Why My Husband Should Adore Me

This you must see. Really: don't read one more word until you check it out.

The note was found on the same NYC to CT train route that I took for one very sweet, very hot (and I don't mean sexy) summer. It would mark the only time I ever worked in Manhattan, which makes me both happy and sad, but no matter: I know this MetroNorth line well.

It's the route my father took morning and night over the course of a few decades, and it's the one that many of my friends take today. It is also the train I rode as a teenager when I would wander through Greenwich Village with my posse, all of us so incredibly cool -- in our LL Bean boots and ribboned pony tails. Oh lord: Chloe Sevigny, we were not.

I never found a list like that on the train (though I did once find a six pack in a brown paper bag and I was all, woot! woot!), and I doubt my dad ever did. Granted, this was in the olden days before cool computer links could instantly deliver your boyfriend to the thousand dollar pair of shoes you love, but still.

I sort of thought this world, people with "wish lists" like this, didn't really exist... at least I didn't think they rode the fucking train!

If I wrote a Christmas list for my husband, which I haven't (mostly because he's been out of the country for most of the month, including right now thanks to a little snow storm in Europe which has stranded him YET AGAIN), I can assure you it would not look like this note.

For one, I would embed pictures of the things I most covet.

Things like this:

Because my feet hurt. Lots.

And not from my Luhbootins (which I am not even going to try to spell correctly) but from the thump-thump-thump I do all day in clogs made by Scandinavian masochists.

Or this.

Because it's hard to whip up cupcakes or healthy whole-grain muffins (wink, wink) when the baking section of my kitchen looks more pock-marked than most meth addicts.

And this?

Because, um? Does this even require explanation? Oprah sayeth and I believeth: a good bra doth make me look skinnieth-er.

I can't ever seem to find these when I need them.

Or these:

I would like some. Please.

I haven't done the math, and I'd probably mess up the calculations anyway, but I'm pretty sure I didn't come close to the $20K tab my train riding girlfriend did. This, and the Delicious Miller Lite? I think I just might be the cheapest date EVER. Add it to my countless other amazing qualities, and I'm sure I have endeared my husband to me for life. (Can you endear someone to you? Have I just bastardized re-invented language again?)

But just in case he might read this, and is kind of wanting to, well, spoil me -- this is what I really, really want:

She? Priceless.

PS: Truth: I'd really just like him to make it home to enjoy Christmas. That'd be good enough for me. And also: I already bought the coat I needed. It's wrapped and under the tree: "Stay Warm Mom! Heart, the Kids"

Twelve Days of.... OMG? WHA?

On the first day of Christmas,

My true love gave to me –

A kiss as he left the country.

On the second day of Christmas,

Bad luck gave to me --

Two kids moaning

And a kiss as he left the country.

On the third day of Christmas

Bad luck gave to me

Three sick kids!

Two kids moaning,

And a kiss as he left the country.

(You know how this goes, right? Let’s skip forward to the grand finale…)

On the twelfth day of Christmas

Bad luck gave to me –

Twelve loads of laundry

Eleven buckets emptied

Ten ruined towels

Nine blown-off meetings

Eight shouts for “MOMMY!”

Seven gifts un-shopped for

Six chores a-waiting

Five…. Hours…. Of…. Sleep!

Four tummies rumbling

Three sick kids!

Two kids moaning

And a kiss as he left the country.

That’s right.

While solo-parenting three children during both a busy professional and personal time of year -- which is an understatement of epic proportions, the Grinch visited my Who(wouldathunk)ville and left the kind of gift that keeps on giving. And giving. And oh, yes, giving again.

In the interest of sparing most of the goriest details, let me simply say that it might have been better if each of my kids became sick all at once rather than in progressive order -- in the middle of the night. And it was not sugar plum fairies dancing in any our sleeps! It was sort of like the March of the Nutcracker but instead of ballerinas, I got a stinky parade of the flu- and fever-ridden.

And it wasn’t twelve days – I’ve taken some liberties in the interest of “musical genius” – but it felt like it was. (Come to think of it, maybe it was twelve days: I’m so sleep-deprived, most of the details are lost on me.)

I am pleased to report that the worst seems behind us. Like always, good will (and an industrial-sized can of Lysol) have beaten that nasty Grinch from our door. The tummy rumbling has subsided, the fevers are gone, and soon enough an airplane will deliver my True Love back from a continent far, far away.

In the meantime, I’ll be scrambling to finish all the things left undone this week, which are so many that there are some I will surely overlook. But come Christmas Eve, I know I won’t forget to set out a special plate of milk and cookies for the one who has done so very much for me this Christmas season.

My washing machine.

To Phone or Not To Phone: A Christmas Dilemma

I like to think of myself as a Christmas magician. Not the kind who makes the greens and holly and holiday lights appear in a poof – ask my neighbors and you'll know this is not where my magic skills lay -- but the kind who makes sure that that one very special, very much wished for gift gets dropped down the chimney. I think that's the kind of magician we all want to be.

