MzMannerz Tickled Pink

Second Verse, Same as the First

2012-01-29T11:47:00.001-05:00

Everything I feel like writing about is a copy cat of something I've read recently, and since that's plagiarism and punishable by law (even on the internet) (I think) I decided to just plagiarize myself and repeat an old entry that my six old readers have hopefully forgotten and my three new readers didn't dig back far enough to ever have seen.

Also, today I'm specializing in run on sentences apparently. So there's that.

From November 2005. Enjoy.

----

Raise Your Hand

I have a doctor's appointment today, for my yearly woman's checkup, which is quite different than your run of the mill annual checkup, and which freaks me out every year. Not because I am afraid of doctors, but because I am really uncomfortable hoisting my arse onto a table for anyone, medical degree or not, to sit and stare at.

I prepare for these appointments in much the same manner that I prepare for 'the date.' You know 'the date'... the one where you go from kissing friends to lovers. It is the date of matching underwear and an encounter with a razor. THAT date.

While I don't feel the need to wear my racy lacies, I do feel strongly that my underwear must match. This is ridiculous, as the doctor does not actually see my underwear, since she will walk out of the room while I undress (why is that? You are going to be staring at my cervix, but my bra is off limits? Not that I'm complaining, but I'm curious).

I also strongly feel that all stray hairs need to be eliminated, and the area should come off as freshly scented, like those commercials that promise you you'll smell like springtime flowers instead of what that area generally smells like: a vagina. Despite the fact that a gynecologist, and particularly an obsetrician-gynecologist, has likely seen vaginas in many stages of distress, I become convinced that should mine be less than flawless, I will be the subject of guffawed laughter at the next medical convention. I just don't want my nether regions being compared to members of the first family over tea and crumpets, you know?

So I'm groomed and scented, and trying to avoid having to pee because I'm afraid a stray droplet might scent my skin and I won't smell like lavender in May anymore. This is a choice I don't think men ever have to encounter: either pee and risk smelling altogether too natural, or hold it and risk surprising the doctor when she pokes you without warning. Life is unfair.

I'm trying to be mature. I've seen The Vagina Monologues. I watch progressive film and television. I am in my mid thirties and no longer try to hide my feminine purchases as I walk to the CVS register. I have given birth, which means I spent a twenty four hour period with all sorts of people looking at my 'private' (my name for it since I was a child), and placing monitors and needles and hands inside it in an attempt to extract my nearly nine pound child. A routine yearly examine should not be cause for concern.

But I don't have labor pains to distract me. I'm completely alert and aware that I can't ingest anything which may cause even the remotest hint of gas until the visit is over. And I have to survive the entire morning look confident, confident, dry and secure, while my doctor pokes and prods and talks to me about cervical health and menstrual periods.

So here I sit, watching the clock, thirsty as hell and refusing to approach the soda machine, until it's time to go.

Man, I feel like a woman.

Oh.

2012-01-04T15:28:00.002-05:00

Happy forty first new year to me.

That's all I got. I need to decide what I'm going to do about blogging and writer's block in general.

Lawd.

2011-11-07T16:58:00.001-05:00

I went out of town last weekend. I had a blast. I took care with my appearance for the flight out, but after a weekend of revelry, I wasn't motivated to make much effort for the flight back.

I pulled on a decent JCrew pullover, some relaxed cotton pants, and stuck my bare feet into a pair of red shoes that were perfect for cheering on the Crimson Tide, but otherwise useless to anyone with a sense of pride in appearance.

I board the plane. Who cares.

The most perfectly groomed couple in existence board after me and sit in front of me. Their carry on luggage looked like an ad in the Robb Report, that magazine for people who do not need to ask, How much? Her leather jacket might actually be the most flawless leather jacket I have ever seen. I sat behind them, raggedy assed, and alone.

And then a guy who had raced through the airport to board with about one minute to spare, arrived and claimed the seat next to me, disheveled and sweaty and peeling off clothes to prevent himself from melting altogether. He was a mess, raggedy assed, and alone.

Good to know others of my herd are out there. I'm just sayin'.

That Which Does Not Kill You

2011-10-05T16:50:00.000-04:00

When I became a mother I joined a club. Only people who had also become mothers could begin to approach a full understanding of the experience, could offer the knowing smile of a comrade in arms. I had a similar experience when I moved into my first home, when I married, when I bought my first car, when I totaled it. There is a difference between a conversation about these things with someone who has not experienced it firsthand, and someone who has.

When my mother died, I was pulled, quite unhappily, into another club, and while I would give up my membership in this one in a heartbeat if provided the opportunity, I am grateful that there are people who crossed my path who knew so intimately what I was experiencing. From distant neighbors to good friends to the owner of my company, whose email to me during that time rang with the lingering sadness of loss.

But the person whose single statement bubbles to the surface most often, I didn't really know at all. She is an operations person who works for the funeral home that handled the arrangements and cocooned our family through the gray, foggy process. She sat down with my sisters and me and told us she'd lost her own mother eleven years ago. And then she said:

"It's important to know that you never get over it. You learn to tolerate it."

During the hours that it hits me the hardest (that occur randomly and with hurricane strength), I cling to that statement. It's okay that I'm not feeling better. I am getting stronger, and the strength is what will make me okay, not the absence of pain.

I just need to remember that.

Not To Make Fun Of You, But....

2011-09-23T19:35:00.000-04:00

Some people put way too much information in their Craigslist ads. Examples below.

"Loft/Trundle Bed for sale. Slide out desk & writing area, wooden chair & both twin mattresses included. Kinda need gone soon, we are purchasing new bedroom furniture. Was purchased new for $2600 two years ago. We share custody of the child it was for, so its hardly used. In PERFECT condition."

New rule: Details of your custody agreement do not belong in a Craigslist ad.

"The set was never "used" much at all. Was in a formal living room with very little usage. Divorce lends to a different life! So my loss is your gain... I need to move on!"

New rule: Never let the presence of a sofa keep you from moving on. Sub Rule A: Always use your formal living room. Reading a book? Sit there. Sub Rule B: I'm not saying this was the cause of the divorce, but everyone should edit for inappropriate quotation mark "usage" before posting.

This title was a little scary:

Divorce Sale-Everything will go

I do hope the other party realizes that things are being sold.

Ha.

And here's this last one:

Paid $699 just a year ago, but will accept $200 because I lost the matching End Tables in the divorce.

If ever there was an argument for not going matchy matchy... hey, they brought it up, not me. :)

9/11/11

2011-09-11T19:19:00.000-04:00

Ten years?

Time goes by fast, but the decades seem to go by faster.

God Bless America.

Repeat

2011-09-05T21:06:00.000-04:00

I originally wrote this post several years ago. I'm reposting it now, because I know someone I'd like to read one of the random thoughts. Here's hoping s/he does.
________

Random, Useless Thoughts

I believe the reason I can't remember anything important is because my brain is stuffed full of ideas about things that, coupled with a dollar, wouldn't buy me a cup of coffee. Much less a double expresso latte foam mocha soy (I don't drink coffee. Is that right?).

Anyway, I'm dumping:

1. There are a lot of people who seem to believe that placing a plant on top of an ugly piece of furniture will disguise the fact that the furniture is ugly. Sorry folks, it will not. Embrace your ugly furniture. We all have some.

2. Speaking of plants, someone should educate office workers around the globe: it really isn't that attractive to watch you grow plants from roots in little cups and containers situated on the rim of your cube. Stop it.

3. The accident is not the reason for the traffic jam. Stopping to look at the accident is the reason for the traffic jam.

4. Models are tall. Models are used when clothes are made. Why then, are regular pants so damn short? Why do tall women like me have to buy clothes labeled tall from special sections and stores? Shouldn't the regular pants be tall, and the special sections be for the vertically challenged?

5. When your teenager says they don't have any homework, they are almost always lying.

6. Speaking of homework and school: whoever came up with the idea of educating twenty to thirty teenages in one room with one adult? A teacher must have pissed that person off.

7. People are never as excited about events in your life as you are. Brides and mothers, please repeat that ten times.

8. On that note, there is no child on earth more gorgeous than mine. Parents, accept that this is what other parents are thinking even as they coo over this week's pictures.

9. There are never enough size nine shoes in the shoe store. And if it's true that that's because size nine is the most popular shoe size, why don't they just make twice the amount of size nine shoes?

10. If you are not at least a size ten, I am not the least bit interested in hearing about your diet woes. You have no woe.

11. When you think you are getting over on someone, stop and consider that just maybe, they are letting you think that because they want to get over on you.

12. To be open minded must begin to mean more than being non-traditional.

13. I have always had particularly GOOD luck on Friday the 13th. If I believed in luck, which I don't. I believe in blessings.

14. Perhaps the point isn't to get over him or her, but to know you can move on for your best interests, in spite of how you feel.

15. A coworker has pie waiting for me. I am going. :)

I Left My Heart Inside A Bigso

2011-08-29T21:53:00.000-04:00

To the tune of "I Left My Heart In San Francisco"...get it? Get it?

The Bigso Box of Sweden comes from Swedish company Bigso AB, and I am in love with their boxes. I first encountered one in Goodwill - gorgeous and sturdy paper laminate file boxes that were in the surprising hue of lime green. I scooped them up, came home, and gave the banker's boxes they would replace the evil eye.

Bigso File Box in green, orange, pink and blue

We are a household with a lot of paper. This is not going to change. We own a scanner, own a shredder, we're reasonably organized in that bills are never paid late and we can easily locate our children, but we have enough paper for three families. First, I am a paper snob - so there is my stationary collection to contend with (along with a tic that makes it hard for me to send the same person a note on the same stationary twice in a row). Second, I like to keep stationary and cards that are sent to me. And third, a category of items that outnumber the first two combined, is my husband's habit of keeping every piece of paper that has crossed his path for a minimum of six million years.

I love that they don't limit themselves to white boxes with black print, like with this orange file box:

Bigso, thank you.

You made it possible to store my husband's undergraduate thesis (he is forty-four) in a container that didn't remind me of moving boxes. You've made it possible for me to store blank reams of paper without having the room resemble an aisle in Office Depot. You've made me actually invent reasons to need one of your boxes.

Yum.


Bigso File Box in Red

First image from Modern Eco Homes, middle from Lincoln Stationers, and the photo of this perfect, understated gray paper chest is from Crate and Barrel, but I'm not sure if they still offer Bigso. I find mine on Amazon.

Pieces

2011-08-24T22:34:00.000-04:00

"Pieces"

That's how my Aunt Shirley referred to furniture and home decor. Each item was a piece, to be collected and inserted into an overall scheme. She occasionally used this word in reference to a wardrobe, but mostly, she used it in reference to interior design.

My Aunt lived in New Jersey, and her house, during my childhood, was the gold standard for grown up, luxurious living. Our own house was pretty - my mother was a bit of an Aunt Shirley protege - but our house had children in it. It wasn't quite the same. Our house was nice with evidence of small hands and a parenting lifestyle.

Aunt Shirley's children, my cousins, were adults. She was my father's oldest sister and nearing her twenties when he was born. My aunt's New Jersey Tudor catered more to the adult experience. There was a floor to ceiling, wall spanning, black lacquer Italian storage unit that housed a fully stocked bar; the guest room walls were covered in silk and velvet.

She preferred pieces that were Asian inspired or imported from Asia itself, but didn't limit herself. We would sit on the elaborately upholstered, winding sectional sofa in her living room (which in the spirit of the day was covered in plastic - a nod to the frequent visits by her nieces and nephews), and thumb through the photo albums showing my well traveled aunt in various locations. Posing in Barcelona, the islands, Italy... and her favorite, New York.

My Dad, my older sister, my mom and me on my aunt's winding sofa

Where I lived in New Jersey, it was possible to see the twin towers, hazy and off in the distance, from most of the street corners. Aunt Shirley loved going into the city for shows and sales, collecting her pieces, freshening a room with a new item. When we moved away from New Jersey, she would send extras to my mother, first in Syracuse, and then in Atlanta, sometimes a spare table, or an intricately carved bench. These items always went into a room we weren't allowed in.

I can still recall so vividly being a child, laying in one of the twin beds in her guest room, running my fingers alongside the marble topped nightstand in between the two beds (and as I type that, I realize that it was at Aunt Shirley's house that I first saw that idea - a nightstand between two beds - and fell in love with it). I remember studying the carved cherub that served as a lamp base, or opening her closet door (solid wood door, glass door knob) and trying on all her high heeled shoes. Or looking at the screen print of an Asian scene, birds flocking near a river, a man walking with a paper umbrella. Or taking extra time in the single upstairs bathroom, luxuriating in the black marble vanity and the glass subway tile. Or just sitting in her dining room, staring wide eyed at her collection of red cape cod glassware.

I always wonder what happened to that house. My aunt died in the mid-nineties, and her children opted to sell. I always have big plans to pull into the (still graveled?) driveway and see if her black Lab's chain is still wrapped around the apple tree in the backyard, if the antique stove in the basement (where she made her chitlins) is still there. If, that is, the new owners let me in.

Aunt Shirley, thanks for introducing me to the world of decorating (along with my mother). With the two of you in heaven, I know the world is in for a treat.

And I can't wait to see what you've done with the place.

Being Thrifty

2011-08-22T22:02:00.000-04:00

I love thrift stores. Consignment shops. Second hand stores. Goodwill. The Salvation Army. Value Village... Craigslist...e-bay!

Call it what you will: if it's a store or site full of stuff other people didn't want? I'm there.

My mother introduced me to thrift stores in the eighties. I don't know how she found out, but I'm pretty sure she discovered them herself around the same time, because my mother loved me and would not have held out on this information for long. Before thrift stores, she got very excited about garage sales. She and her friends would wake up early on Saturday mornings and scan the newspaper classifieds to find out who was holding a garage sale and how far away they lived. There were downsides to this practice, however, and I can't remember her going to even one garage sale after thrift stores came on the scene.

I'm the same way. A garage sale is one family's cast offs, and you have to invest a lot of time to drive over, only to find that the family in question is completely devoid of taste, or really should have held the garage sale when the Miami Vice look was more the rage. A thrift store is filled with stuff from hundreds of families. Someone, somewhere, had to have liked the same stuff I do and decided to get rid of an extra. Thrift stores = much greater chance of a return on the investment of my time.

My husband doesn't like thrifting. I didn't understand this line of thinking at first, until I thought about the kind of shopper my husband is. He's a man who doesn't experience buyer's remorse with some purchases... he experiences buyer's remorse every time he swipes his credit card. All he needs in life is a ten by ten room, two outfits, bread and marmalade, and a toilet. Also water (for drinking, and for the toilet). Anything other than these items is a frivolous purchase that he immediately questions and might decide to return later.

You can't return things to Craigslist. The commitment of buying secondhand is simply too much for him to handle.

And I'll admit it: in my quest to convert him, I've taken a few missteps. Most recently there was the "Michael Kors" dress shirt I purchased for a song on e-Bay. I place quotes around the brand name because, well, of the conversation I had with my husband when the shirt arrived.

Him: Why did you buy me a polyester shirt from e-Bay?
Me: It's not polyester. It's Michael Kors.
Him: I don't know who Michael Kors is. I do know this shirt is polyester.
Me: Prove it.

He showed me the garment label. 100%... polyester.

Me: I didn't think Michael Kors would make a polyester shirt. But it could happen.
Him: My JCPenney shirts are cotton. And returnable.

You can see how that wasn't my strongest moment.

My husband does certainly appreciate the generous wardrobes my children have that cost next to nothing (to me, paying more than ten dollars for a child's garment is something that happens when you are robbed on the highway, or desperate for clothes that match the school choir's unreasonable uniform demands). And while he could do without me returning to the house with yet another chair that I plan to (someday) reupholster, he is happier about my thrift store habit than he would be if I had the habits of some of the other wives we know, whose impulse purchases tend to be made at places like Nordstrom and Coach.

It's a little like being addicted to diet Pepsi instead of cigarettes, right?

Not precisely good for you, but things could be significantly worse.

Today is my husband's birthday.

2011-08-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

He is 44.

It seems such a grown-up age, but he has always seemed very level and adult to me, so I suppose it fits.

This summer is also the anniversary of his twenty sixth year in the United States. He has spent eight more years here than he did in his native England. But naturalization ceremonies aside, he isn't an American. He is also not English.

He is my husband, this mix of traditions and continents, a blend of accents and preferences, a composite of moods and desires.

He is my husband - me, who never really believed I would have a husband, and woke up one morning to the dream of Sunday morning pancakes and heads bent over the same section of paper, to midday check in calls and popcorn fueled movie nights. The complexity of marriage, the current of anger over a disagreement, and the shared satisfaction of being perfectly in sync.

He is my husband, and he is forty four today. I hope for forty four (and more) years of the privilege of being his wife.

Happy Birthday.

Puppies and Flowers

2011-08-13T21:42:00.000-04:00

Oh my.

My most recent posts haven't been the happiest excursions into blogland a person could take, so I thought I'd take a moment and lighten things up a bit.

from: www.aboutfacek9academy.com

See? :)

Why I Don't Want Any Help

2011-08-12T21:07:00.001-04:00

I keep being confronted with this book, and now movie: The Help. People love it. It's a bestseller, it's a movie, it's now a part of our culture.

I can't stand this book.

Well, that's unfair. I read only a few pages of the book, not getting past even the short sample my Kindle app graciously provided for free. I stopped reading the book, glad for technological advances like the Kindle, which kept me from having actually paid money to read a story that, once again, marginalizes racial issues in our country and world and downright insults women like my grandmother, who did her fair share of cleaning the homes of wealthy white people, and still manages to string together a grammatically correct sentence.

