I know you are all wondering how my Valentine’s date with Dave on the Queen Mary was. In a word: AWESOME!
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Really? Yes, really!
Getting ready to board the Love Boat
I was invited to attend the MIXIM Greek Yogurt launch at the Queen Mary for Valentine’s Day last Friday night. It sounded like a lot of fun and Dave and I were really excited to go. In fact, we were so determined to spend a fun Valentine’s night doing something different, we suffered through 2 1/2 hours in get-out-of-town President’s Day traffic to get there. Okay, I admit – that, not so awesome. But once we got there – so fun!
Once we arrived at the Queen Mary we checked in and were escorted to the VIP lounge where we immediately headed to the bar. One big sip gulp of a vodka cranberry, and our traffic stress immediately drained away.
I’ll tell you what, Ehrmann, the makers of MIXIM Greek yogurt, sure do know how to throw a party. The VIP lounge not only had free cocktails, but pass around trays of fabulous hors d’oeuvres, a yummy pasta bar, and to-die-for cupcakes. (And I don’t even usually like cupcakes.) And of course all the yogurt your little heart desired.
These girls are adorable. And the yogurt? Delicious!
In case you haven’t noticed, this is a sponsored post, so a little about the yogurt…
I am a HUGE Greek yogurt fan. I eat it every day. (And I mean every day.) The thing is, I usually am not a huge fan of fat free Greek yogurt. It tastes a bit chalky to me so I wasn’t sure I would really enjoy MIXIM very much. Oh how wrong I was! MIXIM fat free yogurt get in my belly now! MIXIM Greek yogurt comes in an adorable heart-shaped container that has a crunchy mix-in and a fruit or honey mix-in. They have six flavors – all of them were delicious, but my favorite was the dark chocolate/cherry. YUM!
Mix it in and mix it up!
Oh, and one very, very important thing to note: MIXIM does not use rBST. I do not eat or endorse products with rBST. (With a teenage daughter and a never-mind-it’s-none-of-your-business-mid-life-change me, we have all the hormones we need in our household thankyouverymuch!)
Okay, back to the party…
After Dave and I ate our body weight in pasta and fat-free, rBST-free, creamy delicious yogurt (and perhaps had another drink or two) we decided to join the party outside.
Hangin’ with the cool kids on the deck of the Queen Mary.
Before we knew it, it was time for the Guinness Book of World Records attempt of the most couples simultaneously feeding each other.
Look in the lower left hand corner – that’s me!
What? Can’t see me? Okay, I will totally humiliate myself by posting the worst picture of me ever. (Oh the things I will do for this blog!)
Look Mom! We’re in the Guinness Book of World Records!
That’s right! We made the record. We were 2 of the 436 individuals simultaneously spoon feeding each other.
After the attempt at the world record was deemed a success, Christian Ehrmann, owner of Ehrmann USA presented a $20,000 check to The Children’s Heart Foundation during the celebration.
Fabulous!
Then the Journey tribute band Don’t Stop Believin’ rocked the house. (Or rather rocked the boat!) And if that wasn’t enough, the night ended with a spectacular fireworks display.
A perfect way to end an awesome night!
But wait, there’s more! No, not of my Valentine’s night (and if there was, that part is private!) – there’s more MIXIM LOVE, but this time, for you!
Get social with MIXIM by uploading a photo to Twitter, Vine, or Instagram with the hashtag #MIXIMLOVE between now and March 14, 2014 for a chance to win an iPad Air AND $1,000 in Visa gift cards. Whoo Hoo! Check out the #MIXIMLOVE Wall of Fame here and see if you can spot my pictures.
And try some of their delicious yogurt, will you? Click here for a coupon. (You’re welcome!)
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post for Ehrmann MIXIM. But the time I had? Fabulous. And the yogurt? Delicious!
P.S. All of the crisp, sharp, clear, un-dark photographs on this post were courtesy of MIXIM.
It’s Throwback Thursday. Another Blast from the Past previously posted on skirt.com.
When was the last time you spent six hours on a Saturday with one of your best friends? No husbands. No kids. Just the two of you, dressed nicely, ready to take on the day? That long huh?
On Saturday my friend Heidi (yes the one who wears granny panties) picked me up at 8:30 AM to take me to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I know – a strange concept – two suburban moms heading out to the city to do something cultured.
Heidi recently became a member of LACMA and was invited to attend a lecture on their exhibit Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915 and a chance to tour the exhibit half an hour before the museum opened. Heidi really loves historical fashion and I really love running away from my family for the day so seeing beautiful old clothing and hearing about the torturous ways in which people used to dress themselves sounded like a win for both of us.
As we were driving to the museum Heidi told me a funny story that took place the previous day. Apparently every Friday her son’s school has a morning assembly where every class recites a poem or sings a song or something nauseatingly adorable like that. The auditorium –or wherever they hold the assembly- was very crowded with dutiful parents watching their kids and Heidi was way in the back, kind of craning her head to see.