Usually, it's pretty easy. I'll twist racetracks into gravity-defying loops or score the long-wished for Lego set. The Big Man with the Beard will bring earrings, even when the Mom has said "no pierced ears," and with a snap of the wand, another Christmas morning will become the best one ever. But this year, I'm struggling.

This year I'm not sure I can make the magic happen. To get my daughter a phone or not to get her a phone, that is the question.

If my daughter were writing here, she would tell you that she's the only kid IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD with a mother so strict. She would be partly right because while I know that she is not the only sixth grader without a cell phone, I also know she's in a very small minority. I've held my no phone ground for so long, that sometimes I'm not even sure where my reluctance comes from.

I suppose it's fear. I've read so much about what can and does happen with technology like that and it scares me, but yet, I allowed her to set up an email account, which is just as frightening. Maybe I'm more afraid that with a cell phone in her pocket, she will be even more grown up -- and maybe growing away from me?

Lately, my daughter's charts and lists and arguments trying to sway my decision have become more persuasive. She's started babysitting, has managed her homework and chores and practice schedules, and by all accounts, appears to be able to handle the responsibility. Plus, she's a pretty great kid and I still want to be that Christmas magic-maker for her.

And I don't think a Barbie Dream House is a going to cut it this year.

My friend Jessica, who has a daughter one year older than mine, and who has always been a trusted source, is helping my daughter's case. Like me, Jess was resisting the phone but finally relented last Christmas. She's set some solid boundaries and rules -- no cell phones (or computers) upstairs, mom owns the phone and therefore has access to whatever's on it and/or can cut it off at any time.

Jess said she's actually glad she finally allowed the coveted phone, especially because she's been able to successfully set a precedent for the teenage future when boundaries and rules will matter even more.

I guess the future is here. I am getting my daughter a cell phone.

I am going into it with the kind of optimism that has sustained a lot of my parenting decisions: which is basically that if I shore myself up with enough information and set and stand by some unflinching regulations then all will be okay. If I have to, I'll revise my strategy should something pop up -- which it will.

But for now, I'm hoping it's just the chime of a funny text sent by a daughter to her mom, who, as it turns out, will get to be a Christmas magician once more.

(This was first published here.)

Also personal to Laggin: I adore you.

This is my Bieber

My daughter was hugged by Justin Bieber tonight.

This is because I have a friend, who was once my roommate in high school and then a bridesmaid in my wedding and then a confidant and trusted source throughout everything that came after, who decided my little kid was worthy of her magic.

And then she put her wand to it and poof! My kid is now the happiest kid on the planet.

My daughter was not lucky tonight. Instead, she was the recipient of what happens when you nurture what you love. Or in this case, who you love.

There is so much talk in the giant, noisy world about the social network. Blogs and tweets and Facebook and geolocation and oh holy hell, it worries me. In just writing these words, I feel my heart beating the wrong way.

Instead my heart should beat like my daughter's did tonight and how mine does in grateful thanks for my friend -- with a passion.

How does your heart beat?

My heart does not flutter over twitter follows or Facebook "friends" or blog commenters.

My heart beats when I write. My heart beats when I feel magnetically moved to, when I can not do anything but... write. My heart beats when writing becomes the best puzzle and the best solve all at once. My heart beats when writing reflects the best part of me, or the ugliest part, or the nastiest part, or the sweetest.

Writing is my Bieber.

It's my meet and greet.

I am trying to nurture what I love.

My Wikkid Smaht Kids: Still Wikkid Smaht

The GFYO has very fine penmanship for a 1st grader.

He also writes bad guys this way: badgis.

***

Rory reminds me (on the eve of a teacher/parent conference) that she is a "good kid." I know, I say. I'm not surprised I say. But how do you think you are as a "student," I ask?

Um, mom? she drags out in the way that 4th grade kids like her do:

Do you not remember my award for studentness?

I do, I say. (I resist every impulse to correct that non-word...)

And I say, I'm still not sure you know what I mean ---

"MOM! omigod! I have studentness! Back off! Geez...."

****

Bridget, who is 11, wants a cell phone for Christmas. Her pitch to me?

I'll call you alllll the time, even when you don't want me to!

****

There will come a day when my wikkid smaht kids will be way smarter than me. Until then, and because of that? I'm making proof of how delightfully awesome they've been in the meantime.

Also: shoring up lots of material for the rehearsal dinner toasts. Yo.

Obligatory Thinky Thanksgiving Post

It’s ironic, but true: the season of thanks always finds me griping the most.

It’s darker earlier, which is an annual buzz kill. It’s chillier and the older I get, the colder I seem to feel. The kids have officially lost their back-to-school excitement and have moved into the dreaded homework-is-a-chore phase. The house we spend more and more time huddled inside creaks and moans and shows its age: the railings split, another shingle blows off the roof, a threatening crack appears in the plaster. Soon enough, the Christmas decorating, partying, and shopping will come due in bills that seem higher every year.

And I gripe about it all.

Meanwhile, my son will perform a sweet play about families and feasts, which will, as it has twice before, make me feel teary and nostalgic but also pressed for time. Television commercials and magazine articles will remind me to slow down and I will whiz by each in a flash. The whole world will attempt to lecture me on the values of the season, while I sit in the back of the class, doodling.

