Lucky me

I’m not easily fooled. I read between the lines and know what you’re hiding. I can read your facial expressions and know what you’re not telling me. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. But apparently, you can pull a surprise party over on me!

Surprise parties are the best kind of parties. There’s no involvement on the recipient’s end. Everything is handled for you. You get to show up and just enjoy. You get the honor of being celebrated. You get to bask in the love of your friends. You get to dance around like a wild woman and not worry about being judged. You get to sit at the head of the table and make toasts. You’re allowed to get mushy and tell your friends how much you love them twenty times. You get to blow out the birthday candles (Unless your cake has sparklers, thank you very much!). You get to eat a beautiful cake. (Unless someone drops it and then there's a second beautiful cake!) You get to open wonderful surprises in beautifully wrapped bags. It’s a wonderful thing.

The beauty of a party in your honor is while your friends are celebrating you, you can celebrate your friends. There’s no better feeling than in knowing how much time, energy, thought, effort, and love was all put forth for you. I’m so very lucky for my dear, wonderful friends who took the time from their very busy lives to make me feel so incredibly special. I’m so very lucky for my dear, wonderful husband who has redeemed himself from spilling the beans at my 30th birthday surprise twenty feet away from the door. I’m just so very lucky for you, and you know who you are. Thank you.

Hip hop and tics-a-lot

Do you have a personal tic that you subconsciously know you have but never realized others were aware of it? Damn, it’s embarrassing when you finally learn that you don’t do such a good job of covering it up. Or worse, is when you learn that you do it more often than you thought and your girlfriends all see it but never mention it to you. (until it’s time to laugh at you!)

I used to wear glasses on occasion. I should have worn them more often than I did, but I was vein. I didn’t like how they looked nor did I like when they slid down my nose. But more importantly, I didn’t like how they looked. Instead, I wore contacts. However, the contacts constantly dried out my eyeballs. I used to blink often, or stare straight ahead in an effort to fix them. I knew I did it. I just didn’t realize how often I stared bug-eyed at my friends or fluttered my eyes until I was called out on it, while they laughed mercilessly.

Yeah, yeah. I can laugh at myself with the rest of you. But a month later, I gave into Lasik surgery. Of course, now I have the last laugh with my better than 98% of the world 20/15 vision…but anyway, I digress…

So last night, I took a hip-hop class with my girlfriends. I absolutely loved it. It was just as I imagined it would be. The instructor was young, flexible, and amazing. I however, am not. I looked more like a fleshy robot and I didn’t even care. We laughed a lot, both at ourselves and at each other, and I can’t wait to go back (albeit alone!) to the next class.

On the ride home, I was asked why I wanted to learn hip-hop. It’s not like I’m going to bust a hip-hop move on a table at the Greek restaurant, right? No, I explained that I want to learn how to be fluid in my movements. Because there’s nothing fluid about me, except maybe my frequent need to pee. Hip-hop is beautiful dancing to me—plus it’s such fun, not to mention a great workout.

Ironically, the instructor was also Maya’s hip-hop teacher. Furthermore, we’re learning the same routine. So now, I’ll be not only humiliated next to the other women in the class, but I can be shown up by my seven year old. Now I understand why Maya has two left feet. She gets it from me. And we’re left-handed which makes learning the moves all the more confusing and backwards for us.

At lunch today, I shared my experience with some girlfriends. One asked to see the routine and I willingly obliged. The other, who has danced on many tables beside me, laughed about how I always hang my tongue out in some fashion when I dance. It’s a part of my “look”. Ha ha, we laughed, but inside I cringed because you know what? Damn it, she’s right! I guess I was subconsciously aware that I do some weird thing with my mouth—twist my lips and who-knows-what with my tongue. I’m sort of mortified. I think I just make lots of funny faces in case anyone is watching me dance. This way if they think I look hilarious, they’ll also think apparently I think I’m hilarious too. Maybe I do it to distract anyone from actually looking at my body while I dance. Either way, it’s just another tic in a long list of mine that I possess.

