Winning! Guest Post by Norine Dworkin-McDaniel

Please, read this piece on SFGate, home of the San Francisco Chronicle, before you read this post. Then, do everything you can to employ Option 3. Thank you to columnist Mark Morford.

Taking a Risk 
Essay contestant Tanya Grove's husband and daughter go skydiving. Photo credit: Tanya Grove

It was such a thrill to read the submissions to the 2012 Third Annual Two Kinds of People Essay Contest. I discovered a host of 2KoP aficionados out there.

First, thank you to everyone who submitted. Your work was fun to read and inspires me more than I can say. It takes a leap of faith to put your writing out there to be judged (thanks to participant Tanya Grove for providing the perfect graphic.) The winning essay is posted below. As other entrants publish their essays online, I will add links to their posts, as well.

I would also like to thank my fabulous panel of judges. In addition to me, I was so lucky to have the time and attention of four outstanding guest judges, all with impeccable credentials and exceptional taste. In alphabetical order, thank you to:

Angela Allyn — arts maven, writer and multimedia performance artist; her grasp of the origin of story and literary archetypes is unparalled.

April Eberhardt — literary agent for change, champion of outstanding writers and writing everywhere, and closet 2KoP journal writer.

Ed Padala — marketing expert with an impressive ability to get right to the heart of what works and what doesn't in any piece of writing; the most well-read person I know.

Judi Silverman — master high school English teacher and life-long nitpicker, who can smell a grammatical error a mile away; trusted sounding board for all students of life.

Our Winner

This year's top honors go to Norine Dworkin-McDaniel for her fearless, funny essay called Circumcision Decision. Fair warning, this piece is a bit riskier than those usually found on 2KoP—and that's exactly what won my vote. As my own writing journey progresses, I find myself more and more drawn to writers who are willing to explore the dark corners of life, who don't feel the need to be "good" (except in the execution of their craft). It's a brave thing to commit an act of truth in writing, and I tip my hat to Norine.

Norine wins: this guest post with a link back to her own fabulous blog, Don't Put Lizards in Your Ears; an exclusive 2KoP embroidered logo tote bag; copy of the original version of William Strunk, Jr.'s Elements of Style, and a gift card to The Animal Store. Since Norine lives more than 1,000 miles from the store, she generously donated her $25 gift card to a shelter near The Animal Store called The Red Door.

Enough backstory. Here's the winning essay. Enjoy.

[Ed. note—There are two kinds of people: those who engage in civil discussion and those who hide behind anonymity or feel the need to lob personal attacks, rather than present cogent arguments or respectful expressions of a differing opinion. This essay won our contest because of the quality of the writing; it was not selected to advocate a particular position. The decision whether or not to circumcise a baby boy is a very personal one for parents, and I respect the decision of all parents in this matter. In many parts of the world circumcision is virtually unheard of. While there is evidence that the percentage of American baby boys being circumcised is dropping, upwards of three-quarters of US-born males have been circumcised. You may want to read more on the topic in this NY Times article.
    This essay takes a humorous look at one family's "circumcision decision". Some readers may disagree with the position taken by the author, and you are free to express your opinion. I must insist, however, that all comments be respectful. While it is never my intention to stifle debate or freedom of speech, I have decided to delete anonymous comments. Our author was brave enough to put her name on her words; I respectfully request that commenters do the same.]

Circumcision Decision
by Norine Dworkin-McDaniel

You know how you take certain things for granted and just assume that your world view on a particular subject is universally shared by all … or at least by the man you married and who supplied the other half of your kidlet’s DNA? And then you find out that that’s totally not the case … that in fact, said DNA contributor has a completely different take on something, one that’s so diametrically opposed to yours that you can’t even believe anyone would think that way.

That pretty much sums up my pre-baby discussion about circumcision with Stewart. I had taken it as a given, in the way that I take it as given that the sky is blue, the grass (when we remember to water it) is green, and that Paris Hilton will eventually do something even more crass and unbecoming than flash her hoo-ha at the paparazzi. In other words, we’re having a boy, so, duh, he’ll be circumcised.

Stewart apparently, was of a different mind altogether.

Here’s me: So after the baby’s born, we’ll get him circumcised in the hospital.

Here’s Stewart: Um … I don’t think we should.

What?????

