Does The Carpet Match The Drapes?

Okay, we try and do the grown up adult thing and keep the place in tip top-ish shape. After vacuuming every other day and scrubbing the house as best we can, we decide our cool, cream colored shag rug that has turned into a what appears to be an old tortilla one might find behind a suspiciously empty Taco Bell needs to be professionally cleaned. It has lived through two years of Otto rolling over, crawling and walking on it while bodily fluids spilled forth with all the skill of a cracked fire hose. Our dog Brody began nuzzling into the rug as soon as we got it and instead of sleeping on one of his two dog beds, opted to burrow into the rug hourly, giving it the distinct smell of dog ass breath funk. We did institute a “No Shoes” policy in our household the moment Otto and the rug arrived but still, it had taken on a hue of disturbingly gray proportions, what I always imagined Bea Arthur’s nether regions must have looked like before she said adieu to this golden world of equal opportunity.

So on Friday, in order to launch Operation Carpet Cleaner, I had to take Otto on a long trip to the zoo to get him out of the house. After we took off for the animal prison, Tavo, the carpet guy, who came highly recommended from a friend with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a fondness for a job well done, came over with an assistant and sucked the last two years of tears, Cheerio's and anger out of said rug. I returned late in the afternoon to sparkling, white shag that was still wet but glistening with the promise of perfection and good times ahead. Tavo assured Dave that it would dry within two hours, even though it was seemed that a flash flood had mysteriously passed through our living room, hitting only the area rug and its wildly absorbent fibers. yet missing all the plastic toys we secretly loathed.

That was at 2 p.m. on Friday. It is now 10:26 p.m. on Sunday night and my living room rug is propped up on three garden chairs while a collection of fans blow air around my apartment. I just pray that this 12X12 swatch of wool/poly-blend pubic hair will dry out as soon as possible and stop making me feel like we are living in a Russian bathhouse. The entire place smells of a pile of sour towels left on the floor of a cheap motel bathroom after the parade of bikini clad venereal diseases have vacated their favorite spring break town somewhere in the Florida pan handle. I rather sleep in John Madden’s dirty clothes hamper. Who slipped me a Rufie and stuck me in Larry King's left orthopedic sock? It’s fucking horrible.

In conclusion, Tavo is coming back over here in his white van at 9:30 tomorrow morning to solve the problem by a) either cleaning it somewhere else and returning it to us smelling of water lilies, rainbows and grandma’s cold cream b) cleaning it in less than one hour and remembering to remove all the water with his shitty little machine that looks like a broken down moped or c) taking the enormous mildew riddled kitchen sponge that we clearly chose to decorate our floor with out to be shot in the alley and returning with a thousand dollar check and no hard feelings.

To Be Continued…

Great Motherly Advice I Have Received As Of Late

For months now my brain has slowly collected great tips from various moms I know and I want to share them with anyone who might give a rat’s…

 

Always have multiples, doubles, back ups, whatever you want to call them, of your child’s security blanket or your life will end when the said blanket disappears and junior is inconsolable and refuses to stop screaming and crying, making your ears bleed like they would during the encore at a Slayer concert.

 

Use toothpicks to stack pieces of vegetables and make mini shish kabobs to help entice your toddler to eat foods he would otherwise shun like a prom date arranged by a parent or a Christmas sweater grandma knit. Just make sure he doesn’t swallow the toothpick or your night will get very long and complicated when child protective services asks why your child looks like a canapé on a paper doily.

 

Throw a birthday party smack in the middle of the week to break up the monotony, help kill an afternoon and free up the weekend for mellow family time where you can sit around watching sports as your child puts away all his toys and vacuum "for fun".

 

Let your child eat chocolate cake AND cookies at birthday parties to ensure a speed ball sugar high and a marathon nap later on when you can catch up on your reading or watch Jon and Kate Plus 8 on TiVO and finally understand why some people kill.

 

Always recover your sofa on a fabric that resembles infant diarrhea and macerated peas, thus saving time, money and emotional distress when that generic diaper you just had to buy explodes “slasher film style” all over your living room.

 

Sometimes, just leave the f#*king dishes in the sink and walk out.

 

Ikea kids linens and towels – accept no substitute.

 

Never finish your meal at a restaurant so you can be a lazy sloth the next day and feed the leftovers to your child.

 

Don’t get a toddler bed for junior until he’s in middle school.

 

Stash away half of the toys littering your home and in six months reintroduce them into the fray and be a hero of the monumental kind, taking full credit for being the most awesome, generous parent EVER!

