The Bewildered Housewife

The word prego is often used as a cute little reference to pregnancy.  It is also a marginal pasta sauce.  Prego, in my case, as a woman both pregnant and eating a lot, can be used interchangeably. 

This morning I am in pain.  Everything hurts.  I began my nifty new pregnancy workout video yesterday, armed with only a sports bra and the naive expectation that after three nauseous months of relative inactivity, my muscles would still be raring to go.  Talk about a miscalculation.  It was the equivalent of thinking that because I can tilt my head to look at the sky, I am qualified for space travel.

The woman in charge took me through 45 minutes of yoga, calisthenics and breathwork.  She looks to be about 6 months pregnant, speaks with a French accent, and is adorable.  I may develop a crush on her before this pregnancy comes to term.  Also, she is a Cirque d’Soleil acrobat, a smug fact in which she rubbed my nose every time she effortlessly cast her leg above her head.  And flex.  And down.  And breathe.  I lay there cursing her ligaments as my own hips underperformed.  Surely, I am more flexible than this!  Aren’t I?

Dammit, no.  This pregnancy is already wreaking havoc with my body.  Let’s start with the tummy.  If I didn’t know me, I’d be one of the women about whom I’d say either, “She really should not be wearing low riders,” or more likely, “Lay off the beer, lady.”  This is that in between stage when my whole middle is getting thicker by the second, but it really just makes me look like I am coupling too much wheat with too few sit-ups. 

This pregnancy thing is also getting expensive.  Not only will I have to buy new clothes in about a week, but I believe that I may be contributing to the deforestation of the Amazon with the amount of toilet paper I am using.  Pregnant women get very thirsty, and so we pee A LOT.  I could probably power a small third-world country with the force of my urine stream alone.

And the breasts.  Ohhhh the breasts.  I won’t complain too much that I am about to need a bigger bra, because that secretly delights me and openly delights my husband, but the pain certainly is odd.  The worst time of day is when I am in bed at night and have to get up to tinkle (see above).  It has something to do with gravity, with moving from a prone position to leaning over to lift the toilet lid, and there are no words to describe how achy and uncomfortable this can be.  Actually, the words “bricks”, “weights” and “gallons” come close, but not quite.  It is an utterly new sensation - everything about them is novel.  I actually raced home from one of my walks last week to phone my best friend and announce breathlessly that my boobs are now casting shadows.  I am mortified, but thrilled.

On the subject of walking, I have no idea what the hell is going on with my hips.  I used to be very graceful, and even received frequent compliments on the way that I walked.  Now it’s as if my legs are tied into splints; I am beginning to plod.  My lumbering through the neighborhood sends small animals scurrying and local geologists running to their desks.

I don’t know what this body is doing, but it’s certainly up to something…

It was bound to happen.  All good things change.

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Please update your feed subscriptions, just to keep it easy.

I still love you, WordPress.  It isn’t you; it’s me.

My husband is a wonderful critic.  He enjoys my use of humor as defense, and prods me to keep writing even when my mind goes blank for days, or weeks, at a time.  Last night we were talking in bed, various arms and legs asleep under the weight of our animals. 

“It’s just a little dark,” he said.  He was talking about yesterday’s post, which apparently reads like a Grimm Fairy Tale.  He’s right, it is dark, but only because it’s true.  I huffed and puffed and channeled my inner Steve Martin and said, “Well, I can’t be funny ALL the time!”  People who are funny ALL the time are a bit creepy, to be honest.  I want to smack them upside the head and tell them to come out with what’s really hurting them.  I figure that if I falter into such “darkness” every once in a while, I’ll escape the resident creepiness that comes from denying it.

People have been asking if I truly hate my mother-in-law, so let me clear this up.  I do not hate her; I simply don’t like her.  This is a certain distinction.  I don’t wish her harm or that her airplane will fall out of the sky, and if it did I would surely feel badly.  Kind of like when my husband immediately apologizes to the big black spider we just smashed and flushed down the toilet - sorry, little buddy - even after I’d hopped from foot to foot shouting, “Kill the bastard!”  It’s not the spider’s fault it is ugly and potentially poisonous; it is simply being itself.  I, however, don’t have to give it the chance to bite me.  This is the way I feel about my mother-in-law.  Make sense?

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and the second year in a row I have managed to escape spending the afternoon with my husband’s mother.  Last year at this time, we were newly engaged and I was plagued by a string of migraine headaches that were miraculously cured by saying the word No.  (I ought to bottle the word and sell it freely to daughter-in-laws everywhere, sparing them unpleasant experiences while simultaneously making myself rich.)  This year, it is refreshing to have stated openly and weeks ago that I would not be attending the worship ceremony.  I have my OWN mother to adore (albeit, over the phone) for being such a wonderful woman; I have no need to make smiley faces at another dame who would change my hair, my clothes, my attitude and, oh yeah, my husband if she could.  Call me crazy for banning the holiday, but the last time we celebrated an occasion in public (aka my rehearsal dinner), she pulled me aside before leaving the house and pounced on me with a tube of lipstick and a can of spray-on tan for my legs.  Do I feel like being accosted AND bringing flowers this time?  Sorry, but no.

Oh, look!  There went my headache!  Damn, this stuff WORKS.

