Relax at Yoga Haven

I recently got the chance to try a class at Yoga Haven 2, located at 91 Montgomery Avenue in Scarsdale.  The studio, owned by Betsy Kase, is the new outpost of the beloved Tuckahoe yoga studio, which Kase first opened 15 years ago.

            

This is not me.

“Back then, Madonna was on the cover of Time magazine doing yoga, and people couldn’t believe that you could look like her from doing only that,” Kase explained.  “Now, people have more understanding of it.”  In the past few years, in addition to growing her studio across the board, she has seen an increased interest from prenatal clients, seniors, men, and even children.

            

“Eleven year olds spend 8 hours a day sitting in a chair in school,” she said.  And then they go to play sports, sports, sports nonstop, without much stretching, “so they are getting tighter and tighter,” which can be rough on the body.  That’s why Yoga Haven offers a variety of classes for kids and teens, including a Monday evening class just for boys.  “We do handstands and hang from ropes, and lots of other fun things,” she explained. 

Now, as you may know from other articles I’ve written, I am into spinning, not stretching.  But after pulling my calf from three consecutive days of fast, repetitive pedaling, I knew that I needed to try something else. Continue here.

The 10:52 Local

A day in free verse poetry

On the Starbucks lanai

dappled sunlight

watching the trains go by

iced grande green tea

sweetened

two dollars and thiry one

cents a day

after spin class

on a warm spring day

I stay hydrated and,

finished chatting,

head to DeCicco’s for

taco meat.

It’s Monday

So that is

dinner always

before piano practice and after

tennis, perhaps a stop at

the candy store

Where I steal a mini

peanut butter cup from Andrew’s

thoughtfully curated bag.

“Hey!” he shouts, but I unwrap

it and, pop, into my mouth it goes.

There are no calories from candy

meant for your kids;

everybody

knows that.

Zoe’s collection is mostly

chewy and bad

for my temporary crown.

I dig through and hand it back.

I could have bought

a Celine bag

with the money spent

on endodontics

but I needed

the new tooth

and the pocketbook

is always only a fantasy

like the beach house

and the movie deal

so I wave

to my reflection

in the storefront window

whenever I drive by.

There are always

nice things, as

my mother would say.

Finished shopping

for camp clothes

all labeled

Andrew’s first time away.

Upon safe return,

will he still let me kiss

him in public?

Do you have time for a mani-pedi?

a friend asks.

I have a book to sell and another

to write

(there’s always something

to write, a text, an email

a pin, a tweet)

but sure, mademoiselle.

Zoe and I will bond in July,

hang out at the town pool

apply sunscreen

and be lazy together.

There’s so much

I don’t know.

An uncertain world,

I manage it

through certain, predictable routines,

and try not to worry

like Brett does

as another train passes.

Digging through the junk,

we find small bits of beauty,

and in that way

life is like the sidewalk sale.

I drink it in.

And that’s my tale.

Looking forward to

summertime in the ‘dale.

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...

Juiced!

As a journalista, I often have to go where the hard-hitting story is.  I make sacrifices, sure, in order to deliver the news about shoe trends and hot new books, but it's all worth it in the end when I see the effects my reporting has on the public. 

Which is why I tried a 3-day juice cleanse at Andy’s Pure Food.

I did it for you.

Well, I did it for you and me. I’ve always been curious about what a juice cleanse entails – will it make me sick? Will it make me skinny? Will it make me healthy? All of the above? And when Onur Ozkoc, the general manager of Andy’s in The Golden Horseshoe in Scarsdale offered to let me try it for free, I decided now was the perfect time.

Continue reading here.

Down Under

Last week, an Australian lingerie company emailed me to suggest that I use my platform as a blogger for the Huffington Post to promote their website. They offered to compensate me for subtly selling their products in my posts, and invited me to contact them for further information.

Needless to say, I did not respond. I have journalistic integrity, for starters. But perhaps more interestingly, these people clearly have no idea what kind of underwear I wear. If they did, I seriously doubt they would be asking for my endorsement.

Now, why would an Australian lingerie company reach out to a woman who wears sweatpants most of the time and writes from a room over her garage? Good question, indeed. My mind puzzled through this conundrum as I got dressed for the day in my comfy cotton bikini briefs and a bra I picked up at a two-for-one sale at Kohl's.  Continue reading here.

Mommy 2.0

In 6th grade, I had to write my first big research paper. This paper was so enormous that it took the entire second half of the school year to complete. A serious assignment in all its complex aspects, it brought one of my best friends to tears during outlining. In retrospect, not only was this paper our introduction to real research, it was probably a rite of passage for scholastic stress.

First, we had to peruse books on famous people, and then we had to hand in a list of three individuals of merit who we were interested in studying. Then the teacher assigned us one of these notable figures.

I was psyched to get my first choice: Eleanor Roosevelt!

Like the good girl I was, I went right to work that evening, beginning with a stack of note cards in a new plastic box specifically designed for said note cards. New supplies like this were so exciting. I got a highlighter. My first.

Before any word could be written on a regular sized piece of paper, the teacher emphasized, we had to fill out 100 note cards. No more, no less. 100 on the dot. Furthermore, our note cards would be graded. A good grade on the note cards was the key to a good grade on the term paper.

I was really into these note cards.

I headed into the basement to find my parents’ set of World Book encyclopedias. Dusting off some spines, I found the one I was looking for, removed it from the shelf, and brought it upstairs to the kitchen table. I always did my schoolwork at the kitchen table, even though my parents had recently re-done my bedroom to include an awesome, white formica, built-in desk. (That desk never got any play, which is why I might not ever give my kids desks in their rooms. They can study all they want in our new basement.)

I found the entry on Mrs. Roosevelt and read through it, excited at what I found. “Mom,” I said, calling out to her while she was making dinner. “Guess what?”

“What?” she must have said.

“Most people in our class are studying people who have died, but I get to write about a living person!”

