Dirty Delivery

Guess what I saw today?" I tried to interest M. "This girl was walking some miniature Paris Hilton-esque dog with tiny little shoes on. It looked like a spider with little mittens." M wasn't having any of my brainless banter of visuals from life on the Upper East Side streets.

"I'm hungry. What's for dinner?" he replied as he poked his nose into the nearly empty refrigerator. I had been lax in my wifely duties of replenishing our food supply since we had been traveling so much the last few weeks. He moved around salad dressings and the milk carton(expired), reaching far into the back hoping something of interest would magically appear. "I can make egg white omelets," I said, knowing we were both two egg whites away from turning into a chicken. He scrunched up his nose and went to the pantry cabinet and shook a box of Grape Nuts to see if anything was in it. There wasn't.

Returning to the living room defeated, M reached for the trusty menu folder which I had spent the good part of a day last week organizing by categories; Deli, Sushi, Chinese, Fancy/Good, Drunk/hangover, pizza. "Good work on this," he said pulling out a new menu I had picked up from a new diner. "This is a new one. Let's try this place. I am in the mood for a nice big Greek salad. Want to split an order of fries?" His mood had suddenly turned once the idea of imminent food was on the horizon. "Where did you see this puppy? Were the shoes sneakers or little tiny doggie flip-flops?"

I gave him a post-it note where he scribbled down his order and added my selection to it as well while I dialed the number of the menu. It rang 6 times before someone answered the phone. I read down our list of food items, throwing in an extra order of steamed vegetables too, while the man on the other end of the line said 'hmm mmm' after each item ending the conversation with a terse '30 minutes' before he abruptly hung up the phone. "I wonder if that is a good sign or a bad sign that it took them so long to answer the phone when I called," I said to M who was munching on a bag or airplane pretzels which I had stashed away in the drawer.

"Probably a good sign," he said between crunches. "Means they are busy 'cause everyone else must be ordering. Where is this place again?" I couldn't quite recall if it was on 2nd or 3rd but I knew it was somewhere in the 60s or 7os because I had been walking home from Scoop when I picked up the menu. "Dunno. I grabbed a ton of menus last week when I decided my new pet organizational project was this menu folder."

For 30 hunger-filled minutes we twiddled our thumbs and made Chief do tricks for treats.
At least someone was eating. "Do you want to call and ask where the food is," M said tossing me the phone from across the room. "It's been 38 minutes since you hung up." M knew precisely what time I had called and the clock in his belly was telling him to have me call again and pester the restaurant. "No, you call. I always call. Why do I have to be the hammer and yell at these people. I think the hungrier person should be the one who makes the second call - or, better yet, the person who didn't place the initial order should have to be the one who follows up. That's the new rule." I tossed the phone back across the sofa at him, missing his head my inches.

"Please!!!" he begged, "I have been on the phone all day. Conference calls and phone calls. Come on, please?" He heaved the phone back with a side order of guilt that worked perfectly. I pressed redial and it rang 7 times before the same man answered. In my most congenially voice I asked, "Sir, we placed in order about 45 minutes ago and I am just inquiring on its status. Can you tell me when we should expect it to arrive?" If it hadn't gone out yet, I wanted to make sure it didn't go out with a giant lugger or pile of spit on it. "Ten minutes" he shouted before the phone line went dead.

Finally, the doorman buzzed us and told us food was on the way. By this point, I was famished and M was 3 minutes away from eating a Milkbone covered in chocolate sauce which was the one thing in the fridge whose expiration date had not yet passed. I stood in the hall, door open, M and Chief standing with their heads peering out with money in my hand to make the quickest exchange possible. I heard the elevator open and the sound of ruffling bags coming down the hall and turning in our direction. But what appeared suddenly stifled my hunger:

The delivery man could have easily passed for a homeless vagrant; his shoes were untied with long laces trailing behind him, his shirt stained with a variety of substances and a faint smell of urine and cheap whiskey was undeniable. He had a 5 o'clock shadow on top of full face of dirt and to boot, the zipper on his pants was all the way down and I swear, though not on a stack of Bibles, I think I saw his pony coming out of the gate. Chief backed into the apartment and started grumbling, first low and then louder into a full bark which he only does when he senses danger. M tensed up and protectively stood behind me, arms crossed, Chief's collar in his left hand.

