Whatever

Yesterday afternoon I was busy writing, and let Sacha watch entirely too much television--it's the cheapest babysitter around!

When it was time to pick up Sarah and Gabriel from school, I went into the den and gave him the five-minute warning. I also noticed that he was not wearing any pants.

This is not unusual, because my children, especially my boys, have a very casual relationship with clothing. It is always a surprise, when I check on the kids before going up to bed, to see what Sacha is wearing, compared to what clothing we put him to bed in. Some nights he take off his shirt, others his pants, and others still, he strips completely, and these are the nights I dread, because while he is undeniably irresistible in his altogether, he has also very likely peed in the crib.

So when I went to gather him for the trip to school, I was actually pleased to see he was still wearing his diaper, and had not peed on the rug, or smeared poop on the television screen. (He has done this. On more than one occasion. Disgusting.)

But he did need pants to leave the house. I took a quick scan of the room and could not locate his pants, so I said "Sacha, we have to pick up Sarah and Gabriel; can you please help me find your pants?" And he looked at me, and I saw the corners of his mouth creep with the slightest suggestion of a smile.

So I moved on to my strict voice and repeated myself. And this time, he broke into a grin.

Then I asked one last time, in my ANGRY VOICE, "Sacha, where are your pants?"

This time, he snickered, and said, "Whatever."

It was extremely funny. He was very cute standing there naked from the waist down, and to make matters worse, he is sporting a fresh new hair cut this week, and so is EVEN MORE ADORABLE THAN USUAL.

But I do not take kindly to lip from my children--now, when they are young, is the time to lay down the law; otherwise, how can I expect them to listen when they are teenagers--so I had to do my best not to break strict mommy character, although I wanted to burst out laughing. So despite the fact that I had wasted five minutes trying to get my son to produce his pants, I promptly sat his small, diapered posterior on the bottom step for a TIME OUT.

I scanned the den one more time, where I found the pants wedged in the television cabinet. I removed him from the step, replaced his pants, and off we went to get the big kids.

You may wonder why I didn't circumvent the entire situation by going upstairs and retrieving a new pair of pants. I wondered about that myself. But sometimes, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves locked in a power struggle with our children. Sacha and I were having a STAND OFF, and I wasn't going to be the one to back down. Mature, right?

So yesterday we were a few minutes late for pick-up, and I have not turned on the television yet today.

I love Mrs. O

Much of the world is in thrall with our first family. I know many women who have a crush on President Obama. It is hard not to; he is charming, intelligent, lithe and graceful. He moves like a cat. And have you seen those abs?

I challenge you to name a country with a sexier President. (To say nothing of his Chief of Staff, my personal object of affection. Typical Jewess; always a soft spot for the Hebrew. But, I digress.)

Much has also been made of Michelle Obama's arms, and there is no denying her beautiful deltoids!

But what I really admire about our First Lady is her balls. Her straightforwardness is a breath of fresh air. Consider this item from today's New York Times. When asked recently by a schoolboy if she still enjoyed cooking for her family, even though she has a staff to take care of that, she answered, “I don’t miss cooking. I’m just fine with other people cooking. Their food is really good.”

I love to cook, and I really do believe I would miss it, if I had all the money in the world, and a staff at my disposal. (But I would like a sous chef, and a clean-up crew...that would be really sweet.) But I found myself admiring Michelle Obama for her candor, and thinking perhaps this is a significant moment in feminist history; that we have in the White House a First Lady who does not feel the need to assert her femininity or maternal credentials by whipping out her favorite cookie recipe.

Throughout the Presidential campaign, as exciting as I found it, I often found myself thinking that I could never be a politician. Diplomacy is not my strong suit. When faced with the choice between saying something nice but insincere, or saying nothing at all, I am more likely to quietly smile, and do the latter. Our President is a masterful politician, but our First Lady has the cojones to speak the truth, about marriage, and raising a family. That being a wife and a mother is hard, there is a lot of drudgery involved, and you spend a lot of your time wondering if you're doing right by your children.

