Living History

When I was a kid, my favorite time of the year was summer. My second favorite time of the year was fall.

In the summer and at Thanksgiving, I was lucky enough to go on road trips with my family, to visit Vermont, New Hampshire, and Virginia.

I got to see my beloved cousins and enjoy the great outdoors while camping and visiting resorts, thanks to our grandfather.

One of our trips was to Manassas Battlefield when I was pretty young. I remember there being a lot of walking, and a lot of bugs.

Whenever we all, as a family, got to one of the monuments at Manassas, I just wanted to rest. But the joy of pushing a button on an interactive display kept me going. I push the button, and someone speaks!

When I pushed the button, a tired voice would come out of the monument, a tired man tired of battles would speak to me, and tell me to turn my head and look around at the ground on which he fought. He’d tell me exactly what he saw, that day, that time, way back when. He’d tell me what hardships he went through, and how doubtful he was about his chances to survive.

Living history.

I would hate to see the day that any of us Americans turn our back on history, no matter how much we might not like it.

I would hate to see the day when we silence the voices of those who walked this earth before we did.

I would hate to stop learning and trying to seek answers, when that should be our sole purpose here on earth.

Dear US Government

If I could tell our federal government what to do, and what not to do, here would be my list:

Don’t allow US companies to offshore anything just because it’s cheaper.

Do make them hire American workers.  Period.

Don’t allow corporations and super-rich people the ability to send their money to the Cayman Islands, et. al., for investment purposes and to avoid taxes.

Do make them save and spend here, just like the rest of us.

Don’t control schools anymore.  You’ve all done a terrible job of it.

Do allow school choice.  It won’t kill teachers, and it will definitely help students.

Don’t let identity politics and all this crazy gender crap rule the day anymore.

Do allow Johnny to be Jane so long as zhe pays for the sex change operation and doesn’t make us create any stupid laws protecting zim/zer (zhir?  zher?  Oh, fuck, never mind.  Oy.).

Don’t mess with anyone’s religion.  Just don’t.

Don’t allow lobbyists.

Don’t give so-called “think tanks” the time of day.

Just let us be who we are, as we struggle to survive (and hopefully get enough income to pay our bills and taxes and take a vacation now and then without losing our homes).

Just let us be US, without all the crap and costs and stupid stuff that you all keep doing to us, and allowing us to do to you.

 

 

 

This is Cancer

It took a good man.  A big, strong, solid, vibrant, loving man.

It took him, and knocked the wind out of his sails.  Drained his big, strong, solid, vibrant, loving body and weakened it, day by slow, excruciating day.

Took his pride.  Took his feelings.  Took his hopes and wishes away, and left him hollow.

With skeletal eyes, it made him gaze at me.  Causing constant pain, it led him to hold my hand and say nothing.

A beautiful man was taken out.

A man that was loved and was loving.

Pancreatic cancer grows, like a silence.

A death sentence that makes no sense.

A sentence that took away a whole book of a life.

This is cancer.

Waiting for the Dead to Talk

Everybody’s telling me to wait for signs from Rob.

“He’s there, he’s guiding you, his spirit is watching over you, he’ll give you a sign…”

One friend, only a week or two after Rob passed, told me that he hugged her.  I wanted to ask her why he would hug her first, and not me, but I didn’t have the nerve.

I shared with friends that a hummingbird came and hovered over Rob’s red impatiens last month.  Someone told me it was Rob himself, coming to visit me and cheer me.  I said, “Rob was not a hummingbird.  He was a hawk, or an eagle.  He was not a hummingbird.”

I talk to Rob all the time, but I get no answers.  I don’t even get the sense that he’s there listening.

Someone told me to pay more attention to my dreams, that perhaps Rob can only visit me in dreams.

Thursday night I had the most vivid dream ever, but in my dream I was sitting on a couch with Hillary Clinton and asking her why she feels entitled to the White House.  I made the mistake of calling her “Mrs. Clinton” and she made very clear to me that I should address her as “Madame Secretary” before telling me that it’s not for me to second guess her motives nor deny her her place in herstory.

