Politics With The MomFather

Back when I first started this blog my dad said to me, "You realize that nobody's interested in reading your crap, right? Except for family members who want to see what kind of smack you're talking behind their backs?"

At the time, I told him that he was dead wrong. That's because I didn't think that my family would be interested in reading my crap either.

Well, now I actually have a few readers, and the same guy who once took an interest in my schoolwork by asking "Hey, kid, what grade are you in again?" has turned into a fame-starved hanger-on. How do I know? Lately, he's been sending emails that are suspiciously well-formatted into blog-friendly information chunklets. I suspect that he's seen how I've been exploiting The Girl, and now he's looking for his own virtual 15 minutes.

Fine. I was going to post about the horrifying dental appointments The Spawn had this morning, but (my) emotional wounds are still too fresh. It's 74 degrees and sunny outside, our office is on summer hours, and my iPod has been giving really good shuffle lately. I'm going to take his free content and go for a nice, long, 10-mile run with it. As an added bonus, I'm also hitting on eight of the traffic-driving tips from Seth Godin, who is apparently some sort of blogging genius that we're all supposed to suck up to. OH YES I JUST DID RULE 14 YOU, SETH GODIN! How do you like them frigging apples?

So without further ado, please enjoy the political rantings of a retired accountant who can't face the fact that he's really a Democrat. (I manned up and admitted what I really am, Pops...now it's your turn). You may not agree with his opinions, but anyone can enjoy his use of 60's era pot-smoking terminology.

"Global Warming – I’m sick of hearing about this subject. If the Liberal Democrats have to ease their feelings of guilt tell them to write letters to the governments of China, India, Pakistan, Mexico, and many smaller countries that pump out a lot more pollutants in a month than we do in a year.

Oil Shortage – Prices are going up and it’s about time. In your lifetime you will see shortages that will make $4 a gallon look like the good old days. Raise fuel taxes, build more nuclear plants and only allow Smart Cars to be on the road between 7AM - 10AM and 4PM – 7PM. Don’t allow mothers to shuttle their precious little tykes to and from school every day. They can walk or take a school bus. (This will also decrease the number of tubby tykes.)

Political Correctness – Recently, Hillary Clinton referred to Robert Kennedy’s run for the Democratic nomination extending into June. She had to apologize for this remark because he was shot in June. Why? Is it incorrect to refer to actual events? Today a person cannot talk about anyone or anything without being called insensitive, sexist, or racist. Let’s be able to call a jerk a jerk.

Legalize Marijuana - I’m tired of hearing that someone running for political office once puffed on a doobie. Anyone that grew up in the sixties or seventies probably tried it. Think of the additional tax revenue that would be raised if it were legalized. I’d rather be on the road with someone who smoked four joints than drank four beers with Jack Daniels chasers."

So that's it. Enjoy your weekend. And if you made it this far, please be promiscuous with your comment-leaving...it'll make the old coot happy.

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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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Playdate, Or FBI Child Pornography Sting In The Making?

The Girl is getting ready to go to one of her friend's houses for a playdate. To make sure that she maximizes their time together, she wrote up and presented me with an agenda of planned activities:
As a anal-rententive person who's been known to throw down a few lists of her own, it brought a little tear of motherly pride to my eye to see that The Girl is following her old mom down the Type A path, even at this tender age.

So I began gathering up and packing all of the required props for her to-do list. I was cross-checking the bag full of stuff against the list, when I saw this item, which I hadn't really noticed the first time:

Er... This family, as far as I can recall, only has two school-age kids. I thought I checked them out pretty thoroughly, and I'm pretty confident that they don't have any extra babies stuffed in a closet somewhere.

I hope that she didn't discover any funky pictures on their computer the last time they went on Polly Pocket.com...

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Mobile Phone Mothering

Yesterday, I was on my way from the office to a business dinner with one of our vendors. As a general rule, I look forward to these about events as much as a drug-free root canal, but last night I was happy to be going because I got a night off from cooking and listening to everyone bitch about my meal selections, and the dinner was going to be at a really good Indian restaurant that I've been wanting to try, and the most exotic restaurant meal my offspring will tolerate is at California Pizza Kitchen so this was my best shot at ever getting to eat there.