“Eleanor Roosevelt?” She asked. “Alive?” At this point, my mom stopped what she was doing and thought long and hard. She considered the ceiling. She looked out the window. She might have even counted on her fingers and toes before telling me that this was just not possible.

She did lots of things to try and convince me that the information from our encyclopedia was outdated.

But what she couldn’t do was Google it instantaneously or research it on Wikipedia.

After all, the year was 1982.

And in 1982, a mother and daughter didn’t have the answers to life and death questions at dinnertime in their kitchen.

My mother doubted that a woman born in 1884 was still alive in 1982. However, she couldn’t actually prove it to me. All she could tell me was that our set of encyclopedias hailed from before 1960 and that it was probably time to throw them away, since surely by now, man had walked on the moon and the wife of our 32nd president was deceased.

Zoom ahead to now.

On the day that Michael Jackson died, my children asked me who he was. Within about 9 seconds, I had positioned the laptop in front of them at the kitchen island and had started streaming the Thriller video on Youtube.

“That’s Michael,” I said.

Only the 1982 version wasn’t quite the same Michael as the 2009 version, so then I quickly found some more recent images that the kids recognized as their MJ. “Oh, yeah. We know him,” Andrew said.

And then, for my own nostalgia’s sake, I found other videos to show them.

“Who’s that?” Andrew asked. Boy George was singing Karma Chameleon from the front of a paddleboat on a river. He had ribbons in his braids and was sporting that iconic porkpie hat and fingerless black gloves.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Zoe wondered.

“Yes.” I said.

“Why does he have so much make-up on?”

“Because it was the 80’s.” I shrugged. Then I showed them some Madonna videos. Zoe and I decided that “Material Girl” was our favorite. Andrew decided that the 80’s were weird.

A few months ago, while listening to the car radio, my kids wanted to know who Mick Jagger was and why Adam Levine of Maroon 5 had moves like him.

Upon returning to the house, the laptop and I got to work immediately, pulling up videos and creating an informational, 4-minute Youtube mini-lesson in How to Dance Like a Rolling Stone.

Pretty soon, we all had moves like Jagger.

I’d like to introduce myself. I am Mommy 2.0.

I know everything.

What happens if Andrew needs to figure out the phase of the moon on a night that the actual moon is hidden behind clouds? Mommy 2.0 finds the virtual moon online and calls it gibbous. Science homework saved!

What happens when Zoe has to learn to read using not only books but also an interactive computer program with quizzes and prizes? Thanks to Mommy 2.0, Zoe can learn to read online as well as off, thereby quickening not just her reading ability, but also her ability to read on a Kindle.

And when Andrew has to study major monuments of Russia, Mommy tells him that she thinks the one with all the pretty colorful spires on top is the Kremlin. But then Mommy remembers that she knows nothing about Russia and, thus, should not be trusted. Using your own knowledge is a classic Mommy 1.0 mistake. A quick check on the Internet confirms this and the homework answer is changed to reflect the correct information: St. Basil’s Cathedral.

Eventually, a newer, sleeker, thinner model will replace me like a Hoover with a Dyson. Mommy 8.0 will probably have all the info implanted behind her ear with a microchip and she’ll be able to give herself liposuction. But for the meantime, I’m happy with my iPod and iPad and iPhone, doing the light research and fancy footwork that my job as Mommy 2.0 requires. No microfiche to contend with in musty library basements, no dead presidents’ wives to wonder about. If only there were a way to help mitigate all that stress that still comes with our children’s education, what with the note cards, and research papers, and outlining, and test scores and report cards and tears and deadlines and procrastinating and Mommy threats, like, ironically, taking away computer time until all the work is done.

Could someone out there create an app to help me with that?

(PS -- Eleanor Roosevelt died in 1962. And I got an A on my term paper.)

How Old is Too Old?

My son, Andrew, wants to know when he will be old enough to get a dog. The answer, scientifically speaking, is “When Mommy thinks you’re old enough to hear her curse when the dog chews through her Ugg slippers.” My daughter, Zoe, wants to know when she can get her ears pierced. The answer to this deep conundrum is, “At double digits, or once you remember consistently to flush the toilet every time you go. Whichever comes first.”

To vote, the magic number is 18. To drink, it’s 21. To start driving, 16.

Everyone wants to reach these markers of maturity, the signposts along the road of life telling them at what age they can begin. But people rarely stop to think about when they should just stop. Like, when exactly is one’s grandma too old to drive? It’s a slippery slope. Where to draw the line? (From experience, the answer in my family is, “When she gets into a major-minor accident in which police are involved although no one is really hurt except her ancient Oldsmobile and an Oak tree in White Plains.”)

Which brings me to the burning question behind today’s article: At what age should a grown wife, mother, and columnist just say no to learning hip-hop in a friend’s basement?

How old is too old?

To give you context for this physical and ethical dilemma, I’d like to first present some evidence from my mother, the 65-year-old tap-dancer.

“Ma,” I asked, calling her cell phone in the middle of the afternoon and interrupting her day with this crucial question, “How old is your tap dance teacher again?”

“Oh…” she thought, “80, 81. Why?”

I explained the topic I was wrestling with.

“Betty is not too old, she just has to wear sunglasses in the studio because the wall is so bright that it hurts her eyes. And she also holds on to that wall for balance.”

“Okay, thanks, Ma.” I was ready to hang up, having gathered enough research.

“And we kind of made our own tap shoes. We had the taps put onto orthopedic oxfords. They have arch support!”

“I’m confused…did you do this for Betty, or for you?”

“For both of us. Susan is the only other member of the class, and she’s still under 65, so she can wear regular tap shoes.”

Go, Susan!

So, of course, based on my fine genetic dance lineage, I went to the hip-hop class.

My friend Jen, who was hosting this event at her house, sent an email invitation including the date and time. She also mentioned that our instructor, Wadi Jones, is world-renowned.

