Lolliblog

Nelly has started us thinking: is it possible for a dog to...

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:08:51 -0400

Nelly has started us thinking: is it possible for a dog to be sexually ambiguous? It’s one thing for the groomer to think she’s a dude, but I just got back from the vet, who kept referring to her as he, and this was after careful scrutiny of her business end. Undeniably, there is mystery apparatus dangling from her posterior, but we’d rather focus on what makes Nelly, Nelly- her undying loyalty and her as yet untested ability to eat until she explodes.

Bitchface Wins

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:14:23 -0400

I hate social posturing. That doesn’t mean I’m not guilty of it, but it’s like eating an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s. In the act, it’s enjoyable, but when it’s over, you are left feeling sick and guilty.

I was at a party this past weekend when a woman- let’s call her Bitchface- said, “So, you’ve lived here all your life?”

At the time, this question seemed like an indictment of and a challenge to my pathetically provincial life. I replied, “Actually, I lived in New York City, and California, and even for a time in Paris.” Never mind that that time in Paris amounted to nine weeks. The gloves were off, the sabers drawn.

Looking back on it, I realize how obnoxious I sounded. If I could have that conversation back, my response to her question would be a dignified, “Yes, pretty much.” Instead, I reacted to the implied condescension in her question- whether real or imagined- and my self-indulgent posturing pulled me right down.

Today I was obsessing about it to my wonderful and very wise friend Clarissa. “Listen,” she said, “Here’s something that will make you feel better. Remember that Yankees game we went to last weekend? My husband got into a shoving match with a dwarf.”

Of course, this involved a crazy story, equal parts horrible and amusing, but I found my epiphany lying squarely in Clarissa’s final observation: “A shoving match with a dwarf. You’ve got to be asking yourself, now, who’s the asshole?”

This past weekend, I’d say I beat out Bitchface for that title.

Bram Hanson

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:21:41 -0400

I was walking past the tennis courts at our pool club when I overheard a group of parents whispering about some juvenile delinquent.

“He’s a nasty son of a bitch,” said one woman “And his mother’s a pathological liar.”

“A liar? Try a friggin’ nut job. When we heard they were joining the club, we thought about quitting,” a man chimed in. “My son Tim goes to school with him and, frankly, even though the kid’s small, I mean, small like the size of a midget, Tim is scared to death of him. The kids call him Mini-Me. Not to his face, though, because they’re afraid he’s armed. They think he’s criminally insane.”

“Who is this kid?” I asked.

“His name is Bram. Bram Hanson,” he replied, shuddering.

That evening, back at the club, there was a cocktail party on the deck. Sam and I knew everyone there with the exception of one couple. As I went up to introduce myself I thought the woman looked familiar.

“Aren’t you Carol Niffenhoffer?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“I went to high school with you!” I could tell she had no clue who I was. She started going on about how high school was a blank in her personal history. I told her my name.

“Oh, my god, of course! But weren’t you really fat back then?” I almost didn’t have a chance to be offended before she launched into a running discourse about her spawn. “Ben, my oldest, is going to play varsity soccer on the high school team as a freshman. That’s unheard of! Then, my baby is a gymnast. I can’t even find a coach around here who can train him. He’s that good.” He was also an A student and had his little heart set on going to Stanford. “It’s one of the few top schools with D-1 gymnastics, and gymnastics are his life. He’s already competing at the national level. All of his friends are going to Beijing.” She laughed. “I’m probably the only mother around who’s hoping my kid doesn’t have a growth spurt.”

Just then, a man walked over to her. “This is my husband, Jim Hanson.”

Mini Me. Liar. Nut Job. Hanson. “Your son must be Bram.”

“So you’ve heard of him,” she said, looking pleased.

“He’s the talk of the club,” I told her. “You have no idea.”

Tattoo

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:38:51 -0400

I have a tattoo. It’s on my back, near my right shoulder blade. I got it several years ago during a very crazy night with my friends. While three of them were getting their belly buttons pierced, I wanted to join them in doing something edgy and momentous and thought (erroneously, as it turns out) that a tattoo would be less painful. I dimly remember looking at a poster of Chinese characters and choosing two that seemed meaningful. The first one was “to seek” and the second was “heaven.” (My friend Claudia tells me that I have no way of knowing this, and probably the two characters are “midlife” and “crisis” and the guy who gave me the tattoo is still laughing about it).

A few weeks later, I was driving Jake and his friends Luke and Nick someplace. It was hot, so I was wearing a tank top. From the back seat, Luke said, “Wow. I didn’t know you had a tattoo, Mrs. Hurwitz.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling pretty cool.