So I was feeling guilty - not about missing an evening with the family, but about my lack of guilt about the missing of the the evening of the family, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

And then I spotted this:You're just going to have to trust me when I tell you it was the kickest-assingest rainbow I have EVER seen.

So I called home and told Manager Dad to hustle the kids outside so they could see it too. And they went outside and he put me on his cell phone speaker, and the kids were all noisy-excited sharing the pretty prettiness of the rainbow together, and the fact that I was only part of it through a staticky mobile phone connection instead of in person made me feel a little bit like this: But then I went and had a glass of wine or three and some tasty Saag Paneer with the nice vendor lady, courtesy of her company's expense account.

And I woke up The Girl this morning and she gave me a sleepy hug and showed me this:



And she said, "Mommy, I'm so glad that you called, or we would never have known to go outside and look at the rainbow. It was the most beautiful rainbow that I've ever seen."

So I guess I get to chalk this one up to the "good mom" column after all.

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From The Department of "What The Hell Was I Thinking"

Last night's bedtime started out normally. After a dozen or so requests to the kids (at increasing volume levels) to start getting ready for bed, they finally got moving.

They schlumphed their way over to the stairs; crabbed the whole way up; bitched and moaned while putting on their pajamas; and complained during teeth brushing, which caused them to spray liquified toothpaste foam all over the freshly cleaning-ladied bathroom vanity.

In the middle of all of the complaining, we hear a "frapppffft" noise.

Manager Dad: "Boy, did you just have gas?"

The Boy: teeheeheehee

The Girl: hohohahaha

Me (to myself): Hey, this is my chance to be Fun Mom for a change! And so inspired by a weekend visit from my dad, I blurted out a rhyme that he used to recite to me when I was a kid. It goes a little something like this:

"A burp is a message from the heart. If it comes out the other end, it's called a fart."

I realized mid-sentence that putting this out there was probably a really bad idea. It was like a a party scene in a teen sex comedy where someone says something embarassing on the dance floor, and you hear that record needle scratching sound followed by dead silence while the crowd all looks at the speaker with a “who is that frigging loser moron?” kind of vibe.

The kids stared at me like I had sprouted a third eyeball, and then started screaming with laughter. And the same kids who have selective hearing and zero short-term memory when it comes to things I NEED them to do, of course IMMEDIATELY memorized this.

"A BURP IS A MESSAGE!" they kept yelling back and forth to each other at top volume, running up and down the hallway and cackling demonically. I started mentally composing one of my now-routine pre-emptive apology notes to their teachers about the poetry lesson the kids would undoubtedly be giving their friends the following day.

And during the next half hour, as we desperately tried to think of something that could get us back on the path to bedtime, MD muttered to me, "I bet you taught them that just so that you could blog about it later."

No, sweetie; I taught it to them because I really am just that stupid.

Thank GOD my dad never taught me "Milk, Milk, Lemonade."

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Of Breasts And Bacteria

Our family's long strep throatial nightmare is almost over.

The Boy has been on meds for a few days, and I have become more than a shade concerned about how much he likes them (especially given the "extracurricular activities" that I indulged in while I was in college).

He's a little cephalexin junkie, waking up and going straight to the refrigerator, where he pulls out the bottle and convulses his entire body trying to shake it up while shouting at me to hurry up and get the teaspoon, Mommy! I'm afraid that instead of adding the bubble gum taste that I'd requested, the pharmacist accidentally flavored it with crack.

But he's feeling much better; so much so that yesterday he slept in until a decadently late (for him) 6:45. I was already up and doing some work; after beelining to the fridge, he came into the office with his bottle to get his morning fix. He climbed into my lap, all sweaty and rumpled and blasting me with his surprisingly toxic morning breath, and was sort of snuggling the side of his head into my chest, which made him scrape his cheek on the zipper of my sweater.

After treating me to his angriest look (which always makes me burst out laughing because he looks so funny-cute, which pisses him off even more), he started yelling "I'm mad at your shirt" and yanking at the zipper, exposing the tank top I was wearing underneath. He stared at my chest for a moment, momentarily forgetting about the medicine, and said, "Mommy, what are your round parts called?"

Oh, frack. I was NOT prepared to have THAT conversation. Not at 6:45,and certainly not before liquid fortification. And even under optimal conditions, I completely suck at these types of sensitive conversations. I butchered The Talk with The Girl so badly that she still bursts into tears every time she sees a tampon box in our linen closet.