It’s that sweet time of year when the apricots are ripening on the trees out back, the birds wake me up before the alarm clock, and mentally ill mothers everywhere expect their alienated children to come bowing, hat in hand, at their feet.  And somehow, for no logical reason, it works.

Now this is what I call a neat trick.  I’d love to learn how to be needy and rude for 364 days in a row and still have people bring me flowers and candy.  I wonder if the size of the bouquet would be to scale with the degree of misery I impart?  Imagine the possibilities!

Given the imminence of this special day, I’ve done a bit of research and discovered its true origins.  Mother’s Day originated not in the heart of a strong, loving Mama whose only requested reward was her child’s happiness.  Nay, the day sprouted from the darkened mind of a short, tyrannical woman who insisted on being praised for her marginal mothering.  And it goes a little something like this:

The poor lonely Mother awoke one morning to find herself utterly alone; alone in her bed with the ironed sheets, and alone in her mansion with only the live-in housekeeper as company, but he’s Philipino, so he doesn’t count.   She rolled out of bed, casting a remorseful glance at the four Snickers wrappers lying empty on the bedside table, and padded on pedicured toes into the bathroom.  There, she slathered cavier on her face, just as the doctor had ordered to preserve her face-lift.  Mother looked into the mirror and sighed.  Oh, how she wished her son would just show up with flowers and tickets for a cruise.  Or that her daughter-in-law would surprise her with a stack of magazines, from which she’d permit her to choose a haircut that she felt more suited the young wife.  These kids today, they need guidance, they need HER.  Why can’t she make them know that?

Mother wrapped herself in her robe and sauntered toward the kitchen in search of coffee and doughnuts.  She stopped along to the way to check her emails and voicemachine for the familiar presence of her grown children, only they had long since stopped phoning, although she had no idea why.  She thought they’d said something about “invasive” or “manipulating,” but clearly they were high on drugs because they made no sense at all.  Whatever they had said, apparently they meant it, for she hadn’t heard from them in a very long time.  Mother could barely even remember what the youngest one and his wife looked like; she’d never bothered to put up a picture.  How typically selfish of them to leave her memory!

Mother chewed her doughnuts in a silence that no click of Vivier heels could fill.  She stewed.  She lamented.  She made a few phone calls, and then wept herself into a frenzy in the presence of her similarly surgically-altered friends. For she did, after all, sacrifice everything for her ungrateful children, who only sought to take from her every other day of the year.  And for what?

‘Is it too much to ask for these selfish little brats to at least pretend to love me for one measly afternoon?  Don’t you see how they treat me? ’   Her friends, drunk on the standard Upper Class Cocktail of acrylic nail fumes and Xanax, clucked their tongues and helped her devise a way to guilt her adult children into submission.  Once they felt confident with their plan, they telephoned their good friend Ari Hallmark in New York and sold him the idea.  The rest is history.

Yes, folks, that’s where Mother’s Day came from.  Just because you didn’t know it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Coming up:  Mother’s Day Countdown - The Revolution!

I had just lifted my fingers over the keyboard to complain about something in-lawish, when my husband called from across the house, “I love you babe,” for no apparent reason at all. 

See, this is why I keep him around.  And for the rest of the day I can no longer complain about anything in good conscience.

Instead, I’m giving you an assignment for the evening, which is to click on my mostest favoritest blogs in my Blogroll… to the right… scroll down just a wee bit… there you go.  I highly recommend Buttercuppunch and The Not if you like sassy forays into girlfriend things and (my favorite) wedding planning, Passive Aggressive Notes if you want your funnybone tickled, and Married Kitty if you’d like… um… something else tickled.

Go ahead, don’t be shy.

Today I am baking banana cookies, replete with walnuts and chocolate chips.  I hope my husband doesn’t read this at work, because I’d like for them to be a warm surprise when he gets home.  I feel myself about to enter into another cycle of recipe exploration, because I have adopted the following tried and true methodology to life:  When all else fails, cook.

If you’re anything at all like me, you occasionally feel guilty for crimes you have not committed.  With such venom being spewed from the doors of my in-laws’ mansion lately, I have naturally spent some time pondering the possibility that there could be some truth to their accusations.  I try to be fair, just in case I need to learn something.

For instance, is it true that all of my husband’s actions are designed to mortally wound his mother’s feelings?  Did he really marry me with the sole intent of abandoning her ? 

Curious!  I ponder on…

Might it be true that I, in marrying my husband, was not expected to merely be an excellent wife?  Did I also sign up for the required task of frequently lunching, shopping and closely bonding with my mother-in-law, at which I am failing miserably?  Is it possible that my independence is indeed a cruel, purposeful display of defiance?

After much consideration, I have reached my conclusion.  It goes a little like Kiss My Ass.  It ain’t all about you.  Put on your big boy shorts and take some responsibility for your own unhappiness.

Mother-in-law has been in New York, purchasing yet another Park Ave. apartment to become bored with and sell again 12 months from now.  In her absence, she left a string of nasty emails, and a Father-in-law to scold the two of us for being so terrible.  He called us over to his study last week, and proceeded to spend the next three hours counting off each of their resentments. 

In no particular order:  My husband hadn’t sought their approval for his car.  I hadn’t sought their approval to leave my job.  We hadn’t sought their approval before conceiving a child.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  And the best part is that we’ll either shape up and obey, or ‘not be part of the family’. 

