Another One Bites The Dust

I recently learned that yet another of my friends got divorced after nearly 14 years of marriage. This makes the success rate of my best friends' marriages about 50% - I guess this makes our group average. Some of them got divorced within a few years of marrying their college sweethearts; others lasted for a few years and are now toppling during the mythic 7-year itch window. I had one of my friends who just got re-married refer to her "starter marriage" with the same kind of fuzzy nostalgia some reserve for a beloved childhood pet.

Divorce is no big deal nowadays, right? Some fun facts:

- 41% of all first marriages bite dust after a median length of 8 years. 60% of second marriages end after about 7 years. Don't even bother with a third unless you have a good lawyer - 75% of those are destined to fail. (To quote Kanye in 'Golddigger' - "We want pre-nup! We want pre-nup!")

- Connecticut has the second lowest divorce rate of all U.S. states - 2.8% end in divorce in any given year. Must be our puritan heritage. Or the fact that people in Fairfield County don't want to dilute their assets through divorce - extramarital affairs are much cheaper. Unless you get caught.

- Sweden has the highest average divorce rate (over 50%); India, the lowest (1%). Is that because Sweden seems to have a high concentration of young, blonde, gorgeous, nubile, home-wrecking au pairs?

- The marriage of Scott Mckie and Victoria Anderson may not officially be the shortest on record (90 minutes), but the circumstances of their demise (click here to read about them) is certainly one of the most entertaining.

I'm not trying to be high and mighty or melodramatic, but as an only child from a 'broken home' herself - divorce sucks. I think people are trying to make some lemonade out of the lemons - throwing Divorce Parties, buying whimsical favors for post-divorce cleansing rituals (check out Penis Pinatas from the Divorce Party Supply Website) But that doesn't change the fact that it's a sad, lonely, emotionally damaging, and expensive time of people's lives. I am determined to NEVER put my own kids through that unless it is the absolute point of last resort. You will pry my husband from my cold, dead hands. (Or, you will pry his cold, dead hands from me. Yes Will, this means you.)

To my friends who got, are getting, or will eventually get divorced, I'm sorry you have to go through that. Especially those of you with kids - I salute you and am in awe of how you keep it all together as single moms or dads. I hope for each of you that someday you do find love again and buck the odds to make it last.

Or, at the very least, that you find your bliss in a lifestyle similar to my friend Karl the Perpetual Bachelor - lounging by the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas on Rehab Sunday, buying drinks for random, large-breasted local skanks. Rock on, Karl!

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One Thousand Miles

I started running in the summer of 2001 after my daughter was born. I took a break to balloon up and birth my second child in the spring of 2003. As soon as my son could safely be strapped in, I'd stuff the kids into my trusty double jogger and take 'em along. Some days it was the only place the kids would sleep.

I've never been really sure how far or how fast I've run, aside from a few scattered 5 & 10K races (best time: 46:10 for a 10K) - until I got the Nike+ kit about a year ago. Since then, I've tracked my runs by time, mileage, calories...and enjoyed the rah-rah encouragement of Lance Armstrong and Paula Radcliffe when I'd achieve a personal best time or distance. And now, I've passed a major mileage milestone. (Nice piece of alliteration, huh?)


One thousand miles; 126 runs. Average pace: 8:30 per mile, which translates to 8,513 minutes or the equivalent of nearly 6 full days. During those miles, I've wandered, worried, suffered, dreamed, schemed, observed the world around me, and incurred sunburns and chafing in unpleasantly unmentionable places. I've done about a third of those miles on the indoor track at the JCC, so I've run the equivalent of nearly 6,000 laps around that tiny track. No wonder I spend so much time staring at the pickup basketball games.

Since the milestone came on Academy Awards Sunday, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of those people, places and things that have empowered my running:

1) My husband Will, who watches the kids so I can hit the road (weather depending) and for whom I am trying to stay fit and remain (become?) a MILF into our golden years.

2) My job - for being stressful enough to force me to engage in regular strenuous physical activity to burn off frustration (the alternatives being alcoholism, Scientology, kicking dogs, or tearing up hotel rooms.

3) My kids - of course, they are the little loves of my lives. But like all kids, they can be such a pain in the ass at times. I am determined to stay healthy in order to live long enough to be a pain in THEIR ass someday.

