Oscars according to me

Here are some Oscar highlights that I’ve slapped up here to give you my thoughts as the evening is already starting to fade from our mammories. It wouldn’t be a proper Oscar post if I didn’t pay homage to the breastages. From J-Lo’s areola to Viola’s ample bosom to Octavia Spencer’s vow to get a boob lift to Sandra Bullock’s bindings. I honor all of you and your boobs whether they were pushed up or pushed back, lined or laying low.

J-Lo

Viola Davis

Sandra Bullock

Moving on from the topics of racks to off the rack, some dresses dazzled and others were uninspired but few were disastrous. There was a lot of buzz about Michelle Williams’s dress, but I thought she had just stepped out of a scene from Bonanza. Gabriella’s favorite was Jessica Chastain’s nod to brocaded upholstery while I preferred the softer looks of Penelope Cruz and Rooney Mara.

Michelle Williams

Jessica Chastain

Penelope Cruz

Rooney Mara

I loved Robin Roberts looking glamorously fit on the red carpet as opposed to Angelina Jolie who tried to distract us from her emaciated arms by jetting her leg out from her dress in a peculiar stance that implied she needed a good airing out. I’ve seen too many Holocaust films in my life to find her skeletal frame the least bit attractive.

There was lot of noise about the noise. The audio feedback was hugely distracting throughout the show, but Gabriella said she didn’t hear it. I thought I had tinnitus until I realized that it was more likely that Gabriella is going deaf. “Now I understand why you don’t put your recyclables in the bins even though I ask you a gazillion times, Gabriella.” “What?”

The Mominations segment touched me because I’m a mom and I have lost all objectivity when it comes to mothers talking about how proud they are of their children. Was it actually a worthy piece? I couldn’t tell you.

I was less interested in the clip of actors talking about their first film experience, but I couldn’t help but think fondly not of my very first film but of my first laugh out loud till I cried and fell out of my chair experience at a film. I remembered watching The Apple Dumpling Gang with my friend Deana, and we were forever bonded in laughter after an afternoon with Don Knotts and Tim Conway.

Favorite speech: Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall winners of Best Editing for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. “We weren’t expecting this. Let’s get out of here!”

Favorite presenters: It’s a tie between Chris Rock who confessed that animation was the easiest million dollars he’s ever made. And duo Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianikis– who really cymballized what great presenting is all about.



Standing Os for Octavia Spencer, Cirque de Soleil, Christopher Plummer, Merle Streep and Governors Award winners James Earl Jones, Oprah Winfrey and makeup artist Dick Smith. I thought the standing Os were timed perfectly allowing attendees to get up, air out the sweat pooling behind their thighs and prevent deep vein thrombosis and restless leg syndrome. Bet they would have stood up for anyone if enough time had passed without a break.

Was Viola Davis robbed of an Oscar? I have no idean not having seen either film. I was sad, however, that Pina did not win for Best Documentary not because I had seen Pina but because I would have like to talk about Pina so that all my Hungarian friends would read about my love of Pina and wonder if I knew what I was saying.

I took note that not a single winner thanked God. It wasn’t so long ago that you would have gotten more smashed taking a drink every time someone thanked God instead of Scorsese. Then again, I think drinking to Weinstein would have gotten you drunker.

Looking forward to next year’s award season when we’ll be remembering the little people. And by little people, I mean little people! This year is The Year of the Little People: HBO’s Life’s Too Short with Warwick Davis, Mirror Mirror, Project X. Luckily, stylists will be well prepared after dressing Peter Lorre’s double.

7 of them!

"The midget in the oven"

Thomas Langmann & Michel Hazanavicius

I'm sure I missed a few other memorable moments. Perhaps you'd like to share your favorites.

Happy Glass Half Full Day

The anniversary of Asher and Levi’s adoption came and went without any fanfare last week. If it weren’t for the recurring event in my calendar, I would not have remembered. I’m confident that Gabriella is not bothered about missing the date, either. Laws are such funny things, you know? I mean, the Earth doesn’t care where governments claim national borders exist. And, it’s only the law of the day that says that a man who has married and divorced three times and has fathered 7 kids between the three ex-wives is more legitimate than two women who have lived together for 18 years and have 2 children together. And our children certainly did not give a rat’s ass what the law said about the woman who scooped them up fresh out of the oven and loved them immediately and unconditionally.

It was a happy day, I suppose, though Levi was a hungry 4 month old, and I was a sleep-deprived, lactating milk machine seeping through my nursing pads and nursing bras to create sopping wet boob art.

How many of you are looking for my boob right now?

It was a happy day though Asher was a high-maintenance 3-year old who found the hours of waiting for our 5 minute meeting with the judge to be excruciatingly boring and did his best to let us know. Why hadn’t you created the iPad, yet, Steve Jobs? I shake my fist at your plodding genius. iPlod. Hmm.

