reMARKable times

Please read my new blog!

2009-07-13T17:18:00.001-07:00

This will be quick because then I've got to--literally--run!

I am now focusing all of my blogging energy into a new and very quirky column, "Run, Jorie, Run!" about my efforts to run a half marathon and raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

To read it, go to www.run-jorie-run.blogspot.com.

“I think that Pharoah is my least-favorite person in the whole planet.”

2009-04-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

We just had a simple Seder at our house this year, since the first night of Passover fell mid-week and driving an hour north for a full family-wide holiday meal—which surely would involve Jacob interrupting the Four Questions to ask the Fifth Question, “What’s for dessert?” and Rebecca crying hysterically when I refused to let her wear Disney Princess pajama pants to the gathering—seemed like an awful lot of effort to go through for foods we don’t enjoy.

Because—as shocking and scandalous as this will sound—we don’t like Passover foods.

Barry and I are both Jewish, but we eat like we’re Greek or Thai or Italian, preferring garlic and red pepper to boiled chicken fat as our spices of choice. This subversive take on our own cuisine is partially what’s kept us married happily for almost eight years; not liking the foods our grandmothers slaved over the stove to prepare for us when we were kids might be, short of our love for our children—our only shared passion. Barry’s a night owl and a sports nut and I’m an early-to-bed-early-to-rise athletic pacifist, but when it comes to detesting brisket, lamb, chopped liver, gefilte fish and anything involving kippuring or “herring,” we are indeed a match made in Heaven.

So since the Seder meal was only going to be consumed by us herring haters and two picky kids, the menu consisted of: Tilapia Veracruz (sautéed onions, orange peppers, garlic, jalepeno and cumin), a baked potato and steamed broccoli. Matzoh on the side. Our Seder plate had all the usual suspects: the egg, the scoop of haroset (not made by me—purchased from Aroma kosher supermarket), the parsley, the bitter herb and the salt water. We don’t eat lamb and even with chicken, we get the boneless, skinless fillets, so Barry had to make a pretend bone out of paper, scissors and marker. (It kind of looked like the bone Pebbles from “The Flintstones” wore in her hair.)

With unappetizing food no longer an issue, we were able to actually have some fun with the rest of the Passover proceedings. Rebecca did charming renditions of “Oh Where, Oh Where is the Afikomen” and a cheerful song about all the happy frogs that jumped on the evil Pharoah and his soldiers during the Ten Plagues. Jacob read the English translation of the Four Questions and Barry and I sang them in Hebrew.

Then after our meal, we “reclined” in front of the computer to watch “Who Let the Jews Out?” on YouTube. It was a very nice Seder, all things considered. (Not fighting Rebecca about the pajama pants definitely was an improvement over any outing involving leaving the house.)

My mother-in-law had bought the kids a copy of “My First Passover Board Book” a few years ago, and that was what I read them at bedtime. When I read it to Rebecca, I skipped the part about Pharoah killing all Jewish baby boys…but Jacob can read. He was pretty shocked by that. “I think that Pharoah is my least-favorite person in the whole planet, Mommy,” he told me. “He would have killed me when I was a baby.”

Before I kissed Jacob good night, I thought sadly to myself that Pharoah wasn’t the only bad guy in our history. There was Hitler, Haman, the Spanish inquisition...the list goes on. We’ve got a gory past, and in some places of the world, a gory present. I’m just grateful I can provide my children with what I hope will be a safer future.

It’s worth it to choke down some tasteless cardboard, to keep that in mind. Although for the most part, I have to confess I’ll be sticking to recipes from Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet during this week of no bread and pasta. There’s only so much matzoh-meal a girl can take.

Epilogue: Welcome to Weston

2009-04-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

To read Part One: Welcome to Weston click here.
To read Part Two: Welcome to Weston click here.
To read Part Three: Welcome to Weston click here.
To read The Grand Finale: Welcome to Weston click here

What a Coincidence.

A few weeks after I finally saw the light and stopped hanging out with Esther and Rosie, Barry and I took a trip back to my hometown, Philadelphia. While we were there, we visited our good friends Margo and Jon—and oh, were they a sight for sore eyes! (When you’re not having much luck in the new friend department, is there anything better than a few hours with old, true friends?)

Margo and I had gone to grad school together. In addition to sharing two years’ worth of academic trials and tribulations—including a weird storytelling elective where the two of us had to act out the emotions of tribal African folk characters, and a master’s requirement that forced us to translate part of Dante’s Inferno with absolutely no working knowledge of Italian—we’d also gone through a lot of personal milestones together, too. We were single together, engaged at around the same time, and knocked up within six weeks of each other. Just to give you a sense of how far back we went: Margo knew me before I waxed my eyebrows. Needless to say, it was comforting to vent to her about my Weston friendship misadventures.

She listened patiently as I told her about the mess I'd gotten myself into with these two fake friends. I think Margo was about to offer me some sage, zen advice about how to take all of this drama in stride, when a friend of the family who had been visiting them at the time—a kind, stylish 60ish woman who was from the West Coast of Florida—interrupted her: “Wait, did you say you live in Weston?”

I nodded.

“Well, you shouldn’t have any trouble meeting nice people in Weston! That’s where good friends of ours live. Do you know a young woman your age named Shari?"

I had to admit, I did not. I only knew Esther and Rosie and a handful of seemingly nice women I hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know very well, with the two of them double-teaming me and bad-mouthing everyone else.

Margo’s Floridian family friend then proceded to tell me all about Shari and Shari's family. She and her husband were just a few years younger than me and Barry, and they had two kids close in age to our kids’ ages. Best of all, this mutual matchmaking friend insisted, Shari was the most down to earth Jewish woman in the state of Florida (quite a feat indeed) and that I would love her. Now by this point, I'd traded in my let's join the Mom's Club enthusiasm for a bit of gun-shy caution, given what I’d just been through, but reluctantly I passed on my contact information.

A few days later, I was indeed sitting across the table from the most down to earth Jewish woman in the state of Florida. Shari was pretty and smart and--get this--a fellow English major! I still remember how tiny her then four month old son was sleeping in his baby stroller. (You should see him now--he's a handsome, brown eyed bruiser at age 2 1/2!) Rebecca was eleven months--I remember her fidgeting in a high chair, chewing on a plain bagel, while we chatted. It was, Shari later joked, our “blind date.” And unlike most blind dates I'd been on, it was going very well, despite my initial skepticism.

In fact, it was going so well that after about an hour of getting-to-know-you chitchat, I blurted out the whole story of my first Weston friendships. Shari stared at me for a minute and then said, “You’re kidding, right? I think I might know who you’re talking about.” Wendy, one of her closest friends, she then told me, had had a similar friendship that sounded uncannily like my relationship with Esther. But she couldn't remember this friend's name...

I told her I doubted it was the same person—and that if anything, Weston must be a breeding ground for these kinds of dysfunctional friendships. Fortunately for the Weston population, it turns out I was wrong: a few days later, Shari invited us over for a playdate with her kids, and to meet Wendy. Who, like Shari, was a sweet, smart, funny, down to earth woman. But unlike Shari…Wendy also happened to be Esther’s ex best friend. [Cue spooky soap opera music.]

Wendy and I, who were then total strangers, proceeded to spend the entire morning swapping Esther stories--to the point that naps were skipped, fussy babies were idly shushed, and several containers of Shari's lemon-flavored Sabra hummus were consumed. Some of Wendy's Esther stories were even crazier than mine—Esther apparently had moved to Weston in the first place to be closer to Wendy, who eventually had to extract herself from their relationship when she felt stalked. But there were a few things all of our stories had in common:

-Esther made sure to tell us that we were the only “smart” women in the entire Ft. Lauderdale/Miami metropolitan region
-With so many dummies, we came to believe that she was the only one worthy of our time/friendship
-Interlopers who hung out with us in Esther’s company were stupid/tacky/poorly dressed/ditzy/materialistic

Pretty crazy, huh? Shari broke out the popcorn.

For me, the best discovery, though, of that morning wasn’t that Wendy and I both were Esther’s exes. It was that we actually had much more in common than that--it might have been what both made us easy prey for Esther, but fortunately, that was just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, more than two years after that first playdate, I’d say that Esther is least of what binds us together. Who knew that one of my worst friendship experiences would lead to one of my best? For Wendy and Shari, and the other friends I’ve since made through them, I’ll always have Esther to thank.

OK, I have hereby concluded this epic-length blog about how I became a Westonite. Stay tuned in the future to more posts about my kids and spray butter addiction!

The Grand Finale: Welcome to Weston

2009-02-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

To read Part One: Welcome to Weston click here.

To read Part Two: Welcome to Weston click here.

To read Part Three: Welcome to Weston click here.

Before a relationship ends, there's a moment when the reality that it needs to, in fact, end becomes clear, when you just say, "All right, I've had enough of this." My moment happened at Offerdahl's bagel shop, seated across from Esther, and Esther's other best friend, "Rosie."

