Finding Blanche
Nothing stays the same.Product reviews
I don’t do product reviews on this site. While at BlissDom I talked to lots of people who do. Some people get samples only; some get paid.
In the name of full disclosure, this bag of Poppycock was given to me in my BlissDom conference bag. So I did not pay for it.
Last night, I had a few pieces. Tucked the bag in my carry-on so I’d have a little snack for my travels back home.
While sitting at the airport in Nashville, I had a few pieces. And a few more. I typed and typed and snacked and snacked.
Then all of a sudden, I realized I was scraping the bottom of the bag.
Oops.
Fortunately, when I checked the nutrition information on the back of the empty bag, I saw it was only 160 calories.
Phew.
Oops.
That would be per serving.
No worries. How many servings could there be in the bag?
Seven.
That’d be 1,120 calories.
My best decision? Nah.
But man, oh, man that stuff is good.
(Ellen, Libby, Kristin, et.al: Don’t tell Cyrus!)
I Am
(a poem by my youngest son)
I am smart and a gourmet,
I wonder how it feels to be famous,
I hear bacon sizzling,
I see computers all the time,
I want to be a chef,
I am smart and a gourmet.
I pretend to be indifferent,
I feel happy when I eat,
I care about my religion,
I worry about the environment,
I cry when people die,
I am smart and a gourmet.
I understand the subjects in school,
I say that I am intelligent,
I dream that I will become an artist,
I try to play saxophone well,
I hope the Saints win the SuperBowl,
I am smart and a gourmet.
Business travel.
photo by mmackinven
I’m leaving tomorrow for a business trip. Before you go feeling all sorry for me, it’s a really, really nice business trip.
See you on the flip side!
Going round & round.
I had my two older boys and a little time to kill this morning.
“What should we do? We have an hour,” I said.
“Starbucks.”
Seriously? I was floored. But since I could totally use another cup of joe, I agreed. The closest one was at the local mall.
After we ordered (frapaccino for one, ice coffee for the other and regular coffee for me), we sat down. The boys didn’t want to talk really. They wanted to absorb the Starbuck’s vibe.
I am not kidding. This was their first visit…ever.
Had I really deprived them of this American iconic experience for so long? Shocking, I know.
But what really got me is that my teenage boys like coffee.
And the fact that the Starbuck’s is right beside the carousel where I used to take these same children to ‘kill time’ just a few years ago (well, it seems like just a few years ago to me so stop laughing), did not escape me.
So while the boys were absorbing the vibe, I was watching the young mothers and fathers with their little kids on the merry-go-round. I was remembering how my oldest only liked the stationary horses and how my youngest laughed out loud as the speed increased.
I went back to the time when I had to lift my guys up; they couldn’t climb that high on their own. They had soft cheeks and wet kisses and their hugs felt like they’d last forever.
They are still these boys; the same but different.
I love who they are growing to be…and every step along the way.
Newark.
It’s not that it was hard to decide whether to catch a flight (actually 2) home a day early when the meetings ended early, it’s just that being this tired, rushing from concourse to concourse and the undercurrent at Newark Airport in the 2-hour layover is depressing.
I just want to be home.
Instead, I’m half asleep with the sound of screaching children in my head with a Spanish tv station or radio station in bass tones coming from behind me or inside my stomach.
i hear newpapers’ pages being turned, a woman crying, and a young girl slurping on her frozen Starbucks mocaccino.
A cough. Another cough. More screaching, but happy this time.
I’m going home.
Brisk.
Snowy Road, Vermont, USA by pbwilder
It’s brisk out in the D.C. area. I’d say it was cold, but I’m saving that word for tomorrow at 9:29 am.
That’s when I land in Burlington, Vermont.
Luckily the temperature is due to rise to ZERO by 8:00 am.
I bet it’s a balmy 4 or 5 by the time I get there.
We’ll be headed to Liberty Hill Farms for a two-day meeting. It’s so beautiful there. And you know what? It’s no colder there than Burlington. WOOT!
I’m sad to leave my boys (including Andrew) but I love a good adventure.
And I love this client.
And I bet I get to eat some awesome cheese. (hint, hint.)
Au revoir!
Diamonds and pearls.
