Morgan Freeman, Morgan Freeman

I don't get Madame Tussaud's. I mean, I get it, it's a wax museum. But well, I don't really get it. Maybe it's just me. I don't know, but geez, if you want to see Morgan Freeman, these days you don't really have to travel to New York or Las Vegas or somewhere else with a wax museum to see his likeness like you did in say, maybe, 1800? Because back then, it wasn't that easy to see a photograph. But now we have a plethora of photographs. And this really cool thing called the internet, and you can conjure up Morgan Freeman whenever you want to. For free. From anywhere in the world. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5MEJk5ZCQ

The girl child and the boy child shared this video with me. It nearly made me pee in my pants. I'm sorry if that was TMI, but it's true. I think it's a pretty funny video. Yeah, all of the "true facts" videos make me LOL. If you haven't noticed, I'm practicing some text message abbreviations. Because I got made fun of the other day. By the girl child. Because I didn't know what TTYL meant. I know what it means now, thank you very much, but she still made fun of me. She makes fun of me because I sometimes have problems with the TV remote. And because the font size on my iphone is really, really big and I don't know how to use all of the features. I get the feeling that sometimes, the girl child and the boy child think I am old. I know, can you believe that? But sometimes, I kind of understand how they feel.

For example, this morning I took an "aquacise" class at the gym, sort of a water version of "Sweatin' to the Oldies," minus Richard Simmons in the red, white and blue short shorts (thankfully). I took the class because I am trying to get some exercise, and although I can keep up with the Zumba class pretty darn well, my knee can't, so I figured I'd try an aqua class so it would be gentle on the joints. When I entered the pool area, I noticed that the music was already cranked, and the water was full of baby boomers. And I have to admit I smirked just a teensy bit when the instructor asked me to go out and have the girls in the office turn up the volume on the sound system. Really? Up? We were all surprised, me and the girls in the office. But I have to admit, I felt a little strange when I first walked in to the class. I thought it wasn't going to be challenging, that I was too young. That this wouldn't be, shouldn't be, for me. But you know, I had to work harder than I thought to keep up with those ladies.

I am on the tail end of that generation, so I was pretty much the baby of the bunch. When I do something aerobic, it's typically Zumba with a younger, more seemingly fit crew, so it was a bit of a shock. Even the music was different. I think they must sell retro aerobics mixes just for this purpose. But yeah, I knew all the words to "He's So Fine" and "Runaway." When I was a teenager in the mid 1970s, the music from twenty years earlier, the ’50s and early ’60s, was cool. You know, American Graffiti, the Fonz. Today, the girl child and the boy child like Radiohead. Who debuted their first single in 1992. You know, like twenty years ago. Does this mean that when they are my age, they will be aquacising to "Creep"?

There doesn't seem to be all that much of a generation gap between myself and the girl and boy children like there was between me and my parents back in the day. To be honest, I occasionally watch Jenna Marbles or Shane Dawson or Nigahiga or John Green or Hank Green when the kids are not around. I admit it. Sorry, but some of this stuff is seriously funny. And some if it is seriously educational. And some is both funny AND educational and I wish I had had stuff like that to watch when I was a kid, because maybe if I'd had some of those Crash Course videos around, maybe I would've done better in history class. Or maybe not. But it would at least have been more fun to study. And yeah, I've been known to recommend Nigahiga's First World Problems video to friends. And if you don't like it, I don't care. Here's a full cup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN2WzQzxuoA

I think it's pretty great that we can share these things. I like to sing along with the music on the kids' iphones. But tonight, the boy child and his friends were singing Bohemian Rhapsody. He is fourteen now, the same age I was when Queen first recorded the song. I used to sing this song with my friends. I loved it then. He loves it now. And we both know all of the words.

I've also figured out how to send pictures from my iphone. Here's one that I sent to the boy child not too long ago. It's a wax statue of Morgan Freeman. Taken in front of Madame Tussaud's.

Health day.

I woke up this morning to find out that fibromyalgia had kicked my butt. Overnight. Well, not really overnight. It's been working up to it slowly over the last month or so. Damn you, fibromyalgia (she said, shaking her fist)! Late nights and weekends at work. Too few days off cramming too much fun and not-so-much fun into too little time. The fates have conspired to make me miss my acupuncture and massage appointments, tai chi classes, and regular healthy meals. Oh and there's that stress stuff, too. It makes my muscles ache. It keeps my mind in a fog. I can't sleep so I've been going to bed too late. I've been eating chips and meat of unknown origin. And gluten. I am not proud.

So, today I woke up and decided that maybe I just wouldn't wake up after all.  Maybe I'd just sleep another hour or three. You know, until like 7. And so I did. I called in sick. 

The husband went to work and the girl child to camp, and so I was left to my own devices in the house with the sleeping boy child. He is fourteen now which means he needs at least eleventy hours of sleep each day. At least. Since I had some time on my hands I did some work but I made myself stop. STOP! Because it's very easy to segue from work to paying household bills to doing housework. This is not helpful. It sort of defeats the purpose of the sick day, you know?

So I woke up the sleeping boy child. They say never to wake a sleeping child and one would assume that pertains only to babies but sometimes it pertains to to fourteen-year-olds, although today it did not. Lucky for me, because a grumpy teen can  be ever-so-much worse than most other formerly sleeping children. I know this from experience. I am sure that some of you reading this would agree. 

And so now, I am taking advantage of my sick day, which I am going to call my health day instead. I have a chair and a book and a boy child, and for today, this is all I need. 

Space Invaders

There is a man sitting next to me on the bus and he is on. my. side. By saying this, I do not mean that he is supportive of me, you know, like we are a team, he and I. I mean that he has crossed the line. Literally. You know, that line that differentiates my seat from his. I am willing to give him a little latitude though, because he is asleep and when he is awake he is not like this. He just fell over. I do not judge. When I shift slightly he wakes up and no longer invades my space. Most of my rides are pleasant. Most days people are conscious, except when they are unconscious, and then, of course, they are forgiven, at least by me.

The guy who sat with me yesterday is a seat hog.  The term "seat hog" is not to be confused with "Sweat Hog," as in "I am having a "Welcome Back Kotter" moment." Because I am not. But if I was, I think I would prefer listening to Arnold Horshack's laugh for a solid hour over sharing a pair of seats with Seat Hog Guy for five minutes. Seat Hog Guy isn't extraordinarily tall. Or wide. He just chooses to "spread out." If you know what I mean. And he reads his newspaper close to his face, as if he's forgotten his eyeglasses, with his elbows sticking out at the sides. Nice. When I shift in my seat slightly, he still invades my space.

Now, folks that ride the bus come in all shapes and sizes. I tend to attract seat hogs because I'm on the smaller end of the spectrum. Seat Hogs think they're getting a bargain when they sit with me, as if I will willingly share the unused portion of my seat with them. I will not. Willingly, anyway.

Some riders have legs that are as long as the boy child is tall. I've seen them. I watch out of the corner of my eye as they fold themselves into their seats, like human origami. I don't know how they do it. I imagine that they are used to it, that this must happen to them everywhere: in the movies, on the train. And yet, as tall as they are, most of them manage to stay on. their. own. side. And if they do not, I make allowances. It's not their fault. These are the times that I am grateful for not being all that tall. When the person in front of me leans his seat all the way back, I still have room to move.

Kindle Guy sits on the aisle and reads his book. He does not seem to notice that the bus is filling; he is absorbed. Those who want to sit with him must ask him not once, but twice, since he is wearing earbuds and does not look up, does not feel the presence of the person standing in front of him, waiting to sit, holding up the line that snakes around the corner. Why does he seem surprised that his seat will be needed? All the seats will be taken. Everyone wants to ride.

Bleached Blond Chick is not really all that big, but you would not know that by the way she sits. Every morning she chooses the aisle seat behind the driver. With her bag on the seat beside her, she turns slightly toward the window while she hunches over her smart phone, presumably fascinated by what she sees. Her body language screams, "DON'T SIT WITH ME!" But, I do. Sit with her. Even if there are other seats available. I'm not the only one that does this. On other days, I see others do it, too. I get a secret thrill out of invading what she deems to be her space. Because there is a long line of passengers that want to sit down, and I know that many will not ask her to move. And, because I know she's not a seat hog, even if she is a, well, seat hog. Because if you're actually sitting with her, she stays on. her. own. side.

Mirror Image

Sometimes I feel like I should wash my mother's mouth out with soap. Family lore tells of a time that she actually did this to the eldest sister, many years ago, but she never did it to me. I don't know what the eldest sister said to deserve the soaping, but since she was the eldest the parents experimented on her, I suppose. Since I was the youngest, I was spared most of the time, punishments having been tried and proven ineffective. Or, the parents were just tired by the time they got to me. In any case, it started out with my mother saying "crap" a lot, but it has progressed to the point where she occasionally drops the F bomb. "No way!" you say. "I know your mom. She's so sweet. She would never say that!" Ha! Yes she would. She's at that age now where she says whatever she damn well pleases most of the time. You know, no filter. It can get pretty darn amusing.

I was going to post for Mother's Day. I really was. It's been awhile since I posted and I was thinking that Mother's Day would be an excellent reason to get writing again, since I have been very, very lazy. Or very, very busy. Or a combination of the two. This is the same reason that the flower bed in front of my house is not weeded. That, and the fact that there is often a cat sitting on me, and then I can't get up to weed. Or the weather is bad. I can find some pretty good excuses. This weekend I had the intention of writing a post and weeding the flower bed. If you're reading this, you'll know I achieved one out of two.

