My Wayward Youth

It's my birthday! I'm 35. I don't generally fuss over my age and encroaching decrepitude, but I must admit: it hurt a little to type that number. My husband took me to Menton and Drink as a combination birthday/Christmas/wedding anniversary gift. (That's one good thing about packing all your big life events into one month: Outrageously expensive celebrations become more justifiable.) I'll write about that experience later, but today I'm sharing a story that, despite us being together for a decade, I had somehow never told Jay until Saturday night.

For a brief period in the early 2000s, my life would have made an excellent a secondhand-embarrassment-inducing HBO coming-of-age series. My college roommates lived in New York and I'd fly down on the Delta shuttle on Friday nights for weekends with them. This was shortly after 9/11 and standing at the gate watching 100 girls dressed for a night out in NYC taking off their boots and jewelry never got any less surreal. (They used to frisk us at security and then again before we got on the plane.)

My friend T had a "worldly" older boyfriend (you know, worldly to 23-year-old me. Just a blowhard jackass to 35-year-old me.) who took her to burlesque shows. T being the kind of girl who can talk a dog off a meat wagon, she promptly became besties with the performers. She was friends with one in  particular and we would go see her perform when I was in town.

On one such night, it was about 2am and I was uttering the words, "I probably shouldn't have had that seventh martini" (Not real martinis. Probably cosmos or something. Oy.) when T passed out on my shoulder. That was our cue to leave, so I got her legs under her, swept our stuff off the table and into my bag, threw T into a taxi, and tried to stay conscious enough to ensure that our taxi driver didn't take us on the Drunk Girls Tour of New York before bringing us home.

Then there was dragging T up the stairs, figuring out which key went in which lock, and announcing to the door that this was probably not a good way to be living my life, followed by getting T undressed, getting myself undressed, and passing out on the couch.

In the morning, over a half gallon of orange juice, I opened my purse to make sure I hadn't drunk-dialed anyone. A pile of crumpled, damp one dollar bills exploded out. I was confused because I thought we'd given the dancers all of our cash, so I started to count it. About halfway through I put my head down on the floor and started to laugh because this was clearly not my money.

I woke T up by dropping the wet money on her (because that seemed totally reasonable at the time) and saying, "Why do I have $40 worth of ones in my purse?" She had told the guys standing next to us that they could leave their money on our table. Yes: I had stolen their stripper money. I had an attack of conscience and said, "I can't keep this! You need to give it to Anna the next time you see her."

T was like, "Well, she'd probably feel a little weird about me just handing her a pile of cash. I'll give it to all the dancers the next time I see them."

"Okay. Because, really, stealing from frat boys, okay, whatever, but stealing from our professionally naked friends: not cool."

Well, that was the gist of the conversation anyway. In case you're wondering, T and I both have daughters now. They will never, ever hear that story. Nor will they be allowed out of the house until they're 30.

Drive

I am way better than this.

I failed my driver's test as a teenager after turning a three-point-turn into a five-point-turn, failing to back up 50 feet without drifting into the center of the road, and, um, nearly hitting a jogger. (In my defense: that jogger came out of nowhere.)

I cried for 45 minutes and made my mother take me to Dairy Queen for a sundae before going back to school for the rest of the day. I still feel like this was a perfectly reasonable response.

I passed on my second try a few months later, drove around Martha's Vineyard for two years, then took a 15-year hiatus upon moving to Boston. Believe it or not, public transportation around here used to be pretty reliable. But between the fare hikes, the busses on the schedule that don't exist in real life, and Baby Razor's short temper, I realized it was finally time for me to get back behind the wheel.

Fun fact: If you've kept up your license, you can just get in the car and go, even if Bill Clinton was president the last time you started an engine.

The thing that surprised me the most was how comfortable I felt, even with Baby Razor in the backseat yelling, "Why you sitting in Daddy's seat? Don't sit in Daddy's seat!" (Another good reason to drive: gender equity.) I was like, "I thought this was hard? Why?" Well, between my undiagnosed-at-the-time anxiety disorder and Martha's Vineyard's complete lack of signage and traffic lights, 16-year-old me thinks 34-year-old me can suck it.

Plus I always had the crippling fear that I was the worst driver on the road, which is a nightmare for a perfectionist like me. Boston has cured that fear. I am nowhere near the worst driver on the road. I don't talk on the phone or text, my eyesight is fine, I use turn signals, and I don't treat a double yellow line like a slalom course.

What I've learned so far is that most of my Driver's Education was totally useless. In the real world, no one cares if your turn is 3-point or 5-point. You never have to back up 50 yards. And joggers have sidewalks in the city. Also: people only remember how to parallel park until the moment they're given their license, at which point everyone reverts to being horrible at it and avoiding parallel parking spaces at all costs.

There is really only one rule: Don't Hit Anything. My visual-spacial skills are sketchy at best, so I was worried about this, but age, wisdom, and a healthy sense of "This car is expensive so don't fuck it up" have served me well so far. Okay, I've jumped two curbs, but I think that was just a bad morning.

