This week in Parenthesis, we envy the Blair family's quick trip to the Olympics, develop a yen for The Wednesday Chef's delicious-looking meatballs, deconstruct BlogHer -- and more.
London calling
We’re going to come right out and admit that this post on Design Mom makes us envious. Why? Let us count the ways: 1) Even an Instagram filter doesn't make our photos look hers; 2) We wish we could see the Olympics (even just glimpses) firsthand; 3) Living within driving distance of London means you live in Europe; 4) We want to play with a giant checkers set now.
These irrational impulses aside, we’re quite content to live vicariously through the Blair family -- Gabrielle (a.k.a Design Mom), Ben Blair and all six of the Blair kids -- who hopped across the Channel from France this week to soak up a little Olympic glory (and from the looks of it, a tiny bit of English rain, too).
The case for reading less carefully
Sometimes, an honest mistake can be enlightening; a recent post by Ellen Seidman of Love That Max provides a perfect example. Seidman misread a single (crucial) word in an emailed press release this week, leading her to believe that a Hooters chain was being developed for people with special needs. Her misinterpretation brought about a nuanced inner dialogue about the legitimacy of the hypothetical project, and she was just getting used to the idea -- even becoming a proponent -- when she realized her mistake. As she concludes: “Never thought I'd fantasize about [something like this] but, hey, it wouldn't be a bad thing.”
Deduction!
Millions of people have been watching the Olympics; you may be one of them. But for many, some of the competition’s most transcendent moments -- in gymnastics, diving, tennis and other major sports -- have been marred by overenthusiastic (read: hypercritical) commentary. Announcers don’t hesitate to take world-class competitors to task for tiny mistakes -- and at least one blogger has started to imagine what would happen if they examined her daily routine (making tea, scooping the cat litter, donning skinny jeans, and more) in such gritty detail. Their imagined commentary is predictably downbeat, but Frugalistablog's writer tries to stay positive: “Someone out there must think I’m a 10.”
"A new baby doesn't really need much, but a new mother needs everything"
Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef is the proud -- and slightly shell-shocked -- mother of an 8-week-old boy whose "big, toothless grins" and "little coos" make him an "absolute delight." Excited as she was to welcome the baby, she found the weeks directly after his birth highly stressful; "I realize now how right other societies have it when their new mothers are surrounded by their community for the weeks following birth, caring for her, washing and feeding her," she writes. For a food blogger like Luisa, the emphasis naturally falls on that last activity -- and she helpfully provides a recipe for "meltingly tender" meatballs that will make a "deeply comforting" gift for any (non-vegetarian) new mom you know. We're starting to crave them already.
BlogHer debrief
Some bloggers like recapping BlogHer almost as much as they like attending the conference itself. We already summed up some of the best posts written in advance of the big event last week -- but if you’re interested in knowing how it all went down (and how the conference has evolved over the years), Ilana Wiles and Doug French (among many others) have published personal takes. Spoiler alert: someone punched the unicorn cake.