The Capitulation Wardrobe

7:15 a.m. and already at my desk.  But with a feeling of great accomplishment, which is amazing for a Monday morning. When Mr. Simone B. is traveling, which he often is, I am up and at 'em early and against my will. But up I am, the kids are ready to go and gone, a load of laundry is in the machine, the dishwasher is empty and everything is quiet. I sit here with my first can of the day in my hideous Monopoly pajamas and contemplate the day. And with that, of course, is the question of what to wear.

Those who have actually seen me probably marvel at the fact that this actually requires some thought. I have seasonal uniforms and rarely veer from them. And, shockingly, it involves a t-shirt and jeans. In cool weather, there is a v-neck sweater and a pashmina added. The shoes are the wild card--boots from Fall to Spring, flip flops for the summer, and my Chuck Taylors interspersed. When I look at the 8th graders at my kids' school, and realize I dress almost exactly like them, the question of whether this is appropriate dress does cross my mind. I do know that I need to address the issue of "dressing my age", whatever that means, but part of this stubborn dress code is my fear of the Capitulation Wardrobe. The moment when I don't care what I wear and I've given up. The moment I look middle aged. The day that I shop at Chico's.

This is in no way meant to malign Chico's or the lovely women who shop there. But Chico's is my personal point of capitulation. The minute I look at rectangular linen jumpers, square cardigan sweaters and quirky earrings as my new uniform is the day I will have moved into middle age and beyond. The day I dress STRICTLY for comfort, as I did when I had babies, is the day I know that Naot sandals and Vera Bradley purses/publicly carried toiletry bags are close at hand, as are bad, short haircuts and going gray. That will be my official, personal, expiration date. Simone goes bad, like an old carton of milk.

My BFF had an intervention in order to stave off the Capitulation. Her husband put the kibosh on her denim overalls. Yes, she is busy, and yes she is a mom (the arguments she used in her defense) but she also happens to be an absolutely gorgeous woman who had stopped looking at herself in the mirror. Somehow, he wrestled her away from her urban farmer attire and saved her. He risked his own hide for that, but then BFF's husband is unusual that way. He actually notices what she wears, and complains when her jeans are too loose. True love!!

And then there are those that never Capitulate, because the Capitulation Wardrobe IS and has ALWAYS BEEN their uniform. If you have been wearing slacks, walking shoes, carrying a "handbag" and have had the same haircut for years, you have been living on the dark side for so long it feels like home. But these things are, and have always been, WRONG and you should not do them!  Style has morphed into habit, and a habit, unless it comes in a frosty red and silver can, is a bad thing.  A recurrent, often unconscious, pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition is NOT the way life should be. That is something I have come to realize and embrace in my forties. And if my way of not capitulating is to wear a Nirvana t-shirt or a pair of jeans that do not make my ass look huge, then so be it. So be it.

I Am In Love

That deserves all capital letters. It truly does. Because I want to proclaim it to the world. I Am In Love. With my new boots.

My personal tradition, of the last ten years or so, is to buy a new pair of boots to celebrate my birthday. So I begin the hunt in July, when all the best boots are in the magazines and stores. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole Birthday Boot tradition, visiting all the shoe porn sites to find the perfect pair.  Deciding which color, heel height, style--all part of the delicious process. But there is one absolutely unchangeable element: the boots MUST be knee high. Not over-the-knee (which is very big right now, and NOT for women who are shorter than most 5th graders) or calf height (which accentuates the "athletic" calf and makes one look squat) or ankle height, (which is, again, all the rage right now and can only be worn by an 85 pound waif in an empire waist dress and red tights.) Knee high for tucking in the jeans. Knee high for bringing on the attitude. KNEE HIGH, damn it, because really, why bother otherwise?

Now, while I do enjoy spending money (which is why Sugar Snow Joe keeps all the band money at his house) there are certain things I will not spend a lot on. I have not ever purchased a lamp anywhere but the Christmas Tree Shop. I buy my sheets and curtains at IKEA. All rugs come from Target or Lowe's. I shop for the bulk of my clothes, as well as the family's clothes, at Saver's.  Shoes--the dress shoes I occasionally have to buy, the flip flops I buy for the summer, I will pay marginally more for, usually at Marshall's. But the boots fall into their own category. I have a budget, yes, but it is far more elastic than any other limits I set. The margin of error is generous for the boot budget because, a) boots last for years, and my OCD requires that I take meticulous care of each and every pair, and 2) it's my birthday.  So, I suppose, one could make an argument that it doesn't really count as a budget. I don't buy that argument, but I can see where you are coming from.

