I was once married to a neurosurgeon. No joke. What was a joke was when someone would say, “Well you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure that out,” and my ex could say, “But I am.” Actually it was one of the threads of his existence waiting for someone to say that in his presence. And they did several times in the eight years he was in practice. And frankly, it was funny every time.

What isn’t funny is that now The Widow (the woman who was married to my ex-husband when he died) tells me she has a date tomorrow night. It’s her first date since becoming a widow, she says. And the date is with? You guessed it. Another neurosurgeon.

And I wonder only one thing — how his wife feels about that.

Addition below.

Due to tornadoes and thunder and floods, oh my, The Sophmore and The Seventh Grader will be posted on Monday. But in an effort to stay thematic, please accept this sophmoric interlude in it’s place.

My heart quickened to an indiscernible pace when I realized that one of one of my favorite blogs gets hundreds of hits per day. Gulp. Hundreds? But even worse than feeling like I was way out of my league even corresponding with this blogger, was the fact that I began agonizing over what I, too, could do to generate that much traffic. And as the little green-eyed blogster reared its ugly head, I wondered how could I bite off a piece of the blogosphere’s readership and claim them as my own? Then I tucked him back inside and shut the door and wondered how I could do this and not lose myself or my purpose, in the process.

I could not, in good conscience, offer bribes, I reasoned. After all, I have an image to maintain and cannot afford to serve time in even virtual incarceration because I have to drive carpool and cook dinner. I could not afford to start a pay-per-read-my-posts program where I would pay bloggers and other internet types per read and per referral so they could get rich on my back. Think about it - if you add me to your blogroll you get a buck. If you link to me you get two bucks. See the pattern? Though that would make me plenty popular, it doesn’t sound right and frankly not only can my wallet not afford it, neither could my ego. I could offer my blog for free like some authors offer their books for free hoping for good feedback, some linky love or even a blog tour. Oh, right, the blog is already free. Shoot. Realizing that I might be running out of options, my thoughts fell into several more reasonable (i.e. boring) camps.

First, I do believe that if you comment, they will come. Meaning, if you read and comment all over the internets, bloggers being a friendly and cyber-savvy bunch will return the favor and visit your blog. My issue with this is two-fold. It’s incredibly time consuming to read blogs even if you love each and every one that sits patiently in your Bloglines waiting to be clicked. If you’re reading blogs and commenting as a marketing mechanism, then do you become a loyal reader, a member of each blogger’s inner circle, or do you read and comment remaining on the fringe - not really caring what came before or what comes next? And, does that matter if what you really want is readers of any caliber? I’m not sure. If I view my blog as a marketing tool for my writing in addition to a creative outlet, then perhaps it doesn’t matter what I do to drive in the traffic. I’m on the fence with that one.

Second, I’d like to think that if I write it, they will come. This is the optimistic me talking. If I write something worth reading, people will find it. La-dee- da. That’s a little unrealistic I suppose, because internet and blog surfers will have to find me to read it and that takes visibility. Shucks. Another one of my favorite bloggers believes that persistence and good writing will reward me in the end. I hope she is right, even if I make a few U-turns along way.

I even struggle with the idea that I’m blogging about blogging. But I know that if the blog is stagnant the numbers will drop and numbers equal hits and hits translate to readers and readers are people not just hits or numbers and isn’t THAT what this is really all about? Having people read our words? Connecting with people through our words? Yes, it is.

So it continues to be a catch-22. How to balance time writing, time blogging, time reading, time commenting and time marketing? It’s too much for one person even without two kids, three dogs and other jobs. Not to mention laundry.

I wonder if the blogster in the closet is looking for part-time work.

* * *

Did you know about this? It doesn’t say 310G Day like I thought it did either. It says BLOG DAY.

Tomorrow: The Sophmore and The Seventh Grader

The Freshman

On the first day of high school my son found his way, and I lost my breath. I hoped the cold rush that permeated my chest, throat and limbs was because I hadn’t yet had coffee; but I knew better.

I also knew the feelings that washed over me were not because the building he strode toward was big enough to house multiple air craft carriers. It wasn’t because the metal doors looked like they could swallow him whole. It wasn’t because he walked among beings that looked strangely like adults — with boobs, beards, swaggers, swiveling hips and caramel mochachinos.

As he walked away from the car, he became increasingly more absorbed in a living Seurat. The composition, as a whole, was magnificent. Separately it was a sea of indiscernible, colorful, teenage dots. I will never forget how it looked as he became part of the big pocket, flip flop and muffin top landscape. In a strange way, it was strikingly beautiful.

