Moving. But I Ain't Bovvered.

We're moving on Friday, but in the immortal, illustrious words of Lauren Cooper, I ain't bovvered:





Here's why.

Most of what stresses me out about moving is the packing, because inevitably I always find out that I have way more crap than I thought I did. Drawers, cabinets, closets, under the bed, aaaallll have stuff that needs to be put into boxes before I move. When I moved to New York in 1996 I came here with two suitcases; I now have a 2-bedroom apartment (and its closets) full of stuff. My stuff. My husband's stuff. My son's stuff. And some stuff that's followed us from place to place that we're not even sure is ours.

But this time around not only have we hired movers to lug everything from Old Place to New Place, but we've hired them to PACK for us. It's one of those first-world luxuries I'm not even going to pretend I'm too good for.

So we're moving four buildings down on the same block, but I ain't lifting a damn finger. Pregnant, you know.

Second, most of our furniture isn't coming with us. The people who own the condo we're moving into have high-tailed it across the Pond to Jolly Ole England, and were more than happy to sell us their furniture at deeply discounted prices. How could we say no? Our couch, our armchair, our bookcases, our dining table, hell, even our microwave will not be joining us in the New Apartment of Happiness and Joy Joy. Less stuff to move, less stuff to worry about.

Third, after the week I had last week moving is the least of my worries. Let's check off one by one the shitty things I dealt with last week:

Earthquake, check!
Hurricane, check!
UTI, check! Which my midwife won't treat until we get the results of the...
Possible parasite in my guts, check!
Two and a half hours at a clinic with my son, who threw himself on the floor in a giant tantrum and later pooped his pants, check!
A doctor and nurse who forgot to give me the paperwork for the lab so I had to go back the next day, check!
Still pregnant through all this, check!
No anti-depressants or booze to make the pain go away, check!
My therapist was on vacation, check!

Good times.

In light of all that it's no wonder moving is, like, whatever to me. Moving is the least stressful part of my life right now. Look at my face - does my face look bovvered? That's 'cause it ain't bovvered. In two days I'll be in an apartment with a built-in microwave and a dishwasher. Moving can kiss my ass.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 8/6/11

The Princeling and his mama posing in front of a radar plane on the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum last Sunday.

Home (Expletive) Home

Please pardon me while I bang my head against a wall.

It's less painful and more productive than apartment hunting in New York City.

After 15 years and 7 apartments you'd think I'd have a grip on this whole thing but I don't. It never gets easier, never. I think in some episode of "Sex and the City" (tagline: "No, Really - This is Totally What Living In New York is Exactly Like!") Carrie Bradshaw says that New Yorkers are always looking for either a romantic partner, a job, or an apartment. I'm happily married and happily a stay-at-home-mom.

But I do feel like I am perpetually looking for an apartment.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. That explains why New Yorkers are so crazy! We all have to live here, and in order to live here we all have to throw ourselves into the sarlacc pit of New York City real estate, hoping to come out of it alive! What is wrong with all of us?

Some try to beat the system by stubbornly staying in the same place for years and years even in the face of changing family circumstances. I knew someone who got married and had three kids, all while living in the same studio apartment. And no, "studio apartment" in New York doesn't mean a 5-bedroom luxury condo: it means a 1-room apartment. Not one bedroom: ONE. ROOM. How do you even make more babies when you're sharing ONE ROOM with your other kid(s)?

Others, especially in our neighborhood, cram enormous families into tiny apartments. It goes something like this: four or five kids share one bedroom, five or six other kids share the second bedroom, the parents sleep in the bathtub, and the grandparents sleep in the refrigerator. Why? The school districts. And rent. Park Slope has become like the Lower East Side tenements of the early 1900s, all in the name of getting kids into P.S. 321 without paying more than $50 a month for rent because you moved into this apartment back in 1997. Or something.

And yes, rents in New York, even out here in Brooklyn - especially here in Park Slope, where a friend once emailed me, "So which school did the Princeling get into, Beansprouts or Yale?" - are really as high as you've heard about. I'm not going to say how high, because I'm embarrassed. Our yearly rent is about what some people make at part-time jobs. But we pay it, because we love living in New York City, we don't have car payments or gas prices to worry about, and because we have that advanced brain damage specific to New Yorkers who think that paying a kajillion dollars a month for a dishwasher-less rat-infested hellhole is justified by saying we get to live in New York City and we don't have to have a car.

