Once Upon A Time I Pegged My Jeans

As I have often stated, I am not a fashionista, a trend obsessive or a gal who cares about her hip clothing quotient. I do not spend my spare time searching malls and catalogues and websites for the latest and greatest glitzy Glamour Do’s. I have a kid and a dog and now, a crinkled, aging cat that has decided to use the living room as a universal litter box anytime we turn our backs or run upstairs to experience the more comfortable of our two mediocre toilets.

Today, in fact, was a real doozy of a morning, complete with a sacrificially soiled sofa, a shit-slathered Crate and Barrel throw pillow and a urine-drenched down blanket that soaked up as much kitty pee as a two-bedroom tear down on Hoarders. It is a little, yellow slippery slope. It always starts with the feral felines and ends with an elderly, toothless woman wearing an “I Love Las Vegas” t-shirt the size of a circus tent wallowing in her own excrement on a mountain of empty Diet Squirt bottles that have clearly replaced the love of her children with the noisy, sticky hugs of a five-cent deposit.

Then, when her spaghetti-soiled pant leg becomes fused with a crusty hair net and a wicker basket of petrified fruit she received from her employer upon her retirement from the pencil factory ten years earlier, she realizes that she very well may perish in her precarious pile of collectible contamination and calls 911 through a soup can and string she’s had since childhood. After passing her over and mistaking her for a laundry hamper overflowing with dirty adult diapers and mismatched flip-flops, the local fire department finally discovers her wedged between a bloated, splintered kitchen cupboard door to nowhere and a rusted yet perfectly good can of Crisco she had purchased for the famous Pillsbury Bake-Off of 1972. She made Snicker Doodles and lost in the first round.

I do not want to be a woman who has an army of putrid house cats and cares nothing about appearances and hygiene. I want to be able to find my toilet without crawling up a hill of old Hot Pocket wrappers with the coagulated cheese still clinging to the edges. I want to want to fantasize about leisurely jaunts through the racks of trendy boutiques and fake cobblestone streets that lead to designer duds that only the top one percent of all coke whores and trophy wives can afford. I want to really want to walk out of my house and not be confused for an old Ikea duvet cover with legs.

To prove that I care about not caring I even received my first copy of Vogue in the mail yesterday. And just because this subscription came to me not out of a fervent passion for fashion but a letter from Delta Airlines aggressively stating that if I did not fly with them within thirty days (like I’m going anywhere before May) that my five thousand points would vanish into the atmosphere, the same atmosphere that has been poisoned by their jet engine fumes and hair spray canisters used by the very unpleasant and coiffed cabin crew.

The letter went on to state that out of the kindness of their hearts Delta would trade my paltry, unused mileage for a handful of glossy magazine subscriptions of my choice. And so I chose. And I said yes to Vogue, the main stay of the fashion-filled. I said hell yeah to Dwell, the diary of modern malaise. I said you betcha to Entertainment Weekly, the best toilet reading this side of a discounted E.P.T. box. And when the bible of bobbles arrived with Tina Fey smirking on the cover I ripped it open ready to find that perfect pair of do dads to thrust me into a whole new me.

I used to care. A lot! In high school, I had thirty pairs of jeans, a shoe collection that Belinda Carlisle would shoot up for and I lovingly spent two hours a night debating on what my ensemble would be the following morning. Sure, my SAT scores were as alluring as a dirty twin mattress in the city dump. And maybe my class ranking hovered around a number that is better associated with passing Go in Monopoly than ardent school work and college prep. And during college, all three I attended, I installed shoulder pads like a angry left tackle, tapered a pant leg like a Dutch bicyclist and Jap-clipped my unruly mop top like a Texas Chi Omega at Lookout Point. I use these examples to illustrate a point that I do indeed have a history of being alive and well in all things trendy.

But after giving birth, forgoing style for comfort in the form of black yoga pants and sleep and throwing away clothing that once made me feel like Christina Aguilera’s stand-in I see very little point in spending any time deliberating over $200 jeans when all my kid cares about is whether or not I think it’s funny if he spits up Cheddar Goldfish onto my shirt. Plus, seeing my breasts drip like a milk shake machine in a Target dressing room while I was still breastfeeding has made me less than excited to return to the scene of that horrific double murder.

Though I did read Vogue cover to cover, what I came away with was an intense desire to go thrift shopping and rifle through bins of stinky, mothball flavored dead people clothing and try to score at least one cool piece of someone else’s history that is back in style. I do not think that that is the Pavlovian response that Anna Wintour had in mind when she screamed together the Best Of Spring 2010 issue. Maybe I’ll do better with Dwell and find a sofa that my cat won’t shit on.

Team Cohen

When your kiddo turns three and his school celebration includes a paper crown, a chocolate chip cookie the size of Uranus and two over enthusiastic parents who dance with the entire class during the weekly assembly and hug every person at school then maybe, your child will want his big day to be more on the down low in years to come.

And Just When I Was Feeling Unstoppable...

