And at some point even the most courteous baby-launcher is tempted to break into dithyramb about The Great Delivery and how the mystery came to life for them.  How many hours they transitioned or meditated and how many of their friends lit candles on their behalf, or how the C-section was just inevitable (I’m SORRY), and necessary to save the life of the baby (I DESIRE your vaginal birth) and how next time they’re going VBAC (I really am a good person, even though I know the anesthesiologist by name).  Yes, childbirth is a sacred-ish ritual of sorts.  And some uteri have all but pinned gold medals to their labia for the righteous births they piloted.  But in the end, it starts to sound the same.  And birth style is a grain of sand of importance in the Jupiter-sized life of a human being.

Nonetheless, I’m feeling an urge, a persistent tickle, to share my birth stories with everyone.  The stories of ALL THREE of my children, with time-marked segments between every landmark along Labor Trail.  I will compare, contrast, conclude, kvell and queef.  And I hope you’ll enjoy my story and realize its significance for you, should you somehow find my uterus housed in your pelvis and you are obliged to give rebirth to my children.  And I will attempt to translate it into a language that the Disinterested Ears of Labor Stories can understand.

• KID 1:  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, JERRY SPRINGER, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, NURSE: “HAVE YOUR HUSBAND FEED YOU GRAPES,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OUUUCCCCH, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  BABY.

• KID 2:  ICE CREAM.  EPIDURAL.  BABY.

• KID 3:  PITOCIN.  EPIDURAL.   BABY.

Please see me with any questions.

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So today mum will be the word.  And I will have to walk through the world like a Pvt. Mummy as opposed to Pvt. Mommy.  I will be dead to me.  An oral amputee.  Silenced, gagged, and shrouded in a spiral litigious gauze, away from the all-too-generous venue of the internet, and the souls who kindly and generously agree to receive my one-way stream of spew, like pleasant smelling flight attendants courteously holding airplane barf bags.

But silence will be a refreshing turn for Greta.  And silence gives way to reflection, and, thus, wisdom.   This makes me think of the song we sang under the baton of the best kindergarten teacher in the world, Mrs.  Zabloski.  Back in a time when teachers wore pink lipstick and had Folger’s breath (before lattes came to the US), and the mainstays of kindergarten were paste, rhythm sticks, and reading assignments like this:  pam, fan, man, can.

A wise old owl

Sat in an oak.

The more he sat

The less he spoke.

The less he spoke

The more he heard,

‘Why can’t we be like that

Wise, old bird?’

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Yankee doodling. Not so dandy.

We’ve been remiss in taking our children to experience and enjoy America’s pastime:  baseball.  You know this when your eight-year-old daughter asks if the nimble gentlemen in the bright white pants are playing softball.

Cousin JT gave us some tickets, so we went under the lights of the Oakland Coliseum and watched the A’s take on that team from New York whose name I can’t even say at this point.  And our daughters received a thorough indoctrination into the sport of spectatorship.  They learned that hot chocolate costs $5 even when they run out whipped cream, and that Daddy really appreciates Mommy when she surprises him with beer.

They also learned that Yankee fans (cursed be my fingers for typing that) have a lot of what they like to call moxie, and they’ve brought it with them across 3000 miles, via covered wagon or American Airlines, to scream, “GO YANKEES,” in A’s territory.   And when an Oakland A strikes out they yell, “SIT DOWN, LOSER.”

And then an A’s fan starts booing like, like a foghorn.  A sustained, guttural, primal boo.  And then the Yankee fan yells, in the way a reasonable Yankee fan would yell were he not in Oakland, California, “A’S SUCK.”  So, the Foghorn Booer’s girlfriend with the gauged ears replies, “SHUT THE FUCK UP.”  To which the New Yorker replies, “A’s SUCK.”  And then the gauged girlfriend yells, “FUCK YOU.”  And then she grabs her Foghorn Booer lover around his head and holds him close to her all-American bosom.

And later the Foghorn Booer yells, “FUCK YOU, A-ROD,” as if the man at bat had never allegedly cheated on his wife with the most iconic woman of my teens and twenties M A D O N N A.  If you can’t respect a philanderer for supposedly bagging Madge, when can you?

All the while, one of the box seat holders above is tooting a green soccer horn to which the Yankee fans behind you, different ones this time, respond, “SHUT UP.”  And the horn continues.  Followed by another “SHUT UP.”  And again.   And again.  And one more time, until you realize that a shouted SHUT UP is far more irritating than a soccer horn at a baseball game.  Or a Yankee at an A’s game.

And then the A’s begin to lose, like everyone who plays the Yankees does, and then all of sudden much of the stadium is cheering for the Yankees, and you realize that everyone loves a winner and a Yankee, or everyone has one aunt from New York or has lived themselves there for a few years or a long time, but had to get out because YANKEE FANS ARE REALLY ANNOYING.  Though for a moment, you consider being a Yankee fan just so you can live in the peace of perpetual victory that only Yankee fans know.

