The Suburban Jungle

During the holiday season I was trying to teach my son about the joy of giving, and the concept that many people are less fortunate than we are. Look, I’ve spent many years spoiling him and now I must undo all that hard work so he stops asking me for presents every hour on the hour. Why did I teach him to tell time in the first place?

Anyway, I’ve been trying to find a charity that allows children to volunteer, as many children’s charities do not. It’s easy to relay facts of poverty and ailments on a cushy sofa in a perfect 74 degree room, but not easy to show them the reality of it. Last year we adopted a family for the holidays. We shopped for them and picked out their gifts according to age, likes, and height, of course. However, we weren’t allowed to give the gifts personally, so it was a very small taste of charity. It felt more like helping shop for a friend’s birthday present, with the usual sprinkling of “Can I get that too?”  Did I say sprinkling?  I meant whining, crying, and making a spectacle at the Super Target.

This year we found a charity called Kids Helping Kids. The first event was for “Facing It Together” – an organization that helps fund and find Doctors to donate surgeries for facial deformities. It sounded like a lovely idea, and with Jake being so sensitive, seemed like a good fit. I explained beforehand what to expect, and that these children were just like him. He went to his piggy bank, as he is always willing to do, and offered to help. I said this was all about giving his time, and he was very excited about the idea. Like me, he is a total sap and the first one to save a worm boiling on the sidewalk or help me send a millipede or salamander out of our house and back to their families.

He asked throughout the week. “When are we doing the charity?” If you must know, he really asked, “When are we going to help the children with no heads?” “Jake, honey, they have heads.” “I mean the children with no faces.” Well at least he won’t be scared or shocked by anything he sees, as he has certainly prepared himself for the worst.

My friend, who told us about the event, was certain that this day would be the first day of the rest of her children’s lives. She was convinced that each child would have life altering epiphanies, and would offer to donate all remaining holiday presents to charity. I was not so ambitious in my expectations, and just wanted to give him the sense of gratification one gets from helping others, and to understand there are more pressing things than the Ripstick G, or Guitar Hero World Tour.

As it turned out, the children volunteers way outnumbered the children of the charity, and getting them a space at the crafts tables among all the volunteers making snow globes, ornaments, and picture frames, was nearly impossible. Jake scooched in, and was thoroughly unaffected by the affected children (as none of them were missing their heads). He helped me check a few people in, while worrying that someone would take the last of the keylime pie, and made about 17 ornaments for the tree we didn’t have. Then my friend’s husband took him and his son to hang out in a sky box (as we were at the Home Depot Center).

To top off our generous altruistic giving, we were thanked for our help with tickets to that days Panthers game. So the boys had a ball and left hours later after Dippin’ Dots, hot chocolate and catching tee shirts that were dropped with parachutes from the ceiling. Well there’s the epiphany “If you give of yourself and your time, you get awesome stuff. You make stuff, hang out in sky boxes, get to see a professional sporting event, and prizes will actually fall from the sky.” This getting our feet wet thing might have set some unascertainable expectations for future charity events.

Hey, if you’re on FB join the new group Suburban Jungle and please invite your friend list. Thanks for the support!

I thought I would update you on the progress of acquiring a productive sleep disorder, as mentioned in my last post.

I don’t know whether to celebrate or throw in the towel. For the last two days I have given myself subliminal messages about accomplishing tasks in my sleep, as planned. I wrote phrases on flash cards and taped them around the house, reading them every time I walked by. Thing like “tighten butt,” “scoop cat litter,” “clean house,” “make dinner,” and “esta es una lampara (this is a lamp).” What I’m also trying to learn Spanish.

Anyway, the first night… nothing. I did the usual: went to asleep, fell off some kind of ledge, confronted an old elementary school friend about calling me a weirdo, and made out with George Clooney, who was about to take me to his villa in Tuscany on a spaceship piloted by Brad Pitt, when I was rudely awoken by my son wanting me to make lunch for school. Why do I have an account with the cafeteria anyway?

Last night was different. I didn’t dream at all. No revenge, no superstar rendezvous, no awards ceremonies, or nightmares about planes, sharks, or sharks on planes. I woke up feeling funny, disoriented. My bed was not made. My buttocks were not firm. Apparently, while sleeping last night, I cooked my work out band, cleaned my neighbors house, tightened her daughter’s braces, and ate my cat.

Now this may seem like a setback. Many people would give up, especially after eating their cat, but not me and the Vietnamese. I am looking at the silver lining and calling it a success. So things didn’t go as planned, and my son needs a little therapy. Life is about learning and opening new doors and in that vein, I am opening a night housekeeping/orthodontics service, at the very low cost of ahem, achem, cha cha, kak. Sorry, hairball.

Call for an appointment. Your money back if I eat your pet. GUARENTEED.