Lucky

This spring, my daughter reached a point in her development best described as Go Away, Mom. So while she ran around our little backyard urgently moving dirt from spot to spot, I sat and poked at the clover patches that pass for our lawn. Two weeks into the most perfect May weather I've ever experienced, I found my first ever four-leaf-clover.

I was thrilled. Baby Razor was unimpressed. (Story of our lives, really.)

The only other time I'd seen a four-leaf-clover was right before the final for a class that was technically titled something like Beowulf and Old English Poetry but I only ever referred to as Beowulf: Bane of My Existence. One of my classmates found it on the way to the final and let us all touch it before we went to our academic doom trying to remember what "gefrunon" meant.

So, figuring it would be a nice memento for Baby Razor's baby box, I Mod Podge'd it to a piece of card stock and figured that was the end of that.

Well. Three days later, Mr. Razor came home, said, "I had the weirdest day," and pulled these out of his laptop case:

He found the first one on the way to the bus in the morning, the next three in the patch near his office building (which is apparently a mutant clover patch, because his coworkers found two there as well), and the last one at the foot of our front steps as he came home in the evening.

I considered buying scratch tickets, but was unsure if six four-leaf-clovers in one week could be some sort of weird anti-luck jinx. For now, all the preserved clovers are safely stored for Baby Razor, just in case she ever has to translate Beowulf.

A Wicked Bostonian Weekend

This roughly translates to "The whole world is a Mercier world," aka my new life motto.

This post is basically an excuse to link to a bunch of things that I love. Hopefully you'll find something to love in here too!

Saturday was our first CSA pick-up from Stillman's Farm. We got rainbow chard, beets, greens, arugula, and the best strawberries I have ever tasted. They were the platonic ideal of juicy berry goodness. Baby Razor ate a dozen.When we did our first CSA 4 years ago, I could barely cook mac & cheese. That first year, the only thing I knew how to do was to sauté every veggie in butter with either garlic or brown sugar. It wasn't until last year, when I was also on a gluten-free cooking crash course, that I finally really started incorporating our CSA box into planned meals. It took more than a decade of adulthood, but I finally learned to cook.

And let me tell you, if I can do it? Anyone can. I know fuck all about vegetables. But between very patient friends and the amazing powers of the internet, I've gone from, "Roast beets. Eat beets." to "Make beet risotto." Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am.

After the farmer's market, we headed to Mr. Razor's Father's Day present: a Formaggio Kitchen shopping spree. Except my husband isn't really a "spree" sort of guy, so it was more of a "moderate concession to indulgence." So I'm going to order him this to supplement the two little hunks of cheese and tiny bit of salami he allowed himself.

I, meanwhile, could have bought the whole store. The place might as well be called Everything Daisy Loves! It's full of cheese, meat, chocolate, fancy honey, wine, spices, local veggies, beer, fresh bread, and all sorts of other yummy things that you don't need to live, but which certainly make life much more enjoyable.

I settled on garlic scapes for garlic scape pesto (I like that recipe because it uses pistachios, which I usually have around the house anyway, but you can find one with basically any nut available. Seriously, it's idiot-proof and DELICIOUS.) and beer. I'd been wanting to try the Porter Square Porter since I heard about it because I used to live in Porter Square and adding Taza Chocolate cocoa nibs to the brew sounded brilliant. It is, in fact, really freaking tasty. Here, read what the beer snobs have to say about it.

See? Idiot-proof.

On Sunday Mr. Razor and I were like, "Happy Father's Day, Razor Family! Have a toddler." Yup, we dropped the kid off with her grandparents and uncle and went to the Sowa Open Market and Vintage Market. Our first stop was Zooguu and its adorable stuffed animals. I bought a Wonder Woman print, because she is my spirit animal (duh).

At the vintage market, I bought a 1950s ad for Mercier Champagne because, again: duh. The nice British lady who sold it to me said, "Oh, it's quite a posh champagne," which made me smile. I also got to meet Keyse of Crocodile Tears, who was lovely. I always feel like a gigantic weirdo being like, "Hello! I'm from the internet!" but I really enjoy her blog, so I had to say hi.

Then we went home and our whirling dervish of a toddler kept me so busy that it took me until Thursday to finish a post about the weekend. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make a garlic scape pesto & grilled cheese sandwich.

Friendship is Magic

I was thinking about the recent spate of features blaming modern loneliness on the internet as I returned home last night from a Hairpin meet-up where I'd spent two hours happily conversing with people who'd previously only lived in my computer.

Then I started to count the number of people I consider good friends whom I'd met in various places online over the years. I stopped when I hit a dozen, because I wasn't sure how to differentiate between the people I now regularly see in person (including my husband) and the people I talk to all the damn time yet have never actually met face to face.

Needless to say, I don't feel terribly isolated by newfangled modes of communication.

When I got home I posted this to Facebook:

I keep reading about how the internet makes us more socially isolated, but I also keep meeting people online then in real life who are awesome and fun. Maybe I'm internetting wrong?

