A Year in Suburbia

March 31, 2011

{Photo: www.ohdeedoh.com}

This week marks a full year since we packed up our city life and moved to the suburbs. And not only did we live to tell, but you know what?  I love it.  It’s true.

Most of the time. 

However, after 365 days in this new world, I’m here to report there are still a few things that I could do without:

  • The reliance on a car:  I miss walking all over the place.  Of course, I can walk in the suburbs — it’s permitted — but the truth is that the car is usually the more realistic option.  And along with that comes the endless in-and-out-of-the-car seats nonsense that makes me just a little more insane every day.
  • Lack of anonymity:  In the city, there wasn’t any small talk or chit-chat with strangers.  And that was fine by me.  I’m terrible with small talk.  It was perfectly acceptable to stand in your building’s lobby and stare straight ahead while waiting for the elevator.  I did have some very sweet, older widows who lived on my floor, and it was nice that they stopped to check in on me when I was very pregnant (though there was a certain “Rosemary’s Baby” vibe that I tried not to overblow) — but they stayed largely out of my business.  I’ve since had to re-learn social graces like inviting someone in when they knock on my door.  The week we moved into our house, several families stopped by with trays of  cookies and cakes to welcome us.  I have to be honest — it freaked me out a bit.  And as I reluctantly opened my door to them, all I could wonder was if I now have to bake every time someone moves into the neighborhood.
  • No quick errands:  At times, I miss the corner bodega more than I can express.  Like when I just need a can of beans to finish a recipe.  No problem — I’ll just walk to the corner and…nevermind.  Now it’s back in the car, finding parking, going through the whole big grocery store.  It  just takes longer than it’s worth.  {That’s right, I don’t have much patience.  I’m not really working on it but I will own it.}
  • New Jersey Transit and the PATH Train:  They are the 8th and 9th circles of Hell, respectively.  I never thought I could miss the NYC MTA so damn much.  It’s a well-oiled machine by comparison.
  • Suburban Starbucks:  Yes, I have a Starbucks problem.  You know it and I know it.  Now, if we’re all done judging me for my overpriced coffee habit, can we just weep in solidarity over the hoops I must jump through to secure this beverage?  Before, I walked to the corner.  Now, I drive (just a mile, but a drive nonetheless).  I circle for parking.  I pay for parking.  And I have to make small talk while waiting for my coffee.  I really think there’s a viable business model in a Starbucks Addict Premium Delivery Service.  I know I’m not alone here, or the green coffee goddess wouldn’t still be in business.
  • BYOB:  I know that, in many respects, it’s better that you have to bring your own booze to restaurants. It’s cheaper.  You get what you want.  There are many upsides.  Except when you are me (or my husband) and you never, ever remember that this is part of going out to dinner in our town.  And then what — a dry meal?  Uh, no, sir.  It’s instead this: “You run, as fast as you fucking can, to the wine store, before they close — quick!! — and I’ll find an appetizer on the menu to order for you” (translation: an appetizer of my choosing so that I can enjoy half of it).

OK, OK — I sound horrible, I know.  So let’s be nice to Suburbia — she has quite a lot to offer.  Though my love affair with her started slowly, I am now pretty enamored.  And even though New York City will always be my first geographic love — I lived in four of the five boroughs over my 16 years there, so I’m not just talking Manhattan — let’s fight fair and point out some annoyances of urban living that I really don’t miss.

  • Lack of living space:  Do me a favor.  Take your hand and open it up as far as you can.  That was about the size of my bathroom in my last apartment.  For a family of four.  And did I mention I pathologically hate clutter?  It was a battle I could not win. 
  • Circling for parking:  You could pretty much bet cash that, any Sunday night when we returned from a weekend trip with the kids, the dog and all of our stuff, it would be raining, sleeting or snowing.  So this insane dance would ensue of double parking while unloading our kids and our stuff curbside while someone ensured the car wasn’t ticketed. 
  • Being accosted by crazies:  Don’t get me wrong.  There are plenty of nutters in suburbia — but they keep more to themselves.  The New York crazies really get up in your face.  It’s been awhile since an amateur preacher screamed in my face about the end of days or my sinning ways.  Or a one-armed ukulele player spit at my feet for not giving him my half-eaten soup.  I don’t miss that so much.  If I want crazy, I know plenty of people I can call.
  • Planning for higher education of a child in utero:  Pre-school lotteries and interviews — with college-sized tuition bills to match.  No thanks.  If I told you what I paid in day care costs for two children in the city…I can’t even think about it.  In fact, I had to tell the day care place that I was pregnant with my second child before most of my relatives knew — so that she could have a spot in a year.  For day care.  Not Harvard.  Not even private kindergarten.  Day care.  Anyway, I felt like I won the lottery when I was reminded that my property taxes in the suburbs cover the cost of a very good public school system.  Now I can keep up my Starbucks habit.
  • Escaped Egyptian Cobras from The Bronx Zoo:  OK, so it was just this once.  But, still — it gave me the creeps.  Who can live in fear like that?

