On Sportsmanship

A friend of mine was kind enough to throw some last-minute tickets to the Harlem Globetrotters my way. I'm a big fan of cheap and cheesy entertainment, so The Spouse and The Spawn and I braved the most dangerous stretch of Connecticut highway to get ourselves to graffiti-laden Bridgeport, Connecticut (motto: yes, some people actually LIVE there) to catch the show.

I first saw the Harlem Globetrotters back in the 70s when they were quite simply, THE SHIT. Times, they have a-changed, and with videogames and the NBA and the rise of the Jonas Brothers, they're not quite as much of the excrement nowadays. So the whole event had a rather quaint feel, thanks to the iconic whistle-y theme song and an unexpected smattering of vintage Three's Company-style gay jokes.

But the show was surprisingly entertaining, and I was so transported back to my childhood that when I spilled my Diet Pepsi on my lap I almost expected to see it soaking through a pair of styling kelly green polyester pants (hand-sewn from McCall's #4337 pattern).

Amidst the throwaway homophobia, there was some basketball-playing and also some sort of plot about a bet between the coaches, the outcome of which was that if the Globetrotters lost, the Head Trotter (Special K, a nickname that I hope was derived from his love of the cereal and because of any sort of lingering ketamine habit) was going to have to go and play for the hated Generals.

At one point the coach of the Generals got caught cheating, so everybody in the audience was encouraged to razz the Generals coach. In the midst of all the booing, The Boy turns to me, eyes ablaze with delight, and says, "I know what you're supposed to yell, Mommy," and jumps to his feet and screams, "YOOOUUUU SUUUUUCCCCK!" which had the immediate effect of producing a) a spit take followed by b) uncontrollable laughter, even as I knew that I should be delivering a Teaching Moment about politeness and good language and sportsmanship.

The Spouse and The Girl didn't hear a thing because of the crowd noise; they thought I'd completely lost my mind. And of course my laughter encouraged The Boy to shout it a second, third, and fourth time, with each repitition making me laugh until fat tears were washing away all of my mascara.

It was a proud, proud moment.

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Time To Get Over Myself

I think I have writer's block.

I feel pretentious even THINKING that, since my "writing" consists of using Powerpoint and Capture Express to paste pictures of my head on other people's bodies, or making up idiotic captions for pictures I take with my cellphone in order to illustrate the random neuroses that plague me on a daily basis.

So recently, when I had someone ask what my writing process was, it made me snort. It sounds WAY too fancypants for a hack blogger such as myself to attribute something that's driven by stupidity, emotional retardation and/or blood alcohol levels to an official "technique."

But when I thought more about it, I realized that "process" is practically my maiden name. I mean, HELLO, I work for a gigantic Fortune 100 company. I can't pick my nose during a regular workday without getting advance approval from fifteen different executive committees. I EAT your BUREAUCRACY for BREAKFAST. And crap it out in a the form of a crisply written interoffice memo.

So in the corporate spirit of "Just Because It's Unimportant Doesn't Mean It Doesn't Deserve A Two-Hour Meeting And A Fifty Page Presentation," I have summarized my process for the enjoyment of anyone that has not yet passed out from utter boredom:

Step 1. I do something stupid like teach the Spawn a rhyme about farting, which reinforces YET AGAIN how incompetent I am in the parenting department.

AND/OR:

Step 2. I'm wearing a light-colored, dry-clean only outfit and running late for work when I either smear blood all over myself, or one of the Spawn spontaneously barfs.

FOLLOWED BY:

Step 3. For several hours, I stew over the event in question. I also occasionally witness something while I'm doing worky type stuff that causes me to space out and scribble things like "Google Kum & Go to see if this really a gas station, or just a discount porn shop" in the margins of highly sensitive financial documents.

AND FINALLY:

Step 4. When Spawn are down for the count at night, I spend the next few hours ignoring my husband to hunch over a keyboard and rant about whatever middle-class problem has so heinously wronged me on that particular day.

This process has worked for me so far because I am a high-strung, compulsive, A+ person in a Type A world. Unfortunately, I am also starting to realize that another reason that it works for me is because I am an ungrateful bitch who finds irritation in things that just aren't really that big of a deal.

So when I am faced with a REAL issue, my usual smash-and-crab approach doesn't work too well.

And therein lies the blockage. I just found out that someone that I love got themselves in a really shitty situation, with no easy solutions. They are destined to feel the fallout for YEARS to come, and it just seems ungrateful to piss and moan about things like The Boy wearing the same t-shirt for five days in a row when people I care about are in so much pain, and there's nothing that I can do except bombard them with phone calls and emails.

