Pukers and nose jobs and beer, oh my!

I’m finally sober.

I think.

I’m betting that the two people who puked aren’t. Maybe the girl who threw up at 8:30 p.m. Probably not the girl who was down on all fours in front of the toilet at 11.

I want to personally thank them for making my 15th high school reunion last night so memorable. There’s nothing quite like seeing one of the popular girls—one who looks like she does Pantene/ Crest White Strips / pilates commercials—hugging the bowl in her designer jeans as her friend brings her a puke bucket. I wish I hadn’t seen her wiping up her own mess and apologizing for being in the way. It kind of made her likeable.

Kind of.

The other puker? She sent out an email this morning saying how sorry she was for ruining everyone’s reunion. I wanted to write back, Oh honey, you enhanced it. Someone beat me to it.

Our class president had traded her striped tights and hot pink hair tips for a sunny disposition, a cardigan and jeans. She thoughtfully made name tags using our senior year yearbook picture. I actually had forgotten what mine looked like because many of my wonderful friends wrote “pearl necklace” all over it, to the point where my face was buried under ink. (That wasn’t my nickname gutter dwellers, I made the unfortunate mistake of wearing pearls that day and having an uncanny number of perverts for friends.)

Eric Rothbaum did not keep his sexy blonde curls; he was sporting a shaved head. And a gut. The boy I first kissed in eighth grade was also bald. I didn’t get close enough to his mouth to tell whether his nickname “wet sock” was still appropriate (as far as first kisses go, I so deserve a refund). His wife had too much to drink and started a fight with his best friend. Why do people bring their spouses to these events? The bar looked like a doctor’s waiting room: all those men, bored as hell, yawning as their wives reminisced about their favorite cheerleading poses.

(For the record, I was not a cheerleader. High school is tough enough without getting mooed at at football games. Besides, I was too busy shotgunning Golden Anniversary beers behind the band entrance before us marching band folk took to the field. Come on, you think I’m hot, don’t you?)

The food at the reunion looked wonderful but overdrinking and not eating worked so well for me at my wedding reception, I thought I’d give it another whirl. Apparently a lot of other people did that too because conversations morphed from polite inquiries—“Tell me more about your advanced accounting degree”—to loud postulations and pointing: “That wasn’t a deviated septum! That was a fucking nose job. And she’s still fat and ugly!”

Yes, things started to feel so familiar, I almost forgot 15 years had gone by. Until it was time to leave and a group of people said they were going to the casino—the one right next door to Mulletville.

Rip!

I’ve grown so accustomed to Mulletville being my unmagical kingdom I actually forgot that people come here on purpose. People from the outside world. People who knew the former me but don’t know Junior or Chuck or My Grown Up Life. When my brain tried to meld the two it exploded. Again.

Thankfully the puke bucket was still handy.

P.S. I rocked the Dutch Boy. Oooohh yeeeahhh.

It all makes sense...

Of course! The urge to blog about the cool moms at the estrogen fountain? The dream last night that my friends went to lunch and no one stayed behind to wait for me? The ruffled bloomers outfit I was wearing as I stood at the cafeteria entrance?

It can only be one thing. HSRS...High School Reunion Syndrome.

I can't fricken believe it.

Self, repeat after me: You are being ridiculous.

I wish I could offer you something more memorable, like a recap of our Martha Stewart Thanksgiving, but it involved an abscessed tooth (my brother's; his face swelled to the size of a basketball) and a friend's sheltie that tried to hump Junior every time he sat down. Oh, and my former prison guard uncle who showed up in his clown outfit.

No one knew he was a clown. I've never eaten turkey with a clown. Or had a clown take a nap on my couch.

I hope you had a great holiday. And I can't believe Aunt Burty came back as a sheltie. It's nice to know that in the afterlife she's still, you know, feisty.

Could've been so beautiful...could've been so right...

I brought Junior to the park this morning because I took the day off and it was 45 degrees out, which felt like 80 after the cold spell we had last week.

The park in Mulletville is a nice enough place. There are some swings and a duck-laden pond. The local high school track team practices there so sometimes we get to watch skinny, out-of-breath pimpleheads run by (Where’s Waldo? always seem to come to mind).

There’s also a fountain by which moms congregate.

I don’t like the fountain. There’s something intimidating about moms who clump together and pass around Cheerios. For a group that’s supposed to be so nurturing and supportive (I’m grossly generalizing here), they can be downright snarky. They size you up, size your kid up, whisper, etc. It’s enough to make you feel like you’re back in your fifth grade cafeteria.