I should tell you for the purpose of the story that Heidi’s son goes to a private school in a fancy schmancy part of our suburbs and there are some celebrities and athletes who send their children there. Heidi was standing next to a retired superstar athlete (who I will not name, but trust me, even if you never once watched the sport he played, you’ve heard of him because he is considered by most to be the greatest to ever play his sport) and Superstar’s hot dad friend. According to Heidi the hot dad –Hot Dad- looked like a younger (late 30’s), better looking Liam Neeson. (It will surprise no one that I have offered to start taking Heidi’s son to Friday assemblies!
Hot Dad offered to let Heidi stand in front of him so she could see. “That’s really nice, thank you. I just need to see 5th grade,” she said and switched places with him.
“Did you ask if you could lean against him?” I teased.
After she was standing there for a few minutes Superstar said, “Oh there’s my kid’s class.” She offered to swap places with him so he could see. They swapped and as she was standing next to him Superstar picked his nose!
“What!” I screamed. “He just jammed his finger up in there?”
“No. It was that kind of thumb and index finger thing on the side where you make it look like you’re scratching, but in the infamous words of Seinfeld, it wasn’t a scratch, it was a pick. He was digging!”
So the next time you look at your husband, or boyfriend, or whoever, and think to yourself, I could have done better, just remember that even world famous athletes with hot actress wives and hot dad friends pick their nose in public!
The rest of the day went on like that with funny stories and gossip. The lecture was interesting, watching the type of people who go to such a lecture at 9:30 on a Saturday morning was even more interesting, and the exhibit was lovely. I am thankful that net crinolines and bustles are a thing of the past and I am even more thankful that corsets have been replaced by Spanx!
After walking through the exhibit we went to a popular restaurant we used to love in college, but never go to anymore because it’s too far away from our suburban bubble. It’s the kind of restaurant that has cute waiters on a Saturday afternoon and is practically empty at noon (when we got there) but has people waiting outside the door by 1:00. I had on a low cut sweater with a good bra and self-dyed my roots the previous day so I felt cute enough to flirt with the hot waiter. He knew how to work it for a good tip so he flirted back. I even had a Groupon. I’m telling you – it was a good day.
I did not get my picture taken with the hot waiter like I usually do. This will make one group of friends bitterly disappointed in me and another group of friends extremely proud of me. I don’t know if this means I’m getting old or growing up so my feelings are somewhere in between.
We got coffee afterwards – a mocha for Heidi’s sweet tooth and a regular coffee with a ton of crème and sugar for me to satisfy my need of turning a zero calorie drink into a rich, yummy 500 calorie drink. The hot cups felt good in our hands when we walked to the car as we were between rainstorms and the day was cold and crisp and breezy. It was the type of weather that reminded me of when Heidi and I lived in London for a semester in college.
I got home around 2:30 and all that culture and food and flirting (and probably the 20oz beer) made me tired so I took a nap. With my husband. He says I can flirt with hot waiters anytime.
In the late afternoon I took my kids to get a haircut. Their hairdresser moved to a new shop in a mini mall that also houses a bakery and a comic book/used record store. We visited and made purchases in both. They were in heaven.
So was I.
We even ate the leftovers from lunch for dinner so I didn’t have to cook or clean up.
My typical Sunday goes a little something like this:
My alarm goes off at 5:00 (yes even on Sunday), but I probably stayed up late on Saturday night – you know, until 10:00 or 10:30 and most likely had a good bit of wine, so I decide to be nice to myself and sleep in until 6:00. I get up, have some coffee, attempt to write my Monday blog post, hit a mental block and end up cruising Facebook or Pinterest instead. At 7:15 I realize I still have to walk the dog and get ready to run at 8:00 and curse myself for wasting so much time and not getting up at 5:00 (though if I had I probably would have just wasted even more time on Facebook and Pinterest.)
At 8:00 I meet my run club and suffer through 25-50 minutes of torture train for my 10K. Then my running friends and I go have coffee. After coffee it’s home to laundry, house cleaning, pulling my wardrobe for the week, grocery shopping (I usually hit at least two stores), and meal prep for the week (when you work 9-6 you’ve got to have a meal plan and at least a few things pre-made) . Sunday is always my busiest and most hectic day. I always aspire to take a nap. It never happens.
Sunday Funday
But yesterday was different. Instead of wardrobe and meal planning and laundry and shopping I ditched suburbia and headed out to Hollywood for a field trip with some of my friends from my writers’ group to see our friend Kim Tracy Prince perform in a show called Expressing Motherhood at the Lillian Theater. Sure, we have no vegetables in the house, we’ll be dining on grilled cheese all week, and I’ll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off in the mornings, having no idea what I’m going to wear. I’m pretty sure we’ll survive. Besides, I deserve a day out with my girlfriends, dammit!
Expressing Motherhood is a show where 12 women get up and perform monologues they have written about motherhood. Some of them (like Kim’s) are hysterically funny, some are incredibly poignant, and a few of them are just gut wrenching. All of them are fabulous. I do wish Kim had advised me to bring Kleenex and wear waterproof mascara (that would have been helpful)! I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this show.
Suburban moms going rogue
The good news for you is there are 4 more Expressing Motherhood shows next weekend. (2/14 at 7:00, 2/15 at 7:00, and 2/16 at 2:00 & 7:00) If you live in the Los Angeles area, I strongly suggest you ditch your usual weekend routine and head out to the show. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but listening to a 64-year-old woman talking about the rebirth of her vagina is truly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. And listening to another woman talk about her son’s cleft palate – one of the most heartbreaking.
