Mewy Cwistmas!

Last week I asked a mom at Kate’s school a casual question. And I’ve been feeling bad about her answer ever since.

It was at morning drop-off. I’d hustled Kate into her classroom on time. Phew! I was dashing down the school’s front steps, dragging Paige by the hand with the frazzled determination of a working mom with one more kid to ditch before fighting commuter traffic into the city. And I saw a mom I kinda know standing there. She was waiting to lead a tour.

“How’re you surviving the holidays?” I called over my shoulder. This, I later realized, is my go-to seasonal greeting to other mothers.

“Eh,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders. “I’ll be happy when it’s over. This isn’t my favorite time of year.”

It was not one of those eye-rolling oh-life-is-hectic-but-I’m-getting-it-all-done kinda responses. The reaction I realized I’d come to expect. My off-the-cuff question was the kind of quick check-in mamas often do at the holidays, back to school time, birthdays—when we’re feeling particularly taxed. These passing exchanges are sympathetic nods to each other. Our way of saying, I hear your life is crazy now, hang in there sister.

But this woman was clearly not referring to having too much shopping to do. She wasn’t feeling harried about having to juggle cookie-baking parties or get everyone packed for a ski trip. She wasn’t begrudging the maternal mayhem that’s often the necessary underpinning of busy, fun family times.

I’m not sure what makes her want the holidays to just be over—and that morning on the school steps wasn’t the time to find out. But several times since our brief exchange I’ve thought about her.

In fact, the next day we went to the San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker. It’s become a tradition between my sister, my niece, Kate, and me. And this year for the first time Paigey was old enough to come too.

Getting there was painful. Kate argued about wearing a dress. She refused to wear tights. She sat on the floor of her room crying, wailing, and miserable. I finally consented to letting her wear yellow and gray striped socks—the only ones she deemed comfortable. (Not a great look with a red dress and black flats.) We scrambled into the car late and tear-strewn, with me threatening to not take Kate in future years if she couldn’t get dressed. I’m guessing this isn’t the best way to manage a child with sensory issues around clothing.

But our fashion meltdown wore off somewhere between Oakland and San Francisco. The local all-Christmas radio station plus the pretzel snacks I’d grabbed took hold. And as we walked up the grand steps of the SF Ballet, fake snow flurries pumping out over the sidewalk, I got a deep hit of just how lucky we were to be there. That we live in this amazing cosmopolitan place. That we can afford this beautiful magical experience each year. That we are happy, healthy, and together, and spiffed up in our best winter coats—even if Kate’s socks were all wrong.

The thought of the mother at Kate’s school zipped through my head, and I took a big breath and exhaled before walking in. We are here, I thought, and this is so amazing. It was like the Ghost of Christmas Present came and tapped me on the shoulder. “Be here now,” she said. “Hug your daughters. Drink it in. Not everyone gets to do this.”

Message received.

A few nights later my sister had a Christmas party. Her huge Victorian was packed with adults, kids, food, dogs, a roaring fire in the fireplace. At one point Mark gave Paige a bite of the cookie he was eating. One of those Magic Cookie Bars with the graham cracker base, a mid-layer of chocolate, and walnuts on top. They scream of the the Bruno house circa 1979. And I love that my sister still makes them.

Within minutes Paige was in a crying fit. She was thrashing on the couch, yelling that her tongue felt funny and that she wanted water. I somehow attributed her behavior to the late hour and the crowd. But then I realized it was the nuts. Weeks earlier she’d had an encounter with walnut oil and her lip swelled up. D’oh!

Before swallowing the full dose of Benadryl, she barfed everywhere. And I had a full dose of maternal guilt for having ignored the earlier warning sign.

Poor lamb. I’d call her doctor first thing in the morning to schedule allergy testing.

In the meantime I took note of my visit from the Ghost of Christmas Puke. Seems impossible to get through the holidays without him stopping by.

On Wednesday we went to my friend Lily’s house to make gingerbread houses. It was super fun and the holiday huts turned out swell. I even managed to not micro-manage the girls’ design choices! And the kids didn’t slip into diabetes-induced comas from all the candy they horked down while decorating (eat one, stick one to the house, eat two…). We took this as a small victory.

But the biggest victory no one even talked about was that Lily just had her last radiation treatment. After a brutal year of surgery, chemo, radiation, and endless doctor visits, she is DONE. Officially out of the woods. Yee-ha!

I’d sent her flowers with a note that said, “Thank freaking God that’s over.” It was one of those embarassing-to-recite-to-the-florist messages, but one that needed sayin’.

As I watched Lily help her kids shellack their house’s roof with frosting—rocking her fabulous wig with the style and beauty only she could—I noticed The Ghost of Christmas Past stroll behind her, then slip out the door, taking Lily’s crappy year with him. I’ve never been happier to see someone go.

Let’s keep that cancer stuff in the past, shall we? On to a happy and healthy new year.

In fact, we’ve had our own health scare around here. A close family member went through a series of tests that all seemed to be pointing in a very bad direction. But suddenly, the last most rottenly invasive—but decisive—test came back negative. Clean. Nada, zip, zilch.

Perhaps you heard me letting out an all-body phew when I got that call?

Can I say THAT really knocks things into perspective? Your shopping may not be done, and the star on your tree might be missing, but someone called and said “the test came back negative.”

That’s all the gifts I need, thanks. The garland on my mantle may be a bit bedraggled, but the things that matter in life are a-okay.

And really, my garland is actually quite perfect.

But thank you, thank you, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be, for that mega-dose of things-could-be-worse. But they are thrillingly, blessedly, not. In fact, they are most excellent, with clear sailing ahead.

Knock wood.

It’s nearly dinnertime on Christmas day. After an abundant morning of gift-opening, we headed out with the girls and Mark’s parents for a hike in the Redwood forest. And my geek-chef husband is about to remove our free-range, organic, fancy-pants turkey breast from the immersion circulator. (Ah yes, just like mom used to make.)

I am not someone who’ll be happy when the holidays are over. For that I am eternally grateful.

Throughout these past couple weeks I’ve been sending out little wishes to that mama I talked to on the steps of Kate’s school. Here’s to hoping she enjoyed the holidays more than she thought she would this year.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Ho Ho Hanukkah

On Friday when I picked up Paigey from preschool her teacher handed me her lunchbox and said, “I didn’t know you guys celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah.”

To which I answered, “We don’t actually celebrate Hanukkah. Whoever might have given you that idea?”

She and I smiled down at Paige, who practically started whistling and kicking the dirt to look all innocent.

My friend Shira just wrote a sweet, funny blog post for my day job about growing up Jewish in a Christmas-hyped world. My daughter will likely blog some day about her unfulfilled childhood longings for latkes and dreidel play, and how she’d tear through her stocking on Christmas mornings hoping to find chocolate gelt.

And really, as a wanna-be Jew myself, I totally appreciate where Paige is coming from. In fact, this week I nearly ran away with a Klezmer band.

Sure, lots of people have chosen to follow The Dead, or become rock groupies. And really, who hasn’t read—and loved—Pamela Des Barre’s classic I’m With the Band?

