Surfing Around...

We are definitely in major sleep deprivation mode at our house, that sweet little vixen otherwise known as our youngest daughter's been on 4 am wake up, still. In lieu of trusting me to provide witty and insightful commentary on life, I refer you to some of my favorite bloggers this morning. My major recent accomplishment, ongoing, is pilfering saved treasure foods from my upper closets and trying them out. Today: Tea from Betty's Tea Room in Harrogate, UK, a remnant of a trip to Yorkshire at a time when my university paid for my travel. Friday: a jar of Cranberry Jam/relish, which we tasted and rejected for its Grand Marnier heaviness. Some things are made for the top shelf, apparently.

Last week was a big conference in Toronto about motherhood, where the stage was shared by a bunch of academics, some authors, and bloggers. Reports are of dawn till midnight conversations, lots of inspiration, and lots of time without kids. I do understand the glee, but since I had been invited to give a keynote there, and couldn't attend because they didn't offer childcare, I had a slightly different take. Here's Mojo Mom on her experience, mixed with lots of other stuff, and Mother Shock where Andi has posted her talk about "The escalation of cool," basically her take on how the public and published face of motherhood has shifted in part, to prefer drugs-and-sex memoirs, and her comment that all this hot talk keeps at bay the real poignancies of motherhood is an absolute treasure. It's testament to how much our publishing venues prefer parent stories from those who were bad boys (and bad girls) and reformed, that she's posting it on her own blog. All the better for those of us who know her, I say. If you're reading this post and want to click and it's past the first week of November, here's the Mother Shock "Cool Essay" trackback.

For another take, check out the always smart, always fun Toronto Mama/MUBAR, a Canadian blogger who also attended the motherhood conference. Toronto Mama was surprised after to see the organizer criticize bloggers as hijacking the real issues of motherhood. Apparently, one of these issues is childcare. Apparently bloggers focus on everything else take the focus off political issues. Hmm. Ironic, yes, for a conference that didn't offer childcare, and also a but of a turf battle between academics and bloggers, one that isn't all that surprising, given how much blogging pushes the comfort zone of academics, and how much more attention it gets. I'm glad to hear the updates. Given my status as a trained academic who left fulltime academic work, and who never much liked academic conferences, I can't say I'm sorry to have missed it.

Back to the local, here are my pals from the kids' after school playground: ZMommy who apparently is also tossing out old food from her pantry--it's going around! and Imperfect Serenity who is writing about fear, and about our upcoming elections.