Nov
11
2015

Virtual Reality

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IMG_0004As the opening scene of the original “Star Wars” movie unfolded on our TV screen Saturday night – the mammoth underbelly of the Imperial Star Destroyer slowly crawling into view – I turned to my 12yo son and said, “Dude, you don’t even know how amazing this was back in the day.”

That is, I would have liked to have said this to my child but instead, I said it to the mound of throw pillows he’d dug himself under to better fool around with the new iPhone we’d bought for me earlier that day. The kid may not know how to get a dirty pair of corduroys into a laundry basket, but man, he knows everything you need to know about the iPhone 6s. He’d already seen “Star Wars” and given the magical machine in his hands that does things we’d never dreamed we could do 38 years ago, he was pretty unimpressed with tractor beams and light sabers. They were so 1977.

That first “Star Wars” movie – you know, if you’re of a certain age it’s not the fourth “Star Wars,” it’s the original, and it’s really the only one worth watching – came out the summer I turned 11 and I probably saw it in the movie theater at least five times. I loved the action and adventure. The feisty princess (projecting). The bad boy Han Solo (foreshadowing). The comedy. It cemented my love of all-things fantasy and is probably the reason one of my favorite books of all-time is The Mists of Avalon and how I became a dedicated “Game of Thrones” fan.

But aside from all the elements of the story, I was wowed by the movie’s special effects. I mean, after growing up on a steady diet of “Lost in Space” and “The Jetsons” that all of us children of the 70s ingested, this take on a futuristic outer space felt so real. This wasn’t just robots cleaning up after us or screaming, “Danger!” We felt like we were there, speeding through space in our rebel ship to save the universe from evil. We could feel the energy level shift when Darth Vader entered a room or when Luke Skywalker removed his fighter helmet to use The Force and blow up the Death Star. We were right there.

***************

My son was off from school on Friday and as we ate breakfast we watched a segment on “CBS This Morning” (thank God Charlie Rose has not succumbed to hashtags and what’s trending) about students using these cool cardboard viewers from Google that brought lessons to life. In the piece, we saw that the kids were learning about the ocean reef and my son and I agreed those magical viewers would be awesome to use in school.

And then one arrived in our driveway the next morning.

As part of its new foray into virtual reality, The New York Times sent its Sunday paper subscribers their very own Google Cardboard headsets to view movies that were created based on content in the paper. You download an app to your smart phone and can become immersed in the story when you look inside.

My 12yo son quickly put the thing together, downloaded the app, velcroed his iPhone inside the box and became engrossed in the little box of cardboard with his headphones plugged into his ears.

I watched him turn his head from side to side and then, with the viewer pressed close to his face, look down towards the ground and wave his hand in front of the viewer. Even he couldn’t believe what was happening. When he was finished, he reported he watched a movie about a French artist in New York City and another about refugee children and described a bit of each movie and encouraged me to watch for myself.

But I wasn’t super gung ho at first. I’d heard, of course, of virtual reality. I’ve seen people on TV wearing headsets to play video games and aren’t there whole movies based on the concept (hello, “The Matrix” series?). I was just kind of skeptical that it wouldn’t live up to the hype. You know, like, the reality part. Plus, I wanted to eat lunch.

And then I put the cardboard box up to my face and my son pressed play.

It. Blew. My. Mind.

I finished watching the first movie – it’s about 10 minutes long – which immerses you in the back story of a recent NYTimes Magazine cover photo. You look up and see the city’s skyscrapers and down to see the city’s sidewalks and all around people are walking or standing and things are happening. And I don’t want to spoil the end but if you are afraid of heights, do not look down.

I pulled the viewer away from my face and said to my two sons standing in the kitchen, “This is a crazy, crazy world.”

I mean, who would have thought? This was probably what it felt like when our grandparents watched a man walk on the moon on their televisions.

While that short movie showed off the tricks of virtual reality, the film that supplemented this Sunday’s magazine cover story, “The Displaced,” turns a spotlight on the plight of the 30 million children around the world driven from their homes and proves why virtual reality is such a compelling new medium for storytelling.

The movie focuses on three children who have been displaced by upheaval in different regions of the world. Twelve-year-old Hana is a Syrian refugee whose days begin at 4:00 a.m. to go pick cucumbers with her family in Lebanon.  We get into the truck with her under the still-dark sky to drive to the field and watch her haul crates of vegetables atop her small shoulders. “In Syria we had lots of toys and things to do,” she says in a voiceover as we watch her and a bunch of other children drive home at the end of the day in the back of a pickup truck. “Now we just have each other.”

Oleg is 11 and lives in the rubble of his Ukranian village that had been decimated when fighting broke out in April 2014. You see him and his buddies picking their way through the debris of a schoolroom as he says that they used to joke about how great it would be if their school was bombed. “I’d never say that now,” he says.

Finally, there’s 9-year-old Choul whose family escaped fighting in his village in South Sudan and is now living in the legit swamp. We go for a virtual ride in the back of his crudely-made canoe as he paddles through the reeds and listen as he says he’s heard that although a death by crocodile — which they’ve spied — would be slow, it would be better than being killed by the fighters.

But the most profound moment for me was a scene that I found myself standing in the middle of a Sudanese field with dozens of refugees — mostly women and children — as sacks of rice were dropped from a plane flying high overhead and watched as the refugees rushed in to claim the heavy bags, hoisting  them over their heads and shoulders. I could only thank God or The Universe or my Lucky Fucking Stars or whatever it was that blessed me so that I did not have to run through a field to claim my food. That there by the grace of God I had been saved from that life.

Because this – along with bombed-out schoolrooms and little girls who are sleeping in tents and waking in the middle of the night to pick cucumbers all day, is a reality for 60 million people, half of them children. And I am so, so very lucky that for me, that reality was virtual. I am so grateful for all that I have been blessed. But I am also grateful – to Google and The New York Times – for letting me experience what that reality was like more powerfully than I ever could have imagined through just words and pictures (and I really love words and pictures).

Being immersed in these three children’s lives – however briefly – was a reminder of our humanity. How, despite where we live and what we worship and the color of our skin – we are all the same. We are parents and children, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, friends, human beings. We are people of the world and it seems to me that what really separates us is dumb luck. It’s just luck that I was born to parents of means in the United States rather than in war-torn Syria, the Ukraine or Sudan.

