The Best Day Ever

Today was the most perfect of perfect days. It was, in fact, my thirty-fifth birthday and since you all know my feelings on birthdays, I took it upon myself to put together a fantastic itinerary for the occassion.

After a morning Dunkin' Donuts run, and helping Hubby get the kids ready for a morning at the local play-space (read: petri dish) I packed my bags and headed to the fancy-pants New York Sports Club in the neighboring town. I decided to treat myself to a day pass for a couple of classes and a workout not in my basement clad in my old man shorts and Aunt Jemima bandana. Never fear, I did manage to cobble together a reasonably fashionable, reasonably ass-covering ensemble.

It was incredible. "Strength with Danny" at ten o'clock turned out to be a kick-ass workout led by the queeniest of queens who, in between bouts of singing along to Erasure's Gimme Gimme Gimme, would shout out questions like, "What are we drinking on New Year's and who's driving us home?" A-fucking-mazing. I also got to enjoy my forgotten favorite gym past time - listening to other people's conversations and judging them. With thinly veiled horror, I listened to a young squid in the weight room discuss how he bought his current fling an industrial sized tub of animal crackers because she loves them and it was cheap and too bad she was so bad in bed. I was also reminded of the territoriality of fifty-something year-old, male, suburban, gym nuts. I get it, Gramps, you're in shape, now get your towel and water bottle off the two other weight benches you're not sweating all over and, while you're at it, cut-off shirts stopped being appropriate for you twenty years ago.

Once I was done showering at the gym (newsflash - cover that up Granny, not one wants to see the goods), I headed to Dunkin Donuts again (yes, I am a junkie) and then over to the bookstore. Thank you to the genius who decided to put coffee shops in bookstores, making it perfectly acceptable to wander the aisles with a beverage. The only way it could get better is if said beverage was wine, which I did see once in Washington DC and it almost made me move there.

Speaking of wine, I then stopped at the local wine and cheese emporium to pick up some pink bubbly and stinky cheese. I also almost had to stop and buy my own cake after Hubby admitted last night he forgot to order my favorite confection in the world which, sadly, comes from the A&P (shut up, it has CANNOLI filling*). Apparently, he has learned on the flower front, but not on the birthday front. If this happens again, he'd better learn to run.

But the nicest thing I did for myself today was to cut myself some slack. I fought the impulse to whirl around the house like a dervish screaming about the toys littering every surface or the mountain of unfolded, clean laundry which is the result of the holidays. Instead, I decided to enjoy the fact that I am thirty-five and celebrate all that entails. I was running on the treadmill to Janet Jackson's Black Cat and I realized I am stronger now than when I used to run to it at nineteen. This thirty-five year-old body has been to the pyramids as well as carried three babies. I enjoy being at a point in my life where I don't really care what anyone else thinks and heels are almost always appropriate, being a woman of a certain age - except, of course, when alone my children since it prevents the sprint up the monkey bars to prevent a spine-crushing fall. Maybe having the perspective of my mother's short life, I want to appreciate it all while I can. I feel like I have finally tried on the garment, Woman, and it fits without the restrictive Girl undergarments.

I want everyone who reads this blog to plan a day for themselves , birthday or not, filled entirely with things you love. Everyone owes it to themselves to have one day that celebrates their existence - whether their husband supports said efforts or rolls his eyes and mutters something about "fabulous" under his breath (That's right, I am. And You. Love. It.). And to tell yourself, "You know what? I rock."**

*Pictured, left, is the cake he frantically ordered last night after our fight, begging the bakery to hook him up. I forbade Hubby to take a picture of what the cake looked later. This shot taken after we cut the kids a few pieces. Mean Mommy + alcohol + cake = Jaws-type feeding frenzy

**And did I end the day drunk, watching the Sex and the City movie for the tenth time and crying my eyes out? You bet your ass I did. And, GODDAMN, if cable wasn't hooking me up as Woman of the Year AND Two Weeks Notice were both on! And if you don't know Woman of the Year is a Katherine Hepburn movie (and that her first name is spelled with a K) you must attend Mean Mommy's Film School immediately. If Con Air had been on I might have had a seizure.