Yesterday, after a wildly successful weekend of healthy and cough-free birthday parties for Otto, I took a whole day to clean and get back to organized. I raped piles of laundry, killed a litter of feral fuzzy bunnies, spit shined stacks of dishes, hollered at incorrect hospital bill collectors and vacuumed up dog funk from a rug that I used to fantasize about as a Flokati hump mat but now only see a gray, canine hair collector. The sun was shining, the house was empty and all mine to scrub and I actually made the bed, a chore I find as alluring as refilling cracked ice cubes trays and taking out the garbage with leaky, generic trash can liners.

Since last week, I had been neglecting a task that continually gave me the finger every time I entered the apartment. Sitting on the front steps were two pairs of shoes, my favorite ballet flats I purchased at Loehmann’s during a weak, bloated, post pregnancy moment and a small, hip pair of Fila sneakers that belong to Otto. Both were victims of an accidental dog shit debacle caused by lazy ass neighbors who refused to clean up the excrement that fell out of the backside of their beloved, overgrown soft serve pooches.

Earlier in the week I inadvertently slid my flat across a lake of fragrant dog diarrhea while Otto yelled at me to let him get in the car by himself. After unknowingly stepping in poop I turned away from Otto for a split second to try and locate the cause of the smell of death and he fell backward onto the curb, collapsing in a pile of tears and barely missing the turd smear and a bone break. I made sure he was all right and feces-free and then exchanged my shit slippers for another pair of less defiled flats and drove away angry enough to call animal control and a Wal-Mart gun shop. The next day, as Dave walked with Otto up to my car Otto plopped his paw in pooh and again, I had to run to the house for a replacement pair of shoes and leave yet another set of shit victims sitting stinky and caustic on the front porch.

One day turned into three turned into six. I just didn’t have the mental strength or the all out bravery to try and save both pairs of shoes. But as much as I wanted to throw them in the black waste receptacles that stink up our back alley, even more than the homeless cross dressers who fight over discarded tubes tops and half empty bottles of tanning lotion, every fiber in my being yodeled “No!” I am a product of thrift store road trips and cat hairy hand-me-downs and tossing a perfectly good pair of anything, even if it is smeared in ferocious fecal matter is a feat as impossible for me as long division without a calculator and mental cramps.

Since I was on a roll, fueled by a fantastic night’s sleep and a Speed-laced iced tea, I decided I would indeed salvage the shoes and increase my already bulging self-esteem. Armed with bottles of spray cleaner and hydrogen peroxide, I went outside, sat down on the top step and got to it. I spritzed and dabbed and wiped and sniffed until all the rejected shoes no longer radiated rancid dog doody. But when I looked closely at the soles of Otto’s sneakers I realized that all the scrubbing could not get the shitty shitty bang bang out of the tiny crevices of his rubber-bottomed basketball kicks. And then, as if the gods intervened and handed me a golden scepter with which to rule my clean kingdom I spotted a pointed stick on the ground that fit perfectly into the grooves of the sole and began to scrape and scoop like a Baskin-Robbins soda jerk on a hot August afternoon.

With each road of rubber I cleaned out, I felt more accomplished and satisfied. I knew could do anything if I put my mind to it and would show the world what I was truly made of. I was woman smell me roar! Just as I was rounding the heel with the technique and precision of a duplicitous diamond cutter, a black, tricked out Lexus Hybrid SUV pulled up directly in front of me and parked. From behind tinted windows as black as Jesse James’ future out stepped a drink of water as tall as she was delicious. Dressed in a black Givenchy suit and Louboutin heels that were far hipper than anything that J. Lo could possibly burp about on her latest slouching CD, the modern day Bianca Jagger looked at me with a wry smile and proceeded to strut across my street as if it were a ruffled, red carpet leading to the wonderful world of the other half.

While I took in the five feet ten inches of her impossible perfection, poise and natural size zero, my ego, that moments before had been as tough as Teflon, now curdled and dripped down into my gray, Simple clogs, a pair of slip-on gardening shoes that make an old, sweaty Mario Batali Croc look like the new fall pump from Jimmy Choo. Add to that the black roots of a crack whore, a long underwear top brilliantly accented by a torn Hanes men’s tank and two braless cantaloupes looking for a fruit basket to call their own, three shampoo-free days on top of Old Smokey and sweat pants decorated with a picture of a smiling Bratwurst I enthusiastically purchased in Wisconsin during Bratfest 2002 and you have yourself the Scratch and Sniff City Dump Beauty Pageant winner of 2010.

The moral of this story is if you try and do the right thing by saving four innocent, discounted shoes from certain dumpster death, thinking only of your charges and not of your unsightly appearance and offensive disregard for fashion, all you get is punched in the throat by an exquisite black hole open only to the toxically pretty and perfected appointed. Next time I pay full price, put on real pants and toss the fucking foot ware like a Hail Mary on a cold Thanksgiving Day. Touchdown.

Happy Birthday, Rock Star

Three years ago today I awoke looking like a camper van and feeling like a Porsche. It was the big day for little Otto to come screaming out of my tummy and rock my world of late thirties selfishness.