It is through some stroke of luck my 12yo sleeps at night in peaceful New Jersey on a bottom bunk under a starry comforter surrounded by Pokemon stickers. That he gets up each day and eats a pork roll and egg sandwich before school. That his greatest fear is the zombies he’s seen on TV and being wrestled by his older brother. And he carries a magical machine in his pocket that gives him access to things I would not have thought were possible when I was 12.

And that this is our reality, I am eternally grateful.

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Nov
01
2015

In Which We’ve Lost Our Minds

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zzzquil

“Bad news, sister,” my college friend said to me over breakfast a few weeks ago when I went out to spend a weekend at her place on Long Island. “All that Zzzquil could be making us crazy.”

“Oh great,” I thought, “Let’s add this to the ever-growing list of things that keep me up at night.”

Apparently, our sleeping aid of choice – those pretty purple pills she introduced me to a year earlier when our whole college gang convened at her house – has been found to accelerate dementia. Her husband had sent her a link to a study that determined that drugs containing anticholinergic medications – like Benadryl, Tylenol PM and Zzzquil – have been linked to early onset dementia.

“I think that ship has sailed,” I told her, “because I can’t remember a goddamn thing.”

It’s actually kinda scary.

I could cite a million instances of my increasing forgetfulness, if only I could remember them. I mean, some big whoopsies stand out, like this summer when I discovered while standing online at the DMV to renew my driver’s license one Wednesday morning that I was supposed to be at a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway meeting a bus — and my mom and sisters — to go into the city to see a matinee performance of The King and I on Broadway. To my credit, I hauled ass into the city and joined them just as they were ordering lunch and consider the horrendous traffic I encountered trying to exit the city via the Lincoln Tunnel later that day my penance for being such an idiot.

My short-term memory was in serious disrepair last weekend, like on Saturday when I ran home to grab some cash for errands and discovered when I got to the store that I’d forgotten the money (I did, however, manage to use the bathroom, check Facebook and apply a fresh coat of lipgloss). Oh, and then the same day I left my phone at my sister’s house after a visit to see her new baby and didn’t realize for a few hours it was gone. PS: she lives a half hour away (I did, however, get to hold that sweet baby again).

Five minutes ago I found myself walking up my stairs and thought, “That’s weird I’m going up here to use the bathroom. Why aren’t I just using the one next to where I’m writing?” and it was only as I headed back downstairs to write an essay about forgetting things that I realized I had gone upstairs to get a tool to operate on the skin around my thumbnail that’s been driving me crazy (NOTE: another thing I keep forgetting is that I should refrain from working with on myself sharp instruments because it never ends well).

Obviously, this slippery memory of mine could be a product of all the sleeping aids I’ve been gobbling over the last year. I pause every time I raise the pill to my mouth, thinking, “I probably shouldn’t be doing this.” But then I recall the horror of lying awake for hours, unable to fall back asleep after a trip to the bathroom – rehashing my wedding day or some other bit of ancient history — that keeps my brain churning for hours in the dark. Then I quickly pop the pill and crawl into bed to enjoy the beauty of Benadryl-induced sedation.

Or it might just be because I’m getting old.

The subject came up yesterday at knitting – where a handful of women of a certain age gather ever few weeks to pretend to knit – and everyone sitting around the table littered with coffee mugs and skeins of yarn had something to say.

The hostess admitted that she lost not one but two credit cards on a recent trip to Vermont. Another woman said her sons were growing tired of showing up to pick up takeout for dinner only to discover their mom ordered from an entirely different location than where she sent them. That same woman also confessed she’d recently showed up for a mammogram appointment about an hour away from her home and after a lot spelling and respelling of her name for the lady at the front desk, determined that while my friend wanted to have the exam performed at that location, she’d made her appointment at an entirely different facility.

Another of my knitters said she’d found an effective way to keep track of things was to make daily lists in a notebook. “I bought a notebook but then I lost it,” one of the ladies shared.

Conversation eventually drifted to more pressing matters, like the newest season of Homeland and the holy-sexy-as-anything Peter Quinn. “He used to date Keira Knightley,” said my friend who couldn’t remember where she’d ordered tacos or mammograms. “They were engaged or something.”

I turned to look at her and burst out laughing.

“I know, this is what I can remember,” she said as she knit her shawl. “I can’t remember where I made my mammogram appointment but I can tell you who dated Keira Knightley.”

Although it’s fun for me to speculate that the sleep aids or the approaching menopause is wreaking havoc on my memory, I think the truth is that I just don’t pay attention. I’m totally not living in the proverbial moment. I’m thinking, thinking, thinking about what just happened and what’s next. I’m not focused on NOW. This is probably why I have to watch each episode of The Walking Dead twice and can’t remember a thing about any of the books that I’ve read.

And it’s not a new phenomenon. Long before Zzzquil and turning 50 were on my horizon, I was forgetting shit. Like one time I drove past my daughter in the Petco parking lot, forgetting to wait for her to get in the car to go home. And another time I got a call from a fellow mom in town who found my fancy Maclaren stroller stranded on the side of the road in front of the elementary school after pick up one afternoon. Apparently, I remembered to load the baby and other three kids in the car but forgot to fold up the stroller and pop it in the back.

To confirm my chronic forgetfulness, I texted my girls who are away at school to ask them if they thought I had a hard time remembering stuff. “I don’t know what you’ve forgotten!” texted the younger girl. “You forget everything.”

The older girl wrote that I forget little things all the time. “Like what?” I asked.

Seriously.

Seriously.

I’m sorry I asked.

I don’t like thinking that I’m going through life disconnected. I really want to be engaged with the world and the people around me. I don’t want to forget the beauty of the waves crashing on the beach this morning as I drove with great friends for a walk on a perfect October day along the ocean. I want to remember lying in bed with my man-child last night, my 12yo boy who still lets me snuggle him, and the way he cozied right up and wrapped his arms around me (I would, however, like to forget his stinky pits). And for gods sakes I need to get a handle on what’s going on with those zombies the first time around. I’ve got too many things I want to do.

