New Year Give Away

In celebration of 2012 and my new-ish Facebook page, I will be raffling off some items tomorrow, New Years Day because I love you so very much.

So, for all of you who have LIKED or about to LIKE the Peaches & Coconuts Facebook Page, I bring you the first (of many) Peaches & Coconuts Facebook Page Give Away where you have the opportunity to win:

1. Undies to suit your personal style because everyone could use new underwear in the new year.

I'll be brief.

Alternatively, you may be excited by the Made in the USA thong?

Or perhaps your a boxer-brief person.

2. A baseball cap for those of you who like a nice cap and/or has the occasional bad hair day.

3. Sock Rings because they have changed my life, and I feel strongly that they could change yours, too.

As stated, there will be more giveaways to come because I am a tremendously giving person. Select LIKE on the right side of the page, and I’ll include you in the drawing tomorrow.

Happy New Year to all my fruits & nuts!! Wishing you buckets of love and laughter in 2012!

Smell the fudge!

We’re almost finished. New Year’s is right around the corner, and I can taste the quiet. It tastes like fudge.

From the minute the kids go back to school after Labor Day, we’re running. Back to school events, all the Jewish High Holidays which usually cover more than 1 day at a time, each kid’s birthday, Gabriella’s birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah/Chanukah, Christmas…WHEW! It’s all good, of course. Lots of friends and family. Lots of amazing food and drink and the occasional evening of decadence and over-indulgence. Making treasured memories for our kids that will last a lifetime (or at least as long as it takes to take the pictures so that we have proof that we created treasured memories).

Most would consider all these festivations a blessing of sorts. Sadly, I am far too high-strung to find the joy. To clarify, it’s not that I don’t enjoy each party or dinner or gathering in the moment. It’s the preparation I loathe. I don’t do well with lists longer than 3 or 4 line items.

The word tradition gives me hives. While most people associate traditions with words like family, celebration and memories, the words that come to my mind are expectations, planning, shopping, cleaning and unfinished basement (because sometimes you need to throw the kids somewhere). Oh, and did I also include I-have-nothing-to-wear? Why I haven’t learned to buy my festive winter wardrobe for my more voluminous padded-to-hibernate self, I can’t tell you. We really need to move to the Southern Hemisphere where all these events fall during warm months when I’m considerably more bronze and fit.

During the week before Christmas, I ran into a couple of local moms at the grocery store with the same heavy look in their eyes shuffling slowly down aisles weighted down by the enormous To Do lists that stretched across their backs like Jesus’s cross. We stopped to chat briefly so as not to lose too much momentum. One friend started to recite her recipe for a vegetable dip that started with turnips and ended with a nutty Gruyere. “It’s so easy,” she said. “It’s so easy” triggers my eyes to instantly glaze over, and my brain cues up white noise loud enough to drown out recipes, homemade decorative crafts and projects you can do with your children. “Yeah, I should try it some time,” I said without any intention of ever doing so. And then, we disappeared into the aisles.

I had to secure my shopping in a booster seat because there was a canyon full of recycling in ye ol’ mini-van.

The collection of wrapping paper and boxes represented the carnage of the first few nights of Chanukah and the small Chanukah party I whipped up on a Wednesday night because Mommy works late during the week, and I wanted the boys to have a friggin’ festive holiday. It wouldn’t have been so challenging to throw together if it hadn’t been for the Chanukah gelt. Four synagogues in our small suburb of 17,000, and not a single bag of gelt to be found. WTF, Jew-haters? We can pray here, but we can’t buy Jewish crap here? If you want to make a buck off of our people, you’d better get with the program.

This is where I plug the local, Jew-lovin' toy store SPARKHOUSE KIDS where I found the one box of chocolate gelt in all the land…as well as some excellent grab bag gifts.

By the time we hit Christmas, I can see the light. Until we moved back to the US, we had avoided Christmas what with being Jewish and all. But now, we celebrate with Gabriella’s family who serve up a pretty fantastic Italian Christmas – seven fishes, cuccidati (the cookie that convinced me that I must marry into this family) and a fiber optic angel on the Christmas tree.

This year, we brought the menorahs that the boys made so we could light candles together and placed them strategically in front of the Christmas poinsettas.

But by the time New Year’s rolls around, we are D-U-N-N, DONE! We need to put are feet up, relax and detox. We refuse all invitations and prepare for….nothing. Ah. Smell that fudge?

I hope your holidays have been joyful and healthy and filled with more celebration than preparation and more fun than stress. Happy New Year, All!

Get thyself to the thee-yay-der!