At 5:43 p.m. on that Tuesday, March 20^th, 2007 you, my beautiful front man, joined our band with a few dirty jokes and a lot of joyous tears. Sure, Mommy and Daddy forgot the iPod at home that had the PERFECT mix all set for your birth. And yes, you were forced to come into this world to a Jack Johnson soundtrack of mellow sugar coated Pop-Tarts instead of my first choice of any B-side from Physical Graffiti. I would have been delighted with a little Goat’s Head Soup appetizer or even the appropriately penned Blood On The Tracks.

But you made the best of the situation and cried through the melted guitar riffs and into my heart. You wept as they weighed you. You boo hooed as they measured you. And then, after being checked for all then toes and ten fingers, two of which are wonderfully crooked (I take full credit for that lovely twist of nature) they handed you to me as I lay on the table gushing with a real, school girl crush.

The moment your perfectly bald noggin nuzzled into the nook of my arm I looked into your brand new blues eyes and touched your right cheek. And just then, as if you had been waiting for a cue all these months, your tears stopped and the wailing subsided. And with an intensity and love only a rock star singing to the girl in the front row could possibly possess, you stared into my eyes and told me that indeed, I was all yours for eternity.

You are the love of my life, the sun in my storm and the double-necked guitar on my wall. And to put it as plainly as possible, every time I look at you or hear your throaty, pitch-perfect voice you make me feel like the geeky girl who is cool at last.

Love,

Mommy

In N Out In Thirty Seconds

We needed help. I was still feeling cruddy. Otto was still coughing. The house was still stagnant. So we drove to In N Out burger to crush the remaining fungi still living in our bodies. I ate a cheeseburger while Otto ate fries and a side of tomatoes. That’s his thing. He won’t eat burgers. Tomatoes are his round, red equivalent. So what. We sat in my car in the parking lot and chewed while a random selection of people walked by our open window. Passing by were young hipsters with expensive cut-offs and ironically large fashion totes strutting toward a double double and a day of shopping. Then we were visited by a wealthy Chanel suit exiting a two-door, uninspired red Mercedes. Add to that throngs of uniformed teens with dark hair and overstuffed book bags, pudgy repairmen, tired toddlers and thrashed grandparents.

Then two, young ladies with a cool vibe only a York Peppermint Patty could truly understand walked by and made their way onto a grassy knoll above the last row of cars. I watched them lean against an old car and pull out a pack of cigarettes as if they were Parisian paramours in a time machine. With flowing hair and a floppy hat, the more attractive one puffed on what I assumed was an unfiltered American Spirit, the cancer stick to the stars and tilted her head toward the sky. At that moment the sunlight stung my eyes and filled them with a memory just waiting for an invitation to the dance. I was suddenly transported back to my very own after school special of seventh grade, looking for a silly something and finding a wonderful nothing.

The trees, the light and the smell of pavement and smoke made my thirteenth year of life seem inches away. I was there behind the middle school science building leaning against my light blue ten-speed, fake smoking a cigarette to try and look more sexually appealing and less Oliver Twist. The magical chunk of time after the last school bell rang and before the sky darkened when anything was possible screamed at me. The clouds in the sky were the same puffy marshmallows that laughed at my loneliness and buffoonery all those years ago. Dousing my childish, awkward face with make-up a Tijuana hooker would reject never brought those boys into my skinny arms. The future criminals I surrounded myself with simply laughed at my jokes and made out with my friends. Hanging out with beautiful girls with Picasso curves and promiscuous tendencies only made me want it more, whatever it was.

Those afternoons, albeit emotionally crushing, were some of my favorites. Riding around searching for the perfect tree in which to get high under so we could experience the earth rotating on a much more humorous and dangerous axis. Then, after waiting for something profoundly trippy to happen we would then find the greatest patch of grass to lie down on and laugh until my dewy-eyed companions all trembled like Fellini ingénues in slow motion while my uninspired, gangly body wanted to crack in half. The hours of time to fill, the luxury of nothingness, the open-ended day that didn’t stop until someone else put supper on the table and closed the door behind me.

Today, those girls took me back with nothing more than a profile and a head toss and I ran along side them with reckless abandon and the unfulfilled, tube top of my youth. I was once again that tiny, desperate and hysterically unpredictable girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and her sluttish jeans too loose.

I finished my burger, turned toward the back seat and watched as Otto dismantled a beefsteak tomato slice the size of a Hoola-Hoop and wondered a laundry list of wonders. How did I ever survive the teenage years with an ounce of dignity and no arrest record? How am I not a withered libertarian roaming the country looking for Jerry Garcia’s effigy in a Denny’s pancake but settling for a state fair Phish reunion? What will I do when Otto runs off to school with my famous smirk, his father’s mischievous gate and a nefarious plan for the afternoon hour? How do I keep him safe but let him be blinded by the same glorious sunlight and breath in the same delicious parking lot cement smell that they all have to smell before they can call themselves a grown-up? And why didn’t I keep my high-heeled Cherokee sandals? Apparently, they are back in style.

