The Story about the Book

Don’t ever lend me a book.

My friend Mary did. And she doesn’t know it yet, but she shouldn’t have.

First off, I’ve had the thing for a while now. Held onto it for two, maybe even three months. Far longer than the inter-friendship lending library loan period should allow. Even with a few renewals.

And I tend to zip through books pretty quickly, once I start them. But this one—that super-popular dragon tattoo book everyone’s all hopped up about—didn’t draw me in at first. And with my tower of bedside books beseeching me to read them, I did something unusual. I set it down one night and dug into something else.

But then, when I was just in New York recently, I realized in somewhat of a panic that I was nearing the end of another book. I found myself suddenly dangerously close to being without a new one.

So along with my paisley pashmina and my witchy super-pointy-toed black high heels, I had Mark toss Mary’s ‘tattoo girl’ book in his bag for me. He was still at home, heading to the East Coast a few days after me.

So you know, the book suffered the usual reasonable wear and tear on the dust jacket. Shoved in Mark’s bag, then crammed into mine. Taken in and out of my purse along with diapers, lipsticks, and the girls’ discarded apple cores. Typical stuff.

I mean, I do respect books, just for the record. I NEVER dog-ear pages. (And I disdain those who do when I read a book after them.) I don’t write in margins, though I do stick Post-Its in cook books. And if one of the girls walks over a book or bends the spine all backwards you can betcha I roll out Lecture #372 on Respectin’ Books.

But with this one book, it all went so wrong.

Because for our flight home I tossed it in a newsstand plastic bag, along with my requisite airplane-reading celeb mag, Mentos, and a bottle of water. And when we finally staggered home from our cross-country day of travel, it appeared that my water bottle’s sport top had opened.

And water makes a book wet.

But it’s WATER. I am a mother and of all the things that I know cause problems, water is almost never one of them. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to the kids, “Don’t worry about it! It’s just water!”

Water dries. Water doesn’t stain. Water won’t smell bad when it’s lodged in a sippy cup under the seat of your car for three weeks.

Water is my friend.

So I did what you do when you want something wet to dry. I stuck the book in the dish rack alongside the kitchen sink.

But eventually, the next day I think, I gave up the book’s dish rack space for wet dishes. It seemed only fair that they have priority placement. Because if I were to keep the book on the dish drain, and start to pile the wet dishes elsewhere to dry, I’d start to set a domino effect into motion that could result in my becoming a crazy shut-in who is tracked down by the producers of Oprah because I have laundry drying in the trees outside my house and I bathe in a kiddie pool because my bath tub is full to the brim with head-less dolls, summer shoes, and dessicated cans of Play-Doh.

And I didn’t want that to happen.

But the book was still not dry. How was it that the wetness could be so persistent?

I moved the book to my bedside floor (on a magazine, so as not to stain the hardwood). I gingerly turned the sodden pages to read it at night. None of the ink ran as a result of The Water Bottle Incident, so everything was perfectly legible.

And the book is compelling, just like everyone says. So the dampness didn’t deter me.

A couple times during the day I’d remember to put it on the kitchen counter on a wire baking rack. I figured it’d allow air to circulate around it. I’d open it to random especially-saturated sections, in hopes that over time I could systematically dry the whole thing out.

Then at night I’d take the book back into bed, and suffer the disapproval of my beloved spouse who’d tenderly say things like, “Oh for the love of God, honey. Throw that thing out! I have that book on my Kindle you know.”

But say what you will. I’m an optimist.

And I felt certain that, given time, the book would dry on up. I mean, some—okay ALL—of the pages would be a bit puckered perhaps. But, as I said, the words were totally intact. I mean, sure, I started with a hardcover and I’d transformed it to a pliable soft paperback. But the book was still managing to function in the capacity that a book does.

Besides, the book was not mine. Not mine to just throw away.

But then one day, flipping to a section I was planning to aerate, I noticed a slate blue streak. Mold. And I knew, like you know when your old Labrador’s hip dysplasia becomes untenable, that it was time.

Of course, I couldn’t do it myself. I asked Mark to. And despite the fact that he held the thing at arm’s length like some diarrhea-drenched diaper, it was clear that he was pleased to do the honors.

It’s been some days now—nearly a week, in fact—and despite a multitude of phone-call attempts and voicemail exchanges, I’ve been unable to reach Mary to tell her about her book. Of course, I’m happy to replace it, no question about that. But to go ahead and do that before letting her know how far I’d come, and all I went through with that book, just seems wrong. I mean, you can’t just kill your friend’s goldfish then drop another orange one in the bowl like it’s no big thing.

Alas, it’s late. So I’ll crawl into bed and curl up with Mark’s Kindle. Though, of course, it won’t be the same.

I imagine that Mary won’t be asking me to dog sit any more.

Shit Storm

At age 81 my father has a newborn. He’s no Anthony Quinn, star of the old-school flick Zorba the Greek, who squired a child with his thirty-something wife when he was in his early eighties. (Mr. Quinn did spend the latter part of his life in a home across the bay from my dad’s. But I’m guessing the most they had in common was a hometown.) 

No, my father’s baby is a puppy. Specifically a wire-haired miniature Dachshund.

And Dad and his wife are the consummate new parents. They boast about the little guy sleeping through the night. They fret over him being overstimulated or needing sleep. They bring him to play group. And they talk about his poop. Poop poop poop poop poop.

Coming in from a walk:

“How’d he do?”

“He made a mess  [This being their New England euphamism for fecal matter.] Get him a cookie.”

“Oh! Good DOG! Good DOG, Bruno!” [Yes, the dog's name is Bruno Bruno.]

“But after he went he seemed to be trying to go again.” 

“Really?” 

“I think he might be constipated.” 

“Oh poor baby.”

Did Mark and I talk like this when the girls were babes? I can’t imagine we did—at least not in public—since hearing them seems to dismay me a bit. Though someone discussing so much as a child’s skinned knee can make me light-headed and queasy.

I’m in Rhode Island now, after a fabulous weekend in New Yawk. It’s my, uh, 25-year high school reunion. (Gulp.) And really when I should be focusing all my time and energy on looking 18 again, the theme of our visit thus far has been poo.

So there’s a pizza joint here in Bristol that’s truly world-class. I mean, it well could be why Anthony Quinn moved here when he did. The place has been around forEVER. After I collect my bags from the airport luggage carousel it’s like I’m programmed to go directly there. 

So back when Jesus was a Boy Scout and I too was a youngster, I did something in that restaurant that turned into Bruno family lore. I guess we were gathered around a table, takin’ in a nice pizza pie, and the place—all linoleum-topped tables and sparkle plastic seats that’d sell for a ransom on eBay—was packed. Let’s say, for the sake of fleshing out the scene, that it was a Friday night.