Anyway, I went to a Zumba class last Saturday morning before Mother's Day. I had just started Zumba again. I have a bad knee and since the fibro's been leaving me alone (mostly) I've finally been feeling energetic enough to take a more strenuous class than tai chi. I'd taken Zumba classes before, a couple of years ago, through the town's recreation department. All their rec classes are held in the cafetorium of one of the local elementary schools. I'll tell you what a cafetorium is because chances are you will not find that word in a dictionary. It's a hybrid of cafeteria and auditorium, a room with lunch tables that fold away and a stage up front. So there's a big empty space where you could set up chairs for a chorus concert and watch fourth graders sing their hearts out. Or, you could set up the tables and eat lunch. You could even eat lunch while you're watching the fourth graders. Or, you could hold Zumba classes for a bunch of mostly middle-aged women. Any of those things are possible. It's a very versatile room. I'm not sure why they hold the classes there and not in the gym, because the gym is actually, you know, a gym. Like where people get sweaty. And so then the kids have to eat lunch in the cafetorium the next day, post-Zumba. But who am I to judge? One of the benefits of the cafetorium is that there are no mirrors on the walls, so I never had to see myself doing Zumba. Not a bad thing.

The new class I'm going to is held at the club I recently joined, the one where I take tai chi classes early Sunday mornings. They, in fact, do have mirrors in the exercise studio, but it turns out that I don't look half bad while I'm doing Zumba, which is a pleasant surprise. There are also about a million and a half small children at this club, because they have a lap pool where they give swim classes. I take my aqua tai chi class in that pool. I do not think about the number of small children frequenting the pool because then I would not take my class.

So, on Saturday I was at Zumba, and I started thinking about Mother's Day. In the locker room, I was watching all of the moms with their kids getting ready for swim class, baby carriers with sleeping infants pushed to the side while the moms attempted to stuff their toddlers into swimsuits, while one of the pair performed a monologue. The kid monologues were pretty amusing. The mom monologues were slightly annoying. I can only take mommy-ease for so long these days. I tried to imagine how the rest of the day would progress for them, the ones with the strollers and bags full of stuff, but then I got too tired thinking about it. I haven't completely blocked what it was like back then, putting everything together in the diaper bag, trying not to forget the baggie full of favorite snacks that sometimes are left on the counter. Don't forget the extra wipes, the sets of clothes, the bagel strap. I don't think it was really meant to be a bagel strap. It was a shoelace-type thing that snapped onto the bar of the stroller and then had a snap on the other end too so you could put it around a toy. Or a bagel. For teething. A frozen bagel. Frozen bagels are the way to go. The bagel would eventually fall off the strap, but it would generally be after the thing thawed anyway. And hopefully the kid would be asleep by that time and wouldn't realize that the bagel had disappeared. And the pigeons would get a treat. But, I must say that it's been quite some time since I've had to pack the equivalent of a carry-on just to go out for the day. I've forgotten all those details, those necessary items, those adventures that begin just by walking out the door.

Both of my kids were going out that Saturday. The boy child was heading off with my eldest child (aka the husband) to the city for fencing class. They wouldn't be home until evening, and neither would the girl child. She was spending the day at the boyfriend's sister's First Holy Communion party, and then his parents had custody of the pair for the rest of the evening. I was alone, a state I long for and dread at the same time. I never quite know what the heck to do with the remote when I have it. I need to shop for clothing, but when I do that, I'm not sure how to shop for me. It's a dilemma. I need a dress to wear to a Bar Mitzvah. I need some strappy silver shoes. I don't generally like to shop for myself because nothing fits the way it should. Fitting room mirrors intimidate me. If I go shopping by myself, I don't focus. Well, I do focus, but I usually wind up focusing on things for the boy child or the girl child. But I can't bring the girl child with me for company, because if I go shopping with the girl child, we wind up shopping for . . . the girl child. Even if we're supposed to be shopping for me. Because the world revolves around the girl child and the boy child. Well, at least the girl child thinks it does. Revolve around her. Not the boy child.

I ask my mom to come shopping with me. My mom still likes to shop with me. Well, at least she sort of does; she can't really do the mall like she used to. She gets tired. But then again, so do I. So I keep the number of stores to shop in to a minimum. Two department stores are about all we both can take these days. I like shopping with my mom. We bond. This is nice. It reminds me of when I was a young teen and she took me shopping. In a bad way and a good way. We pick out a whole bunch of things to try on, but only a few fit. Now I am too big. Then I was too small. We find a couple of things that fit and she says she'll buy them for me. It will be my mother's day gift from her. See why I like shopping with her better than shopping with the girl child? Because with my mom, the world revolves around me. Well, at least I think it does.

I actually like shopping with both the boy child and the girl child. I like finding them things that fit, things that they need. This is nice. We pick out a whole bunch of things to try on, but only a few fit. Sometimes she is too big. Sometimes he is too small. That's the bad part. But we get to bond. We are on a quest to find the perfect pair of Vans, or the perfect flannel shirt. Or the perfect dress. Once, a few years ago, the girl child went to the Bat Mitzvah of a family friend, and heard the girls behind her making fun of her outfit in temple. She was in tears at the luncheon, and we still had the evening party to attend. As we left the temple, I promised her that I would take her to the mall and buy her the hottest dress (within reason, of course) we could find. And I did. A tasteful black one-shoulder fitted not too short but just short enough one. To wear with silver shoes. And long dangly earrings. Nobody made fun of her outfit that night.

The day before Mother's Day, when my mom and I went shopping together, I was telling her a story in the car. I hadn't been feeling well. My fibro had been flaring a bit, brought upon by some stressors, and then she said it. "Was it because of that b**tch?" There she was, cursing again. Well, it wasn't, in fact, because of that . . . you know who . . . but then we went to the mall and she bought me the hottest dress  (within reason, of course) that we could find. But I still need to find some strappy, silver shoes.

Coffee Klatch

Kids these days drink too much coffee. I know, right now you're picturing me hanging out with a couple of other old coots, sitting in my rocking chair on the porch and shaking my fist, babbling on about how things were in my day. Like how much better the music was, stuff like that. Yeah, I do that occasionally. You know, shake my fist. But it's true. I don't remember kids drinking coffee when I was a kid. When I was really little, I used to eat breakfast with my mom before school and we would both have toast and coffee. She would give me a cup filled mostly with milk and I drank it, even though I hated milk, telling my friends that I had coffee for breakfast. She is crafty, that mother of mine. That's how she got milk into me.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it was just my group of friends, but I don't recall any of us hauling massive cups of coffee around to school or work until we were at least in college. At least. So it surprises me when I see a thirteen-year-old carrying a triple grande latte schmatte around with him, needing a caffeine boost to get himself through the day. It's all about the coffee, it seems.

When I was a teenager, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my friends and I spent many an evening at a local coffee house. This coffee house is not to be confused with one of those brightly lit chain stores with neatly manufactured menus hanging from the walls and overpriced pre-packaged sandwiches sitting in a refrigerator case, where you sit next to your friends while you each take advantage of the free wi-fi. Nor is it to be confused with a coffee shop, where you can have breakfast all. day. long. Which of course is not a bad thing. But this place, this place, was the quintessential teenage–young adult hangout type of coffee house. I was only about fourteen when I started going there in the mid-seventies. The place was filled with kids from the nearby college, high school kids, and more than a few slightly older locals, what my father would call "hippies." I thought I was very cool, because my sisters went there and they were a number of years older than me. I was always trying to catch up.

I'm not quite sure how my friends and I got to this place—did our moms drop us off? I just recall walking through a canopy of tree branches into what had formerly been a big old house with a wrap-around porch, entering a dimly lit world full of tables of young people, talking, eating, smoking, and drinking coffee. My favorite order? Grilled ham and swiss on rye with a Dutch coffee. Thick, white mugs full of Dutch coffee. I would call it coffee in name only. I don't believe that there is actually much coffee in it. I tried it again a few years ago, but couldn't get past the sweetness of it. The memory of it, to me, is better than the actual thing. It is made with cinnamon and butter. Yes, butter. Possibly an entire stick of butter. I wouldn't be surprised. I can feel my arteries hardening at the mere thought of it.

Only a few years later, the place moved down the street to a smaller house. It never seemed quite the same to me, although my friends and I still kept going there. The same guy owned it, and I believe that it was he who would stand at the door when you arrived, waiting to show you to your table. It became the place we'd meet when we came home on break from college. It was where we went after the bars closed. We would head there after our waitress shifts were over, after we had filled all the ketchups and put the chairs up on the tables, and at four o'clock in the morning we would count our tips. With coins spread out on the table, we'd listen to a guy we knew writing a song two tables away, pounding the beat on the table with his hand.

A few weeks ago, the girl child and I went to see the play her high school drama club presented. We'd eaten a light dinner beforehand, but when it was over we were hungry so we decided to grab a bite to eat. I suggested the coffee house. The place looked old. Not retro. Just old. But then again, the place had always looked old, even when it was new. I think that the tables were the same ones from when I was a teen, and I wouldn't be surprised if the poster from The Shining had been hanging there since The Shining first came out. I would venture a guess that if an archeologist dug through the layers of pen on the bathroom wall, he might possibly find some graffiti that I had scrawled many, many years ago.