I feel like I have somehow lucked into an undeservedly good life. I have Manager Dad, who has proven able to survive Hurricane Me; The Boy and The Girl, who love me as if they don't know any better, and my parents, each who have each come through catastrophic health events without winding up much crazier than they were to begin with.

I'm no Buddhist, but I am feeling like I need to take a moment to lay off the bitching and show some gratitude, or the universe is REALLY going to deliver me a five-alarm smackdown.

So, thanks, universe. And thanks to you for listening.

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The Last Supper

I've been having some funky health stuff going on lately, and my doctor says that I need to eliminate things that are causing unnecessary stress in my life.

After examining all of my commitments, I have decided that although I love Spawn as if they were my own children*, I need to stop having family dinners with them. Immediately.

Scene from a typical evening at our house:

Spawn (Upon entering): Whatsfordinner? Whatsfordinner? Whatsfordinner? CanIplayvideogames? Whatsfordinner? - Repeated for the next 20 minutes until doorbell rings, the sound of which triggers a Pavlovian response; they stumble, zombie-like, into the dining room.

Me: Sets out a freshly prepared [just delivered], nutritious ["sweet potatoes" which have been browned sugared and marshmallowed to within an inch of their lives, but are technically still of vegetable origin], festively arranged [transferred from plastic containers to Chinet] meal in front of them.

The Girl: Did YOU cook this chicken?

Me: Don't worry, it's from Boston Market.

The Girl: [Picks up chunk of meat with fingers and licks it.] Origins confirmed, begins process of "eating", during which 2/3 of her meal winds up on the floor, smeared in her hair, or stuck to the wall.

The Boy: I hate Boston Market.

Me: I refuse to acknowledge that statement. You have to eat at least FOUR pieces of chicken before you get any cornbread.

The Boy: I don't like it.

Me: How can you not like chicken? It tastes like everything.

The Boy: Because it's a DEAD CHICKEN. A farmer shot it.

Me: I have no good answer to that.

For the next forty-five minutes, Manager Dad and I make "conversation" by way of threats and ultimatums interspersed with phrases like "sit on your butt, not your feet," and "if the reason you left the table THIS time was because you took a crap in the bathroom, wash your hands and use the Glade Air Freshener Spray."

By the end of the meal The Boy will have eaten 3.4 bites (if you count both kernels of corn individually), The Girl looks like the lone survivor of the historic Faber College food fight, and I have chest pains.

So in the interest of self preservation, I am going on strike from family dinners. Yes, I'm aware that it's been scientifically proven that if we don't eat together on a regular basis, Spawn will grow up and become crack whores. Or worse, Republicans. Either way, people are going to whisper behind my back at the next Rotary Club** meeting. But at least I'll still be alive to attend it.

*Having been present at their births, I am reasonably confident that Spawn are, in fact, my own biological offspring.

**I am not actually a member of the Rotary Club.

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Are You There, God? It's Me, Manager Mom

So, did you do anything fun this weekend? Because I think I managed to turn a dinner party invitation into a one-way ticket to Hell.

The dinner was at my next door neighbor's house, which would normally not be blogworthy except that she also happens to be the priest of the local Episcopal church. There were seven of us there; the others were very funny and cool, and we were having good get-to-know-you cocktail hour chitchat.

We moved from topics like golf, taxes, and pot-smoking neighborhood teens on to politics. Emboldened by a few gin and tonics (you wouldn't think a priest would pour such stiff drinks, but you would be thinking wrong) and never one to err on the side of good judgement, I made a joke about how you weren't supposed to talk about politics or religion at a dinner party but that since we already covered politics, we might as well go there with the religion.

I then proceeded to tell the story about how after The Girl was born, I met with the local priest about having her baptized, and he spent the whole time hassling me about how I never go to church and why did I want to get her baptized anyway when I'm such a horrible Catholic? And then on the day of the ceremony, he forgot to show up, leaving our family cooling their heels in the church until I found him in the rectory more than an hour later.

Midway through the story, I started to have that feeling I have where I'm dreaming of being in a public place and I look down at myself and realize that I'm TOTALLY NAKED, and then everyone starts pointing at me and laughing.

And that freaked me out MORE, so I went on to apologize, and then to babble about how I have issues because my parents used to fight a lot about religion, and the whole time there's a running commentary in my head in which I alternate repeatedly thinking the Lord's name in vain with disbelief that I told my mean priest story to a ROOM FULL OF PRIESTS.

Luckily, one of the other guests made a joke about how it's pretty hard to shock an Episcopalian these days, and my neighbor busted out some cake and everyone was able to move on from my moment of oversharing.