I've been told to look beyond the author's decision to only place incorrect grammar in the mouths of her black characters while her white characters speak pitch perfect English. And perhaps, if the author grew up under a rock in the South, she did actually manage to never encounter a white person who spoke broken English or a black person who did not. It's possible. It's also possible to eat rancid meat and not get a stomachache, but it's not likely.

I decided The Help was no homework assignment, that nothing was forcing me to read it, and that I have the freedom to choose books that present racial tensions within the context of more realistic, less offensive, characterizations. To be sure, I also I shy away from stories that present all white people as evil racists who sit around evenings wondering how they can further the plight of whichever minority they happen to encounter the following day - white people are not like that, as a whole. Yes, absolutely, there are people who happen to be white who are small, infantile, and grotesque in their thinking about people who are not like themselves, and there are also people who happen to be black, brown, red and yellow who are small, infantile, and grotesque in their thinking about people who are not like themselves. But there are a wealth of people, black, white, purple and green, who are confused by the lack of racial dialogue in a country that so obviously so suffers from racially driven issues still, who choose their friends and lovers based on nothing having to do with skin, and who should, one would reason, look at a novel and movie like The Help with disappointment.

Valerie Boyd, professor of journalism at the University of Georgia, wrote about this in clear terms:

"Like the novel on which it’s based, the movie adaptation of “The Help” will likely be a huge hit with white audiences. But for black viewers it is condescending and frequently insulting, despite admirable performances by Davis and Spencer, who bring a measure of complexity — actual flesh and blood — to the characters of Aibileen and Minny. It speaks volumes about the ongoing racial chasm in this country that a feel-good movie for white people will leave many black filmgoers feeling sad — and pessimistic that America can ever become anything more than “a nation of cowards.”"

Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post commented as well:

"As affectionately as Taylor has brought "The Help" to the screen, and as gratifying as it is to watch Davis and Spencer bring Aibileen and Minny to palpable, fully rounded life, their narrative, like "The Blind Side" a few years ago, is structured largely around their white female benefactor. That this is the story we keep telling ourselves is all the more puzzling - if not galling - when viewers consider that, precisely at the time that "The Help" transpires, African Americans across Mississippi were registering to vote and agitating for political change. In other words, they were helping themselves. And, on screen at least, their story remains largely untold."

The Washington Post clearly agreed, using strong language to chastize the movie through the byline: "Using Stereotypes to explain racism in "The Help."

I don't question the talent of author Kathryn Stockett. I simply wish she had used her talent to create characters who could tell the story in her head without disassembling the character of my people.

That would certainly have been of more help.

Anyway.

2011-08-12T13:21:00.000-04:00

Haven't had a lot to share, lately, as I've been busy pondering what the point of it all is, precisely.

Everyone keeps talking about how the summer flew by, and I suppose it did, but what I feel is that each day of this year is plodding along like a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter (I stole that). It's summer now. And then it will be fall. And then winter. And then spring. And then summer again. Life is a big circle, a continuous cycle, and endless march back to the place you already came from, kind of pointless.

Right?

And then I thought, well, maybe that's it exactly. Maybe there is no big neon, flashing lights, red arrow point to life, any more than there's a point to eating chocolate or visiting the beach or curling up with a great book, other than having the experience. Maybe it's just about having the experience, and not about much else.

Which is okay, and a little relieving, because there's nothing to "get" - you just get to be.

And with that said, I'm off to be __________________. Thanks for indulging my little existential crisis.

Why I'll Never Be A Real Blogger Part XI

2011-07-15T20:30:00.000-04:00

I want to blog tonight, but I'm choosing to enjoy a couple of glasses of bubbly instead.

That is all.

White Walls

2011-07-11T19:00:00.003-04:00

My mother loved white walls in an eggshell finish, and with the exception of a few rooms, all of the walls in her houses were white. Usually the ones that weren't white had color because the room had that color when we moved in, and one of us liked it, or we were repainting our bedrooms and she let us choose. When she chose, however, she landed somewhere on the strip of pale paint chips.

So of course I rebelled against this. In my houses, I have chosen everything from pale yellows and beiges to deeply saturated reds and blues, steering far away from white because, as I often said while growing up, "Why would you paint a white wall white?"

Why? Because it's glorious, that's why:

Gubek Design

Homedit.com

I am beginning to see what my mother saw - that white walls gracefully step aside and let your belongings take center stage. White walls are wonderful marriage partners with gold and other metal tones, and sing in harmony with nearly every wood tone.

I still believe that a white wall looks best when flooded with light, but even the warm glow of dim lamps against white looks, well, warm.

We aren't repainting anything until our children grow to an age where they are treating the walls a little more consistently kind, but when we do: I don't know. I might just go with white, or a close relative.

Happy Independance Day

2011-07-04T19:06:00.000-04:00

Wherever you are today, enjoy.

Fireworks at Annapolis Harbor, from dc.about.com

Sometimes I wonder...

2011-06-27T19:59:00.000-04:00

When my mother was my age, busy raising us, was there this much focus on being a mother?

Or did she get to be a person who happened to have children?

Were there superstores devoted to child rearing? Twenty five variations of thermometer? Seventeen pediatric offices within a square mile? Three hundred species of strollers and their cousins, the car seat?

I know it's not just a symptom within parenting, since my local drugstore has an entire aisle devoted to nothing but shampoo and conditioner. You can literally choose by bottle color and go through Roy G. Biv two to three times before running out of options. I guess it's accurate to say that the entire world is on overdrive, is examining to a hyper degree the umpteenth option of every umpteenth option, but really:

I'm jealous of the days when things were simpler.

That's all. :)

Friends vs. Acquaintances

2011-06-20T15:33:00.002-04:00

I have too many Friends on Facebook.

I'd prefer to get updates from the handful of people I have an intimate friendship with, and too often have to wade through the thoughts of people I forget exist until some random update pops up.

Not that the latter group is any less anything than everyone else - it's natural to have a small group of close friends and a larger circle of acquaintances, and that's just life. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have been more careful about who I selected as a friend - randomly chatting you up in a bar would have not, I'm afraid, have passed the sniff test.

I'd like to go back and delete these folks, who ignore my musings just as consistently as I ignore theirs, but I'm afraid of hurting feelings (this is probably silly). If they deleted me, it would be much tidier. I surmise my true friend list is closer to fifteen than it is the nearly three hundred souls I sift through now - and I'm betting a lot of people feel the same way. Not even the lists they allow you to create do quite the same job as never having a glut of people on a friend list in the first place.

Or maybe - I'm missing some huge, important point.

Hmm.

Score!

2011-06-12T20:18:00.001-04:00

I want to make a scoreboard for my son's room, to go over his bed. I envision something like this:

Except I want the full scoreboard, so longer, and I'm thinking of something with a greener background (as in color, not environmental impact).

What I need to complete this project:

- A canvas. I have one I can paint over and repurpose - it's large enough and would save about $100 (going rate for a gigantic canvas from the craft supply store). But reusing requires lots of priming to cover the existing pic of a soccer player (don't ask).

- Energy.

- Weather that allows me to work in the garage without passing out from heat.

If we ever build an addition on to this house, it will include a well ventilated studio that I can putter in year round. For now, the garage is the only place to save my family from paint fumes, and I don't work in the garage unless the temperature is much cooler than our mid-Atlantic heatwave has been allowing.

And when you live near water, going outside in high heat is equivalent to diving into a can of soup. Visits to the beach, yes. Gigantic canvas painting - no.

I'll update when I've started.

I'm a Terrible Blogger

2011-06-04T14:19:00.000-04:00

I'm fickle and inconsistent.

Just thought I'd acknowledge it.

:)

Abracadabra!

2011-05-06T17:00:00.002-04:00

I think my husband has magical powers.

Hear me out.

Proof #1: He is English.


Wiki

Proof #2: Today, I asked if he'd seen a keychain I recently ordered. I had checked my pockets to see if the keychain was in them - they were empty. He promised to find the keychain. A few hours later, while I was over a hundred miles away from him, I put my hand in my pocket and felt the keychain.

Clearly he teleported the keychain to my pocket. I mean, there is no other explanation.

Maybe he can wiggle his nose and build some bookshelves.

It could happen.

Avalanche

2011-05-05T17:00:00.007-04:00

You know that visual of a tiny snowball rolling down a snow covered hill and becoming a snow boulder and then finally causing an avalanche?

This is what our kitchen remodeling job is doing. Short of doing a whole house renovation, which I am on board for but my husband is not, we may be looking at a significant overhaul in how we use some of our rooms.

The rooms mostly in question are our living room and office. Our living room is big. Here is the space before we moved in:

This photo shows about 60% of the room. It is a long space that requires a thinking cap for furniture placement because there are windows and door openings scattered around, and it is screams screams screams for furniture groups. A seating area. Two seating areas. A dining area?

Right now it has two furniture groupings: A regular living room grouping with a sofa across from a television that is housed in an armoire, and a completely useless little grouping of chairs on that slanted partial wall (staircase on the other side). Well, not completely useless. Once a year when we actually invite more than five people over at once, it gets used.

We also have our office (also pictured before we moved in):

It is a smaller room, and is adjacent to the Living Room via double doors.

Our house has a fairly open floor plan, and a first level entry without a buried basement. In other words, there is no basement family room to house the junk we don't want our guests exposed to. I'm not aiming for a pristine house for company, but I would like to have a glass of wine with my friends without the presence of a multi-colored plastic toy. Right now, we aren't able to shove all the toys into a room and close the door. We can't hide them in a basement playroom.

A basement playroom, hidden from the world, would require an extensive renovation to bring our entry to the second floor, or... some rethinking. So I was wondering:

What if our office became a den? A playroom/den? What if our television lived in there? What would become of the ~~living~~ giganta-room?

What if we did built in shelves throughout the living room, so we could remove our books from the office?

What if our living room, which is not a formal living room (we don't need a formal living room) became... a library? With seating and a place to have a snack and entertain?

Photo by Todd Selby

Anseley McAleer

This idea had been swirling, unformed, in my head, and then I saw this photo in a Washington Post article:

This is the home of Jo Neesbo (pictured), a Swedish author who is read by something like 40% of the Swedish population. I'm sure he's a great writer and I will check out his books, but what I really want to know is:

Who built those bookshelves, man? I need a referral. :)

Random Items No One Needs

2011-04-28T17:00:00.001-04:00

But are so interesting anyway - ever tempted to buy something like this?

Today I had to actually tell myself, twice, that I have no use for a wireless mouse that looks like a brick of gold bullion.

It's about $50 US dollars if you're interested. Ha.

Random Photograph

2011-04-20T17:00:00.003-04:00

My photo file is growing these days, mostly with white kitchens, since we are in the late planning stages of a kitchen remodel that I am 50% excited about. I'm not sure what's up with my other 50%, but part of me is just, like, huh. But that's another post.

I am also going to commit to taking photographs of my own house in 2011. Slowly.

I took the below photo with the best intentions of photographing my daughter's room, but this requires making her bed and staging and whatnot, so I got as far as her door and stopped.

Her room is one of my favorites in the house. I will take photos of it soon. And I have to say I am struck by how much the safety cover on her closet door knob looks like a random roll of toilet paper. Also struck by how nice the carpet looks in the photo, when there are days I want to rip it out with my teeth (we need new carpet upstairs).

Must organize and straighten house.

Starting to think about what to blog.

2011-04-18T16:28:00.000-04:00

Lots of projects still pending (had my kitchen measured last week, whoo hoo!). Decisions, decisions.

The sun is coming out.

Time to live.

Back soon.

My Mother

2011-04-09T10:10:00.000-04:00

I lost my mother on March 27th, 2011.

I will see her again someday.

I will ache for her every day in between.

Another Hiatus

2011-03-16T17:00:00.002-04:00

As I type this, it is Sunday, March 13th.

Family business will be preventing me from continuing my goal of daily posts.

I'm not sure how often I'll post, but I'll be back.

Thanks for reading.

Bracelets Obama

2011-03-15T17:00:00.002-04:00

Like every other sentient woman on the planet, I like to look at Michelle Obama's clothes. Most of the time I adore her outfit. Sometimes I don't. Again, like every other woman (no woman can dress to the satisfaction of another woman one hundred percent of the time, right? This is impossible - therefore we must dress for our own satisfaction. Which I believe she does. Anyway).

One thing I've noticed about Mrs. O is her tendency to pair multiple bracelets and bangles with her ensemble, giving her a finished, polished, pulled together look.

Official White House photos courtesy http://mrs-o.org/

Of course she doesn't wear bracelets one hundred percent of the time, but when she does: high impact. None of these ensembles would be quite the same without them. She's even brought her daughter into the habit.

Fashionistas in training. Gotta love it.

Anyway. I love bracelets and have plenty of them, but... have you ever noticed how loud these things are? In a meeting, trying to organize your papers... swish/clank/bump. Swish/clank/bump.

You don't want to be the person in the room with too much jewelry on, and you don't want to be the person in the room who jingles with every breath. How does Mrs. O overcome this? Is she simply more graceful than I am? (This is not a long shot - kind of like a Who's Taller Than Danny Devito Contest - everybody wins.)

I'll have to spend some time practicing my graceful arm moves. I'd like to give my bracelets a few runs at work, and not just during social occasions when I can count on everyone else being animated enough to drown out the sound of my baubles.

Clink!

Hey Big Spender

2011-03-14T17:00:00.006-04:00

About twice a month I take my youngest two children out to lunch. I like to take them to different places, not so much for the variety in food, but because they tend to behave better in unfamiliar surroundings. In a new place, we can spend a lot more time enjoying the company of each other, and a lot less time being on opposing sides in deciding how much salt is an inappropriate amount to pour on the table.

The downside of being in an unfamiliar restaurant, however, is not knowing the rules. I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, but I have no idea if I'm supposed to tip the butcher.

A normal restaurant waiter, a cab driver, the hotel doorman who hails you a cab - those are easy. I know I'm supposed to tip them, and my only flaw there is a tendency to tip extravagantly because I don't trust my math skills and don't want to insult someone by under tipping. Many a time my husband has pulled me aside to peel bills from my hand before I offered them up. "How much are you tipping? You don't tip that much for _______________."

(As an aside, my husband is a precision tipper. A waitress receives exactly twenty percent of the tab, excluding tax, down to the penny. No rounding, unless she perhaps did a stellar job.)

Outside the normal folks, I get confused. Am I supposed to tip the barista? Which one - the one who made my coffee, or the one who gave it to me? In the absence of a joint tip jar, I have no idea what to do. Furniture delivery people - yes? Only if they set it up? Or everyone?

And the most confusing of all: partial service restaurants. If I'm carrying my own food to the table I picked out myself....

Today we dined in a pizzeria. A place your order at the counter and take a number pizzeria. The order taker handed me my check, and there was room to write in a tip. While I was pondering this, she said, "Have a seat and I'll call your number when your pizza is ready."

I decided not to tip.

This was a mistake.

One rule I need to implement immediately: if my children are involved, I need to practice damage control tipping. My son spilled gobs of cheese on the floor. Two pizza slices landed face down under the table. Marinara sauce dotted every surface within three feet of us. And despite this being our first time in this pizzeria, there was a tussle about the salt and pepper shakers that MzMannerz spectacularly lost.

Generally, my children are fairly well behaved in restaurants and don't make too many messes. The last time they made a significant mess... was in another partial service restaurant that I'd decided not to offer a tip in. You would think I would have recalled that experience before I signed my check today.

Having no cash and lacking a way to ask the establishment to run another check that I could tip on because my children are pizza destruction forces, I instead dropped to my knees with flimsy paper napkins and attempted to remove as much of the mess as possible (and, really, I would have done this in any restaurant where the mess they made was of an unusual scope). I thoroughly cleaned the table. And I requested a to go box and hustled my children out of there.

I plan to return once they've grown a little and are perhaps unrecognizable. And that time... I'll tip.

Add To My Ever Growing List....

2011-03-11T17:00:00.002-05:00

... of things I don't know how to do: I don't know how to remove the big orange box to the right of the blog title. I don't know why the box is there, taunting me, every time I view the blog. I'm halfway convinced that I am the only person seeing the box, which would indicate an entirely different set of concerns.

Just a random note.

America On Line

2011-03-10T17:00:00.003-05:00

I think I can safely say that a good number of people have no idea how to stand in line (or on line, depending on where you live). Find a line, and at least half the people in it will be succeeding in disrupting it somehow. I'm beginning to think they do it on purpose.

Case in point: I'm in the Safeway, in the Express Lane. I'm already miffed with Safeway and their so-called 'Express' lane, because when I was growing up, 'Express' meant 'Fast'. Grocery stores put their fastest cashiers in the Express Lane. Not anymore. Now 'Express' means 'New Hire' and apparently the scanning deficient employees are the ones working the line. Perhaps because there's less for them to screw up. I don't know.

Anyway, the woman in front of me has a cart full of nearly forty items. I know, because I counted. She has tins of cat food stacked and is clearly trying to pretend that a stack of cat food counts as one item. They do not. I spend several minutes making pointed glances at her, her cart, and the 'Fifteen Items Or Fewer' sign over and again. She ignores me. And then has the gall to write a check. Why more people haven't gone postal in the Express lane is beyond me.

And then there's the airport. I wish they would include among their many signs the directive to pay attention. The number of people who refuse to face forward astounds me. The line moves, and some guy is standing there, looking into space, totally missing the rest of us behind him that are picking up our bags and ready to move. How can this be? Do these people not also have a plane which is scheduled to leave at a certain time? Even private jets have flight plans and take off times. I do not understand.

Perhaps worse are the people who want to strike up a conversation. Why are we best friends now? I know this seems grumpy, but the basis of our relationship is only that we are standing near the same latitude/longitude coordinate. People get divorced with more in common than that. You should really seek approval for your purchases and confirm that your ceramic teapot is indeed cute with actual friends, and not people in line with you. Lines are for reading magazines you don't intend to buy and daydreaming. I don't mind sharing the occasional glance as we both wonder why the heck we're yet again standing behind a person who insists on paying with exact change, but I don't want a commitment. Please don't talk to me.