Surprise, Surprise

Otto constantly surprises me. Just when I think he wants Goldfish crackers he’ll ask for pistachios. Sometimes I’ll open his diaper and wham! A real stinker when I thought it was merely a tinkle in the wrinkle. Just when I am convinced that the football pajamas are front and center in the bedtime ritual, he will pull out the robots footsies and insist I install him in these colorful, cotton sausage casing that celebrates the existence of mechanical man helpers created in the mind of a Japanese inventor circa 1957.

But surprises come in all sorts of packages and this week it came wrapped in a wave of regurgitated pasta and a sweaty crib sheet. Again for the eleventeen-hundredth time, Otto got sick. Sunday night began with a goodnight kiss and ended with vomit sandwich and a fever chaser. Otto was a champ. But me? I just gave up. Within hours I was feeling a sore throat coming and a serious case of the gas oven suicides. The following morning, the sixth doctor’s visit this year (it’s only March, people) ended with the prognosis of an oncoming ear infection with a possible residual bronchial malady.

With no other choice than to ignore my aches and pains, we got on with our week of no school, thermometer readings and bundles of begging on both ends. But due to my oncoming germ warfare and a week of constant work demands for Dave, the little cabin in the woods began to burn down one exterior log at a time. Within twenty-four hours Dave and I had partaken in a wonderfully heated debate over life’s little inequities and he chose sofa surfing and the baby monitor while I opted for a Nyquil gel tab and a fitful night’s sleep alone. Even though he is the worker and I simply a lethargic bee, Dave enthusiastically insisted that he can indeed survive on two hours of couch crashing while I crumble into a pile of stale cookie crumbs when deprived of at least six hours of zzz’s on Ikea’s most popular mattress. With an exit worthy of a Speed The Plow revival we went our separate ways hoping that a collection of solitary nightmares and lonely pillow tossing would extinguish the flames.

The next morning Pa Cohen left the homestead for the day to try and kill a buffalo to feed his angry, grizzled family and I begrudgingly took Otto to two auditions that I could not miss. Seeing that Otto’s tuition bill is knocking on the door with a SWAT-issued battering ram and my self-esteem in the contributions department now resides in the flooded basement of my psyche, I didn’t have a choice. Though he coughed as proficiently as a retired cigarette girl who smoked more than she sold back before filters slowed down the inevitable tumor attack, Otto was feeling much better and ready for an adventure. To be clear, I avoid bringing Otto to any audition like I avoid a rusty, white van in a Target parking lot. And even though I have taken Otto to a few auditions in the past, an experience much like a drug-free root canal, he is now too big to be strapped in a stroller and force fed stale Cheerio’s while I mommy dance for The Man in a separate room.

I filled his Cars backpack with everything from baboon books to broken glass, anything that would keep his attention for more than thirty seconds and not distract me during my method acting word play. The snacks I provided were plentiful and the Play-Doh was brand new and I actually felt optimistic. To insure I was mom-rific enough, I wore a plaid, button down shirt I bought at the Salvation Army in 1995 as well as an old pair of cowboy boots that once belonged to an ex-boyfriend with my exact shoe size, a walking representation of why the relationship fizzled so thoroughly.

When we walked into the casting office I spotted a forlorn father in dress khakis that clearly needed my help. With my sexless, tired mom wiles I bargained with him that I would watch his runny-nosed daughter while he waxed Shakespearean, if he would do the same for me when my turn came. It was a breeze! The kids argued over broken animal crackers, grabbed the same cars and cooed over the Play-Doh like two little feral muskrats in a dirty ditch. Luckily, we were both finished before a tantrum or a pooper diaper burst onto the scene.

After sadly waving goodbye to my new TV husband and his daughter I was one down and one to go with another audition in the same office and no helper actor dad to ease my troubles. I now had bring Otto into the audition room with me, which for those of you unfamiliar with the greasy, grime of show biz is just like releasing a ravenous caveman into a kitten-heeled crowd at a Four Season’s Sunday brunch. There is camera equipment, sharp-edged props and a grumpy casting associate always running behind. To have a small, energetic Mouseketeer in the room only makes it harder to swallow this watered down, Hollywood cocktail.

I leaned over, told Otto that sitting quietly in the corner with all his snacks was a super, big boy job and if he could be as silent as a shadow for five minutes, he would indeed receive two M & M’s of his choice. This was the first time I had ever offered him candy and I thought what better time than this to welcome him into the world of high fructose corn crack. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, blah blah blah… Eat that for breakfast, Kesha!

As I sat in the chair and slated for the camera (said my name) he waved, smiled at me and said, “Hi Mommy!” The casting guy loved it and told Otto to run and hug me as soon as he called out his name. I started the audition, a truly brutal and challenging acting exercise in which I was to play a mom sitting on the beach reading and then notice my toddler playing in the sand. Serious acting chops need only apply. After fake reading my fake book, I really looked over to Otto and really smiled. The casting guy called out his name and on cue, Otto ran into my arms and kissed me on the head. Honestly, it melted my ice cream cone heart like nothing ever has. Otto then looked back into the camera like a professional thespian and said, “Goodbye” with the authority and finality of a prep school senior after deflowering a freshman public school transfer student.

