It's rare but...

...New York actually smelled good today. Everything is in bloom right now and it's not quite hot enough for the smell of urine and garbage to start steaming up from the sidewalk. Today it was all cherry blossoms and other yummy smells filling the air. Thank goodness spring is finally here.

Happy Earth Day!

I hope everyone is taking some time today to think about how to reduce waste in your life. Stop drinking from plastic bottles, reuse, recycle, buy organic when you can, drive less, turn off lights and just be conscious of the decisions you are making in your daily life. It's hard in this world we live in today but we also have more options than ever and we have power as consumers.

Think globally, act locally.

What happened, Janet?

I'm doing some online editing work involving subtitles for online videos and I was recently assigned Janet Jackson's new video. Not only is the video itself horrible but the song is completely absurd. OK, we get it Janet. You're liberated from your parents and you're very, very sexual. Enough already. Since when do people describe something as being as heavy as "a first day period"? Gross!

I'm disappointed Ms. Jackson.

Exhausted

I am so very, very tired right now. Theo is finally asleep and I don't even have the energy to cook myself supper. I was going to do some freelance editing work that Karen threw my way but I don't even know if I can find the focus.

Today was hard. Our first day without Rich, finding stuff to do this afternoon and then doing too much leaving us both cranky and hungry with only one of us able to articulate that condition. I also felt a lot of negative energy coming my way today. Leaving the locker room after Theo's swim class I guess we were moving to slowly because this young woman shot daggers at me as she walked around us. It was weird and completely unexpected.

I also really, really, really need and want a haircut.

Go Manny, it's your birthday!

Thanks Manny! You are one weird dude but you helped us beat the Yankees this afternoon. Please play this well on Wednesday when I get to see you at Yankee Stadium.

Arrivederci, amore mio

Tonight Rich left for a conference in Bertinoro, Italy. Far from being excited to go to Italy, he is sad to be leaving Theo and me and stressed about all the work he is leaving behind. He will arrive tomorrow afternoon, spend three days there and then turn around and come home. It's hardly a relaxing trip. Theo and I will miss him terribly but fortunately I have planned some fun activities for myself so I don't go crazy.

A little blue

I'm feeling a little bit blue today. No particularly good reason, just a bit off. I had a weird interaction with an online community I am part of so that has me feeling a bit funny, I stayed up too late, yesterday was full-on warm and gorgeous while today is gray and threatening rain and my head is feeling a little fuzzy thanks in part to all the wonderful flowers starting to bloom. I need to go take a shower and eat something other than Samoas (I just ate the last two, thank God). I'm ready for the weekend but in this case it means Rich leaving town for five days and that sucks too. Fortunately I think I found a great babysitter for Theo who also does housework while he's napping so I'm hoping that will help all around - some time to myself a few hours a week and a cleaner house to boot.

On becoming my mother

Last night I made tuna fish casserole. I never thought the day would come that I would actually make tuna fish casserole. I love my mother and she is many, many wonderful things however a cook is not neccesarily one of them. It's not that she's bad, it's just that, like me, she doesn't have "the touch" and we both lack imagination in the kitchen. After my parents (mom and stepdad that is) split up, I have little memory of her cooking at all, but prior to that my dinner memories consist of pretty much the same rotation of meals: spaghetti with meatballs, meatloaf, tacos, sloppy joes (which I never liked and, even if I ate meat, would still hate to this day) and tuna casserole. Now that I am a mother and trying to plan meals, I understand my mother's rationale for these meals. They are all pretty fast and easy and most of them revolve around ground beef which is cheap and easy to cook. When you have two children and a husband who comes home for about an hour to eat dinner (my stepdad was a TV anchorman so he would come home to eat dinner in between the 6 and 11 o'clock news), you cook what works. These days I don't think my mother would touch any of the aforementioned foods. Her long-time partner is a great cook and my mom has realized she makes a terrific sous chef. But my road is only just beginning. I want to be a better cook and I'm trying, I really, truly am but maybe I would be better off getting a job that affords the luxury of hiring a chef. Hell, it would probably be easier.

