Bj's and Baggage

Song - Everybody Wants to Rule The World by Tears For Fears - heard it on the radio today... lyrics are on point! The video? So bad it's greAt.

So.  Yesterday I went to BJ's an unfortunate name for a wholesale supply store...but whatever.  I had to buy diapers and wipes- then I bought a bunch of other stuff I didn't need but picked up because what the hell that's what we do- one of them an eight pound bag of organic cat food. It's not that I don't have a cat and bought the food- that would be super weird... I'm just medium weird :D No it was that the cat has enough food and he doesn't like kibble so...no need.  Still I rationalized that if I could get him to eat kibble, no more disgusting wet, smelly clumps of cat chow for us and it's eight bucks...organic...

After unpacking while scrambling around to answer all the calls to "mama"- I sprang up the stairs into the bathroom.  Standing there was Henry trying to pull himself up onto the sink.  I reached to help him and realized- only then- that I was carrying the eight pound bag of cat kibble.  You would think an eight pound bag is not that heavy, it's eight pounds.  Trust me, it's very heavy! There are no handles, it's dead weight, I latched onto the little bit of room I could grip from the top of the bag and hauled.  Still, I wasn't aware that before I was rushing up to do the next thing that I hadn't put it down.  I ran up the stairs and realized amongst other things that I was carrying an EIGHT POUND BAG OF CAT KIBBLE! That I didn't need.

Now I know this may seem a glaring example and an obvious one-for putting down the weight we carry but when I dropped it with a thud to the ground- I felt not relief in my arm, but pain.  My forearm was sore and so were my fingers- from the death grip I had on the bag- it took about ten minutes with some stretching to feel normal.  Mentally- I felt like an idiot.  How could I have carried up that heavy bag and not known it?  But I moved through that quick enough for the circumstance and got to the spiritual.  Spiritually, I felt...aha! This can be a blog post! Just kidding.

A great reminder- this time a physical one- of how much stuff we carry around that we don't need.  And the realization that putting it down makes us lighter, but still it takes time to heal.  As well as the ever important need to stay present.

I knew I didn't need the cat food from the beginning. But I hopped on board!  Then when I was busy rushing around unconscious, (but thinking I was conscious), not only was I carrying the bag around with me- I was hurting myself!

So if you are made aware of your own baggage- physical, emotional or mental- thinking, "Why did I invest in that relationship? Property? Business? Kibble?" and then once aware think of why you invested in the first place (eight bucks, organic:0) or you get to the blaming anguish of  "Why didn't I know?"

Just give yourself a break.  We can only know what we know when we know it.  Put it down with a thud, stretch yourself out and try try try to get to the spiritual lesson so you can use it to heal and move on.  Simple right? If only.  If only all my lessons could be learned and accessed as easily as kibble- but maybe they can- maybe that's another message- that our kibble is as complicated as we choose to make it.

What do you have a death grip on today that you could let go of in order to heal? Tell me about your proverbial kibble...can you count the number of times I used the word kibble? hah-I'd love to hear <3

"I'm a bad guy but I'm not a BAD guy"

Song- You May Be Right- Billy Joel
           Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio
*Please click on the hyperlinks- they are in a different color type than the rest of the print and link to articles and clips of what I'm referencing.  It takes too long to explain all of the backstories-the links are there to serve that purpose. Enjoy!
                                                                 ******

I'm not sure if it is because Bobby being obsessed with Jesse James was my favorite Brady Bunch episode or if it's because I used to love stories about the mob but how about that heist?!

Hello, awesome.

My friend Jen Tully said it best when I texted her asking if she liked it.

"What's not to like?" Totally.

Two cars, eight drivers, five minutes= 50 million in uncut diamonds.  Blood diamonds, right?  No one was hurt, the passengers of the plane they raided didn't even see it. The heistys drove out through a hole in the fence in the dark of night.  See ya!

It should be wrong but it's so right.