Here is a woman who put aside her own successful career, not without reservations, in service of not only of her own family, but of something bigger, to become, in a sense, the world's most high profile housewife. But when confronted with a child who dreamed some day of becoming first lady, she encouraged the girl to consider something more lucrative, explaining, that being First Lady "doesn't pay much."

This is the feminism I believe in.

Don't Panic

As a parent, as word that the first case of H1N1, or Swine Flu, has hit my children's school district, it is hard not to panic. As soon as you become a parent, the urge to panic is fierce.

You can't help but see the world through different eyes. You are responsible for a tiny, helpless, extremely vulnerable creature, and the world seems like a far more dangerous place.

A few days after Sarah, my oldest child was born, David recounted how this new perspective changed him. As he was walking down Valley Road, in the heart of Upper Montclair, a lovely place, he suddenly noticed all the teenage boys, and our friendly town took a sinister turn. As he passed each boy (my there are a lot of them, where did they all come from?), he couldn't help reflexively think, about each and every one of them: "You can't go out with my daughter." "Don't touch my daughter!" "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT LOOKING AT MY DAUGHTER!"

At times like these I find it helpful to remember the immortal, ever wise words of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: DON'T PANIC. It never helps anything.

Whether we realize it or not, as parents, our emotional states are intimately connected with those of our children. When they are happy, we feel good; when they are sad, or ill, we absorb that pain. The opposite is true as well; our children feed off our emotions, and if we are panicking without good cause, our kids are bound to pick up that energy. And then we have two, three, infinity number of people feeling anxious, without necessarily knowing why. And no one can think clearly in this state of mind.

It was inevitable that H1N1 would eventually come to my town, so when I heard the news it did not surprise me. I am no medical expert, but from my perspective, all the coverage in the media, at this point, it is much ado about nothing. This seems to be a mild virus, milder than the regular flu. At this point, it is no real danger to anyone who is not seriously immunocompromised. In fact, it is probably a good thing that we are being exposed to this virus now, as it may act as protection when next year's flu season rolls around.

This is not to say the CDC shouldn't be monitoring H1N1 closely, or that I would willingly expose my children. If they were to get sick, I would be concerned, perhaps even alarmed. Until I remembered, DON'T PANIC.

The bane of twenty-four/seven news coverage is that when there is nothing new to say, we keep hearing the same thing over and over. This repetition only serves to heighten people's anxieties, and societal dynamics are just family dynamics writ large.

So don't rush to keep your kids home from school. Wash your hands. Sneeze into the crook of your elbow. Teach your children to do the same. Teach your children how to wash their hands properly, and MAKE SURE they do it. WELL. Every time they've been to the bathroom, or had their fingers in their nose, or their hands in their pants. (Mothers of boys, I'm talking to YOU.) Seriously, I think this is one of the most important things we as parents can teach our children. Clean hands save lives.

But above all, DON'T PANIC.

Garden State

Two weeks ago, David and I went to see the Shins, at the Wellmont Theater. It was a nice show, good, not great--certain performers, namely my beloved, lamented Sleater Kinney, Rufus Wainwright and Ted Leo-- have set the bar so high for me in terms of what I expect in live music. I am thrilled to have this beautiful theater right in my town; while I love going to New York to see a show, the Wellmont is so convenient. What a boon for parents of young children; you get to see a live show, cut down on child care expenses, and still be in bed by 11!

I'd never seen the Shins perform, and it is always exciting to see a band whose music you adore play live. They came out on the stage, a sweet, nerdy bunch, dressed in pants and button down Oxfords. As I sized the band up, my first thought was, "Do you work with my husband?" David said as he looked them over, he was was asking himself, what is each of the Shins favorite programming language? James Mercer played his guitar with slightly stooped shoulders, and the yoga teacher in me wanted to rush the stage and give him an adjustment.

But this post is not about the Shins.

As soon as they started to play, I immediately thought of the scene in the movie Garden State, where Natalie Portman's character meets Zach Braff's in the waiting room of a doctor's office. She is listening to music on headphones, and moves closer to engage him in conversation. When he asks what she is listening to, it is the Shins. She offers him her headphones, saying you've got to hear this song, it will change your life.

