Run, Isla, Run

Having a mother-in-law is a stark reality I have come to accept.  On bad days, it’s like a terminal reality, but on good days I am almost able to see the bigger picture.  Difficult as she may be, she ties me to the billions of other women who, after muttering the words “I Do”, involuntarily witnessed a similar ball of flames volleyed onto to their courts.

One of the women to whom this dubious honor links me is the actress Isla Fisher, Sacha Baron Cohen’s betrothed.  In case you have been living under a rug in the Sahara Desert, Cohen is the comic (?) behind the hilariously horrifying movie Borat and The Ali G Show.  All seven-foot-eight-inches of him can be found carting around the USA and Europe, making asses out of unsuspecting victims.  Cohen recently fathered a child with Fisher, and they are engaged to be married – but only AFTER she converts to his religion.

Apparently, Cohen comes from an Orthodox Jewish family.  (I am not sure where the Torah prescribes staging homo-erotic cage matches, but whatever.  I’ve also been trying to figure out where Orthodox philosophy condones not only dating a non-Jew, but knocking her up out of wedlock.  That’s three no-no’s in one short sentence!)  

Don’t get me wrong, being religious is fine; what frightens me about this story are the accounts of Cohen’s MOTHER.  She seems to be dissatisfied that Fisher has returned to work making movies “so soon” after having her grandchild, when she had expected Fisher to stay home and spend her time making borscht with the extended family.  She is also very upset that Fisher seems to be taking longer than desired to convert to Judaism – which means that the summer wedding she was planning on throwing her precious son and his hussy bride must be delayed.  (Oh, this is bringing back my own memories!)  The atmosphere between Fisher and Cohen’s mother has evidently become so hostile that Cohen himself is mediating relations. 

My, what a good little boy he is!  Throwing the mother of his child into the controlling clutches of his family.  What a guy.

Since reading about this drama, I have actually developed a shred of gratitude for my own in-laws.  While they have insisted, like children, that I call more/look pretty/obey/quit ruining their son’s life, they would never demand that I convert.  They aren’t Jewish enough for that.  They are what you call Deli Jews:  Jewish enough to faint over good Rugulah and drink Diet Coke with everything, but not enough to go to temple.  Jewish enough to dub a shiksa anyone not wearing Cartier, but not enough to light a menorah.  Jewish enough to Oy with gusto, but not enough to demand that I Oy along with them (although this is admittedly my favorite part).

And thank the great pagan gods for that.  It has been a point of brief contention with my husband, but it isn’t a big deal.  He mentions converting every several months, and I promptly shoot it down.  Other than not subscribing to the concept of organized religion, my reason for not doing so is simple:  If reciting a few words and going through hand motions can magically “make me into” something else, I’d much rather spend that energy becoming tall, blonde and independently wealthy. 

Perhaps, though, Isla really feels it.  Perhaps she has been so moved by her love of Cohen, and by the history and ritual she’s witnessed thus far, that she is willing to walk into her mother-in-law’s den and risk suffocation and identity-snatching for love.  Maybe there really is a part of her that seeks the mothering presence of manipulation and control in order to make sense of the universe.

Me?  I’d tell her to run, Isla, RUN.  Just as far as your unholy shoes will take you.

It’s Official

Although I’ve been broadcasting the news for months, it seems to be dawning on us just now that I am, indeed, pregnant.  Gone are the days of sucking in my stomach.  Expelled from my closet are the the skinny jeans.  Evicted from the mirror is the smooth, lithe torso, and in its place a lumbering 30-something has moved in with her dizzying array of leg cramps, stretch marks and very round luggage.

Until these oddly-shaped harbingers arrived, my pregnancy was more about pseudo-interesting commentary, such as would be tossed out over tea with the girls, like “Robert and I are vacationing out by the pool in July,”  or “we’ve just remodeled the kitchen,” or “wasn’t that pie fantastic.”  Then the table is cleared and we all go on with our respective lives.  Not so now – this IS my life.

In an effort to accentuate the positive as much as possible, I’ve decided to compile an ongoing list of the benefits of pregnancy:

Husband smashes all the spiders.

Husband takes out trash.

Husband deals with litter box.

Ice Cream.

A free ticket out of dinners with people I don’t want to have dinner with.

Cupcakes! But not those.

Everyone asks how I feel all the time, and I get to tell the truth. 

Pregnancy glow and fingernails strong enough to slice a rare steak.

People are generally nicer, which I’ll take any day.

C L E A V A G E!

A (legitimate, finally) excuse to act crazy and clean out all of the closets in the house.

What are/have been YOUR favorite parts of being pregnant?  Stay tuned as the list grows…

 

In Defense of Housewifery II – a note to commentors

A great many responses to my previous post were from very angry women.  Most of them perceived that I was comparing the merits of being a housewife with the merits of being a mother/working mother/stay at home mother, etc.

