My neighbor’s urban chickens are always running their beaks. After two years I finally got an omelet to show for it.
Last week, a 12-year-old boy knocked on my door holding a small container of brown eggs.
“They were laid today,” he said, handing over the loot, still speckled with black feathers and bird crap.
“Thanks,” I said. “I was in the mood for a good scrambly.”
He scurried away before I could ask him if his goose lays any golden eggs.
Lately, I’ve got no tolerance for this expression:
“In my day…”
I hear it all the time from women whose babies flew the coop 30 years ago.
I’ll give you three (very true) recent examples:
“We’ve gone overboard on safety. In my day we didn’t have car seats.”
[Seriously. You’re going to argue that car seats have crossed the line? This one came from my Oma, by the way. After making this statement she told me a story about how my father’s head once went through her windshield when she pegged her breaks at an intersection. She was not being sarcastic.]
“In my day we smoked cigarettes so our babies would have lower birth weights.”
[I had no idea how to respond to this. She was being 100 percent serious.]
“In my day women didn’t work when they had babies.”
This last one really chapped my ass, not just because her tone was judgmental, but because when I replied, “Some families need two incomes,” she replied, “In my day we knew how to save money.”
Well guess what Ethel? It’s MY DAY. And in my day we make money so YOU can collect Social Security.
Back in December, I interviewed Toby Perlman, the wife of violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman.
It was a phone interview and Henry started whimpering in his crib midway through it. I was having a bad day. I was stressed and sleep deprived. I had dried baby vomit on my shirt. I was swigging cold coffee and biting my nails. The last thing I wanted to talk about was classical music.
Prior to the interview, I received an email from Toby’s publicist encouraging me to read over the materials about her music residency for young gifted string players.
“(It) will help you focus your questions on what is relevant to the interview,” the publicist wrote.
Point taken.
When I got on the phone with Mrs. Perlman, I began with the most obvious and relevant questions. All was going well for the first ten minutes. She was chatty and I was informed.
And then Henry started crying. Although Toby couldn’t hear him, I found myself immediately torn between continuing the interview and tending to my infant.
Yes, I devote an entire drawer in my fridge to chocolate. It’s the same drawer some people stick vegetables in. I call it my shnooka drawer – shnooka being a derivative of the German slang word for chocolate. My Oma has a shnooka drawer, and thus I have one too.
It’s so full I can hardly close it.
Anyone want to come over and help me empty it?
For Valentine’s Day I give you a photo I took with one of my favorite Sarasota loves. (Remember Ricci?)
It was 2005. I was newly single and living in my first apartment.
We took it using self-timer and two tea light candles. It took more than a dozen tries to get it right and by the end of our little shoot the carpet was splattered in wax. It took hours to scrape clean.
What I learned that day: lighting a heart on fire is easy. Capturing it forever is another story.
It was sooo worth it, because now I have this picture and every time I look at it I feel like I’m 23 again, fearless and on the verge of everything.
—
PS. So you know how I was crying the blues about schlepping my kid into restaurants? Well, Ricci is on assignment in West Africa right now and she brought along her 16-month-old daughter, Amelia. Now THAT’S what I call brave.
All I want for Valentine’s Day is to sleep until 9 a.m. and have breakfast served to me in bed.
Just putting it out there.
I’m happy to avoid a restaurant this year. Things haven’t been the same between me and restaurants since Henry arrived.
I used to regard eating out with the wide-eyed excitement of a child. Now I look at my wide-eyed child with the vacant look of a defeated adult. A table-for-two has little allure when your lunch companion has a penchant for tearing up napkins, overturning salt shakers and occasionally cawing like a seagull while wielding a slimy baby spoon like a drunk with a lighter at a Guns N’ Roses concert.
Until Henry pursues his degree in economics from Harvard we’ll probably never enjoy a civilized meal in public. And even then the experience will suck because he’ll be boring.