“You know,” I said, “I have a craving for a purple purse.”

“Purple?”

“Yep, purple.”

She walked through the aisles holding up bags that ranged from mulberry to eggplant and every edible color in between. Nothing was quite the right shade, the right quality or the right style. We checked another part of the store and I tried on something marked as blue but was clearly more dark lavender.

“Whaddaya think?”

“It’s weird,” she said. “You would never carry this.”

I set the bag back on the shelf. I wound through racks of clothes and met my daughter in an open space and we headed toward the check out.

“Hey,” I said. “Was that a compliment?”

“You mean that the purse was weird so you’d never carry it?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh huh.”

Obviously my sense of style, often disguised under a hair clip and oversized White Sox T-shirt, has not gone undetected. Not to mention, she was spot-on about the purse. It was weird.

My work is (just about) done.

But…

For a single, 45 year old mom with two teenagers, it’s b o r i n g. Girls Night Out means home by nine — if I’m lucky and not home by 8. Conversations revolve around dads who are babysitting for their own kids, and the havoc that will be wreaked without mom at home. There’s talk of multi-family getaways, three-story additions and the perils of country club assessments. There are no single parents at all — or anyone without back-up or tee-times, no classes to take (don’t even mention it), no clubs to join and nothing for Jewish singles within 50 miles.

So, as daunting as it is that my kids are now a Senior and a Freshman in high school — it also means I am that much closer to moving somewhere else – ANYWHERE ELSE - perhaps where coffee shops with wifi are open late and there is more than one bookstore within a 30 minute drive. Heaven forbid — there might be other single adults and yes, maybe even a class or two. I’d bow down if I had a mall to meander, but alas, the only mall nearby is desolate, anchored by Posters-R-Us and Sears — and has been under construction for the entire decade I’ve lived here.

I’ll give credit where it’s due. It’s a tight knit community and I have steadfast friends who make me laugh. If I sent out an SOS in the middle of the night I would have more help than I knew what to do with. So, a while back, when a casual friend’s father passed away, I didn’t think for more than a moment whether or not I should attend the Shiva (the mourning ritual for Jews). It’s never wrong to attend a Shiva. Never wrong to show support with a plate of cookies and a hug.

And anyway, who was I kidding? I got to go out! On a Tuesday night! There would be adults! And food! Everyone would talk! I’d have to look nice too – you don’t show your respect in cut-offs. This would indeed even include mascara. Maybe even a spritz of perfume!

So off I went. I was where I should have been. It was a sincere gesture on my part, tainted only slightly – and stealthily – as I asked about the health and well-being of some old people chatting in the corner.

“Oh no,” I said. “I went two years ago and this year I stayed far away.”

I explained about the swag and the cliques and the pushing of moms with babies.  I recounted how blogging started for many as a vehicle for story telling and has morphed into a platform for free stuff.  I told her about Blog with Integrity and the effort to realize that the blogosphere is big enough for everyone — but that we need to know what we’re reading.

Everyone listening understood - even if they had never read a blog let alone a mom blog.  I described my penchant for writing for the sake of writing and connecting and for having a non-income generating platform for my own writing.

And then I realized that with all the problems I have with many mom blogs out there - I am tethered to quite a few of them despite myself.  Granted these are story-telling blogs, whether or not there are ads and whether or not there are plugs for someone’s own products or the products of others.

I abandoned having a blog roll long ago, even though I love finding new reading material on lists of other bloggers.  So here are ten mom blogs that I like to read, for whatever reason.  Some of these women? I’ve been reading them for four years or maybe more.  I read them because I met them or I feel like I have.  Others craft a great story.  Still more write short enough posts (yay for short posts) that it’s no skin off my key-tapping fingers to see what they are up to and it is usually interesting.  I do not gravitate toward single mom blogs - or blogs of moms with teens - or Jewish moms.  I’m drawn to sites that either show me something new or remind me of something old.

So while I do chop down mom blogs in my mind, and in public, I’m still a rampant fan of many.

Indulge in a few of these when you have free time:

Sassafrass
Jess is a Chicago divorced mom like me. She’s hip, loves shoes and writes a mean streak about all things mama.

Blogs Are Stupid
Blog Antagonist is one of the best writers on the interweb, hands down. She’s working full-time now so she’s not posting daily but you could chomp on her archives for weeks and never go hungry.

Chicky Chicky Baby
I read Tania not because I can’t remember ever not reading her blog, but because she is an honest, loving, harried and hassled mom of two little girls. She keeps the big picture in mind but shares the details - and is always on-target.