I really need to get on that spiritual gravy train! I know I should be riding it all the time, and I try.

On my kitchen wall hangs a folk-artsy sign reminding me to count my blessings. I probably look at it one hundred times a day, but like so many other parts of my life, sometimes it too blends into the background. So I gripe when I should count and complain when I should celebrate, but I realize now it’s time to shine a light up there and really have a good look at those three words.

Truth is, no one in my immediate and extended family is sick (after a few scary years of the opposite being true). We are all employed (after a few scary months of that too). Babies have been safely born, cousins have been blissfully wed, and nieces have survived the first few months of college. We are all chugging through lives that are essentially good. Even great.

So, I’m making an early resolution this year: enough with the griping!

Complaining has its place, in an activist, squeaky wheel kind of way, but this is different. This is about making a concerted effort to roll my eyes less, to stomp my feet less, to see more forest and fewer trees. This is less about giving thanks next Thursday but about living thankfully -- consciously thankful -- all the other days. If I tear up a little more, so be it: I’ll gladly replace my frustrated irritation for a few happy sobs. My aim is to shrug off the leak in the ceiling for a while and listen more to the laughter above it.

I realize this might sound kind of hokey or metaphysical or as if I’ve been hanging out with Oprah too much (and admittedly, I kind of wish I were), but I realize that when I gripe about my kids, my family, my house, or my work, it’s a privilege really. See, I have all those things to gripe about, and it’s not lost on me that there are those among us who do not.

With good fortune comes responsibility and I think I know what mine is. The griping? I’m quitting -- or at least cutting back -- and I’m going to tell all the lucky others out there what I have just told myself: enough already. Put down the plastic knives and the sour milk jugs! Dig into the good stuff.

Why I Love My Sister: A Short Lesson in Chaos Appreciation

My sister is the person you want with you when you accidentally (?) get bitten by a snake or set on fire. I'm not sure where she keeps her supplies -- she's a tiny person so you'd think you might see 'em bulging out from under her sweaters and tees -- but that doesn't matter. What does: she has what you need when you need it.

(Especially Benadryl. Benadryl is to her what Windex was to that dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.)

While I spent this whole day convinced that it was November 21st (and even argued that fact to Bridget) (oh yes I did), my sister has probably already packed her bags and set the oven (in another state) to start pre-heating at noon three days from now. (I seriously would not be surprised if she had some awesome remote control or super telepathic powers to actually do that...)

She's a lot like my mom, another equally organized, creator of happy. For example: my mom created an Excel spreadsheet (or something like it) to make sure we all know our assigned Thanksgiving tasks, as well as a PowerPoint (or something like it) of all the various activities and events during our weekend -- when they will begin and end (to the minute). Do not mess with broads like these!

I'm not complaining. Without them (and Bridget), I'd show up in a crappy pilgrim hat on Friday! With a sack of greasy cheeseburgers and a Yankee Candle.

So the following email? Well, it was exactly the laugh I needed this November 21st...eek, 22nd, dammit.

TO: Picket, Mom, Other Sister, Neighbor

FR: Sister

Ingredients bought - done

Wine and beer secured - done

Outfit for Daughter - done

Making pumpkin bread - done

Warm clothes at the ready for football and hike - done

5 pound bag of flour on floor - shit

Wait...the sugar too! - #!&$@!

Daughter helping with baking - DONE

Freakin' awesome.

***

(OH! PS: Not getting me in your inbox? So sad. Please re-enter your email address over there ----> and if the google gods be willing, I might be inspired to write enough here to make you wish you hadn't.)

Considering Going Luddite: Kids, Social Mayhem and Me

My son's favorite country is China.

His favorite number is 11.

Color? Food? Subject in school?

I could tell you all those things -- but only because, with the assistance of his big sister, my six year old made a quiz I could take on-line.

I took it.

Turns out, thanks to that dumb quiz, I know the GFYO not as well as I thought. I know the child I bred and birthed and who owes me who sleeps in my bed most nights, something like 66% which doesn't even put me in the so-called category of "peeps who know me good" -- which is absurd because the freaking dog does not count as a "brother" and also: CHINA?

This is why I hate technology. Technology is getting in the way of my role as the undefeated know-it-all of All Knowledge. Which, as many of you know, is the right of all mothers.

Damn you internet! Damn you quizzes with trick questions!

6th grader B does not have a mobile phone yet but she does have an email account -- which I realize seems only normal in some alternate universe of "normal." I hold the phone off like a freaking golden carrot but allow her access now to conversations online with friends (I approve) who lead us to these stupid quizzes. I allow her to talk one way and not the other? It doesn't even make sense to me.

I had Shaun Cassidy posters on my wall (like her Bieber ones) and when my parents signed up for "total phone," which was built (I think) for dads at the train station to get past the busy signal, me and my friends figured out how to game it and "group chatted" like -- well, like tween and teenage girls did then and -- do now.

Truth is, not much has changed.

Truth is, I have no idea what I am doing.

