Interview with Annabel Monaghan, author of new YA novel, A Girl Named Digit

You know that feeling you get from holding a new book in your hands, excited by the promise of the first few pages?  That’s how I felt when I first read A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan.  It was a Saturday morning.  My Kindle and I crept downstairs in the dim morning light and hid under a blanket on the far end of the couch in the sunroom, pretending that we were still asleep.  In that way, I disappeared from my family’s radar for the better part of the morning, and by the time they found me and begged for breakfast, I was already hooked on Digit.

            

And that was good news, because before reading her novel, I was already hooked on Annabel Monaghan.

Annabel and I met in a novel writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College in the Fall of 2010.  She was there to workshop a project called Digit, and since her novel was completed and the rest of ours were not, we read her manuscript first.  In person, Annabel is funny and self-deprecating and humble and smart.  She’s the one you want to sit next to in class so that you can pass notes back and forth and give each other meaningful eye rolls, as if a continuing education course at a local college is the same setting as your high school biology lab.  (Which, in a way, it is.) By week two, we had our own little inside jokes. As I sank into my couch, I desperately hoped that her book would live up to the real her. Continue reading here.

My husband the...triathlete?

Artist, yes. Successful businessman, sure. Snarky comment maker, indeed. But here are words I'd never thought I'd utter: I'd like to introduce you to my husband, Brett, the triathlete. When Brett and I met in 1996, he was merely a summertime tennis player, and, when I was not chain-smoking, I occasionally attended a step-aerobics class. In Central Park, we went to Sheep Meadow to hang out instead of going for a run around the reservoir. I thought we were perfectly matched in every way.

When we moved in together in Brooklyn a few years later, we joined a gym and attended spin and yoga classes side by side. Skip ahead 12 years, and you will find that spin and yoga is where I still remain. Brett, however, has moved on. Way on.

My husband now goes to the gym. A lot. He has a trainer. He does something called box jumps. He wears something called a weight vest. When I said I'd marry him in sickness and in health, I didn't know quite how healthy he meant.

Continue reading here...

Up Close and Not so Personal With 50 Shades of Gray author E.L. James

When I heard that the author of 50 Shades of Gray was going to be speaking at Willow Ridge Country Club in Harrison, NY, I immediately emailed my friend, writer Annabel Monaghan.  “You’ve got to come with me to hear E.L. James,” I begged. 

            

Annabel and I met in a novel writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College about a year and a half ago.  On the first day of class, we went around the table and introduced ourselves.  It was instant kinship.  In the oft-recycled words from the film Jerry Maguire, she had me at “I wrote a YA novel about a math genius that falls in love with the FBI operative hired to protect her from terrorists,” and I had her at “my main character is a teacher and mom who lies to her family and her employer and takes off for a much-needed vacation.”

            

Who else to sit next to at a 50 Shades luncheon than one another?

            

“I’m going to have to think about it,” she wrote back.  “On the one hand I want to attend, and on the other, I fear it might suck out my soul.”

          
Understood.  Continue reading here.

The Perfect Accessory: a husband or a scarf?

“Brett,” I ask my husband, “What’s the weather like today?”  He has just come in from a brisk run and is panting a bit.

            

“It’s nice,” he says, a slight hesitation to his voice.  He knows what’s coming next.

            

“Nice cool or nice warm?”  I ask.  “Should I wear a jacket?  A sweater?  Just a scarf over my t-shirt?  Or, like, a scarf and a sweater?”

            

Brett ignores my questions and walks past me.  “I’m going to take a shower.”

           

“Maybe my leather jacket?!” I call up the stairs after him, but he does not reply.

            

My husband of 13 years does not reply because he knows me too well.  He knows that I am hardly ever satisfied with my preparations for the weather and that, somehow, this is his fault.  Click here to read the rest on The Huffington Post.

            

How to Get a Book Deal: Tiger Mom, Diet Mom, and Me

Amy Chua, also known as The Tiger Mother, received a high six-figure advance for her 2011 memoir.  In this book, she recounts in great detail the ways in which she uses traditional Chinese parenting methods to drive her daughters towards perfection in the arts.  This is old news, of course.  But now there’s Dara-Lynn Weiss, aka the Diet Mom.  In the April issue of Vogue magazine, Dara writes honestly and openly about the strict parenting methods she employed to help her overweight seven-year-old daughter slim down.  Within a few weeks, she, too, had a book deal.

            

What do these women have in common?  The publishing world would say that Chua and Weiss are both exemplars of the new “damned if you do/damned if you don’t” parenting genre.  If you push your kid too hard, you get called out.  If you act too lax, you are scrutinized for not demanding more.  Either way, if you are willing to throw your daughters under the bus, there’s always something to write about.

            

It’s not so much about the children in these scenarios as it is about the mother.  The secret to securing a book deal these days is to expose one’s inner bitch to the world. Go to The Huffington Post to continue reading...

The Sandal Revolution

The box arrived from Bloomingdale’s just as my husband, Brett, was walking out the door to attend a neighborhood meeting one evening.  That’s bad timing, when the UPS guy comes face-to-face with one’s husband.  The uniformed man stands at your doorstep, a guilty look on his face, as he hands over the goods.  He knows the rules.  He knows he’s supposed to drop the package when your husband is either a) at work, b) at the gym, or c) has left the house precisely eight minutes ago, but sometimes he screws up and gets caught.  The husband looks at the return address on the box, sees the name of a clothing store like Bloomies, or an e-tailer like Gilt, or a supermegavirtualworld like Amazon, and shakes his head sadly at the UPS man.  Dude, he thinks, You’re complicit in her schemes.  I’m so disappointed in you. Read the rest of the article on the Huffington Post Stylist here....

Swedish Meatballs, a Storm, and My Basement

The title sounds like the set-up for a joke, where a man walks into a bar with a duck on his right shoulder and a cat on his left. But, really, it’s about my family, Hurricane Irene, and Ikea. As you can imagine, it’s a tragic-comic tale.

My family and I were on Nantucket when Hurricane Irene hit last August. It was a change over weekend for us, during which time my mom and step-father, Howard, traditionally leave the rental house we all share on the island so that my dad and his girlfriend can come and eat their leftovers. Only, in the days leading up to Irene, the forecast predicted that my mom would not be able to get off the island and my dad would not be able to arrive. In order to decide what to do, my mom and Howard spend the better part of two straight days watching every news report delivered by every wind-and-rain-battered weatherman up and down the Eastern seaboard. Then they went down to the docks to check the ferries and then they came back to the house to worry. When they weren’t doing that, they were calling the Steamship Authority to check on the status of their waitlist placement.

Meanwhile, back on the beach, my 9-year-old son, Andrew, was pacing. Andrew has a keen sensitivity to bad weather, creating in him some sort of internal barometer that works like a panic button in a home security system. All this talk about Hurricane Irene and our small shelter on an island 30 miles out to sea had him on the verge, ready to detonate. He noticed the swelling Atlantic surf and the dark, hovering clouds. Would we be okay? Would Nana and Howard, now 212th on the waitlist of cars needing to be ferried back to Hyannis, ever make it home? Would the lights go out? Would a tree fall on our house? How would Poppy and Lisa arrive?

I had questions too. Mine were more along the lines of, what happens if my mom can’t get home but my dad’s plane arrives? For how long can a grown woman live under the same roof with her children, spouse, parents and their significant others without power, eating from rationed cans of Stop and Shop tuna fish?

I mentally prepared for Survivor: Extreme Nantucket Family Vacation.

Alas, the storm came and went without much fanfare, as did my mom and Howard. We hugged them goodbye and then prepared for my dad’s arrival.

My mom called me later that night to say that she and Howard had checked on our house as promised on their way back to the city.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” She asked.

Our basement had flooded. This actually turned out to be the good news. The bad news was that, because no one had been home, water had been soaking into the carpeting, couch, and walls for over 48 hours. “I knew it the minute I opened your front door,” she said. The smell of wet, moldy carpet had penetrated the whole house.

Brett immediately went into action, calling our insurance agent from the patio at a local restaurant. Three out of the four of us had a nice dinner, as Brett kept excusing himself from the table to make and take calls. That became the theme of the week, Brett clinging desperately to his last few days of vacation, determined not to fly home to deal with this. He became like that “Can you hear me now?” guy, calling carpet removal companies and contractors from every dune on Nantucket. Hunched over slightly to block the sound of wind, one hand clutching a cell phone as he roamed the beach for a signal: this is how I remember that week with my husband.

Our thinking was simple. Why fly home to deal with the mess when my mother was already there to handle the clean up? Because when it comes to cleaning up (or packing, moving, organizing, filing, or tap-dancing), there is no one better for the task.

(I flatter her now publically in order to thank her once again for dealing with the mess and providing us with peace of mind. Although, I’m not sure how reassuring her calls of “Wow, this really is a disaster!” and “It still smells kind of bad, even with the fans” really were, come to think of it.)

A week later, we arrived home, assessed the damage, and went about renovating. New walls, new carpeting, new paint. Next step: a trip to Ikea for furnishings. We wanted to convey Tween Chic.