As if that makes any difference to me. What am I? Hip-hop know-it-all, Jazzy JulieG? Did she think I wouldn’t show up if the teacher were just regular, because I’m such an accomplished hip-hop snob?

No, I went because it sounded like fun.

Right away, I realized I was not dressed correctly. Most of the women donned sneakers and sweatpants. I was in stretchy pants (good for movement) but a wool sweater (very bad for perspiration). My friend Kate, in her skinny jeans and riding boots, made me feel much better about my poor choice of hip-hop gear. Who knew that we were really going to dance? I thought it was kind of a joke, because I think everything is kind of a joke.

But Wadi is no joke. I know that now, because I have seen him spin on his head.

To learn the hip-hop routine (yes, routine) we put down our cups of sauvignon blanc and formed a few lines in front of Wadi, who was on the platform stage in Jen’s basement (yes, stage). He taught us how to pop and slide and glide and pump and walk (yes, walk. It’s just a grapevine). We learned important technical aspects of the ancient art of hip-hopping such as how to point correctly, with thumb facing down instead of up, so as not to appear like a cowboy with a fake gun. We even gave input, so that, when I jokingly said that one lurching-like move reminded me of something out of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, Wadi changed the move and called it the Jackson. Eventually, when put to music (LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem), the combination went something like this: “5, 6, 7, 8, and Jackson, and Jackson, and Jackson, and Jackson, and slide, and slide, and walk, walk, walk, walk, stop.”

Every fifteen minutes, I took off more clothing. My socks and sweater now lay in a corner by the couch. I wiped my brow with the hem of my shirt and piled my hair into a bun. People were panting. My back ached.

“It’s time to learn the cat daddy,” Wadi announced.

“Oh, good. I was wondering when you’d do that,” I said.

“It’s like you’re rolling a wheelchair.”

Now the man was speaking my language. I rolled my wheelchair quite successfully.

“Next we’re going to dougie.”

I wanted to know if he knew a move called shvitzing through my tank top. I also wanted to know why my moves had so much bounce, making them less gangsta and more cheerleadah.

After an hour plus of hip-hopping, my brain and body were tired. I couldn’t keep up and I kept forgetting the new part of the routine. But I was having a great time. We all were.

“We should do this again!” Someone exclaimed and a bunch of us nodded our sweaty heads in agreement.

“We should practice and then perform as a flash mob at elementary school pick-up!” One columnist declared. (What? Hysterical idea, no?)

Another woman decided that we might lend ourselves out as the entertainment for the teacher appreciation lunch in the spring.
After Wadi left, we stood around chatting about the kinds of things middle-aged women talk about, like doctors’ appointments and vacations. My friend Maya, pregnant with her third child (yes, pregnant and hip-hopping), asked if I could recommend a good local mohel. We had quickly returned to the status quo, but I like to think that we had all been changed in some small way.

I know that by the next day, I had changed. My sciatica was radiating pangs of regret down my backside, and my Achilles tendons were sore (yes, Achilles tendons. Told you I was too bouncy.)

“What did you expect?” My oh-so-supportive husband, Brett, asked at breakfast. “That’s what happens every time you decide to do a back flip off a diving board or perform some gymnastics.” He imitated my voice and continued. “Look, I’m going to do a double round-off!”

“That’s not even a thing,” I said. “It’s a round-off back handspring. And it hurts like hell.”

In my mind, I’m 16. I’m a gymnast and a cheerleader and my eyes work just fine without reading glasses. In my mind, I can move with the best of ‘em. I bet, if you asked Betty, the 81-year-old tap dance instructor, she would say she feels the same way. Because, on the inside, we’re all young. We’re agile and strong and wrinkle free and dancing our asses off.

So, how old is too old?

Don’t ask me.

Working out? Listen Up! What will be your gym anthem of 2012?

Certain songs make me nostalgic for a particular time or place. The first kiss song. That break-your-heart, break-up song. The crackling ember campfire song that makes me long for sleep away camp even though I hated sleep away camp. When these tunes come on the radio as I’m driving along in my SUV, I am instantly flooded with memories. Air Supply, Donna Summers, Joanie Mitchell. I know I’m lame (and old), but, as long as the windows are up, I sing along.
And then there are the Gym Anthems.

If you go to the gym a few times a week like I do, then you know what kind of tunes I’m referring to. Think top 40, heavy-bass, techno/dance music.

Gym Anthems are songs that come on the car radio and make me think of doing push ups. Of pedaling as fast as is humanly possible on a stationary bike in a Cycling class. Of counting reps as I do bicep curls with 2-pound weights in hand. Rihanna. LMFAO. Flo Rida. The strangest sensation comes over me when I hear one of these tunes outside of the walls of the gym. I’ll be driving to pick up my kids from school, and bam, on comes Rihanna’s latest and greatest, the one that sounds like this: “We fell in love in a homeless place….” and it’s like I want to start running on a treadmill at a 4% incline.

My response to Top 40 music is Pavlovian.

I’m pretty sure that’s when Rihanna imagined her album going platinum or whatever, she did not sit around with her producers fantasizing about some 40-year old suburban woman recognizing her #1 single as a cardio torture song.

I’m pretty sure that this tune was meant for rocking out at a club.*

*And, no, New York Sports Club doesn’t count.

Similarly, when Adele wrote her amazingly sad ballad “Someone Like You,” did she sit at the piano during a creative explosion and think, “I want to write the hottest cool down song of the year?” Does Adele know that every time I hear this song, I am stretching my hips after spin class and basically staring at my own crotch? DOES SHE KNOW THIS? I really feel like this is important information to share with the artist. I could use her own lyrics and everything, saying, Adele, I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited, but I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it….

So. This phenomenon got me thinking. Since so many people will be heading back to the Stairmaster this January, with a renewed club membership and a renewed sense of purpose, I thought I’d help you find the right tunes. What would be some fun pairings of music and gym activities for the New Year, like partnering wine with cheese or wine with a glass? What will be your ultimate Gym Anthems of 2012?