Refund subject but not limited to pets deemed reasonable. Tarantulas, snakes, lizards, and gerbils not included. Only half refund for mid-sized rodents i.e. guinea pigs, ferrets and bunnies. Price where prohibited. You pay me if I eat anything shelled, like hermit crabs, snails, and turtles, or bacon, I mean pot belly pigs, except George Cloony’s, which I will spare in return for sexual favors…. bla,bla,bla,bla……..

My theory on the principal who attempted to “sleep” strangle his wife with her hoodie string, is that he was actually lucid and when she awoke he pretended to be asleep. This is something even a 4yr old can do. I know, my kids and husband are pros at fake sleeping, especially when avoiding a chore or when trying to get away with murder.

I told my theory to my Mother-in-law, who was very offended by my ignorance in sleep strangling. “Don’t you watch Oprah?”

“Umm, is she on Cartoon Network?”

“She has people on that do all kinds of stuff in their sleep. They eat, they clean, they garden, they cook. They are on video doing it.”

I had no idea how productive one could be when sleeping. And here I am wishing for more hours in the day, when they were there all along. I feel so lazy. To think, all these years I ‘ve been using my sleep to explore my unconscious desires and true feelings about people I’ve lost touch with, movie stars I will never meet, and ego shattering incidences that I never address or admit to in my waking world.

“Now, these people on Oprah that you speak of, are they complaining about these afflictions?”

“Well sure, they are in sleep therapy, and studies. They are trying to find cures.”

“Are they nuts? If we have any say in the sleep disorders we are plagued with, I call sleep cooking, then sleep cleaning, sleep aerobics, sleep showering, and sleep sex. Wait, scratch that last one, I’ve already mastered it.”

Can you imagine if sleep accomplishments could be taught? The next Hollywood craze could be Sleep Kabbalah, and Sleep Striptease workouts with Carmen Electra. I am certain a few celebs are onto it already. Ryan Seacrest, Steven Speilberg, and Martha Stewart, who up until now I was sure were androids or at the very least vampires, are clearly doing sleep stuff.

Take Martha, who has enough time to cook a meal in multiple courses, invite friends to eat it on hand written notes, calligraphied on hand dipped paper, make season appropriate place cards that are not only edible, but look like wreaths, and can be reused as lingerie drawer sachets, and still have time to make shady deals and verbally abuse the help? (That’s just breakfast.)

If I were still in college, I’d take slumber learning 101. Then I’d party all night, and sleep through all my classes. Everyone does the latter anyway. It’s a brilliant idea, learning to learn in your sleep. It would be like asking a genie for more wishes. That would be the one class that I could actually apply in real life; certainly more than English Lit. I can’t tell you the last time someone wanted to analyze the symbolic meaning of the labyrinth in “The Name of The Rose,” but I can tell you the last time I slept… last night.

I am going to try giving myself subliminal messages all day. If all goes well I will awake in a bed that is already made, refreshed, clean, with firm thighs, taught buttocks, and the smell of lobster risotto and bananas foster filling my home. If all does not go well, I may strangle my husband in his sleep. I’m gonna do a pro/con chart on this one, but I’m thinking the reward outweighs the risk.

PS- Mark if you’re reading this, don’t sleep in a hoodie.

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This time of year I amuse myself by looking back at last year’s resolutions. Ones I made with the best intentions, like learning an instrument or a foreign language. Last Chanukah I had my husband buy me a guitar. I had all the confidence in the world that by this new year, I would balk at a request to play Stairway To Heaven, saying something dismissive like… “Please, that’s so cliché, but why not?” or “Por favor, es muy cliché, pero porque no? Unfortunately, my guitar collects dust while my Spanish collects rust.

So for this year, I have made some resolutions that are a bit more achievable:

1. Nag More

For 10 years my husband has not picked up a wet towel, washed ketchup off of a dish, changed a light bulb, or remembered trash day without a friendly, “How many times do I have to tell you?” I vow to be relentless in my nagging. I will lay immediate blame using words like always and never. As in, “I always, and you never.” I will play the martyr by saying, “Forget it. I’ll do it myself.” I will amp up the guilt with, “I do everything around here.” Or something unarguable like, “It’s obvious by your refusal to change a light bulb that you don’t love me anymore.” If all goes well, I’ll be nagging him to go to couples therapy by 2010.

2. Gain weight

I will add carbs to my diet with reckless abandon. I will start each meal with a generous helping of bread and rolls onto which I will spread an obnoxious amount of butter. I will stuff food into my mouth with such fervor it will make other eaters uncomfortable to watch. I vow to eat everything a la mode including ice cream.

