Fun With Play-Dough

I just had a thought about this race. The primaries are taking forever, everyone’s bored, and we keep hearing the same old stories over and over. There is a problem with Michigan and Florida, Obama’s Minister scares people, and Michelle isn’t proud enough. And all this time, half the country still doesn’t know the difference between a bacon burger and a super delegate.

So here’s my proposal. We solve this election Big Brother style!

Put all three candidates on one of those dorm-on-steroid houses, and let them connive amongst each other. We could pick a few additional characters, if you wish; after all, BB isn’t much fun with only three candidates. I suggest Rove, Rumsfeld, and Edwards; maybe even bring back Romney and Huckabee.  Just so there’s no gender disadvantage, bring in a few extra women: Samantha Bee, Pamela Anderson, and I hear Heather Mills has time on her hands. Cheney could be the evil ‘surprise guest’ that shows up in week five to rattle everybody’s cage. I bet he’s good at conniving, forming alliances, and then breaking them.

I predict that Rove will be the first one voted off. His little rap session (I still can’t shake that image) proves that his judgment is impaired. Who wants to wake up to that every day?

Challenges would range from ‘pin the flag on the candidate’; everybody blindfolded, trying to stick it to each other. I suspect McCain would win that one; he’s mean that way.

There could be a challenge involving the press where they all have to make it through a mock press conference. The press would be given tomatoes; they’d get to throw them whenever a candidate waffles. Whoever stays clean the longest wins, and gets to be HOH that week.

There should be an athletic challenge; we don’t want our next president to be a couch potato. And maybe they should practice admitting something vaguely nasty; just to see how they’d hold up.

A puzzle with the pieces being all the countries in the world (where exactly is Turkmenistan?) that they’ll have to solve in teams.  A hot tub that could be used as an incentive to win certain challenges, and viewers at home could vote on a weekly boxing match: whichever two house guests get the most votes will be duking it out in the ring; the loser will automatically be eliminated.

 Now, I can hear you thinking; could we do this American Idol style? To which I would answer: do you really want to hear McCain sing? Really?

Psychologist Gian Gonzaga recently conducted a study at UCLA trying to answer the question, why do we cheat?  It’s a good question, especially this week. Even though we don’t really want to know why when it comes to politicians; we mostly want to know what, with who, and when. Oh, and how often and how much did it cost. And then we want the story repeated on the news 500 times, in case we missed something.

“When it comes to resisting sexual temptation and remaining faithful to one’s partner in life, The Beatles got it right: All You Need Is Love. A new study published Wednesday said that people who are in love with their partners are less attracted to other people.”

Really? But all those cheating husbands always say they really love their wives. Weird!

The study goes on to say:

“But when it comes to love and lust, this otherwise reliable human trait — get it while you can — leads to a paradox: Why do people in stable relationships so often pass up the chance for a little sexual gratification on the side, even if they can get away with it?”

Because we’re not stupid, that’s why. It has nothing to do with having morals or being a stronger or better person; it’s all about street smarts. When you cheat, people find out (don’t shake your head, you know they will sooner or later…) and then you’ll be in trouble.  Deep trouble. The kind of trouble that comes for a visit, makes itself comfortable, and stays a while. And just in case your partner really doesn’t have a clue, you’ll have to be on your toes for the rest of your life.

Read the full article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/sciencepsychologysexloveoffbeat;_ylt=Ai4QIfe3NosGD7PAEIHM1r0jr7sF

No American is an island during an election year; it’s impossible to feel lonely these days, because no matter our social skills, everybody belongs to a ‘voting block’.

Voting blocks drive me nuts. Who gets the working class white male vote? Who do the black Urbanites vote for? What about the middle aged white women, the immigrants, the thirty-somethings, the seniors; the Christian right, the Hare Krishna, and the Jewish Buddhists? What if they’re vegans instead of vegetarians, does that make a difference?

