Author Archives: 40andover

My inner diva

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I had to have a close-up taken for my new firm’s website.  Last time my picture was taken for a firm website, I had no wrinkles or gray hairs.  What a difference 3.5 years makes.  Now, laugh lines and a shock of gray.  Last time, the pictures were taken by a professional photographer.  This time, by someone in the mail room.

Nevertheless, the difference in photographs was shocking (to me).  And the transition from the color picture to black and white didn’t do anything to help.  In a culture where young and cute mean success, this was my very own personal reality check and public relations disaster.  I can’t turn back time and pretend I am young and cute, but I can have a passable picture that doesn’t scream old and wrinkled.

At my insistence (and that of my assistant, G-d bless her), the guys in the mailroom tried to enhance the picture as much as possible, at least to get rid of that strange patina that affected part of my face as if a skin disease. But, I just have to get used to the fact that I am older and it shows.  I guess I will market that as “experience” and “judgment”.

I saw a lapel button once that said, “Aging to Perfection”.  That picture — which probably captures how I really appear — is more like “Aging Out to Pasture”.

And, yes, I had a diva moment.  And it isn’t like I have a right to be.  Nevertheless, let this be a warning to all:  Beware an aging woman and her photo.

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It’s a small world after all

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I was emailing my friends that someone at my new job uses the “air quotes” so continuously it reminds me of the hand motions for the camp song, “Little Rabbit Froo Froo” [hoppin’ thru the forest . . .].  In fact, I giggle every time I see her.

I learned that the little rabbit was also known as the little bunny and was also known as “Foo Foo” and “Frou Frou”, although I know my version is right.  Even if Wikipedia says otherwise, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Bunny_Foo_Foo. Then, a friend from Canada thought the field mice were wiggly worms.  Ok, that is just WRONG.

One of my friends posted the debate on Facebook and, within ten minutes, she got ten responses with alternate theories of the song and the animals in it.

People are fierce on this subject.  It took a Facebook responder to remind us that the moral of the story is:  “hare today, goon tomorrow.”

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Tea Party-ers in Revolutionary Get-Ups

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Ok, I don’t get what was so great about the pre-Revolutionary War period.

Milk and water had deadly bacteria, “medicine” consisted of bloodletting and leaches, and the economies of the colonies went through more boom and bust cycles than we have in the 20th and 21st centuries combined.

Also, women didn’t vote, slavery was legal and an education was a luxury.  Life expectancy was short and infant mortality high.  You were either born into poverty or great wealth — no in-between.  There was war and its unspeakable human carnage.

In case the tea party-ers are not students of history, they are in the costumes of either the unofficial American aristocracy who made incredible fortunes from smuggling and the slave trade or those who were the impoverished masses and were controlled by that unofficial aristrocracy.  And the Boston tea party was a Samuel Adams’ instigated mob riot intended to rile everyone against the king of England.  All engineered by the wealthy colonials, not the “common people”.

If you are looking for grass roots democracy, try the Native American tribes on which Jefferson based his vision of government.

So, tea party-ers, what is your point?  If you want to go back to that time, well, have fun but count me out.  I would rather deal with a spoiled society on the verge of global devastation, but with the brain power and ultimately, I hope, the conscience and the technology and intelligence, to figure out how to save our earth and our humanity.

But if you just want to dress in knickers and wigs, then knock yourselves out.

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Oh when the Saints go marching in . . . .

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My son wants the Saints to win the Superbowl.  His reason is rather endearing: the only thing about football that amuses his other mom, POB (partner of blogger), is that she can sing, “When the Saints go marching in” whenever the team is playing. 

Ok, enough cooing about my charming and sweet child.  Why would I say such a thing?  Since I have been watching  all these football games with my son (a new test of my love for him), AND I actually want the Colts to win the Superbowl (I like Peyton Manning). 

Leave it to me to turn a simple football game (ok, a Superbowl game) into a referendum on whom our son loves more.   As if it matters.  In fact, it doesn’t matter — as long as I win. 

Who’s competitive?

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First Impressions

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My assistant and I have worked together for ten years.  We would take bullets for each other.  So, when I changed jobs, so did she.

She is young and pushy and doesn’t smile naturally.  And she has no boundaries when it comes to her opinions on my life and the world in general.  Remember she is barely 30, and I am older than 45.  So no shrinking violet.

And still she wonders why one person got testy when she asked about our building IDs for our new firm.  The IDs were supposed to be ready at 1pm.  I asked her how many times she asked.  She said “five”.  It was only 4pm. I asked her, in a Jon Stewart voice, “Really? You’re not sure why she’s angry with you? Really?”

The scary part is that she is mellowing with age.  G-d help me.