I also want to suggest that people study the dynamics of the line before trying to enter it. Midstream is a lousy time to figure out that there is only one line and you are actually just standing with a bunch of other confused people headed nowhere. Do your research.

For a nation of people who grew up going from classroom to cafeteria to playground via a line, we do a terrible job. Maybe we all need to partner up again and hold hands.

And watch where you point that cart.

So yeah, some changes.

2011-03-09T17:00:00.003-05:00

If you haven't already noticed, I've decided to fold the musings of my other blog into this, my primary blog. I'm really not disciplined enough about blogging to maintain two separate spaces - chalk that up to another idea that was good in theory, but had very little basis in the reality of my life.

There are lots more of those.

Anyway... here, I will discuss whatever, whenever. Posts will likely lean heavily in the direction of whatever happens to be catching my fancy/on my mind at that point in time.

And now that I have learned about the handy dandy option of scheduling posts in advance, it should be easier to post more frequently, because now I can sit down and write whenever I'm in the mood and space those posts apart.

Should.

We shall see.

You Think?

2011-03-08T17:00:00.002-05:00

I had to laugh while browsing Land of Nod. This wallpaper caught my eye:

To The Letter Wallpaper, Land of Nod

But most interesting were these accompanying details:

One 56 square foot roll
Roll is 11 yards by 20.5"
Requires wallpaper paste to hang (not included)
Hanging instructions included
Adult installation recommended
To order complimentary swatches, please email customerservice@landofnod.com

Thanks for pointing that out to us, Mr. Copywriter. Although I'm a little disappointed that my toddlers won't be able to complete the job after all.

:)

Lights, Camera, Action

2011-03-07T17:00:00.005-05:00

Courtesy: buckhamtheatre.com

The first time I stepped on a stage with the intent to pretend to be someone else, I was in church. My Aunt Shirley belonged to the Nurses' Guild, and every year the Nurses' Guild put on a play illustrating the biblical story of the virgins whose lamps were threatening to run out of oil. I was one of the virgins - although I can't remember if my group was the one it all worked out for, oilwise, or not. I only faintly remember having to carry an oil lamp out in front of the congregation, wrapped up in white sheets from my mother's bed.

I eventually graduated to more complicated costumes. I spent years in constant anticipation of that one moment: me, offstage, listening for the cue that would prompt me to walk out and spend time being someone else. I loved it. I used to immerse myself in characters so much that I'd unconsciously adopt their affectations into my real life. Pattie Mae Wells had a habit of flirting with men by looking at them from the corners of her eyes, and soon after, so did I. Miss Reardon crossed her legs at the ankles when she sat, and now, so do I.

Lately I've been thinking about acting again. In general, I always think of it during the Oscars craze; I can remember when my list of future goals included "Achieve Top Billing", "Achieve Oscar Nomination" and "Achieve Oscar Win". I wonder where that list is. How different it is from my goals for today, which begins with get ready in time to leave the house in an hour and ends with not being late to let our sitter go home today.

Life presented other roads to travel, and I took them. I don't regret taking them. As I traveled these roads, my dreams morphed, my desires shifted. I now have four people in my life who are literally my dreams come true; my reality has as many heart held splendors as my previous dreams promised.

And yet, I wonder.

I know I am not done being an artist, that I have not fulfilled my destiny, that I have not adequately used the ten talents ordained for me by the master Art Director. The road I am traveling now has signs on it, all asking the same question:

What's next?

Who's There?

2011-03-04T17:00:00.004-05:00

This is, perhaps, the perfect front door:

No. 10 Downing Street is, in my opinion, a perfect ten. Classic, proportioned, balanced, symmetrical. It says, "I am beautiful and traditional inside. Please come in (knock first)."

Compare to the entry to my home:

Courtesy TH Taylor Homes

Okay, it's not that bad. But like a mouse hole, it's not something that inspires a person to come in and sip some tea. And also like a mouse hole, it is not always obvious. People kind of have to stop and figure out where the door is, because it's hidden away on the side of the house.

We knew we had curb appeal issues when we moved in, as well as other mountains of blandness to climb. Our Realtor told us, "This house doesn't have the flavor your current house has." I wasn't insulted; I took it as a challenge. Could we bring flavor to our blue coastal saltbox slash colonial with the side entry "front" door?

I still believe we can, although five years later, our yard and the exterior remain largely untouched. Well, we did put on a new roof. It's a gorgeous roof, even though our house is so tall you can only see the roof from half a block away. And we planted stuff that is mostly growing.

Nevertheless, our house lacks curb appeal. People mainly stop to look at our house because they plan to visit us and wonder if they've found the right address. What I'd like is a house that makes the dog walkers and joggers and baby stroller pushers pause (the way I pause for so many of the other homes in our neighborhood). I want my home to rise up and greet me, as Oprah puts it.

Right now it kind of halfheartedly blows a fake little air kiss from a sitting position.

So I've got work to do - Mr. Mannerz is far more interested in the redesign of our kitchen (and who can blame him), so I am left to my own devices to conjure and execute a front yard and entry that is... well...

A perfect ten.

Of Mice and Moms

2011-03-03T17:00:00.005-05:00

I have the best intentions. I really do. I really want to be a foodie, to research delicious recipes, float home from the store with a car full of delicious smelling groceries, and serve up yummy but quick A-List dishes to my family.

I don't want to be the chicken nugget mom. I don't even like chicken nuggets. Why can't we have the whole piece of chicken? Who decided to just portion out a nugget's worth?

Yesterday's dinner was okay: fish with a lemon and pepper crust, vegetables, rice. The vegetables and rice prepare themselves. Seriously, they practically walk out of the cupboard and leap into a pan. No effort.

The fish? I am tempted to take credit for it, but I bought it with the lemon and pepper crust already dusted on. So basically, for dinner yesterday, I opened and closed the oven door.

I glanced at my latest copy of Coastal Living yesterday, and I present to you: chilled avocado soup (recipe at end):

Courtesy: Coastal Living Magazine

This soup allegedly takes only ten minutes to prepare. There is no reason I can't offer this yummy sounding soup to my family, except for the small fact that I am crazy.

You see, for me to serve this soup, I'll want to use pretty white bowls. And I'll want to use the yummy crab and mango garnish, which my children will immediately pick right out.

I'll want to get a pretty, lime green, patterned napkin and that lime green spoon that is peeking through in the right bottom corner.

I'll want to take a photograph that makes the soup look as yummy, meaning I have to buy a new camera.

It will take a lot more than ten minutes for ME to prepare this dish.

Pre-dusted lemon and pepper fillets, here I come.

----------------

Courtsey Coastal Living:

Surprise! This rich, velvety soup contains no cream or milk. Pureeing in the blender fills the mixture with air, making it thicker. Add more broth if you like a thinner consistency. It's delicious topped with the Crab-and-Mango Garnish or on its own.

Prep Time: 8 minutes
Chill: 2 hours
Yield: Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

3 avocados, cut into chunks
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice
1/3 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Crab-and-Mango Garnish

Preparation

Combine ingredients in a blender, and process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours or until completely chilled. Pour soup into serving bowls. Top each serving with Crab-and-Mango Garnish.

Julia Dowling Rutland, Coastal Living, MARCH 2011

Multiple Personality Disorder

2011-03-02T17:00:00.003-05:00

courtesy furrygoat.com

I have five email addresses, and since I don't entirely understand why or how that came to be, I decided to write it all out to see if I can make any sense of it.

I have a work email address, which is understandable. From here, one might assume that I had one other email address for personal use, however I have four. Why is this?

It started with my first Yahoo address. It was my maiden name at Yahoo, and in the excitement of my engagement, I made hasty plans to abandon it. I believe approximately four seconds passed between my husband asking me to marry him and my staking out my new married name at Yahoo, lest someone else with my name decide to claim it first. The plan was to move to my new email address, yet, somehow, I could not get out of the habit of checking my old one.

Then I created one for planning my wedding, so I could sign up for freebies like... I can't even remember. I can't remember any of the freebies I received because of my fourth email address, yet I still have it.

Then I decided I needed a serious sounding shopping/general email address, one I could give to Macy's, for instance, but wasn't ashamed to say out loud to the Macy's cashier.

I don't need five email addresses. I can't keep up with who's writing me where. And perhaps this is a sign that, contrary to my pipe dreams, I also don't need five physical residences. I can't imagine tracking down a magazine subscription in that scenario.

-MzMannerz
(I think)

The Run Around

2011-03-01T17:00:00.005-05:00

Penn Station, NYC, courtesy visitingdc.com

The last time I blogged about a New York City cab ride, I thought I was being kidnapped. I'm not sure why I didn't think I was being kidnapped last Thursday, when I encountered the first New York cabbie in the history of New York cab drivers who had no idea where he was going.

Perhaps this is just my history, but of all the times I've hopped into a taxi in New York, precisely once has the driver looked at me blankly when I gave him an address. Thursday. It has never mattered what the address was. Major, iconic building? The driver knew it. Minor, charming site? The driver knew it. Tucked away sister office? No problem. Cousin's crumbling brownstone in Brooklyn? I swear.

So last week, I did what I always do. I emerged from Penn Station, got in line, and slid into the first available cab. I gave him a street address.

"I don't know this."

I was confused. I repeated the street address.

"I don't know this."

I tried again, giving the building's common name.

"No. Where is this?"

My boss was with me. He speaks/is familiar with five or six languages. He began asking the cab driver if another one would be preferable.

Shaking head from the front seat.

I pulled out a business card that had the address, wondering if I'd gotten something wrong. I spelled it. I read the card again. At a loss, I tried, "Do you want the phone number?"

"No. Where is this?"

Desperate, I named a major city landmark. His eyes lit up. "Oh, yes! Fine, I'll take you there." He then proceeded to drive pell mell through the city, which actually comforted me. At least he was driving like a regular city cab driver because otherwise, really - did he come in on the train with me? Was this really a cab driver?

If I had not been with my boss....

The cab driver passed the street we wanted and then drove four blocks beyond it. "I'll let you out here."

I looked at him blankly. "You can walk that way," he said, waving helpfully in the general direction behind us.

I looked at the meter, wondering if he had been trying to increase his fare by pretending to be lost, but the amount due was about three dollars less than the same ride from Penn Station usually cost. He really had no idea where he was going. He could not possibly have been a real New York taxi driver.

My boss handed him money. He returned only part of the change.

"Where's the rest?"

The driver looked confused. "Tip!"

Wait, I take it back. He was definitely a New York City taxi driver.

My boss growled. "Nah, man - no tip!" relenting in the end to pay our lost cabbie one additional dollar.

Which I hope is spent on a map.

Masterpiece. Theater.

2011-02-28T16:56:00.001-05:00

I am an artist of all trades (master of none). In any given week, I sing, write, act, paint, draw, design, sew... I perform and create. I am constantly up to something and beginning projects (far more often than finishing).

So I was excited to volunteer at my children's preschool, to help in a small way with creating a painting that will be auctioned off during a fundraiser in the coming weeks. My job was to usher little people from their classroom to the art room, since preschoolers have a tendency to wander, get lost, get distracted, etc.

The art teacher chose an ambitious piece for the children to reproduce. This is my first year in the preschool, but I hear tell the children's unofficial reproductions are gallery worthy. This year, they are painting a piece by English painter John Dyer. He is known for colorful, whimsical landscapes, including "Green Olives Under The Stars":

http://www.johndyergallery.co.uk

I was lucky that the day I volunteered, my twins were in the rotation to paint. Here they are adding their contribution to "Green Olives":

The very wise art teacher created a square or rectangle of paint for each child, and then asked them to fill in the middle, reducing a complicated painting to one small, recognizable shape at a time. Because my children are tall, she had them help out near the top.

There was also a lot of hand over hand guidance, especially for two and new three year olds. The plan is to paint square by square, layer by layer, until there is a finished reproduction. Going from this:

Back to this:

Just over a hundred children, one art teacher, some parent volunteers... should be fun to see the end result. The school typically auctions the actual painting, and then sends it out to have official prints made, which are also sold.

I'm pretty sure Mr.Mannerz will recommend springing for the print - the painting, not so much. But we'll see.

I am alive.

2011-02-21T21:42:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to think of something to post, something to say... I certainly have a lot to say and post elsewhere (my neighbor informed me that he only logs into Facebook about once a month, and therefore he sees a month's worth of everyone's update in his Newsfeed. The rest of us overwhelm him. I took that to mean my posts are so interesting he cannot help himself and must read them. That is what I choose to believe, and I shall not discuss it further, ahem).

I have been thinking about merging my blogs, because whenever I create a new blog, it seems to mean certain death for this one. Pondering.

I have projects going on of significant size in both my professional and personal lives.

I am not feeling one hundred percent well, overall.

But I did have a great weekend, and an impending snowstorm may save my car 204 miles of travel tomorrow - we shall see.

Later.

New Post.

2010-12-19T21:54:00.001-05:00

It's been so long since I blogged, the work of coming up with a workable title was beyond me. This is, simply, a new post.

I always cringe a little inside when I say I've been busy, or that I've had a lot going on. Everyone is busy. Everyone has a lot going on. I don't know a single person who would say they have buckets of time to fill and are always looking for something to do. Rather, I only know people whose lives are pretty booked, and they prioritize by what needs to be done, followed by what they want to do. It's the last one that trips people up, because no one wants to admit that what you are inquiring about, which is obviously of interest to you, is something they simply do not have enough of a longing to make time for. (This is why people who own televisions but do not watch the show you just brought up in conversation will tell you, "I don't watch a lot of TV." They watch TV. They just don't watch your TV shows).

But I digress.

There are things developing in my life that I am not of a mind to blog about yet. Old things, new things...things. That's why I've been silent. I realize it's difficult to gain a following and get bunches of comments and whatnot if treat your blog like a pair of cast off socks you only wear when everything else is in the laundry. That's never been the purpose of my blog, however, so I hope my six point two readers will hang in there with me while I sort through the yarn the universe has wrapped around my being.

I'll be back. For heaven's sake, bookmark me or put me in a reading service, so you'll know. I appreciate it.

Ciao.

It's In The Bag

2010-10-06T22:47:00.001-04:00

My husband has been carrying the same briefcase to work since Noah disembarked. To call it a briefcase is actually inaccurate - it's more what would happen if a briefcase and a duffel bag decided to mate. There's nothing wrong with it, if you discount the fact that for a while now, he's had to pin parts of it back together lest the entire thing explode all over the bus he takes to work.

He asked me to help him buy a new bag, and honestly, I don't know why he did that at all. I'll explain.

My husband (and his parents before him) are poster children for reverse elitism. The very presence of a high end label on an item earns his immediate disdain. Should another person be able to ballpark your financial status based on anything you own, you are trite and showy. These are people who come from people who darned socks, back when people actually darned socks, and would still be darning socks if any of the socks manufactured today were worth the effort of darning. The point is not to appear impoverished, it's to appear neutral. Bland. Unnoticeable. Stand in the back of the room in your Land's End khakis and do not call attention to yourself, please.

Then there is me.

There is not a label I do not adore. My parents tended to shun labels, too, for entirely different reasons, chief of which was my mother's mantra of not making rich people richer. Why buy a concert ticket? That singer is already rich enough. Why wear some woman's name on your butt? She's rich enough. No need to make rich people even richer, ever, despite my being pretty sure that someone was made more financially stable by our Sears Toughskins purchases, so the entire point was moot.

This upbringing (you know, the one in which I suffered because my parents insisted if I wanted Jordache jeans enough, I'd work to buy them myself. Whatev) caused me to look upon a designer label the way some women might gaze at their children. The highlight of my shopping life will occur when, one day, I am the owner of what I consider to be one of the holy grails of labels: a Chanel suit. With the weighted chain in the hem. Tailored by some fussy woman with a measuring tape around her neck. It will be beige, I think, and I will have nowhere to wear it, but it will hang in my closet, glorious, magnificent, labeled.

So when my husband asked my opinion on briefcases, I do not for the life of me understand why he would think the word Samsonite would ever trip across my tongue. Or JCPenney. Or, heaven forbid, Target (where I spend as much money as anyone else on reasonably priced items that I use to accent the thrift store designer labels I buy. I do live in reality). No, I immediately polled a bunch of men until I unearthed what was considered to be one of the best labels in luggage, ever, ever ever, and I went out and bought that.

Yeah, so, the best label in luggage, ever, did not think to put a handle on their briefcase. It sat in the corner of our bedroom, while the duct taped duffel briefcase hybrid went off to work each morning. After a couple of weeks I asked why.

"It doesn't have a handle, what's up with that?" He wanted me to send it back. He wanted me, a bona fide label addict, to pick up that beautiful bag (well, it's rather plain, but the label inside? Is gorgeous) and send it back. Admit defeat. I couldn't do it. I haughtily informed my husband that I would carry the bag myself, thankyouverymuch, and me and my ultra cushioned laptop would enjoy it immensely. So there.

For about a week I floated into work with the bag on my shoulder, label side out, naturally, so pleased with my designer briefcase and the way it knocked against my designer handbag that my head could barely fit through the doorway. And then, well, the second week, the aura wore off, because...

...it doesn't have a handle.

It has a shoulder strap, which is great, but entirely inconvenient. I didn't realize the lack of handle would mean so much. I definitely need another bag altogether. And as soon as I muster up two ounces of humility, I will explain to my husband why I am selling the handle free designer bag on eBay and going out shopping for something more practical.

Which still won't be a Samsonite. I mean, work with me here.

I'm kinda tired of blogging.