This year, this GLORIOUS year, I found the most amazing boots. I saw them last year, could not fit them into my "budget", but I did not forget them. I could never forget such perfection. Now, markedly cheaper because of their "last season" status, I snapped them up. But buying shoes is like online dating, and what you see is definitely not always what you get. So I was wary, of course, that they would not be as remarkable as I thought. And my worry was all for naught. They are camel suede, lace up the front with an industrial strength zipper for on-and-off ease, three inch heel, right up to the knee. And--BONUS--comfortable!! I wore them as soon as I got them. Wore them around the house. Put on my Winter jeans (the tucking-in-the-boots jeans) and walked around the house in them. Mr. Simone B. approved wholeheartedly. LZ approved, and I believe she may have heard a chorus of angels. Neighbor Ken approved, in his droll, understated way. Even Small, my harshest critic, approved, although she did comment that I wouldn't be able to skateboard in them.  Eventually, I took them off, and they are now a shrine on my desk, right next to my computer screen. To the right of them sits a bag of  M&M's. At the toe is a can of Diet Coke and a fresh straw. My lip balm. My cell phone. And my Cleveland snow globe. 

Last night, at my dear friend Ms. P's Coming Of Age party, it was cold. It was downright cold outside. And all I could think was, Only 3 more weeks. 3 more weeks until my birthday, and the official beginning of my boot wearing season. October 1, folks, and the suburbs will be in danger of being overwhelmed by my Boot Coolness. Prepare yourselves.

The Cooking Cult: Hell, No! I Won't Go!

This is a repost of a ranty old myspace blog. Enjoy! It isn't true that I can't cook. But there is nothing that I hate more. The sight of raw meat, the shopping involved, the time it takes--I hate every bit of it. But I can cook. My very traditional mother made sure of that. She is waiting for the moment that my husband decides he is going to leave me because I won't cook. Or because I didn't change my name when we got married. Or because I drink too much Diet Coke. Or..... As you might guess, I only identify the kitchen as the room that one walks through to get to the bathroom. Mr. Simone B does all the cooking, and registered for everything when we got married. When he travels, which he does often, my children fly into a panic and anticipate starvation. Two large pizzas from Pino's for all three meals of the day is my answer to their fears. And I, myself, enjoy eating Rice Chex for dinner. Or a Kit Kat. So, when I was invited to a Pampered Chef party, you would think I would run screaming. And maybe I should have. Being surrounded by kitchen utensils and storage containers is, in general, enough to make me ill. That's why I walk through the kitchen quickly, averting my eyes from the counters, when I need to go to the bathroom. But the BFF gave the little soiree, and she is a great cook, so I went. I brought my friend Laura Zigman, published author, brant writer and my current girl-crush, for company. And hilarity ensued. But more on that later. What is Pampered Chef, you ask? Why, you don't know? Shame on you, blog readers, for not being familiar with this particularly insidious cult. How will you protect yourself from the Chef's Tools and Silicone Crown Cake Pan? It is the cookware equivalent of Mary Kay, without the blue eye shadow. The woman who did our particular show has her shtick down to a science, including the whole history of her abduction and consequent assimilation into the Pampered Chef "family". Just think how much bigger the Manson Family would have been had he offered stoneware baking dishes. Laura came to spare me the pain of the glassy eyed kitchenistas that always come to these shows. But she was immediately made to wear a name tag with a V on it, for Virgin. Virgin to the Pampered Chef. Why she didn't flee then, knowing that virgins are generally sacrificed, I'm not sure. Maybe because there were a few other virgins to choose from. My name tag had "ice cream scoop" on it, the only thing I bought at BFF's last show that didn't break and was still in the drawer at home. I'm told. And the Blessed Virgin Laura, poor dear, had to listen to my profane comments about how many of the utensils looked like sex toys. A girl has to entertain herself , after all.  Round and round the circle of ladies went the bowls of ingredients to make fresh salsa (ladies, use those kitchen choppers! you'll wonder how you ever made salad without them!), the chocolate cake in the Batter Bowl-Classic that ended up sticking to the non-stick pan, (painfully funny to watch the horror), the almond crusted brie that demonstrated the mini-nut chopper. One snarky woman next to me muttered "So handy, you could use it while driving." I love nothing more than snark. I didn't touch a single one of these ingredient bowls, for fear of cooking cooties. But I did find myself sucked in, highlighting the smooth-edge can opener, the large and small micro-cookers, and a variety of other things. Mob mentality is very powerful. I wisely called Mr. Simone B before writing any check, who limited my purchase to a cutting board and bamboo tongs for the kids to use to remove frozen waffles from the toaster oven. I always thought the burnt fingers were part of the charm of frozen waffles. And if you burn them enough, you eventually don't feel it anymore.  Now, I don't mean to imply that it wasn't fun. It was great fun. Watching these suburban ladies gushingly extoll the virtues of their stoneware is worth all the fresh salsa in the world. I love watching people search the catalogue for the one thing they haven't purchased yet. But I feel no shame, no matter how hard my mother has worked at it, for not being turned on by kitchenware. And these little parties exploit the elements of shame and guilt, to make people feel bad for buying nuts pre-chopped or never using nuts in a recipe because it is too much work. But if people really want to feel shame and guilt, they can come to MY next party. Frozen drinks and sex toys, ladies? Here is a link to Laura's brant/blog: http://www.laurasbrant.blogspot.com/ I know she is planning to talk about her side of this experience. If it's not there yet, read about her love for Hugh Jackman, who starred in the movie of her novel.