But the next morning I woke up with a slight hangover and a heaping helping of piping hot Catholic guilt, because I was forced to confront what a massive failure I've been in the spiritual guidance department.

I did TRY to take them back to Mean Priest's church a few years ago, but he made us go sit in a soundproof cube area where The Boy (who was three at the time) managed to find a stray gummy worm underneath one of the pews. I can only hope that the rest of the parishoners were more entertained than the priest was by the sight of me frantically digging through the kid's mouth, trying to get the fossilized floor candy before he could swallow it.

Bottom line, it's long overdue for us to give the kids some spiritual grounding. Therefore, I have decided to go church-shopping.

I have high hopes that somewhere within a 10-mile radius, I'll find a nice, progressive, Christian-esque church that won't judge us too harshly if we skip the occasional mass for a soccer game, and that vacuums their floors on a more regular basis.

In the meantime, please feel free to post comments with ideas for my family's salvation. I should have some time to review them on Sunday.

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A Not-So-Shocking Confession

I’m a big advocate of looking for fun wherever it is trying to hide. That’s why I put ‘squeezing pleasure from business’ in my blog header. I’m not afraid to admit that I like working, I’m good at what I do, and in case you haven't guessed from my right-leaning rantings about various financial topics, as a pleasant side effect I also happen to bring home some pretty decent bacon. (I can’t fry it up in a pan because cooking's a mere one on a long list of wifely tasks that I suck at. This is why the gods invented Boston Market.)

Which brings me to the not-so-shocking confession. I love to work. An only child by birth, I am WAY too selfish to stay home full time. I did the part time thing for a few years and I will always treasure those days. But the part time was hampering me from getting the assignments and advancement that I wanted, and it started to bother me more and more, so after a few years, I threw in the towel and went back full time.

Aside from the intellectual stimulation piece, on the superficial level (and I’m big into the shallow, or I wouldn't be on pins and needles every week waiting for my US Weekly) I like putting on nice clothes and going to a place where I can play with other grownups. For me, I’ve found that raising children is rewarding and fulfilling and all that, in the long term. But I also found that everyone who had so much helpful child rearing advice for me when I was pregnant neglected to tell me until I was knee-deep in the shizzy that it can also be mundane, stressful, and even maddening on a day-to-day basis.

If it wasn’t, the nannies working for all those Greenwich stay-at-home hedge-fund-manager-wife types wouldn’t be pulling down so much coin. If one’s primal urge isn’t to leave one's palatial mansion to partake in corporate gamesmanship, weekly facials is certainly a fair substitute. I’m not here to judge anybody.

But as much as I generally like my work, the fun has been in short supply lately because I’m not a huge fan of the job I’m in right now. It's an operations job that I'm learning a lot from, but I don't really like, unlike my previous brand management role where I was excited to go into the office every day. Luckily, my company rotates us to new positions every 2 years or so, so I only have about one year left on my sentence before I get released to a new job for good behavior.

Having said that, I am now in the midst of a business trip to London that has made these past few days ridiculously ripe for some fun-squeezins. Business class airline ticket paid for by company...7 1/2 hour flight...meeting all day Friday…is it not blazingly obviously that it begged for a weekend stayover?

Any mom, whether she works or stays at home, can definitely appreciate what a rare and precious gift the notion of having a whole 24 hours completely to yourself. And that, ladies and ladies (are there any guys besides Manager Dad who read my blog?) is what tomorrow is going to be all about.

So in the next post: musings on the UK.

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And "Mother Of The Year" Goes To...

Today, I faced one of those no-win dilemmas that only a working mother can appreciate: what do you do with a child that’s slightly off, but not really sick? Do you miss yet another day of work, or Motrin him up and send him to day care?

I had inklings of trouble last night when the boy refused to eat more dinner than he normally does. Usually he'll grudgingly consume about 3/4 of a meal, but last night, after a few bites of home-cooked (actually, Boston Market-purchased) chicken, he threw in the fork. Not even the usual bribes of cornbread or sliced apples on the couch could entice him to eat more.

Much later, I was awakened from a dead sleep at 4am with the same child looming over me in the dark.

"Mommy," he said, "I'm either hungry, or I'm going to throw up."

Ever optimistic, I went with "hungry." Gave the kid two slices of toast and stuffed him back into bed. Tried to nap between his subsequent intermittent wanderings back into our room. So when it was time to actually get up, I was tired and short-tempered. I knew the kid wasn't quite right, but I had a lot of work to get done. And he seemed OK - no fever or other outward signs of illness, and when he started asking for chocolate milk and Munchkins I chalked up his droopy demeanor up to being tired. So Manager Dad and I made the executive decision to soldier on and take him to day care.