Rob was nowhere in sight, in this dream, nor has he been anywhere but in photographs, lately.

 

 

Harry Houdini wanted desperately to reach out to his mother’s departed spirit.  So much so that he apparently visited each and every so called medium in an effort to have his mother visit earth after she passed.  Harry ended up exposing each and every so called medium as a fraud.

I’ve come to the conclusion that once a person is dead, they are really and truly dead.

Perhaps that’s the way they want it.

Perhaps it’s what we should let them have.

Pure quiet, and peace.

CONSPIRACIES

Morte di Giulio Cesare (“Death of Julius Caesar”). By Vincenzo Camuccini, 1798

CONSPIRACY TO KILL OBAMA

Members of our military attempted to assassinate the President of the United States!

http://www.govexec.com/defense/2012/08/prosecutors-us-soldiers-plotted-kill-president-obama/57678/

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/08/prosecutors-us-soldiers-plotted-kill-president-obama/56238/

       QUIP: Seven_Days_in_May?

LIMBAUGH CONSPIRACIES

Meteorologists conspired to impel Isaac to attack the Florida Peninsula!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/08/anatomy-rush-limbaughs-hurricane-isaac-non-conspiracy-conspiracy/56260/

QUIP: And then the weathermen attempted to underline the Katrina Crisis!

Rich people are just poor people with money.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/08/29/rush-limbaugh-rich-people-are-just-poor-people/189638

QUIP: yeah naked peoples are that same as clothed people except they have no clothes!

Conspiracy by MSNBC

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/rush-limbaugh-msnbc-sick-depraved-place_n_1844261.html?utm_hp_ref=media

QUIP: Does Rusho ever examine Mediamatters? Or does Rusho ever listen to his own broadcasts?

International corporations (is that not most of the corps?)

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revolt-of-the-rich/

       QUIP: Does the word international have any implications here?

BILL BURR (2008)

Bill Burr predicting that Obama will win the election in 08. That way all the pigs can blame the end of America on a Black Guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiPkxIdNXRQ&feature=related

 

       QUIP: The GOP has taken this mantra to it’s ultimate conclusion in the 2012 Convention!

GOP: Factcheckers are conspiring to prove our messages are false.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revolt-of-the-rich/

       QUIP: (It will be the fatcheckers who screw Chris Christie’s chances in 2016!)

CONSPIRACIES IN GENERAL

We did not land on the moon.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/photogalleries/apollo-moon-landing-hoax-pictures/

Jesse James was a good guy fighting the good fight conspiracy.

Jesse James was a goddamnable Confederate Terrorist!

The Fluoride Conspiracy

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=14949

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBfjU3_XOaA

The Daylight Saving Time Conspiracy

http://geography.about.com/cs/daylightsavings/a/dst.htm

http://www.standardtime.com/

The Light Bulb Conspiracy.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/02/10/422981/rep-steve-king-at-cpac-nancys-stasi-made-me-use-energy-efficient-light-bulbs/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-light-bulbs-agenda-21

The Gold Standard Conspiracy

http://trueconspiracyblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/honest-truth-about-gold-standard.html

http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-02-01/going-back-to-the-gold-standard/

The Hooker Conspiracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Woman

(If you are a good prostitute you will meet the man of your dreams and he will have money!)

The Corn Syrup Conspiracy.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060629114622AA6TmCZ

UFO’s ON THE MOON

http://ufos.about.com/od/nasaufos/p/moonufos1.htm

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicphotos.html

http://www.educatinghumanity.com/2012/08/Neil-Armstrong-Dead-Did-He-See-UFOs-Moon.html

COMMENT

This is the one conspiracy I really get into.

I mean over the last week or so I have read twenty links regarding the theory that there are UFO’s on the moon and especially on the dark side of the moon.

I am fascinated by this theory because of all the auditory recordings indicating great structures on the moon and in the skies over the moon at the time of our landings.

And this nutsiness is underlined by the fact that many astronauts in space and simply in our Earth’s atmosphere have reported these UFO’s.

In the current time of drones and aircraft that we shall never be introduced to in the next decade; something is out there.