"How much?" I asked, as my appetite basically dissolved.

He looked at the receipt stapled to the brown bag. "$26 bucks," he said, his mouth opening wide enough to give me a less than pleasant view. His teeth were a shade of yellow and brown that reminded me of the colors of the Brady Bunch kitchen, only filthier and less wholesome and more than a few were missing. I handed him $40 and asked for $10 back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change, 3 half-smoked cigarette butts as some ashy color paper fell to the floor. He grunted, mumbled something and then reached into his other jean pocket and pulled out two condoms. I shit you not, he pulled out condoms. Just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse than used cigarettes, I had to slap myself silly to remind myself that, in fact, it could get a lot worse!

I am not sure what repulsed me more - the condom, the cigarette butts or the thought of this man using that condom, but my brain was awash in the nastiness and my stomach was in full agreement. "I ain't got no change," he said giving me a toothless smile. "You got anything smaller?" Sure, how bout I take two cigarette butts and that condom as change, you scum sucking dirtbag asshat.

"Just keep it," I said considering the $10 a sunk cost to get this man out of my perimeter. We walked back into the apartment where I promptly threw out the unopened brown bag. I walked over to my menu folder, ripping from the three-ring binder the menu for this restaurant, crumpling it into a ball and throwing into the garbage on top of the food. Without saying a word, I pressed redial again on the phone - eight rings later, the same man answered.

"Hi, yea. We just placed an order and beside the fact that it took an hour to get here, when it arrived, it came delivered by a crackhead." There was silence on the other end of the phone. "I'm not sure if you are part of some government program where you hire the great unwashed to deliver food or if you and Angelina Jolie teamed up to help drug addicts get off the street in some sort of feel good-do good campaign, but here's a newsflash for ya: NO ONE WILL EAT AT YOUR RESTAURANT IF YOUR DELIVERY PEOPLE REMIND THEM OF SUBWAY CARS AT 5AM! Your food should have a smell.....not your delivery people. And also, they should carry change not Trojans."

I slammed down the phone, grabbed my purse and headed to the door. "Let's go out for dinner....some place where there is an open kitchen."

Married Life Meets the Simple Life

"We are going to CAMP," I screamed to M, as I closed the laptop and gleefully danced across the room. M, who was in a reclined position on the couch, covered in the remnants of the weekend Wall Street Journal looked up at me perplexed. "Camp? What do you mean we are going to camp?" he said, barely batting an eye.


Camp Kweebec, where I had spent my formative years as a tween and teen was having a Back to Camp Weekend - giving aging adults the chance to reclaim the glory of their youth wielding hockey sticks and baseball gloves in Umbros, all while under the influence of cheap beer and lost memories.(A sure fire way for injuries to occur) "It will be fun. We get to sleep in bunks and play sports all day," I explained. But no sooner did the words come out of my mouth, was I rethinking M's participation in the weekend. M went to tennis camp as a kid, which I pictured more like a Hyatt with Royal Tenenbaum- type kids clad in whites with matching headbands where they would frolic on well groomed courts and dine on spa-like cuisine. Camp, as I experienced it, was quite different.



For 8 glorious weeks, my BFFs and I slept on cots as narrow as a plank, showered in a communal prison-like room and dined on a variety of canned and fried industrial grade food - loving every second of it. "Just so we are square, you need to understand the "conditions" we are staying in." I didn't want any surprises. I didn't want M's eyes to pop out of his head when we arrived in Schwenksville, PA. "It's sparse." I kindly described the camp. "No frills, no luxuries."



Gazing around the room at the designer duds and the endless supply of youth-saving creams, potions and lotions, M made a judgement call based on the current life choices of his wife. "I've been camping. I am pretty sure I can handle a night at camp," he said. I could tell by his sing-songy voice and the way he said 'Camp', he had no idea what he was in for.



"What the hell is all this?" M looked at the pile of towels, blankets, pillows, scarves and sports equipment which I had piled next to the front door. "How long are we going for? You said one night? They don't have bedding there?" He wasn't grasping that we weren't checking into a tony hotel on the Upper East Side for a romantic weekend of room service and spa treatments. "Bring gloves," I offered, "It is going to be freezing at night."