We currently live in a nice 2-bedroom apartment with a balcony and views of the Statue of Liberty, and we love our apartment. But we're having another baby because we are idiots and masochists, and we need another bedroom. The bathtub just isn't big enough for both me and my husband. So we're stuck in the ninth circle of Hell known as apartment hunting, and so far I've only threatened suicide maybe three times. I've also decided that we are going to move to Montauk and become seafaring people; that we're going to move to London and become those funny Americans everyone teases; and that we're going to move back to South Florida to be closer to our parents. (Husband: "Every time you get a little depressed you threaten to move back to Miami.")

I've seen an apartment in a fourth-floor walkup in a building that had fist-sized holes in the hall floorboards and a cinder block holding the front door on its hinges (Me, to broker: "We have a preschooler and we're having another baby. What makes you think we want to live in a fourth-floor walkup in a condemned building?"); we've seen a very nice 3-bedroom in a very nice elevator building that happens to be located half a block from the new Atlantic Yards project and shares a street with a sports bar; and a few owner-owned very nice condos where they either wanted to charge us half our internal organs plus one of our children for rent, or they wouldn't commit to a longer lease so that we'd have to go through this all over again in a year. And then there was the duplex that looked promising, but the owner was sure she could get even more rent than she originally asked for. Last I heard it was still on the market and the landlady wouldn't come down on price.

That's what we're dealing with here, people.

Maybe we should just stay put. I'll take the bathtub and the Husband can sleep out on the balcony. He always says he wants to go camping.

NOT the Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 7/30/11

Instead, this week I bring you Mr. Funny and I at the Star Trek con in Parsippany, NJ, June 26:

Photo Credit: Chris Schmelke


Mr. Funny being charming, Nichelle Nichols being amazing, and me being a drooling idiot.

Morning, Noon and Night

I am not one to suffer in silence. I am not one of these timid women who's always all, "No, no, I'm fine."

And I'm certainly not one of these mothers who thinks that suffering makes me a better mother.

It's not an equation, people. It's not:

Suffering = Good mother

I believe the opposite. Happy women make good mothers. That just makes sense. I figure, the less I have to suffer, the more functional my family will be.

As a quasi-Buddhist I am aware that suffering exists. We all suffer at various times in our lives, to greater or lesser degrees. And for me, pregnancy is one of the deepest forms of suffering I've ever experienced. And now I'm experiencing it a second time! On purpose! Someone please have me committed, because clearly I do not make healthy decisions when it comes to my own well-being.

Pregnancy sucks. It just does. I have few mom friends who will argue otherwise. My one friend who didn't suffer much during pregnancy gave birth to a shrieking banshee who never stopped screaming for her first year and a half. Oh sure, she's adorable and sweet now, but it wasn't always so. I figure that was just the Pregnancy Goddess's way of evening things out. Sure, I'll give you a smooth ride for nine months. But the eighteen after that will SUCK! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Here are some stretch marks.

Actually, I don't know if my friend got stretch marks or not.

Morning sickness is a misnomer, because it doesn't only occur in the morning. For the past three weeks I've thrown up:
Upon getting out of bed
After taking my son, the Juban Princeling, to the indoor playspace at the YMCA
After doctor's appointments
After lunch
While doing dishes
Sitting on the couch watching TV
Before going out to dinner
While waiting for our friends to come over for the evening after our kids go to bed
After talking on the phone

And this is all while on medication! Not the baby-deforming medication an officer from the Pregnancy Police thinks I'm taking because she is confused and can't be bothered to do her research, but the same medication I took while pregnant with the Princeling three years ago, the one that's prescribed all the time for pregnant women with bad morning sickness and is perfectly safe and wonderful. And back then it worked! This time...less so. I can eat, at least. It's just that whatever I eat usually comes back to haunt me, ifyougetmydriftIthinkyoudo.

By the way, YES I HAVE TRIED EVERY SINGLE NATURAL REMEDY. If I have to drink ginger ale one more time, or eat another saltine, I will cut a bitch. So don't even mention those to me, or seasick wrist bands, or Vitamin B, or tea, or lemons, or sour candies, unless you want me to throw up on you.

My mother never had morning sickness, something I fully resent her for. Aren't daughters supposed to have pregnancies like their mothers?

