slacker mom

Benjamin,

Your eleven-month birthday was four days ago, the same day as my 26th birthday. And I haven't posted a message for one reason: I'm a slacker mom. The house has gone to shit. There are Cheerios lurking in every corner, phone books in the dining room, rotting avocados, laundry on every chair, newspapers under the dining room table, coasters under the couch, water bottles on the living room floor. The calendar is still on August because I don't have the energy and will to flip it. The important things are taken care of. Your nails are trimmed, the rash on your face is subsiding. The cold you developed this weekend is subsiding. I make you laugh (or at least smile) every day.

Last weekend, we went to Malka and Kristy's wedding in Oakland (pics will come as soon as I get off my ass), and it was wonderful. We miss our friends and we miss the Bay Area. Our first night there, we stayed in a moldy Best Western inhabited by a motorcyle gang that wouldn't let you sleep. We switched hotels, and it was much better, even though you had a cold. You were so good, Ben. You were the hit of the wedding, exclaiming "BA-BA-BA", licking people's purses and biting jewelry.

I can't believe you are almost one.

On another note...

Hurricane Katrina (or as Laura Bush calls it, "Corrina") was devastating, and I don't understand our government's response. We are a country with more money and resources than any other. But instead of helping people in a timely manner, we blame the people, especially the poor with no resources. We sent them to an evacuation site that did not even have blankets or food. We send them a paltry number of National Guard much too late because THEY'RE IN IRAQ OCCUPYING A COUNTRY instead of helping our own. Aren't they the National Guard, not the INTERNATIONAL guard? I feel like tearing my hair out. Do people see this? Do they see it? Bush was playing golf on Monday evening, the day the hurricane hit. On the Thursday after the hurricane, our vice-president was still on vacation.

I'm so angry right now at people who blame the victims. They had time to get out, yes, but where were they supposed to go? How were they supposed to get there? The middle-class and rich had no problem; they had cars and hotel money.

I will never vote for a Republican. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Something is fundamentally wrong with them.