Mammograms in May.

Share the following widely:

Meharry General Hospital is once again doing their "Mammograms in
May" program where they do free mammograms. For those of you without
insurance this is a great thing. They will start taking appointments
Monday, May 1st at 615-341-4000.

ftp://ftp.nashville.org/web/gen_hospital/newsletters/200504.pdf

Mother's Day Reclaimation.

As discussed here previously, Ms. Booty Homemaker and friends, as Mothers Acting Up and familiars, are putting together Nashville's First Annual Mother's Day Peace Parade.

I hope to see some of y'all there.

Some of the co-sponsoring entities include Nashville Peace & Justice Center, CodePink and Peace Roots Alliance.

Wild Oats will be providing delicious cake and juice for all, and Plum Good Food will be providing bottled water.

My amazing mother-in-law is sewing aprons for the big day from her small hometown, "Where the North Begins and Pure Water Flows."

There are still a few fun and funky jobs for willing spirits and hands, and there are limited tabling opportunities available. If interested in either, please contact me straight away!!

Dining Out For Life.

Today, Dining Out For Life takes place here in Nashville, a yearly fund raiser to help Nashville Cares and others raise money and awareness to fight HIV and AIDS. Other cities across the country are hosting like events on dates close to this one. You can find your city's plans here.

Though we generally sup at a sponsoring eatery, this year the stomach bug has knocked Ms. Booty out of dining out commission. (It was last year, while Dining Out For Life at East Nashville's Alley Cat that Mama Booty first felt the quickening Ziggy announcing himself with a most exciting wiggle.)

Baring Witness.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

If someone is up for organizing a group of women for such an action in Middle Tennessee, let me know.

The World of Women and Children.

Here's what I meant in the below post; the world of women and children with which I am familiar and fascinated.... a mamaparty moment captured by Angela:

This life and how I am a piece of candy.

from a letter to a dear friend who lives in two cities, travels regularly to exotic locales and is on the doorstep of becoming a beautiful bride to the man of her dreams....



Six days!? Wow. I have NO idea, I'm realizing, what your wedding plans are. Private family only affair? City hall? Restaurant? Bar? Big blow out?

You'll look smashing in your suit with gardenias; a bride from another era, think of the wonderful film It Happened One Night. (If you've not seen that, put it in your Netflix queue straight away!!)

I most certainly would love watching the [flower] buds grow with you. Then again, I'm an odd duck, it is true. Once upon another lifetime, a beau told me I made for a really good young boy or a very old woman; I was all of about 19 or 20 years old at that time.

Please DO send me photos of what you look like as a bride. And let me tell you: marriage is VERY different than living with someone. It's hard, too, but worthwhile and deep. I wish you and Dave a lifetime of getting to know one another and making your own little family life a part of the whole.

Attached are a couple recent photos of my life.

I must off to swap out laundry, make a phone call or two, pay bills and pack up me and the wee bairn, as we must head over to the west side town. I keep another baby once a week or so at her home, as ours is quite small.

I imagine my mama life seems dull and repetitious and exhausting from the outside, and in some ways it is, in fact, all of those things. It is also precisely what I feel I was born to do. The world of women and children fascinates me even with its familiarity, as it's a place I've inhabited nearly always. There is depth here, spiritually speaking. As my dear friend Kaki the Reverend explained to me a couple nights ago (she kept my child when my man and I went on our first date since Ziggy's birth-- to see David Sedaris read (wonderful!!)), from a theological standpoint, a child's concept of faith and of God comes from the mother, from having the needs met, from their collective ebb and flow and her return from absence; the Village upholds this concept, emboldens it and supports the child's faith.

Perhaps this is why I felt so frustrated that last evening my Mister didn't call me immediately at Stitch 'N Bitch when my child began to sign for milk and cry for "NiNi," which he uses interchangably for nurse and for mama. Or, perhaps I felt myself to be inadequte, a failure for my inability to relax enough when running late in the day to pump enough to leave for my brief interlude in the world sans my twenty some odd pound appendage. I love my child so. And it truly is quite like an organ outside my very body when I part from him-- it's downright painful. But too, of late, I have needed to reclaim myself a little bit, lest I become more like the cagey tiger needing to run. It wounded me terribly though, to have Ziggy's father choose not to call me, and then to assert that I chose my own needs over my baby's.

