Not wanting to be left behind the bloggin bandwagon, here’s a not-so-oldie on a topic similar to what’s going on in the Momosphere these days. I have to admit I think it’s overdone, but since I’ve already written about it, I’ll just link.

It’s so d-o-n-e that I wrote the article back in November and it wasn’t published in my paper of choice for that reason. Dare I say that TODAY is behind the times?

Anyway, this doesn’t really serve as an argument, simply as a testament.

Drink up.

During an evening of driving kids to and fro I got a call from one of my aunts. Auntie G and I are very close, she’s my mother’s older sister, much older as my mother likes to remind her. As we were about to hang up, she said, “Oh by the way I just LOVE your latest article.” “Which one?” I asked. “You know,” she said, “the one about your life. Your mother sent it to me.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere, I’ve been…

GOOGLED.

And by my very own mother!

And Mom must have really been having a boring day because to google my name and come up with anything you have to go to like, page 3 or 4 of the search.

And she did.

“Auntie G,” I said, “Are you sure you were supposed to TELL me you read it?”

“I don’t know, why wouldn’t I?”

“Check the email.”

And she did.

“OOPS” was the subject line of my latest email from Auntie G. My mother forwarded her one of my columns from The Imperfect Parent and in THAT subject line it said, “Don’t tell her you read this.”

So I hurried myself over to The Imperfect Parent to see what exactly I’ve said over there in my essays and in my monthly column. I figured I better be prepared to deal with the aftermath of TMI if there was any. And I think I’m safe.

Now that my mother knows about The Imperfect Parent, I’m wondering if she was savvy enough to realize that it’s a list of essays, not just the one she sent my aunt which was called “The View From Here” and was the precursor to my column. I’m expecting she’ll tell me.

Now I could start lambasting my mother for being secretive, but after all, I am the one with the essays dotting the world wide web and not telling my family. My prerogative I maintain, but I suppose what is good for the gosling is good for the goose, so to speak. My mother has a habit of being incredibly secretive though, and I’m sure she is home beside herself wondering if I am going to be angry at her. She is most likely also writing a novelan email to explain herself/apologize/analyze me.

For those of you who know me well, you know that I like to keep my private life private. A very public divorce in a very small town, and a death that rocked that same community to its core makes me relish when no one knows anything about me. Everyone knew too damn much for way too long. And that goes for my family as well as my friends. There are some people who know a lot, but frankly, there is no one who knows everything I’m thinking or doing or have done. It’s like spreading out the treasure in case of capture I suppose, hidden pockets of wealth all over the place. Perhaps it allows no one close enough to do me much harm, but I prefer to think of it as carefully choosing with whom I share information, lest I get some input I really don’t want. And who would subject themselves to that?

And while I don’t want her to be hurt that I left them all out of the loop, I plan to maintain my code of silence on whatever I choose. I guess it’s easier to do that from 600 miles away, I guess I’ve grown accustomed to doing things on my own and for myself without input, unless I ask for it.

And in a way by entering into a life on the internet, I’ve asked for it, haven’t I?

But for the record, this blog is not google-able at all when using my name in any combination or configuration. So perhaps I need to kick it up a notch to PG-13 just to get it out of my system. Or not.

Good thing I’ve taken my profiles off the dating sites — I can only imagine that would have been next!

I drive about 100 miles a week, mostly within a several mile radius, and usually in circles. I leave home to drop of one kid, swing back to pick up another, come home to wrangle the dogs, leave again to go to work or the grocery store or to Starbucks. I go to Walgreens to get pens, markers, toilet paper, mascara or ice cream, sometimes multiple times in a day. Taking my busy offspring to friends, library, gym, movies or a restaurant means taking all the same streets and just ending up somewhere else. All that being said, especially in the morning its the same route day after day. After day. And I pass the same cars driving, the same kids walking, the same crazy really motivated and healthy people (like Sister-Friend back in Philly) running.

The other day I noticed two little kids, and by little I mean kindergarten and second grade little, walking to school uphill - no lie - uphill. The thermometer in my car said 21 degrees. The therMOMeter in my head saw that they were not zipped up all the way, did not have hats, scarves or gloves on, and the older of the two, a little girl, was sucking on a lolly pop. Power breakfast or absent parents? You choose.

