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They Say It’s Your Birthday

Wow, my son turns 30 in two weeks. Wait. Who are you, and what have you done with my baby? Seems like only yesterday I was cutting colored construction paper to make the feathers he needed to play the Indian Chief for the Thanksgiving grade school play. I was sure he was going to be the next George Clooney as he recited his lines through the big gap in his teeth, long before I sold my soul to afford the $3,000 braces he eventually needed.

I have worked outside the home since he was three months old. I remember crying the entire night before returning to the office shortly after he was born, knowing some strange woman wouldn’t understand that certain cry of his that either alerted you to a soiled diaper or hunger pangs or just frustration from not being able to reach that mobile teasing him overhead in his crib.

My husband and I both worked full-time and still managed to chauffeur him to youth league football, birthday parties, hayrides at Cox Farm in the fall, baseball games and doctor visits. I connected and bartered with neighborhood women who became my “village” and helped raise him as if he were their own.

Even the nurses at the local emergency room soon learned to call him by first name after his numerous visits and close calls, like when a nail went through his wrist from his attempt at building a skate boarding ramp, or the x-rays needed after he went airborne from a ramp he built into the snow bank…what is it with boys and ramps?

After numerous broken fingers that he played football with before telling a soul, running into the back of a car on his bike (yes, not the other way around…poor driver was hysterical and apologetic even though it was my son’s fault), we had finally realized that this kid’s threshold for pain was much more superior than his sense of good judgment.

For some reason, I can’t remember when he first started shaving, can’t remember when his voice dropped three octaves, can’t really remember handing him his first set of keys. There are moments that have slipped by, possibly because they were without drama and occurred in their natural progression of life events. It’s funny the little things I do remember, though: stinky football jerseys, hidden speeding tickets underneath his bed, six-month old McDonald’s wrappers under the seats of his car.

There have been numerous statistics and research studying children of parents who work outside of the home compared to inside the home. I personally don’t think you can put children on research charts and spreadsheets. They are each unique, and each parent has a different threshold for patience, flexibility, acceptance and love.

The only thing I know as we creep closer to Thanksgiving and to this birthday milestone of his is that I’ve been blessed.  Through all his eye rolling, teacher conferences, his sometimes turbulent teen years, school skipping and little white lies, he is kind, has lived life to the fullest and he brings out the goodness in others.

There are no statistics or research that can truly reflect the cause and effects of simply loving a child with all your heart.  Whether you are working in the home or in an office…it is work, plain and simple. It is doing the very best you can. And the rewards are endless.

Happy Birthday, A.J.

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Going Back to Work in 10, 9, 8…..

 

JUST KIDDING…I’LLL BE BACKKKKKKKKKK….

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Working Girl – Part Deux

One year and eight months. That’s how long my “vacation” has lasted. Actually, it’s the length of time I’ve been unemployed. They assigned a fancy term to it − “reduction in force.”  But after being loyal to the company for 16 years, I translated it as, “Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.” And I’m not naïve. I’ve always said everyone is replaceable. But HOW RUDE! I’m not! Oh, yeah, guess I am. In came a part-timer to replace me. No benefits or insurance needed. Robotics and repetition were the only job requirements needed.

I may sound bitter. Actually, I’m not. I vividly remember locking myself in a bathroom years ago so I wouldn’t hear my kids screaming or throwing tantrums and getting down on my knees on the pee-stained, cold bathroom tiles and praying, “Dear God, just let me have a moment of peace and time to myself.”  Be careful what you ask for. Sometimes He’s listening.

So that’s exactly what He gave me − one year and eight months of solitude. (Dude, seriously?) I was getting my first taste of “retirement.” But being too young to retire and too old to compete against a lot of young people seeking employment, I was in my own private limbo.

Having recently become an empty nester, I’ve had no one to answer to, no agendas to organize, no mouths to feed…oh, yeah, HE’s still here. And although I haven’t been able to relax completely – having to pound the pavement daily to find a job and appease the unemployment office with my determination and a big smile on my face as I went to various job interviews and got rejected over and over again, I will definitely miss the “good side” of unemployment now that I am scheduled to start my new job in six days.

My alarm clock is a glutton for punishment and has missed being slammed and cursed at. I’m reading all these advice columns about going back to work and how one should start going to bed early and getting used to waking early. Pssshhhhhhhhh. Once a night owl, always a night owl. Get ready for some major abuse, little alarm clock.