Just as Esther isn't really Esther's name, Rosie isn't a real name either. I picked it because this woman kind of reminds me of Rosie O'Donnell. And I don't mean that necessarily in bad way; a lot of people love Rosie O'Donnell. I don't mind her; I like, though, that she lives inside of my TV set, and when I've had enough of her, I can just click her goodbye. This was not the case with the Weston, Rosie, unfortunately: she's the kind of person, who, if you were trying to quietly read a book in a doctor's waiting room and she was sitting across from you, gabbing on her cell phone, you suddenly couldn't concentrate on the words...even if she was just calling her husband to ask him if he needed anything from the grocery store.

Because she wouldn't just say, "Do we need milk?" She'd say, "We need to make room in the backyard for a COW, honey, with all the milk our kids drink. Or maybe I just need to have another baby so I can lactate and NURSE everyone instead."

In recent weeks, I'd spent a little time alone with Rosie--during which she had vented quite a bit about Esther. At first it was a relief to hear someone say some of the things I'd silently observed myself: that Esther could be a snob, and cold, and secretive. That her story always shifted its shape depending on who she was talking to. But having been schooled on how to be a good girlfriend in St. Louis, the friendship capital of my world at that point in my life, I never agreed with Rosie when she bashed Esther. I just smiled politely and changed the subject.

It was especially uncomfortable for me to hear her venting because Esther had plenty of unpleasant things to say about Rosie, too (all things that anyone would say about Rosie--it took true restraint not to observe that she ate with her mouth open and talked about her husband's salary too often and too loudly). But I also remained silent when Esther vented, though more out of loyalty to Esther than to Rosie. Because aside from me, Rosie was Esther's only friend. It seemed disloyal to her to speak destructively about Rosie, if that makes any sense at all.

So, anyway, we were an awkard trio. And there we were, that fateful afternoon while our kids were cutting paper Stars of David at school and our babies were sleeping in strollers parked alongside each other, lining our table at Offerdahl's.

Esther and Rosie were playing a game with me that was a little bit like non-sexual footsie, where they'd make veiled comments about each other to me and give me a look that was kind of like nudging me under the table. It was so subtle you had to be a woman very much in touch with middle school girl meanness to pick up on it; it bobbed just below the surface during the ebb and flow of the most banal stay-at-home-mom chitchat.

Esther said something about not liking the preschool our kids went to, and Rosie said, subtlely, "I know you worry your kids aren't challenged enough at the school, but..." and gave a knowing smile to me. See, I told you she was a snob, that smile read. A few minutes later, Rosie complained, innocently enough, about being tired, and Esther said, "You really shouldn't go out and party all night and get drunk. I worry about your diabetes." See, I told you she's a trainwreck, Esther's smug little look said to me.

I sighed, searching for something innocuous to say, regretting right then and there that I'd agreed to come to this lunch in the first place. And regretting, quite frankly, that I'd allowed myself to become so intimately involved in this strange, suffocating circle. Not wanting to step into a landmine, I simply mentioned that it was very cold in Offerdahl's today, and that they should lower the air-conditioning.

That was when I saw it: a look, between Esther and Rosie. "Are you cold?" Esther asked her trainwreck friend.

"Not at all. Are you?" Rosie said to the woman she'd described to me as a cold, weird snob.

Esther raised her eyebrow at Rosie and then pursed her lips at me. "Maybe you're so cold because you're not eating enough."

"Yeah," shot back Rosie, "you're always on a diet."

Now, to be fair, I was probably on my 30th diet of 2006 by then, as it was mid-October, and I'll never deny that I know by heart the caloric content of just about any food regularly consumed in the United States. Having my dieting neurosis pointed out to me wasn't what bothered me. It was that look, between the two of them. They're talking about me with each other as much as they talk about each other too me, I finally figured out. That I am a slave the scale and the elliptical and am no fun when they want to eat brownies. Got it.

That was my aha! moment. Did I really want to be friends with people who were going to scrutinize everything I said for evidence of my flaws? Not that I didn't have plenty of them...but, as I learned from the Missouri mamas, to a true friend flaws are something you don't gossip about. You try to help your girlfriend out, or, if it's not dangerous, you learn to overlook the flaw, or even find it endearing.

Yeah, I'd had enough. Being alone was definitely a better option than bagels with two women I actually didn't like at all. And who apparently didn't like me.

Fortunately, I didn't remain alone much longer on that. But to read about my first real friends in Weston, you'll have to wait for the Epilogue...(to be continued)

Part Three: Welcome to Weston

2009-01-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere With Me.

To read Part One: Welcome to Weston click here.

To read Part Two: Welcome to Weston click here.

I’m no spring chicken when it comes to friendships. True, Esther had been the first one in since my middle school drama whom I'd had to break up with—delete her contact information from my Blackberry, not invite her kids to my kids’ birthday parties, forget her Starbucks “usual,” go out of my way not to be stuck in an elevator with her, etc.

But during those years BE (before Esther) there were plenty of friends who I drifted apart from. Usually it was just a matter of changing circumstances. We went to different colleges, changed our majors, went to different graduate schools. I moved, a lot, and so did they. Some of them were married and pregnant before I was even engaged; some of them were breaking off engagements when I was having kids. Every now and then the drift would be due to something more personal—I’d be seized by a moment of, “Who needs this kind of emotional complication? Life is too short to deal with HER crap!” But even that would just be a phase—it would just mean I’d call the emotionally complicated friend less often, until I missed her and realized the occasional histrionic phone conversation was a small price to pay to have someone special and genuine and passionate around.

So yes, I’d been around the block when it came to girlfriends. But Esther truly was the first one since my Clearisil-and-training-bra days who got the real heave-ho...the don’t-let-the-door-hit-your-Gap-drawstring-pants-covered-ass-on-the-way-out.

***
Back to the days when I did know Esther’s usual Starbucks order, and she knew mine: it had been so nice to find a kindred spirit so soon after moving to Weston, especially after meeting a bunch of Stepford wife types who seemed offended by the word “puke.” Not only did we have so many resume-type-things in common, but she also seemed to just get me. And that was what had sealed the deal.

(I was a married woman with two small children, not a lovestruck teenager passing poetry to the James Dean-like slacker in my English class. You wouldn’t think I needed to be “got.” Well, I guess I did need that.)

She understood, for example, that I as happy as I was to chat about the latest stroller gizmo or the joys of potty-training a toddler while moving him across country, I was also a nerdy bookworm type who enjoyed movies with English subtitles and subscribed to The New Yorker.

Wouldn’t you know it? Esther subscribed to The New Yorker, too. And she was proudly at least as nerdy as me, if not nerdier. Would the similarities between us never cease?

***

One night, after sneaking out of a Mom’s Club happy hour and fleeing to our favorite Starbucks, she reached across the table, warmly squeezed my hand, and said, “There’s no one else like us in Weston, you know?”

I laughed a little nervously. “No one? What do you mean by that?”

She pushed her thick glasses up her small nose. “Everyone in Weston is stupid.”

Ah yes, this was the snarkier side of Esther that seemed to be coming out more often now that we were spending nearly every non-diaper-changing moment (plus some of those) together.

“When we moved here,” I told her, “we looked up the demographics. Weston has a very educated population. Lots of college graduates, great schools, a lot of professionals live here.”

“Have you been to the book store yet?” Esther asked me.

“What book store?”

“Exactly.”

***

Then Esther locked her crafty little cage around me by informing me that not only were Westonites dumb, but the women who belonged to the synagogue we were in the process of joining—the synagogue that housed the preschool my then-three-year-old son, Jacob, was about to start attending—were especially dumb. Dumb as dirt. Plus rude. Snobby. Illiterate. Oh, and shallow.

“You see them in workout gear every morning,” Esther hissed, letting go of my hand and taking another long slurp of her coffee. “It’s like that’s their job. To look good. They all have had major work done.”

I frowned at this. I actually worked out almost every day myself—not because I thought it was my job to look good (ha ha ha)—but because I had just three more pounds to get to my pre-baby weight and because I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of working up a sweat.

Esther laughed that off. “Trust me, they don’t work up a sweat. They just dress like that to look cute in their little shorts and belly shirts. You will have nothing in common with them.”

Not in any shape to be wearing little shorts and belly shirts myself—“pre-baby weight” for me was, oh, a bit sturdier than 95 pounds—I had to explain to her that much sweating had to be involved for these synagogue moms to wear clothes that skimpy.

A comment that only served to irritate Esther. “You’re missing the point,” she snapped.

Then began her tirade: “You go in there every morning and you see them, just yapping away, kissing up to all the preschool teachers. I don’t even know why they put their kids in school when they stay there all day. You know who the smart moms are? The ones who drop their kids off. They actually have a life, and somewhere to go. Trust me, you don’t want to be one of the moms who walks her kid in every day. You read, you exercise, you go places.”

As much as I didn’t want Esther to be right—I wanted to make new friends, and I wanted them to be smart and down to earth and not the vapid trophy wives she was describing—I couldn’t help but follow her logic. (And, her assessment of me as having important things to do, considering I was a little uncomfortable with my stay-at-home status, was flattering.)

I nodded, slowly: Dumb moms went into the school and gossiped with the teachers all morning because they had nothing else to do. Smart moms blew a kiss from the carpool lane and didn’t come back till three. Don’t walk your kid into school—don’t meet the other mothers who care enough to chat with the teachers and find out how their kid is adjusting to life in preschool.