As much as I enjoy it, I can't say that any of the Shins music has changed my life, but Garden State may have. It is one of my favorite movies. I loved it so much that, after seeing it by myself, I dragged David back to see it with me (something I'd forgotten). I think the only other movie I have ever done that with is The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.

It had been a few years since I saw Garden State, so I rented it last weekend. (Yes, rented. Can you believe I don't have a Netflix queue?) I love everything about this film: the soundtrack, (which I actually bought, something I never do. Although I did buy the Seu Jorge tracks from The Life Aquatic; who knew acoustic David Bowie sung in Portuguese could be so beautiful?), the characters, the storyline, and the performances.

Garden State caught me completely off-guard the first time I saw it. I was expecting a small, sweet coming of age story, but for me, it was much more.

It is about Andrew Largeman (Braff), a struggling actor living in LA who is summoned home to New Jersey to attend his mother's funeral. An only child, he is depressed, estranged from his family, and so emotionally numb that he has difficulty connecting with anyone. His father, a psychiatrist, has been plying him with psychoactive drugs since adolescence. During the course of his visit home, he reconnects with an old friend, Mark, played by Peter Sarsgaard, and unexpectedly meets, and falls in love with, Sam (Portman). And then three of them go on something of a quest, that takes them to a houseboat at the bottom of a quarry in Newark (that I don't think actually exists; we Googled it).

Setting aside the fact that I find Zach Braff an adorable, nebbishy Jew--a look I'm partial to, having grown up with many such people; I could have gone to summer camp with Braff--I found his performance as a sad, disconnected man to be subtle, tender, and convincing.

Then, there is Peter Saarsgard, he with the bedroom eyes, an actor I find mesmerizing. (Can you tell I have a crush on him?) I don't know how he did that thing with his eyes in this movie where he looks perpetually stoned. Either he was smoking a hell of a lot of weed, or he is one great actor. Come to think of it, were he perpetually high when this movie was filmed, that would be all the more evidence of his talent.

Natalie Portman, as Sam, skirts the line between mania and normalcy, staying just shy of crazy to make her believable. She is an epileptic with a lying tic, only, she can't go too long without confessing her lies. Her character is exuberant, with an underlying current of sadness, and it could have easily been an over the top performance, but she keeps it in check to so that Sam remains empathetic, not annoying.

But what I love most about this movie, and what took me by surprise, was how much it felt not like a movie, but a dramatization of a certain time in my life, namely, my twenties. While the particulars are different, the emotional tenor was very much the same. The sad family, complete with a depressed mother, an angry father full of recriminations but unable to accept any responsibility that despite his best intentions, things have not turned out as he would have liked.

It is about the primal need for a family; what it means to be one, and what we do to anesthetize the pain when we can't face up to the fact that the one we were born into didn't pan out the way we hoped. It is about becoming an adult, the time when we become brave enough to confront this failure, and how we go about mending the wound, and ultimately, constructing a family of our own making.

But most of all, it is about two people who feel an immediate connection, a sense of comfort and trust in each other's presence. They understand each other intuitively, and fall in love easily.

Garden State reinforced two very important life lessons, that took me most of my twenties to learn. When life is hard, and sad, you have a choice as whether to laugh or cry, and sometimes, laughter is the better option. But when you can't laugh, it is better to sit comfortably in your place of sadness, and simply be, with honesty and integrity, knowing that in time, it will pass. I keep these lessons close to heart, and try to impart them, as best I can, to my children.

Every time I see Garden State, it leaves me emotionally wrecked. It makes me laugh, and cry, sometimes at the same time. When the film was over, I turned to David, sniffling, and told him that I love it because it describes exactly what my life felt like before I met him, and how the spark of love that he gave me made me aware that the promise of something better was possible for me. Meeting him made me optimistic for the first time in a long, long time. Even though I was only beginning to have an understanding of how sad and fucked up I was, I knew that in him I had found my bashert; my destiny, my soul mate, and that no matter how dark things became (and they did indeed become much darker for me before I began to heal), I had found someone who wanted to hold me in the darkness, for as long as I needed to be there.

