Another small moment in time. My gift to you – a moment of quiet reflection.

Took this photo with my AMAZEBALLS* iPhone 4s. It’s the sidewalk near my house – just after the maintenance guys from the high school cleaned up the leaves. It’s a little sad when they do this – no more fluttery crunching when I take Offspring to daycare in the morning, the smell changes from that awesome Fall-ness back to boring old highway.

The impression that the leaves make in the ambient silt composed of road exhaust, dust and disappointed entitlement that pervades the neighborhood is just a little piece of beautiful.

*technical term

To: All staff

From: Thea, CEO of Nutgraf

Banking concern UBS has been much in the news lately following the release of its 43-page dress code for employees. This has led me to evaluate the appearance of our own valued employees here at Nutgraf HQ, and establish the following guidelines for all staff.

It has come to our attention that some employees have been taking advantage of our relative indolence and isolation and dressing down to a degree not seen since our days of living in cooperative housing at Oberlin College – days symbolized by earth tones, unfortunate odors and unreliable hygiene.

To maintain professionalism and the proper degree of decorum in our office, the following rules are now in effect.

Attire

• A wide range of tops are acceptable office attire and should be worn on the top half of the body with a (gender-appropriate) undergarment. Coziness is a virtue. Any buttons should be buttoned in the correct order, as defined by the manufacturer.
• Pajamas and loungewear – while tempting – do not enhance the professionalism of our office. They should not be worn past noon 1:00 p.m.
• Baby effluent of any kind is not an appropriate accessory.
• Employees should not admit to owning Crocs, much less wear them out of doors.
• Drycleaning is forbidden at headquarters, but permissible attire for off-site client meetings.
• Pants should be worn at all times. I cannot emphasize this enough. Felines excepted.
• Acceptable pants include jeans, those really dark jeans, the jeans that came with the holes, and those long jeans that you have to roll up to go outside.
• Shoes are optional within headquarters, but should never be worn when propping feet on the freshly painted wall.
• Clothing should be free of holes unless they are favorite garments that one simply cannot yet bear to part with. Like that awesome Vince tee.
• Hats do not become us. Fanciful hats, less so.

Grooming

• Bathing is strongly suggested, even if the only way to get this done is with the baby in the bathroom pulling back the curtain and throwing stuffed animals into the shower.
• Hair should be dry by noon and at all times free of lint and oatmeal.
• Excessive facial hair is frowned upon. Felines excepted.
• Extensive, leisurely and thorough personal grooming of personal areas should not be done during office hours within view of the CEO. Lucia, I’m looking in your direction.

I’ve decided that I don’t write enough “important” posts, and that this is the only logical reason why this blog has thus far failed to make me either famous or rich. So now I am pleased to present a Very Important Post. Prepare to be stunned. Blown away. Rendered practically insensible in amazement.

But where was I?

Oh yes. This holiday season, like all the ones before it, has brought a resurgence of news stories and e-mail forwards about chain letters, scams and schemes, some of which have been making the rounds since some of us were still using Pine as an e-mail reader. Both obnoxious and ubiquitous, they woo us with micro-doses of guilt, greed or fear. Bill Gates giving out money, recipe chains, third graders collecting pennies, spiders in airplane toilets, lies about the current administration… Nothing a little investigation at Snopes can’t fix, but a chronic nuisance nonetheless.

They’d be easy to ignore if they weren’t so seductively easy to send along “just in case.”

I was reminded of an e-mail I received years ago that changed my life. It was called “the last chain letter you’ll ever send,” and for me, it was. It said that by sending this letter to three other people (not the usual six or twenty, mind you), you would be hereby absolved from ever sending another one. You would henceforth be automatically enrolled in all of the benefits of doing a chain letter’s bidding, and not risk the terrible fates that supposedly befall people who (gasp) break the chain. It was a great peace-of-mind-giver. I now rest comfortably in the knowledge that I won’t have seven years of bad luck if I don’t propagate the chain. I know that no child is languishing in a cancer ward waiting or my e-mail to go around the world. But these letters are like viruses that prey on that one, lone cell of doubt. “what if? What can it hurt?”