3. Work out less

This will actually take serious effort. The only thing harder would be to shower less. If I need the proverbial cup of sugar, I will drive to my neighbor’s garage and beep until she comes out and hands it to me. I will take elevators in two-story buildings. Lastly, I will drop my membership to the gym and use the money I save to buy more carbs.

4. Forget an old language

This year, not only am I not going to learn a new language, I will let my brain atrophy to forget the one I already know. I will watch endless episodes of Sponge Bob and Chowder. I will stop doing crosswords and speaking in complete sentences. I will break all grammatical rules; I will misplace modifiers, dangle participles, and end sentences in prepositions. I will express my thoughts through that African clicking language, modern dance, and a set of bongos that I will wear around my neck.

5. Stay out of touch

This time of year, I am reminded of the many friends I have let time and space interfere with. I intend to further that distance. I will start by rejecting any new Facebook or social network requests. I will also attach a note that reads “I never liked you in the first place.” I will cuss out and hang up on people who call in hopes of fulfilling their own resolution to rekindle old friendships.

6. Be less patient

I will be aggravated, exasperated, and ready to blow my stack at the slightest misstep. The next time my son wants help with his homework I’ll say, “That’s it! Clearly this whole Elementary Education is not for you. If you don’t know how to spell December by now, you never will…Now go get a job! Oh, and take your sister with you, she sits on the potty way too long.”

7. Hold grudges

This year I will forgive no one. I don’t care if you step on my toe, or pay me the five bucks you owe me, a day after the assigned due date. I vow to hate you forever and never forget how you wronged me.

8. Stress more

I will lose sleep thinking about planning parties, redecorating my house, trying to budget, missing appointments, teacher conferences, and health issues. I will laugh an evil cackle while erasing all the plans from my PDA, and then cry over what I have just done. I will empty our bank account on frivolous investments and watch it dwindle away. Oh, wait…that already happened. Well good, more for me to worry about.

9. Become addicted to something

Smoking, alcoholism and Starbucks are so trite. I’m thinking something unique like nasal spray or hand sanitizer. Or at least something beneficial to my endurance like crack. Look, I already have a shopping addiction, maybe I could offset the bills with a robust gambling problem.

10. Gossip More

I vow to talk about everything you do in the new year. If I see you at the pediatrician for so much as a flu shot, I will tell everyone your child has hand foot mouth, so you can be verbally assaulted when you show up at a birthday party the next day. If you look too skinny, I will assume it’s a divorce or an addiction. If you look too hot, I’ll call it a torrid affair. If you look too young, it’s an addiction to surgical procedures because you’re getting divorced due to a torrid affair. I will start a rumor phone tree and a blog called “WhatYourNeighborsAreReallyUpTo.com.” I may even have a megaphone installed on my “Gossip Mobile,” so I can drive through local parking lots amplifying the skeletons in your closet to all within earshot. Oh, wait… I’ll just write about it in my next column.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have many addictions, most of which are harmless and routine. My penchant for pot…child’s play. An affinity for gambling and my small cocaine habit…blips on the radar. Compulsively stealing Percacet, Oxyconton and other prescription drugs from people’s medicine cabinets…a mere misdemeanor. But G-d do I love me some sleep. You know the stuff. That in the bed, eyes closed, not awake kind of sleep. I am currently not sleeping to write this and I am just jonesing for some shut eye. Ahhh…sweet, sweet slumber.

I’ve been addicted to sleep for as long as I can remember. Even as a small child, my Mom tells fantastic tales of my having to sleep multiple times each day. Sometimes I sleep for long stretches; I go to bed at one time and wake up at a totally different time. I know this as it is dark when I start to sleep, and light when I wake up. I also I have a clock.

I am so dependent on sleep that if I skip a single day, one day, I start to go through severe withdrawal. My head aches, my eyes twitch and dark circles form puddles under them. My speech is slurred and nonsensical, and my decision- making becomes impaired. I have this overall look of exhaustion that is a tell-tale sign of my addiction. Like any hard-core addict, I make excuses. “I fell.” “My husband is beating me.” “I’ve been shooting up.”

I get so high on sleep, that I completely lose my appetite. Some nights I can go ten hours without eating. In fact, I rarely eat when I’m sleeping. There are other side effects, like crazy hallucinations. I’ll be having sex with Ben Affleck and a shark will eat him and then I’ll scream and freefall off some huge ledge and end up on Oprah’s talk show couch, except Oprah is a white male midget with 8 tentacles, each of which is attempting to feel me up, which is odd because he’s gay.

You would think that would scare me straight, but it’s doesn’t. I’ve tried over and over to kick the habit. In college, I used tons of caffeine and ephedrine in hopes of weaning myself off sleep. But I ended up partying all night, only to relapse all day and miss extremely practical classes, like bio 403 -The history of infectious diseases.

