Life on the Streets is Hard

More and more, recently, I find myself wishing to be deputized. Oh, for a police siren mounted to the top of my car that I can illuminate at will when someone-for-whom-the-rules-don't apply pisses me off. And a nice, shiny gold badge (or a cool flip-out) would go down quite nicely too.

I've been hearing stories all summer about the parents who send their kids to sleepaway camp with two cell phones because they are not supposed to have phones at all and one might get confiscated. I know I've already described the mother who only put down one instrument on the choice form because she wanted her kid to get the violin. Why don't the rules apply to them??!

There is a sour-faced woman who parks every morning in the fire lane outside the coffee shop and runs in for her morning cuppa. I know this because my kids catch the bus for camp just outside said cafe and many mornings this woman is told to move her car to let the bus pull up. But she persists in parking there every morning, leaving her engine running, and ignoring actual parking spots not 20 feet away.

Well, this morning I decided to get a coffee after the camp bus left. I was third in line, when this lady parked out front, strode in looking harried and asked the woman at the front of the line if she could cut in because she was in a rush. She didn't ask the rest of us and if she had, I would have told her to either make her @###%^$% coffee at home OR, if she was in SUCH a hurry, go without.

To add insult to injury, after she got her coffee she stopped to chat for 10 minutes with the woman who let her cut! Car idling (and polluting).

What exactly are the paramenters for making a citizen's arrest I wonder ...

Siri-ously Lacking

Those iPhone Siri adds with John Malkovich are pretty creepy, right?  I mean, it is one thing when my kids try to engage Siri in actual dialogue, but a grown up sitting alone in a semi-dark room conversing with computer code?   What exactly are they selling?

Not that it wouldn't be nice to have a computer friend.  It would love and support you unconditionally like a dog but could also keep your calendar, scour the internet for the answers to trivia questions, and compose emails.  But Siri is not that gal.

Yesterday I had scheduled-- partially out of convenience and partially out of necessity-- a mammogram, my annual gyno exam, and the extraction of two wisdom teeth.  A hideous day.  Did Siri care?

What's my schedule for today?

You have 5 appointements for today [list].

Ugh.

I do not understand what you mean by "hug."

No, Siri.  No, you really don't.

But she is reminding me to take my meds.  So there's that.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

In sixth grade I spent countless hours on the phone with my best friend.  I called her so many times that, to this day, I still remember her telephone number.  I also remember her cold-as-ice father answering the phone sometimes....

 "Hi Mr. Bestfriend!" I would chirp politely, "This is [Snark], may I please speak with Bestie?"

"Dr. Bestfriend," he would correct me.  He was an opthalmalogist.

Even at 11, I knew he was a ridiculous pompous ass and was kind of embarrassed for him that he was so proud of his title that he couldn't let the occasional "Mister" go.

We are currently negotiating the sale of our house.  The potential buyers just sent us, through their broker, an infuriating letter presenting and justifying their final, painfully low offer.

My husband keeps reminding me not to take it personally and I'm doing my best.  But I refuse to overlook the extreme lameness of their signing their letter "Doctors X and Y Smith."

Are you kidding me?  Assuming we proceed with this deal and it goes smoothly (fingers crossed!), it will take every ounce of self-restraint I have to make it through the closing without referencing and ripping them for that. 

All the best,

Weaselsnark, Esquire

A Real No Know

One of my most cringe-worthy memories is from high school (natch).  I decided, mid-assembly, that the candidates running for senior class president were too clique-specific and lame and that I would be a far more universally liked and desirable choice.  Unfortunately, I didn't consider that by volunteering to run for office I would be forced to stand up and present a platform.  Right then.  On stage.

Yeah, I had nothing.  It was a rambling speech that stressed only my ability to straddle the line(s) between all the different generically Breakfast Club-like factions of our grade.  Think Sally Field's "You Like Me!" only less earnest and more deer-in-headlights.  Not quite enough to win an election.  My grade was wiser, evidently, than the "who would you rather have a beer with?" population of America: they chose the smartest kid with the best ideas (even though he was a founding member of the Existentialist Club.  I am not making that up.  Yes, it was private school.).  Imagine that!

