More Dilletantin'

Coco, who is now 8 months old, seems determined not to become housebroken. She'll pee outside or on our walk, and 30 minutes later will pee again on the kitchen floor (or wherever she is at the moment). She doesn't seem adverse to peeing in her bed either, like most dogs are, so crating her doesn't always guarantee that she'll hold it until she gets outside. Byron, who is a rather headstrong dog in many ways was a piece of cake to house train compared to our Miss Coco Thing.

Got a haircut today, and for the first time since I've been going to this stylist, I'm not sure that I like the cut. I liked it better after I washed out the various "product" and all of the styling he'd done on it, but the jury's still out.

Maya's Granny posted this today about recommendations coming from the International Conference on Obesity in Sydney (which sounds scientific but is really just a gathering of folks who stand to make a buck off peoples' misery about their weight like pharmaceutical and weight loss companies) that children as young as 5 be put on diets. This is pure and utter bullshit. Sure, if you want to create a child who will end up being obsessed with food and weight, and probably fatter than if she never started dieting, it's a recipe for success. Otherwise, probably about the worst approach you can take. I say this as a kid who was nagged endlessly about my weight by my parents from about age 6 on, and who often was denied certain "fattening" foods that others in my family enjoyed. It did not make me thin, (or even thinner) and it set me up for 20+ years of eating disorders and ultimately a higher weight. I felt that being fat was somehow my fault, because I ate the same food as the rest of my family (sometimes less) yet still I was the "fat one." The only explanation in my child-mind was that I was somehow defective at the core of my being that I couldn't just somehow will myself thin. That inherent sense of being different and somehow defective has never really left me. Even though thoughts of food and eating occupy very little of my consciousness these days and I rarely overeat or feel guilty about anything I eat, not a day goes by that I don't have at least fleeting fantasies about being thinner than I am.

I was saddened to hear that former Texas Governor, Ann Richards passed away last week. Molly Ivins does her memory some justice.

She was so generous with her responses to other people. If you told Ann Richards something really funny, she wouldn't just smile or laugh, she would stop and break up completely. She taught us all so much -- she was a great campfire cook. Her wit was a constant delight. One night on the river on a canoe trip, while we all listened to the next rapid, which sounded like certain death, Ann drawled, "It sounds like every whore in El Paso just flushed her john."

Governor Richards was a class act and an inspiration. She was inclusive and effective and lost to George W. Bush anyway, which goes to show that there ain't no justice in politics. One of my favorite quotes attributed to her is, "The roosters may crow, but the hens deliver the goods."