And this is an abbreviated version of the conversation that followed with some of my internet people:

Meaghan: Obviously we are horrible, worthless people.
Meaghan: as are you
Me: Obviously. Us losers have to stick together.
Kristen: I'm really a psycho killer. I just assumed you were as well.
Meaghan: I'm actually a large, West Indian man named Jeff. I like sumo wrestling and crochet.
Michelle: I am a horrible hateful stalking criminally wanted person. Boo!
Me: I am a platypus with incredible makeup skills.
Michelle: I like yours better.
Me: Originally I wrote "hobo," but then I was like, "I don't want to be a hobo! I want to be a mammal that lays eggs!"
Michelle: You will have to raise those eggs, you know. Hobos are guardians to no one.
Melissa: Damn. How did I, the only normal person in all the world, meet YOU GUYS? It's insane, really. [NOTE: The first time I met Melissa in person, we were staying in a hotel room together and she said, 'I hope you don't mind nudity, because I don't really wear clothes when I don't have to."] 

All right, I'll allow that it's possible I have all these internet friends because normal modes of communication can't contain our crazy.

Sunday Morning, With the Dead

On Sunday morning, Mr. Razor and I went to see A Day in Pompeii.

I can't really give you a review, because the moment we walked into the exhibit I got hit with what I privately call "the graveyard feeling," because the first time I felt it I was standing in a lonely, overgrown graveyard on Penikese Island. It's not that I'm squeamish about the dead--I've toured catacombs and tombs, and seen mummies and skeletons and not felt it. But it hits me sometimes, like something pushing down on my shoulders or holding a hand uncomfortably close to my neck.

Yes, I realize this is just me being my own personal gothic heroine, and it's all in my head. But I wasn't expecting it, and it made me edgy the whole time we were there. So I took a bunch of pictures to give myself some distance.


This is a detail of the wall-sized fresco at the entrance to the exhibit. I had no idea the colors would be so vibrant. (Nearby, there was a pornographic--oh, sorry, we were in a museum, so it was "erotic"--detail from another fresco, and I really wanted to take a picture, but there was a young girl standing next to me, and I was afraid if I called attention to it she'd be like, "Hey, mom, what are those two men doing to that woman?" and my parenting karma would go in the toilet. So no ancient dirty pictures for you all, sorry.)



Gladiator's helmet. Me: "They must have had really strong necks." Mr. Razor: "That's what you're taking away from this?"



The jewelry is my favorite part of any exhibition. I enjoy the continuity of humans liking pretty things.



Funerary statue. I think this picture really highlights the amazing lighting throughout the exhibit.



Minerva says you can all go fuck yourselves. Or she's giving her blessing, whatever. But doesn't she look cranky?



Minerva detail. We figured this is Medusa's head.



Neptune seems very chill here. I love the clean lines of his tunic, which really contrast with the ornateness of Minerva's.


We did the body casts last:


Mr. Razor never met a special on Pompeii that he didn't like, so I have watched upwards of a dozen programs on the disaster since we've been together. I have to tell you: I hate them. I hate being told in graphic, vivid detail how the people whose faces I saw yesterday knew they were dying; how it may have taken them minutes to choke to death on the hot ash flooding the air. Yet I can never bring myself to turn the channel or leave the room, which is how I felt looking at the casts yesterday. I figure it they had to die like that, the least I can do is pay attention.

Misadventures of Middle Age

Mr. Razor: I could do that.
Me: Hmm? Okay. Sure.
Mr. Razor: Stands up. Stretches.
Me: Oh no. No no no no no.
Mr. Razor: What? It can't be that hard.
Me: Good luck! I'm not driving you to the ER.
Mr. Razor: Grabs toes. Gets head, shoulders, and collarbone off the floor. See? Totally easy.
Me: Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
Mr. Razor: Oof. Errr, I'm just gonna sit on the couch now. And possibly for the next three days.

Oh, hello!

(That's totally me, with gluten as the supervillain.)

Yesterday, a friend on Facebook recommended my blog to someone, and it was like she'd complimented my home decorating when I knew there was a bra on the couch, 67 toys on the floor, and a cobweb with a big, dead spider in the middle sitting up near the ceiling.

Not that my living room has ever looked like that, of course.

Except it was worse, because no one can see my sensible undergarments unless I let them in the house, but all y'all can see that I haven't updated here in three damn months.

Basically, Baby Razor got sick. And it was that kind of sick where she was probably okay? But we had to watch her. So I watched her fail to gain weight for three months, then start throwing up every other day for two terrifying weeks before our doctor's appointment, during which Baby Razor's doctor was like, "Okay, the mood is very Eeyore in here." And God bless her for having a sense of humor about it, because Mr. Razor and I have an unspoken agreement that one of us needs to be the strong one when the other one is freaking out, but that went right out the window the night I was like, "I'm really worried" and he was like, "Oh shit, I can see her hipbones."

The short version is that Baby Razor has celiac disease. The longer version is that Baby R's doctor is awesome (and I don't just say that because I've known her for 15 years), Children's Hospital Boston is efficient and caring but still scary as hell, and wheat is in FUCKING EVERYTHING. The really long version involves a lot of hyperventilating and stress-eating, so I'll skip that one.