 

Make a plan with a far away, very missed, brilliant friend to have a glass of wine and a phone date so you can catch up, sound off and laugh your ass off at how insane it is that you two used to do acid together but now change diapers, cry into your pillows and fall asleep before you even eyeball the number ten on your clock radio.

 

Just be Fonzi cool about other people’s shit. It all smells the same anyway.

 

What’s the worse thing that can happen if your forget something in the diaper bag? Really, what is the worst thing? Really. What? Seriously. Tell me. What?

An Apple A Day

The last few months of my life have been a pressure cooker filled with sub-par meat products and old vegetables. When the ingredients were thoroughly stewed, the result looked like warm dog vomit on a summer sidewalk. Every few days something else would happen and the veins in my skull would begin to percolate and finally, the bad happened. I was at a kid’s birthday party last Wednesday trying to act like a mom who wanted eleven more children just to prove that I was alive and relevant and as I stood watching Otto to make sure he didn’t Evil Knievel off of the primary colored playground of death, I suddenly lost the vision in my left eye and everything starting spinning. I went down in the tan bark and continued watching the earth rotate at the speed of Tom Cruise’s space ship as I begged the guy next to me to make sure Otto was safe and not to let him eat any dirt or fecal products he might find buried nearby.

This was oddly similar to the feeling I had a fateful Friday afternoon in 1987 when I was carried out of my favorite college bar, The Tiki Inn, me in my shoulder padded glory resembling a preppy maxi pad, clutching a fake I.D. that made me look like Jimmy Durante’s last known publicity photo and proceeded to revenge vomit on the hood of a marshmallow white, BMW 325i. 

This was the car that Molly Ringwald drove in real life. It was my dream car, the car that would have solved all my problems. Like the freshman fifteen I had gained or that fact that I could never wake up before 11 a.m. for any class or that my roommate was a binge eater who hid snacks under her bed, sometimes eating Mallomars and popcorn at day break while staring at my sleeping profile. This was an over tanned Chimichonga loving loner who refused to shower after spending seven hours oiled up like a sea lion at the pool in our apartment complex, making our bedroom smell like Orville Redenbacher’s buttery athletic cup after winning the potato sack race at the company picnic in 1975.

Oh, if only I owned that Bavarian automobile of perfection, I would have had a boyfriend named Blake, Drake, Wayne or Blah who would call me Snooks and take me away for weekends wearing his pastel sweaters draped over his J. Press hand tailored shirts while I gave him hand-jobs in his convertible Saab and begged him to date rape me as The Cure on cassette tape played through his Bose speakers.

The week following my allergic reaction to living, I had a funny feeling in my left eye, somewhat of a Sammy Davis Jr. phantom pain, an empty, spotted ache coming on the heals of few martinis and a round of hot, desert golf with Dean and Frank. The dizziness transformed into vertigo as if I had just disembarked off of the private yacht that Blah’s parents owned or the hot air balloon we would often take from his backdoor to the pool house a few yards away. Add to that, a metallic taste in my mouth equal to that of a groupie with an irony deficiency, Dracula’s light sensitivity and unreasonable bouts of anger when the cat stretched, I finally went to see my doctor.

After assuring me that my neurological functions were normal and I wasn’t hoarding a tumor behind my left cornea, I explained to him my family history of mental illness, hypochondria and my life long addiction to the crazy train and all its passengers. He enthusiastically prescribed an anti anxiety medication to be taken during the day as if I were a post modern Jacqueline Suzanne heroine, insisted I start meditating instead of reading headlines on CNN.com and actively pursue a fresh DNA pool and a tropical, childless vacation. I wiped away my tears, filled my prescription and drove home knowing that all of this could have been avoided if Blah had just bought me that God damned car in the first place.

Fashion Victim, D.O.A.

Even before I had a baby I never enjoyed the extracurricular pastime of shopping. You will never hear me use the term shopaholic or storegasm, as a former girlfriend of a pal who was also a soap star and a pill popper chirped repeatedly every time we were forced to dine with her majesty of purchasing during the Clinton years. She would wear a trendy mid-nineties, over priced, sundress that had clearly been tailored by an upholsterer and babble on about how she would always have a “storegasm” at the Beverly Center after taking the escalators up into the belly of the beast. The Beverly Center is a monolithic mall, a putrid, Mauve colored whale, in the center of Los Angeles built in the late 1980’s when ruffled miniskirts, gilded shoulder pads and quirky fedoras were all the rage. Oh wait! That sounds like a Red Bull red carpet event last week at any one of a handful of nightclubs here in L.A. that caters to anyone who is on The Hills or finds Us Weekly to be a challenging read. I was not invited.

