It’s Why the Terrorists Hate Us Friday!

Item: Renovated Toddler Kitchens
Price: It doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of the thing.

A co-worker recently accused me of just wanting everything to be pretty. Guilty as charged. But even I draw the line at a new trend I’m observing. (New York Times Sunday Styles section rules: It happens once, it’s an isolated incident. It happens twice, it’s a trend.) That trend is people preemptively renovating their kids’ play kitchens for aesthetic reasons.

We learn from OhDeeDoh.com that the renovator of the kitchen at right, “approached getting a play kitchen the way one might evaluate a kitchen in a prospective home – does it have good bones?” So she repainted most of its surfaces, added wallpaper, etc. Another renovator says on Flickr that she swapped in new hardware and added a backsplash, apparently forgetting that her child won’t actually be cooking food in it.

Santa brought our daughter a play kitchen this Christmas. And yes, we requested that he get one that was somewhat understated as it would be in our own dining room for a few years. But at no point did weSanta look at it as a vexing interior design matter. Someone should call HGTV and tell them they’ve got a new demographic to mine — 3-year-olds whose kitchens are simply dreadful.

Things I Love About Prince George’s County

Sure the homicide rate is through the roof, but whaddyagonnado? Yes, I love my new home. And here’s reason No. 1: In Prince George’s County they call the bus what it is: The Bus.

No fancy monikers or acronyms for this workingman’s county. You can have your Metros, your BARTs, your MARTAs. Because PG County people know what they’re riding. They’re riding the bus. It says so right on the back.

What this county lacks in keeping people unmurdered it more than makes up for in transportation naming.

Productivity Redefined

A few weeks ago, my friend K posted a harmless and chuckle-inducing Facebook status update:

“Fantastic brunch had; Christmas shopping done; presents wrapped; coffee toffee, gingerbread chocolate chunk cookies, peanut butter balls, chili, and a million iced sugar cookies made; laundry and dishes done. Sunday, I own you.”

That status update was my girl from Ipanema. Each day when she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead not at me.

I used to have weekends like that. I’d wake up Saturday morning with a list that included going for a run, baking, working on whatever project I was puttering with at the time, squeezing in a movie, laundry, cleaning, etc. By Sunday night I’d fall into bed tired, satisfied, supremely happy. My husband’s nickname for me was Busy Bee.

This does not happen anymore. Months pass without me finding the time to tackle a single task beyond feeding the bambina, entertaining her, and getting her to sleep. Entire weekends pass and I find myself wondering how the hours evaporated. For six months a stack of photos have sat waiting to be hung on the wall. They buttress the jungle wallpaper rolls that have been waiting to take their place in the nursery for seven months. Back in the pre-baby day both of those projects would have been done in a weekend, and it likely would have been the same weekend.

Christmas decorating? Forget about it. The lights went out on a third of the tree and I never fixed them. Our tree sat like that for the entire season, a two-thirds-lighted reminder of how life’s changed.

This post isn’t heading toward some saccharine, “Oh, but my life is so much more fulfilling now,” conclusion. The fact is, for an anal retentive nest featherer like myself this devolution is painful. I felt an actual pang when I read about K’s weekend. More than my former waistline and the ability to sleep late, I miss productivity. Because I used to be Miss Productivity.

Sooo, Saw Black Swan This Weekend

Suffice it to say, this chick sits on a throne of lies:

This film ever-so slightly soft peddled what’s happening behind the scenes at ballet companies (although the eyebrow on the chap in the front conveys a world of pain more than Natalie Portman’s performance ever could):

And in the sequel to this, Tina the Ballerina starts molting, gets it on with Mila Kunis and may or may not put a shiv in someone:

It’s Why the Terrorists Hate Us Friday!

Item: “My Custom Yoga Mat”
Source: Dormtique
The Pitch: “One of Oprah’s Favorite Things… and Dr. Oz’s too! Oprah’s choice is light green with baby pink embroidery.”

Based in the meditative practices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and now, Commercialism! Forget all that mumbo jumbo about uniting with the universe while losing one’s self in the practice. Now you can jam your face directly into yourself during a downward dog series. These are pretty little drops of eye candy. I get that. But is there nothing that we do not feel the need to stitch our names all over these days? Do I need to be reminded when I’m swinging myself into warrior position what my name is?

