Turn left in 500 feet...

Aaaah, I'm sitting on the train, blessedly alone, drinking a Starbucks skim, no whip, extra hot, one pump mocha, two pumps mint, peppermint mocha (if I'm paying four bucks for it I will not be shamedv by my ridiculous requests, but sometimes I think it might just be easier if they'd let behind the counter to make it myself) on my way into the city to meet H for our Date-a-versary (19 years - woot!). Well, that's a lie. I'm actually sitting at the family room computer, transcribing the post I scribbled down on loose leaf paper I stuffed in my purse, since H would freak if I brought the case-less laptop into the city and left it with the bag check guy at the Bryant Park skating rink.

It feels so odd to actually write on paper, like I did pre-college. I have gotten so used to the speed of typing my ideas, I'm sitting here like a frustrated second grade boy, trying to get my ideas down in chicken scratch. This made me think of all the ways technology has changed our lives and the way we operate in our world, and in particular, of my new technological device - the GPS.

You already know I am a bit of a Luddite, balking at H's attempt to introduce any kind of new technology to my life. Unfortunately for him, or fortunately for me, he is usually on the cutting edge of these things, and if I haven't seen or heard of anyone I know using one of these devices, I poo-poo them out of hand. Nine times out of ten, H winds up being right and the technology is quite useful and pretty life-altering. If it weren't for him, I'd still be lugging around five pounds of yellow plastic, listening to my Sony waterproof Walkman while I run*, and still be using my original cell that looks like a World War II field phone, instead of tapping away on my Blackberry. But my relationship with the GPS was not as immediately successful as that with my 'berry. While I have come to find it useful, the GPS has some issues that I am finding difficult to overcome.

First of all, it has to be hooked up to the car's power source. After the dead van debacle of this summer, that we have since surmised was most likely caused by Little Man's flipping on an interior light during the van's cleaning the night before our almost-not departure, I am wary of anything that I might accidentally leave on or connected, leaving me stranded without a vehicle. And while it's true, this situation could be avoided entirely with care on my part, the number of times I have left a door open on the van does not leave me feeling confident.

Second, the display on the screen is quite small and, even when mounted on the windshield, it is distracting me from driving. True, at least my eyes are in the vicinity of the road, rather than focused on my lap, trying to read directions I have scratched onto the back of a Wow Wow Wubbzy coloring page the girls used our last bit of printer ink and last page of printer paper on. And, yes, I know the voice prompt feature would make it less necessary to obsessively check the display, but considering I can not hear my own thoughts above the chatter in the van's main cabin, never mind the ear-splitting volume at which my children request to hear "Feliz Navidad" for the eightieth time, there is no way I am hearing the GPS's tinny, robotic voice.

My biggest issue with this device though, is it is all book smarts and no street smarts. Sure, the Cross Bronx Expressway is the quickest way to the George Washington Bridge when coming from Connecticut, but not when there's a Yankee game. And on my trip to Boston, I wound up in the alley behind the hotel, where two lovely Moroccan parking attendants helped me not wreck the Jetta while turning around. I'm afraid of just blindly following the GPS, thinking of Michael in The Office driving into a lake at his GPS's urging.

So, following blindly is exactly what I do not do and it has actually made the GPS somewhat useful. If I bring my own written directions and use the GPS as back-up, I get the best of both worlds. I get the street smarts of the directions from the Camden Aquarium website, not winding up in a crack ghetto, with the GPS's reassurance that I am on the street listed on those directions, when the crackheads have stolen the sign. True, it's probably not that safe checking directions in my lap, and the GPS display (never mind the dangerous rubber-armed searching for toys and snacks LM has dropped or thrown, forcing me to drive with one arm), but neither is rolling through Shanty Town a la Clark Griswold in Vacation.

So I have made my peace with the bit of technology. Yes, it's not perfect, but it did make my field trips this summer easier and I have to admit it is absolutely fantastic finding local addresses when dropping of Girl Scout uniforms. Locally, is the only time I will follow this thing blindly. I know where all the lakes are around here.

*When H first approached me with an mp3 player eight years ago, I reacted much like Homer Simpson being told pork, bacon and ham all come from the same animal, "Sure, you can listen to music on this magical little device no bigger than my palm."

