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! 

First Love?

Song: Ho Hey- The Lumineers

Once upon a time in a land far far away, I had a staff.  Well, it was one woman, Dahlia, but she worked as hard as a staff.  She did everything under the umbrella of homemaking to make my household run smoothly and cleanly. Well, not everything.  She cleaned but didn't cook.  She looked after the third and final baby Henry but not the two older boys. She was here almost all of the time. Once upon a time, I had a live-in housekeeper/nanny.

I never thought I'd be the sort of person who had live-in help.  My mother-in-law insisted we get help with the third. Dahlia had been my husbands nanny when he was four.  She had moved back to the states just this year. It was a sweet story but still I was resistant.  How could I enjoy privacy with someone here? How could I "do-me" with an on-looker?

Boy did that change. I adapted in the time in took to place my five day old son in her arms and get back into bed.  I was recovering from a c-section. When that excuse passed, I was recovering from a broken heart (my dad died three days after Dahlia unpacked her bags). She was the first person I told, "Dahlia, mi padre morte." She looked at me, cradling Henry, "I sorry, Mrs."  Mrs. I smiled, so sweet.  I took Henry out of her arms and told him all about his Papa. I wouldn't let him sleep in her room that night.  When I woke up that morning, after neither Henry or I having slept that night, I returned him to her waiting arms.  From then on, I really cashed in my chips.

I was home recovering unable to drive or see people, but still I wouldn't be the type to telecast my new found fortune.  People can only be so happy for a person, especially when it comes to the person not having to do laundry.  However, our oldest son, Colbert, five years old at the time, was invited for a playdate by a charitable mom from a boy in his class's house- when he was dropped off (how nice was that?!) I answered the door, infant Henry in my arms.

"Oh! Hi!" The mom said. "I'm surprised to see you with the baby."

"Really?" My back molar suddenly needing the attention of my tongue. "Why's that?"

"Colbert said he sleeps in the basement with the woman who does your chores." She said.

The mouths of babes.

"Well, it's heated." I called after her in my mind. "For the most part anyway.... It has a humidifier?"

The rest of that month is a fog.

After two weeks of live-in Dahlia, the help I thought could only feel like an intrusion! I couldn't imagine functioning without it.  It wasn't long before I heard myself saying TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING I'd rather live in a card board box with a housekeeper than live without help. Which is basically what we do.  If that sounds awful -I don't apologize. At a friends baby shower the family past around a book asking for advice, I said "Get as much sleep as you can and as much help as you can afford." I had really turned a corner.  Her two week stint turned into a near two year commitment.

She didn't stay all week. She came for three nights. On Monday mornings at 7:43am my phone would ring, "I am here." Dahlia would say, in a musical accent that would light up my heart. It never got old. It only got better. On Thursday mornings, her bag would be packed to go, my heart would sink.  That got old quick and never got better. For a while, hating to see her go was because with her went my freedom. Then, as Henry got on his feet, hating to see her go was because with her went his heart.

He loved her.

He would swoon when she walked in the room, bat his eyes, run to me- wrapping his arms around my legs and look back at her.  The nights she wasn't there, he would wake up bawling- calling her name. "Ya-ya!" he cried. "Ya-ya."  A plaintive wail. And there was nothing on top of it.  Not a layer of resentment or self-pity. I wished I could slap a coat of jealousy or insanity on it- anything to make the heartbreak easier to absorb. But no, the scalding pure inimitable cry of a broken heart.  My baby.

After trying a bottle, a pacifier, rocking him, walking him, singing to him- everything I could think of to get him back to sleep I finally said, "You miss Dahlia?" and he put his little head down on my chest, heaving a sigh of relief that I understood.  Or that I stopped singing.

I knew it was the beginning of the end.

Then one Saturday late in November Danny found a a diabetes pen in the refrigerator, wrapped in a paper towel.  He asked me if it was mine...seriously.  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you- I have diabetes.  (That's sarcasm folks.)

So I asked Dahlia that following Monday about the pen.