Battery-powered love

For a year and a half now, I have been having a love affair with a highly sophisticated mechanical device. No, it is not a vibrator, but I'm pretty sure if I checked the App Store, I would likely find something to satisfy those needs.

It is my iPhone.

I have long been a PDA kind of girl. I got my first Palm Pilot in the late 1990s, when I still worked for pay, in an actual office. I succumbed to the PDA craze that swept my colleagues, cast aside my beloved Filofax, and never looked back. A Palm Pilot was so much smaller than a Filofax! I loved keeping track of my schedule this way; I could set it to beep, and remind me of things, or places I needed to be! I loved the note pad; which eliminated the need for random scraps of paper with VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION that I had to tote around, and inevitably lost. I quickly mastered the now arcane shorthand language of graffiti necessary for writing notes, with the stylus. But I still needed a cell phone, and was lazy (or just as likely, not adept) with moving my contacts into the cell phone's book, so I had to whip out the Palm Pilot every time I made a call.

Eventually I graduated from the Palm Pilot to a Treo, which had the advantage of being a phone as well as a PDA, thus solving one problem, but by then, I was also carrying an iPod around. Still two devices. Plus, I was too cheap to pay for a data plan. At that point, I was a housewife, and I couldn't justify the additional expense for data; I was not receiving email of such importance that it had to be dealt with immediately, and was home often enough that I could take care of these things on my computer.

I am all about streamlining, so when the iPhone was announced, in January 2007, my pulse quickened. At last, here was a device that could accommodate ALL my needs in one neat package. As soon as I was out of contract with Verizon, which had been my provider for eight years, I jumped ship for AT&T. So much for brand loyalty.

With an iPhone, the data plan is mandatory; it is, if you will pardon my French, the raison d'etre, for the objet. And this is when my world changed DRAMATICALLY.

By this time in my life, Sacha was two and change, and I found it a great challenge to sit down at my computer for any length of time with him around. And with me being his mother, and he my son, HE WAS ALWAYS AROUND. Sacha is famous for choosing inopportune moments for expressing his affection. When we are grocery shopping, as he sits in the cart facing me, he often feels the sudden urge to hug me and tell me, "I LOVE YOU, MAMA." It is very hard to resist this outpouring of love, so we walk about the supermarket for a bit, he with his arms clasped around my neck, nose to nose. Until I get fed up with trying to do my shopping while being literally smothered by love, and pry him off. Lather rinse, repeat; you get the point.

Likewise, with the computer, as soon as I sit at my desk--I call this the ass sensor, and believe that every child is hardwired with this feature--and Sacha hears the click of the keyboard, he will drop whatever it is he is doing, because he's now realized that he is the mood for love, and must climb up on my lap for a snuggle. Forget seeing your screen, and attempting to type this way is merely an exercise in frustration.

So the iPhone has become my de facto computer, and in that, it has opened up new worlds for me. Now, I can check my email anywhere, and so I do! If I am curious about something, I can look it up on the Web, just like that! I no longer need to carry reading material with me when I go to a doctor's appointment, because, armed with my phone, I can read just about anything I might desire to read in print. But that was just the beginning.

I can color code my schedule, so that every member of my family has their own color, making it easier, in theory, to identify who is doing what when. In theory, because I haven't figured out how to assign colors to match up with the ones I've assigned on my desktop iCal, so it gets a bit muddy for me. But this is a minor quibble.

I can make lists using the notes feature, and erase things as they're done. For an obsessive compulsive veteran list-maker like myself, this is not as satisfying as checking things off, as I did on my Treo--I am the kind of person who will, on occasion, put items on a list that I have already completed, JUST FOR THE PLEASURE OF TICKING THEM OFF. But still, it works for me.