My political career may have been short-lived but it was honest: I did get along with most of my senior class (minus one obligatory blood-feud-of-forgotten-seventh-grade-origin frenemy). There was, however, one girl who drove me insane.  She was a super-eager, sugary sweet hanger-on who was desperate to be popular.  She laughed too much.  She talked too much.  She inserted herself (inanely) into conversations.  And, while I tried to tolerate her, one day she pushed me over the edge.

We were all just hanging out during a free period or after lunch or something and she was blabbering on about some nonsense when she said (to me):  "Omigod, I was so crazy this morning that I ran out of the house with two different color socks on.  I felt like you!  Isn't that such a you thing to do?!"

Record scratch.  What???  I was no Rachel Zoe back then (still not).  But I had never, would never leave the house with two different color socks on.  By accident or on purpose.  I wasn't wacky or zany or absent-minded or anything like that.

Coming from anyone else I probably would have just let it roll off of me but, man, I tore that poor girl apart.......

Flash-forward to yesterday morning.  Standing at the bus stop, I realized that I had forgotten to write a "bus note" for my son to go home with a friend after school.  I quickly borrowed a pen from one boy and found a scrap of paper in my son's bag to scribble on.

A fourth grade neighbor girl said (to me): "You always forget to write your notes for school."

Simultaneous record scratch and flashback.  What???  This was, I think, the absolute first time I had ever forgotten to write a note.  And for sure it was the first time I had ever written one at the bus stop.

I reined in my inner, indignant 17 year old and calmly told the little girl that, in fact, she was mistaken.

And that she must have me confused with her mother.  

One a Day

That's how many stink bugs I find in my house. Granted, one a day is way, way preferable to 50 all at once; but it is a little freaky to me that each day brings exactly one bug face off.

It's gotten to the point that I count on it. Like waiting for the other shoe to fall. If the kids have gone off to bed B.S.B (before stink bug), I know that one of them-- a child, not a bug-- will be downstairs before I can fast-forward through most of The Voice to tell me that they have spotted my foe in their room.

I think I've established that I don't like bugs. I'm not one of those chill, crunchy types who can take note of a bug in the house and then do nothing about it. And yet, paradoxically, I feel bad about killing them. Killing them myself, that is. I'd have the exterminator here weekly if I weren't worried about the cumulative effects of the chemicals on my kids and my dog. (There's a parallel to be drawn between that mental disconnect and how troops get sent into battle....)

Just stay out of my house, I beseech all of bugdom telepathically. I never even consider killing bugs that are outside. That's shared territory. It's when they come in and threaten to creepy crawl (or fly!) their way into our hair or our ears.... Well, that's when I feel compelled to act.

And then feel bad about it. The daily battle waged between my neuroses and irrational fears on the one side and my empathy for living creatures and fear of bad karma on the other is taking it's toll on me.

I don't know who said it first but, seriously, if the outdoors is so great, why do the bugs keep trying to come inside?

Animal Magnetism?

Last Monday I was watching TV with my husband when I noticed movement in the dining room. It was a bat. Bat #4, in fact, in the space of 9 years (same one, perhaps?). By using detached screens doors, a plastic file folder and a shoebox we managed to get it outside with no one hurt.

Tuesday, my dryer stopped working and in an effort to save money I detached the vent hose and vacuumed in the hose, machine and wall myself. THWUMP! Sucked up a dead mouse and accompanying sunflower seed kernels. Smelled like the inside of a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap.

This morning as I took my daughter to school I noticed a large deer lying on the main road just at the junction of our side street. Five minutes later, on my way back home a policeman was standing over the "corpse" and just as I turned into my road there was a deafening blast as he put Bambi out of it's misery with his gun. Is that even legal btw?

I'm really hoping that bad things do happen in threes because I am more than ready to return to my "Snow White" relationship with animals.

By Your Command

It's time to get political. Wait, don't leave, this is going to be good! I will admit up front that I am a true bleeding-heart, hippy pinko Democrat BUT I do like certain individual Republicans like John McCain. So it is (mostly) without partisan bias that I spill the biggest secret ever: all of the front-running Republican candidates for president in 2012 are androids.