But me? I want to throw caution to the wind and go on the road with a band that plays traditional Hebrew music dating back to Biblical times. Now THAT is hot, people. That’s how I’m plotting my rebellion.

And sure, it helps that one of my most beloved friends is the front man for them. They’re exuberant, joyful, funny, quirky—and alternately pretty deep and sorrowful. But before I start to sound like a music reviewer (and fail miserably at it), I’ll just say that the music they make draws you in, makes you clap, chuckle, stomp your feet, and belt out verses like “Oy yoy yoy yoy yoy!” And somehow, without even knowing what 90% of the words mean, you feel totally connected and a part of it.

Trust me, it’s good stuff.

I saw the band play Thursday night in Berkeley and was so fired up I decided to take Kate to their Saturday night gig. Which was an hour and a half away. And started at her bedtime.

But if as a parent you have ever had a moment of feeling like what you are doing is so exactly the thing you should be doing with your child, even though in all practical ways it seems totally wrong, well Saturday night was just that for me.

Kate spent the day yammering on to her dolls (and anyone else who’d listen) about “going to my first concert.” When we arrived, she marveled at the modest, rural community center, “I think this place is a mile long!” She played foos-ball with the drummer backstage. And when she saw Lorin walk up to the mic and start singing, I thought she’d levitate off her seat with bliss.

Even when I poured her exhausted, rumpled body into the car for the long, late-night drive home, part of me thought, “Let’s just drive on to L.A.! Let’s tap into more of that amazing, addictive energy! Let’s start writing set lists and chanting at encores for Mermaid’s Avenue.”

Oh, I wanted to oy yoy yoy all the way down to Disney Hall. But instead I drove home, tucked Kate into bed, and satisfied myself by watching them play tonight on the Conan show. My special band on TV for the whole world to see.

Here it is, less than a week away from Christmas and Mark and I have still not figured out what to buy poor Paigey. So Mark, in all his brilliant practicality, asked her yesterday what she wanted. And without batting an eyelash she made her pronouncement: “I want a menorah.”

Well then, of course. So as soon as I hit ‘Post’ here I’ll be going onto Amazon to find one. (Is that even where one buys a menorah? I’m such a hopeless goy.)

Yes, I think Paige has made her point loud and clear. The next time I pack up Kate and hit the road to follow a Klezmer band, I’ve got to make room for one more groupie.

Keeping it Real

I am a Nazi about thank you cards. Sending them, that is.

And like all people with militant beliefs, I work hard to instill them in my children. Call me old school, uptight, or etiquette-bound, but I want writing thank you notes to become second nature to my kids.

As it turns out, I have no need to worry. At least with my oldest child, Kate, who is a great maker of cards. A tremendous and relentless maker of cards. It’s somehow just in her genes, I guess. And I know that my mother—an ardent disciple of Emily Post—would approve.

Not all Kate’s cards are thank yous. No, she whips up cards for birthdays, sick friends, Valentine’s Day, the death of a pet. When she learned that Paige’s teacher broke his foot last year, she immediately dashed off a card. She made another to bid adieu to our dear gaybors the night before they moved. (Just a few blocks away, but we’re all still sick about it.)

The heart-shaped card she enclosed when we mailed Halloween candy to the troops said, “Dear soldiers, thak you for protecting the U.S.A. Soldiers rok! p.s. My name is Kate.”

(P.P. S. I told her how to spell ‘soldiers.’)

Kate made a card to welcome her pet fish, Karen. It’s hanging by the fishbowl in a spot, I assume, where Karen can easily read it. It says, “Dear Karen I hop you like your noo hom! Your onr Kate.”

The “your onr” line still slays Mark.

I admit, Kate’s thank you note routine has been a bit trying at times. Now that she can write—albeit with her school-condoned “creative spelling”—she’s not just doodling on the sea of notes that I churn out. She labors over each one. I’ll have a list of 20-plus gift-givers to get through and Kate will get hung up on one card for 15 minutes, cutting an elaborate snowflake decoration to enclose with it. I don’t want to stifle her creativity, but I do want to get the birthday thank yous out before we get snowed with the Christmas ones.

The contents of Kate’s notes range from the fascinating non sequitur variety—”Thanks for the book. I just had hot choklit!!”—to the brutally basic. To her great grandmother she recently wrote, “I put the muny in my banc akont.”

There are also the times when Kate’s spelling is inadvertently inappropriate. There was the series of cards that said, “Thak you for cuming to my party.”

Wince.

She wrote a thank you note to a neighbor who gave her magic markers. The pens, it turned out, were permanent ink. Mark and I discovered this after an art sesh left indelible marks on our dining room table.

The first draft of that note went something like, “Thank you for the magic markers. My mother took them away from me.”

I certainly want to encourage honesty, but I asked for a do-over on that one.

Today we were invited to an ice cream party. My friend Lily was celebrating the end of her chemotherapy (yay!), so she invited 60 friends, relatives, kids, and neighbors to her house for an old school ice cream social. It was the perfect fun lighthearted celebration to mark the end of a truly trying and terrible year.

Now, as you may know, I tend to be a rosy sunshiny, hide-the-bad-details-from-the-kids kinda mom. I’m the one who has assured a worried child there are no robbers in Oakland. I’ve gone so far as to brush off the notion that earthquakes could ever take place in the Bay Area. (“Here? Pishaw!”)

But when Lily got sick I didn’t sugarcoat it for my kids. They’d seen me sniffle and weep after bad-news phone calls, so they knew something was up. But that wasn’t why I was so unlike-me honest about it. The situation was so real and raw, I couldn’t fathom pretending it was something else. Something not so bad.

They knew Lily was sick. And I told them she had to take a kind of strong medicine that would make her hair fall out. And that the kind of sickness she had could be really scary and bad, which is why I cried about it sometimes—because I was scared. Because some people die from it.

So this morning as we got ready to go to the end-of-chemo ice cream party, Kate asked if she could make Lily a card. And I said, “Of course. She would love that.”

Then I got really curious to see what she would write. I half-expected the card to say, “Dear Lily, I’m happy you didn’t die.”

But my concerns were unfounded.

The card said:
“Dear Lily: I am igsided thet you dot hef to tace metsin eney mor!!!!!!!! love Kate!!!!”

Of course, I bawled when I saw it. I bawled about three different times before the party, and at least once more on the way home. I bawled because I think that in getting ready to celebrate this bad hard part being over, in giving into relief, I opened some door inside myself and big blasts of how scared I’ve been snuck out too.

I was totally projecting when I thought of what Kate’s card to Lily might say. The thing that I wanted to say if I weren’t an adult and didn’t know better that it was too bracingly honest: “Please please please kick this cancer in keister. I love you so much my dear, and I really don’t want you to die.”

Because the fact is, she’s not totally out of the woods. Today’s party was like a milestone pit stop. A celebration that the end of the woods are now at least in sight.

It was a glorious sunshiny day. There was a Mickey Mouse jumpy house in full swing in the back yard. We arrived early, but before we knew it their big home was buzzing with friends chatting and laughing, kids running past our legs holding cups of ice cream.

