanese-government sponsored event this week, and instead, I`m blogging.

I`m always tempted to just change the words of his speeches at the last minute -- "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," into, "Good morning, ladies and germs!"

Or, since people`s minds tend to wander during these events, I could just to throw in some random phrases in a few places to get everyone`s attention:

"Welcome to the Bay Area. I see we have a lot of lesbians with us today!"

"In light of all the important shifts in Asian manufacturing trends, we truly believe that life would be more interesting if everyone wore only one shoe."

"Before you leave this hall today, I want everyone to do two things: first, consider that Japan is the gateway to the rest of Asia, and then reach over and put your hand in the lap of the person sitting to your left, and say hello."

I have a long history of such evil thoughts.

I met Hub when I was studying in Kyoto my junior year in college. The following year, when he was preparing to make his first trip to America, he was very nervous about meeting my parents -- particularly my father.

"There`s an old American tradition, that no one talks much about, but if you did it, it would make a really memorable first impression," I told him.

He listened carefully...earnestly. Oh, it was heartbreaking just how earnestly he listened to me!

"When you meet my dad, what you should do is say, 'I`m pleased to meet you, Mr. X., ' and then..... grab his balls. Not too hard -- just a little sqeeze, a token gesture."

Hub`s face fell.

"No, really! Do it! He`ll really appreciate it! He will never forget you, if you do that!"

Hub looked at me dolefully. How could I possibly joke about something like that?

But a few years later, he married me, anyway.

Happy anniversay, Hub -- and thank you for not reading my blog.

I just need to clarify....

...that I do NOT get to pick and choose what kind of ads Google puts on my site, so I had nothing to do with the "REMOVE PUBIC HAIR" ad that some of you are seeing!

BLOG EXCHANGE

As you know, I particpated in this month`s BLOG EXCHANGE on November 1, but couldn`t for the life of me get the button for it (now on my sidebar) to work. I got it loaded there, finally, after reluctantly deleting two other buttons -- but if you click on it, nothing happens. At least, nothing happens when I click on it, but maybe YOU get all sorts of bells and whistles, in which case I would have to conclude it`s just me.

I encourage everyone to check out the other blog exchange contributions, which can be found here.

I also encourage other bloggers to do this -- it was fun. My exchange partner was the wonderful Cape Buffalo.

And I`m sure the Blog Exchange is even MORE fun when you do it on a day that`s not the day after Halloween, or some other kid-centered, exhausting holiday.

So go for it.

Interesting Times

I am trying, with some success, to get the big kids to choose and eat their own breakfast, with no prompting from me.

We always have some form of bread on hand -- bagels, toast, rolls, etc. We have jelly, butter, or cream cheese spread on them. We almost always have cereal, and bananas, too. Sometimes, they branch out a bit, and have a handful of peanuts or a slice of cheese, which is fine with me.

As we run out the door, I usually ask, "Did you eat?" and if one or both say no, I grab slices of bread for them to eat in the car.

This morning, I asked, "Did you eat?" and they both chimed, "YES!"

So it wasn`t until we were in the car, almost to school, when I asked the key question: "WHAT did you eat?"

"Fortune cookies!" they said.

Oh dear --- they`d eaten the leftover fortune cookies from the Chinese takeout we`d had on Wednesday night.

"COOKIES ARE NOT BREAKFAST!" I said, to their chagrined faces.

When I got home, I saw they had left the fortune cookie wrappers on the table. They had only eaten one cookie apiece.

One fortune was, "Unexpected financial gifts surprise and delight you!"

The other was, "You will always live in interesting times" -- a variation of the old curse of dubious origin.

The two fortunes definitely compliment each other: if one is going to live in "interesting times," one is better off doing so while receiving "unexpected financial gifts."

And one had better learn to eat a real breakfast.

I am a wreck. Yes, a wreck.

Tired -- so tired.

I am no doubt coming down off my sugar high (...buuuuuurp....) from too much Halloween candy.

And I have a swollen gland right under my chin, so my already double chin looks even bigger, and hurts (Dr. Google says it`s likely related to a cold I had a few weeks ago, so I`m giving it a chance to get better on its own).