Comedian Amy Poehler once said in an interview that ‘Ikea’ is the Swedish word for ‘argument.’ Brett and I heartily agree. The first argument we had was about which Ikea to go to. Brett said no to New Jersey, and I said no to New Haven. We settled on Brooklyn. The next argument was with our children, who wanted to know why we insisted they eat Swedish meatballs at a furniture store and for how much longer we planned on torturing them with sitting on couches in make-believe living rooms. “Do you guys like this one? Or this one?” I asked.

“WE DON’T CARE ANYMORE!” Andrew explained, lying listlessly on the Karlstad.

We had so many decisions to make that we needed a return trip, sans children. A week later, for what reasons I’m not sure, Brett and I headed to New Haven. The argument this time was with a salesperson in the TV storage area, who explained that she was not allowed to help us pick the doors, hinges, legs, handle pulls or inner shelves for our Besta unit. For those of you who are not familiar with the Besta storage unit, there are approximately 427 individual choices one must make in order to build this cabinet, creating over 11,000 combinations on what is essentially just a receptacle for DVDs. The fact that no one helps you with this process, and that the unit comes in a zillion pieces, explains the $400 price tag and my escalating migraine.

But, in the end, it was all worth it. Thanks to Brett’s design sense and my love of shopping, we have achieved a really groovy looking subterranean hangout, if I must say so myself. For the record, others say it too.

“I love this!” My friend Jamie oohed, walking around the room for the first time. “And you said it’s all from Ikea?”

“Yup.”

“But where did you get the couch?”

“Ikea.”

“And this desk?” She caressed its smooth, sleek surface.

“Ikea. Everything is from Ikea.”

“But…this chair…?” Jamie said, sinking into a copy of a mid-century Jacobson piece.

“Eye – Key – A!” I said, starting to laugh. “Everything!”

(Well, except from the decorative pillows and cashmere throw and glass knickknacks from ABC Carpet and Home. A girl has to live.)

“It’s perfect!” She declared.

And it is. It’s cozy and hip and it has lots of seating and a mad awesome flat screen on which I can watch Downton Abbey in peace.

My basement is now a perfect place to weather the next storm.

Pornography for Mommies

Originally posted on the Huffington Post on January 18th.  Read it here or below.

Let me get one thing straight here, oh Moms In Desperate Need of Erotica: I am not joking. This is not about getting hot and bothered by watching your husband clean the kitchen. It’s not even about getting turned on by hiring a sexy electrician to boss around your kitchen.

I have done both of these things in the name of love, but I no longer need to, thanks to E. L. James and her erotic romance novel, 50 Shades of Grey.

I heard about this book from a friend, who spoke in hushed tones over the tops of her children’s heads as we waited in line for tables one Sunday at the local diner. That’s how you know a book is really dirty, by the way, because of the hushed tones. That’s how I found out about Judy Blume and Francine Pascal and V. C. Andrews, the holy trinity of early 1980’s soft porn. Granted, I was 11 at the time, and I didn’t know squat about sex, so I thought reading about it was amazing. I turned down pages where Something Happened (He put his hand into her pants! Shit, he’s her brother!) and re-read them over and over, just enjoying the feelings these words created in me.

“Everyone in Armonk is reading 50 Shades of Grey,” my friend Deena insisted, her hushed tones becoming less hush and more hysterical. “Moms are forgetting to pick up their kids at school! You can’t even get it! It’s sold out at bookstores everywhere!”

Since when are there bookstores everywhere, I wondered? I haven’t seen one for two years. This book is making people cookoo for cocoa puffs. And it’s not like this is the first time erotica has infiltrated the suburbs. What about Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series? Or Blume’s Wifey? Or every Harlequin Romance since the beginning of Fabio?

And, since when is the phrase “everyone in Armonk” an endorsement for anything, except perhaps…Armonk?

So, naturally, after leaving the diner, I downloaded the book on my Kindle and began having virtual sex in under a minute.

(That’s an exaggeration because it doesn’t really get good until 20% in. But after that, the sex doesn’t stop. Sorry about the ridiculous Kindle math – I have no idea what this equals in realtime pages.)

Is the book cheesy and awful? Yes. In order to get to the good stuff, you will have to sit through a British author who sometimes forgets her characters are American (“marquee,” by the way, means “tent”) and who likes her adjectives in triplicate, since the author couldn’t trust us (or herself) to think we could picture the image with only one descriptor. Therefore, Grey’s personal office is “palatial, swanky, sterile,” while the rest of the office space is “cold, clean AND clinical.” (Now that I’ve pointed this out, it’s going to drive you crazy.) And I’ve never read about a character that moves his features quite so much. In one scene alone, Grey’s mouth “quirks up,” “his lips curl in a wry smile,” and “a ghost of a smile touches his lips.” His grey eyes “alight with curiosity” or turn “dark” and “distant” within seconds.

As one would expect from a good romp, there’s a lot of overtly suggestive writing to laugh at. I mean, this guy “cocks his head” five times in the first few scenes of the book. Gee, I wonder what that means? Oh, naturally, that he’ll end up showing us his penis! (Excuse me, I mean his “impressive length.”) Duh. And, for the record, Christian Grey has the longest index finger of any character in the history of literature. It starts out as a “long-fingered” handshake when they meet, but follow it as you read, because eventually, that long finger is literally everywhere. And you will admire him all the more for it.

What is Anastasia doing in this pre-sex dance of theirs? “Squirming uncomfortably under his penetrating gaze,” of course. And tripping, and blushing nonstop. It’s hard not to blush when a man (hot, long-fingered, or otherwise) says, “first I’m going to spank you and then I’m going to have my way with you.” Oh, sorry. Did I give too much away?

Here’s the fun (funny? strange? uncomfortable to admit?) part: when you put the book down, you will actually want to have sex with your husband. Like, a lot.

After 13 years of marriage, it’s a damned revelation.

“Matt’s exhausted,” my friend, Sarah, told me.

“Jim’s excited that there’s a sequel!” another friend said.

“It’s actually a trilogy,” Sarah said, slightly awe-struck. With over 900 pages of E. L. James on our bedside tables, we could all be having sex with our husbands…indefinitely.

“Jeff and I are going away this weekend – should I bring this book?” Amy asked.

“Yes!” We told her.

Yes, I tell you. Yes, and yes, and oh, baby, yes.

Leaving on A Jet Plane?

A note: This article was written by my husband, Brett, as a joke. He emulated my writing style and vented about me the way I always do about him. And then I read it and laughed and decided it was good enough to appear in the newspaper. My editor agreed. Enjoy!

“A.M. or P.M.?” I asked my wife, Julie, as we sipped our morning coffee. It was a lazy Saturday and we were catching up, preparing for the week ahead.

“What do you mean?” she asked. I pointed to the email she had forwarded to me the day before. “According to this itinerary, you are leaving for Miami on Monday night, at 8 PM, not on the 8 AM flight you told me you were taking.”

“WHAT?!” She ran to the computer to verify her mistake and then immediately got on the phone with the airlines. Julie was on the verge of tears. Now, not only was she going to be late for her beloved Saturday morning Spinagogue, but also she wasn’t leaving for her three-day junket until a full day into it. She’d arrive just in time to pick up the tab for the dinner she had just missed. She had no choice but to pay an extra $300 to secure seat 19F on the 6:00 AM nonstop.

Readers of her articles know that Julie prides herself on disorganization and last minute decision-making. Remember, she was “born this way.” But here is the funny thing: she is hyper-organized when it comes to getting out of town. She’s been known to book family-free getaways nine months in advance. This trip to Miami had been in the works ever since her friend Gaby announced last winter that she and her family were moving to Missouri. Before Gaby had even sold her house or packed a single bag for the Midwest, Julie decided that a sympathy sojourn was a necessity, a must-have that would save her friend from a life of utter misery. “We’re going!” she told me, trying her best to make it sound like a request instead of a de-facto conclusion. “We’ll make sure it’s not over a weekend.” She was already logged on to Expedia.com. “The kids will be in school most of the time I am away,” she said, tapping furiously at the keyboard. “It will be easy.”



My wife sleeps in late. Like everyday. She claims she's catching up from her days and nights of breastfeeding. Mind you, that was almost a decade ago. Julie is just not a morning person. In fact, she isn’t an afternoon or evening person either. Brunch and naps are more her style. But at 3:43 Monday morning, Julie was up and about.

Frankly, I was impressed. She proved that she could motor. She awoke without an alarm, dressed, brewed a cup of coffee and jumped in a cab within fifteen minutes flat. I promised not to take this personally. But Zoe did. She awoke at 6:30 and asked, "Did she leave? Already?" And with her big black “Puss in Boots” eyes and her tiny quivering lips, she declared, "It will be okay. We'll be a family again on Wednesday.”

“We’ll be a family no matter how broke or hung-over mommy will be when she returns,” I assured her.

Andrew and Zoe are fairly independent. They are intimately aware of their responsibilities, A-F day schedules, extra curricular activities, pick-ups and drop-offs. So it was a surprise to them that Julie left us two pages of notes to aid our stay-at-home adventure. “It makes mommy feel better.” I noted. “This way, she’ll be able to blame me for anything we didn’t do.”

