It's No San Francisco

Last night, the Fairfield County Blog & Grog Society (founding member: Always Home And Uncool) had our second meetup. It was like a miniature BlogHer, except with mosquitos, nachos, and men. The other difference? No swag. We couldn't even get free drinks from the bartender, who remained unmoved by the huge lies about the mighty weight of our combined blogpower.

We had people ranging from a twentyish hip-hop writer to a fortyesque government chemist to an internet philosopher to a guy with anger management issues. We had not just ONE, but TWO real authors, and Sarah brought an advance copy of her upcoming book for us all to stroke and oohh and aahh over.

Connecticut Mom's Family Financials (who is ridiculously cute in real life) drove TWO hours to come, while the split personalities of Fancy Pancakes and Stamford Talk were chauffeured by their husband, who got sick of all of the shop talk and took off, leaving them to take the train home with Station Stops. Luckily, Fairfield County Child lives just a short stumble away.

We missed The FTF (who gave some lame excuse about celebrating his anniversary) and This Is Not Going To Help, who appears to be trapped in a cave somewhere in the Ozarks.

We even had a reporter from the local paper covering the event, which was great until I came down with a slight case of the drunks and gave her a detailed list of all of the things I'm not supposed to blog about. Then I started trying to convince Beth (who is now my new favorite person because of our shared love of Zalman King erotica) that she should host a Vibrator Night at the spa that she owns until she very nicely pointed out that the LAST THING she needed to do was associate a legitimate spa with porn, since there are already enough perverts in this world trying to get massage therapists to give them a happy ending.

But aside from that, the event was a smash, and we have decided to make this a regular thing. On the third Thursday of every month, you can find all of us at Monster B's in Stamford, Connecticut. If you're ever in the area, please, come on by.

Maybe you can help us get that cheap bastard owner to FINALLY cough up some free drinks.

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Exploiting The Rich: Let The Music Play

Spring has finally gotten all sprungly.

I know this to be true because Manager Dad has officially flipped the Cool Weather/Warm Weather switch on his wardrobe, moving from the daily uniform of khaki pants and button-down dress shirts to khaki pants and short-sleeved polo shirts. It’s a whole new wardrobe management ballgame.

Aside from being a symbolic milestone, the switch has the practical effect of shifting five units per week from our local dry cleaner to our home-based Laundry Mountain. This adds up to approximately four extra loads over the course of the summer. While I don’t enjoy the additional labor, this does save about $50 a month on dry cleaning, leaving me all the more to indulge in my fondness for smokes, booze, and cheap hookers.

So while we were talking about saving money, I wanted to share another way I’ve found to entertain your family by taking advantage of the sweat labor of rich folk. (My first post, about the charms of Old Greenwich, can be enjoyed if you have a few extra moments in the bathroom by clicking here.)

The magical land of which I speak today is New Canaan, Connecticut (estimated median home value=$2,000,000). A town which is clearly not afraid to embrace the letter "a," New Canaan has a lively downtown business district filled with stores selling things we can’t afford to buy and restaurants we don’t want to remortgage our homes to eat in.

It’s also one of those metaphor towns that instantly evokes a social stereotype. You know what I mean: Detroit = "Disenfranchised Autoworkers." San Francisco = "Pot-smoking hippies." Long Island = "Joey Buttafuoco". For New Canaan, it’s “Self-Loathing Yuppies,” thanks to the only two major movies inspired by and filmed in the area: The Ice Storm and the Stepford Wives remake, starring Nicole “My Pants Are On Fire When I Claim Not To Have Had Cosmetic Procedures” Kidman. Because I’ve seen her in person, and I promise you, that woman has a Botox technician on speed dial.

But back to my point, which is that aside from an abundance of overindulged, plastic, self-pitying suburbanites (note to friends: not YOU, of course, Brooke, Lawrence, Mel, and Tom – I know you guys are still keepin’ it real), New Canaan also has Waveny Park. Waveny is a beautiful, spacious public area with a lovely old mansion. In the summer (starting on June 11th), they hold free concerts on Wednesday nights on the back porch of the house.