I was unsettled not due to the vastness or the newness. I was awed because he fit right into it. He belonged. It’s where he is supposed to be. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s all good. At 14 + years old, 5 foot 8 inches tall, with broad shoulders and a stocky build, he is once again and at long last, right where he is supposed to be. And, after a year and a half of treading lightly in shallow waters – he dived right in. I was the one who held my breath.

I wonder if he hadn’t leaned over and let me kiss him goodbye, if this self-proclaimed hardened heart would have cried the whole way home. Probably.

All I could think of that was in that short 5 minute ride was that in four years I’ll be dropping him off at college and not picking him up at 3pm. And how the hell am I supposed to get ready for THAT? Then it will be just me and my daughter at home and then she’ll go to college and I’d be left alone with dogs and a dishwasher that probably only needs to be run once a week. Now that seems delightful, but something tells me it feels quite dreadful. Someone should really re-think this focus on education.

And then I got a grip. He’s fourteen. And she’s eleven.

The biggest waste of time in my adult life was the time I spent looking to and planning for the future and not living completely in the moment. And while seven thousand of my closest friends have already been kind enough to tell me that the next four years are going to fly by, I need only to look back for a second to be able to look forward with a slow and deliberate gaze.

Four years might feel like it goes quickly, but every day brings a myriad of experiences and emotions. Each one is worthy of consideration, acknowledgement and careful placement in our lives. If you experience life and live it minute by minute you never have to wonder where the time has gone. You’ll know because you were there.

And, while I want always to take it moment by moment, I also am on the edge of my seat waiting for my daughter to start school on Thursday so I can have some time alone to write, to think, to breathe or just to watch tv without someone desperately needing a grilled cheese sandwich. Is that too much to ask after a summer that has lasted, oh, approximately, 83 days?

At first he didn’t say much when he walked into the kitchen after his exhaustive and expansive first day as a freshman. I don’t know what’s in the water over there but I swear he was three inches taller than he was that very morning.

He didn’t bolt to his room. I made him a cup of soup and we both sat down. I put my elbow on the table, rested my head in my hand, hopeful he would talk. He did.

And while he was preoccupied eating and recounting, I stared at his soft green eyes and watched his large expressive gestures. I listened intently to each word, knowing these initimate 14 year old moments are to be coveted and treasured — even, and perhaps especially — on our first day of high school, after 83 days of summer.

On my way to Subway today to pick up my daughter’s “last lunch before school starts tomorrow,” lunch, I said my Lunchtime Subway Prayer, which is most effective between the hours of 11 and 2, on weekdays (for the record).

“Dear Lord,

Amen”.

My prayer was answered.

I did wait in line, but only briefly. And everyone ordered one or two sandwiches and was snappy at that. But I’ll be darned I forgot to add the good customer service addendum to the prayer today. And that’s where they got me.

“Spicy Italian with no pepperoni, please,” I said.

It is the only thing my daughter eats at Subway. I’ve been ordering the sandwich this way, adding the only vegetable, lettuce, to stares of horror, after saying no to mustard and mayonaisse an average of four times — for well over a year.

“What?”

“Spicy Italian with no pepperoni. You know, instead of pepperoni, just more salami.”

“That’s a salami sandwich.”

“No, when I order a salami sandwich I get three slices of salami. If I order it this way I get five slices of salami and then five more instead of pepperoni.”

“Then I’d have to charge you for a double-meat salami sandwich”.

“No, it’s a spicy Italian without the pepperoni”.

This went on and on in a friendly manner. Frankly, this twenty-something Sandwich Artist thought I was an idiot and he spoke slowly trying to explain to me how it could not be done that way, when I continued politely telling him it’d been done that way, in that very Subway, countless times.

And then he said, “Do you understand me?”

“I absolutely understand,” I replied. “I understand that this is very bad customer service.”

I then ordered the Spicy Italian “as is” added the lettuce and got out of Dodge, knowing that my daughter could simply remove the pepperoni at home. Which she did. What I also knew was that with a Subway in every strip mall in suburbia, I won’t go back to that one.

I understand no substitutions as a restaurant policy, but I thought he should have told me if that was done, it won’t be done anymore. He told me they (he and his father) bought that Subway last January and that it hadn’t been done that way since then, he was sure of it, since that was their policy. I didn’t think on my feet fast enough to ask more about this apparent policy of no substitutions. In an era of “having things our way” it seems counterproductive to not offer a slice-for-slice substitution of something already on a particular sandwich. I usually don’t get all bent out of shape over these things, but I hate being told something can’t be done, when it’s simply that someone won’t do it, even if it’s been done before.