I thanked the casting director for being so patient and sweet, scooped up Otto and his detritus and left with the confidence that at least one of us would get called back. When we got to the car I knelt down, squeezed Otto like a panini, told him how good he had been and whispered in his ear, “Hedge Fund Manager, yes. Actor, no.” No surprise there.

She Gotta Bump

Okay, it's no secret that I do not want to be pregnant again. Everyone who knows me knows that we have decided to close shop for the winter, as well as all the following seasons. Even the nosey, opinionated nannies at the park who ask me how many children I have now know where I stand in line at the grocery store. I am front and center in the one item or less line. My item is awesome and I am not planning on snaking in another item and jamming up traffic. Single payer check-out, is all I'm saying

But these women are brutal. After finding out that Otto is really Han Solo they insist on berating me for wanting to have only one child. I should berate them for wearing white sneakers with colored socks. But, I don't. I should rag on them for leaving their charges in their strollers while they call every cousin they've never met instead of engaging the kids they are paid handsomely to feed pre-packaged snack food to. But, I don't.

But then, something like this (see video below) comes along and I suddenly get the hormonal landslide, the same tsunami of insanity that caused me to get all tipsy and whisper illicit things to Dave on that hot , July afternoon resulting in my very amazing, extremely hilarious, often exasperating and Olympicly skilled Otto.

Below is the new music video that my baby Daddy, that delicious, dirt bag dude Dave Cohen, a guy who knocked me up and made me plump with pregnancy, co-wrote with his pal, Rob Pearlstein. Rob directed the video and his frighteningly hot and very "with child" wife stars in said video just weeks before they welcomed their lovely baby Asher into this very R- rated world of hilarious. Every time I watch this video I want to lie back down with my legs behind my head and coax another Cohen into our campsite. Enjoy and pass it on!

She Gotta Bump - watch more funny videos

http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/3pxd

Happy Birthday Kimmel!

Sometimes you get a gift and you really don’t know what to do with it. Even if it is a workhorse it feels lame. A potholder, while it serves a very specific purpose, does not seem at first to be the coolest gift. Dishtowels are lovely when you dry your hands but in a box with a ribbon, not so much. Granny underwear is a must for any woman when she’s under the weather or feeling like she wants to channel Bea Arthur from the waist down. But please do not give me a three pack of Hanes cotton, high-waist briefs. I will purchase those myself when I am feeling bloated and cranky in the Pine-Sol smelling aisles of Target.

But when you get a gift that you instantly love it is as if the universe just burped up a song in your honor. That necklace you longed for, the whisper thin t-shirt that you would never buy for yourself or that bottle of overpriced Chanel nail polish in a color that looks more like a corpse than cool. These are just some of the things on my secret wish list.

Yet, nothing can possibly compare to wonderful as when you step out your front door, into the scary outside and look up into the crazy blue sky of your life and see the white, cumulous clouds above open up and poop out a person that you really, truly needed in your life, a little rain storm of loveliness, a tiny shower of shits and giggles.

Last year, when I really needed a great gift on a list I had written that was as long and confusing as Gwyneth Paltrow’s grocery bill, I met Kris “Krap My Pants Funny” Kimmel. She wasn’t just a new neighbor with a crazy dog and really nice legs (hers, not the dog’s). She was a beautiful, long-haired, jokester sitting in my gross yellow lawn chair and telling me stories that made me unwillingly spit up a Joan’s On Third cupcake like an starlet on the set of a “made for TV movie” that she hopes will revive her choking career.

She made me feel sane in a pool of crazy. She made me laugh when I simply wanted to weep. She made me want to write when I thought my words were nothing more than shit stains on the underwear of life. She always wore a smile on her face and fierce high heels in the face of adversity. She showed me strength and perseverance and composure and humility when she had every right to run screaming down Sunset with an Uzi and a can of Raid pointing it at every asshole in low-rise jeans and slip on shoes. She supported my art when no one else was reading. She told me I looked good when I clearly mirrored Lady Gaga’s left foot.

When I unwrapped that gift all those months ago, I didn’t realize that she was, indeed, the potholder I always needed. With her tightly sewn edges, her perfectly formed corners and soft yet strong grip she is helpful, protective and always there when I really need a buffer between my peasant hands and the scalding world in which I live. I don’t see her as much as I would like and I don’t get to laugh at her brilliance as much as I need. But she is always there in a drawer next to the sink with the take-out menus and serving spoons. And when I do see her she is as fucking hot as a Mexican sidewalk on a July afternoon.

Happy Birthday, Kris! I love you!

