Month: November 2015

When my children head back to their various schools and universities, after the Thanksgiving Holiday, I just need a few things to get my life back on track: a maid, a diet, and a budget.

Truth be told, I’m sure I’m exaggerating about the maid.  When they stuff all their piles of junk back into their cars, and I can actually see my counter tops and floors again, I will probably realize that I don’t really need a maid. I cleaned before they arrived, so technically, nothing got dirty; I just need to unload and reload the dishwasher a few hundred times, and do a few mountains of laundry, that I couldn’t do while I was busy doing theirs. I know you’re probably thinking I shouldn’t do their laundry, but when I did Gracie’s laundry the other day, I found tons of things that were mine. BONUS! I felt rich-It was like being paid, albeit with things I already own, like leggings, jeans, my favorite running socks. Still, it was oddly rewarding.

I guess it isn’t really my kids’ fault that I need a serious diet and a Personal Trainer after they visit. But, it kind’ve is. Adult children fall into a weirdly ambiguous category when they come home for the holidays. They’re your kids, but they’re also your guests. I feel compelled to entertain them when they are home, even more than I did when I was raising them. And, like everyone else, I tend to entertain best around food. Whether we prepare it at home or dine out, eating is our chief source of entertainment. I’m sure right about now you’re wanting to tell me how, in your family, you play board games and charades. We do that too, we just do it with baked goods, creamy martinis, Baileys poured into hot cocoa. Jimmy and I have found that we enjoy our adult children infinitely more when we share a cocktail with them.

When Gracie and I weren’t laying around eating, drinking, stalking pictures of her friends on Instagram or watching documentaries on Netflix, we were shopping. I was really motivated to have her help me buy toys for the two precious children we “adopted” for Christmas. I think it’s good to have one’s offspring participate in this activity. It builds character. The first day we went out, we never got within a mile of a toy (or character, for that matter) Before we knew it, it was getting dark, we were exhausted and it was time to go home and shake up some martinis. We did better the next day, Target was our first store and we managed to get every item checked off the list before we beat a hasty path to the boutiques. We squeezed in some regular Christmas shopping for our own family as well. Gracie likes to shop one-on-one with me, due to the “Shopping Principle of 1:1,” which simply states that, “Mom will buy one thing for us, for every one thing she buys for others!”

We managed to blow through all the money I had allocated for Christmas before the Thanksgiving turkey was even thawed.

I really think all I need is about 6-8 weeks to get my life back to normal. With minimal effort, I should be able to get caught up around the house, drop 5 lbs and restore positive fiscal relations with Jimmy and Citibank Visa.

The only glitch is that I don’t have that much time. My kids will be back in less than 3 weeks for Christmas. And Christmas vacation lasts way longer than Thanksgiving. In fact, sometimes Thanksgiving feels like a practice holiday, to remind me what it’s going to be like having everyone home for a month!

To keep my spirits bright, as she packs to leave this morning, Gracie is humming a Christmas Carol – And I am inserting my own lyrics:

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have dough,
so we can go
on a shopping spree…

Christmas Eve will find us
Sharing an alcoholic drink
I’ll be home for Christmas…

…Sooner than you think!

Marriage is hard work. We’ve all heard people say this and typically, every adult within earshot nods their heads in vigorous unified agreement. But, there must be at least a few compensatory upsides, otherwise the institution wouldn’t have thrived throughout modern civilization as such an enduring sociological trend. I think possibly one of the most sought-after benefits of marriage, is the sense of security we derive from sharing our lives with a partner that we know inside-and-out. Familiarity in an ever-changing, stressful world is obviously something that most of us seem to crave.

That’s why the flicker of marital discord we experienced on our trip to New York City last weekend was so particularly unsettling…

We were in a restaurant, surrounded by friends and family. There was a lot going on and my Self-Diagnosed Social ADD (acronym =SDSADD) was in full tilt. I was chatting up a blue streak and I’m sure I was in the middle of telling a riveting story to our dinner companions, when the waitress started taking our food order. When she got around to me, with nary a thought to how my actions might adversely affect others, I rattled off,

“I’ll have the Pasta Special!”

I vaguely remembered her earlier description of a couple of the Featured Entrees and I recalled that the ‘Ravioli Special’ sounded appetizing – Ravioli, filled with puréed sweet potato, covered in CREAM SAUCE, topped with chopped BACON and Caramelized pecans!

To fully understand what happened next, requires a morsel* of information about my husband: When dining out, Jimmy believes it his God-Given inalienable right as a Restauranteur/Foodie to sample everyone’s meal; he writes off his bad manners to “work-related R&D.” So, no matter what the occasion, if you are in a restaurant with Jimmy, YOU may simply be dining, but HE  is actually “working.” Several years ago, we were in a restaurant and a waiter delivered something unique and interesting to the table beside us. Ever the food stalker, Jimmy leaned over and asked our fellow diners about the dish, and before I could say,
“O-M-G!” they were urging him to sample their appetizer…
God’s Honest – True Story- eating off the plate of Complete and Total Strangers!!!

So, needless to say, the second our food hit the table, at this fairly swanky restaurant in NYC, Jimmy swoops in, with his Omni-present fork and snags the first bite off of my plate. All of a sudden, he gets a look of shock and bewilderment on his face and says,

“Are there sweet potatoes in that Ravioli?”

Somewhat affirming, I explained that they weren’t exactly Sweet Potatoes per se, but rather a sweet potato FILLING.

“But, we don’t like sweet potatoes, he reminded me, “we agreed 30 years ago that we Jointly hate sweet potatoes!”

