Suburban Kvetch

Mom’s night out

I’m surely not livin’ the dream, but I reside in a picturesque Midwestern town with award winning schools, a quaint downtown and friendly neighbors. It’s ethnically diverse, has a commuter train station and a gorgeous new library. People stop their cars when you cross the street and wave when you walk by.

But…

For a single, 45 year old mom with two teenagers, it’s b o r i n g. Girls Night Out means home by nine — if I’m lucky and not home by 8. Conversations revolve around dads who are babysitting for their own kids, and the havoc that will be wreaked without mom at home. There’s talk of multi-family getaways, three-story additions and the perils of country club assessments. There are no single parents at all — or anyone without back-up or tee-times, no classes to take (don’t even mention it), no clubs to join and nothing for Jewish singles within 50 miles.

So, as daunting as it is that my kids are now a Senior and a Freshman in high school — it also means I am that much closer to moving somewhere else – ANYWHERE ELSE - perhaps where coffee shops with wifi are open late and there is more than one bookstore within a 30 minute drive. Heaven forbid — there might be other single adults and yes, maybe even a class or two. I’d bow down if I had a mall to meander, but alas, the only mall nearby is desolate, anchored by Posters-R-Us and Sears — and has been under construction for the entire decade I’ve lived here.

I’ll give credit where it’s due. It’s a tight knit community and I have steadfast friends who make me laugh. If I sent out an SOS in the middle of the night I would have more help than I knew what to do with. So, a while back, when a casual friend’s father passed away, I didn’t think for more than a moment whether or not I should attend the Shiva (the mourning ritual for Jews). It’s never wrong to attend a Shiva. Never wrong to show support with a plate of cookies and a hug.

And anyway, who was I kidding? I got to go out! On a Tuesday night! There would be adults! And food! Everyone would talk! I’d have to look nice too – you don’t show your respect in cut-offs. This would indeed even include mascara. Maybe even a spritz of perfume!

So off I went. I was where I should have been. It was a sincere gesture on my part, tainted only slightly – and stealthily – as I asked about the health and well-being of some old people chatting in the corner.

Brisket and the Art of Long-Term Friendship

I landed a job in the admissions department of a small Lutheran college in New Jersey.  The fact that I knew nothing about college admissions wasn’t nearly as strange as the fact that I was the only Jewish staff member, and most likely, the only Jewish person on campus.

I picked up on the way things were done and grew comfortable in my role handling computer issues, desktop publishing and learning the admissions business.  One day, waiting for a staff meeting to begin, we talked about our weekends, and subsequently our meals. And although the details before this elude me, I must have mentioned brisket.  A somewhat tanned, dark haired woman turned to me.  I’d seen her in the office before.  She was new, but we hadn’t met.

“Did you say brisket,” she asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Are you Jewish?”

I wasn’t sure if this was a trick question.

“I am.”

“I’m Catholic,” she said, “I love brisket.”  She moved from her seat next to me, and leaned in.  “And lox and bagels.  I’m the only non-Jewish person in line for bagels on Christmas morning.”

I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to make me, the lone Jew, feel at home or if she truly felt a kinship and wanted to bond over brisket and bagels.

“How do you make it,” she asked. “You know, the brisket.”

And so I told her.

That was over 18 years ago.

I was pregnant with my son and my new friend, Renee, was thinking about getting divorced.  She was 32 - practically ancient to my 27 - but we were close friends from that moment on.  She was a seasoned (as seasoned as one can be at 32) admissions counselor and showed me the ropes.  Renee introduced me to Martha Stewart, country clubs and Eggs Benedict.  I taught her the Russian-Jewish custom of tying a red ribbon to something to ward off any ne’er-do-well (i.e. her mother-in-law) wishing her harm.  That next Christmas - the last with her ex - she decorated her house with big red velveteen bows.  That was right around the time I started coordinating table cloths and napkins for dinner parties.

