Category Archives: Life

Another gym story

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Yesterday, after a long day being charming at a conference on how to survive a bad economy (I think “pray” was the most viable strategy), I went to a nearby branch of my gym to work away the blues. This branch is located in a very expensive and fancy hotel and shopping complex. It is definitely a “flagship” branch with all of the bells and whistles and expensive amenities.

One notable amenity is the modesty areas, where one can dress and undress in private.  A premium in a city where every square foot costs a fortune.  Yet, it did seem unnecessary in a place where only the beautiful, the buff and the European work out and parade around.  What is naked hair drying about?  Naked nose-blowing?  Naked blackberrying?  Ok, the truth is that if I receive a message on my blackberry, I want the sender to be fully clothed.  I don’t need any other image clouding my brain and destroying cells.  If someone were to email me that he or she was in the gym locker room (because, like bloggers, people will write just about anything in an email), I would stop reading and wait for about a half hour until I thought the person was dressed and then continue reading.

The worst?  Naked blackberrying while standing in front of the mirror.  

Me? I like just being regular weird and not doing any of that eccentric stuff.

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Aging.

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Ok, so a friend told me, in a meaningful and affirmative way, that my new picture on my new company’s website is not horrible.  She said, “it looks like you.”  Excuse me while I have a body lift. Don’t think that I wasn’t being self-affirming in that statement.  My first thought was: excuse me while I put my head in the oven.

After 45 years, I have got to come to terms with what I look like.  I have to stop hoping that a glamorous woman is going to stare back at me in the mirror one morning.  Years ago, I had an apartment mate who believed she would wake up one morning transformed into a six-foot tall blonde. Ok, the blonde part could be done. But growing 12 inches when you are 22? Nah. This is a long winded way (who, me?) of saying, I used to laugh about that until I realized that I have the same insane delusions.

Too things about aging really annoy me:

(1) puffy eyes. I have those now from doing the client/prospective client blitz now that I changed jobs.  And I spent the last two days at a conference schmoozing people I never met before.

(2) sagging neck skin. If only my neck skin wasn’t starting to do the chicken dance.

One part is getting easier with age. People (mis)take my gray hair for experience and knowledge. Would I be less smart if I got my hair colored?

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Snow Day

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It isn’t even snowing in NY yet and the public schools are shutting down for TOMORROW.  My son doesn’t go to public school but his school is nevertheless following the Board of Education’s lead.  Ok, why anyone would follow the Bd of Ed’s lead is beyond me.  In fact, he is in private school precisely because the Bd of Ed has no business running schools.

Since parents who are urban dwellers don’t get snow days (the subway always works), tomorrow will be a problem for child care.  POB (partner of blogger) and I have to figure this out.  Actually, all I want to do is stay in my jammies and watch cartoons with our son and eat ice cream and laze around, until about 4pm and THEN hand him off to a sports coach to tire him out.  Of course, we do have the trampoline that is now a fixture in his room until our downstairs neighbor complains.  Luckily, the guy is a midlevel associate at a huge law firm that probably makes him work around the clock.  Thank Goodness for modern-day, high-paying, low quality-of-life sweat shops.

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The generations of progress

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Sunday night is family dinner night.  SOB (sister of blogger), HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) and FOB (father of blogger) come over.  From time to time, COB (cousin of blogger) and COROBs (cousins once-removed of blogger) also come over [there is one COROB whom I miss very much — she knows who she is — I would love for her to come, too, when she is ready].

So, on Sunday night, we had the usual gang plus a COB and COROB.  COB is the de facto family historian, so sometimes we discern breakthroughs of understanding and gentility invading our otherwise harsh and unforgiving gene pool.  COROB’s brother is coming in with his girlfriend in a few weeks.  COB asked COROB if “we” liked the girlfriend — one person’s opinion can shape a multi-generational disposition towards an interloper in — I mean new person to — the family.

COROB answered, “I don’t know, I haven’t met her.” And the generations of the family fell quiet.  This was indeed momentous.  Any member of a prior generation would say something like, “How could we possibly like her?  He would have brought her around before if she was a keeper.”  In other words, unworthy unless proved otherwise through hazing rituals only known among the clan.  Here was an opening to be level-headed about the matter.  The profundity cannot be overstated.  We older cousins could not grasp this “perestroika” of a sort at first.

Luckily, just when the world as we knew it was teetering on the edge of kindness and generosity, we had a disagreement over whether kashrut is important as a sign of belief in G-d or because it was sound eating practices.  Were the rules codified because of hygiene or because they set the tribes of Israel apart from other regional tribes?  The COROB and COB disagreed with me somewhat assertively but something had changed in the dynamic of the family just from that little openness shown by COROB earlier towards her brother’s girlfriend.

I heard myself say, “you’re wrong AND you can still come back for dinner next time.”  Wow.  Now, that’s progress.

Hmmmmm.

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The Slug in Winter

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Our son has no interest in going outside in cold weather.  He would much rather watch movies and read books.  I don’t blame him, but POB (partner of blogger) and I get cabin fever.  Also, reading and watching movies is great until our son starts bouncing off the walls from lack of activity.  Boys need to run around.  Think golden retriever.  Lots of running, for running’s sake.

Last winter I bought one of those tiny exercise-trampolines — the kind that slides under our bed when not in use (and it is often not in use).  Realizing that our son is as strong-willed as she is (genetic code cannot be denied), POB brought out the trampoline and made our son jump up and down as he told us stories and whatever else came to his head.  POB and I took turns taking walks outside.  It wasn’t exactly “family” time, but it was the best we were going to get on a frigid winter day.  (I hope Groundhog Phil was wrong and we will have an early Spring.)

It reminded me about the commercial with the parents running the kids up and down hills and then putting them on treadmills just to get them tired out.  Life imitates art or art imitates life.

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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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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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