It pains me to write this because I really liked Hoda before today but: What the fuck were you thinking?

Seriously.

I always liked to believe that reporters were given a bad rap. That when people claimed they were taking things out of context, or that practically no background work had been done prior to a segment, that they were just over exaggerating or being whiny jackasses. But today you pretty much proved that the douchebag reporting reputation that has developed on network television is 117% true. You get an extra 17% because seriously, Kathy Lee Gifford? Whoever thought THAT was a good idea deserves an extra 17% of COMPLETE FAIL.

When you interviewed Heather Armstrong today on your show it was clear to me from the very beginning that both of these common failings were true. First Hoda mentioned a passage from one of Heather’s blog posts saying:

Hoda: “You wrote on your blog that you worry that your daughter will resent you because all of her business being put out there…”
Kathy: “Potty training and all those things that are kind of private.”

Well Hoda and Kathy, had you taken time to ACTUALLY READ THAT BLOG POST you’d have quite possibly also mentioned the rest of the passage that explains EXACTLY how Heather feels about it and, in fact, thinks in the long run that Leta will CHERISH all those stories.

From furniture Elhovothat dooce post:

You will resent me for your curfew and the fact that I will not let you leave the house in that mini-skirt. You will resent me for showing up to your school in my pajama bottoms and for raising my hand in a PTA meeting when I hadn’t brushed my hair. You will text message your friends to tell them that I am the most horrible person on the planet because I’m forcing you to study for your exam in the morning. You are going to think that I cannot possibly understand what you are going through, and you will slam the door in my face.

Will you resent me for this website? Absolutely. And I have spent hours and days and months of my life considering this, weighing your resentment against the good that can come from being open and honest about what it’s like to be your mother, the good for you, the good for me, and the good for other women who read what I write here and walk away feeling less alone. And I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you’re going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter.

If that doesn’t profess the exact opposite of what Kathy Lee was trying not-so-eloquently to imply, that how dare you think about writing about your daughter online and *gasp* POSTING HER PICTURE, I don’t know what could possibly GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD short of getting in your face and shouting it through a blow horn.

Had Kathy taken FIFTEEN minutes of her time to ACTUALLY RESEARCH the topic and the person who she was interviewing she might have actually walked away from the interview without looking like the stereotypical, uneducated, assumptive “reporter” that she’s trying to play on TV. And if I had a dollar for every time that I was at my grandmothers and was forced to listen to Kathy talk about her sweet, precious Cody on NATIONAL TELEVISION I too could quit my day job and find something else to pass my time. Like publicly slamming other mothers from my make believe pedestal way up there. *points up*

Both of you are mothers and today you failed your fellow mothers across the nation. You could have turned that segment into a resounding statement about the exploding growth of a community of beautiful, powerful, motivated and brilliant women bloggers. Fellow mothers banding together to form a wave of support for complete strangers, for the mother down the street, for the mother sitting silently on the park bench, for the mother quietly suffering from postpartum depression, for the mother who’s so confused and upset and doesn’t know who to turn to… but instead you chose to go the sensational route.

Seriously. Shame on both of you.

-Anna (proud mommy blogger) Hirsch

Permanent reminder of the best trip of my life. Other than the bling on the LEFT hand of course!!

Funny story. We were leaving the condo to head to Lahaina for some last minute shopping and I told Ben I was tired of carrying the camera around for the last 7 days so I left it behind. Just as we walked out the door it started to drizzle and the most colorful, most vivid, most beautiful rainbow appeared in front of us. I ran back to the room to get the camera and our damn keycards suddenly wouldn’t work!!

Yay!!!! There is House in Maui! We just got back from a Luau with a fire dancer. It was awsome. Times 10. I got some really cool pics with a long exposure of the fire twirling. We had a generally lazy day of relaxing on the beach and snorkling. Not long after I sent that last blog Ben found an EEL(!!) He kept pointing to it and I couldn’t see it because it was so close in color to the reef and when I DID see it I saw LOTS AND LOTS of teeth and was pretty much done with the snorkeling for the day. HA!

we bought snorkle gear for the beach at the hotel and it was BEAUTIFUL down there. I saw an octopus!!! I can’t wait for thursday and our snorkeling trip when the take us to ‘the most beautiful reef in Lanai’. I will be picking up an underwater camera for sure.

We spent today shoppping and exploring Lahaina. I love little beach shopping communities. And Ben WANTED to shop!!! We got some shirts and I got a cute cover up for the beach/pool. I got a henna tattoo also. Cuteness. After that we met Sil and Irina for a late lunch and spent the rest of the day drinking fruity drinks and laughing. Good fun. Tomorrow is being lazy on the beach then Luau for dinner. Wednesday is glass bottom boat and Thursday is snorkeling which I am REALLY looking forward to. We get to see dolphins and turtles and coral reefs and beautiful blue and green water oh my! I want to thank you all for the congrats and well wishes. Ben and I love you all very much and appreciate it more than you know.

As I climbed out of a waterfall on a beautiful day in the most beautiful place on earth was the most wonderful man waiting for me. With a ring and a question. And my answer was a very excited, very emotional, and very wet YES YES YES!!!

We made it! We got into Maui around 5:00 our time and to the condo at about 6:30 because the upgrade at Hertz had to be inspected before we could drive it off the lot. We were supposed to get a V6 convertible Stang but ended driving off in a Shelby Cobra. We’ve managed to piss off at least three women so far who had to listen to men tell us how lucky we are to have such a BAD ASS CAR. We will probably return it today for the vert though after the road to Hana drive. We both thought that drive would be more fun in a car with balls. After dinner we hung out with Sil and Irina for a bit who are here too then went for a late night walk on the beach. I wanted to feel sand on my toes and soak in the sound of the ocean. So far Maui has exceeded my expectation 1000. And now we are off to Hana!

We were supposed to leave at 9:15 but the plane is delayed till 11:00 so we are eating cinamon buns and watching the sun rise.

EDIT - This was just a test to see how well ShoZu works with Wordpress. You may ignore it.

I really don’t like the way the girl shaped my brows this time. My normal guy was out so I let my leg waxer do my brows. Bad idea… I need to make sure I get to him by Friday so they are better for MAUI(!!).