I am entirely comfortable and capable of taking care of things around our house. Julie affectionately calls me her “house husband,” because shopping, cooking, cleaning, carpooling and generally having things in order keeps me sane. So the hour-by-hour, meal-by-meal breakdown my wife prepared made me chuckle. “Really, the kids eat dinner... every night?”

However, Julie was kind enough to leave several things off the list. Like the fact she had no gas in her car. I guess, in her world, SUVs run on rainbows and butterflies. And there were no instructions on how to comb Andrew's hair so he'd look good for his debut performance at the Fox Meadow Classical Cafe. "Dad, it’s in front of the entire fourth grade, so don't make me look like a dork!"

Julie also neglected to inform me that our cleaning lady was not coming on her regularly scheduled Tuesday, but rather on Wednesday. This happenstance threw the whole ratio of ready-to-wear vs. ready-to-wash smiley face sweatpants out of sync and added a late-night load of laundry to the list, since Zoe only wears one kind of pants these days. Disposing of the now moldy meat lasagna that Julie lovingly made two weeks prior would have to wait too. "Have Maria take care of that." Julie texted.

I couldn't. Nor could I leave the beds unmade on Tuesday. Even though I had an important meeting to get to in the city. The thought of a sink filled with pots, pans, bowls and dishes from Monday night's taco and pasta fiesta made me lightheaded. The least I could do was organize the mess for Maria. Perhaps I could stack things by size and color? I’ve done so before. Instead, I cleaned it all and missed my train. But at least I could think clearly again. 



On Wednesday I was feeling a bit fatigued. And this is how I made a fatal error. I decided that designer cupcakes for the kids would be a just reward for having been exceptionally well behaved while mom was away. The candy-by-the-ton and the Entenmann’s chocolate loaf cake my mother-in-law provided just didn’t spoil them enough. But I forgot about the principle of multiple choices. More choices = more happiness. Rushing home from the city to pick the kids up from school, I didn't leave enough time to find the "right" cupcakes. Instead, I settled for two, fancy we-hate-those-kind-of-cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. In an instant, I went from "you are the best mother-father" to feeling like the dual role was one too many.

Tears flowed as the "I miss mommy" time bomb exploded. My tears. Now, I was on the verge. I had endured the kids’ anxieties and insecurities. Tickled their backs "like mom does" to help them fall asleep. Completed the list and then some. But one $3.50 dark chocolate cupcake brought me to my knees. 



Just then, Julie sent me a text. With emoticons! Sweet relief was on the way home. While my wife had bonded with her best friend, got inspired about her writing and generally enjoyed her three days of freedom, I was here, holding down and decluttering the fort for her inevitable return. Which, by some divine interruption, was delayed, and so Julie waited past midnight for her 47-pound duffle bag to arrive on a separate flight. It too had its own itinerary and up-charge. 



I missed my wife. I really did. Not because I had to fill in for her. Not because I had to supervise the electrician, or pitch in at the elementary school, or car pool for karate, Nutcracker rehearsal and Hebrew school. And not because I had to make beds, brush teeth or bathe babes. I missed her because she wasn't here to laugh at - or with - me. 



I am looking forward to taking a solo trip to Miami someday too. I think I'll take a break from being my wife, by being my wife. 



Brett Gerstenblatt makes frequent appearances as a character in his wife’s humor columns. Currently he is considering starting up a house-husband-for-hire service in Scarsdale.

That's Not Athlete's Foot

I don’t know about your family, but in mine, we like to use sayings. Sayings are efficient. They cut through the specific and hit on the general, thereby making a universal statement that Everyman can relate to. Why say “I thought my life would be better once I bought those new Chloe boots, but now that I have them, I realize they look great but can’t be worn in the rain/snow/weather of any kind,” when you can sigh and mutter, “The grass is always greener.” Right?

In my family, we like to go one step further. We like to actually create these sayings. We capitalize on our unique experiences and turn them into generic catchphrases that we can use over and over again, whenever the…boot fits. So to speak.

After years of safekeeping, I am here to share these maxims with you. Should you find yourself in a predicament and lack the verbiage needed to describe what happened, perhaps my family can come to your rescue.

I’d like to begin with an oldie but a goodie: making meatloaf. This story involves my aunt, JaJa. When JaJa was 22, she was newly married and living in Maryland. Being young, JaJa was a little bit clueless about grocery shopping and cooking. So my grandmother would buy meat at her kosher butcher in Brooklyn and bring it with her on visits. Each package would be clearly labeled as to what the meat was to be used for and how to prepare it. All JaJa had to do then, after her mother went back home, was cook the meals as directed. One night, after JaJa and her husband, David, both came home from work, they looked in the refrigerator and found a package marked “meatloaf.” It was already late, and they were starving. But what choice did they have? JaJa went about making meatloaf.

Now, meatloaf requires a lot of ingredients. Salt, and pepper, and egg, and water, and maybe some onion and breadcrumbs and who knows what else. And then, it requires a good hour and a half in the oven.

At some point as they cleaned the kitchen and watched the timer, David turned to JaJa and asked, “Couldn’t you have just made hamburgers with that ground beef? We would have been done eating by now.”

Have you ever made an elaborate production out of something that really has a basically simple solution? Have you, perhaps, complicated a situation that could have been so straightforward? Then you, my friend, have made meatloaf.

For the record, to this very day, my aunt has an award-winning ability for making meatloaf out of most any situation. Perhaps you, too, have a friend or family member like JaJa.

Next up: That’s not athlete’s foot.

It’s a tragic tale, really, involving my foot and some kind of bumpy, itchy, red rash that was growing on it. I showed the foot to my husband, Brett, who married me in sickness and in health. “What do you think it is?” I asked. He took one look at my toe and left the room.

“Well, I think it’s athlete’s foot!” I called after him. After all, my dad is an ophthalmologist. Because he is a doctor, and because I look a lot like him, I can diagnose almost anything.

I went to CVS and loaded up on fungal foot spray.

I can’t believe I’m telling you this.

Anyway, it didn’t get better, this rash. In fact, it definitely got worse. So much worse that I was having trouble walking. The rash had spread across the bottom of my foot and became angry looking. I caved, and headed to a real doctor.

“I think it’s athlete’s foot,” I told the dermatologist.

He was across the exam room when I took off my shoe and sock, but even from a distance, he could tell. “That’s not athlete’s foot,” he said. He shook his head and told me that, whatever it was or had been, it was now seriously infected. I needed to get on antibiotics stat, and, with a foot like that, I really shouldn’t fly to the Bahamas in three days as planned. (I took half of his advice.)

Now, whenever Brett or I wonder what kind of minor ailment we or our kids have, we smile and say, “I can tell you one thing: that’s not athlete’s foot.”

Last up: The problem is the underpants.

When my son, Andrew, was 3, I sent him to a preschool summer camp that required he be potty trained. He sort of kind of wasn’t. But they didn’t have to know that, did they? I mean, as long as he was out of diapers and wearing underpants, he (and I) met the requirement for attendance.

And it’s not like I hadn’t tried. For the six weeks leading up to the start of this camp, we had been in full-on basic boot camp underpants training. Andrew had gone commando. He had been in lockdown. He had done squats and lifts and jumps on the potty, and then, for good behavior, he had been given M&M’s in the mess hall. Andrew had been a very good little soldier, but still, he was wet.

But I was 9 months pregnant. I just needed Andrew to cooperate.

On the day before I was to be induced with this second child, I got a call from Andrew’s preschool teacher. The message explained that Andrew had peed through his pants, and also through his extra pants, and also – mysteriously – through his shirt. They were able to find him some girl’s pants from the lost and found and a top from the dress up corner, and he was currently enjoying his lunch. But maybe, when I got the message, I could stop by with several more back up changes of clothing.
At the classroom door, I took one look at my son and cracked up. He was wearing green cargo Capri pants that rolled at the bottom and was bare chested, with a red silk vest. With his tanned skin and shaggy hair, Andrew looked just like Aladdin.

I took my prince of thieves home. Over snack that afternoon, we had a heart-to-heart talk about the baby that was arriving the next day and the darned potty, and all the factors that were complicating our lives. “Mommy, I know what the problem is,” Andrew said. “The problem,” he paused, “is the underpants.”

Sage wisdom.

So, whenever the problem turns out to be exactly what it looks like, then your problem, my friend, is the underpants.

The Same Me, Only Better

I want to live on Nantucket. Let me qualify that: part of me wants to live there. The artsy, romantic, writerly side of me is drawn to the moors, and the fog, and the endless views of blue water. This tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts inspires in me a sense of calm, of freedom, of anything-is-possibleness, like no other place in the world. On Nantucket, I would be a better writer, a better mother, a better wife, a better me.

On Nantucket, I would cook, and bake, and goshdarnit, I might even sew. I would grow my own vegetables in a garden I tended to myself and then can those vegetables for the long winter months. I would collect berries and make pies, preserving the leftover fruit as jam, in jars with those cute little fabric tops. I’d give this jam to people as gifts.

I would not watch The Bachelorette on Nantucket.

My weak-ankled children would ice skate, since that’s pretty much all there is to do off-season on Nantucket. Andrew would grow tough and broad, learning to breathe with a huge mouth guard attached to his palette, playing ice hockey and skating backwards. Zoe would join the championship figure skating team in winter, spending her summers surf casting for stripers off Quidnet.