Amidst all those people and all their talking I’m nearly certain no one actually said aloud that they’re relieved that Lily is here and alive and nearly almost altogether well. We didn’t have to. Today what we had to do was eat ice cream.

Love Letter to Oakland

Dearest Oakland,

I’m lying in bed (with my laptop) feeling dreamy about our recent weekend together. And while I linger in this hazy bliss I thought I’d write you a letter to tell you just how dazzling you are.

First off, on Friday—remember how I was so crabby? The kids were wild, I was exhausted, and the minutes ’til Mark would get home from work seemed to stretch out mercilessly. I was like a beaten-down soldier whose dismissal date kept getting moved just out of reach.

But then you, Oakland—as if you somehow knew I needed you—you sent in back-up, in the form of my wonderful neighbor, who I spotted from the kitchen window waltzing across my yard holding a plate of cheese and crackers, her children in tow. In minutes my kids were swept from my skirt hem (where they’d been clinging, whining, and fighting all afternoon) to dash off to play with their homies. And me? I was left on the sunny front porch, splayed out in a wicker chair with a dear friend, some processed pub cheese, and the most delicious, well-deserved beer I may have ever consumed.

My mood took such a fast turn I wouldn’t be surprised if I laid down rubber. And all because of the dumb luck served up to me by having settled in my groovy neighborhood. So thanks, Oakland. I needed that.

And if all that all wasn’t day-changing enough, we breathed a collective screw-cooking-dinner sigh, and walked JUST BLOCKS AWAY (frighteningly close, really, considering I’d never been) to a delightfully homey, Friday night food truck event. It was sunny and warm, children frollicked on a grassy knoll (for realz!), and folks gathered on blankets to eat gourmet foods they didn’t cook and wouldn’t have to clean up after.

I love the trendy fanci-fication of roach coaches. I mean, as trends go it’s MUCH better than the whole jeggings thing. And not only do they serve up a mean chicken tikka masala, or mac and cheese with truffle oil, or spicy Thai shrimp with the heads still on right from their little sliding windows, but all the hip food trucks have clever names too. Names that, like nearly every joke I’ve ever heard, I’m immediately unable to remember. But trust me, those trucks had some clever, pun-a-licious names.

Oh, Oakland, you know exactly how to turn a grumpy worn-out mama into a happily fed mother hen, pushing her brood home in a stroller awash with snug contentment that all those people in other parts of the country who own much larger, fancier and less expensive houses—and who send their kids to excellent free local schools—THEY don’t get to walk three blocks to a super-groovy food truck ho-down. No, no, Oakland, I don’t mean to boast about you, but those folks don’t got what you have, honey. No way, no how.

Then Saturday you kept the love coming. Like the cleverest people who ever did live, we went to your shores, and climbed aboard the ferry to our sister city San Francisco—and not with the intention of getting off once there. No, we took the boat as a wonderfully mobile, water-borne, crowd-free way to watch the Blue Angels air show. So smart! So simple! So CHEAP. Yes, we just did a loop through the bay, admiring the sailboats and massive aircraft carriers. It was sunny. It was easy. And it was a lightening-charged THRILL to see those planes roar overhead in tight formation, doing loop-dee-loops, epic free falls, and even drawing a breast cancer ribbon in the air.

Mark, Kate and I were punching the air and screaming “Yee-ha!” like some amped-up rednecks watching Nascar. Paige, on the other hand, wailed and covered her ears from the noise. But really, Oakland, don’t feel bad. You can’t make everyone happy all the time.

Waking up next to you Sunday morning, dear city… Is it wrong to say I’m getting used to you being there? Used to rolling out of bed and having you serve up our feel-good neighborhood farmer’s market groove? I’ve grown so contentedly used to this happy scene. There’s music for the kiddos, great produce year-round, and delish hot breakfast and lunch foods. The farmer’s market on Sunday mornings is our form of church.

And the frosting on the cake—because I’m not done yet—was seeing the movie Moneyball. Total sports movie that you don’t have to like sports to like. Or to love. It’s about the Oakland A’s, ya know. An underdog story (the best kind). And it stars Brad Pitt, who actually looks kinda old in it, which has the strange effect of making him seem mortal and therefore somehow even more likeable.

Plus, there’s something extra specially cool about watching a movie about Oakland IN Oakland. Or rather, a movie about you, in you. Well, you know what I mean…

Anyway Oakland, thank you, thank you for the non-stop excellent happy good love. Sure, I fantasize about other places at times. I won’t lie. I daydream about what small town life could be. I flirt with the idea of nearby, fancy-pants Piedmont (‘though I also admire Porches, but will likely never own one). Anyway, I haven’t always been the most loyal lover, Oakland, but at the end of the day the fact is, it’s all about you and me, baby.

So let’s just keep being excellent to each other, shall we?

xoxox,
Kristen

P.S. Write back.

Oh Danny Boy

I screwed up my very first relationship at age six.

We were in the line to go the bathroom at school. Boys on the right. Girls on the left. And Danny Palumbo leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You’re my girlfriend.”

This news came as a surprise. I mean, I wasn’t totally clear what being Danny’s—or anyone else’s—girlfriend really meant. But I assumed that if I was someone’s girlfriend, I’d at least have known about it.

So, with the defiance of a budding feminist, I put my hands on my hips and leaned back towards the Boys’ Bathroom Line to inform Danny, “I am NOT.”

Then I spent three years consumed by a crush on him. Ah, the power of suggestion.

Danny had glossy black hair, worn in a bowl cut. (This was a fetching look back then.) It was very Moe from The Three Stooges. And where I was a good girl—walked around by my teacher to the other classrooms to show off my handwriting—Danny was a bad boy. He had a sidekick, Les Dunbar, and their antics no doubt sent teachers home desperate for a drink at the end of the day. Once they went to the bathroom and put on all their clothes backwards. This created quite a ruckus when they were called up to write on the chalkboard. Good times.

The way they rolled was the second grade equivalent of driving motorcycles and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. And I loved it.

Anyway, after much reflection I decided that if I could have a do-over, I’d respond to Danny’s claim on me quite differently. I’d gently help him reframe his statement. “Danny, are you trying to tell me you’d like to be my boyfriend?” I could say. I mean, if it weren’t for my knee-jerk feminist slap-down—I am SO not your chattel, dude!—we might’ve trooped off happily in our respective bathroom lines with the magic of romance tingling in the air.

Well, my little Kate’s in first grade now. Last year everyone in her class was matched up with a second grade “partner pal.” Throughout the year these pals do various projects and activities, in the hopes that their pre-fab friendships will generate some inter-grade community love.

And it totally works. It’s a sweet program. Very smart of the school to do.

For a long while I knew little to nothing about Kate’s partner pal. She told me he was a boy, and I sometimes heard about their craftsy collaborations. Like, Kate mentioned they made masks together at the school’s Festivus party. (What? Your kid’s school doesn’t celebrate Festivus? Weird.)