Tickets are $25 online (buy them here) and $30 at the door. They sell wine and AWESOME lard-free chicken tamales that you can actually bring with you into the theater instead scarfing down quickly in the lobby like at most theaters.
Be good to yourself – go see this show!
I highly encourage you to grab some girlfriends, get out of your suburban rut, and go see the show. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll drink some wine, maybe eat a tamale. You might not have any vegetables in the house or your work wardrobe planned, but you’ll have a great time. And you deserve that don’t you? (The answer is yes, you do!)
P.S. This is NOT a sponsored post. I paid to see this show and would do it again. It really is so fantastic!
Throwback Thursday: Originally posted on the now-defunct skirt.com on February 7, 2011
If I were a smart blogger who wrote about topical issues in hopes of getting a lot of hits I would probably write about the Super Bowl or Super Bowl commercials. But sadly I am not. I did go to a Super Bowl party, but spent most of it drinking too much, eating even more, ignoring my children, and gossiping with my girlfriends. I didn’t see much of the game or many of the commercials. I even missed the commercial for the new Bradley Cooper movie because I was in the bathroom. I know…
So instead I will be writing about my friend Heidi* and her granny panties…
Last Tuesday I had one of those days. Actually, that’s not entirely true, but I did have an hour where everything seemed to crash down on me at once like the Mexican train dominoes my kids set up on the entry tile and then take down with a flick of their fingers.
Well it sure seemed like someone was flicking their finger at me.
I was driving to pick up my son from school to take him to the orthodontist when my cell phone rang. I saw that it was my friend Heidi.
“Hey,” I said, completely agitated.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Argh, nothing. Sorry. I’m just bleh.”
“What?”
I told her that the reason for my extreme crankiness was that because literally in the last half hour:
-I got a rejection email for an essay I had submitted for publication.
-Realized I was late posting an article that I had yet to write.
-Tried printing Chandler’s bus pass application that was due the week before and jammed the printer.
-By the time I had the printer un-jammed and the application printed I was late picking up Marley from school.
-Being late also made me get stuck in the daily high school traffic jam I do my best to avoid at all costs.
-This made me so late in picking up Chandler that not only was he sure to be late to his appointment, but there was no possible way for me to turn in the stupid buss pass application and I would have to go back to the school again the next day.
Sigh…I do not know why I continue to invite Procrastination and Un-organization over to hang out with me when they have proven time and time again to be crappy ass friends.
“And to top it off I forgot my Bluetooth so I’ll probably get a ticket the way the last half hour is going.”
“Well put me on speaker because I can make you laugh,” she said.
So I put her on speaker and held the phone near the top of the steering wheel in the way that Californians without Bluetooths do as if this will prevent us from getting a ticket.
“Remember I told you that I tripped last week and my knee has been bothering me since then. Well I went to the doctor today and figured I would wear a skirt so it would be easier for him to look at my knee. I sat on his bench and he said, ‘Okay I need you to lie back and raise your leg up and bend it.’”
“Uh oh. Were you wearing a pencil skirt?” I asked.
“No, I was wearing this long flowing skirt, so the doctor kind of lifted it up and tried to arrange it so I wasn’t flashing him, which I probably wouldn’t have been if I had just been wearing a thong, but I was wearing Spanx. My doctor lifts my leg and the skirt slides against the slickness of the Spanx and there I am completely exposed wearing flaw-fixing underwear. And of course my doctor is really young and cute and hello there I am wearing total granny panties. I could tell that even though he’s a doctor and has probably seen it all he really wasn’t expecting to see that. There he is, moving my leg this way and that way and at one point I even had my leg over his shoulder so he could feel what was going on with my knee when I pushed down and the whole time he’s trying to arrange my skirt so the Spanx aren’t showing, but my skirt keeps sliding up my leg and my granny panties keep popping out.”
I picture my friend lying back with her leg in the air trying to flirt with her cute doctor and just pretend that the granny panties aren’t there. Hysterical!
She really did make me laugh. My bad mood was immediately lifted. And I didn’t get a ticket.
Other than the rejection letter I guess it wasn’t such a bad day after all.
*Heidi is not my friend’s real name. I would kill for her figure. I don’t know what the hell she was doing wearing Spanx.
My tweets are even lamer than my blog posts (but at least they’re short.) If lameness is your thing follow me on Twitter @Rossgirl08
And if you’re really feeling generous like me on Facebook!
I still hate running. Seriously. I get no joy out of it. Zero.
One might wonder what sort of crazy person does something she hates five days a week. Something that makes her sore afterwards. Something that makes her out of breath and miserable while she’s doing it.
Yeah, when I figure that out I’ll let you know.
I’m training for a 10K – that’s about 6.2 miles, which is about 6 miles too far in my book. To date the furthest I’ve ever run is five miles. And that was so hard. Like really, really, really hard. And I had to walk some of it. (I always have to walk some of it.)
