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Resurfacing

Some of you may have wondered where I went.  Others, particularly those of you new to this board, wonder who the f$^* I am and why am I crashing this party.  (I am the proprietress but not one of the current general managers).

Anyway, I’m still around.  It’s just that I spent so much time blogging the election last year that I’ve had to catch up on things on the domestic front, specifically with regards to the resident adolescent.  Brook is finally placed in the right classes in school for her ability level, which is ridiculously high based on her current standardized test scores (which I support.  No, do not even go there, teachers.  Get with the global program.).  But I have found that care and feeding of this particular adolescent is much more of an intensive endeavor than with other kids I have known.  She’s, um, difficult.  And disorganized.  She needs a lot of preparation in the mornings and almost constant attention in the afternoons to get her homework done.  I am relearning geometry.  How would YOU like to relearn geometry in your middle age?  Do you think relearning SAS, congruency and proofs are easy?   Well??

So, after a long day at work where I can only get to a few blogs from behind a firewall, and this is not one of them, I just want to chill when Brook finally packs up her bag for the night.  My current new sleep inducing guilty pleasure is makeup videos.  Yes, I watch young women with perfect skin slather more makeup on their faces in a day than I use in a whole year.  They use products I never even knew I needed.  Like face primer.  It’s not a moisturizer.  It’s not a foundation.  It doesn’t come with an SPF by default.  What the hell is it?!  I found out yesterday when I ran across a tester in Target.  It’s like smearing softened Jello on the skin before putting on foundation.  I’m not sure why this is necessary.

Like I said, these women are beautiful but they spend what must be hours a day putting products on their skin.  Nevertheless, I have learned from them.  Tiffanyd told me the difference between NC and NW Mac foundations and says to put the pink concealer on your under eye circles.  This actually works.  Who knew?  Julieg713 makes me want to play with nail polish.  Michelle Phan has practical, organic solutions for skincare, like rice water.  Lauren Luke knows how to coordinate everything into one palette.  If I were on a tropical island, I could work with 3 products and never miss this other stuff.  But the nice thing about Tiffany, Julie, Michelle and Lauren is that they are all blissfully non-political.  I can put my earbuds in and within the 12 minutes it takes for one of them to review their latest Sephora haul, I am asleep.

And when I’m asleep, I don’t have to worry about the Democrats digging their graves on healthcare (Whew!  Was I ahead of the curve or what?).  I mean, it’s not hard to figure out what needs to be done.  The private insurance industry needs real competition that *anyone* can buy into.  There!  See, wasn’t that easy?  The minute a public, government administered, non-profit insurance plan is open to the public, private  health insurance will become a lot more affordable.  Then, regulate the hell out of the industry.  This is not rocket science.  Other countries have done it. It doesn’t have to be single payer, although we need to explore that possibility.  All consumers really need is choice, which is what the Republicans have lead everyone to believe they will lose and which Democrats seem determined to deny us. The problem appears to be that Obama and the Democrats seem to think that their job is to protect some endangered health insurance industry from the evils of free market capitalism.  This may come as a surprise to them in 2010 and 2012 but that is not why we hired them.

Damn, I’ve gone and harshed my own mellow.  I see Tiffany has a new video for Halloween…

Ahhhh….

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110 Responses

  1. I find my blood pressure numbers improve dramatically when I’m not indulging worrying about the latest affronts to my sensibilities from this administration… and my house is getting cleaner too…

  2. Who are you?

  3. See? Try a makeup video. I recommend Tiffanyd because she’s really informative and leaves in her funny facial expressions and bloopers.
    Michelle Phan has a polished video product and great soothing music. I swear these women have improved my overall cardiovascular health.

    • Have you been sneaking free samples from work again?

    • RD – not all your friends use make-up – at least not those blogging at Texas Hill Country – indeed in my male world very few do so! I thought this blog was all you and only you – guess I did not quite understand when we spoke in Denver. Great to hear your child scored well on the tests for class placement. Hang in there – after the sadness of my 3 daughters leaving the house, the coming of grandkids seems like a miracle – although I find I do not have the energy for more than a few days – sometimes hours – of supervision at this age, I have some in grade school and some in high school – I forgot the moods of high school girls and tend to go into duck and cover mode. In any case just wanted to say Hi – and wish you well.