Oh, and did I mention I also seem to snap my fingers while dancing too? Maverick shared that nugget not too long ago, while I was dancing around the house. Now you may get the picture why I’m looking for some help.

Vacation calling etiquette

My recent post regarding whether it's okay to call a girlfriend while she's on vacation has received a great response. Thank you! I'm truly enjoying this blogging experiment, doing some writing like I've always wanted to do, and developing my own creative outlet. And as an added bonus, I get feedback from my readers and friends, which I absolutely love. (Even when you tell me some of my posts are bitchy!)

So I have two requests of you, my readers:

Comment on my blog. If you read something you like (or don't!), respond to it. Say what you think. It's a shame when I'm the only one to hear your similarly funny stories. I want to share it with all my girlfriends. You can respond with your name or you can respond anonymously. Just get engaged, share your comments and join my tribe.

Vacation phone calls, or not! Would you like to be called while on vacation? Should I expect that you may be calling me? I just want to know your stance.

Tonight, Jamaica told me, "Definitely not. I will not call you on vacation. My mind will be far away from here!" That's cool. Now I know that unless I'm having a true girly emergency, when Jamaica's away, do not hit #8 on speed dial!

Then, another girlfriend hit me with: "Of course, I want you to call! You think I want to sit around for three days,with my husband, by myself ?"

Here's my answer: If I'm traveling with the family, call away. I can probably use a break from the choke-hold of kids asking me to buy them something else or from the exhaustion of trying to do something fun while the kids are bickering and would have really been satisfied had I just let them play their DS's until their brains melt and ooze from their ears.

But if I'm alone with Maverick, don't bother calling. There's no way I'm answering because most likely, I won't care where my phone is. It's that simple. So tell me, so I'm clear. Do you keep your phone on, fully charged and close by when you're on vacation?

Cosmetic surgery, vaginas & Charlie the Tuna

It seems like there's been a lot of conversations lately about cosmetic surgery and other enhancements. One girlfriend has been gung-ho about trying Botox and/or Restylane. She often bitches about her lines and creases and has several friends who started down the needle highway already. She’s just too damn scared to turn herself loose on that road; but every time she hears another success story, she inches closer to the entrance ramp. I told her I’d probably consider something cosmetic at some point, but I think that once you jump on that runaway train, it’s hard to get off.

I’ve seen girlfriends get good boob jobs and bad boob jobs. Tummy tucks, lipo on the thighs and buttocks. Nose jobs, tattooed eyebrows, collagen injections, face and eyebrow lifts. Whatever floats your boat is cool with me. It’s your body and if it helps your self-esteem, I support you.

But there is a point of too much. If you don’t believe me, spend a day at the Boca Towne Center. Aside of great shopping, there’s an endless stream of overdone women to giggle at. You can see tons of too-tiny waists on lollypop heads with faces sewn back on on too tightly and lips that look like the Charlie the Tuna guy on a Starkist can.

Today, as I was sitting at my desk working on a mundane spreadsheet, I got a hilarious phone call from a girlfriend. She called to share that she just heard a radio commercial for the crowning glory of all cosmetic procedures. The king of the hill. Top of the heap. Hey, number one…

Vaginal rejuvenation.

Say it with me…vag-in-al re-juv-e-nation. Yes, ladies, for several thousand bucks, you can have the procedure that tightens your vagina and perineum to help increase your pleasure during sex and stay young in every way.

I’m laughing now and not sure how to make more fun of it than that. I’m partly laughing at the term, vaginal rejuvenation. It reminds me of another funny vagina word—vaginal dentata, or women with toothed vaginas. Various cultures have folk tales about women with toothed vaginas, frequently told as cautionary tales warning of the dangers of sex with strange women and to discourage the act of rape.

To further that thought, in the bizarre-but-true category, a real product was invented called Rapex. It looks like a female condom, but with one stunning difference: upon penetration, 25 hook-like barbs attach themselves to the skin of the penis, and the device is then transferred from female to male and can only be removed by a doctor. The idea is that the rapist’s pain would disarm him long enough for the victim to get away, and would require him to turn himself in–evidence unmistakable–in order to avoid permanent damage.