I'm weighing my friends experiences (especially those with older kids), but mostly, I'm winging it. There has not been a time when I have felt so utterly out on my own in parenting. Where's the book for this?

Soon enough, the day will come where the questions on the quiz will neither be as simple or as funny as my son's were. Soon enough, my sixth grader won't even want my answers. She'll probably want to text her BFF.

(This makes me want to deny her a phone FOREVER and delete her email account right this very second. Which I could but won't.)

At some point, most kids sneak away from our grip and become who they will be; it's part of the process. But right now, while I have 'em in my hands -- I run their social and their media.

But I also know the future is coming in more ways than one.

Will my withholding of a mobile phone, my monitoring of internet access, my insistence that phone calls be made where I can (mostly) hear them even matter?

I have no idea. Do you?

Want to Really Know Your Kid? The Secret's in the Sack (of Halloween Candy)

(This was published -- in a different form -- here already. Lazy? Maybe, but I've been busy dudes!)

It’s not the eyes that are the only windows to the soul. Show me a kid with a pile of Halloween candy and I’ll show you that kid’s true nature and personality.

Let's review, shall we?

The Security Specialist: This child will scope out a secure candy storage spot days in advance of Halloween. She dreams of biometric locks and humidity-controlled safe rooms and fears younger siblings and hungry, late-night noshing parents.

The Analyst: With access to a computer, this kid will whip up a Candy Haul spreadsheet in seconds. The document might even be accompanied by the latest in graphing technology: 27 Snickers, 15 Skittles, etc with moving parts like the Nasdaq. This child is interested more in buying trends and candy popularity (“Almond Joy sees continued downward momentum,” for instance). He will sort (and often, re-sort) each treat with the precision of a mathematical genius.

The Free Spirit: You will know this child by the path of wrappers trailing him from house to house. Why wait, thinks this kid, while digging into the loot while still costumed and hitting houses. He can barely mumble a “trick or treat” because of the Laffy Taffy stuffed in his mouth. This child lives for the moment and cares little for convention.

The Mover and Shaker: Making trades is the name of the game – and this kid will never lose out on the deal. Three mini Twix for a king size Reeses? Done. This child will likely partner with The Analyst for up-to-the minute trending information. She is on a full out mission to monopolize the market.

The Negotiator: No candy for breakfast? No candy for lunch? The Negotiator is relentless in challenging the terms of candy consumption. Deals will be made, promises will be issued: this child will sweet-talk her way to more sweets. Or die trying.

The Saver: The stockpile is a thing of beauty to this prudent child. Like Midas with his gold, this kid will swoon over unopened treats and practice self-discipline like a Zen master. He probably has candy from last Halloween.

The Entrepreneur: This child will seize any and all money-making opportunities and has likely already sold lemonade at a swift mark-up. With aspects of The Saver, the Entrepreneur will reserve loot until she is convinced typical sources have been effectively burnt out. Then it's sell, sell, sell.

The Scientist: Given some free space, a hard surface, a hammer (or soup can) and with luck, a bottle of Coke, this child could create nuclear fusion from a Pixie stick, a Skittle and Wii wand. Messy? Yes. Brilliant? Foshizzle. (Note: parents who say "foshizzle" rarely breed these types of children.)

Doubt my psuedo-science? Naturally I have no proof and like always am operating off a gut instinct that when not bloated from Snickers is ridiculous right all.the.time, but I implore you nonetheless to send me your own case-studies. Screw nature/nurture blahblahblah: it's the candy people! Surely I am on to something...

As for me? I am the pain in the Security Specialists ass.

It Gets Better

I interrupt my heterosexuality to remind teens in question that even straight moms are not narrow.

Find the cool mom in the 'hood.

They exist.

I'm one.

It gets better.

I promise.

I can't wait to see what you will do.

Someone will love you. I promise.

ALONE part one

(I wrote this in late June, or started it then, and finished it (?) on Monday. I hit publish but forgot to change the date so it went deep into the pages. I am re-publishing it now with a new date. Which is hard. Because this is some thinky, very personal, thinky shite...)

When I was a kid, we lived in a house edged by a pond with swampy woods surrounding it. I played there for hours alone. Sometimes, I played there with neighbor kids or friends from school, but never for long: I needed them to agree with my secret swamp world exactly.

That fallen tree? That’s my magic horse. This raised grassy lump? A tuffet for the Queen. I was (literally) a team player in every other part of my kid life, but in my woods? It was either play in my world as I did, or I would live there alone.

I was bossy. Weird and bossy. And I didn't mind playing alone.

I never minded being punished to my room: there were no distractions there. When my friends had grown beyond my make-believe world in the woods, and after I pretended that I had too, I sometimes snuck out to that grassy tuffet. I dreamt poems there and stories I still haven't told. I loved that mossy throne; it was comforting. There was just the snap and shake of the trees in the wind there, just the flap of goose wings or ripples from turtles on the water. There was nothing else, no one else but me and a day dream.

It was the beginning of a long romance. Solitude and day dreams are both charming seducers.