2010-09-24T10:30:00.002-04:00

Today, anyway.

I really am trying to blog...

2010-09-10T18:05:00.000-04:00

I am just too busy lately to get quiet enough (and by that I mean both in body and mind) to write much. Here's one I started, but haven't finished. I'm publishing it anyway because...it's my blog, and I can.

Ah, Control. How I've missed you these past few weeks!

-----------------

I went to a friend's house yesterday, and it was a nice house.

I went to another friend's house a couple of days ago, and it was also a nice house.

In fact, all the friend's houses/condos/apartments I have been to in recent years have been nice houses. When did this happen?

Twenty years is a long time, but it seems like yesterday to me, and twenty years ago, what you would have found when visiting any of my friend's houses was a toss up. You might have driven up to a lovely, two story brick townhouse with late model economy car parked outside. Just as frequently, the home would be lovely and the car would be, well, likely to be banned from American roadways the next time it was inspected. Or, you might find the cutest Honda Civic you ever did see, parked outside of a home that was only a single family because the two adjacent townhomes had earlier burned down.

I remember a friend who was battling such a mouse problem that he resorted to covering his entire floor with those sticky traps, leaving only a hop scotch like path through each room (this same friend drove a car that had long ago lost its gear shift - he used a butter knife instead. Seriously). I remember another friend who had painstakingly picked out beautiful sheets for her king sized mattress, which sat on the floor of her bedroom and was the only thing in the room. I, myself, lived in a house that forced me to the laundromat for several months, after the washing machine broke and I realized that someone had placed the machine inside the bathroom before they built the bathroom door. The machine was too big to squeeze through the door, so in addition to a new machine, I had to have a new door constructed as well.

Now my friends live in houses with working washing machines, bedroom dressers and without scores of rodents. In other words, everyone has grown up....

__________________

I'll come back to this eventually. Stay tuned.

I Just Don't Think So.

2010-08-24T23:11:00.002-04:00

I've been busy with work and have been spending a considerable amount of time in hotels. Things should slow down soon, but I couldn't help but have this observation last night as I wheeled my overnight case into an Extended Stay Suites.

So far, I have stayed in a single efficiency, a one bedroom suite, and a two bedroom suite at various hotels. The efficiencies and one bedroom suites all tend to have adorable little two burner cooktops set into the countertop. The two bedroom suites generally have full four burner stoves, complete with ovens and the attendant oven trays and accessories.

Hotels apparently think people who book two bedroom suites cook more than people who book smaller hotel rooms. Hotels apparently think people with families cook more than single people.
Wait.

Hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! HHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I just had to take a moment to assure innkeepers that families are spending just as much time in front of the microwave as single people. Especially in a hotel while we question the decision to stuff our families into approximately the same square footage as a tuna can. We may be microwaving chicken nuggets instead of popcorn (or in addition to), but trust me, trust: the last thing parents want to do in your two bedroom suites is produce a meal that necessitates four different burners and a full sized oven.

Either that, or the Mannerz family is peopled only with complete slackers....?

Wait, don't answer that.

Light In The Middle Of The Tunnel

2010-08-04T23:09:00.001-04:00

A week or so ago, I needed help with something and called my father. He helped. He made a few phone calls and voila - information gained, problem resolved. Considering this, it would really be the old pot calling the kettle black if I allowed myself to do a blog post on how long it takes to finish raising your children because I have suddenly realized that however long it is, it is nowhere near now, at least when it concerns my kids.

I like to joke that I am burning the candle at both ends. A typical evening will find me ~~yelling~~ saying the following things in rapid succession:

Sit down and eat your peas.
Who's car is in the driveway?
We don't throw our food on the floor.
Can you mow the lawn tonight?
No, we sit down while we are eating.
Did you register for tutoring?
We don't need to put shoes on right now, okay?
Do you have to work tomorrow?

Strangers listening through an open window (as if any window in the MidAtlantic has been opened at any time recently) might conclude that I have a really strange roommate.

All of my children are busy transitioning. Transitioning into adulthood from childhood. Transitioning into childhood from infancy. Everybody needs guidance and help and the occasional chocolate chip cookie. No one is happy when they don't get their way. All of them produce more laundry than they actually own clothes (I swear this is somehow true).

I am mentally and physically exhausted. There is a problem to solve one hundred percent of the time.

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Well, I wouldn't trade it permanently for the world. Truth be told. :D

To Be...Or Not To Be

2010-07-03T10:02:00.004-04:00

I used to have a gynecologist who was also a real estate agent. Her real estate agent cards were displayed prominently on her desk. This disturbed me. I don't think it's a good idea for someone who literally has your life in their hands to have a vested interest in earning commission from the sale of your house. I switched to another gynecologist.

Now I find myself faced with another medical personnel dilemma. Namely, I am convinced my primary care doctor believes I am going to die. You can imagine how this might give me pause.

Several months ago I was diagnosed with a few things that, while demanding serious attention, are not believed to be life threatening by any of the specialists who have been called up to help me manage them. To date, I have had three specialists, including a cardiologist, assure me that I am more likely to get hit by a bus than to succumb to any of my ailments, conditions which I could consider more of an annoyance than a scare.

And then there's my primary care physician. She is the one managing Project Me, the one who tap tap taps referral requests into her little laptop and zips me off to a specialist a couple times a month.

She is not handling this very well.

During the first visit, when she ticked off the list of parts I had that were rusting, she gave me several of those looks - you know, the look someone gives you when they don't want to tell you directly that your pants don't fit, but also don't want to NOT tell you and have you blame them when your seams split after sitting down. You know the look. I tried to bring up a couple of other things that had been bothering me. "My elbow hurt a lot last night."

She waved my elbow away. There were bigger fish. She told me she'd never had a patient with my combination of ills. She zipped off referrals and upped my daily vitamin dose, and then left the room, parting with a sympathetic smile.

I saw her again yesterday. She remarked that I was certainly taking all this in stride.

Taking all this in stride? Why yes, because everyone else seems to think I'm going to be okay. She acknowledged that I wasn't sick. Yet. That we were just being preventative. Then she repeated how well I was taking everything.

So clearly, there are two options. She is macabre, sees her glass as half empty, is a bit put out by this floppy broken patient. She is, after all, a primary care physician, the type of doctor who prescribes ointments for achy knees and tells you when you weigh too much. She really isn't the type of doctor who prepares you for the big guns, like open heart surgery or leg amputation. Not that either of those things are on my docket - the point is, she ain't the bad news doctor. So maybe, to her, all this is out of her league significant.

And then there's the other option. That my specialists, who no doubt deliver bad news all the time, have simply tired of it and decided to smile and wave through any new patients. After all, you don't really notice you have died until after the fact, and then what are you going to do? Sue? Go haunt the doctor and argue? No... you're dead. Maybe all of them are wrong, and my primary care doctor, who looks as if she might just be losing sleep over my predicaments, is the only one who is trying to prepare me.

I think I'll give it a few more visits and then decide, but if one of her next referrals is to a funeral home, I will be really concerned.

This one is also for KWF

2010-06-11T22:49:00.000-04:00

In 2003, or thereabouts, I hopped into a restaurant in Clarendon for a blind date.

It wasn't a romantic date. I was getting married, and at the time I was planning to hold my wedding ceremony on the grounds of the Jefferson Memorial. The people who have the authority to grant permission to do such a thing told me another wedding was scheduled at the Memorial the same day. If I wanted, I could send a letter to them that they would forward, and find out about things such as sharing chairs and other wedding related things two couples getting married at the Jefferson Memorial might have in common.

I wrote the letter and mailed it. They never forwarded it. I was lucky to meet my sensational friend anyway. She and I both joined a message board for brides in the throes of planning a wedding. One day she mentioned her location. I emailed her. We exchanged a few messages. We decided to meet for dinner.

Making friends is a lot like dating. This is something my friend will tell you, and I know it to be true. When I walked into that restaurant, I didn't know what to expect. What would we have in common, except the somewhat ambitious idea of a Jefferson Memorial wedding (we both later nixed the idea in favor of air conditioning and a cicada free ceremony)? What would we talk about?

Seven years later, to trot out an old cliche, I could make a much shorter list of the things we haven't talked about. Sometimes, in dating and in friendship, you just click. We have always talked about how it was easy - how we fell into our friendship with gusto, how such a strong sisterhood emerged with very little effort at all. She was the one who encouraged me to go more deeply into blogging, and while the post itself is a bit embarrassing, and highly self centered, I wouldn't have begun this journey of electronic journaling had it not been for her.

My friend is moving away in a few weeks. To be fair, I technically moved away first, leaving Northern Virginia for the swan song of Annapolis, with its somewhat less attractive chorus: fifty miles of traffic between the beginnings of my married life, and now. My move was met with mixed reactions, anchored on the one side by K's instant reassurance. "Don't worry. I'll always come to see you."

And she did. Through children and jobs and vacations, through moments of soaring happy giggles and sobbing evening telephone calls, through pages of decorating tomes and volumes of celebrity gossip, from tiny bar basements in my corner of the world to tucked away sandwich shops in hers, our friendship thrived, the seeds sprinkled up and down the highway, from my end of US Route 50, in Maryland, to her end in Virginia.

When she told me about her move, I echoed back the same reassurances she gave me. Not to worry. What's a move? Secretly, however, I wondered if, in my effort to be supportive, I was failing to communicate the deep wish that somehow, her plans would change, and she and her husband would announce last minute plans to purchase the house next door to mine. That of course I wish she were remaining a mere, piddly fifty miles away, and that obviously, the universe was making some great error in not convincing our husbands to go into business together (it would be a cooking and cleaning business, if you wondered).

No. Instead, my dear friend is definitely going to pack her belongings and transport them hundreds of miles away. So, my fabulous friend, I'd just like you to know:

Please leave a light on for me. Please stock the diet Coke. Please stock a lot of wine. Please save your gossip magazines for me, and your copies of Traditional Home. I'll be using them, and using them a lot, because my dear Kathryn:

I will always come to see you.

Safe travels.

I just don't feel like blogging lately.

2010-06-09T09:46:00.002-04:00

But I will again soon.

Bon Appetite

2010-05-18T13:35:00.001-04:00

This is me: unable to remember the assembly directions for a Big Mac, and therefore permanently assigned to cashier duty during my youthful stint at McDonald's.

This is my husband: Degreed in culinary arts, many years in various kitchens across the country for a private dining club.

This is me: Opening the freezer and seeing random meats I have little idea what to do with, and wondering why we don't buy ground beef which can be made into a ketchup and egg meatloaf, which I know how to do.

This is my husband: Taking a cut of meat only its mother could love, soaking it overnight in what I thought was salad dressing, searing it in a pan and then roasting it to a tender, melt in your mouth perfection topped with a diamond cut tomato, pepper and onion concoction he made up.

This is me: Deciding we really need a cream cheese frosting, and then stopping in my tracks when I realize my mixing bowl is too shallow to handle a mixer without splattering ingredients all over the counter.

This is my husband: Shunning the mixer entirely, putting the ingredients in the oven briefly so they soften, then mixing by hand a frosting of perfect consistency in between Redskin plays.

I am not quite sure why he is with me.

When my mother wants to know if we have an ingredient or utensil, she doesn't bother to ask me. She knows I probably don't know, or have never heard of it. I'll be in the middle of the sentence, "I don't think we have one" and my husband will announce that the spaghetti measuring thingie has been living in the second drawer to the left of the stove top every day we've lived in this house.

Oh.

I can feed myself, but I can't cook. Meaning: I can follow a recipe, which, I've realized, is less cooking than, well, following a recipe. I'd love to know how to cook, to open a pantry and see raw ingredients and actually birth the concept of a delicious dinner. I can't do this. I open a cookbook, source a recipe, and then go to the grocery store because I'm missing something (or call my husband to ask what I can substitute).

My husband opens the pantry, peeks in the freezer, and invents. Several of his inventions have become regulars on our menu. On random Saturday afternoons, he invents sandwiches that would bring tears to your eyes. I used to make the mistake of telling him, "No thanks, I'll make my own." Then I'd sit with my sad looking ham slices while he feasted on a work of art. I've learned my lesson. If he is making anything - yes, I want some. Even if I don't want it that moment, I will want it eventually.

I am quite sure why I am with him.

Happy Anniversary, Mr.Mannerz. Bon Appetite.

How to Talk to Fat People. Et Cetera.

2010-05-11T10:36:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I get a good chuckle out of people who routinely break tiny rules here and there (speeding, anyone?) but suddenly find their moral compass when called upon to lie to someone they care about. It makes me wonder, shouldn't we save some of our sin for a good cause?

I'm talking about the people who can't think of anything to say when a friend in a hideous dress asks how she looks. If this is dress still has tags and she's asking you in the department store's dressing room, please answer truthfully. If she's asking you in the middle of a restaurant where you're meeting for drinks, how does making her more self conscious about her appearance in a public place help? You can always innocently email links to more flattering clothing later. Et cetera.

When a friend or loved one wants your opinion on an action that isn't going to maim or kill them, you, or anyone else, is it so bad to tell them what they want to hear every now and again? I tell you what: you can even trade naughties and start traveling at exactly the speed limit or under when you drive, if it makes you feel more balanced. I would never want anyone to carry the weight of a white lie without some assistance.

And PS: Yes, I CAN tell you've lost/gained weight, your new haircut is perfection, and you look GREAT in those shoes. Ahem. Really.

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T21:58:00.001-04:00

Today is the end of my eighteenth mother's day. I capped the day by taking my oldest child back to his dorm (he came home to celebrate the day with me, because he is awesome).

All day I've been reflecting on the girl I was when I became a mother, and where inside me she still lurks. I wonder if, meeting her now, we would become friends. I have a hard time remembering her. The details are fuzzy. What did she have for breakfast (probably cereal, but what kind?). How did she wear her hair? What did she dream about at night?

I remember the large pieces, certain activities, and there are the photographs to bring back some of the smaller details, but by and large that girl and I are strangers. I'm nearly as unfamiliar with her as my soon to be nineteen year old is unfamiliar with the baby she rocked to sleep at night.

In eighteen more years, Mother's Day 2028, I'll probably be a mother in law. Possibly a grandmother. My oldest child will be a year younger than I am now. My youngest children will just have celebrated their twentieth birthdays. And I wonder: who is that woman? What will she eat for breakfast? How will she wear her hair? What will she dream about at night?

Perhaps I'll still have this blog to look back on, to help fill in the blanks about MzMannerz circa 2010. Perhaps my son, old enough now to remember, will tell me some of the details I'm forgetting. Maybe my husband will look at me over the dinner table, and say, "Remember when we used to....?"

Whatever I remember, whoever I am now, one thing I want 2010 me to tell 2029 me, on Mother's Day: you were happy on Mother's Day 1993. You were happy on Mother's Day 2010. The common denominator? The undeserved favor, blessings and luck bestowed on you when three souls chose you as the vessel to enter life. It has meant everything. It is, simply, everything.

Thank you three for a beautiful mother's day.

I have a new blog!

2010-05-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

Or rather, I have a second blog now. Unlike before, I'm not going to abandon Tickled Pink in favor of my new blog. I hope the two can coexist peacefully, playing nice and working well with others.

More Than I Can Chew

I hope to see my six loyal readers there. :)

Captain Mannerz

2010-04-30T16:45:00.004-04:00

I call my husband a pilot, because he's so good at making piles.

I know. Corny. But so, so true. While he's nowhere near the level of the hoarders you see on television, he does have a way of wanting to keep things around. He says he's being frugal, and you know - I'm all for frugal, but there is a line.

We bought a vacuum cleaner two weeks ago, and the old vacuum cleaner is still in the house. Not just in the house, but still stored as if it will be used. The first time I questioned this, he told me he was saving it to use in the attic.

I have never heard of vacuuming an empty, crawl space attic, but I don't know everything.

The second time, he said he was planning to use it in the garage.

Um.

Our garage, like most garages, has a concrete floor that responds very well to a broom. Using a vacuum cleaner in a garage is also not a concept I'm familiar with. Yes, I've heard of shop vacs. A Hoover seems, somehow, overkill.

I really want him to throw our old vacuum cleaner away, but I have a feeling it might become like our VCR. Not the one rarely used but still hooked up in the family room, I'm talking about the one that resides on our bedroom floor, behind the door. I think it's there in case two of us decide to watch a VHS tape at the same time, which ignores the fact that in seven years, we've collectively watched a VHS tape approximately twice.

I'm not entirely innocent of the hoarding habit, given my jewelry box and it's little drawer of mismatched earrings and loose stones that I swear I'm going to do something with one day, but do you see how my hoard fits into a jewelry box, and his hoards are, well, a vacuum cleaner, a VCR, a coffee shop chair, a large box of research papers from the master's degree he completed more than a decade ago?

His stuff is too big.

My mother used to get rid of things while my father was at work. He rarely noticed. I tried this with a rattan stool that screamed in horror if you even looked like you were going to sit in it. My husband thought the stool would come in handy eventually, and insisted we keep it.

It's been gone for a month. He hasn't noticed.

Anyone need a VCR?

My name is MzMannerz

2010-04-20T15:10:00.000-04:00

Well, my name is NOT MzMannerz, but in the spirit of My Name is Earl, I thought now might be a great time to make a few mea culpas to the universe at large. Specifically:

M in Baltimore: I apologize that teenager me promised to marry you and bear your children. Obviously, that didn't happen, but I think my technique of avoidance was a poor way to communicate my lack of intention. I am really unsure how I might make this up to you, however, given that I am now married to someone else and the grapevine has produced news of your own marriage, without time travel, and then I'm afraid I'd be tempted to resort to that pesky avoidance technique again. So just trust me: I'm sorry.