At thirteen I was obsessed with the Holocaust. The atrocity, Anne Frank, we must have read her diary in school then- the wrong was very clear.  At sixteen I loved mobsters, Good Fellas and my Italian boyfriend-the wrong was less clear.  Then in my early twenties I loved Jim Morrison and his whole crazy mess-whiskey, inciting riots and Nietzsche- more right then wrong. Then I was into The Beats and being "mad" for life.  I actually walked around with the portable beat reader in my knapsack, I used Jack Kerouac as a goal post, auditioned for The Actors Studio with a piece from it- (weirdo alert)- it felt alright.

So as I aged I shook my like of wrong.  Mostly.  I think that's the point of my trip down what I liked lane...very hard to concentrate at the mo.

But let's cycle back to that Brady Bunch episode.  I remember clearly loving Bobby and his obsession with bandit Jesse James. The thought, "Wow, squeaky Bobby's not so annoying afterall."  Then Mr. and Mrs. Brady were explaining long and hard to Bobby that Jesse was a bad guy and how wrong it was that he idolized him. You're killing the whole episode.  Get back to the hold-ups. You're holding up the hold-ups!  "Zip it, Carol."

I just watched this YouTube clip of the episode.  I can't remember how old I was when I first saw it,  (I watched it in syndication), but man does memory have a way of distortion. Definitely see now that Carol and Mike were on to something. I paraphrase, "Have to be careful who you choose to be your hero." True dat, Mike.  Nice rack, Carol.

This weekend we were in Washington DC for a visit- after we saw all the monuments- and all of the armed guards- it was time to retire to Hotel Sofitel. A plush French establishment that offered movies On Demand.  What should we order? Kids in tow,  it was Wreck It Ralph for us.  Very good. Ralph is a bad guy in a video game trying to prove that he is actually a good guy trapped in the role of bad guy. One of my favorite lines is in the beginning of the film, when he is at a Bad-anonomous meeting, (delivered from another not bad guy), "I"m a bad guy, but I'm not a bad guy."

Now that I have a certain grasp of right and wrong- why do I love the heist? Maybe it's because of what my mother-in-law said in her Persian accent when I asked her if she liked it- "Oh, that nice one- where no one was keeled?" Yes, that one. The one where no one was keeled.   The nice heist.

They're bad guys but that doesn't mean they're bad guys.  Who knows maybe they are...have to catch 'em first.  Zip it, Carol.

Song: Run This Town- JZ

Happy Valentines Day. I'm so tired I can barely see the keyboard;) BUT Gotta give it up to my little t-shirt drive. Big ups to Andrea Barucha who responded immediately to my FB post and put us in touch with the family we will be donating to!!

I always loved the computer trick where you press shift and the less than sign (<) + the number 3 and it becomes a heart.  Thanks Marie Claire for teaching me that <3.  So I thought it would be cool to put it on a t-shirt and send it out to my dear Marie out in Sonoma, CA.  Then I thought it would be cooler to make a couple extra for her two full of love little girls.  Then I thought (lots of thoughts people, scary in here:) that it would be cool to sell the t-shirts, but not cool to be in the business of t-shirts, so why not a t-shirt drive for charity? I grabbed my friends daughter after school, snapped some pics-posted them on the Facebooks and alas, our Sandy Hook Elementary drive was born.

This small and manageable project has given me so much more than I could have ever imagined.  It was my first venture into community service.  I heard the rumors, the gift is in the giving, its' better to give then receive...blah blah ba bleepin' blah. But I was not prepared for the actuality of it. The people who showed up-three had lost their homes in Hurricane Sandy- families from out of state-everyone dealing with their own heartache and happiness- came with their wallets open, willing and understanding...and sharing parts of their own stories. It broke me wide open.