I am un-hip, un-trendy mom with lazy tendencies who can barely accept the fact that I still have not retrieved my pre-pregnancy clothes from the depths of our rat infested, dust bowl, Silence of the Lambs look-a-like garage that faces an alley where a treasure trove of homeless trannies roam clutching dirty stuffed animals and wearing a misshapen tube top or two. I know there are some good pieces out in the plastic bin buried under years of tax returns and Goodwill furniture but I am not only afraid of being attacked by a cross dressing rodent, I am fearful that the clothes that are there will be as outdated as Lindsey Lohan’s speed dial. I want to push the restart button and not look back on the bad fashion choices I must have made in 2005-6.

But seeing that we are about to fork over enough money to buy a third world shanty town in exchange for a preschool education for a child who still shits his pants and cannot drive, I am not inclined or enthusiastic about spending any money whatsoever when it comes to updating my disheveled softball player look I have so carefully honed. Though, while at Target yesterday, I had a change of heart. Why not one-stop shopping? I can pick up toilet bowl cleaner, dog shit bags and a new wardrobe sewn together by small children in the forests of Nicaragua, a place where this under paid crew create an array of fashion choices any teenage junky would love to be buried in.

As I perused the racks of mediocre, I tried my best to convince myself that anything Mossimo, Target’s house brand, is pretty cool. Not that difficult a task for someone as pliable as me. You see, I recently met a friend of Mossimo’s wife at a dinner party who told me that Mossimo’s wife told her that Target’s Long and Lean tank top is the only one she’ll wear. I pictured Mrs. Mossimo driving to lunch in Beverly Hills in her powder blue Phantom where she would eat air and ice cubes at a Tuscan styled trattoria and then stop to have a shoulder implant and a wrist lift while wearing her Long and Lean tank, just like me!

So, of course, I went out to buy the tank top the next day to feel better about myself and to best imitate the wife of a billionaire fashion designer who was smart enough to bring quasi-style to the masses without losing face. Meanwhile, the reality is such that the wife most likely sits in their palatial Bel Air mansion wearing only hand spun silk g-strings, solid gold culottes and a cabana boy wrapped around her wrinkle free neck, laughing at losers like me who crave the cool but refuse to spend a week’s salary on a tank top made of rare Andean pixie dust that actually flatters or $300 jeans that Chloe Sevigny squeezes into to distract attention from a face than only a drunk cubist could love.

I ended up coming home with a bag of Rosie O’Donnell’s favorite t-shirts, another Long and Lean tank top to hide my pain, an ill fitting bikini whose crotch could stow away a petite Cuban boy and a pair of Mossimo jeans that looked like a pair of trousers that were confiscated from a mental patient after a violent, involuntary intake in1983. I tried on my new clothes for Dave who proceeded to turn the color of cement as I pirouetted in the living groom. What I saw as a new me, he saw as a sad collection of marked down dishtowels from a Big Lots sidewalk sale draped over some freaky lady who thought she looked hot.

By his reaction I knew I was in trouble and skulked upstairs to see for myself. There, in all her glory, standing in my full length mirror, was a woman lost at sea, a woman I wanted nothing to do with, a woman I would run from in an alley in broad daylight. I removed the new me and put her back in the bag with the receipt and told myself that this was the last time. I would return this pile of excrement and not bring home another stitch from Target, no matter how many hip, trendy stylists were in the bright red isles scooping up these cheap duds to dress creepy, tween actors on various Nickelodeon shows while I looked on with envy and awe. I miss you already, Miley.

Life Uphill

Every few days I try and convince Otto that I want to push his little ass up our favorite canyon so I can find the ass I misplaced before Otto's arrival. I get him all riled up with promises of seeing the barnyard animals that live in a cool farmhouse at the top of the hill. I also assure him that he can spend ample time walking on a retaining wall near the house, a wall we like to call “the beam”. With his tiny little legs and his startling focus he always walks it like a pro, looking just like an underfed Olympic gymnast without the ponytail or hooker make up. I then fill the stroller with enough food for a family of four to survive in the wild for two weeks and slather us both down with a 50 SPF that smells like the shoe department at Kmart. As I am packing up the provisions, I always think, what would the Donner party really prefer? Eating old raisins, Cheddar Goldfish, day old sliced fruit and cookies covered in dirt or a friend’s backside cooked over an open flame?