And for some reason I had the fleeting thought that because Kate’s partner pal was a he, he might not be down with having to hang out with a kindergartener. I hoped—for both their sakes—that their enforced times together weren’t too weird or awkward.

Then, at a school event half-way through the year, I finally met the kid. And in no time I realized that he and Kate certainly are pals. In fact, when she saw him that day she ran up to him and hung on him like those monkeys with long arms that they sell in the zoo gift shop—the ones where you Velcro their hands together and can loop their limbs over something like a lasso.

Although it pained me to see how annoyingly in-his-face Kate was, it seemed that this boy was either impeccably polite, or not annoyed by her attention. Or both.

Perhaps he was more sympathetic to my kindergarten daughter than I thought he might be.

We’ll call him Ted. Kate calls him Ted-Ted. Yes, apparently Kate’s one of those females who’ll call her boyfriend “David” when everyone else on the planet calls him “Dave.” Or worse, she’ll call him some wretchedly-personal pet name for all the world to hear. So I’ve got that to look forward to.

For Kate’s birthday party she made up a list of guests. When given this opportunity she thankfully doesn’t go overboard, wanting to invite 300 of her closest friends (like I do). Instead, she included her besties from school, a couple neighborhood chums, some close family friends, and Ted.

I wasn’t sure whether I should discourage this. He was, well…. older. And Kate’s a young first-grader. Would he really be keen on the scene at a sixth birthday party? For a girl no less?

But I saw his mother—a super friendly, down to earth mama—in the schoolyard the next day. I sidled up to her and mentioned that Ted made it onto Kate’s party list. Then I found myself trying to convince her that it wasn’t weird Kate wanted him to come. “There’ll be a couple other older boys there,” I stammered. “And we’re having a magician—so it won’t be all girly.” Finally I shot out, “I mean, if he doesn’t want to come, that’s totally fine too.”

But she smiled her down to earth I’m-so-centered smile and put her hand on my arm, “Ted is comfortable around kids of all ages.” She scratched her address on a post-it, and handed it to me. “I’m sure he’d love to come.”

These days when I drive Kate to school, if she sees Ted walk by she frantically screams to him from our closed-windowed car, “Ted-Ted! Ted-Ted!!” as if she’s warning him a tidal wave’s about to crash over his head. When I pick her up, if I stop to chat with another parent she’ll sometimes ask if she can hang out with Ted until we’re ready to go. And thrillingly, Ted did come to her party. He was the oldest child there by far, but his mom dropped him off happily, and he was totally comfortable in the scene. He even engaged in brilliant banter with the magician.

Some little part of me still frets that Kate’s annoying this chap. That her unbridled adoration is getting old. That he’s on the brink of getting some playground restraining order on my naive young daughter. But when I emailed his mom to ask for her address (again) so we could send them a thank you note, she mentioned that Ted had a great time at the party. She even commented on how much she likes the “sweet friendship” they’ve formed.

Which just goes to show that my ability to understand the elementary-school male is still apparently broken.

I snapped out of my neurotic mama mode and realized that it is sweet. This Ted fellow is a genuine, friendly, nice boy. Hardly the rogue-ish Danny P. of my younger days. Why wouldn’t he like hanging out with my genuine, friendly, nice daughter?

If anything, I should probably be worried that my assertive girl has leaned this lad’s way and claimed with an air of authority, “Ted-Ted, you’re my boyfriend.”

And for all I know, he’s said, “That’s right, Kate-Kate. I am.”

Give Me Your Money

I’m a sucker for a compliment. Like last year, a friend emailed me saying she needed someone like me—”a responsible person with a dynamic personality”—to do her a favor.

Responsible? Dynamic? Aw, shucks. Before even reading what she wanted, I was in.

Turns out she needed someone to round up some folks and get them on a bus to the farm where she was getting hitched. The task required a firm but friendly approach. The ability to work with old and young alike. It called for one part charm, one part organization. It’s like the gig was custom-made for me.

I shot her back an email. “When do I start? And do I get to carry a clipboard?”

So it was not surprising last spring when I got an email from the Development Director at Kate’s school, and responded like I did. They needed a “captain” for Kate’s classroom. Someone to be a liaison between the parents and the Board of Directors for the annual fund-raising drive.

“So many people have told me you’d be perfect for this,” she wrote.

What could I say to that? I mean, other than, “I’m your gal!”

It wasn’t ’til a few weeks ago when our first meeting was announced that I wondered how I got reeled into this role. Did the Development Director really hear I’d be great? Or had she sent the same message to four other people before me? People who were smart enough to not take the bait.

I decided that she must have been sincere. That it was my winning personality that got me into this. Into what some might find an unenviable role.

While I got ready to head out to my first meeting, Kate stood by the sink to chat. With a toothbrush sticking out of my mouth I explained to her what the fund-raising committee does. “All the cool classes [brush brush brush] like wood shop and Spanish [spit!] and music, and movement [brush brush]—I’m helping raise money for [spit!]. You know [wipe mouth with towel], to make sure you can still have those classes [peer into mirror, fluff hair].”

“Oooh,” said Kate, pondering. “Well Mama, I hope you raise one… hundred and… fifty-five dollars!”

“Thanks, kiddo,” I said kissing her head and slinging my purse over my shoulder. Walking out the door I thought, ‘God help me if that’s all I can do.’

But thankfully, I’ve put some thought into this whole fund-raising thing. Even if traditional approaches don’t work, I’ve come up with some innovative ideas. You know, I’m thinkin’ outside the box.

Like, I figured I can volunteer as a car-door opener. Some parents help do this in the mornings in front of the school. It’s like drive-thru fast food meets private education. You pull up and don’t even have to get out of your car. Someone just opens your back door and yanks out your kid and their over-sized backpack.

I figure if I volunteer I could peer in at the parent drivers and say things like, “Nice new Mercedes, Jim! Things at the bank must certainly be going well for you. Have you thought about what you’re giving to the school this year?”

Alternately, people with crappy cars (like mine) must be saving money by not indulging in German automotive technology, right? “You’re certainly not throwing money away on fancy cars,” I can bellow to the driver as I use one hand to extricate their child. “Get a tax break! Bust into that nest egg you’ve been hoarding and make a fat donation to the school!”

I can see it now. People will be pulling over to dig out their checkbooks (I’ll have a pen handy) to make dazzlingly impressive donations on the spot. (Which may, I realize, cause a traffic jam. But really, in the end won’t it be worth it when those spiffy new xylophones arrive in the Music Room?)

I’ve also been scripting a few lines about donations based in direct correlation with the size of women’s engagement-ring diamonds. “What’s that there, Sheila? Two carats? Two-and-a-half?” I’ll purr admiringly. “You must have some moula you can shake free for the school, no?”

I can’t wait to share these guerrilla fund-raising tactics with the committee. I think they’re really quite brilliant. And to think, I never even went to business school! I was just an English major!

Last year I rallied the moms in Kate’s classroom to go out for drinks one night. Even deep into the school year there were so many mamas I’d barely gotten to know. Birthday parties and playdates are fun and all, but it’d be nice to hang out without kids demanding our attention. And with wine.