Renee was there the day my son was born and took a hearty dose of allergy medicine to attend his Bris (she was allergic to our dog).  She reveled in my new parenthood and I listened as she mourned the loss of her single home, her Laura Ashley adorned bedroom and at times, even her ex-husband.

Our friendship, the way I remember it, just happened.  There were no mommy cards, no texting, no cell phones.  There was no email.  At least there wasn’t for me.  Our campus and local diner lunches took us away from campus and enabled us to find our similarities and revel in our differences.  The pot luck dinners brought varied friends together.  Maybe it had something to do with being young.  I think it really just had to do with it being a much simpler time - or maybe back then, I just new simpler people.  And I mean that in a good way.

But then I stopped working to be a stay-at-home mom.  The college closed and Renee got a new job.  I moved several times.  We lost touch somewhere between Renee getting her master’s degree and me and my family moving to Cleveland.  I couldn’t find her even though I was online, because I didn’t know where she was.  This was before the days when you could find almost anyone on Google.  Her parents were unlisted.  Can you imagine?  As creepy as internet access can be, it lends an element of permanence to relationships.  It is really hard to lose track of someone these days.  But not back then.

Renee and I lost track of one another, found one another and then lost track again.  And then one day - about ten years ago — I got a phone call.  It was Renee! She was packing her apartment for another move to another city and came across my parents’ phone number.  She called them and they gave her my number.

Sometimes, after a long time, we hear from someone we haven’t thought of in ages.  It wasn’t that way with Renee.  I’d thought about her often.  And even if I hadn’t, I think the key to these long-term, heavy-duty friendships is the willingness to remember the past and embrace the possibilities for the future.  Would it have been easy for me to shun someone who called, after years, who lived thousands of miles away and with whom technically I had nothing in common?  I had new friends in a new city and I believed I was on the cusp of an amazing life.  But when someone reaches out through the years and over miles, it behooves us to slow down enough to listen and to remember those technology free years when we met and became friends because of brisket.

And anyway, it was Renee.

That night we talked and talked like we were sitting across the table in her kitchen, her dad playing with my son, sticking ten dollar bills into his one-year-old pockets.  She and I filled in all the blanks - or so I thought — until I mentioned my four-year-old daughter and Renee said, “Who?”

She didn’t know I’d had a daughter.

We remedied the situation and saw Renee on a planned trip to Florida, where she lived.  Another time she flew from to meet us on a different vacation.  She and I spent a girlfriend weekend in Chicago.  Ten years since our reunion we have not lost touch again - on the contrary.  Through more moves, job loss, my divorce and both families’ tragedies, we’re more connected than ever. And as always, she can lift my spirits with three small words…Amy, it’s Renee.

Long ago and far away we giggled innocently about a handsome professor (we were married, not blind), shared recipes (so much more than brisket), talked about our families (the good, bad and ugly) and planned our futures (boy, were we wrong).

Now we talk about being single, and not naively.  We reminisce about the past and look forward to times unknown.  Today, the intensity of our combined experiences is way beyond that of a chuckle. We belly laugh until we cry - or until someone has to pee.

Come to think of it, that’s the same as when I was pregnant — and Renee was on the divorce diet.

That’s what you call coming full circle.

* * *

Brisket Recipes or Essential Ingredients for a Friendship

Unlike Texans, Jews don’t barbeque their brisket, we braise it like a pot roast.  I started making ’sweet brisket’ when I got married.  It’s a traditional holiday meal, but was unlike the brisket I grew up taste-testing in my grandmother’s kitchen. Shortly after I divorced, my grandmother passed away.  I’ve only made her brisket since. Both recipes are below.

Sweet Brisket

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:
Salt
Onion salt (optional)
Garlic salt (optional)

Liquid:
1 12-oz bottle chili sauce
20 oz Manischewitz or other very sweet wine
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Vegetables:
1 sliced sweet onion
6 chopped carrots
3 lbs potatoes, quartered

Sprinkle seasonings over meat and rub in lightly. Sear the meat in 500 degree oven for 10 minutes on each side. Combine liquids and vegetables, pour over meat, cover and cook at 350 degrees for 3 hours. It freezes well if you invite light eaters and have leftovers.