I just don’t know if I can let go of the Zzzquil.

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Oct
23
2015

Friday Faves: Bell, Books & Candles

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This candle from Bath & Bodyworks is so my jam right now.

This candle from Bath & Bodyworks is so my jam right now.

I can’t tell you how much I love this time of year. #1: I don’t have to worry about putting on a bathing suit for months. #2: I don’t have to go outdoors and pretend I’m having fun. In other words, I get to release my inner homebody. I love putzing around my house and feeling cozy as the weather starts to dip outside.

It makes me consider becoming a witch, as the headline to this post suggests, and pulling out my cauldron.

Here’s what I love about October:

  • I bought this cool, mercury glass globe at Pottery Barn a couple of years ago and splurged for the twinkly lights to sparkle inside. It sits on the Ballard Design coffee table in my TV room and although one person once commented that it’s like a spooky crystal ball, I like the magical feel it gives glowing from the center of the room.
  • I am all about smelly candles and feel strongly that what works during the summer months don’t quite cut it when it gets cold outside. Here’s what I’m obsessed with, in no particular order:
    • I absolutely adore this Mrs. Meyers candle for fall, however I can only find it online. It’s never for sale at Target or Wegman’s. Unlike some of the other scents in this candle line, the orange clove is potent and one small votive really permeates my entire downstairs.
    • This candle flavor from Williams-Sonoma is also a sesaonal favorite for me. Its scent is warm and spicy and makes me think of Thanksgiving and sitting by the fire.
    • I officially want to take a bath in this scent from Bath & Bodyworks. Not only do I have the candle going on my kitchen counter but one of those cool wallflower doohickeys you plug into an electric outlet. It’s plugged in right by my front door and immediately greets visitor with its yummy, piney scent. In fact, I may be jumping the gun on blanketing our house in this flavor as two of my children have walked in the house recently and said, “It smells like Christmas” (not the worst thing).
    • I was totally obsessed with this Bath & Bodyworks candle last year and plan on stocking up on it again soon to help take the edge off January.
  • Books. And lately I’m not just buying them, I’m actually reading them.
    • I read Liz Gilbert’s inspiring Big Magic in two sittings a few weekends ago. Halfway through I cursed myself that I did not instead download the audio version, simply because I love her voice. Both on the page and her legit speaking voice. She’s so warm and engaging and down-to-earth. She tells it like it is: the only way to nurture your creativity is to do the work. Plain and simple. Hey, don’t just take it from me, read my friend Brooke Leffert’s recent review of the book for the Associated Press.
    • Another one of my writer crushes is Ann Patchett and I happen to enjoy her nonfiction the most and probably because, once again, of her voice. I just finished her memoir Truth and Beauty, which recounts her friendship with the novelist and poet Lucy Grealy. “Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn’t realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.” Lovely.
    • To round out my girl-crush trifecta, I’ve also just started Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir. Dudes, she is so damn smart and funny. “No one elected me the boss of memoir,” Karr writes. “I speak for no one but myself.” Think this might be another lone I listen to after it’s read. If you haven’t read any of her earlier memoirs, you’ve got a lot to do this weekend.
    • In this vein, I’ve also been poking around in Robert McKee’s Story to figure out how to tell mine on a larger scale than a blog post.
    • I also breezed through the first 100 pages of my friend Michelle Sassa’s fun new novel, Copygirl. It’s a fun take on the Mad Men world of advertising and I like to think of the protagonist Kay as a modern day Peggy Olson, the lone, hard-working woman surrounded by baby men. Fun and I can’t wait to finish this weekend.

What are you reading or doing to stay cozy this weekend?

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Oct
21
2015

Wait. I Thought Breast Was Best.

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The older I get, the more I am convinced that all the combined “experts” out there telling us to do this and and not do that are suffering from an extreme case of Jon Snow.

They know nothing. 

I say this because it’s recently come to my attention that when it comes to feeding your baby, breast may not necessarily be best. If I had a dollar for all the feedings I had to endure with an infant latched onto my sore breast, sending pain like my nipples were being electrocuted shooting through my body, then I’d at least be able to buy those cute Frye boots I’ve been eyeing this fall.

Don’t get me wrong — I was a maniac about breastfeeding my four children. And aside from its supposed health benefits — like a reduction in the risk of asthma, ear infections and respiratory issues — it also fit into my plan of being the PERFECT MOTHER. My strategy of doing everything right for my babies and thus raising exceptionally smart, well-adjusted, equally-perfect children who were forever bonded to me.

HA. HA. HA.

I am here to report that in the end, my children are no smarter, healthier or better-adjusted than yours. In fact, they turned out much like their mother, which is to say, pretty average. I mean, if you ask my kids they’d tell you that I think I’m all that and a bag of chips and I don’t think that’s a terrible way to go through life. I kind of like myself.  And secretly, I think my children are pretty terrific, too.

But if we were to analyze data and compare my children to those who were bottle fed as babies, I’m pretty sure maybe some in one pool might have suffered from a few more ear infections while scoring higher on IQ tests and vice versa.

In other words, I believe I was sold a bill of goods.

Nursing all four of my kids also helped create the dynamic in which they also became mostly my problem. I’m not saying their dad never got up in the middle of the night with them, but when you’re the primary source of food then the onus is kinda on you to be the one to feed your kid all the time. It also meant that I couldn’t just hand the baby off to its grandma or another willing soul to be fed a bottle when the opportunity arose. I had to go hide in a bedroom while everyone watched football on Thanksgiving or in a locker at the beach to feed my kid.

My youngest sister had a baby recently (I know, I am so lucky) and I’ve yet to see her feed that kid. Every time I’ve been there it’s been our mom feeding him, and — after 8 kids — she knows a thing or two about feeding babies. I was shocked when I had my own baby and he cried all the time (all. the.time.) because I never remembered any of my younger siblings crying (I’m the oldest). Like, ever. In truth, my mom is the master of getting as much formula as possible into a 10-pound vessel so that in about two weeks, that kid is sleeping through the night. My kids took about three or four months to make it to that stage, which sounds like nothing now but when you are up with a pooping crybaby for 90-something nights in a row, you start to think dark thoughts.