Thinking About
J’s blog is only a mom blog because she’s a mom. She writes about her life as Maya’s mom, but she writes beautiful posts about everything from her dog (ok, the dog writes the posts), restaurants, books, life in general and she posts the best recipes.

We All Fall Down
Cindy doesn’t post often but when she decides to write it’s worth reading. Always. There’s an air of sensibility and a lack of frivolity — although it’s always fun, easy to read and thought provoking.

I have 19 mom blogs on Google Reader and I like them all. I’m much more vested in the writing, editing and publishing blogs out there and they greatly outnumber the mom blogs. I’m a cynic when it comes to diary-like blogs and the ones that pitch products for breakfast — but it was good to recall and share the a few of the mom blogs that do make me smile.

Often.

Who’s on your list?

It’s a no-no of biblical proportions.

I’ve been thinking a lot about gossip lately. Girls do it, boys do it. Women do it very well, which in this case makes it worse. Men do it too, but claim to not.

Fact is, sometimes the bad part of human nature overwhelms our better judgment.

It’s like a purse on sale. Actually, even like a great purse, on sale, grown-up gossip is something I can definitely do without.

But in my suburban adulthood, both remain haunting and alluring. Neither the studded, suede, oversized, caramel-colored satchel, nor the mouth-watering gossip, add real value to my life. Each is a momentary fix that satiates and quickly goes out of style, losing it’s panache.

I know this -but it is hard to walk away from either one.

Although I did put myself on a purse diet that started longer ago than I care to admit. No new purse for me that would qualify as extravagant. SIGH

And recently I made my life a gossip-free zone.

I’m not sure which is worse. Or better.

According to Judaism do you know what the worst thing about gossip is? Listening to it. Yep. We passivists who simply listen and say nothing, who don’t interfere, are the only ones who have a choice. The person who is talking about someone else has already made his or her decision. The person being spoken about doesn’t have a say.

Although I have never been a gossip monger, I just wanted to pull the plug completely. More than anything it’s that looming parental responsibility that gets the best of me every time because wanting to set a good example weighs heavily upon me.

My daugher has entered high school like gangbusters. The teenage girl thing is going strong, and while she doesn’t seem to be gossiping - or be the target of gossip - I want to circumvent what’s bound to happen simply due to momentum and hormones.

So, I have put a personal moratorium on gossip. Spreading it or listening to it. (And I certainly hope I am not gossip fodder myself). And let me tell you, it’s not easy stop bending your ear to be in on the latest. I’ve realized that sometimes talking about others is the only thing that bonds you to someone else, or is a major part of a friendship. And in that case, it’s probably time to reevaluate that relationship.

And none of it is easy, even if it is good. Especially without a new purse to soothe my soul.

I’m not completely innocent either, of course. More than a few times recently I have picked up the phone to “tell” a friend something that was in no way a rumor, but certainly something not very nice. And you know what? I hung up the phone. No good comes of talking badly about someone else, or making fun of them in any capacity.

But because I have to cover all my bases, and because although I rarely like to admit it, I am human, I do have a few caveats for my new no-gossip lifestyle.

The Pick One Person Rule: That means you can have one person to whom you can tell anything, nasty or nice. Since I don’t have a spouse, who would hopefully be that person, anything I tell Sister-Friend is not gossip. She lives 600 miles away from me. Which leads me to rule #2.

The Distance Rule: If you need to get something off your chest because you’re about to burst at the seams, and in any way what you are about to say could be construed as gossip, you must tell someone who doesn’t know the people you’re talking about, and preferably lives several hundred miles away. If this person never visits you, you can use names. If they do visit you, using names is optional because it may lead to obvious ‘ah ha’ moments down the road.

The All-Bets Are Off Rule: If someone does something to you or your children personally, and it is 100% true because it’s first person, you can tell anyone you wish. If it involves someone else and me, revert to rules #1 and #2.

I think that about covers it, don’t you?

The next thing I’m going to work on is a change of mindset. Meaning, not even giving any of this a second thought. Why is it that tidbits are so juicy? (Oh, Juicy Couture has some nice purses). Why is it that if I see someone looking just plain awful in the grocery store I feel the need to tell someone else? Maybe I should just think to myself that he or she is having a bad day or isn’t feeling well. If someone decorates their home hideously, is that bad taste, or just taste different from mine? And why should I care?

I think it’s just human nature to be curious, and yes sometimes, nosey. (I also happen to think it’s human nature to need expensive wristlets.) I think we like to feel a kinship with others and sometimes that means having a common cause, and sometimes that means talking about someone else. One of the worst things about human nature is that unintentionally, and sometimes intentionally, we do things that hurt others - and ourselves. In hindsight, someone looks really ugly when they’re gossiping even though they may be glowing in the midst of it.

