Stop Crying in Your Philz, San Francisco

Junior Niners fans eat honors students for merienda

I can't remember the last time I saw San Franciscans this disconsolate. Must have been when that cokehead guy realized he was too old to go to frat parties. Or maybe when we found out we were all going to die crazy.

It was a season to be proud of, for sure. But apparently some weren't ready to let the dreams of glory die a natural death. Some San Franciscans are rightly wondering, what now?

I'll tell you.

Everyone knows idle hands are the devil's tools. So get up off your sad-ass, you know, ass, and find a constructive way to channel your angst. Stay active. Think positive. Here are some ideas:

1. Pray for Kyle Williams. Dude could use a pep talk. Or maybe a security detail.

2. Be glad you aren't a Carolina Panthers fan. (What the fuck is Carolina, anyway? Do they suck so bad they have to share?)

3. Think about baseball. With global warming and all, it feels like it's just around the corner.

4.  Go skiing. So what if a weekend in Tahoe will set you back $2000, require 16 hours of driving and net you three runs before you retire to the lodge with a $12 toddy and a strained groin? Afterwards, you can brag to all your East Coast friends that you could go surfing and skiing in the same day, you simply choose not to.

Hi. I'm an investment banker.

5. Get an emo haircut. Seriously. Where else can grown-ups get away with this shit?

6. Have another baby. Yep. Just pop that Clomid and break out the turkey baster. Think of it as your contribution to the next generation of Niners fans.

7. Join AA. Close your eyes when they start with the sobriety stuff and substitute "Niners fandom" for drinking. You doubt? Take this test and see how sick you really are.

8. Blog about knitting. Or hating knitting.

9. Open a restaurant. (Hell, it's easier than being a Carolina Panthers fan.)

10. Pass out plastic bags to dog owners (my version of community service).

Hopefully, these suggestions will help you during this dark time. Also, there is Bar Agricole.

Zumba made my calves explode

Calf muscle explode? No problem: Put it in your bra!

There's really not much more to say about it. One minute I was innocently samba-ing my way to BMI goodness; the next I was trying not to puke as a knot of anguish writhed under my flesh like a rat in a tube sock.

Yes, my calf muscle exploded. Blew out. Snapped like a rubberband. Flipped me the ligamental bird, as it were.

Is there a Mr. Zumba lying on a chaise somewhere ordering $18 mai tais that I can sue?

But first, some background. There's this whole culture around gym classes. There are rules, unspoken rites, codes of honor.

Well...was.

Like the Freemasons and Scientologists before them, the Church of Gym Rats is going down - I'm busting it open right here, people, to tell you what's what. Here you go:

• Even if you can't reserve a spot, certain people think they have reserved your spot.
• The aforementioned people are likely to have on one of the following: fake bake, g-string, unitard.
• The front row is ruled by jobless yoginis, anas and old Chinese ladies.
• People with flat stomachs never wear shirts. If they wear a shirt, we all die.
• Moms are stronger than childfree people. Some moms -- I call them Hans 'n Moms -- treat every gym class like childbirth, pushing out another plank or deadlift until someone has to gently but forcibly take them to OB triage.
• Men with skinny calves cannot stop looking at their skinny calves.

Anyway, there are other rules, but that's a start.

Why, you ask, is this germane to the excruciating agony I suffered at the hand of a perky young instructor and a Colombian ball of queso named Beto?

It's about dignity, man. Dignity. It's also about the evil that lurks among us, disguised as a dance class.

Yeah, you dated me in high school, bitches.

I don't Zumba very often. I mean, I used to, but like free time and waistlines, it sort of disappeared from the landscape in my early 40s. Which isn't to say I sit on my ass. I'm fighting the good fight, man. I run. I lift. I chase my kids around like all the supermodels say they do. Sometimes I just like to mix it up a little. Get crazy. Shake my booty. Kick someone in a unitard. Or I did today.

Bad portents were everyfuckinwhere. Should have heeded them.