Not sure where I was going here, aside of the laughing I’m doing alone at my desk, but consider this lesson on vaginas over.

Twittering now too

It's official. After exactly one day, I'm hooked on twitter. It's so much fun to release my one-sentence ramblings rather than writing a whole blog post. I promise not to stop blogging, but enjoy the Twitter Tidbits too! If you like, you can click the link "Follow me on Twitter" to really keep up. It's fun. Oh, and you can follow Ashton Kutcher if you want to also...but his tweets don't make much sense to me. :)

Vacation from friends

When you go on vacation, it’s usually to escape the headaches and stresses of everyday life. The job, the spouse, the kids, the bills, the carpooling, the traffic, the grocery store…whatever. But what about your friends? Do we go on vacation to escape our friends too? Sometimes, the obvious answer is yes. But if you have a girlfriend with whom you speak to regularly and she goes on vacation, does she really want you calling for the daily gabfest just like when she’s not on vacation?

I encountered this situation recently. I would never think to call a girlfriend on vacation because when I’m on vacation, I like to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. If I want to check in with you, I’ll call you. But another girlfriend called our vacationing friend. I wouldn’t want my vacationing friend to think I was not a good friend if I didn’t check in to see how everything was going. Would I look like a bad friend if I just asked about your trip when you return? Luckily, my vacationing girlfriend called me before I spent another day debating if I should or shouldn't call.

Of course, I missed my friend while she was away. But I don’t know if that’s enough justification for calling. I figured if she didn’t feel like talking, she could let my call go straight to voicemail. But then she’d have it hanging over her head that she needed to call me back at some point and that creates stress. But if I call and she doesn’t want to talk, but answers anyway, I’m still creating stress. Either way, it’s a lose-lose scenario and I’m perpetuating the vicious cycle of why we go on vacation in the first place, to reduce stress.

Unless, of course, she wants to talk while on vacation. Should we clarify up front, before you leave on vacation, whether we should talk while you’re gone? And if so, will you be calling me or should I call you? Maybe we should just text? Or go on vacation somewhere with no cell signal. The rules aren’t clear and clearly vary by girlfriend. What’s your rule? Let me know, so I don’t stress.

Hip-hop-laugh-a-lot

Since I was a little girl, I’ve loved to dance. The house I grew up in had a giant, furnished basement. As a kid, I’d lock myself downstairs, turn the Bee Gees up on the turntable and dance the day away. Sometimes, I’d bring a large mirror down there to watch myself. I’d use an open door to swing myself around on like it was my dance partner. Once, my mother stored a highly polished wood dining room table down there and that became the perfect surface to practice spinouts on my tush like a Dance Fever girl. I’d throw myself down and spin out with an arm raised in the air with the a flourish, ta-da!

I’d sing and dance and put on a show for nobody in particular. But in my fantasy, I was always a very famous, very glamorous, very rich, popular and gorgeous Hollywood starlette who made the crossover from successful films to Broadway to Billboard’s Top 20 Hits. Not to mention my movie-star boyfriend, Tom Cruise!

That’s when I was my happiest. Dancing around like I knew what I was doing, first to Andy Gibb and then Saturday Night Fever and later to Grease, Fame and then Flashdance. Dancing around in the privacy of my own basement (with a very large, appreciative audience in my own mind) always put a smile on my face. I clearly remember feeling flushed and out of breath, as I took a large bow and accepted my standing ovation. It was my way of escaping out of reality and into my perfect fantasy of actually having a gifted dancing ability.

Truth be told, I really can’t dance. I can move my hips and pull off a convincing dance in a crowd. That’s when I’m at my best now. I’m the girl who can shimmy in a chair and look good doing it. But getting up and dancing doesn’t translate as well on my own two feet. I do it anyhow because after all these years, it still feels amazing. Put a few drinks in me, and I’ll tear up a dance floor. Who cares how I look to others if I can’t see straight? Even today, I still dance around the house when no one is looking. I dance with my girls and luckily, they don’t know any better than to laugh at me.

