This live podcast recording is going to be so epic. The anticipation is palpable, and we’re sufficiently prepared to be both dazzled and rocked. We’ve been waiting six months for the tour dates to be announced and now that we know they’re coming here—here, of all places—we’re about to politely lose our minds.

Dear Charlotte,

Like the rest of us arachnids, when I was a baby spider, I looked up to you. Before I could even embalm a fly on my own, I’d heard about your barnyard heroics.

Who is the most reviled human being? Who is the brunt of the unkindest jokes? The title gives us away. It’s the mother-in-law.

In this lecture I will not propose that we mother-in-laws feebly protest our bad reputation. Hell no. I say, let’s get born again into society’s stereotype. Let’s use it to get the benefits we so obviously deserve. Above all, let’s help our children expunge those feelings of guilt towards us now, while we’re living, rather than suffer those unfixable feelings of guilt when we’re gone.

Proposal for a Ph.D. Thesis in Sociology The University of West-Central X

Introduction:

The sociology of children’s play spaces is such a well-mined field that it might even be characterized as a veritable minefield for potential dissertation writers. Horizontal and vertical studies abound, as do methodologies, which range from (unsurprisingly) the concrete to the theoretical, and from studies of single play spaces, to comparative studies of multiples.

I have to say that for all the love this recipe gets in the blogosphere, I’m just kind of underwhelmed.

As kind of a leading voice in the food blogger comments section community, I set aside an entire Saturday to prepare this dish, eagerly anticipating the results.