One of the things I like about Southern California is the proliferation of birds — native, migatory and introduced. The native birds include the roadrunner, more common in the deserts, but occasionally glimpsed in suburban neighborhoods. To a girl who grew up on the East Coast, the sight of roadrunners is totally made for TV; until coming here, I almost doubted such things really existed apart from Warner Brothers cartoons.

We live across the street from the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, one of the best birding grounds in the nation, which serves as a stopover for migrating birds, including lots of egrets and herons. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a Great Blue Heron trying to perch in the top of a palm tree.

Also commonly seen right in my own neighborhood are wild turkeys, who mysteriously appear, disappear and reappear at unpredictable intervals on a grassy lot around the corner from our home, and feral parrots apparently descended from escaped or released pet parrots. These parrots frequently fly in shrieking flocks of 10-20 birds about our neighborhood as well as in other Southern California beach communities.

I frequently am heard to say that I miss robins and bluejays and Baltimore orioles and all the Northeastern birds who populated my childhood. But you have to admit, a life surrounded with herons, turkeys, roadrunners and parrots is a rich and varied life, at least as far as birds go.

First-grader Sam is perfecting his reading skills, meaning that he is meant to read out loud every day at home. I try to turn this into family fun by having Sam read aloud to Boolie from her baby-oriented board books, most of which depict happy babies going about their daily routine with a few words about what they are doing in each picture.

Sam can read the words with ease, but he’s not content to leave it at that. Instead, he looks at the picture and editorializes. For instance:

Oh, look at me; you think I’m a nice sweet little girl, right? Well, the minute you leave my room I’m going to throw this bear out the window. And by the way, I did a big fudgie in my diaper. A great big one, really stinky. Just for you.

Boolie just listens, wide-eyed. And I prompt Sam, what does it REALLY say?

Teddy bear, he admits.

While he’s getting educated, Sam is nothing if not educational. I can only wonder what his sister makes of the stories he tells.

Here’s Jimmy’s revenge:

I’m Fucking Ben Affleck

I don’t know. I’d rather fuck Matt Damon.

Looky here — I just got flamed on some sullen Gen-Y forum because some little shit is jealous that I claimed my domain name before he could:

Insulting post by someone who doesn’t know me

Well, fuck you very much. Trust me, honey, I do it more justice than you ever could do.

I don’t take my kids to church on Sunday mornings. There are some who think this is awful, but I don’t think I’d be doing anyone any favors in taking them, neither the congregation nor my kids themselves. My boys are not generally of the disposition for sitting still. Sam is, at the moment, but only because he’s having some fascinating interplay among his action figures. (They, the action figures I mean, are stealing each other’s girlfriends and accusing each other of being involved in Scientology. I doubt this scenario would go over well with the congregation.)

Does sitting in church on Sunday mornings really teach kids to love God? I don’t think it did a thing for me; rather, I vaguely resented God for taking one of my two weekly mornings off and forcing me to get up early, stuff a little hat on my head and white gloves on my hands, and walk the half-mile to church and drowse through the services. I would’ve rather been out in the woods, discovering trees and plants and hunting for turtles and crawfish. Now that would have been a way to celebrate God’s creation.

So here we sit, 10 a.m. on a Sunday, me with my nose in my coffee and the kids chirping and playing. Later, we’ll go have an adventure. I don’t think God minds.

Some of you have been clamoring for further photographs of Julia, my youngest, and I must concede that the pursuit of Boolie’s image is a worthy pursuit indeed. This one was taken this morning while Ben and the kids were finishing up their oatmeal (I had a Wellbutrin and a cup of 100% Kona coffee, instead), and looked like this:

I cannot tell you what she is thinking at times like these, but I can tell you what she said just before I snapped the picture: Daddy, I took a really big dump. I mean it, Daddy. Let’s go get a clean diaper.

I like a girl who knows what she wants.

For a month now I’ve been on an antidepressant called Wellbutrin, and I love it so much I would marry it. Totally changed me from a SpongeBob-watching slob to an energetic, motivated mom and paralegal.

I was telling this story to the day care lady yesterday and she said Well, then change your ringback tone on your cell phone already. It’s SO depressing. It was an interesting insight. So I took her advice. I’m well aware of music choices as symptom; while going through a bad time I was listening to a lot of This Year’s Model by Elvis Costello (his hostility, booze and cocaine period) until I realized it couldn’t be beneficial and switched to the Grateful Dead.

Anyway, I’m a Jenny Lewis/Rilo Kiley fan, and here’s my previous ringback from her solo album Rabbit Fur Coat:

What’re you changing — who d’you think you’re changing? We can’t change things; we’re all stuck in our ways. It’s like trying to drain the ocean; what, do you think you can drain it? It was poison and dry long before you came.

And here’s the new one, from Rilo Kiley’s new release Under the Blacklight:

Hooray hooray, I’m your silver lining; hooray hooray, but now I’m gold.