  4. Hi RD. Good to see you around.

    I really sympathize with you on the young’un. Mine was and continues to be challenging on the education front, but the good news is she is attending one of the most competitive and highly regarded private colleges in the country.

    It doesn’t get any easier at this level. I suspect at this point it’s a lifetime of always worrying and stressing. Maybe when she a few of her own, it will change.

    BTW, I sent you an email with a personal pharma question I hope you get a chance to look at.

  5. I tune the Anime channel as my soporific.
    Will allowing insurance companies to compete across state boundaries help lower prices?

  6. Attend to makeup and health care choice for all. How simple is that!

  7. Riverdaughter!! It’s great to see you. And we could never, ever forget you.

  8. Who is this person talking about make-up and impersonating Riverdaughter? We sure need the real RD back!

    • Sure, just as soon as I get thru 1Q of geometry without incidences, like telling the gym teacher he’s not a *real* teacher, slamming the locker doors and refusing to do work that is considered “booooorrrrrrriiinnngg” in school. I’d also like to keep the Saturday detentions to a minimum this year. The 7 or 8 she had last year seemed excessive.

      • Dang…that sounds so deja vu to me too. My daughter’s detentions were all “tardy” related. With Aspergers, she cannot distinguish between 10 minutes and 1 hour. Late is her middle name. — Still.

        • Yeah, my kid is really mouthy and says exactly what’s on her mind.
          I don’t know where she gets that.

          • My daughter was like that, whatever she thought is what popped out. She managed to get through grad school anyway, so there is hope 😉

          • lololol is she red headed too you little irish love

          • 🙂

          • RD
            Just remember someday she will have teenagers. It is wonderful you can laugh we she complains. You can write a memory book the will worry her about what her teenager will find out. Having teenagers is a grandparents revenge for all the things you did to give them gray hair.
            This too shall pass. Enjoy the good parts and remember the bad parts for blackmail later.

            WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

            PUMAS,BUBBAS, EQUALIST AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE

  9. Enjoy RD!…but you are missed

  10. So what face care advise can you share for those on tropical island?

    • The three products you must have are:
      – Aveeno continuous protection sunblock lotion Active for faces with an SPF of 50.
      – NARS multiple in South Beach, which is a apricot brownish color with a bit of shimmer. Orgasm is also a popular shade but I wanted a sunkissed look, not a recently f&*(ed flushed look. You can use the multiple as an eye shadow, lipstick and blush and it looks just right in all three places.
      – L’Oreal Voluminous mascara in Brown/Black. Simply the best. Long, long clumpless eyelashes. Lots of volume.

      There is one other product that I took with me to Hawaii that I can recommend for a sheer, natural finish foundation. It’s Mac Select SPF 15 Moistureblend Foundation. My color is NC20, which is fairly light with a golden undertone to go along with my freckles. It doesn’t look cakey. It’s just nice and light and translucent.

      BTW, I rarely use brushes though all the video makers seem to go gaga over brushes. I just have two rules for makeup: 1.) it shouldn’t require any tools more complicated than the fingers and 2.) the whole thing from beginning to end shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. If it takes longer, it’s not appropriate for daytime or you’re wearing too much.
      Even so, the four people I listed do great makeup videos and I have learned something from each one of them.

  11. Good to hear from you rd

    one of my favorite methods of proof:

    Proof by tessellation
    “this proof is the same as the last”

  12. be thankful it.s only one.i raised 5.now working on 3 grandaughters.

  13. RD: It is so good to hear from you again. And I thought the boyfriend business was keeping you away!! Geometry and make-up—so so exciting RD.

  14. haha. sorry to hear about the child unit needing so much care and feeding, but that’s what happens with the smart ones. re the makeup videos….double haha as i do this also. but a real pleasure is to type in cooking in youtube and watch some of the non english videoes around page 27 and above. philippine, japanese, indian cooking that looks so good you want to rush out and do some. i call my time on youtube my happy hour. glad to see you surfacing.

  15. RD this post cracked me up especially the black n’ red eye for halloween…somehow, these vids must be perfect after, well, all the political sturm und drang of the last few years —

    glad to hear B is doing well in her classes and glad you are still there!

    !

