How to Lose Your Cool

When a friend decides to celebrate her 37^th birthday by inveigling a group of girlfriends to take her out to a local hotspot for dinner and then go out dancing afterward, secretly congratulate yourself all week for having a friend who is almost a decade younger. Pretend to be ironic when you call her a whippersnapper, even though calling anyone a whippersnapper, ironically or not, makes you sound like you are one “Clap On, Clap Off” device away from residency at an AgeSong home.

As you get ready for the big night, apply almost all of your makeup before putting your contact lenses in, because now you are farsighted and once they’re in you can no longer focus on fine details, like where your lips end and your cheeks begin as you apply lipstick. Ask your preteen daughter to fix any rogue makeup situations before you leave, and trust her technique even though she is known to put lipstick on the dog.

Pull on the leopard print platform stilettos that you know would be sexy, even if worn by a corpse. Then worry if wearing them will exacerbate your plantar fasciitis.

At the hip nightclub where you will be eating dinner, eagerly follow your group of friends and the waiter to the corner table in the upstairs loft, where a curtain mostly obliterates you from view. Assume that he is seating you there out of recognition of your innate coolness, and not because he wants to shield the rest of the diners from seeing you raise the average age in the restaurant by 16 years.

Throughout the dinner, pepper the young waiter with the question, “What clubs are ‘happening’ now? [Note: someone at the table should use air quotes.] Where should we go dancing?”  He will laugh and fill your water glasses, but he will not answer your questions. When everyone pulls out their smartphones to start researching options online, become momentarily distracted by your friend’s app that calculates, to the penny, what each person at a group dinner should pay, including tip. Discuss how much time THAT could have saved in your life, not to mention the ruinous financial debacle of Helena’s 42^nd birthday dinner. 

Once a destination is finally selected and revealed triumphantly to the young waiter for his approval, which is strange because the only thing you know about him is that he is stingy with the bread, finish up your fried olives and broccoli salad, commenting loudly on how both do a number on your digestive tract. 

On the one block walk to the club with your friends, complain about how your sexy shoes hurt. When one of your party, wearing a pair of low-heeled grey suede pumps, refers to them as her “safety shoes for dancing,” join your friends in an impromptu but surprisingly well-choreographed version of the Safety Dance along the sidewalk. Stop only when you spell "safety" wrong and can't breathe because you're laughing too hard.

When you straighten up and realize that you are standing in front of an open door from which jazz is seeping out, guarded by a handsome young man in a sleek suit and fedora tilted carefully over his eye, do not jump to the obvious conclusion that this is the destination for which you were looking. Instead have someone in the group say to the bouncer, “What IS this place? Is this a nightclub?”

After the bouncer ushers you in, wonder why. Then remember that it is only 9 pm and that the place won’t start filling up for at least another hour. Make your way to the attractively upholstered leather banquette only to be stopped by a cold-voiced waitress who tells you it’s reserved for some VIPs. Make for the circular staircase that leads to a second story overlooking the dance floor only to be foiled again by the same waitress: “VIPs only.” When she tells you that the last set of cushioned chairs in the nearly empty club is reserved for VIPs and has a three bottle minimum, snap, “Really? I’m so shocked.”

Push past your friends to dive onto one of the (free, no minimum charge) metal barstools and yell, “I have to sit, my dogs are barking!” and then slide your sexy shoes to the floor so you can wiggle some feeling back into your toes. As the DJ begins to set up, sit with purse on lap and arms and legs crossed, like you are being audited. Keep staring at the DJ, willing him to hurry up and put on some old school hip hop instead of hugging every damn employee who walks past the wheels of steel. At one point make eye contact with the fedora-wearing bouncer, jerk your chin towards the DJ, tap your watch, and shake your head dramatically. Wonder why he continues looking just past your left ear.

As more and more people enter the club, try not to notice that they are all coming through a door marked VIP Entrance. In fact, you are the only people in the club who did NOT come through that entrance. They sit on upholstered banquettes and head upstairs with insouciance, while you begin to droop on your uncomfortable barstool.

Brighten up when a gaggle of young women gather in front of the DJ on the dance floor, hoping they know something that you don’t about when this guy is ever going to play a record. Realize that one of them who is shaped like Santa Claus is wearing only tights and a shirt, and the shirt is made of shiny black Spandex straps. It’s as though she’s wearing the top 5/8ths of a racing swimsuit and left her pants at the dry cleaners.

To point out the young woman’s unusual pool-inspired attire to your friends would be mean. To turn to the friend next to you and say, “Speaking of swimming, what time is your son’s meet tomorrow? Is he still swimming backstroke?” would be downright pathetic. Begin to calculate how many hours of sleep you might get before the dog wakes you up tomorrow morning, if you went home right now. When the birthday girl takes another sip of her vat of Gin and Tonic and says “No one is leaving until we dance!” smile weakly at her. Whippersnapper.

