Back in my day....

I was in the car the other day, engaging in my usual, safe, mother-of-three driving (which entails yelling at my children for fighting, while watching them in the rear view mirror, steering with one hand while, with the other, trying to retrieve Thomas the train from the floor, after Little Man has catapulted him across the main cabin for the tenth time, not understanding this results in him no longer being in his sticky grasp, all while simultaneously drinking a large coffee) when I was asked by my (now, no longer fighting) children to put on some music. And after inserting and ejecting the fourth Hannah Montana/Green Day mix CD that was skipping like it was being played by a dj on crack, as it was scratched beyond all recognition, I thought to myself, "God DAMN, just give me a good old fashioned cassette tape!!!"

I realize there are many benefits to CDs. The recording is of higher quality, you can immediately skip to the track you want to hear, they are very difficult to break and, well, they just look cooler, but unless you have the time to meticulously care for and store these little gems they wind up virtually useless. Admittedly, to me "meticulous care" means putting them back in their cases instead of stacking them, uncased in the glove compartment, or, let's be honest, letting them slide around, naked, on the passenger-side floor, but back in my day, that side of my Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra was six inches deep in uncased Erasure and MC Hammer cassettes and they played just fine.

It astounds me that my children will never listen to a cassette tape. Their pink boom box has no deck and cars today would sooner have them as cigarette lighters. But in my youth, tape ruled, and I think for good reason. Sure, kids today can wait for a song they've just heard on the radio to be released on iTunes and buy it with a click of the mouse, no waiting for Mom to drive you to the mall so you can buy "Ice Ice Baby" at Sam Goody, but when I was young, you could have the song immediately and for free! It only required sitting in your room all night, listening to the radio on your baby pink, light teal or peach double deck boom box, waiting for said song to be played and then pushing the "record" button. Sure, the opening bars were covered up by the dj giving the one hundredth caller Bon Jovi tickets and the end of the song segued right into a Wendy's commercial, but it was yours right then and there!

The double deck boom box was a teenage bootlegger's dream! You could copy your friends New Kids on the Block tape without worrying about pesky copyright infringement, or spending your babysitting money. And where would we be without mix tapes? Kids today know nothing of the joys of creating a mix tape. Sure, sure, you can create an iTunes playlist for someone, but would it include the sound of your inept fumblings as you struggle to hit the "stop" button at the right moment, or even possibly, a personal spoken message? (In high school, you think you want the kind of boyfriend who does that. I had one and you don't.) You could labor away on the "liner notes" and even glue your own photo onto them to show through the clear plastic window (that was after you had the film developed, another Neanderthal technology our children will marvel at)*. I'm tearing up a little as I write this - the first gift I ever gave H was a mix tape I labored over for hours. Each selection was carefully chosen, and I included a note about why I had picked every song and what it meant. It's like a time capsule each time we dig it out of our college memorabilia, and when I hear one of those songs on the radio I can actually remember what song came after it on that tape. Sure, kids today can churn out masterfully created CD's complete with professional sounding fades, photo-shopped labels and perfectly printed liner notes, but there is nothing quite like getting a mix tape from the guy you really, really like, and maybe love, with the title of songs like "You're My Home", in his handwriting.

Yeah, yeah, cassette tapes had some major drawbacks. Of course, the incessant rewinding and fast forwarding trying to get to the song you want - quite annoying when the single you've been hearing on the radio is three or four deep on the tape, and you aren't familiar enough with the new album to know which song is which. And tapes were not impervious to maniacal little hands getting their pincer-like grip on the thin tape wound inside and pulling it out with glee.*** But a pencil stuck in one side of the tape and the patience to sit there and wind it back in usually did the trick. Hell, you could even splice a broken tape with scotch tape in a pinch.

I know some day I will be the butt of my kids' jokes, as they roll their eyes in smug superiority, when I am still referring to recording things as "taping" them, much like my teenage amusement as my father called jeans "dungarees". But my love for tape technology, with its simple durability and accessibility will never die (a post on the joys of video tapes to come). And if I have to be that crazy old lady who still has a functioning cassette deck - a purchase I am determined to make before it's too late - just so she can listen to some old tape from back in the day, then so be it.

*No, Ferone, I am not forgetting our special tape "DJ Jazzy Jen and the Fresh Mare - She's the DJ, I'm the Rapper" - bad photo and all.
**Babysitting catastrophe of the highest degree when the little hell spawn got his mitts on my new Depeche Mode tape. Even worse story? My friend Jen's cat ate the insides of a cassette tape and the vet told her mother to just let her poop it out. It made me think of anal paper cuts and makes me shudder to this day.

I'd like to trade please...

(Warning: this post is entirely about female genitalia. Male readers, i.e., my father, you have been warned.)

"I am tired of having a vagina. How' bout you take it for the next twenty years?" This is a direct quote from a conversation Hubby and I had before he left for work. After surviving the world's worst and longest lasting chest cold/infection, I am now being rewarded with an antibiotics-induced yeast infection. "Come on", I told him, "I've done the hard time with all the baby-birthing and everything. You'll just need to coast to menopause." His response, other than looking at me like I was a lunatic, "Hells no."

Well who can blame him? Having a vagina, even under normal circumstances, is like having a classic, old car - it leaks, it requires a lot of upkeep and can be slow to warm up at times. Having a penis, it seems would be like having a brand new sports car - requiring little to no upkeep and can go from zero to sixty in thirty seconds.