One of my favorite dance shows is “So You Think You Can Dance?” After watching the first season, I got hung up on wanting to learn how to hip hop. Maverick laughed. I’m so klutzy and uncoordinated. How could I learn to do hip-hop well? I showed him my hip-hop moves. He laughed again. So did I. But deep down inside, I really meant it. I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO HIP-HOP. It’s all about exaggerated moves and popping. I think I could do that. Maybe…

So finally, I found an adult hip-hop class. I refuse to get down on the floor and do the “corkscrew” or the “worm-whatever” but I am very excited to learn how to bust a move. Hopefully, I won’t bust a bone. My girlfriends are going with me. I don’t know what that’s going to be like but I can guarantee it will be worth it’s weight in laughter. Maybe I should down a few shots of tequila before I go.

It's my party, so I will cry...

My birthday is around the corner. Not a major one, just the one before the big one. The big 4-0 is taunting me. It's leering at me in the makeup mirror every time I peek. It's sneering that I can't stop the clock. Forty is going to come in just over 365 days and nah, nah, nah, nah, nah...there's nothing I can do about it.

I admit it: I'm scared shitless of getting old. I never realized it, or never really thought about it for that matter because "getting old" seemed so far away. I can look in the mirror and still see my fourteen year old self imagining myself as a grown up. Now, I look in the same mirror and can't believe this is what I was waiting for.

I want a refund. This wasn't the show I had hoped to see. I believed everyone who told me I looked so young for my age and that I always would. Maybe I do look young for my age, but inside I feel like an old soul.

It's not just vanity that drives my disdain for this birthday. No, I thought I'd have gotten so much more accomplished by this point. I remember when my 30th approached, I was so calm, cool and collected about that birthday because I had reached so many goals I had set for myself.

I had graduated college, done some traveling, was excelling in my career, happily married and on my way to owning my first home. Hitting thirty was a hurdle I leaped over with flying colors.

Maybe 40 is so hard because I don't feel like I've had any goals in the last decade. The last decade. That's a long time, ten years. One quarter of my whole life and nothing worth noting. Yes, I've had two wonderful children. I don't discount that. But having kids isn't much of a goal. It's a matter of having some perfectly timed sex. Plus, my body is so fertile like the banks of the Nile, Maverick's sperm just needed to be dusted over my willing-and-able slutty egg to reproduce. My egg hung out the red light and screamed that my uterus was open for business. So, even that was not much of an accomplishment of a personal nature.

And if you still need more justification, my big 4-0 present to myself is a surgery. Not fun botox or lipo, or even a tummy tuck. No, I get to treat myself to a full hysterectomy. Say goodbye to my uterus and other lovely women parts. Say hello to heat flashes, and hormone therapy. Oh, can't wait to meet that sexless, hairless, vaginally dry woman! She'll be a blast.

My point is, if it's my party, I will cry. I really don't want to acknowledge this birthday,or even the next one for that matter. I'd like it to pass over and not exist. Like an off-leap year. It's much more fun celebrating my friends' birthdays. Especially for the ones who are older than me.

Unconditional love

This weekend, I fell in love at first sight. I saw him at once upon entering the room after quickly noting the other boys. Our eyes locked into a death grip and you could feel the laser-beam energy emulating from them. The rest of our surroundings melted away and all that existed in that moment was he and I. I crossed the room to him and he ran to me. I raised my arms and reached for him and we intertwined in a hug that felt like a lifetime coming. I knew right then and there that he was the one for me. I had waited so long to meet him and once I was there with him, everything in the world felt right. Next, he brought his face up to mine…

…and licked me. Yes, this weekend I brought home my new puppy, Casey. And yes, it was love at first sight, I’m not exaggerating. From the car ride to the airport, from the plane back to the car, in those first few hours we made our connection and formed a permanent bond. Me to him and him to me. I’m in love with his puppy breath, his oversized paws, his tiny, sharp teeth and his fuzzy fur. He looks like a golden marshmallow and has a personality to match. I’m in heaven.

Of course, my almost-seven-year-old had something to say about this new love. She commented that I’m paying so much attention to him and treating him like a baby. I replied that he is in fact a baby, only 8 weeks old. She corrected herself that I treat him like a human baby.

