drive-bys.
From the February 14th issue of People magazine, in the “Scoop” section:
In case you can’t tell, that’s Julia Roberts, leaving her house. In the left picture, a nanny is carrying one of Julia’s twins, with Julia about two feet away. In the center picture Julia’s husband is carrying “supplies”, and in the right-hand picture is a close-up of the twin an “assistant” is carrying.
From the March 7th issue of People magazine, in the “Mailbag” section:
To: editor@people.com
From: me
Subject: “Mailbag”
Regarding the letter in your “Mailbag” section from Erika Gebhardt of Chula Vista, CA.
Erika Gebhardt, who said “What kind of mother doesn’t carry her own children?” is amazing. She saw a picture that captured one instant in the life of Julia Roberts and her children, and instantly discerned that Julia is an uncaring mother.
I guess that Erika Gebhardt has never allowed anyone else to hold or carry her children – if she indeed has any. Bravo, Erika Gebhardt! What America really needs is more mothers like you who sit around and decide that viewing one moment in a celebrity’s day is enough to judge the rest of her life.
By the way, Erika: who watches your kids while you’re busy reading PEOPLE and firing off those indignant letters?
Robyn And3rson
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I think that Erika Gebhardt is a bit of an asshole. I think her real gripe is that Julia Roberts can afford to employ nannies and assistants to get her kids from the house to the car. I mean, please. Because for one fucking instant Julia Roberts isn’t carrying her children, Erika Gebhardt questions her fitness as a mother? I mean, has Erika Gebhardt never put her children down so she could take a shower or a nap or pee? Does she have her children surgically attached to her so that the little dears never for one instant in their lives have to be an entire foot from their judgemental asshole* of a mother?
Those must be some seriously well-adjusted children.
*Yeah, yeah, pot-kettle-black.
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Pet store kitty pics from Monday are
here.
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From my comments:
Hey Robyn, My favorite part of your journal is the petstore kitties. How do you manage to work there every week and not bring one home? Second is the adoption rate pretty high? I live in rural east Texas and unfortunately our Animal Control is a far cry from a pet placement organization. I have two young cats and I am considering another . Have you made any observations about deciding a kittens future temperment? I have 4 kids. We adopted both of our cats full grown, now the kids are set on a kitten. I just know it needs to be a pretty confident cat to handle our house! Have you every adopted a pet and it did not work out? I would love to read anything you would like to share about the petstore and choosing your own cats. Thanks!
There are days when it is really, REALLY hard to put all the cats back in their cages and leave them there. I guess that main thing that keeps me from bringing home cats is the knowledge that the shelter I volunteer for is a no-kill shelter, so even if the cats don’t get adopted while they’re at the store, they’ll just go back to the shelter and live a pretty happy and pampered life there.
Also, if I started bringing home cats without discussing it with Fred first, I’d get my ass divorced. Heh.
The adoption rate seems to be pretty good – I think they had 70ish cats and kittens at the shelter last month and around 20 adopted out. I think that’s a pretty good rate, since adoptions kind of fall off at this time of the year. In a few months when all the unspayed (grrr) cats are having their unexpected babies, which are dropped off at the shelter, adoptions will pick up quite a bit. The highest number of adoptions tend to take place (if I recall correctly) between June and December, then drop off for a while.
In my experience, you can get a pretty good idea of a cat’s temperament as long as you spend a few minutes holding the cat and playing with it. For example, when I first held Miz Poo, she howled at me until I picked her up and started petting her, which is when she rubbed her face against mine and just generally acted like a little princess. That gave me a pretty good idea of what she was like, and to this day she thinks she’s a tiny little princess.
We got an idea of what Mr. Boogers’ temperament was like when we saw this picture:
That picture, right there, tells you all you need to know about him. We could tell he was feisty and wouldn’t take shit from anyone, and that’s held true.