So this year I decided to start early. Back to School Night was last week. Mark was in Australia for work, so I needed a sitter. I figured I’d make good use of her services and go out for une petite drinkie after the meeting.

So I emailed the moms in Kate’s class—would anyone like to join me? Let’s tack a little socializing onto the end of a school meeting. Let’s let our hair down a bit. Let’s tie one on, sisters, free and unfettered, without our little ones (or even spouses) nipping at our heels. What better way to kick off the school year?

But I didn’t have everyone’s email addresses. Kate’s in a K-1 combo class and I didn’t know the new kindergarten mamas’ emails. So I promised I’d track those women down later. But if anyone knew how to reach them, please forward my email along.

And what a night we had! Fast forward to me, ravaged senseless by gin and showing off my C-section scar at the restaurant. Then later, the moms of Room 2 went all Coyote Ugly—dancing on the bar in an act of drunken homo-erotic bacchanalia. It was off the hook!

Okay, okay… so those things really didn’t happen. Our outing for drinks was lovely, but not wild by any means. Sure, we considered jetting off to Vegas on the fly at one point, but the idea never really took off. In fact, it was what happened in planning to go out that makes up this here story.

Because one of the moms forwarded my email to the group list the teacher uses. A perfectly reasonable thing to do. So ALL the parents in the classroom got it—not just the mamas. This may or may not have left some dad’s feeling left out. Which certainly was not my intention. But I fear that some papas were wondering why they couldn’t come and booze it up too.

The emails started flowing. A handful of women “would love to join.” Others were checking with their better halves to make sure they could slip away. One mama suggested a tiki bar that’s in staggering distance of her house. Another said, “as long as they have wine” she’s in.

Then one brave dad spearheaded the retaliatory drinking brigade. “Why don’t the fathers get together for a beer too?” He summoned an opposition party of wounded left-out daddies. It was a decided “if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em” approach. And even though I could have offered for us to all go out together, it seemed apparent that we were well past that.

Oh it was lively. It was interesting. My small idea was certainly taking on dimensions I never anticipated.

I was suddenly envisioning Back to School Night in a new light—all us parents wedged into small wooden seats in the classroom, moms on one side, dads sitting across the room separately, sneering.

Hell, the way this was unfolding I was maybe going to have to host a pre-party so everyone could loosen up a bit before the meeting. You know, some kind of tailgate in the elementary school parking lot. I mean, there wouldn’t be any drugs or anything. But you know, maybe a few pony kegs. A tray of Jell-O shots. And maybe some of the sensitive new-aged dads would get into the spirit and arrive in face and body paint—in the school colors, of course—like some misdirected, intellectual Oakland Raiders fans.

All I’m saying is I’d be open to seeing that.

At the end of Day One: The Happy Hour Email Incident, the two room parents and I got a note from the teacher. She kindly cautioned us not to use the group email she’d set up. Turns out she’d also been getting everyone’s responses throughout the day. And although she was chuckling about it, several other teachers let her know that they’d been getting the emails too.

Yes, my innocent let’s-grab-a-drink-together invitation—and everyone’s RSVPs, commentaries, and alternate plan suggestions—were being sent TO EVERY TEACHER AND ADMINISTRATOR IN THE SCHOOL.

Um… oops!

Yes, the next morning an official email went out to the entire school community outlining the Dos and Don’ts of the school’s group email lists. And it encouraged us to set up our own email lists.

Message received.

Oddly, a few hapless fathers continued to respond to the all-call for Dad Drinks throughout the day. “Wish I could, but I’m traveling for work!” “Sure, beer’s always good!”"Catch you guys next time for sure!” [Wince.]

On Back to School night one of the teachers—a sweet, funny guy who I adore—whispered in my ear as I walked into the room, “We’ll keep this quick, Kristen. We know you have some drinking to do.”

Nice.

Another mom informed me that some school staffers were now referring to Room 2 as The Drunk Tank. Greeeeeat.

Yes, it’s all hideously embarrassing. But the way I figure it, Kate’s only got four years left at that school. And Paige starts there the year after next. So hopefully in the seven years before she graduates my reputation as the Boozey Rabble-Rouser Mommy will have waned some.

But in the meantime, I want to humbly say to all the teachers, administrators, moms, and dads whose feelings I may have hurt or whom I otherwise annoyed, “I was wondering if you might be interested in writing a nice big check to the school.”

Paging Dr. House

Should I start with the good news or the bad news? Okay, since I can’t hear you very well, I guess I’ll pick.

So, the good news is: All my blood tests have come back negative.

The bad news is: I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me.

If you haven’t been riveted by this story and following along from home, here’s the sweetened condensed version: I came down with some mystery illness after our East Coast vacation. It started with numbness, then achyness, then I threw in some jarring joint pain, just to keep things lively. I’ve had MRIs (and drugs for MRIs), been poked, prodded, and questioned, and had enough blood taken for a gang of vampires to binge for days.

Somewhere along the line my dad emailed me a guess at what I had—to keep those two-bit docs on their toes. Lyme Disease, he said.

I was giddy. Like, all hand clappy excited. Convinced my lawyer father outwitted the doctors. And they did agree that Dad had something there. (I had forgotten to tell them I got a weird bite in Rhode Island.) But then the Lyme test came back negative.

Which was when my first freak-out about WTF I do have ensued.

Thankfully, my dad isn’t the only un-qualified yahoo out there who’s been willing to float a diagnosis my way. Well-meaning friends have wondered (aloud) if what I’m experiencing is a by-product of bottled up anger, an energy blockage, or everyone’s favorite malady du jour—gluten intolerance.

Now, you might say that I’m asking for this, living in California as I do. But what I want to tell those people is, “Yes! You are right. I do have pent up rage. I do have energy log jams. But those things aren’t why I feel like I do. I have them because I feel like I do and no one knows why.”

As for gluten intolerance? Puh-leez. Gluten is my friend, people. In fact, I’m going to go and eat a big gooey glob of gluten right now and process it like a champion. Gluten is my wheat grass, California.

And while everyone else has a theory on what’s plaguing me, my doctors remain utterly baffled. Having a case they can’t crack  seems bad for business, like unsolved murders in the police department. So in a valiant effort to move down the path to some resolution, my doc started me on antibiotics—the Lyme Disease treatment—even though that test came back neg-o.

They say there can be false-negatives in the early stage of infection. It’s like I filled out one answer on the SAT in the wrong column then got everything totally wrong by accident. So I’ll take the test again in two weeks, with the happy hopes it’ll come back positive. “Lyme Disease! Yay!” Then the doctors can finally get back to their golf games, and I can assure my veins they’ll no longer be tapped for blood like a tree for maple sap.

But until all that happens, my work husband has enthusiastically claimed dibs on performing my eulogy. I have no doubt it’ll be fabulous. He assures me he can “fake cry with the best of ‘em,” which I find wonderfully supportive. He’s gone so far as to make recommendations on good dates for me to expire. His mom passed on 9/9/99, so he fancies himself an expert in this area. I’m lucky to have style-conscious friends with a flair for event planning who are stepping up at this time.