When finally, lord have mercy, the DJ starts playing some music, be very disappointed that you don’t know it. Be even more disappointed when you realize that you do know some of it, because his shtick is to mix bad ‘70s music that you didn’t even like in the seventies into 21^st century beats. Be so desperate to dance to anything so that you can wrap up this evening and go home to your flannel jammies that when “Africa” by Toto comes on, you and your girlfriends actually shriek and jump to the dance floor.

Make it through three songs before someone in your party yawns the kind of yawn that is accompanied by sound. Leave the dance floor to the bathing-suit-shirted girl and her friends, as you and yours slink out the non-VIP entrance.

As you brush your teeth with your daughters' bubble gum flavored pink toothpaste in the glow of a nightlight, the sound of your husband’s snore beckoning like a fog beacon from down the hall, realize that your club-going days may indeed be behind you. Search your face in the mirror for signs of sadness and regret. Finding none, climb happily into bed.

Clutter? No, my childhood.

When I first walked through the house we've lived in for eight years now, the owners had taped handmade arrow signs throughout the rambling downstairs. Past the peach-colored room with French doors and the biggest entertainment console I'd ever seen, down a dark hall past a laundry room and bathroom, signs said "Keep Going! Don't Give Up Yet!" I finally crossed through a barren storage room with rough concrete floors to see a door in the corner with an arrow beckoning and behind that: another narrow shelved storage area, and a wholly unnecessary second kitchen.

My dad's first reaction, when he saw the embarrassment of storage space in the new house compared to the snug bungalow from which we were moving, was to shake his head and say, "If you've got it, you'll fill it up."

I think of that response each spring when I enter the narrow storage space, determined to pare down its contents, and see my box of troll dolls sitting on the shelf. 

Constant companions through my elementary school years in the '70s, the five trolls - Herbert and Pinky were the parents, Hubert, Buttercup, and Daisy were their three same-sized kids - are still packed into a tissue box-turned-camper and surrounded by little cough drop tins containing their homemade wardrobes. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Blumberg, had a strict no-dolls rule for her class. But because we were suck-up good girls and she must have had too few of those, my best friend Kitty and I were allowed to bring in our respective troll families and line them up on the edge of the desk every day, their googly eyes bearing witness to the blatant favoritism. 

For two girls who were singled out as class leaders, Kitty and I sure fought a lot. We had a major argument nearly every day of third grade; by fifth grade we were no longer speaking. (No worries: that troll foundation proved enduring - even though she lives on the other side of the globe now, Kitty's still one of my dearest friends.) 

Trolls enjoying view of scenic Bar Harbor

Even if we fought, we at least agreed on our trolls. We spent afternoon stretched out on our respective bedroom floors, cutting scraps of fabric into tiny shirts and dresses and sewing clumsy single button closures on the back. That summer her family took me along on an epic road trip to Maine, and most of my souvenir pictures are close ups of the trolls, with lighthouses or lobsters or starfish fuzzy in the background.

At some point - probably around the first time a boy asked me to sit with him for the haunted house ride at Roseland Park -  I boxed them up, sealed the box with duct tape, wrote TROLLS on it and threw it into my parent's attic. Eventually they slapped a mailing label on the box and sent it out to California where my husband and I are raising two daughters. When the oldest one entered third grade, I pulled out the box, surprised to see that Herbert and Pinky were still nestled in the chaste matrimonial embrace in which I entombed them.

"Girls, here. I want you to have these. They were extremely special to me. Here, see all the cute little clothes I made?"

Within about an hour of surreptitiously watching the girls while pretending to cook dinner, I swooped in to rescue them. The trolls, not the daughters. Herbert NEVER wore the argyle vest made from the top of my dad's work socks, and anyone could see that Buttercup looked terrible in mauve. I packed up the box; the fact that the kids didn't protest was probably a sign that the relationship was never going to work out anyway.

Did I throw them out when I started this year's spring cleaning? Of course not. The box is back in the storage area. And I await the arrival of my grandchildren in twenty years with hope eternal.

The Price of Silence

My daughter and her friend from elementary school attend different middle schools, but they’ve sustained a close friendship in part, I think, due to our Monday homework club. Every Monday, Rachel rides the city bus to our house so that the two girls can spend 90 minutes complaining to each other about their school workload, wheedling me for sweets, and talking in voices low enough so I can’t hear even if I place a cup against the wall to listen, not that I would ever stoop to that. Loud giggling is their regular soundtrack.

And every Monday, without fail, I greet Rachel at the door with, “I am so sorry I look like this. I intended to shower today before you came, really I did.”

“Like this” means: black sweatpants spattered in mud, a shapeless grey sweatshirt with either Penn (my alma mater) or Wisconsin (husband’s) printed on the front, my hair puffy where it should be flat and flat where it should be puffy. The only trace of makeup on my face is some sparkly pink mango flavored lip gloss from a cupcake-shaped container that I excavated from the well of the car while waiting to pick the kids up from school.