Here are some teams to try.

Doing box jumps:
“Never Again” by Ja Rule

Running up and down stairs while your trainer looks on menacingly:
“Titus Andronicus” by Titus Andronicus

Getting stuck in the last row during a filled-to-capacity spin class:
“Fat Bottom Girls” by Queen

Counting sit-ups with the occasional wink-and-nod to your hot self in the mirror:
“Gold on the Ceiling” by The Black Keys

Subtly adjusting one’s package, surreptitious nose digging, picking of thwedgie (thong wedgie), or yoga farting:
“I Wanna Do It” by Sonny and the Sunsets

Running on a treadmill while watching a Zumba class through a glass partition:
“Armada Latina” by Cypress Hill, featuring Pitbull and Mark Anthony

Sizing up the competition before a group fitness class begins, such as, who brings her own yoga mat, wears the newest Lululemon tank, has the biggest pocketbook hanging off the thinnest arm….you know, basic stuff like that:
“Fly” by Nicki Minaj & Rihanna

Bouncing on an elliptical machine to a Guilty Pleasure Song that you don’t tell anyone you bought, and, when a friend walks by, you immediately change over to Coldplay on your ipod:
“Love you Like a Love Song” by (yikes) Selena Gomez

Strutting and/or Peacocking and/or bending over the water fountain provocatively:
“Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer (men)
“Vogue” by Madonna (women)

Relaxing during a shower and a steam using bath products pocketed from a W hotel:
“5 O’Clock in the Morning” by T-Pain and Lily Allen

Waiting in line for a post-workout smoothie in your Free City hoodie:
“Pumped up Kicks” by Foster the People

Sitting on the couch after deciding not to go to the gym in order to catch up on new episodes of The Bachelor:
“This Year’s Love” by David Gray (Yes, there’s a song for that. Turns out, there’s a song for everything.)

Good luck, gym rats and couch potatoes. Let me know what you’re listening to while signing up online for your favorite spin bike, or doing tai chi, or reading Self magazine….

The Counter-Resolution Revolution

Happy New Year, everyone. In thinking about what to say at the beginning of 2012, I have decided to copy Harvard Business Review bloggers Peter Bregman and Dorie Clark. Instead of just divulging what they want to accomplish in the New Year, they each wrote their own lists of what they will try to ignore in 2012. Making a list of what not to do? Now, that’s something I definitely can do.

1. I am not going to rip out pages of recipes from magazines and pretend that I am going to cook them someday. I am not. Ever. Going. To. Make. These. Recipes. There, I’ve admitted it. I have a problem. I rip out about 10 recipes a month from magazines like Martha Stewart’s Living and Food and Wine because the pictures look so appealing, and I think, I can totally make that! Not only can I make it, I will, and when I do, my life will improve! Dinner conversation will elevate with that meal on the table. I will throw elegant, simple dinner parties! And then I’ll get to buy myself a new outfit! So I rip. And then I pile these recipes in a corner in my kitchen, and then I file them in binders based on type of dish (I have an entire binder of side dishes, another for main courses, one for desserts…you get the picture) and then….nothing.

Guess what? These papers do not magically turn themselves into food. No parties with snazzy apps and rosemary-infused cocktails jump from the two-dimensional glossy world into the real 3-D of my kitchen island. Knowing this, I’ve tried to cut back. Now I only let myself tear pages of things that seem do-able. Like spicy mixed nuts. That’s something achievable, right? Or butternut squash and apple soup. With the mixed nuts as garnish, perhaps. But who has the time? Or the energy? Or the fingers? Last week, I actually cooked a full-on 3-D meal three nights in a row (using an actual cookbook, not the collection of random pages, of course). The first night, I burned my ring finger when a bubble of oil from the frying pan got me. The second night, I put a baking dish in the over without a mitt and burned a knuckle. The third night I cut my hand while chopping vegetables.

In the New Year, I am ordering in and gifting my culinary magazines to the dentist’s office.

2. I am not going to pretend I read the Harvard Business Review, or any other news-related periodical for that matter, besides The Scarsdale Inquirer and the Sunday Times. When I name-dropped above, you thought I was smart, didn’t you? You thought, wow, Julie reads scholarly periodicals. Nope. Truth is, my husband, Brett, reads the Harvard Business Review and everything else, and then he emails me links to articles he thinks I would like. He’s the clever one. I am merely arm candy. And I’m tired of it. In the New Year, I am not going to sit around looking cute and getting lost in fiction the way I always have. Occasionally, I am going to curl up with the newspaper and turn ugly with frown lines.

3. I am not going to be bothered by people who do things that bother me. Like the woman near me in spin class who totally can’t get on the beat and has no idea how to do tap-backs (don’t ask). This irks me. It threatens to take me out of my zone. But I resolve to shut her out, this symbol of rhythm-lacking humanity, in order to find peace with myself.

Same with the curly-haired woman sitting in my sight line at the diner who plays with her curls. She digs deep with her pointer finger and grabs one, and then curls it around her finger and then plays with it. Then drops it – I can breathe now – and then picks it up again. I almost say something to this woman, but what is there to say? Listen, there’s no denying that I am a crazy person. But, I really can’t focus on my Greek salad because of your compulsive hair-twisting habit, so could you maybe just sit on your hands until your food comes? Thanks!

In the New Year, I will try not to say any of this out loud.

4. I am not giving up on books in 2012. I have a Kindle. But, still, I like to buy books. Real books with real pages with real sounds and scents when I hold them close and turn the pages. Ah, a book! In my hands! With a glossy dust jacket, and some heft. It’s so delish. (I know, I know, I should be reading the newspaper. Perhaps on my Kindle?)

There are definitely times when I use and enjoy my Kindle. Like, when reading a ginormous tome like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken or Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth. An e-reader is perfect under such weighty conditions. Or, when going on vacation. I tend to read a lot when I’m away, and so it’s fun to load up my Kindle with a nice list of books, and then see how many I can get through while ignoring my children on the beach.