Obviously, a little jealous, but if you think kids grow up fast, try raising a puppy. By the time you turn around, they’re full grown. And cute of course, but surely not like a puppy. I can’t get enough of the puppy phase of watching him crash into walls, uncontrolled spinouts and slides on the tile floor, endless curiosity regarding every nook and cranny of my home, chasing his tail, trying to catch a lizard, attempting to navigate up the stairs, and even watching his sheer joy as he chases five kids in the backyard.

And the thing about a dog is he gives you unconditional love. Where else do you find that? Surely not from your children who swear to disown you when you embarrass them. Or from your husband who gets pissed when you don’t do things exactly as he would. Every human relationship has conditions that must be met to receive love. With a dog, just feed him, play with him, love him, and take good care of him and his heart is yours forever. It’s a beautiful thing.

So maybe I’m choosing to overlook the three am walks and the poop on the floor because I didn’t get him out soon enough. I know I’m overlooking the chewing and vet bills and all the other responsibilities that goes along with having a dog. To be home to walk him and make sure he’s looked after when I go on vacation. Cleaning his teeth, his ears, his coat. Vacuuming up the tumbleweeds of fur. Training him to be an upstanding dog who listens to commands, sits when asked and doesn’t hump the guests. It’s just like taking care of another baby, which I swore I never would. At least the human kind.

Alas, it’s just one more task I’ve added to my daily to-do list, but it’s worth it. If you’re still not convinced, stop on over and to meet my new boy. He’s already warmed over some of the neighborhood chickens who ran from dogs before. In fact, they’re going to be our newest pet sitters next time we go away. Feel free to get in line...I know we'll need it.

The 140 word post

What do men bitch about more?
The nagging or the lack of sex? I wonder.

Boy, I threw you all for a loop with this post--looking for the rest of the story. Sorry. That's all I had to say. Just one line. The thought crossed my mind the other night, so I asked the question and hoped for your response.

I want to tweet on Twitter. It's the perfect, 30-second solution for me. My avid readers ask why I don't post here more and my answer is always the same. I love to blog. But sometimes I feel like I only want to give a 140 word thought. That's all the words twitter allows. I don't want to write paragraphs and construct a story. I want to say what's on my brain that very second. I want to write what I'm thinking and not tie it to examples. Now I get it. I've caught up with the idea of Social Media in a Web 2.0 world.

I'm going to twitter now too. I'll help set it up on your computer for you, don't worry. Let me know what you think.

Kiss your man

The other day I was astounded to learn that many of my friends didn’t kiss their husbands anymore. I’m not talking the polite-on-the-cheek kind of passing kiss. I’m talking the deep, passionate, tongue-mashing-tongue French kiss kind of kiss. The kind of kiss that probably draws each couple together in the initial “oh yeah!” of courtship. The kind of kiss girls all dream of sharing when we were still young enough to fantasize about what that kiss would feel like but not old enough to try it. Or if we did try it, it was sloppy and awkward with teeth scraping and confused tongues lashing about trying to connect at a unison speed.

I love kissing. Short kisses, long kisses. Fast kisses, slow kisses. Kisses on my neck and behind my ear. Kisses on my lips. Teasing kisses. Long, luxurious, leisurely kisses. Fast, passionate, desperate kisses. I like to kiss a lot. Maybe that’s just my nature but as surprised as my friends were to learn that I kiss Maverick that way after work still was in the same vein for me to learn that they did not.

It got me thinking about how does that make your man feel? And what else have you given up along the way. I know when months stretch into years in a relationship, it’s easy to let those things go. Careers, kids and responsibilities get in the way and we make time for more pressing needs. But if you think back to what brought you two together in the first place, wasn’t passion a major component of your connection?

Sure, we all looked for the boy from a good family with a good upbringing and a secure future that could provide for a family. Someone who took notice of our hopes and dreams, with whom we shared interests in common and a made us giggle like school girls. But wasn’t chemistry and passion and sex and kissing a part of it too? And if so, why do we let that integral part of that connection go so easily?