When I was 3 1/2 and my mother was 8 months pregnant with my brother Mr. Funny, we were in the process of moving and Miami was under a hurricane warning. So my mother, in her condition and with a 3 1/2-year old to take care of by herself because my dad had to work, had to prepare not one, but two houses for Hurricane David. If I were her I would never ever let my children forget that, but she barely mentions it. I think it's safe to say that my mother is a far tougher woman than I, at least when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth.

Being sick to my stomach all the time during my last pregnancy was bad because I was working a full-time job I didn't much care for and the stress of it made me barf at the office. Thankfully my cubicle was near the ladies' room. I liked most of my co-workers, and most days were fine, but there were a few people who got under my skin. One time the mere sight of someone walking by my desk made me retch.

Because I was so sick during that time I was told by my doctor to eat whatever I could hold down, which for me meant a lot of junk food. When I gave birth I was surprised my placenta wasn't entirely Nutella. Just a big clump of Nutella with a Nutella umbilical cord connecting it to my baby, who somehow managed to be born covered in amniotic fluid and not Nutella.

But, at my job, we had low cubicle walls, and nosy people who felt perfectly all right in walking by my desk and making comments, out loud, about what I was consuming. Thank you, Pregnancy Police! I hope you all have hemorrhoids and crippling constipation now.

This time around my job is to take care of the Juban Princeling, which is both better and worse. Better, because at least he doesn't snark, "Wow, I hope your baby appreciates that root beer you're drinking right now WHEN HE GROWS UP TO BE A SERIAL KILLER," and because he's generally very sweet when I throw up. Once he even brought me his carsick bucket. Isn't that the cutest? But it's also worse because if I say, "Mommy doesn't feel well," he interprets that as, "I want to argue with you over what you are going to eat for lunch, and if I have to touch another dinosaur chicken nugget I will barf all over you." He also gives me no privacy, so if I want to lie down on my bed in misery there's a very good chance a pair of little feet and hands are going to follow me and kick me and tickle me until I give up.

So, upside, fewer officers of the Pregnancy Police hounding me, plus I'm surrounded by sympathetic friends who are most eager to swap pregnancy horror stories with me (which, strangely, makes me feel better). Downside, I always have a tiny shadow following me into the bathroom when I hurl and commenting on it: "Mommy throw up. You done, Mommy? I close toilet now. Get up, Mommy. You all better now."

Actually, that's one of the upsides.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 7/23/11

My mother ordered the same book for the Princeling she used to read to me when she was pregnant with Mr. Funny:





I'm so old that the book has nurses listening to the fetal heartbeat with a stethoscope and the father isn't allowed into the delivery room. But I think the Princeling gets the gist of it: There's a baby a-comin', and things are gonna change, and he's going to feel lots of different things about it.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 7/16/11

The Princeling's googley Third Eye.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 7/9/11

His Majesty appraises the sprinkler situation at 19th Street playground. In Mommy's sunglasses, of course. How else is he supposed to ruminate on his kingdom?

Happy Anniversary. Here's a Stupid Baby.

Recently, we all - and by "all" I mean me, my husband, our son the 2 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, and my brother Mr. Funny - flew down to Miami to celebrate my parents' 40th Anniversary with them.

And if you've been a regular reader of Grey Skies and you're now thinking to yourself, "Gee, Meredith sure flies down to Miami a lot to see her parents. She must really love doing that!" then you are an idiot. I do it because my parents want to see their grandson, not me, and they buy our tickets for us because they have a Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to excuses why they are not able to see him. Every once in a while my mother calls me up and says, "Window, or aisle?" and I know I have another trip down there to look forward to. She's already bought our tickets for Thanksgiving. I kid you not. Travel between New York and Miami is a pain in the butt at best, but for the Holidays it turns into a circle of HELL. So naturally it makes sense for my parents - who are two grown, self-employed people - to stay there while four adults - three of whom have jobs they are not the bosses of - and a toddler go to them. At Thanksgiving. Kill me.

Anyway, we went down for my parents' 40th Anniversary, which is not the sort of thing you can get out of even if you have a really bad sore throat that the doctor has told you is not strep. No, you go down there because you love your parents and because Miami has Dairy Queen and New York does not.

And since Mr. Funny and my husband had to work on Friday I got to fly down with the Princeling all by myself. With a non-strep sore throat.

Know what's more fun than flying alone with a 2 1/2-year old while you're super sick?

