Three months ago I got caught in a mouse-trap and couldn’t escape. Yes, boys and girls, I was wearing a Minnie Mouse sweatshirt in public, in my own upper-middle-class suburban fantasyland, and was spotted by someone I know. She, of course, was not wearing anything with a hood or a personified rodent on the front. We exchanged pleasantries, and I felt like I should relinquish my membership in the ladies-who-lunch club and maybe even the PTO. It wasn’t anything she said - nor was it what she didn’t say. It was how I felt. At that moment, unbeknownst to the characters around me, I had a Dumbo-sized realization that rocked my personal kingdom to its core. It just wasn’t cute if I wasn’t in Disney World.

It was then, that without a wand or a fairy godmother, the magical internal transformation began.

I realized that it mattered to me not only what I saw when I looked into the mirror, but what I was reflecting to others. It wasn’t enough to simply feel put-together and on-the-ball, I wanted to exude a better vibe - for myself and for my children. It didn’t mean that I started wearing June Cleaver aprons and pearls around the house, but it does mean that more often than not, I have my hair and makeup at least minimally done - even if I am just going to pick up cheese and crackers for the mousekeeters.

Sweatsuits and hairclips have their time and place, but Jiminy Cricket — I’m a single woman in my 40’s — and like the Lion King, I need to protect my pride.

Happy birthday to me! Having a birthday isn’t merely better than the alternative, it’s simply wonderful. Being thought of by others, whether its the friends and family you speak to every day, or if this is the only day, is remarkable. Someone remembers the day you were born, the day you become a year older. We all have busy lives and our own day-to-day frustrations, but when your birthday makes someone else stop, if only for the time it takes to choose a cyber-greeting, mail a card, or sing a song, it is special.

I know all of this to be true, yet turning 42 has really done a number on me, so to speak. I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be at this day in time when I looked forward a mere 18 months ago, let alone going back years. Is the prophecy set forth for me when I turned 40 really true? Are my 40’s the reward for my 30’s? At this point, I hope not! All I can do now is realize and embrace that I have a lot to do…with and for myself; with and for my children, and my friends, and my family.

Perhaps the real reward - my true gift - comes in owning the present.

And, of course, in eating cake.

I’m adding links to kvetch blog. These are places of interest to me, whether of substance or not. If they are not of interest to you, don’t click the link!

Forthcoming links will relate to what I’m about — being a mom, being single and being Jewish…or whatever tickles my fancy at the moment. Once again, I’m just so thrilled that I figured out how to add them, that I might go a little link-crazy!

Today I feel a strange sense of peace. Not to be mistaken for complacency or misidentified as complete contentment, it fell over me like window blinds that come crashing to the window sill without notice. It made me jump, and then sigh with relief. I am actually capable of having a day when I am not looking over my shoulder or over the fence. I am truly being in the moment and living.

As my kids and some friends relentlessly remind me, I am quite adept at beating a dead horse. Then again, what’s a mom for if not to annoy her children with endless words of wisdom? What’s a friend for if not to mirror your own foibles?

This sense of calm is bound to pass. As I approach a birthday and register my son for high school, I will simply accept the gift I gave myself today, and enjoy.

As for tomorrow, I’ll just wait and see. But don’t get your hopes up.

My grandmother sparkled. More so than the diamond bracelet she gave me about two years ago, just months before she died at 88. She was genuine and unique and precious. Everyone looked and felt better in her presence. Around her, we all shone brightly. We all sparkled. Especially her grandchildren.

She wasn’t just a grandmother, she was Mom-Mom. Never sure exactly where that came from, or what it meant, it was endearing and much more precisely captured her essence. She was so special she made us each believe, in her own way and without saying so, that we were her favorite. But, being the oldest grandchild, and the only girl, I know that her special place for me was different. As mine was for her.

I’ve worn that shimmering bracelet only a few times including just one month ago at my grandfather’s, Pop-Pop’s, funeral. I knew he liked that I treasured the beautiful bauble he’d given to Mom-Mom for one of countless celebrations they shared. He was so proud of the bracelet’s quality and beauty. He never gave Mom-Mom anything but the best - including of himself.

The bracelet made me feel so strongly connected to them, more than almost anything else. I only wished I had more occasions to wear it and feel that connection. After wrestling with the decision for weeks, I took the bracelet and had some of the diamonds reset into a pair of earrings.

Though the sentiment far outweighs the bling, they are strikingly beautiful. Most importantly they are a reminder of my Mom-Mom, who still inspires me to sparkle, all on my own.

Over the past three and half years I was often alone but never lonely. That last part has changed, though I’m not sure when. There is deafening silence in the house this morning as on most, when the dogs romp outside and the kids still sleep. Its my favorite time of day for just those reasons, but its also the time that is so quiet my ears ache.

I wonder if there is an antibiotic for that.

Facts of life don’t change with death for most of us. Post-divorce but pre-death, this was one of the funniest things to me. At times it loses its zing, but most of the time the irony still stands.

I always said, “Your second wife will work full-time.”