That is all I have this week.

Except:

DOES MASTURBATION CAUSE BLINDNESS?

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/does-masturbation-cause-blindness/

I am not that sure of this conspiracy but the keyboard and the screen are getting harder and harder to perceive as I move on in years.

 

 

The Pursuit of Happiness…..

It has been said that the two biggest motivations of humans are to obtain pleasure and to avoid pain. I believe with some variations, this is mostly true. Add into this our instinct for survival and you can probably explain most behaviors. But I am just guessing here, I suppose.

THE FUNK HOLE

 

I am viewing the entire BBC/PBS episodes of a great series that shall continue into the next year.

Most people live quiet lives of desperation.

So says McLuhan!

I have become caught up in a a BBC series entitled:

Foyle’s War

The mystery/cop series is set in Hastings, England during the Blitz and first aired in 2002.

I am currently viewing Set 2, Episode 4 (2003) entitled FUNK HOLES!

Delightful!

Michael Kitchen plays Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle; the chief police officer of Hastings.

I underline this particular episode because we find ourselves in FUNK HOLES.

What prey tell is a FUNK HOLE?

Well it seems that by 1940 during the Blitz, the economically superior classes left London and the larger cities and sought haven in the countryside hoping to escape reality.

And the country-gentry who owned large estates in the ‘country’ needed money.

So the country-gentry naturally turned their homesteads into inns or hostelries as they say.

Now the local markets, subjugated by new rationing rules and regs (much like us a few years later) found that they could not procure adequate products for their old markets let alone the new markets available for the noveau riche (who were not really that noveau! ha).

Therefore, the local markets which were cheating anyway, could no longer supply the richer folks in their own areas since the old more aristocratic Funk Holers would pay three or four times what the old market would bear for a simple pound of liver!

 

CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT!

I most probably heard those words from three primary teachers and then fifteen professors later on in life.

This series, which I most probably will critique later on, underlines the fact that there is more to historical eras than hats and pants and language and….

So many Brits were without allies on the national scene and without hope following the destruction of their homes. FDR loomed more magnificent in the minds of hundreds of millions of Europeans as the war waged on during our isolationist period increasing of course, following our entry into the war.

WE WERE ONCE THE SINGLE SYMBOL OF HOPE FOR THE SURVIVAL OF CIVILIZATION!

Ha!

Anyway, this blog is not a movie critique but an analysis of the FUNK HOLERS!

As this episode in Foyle’s War progresses we are introduced to the residents of these Funk Holes.

Besides cheating the locals out of their meats and their exotic foods (exotic in the sense of potatoes and carrots), the funk holers cheat. I mean they purchase all the available under-the-table commodities.

The one resident couple of a local funk hole that really got to me, ended up with canned ham which was directed toward their dog!

An amazing comment on humanity since in a previous episode we are confronted with a 1940’s version of Oliver where the waifs collected paper and metal for the war effort in an attempt to procure chocolate from the local parishes!

Why Oliver & Co. did not end up with the canned hams presents us with the concept of the aristocracy’s concept of ‘choice’.

THE PRESENT

Nowadays we have witnessed a new class of FUNK HOLERS.

They do not merely hide in the Hamptons or in the country side of Hastings hoping not be be found out, hoping not to be confronted and hoping that the present ‘difficulties’ shall one day be resolved.

We find people BRAGGING that they are indeed FUNK HOLERS.

Joe Walsh is an example of the present day braggerts; proud to be FUNK HOLERS.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/236435-tammy-duckworth-american-hero-has-her-heroism-attacked-by-joe-walsh-tea-party-bum

Joe finds himself confronting his own fascist/NAZI persona without one month served in the Armed Forces of anything.

And he finds himself in the FUNK HOLE and finds himself, once again, competing against a severely wounded and disabled veteran!

SO WHAT IS A MOTHER TO DO?

I mean this motherfucker will not even pay his proper child support whilst he spends his entire oratorical life espousing family values besides national duty!

Again, as I have underlined many many times, hypocrisy has no value as a category anymore.