Flying alone with a 2 1/2-year old while you're super sick AND PREGNANT.

The day before I left I peed on a stick, and whaddya know, there's a giant "+" sign letting me know that another little bundle of joy is shacking up in my womb for a while.

Instead of pluses or minuses, pregnancy tests should say "Whew!" with a photo of a martini glass, or "Oh, Sh*t!" That would be funny. Because although we planned this one - as well as the last one - pregnancy is just not my thing. More on that later.

So we get to Miami, and I've agreed to wait until my husband arrives the next day to tell my parents the blessed news, which means my father spent 24 hours pushing hardcore pain medications on me like he was a doctor from the 1950s. Because I assume all doctors in the 1950s pushed hardcore drugs, right? So, he's begging me - begging me - to take at least a Tylenol, and I'm like, "Just say no, Dad!" Because I grew up in the 80s and stupid Nancy Reagan is stuck in my head. But I can't tell him why I won't take drugs, so he keeps pushing and by the time I was ready to flush his bottle of Advil down the toilet he finally gave up. Or fell asleep. Whichever.

But my favorite part of the weekend was when one of my parents' friends made the comment, "What a great anniversary present!" As if my husband and I were sitting around the house a few weeks ago saying to ourselves, "Now, what can we get them for their 40th that would be cheap, easy, and a complete burden to US but fun for THEM? I know, a baby!" while meanwhile poor Mr. Funny shows up with his sad little Hallmark card and a poem, or something.

What we actually got my parents was two dozen ruby red roses in a ruby red vase, because I looked it up on the internets and 40 is the "ruby" anniversary, and there was nothing else Mr. Funny and I could come up with that would make our parents happy while also being cheap.

Ruby red roses in a ruby red vase

And then, in an early case of Pregnancy Brain, after we told my mother-in-law the good news I went ahead and posted it on Facebook like this: "I feel a disturbance in the Force...a BABY-SHAPED disturbance in the Force." Unfortunately, I forgot that the hubby hadn't yet told his brother, Gilligan, the news. Since Gilligan lives in LA he was 3 hours behind us, which means my husband made a panicked phone call to Los Angeles at 7:45am their time on a Sunday, which means Gilligan's reaction was less "ecstatic" and more "thrilled yet churlish."

With a second baby, people are slightly less over-the-moon than they tend to be with a first one. The Princeling's birth caused one of my friends to get a divorce and another one to start in-Vitro fertilization treatments. No joke. His birth was that profound that two of my friends made major life decisions because of it. I'm not being sarcastic there, they really did.

With this announcement it was more like, "Yay. Aren't these red roses pretty?"

And that's fine, because I hate being pregnant. I am not one of those glowey, annoying women who walks around like I am At One with The Universe and being pregnant gives me insight into What's Really Important.

Quite the opposite.

My husband, friends and family all barely survived my last pregnancy, so I have no reason to believe any of them will still be around to love and support me in 8 months when Nugget* makes her** appearance. I am not good at being pregnant. If my husband and I were settlers out in the plains in the 1800s, or Catholics, or some other group that doesn't believe in birth control, I would have killed myself by now. In fact, the only reason we're doing this again is because we're dead-set on having two kids and this way is cheaper, easier, and faster than adoption. Though we did look into that. But we'd rather save up for a down payment on a super hot Park Slope condo instead of a stupid baby.

The last time I was pregnant I had "morning" sickness from two weeks past conception up until the day of the Princeling's birth. One weekend early on I threw up so much I lost 5 pounds in three days. My doctor had to put me on Zofran just to stay alive, and every time I tried to go off it I'd hurl my guts out. They even had to put it into an IV drip for me when I gave birth. It was that bad.

And for all of you out there thinking, "But every pregnancy is different!" I'd like to point out that I'm only 5 weeks along and I've already barfed several times. So shut up.

If pregnancy were an equation for me, it would look like this:




When I was pregnant with the Princeling in 2008 my feet swelled up so badly that people were actually horrified. I remember meeting a friend for dinner and she took one look at my feet and said, "Oh my god, I thought you were exaggerating but they are actually worse than what you said!" My obstetrician actually made me get an ultrasound on my left leg because my left foot was swollen disproportionately larger than my right. My husband nicknamed my left foot "Monstro." He used to play with my feet like they were Silly Putty, poking his finger into the mess and then making sick little noises of disgust when the indentation stayed there.