Now, these are not the washed-out androids who are incapable of using speech contractions ("isn't", rather than "is not", eg.) a la Star Trek. These fakes are much more subtle - think the new Battlestar Gallactica - but the tells are there. Conjure up a mental picture: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, even (gag) Sarah Palin (I know she's no longer technically a candidate but she still has a dangerous number of followers). They have PERFECT hair, skin, teeth and clothes. They are all in great shape and stand up straight. They smile when they are saying bad things and rarely blink. Mitt 'National Lampoon" Romney strapped the family dog to the roof of his car and drove from Boston to Canada for goodness sake! No human would ever do that. And have you seen Rick "Max Headroom" Perry laugh? It's like he's stuck on a loop.

I'm just saying, beware. If the fact that this is the very party who got us into this mess in the first place doesn't scare you enough to keep them out of power consider this question: Who built the machines? Baltar?

Mwoooahahahahahah!!!!!!

We Are Not in Kansas Anymore

I am utterly convinced that one of the top raisons d'etre for middle school is to give parents a heart attack. I'm serious. My daughter just started middle school this year (in 5th grade!) and I can remember in June being told, "Don't worry, we REALLY coddle the 5th graders". What a crock! The school has gone out of its way to withhold information that would make the transition SO much easier.

Here's what we didn't know going in on the first day (what I did know could be tattooed on my pinkie toe): we didn't know who was in her class, her homeroom teacher's name or her schedule. We didn't know what the policy was for staying after school. In fact there really isn't one. Apart from one form signed in week 2 my 10 year old can walk out of school at 2:30 and do whatever she likes. Maybe that's why her school photos this year included two free "Smilesafe Safety ID cards" which have a picture of my daughter above instructions on what to do if she is kidnapped.

I got a school bulletin in today's mail which talks a little bit about some of the clubs she could join which would have been useful, oh, about 6 weeks ago. I especially enjoyed the section on upcoming events, all of which have already taken place. Meanwhile, these kids are expected to show up on time, homework done, musical instrument in hand, gym shoes on feet (as relevant) working on not a Monday-Friday schedule which would be FAR too simple but a 6 day schedule. WHY????? And let me tell you, there is NO margin for error.

It all adds up to a whole lot of unnecessary stress, both for students and the parents who are left to pick up the mess. I'd bring it up at the parent/teacher conferences but I just found out - through another parent, not the school, natch - that they don't have such a thing unless you specifically request it. Fabulous.

Move over "Occupy Wall St.", I'm in the mood to protest.

Picture This

The email I sent to the photographer who took the kids' school pictures:

Hi there,

Today was picture day for my son, a third grader at [elementary school].

When I saw him after school he had his (very casual) collared polo-type shirt buttoned (actually, snapped. Snapped!!) up all the way and I asked him why. It looked really awful-- extremely nerdy on it's own and, coupled with his crewcut, very gang-inductee/prisoner. He told me that the photographer's assistant told him to button his shirt. And, because he's eight and a good boy, he did what he was told.

While I can appreciate some "styling" of the kids-- making sure they don't have crazy messy hair or a collar that's folded in or food on their face-- I absolutely do not understand why you or your staff would undertake wardrobe decisions. And what a decision. Good grief-- who buttons up any shirt to the top button? Was he going to put on a tie? I can't imagine the picture.

You do always get great shots of the kids and maybe you can finesse something for my son with photoshop... otherwise, you'll have to let me know, please, when you are doing the reshoots.

Thanks.

[Weaselsnark]

Never Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side

Screens are evil. When they are on, my children are happy and calm. When they get turned off, my children totally lose their cool. The other night, at his usual bedtime, I asked my son to go up to bed and read for twenty minutes. It was halfway through "Cupcake Wars", with the winner far from certain, but I was not prepared for the reaction that followed: Darth Vader appeared in our family room.

Yes, I could go with the Jekyll and Hyde analogy, but Star Wars makes much more sense to an eight-year-old. With the exception of the entire year he was three, my son is 99% Anakin Skywalker and 1% Vader. He is a sweet boy who loves to invent machines, build Lego and cook but once in a while, usually when he is tired or coming down with something, he succumbs to the dark side where he is no less creative.