4) My father in law, Jim - you've inspired the belief that bad knees be damned, I have still many miles in front of me.

5) My ass...I'm no Heidi Klum but after two pregnancies, I'm not displeased with its current shape, size, and elevation.

Running has become a part of my life, my identity, and my blood in a way that I never could have imagined. It's taught me to be proud of what my body is and what it can do, instead of worried about what it looks like and what other people think of it.

Maybe someday my kids will be running next to me. That would be welcome. But alone or with company, I hope I'll always have my runs...the sun on my back, the crisp air in my lungs. The knowledge that the faster I run, the cooler the breeze.

Thanks again, everyone.

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The Dunkin Dilemma

History is filled with legendary feuds. The Montagues v. the Capulets. Pepsi v. Coke. Death Row v. Bad Boy records. Paper or plastic. "Tastes great" v. "less filling".

But no rivalry has created more personal angst than the battle of the High Ridge v. Hope Street Dunkin Donutses.

Both are roughly the same distance from my home...and both are purveyors of the 24oz coffees without which I would not be able to function as a human being. But the choice of which location I should go to get myself caffeinated is not a simple one. Which of these two double D's reign supreme? Let's examine the relative merits of Hope Street (HS) vs. High Ridge (HR):

Parking
HS shares the lot parking with CVS and the liquor store; although there are usually spots available, lots of large service trucks tend to pull up right in front of the door and wait there, making general lot navigation treacherous. HR has got the few spots along the main street, plus that cramped lower lot behind Coco Nails. The larger, secondary back lot does provide overflow parking with a major drawback: a walk down a steep-ish hill, or a stroll past the Dumpsters and down thestairs which has the effect of serving you a side dish of Eau de Rotton Garbage - especially in the summer. ADVANTAGE = Hope Street

Food & Drink
HS is usually quicker to offer the menu items (like the flatbread sandwiches). Their bagels, however, are usually overcooked or stale. On the other hand, HR's limited shelf space means that they often run out of critical Munchkin and Donut flavors. This is a HUGE problem, as Munchkins are often deployed in my morning routine and if they have been promised to my kids and are not available, all hell will break loose. I have been caught in this situation a few times and I never want to feel the white hot wrath of a 4 year old denied his powdered sugar orbs again. ADVANTAGE = Hope Street

Hours:
HR opens at 5am. HS is open 24/7, although they pretty much run out of everything after 8pm and the coffee is no longer very fresh. ADVANTAGE = Draw

Line Times
HR's two entrances creates a lot of line tension as the front door entrants jockey for position withthe back door entrants; the tiny counter that creates a jumble of people shouting orders, attempting to retrieve their order, or trying to pay.

HS has a more organized queue with a single entrance, however, they recently removed the back register, disabling the second pay point. So after you get through the line and order your stuff, you have to backtrack to wait for the rest of your order to be brought out. It's inefficient, annoying, and counterintuitive (and yes, lame pun intended). ADVANTAGE = Draw

SERVICE
In general, the level of service (and general friendliness) is higher at the HR location, where you have the nice Russian ladies and the guys with their hats cocked high who will greet you with a cheery "Hey Boss".

HS is a crapshoot and overall the staff (particularly the men) seem much surlier and less attentive. I have ordered the same thing from them at least 3 days a week for about six years, and yet one of the guys (who shall remain unnamed) STILL messes up my order. I have literally said, "Lowfat Blueberry Muffin" and watched him turn around and pull a salt bagel off the shelf. He has the memory capacity of a goldfish.

But each location has their star player. At HS it's Letty. Letty of the pleasant yet no-nonsense demeanor. She'll quickly size up the line flow to judge who the next customer is that she'll serve - and she'll rock their order WHILE they're walking up to the counter. She's so good, I've seen people wave other people ahead so that they can have her get their stuff. And for some reason, her coffee tastes better than anyone elses... even though I get it made the same way wherever I go.

Playing the Notorious BIG to Letty's Tupac is Gloria. Gloria doesn't smile, much. But she moves from coffeemaking to pastry-getting to cashiering with the speed, delicacy, and grace of an Olympic caliber figure skater. When Gloria's got your back, you will have coffee in hand and be out the door in under 1 minute.