“What brought this all on?’”  I wonder for the next week.  “They’ve never hidden their disapproval, but why are their resentments suddenly surfacing with a vengeance?”   And then it dawns on me.  I look at my watch and glance up at the fan that has been visibly covered in shit since the day we informed them we are pregnant.  Coincidence? 

My willingness to tolerate other people’s crap is shrinking in direct proportion to my expanding belly.  Really, the more room my womb takes up, the less room there is for bullshit.  So, in the interest of not committing homicide, I decided to enlist some help.  But how?  I’ve never been huge on self-help books.  All the ones I’ve ever read usually have me doing primal screams at the moon or sucking my thumb in the fetal position and I, as a rule, prefer to do neither.  But I’ve been diligent lately about making sense of the situation, and this is a task too large for one person. 

And so, against my normally stellar judgment, I surfed around Amazon until I landed on this book by Susan Forward, mostly because I love her name.  She’s eloquent in a Take No Prisoners kind of way, and I do love a woman who tells it like it is.  In it, she outlines his parents’ behavior with such ease that I seriously wonder if she’s teamed up with my astrologer and camped out in our bushes.

“…the crime is that he had become independent.  In response, his parents had become desperate, and lashed out with the tactics they knew best: withdrawing love and predicting catastrophe.  Like most controlling parents, his were incredibly self-centered.  They felt threatened by his happiness, instead of seeing it as a validation of their parenting skills.  They see the new spouse as a competitor for their child’s devotion. They make every choice an all-or-nothing decision.  With directly controlling parents, there is no middle ground.  If the adult child tries to gain some control over his own life, he pays the price in guilt, frustrated rage and a deep sense of disloyalty.”**

Wonder how they’ll take the news that we’re selling the house and moving 900 miles away.  Get out your crash helmets, kids.

** Toxic Parents, Susan Forward, Ph.D.

Another failed attempt at clothes shopping has me in a tizzy.  It is difficult to navigate authentic individual style when surrounded by nubile 18-year-olds gracefully sliding into their size 1 duds.

I, on the other hand, go home and squeeze myself into my size 4 jeans that are becoming a bit too snug for comfort.  At 3 months pregnant, I am desperately trying to get every ounce of wear out of my girl clothes before having to eventually purchase a throng of tent-like contraptions to fit my expanding physique.  This is foreign territory.  All my life, I’ve been the one with no butt, narrow hips and a small chest - but no more!  Soon my husband will be able to hang a jacket on my rear, while I keep miscalculating doorways to wind up with bruised hipbones.  I am not exactly sure what a huge ass has to do with gestating a fetus, but whatever.  These are sacrifices a woman makes to become a mother, at least until she gives birth and hits the gym obsessively.

There is a whole breed of Moms who never seem to outwardly struggle with these things.  Everything about the process of becoming a mother is TABOO, especially the issue of pregnancy weight.  You can recognize these ladies by the way they are picked up and blown away every time a breeze kicks up, all due to trading prenatal vitamins for celery sticks and wheatgrass once the little one has been lifted out of their womb.  They step out of their Porche Cayenne, unsnap the infant car seat and walk away on their cell phone as the Guatemalan nanny takes over - who, by the way, hasn’t seen her own children in 10 months, but sends them every meager cent she is bestowed by the Anorexic Miss.  Think I’m exaggerating?  Last week, parking lot, Trader Joe’s.

There are other favorite taboos among this calculated breed of Breeders, such as ‘birth’ and ‘nursing’.  Nursing doesn’t usually happen with this crowd, because nursing mothers will normally hold onto those last 5-10 pounds as energy reserves.  And these mothers know it.  Bring on the formula, ladies!  Besides, nursing huuuuuuurts the poor dears, and they have done quite enough bringing their child into the difficult world without, god forbid, having to FEED it, too. 

These ladies like to get it in, get it cooked, and get it out - preferably during a c-section scheduled two weeks early, so as to avoid gaining those last couple of pesky pounds.  Don’t get me wrong; I am not against C-sections if they are necessary.  But not wanting to get sweaty, not wanting to retain a little more fluid, and, my favorite, just growing impatient while that selfish little fetus decides when it’s ready to come out - the nerve of that child! - don’t constitute “necessity” to me.  If it seems judgemental, it is.  That’s why it’s my blog, not yours.

My mother-in-law, before I recently tossed her to her own wolves, was trying to convince me that I simply MUST have a c-section.  Because that is what you do.  You whip out your calendar and decide when it’s convenient to thrust this child into the world, and dammit it’s going to obey you from the get-go.  When I scoffed at the idea, she amended her argument, saying that my “narrow hips” would necessitate a c-section then.  I explained to her that nature takes care of that, and was met with the best version of a raised eyebrow she can muster with all that Botox.  Nature is so barbaric!

Clearly, I need a nap.

You know the drill.  Don’t be shy.

Returning bird’s nest
spotted eggs on front porch beam
soon to be chirping

Some of my best memories come from my childhood home back East.  Knowing exactly where on this planet my pet parakeet is buried in a Maxwell House can provides me comfort in the wee hours when I have trouble sleeping.  I remember every hornet’s nest, every four leaf clover, every pile of leaves and could walk every inch of that house and acreage backwards, with my eyes closed.  There was a calm security I took for granted, which came from knowing that this was our place in the universe (even as it was inevitably shrinking).