I got my first Walkman when I was 12. I was losing my fearless self to boobs and puberty and what would become the beginning of a slew of self-doubts. The headphones let me disappear with the Beach Boys and Ramones and Elvis Costello. When I learned not to sing the words out loud while plugged in, I realized I could be perfectly (confidently) alone and in the room at the same time. When I was 17, booze did the same thing.

Now? Not much has changed.

I covet the space I make, though these days it requires building barriers that are achingly harder to create and come with more consequences. The answering machine is my armor, but sometimes, I make shields of sunglasses and excuses -- forgetfulness or the busy-busy of life. When push comes to shove, I hide behind the gilded mesh of cheap beer. I'm pushing off and away for sure, just not to some fantastic kingdom of my own making. Just off and away.

My building of moats is ruled by the same master I met when I was a kid: I still have a need to be alone, to shake off life by getting quiet in my own space. But the ditch digging I do as an adult? It's driven by a master who now has two heads.

I know well the difference between alone and lonely as I have felt both, so when I say that the adult and mother I have become needs to be separate and silent and all by herself sometimes, I am speaking a bitter truth but one I can swallow. It's when I realize that my absences are more than just a "room of one's own," re-charging kind of thing but also the symptom of a (life-long?) dread of being boring or unfunny or lazy or dull... Well, that's when I begin to see the master as more of a monster.

The Kid understands this of me (as well as he can), but my children do not. They are however old enough to question why I stay behind sometimes when they go out to dinner or why I just "let it go to voicemail," so I know they wonder about it. I know I make people I love lonely for me; sometimes I have trumped their feelings for my own. I am surely old enough to know better, but, sometimes “knowing” is not enough.

Sometimes the desperate need to be alone -- to be back atop that tuft in the woods, quiet enough to hear my own voice talking back to me through the swamp and the skunk cabbage without the worry of talking out loud or being that person I think (they think) I am -- sometimes that desire beats out every good and righteous one in me.

To be continued...

I Have In Fact Been Abducted by Aliens... So There

The following is completely stolen from CarolynOnline, who writes one of the many blogs I can't seem to read anymore. I know Carolyn, in a real life kind of way, and yet, I barely visit her site. I think blogging has lost its charm for me, or perhaps I have lost my charm for blogging, or maybe I am lazy or busy or distracted or totally washed up....

Kids Update: The GFYO is seeing ghosts. Ghost dogs, ghost people. When he was two, he saw a "worker" coming up from the basement, a "worker" who hung around for a while, for him, in the living room of our 100+ year old house. When he was five, he announced, from the backseat and out of nowhere, that "when you die, you just start over." He told me today that the people "who disappear" don't speak to him, but they just "come and walk away." Then he said he didn't want to talk about it. My father says he has an active imagination. He does, but I'm convinced that he, like me, like my mother, has something none of us can explain. (PS: Syd. Annie. I knew you'ld be in touch...) Meanwhile, Rory needs a break -- from soccer, school, overly aggressive/super needy friends -- and I'm giving it to her, as best I can. Bridget will be one of the last girls to get boobs -- and a cell phone -- and I am not sure which bothers either of us most.

Me Update: I'm gonna be run out of the Small Town by the soccer gestapo because I suggested (in an email that used the words "dude" and "really") that being 3 minutes late to a pre-game warm-up was a bit severe. Granted my daughter was there on time, but she was one of five who were, and so I figured I had numbers on my side, which I did.... privately. I am a loudmouth, but (I'd like to think) of the good kind. Doesn't mean I don't die a little for sticking my neck out -- when no one else does.

More Me Update: Oh! And I started a fight with the Small Town over playground equipment at the Little School. Here's what I learned: a strongly worded letter will get you a meeting, but being funny and organized with facts in said meeting? It will get you further. Screw you, internet: the world changes when faces see faces. Also: lawyers? Parents who hire them? Please! You have created an unhealthy, physical play environment over one broken arm.

Even More Me Update: Today, I couldn't write the regular column I've been writing these last few months for a burgeoning digital site. I have a cold, I spent too long today trying to fix the car (my father in law busted) (not my fault -- at last), but mostly, I'm in this rut of "it's all been said." I should note that the Small Town newspaper has stolen two of my published ideas and ran them as features, and it irritates me. A lot. It also irritates me that the mom who writes the "mom" column for Small Town newspaper uses a fake name. Small Town can be deadly, I know, and I respect this broad, but bravery is a trait I cling to, desperately, with (mostly) horrible results. (See: soccer gestapo.)

Swear this is the last Me Update: Two of my essays will be included in a forthcoming collection about motherhood, published by a real publisher, that features lots of super educated women with tons of opinions and an amazing editor who loves democracy and collaboration. I mostly delete the back and forth wikkid smaht emails: over-thinking and smartypantsness are two traits I try to avoid. Creativity, however? I am at the beginning (for the 15 thousandth time) of my first novel. I have written ten pages -- each one page long, ten attempts, all saved separately, each a little fit of a start. Creativity, imagination, dreaming up a story and characters: these are traits I want and don't seem to have. I think it's time to give up the dream.