In full disclosure, I’m still in Manhattan every day for work, so I probably haven’t had a proper chance to really mourn the death of my city life yet.  But I do get wistful about it now and then.  Central Park.  The West Village.  Delicious food at all hours.  The energy and the diversity.

And then I think about that tiny, tiny bathroom.  The windows that didn’t really close all the way.  That occasional but nasty rat running out in front of you on the street.  The navigation of the double stroller through the endless winter.  The day care tuition bill. 

So I guess what I figured out, after this year of change, is that my heart belongs to both the city and to suburbia.  But a girl can have more than one great love, right?

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Filed Under: Borderline Neuroses, Food & Drink, New to Town, Places Near and Far, That Which Drives Me Crazy 18 Comments

Cousins

March 29, 2011

This past weekend was my nephew’s fifth birthday, so we headed up to their house for the festivities. 

Since neither my nephew nor my son has a brother, they really enjoy their time together.  Shockingly, they don’t fight much either — even though they are the often-precarious one year apart in age. 

They even share toys. It's bizarre and magical.

After much celebratory food, drink and games (including my new favorite — Duck, Duck, Grey Goose — merging the old classic with some cocktail-infused parental participation), my son was invited to spend the night.  He’s a tentative kid in many respects, but this was like his equivalent of a winning lottery ticket.  A whole overnight stay with his four cousins?  Jackpot.  The boy did not blink, and practically showed us the door.

What followed, I’m told, was a lot of this.

And this.

So, they played.  And played.

And we had a retro afternoon, back to the days of just one child at home.  Amazing how much less your brain melts when half the amount of small people are talking at you all day. 

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law ended up with five kids for the day, instead of their standard brood of four.  But they insisted that Number Five fell right into line and caused them very little incremental pain.  I think they were just being nice.  But we’ll take it.

I wish we could find more time to get the two boys together — it really was such a treat for them to hang out.  Here’s to hoping that it will always be this way between them.

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Filed Under: Family 10 Comments

The Surest Sign of Spring

March 28, 2011

{Photo: www.greenindustrypros.com}

I totally missed the memo in my town, but they have collectively decided that Spring is here. 

No matter that it’s 39 degrees outside.  The weather is not the deciding factor.  Nor is the calendar.

Here’s what drives the edict:  The mass release of the landscaping trucks.  It’s like a well-choreographed invasion.

This week actually marks a year since we took up life in the suburbs.  And I remember last year at this time, sitting in our new home, unpacking box #48,876.  I remember, one morning, the distinct sound of lawn machinery coming from four different directions at once.  In total precision.  I looked outside and what quickly followed was my realization that *everyone* on the block has a landscaping guy army. 

Over the next few days, as I unpacked more boxes, I saw the pattern.  The armies pulled up to the homes at 9:00 sharp, every day.  They pruned.  They plucked.  They manicured.  They planted.  They mulched.  Then they disappeared into the quiet suburban wind.  Sort of like Keyser Soze with a leaf blower.

I peered from my undressed windows — more than a little freaked out.  In the city, we had a few house plants.  Some lasted longer than others by virtue of sheer sun position and luck, but we clearly weren’t ready for prime-time suburban landscaping.

So, suffice it to say we had not secured a beautification crew for our yard.  We saw and bought the house in the dead of winter, under a foot or two of snow.  And we probably should have wondered what, exactly, would emerge as the landscaping vision upon first thaw. 

Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.  There was a certain overgrown, tumbleweed, Wild, Wild West quality that didn’t seem to quite fit in.

Realizing our precarious footing, we scrambled to right the wrong of our yard before we were driven out of the neighborhood by a unanimous vote of the Town Council.

Then the landscaping solicitation began, as if on cue.  It was like the Town gave them a copy of our closing documents and a photo of the lawn.  They smelled blood in the water and knew it was only a matter of time before we caved in to abject peer pressure in the form of weed wackers and wood chips. 

And they were right.  Soon, we found our guy.  He was just waiting for our call — I picture him leaning up against his truck, smoking a cigar and buffing his nails while thinking of ways to set our money on fire.  

Our guy made good and quick progress.  This was rewarded with third-party endorsements in the form of a not-so-occasional comment from a neighbor about what an improvement we’d made to the property. 

{Translation:  “We were waiting for you to fix this shit up.  If you hadn’t, we’d consider reporting you to the Town for the public beating that occurs on the second Tuesday of the month, or — worse — excluding you from our block’s Christmas Eve Luminary Spectacular.”}

Alrighty then.  Bullet dodged.  We were allowed to stay.  Just in time for winter.

I’ll tell you, it was nice to have the winter off from the Landscaping Olympics.  Sure, there were epic snow blower competitions and plenty of occasions to mock our lack of de-icing salts, but that seemed like small potatoes. 

But now it’s abundantly clear to me that I made a classic rookie mistake.  I was stupid to assume, under the heavy cloak of winter, that nobody was planning their 2011 landscape design concepts over Christmas Dinner and envisioning their thematic topiaries during the fireside chats of multiple housebound snow days.