I telecommute on Fridays, and as I conducted my morning business, I kept a nervous surveillance eye on my cell phone. My paranoia was not unfounded as I received The Call at approximately 10am. I was most displeased to hear the voice of Nice Day Care Lady #1, aka The One Who Usually Calls If Your Child Is Sick Or Injured.

'Hello,' said NDCL#1, 'I am just calling you to let you know The Boy is not quite himself today.' 'What's wrong with said boy?' I asked. 'Well, he's kind of mopey,' was the answer. 'He's not participating in activities.'

Now, she didn't directly ASK me to come pick him up, but the sentiment was clearly there. I could feel a warm cloud of expectation wafting through the wireless spectrum as I questioned the situation more closely. 'Does The Boy have a fever? Is there coughing, sneezing, or sniffling? Is he expelling bodily fluids from any orifice at a more alarming velocity than normal?'

'No, he's just very quiet today,' she said. (Perceived subtext: ‘I can’t believe she’s not already on her way here.’)

Upon this confirmation, Mother of the Year (that's me, if you hadn't guessed) quickly said, 'OK then, call me back if any of those things happen.' And I unceremoniously hung up.

I am VERY protective of my telecommuting arrangement and don’t want to lose the privilege. I don't ever want people to think I'm not pulling my weight on my days from home. I am many things on my days from the home office (poorly groomed, a Peapodder, folder of laundry on conference calls, silent hostess of various repairpersons or cleaning ladies), but I am NOT a slacker.

So while on occasion I'll make quick stop at the horrible Grade A on Newfield (motto: We're Not Afraid To Sell You Rotten Produce") after kid dropoffs, my main indulgence is my hourlong lunchtime workout. For one glorious hour, I turn off the cell phone and squeeze in a good, hard run. I come back re-energized and smelly, and proceed to work furiously in a pool of my own sweat for the rest of the day. (I pray to the Cubicle Gods that cheap videoconferencing remains an elusive invention.)

If it's a nice day, I run outside - no problem. If it's a rainy or cold day, I have to go to the track at my gym. And my gym is where The Boy goes to day care. And I have to walk right by his classroom to get to the track.

Problem.

So I get dressed for my run and make the 2-minute drive over to the gym. I walk slowly into the building, willing myself to be invisible. I peer cautiously down the hallway - looks clear. I walk quickly through the Hot Zone - that bare stretch of hallway where there are no doorways or large plants under which to take cover.

I was just about home free, standing at the doorway to the gym, when I heard the cheery voice of Nice Day Care Lady #2, aka The One Who Usually Calls About Unpaid Bills and Unfilled-Out-Forms.

'Mother of The Boy!' she chirped.

Daaaaaaammmmmmmn.

I lifted my hand off the doorknob and took a deep breath. 'How is the boy in question?' I asked.

'Oh, he is really miserable. He's been lying on the couch all morning. I'm glad you came to get him.'

Guilt began to breech the Great Wall between my unconscious and conscious minds, because, well, I really hadn’t come for that particular reason. But as Mother of the Year, I gave it my best college try. 'Oh, yes, of course!' I said. ‘That is exactly why I’m here! Ahem, by the way, has he actually thrown up or gotten a fever yet?'

Puzzled, NDCL#2 said, 'No...but he's just really not himself.'

As an only child of divorced parents, I can be nothing if not self-centered. So I quickly came back with- 'OK – I’ll just do a quick workout, and I'll take him with me on the way home.'

Looking me straight in the eye, NDCL#2 said, (and honestly, it was without malice) 'Ok, I'll tell The Boy that you're in the building but won't be picking him up for another hour or so.'

Checkmate. Well played, NDCL.

And so, sufficiently infused with guilt, I begrudgingly slunk into the classroom to get The Boy. Who, by the way was napping peacefully.

So I woke him up, brought him home, and parked him on the couch, draping an array of towels in his immediate projectile area. (I have found this to be a primitive, yet effective, barf defense mechanism.) He then proceeded to watch two full-length movies (Ice Age and The Empire Strikes Back, if you are keeping score) consume one bagel, eight ounces of Fruit Punch Gatorade, and two bananas.

Nary a chunk was blown.

I, on the other hand, wound up tired, guilt-laden, unexercised, unshowered, with laundry unfolded, and I didn’t get any work done until the kids went to bed, so of course, I had to stay up late and will feel even worse tomorrow.