The only things I choose not to carry with me are a sleeping bag and a bowie knife. But seeing that the eclectic homeless population of Hollywood also enjoy this rugged canyon Shangri La, I could rustle me up something similar a mere stone’s throw from the trail. Only problem is I would have to bed down with the uber-skinny, angry schizophrenic dude who likes to reads scripts in a discarded lawn chair while threatening his imaginary friend or the creepy man-giant who wears an old flack jacket filled with weights and toilet paper squares and only shows himself when the place is nearly dark. It really is the best of both worlds. A lovely city park with a spectacular view of Los Angeles AND a playground for America’s Most Wanted top ten fugitives.

With all my planning and plotting the hike did not go as planned. The heat was much worse than I had anticipated making my shins feel like two loaves of under baked bread right out of the oven. And from the get go, Otto was being obstinate, refusing to wear a hat or hold my hand when not in the stroller, both asshole mommy rules on my asshole mommy list. Somehow I feel that Otto getting skin cancer, running into traffic, rolling down a hill and landing under a delivery van would be a huge buzz kill for me. So, because of his refusal and what I like to view as my realistic fears, I was forced to put him in the stroller instead of allowing him to walk up the steep street to the entrance of the canyon. And then he brought it.

Fuckface, and I mean that with all the motherly love of an angry lioness after she's been accidentally shot with a dart by her lion cub, cried the majority of the hike. "White ball, white ball, down, down down...!" He had a total meltdown, to the point that people actually stopped to offer help. Then, when we reached the top, he fell off the beam, twice, scraping his legs and wailing uncontrollably. I had to carry him in my arms while steering the stroller down hill, nearly maiming an I.Q. challenged bull terrier that refused to yield to me. Otto weighed as much as a large flood prevention sandbag but I knew my arms would look great in a tank top later in the day so I suffered through the agony. And when the snot train got really bad and my new Madonna arms turned to spaghetti, I put him back into the stroller with a promise of cookies and an uninspired quiz on helicopters and tall buildings.

He calmed down enough for me to get him down the hill and to the car, where he proceeded to hit his head on a tree getting while getting in. Waterworks turned on again and I just held him tight until the tears subsided once again, giggling in the nape of his neck like only a good mother could do. Then I drove his ass to In‘N’Out Burger and fed him fries. Just for the record, this was his lunch today; brown, sliced apples, Cheerios covered in dust, five shortbread cookies that looked like cat shit, a bucket of tears, two glasses of water/juice/snot, and an entire order of fries.

Yet, as bad as it seemed, it was a great jaunt after all. Half way through the hike-o-hell, I ran into a very successful writer acquaintance of ours I had not seen in years. This guy had been very rude, unfriendly and condescending about the prospects of our success in Hollywood on more than one occasion and I noticed he needed a tan and a few more uphill hikes a week. He was with his toddler and the conversation that we managed to get in, before Otto screamed bloody murder in a voice as loud Ethel Merman’s farts, involved me bragging about my husband's recent career victories in this brutal town of shattered dreams and curdled hopes. After he calmly told me of his hilly, exclusive address I realized my bragging was not only justified, it was really fucking satisfying.

So, when life throws lemons at your face at 90 m.p.h. just pick them up after they have chipped your teeth and throw them at someone else who probably still deserves to be beamed by bruised fruit. Then go eat a burger.

 

 

 

 

 

Suckity Suck Suck

Sometimes life just throws a bunch of shit straight at a wall and all of the stinky nuggets stick as if they had suction cups attached to every molecule of waste. This week has really been a doozey when it comes to bad news, bad behavior and overall bad vibes. I have seen, heard and experienced relationships coming to a screeching halt, trouble in more than one paradise, terrible, unfair sickness, a mistaken near death diagnosis and death itself. And honestly, Mercury being in retrograde, a term that is as familiar to me as a clitoral castration ceremony or ordering my lunch special in fluent Mandarin is no excuse. All I know is that I am a Sagittarius, a fire sign with a birthday that falls too close to Christmas for it to be fun. So, when planetary mumbo jumbo is thrown around like a football at an alcohol soaked Kennedy B.B.Q. I go blank inside, much like a super model that has been asked to speak in full sentences.

I would like to know why all these terrible things are happening to people I know or relatives or friends of friends or neighbor’s relatives and friends but there is no explanation and no rational theory. Life is shitty and hard and unfair sometimes and other times, it is a shower of delight, glee and hot water mixed with fancy hotel soap. People are always going to be human. Thus, they will continue to be fallible and flawed and truthfully, fuckers sometimes. I get that. It’s in the Life Survival Handbook, a tome of toilet reading one can find at Barnes and Noble next to Suzanne Somer’s latest book, “Slim and Sexy During Old Age Paralysis” and Chelsea Handler's new manuscript “My Vagina Is Talking But I Can't Hear Her”, a collection of humorous stories about gynecologists she's dated and the things they cured.