Brisket with Gravy

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:

Onion Soup Mix 1 or 2 packets

Liquid:

Water

Sprinkle onion soup mix over meat and rub in lightly.  Wrap meat tightly in several layers of aluminum foil and place in a roasting pan.  Cook it at 300 degrees for as many hours as you can stand not eating it, at least 3.  Slice against the grain, place back in roasting pan, cover with au jus and keep warm on 250.  The more it cooks the better it tastes, it tastes even better the next day.  Serve it with au jus or the brown gravy of your choice.  Make it or buy it, I don’t think it matters.  I’d say it freezes well too, but there’s never enough left  to find out.

Cross-Posted at Imperfect Parent

Alone time

December 2002

The house was empty and silent, but not sad. When my ten-year-old son, seven-year-old daughter and both dogs left home embarking on their first weekend at “Dad’s house,” I thought the world would collapse and I would dissolve. I shut the door behind them - my kids, dogs and my ex-husband — and leaned my back against the closed door, the way a leading lady does in a romantic comedy when she’s just come home from meeting the guy of her dreams. I waited for tears, for a weighty sense of failure and longing for my role of irreplaceable parent. And then I waited some more, shifting my eyes from the living room to the dining room to the rug beneath my feet. I tapped my fingers on my thigh. Then I walked down the hall toward my redecorated bedroom. The bed was still neat, not a ripple in the quilt. The throw pillows were in place. The bones and squeaky toys were still in the dog bed. I plopped down and clicked on the TV. Nickelodeon. I changed the channel.

Thirteen years before I had moved from my parents house to my own with my husband, and since, had shared seven homes with a variety of familial and pet configurations. I had never ever lived alone — even for a weekend.

So far, I liked it.

To be continued…

I have no good title for this post

If you don’t read Metrodad, you should. He’s one of the original dad bloggers.  He’s wicked smart, way beyond funny and poignant as hell.  And he’s getting divorced.

Even with the online love letters he has written to his wife in the past, this does not surprise me.  I’m sorry for him and his wife and their daughter and their dog.  But sorry does not equal surprise.  And it’s not because I have an inside scoop.  It’s because I am always aware that we know merely what people want us to know.  The most open book has secrets tucked away in code or behind a locked door.  I didn’t know what the post would reveal, but I knew it would well well-written and meaningful because that is something you can count on when you visit Metrodad.  And that’s really all I need to count on.

MD has an incredible loyal, diverse, ginormous following and his post that announces his divorce from his wife is delicate yet adamant and says something very simply that blog readers sometimes forget.

“I’m not going to delve into how closely my online “persona” is aligned with my “real-life” personality. That’s an abject lesson in futility that serves no real purpose. However, as I read through my archives to get a better understanding of that persona, I realize that there’s one important aspect of my personality that rarely surfaces in my writing; I am a deeply private person.” — Metrodad

Ditto, MD.

It’s a balance that we each need to be comfortable with as we put ourselves out there in cyberspace.  I believe even those bloggers who suffer from bloggarrehea proofread, spell-check and question.  Well, the responsible bloggers do that, imo.  The bloggers who say they do not self-censor, are only explosive within the parameters they’ve set for their blogs.   So, they’re open within specific confines - and that works for me.  I in no way think I know everything about everyone I read — even the bloggers who pour their lives and loves and losses onto the virtual page.   There are off-limits topics, I assume, for almost everyone, and if it’s not off-limits then maybe it’s just something they choose not to write about.

And while Metrodad writes about parenting, I hope that his blog remains the same well-rounded New Yorkerness that it has always been, and that it will become tinged, though not awash, in being single.  Not that I don’t read single parent blogs - I do like some of them - but I find much more common ground  in the comfortable simplicity of parent blogs that are balanced.