It was a happy day though no matter which adorable outfit we chose for Levi, we could not disguise the fact that he was a goofy looking baby. As was Asher. As was I.

My father was a photographer in his down time. He built a dark room in our basement and used to develop all the photos he took. I don’t have many of the gazillions of baby pictures he took of me, but I do have a couple that I will share with you to prove my point. Funny looking.

I remember saying to my mother when I saw this particular collection, “Wow. I was NOT a cute baby.” And she replied, and I can’t blame her, “Deborah, you had such personality!” A face only a mother could love? Not even. It was my expressions that endeared myself to her, for a while anyway.

It was a happy day though it served more of a reminder that we gays have to spend a pretty penny and jump through hoops and think of lots of other clichés that demonstrate everything we have to do just to protect our families.

So was it really a happy day? It was, actually. We have a long way to go, but we’re happy for the milestones our plodding government has made so far. We’re happy that we were able to make babies and happy that we can legally protect ourselves. And we’re happy that our children get better looking with age. Well, Levi is still pretty goofy looking, but he’s got such personality!

a-CHUNK-a-lypse

Our household is currently recovering from The A–CHUNK-A-LYPSE.

After dinner the other night, I left Levi to brush his teeth with his electric toothbrush while I loaded the dishwasher. Asher had already finished his two minute cleansing and had parked himself in front of the television to watch Dexter’s Laboratory only to be interrupted by a series of gagging noises coming from the bathroom.

“MAAAAHHHHHM!!!!! LEVI’S THROWING UP!!!” Asher announced.

Sure enough.

Some people know exactly what to do in the case of all household disasters. They know which cleaning products to use and whether to grab a sponge or paper towels or the wet vac. I stood frozen for what seemed like minutes staring at Levi wishing I could go Bewitched on the scene. Even the thought of vomit makes me ... mmghm ... gag.

“DON’T MOVE, LEVI!! I mean are you ok? Please, just let me come get you so that you don’t step in it. …And, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Let me take that toothbr...” Oh God, the toothbrush is covered in sick. Just throw it in the sink, Deborah. You can do it. And then, slowly remove Levi from scene before his socks are soaking in... mmghm ... mmghm... too late! Scanning the bathroom for the first time, I realized that Levi managed to hit his socks and the walls and the bathtub and the shower curtain with his not quite-digested dinner. And thus began days of retching and wardrobe changes and laundry and more retching as the stomach bug picked each of us off one by one.

Levi had it the worst and brought out the worst in his mothers.

I texted Gabriella to prepare her for the House of Bio-hazardous Waste and possibly to evoke a bit of sympathy. She was neither compassionate nor helpful, and the two of us demonstrated in our exchanges why two mothers are not always better than one – especially when one of them is a project manager by day and an over protective, Italian mother the rest of the time and the other one is a first-born Jewish mother who does not take kindly to unsolicited advice.

Gabriella: did he drink any water?

(8 seconds)

G: i’m worried about dehydration.

(5 seconds)

G: Pls give L water!

You’re a doctor now? Keep your day job, why don’t you?

Deborah: I’m giving him small sips in bet episodes.

G: oh good. make sure he drinks.

If you’d stop telling me what to do, I’d be able to give him more water.

I gathered the towels I sacrificed to stomach sewage and threw them in a plastic bag trying so hard to avoid the wet...mmghm...patches.

G: how’s he doing?

D: up to 7 times. he made it to the toilet twice.

G: Oh no!

D: Must go do more laundry.

(13 minutes)

D: make that 8 times.

G: have you looked at his eyes?

D: they’re closed. he’s sleeping now.

G: if his eyes r sunken, he’s dehydrated

If his eyes are closed, he’s sleeping.

D: Good 2 know

(8 minutes)

G: On my way home.

D: K. L is sleeping in front of tv.

G: 30 min away. See if he’ll drink.

Yeah, I’ll get right on that – right after I take the towels outside and shake out all the hunks of hurl before I throw them in the washing machine. The possums will be well fed tonight!

As soon as Gabriella got home, she ran upstairs to see that I had moved Levi to his bed where he was surrounded by towels – just in case.

D: He’s sleeping now.

G: I’m worried he’s dehydrated.

D: Well, I’m not going to wake him up to give him water. Better he should have small amounts. That’s what my pediatrician father always said.

G: But how much did he have? Someone in my office said that she had to take her daughter to the ER because she threw up all day and couldn’t even keep water down.

Someone in your office should shut her pie hole!

D: Gabriella, he’s been eating and drinking all day. He only threw up dinner. I know because I’m the one who had to clean up all the ... mmghm ... and there wasn’t a trace of breakfast or lunch. He’s been drinking. I promise.