“Is that Chinese writing?” Nick asked.

“Uh huh.”

“What does it say?” asked Luke.

“To seek heaven,” I said.

After a brief silence, Nick spoke. “Who’s Kevin?”

Here’s Jake! I happen to know that he’s jumping off the diving...

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:15:06 -0400

Here’s Jake! I happen to know that he’s jumping off the diving board at our neighborhood pool club, but if I didn’t tell you that, you might believe what Jake tells you- that his superhero powers include funny flying tricks and turning into a giant.

Name Game

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:53:00 -0400

What’s in a name? Nicole Kidmann, a native of Flushing Meadows, enjoyed the attention she received growing up with the movie star’s moniker. Then, while attending a Jewish Singles weekend in the Poconos, she met the man of her dreams: Keith Urbahn, of Forest Hills. “We hit it off from the start,” Kidmann says. The two found they shared a love of poker, mystery novels… and food. “We met on the kosher buffet line,” says Kidmann, who weighs just over 400 pounds.

“When I see a woman go up for sevenths,” responds the 520 pound Urbahn, “well, a guy like me pays attention.”

Like their famous counterparts, Kidmann and Urbahn were married in 2006. Later that year, when Urban checked himself into rehab, Urbahn tried Atkins, which he claims “is kind of similar.” Astoundingly, both couples also found themselves pregnant in late 2007.

To top it off, Kidman and Kidmann gave birth to daughters on July 7, 2008. “We were planning on naming our baby Rose, after my Bubbe,” says Kidmann. “But when they named their daughter Sunday Rose, and we remembered that the last thing I ate before going into labor was a hot fudge sundae, well, Sundae Rose seemed too perfect.”

“We sent Nicole and Keith Sundae Rose’s birth announcement and invited them to come visit us here in Queens,” Urbahn says. “We haven’t heard back yet, though.”

One would have to call this string of coincidences nothing short of incredible. “We have everything in common with Nicole and Keith,” says Kidmann, “except that we’re morbidly obese and not famous.”

Gone

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:50:36 -0400

Over the weekend, we got robbed. We went to visit some friends for several hours, during which some person or persons came in and took the jewelry boxes from both Sam’s and my dresser and made off with the contents. They put the empty boxes back, so we didn’t realize anything was gone until a couple of days later when I went to get the bracelet that Hannah had just given me for Mother’s Day.

I bet the thief (thieves?) were disappointed, because I doubt they made out too well at the pawn shop. While there were some materially valuable things, like my diamond engagement ring and some pearl and diamond earrings, most of the stuff was not precious, except to us. There were two very practical Elgin watches that didn’t work, but they belonged to Sam’s late father. There was a handmade lapis pendant and a moonstone ring made by Sam’s free-spirited sister Reva who died tragically twenty-five years ago. There was an old silver filigree amethyst necklace that had been my grandmother’s as a girl, around the time World War One began. These treasures were joined by wooden beads the kids strung in nursery school and the little illustrated book of tickets that Jake gave me when he was in kindergarten, redeemable for things like hugs and “brecfis in bed.”

For the police report, we had to make a list of what was taken. I struggled to remember. I always planned to someday go through the boxes, when I had the luxury of time and emotion to sift through the past. You don’t list memories on a police report of stolen items. While I did my best to recall the things we had, I found I couldn’t even begin to imagine what we had lost.

You Decide

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:40:00 -0400

On CBS radio this morning, there was an ad for one of those car donation organizations. “Turn your four-wheeled headache into a blessing for someone less fortunate.” On the heels of that ad was another, for an asbestos litigation law firm: “Asbestos. It used to be called the Magic Mineral…now, we know it as a life-threatening killer.”

Neither one quite works. Personally, I think you have to pair equivalent extremes (i.e. “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”) or establish plausible continuity (“turn idle time into a profitable at-home mail order business.”). It’s hard to believe that someone who is inventive enough to describe a car as a “four-wheeled headache” would then resort to the dated and evangelical-overtoned “blessing.” And lacking qualification, “Magic Mineral” has absolutely no connection to “life-threatening killer”-which is, in itself, a phrase fraught with obvious redundancy issues.

There is nothing I like better than an editorial challenge, so employing principles of balance and continuity, I went to work. These are the results.

“Turn your four-wheeled headache into a mobile dream catcher for someone less fortunate.”

“Asbestos. It used to be called the Magic Mineral, but medical research has since shown it to be the Dark Particle of Putrescence.”

This has started me thinking. Radio ad copy: my true calling, or lame obsession?

Caboose

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:29:28 -0400

Yesterday, Micah turned fifteen.