I Will Seek Revenge To The Giver of This Tissue Taker

Winter Complaint

Now when I have a cold
I am careful with my cold,
I consult a physician
And I do as I am told.
I muffle up my torso
In woolly woolly garb,
And I quaff great flagons
Of sodium bicarb.
I munch on aspirin,
I lunch on water,
And I wouldn’t dream of osculating
Anybody’s daughter,
And to anybody’s son
I wouldn’t say howdy,
For I am a sufferer
Magna cum laude.
I don’t like germs,
But I’ll keep the germs I’ve got.
Will I take a chance of spreading them?
Definitely not.
I sneeze out the window
And I cough up the flue,
And I live like a hermit
Till the germs get through.
And because I’m considerate,
Because I’m wary,
I am treated by my friends
Like Typhoid Mary.

Now when you have a cold
You are careless with your cold,
You are cocky as a gangster
Who has just been paroled.
You ignore your physician,
You eat steaks and oxtails,
You stuff yourself with starches,
You drink lots of cocktails,
And you claim that gargling
Is a time of waste,
And you won’t take soda
For you don’t like the taste,
And you prowl around parties
Full of selfish bliss,
And greet your hostess
With a genial kiss.
You convert yourself
Into a deadly missle,
You exhale Hello’s
Like a steamboat wistle.
You sneeze in the subway
And you cough at dances,
And let everybody else
Take their own good chances.
You’re a bronchial boor,
A bacterial blighter,
And you get more invitations
Than a gossip writer.

Yes, your throat is froggy,
And your eyes are swimmy,
And you hand is clammy,
And you nose is brimmy,
But you woo my girls
And their hearts you jimmy
While I sit here
With the cold you gimmy.

Ogden Nash

Rise and Shiv

My father is a small, brown leprechaun sort of a chap, a corduroy-clad type that prefers books to people, closed doors to open and food that resembles cloudy gruel. “Easier to digest”, he always says. Of all his quirks and oddities his most famous was always the breakfast rule. No one in the family was ever allowed in the kitchen whilst Himself was eating the most important meal of the day and reading his precious New York Times.

If you wanted grub you needed to beat my father downstairs and stuff an egg in your pie hole before the wrath woke up and shuffled in wearing his vintage Birkenstocks and a look of disgust most closely associated with a newly ousted dictator whose former indulgences included gold bullion bath fixtures and prodigious polygamy. He was hungry, tired and in no mood to chat, much less chit.

All the years that the rule remained in effect beat me down and made me ignore the fact that it was a truly abhorrent rule, one only appropriate for insane asylums and homeless shelters. There, the rule would make sense, keeping the wolves at bay while protecting the piles of canned chunk light tuna and Kotex white sandwich bread from the indigent and insatiable. But in a house of a clinically diagnosed insanity it was a bit unfair and medieval. Seeing we had not yet reached the stage of crusty hospital gowns and overworked bedpans I really felt we did not deserve this kind of treatment.

That is, until I gave birth and realized that I would actually experience mornings before noon and that they would never again be mine. When you pop out a kid and you and your husband do everything without help from a relative, an underpaid nanny or a helper Lemur, your personal time becomes much more precious and much less attainable. Any fist full of seconds you can grab for yourself is a life- altering delicacy, much like a glazed old-fashioned donut dipped in Nutella and Pixie Stick residue. Whether it is the dishes, diapers, dog walks or designated driving, your schedule has left the building and you have to walk home in the rain wearing ill-fitting white pumps and yesterdays underpants inside out.

When I wake up I need a little chunk of time to not speak, not think, not move and not obey. Once in a while I simply want to shower without a purpose, eat without an audience and read anything without interruptions. The fact that I have extremely low blood sugar and have been known to morph into velociraptor before my toast is chewed does not help the situation any. When hungry, my body is an empty temple where very few attend and no one pays their annual dues. My head begins to melt into my neck and I cry into whatever, cheap, un-pressed cuff I may be wearing. Take that lovely and sexually suggestive trait and combine it with my cocktail of all-ready crazy and you have a nice, good morning typhoon swelling your way.

Yes, I am my father’s daughter, a foggy, starving pile of pajamas that berates the toaster oven, snaps at the silverware drawer and kicks the cat food bowl if I do not have the sunny morning I was promised in the Kellogg’s Raisin Bran commercials of my youth. Now, all these years later, the constant confusion and post traumatic stress disorder I endured makes as much sense as the reinforced pantyhose with open toe sandals and the unshaven shin that the majority of tropically vacationing Wisconsin women embrace. If you are the ruler of your cranky little kingdom and you can get away with establishing living room Marshall law and a kitchen curfew, than for the love of all things despotic, do it. Your family will understand and possibly thank you in group therapy thirty years after your fall of Rome.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever, Seriously.

I thought my February was a bathroom accident until I came out of the stall and took a look at the dirty tile walls around me. There seems to be a lot of sadness these days and I am not just talking about Vanessa Paradis watching the dailies from her husband’s latest film with Angelina Jolie. I do not speak of the myriad of rich folk who lost their hand-pressed, tailored shirt collection to The Bernie Madoff coin collector. And those sassy, self-involved Prius drivers are as rabid and smug as ever even without grade A brake pads and high stock value. And no, it is not the sadness that has enveloped my sofa cushions after my million-teen year old cat peed his yellow waterfall all over my downstairs nap station and made my living room smell like a pair of Nick Nolte’s chinos after a Gladstone’s Sunday brunch.