Now that was a head-spinning conversation stopper. I haven’t been stunned so speechless since The Usual Suspects when you find out at the end that KEVIN SPACEY IS KEYSER SOZE! I mean, I just didn’t see that coming! Same here. You have a boy, you circumcise him. Just like you have a bag of double-fudge-chocolate-chip cookies, you eat them. You have a 10 and a face card, you sit tight at the blackjack table. There’s no discussion. You just do it. And frankly, it never occurred to me that we wouldn’t do it. But Stewart was weighing the anti-circumcision point of view. His rationale went something along the lines of: “Foreskin comes standard equipment; why should we make after-market changes?”

He pointed out that foreskin retention was gaining traction. Who knows. For guys, maybe it’s the new black. Actually, it’s thought that 90 percent of guys around the world are unshorn. Even in the U.S., it’s guesstimated that there’s about a 50-50 split between cut and uncut. Of course, I understand man’s natural desire—even pre-Lorena Bobbitt—to avoid sharp objects in that region at all costs. I don’t even have a penis (if you don’t count the one I keep in my nightstand), and I wince and squeeze my legs together when even imagining this. But damn! Squeamish or no, I was going to do right by our son.

But clipping was clearly going to be a tough sell. You’d think this would be a no brainer since I’m Jewish. But you can hardly play the whole “Covenant between God and Abraham” card when you’ve been a confirmed atheist since … oh, about age 9. And it certainly wasn’t like I was campaigning for a bris. (For those not In The Tribe, that’s when you throw a fabulous party where the baby gets trimmed as the guests eat canapés.) As if. Now I love, love, love to throw parties. You can ask my sister; I’ve been campaigning for Groundhog Day to be a black tie-worthy event for years! But it had to have been a guy who came up with the brilliantly sadistic idea to throw a major catered affair at your house, a scant eight days after you’ve squeezed a basketball out of your vagina … or been sliced stem to stern and had it removed. Either way, you hardly feel like putting on your party shoes.

Still, it’s not like you can skimp, right? On Junior’s first public outing? Hell no! You’re going to pull out all the stops. And that’s hardly trays of crudités from Costco. So no, I was looking for any way out of the bris. If we were going to do a whole shindig for Junior, we’d wait till his first birthday when I’d be back in my skinny jeans.

But if not religious tradition, I was hard-pressed to figure out what else I could possibly stand on. The standard argument—So That He’ll Look Like His Daddy Down There—held no truck with Stewart. Neither did my point that he wouldn’t look like his peers when he stripped down in the locker room after gym class either. Or that guys also have major body image issues and carry plenty of self-doubt that their peckers are “up to par.” I’m sure even Ron Jeremy had days when he wondered if his alter ego was “sponge worthy.” In the face of all that, did we really need to give our son one more reason to worry that his penis wasn’t good enough?

I even tried to appeal to my husband’s inner rational scientist and broke out the medical research. Studies do show that circumcised boys and men have fewer urinary tract infections, a lower risk for penile cancer and for STDs, including HIV compared to intact guys. Okay, so the risk for UTIs and penile cancer is minuscule to begin with, and you can probably do more to protect against HIV and other STDs with good, consistent condom use. But shouldn’t we set our boy up to have every single advantage possible?

Then Stewart placed his ace. There must be a reason the package came wrapped, he argued. He’d heard that uncut guys reported much greater sensitivity and pleasure during sex. Actually I don’t know how you measure that. Ask uncut guys to have lots of sex, then clip them and have them rate the difference? Frankly, I don’t see a lot of volunteers lining up for that study. But Stewart admitted he sort of wished he’d had more of a say in his own circumcision. “I might,” he argued, working himself into a Clarence Darrow lather, “enjoy sex even more if I had it au naturel.” He floated this idea: By clipping Fletcher at this tender age, maybe we would be shortchanging his sex life … forever. Dangling a little Jewish guilt in front of me — proof positive that he’d been taking notes from my mother — he deftly pulled this one out: “You don’t want to be responsible for ruining our son’s sex life, do you?”

Ruin our son’s sex life? YES! That was it!

And that’s when the most persuasive argument I could possibly muster came to me … the sure-fire way to finally persuade Stewart that in the “snip or not to snip” debate, circumcising would be the kindest cut of all.

“My love,” I said to my husband, sweetly, pragmatically. “If you ever want your son to get a blow job — circumcise him.”

Four weeks after our son came into the world, we did just that. In the pediatrician’s office, with little fanfare, no mini quiches and a whole lotta wincing.

To Fletcher’s future girlfriends: You’re welcome.

