Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

Too bad you can't see me right now.  You'd have a good laugh. I'm hideous.

I was feeling kinda blah/ kinda wired yesterday and I had an hour to kill before I could justify eating lunch. I knew as I walked into the bathroom and picked up the scissors, that this was not going to end well. It never does. I never learn.

My hair looks as if I tied it in knots and set fire to it. It's a Hebro gone wild. I look like the love child of Gene Wilder and Crazy Days Britney. This was not my intended result.

I have always felt, deep in my heart, that I am a talented hair cutter, albeit in the larva stages. I have absolutely no evidence of this, however, with nothing but a trail of exceedingly unattractive coifs and hair-clogged bathroom sinks. I honed my skills as a young child, taking scissors to my Barbie dolls and rendering them slightly insane looking, as if Midge had slipped a couple of tabs of windowpane into Barbie's Diet Sprite,  then handed her a dull machete. (How many nights did poor Midge watch her high-heeled, perfectly pony-tailed, alarmingly  perky-boobed BFF take off with Ken, leaving Midge alone in the Dream House to watch "Mary Tyler Moore" reruns and eat Swanson's Salisbury Steak TV Dinners while planning her revenge?)

When all my Barbie dolls were shorn, reglued and shorn yet again, I was ready to work on people. The problem with people, however, is that they have free will and refused my services. I needed customers; customers with the hair of humans but the obedience of a Barbie doll.

Opportunity came knocking a few decades later in the body of my two extremely hairy babies.

I mercilessly subjected my kids to my delusions of hairstyling grandeur.  My piece de resistance was bangs. Frighteningly short, lopsided to the left, a curtain of hair chased and cut down in a desperate, futile race to the brow. The result was admittedly odd. Slightly maniacal. I'm surprised their preschool didn't alert Social Services.

I'm not proud to admit that I knew they looked weenie. They are my beautiful boys but I was not blind.  Worst mother ever.

Must we be exemplary people in order to be good parents? Can't we be good parents who unwittingly make our children look weenie just because the actual hair-cutting is really fun for us? I mean, it's not like I ever set out to make them look that way. I just didn't have the willpower to stop.

Of course, I did stop eventually. One day my six year old asked me in his little quivering froggy voice, after surveying the damage I'd done to his beautiful hair, "will gravity fix this?" A few weeks later as we were driving down Van Nuys Blvd, he sounded out the words, "Super Cuts" on a sign (talk about motivation to read) and then the jig was up forever. Like when Robin once took the boys to McDonalds and when they came home, my older one said, "Mom! You are wrong! You CAN go inside there. Dad took us inside! And there are tables and chairs and everything."  Shit. Busted.

Which brings me to this morning. And what appears to be my pubic hair transplant. Maybe if I force myself to keep looking in the mirror I will finally learn my lesson.

Hmm. Nope. The more I stare at it, you know, it is starting to look kinda kickass.

Don't Peek Under The Sheet

You gotta make me a promise. It has to do with my death.

You in?

I am a daughter, a good one, one of two. Therefore, it goes to say that my mom has her own death and funeral covered. My sister and I know the drill -  when Mom looks as if the Grim Reaper is nigh, we are to (in order of importance): take all funky underwear out of the dresser drawers and discard it immediately; take out the eggplant - which will be in the oven, this is a given - and turn off the oven. Don't throw the eggplant out, however, just leave it on the counter to cool. Never mind that Karen and I live a thousand miles from Mom and by the time we get to LA the eggplant will be quite well-done, not to mention full of e-coli, we are not to throw it out because someone at the funeral may be constipated and it will be a welcome buffet offering (wait, what am I talking, someone may be constipated?  We're Jewish. Someone may not be constipated); look in all Mom's boots and coat pockets for twenty dollar bills; and, most importantly, check that underwear drawer again. Also, if there is chicken cooling on the kitchen counter, don't throw it away. This last item is aimed at me because my mom believes I am neurotic about throwing good food away. And it's a lost cause to argue because my sister agrees with her.

When I pick my mom up at the airport I can find her luggage by smell. Her bags are filled with  Tupperware containers of leftovers from her refrigerator that should have been dumped days before she left on her trip and they languish - untouched - in the back of my refrigerator for the week of her visit after which my sister, who has the intestines of a feral dog, tosses them in the sun-baked trunk of her car while she drives the four hours to her house. She leaves the leftovers on her kitchen counter for the afternoon and enjoys them for dinner the next three nights.

Her husband, a human, will try just a spoonful at Karen's insistent urging and spend the night on the toilet, clutching his abdomen and crying out for mercy.

