F*cking Dinner

Let’s be honest—cooking dinner night after night is an endless chore. No one wants to be stuck with it...other than Ms. Church Lady who is, of course, a chef at heart.

The husband and I take turns cooking dinner. We did not come to this place of equity easily...because as I have mentioned before...marriage did not come easily to us—both being selfish and lazy. But we finally reached this agreement that one of us would provide dinner one night and the other would provide dinner the following night.

Please notice the wording..not COOK, but PROVIDE.

Invited over to someone’s house for dinner and it is my night to cook—SCORE! His mom has made an extra lasagna —he will hide this noteworthy information until it is is his turn to cook.

This agreement fulfills so many of our needs...providing a family dinner for The Beast (studies have shown it is important), feeding our overly competitive relationship, and fueling our creativity.

Just in case your are wondering...we are available for dinner—Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday.....

The Well-Healed Mommies

Although I would rather live in the city, I am happy that I live in a relatively wealthy suburb because of the great schools, wonderful libraries and pretty houses. However, sometimes, between the kids getting Range Rovers for their 16th birthdays and the Bar Mitzvahs in Israel, I become tired.

They are nice...very nice, but I still TRY to avoid the well-healed mommies....because REALLY...how can you not be bitter when you are sitting in a huge kitchen, overlooking a sea of marble countertop and wondering if that is a custom Viking Stove because it actually looks bigger than the other ones you have seen in other houses in this god forsaken suburban hell. Of course to add to my joy at this “mother-daughter invitation only book club" that brought me to this perfect kitchen...the hosting mom mentions that she identifies with a character in the book who was once rich and lost all her money. She said she understands what it is like to have a lot of money and then not have as much. I can only assume that their 401K (or what ever the wealthy have) suffered in the economic downturn and their retirement plan to go to Capri had to be rethought to perhaps the...Bahamas. Oh the horror.

5 Signs of an Angry God

1. Lawn Ornaments
2. Chuck E Cheese’s
3. Bed Bath and Beyond and the 10,000 coupons that you saved but can never find when you finally decide to go.
4. Oscar Meyer’s Lunchables
5. Cords to connect electronic devises to your computer

Unleashing the Beast: The Beast Meets The Boss

“We thought we would call you because we know you would be game.”
We often get these phone calls...and I refer to them as: “We know you are bad parents—so we thought we would run this by you…” phone calls.

When do kids start going to rock concerts?
In my opinion—a kid should go to a rock concert ONLY when they are old enough to go without a parent aka when they get their first fake id—16? 17?

As you can imagine—we are not the type of parents who stand on line for days on end to purchase $250 tickets to see Hannah Montana. In fact we are the type of parents who try to get the Disney channel off our basic Verizon access. We are the type of parents who have never taken our child to a theme park—Disney, Hershey, Dollywood....unless you count the tragically beautiful Coney Island for the Mermaid Day Parade.

So we got a call on Tuesday night from friends who had an extra ticket to go see Bruce Springsteen on Wednesday. Granted it was a school night and the child said—“of course I don’t know him, but why not?” And that is what we thought—“why not?” It is another experience that would be fun for a 12 year old, but not us.…so off she went…to Jersey…to see the Boss.

So the following week I dropped off money for the ticket and I said to the father who was wearing a Disney T-shirt—anytime you want to take her to Disney..feel free, she is a good traveler. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

The Smile

The Beast and I always get smiles from people when we walk into town. We look friendly and happy and why not smile at us—right? But the other day we were walking back from town chattering away and there was a man walking toward us and he was smiling…not at me, not at us, but at The Boobs.

The boobs that just appeared out of nowhere just before the summer. OMG The Beast has no idea of the power--she just seems to view them as another accessory to fill out her clothes. She, and her friends, seem to have none of the shyness that I felt when my body changed—she just sees it as new fashion possibility.

I stare at this man—he is old. Older than I am. A lot older. He is still looking. The Beast, again, does not have a clue. I click my fingers to dislodge his eyes from my daughter’s twelve year chest. He glances up. I catch his eye. “ TWELVE” I say.

He averts his eyes and immediately turns red.

What can a mother do? There will be days, and soon, when I will not be there to be the bitch to the leering pig.