Needless to say, I’m not an infiltrator; I’m more of a fringe hanger.

I’m also a heckler. As Junior and I made our way to the path so we could avoid the bustling matriarchal fountain, we passed a chain of four moms doing lunges and Mountain Poses as they pushed their strollers. Ick. Blech. Stroller yoga? I don’t want to watch anyone’s spandex creep up her ass as she reaches for the rising sun. Don’t pretend you live in California; accept the fact that you live in a gray, barren state and do your muscle communing indoors.

So back we headed to the fountain.

And that’s when I saw her. Pale skin. Long, black hair. No rat tail. Fit, but not neurotically so. Standing away from the crowd, watching the ducks with her toddler son. Quiet or anti-social? It was hard to tell. The sunbeams reflecting off the fecal-encrusted pond caught her earrings and I thought Would you be miiiine? Could you be miiiiine? Won’t you be…my neighbor?

Ever notice how trying to befriend a fellow mom can feel like you’re picking someone up at a bar? I mean, you both have kids but so what? You both have arms and yet you don’t go out in public and strike up conversations about that.

“Hi, I, uh, noticed you also have a limb with a hand attached to it. How’s that, uh, going for you?”

Nonetheless, she had a smokin’ rack so I pushed Junior’s stroller closer. Junior, in his social vomiting way, yelled, “Hiyeah. Moon. Uh-oh. Illy. Dada. Hiyeah. Mama. Happy. Nose. Juice. Eye. Oh no. Hiyeah.”

Her son, who was sitting on the ground eating Cheetohs straight from the bag, gave me a blank look. That should have been my first clue, but the woman kind of nodded, so I did that thing where you wear a perma-smile so as to convey the fact that you’re sunny, approachable, sketchy. She smiled back.

Bingo!

“The ducks look cold,” I offered.

Idiot! A) It was practically warm out and b) how about, “Hi, my name is Mrs. Mullet and we both have kids so why don’t we talk about the one thing we have in common in that sardonic, fatigued way moms do?”

I can’t understand why the mothers at the park aren’t begging me to join their elite Cheerio circles.

She snickered and picked up her kid. “If I was a duck, I’d only fly back to Connecticut to take a shit.”

Well, there you have it. Clearly we would not be sipping hot chocolate together as we discussed our children—or our appendages. Though as I walked back to the car I did realize our mutual disdain for this state could have been our saving grace.

If only...

Is that a drumstick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Is there someone special you think of every Thanksgiving? Someone, perhaps, who knit you a warm, fuzzy hat with your initials or who baked you a blueberry pie even though blueberries weren’t in season? How nice.

Well—Marcia, Marcia—I’ve got someone I think of too.

Aunt Burty, God rest her wrinkled soul, was my second cousin’s twice removed aunt, or something like that. You know those fake eyes you hot glue to crafty projects? The eyes that don’t line up and have a mind of their own? Now put those eyes behind bottle glasses and add red lipstick and a newt. That was Burty.

She was engaged to an opera singer in her twenties, but he died. She never left her parents’ house after that; she never loved again.

I’m not sure how exactly Burty ended up at our house that Thanksgiving of ’95. She looked as surprised to be there as we did having her there. Whoever dropped her off must have told her she was going somewhere divine because she arrived in a fur, pearls, and heels.

Sadly for her, the festive ambiance at the table was limited to my brother Teddy’s armpit farts.

For a 98-pound geezer, Burty was surprisingly agile. She plopped herself at the end of the table, and every time she wanted something she’d pull the tablecloth towards her so she could reach it. Which meant as soon as you saw your plate moving you’d have to grab on to it.

And, um, did I mention that when her hands weren’t busy with that they were navigating Sud de Burty?

Yes, she and her giblets had a grand old time. As soon as her hands crept yonder, my mother would try to come up with reasons for her to keep her hands above the table, like could Burty please pass the salt? Hang a picture? Show us the lovely embroidery on her sleeves?

Alas, if someone wants to dial her rotary phone, nothing is going to stop her—not even a request to applaud Teddy’s armpit performance (do you have any idea how difficult it was for my mother to ask him to “play” a song so everyone would clap?).

Yes, my loves, nothing quite beats eating turkey while an old woman soaks the whisker biscuit and your brother’s sweaty, pubescent armpit deflates.

Norman Rockwell, if you’re up there, I’d love to see your rendition of this.

P.S. All that paddling the pink canoe must have been good for her health because Burty lived to be 93.