Come to think of it, the evil of spending money on purses pales in comparison.  Truly.  What’s the worst thing about purses?  That can only carry one at a time.

Maybe I need to go shopping.

(Originally published on Kvetch Blog in September 2006.  This post has been edited for relevance — it was written when my daughter started Junior High — and republished with permission of the author, who happens to be me.)

]]> http://suburbankvetch.com/how-gossip-is-like-a-new-purse/feed/ http://suburbankvetch.com/how-gossip-is-like-a-new-purse/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SuburbanKvetch/~3/J6-ZyLyDl9E/ http://suburbankvetch.com/dirty-dancing-from-the-olden-days-of-1987/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:26:56 +0000 SuburbanKvetch http://suburbankvetch.com/?p=287 In 1987, at 23 years old, I went to movies without really knowing what they were about. I mean, there was no internet - at least not as far as I was concerned. We learned about movies from TV commercial and GASP — newspaper advertisements. Those usually black and white ads lead us to search the paper for times and theaters nearby. I think I chose movies with a ‘why not’ philosophy. I do know that I went to see Dirty Dancing with no idea at all what it would be about.

So my sister-friend and I drove to the movie theater (that is now a Target, I hear) — probably in a tiny white Datsun — and drooled and hyperventialted smiled and bobbed and tapped our feet for an hour and a half.  And like gazillions of others that movie became one of my all-time favorites and not only an roadmap for dancing (as if!) but a touchstone for all things romantic.

I’ve never been to the Catskills but, face it, does that matter if you can sing the Kellerman’s anthem? Since that day I’ve watched the movie countless times on TV — it’s the kind of movie that makes me put down the remote control and pay attention no matter where in the 105 minutes I happen to land.

Especially here. Really, do we even need the rest of the movie? Yes, we do.  I’m on a cyberhunt to secure my own copy…and will review it ad nauseam for the sake of history and in memory of Patrick Swayze.

Oh right, and Jennifer Grey’s nose.

I watched the plane hit Tower One.

I canceled my plans and moved to the family room where I watched TV for the rest of the day. And night. And the next day.  And probably days after that.

I kept my kids, in 4th and 1st grades, away from the news but I told them what happened. Sort of.

Where were you?

I see…old people.

They’re everywhere.  You might be one of them, I don’t know.  What I do know is that all-of-a-sudden, from out of nowhere, they started appearing to me, not in my dreams, but in a place much more frightening.

My age category.

I answered my land line a few weeks ago and took an automated survey by new cell phone company.

What is your age?

Are you under 18? Press 1

18-20? Press 2

21-24? Press 3

25-29? Press 4

30-34? Press 5

35-39? Press 6

40-44? Press 7

45-49? Press 8

EIGHT?  I had to wait until EIGHT to push the number for my age group?  What happened to the 40’s being the new 30’s?   Guess no one told A.T. and T.

I do not see an old person when I look in the mirror nor when I look at my friends who range in age from thirty to sixty, with the preponderance falling between 45 and 55.  But show me a photo of people who are 45-55 whom I don’t know - and man, do they look old!  I asked a friend once if we looked like the scores of happy, hugging groups of strangers we come across on Facebook. You know, the women who look a little weathered with  a bit too much undereye makeup and a strange tan for Kansas in January and the men who are gray, balding with a little extra skin around the jowls?

She assured me, we do not.

A friend of mine in her 40’s married someone seven years older.  That makes him 55.  I have fun spending time with them as a couple - she’s one of my local BFFs and he’s a fun guy.  When together, it seems like we are all the same age.

I’m headed to a wedding reception this weekend for a 50-year-old friend who is marrying her long-time love.  He is 63. I have never met him, but my friend certainly is not old to me.

Yet, I went out with men in their 50’s this summer.

THEY’RE OLD!

The only upside is, that to them, I am decidedly young.

Maybe with friends, it’s the familiarity, the history (looong histories sometimes)that means — although we know them best, we see their faces through rose colored reading glasses.  I look at the faces of my friends from long ago and see the child within.  I hear a school yard chant in their present-day wisdom.  In the friends I’ve made in the decade I’ve lived in my current home, age only seems to matter when there is a milestone to celebrate and a party to plan.  Their faces look like mine.  Unchanged from ten years ago if only to us.  Maybe it’s the effect of seeing people often and not noting subtle shifts.  Maybe it’s the lake effect breeze.

We see only the best parts of ourselves and our friends.  I guess that’s as it should be - holding a steady course of aging with those around us certainly softens the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

But, when we feel a distant, gnawing sense of familiarity looking into the faces of strangers, our own reflection — for just one second — becomes a little bit scary.