Oh, this life. It is sweet and hard and sometimes I am a bit too crispy on the outside of of my gooey soft center.

Certainly, I do wish there were more romance and rock & roll, and maybe tomorrow, there will be.

love,
paige

Peony!

Yesterday morning, the first peony of the season opened on one of the bushes in the side yard. Yay!!! I so very much love these dear old fashioned flowers.

Last Day of WPLN's Pledge Drive.

Public radio rocks. It's an invaluable community resource wherever you are, and pledge drives are winding down all over the country. Here in Middle Tennessee, WPLN Nashville Public Radio is going out with a bang: it's Member Get a Member Day. I'm a member. Won't you be, too?

If you haven't yet renewed your membership, do it!! And if you're sitting on the fence about whether or not to become a member, go for it.

A basic membership is $60; affordable for most listeners on a budget (me). You can do $5 per month on auto deduct from your checking account or on a credit card. AND get a cool mug or other thank you gift for your trouble. I want the Lake Wobegone Nalgene bottle. I tote one all the time.

$120 bucks will get you the oh so very cool This American Life 10th Annivesary mug.

Call: (615) 760-2010 or go here http://www.wpln.org to pledge.

Random Thoughts.

So the "fatted calf," it's veal. Right?

Does anyone ever really boil water for their infants in this country? And why don't I know more about reverse osmosis water?

My mother cut my breast out of a photograph; I was nursing Ziggy in the background of a shot taken at my littlest niece's birthday party. My breast. Cut with scissors. Out. Of. The. Picture. What does that say?

I really must post my recipe for Chickpea Apple salad.

Note to self: check into Upromise more thoroughly. Open an account for Ziggy. Ask readers and friends if they've done same.

What would Ira Glass be like as a dinner guest?

Should I spring for pocket dipes for nighttime, or is there any way I can get through even more sleep deprivation and work harder on EC during the night? I'm not thinking so..... Zig seems to like the little potty well enough for when we get it right and part time may be the best I've got to give to the effort right now.

I'm hungry. Cheerios or oatmeal?

In The Meantime....

Iyanla Vanzant danced somewhere.

And here on planet Booty:

• One visit from the Michigan grands, who come bearing lots of love and apples, clothing for the boy king, chili and midwestern BBQ (something we southerners call Sloppy Joes and with bemused adoration giggle when referred to as BBQ).
• One hike along the Stones River with Ziggy in the backpack on Daddy Booty's big shoulders.
• One nasty cold. Again. Time two: Mama & Baby.
• One visit from Diggy, who'll be comin' round the plateau when she comes bearing more clothing for the boy king and more love than two hands can hold.
• One first time "ride" on the baby swing at the park.
• One rather frightening green bilious vomiting episode, followed by one visit to Vandy Children's ER in which x-rays show nothing out of the ordinary and the doctors all shrug at the fluke, admire the beauty and constitution of one cloth diaper wearing child in a sling who, as of yet, has had a diet of only breastmilk. (The sweet potato, baked for Baby's first solid, awaits another day....)
• One collective sigh of relief and gratitude and one shared delayed reaction shoved off yet again.
• One vehicle breakdown in which the breaks go completely out on Maggie the mini van JUST after Daddy Booty drops Mama & Babe off at Vandy Children's ER entryway.
• One aborted van rescue trip at the parking garage.
• One sweet potato party in which naked Baby Booty has a big time with sweet potato on its own, then mixed with expressed breast milk.
• One Mama / Baby bath to wash off the sweet potato party, during which Daddy Booty sits beside the tub to visit and assist with lathering and toweling.
• One big night of Booty Bed slumber in which the storms come and the time change is completely forgotten until the tow truck operator rings up on the phone....
• One successful retrieval of the van, followed by a decision of whether to spend yet nearly another thousand to keep old Maggie keepin' on.
• One little family, one day, one moment, one little spoonful at a time.

It is a sweet and messy life, this one shared life of ours.