It was just starting to get busy when we arrived, and the tables were filling will kids from the nearby college, high school kids, and a few slightly older locals that I would call "hipsters." Or "skaters." Or "hipster-skaters." I'm not sure. They wear beanies, plaid, ironic tee shirts, skinny jeans and old man glasses, cut-off shorts with tights underneath. They are talking, eating, and drinking coffee from thick, white mugs, but not smoking because you know you cannot do that now. I half expect the same guy to show us to our table but he isn't there. That was a very long time ago.

After we're seated, I look over at the girl child and she has a crazy happy look on her face. I know I've brought her to the right place at the right time. She had been there a few years earlier with the temple youth group, but it was not right; they were too young. But now, now she is excited. Now, she wants to come back. She wants to bring her friends. I know how she feels, because I had had this feeling too, once upon a time. I'm not sure what it is that we feel. What is so exhilarating about a place like this? They are just eating. They are just talking.  She asks me if I know how old someone has to be to work here. She is too young.

About a week ago, the girl child, the boyfriend, the grandma and I went out to dinner on a Saturday night to a sports bar replete with television sets, video games and dart boards. It is loud but we endure; they serve the best ribs in town. It is packed full of families and kids from the local college, playing darts, drinking beer and eating ribs, wings and nachos. Short-haired kids with muscles. You know, jocks. Maybe frat boys. I'm not sure. But they have no coffee; the machine is broken. Really? And no dessert except ice cream. Wha? So I suggest it. We are only a few blocks away. We head to the coffee house. When we enter, it is clear: it has a different vibe from the sports bar. It could be worlds away. It is almost empty because it is still early. It is quiet except for the music playing on the sound system.

When I look across the table at the girl child, I see that she is like me, yet unlike me. I envy her as I watch her sitting there. Not for her youth or her beauty, although she has a great deal of both, but for her potential, for what is to come. I tell her that I am jealous that she will have many nights here with her friends, that they may meet here on breaks from college and that one day soon, she might be counting her tips on a table at this coffee house, the way I did when I was only four years older than she is now. I don't typically wish for her to experience the things that I have experienced, but this one is different. This surprises me. Of course, she will not have a job at a bar known for its beer garden, live music, killer foot long hot dogs and a long line of Harleys parked out front. That place is long gone. Her loss. But she would not like it there anyway. She would probably say that perhaps that was one of my not-so-great decisions, because you know how judgmental she can be. She will most likely work the afternoon shift at a local pizzeria. She is a rebel, she is.

I watch as the girl child and the boyfriend dig in to their brownie sundae. The girl child has opted for hot cider in a thick white mug; she does not drink coffee. The boyfriend comments that the music playing sounds like nineties grunge. I disagree; it sounds like seventies punk to me. You know, music was much better, back in my day.

Budget. New York. With Kids. Or Not.

I love New York City rain gear. I am not talking about fancy things that you might buy at Saks or a cool downtown boutique. I am talking about plastic shopping bags. I am always impressed by the ability of a New Yorker to take a simple bag and wrap it around his head to protect himself from a sudden downpour. But, I am not talking about the generic bag raincoats that they give people on those open, double-decker tourist buses, either. They are all the same. They are manufactured to be rain gear. I'm talking about creativity here, people. I'm talking about the real thing.

Because I lived in the city for many years, I am occasionally called upon for a list of things to do and see by friends who are contemplating a visit to New York. I give them the list, and then they ultimately ignore all of my recommendations. I don't let this hurt my feelings. Their reasoning for this is sound. Only a handful of the items on my list are things that most tourists do. My list just doesn't seem right. To many, the things that make New York, New York, are not on my list. But I beg to differ. New York is a different place from what most tourists see, hear . . . and even smell.

Before I was married, I lived in New York for about ten years, and spent another five or so with the husband and the baby girl and baby boy children. While the kids each spent some of their babydom in the city, their formative years were spent visiting. Kind of like, well, tourists. They will never admit to this, by the way. If you ask them they will deny it. Just want to make that clear. They've spent a lot of time in town. They know their way around.

Since Spring is officially here, tourist season is on its way. Even though March is coming in and going out like a lion. Even if Punxsutawney Phil's handler is taking some heat for Phil's predictions. I figured I'd give some tips for visiting New York this spring or summer for those on a budget, with kids or on their own. On a budget, because I am cheap. With kids, because I have some and they like to do cool things. On their own because most of these ideas are good for folks with and without the little monsters. And, as an FYI, the family doesn't like to stand in lines. That's really important. Minimal line standing. Unless it's for something really, really good. But I will say that you should absolutely do some New York line-standing-touristy-things, just not too many, or you will waste all your time standing in lines. You might  even want to buy a one-day ticket on one of those tourist buses to get your bearings early on if you're there for a few days. Definitely head to the top of the Empire State Building. It's historic and it's just a cool building. Ellis Island is an interesting place to go as well. And if you must see Times Square, go ahead and walk around for a few minutes. Just don't linger. All those guys dressed up as Elmo and Minnie Mouse? They are not the real New York.

This past summer, the family and I took a dream vacation to Europe. One week was spent entirely in Paris, the next in Rome. The husband had never been to Europe and had always wanted to go. I was all for it. We decided to rent apartments in each city, allowing us to live to a certain extent as Parisians and Romans do, grocery shopping at local stores and outdoor markets, stopping at the corner boulangerie in the morning and boucherie in the afternoon. Since the girl child studies Italian, the boy child French, and the husband gets by in Spanish, Italian and German, we did pretty well language-wise. I think that I, the consummate American, handled speaking English pretty darn well. It really helped that many Europeans do too. I do, however believe that the husband's native Tagalog was the most useful language in Rome. Lots of Filipinos in Rome. Who would have known? Anyway, we enjoyed some time in museums and tourist attractions, but most of our trip was spent walking the neighborhoods, eating the local foods, and getting to know the people. Our apartment hosts had left us amazing walking tours and lists of their favorite restaurants and gelaterie. And thanks to some pre-trip social media chats, we made some new friends that have become dear friends. How lucky are we?

I highly recommend an apartment over staying at a hotel if you're planning some time in New York. There are agencies out there to help with finding the right place, but you have to be sure to ask the right questions regarding the kitchen appliances, laundry facilities, etc. although I think this might apply more in Europe than in the U.S. And check out the neighborhood as best you can. Try to find a friend in the city that can steer you to one, although remember that their tastes may differ from yours, especially if they are used to being in a city environment and you are not. What seems harmless to them may seem scary to you! But "living" in the city, rather than "visiting" it, can give you a unique perspective that you wouldn't ordinarily get while staying at a hotel.

As a day tripper, there is much more to do than going to a Broadway show or a museum, although those things are surely worthwhile. My kids were surprised to discover that many of their classmates think that all of New York looks like Times Square. And we only live about an hour from the city. The following is a list of places to go and things to do that you might not have thought about otherwise. If you enjoy them, please let me know!

THEATER
I don't do Broadway. I will catch flack for saying this, I am sure. There are some amazing shows out there. I know that. I have been to shows, but typically the cost to entertainment-value ratio leaves me underwhelmed. I did especially enjoy a production of Guys and Dolls starring Nathan Lane, but you probably don't want to hear about that because it was over twenty years ago. I will move on.

I am not good at navigating online ticket sellers and TKTS. I have no patience for this. But this does not mean that my children have been deprived of theater. Au contraire. New York is full of professional and pre-professional theater that is cheap or free (but you want to give a donation!) Some of our family favorites are:

The New Victory Theater (http://www.newvictory.org/Home.aspx)
We started going to the New Vic when the kids were young. It's a small theater on 42nd Street where you can find theater productions from all over the world for kids of all ages. For us, it has always been a safe space. Upon entering, the boy child and girl child would take off to participate in an activity or see an exhibit while we placed our bags in a locker and stowed the stroller.

Tickets run about $25 each, more or less, and just about every seat in the house is good. If sitting in the orchestra, kids have the option of soft booster seats. All shows are listed with information such as age appropriateness (roughly from two to everyone) and length, and just about everyone can enjoy a New Vic show. One of my fondest memories at the theater involves the young boy child at one of the first shows we attended. We were sitting up in the mezzanine and were pleased to discover that there was a talkback that day. Folks, mainly downstairs, were asking questions of the actors on the stage. All of a sudden I realized that the boy child had his hand up in the air. The next thing I knew, my shy boy was standing and asking his question, projecting all the way down to the stage below. Proud Mama. Not sure of another place where this could have happened. I love the New Vic.

TADA! Youth Theater (https://www.tadatheater.com/currentseason.asp)
We were turned on to TADA! by a friend when the kids were quite small. When the girl child became interested in performing, she took some classes there. They have a Youth Ensemble that is a pre-professional theater program, and a huge number of kids audition for the ensemble each year. I know this because the girl child auditioned for it herself a couple of times.

The shows are all original, and the casts are made up completely of incredibly talented kids from tiny to teen. It is not a fancy theater, you sit on benches, but tickets range from $8-$25 or so and you definitely get more than you pay for.

Arm-of-the-Sea Theater (http://www.armofthesea.org/)
Arm-of-the-Sea is a mask and puppet theater that deals with contemporary themes. We've been able to catch them a couple of times in Central Park in the summer. Entertainment for all ages. Check out their website for their touring shows.