Namaste? Nope. Namastme.

Make It Stop and I Will Gladly Pay You $5.75

People who complain about Starbucks’ prices don’t get that you’re not just paying for the coffee. You’re paying for the privilege of not having to talk to coworkers at the office coffee maker.

To be clear: I dig my colleagues. Especially the ones reading this blog right now. What I do not dig is being grilled about my reproductive choices while trying to get a beverage. Having hauled fanny into the office one day this week for a meeting that was then inexplicably canceled, I was out of breath, out of patience and out of time to stop for my regular $5 latte. That forced me to the Cremora Gulag  — the office break room, where I was at the mercy of the slowest hot water dispenser in the United States while settling for a cup of tea.

One of my colleagues walked in and for reasons unclear as it was 9:17 a.m. and there was no precedent in our previous six total minutes of interaction over the span of five years that would have made what was coming appropriate, barked, “When are you going to have that second baby?”

Now, my gut reaction was to slam my half-full Darjeeling down and bark back, “Are you frakking kidding me?!” But instead I gave a tight-lipped smile and through gritted teeth said, “Oh, well, um, not sure about that.” While the water dripped, dripped, dripped, the colleague pressed on, intently concerned about expansion plans for our family. Growing flustered I threw out a piece of information that she in no way deserved but that I hoped would end whatever was happening: “Actually we might be done.”

No, no, no. This wouldn’t do. Because I did not ask, she explained why, throwing in a “you moron” headshake as punctuation. It seems that when I or my spouse am dying of cancer some day, it will be unfair to our daughter to not have left her with a sibling to help cope with the experience.

She had no way of knowing that with the cancer admonishment, she’d rocketed into Seriously, You Need to Stop Talking Right Now Territory. But at that moment, the very droplet of water fell into the cup that marked the minimum height for it to have become a cup, and not a shot, of tea. I jammed the hot water handle into the upright position and gave a tense chuckle and a “Well we’ll see…” while racing for the door.

Lesson learned. There is always time for Starbucks. Because the consistently surly and incompetent barista at my location usually doesn’t even care about the contents of my cup, much less my uterus.

Photo: R.E.

Two Girls, One Too Many Cups

‘Tis the season for scads of party pictures and if I see one more lovely lass holding her drink — be it champagne flute or Solo cup — in front of her like she’s 17 and rocking a taboo bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, I’m going to scream. You put all that energy into your ensemble, your hair, your spray tan, and then you ruin it by holding out a plastic cup as if its sweaty, napkin-wrapped confines and dangling straw hold the very essence of your fabulosity.

Exhibits A and B:

“Look at me! I’m at a party and having a fabulous time because I’m holding alcohol! In a cup, no less! I’m 29 but I’m still excited about the fact that I can drink in public without being grounded!” And in a worst-case scenario it appears as if you are holding your own specimen:

Please ladies (and gent above), if approached by a camera while holding a drink, set it down, drop it low or at least hold it in a way that doesn’t indicate you’re super-stoked to be photographed because ZOMG you’re holding a melontini!

Lest you think I’m all holier-than-thou, I’ve done it too. At my own goddang wedding. (Although in my defense, it looks like I was trying to hide it behind my hotel room key. That might be a draw though.)

Unless you’re Duffman, your beverage is not an accessory worth flaunting.

Recipients of the You’re Doing it Right Award:

Gigiddy, Gigiddy, Ohhhh Yeahhhh I Loathe the DMV

This is great on so many levels, chief among them that this guy had to stand in front of one of the humorless, miserable harpies who staffs the Prince George’s County DMV and spell out, “G-I-G-I-D-D-Y” to get his plates.

Hey, remember when I called the staffers of the Prince George’s County DMV miserable harpies? That’s not an exaggeration. A couple weeks ago, I finally secured my new Maryland driver’s license after THREE SEPARATE TRIPS. With barely masked delight they’d inform me each time that I did not have the necessary paperwork, rejecting the paperwork that I’d brought at the specific instruction of the previous miserable harpie.