To the nuns on Madonna Place in East Orange: I'm sorry I found what was obviously one of your rosaries and told my mother it was a birthday present I'd purchased for her at the candy store. First, the candy store did not sell rosaries or necklaces of any type, save for those that were edible. Second, I'm not sure why I didn't realize that at seven, my mother had no expectations for a birthday gift from me beyond me coloring on some folded cardboard. At any rate, my father returned the rosary to you when I should have, so I'd like to officially offer my apology.

J in Syracuse: It was deplorable of me to inquire about whether or not S. and K. liked you, particularly since this inquiry occurred via my bedroom window while the three of you were standing under it. Height of rudeness, even if you had pronounced all of our houses 'shacks' and did not often produce many reasons for us to like you. We did like you, though, J., just as you liked us, warts and all, and, apparently, insufferable pettiness and girl fighting. Sorry.

E in Syracuse: When you decided to punch me in the stomach daily because I wouldn't be your girlfriend, and I listened to adults who told me that punching girls in the stomach was just the way ten year old boys showed they liked you, I am sorry I didn't exercise a sense of self preservation and common sense and completely whip your ass. I owe you one. No, I owe you two. If you grew up to further abuse women and generally conduct life as an ass, I know I am partially to blame because I let you get away with it. I regret that.

T, M and M in Atlanta: That gold necklace I told you was given to me by a boy in church who loved me? Belonged to my mother. He was not into me. I think you knew, so thank you for not calling me out (and even more, for not calling my mother). I'm sorry.

To D, my sister: When your broken record player would start to buzz over the music because someone nearby rattled the floor too strongly, well... I am sorry for jumping up and down outside the door to your room and then pretending to not know what you were talking about.

To D, my other sister: I'm so sorry I kept telling you your Cabbage Patch Doll, Keith, was malnourished, neglected and would suffer learning disabilities because you didn't feed him real food. Truth be told, I was jealous that you had a Cabbage Patch Doll and I didn't. No excuses, though. I'm sorry.

I'd like to pretend these are all the apologies I owe to the world, but then I'd just have that untruth to apologize for. Rather, I'll be honest that I'm tired of typing AND that there are some secrets I'll be taking to my grave.

Which reminds me, D: It's not true that something will happen to you if you breathe while you're passing a cemetery.

Really.

The Weight of Water

2010-04-10T21:01:00.004-04:00

This hasn't happened to me (recently) so my panties aren't in a twist because I've been insulted, they're just in a twist because I'm confused.

A few times in the last few weeks, a friend has posted a Facebook update celebrating weight loss, and at least one person has responded to them with something like this:

"Water weight! Isn't it motivating?"

Are you with me, yet? How many times have you dropped a few pounds/begun a new diet only to have a helpful person point out that you really haven't accomplished anything at all, because the first few pounds you lose are only water.

'Scuse me. Our bodies are something like seventy percent water. If you lose a hundred pounds, you are losing a great deal of "water weight".

'Scuse me again, but remember that old point your science teacher made in middle school? You know, the one where she pointed out that a pound of feathers and a pound of coal both weighed the same. A. Pound. One was not heavier than the other. Therefore, why does it matter if the first few pounds are water or not?

I know. When you fail to maintain a healthy diet and skimp on water, your body retains water and you get puffy. I am a woman, I know water retention. I'm not saying these very helpful people are wrong. I'm just wondering what the point is.

To lose your initial water weight, you need to eat properly and drink plenty of water. To lose any amount of weight, you need to eat properly and drink plenty of water. It is the same. It is an achievement.

My suggestion for what you should say the next time you are met with news of someone's (intended, welcomed) weight loss?

Congratulations! You look great.

What You Get For The Money

2010-04-06T10:40:00.003-04:00

If you've ever sold a home or refinanced, you've probably seen this. We recently refinanced, using the same lender that held our original mortgage, who nonetheless sent us a form payoff letter indicating receipt of payment in full and wishing us the best for the future. Toodle-loo.

This struck me as wrong. What if we hadn't refinanced, but had actually come to the end of thirty years and mailed in the final payment? You mean to tell me all those dollars would only merit a form letter?

I asked my husband if this seemed anticlimactic.

Him: I guess. A bit.

Me: You'd think they would at least send us a complimentary Hershey Bar.

Him: They probably think, if you've paid off your mortgage, you can afford to buy your own Hershey Bar. And remember, we have not paid off our mortgage.

Me: Minor detail. There should be more fanfare. What is the incentive to keep paying the note every month for thirty years if you're only going to be rewarded with a form letter?

Him: The incentive? Not being evicted and foreclosed on.

Me: Minor detail.

I have some suggestions for banks. Perhaps the letter could be delivered on very nice paper, with a gold pen or a watch. Even a coupon for free fries with a cheeseburger purchase would be an improvement. We will have given you hundreds of thousands of dollars... won't you consider sending a fruit basket?

It's the least you could do.

From Bare to Bears

2010-03-30T16:04:00.005-04:00

Seeing as my mother told me this would happen, I have no right to complain. She said, repeatedly, specifically, that if I walked around in bare feet all the time, my feet would get big.

I walk around with bare feet all the time.

My feet are big.

I grew up in the wall to wall carpeting era. Everyone covered up their hardwood and put down some variance of beige low pile carpet (and sometimes shaggy. Remember that? Also, sometimes, really un-beige, but we have moved on and shall not discuss it). Shoes were easy on carpet if you didn't mind vacuuming and had a healthy relationship with Stanley Steemer.

Since leaving home, I've lived in a series of carpet free places. My first apartment had original wood floors before that became the thing to do again - the landlord was too cheap to buy carpet. Since then, hardwood floors have exploded in popularity again and this time, everyone wants to keep it looking nice since it's no longer a standard, but an upgrade.

And this means bare feet. Shoes scuff, mark, and otherwise prove that people actually live in a house, and why should I support that? So I've been walking around barefoot for a long time. Between that and my pregnancies (during which everything grew. You should check out my ears), my feet are now huge. Perhaps not water vessels, but definitely oars.

I used to wear a size nine. I was proud of my nine. Nine seemed just large enough to have presence, but not so large as to need custom made socks.

Now I buy a nine and a half. If the shoes are extraordinarily cute and don't come any larger. Preferably, I buy a ten. There have been as many injuries from my children attempting to flop around the house in my boat sized shoes as any other.

Meanwhile, my mother is almost always wearing some sort of shoe unless she's in bed. She continues to measure a dainty size seven.

I do eat my vegetables like she told me to.

And my hardwood floors? Gleaming.

It's In The Bag

2010-03-09T14:15:00.003-05:00

It's almost Easter, which has me thinking about dresses, and bonnets, and purses, and that got me thinking about the contents of my purse, versus the contents of my mother's.

I've been a parent for nearly nineteen years now, and I have yet to produce an adequate mom bag. This is ridiculous, considering I was raised by the Queen of Mom Bags, and really: I should know better.

My mother's purse does not have compartments. It has departments. Multiple entrances. An escalator, with signage (hosiery? Top of the stairs, to the right). My mother can produce the remedy to any problem via the contents of her bag. Coughing in church? Here's a mint. Unexpected tears? Take a hanky. There are bobby pins for flyaway hair, and lip gloss for chapped lips. Mirrors. Paper clips. A wrapped package of crackers (always, somehow, fresh). My mother could probably produce the ingredients for a pot roast and mashed potatoes if asked.

Then there's my bag. I have a wallet and plastic cards. I could not produce a photograph of my own children if asked. I rarely have more than a single dollar. If you are coughing in church, I will suggest you go outside. If my children suddenly sprout leaky noses, I tend to look at them as if they might also produce a handkerchief if I wish hard enough. I am, purse wise, absolutely no help to anyone at all.

I do carry one another thing consistently: receipts. Generally, I have handfuls of receipts for stores that do not take returns. I keep these receipts in my purse for months, until I have an epiphany (often in the form of a paper cut) and throw them away. While I have yet to resort to wiping my children's noses with my receipts, I cannot say I have never considered the idea.

So yes. I need to reexamine the contents of my purse. Perhaps purchasing a small packet of Kleenex will be a good start. A few mints. And if I can't find any, I know exactly what to do.

I'll ask my mother to look in her purse.

I'm Allowed

2010-02-09T09:35:00.002-05:00

When I was a child, my family spent a couple of years in snowy Syracuse, New York. Syracuse is the kind of town that has snow on the ground, constantly, from November to March, and that's in a really warm year. My father had to get up every morning and shovel the driveway so he could get the car out of the garage and drive to work. Everyone wore snow boots to get to school, which was never closed due to inclement weather. You'd hear mothers calling out as kids left the house: "Do you have your lunch money? Instrument? Shoes?"

We lived across the street from a family with five children. Compared to us, their house was chaos. Toys were everywhere. Rules were loosely applied and even more loosely followed. The two youngest children, when confronted with the idea that they shouldn't be opening a Diet Coke/digging crayon into the carpet/playing with matches would invariably answer, "I'm allowed!" and continue with whatever mayhem they were causing.

My mother, a native North Carolinian who knew her time in wintry upstate New York was short, never came to understand this lack of discipline. We quickly moved from New York to Georgia, which failed to produce more than a collective five inches of snow the entire time we were there. After Syracuse, we didn't really experience real snow.

Until this weekend. Previous Maryland blizzards be damned - this weekend we got thirty two inches of snow. That is nearly three feet. We've been stuck inside with the kids. Suddenly, I understand that Syracuse mother completely. Prior to this winter, I had rules. Now, I'd like to officially announce that I am changing my stance on television, sugar, juice, pacifiers, cookies, shoes, socks, bathing and noise. While I still draw the line at matches, I am going to give some serious reconsideration to Diet Coke. Caffeine free, of course. In a straw sippy.

Who said crayons on walls were a bad idea? Isn't that what paint is for (should I ever actually see a Home Depot again, that is)?

Hey, don't you go judging me. Times are desperate. I'm allowed.

Peeping Tom

2010-01-30T17:48:00.002-05:00

If you love to look at the houses in movies and television shows, the Hooked On Houses blog is one you'll love.

The Set Decorators Society of America also has a website showcasing movie and television sets.

Enjoy!

Attention Deficit Disorder

2010-01-26T13:47:00.001-05:00

Have you ever daydreamed so deeply that you forgot you were on a conference call, thankfully remembering just before you treated everyone to a loud, obnoxious, yawn?

Just wondering if it's just me.

Hell Hath No Fury, Part I

2010-01-24T23:03:00.005-05:00

This is my mother:

In the sixties, working for the Civil Rights Movement, assigned to sit in at a segregated lunch counter. A person behind the counter informed her that the restaurant didn't serve niggers. My mother looked him in the eye and responded, "I didn't ask for a nigger. I asked for a hot dog."

This is my father:

Also very involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and having more desire in his heart to attend the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King than money in his pocket. So he and his friends walked to the march. From Baltimore.

When these are your parents, when you are the biological soup of righteous entitlement and dogged determination, well...you are going to lose your temper a little bit when people piss you off.

My mother was, after the lunch counter incident, encouraged to work more behind the scenes. Given the goal of non violent change, movement leaders thought, wisely, that she may not be the personality to send into the Woolworth's after a Coke. My problem is that I'm not reporting to anyone for my causes. I hear something stupid, something bred by hate, and there's no one to send me to the bleachers where I can avoid reacting strongly and causing counter-anger. I probably need to work on this.

Tonight I was so stunned by a comment I read that my blood went cold. My muscles contracted and my jaw set. I was flush with anger. I was, and as I write this still am, really, really mad. It's an emotion that usually hits me with a staggering blow, knocking the breath out of me and my feet from under me. Then it begins to seep away, and the questions begin. Did I overreact? Should I have waited for the anger to pass? Should I have said or done something differently?

By the time my anger is gone - it usually passes from white hot to almost completely dormant before an hour strikes - I may or may not have left some bubbling hatred of my own in my wake. The tongue I work really hard to control when I'm not angry gets away from me (and enlists my typing fingers as co-conspirators). I definitely need to work on this.

I don't know if I have a point or a witty end to tonight's post. I'll have to come back.

You Are Cordially Invited

2010-01-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

A blog I read is poised to celebrate the arrival of its one millionth unique visitor. So, being me, I decided to check handy ole Google Analytics and determine how many unique visitors I get.

I'd really appreciate it if the six of you would spread out a little more in the auditorium.

That's right. SIX. Six people, out of the earth's population, visited my lonely lil page during the month of December. Okay, fine, if you're going to be that way: during the months of November and December.

Since I am a person who wandered out of the hair salon still wearing the protective smock, oblivious to the stares of passersby who no doubt wondered what emergency art project I was hurrying to, it is safe to say I have a thick skin. Which is good, considering the tiny fact that I have more than six friends, so clearly, obviously, everyone is ignoring me.

This is a conflict, I am confused.

Facebook tells me that I am wildly popular. I have a healthy friend list just north of 175 people. Never mind the fact that this number never ceases to amaze me, given the fact I wasn't previously aware that I knew 175 people. Now I am aware that there are 169 people who strongly prefer to receive my thoughts on life as fifty character status update snippets as opposed to a tedious, wordy, self indulgent blog.

Maybe I should add more photos.

At any rate, it's fine. I really appreciate the six of you who came to see me in December (alright already! And November!) and am touched that apparently, some of you visited many times. And apparently, I could very well thank you all by having you over to dinner. Of course, I have place settings for eight, so perhaps I will wait for one more person to have nothing whatsoever to do and come on by.

I'll leave the light on for you.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

2010-01-06T18:13:00.003-05:00

It's January, and you know. Everybody's dieting.

I'm a helpful person (also giving), so I thought I'd toss my hat into the ring and provide a list of filling foods. I'll dispense with the pretense of being healthy since that tends to make diets prohibitively complicated. These are foods that will, simply, fill you up, and allow you to skip meals and such.

1. Chocolate Cake
Preferably the kind your grandmother makes, with the twelve eggs and cups of lard. Completely delicious. It is obviously filling because everyone always said you couldn't have a piece before dinner, or you'd ruin your appetite. Well... ruining your appetite is the point right now. Enjoy.

2. Three Granola Bars.
For some reason, two isn't enough. You'll still want to eat. But three? Done deal, especially if you are talking the crumbly Nature Valley kind. Don't forget to tip the wrapper and dump the crumbs into your mouth - they count. They produce an uncomfortable sugar high, but they do NOT produce more hunger.

3. Diet Coke and a Cigarette
I don't smoke, but I've heard this is a sure thing. It makes your skin a little gray, but there are foundations that cover. And if you drink enough of them, diet sodas start to actually taste preferable to the regular ones.

4. Milk
A glass of milk is actually on the list for a lot of mainstream diets, especially if you drink skim. The hidden secret not on all those lists: add chocolate syrup.

5. Triscuits
You only need a handful, if you have Yao Ming's hands, of course. Otherwise, a box will do.

I am sensing a lot more adherence to those New Year's Resolutions than might otherwise have been achieved. You're welcome, it was my great pleasure.

Go For Launch

2009-12-31T18:11:00.002-05:00

We're a little less than six hours away from 2010. I'm home with Mr. Mannerz and my twins, sipping champagne. This is not where I planned to be, but like so often is the case, it's exactly where I need to be to ring in this year. I'll call my parents in a few minutes, to bid adieu to their 2009 selves. Next call will be to MiniMannerz 1.0, who is away. And then I'll sit down and welcome in the New Year, which I hope will bring with it the granting of at least a few of my wishes.

I'll turn forty this year, and I'm thoroughly excited to meet forty year old me.

To all of you, from my one loyal follower to my friends to the new readers to the lurkers in India (that's really cool - thank you):

Happy New Year!

To God:

I'd really love it if everyone I'm ringing in the New Year with this year could also be ringing in 2011 with me, too. Thank you.

God bless.

Bread, Milk and Toilet Paper

2009-12-20T13:32:00.002-05:00

I'm looking out the window at over two feet of snow, a lot for Maryland, and quite an early arrival (generally, snowstorms visit our area after the holidays, not before).

We have kind of a pretend winter in Maryland. Looking out, we seem very New England, but there are tell tale drips from the roof and the freshly shoveled driveway is wet, signs that it's already beginning to melt. In the northernmost parts of New York State, for instance, once the stuff falls it stays put until spring. Here, the snow teases - now you see me, now you don't.

That's what makes it a little harder to deal with. We don't have the gear. We don't want to invest in snow gear when we don't know if we'll get any or if it'll stick around. A few indulge in snow blowers and such - items that sit gathering dust in the garage 360 days of the year, emerging for their triumphant fifteen minutes of fame every now and again, making the rest of us jealous (but not jealous enough to buy one of our own).

But getting snow in inconsistent spurts is also what makes it magical. We snap photographs and update our Facebook statuses, we call our parents and measure the snowfall on our decks with yard sticks. We send the dogs out, free of a leash, to frolic (where could they go, anyway?) and stuff our ovens and stomachs with baked goods. We'll never get used to it; it's like loving a man on deployment. You make the most out of every second of leave, because in a few days he's gone again. And when the snow leaves, then it's just plain winter. It's just plain cold.

This was a big year, from the start of a historic presidency to the high school graduation of Mini Mannerz 1.0. We lost cultural icons like Michael Jackson and witnessed the emergence of new artists, like Susan Boyle, onto the world stage. We looked on as disgraced athletes returned to play and celebrated sportsmen took their turn at falling from grace. We celebrated new jobs and, all too often, mourned lost ones. We drove up the price of gold and watched the price of cars plummet.

This year end capped the decade, finishing the clean peel away from the last century and insisting that we chin up and look into the next one with clear eyes. It's fitting that, at the end of such an event filled decade, we witnessed a historic snowfall. We hurried to the grocery store to stock up on the supermarket triple crown, tossing in a few extras like wine. Then we went home, and waited for the promised two feet of snow, which came just as expected.