New York Classical Theatre (http://newyorkclassical.org/about-us)
Although some may think so, you are never too young for Shakespeare and the other classics. I know this to be true because we began bringing the boy child and the girl child to see the New York Classical Theatre when they were quite young. They have seen more Shakespeare performed than most adults I know, and some Moliere for good measure.

New York Classical performs what they call "panoramic theater." Basically, the "stage" moves from place to place, and the audience follows. This may sound chaotic, but they've got it all down. No tickets and no waiting in line. You can find them in warm weather in Central Park near West 103rd Street, Battery Park at Castle Clinton, or at the World Financial Center when the weather is cooler. They also have family workshops before the shows on certain nights. We usually head to whichever park with an early picnic, eat a light supper on the grass, and wait for the show to begin. Yes, we've been rained out in the middle of a performance more than once, but it's just given us a good excuse to see the show again!

DINING
Do not expect a New York foodie tour from me. I'm sure there are tons of blogs out there that will tell you where the trendiest, coolest places are. I cannot tell you that, although I understand: I was a tall food addict myself, back in the day. What I will give you is a rundown of some ideas for eating in the city. Before we begin, you must follow some basic rules:

Rule number one: If you can eat at the same restaurant at your local mall in Ohio, do not eat there in New York. Seriously. Why would you do that?

Rule number two: Do not wait on line for a chain restaurant that is supposed to be trendy and cool and isn't and that has outlets in various cities across the globe and serves expensive, mediocre (at best) food. You know what I'm talking about.

Really. There are so many excellent places to eat. I am going to stick with ideas in Manhattan, but there are tons of great restaurants in the boros, so if you have time, head out to Flushing for Asian, Astoria for Greek or Egyptian, or Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn for some Middle Eastern fare. But if you can't do that there are different neighborhoods in Manhattan dedicated to serving great, ethnic food, all for a price that will be comparable or less than what you'd pay if you broke either rule number one or number two above. Some examples are:

1. Curry Hill, the area between 26th and 30th streets on Lexington Avenue. My family likes to go to the Pakistani restaurant where a lot of the cab drivers go. It's totally no frills combo plates from behind a glassed-in steam table. But, there are more upscale places to choose from, as well as some amazing markets to shop in, like Kalustyans.

2. Koreatown: This area is located between 31st and 33rd Streets, between 5th and 6th Avenues, close to Macy's and the Empire State Building. There are places where you can order raw meats, seafood and veggies, and cook them up on a grill in the middle of your table. A DIY hibachi restaurant, if you will. Korean restaurants will typically provide you with small bowls of appetizers, like pickles and salads, included with your meal. There are also some great dumpling places. Our favorite is Mandoo Bar. You can watch the staff making the dumplings through the window.

3. Chinatown: Of course, we've all heard of Chinatown in NY. We like to walk around and check out all the markets. A few things to know about eating:
a. If you go to the Peking Duck House, order Peking Duck. Otherwise, go someplace else. Really.
b. Try a dumpling house. There are blogs about these so you can find one. My family likes one on Chrystie Street, but don't take my word for it because there are others that are probably just as good. One day, my family of four had lunch there for $11. Not kidding.
c. Joe's Shanghai is not the only place that serves soup dumplings. You don't need to wait on line.
d. If you are a party of four or less, you may be seated at a table with other patrons. Do not be alarmed.
e. Go to Mei Li Wah Bakery and try some buns. Sure, it's not fancy. Not even close. But try it anyway.
f. Check out some of the snack shops like Aji Ichiban or taste some pastries from a bakery. Lots of good stuff for cheap.
g. Chinatown is not just about Chinese food. There are Vietnamese, Malaysian and other Asian cuisines available as well.

4. Little Italy: I don't have much to say about Little Italy. It's a bit too touristy for my tastes and the one meal I ate there, many years ago, was so-so. I would suggest going for a walk through the area after eating in Chinatown, and maybe grab a gelato or a pastry. For pizza, my family likes John's Brick Oven on Bleeker, and I've had great pizza at Lombardi's as well.

5. There is a proliferation of "hole-in-the-wall" restaurants that are cheap and good, all over the city. The girl child loves Dogmatic on 17th street, where everything is all-natural and grass fed. Of course it costs more for grass fed than Grey's Papaya, but you get what you pay for here. There's Mamoun's for falafel, Meatball Obsession for, uh, meatballs, Dos Toros for Mexican . . . I could go on but I won't.

6. Finally, if you're out and about and the weather is nice, a fun thing to do is check out the food trucks. There are so many amazing ones in the city, and the great thing is that you can track them online. Googling "food trucks in nyc" will give you a number of websites to choose from, and you can find places using zip codes or your current location from your smart phone. Rickshaw dumpling bar now not only has a restaurant on 23rd Street, but a food truck and kiosk in Times Square. If you're at the restaurant, try the chocolate dumplings. Wear the bib.

THINGS TO DO:
New York has some of the best museums in the world, and many major tourist attractions. But, here are some things that might seem off the beaten path, but just as great:

Greenmarkets: My kids love to go to Union Square on greenmarket days. If your family lives in a city or the suburbs, chances are they haven't really had a chance to talk to a real farmer. Well, here's that chance—who would have imagined? Plus, the veggies are so amazing, you won't want to pass them up, even if you're only just looking. I had the pleasure of living a few blocks away for more than ten years, so I know this to be true. If you're staying in an apartment, this is a great place to do some marketing for veggies, meats and dairy as well. One of the things both the girl child and boy child like to do is grab a fresh loaf of bread and some cheese, and possibly a giant brownie, from a local farmer. Then we sit in the park with some bottles of water from the bodega down the street, and have a picnic.

Candy stores: There are folks that must go to a candy store in Times Square that sells items you can buy in the supermarket. OK. Let me repeat something I've said before. Really? Others insist that Dylan's Candy Bar is the best. I've been there. It's a bit glitzy for me.

There's a plethora of great chocolate shops throughout the city with gourmet candies and macaroons, and you can find them all online. My favorite shop, however, is Jacques Torres on Hudson Street (https://www.mrchocolate.com/news/about/locations/hudson-street/) In it, you can find the window to my soul. Well, actually, it's just a window you can look through and see the chocolates being made. Same thing. Anyway, they have other locations but I like this one best because you can see the crew at work. They will allow you to taste the hot chocolate from the hot chocolate bar if you want. I highly recommend it. It is so rich, my family just shares one cup.

For something less extravagant, I recommend heading over to Economy Candy on the Lower East Side (http://www.economycandy.com/). It's a tiny space crammed with sweet-y goodness. They have all the favorites from childhood (if you're old like me), plus any kind of halvah you might like. Even if it's not fancy, I'd say that it rivals Dylan's any day.

The New York Public Library/Bryant Park: Did you see Ghostbusters? Well, if you did, then checking out the reading room is a must. Ah, it's a must anyway. It's so cool. There are also some interesting exhibits there as well. And, behind the library is Bryant Park, which houses a shopping village and a skating rink in winter, and a carousel, ping pong and outdoor movies in the summer.

NYC Parks: You can't beat the NYC Park System. (http://www.nycgovparks.org/) I've already mentioned a couple of them. There are so many things to do. Green markets, free tai chi and yoga, chess, ping pong, movies, theater, music, playgrounds, and buskers. We used to take the kids to Central Park and just let them climb around on the rocks. Best. Day. Ever.

Street Fairs: These are not confined to those you've been to selling socks and "as seen on TV" products. Check out the Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair (https://www.facebook.com/events/433908179968455/) or the World Science Festival Street Fair (http://worldsciencefestival.com/events/street_fair_2012) Ninth avenue hosts a food festival. These are also listed online.

The Cloisters/Fort Tryon Park:  The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum and definitely worth a visit. (http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters) Fort Tryon Park is nice on any day, but even nicer when there's a medieval fest (http://www.whidc.org/home.html)

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine: (http://stjohndivine.org/index.html) Not only is the cathedral beautiful, but it hosts events and workshops, concerts and shows. Check out their website for details.

The High Line: (http://www.thehighline.org/) Visit the High Line, a public park built on a historic rail line. Eat at the food stands or just go for a walk. Great on a beautiful day.

Hudson River Park: (http://www.hudsonriverpark.org/) Check it out on a bike or on foot. Lots of things to do along the water.

Governor's Island: (http://www.nyharborparks.org/visit/gois.html) only a ferry ride away.

The Brooklyn Bridge: walk across!

TRANSPORTATION:
I like to walk in NY. Maybe that's just me. I had some friends visiting years ago and I walked them around for so many hours I think that I may have broken them. The next day, they took a tour bus. As I mentioned, the tour buses are convenient and let you on and off wherever you want to go. However, there is something to be said for navigating the local transportation system when you visit a city. While I wasn't particularly fond of the Paris Metro, it got us around very well. I did like taking the tram in Rome, even if it didn't go very far. So I suggest giving the subway a try. It can be confusing, but it's a great way to get around fairly quickly. Metro buses may take a bit longer, but you get to see some of the city while riding. We sometimes enjoy taking what we call "the slowest bus down Fifth Avenue." If you can get a seat, it's not so bad. For walking and public transportation directions within the city, go to hopstop.com.