I’ve had enough Yankees in one game, to last me the full baseball seasons of six lifetimes.  No more Yankee fans for me. Quit putting the Y over the N.  Add a space.  And enough with the pin stripes.  No thank you very much.

And our girls did not want to leave at the seven inning stretch, but stayed with their beleaguered A’s until the team’s last licks in the 9th.  And our girls hoped for another plate of nachos.  And they were denied.  As were the A’s, and the few green and gold fans left who didn’t flee to beat traffic or become pinstriped turncoats.

And our girls can’t wait to go again.

"Jewelry makes me less combative." -Greta

When I receive an invitation to a party for CRappy Clothing, Hella Rot Jewelry or the longstanding SLAVON and Clamspray, I run for cover and immediately develop a near deadly case of greasy hair that must be washed vigorously, rinsed and repeated excessively on the night of the ‘party.’  It’s not that I don’t like getting together with the ladies and drinking wine and competing with the working moms in a gentlewomanly game of You Have It Harder Than I Do.  And I like buying things.  The problem is, I don’t like multi-level marketing.

And before you scream and split hairs and want to hurl an overpriced, jungle-patterned suit in my face, hear me out.  I don’t love the following things about what one may or may not want to call a pyramid scheme.

Products are overpriced because selling clothing via a party to which only a few people (mostly friends, family and neighbors) are invited is a highly inefficient way to generate sales or income.  This is true, no matter how good the artichoke dip is.  And if that’s not enough, the sales rep present is making only a bit of money, but her friend of a friend of a colleague of a realtor of a teacher of 2000 people ago is making bank because she is at the top of the ‘recruiting’ pyramid.  An individual’s sales benefit the tree of people who recruited him or her to the business and the people who recruited them, and so on.

And in most cases, the bulk of the money exchanged in a pyramid is not through the actual sale of the products, but through people purchasing an often expensive ‘starter kit’ to sell the products.  The company profits mostly from people buying the opportunity to make money, not from people buying the product itself.  Yes, purchase the position of sales rep and they’ll call you a manager, but you’ll really be the customer.  THAT’S TOTAL FREAKING BULLSHIT.

That would be like the waiters at our local pub, O’Flannegans, giving themselves bad service.  You never give yourself bad service.  That’s why God invented customers.  And you don’t sell things to yourself either.  That’s called employment masturbation, and I’m sure there’s a Church in Rome against it.

Now people do make money at the top of the pyramid.  And once the market is at a saturation point, the new recruits who buy their start-up kits are left with start-up kits.  That’s not only immoral (though legal), but it’s VERY, VERY CHEESY.

And I don’t usually like the salespeople of these parties because more often than not, they are a mani-pedied mom at school who semi-snubs you with regularity until she gets her ‘starter kit,’ and then she would crawl naked through glass and cross the freeway blindfolded for a chance to talk to you, because now you’re her cute and perky BFF.  But she blows her cover by saying every six seconds, “You should host a trunk show!”

So I hate parties like this and I don’t want to be the person who doesn’t buy anything or drink the Koolaid, yet still eats the pizza.   But my friend Kathy, who is obsessively and compulsively fun, urged me to attend a party she was hosting (for a sales rep), not in order to make a purchase, but for the unique opportunity to mock the event.  Her words.  She knows how to lure a Greta.  So I went.

And I had a delightful time chatting with Kathy’s mother-in-law and the friendly dentist with great teeth and great pants.  And the sales rep present was rather adorable and likable for a snake who wants me to buy a starter kit.

And after not quite enough wine to warrant a cab ride home, I left the party having thoroughly enjoyed myself.  And on my way out, my friend offered me a Ziploc pouch.  The pouch contained the colorful necklace that I was eyeing in the catalogue.

Oh my god.

Yes I was.  Salivating over a necklace despite its filthy pyramid origins.  And while I protested, because it was absolutely unacceptable to take a gift from a party about which I was sufficiently bitter, I TOOK IT.  And there I was.  With multi-level market blood on my hands.

And then I felt like a heel for being a cynic.  I mean, yeah, it’s immoral and stupid and cheesy, but, hey, free necklace.  Free CUTE necklace.  And for $39.95 I was bought.  Purchased.  My bitterness was sponsored and stripped of me by my cheerful, generous friend who was ambushing her party-goers with gifts.

And so I was reminded that we all have price.  And for the amount on the sticker, our souls can be wrapped in tissue, bagged and sent off with a simple, “Have a pleasant day, Madam.”

Who knew my price would come from a cheesy, sleazy pyramid, and look OUTSTANDING with a plain white shirt and black shoes and slacks?