This is the toughest one to call. But I would have to give the edge to Letty. I would go there every day just for the chance that my turn in line would magically match when she was serving the next customer. (I'm not brave enough to do the wave-ahead yet) She's a rock star. ADVANTAGE = Hope Street

Because of my awe of Letty, I'm going to have to call it in favor of Hope Street.

Which Dunkin Donuts do YOU prefer? Or are there other Stamford Dunkins out there, with their own Lettys and Glorias,just waiting to be celebrated? (Don't try to sell me on the merits of the Exit 34 Long Ridge location. I have seen the parking...and it is ugly.

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To Freeze An Egg

A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak on a marketing innovation panel at the Harvard Business School's annual "Dynamic Women In Business" conference. (I was invited after most of the other more interesting and important women in my company had to decline.) Nonetheless, the prospect of a free trip to Boston was too good to pass up.

So I prepared my remarks and Q&A, booked my hotel, and piled the family in the minivan. (The kids love to travel- something about movies on Pay-Per-View and hotel room service mac-and-cheese makes them really, really happy).

The conference was great. Kick ass women speakers who delivered just the right mix of business savvy and personal anecdotes with wit and warmth. My panel went well - we got lots of questions from the audience, and the panel moderator invited me to speak again next year. On the family front, the kids and my husband spent the day at the New England aquarium and children's museum. So all good, right?

So what happened that is causing this rant? Well, nothing MAJOR. But I was given a gift bag after my panel. It contained various "women's interest" items such as a Tiffany silver pen (nice!) a new women's business magazine called Pink (good) some smelly hand lotion (meh) and a small mesh bag with an egg shaped piece of soap from "Extend Fertility" with a flyer inviting me to freeze my eggs for future reproductive usage (huh?)

I appreciate that this company thinks they've got the right target market...but how fracking PRESUMPTIOUS and in a way, condescending can you get? I'm also highly irritated that the conference organizers would allow those in there - it sends a work/life message completely opposite of what many of the speakers were trying to illustrate. Is it STILL expected that a 'dynamic woman in business' has to sacrifice a meaningful relationship or having children (or both) in order to get ahead?

I bet the gift bag at the "Macho Men Hedge Fund Managers Convention" has stuff like a Maxim, golf balls, some Cialis, Slim Jims, and a GPS watch or something like that. I guess in a world where Tony Randall can father kids at the ripe age of one hundred and twelve or however old he was, there's not much money to be made by guilting male CEOs into freezing their little swimmers.

By the way, Harvard Conference Organizers, if you happen to be reading this, I really want to be invited back next year. So I am TOTALLY JOKING. You know that, right?

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Activities I hope my kids don't want to participate in

As a mom I want my kids to be well rounded, and I try to be supportive of their interests. But there things that I just cross my fingers and hope that they don't want to do, just because I don't want to deal with the personal consequences of the activity.

For example: I hope my kids never want do hockey or figure skating - because I don't want to get up at the crack of dawn to take them to the ice rinks. And there are some sports (like football) that I just find brutal and boring and I don't relish the thought of having to spend my scarce free time sitting through the practices and games.

So in the spirit of complete selfishness, here's a list of activities that I am hoping mightily that my kids will not become interested in:




Cosmetology
Girl/Boy Scouts
Civil War re-enactments
Tuba lessons
Synchronized swimming
Wrestling
Flag corps/Baton twirling
Irish dancing
Anything related to Star Trek
Boggle tournaments
Young Republicans club
Curling

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The Unsung Glory of Middle Age Sports

I'm a serious runner. Been doing it since The Girl was born, took break when the boy came along, and since then, I've been running about 30 miles a week. But I'm also a complete weather wuss who won't run outside when the temperature drops below 40 and yet hates running on a treadmill. This leaves the track above the gymnasium at my local JCC as my only option. Only issue is that the track is 1/18th of mile. I run 8-10 miles per run... you do the math. It's about as close as I've ever come to understanding what a hamster must feel like.

So the other day my iPod had a bad shuffle (I think it got recently dumped, it was all quasi-alternative emo The OC kind of soundtracky stuff, big fat downer), but luckily, there was a pick-up game basketball game of middle-aged men in the lower gym. Now, even better would have been a pick up game of hot young male off-duty strippers, but you take what you get.