I’ll miss having time for my artistic endeavors that I hadn’t had time to pursue as a busy, working mom − painting, writing, sewing, cooking − and afternoons leisurely walking around a fabric or art store, just to touch and feel things that bring me a simple joy. I’ll miss the empty Home Depot store at three in the afternoon, devoid of contractors and the working masses, where I actually enjoy looking for that Fluidmaster flange-y thing The Mister needs to fix our toilet, then getting distracted and oohing and aaahing at the fancy hardware and wishing I had extra doors to install them all on.

I’ll miss my little home office where I greet the morning with my morning cup of coffee where I sit and write and look out upon the neighborhood, where I tell the time by the predictable sound of the mail truck and the screech of the brakes from the man in brown. No need for a neighborhood watch. And I’m watching you, lady in minivan who doesn’t stop at the stop sign.

Traffic. Ugh. I haven’t missed it. My new job won’t require a long commute, but it will entail coming into contact with subhumans again. And I’ll need to add the word, “REALLY??” back into my vocabulary on a daily basis. I’ll have to suppress my astonishment at short people driving in the fast lane (I have a theory about the ratio of length of legs vs. pressure on an accelerator that I won’t get into), people who stop in merge lanes, and people who pull up to bank windows and THEN get out their money or checkbooks.

Lordy, my stress level and blood pressure are already skyrocketing!

But now that I, hopefully, have found a job I think I’ll like, I’m also excited to get back to improving my time management skills (I don’t even know what day it is), meeting old friends for lunch, and basically revving my brain back up which has been sitting in a vegetative state for awhile. I’ll get to wear something besides sweats and fuzzy socks with my hair up in a clip. With the additional income, I’ll get to go back to getting my nails done once in awhile and pampering myself a bit. But my forced frugality has been a good lesson in remembering that everything I have is everything I need.

And now that I’ll be gainfully employed, after a long, hard day, I can walk in the door and say, “What’s for dinner, hon?”

Oh, who am I kidding?

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Meet the ‘Rents

Feels a bit like limbo.  Too far away from The Wedding to really worry about things, too close to not start thinking about things. So the best thing to do at this point is take that next step that all parents of brides and grooms usually dread, and that’s Meet the Parents.

My son’s future in-laws and I got together, sans hubs, to make sure we don’t end up stabbing each other’s eyes out in the coming years. I just about stabbed my mister’s eyes out because he opted to attend a football game someone had given him tickets to instead. But he stayed in my graces by offering to have them over soon for another meet ‘n greet. He’s in charge of the spaghetti. What the heck?  If they don’t like him, I’ll just move in with them.

All kidding aside, it was a great day full of end-of-summer boating, birthdays and booze with them and their friends. Both dads have at lease one thing in common as neither of them drink, so mom-in-law and I will have our very own designated drivers on the big day.  This is going just swimmingly….

Like their daughter, they’re relaxed, don’t take things too seriously and they like to eat.  Thank God.  If I had to look forward to tofu fingers and wasabi chickpeas at the reception, I was going to shudder with dread and be sure to pack some beef jerky in my makeup bag.

They have a sense of humor. They’re going to need one when they meet my half Irish, half Polish, half Italian family. What. Okay, so I wasn’t good in math. Anyway, their friends’  first words to me were, “Oh, we understand they’ve changed the rules of tradition, and the parents of the groom now pick up the whole tab.” Buwaaaaaaaaaaaaa….no. I get to save that for when my own princess gets delusions of grandeur after watching My Best Friend’s Wedding for the umpteenth time. Please elope, please elope, please elope…

So for now, the only thing I  know for sure is that the wedding will be at the beach. Both of my kids have always been water babies, and the in-laws are avid boaters, so it is only befitting, and I’m sure it will be lovely, hurricanes notwithstanding. And I look forward to sending my son and his new bride off into the beautiful sunset with the backdrop of the ocean lapping upon the shore with nothing but the smell of the misty, salty ocean air.

Unless, of course, I need to drag out my beef jerky.

To be continued…

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He Went to Jared!

Today I’m starting to journal the trials and tribulations that will unfold during my son and his fiancée’s wedding planning [cough]from hell[cough].  Let me begin by saying: Anything I say from this day forward cannot be used against me and will not stand up in a court of law. This in no way represents the opinions of said fiancee’s family, and will be from my perspective − and my perspective only − as the groom’s mother. Hmmm, I still remember him saying he was going to marry me.