A few autumn's ago, the girl child asked a friend to come and spend the day with us in the city. The boy child was going to his fencing class, and we were going to hang out—we didn't really have a destination except for Economy Candy on the lower east side. We parked the car, dropped off the boy child, and headed by subway to the store. I thought it would be fun to let the girls buy the metro cards, and while they were standing at the machine we heard a commotion. Before I realized what was happening, a small rat ran right over the girl child's friend's feet. Apparently a rat fight gone wrong. She was a good sport, the girl child's friend. She didn't flinch; she laughed it off. A trouper, this girl child was. To this day, I am still amazed that the girl child's friend's parents ever left her in our care again, but they did.

The rest of the subway trip was uneventful, and we made it to the candy store. However, we decided that maybe it would be fun to walk back uptown. It started to drizzle about halfway to Union Square, so we hopped on a train and decided to wait it out at Barnes and Noble. But we got bored at B&N, so we grabbed some plastic bags and held them over our heads as we ran through what was left of the day's green market. We found ourselves in Filene's Basement, a misnomer because it was actually located on the second, third, and fourth floors. Anyway, when we got there we heard some sloshing. The girl child's friend was wearing some cute ballet flats, which were now filled with water. We hit the ladies room, where she dried them under the hand drier. Resourceful. I settled into a chair by the windows with a view of Union Square park, and when I turned around, the girl children were giving me a fashion show. They had created New York City rain hats from plastic bags. Priceless.

Spring Cleaning

My house is starting to look like one from an episode of Hoarders. Well, maybe that's not completely true. We can still walk through it pretty easily, although I wonder how the girl child gets her closet door open sometimes. I like to blame the rest of the family for the hoarding behavior, but it's not completely their fault. However, I would definitely say that they are not blameless. We all like to hang on to stuff, and it seems like the more space we have, the more we fill. I would venture a guess that we are not alone in this, but I did feel a bit uncomfortable when one of the moms from school came by a few years back to pick something up and the first words out of her mouth were, "You sure have a lot of stuff." Well yes, we do.

March is time for "spring cleaning," although it seems like a misnomer when the weather report calls for snow. I have taken the week off from work, and between observing all of the holidays that will take place I plan on spending some quality time with the children, sorting out the house. I began this endeavor during my break between Christmas and the New Year. I did not get very far. I do not believe that the children are looking forward to this spring cleaning extravaganza with as much enthusiasm as I am. I can't imagine why not. But the husband has given me free rein to get rid of anything I want. I don't believe that he is being completely honest here, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. We'll see how that goes.

One of my first projects will be to clean out our storage closet. It is a long, narrow, walk-in, and at the far end is the area the girl child calls "the vault." Hanging bags are filled with some very hip outfits from the ’60s and ’70s, previously worn by the grandma, my mother. There are even some very small articles of clothing worn by the tiny, childhood me. Did I happen to mention that the house we live in is the house I grew up in? It is. We rearranged and renovated, trying to make it as much our own as possible, but instead of getting just a house, we got rooms filled with boxes and bags and shelves of memories. Some of these we gave away or sold, but others still remain.

I had sorted the storage closet when we first moved in, labeling bins full of art supplies and photographs, and memory boxes for each child. Drawers were filled with my old yearbooks and scrapbooks that date back to my childhood. Even before the boy child could talk, I began filling a big, plastic bin with items that might be used for future school projects. The bins were full of oddly shaped styrofoam pieces, scoops from baby formula, cardboard trays from vegetables, silver mylar balloons. By the time the girl child entered third grade we had the makings of the best diorama or science project or history project ever. You need a satellite dish? Well, that miniature plastic champagne glass will do quite nicely, thank you very much.

Sometimes I envy my friends that have an easy time parting with possessions. Obviously, I do not, and those I have parted with I often regret, looking back and wishing that I hadn't let them go. I have one friend who would cull her childrens' toys every few months, keeping the number small and age appropriate. I still feel guilty about getting rid of the wooden building blocks—the kids said they would have played with them a few more years. They would probably still be playing with them now. These children, they are not helpful. Another friend regularly has yard sales and rakes in the bucks, although I believe that his family has taken to hiding their most prized possessions to keep from finding a favored pillow pet out on a folding table on the driveway. Both of their homes are free of clutter, however, which I cannot particularly say of my own, and although I have tried to emulate both of them at various times, I have failed epically.

Some may say that we have too many books. Is it possible to have too many books? We are a family of readers. The husband and I have each worked in publishing for over twenty-five years, but even before I worked in the industry I carried my books from place to place, college dorm room to apartment, apartment to house. I have books from my childhood, from my mother's childhood, from my father's high school days, from the husband's first days in this country, stamped with a book stamp that says: "This book belongs to 'the husband,'" or something to that effect. I don't want to give them up. The kids stack up books they no longer want to keep, but I put them aside. "You may want these later," I say. "You may want these for your children." Some of these books were not their favorites. But some of them were mine. I think that maybe these books will skip a generation. Maybe the boy grandchild or the girl grandchild will love them as much as I loved them. Or maybe not. It's hard to say. But where will I keep them? Should I let them go?

I have determined that wherever we live, our home will always seem like a too-small New York City apartment, furnished with items that are worn, yet comfortable. The girl child has mentioned that when she has a house, the rooms will have "themes." I think that she means that the furniture will match; the walls will be freshly painted a color that complements. As I've mentioned in the past, she is a rebel. I used to think that one day I would have grown-up things, that the hand-me-downs and furniture from IKEA and the old wooden chairs would be replaced, but I think that by now that moment has passed. I don't really mind. And there are days when I love the clutter, when I love to dress the girl child in an authentic skirt and jacket from the ’70s that we did not have to leave our home to find. I suppose that after this week, we may still have a lot of stuff. But maybe not as much as before. I hope.

Tag, You're It

We went to see a musical at the Intermediate School last night. The boy child wasn't in it, but many of his friends were. Theater geeks. It was the first time we'd gone to see a play there. In the cafetorium, with the acoustics as they are, we didn't really notice the breaking voices of puberty and the high notes not-quite-reached. There was something in the air. You could see it in the eyes of the actors as they took the stage. The passion. They were exactly where they wanted to be.

The boy child and the girl child are both professional actors. The boy child is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and if he gets another Equity job, he must join the union. This is a good thing. People work for years to become guild members. It is an honor, something to work toward. The boy child did not choose this. He was not the child that was always putting on a show. He did not dance around the house. He did not sing. This was all the girl child's fault, as many things are. She will deny being the cause of most of them, but she will not deny this.

The girl child starts with a voiceover evaluation, and moves on to "modeling." She never enjoyed having her picture taken and she was always kind of shy, so we are stumped. The boy child comes along for the ride. It is fun. If he or she gets a job, it could pay for his very expensive fencing lessons, her very expensive horseback riding classes. Camp. If not, it is a break from the school day, a chance to meet some interesting people. We do not know where it will lead.

They get managers. The girl child takes lessons: acting, musical theater. She tries out for a musical ensemble group in New York but does not get in. She goes to acting class but mostly watches. She does not like improv. She does not dance. She is not always comfortable inside her skin. Professional calls start coming. Most come for the boy child. She does not say anything. She goes to the auditions with him and watches the children. She is a pre-teen white girl from the suburbs in the body of mature Latina teen-ager with a city sense of style. She does not speak español. She is too white. She is too dark. She is perfect. She is beautiful. She has a body that is just right for an eleven-year-old. She is not stick skinny. She is not flat-chested. She will never get the job. I want it for her more than I can tell her. I want it for her because she wants it, and I want her to have everything she wants. I remind her to exercise and to stop eating when she is full. I am a jerk. Luckily, she does not pay any attention to what I say. Sometimes pre-teen rebellion is a good thing.

The boy child does nothing to enhance his "career." He plays soccer. He fences. He sings "Happy Birthday" to his manager and she sends him on auditions for Broadway. For Broadway. He gets callbacks, sometimes more than one for the same show. He gets down to the wire, down to three kids, two kids. He doesn't get the job. He doesn't mind. He moves on to the next one. He goes to acting class for one semester. The owner of the school writes parts for him in a movie, in a play. He is asked to join the junior company, even though he doesn't take class. He is a natural. He has "It." "It," the intangible thing. "It" is a presence. "It" makes people take notice.

The girl child asks to join the acting school company. She can't be there on the audition day. They tell her next time. They let others in without auditions, and when I say something about it they let her in, too. She does everything: she makes props, posters, does stage crew. She is excited. She fills in as an actor when she's needed. Later, they forget to call her, forget she is part of the group. She is not told about meetings. She is disappointed. She doesn't say a word.

The boy child is being taught how to tap dance in a hallway by Tommy Tune and Dick Cavett while the dancers of the Broadway musical Spider Man rehearse next door. He is reciting Pablo Neruda's Enigmas for Robert Wilson. He is moving for Lucinda Childs. This is not the description of a surreal dream I had last night because I ate too much Mexican food. This really happened. This was real.

The boy child starts singing lessons. He is sitting in a room of twenty children at a callback for the national tour of Mary Poppins. There are ten girls and ten boys. Two of each will be chosen. Many know each other from a theater school in Westchester. It is a Broadway baby making machine. It is a feeder to Disney productions. Others flew in from Ohio, from Atlanta, in a storm. One mother cut her Florida vacation short to be there. The children go into the other room and we parents hear them singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" for the first time. It is beautiful. It is like they have been singing together for years. The casting director tells a mom: "At this level, it is not about talent anymore. It's about who is the best match for the boy/girl still on tour. It is about who best fits the costume." I wonder how we've gotten here. I don't quite know how this happened. This is a good thing, but it is strange. The girl child finally asks, "When will the calls come for me?" It breaks my heart.