But a list on a Kindle isn’t quite the same as a stack next to my bed. Each book in that stack is filled with promise, each unique in size and feel, and, thus, each creates a distinct and separate reading experience.

Furthermore, I am not giving up on bookstores. There is something so wonderful about browsing and dwelling and discovering that gets lost with the point-and-click efficiency of Amazon. Not that I don’t love my Amazon Prime. But that’s for another article entirely.

5. I am not going to read and respond to emails during certain stretches of the day. A lot of people have this on their list, I know. In general, I am not a super-plugged in person, and I don’t feel I spend too much time in the virtual world. But, I do notice that my attention is pulled towards the laptop in the kitchen during dinner-and-homework time, which is the exact time when I should be focusing on my children. It’s become a habit that makes me seem efficient, as I can respond to emails quickly while my kids work quietly. I am nearby, so they can ask me for help when they get stuck on something. (Not that I’m much help with 4th grade math.) But, because the computer is at the desk, I end up sitting with my back to Andrew and Zoe the entire time. I have realized that this is rude, and not just because of where I sit. 5:00-7:00 at night is not my personal work time. It is my time to work with my children. I will keep the laptop closed. I shall make dinner and – no, wait, I can’t do that anymore…I shall flip through a magazine instead – no, wait, I can’t do that anymore - I shall use this time to read the newspaper! Yes. And, as for my emails? You will hear from me eventually.

I hope this inspires you to think of things to ignore in 2012. And, as long as I’m not on your list, I approve.

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.

How not to relax on your vacation

1. Book a massage.
The first thing I do after reserving a room at a resort is call their in-house spa and make a reservation for a treatment of some kind. The second thing I do is stress out about a) the exorbitant fee and b) the choices available. Do I want Swedish, deep tissue, hot stones, lavender and honey, or one that wraps me head-to-toe in cellophane like a modern day mummy? For 50 or 80 minutes? Will I be taking a mineral soak along with said massage? Have I heard about their one-of-a-kind rain tunnel? No? It’s a must!

Fine, fine. I tell them to sign me up for all of it, as long as I have a female masseuse who doesn’t hurt me.

In fact, if she barely touches me, that would be perfect.

Because, here’s the thing. I don’t even really like massages. I’m only there to lounge in a terrycloth robe and drink tea infused with jasmine while reading my book to ambient musak.

I put the date on my calendar and wait.

2. Prepare for the massage.
Upon check-in at the hotel spa, I am told that the 20% gratuity will be added to my bill so that I don’t have to worry about tipping anyone. Great.

Only, how do they know that I’m going to like my massage that much? What if it isn’t that enjoyable? Then I’ll have to speak to the manager and try and get a refund and I really don’t like conflict and then I’ll be more stressed out than I was walking in the door.

So I’m sure I’ll love it!

I am led around the corner and introduced to the keeper of the keys. She takes me to my locker and presents me with the much-anticipated terry robe. She tells me that, as a part of my mineral soak, I can walk around the pool areas and water-treatment rooms, some of which are co-ed. “You can wear your bathing suit or go naked, that is up to you.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like to be naked. Even just around myself, I prefer to be clothed.

I am not one of those ladies who can dry her hair in the locker room with a towel around her waist, her boobs just bobbing around, gossiping about which trainer left for a better job at another gym.

Add strangers to the equation - including men, for goodness sakes - and a bathing suit is definitely called for. The style I have packed for today is a full-coverage black one piece with ruched sides and a self-skirt. This bathing suit is larger than most of the Kardashian’s wardrobe.

I adjust my ginormous Lycra wet suit and tighten the belt on my robe. I’m ready for my mineral soak.

I am led to a row of bathtubs, one of which is filled with suds. Next to the bath, there is a plate of strawberries, orange slices and three cucumbers. I am told that the cucumbers are for my eyes.

I have to wonder why there are three of them.

This doesn’t relax me.

I am directed to get into the bath and to sit sideways. “The minerals affect your ability to sink – they tend to make you float right out of the bath!” My tour guide explains. So, although the tub is over six feet long, I have to smush my body in the top corner, keeping my legs sort of folded underneath me, and hook my right arm around the metal rod running the length of the tub. “You good?” She asks. I try to give her a thumbs-up, but don’t want to move my hands for fear of floating away.

She leaves me to my “peaceful” soak. I cannot really put my head back, because when I do, my legs shoot up and break the surface like Shamu at a Sea World show. I have trouble reaching the cucumbers, but manage to put them over my eyes. They sting. I now cannot grab a strawberry since I can’t see it because I have burning cucumbers on my eyes.

Did she say she’d come rescue me in 10 minutes? Or was it 15?

This is fun.

I hold on tight to my fetal position and try to think heavy thoughts.

You are the Titanic, sinking, sinking, down, down, down.

Not working.

Eventually, my tour guide reappears, and I say a little prayer of thanks to the heavens. “Alright, then, time to move to the rain tunnel!”

Now that’s an understatement if ever I heard one.

Twenty or so rain jets arranged in a grid greet me from the ceiling. Twenty or more greet me from the sides, and another 10 or so sit underfoot. It’s designed like a human car wash.

More directions come, but this time they get lost in the loud current. “Use the loh on your ske to cle,” is what it sounds like to me. She hands me a jar of exfoliant and makes circular motions around her arms. I nod, scrub and then head for the tunnel.

As I walk through the punishing storm, I feel like Forrest Gump in Vietnam:
“One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.”

When I emerge, my sinuses are clear but I can barely stand upright.

“Now you need a steam,” the tour guide says, meeting my tsunami-ed form at the other side. I nod and shake the rain off me like a Labrador, starting at my head and ending with a really satisfying butt shimmy.

Then I enter the glass-tiled fog.

Ah. Eucalyptus. Steam. I sit. Peace at last.

Until I try to breathe and realize I can’t.