On Nantucket, I would eat striped bass caught by my daughter.

I would fillet it on the beach with my bare hands.

On Nantucket, I would dress more J Crew and less Pamela Robbins. I would choose Sperry Topsiders as footwear in an un-ironic way, because they are practical. Not because they now come in metallic silver and gold. I would wear a bright yellow rain slicker as my every day outerwear, so that someone would notice me in a nor’easter and therefore be able to rescue me if a gale-force wind swept me down Main Street. (The rain jacket I have now is really cute. It’s from Barney’s. It’s like this wheaty-tan color, and has three quarter sleeves and that you can roll up or down, depending on how wet you want your arms to be.)

We’d get a dog, or maybe two. Forget my idea of a toy-sized, hypo-allergenic suburban fluffy puppy with a little “poo” or “doodle” in it (think cockapoo, goldendoodle, schnoodle, cavapoo). What we’d need in the New England wild is a pair of Portuguese water dogs, animals that swim the Atlantic surf with gusto, taking pleasure in long runs on the beach with us.

Speaking of which, I wouldn’t have to seek out opportunities for exercise on Nantucket, because my daily existence would just be so active. I’d bike to the market. (Don’t laugh.) And, even though I’ve never in my life tried this, I’m sure I’d be an excellent paddleboarder. Just for fun, I’d cruise through the marshes and bogs, boarding in Polpis harbor to investigate the native flora and fauna. In fact, I’m sure that I’d get so good at paddleboarding that I’d start taking sunrise yoga classes on a paddleboard, even though I am not a particular fan of a) sunrises or b) yoga.

What would my husband, Brett, do on Nantucket? The question is, what would he not do? He’d paint en plein air, whenever the mood struck and the light was right. He’d just pull over his truck and hop out, grabbing his folding French easel and pastels from under the tarp and dragging them onto the beach grass. He’d surf. He’d create. He’d distil his own vodka. He would not shave. He’d be.

As a pair, we’d certainly be well received, and not just as That Funny Jewish Couple Out In Eel Point. No, we’d have much more to offer the year-rounders than New York shtick.

Immediately, people would notice our keen intellect and diverse talents (I can write my name upside down and backwards, in script; Brett speaks a little bit of Dutch) and we’d be asked to apply our savvy to their Nantucket-specific conundrums. We’d be invited to lecture on someone’s yacht, and neither one of us would vomit. And, in that way, we’d endear ourselves to this community of fisherman and fisherwomen, restaurant owners and shopkeeps, bartenders and raging alcoholics, becoming as intricately woven into the tapestry of the island as cashmere is woven into a $2,000 Nantucket Looms blanket.

“So, why don’t we do it?” Brett asked for the thousandth time. We were enjoying a few beers at Cisco Brewers, while a local musician played guitar, Zoe already his biggest groupie. Andrew was playing lawn games with my father-in-law. The rest of us were inhaling a brick oven pizza made on site. “Why don’t we just move here already?”

“Because,” I said for the thousandth time.

I realize this argument is lacking in strength.

“Now is the time,” Brett pressed. “I’m in between jobs. You can write from anywhere. The kids will adapt. You always say you want to live here.”

Tons of excuses flooded my brain. I’d miss my mom. We love our house. The kids have friends in Scarsdale; I have friends. There’s no Bloomingdale’s on Nantucket. They don’t get the good movies on island fast enough, like that lame, quaint town in Cinema Paradiso. We just paid our temple dues, so we can’t leave for at least another year.

And, while all of that is true, or true enough, it doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. For as much as I like to imagine that my heart belongs to Nantucket, it really beats right here. I grew up in Edgemont; there are still pictures of me in old theater production posters lining the high school hallway. I went to college upstate, moved to the city, and then settled in Scarsdale.

Did I…“settle” by picking a life that is so predictable, so similar to the way in which I grew up? Sometimes I wonder. But each time, I come to the same conclusion. Nope. I chose to live here above all other places, even Nantucket. Although I entered the main office at the Nantucket Middle School once in the late 1990’s and asked if they had any job openings for English teachers, I was relieved when they said no, and I never followed up by submitting an actual application for the following academic years. Instead, I applied to the Scarsdale school district.

Oh, I talk a good game, and I can fantasize with the best of them. But let’s be real here: what’s so great about living on an island with three lighthouses and no traffic lights? Sure, it’s got gorgeous vistas, but what a schlep. I mean, Nantucketers have an entirely different definition for away games at the high school than we do. Think Somers is far? Try Martha’s Vineyard. In January. I can barely make it to rec basketball at Fox Meadow; you think I’m putting Andrew on a plane to Chattam to compete?

And, by December, the gray weather really starts to wear on one’s psyche. As a diversion, there’s only so many sailor’s valentines one can make out of shells before developing a pirate’s accent and a permanent twitch.

“I have the perfect idea,” I said to Brett. “Let’s compromise. Summers on Nantucket, and the rest of the year in Scarsdale.”

“Great. So the solution is to have two houses?”

It makes perfect sense. After all, the same me, only better, already lives in two homes: the real and the imagined. And for a while, anyway, I guess that’s how it will stay.

Born this Way

When my husband, Brett, and I first fell in love, we were really in love. You know what I mean: madly, blindly, passionately, blah, blah, blah. We were probably really annoying to outsiders, so taken with each other were we. We, like, studied each other’s faces and stuff. Remember doing that? Anyway, I lived in Greenwich Village at the time, and Brett and I would walk around the area on weekends, with no plan in mind. Perhaps we’d dip into a café and read all afternoon, or see a great indie flick at the Angelika before grabbing some Thai food and a couple of drinks.

Then we’d go back to my place.

Brett would take one look around my cluttered studio apartment and sigh, instantly sober.

I could almost feel the love being sucked out of him, tainted by 600 square feet of the real me.

Brett would try to make the best of it. He’d gamely step over the piles of my students’ notebooks by the door and try to sit on the couch, which was covered with laundry -- some clean, some dirty -- it was hard to tell which. Or we’d approach my small, glass-topped breakfast table and try to find room to put down the items we had picked up at the farmer’s market that day, to no avail. We’d have to just stand there and hold them. At some point, Brett would make the mistake of entering the kitchen and opening the refrigerator, which would reveal a two-month old pot of chili ripe with mold. And not much else.

I reasoned that if I never turned on the lights, I could keep our romance alive.

But here’s the funny thing about someone with a touch of the OCD going up against someone like me. Brett knew. Even with his eyes closed, he knew. And eventually, he had to confront me about it.

“I can’t stay here anymore!” He declared one Saturday. It was the start of a holiday weekend, and the thought of camping out in my pigsty for the next three days was seriously skeeving him out. He was on the verge of hightailing it back to Brooklyn.

I looked at him, and then I looked around my beloved apartment. It was cluttered, and disorganized, and slightly dusty where it wasn’t mildewy. It was how I had always lived. It was who I am.

If Brett really loved me, he’d accept me for me. I argued my point: I was born this way. Right?

Brett wasn’t buying it. He’d try to imagine a future with me, but it was hidden under piles of mail. That day, he took me by the shoulders and led me into my walk-in closet. “Look at this,” he said. “Your pants and shirts are all mixed together. Nothing is facing the same direction. Your sweaters – those that even made it in here to be folded – need to be arranged by color.”

“Isn’t that only done in boutiques?” I wondered.

Brett shook his head sadly. “I love you. But we are going to change you. We are going to make you Neat.”

And so began my conversion to the clean side.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been clean and neat now for the better part of 15 years. But occasionally, there are periods of decline. There are times when, out of habit or familiarity, or when faced with stress, I just slide back into my old ways.

When I’m writing, my desk is cluttered with multiple drafts of a project. And, for a while there, I had a nice relationship with an entire closet above the garage. I commandeered it as my own little hellhole, but Brett found out about it and now it’s immaculate again.

Last summer, the issue of Gerstenblatt Home Organization (or GHO) was taken to a new level, when I attended a charity event and won a raffle. Someone won a basket of beauty products. Not I. Someone else won a necklace from a local jeweler. Not I. Someone else won free personal training. Not I.

I won a 4-hour session with a home organizer.

Oh, yea. I tried to contain my enthusiasm.

The home organizer was delightful, and fully supportive of my issues. She came to evaluate my home’s areas of need, and we devised a plan to organize my daughter Zoe’s room, using those 4 hours. It was actually fun to work with someone else, and we chatted and listened to music, and threw out half of Zoe’s collections of beads/strings/things with one part missing.

I thought I was done.

But Brett was so happy with how the initial wave of cleaning had gone, that he signed up the home organizer for a bigger project: the kitchen. Operation GHO was officially underway.

It was quickly determined that I had several organizational obstacles to tackle in the kitchen. One, I am apparently a hoarder of little slips of paper. This was driving the home organizer crazy. “Here’s one!” she’d chirp, handing me a crumpled tiny list of grocery items. “And another!”

The organizer suggested that I use one larger spiral notebook for all my lists and keep it centrally located by the phone and small kitchen desk.

But, you see, I enjoy my little pieces of paper. Some of them are purple post-its shaped like tulips, and some are polka-dot paper from a pad, and others are the backs of envelopes. There’s always an element of surprise and whimsy to my lists! It’s fun, as long as I remember where I put them.