Links to other essays submitted to this contest:

Finding the Pony — by Mary Sigmond Ryan
Can a Safenik Become a Risk Taker — by Tanya Grove
Do You, Would You, Could You Pee in the Shower? — by Cindy Brown

Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

There are two kinds of people in the world, and I continue to have a blast writing about them. Looking back, I find that 2011 has been like most years — filled with strains and disappointments, hard work and constant struggle, dotted here and there with the occasional bit of good news and a delicious belly laugh or two. It was a year that both crawled and flew by, and I find my sense of time has morphed into a sense of vertigo.

After years of waiting for life to "get better", I think I've finally figured out that it just gets different. Changes come, some welcome, some un.

Catherine Wallace, a frequent speaker at OCWW, my writers' workshop, once explained that the best way to provide feedback to a writer is to ignore less than perfect writing and concentrate on the parts that shimmer. Her idea is that by pointing out what works best, the writer will return to the mental place that produced the good writing and use that to revise and improve the rest.

I don't know that I believe this is always the best method of critiquing a piece of writing, but do I think it is an excellent way to review the outgoing year. By leaving the negative in the past (where it belongs), and dwelling on the parts of 2011 that shimmered, I hope to be able to bring those sparkly bits forward with me into the New Year to make it a better one.

For me, writing is almost always the best part of my year. I learned a lot in 2011 and have many (too many!) projects in the works. Each effort inspired me to become more creative, more open to making connections. As the year progressed, my sense of what is possible seemed to explode. Thanks to people like literary agent April Eberhardt, I began to believe that the changes in publishing were not death throes, but growing pains. Changes and more changes, some wanted, some un. But with change comes opportunity, if you choose to see it that way.

So here are a few of the writing treasures from 2011 that I plan to carry with me to improve my efforts in 2012:

January — Helped launch my client's website for her new business, Where Are We Going. It has been thrilling to work with Karen Gray-Keeler as she has transformed her passion and avocation into a business. Her energy and creativity are infectious.

February 18 — 14,239 people stopped by to read about Isaac and Molly on the Mike&Ollie blog. I started this blog during National Novel Writing Month 2010 to jump start my memoir about raising 24-weeker premature twins. The blog was picked as Freshly Pressed by WordPress and got more than 40,000 hits in five days. The feedback I got was amazing. Now all I need to do is finish the memoir.

June — Designed and wrote the content for a WordPress-based website for a client, micro mosaic jewelry designer Wendy Gray Raven. Trained her and her daughter how to manage the site and developed a strategy for the blog, connecting her website to her Etsy shop. Becoming more expert in the tools available on WordPress.

March 15 — My first post went up on the Garanimals Blog. Now, once a week, I get to write about pets and animals for an audience of moms, working with an incredible group of bloggers and the amazing Amy Zimmerman. Who knew that being a Reluctant Pet Store Owner would lead to such a great opportunity.

May — Proved that relationships built on the Internet can transform into real-life friendships deeper and more important than most people think possible. It's a reinvention of old-fashioned pen pals with the added advantage of instant gratification. Here's a shout out to my girls: Victoria Flynn, Christi Craig, Julie Jeffs and Rebecca Rasmussen. Great writers, fantastic women.

May 12 — Presented at the annual meeting of Fraternity Communications Association on how to improve print communications for membership-based organizations, and critiqued back issues of many of the group's magazines.

June — Taught a creative writing camp with eight young writers aged 7-11 through the Evanston Arts Camp, thanks to Angela Allyn. Their enthusiasm and curiosity inspired my own writing in unexpected ways and I'm looking forward to the sequel in 2012. (Registration is open now for the Writers' Workshop, pg. 5, camp #922213C2)

June 2 — Ran the first of several social networking workshops, this one on Facebook for beginners. Email me for information on upcoming workshops or to set up a private session.

September 19 — migrated The Animal Store Blog over to WordPress in preparation for the launch of the new website (coming very soon). Found a new voice for the blog, Ernie the Giant Gourami, who has lived at the store since before Kenn bought it 20 years ago. I am understanding more and more that writing is all about voice.

November — "won" NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row (see my winner's badge to the right) by pushing out 50,000 words in a first draft of a new novel. I continue to learn the lesson that you cannot, should not, must not write and edit at the same time.

December — Named as a regular contributor to the Write It Sideways blog. Starting in January through June, I'll be posting twice a month about my favorite subject — writing. Along the way to this assignment, I contributed three guest posts to this great writing website: Hearing Voices? Maybe You're a Writer, How to Bring Your Characters into Focus, Writers Write — Creativity Is a State of Mind. Thanks to Suzannah for this exciting opportunity to expand the writing conversation.