I’m training with the run club at my gym. We meet on Sundays for a long run and then we have running homework every week. I think I’d rather do Chandler’s Math Analysis homework. And I really suck at math. (Except for percentages and how they relate to things that are on sale. I’ll tell you, I can calculate the sale price of something in my head with the snap of a finger, no calculator needed.)
At the start of the training for the 10K our coach told us that we had to do our homework. “Don’t come to these long Sunday runs without doing your homework,” he warned us. “Because if you do, one of three things are guaranteed to happen. One, you will get hurt. Two, you will die. Or three, you will not finish your race.”
Honestly any of those scenarios sound preferable to me having to run six point two miles.
Last week I was pretty excited because I had it in my head that we had an easy week and our homework was Monday off, Tuesday 2 miles, Wednesday 1 mile, Thursday 2 miles, Friday off, and Saturday one mile. My friend Carol corrected me and told me that is was Tuesday 2 miles, Wednesday 2 miles, Thursday 3 miles. We checked. She was right. Stupid Carol!
I’ve been running for over four months now, but I’m not getting any better at it. Well, it is getting a tiny bit easier, but I’m so slow. I’m always one of the last ones to finish.
On yesterday’s run we did a 4 mile trail run. My friend -who shall remain nameless, but she knows who she is!- asked me to run with her because she hadn’t run for a week because she’d been sick. Yeah, that’s how slow I am. I run with the infirmed.
Also, she got lost on a trail once and hurt her foot, so understandably she hates trails. This trail was pretty narrow in places with sharp drop-offs and very uneven terrain – very hard to do if you are not a trail-run fan. (Or if, like me, you’re not an any-run fan.)
See those dots on the trails? Those are some of the many, many runners in front of us.
My nameless friend had to walk a lot of it because of the unevenness of the terrain, so I, out of the goodness of my heart, walked a lot of it too. You know, because I’m a good friend like that. Not because I couldn’t run it. (Cough cough!)
I will admit that it is a beautiful trail (if you like dry California scrub) and at a little over halfway you end up at a waterfall.
Feeling strong – of course this waterfall is at the bottom of a canyon and now I have to go back up!
And I suppose I should tell you that the main reason my friend wanted me to stay with her was because she was afraid of getting lost. So you know I got us lost right? And of course getting us lost resulted in us doing an extra mile. (I might or might not have said bad words to our running coach when he found us at the bottom of the trail where we’d taken a wrong turn and told us we’d have to go back.) I probably should have told her that I’m not just bad at math and running. I also have a terrible sense of direction.
Needless to say, we came in last for the people that were doing the four mile run. I’m pretty sure we still would have even if we hadn’t gone the extra mile.
So yes, as far as I’m concerned – running? It still totally sucks.
Marley is into screamo music. What’s sceamo music? I’d explain it to you, but I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure it has a lot to do with angst, wearing black clothes, having a heavy hand with the black eyeliner, and hating your parents on a semi-regular basis. And the lead singers scream instead of sing. (Hence the name screamo.)
So it’s the perfect music for teenagers. At least the angst-ridden moody ones.
Like my daughter.
Some of you may be scratching your heads as you remember me taking an excited Marley to see Miley Cyrus, Travie McCoy and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at the KIIS Jingle Ball – definitely not scremo. Well, all I can say to that is sometimes when there’s no one around to witness it I listen to country music in the car. So I suppose it’s possible that she likes listening to guys with neck tats scream (rather than sing) just as much as she likes to listen to Miley auto-tunetwerk her way through a broken heart. What can I say – she’s a complicated girl.
Marley found out that Austin Carlile, the lead singer of the band Of Mice and Men, was doing an autograph signing to promote his Neff clothing line at Tilly’s in Pasadena. I said that I would take her because I remember what it’s like to idolize a rockstar. I used to be a bit of a fangirl myself. (My old friends are laughing hysterically right now saying to themselves, “A bit?!”)
Every mother dreams of her daughter meeting rockstars like this right?
Tilly’s was handing out wristbands at 8AM (for a 2PM autograph signing) so I told Marley’s friends to meet at our house at 7:30. (Goodbye Saturday morning kickboxing class.) We were on the road by 7:45 but I started to get a little nervous when an overturned big rig closed down four lanes of the 101 and added about 30 minutes to our trip. What if this was a bigger deal than I realized and we showed up to a strip mall full of 500 pink hair kids in sleeping bags who had been camping out for days, rivaling Black Friday Walmart shoppers willing to give up their Thanksgiving for the prize of a $200 flat screen TV, just for the chance to meet their scremo idol?
I enjoyed listening to the girls on the car ride over. They all thanked me profusely for giving up my Saturday and told me I was such a cool mom (Marley’s eyes rolled so far back into her head I think they completely spun around on that comment). They mostly talked about the bands they liked. All of them mentioned listening to Green Day first and moving on to screamo band from there. So the next time you get all weepy listening to Time of Your Life, just rememberthat Green Day is a gateway band. (Thanks a lot Billy Joe!)
We got to Tilly’s a few minutes before 9:00 and the line was long, but not too bad.
We ran in and I asked the girl if I needed a wristband. I didn’t want to take a wristband away from a kid, but I wanted to be able to go in and get photos of the girls.