After having babies, I used breast feeding as a form of “rehab,” but I fell off the wagon and did something too horrible to discuss. That’s right, I got my own kids hooked on the stuff, like little crack babies. I forced them to try it, and they were so smitten with the sandman, they indulged two, maybe three times a day. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I even joined them from time to time.

Look, I am not proud of what I’ve done. For years I’ve tried to hide it. Only a select few guessed… my carpool, they knew. I knew they knew, but I still relied on explanations. “You say I look so fresh faced and well rested? Well…that must be my Nars bronzer, Orgasm.” “Oh, that dewy glow, that’s cause I just had an actual orgasm.”

Now I am telling the world, because the first step is admitting you have a problem. “Hi, my name is Jenny, and I’m addicted to sleep. I apologize if my habit has harmed or affected those around me and I vow to get help… in the morning.

So, I was at a party about 8 months ago where there was a psychic.  She was one of those weird holistic ones.  As opposed to the normal “businessy” type you so often see.  Anyway, she had me pick from a tray of stones and then she asked me for family birthdays.  I was determined not to make any kind of give-away face or gesture and sat there staunch and stiff, talking robotic and trying to appear blank.  Which I’m sure just made it seem like I had to poop.

If I go to a party and get drunk with a bunch of girls, and the host in good fun hires a fortune teller to give her guests a 2 minute reading, I am going to make her work for it.  My stupid gaze is luckily unnoticed because she quickly goes into a weird semi-seizure like trance as she stares at the stars, hoping for one to blink her some kind of Morse code and reveal my true self to her.  She pauses and pauses, shimmies and shakes,  and flutters her eyeballs back into her skull.  Finally, ahhhh the epiphany, “I see… networking.”  “Really?  Networking?   You see networking?  No fame?  No travel?  No windfall? None of that, you see networking?”  “Well I’m sorry that’s what I see, and lots of it.”

Now of course I am racking my brain to think of the networking I do on a daily basis, okay a weekly basis, okay monthly?  I did recommend my cleaning lady to a neighbor recently, but I never called her back with the number.  Does that count?
I don’t even network with my friends.  I check my machine and there are messages from college that I haven’t gotten yet.  They say things like: “There’s gonna be a frat party after we go to the RATT, so come, okay, What-everrr.”

Seriously, anyone who has had the pleasure of awaiting my return call can attest to it.  My machine actually says leave your message and someone in the family will call you back…probably Buddy (the dog) and the truth is he used to call people back in a timely manner, before he went deaf.  Now he has a lot of trouble working the TTY system…cause he’s also arthritic.

Anyway, I continued to prod.
“Will I have a writing career?”
“I don’t know, but if you do it comes from networking.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, networking, and please send the next person, cause you’re taking all my time and thus inhibiting my ability to NETWORK! Oh and here’s my card.”

So, I waited like a vulture for each reading to end, making the person on the block highly uncomfortable.  I know you’re thinking, “I want to party with Jenny.”  I asked around, and people got stuff like, “You’re bored with your day to day routine.” and “I see you were close with your mother growing up.”  She even told one girl she was pregnant. But to me she said those 3 quizzical syllables, net-work-ing. I came home and woke Mark to tell him how dead on she was with her reading for him and the kids, and that she knew Ally was pregnant.  “What do you think networking means?”

He said, “It means you’re an idiot.  Ally is showing.  These “mind readers” take one look at you and than say the most generic things possible… everyone networks.  She probably told 10 people that.”  “Nope, you’re wrong.  I know because I made it my duty to stop enjoying the party, and hamper  others from doing the same by grilling them about their personal readings.”  “All I m saying is, I am so surprised a smart person like you falls for this.  You really think some random woman, from the big city of Pembroke Pines, Florida, who works the party circuit, has the gift of seeing into the future?”

About a month later I and I started my blog and started getting feedback from companies and groups.  I  have found that literally all I do, outside of my mothering and housewife gig, is network.  I’ve joined 107 groups on facebook, 3 women entrepreneur networks, and 237 bloglog communities. I write personal messages to editors, bloggers, mothers, and reviewers.  Then I annoy the crap out of all of them by mass emailing on a daily basis.

About a week ago I looked at Mark and said “Remember that fortune teller?  She said all she saw was networking and look at me.   She was right.  How crazy is that?”  “Jenny, you are not seriously thinking that because you now network she was right?  She could have said that to anyone… maybe it’s simply ironic.  Or maybe it’s a self fulfilling prophecy that you started networking?”  “Are you suggesting that because this woman said that I would network, that I dropped my enjoyable shopping and sleeping habits to spend all my free time getting fat in front of a computer?

Wow that shlub from Pembroke Pines Florida sure has some serious power of persuasion.  Lucky she didn’t say we would get a divorce.  I’d be looking for a good lawyer right about now.  Oh, the irony in Mark calling me naive for believing in such foolishness.  The psychic told me I would come across a disbeliever… see, she was clairvoyant.

