Seasons of Tough Love

Usually I welcome the end of April. Theoretically, it means showers give way to flowers, but I've long ago relinquished hopes of that being the case. At least the onset of May signifies a closing of the gap between the inaptly named spring in Chicago and the longer, warmer, lazier days of summer. Theoretically.

This year, though, I can't help but remember the string of unfortunate events that defined the month of May just a year ago, a month I still refer to as "Mayhem." My beloved lab died, his happy and carefree sidekick went blind, and then there was that car accident on the way to my daughter's college graduation that broke more than a few of my mother's bones. And set off a chain reaction of spinal compressions that now has her injecting herself every morning  (as she says shooting up -- my mother, the junkie) with some revolutionary concoction that will stop the mortar that holds her spine together from deteriorating further, curtail the shrinking, maybe even alleviate some of the pain. Maybe.

She's a feisty old broad, my mother, and a few broken bones and a collapsing spine have not deterred her. Slowed her down? Yes. Made things a lot more difficult? Definitely. But she, unlike her skeleton, is far from broken. It will take a lot more than osteoporosis and a little T-boning in a taxi to stop her from living life as fully as she can, while she has the chance. Don't get me wrong; she's a well documented (in this space, even) pain in the ass, but there's a lot of good in there, a lot I can only hope to emulate as the years wear me down.

May is already a bit of a tainted month for me. My father died in May, and my wedding anniversary is in May. There's no ambivalence about the former, but as to the latter, well that's a mixed bag. There are good memories, there are not so good memories, some relief that I've gotten out, and a lot of honey coated nostalgia and wishful thinking, about what we both could have done differently long ago to prevent the catastrophe. In the plus column for May, though, is Mother's Day, the day set aside by Hallmark to celebrate those of us who, no matter what we have accomplished or failed to accomplish in our lives, value our role as mom above everything else. Even though our kids sometimes don't quite see the point.

As any good shrink (or I) will tell you, my mother has caused me a fair share of pain and insecurity over the years, and I've tried my best to do things differently.  As any good shrink (or my own kids) will tell you, I have caused my children a fair share of pain and insecurity over the years, and they, in turn, will try their best to do things differently. Good luck with that. It will take a long time for them to realize what I have realized, which is that the more opportunities life gives you to screw up, the more likely you  are to screw up. Which kind of puts the ever present mom in a precarious situation.

As we waited in the stands for the medal ceremony at my daughter's final badminton tournament the other day, I watched with amusement as the girls from the nine teams gathered on the gymnasium floor. The tough, focused competitors had once again become giggling high school girls. Some sat braiding each others hair, some jumped up in odd shows of team unity and broke into spontaneous, for lack of a better word, dances, others just gossiped and snacked as they lay sprawled on the polished wood floor. They had all traded their court shoes for flip flops or Uggs, and looked less like athletes than teenagers at a slumber party. And why shouldn't they?

Off to my left, a country clubbish looking mom yelled down to her daughter, who was eating an enticing looking bakery cookie loaded with thick frosting in the image of a smiley face. "Is that your second cookie?" The mom literally looked as if she was going to cry. The girl seemed momentarily stunned, not to mention embarrassed. Busted, caught with the shadow of yellow icing on her lips, there was no point in denying it. But the girl persevered, stared right at her mom, and took another bite. A small victory for girls everywhere, for girls like me who, years later, still reel from the memory of the criticism and the disdain, from the scornful look on the face of a mom who thinks her daughter's happiness (like much of her own) rests with thinness.



Yesterday, crammed into a fitting room with my two daughters as we all tried on dresses for our cousin's upcoming wedding, I made the mistake of telling my youngest that a certain neckline was better for her sister than for her. Her sister actually agreed, but all my fifteen year old heard was what I said, which was apparently something like "you are ugly, fat, and inferior in every way." Minutes later, I told my older daughter a certain color wasn't so great on her. She agreed. Shortly after that, they both told me a dress I loved was not good on me because I didn't have enough boobs to hold it up. I was disappointed (the bottom half was just so cool) but I moved on. Still, my youngest only heard me pounding her into the ground. She brought it up no less than seventeen times at dinner.

Just like the mom and daughter at badminton, my youngest and I will have to carefully navigate the next few years without permanently straining our relationship over complete bullshit. I am under no illusions about my older daughter, by the way; we are certainly nowhere near being out of the woods. The delicate mother daughter dance continues, and I often seem to come up short, with two left feet.

It's complicated, the mother daughter thing. These days, my mom occasionally even looks to me for guidance. Maybe she always looked up to me in some ways, and I just failed to see it. I know I often look to my daughters for guidance, but my guess is they are probably so busy hearing criticism they don't notice. Nevertheless, I am fairly confident that they will celebrate Mother's Day with me and make me feel like a queen, at least for a few hours. Because deep down, the little princesses know that one day they too will be queen, and that can be a royal pain in the ass.

A Cake Walk

According to my son, lover of gritty urban surroundings, there is an up side to living in deep dark suburbia.  "It's tough to be a writer in New York," he told me. "Why would anyone sit and write when you can always take a walk?"

Well, every hour of every day, there are plenty of folks walking the streets of deep dark suburbia, proof, I think, that you don't have to live in an interesting place to take a walk. And nobody, even the most committed power walker, can hoof it all day -- unless you're Forrest Gump, and I've been working really hard lately on distinguishing between reality and fantasy, and I'm pretty sure Forrest is fictional. So if everybody can always take a walk, and everybody has to sit some time, what's wrong with trying to write in a place where you might actually see something on one of your walks, something to capture your own (not to mention your readers') attention. Though I suppose there are some good stories buried deep within the confines of endless white picket fences and aluminum siding, and maybe, things aren't always as dull as they seem. So I've heard.

The truth is, no matter where you are these days, there is a lot of sameness. Main Street, USA, winds its way through major metropolitan areas and small towns both in this country and around the world. The McDonald's in Winnetka, Illinois is a McDonald's like any other, despite suburban planners' attempts to camouflage the truth with a facade suggestive of WASPish old money. The McDonald's on the Champs Elysee in Paris is a McDonald's like any other as well (not to mention a travesty), no matter how much wine they sell with their "extra repas de valeur." It may sound better, but face it, it's still just greasy cow parts on a bun. And French fries are still as about American as it gets.