What they all say happened is I banged open the door of the bathroom, it being right off the joint’s main dining area, and announced with my pants and panties around my ankles “I need some help here!”

Mind you, I was young. I’m assuming I was a toddler. 

Anyway, so much about that place hasn’t changed through the years that I wouldn’t be surprised if the next time I’m there some codger sitting at the counter says, “You’re the youngest Bruno girl, right? Well did you know that one night when you were just a little thing…”

But the pizza is good enough that whenever I’m home I muscle through the risk of having someone recount my youthful ass-wiping ineptitude.

In the spirit of all that is shitty, Paige is taking up my legacy. Yesterday we went to the local library. We love doing this since my kids are book geeks, but also because we can walk along the sea wall from Dad’s house and it’s a short walk through town to get there. The kids get books, I grab a decaf Americano at The Beehive Cafe, and my hard-on for small town life is fully actualized. 

So we’re at the bibliotheque and Paige poops. No big. She’s still in dipes. There’s someone in the bathroom, so we wait. I settle in to read Kate an Arthur book, when I see Paige across the room, and notice an unmistakable thick brown smear emerging from the waistline of her diaper up her back and under her shirt. 

Aack! I toss Arthur’s Teacher Troubles over my shoulder like a baseball player throwing a bat, and dive towards Miss Paigey La Poop. 

She’s about to turn and settle her turdy backside onto a large stuffed bean-baggy-type turtle that lives on the floor of the children’s area. And then I see that, lo, she’s already been there. In fact she has left several large clumpish deposits on the turtle’s formerly shit-free shell. 

I grab Paige by what I hope is a clean shirt-sleeve, and pick up the offending reptile, holding it at arm’s length and wishing I carried a pair of tongs in my diaper bag. 

This is when my apprehensions about the friendliness of New Englanders manifests itself into a neurotic full-bore panic. I mean, in the best of situations, in the friendliest of places, I’d feel hard-pressed to comfortably fork over a shit-strewn ANYTHING to anyone. 

But here in Bristol, my wee home town that’s gotten kinda well-heeled over the years, well, let’s just say it’s no friendly feel-good California. As much as I’ve defended New Englanders through the years, the fact is I did notice this summer that other parents don’t extend themselves to smile or chat with you, even when your kids are playing magic princess ballerina (and other tough guy games) at the playground. Yes, here in the land of “who is your father?” social calibrations, this seemed an especially daunting social interaction.

In fact, when I later told my dad this story, he joked, “They didn’t know who you were, did they?”

Anyway, what came next was really just me groveling apologies for my daughter’s scatological proliferation. And the older white-haired librarian shooing me and the offending turtle thing towards the young librarian with a wave of her bejeweled entitled hand. ”Oh, please just bring that to Molly,” she said wincing over her half-glasses.

I guess seniority in the Children’s Room means not having to deal with poop explosions.

Molly later compounded my angst by pointing out that there was not a removeable cover on Turdy Turtle that would allow it to be washed, then scoffed at my offer to replace the thing. In other words, I was shit out of luck in terms of being able to fix the problem. 

Later in the day I chatted on the phone with a classmate I’ll see at my reunion this weekend. She shared her own tale of public poop shame. One in which all eyes trailed her as she walked through a fancy restaurant holding her son. She had no idea why until on the sidewalk she noticed poop literally dripping through his pant legs.

The fact is that if you have a child you’ve likely had an unfortunate episode involving their excretions. 

What’s your story?

Speaking with the Fairies

I vowed to never be a pony-renting birthday party mom. No juggling clowns, jumpy houses, or elaborate expensive goody bags. I decided some time ago that simple sweet parties were the key to raising my kids all wholesome and well-balanced.

Plus, I figured hype-free parties would be less stressful.

But then last year, I was overwhelmed—nay, terrified—by the prospect of entertaining a slew of raucous four-year-olds in our small back yard. (Yes, the guest list grossly exceeded my long-ago best laid plans for wee intimate birthdays.). So I rented a jumpy house. A big princessy pink castle jumpy house.

And then this year, well this year a meltdown at California Pizza Kitchen informed it all. I swear we don’t go there very often, but for some reason it’s a blog-worthy spot.

So there we were, in our CPK booth, awaiting our CPK personal pizzas and my half Waldorf, and Kate mentioned how super duper wicked excited she was for her friend Casey’s party. The party wherein a fairy—a real live bee-ooooo-tiful fairy with wings and a flower crown and everything—was going to not only paint faces and make balloon animals, but do a magic show too.

Kate’s anticipation for this party was so intense I imagined her pituitary gland transmitting jolts of unicorn hallucinations throughout her system. For weeks she was bathed in a heroin-high haze of pixie dust, and mind-numbing glee at the thought of a corner slice of cake with a blue frosting rose.

Yeah, so she was excited.

And then Mark laid it on her. Right there in our CPK booth. “Actually, honey, you know how we decided to go visit Aunt Judy? Well, it turns out we’re going to be in Palm Springs for Casey’s party.” And just to be sure his dire message was clear he added, “So you won’t get to go to the party after all.”

At which point Kate clenched both sides of her head in an Edward Monk-ian scream and began what was to be a long, loud, and active grieving period.

Even though Kate’s ensuing hunger strike and black armband seemed like extreme expressions of parental condemnation, I did feel bad. We had told her we were going to the party. I did read her the invitation daily (at her request) until she could recite it from memory. (“Be sure to arrive by 12:30 when the magic will begin!”) And I was a coward, putting off telling her myself so Mark had to share the bad news.

So I did what any mother who is heartbroken about her child’s heartbreak does. I called Casey’s mom to find out how to rent a fairy.

She gave me the straight scoop. “What I liked about these fairies,” she said, “is that they’re not Disney characters.”

“Oh good. That’s good!” I said. I was taking notes like a first-year law student.

“And communicating with them is interesting,” she added. But I was too busy scribbling down the URL she gave me, like some junkie with a line on a dealer, to take much note of anything else she said.

It was a month before Kate’s birthday. “Oh Kate,” I thought, with an aren’t-I-clever Hollywood-grade chuckle. “You WILL get your fairy.”

But seconds later on the website, my scheming laughter turned to perverse fascination. This was no two-bit get-a-fairy-and-a-jumpy-house combination party pack kinda place. This was all fairies. Serious fairies. With serious fairy names, like Miss Violet and Miss Acorn. There were gauzy sun-drenched photos of each one wearing wings, flower-wreath halos, and shimmery flowing dresses. They had long wavy hair cascading around their shoulders like some Vidal Sassoon Shampoo wet dream.  They were seated on mossy rocks at river’s edges and in flower filled meadows. One super hot blond was even nuzzling a real white bunny rabbit.

