What would you do?

Something that fascinates me about the interweb is how many opinions I encounter. Although I am fairly diverse in my acquaintences, blogging and participation on a discussion board brings me into (online) contact with people from all over the world.

This hit home to me as I was participating in a rather spirited online debate over a Dear Abby letter. The debate was over certain aspects of parenting, to nutshell it for you, the question was whether or not one parent should have "veto" power over the other if the other parent was doing something the first parent felt was dangerous or inappropriate.

Several respondents, about half, said, "No." Several actually said it wasn't "the other parent's business" what was done with the child by the other parent.

This terrified me. One of the things I count on as a parent is veto power, both mine and Sven's. Because neither of us ever is completely right, but what doesn't make my alarms go off usually gets Sven, and vice versa. So, while I might think, "Sure, let the kids watch that," Sven is the one saying, "Wait, should they watch that?" And when Sven wants to take them somewhere, I'm the one that says, "Hold on, do you think they can handle that?" We always defer to each other, giving the one with the objection the veto, because it shouldn't always be about compromise. It should be about what's best for the family, the kids, and the marriage.

So, what would you do? Here's the situation (not exactly, but parallel):

A mother is in the habit of waking up her son by tickling him. Every morning, she goes into his room and tickles him awake. Dad is concerned about this, since the son is 12 and entering puberty, so he tells Mom that she might want to find another way to wake the kid up, something that respects his privacy more.

Mom thinks Dad is being silly, insists that the boy loves it, why should she change it? Dad insists it's inappropriate and makes him uncomfortable, and he wants Mom to stop. Advice?

What would you do?

Acceptable Risk

I was watching something the other night, I don't even remember what, and I heard this old line:

"I don't want to take the chance that this will ruin our friendship."

Whatever I was watching was one of those will-they-or-won't they, best-friends-until-they-realize-it's-something-more things. I began thinking about how often I've heard that line on various sitcoms, and it occurred to me that this hackneyed old phrase says a lot about our society:

In our society, emotional risk is to be feared. Nothing else.

Things have changed since the olden days of media, in which married couples could not be thought to share a bed, or the man had to keep his foot on the floor if they happened to be (gasp!) on the same bed at the same time. I don't know when it happened, I was too young to remember, but once the taboo was stripped away from sexuality on TV, portraying willful, rampant promiscuity has become "normal." Even in "prime time," beloved characters whimsically navigate a life of empty, meaningless sex:

Sam on Cheers.

Blanche on The Golden Girls.

Joey on Friends. Well, to be fair, everyone on friends, but Joey the most.

The cast of Seinfeld.

Sex and the City.

What all of these shows have in common is the shift to portraying emotional involvement as the big taboo. People jump into bed on the first date with no qualms, but spend hours at coffee houses and bars endlessly analyzing whether or not they should go to dinner with their current flame's parents, worried that will send "the wrong message."

Another thing these shows have in common is the essential emptiness and unhappiness in these people's lives. They are not happy, regardless of what superficial hilarity they display. The sinister part is, you have to look pretty closely to see that unhappiness, it is not something the writers want to portray, but it comes through if you're looking for it.

I don't think the only way to be happy is to get married and have babies and live in the suburbs. Not at all. But I do think that a quick route to unhappiness is to cheapen yourself and your sexuality until sex becomes your version of "How do you do."

I wonder how a sitcom about an adult, responsible, employed, intelligent, beautiful woman who is not promiscuous would go over? Or an adult, responsible, employed, intelligent, handsome, celibate man, who simply hasn't found the right woman yet?

You're right, it's too "out there." But I like taking risks.

NaNoWriMo 2009

I must announce a possible shortage of "Folksy Musin's" in the weeks to come, for I am embarking upon a quest.

A quest that will take 30 days, from November 1 to November 30.

It is the quest of the NaNoWriMo. No, not a Japanese restaurant. It is National Novel Writer's Month, and I, my friends, am a novelist.

At least, I finished a novel.

The goal for NaNoWriMo is 50,000 words in 30 days. I have written over 5,000 so far.

But I don't like it. I don't like what I've written, and I'm not sure where I'm going. So, I have a choice, this early in the month: keep going, or start over.

I don't know what to do. I can keep plugging away at my clunker, and hope that something happens, or I can start over and hope that something happens, saving my clunker for future consideration.