This morning, for some reason, I got to thinking about chocolate cake. Not just any chocolate cake. 
Ebinger's chocolate buttercream layer cake from my Brooklyn youth. Chocolate blackout cake was their claim to fame, but I lived for the buttercream, the thick sickeningly sweet layer on the top that I would save for last. The yellow cake was moist and tasty, but really, it was simply there to hold the layers of frosting together. The glue for the ambrosia, a bit of color to break up the monotony on the fork. The only decoration on an Ebinger's buttercream layer cake was the three green pistachio nuts in the center on the top. I never ate them, but I knew they were there. Like the pale green box wrapped in string, it was part of the reassurance I needed, proof that the cake I was about to eat, one layer at a time, was the real deal.

Ebinger's bakery closed in the 1970's, after an almost one hundred year run. I don't think I've ever found a cake I've liked as much; a piece of my sweet tooth simply died when Ebinger's disappeared. Okay, a small piece. You can take your molten lava cakes and your bittersweet ganache and all sorts of death by chocolate concoctions, not to mention the pretty little cupcakes that people line up in droves to buy, the treats that never taste half as good as they look, much less cost. My mom -- yes, the same woman who hid food from me in later years -- always made sure there was an Ebinger's cake waiting for me when I came home from school; as soon as I finished off one, she was off to the bakery for a replacement.

It's not just about the uniqueness of Brooklyn, a place really like no other. It's about the uniqueness of what's local, no matter where you are. The flavor of my youth, a taste that stays with me now, was sweet buttercream and small mom and pop stores and fresh hot chewy bagels that you could literally taste through your nostrils and ambulances screeching by at all hours and bike rides to Coney Island and a mosaic of people you just don't find in deep dark suburbia. Not to mention abrasive accents, which seemed normal to me at the time. Main street USA didn't really exist back then; small towns everywhere, just like Brooklyn, had flavors all their own, special seasonings that shaped the people who grew up there.

These days, even New York City has sold out. The streets of Soho, once a mishmash of bohemian stores and restaurants and apartments, overflows with glitzy chain stores and people who could just as well be shopping at Neiman's. If I can find it in Soho, odds are I can find the same thing here in deep dark suburbia. But there's still a difference, at least from a walker's -- and a writer's -- perspective. In deep dark suburbia, you can walk for miles and see nothing different, except maybe different paint colors on the houses, different models of black Lexus sedans, different styles of Lululemon ensembles. Zoning ordinances exist to keep everything sanitized and very much the same. The local police exist primarily to run people who don't look like the rest of us out of town.

In New York, though, odds are that if you walk long enough, you'll see every color and sort of person you'd ever want to meet (or not meet), and you'll pass through neighborhoods that, while moving toward some degree of sameness, all still retain some sort of unique flavor. So far, superstores and factory style cupcake joints haven't managed to destroy all that.

No matter how much walking you do in the big city, there's always going to be something to write home about. Ebinger's might be gone, but the flavor still lingers.

Superiority Complex Carbohydrates

I don't think it's possible to ever get too much of a good thing.

Like avocados. I have been told they are a "super food." I pretty much swallow them whole, figuring the high calorie count will be negated by my super-ness. Superiority? Whatever. Luckily I love avocados; I don't think I'd be able to stick with my self improvement plan if the super food du jour happened to be pork bellies. (Do folks really eat those, or just trade them?)

The point is, I am trying to take good care of myself, to be the best me I can be. According to an email I received yesterday from a friend, Lucille Ball (one of my all time heroes) used to say "love yourself first, then everything else falls into line." Easy for her to say. She was hilarious, successful, and married to a hot Cuban. And, she knew how to dance. She probably didn't even know what an avocado was.

With my two left feet and complete lack of rhythm, dancing is out of the question. And I haven't met any hot Cubans lately. (JDate, you got some  'splainin to do !) But I do take an occasional break from super foods and try to do other things that make me love myself. Yesterday, I played tennis against a large and scary bleached blond bitch named Buffy. No I am not making this up. Even vampire slaying Buffy's are supposed to be cute and sexy. This one was like a Mack truck in fluorescent yellow tennis shoes who made it a point several times to take a full back swing on a short ball and try to peg me at the net. Really? If I had wanted to play tennis with high school boys, I would have strapped one on, gotten myself a jock strap, and colored in my wrinkles so they'd look like facial hair.

Mean old Buffy seemed smug as she dashed off the court, beating me not as badly as she would have liked but leaving me in a cold sweat and on the verge of puking. She seemed to actually love herself, even though I could not, for the life of me, figure out why. Which, as it turned out, made me love myself even more. I spent the entire unpleasant (and death defying) hour and a half being sickeningly pleasant, apologizing profusely whenever I won a point on a particularly wimpy shot. Salt on the wound, a few little punctures in her big old tires. Love myself? I was feeling downright smitten.

When you make a conscious decision to love yourself the little snowball of mere fondness starts to pick up steam and rolls into a boulder of hopeless infatuation. An old friend just stopped by my writing chair, and he reminisced about the time we had chaperoned a fifth grade field trip together and he had the dubious pleasure of watching from underneath as I went up the climbing wall. "It was nice that you weren't wearing underwear," he said. I assured him that I was, that it was probably just creeping up my ass for a change. Feeling lots of self love, I told him how much better the view would be now all these years later, with my granny pants bunched up under my shorts. Loving oneself is good; sharing the love, even better.

Last night I grabbed a  Lean Cuisine out of the freezer for dinner. A nice snack, but when I finished (in about two seconds flat) I didn't feel particularly lean. Thank goodness for my theory (remember the theory? that you can never get enough of a good thing?). I popped two more in the microwave, hoping to feel super lean. These things take time, I suppose. At least I was starting to feel satisfied.

Land of the Rising Son

"Do you want to go play tennis?"