For 4 days I have been sick.  Nothing crazy, just the usual sore throat in the morning, coughing, fatigue kind of thing.  Yet in those four days, the world miraculously kept spinning, my children’s schedules did not disappear, nor did mine.  They made it to school, and to baseball, and the Doctor.  They did not suffer from starvation because I decided to forgo grocery shopping, making them breakfast, or packing their lunches, so that I could lie around and do something trivial, like recuperate.

Last night I happily turned out the lights at 11PM, hoping to make up for that 4hour “nap” I had the night before.  At midnight my dog Buddy, pacing and panting like a sex caller, sent me out like a shot for his first pee break of the evening.  At 1AM my son ran in soaking wet, exclaiming, “I think I sweated too much.”  Unable to peel myself up, I let his little naked tush into my bed where he continued to whine for about an hour straight.  “Mommy, I neeeeeeeeeed pants.”  “I’ll get you pants,” and let our heavy breather out for the 2nd time.  “Mommy, I neeeed my favorite pillow.” “I’ll get your favorite pillow” and give our letchy dog a bowl of water.  By 3AM Jake had tried 12 different positions.  Including the one where you go all the way under the covers to the end of the bed and push until you fall to the floor taking the comforter with you.  He complained about 20 different things, from being upset that I had to remake the bed after he fell out of it, to having an actual dislike for color of my sheets.  “They’re white.”

In the midst of this chaos, my husband was completely oblivious during those last few hours.  Some could argue that this has been the case for the last 9 years.
He was sleeping with his body pillow, the one he stole from me in the 3rd trimester of my 1st pregnancy.  It has been our small person sized bedmate ever since.  A bedmate that he shoves in his crotch and smothers between his knees. Well, better the pillow than me.  He had 2 more pillows over his head and was taking up 73% of the bed.  He had built and Iron clad barricade which my son could not penetrate or budge.  Jake and I were so snug I’d have to rebirth him to get him to school.  Finally , I gave up and wooed him back into his room by promising to make him a fort, “just like Daddy’s.”  Of course I had to remake his bed first, as the sweat had an uncanny resemblance to pee.  I got back into bed around 4 AM, after reading my dog a story and letting my son out.  Wait, scratch that and reverse it.

By 4:45 my son was back in the womb.  “Mom, can I be your snuggle bunny?”  For how many years will I get to hear that?  At 5AM my daughter was squeezing in on the other side of me.  We laid there like a hermetically sealed package of sausages, my arm coyoteed under Ryan’s head.  Then she started complaining.  “Its too hot with this blanket.  Mom my PJ’s hurt.  Mom I hate the color of your sheets.”  Somehow, 6:30 managed to roll around.

I banged on  my husbands fort with the door knocker he installed.  Bang…Bang…Bang.  “Please get the kids ready for school.  I was up all night.”  Mark is a morning person so I imagined it would be no big deal.  “Grumble grumble… no.”  “What do you mean you won’t help me?”  “Grunt, I’m sick, my throat is killing me.  Besides, I was up too.”  “What kept you up?  Was it the sound of your snoring?  Or maybe the pillow over your head wasn’t soft enough.”  “I just can’t I’m too sick.”  My husband’s cold might as well be the plague, as the Earth has halted on it’s axis.
It would take a hemorrhaging artery to get him to the Doctor, excuse me the clinic, as he has never officially acquired a Doctor.  But, why go?  It’s easier to lay around and tease my children with his untouchable presence.  He’ll spend his day creating an impressive mound of snotty tissues, large enough to pitch off of.  Tissues which he is too sick to bend down and pick up, however he is not too sick to work, or to make sure to keep up with his fantasy football team.
He’ll refuse to use sanitizer, and sluggishly mosey around the house, putting his grubby, germy hands in every bag of chips, touching every door knob and remote, and talking on every phone.  He may even lick the straws on the juice boxes for good measure.  All in a effort to ensure that as soon as he gets better, both my children will surely contract his illness and I will have no shot at personal recovery.

Now I should Mommy him, which in my bitter and sick state, I cannot even feign an attempt.  Listen, if I wanted another child I would adopt one from Indonesia.  If you need to be babied, call your Mom.  Better yet, go stay with her.  I don’t ask that my sickness or lack of sleep take precedence over yours.  I just ask that you go to a hotel until your’s passes.”

Before the NASDAQ bubble of 1999 popped, I used to be the Man. Now in light of current economic conditions, I am getting joy out of sticking it to him. This money consciousness is not new to me. As an ex-personal shopper for the very wealthy, I know the importance of finding a bargain; because shockingly no one dislikes parting with money more than those who have it.

