Chicken Not So Little

I roasted a chicken last night, to rave reviews from the family.  That may not seem like a big deal, but I've been a vegetarian since I was 15.  I don't like dead animals, especially when they look like the animal.  In other words, while I've been able to cook a chicken breast or a steak, whole birds . . . not so much.  I am routinely relieved of the Thanksgiving nightmare . . . it's at my house BUT mom prepares the turkey which we cook in my oven.  There is no way I'm plucking feathers or putting my hands in a dead bird.

So, a roaster is an event.  I had a butcher remove all the inner stuff and clean it for me.  I put on gloves (yes, I keep a box here for just that purpose) and shoved rosemary (lower case "r" for the herb, not a friend) inside.  And I threw stuff in the pan and on top to minimize the touching.   No tasting for me.  But I nailed it . . . the meal, not the actual chicken.

Oy, He Did it Again

And I doubt there was any "oops" (thanks Britney) about it.   My husband has been out of town all week, as we were hit with a total of 19 inches of new snow.  He's not just away but in LA (and San Diego) where it's been 80 degrees.   He sends pictures of the beach and the Santa Monica pier; I return photos of snow tunnels and snow-boarded doors.  His joints are loose and limber.  I can barely stand up straight from the shoveling.

I will hold it against him (new Britney title "Don't Hold it Against Me"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJSm_QMO6zA).  Please don't hit me one more time (old Britney title "Hit Me Baby One More TIme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4) with any new snow.

Who knew Britney Spears could be so inspiring?

Did I really say that?

"When are you going to die so I can start sleeping around,"  I blurted out to my husband recently in the context of our estate planning discussions.   I don't want him gone, really I don't, but I want to know when it's going to be.  So I can be prepared.

Apparently, it's not enough for me to plan the financial future.  I need to plan my future sex life.  And as I reassured my husband, there's nothing wrong with ours.  The only thing possibly missing is, by definition,  the excitement of a new relationship.  But that has been replaced by the comfort of an old one.  Not an old shoe, but my favorite shoe.

This is about something different.  It's the ability to treat sex purely as sex.  Not as the prelude to a relationship or possibly marriage.  Pregnancy is unlikely.  Disease still has to be addressed.  But, reputation doesn't matter.  Nor does the "number."

You know what number . . . the sex partner count.  Just recently, one of my friends was tallying her pre-marriage men and still is somewhat mortified.  And her data is a quarter-century old.

Does anybody really care what an old widow does?  I'm not talking about the 30 year old hot neighbor who shovels snow in a bikini.  I'm picturing a middle-aged mother, possibly with grown children, making a new life for herself.  At that age, most women are invisible anyway (a subject for another post).   Others are involved in their own lives.  There's no longer a scorekeeper at the game.  And that sounds like fun.  And freedom.

A Knock-Knock Non-Joke

Who's there?  The child you gave up for adoption 45 years ago . . . That's the big Oprah secret I'm secretly watching now:  a long-lost half sister born to Oprah's mother.  This woman spent years looking for her birth mother, only to be rejected again and again, before ultimately putting together the story.  Touching, wonderful for them and so on  . . .

But, it takes me back to my teenage beliefs and the case against secretly giving a child up for adoption, as teenage girls were often urged to do.  Simply, it's never really a secret.  First, you always know you have a child in the world.   And then, you live in fear (or hope) for that ringing doorbell.  Assuming, the pregnancy was unintended and unwanted (and even accidental against all odds), you never escape.  

Oprah talked about this, although in different terms, with respect to her mother:  that she never got over the shame of giving up her child and that that is why she didn't initially want a reunion.   Oprah went so far as to even thank her deceased sister for revealing to the rags that a young Oprah had given birth to a child who died, because it freed her from the indignity.

More interesting though is what was not said (at least not during my viewing time):  not a word about the father.  No one seemed to be looking for the father.  In other words, daddy gets off scot-free while the woman suffers a life-sentence.  