It was intense. It was compelling. It was kinda pervy.

It was definitely NOT Disney.

Clicking on each fairy’s main photo took me to a bio page with more glossy pics and background info on each gal. Things like “she came to our family in a whirl of sparkle,” (our family?!) “she  likes to sing songs way high up in the tree tops to the squirrels,” and other ‘qualifications’ like being a clown college grad or former nanny.

Anyway, I couldn’t porn out on the whole thing without getting my hubbie in on it. Besides, it had been seven minutes since I’d called Mark at his office.

“Okay so check this site out,” I said giving him the URL. “I feel like I’m hiring a call girl.”

After we hung up I imagined a bunch of guys in Mark’s office crowding behind his desk, obsessing over the site over his shoulder.

As for me, back at the house, I found I was a bit gun-shy about calling them. Who should I say I wanted? Did I go for experience or looks? And could the acorn fairy face-paint anything besides the poorly-rendered Blues Clues dog that appeared in one picture?

Plus, for the trifecta—magic show, face-painting, and “balloon twisting” (I guess that extends beyond just animals)—it was stupidly expensive. Fairies, it turns out, don’t come cheap.

But my thoughts of how excited Kate’d be—and what the hell I’d do with twenty-some sugar-crazed kids on my own—spurned me on. So I dialed.

No answer. The voice on the answering machine was shrill—a woman intentionally making her voice high-pitched and sing-songy, achieving an effect best described as demented. Her outgoing message mentioned something about her “being in a goblin class until two o’clock.” (Now does Goblin 101 meet on Tuesday-Thursdays? Or is it a Monday-Wednesday-Friday class?)

At any rate, I managed to leave a message using my very own voice. I didn’t get reeled into that thing where someone talks with a drawl and you talk back with one even though you were raised in Indiana.

The next day, as I walked in the door from somewhere and unburdened myself of heavy children and whining grocery bags, I hit play on the machine. “Why hello-ooo, Kristen!” the munchkin-woman voice trilled out. ” It’s Trixie! Why I was so verrrrry happy to get your call. Hoo-ray! But I guess I’ve missed you. Tee hee hee!”

I quickly hit Stop before Kate heard. And before I had to hear any more.

Eventually, after a voicemail exchange that included a glass-shatteringly shrill “Tag! Yoooou’re it!” message, Trixie (who I thought of as the madam of the fairies) and I reverted to email. But even there, the messages I received were rife with “[smile]” and “[wink!].”

I guess that’s just how fairies communicate. Constant reminders of their cuteness, wee-ness and girlishness. As if we could ever forget.

Several laps into this surreal communication sworl I finally received some actual helpful information. Yes there was a fairy who could work at our party. Just one fairy was left for hire that day.

Of course, I ran to the website to check her out. I was both crestfallen and unsurprised to see that the fairy who was free, the last puppy of the litter, the last-ditch consolation-prize party nymph, was—okay so it might sound kinda mean—but she was by far the uncute-est of the fairies. Maybe even a bit kinda “homely,” as my mother would say.

I was dismayed. I called Mark. Our child’s fifth-birthday fairy call girl was the bottom of the woodland barrel.

Damn me and my procrastination! Of course all the more organized mothers snatched up all the cute sexy fairies first. Poor Kate and her friends would be doing that thing you do when you see an ugly baby. Wanting nothing more than to say, “She’s beautiful!” but having to drum up alternate compliments. “Your wings, Miss Mushroom! Why, they are so long and lustrous!” “Your eflin shoes! How they curl so at the toes!”

But a day or two into sharing my frumpy fairy misery with a few friends, I started to come around. “Maybe,” I said to an amiga, lounging in the sun at her swim club, “Maybe Miss Mushroom will teach the girls that knowledge of math and science will get them further in life than a dewy complexion and a button nose? Or—you don’t have to be cute to make sound investment choices? And if you fling around enough glitter fairy dust, people won’t be able to really see you anyway!”

I was starting to feel preemptively defensive and protective of Miss Mushroom. By the end of the week I’d transformed my mental picture of her from the fugly fairy to an up-and-coming feminist intellectual. Like some young Simone de Beauvoir or thick-calved Hillary Clinton. I was hatching plans to take her into our home, set her up in the downstairs bedroom. We’d help her pay her way through Berkeley so she could quit the fairy gig once and for all. We’d emancipate her from her evil-voiced madam, Trixie. She’d become a beloved family member, a big sister and role model to the girls.

A couple days before the party I was slopping the kids’ dinner on plastic plates, while swilling a glass of wine. It was that early evening chaotic hell-realm time of day when everyone’s cranky, fried, and hungry. The phone rang.

“Hey, is this Kristen?”

“Yes.”

“Oh hey, it’s Miss Mushroom,” the woman said.

I gasped! After only communicating with her madam, after talking her up for weeks to Kate, it was her. Miss Mushroom. In the telephonic flesh!

But what shocked me as much as her sudden presence on the phone line was her voice. It was kinda gravelly. I mean, not like Marge Simpson’s chain-smokin’ sisters or anything. But definitely no affected lilting fairy voice. Like not even trying a little tiny bit to sound like she could fly, or at least heal wounded wildlife.

“Yeah so I just wanted to run through the details of the party and stuff,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “Turns out I’m not that far from you, which is cool.”

She was like some urban hipster fairy.

I felt a bit sad, somewhat let down as I ran through the “in our backyard” “eleven o’clock” “magic show first, then face-painting” details. I realized I was missing the magic. The magic I’d hated. The fake fake fairy-voiced magic.

But not long after hanging up I’d managed to shake it off. Despite how she came across on the phone, one look at her gossamer wings and the kids would be smitten. (And they were.) And the whole reason I hired Miss Mushroom was to avoid having to entertain the teeming throng of kids myself.

Besides, next year when I revert to the “small picnic in the park with a few close friends” I won’t have to worry about these things. I mean, you know, I’ll do the small picnic thing, or buckle again and go the pony-ride rental route.

Only time will tell.

The World According to Kate

Last weekend I had a peak experience at a street fair.

We were in San Fran, in a Chinese ‘hood, crowded around an open-air stage watching dragon dancers. You know, those performances where a few kids (or limber grown-ups) crouch inside long brightly-colored dragon costumes and leap around and undulate, usually to some kinda drumbeat or traditional music.

“My God,” I said to Mark, moments after the dragons spewed foil-wrapped candies out at the crowd, “THIS is why we live here. Right? This right now. Don’t you just love it?”

To which he replied mildly, “Yeah, sure.”

Later, walking towards the flea-bitten pony rides I was beaming, enthusing in a manic machine-gun cadence over everything my eyes landed on. “Wow, this is perfect. Not too big. Not too many people. Lots of black market DVDs of Chinese movies for sale. I luh-OVE it!”

