My colleague Joann Weiner recently wrote a post on Politics Daily in which she described the blissful, stress-free summer week she just enjoyed in Washington, D.C., while her family was out of town. She exercised . . . she went out to dinner . . . she tried beer ice cream . . . she even — gasp — took time to smell the proverbial flowers.

I’m happy for Jo. Truly I am. It’s just that after I read her post, I took one look at the way I’ve spent the last seven days and thought: What’s wrong with this picture?

You see, I’m having a different sort of week. I call it a “Calgon” week.

Don’t remember Calgon? Among other things, it’s a line of bath and beauty products. When I was a kid, there was this marvelous commercial in which this harried housewife in a pink bathrobe stood in the middle of her kitchen overwhelmed by various demands: the kids . . . the dishes . . . the dinner . . . the telephone. She’d throw up her hands and shriek: “Calgon! Take Me Away!” and, presto! She was magically whisked into a soothing bubble bath.

Pink bathrobe notwithstanding, that shrieking lady in the kitchen pretty much captures how I’ve felt this past week. It’s a week that’s featured, in no particular order: a major schlep to and from son’s camp located in absurdly difficult-to-access section of North London (Remind me, again, why we decided not to get a car?), reduced work time due to said schlep, husband on deadline whose frazzled hair increasingly resembles Albert Einstein’s, acute case of hostess anxiety brought on by not having entertained in four years because we lived in a closet, but somehow managing to schedule two events at my new apartment in one week (Should we do Red? White? Fizzy? And what is a tapanade, anyway?). Oh yeah. And did I mention the pink eye that’s now making its way through the house?

Read the rest of this post on www.PoliticsDaily.com…

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I’m was also over on Politics Daily this week talking about David Cameron’s revolutionary approach to ending big government in the U.K.

Image: Calgon, take me away! by yourFAVORITEmartian via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Every Friday I point you to some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. If you’ve read even one book in Stieg Larsson’s magnificent Millennium Trilogy (e.g. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) you will love Nora Ephron’s spoof of Larsson’s series in The New Yorker. (And when you’re done with that, check out my colleague Luisita Lopez Torregrosa’s take on why Lisbeth Salander is the iconic heroine of our age at www.PoliticsDaily.com.)

2. While we’re on the topic of feminist heroines for our age, have a look at Salon’s interview with The Daily Show’s new correspondent Olivia Munn. (Must read if you’ve been following the whole Jezebel-Daily Show face-off over Munn’s new job.)

3. An old friend of mine has just started a delightfully funny, self-mocking look at what it’s like to be a white middle-class professional woman in NYC. If you like Stuff White People Like you will *love* Another Bourgeois Dilemma.

4. I really enjoyed Andrew Heller’s insightful take on why summers in the old days were so much better than they are now at the Flint Journal. Of course, anyone who still references “Kick the Can” has my vote any day.

5. One of my favorite new (to me) blogs, Strangling My Muse, posted last week about the “To Don’t” list. God, do I need one of those…

6. Finally, for those of you who still pine for a mullet, here’s my look over at www.PoliticsDaily.com at Iran’s ban on Western haircuts. (My subtitle that was dropped: Last of the Mohawkans…pity.)

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