And my TOE is killing me. I stubbed my littlest left toe a few weeks back. At the time, it was no big deal -- nothing even worth mentioning on my blog. It got a little swollen, a little purple, but I wore flip-flops and could walk just fine. Plus, I`d just had a pedicure, so I didn`t even mind wearing flip-flops, and seeing my lovely red toenails.

Then the weather turned chilly, and I tried putting on normal shoes. YOW! Something is not right. All is not well.

My toe now appears to be at a very slight angle to my other toes. This tiny difference is barely visble to the naked eye -- but very apparent, inside any shoe.

So it`s back to flip-flops, whenever the pain gets too much to bear -- and I do thank god I now live in California. My feet will be chilly, yes, but I will not lose ALL of my toes to frostbite, if I wear flip-flips, as I would in New England.

What else? Oh -- Halloween. You want to hear about it? Really?

Big Son was a monkey. Little Son was a monkey, too. Monkey see, monkey do.

Daughter wore some weird glittery stuff to school, but then ended up trick-or-treating in last year`s witch costume.

I dropped by a friend`s party, just long enough to eat sushi and a Nicaraguan tamale. I`m still having food fantasies about the tamale, two days later -- it was that good.

And Human Hammer Lady has a new nickname! Guess what she wore to school, on Halloween?

She shall henceforth be known on this blog as the Puritan Maiden.

It did not escape Big Son`s notice that she looked a great deal like a nun, with the white-on-black, and the bonnet covering her hair.

MUST YOU DO THAT HERE?

Open letter to Public Masturbators:

Put it away people, you’re making me ill. If I have to see you stroke that thing one more time, I’m going to file a complaint. Your intellectual masturbation is the lamest form of self-gratification, but unlike those who beat-off in private, you hold others captive and make them watch.

Usually, nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about, but one thing is certain. You’re
convinced that you’re really fucking smart, or, at least, you want people to believe you’re intellectually gifted and utterly fascinating.

You schedule meetings to hear ideas and then steal credit. You hijack meetings that other people have worked hard to prepare for while you drop phrases like “paradigm shifts” and “value added.” You talk and talk and talk without saying anything. While your mesolimbic pathway lit up like a Christmas tree, my prefrontal cortex is working overtime to keep me from screaming “Your logorrhoea is superfluous. Knock it off.”

Want to impress me with your towering intellect? Engage me in conversation. Let me know you’re as interested in what I have to say as what you have to say. Admit you don’t have all the answers and allow someone else’s point of view to challenge your thinking. Want to earn my respect? Create something that makes life better for other people.

I may be full of shit, but I hope that I’m genuinely full of shit. Quit the superficial nonsense. Stop talking and DO something.

Sincerely yours, CB

(When she’s not metaphorically running in circles at home and at work, she’s literally RUNNING to raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Research. Her training blog, Team Mimi, chronicles her efforts on behalf of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She shares her everyday adventures at her internet home, CapeBuffalo. )
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This letter was written by my admirable partner in blogging, Cape Buffalo, as part of this month's BLOG EXCHANGE, where you can read other open letters. I'm hanging out over at her blog today. My post isn`t about masturbation, intellectual or otherwise, but it IS about pubic hair, so check it out -- and check out the rest of CB`s blog, too! --L.

(One for the database...)

NOTE: This is my Blog Exchange post, which I`m posting retroactively here just to have in my database -- that way, someone searching "landing strip" or "crotch" on my blog will find it. It originally appeared on the site of my exchange partner, Cape Buffalo, whose hilarious guest post appears right above this one.
----------------------------------------------

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WOMAN SHAVING HER CROTCH IN THE YMCA LOCKER ROOM:

My nine-year old daughter has lots of questions for you, that her confused Mama couldn`t answer, so I`ll ask them here.

Daughter is a small, slim, shy 9-year old, who usually uses one of the few shower stalls with a curtain.

Earlier this month, we were showering after our swim, and there YOU were: a young, shapely stark naked woman, right in the middle of the open shower area, shaving your crotch.

You were doing a "landing strip," and Daughter was fascinated.

"Mama, why don`t you do that?" she asked.

"Because I don`t want to," I said.

"But you shave the hair on your legs and under your arms!"

That`s true -- I do. I happen to like the way it looks and feels.

