But who needs a zombie escape plan when you have this zombie proof house?

The World's First Zombie Proof House

Perfect to raise your family, entertain your friends and protect them from the inevitable zombie invasion of 2012.

Zombie Proof House -- Fortifications

I mean, just look at those defenses! Secure yet movable concrete walls. Only one, easily defendable entrance on the second floor.

* For the record, yes, we’ve discussed both our earthquake and zombie invasion plan at length with relatively equal seriousness. Sort of. Honestly, they’re just about the same except one involves escaping hordes of brain-eating undead and the other involves escaping hordes of lawless, gun-toting hillbillies or gang members, depending on what part of town we’re in. Both The Hubs and I agree we’d rather take on zombies any day.

Choose one only, please

I’m in the process of filling out paperwork for The Little Empress’ school district assessment. On the form, they want me to identify her ethnicity.

Choose one only, please says the form.

But she’s not one only. She’s two. She’s (2) Asian – Vietnamese and she’s (4) Filipino. To claim that she is one but not the other is to deny a whole half of her heritage.

Yeah, I know it is just a form but it horks me off something fierce. It is stupid that in 2011, decades after Martin Luther King’s “I had a dream” and the civil rights movement that antiquated school forms still expect families to be of one ethnicity.

I wonder how many idiot forms like this I’ll encounter during her school career or if districts will wise up to the fact that more and more kids are coming from mixed backgrounds.

And for a side rant…

I find it interesting that Filipinos are considered neither Asian nor Pacific Islander on this form. We’re Asian, dammit. Geez.

The SDCC “God Hates Fags” counterprotest had the best, nerdiest signs ever.

Oh, how I wish I was there!!!!

It also makes my heart hurt that in America, there are thousands, if not millions of Americans, who have had to decide between being able to keep food on their tables or buy the medicine that will allow them to live.

We went for years without health insurance. Why? Because our jobs neither offered it nor could we afford what it would take from our checks if it could. Fresh out of college, struggling to make ends meet, every penny meant the difference between a roof over our head or none. At that point in our lives, health insurance was a luxury that we simply couldn’t afford. Heaven forbid that we go to the doctor when sick. A doctor’s office visit without insurance? Close to $100. That doesn’t include non-insurance covered prescriptions, even a generic could cost more than $20. Follow up visit? Another $100. And no insurance meant that everything was due at time of service.  And that doesn’t include any lost wages from missing a day of work.

And surgery without insurance? Oh dear god. Before we were married, The Hubs had to have surgery. This simple outpatient surgery would have cost us everything we had and then some. Only due to an extremely generous family contribution were we able to pay for the surgery and even then, I had to nearly empty my 401k to pay the remainder.

There are so many Americans out there who have been denied health care because of pre-existing conditions.  Maybe I’m thinking too logically here but folks with pre-existing conditions may need that insurance most of all to help them with their health care costs.

And how can we call ourselves a civilized country when you can survive cancer but lose your home because your medical bills have bankrupt you?

So yeah, for the record — I am glad health care reform passed. It may not be a perfect bill but it is a step in the right direction. I fail to see how universal health care is anything but a boon to our society.

Children were born at home for thousands of years before modern obstetrics so a return to this makes sense to me. While I personally would not consider homebirth for myself — I labored for 24+ hours at home, without pain relief and by the time I got to the hospital, I was literally crying for some relief at 5cm. I <3′ed my epidural, yes I did. — I would gladly defend any other woman’s right to do so.

However unlike most women, Waldman claims, her life does not revolve around her children but instead, revolves around her husband. Um, okay. And then, this:

An example: I often engage in the parental pastime known as God Forbid. What if, God forbid, someone were to snatch one of my children? God forbid. I imagine what it would feel like to lose one or even all of them. I imagine myself consumed, destroyed by the pain. And yet, in these imaginings, there is always a future beyond the child’s death. Because if I were to lose one of my children, God forbid, even if I lost all my children, God forbid, I would still have him, my husband.

But my imagination simply fails me when I try to picture a future beyond my husband’s death. Of course I would have to live. I have four children, a mortgage, work to do. But I can imagine no joy without my husband.

God forbid she find any kind of joy in her children, who are the part of her husband who would still be living. God forbid she could find any joy in them.

God forbid Ms. Waldman’s husband ever die. I’d feel so sorry for children whose mother couldn’t find joy in them, despite her own saddness.

And if my children resent having been moons rather than the sun? If they berate me for not having loved them enough? If they call me a bad mother?

I will tell them that I wish for them a love like I have for their father. I will tell them that they are my children, and they deserve both to love and be loved like that. I will tell them to settle for nothing less than what they saw when they looked at me, looking at him.

I know that closing is supposed to be poetic, even poignant. How awesome her love for her husband must be, above the love for her own children. But correct me if I’m wrong here but basically, she is saying she would tell her children to find a great love for themselves like she had for her husband, never settling for less than that love. Never mind that  she didn’t show them that love herself.  That’s supposed to make it better?

Nope, sorry, not buying it. At the root of it all, it seems to me that Waldman considers the love for husband and love for children to be mutually exclusive. Because, God forbid! a woman could love her husband and her kids in a way that doesn’t put one above the other.

Admittedly, the love you have for your child/ren and your partner are two different types of love. But just because they’re different means you love one more than the other or that one love means more than the other. The whole notion reminds me of those fights I used to have with my sister. “Mommy loves me best!” I’d yell as I would stomp my feet, as if to prove a point. (Yeah, I was a brat.) Our mom would step in and say, “No, I love you both the same.”

My love for my husband and child are two very different but similar feelings. I grew to love my husband but I fell in love instantly with my child. The Hubster ™ and I are equal partners in life; I am The Little Empress’ minion, teacher, feeding trough, pillow, etc. My relationships are vastly different from each other, neither more nor less than the other.

Has the ardor that I once felt for my husband diminished or been completely replaced by my overwhelming maternal feelings for my child, as proposed by Waldman? Uh, no. For one, ardor is not a word I’d use to describe what my husband and I feel for each other. (Or at least, not a word I could use with a straight face when thinking about our relationship. OOOOH. HOT BURNING PASSIONATE LOOOOOOOOVE. Gimme a break, I’m so 12 years old at heart.) My non-existant sex life had nothing to do with lack of love for my husband — and frankly, equating frequency of sex to depth of one’s love is just plain stupid if you ask me — and everything to do with my perpetual sleep deficiency and the fact that TLE insists that boobies are her food and not Daddy’s toy. (Ever try to initiate the mood when you’ve got a 1 year old climbing over you, mouth at the ready trying to nurse? Take notes — DOESN”T WORK. This child is the best birth control we ever had.)

So yeah, in my very humble and honest opinion, Ms. Waldman can stuff it.