De-Feetist Attitudes

Don't tell anybody, but I have really ugly feet. (There's a reason you've never seen Mrs. Potato Head without her shoes on.) Luckily, I believe in function over form, and my wide, oddly shaped, calloused lower paws are perfect for yoga and squatting in rice paddies to birth big babies (should I ever decide to go to Asia to give birth to what would be my own grandchildren).

But even my hideous feet become things of beauty after a pedicure. There are few views I enjoy more than the one I see when I gaze downward at my newly polished toes -- the pinker the better. Add on the bonus of approximately twenty-four hours during which the scales on my heels disappear and carpet fibers don't cling to my feet as if they're made of Velcro, and I am literally walking on air.

In the months before my father died, I would occasionally rub his feet when I visited. His body was being ravaged by cancer, but his feet remained as soft as, well, a baby's behind, as if he had somehow spent his life being carried everywhere. He did spend a lot of time riding in his Caddy, but he was hardly a pampered prince. He worked hard all his life, up until the day he could no longer hold his head up to do business on the phone. But oh those feet. Like butter. I was rubbing them the day before he died, as his body was shutting down. They say we die from the extremities in, but, as close as he was to the end, he felt the foot massage, and he didn't want me to stop. I wish I hadn't.

Today, my daughters and I will be getting our pre-vacation pedicures, and our toenails will be painted in various shades of pink. My feet will never look as pretty as theirs, but then again neither will the rest of me, and I can deal with that. My feet will still be wide, misshapen, and, by the time we hit the beach, calloused, but I will nevertheless be quite content when I gaze down to look at my shiny pink toes.

I won't want my children to rub my feet when I am dying; I don't want them to have bloody abrasions on their hands at my funeral -- so tacky. But I might request a final pedicure, so as I take my final breaths, I can at least enjoy the view.

The After Party

As I staggered into the kitchen this morning at five, I couldn't for the life of me remember the party I must have thrown the night before. Dirty wine glasses everywhere, three empty bottles, and half eaten bags of every kind of potato chip known to man strewn everywhere. It had the markings of a fun evening (I love salt and vinegar chips); I wished I could summon a memory or two.

Then I noticed my daughter's coat "hung up" across the kitchen table, and, well, mystery solved. There are lots of parties to which I am not invited, but you know you're pathetic when you're excluded from one in your very own house. Okay, I'm exaggerating. I wasn't excluded by anyone other than myself. I chose to hide in my bedroom, texting and chatting with my adult friends on my cell so I could take comfort in knowing that they, too, seemed to be observing rather than participating in life these days.

For a while I sat in the kitchen with the twenty-somethings, hugging the old familiars as they arrived, engaging in fond reminiscences. I was mesmerized by their chatter, and couldn't help trying to figure out when I blinked and missed this transition from childhood to adulthood. Facing the real world after four years of college can be scary, but they all seemed so self assured, their individual anxieties obliterated by the swaddling comfort of old high school friends. They invited me (more than half-jokingly, I assume) to join them for a drink at the local watering hole. That's when I took off in a panic for bed.

This morning, I slipped effortlessly into my role as one-woman cleaning crew. I took my daughter's coat, along with those of her two siblings, from their spots on the table and over the backs of chairs and hung them up in the closet, where the kids will never think to look for them. Always a source of amusement for me -- listening to them run around frantically searching for the jackets they had so carefully stowed wherever they happened to land.

I washed the wine glasses and put the empty bottles in the recycling bin, ran the dishwasher, and enlisted the help of the dogs in cleaning all the crumbs up on the floor. In a few weeks, I will be waking yet again to an uncluttered kitchen that looks just the way I left it before I went to bed. And frankly, I'll be a little sad.

Three Shopping Days Left, Apparently

I have to say I was a bit wary the other day when my son returned home from a visit with his dad holding a Christmas present (I could tell by the Santa wrapping paper) which was allegedly for me from the kids. Particularly since my son admitted to having had nothing to do with the purchase or wrapping of the unexpected gift, I don't think I was being completely irrational when I held the suspiciously cheery package up to my ear to listen for ticking.