“I don’t know. That depends on his people,” she answered.
If this was going to be the happiest 15 seconds of my daughter’s teenage existence I wanted to be there to witness it dammit! I gave up my kickboxing class Saturday for this. Sorry #401 – you should have gotten here earlier.
The girls set up camp on a couple of blankets and I wandered around the strip mall for a bit. I had intended to camp out in the Starbucks all day with my laptop and newBridget Jones book (new Bridget Jones – squee!), but the lure of Old Navy and Nordstrom Rack proved to be too strong. I eventually made it to Starbucks around 11:00 (truly the worst Starbucks ever, BTW) and was lucky enough to procure a spot with an outlet.
I was there about 30 minutes when Marley and one of her friends showed up to get some sugar drinks (guess who paid). They had drawn song lyrics all over their arms with Sharpie. One of the girls had taken a picture of their five hands and tweeted it. Austin Carlile retweeted it and it was then retweeted over 200 times. (OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod! Austin Carlile retweeted my tweet!) I don’t think the girls really needed the sugar.
At 12:30 I went to get the girls a pizza and myself a salad. They allowed me to sit on their blanket with them to eat. As we were finishing the line started to push forward. He was here! Or about to be here – I’m not sure which. We cleaned up the pizza box, Starbucks cups, and all the other trash that accumulates from sitting on a blanket for five hours while waiting to meet a rock god and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Well, they waited. I went to Nordstrom Rack to use the restroom. (And maybe check out their boots.) I walked down the street to the little thrift store I saw on my pizza run. Closed at 3:00 (It was 3:20.) 3:00?Who closes their store at 3:00 on a Saturday?! I sat on the lip of the fountain and read Bridget Jones and chatted with other parents.
It turns out that despite the scary tattoos, Austin Carlile is a very inspirational guy who tells people to follow their dreams, that things will get better, and to love, not hate. (Teenage angst is mere putty in his hands.)
He was incredibly gracious and generous with his fans and would hug anyone who asked for a hug (they all asked for hugs), listened to what they had to say, and would sign more than one thing (any celebrity handler will tell you that to move things along it is imperative to only sign one thing).
His fans were in heaven. (His publicist? Not so much.)
I have to admit, he’s pretty cute.
I joined Marley and her friends when they reached close to the front of the line (at around 4:45!) and two incredibly beautiful girls came up to me. You know the type – the type who look like they are used to getting what they want with a few blinks of their extra-long eyelashes and a well-placed pout.
“Are you here to meet Austin or are you just a mom?”
Just mom, grrr! Was it my gray roots and desperate need (that shall never be fulfilled) of botox or my lack of black eyeliner and black clothing that gave me away?
“I’m a mom, why?”
“Well, I see you have a wristband and it’s not really fair to take one from a kid. I got my wristband from another mom and I was wondering if my friend could have yours so we can meet him.”
“My wristband won’t slip off. It’s on too tight.”
“Well, that’s okay. We could wait with you and you could tell them that my friend is your daughter and you want her to have your wristband.”
At first I felt bad for her. Like I said, I know what it’s like to be a fangirl. Then I remembered how long these kids in line had been waiting. “Really? What time did you get here?” I asked her.
“Um, I don’t know a couple of hours ago.”
“A couple of hours ago? Well, my girls have been here for eight hours. And you want to hop in line with us, in front of the 100 people behind us who have also been here for eight hours? I may have ‘taken a wristband from a kid,’ but it still would have been long gone by the time you got here. You should have come earlier like everybody else.”
She slumped her shoulders and walked away.
“Was I wrong?” I asked a wristbandless dad next to me whose girls were in line right in front of mine? Maybe I was an asshole for taking a wristband from a kid.
“No way,” he told me. “Those girls didn’t earn it.”
At 5:00 the girls got in. Marley was over the moon. Austin chatted with her for about 30 seconds and then gave her a 10 second hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was shaking when she walked away.
She’ll remember this hug forever
“What did you say to each other when he was hugging you?” I asked her.
“I’ll never tell anyone. That’s just for me,” she said.
Good for her. I hope she never does tell anyone. I hope she keeps just for her for forever.
All of my girls, like the girls I saw coming out before them, were crying – the anticipation and excitement and emotion of meeting Austin Carlile overwhelming them.
“Let’s go home, Mom. I’m so tired,” Marley said to me after they all went through.
All of the girls looked wrecked. Happy, but wrecked.
I sent out a tweet with a picture of the girls that said: “Next in line. Totally worth the 8 hour wait to see @austincarlile He’s so gracious to his fans. Happy girls.” Austin Carlile retweeted it Saturday night. (OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod! Austin Carlile retweeted my tweet!) It got 20 retweets and 220 favorites. I have about 40 new teenage followers. I’m sure they’ll be unfollowing me immediately upon discovering that I’m just a mom and not a fangirl.
But when Marley’s friends thanked me again and told me I was a cool mom on the ride home Marley didn’t roll her eyes. Now that’s worth giving up a Saturday for.
I’m not talking about what they did to my poor body. I’ve forgiven them for that. (Mostly.)