There’s no air in a steam room. So now I think I’m dying. And the more I try to breathe, the harder it becomes to do. I’m sucking at hot, heavy, mint-scented clouds that won’t budge. I’m on the verge of having a really good panic attack.

It must be 400 degrees in here. My skin is going to start melting off.

I try to see through the fog to read the temperature on the wall, only I can’t see past my outstretched hand.

This place is like a giant glaucoma simulator.

My grandfather had glaucoma. Now my aunt does. I start worrying about genetics.

And suddenly, I “see” it: this is what my future will look like! Blurry around the edges, everything encased in mist.

I have to escape this chamber of horrors.

I pull the door of the steam room open and take a giant gulp of pure, non-eucalyptus infused air.

Step 3. “Ready for your massage?” My tour guide smiles.

I waddle behind her, fully submissive now and prepared to face my fate. I have lost the feeling in my lower extremities, and am numb everywhere else.

Bring on the hot stones.

There's a Guy for That

A few weeks ago, on a spring teaser of a glorious Saturday, Brett and I took our children to get new bicycles.

You see, they had grown over the winter, my Andrew and Zoe, as children are wont to do. One day, everything was status quo, and the next, their pants were short, and their wrists stuck out of their long sleeve shirts. When seated on their old bicycles, they were all elbows and knees. Even their heads had gotten bigger, as determined by the woman who helped us select not only bicycles, but new safety helmets too.

So we upgraded to the next size, color, shape, and model of gear for the season ahead and handed over the credit card.
Then we brought the shiny equipment home and stared at it proudly.

Now all we needed to do was teach the kids to ride.

I began typing. “Do you have a good bicycle teacher? I need a guy.” I selected a bunch of friends from my address book and hit send.

The emails responding to my question poured in the next morning.

The best one came from my friend Laurie. “No, but I’ve got a grill guy, a camp lady, and a guy to help you cut the line at Disney, if you need.”

Good to know! I took the name of the camp lady and continued opening emails until I happened upon one with a bike guy.

It’s not that I’m lazy. Although I sort of am. It’s not that I’m uncoordinated on a bicycle, even. Though I definitely am. It’s just that, when it comes to certain tasks, I feel ill-equipped and would rather put the job in the hands of a so-called professional.

I mean, no one would expect me to fix a broken dishwasher, clean my house’s gutters, or teach my kids math when they get to the high school, right?

There are experts out there for tasks like that, with technical knowledge, whom we have traditionally deferred to. Like the auto mechanic, the plumber, and the SAT prep team. No one would bat an eye at me for hiring one of them. But at some point, these trades evolved through a type of upper middle class Darwinism, creating what I’d like to call the Tier II specialists, a species that helps to make life’s overwhelming tasks seem more manageable. Although this Tier II cohort of connoisseurs is certainly not necessary, they have become part of our regular vocabulary. Think baby nurse, party planner, college guru. It used to be that you could burp your own baby, plan his bar mitzvah, and write his college essay for him all by yourself. But thanks to cultural evolution, there’s a guy (gal?) for that.

Let’s go one step further. I like to think that I can read a book, get together with some friends, and discuss said book over cookies and wine. But there are those who might insinuate that my leader-less book group is incomplete. What we need, apparently, in the armchair of importance in the corner of our living rooms, is a paid, professional reading liaison. This person asks us the same questions about the text that we can filch off the internet or find in the back of our reading group paperbacks, or -- dare I suggest it -- come up with ourselves!

Now that’s a cushy Tier III niche market industry right there.

Let me explain. Tier III specialists include the nichiest of professional niches, such as the guy who picks up dog poop from your back yard for you should you have an electric fence. That way, you can just let your dog out the back door to conduct her business and not have to walk her or clean up after her.

Yes, there’s a guy for that.

I’m suddenly thinking about getting a dog.

Because, in this ever-increasing world of specialized technical knowledge, I’ve come to see that we don’t have to do it all. In fact, we don’t have to do much of anything!

Is it learned helplessness? Do we just give up too easily if we have the money and/or lack the time and interest to complete these tasks ourselves? Or, is it based on some sort of fear that, if everyone else is doing it a certain way and you don’t, you’ll end up losing out somehow? I’m not sure.

There’s the IT guy who fixes your internet connection, the home organizer who re-arranges your kitchen pantry for maximum efficiency, and the personal shopper who examines your closets and tells you what to keep, what to toss, and how to wear that old blazer so it looks fresh. (Hint: belt it and roll up the sleeves. I just saved you $75 bucks.)

Now let’s take “camp” as a category. There’s someone to help you select your child’s sleep away camp and then someone to tell you what to buy for that camp and then someone to put nametags in the camper’s clothing. There’s someone who will package and send bunk junk to him in Maine, and then someone else entirely to boil his disgusting after-camp laundry and yet another person to pick lice out of his hair when he comes home scratching.

On a nice day last summer, Brett and I were in front of our house with Andrew and Zoe, not teaching them to ride their bicycles. I turned to watch my neighbor for a while, who was also out enjoying the day. He was walking back and forth across his lawn, pushing something.

“What is he doing?” I asked Brett.

“Seriously?” Brett replied, giving me an odd look.

“Yeah.”

“Julie, he’s cutting the grass.”

Can you believe it?

My next door neighbor actually mows his own lawn! How retro is that? Manual labor!

It’s gotten to the point where my brain cannot even register people who take it upon themselves to complete tasks that could be doled out to a sub-contractor.

It’s a slippery slope from personal trainer to bicycle tutor, that’s all I’m saying.

Maybe you taught your own child to ride his bicycle. Maybe you even view this task as a rite of parenting passage, and you proudly admit how you taught all three of your kids to ride in the park next to your house. Well, good for you.

Metaphorically speaking, I am not that guy. I am the guy that needs that guy.