So when it comes to saving or dumping the post mortem chicken on Mom's counter, I am outnumbered.

This, however, is not pertinent to what I am asking of you at the time of my death.

I need you to check that Robin and my sons have sent me to my Maker wearing pants. I have reason to be concerned.

When Robin's mom passed away this was an issue. Evidently, when the burial outfit was brought to the mortuary, pants were forgotten. This wouldn't make a particularly worrisome story but for Robin's description of the event. He said to me, "It didn't seem necessary. I mean, it was a really long drive back to my parent's house to get pants for her, and anyway, the coffin was only open from the middle to the top."  Really, Robin? That seems a reasonable reason to bury a person in just a nice blouse and shoes? He was finally persuaded when the Hungarian woman who prepared the body admonished him, "You vant Mama should fly to Heaven vit no pents?"

Vit no pents, indeed. I am taking no chances. I have no daughters. I have two good sons, however, but every time I remind them to put pants on me as soon as I die, they look at me as if I am asking them to pour hot tar up their noses.

So I am counting on you now. Pants. I will probably be able to fit into the beige Jag jeans in the back of my closet after a day or two of death, so put me in those, please.

Oh, and if my mom and sister outlive me, a word to the wise: don't eat the chicken from the buffet.

Pasta Pesto, Hold The Cleavage

I have issues with Giada. You know, Food Network Giada, the one whose recipes star her cleavage? The cooking show with the soft core porn lighting? The one where you can almost hear the bwam chicka bom bom soundtrack as she sinks her enormous teeth into the eight million calorie deep fried treat that she is surely going to spit out (perhaps into her cleavage) as soon as the camera pans away from her.

My issues with her, however, do not stem from my knowing for certain (because I really, really think so) that she cuts out the necklines of her shirts, I mean, where the hell does she shop? No, my issue is that the barre has now been raised to the point where every meal is supposed ro be delicious. And we believe that shit, we believe that we are deserving of a stellar dinner. And our kids believe it, too. And then we complain that our kids are picky and we are short order cooks for them.

Don't get me wrong. I am not an "eat to live" person. Food is always on the top, say, three, things on my mind. I like to say that I sleep like a baby; that is, I wake up every two hours and cry until I get something to eat. So, no, it's not that I don't enjoy good food; it's that we've bought into the image, once again, we've upped the ante. And a once perfectly acceptable dinner of dry-to-petrified chicken, nuked broccoli and leftover salad (with the dressing on it) is no longer perfectly acceptable.

Yes, I know that Giada is not to blame. I am the one - not Giada -  who asked my young children, "do you want pasta with basil pesto, sun dried tomato pesto or with alfredo sauce" as if giving them noodles with a jar of ragu was tantamount to serving pasta with my own warm urine on it. I'm the one who bought into the food lifestyle. Of course, Giada is not to blame.

Because it's really that insufferably serene Barefoot Contessa that makes the rest of us feel like losers.

Still,I do not have the Contessa in my cross-hairs despite her extremely aggravating penchant for having it all- including a husband who is gone during the week, who leaves her blissfully alone with her six-burner Viking stove and her gay friends, a husband who comes home each Friday night only to be dispatched to bumble about the grocery store (and, btw, what kind of simpleton is sent to the market for a lemon and comes home with a grapefruit? I think gentle Jeffrey has wrapped his Beemer around a few too many telephone poles rushing home to the perfect baked chicken) or hanging at home bumbling about the kitchen, stealing tastes of a meal reminiscent of that weekend in Paris they shared (you know, the weekend she sent him to the patisserie for  an eclair and he came back with a Pygmy goat? Oh, dear,simple, stinking rich, adorable Jeffrey).

No, I have no issues with La Contessa. At least she keeps her shirts buttoned all the way to the top.

One hundred monkeys with typewriters

I need to keep some things to myself. I am beginning to notice the looks people give each other when I start spouting off.  For instance, I have two topics that never go over well at dinner parties.

One, is that sometimes when I am in the same room as a man, I fantasize about kicking his ass. Is that  twisted? Hear me out. I don't want to actually kick his ass; in fact, I know that unless he is dead drunk and tied up (not that I'd ever fantasize about that) I probably couldn't do it anyway. I honestly don't want to hurt anyone. I won't even wear sheepskin. I just wonder if I am capable of doing it, you know?

This post, however, is not about that little quirk. This is about the other one:

I believe that- given enough time and the right teacher - I can learn to do anything. Yes, anything. Well, no, not anything - not shit I am just physically incapable of doing, like pole vaulting or reconciling my checkbook. But pretty much anything else. Like......learning to do heart surgery......or speaking backwards....or building a rocket...drafting a Senate bill....I believe that is within my grasp. Key to my position, keep in mind, is the caveat of infinite time.