The pain I speak of is oozing from every direction these days. Friends, family, neighbors and friends of friends of people I don’t even like or know are getting the snot punched out of them. There have been a steady stream of stories of hardship and depression and strife and illness and divorce that rival a never before seen, two-hour Dallas episode, the one in which J.R. is shot, not with a bullet but, with a syringe filled with female hormones and Grey Goose. He breaks up Sue Ellen and the ten gallon Stetson, grows breast, begins walking with a shake only found at Mel’s Diner and develops an addiction to cashmere sweater dresses and dirty martinis that tears the Ewing clan apart and forces Lucy to suck dick for laundry money and generic Quaaludes while wearing Sergio Valenti painted on denim leggings and a sad face.

So, in honor of the fallen shoulders and puffy eyelids and beaten down balloon knots all over this land, I give you a really great chocolate chip cookie recipe. I recently found this concoction after Otto’s second bout of cough and snots and before I cautiously re-read The Bell Jar. These little morsels are one trillion times better than the last recipe I posted here and yes, I lived and learned. I made them a few months ago when I needed a pick me up after my hair turned into Sammy Hagar’s refection and I realized that my career as Van Halen’s front man was indeed a faint, tequila-soaked memory.

I discovered the cookies were full proof after making them again yesterday because the clouds up above were hovering once again. I came home from the park beyond distraught after thinking I had found lice on Otto’s head. He does not have it, thank god and was simply an innocent victim of Pirate’s Booty crumbs and a spiteful gust of wind. But before I could determine that my child was infected with snack food residue I ran into an old friend who wearily informed me that her lovely, wonderful child had just been diagnosed Autistic.

I came home, got weepy on Dave, who insisted that the lice were cheese flavored crumbs, and made these cookies to make everyone, mostly myself, feel better, safer and normal again. Yes, I bake when I get really stressed and anyone within a two-block radius usually benefits. Unless of course, you were any of a handful of my middle school pals and I gave you a pot cookie at lunch that one time that I had made the night before using my famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough and I dime bag of good Thai Stick while my father was reading Borges in the living room (Sorry Mom - and please, don’t tell Dad). No, I did not clarify the butter and marijuana and properly cook it down to make pot butter. I just threw in the green bud and told everyone they were Christmas cookies that tasted like lawn trimmings. Social Studies and Shop Class were truly hilarious that day.

So, enough of my rambling, here is the recipe already. Please make them. You will feel a thousand times better, no matter what ails you. And please universe, if you give everyone a break this month I will give you any kind of cookie you want, even the Christmas ones. Now all I need is a dealer and a clue.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened

½- cup sugar

1 1/2 - cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

3 cups (12 oz) all-purpose flour *If at all possible, please weigh the flour

1 tsp. smallish-medium coarse sea salt *please do not use table salt, the sea salt gives the cookies a nice flavor and hints of texture. If you only have table salt, use 1/2 tsp. *When using sea salt, you will get small crunchy flecks of salt when you bite into the cookie. If you do not like this taste, go with 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 cups/16 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips *I use Nestle Toll-House

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar until it is nice and fluffy (approx. 5 minutes on medium speed on a K-5). Add both eggs and vanilla and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour until cookie batter is fully incorporated. Finally add chocolate chips until well distributed. The cookie batter should be somewhat thick. Drop about 2 tablespoons of dough or use a medium cookie scoop and plop the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are nice and golden brown. Remove from heat and allow the cookies to stay on the cookie sheet for an additional 2 minutes. Pick up the parchment paper with the cookies still on top and transfer to a cool non-porous surface. Allow the cookies to cool on the paper for at least 3 minutes before serving.

The Bully Pulpit

I have said before that the last few months have really beaten us up. One could say that January and February were two playground bullies forcing us to hand over our lunch money and occasionally pulling our pants down behind the multipurpose room exposing our most precious and vulnerable parts to the entire world. There is always a bully in the bunch, always the Alpha dog who needs to show everyone that he or she is in charge with intimidation, threats and overall cocksuckery. Otto is still so young but my heart is occasionally heavy with worry that he will be in the same class with a real, old-fashioned Charles Dickens troublemaker who will make his days hellish and his nights sleepless.

A dear friend recently told me that she thinks one of her children may be being bullied at her school. The moment she gave me the details of her situation, a hot, wicked tingle ran down my stronger arm making me want to take my right hand and push the kid into a puddle the way hers is being pushed into submission.

Earlier in the week I did a Target drive-by which means I had twenty minutes to get in and out as fast as a Wisconsin street walker on a cold Tuesday night. I tore through the aisles with crack head focus and brain surgeon precision. I bought only what was needed including two t-shirts that made me look less urchin and more decent, a birthday gift for Otto’s #2 pal and hot dog buns that were as puffy and white as preservative-filled cumulous clouds. As I wound my way into the toilet paper section, the true and urgent reason for my visit, I encountered an elderly man with a cane speaking loudly to a few women. Standing next to the pharmacy just north of the Bounty paper towel and east of the earplugs I assumed he was chit chatting about his urinary tract infection medication or the wonderful sale on Fleet enemas. It didn’t occur to me to listen or care. I was on a mission.