What is most bewildering to Bewildered Housewife is that nowhere in my missive did I mention any comparisons.  Nowhere did I breathe a word about the worth of working mothers.  Where, exactly, did I imply anything at all about mothers, working or not, and where, exactly, were workloads compared?  Please peruse the first seven paragraphs for reference. 

Oh, you mean the pizza and cocktails comment has our panties in a bunch?  Tsk.  That was an observation of another couple we know, and what they do nearly every night.  In fact, spending time with them recently and seeing that pattern while fielding questions all night about what I “do” spurred the writing of my post.  I’m sorry if that hit a sore spot for you.  These are the perils of writing, my friends.  We are bound to see ourselves in someone’s material at some point, and it’s our decision to take it personally or not.    

As a final word on the matter (because it is my blog, after all) at no place and at no point is it my job as a writer to:

A) Justify my material

B) Be belittled by a reader’s projections

C) Post abusive commentary

D) Change a single word

On a side note, I was raised by a working mother who has been, and continues to be, the most amazing example of Woman I have ever known.  It is simply bizarre that so many perceive a Defense of Housewifery to be, by its nature, equal to an attack on working motherhood.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is the projections that have created a polarity, filling in blanks that are not even there.  One woman’s choice for her own life has nothing at all to do with another woman’s choice for hers.  And yet clearly, so many take it personally, as if Limited Good were in effect.  It’s an incongruency that needs some attention – and one that won’t be resolved until dialogue takes place that can be raised above the adolescent level of name-calling and multiple exclamation points.  

At any rate, I am done with this topic for now.  In Defense of Housewifery was written as a response to an occurence in my life, not as a means to unwind the tangled web of an entire society’s views of femininity and worth.  Onward.

In Defense of Housewifery

As is customary among most American adults, I am often asked what I do for a living.  Whereas I used to dazzle my audience with my resume from the past ten years, I now give a different answer.  Depending on my syllabic mood, I say that I am either a homemaker or a housewife.  In a few short months from now, I’ll have my job title distilled down to one succinct word: MOM.

And then I wait for the inevitable reaction:  First, eyebrows raise in surprise.  Close on those heels comes the usual, slightly passive-aggressive platitude, “Well, THAT must be nice.”  I tell them that no, sitting around eating bon-bons all day must be nice.  What I do actually keeps me busy and on my toes. 

“So, what DO you do all day?” they ask.  What, you mean besides being secretary, accountant, nurse, therapist, housekeeper, laundress, nutritionist, personal shopper, event planner, decorator, executive chef, and, oh yeah, pregnant?  Why, I just sit around eating bon-bons all day.

What is odd is that it never occurs to me to ask what other professionals do all day long.  It’s a question that makes its way specifically toward housewives and other similar women.  Its asking is intended to marginilize us, as if no task we carry out could possibly be as important or necessary as the things that other working people do.  For reasons I have yet to understand, divulging this information makes us a fair target for others’ judgements, as if as stay-home women we become property, kept or child-like, and need to justify our actions and motives even to strangers.

Important to note is that not everyone holds judgment or demands explanation.  I do encounter people - granted, not often - who don’t bat an eyelash, but rather greet my response with a satisfied nod.  It’s no strange coincidence that these are all people who have set their own lives up in such a way as to be doing the things that they love.  Some of it might pass as “official business”, but all of it qualifies as passion.  I have come to imagine that the people who have conciously created their realities don’t find the concept offensive.  It takes a fulfilled person to understand fulfillment.  This is because a satisfied person has had to first embrace the possibility of an authentic existence in order to create it.  A happy person has the capacity to be happy for others.  On the contrary, a dissatisfied person has a compromised ability to imagine satisaction, let alone to be pleased with someone else’s version of it.  To them, satisfaction is always somehow partnered with guilt (guilt for seeking satisfaction, guilt for not seeking it), and it’s a happy housewife’s funny fate to often be an object of that projection.  In reality, my being a housewife (and soon to be stay at home mom) is not a problem – it’s actually YOUR problem.

Is this all to say that I have no desire or drive to do or be anything else?  Of course not.  Am I able to hold a provocative, informed conversation on a myriad of current, cultural and/or academic topics?  Sure am.  Will I continue my education once the babies are a few years old?  You bet I will.  Will I fufill my other dreams of teaching college, writing books, and contributing positively to my larger environment?  There is not a doubt in my mind.

But will I allow my desires for the future to undermine the importance or joy of the commitment I have made to my home and family in the present time?  Absofreakinglutely not.  And I won’t let you do that, either.

In short, I don’t cluck my tongue at you for chopping your hair off and schlepping for a boss so that you can share bitter cocktails at 5pm and order a pizza for your child after daycare.  You’ve made your choice.

This one’s mine.

 

Oy. Just Oy.

Well, THAT didn’t last very long. 

Narcissists apparently suffer from amnesia quite frequently.  Every point made in the recent blowout between me and my mother-in-law has vanished into thin air, every last bit of lightning-sharp anger has been dutifully swept away like a broom to her size 5 footprints.  It has been nary three weeks since, and the woman has already reverted to her old ways. 

