Goats.

I believe I said we live in a small New England town...well, I should have said we live on a mountain outside a small New England town, a fact that was brought home to me today when, on the way home from the school bus, Bart and I encounted a lovely man and his young son walking their goats. He came up and stuck out a friendly hand.
"I'm Doug," he said.
"I'm home-schooled!" caroled the son, by way of greeting.

Honestly, I probably could have guessed.

What makes this all the better is that my five-year-old son was not at all impressed by the goats. He's seen goats, after all. Also cows, and he's gathered eggs at another friends,before the foxes got those chickens and the truth is he's more thrilled by the friend he had last year, the one with the dilapidated camper parked in front of his family's trailer.

It's a very small town. It's either a great and charming way to grow up, or just one of the many things he'll have to discuss with his therapist when he moves back to New York.

The Ice Storm, revisited

So, you know how when you were a teenager, all of your friends had these massively fucked up parents, and of course you did too, and you just had to hunker down and protect each other, and sometimes sneak a friend in your window to spend the night because things were just too, well, fraught at her place?

Yeah. And then you're out on your own, and those screwed up upbringings are taking their toll. You've got your friend who strips and flashes everyone at every opportunity, and the other one who passes out on the floor at every social gathering, from granny's birthday to the office secret santa, and the one with the pistol in the glove box he likes to shoot into the air to celebrate New Year's, and anything else he can think of....

And then those people start having thier own children. And there you are. It's like watching a train wreck, really. You can't take your eyes off them, but what are you going to do? Clearly, there's the four-year-old who'll be pouring mom's bottles of Jaeger down the toilet in a few years, and the one who can't sleep at night because Daddy and Mommy are screaming at each other again. Even right here in the Granola household, the future pathologies are becoming clear: Bart will never, ever be the athlete Poptart expects him to be--i.e. the athelete O was, only taller. Much taller. The taller part he seems to have down, but he'd really rather be baking cookies, and I see a world of grief ahead.

So yeah, what does one say? This is somewhere it never occured to me I'd be.

Who the fuck is this Lola Granola anyway?

Oh, I am many many things, complicated, unusual. Freaky, even. A la leche style nurser in the garb of a hipster? A mom of three with the style and wit of a diva on the social scene?

Who am I kidding? I'm a dime a dozen. Throw a stroller wheel in Brooklyn and you'll hit fifty of me, clutching their shopping bags of Annie's Organic Macaroni and Cheese (all the same ingredients as Kraft, but with less guilt!) and lattes. I don't live in Brooklyn, granted, but if I did, I'd be so bored by meeting myself over and over again that I'd probably have to get saved and vote Republican just to keep from committing serial suicide. It sucks being a cliche, it really does.

But I have one big thing up on those other moms, all my fellow bitching and moaning navel gazing travelers down this particular snot-covered road. They're up to their low riders in doubt and angst. Are they doing it right, this mother thing? Properly raising the child(ren), feeding them, enriching them?

Me, I'm doing it right. Got any doubts about what you're doing? Let's clear them up. Your way: wrong. My way: right. Because your way is wrong--unless, of course, it's my way. Because I'm right.

Which means I get to judge everbody else.

I