Maybe surprisingly, I'm not sad or freaked out by the diagnosis; I'm grateful. Look: I'm pretty sure there is no human body on earth that runs perfectly. Mine likes to panic and randomly throw blood clots. My father-in-law's tries to kill him whenever he's within three feet of shrimp. So Baby Razor's thinks wheat and barley can suck it; that's totally okay. I'm just glad we know! For awhile there I was terrified that I was going to end up on Mystery Diagnosis, wearing a sensible cardigan and saying, "At that point, we thought she was going to weigh 20 pounds for the rest of her natural life."

We're still figuring out her diet (seriously, gluten sneaks into every. damn. thing.), but she's gaining weight, and she has enough energy to power my neighborhood. Which means I can let go of some of the mental energy I've been devoting to her digestive tract and go back to telling stories about things like trying to make mom-friends when I'm naturally anti-social, my latest crafting disaster, and random shit I find at the thrift shop. Watch this space!

Where Have You Gone, Man in the Yellow Hat?

Curious George & Friends opened in 1995 as Curious George Goes to Wordsworth. The name changed when Wordsworth went out of business in 2004. I started shopping there in 1996, when I was 18 and my niece was two. Now my niece is 17, my daughter is two, and Curious George is closing.


They were closed yesterday when I went to pay my respects (and do some discount shopping).


All the bare shelves used to be so packed with books that you'd have to wiggle them back in after you were done looking at them. That book you loved when you were a kid, whose name you forgot even though you could still describe the cover? They had it.


I never minded paying full price for books & toys there (instead of less at the big box stores) because I knew everything in Curious George was chosen with love and care. I will admit that I felt a little bad about being the aunt who gave two gifts instead of six, though.

But even at full price, I imagine they'd have to sell more books than anyone buys to continue to afford the $15,000 a month rent.

I'm heartbroken, and I felt a little silly about it because as my mom loves saying, it's not like somebody died. But as I was taking pictures through the windows yesterday, three separate people came up to the door, read the sign, and said, "Oh, no." At least I'm not alone.

[Totally Selfish Side Note: Does anyone know what happens to the store's decorations? Because I would shank my neighbors for a chance at George in the rocket ship.]

I Need A Nanny. For Myself.

I locked myself out today, which wouldn't be all that notable had I not also locked the baby in.

Background: Baby Razor has been getting up between 5:30 and 6 a.m. for a week (instead of her usual 7:30ish). In theory I should be adjusted to this by now, but I'm still a tired wreck. But after a weekend of doing nothing, I was determined to get my ass in gear today.

So as soon as Baby Razor went down for her nap, I dragged our new patio set out onto the porch and set about assembling it. I figured I'd take a shower after I finished, so I left my PJs on. It was hot and the sun was right on top of me, so after putting the table together I decided to take a break before putting the umbrella up.

That, of course, was when I realized the door was locked. Okay, I thought, I have the tool kit. It can't be that hard to break into a house when you've got a shit-ton of tools, can it? YES. IT CAN. I tried unscrewing the storm window. Turns out it's also screwed in on the inside and painted to the side of the house. I tried picking the lock. Yeah, the producers of Supernatural will be getting a stern letter from me, because that shit is WAY harder than they make it look. I tried to bite the bullet and break the glass on the back door with a hammer. No go--it's apparently shatterproof. Which is good from a homeowner standpoint, but bad from a crazy, locked-out mother standpoint.

I psyched myself up to go next door and ask to use the phone. In my pajamas. Barefoot. Braless. It's okay! I know my neighbors! They're a really nice older couple. They were not home. All right. The family across the street? Nope. My friends down the block? Nobody there.

By this time I'd been outside for nearly an hour. I was starting to panic, covered in sweat, still barefoot and braless, and knocking on strangers' doors. I finally got an answer four doors down from my house, from a woman I'd smiled at a few times but never talked to. She let me use her phone to call Mr. Razor, who pretty much lost his shit, not that I blame him. In fact, while trying to find his mother's work number, he accidentally disconnected me.

As I was redialing, my neighbor was like, "So, I have some things to do? Errands to run?" Yeah, she clearly wanted the sweaty, frantic, half-dressed stranger out of her kitchen as soon as possible. I told the mister to get ahold of his mother, who has a key and works five minutes from our house, and I'd be on the back porch.

Then I waited. It was only about fifteen minutes, but I kept imagining I could hear the baby crying for me, which was pretty much the worst feeling in the world. I have never been so happy to see my mother in law. She opened the door, observed that our plants looked good and the baby didn't seem to be crying, promised to buy us one of those fake rocks for our extra key, and left.

I don't even remember closing the door and going upstairs to the baby's room. Baby Razor was standing there with her arms hanging over the edge of the crib, dry-eyed and singing to herself. When I walked in she looked at me like, What the crap, Mama. I've got a poopy diaper here. I managed to get her to the changing table before bursting into tears and dripping all over her.

Then, of course, I told twitter what a dipshit I am. And thank god I did, because my friends were like, pssh, that's nothing. My mother forgot me at home/left me in the car/accidentally knocked me down the stairs and I turned out fine! They really did. None of them have meth labs in their basement or anything.