Yep, that made sense.

And that, incidentally, is how Esther brilliantly—and I do mean brilliantly—managed to make herself my only close friend in Weston for the next few months.

Poor Jacob. Luckily he’s always been a mellow, easygoing child, and I at least had the sense to call his teacher regularly and occasionally brave the workout-clothing-clad throng of mommies with their Gucci and Tory Burch tote bags—who, fitting in with Esther’s description of them, did seem quite chatty and chummy and not very much like The New Yorker readers—to drop in on his classroom.

But it wasn’t until I met some of these “trophy wives” and found quite a few doctors, lawyers, Ivy League graduates and just all-around nice, friendly people among the Spandex that I realized how tainted my first impression of them had been.

By then, though, I’d been drifting apart from Esther for other reasons. She was my first emotionally complicated friend who was not worth all of the crap she put me through.

Or all the lies.

More on that in a bit...

Part Two: Welcome to Weston

2009-01-09T12:41:00.000-08:00

Desperate.

(To read Part 1 of this story, click here.)

I was nervous about moving from St. Louis--nervous about saying goodbye to a city where we'd found a lot of love and hello to a small town where we knew no one. True, we'd kind of gone through this before before when we moved from Maryland to Missouri for Barry's fellowship. But while it had been tough, at first, living so far away from either of our families (mine was in Philly; Barry's was in Florida) we made so many friends that when Rebecca, at age 5 weeks, developed a scary case of RSV, I had to turn down offers to babysit Jacob while we were in the hospital because there were just only so many playdates he could go to during our three-day ordeal at Cardinal-Glennon Children's Hospital.

The thing about me, when I'm feeling nervous, is I start to get desperate. I can't just sit around and ride it out and see what happens--I have to take action. And indeed I tried to solve the not-knowing-a-soul-in-Weston problem before we'd even arrived there.

Surfing the Web in the lobby of a Sleep Inn somewhere near the Kentucky-Tennessee border during our one-way ride across country, I Googled "playgroup organizations in South Florida," found the"The Mom's Club," located one of the Weston branches, and within minutes, applied to be a member. The club leader emailed me back a roster of eight other women who all lived within a few miles of our new, not-yet-arrived-at, home. Yay! I instantly had eight new mommy friends! I'd actually be getting some sleep in the Sleep Inn that night.

A few days later, I went to my first Mom's Club meeting, disoriented toddler and teething baby in tow, with the skin on my finger tips raw from stripping all that packing tape off the moving boxes.

It was, I remember, in a beautiful home in the Tequesta development, hosted by a sweet, blonde woman (dyed, for certain, but meticulously: not a single dark root) with twinkly blue eyes and an adorable baby boy a month or two younger than Rebecca. She was wearing an ironed Oxford-style button down shirt and wrinkle-free linen pants and the kind of birthstone jewelry they sell at Macy's which I think is pretty, but would never wear myself. She, and the four or five other moms in the room, were all as pleasant as can be, but chatting with them was kind of like chatting with someone sitting next to you on the airplane. We just didn't click. No chemistry.

This wasn't their fault. It probably was me. I have a kind of self-effacing sense of humor that they seemed to take literally (and why shouldn't they? They'd just met me). One of the mothers was concerned that her little girl was spitting up too much and I laughed and said, "My kids have such sensitive stomachs that they probably puke up half a gallon a day." I was not, perhaps, making the most ladylike first impression, but the moms' concern to this was to look alarmed--like, call the Child Protective Services alarmed--and ask me whether I'd taken her to see a specialist about that. When you have to explain to someone, "No, see, I was just exaggerating. You know, for rhetorical effect," you know you're not on the same wavelength.

That was around the time that Esther trudged through the door, a baby in full boutique gear balanced on one arm in an infant carrier, a tantruming two-year-old boy being dragged by the other. She had on glasses, non-blowed-out hair, and the exact same Gap tie-front cargo pants I was wearing. She gestured to them and said, "These are great while you're still losing the baby weight, aren't they?"

Which wouldn't seem to be the kind of comment that would make one's heart go pitter-pat, but please keep in mind (a) I had said the same exact thing about those pants to my husband, when he asked me why I wore them almost every day, and (b) did I mention how desperate I was to make new friends? I was certain that this woman was about to become my new BFF.

A few other things scoring in Esther's favor:

Like me, she was married to a doctor who she'd dated all through medical school, so she'd been through the whole-moving-across-the country, pagers-waking-you-all-night-long type thing
Like me, part of being married to a doctor in training had required her to spend a few years in St. Louis, which she claimed* she also had loved

She'd gone to Penn for graduate school (when she mentioned this I was convinced that she was my long-lost twin)

Like me, she dressed her daughters to the nines but herself in schlumpy post-maternity gear (so indeed we almost looked like long-lost twins. Almost.)

It wasn't long after that that we were playing hookey at Starbucks during Mom's Club meetings--or, if we did attend them, smirking to each other about the other moms, who we decided were just kind of, I don't know...blah. Or as Esther put it, had no pulse. I do remember when she said that--and a few other comments that were harsher than that--thinking to myself, "Hmm. Not sure if they deserve quite that level of snarkiness. I mean, they are nice women who've allowed us to change diapers, nurse our children and spill coffee and formula in their homes."

But the little voice inside me that said, "You know, this Esther chick seems to be kind of bitch. I know you like hanging out with her and all, but are you sure she's BFF material?" was swiftly silenced by the louder voice inside me that said, "A friend! I won't be lonely in Weston! I have a friend!" This voice continued to prevail when bitchiness turned out to be one of Esther's more redeeming qualities. Compared to compulsive lying, manipulation and overall mind-f#%$!)ing.

I mentioned that I was desperate, right?

To be continued...

*Esther's claims would later turn out to not always be true. Or should we say "never true." Actually, "never true" might be more accurate.

Part One: Welcome to Weston

2009-01-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

It Also Rhymes with "Fester"

I’m not going to type her real name. I have the feeling she’s the kind of person who Googles herself regularly, and I wouldn’t want her to happen upon this blog. So I’m just going to call her “Esther.”

If you’re curious why I chose that name, it’s not because “Esther” rhymes with her real name, which I promised you, is not Hester. (Aside from Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, do you know of any Hesters??) It’s because my grandmother had a girlfriend who really was named Esther—an elderly lady with stooped shoulders and a closely clipped short white haircut—who reminds me so much of this ex-friend of mine that at times I wondered how, after all of those years of hiding in my grandmother’s bathroom whenever Esther dropped by to share a needlepoint pattern or chat about what idiots teenagers were, I ended up her captive, anyway.

The real Esther was sour about everything: exasperated by the irregular delivery of her newspaper and the slow service at the diner; by her failing vision and aching shoulders; by her husband, who she declared was an idiot, and her children, who she felt were failures.

Of course older people often have good reason to be sour, as much of the sweetness in their lives has been replaced by arthritis and other ailments. So maybe we can cut the real Esther a little slack. The fake Esther was 35 when I met her.

But premature grumpiness wasn’t actually the reason I “broke up” with Esther—something I hadn’t done with a girlfriend since I was in middle school and found out my supposed best friend at the time had the audacity to return the carefully selected bracelet I’d given her for her birthday (hmm, maybe I’m still a little bitter.)

I broke up with her when I discovered she was practicing some kind of game of psychological capture-the-flag on me, and who needs that, right?

***

This really is a story about the nomadic way I spent my late twenties and early thirties, as the wife of an allergist-in-training. Both Penn students, Barry and I had met in my hometown, Philadelphia, and like most women from Philly, I had the kind of East Coast edge you develop when people typically yell out during a traffic jam, “Hey jerkoff, get outa da left lane!” That's not to say I wasn't nice--I think I've always been nice. But if a stranger came up to me on the street and smiled, I wouldn't smile back. I'd think to myself, but not say aloud, "What are you smiling about?"

Later when I moved to Washington, D.C. and Baltimore for Barry’s residency, that edge came in handy (high populations of angry drivers and strangers you really shouldn't be smiling at in a narrow alley in both places). Certainly I had good friends in all three of the East Coast cities where I lived. But the friendships developed slowly and I was always a little bit wary about getting too close to anyone. (You never know when someone you really care about is going to return a friendship bracelet and exchange it for a pair of shorts, after all.)

So when we moved to St. Louis for the allergy fellowship, I was completely disarmed by how nice everyone was. St. Louisians weren’t just generous in traffic, they were generous with their friendships--with their willingness to welcome someone new into their homes and their kids’ birthday parties and their giggly girls’ nights outs while their husbands were home babysitting the kids.

Two weeks into our two-year stint in this pretty Midwestern city, and I was involved a playgroup with Jacob (then a one year-old), happily pushing my stroller alongside my new girlfriends’ Gracos as we went to the zoo and the park and the mall together. It was that kind of instant girl bonding that you might experience in overnight camp, only instead of sharing Sea Breeze and Benetton Colors, you were always lending out your wipes and your Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Sure, there were exceptions to the rule. But two years isn’t a long enough time, in a place where everyone is so pleasant, to discover those exceptions.