Merry Christmas to all...

Finally! The shopping and wrapping are done - although I still need to run out and buy a truckload of batteries. I demand, heretofore that all toys be powered by AA's. Who the hell keeps C batteries around? And a 9 volt? Oh wait! I think I have some next to the uranium. And while still modest by most standards, when gathered in the living room to be wrapped, the kids' haul is sure to give me panic attacks on the 26th as I try to squeeze it all in the playroom. I actually thought while wrapping a toy, "Oh, plastic dolphin game, I think you're a good idea now, but I know I will be cursing your existence in February."

Hubby has prepared the majority of his Feast of Seven Fishes. Did I mention he's Italian? The fact that I have smelts marinating in my fridge is evidence of my love for him. The excitement in our house has reached a fever pitch as Santa comes tonight. This guarantees #1 will wake #2 at 5:30 which sets us up for a day of teary-eyed melt-downs from my eldest and bearish, "get the fuck away from me" behavior from #2 (yes, a four year-old can give off that vibe) and exhaustion-related drunkenness after one glass of wine from Mommy.

But all of this madness is what makes Christmas with kids the magical time it is. While I do miss long nights of watching our favorite Christmas movie, Goodfellas (Wha? There are several Christmas scenes despite all the murder, etc.) and drinking wine under the tree, Christmas morning is far more exciting than it used to be. My children are still young enough to still believe and I will enjoy this time no matter how exhausting it is to be woken up before the sun, since I think's it's going to be kind of depressing one day to have to wake my kids up, sometime around noon, to open the gifts they have been begging me for all month.

So Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you have a wonderful day. Hubby is home all week so I will be MIA hanging with him and the offspring. I will return in the New Year, I'm sure with plenty of stories involving the baby eating wrapping paper or the dog knocking over the tree.

Hook-up in Aisle 7?

Not to beat a dead Fogelberg, but I was listening to holiday music on the radio today and after suffering through "The Christmas Shoes" - Songwriter: "What about a Christmas song about a kid buying his terminally ill mother a pair of shoes?" Record label: "FanTAStic!" Mean Mommy: "Meh." - I was repaid for my tenacity (read: radio station surfing-related laziness) with The Waitresses' hit "Christmas Wrapping". I thought to myself as the song ended, "What the hell is it with song writers and people meeting up in grocery stores on Christmas Eve?"

I have read in the women's mags that the grocery store, no matter the date, is a great place to meet other single people, I think it's got to be overrated. My local A&P is not the best example as it is patronized by harried, stay at home mothers and old ladies. I guess if you want to meet someone looking for child and/or eldercare, though, it's like shooting fish in barrell. Hot thirty-somethings* (because if you've downgraded to looking for love among the oft-mentioned frozen foods you're obviously no rookie) - not so much.

On the male front, in the nano-second I was "single" after college (a term which was technically true, since we weren't married yet, which Hubby disputes. To see it his way, I haven't been single since I was seventeen then.), I didn't notice too many guys lingering over the produce at my local grocery. Most guys I knew subsisted primarily on a diet of pizza and Kraft Mac 'n Cheese pilfered from their parents' pantries on weekend trips home to do laundry. Sadly, this continued into their thirties for most of them.

To my single readers, please feel free to fill me in on this alleged hot-bed of dating action, perhaps I'm wrong about all of this and StopnShop should be running commercials along the lines of those nauseating eHarmony ones showing happy couples with captions that read "Met in Dairy September 2002". Until I am told otherwise though, I will view this as the songwriter's tool and urban myth I belive it is.

*Myself with my Yankee hat, yoga pants and graham cracker/saliva-paste covered fleece, obviously, not included.