I know a great many people who never had this experience.  Take my husband, for instance.  His childhood addresses read like a progress report on upward mobility.  He grew up on a smattering of Los Angeles properties that his parents acquired, leveled and rebuilt to be newer, bigger, better.  Several times he was wrested from the bedroom he’d come to know, and carted across The Valley to settle into the next dream home before trading up again in a few years.  It almost has the element of military brat, only with a maid and without the military.

If I was my husband back then, I would have sewn my addresses into my pants, because the thought of going “home” to so many different places is confusing.  I’m betting this is the reason why he has such a highly developed sense of direction.  Not me.  I still find myself driving toward my old apartment occasionally.  Just imagine if I were a kid without my current level of crystal-clear acuity!  I’m sure that I’d have been weary from an especially trying day in second grade, walked into somebody else’s kitchen and been halfway through a sandwich before I thought to ask anyone what the hell they’ve done with the fishbowl.  And the wallpaper.  And my mother.

I am normally not this overly sentimental, but I simply cannot help being enamored by the past lately.  Perhaps it has to do with having a little one on the way and the accompanying urge to provide a stable, cozy environment.  Perhaps it is the fact that my family is so far away, and the “family” I married into is too committed to tomfoolery to provide an adequate base of security or affection.  Or perhaps it has to do with the realization that I love my husband more each day and am dreamily envisioning the perfection of our unfolding life.  I’d like to take all those tasty bits of the past, touch up their corners and give them to what’s to come.

See, I can be nice.

Most mothers teach their children that if they’ve nothing nice to say, then saying nothing is preferable.  My own mother, however, taught me that if there is truth worth telling, to tell it. 

So Ima gonna tell, and youra gonna listen.  Here’s an open letter.

Dear Mother-in-Law With the Quintessential Chicken-Headed Haircut that for Some Reason You Paid For,

Next time you whine about not having a closer relationship, don’t preface it by saying that you “made a big mistake” by “agreeing” to our wedding.  I know this comes as a great shock to you, but we never asked for, nor required, your permission. 

Next time you hijack your son’s entire wedding and ruin any chance at a healthy relationship with your daughter-in-law, at least put up a fucking picture.  It’s called “follow-through.”  No time or space to hang a portrait, you say?  The wedding was eight months ago and you’ve got a 13,000 square foot mansion.  The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the photographic evidence of our marriage in no way means it did not happen. 

Next time your grown, married son lets you know he’s having a child, try to say something other than “Oy.” 

Next time you have a shot at therapy, for god’s sake TAKE IT.  While difficult, it’s not impossible to treat Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  There are medications, and if those don’t work, I will happily commit you for extensive treatment.

No, you are not merely a “Jewish mother” who simply “can’t help but be involved”, nor any number of benign, stereotypical caricatures with which you identify to make excuses for your inappropriate and infantile behavior.  Really, you’re just an asshole who has had her butt kissed for far too long.  The sooner you cop to it, the sooner I can let you out of this armbar.

Your comments about “the working-class” are anything but elegant.  This is the problem with the nouveau-riche.  You forget that your parents could not afford a bed, and that you and your husband lived in their basement until you were thirty.  Your elitism stems from self-loathing.  Your ostentatiousness is a desperate attempt to compensate.  Pull your head out of your ass.

The night you scolded your son in public for expressing an ambition not in line with your wishes, you failed to recognize that you were lecturing a grown man and his wife.  Plenty of other people did notice, however.  They stared, and it made even your diamonds look ugly.

Next time, try to save the remark, “Good boy!  You finished your plate!” for a four-year-old.

Next time your son attempts an adult conversation, try not to fly into a personal attack deliberately aimed at making him feel guilty and small.  Try not to become enraged at his adult communication or begin slinging veiled threats.  By the way, thank you very much for wishing us a happy life - we shall have one.  You, on the other hand, are quite unhappy and I feel sorry for your utter lack of joy, empathy, or ability to be accountable for your own fulfillment.

In Summary (take a note if you have to):

I. Personally. Have. Had. It.

He may be your son, but he is my husband, my lover, my best friend and the father of my child.  According to my calculations, I have you outnumbered by the sheer nature of my being.  There will be no further contact until you can act your age and show up with an honest apology and a little fucking respect.  Until then.

The Queen is dead; Long live the Queen!

If you could be summarized by a search engine term, what would it be? 

Those of you familiar with the WordPress Dashboard know about the statistics it keeps on our blog views, page sources, comments and external links.  My absolute favorite feature of the Dashboard is the little column where it gives up the phrases people have searched that have brought them to my little bewildered blog.

 It’s almost like voyeurism, and I almost feel guilty.  But that feeling quickly fades as I find myself alternately delighted, puzzled and put-off completely by the things people look for on the internet.

Here, for your reading pleasure, is a small sampling:

Haley’s Comet.  This is one of my favorites to see.  You’re led to this post, and I wonder if you’re a student with a paper to write or an amateur astronomer.  Railroad stories also fit into this category, which delighted me.

Poop.  Four people in one day searched poop and found me.  Golly, it doesn’t get much better than that!

F*ck my mother in law.  Woah.  I can picture this person hunched over their keyboard, hateful beads of sweat dripping from their brow, finally having had enough of the evil wench.  And then it occurs to me - what if this person actually wants to f*ck their mother in law?  I’m not even going to touch that one.