And now, it turns out that all that effort I put into shielding my babies from drinking the poisonous formula and instead imbibe on my golden milk; the approximately 400 nights watching QVC at 3 a.m. with an infant nodding off at my breast; the horror of watching my postpartum knockers expand to the size of an exotic dancer’s and become hard as rocks not to mention the smaller, secondary breasts that developed under my armpits from errant milk glands; enduring the pain that must be akin to what it feels like to have someone douse your breasts in gasoline and set them on fire when a newborn latches onto your cracked and scabbed nipples; all of that, apparently, was for nothing because now the experts have determined that the benefits are “modest” at best.

And that is bullshit.

But here’s what I need to remind myself, that there were some nice parts, too. There was something quite soothing about nursing your baby once you got past that totally terrible beginning stage and had nowhere else to be. And when that surge of oxytocin kicked in and that warm feeling radiated throughout my body, that my friends was better than any glass of Kendal Jackson. And there was something pretty cool about looking down at my baby nursing and knowing that I was sustaining her. That my body was producing milk, I mean, that’s crazy and powerful and in the end I wound up with four healthy kids so I should just be grateful.

It also helped me learn how to be an expert multi-tasker who, by the fourth child, could nurse that baby while cooking ground beef for Hamburger Helper for the older kids. (Does anyone see the irony here of insisting on breastfeeding my kids and then feeding them a bowl of sodium?)

But I’m glad I kept the crazy to a minimum and only focused my perfect-mommy mania on the breastfeeding. Making my own baby food and homeschooling were also temptations for a while.

Glad I opted for chicken nuggets and public education because being perfect only gets you so far.

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Oct
16
2015

It’s Not You, It’s Me

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43527891Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ve been feeling neglected by me lately, the headline of this post pretty much sums it all up: It’s totally not you.

It turns out, the buying and selling of homes is a time-consuming venture. Real estate is a real time suck. I honestly don’t know how The Donald does it.

Because for me, trying to get out of this house and into a new one has eaten up a lot of my valuable time. I mean, don’t get me wrong — a lot of the wasted moments have been entirely self-imposed. Sure, there’s lots of paperwork to dig up to get a mortgage and legal hoops to clear. But there’s also a lot of time that could be spent — well, writing — pinning things on Pinterest and daydreaming about where to put my couch. Frankly, I’ve got a crush on my new house and it’s like those good, early moments in a relationship when you can’t stop thinking about the other person minus all the texting. Not terrible.

I’ve been very superstitious throughout the process these last few months. I’ve been unusually close-mouthed, afraid to jinx the whole thing.

I think maybe that’s why I haven’t been posting much here. I think sometimes when there’s SO MUCH to write about, it’s usually somehow private and not ready for public consumption, like when one of my kids is being especially naughty or troubled. There’s so much to be said and yet not on the Interweb and more like on walks in the woods with girlfriends. You know?

I cannot wait to share more with you in the next month or two and fill you in on all the details.

Until then, there are a few things I can tell you, like MEMO TO MOMS WITH OLDER CHILDREN: You know how we are all like, “I wish my kids were young again?” Well, I am here to report that I’ve just spent some time with my 4yo nephew and his 3-week-old brother and while they are the cutest things on Earth and I would like to eat them up, they are a lot of work. It’s not all snuggling in bed for story time, they way I like to remember my own children’s childhood. In actuality, it’s a lot of trying to get them to eat fruits and vegetables, stop asking so many questions and go to bed when you say so. And stay there. So, the next time your teenager/20-something is driving you crazy and you start to wish they were still in preschool, just be happy they can wipe their own butts.

Amen.

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Oct
08
2015

That Time I Was a Superhero

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tumblr_nvkej4BaHk1uybpe6o1_400About two weeks ago, I went downstairs to inspect my oldest son’s bathroom in our basement, terrifying in and of itself, and discovered a giant spider on the wall over the sink.

Ideally, I would have paused to take a photo of the monster to share it on social media so you could really get a sense of the beast’s size. His girth.

But my reaction to dealing with the giant-legged creature was akin to how I’d like to think I’d respond if I encountered someone with a limb trapped in a combine or a leg stuck under a car tire. That is, I’d recognize the urgency of the situation and move swiftly and calmly to address the issue.

I already knew I could keep my wits about me in emergency situations. I mean, I did have four children and nothing screams emergency like getting a baby out of your you-know-what.

But one gives birth is in a controlled environment, in theory anyway.

I have proved that when it’s between me and imminent disaster, I can rise to the occasion and keep tragedy at bay.

When my two oldest children were young – we’re talking about 3 and 4 – we got around town in a bright red minivan. I actually loved that thing; it was one of those Pontiac deals with the pointy front that looked like a Dustbuster, remember?

Anyway, one day we stopped at one of my girlfriend’s house and I ran up to the door just to hand her something. But she had two little ones the same ages as my guys and back then we were probably pretty starved for real grown up conversation, so the mom and I got to talking. And the two of us could talk a lot. Like, suck all the oxygen out of the room.

I’d left the car in her driveway running and the two kids strapped in their car seats when I ran up to the door so I assumed they were contained as we stood on my friend’s front step and chatted. And then, after about ten minutes, I noticed my minivan begin to back out of the driveway.

Apparently, because it did not look as if his mother was ever going to get her ass back in the car, my 4yo son had unbuckled himself from his booster, marched to the front of the vehicle and put it into reverse.

So, here was the even bigger dilemma: apparently somebody at Pontiac thought it would be a great idea to program the doors to lock when the vehicle was put into gear.

I quickly ran to the moving van, which was indeed locked, and saw the looks on the kids’ faces as they slowly backed down the driveway towards the street. They looked surprised for one thing and my son seemed rooted in the space between the two front seats, kinda shocked by what he had literally just put into motion.

This was not the first time I’d encountered the downside of the car’s auto lock function. I’d locked my keys inside enough times that I’d finally gone out and purchased one of those magnetic boxes in which you can hide a spare key in the wheel well.