I live in an upper middle class neighborhood. And while I think it’s fine to pat your kiddies on the tush and slosh them out the door in their winter bundle to walk to school that is a few blocks away, I don’t think it’s ok to do it without properly attiring them. I have an inkling that these kids dressed themselves to go to school and got themselves out the door. And that infuriates me. There are before school programs at our elementary school, for that purpose. And while I’m trying not to be judgemental, little tikes are not sufficiently equipped to decide what they should wear.

I realize that the parents might lay out all the appropriate clothing before leaving the house. I realize that to maintain the house, the car and the Xbox that both parents very well might need to work long hours. I realize instructions might be given to bundle up and to eat breakfast and NOT to eat a lollypop while walking (or G-d forbid running - I’m hyperventilating here) to school.

But the fact is, it’s winter in the Midwest and it’s dangerously cold here most mornings. And while I was busy cursing under my breath and feeling even more sad for these shivering children than I was angry, I knew that in today’s world I could not pull over and offer them a ride to school. I didn’t know them - and they didn’t know me. I look questionable at best driving around in the morning with slip on shoes, flannel pajamas, hair clipped up and my winter fur-collared coat. The mascara under my eyes probably would have scared them more than the mess in the backseat, and it would not have been the best look for getting pulled in by the cops for abducting children.

So I kept driving, came home and wrote a blog post.

Saturday night I decided that I’m lucky. And usually when one thinks of luck, well, my face is not the first thing to pop to mind. But as I found my cadence in the kitchen preparing dinner for my friends, I realized that I was humming along to the music in my head and just at peace.

My kids were in the house doing their thing, and I was preparing some ingredients ahead of time. The kitchen was a mess, which usually frazzles me to no end. But it didn’t. I realized in that moment that there is an inherent difference in doing things to impress someone and doing things to please someone. I was there, working diligently at having a dinner party but felt the need to impress absolutely no one at all. A matter of maturity perhaps, and of simply realizing that the people who care most about me, including the friends who were coming over, didn’t need or want to be impressed.

And although the china brought back really delightful memories of a time in my twenties, and my daugther delighted in the telling of how her dad and I chose the china just like a little girl should, I took ownership of it, and yesterday it became all mine.

Part of it is that I came to terms for the umpteenth time with the fact that I really like doing things on my own, although I don’t always like being alone. I had no one to answer to, no one to tell me what to do. When you’re part of a marriage with someone who is controlling and inflexible and that’s all you know - different is like being hit over the head. So there I was rattling around in my kitchen, preparing a meal, setting the house for company, and I didn’t get a headache, nor do I feel out of control or stressed. I felt at peace. And funny, that’s the same feeling I get when I’m writing. It’s a feeling of zen accomplishment of self, a natural high and a legal buzz with zero calories.

It’s remarkable to me that still after 4 and a half years after becoming single again and I’m in a zone when I’m alone. Not sure how I comingle that with the desire to not spend the rest of my life in solitary confinement, but I do understand how some people who are single cannot see themselves ever married again or for the first time. I know that in today’s world, even if not according to the calendar, I’m young with a long way to go. Once my kids are in college and out on their own I’ll experience unprecedented freedom and a true empty nest, give or take a dog or three. And while I don’t like to make long-range plans, I can’t help but wonder if that will be incredibly lonely or really exhilarating - and opt for the latter as I plan to be involved, working, social and still coloring my hair.

It’s a place thing - the place I am now pitted against the place I see myself. I see myself a fulltime writer with a full social agenda, meaningful causes to spend time on, and ample opportunity to just read a book and not feel guilty.

The really amazing thing is, I like what I see and the choices I have right here and right now. And every time that happens, it’s new for me all over again.

And just a little extra information…the menu for Saturday evening included, on center stage, J’s Pistachio Cod accompanied by roasted veggies, served at room temp and artichoke risotto (frozen from Trader Joe’s, you can’t tell). Just another time the blogosphere quiety infiltrated my real life. Another way is my own website gloriously designed by Izzy that I’m using as I query other venues for my writing and email editors. Isn’t Izzy talented? I just love what she came up with for me! You can also catch me over at The Imperfect Parent today, as well as at my column at WhoIsIsabella.com called Mom on a Wire where you might experience deja vu with some of my writing, but I hope you’ll take a look. Today’s column is something that probably won’t be familiar to most of you.