So I'm watching the guys, and finally a decent song kicks in. (I define a decent running song as anything with a driving hip-hop or techno beat, with lyrics that generally contain boasting and copious swearing). Thanks to my trusty Nike+ sensor, and the music, I blast out my next mile in 7:44, and am feeling pretty good about myself.

At that moment one of the guys (we'll call him Sheldon) catches my eye. I'm not sure if it was the t-shirt (Red Bull logo, completely soaked with sweat) his head (baldly glistening in the harsh gym lights) or his hair (that was primarily located on his back and bristling out from under the aforementioned t-shirt) that did it. But I'm watching him, and some other guy passes him the ball. The guy guarding him hustles up and gets all up in Sheldon's grill, and Shel kind of stumbles, fades away, and tosses the ball in a hope-for-the-heavens hook over his shoulder. And wouldn't you know? SWISH.

I think he got an ass-pat or two from his buddies for his prowess. But what really struck me was the momentary look of pure joy on his face. For that one shot, Sheldon wasn't thinking about the mis-labeled transactions he had to organize on his spreadsheet back at the office. He was thinking, 'Damn...I'm Michael Jordan.' And at the same time, I was thinking, 'maybe I'm not too old to run the marathon.'

So...not to get too "real men of genius" on you all, but to Sheldon: Master of the Misintentioned Basket: I salute you.

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Girl Scout Cookies...or Satan's Biscuits?

It's that time of the year again....the time that the Scouts of America website claims, "The activity of selling cookies is directly related to our purpose of helping all girls realize their full potential and become strong, confident, and resourceful citizens."

At every grocery store, school dropoff, gymnastics class, and kid soccer game, I have been accosted by hordes of pre-teens blinking hopefully at me as they shove stubby pencils and blurry order forms my way. By selling enough of these cholesterol bombs, they'll qualify to win prizes... er, I mean, build greater life skills. As most of these children are the spawn of my friends, I feel obligated to sign up.

Life skills don't come cheap. To be exact, they cost $4.00 per box. In this economic environment, I don't really need to be blowing $24 of my discretionary on cookies that I don't even like.
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On the health front, although I don't think I've ever personally ever eaten an actual cookie (they look like decorated Styrofoam), I usually bring them to the office and leave them out for all to plunder... thereby fostering the obesity epidemic, and contributing to our national health crisis.

And then there's the environmental impact of the discarded packaging clogging our nation's landfills...and the questionable ability of a Trefoil to actually decompose in a garbage bin, much less digest in a stomach.

It has implications in our post-feminist culture as well. I'm a working mother, raising a daughter that I hope will be strong, smart, and possibly take an interest in business as a career path someday. As such I take umbrage with the whole concept of cookies for cash. Isn't this a subversive attempt to convince women to stay in the kitchen where neoconservatives think they belong? Can't we encourage our daughters to find passion in entrepreneurship OUTSIDE of the domestic arts?

And finally, I find something vaguely racist about the "Samosas". Not sure where you all net out there.

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My Not-Really-Near-Death Near Death Experience

OK - so a Thursday supposed-to-be-day trip to Chicago took a left turn into an unplanned overnight stay, thanks to a foot-of-snow-dump blizzard that was the actualization of the "light snow showers" on Yahoo weather.

So after a gut-busting expense account meal,the purchase of overpriced sundries from the Hotel Sofitel gift shop, and a sweaty nap, I arose at 4:30 a.m. to get the six o'clock flight. I had some naive idea that I would get home by 9am with enough time to do a quick workout and grab a shower before heading to the office at lunchtime.

Two hours, one 24oz Dunkin Donuts coffee, three de-icings, and one People Magazine later, we actually took off, heavy snow be damned.

So not long after takeoff we heard the typical ding...but then it continued to ding...ding...ding...and ding... On the ground, continuous dinging is annoying, on a plane, unsettling. Nonetheless I was pretty absorbed in the latest issue of US Weekly. Being so focused on Britney's latest antics, I didn't really notice anything amiss until the following sequence of events:


1) The running lights on the cabin floor and the lights over the emergency exits lit up and started blinking, accompanied by alternating dings and piercing beeps.

2) The flight attendant came RUNNING down the aisle from the back of the plane with a worried look on her face and a screwdriver (the tool, not the morning beverage) in her hand.

3) An acrid smell filled the plane, as the back of the main cabin filled up with smoke.