I guess, basically, what I’m saying is that you generally know right away what a cat is like, as long as you can spend a few minutes in a quiet place with them and really pay attention to how they act.
We’ve never had a cat who didn’t work out, but a few years ago we did
adopt a dog and ended up
returning her to the humane society. We found out pretty quickly that we’re cat people, not dog people. We felt bad for returning her, but better that she go back to the humane society and have the chance to be adopted by someone who would spoil her, you know?
And lastly, it’s been my experience – I’m sure this doesn’t hold true across the board, and that there are exceptions – that if you’re going to bring a new cat into a home where there are already cats, it’s best to bring home a kitten, because they seem to adjust better than older cats. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a feisty cat who will hold his or her own and will happily play with the older cats when they try to put the smack down.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
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I don’t think that’s exactly a look of love Spanky’s giving Miz Poo…
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I LOVED all the pet store kitties today and laughed out loud at the kitty that kept blinking when you took her photo. And Penda is BEAUTIFUL! And Tidbit’s coloring is gorgeous. I agree with your comments poster that it must be darn hard to leave every week without a kitty tucked in your sweater.
You know that if Julia Roberts were carrying both her babies people would be writing to “People” complaining about her not caring for the safety of her children. By the way, Erika Gebhardt, why didn’t you complain about Danny’s arms being devoid of a baby?
You know Robyn I read Erikas letter in People yesterday and I had the same reaction. I imagine her kids were out in the yard unsupervised eating dirt while she took the time to compose her all important letter.
God, the nerve of some people… I don’t plan to have kids, but I can imagine how hard it is to carry one baby and its assorted paraphernalia, let alone two.
Did Julia have a Caesarian section? Because the recovery from that makes holding one baby very difficult, let alone two.
Don’t know if you noticed but those two pics up there of Moder aren’t even the same. If you look at the baby carrier they are clearly different and he is not wearing a purple scarf in one pic but is in the other. My guess is People mag threw two completely different pics together hoping no one would notice. Not that it makes a difference. Julia is allowed to shop arms free just like any other mother if she can.
The thought that Julia wasn’t carrying either kid didn’t even occur to me. I was too busy being amazed that Emmuel Lewis was their nanny.
hi, just wanted to let you know i am not being nasty, or trying to pick a fight. as a matter of fact i luv ya! i can’t wait to check your blog every night.
my comment is about the julia roberts thing. i must admit that i had the same reaction as the person who wrote the letter when i saw the picture. in another mag. was courtney cox standign somewhere while the “nanny” was holding the baby. i wondered why she wasn’t holding her own damn baby. yes, i am jealous that i can’t afford a nanny. at one time i actually thought about hiring some help (not that i can afford that) but then i thought about someone else going and getting my child in the morning when he woke, playing with him, putting him down for his nap, even changing his diapers, and i couldn’t fathom the thought of someone else doing that! call me crazy.
about a year ago i had an ectopic rupture, which resulted in an emergency surgery to remove my tube, and i couldn’t lift over 10 pounds for 6-8 weeks. i was going nuts that i couldn’t carry or pick up my son. it drove me nuts that other people were doing MY job. i even missed changing poopy diapers…again call me crazy!
i’m sure julia and courtney are great mommies. and like you said it was one picture. i’m not saying there is anything wrong. i’m just saying i had the same reaction when i first saw the pictures. but to each their own.
i’m sure we all do what we see fit with our little ones. i’m not going to tell someone else how to raise their children, or even tell them they are bad mothers for doing something differently than i do.
While on the subject of children – Robyn, did you watch Dr. Phil the last 2 days about the family who was afraid their 19 year-old was a sexual predator? OMG – it was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen!!!
I have to admite that when I saw those pictures I thought the same thing as Erika! I can understand a nanny when your not home, most people shop without a nanny. Also, why did Kathy Lee Gifford take her nanny on vacation. I mean she can’t take care of her kids when on vacation???!! Sorry Robyn, I love ya, but I gotta disagree! Shopping and vacationing with a nanny just seems like convient parenting to me!