First, there was the crowd. Might have been tween girls waiting for Bieber or soccer moms hoping for a glimpse of Robert Pattinson, so hormonal-nutty-crazy was the energy outside the door. By the time I jostled my way to the front line -- yes, my balls are that big -- I had sustained three abrasions, a broken tooth and a subdural hematoma. Ferrealz.

I was just about to begin the expansive deep breathing required to enlarge oneself enough to deflect interlopers from one's workout space when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Uh, oh -- ancient Chinese lady at 2 o'clock.

"You can be here. This her spot!" Old Chinese Lady pointed at Old Chinese Lady #2, whose yoga mat was apparently standing in for her as understudy in Double Happy Best Spot.

"It's a free country," Impertinent 43YO JAP Trained by Pushy Old Jewish Grandma said. "It's not like there's anywhere else to stand!" I tried to hide my flush of guilt at fighting with old ladies by doing a quick, rude crotch stretch in her face. "You don't own it!" I blustered, hoping they wouldn't smell my weakness and fall on me like sharks on chum.

Thankfully, Half Naked Incredibly Hot Blissfully Fatfree Instructor Person turned the music on, and my demise was averted by an onslaught of Bhangra music. Gratitude pulsed through my logy veins, inspiring me to execute an odd, Hindi-ish pirouette, complete with air and fluttering hand gestures.

Dude, you may be 43 and size 10 -- I mean 8, EIGHT -- on a good day, but you fuckin' OWN THIS PLACE.

(Yeah, I actually thought that.)

One wild spurt of overconfidence led to another, and before I knew it I was leaping around to someone called Nayer feat Pitbull, Mueva-ing La Booty and acting like I was auditioning for So You Think You Can Adzohu, White Girl.

Bad portent indeed.

And then it happened.

I swear, I heard it before I felt it. Like jetplanes breaking the sound barrier, the sound of my poor, overtaxed calf muscle snapping left pain behind for a second. Flying above the music, it alerted me to the menace a second too late for succor. I froze, mid-gancho, fell to earth with fallen-angel grace and curled into a ball to await death.

Old Chinese Lady #1 stepped on me.

Grimacing, I thought, DIGNITY. Summoning every ounce of willpower from the only part of my body that didn't hurt -- my pancreas -- I hopped gamely from the room, pausing to check my phone for messages. (Nice detail. I find that pretending one is a doctor on call works well in these situations.)

Somehow, I managed to get to my car and drive home before I surveyed the damage. A bloody-looking hematoma from within marred my left calf. Propping myself on a bed of ice, I proceeded to pound ibuprofin and surf the Web, trying to find class-action lawsuits against evil Zumba practitioners.

Alas, the world is still in denial. Still, I hope. Like smoking and jeggings, Zumba will surely soon be discredited. Surely, surely, the world will see the Z for what it is: a way for people with awesome abs to show off.

Bite me, SFUSD

Being an educated, middle-class, white, English-speaking public school parent in San Francisco is like being rolfed daily by a really smug Guatemalan evangelical preacher with iffy breath who secretly drives a BMW.

Recently, after years of "research" and "parent input," SFUSD introduced a middle school feeder plan whereby elementary schools automatically feed into a designated MS. As with all plans introduced in this town, an uproar ensued, falling out largely upon ethnic and geographic lines. Hair was pulled, accusations leveled, parochial options threatened...(whoever thinks SF's ethnically diverse culinary excellence comes without a price has their head in a bowl of pho). I took a wait-and-see approach with regard to that plan. Then, this week, someone told me that the district's response to parent anger over the gross inequity in MS program offerings -- some schools offer honors classes and advanced "tracks" for qualified students while some categorically reject "tracking" as a racisttoolofsocialinjustice -- was a proposal to eliminate ALL honors classes from ALL middle schools. You know, even things up a bit. Stop the whining. Create equity. Sure, it's a lower equity, but it's equity, dammit -- and you know how we over at 555 Franklin love us some EQUITY.

Gee, SFUSD, and you wonder why some parents spit in the road when your acronym is invoked?