Since that train wreck, I tried to prepare for my next time in the hot seat through careful and extensive research (Ok, so it was only Googling 'talking to your kids about sex,' but I think that I should get SOME credit for effort) on the right way to handle the conversation. I only skimmed a few articles before I lost interest and decided I would just wing it; but I did manage to absorb three important knowledge nuggets:

1) Keep it simple and give only age appropriate information

2) Minimize your use of confusing sexual slang, no matter how personally entertaining you might find it

3) Try very hard to keep your fits of giggling under control

Armed and dangerous with my superficial knowledge, I took a deep breath and let it rip. "They're called breasts."

"Your breast-tes are small, Mommy. Why are they so small?"

Well, thanks for noticing, Captain Obvious. Believe me, you're far from the only man in my life to ask me that question.

“Everybody's bodies are made differently." I replied. "For example, I have red hair. But Aunt Katie has yellow hair. But she has been pretending to be a natural blonde for at least ten years, although even Stevie Wonder could spot her dark brown roots. From a mile away. At midnight."

And I am pretty sure I only THOUGHT, but did not add, "Plus, there are some ladies that work at places with names like "Bada Bing" that realize that they'd make a lot more money if they bought themselves a pair with a size that starts and ends in the letter D."

For a minute, it seemed that my explanation had either satisfied or confused him enough where I could execute a swift change of subject.

But he regrouped. "Well, what are boobies, then?"

No fair. Now HE had just blown Rule #2, and the only anwers that I could think of would DEFINITELY cause me to violate either rule #1 or #3, if not both.

So I decided that the responsible thing to do would be to send him off to wake up Manager Dad to have HIM answer that particular question.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think if the boy is going to wind up going through life with some freaky breast fetish, it should come from his old man, not from me.

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This Random Act Of Motherhood Was Brought To You By The Streptococcus Bacteria

So, honey, how was your day?

Because I spent most of mine trapped in our house with the deranged Pod Preschooler who has taken possession of The Boy.

Some background: his day care has been under siege from an especially nasty strain of strep throat that has infected twelve out of twenty-two kids so far. Going anywhere near his classroom will net you a full body-cavity search followed by a Purell hosedown. As a parting gift, you’ll get some leaflets with photos of disgusting, pussy, inflamed tonsils.

The Boy seemed like he would survive the attack. No sore throats, no fevers. And then came Monday morning, where he was just completely getting his bitch on, the centerpiece of which was a grand mal, put-me-on-the-cover-of-Us Weekly tantrum evoking classic Britney Spears. Faced with his vein-popping rage, I had a moment where I feared that instead of a human child, I had actually birthed the second coming of Rosemary’s Baby. Only our trusty local Catholic priest (or a strep test) would reveal the truth.

Two throat swabs later, we got the results: The Boy was, in fact, a Hot Zone. Twenty-four hours of antibiotics were required before we'd be given the all clear to send him back to the kid kennel. Which left two schedule-crazed parents engaged in the latest round of our recurring career deathmatch, jockeying to see which one of us would have to bail out on work. I was forced to concede that most of my stuff could be handled over the phone, and left a late-night voicemail alerting The Boss that he would be deprived of the pleasure of my company in the office the following day.

The Boy had been mostly asymptomatic, so he wasn't in much discomfort from the infection. HIS misery was caused by a side effect of the treatment, a stomach ache that kept him up until almost midnignt. MY misery was caused by the fact that he still woke up at the same time he does every day, which is roughly a quarter of way too freaking early. This put him in an emotional state more volatile than a sleep-deprived reality show contestant who thinks he's about to get voted off the island.

So we passed the morning in a haze of shared manic-depressiveness. One minute my diagram of the immune system (with Ms. Pac-man as a white blood cell, gobbling up dot-sized germs) had him cackling like a miniature Jack Nicholsen; the next he was weeping helplessly because I cut up his waffle for him when he wanted to do it himself. Between 10:00 and 10:37, we played a game that he made up which consisted of me spelling the word "pool" over and over and over and over and over. The game finally ended when my voice cracked from the strain, causing him to ask, "Mommy, are you crying?" (My answer: "Not yet.")