If their no-substitutions policy is a secret, it seems their good customer relations policy is a secret as well.

Some restaurants do keep secrets, did you know that? And it’s a good kind of secret — the way they’ll make you anything you want, things no longer on the menu, etc.

With all the choices we have these days of where and what to eat, it seems to me that’s the kind of customer-service to be proud of.

What do you do when your best-ever friend in the whole wide solar system thinks the whole wide blogosphere needs to know some of your parenting and life faux paus instead of just your achievements?

You write a list.

1. I snipped off a piece of skin on my newborn daughter’s finger when cutting her nails.

2. I fell down the steps holding my son when he was about one. I tumbled over a ball, held him in the air, I hit the ground - he did not (it was about 3 steps).

3. I curse around my kids.

4. I let my daughter stay home from school one day because she had no clean pants.

5. When my kids spent weekends with their dad and asked where I was when they called, I always said the mall. I lied every time.

6. I started burning vanilla candles every time my ex came to pick up the kids because I knew the smell made him sick.

7. I don’t pay attention to my daughter’s softball games unless she is up at bat or catching.

Oh there’s more, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.

Now I dare you to leave one of your own!

Click here for the truth about the cost of education in our house!

* Edited * Look who’s the featured reader on Mamazine today!

I thought middle-of-the-night parenting was for newborns and kids with stomach viruses. I thought wrong. It’s also for high school athletes.

Since last week I’ve stumbled out of bed when it was still dark, stepped over sound-a-sleep dogs and clunked down the hallway using the walls on either side of me as my guide. My eyes were always somewhat stuck closed with sleep, my legs not yet working to capacity. I could tell this because my knees cracked. I attributed it to the hour and not my age. I’m like that.

Each morning I pushed open my son’s bedroom door where the glow of the tv left-on brightened the room and woke him with the alarming news that it was 4:30.

Yes, again.

Yes, already.

And faster than I could say “Pick up your socks,” he’d be up and into the shower. If only he heard so well and moved so quickly when I arrived home with 7,000 bags of groceries or the phone rang. Never at this early morning, pre-golf hour did I hear the word, “What?”

High school sports are very motivating it seems. Who knew?

They are also unforgiving. In order for my son to complete sophmore golf team tryouts 25 minutes away for five days in a row we had to postpone a trip East AND I had to get up with him every morning to make sure he didn’t go back to sleep. I know that eventually he’ll have to get himself out of bed and to classes at Harvard (ok, or State U) on his own, but not yet.

Because, if you don’t try-out, you don’t make the team. And if you make the team and you’re not there to practice, you’re cut. No exceptions.

Kids in Spring sports like baseball, softball and soccer can’t go away over Spring Break or they are cut from the team, or sit out 90% of the season. It’s brutal. It’s the brave new world of high school sports, where the goal is not to have fun, but to win. Luckily those things often go hand in hand at 15. I don’t suspect my son will be getting a golf scholarship nor will he be the next Tiger Woodstein, but being on the team enhances his high school experience and I’m all for it. Even if it meant I had to take naps mid-day in lieu of falling asleep at 6pm.

For him it’s about something to do besides school — because that’s just not enough even with honors classes and a course where he’ll be making a 55 minute documentary. It’s also about being with his friends, most of whom tried out for the team.

For me it’s about him being busy and happy, which go hand in hand. Even if it means for the next eight weeks he’ll rarely be home for dinner and that he’ll complain he has no down-time.

But it was all - and will all - be worth it because he made the team.

This would have been a post of a different color if he hadn’t.

I was driving home from errands yesterday and thought, “I’ll see if just-turned-12-year old daughter wants her nails polished when I get home.” No sooner than I finished that thought did my cell phone ring.”

“Mom, when you get home will you polish my nails?”

“Um, I was just thinking that.”

A few weeks ago I got an out-of-the blue call from Friend A, whom I speak to once or twice a year, at most. Friend A mentioned Friend B, who I also rarely speak to. They are not friends, just childhood acquaintances. It was strange that A would mention B at all, but especially since that very day I was in the middle of writing something about Friend B.

Fifteen hours before my ex-husband died, I thought about the fact that he had life insurance from which my kids would benefit if something happened to him. The thought seemed to come out of no where. I shrugged it off.

The morning of my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah I woke up after having a strange dream that my history professor (I was in college) was at the Bar Mitzvah. It was a lecture-hall style class. I had no personal knowledge of this professor. That is, until he walked out of the synogogue after the service that morning.

Intuition? Coincidence?

Do after-the-fact revelations and cosmic waltzes happen to everyone?

You tell me.