We'll cherish the memory of the big storm, of the big year, of the big decade, because we know how fast time goes. We know how fleeting each moment is, how if you wait five minutes, the entire world will have changed and the landscape will be completely different.

Just like snow.

Come on, Vogue.

2009-12-04T15:36:00.006-05:00

Fashion articles drive me crazy. They continue to churn out articles detailing how to camouflage figure flaws that have nothing to do with me. Pear and apple shaped women have been targeted for decades, and then there's me: apparently the only woman in the world who is less pear and apple than she is, well, potato.

A different kind of vegetarian, if you will.

The potato shaped woman (me) does not have a single area to camouflage, but a series of areas that need to be peeled, sliced and mashed into her clothing. Just as the potato has spuds, so does the potato shaped woman. Push in any part of me and I swear, something comes poking out on the opposite side. This is partly due to genetics - I descend from a paternal line of long skinny legged women who carry most of their weight in various squirrel like pockets in the upper body. It is also due to a lack of discipline; if I may trot out the potato analogy once more, I am definitely guilty of living a life that is too buttered and salty.

I'd love to see an article that speaks to the "other" figure flaws, like those of women who don't need to minimize their stomach so much as procure a social security number for it and claim it on their taxes. Or one that focuses on the right shoes for thick ankles, or, I'm sorry, ya'll: the right sandals for ugly feet. Some of you just shouldn't. Acceptance, dear.

Lest you think I'm being mean, please know that I'd trade my attractive feet for ten ugly stubs of toes if it meant I could rid myself of the neck that looks like the last remaining evidence of my life as a man (turtlenecks? Burkas?).

So, how about it, writers? While you're suggesting how we could look ten pounds lighter and two inches taller, could you include a few tips for the hat seeking big headed woman, or skinny legged women who want to wear skirts without invoking Laura Ingalls?

Many thanks.

What Say You?

2009-12-02T22:09:00.004-05:00

It is official. I'm a dumb ass.

A friend loaned a few of her Signing Times DVDs to me. If you're not familiar, Signing Times is a program that helps parents teach their children simple words in Sign Language. Babyhood is rather like living in a country where you don't speak the language. Eventually, everyone gets frustrated at your attempts to communicate via hand gestures (or, if you're a baby, screaming fits). Sign Language helps parents and babies work well and play nice with others.

My twin toddlers have a speech delay, as did their father and grandfather before them. Since I prefer communication that is absent of shrieking and soul piercing wails, I decided to give Sign Language a try. We'd successfully learned four or so words on our own, and then I borrowed the discs and sat my children in front of the television set.

They are taking to Sign Language like ducks to water. My daughter, who had assigned the word "more" to about sixteen different definitions, today walked up and requested the Signing Times DVD to be played. In Sign Language. It has been less than a week. My son spent a good deal of this evening delighting in telling us that he was a girl (we are assuming he has the Signs mixed up and that he is not trying to clue us in to early gender confusion).

And then there's me.

How the heck am I supposed to remember all these hand positions? I watched my children walk around this afternoon discussing The Pelican Brief with their nanny (okay, not really, but almost), who, as it turns out, used to be fluent in Signing. The three of them giggled away as they made confusing gestures with their hands while I tried to keep up and remember how to say "cookie".

I need a make up class.

This is entirely unfair. I'm a talker. I'm a good talker, a great talker, I talk a lot. I assumed the fact that I lack a natural affinity for learning spoken languages would not carry over to Signing. I have long daydreamed about being the beautiful, angelic like creature on the podium of a large church who translated the word of God elegantly and flawlessly for the hearing impaired. I assumed, at least, that this could be my thing, and that, again - AT LEAST - I'd be quickly floating around the house communicating with my children with graceful Signs.

Instead, I am frantically pressing the forward and reverse buttons on my DVD player so I can make sure I'm not confusing the word water with tears, and that I look like I'm milking a cow when I mean milk, and not like I'm attempting to wring out my socks (which I'm sure means something else entirely).

Come to think of it, perhaps it's my fault my baby boy is telling me he's a girl.

Clearly, I have some studying to do. Smart as a fourth grader - ha. I'm hoping to become as smart as my toddlers.

We'll see.

Tis The Season: Great Gift For Your Gaggle

2009-11-30T22:55:00.003-05:00

I ran across this fantabulous calendar on Etsy. Each page of this desk calendar is a postcard; either send it with a note when the month is over or with a circled date as a reminder of your pending martini date during the month. Either way, a very cute way to keep in touch, and I know some people who actually give real holiday presents to friends, instead of asking that not exchanging presents be the present.

Not that MzMannerz has ever suggested that or anything.

2009-11-23T18:07:00.004-05:00

I've been driving for a long time, and I think I finally figured out why certain people do not or will not use a blinker to indicate a coming turn or lane change.

Side comment: First, let's all thank God that these people do not have a choice when it comes to using brake lights.

Alrighty. As far as I can figure, being a reasonable gal and all, if you are not using turn signals consistently, you either fall into the below list or do not like your car/paint color/spinal column and want a replacement. And you don't like mine, either, but I digress.

1. You are in the Witness Protection Program and believe you have been compromised. Any one of us could be henchmen for Uncle Sally and you'd prefer not to give us a head's up on your destination. I'm tooling around in a station wagon with carseats in the back, but this could be a cover. I understand. You are excused.

2. Your turn signals are broken. Sure, you're driving a late model Mercedes Benz that just rolled off the truck yesterday, but nothing in life is one hundred percent. You would absolutely use the blinkers on your 2010 7 Series if the darn things were working. I understand. You are excused.

3. You lack opposable thumbs. Perhaps it was a lawn accident; perhaps you are an escapee from the National Zoo and are just trying to get from A to B without a hassle. Animal rights and all that. Gripping the steering wheel is already a chore, using a pincher grasp on that little stick would be asking too much. I do want to point out that it comes on even if you just flick it with your wrist, but that's okay. I understand. You are excused.

4. You are mad at me. Maybe I inadvertently cut you off, or perhaps you're annoyed that I refused to go 90 in a 30MPH zone. Whatever the case, you passed me, and now here's your chance to issue a disproportionate response by causing a multi-car pileup. During rush hour. Emotions are so pesky; always popping up during stressful times like when you're riding along in leather and wood burled comfort instead of having to make a three day trek to Washington via horse and buggy. I understand. You are excused.

5. You have mommy or daddy issues. I'm not sure what the direct correlation between turn signals and your tumultuous parent/child relationship are, but I'm sure there must be one, so I understand. You are also excused.

If you do not fall into one of the categories, well, then, I do not understand. Perhaps you can help. Do you like surprising people? The sound of squealing brakes? Are you psychic, and therefore assume everyone else is?

If you'll share the secret, I promise not to tell. I realize secret sharing is a lot to ask of a person who will not even let us know of the intent to blaze into our lane at highway speed, but I'm optimistic.

I figure if I'm still alive after driving near you, the odds have gotta be with me.

Good Help

2009-11-19T23:15:00.000-05:00

We've been having this conversation for five years. Finally, FINALLY, my husband suggested we get a quote for maid service. I believe my next step should be submitting my resume to the White House for the position of Ambassador to Everyone.

So, major coup. And then the first cleaning person stopped by to provide her estimate, and I'll tell you what: if you want an accurate gauge of the messiness of your home, walk a maid through it.

She didn't have to say a word. My sensitive to the circumstances eye saw every flaw. Toys stored haphazardly, shoes paired everywhere except in a closet. Limp dishtowels hovering near the sink, a chair in the basement stripped of fabric and bursting with exposed stuffing. My house is a mess.

She was interested in looking into sinks, peering into bathtubs. Ironically, these were the clean areas. And these are the areas she would clean. She told me what she'd accomplish on a biweekly or monthly basis. It did not include the pile of change, stamps and buttons on my husband's bureau or the gaggle of paper shopping bags littering the pantry floor. There was no mention of the towering piles of paperwork on our desk or the consignment shop look we've accomplished in our office, where we've temporarily hidden things we care about from our two toddlers. Those items are our responsibility.

I called my husband after she left. "I don't know."

"Was she high? Well, let's get a few more."

"It's not that. It's just... we need to clean the house."

"I know."

"No, we need to clean the house before we have a cleaning service come work for us."

He silently contemplated this, that before I would entertain any more prospective cleaners, we'd need to perform a deep clean ourselves. Doesn't that sort of forego the point? To have to clean to give up on cleaning?

The visit left me deflated and embarrassed and solidly feeling like I had been shipped back to square one. Dusty, cluttered, needs a good sweeping square one.

So that's where I am now: in the midst of a massive spring-cleaning-in-the-fall in the hopes that, by January, I will actually be confident enough to walk a cleaning service through my house again. I know I will have to sit on my hands to resist the temptation to call the same woman back again so she can see that what she saw then was not how we intended to live for the rest of our lives.

It really would be nice to have someone else clean the floors.

As soon as I finish putting away all my shoes and clean out the garage, that is.

And I'll Cry If I Want To

2009-11-17T16:25:00.003-05:00

I have a birthday coming up, and I'm upset.

Not because I'm getting older, but because I can't seem to remember that I have a birthday coming up.

Two lovely friends sent me an email asking if I wanted to go to dinner for my birthday, and it was akin to receiving a slap in the face. What birthday? Mine? Seriously? Cue rapid calendar flipping and Blackberry checking. My birthday was approaching in about two weeks, and I had forgotten.

I know why this happens.

I recently thanked my parents for my fifth birthday party, which was and remains the best birthday party I have ever had. Everyone came - or, at least I assume everyone came, given I had nothing whatsoever to do with the guest list. My best friends from church and school were there, along with my favorite aunt, my sisters, and my parents. At five, that was everyone. Extra people came, too, so there was lots of noise and balloon popping and potato chip eating and a sufficient enough crowd to make me feel a bit woozy about having to blow out the candles and make a wish in front of, well, everyone.

I've had two or three birthday parties since then that even begin to compare. One was also in childhood, and another was four or so years ago. I do not usually throw or ask to be thrown birthday parties, because as it happens, I was born on Thanksgiving Day.

If you do not know what it is like to be born on a major holiday, you may not be able to relate. If you were born on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter... even the Fourth of July, you know: everyone already has plans on your birthday. For the rest of your life.

My birthday generally occurs the day before, the day after, or every eleven years or so, on Turkey Day itself. This generally meant we were driving to, driving from, or dining at Grandma's House. Or my other Grandma. Or Aunt Shirley. Or Aunt Jean. Or....

I received presents and all. Probably more than my share, since I saw more extended family on my birthdays than my sisters did on theirs (this is where I have to bow to folks born on Christmas Day or anywhere around it. You pretty much get the shaft with the combined holiday and birthday present thing. I am probably the cut off birthday to prevent that from happening). But my presents were delivered as part of something larger. En route to something else. Here's your new sweater, dear. Now I've got to go stir the beans. There are three cakes for Thanksgiving - look! One of them has candles, so its yours!

In my mother's defense, she always, always, baked me a birthday cake. Until I was well into my thirties. Pretty much until last year, actually. My cake, and birthday, were usually a quiet affair, however. A mention at the Thanksgiving table, a birthday song from the Extended Family Mass Choir. I didn't have parties. It's Thanksgiving - who has time to plan another party?

And this was okay. Really - I never lamented my lack of parties as much as this post might make it seem I did. I'm not sure I ever even noticed - I mean, there was stuffing and macaroni and cheese to consider. I ignored it as much as everyone else, and somewhere along the way, I just started forgetting it altogether.

I can remember with stunning clarity that Thanksgiving is approaching, and generally like to know exactly where I am eating well before October dawns. I somehow never connect that to my birthday. I pretend to remember, and then I forget.

I really, really hope I remember to tell this to the nurses if I ever live in a senior citizen's place. I can envision them coming into my room, asking me if I know what day it is, and I'll say, "Thursday." They'll exchange glances, and I'll offer up, "Thanksgiving?"

You can see how it might go downhill from there. If you know me then, please be sure to let everyone know that I was forgetting my birthday way back when, when I was trusted to drive and be responsible for children and things like that. Please let them know that it's not a sign.

And if you're around on my birthday? Please bring cake... and maybe remind me the day before why you're coming over at all. Thanks.

Costume Change: Lampshades

2009-11-13T13:49:00.002-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows I am slightly obsessed with interior design. Many who know me share that interest, so hopefully I am not completely boring the masses by occasionally sharing design related items I stumble across in my cyber wanderings (also, please note the new list of yummy retailers, blogs and miscellaneous design sites I'm now listing to the right, followed by a long overdue and not yet comprehensive listing of the personal blogs I stalk).

Run on sentence. Sorry. Interior Design. What was I saying?

Ah, yes. Lampshades. Those tricky hats for lamps that can make or break an entire room. Thanks to a cyber pal at HGTV, I found Frockz, an online retailer that specializes in form fitting slipcovers for lampshades. Isn't that a cool idea?

I can envision lots of ways to take advantage of these slipcovers, especially for children's bedrooms that tend to morph and change in decor alongside said tot.

Go forth and cover. And two points if you noticed that this is the first time I've ever added a photo.

The Battle Of The Sexes

2009-11-12T15:40:00.003-05:00

This is another blog post I wrote long ago but never published. The nightstands mentioned are still holding steady in our guest room.
-----

I hope we are not the only couple who come to startling revelations about each other after visits to Ikea.

I recently purchased two bedside tables from Ikea. We have limited space beside our bed, and the Ikea tables were not only the right size, they were significantly less than the only other properly sized tables I found, which were four hundred bucks. I took my plywood and veneer treasures home and announced that I would be putting them together that evening.

And that's when I found out that my husband is a male chauvinist hamhock.

"You're going to put these together by yourself?" he asked. "Well, let me just warn you that there are no extra parts. Alllll the parts are supposed to be used."

I asked him exactly what he was trying to say. He smirked and retreated behind the newspaper.

After dinner, I asked if he would help me carry the boxes upstairs so I could get to work. Practically patting me on the head, he said, very slowly, "Let's just see how you do with the first one, honey. THEN I'll bring the second one up."

Now I was pissed. I went upstairs, studied the pictures of the little cartoon man in the instructions, and put together quite a handy little side table, thank you very much. I showed it to my husband, who said, "Wow. Nice," and turned to go back downstairs. Silly man, thinking it would be that easy.

I suggested that since he was so handy with tools, had such virile power, was such a man , that maybe he should put together the second table.

Half an hour later I checked on him. Maybe it was because he had one eye on Monday night football. Maybe the little cartoon instructions didn't agree with him. He was holding two pieces at odd angles and asking me if I'd had trouble at this part too.

"Why no, honey. I didn't have any trouble at all." I got the hairy eyeball as I left the room.

In the end, both bedside tables were assembled and looked good. Although I swear: his is slightly rickety.

Laughter, The Best Medicine

2009-11-07T20:05:00.004-05:00

Along with several nasty ailments, my family shares the chronic condition of inappropriate laughter. It seems to manifest itself most strongly in the under 50 crowd, dissipating after you've received enough harsh glances and tongue lashings. We laugh at bad news, at sad situations, at funerals. It is an awful problem to have.

I was eighteen when my paternal grandmother died. There we were, sitting shell shocked in the church (we were not so much shell shocked over my grandmother dying, as she'd been sick for a long time. We were shocked over the appearance of a new, eleven year old cousin no one knew existed but my uncle. Who had *not* been divorced for eleven years yet. 'Nother post).

My grandmother was a member of the Eastern Star sorority (Eastern Star is a sister organization to the more well known Masons). Her Eastern Star sisters got up to perform the traditional Eastern Star rites of passage, which is to say they stood at the front of the church for nearly an hour and a half saying stuff no one understood and putting strange flowers into and onto the casket. My cousin, just shy of forty at the time, passed me a note in the middle of it:

"Please help me. I feel a BIG belly laugh coming on."

This was a crisis. This meant I had to distract my cousin somehow without looking at her. It didn't help that my nephew, who was four or five at the time, chose that moment to announce he was hungry. "Auntie MzMannerz, when can we have a sandwich?"

Look - an hour of Eastern Star dramatics, the note and my nephew would have done anyone in. Now *I* was suppressing a big belly laugh. I slumped forward and immediately felt hands on my shoulders. Comforting me. My cousin was now fighting a full on scream.

We both got the look from my mother that day.

My mother believes in being appropriately calm and serious. If there is ever a time for appropriate calmness and seriousness, a funeral is it. She has been known to chastise flailing relatives at other funerals and relay that there is too a such thing as too much crying. But the hysterics of mourning she more readily forgives. The laughter, not so much.

Today, The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten, who has certainly contributed to multiple occurrences of belly laughs, wrote about the importance of laughter for The Post's weekly magazine. I enjoyed it, it hit home, I thought I'd share.

Mr. Weingarten doesn't read my blog (very few people do), but if he were to stumble across my slice of cyberspace, I'd want him to know - I really needed that today.

Thanks.

The Mommy Wars

2009-11-03T22:19:00.004-05:00

My first born son was nearly nine pounds, and as I carried him out of my first post natal check up, the nurse noted his large size and asked, "Vaginal?" When I nodded yes, she gave a 'you go, girl' speech, leaving me thinking I had accomplished something significant in my method of giving birth.

Huh.

Let's review. We have, in column A, a method of birth Biblically assigned to women specifically as punishment. We have in column B, a method of birth named after a man whose close friends decided to stab him to death on the Senate floor.

Having now also given birth via C-section, I'd like to submit this observation: when it comes to childbirth, there is no easy exit. Believe me, I've tried to think of one. Having a third option which doesn't result in the tearing, slicing, or other owies to human flesh would be great, and the inventor of that?

That's the person who has something to brag about.