So I guess the moral of the story is that no matter how good or careful a mother you are, you will occasionally do something horrendously stupid.

That's not reassuring, is it? How about this one instead: Try to limit your major parental fuck-ups to the kid's toddlerhood, which she won't remember anyway. That's useful advice, anyway.

Apocalypse Now

(Photo via Sushiesque, who spotted this RV in Harvard Square this morning.)

All right, I have to talk about this whole Rapture thing. In case you've somehow managed to avoid the worldwide media blitz, there's a fringe Christian group that has spent bonkers money to make everyone aware that God will be playing favorites on Saturday and bodily yanking His Chosen up to Heaven. The unsaved, of course, will not be allowed to continue on their merry way, but will suffer and die horribly in a series of epic natural disasters until God gets bored and destroys the earth in October, sending all the Unsaved to eternal damnation in Hell.

That's Family Radio's version, anyway. I think it's based on the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, but they're not emphasizing all the four horsemen and anti-christ stuff, which sucks, because that stuff is amazing. PSA: If you've never read the Book of Revelation, you really should no matter what your belief or non-belief system. I read it in college, and the best way to describe its effect is that I had to pause every couple of pages to re-affirm that I had not accidentally ingested a massive amount of drugs.

I read it for a class about millennial apocalypse predictions. I learned that early Christians thought the Second Coming was imminent, which was good for them, since they were being horribly persecuted. End Times cults got popular again around 1,000 AD, maybe because it was a round number, maybe because it was The Dark Ages. So we've gone from I'd like to be raptured so I don't get fed to lions to I'd like to be raptured to leave my short, squalid life to I'd like to be raptured because ...what? "I don't like the gays"? "Those Mexicans frighten me"? Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway. Everyone is having fun with the latest prediction. I've heard of Rapture parties, people planning to release blow up dolls filled with helium at the appointed hour (6 pm, your local time), leaving piles of clothes and shoes in random public places, and, of course, the ever-popular post-Rapture looting. Of course, maybe I shouldn't be laughing too hard. Remember Y2K? I didn't sell all my worldly possessions or anything, but I had a few extra cases of water on hand, just in case the computers did...whatever it is they were going to do. I was never really clear on that, honestly.

I actually have a Secret Apocalypse Plan, just in general. (Oh, don't look at me like that. You do too, even if you call it your "Emergency Plan" or whatever.) It's not a very good plan. Mostly it involves strapping Baby Razor to my back with a bed sheet, deciding what we have that can be bartered for food, and rounding up all of our garbage bag twistie-ties, because, seriously, those things can do anything. I think I'll have them handy on Saturday, just in case.

Someday She'll Say She Doesn't Have The Patience For Me Either

Yesterday morning, I heard myself saying, "I do not have the patience for this, Baby Razor!" as she shrieked at me for no apparent reason. I started laughing before I even got to the end of the sentence. I can't be sure, but it knowing myself and my mother, it definitely sounds like one of those things I heard a lot during my early childhood, along with "Come back here!" and "Don't touch anything!"

It made me laugh because, really, what kind of a ridiculous threat is "I don't have the patience for this?" What was I going to do? Leave? "All right kid, you're on your own. Have fun figuring out how to open the fridge!"

So I sang a "Grumpy" song to drown out her whining and got her some ham & cheese.

But it got me thinking about other phrases I heard from my parents as a kid. "Sugar!" was a favorite. I think I was in college before I realized that it was their swear-substitute. Thank goodness they had one, because it got used all the time.

"This is not a democracy!" was my father's favorite, sometimes followed by "It's a benevolent dictatorship," a point teenage me liked to argue with sarcasm, which always led to "Quit being facetious, you!" I still hear that one, usually when I'm visiting them and arguing with Fox News.

These days, I hear myself repeating the phrases Baby Razor will remember. "This is not a democracy" has morphed into, "Do you have a vote here? No." And I gave my girl a first and middle name combo that's seven syllables long partially in an attempt to avoid yelling her full name when I'm annoyed at her. But I totally use what came after the full-name treatment, the most spine-chilling phrase of my youth: "I'm only going to say this once."

Of course I realize now that my parents were, for the most part, totally blowing smoke. They were never actually going to lock me in the basement if I got caught underage drinking. But they'd spent enough years putting down whatever they were doing and taking us home, or turning off the tv and sending us to our rooms that we had no idea they were bluffing on the bigger stuff. Or, as my sister put it when her son was a toddler, "The key is to be really badass when they're little, before they figure out you have no idea what you're doing."

Mother's Day 2011, Featuring Morris Dancing!

All right, I admit it: I barely know what morris dancing is. But for some reason once I read that it was to be featured at the Arnold Arboretum's Lilac Sunday festivities today, I was all excited for it. Possibly because I love archaic British things (I was a Medieval Lit major, after all), and possibly because an anonymous commenter on my favorite cranky townie website, Universal Hub, claimed that "we fought a couple of wars to be rid of" it. Yes, that's right: the British burned down the White House in 1814 because Americans no longer wanted to dance around with hankies and sticks.