As for us, we had used our time poorly.  We were asleep at the wheel, fat and happy in our naive view that it was still winter. 

Of course, I missed the note that Opening Day was today. It must be optimal crocus primping time.  Or mulch preparation week.  Without warning, the trucks and lawn equipment besieged the neighborhood at 9:00 this morning — as I leisurely went off to pre-school drop-off.  It was like being caught with my pants down.

And there was our guy — cigar in hand, leaning against his truck with a menacing “Come to Papa” grin at the end of our driveway, basically asking for direct access to our checking account or a vein.

Spring has sprung.  Let the invasion begin.

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Filed Under: New to Town, Project Colonial, That Which Drives Me Crazy 9 Comments

Just Like a Superstar

March 25, 2011

I think I’m having a bad reading week.  

Following the cathartic release of my pent-up disdain for Real Simple, it was clear that I needed to read some mindless celebrity rag and decompress.  It was also a good way to divert my thoughts from work stuff and toddler behavior (two things that are not always mutually exclusive, it seems).

So. I was thumbing through one of these bad magazines when I just had to stop at the “What’s In My Bag?” feature.  I had a revelation.  Stars really are just regular people, aren’t they?  Let’s see how the bag of one TV star is just like mine.

Kate Walsh: What’s in My Bag?

{Photo: Us Weekly}

In the latest issue of Us Weekly, the Private Practice star dumps her purse to reveal an impressive array of snacks, beauty products and entertainment.

 

Here’s what’s in her bag (Celine Classic Box Bag, $3,400 — already, the similarities are striking):

  • Apple ipod Classic, $249
  • Jil Sander Sunglasses, $206
  • Hanky Panky Low-Rise Thong, $18
  • BlackBerry, Prices vary
  • Colgate Wave Toothbrush, $3.49
  • MAC Eye Kohl Pencil, $14.50
  • MAC Lipglass, $14.50
  • Chanel Les 4 Ombres Quadra Eyeshadow in Spices, $57
  • Dior ‘Creme de Rose’ Lip Balm SPF 10, $25
  • Kate Somerville Serum Sunscreen SPF 55, $45
  • Goody Ouchless Elastics, $3.49
  • Boyfriend Body Crème, $45 

In summary, Kate can basically change her underwear, apply make-up and communicate while out and about.  These are all useful functions, no doubt.  But she seems to have no need for a wallet, credit card or payment instrument of any kind.  I guess her people handle those pesky details while she is alternating between three shades of lipstick and a fresh thong in the back seat of her limo.  I can totally relate.  It’s a lot like my morning commute to work.  Or the drop-off at pre-school.

Fordeville:  What’s In My Bag?
 

{Photo: Me. In the family room.}

 
In the latest issue of The Fordeville Diaries (also known as a regular Friday), a distinctly un-glam working mom in the burbs trips on a toy in her family room and accidentally dumps the contents of her purse all over the floor to reveal a patheric array of snacks, quasi-beauty products and entertainment. 

 

Here’s what’s in her bag (Coach, two years old and bought with a gift card):

  • Blackberry Curve, for work email, the instrument of all evil
  • Apple iPhone, for real life, after employer blocked access to personal email
  • Knock off sunglasses, $35
  • No thong or underwear of any kind
  • Faux snakeskin wallet, $11 at Target
  • Checkbook with plain blue sleeve, Citibank
  • Memory stick (there it is! found it!) with family photos, budget spreadsheets
  • Carmex lip balm, $1.79
  • Clinique lipstick, After Party (for all of those red carpet events)
  • Altoids mints
  • Band Aids, plain (“Wheeeere are the Diegggggggo band aids??!” — 3 year old)
  • Hair clips for 20 month-old, unused by way of tantrum
  • Hair bands for adult, used far too frequently to achieve said un-glam look
  • Half pack of Kleenex, sort of clean, maybe
  • One contact lens
  • Eye drops
  • Macy’s gift card
  • A packet of aspirin (no explanation necessary)
  • Four very old Ricola cough drops
  • Five pence from trip to London
  • Book of matches
  • {Not pictured:  16 crusty cheerios and one Thomas the Tank Engine take-along train — both snatched upon sight by dog and son, respectively}

All this time I thought I was living a normal life.  I just can’t believe I didn’t notice it before, but we really are almost the same person, Kate and I.  It’s exactly as they say in the magazine:  Stars — They’re Just Like Us. 

It’s a newfound sisterhood.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a thong to carry in my bag to complete my superstar transformation.

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Filed Under: Entertainment 21 Comments

My Other Husband

March 23, 2011

One of my irrational fears (sadly, there are many) is that a musician has died whenever I hear several of his/her songs in a short span of time on the radio.  If it’s not Two for Tuesday or Perfect Album Side time on some of my NYC stations, I assume the worst — that I am bearing witness to a posthumous musical tribute.  In reality, it’s almost always just stupid coincidence from one station to the next.