I do recall that we have been in perfect accord for several decades regarding our mutual disdain for yams, and have sustained this pretty consistently through the years. (Now that I think about it, we never even fed our babies Gerber Sweet Potatoes from a jar.) I guess I just failed to recognize this was akin to a sacred covenantal agreement. They’ve come a really long way since our grandmothers’ sweet potatoes (ditto their beets and their Brussels sprouts.) Did I mention these were slathered in cream sauce, and topped with bacon and Carmelized pecans? Nonetheless, my logic did nothing to dissuade his sense of betrayal.

You could practically see the wheels turning in his head: It’s like you think you know someone after 35 years, and then “WHAM,” they go pull a stunt like that right under your very nose!! What’s next? Who even are you?

One of my closest friends had a similarly disturbing situation with her husband recently. They’ve known each other since their first date in college over 30 years ago, and have been more or less joined-at-the-hip ever since. The other day, a song came on the radio and he enthusiastically announced,

“I love Judas Priest!”

“No you don’t!” She responds.

“Yes I do -always have…”

“You do not. You’ve never had an album, an 8-track, a cassette or a CD of theirs! They aren’t even on your iPod,” she says settling the matter once and for all.

And yet, he persisted, maintaining that, regardless of any evidence to the contrary, he “Did, in fact, know his own musical tastes and does, in fact, love Judas Priest!”

She went on to tell me that they, “share a cloud” and if any Judas Priest music mysteriously shows up on their iTunes account in the next few days, she would be deleting it immediately. (We both agreed that must’ve been what Mick Jagger was referring to when he sang, “Hey You, get off of my cloud!” What a modern day prophet he turned out to be.)

When I asked her why she hated Judas Priest so much, she said she didn’t hate Judas Priest. She actually wasn’t familiar with their music at all, but was quite familiar with her own damn husband.

I can personally attest that my friend is a devout Catholic and probably does not hate Judas Priest or any other Priest. Rather, she, like Jimmy and the rest of humanity, counts on a modicum of stability and consistency from her primary relationships.

I totally get that. Makes perfect sense. I guess as we enter this week of Thankfulness, I am grateful that I never cheated on Jimmy, since he barely survived me committing Spudultery**

* Puns in this blog are always intentional.
**Spudultery – A married people’s version of the game ‘Hot Potato!’

It goes without saying – it was imperative that I go on several preliminary shopping trips in THE METRO last week, to procure a few smart outfits to wear on my actual shopping trip to New York City. I wasn’t going to just show up at the Fashion-Mecca-Of-The-Free-World representing Fly-Over Country, looking frumpy…

One afternoon, laden down with purchases, I beat the hastiest path available through the mall, to my car, which necessitated cutting straight through the Ladies Lingerie Department in a well known department store. Due to my finely honed shopping-intellect, it did not escape my attention that they were indeed selling lingerie to ladies there.

Now, I’m no stranger to lingerie. In fact, I used to own some in the 80s. I actually may still own some. I haven’t really dug that deep into the back of my pajama drawer lately to take inventory. Suddenly, I had something of a MARITAL EPIPHANY – What if I bought some lingerie to take along on our romantic weekend getaway?

That seemed like a really grand gesture on my part, and an idea my hubby was sure to be keen on.

The last time I shopped for lingerie, I was at a well-known “lingerie-specific” store in the mall. I confess that I get extremely overwhelmed and disoriented in that place. I’ve never been particularly brilliant at math, but I do think I’ve figured out their big “SECRET.”  It’s quite simple really: if marketed correctly, they can sell a bra for about 20 times it’s Fair Market Value to gullible women and also to EVERY MAN ALIVE.

I hate to always make it about money, but I’m still pretty uplifted by a bra I bought 10 years ago at Target that cost me $14.99. That’s approximately .75 cents per boob, per year.

I paused just long enough to encounter, Veronica, a Sales Associate. She asked if she could be of assistance. I mentioned that I was going on a trip over the weekend with my husband and might be interested in purchasing something “a tiny bit sexy.” She must’ve thought I said, “something tiny, and a bit sexy…”

 

As she began to peddle her wares, I blushed,  “I’m a bunch of people’s Mother, Veronica.

I gazed wistfully over at the flannel selection: There sat the cutest pair of PJs I’ve ever seen in my life- a soothing turquoise blue background with creamy white sheep grazing on them. They were so adorable I almost cried.

“Those are not sexy Gurrrrl!,” Veronica crooned, waving them off dismissively.

“But I heard it gets chilly in Manhattan this time of year. I think I’m going to need something with more material,” I whined sheepishly.

“They have heaters in the hotel rooms,” she said. (Like she’s some kind of New York City Travel Expert.)

Reluctantly, I took my search back over to The Happy Hooker rack, and started looking at the selections and their accompanying price tags.

“Veronica, Gurrrl, if I’m going to spend $100 for 1/8th of an ounce of anything, it’s going to be something flashy that EVERYONE can see me wearing in public – like something from the Fine Jewelry Department. When it comes to nightwear, I like my dollars-to-fabric ratios to be more in line.”

Clearly getting weary of me she offered, “We have a 65% off rack in the storage room I can roll out, you’re welcome to browse through it…”

She escorted me to the back of the department, to a make-shift rack and left me to peruse to my heart’s content. I, in turn, released her to go assist full-priced customers.

As luck would have it, I found just what I was looking for back there. And, while it’s true that there’s not much fabric to it, (sigh) at 35% of Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail, I can afford for it to get lost in the back of the drawer behind the sheep pajamas.

…Of course I bought that pair too.   I am a Material Gurl, and I like to sleep in a Material world.