We don't have the kind of marriage where we have to be chained to the hip; where he goes to the bathroom with me when we are out at dinner or where he needs to come on every girls' getaway weekend, but we do want to be together when we can. All that hokey stuff aside, we honestly try to at least appreciate the things that the other loves - at least that is what I tell myself when he turns the TV to Ultimate Fighting.

 HOWEVER, the closer to our departure time that we got, the closer to the realization that maybe this wasn't for him I came. "Are you sure you want to come?" He wasn't budging. "I am looking forward to it," he said through clenched teeth, his tell-tale forehead vein pulsing his feigned affirmation.



As we pulled up the dirt path to camp, the gravel showering the front of the car like a sandstorm, M's mouth fell open. "Your parents actually paid money to send you here?" He took in the vista of rolling green softball fields and GaGa courts against the backdrop of dilapidated buildings which looked to be on the verge of being condemned. Had I still been a child, he would have called Child Welfare Services and had me removed from my parents' custody. "Where are we suppose to sleep?"


We unloaded the car. M stood stoically looking for a bellhop to come and assist us with our 30 lbs of survival gear, finally giving up as he strapped on the huge backpack and picked up the pile of bedding. We trudged across the field to the wood plank cabins in the distance. I swung open the rickety screen door, inhaled deeply noticing that the smell of camp had not changed in 20 years; the smell of mildew, nature and commercial grade lemon cleaner filled the musty air of the cabin. "Oh fuck no, you have to be kidding?" M said upon seeing the bunk beds which were no wider than the hockey stick he was lugging. "I'm not sleeping on that thing. Where are the phones? TV?" He rubbed his pocket and his Blackberry underneath like a child would their comfort blanket. "You still have contact with the outside world," I said noticing his visible fear of being completely disconnected, but secretly I think he was about to Google "Hotels Schwenksville."



In the darkness of night, I took him on a walking tour of my childhood. "And that is where I had my first kiss," I said pointing to a bench next to the infirmary, "And that is where my bunk mates and I would hide when we went on raids. Oh, oh, oh and over there is the basketball court. I won MVP of leagues my last year as a camper," I boasted, still proud of the variety of athletic awards my mother had packed away in the attic. He remarked how amazing it was that the graffiti which I scribbled all over the camp was still there...20 years later, as were gum wrappers, a Duran Duran poster and an old mixed tape. "Do they clean this place EVER?" he asked.

As I walked down memory lane, gallantly reliving my finest moments, M stumbles over an exposed tree root and looks like he may up-root the tree in a fit of overexposed-nature rage. "Okay, let's go to the Rec Hall and get some beers." I figured a drink in him, some socializing with other spouses who didn't quite find the exhilaration in this experience and some food would have him singing the camp's fight song in no time. "I had a little rooster! Oh yay! And I put him on a pole. Oh yay! And he rooted for the other team. Oh yay. Cause he had no soul. Oh yay!"



And how wrong I was!



While spouses were invited to this weekend, it seems none came. "My husband isn't into this sort of thing," my camper, who was now in her mid-twenties said as she ashed a cigarette precariously close to the tinderbox we called the Rec Hall. M received countless kudos from all, impressed that he was being "such a good camper" by joining me up there. He smiled on the outside, but I think he was plotting his escape the same way my brother did as a camper when he ran away to the Uni-Mart a mile down the road and demanded that my parents pick him up immediately before he hitchhiked home.



It was utterly freezing. I dressed in longs and longs - as was suggested, layering a tank top, thermal, sweatshirt and fuzzy winter jacket until I couldn't put my arms down. And while I told M this wasn't a fashion statement or theme outfit, he didn't comply with the suggested packing list. He was shivering and I felt horrible. That night we played a rip-roaring, wild game of dodge ball - to keep warm and watched some of the other people play basketball. M indulged me in the few hours I had to pretend life was SWAK and BFF, actually meant forever. He let me relive and relentlessly rehash the memories of hiding Crunch N Munch and Pringles in my mattress cover to avoid capture of the contraband by camp officials. He indulged me in re-telling the stories of my days of winning plastic trophies, ribbons and Color Wars. He let me act like I was 15 again.