• If a blogger friends you on Facebook and you don’t want to be friends, don’t accept the friendship.  Friend counts are important to your self-esteem, but at what cost to your sensibilities?

• If you hate that bloggers tout their blog posts on Facebook, unfriend them.  Block them.  Light a candle and curse their names.  Including the ‘doctom’.  Sure, your soul will be blackened, but hopefully a giant piano will fall on their laptops and they will unable to blog forevermore.  Amen.

• If you hate reading a blog called, for example, savingprivatemommy.com, don’t go to savingprivatemommy.com.  Go to Amazon.com and apply a tourniquet of retail therapy.  Or, for the ultimate in protection against blog injuries:  Potterybarn.com.  Grab your credit card and charge like it’s the first three minutes of Armageddon.  And the defibrillating sticker shock of cute, overpriced veneer will get your heart pumping again.

• If you must keep checking a particular blog because you must read how stupid that blogger is, do so.  Then get mad and break a window.  You will get a bill.  And the blogger will get a hit.  Bloggers like hits like whores like fishnets, as both make them look better and, thus, might someday help them earn some Starbucks money.

• If you just truly can’t stand that bloggers exist because of their unrelenting, unedited mediocrity, then go buy a book through a major publishing house.  Read it.  And then buy another one.  And after that, another one.  And I promise you, there will be SO MUCH READING MATERIAL, that you won’t have time to even CLICK on a blog because you’ll be swimming like an Olympian in a pool of prize-winning prose.  And the sharks of Bloggy Ocean will be kept at bay.  Where the literary windsurfers are.

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And you know what?  I don’t blame them.  Life is hard, and the very last thing you need is a blog with a homework assignment.  Especially if the prize is a book about…work.  Now if I were going to Fed Ex an iPhone or some ice cold margaritas to the winner’s doorstep for sharing, say, the color of his pupils or the shape of her bellybutton, that would be easy.  These are concrete and easy ideas to tackle on a day in the life of everyone in the world.  Bless us all.

Now of the two who tried, only one will win.  But what a glorious thing it is to enter a book contest with a 50-50 chance of winning.

And Greta will now pull one of the names out of the Dodgers hat.
(rustle, rustle, shuffle, twist and shake)
(and now I will mix the papers)

And the winner is…  WATER JEWEL
Congratulations!

So what knowledge can one glean from all this?  I’m not certain.  If you know, please leave your answer in the comments section and you will be eligible to enter a drawing for a brand new pair of socks, white socks, in your size!  The drawing will be held, God willing, on December 25, 2012.  Submissions will be accepted on this post until then.

Thank you for playing Greta!

I hope that you will post your core values in the comments section.  And just to nudge you to participate, I’m offering all commenters a chance at winning Greta’s gently used copy of Delivering Happiness.  The winner will be randomly chosen, via little pieces of paper jumbled around in a Giants hat, which I will have to purchase since my husband is a Dodgers fan.  No wonder we are a soon-to-be disgraced name in the SF bay.  And you think it will be my fault.

And without further ado, GRETA’S CORE VALUES:

• To provide an unrelenting, cold-hearted, hyper-scrutinizing view of the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL.  Because criticism of the almost rich is an end in itself.

• To help my most wonderfullest readers realize that the world is not as bad as it seems.

• To help my most wonderfullest readers realize that the world is far worse than we think it is.  And to respond via high-speed, fast-paced mockery.  Do not read if you suspect your health may be at risk or you may worsen a pre-existing condition like rapid weight gain or gonorrhea.

• To make fun of Greta and to sublimate all her shortcomings into engaging reading material.

• To provide original peace signs for all humanity to trade freely and with moral impunity, unlike downloading free music from Napster or stealing cigarettes from 7-11.

• To provide my most wonderfullest readers with an online activity between the hours of 10 PM and midnight when their good brains are too tired for Dosteovsky.

• To provide my most wonderfullest readers with a diversion during the busiest part of their workdays, thus, enabling them to stick it to The Man.  (JK, The Man, I love you for totally providing jobs and stuff, even though you’re, um, hoarding wealth while the little people offer up sweat and stomach lining in exchange for their meager earnings.  But as long as I can one day buy a high-def TV from Costco, I give you my total buy-in.  In the truest American spirit.)

Okay, your turn.  Have at it.

Come on now.  It’s fun.  It’s only the world wide web!  Don’t be scared.  It’s no where near as embarrassing as the pouty-mouth, sexy pictures you post of yourself on Facebook.  What, you don’t do that?

Unfortunately, at our highly average household, we encountered a SNAFU.  The colored hairspray, through which a year of agonizing car rides would be negated via an excellent Crazy Hair Day, was missing.  My grumpy husband looked at me like a prosecuting attorney eyeing a felon trying to avoid a third strike conviction.  Surely his wife, he thought, in a crazed clean-up frenzy tossed the unsightly cans that adorned the top-shelf of the bathroom for 362 days since the last Crazy Hair Day.  I don’t think I did this, but I might have had a My House Is Messy blackout.