This particular night, after a foot-stomping tantrum that woke up Minx and some weird rustling noises on the stairs, he finally took himself up to bed. When I went up some time later I had to step carefully to avoid the tacks that had been planted on each stair then quietly remove an entire legion of miniature Nazi and Allied war tanks and troops that blocked the door to my bedroom. Crumpled atop a Panzer was a note expressing his hope that I had regretted my decision to send him up before the show had finished and letting me know that he hated me.

All that running around I did for him that day - searching for the Halloween costume he asked for, mailing in his iTouch to have the screen fixed, buying the ingredients for a recipe he wanted to make with me, and then making it - all gone with one flick of the TV remote.

The teen years should be fun.

Zen, baby!

I just finished reading this excellent book called, "Buddha's Brain." It's written by a neuropsychologist and a neurologist and it basically explains how thoughts can physically shape your brain. Apparently, breakthroughs in modern neuroscience support the insights of people who have spent their lives meditating (like Buddha)so that you can actually re-program your brain to have a greater sense of well-being. Cool, right?!

I know it sounds a bit hippy but I am tired of always being angry about something. I actually have permanent frown lines. I'm tired of not sleeping. I'm tired of feeling restless and worrying about everything. Maybe this will help.

So I'm trying very hard to be present, to take deep breathes, throw back my shoulders and mediate for 5 minutes each day on something that happened that made me feel happy: Talking to my mom on the phone, the spontaneous hug Minx gave me when I made her breakfast, laughing over coffee with Weaselsnark (at someone else's expense - does that count?), the smell of rain ... I don't want to become the next Dalai Lama, I just want some peace of mind.

If you see me at the airport wearing a saffron robe and waving a marigold, you'll know I've taken it too far.

ER drama

I like few things less that sitting in an emergency room on a Sunday, during a holiday weekend, in the Hamptons. Possibly, an emergency room at 1am on the night after a hurricane might be worse. But stitches that go in also need to come out and it all needs to be done in five days or the skin starts to grow over the stitches. EW!

So I'm sitting in a surprisingly busy ER reception area surrounded by the strangest group of people ever to share a room (ok, Barnum and Bailey's mess tent aside). On the one side we had a Hispanic crowd whose ailments included a full-blown case of poison ivy and a screaming toddler with a pinky finger sticking out at right-angles to her hand. On the other side, a couple of social skeletons, dressed in whale-print trousers and wearing white sun-hats inside (to shade their immobile faces from what, I don't know. Maybe the Hispanics?), waiting to hear news on a heart-attack victim.

There was a kid who had been beaned in the head with a baseball and passed out. And then there was a family of four who had their son's friend for the weekend and had discovered a bat on the light fixture in the kids' room while the kids were sleeping, and failing to remove said bat, had left it til morning in the room WITH THE CHILDREN! So they were there for hours waiting to start a preventative rabies treatment. I'm guessing there won't be a second playdate anytime soon ...

We were just there to get the stitches out of my son's eyelid. We waited half an hour to check in, another half hour to see a nurse, an hour for the plastic surgeon to be paged (dotted with insults that ANY doctor could take out the stitches no matter what the surgeon who put them in said!), only to be told that the plastic surgeon was in surgery and, no, they couldn't say for how long.

"OK, but can you ballpark it? Is he re-attaching an earlobe or is he performing a full-facial transplant?" (medical staff LOVE sarcasm btw). We were sent back to the waiting room.

Ten minutes later, they called us back in to the same room (although there are now fresh sheets on the bed) to say the doctor has finished the amputation and will see my son now. GULP. Amputation?! Dear God, I am sorry I was such a bitch.

The eyebrow looks perfect though.

Miss-lead and Miss-direct

Last year I read The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin's account of her year-long attempt to be-- you guessed it-- happier. The cover art caught my eye when I walked into the library: a row of brownstones (Brooklyn maybe?) under a bright blue sky. I remember reading the jacket and deciding to check out the book to see what this "mom like me" had to say.