I made a few pointless attempts at trying to work. I'd put him in front of the TV and go off to make a phone call; on any regular workday, nobody answers their phones anymore, especially since they can see my name and extension in their caller ID. But we have caller ID blocker on the home phone, which tricked a lot people into actually answering, at which point The Boy's Spidey-sense would start tingling and he would run immediately into the office to loudly sing random songs from Alvin and The Chipmunks while I flapped my arms like some giant, mentally unhinged pelican, trying to get him to go back to the room with the TV.

After a few repeats of that routine, The Boy was on the verge of going nuclear, so I finally gave up. It had been raining all day, but there was a break in the bad weather, and I herded him outside with some vague idea that I’d tire him out by making him take a long bike ride.

The streets were quiet, and it felt like we had the whole neighborhood to ourselves. He was pedaling with as much strength as he could wring from his spindly little legs, and I was run-walking beside him, and both of us were shouting and laughing. And it sounds so corny but at one point he actually stopped and got off of his bike to pick me a flower. He ran back over to me, looking ridiculously adorable in his Minnesota Twins t-shirt, plaid shorts, mismatched socks, and shiny red satin cape (because only superheroes can fight the forces of germs) with his Optimus Prime helmet all cockeyed on his head, and he handed me the scraggly little dandelion and said, "You're the BEST mommy ever."

I’d like to leave us there, basking in that unexpectedly carefree moment, before I blow the mood by describing the spontaneous combustion that happened when we got back to the house and I had the audacity to MICROWAVE his leftover pizza instead of WARMING IT IN THE OVEN, and I was making The Boy have THE WORST DAY EVER, on PURPOSE, you MEAN MEAN MOMMY. And I certainly won’t go on to describe how he then whacked me in the temple with a toy car, leaving a Lightning McQueen-shaped welt that I had to explain to every single person in the office, who all felt compelled to ask, “Hey, what happened to your head?” at work the next day.

So I won’t do that. I’ll just end this painfully boring post with a silent salute to whichever kid sneezed in The Boy’s face and gave him the strep. Because my 24 hours of (intermittently) painful quantity time produced one of those rare moments of quality that never seems to happen when you try to force it through some planned family activity. I wound up today with one of those special kid memories to lock up in my vault, and it didn’t even require any airbrushing.

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My Outsourced Motherhood

Thank God Mother’s Day is over.

If I had to read, listen to, or watch one more Very Special Tribute to a Very Special Mom (shot in soft focus and featuring the kind of music typically found in a douche commercial), I would have heaved a tire iron through my television screen.

While the idea of having a whole day dedicated to the celebration of me is pleasant, in actuality it just makes my shortcomings even MORE blazingly obvious. How could there possibly be so many Ultra SuperTerrific HappyMothers out there? They bake! They sew! They wipe away tears and pick chunks of snot! They flip burgers for the homeless and change bedpans for the elderly! These specimens of womanly perfection make the Dalai Lama look like Paris Hilton.

If I had a spare moment, I’d use it to feel bad for The Boy and The Girl, as they will never experience such a blissful level of idyllic parent-child codependency. And I work full time, so I’ve had to subcontract about three-quarters of my motherly duties anyway. As such, I sleep OK at night knowing if they ARE messed up, it’s technically someone else’s fault, not a direct consequence of my own parenting techniques.

With the pinkwashed torrent of sentimentality behind us, for what it’s worth (actually, $68,000 a year, according to salary.com) I’d like to thank the collection of household staff, paid caregivers, recurring services, unwitting volunteers, and other domestic helpers that have helped make me the mother I am today:

To Silvia and John, our first day care providers: Somehow, your foul-smelling goulashes succeeded in tricking my children into eating a staggering range of vegetables, the likes of which they won’t even be in the same room with now that they’re coherent. Someday I hope to get at least one of the kids to eat squash again, and if I do, I will remember you fondly.

To Martha, our cleaning lady: Thank you for your bi-weekly attempts to transform our house from a Scottish pay toilet to a reasonably hygienic place to live. I especially appreciate that you manage to get rid of the gobs of SpongeBob toothpaste that wind up caked all over the bathroom vanity. I can’t afford to pay you any more than I do, but if I ever win the lottery, I’m giving you a fat bonus AND buying you a gold-plated Dyson DC-15.

To Kenny at Sea Breeze Dry Cleaners: Your reasonable prices and convenient location have allowed me to keep my strict no-iron streak intact (going on 13 years now). And whatever it is you do to my barfed, boogered, and bloodied items of clothing, I bow to your prowess as the Stain Whisperer.