**

St. Louis made me soft; I’d happily surrendered my edge by the time we moved back East, this time to South Florida, where Barry had joined a practice, and fell into a kind of friendship withdrawal as soon as we traded shady oaks for palm trees. So in other words I was perfect prey for someone like Esther, who needed someone guileless and homesick—or St. Louis-sick, in my case—to fall for her creepy variety of companionship.

But more on that later…(to be continued; see Part Two)

Eh, I think I'll pass

2008-12-30T11:08:00.000-08:00

It's always been a tradition of mine to hit the mall right around New Year's Eve and treat myself to something fabulous, frivolous and deeply discounted. (A tradition of mine, a tradition of yours, a tradition of almost every human being on the planet judging by the mall parking lots most years.)

The combination of gift cards to burn, a store credit or two from an exchange/return and those infamous after-Christmas sales has always been the perfect formula for a decadently guilt-free shopping spree. In years past I've gotten 100% cashmere sweaters at 60% off; a Coach tote for the price of a Nine West; "premium" brand denim for only a little more than I'd generally spend at the Gap.

This year, with a $100 Macy's credit and newspaper coupons for good measure, I couldn't wait to indulge in a new purse, an awesome little dress to wear for New Year's Eve, or maybe some shoes and a watch.

But after spending about an hour in a department store where in years past I've scored some fantastically low-priced loot, I just wanted to go home and take a nap.

And it wasn't for lack of loot. It was kind of like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet...right after you've just eaten a big meal. Nothing looked appealing, for some odd reason. I didn't long for a single object I saw; and whatever did catch my fancy (a cute Coach watch with a pink leather wriststrap) was overpriced.

I don't think I was alone in my anti-shopping sentiments. I eased into a prime parking spot within a stone's throw of the entrance, since the mall was shockingly uncrowded; it certainly wasn't the post-Christmas chaos of years past. It's the end of 2008 and we're all dealing with a chaos of a much deeper sort. The economy sucks; people are losing their jobs left and right. I almost felt un-American to be binging on baubles.

But, I reasoned, somebody's got to get money back into circulation--and I wouldn't be seeing discounts this deep again (Or would I?) So, even though I wasn't especially enthusiastic about it, I bought myself an INC dress...but then ultimately decided it was overpriced, and exchanged it for some DKNY tops, 60% off. And after hanging on to them for about ten minutes, I thought there really wasn't anything special about the DKNY tops, either, and exchanged them for a large Dooney & Burke patent leather gray tote, which was a steal at $139. Now that's what I'm talking about! I left the mall convinced that this purchase ranked right up there with that cashmere sweater from a few years ago that had cost very little cash.

That was before buyer's remorse, coupled with label-whore shame, set in. Once I had it home with me, I wasn't so thrilled with the Dooney & Burke, despite the low price-tag; hell, it could have been free and it wouldn't have been worth it, once I reconsidered it in the harsher light of my closet. It's too big and boxy for my frame, for one thing; for another, I just don't need it. I already have plenty of nice purses, and the gray color was too pale to accessorize with blacks or browns but too dull to go with pastels.

Thankfully I can return it; I'll probably exchange this year's sorry splurge for underwear or luggage. It won't be a happy return, though; going back to the mall isn't something I'm looking forward to. I guess I need to be surrounded by other shoppers eager to lighten their wallets to truly enjoy a sale.

Being practically alone in a deeply discounted store might sound like a shopaholic's fantasy, but until you're actually walking around in half-off Cole Haans, you don't know how you'll feel about it.

Who knew discounts could be such a downer?

The Best Movie I Didn't See

2008-12-27T05:22:00.000-08:00

Four tickets to see "Bolt"on Christmas Day: $41 and change (those cheesy 3D glasses apparently give Muvico leverage to ratchet up the price.)

Spending the next hour and a half at first comforting my three year-old, who found the blasting noises and sudden darkness of the theater petrifying, and then playing with her in a deserted shopping mall plaza until Barry and Jacob emerged from the movie an hour and a half later: well, I'd say "priceless" if this were a Mastercard commercial. But I am pretty sure we paid by Visa.

I really did enjoy my evening not at the movies with Rebecca, though. Even the part when she clung to me, whimpering, "I'm scary, Mommy!" (Maybe even especially that part.)

While I shush-shushed in her ear and petted her silky, tangled curls, I realized just how rare it s, these days, that I get to comfort her like that. Sure, when she was a baby, shush-shushing, rocking, patting her back and telling her everything was okay was part of our daily repetoire. (Infancy can indeed me a scary experience; you never know when suddenly your diaper will become wet, or a painful bubble will form in your tiny tummy.)

She's a pretty tough toddler, though,; when she falls and hurts her knee, she will tell me, "Ow! Mommy, I hurt myself!" But when I offer to kiss it and make it better, she usually says, cheerfully, "No thanks!" and goes back to playing.

And Rebecca rarely is scared. This is mainly because Barry roars at and startles at our kids as part of his horsing around routine; they love it and beg him, "Scare me again, Daddy!" His impressions of enraged dinosaurs and lions hungry for a fleshy little arm or leg to nibble on have trained them to enjoy the little flutters of pretend-fear. They were the youngest and least frightened children on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disney last year. But, to be fair to Rebecca, this ride didn't show a cute white puppy-dog being zapped by lasers or a little girl's father being kidnapped by terrorist-inspired bad guys.

So this time along with Rebecca--first calming her fears, then cheerfully exploring the closed-for-Christmas Shops at Sheridan Plaza while waiting for "Bolt" to let out--was a pretty special experience.

We did a lot of window shopping; "Look! I see a Mommy!" Rebecca said, pointing at a poster of a bikini-clad woman in the window of a wax salon. "I don't think that's a Mommy, honey," I muttered under my breath. ("Unless she'd had extensive stretch mark removal surgery," I added even more quietly.) And I taught Rebecca how to spell the words "thank you" by letting her point to every letter on a trash can about nine thousand times. "Yes, that's a 'T.' Yes, that's an 'H.' Yes, that's an 'A.' This trash can is very polite."

When the boys finally finished the flick, Rebecca ran over to them and hugged them as if she hadn't seen them in weeks. Jacob was eager to tell us all about the super-powered dog and his funny animal friends. I asked Barry if the movie was any good--meaning, in parent-to-parent language, was it bearable to watch the way "Wall-E" was or was it more like "Horton Hears a Who"? He shrugged and said it wasn't too bad, adding, "Too bad you guys missed it. So what did you do, for all that time while we were in the movies?"

"Nothing," I said, "absolutely nothing. But it was a lot of fun. Sometimes it's fun to do nothing, just us girls."

Pointy-Heeled Beasts

2008-12-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Paging Dr. Scholls.

I’ve had a lot of luck in my life—an adorable husband, a daughter as cute as a cupcake and a sweetheart for a son—so it’s not uncommon for people to say to me, “A lot of people would love to be in your shoes.”

I know they mean this figuratively, and not literally, but because 99% of the time I am limping around with Band-Aids covering my toes and heels, I rarely can resist replying, “No they wouldn’t!”

The irony is that some of my livelihood in the past four years has come from writing “shoe porn,” by which I mean catalog copy describing shoes for sale, not sexual foot fetish fantasies or anything like that. Although, if you must know…partly why I got the coveted copywriting job at Marmi when I lived in St. Louis was the passionate way I handled the merchandise when I went in for the interview. “Nice. A 2 and ¾ inch heel, richly covered in opulent leather,” I murmured huskily, stroking the stiletto as the shoe designer watched me with his mouth dropped open. “Oooh, look at this plush foot bed! Slip these on and you’ll be sure to spoil your soles in luxury with every step you take!”

Fortunately all this shoe dirty talk distracted the interviewer from noticing my own shoes, which probably were either worn out flip-flops—or very cute heels with bloody Band-Aids peeking out from the sides.

Shoes and I have had a love/hate relationship spanning several decades, beginning in 1987 with my very first pair of pumps (bone-white leather Mary Janes intended to go with my Bat Mitzvah dress, but they gave me so much trouble I ended up dancing barefoot at my reception) and being punctuated most recently with me placing the following ad on the Internet: “FREE TO A GOOD HOME: Bag of Women’s Shoes, Size 8, Very Cute and Only Worn Once or Twice Because They Give Me Blisters.” (Somewhere in South Florida, a woman named Graciela is walking around in my favorite Matisse zebra-patterned Swarovski crystal studded buckle wedges without even so much as a wince. Bitch.)

The problem, according to one of the many podiatrists I’ve sought counsel from, is that I have flat arches and am too big for a size 8 shoe (they give me blisters on my toes) but too small for an 8.5 (chafing at the heel.) I’m only really comfortable in flip flops—even running shoes give me blisters when I wear them for more than, say, an hour-long step aerobics class. But flip flops are bad for your foot for other reasons, and are probably the reason why I have plantar fasciitis (one of my many foot ailments.)

Sore feet and blisters have accompanied every important event of my life. We’ve already talked about what the Mary Janes did to my toes at my Bat Mitzvah… I decided to go for much higher heels (Spanish silk covered stilettos) for my high school prom and ended up needing to ask my date for a piggyback ride from the dance floor to the banquet table. In college, with all that walking to and from class, I learned to carry a box of bandages in my backpack, and by the time I was working full-time, I was very Melanie Griffith in “Working Girl” by wearing flats on the street (I couldn’t quite bring myself to white tennis shoes and socks) and another, cuter pair of shoes once I was stationary at my desk.