When I went to order the shirts from Vistaprint.com the prices had doubled. The delivery was no longer free. There was going to be no money left over to send the promised donation. I knew there had to be a way out. I have done a lot of my business through Vistaprint and they have unbeatable customer service.  One woman I spoke to said she was sorry but she had done all she could do. I thanked her and called back.  I got a different woman, Jovana Gardner from Montego Bay, Jamaica.  I could tell the second I heard her upbeat voice we had a chance.  She listened to the story of our effort and what happened and said those magic words, "Let me see what I can do."  She cut the prices below the original and sliced the shipping to almost half.  We were back in action thanks to her.  One person always makes a difference. You could be that person.

I had organized the drive so that the people who bought the shirts would come get them. I was hoping that it would all fall in one specified hour, so I could get a group shot and we would send a family that lost a child in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting a gift in time for Valentines Day  (and my house would be spotless and I would look perfect:) Then we had a snowstorm.  Life always wants to get in my way! So the pickups were random and I was sometimes a mess. No one cared.  The t-shirts I had placed neatly in piles by size were tossed into a wicked frenzy by my thank-god-he's-cute baby fireball Henry. They waited patiently while I fished out for sizes.  They pretended not to notice the crushed Cheerios on the floor.  Gave me hugs. Those that weren't able to pick up, I connected with over the phone. For the most part I dred talking on the phone, but because the reason was bigger than myself I picked up and connected and had funny and heartfelt conversations.  Maybe I'm too Pollyanna but I would not have recognized their greatness as clearly if it had all gone according to plan. You can bet I would have clearly recognized my greatness:)  It's easy (and believe me I wanted it to be easy),  to come into an organized beautiful space with a well rehearsed hostess and be comfortable.  They walked into chaos and treated it like an ashram and me like the head monk.

I would call it what one of my friends has told me is the language of the heart.  A connection we all have to each other that defies all boundaries. A feeling of kindness. What it means to be kind and to receive kindness.  It's not affection, it's a connection.  There are so many good and generous people out there.  I wouldn't know it if I only watched the news.  But what the news this time gave me was a call to action.  As you can see by my thought process in creating this drive there was nothing noble in it.  But what it gave me is a gift of grace.  I feel peace. I understand more that we are not responsible for the result but the effort. I understand more that although I prefer it when life goes according to plan, especially according to MY plan, it's better when it goes according to His plan. That is a miracle. That is the gift of giving. Plus we raised a pretty decent chunk for a family I can't imagine could use it more.

I had the best Valentines Day 2013, I hope you did too.  <3

Date Night!

Song: Still The One- Orleans

"Seriously?" I look disgusted. "You're not wearing that."

Date night people. We've started implementing "date night".  What is date night? Date night is scheduling a babysitter (no more Dahlia, but then she wasn't here on the weekends anyway), and then going to the movies or dinner or if the babysitter doesn't have her own date, both. We had our first "date" two weekends ago. That was my opening line.  My closing line, delivered with a smile to the sushi restaurant manager was, "I just want to get the eff out of here."

So I started thinking, how unlike a date this "date night" thing was.  I'm pretty sure when Danny first took me out and arrived in a mock turtle neck, pleated pants and had his phone clipped to his belt- "Seriously, you're not wearing that"- never crossed the gates of my lips.  They were easily dismissed by the more grateful thought, "This is the guy that was so funny on the phone and he's here! For me!" and the words, "What are we drinking, handsome?!"

So when did it turn? When exactly did I turn from a grateful, fun-loving, am-I-worthy-of-you- to the fashion police? And not just the fashion police- because on any given day the word "wearing" can be replaced with "saying", "doing", "going".  I need a badge and a holster, I'm the GD fun police!  I'm not sure when it turned. But I'm ready to turn it around.