Probably half of what I can't do is a result of my lack of interest. I possess an embarrassing dearth of curiosity. I think it stems from my fear that if I use up brain cells for shit I don't care about it, I will be left unprepared when, say, my life depends on learning a secret code word or when I am called upon suddenly to name the Supreme Court Justices or when I have to remember which kid is deathly allergic to bee stings. A decent amount of brain space has to be kept available for that kind of information.

It was hard to be a mom of two curious children who wanted to, I don't know, learn things. The first years of motherhood filled up my brain with dinosaur songs and I am here to tell you that if you think algebra is useless in later life, try finding a reason to remember this:

My name is Stegasauras, I'm a funny looking dinosaur,

And on my back are many tiny spikes and on my tail there's more

My front two legs are very short, my back two legs are long

My body's big, my head is very small, I'm put together wrong.

 By the time my son's dinosaur phase was over I was alarmingly low on brain space.

The most effort I put into supporting my children' intellectual curiosity was to buy those laminated place mats with Flags of the World and The Solar System on them. And even then, when they got funky, I threw them out and bought earth tone hemp ones from The Pottery Barn.

Here's what the books don't say and what friends won't tell you when you are pregnant: it is really boring to raise smart kids. They want to talk about the shit they learn. They want you to listen to them. And you have to mute the TV and pretend you care that the rings of Saturn are made of ice and dust. I remember when my kid was about five or six years old, he came home all whipped up about a new dinosaur that had recently been discovered. Or renamed. Or exhumed or quilted or something. As he recounted with wide-eyed excitement the plethora of details of the new dinosaur, I tried - really tried - to pay attention to what he was saying so I would have something to add or ask at the end of the lecture. My head started to explode and finally, I murmured, "excuse me, sweetie" to my precious son, opened the freezer door, stuck my head into a bag of frozen peas and mouthed the words, "shut up, shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up!" until I was able to turn back to him, smiling.

I have always felt bad about doing that. Until, a few days ago when I was telling my son all about my new blog and I saw the look in his eyes. The shut up shut up shut up shut the fuck up look. And I knew that, more than twenty years later, I was boring him to death.

I feel better.

of books and blogs

My friend Claire - in addition to being a novelist, a mom of, like, a thousand children, a stellar person and a Facebook BFF, has a blog about independent bookstores. She asked me to write about my favorite parenting books and here is that link:

www.bookstorepeople.com

Check out the site, support bookstores and read Claire's books.

And do your Kegel's. (while I am doling out advice)

The Truth About Lying

The wine was left untouched at parenting group this week. I don't think that has ever happened. And it isn't because I bought the $3.95 bottle of Shiraz because, frankly, this group isn't particularly discriminating. I could put out soy sauce in a decanter and they'd drink it up.

No, the reason there was no drinking is because the discussion topic captured everyone's attention. Evidently, there is an epidemic of lying going around the world. Well, not around the world. Well, maybe around the world. I have no idea, I mostly make shit up, but there was a strong interest in the subject of children and their lies the other evening.

I asked the group to share the biggest lies they made up when they were kids, and if they learned anything from the lying incidents.  Their answers will crack you up, but this is my blog so here's my story:

When I was in third grade, our class had a savings account at the local bank. The details are sketchy (maybe that's the way our teacher wanted it?) but I remember that we had to bring in 50 cents every week in one of those envelopes that had a button and a long string that you wound around and around the button to secure the envelope. The teacher collected our envelopes and put them in her desk drawer, saying she'd go the bank and deposit the lucre in our class account.

Hold on. I am having a hard time finishing this story because it is slowly dawning on me that we never did have the party the teacher promised us we'd have. In fact, we never saw the fruits of our savings. In fact, we never saw our teacher after April.....

Oh God. I can't get stuck on this. Must. Continue.

So, one Monday I forgot my money. I sweated through the Pledge of Allegiance, knowing that money collection (which I will now call "the shakedown") was next. When the teacher called my name I walked up to her desk and whispered, "I don't have my money."

She wasn't a scary woman. This wasn't the third grade teacher from across the hall, Cruella de Ville, who made the kids line up according to height,the daily mortification of tall girls and short boys. No, my teacher was lovely. Sweet. She looked just like Jackie Kennedy to me.

"What happened, Ann? It isn't like you to forget your money." Mrs. Jackie Kennedy asked me. 

(Note to self: was that a jab at my being Jewish? Research statute of limitations on hate crimes)

The lie burst out of my mouth without warning. "I was at the hospital last night."