While they are technically for residents only, it is easy for unethical non-resident area freeloaders such as myself to horn in on the fun.

The acts are all has-beens (or more accurately, never-wases) and the music itself ranges from forgettable to puzzling. This year’s kickoff band, “The Bob Button Orchestra” bills itself as playing Big Band classics. I can’t confirm or deny this, but my main take-aways from last year’s show were this:

1) the average age of the band members is approximately 72

next) they like to dress like pirates, complete with puffy shirts and red satin sashes
and

c) despite their advanced age (or perhaps because of it) they like to swill Captain Morgans straight from the bottle between songs (possibly explaining the pirate getups).

It’s become a much-anticipated Wednesday summer family tradition for us. We get the kids, pick up a pizza, and relax with friends while enjoying the fresh air and the “music”. After dinner, the kids run around in the field, doing their best to contract Lyme disease by breaking the Guiness Book’s “Most Ticks Acquired Within a 1-Hour Span” world record.

The evening concludes with a visit to Waveny Mansion’s public toilets, (spotless, mind you, featuring abundant toilet paper, soap, AND hand lotion), where I pick off as many of the ticks that I can, bag them up to send to the state testing lab at $25 a pop, and stuff them into their pajamas so we can execute a swift bedtime once we get home.

The one downside of these concerts, aside from the fear of having our car towed, is an uncomfortably surreal feeling caused by looking around at your fellow concertgoers. They all look like they stepped directly out of a Tommy Hilfinger print ad. And the hordes of roving kids evokes a sort of reverse Children of the Corn, except instead of being filthy and creepily homicidal, they're all preternaturally well-mannered with blonde bowl haircuts and slight French accents, picked up from various summer au pairs.

But if you can suspend your class discomfort, come join us on any given Wednesday. We’ll be easy to spot: amidst a sea of natural-wood camp tables, fashionable umbrellas, carefully packed wicker picnic baskets, and Lilly Pulitzer cricket sweaters, you’ll find a tiny oasis anchored by an ancient, stained Mexican blanket, surrounded with a loud plastic cooler and cheap camp chairs with huge corporate logos (free from various work giveaways).

We’ll save you a slice of pizza, and I’ll even ask Bob to pour you a shot of Captain Morgan’s.

You can access the 2008 Waveny Park concert schedule by clicking here.

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Paging Fairfield County Bloggers!

The other day, I had my first "huh, never thought of that before" moment about having my blog. I was having breakfast with a friend and she was telling me a story when all of the sudden, she stopped suddenly and said, "Oh! PLEASE don't write about this in your blog!" I assured her that I would never betray her confidence, and even if I did, my blog has (how do I put this kindly without insulting myself?) specialized appeal.

So why bother blogging? Well, for someone who has to operate in the language of soul-sucking, mind-deadening business cliches the better part of each day, it's a nice change of pace and creative outlet. It's also a good way to keep family, potential identity thieves, and the random strangers that try to friend me on Facebook up to date about on what's going on in my head and my life.


And as a very cool and unexpected side benefit, I've had a few strangers read my stuff and leave comments and reactions, which has led me to uncover a rich vein of other interesting writers in the area. As their postings and occasional emails have lead me to believe, they're not only happening from a digital perspective but appear to have a high probability being fairly cool people in the real world.

So I thought, wouldn't it be super-duper swell to see how the other half lives, to meet some of these people and talk shop? After all, The Best Way To Have A Good Idea Is To Have Lots. And what better way to generate ideas than to gather in person in a location where they have half price cocktails?

So here's my idea: bloggers from the FC: Let's meet up sometime.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not inviting you over to my house - that's a little bit "To Catch A Predator" for my tastes. I was thinking somewhere glamorous, like the snack bar at the Norwalk Costco, or possibly the High Ridge Road Cosi if we were really feeling crazy.