The girl child goes with the boy child to everything she can. She sits on a sound stage in Secaucus and watches the director, talks to the woman in the production office. She hangs with the young actors and crew in a small apartment in Brooklyn. She becomes the set photographer. She gets a professional credit for that. She is thirteen. She meets directors, producers, script supervisors, wardrobe and makeup. She sees it all. When the girl child directs her first play, at fourteen, the director of the film comes to see it.

She is in a low budget industrial with about twenty other children. Someone tells them to line up in two lines. She asks,"Boys and girls together? Should we line up by height?" She organizes the children. I watch her. I am proud.

She is in Central Park watching the boy child kick a soccer ball into a net on the set of a movie. She watches the director. She talks to the producer. She auditions for a theater company in New York City. It is all about girl power. It is not all about what you look like, what you can do. It is more about who you are. She gets in. When she appears in a show at the NY International Fringe Festival, the director of the film comes to watch.

The boy child plays chess with the director on the set. He reads. He plays Minecraft on his computer with another boy who is sitting next to him playing Minecraft on his own computer. They do not speak. They chat online. He draws pictures and maps the story of the film he is in as a graph. Did I mention before that he is a nerd? High school acceptance letters arrive in the mail. I am at work, on the telephone with the girl child when the boy child's bus arrives at the house. She runs outside with the letter. I am still on the phone when I hear him screaming. He is running around in circles, emitting shrieks of delight. The children on the bus cheer. The boy child wants to be an engineer, and this school specializes in marine science and technology. They have advanced engineering courses. Later that week, the boy child looks through the course list for the school: engineering, math. I hear him say, "I am having such a major nerdgasm right now." I laugh, but I see in his eyes that this is exactly where he wants to be.

The girl child is a freshman at a high school that focuses on communication arts. She makes her first film, a required project. Her teacher reads her script at his desk. He looks up and says, surprised, "This is good." He says she can work with the juniors and seniors. He lends her a camera for another class. Her film is posted online and an upperclassman stops to ask her about it. She tells him it's only half of what it was supposed to be, because she didn't have time. It was for her freshman project. He looks at her, surprised, and asks, "You're a freshman?"

Tag, you're "It."

Identity Theft

Over the past few years, well, more than I few, I have come to the realization that my life is no longer my own. I can't put my finger on exactly when the transition happened, but at some point, I went from being me to being "the girl child's mom." Or "the boy child's mom." Or even, "the husband's wife."

This is not always a bad thing. I am usually proud of the things that the girl child and boy child do, and I kind of like being known as their mom. Even being "the husband's wife" is OK. He is a gregarious kind of guy, the husband, and although he sometimes says or does things over which I have no control, I generally don't mind being known as his wife.

But, I do have a life, you know.

Well, I used to, anyway.

Before the girl child and the boy child were born, I actually did things. Sometimes, I went to the movies. I took art classes. I ate dinner with friends. The husband and I traveled. We didn't usually go all that far, but occasionally we would impulsively head up to Maine for a long weekend. We would stop at the Freeport outlet stores and buy just about whatever we wanted. For ourselves. We had this thing called "discretionary income." I can't remember exactly what that is, but I kind of remember that back then, it was fun to have. I'd venture a guess that it would be nice to have it again sometime.

I have noticed that when I make telephone calls, I often introduce myself by saying my name, and then following up with, "the girl child's mom." It is as if my name is not enough to identify myself. One day not too long ago, I got on the bus and saw a man I recognized. As I was walking past him, I said hi. He looked at me blankly. I said, "You're so-and-so's dad, aren't you? I'm the girl child's mom." And then he knew who I was. Apparently, he has no life either.

Most of the time, I arrange my life around the boy child and the girl child. If there is something that they are scheduled to do, I have been known to rearrange my plans. I know there are parents who do not do that. I know they are out there, these parents. They go to the gym. Whenever. They. Want. They may even go out at night. I know I could do this, I suppose. It is no one's fault but my own that I do not. But honestly, I'd rather the boy child have a dance lesson each month than pay for the gym for myself. Perhaps there are other forces at work, though, when it comes to the gym membership. Maybe this is a bad example. But I think you catch my drift.

Sometimes I wonder what I am going to do when the girl child and the boy child go off to college. Who will I be? Sure, I have my work and everything, but that is not what really defines me. I will have to redefine my Saturdays and Sundays, my weeknights after work. No more back-to-school nights. School fundraisers. Schlepping to the mall for outgrown jeans. Homework help. What will I do?

We may eat dinner after six again, the husband and I. We may once again stay up all night watching Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn film festivals on PBS. We may go out to dinner with friends. Maybe we'll head out of town for the weekend. I can safely say with some certainty, however, that we will still be without discretionary income. At least until the girl child and the boy child get themselves some jobs. Until then, I do believe that I am not the only one in this predicament. I am thinking of starting a support group.

On Writing Well

Some of my friends tell me that I write the way I talk. One of them says that when she reads my posts, she feels like she's hanging out with me. This is good, since she lives about 800 miles away and we rarely get to see each other. Occasionally though, I'll be talking to friends that live locally and I notice that maybe they're not really paying attention. Or maybe they seem a bit impatient. It's like they already know what I'm going to say. And then it dawns on me: they do. They read the blog. Whoops. OK, there's no way for me to know they read it, so I guess it's not really my fault. I don't mean to be redundant. Some of my friends used to tell me that I told them the same thing over and over again. That was my fault. But I just stopped talking to them anyway—jerks. Unfortunately, though, now I'm beginning to get confused. The other day I started to tell a friend something and almost stopped myself because I thought she might have read the post, but then I realized that I hadn't written it yet.

I write in my head while I'm walking or driving the car. It gets a little crazy because then I have to rush to get wherever I'm going so I can type some notes really quickly. I don't want to forget. I run through the door yelling "don't talk to me" or something similar and grab a computer. The husband gets annoyed because dinner is ready. I can't really blame him. The family is hungry. But my memory ain't so good these days. Gotta write things down.

I sometimes write in my head in the shower, too. I thought about writing on the shower doors but that wouldn't really work well. I wouldn't be able to see what I've written until someone else is in the shower and then I would be on the outside and everything would be backwards. And, I imagine that whoever is taking the shower wouldn't really appreciate it. Also, someone would probably draw a big smiley face over my notes. They have no respect for the written word. Even if it's printed in steam.

I'd never really written anything significant before I started writing these posts a few months ago. I didn't think I was very good at writing. In my senior year of high school, my AP English teacher took me aside and said, "I don't understand why you're doing so poorly in my class. You did better than everyone else on the placement test." Hmmmm. Even as a kid I knew that the placement test, a multiple choice exam given in ninth grade, wasn't indicative of how I would write in twelfth. Or how my critical thinking skills would be. This was a woman with a Ph.D and a side job grading AP exams. I hoped that she wasn't going to be the one grading my paper.

It's troubling to me that school kids are forced to write a comprehensive essay in a class period. It's a lot of pressure. Sometimes these essays are worth a large portion of a kid's grade. I know from my own experience that, at least in my real world, I will never have to write something really super important, something that might possibly make or break my future, in less than an hour. I suspect that this is true for most people I know. Unless, of course, you are a journalist breaking a big news story. Or you're taking a test. Of course, we all know that testing is the reason there is so much stress on writing a complete essay in under an hour at school, but no one will tell you that. Because that would probably fall under the heading of "teaching to the test," which no school wants to hear they do, even though many of them do it.

It typically takes me longer than an hour to write a good email. If this were the olden days, if someone were to draw a cartoon of me writing, there would be crumpled papers everywhere. They'd be on the desk, on the floor; the trash can would be overflowing with crumpled papers. Timed writing tests kill me. I am not the type of person who can whip something out. I have no formula. I have to think about it, mull it over in my head, try things out and give things up. My kids are the same way. Fortunately, they have usually been able to get through timed writing tests with good scores—they are able to grasp the format, the "key words and phrases" that get them the grades they need. Luckily, they haven't internalized some of the more dubious writing "skills" they were taught under the guise of good writing. In the past, I would occasionally read one of the girl or boy child's essays and ask, "Why the heck did you write that?? No good writer writes like that. It sucks!" And the kid would answer, "That's the way we're supposed to do it."

Certainly, there is validity in teaching a child how to organize himself and write quickly and efficiently. The bottom line is the kids need to do well on tests—efficient test-taking is an important skill they will need to get into universities and graduate schools. They might even need it for job placement. But test taking skills and good writing skills need to be differentiated from formulas that "test graders" use for rating standardized tests. Critical thinking and creativity need to be added to the mix. I'm not sure this differentiation is made clear, at least to the kids. When they were little, I may have once or twice advised my children to do whatever the teacher asked them to do, and then to completely erase it from their minds. I am a rebel. I am also afraid. I imagine that soon we will have created a generation of good writers thinking that they can't write because they have not learned how to write badly enough to get a good test score. Does that make sense?