And when he didn’t immediately chime in I said, “I mean, they had dragon dancing performances in Franklin when you were a kid, right?” (Mark grew up in rural Pennsylvania. Not so many Amish dragon dancers, I’m guessin’.)

“Yeah,” he shot back. “Just like the ones you went to in Bristol.”

Touché, my street-fair-averse hubbie!

It was hot that day, even close to the ocean where we were. This is never a good sign. Us hardened Bay Area long-timers think of this as earthquake weather. (People who were here for The Big One in ’89 often remark on the unseasonable heat that day.) So never accept sunshine in the city of fog without being leery.

But where was I?

Oh yes, we ducked into a restaurant to get out of the sun and have some lunch. Kate and Paige began feverishly drawing on their paper placemats, then Kate announced at top voice, “These flowers are CHINE-EEZ-IZ.  And these princesses are CHINE-EEZ-IZ too!” I guess in her mind one flower or princess is Chinese, but two are Chine-eez-iz. I suppose that stands to grammatical reason.

And just in case anyone in the restaurant might not hear her, she projected the word extra loud-and-clear.

I mean, it wasn’t like it was such a terrible thing to say, but I certainly had a couple of those moments where I’d look out from our table—and sure it was probably just my neurotic mind playing tricks on me—but it seemed like all the other restaurant patrons were Asian, and there was an endless sea of them, and they were all looking right at us. Staring at us as if to say, “Your children are culturally insensitive. Your children draw on placemats. And you are most certainly NOT Chine-eez-iz.”

As I said, it might-a just been in my head.

Whatever the case it was nothing like the time around the presidential elections when we were shopping at Safeway. Kate, who was around three at the time, called out to an elderly black man at the end of the aisle, “BARACK OBAMA! Hey, Barack Obama!” And then, because at that point I’d crawled into the Frito-Lay display to hide, she turned to me to ensure I didn’t miss her star-sighting and yelled, “Look, Mama! It’s HIM! Barack Obaaaamaaaa!”

My God. We live in Oakland. This was not the first black man my child has seen in public. Or knows, for God’s sake.

But there was something about how totally UNLIKE Barack Obama this dude looked that especially mortified me. He was heavyset. He was stooped and graying. He was hopefully deaf.

Anyway, I’m assuming Barack shops at Whole Foods. Really now, what are the odds he’d be at Safeway? Come on, Kate.

Now, years and years ago, long before the birth of my first pregnancy-related stretch mark, I saw a woman in a locker room who became my hero. I was in Lake Tahoe at some big spa-type place that had hot tubs. And a little girl pointed to a large large overweight woman right at the moment she was stripping off her wet bathing suit.

“Look Mommy!” she screamed. “That lady is soooooo HUGE!”

For a half-second, every woman in that locker room threw up in their mouths a little.

But then, without missing a beat, the twerp’s mom said, “Well honey, people come in all different shapes and sizes.” She said it so calmly. So smooth and relaxed, like it was no big thing. And do you know the tension in the room just—plink!—dissipated, and everyone went back to putting on deoderant and lacing their sneakers.

Of course! How simple and true! We are all different, and it is o-kay.

Isn’t that what it all comes down to? Now I’m not condoning going marauding around locker rooms pointing at others and calling out, “Gnarly leg veins!” or “Left breast significantly larger than right!” No doubt that woman’s feelings got hurt. But I’m guessing she eventually breathed a sigh of relief along with the rest of us.

That Mama’s reaction was a most excellent kindergarten-level life lesson. One that me and all the other horrified women in that locker room clearly needed a refresher course on.

Would I ever live to be as cool a mom as her? Unlikely. But then and there I stashed away that line, figuring it’d help me get out of a similar scrape with a future child—or heck, drunk friend—some day.

A couple summers ago I got a call from one of my BFFs, Mike. Fate threw us together junior year abroad in London, and refused to let our paths diverge. After falling out of touch, we bumped into each other on a sidewalk in New York. That was (gulp) twenty years ago. We’ve linked pinkies in a bond of everlasting friendship ever since.

So a couple years ago he calls me. And he’s all downplaying it, but he says he’s getting married. A last-minute plan, with a very long-time love. It’d be in LA at his mother’s house, super casual. We were in no way meant to feel obligated, but they’d love to have us there if we could make it.

Not GO? That’d be like having a gold ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and staying home to wash your hair. Of COURSE we would be there.

From the second I hung up the phone I was clapping my hands together in glee. Not only was I thrilled for my dear friend to marry his partner (whom I also adored), I was thrilled that my dear friend COULD marry his partner in the great state of California.

Since he stressed it was a bring-the-kids event (they have three of their own), I immediately foisted the thrilling news onto Kate, wanting someone to join me in my spastic delight.

“Guess WHAT, Katie?” I bellowed in her face. “You are invited to a wedding! Your first ever wedding! Mike and Lorin are getting married!” And as I took both her hands and danced her around the living room I cried out, “They are getting MARRIED! Isn’t that just the happiest most exciting news EVER?”

Then, flopped down on the rug together, I caught my breath and shifted from giddiness to my more earnest teacher-Mama mode.  I looked her square in the eye. “You know, Kate, I want you to know that a man can marry a man. And a woman can marry a woman. Just like a man and a woman can get married.” I was getting choked up. Overflowing with excitement and emotion, and my first adrenaline-charged twinges of what’ll-I-wear anxiety.

Mike and Lorin met even before Daddy and I did,” I continued—because when I want to make a point, I like to really hammer it home. “And now, in the state of California, they CAN get married.” Me wiping tears from eyes and making quiet snorfly sounds.

Kate looked up at me from our tangled-on-the-floor hug. She thought for a second then said, “Mama?”

Me: “Yes, honey?”

Kate: “Do you think they’ll have juice boxes?”

Oh, Katie. Sometimes when I’m trying to teach you something you come out of nowhere and show me all the things I can learn from you. Thank you for that, my sweet.

May the time come very soon where the only concern people have with gay weddings is whether or not juice boxes will be served.

[Yawn]

I am so very tired.

It’d be one thing if it was just on accounta getting up at 6AM day after day, since in some late-night at-my-computer moment of bravado I signed up for the FIVE day-a-week boot camp. (Oy! What was I thinkin’?) I mean, that alone would be a really excellent reason to be tired.

But add to that the fact that my darling dumpling of a two-and-a-half year old has decided to regress to the sleeping habits of a two-and-a-half month old. This from the girl who has always been a star sleeper.

Alas, no more.

Who knows if it’s her new Big Girl Bed, or a sudden spate of nightmares, or some over-achiever desire to get back at us in advance for all the ways we’re certain to deny her things, dislike her boyfriends, and piss her off in the course of her life.

