I want another wedding

Ok, I know I'm probably super slow on the uptake here considering 12 million people have already watched this on You Tube, and my mom sent it to me, and my 60-year-old Unitarian Universalist lesbian cousin sent it to my mom, but, I love it anyway.  It makes me incredibly weepy-happy.

The Mister and I walked down the aisle to Johnny Cash singing Memories are Made of This and it was pretty great.  But now I wished we'd boogied.

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk?

Me, at 16, with Mark Darling and my smoking bod

So, I’ve gotten fat. Fat for me. I have cellulite on my upper arms and my gut is looking a little fanny-packish. It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last. But I am sort of pissed about it.

In 2008 I spent more than $1,000 to lose 11 pounds with Jenny Craig and gained it back in six months (I know. I know.).

So far in 2009, I’ve lost the ten again, and gained it back, again. Plus four.

I am not quite as fat as I was after giving birth to twins. I’m not even exactly what you’d call fat. I’m on the chubby side of normal. I can still squeeze into my size 10 jeans, but the resulting muffin top makes all but the most maternity of tops utterly useless. I weigh 164 pounds.

That’s one of the most humiliating sentence I’ve ever written. And I’ve written about my pubic hair. Twice. At the same time, to be perfectly honest, it's not that big a deal to me. So I'm a chubbers? Oh well. I have other things going for me.

Me, at 39, with Hilary and my much less smoking bod

My mom used to describe her particularly thin and self-denying friends as "having a horror of fat." I don't have that horror. In fact, I prefer some soft edges. But I would like to look a little hotter in my clothes. Just, like, 15 pounds hotter.

What makes me mad is that for all my rotundity, I’m not a glutton. As I’ve established, I love my chow, but I have never, not once, eaten an entire pint of ice cream, or polished off a whole frozen pizza. I am not secretly gobbling candy bars or sneaking Pop Tarts.

Yes, I went about six weeks without a drink-free day this summer (hello, last six pounds), but that was a highly unusual binge and doesn’t account for my overall waddliness.

I exercise. I love chard. I drink eight glasses of water a day. WTF?

I get tempted to blame the Mister, who was born with genes so tall and sleek, that fat cells verily run off of him. I’m pretty sure we weigh the same. And he’s 6’ 1”. And he EATS. Like every hour. He has dessert after dinner, lunch and breakfast. He thinks roll-em-up pancakes stuffed with jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar are healthy because the batter has an egg in it. Sometimes, right after he eats, he has an actual snack-size anxiety attack about where his next meal is coming from, especially if we are going to the movies and he thinks it might be a couple of hours before his next caloric intake.

Imagine, if you will, the pleasures and pains of trying to keep up with him. I mean, it’s nice to share a hobby, but the results of our shared recreation are that I get cellulite on my upper arms and he weighs what he wrestled in high school.

The real reason for the fanny pack gut

All this is a long-winded way of telling you that today I joined Weight Watchers (which I could totally be CEO of by this time if I just had a little more willpower). My plan? To enter the normal range of normal. Stay tuned to watch as the only-slightly-overweight-me emerges like a 39-year-old butterfly from the really-quite-alarmingly-overweight-me. It’s gonna be a showstopper, folks.

Our Lady of Dora the Explorer

This morning Maggie got dressed all by herself, the whole shebang, even the socks and shoes.  Oliver ran into the bathroom where I was getting out of the shower to tell me about it. “Maggie got dressed all by herself,” he said. “Isn’t that impressive?”

Um, that’s a three syllable word, people. I don’t mean to brag, but that’s impressive. Maybe it’s all those New Yorker articles we read to them before bed.

Or maybe it has something to do with the lack of TV.  They saw nary a screen flicker until they were almost three and now they watch only DVDs (including the never-ending Thomas the Tank Engine--Oh My GOD but that’s boring) and only now and then. As far as I know, they’ve never seen a commercial.

Before you think I’m some insufferable, holier-than-thou ass wipe, I just want to say that although I was mostly on board with the no-TV rule, The Mister and I had some real blow-ups over his Stalinesque adherence to our self-imposed hardship (the path to the people’s liberation is through interminable hours of PlayDough kitchen!). I mean, can’t a mother get a break once in a while?  What’s the harm in putting on 30 minutes of Dora while you grab a little shut-eye, or mix an old-fashioned?