The Kid aka: Husband Update: We reached sixteen years this month -- somewhat of a miracle considering the divorce pandemic that's taken over the Small Town (rumors of swinging! again!) and the fact that he remains a neo-con blog obsessed conservative. We never seem to get the chance to celebrate our anniversaries: he's traveling through Europe lately, but mostly, we are almost always completely broke when the date arrives -- damn kids! I stuff my jealously about his international adventures into my not-quite mom jeans, while I worry in the "eggs in one basket, me with no basket at all" kind of way. I rely on him so much... too much? He's still the cutest dude in town.

Dog Update: I am not a dog person, nor a dog trainer. Let's just leave it at that.

Yeah, so.... there you go.

So This Man at Target...

I've thought that crazy stuff just happened around me because I was looking for it. Sometimes, I keep my eyes wide open to funny or madness or just plain weird, so I figured the crazy didn't so much come to me as I beckoned it to come.

But I haven't been looking for it lately (and I can't really explain why that is) (though, I should think about it some), and sure enough, the whole world has been seeming perfectly sane and... dull.

Which is why the man at Target speaking very.loudly to multiple red-shirted helpers almost didn't catch my attention at all. I was deep in the snack aisle trying to find something both palatable and non-crappy for the Three Short Drunk People. I was also mentally three aisles ahead: the last of the school supplies loomed.

It was "jelly" that I heard first, mostly because I just enjoy that word: it's cute. But when he announced, "No, not the jelly you eat on your toast, but the kind you use for sexual pleasure," that last bit sounding more like "for sehhkzhual pleahzuhrrrrr," I knew I was in for some crazy or funny or both.

Overwhelmed by contact-embarrassment, I grabbed two boxes of fruit leathers (good!) and a crate of Hostess Cupcakes (better!) and tore out around the corner for a look see.

Nothing. No one.

Depressed, I grabbed a couple sacks of Chex Mix for good measure, then I wandered toward the cleaning aisle, mostly to make myself feel better in the domestically-skilled department. I was saving the dreaded school supplies for last.

"Thing is," he said, possibly through a bullhorn, "I just can't find the stuff, and yeah, you're a man, so you know..."

Mark in my ears (you can't forget a voice like that), I sprinted back to the gift card section and loitered there, inconspicuously of course, hoping for some visual contact.

Bingo!

He was large. His tee-shirt was stained. His jeans were held up by what I think was a bungee cord. He was cheerful, but not in the bowl full of jelly kind of way. In the "get me the KY" kind of way. He was unabashedly happy, without any insecurity, and as he squeaked away in his black orthopedic sneakers, I almost wanted to high-five him.

Today, the weird showed up all on its own. And for some reason, it makes me feel wildly better about everything. Thank you, KY guy. Carry on, dude.

Because

Words fail.

This, I offer.

WHA? You call that a storm? Plus the root of a rant

Earl: you are such a tease.

I got nostalgic and mildly storm-chasing lunatic-ish here.

I got very nostalgic and mildly weepy here.

I remain perfectly, typically loudmouth here. Which is here.

RIGHT HERE.

As in: what is the percentage of parents, whose kids participate in Labor Day multi-state soccer tournaments, who believe their children are World Cup bound?

Take into account that THIS parent? Um....Yeah.

Wow. I had no idea.

I think I just found some serious blog fodder. Honestly, this kind of soccer is like Lohan for writer's block.

WOOT WOOT!

Cure JM -- Vote TODAY

Today is the last day to help earn $250,000 for the Cure JM fund from the Pepsi Refresh Everything campaign.

Vote here -- it's quick, easy, and will likely be the best thing you do all day.

You can also:

(1) Send a text vote: Text 100850 to PEPSI (73774) (standard text messaging rate apply)
(2) Use the Facebook app: http://bit.ly/CureJMonFB

To learn more about this disease and one family's personal account, visit Kevin.

Tell him I say hi.

Yet Another Reason to Rethink Franzen vs Picoult

You want some real chick lit, the kind with bull's balls, the kind of stuff that women/mom's write when no one is looking, then you should read our book.

This is cut and pasted from an email I sent CarolynOnline tonight answering hers that asked, "What are you doing?":

"Deadline for feature pushed twelve hours UP. Awesome? No. It.is.not.

Babysat some kids today -- nanny trouble for the mom. Five kids, all good, but all day.

Too hot to weed. Weeds taking over. Cringe when I walk outside.

PTO prez meeting lasted 2 hours when it could have taken 15 minutes.

Lonely for adult conversation much?

Can not seem to keep house organized, clean, with food in it.

Have not showered. Will not tell you how long.

More driving to soccer -- too far, too late in the day. Uncool to bring roadies.

Screaming match with GFYO. Banned him from everything.

Keep thinking all will be OK when school starts.

Know this is a fool's business -- to think such things: school, ok, etc.

PS: Might make this a blog post. Fucking verbatim."

Ch-ch-changes

Something strange is afoot in the House of Picket.

Rory has asked me twice (in as many days) for a hairbrush. She has been turning down the corners of a clothes catalog. She tried on a dress while on vacation and today spent a solid 8 hours with a best (girl) friend without 1) breaking a bone, or 2) requiring sutures.

