Tuesday, January 16, 2018

I’ve got something important to say, let me run to my car so I can tell you!

 
So now that we are fully into 2018 I figured it was time to officially say good-bye to a few things that drove me absolutely bat-shit crazy in 2017.  Here they are in no particular order;

 

Kale-  I have tried it.  It is absolutely disgusting.  I think most people pretend to like it because it was the new healthy fad.  It is gross.  And what the hell are Kale chips?  I’m sorry but no matter how hard you try you cannot make them be a legitimate substitute for real chips.  Never going to happen.  I tried making Spinach chips a while back when those were a “thing”.  I sprayed the baking sheet with Pam and they still stuck and broke into a million pieces when I tried to take them off the pan.  If you take a paper thin leafy vegetable, dehydrate it and try to move it from where it lays it will break into tiny slivers.  There is no way around it.  So, I was at the Basket the other day and they had a display with some Kale chips.  I took a walk over to check them out and yup, just as I suspected there was a bag full of green dust.  I swear to God, I could put parsley in a Ziplock and call it Kale chips and no one would know the difference.  I really hope the kale fad dies out in the new year.

 

Unpack-  I am not talking about unpacking from a wonderful, relaxing vacation.  I am talking about all the political pundits on cable TV who when faced with a multi-faceted topic say, “OK, let’s unpack that”, “We need to unpack that idea”, “Let me unpack that for you”.  Drives me f*cking nuts.  I don’t know why, but it is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  I just picture them placing on old timey leather suitcase on the bed, and slowly taking out old, stale clothes one piece at a time and then pulling out an old, yellowed lacy piece of #metoo or #russiancollusion or whatever the daily topic was.  I know it is stupid, but it just annoys me to no end.  Thank the walking upright Gods I have never heard Anderson Cooper speak that word, I swear to God the second it comes out of his mouth our love affair is over.    Another one that grates on my nerves is the phrase “deep dive”.  As in take a closer look.  When they weren’t ‘unpacking” in 2017 they were taking a “deep dive”.  I love listening to Jim Braude and Margery Egan every day but there was one day when Jim said he was taking a deep dive and I screamed at Alexia to turn off.  Poor thing isn’t used to getting yelled at, but I couldn’t listen a second longer.  I didn’t listen to them for a week.  Not that they will ever know about my silent protest, but I know.  So, unpack that Jim and Margery.

 

Slime-  I hate slime.  I hate everything about it.  One of my kids is obsessed with it.  Obsessed to the point I am considering calling TLC and having her featured on an episode of My Strange Addiction.  Now I know a 10-year-old loving slime isn’t as strange as a 38 year old that likes to eat dryer sheets or a 53 year old that lives her life dressed as an infant, diaper and all, but it drives me insane just the same!  I find remnants of it everywhere, it has ruined books, table cloths, a dresser and most of my Tupperware has been sacrificed all in the name of slime.  As a matter of fact, one of my kiddos and I are locked in an epic showdown for the ages; she got yellow slime on the doorknob to the basement.  I refuse to clean it and she can't play with slime until she cleans it.  So far neither one of us has budged.  May the best person (mom) win.  I hope this fad leaves us just as 2017 has.

Eyebrows-  I just don’t get those big, thick, heavy, way over drawn eyebrows.  It is not a good look.  For anyone.  Ever.  My last post told you about someone at the grocery store.  Well, at the cafeteria at work there was a beautiful young girl.  She was stunning; beautiful skin, beautiful hair, perfect body, etc.  But she had these fake eyebrows that looked like the friggin count from Sesame Street.  They had to be a solid inch thick and a good 6 inches in length (not including the sharp, razor thin ends that finished off somewhere behind her ears).   I didn’t want to look or comment because I did not want to encourage this look in any way, shape or form but I couldn’t look away.  You know how they say right before you die you are drawn to the light?  It was like that, there was something magical about these brows you are just drawn to them and no matter how hard you try you can’t look away.  They were that spectacularly ridiculous.  I hope 2018 brings back a subtler brow.