I didn't hear anything, but I wouldn't expect my soon to be ex to stoop so low as to use something as unsophisticated as an audible bomb. The dogs sniffed the package with a complete lack of interest, but all that tells me is that it contains neither food nor dirty underwear. I suppose I'll open it, eventually. As soon as the kids are safely on their way to a non-incendiary Christmas with their father's family.

Before they leave, though, I just have to assume -- so I don't look bad -- that the present is for real, which means I have not been given the dispensation for a complete Jewish Christmas as I had thought. Sure, I'm not invited for the festivities, but my gifts are apparently still welcome. At the very least I have to get my kids something. I had been operating under the mistaken impression that our parenting agreement gave me custody of the Jewish parts only. These things are so confusing.

So off I went to the mall yesterday, which was far less crazed than the malls I've frequented for last minute Christmas shopping in my in-laws' gentile version of deep dark suburbia. I was efficient, and I picked up the essentials pretty quickly, but the little excursion made me realize how much I'll miss the Christmas traditions that became such a part of my life by virtue of marriage. I'll miss the frantic Christmas eve trips to the mall, during which we would grab everything in sight just to make sure nobody was being gypped. I'll miss the sickeningly sweet homemade Christmas cookies. I'll miss the smell of bacon frying on Christmas morning, and the ridiculous tearing open of gifts that nobody really needs or wants, and that sit in piles on my mother-in-law's couch until it's time to schlep them home. I'll even miss the sporadic trips to Midnight Mass with my in-laws, where the beauty of the hymns far outweighs the nauseating stench of incense.

This year, while my children are off in Michigan suffering from sugar and fat overload and overindulgent consumerism, I will be having a civilized dinner with friends in a restaurant and seeing a critically acclaimed movie. I wonder, if given the choice, WWJD?

Sibling Arrivals

A disturbance in the force (or two) doesn't always connote a bad thing. As I retrieved each of my two older children from the airport this weekend, the dynamic of my life shifted a bit. I feel just a bit off balance, but I wouldn't change a thing.

When my oldest daughter was only six months old, I discovered I was pregnant with her brother. (That thing about not being able to get pregnant while you're nursing, not so true, particularly when you cheat a lot with bottles.) I recall confiding in my mother-in-law as I approached full term that I didn't think I was capable of loving another child. Motherhood was still relatively new to me, and I still marveled at how much love I could feel for one little person; I couldn't imagine there was anything left. My mother-in-law assured me I would find it.

And I did, the minute I laid eyes on my almost ten-pound son who wouldn't be able to fit one toe into the adorable newborn non-pink onesies I had purchased in anticipation of his arrival (or, as I had thought, his intrusion). My heart pried itself open effortlessly to make ample room for this large, gentle baby with the cauliflower ears and the pensive green eyes, and within days I couldn't remember what life was like without him.

My two eldest grew up together, played together, rarely fought; they were so close, it was difficult to imagine one without the other. They banded together when number three came along years later. I would refer to them as "my kids," and my youngest as the baby. Two distinct litters, each one a unit of sorts.

Over the last few years, I have grown accustomed to having the two older ones gone and spending all my time with "the baby." Her siblings may have been more aware of the small tremors that led to the eventual upheaval of my marriage, but she is the one living with me in the aftermath, picking through the rubble alongside me, reminders of what was then and what isn't now surrounding us.

It was unsettling yesterday, for me anyway, when "the baby" went off to spend the evening with her dad and the other two stayed with me. It was the configuration I had enjoyed for six full years, back in the day, but one that is so distant in my memory I kept thinking I forgot something. "My kids" found it strange that I found it so strange. No imagination, those two.

Out at dinner, though my daughter joined me in a perfectly legal glass of wine and my son became our designated driver home, I could still conjure up images of the two big-cheeked toddlers playing for hours on end, creating imaginary worlds with their plastic Lion King and Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast figures. (They don't know this, but I've never been able to give those toys away.) They still have the easy rapport they shared when they were so young, still seem to have a telepathic understanding of each other, and, now more than they needed to back then, seem to derive strength and support from each other in dealing with their mom, who sometimes just doesn't appear to know what she's doing.