Then the captain, displaying a remarkable talent for understatement, came on the loudspeaker and with a Lumbergian cadence said, "Ummm...yeah, hello folks, the activity with the alarm system you're seeing is a little, yeah...unusual. We're gonna go ahead and and make an unscheduled landing in Detroit. Please finish your TPS reports and put away your electronic devices."

Well, panic panic panic blah blah blah, we did land safely. They checked out the plane and said that de-icing fluid had gotten into the vents and was what caused all of the problems. After two hours of inspection and maintenance, they herded us back on the SAME plane...and 20 minutes into the next leg of the flight, the SAME damn things - the smoke, the dinging, the worried flight attendants, the panic panic panic blah blah blah - all happened again. The last straw was their refusal to come around with the beverage cart, meaning we had to endure the noise and nervousness without benefit of self-medicating cocktails.

On the bright side: since we had to make a second 'unscheduled landing' at LaGuardia (our final destination) they allowed us to land right away instead of going into the holding pattern that all the other planes were in. I left my hotel room at 4:30 am, and arrived at Laguardia 4:30 pm, several pounds lighter thanks to all of the nervous sweat that I excreted on the flights.

But my story has a heartwarming end - after a nastily worded email to the complaints department (they don't seem to give out phone numbers on the American website any more) - I was awarded 10,000 'bonus miles' (their term) for my 'inconvenience' (also theirs). That's like 1 mile for each beep and ding I had to listen to on the flights.

Now THAT's customer service.

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Musings from Sundance

So I went to the Sundance film festival for a work event thing (Tava launch). Did a little snowboarding at the Canyons, but did not actually attend any screenings as I did not possess the requisite clout or connections get a ticket to anything that any non-movie industry human would actually want to watch.

I was offered a ticket to the “Trash: Earth in Crisis” documentary (which, ironically, the organizers promoted by handing out flyers and plastic buttons on street corners). I chose to skip it – I hate vegetable movies (you know, the kind that you feel obligated to watch because they’re “good for you” and you’ll “learn something”. I went shopping instead. I bought this tan strappy trapeze-style shirt that seemed very cute and trendy and flattering when the salesperson in the ultra-exclusive boutique was egging me on. I have since come to realize that it makes me look about six months pregnant and utterly stupid to boot. I’m sure it will fetch top dollar at the Salvation Army shop, so all is not lost.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed peeping the celebs on the streets of Park City. My first sighting was MashleyKate Olsen (I think it was the Mary Kate version but I’m not entirely sure). I got all excited because I saw her in a café and I thought for a minute that I might actually see her eat something. It was kind of like the feeling an anthropologist must have when they find out a bird they thought was extinct was building a nest in their chimney. But my hopes were dashed when she ordered a soy latte, lit up a smoke, and tottered off through the snowbanks in her ridiculously exaggerated skyh-high thick black platforms, looking like some sort of deranged blonde European garden gnome.

I also saw Matthew Perry, Jack Black, Perez Hilton (the ugly blogger guy) Matthew Broderick, Danny Glover, Mischa Barton, John Stamos, and Ian Ziering (the elders among us will remember him from 90210, the youngsters (and those with poor taste in reaity shows) from one of the myriad versions of Dancing with the quote unquote stars. I was also just a few people away from getting into the Fifty Cent party when the Park City fire marshall shut the place down. I hope Fiddy was still able to enjoy his evening without me.

We had some cool concert stuff – we hosted a Sara Barielles (of one-hit ‘Love Song’ fame) show, and another concert with One Repulic (your typical emo/alternative/rocky sort of deal) and Keri Hilson (whose biggest claim to fame to date was writing ‘gimmie more’ for Britney). The shows were good, I liked Sara quite a bit but since we already have a Fiona Apple, a Tori Amos, an Alicia Keys, and about a hundred other indie-folky-piano playing songstresses running amok, I’m not sure about her longevity potential past this one hit song that she currently has.

Keri Hilson – wow. She just looked like a fierce Amazon. Just huge, aggressive breasts (that appeared to be real), and legs like bam stuffed into some sort of latex black catsuit getup. I can’t recall a note of what she actually sang because I was so busy being fascinated/repulsed by her appearance. The men in my group agreed she was hot in a scary kind of “find me attractive or I’ll f&%$ you up” kind of way. Again, the singing, don’t remember so much, so good luck with that, Keri Hilson!

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