It probably seems obvious that in these rough financial waters I should stop buying coffee at Starbucks and make it home for 1/100^th the cost, but I say “nay.” And I rarely say “nay,” unless I’m singing Old MacDonald. Like you, I am addicted to Starbucks, and fear what vice I might take up in it’s absence. Cocaine? Gambling? Cat juggling? Who’s to say? Therefore, I will continue to give Starbucks my hard earned dough and vow to bankrupt them with my ever popular “Ghetto Latte.” It requires two, I mean dopio, shots of espresso and a grande cup of ice. I add milk and voila, iced grande latte for half the price.

Unfortunately, the staff at Starbucks is trained to look for such wily money saving tactics, so if you plan on ordering this drink the barista may warn you and then the manager may ban you a week later, hypothetically speaking of course. I mean, I wouldn’t know this for sure. I am just guessing at how they might crack down on “ghetto lattes” or filling your baby’s bottle from the fixin’s bar, when you just happen to be in the neighborhood, every 3 hours.

Last week I had my daughters 4^th birthday. I spent hundreds maybe thousands of dollars on balloons from Oriental Trading. I had a ton of latex pinks, purples and lavenders, plus, mylar balloons in the shapes of cell phones, life sized Bratz dolls, purses, lipsticks, and diaphragms (you know, “girlie” stuff.)

The supermarket charges a dollar per latex and two per mylar, to blow them up. “It seems a bit much for air. Last year they didn’t charge me at all,” I said hoping to strike up a deal. “You’re right, but the price is the price.” “I do have quite a lot of balloons here,” I nudged on, still trying to negotiate. “Maim, this price hike came down from corporate. I can’t change it for you.”

I knew he wouldn’t budge, by the tone of his voice. It was like a chipmunk. Apparently, he found it amusing to take a drag from the tank before putting his foot down. This is an example of the “Man” high on power. That’s right I called the guy who works the helium tank the “Man.”

So do you know what I did? I bought that air and then the next day when I went to throw away the latex balloons that last all of 97 minutes. I cut the ribbon off each one and put it with my gift-wrapping stuff. That’s right, I showed him. The next time I have to wrap a present, no larger than a 6 inch square, for a little girl or effeminate boy, he’ll be sorry. Of course, the disposal of my non-Earth friendly latex balloons will sit in some landfill for 200 years decomposing, and most likely end up choking a baby seagull. But, I will think of the birthday girl’s smile, and lay guiltlessly on my seagull down pillows.

Now your thinking this girl is so brilliant it’s scary, or maybe you’re just plain scared. However, my most genius strike at the “Man” happened today. I was making eggs for my daughter this morning and one was yucky inside. One brown organic, cage free, extra omega egg that probably cost about fifteen bucks. That’s a ballpark figure, but I think I’m close. I would never feed such an egg to my daughter, and my husband wasn’t around, so I did the next smartest thing. I went in my yard and planted it. That’s right, and soon I will grow a chicken tree. Before, you know it I’ll be out there, on a crisp 95degree Florida autumn morning, picking chickens. Then I’ll have all the eggs in the WORLD!!! Who will have the last cluck then “Man”? Who?

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So I am finally getting a long overdue pedicure. This current span has been about 2 months or 68 days, but who’s counting? I like to let the nails grow unattractively long in the true spirit of martyrdom. Then I wear sandals and constantly draw attention to how badly I need a pedicure, by saying things like “How badly do I need a pedicure?”

The trick is to go as infrequently as possible and only surrender when your nails split and a jagged edge pulls threads in your sheets, thereby making a 3 AM roll over feel like chewing on metal. Most importantly do not, under any circumstance, remove the polish. This way you have undeniable proof of your hectic schedule. It implies that your “me time” is so sparse that you don’t even have enough to simply wet a cotton ball.

Today I arrived with the red so far at the tip it looked as if I was starting a new trend in French pedicure. Sarabeth, whose real name is Choi Jae Hua, or Yi Hae-Won or something else I can’t pronounce, looks at my feet with a “Tsk.” “I know it’s been a long time,” I say with the joy of squeezing in one last sympathizer. Then she looks up at me and asks if I am aware there is a Pokemon sticker on the bottom of my foot. “Oh, my son was looking for that, if only it were so easy to find my keys.” She then asks if it’s okay to remove it. “Well if you can’t work around it.” I’m not sure if she can hear me; my chair is set on high-multifunction-10. Its “Human Hand” technology is loudly knocking me out of my seat while it heats my tush, vibrates my thighs, froths milk for my cappuccino, and sorts my mail.