Whatever the case, she wails for me from the moment I click her door closed at night. But—from all we’ve read—when I go back in to comfort her I’m just rewarding her yowls. So now Mark uses his resonant I-used-to-be-a-DJ voice to say through the closed door “It’s time to sleep now, Paige.” It’s friendly, but firm.

Oddly, this at times has the effect of Paige stopping mid-hysterical-sob, and responding in a sunny tone, “Alright, Dada!”

But the relief is only temporary. Once we get into the dark cozy REM hours of the night she rises up with the gusto of a pregnant vampire on the prowl for a midnight snack. She cries. She screams. She beseeches “MAAAAA-Ma! Dada! I waaaaaaant you!” And sometimes, just to mix it up, she tramps out of bed and ambles down the hall to our room. (It’s always creepy to be awakened by a child standing silently by your bed. Even if she’s yours, and she’s cute, and she’s not holding a meat cleaver.)

Mark and I alerted the neighbors that we are not waterboarding Paige, despite what her tortured nighttime vocalizations might infer. And we’re methodically working our way through different approaches to getting her to freakin’ sleep again. Although she’s had some intermittent nights of solid sleep—just to really fuck with us—for the most part nothing has worked.

So if you’re interested in coming to babysit for a week and taking a crack at this issue yourself, we’ll happily vacate the place at a moment’s notice.

Sudden thought: Is this some Darwinian toddler phase that emerges to remind parents who’re considering another child about the hellish newborn months of sleep deprivation? Not that we ARE considering another kid…

At any rate, something to think about.

In the final school-free days of summer, and with me work-free, it’s actually been somewhat manageable plodding through the days in a sleepy haze. Sometimes it’s even fun, in a distorted art student life-perspective kinda way.

I mean, have you ever had one of those days that unfolds like a play? Kinda like when you’re reading a book and you know that the writer was really trying to get a movie deal, just based on how it’s all laid out? Well, I had a day last week that felt totally like it wasn’t meant to be a day, but some sort of series of staged events.

For starters, my sleepiness was keeping me more distanced from things way more than I’m used to. Un-shy gal that I am, I usually feel pretty integrated in whatever’s happening around me. But it’s like I was in some weird deaf-mute alternate universe where things were unfolding around me in strictly choreographed little dramatic sequences, and I just happened to be there watching. Like some invisible Ebenezer Scrooge.

It started at boot camp. As most of my days recently do.

Instead of the punishing rounds of weights and bands and medicine balls and lunges/squats/lat blasts, we did our usual punishing frenzied-fast warm-up but were then told we were going to have a break in our routine. We’d just be running around the lake.

And can I just say that Lake Merrit is a fascinating place at 6AM? It’s like when you’re driving to the airport at some ungodly early hour and you can’t believe there are other cars on the road. Something that always prompts Kate to ask questions like, “Are the people in those cars taking a plane to see Grandpa in Rhode Island too?”

Yeah so there are ALL THESE PEOPLE awake and out and doing exercisey stuff at the lake. As I ran I got totally absorbed in watching them pass by. It was like I was in some Spike Lee movie and was gliding along smoothly on some conveyor belt that let me really stare at each person as they passed by.

There was a trio of old Chinese ladies in foamy trucker-style baseball caps and over-sized fleece jackets. One young woman had on a blue silk scarf babushka-style, and was clutching a cell phone to her ear as she scuttled past. There was even a buff black guy, pitted out in gray sweats, who was bobbing in place and doing little boxing jabs. (People really DO those?) Even the dogs looked like they were from Central Casting—one small, white, and scruffy, a big dopey Lab, then a vicious looking brindled Pit. An assortment as diverse Oakland’s human population. Everyone seemed to placed there intentionally to set the tableau of “the lake at dawn,” but it was so well-done, I almost couldn’t buy it.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I was totally anticipating the credits where the scarf-clad woman on the phone would be Babushka Caller #1.

And then later, when I’d shaken myself loose from the scene, gotten home, showered, and collected the still-on-summer-break kids, we went to the lake. A different, swimming lake. And there it was just more of the same. A series of mothers and kids on blankets under umbrellas lined up along shore. They were too perfectly spaced out to be real.

I saw one Mama I vaguely know and we start chatting, while our kids (her boys, my girls) ignore each other. Then, Mother #1—at the far end of the beach—her umbrella get swept up in the wind and tumbles a few times. She catches it, and runs up to my kinda friend. “Hey, could I borrow your hammer again?” Uh… HAMMER? And then Kinda Friend pulls a big rubber mallet from her L.L. Bean bag as if it’s a bottle of sunscreen.

“You, have a mallet with you?” I ask, trying to modulate the shock out of my voice. She carries it, she says, to secure her beach umbrella. Really bang that bottom stake down into the sand.

Hunh.

And this woman is so petite and mild mannered. She’s a nurse for God’s sake. In my sleepy haze it struck me as surreal for her to have a sledge hammer in her tote. And to act like it was no big thing.

After she leaves I get to chatting with Mom #3, the one closest to my blanket. She’s got her own two kids and another in tow who’s a total terror. He’s taking buckets of wet sand and running up from the shore to dump them on people’s blankets. In fact, since I’m standing a bit away from it, he chooses my blanket for this lovely gift. Mom #3 was mortified. She was virtually pulling his ear to get him to apologize, and clearly wanting to illuminate some NOT MY KID sign over the boy’s head.

Later in our conversation, Mom #3 and I were swapping school stories and she tells me that Holy Terror Boy goes to none other than Kate’s soon-to-be new school.

LOVE-ly!

It was three days before school started. I took this tidbit as any rational mother would—as a strong premonition to Kate’s future life of crime.

As the day wore on Mortified Playdate Mom’s umbrella goes flying. As I run down the beach with her to help grab it, she turns to me and says, “Ugh. I wish your friend with the hammer was still here.”

And I just kinda stopped, imagining the morning tableau of mothers and kids arriving lakeside, and—despite not knowing each other—all taking turns with the beach-umbrella mallet like some weird “We Can Do It” poster come to life.

Later that day, we drove through the car wash. Kate and Paige were with me, and they’re pretty enthralled with the drama of the whirling brushes, long slappy rubber strips, and squiggly squirts of pink wax. We happened to be listening to our Nutcracker CD at the time. And as I put the car in neutral, I turned the music way up and we sat back. It was as if each new swishing slapping squirting movement came in perfect syncopation with the music.

It was better than fireworks.

If you have never been very very sleepy and gotten your car washed to the soundtrack from The Nutcracker, I highly recommend it.

Check Me Out

So, not be all self-horn-blowy or anything, but I thought I’d mention I was recently featured in a Ladies’ Home Journal article about mom bloggers.

