Not-so-crazy Theories

Just because it fits doesn’t mean you should wear it

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‘When everything in your closet is “vintage”‘

It’s getting to be Spring here (finally), so the other day I was participating in a seasonal ritual particular to New Yorkers (at least New Yorkers in apartments with small closets) — The Switching of The Clothes.

Which is when you dig your Spring/Summer stuff out of storage and switch it with the Fall/Winter stuff. In my case, “storage” is the second closet in The Child’s room. She has never realized that she has two closets; she grew up thinking it perfectly normal that Mommy’s out-of-season clothes lived in her room.

BTW, Switching The Clothes in Spring absolutely guarantees a cold snap. Today, the 9th of May, it is 48 degrees out, and where are my sweaters? Stowed away in The Child’s second closet. Sigh.

But back to the topic at hand, which, I suppose, is Age Comes Out of The Closet. See, in years gone by, The Switching was a pretty easy chore. I’d just grab everything — and switch. I wouldn’t even try things on to make sure they still fit; I’ve been basically the same size my entire Adult Life. Not because of anything I’ve done; I follow no annoyingly virtuous regimen or routine. It’s because I’m (mostly) a Swede. And it’s a well-known fact that Swedes don’t get fat. We shrivel. As we age, we sort of turn into the human equivalent of beef jerky. Continue reading

Many happy returns

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‘Observing Boxing Day, the American Way’

Yes, yes, I know. ‘Many happy returns’ is something you say on someone’s birthday, not Christmas. But yesterday was ‘Boxing Day’ (and, incidentally, Monday, which is when I start pondering what the heck I’m going to write about on Tuesday).

I sort of knew that December 26 was a British Holiday that originally had to do with boxing up Christmas goodies for the servants. Who had to work (duh) on Christmas Day (see Holiday episodes of ‘Downton Abbey’ for colorful detail) so they did their celebrating the day after, with the help of said donated largesse from The Master.

But — voila! — when I looked up ‘Boxing Day’ on good ole Wikipedia, there was this secondary explanation:

In modern times, it has taken on the meaning of boxing up unwanted Christmas gifts and returning them to the shop.

Yesterday I also happened upon an article in the Wall Street Journal about stores gearing up for our kind of Boxing Day. Apparently, about 10% of all gifts bought in stores are returned, and 30% of gifts bought online are. But guess how most are returned? In stores. So the smarty-pants stores stock up on stuff that you might really like in exchange for That Thing Uncle Joe Got You. Continue reading

Laughter is the best medicine. Well, except for maybe a manhattan.

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‘Waking up to Mo(u)rning in America. Trumped’

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. But what do you do when life (or, er, almost half of your fellow Americans) hands you a Big Ole Orange? Well, you can weep or rage or march. You can tear at your clothing or hair. You can move to Canada or even threaten to secede from the Union. (Bye, California, including Oldest Younger Brother Scott in Petaluma; just don’t take Mom with you.)

And sure, you can look for a way to try to squeeze a little orangeade out of that Big Ole Orange. Here’s a way that involves squeezing a trigger. (No, no. Do not call the Secret Service; this is perfectly-harmless-yet-remarkably-satisfying paintball, folks. And, yes, The Child approves the use of this message.)

paintball-wizzard

Caption to this pic on The Child’s Instagram feed: ‘Good way to let off steam after a tough week #stillanastywoman’

And of course you can indeed toss off a few Manhattans. I chose this other favorite beverage this time because I’ve already ‘done’ Martinis. You can read about my cocktail adventures in ‘Three, and you’re under the host’, in case you missed it or just want to bail already on this Trump post and skip right to drinking. Reading about it, anyway. Continue reading

Time for the Unusual No-Trump Overcall

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‘Hoping against hope that an Orange King isn’t in the cards’

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: politics really has no place in LutheranLiarLand. But these are, as that Chinese curse would have it, ‘unusual times’. Which means I’ve broken my rule once or twice. So sue me. (See ‘The Boss Who Got Banished to Belgium’ and ‘Libertarian Blonde’ for recent examples of quasi-political straying.)