My son has arrived for a two week cameo appearance, en route from his life in New York City to a year (please God, no more than a year) in Kobe, Japan. Did I want to go play tennis? It was eight o'clock in the evening, I had just shoveled in enough left over Thai food to feed an average family of four, and had topped it off with a rather heaping serving of Moose Tracks ice cream. Slow churned, according to the package, which seems to have something to do with why it can be creamy yet still contain fewer calories per serving than your average brand. Maybe so, but since the serving size listed on your average (or slow churned) gallon of ice cream is about the equivalent of the little extra spoonfuls I lick while I wait for my real serving to soften in the microwave, I've pretty much sabotaged any well-meaning corporate attempts to trim the fat. So much for good will.

Did I want to play tennis? You guys know me pretty well; do the math. I wanted to extract myself from my jeans, slip into baggy sweats and a tee shirt, and cuddle up with Manny on the couch so I could nap a little before heading up to bed. Are you high? That's the response that immediately sprung to mind, but I knew in my heart my son was not high -- at least not at that moment. He was not strumming away absentmindedly at his guitar and pondering the ceiling fan over his bed; he was in the kitchen, chatting about books and politics and hypocrisy (ah, finally, a topic I could understand), the whites of his eyes visible and actually white.

"I can think of nothing I'd rather do right now," I told him. He looked skeptical; maybe he was just horrified by the soupy slow churned ice cream that was dripping down my chin.

"Never mind," he said. "You're tired. We'll do it some other time." The almost twenty-two year old young man sitting next to me in the kitchen looked disappointed. Chin stubble and hairy legs (his, not mine) notwithstanding, all I could see was the terrified baby boy who would attach himself to me like glue if someone else approached; the chubby cheeked pre-schooler running toward me after two hours in the classroom, the look of relief on his face palpable. He had endured the long separation, and mommy was there, waiting. I always was, but he just could not help but be a tad bit worried until he saw me there, with his own eyes. His bright, never bloodshot eyes that sparkled when he smiled.

I was about as likely to say no to tennis last night as I would have been to not be waiting, at the front of the pack, for him to emerge from a tough morning at pre-school. So off we went; we played, played well even, for about an hour, interrupted occasionally by folks from the evening tennis crowd whom neither of us had seen for quite some time. We emerged into the parking lot arm in arm, both of us feeling invigorated and happy we had spent the time together doing something we both enjoy. If I could have, I would have carried him, just as I used to, enjoying his sweet faced giggle, marveling at the way his cheeks wobbled as we walked.

Funny how things change. I am the one who waits anxiously now for that glimpse of reassurance. I could feel my entire body relax the other day when I drove up and saw him waiting for me at the airport. I will be the one who wants to cling on for dear life in two weeks when I drop him off again. The two hours he used to have to endure before finding me, waiting outside the pre-school doors, probably seemed like a year to him. The year I will have to endure, waiting for him to return from Japan, will seem like an eternity to me.

As we drove home after tennis, he told me he knew how much I didn't want him to go. Not so, and I tried to explain to him the inner contradictions of being a mom. I want him to go more than anything, to follow his dreams, pursue his passions, to never have to regret not having done this. But I want him to hate it just enough that he'll want to come home (and, by home, I mean somewhere closer than Japan, though we're still debating whether Spain counts). "This is your time," I told him. Maybe I killed the buzz just a little bit, but I told him that as much as I want him to take care of himself now, enjoy his youth and experience all the adventures life has to offer, I want him to also, one day, know what it feels like to take care of someone else, a family of his own. I don't want him to miss out on that gift either.

No matter when he comes home, he and I both know I will be waiting. We will both smile, but the relief, this time around, will be mine.

Foul Tips

I admit it. I am a card carrying potty mouth. I have even surprised myself with the number of "f-bombs" that have dropped from my lips lately. Makes me sound so fucking bitter.

There seem to be no limits to my foul -- albeit clever and grammatically correct -- mouth. When I taught my small but loyal band of yogis last night, my instructions seemed to be peppered with all sorts of vile words and phrases.  "The other fucking left arm," I admonished one of them. "What's with all the fucking kvetching," I asked the group after they begged, for the fourth time, to focus on lying down poses. "Fuck," I yelled as I showed off my rusty handstand and slammed my right heel a bit too emphatically on the wall that I had intended to use only for psychological support.

Some -- well, actually, most -- yoga teachers offer up spiritual readings and profound thoughts while their students struggle through particularly challenging poses. I am no different. When one of my ladies' ankles began to click quite loudly as she attempted to stretch out a cramp, I launched into my version of an inspirational story. I am a loud and fitful sleeper, so loud and fitful I often wake myself up. I grind my teeth, I have lengthy conversations, I crack my ankles (in case you were wondering what stream of unconsciousness brought this story to mind), and my legs flail and twitch in all directions, particularly if I forget to take my "restless leg" pills. Which got me to thinking I could use a "restless entire person" pill, which then got me to wondering out loud -- while my ladies grimaced and appeared to be in actual pain -- how big such a pill would be and whether I would be able to swallow it.

Oddly enough, and to my credit, this did not lead me into a raunchy discussion about putting large objects in ones mouth and the whole "to swallow or not to swallow" dilemma (I speak here as if I know something about the subject, which, naturally, as a Jewish girl, I do not). In fact, right then and there I got kind of bored with the whole restlessness topic, and doubled back to the teeth grinding issue, admitting that I never wear my ridiculously expensive mouth guard and expect, very soon, to have only tiny stubs left for teeth. Oddly enough, and much to my discredit, this led me back to the blow job issue I had so commendably avoided just moments earlier when the whole idea had, literally, been on the tip of my tongue. I started wondering out loud (those damn voices in my head, they can't be trusted even when I am awake) whether I'd be more popular on my next foray into JDate if I mentioned that my teeth are removable, upon request.

On the off chance you remember that I referred to the above as an inspirational story, you may be wondering what the inspirational piece is. Heck, by golly (I'm trying to clean up my act), you may even be wondering what the story piece is. Doesn't really go anywhere, does it?

If there is a point to any of this, I think it's that even a card carrying potty mouth can have something valuable to contribute. Granted, only a select few are willing to receive what I offer, but sometimes the best way to reach people is to cuss like a drunken sailor. I am reading a book (news in and of itself) written by an Ivy League educated fifty something Jewish woman from New York who abandoned her high powered and high paying career to immerse herself in yoga in an effort to change her life. Except for the high powered and high paying career, we could be the same person. Oh, and except for the fact that she appears to be clever, and has written a funny and engaging book* which I suppose I could have written if I were clever and funny and engaging.

