Weaselsnob and her Amazing Monochromatic Dreamcoat

I'd been dreaming of a new coat; a short black number casual enough to wear at soccer games but tailored enough to assuage my biggest fashion fear of looking manly. I scoured the Internet, poured over catalogues and hit the mall but nothing suited my exacting specs until ... H&M!

It was perfect. It was short. It was black. It had a subtle military look to it without the double-breasted features that scream "SGT. PEPPER!" or the pea-coat toggles that belt out "PADDINGTON BEAR!" (to self-respecting Brits anyway). It was perfect and it was cheap.

But it was too tight! Rifle, rifle, rifle ... OMG nothing bigger than a 6 (and H&M runs small)! Quick, check in the back (there is no back), check another store (nope), I'll order it online (what do you mean you can't order online in the US?!). I left the mall in such a funk, thwarted and cross.

The next day I drove well out of my way to a very sketchy mall in a different county and there it was - Frederik, oh joy, oh rapture! -my coat! Merry Christmas to me! And even though the strap of my handbag often gets caught on the subtle epaulets and I wonder what good I could do in this world if I applied myself with such tenacity to unselfish pursuits, I smile every time I put that coat on.

The Girl with the Dragon Travel Mug (Working Title)

There were a bunch of stories in the news this week about product placement and its role in advertising.

Evidently, Days of Our Lives has progressed from merely showing a sponsor's product on camera to working subtle-as-a-sledgehammer advertisements for Cheerios and Chex Mix (among others) into its scripts.

I think product placement can be mildly distracting-- it chips at the fourth wall but doesn't quite break it-- but I get the need for it. With people fast-forwarding through commercials and/or watching content on the internet, advertisers have to find new ways to reach consumers.

I'm kind of wondering if the next step in product placement is books. If we can credit Mark Burnett as the pioneer of prodcut placement on TV (and I think we must: remember that outhouse reward on Survivor that they dubbed the Casa de Charmin?), I think someday we will look back and point to Stieg Larsson as the Mark Burnett of literature.

What's the product that's being pushed? Coffee. The Swedes in Larsson's books drink an inordinate amount of coffee. They drink coffee with and between each meal. They drink coffee when they need to think. They drink coffee when they are tired of thinking. They drink coffee before they collapse into bed. If the plot brings two characters together, they invariably have some coffee. Cups and cups of the stuff (with an occasional espresso or latte thrown in for good measure). Coffee is practically a character in the books.

It's like Larsson made a bet that he could use the word coffee 5,000 times in each manuscript. Or, maybe, just maybe, he got paid by the "coffee."

Could "Stieg Larsson" be Swedish for Juan Valdez?

Could it be... Seven Ate Nine?

Some of the people in my life are habitual (chronic?) email forwarders: they send along jokes; product recalls; pictures of animals sleeping; urban legends disguised as police warnings; lists of myriad household tasks you never knew you could accomplish with a lemon, a pointed stick and a piece of gum; and all other emails that they themselves have been forwarded.

I have yet to follow through on my threat to reply "unsubscribe."

And now I may never.

The other day I received a forwarded email with the dubious subject line "Friendship."

Compelled to open it (I was bored), I braced myself for, at best, some cute animal pairs, at worst, a cheesy poem.

I was wrong.

"Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship.

1. When you are sad ~ I will help you get drunk and plot revenge
against the sorry bastard who made you sad.

2. When you are blue ~ I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile ~ I will know you are thinking of something that I
would probably want to be involved in.

4. When you are scared ~ I will rag on you about it every chance I
get until you're NOT.

5. When you are worried ~ I will tell you horrible stories about
how much worse it could be until you quit whining.

6. When you are confused ~ I will try to use only little words.

7. When you are sick ~ Stay the hell away from me until you are well
again. I don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall ~ I will laugh at your clumsy ass, but I'll
help you up.

9."

I have only two problems with this email. One, it sounds like I wrote it and I kind of wish I did. And, two, that's how it ended. Just the number nine. What is number nine? Was number nine cut off by the first forwarder? I'm guessing yes-- and that 10 was cut off as well-- no self-respecting list maker ends at nine (or eight for that matter).

Bad, bad forwarder.