A lot of what Rubin came up with was pretty obvious: don't let yourself get cold, hungry, or tired and you'll be happier! One of the chapters was about ridding her apartment of clutter. I felt for Rubin. At the time, I happened to be knee-deep in weeding through all of our clothes, books, and toys and could only imagine how overwhelming the sheer volume of stuff would be in a NYC apartment. I remember how pleased Rubin was to be able to leave one shelf completely clear, how it represented control and calm and possibility. We only ever had one kid in our two-bedroom apartment when we lived in the city and the closets were packed to capacity. I was impressed.

The more I read, though, the more skeptical (and irritated) I became. How was Rubin, with her two young kids, 1) researching and writing historical works; 2) writing and blogging about her happiness project; 3) helping her friends clean out their closets; 4) attending book clubs about YA fiction; 5) meeting people for umpteen lunches and dinners out; and on and on. Where were her kids? How come she never mentioned rushing back for the sitter? How did the kids factor so little in her happiness or daily life? I read the dedication and acknowledgements looking for a shout-out to a nanny. Nothing.

So I hit google. Turns out Ms. Rubin is married to some serious money and lives in a triplex on Park Avenue. The clean shelf lost it's punch right there. I found no mention anywhere by Ms. Rubin of the huge role reliable childcare played in her (kind of ridiculous, considering the facts) pursuit of happiness. I felt seriously duped.

Cut to this year.

Shame on me, because I've been fooled again. I've been a casual fan of Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) for a couple of years. I read the cooking part of her blog and was always impressed that this "mom like me" could help run a ranch in Oklahoma while simultaneously raising and homeschooling her four kids and updating her website with her recipes, photos, essays and more. I marveled at her energy.

Turns out, Drummond, too, is married to some serious money. Her quaint ranch is the equivalent of at least a triplex on Park Avenue. And evidently she has a teacher for her kids. And a staff for her website.

I certainly don't begrudge these women their money or their nannies. I do, however, resent their lack of candor. It's kind of like the airbrushing out of fat and wrinkles in magazine spreads. Omitting pertinent facts is as bad as lying about them. And twice as aggravating.

Let There Be Light!

I came THIS close to hugging a complete stranger this evening. He was a Con Ed worker and he told me we would have power back by tonight as opposed to Thursday at midnight which was the original time frame.

We only lost power for 65 hours after Hurricane Irene but it seemed like a lifetime. The first day was cool: we had plenty of food, board games galore and the gumption of pioneers on the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead. We drove around a little bit (my husband likes to plow through puddles in his truck plus he was utterly convinced he could find an open Starbucks. He could not) then we took a walk into town where kids were boogie-boarding down main street and people waded through the flood waters in frightening disregard for the live power lines dangling by the water line. Firemen drove by shouting at us to go home and get off the streets but the excitement was contagious and frankly it just felt good to be out of the house.

At night, my husband was concerned with leaving an unattended open flame so we blew out the candles when we went to bed and Minx woke in the middle of the night screaming about it being "as dark as death". We brought her into our bed where she promptly pulled an "H" position and neither of us got any sleep. At the crack of dawn the smoke detectors starting beeping their warnings of power-deprivation and so day two began.

Monday saw us at the gym, exercising, watching TV (yay!), swimming and most importantly, using the showers. We still had no power, but we had email on the Blackberry which I charged every second that the car engine was running. The food in the fridge seems unappealing and the dry ice we lined up for really isn't keeping anything fresh. At any rate, our BBQ is out of propane. Any restaurants open?

At night, in spite of the candle left burning in the kids' bathroom, my son manages to trip over something and fall, cutting his eyelid open and requiring a 1:00 am trip to the ER and four stitches. Once again, we are functioning without sleep. The food in the freezer is ruined and the food in the fridge 100% unappealing. I no longer have email access which makes me panic because school starts in a week and I am driven crazy by the thought that I am missing out on IMPORTANT messages. There isn't a 'Snakes and Ladders' or 'Yahtzee' game left in us. We empty and clean the freezer then head to a local pool club as guests of a sympathetic friend. Entertainment and showers. I can't even begin to think about laundry.

For dinner we heat pizza bagels and Lean Pockets in a fry pan and just as I finish washing the dishes I see the reflection of emergency lights in the front window. Three huge Con Ed trucks trundle up our road, a liberation army. You can hear cheering, like a wave, up and down our street and then pandemonium as the houses light up one by one.