Search of a house wife who is not satisfied.  Get cozy; I have thoughts.  A) Who prefaces their internet searches with “search of”?  B) It’s 8 o’clock in the morning, mister.  Isn’t it a bit early for that?  C) I do not appreciate the stereotype of the dissatisfied housewife.  Really, do you think we’re all just sitting here, splayed naked on the couch, just waiting for your marginally endowed self to ravage us before the husband gets home?  Here’s a newsflash, buddy: it’s incredibly satisfying to be able to pursue my interests and nurture my homelife while being completely provided for.  If you’re seeking a dissatisfied woman, try looking in your kitchen, where your girlfriend is dropping cigarette ashes into your eggs while you surf the net for porn.  Get off of my page.

Housewife with body rings.  This guy spent 1.3 seconds here before hitting the Back button.

I know there are other bloggers who check in over here… who I love and adore… and I would be tickled to hear some of the terms that have popped up on YOUR pages…

True to form, another Sunday morning haiku.  Once again, you’re invited to write one, too!  Always remember: there is safety in numbers.

Change the subject now -
You-Know-Who exhausted me.
Free a different bird.

The Photographer:

I’ve seen plenty of wedding albums, and most I cannot tell between.  Stiff portraits, noses in bouquets, family shots, bride putting on makeup, yes yes.  What I wanted was something different; something with personality, artistry, character, movement.  I searched vigorously for names of photographers whose portfolios I liked and, as requested, submitted them to my mother-in-law.  One by one, she methodically crossed them off her master list; this one because she didn’t ‘get the right feeling’, that one because she didn’t like the sound of his email, another because he seemed (get this) to be available, and yet another because she literally did not like his hair.

Her end choice was a famous photography company that is often featured on bridal television for reasons I will never understand.  The photographer himself seemed to be high on methamphetamines, and was almost punched by my husband for not being able to keep his nose out of my neck, where he was supposedly admiring my perfume.  And the pictures?  Stiff portraits, noses in bouquets, family shots and a bride putting on makeup.

The Cocktail Hour:

My mother-in-law decided that she must throw a cocktail hour before the ceremony.  After considering for a while, my husband and I decided strongly against it.  We simply wanted a sober crowd for the vows, a little bit of reverence for a measly 20 minutes.  Then people could get as drunk as they wanted!  We explained this to her and she seemed to understand.  “Done,” she said.  We asked if she really got it.  “Of course!  Why would you have to ask me twice?”

Why, indeed.  Two weeks later, she phoned to ask what kind of wine we wanted served before the wedding.  The woman took advantage of my flabbergasted silence to express how it simply must - MUST - be done, no way around it.  I will not repeat the raging profanities traveling loudly from my mouth to her ear; I will say that the sweet, accomodating daughter-in-law everyone hoped for went away that day and is still on vacation.  She has stood a little further from me ever since. 

The Rehearsal Dinner:

Lamb.  That’s all I have to say. 

The Registry:

Six months of fielding phone calls from my husband’s mother, insisting we change our choice of knife set, luggage, linens and appliances to the brands of her liking.   Because nothing else will do, no?

The Wedding Cake:

Despite numerous reminders to keep the top layer of the cake for my husband and I, we arrived for brunch the day after the wedding to find that my in-laws had eaten it for an early breakfast.

I could continue, but fear the memories will make me homocidal.  There is one thing amid the crap that remains sacred, though.  I was such at wit’s end before the wedding that our officiant, a wonderful wonderful woman, made an amazing suggestion.  If we really wanted something special only for us - something that not even his mother could hijack - she would marry us a few days before the wedding date.  And that’s exactly what we did.  Three days prior to the public circus, we stood in front of our fireplace and exchanged rings and vows; my husband in his favorite dress shirt and me in a lily white minidress, all of us barefoot and determined to retain the real spirit of this thing. 

When we stood in the garden for the formal ceremony that weekend - with the blue flower arrangements, as the cover band was setting up, and in front of the two hundred guests who had already been drinking - there was nothing that could ruin my wedding.  We were already married. 

I still delight in that secret.

I find that some things are best expressed in 17 syllables.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last haiku, but I’m getting back on it.  Feel free to send your own in - we’ll have a haiku party.

Here is mine for the week:

Italian dishes,
mating like rabbits in sink.
How I tire of you.

Month Four of the engagement: 

We had really started butting heads on wedding details, so I distanced myself from my mother-in-law.  I needed space to do my calm breathing exercises.  I had grown tired of her endless “assistance”, constant reminders that I needed her along when I did hair and makeup trials or gown fittings.  I couldn’t possibly make the right choices on my own. 

One day, she finally invited me to lunch and I was out of excuses.  After the initial gossip and pleasantries, her face turned serious.  “I’ve wanted to talk to you about something,” she said.  “I feel as if I don’t see you enough.  You don’t call me enough, and it also makes me upset when you don’t respond to all of my emails.”

I immediately know she’s been to see a therapist.  Her ability to form reasonable statements on her own is never this good.  Astounded, I explained that a) I worked full time and b) I was sorry that I did not acknowledge every crappy joke, cute puppy picture or alarmist health warning she emailed throughout the week.  Yes, I would try harder, and how wonderful that she’s found a therapist she liked.

Unfortunately, her travails into self-awareness were short-lived.  Two weeks later, she said that she’d just had her last session with the therapist.  When asked why she stopped, she replied with a satisfied shrug, ”I have nothing more to talk about!”  She meant it.  She was fixed!  And she smiled into her soup.