But before I begin my rant at the asstarts whose aim is to dumb down the curriculum and offerings to make everyone look better, can I just say where in Christ's stick have you been while the conversation about America's descent into ignorance has been going on?

So...my experience as an SFUSD parent has taught me several things. Here are some of them:

• There are lots of great teachers in SFUSD. There are even some brilliant ones. Certainly many hardworking ones. There are also a few lazy martyrs with poorly developed senses of humor. In other words, it's like every other bloated bureaucracy.
• Principals, administrators and superintendents are sometimes sucky because they have been promoted away from contact with actual human beings, often deliberately.
• Most kids with normative behavior, intelligence and socialization will thrive in most SFUSD elementary settings.
• All SFUSD cares about is closing the achievement gap. Repeat: The only thing SFUSD cares about is closing the achievement gap. If a giant tsunami engulfed SF tomorrow, the district heads would be riding the whitecaps in a panic, blathering about the achievement gap while saltwater filled the lungs of millions.
• SFUSD views caring about the achievement gap as a zero-sum occupation (i.e., if you care about the achievement gap, you can't care about anything else; it's mutually exclusive). SFUSD also believes the reverse is true: if you care about anything else, you can't possibly care about the achievement gap. Ergo, you are a rich racist pig.
• Wanting art, music and physical movement to be part of kids' days is a WPP*. In fact, anything that concerns anything other than closing the achievement gap is a WPP.
• If you desire academic rigor as an option for your child or any child, you are an elitist. If you are an elitist, you don't care about the achievement gap. Therefore you are a rich racist pig.
• If you are white, English-speaking, educated, middle-class or employed, you are a rich racist pig who only cares about your own precious snowflake. Also, the fact that you live in a shitty rental apartment, work at a public-interest nonprofit and drive a 14-year-old dented Corolla is irrelevant; you are still a rich racist pig.
• If your kid is white, English-speaking, or parented by educated, middle-class or employed people, she will be "just fine." She will be "just fine" even if she, say, gets her limbs torn off by pit bulls or scorches her retinas during an eclipse, forcing her to consume her educational opportunities blind and writhing in agony.
• A while ago, Chinese people sued SFUSD for essentially putting quotas on their kids (vis-a-vis the top schools and being locked out of various schools) and won. So now race isn't used as an enrollment factor, but it remains an obsession at SFUSD, where policy makers seem to believe that some magical demographic "diversity" balance will make illiterate, impoverished, unstable people give two shits about their offspring's education.

*White People's Problem

The elimination of honors proposal should be assessed in this context. The context is that nothing our well-intentioned but grossly underfunded district has tried has closed the achievement gap between AA/L students and A/W students. So why not try something new? Why not try getting rid of that nasty honors stuff -- it makes some kids feel bad about themselves, you know? Kids who already have so many problems. Plus, it's racist. And a violation of social justice. And inequitable. Did we mention equity? And racism? Besides, everyone knows GATE-identified and honors-capable kids will be just fine.

This makes me really mad. Categorically lowering the bar across the board makes me really mad. Calling smart kids and parents elitists because they are smart and work hard makes me madder. Also: Acting like every student accomplishment can be attributed to socioeconomic entitlement and every lack of accomplishment to socioeconomic disadvantage makes me really fucking torqued. Pretending teachers can effectively differentiate instruction in classrooms where some seventh graders can't even read makes me really fucking mad. My Grandma Syl would roll over in her grave, yell meshugenah! and kick somebody's ass if she heard this nonsense (even with a fifth-grade education she knew a cop-out when she saw it).

I'm not saying the problems my immigrant forebears faced were the same as the ones facing disenfranchised kids now. Surely some of them were. Others? Maybe not. But comparing them is a silly game with no winner (plus, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool SF lefty, and according to the San Francisco Values Bylaws, we're not allowed to play that game anyway). No. I'm saying it is disingenuous as shit to pretend that culture, habits, behavior, individual agency and parental accountability have no place in this discussion. Because here's the thing: Regardless of the evil forces at work in kids' worlds today, without a belief in individual agency, kids will not be able to summon the will to succeed--or even try to succeed.