But I digest.  I don’t mean to make it sound less than exciting and romantic.  It’s just that I am so very thankful that it is the bride’s parents who are doing most of the planning.  I couldn’t plan my way out of a dark bathroom with a blow torch, much less take on something this enormous in scale. I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl. I know, I know.  That’s what wedding planners are for, but I remember trying to plan my own wedding, with no family members in the area, and on a shoestring budget back in the 70’s.  It was the closest my husband and I ever got to a divorce.  Address books were flung, color swatches ripped up, frustration ensued and tempers flared.  And that was the hour before our engagement.

It all turned out fine in the end, and the big day went off without a hitch. Oh, who am I kidding?  I don’t remember one minute of it.  I just sometimes think it would all be so much more fun without the frustration and frivolous fights.  I say do it in reverse.  Have a big freakin’ impromptu, unplanned party, get your souls knotted by some magistrate in a monkey suit…THEN start planning a committal celebration for some other weekend, once you’ve gotten used to his stinky socks on the floor and he’s learned to say “You’re right, and I’m wrong,” without missing a beat.  You’ll sooo already know your color scheme and decorating style. So it may take a year or two to get to that relaxation level with your spouse.  But party on, young lovers…you’ve made it this far.

….to be continued.

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Pretty in Pink?

Looking a bit drab after our recent torrential rains and lack of sunshine lately, I reached for an almost-empty container of blush that has always been one of my favorite face “pick-me-ups.” I know they tell you not to keep makeup items too long due to spoilage, etc., but some of them are just like a favorite pair of jeans or a good marriage.  When you find something that works, you tend to keep it around after its expiration date.

Googling my favorite brand of blush to make sure it was still around (unlike one mascara company that let me down by discontinuing my favorite magic wand…Maybelline, why can’t ya be true….?), I wanted to make sure my little pink pick-me-up was still available before I trudged to the local drug store.  I don’t spend a lot on makeup, so avoiding the overpriced department store that promises that I’ll look like Jennifer Perky Anniston is really a no-brainer for me.  The way I look at it, I don’t ever envision anyone approaching me and saying, “Wow, you look sooo fabulous…that must be the new $430.00 blush from Nordstrom’s!” Ain’t gonna happen.

But as I was scouring the internet for cheap makeup dot coms, I fell upon some interesting statistics on the products used in cosmetics.  I typed in the exact name of my favorite little pink blush, and found a great resource at http://www.goodguide.com/.  On the site, the health, environmental and social performance of products and companies we use every day are rated to match your preferences for healthy, green or socially responsible products.  The ratings provide a credible way to easily rank products and companies, enabling you to pick the best in a category or identify alternative products you may want to use instead.  For instance, although the company that manufactures my favorite blush had an above average score in effects on climate change and ethical policies and performance, it rated my favorite product at only a medium level in the health concern portion. A little disconcerted, I clicked on the rating and found out that the product contains butylated hydroxytoluene, which is an additive used in many cosmetics (also in pharmaceuticals, jet fuel, rubber and petroleum products) which can cause respiratory immune toxicity.  Oh, yeah, it’s also used in embalming fluids, but by then it shouldn’t concern you.

The good news is that the site also indicated the ingredients in my item that are not concern for worry, i.e., talc, oat kernel flour, etc. Feeling all Daisy Dukey, I continued on the site which goes one step further to suggest alternative products one may want to consider once you’ve gotten up from the floor after reading all the scary things you just realized you’ve been slathering on your body. But it doesn’t stop there. The site contains ratings for just about everything − apparel, electronics, cars and all forms of personal care.

 I know better than to lose sleep and worry about every product that I bring into my home or rub on my skin. Although I will be more cautious, I recognize that even the most scientifically grounded assessment of environmental, health, or social performance requires value judgments about the relative importance of various issues. 

But, wait!  Is that the sun I see? As for reaching for that certain brand of sunscreen I usually use? Uh, no. Yikes. I think I’ll just re-invest in my little pink pick-me-up, use it more sparingly until I find a replacement made of corn starch and dead rose buds, and I’ll just add a little more blush rosé wine to my diet.

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What’s Old is New Again

I can’t remember the last time I actually grabbed a cookbook for directions prior to whipping something up.  Instead of looking through cookbooks for ideas, I think I’m a little dyslexic, as I do it in reverse.  I scour my cupboards or fridge first, inventory what isn’t growing anything suspicious or moving, then search or come up with ideas depending on what’s available at hand.

I do, however, have an obsession with collecting odd and unusual cookbooks. One such book jumped out at me at an antique store with a copyright of 1903 stamped inside the front, stained cover. I leafed carefully through the delicate pages, the binding loosely still attached, knowing by the looks of it that it had once been some housewife’s bible – or it belonged to The Help of said dingbat housewife.