It’s hard to determine what makes a good story and what doesn’t — based on our personal rules.  Is it what is written or how it’s written or a combination that makes for good reading? I think the latter.  Although with someone like Metrodad - whatever he writes - works.  And while it seems like it’s easy-peasy to get all that out — whether it’s a kid-post or a divorce-post or a food-post — I’m sure it’s a meticulous process.

And believe it or not, so is this.  At least most of the time.

Independence Day

I awoke this morning with full-fledged intentions of writing a brand-spanking new and original July 4th red,white and blue blog post.  And then I remembered that a few years ago I’d written an Independence Day post.  I read it.  Pretty much it still applies even three years later.

Grab your coffee, give it a read and come back and share your own thoughts on independence.

Click here.

Get your hand off my divorce

A new divorce is like a pregnant belly.  If you have one, other people think they can touch it.

Some people ask with hands retrieved, some just lay their hands flat on top waiting for a kick - an intimate connection.  And if they don’t reach out directly, the drool coming out of the side of their mouths, the glances, the deft skirting of issues alerts you to how much they want to.

In the July/August issue of The Atlantic, Sandra Tsing Loh writes about her divorce — and a shout-out for reactions to the article were what prompted a ‘blog fodder’ email I received this morning.

Frankly, I’m as enthralled by what married people think of divorce as most mothers are to what their friends without kids think of parenting.

I imagine this blogger (whom I don’t know) is appalled at the reaction of Loh to give up the idea of marriage and of the fact that she admits to her own transgressions.  Her CAPITAL letters were my clue. Another blogger found the article “grating”, claiming Loh should take responsibility and not say that marriage is “antique.”

When you write personal essays and opinion columns - as Loh does (and as I do) that’s what you put out there - your personal story.  Your opinion.

Loh eloquently blasts marriage in this article, making proper fun of the institution in which she failed — all with research to back up her claims at marriage’s value - or lack thereof.  And she doesn’t mind really, the failing or the funnin’.  I’m sure it wasn’t always as easy for her as the words imply, but acceptance is the first step on the road to recovery.  Seeing the flaws in the system sometimes allow you to move on instead of try to fix them. Loh’s imperious remarks that she just isn’t going to do the time and work it would take to mend her marriage if it’s mendable at all.  She then goes on to recount how once her horrid, gasp-inspiring news was shared with her friends, how they admitted their own dissatisfaction with their own marriages.

When I was getting divorced I received an email - or it may have been a hand-written note, I don’t remember - that asked me “Why?”  This person, whom I had very little contact with over the preceding twenty years asked if that was too personal.  My reply?  Yes, it was too personal. That being said, plenty of people knew plenty.  Some by my choice and others because I live in town of 9,000 and word travels fast whether you want it to or not.

And, just like when you’re pregnant (probably with your first) and mothers are all too happy to reveal their bloody, beastly birth stories — when you’re getting divorced you become privy to the behind-the-picket-fence secrets you never imagined.   I know about my neighbor’s unspoken-of first marriages, affairs and separations.  I know about abortions, adoptions and threadbare unions — some on their way to court, some not.  It fosters a kinship, sometimes welcome and sometimes not.   You become the one with too much private information about people you know and people they know and the personification of my kitchen magnet that says:

“You’ll always be my best friend.  You know too much.”

I find it amazing that divorce makes the front page news day-after-day in any place other than someone’s own blog or journal, and seems to draw more attention than war and crime and the health care crisis.  And I’m more annoyed than shocked that people will judge someone like Loh, who’s being honest and strong  –  not forlorn and pathetic — in her own experience and opinion.

I’m glad that with seven-years-single under my belt, that I’m able to help one of my best friends through her own divorce.   I have never judged her choices, her words or her actions.  I don’t focus on what could have been or what went wrong or what was — but where she can go as she gives birth to a new life.

Her own.