And, as long as I keep laughing I convince myself that when they do figure out what this weird numb, tingly, achy, joint painy so-you-can’t-sleep thing is, it’ll be something itty bitty and easy to eradicate.

But I’ve gotta say, the longer this lingers and leaves the docs scratching their heads, the intermittent moments when I do worry become more and more mittent. If ya know what I mean.

In the meantime I’ve managed to make my father sick from all this. It’s the craziest thing. The man is some supremely empathetic illness conductor. Like, when Paigey was a baby and was lizard-like with eczema, my 80-year-old dad who’d never had so much as a rash was suddenly covered with the stuff himself. A year later, Paige’s walking delays required x-rays of her hips. Then Dad called to report his hip was giving out, and he’d need a new one. And now? Just yesterday I call home and what do I hear? Dad is on antibiotics—for Lyme Disease.

It’s madness! The man is nothing short of a copy cat. I mean, when my father says he feels your pain, he’s serious.

When I was at BlogHer I experienced the bliss of bad hotel TV. I watched crappy shows I never normally watch, on a huge TV at the foot of my bed. Alone. It was a simple but profound indulgence. And I saw that show House, about the ornery-but-lovable doctor who’s the Sherlock Holmes of sickness. Every patient who comes to his hospital seems to be near death with bizarre symptoms that Dr. House eventually, handily diagnoses—and cures. Like, the girl who was becoming paralyzed from the legs up? In a creeping, oh-no-it’s-stopped-her-lungs-now fashion? She eventually gets discharged and heads off to school the next day.

Oh, it’s good stuff.

As I rubbed my numb feet together under the starchy hotel sheets I considered climbing into the TV and sitting myself down in House’s office, hopeful that he was in-network. But who knew how long the wait would be without an appointment. And I was tired anyway. So instead I rolled over and snapped off the lamp, put my faith back into my real-world docs, and drifted off to sleep.

Confessions of a Salad Bar Loser

I loved when George Jetson commuted to work.

He’d be in that sporty little spacecraft-car of his, and he’d fly up to an endless stream of other space mobiles. It was like the worst space rush hour traffic ever. Enough to make you head back home, crawl into bed, and call in sick. But not George. George was undaunted. He’d just point the nose of his space-car at the snarling mass of traffic, merge right in, then zoom off with the crowd.

Now, I’ve never been a joiner. Or at least that’s what I sometimes tell myself. Because if you were to ask Mark, I’m sure he’d come up with tons of things my turbo-extroverted ass has joined. I guess I’ve just maintained the attitude that if there was some group out there that I wasn’t already part of, there was a probably a good reason why. So I should just steer clear.

Which is why I was so freaked out at my first prenatal yoga class. This was six years ago, mind you. But I distinctly remember walking into a large wood-floored room packed with preg-o women on yoga mats. And, despite the fact that I was pregnant too, something about them all being there together, all so… so knocked up, made me feel like an outsider. Like they were somehow pregnancy professionals, and I was an imposter.

And so, it was with that same not-a-joiner trepidation that I went to BlogHer ’11 in San Diego. A gathering of some 3,600 bloggers. Or, rather, 3,599 bloggers who all had some legitimate reason to be there, and me.

I mean, I AM a blogger. As this very thing you are reading unequivocally proves. And I was even attending this blog-fest for work. Making me somehow doubly-qualified to be there.

But let’s just say the concept of 3,600 women can be intimidating. I joked before I went that I was “girding my loins for estrogen-palooza.” I whimpered to friends that I didn’t know a soul there, and feared I’d be a lonely dork. I had nightmares about 3,600 women lunging towards me, waving business cards and crying out, “I’m Francie from Francie’s Cute Kitten Pictures dot com!” Or, “Hey, I’m Linda from SoccerMomsRUs.com. I home school my 11 kids, raise chickens and llamas, and drive two mini vans at once!”

I had the fear.

And this is from the world’s most outgoing human. I mean, I talk to EV-ER-Y-ONE. I don’t scare easy. Except, I guess, when it comes to this group thing.

But then the night before I left, my friend Heather from Rookie Moms emailed that she was going too. “Bring business cards, comfy shoes and a smile,” she advised. “Most people are friendly.”

So Saturday morning I made my way into the San Diego Convention Center knowing that if a meteor fell from the sky and landed on me, pinning me to the ground, at least one of the 3,600 women there would be able to identify my remains.

Which was comforting.

In college, my Mean Girl friends and I made up the term Salad Bar Loser. Because at my teensy, pastoral liberal arts school, after you went through the cafeteria you were spat out into the dining hall, where it wasn’t always easy to find your friends. Blessedly though, the salad bar was in the middle of all the tables. So you’d often see people making salads they had no intention of eating. Blindly piling Bac-O Bits onto their plates as they searched for their posse. And we would watch, and mock them.

In rural Ohio, this is what passes for a good time.

Well, I’d love to say that karma’s a bitch. But the fact is, in a group of 3,600 no one really notices when you’re a Salad Bar Loser. So on that first morning at BlogHer, I picked my way through the breakfast buffet, scoped out the scene, and meekly walked up to a table with a few empty chairs. “This taken?” I asked.

Seconds after my butt hit the seat business cards started flying. And even though it was a taste of my worst fears, it wasn’t so bad. I took cards. I gave cards. I smiled and shook hands. I acted like it was what I do over oatmeal every morning.

Going to the conference sessions was the easy part. Anyone can sit in a chair and listen to a panel of speakers. It’s those meals, free times, “networking” events that are more tricky for us un-joiners. Though unstably at first, I eventually navigated those waters too.

I met running bloggers, food bloggers, gardening bloggers, pet bloggers. I met women with brilliant blog names like Nap Warden, The Recessionista, and Midlife Mixtape. I sat in a dark room and was dazzled by Penny de los Santos‘ photography.

I ate cupcakes with a sweet Kentuckian who blogs about adoption, and her son from the Congo. I heard an anonymous, wig-wearing blogger describe her experience eating school lunch for a year. (I wouldn’t recommend this.) And I waited in line for fake eyelashes with a gal who felt successful Latina role models were lacking, so—after having a baby at age 15, then going on to Stanford Law School—she started a video blog where she interviews powerful Latinas. (Her lashes turned out much better then mine by the way. I looked ever so slightly hooker-ish.)

And later, from the mass of strange faces, Katrina from Working Moms Break (the friend of a friend) emerged and became my BlogHer BFF. Yay!

Man, my feet hurt, but the rest of me was in the groove. I vowed to tear through my pantry at home, ridding my family of all processed foods. I got fired up to take better pictures, rename my blog, and stop mocking people who home school. I decided I should write less and read other blogs more. (Or do both, but sleep less.) I thumped women on the back who’d stood in front of huge crowds and read candid, deeply-personal posts on everything from the death of a baby to overdosing on drugs to red underwear. A few times I even told people about my own humble wee blog.

I went from a fearful, “Oh, them” attitude to a beaming, proud, “Yay, us!” state of mind.