While I was running around trying to get a party together I thought about what he has meant to us. After five kids, we certainly weren’t planning on having another, and initially it seemed like anything but a good idea. But Micah is atypical. He’s not the cliché baby of the family, though we do tend to look out for him. Not that we even need to; he’s quite capable of taking care of himself. He does have a tendency to accurately assess our inconsistencies, which can be pretty humbling, but he doesn’t hold these against us. And, while he also has a variety of boastable talents, the most extraordinary thing about Micah is his complete lack of pettiness.

When he was a baby I remember people describing him as the caboose. At the time, it was nothing more than a cute expression for the last in line. I thought about that today, though, and it suddenly occurred to me that the caboose is what ultimately defines the shape of the train. That would be Micah.

Balancing Act

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:37:00 -0400

Yesterday, Sam and I went into Manhattan to help Hannah move from her apartment on the East Side to a new place on the West Side.

Like every trip into the city, there were surprises in store. How could we have anticipated that in Hannah’s old building, a walk-up in which she lived on the fourth floor, an apartment on the second floor, next to the only staircase, would be undergoing a total gutting? That instead of hauling load upon load of Hannah’s personal effects down four flights of stairs„ we would be hauling load upon load while stepping around plaster dust, nails, slivered piles of wood, and six guys with huge trash barrels who had been hired to do the job?

Without a doubt, the debris gauntlet made our task not merely arduous but life-threatening, but we also discovered that the workers were lovely. They held doors open for us and would pause in taking loads of rubble down until they were sure we were out of the way. This was the beginning of the defining pattern of our day- the Karmic score kept getting evened. For every bad thing, something equally good happened.

Another example: the super’s daughter came out with her little yappy dog when Sam and Hannah’s boyfriend Stefan were struggling to move the air conditioner down the stairs. The yapper and its tangled leash were directly in the way, and getting them to step aside, since the kid was only a toddler and didn’t speak English, was difficult. The timing couldn’t have been worse. When the super came out to see if Hannah needed any help, he picked up the dog and smiled at me. Turning to Hannah, he asked, “Are you going to introduce me to your sister?” Score evened!

We went to Starbucks. I was in line, waiting to order, when a rodent-faced woman shoved me aside in her haste to get to the rest room. I figured maybe she had an emergency, but as I was leaving, balancing both my coffee and Hannah’s, the same woman was ahead of me. She pushed open the door and took off, allowing it to ricochet back into me. Luckily, using my foot, I was able to stop its trajectory at the possible last second. I then nudged the door open, directly into an incoming customer.

“Oh, my God, I am so sorry,” I said.

The man smiled.” “Darlin’ don’t you worry about that. You got your hands full. You have a great day, now.” Score evened!

We finally finished, and returned to the car for the drive back to Connecticut. As we approached the Suburban, we saw a meter cop writing out a ticket. We weren’t more than a minute over the time limit. Hannah and I ran over. “This is our car!” I said. “We’re leaving.”

Wordlessly, he shook his head and continued to write the ticket.

“Please,” Hannah implored. “My parents drove all the way here to help me move.”

“Then you can help them pay,” he said.

“I can’t afford it,” she said. He just kept shaking his head.

“Come on,” I said. “Seriously, I put money in, and I know we couldn’t be more then a minute late.”

Sticking the $35.00 ticket under my windshield wiper, he said, “Now you can stay here all day.” Then he walked off.

I was stunned by his indifference. The only thing that made me feel better was thinking about the way the day had been going so far. If the Karmic balancing act held, then I was pretty certain that after he rounded the corner, the meter cop would find himself stepping directly into the path of the crosstown bus. Score evened!

Point Taken

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:52:40 -0400

Lately, and with more frequency, I have been finding myself in the middle of arguments when I suddenly realize that the person I am arguing with has a point. A warning bell goes off that I may just not be right.

When this first started happening I resisted. I’d cling to some rapidly diminishing point, my tone getting more agitated and my argument getting, even to my ears, more irrational and outlandish. Inevitably, I’d storm out of the room, only to come crawling back a few hours later to admit, with lots of qualifications, that their argument might possess some merit.

Now, I’m making the transition much more quickly. I can go from stating my point, hearing the rebuttal, and acknowledging the merits of their case, while sidestepping the yelling and the angry exit altogether.

I have positions I feel are harder to dislodge, but these are things I’ve thought about for years, conclusions based on my core liberal ideology and logical reasoning. But so many other things I say aren’t subject to much thought or scrutiny. These are the things that people most often take issue with, and while it’s easier and still, I admit, my first inclination to get belligerent and trounce off, I’m working on it. While it might seem like a contradiction in terms, I am learning to stand my ground and stay flexible.