These are just a few of the high points for me. I have more projects in the pipeline that promise to make 2012 a year that truly shimmers. I look forward to sharing it with you, and hope your new year shimmers as well. Look for the third annual Two Kinds of People Guest Post Contest to be announced soon. Thank you for reading. Please leave a comment about one or two of the glittering moments from 2011 that you plan to carry with you into 2012.

Living Your Passion

There are two kinds of people in the world: those whose work lives and personal lives are two separate entities, and those who live, work, dream and breathe their passion.

I'm trying to make that work as a writer, which is my passion and haunts my dreams. There isn't much about writing that I don't love (although I wish the pay was better). Writing fulfills, renews and excites me like nothing else, and that passion seems to increase the more I do it.

Not everyone is lucky enough to discover his passion. I have high hopes for my son, who recently graduated from high school. I know in my soul that when he finds his own passion, he will know no limits. But finding that passion and convincing him to look for it have so far been elusive.

Our oldest girl, on the other hand, has known her passion at least as long as I've known her. When I me her dad, she was about six years old and already crazy about animals. When my husband bought The Animal Store, she was just 10, and she has logged many hours in the shop helping him. Even from afar, she continues to be a valuable contributor, writing the employee handbook, as well as much of the material for our soon-to-be-updated Website.

But it is the animals she truly loves. In high school and college, she participated in internships through the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. She worked at the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, FL. She studied marine biology at the University of Miami and received a masters degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University.

Her master's thesis was on a study she did training select individual animals within a large group. She developed the protocol herself and conducted the study on a group of baboons at the Six Flags Wild Safari in New Jersey. That study will soon be published in a scientific journal. Her methods revolved around the concepts of positive reinforcement training, and her depth of understanding and commitment to these concepts are remarkable.

Her passion has taken her from Chicago to the Bahamas to Florida to England to New Jersey and back to Florida, where she is now working with birds of prey. It has also taken her to the hospital with three (count them!) monkey bites. Her passion sometimes makes us a nervous wreck, but not even those three monkey bites has dulled it for her.

Those who work with animals must do it for love, because it's certainly not for money. As I have mentioned, I'm a reluctant pet owner, but more and more I have come to appreciate other people's devotion to their animals. But Becky's passion goes beyond just loving her pets. She has developed a deep commitment to conservation and ecology, understanding the true ramifications of various efforts toward recycling and new energy technologies. She helps us decipher the sound bites we hear in the news, explaining how some things that sound good on the surface can actually be more hazardous to the environment.

I admire Becky's passion. I know it is deeply felt and affects all the decisions she makes in her life, not just her career choices. Today I learned she is vying for the opportunity to travel with Julie Scardina, the Animal Ambassador for Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. It's an outstanding opportunity to work with one of her idols, learn about Emperor penguins of Antarctica and further her education.

Becky's goal is to make a real impact on how we treat our home planet and all the creatures with which we share it. She believes education and understanding are the way to do that. I hope you will vote to make her dream come true. Just click here to vote for Becky Bearman.

Not all of us are lucky enough to know or recognize our passion from such a young age. Some of us are lucky enough to be inspired by the passion of our children, family or friends. Are you living your passion or does someone else's passion inspire you? If so, let us know in a comment by clicking here.

"Nothing great in the world has been 

accomplished without passion."

— Georg Wilhelm

Celebrate National Pet Week — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

This week, May 2-8, is a big week for animals. It is both National Pet Week and Be Kind to Animals Week.

In our family, every week is National Pet Week, not just because we love our Soft-coated Wheaton Terrier, Hazel, or our one remaining hermit crab, Maize (Blue passed away earlier this year). No, we wish every week was National Pet Week because we own a small independent pet shop.

People who have known me since I was a teenager mock chuckle when I remind them that we (and by we, I mean my husband) own a pet shop. My childhood pet experiences included hating our not-quite-cocker-spaniel for shedding blond fur all over my black-only wardrobe during my angsty teenage years, and being freaked out by discovering a brief series of dead animals stiff in their cages or belly-up in their bowls. But one day, just after my twins were born, I found myself the co-owner of a pet store, and I still scratch my head over how that happened.

It's a wonderful pet shop and my husband and his staff are incredibly knowledgeable about animals. While I'm not in their league when it comes to animal-related information, I have learned a thing or two along the way, including to appreciate the deep connection people have with their family pets. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry states that "children raised with pets show many benefits." Animals teach children compassion, responsibility, and about our relationships with nature and each other. Children often talk to their pets they way they talk to stuffed animals, spilling all their secret fears and dreams into those fuzzy, nonjudgmental ears.