Mondays are hard.

I’m not going to insult you by pretending that I bound out of bed Monday mornings and head to the shower to get ready for my day. I stay in bed until the last possible second that will still leave me time to read my beloved print newspaper from front to back before it’s time to wake up the kids. Besides, my husband actually leaves the house to go to work in an office, where other people are. He gets priority access to the bathroom.

So I pull on the black sweats and sweatshirt and make a mental note to walk the dog at 10, giving me plenty of time to shower before I have to pick the kids up at 3:00.

At 10, the dog is snoring contentedly so I figure I’ll just keep plowing away on my to-do list, answering emails, researching stories, calling sources. I can still fit in a shower if I leave by 11.

At noon I realize the dog is holding his legs together and groaning, so we head off for the hills for a hike. It’s been raining non-stop all winter, and Achilles’ default gait is “hurtle.” So as soon as we step off the street and onto the trail head, he zigs this way and zags that way through muddy glop until I have spots of mud all over my legs, on my glasses, and sometimes my hair. Inevitably we meet a dog named Sierra or Bailey or Lucy whose owner says, “Sorry! My dog jumps!” just as the pooch leaps up and lays two muddy paws on my midsection, right under the “P” and the first “N” or the “W” and “S.”

Coming through the front door I think, ok, do NOT go check email before you get in the shower, you’re never going to have time to…oh hey! That guy I wanted to quote in the feature I’m writing finally got back to me, better respond right away. And I meant to send a query letter to another publication and they’re on the East Coast, so I should probably get that taken care of before they leave for the day. The phone rings, and it’s my friend who is adopting a baby. A metallic buzz from the laundry room startles me; I have to get the ballet clothes into the wash if they’re going to be clean for the kids’ rehearsal this week.

It’s 2:49 and I still have mudprints on my midsection. I jump into the car and race to pick up my youngest child, remembering that I need to drop off copies of the yearbook order form for the teachers to jam into backpacks. I will have to walk through school looking like Dawn of the Dead, but it’s not like they haven’t seen that in the halls of suburban education before. Once that’s done, I have only enough time to pick up the other child and race home to await Rachel’s arrival for homework club, and ponder why once again, Monday has gotten away from me.

I make my apologies to Rachel in the front hall as she unhoists her giant backpack. I make a silent pledge that I'll at least get a shower in before Andrew gets home from work, maybe just as soon as I finish up the 15 work emails that came in while I was out driving carpool.(After 19 years together, is it naive to hope that the sight of me wearing his mud-stained college sweatshirt and what looks like a fright wig is still a turn-on?)

“It’s ok, Nancy,” she says, a wry smile on her freckled face. "Can I have a Jolly Rancher?"

I think this is why Homework Club has always worked so well; for the price of a piece of hard candy, Rachel always keeps her opinion to herself.

A Musical Nod to Himself

This weekend some friends are visiting us from the East Coast. Brett's work transferred them to the Bay Area for two years - the corporate equivalent of a semester abroad - before calling them back last spring. Our daughters became fast friends while they lived here, but it wasn't until Year 2 of their stay that I really got to know Jen and Brett. And frankly, I'm still kind of pissed that they left just when it was getting good.

First of all, it turns out that Brett lived in Germany the same years that I did, which we discovered when we did a rendition of "99 Luftballoons" auf Deutsch at a school-sponsored karaoke party. Think of all the Falco singalongs I'm missing out on, now that he lives 3,000 miles away.

Second, every time I have mentioned a concert I wished I'd seen, but didn't have anyone to go with (my husband still abiding by his firm no-concert rule,) Jen says, "Oh! We were at that show. It was awesome!" They have excellent taste in music, in that they like everything I do, plus they've clued me in to a few new bands. I could have been the third wheel on so many of their romantic concert dates, it makes me weep. 

Finally, I'm a little mad because they are full of funny stories that now get told to an East Coast audience. At a dinner party held in their honor last week, for instance, Brett told us that when he went to Italy to visit his wife's family, no one could pronounce his name. So, he said, "I heard them referring to me as Louie. I thought, 'that's cool, they've given me a nickname. They must like me.'" It wasn't until later that his Italian speaking wife clued him in that "lui" means "him." As in, let's just refer to this guy as a pronoun, we're not convinced it's worth learning his first name.

Perhaps inevitably, one of Brett's favorite bands is She & Him, which he assures his wife and me has nothing to do with lead singer Zooey Deschanel's fragile good looks but is truly about the music. Na sicher. So for Brett and Jen, here's "In the Sun" (which is where they'd be 11 months a year if they'd stayed on the West Coast) by She & Lui. Can't figure out if this video was more influenced by Rachel Berry and Glee, or Britney Spears and Baby One More Time.

Enjoy every precious minute with your friends and family this weekend -