Uh-oh. Where the hell was I going to go with that opener?

"My mom....has....polio."

Mrs. Jackie Kennedy put her hand over her mouth and gasped. At the time, I thought I had really hit the jackpot with that lie. Even my teacher was silenced. In retrospect, perhaps she was simply appalled at the fact that I was such an ignoramus not to know polio had been eradicated. I mean, what the hell did I think the blue dot on the sugar cube - the blue which we all called THE POLIO VACCINE -  was?

I don't remember much else. Only that my story included iron lungs and outdoor swings and, I think, a musical scene from "Pennies From Heaven". By the end, I was covered in flop sweat. I think I might have actually contracted polio.

Well, of course, I was busted. Of course, the teacher called the Principal, who called my mom (after he called the Centers for Disease Control) and of course, I had to face Mrs. Jacky Kennedy and tell her the truth.

And of course, it taught me a valuable lesson.

It taught me that polio was eradicated in 1959.

I'm Telling You This For Your Own Good (a partial list from the personal file)

..Don't major in Ethnomusicology of Bulgaria
...Get a bra that fits
...That's not funny; it's hostile
...It turns people off when you use that language
...Don't even joke about that. People died in the Holocaust. Your own family died in
the Holocaust.
...Um, those low-rise jeans on you? Not so much.
...It could use salt
...It's too salty
...If you continue to talk to your husband like that, he's going to find a woman who
won't insult him
...Your kids could use a spanking
...Your kids could use a time-out
...You are too strict with those kids
...You are going to be sorry you did that
...You are going to regret not doing that
...Nobody is going to want to read a blog about this
...You are kind of a dork
...Everyone thinks you are a whore
...Please. Get a bra that fits already. I'll pay
...No one is going to play with you if you act that way
...That boy is no good for you
...Get a teaching degree

I bet if I could show you an animated heat-activated cross section of the brain, it would prove that when anyone tells us something that begins with, "I'm telling you this for your own good...." the entire part of the brain that deals with open-mindedness completely shuts down. And goes into "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" mode. And makes a mental note to pick up cigarettes even though you quit smoking fourteen years ago.

And yet, and yet, and yet....we say it to our kids all the time. We couch it in parenting-speak but it's the same message. Listen to me, we say in different ways, I know best. I know how to help you be your best self. You are pretty much an open-sored loser without my guidance. I love you!

I was doing field research recently (waiting for my sesame-with-lowfat,plain-schmear at Noah's) and heard the following conversation between a mom and her five year old:

Mom: If you keep picking you nose, no one is going to want to be your friend.
Nose Picker: That's not true. I have lots of friends. (Picks her nose)
Mom: But they are not going to want to stay friends with you.
NP: Un-uh. They have been my friends since preschool. (Dangles booger
dangerously close to mouth)
Mom: Well, it's disgusting. (Mom makes a face and exposes poppy seeds in her
teeth.)
NP: It is NOT disgusting!
Mom: How would you like it if one of your friends picked HER nose in front of
you?
NP: I would LIKE it!!!!! I WOULD LIKE IT! If you tell me not to pick my nose,
I am going to pick it all day!

Now, THAT is dinner theater that teaches as well as entertains. It was all I could do not to applaud.

Live My Best Life

Somebody tell Oprah:

I do not want to be my best self. I do not want to live my best life.
It's so fucking exhausting. It's hard enough to just remember to wax my upper lip and to take the recycling to the curb on Monday nights.

Why do we need the best of everything? Why can't we just live our fair-to-decent lives and leave well enough alone? Why can't we wake up hungover, eat a palatable breakfast, drink an okay cup of coffee, take a tepid shower, use perfectly fine shampoo on our slightly limp hair, put on a so-so outfit and face another regular day?

What ever happened to average???
Average is the new below-average.

And God forbid you are raising children in this LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE world today. You better create the optimum, uber, extreme BEST life for them, too. Or else.

Your kids better wake up in shade-grown, organic, cruelty-free, Union made pajamas (Well, actually, I do like the cruelty-free, Union-made part), climb out of their American-made hybrid car trundle beds, trudge across your bamboo floors to the radiant floor-heated bathroom and pee a horse stream of the highest quality urine. And then you better give them a perfectly nutritionally balanced breakfast before sending them off to the BEST preschool in the whole world, where they will be gently guided to the best, trophied, lauded, researched, highest-scoring, play-based, academic-based, arts-based, social/emotional-based, sports-based, community-based and non elitist toys made of natural materials. Snack will be grown, prepared and served by Alice Waters. Music time will feature Yo Yo Ma. Jackson Pollack will be exhumed, cleaned up, rehabilitated and neutered to oversee the painting area.