Dear Fan of F-berg

I love hate mail, but I love it especially when the author, as is usually the case, doesn't have the balls to identify him or herself, but I allow these comments to be published without my approval as it makes for some good comedy (and why is it always about the most random celebrities?). Attached below, in its entirety, is the comment received on yesterday's post concerning the song "Same Auld Lang Syne"

This blog entry can only have been written by someone with no depth or soul. If you had ever taken the time to listen to Dan Fogelberg's music, you would find that there is serious genius there. Some of his songs are complete poetic and musical masterpieces. I have been a fan for most of my life, and it infuriates me when someone judges him on the basis of a few songs that the radio played. The song you are ripping to shreds is not a happy song, that's true, but despite your inability to appreciate his use of words to paint pieces of truth, the song still expresses a piece of the human journey. We are defined by our choices, and people with depth sometimes reflect and reconsider what might have been if they had chosen differently.
Buy yourself a copy of "Captured Angel" or "Netherlands" or "The Innocent Age". Give them a fair listen and maybe you won't be such a mean mommy.

I don't know what your name is, obviously, so I will call you Fan of F-berg.

Dear Fan of F-berg,

Let me send you a heartfelt apology for insulting someone you feel is a musical god - so much so that your fervor has blinded you to the fact that I am not debasing your All Mighty's entire career, but rather one song I find to be a bad choice on the part of the dj, when included in the holiday playlist, so calm the hell down.

And while I appreciate your suggestion that I purchase some of Folgelberg's music to broaden my musical horizons, I have, as already admitted, "the musical sensibilities of a strip club dj", so your efforts are lost on me. I do not judge you for your love of F-berg, so do not judge me for my love of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince.

FOF, you obviously were born without a snark nerve or had yours severed in some tragic consciousness-raising accident, so either have it repaired or get the hell off my blog. We don't take ourselves, or the things we love, too seriously here and have no room for those who do. The soulless, however, are welcome.

And as for your pithy closing remark, should we ever cross paths in real life, FOF, I will personally show you how mean a mommy I can be.

Merry Christmas! Oh shit. You'd probably find that offensive too. Happy Holidays!

Mean Mommy

Dan Fogelberg - Slayer of Buzzes

You may not realize it, but you know who Dan Fogelberg* is.  He's the balladeer responsible for the Ambien of Christmas songs "Same Auld Lang Syne" and not the good one you make out with your husband to on New Year's Eve after too much Veuve (OK, maybe that's just me), but the craptastic 1980's ode to lost love and uncomfortable ex run-ins.

Just when you're getting your groove on to the The Ronettes "Sleigh Ride", like a record scratch the opening bars of this atrocity begin and any yuletide cheer you may have been feeling is sucked right out of you as you hear the tinny piano and the opening line "Met my old lover at the grocery store..."  Eeew.  Please, don't ever use that word again.  You are neither old nor European so find another term.

The scenario described in the song only gets worse, and more depressing, from there.  "I stole behind her in frozen foods.."  One, do you really think any hit song includes the term "frozen foods" and, two, stalker much?  How 'bout walking right up to her and saying hello?  Or are you afraid the statute of limitations hasn't expired on that restraining order?

Apparently, Fogelberg is not a felon and the two of them decide they need to catch up on old times and have a drink.  Not that her frozen foods are going to spoil or anything.  Finding no open watering holes (are they in Utah?) they opt for some brews in her car.  Here's where it gets ugly.  The old flame basically admits she's in a loveless gold-digger situation.  And apparently said meal-ticket doesn't mind when she says she's going out for some frozen peas and doesn't come back for three hours.  Curious, why F-berg picked "architect" as the husband's profession.  There are plenty three-syllable professions that earn big cash and have a bit more glamour, but I suppose that's the point.  To make Dan the better man, the ball and chain has to be boring and not too impressive, and therefore, deserving of our disdain.  "Said she married her a stockbroker...a brain surgeon...a rap singer", too competitive with the Danny's ego.

So after some lame attempts to seduce the love-starved booty of his youth, Fogelberg resorts to some false modesty concerning his rock star status, as he croons with smug superiority "The audience is heavenly, but the traveling is hell".   Shut up, Dan, I don't see any paparazzi so you musn't be that famous.