The Bathroom Song

Happy Monday to you all. I am still recovering from dragging all three kids into the city Saturday to skate at Bryant Park and see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Well, I use the term "skating" liberally, since I spent the first fifteen minutes shuffling along behind #1 and #2 who had their upper bodies draped across the top of the wall and were madly bicycling their legs, as H, who can actually skate well*, was no better off, dragged the full weight of Little Man's body around the rink, as our son did not inherit his father's love of the ice, and decided to go completely jelly-legged. His skates were promptly returned once the tears began, and Hs back almost gave out, and my youngest and I spent a nice hour eating overpriced popcorn and enjoying the view from the concession stand while the girls took turns skating with their father and doing more wall-skating. It didn't get any better for H, as we forgot the stroller and he was forced to cary all thirty-eight pounds of LM through the city streets, including up a broken escalator during an ill-conceived, last-minute jaunt to Macy's Santaland. It wasn't crowded or anything.

So last night we trimmed the tree with the kiddies, and, as usual, had holiday movies on in the background. As I have said before, watching children's entertainment from the perspective of an adult is one of the surprising perks of parenthood, and it was during our viewing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (complete with homophobic, judgmental Santa), that I was inspired to finally write about what my sister, brothers in-law and I identified a constant in children's movies - The Bathroom Song. Obviously, these are not songs about the toilet, but rather, songs that are so long, slow-tempo-ed and boring in their subject matter, that it is the perfect time to pee or grab a soda. In Rudolph for example, Rudolph's love interest, Clarice, sings the nap-inducing "There's Always Tomorrow", when Rudolph is down-hearted after being publicly shunned by the entire male reindeer population of the North Pole. Besides being just a little insensitive, since tomorrow, whistle blowing Coach Dancer is still probably going to want to kick his ass, the music is slow, and the animation of forest creatures scamping about the woods is dull.

And it's not just Rudolph. Those of you lucky enough to have seen the HBO Christmas Classic Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas, Ma's interminable "When the River Meets the Sea" is so bad, it actually feels like being in church. An added bonus, on the extended DVD version, she sings it three different times. I can actually watch my chlidren's minds wander. The coup de gras of all the Rankin and Bass classics though, is Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which oddly enough, features the voice of Mickey Rooney as Santa. After you enjoy the cold-war era caricature that is the Burgermeister, you then get to witness some trippy, Summer of Love-esque animation, as the young Mrs. Claus** croons "My World is Starting Today" about her decision to marry Santa. Which, by the way, is gross. Mr. and Mrs. Claus are like your parents, you don't want to imagine them, like, actually having sex or anything. Even Charlie Brown, which is pretty low-key with the music, does not escape this trend, with that sermon from Linus. Um, wait, am I in church again? No, I'm seven and just want to see Snoopy and think about Santa. Enough with all this "Jesus" and "city of Bethlehem" nonsense. When else would my children continue to watch a show that contains the phrase "Christ the Lord"?

So perhaps this is a just a phenomenon from my childhood. Well, that theory was proven wrong during The Polar Express. After the jaunty "Hot Chocolate" number, but before Steven Tyler belts out "Rockin' All Over the World" (who they CG'd into an elf and it kept we awake with night terrors for a week), the little girl character sings that crying-jag-inducing "When Christmas Comes to Town". While I find it moving, my Little Man, enjoying his train movie mightily, is all "Whatever. Where are the dancing chefs?"

When you stop to think about it, all children's movies, even non-holiday ones, have at least one downer moment featuring strange animation, choreography or a montage. Have you seen the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which kicks the new one's ass, sorry, still heart you Johnny Depp)? The "Cheer Up Charlie" song sung by the mother has every kid wondering, "Am I watchign the right movie here?" And Annie is simply lousy with them - "Dumb Dog", "Sandy" and even though it is up-tempo, "Let's Go to the Movies". The only entertaining Bathroom Song I have ever seen is in The Great Muppet Caper, which actually mocks these kind of number s in movies and features a synchronized swimming sequence with a faded corner shot of Charles Grodin singing his heart out to Miss Piggy.

Think back on all your favorite childhood movies, or review your kids' favorites and you'll laugh at how universal The Bathroom Song is. Perhaps their creators designed it this way, with full knowledge of the short attention spans and small bladder size of children. As a child I was bored, as a parent, I guess I should thank them so I can drag Little Man to use the potty.

