My new bitter private school post

Want to hear me whine about not having enough money to afford private school? http://mommyish.com/childrearing/pulling-my-child-from-private-school-has-made-me-a-richer-and-poorer-person-357/3/

I'm published on HuffPo!

See my new post on HuffPo about why I don't want to gay marry!

Congrats Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni

The pair have finally married. Mazel! The bride wore Carolina Herrera.

"If I wanted the government in my womb, I'd fuck a senator"

Just read this on Feministing about a woman kicked off American Airlines flight because of a T-shirt she wore (see message in title). Seems horrifying. Since when can an airline boot you for a dress code issue? Is there any other way to see this than a civil rights infringement? Shit! I need to go dig out my READ MY LIPS: KISSING DOESN'T KILL tees from the early '90s. You can now buy them at Opening Ceremony (how chic).

Babs at the Atlantic Yards new Brooklyn Nets stadium

Ingrid read that Barbra Streisand will be one of first performers at new Brooklyn Nets stadium (rem when it was spectacularly controversial like four years ago?), in October. Agreed that we must get tix. Have never seen her, in all the years I've been a tremendous fan. Shouldn't we support a living legend AND our neighborhood (Nets stadium is six blocks from our home)? Then I heard from another friend and rabid fan that she got tix through a Babs website presale and that they cost bank. What was I thinking? Then got a call from dear friend who may get us an in on corporate tix, for slightly better deal. Feeling like all my dreams may come true in this week alone. In that spirit, click here for a 1975 performance from the beautiful young one, with her perfect nose.

Nibbles from the Test Kitchen

In a training meeting I had today for one of my upcoming jobs this summer, I met someone who had been for several decades a recipe developer at a major food magazine. Won't mention her name here since I'll have to work with her later this summer and I want to become BFFs with her before namechecking her on my blog, but she was fabulous. Had a sort of pale, thin-skinned, New England WASPish Joan Didion look about her, and told me about testing the same coconut lemon cream cake three times because she is so painstakingly devoted to her craft. Love her--and can't wait to taste the things she tests this summer when we work together. (Meanwhile, let me take this moment to plug my friend Ian Knauer's new cookbook, The Farm, which is absolutely gorgeous and inspiring. Ian, you sexy mo-fo, thanks for all those wonderful nibbles from the test kitchen when I was working a floor above you, pregnant, and constantly hungry.

Vietnamese husbands

It's long been a joke in my Vietnamese immigrant family that none of my mother's sisters, all divorced now, would ever want to date or marry a Vietnamese man again. I never really understood why. My mother recently shared an anecdote about a high school friend of hers, a Vietnamese man who lives in Belgium now, that sheds a little light. Lamenting his lack of a wife, this man, now in his 60s, told my mother, who lives in California, “Vietnamese women in California are harsh!” 

“What do you mean,” my mother inquired. “They all want to know if I have a house, if I have a steady job, if I have savings,” he explained. “Well, what are you looking for in a wife,” my mother wanted to know. “Oh, not much,” the man replied. “Just someone to prepare me three meals a day, do my laundry, keep the house clean, and do some errands here and there.” “You expect services from a potential wife,” my mother surmised, “so I’m not surprised that these women you’re approaching want to see if you can provide for them. They’re expected to perform services, so they want to make sure they are compensated by being taken care of financially.” Meanwhile, my mother wanted to know, what did Belgian women expect of the man? “Oh, I doubt any Belgian woman would go out with me,” he said. At least with the Californians he might be able to negotiate, I guess?