And since I may never have a crack at an Oscar speech, I’d just like to unfold a little square of paper, smooth down my Bob Mackie gown and say: “I’m truly honored to be part of a group of such rad, talented, and fabulous women. Who all look ten years younger than they are. And who, I’m sure, never yell at their children. Y’all rock.”

Anyway, check it out if you’re looking for some good new reads. There’s a Finnish Mama who props up her napping baby in hilarious little scenes and photographs them, a foodie whose blog is excellently called My Kids Eat Squid, a design diva who hasn’t let reproduction cramp her style, and an astrophysicist who, amongst other things, writes about her ongoing duel with inflammatory breast cancer (a brutal kind I’d never heard of that forms without a lump).

Oh and of course Dooce is in there too. Right after me. (Heh.)

And if you’re too loyal to even consider reading another blog, you can go straight to my part. I’m #6 of 12.

Makes me feel like a calendar girl.

Wherein I Say I’m Sorry

Okay, okay, I confess. Before we had kids, invitations we got for dinners at friends’ houses that started at 5:30 horrified me. At 5:30 on a weekend I was usually still napping on the couch. Or at a matinee. Or hell, doing something else kidless folks do, like having sex or reading a book.

On weekdays at 5:30 I was just hitting my stride at the office.

The time was unthinkably early. So much so, I thought, as to be rude. (This from the woman who got married on a Sunday night.) How could they ask us to accommodate such an untenable hour?

Yet I felt slightly disorientated when I offered to make dinner reservations for a group of friends I was going out with in Rhode Island this summer. I was at a loss for an appropriate grown-up meal time. In five short years I’ve apparently forgotten that there’s any other time for dinner than, well, 6:00. (I still cling—just barely—to the notion that 5:30 is unthinkable.)

But even now that the shoe is on the other foot, I’ve managed to somehow maintain the irrational attitude that people unlike me should still anticipate my needs.

A few weeks ago, while lunching at the glamorous California Pizza Kitchen, our waitress approached our booth, propped a picture-packed dessert menu in front of the girls and cooed, “Can I tempt you with something?” Then ran off.

Galled, Mark and I looked at each other with the Tori Spelling nostril-flare of disgusted disbelief. He snatched up the menu  before the girls could feast their eyes. And weirdly, it worked. It all happened faster than they had time to process. Yet we braced for whining, pleading, and mortifying kicking thrashing tantrums.

Why doesn’t that 19-year-old waitress know that the way to offer us something should have been, “Can I interest anyone in some D-E-S-S-E-R-T?”

Puhleez. Was she raised on Mars?

Yesterday there were a couple events for Kate’s kindergarten. Things to get the kids comfy in their classrooms before school starts next week. I had no doubt Kater Tot would have fun, but I was dreading my own reaction to the day. What if I hated everyone?

In my sister’s kitchen a couple weeks ago, I revealed this.

“You know, I realized,” she said, dunking a tea bag in a mug, “that in any new group situation I immediately decide that I don’t like anyone.”

Now this is why I don’t pay for therapy. What she described is utterly and entirely what I do too. It rocks being able to draft off her self-revelations.

‘But then,” she went on, “After I get to know them a little more, I’m totally fine. I always find people I like.”

Uh, BINGO! That’d be me you are talking about.

So, with Big Sister’s words o’ wisdom in mind, I set my expectations accordingly. At the end of the day I wouldn’t be performing any blood-swapping sisterhood rituals with the other Room 2 moms. But that would be OKAY. Plenty of time to get to know and not-hate each other in the course of the school year.

But then of course, just to ruin my plans, I ended up really liking some of the people I met.

One of the mothers, wearing hip black boots (not black hip boots, mind you), started talking about a form we’d had to fill out for the school. There were four Mamas, sitting around a low kidney-shaped table in plastic kiddie chairs. “You know the question ‘Does your child have any fears or concerns that the teachers should be aware of?’” she asked.

Nods all around, and some anticipatory leaning forward.

“Well,” she stammered, a little embarrassed, “It sounds kind of weird but Jamie has this thing about being trapped in places.”

“Huh,” I offered. “Sounds like a perfectly reasonable fear.”

“So we were at Home Depot, and you know they have those big metal warehouse doors?”

Nods, nods.

“He started getting all panicky that they might suddenly close the store, and they wouldn’t know we were inside, and we’d be trapped.”

Encouraging ‘oohs’ from around the wee table.

“So I go up to this woman who works there and say, ‘What would happen if you were to close the store when we were still here?’ And she looks at Jamie and gets her fingers all wiggly in his face and says, ‘Well those big doors would bang shut! And you’d be trapped in here! And it would be dark and cold, and you’d have to wait until the morning when we open again to get out!’”

The three of us Listening Mamas banged our palms on the table and hollered, “No she DID NOT!” and “You are KIDDING me.” We were ready, in our NorCal way, to band together, get the word out, and ban shopping at Home Deport forever.

“Yeah, so poor Jamie was, like, set back about six months on this issue,” Hip Boot Mama says.

And I’m all, “Yeah you should forward the therapy bills to that woman.”

The thing is, how many times with my often-inappropriate snarky sensibilities have I done something just as bad? As a Mama, now that I’m on the receiving end of the idle thoughtlessness of strangers, I’m appalled by it all.

What is wrong with you people?! Can’t you see we’re trying to raise non-psycho children? Who will buy us large homes and luxury vehicles when we’re old and enfeebled and they’ve struck it rich?

Can’t you tell we don’t get to take afternoon naps any more? And we really really miss them.

Anyway, it’s likely too late, but for all those kids who I might have tempted with inaccessible sweets or unwittingly traumatized in other ways, I’d just like to say for the record that I’m really. Very. Sorry.

Love Tackles

I don’t know the first thing about football, but in getting to know—and love—Mark’s college friends, I’ve learned a thing or two about tackling.

The night before our wedding, there was a lobster bake in a tent in my dad’s backyard. It was where Mark and I got that first intense wedding-weekend hit of love from so many fine folk coming from far afield to see us get marinated. It was also, it so happens, the same day my father kidnapped our friend Gary. But that’s another story.

So there I was reveling in the love and the people and the chardonnay and the Rhode Island summer heat, chatting with someone or other, when I was suddenly, quite literally, swept off my feet. It was one of those “it happened so fast” kinda moments. I wasn’t sure where it came from or what it was, but I found myself lifted up and then pinned down onto my father’s desk. The perpetrator—whose head was tucked down somewhere in my midsection—was human. But that was all I could tell.

It took longer than my barely-there patience could handle to determine what was happening. But then the perp looked up, and with her huge grin and mop of strawberry blond hair yelled in high-def close range, “We are HERE, girlfriend! Let the games begin!”