And we will never, and I mean NEVER, gnaw away at the achievement gap without acknowledging the roles these forces play in student performance.

Instead, we will tread water, spouting off identity politics drivel while generations of students fail to learn enough to be fully functional beings in democratic society. And so I say, carry on, social justice zealot morons, carry on! Go ahead, lower the bar...and wait for me. Because I am coming down to 555 to bury myself like a tick in your haunches (along with about 10,000 Chinese mamas and papas). Just in case it grants me more credibility vis-a-vis the wholesomeness and universality of my intentions, know that my third-grader hasn't even been GATE-identified yet. Although she is smart as can be, she may never be. In fact, she did not even score "advanced" on the language arts portion of the STAR test last year. So fuck you and your hidden BMW, SFUSD!

Yesterday while I was running, I did some more woolgathering on these and other issues facing public education. If these thoughts appear less than substantive, keep in mind that it was a really short run.


On the role of social justice in education policy: So, let me get this straight. You're public schools in California, with no money because the regressive property tax structure enacted by greedy conservatives, corporate interests and their fearful retired cronies has bankrupted us, and you're trying to take on multigenerational poverty, immigration reform and institutionalized racism in addition to teaching the three Rs? Godspeed, bitches.


On homework: Uh...shut up and fuckin' do it?

On testing: Less would be good. More relevant would be good. More actionable would be good. None would be idiotic.

On the achievement gap: Lots of our Cantonese students are poor, yet they do great.** Whatever they're doing, do that.

**The suicide rate among kids raised by Tiger Moms is outside the scope of this rant.

On discipline: Love discipline. Discipline is the shit. What could we possibly get done without discipline? Realizing a calling without discipline? Pshaw! What? Discipline's a dirty word? We're not allowed to say "discipline"? Surely you...your play-based, attachment parenting-infused preschool didn't approve of teaching discipline? Oh, I see...but how do kids learn to finish anything...oh, you have to go nurse your eleven-year-old? Oh, okay...well, catch ya at the Waldorf parade.

On the elimination of honors: If your goal is to drive every smart kid in San Francisco into private schools by sixth grade, congrats, you have achieved your objective.
 
Rant done.

p.s. I realize this rant will be taken by some as a rationale for evading public education. In fact, the opposite is true; we-the-people have never needed your participation more. Like Warren Buffett, I continue to believe that public education is it--the one true path, the foundation of democratic society, our sole hope for a future, the place the money should flow. So call me what you will, but please send your kid to public school like a good little American. The end.

Feliz Retrograde Christmaka 2011: The Annual Wassergreen Family Holiday Newsletter

Yes, Gabe and I had another baby. Isn't it amazing?! Feliz Retrograde Christmaka. That's what we named him. It's an expression of our passion for social justice and our Christ-centered Jewish-Latin-astrological heritage.

Psych! Gawd. Morons. How could we have a goddamn baby? Gabe had a vasectomy and I'm almost 43 and have only one fallopian tube left. And even if we did, everyone knows we would name him Jezebel Lionheart Kombucha Aquaverde. Obviously.

So...I'll just say it: Christ-worshippers, you win. I don't know who your marketing guy is, but he's fucking awesome. We Jews can argue the eight-nights thing till we're blue in the face -- blue and white, as the case may be -- and no kid with an average allotment of intelligence and avarice will buy it. Gutter swill, mine said as they ravaged all 31 days of their advent calendar in one chocolate-smeared afternoon, those churchy types have it goin' on. See how their shit is everywhere? Christmas gets a full 12 aisles at Target, for example, while Hanukkah is squeezed into a corner near the lawnmowers. Kwanzaa has apparently fucked off back to the remaining dashiki-diapered Black Panthers' bedpan-sides from whence it came. Ain't no Kwanzaa happening at Target anymore, folks. Nope.