I would like to experience peeing in the woods, on a cold day without freezing to death or soaking the back of my pants, or feet, with urine. I would like H, just once, to take over the two days a month I am crippled by cramps, but am expected to swallow handfuls of Advil so I can function normally. Seriously, if this were the normal course of events each month for men, "period days" would be worked into the vacation/sick day scenario in the workplace.

Even the list of things that can go wrong with lady bits, from the trivial to life-threatening, is about ten times longer than the one for the twig and berries. And half of the list is from having sex with men! And look at reproductive cancers, the female versions can be dangerous, deadly and insidious. You can live with prostate cancer for years! Never mind the fact that ovarian cancer, unlike prostate cancer, can't reliably be detected with a blood test. Imagine if that situation were flipped, and men were required to have someone sticks their hands inside them once a year (I seem to be dwelling a lot on this lately, huh?)? "We've spent enough on the war! Throw some money at the NIH and get this thing fixed!!!"

Notice pregnancy and childbirth's marked absence from my shit list. While, yes, pregnancy can be a pain in the ass, and childbirth hurts like a motherfucker, that is the one part of the vagina experience that wouldn't trade for the all the world. I often felt bad for H, during my pregnancies, that he never got to experience what it felt like to carry a child. Then I had to get up and pee for the tenth time in half an hour and that feeling passed.

So I am stuck with the stuff God gave me, and, there are times I hate it. I haven't even hit menopause yet - can't wait to see what a twisted hormonal roller-coaster ride that will be (buckle up, H). But thinking about it, I will admit, there are two advantages we do have over men. I never had to fear wearing sweatpants during puberty, for fear a wayward erection would humiliate me and no one was able to end a schoolyard fight with me by kicking me in the balls.

*And I guarantee when my OB/GYM returns my call to discuss treatment options, it will be, on my cell, right in the middle of school dismissal, where it is so convenient to be using the words "vaginal discharge".

Give the pig a break...

No, you're not hallucinating. It's a new post. I was suffering, last week, from my annual, knock-me-flat-on-my-ass illness. It seems every year I have to get really, really sick at least once, requiring me to call in all the reinforcements (including my saintly mother in-law who used up her entire day off shuttling my kids to and from school and activities). H was also extremely helpful, but after day three, his inquiries of "How do you feel?" were heavily laced with a "When the hell are things getting back to normal round here? As there is a marked decrease in cooked food and clean dishes."

So during my recuperation, I actually watched enough TV to get sick of it, which I did not think was possible, and saw, while watching live television (imagine!), several Disney commercials featuring The Muppets. I know everyone has a favorite, I myself am very partial to Beeker, but a thought occurred to me while I watched her style, work ethic and bravada made the butt of jokes, yet again. Miss Piggy gets a bum rap.

Miss Piggy first made her debut in 1974, which was a pivotal time in the history of the American woman. In 1960, the percentage of women (with children) in the workforce was only 29%, in 1974, it was 49%. Miss Piggy was a role model for strong, ambitious, working women, and still is. She takes her career very seriously and has the utmost confidence in her abilities and works tirelessly toward her inevitable rise to stardom. She might be working on a hack show now, but not for long. She is the lone voice of female strength and character in this motley crew. Who else are girls going to look up to? Janice, who has smoked so much pot her eyes are actually closed? I dig her tube top though.

Of course Miss Piggy takes the most flack for her relationship with Kermit. After the relentless pursuit of his love, she spends that majority of their relationship ping-ponging between being saccharine-sweet-in-love with Kermie and brow beating him. Um, wait. Who am I talking about again? Yes, she can be a bit over bearing, but Kermit needs a wake up call occasionally. Especially when dealing with his idiot friends. If he would take some of her advice, this show might actually go somewhere. You know she would suggest Kermit fire Fozzy and tell him he really needs to pursue another career, instead of enabling him in his comic delusions, and overall have a tighter reign on the cast, avoiding his head-thrown-back-waving-flaccid -arms-in-frustration-screaming fits that he resorts to when things get out of hand. Yes, Kermit is whipped, and his friends think she's a total bitch and sometimes wonder why Kermit is with her in the first place, but I believe they really love her, deep down. There wasn't any pre-wedding scene in The Muppets Take Manhattan where Gonzo pulled Kermit aside and said, "Hey man. It's not too late to get out of this..."

And of course, the cherry on the piggy sundae is Miss Piggy's undeniable style. The gloves and huge ring? Timeless and fabulous. And remember that fantasy scene in The Great Muppet Caper? A feather trimmed pink gown? A sequined bathing suit? Oh, yes, she rocks them all. She does seem to be in an unfortunate bang phase right now though, which makes her look like Kim Cattrall. I think she needs to keep it old school and return to the Farrah Fawcett-esque long, curly mane.

So give the pig a break. She's the muscle behind her marriage and the raging bitch among her cast-mates because these idiots force her to be. When you get down to it, she's made the butt of jokes simply because she is stronger (have you seen that karate chop?), smarter, and more talented then the men surrounding her and maybe Jim Henson*, considered such a nice guy, was a bit of a male chauvinist pig. Pun intended.

*Henson-lovers, spare me your hate. I don't need another Folgerberg-gate. I love the man too, but can't help but wonder at his lack of female persepctive.