I lie, well shimmy, back trying to enjoy my favorite part, the massage. I can’t seem to relax. I am so keenly aware of every left over scrub granule that is kneaded into my legs. Worse, I can sense her daydreaming of the family she has left behind and I’m sure she’s totally resenting me for not shaving, detesting America for making her touch feet, and cursing her boss for making today “$20 Tuesday.” I finally start to relax as she coincidentally realizes she has massaged long enough. She halts to do the required Korean calf knocking, which she follows with the “Ten Toe Pop” event. She’s seems let down when she can’t get a good snap out of the last two toes (not unlike that annoying handshake of the mid-nineties).

“Okay, pick you color” she says pointing to the wall. I can’t decide between “After Sex” or a hue one shade darker, “3 Bottles of Whine.” I don’t understand why all the colors are sexual innuendos. In the end I go with “Popped Cherry,” which is a medium shade of…well, you get the picture. I spend most of the polish application staring at the tranquil paintings of nude women relaxing on furniture. The woman in the painting across from me appears to be giving herself a breast exam on a plush sofa.

I decided to heighten my relaxation by purchasing a 10 minute massage. I swiftly wriggle myself into the pretzel seat after viewing a short video demonstration by Cirque De Soleil. Then she literally beats the tension out of me. “Excuse me Sarabeth, that knot you’re trying to knead out, I think that’s bone.” She ignores me as she does not recognize the sound of her own name. No matter, she manages to pummel it smooth regardless. Then she grabs my wrists, pulls my arms back and relentlessly yanks trying to crack my shoulder blades. She ends with vigorous karate chopping to the back of my neck. Sarabeth then signals someone, and an EMT rushes in with the Jaws of Life to free me from the chair. I walk away totally relaxed, one arm carelessly dangling from the socket. No worries. I’m sure it’s nothing an good orthopedist can’t fix. Why do my attempts at tension release always seem to stress me out?

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Before the late night toddlerisms.

Last night at about 2am, Ryan wanted to play. She is so insightful in the wee hours. I guess during her day with Daddy she watched some of Jake’s movies, which sparked some important questions about survival.

“If a laser hit a kid what would happen?”

Now let’s not forget it’s 2am and I am trying sleep and answer serious questions…at all the same time.

“Well, there are lots of different types of lasers. Some can help your skin or your body, and they don’t really hurt at all.”

“Nooo I meeaan the laser in Mario bros, that Luigi shot at the mouse and made his ship explode?”

“Ah, that kind of laser. Well, I guess it would hurt but they don’t really exist.”

“But, Luigi has one.”

“Yes, but that’s just made up.”

“What about sharks? They exist right?”

“Yes.”

“Could a kid get eaten by a shark?”

“I guess, but they don’t usually eat people, ‘cause we taste yucky.”

“I don’t taste yucky, I’m sweet. That’s why the mosquitoes bite me, and Daddy is sweet, but you and Jake are sour.”

Oh, we’re sour alright, especially at 2am.

“What about electricity? Could that fire?”

“Huh.” (I realized this was about to go into what happens to people when they are electrocuted or on fire.)

“If a dragon falls in a fire what would happen?”

A surprising digression. Whew. (Pause to take in the question.)

“Well, dragons breathe fire so they probably have very thick skin and I bet they would be just fine.”

“Like a seal. A seal has skin like a dragon so a seal would be okay too, right?”

“Right.”

“How about a kitty, cause they are soft and furry. What if a kitty was in fire?”

“Okay, it’s really time to go to sleep now. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

Doesn’t my kid have the sweetest pillow talk?

I realize that 13-14 year olds, Crackheads, homeless people, cheap hookers, and teenage pop stars should not be having children. I am not, however, taking a stance on moral or political issues; I’ll leave that to Paris Hilton. As a pretty normal adult, with the means to raise a child, I admittedly had no clue what I was doing with my first. I remember leaving the hospital thinking, “He’s mine? I own him? You guys trust me to walk out that door and raise a child because I made the obligatory bowel movement, and I demonstrated my ability to put him in a car seat?”

Isn’t it baffling that everyday people like us are allowed to procreate without first passing a test or getting some kind of license? Think about it, you need a library card to take out a five dollar novel, because you can’t be trusted to return it in a period long enough to read it four times over. You’re also required to pass a test to drive a car, sell a house, or be a lifeguard. You can take a class to learn how to give birth, but once that baby’s out, you’re on your own.

There was no test at my OB’s pre-pregnancy interview. All he asked was, “Do you have insurance and are you getting folic acid?”

“Of course I’d never think about bringing life to this Earth without the recommended 30,000mgs of folic acid per day… I’m also taking heroin, but you didn’t ask me that.”

What if I don’t feed him, bathe him, or water him? I could let him swim after lunch without waiting the mandatory 30 minutes, or dress him in clothes that don’t match. I could drop him off on the first day of middle school, roll down the window and scream, “Mama loves her Snuggle Buggle!”