We drank ourselves to sleep in our makeshift bed that I constructed by pushing two cots together and covering it with a full sheet that was swimming on the tiny mattresses. I slept with a hat, gloves and scarf and covered both of us with two down comforters which still didn't manage to keep us warm in the cabin without any insulation and only screens as windows. "I get a lot of props for doing this," M reminded me before he drifted off into a beer-induced slumber.

We woke up stiff and frozen at 7 am. My back killed. How was it that I slept on these beds for 2 months over a series of multiple years? My neck could only turn 35 degrees - one way. I was pretty sure I had frost bite on my small pinky toe or a mosquito bite that had morphed into a golf ball sized-tumor that was angry red. "I suspect room service is out of the question," M joked. "Ok. I am done. This was, well, um....fun. And now, I have had my fill on fun here. I saw that bathroom and let me tell you, I am pissing outside because it smells better....and why is the floor soaking wet? Forget showering here, you are insane if you think that is gonna happen. After I pee on that tree," he pointed out the window, "I am going to go and sit in car with the heat on and read this magazine which I brought. It is the cleanest place here. Go play with your friends, eat breakfast, whatever. And when you are ready to leave, come up to the car," M finished his soliloquy and marched off with Forbes under is arm. 

I was grateful that he had endured camp thus far and refrained from pushing him into partaking in the day's color war activities. I promised one game of BBS (basketball, baseball, soccer camp-created hybrid), I would be ready to leave 15 behind and embrace, gulp 30-something.

On the way home, M said to me, "We are never sending our kids to camp there! What kinda crack did your parents smoke? How could they let you live like that? It reminded me of those MSNBC specials on prison conditions." It is hard for an outsider to understand, for someone who didn't write bus letters or play GaGa or make lanyards out of gimp or star in really bad versions of plays like Grease and Oklahoma to comprehend how formative camp is. He didn't know all the words to every James Taylor song, he didn't tie-dye shirts or have his name sown into his underwear and he never fought with his bunk mates on who was going to be broom and who was going to be dustpan. I miss the days when dressing up was Z Cavaricci shorts and a Benetton t-shirt, when lip gloss was "a lot of make-up" and rainy days meant Bunk-O. But there are somethings between a husband and a wife, like what goes on behind the doors of the bathroom, that are best left unshared - Camp being one of them.

Scent of a (Stupid) Woman

The Scent of a (Stupid) Woman

Ilyssa and I decided to spend Sunday afternoon in Central Park. Our significant others had made other plans…which did not include us. “Scott is playing golf all day,” Ilyssa called to tell me at 8 am. “Great! And M is playing in a tennis tournament in the Hamptons. What is it that we shall do?” I asked her hoping she would come up with something fun and outdoors since the weather was near perfect.

“How about – you, me, Chief and Goji have a picnic in Central Park. I’ll bring the sandwiches, you bring the Milk Bones,” she said. No sooner than I hung up the phone, I was out the door with a bottle of white wine and an enormous box of dog treats.

We settled in Sheep’s Meadow on a sprawling blanket Ilyssa had that must have come from a tent store or an industrial sized picnic website. “We could invite a troop of Girl Scouts to have lunch with us,” I said as the two dogs sniffed the earth and finally settled down on a spot next to the blanket. They looked content smelling each other’s butts and gnawing on their respective stuffed toys.

From 30 feet away I could smell her. “What is God’s green earth is that smell,” I said to Ilyssa. She sniffed the air. Chief and Goji followed suit, noses pointed high as they all caught a whiff. “Someone doused themselves in some nasty-ass drugstore Imposter perfume,” I said. The smell was strong, stronger than the scent of nature – the fresh mulch, trees and blossoming flowers. It wafted through the air, trouncing the smell of wet dog, tuna wraps and suntan oil. Pungent and tinged with the slight smell of mothballs, it invaded our nostrils with a take no prisoners’ style. The woman from whom the smell emanated drew ever closer to our beach blanket. She was wearing a long, flowered skirt and a halter-top that barely covered her middle-aged middle. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she rushed towards us.

The dogs who had been lying peacefully on the grass, panting heavily next to heaping bowls of water, suddenly bolted to a sitting position and cocked their heads in unison towards this sight which was fast approaching. “Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo! Oh girls!” Ilyssa pulled her shades onto her head and rolled from her stomach to her side. “Oh darlings, I must say your dogs are spectacular.” She sported an affected accent, part English part Madonna wanting to be English. “May I?” she asked as she reached down to pet their ears. Chief dropped his head back to the ground, uninterested after he realized that this woman didn’t come bearing treats. Goji indulged her in an ear-rub moaning her contentment.