As the van backed down the driveway, I calmly reached under the well and pulled the box out. I slid the key out and –even though inside my head there were a thousand voices screaming, “HOLY SHIT YOUR 4 YEAR OLD IS DRIVING YOUR MINIVAN!!!” – my hand remained steady as I fit the key into the lock. I gave it a quick turn and pulled open the door, jumped in and put my foot on the brake.

“I’m driving, mom,” my son told me as I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel.

Of course, now it’s one of my favorite bad-mom stories but as the time, I couldn’t believe I kept my shit together to pull the key off the moving car and open the door. But sometimes you do what you gotta do, like eliminate a giant spider from your wall because if you don’t do it, you might find him on the ceiling over your bed next week.

So I calmly ran back upstairs, grabbed the Dyson vacuum out of the hall closet and brought it downstairs. I quickly plugged it in and pulled out the extension-thing you use for stairs and high places. I placed the nozzle on top of the spider and then – PFFFT – he disappeared into the depths of the vacuum’s clear plastic canister.

This is actually not the first time I’ve had to go all SEAL Team 6 on a bug in my house. A few years ago there was a giant-ass cricket spider thing (I call them “spickets”) on the basement stairs, which I sucked up into the same vacuum. The problem was that then I could see him inside the canister and ALIVE. I didn’t vacuum for weeks.

Now I can see by the amount of cat hair in the canister that it really needs to be dumped but I am terrified the spider’s still alive. That I’ll go to dump it into the kitchen trash can and he’ll jump out and attack me. But I can’t bring myself to look. I’m afraid he’s burrowed under all that cat hair biding his time.

I’ll let you know what happens but if you’d like to come over and dump it out for me, I promise I’ll be there for you if you ever need to be ejected from a moving vehicle.

Way less scary than spiders.

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Oct
05
2015

Back to the Future

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Blah. Blah. Blah.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Here’s my wish for mankind: That when the zombie apocalypse has come to a close and the aliens land and try to figure out what the fuck just happened here on Earth, they don’t crack open the little safe on the floor of my closet and start reading my cache of journals for clues.

It will not make us look good as a species.

I spent the weekend reading the collection of notebooks from the beginning, when I started writing in earnest early each morning about a decade ago, and I am here to report that my musings are insufferable. Like, I want to go back in time and punch myself.

Here’s how best to sum what I’ve read so far up: I am insane. I say this because, as my therapist Jennifer likes to point out, the very definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting different results.

There’s a lot of hand wringing over things I continue to worry about a good nine years later:

Seriously, if you read any post I’ve written in the last week in the notebook I use as a journal, at least three of those topics have come up. Jesus.

Obviously, something needs to change.

Another interesting observation is that for all the very, very serious shit happening in my life around that time (the second half of 2007) – I mean, my marriage was going down in flames – I make very little mention of certain critical events. I go on an on about driving the children all over creation and wondering whether or not my marriage will ever work, but gloss over some major episodes that precipitated the divorce.

And interestingly, I fail to write anything in the weeks leading up to and including the triathlon I competed in that September that kind of marked the start of the change that would take place inside me. When I discovered how satisfying it was to really to commit to something and that if I (a person who does not really like to get wet, swim or offer myself up to sharks like a bowl of chips) could swim a half mile in the ocean, I could do pretty much anything.

Including get a divorce.

Instead, I write about the frittata I’m bringing to a baby shower and the banana muffins my daughter and I baked and agonize over how to decorate our den. Whether or not I should buy a leather chair.

It’s like I’m going down on the Titanic and worried about what to wear to get into the lifeboat.

One of the fun things about reading journals from so long ago is that I already know what’s going to happen. It’s like watching “Fear the Walking Dead” and knowing that that nice high school principal staggering around the hallways isn’t just running a high fever. “Shoot him in the head!” you want to scream. That’s how I feel reading some of the things I wrote. “Just get a divorce already!” I want to yell. “He’s never going to treat you with respect and neither will your children if you stay!”

But we won’t even separate until near the end of 2008 so I guess I’m going to have to put up with reading a lot more wishy-washy bullshit until that happens.

But when it does happen, the divorce marks the start of me making more well-informed major life decisions. Up until that point, most of the pivotal moves I made in my life were kinda done on the fly. Or without much real thought other than some stubborn determination to complete the rosy picture of my life I wanted the world to see. Four-bedroom colonial. Four kids. Big SUV. Happy, happy, happy.

I’m not a great decision maker to begin with. Just ask my mom. It makes her nuts how long it takes me to do the simplest thing. But I like to mull things over. I want to do things the right way. I want things to be perfect. Often to the point of paralysis. While some of life’s determining factors were decided in an instant, often with alcohol involved. I can’t tell you how long it took for me to pull the trigger and buy the pricey Maclaren stroller I lusted over for my fourth child or order the sweet iron beds for my two daughters from The Land of Nod (my youngest girl was still in a crib at four), but I quickly agreed to a knee jerk marriage proposal even though my fiancée-to-be was scheduled to go on a date that very same evening. With another woman.

I know. I’d like to smack me, too.

My biggest regret is that I didn’t start recording all this drivel years earlier. That it took me so long to just start writing, even if a lot of it is inane, Dear Diary-kind of stuff. I wish I’d done a better job documenting how I felt when I first became a mother or going back even further, when I became a wife.

I know memory can be a slippery thing. I remember when the kids were young as some of the happiest times of my life, all those trips to the library for storytime and going on bear hunts around the neighborhood. But according to the journal from 2007, my youngest child drove me bonkers when he was a preschooler. So who knows? Maybe the other kids did, too. Maybe there’s a whole lot of romanticizing and demonizing of the past that transforms how we remember things. And even though I seem to be glossing over some serious issues in my life back in 2007, at least the journals provide a window into who I was back then. A person with pretty low self esteem who had long ago lost her voice. Someone who was desperately trying to hold together this picture-perfect life she had created.

I like knowing that as much as things have not changed all that much — the wine, the struggles I have with certain people — not everything has stayed the same. I don’t eat Doritos any more and now I have a much lower tolerance for bullshit behavior.

All I really know is that if I’m still wondering at the end of my 50s if I’ll ever lose 10 pounds or write that book, I am going to figure out how to go back in time and smack myself.

Of that I have no doubt.

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Sep
29
2015

Me and the Boys

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Me and the men in my life.