Thoughts?

Sample Me

Perusing the aisles at Costco, and checking out the day's samples, I was reminded of a year-old incident:   During a cheesecake sampling at Costco, a man started to "chat me up."  When I mentioned my husband and children, he got annoyed:  "You're supposed to wear a ring," he barked.   A wedding band I presume.

Today, a young guy asked me to sample his nuts. . . cashews, all kinds of flavors.  He promised to serve me himself.

I declined.  I didn't want to take any chances.

Bio Pun

My ninth grader made some off-color remark about his biology class.  I recounted my high school bio teacher asking "does any one know how to make a hormone (aka whore moan)?"

My kid:  are they allowed to say that?

Probably not.  But, I do still remember all these years later.

Ice (R)Age and Rant

This ice storm has put me over the edge.  As if the mounds of snow and ice already covering my little plot were not enough, now I must contend with an additional frozen crust atop water and slush.  The cars are iced over.  The ice/snow/slush is heavy and hard to move aka shovel.   And yes, I, the lone woman in a household of men/boys, was left to do the heavy lifting.  In the frozen rain.  Again.

For the past year, I've been pushing for a move to LAla land, even though I don't exactly fit the demographic.  But, I need a warmer clime and different lifestyle.   I long to be the crazy old lady running errands year-round on a pink bicycle.

With this storm, though, a return to apartment dwelling is increasingly attractive.  Winter house maintenance is the pits:  shoveling, salting, chopping, chipping, ice damming, ice floing, icicling, dripping, slipping . . . and so on.  My home is my first experience in house-life and although I've been here 17 years, I fear I'll never adjust.  It gets harder not easier.  I don't want to do it anymore.  (look at the picture I found; how perfect).

Commercial Crazy

Does anyone else actually listen to the words in ads?  One really caught my attention last night:  Take Abilify with an antidepressant to relieve symptoms of depression.  Say what?  In order for this drug to work, you need an antidepressant.  What then does Abilify do?  Imagine frozen orange juice concentrate directing that you defrost and add orange juice.

Who writes this stuff?

Boyfriend Need Not Apply

Boyfriend sweaters (or jackets) don't work for me.  My husband, aka clothing boyfriend, is too tall.   Our eight inch height differential renders his sweaters and blazers unwearable for me.  On the plus size, at the peak of my pregnancies, I never approached his weight. 

Anyhow, today I "found" my alternative.  I'm wearing my college student son's cotton cardigan. His clothes are big enough for "the look" but not too big.  I actually am the one who paid, perhaps even selected, them.  And, more importantly, he's not here to protest.

Shop Free

I started this new year with a vow not to shop, actually not to buy, any clothing or accessories in the month of January.  Never mind whether I've stayed true to my goal,  the real story is in the why and how.

Typically, for me, a shopping-fest occurs in the post-Xmas days.  It usually lasts through January.  Great deals, great stuff.  Not just impulse purchases either; rather, I find items I've admired from afar for months.  One time it was a pair of over-the-knee fur-lined boots reduced from $1300 to $400.  Another was a similarly priced handbag.  We're talking 65-75% off here, folks.  Practically free, in shopper vernacular.

But this year, nothing.  Not a thing from the deeply discounted holiday deals.   And, now, mid-January, it's basically over - the big sales stuff has left, or is about to leave, the big stores.   The on-line selections are meager.

So why did I do it?  Yes, I didn't want to spend the money.  No, I really don't need anything.  And there was nothing I coveted from the fall/winter selection.  I didn't want to fall prey to the "it's on sale, so I'll buy it" mentality.  Yet, I did check out my favorite websites on December 26.  I wasn't even tempted.