Anyway, there are lots of wonderful little gems in this book, and last night I discovered my new favorite: do not give a shit about the things you shouldn't give a shit about. With my penchant for f-bombs, I probably would have said "flying fuck" instead of "shit," but, no matter how you phrase it, the advice is about as wise as it gets. Words to, um, friggin live by.

*A recommended read: Finding More on the Mat: How I Grew Better, Wiser and Stronger through Yoga, by Michelle Berman Marchildon

All the Kings Horses...

This morning I woke up with a broad smile spreading across both cheeks. (Don't look so surprised. I was simply referring to my brand new Life is Good boxer shorts;  had I actually been smiling with my face I would have said I was grinning from ear to ear. Duh.)

The truth is I have lots to smile about. At least I can still afford new underwear. I have spent the better part of the past week helping my attorneys line their pockets as they slave over the umpteenth updated financial disclosures for our impending meeting with the judge. The pot is shrinking fast, and, as it turns out, I might have to spend less on clothing down the road, which will, I imagine, affect my Hanky Panky thong budget. Oh well, there are worse things than having to go commando. As with all laws, I believe in adhering to them in spirit if not the letter. I may not be wearing clean underwear if I get into an accident, Mom, but I sure won't be wearing dirty underwear either. Isn't that really the point?

I am going to try to pay closer attention to the message emblazoned across my behind by my Life is Good boxers and smile more. It'll help with the wrinkles on the other cheeks, the ones that could actually use the plumping effect of well conditioned facial muscles (and if I can't afford underwear, Botox is definitely out of the question). Hey, if you can't pull a good life lesson out of your ass every now and then, what does that say about you?

So there I was, this morning, at the crack of dawn, trying to stretch my lips into some reasonable facsimile of the shit eating grin on my boxers, when the shit hit the fan. Well, it didn't really hit the fan, but a hideous odor did appear to be making its way through the ventilation system, an odor so strong even my little flannel shorts seemed to grimace. You can try to look at the bright side all you want, but when your dog decides to have diarrhea all over the family room in the wee hours of the morning it's kind of hard to stop the corners of your mouth from drooping.

As I mopped up the piles from various corners of the room, I tried my darnedest to come up with reasons to smile. I glanced over my shoulder at the smiley faces on my butt, only to be hit with the realization that, from that particular vantage point, even the insipid Life is Good logo appeared to be frowning. How quickly things can change.


Well, at least the great efforts my soon to be ex and I have put in to get along -- even be friends of a sort -- have paid off and our children appreciate that we are still, no matter what, a loving and wonderful family. Oh, wait, apparently I got that wrong. As it turns out, our kids have no burning desire to see us -- much less spend time with us -- as a parental "unit," and are happy to love each of us (thank goodness for small favors), as long as we are not in the same room. Once again, our kids are very good at demonstrating how much wiser they are than we are. So much for our efforts to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

My friends keep telling me I deserve to have a life. My underwear keeps reminding me that the life I deserve to have is supposed to be good. Maybe I just need to stop pining for the old life, the one where there was at least a credible illusion of "one big happy family," the one in which blind and frustrated dogs didn't turn my house into a toilet just because I wanted to sleep past four.

Maybe, as my friend suggested during my tearful phone call this afternoon, I need to stop trying so hard to put all the pieces back together. If all the King's men couldn't do it, I don't know why the heck I think I can.

Making Porridge

When you do things like eat half a pizza right before bedtime you are bound to wake up with some stomach issues the next morning. Toss in the better part of a large bag of peanut M&M's (especially when you're not even a peanut fan) and the churning can make sleep nothing more than an elusive dream.

Twenty-three years ago today, I woke with abdominal issues of a different sort. If memory serves, I had not eaten all that much the night before, although I looked like I had swallowed a basketball. The spasms that disturbed my slumber that morning would come and go at regular intervals, about ten minutes apart. I was already five days past my due date, so it's not as if I should have been surprised, but when you are pregnant and you have passed your due date you start thinking the human gestation period is limitless. "When are you due?" people would ask, clearly mortified at the size of my belly. How do you answer that when the answer has become moot? Never, I would think, imagining that I would one day be sitting in a tiny kindergarten chair with my daughter still floating around inside me while I learned to count on her behalf.

My husband and I were both a bit stymied on that unseasonably warm and sunny April morning twenty-three years ago. I sat on the edge of the bed watching the clock, bracing myself for each contraction. He watched me watch the clock for a bit, then showered and went to work. He called about an hour after he got to the office, frustrated because he couldn't seem to concentrate. I was still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the clock. The intervals had gone from ten minutes to nine minutes and forty seconds. He may have been having trouble concentrating, but my attention had never been so utterly undivided in my life. "So come home," I told him. Why was he bothering me when I was so busy?

He came home. I was still sitting on the edge of the bed. Nine minutes, thirty-two seconds and holding. Even I was getting bored. We decided to go for a walk, shake things up a bit, though I was reluctant to abandon my perch by the clock. We walked slowly, stopping every nine minutes and thirty-two seconds so I could double over in an oddly delicious kind of pain. We wandered through the neighborhood book store. Even my husband, the most avid reader I know, didn't seem to notice the books on the shelves. I checked my watch. Things were speeding up. Eight minutes, fifty-three seconds. We thought we should probably hurry home, get to the hospital ASAP. Neither of us liked the idea of me lying on the floor in the fiction aisle, my legs braced against the bookshelves as our first child entered the world. Clean up in aisle seven. Ick.

That may have been a day like any other for most people, but for us it was quite memorable (and inordinately long). We rushed to the hospital, despite my doctor's recommendation that we wait. They weighed me and announced the number; my husband doubled over and seemed to be having his own kind of spasm. Maybe it was sympathy pains, but I think the realization that his wife had officially become the size of a small whale had put him into a state of shock. They revived him, wheeled me off to a room, hooked me up to all sorts of machines, and we waited. I didn't have to watch the clock anymore; there were highly paid medical personnel who would do that for me.