The marketing person in me understands that to generate excitement for the event, we need a catchy name. Since I have limited capacity for further creative endeavors in my last remaining brain cell, I am appealing to Taken With A Grain Of Salt to apply her alliterative skills and come up with something. To be really intimidating, she might consider incorporating "2008" and/or the word "summit." I have found that in the corporate world, that's the best way to get people to attend your meetings, presuming you fail to get budget approval to serve food.

Next, the location. I had been thinking we could rent out Herbietown, but then I remembered that it's a figment of that guy's imagination. Therefore, my Plan B is to have the tuned-in Stamford Talk recommend a place in the area that might pass for what the kids call a "hotspot," preferably one where we have a high probabibility of seeing and being seen, and maybe even having someone email the Stamford Advocate to get us written up in the world's most boring gossip column.

If you don't want to bring your family, I'm sure that Fairfield County Child can give us some tips on where to find and exploit cheap child care labor.

For entertainment, we'll munch on Baby Food while Jeff Herz enlightens us on His View Of The World. and Indigo Sarah delivers random meta-stories about the Pope and The Canadian.

I'll partner with Amy Bow to lead a discussion on topics specific to working and/or extremely pregnant moms, ranging from MILFishness to maternity underwear.

And when the whole shindig is done, Mr. Stamford can post about how much the event sucked. That way, Kevin, who will no doubt blow off the event because he is Always Home And Uncool, can sleep easy knowing he didn't miss anything special.

There are plenty of other interesting people in the area, and if I left you off, don't take it personally. I just ran out of clever shoutout gimmicks. If I left you/your blog out, leave a comment with some big ups for yourself, so we can check you out.

And as for the event itself, it would be delightful for any and all that want to attend: fellow bloggers, occasional readers, player haters, prior stalkers. We will do our best to be inclusive and bore anyone who shows up.

So... I'll throw out a date. Friday the 13th. (In June). Happy Hour. Location TBD. Any takers?

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Getting Gas

Effing fuel prices.

So... where does one go to get gas in Stamford? Aside from the obvious places like Ole Mole and Kit's Thai Kitchen?.

I'm tired of spending $50 to fill up the minivan. It really chaps my ass, especially since I never wanted to be driving a minivan in the first place. I got hoodwinked into that particular purchase by Manager Dad. ("Don't worry...I'll drive this one, you can drive the other car! And just think of how convenient it will be for road trips and Costco!")

Somehow, the next thing I know, I'm driving it to the office every day, hating on NPR Media Commentator Paul Janesch because I can't bring myself to listen to hip-hop in a Honda Odyssey, on the grounds that it makes me seem like a complete poseur jackass.

So how does a middle-class mom minimize the family gas expenditures? Why, by driving all around town to find the gas station with the lowest price per gallon, of course.

There are three Mobils (two on High Ridge, one on Hope) within a two mile radius of our house that have three different (yet all ridiculously high) prices. The hell? How can the same gas chain in the same zip code be so far off?

There's a couple of Shells that are priced in the same stratosphere as the Mobils.

So I usually go to the Citgo on Hope. And yes, I am fully aware that Citgo is owned by a Venezuelan company and therefore supports dictator (and world-class head case) Hugo Chavez. But what can I say - homey gives cheap gas. I paid $3.45 per gallon of unleaded today while the Mobil right across the street had it for $3.57. Double huh? I think you know what you can do with your Speedpass, Mr. Exxon Mobil Corporation.

But the cheapest gas I've found has to be the 95 Express right on Route 1 near the Exit 9 entrance to rt. 95. This place routinely has gas for at least 10 cents cheaper than any other gas station I've encountered. Because of this, the station is more crowded than your average Amsterdamian discount brothel on payday.

Unfortunately, the station is terribly designed and laid out, with an extremely narrow ingress and only one tiny exit (from which you really should not try to cut across three lanes of the busy Route 1 to turn left, but everyone tries anyway). The traffic flow is frightening. You see a flock of jerks angling to get around other cars in an effort to either get to an empty pump or get out of the parking RIGHT THAT VERY SECOND so that they can get to Hooters or wherever they're in such a hurry to go on 6pm on a Thursday. I actually saw a guy in a Ford Expedition run over another man's foot in an effort to escape, rather than just waiting the two seconds before the car in front of him finished gassing up and pulled away.