Therefore, one would think, that keen powers of recall of things that happened, and even what might have happened, would prevail as life continued.   Or one would hope.

On Saturday night I hunkered down to work on a project that is on a deadline.  I often review and revise my work several times, so on opening the Word Doc it did not surprise me to see my own marks and comments.  I continued my work all the time the changes were minimal.  I’m gooood, I thought.   After about two hours of this - with intermittent Facebook breaks (it was Saturday night), I decided to check another set of notes on the same project.

Been there done that.

I’d already finished these pages.   I was doing work I’d already completed and sent off to my editor.

So this Sunday morning, coffee in hand, I’m ready to do work I haven’t done before.

But not without double-checking a couple dozen times.

To give credit where it’s due, the first time I had Spinach Enchiladas was with my friend Pamela — they were part of a Mexican feast she created for her birthday (and graciously shared with some friends). I knew my son would love the enchiladas, so before I even asked Pam for the recipe, I whipped up some on my own, and then did it again recently with even a better result.

According to Melanie, there are no spinach enchiladas where she lives…so consider this your warning that while they are delicious, chances are they are not authentic, hence the ’suburban’ disclaimer!

And we’re big into healthy foods around here, so feel free to swap out ingredients if you’re not.

Spicy Suburban Spinach Enchiladas

6 Corn tortillas (we stay away from white flour whenever possible)

Bag of frozen chopped spinach (I used Trader Joe’s, but any will do)

Fat free sour cream (I stick to Breakstone, the others taste funny to me)

Green salsa (again, from TJ’s)

1/2 cup Shredded Mexican style cheese (I use the kind made from 2% milk)

Green or Red Enchilada Sauce

I nuke the spinach and then squeeze out all the water.  Otherwise you will have Soggy, Spicy, Suburban Spinach Enchiladas.

In a medium bowl I mix the spinach with a few tablespoons of the fat free sour cream and the green salsa to taste.  It should look like old-fashioned creamed spinach at this point.

Use a small baking pan, spray with cooking spray.

Divide spinach eventually between six tortillas, in a “stripe” down the center of the tortilla. Fold over the ends, leaving other ends open (unlike a burrito, where you close the ends).

Did I forget to tell you to warm the tortillas?  OK then, warm the tortillas by wrapping them in a damp paper towel and popping them in to the microwave for 20 seconds.  If you don’t, it will still work, but the tortillas will crack.  It will still taste really good though if this happens.  Trust me on this one.

Put the tortillas with spinach into the baking pan fold down.  Line them up cozy next to one another.  Cover with sauce of choice and cheese.  We measure the cheese for the lower-cal effect, but you don’t have to if you’re a rebel with low cholesterol.

Bake at 350 until until the cheese bubbles.

I can eat 2 or 3 as a meal.  My son adds sour cream on top, sometimes I add a little extra heat with peppers.

Adios mi amigos, enjoy!

I picked up on the way things were done and grew comfortable in my role handling computer issues, desktop publishing and learning the admissions business.  One day, waiting for a staff meeting to begin, we talked about our weekends, and subsequently our meals. And although the details before this elude me, I must have mentioned brisket.  A somewhat tanned, dark haired woman turned to me.  I’d seen her in the office before.  She was new, but we hadn’t met.

“Did you say brisket,” she asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Are you Jewish?”

I wasn’t sure if this was a trick question.

“I am.”

“I’m Catholic,” she said, “I love brisket.”  She moved from her seat next to me, and leaned in.  “And lox and bagels.  I’m the only non-Jewish person in line for bagels on Christmas morning.”

I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to make me, the lone Jew, feel at home or if she truly felt a kinship and wanted to bond over brisket and bagels.

“How do you make it,” she asked. “You know, the brisket.”

And so I told her.

That was over 18 years ago.

I was pregnant with my son and my new friend, Renee, was thinking about getting divorced.  She was 32 - practically ancient to my 27 - but we were close friends from that moment on.  She was a seasoned (as seasoned as one can be at 32) admissions counselor and showed me the ropes.  Renee introduced me to Martha Stewart, country clubs and Eggs Benedict.  I taught her the Russian-Jewish custom of tying a red ribbon to something to ward off any ne’er-do-well (i.e. her mother-in-law) wishing her harm.  That next Christmas - the last with her ex - she decorated her house with big red velveteen bows.  That was right around the time I started coordinating table cloths and napkins for dinner parties.

Renee was there the day my son was born and took a hearty dose of allergy medicine to attend his Bris (she was allergic to our dog).  She reveled in my new parenthood and I listened as she mourned the loss of her single home, her Laura Ashley adorned bedroom and at times, even her ex-husband.