Things were important when we first got together, when I was 28, things that were in balance with who I'd like to continue to be at 39.  It was important that we were laughing. Danny always makes me laugh.  His humor rests mostly in the cornball variety, "What did the snail say when he saw a speeding S car?" "Look at that escargot!" But then he also makes fun of me, imitating my voice in a valley girl accent, (apparently lots makes me sick to my stomach) "I'm seriously going to throw up." Or he makes up characters based on what I'm into -my most recent weekend marathon of both seasons of Homeland- inspired his latest Persian spy-guy approaching the CIA for a job, "Hello, I'm Persian, I do the spy for you, you pay me." Cracks me up. It was important that he was kind, generous, well-mannered and stable. Check. Check. Check. And check. The unchangeable. They have remained.

Of course, it's not all screwball comedy bits in the homestead, there's everything. However, it's been harder not to notice the balance had been tipped, well, flipped from appreciating the natural ebbs and flows to a stern deliberate focus on the ebbs.  The main message from me, You, Danny, are an ebb. Ouch. It's not easy to write. I know what an uber-bitch I sound like- especially to any who know my sweet, sweet Danny boy. And what satisfaction those that have said to my face on more than one occasion "Poor, Danny." To what I've thought, "Yeah, your husband has it so much better-terd breath."  Maturity!

It's hard to discuss marriage. When you're dating, every nuance is open to interpretation from the girlfriends, we are all too happy to give it up and have each other way in. But being married is tricky, now you're talking about the father of your children.  The most likely answer to "How's Dave?" is "Great. How's Danny?" "Great." Done and done.

But I know it's not like I'm alone.  Ready to be outed? (I got permission). One of my friends spent the entire time our families got together bowling pointing at her husbands backside, "His crack is showing." She would huff each time it was his turn to bend over and release the ball. She was steamed. I hadn't noticed his crack, nor did I particularly mind once she pointed it out,  but I empathized-  I knew if it were Danny's crack... Strike.  And that's worse than a gutter ball:) Utterly besides the point that he gets up with the kids, leaves me flowers for no reason, will burn a CD with a love song on it and leave it in my car.  Ever since the beginning he has listened to every matter of thought I had, idiotic or important. I remember asking him, "Why do you listen to me talk so much? Is it because you're Jewish?" "No." He said. "It's because I love you."

So who gives a fat one if he takes the wipes out of the nursery so that when I'm standing over a dirty wriggling baby I have nothing to clean him with? Or that he dresses like a super? In my brief dating history, the guys who cared a lot about how they looked- cared very little for how they treated me. Wah.

So, we put "date night" on the calendar.  The first one, may have you thinking I would be getting zero percent callback, but due to the perks of being married, he had to give me another shot.  Actually, besides my opener, the first date went really well.  After I changed his clothes - we saw some movie I can't remember in a theatre with bad seats and we held hands. Then, we went to grab a quick bite of sushi and the place told us the wait would be 15 minutes- it was 30.  When we got our table, the waiter took our order and then disappeared. After 45 minutes all I could think about was the sitter.  Was she ever going to come back after this? By the time we get our food, eat and pay the check it's going to be another hour....this is not going to work. We kept trying to make eye-contact with the waiter as he was taking care of the tables around us- now all but empty- he was doing that looking-at-the-ceiling-thing whenever we came into his peripheral vision. After an hour of this ridiculous side show, we just wanted to go.  Danny said he'd pay for the food and meet me out in the car. The manager saw me putting on my coat and came over. She said I should have told her earlier and a whole bunch of other things I should have done before, "it got to this point." Um...That's when I delivered my line,  smiling, measured and right into her face. Then I popped my hood, split and pulled the car around for Danny- who was waiting with the goods-it was fun-we felt like Bonnie and Clyde (without any of the plot line).

This would never have happened on the first date- I'd have been lost on displaying how patient and easy to please I was-hahahaaaa.  We had a picnic at home in front of the TV (they forgot the spicy mayo but we made our own (wink, wink), ...and that wouldn't have happened on the first date either. So...ebbs and flows. Our second date went even better. I'm trying to single focus on the flows...life is a lot better when I'm not being the fun police.  That job, in valley girl accent, "seriously, makes me want to throw up".

Good week and luck with the snow! See you next week!