I hope that when this retrograding fuck fest finally ends, some peace and tranquility will fall on those who need it the most right now. As for the people whose petty grievances pale in comparison to the deep seeded sorrow that seems to be the flavor of the month, yours truly included, step back, take stock and start celebrating the fact that the good days really do out number the bad ones.  Especially when Danny Gokey gets voted off American Idol. That is a great day for everyone.

 

It is health that is the real wealth 

and not pieces of gold and silver 

– Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

 

In Lieu of Mother’s Day Flowers…

In the Olympics, as in most sporting events, it seems to me that the goal is to do whatever task is at hand, faster, stronger and better than the opponents you are competing against. The one who runs the quickest race, the one who jumps the highest, the one who makes the fewest mistakes is awarded with not only medals and prize money, depending on the popularity of the sport, but also the knowledge that they have achieved individual greatness that few will ever know.

Why is sex not judged in much the same manner as athletic achievement? Why are people not rewarded for speed and precision in the world’s first extra curricular activity, a fun filled pursuit enjoyed long before the discovery of murder by clubbing or dragging a pal by the hair? When people discuss sexual encounters they usually include the duration of the event, often using terms for copulating that have nothing really to do with the act. The runner’s term “marathon”, the battle term “epic” and the collegiate term, “all-nighter” is so often used as sexually charged adjectives that their original meanings seem trivial and confusing at best. 

Nothing seems less appealing and impressive to me than that of a long, exhausting hump-a-thon where no one could possibly gain anything but a decent work out, a mysterious infection or a new Facebook friend. The only time that stamina seems to win out is during an old fashioned dance-off, where a bedraggled group of hoofers try and stay on their feet longer than anyone else, resulting in barely enough prize money for a pancake breakfast and two winners looking like something you might find in the Salvation Army bargain bin.

My friend R. once told me about a great night of sex he had with a long, raven haired temptress he picked up off the floor at the bar where he worked. After she ingested enough flavored vodka to fuel a Sex In The City prequel, he brought her back to his place and proceeded to pleasure her for the next seven hours, even as the sun rose on her artificially enhanced chest. I could just picture it. As the sun cracked through the blinds, the streams of light must have revealed a woman whose face doubled for a muddy footprint at a crime scene and hair that was walk-of -shame ready. Day Glow panties and a broken high heel decorating the floor while the smell of alcohol quickly turned into a stench of regret. As he was fondly reminiscing about his colossal fuck fest, my vagina and all her roommates crawled into my throat and tried to make a run for it.

The thought of boning down for the length of a regular work day seems as pleasant to me as a free mani/pedi performed in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp after the fall of Saigon. I am all for the sexy time but time is the key word in that sentence. Spending any more time making love than it takes to do a load of laundry or read the New York Times OP/Ed section is not on my sexual To Do list. What really impresses me is the skill and acumen to deliver an earth shattering performance in under fifteen minutes. Add to that challenge, a small child squawking in a monitor down the hall, neighbors screaming in your windows and car horns beeping in rhythm to your hips and you have not only an Olympic gold medal for perfection but also a lifetime achievement award for focus, bravery and perseverance.

 

Phyllis's Rhubarb Pie

Here is a note and my grandmother's recipe that my mother sent me after she read the Mother's Day blog. This pie is ridiculously wonderful and full of great, crazy memories for our family. Thanks Phyllis. We miss you daily.

By the way, I spelled checked her note out of habit and my mother, who has won many a spelling competition and is the family dictionary, encyclopedia and editor extraordinaire, actually spelled a word incorrectly. She must have been driving while emailing or someone stole her laptop and wrote it for her just to piss her off. She never makes spelling mistakes, especially with words like aluminum and floccinaucinihilipilification* (definition at bottom of page).

What a sweet blog!  I wish I could remember all the wonderful days I've spent with you, from the time you were just little, and going along through now.  You know, I don't remember very often that you lived away from me for those first months, but I'm very glad you had that time with my Mom.  I wept a little on Dad's birthday as I made a Phyllis lunch of chowder and pie.

RHUBARB PIE
Preheat oven to 425.
1 cup sugar
1Tb. flour
2 cups rhubarb, cut in 1/2 in. pieces
2 eggs, beaten lightly
Crust for top and bottom - I used Pillsbury's from the refrigerator section.