Here's what I found:  if I didn't want it at full price, it's no big deal to pass on the discounted price.   More importantly, the sales aren't what they used to be.  No more double and triple reductions.  Not much selection.  Clearly the stores have successfully reduced their inventory and are selling more at full price.  Top store sales associates told me that a delayed price reduction in top designer merchandise led to higher non-discounted transactions.  In other words, if prices stay high, people buy at those higher prices, at least  during the holidays (we're talking high-end here, folks).

On the surface, it sounds great.  No discount deluge.  But here's the downside:  full price buying.  That's where I got tripped up by my vow.  Cryptic, perhaps - just read between the bar code lines and don't tell my husband.    :)

The Three C's

Cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring . . . the three C's of suburban weekend motherhood and not necessarily in that order.  This past weekend, if I wasn't cooking for the boys, I was cleaning up from the cooking.  Then I was packing up the car and driving someone somewhere.   Only to come home and start the cycle (another C) again.

No wonder C is a middling grade.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

Snowbird

How does he do it?  For the second consecutive winter, my husband is managing to be out of town for every snowstorm.  To be fair, we both missed the big day-after-Christmas blast of 2010.  But he missed yesterday for a Florida trip scheduled weeks ago.

Last winter, he travelled through every single storm.  I don't think he even lifted a shovel or salted a walk.

Is it luck?  Or the Farmer's Almanac?  Or something else?

Update 1/12/11:  No escaping this one; hubby just shoveled!

Lice(nse) Check

As I pulled off the highway in Manhattan, I was pulled over by several NYC police (not traffic) officers, along with about five other cars.  I couldn't imagine what I/we had done.  The light was green; my turn signal was on; I was not talking or texting; basically, I was a good driving citizen.

We were put in a line on the right side of the road as a couple of officers approached each car, asking for driver's licenses.  Politely (really), they said it was a "random license check."  Lucky me . . . not, as I was, of course, heading to the all -important hair appointment.  But I digress. . .

A license check?  I've never heard of that.  Three police cars, six officers later, we were released one by one.  Other than the lapsed time, no big deal given my squeaky clean driving record, but still . . . Why?  Is there a rash of unlicensed drivers of passenger vehicles midday midweek.  And, why so many cops?  Clearly, they were training officers - they said as much - but surely there's a better way.

And then I remembered my teenage son's New Year's Eve experience:  randomly stopped by a cop to ask what was in his bag.  After showing him the unopened bottles of wine and cranberry juice along with his driver's license, my son said he wasn't doing anything wrong.  The cop agreed.  They parted ways.

Are teenagers no longer allowed to carry bags?  Do you need a license to walk in NYC?  I've had many talks with local police officers about these police "stops" without cause and the answer is never satisfactory.  Supposedly voluntary, the failure to submit, justifies an elevated police response and could result in an arrest or worse.

Just imagine if you were actually doing something wrong.  Given the number of unsolved crimes, you'd probably get away with it.  But the rest of us will be checked.

Lost in Larchmont

I played the mega millions lottery yesterday.  I didn't win . . . anything.  I pored over the tickets this morning hoping for a match in the money.  Alas, no.  The best I had was two digits, but no bonus.  So, nada.

Losing was no surprise.  Playing, however, was.  I've bought lottery tickets fewer than five times in my life.  With yesterday's pot approaching $400 million I wasn't even tempted . . . until . . . something else went my way.  Something very silly.

I called the kids' orthodontist to schedule a (hard-to-come-by) Saturday appointment and, lo and behold, the available date and time perfectly dovetailed with dentist appointments just down the road.  Luck was mine.  Just for the asking.

It didn't translate to the lottery.  So much for a lucky day.

Insanity is . . .

starting a blog in the midst of holiday season.  But, I thought, if not then, when?  Why put off to tomorrow what you can do today . . . and all sorts of other platitudes that ignore the reality of demands imposed and undertaken.

Really, though, insanity would be doing it again next year . . . as i often say, true insanity is repeating the same conduct and expecting a different result.

I'll be back on writing schedule soon  . . .