    • Yes, they are very therapeutic. I’m thinking of starting my own. I’m going to call it ‘oldladymakeup’. You know, whatever Madonna is wearing these days.
      The black and red is for Halloween. Tiffany has the most beautiful eyes on the planet. Some of her looks are very flattering but probaby don’t translate to those of us without her eye shape and abnormally long lashes. It’s always amusing when she puts on false lashes because she doesn’t need them. Check out Misschievous for a really wild Halloween look.

  16. Geometry was the only math I was ever good at: you get a picture and some logical statements. I hit the wall in algebra with quadratic equations. After a year of trig, I still didn’t understand what it was or was used for. Somehow I passed the course (lots of long division, as I recall; no calculators then, just my fingers).

    Sign me “English Major.”

    • Lol! Same here. I loved geometry but struggled with algebra until college when I started taking chemistry courses. At that point, it becomes learn it or fail. So, I learned it. Calculus wasn’t that hard after that. But I found that my real nemesis is arithmetic. I suck at it. I will always need a calculator. That’s what happens when you’re a military brat and change schhols 14 times before graduation.

  17. Raiders gonna make me old.

  18. Well I definitely can see how one could fall asleep to these types of videos…….

    I have two fairly high maintenance kiddos in my brood of the four I have so I completely understand the kiddo front. My position on many days is can’t live with them, can’t kill them or they’ll cart you off(although I have been known to threaten that I could get a pretty good “justifiable” defense mounted). What does Brook want to do when she gets older? Does she have any idea yet? The way I ended up motivating my older onea little was to go this route and discuss why certain studies might be relevant to him in his future. He still hates Algebraic equations but it puts the idea of why they are relevant now into proportion when he knows that they are a requirement to achieve what he wants ultimately.

    • She wants to be a pilot. Actually, if I could get her into the Air Force or Naval Academy, I think she’d be America’s secret weapon. No, seriously, she’s gifted in math and can think in 3D. I thought she’d make a good physicist or architect but she wants to fly planes. Heck, she’s make a good aeronautical engineer, if she likes engineering. We’ll see. There’s no rush right now and she has to work on the discipline thing.

      • Well if she hates geometry I think you can probably cross off architect. Have you considered taking her down to the recruiters office and seeing if you can get her the opportunity to speak with an AF or Navy pilot? Someone besides mom who can tell her what she’s gonna need to get from point a to b. I know my oldest sometimes tunes me out specifically because I’m mom. I swear the child thinks I managed to make it past forty based on luck. He has positively no clue(and I am exceedingly grateful that he doesn’t have all the hurdles I did). On the upside, the same kid, who for some reason seems to think I derive joy in riding his backside, looked at me this year and told me he was listening to me from now on(it lasted for about two weeks). He got offered a job because of my insistence on always putting your best foot forward regardless of circumstance or job. Score one for mom.

        When I spoke to my daughter and we were discussing relationships I told her that one day she would know who she is and what she wants. I then told her that one day she would want someone to share that journey with her. Her response was priceless. She told me at that point she’d get a kitten. Sigh. If I had chosen the kitten route life would have been so much less complicated.

        • My mom took me down to a recruiter’s office.

          She left me there with a suitcase and told me to write home regularly.

          • I am building this image in my mind… blood soaked clown… stands there and tells the recruiter “i wanna kill”… “i wanna kill”

          • I was 17 when I joined the Navy. My mom actually DID have to give her permission for me to join. It was one of my better decisions even if what I was looking at it as at the time was “escape route.”

            My hubby got told he needed to go the military route. His old man even had his boss “fire” my husband to get it accomplished.

            So your comment definitely makes me giggle.