Mix sugar and flour together, stir into rhubarb, add beaten egg. Pour into unbaked pie shell in 9" pie pan.  Cover with other crust. I made a lattice top crust which is a lot of fun - crafts meet cooking.  There are instructions at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4809RKhzg

Cover edge of crust with pieces of aluminum foil to keep it from cooking too fast.  Use four pieces overlapping around the edge Put pie in 425 oven for 15 minutes. Remove  foil, turn down to 350 and bake for another 40 or so minutes, or until pie doesn't wiggle any more when you shake it and crust is golden.  If the crust edges start to get too dark before the pie is done, put the foil back on.

*the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation".

Mothers of Invention

Happy Mother's Day To:

Jill - The Unitarian encyclopedia who almost died bringing me into this world and whose love is a Barbie Penthouse in a neighborhood of corrugated metal shacks

Phyllis - For taking the first shift in my life and for baking enough rhubarb pies to fuel an army of funny out of a family of crazy

Adelle - The Jewish goddess who gave birth to my baby daddy as well as a plethora of wise fashion choices in the 70's

And... the girls who showed me the way years before it was cool to be in your late thirties with a child and no idea how to change a diaper or put a nipple in a small, hungry mouth who will never stop sucking until the last drop of mother's magic potion has crystalized into high caloric goodness and residual anger

I love all of you and your saggy boobs!

It Wouldn't Be Funny Otherwise

When I was four years old I had no sense of irony and no reference point to understand this poster. Now that time has gone by I realize that the cat is fucked.

They're Playing Our Song

Otto requests two different songs every night before he goes to bed. When I put him down he asks for Lights. When Dave puts him down he asks for Thunder Road. Dave is tone deaf. I am not. Dave's song is a Bruce classic with really long, complicated lyrics and a story. Mine is not.  What does this say about how Otto feels about my singing and my love for early Journey before Steve Perry had a super hair meltdown and left the band to tour with a replacement singer who sounds just like Steve but looks like King Kamehameha in his hey day? 

The answer is simple. Dave has always been cooler and always will be. Dick!

Lights lyrics

(chorus)

When the lights go down in the city

And the sun shines on the bay

Ooh I want to be there in my city, oh oh

Oh, oh, oh oh

So you think you're lonely?

Well my friend I'm lonely too

I want to get back to my city by the bay

Oh, oh, oh oh

It's sad, oh there's been mornings

out on the road without you

Without your charms

Oh ooh oh oh, my my my my my

Oh, oh, oh oh

(chorus)

(instrumental)

(chorus)

Thunder Road Lyrics

The screen door slams

Mary' dress waves

Like a vision she dances across the porch

As the radio plays

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey that's me and I want you only

Don't turn me home again

I just can't face myself alone again

Don't run back inside

Darling you know just what I'm here for

So you're scared and you're thinking

That maybe we ain't that young anymore

Show a little faith there's magic in the night

You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright

Oh and that's alright with me

You can hide 'neath your covers

And study your pain

Make crosses from your lovers

Throw roses in the rain

Waste your summer praying in vain

For a saviour to rise from these streets

Well now I'm no hero

That's understood

All the redemption I can offer girl

Is beneath this dirty hood

With a chance to make it good somehow

Hey what else can we do now ?

Except roll down the window

And let the wind blow

Back your hair

Well the night's busting open

These two lanes will take us anywhere

We got one last chance to make it real

To trade in these wings on some wheels

Climb in back

Heaven's waiting on down the tracks

Oh-oh come take my hand

We're riding out tonight to case the promised land

Oh-oh Thunder Road oh Thunder Road

Lying out there like a killer in the sun

Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run

Oh Thunder Road sit tight take hold

Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar

And I learned how to make it talk

And my car's out back

If you're ready to take that long walk

From your front porch to my front seat

The door's open but the ride it ain't free

And I know you're lonely

For words that I ain't spoken

But tonight we'll be free

All the promises'll be broken

There were ghosts in the eyes

Of all the boys you sent away

They haunt this dusty beach road

In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street

Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet

And in the lonely cool before dawn

You hear their engines roaring on

But when you get to the porch they're gone

On the wind so Mary climb in

It's town full of losers

And I'm pulling out of here to win

Do You Have The Green Jacket in size 2T?

For his birthday this year Otto received a set of fancy golf clubs from his best pal Joshy. They were purchased at a real golf store, a place where sun spotted octogenarians practice their poor chip shots while breathing in canned oxygen and dreaming of a perfect tee shot and World War II. Otto’s love for golf came fast and furiously after we bought him a hollow, plastic set from ToysRUs. It seemed only logical to Joshy, his extremely verbal, quick witted and luxury loving pal, that Otto be given better tools to succeed in the competitive world of golf than what his parents had so cheaply doled out to him for Christmas.