But today is Election Day. Finally. I figure I’ve got very little to lose by venturing out on that Political Limb. Most of you have already made up your minds — or even voted already. (If you haven’t, please stop reading this right now and get out there! Unless, of course, you’re planning to vote for the Orange Guy, in which case you can keep right on reading. In fact, why not read all 135 of my posts? Maybe, just maybe, you can finish before the polls close.)

But back to the point of this post. Besides the obvious Donald Dig, did you notice the bridge reference? No, not like George Washington Bridge. Bridge as in the game of bridge. Lessons in which I am taking. Learning bridge is hard. So hard it makes my head spin around and smoke come out my ears. Kind of like what happens when I watch Donald in a debate.

So why take bridge lessons, you ask? Continue reading

“I don’t want to debate you, Jerry”

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‘Words to the wise from ‘Fargo’ — In my humble opinion, the Best Coen Brothers Film and quite possibly the Best Film by Anybody Ever.’

Like zillions of other Americans (and even unAmericans) I can’t get that Debate out of my head. It was like watching a train wreck. With sniffling. Was I the only one who wanted Lester to hand The Donald a tissue? But just because I’m thinking about it doesn’t mean I’m going to write about it. I’ve built a big ole politics-impermeable wall around LutheranLiarLand.

But the whole idea of a ‘debate’ got me to thinking about a scene from my Favorite Coen Brothers Movie (and Favorite Movie, Period): ‘Fargo’. (Feel free to click on IMDb or the Times to brush up if you need to.)

Now, there quite a few of you ‘Big Lebowski’ fans out there. And granted, the Coen Brothers Film Featuring The Dude has its attractions. A character named ‘The Dude’ being a big one. (See one of my many stories under the tab ‘Life with His Dudeness’ or jump to this one if you like.)

the Dude abides. Here he is, doing his bowling thing with buddies Buscemi (also pictured at top in Fargo) and John Goodman

The Dude abides. Here he is, doing his bowling thing with buddies Buscemi (also pictured at top in Fargo) and John Goodman

Continue reading

Gender identity is for the birds

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‘How to tell the ornithological girls from the boys’

Take a moment (before reading on in amusement) to check out the flock of bird-watchers pictured at the top of this post. Just how hard is it, on a scale of one to ten, to tell the males from the females?

Well. As someone who has actually been on more than one ‘birding’ trip and traipsed around many a field a-flutter with fellow ‘birders’, I’m here to tell you that it can be a tad difficult to distinguish the sexes. No, I’m not talking about the sexes of the birds. I’m talking about the sexes of the people watching the birds.

That's Mr. Scarlet Tanager on the left. With Mrs. on the right. Interesting how she gets to keep the name 'Scarlet', tho there's not a trace on her

That’s Mr. Scarlet Tanager on the left. With Mrs. T on the right. Some pretty marked sexual differentiation going on here, wouldn’t you say?

By the way, I’m not crazy about the terms ‘birding’ and ‘birder’. Almost as much as I’m not crazy about other nouns-turned-into-verbs-and/or-adjectives: ‘parenting’, ‘crafting’, ‘kidding’. (I’m kidding about ‘kidding’.) Continue reading

The Accidental Tourist

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‘You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl.’

Even though I’ve lived in New York longer than I have existed anywhere else, I am often mistaken for a tourist. (Maybe it’s my ‘Honest Face’.)

I can be swathed in head-to-toe black, topped off with the intimidating authentic motorcycle jacket I bought at the intimidating authentic motorcycle shop in L.A., and still get asked if I’m enjoying my stay.

Yes, that's me. In the scary motorcycle jacket. And yes, I do look like a tourist. Especially since we were doing a very Touristy Thing at the time: going to see the Rockettes

Yes, that’s me in the motorcycle jacket. At the Radio City Christmas Show with two people actually born in New York

Once when I had a freelance gig at Ogilvy, which was then located in Midtown West, I swear I got asked every single day on my way to work if I wanted to ride one of those double-decker tourist buses in Times Square. And it was the same guy who asked me, too. When the gig ended, I kind of missed him. Continue reading

Gimme a kiss. I’m goin’ to work(!)