Our friendship, the way I remember it, just happened.  There were no mommy cards, no texting, no cell phones.  There was no email.  At least there wasn’t for me.  Our campus and local diner lunches took us away from campus and enabled us to find our similarities and revel in our differences.  The pot luck dinners brought varied friends together.  Maybe it had something to do with being young.  I think it really just had to do with it being a much simpler time - or maybe back then, I just new simpler people.  And I mean that in a good way.

But then I stopped working to be a stay-at-home mom.  The college closed and Renee got a new job.  I moved several times.  We lost touch somewhere between Renee getting her master’s degree and me and my family moving to Cleveland.  I couldn’t find her even though I was online, because I didn’t know where she was.  This was before the days when you could find almost anyone on Google.  Her parents were unlisted.  Can you imagine?  As creepy as internet access can be, it lends an element of permanence to relationships.  It is really hard to lose track of someone these days.  But not back then.

Renee and I lost track of one another, found one another and then lost track again.  And then one day - about ten years ago — I got a phone call.  It was Renee! She was packing her apartment for another move to another city and came across my parents’ phone number.  She called them and they gave her my number.

Sometimes, after a long time, we hear from someone we haven’t thought of in ages.  It wasn’t that way with Renee.  I’d thought about her often.  And even if I hadn’t, I think the key to these long-term, heavy-duty friendships is the willingness to remember the past and embrace the possibilities for the future.  Would it have been easy for me to shun someone who called, after years, who lived thousands of miles away and with whom technically I had nothing in common?  I had new friends in a new city and I believed I was on the cusp of an amazing life.  But when someone reaches out through the years and over miles, it behooves us to slow down enough to listen and to remember those technology free years when we met and became friends because of brisket.

And anyway, it was Renee.

That night we talked and talked like we were sitting across the table in her kitchen, her dad playing with my son, sticking ten dollar bills into his one-year-old pockets.  She and I filled in all the blanks - or so I thought — until I mentioned my four-year-old daughter and Renee said, “Who?”

She didn’t know I’d had a daughter.

We remedied the situation and saw Renee on a planned trip to Florida, where she lived.  Another time she flew from to meet us on a different vacation.  She and I spent a girlfriend weekend in Chicago.  Ten years since our reunion we have not lost touch again - on the contrary.  Through more moves, job loss, my divorce and both families’ tragedies, we’re more connected than ever. And as always, she can lift my spirits with three small words…Amy, it’s Renee.

Long ago and far away we giggled innocently about a handsome professor (we were married, not blind), shared recipes (so much more than brisket), talked about our families (the good, bad and ugly) and planned our futures (boy, were we wrong).

Now we talk about being single, and not naively.  We reminisce about the past and look forward to times unknown.  Today, the intensity of our combined experiences is way beyond that of a chuckle. We belly laugh until we cry - or until someone has to pee.

Come to think of it, that’s the same as when I was pregnant — and Renee was on the divorce diet.

That’s what you call coming full circle.

* * *

Brisket Recipes or Essential Ingredients for a Friendship

Unlike Texans, Jews don’t barbeque their brisket, we braise it like a pot roast.  I started making ’sweet brisket’ when I got married.  It’s a traditional holiday meal, but was unlike the brisket I grew up taste-testing in my grandmother’s kitchen. Shortly after I divorced, my grandmother passed away.  I’ve only made her brisket since. Both recipes are below.

Sweet Brisket

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:
Salt
Onion salt (optional)
Garlic salt (optional)

Liquid:
1 12-oz bottle chili sauce
20 oz Manischewitz or other very sweet wine
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Vegetables:
1 sliced sweet onion
6 chopped carrots
3 lbs potatoes, quartered

Sprinkle seasonings over meat and rub in lightly. Sear the meat in 500 degree oven for 10 minutes on each side. Combine liquids and vegetables, pour over meat, cover and cook at 350 degrees for 3 hours. It freezes well if you invite light eaters and have leftovers.

Brisket with Gravy

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:

Onion Soup Mix 1 or 2 packets

Liquid:

Water

Sprinkle onion soup mix over meat and rub in lightly.  Wrap meat tightly in several layers of aluminum foil and place in a roasting pan.  Cook it at 300 degrees for as many hours as you can stand not eating it, at least 3.  Slice against the grain, place back in roasting pan, cover with au jus and keep warm on 250.  The more it cooks the better it tastes, it tastes even better the next day.  Serve it with au jus or the brown gravy of your choice.  Make it or buy it, I don’t think it matters.  I’d say it freezes well too, but there’s never enough left  to find out.

Cross-Posted at Imperfect Parent

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