I turned my attention to more important things, like the baby's heartbeat. Hours went by, although it seemed like days. Eventually, my husband went to get coffee. My entire family was celebrating a Passover seder in New York, and they decided it would be a good idea to call. I tried to be pleasant, but  I was very busy watching the monitor with my baby's heartbeat, while the very highly educated and well paid anesthesiologist sat slumped and bored in the chair next to me. "It's not right," I said to him, although Aunt Sylvia seemed to think I was talking to her. "It's too slow." Aunt Sylvia assured me childbirth takes time. The anesthesiologist was ignoring me. "The heartbeat!" I was yelling now. "It's too slow!" Dr. Lazy-ass opened his eyes and looked at the monitor, pretty much told me I was nuts, and went back to his nap. Now my mother was on the phone, babbling about the gefilte fish or something, I really don't remember.

Well, the anesthesiologist woke up when the nurses came racing in with a crash cart, grabbed the phone from me (I think I heard someone tell my mother to go let Elijah in because I was busy), flipped me over onto all fours and started smacking my belly. Naturally, my husband appeared while all this was happening, getting a full view of my whale sized ass from the doorway as the nurses pounded away at my abdomen. I've never asked him if this unshakeable image was the beginning of the end, the real reason our marriage fell apart, but I have my suspicions. To this day, I give him credit for not grabbing a paddle and joining in on the beating.

The doctor on call had to show me the read out from the monitor to convince me that my baby's oxygen flow had only been dangerously impeded for about forty-five seconds, and not the seven hours I was claiming. Nobody said anything (they were afraid of me at this point) but I am pretty sure they had already put the psych ward on high alert. I have always been convinced my daughter missed being high school valedictorian because of severe and extended oxygen deprivation (both hers and that damn anesthesiologist's).

We spent the day together yesterday, my eldest and I. She called because her ankle hurt and she wanted to go to the doctor and she needed mommy to go with her. She also needed a reason to take a few hours off from work, and she knew mommy would be a willing enabler. The bad news is she has a stress fracture and has to wear a hideously ugly velcro boot to all her birthday festivities this weekend. The good news is I got to spend time with her, which I rarely get to do these days, and the mama bear I became twenty-three years ago got a chance to do her thing.

Mama bear may be rusty some days, but she was in full swing yesterday, even after my daughter and I had gone our separate ways. Mama bear was a force to be reckoned with later that evening when my youngest daughter's opponent was clearly cheating at a badminton tournament. And, when all the other mama bears saw my baby bear being wronged, they rallied around me like only mama bears can. My daughter had looked up and noticed I had disappeared (to tell the coaches to pay attention), and I feared that she would never forgive me for meddling. But even she couldn't help but smile when she looked up to see her own little cheering section, all the mama bears huddled together, protecting their young. And this other girl (we'll just call her Miss Cheater Pants) was toast. Nobody, nobody, messes with a band of mama bears.

Before she hobbled off to her life downtown, my oldest daughter let me know in no uncertain terms that no matter what she ends up doing with her life, the one thing she will not miss out on is having children. Music to mama bear's ears. Sometimes, everything really is just right!

I've Gotta Crow!

"I know you!" I stared at the guy talking to me as I prepared to take over his tennis court. He looked familiar in the way that lots of people do up in these parts. Definitely a bit younger than I, but clearly a decently well heeled suburban dad. So it wasn't really a lie when I responded that he, too, looked familiar. But I highly doubted that we actually knew each other.

He was quick to help me out of my obvious confusion. "You were my favorite professor in law school!" Okay, it was starting to seem plausible, although I felt certain my "most favorite" status had little to do with some deep and meaningful educational experience. It took me a few seconds -- he told me his name but that didn't really help -- and then it all came flooding back to me. He was one of my first students, twenty years ago, give or take a year or two. I would have been about thirty-two. He would have been about twenty-three, the same age my oldest daughter will be in a few days. Yipes.

Sometimes, when life has you down and you're feeling about as low as you've ever felt, some higher power intervenes (my money's on my dad) and sends you a sign, a sign that you were once okay and you might very well be okay again. I remembered Ted not because of his great legal mind or his superior writing skills, but because he is the first person who ever told me I looked like Sheryl Crow. Not feeling like much of a rock star as I stood there in my baggy shorts and my greasy pony tail, I blurted out my fond (albeit shallow) memory without thinking it through. As it turns out, dad was still watching over me. "Yes. You still do!" Even the guy he had been playing tennis with nodded in agreement, admitting he had thought the same thing.

I've laughed every time somebody has told me this over the years, and each time I've thought fondly about Ted, even though his name had long ago escaped me. Mercifully, Sheryl does not, as far as I know, follow my blog, because I am guessing she would not find the comparison as uplifting as I do. If I could, I would soften the blow, remind her that I cannot sing or play the guitar. And I bet she won't be moving into a double wide any time soon.

The other thing I remember about Ted is the visit he paid to my office one day, maybe to talk a bit about a writing assignment, but mostly to talk about the girlfriend who had recently dumped him. (As you can imagine, Professor Jill's office hours always included a lot of schmoozing and amateurish therapy.) "I wish I could find someone like you, just ten years younger," Ted had told me. I wasn't sure whether to be offended or complimented, but I do remember being amused.

I hope Ted has since found happiness with a younger and much saner version of me. He certainly looked content. He told me he never practiced law, and instead got into various business ventures, did really well, and is now retired. He told me he can't remember the names of any of his law school classmates, but has always remembered me, his favorite professor.

Hot damn. Maybe I did give him a deep and meaningful educational experience after all.

Oedipus Wrecks

A good friend, a very perceptive woman who generally knows before I do that I am out of interesting things to say, sent me a link to an article about some creepy guy who created a spreadsheet to evaluate his Match.com dates. That's not even the creepy part! The idiot went ahead and sent the spreadsheet to the front runner!

I suppose it makes perfect sense that a guy who has no discretion would neglect to include a "discretion" column on his spreadsheet, and, as it turns out, the woman who scored so highly in the looks and financial independence and sweetness categories could not resist emailing the document to all the other contenders (yes, for some reason he included names and contact information). Oopsy. Good news and more business for eharmony and other cyber dating sites, I would imagine, except for JDate. One woman fell to the middle of the pack because even though she was pretty and sweet, she was too "jappy." She was a bit taken aback by that, since, on their date, spreadsheet dude had been able to identify her designer bag because his mother has the same one. Complex spread sheets and an Oedipus complex. This guy really is a mess!