Actually, I can answer that: the harm is in how easy it is.  I had heard about the whole TV-as-babysitter model, but until I tried it I had no idea.  I had NO idea. It’s like a miracle. The closest I’ve come to real silence in the last three years is when I put on a copy of Sesame Street’s Learning Letters. I sometimes watch as my little angles sit rapt and motionless in front of the TV and wonder why I made it so hard on myself for so long.  This whole time I could have been showering, or brushing my teeth, or even returning emails!

I can’t get that time back.  But maybe there is some consolation to be found in the fact that my kids love books and have great vocabularies and know how to catch chickens. 

Or maybe your kids grew up on a steady diet of The Bachelorette and I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant and could recite pi to its 23rd digit by age two.  Feel free to put me in my place if so.

Why it's fun to be a twin

Built-in bathtub toys...

May your weekend be this much fun. See you Monday, all squeaky clean.

xoxo Samantha

P.S. have you seen this yet? The Mister does a mean Khrushchev. That's him, banging his shoe. Weird family, I know. But at least we don't have to wear ties to work.

Multi-tasking self-starter seeks sugar daddy

It’s official. I’m losing my job. I sort of can’t believe it took this long, frankly. I signed up for a five-month gig nearly three years ago and well, I’m still here, putting together stories on lawn alternatives and editing The Top 10 Seaside Hideaways. Until August 6, when I am kicked out of the cozy nest that is Sunset Magazine (yes, people really do drink wine at lunch and subsist on organic produce).

Except for the whole eating canned beans for every meal part, I am kind of looking forward to my life as a lady of leisure. I’m hoping it will give me time to decide what to do next. I feel a big mid-life crisis coming on. I want a new career. I want to move. I want to reinvent the rest of my life. Magazines don’t hold the allure they once did (they are sort of like the 21st century buggy-makers--soon to be obsolete). Plus they are never actually written for people I believe exist (if you coordinate your table linens to the season, buy $5,000 purses, or consider $250/night a bargain hotel, feel free to alert me to your existance).

I was thinking of becoming a nurse midwife. I’ve always really enjoyed all that pregnancy, vaginas, lactation stuff. But then I saw this horrible You Tube video of a pelvic exam and decided maybe it wasn’t for me. I had no idea it was going to look so rubbery.

Aside from my interest in hoo-has, I also like books, gardening, fixing up furniture I find on the street, travel, being my own boss, not sitting in an office, photography, laughing, staring off into space, overeating, drinking too much wine, reading Dr. Seuss books in funny voices, analyzing other people when they are not in the room, walking, sailor pants, watching So You Think You Can Dance, sunshine, babies, and the planet.

Unfortunately I have no mind for making money. None. I haven’t the foggiest ideas how people make money. But if all of my interests happen to coalesce into the perfect career in your entrepreneurial mind, please do let me know. Sugar daddies also welcome.

Until I hear from you, I’ll be applying for this. And this. And probably also this. Cause, you know, I’m a people person.

Manish chickens and our own fertilizer factory

A few eggs is all I ask

You know how we thought Tilly might be a rooster? Well, she’s not. She’s just large and manly and no-nonsense, in the tradition of Julia Child and Sally Ride. But, rest assured, she is all woman.

Ollie and Maggie have not yet given up on the idea that she might actually be a Billy instead of a Tilly. When my brother was visiting they tried to convince him of Tilly’s maleness by holding her up by the neck and squeezing until she uttered a strangled and pathetic little squawk. “See,” they said proudly, “she’s cock-a-doodle-doing.”

I assure you, she was not.

Other things our chickens don’t do? They don’t come when you call them (I use “chick, chick, chick, chick” because although it is completely useless, it’s fun to say). And they really don’t LAY EGGS.

Nary a one. I know they are still adolescents and have not yet reached reproductive age (my brother once described the difference between fertilized eggs and non-fertilized eggs as the difference between “eating a chicken abortion, or a chicken period.” Appetizing, I know), but we’re getting a little impatient. We want them to mature quickly and be productive, like little avian Doogie Howsers.

The gals are going on 14 weeks this Friday. They look, act, and sound like full-grown birds. But they are useless. Elizabeth Jardina calls it the “eat and poop and wait” stage.

They could start laying anywhere between 17 and 22 weeks (stay tuned for the guess-the-date-of-our-first-omelet-contest).

In the meantime, they poop.

I had no idea how much chickens poop. Chickens poop like they are getting paid for it (and they would be if Sloat would cough up some of the revenue from the $7/bag chicken manure--suckers!). I would estimate that your average chicken drops a load about every 10 minutes. Maybe 15 if they are feeling backed up.

Which is fine, and good for the garden, and basically not that offensive as far as feces goes. Except that that’s ALL THEY DO. They eat and they poop. Oh, and they eat dandelions as long as I pull them up first and deliver them to the coop. Little divas.