Thanks for keeping up with me and Kvetch Blog even though I’ve been absent lately, I appreciate the comments and emails more than you know!

Giddy and love-stuck engaged twenty-somethings, my fiance and I stormed Macy’s Fine China department. Completely impractical, as we often were, we registered only for things we wanted, not the things we needed. We thought it best to ask for items that would stand the test of time since we had no idea yet where we’d be living. How could we register for towels and tea cosies if we didn’t know if our bathrooms would be pink or blue or our kitchen would be big enough for teapot.

So there we were fulfilling one of my girlish and whimsical dreams. Fine china. I’d been eating holiday meals on my parents wedding china for 24 years and was quick to imagine all the special times to come with a seemingly endless dining room table lined with family and friends and “the children”.

We embarked on a quest. We decided to look around the china department on our own and come back to the other when our top choices had been identified. Alone we walked in two directions, catching the others eye, laughing pointing to things we knew the other would not like. I don’t remember how long we did this, but I know we went in search of the other a few times, and took it seriously. Then, standing in the center of a big display we both announced we’d found our favorite and decided that since we could each see it from where we stood, we point and then make some further decisions.

One…

Two…

Three!

And we both pointed to the same china.

In a room with a minimum of a hundred Wedgewood, Royal Doulton, Mikasa, Noritake, Lenox and Spode patterns on display, we both chose Noritake Shenandoah and went on record with the bridal registry at Macy’s as being the couple to choose china the fastest. We laughed and laughed the whole way home – hoping that our friends and family would indulge our fancy and buy china for a couple who didn’t even have a zip code.

And they did.

That china served as pieces of pride for us in as many assorted places as sizes of plates and bowls, napkin rings and cups with saucers. We lovingly paired it with the silver given to us by my grandparents and set tables rivaled by royalty. We beamed. In our lives that were not always neat as a pin, our well-dressed table on a holiday usually was a source of pride with a floral edge. Even at the few addresses where it was never unpacked, it was always with us. It was part of us.

Our china matched not only serving pieces and salt and pepper shakers but our vision of the future where we’d have more opportunities to set a glorious table and break bread among a growing family and welcomed friends; and the story behind it served as a testament to how very well we were matched as well.

But, though nary a piece of that Shenandoah china has ever broken, in its fragile state it has proven to be more durable than the marriage for which it was chosen.

I have not used that china in over five years.

And about two months ago when I starting planning a dinner party, to climb back on the horse called entertaining - I scoured some of my favorite cookbooks and watched some of my Food Network shows, and I started thinking about my china. Nothing, in my mind, was as elegant as Shenandoah, not even the knock-offs I’ve purchased post-divorced that dress my table on holidays and make it look festive and fancy. So I decided, that instead of buying an entire new set of dishes, which I’d considered, to pull off my tablescape the way I imagined, I became fixated. I realized that the days of having a longing for days gone by, were, well, gone. And the bad feelings associated with the china because of what it represented are gone too.

So what good does service for twelve do sitting in the cupboard collecting dust?

None at all.

So, Saturday night, when I set the table for a dinner party for eight, where I will cook for and host some of my dearest friends, I will also reacquaint myself with my delicate Shenandoah china – and it will begin a new phase of its life.

There are good memories attached to that china - ones worthy of sharing with my children - which is why I never gave it away or sold it on eBay. The china itself is something I hope my daugher will want some day and she will know that her parents chose it with a future in mind, one that she became a integral part of.

These days, my ability to create an elegant atmosphere and a beautiful tablescape in the midst of craziness that defines my life is something that pleases me like little else.

Using my china means I’m honoring the past — because I always loved entertaining and am now able to admit that I still love the pattern. It also means I’m living in the present because I’m sharing this event with my current friends. And, it means I’m adapting to the future by doing something I never thought I would.

I can only wonder what’s next.

I’m not sure who invented Winter Break and the whole kids-home-for-two-weeks-with-their-soon-to-be-in-straightjacket mothers, but that person should move in here and take care of my teen, tween and three dogs this week as punishment.