They each had old friends visit after dinner, and it was nice to hear the house filled with all of their noise. My dogs sat protectively with me as I read in bed, leaping off to greet each guest at the door but returning immediately to their posts by my side.

There was definitely a disturbance in the force, for better or for worse. Leo spent most of the night throwing up, which leads me to believe he managed to get his snout into somebody's wine glass. Manny went to check on him every once in a while, because, well, that's what siblings do.

Decemberfest?

My annual winter cold -- which lasts from December through April -- has been dogging me for weeks, which has been great news for Manny the obese puggle. Forget the cinnamon chocolate coffee cake he and Leo devoured the other day before my daughter could get her hands on the surprise treat I had purchased for her (the Cannolli Kings strike again!); Manny's favorite delicacy -- second only to freshly worn underpants -- is a dirty tissue. Sure, he'll pluck a few clean ones from the box out of boredom, but being around me when I have a cold is, for him, like having constant access to a freshly baked rack of jelly donuts.

At least Manny has found a reason to see the glass half full in winter; I'm still searching for a bright side with any sort of significance or staying power. Particularly here in the Jewish neck of deep dark upper middle class suburbia, December is cold and cruel. Compounded by the absence of heart warming Christmas light displays and the mass exodus to Cabo that occurs the minute the final school bell rings before break, the frigid air outside assaults you and follows you inside; there's no place to hide. It was small consolation yesterday that I was able to get a good parking spot at Panera so I could run in for soup and a chocolate croissant. I need lights; I need communal body heat.

I watched a commercial on television yesterday (well, I watched about 17,000 commercials yesterday from the crater I'm creating on the couch), but this particular one made me realize how warm the Christmas season can be if you do it the Gentile way. Jingle Bells was playing in the background, fat snowflakes were wafting down onto streets already blanketed with fluffy white drifts, and lights twinkled on the houses as an old fashioned looking trolley meandered slowly through the wintry night. I think I'd be able to find enough warmth in that scene to forego my upcoming trip to Mexico. Okay, maybe that's pushing it, but the whole contrived tableau did have its appeal.

Alas, back to reality; here I am in Jewish deep dark suburbia, where it's easy to get a restaurant reservation or get tickets to a movie but the cold cuts through you like the opposite of a hot knife through butter. Manny has been feasting on so many discarded tissues I fear his butt is about to become a Kleenex dispenser, and my spreading ass has burrowed itself so deeply into the couch I can barely see the television screen over my elevated legs.

As a Jew and, in some ways, a chick, I am genetically incapable of stringing lights around the house to try to warm things up. The best I can do is flip the switch on my whimsical little pink tree, stuff myself with soup, croissants, and lots of chocolate, and snuggle up to fat Manny, who at least has the benefit of doubling as a space heater.

I'm not wasting any time dreaming of sugar plum fairies; just guacamole and margaritas on the beach.

Bounce

Growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn, we played outside until our mothers called us from our apartment house balconies for dinner, making do with what little equipment we had. No fancy basketball hoops or hockey goals or makeshift baseball fields were set up on the rutted, grassless sidewalk; usually, all we had was a few of those pink bouncing balls.

It's not like we didn't have choices; there were two brands. One, Spaldeen, the other, Pensie Pinkie. Each of us had our preferences, even though, when push came to shove, we would play with either one. The Spaldeens were the lower end variety -- compact, faded pink in color, and slightly rough on the surface. The Pinkies were a bit more expensive and more pleasing to the eye and to the touch, with a dark and smooth pink surface. They were plumper than Spaldeens, and had a much more impressive bounce.

Either one sufficed for a pick up game of stoop ball or asses up or, the favorite on our block, running bases. We would all converge in the afternoon, until the weather became too impossible, kids of all ages and both genders, oblivious to the concept of organized play dates or fenced in yards. We played precariously close to the traffic, occasionally watching in horror as a stray ball or a reckless kid flew into the speeding trajectory of a car. (There were flattened balls and several broken bones, but amazingly, no deaths.)