I felt a kick underneath the table.  It was my husband’s foot.  It was saying, “are you getting this?”  This is precisely the reason that we sit next to, rather than across from, each other at dinner: so that our feet can talk in code when our mouths are bound by manners.  We spent the whole drive home parroting his mother, alternately laughing and being terrified that she actually believed herself.

Knowing that she was no longer retaining anyone who would tell her the truth was depressing, to say the least.  There are few things worse than a narcissistic personality who has ditched her therapist.  Two things that come to mind are the atomic bomb and abusing small animals, but that’s all I can come up with.

Coming up…

You’re going to get somebody else to do your makeup, right?

and

You know you can still back out.

Fiery bouquets.  Peaches, mangos, creams and reds.  Two o’clock ceremony in the garden.  Handmade placecards.  Jazz band.  Cellist.

And then I woke up.

I think the biggest mistake made with my wedding was accepting the offer to hold it my in-laws’ estate.  I thought naively, who wouldn’t want to get married on the sprawling, manicured acreage with a Tuscan mansion in the background and black swans in the lake?  Anyone in their right mind, that’s who.  Oh Elvis, I apologize for my stupidity; I truly do.

Deciding on a home wedding put the ball in my mother-in-law’s court - her tennis court, to be exact, where the reception would be held.  As we hiked down the lawn toward the court in the initial stages of planning, I described to her my color-scheme, flowers, and how I’d seen the perfect bridesmaid dresses to fit right in.  She said nothing, until we arrived at the tennis court.  With a sweep of her arm, she said, “But look at the morninglory.  It’s everywhere, and it’s blue.”

Okay.  So?

“Well the colors that you want are not going to match the morninglory.  But it’s your wedding, you can have your colors clash if you like…”  This is the way she usually framed her distaste, beneath thinly veiled insults that implied that I knew nothing.  A small sampling of my favorites were Well, it’s not what I would choose… and Trust me, I know what works… and Really?  You would do that?  Oh.

She went on to remind me that alllllllll the brides this season were doing baby blue, which coincidentally would go PERFECTLY with her morninglory, and didn’t I think that would be FABULOUS?  Now, I like blue - in things like sky and water.  But in a wedding?  So drab and tame and… oh, yes, wealthy Jew.  Should be perfect!  I retreated back to square one, solemnly removing every Post-It from my wishes and turning my magazines back to the table of contents.

Little by little, all of my wishes for my wedding were subverted.  The 2 o’clock garden ceremony became 5 o’clock, the cellist became a harpist, the roses became blue hydrangeas.  The jazz quartet became an obnoxious cover band the in-laws enjoyed, and the bride became increasingly and at regular intervals, aware that she was not the reason for the festivities, but rather a convenient excuse.

Like little girls often do, I always pictured my wedding as a fairytale event, replete with pink roses, sparkly lights, garden butterflies and the intimate, homegrown touch of having planned and executed every tiny, beautiful detail myself.

Then I met my mother-in-law, and that dream was shattered.  Hijacked is a better word.  Kidnapped and smuggled onto a train heading for a collapsed mine shaft, perhaps.  The sixth months of my engagement were made of a series of rude awakenings, sleepless nights and astonished silences as I watched what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life become a pageant of ostentatious crap - to which my opinions meant nothing.

It’s seven months later, and I’m still sore.  Here, as threatened, and in sections, is The Wedding. 

Two weeks into the engagement:

My mother-in-law is obsessed with my ring.  I am too, of course, as it is huge, it is beautiful and most of all, it is MINE.  One evening, we arrive to play a little Mexican Train.  The woman cannot take her eyes off the diamond, and numerous times puts down her dice to lick her fingers, grab my hand and wipe from the ring a speck of dust.  Charming.  I suppose she thinks that since we are going to be family, I should be comfortable with her saliva.

Later that evening she decided that the diamond sat too high on its perch.  She demanded to take it to the jeweler from whence it came, to have it snuggled deeper into its prongs.  I strenously objected to the folly.  What kind of mother-in-law-to-be takes a woman’s ring and has it reset to her own liking?  I mean, really.

My mother-in-law-to-be, that’s who.  I cried, yelled and pleaded with this woman to leave my ring alone, but she scoffed at my wishes.  What could I, a humble Gentile who actually worked for a living, possibly know about diamonds?  This is when I became intimately familiar with the phrase, “You trust me, don’t you?”  Exhausted, I said yes, unwittingly opening the Pandora’s Box of her manipulative glee. 

Two months into the engagement:

I decide that it’s time to hunt for dresses.  Nicole Miller designs some fabulously simple and beautiful wedding dresses, and my mother-in-law volunteers to pack our overnight bags into her miniscule trunk and zip us down to Sunset to do some shopping.  I try on a parade of gorgeous frocks, each one critiqued with disfavor.  Eventually, my mother-in-law grows tired of criticizing the dresses and decides to instead criticize me.  Falling from her loving lips that day:

You have the body of a little boy. 

and its second cousin,

I happen to like the flat look.

Near tears, I throw in the towel and we decide to go for dinner before checking into the hotel for the night.  Dinner is even more pleasant, if you find stupidity at all interesting.  By the end of the evening, I know far more than necessary about useless things, like my fiancee’s ex-girlfriends.  I also know how my mother-in-law enjoys calling her other daughter-in-law by the name of Fat Pig, and also that she told her son to not get involved with me.