Maybe I’m just jealous, since I belong to the “immigrants-without-citizenship-who can’t vote”; when all I want is to belong to the I don’t give a crap which one it is, as long as it’s a Democrat- voting block.  After all, I’ve lived here for twelve years, and after that much time you can’t help but grow a little attached; I may not have a US passport, but I have an opinion.

I should have that put on a t-shirt.

Odd news today: dealing with Beijing’s toilet problem. Different world, different customs. The Olympic Committee should tell those pesky Chinese: fix the squat toilets and give us a seat to leave up, or we won’t come. And while you’re at it, we’d love to come to your lovely country and expand our horizons, but let’s not overdo it: make sure there’s a MacDonald’s on every corner, and that the local food is the same as that watered down drivel we’re used to, you know, the stuff we sell in our malls that we call Chinese take-out? In return we’ll forget to mention your human rights violations. Deal? Deal.

We are sitting on the couch, my son Mendel half on my lap, my daughter Isabella next to him. I am reading a book, they just had their bath; they are calm and tired. This is the part of the day I like best, when everything slows down, nobody is screaming and we all exhale simultaneously.

Then Isabella starts to tickle Mendel’s foot; first he giggles, then he decides he’s had enough and tells her to stop. She doesn’t, so he tells her again. When she still doesn’t stop, I tell her four more times, and, you guessed it, she still doesn’t stop. She looks at me defiantly, I feel myself getting mad; Mendel raises his right arm and prepares to strike.

I manage to grab his arm just in time, close the book, and ask my daughter: “Do you want to go to bed right now?”

She shakes her head, no, of course not.

“Then knock it off! Stop messing with your brother.”

This falls on deaf ears. After all, ‘messing with the brother’ is fun, because it makes him produce these loud piercing screams. Like you’re pushing a button, and the sirens go off. It’s definitely in the top ten of fun things to do around the house.

The list of fun things also includes rearranging the furniture and then complaining that it’s too hard to put back. Pulling all your clothes off the hangers and then telling your mother that you can’t fix it because the bar is too high and you can’t reach. Squeezing out the toothpaste, stealing a lip pencil because it draws so nicely on the vanity, and forgetting all kinds of things, like putting your plate in the sink, or finishing your dinner.

Nothing makes Isabella as mad as being told to clean up her own mess. Utterly unreasonable, she thinks, and besides, isn’t that what mothers are for?

The other day, I sat her down to ask her why she made such messes, but she just stared at me without answering.

“Mommy and Daddy worked very, very hard to buy this house. How much money do you think it cost us to buy a house?”

I could tell she was actually giving this some thought because she scrunched up her nose and looked at the ceiling.

“Maybe as much as a hundred dollars?”

She pronounced the amount as if it was the most outrageous number she could think of.

Time for operation Shock and Awe, I thought, and I told her the actual price we paid for the house. “And this is what you did with it,” I said, as I pointed at the peeled wallpaper and the door to the bathroom that has red scribbles all over it, as well as the line “I love my mom”.  As if sucking up could help her out of this one.

My daughter has been messy since she could walk, and lately, things are getting worse. This worries me, because she has a brother who is only three and only too willing to follow in her example. He’s already drawn all over my (white!) kitchen cabinets, and guess what: if you don’t notice it right away, even the magic eraser doesn’t help you. Yet, however I yell, scream, and barter, they don’t listen when I say: “Please don’t touch the black sharpie, please don’t give your Barbie a bath in the toilet, and please don’t attempt to wash your hair with tooth paste.”

They happily ignore me, and I’m left to wonder whether those home improvements that everybody else is so enthusiastic about will ever come my way. I also wonder, if they don’t listen to me now, what will life be like in ten years? Should I worry about them not listening to me when I talk about scary things like unprotected sex, and driving drunk?

Maybe I should take a page out of my daughter’s book and ignore myself. Better focus on the small things for now, like that really strange stain that magically appeared on the bathroom floor. What is that, anyway?