Even a dullard like me can see how this is different.

Yesterday we took the kids for a late afternoon walk in a local park (Tewinkle Park, which we of course call Pee-Tinkle Park) featuring paths and bridges around a peaceful duck pond. Well, not so peaceful once my boys arrived; they rolled down hills and ran about chasing some visiting seagulls. About halfway ’round the lake, there was a little wooden bench on a turnout in the path. On it, a young couple was sitting with their arms around each other, admiring the water and the golden light, and occasionally kissing a little.

Upon rounding the corner and seeing them, Matt hunkered down like a pointer dog and his index finger shot straight out at them. They’re having SEX! he cried.

I explained to him calmly, There is rather a large continuum between having sex and what those people are doing, and they are NOT having sex. Matt became distracted by a group of honking geese and dropped the subject, but when I turned to walk on, the couple on the bench were laughing like hell. Sorry, I told them, shrugging. They just smiled and giggled.

Is there any doubt whatsoever that these are Ben’s sons? I mean, honestly. Both of my boys, but Matt in particular, have that feel for theatre, that knack for the showstopping remark.

Why the hell are bras so fucking expensive? I just came from Kohl’s, where I paid $15 each for a pair of leather athletic shoes for each of my sons — and $19 for a bra for me. Dudes, this amounts to two yarmulkes with chin straps, and that is a discount price. If I were insane enough to shop at Macy’s or Bloomingdales, I’d be paying more than twice that.

In my opinion, there should be Federal subsidies for bras for women over 40. Shit, at my age and after nursing four kids, I’m performing a public service by supporting the damned things and packaging them neatly for public viewing. When a mom my age goes braless without first enduring extensive cosmetic surgery, the spectacle is enough to turn you to stone like the Medusa.

Perhaps I could use my boobs as a robbery weapon. Hand over the cash or I’ll take off my bra! Think it’d work? At the very least, it would help pay for my undergarments.

I was nearly 38 years old, recently divorced, and had been dating a nice Jewish guy for the better part of a year.

He was nearly 42 years old, never married, no kids, and had long enjoyed a bachelor’s life of travel, water and snow skiing, and partying with his single buddies.

I was between jobs, and a legal temp agency placed me with an insurance company’s legal department as paralegal to two construction defect defense attorneys. I was introduced to one of them; the other one, Ben, was away at a court appearance that morning.

Linda, the secretary, showed me his office. It featured a martini flag on the wall, eyeball glasses next to the telephone, and an assortment of plastic fighter planes and rubber monsters. As you can see, she told me, he has absolutely no sense of humor.

I was intrigued.

The next day I met him. He was a big guy with salt-and-pepper hair, eyes the color of the sea, and dark olive skin. Cute. And, it turned out, brilliant. In 18 years I’d almost never worked for an attorney without secretly thinking I was smarter than he was. But Ben was different.

He had a sometimes juvenile, often wickedly un-PC sense of humor. His mouth sometimes curled into a slight sneer when sparring by telephone with an adversary, but when he laughed, his whole face lit up. He liked the music of Elvis Costello and Frank Zappa, the sci-fi comedy writing of Douglas Adams, and penis jokes.

He didn’t date co-workers.

I tried desperately to flirt with him. My pre-baby body was tiny and tight, and I used to wear snug sweater dresses and go into his office and bend over a lot. If he noticed, he never let on. After two months, I accepted a better-paying permanent position at another firm. On my way out the door, I slipped him my phone number. I always did want to go out with you, I said, and now that we’re not co-workers, call me.

A few months passed, and the winter holidays and ski season slipped by. I gave up on him and continued dating my nice Jewish guy, who was now talking marriage. One evening in March, my phone rang and my teenage daughter Erika answered. It’s for you, Mom, she called. It’s some guy named Ben.

Ben who? I asked. I really had put him out of my mind by then. But I took the call.

We talked for a half-hour, laughed a lot, gossiped about goings-on in his legal department, and agreed to meet for a wine tasting the following week. In preparation, I stopped eating and lived on Slim-Fast and chardonnay. I wanted to be thin and gorgeous for our first date.

He was 20 minutes late to arrive at the wine bar; five minutes more and I’d have left. But he showed up, and we had a great time, and he asked me to dinner. We talked and giggled like tweeners at a slumber party. Saying goodnight, he leaned in to kiss me, but sidestepped my lips and planted a kiss on my cheek. I tried again, but again he evaded. It amazed me. I could tell he liked me. Was he a fucking gentleman? Wasn’t he going to try anything?

Everything about him was completely new to me.

After the second date, I dumped my poor Jewish boyfriend, and Ben and I have been inseparable ever since. After eight years of marriage and three kids, we’re always tired and sometimes cranky, but we’re still laughing.

Happy Valentine’s Day, honey. There’s no one else on earth like you. Thanks for letting me bear your kids, see your smile, and hear your dirty jokes.