It was 7:30 AM, and the 24-hour CVS, which stocked these bottles of joy, was seven minutes away in the opposite direction of the school.  During the famed San Francisco Bay Area rush hour.

What would we do?  Risk tardiness to school, an infraction punishable by the principal’s written notification of the obvious. (We KNOW that you were late to school on the 26th day of May in the year 2010.  Don’t screw with us or our test scores.  P.S.  Do you like my outfit?)  Or the worst alternative:  go to Crazy Hair Day with un-crazy hair.   That’s right.  We could torture our daughters by causing them to be imperfectly crazy.  There is skill required in everything.  Even in achieving crazy.

And accusations flew through the living room as did suggestions for crazy structural alternatives to colored hair.  These were all met with an angry, “NO.  Our hair has to be BLUUUE-UH!”  And as I raced for my keys to save the day like a chubby Shopping Supermom, the cacophony of huffs and puffs grew to a feverish din.  “No’s” and “Nu-uh’s” and “whatevers” raged on wings of utter urgency and frustration.  Then, like a clear-voiced trumpet, my three-year-old shouted above the noise, “CAN I GET A KITTEN?”

And then I left for the hair spray.

And I got the goods and met the traumatized Pippi Longstocking children and their harried dad at school.  And I made their hair colored.  And it was crazy.

And later that day, we adopted a kitten.

Turkeys in the Neighborhood

This gorgeous beast gave me a full-fanned expansion of his tail feathers just a few feet from the window of our home.  (I’m assuming he’s a tom because with that blue-hued face, he’s so fine.)  Here you see him as he’s closing the display; it is May after all.

You can’t imagine the grandeur he exuded with his chest puffed up and his tail outstretched in that fabled Thanksgiving way that inspired all those honey-combed, tissue paper centerpieces of the 1970s.  (Ad:  There’s a link below to purchase one of those suckers. “Shop Greta for all your nostalgic turkey needs!”)

It honestly makes me reconsider putting the pieces of this bird on a sandwich or under some gravy right next to the mashed potatoes.  He’s beautiful.  How does he not think he’s the center of the universe and that all creation was intended for HIS dominion?  If only he could figure out a way to kill us, roast us, and bury us under the sediment of bacon, tomatoes, garlic mayonnaise and lettuce.  But turkeys are, like, way too chicken and bird-brained to pull off the purchase, registration and operation of a firearm.  And so, the humans win the game of superiority.  And tasty lunches.

Nice Fanny

But still.  I wonder how in one moment we can gaze in sanctimonious awe of their beauty, and in the next we pop them off without a thought, like we’re tobaccee-chewin’, mini-Al Capones named Cooter in jeans and backwards baseball hats.  I suppose  all things, like all humans, have gentle and horrific sides to them.

Excuse me while I wash the blood off my hands so I can eat my lunch.  Out dang spot.  Out, y’all!

B0030ZEFXA

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• In 20 years, people will fall into three categories:  fatter, thinner and “you look exactly the same,” and you will be judged accordingly.  (Your true value will never be accurately assessed.)

• The class appointed Popular Group will still be the Popular Group.  They will not notice anyone, and everyone will notice them.  And some on the outside will insist on being tortured by this.  Don’t do this. Cultivate your own self-involvement.  Seriously.

• You will reconnect and possibly resuscitate under-nurtured relationships.  This will make you happy.

• Some former good friends will have no interest in you.

• The Tim Factor happens:  Tim #1, who was skinny and rude, will now be handsomely filled-out (see item #1) and will exude kindness and personality.  Tim #2, who was very mean, will apologize fully to the girl he mistreated.  They will talk for twenty minutes, and she will finally cut him off to dance with her girlfriend.  Your love of humanity will be reinvigorated.

• Somebody will ask you why you’re not (blank) anymore.  (The specifics are endless and varied.)

• The richest people will be the drunkest.  (I think.)

• Time, mediocrity and Hostess Twinkies will have happened to the dreamy guy/girl whose locker was above yours.  (See item #1)  Let your heart ache now with a sense of perspective.

• The failed would-be MLB star will remain cold and indifferent, and will graciously inculcate the now clear-skinned, former volleyball player into his circle of friends. (See item #1)  She will be infinitely grateful for his invitation and very understanding of his tardiness.

• You will be relieved to realize that you are no longer part of one entrenched social system, and you will be buttressed by the knowledge that you are an individual in a number of changing systems.

• Some will have passed away.  This will be devastating.

• High school and its aftermath are both a whole universe and absolutely nothing.  Navigate as freely as possible and without too much concern.