Today, I nearly panicked.  My Other Husband’s band had songs popping up all over the radio.  My concern for his well-being immediately skyrocketed.

Who is he?  He fronts my favorite band ever.  Our relationship spans 23 years.  Well, in a one-way sort of manner.  If you know me in real life, none of this will be news to you.  Importantly, this includes my Real-Life Husband.  But for everyone else’s sake, it’s time I came clean about my Other Husband.

1987: My first concert ever.  Brendan Byrne Arena (now Continental Arena), NJ – aka The Meadowlands.  I was 15.  Tenth row floor, people.  I had no idea at the time how amazing these seats were, and that it would take me the better part of 20 years to occupy them again.  Some obscure band called Lone Justice was the opening act.

And then – then – this.

YouTube Preview Image

{I know, the clip says Syracuse, not New Jersey.  But the music and the vest were the same.}

I remember, in my virgin mind, looking at Bono in his sleeveless vest and long hair (remember, 1987) and thinking that this must be the definition of sex.  Seriously.  And it didn’t hurt that The Joshua Tree was the biggest thing since, well, any contemporary album I had ever known at that point.

And so, our relationship was born right there.  At least on my end.

He was busy traveling the world, though, getting famous.  Over the top famous.  And I was just in high school.  But I visited him often when he came to town, in my horrible nosebleed arena seats.  I visited him in the movie theater over and over to watch screenings of “Rattle and Hum.”  I visited him when he played other towns.  I even visited him in other countries (who wouldn’t love chanting “Ooo dos” with 90,000 Spaniards?).  I lined up my resources to flood the Ticketmaster phone lines at the stroke of 9:00am whenever the new shows went on sale.

I bought every album and committed it to memory.  Yes, even the bad ones.  (Yes, even Pop.)  I bought the posters that lined my dorm walls.  I bought the bootlegs.  The B-sides.  All of it.

He got more famous still, my Other Husband.  He became a quadrillionaire or something.  He met with world leaders, philanthropists, humanitarians.  People started to turn on him.  They said he was an egomaniac.  They said he cared more about celebrity than the music.  But I forgave him because he kept on singing for me.

Over the years, there have been a series of close calls and near misses of meeting my Other Husband that I have learned to live with.

  • His Manhattan apartment was ten blocks (yet worlds away) from mine.  But I was never the person who saw him at the local deli.
  • That video when U2 rides the streets of Manhattan on a flatbed truck?  I missed it.  By about three blocks.
  • Don’t even get me started about the day he showed up at my workplace and attended a meeting in a room adjacent to where I sat.
  • And then the narrowest of misses – the time he pulled a girl up from the audience who stood four feet from me.  It should have been me.  I deserved it.  She didn’t even know the words.  But her boobs were huge, so there you go.

I guess it’s just not meant to be.  And maybe it’s for the best.  Because, I’ll tell you, I’ve spent more time than I’ll admit here on what, exactly, I would say if I met him.  It all comes up short.  How do you tell someone that their music has been the soundtrack of your life without seeming like just another nutter?  It would make me feel ridiculous.

And I know what our relationship has meant to me – even if he doesn’t.

I lost count of how many times I’ve seen U2 in concert but I could tell you almost every set list for each show.  I could tell you what was happening in my life just then and what song I liked the best.  And I’ll argue with you all day that, pound for pound, The Joshua Tree was not actually their best album.  I mean, if you want.  Or we could talk about normal things, I guess.  Just don’t bring up the current Spiderman on Broadway debacle that my Other Husband is desperately trying to salvage.

No, I’m not a stalker – not by the technical legal definition in the State of New York.  I’m not crazy.  In fact, I’m probably too guarded and cautious as I get older.  But not about my Other Husband and his music.  It’s probably the one thing that I’m sort of loopy and obsessive about.

So, guys, great news – he’s not dead.  There was a ton of U2 playing on the radio this morning because the tickets went on sale for this summer’s shows.  And I didn’t know this in advance – I’m slipping.  But that’s OK.  I’ll be there – even if we have to move that summer vacation we just planned.

So, now that you think I’m certifiable, I’ll leave you with this.

YouTube Preview Image

 

It’s one of my live favorites.  It makes me feel 15, 22, 29 and 38 — all at once.  Say what you will about Bono, about U2, but you can’t argue with any piece of music that transcends all the periods of your life.

And for that, I truly love my Other Husband.

 

 

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Filed Under: Borderline Neuroses, Entertainment 15 Comments

Not So Simple

March 18, 2011

I have a love/hate relationship with Real Simple magazine.

The love comes from my Type A-ness and the imaginary affair I often have with a well-organized life.  In those moments, I pick up a copy of Real Simple a few times a year and gush over some of their home solutions and great ideas.  If I’m getting a pedicure or commuting (the only times I can read a magazine in peace), I fold the pages I like.  I marvel at the brilliance.  I vow to implement.  I consider a mail subscription so that I can read more great organizing tips that will surely change my life for the better.