"The beers were empty and our tongues grew tired."  Again, eeew.  No, Dan, she's quiet because she is now vividly recalling all the reasons she broke up with your sorry ass and trying to make up a reasonable-sounding  excuse to tell her sweet lovable Mike Brady-type guy when she gets home with a melted pint of Chunky Monkey and some ruined Hot Pockets.  So she kicks his ass out of the car and she screeches away back to her now much appreciated life.

And then the closing line "The snow turned into raaaaiiiin."  Does someone have a gun so I can kill myself?  Pills?  A noose?  And now I'm supposed to listen to Burl Ives sing "Holly Jolly Christmas"?  Thanks a lot, jackass.

So, seriously, dj's everywhere.  Retire this piece of crap.  It rivals George Michael's "Last Christmas" in it's inappropriate-subject-matter-for-a-holiday-song theme.  Happiness, not tracking down ex's on Facebook, as this song would have us all do, is what the season's all about.  

*In my research I found that Mr. Fogelberg has passed away, so yes, I am the devil, but yes, the song still sucks.

You've got to be shitting me! - literally

Oh yes, dear readers, pictured left is a poo. I don't care if it's TMI, I can't be the only one to suffer tonight. As if my days are not long and hellish enough, after dragging my oldest to Girl Scouts, dropping #2 (no pun intended) at a playdate and taking Little Man to the doctor for his immunizations, I finally get all the offspring fed and almost ready for bed when my son decides to drop a Baby Ruth in the pool. Thank GOD the girls were watching Santa Claus is Comin' to Town for the four hundredth time or the ensuing shrieks and peals of laughter would have been audible from space. Never mind the colorful retelling I'm sure would happen during car pool tomotorrow morning.

So I have to pull the baby immediately out of the tub, strap a fresh diaper on him lest he follow his dump with a leak in a corner somewhere, while I drain the water, scrape out the poo and disinfect the tub so I can refill it, and wash the coating of his own filth from the baby's body all while keeping him locked in the bathroom with me as he screams for his now soiled tub toys which are soaking in bleach in the sink. I then return him to the tub with toys he finds far inferior, and he lets me know it, bathe him and finally get him in pajamas and off to bed.

Of course, OF FRIGGIN' COURSE, Hubby is delayed tonight by some important project at work.

This is my life? Seriously?

My kind of town (shut, up Chicago)

No wonder after I started this blog in November of last year I didn't really get down to writing until January. The holidays are killing me! I had visitors last week so get off my back about the lack of posts (you know who you are).

Last week my sister and her lovely girlfriend were in town and we spent the vast majority of our time in New York City. C, K's girlfriend, is from California, and having only been out east once, we made it our job to show her a good time to ensure many visits to come and in doing so I realized how very, very much I love New York City.

We took the easiest way possible to endear the big apple to anyone's heart and started with the food. Pizza, dirty water street hot dogs (they are amazing and I don't care how many studies they do about E. coli in that water, it only makes them more delicious), sandwiches (apparently everything in California comes with sprouts on it so the Italian combo we seduced her with was an entirely new experience), street cart kebabs, soft pretzels - no place has such diverse and amazing gustatory options in such a small land mass. Ellis Island was the best thing to ever happen to the stomachs of New Yorkers because I don't think Dutch food is all that tasty.

This melting pot of cuisine is the result of all the different people who call New York and its boroughs home. And all of this difference, packed onto one small island with few exit points has created the "Eh. Whatyougonnado?" attitude that radiates from its inhabitants. Nothing phases them - traffic, slow subways, the bum on the corner pissing on his own shoes - New Yorkers have made acceptance, and even generalized ennui, when faced with the bizarre, an art form.

This acceptance is what I think makes NYC one of the friendliest places on earth. Not that that's the general reputation. Most people think New Yorkers are mean, until you meet one. I have met several people who, after having visited, were pleasantly surprised at how affable Big Applites were. I suppose it's like the Parisians, except in their case the assholic rumors are true. But nothing makes me happier than chatting with the Pakistani kebab guy while he takes my order or being asked "Yo! Where you goin', honey?" by the construction worker I'm walking past. The latter gets the "fuck you"stare, but I'm smiling on the inside.