        • I didn’t say she hated geometry. She doesn’t. It’s just that she expects me to be her insta-tutor. Everytime she gets stuck on a problem, because for the first time in 4 years, the math is new to her, she wants me to explain it to her.
          I have to tell you how math in NJ works because it’s fascinating. We have twp groups working at crosspurposes. First, there is the teacher contingent who are only K-8 certified. Geometry is really not in their job description in middle school. Then, there are the thousands of overeducated brainiacs and Asian PhDs in Central NJ who are terrified that their kids can’t keep up with the kids from Singapore.
          so, these Asian parents always keep one step ahead of the school system. Most of the kids in Brook’s Geometry class are Asian and some of these kids have already taken geometry at the local prep school during the summer. So, those kids are repeating the course for credit, not because they failed it the first time but because their parents want them to ace it before they get to HS.
          Following me so far?
          OK. Brook is one of those kids who is naturally good at math. She doesn’t need to take a course more than once. In fact, she took Algebra in 5 weeks during the summer because she didn’t get recommended for Algebra in 7th grade and had to repeat a whole year of pre-algebra even though her standardized test scores put her at the top 2% in math nationally. Why wasn’t she recommended? She wouldn’t do her homework in 6th grade. Well, now I know, after having watched her do her Algebra homework that she doesn’t have to do all of the hoemwork assigned. She just gets it the first time around, needs a little practice and aces the tests anyway.
          So, from 4th to 7th grade, Brook just vamped. It was easy. She put only a little effort in. Now that she’s in Geometry, she’s at the right difficulty level but she’s also in a class where many of the kids have already taken geometry, not because they have a natural gift like Brook but because their parents are nuts, like me!
          This year, the material is new, different and at times, confounding. She still gets it, really fast. But at the beginning, the learning curve is very steep and I am her crutch.

          • You know, I’m sure it can get irritating for you, but from your daughter’s perspective, how cool is it to have Chemist Mom who can act as insta-tutor on anything she needs? 🙂 That’s pretty cool.

          • Let’s put it this way, I am rapidly running out of things I can teach her. Geometry was decades ago. At this rate, she’ll be doing calculus by the time she’s a junior. I stopped after Integral Calculus. If she does differential equations, I’m out.

      • That career goal can stick. My brother decided about age 10 that he wanted to be a pilot and went for it every chance he got. Had his private license at 16 and commercial license at 18. Became a Navy fighter pilot and genuinely enjoyed his career. Afterward flying for airlines until he retired.

      • Do they still have the civil air patrol?. They used to have a program for young people to learn to fly. From what i read about it they taught young people to be responsible and to look ahead on their futures.

        WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

        PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE

      • http://www.wrightpattcap.com/index.htm
        RD
        Maybe this would help if your daughter wants to learn to fly she could do this and learn all about flying.
        When I go back east in October I am going to talk to my youngest grand daughter about this and see if she is interested.

        WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

        PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE

  19. RD nice to see you around again.

    You have been badly missed but you could be proud of the blog managers, they did a superb job.

    • Oh, Jeez. You guys are the best. Every one of you is capable of running this blog by yourselves. It’s great that everyone works together with so few problems. It’s magic really. No, not magic. Just really good writers with wonderful common sense and guiding principles.
      Delegation results in such good collaborations.

    • that’s sickening

      He doesn’t deserve Elizabeth.

      • Don’t cut her so much slack. I mean, it’s sad that she has cancer but she *knew* what he was and she was willing to use her illness to get him the nomination. Then the shit would have hit the fan and we would have ended up with…
        Oh, nevermind

        • I tend to cut people the same amount of slack I’d want afforded to me. With her time left here limited she might have wanted to try and make the biggest impact she could on the place where her children and even grandchildren would continue to live after she was gone. She may have seen John’s Presidency as a vehicle to do that. It’s really hard to completely step inside a person’s shoes and get their complete state of mind. I tend to go light on the judgement(on both Elizabeth and John) for that reason.

          I recognized sometime during the primaries that Edwards sometimes exercised poor judgement(Bankruptcy billl, Iraq) I just never realized it extended well beyond the public sphere to the private one. I guess I should be a little angry but all I feel when I read these stories is sad. I can’t imagine the hurt Eliazabeth might feel or the way their children might now view their father based on the tabloidesque stories that have come out.

        • I like Elizabeth. I think she is smarter than him and more talented than him. I also think she made choices about her life without herself in it in the future, which is a difficult thing to have to do, much less having to do them with the compounding questions of what to do about a presidential run that was already in the works and about a husband who it appears was planning his next wedding while she was still alive, and about her kids. Some of the choices she made were questionable, depending on one’s POV. But, I think she has learned the hard way. He has publicly humiliated her while she is battling with cancer. She may not deserve the slack, but he still doesn’t deserve her.

    • When I said I used to be an Edwards supporter I lied.

      I could never have supported a piece of shit like that.

    • Yep, sometimes the media does get it right. The guy is a phoney with a capital F. I didn’t believe it until I saw him in person at YearlyKos 2007. It was like one of those textbook cases from Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink!. He’s a fricking PT Barnum. He doesn’t have a genuine thought in that shrunken soul of his.
      Alas, I was another Outlier.