John Kerry who chose to volunteer for his country’s armed forces rather than accept a printed message telling him that he was drafted, went on two tours (THAT’S TWO TOURS FOLKS) in that magic land of Siam. I mean during his first tour he certainly discovered that there was no Yul Brenner and there certainly was to be found no Deborah Kerr!

Well he gets wounded twice and at the 2004 Repub Convention, all of these FUNK HOLERS are wearing symbols making fun of John’s Purple Hearts.

TWO PURPLE HEARTS

And the repubs wear pretend band aids.

Whilst the FUNK HOLER Bush had no Purple Hearts, no tours of Siam and not one incident of combat because he used his aristocratic station in life to avoid conflict. Speaking of avoiding conflict, after a couple years, w bush found the terrors of the sky too much to his liking and so he hid away in his daddy’s campaign whilst the people in power destroyed any documentation that might have substantiated his true tao in life!

CHICKEN HAWKS!

As Cheney once said:

I pursued other options.

But let us remove ourselves from the battlefields for a second.

There are battlefields that involve no tanks, no drones, no rifles and no bombs.

The battlefield we currently find ourselves upon involves homelessness, hopelessness and unemploymentness.

The FUNK HOLERS have no idea what unemployment means.

The FUNK HOLERS have no idea what homelessness means.

The FUNK HOLERS have no idea of what hopelessness means.

The FUNK HOLERS have no idea of what context means.

The FUNK HOLERS have no idea of what a GODDAMN LOTTERY MEANS.

The FUNK HOLERS would have no idea what being a patriot really means.

MITT ROMNEY

Mitt Romney is the ultimate FUNK HOLER.

He hid in Paris to avoid a war that initially began because of French policies.

He hid in Massachusetts so that his governmental policies could be hid by rationalizations.

He hid his assets all over the globe so that he would not pay his share of taxes to his country of origin.

He hid his faith so that his faith, the core of his belief, would not be analyzed too closely.

He hid his his assets so that those assets would not be analyzed too closely.

He hides his real financial backers so that those corporate sponsors will be caused no harm.

He hides his true aims for AMERICA so that real Americans shall never be allowed to see the perils that they shall all experience once he reaches power.

So let us all give it up to the:

THE FUNK HOLERS

THE CREED OF FUNK HOLERS

1.  Look, I am doing the best I can.

2.  How else can my great grandchildren get into college?

3.  My pets deserve something special from me!

4.  Hernandez does a great job on my lawns as well as my sex craved wife.

5.  I just love Negroes; my mother knew one.

6.  Everyone should be free; just so that they can pay their bills.

7.  Humanity shall always be confronted by warfare; just leave my family out of it!

8.  But if you all do that, I lose my plantation!

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxyU4W8iyeI

 

 

 

 

 

EATING BETTER FOR LE$$: BY AUNTIE SAM AND DD

EATING BETTER FOR LE$$

The Every ‘DAY’  Guide to Secure Healthy Nutrition for Mind, Body and $aving$

Food Insecurity and Very Low Food Security*:

• In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children.
• In 2010, 14.5 percent of households (17.2 million households) were food insecure.
• In 2010, 5.4 percent of households (6.4 million households) experienced very low food security.
• In 2010, households with children reported food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children, 20.2 percent compared to 11.7 percent.
• In 2010, households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national average included households with children (20.2 percent), especially households with children headed by single women (35.1 percent) or single men (25.4 percent), Black non-Hispanic households (25.1 percent) and Hispanic households (26.2 percent).
• In 2009, 8.0 percent of seniors living alone (925,000 households) were food insecure.
• Food insecurity exists in every county in America, ranging from a low of 5 percent in Steele County, ND to a high of 38 percent in Wilcox County, AL.

                                                                                                                                                                                *Per Feeding America

We are attempting to attack a problem here, there and everywhere because too many people do not know how to cook well on a budget.

AUNTIE SAM AND I DISCUSS WITH YOU:

HOW TO EAT BETTER FOR LE$$!

Poorer folks do not eat out or at least they should not!

Take out pizza is ten bucks minimum.

