Monthly Archives: May 2011

This morning I spent four hours on the telephone trying to find services for someone I love. Since we are in the preliminary stages of finding these services I emailed some friends, took their recommendations and then looked up the websites of the facilities and starting calling.

You can tell a lot from a phone call. When you’re a patient, a child, an advocate or a friend needing service the receptionist at the agency you are calling is your first introduction to a facility. Granted, first impressions can be wrong, but when I’m looking to begin a long term relationship with a business I’m going to be calling them with some regularity. Phone calls should be pleasant.

Websites can be an equally important as a first impression. Every part of your site matters. Take, for instance, the domain name. When I see a .com or a .net domain I assume that I’m on a business’ web page. When I see a .gov I know it’s a government page, and when I see .edu I know it’s a school. When we see .org we used to know that we were looking at a non profit organization.

Gone are the days when domainers had to write essays to explain why they needed to own a .org. A few short years ago in order to own a .org website the potential owner would have provided proof of non-profit status. A few years before that an essay was required to own any site.

Clearly essay writing and domain ownership are no longer a duo, but best practices dictate that only not for profit would host their site at a .org address. In order to protect a brand I can imagine a company owning a .org domain and then redirecting the traffic to their .com or .net, but hosting their for profit business on a .org platform would only confuse potential clients and alienate them once they figured out that they’d been snookered.

A web based economy uses trust as it’s currency. Once you’ve been deemed untrustworthy it’s nearly impossible to regain that trust. If your URL is dishonest, or just less than forthright there’s no reason for anyone to trust your content.

Although it’s possible for your business to buy and maintain any URL you can get your hands on, fight the urge to be anything less than transparent, because the web based consumer is a bright consumer and they have a lot of choices.

One of the secrets of Motherhood is that women share knowledge. I imagine it’s part of our roots as the gatherers of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Women share a bit, mothers share a lot. You won’t find a community quite like the community of mothers anywhere else on earth.

When we’re pregnant we’re drawn to each other. We ask questions that appear to be intimate and overly personal, but as motherhood binds us to one another we find that the questions and their answers are intimate yet not intrusive. We want to support one another and so we find two pregnant women in an elevator talking about achy feet, weak bladders, frayed nerves and giant breasts. It is possible that the women don’t know each other’s names, but Motherhood binds us to one another in ways we hadn’t ever expected.

We ask questions:

Did you nurse? Yes. Did you bottle feed? Yes. No it wasn’t my choice with either child, it really and truly wasn’t but I’ll tell you about my experiences if it helps you.

Did you drop the baby? Why yes, twice. She is fine.

Did you cry a lot the first year? I cried for two years. I stopped crying long enough to get pregnant again so I guess I cried for four years. Hormones suck.

Did you rush your child off to school? I certainly did, but then I didn’t send my second one to school nearly enough. They’re both okay. I’m still waiting to do it right, but the kids think we did it right. Please don’t tell them differently.

Do you feel like a good mom at the end of the day? Not every day, but it’s just a feeling. Feelings aren’t truth.

The women who I’ve surrounded myself both in person and online have uplifted me, they’ve challenged me to be a better person, they’ve guided me when I’m lost and consoled me when I’ve screwed up. I’ve screwed up plenty.

The Moms who read me, who correspond with me and who share this journey with me are great moms. We have these moments where we think we’ve scarred our children, disappointed our significant other and embarassed our families, but they’re just moments.

You, my readers, my Mom guides are some of the most inspired and inspiring women I’ve known. Thank you for being great Moms. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge with me. Thank you for your generosity of spirit and for taking this journey with me.

Great Moms, those Moms that share everything.

Ladies, don’t watch this if you don’t have your sense of humor in tact. Gentlemen, if you think you’d like to have sex again… like ever… don’t admit that this is funny.

I had the misfortune to stumble across an article titled Don’t Bring Her to the Gym. The overall misogyny was bothersome, but what was more troubling is that at some point maybe two or three years ago I’d had a really nice series of email interactions with the author James Fell.

Unfortunately Mr Fell, in his Onionesque article, thinks that bringing your significant other to the gym has the one benefit of providing her with the opportunity to do something about the hail damage on her ass.

I’m not going to address the obvious points here. I’m not going to note the fact that Fell sounds like a dinosaur when he refers to women as babes. I’m not going to mention the fact that said babes are likely half his age and don’t appreciate the ogling. I’m also not going to dwell on the fact that we women don’t want to compare ourselves to each other, we just want one man to love us so deeply that he thinks we are the most beautiful woman on the planet even when our tummys swell with their babies and our breasts drop from having fed them.

I will say that Fell is right when he says that bringing your significant other to the gym will distract you from your workout, and that training your significant other is probably a bad plan. I also agree that guys need guy time, but equating the gym to church is akin to equating a bench press to insight. Although Fell may have tremendous strength of body, I’d question his strength of character.

In real life significant others do see one another at their worst. Mr. G. often sees me after a tennis match, a day in the garden or just a long hike with the kids. In real life women sweat, it’s okay and it’s not a scary event for a real man.

What Fell doesn’t seem to understand about the hail damage on my ass is that it was proudly acquired by birthing and nurturing two magnificent human beings. Every wrinkle and every seeming imperfection is a testament to my character, and for all of us women whose bodies have grown and shrank, all of us who don’t have the incredible luxury of a photoshopped life we all look great. Our bodies are here to serve a purpose, a strong body is the perfect vehicle for a strong mind.

Here, Mr. Fell, is my hail damaged ass, please feel free to kiss it.

It’s the acceleration that I love.

I had a magnificent day with Porsche driving a half dozen of their cars, but I fear I’ve fallen madly in love with the Cayman R. It’s back to basics with a sporty interior and an engine that purrs before it roars.

Gripping the wheel made me feel strong and aggressive, cornering was a dream and who needs cupholders when you have Porsche speed?

This morning after I dropped the kids off at school I heard Beverly Eckert’s story on NPR and I had to pull my car over to cry.

When I arrived home and turned on my computer someone had sent me this video. This year for Mother’s Day go ahead and ask your Mother, your Aunt and your Grandmother questions. Ask a lot of questions, because the answers are just delightful.

Enjoy.