"Yes, is mine." She said. "I have the sugar."
"Oh, no. The sugar." I said. "Are you okay?"
"Is okay." She said. "I'm leaving in December."

Homey said what?

"When did you find out you had it?"
"Five years before." She said.
"Five years ago?" I asked.
"In the 2008." She said. "I'm leaving December 29."
"Permiso?"

Wild.

She left for Los Angeles December 29, 2012.  It may as well have been 2010.  It feels so long ago.  She called the first week a couple of times and we would all get on the phone, but then Henry would spend the rest of the day confused and crying and looking around for her. The way a broken heart does.  So we stopped that. Then she called today. He recognized her voice, he smiled when she cooed, "Corazon! Papi! Mi amor!" But then he walked away, distracted by a red matchbox car.  How quick a boys heart can heal.  I was so happy.  God must have done that for their mothers. She asked me if I had found someone else, I said no, I wasn't ready. We laughed. But really.  I had no idea what I had gotten Henry into then...but now that I know- looks like lots more laundry for me:)

Shades of Who Cares?

Song: Bad Romance by Lady Gaga

This post was supposed to be about how hard I've fallen for the color grey and how it has worked its way into every part of my house (and unfortunately my hair;( )but now I feel like...who cares? Who hasn't? So I wrote a long, have-to-say-kind-of-amazing-especially-now-that-it's-deleted-story about a hot bad romance. Deleted. Curtains.

Did I say curtains? I meant pillows.

I did make some cool grey pillows out of Danny's Ralph Lauren cashmere moth eaten sweater this week - I could not bare to throw out all that good cabled cashmere.  Do you remember that post from way back about repurposing your stuff? Well, I finally got around to making these. It was so easy! Especially since I had the tailor at my local dry cleaner do it.  I just asked and described. Only $25. each- we included a zipper- so I can use the green velvet again next Christmas or whenever.  But if you can sew...it'll only cost ya thread.

Came out pretty... pretty! Have a great week! LOVE, Susan

Two green pillows and one XL cashmere sweater with moth holes 

I used an old thick cotton sheet for backing

Had tailor at my dry cleaner make sweater into pillow covers-$25. each

Voila!

Song- Start Me Up - Rolling Stones
GO BIG BLUE! That was me, chanting with the fans at Metlife stadium-Sunday Dec. 30th 2012, dressed for the 20 degree chill factor-in the crowd-with my family, like I did it every Sunday.  I thought I hated football.  And I knew I hated one thing more than football-football jerseys.  Gag me.   Nuh- uh.  I was enthralled.  The mighty fans. A sea of blue.  My two little guys chief amongst them.  But let's back up, because the game really starts at home.

My four and a half year old son Julian has a play date with his friend Jack.  It's their first playdate and Jacks first at our house, so...I guess they wanted (like males with members do) to show some plumage.

After they chucked their coats on the floor about three feet from the hooks I asked them to place them on- this dialogue happened:

"I have goldfish," Jack who is at least a head taller than Julian said, "two died and they're in fish heaven."

"I'm going to go put on my Bronco's Jersey," Julian said, a bucket of compassion. "I wear my Jets jersey to school (he pointed to his shirt),  put my new Bronco's jersey on after." He took two steps and then turned around and said. "Oh yeah, I have a Giants jersey too."

He left before he could hear Jack say, "We might get a couple more fish."

"That's great Jack!" I said,  in a "I'm here for ya bud!" voice. "I hear goldfish heaven is a swell place..."

But Jack had taken off for the basement which left me talking to the empty coats.  Wondering what the jersey just happened.  My son has become obsessed, singularly focused on football.