Bare Naked Ladies

I could write a book about the weird things women do in gym changing rooms. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit upfront that I am a class-A prude. If I shower at the gym I'll walk into the stall fully dressed, close the curtain and then disrobe. Getting dressed afterwards is always a lesson in "less haste, more speed" as I frantically try to don my ENTIRE ensemble in 0.8 seconds without slipping, tripping or otherwise drawing attention to myself in any way, while simultaneously clutching my towel with one hand.

Most of the other ladies are very free and comfortable with their bodies and to them I say, good on ya, mate! There is a lot of naked toing and froing between lockers and showers and mirrors, whatever the shape and size. Even some who REALLY shouldn't be displaying the Full Monty deserve credit for sheer chutzpah. OK that's a poor choice of words! I just mean that they are fearless.

However, I do object to those who go out of their way to be naked when there's absolutely no need: Example (1) The woman who stood in front of the mirror putting on make-up, wearing nothing but socks; Example (2) The woman who stood with one leg up on the bench and blow-dried (blew-dry?) her private parts; and DEFINITELY example (3) The woman who used one of those paper perfume samples from a magazine to freshen up her scent where the sun don't shine. Ouch.

I wonder if the equivalent goes on in the men's changing room ... Ew.

Hai-kuuuu. Gesundheit!

The bell tolls for me.
Mooommmmyyy, it moans. No escape.
My girl is home sick.


How come nobody ever taught my kids that when you are too sick to go to school you are just supposed to lie in bed, watch TV, and eat toasted english muffins with lots of butter on them?

Don't get me wrong-- I'm glad she feels well enough to get out of bed.... but is it too much to expect that at some point during a day of books, art projects, 1,000 used tissues, and very intricate Little Pet Shop scenarios she might take one little teeny tiny nap?

Have I been had? Or have I just had a sniffly Mommy/Daughter day?

Gotta go. Duty calls. Literally.

Uptight Much?

On Friday, I volunteered in my daughter's kindergarten class. There were several Halloween-themed activities set up. I was stationed at the cookie decorating table.

Cookie decorating is really a misnomer. It was more like sprinkle Jenga: how many sprinkles can you pile on top of a frosted cookie?

There were two of us helping the kids; and we decided early on-- due largely to an insufficient number of spoons-- that the best way to preserve any semblance of control germ-wise would be if we put the frosting on the cookies and then let the kids go wild with the sprinkles.

The kids were evenly split between chocolate or vanilla frosting. And then I asked one of the boys in the class and he said "Both please."

I was tickled. Here was a kid who could think outside of the box. He didn't say it in a bratty or demanding way. He just wanted to have his cookie half chocolate and half vanilla. And why not? That's a tough choice to make. I was proud of him.

I made a comment to that effect to the other mother. "There's a future success story," I added. Or something like that.

Maybe she thought he was my son or that I was somehow insulting the other kids in the class because her response was "I was asking if they wanted vanilla OR chocolate."

Yeah, that's why I said he was thinking outside the box. Geez.

Shalloween

As a kid, come October 1st, Halloween loomed large. We couldn't wait for my mom to take down the Big Bag o' Halloween Stuff. In addition to the beloved, well-worn (and well scotch-taped) pictures of pumpkins, black cats and bats, there were various dress-up accessories to inspire us in our annual costume selection.

My mother assures me that I was an imaginative child, but for some reason I tended to cling to the same costume ideas over and over. I was a rabbit in feety pajamas (accessory = plush headband with ears) for at least three years in a row. And when I wasn't hippity-hopping, I was almost always a gypsy (gold hoop earring) or a pirate (very cool hook and sword).

My mom was down on store-bought costumes. Fortunately for her, we never really thought to think beyond the realm of The Bag.

This year I could have used The Bag: my daughter just couldn't make up her mind as to what she wanted to be.

First she wanted to be a dog.

Then she wanted to be a dog dressed as a clown.

Now she is going to be her Zumbuddy. A Zumbuddy is a Webkinz butterfly. Sort of. Not surprisingly, there's no store bought option for something practically nobody has ever heard of. And so, I'm making her costume.

We're not talking about any heavy duty pattern making or sewing. There's just a whole lot of felt, fabric glue and purple cellophane. I've actually been having fun. The only problem is that I'm a control freak and my daughter wants to help. She attacked the felt with the craft scissors and actually did a pretty good job (for a five year old) of recreating the emblem that emblazons the chest of her Zumbuddy. But I could do better.