It is a cookbook called “365 Dinner Dishes” and it contains a dish a day for an entire year. I leafed through it, admiring the concept and wondering what might have pleased the palate back in 1903. I also wondered how they survived without microwaves, toaster ovens, broilers and, at times,  basic running water for use in cooking.

I always thought I was pretty creative when it came to “designing” dishes, until I read some of the recipes.  I might as well have picked up a book written in Greek.  The only thing missing in the book is a glossary, as some of the ingredients include plants and animals that I wouldn’t know if they grew in my bathtub.  Recipes include titles like Gooseberry Fool, Chestnut Balls, Quince Fritters and Birds Nest Salad. And even with the ingredients I am familiar with, my curiosity was peaked by names like Cream of Beet Soup, Jellied Chicken with Mayonnaise and Queens Orange Pudding.  Uh, Cream of Turnips, Curried Eel? No, thanks.  But I was intrigued nonetheless.

Other instructions got me thinking, like “Dip a napkin into boiling water, wring dry, and strain the soup.” Gee, who needs cheesecloth?  One of my favorites was “Crack a knuckle of veal.” Well, that sounds pretty painful. But not as painful as a dish called “Calf’s Head en Tortue.” Don’t need a Latin degree to figure out that one!  Yes, the first step is to wash and clean a calf’s head. Holy cow.

But an interesting thing happened as I was  heading to the back of the book to read the table of contents.  Out fell a newspaper clipping from that era.  It was similar to a Hints from Heloise posting, with a letter written to the columnist, Mrs. Symes, asking for a recipe for thin and oily hair. I figured it was a common question posed by the ladies of that era, until something struck my eye. In the  question posed by the reader, she noted that “my hair gets oily after a week’s washing.” Alrighty then, back to the running water dilemma. Again, I can’t imagine life without my Root Lift on Steroids, my Blueberry Aloe Tequila Acai fragrant shampoo and, oh, yeah, soap.

So, for all of you regressed hippies who want to save on water and decide not to wash your hair for a week, here’s the concoction you’ve been waiting for.

1/4 ounce of bicarbonate of soda
1/4 ounce borate of soda, powered  (huh?)
1 ounce eau de cologne
2 ounces alcohol
16 ounces distilled water

The directions say to mix and agitate. Those are her words, not mine. Either way, with smelly hair you haven’t washed for a week, or with this potion poured on your scalp, you’re sure to either agitate or be agitated.

Children: Don’t try this at home.

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Take Him to the Greek

Turned a boring Fourth of July cole slaw into a Greek delight.  Thanks to the nice chef demonstrating at our local Wegmans, I’ll never eat my old boring cole slaw again!

GREEK SLAW

Combine all these ingredients in a bowl and toss.  Then do a Greek happy dance! This feeds a buttload of peeps! (Photo above is recipe cut in half…)

1 sweet onion
1 bag of shredded cole slaw
1 cucumber, diced
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1 cup sliced black olives
1 1/2 cup of crumbled feta cheese
1 1/2 cup pitted kalamati olives
3 tablespoons dried oregano
12 oz. Ken’s Greek dressing to taste

You’re welcome…

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Muffin Tops

Seein’s how it’s 100 degrees in the shade in these here parts of Virginia, I wanted to make something light and fluffy for dinner, so along with a light Asian salad, I  found these Mini Zucchini Frittatas in a great book my sister from California bought me one year.  Isabel Cruz’s book, Isabel’s Cantina is one of my favorites, as she blends healthy Latin food with Asian accents…full of flavor and spice, but low on calories and fat that go straight to my Goodyear tire!

So speaking of muffin tops…try this mini variation of the Spanish frittata:

Heat olive oil in a saute pan.  Add one chopped zucchini, one chopped onion, small chopped tomato and jalapeno to taste (I replaced the jalapeno with corn, since The Mister but doesn’t care for hot). Cook until zucchini is translucent.  Let cool.

Whisk about 8 eggs w/salt & pepper in a bowl.  Coat muffin tins with cooking spray (cuz you know egg stick-em = super glue). Fill tins halfway with egg mixture, plop in veggies, and top with remaining egg. I also sprinkled a bit of grated cheese on top.

Bake 15 minutes.  Frittatas will puff up. Remove from oven and let them fall a bit. Gently tap out of tins onto a plate. Can be served warm or cold and stored for 2 days.