But, then, as a concession to the modern age, and as a way to try and re-organize, I started to make lists using an app on my iPhone. That is a pain in the neck, people. Seriously. What’s wrong with writing lists on little slips of paper? Don’t tell the home organizer this, but I am back to my scraps and I LOVE THEM.

She then recommended that I get some folders and label them with a label maker. Love the label maker. I could type and print out labels all day! But using these labels to help keep me organized? Not so much. It turns out that just because a folder is marked “To Do” doesn’t mean I Does.

At the end of the process with the GHO plan, I was exhausted from having to be so neat all the time. I began to see my husband in a new light. Maybe Brett is the one with the problem, not me, I reasoned. Maybe his need to have the couch pillows perfectly lined up like soldiers before retreating to bed is not normal and my desire to let them remain nicely indented with the shape of one’s butt is normal.

Maybe, all this time, I have been putting up with his nuttiness, and not the other way around!

But I love him – obsessive/compulsive habits and all -- and indulge him in his organizational neediness, knowing he can’t help it.

He was born this way.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

I’m off to another charity benefit. Want to join me?

Here’s the deal. It’s a Saturday night. I’ve blown my hair dry so that it looks almost as shiny and straight as the locks of my friends who have had Keratin or Brazilian blow out treatments. I remind myself that I should just get a salon blow dry for “special” nights out and then feel ridiculous for caring so much about my hair.

I deliberate what to wear and end up in something black. Black with Spanx.

Next, I apply mascara and eye liner, which I find irritating, and so, by the time the babysitter and the pizza arrive, it looks like I have been crying and/or have a black eye.

I notice that it’s cold outside. And so very, very dark for only 6:00.

I contemplate putting on my robe and Ugg slippers and climbing into bed with my Kindle.

But, no! The Cause needs me!

The Cause needs my husband, Brett! (Actually, the Cause definitely does not need Brett. But more about that later.)

Zoom ahead an hour or so. I’m out with my friends. I’ve had a few glasses of wine by now and have stuffed several unsatisfyingly small hors d’ouvers into my mouth. Although I participate in the buzz and hum of conversation around me, I am actually a vulture, continuously scanning the room for the next tray of bite-sized morsels to emerge from the kitchen. When I see a jacketed waiter come near, I pounce like a grown-up barbarian version of Cookie Monster, loading up on tiny tuna tartare. I eat and eat, but no matter how many trays I accost, I’m still starving.

Once I’ve made the rounds and said hello to most of the Important People at the event, it’s time to get down to business. It’s time to bid on the silent auction items. Or, as I like to say, it’s time to shop competitively for the Cause.

The world disappears as I scan the items up for sale and imagine how much I need them. Before this evening, indeed, right up until this very moment, I didn’t know I needed these things. But now, I do. I very much do. Like, for example, the two-hour DJ party, complete with mirrorball. I need that. And, then there’s the catered dinner for 10, for which a chef comes into your home and cooks a gourmet meal in your kitchen and then serves it to you and your friends in your own dining room. I scan the room and decide which couples I’d invite, were I to win this item tonight. Then I scribble my assigned bidding number under some others, upping the big by $50, because, who wouldn’t want to win that? And donate the money to charity? I leave my post for a moment to tell everyone the good news: I’m bidding on a party – for us! With a catered dinner and a DJ! Everyone agrees: I’m awesome. I must win, win, win.

But I’ve only seen, like, half the items. I quickly forego more socializing to return to the Cause, pen in hand. There’s a session with a photographer, and I think, when was the last time I had professional pictures taken of my kids? And since the answer is “before Zoe was born,” I scribble my number there too. I mean, I’m quite delinquent as a mother to not have professional photos of both of my offspring, right?

Oooo. A wine tasting. That would go nicely with the DJ and the dinner party.

Then there are several items that fall into the “Duh” category, as in “Duh, you’d be stupid not to bid on me since you use me anyway.” Camp tuition, gift certificates to local merchants, and Soul Cycle classes, for example. Sign me up.

Once I’ve gone the full length of the tables and made my interests known, it’s time to start looping back and checking on the status of my bids. I play a little game with bidder number 37, clearly another spinning fanatic, as we dance the Tango of the bidding war. I add $20, she adds $20. I add $20 more, she pulls a bold move an adds $40. I am on the verge of being outbid, and eventually, I am. I concede defeat. Which is fine. You win some, you lose some.

I mean, it’s fine as long as I win the DJ, that is.

My friend Sloan wants me to win the DJ too. She has an inventive strategy. “I’m going to just sit on the bidding sheet, so no one sees it,” she says, plunking her butt down on the table.

“Move on, people, there’s nothing to see here,” she tells the crowd. Crossing one leg over the other, Sloan’s black stiletto booties dare anyone to get too close to my DJ.

Eventually, the evening ends, and I collect the spoils of my war for the Cause.

“Look!” I enthuse to Brett at the end of the evening. “We won some great stuff!”

My husband is not impressed.

“We didn’t need any of it.” He says. Always so reasonable. Always so practical. “Plus, did you check the dates on any of these things?”

“No.” I say, rolling my eyes. “It’s for charity.” My husband is such a buzzkill.

But then I sneak a peek at my items when Brett isn’t looking. I discover that the DJ party is only good on weekdays and expires in March, which means I have to use it in the winter. Which means indoors. Oh well, I think, I’ll move the couch. And the coffee table. And the rug.

Only, where will I move these things to? And, if I don’t have a couch, where will people sit when they are not dancing under my new mirrorball?

Then again, maybe there will be no people sitting or dancing since I’ll be having my party on a Tuesday in January and who wants to attend something awful like that?

Luckily, the DJ company goes out of business the following week and I don’t have to worry about the party specifics at all.

Other flaws with my “winning” items reveal themselves more slowly. I do have the dinner party for 10, only the hot soup is served lukewarm and the chewy steak even lukewarmier. The wine tasting is fun. Just ask the sommelier who came with the prize; he’s so wasted that I can’t get him to stop a) talking incoherently and b) chugging all my best bottles.

The photo session goes well, but when it comes time to view the shots, the company will only show us 20 of the estimated 3000 images taken. Brett, a designer, would like to view them all. The photography salesman tells us he’s sorry, but that’s just not possible since they deleted them. I quickly usher my kids out the door as Daddy Talks with Angry Language and a Loud Voice to the manager of the photography studio.

The only picture I have from that experience is the last image of Brett on that day, frozen permanently in my mind’s eye.

“No more bidding,” he huffs, getting into the car and buckling his seat with more hostility than necessary. “Promise me. Ever. On anything.”

And just like that, I am done.

Like Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield’s ear, I have gone too far for my Cause. And now, due to my enthusiasm, I have paid the price. I have been kicked out, banned from fighting the good fight, never again allowed to participate in a sport I love.

Good thing there are other ways to support my favorite causes. Like online pledging. And bake sales. And holiday boutiques.
What? That’s totally different than bidding at an auction. Just ask Brett.

(Or better yet: don’t.)

The Girl Who Played with Fire

“I don’t know how this could have happened,” I sighed.

“Strange,” my husband, Brett, agreed.

“A mystery.”

We were holding between us my relatively new, not inexpensive Bottega Veneta pocketbook. A large, neat gash stared back at us. The leather across the handle had apparently ripped, or perhaps been cut. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what had caused this. Had I been walking near scissors? Did I recall being yanked by my pocketbook down the streets of town?

I had only worn it a few times, and already, it would need to be repaired. The bag was bumming me out.

“This is why you shouldn’t buy ridiculous pocketbooks,” Brett said, blaming me for the damage while simultaneously reminding me that I spend too much money on frivolous items, thereby scoring two points for the Husbands of Scarsdale.

I may have given him the finger.

This move only gives us Wives a bonus point if we make it to overtime.

I brought the bag to Bottega and was told that repairs would cost $65 and take about 6 weeks to complete. I returned from my day in the city even deeper in bummage and with some interesting news for Brett. “The repair department at Bottega says that it looks like my pocketbook was burned.”

“Burned?” He asked.

“That’s what I just said.”

We eventually dropped it, moving on to other exciting topics like who was driving to Little League and whether or not the mozzarella had spoiled. (You smell it/I’m not smelling it/let’s have the kids smell it/just toss it.)

At some point during the evening viewing of CNN, Brett snapped his fingers at me. “I’ve got it!”

“What?”

“The pocketbook. You burned it.”

“I did, huh?”

“Yes!” He said, triumphant.

“Okay, Sherlock, let’s hear it.”

Brett explained his theory. “It happened during your high school reunion.”

I immediately rolled my eyes. Since the event, Brett liked to blame anything and everything on my high school reunion. I’m spending too much time on Facebook – because of the reunion. I talk hypothetically about wanting Botox and Restyalne (and a boob job and a tummy tuck and some lipo) – blame it on the reunion. So, naturally, my Italian woven leather premium designer handbag is burned, and who’s to blame? The Edgemont High School Class of 1988.

“Seriously!” He said.

“How?”

“From your cigarette.”

Well. He may have had a point there.

In fact, he may have scored two points for the Husbands by simultaneously solving the mystery while making me feel bad for smoking.

It was almost a case closed moment.