G: Ok. You can’t blame me for worrying.

D: No. I can’t.

I really can’t.

Gabriella scooped Levi out of bed and brought him into our room.

D: At least put down towels before you put him in here!

She shot me a look that said, “How could you worry about a mess when our child is suffering, you cold, heartless shrew?!?

D: You know, I’ve had a chunk-tastic night and I’ve been on clean up and care taking detail for hours. If you want to put him here without any towels, you can wash the sheets.

G: Well, can you get some towels, Deborah?

I didn’t want him in our bed, and I didn’t want Gabriella calling the shots, but I got over myself and found the last of the beach towels and spread them out for Levi.

We had difficult falling asleep, each of us in tune to Levi’s every breath, our systems on high alert should he throw up in his sleep. By the time I woke up the next morning, only a few hours later, Gabriella had moved onto the sofa because, she said, there wasn’t enough room for all of us. I might have given her a hard time for leaving me with our little vominator, but Gabriella took over for me while I slept in. Whatever had made its way down Levi’s digestive track decided to find another exit route, and Gabriella was on doody-duty for hours.

We all seem to be ok now, and I hope we’re in the clear for the season. In the height of a crisis, Gabriella and I may not treat each other with care or kindness, but mostly we make a good pair – in shifts.

Friendship Realness

I am a die-hard night owl and never more so than after having kids. My time is my own after the little darlings are in bed and fast asleep. The later it gets, the less likely it is that I will be disturbed by phone calls or emails, and I find guilty pleasure on Hulu and television especially if the programming is PG-13. RuPaul’s Drag Race? No shade, but if you’re not watching the realness, you’re not living.

Facebook is another guilty pleasure bordering on addiction. I pretend I’m connecting with friends and family when really all I’m doing is checking out the photos and links and comments that people choose to share. After absorbing status after status, I realize my Facebook friends and I are not actually connecting or socializing over media. The only connection I’m making is to the brands my Facebook friends are creating.

Consider the branders amongst your Facebook friends – you know the ones. These are the people who post every day, often multiple times per day reminding you whenever possible that they stand for a cause or that their lives are perfect all of the time. They are savvy marketers in that they never stray from their message. You’ll rarely see any posts that do not support the reality they want you to believe.

A few brands you may recognize:

The Perfect Parent
Mary Childs posts every craft that she and her 3 adorable children make together after a delicious meal they helped her prepare from their CSA produce delivery before they watch their one allotted program for the day on National Geographic. Occasionally, she posts an adorable, phonetically correct quotation from her preschool child. She uses a bit of creative license when mixing up the sentence structure a bit more just to make it sound especially cute. She will never share a status that reveals that she loses her temper or fantasizes about packing her bag and disappearing, and the only time she will post an unhappy photo of her children is when they are feeling ill because even slumped over on a sofa with fever, they just look so gosh dern sweet, and her friends will have no choice but to post comments of well-wishes and [[hugs]] because she’s keeping score.

The Cause Pusher
Howard Sardham has given up meat and all animal products so he is now your vegan guide. His post portfolio includes photos of sweet lambs hobbling on all fours destined for slaughter or shock photos of animal cruelty that only convince carnivores that ignorance is bliss. When he is not posting photos of small animals, he shares with us the links to articles about the horrendous living conditions animals suffer on industrial farms or what the consumption of animal products is doing to our planet and our digestive systems. Often, he posts a photo of his vegan dinner, which is always an unidentifiable, unformed mound of food along with a recipe for anyone who’d like to eat “the most satisfying, flavorful dish” they’ve ever had. He will never tell you that the night before last he had a dream that he ate a bloody burger smothered with onions and melted provolone and woke up in a pillow full of drool and a smile on his face. He will also not post that he and his wife saw a great movie the other day unless it’s a movie about animals. He loved War Horse.

The Silhouette
Even the aloof friend creates a brand out of nothing. On Facebook, Liv Melone has 32 friends and refuses to upload a profile photo of herself to replace the generic silhouette of a head. She wants you to know that she has better things to do than waste her time on Facebook with people she would hardly call her friends. She only joined because her sister insisted, and now she dares not take the time to figure out how to delete her account. Her indifference speaks volumes. You might be able to connect with Liv on LinkedIn because that is a professional networking site for no-nonsense people such as herself.

Perspective is a difficult thing to maintain when you spend too much time on Facebook. If all you know about your Facebook friends is what they post on Facebook, you probably don’t know them very well. Just because Mary Childs posts that her 3 year old is now able to read Good Night Moon...in English and Greek and your 6 year old picked his nose all afternoon and finally pulled out the longest booger you’ve ever seen, that doesn’t mean that her child is a genius and your child is-snot.