Me and my best friend Tia the night before my baby
shower, August 2008. Not pictured: Monstro.

So with all that in mind, I really just want to get through the next 8 months as quickly as possible. And I'm sure you do, too. Because I am not a "suffer in silence" martyr type. My misery is your misery. My swollen feet, hemorrhoids, gas, backaches, cramps, and vomit are YOUR swollen feet, hemorrhoids, gas, backaches, cramps and vomit. But, together we will get through my pregnancy. And let me just say it now so you all know: I love you. You are special to me. I can't do it without you. Please don't leave me alone. And for god's sake, do NOT block the way to the bathroom.



*That's the in-utero name we're using this time around. We got it from the new recruits on Battlestar Galactica. Yes, really.

**Three fortune-telling devices have all predicted a girl: the Chinese Gender Predictor on thebump.com, my mother-in-law's Cuban numerology voodoo, and my son's girlfriend. Of course we'll be happy if it's a boy, too, but my MIL and a 2-year old and the Chinese don't lie.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 7-2-11

So excited to be in Miami with his grandparents!

The Trekkin' Siblings

Yesterday my brother, Mr. Funny, and I totally got our geek on at a Star Trek Convention in Parsippany, New Jersey. We had the honor of hearing the lovely and superawesome Nichelle Nichols speak, and she was so amazing and incredible that it made our entire 2+ hour trek worth it.

Hailing frequencies open!
(Photo from classictvbeauties.com)

Because New Jersey is the suck of America.

And we're from Florida, are Mr. Funny and I. We know from states that suck.

The road system in New Jersey appears to have been designed by M.C. Escher. Somehow it took us two hours to get from Brooklyn to Parsippany, with only 40 minutes stuck in traffic, but coming home took 1/3 that time. (And then we got stuck in Staten Island's permatraffic. More on that later.) I half expected David Bowie and his hair (which would have been totally appropriate for New Jersey) to pop up and try to steal my little brother, something Mr. Funny was actually afraid of when we were kids. Believe me, if Mr. Funny never got kidnapped by the Goblin King it wasn't for my lack of trying. Though now he's 31 and less likely to be Goblin King fodder, I guess.

"Do I remind you of the babe? The babe with the power?"
(Photo from morethings.com)

Part of the problem of driving in New Jersey is that every street, highway, and dirt path has at least four names, so that by the time Mr. Funny read the actual direction in its entirety we were pretty much past where we needed to be.

Me: Which way do I go here?
Him: "Take 440 north - slash - 278 west - slash - NCC1701 - slash - Beetlejuice Nebula - slash - Burt Reynolds Highway Northwest South."
Me: Too late. I think we're in Delaware.

Actually, we didn't get lost. But we did end up in some horrendous traffic out in the middle of nowhere that I can only attribute to New Jersey's natural tendency to have flash traffic jams, like sandstorms in the desert.

Two hours and a whole lot of making fun of our spouses later, we arrived in Parsippany (motto: "If You Can Get Here, We'll Show You Nichelle Nichols") for the convention.

Now, Mr. Funny and I are not Star Trek Con virgins, as evidenced by my use of the word "con." We've been to cons. I ONCE GOT TO SHAKE HANDS WITH TASHA YAR. GO AHEAD AND PUKE WITH JEALOUSY.

Another time, when he was but a wee Trekker, my brother got to meet Brent Spiner, who promised him an autographed photo and never sent it.

"Hi, I'm Brent Spiner and I like to make promises
that I don't keep and break the hearts of little boys.
Bwahahahahaha! And also? My pants are stupid."

So we went to hear Nichelle Nichols, aka Uhura, who is so awesome it makes my skin glow. Seriously. Her greatness is so vast it actually exfoliates my skin.

Behold. Your pores are now clear and tiny.
(Photo from uhura.com)

She, of course, told the famous Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. story, which our mother recites like Scripture. And then she patiently sat through about 10 kajillion fan photos and had the good grace to make small talk with each and every one of us.

I am super lame, though. I get starstruck. Once, when I met Spike Lee, I had this whole speech in my head about how important "Do the Right Thing" is in the canon of American film. A whole speech. What I said when I shook his hand was this: "I love you." Another time I stood in line to have Hillary Clinton sign her latest book, and again, I had a whole speech in my head about how she is a feminist icon and a role model, and that I've been a supporter of hers since 1992, and how I think it's great that she's always fought for better health care in America. What I said when my turn finally came around was this: "I'm a feminist." She gave me a thumbs-up and then pressed the hidden Secret Service button to have me forcibly removed from the Columbus Circle Borders Book Shop.

