Ever in Search of Fun and Food, my dad was

Memories of my dad, who would've been 89 today. In list form.

Some food Dad liked, from high to low and in between, in no order:

• Caviar
• Mallomars
• Whitefish
• Mama liga with pot cheese, sprinkling of caviar
• Helzel
• 2 buttered rolls
• Borscht, cold, with sour cream
• Frozen cheese blintzes, again with the sour cream
• Halvah
• ½ a grapefruit, eaten aggressively with a spoon, juice flying, a person could go blind!
• Smoked Nova Scotia salmon (not lox)
• Jarslberg cheese on a Carr’s water cracker
• Hot peppers
• Pickles
• Franks-in-blanks
• Enough free samples at Dean & Deluca to make a lunch
• Cantaloupe
• Fig Newtons
• The leftover escargot garlic butter cadged from me with dunking bread – at the old Brasserie
• Egg creams (no eggs, no cream)
• Raw egg – tap a little hole in one end, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, and suck that sucker out. Served as a great parlor trick performed at our kitchen in the morning after a sleepover, disgusting and thrilling my little friends. Don’t try this at home in the age of rampant salmonella.
• Instant coffee prepared thusly: heaping spoon of coffee “crystals,” heaping spoon of sugar, AND heaping spoon of honey, served in a small yellow-taxi-themed mug (tire for a handle) Tony gave him
• Breakfast at the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton
• Pretty much anything my Aunt Clarice made and brought from Brooklyn

Some things Dad thought were fun, from high to low and in between, in no order

• Reading T.S. Eliot
• Going grocery shopping at the A&P or Gristedes in East Hampton
• Schnorring (funny Yiddish word for begging) lunch at Dean & Deluca, see above
• Playing pinochle
• Starting a company with $1500 he won in a pinochle game
• Breaking tunelessly into song, at top volume
• Humiliating his offspring by doing things like inexplicably yelling “Bop!” in a supermarket (again with the supermarkets!)
• Visiting me in college and dining at our on-campus greasy spoon, The Pub
• The Tonight Show
• Seinfeld
• Thelonius Monk
• Chet Baker
• Al Jolson
• Cole Porter
• Rodgers and Hart and/or Hammerstein
• Bach, iconic performances by Wanda Landowska on harpsichord
• The NY Times crossword puzzle
• William Safire’s column
• Illegally driving on to the beach in East Hampton in a dune buggy -- then getting stuck in the water, having to be pulled out by some large yellow machinery – not sure if that part counted as fun
• Dancing to the rock-n-roll music
• My childhood art work
• Speaking in Yiddish with Norman Podhoretz at fancy parties 
• Xmas tree shopping at Hren's Nursery and joking around with JP Fecteau
• Going "macho frio" -- his made up term for not wearing a coat, but layering, layering, layering, plus "muffler" (tx Tort)
• His family

Some things Dad disapproved of

• Being bored

I'm Not Throwing It Out and You Can't Make Me and I'm Not a Hoarder, exactly

I don’t believe that fashion-makeover-show trope, If you haven’t worn it in two years, throw it out.

I may be making a massive rationalization for my over-stuffed closet. And over-stuffed dresser drawers. And my over-stuffed other closet. And, well, you get the picture.

But for every cry of, Holy shit, how is it possible I still have this Laura Ashley dress? Oh wait, I know – Rose can wear it someday! We can make pillowcases out of it or doll clothes or napkins or fancy silver-polishing rags! there’s another head-slapping moment of, Why did I sell that adorable little Tocca coat to Beacon’s Closet for 4 dollars? Why did I give away those J. Crew riding boots? 

And for every plea of Jeff’s that starts, Do you think we can we get rid of …  there are the smug, satisfied occasions that go like this: I am so glad I never threw out this little Brooks Brothers Barbour-style rain jacket (a treasured item from back in the day when there were only two Brooks stores in the world, the Madison Avenue location, and somewhere in Japan, and not like now in every mall and airport) that I sported freshman year in high school, because today is the perfect day to wear it (ok, can’t zip it, but it’s not really that cold, right?).