I am not sure if it's the three days of rain and maybe some weird disease from all the mold that surely is growing in the petri dish of my basement, but I think the tomboy is getting more girly less tomboyish.

I got an inkling last March that things might change. One of her friends started making plans for their co-Halloween costume (it's never too early to prep for the quest for candy): he'd be the monkey and she'd be the banana. This seemed perfectly apropos until I noticed that he blushed when he talked to her, and that she kinda did when I asked her about it. Suddenly, the whole monkey/banana thing took on a life (in my head) of its own, but I get it. When I was in third grade, an anonymous suitor left cash in my desk for two months. CASH! It was usually ones but once, I found a crumpled twenty in there and the teacher stood in front of the classroom and demanded that the giver confess. He did -- but more than 10 years later at a bar during Thanksgiving break.

The thing is, as much as I knew someday someone might be um, well leaving cash for her sounds completely wrong but you know what I mean, I still feel a little sad about it. Granted I wish she wouldn't scar up her knees (as much as mine) or take as many risks (as I did, when I was her age), but I am completely down with the messy, tom-boy look (still). Granted, a child (or grownup) who leaves the house appearing less like she just rolled out of bed is a potentially good thing, but still. Still. Sigh.

I never anticipated milestones like these.

I Don't Even Know What to Call It, This Fat

Please tell me that I did not invent this unwelcome middle-aged new-to-me phenom. Please tell me that I alone have not discovered this new…

fat...this...

backassfat.

Tell me that it is known the world 'round. Tell me that in Japan "backassfat" translates as Sweet Dumpling Descended Like Bird On Buttocks, or that in Germany, they call it the Fraulein Strudel Doodle. Maybe it's poetic and cute in other countries and just.another.thing that happens to women.

I already know about our hijanes, our muffineffintops, but now? Now, I have to contend with this... this? Tell me that I alone have not invented backassfat (or maybe I should call it lowerbackfatmeetsassfat).

Don't I have enough to worry about already? Now I have to name my own fat?

I wonder sometimes if I didn't make this horrible thing happen to me. After so many years of standing both hands on hips, all mean and bossy, maybe I literally forced all the chub down into these weird lumps above my ass. Maybe I forced all the chub into lumps on either sides of my once sexy (?), baby-making (!) hips because I am a total bitch who put her hands like that. Who stood (stands?) like a broad, like that.

Maybe that's the reason.

I was on an Island last week in a I can barely type this bathing suit, yelling at ten children to surf safer, to get away from the.omigodthe.fire, and to "stop eating all the chips!"

Want to know where my two hands were? They were firmly on my hips, which is, after all, the universal sign of "I mean business" and perhaps the real reason for the backassfat.

Who knows? This might work for me. Maybe I'll just keep pushing the fat all the fucking way down until I have giant, Guinness-record-worthy gargantuan toes.

A girl can dream...

The "Where's My Friggin Calgon" Rant

We were gone, what -- a week? We're home for a few days and then outta here again.

I still have no idea when or how we're getting us and our car on a ferry with a waiting list longer than Chelsea's wedding. Or what we're eating once we get there...besides the 6 gargantuan bags of chips and the case of assorted cookies I bought at BJs today. I'm still not quite sure where the dog is gonna live while we're gone and I'm not sure what time The Kid is flying home tonight from Budapest. Or is it Frankfurt?

I don't know which of the clothes, still half hanging out of the Short Drunk People's little duffle bags, are clean or dirty. I don't know if it's a horrible thing just to jam them all back in and call us packed. I don't know why I bothered vacuuming, as we appear to be in the 36th hour of the great playdoh cake making competition. I don't know why I made dinner tonight because everyone seems more interested in eating playdoh cakes.

I do know that the GFYO is slowly driving me insane. I do know that if I didn't hold him back by the ankle, he would move in with the neighbor's, uninvited or not. I do know that Bridget has inherited my excellent singing voice, which is even better when she's got her headphones on and we get to enjoy every tenth word of some heinous Katy Perry song. I do know that I do not like sleeping (?) with three sleep-talking kids and a dog in my bed.

Because of this, I have decided that I am firing the housekeeper, the laundress, the chef, the personal assistant, the dog trainer, the travel agent, and while I'm at it, will temporarily re-assign the position of Mommy. Don't bother sending your resume: it will just get lost in the pile of mail I haven't gone through.

TAKE ME AWAY!

Requisite Yet Confessional, Thinky (!) After-Blogher Post

I need to confess something.

I wrote a very long and over-thinky (which is, by the by, bad and should not be confused with thinky, which is good) "goodbye to all this Picket stuff" post about 10 days ago. I meant every word, every labored, blubbery, i'm-outta-here, over-thinky word, but instead of just blurting it out, I did something shockingly unusual: I decided to sit on it for a while. This normally would not be a polite or well-intentioned thing for me to do, what with the crushing that could ensue, but in this case, waiting, sitting, even crushing, was one of my better ideas. And god knows, I have many, many good fucking ideas.