 

Car confessionals-  This I trend I don’t understand at all.  My Facebook feed is filled with people sitting in their cars waxing poetic on whatever the current injustice in the world is.  Racism?  There is a car talker for that.  Sexism, someone sitting in their car telling men how to behave?  You bet.  Bullies? Oh, you can find at least 579, car seat social justice warriors discussing them.  I don’t get it.  When I have something important to say I have never had the urge to go sit in my car and discuss it to an imaginary audience and then post it online.  I just don’t understand this concept at all.  But I think I am in the minority here, when I see people post these videos their comments are full of phrases like, “true story”, “amen” and the ever popular; “this” (with any arrow pointing up), Logistically I have some questions; 1. Do these people have a camera already mounted in their car in case they feel a soliloquy come on?  Or do they have to go get the camera ready?  2.  Do they practice in front of their mirror, so they know what they want to say? —these seem pretty thought out, they angles, the facial expressions...  3.  Do they pull over to a safe place so they don’t put others lives at risk when they are saving the world with their car seat confessional? 4.  Do they clean their cars out in case the camera angle dips down a bit.  If I were ever to make a car seat video and the camera panned around the world would see my car is a sh*t hole. Or is it that their house is such a mess they need to go to their car to film their monologue?  And 5.  Why the hell are you making a video of yourself talking to no one in your car?

I am imagining if you are the type of person that takes to your car to make a video chances are your life is kind of in shambles, so your car is your only safe place.  Case in point.  Poor Tyrese has been making a LOT of car seat videos.  His life is spinning out of control, I watch TMZ, I know these things.  Some people have the Wall Street Journal or NY Times.  I have Harvey Levin.  Seeing his life fall apart in a sequence of these videos has made me think there needs to be some kind of system in place for the makers of said videos.  Like you know how some repeat drunk drivers have to blow into a device before they can drive their car?  I think some of these repeat car video offenders should have to pass some type of standardized psychological test before given free reign of their car mounted camera.  And don’t get me started about the people that make a car seat video AND use that asinine filter that makes their eyes bug out, their mouth super wide and have chipmunk voices.  I hope these videos go the way of the ones where people would stand silently, with somber music playing in the background while they held up page after page of cue cards with some pull at the heartstrings crap while making ridiculously over the top facial expressions, like that God-awful side smirk. 

So here is to 2018!  A new year and a new crop of things to drive me bat-shit crazy!!  Happy New Year!!

Sunday, January 14, 2018

I’m too young to be “too old for this sh&t”

 
So lately I have caught myself muttering under my breath, “I am too old for this sh*t” and after hearing myself say it 4 times in about an hour it got me thinking; Am I too old for this sh*t?  In my mind I feel like I am too young to be too old. 

Back in December I turned 45.  That was a hard number for me to swallow.  The day after you turn 45 you are officially on the downward slope to 50.  50!  How is it that I am now closer to 50 than I am to 40?  I know with every passing day I age but I honestly still see myself as 25.  I don’t see myself as middle-aged.   But the more I think about it, the more reality sets in and I am old enough to be too old for this sh*t. 

We had a big snow storm recently.  Our driveway and sidewalk were full of snow that needed to be removed. Chuck was doing the bulk of the shoveling but has an injured elbow, so I was helping.  He was using the decent shovel since he was doing the lion’s share of the work.  I was left with one of those collapsible ones you keep in your car to dig your tires out.  I liken it to a soup spoon.  So, there we are in sub-zero temps with whipping winds in the dark trying to dig out from a nasty Nor’easter.  The dog is out and wants to play, one of the girls is “helping” shovel by throwing snow in the places I have already cleared and the other 2 are trying to build something in the snow and getting frustrated because we are more focused on clearing the snow than helping them.  The girl helping storms off and pouts when I ask her to shovel another spot. Good times abound.  Finally, after muttering, “I am too old for this sh*t” more times than I can count I head inside to make dinner.  The next few days pass without incident.  On the 3rd day I wake up at 1:18 a.m. in excruciating pain.  I knew instantly what it was.  My mother F-ing Rotator Cuff.   Last spring, I tore my rotator cuff.  Don’t ask me how because I don’t have a clue.  Apparently, it is an injury of overuse.  If you know me at all you know I don’t overuse my body in any way, shape or form.  To this day it remains one of Life’s great mysteries as to how that injury occurred.  I had a cortisone injection some PT and  was good to go.  I haven’t had any problems with it since so I honestly forgot about it.  That is until 1:18 last Sunday morning.  I was able to get back into PT quickly and was looking for some relief.  So, the therapist says he is going to do some cupping on my shoulder.  Sure, I say.  I mean Gwyneth Paltrow is famous for cupping.  That is how I learned of it in the first place.  If it is good enough for Gwyneth it is good enough for Erin.  I mean she is this dainty little celebrity flower, I am not.  How bad can it be?  For the love of God, I am not as tough as Gwyneth at all.  AT. ALL.  That sh*t hurt like a sumabitch!  My shoulder ended up all bruised and battered.  It hurts to wear a bra and this weekend, unlike most weekends, I actually had plans that involved leaving my house and interacting with society, so I had to wear a bra.  I swear to all that is Holy when I go back to PT on Tuesday if he even hints at cupping again I will throat punch him.  So, when it comes to shoveling point goes to “I am too old for this sh*t”.  For the record, as we speak Chuck is at Home Depot picking up our brand-new snow blower.  So, when it goes to that Mother Nature, point goes to us bitch!