And then our relationship begins to deteriorate.

I’ll be at home, in the grind of daily life, and I’ll spot the pile of Real Simple issues I’ve saved.  A pile that is adding to the clutter with which I wage a daily battle.  All with folded pages.  All ready for brilliant idea implementation that I never started.  Which adds to my already huge to-do list.  Which stresses me out.

And that’s when I go all Sybil and cross the fine line to resentment of Real Simple, followed by mockery and hatred. 

Who reads this nonsense, anyway?  In my now least favorite column, “New Uses for Old Things,” let’s just take a brief look.

  • New use for a shower cap:  A shoe bag.
  • New use for an oven mitt:  A curling/straightening iron heat guard.
  • New use for a mitten:  A carrying case for sunglasses.
  • And — wait for it — New use for popcorn:  Packing material for fragile shipments.

{Photo: Real Simple}

OK, people of Real Simple, let me tell you something.  If there is a batch of popcorn, a fragile shipment requiring packing materials and me in the same room, it’s going to go down like this:  I’m going to inhale every last kernel of the fucking popcorn and then drive my fat ass to the UPS store to pack up the shipment.  And, because my disdain for you at this point has now crossed into irrational territory, I might make that drive wearing the shower cap on my head, with the oven mitt and single mitten on each of my hands.  How’s that for simplifying?

You can see how our relationship is complicated. 

I’ll then purge the pile of magazines, ideas unimplemented (maybe with a few gems mentally filed away) and feel human again.  Until I spot the next issue on the shelves, when the cycle begins again. 

Real Simple, I wish I could quit you.

Perhaps I should refer to their column entitled “Relax in an Instant,” and then go back to reading People, while finishing the popcorn.  That might be for the best.

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Filed Under: That Which Drives Me Crazy, To-Do Lists Extraordinaire 26 Comments

Riverdance Meets The Sopranos: A Love Story

March 17, 2011

 

I’m 25% Irish. But I didn’t know anything about being Irish until I met my husband.

He is 100% Irish, with parents who are right off the boat (or, plane, in this more modern case). His mother is one of 12 children and his father one of seven. Many of these siblings also came to America around the same time, and settled in the same general vicinity of each other — in an area that I affectionately refer to as The Compound. So my husband has, by my estimation, 412 first cousins. (Not really — but it sure seems that way sometimes.)

My 25% Irish blood played no real role in shaping my childhood. If anything, my grandmother of Irish descent put that part of her completely aside in order to be a good Italian wife (and cook) for her Sicilian husband — blasphemy back then, incidentally. There was far more marinara sauce than Irish soda bread in my life, and my most Irish genetic trait remains my fierce loyalty to U2. Oh, and my propensity to sustain an ER-level sunburn after three minutes of being outside.

As a result, I had nothing in life to prepare me for the first family wedding I attended with my husband, back in 2000 when we were just dating. At first, it seemed like most other weddings. Standard dinner music was playing.

And then, not so much.

The Irish ballads began to play. And let me tell you, I’ve never seen such military precision, en masse, of several hundred people rising from their seats and rushing the dance floor.

To waltz.

My then-boyfriend extended his hand as if it was a given that we were getting out there.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” I said.  “This is level code-red intimidating. And you can waltz?”

“Of course.”

His hand was still extended and it was clear that he was not giving up. I shot the rest of my drink and hoped to blend into the crowd. After all, I reasoned with myself, I grew up a ballet dancer.

I’ve got this. It’s a waltz.

One, two, three — one, two, three.

I was getting by, even as I felt the eyes of 100 brogues burning into my back.

And there they were — mothers dancing with daughters, sisters with sisters, fathers with children, husbands with wives. The floor was packed, and they all did this so effortlessly, as if it was choreographed. They were having a ball. It was nice, actually. Really nice.

Just as I thought I might live through this, the waltz ended. And then I experienced what I can only describe as a movement — no, a mission — a series of shouts and beckons, dragging people from the bar to get everyone onto the dance floor. They were all excited. They were lining up. Who moves everyone away from the bar? What the hell was happening?

My date looked at me matter-of-factly.

“It’s The Siege of Ennis.”

“Excuse me? Are we under attack?”

“Just go with it.”

And then, this.

YouTube Preview Image

OK, it was clearly not these actual people. This is not wedding footage — it’s the Riverdance crew on YouTube. But I needed to give you a visual. Now, imagine a few hundred wedding guests of all ages on the dance floor doing this — again, with military precision. Well, drunk military precision. I was being spun and flung and sidestepped. It was abundantly clear that no amount of ballet training was going to help me save face this time. Where was the Tarantella when I needed it?

But I learned, slowly, wedding after wedding, how to survive The Siege of Ennis, the waltz and overall Irish group dancing.