Luckily, I'm one of those Chosen People who loves Christmas. Love. It. Love the fir trees, mulled wine, drunk Santas, lecherous Santas, pedophiliac Santas, glistening hams, in-your-fat-face sales, elves, aggressive craft-making, SPCA puppies, tree lightings, creepy German carols, creepy reindeer sweaters, creepy nativity lawn displays and KOIT's creepy 31-day Christmas songfest. I love it all. In fact, I love everything but Christ himself (who, in the velvet paintings, at least, resembles every nebbishy cross-dressing cinematic murderer ever to steal one's hide and turn it into a housedress).

It is that love that propels me through this year's Wassergreen Family Holiday Newsletter. Knowing that our kids are cuter, smarter, better behaved, better eaters and more mature illustrators than yours comes from a deeply loving Christianish place for me. Truly, it does. So it is in that (Christ-infused) spirit that I pen my yearly missive, wondering if your family has also spent more than those idiots at Visa say is allowed.

Got blood?

L. is eight. She still has to be surgically separated from her dirty underwear on occasion, but the Christ-dampened child psychologist-slash-wipe-whisperer we consult cites several studies that show poor personal hygiene is linked to genius. That genius is readily apparent in many facets of her self-expression. Her gardening, for instance, has really taken off, and if the 325 planter's pots littering our deck are any indication, she has a fine future as a marijuana grower ahead of her (should she ever stop messing around with profit buzzkills like rosemary and heirloom carrots). Best of all, she no longer scratches Kim's face when Kim suggests she utilize her fluent Spanish to commune with our brown-skinned brothers and sisters. If anyone out there has stock in the Inspector Gadget franchise, you are in luck: our offspring watched a combined 12,256 hours of it in 2011! Ever since that article came out validating links between IG viewing and reduced likelihood of developing tedious, restaurant unfriendly food intolerances, we have allowed them full rein. Finally, L's taiko practice has also deepened perceptibly, as she has finally topped the lid of the drum and no longer finds it necessary to beat the instructor's knees in frustration.

If you won't let me touch yours, I'll make my own, TYVM

Z-man is four and three-quarters as this hallowed season blankets us in tinselly goodness. He whetted his appetite for masculine self-expression this year by exploring BMX, skateboarding, karate, hitting his sister hard and often, and masturbation. We think he's adorbs! His teachers constantly tell us how amenable, smart, talented and well-behaved he is, which means he is either amenable, smart, talented and well-behaved or the kind of sociopath who can pretty much write his ticket. Although Z's reading attempts flatlined a bit -- we attribute that to his mastery of other developmental milestones, like stealing chocolate, injuring himself doing stupid shit and sobbing brokenly for two hours when certain privileges are taken away -- his quirky genius manifests in all sorts of ways (few of them Christ-distilled, but we're working on that). His detailed automobile drawings, for example, are notable, as is his commitment to wearing sweats at all times. In fact, his zealous pursuit of that elusive, seamless, skin-friendly life experience we Wassergreens call Soft Pants has led him on all sorts of adventures! Kim shook her head in awe when she found him hanging from the stacked clothes dryer door, and admired his pioneering spirit yet again when she found him cutting all his jeans in half with a butcher knife. What a man!

Gabe: skinny and lovin' it

Those of you who track such things will be relieved to know that Gabe has finally recovered from the vasectomy (and, more importantly, stopped whining about that whole latex-suture-allergy-elephantiasis-of-the-testicles thing). Sadly, the decampment of Gabe's circus partner for Texas -- who goes to massage school in Texas? I mean, really? -- has left him scouting for fresh circus ass. The deep wellspring of Christ-erific trust between them allows Kim to give her sperminator free rein as he trolls the ranks for acrobatically inclined people to grab, and to grab him in return. In the meantime, Gabe has successfully channeled his midlife angst into surfing, talking about surfing, bragging about surfing, buying surboard car racks, shopping for surfboards and making friends with other people who surf and talk about surfing, some of whom look almost as good as Gabe in their sinfully tight wetsuits. Gabe claims to really like his (newish) job, which Kim interprets as evidence that many of his female coworkers are hot. Kim is confident that Gabe is far too focused on surfing and talking about surfing to actually do anything about his extramarital fantasies, though his devotion to the Wednesday morning in-office yoga class does give her pause.