 

Recently with my kids I feel a sense of urgency to teach them as many life lessons as I can.  I am not sure if that has to do with my birthday and my new-found sense of hurry up and get my life in order before its over, or the shithole that has become our society.  Our president, love him or hate him has given me the freedom to use the salty language I prefer.  I may not be able to say words like science or evidence based but I do get to use words like shithole, pussy, bigly and covfefe.  So, as I try to raise three impressionable young girls into three independent, open minded, compassionate young women I feel like time is running out.  I don’t know what it is lately, but I feel like I have this small window of opportunity to pour as much kindness and good into them as I can.  I want them to be decent and productive members of society long after I am gone.  I am trying so hard not raise a-holes and the more and more time they spend out in the real world it seems to be getting harder and harder.  I have always put thought into how I was raising my children but now I have been consumed with this incredible sense of responsibility to ensure my daughters have a strong sense of self, sense of purpose and sense of doing the right thing even when it is the hard thing to do.  Raising children is a younger woman’s game.  Having my third at just about 41 has made me very tired.  Again, point goes to “I am too old for this sh*t”. 

Since my birthday and my realization that this isn’t a practice run, this is the only shot I get at life I have decided I need to get healthy.  Really get healthy.  Not just lose a few pounds, but transition to a more active lifestyle.  If I want to see my girls grow up into these decent young women I am pouring so much energy into I need to really change some things up.  Right before my birthday I had an appointment with my cardiologist.  Because my heart conditions are congenital, meaning I have had them since birth, I am seen by a doc at Boston Children’s Hospital.  So, I get to sit in the waiting room with little kids.  The way my appointments were set up I had to be there all day with several hours in between visits.  Going to a children’s hospital is always eye opening, despite working in pediatrics for almost two decades it is so different when you are there as a patient and not staff.  Being there and being treated for a heart condition that could have killed me and has killed so many always leaves me with a sense of gratitude for having grown into adulthood a privilege that is denied to so many.  Now, since my last cardiac appointment I have put on a crap ton of weight.  I had Emily, my mom died, and I have not put myself first in a very long time.  I packed on the pounds.  I knew it.  I didn’t need an 85 pound, if that, 24-year-old Cardiac Fellow to tell me.  But she did.  She came in and told me that we all struggle with our weight.  Now I don’t know much about her, who knows maybe she did have a weight problem in the past.  Maybe she has been counting her Weight Watchers Points and working out at Curves.  But my friends listen up, she told me the secret to weight loss; she told me, “when you are hungry for chips and cookies, just eat carrots and celery instead”.  She was completely earnest when she said this, bless her little heart.  I looked right at her and said, “oh my God, are you serious?  That is the secret?  That is all I have to do?  Eat carrots and celery when I want junk food?  Oh man, I have to go home and tell my husband now I know what I have been doing wrong all these years!”.  Yes, I was a snarky a-hole but she was so condescending.  She must have cried to the attending, who is amazing and so down to earth, because came in she said, no need to stock up on carrots and celery, don’t focus on the scale, just try to add in some healthier choices from time to time and make yourself a priority every now and then.  That I can get behind.  Mary Alice, our dog, and I have started going for walks when the weather allows.  Poor thing, she loves going to explore the new neighborhood but if we had to rank every member of our family for their fitness even Mary would come in behind me.  As I trudge up the hills of our neighborhood I may have let a few “I’m too old for this sh*t” slip out.  But in this case, I am taking a point for me.  See that Dr. Valente?  I took the point for myself so technically that is making myself a priority!