P.P.S. If you’re ever at a loss for slang terms for strumming the banjo, check this out.

I never thought I'd say this, but Jessica Simpson is the only one who can save me

When I was in college, I had a roommate who did what every woman contemplates but often doesn’t have the nut to carry out: She took a pair of scissors and hacked off all of her blonde hair. She was beautiful enough to get away with it. And skinny. And glamorous. Blah, blah.

Every time I thought about it—and even got as far as bringing the scissors close to my head—I heard the voice. No, not Winona. This voice was more like Dudley Moore narrating a very sad children’s book: “She had been such a pretty girl. And then she went and ruined it. And sat home every Saturday night until her hair grew so long around her it eventually swallowed her whole. The end.”

Despite the knowledge that I could never pull off a jagged self-coif, I have always, always wanted to hack it all off. Especially lately. Long hair takes forever to blow dry. Ponytails give you pattern baldness (it’s true!). And Chuck, being the bald man he is, has always encouraged/bullied me into changing my hairdo because he has hair envy and let’s be honest, there’s only so much you can do with facial hair. (Though if I were a guy, I would totally have a handlebar moustache. Why the hell not? It’s badass!)

So, um, yesterday morning I went to the hairdressers and said “Chop it off!”

And now I look like this:



Just in time for my high school reunion this Saturday.

Lesson? The voice, whoever the hell it sounds like, is always right.

We're off to the fat farm

Dentist: "Mrs. Mullet, you're a wimp and your teeth are going to fall out."

Pediatrician: "Mrs. Mullet, your terrible cooking has turned your son's intestines into the badlands."

Vet: "So you don't have time to walk your cats, Mrs. Mullet? Well, do you have time to give them injections for the feline diabetes they're going to have because they are both morbidly obese?"

Did she have to be so mean about it? It's not like I feed the cats cinnamon biscuits and pound cake. I'd have to successfully bake those to feed them to someone. And did she really have to give me a worksheet?



The whole reason we got cats is because they self-maintain. They're supposed to be like stuffed animals that occasionally move and make noise. We've been duped!

But hey, look, I got a rockstar award from this hot mama because I'm "all business up front and party in the back!"

Fat, toothless, poopless wonders saved by the mullet. This is why I have a blog.

A weekend-long vegetable orgy is in order

Does this sound like you? Peel back the cover. Fondle the goods. Yawn. Stick it in. Tap your foot. Count the seconds until it’s over. Clean up and live in dread of the next time.

Yah, me too. It’s kind of what happens when you microwave one too many Morningstar Chik Patties and you look over at your child and he’s already shaking his head saying, “Nooo, noooo” like a frightened peasant woman who’d rather eat yak than another godamn chik pattie.

You have to understand: Chuck and I are Cereal People. The staples of our diet have been Special K, Honey Bunches of Oats, and beer. I did deviate one year when I ate a lot of frozen corn (Chuck was doing his own thing with General Tso’s chicken), but we have been remarkably content with food stuffs that float in milk.

Which is why one of my bridesmaids gave me this for my wedding present:



And why she inscribed it with this:



Well, isn’t that cute of her. She who can cook! She who can go into a supermarket, randomly select ingredients, go home and whip something up. Something that people will eat instead of pushing it around on their plates then politely suggesting pizza.

Want to know what I made Chuck the first night we lived together? Chicken parm. It was easy: I baked a few turkey breasts, slopped on some American cheese, then doused it with jarred spaghetti sauce. The next night I fried up some Italian sausage in butter then tossed in undercooked pasta and Italian salad dressing. Don’t forget the side of candied carrots.

Cereal, as you see, was just a natural progression.

Do you know how I yearn to breeze into my kitchen and successfully use exotic things like cumin and leeks and capers? Some days I daydream about the nanny coming over to find a counter full of freshly baked goods sprinkled with Juniper berries and Cardamom and shichimi-togarashi, whatever the hell that is. She’d stuff her face all day then go home and tell everyone she knows that Mrs. Mullet feeds people the right way. She’d say how satisfied she and her kid and Jager are. And I’d feel satisfied.

See, that’s the crux of it—I want to be culinarily fertile. I want to leaven a lasagna, birth a moist banana nut bread, souse a Succotash.

But more than anything, I want my son to go “mmmm” when he eats something I made. Not something from a box. Not even from a recipe. But from La Cucina de Mrs. Mullet, dammit.

Do they make a chik pattie patch? Gum? They’re just so springy!