I’m guilty and proud of branding, too. Take the Peaches & Coconuts Facebook page. I post links and comments about LGBTQ issues because they are of personal importance to me much as children or animals or the weather is to other Facebook branders and because the blog attracts Ls, Gs, Bs, Ts and Qs and their allies. I post comments that support whatever it is I think I’m doing on this blog.

I’m not begrudging branders the opportunity to stand for something or put their best foot forward. I support your brand. I’m speaking to those of us who rely on Facebook as a form of connection. Stop it! Don’t believe the hype. Your friends are not their Facebook Timelines. If you think they are the perfect parent or the political poster child for (insert political cause here) or if you suspect that one of your Facebook friends is smiling all day long, get offline, pick up the phone and reconnect…for reals. And if someone’s posts are driving you crazy because they pat themselves on the back too often or post incessantly, hide their posts. They won’t notice you did because they’ve got hundreds more friends who will Like and [[hug]] and give them the virtual stroking they crave. Take a Facebook friend to lunch and remind yourself what Friendship-realness is.

Bad signs suck

The house across our street took down their Christmas lights and their life-size plastic manger scene that lit up from the inside. It was sad for the boys who enjoyed looking at the pretty display. Levi was especially mesmerized by the lights but did “not like the people.” Fair enough.

For a month, we’ve looked at their house and adjusted to its regularity. I wondered if I secretly missed the twinkling and glowing and wished that they would decorate their house once more. I wondered if I had made that wish while opening up a Chinese fortune cookie and forgetting to keep my words to myself. I wondered if I was responsible for the “careful what you wish for-Freaky Friday” lesson that was about to learn.

I first saw their lawn sign in the evening lit up by a spotlight in the front yard. A photo of a baby sat next to the copy, “Face it...Abortion KILLS a person!!” And we, the neighbors directly across the street, would have to look at every day – and every spot lit night.

I'm proud of the diversity on our block and how neighborly we all seem to be in spite of ethnic, economic, political and religious differences. I appreciate all the signs that come out during election time that show our support for various candidates and even our positions on certain political issues. I welcome the opportunity to discuss various political issues with the boys prompted by the signs that support ending wars or fight fracking the Delaware or even electing people to office who would not represent our best interests. It’s all fodder for conversation and a great example of how our country stands behind free speech.

But when my 8 year-old asks me what abortion is and why that sign says we shouldn’t kill babies, I am upset. It’s not like I plant signs that read “Two women who perform cunnilingus should have the right to get married!” or “Swearing is fucking good for the soul!” I think we can agree that those signs would not be considered family-friendly. And for a household that most-likely believes itself to represent God-loving family values, I would expect them to put a bit more thought into the kinds of signs they’re putting up on a road filled with small children.

Now, full disclosure, my 8 year-old hasn’t asked yet, but I’m bracing myself for the day that he finally does notice that sign. It has only been a couple of days.

I’d like another fortune cookie so that I could make another wish. I wish people could foster education and use positive messaging when they advertise their issues. Another pro-life neighbor down the road has a bumper sticker on her car that reads, “Feeling depressed after an abortion? Call XXX-XXXX” The numbers probably spell out “You Kill" or "U Murder” or something like that, and it’s likely that any poor soul who calls that number will end up in some sort of windowless room where they’re brainwashed to believe they’ve committed the ultimate sin and then thrown into an active volcano, but the message pretends to be helpful.

Furthermore, her bumper sticker sits on her car where she can offer some sort of guidance wherever she drives. Our neighbors across the street planted their sign on our dead-end road. I hope that the sign was a gift for them because any money they would have spent on that sign would be better spent on a campaign that extended beyond the reach of our block.

I am inspired to respond. I could speak with the couple who lives there, but I hate conflict, and I doubt anyone who sees it fit to put a sign like that up in the first place would be able to see my point of view. I could start a petition to have the sign removed, which may do the trick on our block filled with parents of small children, but it would succeed in further dividing us. I could plant my own signs supporting the right to choose or a sign that reads “Second hand smoke kills babies” so that the lady of the house can read it when she’s able to wheel her oxygen tank outside.

I could make a sizeable donation to Planned Parenthood in their name, but they might consider that aggressive. Planned Parenthood could use the cash since the Susan G Komen charity is cutting ties and hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants (tsk tsk). None of these paths is neighborly. Then again, their sign is not very neighborly either. As a matter of fact, their sign sucks!

I will make a donation to Planned Parenthood, which I wasn’t planning to do (at least for a few months, anyway). I’d love to tell my neighbors that because of them, Planned Parenthood will receive more funding. But I won’t. I will prepare myself for the conversation that I will have with Asher. And maybe I’ll finally hang that rainbow flag outside my door. Wouldn’t want all the visitors we get on our dead-end road to get the wrong idea about the street where we live.

What would you do?