I read Rabbi Gellman's comments. I write a response on my blog. I go in to work, go into an all-morning meeting, I buy a Navajo taco from our department's retirement fund fundraiser for lunch, I hop onto the computer and swing over to Sitemeter to check my hits... ...and there are more than 150 hits! And 9 comments! Whoa! Now, for some of you, this is pissant traffic. Ho, you're thinking, ol' OmegaMom's getting excited about 150 hits?! Girl, you need a life! But for me, that's Big Stuff. I have a core of about 50 regulars who swing by almost every day; I have my subscribers (all 15 of them!), so to see all those hits was quite a surprise. Where were they all coming from?? It seems that Newsweek likes to list a Technorati search on their articles, and there was OmegaMom, in all her glory, listed on MSNBC. Wowzer. It just goes to show that the Main Stream Media still has some pull. Anyway, welcome to all you newbies if you're swinging by again. There's a futon over there that you're welcome to slouch down upon, but you'll have to move the very large horse that has taken up residence there first. Amongst the commentators was Not Agnostic, who took me to task in a long-winded and unparagraphed way for claiming I am an agnostic. I always thought agnostic mean "not knowing", which, frankly, I don't. I don't know if there's a God or not. I don't have any proof one way or another. I believe in Something, but belief does not equate to "knowing", y'know? Anyway, PAGent took Not Agnostic to task for ignoring the main gist of my post. Thanks, PAG--you are, indeed, a gent, as always. So, a word to the hit-hungry: do commentary on a column on MSNBC or Newsweek, with a link back to the column, and you're likely to get a good many hits.

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One of OmegaDad's fellow students in his master's program invited us to join the crowd for the opening show of her drama class production. Quite interesting. One of the featured segments was a series of skits written and performed by her students, Navajos, entitled "Brown in this Town". She started the semester with a discussion of racism, and her students started talking about their own experiences, and the discussions blossomed into this performance. They were awkward. The skits were poorly performed. But...but...sigh. Some of their stories just broke my heart. One or two of them, I could pass off as misunderstandings. But others--there was no way possible to gloss over with a "oh, surely it wasn't meant that way!" It makes me think of OmegaDotter, and what she might encounter as she ages out of the oh-so-cute-toddler-girl stage, and moves away from the protection of being with mom and dad and out into a world which won't see her through the eyes of love.

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Speaking of "eyes of love" and OmegaDotter...I was not looking through eyes of love at her this evening. A highly verbal child can cause parental units such as OmegaMom to forget that the child is, in fact, still a child, and only four years old. The dotter had promised no whining during dinner out and during the performance. She had promised to sit still. OmegaMom, faked out by precocious verbosity, ignored the reality of the situation: a four-year-old is going to whine, and a four-year-old can't sit still for very long at all. We had to leave at intermission (I actually had elbowed OmegaDad a few times earlier, in hopes of removing our embarrassingly wiggly and chit-chatty child). I was bummed--the hoop dance was cool, the "Boomtown" poetry slam/scathing indictment of the progression from "trendy" to "over-developed" was intense, and I wanted MORE! So. In a horrid display of immaturity, I hissed at OmegaDotter as we were waiting for OmegaDad in the car that I was missing the second half and it was all because of her! And gave her a shake. And it made her cry. Um. Shit. I sit here stewing in guilt at that Bad Mommy Moment. But please don't blame my Bad Mommy Moment on the fact that I don't have religion!

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The final tally on the Newsweek/MSNBC hits: 232. Wowzer.