So, I'm not great when it comes to meeting famous people, despite living in New York City for 15 years, where we treat celebs like they are somewhere between a crime scene and a unicorn: we acknowledge them out of the corners of our eyes, confirm with our fellow citizens, and then move on. Once, I got hit on in an elevator by Colin Quinn, only I didn't know it was him, and I got annoyed. Mr. Funny still has not forgiven me for not somehow magically whipping his headshot out of thin air and passing it on.

Long story short, there I am, in the presence of NICHELLE NICHOLS, who is arguably one of the most important women in Sci-Fi, and certainly is a geek feminist icon, and I was all ready to say to her, "You're an inspiration!"

What I said was this: "....."

Nothing. Not a damn thing. I froze up and smiled like the village idiot I am.

Thankfully my brother saved the day with something like, "You are fantastic."

This is why my husband says I should never go into politics. I blank out in front of people I admire. I imagine if Barack Obama ever accepted my invitation to come over for gluten-free pasta and Tasti-D-Lite, I'd probably just drool and pee. God forbid I ever get to meet the Dalai Lama. My skin will probably melt off and my eyeballs will pop out of their sockets.

So, it was a successful con in that I made a total ass of myself in front of Lt. Uhura. Which, really, is all I ask of life. I'm a woman with simple needs.

On the way home, the 2+ hour drive suddenly morphed into 35 minutes to get from Parsippany to the Goethels Bridge, which attaches New Jersey to Staten Island like a dirty cop handcuffing two criminals together. Staten Island has a giant highway running down its middle like someone's trying to cut it open, and that highway has permatraffic. There's no other way to describe it. Day or night, weekend or weekday, there's traffic. It kind of reminds me of that episode from Season 3 of Doctor Who.

Thankfully, Bon Jovi came on the radio while we were still in New Jersey, because by law you cannot leave New Jersey without hearing either the Jovi or Bruce Springsteen. The rest of the radio was devoted to Michael Jackson's yartzheit, which got annoying after a while because when you're on the tail end of something like that you are just plain not going to hear the good songs like "Billy Jean" or "Black and White" - you're going to hear the lesser known crap that is lesser known for a reason.

But, again, all worth it for Nichelle Nichols.

Mr. Funny: Maybe you can write her a letter with all the things you didn't say when we had our photo with her.
Me: Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Instead I did what any good 21st century chick would do. I "liked" her Facebook page and posted it on her wall.

You're next, Hillary.

"Get this crazy chick away from me."
(Photo from news.antiwar.com)

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 6/25/11

Running Towards Summer:

Summer Solstice 20011
(And yes, those ARE pirate monkey shorts)

When Baby Boomers Become Grandparents

This past weekend I took my 2 1/2-year old son, the Juban Princeling, down to Miami to visit his grandparents. It's a win-win-win situation for everyone: my parents get to spend time with their one and only grandchild, my son gets quality time with two people who never put him in time-out and think his whining is adorable, and I get two built-in babysitters for four days. It's actually win-win-win-WIN, if you also count my husband, who got to stay home and hire hookers and drink absinthe without having to keep track of a baby monitor.

The Baby Boomer generation has certainly put its own spin on this whole "grandparenting" business. They are, remember, former hippies. Free love, flower power, Jim Morrison, Woodstock, bell bottoms, long hair, freaking out squares, and whatever else the dirty, unwashed types used to do, has spilled over into their golden years.

My mom, circa 1969.

(Kidding. My parents did not actually
attend Woodstock. At least, not that they
remember.) (Photo from xtimeline.com)

One night at the dinner table I had the following actual conversation with my son:

Juban Princeling: Where's Grandpa?
Me: I don't know.
The Truth: Getting high in the backyard.

Actual quotes from my dad:
--"Shopping for clothes for the Princeling gives your mother orgasms."
--(Upon seeing my son riding his tricycle backwards) "Look! You're doing reverse cowgirl!"

Now, I'm not a prude, but I'm pretty sure the sexual revolution was not intended to compare a toddler on his trike to one of Cosmo's sex tips. I know, I know, I'm such a Puritan.