Raindrops On Roses

2009-10-29T10:30:00.001-04:00

I have, roughly counting, about twenty five post drafts that for one reason or another, I never completed or posted. Periodically, I'm going to start posting these, whether they are finished (or able to be finished) or not. Here's the first, which has been lingering in draft state since the 2006 holiday season.
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After waxing poetic about September, I'm feeling a little melancholy. I'm cheering myself up by posting a few of my favorite things.

1. My favorite color? Blue. But not just any blue: deep, mystical, inky, ocean-at-midnight-on-the-darkest-day blue. As in, the blue you can never find a pair of shoes in. ~sigh~

2. My favorite book? I have so many, but "Little Women" ranks pretty far up there. Why? Everyone ends up perfectly happy at a picnic. On a really bad day, it's nice to remember that eventually, I'll be at a picnic somewhere too, and happy. Getting proposed to by the rich boy next door never happened, though.

3. My favorite poet? Robert Frost, for these words (mostly quoted): 'Two roads were diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled on, and that has made all the difference." Interestingly enough, however, he is not the author of my favorite full poem. That honor belongs to:

4. A poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. A few people who know me might be able to figure out why with some concentration. Observe-

"Dawn"
-by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

An Angel, robed in spotless white
bent down and kissed the sleeping Night
Night woke to blush, the Sprite was gone;
men saw the blush, and called it Dawn.

5. Favorite childhood memory: my older sister, fanning me to sleep in our attic bedroom, singing "Ben" by Michael Jackson. I was in my twenties before I realized the song was about rats. I still need to call her and find out if she was trying to tell me something....

Girls Who Wear Glasses

2009-10-22T09:37:00.003-04:00

T-minus two hours.

I have an eye appointment today, and I anticipate leaving with at least a prescription for eyeglasses if not the glasses themselves. I am not sure why this is a big deal, considering that I already wear glasses....

Well. I already own glasses. Two or three years ago, I went in for an exam because I was getting headaches when reading. They prescribed reading glasses. Not much magnification, or, as we used to say when we were kids, "medicine". I wore them consistently for about a month, and then, if I could actually locate them in the house, that was a sign to buy a lottery ticket. I don't actually know where they are now. My husband has suggested looking for something that appears to just be a pile of dust.

A few weeks ago, I went with a friend for a pedicure. She admired my polish selection, and asked the name of it. I held up the nail polish bottle and... I couldn't see it. I couldn't see the label on the bottom. Granted, it had been printed in a negative four font, but I used to be able to see nail polish bottle labels.

I hadn't noticed before that I have to hold things approximately five hundred feet from my face to see them clearly. It's amazing how the body and brain make minute adjustments that we don't even notice, until something or someone points it out to me. In my case, my friend gave me a knowing smile and said, "You need glasses."

When I was younger, I wanted glasses like nobody's business. I was a dork who actually got excited when I had to get braces, and I suppose glasses would have just rounded out my emerging nerd. Whatever the reason, I remember being disappointed when an eye doctor pronounced my vision as perfect and not requiring the corrective lenses my father, mother, and sister all wore (and silently mocked me with, I am certain). The doctor did end with a prediction: I would wear glasses, because I read a lot, and reading causes eye strain. Before I was forty, I'd be bespectacled.

I'll be forty in thirteen months.

Actually, I think it may be that eye doctor who needs to go buy a lottery ticket.

An Experiment

2009-10-20T11:35:00.002-04:00

This came to me from a few different places. What if:

You spent thirty days saying exactly what you were thinking to everyone. At the end of thirty days, you'd be left with friends who are capable of receiving constructive criticism, and/or friends who, as it turns out, don't annoy you all that much and are therefore probably very compatible with you.

Then, everyone around you spends thirty days telling you exactly what they think. At the end of thirty days, you'd be left with friends who know how to position criticism in such a way that it doesn't offend, and again, people who are probably very compatible with you.

Yeah - I'm not doing it. :D

Cry Uncle

2009-10-14T11:11:00.002-04:00

I have accepted the fact that it would be an ecologically poor decision to rid the world of all bugs. By accepted, I mean I actually thought about it. I decided that if bugs were the price to pay to ensure earth has flowers and we don't have to walk down streets covered with dung, then okay. Invoice accepted.

Outside.

Inside? I employ an exterminator who visits my property once each quarter to ensure that any creature with an exoskeleton, more than four legs, transparent wings and other such scare tactics that tries to enter my home dies painfully from acute asphyxiation or chemical burns, or both. It's a truce. It's a treaty. Here is the line. And kind of along the lines of an American military base: I can come into their world, but they are not allowed into mine. Embassy Row mansions notwithstanding.

So it was with some new level of open mindedness that I encountered an ant strolling across my glass cooktop last spring. Instead of turning the burner on high at just the right moment (I know. I have issues) or swooping down on him with a crushing paper towel, I had a conversation. It went sort of like this:

"Look. I know you're a scout. I know you're going to go back to the others and report. You listen to me. Those crumbs? I just fed my babies. They are not always there. Nor is that dollop of sauce. I haven't wiped down the stove yet. There's nothing here for you, understand? I am letting you live so you can deliver this message to your leader. She is not to send another scout. Got that?"

Hand on Bible, I swear that ant turned around and marched away. If disappearing into the crack between the stove and the countertop can be considered "away". I figured he was going to meet the reinforcements, the team. I thought he'd delivered the message and they'd all go back outside to rethink life beneath the deck. I erased all thoughts of ants from my mind.

Sure, I saw more ants now and then. I figured it was the same one, just checking on the treaty. You know, like an ambassador. I'd see a lone ant and remind it: We have an agreement. Go away. Don't make me get ugly.

Fast forward three months. I went to bed one night seeing a lone ant here and there, and woke up the next morning to find a complicated network of ant beltways being navigated in various parts of the kitchen. I got out the raid, conducted a few drive by sprayings, and considered the matter closed. I imagined the six o'clock Ant News leading with the story of the Blue House Massacre. Hundreds lost. There would be memorial services and funds set up for the survivors.

Perhaps I thought this through too thoroughly.

When my exterminator showed up for his quarterly application, he specifically inquired after the ants. I assured him I had it under control. He gave me that knowing look, the one a mechanic gives someone who swears the car operates just fine despite that sound its making, but said nothing. I thought nothing of it. I was Empress and Dictator Supreme, had made my military strike, and had nothing to worry about.

Two weeks later I came down to the kitchen to find my spice cabinets had gone condo for the ants. The sugar, I understood. But pepper? A sealed container of Old Bay?

I assembled my toddler twins and the dog for a consultation. The leaning seemed to strongly favor calling in bigger guns. I was deflated. I was America! I was the big gun!

An ant crawled across my foot to reinforce the fact that I was not America. America was who I needed to call. My exterminator, Ameriguard. There were too many ants. It was time to cry uncle.

The exterminator eliminated ants from my home in one day. Scouts. Armies. He identified and annihilated an urban city center of ants, and three outer suburbs. Complete with highways in between and, I assume, public transportation and infrastructure. They had lived off the land, farming toddler meal droppings and juice spills missed by both the dog and the Hoover.

I reassembled my war torn kitchen and collected my thoughts. I went to the sliding glass door to let out the dog. Clinging shyly to the screen there was a member of a new regional menace, a stinkbug. I cautiously opened the door, and it made no move to enter. Apparently, the terms of the treaty had been reinforced throughout the insect world. Here is the line.

I think it's pretty fair.

Licensed To Kill

2009-10-09T14:49:00.002-04:00

I generally don't like to label entire groups of people, but it must be said:

People on the beltway in Montgomery County? Ya'll can't drive.

Before you get mad, consider that I can't drive on that stretch of road, either. Every single time I find myself on the beltway between 95 and the American Legion Bridge, I am convinced that I am going to die. On no other stretch of road in the entire metro region do I have to deal with cars slamming on their brakes with zero warning as often as I do when I kid myself and pretend it's a smart decision to drive to Silver Spring. I'm sure the guy driving behind me feels the same way.

It's not our fault, really. I'm sure the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the civil engineers who somehow determined that a winding road, four lanes of traffic and highway speed were a safe combination. If you aren't slowing down to avoid slamming into the car in front of you, you're slowing down on a forty five degree curve to avoid exposing your toddler to the concept of g-force.

There is a reason the phrase is winding country road.

It's ironic, actually. I drive through my neighborhood, where I've never encountered more than five moving cars at a time, and the roads are a shrine to right angles. I drive through the Bethesda section of the beltway, where I generally share the road with dozens of zooming cars, and I might as well be piloting myself through a bowl of spaghetti.

It's not like I don't have options. At least Metro is safe. ;)

Hue Are We?

2009-09-30T09:57:00.002-04:00

My husband and I have created an interracial, international bubble.

In our house, we use the British word spanner for our wrenches, and wash our faces with flannels instead of washcloths. On the other hand, what the British refer to as crisps we call potato chips, and their chips? Just plain french fries to us.

We eat soul food as well as gourmet, listen to rhythm and blues and rock. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the rest of the world hasn't created such a consistent, harmonious potpourri of culture, because inside our house, the livin' is easy. When asked recently what the biggest challenge to being interracially married was, I answered immediately: "Other people."

Because of my sensitivity to racial perception outside my house, I tend to put great focus on commonalities. I don't care to read reports detailing one group as this and another as that, even when the descriptions are statistically sound. I prefer to look at an individual, colorblind, and unwrap the layers without bias. Any uniqueness is Jack, and any little quirks? That's just Jill. The quirks aren't the groups Jack and Jill demographically belong to.

And then, often wrapped in humor, I am confronted with evidence that yes, there are differences between major demographic groups - and that's okay.

Last night my husband and I went to a U2 concert. My husband took the train in from the city, and I met him at the stadium. As I drove through the parking lot, one thing became abundently clear: I was slightly overdressed. I was wearing jeans, but had paired them with a long blazer and shimmery black top with a funky neck wrap. My makeup was done, my big earrings were glitzy and gold.

Approximately 97% of my fellow concert goers went in the opposite direction. Jeans, yes, but paired with relaxed tees and hooded sweatshirts and thick sweaters. Comfortable shoes and sandals, compared to my dark denim kitten heeled mules. I was Going Somewhere. They were Hanging Out.

As soon as I saw my husband, I teased him. "Why didn't you tell me white people don't dress up for rock concerts?"

He laughed. "I thought you knew! You dress the same way like you would a football game, kind of. Maybe not a jersey." Although, passing us at that moment, were a couple of people in football jerseys.

I didn't know. Black people? My folks? We dress up for concerts. Hell, we dressed up for classes in college. I'd almost gone with a fully black ensemble, and at the last minute decided against a pair of rather shimmery pants. If I'd worn them, people might have thought I was part of the opening act.

The habit of my people to dress up for occasions is an ancestral hand me down from slavery. Back then, you spent seven days working in your grubbies. Special occasions were few. When the opportunity rose to look better, you took it. You dressed up for everything that didn't involve labor. And although we've relaxed the standards, although you find more and more casually dressed African Americans roaming special events, there is still the urge to dress up when we go out.

I talked to a girlfriend, also black, about it. I told her almost everyone else at the concert was really casual. She laughed and said, "In contrast - I'm going to the Maxwell concert on Friday, and I've had my outfit picked out for two weeks."

Inside the concert, in the darkness, the dissimilar attitudes toward dress went unseen. Instead, we all danced and swayed to the music, bathed in the energy of the night. Late in the evening, Bono asked us to take out our mobile phones, and had the lights dimmed. The stadium became a sea of twinkling electronic stars as tens of thousands of people held aloft their telephones. I smiled - we all had one. We were all the same.

I get it. Just as an individual is multi-faceted, so are groups. And note to self: that's okay. It's okay that I have my traditions while you have yours, and it's fine when I see you nodding your head in self recognition when I describe one of my many quirks.

I may be just like that alone, but I'm also just like this - and yes, I know:

You, too.

Face The Nation

2009-09-26T16:29:00.008-04:00

I've compared notes, and it seems most people north of thirty (and quite a few chronological southeners) have had a similar experience with Facebook. So let's get to it:

A Year's Evolution of Facebook For Grownups

Month One:
You ignore it.
Because the first person you heard about this Facebook thing from was a teenager, you immediately determined that it was not a website you needed to be concerned with. You might have slunk to the young adult reading section for your copy of Twilight (wearing sunglasses, natch); possibly you own more than a few tops from Macy's junior section, but there is a line. You have LinkedIn. It's for grownups.

Month Two:
You ignore it some more.
Someone at a cocktail party brings up this Facebook thing, and they are not eighteen. They consider themselves too well read to sink to the level of teenaged vampire romances and have on a Jil Sander dress. Too late, however, because you have now decided it's cooler to continue to ignore Facebook. You note, with just a hint of disdain, that your niece has a Facebook page, and change the subject to your blog.

Month Three:
So maybe you will just go look at someone's Facebook page. This requires an account, but really, what's the harm? You create a barebones account. No photo. Ten or so friends. You poke someone.

Month Four:
You add a profile picture. You join groups for your grad school, college, high school, middle school, elementary school and summer camp's alumni.

Month Five:
You have two hundred and thirty four friends. You log on regularly and glow when you see the number.

Month Six:
You have two hundred and twenty nine friends. Elections happened. Things were posted to walls. You realize you are not entirely politically compatible with your neighbor's sister's dog walker or the girl who sat next to you in Biology twenty years ago, so you de-friend them immediately.

Month Seven:
You begin to get picky about who you will send friend requests to, and who you will accept as friends. You decide only people that you regularly interact with on a daily basis will make the cut. You turn a blind eye to two hundred people currently on your friend list who do not meet this description.

Month Eight:
Someone at work comments on those photos you were tagged in the last night of your girl's weekend. You quickly become an expert in Facebook Security Settings and Friend Lists.

Month Eight and a Half:
Everyone at work starts asking you why they can no longer post to your wall or see your photos.

Month Nine:
You wonder if you are the only person who updates your status multiple times a day. You deliberately refrain from updating your status to create the appearance that you have a life.

Month Ten:
Your parents mention a possible interest in a Facebook account. You feign disinterest, but immediately form a plan to add them to the same list as your work colleagues if they ever join.

Month Eleven:
By now, you're checking Facebook before you check email or voicemail. You have a enough hours logged to officially be an expert on Facebook annoyances (quizzes!), are on level two hundred in Mafia Wars and recently purchased a lovely cottage for your property in Farm Town.

Month Twelve:
Your Facebook Anniversary will pass unnoticed. You are too busy sending out birthday greetings to one hundred ninety six people who never before received so much as a birthday text from you. A distant friend just had a baby and you must comment on the photos she posts. There is a burgeoning political debate on another friend's wall that may result in you defriending two people, and this must be taken under careful consideration. Also, Kleenex is recalling all the lotion enhanced tissues they sold between January and April and were it not for Facebook, how would you ever have known.

Facebook? You Like This.

98.6

2009-09-23T15:56:00.002-04:00

I went approximately thirty years before I began suffering from seasonal allergies, at least enough to realize what was happening. Then I went quite a few more years dealing with mild allergies that sometimes made my nose itch or occasionally caused my eyes to water, but still had little outward effect. Nonetheless, being me, I should not be surprised that the first time sneezing added itself to my list of allergy symptoms, the world would be in a tizzy about the flu.

If you do not think people are concerned about the flu, sneeze a couple of times in a public place.

Shouting into my elbow that I don't have the flu does not seem to be an effective deterrent against the backing away and concerned looks. And I'm pretty sure at least one parent in the pediatric waiting room opted to go ahead and receive a flu shot themselves only after I violently expelled the spores of fall via the newest of lethal weapons: a nose.

I understand. An ounce of prevention and all that. Save from inventing a tee shirt that electronically displays my current temperature and swearing hand-upon-Bible that I've washed my hands/don't plan to touch anyone anyway/haven't ridden those coin operated germy rides outside stores since I was seven, there is really no way to make the people standing within a ten foot radius feel better about my achoo.

At least my Achoo has toned down. Growing up, it was impossible for me to sneeze without screaming. I simply could not do it. When I sneezed, everyone in the house was aware. Neighbors could hear me if the windows were open (and occasionally, when they were closed). This lasted pretty late into childhood. I suppose I should just feel fortunate I am not dealing with reactions to that.

Hopefully, the air will clear soon and I can return to my already pushing it habit of frequenting dusty thrift stores without fear of clearing the lamp section on one fell choo.

Until then, if you see me and my protesting nose out and about, be assured: I don't have the flu. I don't have a fever. I'm not contagious. All the things that are wrong with me are generally mental.

We can even hug! As long as you're not carrying flowers.

Paging Pretty Woman

2009-09-21T14:14:00.003-04:00

It has recently come to my attention, after a startling encounter with a mirror, that I have morphed into an androgynous mom beast.

Please note that being a mom in and of itself is not akin to become androgynous, or a beast. Far from it. For some women, motherhood ratchets up their femininity, and they walk around all womanly and sensibly sexy in their Chanel ballet flats and stylish trousers with just a hint of Lycra (for control, yes, but also for easy bends into cross legged sitting).

And then there's me, who long ago looked around the PTA meeting room smugly, visually honing in on women who matched their earrings to their sweaters or who simply never emerged from sweatpants, ever, and thought about how easily I could steal all of their husbands.

Okay, I never really thought that (though some thought that I was thinking that), but my point is: I didn't identify. That would never be me. I would always, at least, be cute.

Yeah - I'm not cute. Not right now. I have potential - I could go on a Less Than Extreme Makeover show or do a stint on What Not To Wear Because You Do Own Nice Clothes, Remember? and get myself back, but right now?

I am an androgynous mom beast.