A recent poll indicates that a full one third of married women think their pets are better listeners than their husbands. I don't know about that. My dog doesn't seem to listen to me any better than my husband or my kids do. On the other hand, she doesn't talk back. In my kids favor, however, it's been a long time since any of them has peed on the floor. Of course, if the kids took the dog out when they're supposed to, then she wouldn't pee on the floor either. Some families have a synergistic relationship with their pets. Ours is more like a Catch-22.

It took years of convincing before I finally caved and allowed us to get a dog. Every time my kids begged for a pet, I told them they owned hundreds of them and could play with them whenever they visited Daddy at the store. I know, it's like the cobbler's children who don't have any shoes. But retail is a hard life with long hours and I already felt like a single parent — and I didn't want to feel like a single parent with a dog.

If you promise not to tell my kids, I'll let you in on a little secret. I knew that one day we would have to get a dog. I think it's a law or something. I also knew that I only wanted one dog during the course of raising our family, so I waited until my youngest child was 7 years old before I even considered it. I confess that this was a case of planned obsolescence. If things worked out according to plan, the dog would live long enough for my youngest son to go off to college, and then conveniently pass away right after his freshman year Thanksgiving break, having lived a happy, healthy 12 years or so (that's 84 in dog years).

So about five years ago, we got our first dog, Roscoe. He wasn't the brightest puppy in the pound, but he was a sweet dog. Unfortunately, he was killed tragically by a speeding truck right in front of our house when he was just three years old. Telling my kids about his death was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do as a parent.

My children were devastated and, while I was sad for the loss, I have to admit that things were easier without him. Two of my kids immediately started lobbying for a new dog; two felt that no puppy would ever replace their beloved Roscoe. I tried to remain ambivalent, but the damnedest thing happened. I missed that mutt — more than that, I missed having a dog in the house.

So, we got Hazel. She's much smarter and more well-behaved than Roscoe ever was, and while she isn't nearly as sweet, she and I have a good working relationship. And it melts my heart every night when the boys snuggle with her, scratching her belly and saying goodnight to the "best puppy in the world."

The passing of Roscoe was a difficult time in our family's life, but it made me understand that often, the death of a pet is the first significant loss a child experiences, and learning to cope with that loss is just another gift our pets give us. So here's to Roscoe … and Hazel … and even Maize and Blue, and all the other animals in the lives our families. Take time during these days of National Pet Week and Be Kind to Animals Week to appreciate them and all they bring to us. You can find some ideas about how to celebrate here.

When Susan Bearman isn't busy walking the dog, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog, and freelancing at www.bearman.us. This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post.

Take Care When Interacting with Animals — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

My deepest sympathies go out to the family and friends of Dawn Brancheau, the trainer who died tragically at Sea World on February 24.

Our family takes this loss to heart, as my husband and stepdaughter both work with animals daily. My husband owns a pet shop with a wide variety of small animals, reptiles, fish and birds.

My step daughter has devoted her life to animals. She had several internships with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida. She earned her undergraduate degree in marine mammal biology from the University of Miami and a master's degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University in England. She has worked as an animal trainer at Parrot Jungle in Florida, Great Adventure's Wild Safari in New Jersey, and currently works for the company that contracts the birds of prey show at Disney World's Animal Kingdom.

My husband knows a lot about animals — they are his business. He has been bitten or scratched many times, and some of the injuries have involved emergency room visits. My stepdaughter knows a lot about animals — they are her passion. She has suffered several injuries, including one that required a two-week hospital stay and treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

What I have learned about animals from both my husband and my stepdaughter is that they are first, last and always true to their nature. The mistake we humans make is to anthropomorphize animals to meet our own emotional needs. My stepdaughter, who is practically an animal whisperer, has learned and tries to teach others that we need to respect each species and each individual creature for what it truly is — nothing more, nothing less. It's an important lesson to remember when you bring an animal into your home.

Pets provide rich connections and many learning experiences for families with children, but you should learn everything you can about an animal before purchase or adopt one. Do your research and know the breeder or pet shop owner. Most importantly, never leave small children alone with any animal.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. Susan Bearman is a freelance writer and editor who lives with her family, a dog and a hermit crab in Evanston. She can be found online at www.bearman.us and on her blog, Two Kinds of People.

Photo credit: orcas & humpbacks by Christopher Michel via Flickr creative commons.

It's Not Easy Being Green

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who send holiday cards and those who don't. 