We ran into the morris dancers almost as soon as we entered the Arboretum. Baby Razor loved them, so we watched for awhile and I took pictures:

Morris musician!

Leaping!

Twirling!

These are the Ladies of the Rolling Pin

I liked their costumes

My geeky heart also enjoyed their Green Man.

I loved seeing all the families out enjoying themselves.

And I might be a little biased, but...

I'm pretty sure this was the cutest kid there.

A Confession

(Why don't I own this book?)


I would love to tell you that I've been MIA because I won the lottery and am now writing to you from a private villa on Bora Bora, but the truth is that something in my wrist popped while I was doing yard work this weekend and I've been trying to rest it. Sadly, Baby Razor doesn't understand that I can't pick her up and clings to my leg until I manage to shake her off break down and pick her up while going, "OW" and hoping eventually she'll catch on.

This weekend, the hubby and I spent five hours in our postage-stamp-size back yard and managed to take it from "disgraceful" to "kind of sad." We want the kid to have somewhere to run around and we want to have people over without being embarrassed, but holy hell, we are not plant people. Actual conversation:

"These are weeds, right?"
"I don't know. How do you tell?"
"They look...weedy?"
"No, look, they're planted in a pattern."
"Oh. So I should stop raking over them?"

Thankfully, we had beer. And during our lunch break, we visited the Staff Meal food truck for a meatloaf & bacon sandwich (him), headcheese & pecorino sandwich (me) and arepa with watermelon slaw (split). My non-expert review is that they were delicious, filling, and cheap. I'm looking forward to going again, perhaps to try the foie gras baklavah.

Ah, guys, I wish I had something more entertaining to write about than my weekend, but the truth is that adulthood has been kicking my ass lately. We made a list of big projects for the spring and all of a sudden, oh shit, it's spring! We need to get grass and rakes and paint and sandpaper and figure out what to do with them. Meanwhile, I'm also trying to figure out how to work while simultaneously keeping Baby Razor from banging her head into things. I don't know how to do it all.

Do you know? CAN YOU TELL ME?

Well, until I figure it out I'll take solace in a friend's recent Facebook status: [Friend] is dreading the day when the kids are no longer excited about fruit salad and toast for dinner and turn to me and say "Really Mom? You didn't go food shopping AGAIN????" Yup. That about sums it up.

Worst. Beauty Product Review. Ever.

***ATTN: More JEM adventures later this week! Less WTF, more Girl Power, karate, and PRINCESSES.***

When I decided to come back to blogging, I thought about focusing on one subject as a way of differentiating myself from the eight million other personal blogs out there. The following exchange pretty much defines why I couldn't do it:

Me: I am in a total froth over [a well-meaning but clueless essay to which I am not linking but which contained the sentence "Sometimes I pretend I am black."]

Jasmine: Understandable. SOMETIMES I PRETEND I AM BLACK.

Me: Yet I am also totally admiring the gorgeous packaging of the moisturizer I just bought. I am large. I contain multitudes.

That's right: I quoted Walt Whitman while talking about racism and beauty products. I am shallow, socially aware, AND snobby.

Anyway. Look at the pretty packaging:




It's nice stuff--smells good, makes my skin soft. Yes, it's hideously overpriced. I was going to try to justify spending that much money, but it boils down to: sometimes I just like putting expensive shit on my face, okay?

"It's Your Fault!" Friday

The first unofficial thing new mothers learn is that, no matter what happens, It's Your Fault. Can't nurse? Your fault. Colicky kid? Your fault. Dingo stole your baby? Your fault.

In what I would love to be a one-off, but will surely become a reoccurring feature, I present this week's societal F You's to moms everywhere. To get yourself in the proper frame of mind, go read these unsolicited comments to parents and know that every mother I know has heard a variation of at least two of them.

1) Hey, remember how your doctor told you to eat lots of fruit when you were pregnant? Well, I hope you had access to 100% organic, free-range, picked-by-virgins fruit, because otherwise your kid is doomed to be a moron. What's that? You're a migrant worker? Sorry, you're fucked.

2) Okay, you've cut out pesticide-treated fruit. You're all set, right? Nope! Put down those Cheetos or your kid will be fat and it will be All Your Fault. The headline of that article is actually "Your Mom Is Why You're Fat."

Okay, I realize these are scientific studies controlling for a very specific set of circumstances and testing one small part of the zillions of things that affect intelligence and weight, but the way they're reported and the way they filter into the culture is as DON'T EAT THAT APPLE OR YOUR KID WILL BE DUMB and DON'T EAT THOSE MCNUGGETS OR YOUR KID WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE HIS FEET.

Finally, 3) kind of breaks my heart. I adore Neko Case and, in fact, sang her songs to my infant to stay awake during late night feedings when I was so tired I was afraid I was going to pass out, keel over, and smother Baby Razor with my boobs. Then she went and tweeted this:

Parents of SF; your child walks AND talks, get it out of the fucking stroller!!! Ick!