I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel on my third attempt when I finally cleared Checkpoint Charlie at the door, but only after producing my U.S. passport, my D.C. driver’s license, two pieces of government-issued mail and a cup of hot fat. After waiting 45 minutes, I finally got to meet with the Wizard, and as she clacked away on her keyboard I was picking up a very strong you’re-going-to-get-a-license vibe from her. Then she asked if I’d ever had a Maryland license and I replied that why yes I had because I grew up in this fine state. A few clacks later and she produced on her screen a shot of 16-year-old me, all carroty Angela Davis-haired and pale. Then she delivered the dramatically slow exhale that is the universal bureaucratic signal that you’re fucked.

Miserable harpy: “Your name is [Maiden Name] in our system.”
Me: “Muh huh. That was my name back then. What’s the problem?”
Miserable harpy: “Well your paperwork says [Married Name].”
Me: “Right, it’s legally changed now though, since my marriage. My passport and D.C. license all have the new name.”
Miserable harpy: “I’m going to need to see your marriage certificate. Because you’re in our system that way from back then.”
Me: “I’m also in your system wearing a flannel babydoll dress and lace-bottom leggings, but I think we can both agree that a lot’s changed since then.”
Miserable harpy: (stares, unblinking)
Me: “So the federal government, the D.C. DMV and everyone else recognizes that my name has long since been legally changed, but I have to come back here a fourth time with a marriage certificate? And this is only because I happen to have been raised in Maryland. So if I came in from any other state you’d have no record of me and this wouldn’t be a problem?”
Miserable harpy: “I’ll talk to my boss but I don’t know.” (saunters off)
Miserable harpy: (saunters back a few minutes later) “I’m going to go ahead and just do it.”

With that, she begins clacking anew. Thirty seconds later slaps the desk and says, “Ohhhhh, you’re name’s changed on your passport. Oh my God, that’s totally fine then. I don’t need a marriage certificate anyway.”

And that, friends, is how thin a thread one’s fate hangs by at the Prince George’s County DMV.

For a visual representation of the experience described above, I refer you to the following facial expression:

Odd Things About Becoming a Parent

I’m now Santa.

I’m Thankful That I Have Nothing Not to Be Thankful For

I have moments when I realize the things for which I am thankful are merely components that add up to a more significant whole: My life is now and always has been laughably easy to navigate. My crankyfied list of the other day aside, I’m thankful for that whole. Last night I was watching Martin Scorsese’s excellent new documentary Public Speaking about Fran Lebowitz (sorry, it’s impossible to write that phrase without sounding insufferable) and in it she talks about the accidental luck of the circumstances into which we are born, and how that, more than anything else, determines our chances in life.

I had lunch this week with a friend who crossed into this country from Mexico when he was only 13. His first attempt failed after a guide, appropriately called a “coyote,” pocketed the $2,500 his family had saved for the crossing and left the boy and his brother stranded in a Nuevo Laredo motel with no money and no journey ahead to the family that waited in Kansas. (His mother had made her own journey into the United States through the desert on foot, carrying her 2-year-old child for two days.)

On his second attempt, my friend and his brother hustled as fast and as calmly as they could across a bridge left unguarded for only a few minutes in the dead of night, into El Paso. The boys walked into a plaza, empty and clean and orderly in the moonlight at 1 a.m., and he thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. In the days that followed, he boarded a bus and traveled nearly 800 miles to Kansas to find the rest of his family. In the years that followed, he taught himself English. He translated life for his parents. He applied for college and with scant documentation navigated university life under the constant threat of deportation. He became a legal citizen of the America he’d first entered at 1 a.m. in El Paso years earlier.

If you sat both him and I down and asked us what we’re thankful for we might say the same things. Loving spouses, beautiful children, supportive families and friends, great jobs. But the routes that brought us to our current lives are unrecognizable from each other. At 13, my toughest journey was to the mall.

There should be no guilt in living a life of relative ease, if it was obtained honestly. But in weeks like this one I give thanks for mine. I give thanks that on Thursday I’ll be sitting down to dinner surrounded by family and food and the trappings of a comfortable life, while thousands of miles away, men, women and children like my friend once was will be preparing to cross a desert, seeking those exact same things.

Photo: Wendee Holtcamp