And, five years later, when it came time for our own wedding (a union that my mother-in-law once labeled a mixed marriage because I’m not 100% Irish) I was in a quandary. I truly understood my husband’s wish to have Irish music at the reception, like his family always had. But it was also totally foreign to my family — who, at its core, is a group of true, true music lovers — particularly Motown and oldies. And it’s close to impossible to find a band that plays The Temptations and Irish tunes like “The Wild Rover” equally well. Trust me, I tried.

 

After our wedding ceremony

 

So, we did the (least) reasonable thing. We had two bands — one strictly Irish music, and one more mainstream wedding entertainment. You could have drawn a line down the middle of the room in terms of who was up and dancing for which songs. And so my wedding was, forever in  my mind, Riverdance Meets The Sopranos. (Did I mention that my dad and his brothers kind of look like gangsters?)

But they all lined up for The Siege of Ennis. Which was pretty cool, I must say.

If you or I thought that was the end of my indoctrination, sorry. Over time, there have been a  number of other things I never expected to experience, all in the name of Ireland:

  • The circuit of St. Patrick’s Day parades in the greater NYC area. Not just the big one in Manhattan, but several others spread out over the course of the month so that there are no scheduling conflicts. They basically consume March.
  • Attending an Ancient Order of Hibernians dinner dance to see my mother-in-law named Grand Marshall of one such local parade. Yes, there was abundant waltzing.
  • A spontaneous intrusion of bagpipers to mark my father in law’s 70th birthday. To clarify, this was just a low-key, immediate family sort of party at their house on a Sunday afternoon.  One minute, cake. The next, dudes in kilts marching through the house, playing bagpipes.  Nobody flinched. Not even a little.

Don’t get me wrong. I joke about all of this a lot — but I totally respect the loyalty this family has to their heritage. I had nothing like this growing up. My husband and his 412 first cousins all have this allegiance to their culture that is very deeply embedded. And you don’t find that so much anymore.

So, hats off  and Slainte to my husband’s Irish family today. And every day.

(Psst — “Black Velvet Band” is my favorite.)

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Filed Under: Entertainment, Family 25 Comments

The House That Al Gore Furnished

March 16, 2011

{Photo: www.smbceo.com}

“We need another chair in the living room — it still looks kind of bare,” my husband says.

“Hand me the laptop.”

He knows better by now than to suggest we go furniture shopping in person, an exercise in futility that I have pretty much abandoned. 

God Bless the Internet, I say.

Not just because I can log on to Facebook and Twitter, buy cute clothes and all of my groceries do research and get up to speed on hard-pressing issues, but because my family now has places to sit and to eat.  Pretty things on the walls to look at.  Storage solutions galore.  Without Al Gore’s modern invention, it’s very likely that we would still be using boxes or milk crates as furniture, and our son’s pre-school craft projects as decor, a year after buying our  house.

It all started innocently enough after we moved in.  Some decorative accents from Pottery Barn or someplace  similar.  A coffee table.  Pretty bedding, some rugs.  You know, normal Internet buying activity. Nothing crazy.

The turning point for me came when I decided to replace every single light fixture in the house — no small undertaking.  But let’s be honest — I didn’t have the time nor the insurance liability policy to drag a one and three year-old into lighting stores.  There’s a special place in Hell for that kind of torture. Can you hear the sound of glass (and my nerves) shattering to pieces?

So, my keyboard and I conspired with my monitor and some URLs to find a light for every room in the house without seeing a single fixture in person.  And I had a great success rate (except for the sconces that haunt me). 

It was fabulous.  So I kept going. 

A new bedroom set for my son:  Check.  Window treatments:  Check.  The outdoor swing set: Done.

The week before Christmas, I realized we had nowhere to store all of our china that had lived in boxes for years.  And so a new hutch arrived on our doorstep.  What to do about that empty space in the living room begging for a sofa table?  Twenty minutes later, ordered and ready to ship.

I was on a roll, so I moved on to things that I had previously reserved exclusively for in-person shopping visits — items I wanted to sit on, touch, see, ensure comfort in, etc.  A couch, a chair — done and done.  My new opinion:  Sitting on furniture before you buy it is so very 1990s.  If 16 out of 18 online reviewers told me the couch was comfortable, their asses are a fine proxy for mine.  Ship it here, please.

It got a little ridiculous. 

Boxes upon boxes on the front porch.  A familiar exchange with the UPS guy.  An arched eyebrow from my husband.  My new neighbors probably thought I was running an upholstery cartel.  But, hey — it was no different than spending the money in person (yeah, I got some great shipping deals, don’t you worry).  

Hi, Frank. Want to spend Thanksgiving with us?

It was better this way.  Because let me give you a brief list of why I can’t shop with my kids effectively:

  • Something will break.
  • Somebody will cry. 
  • Somebody will be hungry or thirsty.
  • The window of opportunity to make a decision is about 17 minutes.
  • No adult can complete a thought or a sentence.

All of this leads to either giving in to a crappy purchase or leaving empty-handed.  Again.

At home, I type away.  Kids are fed, happy, entertained.  I can even have a glass of wine while spending money.  Everyone wins.