It was Becca. Mark’s glorious fabulous college friend, Becca. Whose house I have the great pleasure of being at this very weekend. In what has most-excellently become an annual pilgrimage to Minnesota for lakeside hi-jinx. Because, six years and six children between us later, we are still giddy-tackle happy to see each other. Though blessedly, in recent reunions she has not knocked the wind out of me.

I mean, I really shouldn’t be pointing fingers here. Since another of Mark’s divine college cohorts, the aforementioned kidnapped Gary—or Uncle Gary as he’s now known to the kidlings—is here with us too. And years before Becca ever tackled me on my wedding weekend, I had the social misfortune of tackling him.

I blame it all on the event’s bartender, who clearly over-served me. Or maybe it was the humid Midwestern lakefront air that clouded my judgment. At any rate, we were at another of Mark’s college friend’s matrimonial celebrations. And I’d had a few.

I was walking from some lake-facing veranda back into the room with the band. And there was Gary. Standing on or near the dance floor. Looking so, well, tackle-able. Some so-bad-it’s-good 80s song was playing, and like some figure skater who visualizes a move before taking to the ice, I saw in my mind’s eye what I would do. That I would run up to Gary, jump with my legs outstretched to straddle his waist, and we would swing jauntily about the dance floor. Like some Travolta-Thurman dance scene from Pulp Fiction.

Compelled by alcohol-borne bad judgment and feeling exceedingly exuberant I ran with the chin-down determination of an Olympic pole-vaulter, and threw myself upon the utterly unawares (and might I add slight-of-build) Gary.

And let’s just say what happened looked nothing like what I’d envisioned.

I flattened him to the ground like a fly. He was stunned, dismayed, and likely injured. I imagine the dress of my skirt landed in a position that revealed parts of me best left to the bride’s grandmother’s imagination.

It was mortifying, and yet, Gary’s good nature managed to rise above. In my vodka-soaked haze I seem to remember him lending me a shoulder as we both limped off the dance floor, me slurring loud apologies in his ear.

Good times.

Ever the mini-me, Kate kept the flame alive when Gary met up with us earlier today. Since his arrival she’s been climbing onto his back and hanging off his neck like one of those long-armed monkey dolls. Despite our once-yearly time together, she’s instantly drawn to him. And though she may nearly choke the dear man with affection at times, she hasn’t (thus far) leveled him to the ground.

With Kate on Gary like her own personal climbing wall, in the other room toddlers Paige and Leo are squaring off. Squatting down and looking each other straight in the eyes, they lunge forward like two Sumo wrestlers going in for the kill. Paige has six months on Leo, so their playing ground is fairly even now. But by next year’s trip he’ll clearly dominate their happy head-butting encounters.

And so the tackling continues. Passed on to the next generation.

As for us big kids, in an hour or so when we arrive at the lake house, I expect the most tackling we’ll be doing will involve the cases of beer that Becca’s husband and Gary both brew by profession. But don’t for a minute think that means we love each other any less.

Separated at Birth?

I came across this old pic of Paigey the other day.

So wee. So somber. So freakin’ bald!

If you don’t recognize the cartoon character on the right, I’m so deeply jealous. The little dude’s name is Caillou (pronounced KAI-oooh), and at age four I’ve got no idea why he waxes his head. I mean, I’m assuming he’s working for that look.

Anyway, Kate LOVES Caillou, and even though I’d prefer that she practices her Latin or square roots, I love having occasional down-time from Mamahood. (I mean, I’m mortal and all.) So I sometimes let her watch it.

What’s tortuous about the show is the narrator, who I assume is Caillous’s grandmother. She has this weak creaky voice that jangles my nerves and causes my ears to bleed. It really could be used to snuff terrorists out of underground bunkers. (U.S. Armed Forces take note.)

So really, I’m not even sure what the show’s about, since after I turn it on I have to run from the room with my fingers stuffed in my ears saying, “LA LA LA LA” until I’m a safe distance away. For all I know it’s about sex positions or how to build bombs.

But hey, it gives me 30 minutes of free time.

For the record, these days Paigey’s not likely to be confused with Caillou. (And her grandmothers have perfectly lovely voices, thankyouverymuch.) Right now Paige is ALL ABOUT the hair. I mean, she personally doesn’t think much about it, but everyone else seems to.

When we walk down the street cars screech to a halt to call out, “Would ya look at the blond curls on that one!” Grannies in the grocery store paw at her head. And gay men discreetly ask me what products she uses.

I imagine it’s what it’s like hanging out with Diana Ross, Crystal Gayle, or Don King. I’m fine with Paige’s hair getting all the attention. I’ve gotten quite used to it, in fact.

But it was cool stumbling across that old chrome dome shot, if only to remember the sweet little scalp that lies beneath it all.

If Paige ever starts getting wise to her good looks, I think I’ll keep that picture handy. There’s nothing like getting back to your roots to keep you humble.

WMNRSMTR

Years ago, driving across the Bay Bridge, I saw a car with the license plate WMNRSMTR.

As you may know (from my excessive blathering about it), I’m from Rhode Island. A place where vanity license plates—and those with low numbers—are regarded as the pinnacle of social worth.

Not to show off or anything, but my first car, a major jalopy, had the most-excellent plate, KB 2. It was because I was dating the son of a Department of Transportation employee. That car’s been off the road for twenty years now, but my Dad (FB 14) is still proud of that license plate.

Aaaanyway, I was driving behind WMNRSMTR. It was clear that there was a message in there, but not so clear what it was. And I’m usually great with word things. It’s those pastel dotty posters you’re supposed to stare at until you see the wolf baying at the moon that I have trouble with. I almost never succeed at having the image emerge, and end up just lying to whomever I’m shopping with at Spencer’s that I saw it.

But I digress.

So here’s me, alone in my car, trying to crack the code:

“Wim… Nurse.. Mutter…”

“Wih Minners Matter?”

Then more determined:

“Wim NERsum Terr!”

“Wimin URS Tur!”

And finally:

“Wim NER Smerrterr?”

[Click!]

“WOMEN ARE SMARTER!”

Yeah, yeah, I get the irony.

And speaking of women, but really just a total tangent, I realized the other day that my gynecologist’s office is on BUSH Street. No joke! How good is that?

So a couple months ago I went on a day-long yoga retreat in Marin. I’ve done this before but always with my friend and faithful neighb, Jennifer. This time I was flying solo. So at the lunch break I was sitting somewhat dorkishly at the big communal table, having one of my twice-a-decade moments of shyness. Just hoping one of the other yoginis might put their play-with-the-outcast-on-the-playground skills to work.

A trio of older women, in their 60s or so, were sitting to my right. And one of them got to talking in a loud and animated enough way that I felt I could scoop hippie vegan soup into my mouth and look at her. You know, pretend that she was talking to me too.