Me and the men in my life.

About six weeks in, I continue to be amused by the shift in my surroundings. Or, more accurately, life with a big helping of sons versus a life sprinkled with daughters.

I took my two lads – 22 and 12 respectively – to visit their sister at a giant university at a nearby state to see one of their legendary football games.

There was a marching band. Cheerleaders. Dancers. A tumbling mascot. Waving pompoms in the stands and fireworks each time the home team scored. Yes, fireworks exploding off the tops of the two scoreboards flanking the field.

It was pretty epic.

I had downloaded the new Mindy Kaling audiobook to listen to during the over four-hour drive there and that was my first mistake. Because while my little guy – who spent a lot of time surrounded by just women when his older brother was away at school and thus is familiar with and open to the funny lady canon of books we all like to listen to – my oldest son was like, “Absolutely not.”

He somehow missed that feminist boat.

So instead we listened to mutually agreed upon music. Billy Joel’s “Billy the Kid” and Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” Some Kings of Leon for good measure.

It was a far cry of all the sugar pop tunes my youngest daughter used to play for us on road trips. All that Beyoncé and 1D. One trip we listened to the entire “Frozen” soundtrack twice and belted out dramatic interpretations of “Let It Go” (although my grasp of all the words to the song is lacking I make up for it with plenty of feeling).

We got into State College and grabbed my girl and had a great dinner but the boys balked when we wanted to do a Wal-Mart run and load up on paper products and chips for the next day’s tailgate. “Why do you always need to shop?” they grumbled.

But the real dividing line separating life with women versus life with men came when me and the boys crammed into our Hampton Inn room for the night and the effects of their massive pizza burgers moved through their digestive systems. And I’m not saying we don’t all have to move our bowels and all that (Everyone Poops, you know), it’s just that things got real smelly, real fast. Like, I had to employ the fancy Oribe hair texturizing spray I probably spent over $20 on as a makeshift air freshener to keep the room from smelling like a barn.

And for some reason, dudes can’t share beds. The girls and I would squish into double beds in hotels and make do (well, actually, I make it a point to never share — I am paying after all — but the girls deal) but the boys could not abide and my little guy ended up sleeping on the floor between the beds that first night and we called down for a cot the second evening.

But the next day made it all worth it.

My brother, an alum, made the drive from his new house about 90 minutes away and we got the full tailgating experience, including a spot in the parking lot a stone’s throw away from the stadium. My daughter joined us with a few of her new college pals and we drank cans of beers as my brother manned the grill. We played KanJam and listened to music on a wireless speaker. And about an hour before kickoff we packed up and headed inside to watch the team warm up and then see them come onto the field for the game (cue the fireworks).

After the game (we won) we walked into town and the boys filled up on chicken wings and pizza piled with sausage and sliced jalapenos and you can imagine how that exploded in their digestive systems.

Cue the Oribe spray.

The next day we availed ourselves of the free breakfast situation at the Hampton Inn where I ate a banana slathered with peanut butter and the boys made Belgian waffles topped with sticky syrup and a big dollop of whipped cream with a side bowl of sugary cereal for good measure. Before we headed out, my oldest asked if it was okay if he drove home and reader, it’s been a long time since anyone has driven me anywhere (although recently the kids’ dad drove the car home after we dropped our daughter off at school). It was nice to just sit in the passenger seat and close my eyes. It even took the edge off listening to the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Drake.

The fun thing about all this is that I now know that nothing lasts forever. My time in Manville is just another chapter in my life. I’m sure within the year my oldest boy will move out on his own, only to be replaced by his sister who graduates from college in the spring. Then the estrogen levels will again outweigh all that testosterone that’s flowing around here.

Maybe then I’ll finally get to listen to Mindy Kaling.

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Sep
20
2015

Newfoundland: Not Your Average Ladycation

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The view hiking up towards Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.

The view hiking up towards Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

I was reminded recently why I love to travel. Why I need to travel.

I returned last week from a four-day jaunt to Newfoundland with three other women and yes, I know, you’re not the only one who thinks this is an odd choice for a girls’ getaway. Why not Vegas or South Beach, you’re wondering.

Imagine the locals’ reaction when they learned the Girls From Jersey, as we came to be called, travelled to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for a vacation. It ain’t no Napa.

And initially, I thought it was a little weird, too.

The occasion was a close friend’s 50th birthday and she determined we should all head north. Like, really far north. But she proceeded to do all the research and make all of the reservations and I am a baby and deep down love being told what to do so happily agreed to join her. The four of us also happen to travel really well together. There isn’t a diva in the group and we’re all pretty flexible. Some of us like to adhere to rules more than others, but that causes amusement rather than irritation among the group. At least it does for me.

The birthday girl’s logic, when she later explained how she chose our destination, made perfect sense. She said beach getaways and wine tours were lovely, but she wanted a little more excitement. Something out-of-the-box.

“I wanted an adventure,” she told me.

And that’s what we got.

I’ve spent a lot of time since my return extolling the virtues of Newfoundland in particular and Canada in general and have been encouraging everyone to make plans to go today. And you really should because soon, you will not be alone. An expansion project in the works will double the size of the airport in St. John’s, the island’s largest city on its easternmost point, by 2020 to accommodate the approximately 2 million tourists expected to visit Newfoundland. You’ll thank me later.

On the three-hour flight home, my travel companions and I decided that what made Newfoundland so special was a combination of three outstanding features.

Hiking up towards Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Hiking up towards Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The Scenery

 I don’t want to spend too much time giving you the history of the island or describing its geography. Let’s just say that initially, I assumed it was off the coast of Maine only to discover, right before I left, that it is significantly more north than Maine and way east. Like, we visited Cape Spear – just south of St. John’s – to take selfies standing at the easternmost point of North America. Keep going from there and eventually you hit Ireland (in fact many Newfoundlanders speak with an Irish accent and there’s a vibrant Irish music scene). Newfoundland is right under Labrador, where you’ll find arctic tundra and icebergs float by in the spring. And the combined population of the two regions, which comprise one Canadian province, is a little over 500,000. FOR BOTH. Just to put it in perspective, in 2014 there were 8.9 million people living in New Jersey.