Back in my senior year, two of the books we read were A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, and Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austin. At the time, I'm sorry to say, I couldn't get in to reading either of them. In the subsequent years, I have not picked up Portrait again. The fate of Stephen Dedalus never quite piqued my interest, although I have remembered his name all these years. Perhaps I should try it again. But, I've read Pride and Prejudice more than once and enjoyed it, thanks, in no small part, to Colin Firth and that scene in the mini-series where he arrives home and goes for a quick swim. You know the one. And, you may be wondering how I did on that AP exam I took so many years ago. I wound up with a 3, allowing me to skip a semester of freshman English. I guess we know who didn't grade my test.

Crank It Up

It is a known fact that no matter how loud I crank the Clash, as long as I am driving a minivan I am not cool. Even if I know all of the words to the song. Even if I am singing it at the top of my lungs. But this does not stop me. To the dismay of my children, if the right song comes on, I will crank it up. In the olden days, before cell phones, I'm sure people would see me and know that I was singing at the top of my lungs, even if the windows of the car were rolled up. But these days I just pretend I'm on the phone. Crazy, right?

I am not above riding around the block a couple of times to hear the end of a song, even if it will make me late for dinner. This is especially true when it's "Twofer Tuesday" on the classic rock station. I like the old songs because they are full of memories. You will not see me at a Bruce Springsteen concert today because I can guarantee that he will play music written after 1985. This may sound crazy to you, but it makes perfect sense to me. Those new songs? They don't hold me. They have no memories attached.

This doesn't mean that I never listen to newer music. Over the years I've discovered that I like lots of different types of songs. About thirteen years ago, the husband went to visit his family on the other side of the world for about three weeks. I had to take care of the baby girl child and the baby boy child by myself. This was hard because the baby boy child, who was about four months old at the time, didn't like to be by himself. EVER. He always wanted to be held. But one night, I managed to get him to sleep in his crib. For hours. Bliss. I had rented Pieces of April and got to watch the entire thing, uninterrupted. And when it was over, I had fallen in love with Stephin Merritt's music. The Magnetic Fields. The Sixes. When I hear that music, I think of the time when my children were babies.

We lived in an apartment building when the kids were first born, and we had a neighbor with two teenage daughters. I remember that one day she told me how she still loved to kiss her daughters' toes. At the time, I thought that was really strange, but now I understand. It goes so fast. They won't let you kiss their toes forever, you know. The other day when I was at the bus station, I saw a mother with her little boy on her lap. He was fast asleep, sprawled across her body with his head on her shoulder. He must have been about five. I could remember how that felt. The weight of that little body, the rhythm of his breathing. My kids are too big to sleep like that now, although I think the girl child tried to recently. It didn't really work out. After all, she is bigger than me.

I was shopping for a baby gift last weekend, and I found myself getting a little weepy in the infant section. I looked at all of the sippy cups and tiny socks, and realized that this part of my life was over. My kids are big now. They are stinky in a way that is not the same as baby stinky. Sure, one day I might have some grand kids, but it will be different. Maybe it will be better, who knows? After all, you can play with grand kids and then give them back to their parents. But there's something to be said for those other times. Those times you think you'd like to forget about. Like when it's the middle of the night and the girl child is crying and you pace the floor with her and when you wake up in the morning, you're sitting upright on the couch with a sweaty baby on your chest, and baby boogers are caked in your hair. And you don't care. Honestly, there's nothing quite like it.

So I was wondering why I got so emotional in the baby section the other day. After all, it's not like I haven't bought baby gifts in the last year or two. But perhaps, things have changed in my life. Perhaps that is what is different. These days, I officially have two teenagers. The boy child doesn't mind sleeping in his room anymore. In fact, he spends a lot of his time in there with the door closed, doing his homework at his desk and chatting with his friends on Skype. I miss him. He used to sit in the living room to do his homework. Sometimes, I call him into the living room just so he can hang out with me. Even if we're doing different things, like reading and watching TV. Just so we can be in the same room. The girl child still does her homework in the dining room, but now she has a boyfriend. We used to spend time together on Saturday, but now I drop her off at her in-laws, and she spends the day with her boyfriend. If I have custody of them, sometimes we go out together, but now it is the three of us, not just us girls. These are good times. I am lucky to have the girl child and her boyfriend. And I now have my blissful time alone, but I will have plenty of that in only a few years. I don't really need to have that time alone now. I am ambivalent.

The girl child tells me that some of her friends think I'm cool because I enjoy listening to the music they like. When we ride in the car, the girl child brings her ipod and we connect it to the cassette deck. Yes, I still have a cassette deck in my car. Stop laughing at me. Anyway, she plugs it in and we sing along to the Fray and Panic at the Disco. I like being a cool mom. They just better not ride with me on a Tuesday.

After: Diet

I've finally gotten to the "After" phase of my purification, but I'm not quite ready to post the "After" picture yet. My three week program ended two weeks ago. That three weeks consisted of a total of twenty-one days, in case you weren't counting. I don't know how many hours or minutes, but when I first started the program I was considering making the calculation. It seemed like a long stretch of time, but it went faster than I thought it would. The first ten days I couldn't eat anything but fruits and vegetables. I struggled with that a bit, but it got better. I discovered that I really like to eat kale chips. Kale chips are addictive. The kids like them, too. I had to keep the chips right next to me during dinner or the kids would try to grab them. Luckily, I'm quick with my fork. By the way, you don't eat kale chips with a fork. The fork was for protection. Of the kale chips. Not the kids. Kids get too close to the kale, they get hurt. Just sayin'.

I cooked a bunch of really nice side dishes throughout those three weeks, but no real main courses. The girl child kept wanting to try everything, like wild rice sauteed with mushrooms, and mashed butternut squash with sweet mayan onions and apples. I told her to eat her own food and leave mine alone, but then I wound up letting her have some. I am a sucker. I never quite got the hang of making an all veggie meal though because I wasn't allowed any beans and very little brown or wild rice. I got a cup of lentils a day. I don't understand how those folks on the purification blogs that post all the food pictures do it. They must have a lot of time on their hands to figure out all those good recipes. Anyway, on the eleventh day, I was allowed lean meats. I thought that "meat day" was going to be much more of an event than it turned out to be. I was happy to have the protein back in my diet, though. It made it easier to eat with the family.

It is very important that I've learned to pronounce quinoa. The girl child thought it was hysterical that I didn't know how to before, but she had never seen how it's spelled, so what the heck did she know? She is a know-it-all, that girl child. Anyway, I have been needing to say quinoa quite a bit lately, so now I can say it with confidence. Keenwa. Why don't they just spell it like that? Anyway, I say quinoa because I've gone gluten free, and a lot of that stuff is made from quinoa. I'm not a purist, though. In other words, I cheat. But I'm the only one who suffers if I do, so that's OK. My family went out for chinese food to celebrate the lunar new year recently, and I paid for that big time. I won't be doing anything like that again soon. But it's not like I have a condition that will make me super sick if I eat something I'm not supposed to. I'm very lucky in that respect. I've got a bunch of different kinds of corn and quinoa pastas hanging out in my pantry now, and a pretty tasty organic gluten free multi-grain bread. I ate my first slice yesterday. I toasted it. I burned it. Seriously, have I forgotten how to make a piece of toast in five weeks? That is just pathetic. But, maybe it's better that way. I'm trying to stay off the carbs.

Mostly carb free has it's benefits: at the end of the three weeks, I lost eight pounds. Eight. Count ’em! one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Oh wait! I've been in post-purification mode for two weeks, and the pounds are still gone, so you can count ’em again! one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine. Oh, did I go up to nine that time? Well, yes, yes I did. Because yesterday the needle on the Hello Kitty scale went down one more pound, I'm happy to say. A very nice side effect of purifying. A very nice side effect, indeed.

But, the most important aspect of the purification is how it makes me feel. I'm not belittling the weight loss though. Really. I'm not. But my energy level these days is incredibly high compared to the way it was in early January and before, and I can attribute that to my new diet. My skin is better, and so is my digestion. The diet consists mainly of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and beans. I've cut out most dairy. I've discovered gluten free chips and crackers and am trying to stay away from them because they taste really good and I can eat an entire package. Oh, and then there's the dark chocolate. The doctor said that dark chocolate is good for you. I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, but you can see why I keep going back to him. I think he is a very smart man.

There are a lot of recipes out there that I can try, but I'm having some fun making up my own. I tried one the other day that I'll share with you. I call it Faux-lafel. I've discovered that my faux-lafel will not be the only one out there—the name is not exactly original—but I don't think anyone has the copyright on it so I'm calling mine that, too. I kind of ripped off the recipe from the ingredients label of a veggie burger they make at my local grocery store. I bought a package and liked it so much I decided to start making the burgers myself, but then I realized I could roll the mixture into balls and pan fry them. The rest of the family liked them a lot. I think they would be better for everyone than real, deep fried falafel, so next time I'll be making the faux.

I'm also going to share one of my fave breakfast ideas with you. Since it's been really cold out, I've wanted to eat a hot breakfast. I used to eat oatmeal, but I wasn't allowed to eat that for three weeks. What could I make easily at work that would be warm and satisfying when I could only have fruits and veggies? And then it came to me: a "baked" apple made in the microwave. Not bad. Enjoy!