Or the gray roots that are in desperate need of a touch up that I blame solely on them and not my genetic make-up even though the women in my family do tend to gray prematurely. (Gray hair at 48 is premature right?)
I don’t even mean the wrinkles that surely have more to do with the stern and sour looks that attach themselves to my face when I’m worrying about my kids, than the tanning I did in the 80’s (with Bain de Soleil SPF #4 that instantly turned your skin the most beautiful shade of orange that no self tanner today can even come close to competing with).
In the 80’s my silly friends used baby oil, but I “protected” my skin with this.
No, I am specifically talking about today. I look like crap today. And it’s all Chandler and Marley’s fault.
I went to the gym this morning at 5:30 even though I woke up feeling like I was getting a cold. I refused to believe that the universe would give me a cold five days before Christmas and I convinced myself I was just tired like every morning when I get up at o’dark o’clock. But as soon as I did my first jumping jack in my boot camp class I knew that a dreaded winter cold was most definitely settling itself inside my head.
When I go to the gym I need to be a bit more organized than other days to get to work on time. I left my class before stretching (my favorite part) so I could get home a little early because I had told Chandler I would drive him to school today. That sets my dog walk back about five minutes. But I was prepared for it. (Shhh – don’t tell Dave I gave the dog a half-block shorter walk.)
After Chandler was deposited at school and the dog was walked I woke up Marley, made our breakfast and then started getting ready for work when Dave took her to school. Just as I got out of the shower the phone rang. It was Marley. She forgot the Christmas cookies we stayed up until 10:00 baking and wrapping in cute little bags for her teachers and her friends.
(I did not feel sick last night when I was baking cookies, but the virus must have been brewing inside me, so would the 350 degree temperature of the oven kill the virus or or excelerate its power into some nuclear strength super virus?
Just wondering.
If Marley offers you a cookie today you might want to decline.)
Where was I? Oh yeah, Marley forgot her cookies. Crap.
Dave took the dog when he took her to school so I was afraid he was going to go straight to the park and walk the dog without coming home. (Yes our very spoiled dog gets two morning walks a day – a short one with me and a long one with Dave.) He didn’t answer his cell so I quickly dressed and hopped in the car.
Luckily I only got about a half block away when I saw him coming down our street. I honked and got his attention and he offered to go back and drop off the cookies.
I went back home, used my Neti pot, which takes extra time I did not have, and decided to put on “weekend make-up” which means no eye shadow or lipstick to save time. And I very much regret not using concealer.
Just as I was plugging in my flat iron (thank god I didn’t wash my hair – I’d have been totally screwed), the phone rang again.
Chandler forgot his running bag. A bag he brings with him every single day to school.
I believe both my children have a serious case of winter break fever that has seriously affected their already sub-par organizational skills.
I made sure Chandler’s bag had everything he needed, found his practice running shoes, and drove to where he was waiting at the end of the street.
When I got home my hair did not cooperate with my flat iron. It’s casual Friday, but I don’t think my favorite hat would go over well in my office.
Perfect for early morning Saturday soccer games – but the office? Not so much.
I really didn’t have time to spritz my hair with a little water and blow it out a little like I usually do when my flat iron can’t fix my two-day dirty hair.
So thanks to my forgetful daughter I have weekend make-up that doesn’t do much to mask my sallow virus-ridden skin and thanks to my forgetful son my hair looks like it belongs under a hat.
So if you see me today please forgive the way I look. I blame my kids.
Last week I was offered two last minute tickets to KIIS FM’s Jingle Ball. Now most of the acts at Jingle Ball aren’t really my beatbox jam (that sounds way hipper than “cup of tea” right?) – Selena Gomez… Ariana Grande… Austin Mahone (who?)… Fifth Harmony (again, who?)… Miley Cyrus.
Jingle Ball 2013
Actually most of the artists aren’t Marley’s beatbox jam either, but she likes Travie McCoy and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and she looooves Miley Cyrus. (God help me.)
Oh what a mother will do to bring joy to her child.
(Plus Enrique Iglesias was going to be there. And he’s super-hot.)
Enrique – you can wrap those buff arms around me any time!
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “That Charlene is such good mom to drive 90 minutes in traffic on a Friday night to go to downtown LA and sacrifice her poor eardrums to a nightful of banal pop music.”
And you’d be right.
Except you’re wrong. I am a bad mom. A very very bad mom.
Oh, don’t worry, I took her. But I probably shouldn’t have.
Marley had to be on the soccer field the next day at 7AM to play three (THREE!) soccer games at 8:00, 10:30 and 1:00 in her very first post-season championship soccer tournament.
Even with a full night’s sleep I was anticipating an “I’m too tired, I can’t run anymore” Marley meltdown around the third quarter of the second game. (She’s a rather lazy athlete.)
And all week long we’d been getting reminder emails from the (waaaay too enthusiastic) team mom and coach.
“Please make sure your girls are rested, fed and hydrated. They’ll need all their energy on Saturday!!!”
“For our Saturday games, we need to arrive no later than 7:00am in order to check in all the players. Please have an early night folks, and be sure to give the girls a good breakfast!”
(Like I, an adult woman, need to be reminded to put my kid to bed on time and feed her a proper breakfast before a very early morning three game soccer tournament.)