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Single Mom for Two Days

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Single parents should get medals for valor and Olympic-level strength and endurance.  This is my first day of a two and one-half day gig, and I am exhausted.   As a rule, I do not consider it morning until the sun has risen.  But, I had to get up at 6am — which is, I note PRE-dawn — in order to wake my adorable sleeping child at 6:30.  He is a morning slacker like me.  He hates getting out of the warm comfy bed during the week (but 6am is noooooo problem on the weekends).  He would not budge.  I had to open the window.  I had to turn on the lights.  I had to tickle him.  Then, I jumped on top of him in a (gentle) body slam.  Still, he resisted.  So, I did something worse than anything else — I started to sing at the top of my lungs as I dragged him out of bed.  Well, that did it.  My voice can make my 7.5 year-old cry out in anguish.  (Hey, I say, if you got a gift, use it.) 

The rest of the morning went smoothly as my child went through the motions with a horror-stricken look on his face.

He and I will be so glad when Mommy comes home from her business trip in California.

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We live in a crowded city

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I went to the gym again tonight as part of my new mind-body balance regimen.  Who am I kidding?  Myself, of course.  But let me dream for another day and then crash-land into Hershey milk chocolate nuggets, take-out food and acne.  For two days, I have breathed calmly and deeply, in with nourishing oxygen, out with bad energy.  It started out great, until I realized I was breathing car exhaust and then started hyperventilating, but I digress.

In my karmatically balanced state, I walked into the locker room, certain I would rise above the bloggable moment.  Then I rationalized even a vegan sneaks a bacon rasher every now again.  I had to entertain this juicy rationalization because I have to report the bloggable moment.  I walked over to the toilet stalls to the left of the sinks.  At the sinks were two women — strangers it appears — one, brushing her teeth (bravo on the oral hygiene), the other shaving her underarms (obviously ANYthing can be done in public nowadays).

Let’s reflect on that.  Oh, and someone was eating a power bar of some sort not 5 feet away.  I guess I should have mentioned that you shouldn’t read this while eating.  My bad.  All that carbon monoxide I was deep-breathing to cleanse my body.  Hmmmm.

I happen to know where the chocolate nuggets are stashed. . . .

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My sister, speaker of the truth

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I bumped into my sister at the gym.  She said very excitedly and pleased, “you don’t look horrible!”  I looked at her.  “Well you started a new job and you don’t look bad. . . ” in a voice that suggested that “not bad” is the new “fabulous”.

Ok, so in the “new normal” of our lives, I am striving for looking “not bad.”  Good thing the floors and walls in the gym are padded.

I made sure to re-apply my lipstick often today.  “Not bad” is just not good enough.

But, seeing my new company ID picture, I know that my sister was just telling me the truth.  So, I realized that not looking horrible is now a goal and “not bad” a compliment.

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Sunday was a great day

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Sunday was my free day before my new job.

POB (partner of blogger) excused me from the otherwise obligatory lunch with her father and a children’s Hebrew music concert at our synagogue.  POB is TOO good to me.  I don’t deserve her but let’s keep that quiet (she hardly ever reads my blog often so I am not giving the secret away).

So, I watched cartoons with our son, went to the gym for a long, long time (I am still hurting Monday night), got a manicure, bought food for dinner with the extended family (my side) and started preparing it.  POB — G-d bless her — likes having my extended family over, even when I have slacked off ALL day. And they love her (what’s not to love?)

As an aside, it is a little bit of heaven to go to the gym without the stresses of having only 45 minutes to sweat, stretch, and be grossed out by those in the locker room.

The family came over and we started to reminisce about seminal moments of our clan gatherings at our aunt’s and uncle’s house in New Rochelle. And how we all thought we should have been consulted when they sold that house. That house was special because of the wonderful memories created there when the older generation was young and tall (and, yep, alive). Younger than their children are now.  It was a great fun to remember and laugh.

After everyone left, we cleaned up and my son was all ready for bed, he said, “Good luck tomorrow, E-Mom, I hope you make new friends and have someone to eat lunch with.”

I didn’t have time to get nervous about going to a new job the next day (ok, I didn’t get nervous until it was time to go to bed). 

It was a great day.

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Ping Pong

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Tonight, I am going out with colleagues to a hip and groovy place.  Which means that the people who go to this place could easily be my children. 

It is part-owned by Susan Sarandon (as a gift to her new arm candy).  Susan is the only non-vampire that is ageless and gorgeous at 60+ years old.

Apparently, there are ping pong tables there.  Like in a fraternity basement.  Further indicium that I have aged out of this place.

Last time I played “pong” was beer pong in my sorority basement.  Actually it was slam pong.  My foot slipped on the mung beer stinking up the floor and I pulled my hamstring.  The campus police had to drive me to my various classes for two weeks because I kept slipping on the ice and re-injuring my muscle.  Imagine trying to go out frat-hoping and asking the campus police to drive you. 

Ok, 25 years later, I am going to a place — where the bouncers will probably keep me out because of my gray hair — to play pong.  I wonder if I will be able to finish that slam pong game that got interrupted by my fall so many years ago.  .  .  .

More tomorrow, if I survive.

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