*Yes, my boyfriend can skate backwards. Can yours?
**Not to judge, but, Mrs. Claus didn't even have kids so her slide into morbid obesity is puzzling, is it not?

"It's a jungle out there!"

I am finally taking a break from obsessively looking for my Christmas shoes online*, to finally, finally write about my annual weekend in Boston with B. We had a great time shopping (Ann Taylor Loft Curvy Skinny jeans are made by the Lord himself), eating and, yes of course, drinking. This year we were much smarter about our choice of venue, although B tried to take me to some romantic tapas bar where they were sure to think we were middle-aged lesbian lovers on date night. We wound up at Towne Stove and Spirits, a new place touting two different dining levels and three bars, one open to the riff-raff not dining there, and two exclusively for diners, which allowed us to act all hoity-toity upon arrival, sweeping up the stairs to drink in style, then clattering drunkenly down said stairs after dinner to people watch, rather than hauling our asses half-way across Beantown and winding up at The World's Saddest Gay Bar.

Another great facet of frequenting a pricier establishment, is it severely limits the number of twenty-three year olds in attendance. Not that I have anything against the young 'uns other than their obsessive checking of digital devices - seriously, I am in the middle of a sentence, you can't wait five minutes to read that text? - but I don't need any additional reminders of how old I am or for anyone in a Red Sox cap to think I'm a cougar** looking for some action. Instead, we were faced with a bit of a lonely hearts situation that was at once validating and depressing. Everywhere we looked we saw women in their late twenties and early thirties, dressed to the nines, hoping for someone, anyone, to notice them.

As an anthrpological study, the bar scene is fascinating, full of nuance and ritual. B and I scored some prime seats and were able to watch some poor bachelor try to infiltrate a table of ladies, of whom the most attractive had strategically placed herself closest to the window, and furthest from the crowd, while his buddy, The World's Worst Wingman***, wearing a French cuff shirt, blech, completely ignored the women and tapped away on his Blackberry. At least there's technology to fall back on when you don't want to get stuck taking a grenade I suppose. We watched scantily clad women (newsflash: shorts and lace tights are JUST A NO after your mid-twenties no matter how great your body) get all the attention, while, adorable, appropriately attired women (read:not dressed like hookers), who would come into their own around age thirty-three, made awkward chit chat with their girlfriends. It was just awful and made me send H a thousand text messages telling him how lucky I am to have him.

How do people survive this every single weekend? I think I might slit my wrists having to doll myself up each Saturday to be judged like a piece of meat. And I know, there are other ways for people to meet, but as a single American under the age of forty, gay or straight, it's pretty much part of the mating ritual to go to a bar on Saturday night looking for love, whether it's going to a dive in Brooklyn, dressed in your finest hoodie, to drink Pabst out of a can, or to Bahama Mama's, in Hoboken, wearing a miniskirt to down a few kamikaze shots. It's the modern equivalent of the watering hole, where the dominant males, and females, search out mates. And then what happens if you hit it off? Do you go home with the guy? Drunkenly make a date for later in the week? It's all so complicated!

B and I wondered if it was just our distance from this situation that made us so uncomfortable for the people living it. Perhaps they were all enjoying themselves, as we were, just happy to be out and having a few drinks. B returned from the restroom with hard evidence to the contrary. While waiting in line****, she ran into a thirty-something woman we had been mercilessly mocking for her bad halter top, calling her Courtney Cox, , and after complimenting B on her top said, "Whew! It's a jungle out there tonight!"

At the late hour of midnight, B and I had had enough and stumbled onto the street, hailed a cab and spent the car ride back to the hotel feeling glad our time in the wild was over. For those of you still out there, you will make it through this, and for all your efforts, probably wind up meeting your husband/wife at CVS in line for saline. Godspeed.

*Note to H: If you really want to be my Mr. Big, you will call Zappos to see when those Blahnik knock-offs are cmonig in. Jeweled, royal blue, satin pumps will not buy themselves.
**PS - I have decided the term cougar was invented solely by young men trying to deal with their own discomfort about wanting to screw a woman who could be their mother. Same with the term "homo".
***We talked to them later in the night and, after learning what my beloved does for a living, D-bag spent the entire conversation tutoring me on H's industry, to the point I had to ask him, "Are you seriously trying to teach me about this?"
****What the hell takes women so long? Tuck and primp once you're out of the stall, damn it!