Lois, one of our favorite stage managers, is working a new show, and while we hope the show stays on Broadway for many years so that her family will not starve, Gabriella and I have much enjoyed attending each show whose stage she has managed. Times are tough on Broadway as they are everywhere. Lois goes where the work is, and we go where Lois goes. We are the Ruth to her Naomi. (That’s a Jewish thing.) And we’ll see anything and everything. We don’t give a shit. (That’s a Honey Badger thing.)

Lois on the train, yo.

I got a text last week from Lois. “Do you want 2 tickets for my show next Tuesday?” Being the Lois groupies that we are, I had to say YES though I hadn’t heard much buzz about Lysistrata Jones. All’s I knew was that it was a musical about basketball players and cheerleaders based on a Greek play. I judged. I assumed it would be pants. (That’s a British thing.) But I got a babysitter, and we made our way into the city on a Tuesday to see Lois manage the stage.

Figuring that it would suck, I rehearsed my appreciation prior to the first act. "Gabriella, how does this sound?" I opened my eyes wider than they are supposed to open forcing my eyebrows into my hairline. I position my face in a frozen smile while I spoke through my happy face without moving my lips, “Great show, Lois! Thanks so much for the tickets!” Gabriella told me to try to act more sincere. "I'll work on it during intermission," I said.

We made our way to the center seats of the front row of the Mezzanine. “Oh good,” I thought to myself, “I'll be sincere when I tell Lois our seats were phenomenal.” As we were climbing over people, I spotted some other New Jersey locals who had probably come in on the same New Jersey Transit train we had. Jeremy Dobrish and Sandy Rustin from our very own Midtown Direct Rep theater company. I was delighted to be able to congratulate them in person for the success of Rated P, the fantabulously hilarious musical that Sandy wrote and Jeremy directed.

Jeremy & Sandy

Rated P was literally born out of Sandy’s vagina and swaddled on stage here in New Jersey. A year and a half later, that baby is going to Broadway because it is that good. While the show is all about parenthood, it’s not all sweet and schmaltzy. It’s honest and funny and it makes parenthood cool...well cooler anyway. We are all so proud of the incredible giftedness that lives amongst us in our suburban enclave of talent. We’ll be there when the show opens in February representing the mini-van sporting, mall shopping, our-children-drive-us-to drink-more-than-we-ever-did-in-college population of New Jersey after we buy our tickets HERE.

Gabriella and I chatted with Sandy and Jeremy briefly until a deafening clap of musical overture forced us to our seats. READY? OK! (That’s a cheerleading thing.) Lysistrata Jones is fun on a stick from that first musical assault to the last bow. Who knew?

The cast members are adorable pixies whose energy is boundless and whose abs are sick. (That’s a good thing.) All of them are incredibly small and cut except for Hetaira, our story’s guide. Liz Mikel who plays Hetaira, is a fierce femme force with her 6’2” breast-tastic form and a voice as full-bodied as she is. It’s difficult to keep your eyes on her flawless skin when her ginormous breastages undulate throughout each number in her low cut, sparkly dress. I learned that she is quite a bit older than she looks. As heard after the show regarding her gorgeousness, “Black don’t crack!” (That’s a black thing.)

When the basketball team made their entrance, Gabriella leaned over to me and said, “Who is that guy...the lead? We’ve seen him before.” I shrugged. It's difficult to tell one pretty boy from the next sometimes, and I wasn’t making a connection. “ELECTRIC COMPANY!” she said shoving my arm. Sure enough, Josh Segarra (Mick) is hero to our 8 and 5 year olds on Electric Company, but he’s not singing about vowels in this show, kids. This heartthrob sings about love and poetry when he's not dribbling a basketball with much aplomb. (That's a Rico Suave thing.) To all you parents watching Electric Company with your kids whilst thinking unclean thoughts about Josh, go see Josh pop his Broadway cherry. You don’t even have to tell him you love him.

Nor do you have to tell LaQuet Sharnell (Myrrhine) that you love her, but you’ll want to shout it out from your seat after she drops it like it’s hot and shakes her booty like her ass is bionic – and I’ve seen a butt-load of shaking booty. She gets down so low that she could shine her own shoes with her lady-bits. And she's way low and shaking that thing while she's wearing stilettos so high, my feet hurt just looking at them. Her booty shake haunts me still. That girl is good. She’s Solid Gold good.

Darcel Wynne, Solid Gold dancer

There is something and someone for everyone in Lysistrata Jones. There are clever references to poetry and plays and popular culture. There is a perky firecracker of a cast member for a multitude of your salacious fantasies. And the music is a bucket of fun. You’ll leave a happier person. (That’s a promise thing.) Buy your tickets HERE and keep Lois off the streets!

Mum's the word

If you are not up on the latest trending videos, then you have probably missed 352 Rick Perry parodies (give or take) as well as countless holiday clips featuring dancing elves wishing you a Merry Christmas or Jews rockin’ out trying really hard to make Jews and Chanukah look cool. Guess what? The actual story of Chanukah is not cool. There never was a miracle, and the Maccabees were bullies who picked on their own people. All’s I’m saying is there is a sinister reason that Mel Gibson wants to produce a film about big, bad Judah Maccabee.