And The Days Go By....

In one month, one month from tomorrow, I will have another birthday. And I am dreading it, yet again.

Before I go on, yes, of COURSE I appreciate everything I have--wonderful family, good health, a lovely home, delightful friends...all the things that one works a lifetime to achieve. I have them ALL, and I am supremely glad, thankful and, as is my wont, incredibly worried about everything turning to dust and being sucked up in the giant vortex of bad luck and ickiness. But this is not about all of my good things. This is about the bad. And the bad part is, I am getting old.

Boys and girls, I am not asking for compliments here. Feel free to give them, they are always welcome, but this is simply a statement of fact. I am getting old. This October 1, I am 43.  I am slowly, but with increasing speed, creeping into the mid-40's. And creeping is the operative word. The creep is so slow and insidious, that it is all but unnoticeable until you suddenly have lines around your eyes, your mouth, your forehead, your neck-- the light in my bathroom must be super flattering because it wasn't until I was on an airplane (going to Cleveland to play a big show for people that I had not seen in 25 years) that I looked into the bathroom mirror and saw EVERYTHING. Every unruly brow hair, every age spot. Fortunately I had not carried my tweezers onboard for fear of confiscation, or i would have gotten off that plane with a huge need for eyebrow Rogaine. And yes, there is such a thing. That is something you learn when you are old.

When I was living in the world of sweatpants and bad undergarments (i.e. when my kids were little) I never thought about any of this. Partially because I was in my very early thirties, and partially because I just didn't care. Things were so loony when my kids were young, sometimes in a good way, sometimes decidedly bad, that I simply didn't care what I looked like. I made the perfunctory effort to look reasonable, but that meant a haircut and lipbalm. It was an accomplishment to be clean. The only time I really went all out was when I had Meetings With The School. Then, beauty rituals were like armor. Manicure and pedicure, haircut, make-up, even a suit for an attempt at the intimidation factor. And it worked, at least for me. I'm not sure if anyone was frightened by my lipstick, but I thought there was a Xena factor there.

The irony is that the older you get, the less make up you should wear. This is not so as to embrace the most heinous of expressions, GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY (accept your decay without excess complaint), but because make-up can settle into your wrinkles, can accentuate the dark circles, does not actually cover up the age spots caused by the youthful exuberance of lying in the sun smothered in baby oil. It doesn't work. It just doesn't. God forbid I should go out unfinished (as my BFF likes to call it) so I have a few tricks up my sleeve. And I am obsessively vain about my skin. But the goal seems to have become not to look younger, but to not look older. This depresses me beyond belief.