The buck stops here.

I’ve decided to take it a step further. Simply by reading this post, you are hereby absolved from ever having to forward another offer, chain, threat, joke or myth ever again. You hear that? You will receive every boon promised as if you had performed as instructed. You will not suffer any consequences for inaction.

Addendum: You are also absolved from reposting any PSAs, dares or other memes on Facebook, or retweeting anything that anyone else asks you to retweet.

Congratulations, you’re free.

Now, when Aunt Dee sends you an endless string of photos of cats in comical hats and orders you to send it to all of the wonderful women in your life, you can press the delete button with impunity. You don’t need to hesitate when trash your old coworker’s invitation to forward this email to tell the world about a kid in Russia with a rare bone disorder. Recipe chain? Junk it. Pyramid scheme? Flush it with a smile. Third grader’s class project to see the reach of e-mail? De. Lete. Plea to either shut down or save NPR, depending on the politics of whoever sent it to you? Enough.

God, I feel better already.

But wait! There’s more! As long as I’m just giving stuff away:

• That annoying ache you’ve been ignoring will disappear.
• Your commute will get easier.
• Your favorite jeans will fit a little better.
• Your cell phone service will improve.
• The next book you read will be wonderful.
• In 2011 you will be a little healthier, richer, happier and more attractive.

My best wishes to you and your family for a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year.

Went to the Rally to Restore Sanity today. We held down a rockstar position right in front of the stage, that required us to be searched and wanded. The passes were courtesy of an old family friend who – inexplicably – is still speaking to us.

The rally was pretty great. Squamillions of friendly happy people with humorous signs hanging out with great entertainment on a beautiful, sunny, cool and dry day? What’s not to like? I mean, aside from the fact that metro horked it all up as usual.

I don’t think I have anything new to add here, really, and every news organization will have a better photo gallery than this one, but I had to post something. I hope today was the start of something big. Of better conversations and – dare I dream – perhaps a movement to turn away from hysteria and vitriol and towards reasoned discussion and intelligent analysis.

This Juan Williams “controversy” is so stupid and the outrage over NPR’s decision to sack him is so contrived and overheated, that I’m looking desperately to find something interesting in it.

God, don’t make me rehash it. Here’s a couple of links:

• NPR Ends Williams’ Contract After Muslim Remarks
• NPR’s Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled
• Juan Williams Says NPR Was ‘Looking for a Reason’ to Fire Him

And so I turned to my old friend Google Translate. I’ve used this tool often in my work to get an idea of what a foreign-language site has to say on a person or a subject about which I need to produce sensiful copy. All products of the tool, amazing though it is, must be taken with a grain of salt. The results can be comical, or shed some linguistic light on a topic, and often produce food for thought. Even in a thought-barren reactionary knee-jerk festival like this lunacy.

So here we go, with the quote that got him canned, and set off a million illiterate blog comments:

I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

Let’s put that bad boy into Arabic. Here’s what Google came back with:

أعني ، انظروا ، بيل ، وأنا لست متعصب. أنت تعرف هذا النوع من الكتب التي كتبتها حول حركة الحقوق المدنية في هذا البلد. ولكن حصلت عندما أحصل على متن طائرة ، أن أقول لك ، إذا رأيت الناس الذين هم في زي مسلم ، وأعتقد ، كما تعلمون ، انهم عرفوا أنفسهم أولا وقبل كل شيء كمسلمين ، والحصول على شعرت بالقلق. أحصل على الجهاز العصبي.

So pretty. But I can’t read Arabic. So let’s take that back into English:

I mean, look, Bill, and I’m not a fanatic. You know the kind of books that I wrote on the civil rights movement in this country. But I got when I get on a plane, to tell you, if you see people who are dressed in Muslim, I think, as you know, they identified themselves first and foremost as Muslims, and get worried. I get nervous.