So today, more than two months after the gift was given, I took Otto back to the store to get the clubs correctly fitted. Immediately, Joey, a sales associate who looked like Phil Mickelson after eating a meatball sub, insisted that we not cut down the clubs but teach Otto to “choke up” on his grip so he could continue to use them without wasting time or money by having to buy new ones in less than a year's time.  I liked Joey's frugal, honest approach, a character trait that was glaringly displayed by his choice of shirts that day, a Men's Warehouse meets Goodwill number with a ketsup stain just above the name tag that was cleverly disguised by the manly black striped pattern that screamed, "Help me!"

My wardrobe choice for the Golf Shack fashion parade,on the other hand, was centered around my vintage 2002 Seven Jeans that were being held up by nothing but a memory and a ripped button hole. Having been paired with the same long sleeved black shirt that had grown into my upper body skin early in the week, I now planned on being buried in it, as opposed to donating it to science so as to further the study of the relation of semi synthetic fabrics and mothers over forty.

After a few lessons from Joey on how to improve his grip, Otto walked straight over to the driving range area and dumped out an entire buckets of balls. He then meticulously put them back in the basket one at a time and proceeded to hit them into the white padded wall that simulated a par 5 . Thinking I was being helpful, I picked up a few strays balls but soon realized this was not part of his master plan. He yelled at me to not to touch his balls, a sentence that I imagine will be uttered many more times until he reaches puberty and then began to get very agitated when his shot did not hit the white wall at a perfect angle. By the time the basket was half empty, Otto had pitched himself face first onto the Astroturf and was crying as if the moil had returned to perform a follow-up circumcise. The guys practicing nearby were more than annoyed to be within ear shot of a two year old complaining about his golf shots at such a high, harrowing octave. I got down on one knee, held him in my arms and explained that if he continued to imitate the mating call of a South Asian Rhesus monkey we would promptly leave and sign him up for a male cheerleading squad instead.

He calmed down, took a swig from his sippy cup and walked over to the putting green where he began an hour long run of hitting the balls into the hole, while stealing other balls from customers who were there to purchase three hundred dollar drivers, golf bags with built in cup holders and jock straps with Tiger Woods face stitched on to the front. The tears were now replaced with a steely focus of a shark in warm, shallow waters. It was not so much his skill that impressed me as his concentration on the task at hand and the pleasure he got from the entire experience. He was there to cheat and and there to win!

When I realized it was lunchtime and I spotted sweat dripping down his cheeks, I knew it was time to leave before he hit the proverbial white wall again. We purchased a bag of day glow tees, day glow practice balls and a half dozen real balls that shall remain outside so as not to end up shattering the television screen on our nine-year-old set we refuse to replace with an HGTV flat screen that makes all newscasters look like Joan Rivers. We then walked hand in hand, out to the car where I lay him down in the back and changed his engorged diaper. I had parked directly in front of the entrance for my convenience, not realizing that all the people who had just witnessed a potential golfer in the making could now see him have his ass wiped by his fashion phobic mother.  

As I was cleaning off the last remnants of urine from his private Benjamin, I thought to myself, "This has been the most fun I’ve ever had with Otto. I really think the two of us just experienced an amazing bonding moment, a moment I will never forget. What if he's the next Tiger Nicklaus or the next Sergio O'Meara?" And just then a chortle came from the backseat and I swore I heard him say, “Mommy, don’t touch my balls!” 

 

 

 

 

And They're Off

Yesterday was Derby Day and what better way to celebrate horses being beaten by Lilliputians in stirrups than making a traditional Mint Julep and betting on these pampered ponies? Dave and I have had a rough few weeks with all the diapering and cooking twenty meals a day and chasing a small, agile woodland creature around in circles while weeping inside. So, after putting Otto down for an afternoon nap I went on line to get the perfect recipe for the famous cocktail that helped bring down the south in the Civil War.

I always thought that Mint Juleps contained lime but I was sadly mistaken. I am a fan of the lime. I will, in fact, put lime in almost any drink I consume just to make me feel like I am on vacation in a far away land without phone service or electricity. How can the monitor work without electricity? You see where I am going with this, don’t you? If a tree cries in the woods without the ability for the tree monitor to pick up sound will you hear the tree cry?

So I continued on my research and discovered that not only was lime not present but bourbon was the main ingredient. I am not a whiskey, bourbon or Scotch fan and in fact, cannot really stand the smell of any brown, oak tinged liquor. My first experience with hard alcohol involved a tow truck driver, a bottle of Jack Daniels, an 8th grade school dance, a new striped Polo shirt purchased Macy’s, a boy named Todd, my girlfriends #1 and #2 and a can of warm 7-Up. It ended with me puking at the dance to the beat of the Go-Go’s but surprisingly not getting caught, #1 slathered in partially digested grilled cheese sandwich while passed out under Todd’s guest bathroom toilet, #2 making out with Todd as I watched with a broken heart, and then finally, #1’s mother finding us at Todd’s parent’s house at 3 a.m., calling our parents and ruining our lives for the remainder of the school year.