After the Cleveland show, I watched the video, something I usually avoid, and I was pleasantly surprised. The pictures made me somewhat nauseous (sorry, Blair!) because it was 9000 degrees at The Barking Spider and I was hot and shiny, rather than "dewy" or "luminous".  But in the video, I looked ok. I looked kind of cute, even. That was heartening, that maybe my beauty product OCD was paying off. Or maybe doing something that I really love is just good for my face overall. I was smiling, I was happy. And I liked my shirt, even though I question it now.

It is POSSIBLE that other people don't see all the history I see on my face. Maybe when I'm singing, when I'm laughing or telling a dirty story, those historical markers are not obvious to anyone else. Maybe they never are. Awesome for everyone else. Because when I look at myself in the mirror, I say, Fuck Aging Gracefully. I am fighting it. Or maybe I should take my friend LZ's advice, and tell people that I'm 50. I look amazing for 50.

The Cynical Optimist Plans a Bar Mitzvah

I have really, truly accepted that I am indeed a Cynical Optimist. For many years now, I have been trying to convince myself that life is easier when you are optimistic, and have tried very hard to wear that uniform and get with the program. I do have a weakness for a man in uniform (especially my adorable UPS man), but I myself am neither a man nor look good in a uniform of any kind, and have given up. My mantra is now:  I think there is a chance that things will get better, but probably not.

This could be a testament to my ethnic heritage, where lateness is the equivalent of being dead in a ditch. In order to cope with any potential upset or disappointment, I have to prepare for the absolute worst case scenario. This can be very freeing, like at my son's bar mitzvah--one of the worst things (to me) would have been running out of food, (which for a Jew is the mistake never lived down) but I had Pino's Pizza programmed into my phone should that very unlikely situation actually happen. Of course it did not, not nearly. Barbecue from Blue Ribbon is likely to be in my freezer until Medium's bar mitzvah, three years from now. So in this case, the Cynical Optimism manifested itself as Being Practical. And Being Practical is an excellent life skill, one that people strive to achieve. And I can, and have. But the dark side is always there. And in this case, the dark side was towels.

See, I got this awesome idea that, as a party favor for my son's bar mitzvah party, I would give away beach towels. Pool party and beach towels=cute. One of those things you can never have enough of. Yes, well, I got 154 beach towels. At Target. Three shopping carts full at one store and two at another, when there weren't enough to satisfy my irrational fear that if I ran out of beach towels, the party would be RUINED, by my bad planning, by my cheapitude, ruined by my own hand! I did carefully look at my guest list and somehow this seemed like the right number. Because I could not run out. Could not. Absolutely, no.

Then the Cynical Optimist got a kick in the ass. The Bar Mitzvah Boy, my eldest, the Large of my Small, Medium and Large, had a seizure at school. Out of the blue. Call from the husband that Large was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. And I didn't know whether he was still alive or not, and being who I am, at that darkest of all moments, I assumed he was not. I drove down to the hospital, getting onto the wrong highway in my fear and grief, and when I got there, he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily, and said "Hi, Mama." And thus, my ass was kicked. Because looking at him lying in that hospital bed, not knowing whether this was now to be our path, thinking how unbelievably unfair the universe is, I also knew that this was the reminder i needed that 154 towels is TOO MANY TOWELS. It is too much. Scale back, remember who the bar mitzvah is for. Leave the towels. Let go of the damn towels.

And yes, I did do those things. I scaled back, made it the bar mitzvah it was always supposed to be. It was truly the most moving, amazing, proud moment of my life, more than I ever could have dreamed. And yet...and here is what makes me question my sanity and my fitness as a parent...I could not take the towels back. I could not do it. Like a security blanket, the existence of the towels in the huge black contractor bags in my attic kept me from losing my shit. Large could have had a dozen more seizures between his first and his bar mitzvah (he did not, fortunately) and I would have dealt with it. I would have Been Practical. My worst case scenario for Large actually came to pass, something that I had envisioned from the day he was born. That dreaded phone call actually came. And we managed. But I was not prepared to deal with the self-flagellation that would come from running out of towels. So, no, it wasn't an important thing. But at least I could do something about it, something I could control. There would be towels, towels for everyone. 