Speaking of bullies, you may have also missed another video making its rounds featuring middle-school student Jonah Mowry who shares with the world his emotional and physical scars after suffering years of bullying.



Jonah's video went viral, and people responded. Now, there are countless of videos of people who took pen to card and wrote messages of encouragement to Jonah.

like this guy


After I watched numerous heartfelt videos, I experienced a personal epiphany I’d like to share with you. Thank you, Jonah Mowry and friends, for shining a light on some serious truths.



A word about Mummenschanz as referenced. Mummenschanz (from the German for “mummery”) is a performance art troupe that incorporates mime, masks and movement to make marvelous madness.



Sometimes we say it best when we say nothing at all.

Schema for success

While I am a parent, I try desperately not to make this blog exclusively about the joys and challenges of parenthood. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a good mommy-blog. I have a number of mommy-blogs in my Google Reader that I read on a regular basis. They offer perspectives on child rearing and the state of motherhood that I find thought provoking and entertaining, and I can’t fault good writing.

But when I introduce myself to people, I say that I’m a writer and follow up with other descriptors like Jewish, first-born and lady-loving. If you’re really interested, I might include my sun sign or the fact that certain food aversions make me a social outcast. Much as I have tried to acquire the taste for cheese, beer and coffee, I cannot. When friends open up a cold beer on a sweltering summer’s day and take that first sip and exhale a sweet sigh of satisfaction, I envy them. The smell of coffee induces a gag reflex so powerful that I could never kiss a girl after she had been drinking coffee no matter how delicious she was. I digress as per usual.

I was supposed to be setting up my mommy-blog entry by explaining that whether I speak of parenting or not, this blog will never be a mommy journal, so you should read it anyway even if you are not here to read another mommy blog. The fact is, I am a mom, and that does inform who I am and how I see the world and what I do every day and the kinds of conversations I have with my children or other parents. So, here’s my mommy moment for you.

Asher gets a list of spelling words every week. On Monday, homework requires him to sort the words in categories relating to diagraths, dipthongs, modified vowels, etc. On Tuesdays, he must write sentences including all the words on his list. Wednesday’s worksheet usually entails some sort of word scramble or puzzle and Thursdays he must study the words for the spelling test on Friday.

Every Monday, I pull out his folder to review the words and take deep breaths when I get to the challenge words the teachers add to the standard curriculum list. It is my job to find devices to help Asher remember how to spell the difficult ones.

I say to myself, “How the FUCK am I going to help him spell photosynthesis?” or “Fahrenheit?!? Is it because you want them to learn about failure?!?” or “What kind of ASS LICKER expects a second grader to know how to spell schema and how the HELL are we going to include it in a sentence?!?” (Not to say that there is anything wrong with ass licking if practiced by two mutually consenting adults.)

Satisfaction of a job well done is not enough to motivate Asher to study all week to get a perfect score on a spelling test. I pay him. There. I confess to you that I pay my kid to learn. But, it’s more than a case of bribery. This is a lesson in the value of a good work ethic. If you work hard, you will be successful...and you will get paid. Obviously, there are no guarantees in this world that hard work will lead to cash, but it’s a better lesson than Do as little as you can get away with doing and hope for the best. The financial reward is also an exercise in math and goal setting. We added up how much money he could earn if he did well every week for the entire school year, and he earmarked the year-end total for a variety of things that he wants to buy.

In addition to his success thus far with spelling, we have become quite the team, Asher and I. Every Tuesday, Asher likes for us to create the longest sentence possible for the sentence assignment. We spend time together coming up with tricks and devices to conquer each word. He willingly subjects himself to practice tests during the week. What began at the beginning of the year as a chore bordering on a nightmare has become a way for us to connect that playing with beyblades did not offer.

Beyblades: Where you battle spinning tops after yelling "LET IT RIP!" My inner Beavis and Butt-head finds this amusing.

Each Spelling Test Friday at breakfast, I remind Asher that I’m proud of him no matter what his score because he has done his best and worked super hard to learn words that many grown ups can’t even spell and that he should feel proud of himself, too. He nods, and I choose to believe that he understands what I’m saying. To date, he has done very well, and we’ve begun marching around the house in joyous celebration as soon as he gets home and shows me his triumphant score.

Last week, we had another tough list. He just couldn’t absorb the tricks I tried to teach him, and I couldn’t come up with easier tricks to use instead. Thursday night’s practice involved keeping hope alive as well as preparing for a fall. I sent him on the bus that Friday with a big kiss and I a reassuring hug, and I hoped that he would not be upset if he didn’t remember everything we had practiced. Before noon, I received a text message from Asher who was allowed to use his teacher’s phone.

