"she felt like a traveller in fairyland"

girls’ book illustration
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry.

I worked for several hours, then went to Bad Mom Coffee hour with Elswhere, met up with everyone for a super good gossip. We talked about public vs. private schools, funding and fundraising, homework, fashion, mom-clubs in general, Seattle city-sponsored new-parent clubs vs. the model here which used to be hippie feminists but is now evolving into upper class women’s retro charity organizations. Where is the idea of the comadre – instead, membership dues to keep out poor people, and then we feel big by raising money to donate to them? That sucks.

We talked about the kids a bit, heard about JP’s horrible Oahu vacation where they opened the beaches despite a recent sewage spill so that the entire island had diarrhea at once. Then about BlogHer because if Mary Tsao and I get into the same 50 foot radius we are surely yelping about BlogHer with wild and wooly intensity. It’s guaranteed.

Els and I went to the city with Grace, but abandoned her in favor of going into EVERY bookstore on Valencia St. She is good at being open to randomness and at finding odd treasures.

She showed me an inscription on the flyleaf of a book: “To my wonderful sister-in-law: I only wish we were related by blood so I’d know you’d be in my family forever! Love, Julie.” Oh Julie, ye of little faith in either your own marriage or your sister-in-law’s! Did she mean it that way or is it just hilariously pathetic? She might as well have written, “If only we had not been so stupid and hasty, we might have married each other.”