And while we are fortunate to have traveled to see family and also to traverse the Big Apple in touristy first-class style, now we’re back and there is no rest for this weary woman. The chauffeuring does not begin or end at any particular time its just never ending. Morning, noon, night I’m apt to be driving someone to or from somewhere just to turn around and pick them up again. And while I’m glad to be able to do it, and happy the SUV technically seats 7 if you count the munchkins that need to sit in the rear, I find that the more time you have with your kids, the more chances they have to drive you up a wall test their limits.

Pippiiee, a sixth grader against my will, is betwixt and between on a daily basis. She can snuggle up on the sofa with a blanket and flip back and forth between Wonder Pets (a cult phenomenon for preteens, believe it or not) and a Next Top Model marathon, each equally entertaining to her. She can also don the latest hip appropriate fashion trend and look so put together that I change my clothes. She scored a White Chocolate Phone for Hanukkah, so she is the prize winner in this house in terms of cool technological appendages.

So you see I’m all for growing up, but I draw the line with permanent marker when it comes to hanging out.

Not long ago I dropped her off at a friends house for the afternoon. Soon after I got home I received a phone call asking me if she could go with her friend, and her friend’s brother and his friend to the local superplex bowling megacenter. With no money on her person she was basically asking to hang out at a bowling alley she’d have to walk to, to do nothing more than watch this friend’s older brother bowl. They’d shuffle around without cash for a soda or a slice of pizza or to play a video game. Two not-so-little but no-so-big girls on their own.

The answer of no was met with glass shattering whining and dissent, but then I told her I’d pick her up if her friend had to go along. Ah, the beloved silence.

The wicked irony of it all is that I hung out at a small local bowling alley without money in my pocket when I was a young teen. The boys our age bowled and we distracted watched them. We walked there and we walked home. In the dark. Uphill both ways.

But times have changed.

Not only was it a smaller place at a smaller time, simpler mind sets made questioning safety unlikely and in my memory, unnecessary.

What I remember is a noisy knocking of pins - ugly shoes in embarrassing stances - and little pencils to keep score by hand. And perhaps if that is all is was now — not flashing lights, blaring music, sprawling arcades and bowling lanes that stretch for city blocks — even with the addition of boys, I’d be able to sigh, and say yes.

I’m about eight hours into 2007. It seems like much of 2006 so far, with the sleeping children and their friends in various parts of the house, cup of coffee by my side at the computer and dreary overcast outside my dining room window.

I’ve missed my daily romps and intellectual tangles in the blogosphere and am really trying to figure out how to do it all, all the time. The publishing gig is great, but waxes and wanes, as it is freelance…and that takes time. For those of you who don’t know, freelance means that I write a story, or fashion an idea and then pitch it to an editor who hopefully says, “By golly, that’s the best thang I’ve heard since forever, Kvetch. Write it up.” Or at least they say, “Let me see/hear some more.” Working more than fulltime hours trying to determine if I can make some kind of income writing, has been exhilarating as well as exhausting. But excuses aside, I miss blogging and am determined to get back to it as much as possible.

Hanukkah here, for us, was a blast. I love giving my kids presents and having houseguests, putting out a spread, and basking in the traditions and pseudo-familial joy. I suppose one of the funniest moments of Hanukkah was when my ex-husband’s widow was here with her children, we were all exchanging gifts, and we (she and I) gave each other basically the same thing. That, coupled with the fact that my children’s half-sister, who is 22 months old, was wearing an outfit identical to one owned by my daughter at the same age (but not hers), was enough to make us all laugh as well as raise our eyebrows.

And though not blog fodder, I will add that I’ve been on some dates. No, I’m not stomping on a small, odd fruit…I’ve actually been on some dates. With the same man. I know, quite a concept for this hold-up-in-a-small-town single Jewish mom. I’m trying to wrap my head around it as well.

We’re now in the midst of Winter Break, and my kids and I spent five days out East with family and friends. It was a perfect trip if you forget about the four-hour delay, lost luggage, Juan’s back spasms, Pippiiee’s head cold and my stomach virus in New York City that caused me to miss Phantom of the Opera.

But now we’re home, and I’m blogging.

As far as I’m concerned, there is no better way to start off the new year.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy 2007.