The coastal views are stunning. Rocky shores. Picture-perfect lighthouses. The clear, dark Atlantic Ocean crashing against steep cliffs. It’s like walking through a postcard.

During the late spring and summer you can see whales who journey north to feed on the water’s abundant krill and icebergs float south from great glaciers in the north. Our visit was on the tail end of all that excitement but we did get to see a lot of puffins on a boat tour out of Bays Bulls and two bald eagles soaring through the sky. We also saw a giant mola mola or ocean sunfish eyeing us as he floated atop the waves until he dove down and sank out of view.

When we weren’t stomping around hiking trails and old fishing villages, we also enjoyed the sights of St. John’s colorfully-painted “jellybean” buildings and the interiors of a fair share of Irish bars.

And I’d be remiss if I did not mention the scent of the sea — and not the Jersey Shore low tide odor — but the ancient, salty blast that hit us as we descended from Signal Hill into the old fishing village Quidi Vidi. It was accompanied by a blast of cold air that cooled us down after a sweaty hike to the top and reminded us how everything about Newfoundland was unpredictable. We were constantly surprised during our stay.

Finally, we rented a charming house in the city’s Outer Battery section just steps away from Signal Hill that offered sweeping views of the city’s busy harbor. Beautiful spot to cozy up on the couch in our pjs to sip coffee and watch the fog roll in each morning and to drink a glass of wine and see the harbor lights twinkle in the background before dinner. But I mostly loved falling asleep each night with my head next to an open window and listening to the sound of the water hitting the rocky shore nearby and the moan of a lighthouse in the distance. We were sorry to say good-bye.

Our brunch here at Mallard Cottage included breakfast pizza and a smoked blueberry old fashioned.

Our brunch here at Mallard Cottage included breakfast pizza and a smoked blueberry old fashioned.

The Food and Drink Scene

 Would you believe that one of Canada’s top-rated restaurant – I repeat:  top-rated  – is right in downtown St. John’s? Prior to our trip, that little fun fact left me dubious about Canadian food in general. I mean, how good could the food be if the best place is on some random, barren island, I thought?

And so, to all of the good people of Canada, I’d like to apologize for my ingnorance. If Newfoundland is any indication, you people are eating like kings. At least compared to the food and drink found in my neck of the woods.

Some standouts:

  • I know it’s not very ladylike, but I am an enthusiastic carnivore. I dig meat. So I found myself drawn a few times on the trip to menu items that included bone marrow as a type of condiment. I spread it onto my hanger steak at Chinched and ordered the cheeseburger with house-cured bacon at The Social House where they slathered the marrow onto their homemade buns. Both dishes came with thin, salty frites, which also might have contributed to the beauty of these meals.
  • I’ve never been a huge oyster enthusiast. I think the only time I’d ever eaten them was when my first husband and I went to New Orleans with another couple to get away from all our babies and toddlers and kind of drank our way through the city as an escape one weekend years ago. I believe oysters were involved. And lots of beer. But since then I’ve stayed away from them. I mean, who’d want to put that weird grey stuff in their mouth? But a plate of them arrived at our table at Chinched on Saturday night on a bed of ice and once I heard they were from Prince Edward Island – right around the corner – I knew I just had to try them. I squeezed some lemon juice and plunked a dollop of the sweet and slightly spicy mignonette on top and tipped the cold shell to my lips and let the whole gloopy mass slip inside my mouth. And then BAM. It was like taking a sip of the sea, all cold and briny. Totally magic. It was probably one of the best things I’ve ever tasted and we ended up eating oysters everywhere we went because when in Rome, brother, eat the oysters.
  • Have you seen my veggetti? I actually don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it here but love to talk about it ad nauseum to people who have to put up with me in real life. And although it sounds very dirty and scandalous, I use my veggetti to do awesome things with squash and zuchinni. Wait. Stop. Now you’re getting weird. It’s a spiralizer that turns veggies into long spaghetti-like strips you can sauté. Someone got their hands on one at Chinched and used it on a potato that was then wrapped around a big fluffy piece of cod and the whole thing is fried, I suppose, to make it a yummy crunchy coating around the fish. Divine.
  • When they are not coming up with amazing things to do with cod and marrow, Newfoundland restauranteurs are also concocting amazing cocktails to drink. I have a thing for Old Fashioneds and sampled them all over St. John’s during our stay but the standouts had to be the classic rendition at the bar at Blue on Water and the smoked blueberry variety I sipped at Mallard Cottage with my brunch on Sunday. Heaven. My partners in crime would tell you that they enjoyed the cilantro margaritas at Chinched and the El Camino at Adelaide Oyster House  (please enjoy with one of their fish tacos which I could eat every night of my life).
Getting "screeched in" at Christian's and becoming honorary Newfoundlanders.

Getting “screeched in” at Christian’s and becoming honorary Newfoundlanders.

The People

There are plenty of beautiful places to travel in this world. And plenty of destinations where you’ll find outstanding food and drink. But the reason you should visit Newfoundland is for the people. They behave the way we are supposed to behave as humans. They are polite. They are considerate. They are kind. They are curious. They are knowledgeable. Time and again we had encounters with the locals that left us shaking our heads and marvelling how certain things would never fly where we live. I’m taking about:

  • The woman working behind the counter at a remote post office where we stopped to buy postcard stamps and ask where to find a hiking trail, who let me use the bathroom in back. Actually, she let all four of us use the restroom and I’m pretty sure in the United States, that would be considered a federal offense.
  • A gentleman we started talking to at a local liquor store walked us to the walk-in beer cooler in the back to help us pick some interesting brews to bring back to our house and it was only after we parted ways that we realized he didn’t work there but was only an extremely helpful fellow customer.
  • The security guard at a museum/cultural center called The Rooms travelled with us from room to room and explained how historical events influenced much of the artwork on display, giving us a mini lesson in Newfoundland history. His knowledge completely enriched our experience.
  • The women working at the museum gift store not only took the time to tell us how to get to said liquor store but Googled what time it closed.
  • Taxis not only showed up for early morning pick ups scheduled after very late night drop offs but drivers were a font of information for places to go and things to do and also happy to let you walk off with their map. In fact, they insisted.
  • The TSA agents at the St. John’s Airport greeted us with a friendly “bon jour” and when one of our travel party members was unable to access her boarding pass via the Internet, a very helpful agent showed her how to take a screenshot on her iPhone to avoid a similar situation in the future.