I've sent my own holiday cards every year since I left for college. Last year, I chronicled our ridiculous photo odyssey in a post that showed all 23 "oops" photos that we had to take before we finally got one that was holiday-card worthy. The good news is that this year it only took four shots. Maybe that's because we didn't try to include the dog. (That's the best one up there; don't they look cute?)

We've been doing the stairway shot every year since we moved into this house, nearly 12 years ago. The youngest guy, on the lower right, was just an infant when we started. It's a great stairway, a perfect backdrop, and even though the kids keep getting bigger (despite my threats), they all still fit. It's a tradition I love.

In addition to my usual tardiness at getting this holiday project started, I'm struggling with the whole idea of sending cards. On the one hand, I love getting real mail — snail mail, if you will — with stamps and envelopes, delivered to my IRL mailbox. I love seeing the cards our friends and family have chosen, the photos they send and the stories they share.

On the other hand, the idea of sending cards this year doesn't feel very green. Plus, at 44¢ per stamp, it doesn't feel very economically sound, either. 

So, after weighing my options, I am (for the most part) going with this e-version of our holiday card this year. Know that my warm wishes for a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year are still sincere. Know that I love and miss you and hope we can make time to get together soon. Know that this is not just laziness on my part (OK, it's partly laziness — but not 100%).

I'm also going to make it easy for you to send your holiday greetings to us. All you have to do is click here and leave a comment.

May your holidays, however you celebrate at this time of year, be joyful and bright. Best wishes for 2010.

Love,

The Bearmans

P.S. Over on The Animal Store blog, Kenn is giving away a $100 gift card. Just click here and leave a comment for your chance to win on December 22. Pass it on.

Pet People, and Proud of It

"Animals are such agreeable friends – 

they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms." 

— George Eliot (novelist, 1818-1890)

There are two kinds of people in the world: pet people and not-so-much pet people.

True confession (the irony* will become apparent shortly): throughout my childhood and into early adulthood, my idea of owning a pet was to visit a zoo twice a year. I liked animals just fine. You know, over there. Or in nature. Or as pets in someone else's house.

Growing up, we had the requisite number of family pets. Our first was a parakeet named Trini (for Trini Lopez, who my parents saw in a show while visiting Las Vegas). We got our Trini as a consolation prize, because back then it was considered inappropriate to take children to Las Vegas (or, for that matter, even bring them back a souvenir from Las Vegas). Then there was a black guinea pig named Silky and, finally, an almost-cocker-spaniel named Mitzi. My brother loved that dog, but I was ambivalent at best and highly irritated during my angsty teenage years, when I only wore black and she only shed blond.

Perhaps the trouble started when I was the lucky kid in third grade who got to take the guppies home from school. (Warning: the following anecdote contains graphic references that may bother sensitive readers.) I kept the fishbowl on a little stand by my bedroom window and, sometime in late fall or early winter, the water in the bowl got too cold, formed a thin layer of ice and, tragically, killed the guppies. I sobbed to my mother, who told me to take them into the bathroom and that we would perform the traditional fish funeral after the ice thawed.

Imagine my joy when, about 20 minutes later, I went into the bathroom to see the little fishies swimming happily around their bowl. I ran down to tell my mom about the miracle, but by the time we made it back up to the bathroom, the fish (in the bowl that had been sitting on the radiator) had again, and permanently this time, met their match. I had first frozen and then boiled them to death, all in the same day — tragic for the fish and traumatic for me.

I lived a simple, pet-free life for many years after leaving home, so will someone please explain to me how I ended up as the owner of a dog (Hazel), a cat (Pirate), two hermit crabs (Maize and Blue) and … wait for it … a pet store? "*Ironic, isn't it?" says my oldest son. It's true; my husband and I are owners of The Animal Store in Lincolnwood, IL. I'm still not quite sure how it happened, and friends who know me well mock incessantly. 

Still, pets are our family business, so I needed to step up. My role is limited to producing the store's blog, designing forms and signs, and other such writerly endeavors, while my husband, Kenn, does the actual hard work of owning a pet store (thank you, DH). People are often dismissive about owning a small business, but let me tell you, there is nothing small about it. The Animal Store has tens of thousands of SKUs (stock keeping units) and, think about it, a good portion of our inventory is alive. That means we don't close up shop for a weekend or a vacation. Those animals need to be fed and cared for every day.

Like a plumber with leaky pipes, I managed to keep my kids petless for a good long time. "Mama, can we have a bunny?" "Sure, honey, and you can play with it every time we visit Daddy at the store." Eventually, however, the kids wised up and started asking their Dad.