My current story (AKA "clunker") is the story of a young woman who survives the 1900 Galveston Hurricane...as a vampire. She returns to the island a few years later and becomes involved in the Prohibition-era organized crime that took over the island until the 1950's. I don't know what happens after that.

If I let this one go, or put it on hold, I don't know what I'll do. I have an idea for a totally non-supernatural, regular story about a woman who runs into her high-school crush when they are in their 30's (she has grown and moved on, he hasn't, but she's the one who is miserable); I was also toying with a fictional account of Melusine von Schulenberg, mistress of George I (that one even has a title, it would be called "Maypole").

So, let me hear from you, my friends. What should I do?

(Today's post was going to be, "Has anyone seen my camera," but my mom has it. Thanks, Mom!)

Serious Hair

I was at a meeting once, years ago, with other choir directors. A band director meeting was scheduled to begin right after ours, and the band directors began coming into the room as we were chatting after our meeting. Upon sighting Sven, one of my colleagues leaned toward me and murmured, "Now that is serious hair."

Sven's hair is a huge part of our lives. Thick and lustrous, slightly wavy, and greying in that gentle, Orry-and-George way, Sven's hair is his crowning glory.

(Orry and George are the main characters in North and South, the landmark 1980's miniseries starring Patrick Swayze and James Read. Their characters age 20+ years over the course of the story, said aging indicated by grey, then white streaks at the temples only. And George grows a beard.)

When we first began dating, Sven meticulously styled his hair into a majestic style I dubbed "The Swoop." Observe:

Yes, that is us, in 1994. We had just started dating. Note that his hair is far more serious than mine.

Sven continued the swoop until he learned that most people cannot cut his hair. He has strange loops and whorls and cowlicks that cause his hair to poke up if certain strands are cut too short, so his current method of hairstyling is as follows:

1. Cut his hair far too short.

2. Complain about how short his hair is and how bad it looks.

3. Grow his hair out.

4. Complain about how long his hair is.

5. Continue to allow his hair to grow, while complaining about how long his hair is.

6. Grow a beard.

7. Complain about the beard for a while.

8. Shave the beard.

9. Go back to step 1.

It's a six-month to one-year process. Yes, it takes a lot of work, but Sven's hair's well-being is worth it.

Fall Cuteness

I'm just sayin'.

Daily Battle

Every morning in the Folksy house, there is a battle.

It is the battle for Mommy.

Sven is not a morning person. He cannot be pried out of bed, generally speaking, for at least 30 minutes after he awakens on a workday. On the weekends, that figure jumps to around 2 hours. Early on, I adopted the practice of reading, watching TV, or working on my computer while Sven lazes around.

Then came the children. Gone are my quiet mornings. Now my computer is taken over by children watching Spongebob and my body is taken over by grasping hands and damp bottoms. As someone who relishes personal space, this can be hard for me.

My first solution: get up earlier. I now get up at 5:05 every morning, just so I can have some "me time."

Result: fail. Dexy now gets up at 5:07, walks into my room, points at his diaper, points at the open door, and stumbles back down the hall to await my service. When I get to his room, he imperiously commands, "Light, Mommy!" and generally takes charge of the entire operation. "Powder! Shorts! Socks! No shirt! No! Okay." He chooses the music that we listen to while we change his diaper (he prefers up-tempo alternative for the merely damp, while the choice of a contemplative ballad betokens a situation decidedly more serious), then chooses what he will watch on the computer.

Then Princess gets up. The war has begun.

"I want to sit with Mommy! Move, Dex!"

"Want Mommy! No, Princess! Owie!"

"Mommy, Dexy said I hit him but I didn't!" (Hits Dexy.)

It is finally enough to awaken the daddy. At last, I think, I will have some help.

"No, you two," Sven rumbles, moving them aside. "Mommy is mine." For the next 30 minutes, Sven holds on to me while the children, giggling madly, worm their way in between us. I finally can take no more and hie to the bathroom for 10 minutes of peace.

But, even while it is driving me crazy, I love it. I love every slightly sticky second of it. Because I am Mommy. I know it won't last forever, but for now, I love being everybody's favorite toy.

Deb's Domestic Do's

Disclaimer: I have not received any monetary compensation from any company mentioned in this post. Should they offer, you will all be the first to know.