I am no expert, but I just don't think love and chemistry can be assessed on a spreadsheet. I dated a guy who told me he had (just for fun) made a prioritized list of things he was looking for in a woman. Even though it was clear that I would not make the cut based upon the list (obviously wrinkles and insanity were not in his top five), curiosity and bad judgment got the best of him and he went for date number two. And three. Granted, it was just an overly simplistic list, not a highly scientific and intellectually superior spreadsheet, but I have a feeling I would have flunked one of those with flying colors as well.

Maybe the spreadsheet works for some people, at least as a starting point to sort through all the madness. They probably work best when they aren't spread like wildfire all over the Internet. There is one thing of which I am certain: good friends don't need spreadsheets. Good friends are big picture people. They are able to see past all the little flaws and still give you the benefit of the doubt. They  stick around when you fuck up so badly you wouldn't even make it to a spreadsheet.

As for my relationship list (I am way too lazy and unsophisticated to even attempt a spreadsheet), there's only one item on it: breathing. (I deleted male after last weekend's lesbian wedding; why close off so many options?) Then, like all the lesser members of the animal kingdom, I'll just go with good old fashioned instinct. Not foolproof, to be sure, but what is?

Great Balls of Fire

There's a little Mexican joint I go to in Evanston whenever I need a quick fix. A taste of freshly made guacamole is all it takes, usually, to feed my fantasies, to take me back to a place where, every evening, the sun turns into a great fire ball as it gets swallowed up by the sea and you just know it's going somewhere a bit more exciting than Iowa. Not that there's anything wrong with Iowa.

One night in Mexico last month, long after the fire show that is a Pacific sunset ended, I ventured down to the beach to watch a different kind of fire show.  Acrobats and dancers and flat out contortionists in various forms of what I assume was some sort of native dress -- although I could swear I saw Chief Wild Eagle from F Troop -- took their turns on the makeshift stage, each one juggling some sort of fiery prop. Torches, giant rings, long rods -- all set ablaze, the more combustible heads the better.

Speaking of heat, I sat with the adorable Javier (he had to settle for me since my daughter decided to skip the festivities) as I watched the performers dance with fire. My fists clenched as the flames seemed to flicker against their skin, as they seemed to become engulfed in a fire burning out of control. "She always drops it here," Javier commented as one of the young women manipulated a huge circle of flame as if it were a hula hoop. I couldn't respond. I was too busy having a hot flash, and I don't think it had anything to do with either the performance or menopause. Ooh, Javier. El fuego.

Where was I? Ah, yes, the girl with the smoldering hula hoop. Not only didn't she drop it, but she seemed completely unscathed as she pranced off to the side of the stage to extinguish the flames. The guy who went on after her to juggle a few too many blazing torches lost a couple along the way, but he persevered. Like any juggler, I suppose he was accustomed to not always being able to keep all the balls in the air. And, I assume, he'll keep trying, at least until he -- or somebody nearby -- gets burned.

Maybe I will visit my little Mexican cafe this weekend. To rekindle some of the lost flames, to lose myself in some spicy guacamole and daydream about great balls of fire being swallowed up by the sea or tossed carelessly around as if they were a child's toys. Goodness gracious!

Here Comes the Broom

I woke in a better place this morning than I have in a long time. I bet I'm the first person who ever said that about Toledo, Ohio.

Until yesterday, I knew nobody here, and was just accompanying a friend to a lesbian wedding. Cocktail parties with people I know are intimidating enough; a weekend's worth of festivities with folks I've never met seemed a bit daunting. But curiosity got the best of me, and yes, I'll admit, the thought did cross my mind that I'd find a nice girl for myself and spend the rest of my life batting for the other team.

"Can't you just say you're going to a wedding?" my daughter finally asked me the other day. No, I decided, though I tried my best to refrain from saying anything further to her about it. It would be like going to an Episcopalian bar mitzvah and omitting the Episcopalian part. Two women tying the knot in a state where their union isn't even recognized is noteworthy; it's a detail that bears mention.

The rehearsal dinner was last night. Though both of the betrothed refer to each other as "my bride," it was clearly to be a union of a lipstick style lesbian and, well, the lesbian who wears the pants. (She actually was wearing pants, which helped to eliminate any confusion.) The room was filled with forward thinking liberal Jews of all ages, all of us behaving as if we hadn't, only hours earlier, joked about whether the menu would include tuna tacos or baked clams. We behaved as if there was nothing, well, fishy, about the whole affair. We pretended not to notice the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.

The truth is, though, when there's an eight hundred pound gorilla in the room (and no quiet, dignified, and proper Episcopalians to keep everyone in line), the gorilla gets noticed, addressed, and, to everyone's relief and delight, embraced. Loving jokes peppered all the speeches. About the softball playing bride: She always slept in a bed filled with balls. We know that's no longer the case. About the softer looking Jewish bride: Match dot com Match dot com find me a goy; as long as it's not a boy. Grandmothers in their eighties toddled up to the mike together to toast the couple with as much genuine, unadulterated love and acceptance as I've ever seen. The mothers of the brides spoke frankly of the arduous journey this has been, and how this dinner with all their friends and family (oh, yes, and me) was a final hurdle. This was a night about a young couple in love, celebrated and supported by people who love them. If I were a betting woman, I'd say this marriage is going to be a keeper.

Tonight promises to be a blast. Will they both wear white dresses? Who cares. Will the kiss be chaste, or will they test our liberal limits and do a long tonsil tickler? Who cares. The jokes might still seep through, no matter how hard we try to keep our fingers in the dike (sorry, it had to be said), but I have a feeling tonight is going to be everything a wedding should be. And then some.

Almond Joy

Shhhhh. My amygdala is sleeping. Yes, that's right, my amygdala. An almond shaped cluster of nuclei buried deep within my brain. It's the emotional, overwrought part. And I would have thought that part would be right out there on the frontal lobe -- at least in my case. 