In the 17 years that we've owned The Animal Store, I've learned a lot about pets and their people. Pet owners are fervently devoted to their animals. Some pet people are partial to a particular species or breed – there are ferret fans, bearded dragon devotees, and African Grey aficionados. Others are equal opportunity animal lovers, often owning a few (or many) different kinds of pets at one time.

Kenn frequently takes some of his animals to visit nursing care facilities or group homes. Studies have shown that caring for pets and even just visiting with them can reduce stress, lower blood pressure and prolong life. They can even help pay your mortgage (well, at least in our case they do, so we are especially fond of pet-loving people). 

I've even learned that aquariums can be an essential and beautiful part of your home decor, and are often an important element in the art of Feng Shui (placing an aquarium in the proper corner of your home can purportedly boost your prosperity). I know for a fact that putting a baby in front of an aquarium produces a bounty of peace — all four of my babies were mesmerized by our salt-water fish tank.

You will be happy to know that, thanks mostly to my husband and his knowledgeable staff, I have learned how to care properly for our pets at home (no more frozen/boiled guppies). I have come to appreciate the joys that pets can bring. And there is still nothing quite like a boy and his dog (bonus points if you can tell which is which in the picture at the top of this post).

Now for a little SSP (shameless self promotion). As a special thank you to all our customers, The Animal Store is hosting a blow-out sale this weekend — lots of fun for the entire family, including great raffles, tons of giveaways and free glitter tattoos (for people, not pets). Learn more here. If you're a pet person, you won't want to miss it; if you're a not-so-much pet person, come in and say hi to Kenn anyway, and get a free glitter tattoo. Not local? We can ship to you.

Tell us about your favorite pet or pet story by clicking here. And, in case you were wondering, my mom (a children's librarian) helped named The Animal Store after a wonderful poem by Rachel Fields:

The Animal Store

If I had a $100 to spend,

Or maybe a little more

I'd hurry as fast as my legs would go

Straight to the Animal Store.

I wouldn't say "How much for this or that?"

"What kind of dog is he?"

I'd buy as many as rolled an eye,

Or wagged a tail at me!

I'd take the hound with the drooping ears

That sits by himself alone;

Cockers and Cairns and wobbly pups

To be be my very own.

I might buy a parrot all red and green,

And the monkey I saw before,

If I had a hundred dollars to spend

Or maybe a little more.

Be you busy?

There are two kinds of people in the world: busy people and crazy busy people.

I don't know about you, but I've been crazy busy lately, mostly for the good:

• The Animal Store sale coming up on November 14 & 15
• challenging and exciting client work
  
• checking out colleges with my girl
  
• preparing for my son's bar mitzvah
  
• writing and submitting (the best work)
  
• cleaning and organizing (the worst work)

Busy, busy, busy.

According to Henry David Thoreau, "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." Let's hope old Hank D. is right.

As I was trying to title this post, all I could think of were a couple of trite similes. Turns out that moldy oldy "busy as a bee" comes to us all the way from the late 14th century straight from Geoffrey Chaucer's pen in the Canterbury Tales:

"Ey! Goddes mercy!" sad our Hoste tho,

Now such a wyf I pray God keep me fro.

Lo, suche slieghtes and subtilitees

In wommen be; for ay as busy as bees

Be thay us seely men for to desceyve,

And from soth ever a lie thay weyve.

And by this Marchaundes tale it proveth wel."

Say what? OK, for those of you who need to brush up on your Middle English, here's a translation:

"Eh! By God's mercy! cried our host.

Said he:

Now such a wife I pray God keep from me!

Behold what tricks, and lo, what subtleties

In women are. For always busy as bees

Are they, us simple men thus to deceive,

And from the truth they turn aside and leave;

By this same merchant's tale it's prove, I feel …"

That Chaucer — always blaming the woman.

How about busy as a beaver, then? The origins of this idiom are a bit murkier, but dictionary.com dates it back to the late 1700s.

No offense to Chaucer, but busy bee has been done and done, and so for that matter, has busy beaver (not to be confused with plucky, Bucky Badger). 

Apparently, both Newfoundlanders and the Irish say "busy as a nailer" — no one knows why. (OK, someone knows why, but the explanation I found — that "those to whom the proverb applied did not use a treadle in heading the nails"  — was, well, yawn.)