And speaking of "fuck you", this accepting attitude also comes with a side of brutal honesty. If you truly piss a New Yorker off, they will tell you. When it's bad, it's really bad, but at least you know here you stand.* Which should be a few feet back when voices are being raised by people near you on a subway car.

It's the general energy of the city that I love. We were in midtown with all the holiday goodness that entails - the tree at Rock Center, the windows at Saks, the crowds of tourists. It was hectic and crazy and wonderful. I actually enjoy the tourists, they are just so damn impressed with the city and excited to be there. It gives you perspective on what a wonder you have right in your back yard. Some folks dislike the commercial, mainstream, hub-bub and prefer areas downtown with a hipper vibe. I, personally, am an Upper East Side gal. Shocking, I know, but having worked there my entire professional life I feel comfortable with its pace and aesthetic. My affinity for a neighborhood is inversely proportional to the number of vintage shops. Vintage, translates for me to "other people's used shit" and no, thank you.

Regardless of which neighborhood you love, New York has something for everyone. I may not have been lucky enough to have lived in Manhattan proper, but having worked there and been born in the Bronx, my love of NYC runs deep in my veins. It is a part of me and I am even more convinced than I ever was that I can never be too far away. New York City is like the beating heart of the tri-state area and I feel lucky to be so close to such an amazing place.

I Heart New York.

*My apologies to Hubby for almost causing that fight on the 4 train, but that guy was blatantly taking up two seats balancing his check book on a crowded train to Yankee Stadium, for Christ's sake, and he needed to be told.

"You look like beef carpaccio! Veil down, I think!"

I just got back from what I feared was going to be a traumatic appointment at the dermatologist. While, thankfully, my days of visiting the doctor for terrible acne to get a refill of that weird cream I had to keep in the refrigerator (convenient as freshman in college, let me tell you!) I have entered a new house of horrors visiting said doctor to discuss how my face is aging. With my thirty-fifth birthday a mere nineteen days away (there'd better be plans, H) I decided it was time to stop using the hog-pog of creams I have been rooked into buying by various celebrity spokespersons and overly made-up saleswomen and get some professional help.

I arrived at the office and was shown to the exam room where I nervously awaited the doctor, distracting myself with feeding Little Man his twentieth graham cracker of the morning. A knock at the door and there she was, the woman who was sure to be able to see every teenaged trip to the shore when I was too embarrassed, and convinced if I just tried hard enough I'd tan, to bring sunscreen. She'd see my love of refined sugars and wine in each enlarged pore and those tiny, but disturbingly WC Fields-esque, veins under my nostrils. I was convinced she would shriek in horror as I told of my regular Oil of Olay usage and fickleness when it comes to facial cleansers, buying whatever is on sale at Target. But worst of all? I was afraid she would say I looked old.

Surprisingly enough, she said my skin "looked good" which I guess beats the, "There are purses out there with better skin texture" I was fearing. We discussed various creams and unguents and then she brought out the big guns. Was I interested in any procedures? I asked her what was available and she asked me, "Well, it depends what results you want."

What did I want? Well, I want to age. Not in the I-want-to-get-old sense, but I am a woman of a certain age and I think I'd like an appropriate amount of that age to show. At thirty-five I don't expect to look twenty-five, I just don't want to look forty-five. I would like people to think when they meet me for the first time "she looks good for her age". In today's youth obsessed culture I feel I have a responsibility to my daughters to age. What example am I setting for them if my actions tell them the best years of your life are when your face is still unlined and you can go bra-less without kicking yourself in the ta-tas? We have very few examples today of women who are aging gracefully and the resultant narrow definition of beauty is doing making women feel like their sexual selves end once those crows start leaving their tracks.

Sure a hit of Botox here and there would smooth out some of the lines on my forehead. And, really? Who would know? But I think it's a slippery slope. And I feel once you cheat time you have to pay the piper at some point. One shot of Botox turns into three or four and before you know it you've painted yourself into corner where your only choice is to keep going or have your face collapse and age thirty years over night.