Almost.

But. Just as Brett was about to gloat big time, I stood up and grabbed another pocketbook from the front hall. Throwing it over my right arm, I reconstructed the moment.

“Okay, let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that I was smoking a cigarette that night.”

“And by ‘a’ do you mean four?”

“And that, since I’m right-handed, my bag was perched over my right shoulder and my cigarette was in my right hand. Agreed?”

“Agreed, council.” Brett nodded.

“So, in that case, it is virtually impossible for me to burn my own pocketbook with my own cigarette because I’d have to be going like this –“ I demonstrated the way one would have to stand with elbow bent up over her own shoulder – “and I would never stand like that! It’s unnatural, I tell you, unnatural!”

Brett’s silence proved me right.

He scratched his head and reconsidered. “It was someone smoking near you then, gesturing with a cigarette in hand.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “We can blame Todd Ross, if you’d like.”

“Your first kiss?”

“Yes.”

“The guy who crashed his dad’s Porsche into a stone pillar outside the high school?”

“Yes.”

“Good. He did it.”

Case closed.

Almost.

Months went by and my pocketbook was returned to me. The saleswoman at Bottega apologized; the leather repair guru, who has been in the business for 40 plus years, had never seen anything like this and had only been able to do So Much to help.

Damn you, Todd Ross, I chanted.

Now my authentic bag, with a huge patch of stiff leather on the handle, looked like a fake. I went home and hung it on a doorknob in my kitchen, studying it in the light, wondering if I’d ever feel the same way about it again.

A few weeks later, my kids and I came home from school and smelled something funny in the kitchen and office. Like gas, like oil, like fire.

It was a familiar odor, one that had plagued me about a year before, on another warm day like this one. Back then, I had immediately evacuated the house and called the fire department.

Two trucks had showed up while my kids jumped up and down in a combination of fear and excitement that can only come about when you are 8 and 5 and your house probably won’t blow up, although maybe it will.

The firemen had been very patient and thorough, listening to me describe the smells and symptoms that they could not detect at all with either their noses or their gadgets.

“Right here,” I kept saying, “between the kitchen and the office door. There is an oily smell trapped right here.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” they kept saying, “your house is just fine.”

Not that they were sorry that my house was fine. You know what I mean.

So, this time, with the same stench filling my nostrils, I wasn’t going to panic. I took the kids to their afternoon activities and decided that, should the smell still be there when we returned, I’d call the fire department immediately.

When we returned, the smell was gone.

That night, I debriefed with Brett over dinner in the kitchen.

“The smell was right here?” He asked, moving towards the door to the office.

“Yes.” I nodded. “And it’s the same smell that had me calling the fire department last summer.”

“Right here, where your pocketbook is hanging, you mean?” He asked. “In the heat of the day?”

“Yes, right where my pocketbook ---“ I said.

Dear reader, do I need to finish this sentence? Do I need to tell you that, in order to be fashionable, we had installed clear glass doorknobs throughout the house, and that, when light hits those doorknobs it will create a burning lens that will concentrate the sun’s rays onto any flammable object in it’s path – let’s just say a fine, Italian leather pocketbook strap – thus resulting in the conflagration of that object, like a leaf under a magnifying glass?

In other words, my Bottega was on fire.

Again.

Well, it wasn’t anymore.

Brett lifted the pocketbook and we inspected it together. Sure enough, there was a new tear, in the same exact spot as the old one, just like a burn mark one might get from a cigarette, only much bigger.

“I’m not sure how long this will take to fix, or how much repairs will cost,” the young saleswoman at the counter of the Bottega store said.

“That’s okay, I do.” I said. “You want to hear a funny story? Twice?”

I hope this tale brings some sort of meaning to your life, as it did mine. Should you be on the verge of buying an expensive accessory, you may stop and reconsider. Should your husband be on the verge of blaming you for something you did at your high school reunion, he may stop and reconsider. And last, but certainly not least, please stop and reconsider my lovely Bottega the next time you see me in town. It is a damaged old bag, carrying stories of pain and redemption, but really, aren’t we all?

Silence of the Iberian Ham

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about two Type A–ish people (namely me and my husband, Brett,) traveling abroad and trying to strike the perfect balance between hitting all the major sites and just chillaxing with the natives. This second option is not always easy for us to do and is something we call “living among the Romans.” (If you want to know why, read the first article, entitled “When in Rome.” You can find it, and all of my other articles, archived at http://julie-ontheverge.blogspot.com. Shameless plug. But if you are reading this online, you've already gotten there!)

So, I’m going to pick up where I left off. Brett and I had been in the lovely city of Barcelona for four days now, and still we had not really dined among the Spanish. We had eaten some nice meals, yes, but always with the sense that everyone around us was also a tourist, brought to the same destination as recommended by a similar guidebook, reading off an English menu and relaying their orders to English-speaking waiters.

But not this night, oh no. This night would be different! By declaring it with an exclamation point, we felt that the statement just had to be true! This night, the guidebook would not be consulted. The hotel concierge would be blown off. Brett and I were going rogue. We were dining on a hunch, determined to infiltrate the real Barcelona, the one that the Spanish didn’t tell the Americans about.

Because, by day four, we had this sinking suspicion that the Spanish were, in fact, keeping stuff hidden from us. Maybe there was this “official” list of great restaurants that the board of tourism was releasing to the rest of the world, and then, maybe there was this special list for Spaniards to enjoy in peace.

Or maybe, just maybe, we were completely paranoid and delusional.

In either case, we were off to dinner.

Cuines Santa-Caterina, in the Born district of Barcelona, was our destination. Right away, we loved it. We were greeted in Catalan, seated in the cool, open-market space, and handed menus in Catalan.

Now that’s more like it, Brett and I agreed, high-fiving each other like the lame Americans we are. We consulted our menus greedily. It didn’t matter that we couldn’t read a word. It all looked so yummy.

Our waiter came over and stared to speak to us in Catalan. We nodded and tried our best with broken Castilian Spanish to make it clear that we had no idea what he was saying. I consulted the wine list. Pinto or Rosado, I wondered? Which was the red wine? Must be Rosado. Tinto, I concluded, would be white. Yes. Based on my own limited knowledge of Spanish wines, I then ordered a bottle of somethingorother from the list. The waiter paused, unsure of my order. Then he smiled and made grand hand gestures; we smiled and pantomimed back. Satisfied by something I showed him from the menu, he scribbled on his pad and walked away.

Wow, that was challenging! I sighed, letting some of the tension from that exchange leave my body. This was not going to be easy, Brett and I agreed, but the experience would be well worth it in the end. Of that, we were certain. We gave each other the thrums up signal, like the lame Americans we are.

Our waiter approached and, before I could find any words in any language with which to object, opened for us the bottle of pink wine that I had apparently ordered.

“You ordered rosé?” Brett barked.

“Uhm?” I answered. “I guess?”

“But we don’t drink rosé!” He reminded me, a little too harshly, I thought.

“Well, tonight we do!” I said, smiling nervously at the waiter who now sensed our international trouble in paradise. (It doesn’t matter the language, you call tell when a married couple is not getting along, si?)

I took a taste and nodded to the waiter. “Bene.” The waiter bowed and left.

I was so freaked out I had stared speaking Italian.

“It’s not bad,” I said, trying another sip.

“Whatever. Let’s just order,” Brett said.

Three times our waiter approached and three times we sent him away. “Not yet,” I said. “Uno minuto mas.” There. That sounded more like Spanish.

Back to the menu we went. Since the menu was divided by both region (Mediterranean, Asian) and food type (vegetables, meat, fish, rice), some of it was easier to read than others. Gyoza and ebi maki, for example. Other words jumped out at me at random, like “foie,” “calamari,” and “pimientos,” but not one dish in total was translatable. “Hamburguesa amb salsa de bolets” meant that I’d be presented with a hamburger with some kind of salsa on it, right? But exactly what was that salsa going to be? There was just no way to know. And, further, what was this Fideua, sitting there all by itself under the charcoal-oven/pasta categories?

Brett and I were starving in a fine dining establishment, incapable of ordering a meal.

Our waiter sensed this and swapped himself out for an English-speaking waitress. The phrase “Hello, may I help you?” never sounded so pretty as it did that evening.

Our new waitress started to help us translate the menu line-by-line. Then, in mid-sentence, she paused. “Wait. You don’t have English menus?”

“”You have those?” Brett asked. “Great! Bring ‘em on!”

Within five minutes of receiving them, we ordered our meal and relaxed. We were getting a few different tapas and the Oven-roasted Iberian Pork for two. My goal was to eat pork with every meal while in Spain, and so far, I had managed this feat quite easily.

“Do you think that’s enough?” I asked the waitress.

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, yes!” But she didn’t elaborate.

“Perfect.” For the heck of it, I even ordered us a half-bottle of real red wine.

Oh, how quickly we had returned to out natural state as helpless American tourists! And how happy we were about it.

The apps were nice, the red wine red, the crowd Spanish. We were digging Santa Caterina.

The waitress came by and gave us a lovely dish that we were sure we hadn’t ordered, of matchstick fries and new potatoes with two dipping sauces. We inquired. “Oh, yes, that’s yours. It comes with the pork.” Then she started pushing items aside on our table to make room for the main course.