I learned of this crazy little cluster of cells when I was reading an article about better ways to relieve stress. Now I know you'll find this hard to believe, but highly paid experts have determined that working out or building something or socializing are much better stress relievers, in the long run, than donuts or martinis. Who woulda thunk it?


Okay, so what? Who gives a shit about the long run when stress is making your whole body shake and your breath quicken and your heart race and you can't shake the feeling that you are about to burst into tears? Give me a Krispy Kreme or a shot of tequila any day. Even the highly paid experts admit that an emergency dose of sugar or alcohol actually quiets that damn amygdala, at least temporarily. If you want to worry about the long run, that's what tomorrow is for. Fiddle dee dee.


I am fairly confident there are other experts out there (or maybe it's "old wives") who say everything is fine, in moderation. Perfect -- I can do moderation. This morning I limited myself to two chocolate croissants, and, no matter what time zone I'm in, I NEVER start drinking before noon central time. If I head west, what can I say? Booze for breakfast is fair game. 


Even though I am certainly no expert -- at anything, come to think of it -- I think it's fair to say that stress relief is kind of an individual thing. A good game of tennis worked for me yesterday, at least in the short term, and the gallon of ice cream I ate later kept my amygdala drowsy for a while longer. For North Korea a good old fashioned missile launch does the trick. Even if it doesn't really work out so well. Just the thought of it must have kept an entire government's worth of amygdalas at bay. And looking forward to some future nuclear launch? Those little almond shaped nuclei will be sleeping like babies. 


So I'm taking the experts' suggestions under advisement. But I remain comforted just knowing that a box of Krispy Kremes and a jug of cheap wine is always close by. 

Crazy Bitch, Silly Rabbit

I can't imagine what possessed my friend to send me this card. When I think of amusement parks, I think sweaty people with tattoos and miles of concrete littered with the detritus of greasy fast food. And vomit. Lots of vomit.

That can't be right. This is a friend who cares deeply about me, a friend who would never shovel more dirt on me as I try desperately to dig myself out of a ditch. Someone who has seen the crazy bitch part rear its ugly head more than a few times but still insists there's lots of good that lies beneath. An amazing amusement park, apparently.

Maybe she's on to something. I may not be a fan of amusement parks but that certainly doesn't mean they lack appeal. Hardly; why else would zillions of folks repeatedly spend ridiculous sums of money to wait in endless lines on steaming hot days just to get some brief and not so cheap thrills? No match, I should think, for lying on the couch watching NCIS reruns, but there's no accounting for bad taste.

I like to think I have an open mind, so I'm reevaluating my somewhat negative view of amusement parks. Tilt-a-Whirl, death defying roller coasters, fun houses. Dizzying (not to be confused with nauseating), exhilarating (without being masochistic), full of surprises? I can see how some people might find all those things a bit more scintillating than binging on bonbons while fantasizing about Mark Harmon.

Nobody needs a steady diet of crazy bitchiness, but sometimes you just need to take the bad with the good. Especially when the good is as good as an amusement park. So I'm going to let myself off the hook. Every once in a while, even the most sane among us needs to boil a bunny or two to get ourselves out of the damn rabbit hole.

When Kangaroos Fly

Every once in a while my youngest daughter comes up with something only a natural blond could say. She did not disappoint the other day, when she announced that she thought birds were mammals. At least she's pretty.

She was able to have quite an intelligent conversation with her uncle the shrink about psychological theories so maybe I shouldn't worry so much about her quaint moments of sheer ignorance. These days I worry about everything though. My precious stash of anxiety pills has been so alarmingly depleted I've taken to biting the halves in half. A quarter dose is better than nothing, and certainly preferable to calling some long abandoned overpriced psychiatrist for a refill. It's definitely not worth the risk of having him glance up from his prescription pad while he scribbles hieroglyphics at one hundred dollars a minute to notice that I am virtually foaming at the mouth, certifiably insane. I prefer to pass on the cuckoo's nest; just give me those damn yellow pills.

After all, I have a lot to do. Bills to pay, repetitive forms to fill out for my divorce attorneys, hire a handyman. My house is falling apart at the seams. Really. Yesterday, one of the gutters hung precariously over the front window until it finally became detached and landed on the circular drive, within inches of the car I had just spent lots of money to repair. There's much to be thankful for, though. I will be able to clean my gutter without a ladder. It missed the car. And there's no rain in the forecast. 

I am willing myself to believe that only good things will start to happen. My house will not start to disintegrate piece by piece. I will pay the bills and fill out the forms and the divorce from hell will be over soon. Maybe my daughter was not even entirely wrong about her classification of birds. I racked my brain to come up with an example of a mammalian species. "Kangaroos are mammals," I announced, and I was met with a stunned silence. "Well, they're marsupials, but aren't those mammals?" Still, stunned silence from my daughter and her friend. It's been a couple of days, and I still can't, for the life of me, figure out why I thought a kangaroo was a bird. At least it was good for my daughter; the torch for dumbest comment of the day was passed to me. 

Well, it helps keep me sane if I believe anything is possible. So why not? Kangaroos can certainly become airborne. I can, at least today, clean my gutter without a ladder. And even the most bitter divorces come to an end. Will I stop needing my little yellow pills one day? Of course. When kangaroos fly. And mark my words, they will. 

Rites (and Wrongs) of Spring

It took forty minutes for her to issue her first critique, but that's only because she sat in the back seat on the ride from the airport to downtown and couldn't see what I was wearing.

Yes, mom is back in town, and even though her drastically compressed spine has shrunk her well below five feet she is still larger than life. She doesn't even need to say anything. Just the once over with her piercing blue eyes, as she takes in every flawed inch of me, does the trick. The scowl is just gravy -- I don't even know why she wastes the energy.

"That skirt is a bit short," she said. Translation: You low class whore. I can't believe I raised you. It's because you married that goy. 


"It's not a skirt," I said, desperate to defend my honor as I tugged at the back to make sure it was covering my ass. "It's a shirt.  And these are leggings." A lesser woman might have accepted my explanation and moved on, but she thinks I dress like a tramp, even on a good day, and she can't hear a thing.

She nodded. I thought maybe she understood. "Yes, well you should really not be wearing such a short dress." Translation: You are beyond redemption. You might as well be a shiksa. 