Evil

This is a Samoa Girl Scout Cookie. It is hands-down my favorite GSC. Earlier this year when I was in Austin, Kat informed me that they started making ice cream flavors for GSCs. I flipped. I started imagining what Samoa ice cream would taste like. Would it be vanilla ice cream with swirls of caramel and chocolate mixed with coconut or would it just be vanilla with chunks of the cookie? (I was hoping for the former although my friend Deana's fantasy was about the latter). I couldn't find this ice cream in New York. I know, New York City - what can't you get in New York City? Girl Scout Cookie ice cream apparently. Then I went to Jacksonville to see my mom and I told her that when we went to shopping, we had to look for it. Good old Publix. There in the ice cream section was one last gallon of Samoa ice cream. I was dancing in the aisle I was so excited. Fortunately, the ice cream did not live up to my fantasy. I say fortunately because if I can't get it at home, I don't want to be dreaming about it anymore (yes, I actually had a dream about finding this ice cream). It was a combination of both my fantasy and Deana's. It had the swirls and the coconut but also chunks of the cookie. Ultimately the downfall was that it just wasn't high quality ice cream. It would have been better if Ben & Jerry's had done it instead of Edy's.

With my ice cream fix out of the way, I put Girl Scout Cookies out of my head. Girl Scouts don't hang out on the corner hawking their wares, at least not in my part of Manhattan, so it's been pretty easy. I thought GSC season had come to an end. I thought wrong. I met Miss Karen for brunch yesterday and she says "I have a present for you." What does she pull out of her bag but a box of Samoas. Damn you Karen Browning and God bless you! Now, the damn things are sitting on my kitchen counter staring at me. First ingredient: sugar. Second ingredient: partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Yeah baby. Yesterday I limited myself to one. Today, I've had two which is my absolute limit for one day. Rich said "you shouldn't eat those things" but what's a girl supposed to do?

Early morning, April 4

Today marks the anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. A man of mixed race is running for President. We still have a long way to go in realizing Dr. King's dream, but would we have come this far without him? Thank you Dr. King, for all that you did for this country.

Chinese water torture - for parents

The Chinese may have mastered the art of using repetition as a torture device but I think their method is just a variation on the original - the incessant whine of a toddler. I don't know what was up with him today, but ALL DAY LONG Theo was making this sound, a sound that has become to me like nails on a chalkboard, like utensils on a plate. Describing it won't do it justice but he takes a basic sound like "uh-uh" and mixes it with a sense of urgency and a twist of whine. Things he was perfectly capable of reaching himself, he would point at and say "uh-uh!". Things he couldn't reach - "uh-uh!" Pointing out the window, trying to pick a picture up off the page of a book (something that really frustrates him), wanting me to turn on the TV, something he wants to eat, doesn't want to eat, you name it, that was the sound he used to tell me about it.

I know I'm not the only one dealing with this. A friend recently told me it makes her stomach turn when her son makes that noise. Other friends roll their eyes in empathy. Every time he does it I try to give him the word "help", "up", "more", "please". I've had a few successes and I know we'll get there eventually, but in the meantime I can't believe I made it through the day without locking myself in my room in a desperate attempt to escape that noise.

Crete, June 2008

Rich was invited to speak at a conference in Crete, Greece in mid-June and Theo and I are going with him. I bought the tickets today. I am so excited for this trip. I am dreading the actual trip itself with a 20-month old, but I can't wait to be there and I think more than any trip I have taken in recent years, I can't wait to EAT there.

Playground bullies

Today we ended up at the playground at Washington Square Park. Theo was having a good time, playing well with the other kids, being a good boy. There was a little boy (around 4-5) standing at one of those wheel thingies they have on these jungle gyms, the kind where you can pretend you are steering a ship or something. There was an empty one next to him so Theo, besotted as he is with big kids these days, went up to the empty one and was turning the wheel while gazing adoringly at this "big" kid. The little boy's friend, a girl, came up behind them and the boy said "Hey, come take this wheel away from the little boy!" and she did! She pushed Theo out of the way and grabbed the wheel. Theo was understandably upset and I attempted to talk to the kids, saying "can you please share?" and "that's not very nice" but they talked right back to me and refused to budge. I was so infuriated by these two I had to bite my tongue not to call them little brats who should be ashamed of themselves. I wanted to stomp over to their mothers chatting on the bench and tattletale in defense of my little boy. But I didn't. Theo was easily distracted, I apologized to him loudly saying "I'm sorry those kids aren't sharing and playing nicely" and then, admittedly, there were a couple of times the little girl made defiant? guilty? eye contact with me and I shot her a dirty look. Yes, me, 33 years old, shot a dirty look to a 4-year old. Don't judge until you've been there yourself.

April Fool's

So Theo did this thing this morning where he woke up at 5:30am. Ha! Great joke little man! Problem is, he doesn't quite have the nuances of this day worked out because he forgot the part where he says "April Fool's!" and goes back to sleep. We'll have to work on that.