Of course, I don't want The Boy to REALLY be sick, but the fact that I brought him home when he was fine to stay at day care just makes me feel like a complete, 360-degree failure. Because I knew he wasn’t running at 100% and I made him go to day care anyway. And after all that, I STILL short-changed my work, and despite the fact that there was no malice in my interactions with the NDCLs today, I still feel like a complete dink.

Oh well. I might not be Mother of the Year, but luckily, The Boy has no other frame of reference. I’m the only mother that he has. And if nothing else, I got some Grade A snuggles and kisses. And I’m all caught up on on my Spongebob episodes.

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Restaurant Smackdown!!!

My husband and I don't get out much. The going Fairfield county rate of $15 per hour to hire even the most underage, inexperienced, mouth-breathing child care provider pretty much guarantees that. But this Saturday night my Mom announced her intention to visit, providing us the opportunity to exploit her for free babysitting under the guise of grandmotherly love.

To set the context for our evening, you should know I have been fully brainwashed by child rearing experts as to the critical developmental importance of family dinners. According to said experts, if we do not eat dinner together at least 3 times per week, our daughter will wind up a teen drug addict/prostitute and our son would be destined to grow up an illiterate germophobe who regularly beats up his classmates. Or maybe they'd just have low self esteem, get bad grades, and wind up toiling in a dead end job such as professional VCR repairman or something.

Either way, it ain't worth the risk. So we do the dinners, although typical dinners with a 5 and 7 year old are MUCH closer to the side of pain than of pleasure. There's nothing more satisfying to a mother than lovingly crafting a home cooked meal, and putting the plates in front of your angelic children... to have them say, even before the plate hits the table, "yuck...I hate this!"

The meals themselves are not as much family bonding time as they are Manners Boot Camp, as we try desperately to keep it all together and impart some social graces while actually consuming food. Each meal follows a pretty well-defined script, consisting of eye-rolls, fidgeting, dropped food or spilled drinks, and one parent or the other barking shopworn phrases such as "please sit down;", "Use your manners," "Are you going to eat that?" "please don't throw vegetables at your sister," and "Why are you smearing honey in your hair?"

Hence, the prospect of a dinner with just the two of us is something we jump on at any opportunity, whether it's at Morton's or McDonald's.

We had dinner at the tiny, yet warm and welcoming, Emme of Capri on Summer Street. (Manager Mom highly recommends.) We were able to relax and have a delicious meal as well as some semblance of a coherent conversation. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we decided to go for a drink and dessert elsewhere, just to prolong our time away from home. So we decided to stroll around downtown to find another place to try. We even held hands while we were walking (awwww) although my hands are so chapped from overwashing it could not have been a pleasant experience for Mr. Manager Mom. (Manager Dad?)

We wound up at Ferrante, where we each ordered glasses of wine and something sweet. Our bartender was friendly and took care of us, but she had a curiously dour air about her - and after getting our drinks and placing our food order, she vanished for about fifteen minutes, leaving us to stare longingly at the hazelnut ice cream melting all over our lava cake as it sat on the bar's serving station two feet away. Somehow, the kitchen staff that delivered the dessert could not be convinced that it was ours, despite the fact that we were the only people sitting at the bar.

Finally, one of the waiters took pity on us and slid our dessert over. We dug in with relish and single-minded focus. All of the sudden, we became aware of a commotion! A kerfluffle! A brouhaha! A to-do, not more than 5 feet away at the back of the restaurant! Said ballyhoo (thank you by the way, thesaurus.com) resulted a man lying flat on the ground and a small crowd of people yelling for someone to call 911.

Somehow, we managed to miss the moment of impact (were we drunk? chocolate-crazed? you decide) - but the other bartender, a comely young Russian lass, was only too happy to dish that OUR bartender got in a fight with the manager and called her boyfriend, who came in to take a swing at said mananger, rendering him prone on the floor.

Needless to say, we assumed she would probably consider herself fired, and wasn't coming back.

The ambulance was called, and the manager seemed OK, and we were done with our drinks and dessert. As we got ready to leave, we suddenly became aware of a short slippery slope of potential moral dilemmas:

- We could easily live life on the edge and skip out on the bill.

- Knowing that we could, should we? Did the universe or the moral powers that be owe us a freebie to compensate for the bystander trauma we might have incurred by witnessing the aftermath of this senseless violence?

- If we did wimp out on the dine-n-dash, did we have to tip, since the person who served us would never see the benefit?

- And if so, how much of a tip was sufficient?

For the record, we DID pay, and we tipped about 15%. But there was definitely a moment where we were inspired to get our Bonnie & Clyde on. Hey, us minivan-driving, corporate-working for, suburban-living average Americans have to stay dangerous somehow.

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