In my search, however, I did unearth a couple of smile-inducing similes that I thought I'd share with you:

• busy as a one-armed paper hanger
• busy as popcorn on a skillet
  
• busy as a cat burying shit
  
• busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest
  
• busy as a stumped-tailed cow in fly time
  
• busy as a funeral home fan in July

Several great lyricists have also created stunning "busy" images, like Stan Getz in in It Might as Well Be Spring where he was as "busy as a spider spinning daydreams" ? Or how about when Henry Miller (not the Henry Miller) is called "just as busy as a fizzy sasparilla" in The Deadwood Stage.

And then there's, my current favorite — busy as a banjo player's digits. 

Of course, being busy with work is completely different than busywork, but that's a whole other post.

How busy are you? Not too busy to leave a comment, I hope. Here, I'll make it easy for you. Just fill in the blank: "I'm as busy as _______" and leave it in a comment by clicking here. And if you're not too busy, check out my latest Chicago Moms Blog post on the Premature Peace Prize.

Photo credit: The CC Glow by andyket via a Creative Commons License.

Healthcare is Bleeding Families & Small Businesses Dry — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog:

I'll try to keep this short, but there will be nothing sweet about it. My husband and I have owned a small retail business for 18 years. This means we pay out of our own pocket every dime of our health coverage and expenses. The insurance premiums for our family are about $24,000 per year. Each year, they have increased dramatically, and we have had to reduce benefits and increase all our co-pays to be able to afford the premiums at all.

Over the course of 18 years, we have spent between $300,000 and $350,000 in healthcare premiums alone — just to protect our family, just in case. We have no dental or vision coverage, so those expenses are all out of pocket. Our gross and net income has actually declined since we started, so when I start doing the math … well, let's just say I feel sick.

But it isn't just the money.

We have been dropped by two different carriers who decided it was no longer profitable to provide individual family policies. We have a wonderful agent who continually looks for the best deal available, and we frequently change our coverage and carrier to keep our premiums from bankrupting us. In the course of this constant vigil to control our healthcare costs and remain a viable business, we have been denied coverage several times. I won't go into the reasons given to us. Most of them were spurious, and all of them were arbitrary and irrelevant to this discussion.

Our own discussions, as small business owners and heads of a household with small children, have included actually thinking about dropping our healthcare coverage. It is a dangerous, irresponsible option and we have always decided against it — but out of desperation, we have considered it. Between our insurance premiums and out of pocket medical expenses, the part of our budget that has been cut completely is savings, and this has its own long-term consequences.

My mother has Parkinson's Disease. She lives in Florida now, and has lost more primary care physicians and neurologists in four years than I can count because they have moved out of state, dropped her various Medicare supplemental plans, or simply stopped practicing. The stress on her and my father in weeding through the morass that is Medicare is taking a profound toll on their health and well being in these, their "golden" years.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but the AIG bailout and reports of record insurance industry profits make me break out in hives. Healthcare in America is profoundly dysfunctional — not because of the practitioners, who I know are the best educated, most skilled and profoundly dedicated medical personnel in the world — but because we, as a society, have been unwilling and unable to face up the the Herculean task of revising the financial aspects of this system and recognizing that healthcare is an important human right for everyone.

We have known for at least 20 years that this country was facing a serious healthcare crisis. Then the economy blew up and the crisis no longer loomed — it landed. Hard. If we have any hope of getting the economy back on its feet sooner rather than later, we must tackle the issue of healthcare head on, because it is the single biggest economic issue facing everyone from the largest multinational corporation to each individual citizen. Let's get busy.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman isn't feeling nauseated over the state of healthcare in America, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

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Ed. Note: As a result of this post, CNN contacted Kenn at The Animal Store and interviewed him about healthcare and small business on 3/25/10. See the video clip here.

Can You Guess Our Theme?

There are two kinds of people in the world: normal, regular people who take Halloween in stride, and crazy, obsessed people who spend way too much time and money on the whole thing. 

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that my family (at least the kids and I) fall into the latter category. An in-depth exploration of how the idea of a Halloween "theme" first took root in our household is posted on the Chicago Moms Blog, so check it out. You can also see our very first Halloween theme on display at The Animal Store blog, where we are celebrating the 16th anniversary of our grand opening. 

In the meantime, see if you can spot the theme from our past Halloween exploits. I'd love to hear how you celebrate. Leave a comment here. 

This theme is pretty obvious, 

but can you guess which two are twins?

Star, sun, moon and (believe it or not) Saturn.

Get it?

World's tallest Tinkerbell and her boys.

Who are they this time?

This is a bit of a stretch, but you can get it.

Come on, what do Captain Jack, the Pirate Queen

a Navy admiral and a scuba diver have in common?

Stumble It!