While the kids are in school, you better get your dimpled ass to tap/kick boxing class before you savor a soy smoothie while enjoying the restorative powers of making your own bread for toast.

And don't forget to have three orgasms every day! They firm and tone your Kegel muscles while giving your complexion a healthy glow! Do it while you bake the bread.

Our children do not need to have the best of everything. In fact, I think that having the best of everything is pretty much the recipe for raising fucked up kids. Read Us Weekly, you'll see.

Now, go forth and live your average life. I'll be on the couch, eating generic popcorn and watching network television. I love my life.

Just Do It

Going away without the kids?
Don't forget to have a fight!

Husbands and wives need many of the same things when the kids are young – a break, a nice buzz, the right to poop with the bathroom door closed, and a partner who will share the family vision. But there are many other things that husbands and wives also need that are not the same, and that can cause a lot of tension around the house.

I offer as a clue the private fantasies each has for a weekend away without the kids. Dad packs a toothbrush and condoms, and maybe not even the toothbrush. Mom packs a toothbrush, floss, razor (“I can finally have time to shave my legs without the kids bugging me!”), green clay facial mask, seven magazines, two novels and a brand new pair of flannel jammies. Mom falls asleep in the elevator up to their room.

The requisite fight usually ensues within the first few hours of the vacation. There are just so many buried hopes and expectations coming to the surface that have only 48 hours to be realized before the carriage turns back into a pumpkin.

Which is why my rule is to have sex immediately upon hotel check-in. Immediately. Right there in the lobby, if need be. And with whomever happens to be closest to me at the moment.

Ho ho, a little bit of Catskill humor. My ancestors occasionally take over my writing.

Don't tell me that you aren't horny as soon as you check into the hotel. Don't tell me you need to be romanced first. Please. You aren't going to be horny later, either. Horny comes back when the kids move out. Or when you realize you probably can't snag a better/richer/more hygenic/hotter/less farting man; the drool leaking from your bite guard as you sleep, dripping down your not-so-perky-anymore boobs, to your unshaven legs is probably not going to land you your trophy husband. And even if you do land him, he probably isn't going to laugh at your jokes or love your stretch marks. He is probably going to turn out to be an asshole.

And the man you first pledged your life to, the man with whom you made the kids, starts to look pretty good. That's when horny comes back.

So, in the meantime, during the first-ever weekend away from the kids, just do it. I promise you, it won't be half bad, even if you weren't into it at the beginning. And an hour later (or ten minutes later), you both will ride that afterglow all the way to Sunday night. And maybe for a few weeks after that.

It's worked for me. Sex with Robin as soon as we get to the hotel. I strongly suggest you give it a try.

I'm sure Robin won't mind.

My Tiara

I am totally going to be nicer to my husband. And not just because I think I am getting the flu and I'll need his help when I barf.

I was a bitch for a long time. A wonderfully long time. When the kids were little, I was pissed off at him a lot, mostly because I was so fucking tired.

And, to be fair, I have been much nicer to Robin since the kids have grown up but I still feel bad that it took me so long to change. And although our family motto is, “the important thing is that you feel bad”, I knew that the only way to feel better is to do better.

God, I wish there were another way.

Robin and I used to compete for the title of My Life Is Harder Than Yours. I have to admit that some days back then when I had a particularly easy day with the kids, I was loathe to admit it to Robin because then.....well, then he would win. That’s pretty fucked up, but, sadly, it’s true. We each needed to be validated for what we were doing, to be seen by the other as the martyr; it was a years-long standoff. I wonder if, even now, when Robin has spent the weekend fishing and comes home to find me working at the computer or cleaning the house, he doesn’t wax as poetic about how wonderful his day was, lest I resent it. Because I know that I have underdescribed a facial or lunch with my friends when Robin has had a hard day at work. I know. I know this is twisted. And I already said I am going to work on it.

It's really hard to let go of the martyr tiara. I love how it makes me feel- so hard-working, so munificent, even, I daresay, a little bit thinner around the midsection. I can act the hell out of the role, too. Quiet, long-suffering sighs. A slight wipe of my damp brow. A little dried blood on the tip of my thumb, as if I didn't have time to attend to my own injuries, so engrossed was I in raising our children. I am a rockin' martyr.

But so was Robin. He managed to grow huge, excruciating kidney stones that required his hospitalization, just to win points.

And eventually, all that was left was the stark truth that both of- both of us- work hard. And we both deserved the tiara.

But I keep it in the back of my closet. It's waiting there, waiting for the competition between us over whose death was the hardest.