It is no surprise that my initial reaction to the inclusion of bourbon in the recipe made my toes curl. Nonetheless, I decided to trek ahead since it had been a quarter century since last I had tasted my bitter enemy. After watching an instructional video on epicurious.com, I frosted two Collins glasses, crushed six cups of ice, ground the sugar in a mortar and pestle and then muddled the mint, sugar and soda water in the bottom each glass. I then poured in three ounces of Knob Creek bourbon, filled the glass with the ice, stirred and garnished the libation with the remaining sprigs of mint. The video bartender was adamant about using a straw to consume the Julep. I never have straws on hand but I remembered putting an extra In-N-Out Burger straw in the first aid kit in my car just in case someone needed an emergency tracheotomy on a road trip. No, I never watched E.R., I don’t TiVo anything on The Discovery Channel and yes, I am fucking crazy.

After retiring to the living room where we finished placing our online bets and toasting a great Sunday, I took my first sip of a Mint Julep and promptly decried it would be my last. As Mine That Bird headed into Derby history with a 50-1 odds win, I did my best to swallow what tasted like mint flavored nail polish remover mixed with the contents of a rain gutter after a long winter. I was determined to finish this masterpiece of Southern gentility but could not drink the Julep in its pure form. Because of my acute sense memory and a well trained gag reflex I was forced to add Coke and club soda to finish it off. No matter what I added, though, the bourbon still tasted just as terrible as it had those many years ago, where, standing in the bushes next to the Jordan Junior High athletic fields, #1, #2 and I all swigged from the famous rock‘n’roll, Kentucky bottle and chased the dragon down with the warm sticky goodness of the Un Cola.

Target Practice

Otto and I went to Target a few days ago to pick up feminine and masculine products alike. He was as enthusiastic at hurling a basketball into the cart as I was in finding my brand of cotton torpedoes on clearance. The store was relatively empty for a Thursday Los Angeles lunch hour, a time when most unemployed actors and hung over dilettantes comb the isles for cleverly packaged creams and elixirs to make their deep seeded sadness disappear.

If they could only look up for one minute instead of texting the booty call that still lay half dead and covered in crusty anti matter atop the overpriced platform bed they left them in, they would see a disheveled, recovering lotion potion addict pushing around a two year old porcelain-skinned package of perfection. They would then realize that spending $16 on a drug store brand box of trickery would not work.

As a crumpled up party girl gazed at Otto’s translucent skin I felt like grabbing the box of L’Oreal Power Cooze Under Eye Cream out of her perfectly manicured, nicotine stained claws and tell her that there was an easier way to achieve that toddler look. You must either be eligible for play dates and preschool in the fall or give up alcohol, hallucinogens, an unhealthy desire to star in a reality show, all legal stimulants, such as Red Bull, Mystic Tan residue, NARS Orgasm blush, overpriced sushi named after dead celebrities and reading US Weekly on the toilet while eating a balanced diet of Strawberry Twizzlers and Vitamin Water.

But how could I, a woman dressed like a changing room floor, who resembles Jimmy Durante in most Polaroid’s, who chose not to procreate until my eggs were nearly the consistency of powdered milk tell this Rodeo Drive dumpster diver how to look younger than Rod Stewart after a Saint Tropez vacation? Easily. Don’t have kids. But, suffer the consequences of not loving something more than a drinking a bottle of Crystal without a glass or waking up next to a dude whose wardrobe seems to have been purchased at a carwash. Parenthood may have caused my eyes to puff up like Pop 'N' Fresh biscuits in an Easy Bake Oven but it is the single most tasty treat I've ever had. That, and the Hot Tamales at the movies.

Say It Isn't So, Lou

"She just doesn't have that pesky Palin putridness and Lou Ferrigno's biceps."
- L.A. casting director running the camera who had to witness the opposite of greatness

I can say with much certainty that I will not be booking the Navratilova/Palin look alike Irish dancing farmer gig. After repeating the line, "A big weenie like you needs a lot of ketchup", four times and then faking a farting sound while squirting a fake condiment bottle toward camera, my palms began to leak acid rain and my arm pits burst into flames, knowing that I looked ridiculous and was as committed as twenty year old frat boy on spring break.