Welcome everyone, to today's installment of Deb's Domestic Do's, in which Deb gives you helpful household hints using absolute avalanches of alliteration.

While other household hint-types may tell you completely useless things like how to explode ants and remove candlewax from your carpet (someone had a fun weekend, am I right?), my household hints are completely useful and relevant to the modern household.

Today's hint: So You've Accidentally Washed Your iPod Nano...Now What?

A few weeks ago, I couldn't find my iPod. This was a crisis of semi-nuclear proportions; if Princess and Dexy don't get to listen to "Witch Doctor" (from Alvin & the Chipmunks), "Dance Magic Dance" (from Labyrinth), "Johanna" (from Sweeney Todd), and "Dancing With Myself" (from the '80's), we cannot get anywhere, so it was absolutely imperative that I find my precious iPod.

It wasn't in my purse.

It wasn't in my shoes (Dexy's favorite hiding place).

It wasn't having breakfast in the dollhouse (Princess' favorite hiding place).

That left one option: the washer.

When at work, I usually keep my keys in my right pocket and my phone (set to silent) in my left. When using my iPod, I put it in the pocket with the phone. For some reason, on that particular day, my phone made it back to my purse, but my iPod did not.

So there I was, soggy iPod in hand, on the phone to Sven, who had this helpful hint:

"Put it in the dryer."

Thanks, Sven.

So I took it to work, where I thought about how I could dry out an admittedly fresh-smelling iPod. I was leafing through my desk drawer in a desultory way, happy I had finally used "desultory" in my inner monologue, when I saw it:

My Excedrin graveyard.

I have migraines fairly often, and have found nothing works as effectively at derailing the migraine process than two Excedrin. Due to this, I always have a bottle of Excedrin in my desk drawer, and being the semi-slob that I am, older bottles get pushed to the back of the drawer rather than thrown away.

Each of these bottles was empty, except for that little cylinder that keeps the pills dry: the desiccant capsule.

I took about four of those bad boys and put them in a snack-size ziploc bag with my iPod, rolled it up, and left it in my drawer for a couple of days.

Today, my iPod is as good as new.

So, my helpful household hint: when you get those little desiccant packets or capsules, save them. Maybe take a big prescription pill bottle, or just a ziploc bag, and fill it up. (Keep it out of reach of children! The last thing you need is dried children!) Anytime you have an electronic device such as a cell phone, iPod, remote control, etc. get washed or dunked, give the Deb method a try.

Of course, you won't have the justification to ask for a new one this Christmas. I never said it was a perfect system.

Changing of the Guard

In which Deb realizes she is Old.

We recently had quite a shakeup in our ward.

(For non-LDS readers: Our local congregations are called "wards," which are assigned geographically. Wards are grouped into stakes, which are grouped into areas or something, and then it gets fuzzy to me. Each stake is led by a Stake Presidency (president + 2 counselors); each ward has a Bishopric (Bishop + 2 counselors).)

Our ward has had a wonderful Bishop for the past 6-7 years: Bishop Likemydad. I've known Bishop Likemydad since I was a baby. One of his daughters and I were the same age, so we were in Primary and Young Women's together. Bishop Likemydad's wife, Sister Likemymom, knows how to do really cool things like quilting and making her own soap. Bishop Likemydad had something in common with all of the Bishops I've had throughout my life:

• He is very comforting and calm
• He is caring and someone I could always trust
• He is old enough to be my father

Bishop Likemydad was released from his position with a sincere vote of thanks, and we got a new one.

Remember Brother Coolguy? Yep. Enter Bishop Coolguy.

Who is seriously lacking in one particular quality I have always associated with Bishops: age. He is my age. To be precise, he is a mere 3 months (to the day!) older than me.

What does this mean?

It means that, at 34, I am now old enough to have a Bishop my own age. I shall soon be knitting shawls and grousing about the incomprehensibility of popular music.

Ah the days of my youth. I'll miss them.

I'm toying with the notion of assigning him a cute derivative, like "Bish" or "Shoppie." As in, "Yo, Shoppie, whaddup with dat tithing settlement, yo?" Lest my mother hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness, I have abandoned that idea. I look forward to working with our new Bishop and will support him with a straight face and enthusiastic heart.

Congratulations, Bishop Coolguy. I mean it.