If you squint, doesn't Kim look like Claire Forlani?

Kim has managed to achieve the impossible: another year of toil without a book deal! Thankfully, her commitment to Christ, running, growing out her hair, poodling, trips to Scottsdale with her girlfriends, cheese and the 2011 Beaujolais have pulled her through these tough times. After a fifth round of revisions on her book--whose title and subject she is trying to recover with the help of a Christ-dipped repressed-memory syndrome specialist--Kim initiated a new project with the full support of her literary agent's lackey, who is surprisingly smart, nice and enthusiastic for someone who has earned no bank from Kim's efforts and is not Christ-centered. Hopefully, the stars will align and that new project will pay off big-time, so that Kim can pay for the intense pulsed light treatments she so desperately needs. Kim spent much of 2011 working on cussword reduction (with a thumbs up from -- you guessed it! -- HisLordJesusKeeRist). On at least two occasions, she successfully morphed the word "jackass" into "jackal," to the relief of Her Lord and Personal Slaver. (Fuck! Meant "Savior." Pls. excuse.)

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out

One piece of news not exactly sanctioned by Christ but clearly the work of somebody's God is the recent exodus of our cat Flower. Yes, our yearlong campaign to encourage Flower's relocation finally paid off. After locking the incorrigible pisher outside for the 235th day, he finally got the hint and found another family to torture. He returns for occasional visits, often with a collar, primed to urinate on anything important he can reach with his tiny penis. His brother Louis does not miss him, and the copious vomiting incited by Flower's abuse has all but disappeared.


Well. It really was a great year, wasn't it? I love Christmas. I love Hanukkah. I love cheese. And Christ...Christ, do I love cheese. Happy holidays,


Love, 
The Wassergreens

An Open Letter to Gifters

No, not grifters. You'll get your own letter, and you'll get it when I frickin' feel like it.

Now that the holiday season is upon us, it behooves me to clarify the Wassergreens' wishes and priorities vis-a-vis the gift-giving process. Crass, you say? Well, you've obviously never been the recipient of an electronic "learning" tool for children that attaches to their poor parents' refrigerator, an execrable device that delivers its wisdom in not one, but two singsongy languages, and whose batteries must be filled with jogging mice on treadmills, for they never, ever die. If you had been, you wouldn't be questioning this parent's desire to inject some authority over the experience otherwise known as Generous Yet Misguided People Including Doting Grandparents Who Give Your Offspring Shit You Hate With a Passion Rivaled Only by Your Feelings for Postal Clerks.

It's not that I don't appreciate what the gifts represent--the generosity, the bank, the forethought, the number of times they had to click that button on Amazon to make the magic happen. I do. But I've hit the wall. I've hit the wall on tschotchkes and electronics. On proselytistic picture books and weird, pain-inflicting doodads. On Waldorf-approved wooden cat-ass-rapers and miniature lead-soaked fur kittens from Chinatown whose heads fall off before you've digested your pork bun. To the genius who got my then 3-year-old son a 500-piece BPA-ridden warship complete with ant-sized machine guns: I don't care if you're a nice lady and you birthed me. Fuck off and read a best-toys list that isn't written by a toy manufacturer or retailer. Thank you.


In the interest of sparing both givers and takers needless anguish this holiday season, I've put together a list of gifting do's and don'ts that I believe will simplify the process enormously (as well as saving our cats another trip to the vet to get their assholes sewed up). As follows:

• Don't get anything with batteries.
• Don't get anything known to contain substances that give boys tits.
• Be wary of toys described as "learning," "education" and "teaching" devices. They are often boring and expensive. Also, they are always discredited within three years of their release, at which point parents are informed that the very plaything that was supposed to make their kids smarter was actually slowly instilling in them an uncontrollable desire to set fire to squirrels.
• Don't get anything with more than 3 pieces.
• Don't get anything that can be wrapped in pieces of toilet paper, worshiped paganistically or hoarded in a child's bed.
• Don't get food.
• Don't get guns unless you also provide targets (then it's okay).
• Get two of everything (unless you want Christmaka morning to include getting hair plugs for the kid who lost a chunk to the jealous party). Come to think of it, get a gift certificate for hair plugs.
• Get gift certificates to places that sell things grown-ups like.
• Don't get books that aim to teach kids things about high-falutin' ethical questions, religion, spirituality or politics. Unless those issues are somehow elucidated using guns, fairies, cars, jets or Inspector Gadget.
• Don't get us European videos that require us to change our DVD computer zone. If you do, please provide a bag to gather Kim's brains, because her head's gonna explode.
• Don't buy classes or experiences located in Bay Area suburbs that require Gabe to navigate track housing, strip malls or cloverleaf onramps. Our offspring's father may sound American, but he drives like he just stepped out of a Truffaut film.

So, what do you get for the middle-class kid who has almost everything? Easy. New parents. 


Happy holidays.

Wassergreen Thanksgiving 2011: You're Invited

Dearest family, friends, neighbors and hoarders (and you know who you are),

Welcome to Wassergreen Thanksgiving 2011. We're glad you're joining us at this hallowed event. Things are getting exciting over here at the WG homestead and preparations are well underway: turkeys are ordered, menus are planned, seating is procured and extra toilet paper is stocked. We are ready for anything!

I'd like to introduce you to your fellow guests in advance. I think you will be excited by the wealth of experience, knowledge, humor, gluttony and nudist tendencies represented at our modest table.

Kim and Gabe: Your host/ess. Gabe will fret over the bird. Kim will abandon ship early and sneak into the bathroom with a romance novel and a bottle of Baileys.
Shelley and Steve Green: Kim's folks. Shellbells will likely bring her dish in a large hand-carved pumpkin urn. Do not be afraid. The urn cannot hurt you. Repeat: no one has yet drowned in the urn. The presence of Steve-o (AKA, the Grampoline) is strongly correlated with childhood nosebleeds, but since we have two medical professionals among the guests, I'm not worried.
BJ Green and Jill Culbert: Kim's brother and the patient attorney (not to be confused with patent attorney) who puts up with his shit. BJ just had knee surgery for some sort of freakish injury that is supposed to afflict teenagers, so he is likely to be even more useless than usual. Jill makes amazing appetizers but you won't get any because the bitch is flying in on Thanksgiving Day.
Angie Gibrat: Gabe's mom. Angie is the most amazing person. Her claim to fame? Woman can eat her weight. Just watch. It's downright freakish. Also, she is rumored to shop for undergarments in the children's department, but--truth!--people like her anyway.
David and Lea Schermerhorn: Hippie friends of Gabe's folks from the 60s. Oh! Did I say that out loud?!? David and Lea bring many wonderful qualities to our Thinksgiving table, including the ability to make the best goddamn martinis ever, a network of top-secret A-list contacts all over town and the balls to come to our wedding on a Harley in leather chaps.
Richard Green, AKA Uncle Dick, AKA Daniel, AKA the CPA You Need if You Don't Like the US Govt Taking Your Money: Kim's uncle, just in from somewhere exotic down south and Cuba by way of the Yucatan (or was it Guatemala? Should be a good story.) Friendly word of warning about my unk: he is prone to returning to a room lacking clothing entirely. Could be a simple quirk, a cry for help or just an Ashkenazi genetic mutation. Science is mystified; those of us who knew my Grandma Syl aren't.
Ellen Opie and Nicole Lederman: These ladies, school parent-friends, are too smart for their own good. Thankfully, they also drink and eat a lot and talk out of school. If you stroke out during the meal, I'm pretty sure they can save you (Ellen can also diagnose venereal diseases with the best of 'em, but we'll wait till after dessert for that).
Lena and Bea Opie-Lederman: What to say about Lucca's identical twin besties? Goddamn prodigies, that's what. It's probably good that they were not born into a Texas cheerleading family or they would have incited violence.
Lucca and Zev Wasserman: If kids came with package warnings, theirs would read: (Lucca) In case of accidental chocolate overdose, do not give chocolate. (Zev) Withholding of soft pants may cause psychosis.
 