I wish I were more like Sarah Connor

It's a good thing he likes firefighters

I was what could accurately be described as an accident prone kid. I broke my arm not once, but twice in second grade (effing Steal the Bacon). I required stitches in my chin and my head. I sliced through a vein on my wrist (I was not precociously suicidal; we just had some really weak-ass windows in our house). I rode in my first ambulance in kindergarten after cutting my arm down to the bone after a poorly calculated fence climbing attempt.

You'd think seeing so much of my own blood and guts (fat tissue, by the way is bright yellow, like a sunflower) I'd be pretty ho-hum when it comes to trauma. But, alas, I am weak sauce. It's not the blood that bothers me, it's the fear. I can't stand the idea that one moment you are going along all la ti da and the next moment you are wondering if you are going to die. Just the thought of that bewildering terror makes my stomach churn. I've known for a very long time that the worst possible job for me would be paramedic. And so far I've been pretty adept at avoiding that particular career.

That's me in the middle, pre stitches (yes, hippie parents)

But now I'm a mom. And since becoming a mom I've spent a lot of my down time wondering how I will behave when injury befalls my own kids. My own mom was calm and efficient: she'd wrap my bleeding part in an old towel, put me in the back of Datsun B210, and whisk me off to the ER, all the while distracting me with talk of the blow-softener to come. Sometimes the blow-softener was something like an ice cream sundae, but most often it was a trip to the toy store meant to add a little sunshine to an otherwise shitty experience (the all-time worst blow-softener ever was the baton I chose after breaking my arm—duh).

Today I had the chance to test the mettle we've already established is so sorely lacking in me. While I was watering and Maggie was herding chickens, Oliver did a spectacular somersault off the hammock and landed on his head on the gravel spattered cement patio. The blood was instant and copious—a fountain of red to make a vampire ache. I mean, it was shocking.

I picked up my already scared and screaming son, screeched at Maggie to put down the chicken she was cuddling and come with me right this instant. On the way up the stairs to the house I literally ran out of my shoes (ok, they were slippers), but I did have the wherewithal to grab a clean rag and press it to the blood spigot located somewhere above Ollie's eyes.

I then began my weird, panicky mantra: ohmygod—ok—ohmygod—ok—ohmygodok. I dialed 911 because I couldn't figure out how to get both kids to the ER in car seats while maintaining pressure on the wound and also because I had this weird idea that that is what a good mother would do.

This whole time I am also totally stressing about the chickens, loose alone in the yard. I am just completely stymied by the logistics of everything. I hang up on 911, realizing almost instantly that it is an insane overreaction. Then I forget the Mister's cell number even though I dial it a bajillion times a week. I proceed to misdial the numbers of three other friends who are great at dinner parties but couldn't possibly do anything in this particular situation.

At this point, Maggie, realizing she is getting the short end of my attention, begins fake falling and then whimpering up at me as if she's been injured. Ollie is screaming his head off. 911 calls back but I can't hear anything over the screaming so I just shout "We're fine" into the phone and hope that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they are convinced.

Maggie is still doing her lame fake falling, so I say, "Look, I know you want some attention but right now I just have to figure out how to get Ollie to the doctor. He had an accident." Ollie, who looks a little like Carrie after prom at this point, starts screaming "I don't want a shot! I don't want a shot!" while Maggie whines "I want 'tention," over and over again, still with the completely unconvincing pratfalls (does she think I'm stupid?).

I calm down enough to remember how to call my husband, who is kind enough to cross worrying about the chickens right off my plate. He is so calm, in fact, that I am able to remove the rag and look at the wound. It's a little, pebble-shaped hole in the middle of Oliver's forehead, and you know what? It's not really bleeding that much anymore. The fountains have slowed to an ooze. Ollie is still shaking and carrying on like he's lost an arm, but I am considerably soothed by the sight of his cut. My hands are sticky with blood and the wall is smeared with gore, but I am starting to suspect we don't have to go the hospital at all. In fact, I am starting to suspect a little hydrogen peroxide and a Nemo Band-Aid might do the trick.

Twenty minutes later, the three of us are sitting on the couch munching crackers and reading Skippyjon Jones. Oliver has a blue fish bandage on his head and his hair is all scabby. But otherwise we could totally pass for normal people.

Which we are not. Because earlier today, as we were getting ready to leave the playground, I accidentally locked my children and my keys in the car. In the sun. It took six firefighters to unlock the minivan and get them out.

And I totally forgot the blow-softener.