Well, apparently I do, because I’m sure that a good mother would have realized that as fun as the concert would be for her daughter, her daughter made a commitment to soccer and it was important that she get a good night’s rest before her tournament. She owed that to her teammates. Marley didn’t even have to know that we were offered the tickets, so she wouldn’t even have to be upset about it.
But I’m not a good mother. I’m a bad mother who wants my daughter to think I’m a good mother and love me for just five minutes of her miserable tortured angst-ridden hormonal teenage life.
(Plus did I mention that Enrique Iglesias was going to be there? And that he’s super hot?)
Look at that smile – so cute!
We had a talk. I told her that if I took her she would have to suck it up and over-perform on the soccer field no matter how tired she was. She nodded her head in agreement. She promised she would not complain and play her very very best.
And I was right. She was happy. And so sweet. And she loved me the most for five minutes. (Even though it was her father’s connection that got us the tickets.) She didn’t even complain when she ate dinner at home instead of paying double for the she-knows-how-bad-it-is-for-you-but-doesn’t-care-it’s-still-her-favorite-because-it’s-so-delicious McDonald’s at the Staples Center.
And we had a great time. I got through the lip syncing. And the bad music. The supposed war between Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande went right over my head. I very much enjoyed Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. (They rocked the house.) Enrique Iglesias did not disappoint. (I’m pretty sure he was singing only to me.) But I was not very impressed with Robin Thicke.
Neither was Marley.
Marley says Robin Thicke degrades women and she is not down with that!
I was incredibly impressed with New Politics. In fact, they were freaking amazing. (And super cute – Enrique who?) I’m definitely going to have to see them in concert for real. (Meaning where they play a full set instead of just two songs.) In the first place they are a real band who actually plays instruments and does not sing to track or pre-recorded music (a rarity in the Jingle Ball world). And secondly, the lead singer break dances! And is crazy good at it. Seriously, check this out (I promise it will put a smile on your face.)
Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, Miley did indeed twerk Santa Clause. (I love and want to keep my readers, so I will spare you a picture.)
We had a great time.
So much fun!
And got home at 12:45AM. I got to bed at 1:00. And got my ass out of bed four and a half hours later. I gave Marley an extra half hour. I’m sure that when the coach (and over enthusiastic team mom) said get “a good night’s sleep,” five hours wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.
But Marley got up without complaint. And totally stepped it up on the soccer field. (Even though the first game it was raining – hard. And the second and third games were just cold. Like 40 degree cold. And we’re from California so that’s like 20 degrees to us.)
She actually played better than she’s ever played before.
Maybe I’m not such a bad mom after all.
Oh… and one last thing. Can the owner of this camera get in touch with me immediately? (Please!)
Today is Thanksgiving and as usual I’m up at 5AM. I didn’t mean to get up this early. I meant to “sleep in” until six. But as unnatural as it seems to wake up when it’s this dark and cold, I did wake up naturally. The pull of the computer and a blog post I had spinning around in my head got me to push my cozy flannel comforter off of myself and get up instead of burrowing in and trying to go back to sleep. That and I may have been having a hot flash. (Not that I would ever admit to that.)
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for the things I am always thankful for. My family most of all of course. Our health. My many wonderful friends who fill my life with laughter. My house and the town that it’s planted in that feels like a modern-day Mayberry to me despite its close proximity to Los Angeles. Wine. (Yeah, you knew that was coming!) I have a job that I like that is only twelve minutes away from my Mayberry house (in a town that is more like Beverly Hills West). I have a good life. We have a good life.
Our kids are growing up way too fast. Really, if someone wants to become the richest person in the world, what they need to do is figure out how to slow it all down. My son will be graduating high school in a year and a half – his childhood over. I don’t want it to stop, but can’t someone figure out how to make it stop happening at warp speed? It’s so hard to slow down when life moves so fast.
One thing I am truly not thankful for this Thanksgiving is the terrible trend of Black Friday sales taking place today. On Thanksgiving. How is a sale that takes place on Thanksgiving, which if I know how to read a calendar is certainly a Thursday, called Black Friday?!
I find it ironic that we’ve turned this American holiday of giving thanks into a “holiday” of competitive shopping. Forget about being thankful for what you have, go buy more, More, MORE. (And don’t be afraid to push someone out of the way to get it.)
Look, I get that some businesses are open on Thanksgiving. Maybe I’m a hypocrite because I’m quite thankful that my gym is open today (for limited hours – only 6:00 – 1:00) so I can take a 90 minute kickboxing class this morning and don’t have to run.
And I know that movie theaters are open so when families have stuffed themselves fuller than the stuffed turkey they just inhaled they can sit together in a dark comfortable room and watch Katniss Everdeen reluctantly murder her peers instead of hearing Great Aunt June tell everyone about the time she was chosen as the county fair cornfield queen for the 27th time (today). I get it. As a former movie theater employee who had to work on Thanksgiving, I don’t like it, but I get it.