Drumroll, please.

From the kitchen emerged a sizzling cast-iron tray of substantial proportions. The entire restaurant – noisy, crowded, high-ceilinged – fell silent in the presence of this dish. There was a collective intake of breath as the Oven-roasted Iberian Pork for two was brought the length of the restaurant and then laid before us.

Imagine a pig, and then cut it in half. Then imagine all the ribs on one side of that pig, seasoned to perfection and broiling in pinkish brown loveliness right under your nose.

It was simultaneously the most glorious and most repulsive thing I have ever laid eyes on, much less consumed.

Brett raised his eyebrows and grabbed a fork. I watched as he sunk the tines through the crackling skin and then pulled away a tender, moist bit. He kept pulling, until a nice pile of bite-sized morsels lay in front of us.

“Well done, Clarisse,” I said, trying to sound like Hannibal Lecter. “You have silenced the Iberian Ham.”

People were staring. We didn’t care. People were whispering, pointing. We didn’t care. We had found our way into the core of Spanish culture, and we loved eating its heart out.

When in Rome

Nine summers ago, my husband Brett and I traveled through Italy with my brother and some friends. For the second and third weeks of this 3-week trip, my friend Lisa and her husband, Jon, joined us. They arrived, unpacked, and promptly slept off their jetlag. Then they slept some more.

By the third morning of what we viewed as our friends’ complete lack of get-up-and-go-ness, Brett and I started to get anxious. We sipped our cappuccinos and examined our watches from the courtyard below their room. Time was a-wasting, and there were ruins to see! According to Frommer’s, there were at least 17 churches to visit, several important, historical walking tours to amble, and a whole lot of pasta to consume. There was no time to vacation on this vacation…didn’t they understand that?

“Holy Ceasar, get the heck out of bed!” We would groan under our breaths. And then we would scribble a note for them and slink off to do our own touring.

On day four, we made a group decision to rally en masse, and we headed toward the Vatican. The pope was addressing the public; we could watch him glide by in his Popemobile and bless us in several languages. It didn’t seem to matter that we were Jewish in the face of so much Catholicism. When in Rome, Brett and I decided, best to just go with it and meet the Pope. After all, the guidebook recommended it highly, rating the activity with a full star!

As the group of us stood in St Peter’s Square that morning, Lisa and Jon made a decision. They were blowing off the Papal address. Nor were not going to see the Sistine Chapel with us afterwards.

“But…what are you going to do, then?” We asked, guidebooks in hand, mouths agape.

“Live among the Romans, I guess,” they shrugged. And then they disappeared behind some columns, Michelangelo-less.

Lisa and Jon returned to our villa that evening with stories of cafes and bicycle rides, markets and more markets. I had images of them cruising down stone alleyways, honking the horns on their bikes a la Life is Beautiful, or splashing each other with water from the Trevi Fountain in Dolce Vita-filled bliss.

Then they cooked a glorious dinner with fresh, local ingredients. Several bottles of Chianti were consumed.

There was something to this notion of living among the Romans, Brett and I later determined, though we were still not ready to give up our Frommer’s. But the catchphrase and its meaning took hold in us over the years. Indeed, whenever we found ourselves enmeshed in a culture and its ways, we would recall it, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Visiting cheesy waterparks on the Jersey Shore? Brett and I call that “living among the Romans.” Eating clam cakes and “milk chowdah” in Narragansett, Rhode Island? Doing what the natives do; simply living among the Romans.

Which brings me to Barcelona.

Brett and I had the great fortune of visiting this lovely city a few weeks ago, in celebration of both my upcoming 40th birthday and the completion of my doctorate. We went in full-on Julie and Brett style, with guidebooks in hand, articles cut from recent magazines (with sections underlined and highlighted), and inside info from Gwenyth Paltrow’s website, Goop. We had a Master Plan, a day-by-day itinerary.

We gorged ourselves on Gaudi, poured over Picasso, and marveled over Miro. We followed every guidebook suggestion about where to eat, and were “rewarded” for this by being seated next to Americans and British at every meal. Everyone around us was reading off of an English menu and ordering the same three items.

It was a little bit depressing, truth be told. I mean, I had come to Spain to, you know, see the sights. But hadn’t I also come to see Spanish people…doing their Spanish people stuff? What was that, exactly? The guidebooks just didn’t say.

One event on our list of “musts” was to dine at a tapas bar called Inopia. On her website, Gwenyth writes that she would “fly al the way to Barcelona just to eat” here. That endorsement would have been enough, but Inopia also comes with major kudos from Frommer’s, from my friend Debbie, and also from a recent magazine article. So, getting into the spirit of Barcelona, we headed out for a late dinner, arriving at 10 pm.

Just before the taxi pulled up to the restaurant, I noticed a woman desperately trying to flag down our cab. Her arms were waving madly and she was jumping up and down in her platform sandals, three companions by her side. At that moment, I had this weird vision. For one, I knew that she was an American tourist, like me. I just sensed it in my bones, in that “I see dead people” kind of way. Also, I knew that she was in this section of town just to dine at Inopia, probably hearing about it as I had from several sources. Plus, I imagined that she had bought those white skinny jeans she was now hoping up and down in at Scoop in New York City, in anticipation of this upcoming trip to Barcelona. And that, further, she had totally planned the night’s ensemble imagining herself eating the world’s best patatas bravas while showing off her trendy look.

What concerned me was the apparent distress accompanying this woman’s whole look. Hadn’t she just eaten a great meal? Why was she so hell-bent on getting into my cab? But there wasn’t time to answer these questions. She and her friends faded into the darkness as our cab sped past them and stopped on the next block.

I shrugged off my disquieting vision and hopped out in front of Inopia, where couples stood waiting. While Brett paid the taxi driver, I approached a man taking names and asked how long the wait would be. We were prepared to wait in line for perhaps an hour just to get in the door. What we weren’t prepared for was being told that no more names were being taken for dinner that night.

“You mean…I can’t eat here? At all?” I gasped.

“No. Not tonight.” The host replied.

“Brett!” I screamed. “Hold that cab!”

“Huh?” He asked, standing in the spot left by the cab exactly half a second before.

Explatives flew as I explained out current state. It was 10 pm, we were stuck on a secluded street in a nowheresville section of Barcelona, and we would not be eating Gwenyth Paltrow’s favorite tapas! We were f*&%ed.

Just like that Scoop woman, I now understood.

I was on the verge of tears. Brett approached the host and spoke quietly with him.

He returned a moment later and took my arm. “This way,” he said, leading me away from the famed restaurant.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, not too kindly.

“Well, I asked the guy who is not taking names where he would eat right now, and he told me about a place he likes. Two blocks up, make a right.”

“You mean…we’re going to…live among the Romans!?” I laughed, the tension created by the scene outside Inopia leaving my body.

“Looks that way,” Brett smiled back.

And so, we found our way to La Clara, a lovely little spot for tapas. We sat at the bar, ordered the ubiquitous tortilla, some cheeses, and yes, the patatas bravas, and had a nice, relaxing meal together, doing as the Spanish do.

A few nights later, we dined with the afore-mentioned friend Debbie at Michelin-star rated Cinc Sentits, and relayed our story about the failed attempt at Inopia.

“La Clara?” She responded. “That’s supposed to be great. They were reviewed quite favorably in The New York Times, in the same article as Inopia.”

Please insert your eye roll here.

Funny that a comment indented to make me feel better should actually have the opposite effect.

Were Brett and I ever truly able to live among the Romans in Spain?

Tune in to my next article and find out.

Life Cycle

I am not much of an athlete. I’ve thought long and hard about why this is, and I’ve narrowed it down to two factors. For one, I lack depth perception. And, for two, I’m a little bit lazy when it comes to physical activity.

As you know, it takes all types of people to make the world spin. There are people who can run around on a field, kick balls or throw passes, and then score goals. Then there are those who can cheer for these people from the safety of a warm bench on the sidelines, sipping hot apple cider under a plaid blanket and looking cute. There are those who can maneuver not only their bodies, but a lacrosse stick as well -- simultaneously! -- and those who can write about them for the local newspaper.

Some people get a healthy glow about them during exercise, while others turn an unnatural shade of purple.

Some can work on a dissertation for ten years, and others can ride a bike.

Guess which one is me.

The first (and only) time that my husband, Brett, took me bicycle riding was on Nantucket. I assured him that I sucked at riding, but he would not be swayed.

Our relationship was relatively new. Dear Brett still believed that anything with me was possible, if only he loved me enough.

“Brett, I suck at this.” I said for the umpteenth time, securing my helmet and walking the rental bike down a dirt path near our cottage.

“It just takes confidence, and practice. You’ll see how easy it is. Your only problem is that you’ve never biked with me before. I’ll be encouraging and supportive.”

“Can’t you be encouraging and supportive about my desire to read four books while sitting under an umbrella on Cisco? In return, I’ll be super encouraging and let you go on a solitary bike ride to Madaket if you want. Heck, go all the way to ‘Sconset! Just let me be.”

He shook his head no. “Three miles. Straight, flat road. From here to Bartlett Farm and back. Easy as pie.”

“Pie! Can we stop and eat pie at Bartlett Farm before heading back?”