Barry has no patience for my sad shoe stories. Knowing my long and sordid history with fashionable footwear, whenever we make plans to go anywhere that might inspire me to go for the pointy-heeled beasts in my closet, he makes me promise to opt for “sensible” shoes instead. Being a good wife—and someone who is adverse to pain—I usually do stick with low-heeled Aerosoles or Naturalizers…only to spend the entire night staring with envy at the other women frolicking about in their Ferragamos; painting the town red in their Tory Burches.

So if you see me at a party scowling at your feet, take it as a compliment. I might look mad, but what that sneer really means is that I think you have great taste in shoes. I am thinking bitterly to myself, “What does she have that I don’t have? How come she gets to look a few inches taller—and thinner—thanks to her stacked wedge espadrilles, while I have to wear Library Lady loafers instead?”

Now I know what you’re going to tell me. I shouldn’t go around envying other women, when I have a lot going for me—the adorable husband, cupcake daughter, sweetheart son, etc. etc.

“A lot of people,” I know you’re going to say, “would love to be in your shoes”

Well, if they really want to be in my shoes, they are welcome to them. Whatever Graciela’s left behind—it’s all theirs.

Christmas is a wonderful holiday. Too bad we don't celebrate it.

2008-12-16T04:22:00.000-08:00

I think Hanukkah needs a new marketing campaign.

When you tell your kids they are getting eight presents--from you and their father alone, not to mention whatever gift-wrapped goodies the grandparents, aunts and uncles send--and they still pine for twinkle lights and Santa's lap, you know whoever's in charge of promoting our second-fiddle Jewish holiday needs to get reassigned to a smaller, less important campaign. (Like Pesach, perhaps, or Sukkot.) We need to put some Mad Men ad men in charge.

I know part of the problem is the material they're working with. There's just no way Hanukkah can compete with the merriment and beauty of Christmas. They have jolly Saint Nick and the reindeer. We, on the other hand, have no mascot at all. They have the miracle of the baby Jesus...we have the miracle of candles that will burn for eight straight nights, ladies and gentleman, without needing to be relit! (So powerful you won't waste matches. This exclusive TV offer available in three installments of $79.99; act now and we'll throw in this handy dandy wrench for free!) They have soft, buttery cookies and creamy, spiked drinks. We have oily oversized Tater Tots and flat chocolate gelt coins. It's an uphill battle for even the most gifted, creative marketing team, for certain.

Don't get me wrong--Hanukkah's image has definitely been shined up a bit since I was a kid. My version of Hanukkah, circa 1986, involved trudging behind my parents in my moon boots through the King of Prussia Mall on a December weekend, gazing with a mixture of cynicsm and envy at the velvet bows draped from the ceilings to the escalators; green and gold and silver and red glittery confections hanging like dangle-earrings from a towering, lush green Christmas tree.

Hanukkah shopping was a one-day, one-gift-per-recipient endeavor for us, and it wasn't particularly different from any other weekend trip to the mall, which we visited at least twice a month. It began with my dad paying his respects to Brooks Brothers, emerging with a new tie (he'd be sure to comment that all the other ones on display were overpriced and sold under a no-name label to Marshall's and TJ Maxx.) My mom was less into the whole ritual, but usually would end up with some new (boring) household good from the Macy's Cellar. Then it would be our turn. "Oh, by the way, Hanukkah is next week," they might mention in passing. "What do you want?"

Another Barbie for me, another Transformer for my brother Casey. Freshly crinkling in a plastic bag from KB Toys, it was all ours. Happy Hanukkah.

Now I don't mean to cry poor little me. Let me just make it clear--again--that this was how we spent nearly every weekend, whether it was December 24 or October 24 or February 12 or April 3. So I had dozens of Barbie dolls, and Casey had dozens of Transformers; my mother's linen closet was our very own Linens 'n Things, and my father, twenty or so years later, actually had an entire closet built to support his tie collection, which currently numbers in the thousands. No one was lacking for material goods in my family.

And neither are my children. Jacob and Rebecca receive at least one Star-of-David-paper-wrapped surprise on each night of the Festival of Lights. This year, by the glow of the menorah candles, they will be raking in baby dolls and puzzles and books and a scooter and a tricycle and a guitar and every single Disney Princess toy ever made. (Unlike my parents, Barry and I don't buy them toys at the mall every weekend, so we have a lot of territory to make up.)

As much as this sounds like a materialistic orgasm of consumerism, it won't just be about the ample piles of presents. We've also tried to bring more ritual and joy to Hanukkah, by saying the Hebrew prayers as we light the menorah, cooking all the traditional oily foods and explaining their symbolic significance, having Hanukkah parties, attending candle lighting ceremonies and partaking in festive games of competitive dreidel spinning and Hanukkah bingo.

Despite this, my kids still gaze wistfully at the four-foot-high candy canes impaled into our neighbor's front lawn as if they could eat them up whole, reminding me of how I used to stare at the mall ornaments. Jacob said to me recently, "I wish we could have Christmas because if you have Christmas you get Santa Claus and reindeer and a big Christmas tree."

I reminded him then that while all of his friends in kindergarten would have just one day of opening presents, he'd be opening gifts for more than a week; I talked up the potato latkes, gelt, the lighting of the candles, how super-cool and strong the Macabees were to win their battle and keep our ancestors alive. "They won!" I said to him excitedly. "They were so strong and so smart! And God kept the candles burning for more than a week. It was a miracle."

"How long to candles usually stay lit?"

"Maybe a few hours, at the most! Eight days is a super-long time."

"Oh."

Jacob then asked me if we weren't "allowed" to have a Santa Claus. I struggled for how to reply. I remembered having a similar discussion with my very cynical parents when I was in kindergarten. They'd mocked my Christian school friends for believing in a "fat man in a silly red suit" who didn't exist; I would watch made-for-television movies where Santa turned out to be real after all, and wonder if they'd been wrong to write him off as a fraud.

"You can sit on Santa's lap and watch movies and eat Christmas cookies," I conceded to my son. "But it's not our holiday. We can have fun, but we have our own traditions."

"Can we have a Christmas tree?" Jacob asked.

"No, because Christmas isn't our holiday. We have a menorah."

"Oh."

"Did I mention that you get to open at least one present every single night?"

"Yes, Mommy."

What I couldn't explain to Jacob, what I guess I am still coming to terms with myself, is sometimes, you can't compete. And you shouldn't try to. Being Jewish isn't about beating our Christian friends at the game of holiday cheer. We're defined by what we are as a people more than we're defined by the fact that we're "other;" that we're not Christian. And this is why I'm not a big fan of the Hanukkah bush (a sickly-thin pale white synthetic plant cowering in the presence of those great piney beasts) or asking Barry to pretend he's Hanukkah Harry.

If anything, our stories of latkes instead of cookies--and, in the spring, matzoh meal cookies instead of chocolate bunnies--are partially what binds us Members of the Tribe close together. When you're a Jew and you meet another Jew at a wedding or on a cruise or an airport, after you get done with "Jewish geography" ("so your second cousin's boyfriend went to summer camp with my best friend's neighbor's orthodontist's daughter? What a small world!") these tales of having our noses pressed against the window pane of the Christian celebrations are what often begin new friendships. It's what begins them, but from there, it's not what defines them; our closeness as a community, how girlfriends can love each other like sisters and guy friends can bond together like brothers is the gooey good stuff that we cynics might not admit in glittery Hallmark cards, but treasure deeply.

I can't really explain all this to Jacob right now. But I have faith that one day, he'll make some great friends who will smile wistfully at his stories of how his mom explained to him when he was a kid that, "Christmas is a wonderful holiday. Too bad we don't celebrate it." They'll surely relate, and have some war stories of their own.

Unless, of course, some marketing genius finds a better way to spin Hanukkah. Which I wouldn't rule out. With so many Jews in the advertising industry, there may be hope for Hanukkah Harry yet.

Work it, Baby

2008-12-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Work-a-versary to me.

Exactly one year ago today, I pushed past the jeans and yoga pants in my closet for the first time in almost five years—and instead zipped myself up into something tailored and peppy; went for the hair dryer instead of the ponytail holder; chose kitten-heel mary janes instead of flip flops. Then I tearfully bid goodbye to my small, bewildered children, tossed my cap into the air and began singing the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song, “You're gonna make it after all…”

Okay, the last part was in jest, but the rest of it is all true, especially the part about the tearful goodbyes. I was the one crying, by the way. They were fine. While I was weeping as I careened southward down I-75, the first of my many daily laps to Doral, they went off to preschool as usual.

Now, at 3 p.m., when a pretty 20 year-old babysitter pulled up into carpool line to collect them instead of their mommy, tears did ensue—which many mothers at the school and teachers were sure to report to me (just dig that knife in a little deeper, thank you very much). And in an office twenty-five miles away, exactly as the clock struck three, I had to wobble into the ladies room (after years of being in flat shoes all day, the kitten-heels were giving me blisters) and have another good cry myself.

