Mommybloggers Get Trashed After Schuler Tragedy

 

The horror on the Taconic involving Diane Schuler, the drunk-driving mother responsible for the deaths of eight people, including her own, has turned into a media mutiny on moms who drink.  One journalist, Ada Calhoun, in her recent TIME article "Mommies Who Drink: No Joking After the Schuler Tragedy,"  states that mom blogs and sites whose titles reflect mothers who make light of needing the occasional drink, are now uncool and unfunny.  She infers even worse; that indirectly, these mothers who drink are responsible for these kinds of deaths.

My heart bleeds for the families and friends of all the victims.  In particular, I ache for the lone survivor of this emotional wreckage, Ms.Schuler's five year old son. But, in spite of my heartache, my blog title, merlotmom, and my sense of humor persist.

This does not make me a bad mother.

It does not make me a blogger with poor taste.

Nor, as Ms. Calhoun's Time article suggests... read the rest of the article here at LA Moms Blog

The Truth Hurts: My Post BlogHer Marriage Lesson

My bags were in the trunk.  All evidence of my weekend away neatly packed and stowed.

After a kiss hello, I asked, "How was it?"

I wanted him to be beaten down.
I wanted him to sigh with relief at my return.
I wanted him to drop to his knees and french kiss the ground I walk on.

But he did none of those things.

"It was a breeze," he said.

"A breeze?  Come on."

"No.  Really,"  he confirmed and then had the nerve to add, "In fact,  it was...easier."

It took all the impulse control I had to not haul off and smack him.   This man I love.  I mean, really.  This is the thanks I get?!

I wanted to get back on the plane.  Fly back to my girls.  To people who appreciated my company.  Laughed at my jokes.  Complimented my hair AND my outfits.  (Please read the rest of my post at LA Moms Blog by clicking here).

Children of the Recession: The Education Blame Game

In connection with Katie Couric's CBS reporting on Children of the Recession, SV Mom's Blog is dedicating all of today's posts to personal accounts of how the recession is affecting their contributors and their families.  The following is my story:

Sacramento is a sinkhole.  The more tax dollars we contribute, the more our futures get sucked down into their soiled, political toilet.  Los Angeles' sales tax is at an astonishing 9.25%.  Parking meter rates have doubled.  Living in this city has become impossible if not downright imbecile.   The cost of living here is skyrocketing, while the quality of our social services, employment, the value of our homes, are plummeting.  And our children, by way of having their education budgets slashed and burned, are the most innocent victims in all this political infighting and incompetence. 

Both of my children go to public school.  We have an active and generous parent body, more so than many schools in the LAUSD, nevertheless, I still watch from the front lines as our most  promising new teachers are fired, as our Assistant Principal is let go, as our already parent--funded programs such as art, music, drama, and P.E. are threatened, because those monies have to be diverted to hire additional teachers to keep class size down and other necessities, that should be, and have previously been, funded by the government and district.

On May 15, I participated in a parent rally called The Lemonade Initiative.  The idea came to three moms while watching their sons' baseball game, and within two weeks time, they mobilized over 200 local parents to speak out against the budget atrocities.  The rally was covered by CNN, NPR, the LA TIMES and others.  With their voices, they urged the Superintendent of their school district to come out and hear their complaints about wasteful spending and demands for smarter, more long-term solutions.  (To see a full list of their complaints and demands, go to www.lemonadeinitiative.com).

One newscaster, while covering the budget crisis, the looming teacher's strike and the parent rally, had the nerve to pose this editorial question to the parents, on air,

(please click here to read the rest of the article on LA Mom's Blog)

Thank you.

A Curious Case of Human Nature

Days after watching THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, after leaving the dark, escapist theater where I shed more than a few tears, after returning home to pick up the kids, do homework, dinner, dishes and bedtime, I still suffered from a lingering sense of melancholy. I knew it was just a movie, a movie based on an impossible conceit no less, but I was disturbed by how watching a man age in reverse made me feel about my own life.

I’d heard of people who came close to death and returned with a new appreciation of living; their priorities simply and suddenly in check. Benjamin, having been born old and frail, was like one of those people. He had an unusual perspective that allowed him to understand early on the fleeting nature of the journey. He drank life in the way his tugboat captain drank his liquor. Daisy, on the other hand, had a less illuminated purview. She, like me, like most I presume, lived in denial of the finite while living very much in fear of it.

She wasted time, focusing on the frivolous and the immediate, fighting off the specter of death with each impulsive, life-affirming pleasure. While Benjamin walked, taking in all of what life had to offer, Daisy ran her race in a constant state of want, never opting for a moment of peace.

When I was young, I couldn’t wait to be an adult. When I was just out of college, I couldn’t wait to find a soul mate and success. After I had babies, I couldn’t wait for them to grow older. I always focused on what came next, hoping it would be there that I would finally be satisfied. Older people warned me I would miss the days I so often bemoaned, advising me to find happiness in the present. But like Daisy, I didn’t listen. I didn’t know how.

(click here to continue reading at LA Moms Blog...)

Give Me The Grateful Life - Monday

Welcome to a new week readers...
Let's begin with a deep yoga breath and some thanks, shall we?

1. I am grateful that my house and those of my friends were safe from the fires.  (And deeply sorry for those whose weren't.)
   
2. I am grateful for, and hoping to see again soon, a clear, blue sky.
3. I am grateful to have had the morning free to work on my class assignment.
4. I am grateful for libraries where I can get away from my house and dogs to work on said assignment without distraction.
5. I am grateful for meeting such nice women last night at the LA Mom Bloggers launch and to SV Moms Blog for hosting it.  
6. Oh yes, and I am grateful for Spanx - those things are da bomb!
   

What are you grateful for today?

"Who Are You And What Have You Done With My Children?"

Pinch me.

"Is it real?"  I ask myself. 
"Did aliens abduct my kids while I was asleep and leave me with perfect little clones?
I'm scared to admit it, for fear I'll jinx this positive moon I'm under, but the last two weeks with my children have been... dare I say ... a dream. 

Click to read more about my surprising snippet of sanity at LA Mom's Blog.

Merlotmom Is Outta Here

I have a post up today entitled, What I Did This Summer, at LA Mom's Blog.
Please link over and read me there.

I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow but I have some amazing guest posters filling in for me while I sip sake and nibble naguro.

I'll be back after Labor Day with photos and stories to share.

Until then, enjoy my replacements. I always do.

Sayonara.