Anyhoo, that post is somewhere tucked away on this machine where I figure it will linger and lollygag and get lonely for me to come find it. Maybe someday I will. Maybe someday when I'm looking for something completely different it will pop up to say hello -- oh helllooooo, where have you been? And maybe I will hang out with it for a while and we'll play scrabble or boggle or charades or something. Who knows? For now, it stays hidden away and waiting.

See, I'm home from Blogher where Carolyn and I did our usual soul-searching and deeply intellectual conversation-making and about which she has written here. (You should go read it, even though she stole all the best stories and funny lines from me -- ALL.OF.THEM -- just like she stole all the drink tickets. But I digress.)

The thing is I'm glad I waited before hanging the foreclosure sign on the House of Picket, because it turns out even though the dog peed all over the carpet and the screen door rolls on its track like a square-shaped ball up a hill, it's comfy here. And you can't beat the location: it's a very, very short walk from the porch to some other houses (yo! updated blogroll and I command you to go there) with all kinds of good stuff going down by all kinds of amazing funny real tipsy truth-telling and dare I say, inspirational people.

Carolyn whispered to me on Saturday night, about one of the many we met and adored, "I wished she lived in our town." I love Carolyn but she is so bad with geography (me up here, she way down there) and yet so frickin' right (again). Doesn't matter where you live -- New England, Atlanta, Virginia, California, Maryland, Connecticut, Ohio, Canada, middle of nowhere, city, farm -- where you at? -- because here, here, it is OUR town, granted one big weird town with an inordinate amount of good looking, brilliant loudmouths, but ours nonetheless.

So, lock your garage doors, because I'm sneaking in for your beer and the boxes of bulk mac and cheese I know you store there. Someone's gotta feed these kids.

Quite Possibly My Dumbest Idea Ever

(This was originally published here.)

Once, before I had kids and therefore would even consider such a thing, I took a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle with my new husband and his college buddy. It’s a dramatically beautiful ride and I saw some things I will never forget, but mostly, I sat in the back seat and listened as the two of them regressed with each mile. It was dumb joke after dumb joke, silly insult after insult, so that by the time we reached Oregon, I’m pretty sure they were emotionally and mentally, somewhere solidly in their sophomore year.

They argued over which mixed tape to play, which cereal was best, and debated who was better at their vast range of individual skills; I didn’t see many. When they were getting along, they high fived their brilliant ideas over the steering wheel, including one that had us venture 50 miles off our route to hit a casino. The casino had no air conditioning – in 90+-degree summer heat – but it had a lot of lukewarm Pepsi (no diet) in paper cups. They found a “camp” nearby in what was ostensibly a parking lot with water flowing through it and that was conveniently placed near one of our nation’s biggest supermax prisons. I knew it would all go horribly wrong after I read a sign above the public toilets forbidding “hair-dye flushing.” Um, what?

Of course, it did go horribly wrong. If the snoring and the slurp of sweaty skin ripping off plastic tent floor wasn’t enough, it was the animal (a wharf rat? a badger? a land shark?) that attempted to claw in directly under the spot where I was “sleeping” that finally pushed me over the edge. I spent the next six hours wide-awake in the car, on the look out for any sneaky hair dyers or invading animals. When the morning finally came, I threw one of my more historic temper tantrums.

My camping days were officially over. The road trip would continue only under new rules -- my rules, which consisted mainly of hours of silent meditation until we found the nearest (clean) motel. Luckily for us all, my rules were heeded: I’m still married and the road-tripping college buddy remains one of my favorite people.

I have not gone camping since.

But I’m about to.

When my friend mentioned the overnight tenting trip her family took last summer, I thought --what??! Are you nuts? And then, so shockingly quickly that I shocked even myself, I decided that maybe we needed one too. With all the rush and race of our summer, a little North Country quiet tempts me: some water without salt, some roads without street lights, some place where this Small Town seems massive and noisy. I’ve been researching spots and scouting out gear to borrow and I am rallying my somewhat wishy-washy troops for the trip.

The irony is not lost on me.

Truth be told, I’m even getting a little swoony, just imagining it. There we’ll be: gathered around a perfectly maintained and non-threatening campfire, mosquitoes and land sharks far, far away, singing James Taylor songs in perfect tune and eating non-sticky s’mores. Our tent will miraculously build itself. A cool breeze will blow, crickets will chatter, the lake or river or creek will ripple gently in the moonlight. Not a drop of rain will fall. No one will fight or feign boredom. We will be Swiss Family Robinson and Grizzly Adams and the Duggars (minus a couple dozen) rolled into one!

Fantasy? Perhaps. After all, I imagined that San Fran-Seattle road trip to be the stuff that National Geographic documentaries are made of; instead, it was your basic D-list reality show. But I’m older now and while my expectations might remain high and undoubtedly delusional, I am fearlessly going for it -- even if it means picking a spot in short driving distance of my Vermont aunt and uncle whose tidy bathroom and hard-working stove might come in handy. Last time, it was three clueless young adults. This time, it’s two clueless adults and three young kids.

What could possibly go wrong?