It is amazing to me that everybody used to live without electricity and so many still have to. I am supremely happy tonight to be back on the grid.

Survivor: Suburbia

I am making new alliances and trying to break old ones without looking like a conniving beyotch. I am firmly straddling two opposing sides, double-agent style, while the game plays out and other people reveal their loyalties. No, I'm not on a reality TV show although I think I could be. I am negotiating my daughter's soccer team for next year.

Apparently, it's like this every year; a complete and utter bun-fight. We had one girl leave the current team because her family is moving abroad and another quit soccer altogether and suddenly it's all up for grabs! Like dominos they fell until only five players were left: three definites and my daughter and her best friend who had offers from another team.

So we look for substitutes for Team A while keeping our options at Team B open. Team A = very convenient practices and great experience (plus we just bought $100 worth of uniform for them). Team B = much less convenient location, second-mortgage-time expensive but great reputation. Hmmmmm.

It will all come to a head in the next week or so when a final decision has to be made. I will hopefully come out of this unscathed, carrying the winner's torch and gaining the ultimate prize: a happy 10 year-old girl.

p.s. Sadly, while gruelling and cut-throat, Survivor: Suburbia has not resulted in any significant weight-loss.

Miss Crankypants

I remember reading Miss Lonelyhearts in high school and being inspired to write a daily column on things that bugged me. But then I got distracted by all the AP Calculus I wasn't understanding and forgot about my pet peeves. Or at least about sharing them.

Well, no more! My time has finally come.

Today's gripe: Why do packaged loaves of bread always have an odd number of slices? Wouldn't you assume that most people are using sliced sandwich bread for..... I don't know, sandwiches?! A single slice of bread is of exactly no use to me. And if you've ever been left literally holding the bag (as I was this morning) you know the desperation of trying to cut the heel enough to make it pass (upside down, natch) as a regular slice of bread.

I can imagine how that will go over in the lunchroom. What could be less appealing to a kid who-- much to my chagrin/bemusement-- carefully eats every morsel up-to-but-not-including the crusts, than a whole piece made up of nothing but crust?

And while we're fixing the loaves of bread, why not just leave off the ends altogether? Lop them off at the factory and recycle them right there into breadcrumbs or stuffing. Does anyone eat the ends or do we all just reach past the heel to get to the good stuff underneath? (Strangely, I never throw away that top end until the whole loaf is otherwise finished-- I've always treated it as the protector of the other slices or something).

I'm feeling better already.

Party Crasher

We had my son's birthday party at our house again this year and as with every year, I set off with noble plans to make the BEST CAKE EVER and ended up having a sub-par, food-coloring-laden behemoth that no nine kids could possibly eat. It's a recipe for disaster for an incompetent perfectionist like myself. Needless to say, by the time party day arrives I am wound tighter that a frozen viola (that's tight!) which goes some way to explaining my ire at the gatecrasher.

Yes, that's right, we had a gatecrasher. It was only a sibling of an invitee but it was a 5-year-old, chronically misbehaving, disruptive, nose-picking, no-please-or-thank-you sibling who walked straight into our house trailing snow and proceeded to interrupt the magic show in progress. Her mother rather impudently asked, "It's alright if she stays, right?" and I began my passive-aggressive seething.

So straight after the magic show, the kids sit down for pizza and piggy-wiggy nose-picker starts bawling that there isn't place for her at the table (that's cos you weren't bleeping invited, you little @*&*). I manage to wedge in another chair at our already overcrowded table and immediately demands fly for juice and pizza, and more juice and more pizza. She out-ate every 8-year-old boy at the table. You can imagine the reaction to there not being a loot bag. And this is with her mother present!

My husband wants me to let this go so I'm hoping that writing it down will prove cathartic. I'm sorry to stay that the whole affair soured my party mood considerably and took my attention away from my son. Thankfully his experience, being less petty, was a happier one.

... Nope, I'm still angry.

What a Gwyndbag

Why oh why is Gwyneth Paltrow coming out with a cookbook?