My grandmother, Betsy, died on Thanksgiving Day, 22 years ago. She just didn’t show up for dinner.
We all knew something was very wrong; she was never a minute late. For anything.
And of course, when we got to her apartment, the newspaper was sitting at the doorstep untouched.
She’d died peacefully in her sleep; a Kleenex and glass of juice by the bed.
I never knew her husband, my grandfather. He died on New Years Day a long time ago – before I was born.
Hmmm. Maybe we Goldmans should be more worried on holidays.
But I digress.
I’ve been cleaning house lately. We’re moving.
If you’ve ever sold a house, you know they tell you that it should be really organized and half empty. So I’ve been cleaning out. And of course, I don’t want to move things that I’ll never care about, never care that I saved.
I’m pretty darn good at keeping organized and at getting rid of stuff. Every single time that Kathy from AmVets calls, I say, “Sure, send the truck by. I’ll have something.”
And I do.
But there are things that I will never, ever part with.
Never.
Like my Madame Alexander dolls. Or my mother’s Ginny dolls.
Or my 45 RPM records. Or my mother’s and aunt’s 45’s.
My crazy costume jewelry that I’ve had forever including the tiger’s eye ring that my first boyfriend gave me. I cried when he gave me that ring. At that moment, I knew that if I wanted to, I could marry someone some day.
Truth is, I never thought getting married would be all that great. And that’s because of Betsy.
Even when I was a fairly young woman, Betsy would tell me things to better prepare me for the world.
Things like being fiercely independent is the key to escaping tyranny. Things like being eccentric is a way to keep people from getting too close to you. And trust me, she inferred, that is something you want to prevent.
She told me the story – I don’t know how old I was – of the man she loved.
Loved beyond words.
He wasn’t acceptable, according to the Aunt that was caring for her at that time. So, she married the next decent guy who came along.
My grandfather. By all accounts, he was a nice guy. A talented jeweler. A very heavy smoker.
In fact, the rumors are that he smoked an entire carton the day he died.
Is that humanly possible?
At any rate, he died young. And Betsy was a very young widow.
My dad was an only child. And he was on his own by then.
So here’s a beautiful young widow with no paying job (though she volunteered at the hospital 40 hours a week, I’ve been told) who is fiercely independent and eccentric.
One can imagine.
So by the time she starting doling out life lessons to me, she was probably just a little older than I am now.
Even I knew she had boyfriends. I remember going over there and seeing this younger guy in his wife-beater undershirt. Not exactly what a guy would wear if he was coming to tea. He was kind of slouchy. He was in the platform rocker, which I have since inherited and which sits proudly in my in-laws basement. (Thanks Alice! I’ll be collecting it soon for the new house.)
The thing about that rocker is the way the platform is situated, it is really easy to get your foot smashed totally under the rocker. It happened to me more than once. I bet it happened to my brother and sister, too. And yes, I bet it even happened to the slouchy guy in the t-shirt.
Betsy told me never to get married. I was engaged when she died in ‘87. She strongly suggested that we just live together. “Don’t marry him, dear.” she said. Others may have hinted it wasn’t a good choice for me. Only she told me so directly.
I ignored her. And everyone else.
But I never forgot – as I was miserable – that she did, in fact, tell me he was not for me.
Or did she tell me that no man was? If that was the case, she was wrong, but I’ll let her have the benefit of doubt since she’s been dead so long I don’t really see the point of questioning her motives.
I have some things that were hers. Each is special. I have a wooden box that has a note to her from her husband, a pin, an old Stebbins credit card in her name, and a little stuffed bear. I have her rose gold wedding band engraved BG. I have some very cool bracelets.
And I have this necklace.
When my grandmother wore this necklace, I remember thinking she was the richest woman alive. All those pearls – all wrapped up together in a twist. And the diamond clasp. It was just like Jackie O would have worn. Maybe even fancier.
And when she died, somehow the treasure ended up with me.
It smelled like her. Like Rose Milk.
I kept it in its own partitioned part of my jewelry box. Until one day, I decided to wear it.
I took it out and stretched it to its full length and
it
broke
and
the
pearls
went a million different directions.
Pearls?
I think not.
They smell now like paste and I saved all I could find and put them in a plastic bag.
The diamond clasp?