Dear reader, you are going to have an opinion about this, I am sure. And that’s fine. That’s why I air my comical -- if not somewhat deranged -- life in the newspaper. So that you are entertained, a. And to perhaps spark some conversation on the train platform, b. Please, turn to a fellow commuter and ask them: what tasks that you could have accomplished yourself did you hand off to a so-called guy, like a baton in the great relay of life? And, how did delegating that responsibility make you feel? And, conversely, which tasks are those you do yourself?

And, finally, if you know a guy who can come and re-grout the concrete between my front steps, could you please let me know? Thanks a ton.

Battle Hymn of the Mouse Mother

A lot of people wonder how it is that Jewish parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many doctors and lawyers, so many rabbis and Hollywood producers, one Itzhak Perlman and the occasional Madoff. They want to know what it’s like inside the suburban minivan of a Mouse mother’s world, to see whether they, too, could drive a perfectly normal child into years of psychotherapy.

Well, I am here to say that they can, because I am doing it.

People see me out with my daughter in public and comment at how well behaved I am, even as she is brow-beating me and publicly humiliating me. So many people wonder why, when my children call me stupid, I am able to remain calm and not smack them upside the head. They say, Mouse mother, how can I emit calm like you, even while raising independently-spirited, self-directed, emotionally strong children? How is it that your children are bright even though you got a D in 8th grade Latin and attended a college known more for its fraternity system than for academic rigor? Mouse mother, please, they beg, tell us your secrets. And so, after generations of protected silence, I am here to squeal the truth.

With a little practice, you, too, can be a Mouse mother like me.

Not sure why you’d want to, but that’s for another memoir with a high six-figure advance entirely.

Anyway! Back to my battle hymn, which is really much more of a whine.

Anyone can be a Mouse mother; you need not be Jewish to lack Tiger skills. So, please understand that for legal purposes, I’m using the term “Jewish mother” loosely. So loosely, in fact, that when I say “Jewish Mother,” I mean absolutely anyone except for Amy Chua.

Here are the things that I, as a liberal Jewish mother have allowed my children to do and/or done for them:

• Skip 2 months of Hebrew school in order to perform in a local performance of The Nutcracker
• Bribe them to play piano, practice the violin, make their beds, brush their teeth, and to be nice to me and others – oh, what
the heck, let’s just say “bribe them constantly” and leave it at that
• Talk them out of playing any and all contact sports for fear of them breaking their noses
• Talk them out of playing any sports that involve running because of the funny way they run
• Allow them to watch no less than 2 hours of television a day and to not let them stop until they had both committed to
memory a complete episode of iCarly
• Suck their thumb until the age of 7 and/or carry around a dirty, beloved shmatte like Linus from The Peanuts
• Write notes to a teacher excusing their inability to do homework because American Idol was on
• Choose all their own extracurricular activities, including fencing, Lego robotics, and a class in which my 5-year-old daughter was taught how to sing karaoke like a drunken idiot at a bar.

Now I know some of these seem unconventional, but if your goal is to have a human child like mine, as opposed to an automaton, for example, then you’d do well by following my example of mediocrity and a little dose of who-gives-a-hoot.
To prove that this type of parenting can achieve the desired results, I would now like to share a few success stories.

A Tiger mother might spend two complete chapters of her memoir explaining how to get one’s children to perform at Carnegie Hall, or at the very least, how to obtain an audition to the Pre-College program at Julliard. But a Jewish mother can boil the answer to that down for you in a few simple words: by kicking and screaming. As a Mouse mother, I prefer to regale you with impressive stories of just the opposite, and so I shall call this instructional section of my writing “How To Ensure That Your Child Never Achieves Much of Anything in The Arts.”

I recently took my daughter, Zoe, for a trial class at a ballet studio where some of her friends were enrolled. After the class, we discussed what she thought about it and tried to decide together whether or not she would be signing up. Being a Mouse mother, I didn’t really care either way. The signature move of the Mouse mother is the shrug, which I did repeatedly as we spoke. I wrote down our conversation verbatim because I thought it was so emblematic of our mother-child dynamic.

Me: So, what did you think of this ballet class?
Zoe: I didn’t see any machines there.
Me: Huh?
Zoe: You remember that place where Andrew took a class once? They had candy and drink machines.
Me: Oh.
Zoe: And ice cream. We used to eat ice cream before his class.
Me: You mean, that hip-hop class on Central Avenue?
Zoe: Yes! And they had stuffed animals to buy and also dance clothes. And a TV to watch.
Me: Uh-huh.
Zoe: That’s the kind of dance class I want to take.

It’s clear to any Jewish mother out there that this girl understands her culture. Zoe knows that professional ballet is just not in her future, so why even try? How smart of her to know that, come puberty, her Polish genes will betray her, ensuring a body so low to the ground that it’s better constructed for potato farming than arabesquing. The closest she will ever come to doing a split is with her Barbie doll’s legs. And that’s so totally cool with her, as long as she can buy stuff and enjoy snacks.

It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

My firstborn, Andrew, proved to be another story entirely. He actually seemed to have some drive beyond the candy-and-shopping aspects of the theater. In fact, he tried out for and was given the coveted role of Fritz in last winter’s production of The Nutcracker at SUNY Purchase. Now, a Tiger mother would have spent weeks, days, and hours preparing her child for such an audition and would then feign modesty and humility but secretly take credit for the child’s success when he did well. But not me. I merely got Andrew a nice haircut and told him to smile a lot in front of the choreographers. Like the Mouse mother I am, I believe a nice Jewish boy with dimples can get ahead in this world merely by knowing his left from his right and by following his own interests.

Seeing that her child has a passion and talent for something of worth, a Tiger mother would certainly push and squeeze and prod and threaten to the point that a) the child got really freaking amazing at the skill and b) the child really hated both the activity and the Tiger mother. Where a Tiger mother values perfection, a Mouse mother values diversification above all else. Why stick to just one thing and become the best at it when you can try so many fun activities and be mediocre at all of them? Which is why, once Nutcracker season had passed, I did not take Andrew to The New York City Ballet. Instead, I took him straight to rec basketball.