It can't be the money. It can't be a big career move. It can't be that she fears she doesn't have enough media exposure.

Really, it has to be one of just a few potential reasons: the first is that she is trying to help me deflect some of my enormous hatred for Sarah Palin back on to Gwyneth, where it was cultivated and has thrived for so many years thanks to Gwyneth's inherent annoying fish stick-iness. Ladies, please, there's more than enough to go around!

The second possibility is that Gwyneth doesn't just come across like she thinks she is the cat's pajamas, she actually believes that she is and that others aspire to be just like her. And she wants to help them with their noble undertaking. What a generous soul! The cookbook would supplement Gwyneth's lifestyle website, the poorly named GOOP, where, as I understand it (lord knows I would never let any cookie anywhere register me as having visited the damn thing), Lady P. lets people in on all kinds of Gwysdom and Gwyfty Gwyft ideas. I just made those up, but I should totally file for the copyright before she co-opts them and becomes a macrobiotic Hasselhoff. Hoff with her head.

The only other thing I can come up with is that somehow, even with the acting career, the GOOP, the televised foodie trips with Mario Batali, the ruining Glee! for me, the yoga, and the celebrity matchmaking, she is bored. To which I say (cc: Jerry Seinfeld's wife), go spend some time with your kids! Help out at their school! Or do some volunteer work! Or get a dog! Whatever, just spare me from having to see your mug on yet more magazines and talk shows as you do publicity for the book. At the very least, please combine the book tour with the promotional tour for that movie in which you sing country music.

In case you think that Gwyneth can't possibly be Gwyneth in recipe form, here are a few lines from the book that were quoted on eater.com and that I masochistically read through:

"In the last ten years or so, cooking has become my main ancillary passion in life."

"The stove is really the epicenter of my house — I am never far away from it and most of the time there is something atop it, simmering away for my family."

"More often than not when I prepare desserts, I am thinking about keeping the sugar intake low, as well as limiting other ingredients that don't do us any favors."

"I am constantly thinking about ways to give my children something filled with as much nutritional value as possible."

GAAAAAAHHHH.

Dear Santa ...

I vaguely remember writing letters to Santa when I was a kid, begging for that one item I desperately needed and then, like the kid in 'A Christmas Story', not getting it. Don't get me wrong, I was far from deprived, but there was definitely a disconnect between the fluff I wanted and the more practical things I got. Not so for today's kids. One of my son's friends (so age 7) was laughing about the iTouch he got for Chanukkah this year because (ha ha) he lost the one he got last year. Oh, and this one has a camera in it. Talk about the instant gratification generation!

On that note, I decided to publish my daughters' Christmas wish lists and see if you can guess which items will end up under our tree (my son didn't write one; he wants Santa to guess - great).

9-Year-Old:
Laptop
Wii Wipeout
Scooter
Felt Coloring
Remote Control Car
Mocha Frappachino
TV in my room
Paint by numbers
Pedicure and manicure
Sour candy maker
Snickers
To meet Mia Hamm
iTouch
Building kit
Smelly stickers
Mind Flex
Poster of Mia Hamm

(she's good for the candy, stickers, art stuff and poster)

Minx (5)
Markers
Cooking sduf
Coloring books
Harry Potter play toys
los uv candy
Camru
100 dolrs
New York toy
I wont to see Snta
Wke up on sevin frde (wake up at 7:30)
COTTON CANDY MAKER (this seems to be a priority)

I'm not even sure what some of it is. And truth be told, I'd rather not buy any of it and give the money to Smile Train or Make A Wish or any worthy cause because my kids need NOTHING. But then I think back to that Weeble tree house I SO desperately wanted, or the Barbie head you could beautify, or the Bionic Woman action figure (which cost $9.50 and ended up taking me almost a year's worth of pocket money to buy) and, once again, I indulge. Just a little bit.

Peel and Stick it

Dear USPS,

Seriously? This is your idea of festive winter holiday stamps?

Couldn't you at least have added some snow to those muted-tone boughs?

I feel like you've sucked a fair amount of joy out of the holiday card season-- both the sending and the receiving.

These stamps have "utility bill" written all over them.

Bah humbug,

Weaselsnark