And to those who have foolishly elected to spend Thanksgiving with other people...
Dana: I cc'd you just for fun since you had the balls to abandon us for that passel of teutonic midwesterners (whatever...I guess there will be lots of leftovers for the Bundesliga). Susan: As a Green holiday head-butt survivor, you have earned the right of first refusal on all Wassergreen holidays. Just say the word and I'll just uninvite one of the people above.

Very hungrily yours,
Kim

Baby names I have puked up

I am on deadline for two different clients. Naturally, instead of working, I dug around in my old computer files and discovered a putrid treasure: my baby name list circa 2003-2007. Some of these names are so self-consciously pretentious, I can only wonder if I was suffering some sort of pregnancy-induced derangement that made me think I was half of Brangelina or Victoria Beckham (er, twice as much as Vicky).

When it comes time to christen the offspring, perhaps you would like to borrow one of these gems (annotated for your reading pleasure)?

adlai
alessandro (sandro)
alexei/alexie/alexy/alexi
Alyosha
Andre
Andreas
Apollo (WTF????)
ari
ariel
Asher (Ash)
Boaz
Caique (WTF????)
Costa (if you want a son who's an old greek man, yeah)
Cruz (fucking beckhams stole it)
Danté
Danya
Dax (romance novel hero?)
diego (carlos the jackal's friend?)
dominic (dom)
doran (doran doran?)
dov (good israeli name. your teutonic husband won't approve)
emil(e)
esai (fer reals, 'cause every good jewish boy should be named esai)
Ethan (every jewish boy in the 1970s who wasn't named seth or jared)
Finn (trendy)
Flynn (ditto)
Fox (sweeeeet...mulder)
gael (garcia bernal....ahhhhhh)
gilad/gilead (omfg)
Graeme (welsh spelling. of course)
Grisha (fake slavic wtf?)
jax (holy crap...daniels?)
jay
joaquin (joaquin wasserman? fuck.)
Josh (so old school it's cool again?)
jude
Kai ("we conceived in kaui'i, natch")
kees (dutch name -- proncounced "case"...as in "just in kees")
liat (hmm...thought this was israeli girls name)
liev (the bigger version of levi?)
lior (I have light...fucking great name)
Loic (old fashioned french name...sto-eek?)
Madoc/Maddoc (madeline l'engle series)
marcello (actually called fetus this jokingly until everyone thought was our name...then, er, put it on list)
Marco
Matteo (who isn't matteo. seen a preschool log lately?)
max (done and baked)
meade (very stone henge)
micah (solid. the bible says so)
milo (like, but kinda done)
Mischa (love, but americans will think poofter)
Mischka (er...)
niall (pronounced neal - gaelic sp...pretentious)
Nico (the godfather)
Nikita (la femme)
Nino (old italian man)
noah (old school...add to list of 70s jewboy names seth, jared, ethan)
noam (the new jew)
o'neill (holy crap...irish pride names for non-irish?)
Pablo (escobar!)
paolo
pascal
paz (did brangelina steal this too?)
quinn (exciting, yet trendy)
raphael (gabe wants rafe...very international arms dealer with giant chai)
Raul/Raoul (at least latin americans can pronounce it)
Remy (gabe insists nobody french is actually named this. mystified.)
Roan (neigh!)
Ronan (like. thought would be trendy but not yet)
Rory/ruari (cute)
sascha
Sebastian
Shea
Shiloh (brangelina - thieves)
simcha
Tai
Teo
Tova/Tovya
Vadim (roger?)
Val
Van (this boy WILL get laid)
Vaughn (yummy)
Wolf (blitz me)
yannick or yannic (because there's nothing like naming your kid after a dreadlocked 70s tennis icon)
Zac/Zak (???)
zang (???)
zev (we know who got this one)