Summer Reading

I pulled a book off of my shelf for the next selection of my summer reading.  It is The Cheap Bastard's Guide to New York City. 

Given our financial situation I thought it would be a good idea to start researching some of the cheap/free things to do in the area that I may have forgotten about or not considered before.  For instance, the book mentions how several late night and day time talk shows film in the city and that you can be a part of the audience for free.  Given that Labor Day is coming up and we are going to want something to occupy some of our time going to watch a taping of David Letterman could be fun!  It also mentions that often you can volunteer to be an usher for a big name show and get to see it for free that way.  While I don't have the time to do that (or the ability...being pregnant means no standing on my feet for 4 hours at a time!) it is an excellent idea for other people who might want to catch a Broadway show but don't have the funds for tickets.

And for honesty's sake let me explain the recent appearance of ads on the blog.  I am attempting to make a little bit of money this way to offset some of our income loss.  If you see an ad or an Amazon item that interests you please feel free to click the link and check it out, but by no means should you feel obligated to do so.

Well, shit...

We are so screwed.  My husband was laid off from his job last week and because he hadn't been there for 2 quarters yet he isn't eligible for unemployment.

This wouldn't be so bad except that our insurance costs are skyrocketing and after the baby is born our health insurance will take up 50% of my paycheck.  Rent takes up the other 50%, which means we have to dip into savings for food, electricity, and the like.  In addition to that bit of fabulousness, because my company is a small business of less than 50 people I'm not eligible for FMLA and my maternity leave will be unpaid.

We are working to find him a new job as fast as possible and in the meantime we will be finding alternative ways to make some money but this is going to be a difficult time for us.  Luckily there is a lot of free stuff to do in the city so we won't be without entertainment or more material for the blog!

Hurricane and Doughnuts

So we are staring down the barrel of hurricane Irene.  My father never calls me about anything and he called to tell me that we should expect a category 1 hurricane to hit the island on Sunday so I am taking this pretty seriously.  We stopped today after work and got some milk and cereal (and dog and cat food) to make sure that we would be prepared for any horrible weather and we put off buying theater tickets for this weekend until we have a better idea of what exactly to expect weather-wise.  After our earthquake experience this week I was hoping we could go for a while with no natural disasters but apparently that is not to be the case.  If you are on the east coast make sure you have plenty of toilet paper and food basics because the natural disasters seem intent on visiting us like broke relatives looking for a place to stay.

This past weekend we went out to an awesome place called Doughnut Plant in Chelsea. 

They make giant doughnuts the size of your head that come in awesome flavors!  We got a peanut butter and jelly doughnut, a coconut creme doughnut, and a Valrohna chocolate doughnut.  They were all so freaking tasty!  They were voted one of the top ten doughnut places in the nation so we had to go check it out and we are very glad we did. 

Also, I keep wanting to type donut but spell check insists that this is incorrect.  I feel like spell check is being prejudiced against what is typically an acceptable spelling.  Stop oppressing me, spell check!

Childhood Influences

In November my husband and I are having a baby girl.  I am starting to think about how to present a healthy image of what a girl should be, what a woman should be, what kind of person she should aim to become, etc. and I'm finding that there are a lot of different paths she might choose from and many different influences about which path to take.  While I will make sure she gets exposed to lots of very positive NYC media like The Muppets Take Manhattan, Miracle on 34th Street, and Spider-Man my bigger concern is that she be exposed to lots of positive female role models and positive examples of what adult men and women should be.

Something that is both a benefit and a detriment of living in NYC is being exposed to all sorts of people, from the most coked-up homeless person to the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.  I very much look forward to exposing her to all sorts of cultures but the cost I will pay for that is explaining homelessness and other unpleasant sides of humanity.  My hope is that she sees where poor decisions and bad luck can take you in life and that will push her to work hard to do better but you never know what messages children pick up from the world around them, especially media images.

I used to love Inspector Gadget, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and She-Ra which I think were excellent examples of strong, intelligent people (and turtles, of course) but at the same time I watched Jem, which was basically a show where the animators barely attempted to make sure her cartoon hoo-ha didn't pop out from under her micro-mini and plenty of Disney movies with excessively thin and barely dressed heroines (I'm looking at you, Ariel and Princess Jasmine!)  And let's face it, even though she was massively powerful She-Ra still dressed like a hooker at a sci-fi convention.

I'd like my daughter to be able to watch the occasional show or movie that skirts the line, not only because I don't think it is healthy to have a child that is too sheltered from culture and media but also because these things provide excellent talking points to start a discussion about personal values and such.  And to be fair, the large majority of children's programming and toys, while perhaps not incredibly educational or anything, aren't inappropriate or damaging.  However, there appear to be a few really inappropriate toys and shows that are overly violent or place too much emphasis on weight and appearance.  Hell, even Strawberry Shortcake, the most adorable of 80's characters, has been revamped to make sure little girls know that you should be rail thin with long, silky hair.  Heaven forbid a little girl be a bit pudgy or have curly hair!  Take a look at the new vs. the old Strawberry Shortcake:

I know that most programming for kids is innocuous but I want more from my daughter's television, music, and other media experiences than that.  I want for her to see more of things like the Powerpuff Girls (scientist father, crime fighting little girls, no excessively exposed skin or excessively tiny waists) and Dora the Explorer (explorer and naturalist little girl who loves her brother and works to save the environment) and less Cinderella (cleans a lot and her biggest accomplishment is marrying a rich man) and iCarly (ultimate dream is to be a reality tv star.) I also don't want to have to watch 7,000 hours of children's programming to determine which of the shows and movies should make up her viewing time, however much or little of it there might be.  In a perfect world when she got old enough to appreciate television she would watch an hour or so a week and no more, but realistically I understand that TV might be what allows me to take a shower without an interruption too so who can say what will happen?

It's a good thing we have a little more time before she is born!  We've got a lot of research to do, and not just best brands of diapers or how to operate a breast pump either.  Hopefully by the time she is old enough to get into TV we will have figured out exactly how we want to approach the situation.

Veterinarian

Everyone knows about our adorable puppy, right?

And the kitties!

We've been taking them to a vet in our neighborhood for the past year or so that has been pretty wonderful.  One of the doctors there opened her own practice and makes house calls with her assistant now so today when the puppy needed an exam she came to the apartment to do it.  It was very affordable and she was wonderful with the dog!  I'm very excited about having a vet that makes house calls!  The cats have never taken well to being hauled several blocks in their carriers and usually work themselves into such a fit that they poop in the carrier out of fear and anger.  This prevents them from being forced into panic attacks at a time when they are probably already not feeling great, which is wonderful, and it allows for me to get them proper vet care without leaving the house which is hugely important to me as a very pregnant woman.  I'm not really showing yet but I am pretty uncomfortable and due to the sciatica I'm supposed to try and avoid stairs if I can so it was great to have someone come to the house to provide a service like that.  Check them out if you live in the area!

www.homefrontvet.com