She’d lived in a chicken coop in Georgia, she said. Yes, a chicken coop. Starting when she was 20 until about—long pause, looking up sideways to think—until she was 26. “It had a packed clay floor,” she pointed out. As if we’d all maybe been picturing parquet. They cooked on a grill and had an outdoor water drum that was painted black that they used as a shower.

I was instantly jealous.

When I was 20 I was living in Ohio. Sure that’s rustic and all, but I mean, I had indoor plumbing.

She’d moved to Georgia from Minnesota with her “pack,” as she called them. A group of about eight who I couldn’t help but imagine as a bra-disparaging partner-swapping commune-like klatch.

Again, more envy. Or maybe just deep deep fascination.

And they were potters, of course. That’s to say, throwers of pots. (By this point in the story I think I’d pulled my chair nearly an inch from her, abandoning my soup, enraptured.) They—her “pack”–had waited for their potter’s wheels to arrive in the mail first, then they hit the road for Georgia.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many pottery wheels they had, and why they didn’t just have them shipped straight to Georgia. But I didn’t want to ask too many questions. After all, I was kind of auditing the story as it was.

After more good stuff about one klatch member who was a professor getting fired, and some details on the rigors of heat-free winter-living, she mentioned  she now owns a gallery in Berkeley. The woman at her left has a gallery there too. They said the names of the places, which I of course instantly forgot, but in my mind I envisioned visiting there a lot. Buying stuff. Becoming an apprentice. Keeping a pet cat there.

Even though I kinda hate pottery.

Then this other woman pulls up a chair with her bowl of soup. And for a moment my verging-on-creepy fixation with the gray-haired pot-throwers was broken.

The new woman started chatting with the instructor about how she’s out of town so often for work. So, I summon some social courage and ask her what she does.

And DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE SAID? She said she is a bee broker.

A BEE broker!!

I didn’t know what that was but I instantly wanted to be one too. BEES! Of course!

So, I say, “So, uh, what is a bee broker?”

And do you know what she said? She said that she has some big rig that’s filled with hives that she brings down to Modesto to the almond farms. She then sets her bees free in the fields. It’s like the farmers rent them! Then at night when it gets all chilly the bees fly back into the truck to go to sleep with in the hive, or have sex with the queen, or do whatever it is they do in there. Then Ms. Bee Broker heads off to another farm.

I almost hugged her.

Now I was going to have to split my weekends between Modesto and the Berkeley pottery studios.

All this talk was more energizing than all the hold-one-nostril breathing and triangle-posing the first half of the retreat had served up. I loved every one of these women. If these gals by were so amazing, what were the ones crouched over their vegan soup over there like? I wanted to start going from woman to woman, looking intently into each of their faces and interviewing them all documentary-style.

I mean, I was feeling like the odds that the next person I’d talk to would be a Bed, Bath & Beyond employee was pretty low. But the thing is, if she had been, I think I would have suddenly slipped into a reverential trance, and praised all that was holy about mattress pads. I was ready to find the love in everyone.

Without drugs!

After lunch and before my yoga, we all hiked to the beach. This hike is pretty crazy gorgeous. If you’re ever in California, call me and I’ll take you to this place. It’s along a super lush valley where these Buddhists have a homestead. You pass all their perfect vegetable and flower gardens, then a silly idyllic horse pasture, and then the path narrows and it’s all just and trees and flowers and birds and butterflies and nature and shit.

What I mean is, it sure is purdy there.

Then when you arrive at the beach, you get that positive ion hit. Whatever that high is that you get from the ocean water. Someone told me about this once and I still believe that there’s something to it, even if it’s really not true.

But clearly in the mode that I was in I needed no more highs of any sort.

Beachside I wandered up to a group of co-yoga-retreaters and sat on a driftwood log with them. (See how socially brave I was getting?) We were looking out at the water, and I was feeling certain one of them was about to tell me something that would make me weep and hug her ankles and think that the world was a beautiful beautiful place. You know. I was just waiting for that.

Even better, I got some excellent book recommendations. These gals were older, but let’s just say we were reading at the same level. We all clucked with praise for that great hedgehog novel. And then they bantered about the name of a few other amazing reads. Eventually I’d borrowed a pencil from one of them and an ATM receipt from another and wrote the all the titles all down. We even talked about our favorite children’s lit because—get this—one of them had been a children’s librarian for, like, 30 years or something. Joy!

If I were to spelunk a few layers down on my desk today, I may even find that paper today and read those books.

Just a day or two after it opened, I went to see the Sex and the City movie with a Mama Posse friend. I never read movie reviews. Having even the smallest inkling of what to expect in a movie destroys it for me. I spend the whole time waiting for whichever scene it is that’s funny or dumb, and I can’t even enjoy my wine. (Yes, smuggling red wine and plastic cups into the movies has become par for the course for me and the Mamas.)

But in the days leading out to my Moms Night Out, Mark, bless his heart, made sure I knew how utterly decimated this movie had gotten by reviewers. It’s badness delighted him.

But whatEVER. We still went. And all of Oakland was out in their fancy. I mean, black girls in stilettos and what looked like prom dresses. I mean, it’s Oakland. If there was any Prada, I didn’t see it.

Me, I was in flip flops.

And do you know what? I LIKED the movie. Sure it was vapid and silly and predictable, and there were probably some culturally-offensive jokes, but it was entertaining. Yes, I actually chuckled—full-out laughed a bit too—and found it perfectly un-intellectually engaging.

On the way out, I think I even complimented a woman on her purple clutch, awash with feel-good audience-mate comraderie.

I’m not exactly sure what all those reviews said—because if I’m disinclined to read reviews before seeing a movie I’m even disinclineder to read them after. Maybe those writers were preparing to see Amistad, and were taken aback when the movie was more about Manolo Blahnik shoes, low-cal cocktails, and menopause. You know, I think they were missing the point.

While I’m at it, do you know what movie I also saw last week? The latest Twilight movie. Oh yes I did.

And I LIKED THAT TOO.

Sure, I’d had—-okay—a few Mai Tais beforehand. But even without cheap rum coursing through my veins I think I’d be squealing over the dreamy barely-legal cast and walloping my poor friend’s arm during the shirtless scenes. It was entertaining. I enjoyed myself.

And where’s the shame in that?

I’m hardly going to defend the artistic merit of either movie. But I will say, that in a theater full of women who likely spent their days working in courtrooms, or classrooms, or at The Sunglass Hut—or hell, wrangling with clay or bees or young children—for us gals it felt good to put our hair down and our feet up and let the low-browness of it all wash over us. I mean, isn’t that why men watch wrestling?

From what I can tell, despite what movies we may make a big show of going to, that license plate was right. Women are smarter.