Has no sheen and are worn down.
And this ersatz pearl and diamond necklace lay dormant in my jewelry box for more than ten years now.
I can’t bear to throw it out.
I guess it’s moving with me. Again.
The tens.
image by caffe
So here we are. In the tens.
When we woke up this morning, Andrew casually mentioned that this is the decade when our boys would grow up and move out.
To say that I found that disturbing would be an understatement.
But it made me think.
What will this decade be?
Well, on the first day of the first year of the new decade, I may as well look ahead.
First some things I know.
- We will move into the house of our dreams in 2010.
- Reed and Max will become bar mitzvahs in June 2011.
- Davis will graduate high school in 2013. Reed in 2015. Max in 2016.
- I will be 50 in 2011.
- Andrew and I will have our 25th anniversary in 2018.
And some things I predict.
- Social Studies Group will grow and prosper.
- Andrew’s new creative outlet will be wildly successful. (still kind of hush hush… but more on this another day)
- I will find that balance I’ve been searching for.
- I’ll finally lose that extra 10 (15?) pounds.
- My best girlfriends will still be my best girlfriends.
- We’ll travel more.
- Ginger will continue to be friendlier and will officially be my cat.
- Joe will continue to be Andrew’s cat. (oh well, can’t win them all.)
- We will consider getting a dog. (Melissa, don’t hold me to this.)
- The boys will find their passions. (A mom can dream.)
- I will bake a lot more bread.
- I will be cooking a lot more. (Yes, I’ve stepped beyond assembly and moved into cooking. Seriously.)
- The boys will each find their first love. And their first heartbreak.
- I will become more and more immune to eyerolling.
- We will accumulate more books.
- We will listen to more loud music. And dance more.
- I will start playing the piano again.
- Andrew and I will take long walks – and hold hands more.
- I will love my life. (Okay, I already do. Can I love it more? Hard to say. But can’t hurt to try!)
I hope you have an amazing decade. I sure plan to.
Hugs.
Parts of speech.
Do not even ask me why, but I was reading some very old blog posts of mine this week.
Redux from December 23, 2005 at 10:41 pm
Judging others is a dangerous hobby. Without all the facts (and you never have all the facts) it is impossible to understand someone’s decisions, motives, choices on all fronts. Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t relate to others’ issues, challenges, etc. Two things I’ve learned over the years come to mind:
1) You don’t know what happens in someone else’s house.
2) Never say “I never would…” in reference to someone else’s choices. You might one day when faced with the same situation.
I’ve been stewing about something that happened the other day. In order to let it go, I’ve decided to write about it. I drove some kids (including some of my own) to an after-school class. One of the kids was unable to carry his stuff in, so I dropped them all off, parked the car, and, sans coat, trekked across the parking lot to bring the kid his stuff. I was cold. I had a sick kid at home I wanted to get back to. My father had a procedure that day and I couldn’t go sit with my mom while she waited because of my kid at home who needed me. My work was behind schedule due to the same sick kid and the construction noise at the house was really getting to me and to that same sick kid, who cried about his head hurting for hours. You get the picture – the day was not a cake walk. (I always wanted to say cake walk – I hope I used it correctly!)
Walking into the school, I ran into a friend. Not a “hang out all the time” friend, but someone I like and socialize with occasionally. After saying hello, she took a hard look at me and said:
Balance is a verb.
It felt like a punch in the stomach. She has balance so never looks harried? I am unbalanced? I am incapable of managing my life? What exactly was this wisdom she was (unsolicited, I might add) presenting to me? She had no idea what I had done for the past month, let alone for the day. I was really irritated. How superior.
After a day I asked a close friend, who I respect tremendously, what she thought. She said:
Bitch is a verb too.
Happy Erev Chanukah. Merry Christmas Eve. I’m planning on a judgment-free holiday.
The 5 simple secrets to a perfect relationship.
Redux from December 20, 2005 at 5:10 pm
I just got this email from my sister. I was sure it was one of those motivational blah blah blah emails. But read on:
1. It’s important to have a partner who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.
2. It’s important to have a partner who can make you laugh.
3. It’s important to have a partner who you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.
4. It’s important to have a partner who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.
5. It’s very, very, very, important that these four persons don’t know each other.