While we were down there my dad became obsessed with a movie he'd seen about 100 years ago that's not available on DVD, or even VHS. Thanks to the magic of Google (and because I am Generation X, not Generation "How Do I Send An Email?") I found a copy for him online and we ordered it, but a)I'm pretty sure it's a bootleg of something someone recorded off cable TV; b)I'm also pretty sure the site we ordered it from is only quasi-legal at best. I've instructed my mother to keep an eye on the credit card they used in case of any suspicious activity in the next few weeks. But man, won't my face be red when that DVD arrives in mint condition and the credit card goes untouched!

(And it's not like I'm a squeaky clean mom, either. Some day when the Princeling is, no doubt, in therapy, I imagine several items from his childhood will come up, such as songs involving the lyrics, "If your girl steps to me I'm smackin' a ho," played at his second birthday party, and all his earliest memories taking place at a wine shop.)

But, the important thing is that everyone had a good time. The Princeling only got one time-out the entire time we were there, during which I had to forcibly restrain my father from rescuing him and calling Child Services on me, because when your life's motto is "Grass and Ass," you tend to come from the same school of discipline as Ned Flanders' parents.

My mom took the Princeling to his favorite place on the planet, the Gold Coast Railroad Museum, where every week they have Fun With Food Fridays, in which the kids get to make ice cream, then eat it, then ride in a real train caboose. My son the train-lover hits a special level of nirvana whenever his grandmother takes him to FWFF at the Gold Coast, and honestly, I don't know why it isn't outrageously crowded whenever they go.

The Princeling and his grandpa at the Gold Coast

Railroad Museum in April.
(The Princeling's steam train t-shirt courtesy of Shirts That Go.)

My parents have so much fun with their grandson that they make no pretense about him being the sole reason they ask us to come down there so often. He's only 2 1/2 and they've already begun estimating when he'll be old enough to fly down without me or my husband. If they were a corporation, the internal memo would go something like this:

"How can we maximize our Princeling time, while minimizing our Daughter time?"

But, I guess that's how it goes with children and their grandparents. The Princeling had so much fun at their house that he did his excited little happy dance for nearly the entire four days straight. He probably even did it in his sleep. And really, isn't that how it should be?

"I'm an airplane!" Classic grandfather-grandchild moment.

Summer Sucks

Summer has arrived here in New York City, and I can't help but hate it. I love New York and will never (voluntarily) live anywhere else, but let's face it: this city is an assault on the nose on the best of days. In the summer it's downright horrific. It's like torture porn for the olfactory sense.

The problem with summers here is that the crowded buildings, masses of people, and pollution-spewing cars combine with lack of central air conditioning most places (including my apartment), pedestrian lifestyle, and public transportation to create a perfect storm of stagnant heat, oppressive humidity, and sticky, stinky bodies pressed close together without a lot of relief.

When I tell people how much I hate the summer I get a lot of, "But you're from Miami!" To which I answer, "Yes. And I left there."

I'm just not a hot weather person.

As I type this I'm sitting in a cafe, under an air conditioner AND ceiling fan, sipping an iced tea and wearing shorts and a tank top. And it's still only May.

My mother-in-law, a native of Havana, Cuba, cannot stand the cold, and to her "cold" is anything below 75 degrees. As I said in a recent review for Moms Who Need Wine, "As soon as the mercury in the thermometer dips to 74 or below, she turns into a woodland animal and falls instantly into deep hibernation. True story."

I'm the opposite. As soon as the time and temperature box on New York 1 reads anything above 65, I start whining about how hot it is and turn into a Grumpy Gus. The heat makes me tired, and the dinky little window unit a/c's we have at home just don't quite cut it unless I crank them down to 68 degrees and blast all three of them together. I'm very sorry, Mother Earth, but I figure my carbon footprint is little enough that I can afford to be bad in the summer. Either that or I may kill all my friends and family in a heat-stroke-induced rage.

Things I hate about the hot weather:

• Everyone smells. No matter how much we all shower and use deodorant, it's just a fact of life that in a city of 8 million people riding public transportation together, it's going to get a little stinky pee-ew. And by "a little" I mean "it's so bad that I often throw up a little in my mouth from even the shortest of subway rides."