And that is what I’m wearing today – a Brooks Brothers boys size 20 olive-green Poland-made (whuh?) rain jacket with drawstring waist and tan and black and red plaid lining and a hood. It’s making me happy. Coming out of a childhood that wasn’t quite rooted, a little nomadic, slightly insecure, I think I treasure – even objectify – certain objects from my past as sort of half-baked family heirlooms, even if they’ve only ever belonged to me, and not handed down from previous generations like normal people’s family heirlooms.

And think about it, if they ever decide to revive Freaks and Geeks, which takes place exactly when I was a freshman in high school (see above, re coat), they can borrow it for some background character who’s neither freak nor geek, but a wanna be preppy-type like I was. I’ll need it back though. Family heirloom and all, you know.

Get Out of My Way, I'm Walking Here

Something occurred to me today: Jack and I are the New Yorkers of the family. Jeff and Rose are, well, the not-exactly-New Yorkers of the family.

Sometimes (often) I look at my son and think, WHO are you? HOW are you you? I think of myself, in my most self-deprecating modes, as lazy and low-energy. Meanwhile, he careens through life, his energy can be explosive, his emotions are full-force. And he's been like this since approximately Day 3. A little background, if I may semi-digress. This kid almost did me in in his first 6 months of life. He never slept and he always cried. Cry isn't the accurate word; it's nowhere near adequate to describe the tortured screams that were always either in progress or moments away from starting. Sometimes he could barely be held safely in arms. He arched his back with great strength, almost flipping himself backwards. And he regularly scrabbled at his own head, leaving scratches, in seeming agony. 

In desperation, after exhausting more traditional approaches, we took him to a holistic healer, a local acupuncturist who didn't use needles on babies as young as he, but had some other mystery methods. She smiled at us in sympathy, and took him from us, laying him down on a blanket in front of her. She smiled at us again, a kind, but just slightly patronizing smile, to say, "I've got this." Guess what, she didn't. He started to wail, and her hocus pocus didn't stop him, if anything, it enraged him more. She was taken aback; she seemed shaken. Still, she found something positive to say: "HE HAS A REALLY STRONG LIFE FORCE,"  and we clung to this comment, held on to it like a life preserver. This is all an old war story now, but apparently not irrelevant.

Finally I think Jack and I have a lot more in common than I'm quite willing to acknowledge, since he can aggravate me so intensely. He's not as alien to me as I often feel he is. Jack and I are hard-wired New Yorkers. He and I are perpetually in a rush; we share a sense of urgency; we have to BE somewhere, dammit, and you are slowing us down. That you can be Jeff or Rose. They don't seem to care if they're late, they amble, they take their own sweet time. FUCK, Jeff, let's go! Or the g-rated version, for Rose: ROSIE! pick up the pace! We're late again. I speak to them in italics.

I'm not making a judgment. Or, I am, but I'm not sure what the verdict is. Should Jack and I slow it down a little? Should Jeff and Rose PICK UP THE FUCKING PACE? Or can we accept -- or, sigh, at least tolerate -- our foursome's diversity of speed? The way we New Yorkers, despite our sometimes-angry energy, ultimately tolerate each other, and even tolerate those goddamn rubbernecking ambling tourists on the sidewalk in front of us near Herald Square while we're rushing to work. All along the way, I mutter curses and threats under my breath, but this is where I live. End of story. And Jack and Jeff and Rose are what they are, even when my fists and teeth clench in a barely-reined-in fury. End of story

Fuck You, Dear

I said fuck you to Jeff this morning. On the subway. Muttered it, but no doubt the woman next to me heard it, and maybe surrounding straphangers, too.

This is not part of a normal course of events. As much as 2 married people can, we basically like each other, even sometimes a lot.