I am, in no particular order:

1. Completely out of the MAC brow definition powder which defined not only my brows, but my entire life, apparently; a product whose importance I severely underestimated when I allowed myself to use all of it without writing down the color. Now the label is worn off and I will not be able to purchase it again without submitting myself to the cutting sales pitch of a makeup counter girl who probably sits in PTA meetings looking disdainfully at women who look exactly like me.

2. Eating way! too many carbs. I am not necessarily advocating either South Beach or Dr. Atkins - to each their own way to fitting into their pants - but seriously: even the Bible says "man cannot live by bread alone."

3. Not wearing my clothes. I've failed to assemble the cute and casual wardrobe I swore I was going to purchase when I realized that life really is better in flat shoes and expandable waistbands, and instead am about to wear a hole in my uniform: Keen water sandals, Adidas striped sweat pants, and red hooded sweatshirt. Did I mention that red is not really my color? That it highlights every single clogged pore and facial crevice and in general, makes me look like raw meat?

4. I need a pedicure.

5. And a manicure.

I cracked open an issue of Glamour yesterday, a magazine I have on a discount subscription but I've ignored because it continues to arrive with articles that have titles like, "Ten Things Your Boyfriend Doesn't Want To Tell You" and "Twelve Secret Signs He's Into You". I really think if all the signs are that secret, perhaps he's not really that into you. But I digress.

I thumbed through an issue and found myself reacting to the advertisements like a person who's been space traveling for years and was finally laying eyes on human beings again. The magazine was full of pictures of girls. Girly girls, with their hair done, and their makeup done, in cute outfits covered by even cuter fall coats, all over especially cute shoes.

That's when it hit me: somewhere underneath the mom beast anti-glamor, I was still a girl. I am still a girl. With the potential to once again be cute.

First stop: The MAC counter. Should I emerge with my ego intact, I will move forward and report.

In The Saddle Again

2009-09-21T13:53:00.003-04:00

I realize it's crazy, and if you don't, allow me to help you along. This page? Does not really exist. This page is a visual representation of the (millions of?) little ones and zeroes called code. It's The Matrix. I can no more physically visit this page than I can count on getting a sexually suggestive phone call from George Clooney.

But I'm better here. I don't know why.

I thought I needed a change, and so launched a new blog. Rather dramatically, with an announcement that I was now officially a writer writing an official novel, apparently all to an official soundtrack, with songs accompanying each post. Funny thing is, what it turns out I needed was a break.

I never connected with the other page. Nothing flowed. I was not inspired to update it. I became annoyed with the songs. I'm not really a multi-media person. I'm more of a... writer. Of an unpublished novel, yes, but also of a blog. This blog. Which I missed.

I've been sneaking over here for months, reading my old posts, wondering where the spark that fed them was going to show up so I could blog again. Apparently the spark is embedded somewhere in the above mentioned code.

So Rants and Raves is back. And so am I. I'm still writing (and still unpublished. I'm very consistent there). I'm still observing the world.

And apparently, I'm still MzMannerz.

FYI: I have a new blog.

2008-12-01T20:15:00.001-05:00

http://aintseennothingyet.blogspot.com/

Leaving On The Next Train

2008-09-18T15:34:00.003-04:00

I've always hated it when favorite television shows went off the air without a send off. So, for the 2.1 faithful readers of this blog, who have probably not actually visited this page in months anyway since there hasn't been an update, I am writing a send off.

This blog is done. My muse for it has been vacationing somewhere warm for some time now, and I feel it would be rude to call her back, what with winter coming and all.

I suspect a new (but not necessarily improved) blog will rise from the ashes one of these days, but for now, MzMannerz is retiring.

Good thing I've never hated it when favorite television shows go off the air in a huff of self importance and drama, huh? ;)

Ciao, bellas.

Toys Are Us

2008-06-08T14:32:00.002-04:00

When my son was born, I could contain the number of young baby accesories he had in one corner of one room. He had a carseat, a playpen, a crib. A few rattles maybe. His "bouncy seat" did double duty as my knee. Almost anything I needed, I could find at Giant, choosing bottles by the size, as opposed to the least poisonous.

Before I became pregnant again, I proudly touted myself as being anti contraption. My knees were older, but they could still bounce. Mostly. What I didn't count on was the beautiful generosity of friends, coupled with my inability to say no to anything made of plastic by Graco or Fischer Price.

Therefore, we currently have in our possession the following: three exersaucers, one doorway bouncer, one stand alone bouncer, three floor mat 'gyms' (two with overhead arches from which to hang toys), two swings, two bouncy seats, and a box full of miscellaneous items all made out of red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, lime, black, white, striped, polka dotted, fish, bear, bird and bug emblazoned, wavy lined, rainbow decorated plastic.

If you've never heard of something in the previous paragraph, don't worry. Just finish your coffee and your paper and enjoy your neutral toned, cleaned lined life like a sensible person. I'll be there to join you in approximately ten years.

Clearly my anti toy bark was much more aggressive than my bite. My children actually have a circuit. We move from activity to activity every fifteen or so minutes. Now, I cannot imagine how I planned to navigate the day bouncing two children on my cartilege challenged knees. My dining room could serve as the set for any one of ten children's catalog shoots.

I am in the process of carving out a playroom in my basement, where these items can go live happy lives and stop mocking the grown up furniture. I'll have more space in the play area than I do in my dining room, which presumably means I will take on even more plastic.

But that's okay. As long as I don't look back at pictures of myself clad in heels and a leather jacket, shepharding my small firstborn to his various appointments, with a rolodex bursting with evidence of having a life, and compare it to a person clad in waist high jeans, a matching earring and sweater set who lives only to assemble the next soccer game snack tray, I think I'll be okay.

Even if something small, shiny and plastic does tend to fall out of my purse from time to time.

Writer's Block, Again

2008-05-24T08:07:00.002-04:00

I don't have long to post, as my son is sitting in a bouncy chair at my feet, enticing me to play with him by presenting five toes from one foot, then another, apparently for kisses (I'm trying to remember what the age is that feet go from kissable cutesies to wrinkle-your-nose 'please go wash' lumbering appendages...).

My blog is still alive, albeit practically on life support, but: I have a son entering his senior year of high school, two babies who will begin eating real food this summer, a planned visit to the inlaws and I still work with crazy people. If I don't find something to snark about within all that, it will be a miracle.

Stay tuned.

A Many Splendored Thing

2008-05-05T22:25:00.003-04:00

Somewhere in between my getting pregnant and having babies, my first son was busy upping the ante on his love life.

Before, timid girls dialed the house (usually refusing to leave messages) and wrote him silly notes written in red ink to be discovered by his mother on laundry day (note: please tell your daughters that using a heart to dot an "i" looks really, seriously, stupid).

Now brazen pre-collegiate women visit the house without the slightest hint of being timid toward me. This is his house, as far as they are concerned, and I am just running around upstairs in my stupid looking pants, not to be concerned with, unless they want to come ogle babies and give them a whiff of their mall kiosk perfumed selves. They ooze class.

Somewhere along the way, my child developed a penchant for girls who were always just slightly in a bit of trouble. A stable home life? Solid future? Ability to craft a solid sentence when both halves are handed to you? These traits are wholly unattractive. Instead, having hair two days past due for a wash (banana clips! yay!), a mother who can still tick off establishments hosting a weekly Ladies' Night and a Dad who everyone knows is banging the receptionist seems ideal. Apparently, it is no longer a good friend's job to tell a guy that his love interest is a bit of a drama queen and probably going to be voted Most Likely To Slash A Man's Tires. They are probably too busy assessing which girl they can use to alarm their own mothers. Because above all, we must be punished for being too nosy and concerned, and will never learn our lesson if they continue to spend time with girls who somewhat resemble a productive citizen.

You may be guessing here that I do not care for the current flavor of the month, but that would be the wrong conclusion. It's not that I don't care for her. I loathe her.

This is not information I can ever share with my dear firstborn. First, I am guaranteeing that he will date her throughout college, marry her early, and produce five wild assed children that they will ask me to babysit, if I tell him I think she has the potential to leave a bunny boiling on the stove without so much as a second thought. No, I must control myself, and smile politely when I discover that the last homemade from scratch chocolate chip cookie has been snatched up by her delinquent little hands, or when I have to ask - again - that she not park her vehicle blocking my exit from the garage (and wonder why, exactly, it is that you are visiting again. Weren't you just here yesterday?).

Suddenly my refusal to purchase Grand Theft Auto for my son seems a bit trite of a concern considering the things which could happen to him should he continue to keep company with Courtney Love.

Sigh.

The good news is, his attention span seems to have a two to three month limit these days, and in all likelihood Britney Spears will be history shortly. I then only need worry about her burning our house down in retaliation.

Good times.

Will Do You Good

2008-04-27T22:10:00.003-04:00

There is a lot of talk about change lately. We are in not just an election year, but an election year where the incumbent President has no choice but to hand the joystick over to another player. This is always the most electrifying type of presidential race for me. I get the tingly buzz of anticipating the unknown; of being at the top of a rollercoaster I've never ridden before.

And I can't deny the impact the historical aspect of this race has had on me. For the first time in my lifetime, we have serious, viable, I dare say probable candidates for the race, who don't look exactly the same as every other candidate we've had since the country began. The importance of that, to me, is not about having the opportunity to vote for a candidate who looks like me in gender or race, but that I'm blessed to live among a people who are open enough to vote for a person who doesn't necessarily look like them. That the 'content of their character' portion of history in this country has just been racheted up one more notch.

That I can look my kid in the eye and mean it when I tell her, or him, that here, you can be anything you want to be.

Yes, there's a lot of talk about change in this election, but I'd venture to muse: the change has already come.

All's Well

2008-04-13T19:06:00.002-04:00

I get ideas for this blog all the time, but lately, getting the idea and then getting the subsequent mood to sit down and bring the idea to fruition have not gone hand in hand. I'm alive, though, and all is well. I hope to begin bringing back my nonsensical musings on life in the next week or two.

And now that I've updated my 2.5 readers, I feel better.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

2008-02-17T18:19:00.002-05:00

My husband is a Nascar fan. Well, that's an incomplete statement: my husband is a sports fan, and Nascar is a sport, therefore he is a Nascar fan (as well as Formula One and that other racing venture called, uh, whatever it's called).

I have cultured a growing interest in football. I can attend baseball games and get into the spirit. I spent part of New Year's Eve watching some guy on a motorcycle jump over a pile of dirt. Twice. But auto racing? I do not get this sport.

He is watching right now. With frowned concentration. I interrupted.

"Honey, I'm sorry. I really don't see how this requires concentration."

"This is the last thirty laps."

"Which look exactly like the first thirty laps."

Auto racing is watching a bunch of cars go in circles for several hours. How is this interesting? I contend that he only watches for the crashes, which he denies. Yet the crashes are the only unique occurences in the entire event.

I could probably understand if he actually attended a race. I've been to Charlotte, and it is quite the spectacle before you even enter the stadium I mean racetrack. No other sport can quite compare. But on television? On television, motor racing is, well, a bunch of cars going around in circles for several hours.

This has me concerned. If I am married to a man who finds this mind numbing activity interesting, what does this say about the interest he has in me? Suddenly the possibility that I am not the witty, charming gal I imagine myself to be is quite large. It is conceivable that I am as dry as toast, given that I attracted a guy who is content to stare, well, at a bunch of cars going around in circles for several hours.

Anyway. There are a group of cars getting ready to pit at the Daytona 500. For non-fans, this means they are going to get their tires changed. Again, this is somewhat interesting to watch in person, as most people can't change one tire in the time it takes a pit crew to change all four. Watching this on television, however, is only slightly more interesting than watching a bunch of cars....

I'll spare you.

Seventeen laps to go. Oooh, boy. ~sigh~

Mr. Sandman's Secrets

2008-02-11T07:20:00.000-05:00

Once again, I could be a millionaire.

What with all the people making piles of money by putting in book form the same baby sleep tips all of our grandmothers would tell us if we would just ask (my grandmother calls the hugely popular Cry It Out method 'letting the baby cry for a while before you go rushing in at every whimper' and has for the past seventy years), I figure I could jump on the bandwagon with my stunning sleep discovery made just hours ago.

I placed my newborns in their infant swings sometime after 1am and the little minxes made not a peep until nearly 5:30am this morning. Thus leading to the conclusion:

Perhaps babies sleep better in infant swings and the like than they do in bassinets and cribs. Thus leading to the conclusion:

Perhaps babies sleep better when they are in contraptions we normally place them in when we are awake. Thus leading to the conclusion:

Perhaps babies sleep better when they are tricked into believing that we are still awake. Lightbulbs! Fireworks! Six Figure Advance!

It makes evolutionary sense, since way back when everyone couldn't have slept at the same time. Someone would have to have minded the cave entrance and sorted things out with the T Rex's, yes?

I recently read about a mother who puts her child to bed in a carseat placed in a crib. Baby sleeps for hours. Compare this to my sister, who slept in a crib or bed consistently and did not sleep through the night until she was five.

Man, I need an agent.

Parent Slacker

2008-01-27T00:15:00.000-05:00

Before I recently gave birth, I daydreamed about impressing visitors when they came to see to meet our newest family members. The children would be perfectly bathed and dressed in cute outfits. I would be smartly coiffed and dressed, and serve tea in stunning cups poured from a silver teapot.

I do not own a silver teapot.

So far, I have greeted visitors in various stages of physical distress. Today, friends arrived and were greeted by a make-up free, broken out face - this after I kept them waiting in the living room because I was still in the shower when they arrived. Despite the fact that they called to let me know how far away they were and I knew, pretty much, exactly when they were due.

It gets better.

My twins, who I intended all morning to bathe and dress in the aforementioned cute outfits, had had their baths sacrified in favor of pumping breastmilk several times and a nap. The outfits were still laid out on the dresser, and my somewhat stinky and sticky infants were still dressed in their nightclothes and the attendent spitup stains. I arrived downstairs to find my husband had already deposited our cleanliness challenged daughter into the arms of our friend, who sat in our living room amongst scattered infant contraptions and - new living room decor alert! - an actual changing table we have temporarily relocated from the nursery.

Classy.

And my parenting skills? Stellar. Not wanting to abandon my guests and trudge back upstairs for the bottle warmer, and not wanting to abandon my conversation for the kitchen, I warmed a bottle up via hot water from the powder room sink, then proceeded to babble on about breastmilk, pumping boobs and the state of my son's interest in feeding from my body.

I shudder to recall. I shall have to rethink my daydream and draft new goals. Goals such as ending my shower before people arrive, and actually bathing my children in a timely manner. I will perhaps consider banning the entrance of any bottle into any bathroom. And surely I will eventually relocate the changing table to a more appropriate venue within my house.

Yep. Battin' a thousand.

Getting Carded

2007-12-17T20:53:00.000-05:00

Generally, I am big on Christmas cards. I stalk the stationary and card stores for my yearly selection, leaning strongly toward the slightly ostentatious. Glitter and gold leaf writing are especial favorites. I give one to literally every person in my corporate office, and get much satisfaction out of completing cards to my ever growing personal list, too.

My mother in law keeps a notebook logging cards received. If you do not send her a card two years in a row, you get knocked off her list. I am far less disciplined... I usually send cards to everyone on my list regardless of whether or not they've ever sent a card to me (this last group unfortunately includes people like my own sister). I am more excited to flaunt my gaudy glittered card than I am interested in putting people into card detention.

So I felt rather justified this year when I decided to toy with the idea of skipping the holiday card distribution task. I told myself I was pregnant and tired, and that I was not interested in sending out the flimsy, glitterless notebook paper thickness cards my husband would surely unearth from some discount bin at the food warehouse. I would not send cards in 2007.

This, of course, has resulted in my receiving a card from every person I have ever crossed paths with. High school friend I haven't had a conversation with in five years? Sent a card. Elderly ex-neighbor who really - I wasn't quite, uh, sure would even see Christmas 2007? Sent a card. I expect to see a card in the mail any day now from some nameless person I sat next to on the metro once. Whereas most years I send more cards than I receive, this year we are being drowned in cards. Custom photo cards, painstakingly crafted homemade cards, cards printed on stock which probably cost more per ream than the computer I'm typing on... all received.

Of course.

At this point in the game, I have only a few options. I can send husband out for said uninspired cards and send them, certain to be late arrivals. I can draft a family newsletter and ignore the fact that we've accomplished nothing that everyone isn't already aware of. Or, I can stick to my original plan to skip cards this year, and choke on the guilt of Hallmark envelopes arriving by the truckload.

I don't yet know what I'm going to do, however: if you do not receive a card from me this year, please know that it is NOT because I didn't long to spill gold and silver glitter on your difficult to clean carpeting. If it's the thought that counts, my gaudy mental card is probably the biggest one on your mantel.

Gold leaf writing and all.

And speaking of moving...

2007-12-15T18:32:00.000-05:00

My husband and I sometimes discuss places we'd each be open to moving to if the circumstances presented themselves. These conversations feed my wanderlust tendencies quite nicely, as my imagination does a nice job of subsituting for reality.

Our list contains the usual well known places. Tonight we discussed New York. I informed him that the only place I'd live in New York was Manhatten. And then lay forth the housing parameters I'd require, all of which would essentially quadruple our monthly housing costs.

My husband's biggest fear? Having to worry about money. He does not ever want to live a life where he must worry about making ends meet. This does not fit into my New York visions, a place where I'd probably cause the poor man to somersault right out the window of our pre-war apartment with doorman.

I informed him tonight that my coming home to him teetering on the building ledge was a visual which would probably scratch New York off our lists. Or at least make me consider a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn. Either way, we might have to add Manhatten to that other list of ours - places we wouldn't live unless they were the last post-nuclear holocaust cities with radiation free air, and even then we'd need to think about it. I'll refrain from being specific.

So much planet, and so little time.