It was a joke. I get that it was a joke. But as the parent of a walking, talking child who enjoys nothing more than darting out into busy intersections, it didn't make me laugh so much as it made me grind my teeth. And when I let her roam free? People ask me why she isn't in a stroller. So, Neko, I love you beyond all reason, but kindly STFU.

Don't Stand So Close To Me (Really, You Could Get Hurt)

(Because there was no Little Miss Clumsy)

I am clumsy. Butterfingered. A total spazz. I injure myself and destroy things in ways that defy physics and logic. Plates jump to their death from my hands. I hit my head on picture frames I could swear I'm nowhere near. I once gave myself a hematoma while dismounting a stationary bike. (When I tried to explain the gigantic bruise to my doctor at my physical, she paused then asked me how safe I felt with my husband. Yup.)

I've always been a nexus of stupid accidents, but I hoped I would outgrow it. My family thought I was just spacey, and I believed that theory enough to think that as a functioning adult and mother, I'd be less disaster-prone. But I have finally acknowledged that ridiculous things are always going to happen to me. Now I just need to figure out the best way to minimize the damage.

I'm bringing all this up thanks to my most recent disaster. Keep in mind that this story is going to sound completely improbable to you, a non-clumsy person. To me? It's pretty typical of a Saturday afternoon.

Recently, I bought a couple of chairs for $12 apiece that were in perfect condition except for a stain on each seat cushion. So I decided I'd take another turn as DIY-girl and re-cover the cushions. The internet assured me that this would be a piece of cake. All I needed was a screwdriver, new fabric, and a staple gun.

Having procured a replaceable-head screwdriver from our tool kit, I began yanking approximately eight hundred staples out of the bottom of the existing cushion. On the second-to-last staple, the pin holding the screwdriver head in place went ping and bounced off into the ether. Of course, instead of making it to the floor, it ended up in the depths of my armchair.

After taking the cushion off, I realized that the tiny ball-bearing had, in fact, rolled all the way down into the netting below the chair. I sighed and thought about putting everything away and waiting until Mr. Razor got home to help me. But he was out with the baby and I didn't want to greet him with, "Please pick up this large, heavy object. Oh, also, I broke the screwdriver." Plus, there were only two staples left, and I get psychotic about finishing projects once I've started them. If I didn't find the pin, there was a good chance I'd end up picking those staples out with my teeth.

So I poked around and realized that there was a hole in the netting near the front of the chair. Perfect. I'd just tip the chair forward and the ball would roll out, where I could recover it, fix the screwdriver, and finish my project without anyone ever knowing about my latest mishap.

Except when I tipped the chair, it hit the floor lamp next to it, which then crashed to the floor before I could drop the armchair to catch it, shattering its glass shade and eco-friendly lightbulb. Sigh. I spent the next hour carefully removing shards of glass from the corner of the living room. I never got back to the screwdriver or the last two staples.

To sum up: In my attempt to save some money on decorating, I destroyed a screwdriver and a large lamp, whose replacement cost completely cancelled out my bargain. From now on, I will be limiting my craft projects to ones involving finger paint and pipe cleaners.

PANIC

Pertinent facts:

1) My older sister is a hardcore rock climber.
2) My mother is terrible at disseminating vital health information. She was once in the hospital for three days with a heart arrhythmia and didn't call because she "didn't want me to worry." My other three siblings knew, but apparently I was considered too delicate for the information.

Twenty minutes ago I got this email, written by my sister's boyfriend and forwarded from my mother with no comment:

Dear Mr and Mrs Razor,

Just to let you know, [Sis Razor] is back from her head reconstruction surgery and is doing okay. She is resting quietly on the couch right now, not up to talking very much. I will be hanging out with her throughout the evening in case she needs anything.

Given the facts above, I think it was perfectly reasonable for me to assume that my sister had split her skull open and the rest of my family just didn't tell me about it. I emailed back, "WHAT HAPPENED TO HER HEAD?" and didn't get a reply, so I called my mother.

"Oh," she said. "I guess I type too slowly for you. I was just replying. Didn't I tell you that she decided to get surgery on her deviated septum?"

NO. NO, YOU DID NOT.

"Hmm. I must've told everyone else and thought I told you too. That's it though."

Oh, well. Then can we talk about the fact that my sister is dating a guy who refers to an elective procedure as "head reconstruction surgery?" Because that's ridiculous.

She's Thrifty

Updates:

1) Apparently all the shower needed was to be publicly shamed, because we are now getting hot-ish water regularly.

2) Food I forgot to mention from Leigh's visit: mini-cannolis, mini- key lime and chocolate tarts, caramel popcorn, chocolate truffles, garlicky green olives, gruyere, ciabatta bread, and artichoke tapenade. Nom.

All right, let's talk about that couch up there. How fierce is that thing? It's $100 at Boomerangs in West Roxbury if you're in the market for a swoopy, red-velvet bit-o-awesome. Although yesterday was half-price furniture day, so I make no guarantees for it still being there.