“Sure.”

“Mixed berry?”

“Whatever you want.”

I took a moment to deliberate. I was the verge of tasting those freshly picked purple berries as they oozed out from under a crumbly crust. I was also, possibly, on the verge of actually breaking a sweat.

This was a tough call. But there was to be pie. “Okay, I’m in.” I smiled.

We hit the road. This isn’t so bad after all, I thought, biking in front of Brett so that he could keep an eye on me. We had gone about a half a mile and I was starting to like it. A car passed by. Then another. Then several more.

“Stop!” Brett called. There was panic in his tone. “Julie! Stop right now!”

It took me a moment to remember how to brake. I stepped off the bike and turned around. “What happened?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

“Me!?” Brett guffawed. “Me!?”

“What? Me? I was just biking.”

“You swerve into traffic every time a car passes by! It’s like you’re drawn to the cars, by some sick magnetic pull.”

“Oh, yeah, that.” I shrugged. “It’s from my lack of depth perception. You see, I can’t really tell where the road is, where the car is, and where I am.” I used sophisticated hand gestures to illustrate my point.

“But, you’re going to get hit by a car!”

“No kidding! I told you I couldn’t ride a bike.” I put my hands on my hips, striking the classic “I-told-you-so” stance.

“I thought you meant that you couldn’t handle the riding part of riding a bike. Not the oncoming traffic part.”

“Nope. I can ride a bike perfectly well, if only I could do so in a bubble. Like on a bike that never moves.”

“A bike to nowhere.” Brett added.

“Exactly!” I agreed. “A bike to nowhere would be perfect for me.”

And that’s how I fell in love with spinning.

Spinning – riding a stationary bike to nowhere – is my sport. It requires hardly any hand-eye coordination, occurs in a climate-controlled environment, and is accompanied by loud pop music. Most importantly, there is very little chance of ever getting hit by a car while spinning. Need I say more?

My only problem is that I often walk away from a spin class feeling a little disappointed by some aspect of it. The music was annoying, or the teacher wasn’t that great, or the guy next to me smelled bad. Not long ago, I encountered a trifecta, with the convergence of 80’s heavy metal, an obnoxious teacher singing along to the heavy metal, and the slowest, sweatiest, smelliest person in the continental US just to my right. I endured it for 45 minutes, but I never went back.

Alternatively, sometimes spin class is just plain boring.

Enter Soul Cycle, the newly-opened spinning studio above the newish CVS, located at the corner of Popham and Depot roads. Soul Cycle has been popular in NYC for years now, which means that, as a complete suburbanite, I’m only learning about it now. The studio has been opened for about a month here and it already has devoted, obsessed followers. You know the type: people who sign up online for their favorite bike and/or instructor days in advance. Slightly intimidating, well-attired individuals clad head to toe in Lululemon spandex. People who are already really, really fit.

If there is one thing I will never be, it is obsessed with exercise. But I will say that I am really digging this workout. It’s crazy and intense and anything but boring. Plus, some of the instructors are a little bit insane. And I mean that in a totally good way! Great spin teachers need to be endorphin junkies in order to set the tone and pace for the rest of us. They need to dance around a bit, play interesting music, and show some personality. Soul cycle instructors inspire and motivate me, even as I sit on the bike and wonder if my legs will ever move as fast as theirs. (The answer to that is no.)

By the end of the 45 minutes, the room is so steamy, it appears to be raining inside. Indeed, some individuals are so sweaty, they look like they have been rained on. (Pretty image, isn’t it? The ambient candles around the room have kept the space looking and smelling relatively fresh, though.)

On my way out of the studio, I wipe some condensation from the fogged mirrors lining one wall and examine my appearance. My skin is bright purple, as expected, but I don’t care. I’m smiling, and exhausted.

After 39 years, I’ve found my so-called sport. It may not be social, like tennis. But it’s an exercise I love and it’s something I can honestly say I don’t suck at.

So, the next time you take your real bicycle out on the Bronx River Parkway, give a little wave in my direction. I’m up there, in the spin studio, happily pedaling as fast as I can to nowhere.

Grow Old With Me

Do you remember where you were for New Year’s Eve, Y2K? Then good for you! Maybe you could help me remember where I was that evening. Because a whole decade has passed in the interim, and suddenly, my memory is not what it used to be.

In order to find out the answer to my Y2K mystery, I turned to my slightly younger and therefore perhaps more sharp-witted husband, Brett. He was of no help.

“Was that the year we went to San Francisco?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” he shrugged, returning to his newspaper. It was the morning of December 31st and I was recalling New Year’s Eves of yore.

“We saw Titanic out there. Was Titanic released in 1999?”

“Don’t know,” Brett shrugged. “Perhaps.”

I quickly went over the computer and checked on imdb.com. “No, Titanic came out in 1997.”

“Huh.” Brett replied. “Interesting.”

“Fine. You don’t care.”

“Not really, no.” Then he looked up from the paper and smiled reassuringly. “We were probably at Jodi and Evan’s, like we are every year.”

“Impossible. We didn’t even meet them until New Year’s of 2000.”

“Oh. Well then, there goes that theory.”

“I think I’m losing my mind.” I challenged, my voice rising slightly. “You don’t care that I’m losing my mind!” You see, I just finished reading Still Alice and now fight off troublesome thoughts of early-onset Alzheimer’s whenever I cannot recall a chunk of my own life’s information or when the words I need hover just beyond my mind’s reach.

Brett put down the paper and came around the kitchen island to give me a hug. “You’re not losing your mind, Julie. You’re just turning 40.”

Well.

There you have it.

2010 is the year I turn 40, everyone. I’m coming out. Loud and proud. And somewhat stunned.

“How did this happen to me?” My 97-year old grandmother asked me recently, staring into my wrinkled eyes with her own wrinkled eyes. “How did I become someone with a 40-year-old granddaughter?”

“I like totally don’t know, Nanny!”

Could time just slow down already? It was scaring my poor old grandmother.

Looking back, there were some neon yellow signs along the road of life telling me that I might be more than just older than I was last year. These were signs that I might actually be aging. This last year of the decade, the one that signified my upcoming movement from my late thirties into my early 40’s, was particularly telling.

It began with a phone call to my father last spring. He’s an ophthalmologist who always tells me not to worry when I call to describe an ailment – any and all ailments -- to him. Like, “Dad, my elbow hurts when I bend it.” His response? You guessed it: “Then don’t bend it.” Other treatments of his include ice packs, cold compresses, sleep, and time. As in, “just give it some time. You’ll be fine.” In short, he’s not an alarmist. So, when I realized that in order to write articles on my computer and actually see the words written on the screen, I had to squint or use 18-point font, I called my dad for some reassurance.

“I can’t see,” I told him.

He required clarification of my sweeping overgeneralization. “You mean, you can’t see where? When you drive at night at try to read street signs?” He asked.

“Yup. Can’t see.”

“How about when you look at the computer?”

“Can’t see.”

“What about reading a book or magazine?”

“Can’t see, can’t see, can’t see!”

“So come into my office and I’ll examine your eyes. And, Jules, do everyone a favor and take the train, please!”

And that’s how I ended up with one set of progressive lenses and umpteen pairs of reading glasses. I never really adjusted to reading with the progressives, you see, so now I have a pair of colorful reading glasses in every room in the house and in every pocketbook I carry.

I’m one of those ladies now. One of those, “Wait, just let me get out my glasses…I know they are in here somewhere…oh, where oh where did I leave them…ah!” ladies. When I saw the Meryl Streep movie “It’s Complicated” last week, I laughed at all the jokes about aging and thought, wow, Meryl’s character has some really snazzy purple reading glasses…I wonder where she got them? (A shout-out to all the hip, older women out there: La Dentelliere at home has some great, Streepworthy readers!)

When I accidentally left my glasses at home this past summer and found myself with a book and a beach but no way to read, I called my mom in a panic. “I need reading sunglasses!” I cried, desperately. “Do such things exist? Cheap and quick!” She relayed the magic cure: Eyebobs. Eyebobs are a miraculous invention for the mildly reading handicapable among us. They are over-the-counter, moderately priced, moderately chic sunglasses with a magnifying reading lens built in on the bottom. I even wore them in the Hamptons.

Yes, the Hamptons.

Because here’s one amazing part of growing older: I didn’t care what anyone thought of me in my slightly uncool, certainly not Chloe sunglasses.

Okay, maybe I cared a little bit, but being able to see was finally more important than being seen.

In the past decade, I’ve learned how to shift focus. True, my memory might not be what it was, and my eyes have become a little blurry, a little more mellow in their intensity. But I’m starting to see that these are all metaphorically good things. Because if I cannot remember what our argument was about, then I’ll be hard pressed to stay mad at you for very long, Brett. And if I can’t see perfectly clearly, then I cannot judge the extent to which my wrinkled forehead is truly, horribly, in-need-of-injections, wrinkled.

I know I’m not the first to write about aging in this way; Nora Ephron did a lovely, comic job of feeling bad about her neck. I’m just the first one to write about me aging in this way.

Welcome to my new column for 2010: Julie, on the verge of turning 40.

I’m interested and excited to see where this topic will lead me. I hope you are, too.

Wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year, however many candles may top this year’s cake.