The blisters, of course, weren’t what caused this second bout of tears…I was crying because I was worried that by returning to the working world, I was ruining their lives forever.

My own mother worked for much of my childhood and I turned out fine (mmm…okay, a little neurotic, but overall fine), so it is a little surprising that I had this concern. If anything, I should have known firsthand that a happy mom equals a happy family—we were all much happier when she was working, while her unhappiness seemed to correspond in direct proportion to her yield of home baked, burned cookies. (My ineptitude in the kitchen is genetic.)

But while my mother’s choices somewhat influenced my own choices as an adult, there was a woman whose opinions had a much more dramatic impact during my formative years: Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

It might be surprising to see Dr. Laura’s name in my blog. She’s of the uber-conservative, anti-abortion, if-the-husband-cheats-it’s-the-wife’s-fault-for-not-putting-out-when-she’s-exhausted ilk. And I am, well, the opposite of that.

Whatever Dr. Laura’s offenses might be, however, listening to her is still a lot more interesting than the FM channels on the radio—and during my early 20s, when I was a graduate student in Washington, D.C., the Traffic Capital of the U.S. as much as it is the Capitol—I spent a lot of time, bored, in the car, waiting twenty minutes to move twenty inches on Connecticut Avenue.

The first time I flipped the channel to Dr. Laura, she was verbally beating the crap out of some woman who had “shacked up” with a “stud” and ten years later was a bit concerned that he hadn’t popped the question yet. Juicy stuff. The calls that followed were equally brimming with drama. Messy divorces, dysfunctional families, unplanned pregnancies, extramarital affairs—it was better than a soap opera! I was hooked.

An hour with Dr. Laura became my new guilty pleasure, not to mention a method for surviving rush-hour commute without swearing or honking at a single Beltway motorist.

I saved my swearing for when Dr. Laura said something I disagreed with—which was about 95% of the time—but that didn’t mean I didn’t look forward to my time with the Church Lady of Talk Radio. What I didn’t realize during these drives, though, was that even though consciously I disagreed with her, subconsciously Dr. Laura’s line of thinking was creeping into my own world view and would eventually impact the choices I made.

On the issue of working mothers, Dr. Laura had no shades of gray. Women shouldn’t work. They should learn to live happily on their husband’s paychecks, even if that meant tremendous financial hardship. Women who worked for reasons of fulfillment, satisfaction, etc. were scum of the earth selfish beings who were scarring their children forever. (Not an exaggeration but as close to a direct quote as I can get ten years after the fact; Dr. Laura doesn’t mince words.)

It’s beyond ironic that the years I spent getting a master’s degree—which increased my job prospects—were the same years I spent learning I should spend my childbearing years jobless.

About four years after I became a Dr. Laura groupie, I was married, employed, and pregnant with my first child. The inevitable question at last arose: whether I'd be returning after my maternity leave. While my job had become increasingly frustrating during my pregnancy—a combination of hormones and a boss who told me at one point I needed “writing lessons”—I am pretty sure it was the shrill voice in the back of my head insisting that working was wrong that ultimately motivated me to become a stay-at-home-mom.

Now, I know many women love staying at home with their children, and view it as a tremendous honor and privilege to spend every hour of every day with their offspring. But I am not one of those women.

The problem with staying at home for me was that after about six months of enjoying not having anywhere to be but playgroup or the pediatrician’s, I was bored. Bored out of my skull. When I worked, I was used to being paged over the intercom when I was needed; among the nonworking, the only “paging” I responded to was, “wahhh!” It's not that I didn't love those special months with Jacob...it's just that I needed more than that. And, I was concerned that the consistency of my brain was turning into the consistency of the stuff in Jacob's Gerber jars.

That being said, something just didn’t feel right about putting my kids in daycare—probably all those years of Dr. Laura berating women who had “strangers raise their children.” So over the next four years, I straddled the fence by freelancing—at first one project at a time, then two…eventually, close to 40 hours a week. By the time Jacob was four and my baby, Rebecca, was two, I was staying up till midnight to get projects done. And yet, I was a “stay at home mom” (or as the doctor would put it, "I am my kid's mom") because I did literally stay home.

I think this is when I realized that with no benefits, job security or adult interaction beyond teleconferencing calls with my kids clamoring for my attention in the background, staying home wasn’t such a great deal. Barry, who had never listened to Dr. Laura before and knew I'd be happier in a full-time gig, forcefully agreed. And so I began the interview process…and voila! Within a few months, I was back in the game. And aside for the tearful first weeks, I haven’t looked back since.

So how did my kids fare over the last 365 days? Would you be surprised to learn that they are absolutely fine?? Jacob is as bonded to me as he was before and likes the little freebies I occasionally bring home from work (he has a growing collection of Met Life Snoopy dolls our HR department is regularly handing out). I can’t really see any difference in Rebecca’s behavior at all—and I am glad that she two working parents as role models. I’ve got two happy, well-adjusted kids, a resume resumed, more income and a better wardrobe. Aside from the seven pounds I’ve gained from replacing my 10 a.m. spin classes with 10 a.m. marketing meetings, it’s been pretty much a win-win situation.

One new unpleasant thing I do have to deal with now that I am a working mother is the commute. It's about 25-30 minutes each way. But thanks to the advent of Air America, I no longer spend my down time in the car being brainwashed by Dr. Laura.

Thank goodness for the Stephanie Miller Show. These days, I’m “Walking on Sunshine” indeed.

French Roast

2008-12-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

Most kids want to be doctors or lawyers or movie stars when they grow up. I wanted to be a 1950s-era French ingénue. An unfortunate aspiration for three reasons:

1. I was born 20 years after the 1950s had passed
2. There’s a demand for doctors and lawyers. Not so much for French ingénues. Even in a strong economy.
3. I’m not French. Je suis americane avec un mal accent francaise. (I am an American with a bad French accent. At least, that’s what I think I just wrote. I was never very good at French.)

But I tried. Oh did I try. As a teenager, I walked around in flirty full-skirted flouncy dresses and white high heeled shoes, carrying a weathered notebook which I looked up from with theatrically wide, heavily-mascaraed-yet-innocent eyes, as if to say, je ne sais quoi. I eventually found within the city limits of Philadelphia one single authentically French café, Caribou, owned by one authentically French café owner who made my heart go ron-ron-ron.

And I moved in there. More or less.

When I was not in school or sleeping, I could be found seated upstairs in the dimly lit café, below a Toulouse Lautrec print, across the table from my best friend Kelly, who also was a 1950s-era French ingénue type (but she had a much better accent), hoping to get noticed by the French café owner. (In case you are wondering, he did not in fact notice me. Even with my white shoes and flouncy skirts. Even when I spoke to him in stilted English, like the subtitles on a French film. Le batard.)

Of course to pay the rent on my tiny table, I was expected (I assumed) to order lots of coffee, which I did. Espresso, cappuccino, café au lait and iced coffee. But I didn’t really like coffee, so I didn’t drink very much of it.

But then I grew older, began college, and faced with no other options, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was an American writer and not une fille francaise. It was a bittersweet departure, but the one silver lining was no one expected me to drink coffee any longer. No more dark, bitter stuff lightened with heavy cream (it hadn’t seemed very French to request skim milk or Land O Lakes Fat Free Half and Half) to choke down as I read expensive imported translations of Aimez Vous Brahms and Rose Mellie Rose. I joined the college newspaper and switched to Diet Coke as my caffeine source—and haven’t looked back since.

Until recently, that is. Let's fast-forward a few decades. I’m now so far beyond my fake-French ingénue days that I can remember them tenderly, without even slightly cringing. I actually think to myself, “Aww, wasn’t I a cute little pretentious thing!” instead of blushing at the thought of myself saying to the French café owner, “I want you to, how you say it, age me”—that’s how long ago all this was. Now I have two very American kids, am married to a very American doctor, and I work as a writer in the marketing department of a company that, while it is based in Madrid and Nice, has not employed me for the purpose of looking fetching while pretending to write poetry at a café table (if there is staff charged with that responsibility, they probably work out of the French headquarters.) And for the past 15+ years, I’ve had Diet Coke by the gallons, but coffee sparingly.

Then a few months ago, my department decided to purchase a Keurig. If you’ve never experienced coffee from a Keurig before, even if you are not a coffee drinker, it might be fair to say you are missing one of life’s greatest pleasures. Next time you're getting your oil changed or are waiting to get extensions put in at your favorite salon, please give it a try. It's easy. You choose your favorite flavor (I like butter toffee, Magie Noire and Fall Harvest), pop in the K-cup, and within moments you have a steaming, perfectly prepared cup of coffee so divine and so that you’ll be crying out spontaneously, “Mon Dieu! Oooh la la! C’est si bon!” in ecstasy. You may not know what “Mon Dieu! Oooh la la! C’est si bon!” means, perhaps you usually speak Spanish when you’re not speaking English. It doesn’t matter; this coffee is so exquisite that just drinking a cup makes you a little bit French.