Christmas morning with the wrapping paper strewn all around the room- not a gift left to open and by the looks of their faces - any joy left to be had- I tell Danny to look in his stocking.  He pulls out a small thin wrapped gift.  I am video-taping his expression as he unwraps and discovers 4 Giants Football tickets for the weekend.  NY Giants vs. Philadelphia Eagles.   My friend sold me her season tickets (plus parking pass) at a HUGE discount.  I had no idea who they were playing or anything- I just jumped at the offer.  I had just seen Silver Lining Playbook with my now oscar-nominated classmate Bradley Cooper-who played an avid Eagle fan. So that was a coincidental bonus.  (If you haven't seen it-it's honest, raw, beautiful-go.)  Danny is smiling but studying the tickets as if to be sure it isn't a gag gift. As if I would ever? Ok, I might. NO! I actually can't stand stuff like that, like, "Oh! You won the lottery!! Just kidding. We taped you. Be a sport-laugh."  And the victim looks like he's not only not set for life, but that he will never be able to trust a living soul again. No. That's just so weird and mean.

Danny was happily surprised (last time he gets a gift) but my two sons, Colbert (7) and Julian, were somewhere between ecstatic and combusting.  Anticipating their reaction bought me a blissful sleepless night.  That it matched my hope, well, as I watched I stepped inside it. Have you ever been inside of a dream come true?

The countdown began.

"How many sleeps Mama?" Julian asked.
"Five, Jule." I said.
He held his chubby little hand up.
"That's this many, right Mama?"
"Yep."
"UGH!" He'd stomp, "That's tooooo long!"
"NO!" Colbert interrupts. "No, Mom it's not."

He calls me mom now.

Miraculously, the day arrives.  The games at 1pm.  They start getting dressed when they wake up- at 6am.   Forecast- 20 degrees. Three pairs of socks, thermals, snow pants, turtlenecks, jackets, hats, mittens, scarves....and on top of it all? Jerseys.

Hell to the yeah.

What can I say? It was awesome. The thing is? I love a parade. Once, when we were living on Thompson Street there was a parade coming down the block. As I watched through my window I saw they were an angry assemble of hostile persons with signs and yelling and then it dawned on me...it's not a parade!! It's a protest!! Still, got me outta bed. I liked it. I like community and gathering- generally speaking.

Well, the crowd at MetLife Stadium was something to behold. The fans! Their energy and enthusiasm is like a tidal wave of adrenaline. Faces painted royal blue, guts hanging out, their favorite players numbers shaved into their heads- and that's the women;)

NY Giants were the home team and wouldn't ya know-there dared one lone Eagle fan dressed like a bird in our Giants midst and a Giant screamed, "GET OUTTA HERE YA TURKEY!"and The Bird looked at The Giant and then back at the field as if to say "I'm not going anywhere. Make me." It was so fun I forgot how cold it was. I hate the cold. HATE IT. But these guys were so fun I actually never felt cold. I like fun more than I hate cold. Jack and Jill went up the hill.  I write like a two year old.

Henry with his best friend Girlie 

One thing that was a bummer was Michael Vick on the field. Not only did he suck as a player- but he sucks because he is a dog abuser. Danny said, "Well, I'm not defending him -but he's done a lot of nice things since then and he got a dog." Oh! Well, I'm not judging him but he's a psychopath.  I try hard not to get into the business of judging,  but I feel like this is such a clear case.  Have you seen ID TV? Evil exists in the world.  I would do a lot of nice things too if I wanted my *40 million dollar a year job back.  That doesn't impress me. As for him getting a dog? That's like giving a kid to a pedophile. Who's allowing that craziness? There is no rehabilitating a human being who can engage in slaughter of innocent creatures. I had to put down our 13 year old family yellow lab a week after Hurricane Sandy, after struggling for months - she slipped in the Nor'easter and broke both of her hips- it broke my heart. I can't imagine getting pleasure or gaining in any way out of seeing a dog in pain.  UGH! I didn't want to get started, and I started. Now I'm upset and I haven't even mentioned the film The Cove yet- a must see. But back to my point-  Does the NFL need talent that badly? Aren't there a few hundred young men out there battling themselves, not dogs, to get into the game? Look a little harder at signing fella's - having a record clean of carnage not yardage should be a bigger part of the equation.

I get turned off by entertainers that get political, but whatever its my blog and i'll rant if I want too:) Next week- SHADES OF GREY!! No, it's not over.  In my house it's taking over...

*something like that