“What kind of animals are they,” she asked, her voice close to a whisper.

I wanted to say dogs, leaving it at that and turning back around to read my magazine. “He is an English Mastiff and she is an English Lab,” Ilyssa took the high-road offering an answer. “Oh my, they are quite sweet. Did you buy them in England at the same time?

HUH? I didn’t say it. I thought it. I mean, she had to be joking right. Yea lady, at home I have a Russian Wolfhound, a Siberian Husky and an Irish Setter. I have been doing a lot of world travel. I am thinking of going to the Himalayas and bringing back some cats.

Ilyssa was about to answer, the oddness of the question, barely registering on her radar. “Yes, yes we did. We both were in London and thought what better souvenir to bring home than two giant dogs. I had plenty of t-shirts,” I added.

Pleased with the answer, she smiled and said, “I just love anything English. The English are so much more refined and dignified than the bloody Americans.” To which Chief responded by squatting in his girly-stance and peeing just inches from our blanket.

But A Number

When I was 21 I only wanted to date older men.  Back then, men in their 30s seemed to have a worldliness that was out of my grasp - it was something I yearned for, a sense of maturity and knowledge only those extra years could earn them.  At parties I felt so grown up trying to balance a martini glass in one hand and a cocktail plate in the other.  Boys in baseball caps, the post-collegiate frat boy look topped off with a Greek letter t-shirt and a pitcher of beer sent me running the other way.  A receding hairline, salt and pepper locks and well worn Hermes tie made me ooze giddiness. It wasn't the look that I thought was so appealing, but the aura of adulthood.

"Do you have friends to set up with my friend, Amanda?" Ilyssa asked.  "She just broke up with her boyfriend." I ran through the list of my eligible male friends and rattled off their stats until I paused for a moment and came to rest on Amanda's age.  "Wait, your friend is 23 years old!  All my guy friends are in their 30s. She won't be interested in them."  For the life of me, I couldn't imagine that Amanda who radiates youth from her strut to her unbridled energy (read - party girl) would be at all into my single friends with their years of baggage. Failed marriages, relationships that die once the word 'ring' is uttered; why would someone in their prime want to take on someone on the decline.  "Lis, I think the guys who I know are single for a reason. Doesn't she want to date someone her own age?"  Ilyssa didn't hesitate for a second.  "She ONLY dates older guys.  She would never go out with someone in their 20s. Those guys are so immature. All that way to do is hook-up and go to Brother Jimmy's. It's like they can't let go of college.  Her last boyfriend was 41. She is really into civilized mature, sophisticated men."  

The next night, Julie called.  At 34, Julie is straddling the line between wanting to settle down and holding dear the fleeting fancy of her youth.  "I have two dates next week," she proudly launches into her description of each candidate.  "The first guy I met at a wine tasting we did in the Village. I am not sure I am feeling him. He is a little, a little, um, uh - I don't know, too serious." I pressed for details. "Too serious like he quotes Plato when reading a menu or too serious  how?  

"He just wants to get married.  You would think I'd want to hear that, right?  But all through the wine tasting thing he kept saying how on his honeymoon he would love to go to the Italy and do a trip through all the vineyards. I was like, woah buddy. We just met. We just shared a glass of Pinot Noir and here you are dashing off to the wine country with your blushing, drunk bride.  I don't know. It was a little much. I was waiting for him to say what he wants to name our first born. And trust me, two more glasses of wine and he would have."

I reached back in my mind to my days on the single circuit trying to recall whether or not I would find that a romantic comment or just down right creepy.  I totally forgot which side of the aisle I would be on that one. "What about the other guy?"

"So the other one, Mark is the polar opposite." She audibly sighed and I could see her eyes making those cartoon swirling motions and her heart thump out of her chest. " He was in my spin class. Hottest body you have ever seen. I mean his muscles! Wow. He is ripped, he has these muscles in his shoulder that are just bulging...."

"And? Ok, I get it. Great body - what else?'