I rolled my cart past him and grabbed the environmentally challenged Northern 12-pack that my family has become dependent on to keep the peace in our southern hemispheres. He was standing still and I thought that I had cut him off or possibly gotten in his way. Maybe he too, was a rabid fan of the fluffy white goodness and I had inadvertently cock-blocked him. I backed up my cart and told him to go ahead and he replied in a snotty, purposeful tone, “I was just standing here. I don’t need to get by.”

With that opening he began a Toole Academy worthy tirade against me as if I had single handedly ruined his life and killed off every thing and every one he had ever hated.

“When I was young I didn’t waste my days like you, shopping. I had a job. All you do is shop and walk around wasting time. You don’t work. You have no idea what a real job is. All these people here, just shopping and doing nothing important.”

Now, I understand that there are societal rules in a situation such as this. First, respect your elders. Second, do not engage crazy because crazy is not a level playing field. Third, making a scene is classless and pointless, doing no good to anyone involved and making you look like Gary Coleman after skipping his meds. And fourth, do not retaliate for fear of concealed weaponry and/or ninja-like skills that can be used to maim or kill you thus making you the lead story on cnn.com.

That said this man was as sane as saint, speaking clearly and concisely as if giving a presentation to a room full of McDonald’s trainees. He was too slow and too old to bother with concealing anything other than a sack of bile and a pair of generic Depends full of regret and human waste. He had no visible hearing aids so I knew if I said something he could hear me without me having to raise my voice too loud and cause a reality television scene. So, without hesitation, I responded in kind.

“Who the hell are you to judge me? You have no idea who I am and no right. Until you walk in my shoes do not tell me who I am and what I do. I have a job. I take care of a child full time and I can pretty much bet that you have never in your life changed a diaper or taken care of your children, so back off!”

I may or may not have dropped a few f-bombs or shot a couple s-bullets but I think the little elf in my head told me not to use any profanity (I don’t think I did but alas, my anger did cause momentary loss of memory) as it would pull focus from the task at hand. His age and condition never factored in to my immediate and impulsive decision to shit on his head as he had done to me. I truly didn’t give a crap about any of the rules of decorum, sensing that this guy was a grade-A asshole, a cruel Chet to a world of Wyatt’s. I knew he had always been that way and every fiber in my being told me to stand up to a man that had never been stood up to.

When my verbal explosion fizzled out I walked away breathing less like an unfiltered Pall Mall smoker and more like a hibernating bear. My heart rate slowed down and my craving to drive to the closet Wal-Mart and purchase an automatic weapon began to subside as I wheeled past the honeysuckle hair gels and lavender leave-in conditioners. Not two minutes later, though, Old Man River of Verbal Diarrhea was at it again, yelling at a woman in the toothpaste aisle. I stopped and shouted as loud as I could, “Do NOT listen to a word he says. He is a total asshole and crazy as a Palin supporter!”

The woman he decided to harass was clearly a gal who could handle herself and I walked away hearing things like, “YOU better not be talking to me Grandpa”, and “I will do what I want when I want, where I want, fuckface!”

I took a detour through the stationary section trying to get Kris “KKK” Kringle out of my head. But when I saw him ten minutes later at a checkout counter complaining to a hard working, underpaid cashier I had had enough. I went straight to security and filed a complaint, which turned into an assurance that this harbinger of doom would no longer be allowed to emotionally defecate all over the well-intentioned Target shoppers of West Hollywood, California.

When does bullying start and when does it stop? Clearly, this prig had a bad run and wanted to vomit up his pain and disgust on every woman in his wake. He has a story. He has a history and I am sure he felt he had a good reason to tear down anyone stupid enough to beat the weekend crowds with a little mid-week shopping trip. But that’s not good enough for me. Bullies are like mildew. They need the wet, weepy tears of victims to survive. If you get rid of the water, you get rid of the mildew.

Some may disagree with how I handled my bargain shopping bully. Some may have just walked away and thought nothing of the insanity spill on aisle 12. But, I had to say something for every kid who got the crap kicked out of him or her because they didn’t have a real Adidas sweat suit or a Sony Walkman with orange earphones. Or for every dork that was ostracized for communicating with his classmates the only way he knew how, by using a robot voice or a Dungeons and Dragons platform.

I did it for every mom and dad who is just trying to keep it together on three hours of sleep and no thank you notes, who takes the only tiny sliver of time they have to themselves and uses it to pick up more diapers and dishwashing liquid and Goldfish Crackers and toilet paper, that goddamn toilet paper that without it, would make life just be one, big, slippery shit stain. But mostly, I did it for every parent whose most important job is to try and raise a kid who is kind and generous and sweet and loving. I yelled at that bully for no other reason than maybe the universe would hear my hollers and maybe, just maybe, Otto will never shove someone that cannot shove back.