With Google Reader, a news aggregator, I discovered the world of blogs, which I had been hearing about for some time, but had only dabbled in, as it was too frustrating to sit at the computer for any length of time with Sacha around. While I'm sure there are an infinite number of crap blogs out there (present company excluded, natch), there are also many that are truly excellent, and reading them in part inspired me to eventually write this one.

I'm not huge on Apps, but there are a few that I find very useful; I keep my grocery list with Grocery IQ (again, no more pieces of paper!); and iTalk, a voice recording program, which is handy for recording funny conversations with my kids, or for oral notes during guitar lessons. (My teacher can play something, and explain the chord switches, or strum pattern, for me to refer to during the week when I practice.) I've even downloaded a free guitar tuner (again, streamlining; not another single use device!)

I use the built-in clock, which has a timer, for meditation. (I've noticed in the App store, you choose from a range of special meditation timers, which give you time to set yourself up, but that seems a bit like lily-guilding to me.) Sometimes, to amuse myself when I have a friend over, we set the timer to see exactly how long we can have a conversation before one of the children interrupts us. (It's never been longer than 60 seconds.)

As time goes by, I have grown more and more attached to my phone. When it broke a few months ago--the touch screen suddenly stopped responding--I felt a surge of anxiety wash over me. Although I told myself, FOR GOD SAKE, WOMAN, NO ONE IS HURT, HAVE SOME PERSPECTIVE, I couldn't rest easily until I got myself to the Apple Store for a consultation. (Long story short, I got a new phone. Make sure you get Apple Care.)

The phone and I have gradually become increasingly attached at the hip. My children are all sleeping later, and I really like to have a half hour to myself in the morning before they awake, so I got the idea to bring my phone up to bed with me, and charge it in my room, so that I could use it as an alarm clock. (I've yet to set it.) But now, my phone accompanies me to bed at night.

Sometimes, instead of reading a book, as is our habit at bedtime, I find myself in bed, with my phone, catching up on my favorite blogs, and Twitter. As soon as I wake, I unplug the phone from its charger, check the weather, and my Twitter Feed. Then phone comes back down stairs with me in the morning.

Since I have become a devoted reader of food blogs, I have bookmarked many recipes, which I now refer to more than my cookbooks. (And I have quite an extensive collection of cookbooks.) And so the phone is always in the kitchen with me when I cook.

At this point, it is seldom out of my sight. It is always in the room with me, and not because I am expecting an important call, or any call for that matter. I don't receive that many phone calls; I'm not that popular. I mean, I don't even have one hundred friends on Facebook.

So me and my phone are more or less inseparable at this point. One day this week, as I came downstairs in the morning, phone tucked in the pocket of my robe, it occurred to me, OH MY GOD, I AM FORTY YEARS OLD, AND I HAVE A LOVEY!

But I am not going to give it a name.

She tricked me

Last week, Sarah got in a bit of trouble for being a bit too lax about her Spanish project, and as a result, she lost her computer privileges.

But like a jail house lawyer, she is always looking for the loopholes, and she is quite expert at exposing them.

On Tuesday, in preparation for a math test, she told me she would like to use the computer to go to some math study sites her teacher has recommended. How odd, I thought. She has these math assessments monthly, and I've never seen her express much interest in preparing for them in any way whatsoever, let alone go online to study. I pointed out that I thought this was merely a clever ruse to use the computer. Nice try, I said, but no.

As they say in chess, Check: Mom.

I, in the meantime, have been blogging up a storm, and Sarah is very curious about all this writing.

She seems to me to be a natural writer; already, at 10, I think she writes extremely well. She is funny, creative, and has a very good sense of timing. She actually got in trouble in school last week during social studies, because as her teacher was presenting a lesson on New Jersey settlers, it gave Sarah a story idea, which she was compelled to write down immediately, on her handout. Her teacher noticed she wasn't paying attention, and decided to call on her, at which point, Sarah was exposed. I was amused and proud to see her thinking like a writer.

On Friday night, she asked me if she could read my blog. She knows it is largely about our family, and since she is interested in writing, I am trying to cultivate this. It also, of course, appealed to my ego, so I said sure, she could take a look at a few items. (I mean, she already knows all the major curse words, whose acquisition, I've noticed, is something of a sport among elementary school students.)