This is the problem with resting on one’s laurels; they bio-degrade entirely too fast.  I am foolishly disappointed, but I am not surprised.  I feel like a superhero who had been flying along famously until she looked down, at which point her cape deflates and she tumbles past skyscrapers to the city floor.  I thought for sure my venom had more staying power, but will dust myself off and take it as a lesson to further hone my fury.

Father’s Day is quickly approaching (and I’ve got ideas about the origins of that day, too.  It was most likely created by the same woman who dreamed up Mother’s Day, in order to a. have another reason to guilt her children in both May and June, because we all know there is little guilt to be found in August and b. have a way of gauging which parent is favored, by who got the better gifts). 

This means that another Royal Family Craptacular is on the horizon.  It’s brunch at the castle this time, which is bad because it will no doubt entail my mother-in-law’s cooking, but good because of the close proximity to my pick of ten private bathrooms in which to vomit. 

I shall wear my best tiara.

 

This Just In – My MIL is an OBSTETRICIAN!

There is a baby boom happening here on the West Coast of the United States.  The wealthy Jewish daughters of my mother-in-law’s friends in particular are popping out children at breakneck speeds, destined to be weaned from supple breasts straight into Juicy Couture.

My mother-in-law delights in these children (which on most days, I find odd, given that I am halfway through my pregnancy and she still hasn’t told a single soul).  She takes every occasion we see each other as an opportunity to describe each of their births in detail.  Fortunately, these stories are never very long; most last about two sentences and invariably include the words “scheduled”, “induced” and/or “voluntary c-section”.  But there is an art to my mother-in-law’s storytelling.  Her labor tales are always related with a soft tilt of the head, the last syllable drawn out long, and the whole thing colored by a tone of voice usually reserved for explaining something incredibly complex to a five-year-old, such as “That big bad tiger wouldn’t be nice to people, so that’s why we keep him in a zooooooo,” or “People are putting money in that man’s cup because he has no place to liiiiiiiive“.

Once my mother-in-law burps up the initial news and the method of birth, she narrows her eyes and pauses to look me over for a moment.  Now comes the head-tilt.  I watch in slow motion as she opens her mouth.  Here is where she inserts her expert medical opinions, apparently earned during her lengthy residencies at Saks and Nordstrom. 

She opted for surgery because:
(choose all that apply)

She’s just such a tiny girl.

Her hips were far too narrow for a natural birth (for the eightieth time).

She was just so exhausted, she couldn’t bear to be pregnant anymore.

and my favorite, which rolls the soothing voice, the narrowed eyes, and a slow head nod all into one bundle of condescending bliss:

It’s just what people today dooooooooo.

I follow along with all the rapt attention of a giraffe on qualudes.  Who knew that a woman oblivious to the dangers of injecting botulism into her face could be so knowledgeable about labor and delivery?  And here I was making monthly appointments with amateurs.  Boy, am I naive!  Hopefully she will break through the line of security officers instructed specifically to keep her out of my delivery room, and show us all how it’s really done.  But that will only be if I am very, very lucky… but then, I AM her daughter-in-law. 

If that doesn’t make me lucky, I don’t know what does.

 

The Healing Power of Anger

I am the type of woman whose throat physically hurts if there is something I wish to say, but don’t.  When I am not just merely miffed but genuinely angry, I pace, fragile things spontaneously break with the slightest graze of my fingertips, and the top of my head tingles as my hair literally stands on end.  I become an impossible, immovable force and when I have finally had enough, you will know it.  I ought to wear a sign across my chest that says, Do Not Reach Inside the Animal’s Cage, or Don’t Fuck With the Mama Tiger.

Cut to early this weekend.  Telephone.  Living room.  Mother-in-law.  Pregnant woman who had not yet eaten breakfast.  You see where this is going…  I shall not re-enact the torrent of fury unleashed that morning, but I think its quake may have postponed the Big One in Los Angeles for at least another few years.

Confused, silenced and stunned, I do believe my mother-in-law is now beginning to understand how serious this Mama Tiger really is.  So a bit of advice to all the accomodating and polite ones out there, sweetly operating under the pretense that whatever must be said can be communicated kindly:

“Kind” only works if the party you are dealing with is SANE.  Don’t squeeze another compromised moment’s worth of sweetness from your body.  Pounce.  Hard.  Show your fangs and watch the unheard points you’d been offering with honey for a year suddenly received in an instant.

And sleep like a baby.

 

The Prego Chronicles

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…

 

Mother’s Day Countdown – The Revolution!

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.

 

Mother’s Day Countdown – The Origins

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!

The Road to Abilene

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.

Despot Housewives

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.

 

 

East vs. West

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.

 

The Bitch is Back

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!

Fun with Search Engines

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…

The Wedding Ch. 4 – Odds and Ends

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.

Sunday Haiku Series

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.

The Wedding Ch. 3 – Therapy

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.

The Wedding Ch. 2 – Colors

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.

The Wedding Ch. 1 – The first three months

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!