So of course I had to get myself my own Keurig, to enjoy Magie Noire from the privacy of my home, where my kids and husband, who are used to me being a bit eccentric, aren’t nearly as off-put when I begin shouting out expressions of bliss in a foreign language. If only I felt this way about the French café owner’s comparatively crappy coffee—perhaps we would have gotten further than, “Miz, are you reh-dee for ze check?”

Random bit of trivia: did you know Keurig is a Dutch word that means excellence. Dutch. Huh. And the Keurig corporation is American. Still, their brew makes my heart go ron-ron-ron all the same…

On birthdays & birth order

2008-12-01T10:43:00.000-08:00

Wishing the happiest of birthdays to my baby Rebecca, who turns three tomorrow. What a difference three years makes. She sings, she dances, she uses the potty, she dresses herself, she tells stories ("Once upon a time there was a baby and a mommy. The end!"). It's hard to believe that just 36 months ago, she was a gooey little blob.

Something else that's hard for me to believe, when I look back at her baby pictures: that her big brother Jacob was younger when she was born than she is now. He was just two and a half at the time, but as soon as Rebecca arrived, he suddenly seemed so grown up.

The moment he stepped into our hospital suite, in fact, I remember being shocked by how large and strong and mature he seemed, as I held my helpless newborn in my arms. Then and there his Pull-Ups seemed less like training diapers and more like Depends; watching him eat French fries and chicken nuggets next to me as I picked at my hospital tray, I became aware of how many teeth he had, compared to the toothless infant I was nursing.

In contrast, Rebecca has always been my baby. She might have been walking and talking months earlier than Jacob did (she is a girl and a second child, after all) but it's hard for me to see her as anything but my littlest one. When her preschool teacher told me that she knew her letters and her numbers, I was surprised. I hadn't even thought to go over this subject with her, since I'd been preoccupied with Jacob's ability to read Green Eggs & Ham cover to cover, not stumbling over a single word. Rebecca and I were still singing "Twinkle Little Star" during our moments alone together--who knew it was time to graduate to phonics?

I'm not sure who got the worse deal, my oldest or my baby. On one hand, sometimes it stinks being the first born. I know this because I'm a first born. New parents tend to overthink everything. Lucky kid #2 gets more laid-back parents who know that if they make a mistake, the kid will survive. Which ironically seems to result in fewer mistakes.

Indeed, there was a level of scrutiny and intensity to my relationship with Jacob that I just haven't had with Rebecca. I read parenting magazines and books for every major decision we made about Jacob's development. How to sleep and potty train, when and what first foods to feed, how to diffuse tantrums.

While I marveled at each and every moment in Jacob's development--I can tell you exactly when he first smiled, his favorite bedtime book and even which of the many Mommy & Me activities we did together he liked the best--with Rebecca, none of this was all that earth-shattering. Which also made our time together so easygoing and fun. Little outings to Publix alone with her were a gift, the way she'd grin at me, gumming on her free cookie, as I loaded items in the checkout lane. (Would I have let Jacob, when he was young enough to still be teething, eat a "real" cookie when he could have had a fruit-juice-sweetened teething biscuit from Whole Foods instead? No way.)

Jacob gets my A-game, but he also gets me at my Type A worst. Rebecca gets the mellower mama, who is also somewhat of a slacker. Poor kids. Lucky kids.

It's hard to believe I could have such different relationships with two children I adore and treasure so deeply and completely.

Pain in the Bundt

2008-11-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

Most of the time, I am over the fact that I'm not a domestic diva. I have a history of collapsed soufflés, glue gun misfires and scrapbooking debacles attesting to my status as perpetual home ec reject.

Hey, we can't all be good at everything, right? It really shouldn't bother me that the only kitchen appliance I've mastered is the microwave. I've got a family that loves me despite the fact that I repeatedly misunderstand recipes, which, in my opinion, leave way too much open to interpretation. (Like when it comes to "lightly beating" eggs, don't we all have a different understanding of how much force to use? Your version of "lightly beating" might be my version of "briskly smacking.")

Barry likes to tell people how when we were dating, he came over for dinner one night and found me in the bathtub of my tiny studio apartment, crying, with a bowl of potatoes in my lap and the handmixer plugged in where the hairdryer usually was. (I was 22; I didn't know you had to soften the potatoes by boiling them before trying to blend them, and hard shards of potato had been flying all over the kitchen, so I took the entire operation into the bathtub to control the mess.) I've gotten better (a little) since then, but still, it's not without good reason that Barry begs me not to bake, when I'm "so good" at picking out exactly the right dessert at Publix instead.

But every now and then, I just want to be Rachel Ray. I just want to take the power of the immerser blender into my hands and create something decadent, fattening and perfect. I just want to see the fruits of my labor, in the form of the perfect fruit tart, formed by my very own fingers. (Part of my problem is a cake mix box won't do it for me, so I either am strictly a take-out kind of chick, or I'm attempting exotic pastries from scratch.)

Tonight's the night before Thanksgiving, and I had been hopeful to see once again whether there might be a gourmet goddess lurking within me, despite my track record with recipes for disaster. I'd secured the recipe for a truly decadent Bundt cake that seemed pretty much idiot-proof: eggs, butter, milk, shortening, baking powder, sugar, and five types of extract (vanilla, butter, coconut, rum, lemon.) My coworker had made this for a bake sale recently and it was seriously one of the most simple yet exotic desserts I'd ever tasted, and I wanted to share this find with my family. (I'm not sure if rum and lemon go well with turkey and cranberry sauce, but again, this is not my forte.)

So I bought the extracts (I already owned all of the other ingredients), dusted off the Kitchen-Aid Stand Mixer (which hadn't been used since last Thanksgiving) and thought, "piece of cake." Singing a little ditty ("Mama's little baby likes shortening bread" if you must know), I followed the instructions--this time to the letter of the law.

"Beat five eggs until they are as yellow as butter." I dropped each one in, turned on the mixer, and voila! Yellow-as-butter raw eggs. I went to remove the mixing bowl from the base of my Kitchen-Aid so I could move onto the next step in the recipe...and this is when the rest of my evening went kaput.

The bowl was stuck to the base. As hard as I wriggled, jostled, cajoled and cursed it, I couldn't get it out, and the eggs were in there! With sweat bursting across my forehead, I had a flashback to 12 years ago and remembered the mashed potato/bathtub scene. That was when I had the sinking feeling that this cake was headed for a similar fate. I called in Barry, and after calmly asking me--yet again--if I wouldn't rather pick something up at Publix--he tried to release the bowl, and failed as well.

Then I spent a good half hour on the phone with Kitchen Aid tech support, and employed the following tools, unsuccessfully, in my attempts to free the bowl: Pam spray (to lubricate the bowl), a hot wet towel, changing the surface I was using from the countertop to the floor.

Finally, they told me to get out a hammer, and that worked.

So that obstacle was cleared, the rest of the recipe went smoothly, but I suspected the jammed bowl had been merely Act I of this domestic misadventure. I felt a flash of hope when I took the Bundt pan out of the oven an hour or so later, and saw how perfect and lightly browned my cake was. Jacob and Rebecca smelled the cake and came running into the kitchen to see if they could have a piece, but I just smiled and explained no, this was a Thanksgiving treat.

Act II occurred when it was time for me to free the cake from the Bundt pan, so I could apply the home-made frosting. I must have not greased the pan thoroughly enough (I just used Pam, not butter) because as soon as I turned it over onto the cake plate, it fell apart into big chunks.

I let out a sob as I tried--in vain--to piece the cake back together again. Fragrant from the rum-coconut extracts, buttery and velvety, the harder I pushed them, the more they crumbled.

My little protector, Jacob was by my side instantly, as soon as he saw my distress. "Can I have a piece now?" he asked.

Defeated, I handed him one giant crumb and said, "Sure, why not? The whole thing is ruined now."

Jacob quickly gobbled it, like a squirrel devouring a chestnut, and said, "Mmmm, Mommy, this is delicious! Who cares what it looks like? It tastes great!"

Awww, mama's little baby did like shortening bread! Which instantly cheered me up. What a sweetie. "Do you want a bigger piece?"

"Oooh, yes, Mommy! Thank you!"

I sliced and frosted the least messy remains of the Bundt cake into squares that I will serve tomorrow night. Then I dished out the sloppy, gooey, rummy part for us. We definitely enjoyed it. As far as culinary disasters go, this one was rather exquisite.

Jacob said again, "Thank you, Mommy, for this delicious cake!"

"You're welcome."

"And Mommy," Jacob added, "you should say thank you to me, too."

"Oh? Why?"

"Because I made you feel better when your cake fell apart."

I laughed. "Yes, you sure did. Thank you, Jacob."

Happy Thanksgiving to Jacob. To you, Rebecca and Barry I am indeed very grateful.

Thanksgiving Gothic

2008-11-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

Most American children grow up celebrating Thanksgiving in the traditional way: football game on in the background, mothers and grandmothers arguing about how long it takes to cook the Butterball, the kitchen smelling of Crisco. You know, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go…”

But my Thanksgiving as a kid was more along the lines of “Over the river and through the woods to a strange gothic-themed restaurant with surly serving wenches we go…”

This restaurant, the now-defunct Stokesay Castle in Reading, Pennsylvania, was more about celebrating the reign of Henry VIII than commemorating the first time the Pilgrims and Indians broke bread, but until recently, Tudor-inspired tapestries and parchment menus were my only associations with the great American holiday.