One of the benefits of our youth-obsessed culture is there are no limits to what we can do as we age if we take care of our bodies and minds. But the drawback of the beauty culture that has developed is we have no appreciation for the beauty that comes with age. The marks on our bodies left by a life well-lived. Trite, but true. Sure, my frown lines are not the best example, but you won't see me getting implants anytime soon to correct the damage done nursing three babies. And my crow's feet are from smiling at my kids, laughing with my husband or squinting on a sunny day at the beach.

So, in the end, I bought some creams, got a retinol prescription and am contemplating a chemical peel. A gentle one, not the Sex and the City "beef carpaccio" variety. I'll see what happens and how my skin looks in a few weeks. Because not matter what happens, in a few weeks? I'll still be thirty-five and no cream is going to change that.

Jose Feliciano aka Marquis de Sade

I apologize for the long absence, dear readers, Hubby was out of town on business again and I had to use all of my energy to not hang myself in the basement.  He has since returned from his trek across the Himalayas with only a canteen of water to sustain him.  Or at least that's how he bills these trips before his departure, returning only to regale me with stories of the four hour train trip during which he spent not a single moment in his seat, but rather in the bar car.  Boo-fucking-hoo.  So now he's back and while it is nice to have adult interaction once again, I did notice the marked lack of eight pairs of work shoes by the front door and open saline bottles left on the bathroom counter for the baby to play fire hose with while he was away.  Perhaps he needs a sticker chart like the girls.  But instead of calling it his Big Boy Chart, as I do for the kids, I'll label it "Shit I Should Do Unless I Want to Be On the Business End of an Ass-kicking".  But I digress...

Speaking of apologies, let me formally apologize to the inhabitants of apartment #2 at 925 Park Avenue in Hoboken, NJ during the month of December, 1996.  Let me 'splain.

It was during that month I decided to host my first party in my first solo apartment.  It was a tree-trimming party and I invited the fifteen or so guys and gals I was working with at the time to join me in my shoe box of an apartment (seriously, you could prop your feet on the opposite wall when sitting on the couch watching TV).  We were all fresh out of college, barely making ends meet in these first apartments and constantly trying to prove how grown-up we were - and failing miserably.  In this vein, I decided my soiree would not have the usual cases of cheap beer and various snacks from Frito-Lay.  Instead, I was serving only cheap champagne and various finger foods I had read about in Bon Appetit.  Nary a plastic cup was in sight, I was, instead, insisting on only using stemware - a trait I still possess to this day and I keep a set of cheap "hotel" champagne flutes bubble-wrapped in a box that I pack in my suitcase whenever I am going on a hotel vacation.  Drinking bubbly out of a plastic bathroom cup is just depressing.

So the time of the party draws near and having set up the tree (or having paid the guy who helped me drag it home twenty bucks to erect my Clark Griswald-esque selection in its stand -  it almost poked me in the eye in the bedroom when I woke up the next morning) and after having spent the day making finger foods and cleaning glasses, my guests all arrive and we begin decorating the tree with a variety of ghetto ornaments crafted by the impoverished guests.  I still have the star made from a Sam Adams carton and tin foil.  It's in with our current Xmas stuff and it makes me laugh ever year.

Fast forward three hours and many bottles of Freixenet later, and things are getting a little out of hand.  My friend's boyfriend, who was the Fun Bobby of our group had already smashed three glasses, claimed control over the stereo, and thus began a two hour long constant replay of Jose Feliciano's Feliz Navidad with sixteen drunken idiots singing along at the top of their lungs.  Nice.

Thank you, former neighbor, for not coming down the stairs with a baseball bat after the tenth replay.  I did not, at the time, possess the manners or knowledge of apartment etiquette that dictates you invite all neighbors who might call the cops to your soirees to prevent such phone calls.  You were very understanding.  And please know, I am now getting my comeuppance.  My children are obsessed with this song and I swear, if I have to hear this blind guy sing "prospero año y felicidad" one more time at eight in the morning on the way to school, I will fling myself out of the van while it is still in motion.  Goddamn Dora.  I have them, mercifully, listening to the original, but it was that little bitch who turned them onto it.  If it was her version we were listening to I'd be dead already.  

I think I have been paid back in spades, no?