 

Things haven’t been all gloom and doom lately.  There are a few times when I was like, OK Erin, you’ve got this.  You might be middle aged, but you aren’t on the Geriatric service just yet.  And then reality rears its ugly head.  I have been finding a crap ton of greys in my eyebrows.  Like a lot.  I have been plucking them out but then I am left with bald spots where I should have eye brows.  Not a good look.  Eye brows are tricky.  I am sure I could get some hair dye and take care of the problem, but I can almost guarantee that would somehow end with me losing my eyesight.  Most likely only in one eye and I would have to wear a pirate patch.  My kids would have a field day with that and I can’t let them win this round.  So, I have taken to filling in my eye brows. This is a skill that is way easier said than done.  Don’t fill in enough and you have these weird, soft brown looking divots peppered throughout your eyebrow line, fill in too much and you look like you took Tom Brady’s black undereye light blocking cream and haphazardly smeared two swaths of sh*t across your eyebrow line.  It is a daily struggle to find the middle ground.  The other day I was at my supermarket of record.  (Not saying the name of the store to protect this girl’s privacy.)  I went to the courtesy booth.  The girl has her back to me and when she ever turned around it took all the strength I had not to burst out laughing and shout “da f*ck happened to your face?”  She had what can only be described as a wooly mammoth drawn above each eye.  They were both perfectly shaped so, 1.  She must have purchased a kit with a stencil, 2. She invested some time in drawing them on and 3.  She did this on purpose (or I am hoping against hope she lost a bet).  I couldn’t stop staring and part of me really wanted to secretly snap a picture but then my sensibilities snapped in and my sense of humor was replaced with a sense of sadness.  I felt so bad for her.  It hit me, and I got really sad, this poor girl has no one in this world that loves and cares about her.  If she did there is no way on God’s green earth they would let her out of the house looking like Bert from Sesame Street.  Now, before anyone gets on me for making fun of someone’s appearance, something I would never do.  This was her choice!  She was not born this way!  These were not her God given eyebrows.  These were those drawn in ones you see all over YouTube makeup tutorials.  I am all for a person’s personal style, making statements through fashion etc.  When my girls are teens if they want to dye their hair purple and shave it into a reverse mohawk, get a nose ring, wear ridiculous clothes-have at it.  But if one of them ever, EVER tries stepping foot outside the house with these ridiculous over drawn in eyebrows I would stage an intervention so fast A&E couldn’t get a camera crew here in time.  But I digress, my eyebrow issues don’t end there.  As if grey eyebrows didn’t scream “I am too old for this sh*t” enough, I found a rogue one you can only see in profile.  You know one of those eyebrows that grow super long and stick out up above the natural eyebrow line.  Yup, that kind.  So now every morning not only do I have to fill in the bald patches I now have to take my mirror and check out my profile to make sure I don’t have any long ones waving at the people.  Oh, and for the record, now that I am teetering on old lady problems I have added checking for stray nose and ear hairs to my daily beauty regimen.   I will take my old lady, crepe papery hands, put on my progressive lenses and just give a big, fat check in the “too old for this sh*t” column.

Since my birthday I have really been taking inventory of my life.  It is like I have been slapped into reality; this isn’t a practice run.  I only get one shot at this and I need to make sure I am getting it done on my terms.  After focusing so much on being a mom for the past 10 years I am slowly learning to put myself first every now and then.  Being a mother makes it impossible to put myself first all the time, by virtue of being a mom your children should and deserve to come first the majority of the time.  But little by little I am taking back some of my life.  I love to write, it is like therapy for me.  I have started to clean out a storage room in our basement and I am working on turning it into an office, so I will have my own quiet, private space to go and write.  Who knows? Maybe I will even write a book about being a Minivan Mom before I am really “too old for this sh*t”.  Stay tuned….