Call me naïve, but so far, this renegade technique really seems to be working. And by “working,” I mean its produced children who, at the ages of 8 and 5, are pretty happy doing their job…of being kids.

How Easy is That?

The other day, I ran into my friend Andie at the supermarket. I always run into Andie at the supermarket. “So, what’s up?” She asked as our carts kissed hello. We paused to chat at our favorite hangout, halfway between the lightbulbs and the refrigerated pasta and basically in the way of anyone trying to pass by.

“Nothing,” I said, scanning my shopping list.

“Ooo! You made a list. You’re so good.”

I shrugged. “Not usually, but tonight I’m actually cooking!” I said, pleased with my own initiative. “I told Brett that, every week,
I’m going to try a different recipe from this new cookbook I got. These are the ingredients I need.”

She asked what the cookbook was, and I told her: Ina Garten’s How Easy is That? “Only, I already tried one of the recipes and, I gotta say, it wasn’t that easy.”

“I smell a column!” She sang, smiling and pushing her cart towards the dairy aisle.

And so, here we are again. You and me and a random story from my life that’s just begging to be told.

And we have Andie to thank.

Just about a year ago, Andie and I decided that it would be fun to flex our culinary muscles together, and so we signed up for a baking class through the Scarsdale Adult School.

Now, neither one of us is what you’d call a baker. Shoppers, yes. Eaters, perhaps. Fans of reality television, definitely. But bakers? Not so much. Luckily, that first class called for a good deal of watching and a bit of eating. Not to mention the potential for shopping.

“You see these lovely cookies?” The instructor asked, showing off several iterations of the finished product. “With this one dough, you will be able to create a few different cookies. All you need are linzer cutouts – both fluted and plain, in a variety of sizes -- as well as several dowels from the hardware store.”

Andie and I nodded. We both wrote buy cookie cutouts and dowels on the back of our recipe sheets.

“In order to ensure that your ingredients are measured correctly, you really should use a food scale,” the instructor advised while measuring the butter.

Andie and I nodded. We both wrote “buy food scale” underneath the other items.

“You can use any kind of flour and any kind of raspberry jam, but I really like the ones from Fairway the best.”

Andie and I nodded and wrote “go to Fairway for best flour and jam” under the food scale.

This is about the point in the class when my head started to hurt.

“Now, once you’ve attached the correct paddle to your mixer, you really have to let the dough go for a good three minutes.”

“Mixer?” Andie gasped.

“You don’t have a mixer?” I whispered under the hum of the mixer.

“NO!” She barked. “Why would I have a mixer?”

“Because we’re baking!” I snapped back.

“So, fine, I’ll get a mixer!” She declared.

“I think I have a coupon for Chef Central,” I said, trying to placate her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed, just as the teacher told us what kind of baking sheets, sieve, and parchment paper we needed.

“Bring your cookies in next week so that I can taste them and make you feel bad in front of everyone if they suck,” the teacher said.

Fine. He didn’t say that.

But we all knew that’s what he meant by saying there would be a taste test.

Now Andie might not be much of a baker, but she has what I’d call a nice competitive spirit, and so, once she had bought the requisite equipment and ingredients, she went to work preparing the perfect cookie.

I got a call from her two nights before we were to present our homework to the class. “The first batch was too flaky,” She said. “So were the next three. They all taste fine, but I can’t bring them in looking like this. I’m making another batch.”

I, preferring to write about my experiences rather than perfect them, decided that one mediocre bunch was more than sufficient. I saved four very good-ish cookies in a plastic container and let my kids have the rest.

Then I went over to Andie’s and helped her get rid of all that imperfect evidence.

The classes continued. We graduated from cookies and made our way to cakes. The first was a classic seven-layer cake, which required its own treasure-hunt shopping list, including a certain kind of foreign cocoa powder, an offset spatula, and a perfectly sized cardboard box top with which to measure the layers.

Andie had missed the class pertaining to the assemblage of said cake and thus decided to forego any attempt of accomplishing the task. We both agreed that she had gone above and beyond for the cookies and that she could take a bye for cake week.

I, however, was kind of looking forward to the assignment. I read over the two pages of single-spaced directions and my hand-written additional tips scribbled in the margins, getting myself prepared until I was what you might call stoked. Stoked for seven layers.

I put on my (new, cute, French) apron and began measuring. A few hours later, I was done. I had ganashed the ganache until it shined like silken silk. I had cut off the uneven parts so that the cake was not leaning like the tower of Pisa. I had so totally and completely dominated this cake.

How I wish you had seen it! How I wish you had tasted it! It was delish. It was pretty.

And, for some reason, it had only six layers.

It was my almost perfect six-layer seven-layer cake.

Not sure how that happened, thinking back. But when I cut into it that night, Brett and I cocked our heads sideways and paused. Then we counted and recounted, tasted and re-tasted until we were sure: this cake was short one layer.

Brett tried to cheer me up. “Have you ever counted the layers on a seven layer cake before?” He asked. “Just to make sure they are all there?”

“Huh.”

“Maybe they all have six layers!” He reasoned. “Maybe the seventh is like a phantom layer, a tall-tale layer, the whale that got away layer. Maybe it just doesn’t exist.”

“Or, maybe,” I added, “When I bring it to class, I can tell the teacher that you and I ate the seventh layer!”

“Like the way Andrew eats only the green layer from the rainbow cookies.”

“Right!”

Thanks to my husband, I was all set to completely lie my way through the next session of class, only a snowstorm came along and allowed me to miss the class for real.

And so that was pretty much the last time I baked.

Because now, when I feel the need for linzers or any amount of layers, I just head to my favorite bakery.

In less than 10 minutes, I am face-to-face with a plethora of perfect cakes and cookies smiling at me from behind a glass display case. And in less than 11 minutes, I am eating them.

So, I ask you, Scarsdale, how easy is that?

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.)