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We have a 'yard waste' can as well as the recycling and the 'normal' trash. I try to compost as much as I can, but seem to still have lots of things for the yard waste can - rose and raspberry canes being very high on that list!

I'm waiting for it to quit being quite so frigid (and for me to feel better) to go out and do just what you are describing - the roses, hydrangeas and grapes all totally need pruned.

Am looking forward to it. I miss the garden and outdoors terribly by January.

You have grapes!!!!! That's cool.

Holiday? What holiday?

(If I'm lucky when deadlines loom, I may take off a half day for Christmas... The life of a freelancer...)

You are welcome, Paula.

Get behind? Me?? Never!

The NYT has become less and less of a "must read". Time was the
Sunday edition took all morning; now it's maybe an hour or two
(depending on the ads and the op-ed page). Going a week without the
paper meant you were seriously out of the loop. Now it means you've
got other sources of information. I get by just fine with the
electronic front page delivered to my e-mail - and, sadly, I only
read 2-3 articles a day, if that.

On the other hand, it does mean I have much more time for books!

Hi Kelly, I've been lurking for quite a while now, but coming out of lurkdom to provide an alternate perspective on this.

I'm still in touch with many of my friends from high school, and we've ben swapping reactions to the second article you mention - how much it reflects our circumstances, pressures, choices, etc. We grew up in an east-coast metropolitan area, and if you'd've asked me in high school, I would have thought it was weird that "the rest of the country" had to choose between state schools and community colleges. Most of my graduating class attended private colleges of some sort.

Maybe I'm a little sensitive on this point, since I'm so far off the curve of the "rest of" anything that I'm always glad to see voices like my own reflected in news coverage. (In another example I've been encountering recently, I think some portions of "the rest of the country" are amazed that I prefer my high-intensity academic career to settling down with marriage and children, the option that many folks in my age and gender group are choosing.) So when I saw your post, I thought it was worth commenting with a different take on things.

As always, I enjoy reading your blog!

Kelly, these kinds of articles often appear in the Styles section--or the magazine--and completely and totally irritating. Often the people profiled end up looking like fools; the Times apparently takes a dim view of modern parenthood and bases its articles on a very few egregious examples. At least that seems to be the formula so far.

New York Magazine also specializes in this kind of article.

That said, I thought the article on the girl choosing colleges (or, really, the college's choosing her) was good. Here in one of the towns with a huge Times readership, the college thing is WAY out of control.

Dear Jill:

I appreciate your coming out of lurkdom, and I have to say that I am more like you than you may think. I grew up with a West Coast version of this article--and was lucky enough to chose between my two top choices--albeit, both West Coast schools (I'm not sure why I never considered going back East, but I didn't. I did love California, but I don't think that was the only reason why). And I WAS obsessed by all the things these girls mention (even the "hotness," even the SAT prep--I also opted out 'cause I thought it "wasn't fair," like the girl in the article.)

But...I now live in an area of the country where these choices don't exist. We don't have choices in terms of prestigious preschools. We can't move into a better school district. There's only one. Private school? Doesn't exist. Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part?

Finally, I'll say that your lifestyle choice (the same one I made and continue to make, btw, although I would hardly call myself a "high-powered" academic) is NOT one the NYT tends to favor. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever read a lifestyle article about moms in academia, for example. Or doctors--another group of people who usually keep working with children. Instead they prefer to write about mothers who GAVE UP their high powered careers to stay home with their children.

Lazygal: It's true. I read NYT online now at the moment as well. But, I'm finding I prefer WaPo more and I never thought I'd think that!!

Susan: Yes, it WAS a good article, but I didn't think it made the point well enough that those girls' lives are not going to fall apart if they go to Smith instead of Williams, if you know what I mean.

Thanks for the excellent discussion.

hey, Kelly. I think that was an unstated part of the article--that these choices are, in some ways, wonderful dilemmas. (To the teenager, they're not, of course.) To have to choose between Smith and Centre is a luxury few can afford. (Those people often dominate coverage, as you point out.) The reporter showed us Esther's milieu and let us come to our own conclusions. But we also see that some children who would have gone to their #1 choice schools in the past no longer have that option. Not the worst thing in the world, but still quite a change from before.

Another unstated part of the article is that these children are under enormous pressure and the culture of success has gotten out of control.

Kelly, I am with Susan. These sorts of articles often appear ALL THE TIME in the Styles Section.

I often call them "Times Trend Pieces" in which the writer usually interviews one or two people, and declares a "trend." The articles ARE irritating, however, these are often the articles that are the most-emailed and/or most talked-about.

I occasionally find them amusing, however. Really makes me think about how normal I am ;).

