Can you take a joke, Facebook?

So... we've been dealing with the "Facebook nursing pictures thing" for a long time. There have been 2 nurse-ins and many many many pictures removed. Because you know: offensive.

For a similarly long time, groups that encourage violence against women are deemed "not offensive" because they are "jokes."

Salon.com had a new article this week titled Facebook's Hate Speech Problem. As a response, activists are asking companies to boycott Facebook.

Companies boycotting will do more for this cause than individuals will, so I think that's great. It's needed. Facebook needs to get straight what is offensive and what is not. Harming women? OFFENSIVE. Nursing a baby? NOT.

But Facebook's seems to be, "People seriously involved in protecting little humans? Offensive. People "joking" about hurting women. FUNNY!"

So conclusion, all you need to turn something "offensive" into "acceptable" is to say, "Haha! It's just a joke!"

We've been doing it wrong all along! I think we lactivists need to jump on the bandwagon.

Let me introduce you to my new tandem nursing Facebook profile pic.

See? It's not offensive at all! It's just a joke! Even Isaac's in on it!

Can you take a joke, Facebook?

Another Week

So I seem to be doing only week updates. I havent been into blogging much because I have been stretched elsewhere: The Exponent, JABAK, knitting.

Isaac picked flowers for me on Mother's Day.

Linda turned 4 months on Sunday. Here is a baby with 17 pounds of glorious chunk!

We went to the De Young Museum in San Francisco this week to see Rembrandt's Girl with a Pearl Earring. We couldn't take pictures inside, so we took them outside.

Checking out West Oakland from the BART train:

Margaret is going to the Wrap Party today for Monster's University. I made her dress (this has taken some of my blogging and knitting time) which you can see here.

Water water everywhere

I have increased my biking efforts. This month I'm participating in the Team Bike Challenge here in the Bay Area, so I'm even choosing to bike to places I used to always bus to, like Albany Bowl. It was either a 30 minute bike ride or a 20 minute bus ride.

The kids at Albany Bowl:

I've noticed that with the regular demands of living, breastfeeding, and now biking, I drink a small pond every day. I drink so much water it amazes me. I'm always drinking, drinking, drinking.

What I wonder, though, is why. Why do we need so much water? Some animals get enough water from the things they eat, or absorb it from their surroundings. Why haven't we figured out how to do that?

I know civilizations cropped up in places where there is accessible water. That's obviously required. But did these places and civilizations allow for everyone to get 8 cups of fresh water every day?

I remember playing Oregon Trail as a kid and coming across water in the game and fording rivers. I imagined people needing to drink lots of water in between the river fordings. I assume they found small streams and creeks of water. But when it was a person's turn to get water for the day, was s/he thinking, "Ok. We have 6 people in our family. So that's 3 gallons of drinking water and some extra for cleaning and cooking today. Glad it's Nathan's turn to do this tomorrow?"

Were the people in Mesopotamia getting 8 cups of water every day? Were the hunter/gatherers? Somebody along the line must have, otherwise we'd have developed different water needs than what we have today. Or has all of humankind been perpetually dehydrated? And if so, why haven't we figured that out evolutionarily?

Any anthropologists in the house? Do we know much about the water-drinking habits of our ancestors? Can we?

These are the questions that run through my head when I down yet another water bottle. I also wonder about the many many people in the world lacking in adequate water and need to remind myself to pass on the water love.

Anyone want to tackle these questions? I'm sure there's a book out there, yes? Or a dissertation?

Screen-free Week Review

I fell off the Internet last week for Screen-free Week. I still allowed email because of work reasons, but no FB, blogging, feed readers, etc.

This is where I pretend my screen-free week looked like this heaven. I think this lasted only 2 minutes.

While it was nice to actually finish some books, I missed being able to share our ups and downs  and congratulate a couple of friends on babies.

So, here are our ups and downs and other linkage that I couldn't share on FB this week.

On Monday and Tuesday, we were not allowed to flush the toilet, wash dishes, wash laundry, or otherwise use the sewer system from 9-5 because of work being done.  We lived. We could use water- so long as it didn't go down the drain. So we had water to drink, but if we washed our hands, we had to catch the dirty water. Fun times.

Also, when the local ant colony's happiness was disturbed by the sewer work, they decided to come inside. These ants are hardcore. Do you see the trail they made THROUGH CAYENNE PEPPER?! They are like the honey badgers of ants.

I got a call from the charter school we applied for Margaret. They got our application and we should expect an acceptance letter later this month and teacher assignments in the summer. This is the school that has an independent study program and gives you money to spend on classes, curriculum, and materials so long as you let a teacher come in and check on progress monthly. Some other homeschoolers we know do it. A portion of the unschoolers prefer more freedom. We'll see how it goes. It's just kindergarten- school's not compulsory yet.

Linda rolled over for the first time last week. Tuesday night, I think. Here she is with a baby friend. Baby friend was "due" 2 weeks before Linda. Due to early and late birthdays, they are more than a month and a half apart.