Dear Mom, Guess what? I got 100% on my spelling test!!! I hope you are proud. Get ready to march! Love, Asher

I confess to you that I welled up a bit out of happiness and pride and relief. This would not be the week that I would reassure or console. I’d save the comforting for another Friday. This would be the week of much marching. And we did. All over the house.

Admitting I have a problem

Thanksgiving in the US is supposed to be about family, food and football. We covered two of the three bases. I suppose I should have used a football reference instead of baseball, but that would require that I research the equivalent football term for bases. Yard lines? Point being, I’m not a football fan. And when I say ‘football’, I’m referring to American football even though outside of the United States, the entirety of the world uses the word ‘football’ to refer to soccer; the sport dominated by the use of feet. Not only do I find American football dull, but I have semantic issues, as well.

You probably don’t want to hear about my Thanksgiving weekend much as I don’t really want to hear about yours unless there was something particularly unusual about it. I think that by the Thursday after Thanksgiving, no one should have to start every sentence with, “Hey! How are you? How was your Thanksgiving?” The only reason I want to tell you a little bit about our schedule over the 4 days of our Thanksgiving weekend is to build up to a revelation I feel the need to share.

From Thursday to Saturday afternoon, my sister Rachel, her husband Ron their 2 boys and my brother Benjamin stayed at our house. Everyone arrived in time for Gabriella’s baked ziti lunch on Thursday afternoon while she finished up the feast for the evening’s meal. Thursday night, after dinner, cousins in town from Chicago came over for a quick visit, which was a nice treat.

Stuffed turkey breast

On the Friday, we invited another couple and their 2 children to join the 9 of us for Thanksgiving – The Sequel and made a very small dent in the leftovers. On Saturday, we fed the family lunch and said our good-byes so that they could get back to Boston that afternoon only to prepare for that evening’s feast with Gabriella’s 2 sisters and their husbands. Her family arrived at about 2pm and left late that night after an amazing meal of fish soup with Italian bread, cardune (fried cardoons) and broccoli rabe followed by Italian pastries from Queens and espresso.

Cardune

For the best flavor, the fish needs to give good head.

Cannoli and other pastries whose Italian names I can neither recall or pronounce.

Are you exhausted just imagining the preparation and the clean up and setting up again and the cooking and the serving and the hosting over and over again? So were we. So on Sunday, when we rolled out of bed and made our way to the spotless kitchen that we had cleaned after Gabriella’s family left at 10pm the previous night, Gabriella said to me, “Why don’t we see what the Whosywhatsits and Soandsos are doing for dinner?”

I took a sip of my green tea and pretended I didn’t hear her suggest that we should invite 2 more couples over to our house with their kids on the last day of a long Thanksgiving weekend.

“We have so much food in the fridge,” she added.

I imagined myself schlepping the foldout table and the chairs up from the basement again. I considered the tablecloths I’d have to have to launder and the dishes I’d have to clean – again – at night – on a Sunday – before a full week. I may have let a small whimper escape from the back of my constricting throat.

“Or we could just relax,” I suggested. “Maybe we’ve had enough.”

Gabriella read the pain in my face and understood that I was on the verge of breaking. “Ok, sure.”

I instantly regretted. I mean, we did have a ton of food. It’s not as if we would have to make anything, and even if WE had to make something, I would not take part in the making. We hadn’t planned anything to do with the boys, and truth be told, I didn’t feel like entertaining them. We’d all appreciate the play date. Furthermore, it was one of the Soandso’s birthday. We’d have cake.

“No, no. It’s fine. I mean, it’s good,” I said. “Let’s invite everyone over.” I took another sip of tea. “I’ll throw the tablecloths in the wash.”

And that’s when it hit me. Gabriella is a compulsive host, and I am an enabler. We can’t stop entertaining. Gabriella loves to cook, I love setting the menu, and we both love having family and friends over. Is that so wrong? It might be a little wrong. I can’t remember the last time Gabriella and I spent a night together alone. I don’t mean the kind of alone when she comes home from work at 8pm or later and relaxes in front of the television while I write (or surf the InterWebs) in another room. It has been ages since we went on a date- by ourselves.

There. I’m admitting that we have a problem, and that, I gather, is a very important first step. The problem on top of the problem is, I’m not sure I want to do anything about it. I shared my revelation to a friend who suggested that we find a local chapter of Hosts Anonymous.

“Funny,” I said. “Problem is, we’d end up inviting everyone at the meeting over for dinner.”

I wouldn’t mind an intimate dinner for two, however. If I recall correctly, Gabriella and I enjoy each other’s company. I’ll have to look at our calendar. I believe we have an available weekend at the end of February. No. Not kidding.