Awesomepants. I love that it took “bigot” to “fanatic.” Because they both get off on intolerance. So, in the name of us all getting along, let’s drop this into Hebrew:

אני מתכוון, תראה, ביל, אני לא קנאי. אתה יודע סוג של ספרים שאני כותב על התנועה לזכויות האזרח במדינה הזאת. אבל יש לי כאשר אני עולה על מטוס, כדי לספר לך, אם אתה רואה אנשים לבושים מוסלמי, אני חושב, כפי שאתה יודע, הם זיהו עצמם בראש ובראשונה כמו המוסלמים, וכן לדאוג. אני נהיית עצבנית.

Now I’m having flashbacks to a thousand sunny Sundays spent in Hebrew school listening to Mrs. H bang on about how we were all slaves in Egypt. But this is where it gets good. Let’s go back to English one more time.

I mean, look, Bill, I’m not jealous. You know the kind of books I write about the civil rights movement in this country. But I have when I get on a plane, to tell you, if you see people wearing a Muslim, I think, as you know, they identified themselves first as Muslims, and worry. I get nervous.

Me, too, I also have a jealous of people who are wearing such lovely Muslims. Man, truly our differences are only exceeded by our similarities.

I, for one, feel much better now.

My art collection seems to be suffering from inflation. I couldn’t find anywhere in the Smithsonian American Art museum to break a $20 bill into fives. After making my way to the third floor, up the gorgeous stairs, through the elaborately restored (and true to its name) Great Hall and into the Luce Foundation Center, a room with free coffee, an eclectic group of sculptures and a strange glow, I found myself in front of an old cigarette vending machine with a new life.

I went to the American Art museum yesterday with the express intention of buying a couple of tiny pieces of art from a vending machine because… well, because it is genuine art from a vending machine in the Smithsonian!

I also found myself with no way to make my large bills smaller. The nice ladies at the info desk in the Luce Foundation Center suggested the gift shop. Three floors down, though the big mezzanine-courtyardy thing, and on the other side of the building. I did learn, however, that the trash cans in the courtyard cafe say “thank you,” when someone makes a deposit. I was surprised to note that no one – even small children – seemed taken aback by this. I mean, it’s a tourist destination. Presumably it is not filled with jaded commuters at 2pm on a Wednesday who have had their fill of Freakishly Advanced talking trash cans already and just want to dispose of the damn wrapper without looking up from their Blackberries. In fact, I’d go so far as to venture that these cans are more polite than most Washingtonians (I’m looking at you, lady who jumped ahead of me with her daughter through the door I was holding without so much as a smile or thank you. Harumph), but I digress.

Fives firmly in hand, I returned to the Luce Foundation Center and reviewed my options, settling on a two-inch painting (with easel!) by Sarah Whittington and a reactive glass bobby pin by Gerry Klein.

Man, I love my tiny art. How accessible is this? And what a great thing to do at the museum that isn’t just observational. It’s a tiny participation, an interaction that contains an element of surprise (you don’t, after all, know precisely what you’ll get from the general descriptions), and something you can take with you.

This totally outshone my experience with a similar vending machine in Portland, Oregon, a few years ago. In – I think – the Nike office building, there was a gumball-style machine, where for 50 cents and a turn of the knob, you were issued a plastic bubble with some kind of art inside. Mine had two quarters and two pennies and cookie-style fortune that said “your efforts will be worthwhile.” It was pretty underwhelming.

And honestly, the Art-o-mat also outshone my long and wheezing experience with cigarette vending machines during my misspent youth.

How to find the Art-o-mat

Hie thee to the Luce Foundation Center on the third floor of the American Art Museum. In fact, one of the guards told me that starting at the top and working your way down is the best way to see the collections. The building is home to both the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum – two separate facilities that share the edifice. The distinction is very important to the fine people of the Smithsonian Institution, but sometimes awkward to the lay visitor. Don’t worry – it’s not just you.