I’ve joked in the past that friendly people make me nervous but honestly, after a few days in Newfoundland, I was sorry to return to a decidedly less kinder and gentler place to live. Where oncoming traffic doesn’t stop to let you pull out of a parking lot and TSA agents don’t bark at you to take off your jacket.

On our last night we ate dinner at a hot new restaurant on Water Street called The Social House. We sat at a high top table and slurped our final plates of oysters and chatted with our charming young server named Jordan. He told us he’d grown up in Sweden and moved back to Newfoundland – where his dad was from – a few years earlier and was finishing his last year at university. The 21-year-old talked about his internship in broadcasting and thoughts about breaking into sales and we asked him where — with all those plans — he thought he’d wind up after graduation.

“Right here,” he said, spreading his arms. “We have everything we need right here.”

And so they do. I’m glad I got to experience it for myself.

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Sep
11
2015

Friday Faves: Book Addict

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This is so not funny.

This is so not funny.

Hello, my name is Amy and I am a book-aholic.

You guys, I have a problem. Some people gamble. Some can’t stop buying shoes.

I am addicted to books. I love to buy them. I don’t necessary always read them. Or at least finish them. But I have a lot of them.

They sit in piles on my desk and my nightstand. They are stacked in my den and there’s even a few shelves of them sitting in my garage.

And I don’t just buy them for myself. I tend to buy tons of them for my kids, too. And when I was married, I’d often buy them for my then-husband in hopes he might open one up and read alongside me. When he had knee surgery I figured he’d have so much time on his hands lying around he’d definitely pick up “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” or one of the other five books I had gone out and bought for the occasion. Instead he sat on the couch for about 45 minutes after returning from surgery until he got antsy and went out to clean dog poop up in the yard.

There was a reason why his knees were shot. He was not one to sit around.

Over the last few months I’ve purchased a bunch of books either for my Kindle or an easy one-click order on Amazon Prime or at the nearby Barnes & Noble and recently from my favorite book shop around the corner. And while I wish I gave all my business to the local bookstore, it’s like I’m a junkie and just need a quick-fix when it comes to my book habit. I need to score them as quickly as possible once the urge comes in.

Really, if I just concentrated on reading the many unread books I already own, I would probably save half my annual income. Well, that might be an exaggeration. That would only happen if I stopped buying wine, too.

Here’s what I’ve bought either for myself or one of my sons since about May:

  • The Grapes of Wrath: I bought TWO copies of this. One for my Kindle, which I’m about six percent through, and a paper version for my oldest child after he finished East of Eden and was looking for something to read next.
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany: So of course, while I was at B&N buying Steinbeck’s classic, I also picked up a few others I thought my son might like, including this one — one of my all-time favorites — which I believe I read when I was also just home after graduating from college. It makes me want to go back and read all those John Irving books I loved.
  • Master and Commander: Another one for oldest guy. I remember how much my dad loved this Patrick O’Brien historical series about the British Navy and thought my son might, too.
  • A Window Opens: The author, Elizabeth Egan, is coming to our local bookstore next month so I stopped in the other day and picked up a copy to read in advance. LOVED. She’s the former book editor at Self who left to work for Amazon and the novel seems a thinly-veiled account of her experience trying to balance being the mom/wife/daughter/friend she wants to be with a ferocious corporate culture. Smart. Well-written. Funny. Love her and can’t wait to read whatever she writes next.
  • Good Mourning: Whilst at the local bookstore, I also picked this up after a rave review from one of the owners with whom I chatted while she rang me up. This is a memoir of a woman who was the event planner at THE funeral home in Manhattan. The place where anyone who’s anyone is laid to rest including Joan Rivers and Heath Ledger. I’ve read a few pages and it’s funny and engaging and who doesn’t want to know some of those secrets?
  • Getting to 30: A Paren’t Guide to the 20-Something Years: I bought What to Expect When You’re Expecting the second I discovered (perfect word) I was pregnant with my first child and it became my handbook during that and the subsequent two pregnancies (by my last they had invented this thing called the Internet so I didn’t need What to Expect to self-diagnose placenta previa or kidney failure any more). Over the years I turned to Dr. Spock, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, Between Parent & Teenager, Odd Girl Out, Queen Bees & Wannabes and many, many more tomes for advice on how to raise my children. So why should this new stages we’ve entered — the post college period — go without a book as well? Good overview of the “emerging adult” and reminder of what a difficult time it is.
  • I Am a SEAL Team-Six Warrior: Memoirs of an American Soldier: It is my intention to get my little guy to read more this school year. Like, more than what his friends post on Instagram. That kind of more. So I’ve been looking for something he is REALLY interested in. And I found it in this. The subject matter totally suits his “God bless America/Young Republican” personality and he even read it while we sat waiting forever in the doctor’s office last night, so that is a great sign. I only hope he’s half the reader his brother (and older sister, I might add) are.
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: What? We never owned this one? Of course we do. The older kids read it and I even read it aloud not once but TWICE to various sets of children. But somehow, it the great house decluttering of ’15, it got swept into a donate pile and given away. I know. It makes me a little queasy, too. But my little guy and I decided we were going to read this one together, not out loud but more like a book club and then hopefully we’ll go through the rest of the series in much the same way. I know. Rainbows and unicorns. I’ll keep you posted on how this fantasy plays out.

On a completely different note, I cannot let the import of this date go unnoticed and want to send my love to everyone today. Not just the many people directly affected by the terrible events of 14 years ago who lost so, so much on that day. My heart breaks every time I think about all the men and women who are no longer with us. That level of loss is unimaginable and I don’t pretend to know how it feels.

So today is a day of rememberance, and I want to remember not just all the lives that were lost. I also want to remember how the tragedy brought us all together as a country and reminded us how much we loved living here and our fellow Americans. Despite all of our many, many differences, I want to remember that underneath it all, our hearts all look the same. We’re all struggling. We’re all doing the best we can. Let’s try to remember that today.

Peace.

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