I also recognize that it`s a point of cultural identity. The summer I went to France when I was a teenager, a British girl I met there said, "I knew right away you were a Yank because of your teeth and your pits!" (Teeth = straight; pits = shorn.)

"I only shave the places that show," I said.

Daughter thought about this.

"But everything shows in the shower here, when you`re naked," she said.

Hmmm. She was right.

Now for a little background: Daughter is a very hirsute little girl, especially considering she`s the offspring of a pale, sparsely-haired mother and an Asian dad. Daughter got some recessive gene from from someone`s hairy ancestor, and was born with thick, dark hair on her arms and legs. Everyone who told me it would "all fall out when she gets older" was wrong.

She also has a thick patch of it right at the base of her spine, which I have always referred to as her "bunny fur," and told her it proves she`s my "little bunny." Cute talk with her mother always makes her smile, but boys in Japan making fun of her hairy legs and calling her"gorilla" has often made her cry.

"Please can I shave my legs, Mama? You shave -- why can`t I?" she would ask, at a disturbingly tender age.

"Because you`re a little bunny!" I would say, but it rang a bit hollow.

It made me ask myself, why DO I shave? Sure, I have lived in societies in which it`s the norm, but I really don`t care what people think about me and I am certainly free to stop if I really wanted to. I do it because I like it -- but am I really just another dupe of my cultural conditioning? What message am I sending my daughter? Am I unwittingly making her ashamed of her naturally hairy body?

When we moved to San Francisco from Japan, I was glad to see that many of Daughter`s new friends had even hairier legs than she does. Ah, I thought -- body hair won`t be a problem here. But no.

Daughter persisted -- "Please, Mama! Please please please PLEASE let me shave my legs! Just once! PLEASE!"

After conducting much angst-ridden internal debate, reading various opinions and rejecting the idea of a razor outright, I decided to let her try some Nair.

"Okay," I told her. "I will let you try this, just once, so you can see that it`s really no big deal."

First we did the overnight skin test, to make sure she wasn`t allergic to the Nair. The next day, Daughter did something I wasn`t expecting. Her skin test patch was fine, so she got out the Nair and did her legs, all by herself..... as well as the legs of a little friend she had over for a playdate that day.

So I had to call a friend of mine, to apologize for the moment of lax supervision at my house, in which I became an accessory to facilitating the removal of her 9-year old`s leg hair. It was not exactly my proudest moment as a parent.

"Um...I`m really sorry, but... um....they were playing with their dolls when I looked one minute, but right after that they...um....they........."

I don`t remember exactly what I said. I think I came close to choking on my own flapping tongue, and blacked out.

"You said it was 'no big deal,' Mama!" said Daughter, not understanding why I was so distraught.

Both girls` leg hair has since regrown, and my friend continued to speak to me. Daughter said she "loved having smooth legs," but hasn`t asked to do it again. I was right -- it was more curiosity than anything else.

So, just a few weeks after the Nair debacle, can you understand why I was a little bit disconcerted to find YOU in the locker room, with your landing strip?

I`ve had enough trouble explaining my shaved legs and pits to Daughter, so I felt I had better defer Daughter`s other hair removal questions to someone with firsthand experience.

Daughter asks you:

1) Which is more important to you -- the way it looks, or the way it feels?

2) If you really like it, why do you not shave ALL of your hair? Why do you leave the little strip?
3) Or don`t you like your hair "down there?" Is that why you want to shave it off?

4) Aren`t you afraid of cutting your sensitive "girl place" with the razor by accident? (That one reeks of female castration anxiety,doesn`t it, Dr. Freud?)

5) Do your friends do it, too? Is that why you do it?

6) How old were you when your mother started letting you do it? (Isn`t that one cute? "Mama, can I get a Brazilian? Pleeeeeeease?" Okay, on second thought, I take it back -- that would NOT be so cute, if she really asked it.)

Oh, one last thing -- let me make it perfectly clear that I have no objections to your shaving your pubic hair in a public shower. If you`re comfortable with that, so am I.

But if having a 9-year old girl staring at you the whole time bothers you, next time use one of the stalls with the curtains, okay?

Thanks a bush -- er, I mean, bunch.