I’m considering how to take this to the next level.  With spring here, who has time to visit those pesky nurseries to pick out plants and flowers?  Google, let’s make a date and get me some landscaping.  And that basement renovation staring me down?  I might need a better monitor for that one.

Maybe you are one of those “I must see it in person” shoppers.  I respect that.  If you have small children, I am in awe of you.  I am particularly in awe of you if your house doesn’t look like this.

My fate without my keyboard

But for me, it’s a losing proposition.  So, I’d say, 95% of our new house was furnished and decorated online.  And most of it happened to work out swimmingly. 

I don’t care to discuss the other 5% right now, because my “must return” pile is an ongoing thorn in my side.

That’s for another day, and a small price to pay in the name of progress.  So, thank you, Al Gore, thank you.

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Filed Under: New to Town, Project Colonial, To-Do Lists Extraordinaire 11 Comments

Back to Reality

March 14, 2011

I’m back!  Hope you all had a great week.  Can someone please explain why winter is still here?  Winter and I had an agreement that she would make her 2011 departure while I was away.  She is so fickle. 

Anyway.

A huge thanks to my fabulous guest bloggers who held down the fort while I was gone.  Because of them, I had a lengthy list of vacation cocktails.  I wish I could say I sampled every one of them, but then I’d be writing to you from rehab.  But they will stay with me for future reference.  And my DVR is ready to combust with the variety of great suggestions.  Not a bad problem to have.

Ten days away from reality is just what I needed.  But, I assure you, I wasn’t in a deck chair or floating in a pool the whole time.  We were on the move.  My set of plans revolved around visiting my mom and step father at their Snowbirding Headquarters in Florida. 

Don't be mad, Mom :)

Yes, there’s much more to their lovely set-up than a Bingo board — but I had never seen one before, so I had to snap the photo.  My mom and stepfather could, truthfully, dance any of us under the table — so I’m sort of misrepresenting them with the Bingo bit.

Anyway, with that as a home base, we also took two side trips:  1)  Two nights at Disney and 2) This is where it gets brilliant — two nights without the kids in the Bahamas, while my mom graciously babysat. 

With the Kids

This was the first trip to WDW with our kids (P and I have gone on our own, pre-offspring).  They are still young, so two nights was enough.  We had a ball, though not without some challenges, given their ages.  Here are some highlights:

–Money saving tip:  A nearly four year-old train fanatic doesn’t really care about anything except riding the monorail around the perimeter of WDW.  Repeatedly.  He is also map-obsessed, and so he was far more delighted by the map than by the real-life experience of WDW.  Which is totally fine.  Just so long as, in the future, I plan to simply ride the monorail for two days with map in hand and skip the ridiculous expense of park admission.  Of course I’m kidding.  Because then you can’t have ice cream shaped like Mickey’s head — which, in and of itself, is worth the price of the Park Hopper Plus ticket.

–So, I knew that 20 months old was not, shall we say, an ideal age for Disney.  This is The Era of Squirming.  The Age of I Won’t Sit Still.  The Time of Give Me Motion, Dammit.  And, of course, The Vacation Where I Refuse Any and All Seating.  Running free in the world’s most overcrowded theme park for long spells wasn’t really an option.  So the poor thing was just pissed most of the time.  But here she is in a “set free to run for a while” moment.

–In fairness, I can’t blame my daughter’s crankiness entirely upon her need to run.  It’s very likely that she was also pissed about inheriting my Floridian look, which is not attractive.  Do you know that “Friends” episode when Monica is in the Caribbean, and her hair continues to expand out horizontally from the humidity?  That’s me.  And, apparently, my daughter — whose hair began to resemble Nick Nolte’s mug shot after day two. 

–Lastly, can we please discuss these kids who fall asleep all over the place?  In their parents’ arms.  In a stroller.  While riding It’s a Small World (which, incidentally, still freaks me out).  On the Disney transfer bus.  Are they doped on Benadryl?  I don’t have these children who pass out when tired.  They instead get overtired and, well, you know how it goes after that.  But all of you with your sleeping beauties in their strollers, while you luxuriously eat your lunch with two hands, tell me your secrets.  Because I don’t get it.

But don’t get me wrong — we really did have a great time!  I just had to adjust my expectations to “OK, I guess three attractions per day is enough ground covered.” If the kids were happy, all was good.

And God bless WDW for giving a borderline-germophobe like me an endless array of marble, clean-as-heaven diaper changing stations.  Since you can’t drink in the parks, this went a long way towards keeping my sanity.

See?  Everyone is happy.  Except the baby, because she’s strapped into the stroller.

Without the Kids

After WDW, we ditched the kids dropped off the kids for quality time with their grandparents, while P and I grabbed a quick flight to the Bahamas for three days.  This was the polar opposite of our time at WDW (except for my hair, unfortunately — same look).  There were spa appointments.  Entire conversations without having to referee a fight over a toy.  The ability to eat a meal sitting down and with the use of two hands.  People waiting on us.  Reading things that don’t involve trains, cars, dinosaurs or Dora.  But I won’t pretend that I absorbed any fine literature.  Let’s just say that if you need any updates on celebrity gossip, I’m your girl.