I nudged the nose of my spacecraft into that mass of 3,600 women. And you know what? Nearly everyone I met hit their the breaks and waved me in (despite my having all the makings of a Salad Bar Loser). And for that, I thank you ladies kindly.

Thank you BlogHer for making a non-joiner part of the estrogen-palooza pack. I’ll be back next year. But just to be on the safe side, I’m taking my friend Jill along too.

Travel Don’ts

Here’s how NOT to fly cross-country with your two young children. Consider this a parental Public Service Announcement.

1. Take a flight scheduled at the end of the day, at the end of a weekend of 100-degree temps in New York City.

2. Before the flight, go to an expensive restaurant for brunch. Buy your children blueberry pancakes, which they refuse to eat (a first), though they nearly fight to the death over the side of bacon (giving you a perverse sense of pride). Watch as they have concurrent meltdowns over a small sticker, in front of your friends from London whom you see once every five years, and whose children are not only perfectly mannered, but also have British accents (which makes them seem MORE polite).

3. At the end of said over-priced, un-eaten meal, discover that the restaurant is cash only. Watch your two devils and your friends’ two angels as she runs to an ATM machine. Set down the insufficient cash you have and promise your friends you’ll “get them next time” (i.e. in five years).

4. Take taxi back to other friend’s apartment and discover it’s the one cabbie in New York City who doesn’t take credit cards. Drive with him to ATM where you’re so jangled you withdraw only the cash you need to pay him. Thrust the money his way, and drag your whining children—who are exhausted and grumpy, as well as ravenous—inside.

5. Realize that the worst possible thing you could do right now would be to take a 6-hour plane ride. Check!

6. Frantically finish packing and call car service. Ask kids to try to pee. Have urination standoff. Give up. Drag luggage halfway down hall to elevator and have three-year-old announce, “I have to tinkle. Really bad!” Head back to friend’s apartment, at which point (you later learn) the car you’ve called gives up on you and leaves.

7. Schlep:

• 1 immense roller bag (containing 3-weeks worth of clothing, toiletries, and 2 bottles of marina sauce made by your hometown priest)
• 1 carry-on small duffle bag
• 2 car seats
• 1 double stroller
• 1 laptop bag housing a computer and DVD player
• 2 empty-bladdered children

Call for another car to come while schvitzing on 100-degree sidewalk (See: earlier-referenced NYC heat wave). Realize you have to pee. Ah, irony.

8. Watch your three-year-old doze off on the short ride to the airport, and realize your chances of getting her to sleep on the flight have been officially shot to shit.

9.  Arrive at airport 45 minutes later then planned. Hand driver credit card, which he swipes several times without luck. Watch as he takes his card-swiper-thingy outside, holding it up to the sky like a carrier pigeon he’s about to set free, in an attempt “to try to get a better signal.” Time ticks on. Your three-year-old wakes up from her car seat and bellows wild-eyed, “I need Baba [her stuffed animal lamb who's is wedged God-knows-where in some bag piled on the curb]!!!” Driver gives up on getting a signal for his credit card machine and/or making contact with alien life forms. Tick tock, 40 minutes until flight departure. Driver asks you to call into his office with your credit card. You call twice and get busy signal. You age five years—maybe even nine—and nearly bust an artery in your neck.

10. Struggle into airport and realize you were dropped off near Virgin Atlantic terminal when you need Virgin America. Ask someone if they are next to each other… of course they aren’t. Haul aforementioned bags, car seats, strollers and children with weakened, rapidly-aging body.

11. Check in. Oddly, without incident.

12. Wait in security line. Ten minutes later realize it’s just a line impersonating the security line and set out to find actual security line.

13. Ascertain that Security is downstairs. (You still have your big-ass stroller, though other bags were checked.) One elevator broken. Wait as working elevator is crammed like a clown car with a sizeable Indian family. Door will not close since Grandma’s wheelchair repeatedly blocks elevator’s invisible eye. Tick tock. Check cell phone: 4:00PM. Reference boarding passes to see that it’s boarding time. Stop to reflect on all the fun you’re having. Have thoughts interrupted by three-year-old’s ear-piercing scream, “I. WANT. BABAAAAA!!!!”

14. At front of security line TSA agent asks you, “Why do you have only two boarding passes here?” Have full-bore flop sweat and begin to whimper and paw through purse when he looks down and says with a chuckle, “Oh, HERE it is…” then winks at you. Determine you hate all men. Except your husband who you can’t wait to thrust the children at when (if?) you eventually arrive in San Francisco.

15. Experience public act of deeply-mortifying mothering when, in the security line with 10 minutes ’til take-off, your five-year-old refuses to enter scanning machine. Scream head off, drag her in. She wriggles free and flees like a feral cat. Compassionate TSA agent ushers kids through. Maybe all men not so bad after all.

16. Sprint like madwoman to Gate B25 with children stacked on top of each other on one seat of stroller and laptop loosely jostling in the other. Arrive to hear “final boarding call” announcement and, panting, hand boarding passes to ticket-taker lady. Three-year-old proffers high-decibel request for stuffed lamby, with glaring omission of word “please,” and without British accent.

17. Ticketing agent writes you up stroller tag and says, “I’m sorry ma’am, but I’ll have to take that carry-on. Our overhead bins are totally full.” At which point you burst into tears. You blubber like a baby howling, “No! You CANNOT take this bag!” (Which contains books, crayons, coloring books, snacks, wipes, and extra clothes. Oh, and Baba. At that point a wild boar could not force you to hand over Baba.) Ticketing Agent Woman fears you and your tears—especially after they trigger both your children to start sobbing in an if-mom’s-losing-it-we-probably-should-be-too moment of solidarity. She sends a male underling down the ramp with you, where you learn there’s plenty o’ room in the overhead bins. (Clearly that other chick just had it out for you. You decide you hate all women.) The carry-on bag with Mommy’s Flight Survival Contents gloriously remains with you, and you settle into your seats.

18. All is well with the world.

19. Flight delayed 30 minutes due to storm/air traffic control/your shitty luck.

20. Flight delayed an additional 25 minutes. God making sure you know He’s still watching. Clearly somewhere, somehow you’ve been a very very bad person.

21. Lift-off. Joy!

22. Discover the plane has wifi. Battery dying on laptop, but looky here—there’s a power socket! Children ensconced in small back-of-headrest TV screens. Losing brain cells rapidly, but also not bugging you.

23. You start documenting your day. You chuckle to yourself as you type. See? You haven’t lost your sense of humor! In fact, you feel a bit smug. Victorious even. Why, you’ve survived evil airport employees, demanding ill-tempered children, and non-functional credit card machines. You made your way through that security line, girlfriend—even if it did mean getting publicly clawed at by your child. You even resolved to always carry more cash. Oh, see how far you’ve come!

23. From your peripheral vision you notice your three-year-old makes an odd wiggling motion with her upper body. Then suddenly a warm pinkish liquid gushes forth from her mouth covering your arm, her lap, her legs, and nearly filling the cavernous void between her seat and yours. Why, of course.

24. And now your day has gone perfectly wrong. Giving you statistical hope that something this miserable is likely to never happen to you again.