“I’ve lost thirty pounds and nothing has changed except the size of my jeans.”

I spoke this simple yet elaborate truth sitting in my therapist’s office, not filling out the chair quite the way I’d done in the past. She nodded as therapists do.

“It has nothing to do with my weight, does it?” I asked.

It really wasn’t a question.

Throughout my married life my husband would stand behind me, always feigning a hug, and then push down on my hips to make them inches smaller and move his hands away to watch everything pop back into place. He never said a word. He must have done that hundreds of times in our thirteen year marriage. The funny thing was, we met at 19 and I was never thin, nor was he, who usually rallied in the 240’s, but only stood 5′6″.

I never called him on it. It was simple — actions spoke louder than words. I jumped on the hip-hating bandwagon and became an expert at camouflaging not only my figure with ill-fitting, non-breathing, binding undergarments, but his mean spiritedness as playful moments and private jokes.

Though it was he who perpetuated the myth, it was me who bought into it. For me, it became all about me. I stopped looking at myself from the waist down, preferring the bathroom mirror to the one in the bedroom. It was a game of hide and no-seek that I played only with myself. During vacations I positioned myself precisely for photographs so that I looked “thinner for the camera.” Eventually, I took all the photos. I wore shirts out and donned a rainbow of blazers and jackets. I know now they hid a lot more than my hips. This went on for a dozen years.

Then one Saturday night, I dressed for a formal dinner in a knee length black chiffon layered dress with some sparkle, as well as strappy black silk high-heel sandals. I turned to him, confident and said something I never did.

“How do I look?”

His response was definitive, cold and intensified by a flat affect. “OK,” he said.

Another time, I was in a lycra exercise top and a pair of shorts, at my pinnacle of fitness.

“How do I look?” I asked, feeling good about myself.

“The top looks good,” he said, “But the bottom still needs work.”

And for the first time in 18 years, I thought to myself, “You have got to be kidding!” But I didn’t say it aloud. Inside my head I was struck, not by the audacity of the response, but by the fact that I was looking for approval from anyone other than myself.

Another day we were in our bedroom and he planted himself on his side of the bed. I was fixing my hair in the floor to ceiling wall length mirror on the perpendicular wall.

“When I walk into a room I want everyone to think I’m with a beautiful woman,” he said out of no where.

I said nothing. There was no mistaking what he meant. He didn’t mean I was ugly. There were no gasps of horror from an on-looking crowd when I entered a room. Through a smattering of marital counseling sessions I knew that he attributed his own unhappiness the unwitting wiggle in my walk, and that my padded curves were the bane of his existence. And until that moment in the bedroom, I believed it too.

I just stared at him, then back into the mirror. My hair, through the miracle of dye and highlights, was the same ash blonde it had always been. It was shoulder length and scattered with layers. My skin was shades paler than his, and without blemish save a few freckles from the days before sunscreen was part of a daily ritual. My eyes were round and blue, sometimes green, and the same eyes I’d been complimented on as far back as I could remember. I stood 5′3″ and my shape was soft but not unsightly. I was trendy for a mom of two. I was manicured and pedicured and coiffed. I shook my head to see if the reality was merely an illusion. It was not. The fact was, when he looked at me, he didn’t see me at all.

I turned and looked him again, and in that protracted moment since I had turned away, he hadn’t moved. His mouth hung open in abysmal indifference. It took sixteen months of therapy for me to understand in one second, that he carried the weight of my hips more than I did.

“You want people to think you’re walking into a room with a beautiful woman?” I asked.

He nodded slowly.

“They do,” I said.

I realized then that losing weight would not add fat to the marriage. He eventually agreed.

When I became a divorced and dating mom in this current era of instant first-impressions and delete-able acquaintances, I wasn’t naïve enough to think that looks didn’t matter. But by then I was secure enough to know that the package I came in was merely that — a package. I adopted a take-it or leave-it attitude to which I remain steadfast.

I didn’t change my looks during the process of becoming single; I changed the way I looked at myself.

And only then did I see my true reflection.

If it happened before, I missed it.

But it seems to me — via that Site Meter we all love or hate so much — that my mom is now reading Kvetch Blog.

So much for the torrid tales of suburban life you’re all so used to reading over here.

Oh, right. Not so much.

I wonder if the neighbors will be next.

hi mom

Eight years ago when my daughter turned four, we had a rip-roaring Chuck E. Cheese birthday party complete with tokens, a large creepy singing Chuck E. and rubbery pizza. The party was one day before her actual birthday.

When she woke up on Monday, August 9, 1999 to more presents and a rousing round of “Happy Birthday to you,” she thought she was FIVE!