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‘Embracing Working Momhood without (too much) guilt’

It’s been ages since I felt guilty about working. Nowadays, I’m much more likely to feel guilty about not working. You know, whiling away my afternoons on a chaise longue (which Google, for some reason wants to correct to chaise ‘lounge’) in a filmy peignoir, flipping through trashy magazines while nibbling on chocolates bought with The Dude’s hard-earned money. (Actually, my non-working afternoons are more likely to be spent in the company of SoftScrub.)

But, back when The Child was an actual child, I used to feel guilty about working. My guilty feelings weren’t so much about leaving her adorable self in the care of others (though she was pretty darned adorable, as you can see):

Super-adorable Baby Child, about to be left by Heartless Selfish Mother (Me)

Super-adorable Baby Child, about to be left in the care of Another Person, not her Heartless Selfish Mother (Me)

Nope. My guilty feelings arose because I, um, actually preferred going to an actual workplace and interacting with other adults to hanging around all day with a pre-verbal non-ambulatory person, adorable though she might be. As you may already know from reading some of my other stories, like ‘Gone Baby Gone’, I used to say ‘Hey, if didn’t enjoy getting down on the floor to scribble with crayons before I had a child, what makes anyone think I’d enjoy it now?’ Continue reading

Take-a-flying Leap Year

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‘The case for just skipping February already.’

So. 2016 is a Leap Year, which means that February got an extra day. I won’t go into all the scientific and historical stuff you probably skimmed in yesterday’s paper about why we have to tack on a 29th every four years, except to say that it has something to do with the Earth’s Rotation and the Gregorian Calendar.

Your paper no doubt also had at least one cute story about some Grownup who is ‘really’ only 6 years old because his/her birthday falls on Feb. 29. (The NY Times’ choice was a male underwear model.)

Anyway. If I sound a tad cranky, blame February. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks February is sort of a bummer. I mean, it’s four long weeks of not-yet-spring that comes along when you’re getting really sick and tired of winter. I bet even the Groundhog doesn’t get that excited about his Day.

A Valentine from The Child that I had no hand in making. (Thanks, Doris!)

A Valentine from The Child. Extra precious because I had absolutely no hand in making it

Speaking of Days, other than Valentine’s, which can be kind of fun — unless you’re a Mom who has to whip up 36 red-construction-paper-heart valentines and/or pink-frosting’d cupcakes for school — there aren’t even any good holidays in February. Have you ever heard of anyone putting up Presidents’ Day decorations? Poor February. It’s even hard to spell.

When I was a kid I heard a very funny radio essay, probably by Charles Kuralt (very droll, of the late lamented ‘On the Road’ and ‘CBS Sunday Morning’) making a case for eliminating February altogether. Darn it, even with mad googling I couldn’t find the actual piece, but the gist of it was that since February is kind of a downer, we should just, you know, repurpose it. Continue reading

‘Now let’s play Supreme Court Justice’

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‘The job that’s way better than being President.’

When The Child was really a child, well-meaning adults liked to ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Having stumbled over this very question when we were small (‘teacher’? ‘rocket scientist’? ‘cowboy’? What did this grownup want to hear? And how on earth could we be expected to make a career decision when we were only four?), The Dude and I decided to provide her with a good answer she could spit out without hesitation when required to do so.

True, a little (or perhaps more than a little) brainwashing came into play, but we like to think it was of the benign kind. Besides, we got a kick out of watching her grownup griller’s response when she’d squeak out ‘Supreme Court Justice’ in her baby-duck voice. Her questioner would be highly amused. ‘Don’t you want to be President?‘, he or she would counter. ‘Nope. Supreme Court Justice is a better job.’ Continue reading