Thoughts On My Colonoscopy

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:27:11 -0400

1. BAD IDEA: My attempt to run to the grocery store after taking the prescribed laxative drink. The hankering for Italian ice and ginger ale turned out to be not nearly so critical as proximity to a toilet.

2. SIMPLE TRUTH: On the information sheet the gastroenterologist provided, he wrote that “loose stools” would occur as a result of taking the aforementioned laxative drink. This is what we in the writing biz call an understatement. The truth is, you will feel as if you are peeing out your butt. There is no point in being coy about this. The day already holds enough unpleasant surprises.

3. THE BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE: Without a doubt, the anesthesia!! The operating room nurse compared it to “two glasses of wine at a cocktail party.” Well, maybe- if those two glasses of wine accompanied a handful of Xanax. It’s hours later and I’m wobbling around like a Bowery bum. And trust me, I’m not complaining.

I feel I have learned a lot over the past two days about myself and my limitations. For instance, I hate Jello, but I really like Tootsie Pops. The term “full of crap” has taken on a new relevance. And best of all, my colon has been carefully inspected and designated good to go until 2018.

Our Sectional: The Sunset Years

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:03:37 -0400

I just want to get take a sentimental moment to say goodbye to our old sectional couch. I guess it’s not technically goodbye, because we are just relocating it to the basement. I’ll tell you this; a more normal family would be tossing it out.

Yes, it is a total, appalling wreck. Even new, it was not attractive. But we loved it because it could easily accommodate eight people and was made of a something synthetic that didn’t feel too slick or too scratchy. Try as we might, none of us could create a stain that was unable to settle undetectably into its mottled brown-gray-beige motif.

As time went on- five years, to be exact- we imprinted ourselves into that couch, like a foot hundreds of miles into a favorite running shoe. Our cats clawed away the corners. Nelly slept on it, as the lingering scent of wet dog attests. Mice families sought shelter in its underbelly. Every one of my kids has fought to occupy the chaise lounge part of it, which had a two-cheeked hollow in the middle which cradles the butt to perfection.

It’s not goodbye, then; it’s a send-off down a flight of stairs to a well-earned retirement. Old sectional, your sage microfiber replacement has an impossibly tough-yet comfy-act to follow.

Snap!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:45:48 -0400

I was in the check-out aisle at the grocery store yesterday, and I caught a glimpse of this month’s issue of Allure magazine. Mariah Carey was on the cover, and while I don’t know much about her, from the little I do know she strikes me as someone who might possibly be completely out of her mind.

Anyway, the cover featured a quote from Ms. Carey: “Everyone has a story. I have a mini-series.”

This is a pretty weird thing to say, and I’m not even sure I understand it. Does she consider her mini-series a step up from the simple story that rest of us have? Because in my mind, the term mini-series is synonymous with painfully melodramatic performances by washed-up has-beens.

I just now realized that this quote is exactly perfect.

Wimbledon

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:29:00 -0400

I just finished watching the Wimbledon men’s finals, and my God, am I exhausted! I know that sounds odd, since I’ve just spent the past four hours parked on my butt, but here’s the deal: as I was watching, I kept putting myself in their position. For some reason, I could not stop imagining myself as the player receiving serve. For example, if Nadal was serving, I was Federer, and vice-versa. The big problem was I didn’t possess their remarkable tennis skills. What I had were my own personal tennis skills, which are quite modest. I kept imagining me in their shoes, flailing at balls and missing them entirely or lobbing them softly back only to have them slammed down my throat. I imagined John McEnroe in the booth saying things like, “I’ve never seen anything like it…what’s happening to Roger? He’s falling apart!” or “Rafael is simply imploding. He can’t take the pressure- he’s playing like a friggin’ old lady.”

The only way I was able to force myself to watch until the end was to devise an exit strategy. If I in fact found myself occupying the body of either Federer or Nadal on Center Court, I would immediately clutch at my chest and go down in a heap. Then I would pretend to be unconsciousness. There would be a spectacularly dramatic default, which would gain me the sympathy of legions of tennis fans. Knowing I could get out of playing Wimbledon definitely calmed me down.

Nadal served victoriously for the match, so I was still imagining myself as Federer. Frankly, I was happy it was over because I was getting pretty tired. I have to say, though, I’m not impressed with that cheap silver tray they gave me as a consolation prize. I’m also thinking of dumping my girlfriend. I know I’m only the runner-up, but still, I’m pretty sure I can do better.

Car Talk

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:34:22 -0400

My girls run on local streets and are frequently beset by that bewildering breed of Neanderthal who guns his engine, then peels past them. This maneuver is often accompanied by a frenzy of horn blasting.