Tip to the wise

Bring small bills. The Art-o-mat only takes singles and fives. While we all believe in change, it can be a long and winding road.

Learn about the Art-o-mat from these more reliable sources:

• Art-o-mat website
• Around the Mall: Art out of a vending machine?
• Eye Level: American Art-o-mat
• GoSmithsonian: American Art Museum

Cool stuff nearby:

When you’re in the Luce Foundation Center, don’t neglect to go up to the mezzanine. There they have a lot of artifacts in a little bit of space, and some great displays about the vast, unseen archives of the Smithsonian. Also, the Lunder Conservation Center is around the corner, where you can see art conservation either in action with snazzily dressed conservators (their aprons were designed by Isaac Mizrahi), or work on hiatus but in situ. It’s like a special insider tour that you can just wander up to – a great and rarely seen view into the workings of museums, preservation and science.

Down the hall from the Art-o-mat, also on the third floor, is an incredible light-filled column that’s hard to describe. It broadcasts spinning and ever-changing messages that are – for whatever reason – very somber. It is both mesmerizing and dizzying to look at for long moments. Amazing. It is housed in what I call “The big art” room, though the museum calls it something far more appropriate, like “Contemporary Art.”

Disclosure: No one paid me to write this post. Though that would be pretty great, wouldn’t it?

I read some terrible news yesterday about the family of someone I know and admire. While mom was already in the middle of a battle with cancer (and you know how I feel about cancer), one of their children fell suddenly and extraordinarily ill.

That part’s not my story to tell, so I’ll stop there. I invite them to link to it in the comments here, though they’ve certainly got bigger fish to fry.

As a new parent, blah, blah, blah

Let’s not even humor me with that line. It’s just horrible when bad things happen, but extra insultingly, gut-wrenchingly, tear-makingly shattering when it happens to a child. I can’t even imagine what they’re going through, and they’ve been much on my mind.

An impotent, but hopefully poignant gesture

I want to do something for them. But there isn’t even a disease named yet I can throw money at to assuage myself. They’re extraordinarily well covered colleague, family and friend-wise, and I’m kind of beyond peripheral to this story in most ways anyway, and don’t want to intrude on them during this horrible time. I promised that I’d put a penny in every fountain I passed. What they don’t know is that my neighborhood has a lot of fountains.

This morning, after sending my own daughter off to daycare with extra kisses, I took a spin through the neighborhood and chucked a penny into every fountain I could think of.

Here they are. 16 fountains. 16 pennies. Thousands of good wishes being sent in your direction, folks.

I invite anyone to add fountains and locations.

You ever get that feeling on a Sunday night?

The snoring I blame on her dad. Because I am too much of a lady to snore. That’s right, I’m a delicate fucking flower.

Visiting one set of grandparents in Slower Lower Delaware this week. Baby VRZ is getting into the groove. If the weather cooperates, I’ll get some film in the hammock. Film being, of course, slang for “data.”

This Earth Day is my first as a parent, and I am naturally thinking about the legacy we’re leaving for VRose (pictured here contemplating the preparation of an interpretive dance on how much she hearts the planet). I’m thinking about this because at this point in my maternity leave I have watched all of The People’s Court I can usefully watch, and we are now in the land of reruns, which – I must say – is a condition I’m not proud to be in.

Be that as it may, this seemed like a good opportunity to think about how we’re living and how we could improve over the coming year – reducing our carbon footprint and our impact on the environment overall. Let’s call it Green Resolutions. I’m thinking of Earth Day as a good opportunity for reflection on the year just past and resolution on the year to come, like Yom Kippur.