To Karen and Allisha at Arena Gymnastics: Thank you for the second straight year of patiently trying to teach The Girl how to do a cartwheel, even though I can sense from the looks in your eyes that it might be a lost cause. And thanks to all of the Stamford Youth Soccer coaches that help keep The Boy motivated by pretending that winning isn’t everything, especially because his team gets slaughtered on a weekly basis.

To our Holy Trinity of Takeout (aka Boston Market, Kit’s Thai Kitchen, and Domino’s Pizza): Thank you for your continued existence. Without you, my family would be subsisting on a weekly diet of rice cakes, frozen turkey sausage, and rotting bananas.

And last but certainly not least,To Megan, our ex-so-much-more-than-a-babysitter: I have always marveled at how you could be so patient, loving, and kind. Possibly you are not very bright, or perhaps you are hard of hearing. But regardless, the kids STILL ask for you all of the time, even though you left for California more than six months ago. Will you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE move back to the East Coast? I forgive you for drinking competitive product in the house, and I'll even apologize for teaching the kids to tell you that only mean people drink Diet Coke. Come back. Please. Seriously.

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This Post Was Manufactured Using Child Labor

After dinner tonight, we were doing our usual routine: MD checking his fantasy sports standings, kids watching an age-inappropriate television show starring a semi-disgraced budding multimillionaire of middling talent, and me banging away on the laptop, ignoring my family.

But tonight, thanks to the fact that they repeat that stupid show about three thousand times per episode, even 50 inches of high-definitional splendor couldn't keep The Girl amused. So she came over and climbed into my lap, causing me to accidentally hit the delete key and lose about half of a post I was working on.

"Are you working on your blog again?" she asked. "And what is a blog anyway?"

I tried to explain to her that a blog was kind of like a diary: a place where you can write all of the private things you think in your head, but don't have the courage to tell other people unless either a) you're drunk and they're your bartender, or b) you post it in the most public arena possible, where it has the potential to shame your family and friends and maybe even get you fired.

She didn't quite grasp the nuances of my explanation, so she said, "That sounds neat. Can I have a blog too?"

Now, for a first grader, the kid's a pretty good writer, and she can be relentless when she gets interested in a project. I'm not a jealous person, especially of my own daughter, but with my luck if I let her have her own blog she'd be averaging a couple thousand hits a day AND have a book deal within the span of about two weeks.

So rather than compete, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to exploit her for my own selfish gain. I told her she could have a guest post on my blog. Besides, its about time the little freeloader started pulling her weight around here.

She brings her "sloppy copies" (what she calls her rough drafts) of her writing portfolio home on Fridays, so we had quite a bit of material to select from. She decided to share some of her thoughts on the what life is like in her first grade class. And so, without further ado, may I present The Girl's first guest post (with just a tiny bit of editorializing from her mother):

Heh heh...she wrote "Uranus". Now here's the weird thing. She SPELLS it correctly, but when she SAYS it, instead of "Your Anus" she pronounces it "urine-us." It reminds me of the whole Anita Hill debacle where all of the newscasters must have thought they sounded crass by saying "huh-RASS-ment" and fancied it up by saying "HARassment" instead. I never taught her to pronouce it that way, so I'm thinking it came from her teacher, who must have gotten fed up after twenty years of rude seven-year-old boys cracking up every time she gets to that part of the solar system.Mommy knows some compound words too, and accidentally taught them to your brother just the other day! The Boy's teachers were NOT pleased when he shared that particular vocabulary lesson with his little friends. Judging from a few of the emails I got that evening, neither were their parents.

All right, honey, I love you dearly, but... you left the owl alone, and touched a frigging giant hissing cockroach instead? I knew I shouldn't have had that glass of wine in my third trimester...

That's right, girlfriend. You rock those fact families. Learning IS fun, and even math is fun, no matter WHAT attempted brainwashing those antifeminist reactionaries over at Mattel will try with their vapidly programmed Teen Talk Barbies.

So that's it. I hope you enjoyed a look into Toquam School's Classroom #40. One of the best schools in this miserable district, and oh yeah, the one that the incompetent buttwipes in our Board of Ed are still trying to close.

We'll see if I invite her back for future guest appearances.

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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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