I could hear her mind get stuck in the mud as she tried to mentally pull herself off him, his great muscles and his tiny bike shorts.  "Oh, ok. He is 24 and just moved here from Texas.  He works as a bartender at some club downtown.  We went out for drinks last week and I just feel so alive when I am with him, it's like he makes me feel this energy and excitement that I haven't felt for sooo long."

I declined to point out the obvious, that their 10 year age difference may be a problem when they start talking about pop culture from their youth or comparing notes of growing up. He probably thinks Goonies is a type of chocolate candy. 

Amanda wants older, Julie can't stop fantasizing about younger.  I am picking up a trend.

At what age do you do an about-face, turn around and stop finding the paunch of middle age alluring. Maybe it wasn't the paunch exactly that we lusted after, but the girth of life lessons learned already. When do martinis seem passe and keg parties cool? When is it that the past becomes new again, when baseball caps and Greek letters become retro in some hip-to-date kind of way. 

Then it came to me. "Julie, if you aren't going to go out with the old guy from the wine tasting, I totally have someone to set him up with."

Age and Wisdom

On the first nice day of spring, when it was warm enough to have a drink outside, the tables at the Boathouse in Central Park were bustling.  New York had come out of its winter slumber. 

Ilyana had IM'd me by 2pm - "Drinks...outside".  Of course, I agreed. A fresh pedicure and new pair of strappy sandals weren't going to waste.  She had invited a few other people from her office downtown to join us for some outdoor cocktails. "My boss wants to come," she said sounding a bit surprised and a bit taken a back. "She heard me mention it to Sally and asked to come so there will be 4 of us. Do you mind."

I didn't know any of her work friends and I only new Ilyana from the bridal boot camp class which I am still taking despite no longer being a bride.  But, the sun was bright and it didn't take much to lure me from my home to enjoy the resplendent spring afternoon.  Ilyana was tall and thin, the kind of thin where everything she tries on looks like it was made for her. I wondered why she would endure the 60 minutes of sheer pain of this boot camp class even with her wedding only 6 weeks away.  "Are you trying to get down to a double zero," I asked her one time.

Ilyana arrived first to secure the table. "I left work early," she said as she motioned to me to come sit on her side of the round table.  By 5pm, the Boathouse was filling up and people were circling like birds of pray to try and scare up a table.  Proud of her table snagging accomplishment, Ilyana settled in with a white wine that she sipped from delicately.  She was young, I always forget how young until I hear her say something like: "When I was 5, I had a cell phone" or I make references to an 80s movie and she looks at me like I am talking about some foreign film. "Sixteen Candles? No?  Jake Ryan? That name means nothing to you."  Ilyana graduated from high school after 9-11. It is a different generation. 

Despite our age difference, we share enough in common that we became fast friends.  "Let me apologize up front for Patty. I cannot believe she wants to come out with us." Ilyana kept checking over her shoulder to make sure Patty wasn't around.  "She is nice, um, sometimes. I mean she is good boss and she is teaching me a lot, but she is really mean. She can be really mean."  I poo-poo'd her worries - until Patty arrived.

Patty came stumbling over to our table as the sun dipped behind the buildings on Central Park West. She had had a few - that was obvious.  She was short and wide with frizzy hair and lipstick smeared way passed the outer rim of her lips.  Her age was hard to place, I figured her for 50-something though it was possible years of hard living added on another 10 years.  Her shirt was untucked, one pant hem dragged on the ground as she lumbered towards a seat.  "Hurry up and order me another," she commanded Ilyana. "I am running to the bathroom. It was hell to get over."

Ilyana and I exchanged glances over her giant purse which she left as a centerpiece on the table.  When Patty returned from the washroom she had a fresh coat of hot pink lipgloss which covered nearly the whole lower portion of her face.  I bit my tongue. 

Patty took a long swig from her bourbon, exhaled and said, "So what are we talking about?"  Ilyana explained that we were talking about wedding flowers which sent Patty into a tizzy. Looking at my hand, Patty noticed my ring and snorted. "Ugh, another girl who was stupid enough to say yes."  

I almost spit my wine all over the table. Was she kidding?  It seems, she wasn't joking at all as she launched into a tirade on how marriage is the downfall of love and all of us "Dumb Young Girls" are idiots for getting married.  "I told Ilyana the other day at work that she should pawn that ring and kick that ass to the curb with her recyclables.  It wouldn't be a bad idea for you too, honey." She glared at me as if I had stolen her raspberry red lipgloss and painted her white walls with it.  