It's like a cartoon with the angel version of me perched on one shoulder, the devil on the other.

Angel: It's her costume! How wonderful that she had a hand in making it! It's not perfect but it's hers!

Devil: Ugh. It looks terrible. It will undermine all the other work you've done. You have to redo it. Throw hers away while she's asleep.

Angel: (sharp intake of breath, aghast)

Devil: MWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

So.... my daughter will be a slightly less than perfect Zumbuddy for Halloween. Until then, I'll be smothering my controlling urges with peanut butter cups and milky ways.

Jurrassic Park

I know it may come as a big surprise, but law school can be a little dry.

Compounding the inherent dullness of some of the material (I'm looking at you, civil procedure) was the dullness of many of the people.

Happily, like finds like. It wasn't long before my small section buddy and I were drawing on our hands like Senor Wences and dubbing them Learned Hand in a twisted homage to the celebrated judge and judicial philosopher.

For some reason, our Learned Hand spoke in a trilling vibrato and only spouted inane trivia. Our minds must have been filled to capacity with law stuff, because we were woefully weak in the trivia department. So Learned Hand mostly said stuff like "You may THINK that New York is the capital of New York... but it is actually Allllllbany!" or "The CHEEEEEETAAHHH is the fastest land mammal."

I only wish our Learned Hand had said something about modern day birds being related to dinosaurs because then I would have had the perfect lead-in for this picture that I took (with my phone) of a heron in the park.



S'awright.

Picture This

On Tuesday, my eldest daughter woke up with a very red and swollen face. The other two had small rashes - my son on the back of his neck and around his left eye and my little one in her hairline - but were otherwise fine. I racked my brain trying to remember what we had eaten the night before, whether we had used new soap or lotion. Nothing.

Concerned, I took her to the doctor who immediately diagnosed Strep and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. It felt wrong (why did the other two have very localized rashes then?) because the only symptom was a rash. Yes, her tonsils were huge, but then her tonsils are aways huge. And the quick Strep test came back negative.

On Wednesday morning my daughter was unrecognizable; channeling Eric Stoltz from Mask. "I look like that woman who threw acid in her own face!", she wailed. "No, you don't!", I reassured (yes, she did). Meanwhile, the other two were presenting classic symptoms of poison ivy. Ohhhhhhhh! The "nature walk" they went on with the sitter on Monday ...

Back to the doctor, who immediately stops the antibiotics and prescribes an intense course of steroids for a severe allergic reaction to poison ivy.

Wait, but here's the cherry on top: Wednesday was school photo day. You cannot make this stuff up.

None of the Above?

Growing up, my older sister and I shared a room. Our six year age difference doesn't matter at all now, but back then... well, let's just say that, back then, if you had made a Venn Diagram of our interests, the overlapping section would have contained little more than Rocky Lee pizza, the original Broadway cast recordings of Pippin and Godspell, and the New York Giants.

But, on the rare nights that we were both lying awake in the dark in our respective beds, we would play a game (a game I always thought we made up): Who Do You Like Better?

Poor grammar aside, the game is pretty self-explanatory: Player 1 serves up a choice to Player 2-- A or B? (Darien or Abby? Adam or John? Smooth or chunky?) The possibilities are endless and, to us, some choices were as difficult to make as Sophie's.

Imagine my surprise the other day when Howard Stern began to give the set-up before he played some on-the-street interviews his staff did. He said that his guys went out and asked people "who do you like better?" (it was clear from the way he said it that he had played the same game my sister and I did-- with the same butchering of the language).

In fact, what was asked of the people on the street was actually "Who is worse?" And it was Howard vs. Mel Gibson. Howard vs. Woody Allen. Howard vs. Roman Polanski. I don't have any proof, but I think they just asked my mom the questions over and over because, shockingly, I think Howard "won" every time.

Howard was incensed that he could be viewed as more evil than some pretty bad guys. So he sent his people back out to delve further, to give more choices: Howard vs. the mosque at ground zero (Howard). Howard vs. V.D. (V.D.) Howard vs. Bed Bugs (Bed Bugs).

I think maybe even my mom would have to choose Howard Stern over bed bugs.

Yesterday I learned that someone in my son's class has lice. Trying to keep the dark cloud of cuckoo away, I forced myself to admit that given the choice of lice or bed bugs, I like lice better.