She must have mistaken me for an idiot’s confessional.  The full dysfunctional reality of Jewish Motherhood reveals itself, and for a second I consider running.  But I don’t run.  I am so looking forward to a lifetime with this woman. 

Three months into the engagement:

Ah, the bridal shower.  Such fond memories.  Read Hello, My Name Is… below for all the dirt.

Stay tuned for the next installment: angry emails, color schemes and… the photographer!

Being with my family is like a course in opposites.  It causes one to glance from face to face, wondering exactly how many milkmen managed to frequent our neighborhood in the late 1970s.  Nobody looks like anybody else even remotely, including my twin sister and myself.  My twin is the beautiful petite actress, and I am her Amazonian counterpart. My older sister and I CERTAINLY bear no resemblance to each other; she most resembles a tiny German widow from the Hinterland.  Who knows how our genes decided to be distributed?  For longer than I can possibly recall, I have wondered aloud, Whose nose IS this, anyway?  For years I was convinced I was the wayward spawn of exotic royalty, and thereby entitled to a kingdom all my own, until I saw a picture of my grandfather and suddenly realized that my knees were, indeed, related to my family by blood.  Dammit.

There were surrogate additions to our oddly shaped family.  Chief among them were Eddie and Myrtle, the elderly couple who lived on the property next to ours.  They had no children and no substantial family left, so we all seemed to adopt each other.  My father mowed their lawn, we had their house keys and they had ours, my sisters and I raided their apple trees and they came over for dinners and to play cards with my parents - always keeping tabs on our schoolwork and athletics.  It made perfect sense when they became our god-parents, but they were actually far more like Grandparents to us than any other living people. 

Eddie and Myrtle Haley had always been old in my book.  When my sisters and I were born, I believe they were already well into their late sixties and naturally, they just kept getting older.  It was unusual that they never had children, but this was also part of their charm.  Myrtle especially, even at an advanced age, maintained an innocent girlishness that had never been tempered by the trials of motherhood.  Her heart was consistently melty and soft.  Eddie was a long, lanky old man with earlobes that reached down to his knees.  His spirit was likewise never hardened by the cold slap of fatherhood - he did feign impatience with our antics occasionally, but he always allowed us to detect the hint of a smile beneath his disdain.  The man was chronically amused. 

Eddie was a relic from the Depression era.  His was an entirely different way of looking at the world, a completely different way of being.  He worked for the railroad from the time he was 15 years old until the day he retired.  His parents came to the country amid a sweep of Irish immigrants, who apparently were not favored by the groups of Italians who had also just spoken their names at Ellis Island.  His friends were kids just like him: impoverished, playing baseball, fist-fighting the Guineas, eating rationed butter.

When I was a kid we would while away the summer hours sipping cool drinks in Eddie and Myrtle’s sunroom.  The screens served as shelter from bees and allowed just enough breeze in to cool our sweat from just sitting.  Our legs would stick to the worn vinyl chairs, leaving hideous floral patterns for a few hours, but we didn’t care.  We were there for the stories.  Eddie’s stories would come on those hot Jersey afternoons, when I wish I had been smart enough to get my tape recorder.  I always knew when he was going to open his mouth.  It was usually after we had finished a few games of checkers, or had spent an hour in the spare room listening to his ancient CB radio for the sleepy crimes about town.  Myrtle would give us each a glass of lemonade and a magazine to fan ourselves with as we gazed out onto the acreage, silent for a while. 

And then it would come like a dream; a smell, or a thought, or a sound would trigger his voice and he would begin speaking aloud from the middle of a memory, as if it he’d gone nowhere or done nothing else since it happened.  Railroad stories, boyhood stories, neighborhood stories or, if he was feeling slighty acidic that day, stories about the Great Depression.

Myrtle was often his faithful accomplice.  He told me about their courtship and how they married when she was 18 years of age and he was 21.  My sister has an old photograph of a very young-looking Myrtle hanging above her bed, and it’s clear why Eddie was relentlessly in love.  They remained in love for longer than a lot of people are alive these days, and when Eddie finally kicked the bucket at age 93, Myrtle was holding his hand.

There are few things as difficult as losing a husband, and I saw that experience through Myrtle.  The entire year that Eddie was gone was marked by her decline.  Paranoia and what I can only imagine to be a vast loneliness set into her life with the dustballs.  The day before her 90th birthday, she called me in California to say thank you for the little pink rose quartz heart I mailed to her.  I listened to her message over and over and considered her sweetness - she ended her call by saying, “I love you, Myrtle…”, as if she was signing off a letter.

And she was - my mother found her body three days later, after noticing a couple days’ worth of newspapers piling up on the porch.  In a great show of compassion from the forces that be, Myrtle passed away in her sleep and was discovered laying on her side, on what remained “her” side of the bed, a tiny rose quartz heart on the table beside.

I am sorry to say that as I grew older into my teens, I cut short my visits and stupidly grew tired of Myrtle’s kindness and Eddie’s stories.  I wanted a cigarette and independence, not morals and history.  It’s been a long time since I’ve dreamed of them, but I revisited their memory when my husband and I were back in New Jersey for a visit.  Somebody else owns their house now, but each time I return, I am still tempted to walk in the back door and open the drawer where they kept the saltines. 