We’re great at finding all his flaws and pointing out and bitching about what’s he’s not doing for us, or how he doesn’t do what he used to do. But what about what we stopped doing for him? Let’s face it—as much as we still need to hear we’re beautiful and desired after all these years, he still needs to feel handsome and sexy too. Our men don’t just go to strip clubs to look at the girls, they go for the feeling they get when they’re slathered with the female’s attention too. And truthfully, he’d rather get it from you, I’d bet.

So go brush your teeth, gargle with Scope and lay a wet one on him. Now. For no reason. You may be pleasantly reminded just how damn good it makes you feel, too.

Living with the junk

Years ago, when Maverick and I were building our first home, an friend told me it took her 10 years to buy living room furniture. I thought she was off her rocker. How could it possibly take that long to get around to it? That would never be me, I insisted to myself….

And now 8 years later, I find my living room empty, aside of the pool table that fills the center in a feeble attempt to deny myself the fact that I still don’t have furniture yet either. Just last week, I had company in for a visit and that finally prompted me to redo my guest bedroom.

The weekend before my friends arrived, I was aghast at the realization that they would be sleeping in a room still filled with my old college furniture. And truth be told, some of it was even older than that. It was embarrassing that after all this time, we were still “making do” with the junk we brought with us to this house. Now it was time to move on.

So I ran around like a lunatic, found new bedroom furniture and redecorated the room. It looks terrific. Now, of course, I’m looking around the rest of the house, ready to “fix up” everything else that needs to be finished or even started for that matter.

I walked from room to room, tearing my house apart in my mind and thinking about all the things I would like to do if I had the opportunity to start over (with a chic decorator, of course!) As I passed by the family room TV, my first thought encompassed the beautiful new flat-screen television I’d place there. Then I noticed the CNN news anchor talking about the rate of foreclosures and the stats of how many people have lost their jobs and their homes….

It was depressing news. I shut off the TV and thought about how my good my life is, and realized that all the other things can wait. I’m thankful for the nice things I have, along with a beautiful home that we’re not in jeopardy of losing. My life is not as hard as others have it right now. I can live with the rest of the junk for a while longer.

Lost freedom

Driving with my kids, I had to laugh as they listened to their I-pods while playing their Nintendo DSs. They don’t even realize how lucky they are to have these fabulous, portable toys to play with in the car. When I was a kid, all my brother and I had to do in the car was fight, usually about who was going to sit in the middle of the backseat.

When I think about all the things our children have that didn’t exist when we were kids, I could be envious. Even with all their cool toys though, there’s one thing that we can never give our kids that we had and that’s worth all the gadgets in the world. It’s freedom.

As a kid, I remember running around my neighborhood for hours and my mother didn’t feel the need to be outside with me. We used to run in the woods, build forts, pick blackberries, play ring-a-levio or tag. We'd ride our bikes all over and then throw them down to play inside someone's house for a while. We never though to call home. We just knew to be home by dark or when the neighbor stood outside at dinnertime and whistled to his kids like a dog. Even as a tween, I was allowed to walk down a semi-major road to the 7-11 or take a bus to the mall or go to the movies with my friends and just be free.

No one worried that we were going to be snatched away by a stranger in our own driveway. No one worried that the boogeyman was hiding at the playground. Play dates and sleepovers with friends were no big deal, even if my parents didn’t really know their parents. It was a different world.

Now, I’m not even comfortable allowing my girls to play hopscotch in the front of the house without supervision. And sadly, it’s not because I don’t trust them not to run off into the street. You just never know anymore who’s lurking in their car or watching them exit the building at school.

Even without a cell phone, we were afforded so much more freedom and trust than we can give our kids today. And for that, I feel sad for them. That we have to be so guarded and protected and force them to understand potential dangers of this world much earlier than we would like.

Everything is always so structured now, including their free time. I think there’s some life lessons to be learned about interacting with others, especially when a parent is not around to mediate. Too often, we jump in too fast to “help” instead of letting the kids work it out for themselves because we don’t want to listen to the bickering. Maybe next time, I’ll give them the latitude to work it out on their own. It’s the smallest bit of freedom I can give.