Kelly, I don't normally read the NYT because it's just too damn big and I already have a stack of my local paper that accumulates all week long until I can finally read everything on the weekend, but--

Someone forwarded that girl article to me, and man, oh, man. What struck me is that no matter how brilliant, talented, charming, etc. a teenage girl is, what's still always on her mind is whether she's skinny enough and pretty enough. Maybe it will always be this way. And maybe it will continue to be that way whether you're fourteen or twenty or forty.

When will all decide we look fine? (Um, that will be about ten pounds from now for me.)

Even though I was a little "Oh, cry me a river, you might go to your second-choice highly expensive private liberal arts school," the article rang true for me-- my little sister has been going through the admissions process, and it's heartbreaking to hear her label herself as "the fat one and the stupid one" in our family, and how she was convinced that she wouldn't be admitted even to her safety schools.

The NYT in general seems to assume that you are A Certain Class of Person. I kind of like to imagine that I am, and live in New York, so I don't mind awfully much.

Kelly, I grew up near NY and I get the Times every day because it is the closest I will ever get to actually living there.

That said, I agree with you 100%. I find some of the articles lately --especially those in the Thursday Styles section as well as the Sunday Styles section to be SO FULL l of that quality of which you speak, to be laughable at best or pathetic at the worst.

So many of these stories and the situations they write about make me also want to "gag." At times I have to ask myself if the writers seriously think this is truly grounded in reality or relevance, or are they all just goofing on us (an expression from my own coming of age era) and seeing just how gullible we readers really are.

Still I get the paper, and I read at least some of it every day. Honestly, now that I think back, I think it had always given an impression of being reflective of a place all its own. Even 40 years ago. And sometimes that place is a place I long for with every bones in my body, and just as often it is a place that is far from admirable.

Just like the city itself.

I love it. I hate it.

Good points, all.

Barbara: I also have wondered, are they serious?!? As an Angeleno myself, I love New York, but have never been "a part of that world." Maybe it really is all the reporters for the Style section know?

Oh, Emily...I feel so badly for your sister. I hope it all goes well for her!!

Robin: This leads to the eternal question--where does this all come from? The pressure on girls, I mean. I sure felt it, and I know my daughter already feels it at 11 (and I know I'm guilty for a lot of this as well).

Pooja and Susan: You're voices of reason. Time to take it less seriously!!

Kelly, I'm late getting to this discussion, but I want to comment on this comment you made: " . . . I'm not sure I've ever read a lifestyle article about moms in academia, for example. Or doctors--another group of people who usually keep working with children. Instead they prefer to write about mothers who GAVE UP their high powered careers to stay home with their children."

This is a huge problem everywhere in America with motherhood today. This is a big gripe of mine (and I'm what's called a stay-at-home mom, too!). The media exacerbates these "Mommy wars" (yes, even the NY Times does) when really we all want the same things: flex-time jobs (so that it doesn't have to be such a black-and-white choice: work or home?), paid maternity leave, paternity leave, high-quality daycare, etc., etc. We're really living in this throwback time of super Momism (what the authors of an interesting book called The Mommy Myth call this extreme idealization of motherhood that occurs today, this myth that we wear our babies in slings all day long and sacrifice every, little bit of ourselves for them -- I reviewed that book and other books on motherhood here back when we began our blog last year).

Those types of stories PISS ME OFF, and organizations like Moms Rising work towards eradicating such sensationalist journalism (I know I've signed their petitions before -- petitions to the major networks -- that say, please stop this! Mothers all want the same things!

Sorry, a little off topic, but a passionate topic for me! Shame on the NY Times for joining in the sensationalism.

Oh, how I agree with you, Jules!! If only I could have done my job part time or flex time. I would have done anything for that. ANYTHING.

I also agree that moms need to band together and I have also joined Moms Rising for this reason. We do all want the same things. And, yes, I'm sick of the media emphasizing these divides as if we're in the freakin' 1950s.

There are some jobs you can't abandon if you want to continue in them in the future. There are some jobs you can. We all--even the moms who want to stay at home and are able to all the time--want high quality child care. We all want flex time and the opportunity to stay current in our fields.

And, yes, we want the dads involved too. Heck, my husband would have been first to take flex time the 2nd time around.

I hear you. I really do. All I can say, Jules, is...if these NYT articles drive you crazy, then don't watch the "Today" show. It's on in the background while I'm writing on sabbatical and I swear it's a throwback to an era no one remembers.

Well-- just to update-- my sister has been accepted into every school she applied to. Which is better than anyone else in my family did, myself included!

Yay to Emily and Emily's sister! What great news :)

Hey, Kelly and Jules. I'm intrigued when I hear y'all talk about Moms Rising? What is that organization? I'm not familiar with it, but it sounds like I'd want to be.