Not too different from how New York City subway
straphangers stand. (Photo courtesy of smallguyseo.com)

• It's hard to cool off. Most other cities have nice, new, modern apartment buildings with central air conditioning. And the shops and restaurants and cafes all have central a/c, too. When you don't have those things, life in the heat can get...rough. It reminds me a lot of the 6 weeks I spent on a study abroad trip to Italy. My friend the Jewtalian, an ex-pat New Jerseyer who married a guy from Italy and moved there to be with him and raise her family, tells of how the Italians fear moving air of any kind. The summer I was there we all nearly passed out on a daily basis from the lack of modern comforts like air conditioning or ceiling fans. And that's kind of what New York is like in the summer. Maybe not as bad - lord knows New Yorkers love them some ceiling fans. (I had one installed last summer to try to maximize the efforts of our window unit a/c.) But still, when you read the bit below you'll wonder how 8 million people make it from May to September every year without collective, en mass dehydration and heat stroke.
• New York is an outside kind of city. Few New Yorkers own cars. And why should we when we have the best public transportation system in the world? And by "best" I of course mean the worst. The buses come only in clusters, and if you miss a cluster you'll likely stand at a bus stop - without shade or a place to sit - for up to half an hour, waiting, melting, burning from the outside in. At some point the heat will scorch its way through your skin like a laser and fry holes in your internal organs. People have DIED from 3rd degree sunburns on their livers in this city! True story.
  

Going underground isn't much help. The subway stations are...how can I put this without offending your delicate sensibilities? The subway stations are like the lowest pits of Hell, un-ventilated, reeking of urine both stale and fresh, with traces of vomit and feces, rats scurrying about, sludge flowing between the subway tracks, and a press of humanity crushing you with their sweaty selves. At least the subway trains themselves are air conditioned. Most of them.

And if you're not taking the bus or subway, you're often walking. For blocks and blocks and blocks. In 90+ degree heat, with no hope of cooling down once you reach your destination unless you are prone to filling your bra with ice. I won't say I've never done that, either.

My friend Tia once came to visit us over Labor Day Weekend, and after living my life with me for 5 days she lost so much weight her clothes no longer fit her. We did THAT much walking.

Now imagine either pushing a heavy stroller full of squirmy toddler in that heat, or else constantly coaxing a walking little boy who has to stop and look at every. damn. object. from one block to another. Yeah.

• The beaches here are...interesting. At least in Miami when you go to a beach you can be reasonably assured that the water will be blue or green or some combination of the two, the sand will be white, and the people will be at least mildly attractive, what with most of them being sexy European tourists and all. New York is surrounded by water, it's true, but, um, uh...it's not Miami. Let's just leave it at that.

Coney Island beach. Sigh.
(Photo courtesy of wanderingbrooklyn.com)

• Speaking of water and a lack of relief from the heat... It's hard to cool off aquatically here in New York. In Miami everyone has a pool as a matter of course. They just do. In-ground, above-ground, whatever. When you live in Miami you are assigned a Publix shopping card, a hurricane tracking map, a gun to shoot looters with after you are hit by the hurricanes you just tracked, and a swimming pool.
  

In New York, not so much. It's hard to have a pool when you live in an apartment building that abuts several other apartment buildings. So we have "community pools," but there is not enough chlorine in the universe to make me allow the bodies of myself or anyone I love to become immersed in those. I mean, think about the words "community" and "pool." Am I just paranoid here? Come on.

Not for me or mine.
(Photo courtesy of locals.oyster.com)

The playgrounds have sprinklers, but those are for the kids. So what are we grownups left to do to find watery refreshment from the terrible scorchiness of New York summers? I won't name names, but I happen to know for a fact that I am not the only person around here who takes cold showers in the evenings...

• It's hotter than Satan's Asscrack*. I love the change of seasons. Nothing makes you appreciate the crisp, cool Autumn air like 500-degree summers. But, as with everything else in New York, our change of seasons are neither mild nor subtle. Our winters are harsh, with at least several blizzards per moth for three months in a row, and temperatures well below freezing from December through March. In spring all we get is rain. March showers bring April showers bring May showers. And when the rain ends we get summer, which is a brutal, evil mix of heat and humidity. Last summer we had five heatwaves in a row, a "heatwave" being defined as above 90-degree temperatures. We regularly go days at a time above 100 degrees, usually right around the Fourth of July. Now, think about that, and think about it in the context of everything else I just said about living in New York in the summer.

So yeah. Summer can suck it.



*TM my friend the Ex-Pat from Detroit.