So rather than endanger my own life (and the life of the much-despised minivan) I guess I'll stick with the Senor and Citgo of the Despots, unless anyone has any other suggestions.

And by the way, how can Stamford POSSIBLY sustain so many gas stations? (Not to mention strip mall pizza places, banks, and hair/nail salons, but that's a whole other post.)

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Easy, Cheap, & Fun - That’s How We Roll In the OG

I just sent away for our Stamford beach parking sticker, which is a huge psychological milestone – summer is on its way. Although I’m sure we’ll have at least one freak April snowstorm, and if history is any guide, it'll most likely the be weekend that I’m trying to have my kids’ birthday party in the back yard.

Now, don’t get me wrong- the Cove is a great park – the kids love riding the tram to the beach and checking out the turtles at Soundwaters. But unfortunately, like many things in Stamford, it doesn’t quite pass the white glove test. It’s just a hair seedy, whether it’s the condition of the facilities or some of the clientele it attracts.

Sometimes, I like to go to a place where you can feel pretty confident that you WON'T see a drunken, unemployed vagrant passed out on the sand with an angry sunburn and an empty bottle of gin clutched in a nicotine-stained hand. A place where a family of four can pretend to be stinking rich for a day, without actually having to spend a lot of money. A place where the outhouses are stocked with toilet paper and are infused with the sweet scent of Febreze.

That place, my friends, is Old Greenwich.

Just a mere 10 minutes from downtown Stamford, take Route 1 to Sound Beach Avenue and keep driving past Binney Park until you hit town. Turn right on West End Avenue and park behind the CVS.

Start by letting your kids run off their carsickness on the playground or athletic fields behind Old Greenwich School on Sound Beach Road. If the child happens to sustain a playground-related injury, bring them over to Greenwich Pediatrics, just across the parking lot. Tell Dr. Korval that Manager Mom says hi and we’ll no doubt have an infection of some new exotic parasite for him to diagnose soon.

Stroll by the fire department, and check out the super shiny fire trucks. Occasionally, the nice fireman will treat you to a “jaws of life” demonstration, tearing up an abandoned car. This is officially about the coolest thing a 4-year-old boy can witness in person outside of a monster truck rally.

By then, if you’re getting hungry, grab a cheap slice and a hot toasted Panini wrap sandwich at Sound Beach Pizza (formerly Arcuri’s). Or, carbo-load at the Upper Crust bagel company. Either way, finish off your meal with a stop at Darlene’s Heavenly Desires for an overwhelming array of candy and ice cream treats. This store is bursting with evilly enticing diet busters; you’ll gain 5 pounds just walking in the door.

Work off the sugar high by continuing your stroll along Sound Beach until you get to Binney Park. This is a beautiful, peaceful park which - beware – is dotted with tiny landmines of black, glooby goose poop. Shade yourselves in the pergola and watch dog owners and bridal parties wander by. This is especially entertaining once the bridal parties first become aware of the goose poop issue.

End the afternoon browsing books and playing computer games at the Perrot Memorial library and pick up some used kid’s books for a buck a book as a souvenir of the day. On weekends, they'll sometimes have story readings and performances from children's authors and musicians.

Old Greenwich is also one of the best places to watch Fourth of July fireworks. Parking can be a challenge, but it’s totally free and you can get there as early as you’d like and picnic (pre-order from Lexzee’s or Garden Catering in town.) The park is beautiful and the fireworks go on forever. Be forewarned: your children will covet the huge helium balloons. Don’t give in. The balloon vendors charge, I kid you not, TWENTY dollars for the damn things. Manager Family has been going every year since the kids were born, and highly recommends. Look for us - we'll be the only family who kids are sobbing because we won't get them a balloon.

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