"I have been married....4 times," Patty continued.  "Oh and each time I thought I was in love.  And the guys were all great. And we did the big wedding. And we had cute pet names. And love was grand!" She rolled her eyes and the ice around her glass and continued. "It is all such bullshit. Men. Love. You know how you really stay in love? Huh huh?" 

No one answered.  I was tempted to say "Anyone, Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?" but I realized my audience wouldn't get the joke.  "I'll tell you how love lasts." Patty's voice got louder and her Brooklyn accent came out. "You make it last by never walking down that aisle." She turned her sights on Ilyana who looked terrified.  "I love being single, having no man I need to run home for and heat up food for, being able to sleep as late as I want, walking around in just a tiny old t-shirt Trust me honey, both of you girls, trust me, in a few years when you are my age, you are going to hate your husbands and wish you never got married. I've got the wisdom of age on my side."

In a few years, Ilyana will be my age and please help me G-d, if I only have few years left before I am her age, stab me now and throw me into the pond in Central Park.  I tuned Patty out and was hoping Ilyana could too. I hoped Ilyana could see age isn't always wisdom, that sometimes age and bad experiences are the enemy.

On our walk home, after Patty crawled off into the night, I turned to Ilyana and said, "I am so happy to have a husband to go home to.  Trust me, I am older and wiser. You are going to love marriage." I gave her walking hug cause I know she needed it. 

And when I got home I gave M a giant hug and a big kiss.  

Real Housewives of New York

Eavesdropping a few weeks ago I listened to two girls, perhaps a little older than me, each with a Bugaboo, a baby and a Prada diaper bag dissing some women. “Ramona is the biggest sociopath ever!” one said to other brunette girl in the Uggs.

“Ugh, but you know who is worse? That misery See-You-Next-Tuesday chick, Alex. She is such a joke. She doesn’t even live in New York!” I was trying to decide between Ballet Slippers and Mademoiselle at a nail salon on 3rd Avenue as I listened in. Who were these horrible women that were being spoken of in such horrendous terms? “Did you Tivo last week?” the shorter girl with the ringlet curls and Uggs asked. “No,” the other one answered as she fished a pacifier from her bag. “But I went on Bravo’s site to see when it was airing again.”

I found a new show for my repertoire of BDTV (Brain Dead TV) – Bravo’s new series, The Real Housewives of New York City. First we had Desperate Housewives, and if the fictional version was not enough, enter – The Real Housewives of Orange County which served the needs of the post-pubescent OC followers. It was only a matter of time until producers tapped the New York City world of glamour and excess to create a series set in the Big Apple.

The Real Housewives of New York City follows five New York City women through the concrete jungle of juggling career, family, children and the jungle gym of social-ladder climbing on the playground of the rich and famous. This reality series is as comical as any other, encroaching on the overblown exaggeration of stereotypes and extremes found on Flavor of Love.

Described on Bravo’s website: Bravo is heading to “The Big Apple” with The Real Housewives of New York City. The new series features an elite and powerful set of New York socialites as they juggle their careers and home lives with busy calendars packed with charity fund-raising galas, the social whirl of the Hamptons, and interviews for elite private schools. These driven and ambitious women show everyone what it takes to make it in the upper echelon of society, where money and status are an essential way of life.

The series takes an up-close and personal look at a lifestyle where private chefs, Au Pairs, front row seats at Fashion Week and Hamptons estates are part of everyday life. The Real Housewives of New York City follows five glamorous Manhattan women - Alex, Bethenny, Jill, LuAnn, and Ramona - as they balance motherhood, demanding careers, and a fast-paced social calendar, and shows what life is like in the most exclusive areas of New York.

I could say I watch it solely to see familiar hotspots – a few gathered at T-Bar on the Upper East Side for drinks and flirting with men other than their husbands, but that would be false. I could say I watch the show, or actually DVR the series because everyone enjoys good train-wreck reality TV, but that would only be part of the truth. I watch the show, in fact I enjoy the show, because it truly gives you the fly-on-the-wall view of your Upper East Side neighbors. As a new “New York City Housewife” myself, I am compelled to watch the show…and grow ever more grateful for my semi-charmed kind of life.