After ten minutes or so, it occurred to me; WAIT A MINUTE, SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE USING THE COMPUTER THIS WEEK!

Remembering this, I told her to stop. But she is one smart cookie. In appealing to my vanity, she got me to break my own rule.

Checkmate: Sarah.

slinging hash: iced coffee

I love coffee in any form, but as weather has warmed, my thoughts, and my palate, have turned to iced coffee.

Last summer, we took a real vacation, all five of us, and went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Portland, Oregon. How I loved that city. Although surprisingly (to my younger self), I am quite happy living in New Jersey, were the opportunity to arise, I would jump at the chance to move there.

Within minutes of stepping foot in the city, my children needed to use the bathroom, and we were all hungry, so we wandered into one of the first places we passed. It was a strange amalgam of cafe/video arcade (whose name I can't remember) in the Pearl District, that seems to thrive in a city like Portland.

This place looked like a perpetual work in progress, but in a good way. It was a large, cavernous space, part of which was cordoned off with drop cloths, behind which carpenters were noisily working. A bank of bloggers were huddled in one area doing their thing. There was good work by local painters and photographers for sale on the walls. There was a gaming room in the back, but instead of housing arcade games, there was a bank of ancient computers, where people came to play old-school video games. Oh, and they also had a computer repair shop, which if memory serves, (and this would make sense), specialized in fixing outmoded computers. As I said, only in Portland.

They served a combination of hippie food, pizza, and this being Portland, coffee. And here, I had one of the most delicious cups of iced coffee in my life. It was so good, I had to ask how they made it. First, they used Stumptown Coffee, but, they told me, it was Toddy coffee. Which meant it was cold-brewed.

Cold-brewed coffee results in a concentrate, which you dilute to your taste. The reason it is so delicious, apparently, is that cold-brewing produces a brew with significantly less acid. The coffee is smooth, and slightly sweet, with smoky, chocolaty nuances. (It also results in coffee with less caffeine, which, as David asked as he set up a pot last night, Why would anybody want to do that?)

If you really love the taste of coffee, as I do, you will be happy drinking this black. It does not need any cream, or sugar.

I'd forgotten about cold-brewed coffee, something I'd made myself in years past after reading about it in the dining section of the New York Times. I'd abandoned it because although it truly made the most delicious coffee I'd ever had, and it was not hard to make, was messy, and slightly fussy.

All you do is mix coarsely ground coffee and water and let it sit in a large vessel overnight. The next day, you filter, and voila!

Only, the voila, is not so-simple a dramatic flourish. It is a real pain in the ass. In my case, I used a large Pyrex measuring cup. You filter twice through a coffee filter, or a fine-mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth. I found there was no way to keep this neat, and although I ended up with a delicious coffee concentrate, my kitchen counter, and sometimes the floor as well, always ended up covered in a slush of wet coffee grounds. That I was willing to do this, even for a short while, shows you the lengths to which an addict will go to get their fix.

But our trip reminded me that cold-brewed coffee is so very good, and I did not want to be without it ever again. When we came home from Portland, although I tend to eschew single-use kitchen appliances, I ordered a Toddy coffee maker. To call the Toddy an appliance is slightly misleading, because it is merely a giant filter basket with a large drip hole in the bottom. You place the dampened filter, which is something like a coarse sponge, in the bottom of the basket, plug the underside with the rubber stopper, fill it with a mixture of coffee and water, and let it sit. The Toddy also comes with a carafe, and in the morning, you simply place the (heavy) filter basket on the carafe, remove the plug, and let it rip.

And while it is a bit slow to drain, the voila, while still not dramatic, is infinitely neater.

So coffee lovers, go forth and cold-brew! Buy yourself a Toddy, or grab a large glass vessel and brace yourself for a mess. (Here is the link to the recipe from the New York Times.) You will be the most-popular girl on the block, the hostess with the mostest, because, in my experience, very few people will refuse a delicious cup of iced-coffee.