"Baked" Apple

Core the apple, sprinkle some cinnamon, and place into a shallow bowl. Cover with a paper towel and cook in the microwave for two or three minutes until the apple is soft and there's a yummy syrup at the bottom of the bowl. Eat. Carefully. Don't burn the roof of your mouth.

Faux-lafel

I use a food chopper I got from Pampered Chef* to chop all of the ingredients for this recipe. It makes life a heck of a lot easier. All the quantities can be played around with to your taste. I faked it myself, so you can, too.

1 can organic chick peas, drained and mashed
1/2 carrot, chopped fine
3/4 bell pepper (red, yellow, orange, green or a mix of all), chopped fine
1/2 medium onion, chopped fine
1/2 zucchini, chopped fine
2 large white mushrooms, chopped fine
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped fine
1-2 teaspoons cumin, to taste
salt and pepper to taste
flour and panko crumbs if you eat gluten; gluten free flour and cornmeal if you don't

Mix together all ingredients in a large bowl. Form into patties (makes about 5) or into 1" round balls. Pan fry in grape seed oil until golden brown. Tasty!

*I have to give a plug to my pampered chef guy, David Meenan, aka the Broadway Chef. If you live in NJ and want to have a party, you should call him. My party was a long time ago, but he sang and did Riverdance on a cutting board. He is a hoot.

Koyaanisqatsi

Last semester at school, the girl child studied Romeo and Juliet. She talked about it a lot. This afternoon I was thinking about the part where Juliet makes the case that the only thing that matters is what things are, not what they're called. You know, the "rose by any other name" speech. I think this is generally true. But . . . maybe not for everything.

Take this blog for example. It's called Commuter Mom. It's called that because I'm a commuter. And because I'm a mom. You know, a commuter mom. It was initially supposed to be only about that. And then life intervened. I started writing about my fibromyalgia and about my childhood and about weight loss and now I wonder what else is going to come out of my head and into my blog. So now, I'm thinking that maybe the name is kind of deceptive. Maybe people will go to read it thinking that it's going to be about commuting or parenting and it'll be about sticks of butter. Wha?

As you've probably surmised, I'm thinking about changing the name of the blog. I was going to call it "Koyaanisqatsi." I know this word because of my considerable grasp of the Hopi language, from which this word is derived. But the more I think about it, I realize that my readers might not have such an extensive Hopi vocabulary. Maybe I should choose something in english. And anyway, the name's already been used as the title of a documentary. Executive producer Francis Ford Coppola. Music by Philip Glass. I wouldn't want to cause any confusion, right?

"Koyaanisqatsi" means "life out of balance" (that's the subtitle of the movie, too). It's also been translated as "chaotic life," "crazy life," "life in turmoil," "life of moral corruption and turmoil." It could be "a state of life that calls for another way of living." You know kind of like my life. Sort of. Because, my life has been out of balance. And recently, I've begun to attempt another way of living.

I will not be calling the blog anything using the words "chaotic life." Apparently, that title has been taken by a homeschooling mom, a chick that blogs about her family (cute kids), and a twenty-one year old that likes to talk about everything that happened to her that day, including things I'd really rather not know about. I just gave each of them two hits on their blogs. It's the least I could do. I think I'll skip going the "moral corruption and turmoil" route. To those that would drop by to see what's written under that title, I'm sure my blog would only disappoint. I'm kind of into calling it "Life Out of Balance." Like last week, when my accupuncturist said I had too much Yang. That's out of balance. Right?

So, what do you think? Should I change the name? You got any ideas? Although this is not a democracy, I wouldn't mind a few suggestions. Please send me your comments. You can post them on the blog or on the facebook page. I would love to hear from you!

Like Buttah

I measure lost pounds in sticks of butter. Last month, I lost eight pounds. That is eight boxes of butter, thirty-two sticks. I see the sticks lined up like fenceposts, like street lamps along the road. The road is long, with sixteen sticks on each side. The boxes stack in a pyramid, not quite perfectly. I need more boxes to make the pyramid stable, but I am still proud.

I can relate to sticks of butter. I can picture what I want to lose. A stick for the upper arm, maybe two, one quarter-pound each. Each thigh could take two, the stomach six. I add them up as I go. Another ten boxes should do it. Another ten will make it right. This means forty more sticks. I've already lost thirty-two. I can do another forty. Why not?

I imagine the pounds of butter melting away. This imagery works for me. It also sounds kinky. We will not go there.

I think of the people who lose over one hundred pounds and I imagine that number in terms of sticks of butter. The boxes would fill a refrigerator. I am in awe.

Permanent Record

One of the first things I told my kids when they started school was that there was no such thing as a "permanent record." I know, I suppose that if you brought a switchblade to school or some drugs, you would probably acquire a record pretty quickly. But that would probably result in a police record as well. When I say permanent record, I mean the one in which your frequent tardiness or other miscellaneous infractions are recorded, the likes of which I highly doubt a future employer would bother to consult when considering you for a job. Why the threat of it continues to exist beats the heck out of me. No one will be stressing the boy child or girl child with that one.

Years ago when I was in junior high, the lunch aides came out to "the field" where I was hanging out during recess and tapped me on the shoulder. They got my friend, too. We were to come with them. We were in trouble. I was confused. I never got in trouble. Yeah, sure, I was sitting out at "the fence," the area next to the high school track where the "cool" kids hung out, talked and smoked cigarettes. But I had quit smoking at the ripe old age of fourteen, and I was just sitting there. Turns out, my friend and I had been accused of leaving a cafeteria tray under a table. Both of us had brought our lunches that day in brown paper bags, the only cool lunchbox at the time, but apparently that wasn't enough to excuse us. They separated us; I was led to the gym with the principal, my friend down the cafeteria hallway with a teacher, presumably to show him where we had been sitting. The principal told me I had to tell him who did it, or my friend would get detention for two weeks and it would go on her permanent record. Her permanent record. Man, that sucked. I held out for as long as I could, was even late for class, but eventually I caved. I gave the name of the one who had done it, one of the tougher cool girls who had been sitting near us in the cafeteria that day. The name that the boy who had given our names to the principal had been too chicken to give. Because he knew what would happen.

I was shunned. I was a snitch. Did that principal know what he had done? I had been living on the periphery of the cool crowd, too socially inept and self-conscious and immature to really fit in. I was not invited to all of the parties. None of the boys were interested in going out with me. I only wanted to be accepted. But now, it was all over and unfortunately, I had no other friends to turn to. I had been a victim of that cruel shift that often takes place during middle school, when childhood friends drift in different directions. Ultimatums are given. Choices are made. Ill-advisedly, I had blithely tossed away my close friends who rode bikes and flew kites, joined school clubs and sometimes even still played with dolls. Instead, I chose to learn to blow smoke rings. I tried my first joint. My first beer was purchased by someone's older brother and consumed in the woods. I looked and acted like I was ten. I looked like an idiot. Looking back, perhaps the principal had just been trying to do me a favor. Nah . . . he was just a jerk.

Thirty years later, I found myself in that same hallway leading to the cafeteria, fighting flashbacks of my middle school years. We had moved back to the hometown a few years earlier to be near my mom. My junior high had become an elementary school. The classrooms that had housed shop class and home ec were now the kindergarten rooms. My home ec teacher had hated me. She thought I was hopeless. I had forgotten to put the flour in the chocolate chip cookies. Who could blame her? I gritted my teeth and led the girl child down the hall, past the place where one of the popular girls had made fun of what I was wearing, and everyone had laughed. A picture of the former principal hung high on the wall, sneering down at me. I fought the urge to run upstairs to the second floor girls' bathroom to light a cigarette. I didn't even have a cigarette. I forced a smile and made myself push open the classroom door, and there it was. A kindergarten. Complete with blocks and legos and picture books and a throng of teeny tiny adorable people. I could get used to this.

Eventually, I no longer thought of the gym as the location of the many humiliations I suffered those two long years when I was unable to make a basket or climb a rope. When I walked into that room, I no longer pictured the principal threatening my friend. The gym became the place where the girl child won a trophy at the school spelling bee, reciting "f-u-r-n-i-t-u-r-e" so quickly that the moderator could barely keep up, and earning a spot in the regional tournament. It became the scene of carnivals and chorus concerts and awards ceremonies. And on Halloween, the high school marching band crossed "the field," right past "the fence" to the blacktop, where the little ones and their teachers, every one in costume, paraded in a circle while the moms and dads and grandparents laughed and took pictures.

Those childhood friends tossed aside so long ago eventually became friends again. The cool kids? Well, the cool kids are no longer cool. They are just . . . nice. We all meet on Facebook. We admire photos of each others children and grandchildren, celebrate each others successes, give each other encouragement, mourn with each other. We tell each other stories, confess crushes from elementary school. Sometimes, someone will post an old photo. A young girl, leaning against a car. I realize that I don't yet know the woman she has become. I am starting to. But this girl? I know this girl.

These friends are special. More than any other group of friends, we share a unique history of how we came to be. It is a history with a soundtrack. It is the Partridge Family, The Fifth Dimension, The Monkees, The Beatles. I can see the boys playing air guitar to Smoke on the Water. Taking Care of Business transports me to a school cafeteria. The Grateful Dead comes on the radio and there is only one girl I think of. It is an eclectic mix. It is Led Zeppelin, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Bruce Springsteen. It is the wailing of Jackson Brown and the symphonic, etherial sounds of Renaissance. And so many years later, it is our permanent record.