And yes, most markets are open because we all forget things. Celery for stuffing. Milk for the mashed potatoes. Asti Spumante for the uncouth relative who prefers the guilty pleasure of a sweet sparkling wine to a buttery Chardonnay with her turkey. (Who me?) But markets are open to help people with their holidays – not take away from it. And if you want my honest opinion I think markets are open too long. Take a cue from my gym and be open from 6:00 to 1:00 or maybe 8:00 to 3:00. Closing at 7:00 may seem early, but I’m sure it doesn’t seem early for the employees. If you haven’t bought your celery or cheap wine by 3:00 you should be out of luck. Can’t we make things a little bit inconvenient for Americans just a few precious days of the year? Perhaps that will help us to feel even more thankful for just how good we’ve got it.
So tonight I will not be shopping any Black Friday Black Thursday Thanksgiving sales. And look – I’m on a budget. If there’s anyone who needs to save money it’s me. But if you’re planning on shopping tonight, I want you to ask yourself this – who are you shopping for? Yourself or your family? If the answer is your family you might want to think twice about heading out for those sales tonight. Because in ten years they likely won’t remember what they got for Christmas this year, but they’ll certainly remember mom not being around on Thanksgiving after dinner when everyone is relaxing and playing Bananagrams because she had to go wait in line to save 50%. So I propose that this Thanksgiving we all slow down and take a look around at all that we have. The X-Box can wait (and will probably still be there at 5AM tomorrow when the kids are sleeping if you really need it). Slow down. Pull out the Monopoly board. Tell Great Aunt June you bet she was the prettiest county fair cornfield queen there ever was (for the 27th time today). Don’t let retailers steal your holiday. Life is already happening at warp speed.
Last week I saw my son cross the finish line first in his cross country meet at the league finals. The second place runner was nine seconds behind him. It was beautiful.
Yes, they did run up that hill before they ran down it! (Photo credit Debby Pattiz)
More importantly than being proud of him, I was happy for him. I knew how much it meant to him to do well and how hard he’s been working. He’s struggled a bit this season. There are seven runners who make the varsity team. He has had to fight for that 7th spot all season long. During the season the coaches would announce the team line-ups at the beginning of each week. Most races Chandler made varsity, but some races he made JV. For the league finals he made JV. At first I think he was a bit disappointed, but then he realized that if he ran JV he had a shot at winning and he became excited.
It was a hard race. He knows the course well, but there are a lot of elevation changes. (For those of you unfamiliar with cross country -or XC-, all courses are different, but they are all three miles in length.)
And it was hot – about 85 degrees. He doesn’t usually run well in the heat. (Of course who does? There were actually trash cans at the end of the race for kids to throw up in and I hear the heat from this race caused a huge puke-a-torium.)
The heat worried me and I think it worried him, so when he overcame it and not only won the race, but more importantly improved his time on the course by 57 seconds, I think he was pretty pleased. A PR (personal record) and a win made for one happy boy and one proud mom.
And then I saw something that made my heart swell up just as much (if not more) for a boy I didn’t even know.
In that same JV race, about twenty yards from the finish line, a boy from another team collapsed. He must have pushed himself too hard in the heat. One of his teammates was just a few steps behind him and instead of running past him and finishing his race with a good time, he stopped and pulled his teammate up. He put his shoulder under his friend’s arm and supported him so they could stumble towards the finish line together. After about ten or twelve steps the boy fell again and his friend tried to pull him up a second time, but the fallen boy wouldn’t let him. “Just go,” he said, waving his friend off. “Just go.” His friend reluctantly ran to the finish. He probably lost more than 30 seconds of his time. A few seconds later the boy who fell was able to get up and cross the finish line on his own. He too, was amazing. He was no quitter.
I don’t know what their coach had to say to the boy who stopped to help his friend. Perhaps he was angry that he sacrificed points for the team. But I hope instead he commended him for his kindness. For the goodness in his soul.
Watching that one boy help his teammate was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed. It brought tears to my eyes as I watched it and it brings tears to my eyes every time I think of it. I hope that boy’s mother and father were there to see how selflessly their son acted.
I stayed after Chandler’s race to cheer on his teammates in the other races. And also I wanted to see Sarah Baxter run her last league race. Sarah Baxter is the #1 high school girls’ cross country runner in the nation. She is a running sensation who has never lost a high school race and smashes records at every course she runs. She’ll get a free ride to the college of her dreams and she will most likely make the Summer Olympic team in 2020 if not 2016.
Sarah’s too fast – I couldn’t get a clean shot of her!
Watching her run is a true joy – she looks like a gazelle. She makes running look effortless. (And I can attest that it is not!) When she runs by everyone from every school cheers. She finished her race 85 seconds ahead of the 2nd place runner. Incredible! And then instead of cooling off (or puking in a trash can) she stood at the finish line to cheer on her teammates. She may be a superstar, but she is no diva.
All eyes are on Sarah Baxter’s time (She crossed at 16:25)
Watching your child -and other children- succeed truly is one of the greatest joys in life. It’s what it’s all about isn’t it?
I feel so lucky and so blessed that I got to witness my son run faster, a girl who is the best in the nation run the fastest, and a boy whose name I’ll probably never know slow down to help a friend.
What has you child -or any child- done lately that made you feel lucky? Made you feel blessed? Made you feel proud?
Charlene Ross 