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day! Our local libraries, along with the local comic book stores, gave away free comics. The kids have had fun with them.

For my Mother's Day gift, I am taking a month's worth of improv classes. Last night was the first night and it was really fun.

Also, there were many parties. Or just two. A baby shower at homeschool park day and then a birthday party.


Face paint!

Happy Isaac.

Purple-handed Isaac. Margaret wrote the "TB" on the paper and then smeared it with red handprints. I don't know what "TB" means to her, but I'm pretty sure she's a child-version of Edgar Allan Poe.

Pinata.

I can't get away from having an online presence even when I'm not online, and so here I was:

The Feminist Mormon Housewives Podcast, episode 54, The Male Gaze. I was invited on because they said I have a good podcasting voice. Yay for my podcasting voice! Now I feel less concern about subjecting the Internet to a podcast of my own. The FMH episode was recorded before my Internet break, for the record.

Ooh! The FMH episode 56 just posted today and I'm on that, too. It's feminist Mormon podcast week for me!

Also, I still had to write my monthly post for the Exponent.

Other Linkage:

We had this snap pea recipe with dinner on Saturday.

Bike to Work Day is this Thursday!

Knitting robot.

That is all. Until further notice.

Smallest Duathlon Ever

On Saturday morning I ran/biked the smallest duathlon ever. It was supposed to be a triathlon, but because of construction, the pool wasn't available. 

On the way there, McKay rode the kids in the Madsen. I had to have my racing bike, so I couldn't be the Madsen rider. You'll notice the back light on the bucket. We took Kristi's recommendation to use an old inner tube around the bucket and attach the light to that. It works!

Margaret wanted to try out the Madsen, too.

Pre-race nursing. Have to tank up the baby so she doesn't need me during the race!

Mass start. First was a 1 mile run, then a 2.5 mile bike ride, and then a 2.3 mile run.

Margaret was my helmet-getter when it was time for me to switch to the bike leg of the race. My bike was far back in the racks- if it had been closer, I'd have shaved off time!

Going from biking to running again was wobbly. I was not expecting that at all! But I'm proud of myself that I ran the whole way. I hadn't worked out in a week and a half because of a cold/allergies. And I had never done a workout longer than the 2.3 mile leg of this race- so doing the whole race was a lot! But I did it without having to stop and walk. 

Here I am at the finish line! My goal was 50 minutes and I said I'd be pleasantly happy with 45 minutes. I did it in 43:51! Total distance was 5.8 miles. I was 33 out of 67 total racers (50th percentile!) and the 9th woman to come in. I got a medal for being 3rd in the women aged 19-29 category. So that's cool. 

McKay holding Linda while I had refreshments.

Some of the racers were hardcore triathlete who use this race to practice their transitions. McKay said some of them were changing shoes and everything between running/biking. I am not that hardcore. In fact, I'm not sure I want to do the tri next year... this wore me out! And I didn't have to swim!

Stylin' on the Bike

Did you know bike fashion blogs existed? I didn't until recently. Here's a SF-based one for you to peruse. Just like in regular fashion blogs, bike fashion bloggers take pictures of themselves dressed up to go biking! How anyone has enough clothes to fill up a whole blog is beyond me, but they are fun to look at.

If you're interested in bike fashion feminist reading, check out this post at Take the Lane.

It seems that bike fashion blogs are trying to send the message that you can bike how you want to and you don't need lycra to be a cyclist.

When I first came across these blogs I thought, "Well, of course you don't need special clothes to bike! Who would think that?!" You see, I had bike a lot as a kid and no kid puts on lycra to bike to her piano lesson! She puts on her jeans and stuffs her piano books in the mesh bag and rides! Why would I be any different now?

I wouldn't. So that's what I do. Bike with my regular clothes. However, I did learn recently about taking a little thought to what I ride in.

I have some pants and they are wide-legged. I'm sure you know where I am going with this. On a ride this Thursday my pant leg got caught by my chain. Luckily the pants are still intact, but have a little bike grease on them.

That's when I finally made the connection to something I came across about bikers rolling up their pant legs on some bike blog I ran across lately. Bikeyface, maybe? Now I get it! I have been biking regularly for over a year and finally made the connection that maybe I should roll up my pants like all the other bikers. So at the next light, I stopped and rolled up my pant leg. Fortune had it that these pants had little buttons for rolling them up. Yay!

Because this concept was new to me, I paid special attention to the bikers around me as I finished my trip. I saw two other cyclists on my route: one had his pant leg rolled up as well and the other had his pants tucked into his socks. So I guess I'm the odd one out here not realizing that bike chains are brutal things. Oops! I wonder what else I'm not "getting" about riding bicycles...

I don't always bike without my kids, but when I do, I have one pant leg rolled up.

More Pixar Bike Love and Life in general

We are getting out to park days more often!

Last week, Kristi and her crew came out to Pixar and we met up with them. Pixar just put up their Monsters University stuff, so we got new photo ops to try out.

There were bikes!

And now some pictures of the baby.

I love her profile. There is almost a right angle between the bridge of her nose and her nose!