All that was required for running bases was two older boys capable of throwing a pink ball back and forth and catching it fairly consistently, an unspecified number of bored children, and a narrow sidewalk with blocks of concrete that would provide a center line and a base on each end. The object was to run between the bases without getting tagged by one of the catchers. It entertained us for hours. One day, one of the older boys (probably trying to impress one of the girls) took a stick ball bat (i.e. a broomstick with tape for a grip) and bounced the day's Spaldeen clear across the far base line, right into the grip of a deceptively pathetic looking tree.

The little pink ball ended up caught between two little branches poking up like fingers at the top of the young sapling that had been planted into the concrete. It seemed impossible that the ball would get caught like that, held by the two flimsy looking twigs as if the tree were about to pitch a knuckle ball. We were fairly certain a few good shakes would help us retrieve the ball. A plump Pinkie would never have gotten caught that way; it would have snapped the tree in half.

No amount of shaking would help. Even Kenny, the neighborhood bruiser who had smacked the ball up there in the first place, couldn't undo the force of his bounce. Seasons came and went, the years passed, and that damn ball remained caught in that damn tree, forever out of reach. The tree's strong fingers held on, even through long winters, the pink ball the only splash of color in an otherwise black, white, and gray landscape. At some point, years later, I noticed it was gone, bounced into complete oblivion, like a bit of email spam.

Jill, Jill, Let Down Your Long...?

Years ago, when my youngest daughter was no older than five, she accompanied me on a bathing suit shopping expedition. This was before I discovered the somewhat (though only slightly) less degrading phenomenon of online swimwear ordering, which at least allows you to check out your hideous bulges in the privacy of your own bedroom.

It was also before I had lost all sense of dignity and still wore one piece suits that could be somewhat forgiving to the post-three-babies potato head physique, before the fact that I have to pee every ten minutes took precedence over self-consciousness. It was either that or an extra suitcase for my Depends. My daughter glanced at me that day in the dressing room, mesmerized as I bent forward to step into the little Lycra straight jacket. She gasped. I looked up, startled, still gripping the steel reinforced straps of the miracle suit, thinking maybe she had stepped on a stray pin. It was far worse. "Mommy," she said. "Your boobs are even longer than daddy's!"

Well, about ten years worth of gravity has taken hold since that fateful day, and if my boobs were sweeping the dressing room floor then, I would imagine they'd be quite useful if I ever need a Rapunzel-style rescue from a tower. Don't knock it; I give the guy a beer after his long climb and I very well might have my prince.

Frankly, I'm all out of ideas. One of the dating sites has been teasing me with an e-magazine that will help me to learn the "secret psychology" of what makes a man fall in love and keeps him hooked for the long term." Apparently, most of us women have been taught -- erroneously -- that great conversation and sharing similar interests will do the trick. All well and good, the teaser tells me, but not for sparking a true "heart connection." Hmm. Is that where a gimmick like long breasts comes in?

I read on, searching desperately for the secret to unlocking a man's feelings of lifelong devotion. Ahh -- finally, a clue. "The real key lies in knowing how to express your feelings in a way that will make him feel safe and deeply connected to you." I must also be my most "vulnerable, authentic, and feminine self." There were no specific examples offered, so I have no way of knowing whether my usual opening line ("Why the fuck aren't my butt warmers on yet?) is a good start. But I'm thinking I'm right on the money. What's more vulnerable than a gal who needs to be warmed up. Feminine? I'm downright girly. I don't exactly barrel into the car saying "my fat hairy ass is cold." And authentic? It's not like I say it with some highfalutin fancy shmancy accent!

So many unanswered questions. I might just have to sign on for the magazine. I'm particularly intrigued by the promise that it will teach me how to get his attention fast and have him chasing me and thinking about me day and night. If hanging my breasts out a window doesn't get a guy's attention, he's got bigger issues? As for chasing me and thinking about me day and night, who needs that shit. I just want to know that he'll take out the garbage.