If you ate take out pizza all week (forget delivery, I mean you have to pay a tip) it would cost a minimum $300 a month and you would be receiving one meal a day—or two if you really wish to eat cold pizza at 12 midnite or 600:AM.

Of course, fast food and all processed food meals are loaded with too much of everything bad and very little of what’s good, in taste and nutrition, for us or our wallets.

I have spent hundreds of hours with food channel shows or with Martha over the last few years. I learned a lot from these programs even though I usually attack the subject with satire. And I have learned much from the diner shows, believe it or not.

Now I cook for me! And I can easily eat on $150.00 a month and eat nutritionally.We shall continually discuss how to save money at the grocers.

I would think that two would be able to eat for under $200/$225 a month. If you are living with three teenagers, I think you should need at a minimum $500/month especially if you have active boys! A teen age boy needs 4500 calories a day if he is active as I was in my day but we shall discuss this at length in further episodes—assuming this idea catches on.

Still learning about,but now know enough to be rid of gout, the onset of adult diabetes and a number of other ailments that were created mainly by the food I was eating.

So Auntie Sam and I decided that it might be fruitful for all of us to come together to share/discuss philosophically and realistically the type of diet that one could live on for $150.00 or so a month. These menus would be satisfying, nutritional, cheap and easy to prepare. All the Vitamins A and B’s and C and E and other needs should be taken care of in a 3 meal a day regimen.

Remember physical activity is of the utmost import in deciding a diet regimen. But if you skimp on dietary necessities you are open to arthritis, gout, diabetes, depression, anxiety, heart problems….

We hope to share with you good recipes, including nutrition and other economic assistsinthis endeavor.

Auntie Sam and I would like to begin a real look at nutrition and we welcome every recipe and other ‘food and nutrition fare facts, as well as hints on $aving$ you feel like contributing.  Do you recommend a good coupon site on internet for printable coupons?  Please share.

TO BEGIN:

Ah, spices are so important.  Here is my basic spice and herb list:

Garlic Salt*

Italian seasoning

Cumin

Red Pepper flakes

Salt and Pepper of course

Chili Powder

Dried Onion flakes

Parsley flakes

Cinnamon

(*Auntie reminds me that garlic powder is healthier and more economical.)

If you have other basics that you believe are essential, please tell us.

We’ll continue to give you a ‘pantry’ list including condiments, staples and other foods that best deliver better food and nutrition for less.

But, here’s your first tasty recipe sampling:

My recipe for apple sauce that can be a side with pork or chicken or pancakes or waffles or integrated into a whole wheat coffee cake:

Three apples

Cinnamon

Lemon juice (bottled)

Orange juice

Pare the apples (now while I pare the apples I eat the peelings which are highly nutritious and good fiber for our digestive tracts).

Cut the apples rustically so that some pieces are larger than others.

Put the remaining apple pieces in a pan.

Stick on a low low burner and add a touch of lemon juice, a touch of orange juice and the cinnamon.

Cover with one of those holy pie tins you kept after you purchased a pie.

Check every few minutes, carefully turning the mixture with a wooden spoon.

Ten or fifteen minutes later (depending upon the type of apples you found on sale at the grocers) you turn off the burner. The smaller pieces have become sauce, the larger pieces (which you might even cut a bit) add substance.

There is absolutely no reason to add sugar to this recipe because APPLES ARE MOSTLY SUGAR. hahaha

###

*Toward the beginning of every month I pick up 5 pounds of apples (Now I might wait till the first Sunday when the prices change) and I choose those apples that are on sale. It usually runs me four or five bucks and the bag lasts me a month.

Poached Egg ‘omelets’

2 eggs

crack eggs into poaching ‘cups’

top with your favorite omelet ingredients such as these options:

A bit of shredded cheese and/or

crumbled bacon or small chunks ham, sausage and/or

chopped vegetables like pepper, mushrooms, green onion, etc. and/or

chopped tomato and/or

well, whatever you want

As egg poaches, ingredients cook and blend into top of egg.  Easy clean up, only a small portion of  fats; depending upon your additions to the basic recipe.