Children climbed out of the pool and used a fresh, dry towel each time. It was a colorful, beautiful mess of towels and barbecue, to celebrate the day I never knew would arrive exactly the way it did. The people I loved went home with a stack of towels in the color of their choosing. And while I do still have many, many, MANY left, i am ok with it. We will be using beach towels after showers for the rest of our lives here at Casa Simone B., but at least we'll be dry. My sanity is worth 90 extra towels.

What a shitty run of shittiness....

That is disgusting, I admit, but it really does sum things up. I have had a streak of ickiness that shows no sign of abating, and while, yes, things can ALWAYS be worse, this has been pretty amazingly bad. I don't know if I would generally have noticed but a) the constant rain has been so depressing that it is exacerbating everything and b) i am now on Facebook, which keeps a record of such things. So I have a written record of everything I have kvetched about lately, and looking back, it is rather impressive.

I can do nothing about the weather, because while we Jews do control pretty much everything else in the entire world, we cannot control the weather. So what you have heard isn't true. Many meteorologists are Jewish, but they DO NOT CONTROL THE WEATHER. If I could, of course I would. Do you think I enjoy the way my hair looks, and has looked, for the last 3 weeks? 

And, it appears, I cannot break this lengthening chain of blech. There are some great moments interspersed, some exceptionally great. But here are a few of the things that have happened of late.

1. Car keys are lost on a day my husband goes out of town for a long business trip. And, as it happens, I have practice in a town that my GPS can barely find. So I have to call Enterprise to pick me up. I rent a car. Giant pain. Keys have never been found.

2. Cat brings live chipmunk into the house.

3. I spill Diet Coke all over my computer keyboard and mouse and fry it completely. 

(just an aside, all the above happened in ONE DAY.)

4. I got a prank call in Yiddish asking me if I like cock. I swear this is true.

5. Cat leaves a dead rodent of some kind at my door for 5 days straight.

6. Kid deletes ENTIRE bar mitzvah guest list because it is impeding his access to Itunes.

7. Cat gets eaten by a coyote.

Everyone is healthy, yes. We have our health, our relative sanity, people are employed. Of course, OF COURSE, I appreciate everything I have! But come on, these are only some of the things that have befallen Casa de Simone lately.  But as my grandmother, or perhaps my dirty prank caller would say, Haken nisht en tscheinik! I am tired of hearing myself, literally and figuratively, tell another cute anecdote about my crappy day. And so I am done bitching about all my bad luck. From now on, all is git. No matter what.

It's a world gone mad when karaoke is wrong.

Perhaps I have misunderstood the concept of karaoke. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it meant to be an EXACT COPY of a song, so that a random person with or without musical skills can sing along? I wasn't aware that mistakes were allowed. Isn't life confusing enough without the unexpected karaoke screw up? 

I should make clear that I am not a fan of karaoke. In fact, I have only participated once, this past New Year's Eve. I spent a lovely evening kicking male ass in trivia with the other ladies, and then was challenged to karaoke by a couple who were LEGENDARY in karaoke. This is what they told me. This particular karaoke system had grading out of 100 points, and the scores appeared to be based on timing and pitch measurement programs, but it was hard to tell. In any case, once challenged, I had to quietly and deftly annihilate them, with modesty I didn't feel. Loads of fun and an excellent way to start the year.

However, I am very excited to do a cover show in June, very very different than anything I have done with Sugar Snow. I am working with a phenomenal trio of professional musicians, and I am definitely the newbie with much to prove. The set list is an amalgam of their songs and mine, some I wouldn't necessarily have chosen, but an interesting mix. And since we are limited in the number of rehearsals we are having, I need to go in absolutely and utterly prepared. Thus, downloading karaoke versions to practice in the car, where I spend the bulk of my time. 

So imagine my surprise and utter disdain when one of them is wrong. Not a little wrong, like a flourish of extra instrumentation or the use of piano rather than glockenspiel. This is actually wrong. The song is verse, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Pretty basic. And as I am ready to start singing verse number two, it goes into the chorus. THE CHORUS. Now how is that helpful? I am trying to learn the song exactly, just like the musicians who recorded the karaoke version were supposed to learn THEIR version exactly, And yet....a massive failure of the karaoke kind. This may not be the most popular karaoke song, but it deserves to be 100% accurate, as all other songs are expected to be. 

Not to mention that it screws me up. That alone is reason for outrage. And I am.  Please join me.