Since moving to Boston's faux-burbs in July, all of my "splurge" purchases have come from Boomerangs, which is a thrift store that benefits the AIDS Action Committee. Yeah, that's right: my idea of treating myself is a $6 pair of secondhand shoes. I've got a toddler, a mortgage, a car loan, and an unsteady income, meaning some weeks even TJ Maxx is too rich for my blood.

I'm not complaining, especially when these are the shoes:



They're J Crew and the interwebs tell me they retail for around $200. Granted, they're not exactly my size, but for $6, who cares? (The crock pot in the background is mine. It's not old, it's vintage, okay?)

Of course, the thing about thrift shops is that you can't go in looking for something, because their stock is unpredictable and ever changing. But I had so many things that I needed when we moved that I think I came home with something nearly every time I visited for the first three months or so. (I had a home with more than three rooms to decorate for the first time in my life, and I'd finally admitted to myself that buying clothes that fit was not going to doom me to staying my post-pregnancy weight for the rest of my life.)

Right now I'm on the lookout for furniture, which is the trickiest because if you see something you like, you really have to buy it immediately. I wanted an arm chair and a pair of end tables I saw on a Friday evening, and by the time I came back with my car on Saturday afternoon, both were gone. The feeling that you've gotten a great deal that no one else is going to get is the absolute best part of secondhand shopping, but missing out on a unique find is probably the worst.

Some people don't like thrift shops because they don't like going through stuff that used to belong to other people. I don't get this at all. I admit that I may have a bit of a skewed perspective, though, given that when I was a small child, my dad would take me dump picking. It's exactly what it sounds like: back in the day, before dumps became landfills, we'd spend the occasional Saturday afternoon picking through the pile of salvageable stuff and fending off territorial sea gulls. (Lest you think my dad was a hobo or a hoarder, this was a common enough practice where I grew up that one of the landfills built a shed to house people's reusable items and dubbed it the dumptique. Really.)

My mother, too, is a master of turning the old into new. Our house was built on another old dumping ground, and as they were digging the foundation, Mom picked some old glass bottles out of the dirt, washed them off and put them around the kitchen. She cracks up when people ask where she got such lovely antiques. (I also didn't realize until I started studying Victorian history in high school that our napkins were stored in a salvaged chamber pot. My mom really can decorate with anything.)

Mom, of course, adores Boomerangs and was gutted that I didn't get the arm chair. I told her it was fine, something else cute and cheap is bound to appear sooner or later, and this time I'll be ready to pounce.

Accidental Theme Weekend

My weekend was unusually busy, as I was entertaining my dear friend Leigh. She flew in Friday night and we watched Say Yes to The Dress and The Soup and polished off a bottle of red wine. Okay, that part is actually my typical Friday. It was the rest of the weekend that was more exciting than usual.

While Leigh went to meet up with another local friend on Saturday morning, I decided to dye my hair. I've been coloring my hair since I was fifteen, and I have never seen a process as complicated as the one I went through to get my hair Ruby Rush. Instead of two liquids to mix, there were four, including a tube that contained, as far as I can tell, all the red in the world. Then, after applying goop the color of arterial blood to my hair, I was instructed to wash it out, shampoo twice with the special included shampoo, and then condition. I was also advised to use a dark towel and pillowcases I didn't care about for a couple of days after coloring. I feel like this product might be more useful for getting revenge against people you don't like than coloring your hair.

Anyway, I ended up with dark, purpley-red hair. It doesn't look remotely natural, but I like it.

In the evening, Leigh and I ate stuffed shells with red sauce, drank two bottles of red wine, and watched RED, thus cementing the weekend's theme. The movie didn't require much thought (which was awesome after two bottles of wine) and provided enough of a Karl Urban fix that Leigh and I didn't have to have our usual get-together viewing of Star Trek XI: Only Bones' Scenes.

Sunday morning, we joined our friend Athena for brunch at Gaslight, where I remained committed to our theme and ordered poached eggs in red wine sauce with ham & mushrooms. I also showed my non-foodie underbelly by announcing that my sweet & citrusy martini tasted like fancy gin & juice.

Our plan was to do some vintage shopping, but it was a bust, so we returned home, where Leigh prepared an excellent dinner that probably should have been eaten by someone who appreciates excellently-prepared food more than I do: Herb-roasted chicken, garlic-roasted butternut squash, & mixed greens in vinaigrette w/homemade duck prosciutto. (Athena made the duck prosciutto as part of her goal of becoming a world-class charcuteress. She handed two cured duck breasts to Leigh and I when we met up. "Good luck explaining that to the TSA," I told Leigh.) And, of course, a bottle of red wine.

It was all absolutely delicious, and now I really, truly have no reason to be afraid to roast a chicken.

Baby Razor missed out on Leigh's cooking, but don't feel bad for her: she's a bit underweight so she's on what we're calling the Everything Awesome Diet, where we add peanut butter, cheese or butter to every meal. Her dinner last night was scrambled eggs, half an avocado, and a huge hunk of gruyere. Yes, the entire world is jealous of her.

Leigh left this morning and I miss her already. Although if she was around all the time, I'd probably weigh 600 pounds, so perhaps it's for the best.