25. Mop everything up with the help of an amazingly-kind flight attendant. Decide to un-hate women. And marvel at the fact that Baba has remained virtually un-touched by puke. What excellent luck.

Glory Days

The older I get, the younger I dress.

I came to this disturbing realization on Friday, while digging through my wardrobe. I unearthed tweed blazers, thin brown belts with gold-tone buckles, and high-necked woolen herringbone dresses.

This clothing phase was like some sedimentary layer of my life I’d dug down deep enough to hit. Geologists would likely call it The Neutral Tones All-Wool Un-Sexy Professional Era.

It’s no wonder I married so late in life, dressed as I was.

The thing is, there was a time in my younger days when I dressed even older. From age 9 to 14 or so I was painfully, excessively preppy. I worked damn hard at it too. I layered shirts will devout precision, sometimes wearing two turtlenecks (in the dead of summer) just to reveal the slim perimeter of an extra pastel color at my chin-line.

I wore Bermuda shorts with ribbon belts, Lilly Pulitzer golf skirts, or any bright seashell-patterned jack-ass pants I could convince my mother to buy. I draped fair isle sweaters over my shoulders with surgical precision, and accessorized with a nautical rope bracelet and a gold signet ring with the monogram KEB. (Like everything else I wore, the initial ‘E’ was just for show. I don’t have a middle name, but I couldn’t bear the shame of a two-letter monogram.)

Yes, in my early teens, tragically, Talbots was my punk rock. I looked like a 75-year-old woman who got lost en route to Garden Club and mistakenly wandered into a middle school.

And the sad truth is that the look I was going for was utterly un-ironic. I even embraced the short-lived nickname Kiki that was bestowed upon me after The Preppy Handbook came out.

Ah, youth.

Anyway, on Friday I was getting ready to go to a clothing swap. A fabulous friend I rarely see had invited me. And although I assumed I’d know only one or two gals aside from the hostess, I had a hunch it’d be an interesting crowd.

But I was un-prepared. That working-mother frantic “oh-shit-I’m-supposed-to-bring-something-to-this-thing-that-starts-in-20-minutes” kinda unprepared. And so I dove into an armoir in the basement to dredge up some clothing to contribute. I was hoping to find something chic that just didn’t fit any more.

Instead I came up with tweed.

If I had any hope of hitting it off with these San Fran sisters, I’d have to swiftly dump my Nancy Reagan-esque clothing cast-offs into the mass of “clean, gently-used garments,” and slip away before the dowdy duds were linked to me.

Turns out I’d been right about the evening being fun and fabulous. I had reason on many occasions to laugh wine out my nose. (And thankfully the good sense not to.) I ate a tremendously delicious slab of lasagna, met some hilarious gals, and made off with a stunning new skirt and a great little black dress.

I even broke my own No Used Shoes Rule thanks to some other Size 8 whose adorable, unstinky, next-to-new heels were too cute to resist—especially when surrounded by a sea of gals who were ooh-ing and intoning in serious voices, “Those look SO GOOD ON YOU.”

It was like being in a dressing room with 30 other girlfriends who you just met. Who were a little drunk.

But the other half of my fun didn’t even happen at the party. It was getting there. My exceptional spouse was tending to our small humans, allowing me the unbridled freedom of slipping out into the evening in our non-kid-transporting vehicle, cutely clad, radio blasting. I had a bottle of wine in my purse, and not a single wipe or diaper on me.

The hostess lives in a dazzling Victorian in my old San Francisco ‘hood. A jealous-making home they bought back when mere mortals could afford digs that grand.

Cruising down familiar streets lined with new unfamiliar shops and restaurants felt like connecting with a long lost friend. Ah, the ole coffee shop. Ah, that soap and shampoo shop. (How do they survive?) That dump of a grocery store, reborn as a Whole Foods.

I gazed out my car window at the inhabitants of my old stomping grounds walking around doing their Friday night things. Oh those cute child-free folks, I thought smiling and shaking my head. Spilling out of that Irish pub onto the sidewalk. Wandering through that used book store. Eating raw fish or spicy kid-unfriendly foods in white-tableclothed restaurants that don’t hand out crayons or booster seats.

It’s so cute that they know no other life!

And it was so thrilling to be amidst them. Even to just be driving down the street, looking at them like fish in an aquarium. Not so long ago I didn’t have this C-section scar! I ate off hangovers in that greasy spoon! And that the bar sign “Be quiet when you leave here, our neighbors are trying to fucking sleep”? That was aimed at me The Drinker, not me The Tired Old Neighbor.

I Pandoraed Bruce Springsteen the other night, and after Mark cleaned the kitchen from dinner he turned the volume way up and declared Family Dance Party. (This is something one can declare, like war. But it generally involves less casualties and more disco.)

Anyway, Mark grabbed Kate’s hand, stretched out her arm and frenetically strummed her stomach like a guitar. This is apparently the most hilarious, funny thing a father can  do. On the scale of Fun Paternal Activities, this makes making chocolate chip you-name-the-shape pancakes on a Sunday morning seem like as much fun as running an errand at the hardware store.

Put simply, the child-as-guitar game rocks.

The whole time Mark’s working Kate like some Fender Stratocaster he’s wowing an arena full of crazed fans with, she’s nearly barfing she’s laughing so hard. And Paige is almost hyperventilating wanting it to be her turn. “Play ME, Dada! Plaaaay meeeee!”

I posted something on Facebook about Mark playing the kids like guitars to The Boss, and people posted comments like “Just as long as he doesn’t have to prove it all night,” and “Glory days, they’ll pass you by.”

Ah, good times.

Anyway, after everyone put back on the clothes they’d come in and the clothing swap wound down, I skipped out through the rainy night to my car. I pulled my hood over my forehead with one hand and clutched a bag of fabulous new-to-me clothes in the other. And I felt smug knowing that various women managed to take home all the weirdly drab, woolen clothes I’d contributed to the evening. (Perhaps mixed up in the fray as they were, each item on its own seemed less, well… Amish.)

I was giddy even admiring my parking job—squeezed into a tight spot on a steep hill. You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl.

Life was good, right? I’d gone into a house knowing three people and came out with new friends and their old clothes.

And it was too early to know that my work husband would heckle my adopted long skirt when I wore it to work on Monday, asking, “Who was AT that swap? Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?”

When I got back to my quiet, dark house, I dropped my sack of duds by the door, slipped off my boots, and tip-toed into Paigey’s room. She was snoozing in her usual sweaty, curly-haired way, head flopped to one side and cheeks flushed pink. In Kate’s room, my big girl was lodged between the edge of her mattress and her wall, blankets kicked off, and her stuffed dog Dottie draped across her neck like a string of pearls.

Before setting foot in either of their rooms, I could have described to you exactly how each of them were going to look.

Teeth brushed, email checked, dress yanked off and tossed into the dark of the room, I climbed into bed alongside Mark. He was snoring the very smallest little snore, deep asleep. I edged towards him to steal some warmth.

Say what you will about my single-gal city livin’. What I’ve got right here and now? Glory days for sure.