What could possibly make these guys think that women might find this appealing? They might also want to consider that runners in particular are going to be less than thrilled by the close and unexpected rev of an engine and/or earsplitting blare of a car horn. Add to all that the wave of noxious exhaust fumes that they can’t avoid inhaling, and trust me, the net impression is anything but positive.

My theory is that these jerks somehow imagine their cars are shouting, “Look at me!” but they are leaving off the full and accurate translation, which is: “Look at me! I’m an enormous asshole.”

Associative Properties

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:51:00 -0400

This week, Turkey Hill ice cream was on sale, so I bought two cartons.

While this might sound like no big deal, I had to struggle against my instinctive aversion to what I feel is a horribly unfortunate brand name. It boggles the mind that they could not come up with more appropriate- not to mention more appetizing- appellation.

Am I the only one who feels this way? It’s not merely that turkeys and ice cream are unrelated entities; each possesses attributes that you seriously do not want to associate with the other. Turkeys are loose wattles, sharp claws and pecking beaks, not to mention bones and feathers and little beady eyes. These are not images you want occupying your brain while contemplating ice cream. I had this crazy thought that the dairy industry might be pulling some tit-for-tat with the Butterball folks, but after some research I know that Turkey Hill is a real place, more real than, say, Nature Valley or Seven Seas. This explains the name, but doesn’t alter the distasteful association between a creamy, sweet dessert and a feathered fowl that is typically sold shrink-wrapped with its giblets shoved into its body cavity.

I realize Turkey Hill is a well established brand, and my opinion is a day late and millions of dollars short. But if someone living on, say, Chicken Mountain, is thinking about taking Mama’s pudding recipe national, he or she might want to consider the product and the people who will be buying it, instead of the source.

I found this on YouTube. “American Tune” is...

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:48:10 -0400

I found this on YouTube. “American Tune” is a brilliant, wistful song by Paul Simon, covered here by Dave Matthews on his 2003 Dave and Friends tour (I was there). I think that if Thomas Jefferson had been a modern-day songwriter, he might have made many of the same observations.

Basic Instinct II

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:35:37 -0400

Just now, I was listening to a psychologist on NPR. The subject was self-destructive habitual behavior, and she was saying that human beings crave established patterns, even if repetition is not serving them well. Something that once worked but has now ceased to be effective is revisited out of the intense comfort we take in the familiar.

It occurs to me that by coupling this basic and irrational human instinct with insatiable corporate greed, you arrive at the guiding principle behind movie sequels.

Problem Solved

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:14:00 -0400

When Micah turned fourteen, I started doing everything wrong. I don’t know why, because prior to that, I had been pretty normal. Suddenly I started wearing stupid clothes. My voice got really loud and squeaky and I couldn’t say anything that wasn’t embarrassing or that I hadn’t told him, like, a million times already. I chewed loudly and I made weird gulping noises when I drank. My hair became heinously puffy and I developed breath so foul that I was not allowed to kiss him, even on the cheek. I’ve struggled to turn it around, but it seems there is no stopping my descent into the vortex of revulsion.

Last night I was watching some stupid reality television show about a mother who was hooked on prescription pain meds. Her family had moved her out to the garage, where she was now free to gulp down pills by the handful, chain-smoke, rant nonsensically, and then pass out without bothering anyone. She had an eleven-year-old son and every time the camera was on him his face would bunch up and his chest would start heaving. “Please, Mom, please, I miss you. Don’t choose the pills over me, Mom. I don’t want to lose you,” he’d snuffle, tears streaming down his face.

Oh, my God! I was so freaking jealous! It occurred to me that Addict Mom was playing the maternal equivalent of hard to get. While I was obsessing over my countless repulsive shortcomings, Addict Mom didn’t give a crap, because she was comatose. When her kid needed her, Addict Mom wasn’t very effective because she had nodded off in a puddle of drool on her lawn chair in the garage, but when Micah needed me, or more accurately, when I thought there was a remote possibility that he might tolerate my presence, I was all over him like a frantic lapdog. I saw the brilliance of Addict Mom’s strategy, though it had to be difficult to savor the magic of the mother/son relationship while unconscious. I thought about faking a drug-induced stupor but I worried that Micah would waste no time scheduling a quickie intervention, after which I would be carted off to Texas for a six month stint in rehab.

Anyway, it turns out that the show wasn’t so stupid after all, because it contained some useful information. I actually devised a plan that even Micah is enthusiastic about. In fact, he told me it’s the first good idea I’ve had in over a year.

I’m moving into the garage!