So, here are six things I’m doing well planet-wise. Go me:

1. Recycle. No-brainer, right? The county gives us handy bins and picks up our recycling each week on trash day. When we remodeled our kitchen a couple of years ago, we built-in a separate trash can for recyclables. Easy peasy and it makes you feel like a responsible citizen every time you throw something away. My office has bins in all of the pantry areas, and my neighborhood even has recycling bins in the commercial area so that people can do the right thing with their Starbucks cups and beverage cans and bottles. Read about my neighborhood at Bethesda Green.
2. Use an aluminum water bottle. Recycling is great and everything, but why ship water all over the planet so I have something to sip when I wake up in the middle of the night? Why do I use a bottle instead of a glass? I have cats who like to explore open containers. I don’t want their face in my drinking water because I know what else they lick and… just, ew. See this cool video from The Story of Stuff about bottled water.
3. Take public transportation. I’ve been a loyal WMATA commuter for the last 10 years. When it works, it’s great. I read for 20 minutes while being whisked briskly to my destination. This is how I’ve also been a loyal New Yorker reader, which has enriched my life enormously. And anyone who commutes in the DC area can attest that skipping the traffic is a great way to maintain your cardiac health. Given, WMATA is not making it easy to keep my wheels off the road what with fare hikes, service cuts and any number of weird delays and generalized brokedy-ness going on at all times. What used to be a pleasure is now a labor. Also, people, give pregnant ladies, old people and anyone with an injury or a cane a seat. What’s wrong with you? But that’s a rant for another time, and I refer interested parties to Unsuck DC Metro for more on that topic.
4. Carry a shopping bag. By carrying a bag with me, I save at least a dozen plastic bags a week.
5. Neglecting my lawn. This is not a euphemism. We don’t water our lawn. It’s a waste of water. If it rains, great. If it doesn’t, then the lawn’s brown. Whatev.
6. Live somewhere walkable. We have a smaller place than we would if we lived farther out, but we’re walkable to groceries, pharmacies, hundreds of restaurants, public transportation, bookstores, coffee shops and more. This lets us leave the car behind pretty often. Walkscore is a cool tool for evaluating the walkability of a particular location. My house scores a respectable 82 out of 100.

And here are five things I could do better:

1. Have a smaller home. We have a single-family home. Given, a small one, but it’s four walls to heat and cool, and a lot of materials to maintain. High density housing means less to fill, heat, cool and light. It’s is really the way to go, so pat yourself on the back if you’re in a high-rise or multi-family situation.
2. Diaper responsibly. I do a magic trick several times a day – I turn a wet baby into a dry one. Every time I do this, I add a disposable diaper to the planet’s diaper load. In fact, it’s been estimated that one baby will soil between 5,000 and 8,000 diapers. That is a lot of paper and plastic in the landfill, and a lot of manufacturing impact. See National Geographic’s Green Guide for more info. I invested in gDiapers to try to mitigate our impact and am trying to get the hang of them. But I might not be a good enough person to really stick with it. They’re a little more interactive than the standard disposable. Also, the jury seems to still be out about what’s actually more responsible – since laundry chemical and water usage becomes a big issue with all reusable options. I’d be curious to see an end-to-end (heh, get it?) analysis of several diapering options so that I could make better choices.
3. No more happy motoring for pleasure. We have an 18-year-old convertible that we use for leisure. Taking it on long drives in the country when the weather is good. It’s great fun and a lovely way to spend a little time with Spouse while running errands. And we could totally do without it – keeping that much carbon to ourselves.
4. Eat less meat. No matter how you slice it, the meat industry uses up a lot of resources. A lot more than the vegetable industry. So, for the sake of my soul, my health and the future of our planet, I should really cut it out. Let the weaning begin.
5. Buy less. Whether it’s lunch, a cool sweater, my thousandth pair of black shoes, baby gear or books, everything I buy is made of resources and shipped from one place to another. Buying less would be a great way to reduce my impact on Earth while saving both money and my own personal energy keeping house and managing my stuff.

So there you have my self-assessment of my environmental performance over the past year and my goals for the future. It’s kind of like the performance reviews we get at work. I’d give me a pat on the back, while making sure that I understood my goals for the next year. As a fine first step, the convertible is currently posted on Craigslist (hey reduce, reuse, recycle, right?). Next up – budgeting for more thoughtful spending.

Happy Earth Day!