However, I don’t want to you get the idea that it was all relax, relax, relax.  We did, after all, hit the casino both nights after dinner.  This was hard work, people.  It requires strategy (“I know that 8 and 20 will be next to win on roulette.”), communication (“Look, are you going to the ATM for more cash, or am I?”) and perseverance (“It’s crazy to leave now — I’m about to break even”).  So don’t accuse us of simply sitting around, eating and drinking. 

Before we could say “May I have another pillow for my beach chair?” — it was time to hop back over to Florida and pick up the kids.  It’s funny how, in 48 hours, you can simultaneously relish being without them and also miss them to pieces.  I owe my mom big time for babysitting.

So yesterday brought us back to New Jersey, with one less hour of sleep (where can I apply to get that back?).  And post-vacation Monday is a drag.  But I’m exceedingly grateful we got to take this trip.  And now I have to go talk to Winter about our arrangement. 

I’ll keep you posted.

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Filed Under: Family, Food & Drink, Places Near and Far 16 Comments

Tales of a Vacation Avoider

March 13, 2011

Today is the last day of my vacation guest blogging gig.  Which means it’s the last day of my vacation.  And I’m not ready to process that, so let’s instead talk about all the great writers who were here this week, inlcuding my final guest blogger today.

It’s my pleasure to have Anna from Random Handprints here to wrap up the week.  Much like me, Anna left the city for the suburbs and has been adjusting to life ever since.  Unlike me, she is a seasoned blogging pro, going more than four years strong.  She writes about her three kids, food, holidays and – perhaps closest to my heart – a newer section of content called Instructions for My Husband.  A must-read – especially this entry, which made me suspect that we may be married to the same man.

I’m thrilled that she agreed to share her unique angle on (non) vacationing with us (as I burn bask in the sun and try to hold a cocktail with one hand while chasing two toddlers).  Be sure to check out her full blog and follow her on Twitter @RandomHandprint.

——————————-

I am really excited to be guest blogging here at The Fordeville Diaries today because it is actually (to paraphrase Pee-wee Herman) my very first guest blog, ever. I am a Fordeville Diaries blogger. I’m. Really. Excited.

But my gig as a guest blogger isn’t the only thing I’m excited about today. I’m also excited that I am guest blogging here so the Lady of The Fordeville Diaries House can take a “vacation” with her two small children and her husband. And let’s admit it, the nicest I can do here is to put “vacation” in quotes. Because as anyone who has kids knows – there are vacations, and then there are trips with your kids.

Let me give a full disclosure right up front that I am a total vacation avoider. My husband begs us to take a family vacation every few months, and I refuse with a litany of excuses – we can’t afford it, the kids shouldn’t miss even a day of the rigors of the kindergarten and second grade curriculums, let’s wait and take a trip in a few months when the weather will be just perfect for going to… you get the idea.

I wasn’t always a vacation avoider. Oh no, before kids I liked to travel anywhere, anytime. Then we took our first post-baby trip. A modest undertaking to an all-inclusive resort in Florida. Days before we were to go, there was a hurricane. A big hurricane. The hotel suffered extensive damage and was forced to close and cancel our reservations. My husband insisted on re-booking.

After the questionable success of our thrice scheduled Florida trip, he next lobbied for (and won) a trip to Arizona. In August. We (and by we, I mean my husband) thought this vacation would be made even more perfect with the addition of his parents. This trip reminded me to never complain again that there is no one to “help” with the kids. Suddenly, with my in-laws around, the idea of being just with my husband and kids (even in Arizona in August) sounded like paradise.

But I digress, this post isn’t about my bad vacations. This post is about wishing the residents of Fordeville a great family vacation. I just know you’ll have a wonderful time and come back tan, rested and gloating about drinking daiquiris on the beach as the kids played adorably in the sand, all while the rest of us shoveled our cars out of yet another snowstorm and spilled scalding half-decaf coffee on our almost clean work clothes because some people can’t wait a minute, dammit, to get on the train.

If you’ve never had a Yellow Bird, I highly recommend it as my drink of choice when lounging around tropical climes. It’s a jigger of Rum with a ½ jigger each of Galliano and crème de Banana, mixed with orange juice, pineapple juice and a splash of lime. I only have one when my kids are playing indoor beach, their only option for waves and sand as the offspring of a vacation avoider.

And when you get back home, I suggest you make one more Yellow Bird, then head over to your DVR for the episodes you missed when you were away of The Office and 30 Rock. While you watch the reminders of your work life that sit waiting for you Monday morning, and you drink the last sips of your Yellow Bird and take a moment to wonder… maybe there is something pretty damn great about this whole vacation thing after all.

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Filed Under: Entertainment, Food & Drink, Places Near and Far 8 Comments
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