As the story goes, my parents got married on Thanksgiving in 1969 and had their first newlywed dinner at Stokesay, thus beginning a multiple-decades-long tradition of traveling several hours by car to eat pre-sliced turkey at a restaurant complete with its very own dungeon. (If you were restless during dinner, you could go downstairs and play in the dungeon, which had a very realistic looking mannequin stuck in some kind of authentic torturing device straight out of the days of Bloody Mary’s reign. It really was fun.)

Initially we were there to celebrate both Thanksgiving and my parents’ wedding anniversary. But after they divorced 19 years after their first turkey day together—which, if you’d been stuck in the car with them for hours during our increasingly angst-filled yearly treks to Reading from the Philly suburbs, you’d have seen coming—my stepmother and eventually my half-siblings began coming along.

And by that point I am not sure if the travels to Stokesay were even about Thanksgiving anymore…I think it was just the kind of thing that if you do the same thing 19 years in a row, do you really give up on the twentieth year? And if you can do it for 20 years, why stop after 21? The Green family name was quilled into Stokesay’s reservation book until the grand palace closed its heavy doors for the last time in 2006.

Our tradition certainly wasn’t about the food. I’m sure the dining experience was decent enough in the late 60s and early 70s for my parents to decide to make going gothic an annual event, but by the time I was old enough to distinguish good food from bad food, Stokesay’s cuisine registered right up there with Ikea meatballs and my mom’s occasional experiments with cabbage. (The last year I went there, I ordered the lobster instead of the Thanksgiving special because I had come to think of a turkey dinner as a barely palatable entrée—since then, I’ve discovered the real deal is definitely worth replicating November after November.)

Like I do every year since I moved away from Pennsylvania, I will miss my Green roots this Thanksgiving when I break bread in South Florida surrounded by my husband, children and in-laws. Sitting at my dinner table and enjoying my own made-from-scratch cranberry-walnut-mandarin orange sauce, Grandma Betty’s matzoh stuffing and my mother-in-law’s turkey, cooked not a minute too long, I will not be missing Stokesay itself, however.

Although, if the kids fidget halfway through the meal, it sure would be nice to send them to the dungeon to play, at least until the dessert arrives.

I Can't Believe It's Not Better...

2008-11-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

…for you to consume I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter fat-free spray, the way water, fruit and other things consumed in high volume are good for you.

And, I can’t believe the high volume of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter I actually consume.

I can’t believe it…and yet I can’t stop it.

My name is Jorie, I am an ICBINB-aholic.

This, in fact, is my most unique distinguishing trait. Attempting to describe me, you could refer to me as, “the girl with the dark hair,” but there are lots of girls with dark hair; you could refer to me as, “the mom with two kids” but there are lots of moms with two kids. Say, “the one who puts I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray on her oatmeal, cous cous, saltines, pumpkin pie filling and apples” and yep, anyone who knows me will know who you’re talking about.

Why do I ingest so much of it, I’m often asked. I don’t know why…I just know I can’t stop. I gave up alcohol and caffeine during my pregnancies, but my kids probably have yellow liquid soybean oil coursing through their veins.

Another question I hear a lot, especially among the calorie-conscious: Do I really think it’s “fat free” when I go through one bottle a week? Nope, along with the rest of you scale stalkers, I’ve seen the post on HungryGirl.com claiming that one bottle of ICBINB has about 900 calories.

I’d love to be skinny—seriously, I’m like Bridget Jones on steroids when it comes to yo-yo dieting. But while I can give up carbs, Alfredo sauce and mayonnaise, I can’t deprive myself of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. (Which is why I can believe I’m not thinner.)

It’s not just the taste: vaguely salty, somewhat buttery, but not in the rich, filling way real butter is buttery.

It’s certainly not the aftertaste: pure chemicals.

It’s the sound. Spritz-spritz.

And it's the history. I’ve been spritz-spritzing for years, after all, since it came out in the peak of the lowfat madness of the 1990s. This sound is actually what my husband has awoken to for more than seven years now, as I’ve found I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter to be quite a tasty addition to a plain bowl of Quaker Oats, Farina, wheat toast or even eggs. If I didn’t spritz-spritz it, he’d probably oversleep, so much is it a part of our daily routines.

One day, I’ll do it. I’ll kick the habit once and for all. I’ll give up on yellow chemicals and start eating my food naked.

But it’s a bit early in the year for New Year’s Resolutions. I can’t get through Thanksgiving without my ICBINB spray. So until then…

Spritz-spritz.

"I'm not a giant, Mommy."

2008-11-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

I truly savored my kids' baby days. Those squishy legs and arms, softly swaddled in Dreft-scented rompers. The way they'd sleep with their little tushies raised in the air, legs tucked under, and wake up from naps with their fine downy curls damp from sweat.

(Okay, I'd better cut it out, before I find myself in the throes of my third bout with baby fever; right now, at least, we really like our guest room strictly as a room for guests.)

As Jacob and Rebecca head further and further away from babyhood, the one thing that will occasionally inspire me to look away from their baby pictures is their fresh, surprising and often hilarious take on the world. Aside from a few isolated incidents (get me drunk and one day I will tell you about how the Culligan Man found my daughter, shortly after she learned how to walk, waddling down our street alone) surely they weren't so funny before they could talk like little grown-ups.

A few tidbits from Jacob, who at age 5 (and a half! he'd be quick to remind me), tackles some pretty weighty topics ranging from competitive birthdays to love to morality:

On why he's excited for Rebecca's upcoming birthday, "After Rebecca's birthday, I won't be the third one in line to have a birthday next! I'll be in second place!" The poor kid's been waiting since April 23 (his birthday is the 22nd) to be first in line again for a birthday.

When asked what he ate for lunch: "Bad news. I didn't eat my lunch because it was a ham sandwich."

The school cafeteria's offerings often get Jacob talking. On his first day of school what he wanted to talk about most--much more exciting than the new school, new teacher, new friends or even his new Superman backpack--was the experience of buying his first school lunch: "Mommy, it was like a giant chicken finger, but it was a big circle, and it was in between two pieces of two big round pieces of bread. It was called a chicken patty sandwich, and I loved it!"

He doesn't just care about his own food--he wants to make sure we're all happy with what we eat. We were just at an ice cream parlor and I ordered the fat free coffee frozen yogurt. Jacob asked me, "Is that your favorite kind of ice cream, Mommy?" Looking longingly at his full-fat rocky road, I admitted, "Not really." He said, "But you're a mommy and mommies LOVE coffee! Try it again, I know you will love it."

On good vs. evil: "Who is worse, Haman, King Pharoah or King George? I know Haman wanted to kill all the Jews, but King George made everyone pay taxes."

On the rule preventing siblings from marrying: "But why can't I marry Rebecca? I don't love any other kid as much as I love her. I will miss her if I have to marry someone else."

On why he wanted Obama to be the next President of the United States, "He's probably better at sports than McCain, because McCain looks like he's really old. Plus, he's on the blue team and blue is my favorite color."

Rebecca, meanwhile, is quite a chatterbox at age 3.

She's very concerned about emotions these days. She always asks me, "Mommy, you happy?" If I answer in a less than emotional voice, "yes," she corrects me: "No, say yessssssssssss!"

I was squinting over the New Yorker recently (I know, it might be time for reading glasses) and Rebecca asked me, "Why are you a little bit mad at your book?"

It just cracks me up to see the quirky way she strings words together. Like when I told her to wash her hands after using the bathroom, and there was no stepstool in front of the sink: "I'm not a giant, Mommy."

Trying to explain that the episode of"Little Einsteins" she was watching had recently ended: "Little Einsteins is only a little bit over."

Staring at her fingers: "This one's the Mommy finger," pointing to her middle finger, "and this one's the baby" (the pinkie.) [So next time you flip someone the bird, what you're really saying, according to my daughter, is 'your mama.']

* * *

Now, it's not always "Kids Say the Dardnest Things" in our house. Occasionally it's "Oh Where Did Mommy Leave the Duct Tape" like when Jacob asked me, "Mommy, do you have the biggest tushy in our whole family?" Or Rebecca, in a public restroom with me, "You a big girl, too, Mommy! You not wear Pull-Ups either, you have big girl panties like me!"

But then there are other moments, when I'm lying in bed with Rebecca, reading her her favorite bedtime book (the exceedingly politically correct "No Hitting" by Karen Katz, which teaches children to scribble on their art pads instead of writing on their big brother's homework and to lick a fruit pop when they have the urge to scornfully stick out their tongues at their parents).

Petting my arm like she's petting a dog, she says softly, "I like you, Mommy." Which, when she says it, is seriously more moving than the most profusely passionate declarations of love. Jacob turns me to mush as well when he says, "Chocolate pudding!? Wow, you really ARE the best mommy in the world! And, I really like your nail polish."

I guess that's payback for all those sleepless nights and diaper blow outs. Which, as much as I'd love to hop into a time machine once again hold my kids when they were squishy-limbed infants, I can't say I miss all that much.