Once my parents soon retire to warmer climes and greener pastures, packing up house, home and history in search of a different coastline, the Haleys will be one of the harder things to leave behind.  I’ve taken with me the sideways memory of Haley’s Comet from when I was young and my father woke me up at 3am to watch what we then joked was Eddie and Myrtle’s home planet appear on the horizon line.  There are other pieces of them that of course I’ve brought with me, but the rest is a streak of light that blazed, and then faded, against a dark sky.  You only see a show like that once a lifetime.

All of the animals are ill today, and it’s got me upset.  Pablo the bodhisattva cat has a cold, and his sneezes are the most heartbreaking thing.  How is he supposed to save the world like this?  Tigger the gentleman kitty has been leaving very un-gentlemanly deposits in the litter box but still remains polite about it, announcing immediately that clean-up is needed in aisle 5.  It’s already too late by then to spare our noses, but we appreciate the effort.

Mischa the dog has it the worst of all.  His right ear hurts and is presenting in a sad droop that makes his otherwise perfectly symmetrical lion’s mane appear lopsided.  He is even ignoring his Teddy, which normally provides for hours of bearish fun.  I catch a view of this depressing scene each time I walk past the bedroom, where he has taken to moping since I informed him of our collective visit to the vet clinic later in the day.  Maybe he thinks his depression will change my mind about taking him in, and I have to admit that I am tempted.  Mischa has the uncanny ability to wear his heart on one furry little sleeve and could probably bring about peace between Palestine and Israel just by sitting there, looking worried.

Although every logical cell in my brain implores me not to, I am going to herd these three sickos into my car this afternoon and hope that World War III does not erupt while I’m driving.  None of them are particularly good drivers, so I am counting on them to remain strapped into their passenger seats, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.  It has all the makings of a bad joke.  So an explosive cat, a bodhisattva and a Chow walk into a car… 

I’ll give you the punchline just as soon I find out what it is.

The life of a writer brings with it some reasonable degree of danger - that of being pummeled to death by our subjects.  It isn’t as romantic as running from the CIA, but I do spend some time looking over my shoulder or peering through the blinds, where I half expect to see an angry mob of well-dressed wives descending upon my lawn. 

This mob is, of course, led by my mother-in-law.  She times their advance and, in groups of five or six, the women take turns trying to break down my door with the heels of their Manolo Blahniks.  Obviously this takes a while, so I pour a cup of tea and watch from the sofa as they each chip a nail and quit in favor of lunch.

I have become increasingly aware of my mother-in-law’s lack of appreciation for me.  It’s not easy being the wretch who is ruining her son’s life, and I’d like a little respect.  I spent years perfecting the art of wrestling sons from their mothers, after all.  While other 12-year-olds were listening to Bon Jovi I was studying mortuary science, and one day someone will excavate my parents’ lawn to find a heap of dismembered Ken parts.  As if it isn’t work to saw off all those limbs. 

Occasionally my mother-in-law forgets about these skills and challenges me to spar.  When she realizes that her Blinding Golden Earring stance is no match for me, she goes into another style of fighting altogether.  It’s called Food Warfare.  She introduced me to this art the night of my rehearsal dinner where she, well aware of my distinct dislike of lamb, served it and its disgusting green jelly counterpart to our guests.  I foolishly thought this choice odd, but benign.  Only months later did it occur to me that I’d been played for the first time.  The second time was Thanksgiving Dinner (read Vices and Spice Part Deux below), but by this point I began to get wise.  My husband and I began making reservations for the meals shared with his parents, where no yams could be laced with either distrust or heavy cream.  We even stepped up our offense, bringing wine to each dinner because when tipsy, his mother’s aim is far less true.

But I must concede to her this third, and final, victory.

My husband and I dined with the in-laws last night, and she brought along a batch of homemade cupcakes.  My mother-in-law fancies herself quite the baker; I maintain that she is a far better shopper and wish she would use those skills to purchase her baked goods rather than make them.  But this was a special occasion and so, in the spirit of kindness, we politely ooed and ahhed at the… what was that… icing? 

I generally avoid eating things that cannot be readily identified, especially if these things have a sequined skin that is usually reserved for lizards and various insects.  But as a show of good faith, I dug in.  Whatever it was left a greasy slick on my tongue that tasted vaguely of petroleum and lingered far into the evening, despite my attempts to douse it with an array of vodka and menthol lozenges. 

No, the cupcakes were not sitting right.  By the time my husband and I made it into bed, I had spent ample time in the bathroom and was beginning to feel nauseous.  I reiterate that there is something about my mother-in-law’s cooking that my body just does not like.  Perhaps it is the dash of resentment folded into each bite; or perhaps the amount of plastic surgery the woman has had somehow seeps through her fingers as she cooks, magically bestowing even the most whole, live foods with the shelf life of a twinkie.

Whatever the great, bilious mystery, I applaud her efforts to debilitate me.  This is the most calculating she’s done since reducing a recipe by two-thirds.  I am sure she is clapping her hands with glee this morning.  Certain that I am well incapacitated behind the walls of my home, she phones her friends and rallies the mob into action, instructing them to circle the Mercedes around the block, stilletos in hand, waiting to pounce.

The water’s in the tea kettle, ladies.  I’ll be waiting.