Hidden Perils Of The Linen Closet

Yesterday morning, I was struggling with my still newish, un-MILFy haircut, trying to wrestle it down into something that didn't make me look like a decomposing Tilda Swinton. During the battle I cut my hand on my own hairdryer, causing me to bleed all over my Banana Republic career separates.

After working my way through all of my favorite expletives (The Boy – (“Mommy, what does (rhymes with rock pucker) mean?”) I grabbed a Band-Aid from the messy bin in the linen closet and doctored myself up.

After changing into a new blood-free outfit, I passed out hugs and lunches, wrote a preemptive note of apology to The Boy's teachers for when he repeated the new words I'd taught him, and headed off to Dunkin Donuts (the High Ridge location if you're keeping score) for 24-ounces of sweet caffeinated salvation.

With the double D in my car cupholder (because there ain't no D's in my other cupholders - The Evil Twins can barely muster up a 34A nowadays) and twenty minutes of driving ahead, I tried to put my mind through the mental gymnastics that help me get into work mode. I had a big presentation to give to our senior executive team, and I didn't want to LOOK like as big of a jackass as I was FEELING like on this particular day.

Flash ahead to noon. I had just finished delivering my shockingly brilliant presentation. It was jam-packed with every feature and function that Powerpoint has to offer: charts, graphs (of the pie, line, AND bar varieties), bullet-pointing, animations. I'd dazzled them with forecasts, projections, conclusions, educated guesses, visionary speculations. I used words like "paradigm shift"and "step change." I had props and prototypes. I had my admin order lunch. Serving food in a meeting is the corporate equivalent dropping an atom bomb. It never fails shock and awe the meeting participants.

But my magnificence was met with silence. Finally, one of the women spoke up. Six heads in various phases of graying and/or baldness swiveled toward the sound of her voice.

“Hey,” Female Executive That I Used To Like Said Loudly. “Is that a Hello Kitty band-aid on your hand?”

Why yes. Of course it was. And eff you thank you for pointing it out. My head began to hurt from the noise coming from the spectacular explosion of my professional reputation.

Six heads whipped back to stare at my hand, watery eyes blinking behind glasses, waiting for my response. It was like a bunch of drunken frat guys watching Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova play Wimbledon naked.

“Um, yes," I replied. "They sell them at Target." If I didn't sound stupid enough, I added helpfully, “And they have My Little Pony ones too.”

“Good to know," said Female Senior Executive Who Unknowingly Spared Herself A Blog-Lashing. "I need to get some of those - my daughter injures herself all the time. Now, let’s talk about your recommendations. I think we should move on them right away….”

Life Lesson #1: Sometimes, the Power of Mom can be your saving grace.

Life Lesson #2: Always look before you Band-Aid.

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Meet Me At Mygatt

Many things annoy me. But the top of the triangle of my Mom's Heirarchy of Irritation would have to be crap. Stuff. Knicknacks. Trinkets. Items. Collectibles. Things that come into my house through backpacks, bags, UPS deliveries, or clutched in little fists. Things that find a resting place somewhere highly visible and extremely inconvenient, where they dig themselves in with the tenacity of a disgraced politician attempting to cling to power.

I don't think anybody else in my family nobody notices or cares about this phenomenon except for me. I once left a pair of underwear in the living room (don't trouble yourself wondering how they got there in the first place, or whose they were) for THREE DAYS just to see if anyone else would notice and perhaps by some miracle pick them up and put them in the laundry hamper.

If it was not already blazingly obvious, I will tell you that the little pair remained crumpled forlornly on the floor next to the coffee table the entire time.

Although we are a typical family of four, I have become convinced that we make an atypical amount of garbage. Aside from the four humans living in the house, I believe we have an invisible Clutter Gnome that sprinkles random toys, broken pencils, newspapers, scraps of scribbled-on paper, and stray Cheerios all over the house, just to drive me batty.

Not too long ago, I spent an afternoon with some strange, yet strangely lovely people called "Freegans", who have inspired me to try to live a more neutral-impact lifestyle. So I have created the Mantra of Mess in accordance to the The Karma Of Crap: for each that comes in, one must go. Since we somehow accumulate approximately fourteen hundred new items each and every day, even our enormous, city-issued waste of my taxpayer dollars, garbage bin cannot handle the load.

So when the pile of stuff in our mudroom grows to a kitten-swallowing size of alarming proportions, I take matters into my well-manicured hands: I load up the minivan and head down to the Katrina Mygatt Recycling center.

I don't know who Ms. Mygatt was, or why she deserved to have a dump named after her. But I'm slightly envious because the dump is a rockin' Stamford hotspot.

I had visions of a smelly, grime-laden place overrun with flies and staffed by ancient, toothless, leather-skinned old men. Now granted, there are SOME flies, and SOME smell, and just a wee bit of mystery mush on the ground. But overall, it's relatively clean and well organized, featuring a surprisingly egalitarian and cosmopolitan mix of patrons. And Mr. Toothless is actually a pretty decent guy once you get to know him.

You hear languages ranging from English to Spanish to Creole. You see construction workers, gardeners, and other laborers hauling in scrap metal and yard waste. You see soccer dads in their Toyota Priuses dropping off year-old Nokias, no longer needed now that they got their new Apple iPhones.

You see Ugg-clad, blonde-helmet-coiffed, Lincoln Navigator-driving moms dumping loads of Land of Nod and Pottery Barn Kids catalogs. You see high schoolers furtively dropping off boxes filled with underagedly-drunk empty beer bottles (which are promptly snapped back up for deposit redemption purposes by the duct-tape bike-riding guy that shouts incomprehensible things at you when you're at the High Ridge Starbucks or sometimes the A&P). And you'll see me, freestyling unique strings of expletives after I smack my head on the open hatch of the minivan trying to dig all of the cardboard boxes out of the cargo area.

Since I am always in need of a few environmental offsets, I go to the dump whenever I can. I usually hit the Mygatt after a leisurely morning at the Stop and Shop, or sometimes as a way to psych myself up for that modern-day survival of the fittest expedition known as "Shopping Costco on a Saturday".

As far as my total carbon footprint, I probably waste more in gas driving to and from the dump than if I just waited for the monthly curbside pickup, but hey, we all gotta honor the earth in our own special way.

Besides, Mr. Toothless looks forward to my visit. I think he likes my furry Uggs.

For more info on the Katrina Mygatt center, click here.

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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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