Let's just say it was not a good day to forget to put an emergency stash of Xanax in my purse. Lunch was okay because I was sitting down. I tried my best to minimize the trips to the bathroom, but each time I went I could feel her eyes boring into me like daggers, taste the venom in her scowl. I considered asking the maitre'd for a spare tablecloth to wrap around my lower half (which, by then, had truly become, in my mind, larger than life) but unless the table linens were designed by Escada I was fucked anyway.

My oldest daughter joined us a bit late, looking pale despite the attempts she had made to disguise her hangover with makeup. Each whiff of food -- even the mere mention of it -- sent her reeling. Mom wondered why she had to pee so often. "Too much coffee this morning," I told her. Luckily, it wouldn't even occur to her that her granddaughter may have had a few too many the night before and had to pry her face out of the toilet when I telephoned to remind her about lunch.

"You really shouldn't drink so much coffee," mom offered. I can only imagine what she would have to say if she knew the truth.

I am hiding in the backyard now, trying to escape yet another field trip on her behalf to purchase a useless gift for our Seder hosts tonight who have pleaded, in no uncertain terms, that we bring no gifts. After years of entertaining all of us for Jewish holiday dinners, they have an entire bathroom decorated with all the pointless gifts I have been ordered to purchase. This year, I bought something useful instead -- some wine -- but made the mistake of telling her the truth about the price. "I do not bring such cheap gifts to someone's house!" I half lied, telling her they would not know the difference. Well, they would not, except for the fact that our gracious hostess is a faithful blog fan and now knows we didn't go top shelf. Just think of it as mouthwash, Cherry.

So why is it that I encourage these holiday visits, actually look forward to them. It's not just that I enjoy seeing who wins the "what color St. John suit is she wearing" contest. (I was completely off this time.) It's ritual, tradition, family time -- for better or for worse. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. By tomorrow I'll be bench pressing 350 pounds.

Nuckin' Futs

Happy Passover and Easter. Post in vault.

Singing Off Key

My favorite thing about being a manager at the yoga store was the key, the one attached to the spiral corded bracelet that I wore proudly around my upper arm. As far as self importance goes, well, it really don't get any better than that.

Today I went to the store for the last time. Reluctantly, I turned in my key, but only after I carefully examined all the cute new things that arrived while I was on vacation and took full advantage of my deep discount. It was weird, being back in the store for the first time in two weeks. I was really just a customer, yet I felt most comfortable behind the counter, near the registers. I felt compelled to tell other customers how good they looked in everything -- as if they cared about my opinion. I insisted on putting away every item from my fitting room myself, carefully stowing the hangers where only employees are supposed to go. I strode bravely into the back room to pee in the employee bathroom one last time, the one I never got around to cleaning. The toilet paper was running low, so I replaced it. I resisted the urge to straighten out some of the back stock as I made my way back out to the floor.

Sometimes I get confused; I don't know, really, where I fit in. Behind the counter or out on the floor? All these choices, and I am so afraid of making another bad one. At least I seemed to know my place in the other stores I visited on the way to my car, although I did probably hover a bit too close to the business side of the register. Each time a salesperson repeated the same words from the script I have repeated so many times in the past year, I wanted to tell her to save it. "My pleasure," said the woman in the Nordstrom shoe department when I sent her back for the umpteenth time to search for the perfect pair of wedges. Yeah, right, I wanted to say. I'm also pretty well acquainted with the script reserved for pain in the ass customers who depart empty handed. My ego is a bit deflated these days, so I purchased two pairs, just so they wouldn't call me names.

Well it's back to square one for Jill Ocean, which maybe isn't such a bad thing. I'm unemployed, have dumped or been dumped by every man in my life, and I still don't know how I'm going to afford that damn trailer. Things could be worse, I suppose. At least I have a nice tan.

I think I am going to treat myself to my very own spiral corded bracelet with a key attached, just so I can peek at my upper arm every now and then and know that I am truly important. Maybe the key will even open some new doors, help me figure out where I belong.

The Big Gulp

I woke up with a raging case of the hiccups this morning. I've tried everything -- holding my breath, drinking water with my head tipped all the way back, pouring sugar down my throat. At four in the morning, it's tough to find someone to jump out at you and scare the hiccups away, so I tried just looking in the mirror. Scary, but (happily, I suppose) not scary enough.

Frankly, nothing seems to frighten me these days. An old friend from high school noticed on Facebook that I had been to Mexico and contacted me to inquire whether we had encountered any danger. Other than the bar kidnapping incident and the death defying jet ski ride with my daughter I couldn't really think of anything. Like all the folks who did not show up in Mexico for spring break this year, I probably should have been afraid. Maybe I'm just dumb.

In all my travels to Mexico over the years, I have yet to see a machete wielding drug lord cross my path. And the rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror of every taxi I've ever ridden in make me a bit skeptical about all the reports of murderous drivers. Interestingly, the dire forecasts of rape, kidnapping, and pillaging of tourists seemed to roll off the backs of our neighbors to the north. Canadians were everywhere (the black socks with gym shoes are a dead giveaway, eh?). Hey, no insult intended; some of my best friends are Canadian. Well, two. I don't think Canadians, as a nation, struggle excessively with hiccups.

Oh what I would do to see a machete wielding drug lord jumping out at me from behind my Starbucks couch, if only to stop the pesky little convulsive spasms in my chest. The scariest thing I ever encounter these days is my own behavior. I can be erratic, irrational, filled with resentment. I can mount a full out attack one moment and melt into a puddle of self pity the next. I enjoy fleeting moments of high self esteem and empowerment, but they give way all too frequently to panic and despair. My wild mood swings alone, you would think, should be sufficient to scare the bejeezus (and the hiccups) out of me, but, as I sit here, they are just getting worse.

I had coffee with an old friend yesterday, and she confessed to having bought four new pairs of shoes this past week. It scares her that the momentary purchases seemed so important, as if they would somehow help her feel happy. She soon discovered it wasn't going to do the trick. "My whole life needs to slip into a pair of sapphire colored shoes," she said. Now that's scary. A tall order, to say the least.

I am determined to continue to be fearless. To not even worry to much about my own somewhat scary moods. Life is filled with hiccups Eventually, they just disappear on their own.