    • Edwards’ Two Americas, the one where he professed to have family values and the one where he didn’t.

    • I read the NYT article. I had it against Edwards since 2004 wen he torpedoed all candidates (especially Clark) with dirty tricks while the media was hailing him as ‘the nice one”.
      So, when I read this paragraph

      “But a few months ago, when the couple showed up for dinner at a Chapel Hill restaurant, diners averted their eyes and stared at their plates, according to a person who was there. “

      I considered my schadenfreude complete.
      Sometimes I feel good things do come to those who wait.

  20. RD ~ some old school make-up tips from teh Queen of Escape herself!

  21. I have four high achieving kids, Riverdaughter. I’m working on the last one, the youngest, (who may well be the death of me.) You have my sympathy. I’m very lucky to have a fabulous program available here thru the public school that provides an alternative for kids with these needs. The only drawback is that it requires buckets of parental blood, sweat, and tears. After you’ve been drained of all life, you then get to spend your “free” time dealing with an adolescent.

    LOL, it’s not called “disorganized”, it’s referred to as “visual”. You have a child that must have everything sprawled across the universe because anything put in it’s proper place will not receive any attention. Needless to say when your thoughts and things are sprawled across the galaxies, it’s very difficult to hone in on one specific homework assignment.

    Hang in there.

    • Ah! A kindred spirit. So, you know about the kid who is totally in their heads all of the time.
      Here’s a funny incident: We were talking about the vampire series Twilight and she said she hated it, after she read all of the books. I said Edward reminded me of the classic Byronic hero, to which she replied, “You mean, ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’?”
      Where the f^*) did that come from? Lady Caroline Lamb said that about Lord Byron. She’s getting ahead of me. F!

  22. ot

    On TMC they are playing A Face in The Crowd. It is an old movie but one of the best political movies ever made.
    I think axelrod studied it for ideas on how to market backtrack.

    WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

    PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE

  23. http://www.maniacworld.com/Beauty-of-Science.html

    If children could get teachers like this think how much they could and would want to learn.
    This man should teach teachers
    Any one taking his classes is a lucky person
    As I said before ” food for the brain and beauty for the soul”

    WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

    PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE

    • are you kidding? In the current atmosphere, teachers are not allowed to do a thing but teach to the test and run their classes exactly like every other class.

  24. Several times I had the impulse to ask: WHERE IS RD?!

    So good to hear from you–your voice is too unique and missed when you are not here, but I’m glad to hear you are on sabbatical after your indefatigable efforts last year.

    As for: “How would YOU like to relearn geometry in your middle age?” Maybe that could be a new form of torture that fits within the Geneva Conventions. I know I would fold like a card table is someone made me learn geometry again.

  25. RD, you forgot to mention the big decorating/remodeling project. I’m sofa shopping so I remember. Anyway, I’m starting to get bags under my eyes. I live in tropical weather, South Florida,and am now staying in the sun as little as possible – you stay tanned anyway. But when I’ve spent time away and lose color, I really see the sun damage. Any hints you us guys – foundation just can’t do it. The Canadian women who visit in the Winter swear by ROC products. They are inexpensive and available at drug stores. I’m aging too rapidly and still vain enough to care. I just watched Face in the Crowd too. We just recently had that open mic incident in California. I expect to non-teleprompter moment someday.

    • Anything with retinol or retin-a will help take years off your face. They are the two products that really work. You;d be better off going to your dermatologist and getting a prescription though. The OTC preparations aren’t as concentrated and by the time you’ve bought and used enough to make a difference, you could have been using the more concentrated prescription stuff for quicker turnaround. Sometimes, it pays to make the initial investment.

  26. sorry I am going to go there…not a teacher by the way.
    If they are placing kids in class levels based on standardized tests, there are a lot of smart bored kids in lower classed who do not test well. Or even better for them, because they have teachers who give a damn about giving them a real education rather than how well they regurgitate information drilled in to them for a test.
    They should be in higher level classes. What about their rights to an appropriate education?

    ps….standardized testing is not a global program. Most countries just have more creativity in teaching methods.

  27. Glad to see you back Riveraughter..you have been missed. We all know how important it is to go away, and re energize..but I’ve never known makeup tips and videos could do the trick!!
    To each her own.
    Love it!!!

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