But last night was a rough one. Jeff home late, so me alone to nag, cajole, beg, and eventually stomp my feet and scream a little, to get the kids to do their homework (a nightly teeth-pulling with Jack), and eat their goddamn second dinner (2 bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios for Jack, Annie’s Organic Fake Spaghettio things for Rose), then drag more homework out of Jack, then ice cream, as promised, then a scuffle over sprinkle equity, then a kerfuffle over who brushes teeth first, leading to increasingly desperate texts to Jeff – “Where are you” and “WHERE ARE YOU” and “WHEN WILL YOU BE HERE” and I think a “HURRY UP” to drive the point home.

More of the same this morning, all weekday morning standard-issue stuff:

get out of bed, I said get out of bed; come in and eat something; no, I can’t find the little green bag full of silly bands, why didn’t you ask me last night; Jack, change your shirt, you wore it yesterday AND slept in it last night, I don't care if it's your favorite Rangers shirt; I’m writing down a list of all the things you need to do before you can read: 1. Get dressed, including socks; 2. eat breakfast; 3. pack your backpack; what is your red folder doing over here?!; Rosie, if you don’t like this outfit, FIND SOMETHING ELSE; Rosie, now we’re late!

You can fill in the rest, there are no surprises.

So then a rare subway ride together with Jeff, and he reminds me he’ll be out of town for work next week—3 mornings, 3 nights to fend for myself in a Park Slope top-floor apartment version of Lord of the Flies; I’m pretty sure my head will be impaled on a wiffle-bat pike, buzzing with insects, before Jeff is back. And no one will have gone to bed before 10, and I’ll stay up till 1:00 every night to have a few zoned out moments where nobody’s trying to rip me limb from limb, dice me into equal-sized chunks, split me down the middle. So I’m mad and I’m sad and I’m anxious, and I’m not getting the sincere apology -- the handwringing, furrowed-brow apology I feel I’m owed, but instead the reaction implies hell, we’re all strung out, so what do you want from me, I have no choice, and in that moment, in that second, it’s all so completely unacceptable, and the F-U flies. Enjoy, my fellow subway passengers, a little water-cooler story for your co-workers. “A lady next to me on the subway said Fuck U to her husband, and then she sat with her head in hands the rest of the way to work!”

I acknowledge it – complaining stressed out working mom blather is as interesting and creative and original at this point as is complaining about the weather. Another treasured hobby of mine. But like the weather, the issue persists. This is how it goes for working moms (and we all work, btw, but we’re not paid for that work), and that’s tough shit for us. In this country, that’s how much this work is valued. Like, not.

And that, dear children, is your bedtime story tonight. Hope you don’t have nightmares! I know I will. And no, you can't have another glass of water!

Something About Nipples

Once upon a time, in another decade, I penned an anonymous blog on gawker.com for about 5 weeks. Not so popular, but I thought I'd share one particular post, mostly because it has nipples in it.

http://gawker.com/196439/diary-of-a-park-slope-mommy-dont-be-a-tit

Warning: this piece is very neighborhood-specific, so may read like an annoying inside joke. But remember -- nipples!

Yikes, I just reread this for the first time in a while, and it's um, a little ... forced, maybe?

Cringing just a leetle.

But then again -- nipples!

Weather, You Rat Bastard

My grandmother once told me that as a child growing up in Ireland, she never felt dry. Once she settled here she probably relished the blasting radiator heat of certain old NYC apartment buildings. 

That's how I've felt all week. Soggy. Our floor boards are damp, I think I saw toadstools growing out of our books, and we're going to have to relocate our towels to Arizona for a week if we ever want to use them to dry ourselves with again.

For someone who knows how boring it is to talk about the weather, I sure do talk a lot about the weather. But it's become so extreme lately: tornadoes ripping up trees in Brooklyn, a punishing 113 degrees in L.A.. Raining frogs and locusts somewhere no doubt. Sure, climate change sucks -- but it does punch up the elevator weather talk, and gosh, Auntie Em hasn't been name-checked so much in, well, forever, probably.

If I can't bust out with a soaring rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow tomorrow, I'm going to have go all wicked witch on someone's ass and release the flying monkeys, and snatch your little dog, too, my pretty.

Uh Oh, I Might've Shot My Wad

If you have wads lying around you want to unload, you know, message me.