At the very least, there should be some kind of “Mommy Aptitude” screening. During your interview, they could call your mom. Mine would say, “Jenny always dreamed of being a mother and loved playing house. Her dolls were mostly naked, and she liked to cut their hair down to the hair transplant plug scalps. Sometimes she would detach their limbs and try to put them back in the wrong sockets, possibly to amuse herself, though I found it rather disturbing. Have I said too much? No, really, she would be wonderful. They would be so clean; I recall how much she liked bathing with them.”

Doctor’s response: “Put in a 10 year IUD, give her supervised visitation with a hermit crab, and make sure someone counts the legs.”

Not only do doctors promote the concept of “Motherhood” to anyone donning a wedding ring, with reckless abandon, they encourage us to have more. This is also known as repeat business. The second my daughter arrived my OB said, “So, when am I gonna see you back in the saddle?”

Great a stirrup joke. “Take it easy Doc, the placenta’s not even cold yet.”

Well, a month and a half later I ran into him again. Actually, I had an appointment so it wasn’t as random as I’m making it sound. He said, “At 6 weeks you are extremely fertile, so now is the time for another romp in the stable.” I immediately went home to tell my husband the doctor said, “Now is the time I am extremely unstable, so no romps for at least 6 more weeks.”

How about a probationary period to see if you’re any good at this parenting thing? When you get a new job, they evaluate you every 6 months. They certainly don’t give you more responsibility until you’ve proven you can handle your current load, unless you work at MacDonald’s.

How does my OB know how I’m gonna solve disputes? When my children are fighting over the last lollipop, who says I won’t shove them all in the playroom, lock the door, and say, “last one standing gets it?”

Well, lucky for me I am an excellent mother regardless of not being licensed and accredited. This is a concept I could contemplate for hours, but my naked daughter just walked by with a lollipop matted in her crew cut, so I’ve gotta give her a bath.

Being a new column to Think Weston, I would like to take this opportunity to make an introduction. Column…People, People…Column. Now that the formalities are out of the way, I’ll tell you a bit about life in the Suburban Jungle.

I am a neurotic mother of two amazing, wonderful, brilliant, perfect children which is saying a lot because I am a harsh critic and an uncompromising disciplinarian. You know, the kids have to sing for their supper kinda stuff… well, they at least have to ask… well, a grunt would be nice. Actually, they just sit and I make multiple meals until one is worthy of their sophisticated taste buds and doesn’t exacerbate their fear of burnt spots, crust, pizza bubbles, or food that touches other food. It is my job to keep them protected from the Florida sun, prehistoric Weston insects, and plasticware with the number 3, 6, or 7 on the bottom. I have to expose them to just enough germs to build their immune system, while using little enough sanitizer to keep them healthy. I also have to remember to feed and water them daily.

Most likely you’ll find that you and I are a lot alike. We live in the same pristine suburb of Weston, which is not unlike the Truman Show. For instance, the Starbucks Dog Walking Crew passes the intersection of Glades and Indian Trace at precisely 7:42, 12:37, and 5:15. You can set your watch by them. I’ve also noticed that no matter how hot it gets, the members of the Biker Brigade never break a sweat, a feat I’m sure they’re getting paid double for.

Like you, I find time each day to take the mandatory trip…or 2…or 3 to Publix, which is more than I can say about my likelihood of showering. I can’t say I haven’t tried to get into the wrong SUV, and I may even curse at Starbuck’s when my “usual” is not waiting for me. Damn the new barista!

Like you, my children are signed up for 102 after school activities, have marathon playdates, and attend enough birthday parties to ensure I will not have a free Sunday for the rest of their young lives. Like you, I attend the school’s holiday boutiques which celebrate everything from Shavuot to Secretary’s Day. Yes, I too find myself obligated to buy frivolous wares, like stickers with my kids names and likeness on them, home tie-dyed clothes, and embellished flip-flops.

Like you, I have crazy friends and acquaintances that are teetering on divorce, having affairs, start pourin’ the Mommy Juice at noon, or all of the above. Like you, I have cellulite begging me to stop wearing short shorts, laugh lines screaming for Restylane, crow’s feet crying for Botox, and spend far too much money trying to look dewy. You and I have a Cinderella Complex, Penis Envy, and Buyer’s Remorse. G-d we have a lot of problems don’t we? Let’s just take a break to call our therapists.

Since we’ve clearly bonded over our commonalities, plus the need for serious therapy and a stiff one (I am talking about liquor), I must come clean on the one Weston trend that I’m not down with. This would be the fashion statement I call “sweans.” Are they sweats? Are they jeans? No one will ever know, but apparently they’re comfortable enough to jog in and dressy enough to belt. Pheww, now I feel like I can tell you anything… and I’ve got a lot to discuss. I’ll see you in the Jungle.