Just to clear up what I was saying above: I can understand having a nanny when your working but for shopping, and vacations?? No! 🙂
I will say that of course everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but it does amaze me that a single picture of an instant in the life of someone none of us knows can make people leap to the conclusions that they do (and I’ll fully admit that I do it, too – jump to conclusions, I mean). Maybe Julia Roberts hands her kids off to the nannies and assistants all day long and only can be bothered to look on on them when it’s time for Danny Moder to snap some pictures of the glowing mother and her children for the magazines – that’s entirely possible. Or maybe she spends every moment of her day doing all the diaper-changing, feeding, playing, and carrying. Just because she had help getting the kids out to the car at a moment when a photographer was lurking doesn’t mean that her entire life resembles that exact moment. Only she and her husband (and their 63 assorted assistants and nannies) know what her life is actually like.
And if I could have afforded it, I would have hired a nanny to change every single shitty diaper the spud ever had. But that’s just me.
The funny thing here is that I’ve never been overly fond of Julia Roberts. Heh.
Nicole: I thought we’d all agreed that Kathy Lee Gifford is the devil, didn’t we? 🙂
Shelly: Oh god, yes! Thanks for giving me something to write about tomorrow; I meant to do so, but it completely slipped my mind.
“The thought that Julia wasn’t carrying either kid didn’t even occur to me. I was too busy being amazed that Emmuel Lewis was their nanny.
Posted by Laurie(inOly) at March 3, 2005 02:36 PM ”
Oh. My. GOD. This made me laugh for five straight minutes.
Actually, I think the nanny could be Gary Coleman…..
Picture of young Master Boogers says a thousand words…
Man, Robyn, I’ve noticed lately that all your cats are giant-sized ones. I don’t mean fat ones, just BIG. Big bodies, big feet, & such. I will agree with you that Miz Poo is a portly little lady, but your cats are HUGE. My 6 year old cat seems like a runt in comparison. And well, maybe she is. And maybe it’s cause she’s a girl. Not to mention my 7 month old kitten, who seems like he’d get squashed if one of your cats tried to wrestle with him. But no matter what size they are, I LOVE your cats! Never get tired of their pictures. 🙂
Elizabeth: They’re not fat, they’re just fluffy. 🙂 Actually, they’re all fairly big-boned (and I’m not joking when I say that), but Mister Boogers is fairly small compared to the others. Maybe they’re so big ’cause we spoil ’em rotten. Have I mentioned that there are twice as many kitty beds in this house as there are actually kitties? 🙂
Frankly, I don’t really care what celebrities do. They have so much more money than the average person they could probably pay someone to wipe their butt. Heh. And you are absolutely right, we can’t judge anyone buy one photo.
What the hell is wrong with convenient parenting, Nicole? Who the f says it has to be hard? I would LOVE to be able to hand off the inconvienent parts and just have fun with my kids. Sheesh.
My lovely orange kitty died in January; I’m meeting with our pet store folks on Monday for an adoption interview. I plan to adopt two — they have bonded pairs that they insist be adopted together. I’ve also signed up to clean cages! Robyn is a good influence. (Wonder how many times that’s been said.)
Hey, whoever it was that commented about living in rural East Texas and wanting a kitten, could you email me? I live not so far from you and I volunteer for the Humane Society – I might be able to help you out! Thanks!
Myz Robyn, I love your journal and the cute kitty pics. I just wanted to tell you that I’m getting an error on your journal too. It says it’s a Syntax error whatever that means. Keep up the good work with those sweet kitty cats. Love you muchly!!! Nanamama 🙂
I read that stupid letter about Julia Roberts too. If I were Julia or any other well known person I wouldn’t carry my infant in public either. There is always a chance you will attract attention from some nutcase just because of who you are. It would be safer to have someone else actually hold the children while they are that little.
Pat