Of course the show is choked full of all the stereotypical characters which call 10021 home. The same way 90210 kept me riveted to my Laura Ashley bedspread in high school as I watched the Thursday night series on my 12 inch TV, The Real Housewives of NYC keeps me glued to my Mies Van de Rohe daybed and my plasma screen TV. It is part of the evolution of watching life’s little peepshow.

I am sure the show offends many people since it blatantly focuses on the superficiality and banal expenditures of this sect’s lifestyle. I am sure people are trashing these women in private gyms, nail salons and general stores from Madison Avenue to Main Street, North Dakota. “Oh how horrible they are with their fancy Hampton houses and their nannies and their private planes. What shallow bitches!” I can hear it echoed from coast to coast. In the same vein that people criticized 90210 and all the other shows before and after for their portrayal of the highlife. But secretly, these people who mock and maim watch the show, they are the audience, the target market. They watch for whatever reason, be it curiosity or intrigue or jealousy or needing a reason and a person to hate. That is why Reality TV came to be, that is why Omarosa still makes appearances long after her 15 minutes of fame ended, that is why Reality TV shows and its villains are more ubiquitous than the once familiar tune of the good ole sitcom.

People love to hate, and they will always tune in to find a reason to hate someone more.

A Simple Hello

Making new friends as a kid was easy; offering up my fruit roll-up or inviting someone into my game of four-square was the sure-fire way of making a friend for life. But as we get older, it seems making friends isn’t quite as simple as a sly offer of sugar-rich food.

I lived in my old building on 46th Street for over 7 years. In that time, I came to know the names of all the doorman, my crazy next door neighbor who called the police on me because his supersonic hearing somehow could pickup my 106.7 music which he considered to be “blaring”, but I never made any friends in my building. I knew Ginger from Gilligan’s Island lived on the 18th floor, but I didn’t know the names or anything about the people on my hall.

New Yorkers go about their daily lives, barely noticing anything which is going on around them. We watch the numbers on the elevator wall as oppose to talking to anyone else we are standing next to in that tin box, we are plugged into our iPods, directing all our attention to our PDAs and tomorrow’s schedule, hardly acknowledging the world and those in it with which we share space. We mind our own business and want to stay out of the business of others.

A few weeks ago, a new couple moved into our building. I saw them as they lugged giant bags from Bed Bath and Beyond through the lobby. “I’m so happy that isn’t us,” I whispered to M as we pushed through the front doors, passed them and the doorman and into the elevator. “I hate moving.”

A few days later, I see the girl again in Starbucks on 1st Avenue, but I just smile at her with a vague sense of familiarity even though I know she lives on the 6th floor of my building. She smiled back, but didn’t say hello. I nod at her again as we both use two Splendas at the coffee station, toss my bag over my shoulder and proceed out the front door. Another few days pass when I get in the elevator and share the ride and the silence with the same girl.

On our 3rd meeting at the foot of the steps into the gym, I say hi. I introduce myself, extended my arm, an olive branch and tell her that we live in the same building. “Yes,” she smiles warmly back at me, switching her gym bag to her other shoulder. “I see you everywhere. I just saw you this morning at the pet store. You were buying that 45lb bag of dog food. I was in the squeaky toy aisle.”

We started talking as crazed gym fanatics pushed passed us trying to make their way to the 11am yoga class. As it turns out, we both are from outside Philadelphia. Just recently engaged, she moved here from another city and barely knows a soul in New York except for her fiancé and her French bulldog. “Here is my number,” I said giving it to her the old-fashioned way by writing it on a scrap of paper in my bag. “We should get coffee together or go out to dinner.” She took the paper, folded it and put it in her wallet. “That would be so great. New York is such a hard place to meet people and make friends. It would be amazing to have a friend just an elevator ride away.”

Now, I see Ilyssa all the time; the elevator, the gym, walking the dogs to the one tree on the street, the subway, Dunkin Donuts, the corner where the light never seems to change and I am always trying to cross the street in a hurry. “Hi Lis,” I say as I tug her ponytail hello, “Dinner tonight at 212?”

My new friend is fantastic. I just wish I looked up from my Blackberry sooner, took my iPOD off and noticed the people and the world around me. New York is filled with new friends if you just pay attention.