It was said in jest with a tickling jab to the side or a scrunched up nose and a wagging finger. We always laughed. It was playful, fun, making his mother laugh and his friends raise their eyebrows.

It was nothing I said once the tides turned and the marriage landed on the rocks. It wasn’t a time when you took chances with words or the future. It wasn’t funny anymore.

But now it is because she does.

Work full-time, that is.

Today I feel like a techie. I added the counter to the bottom of Kvetch Blog, after days of trying to figure out the whole html thing, and how to add the right code to the right spot in the right section of the template. Finally, at long last, my counter appeared. Never has one been so happy to see little numbered circles!

On this brisk, sunny day, with a new counter, and a link-list that I’ve yet to edit, I’m reminded that personal satisfaction comes in many shapes and sizes — and sometimes in purple.

I’ve learned many things since becoming single again. One of the most important being: If a man asks you out, never offer to pay on the first date.

No equal rights, no women’s lib — even if you make more than he does.

Here’s the rationale loving passed onto me by a friend who has been single longer than I was married, who learned it from her mother who has been married almost 50 years. And, while the advice may seen antiquated, in this age of semi-personal relationships laced with text-messaging, instant-messaging and emails, it’s a sure-fire way to lay it on the line in an old-fashioned kind of way.

If you like a man and he likes you, he won’t want you to pay, because he wants to appear generous and able to provide (if only for dinner). He wants to see you again and doesn’t want to give you a reason to say no. If you are out with a man and you don’t like him or he doesn’t like you, you’ll never see him again anyway…so don’t waste your money. When the check arrives, simply say, “Thank you, that was delicious.” If he was assuming you would pay half he will realize he’s mistaken…and if he wasn’t he’ll take it as it was stated, as a clear and concise sign of gratitude for his generosity, which it is.

If you continue dating someone there are plenty of opportunites to pick up the tab for lunch, for coffee, and even for dinner occasionally - eventually - but please, don’t get carried away.

I understand the lure of this time-honored tradition, I really do, but when you are divorced with a dead ex - dwdx - that’s all you get. Moms days, moms coffees, moms lunches and by golly, the horrendous Moms Night Out.

I’m drowning from single-sex socializing!

Don’t get me wrong, I love my girlfriends, most of whom are moms. They have sustained me through some of the most treacherous and spectacular times in my life. But, getting all worked up to go out to in our little suburbia - to figuratively sneak away from their husbands and children just to go out and talk about them and how amazing it is to be out without them, to have JUST girlfriends to talk to, and then to be home by nine, freaks me out and makes me itch.

Its ludicrous when I realize that I am rarely in the company of men. Its not normal and its a void in my life. I don’t mean just dating - just in the company of men - not pursuing them - just around them. I rarely see or speak to my friends husbands because we don’t socialize anymore, I work with women, I spend all my time with women. So, there is a missing piece to my social endeavors and its not normal. And Lord knows I just want to be normal!

Being dwdx, my needs are different, I realize that. When I find the way to have both my kids busy on the same night at the same time, I want to laugh my ass off and do it up a bit and perhaps even forget what my life is really like. I want an upscale meal and a delectable bottle of wine, I want to dress up and not only feel like I am out and about - but be out and about. I want to remember what its like to be out like a grown-up, without kids, in a place with no children’s menu with no one yawning by 8. If you’re married or attached, those things are saved for a night with your spouse and another couple, and I don’t figure into the mix very often, uh, ever.

Now there are those who would say that I do nothing to change my social standing, which to them means to git myself a ma-an. I’ve all but given up the dating realm since my ex died in December ‘04, but that doesn’t mean it can’t, and doesn’t, bother me. And, quite frankly, when he was alive and kicking, and the kids were going to him every other weekend, my time WAS spent dating and in several relationships. I was pseudo-fulfilled and for that time in my life and it was perfect. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t included with my friends on the weekends - I had other plans. Now I don’t.

I don’t have the other half of even the facade of a marriage, and therefore am not a candidate for socializing, unless its coffee or lunch or a shopping spree. And those things have their merit - I couldn’t survive without them, but I need more.

I feel like I am being excluded from real-life. I don’t expect any longer to be able to keep up - I can’t pull off $100 dinners or trips to the Caribbean; and multi-family vacations don’t include dwdx families, unless its with another single mom. However, I could manage dinner and a movie with a married couple that I used to consider friends. And yet, I’ve never - ever - been asked.

So, its Moms Night Out and I suck it up, and go. My girlfriends throw their heads back and laugh, and yes, the conversations are interesting and the venues are fine, but to me its the same as coffee in sweats at Starbucks after dropping the kids at school But it’s all I get.

Perhaps I’m just lucky (not a word I usually use when describing myself) that since becoming single my friends haven’t deemed me completely invisible. They value me and my friendship; my insight and humor; my fish tacos and bottles of wine; and I know that. I’ve just become part of a sub-category and that isn’t their fault, or mine for that matter.

I accept my lot in life as it stands at the moment. I am blessed and make the most of each day, each hour, each moment. But I still get annoyed…and sad.

And yes, I still kvetch.