You can put on whole wheat toast

(kids and adults love these)

cost – less than $1.00 per serving

CEREAL FACTS:

• The average preschooler sees 642 cereal ads per year just on television, almost all for cereals with the worst nutrition ratings.
• Compared to cereals marketed to adults, those marketed to children have 85% more sugar, 65% less fiber, and 60% more sodium.
• Cereal companies together spend more than $156 million per year marketing to children.
• Of the ten cereals with the worst overall impact (nutrition and marketing scores combined), six are products from General Mills, three are from Kellogg, and one is from Post.
• Self-regulation by industry should not forestall needed government action. Self-regulatory pledges by the cereal companies have thus far been weak and have not shielded children from a barrage of messages to eat the least healthy products. Companies should be held accountable for the impact their products have on children.

    IF CEREALS HAVE PRESERVATIVES AND OTHER ‘FAUX’ INGREDIENTS – THESE ARE NOT GOOD FOR YOU.  CHECK INGREDIENTS AND NUTRITION INFORMATION ON PACKAGES.  CEREAL IS EXPENSIVE. STEEL CUT OATMEAL IS INEXPENSIVE AND OH, SO HEALTHY.  TOP WITH A BIT OF FRUIT, BROWN SUGAR, WALNUTS AND YOUR BODY AS WELL AS TASTE BUDS WILL THANK YOU.

Kellogg Mini-Wheats received the best nutrition rating; therefore, it is the only brand to receive a high combined FACT score.

The cereals with the poorest scores based on combined nutrition and marketing impact are Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, Trix, and Reese’s Puffs.

  Coming soon:  Healthy, nutritious and economical homemade cereal recipes.

www.cerealfacts.org.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii88g-op4xo

>

NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE

The Bard (ca. 1817), by John Martin

I am watching Dylan: Revealed.

On Netflix.

If you are looking for music like the Last Waltz you are going to be disappointed. There is little by the way of music.

But I learned something.

I watched Charlie Rose recently and he was interviewing an English Actor with whom I have little experience; and yet I am familiar with Bill Nighy. I always get a kick out of Bill.

He had a part in Love_Actually. (A silly nonsensical take on xmas in London!. But I loved the film—so what?)

Nighy went to all the proper British Schools for training and such. And in Love Actually he plays this nothing musician who apparently had one or two big time tunes and was lost forever as far as the public was concerned.

He ends up taking off all his clothes playing some silly xmas tune and is revived.

Bill is wonderful. He wanted to play in Pinter Plays or those written by Stoppard or Brenton or Gill…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_nighy

But he normally eschewed Shakespeare. And the manner in which he handles his anti-Shakespearean slant with Rose is wonderful. Hahahahah.

This actor maintained that Dylan was his favorite singer!

This comment from Nighy just amazed me!

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THIS GUY THINKING ABOUT?

And then I relistened (is that a word) to some older Dylan songs.

And I thought:

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THIS GUY TALKING ABOUT?

And….

Instead of staying mad and incredulous I thought:

Hell, I would rather listen to Dylan than anybody else.

Tales from the Psychiatric Nurses Station – Child/Adolescent Part 1

It has been a while since I’ve written on here so I thought I would come on and say hello.  Alot has happened on the unit that I have worked for about a year.  Among the lack of sleep from my thoughts racing due to the kids on my mind from all of their traumas to being in school again to work on my Bachelors degree.  I’d like to give you two the brief case studies  on my most memorable patients and how they’ve impacted me.

Over the past year I have learned a lot about child and adolescent psychiatric care.  Never before in my life did I think a small child would have to endure the pain, horror, and terrifying abuse that some of these children have had to face. Seeing the look on the faces of these children who have been sexually abused by relatives, family friends, or rarely strangers; rips at your very soul.  I find sleep escapes as the child’s face enters my mind’s eye, an image of them cowering in the corner fills my thoughts. I’m paralyzed with reality and I am not a confused child who is inexperienced in the trials of life and all that is evil.  I am not the abused.  The same child has been to 4 or 5 different foster homes in the span of 4 weeks.  She has no one to love her and she asks me “can you be my mommy?”