New England Mamas

Ahhhh, Kelly Clarkson!

So in the past few days, I've gotten a bikini wax, a pedicure and a manicure (Myrtle Beach--2 more days!) during my lunch breaks. Opting for cheap instead of ritzy, I go to a salon I discovered in the somewhat gritty Downtown Crossing area of Boston, as opposed to swanky Newbury Street.

A total of $64 later (not including tips), I am tidy (yes, that area) and uncalloused (not that area--my feet!). And because I'm a giver, I thought I'd share with you some of my salon observations:

Bikini waxing. There's just no damn way to be modest during this process, is there? Even with granny panties on, your legs are sprawled wiiiiiide open.

It helps when your waxer doesn't really speak English. That way there's no pretense of small talk or chitchat about the weather as you're lying (laying?) there with your girly bits exposed; thusly leaving you free and clear to compose blog entries such as this as you anticipate the next excruciating tear of the waxy paper off your nether regions.

It lessens the pain if you grip the skin on the inside of your inner thigh and hold it taut while the waxing is being done. Truly. (Right Sarah. Kinda like a Dora bandaid would heal a gaping flesh wound?)

It always helps to have a meticulous waxer. Someone who's not all willy-nilly in her application. Otherwise you could end up crooked or lopsided down there. Just sayin'.

I would recommend NOT getting a waxing during the work day, as I did. It's hard to focus on your work product when you're worried about being cemented by wax to your office swivel chair. While wearing a skirt.

Finally, in all honesty? Getting a bikini wax is just not that bad. It's really not so much about the ripping out of the hairs as it is the vulnerability of your private body being exposed to a stranger. Am I right?

Moving on to manis and pedis:

Is it just me, or does anyone else get paranoid when all the Asian beauticians speak in their native language? Are they making fun of me? "Look at her gnarly toes!" "Ewww, gross." "I can't believe I have to touch these things!" (Ok, so maybe I'm slightly paranoid.)

Having the callouses shaved off your feet feels soooo good. But not so good that I'm even remotely tempted to purchase this. Spaghetti with "sprinkled parmesan", anyone?

Some women (*cough*thetwosittingonbothsidesofme*cough*) have really gross feet. Hmmm...maybe the girls were actually talking about them??

And finally, before you even make it out of the damn salon, you will inevitably smudge. Every. Single. Time. Grrrr.

Cross-posted at In the Trenches of Mommyhood.

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

Is it some sort of Darwinian impulse that keeps me from sharing the details of the house I am trying desperately not to fall in love with? I am a mass of contradiction. I feel like shouting out about it, and at the same time, I harbor a Gollum-like tendency to curl up around the property, shield it from the gaze of the world, stroke it tenderly and hiss:

"My preciousssssss.....my owwwnnnnn."

It's not like there is tons of competition in the town we are moving to. It's not like flocks of people are going to suddenly in the next 2 months (two months!!! AHHHHHHH!) move en masse to Aroostook County, Maine.

So. What the hell is getting my panties in such a bunch?

Maybe some of it is information overload. We saw 12 houses in the space of 9 hours. Houses in town, houses in the country, houses with crystal chandeliers, houses with scary, homicidal dogs, houses with apple trees, houses surrounded with farmland and nary another house in sight. I've learned about dug wells; drilled wells; septic tanks; the best foundation for the area (poured concrete); the pros and cons of metal roofing, and fireplaces; the wonderfulness that is the pellet stove; flood plains; waste disposal; heat zoning; the drawbacks of forced air heating;

Hmm. fast pulse, shortness of breath...panic attack coming on...

It's just a fucking house.

I'm healthy, if neurotic. So is my husband. (Healthy I mean). My daughter is happily tearing apart her room while I type. Our lease here runs out in August. We have to move by the end of July. Breath. Great. I just burned the fuck out of my lip with my green tea which thanks to my blasted travel mug is still scalding hot after ten minutes. Ah pain. The head cleanser.

Things are slowly falling into place. Daily, something is done to get us closer to our goals. We were approved for a mortgage. That's good. Dr. Science is one test and some paperwork away from obtaining his Maine medical license. That is also good. We have our passports all ready for our trip to the Netherlands at the end of June for Great Oma's 90th birthday. We have tickets. This is good.

We have 17 days between the time we return and Dr. Science's first day of work in Maine to move. That's...bad. We haven't made an offer yet. Also bad.

For those of you not in the know, the whole "this is good/bad" thing comes from the years in medical school. Particularly, from working in the ED. Things get down to basics very quickly when you have a short time to get results. So looking over a patient, one says..."he's breathing...that's good. He doesn't have a pulse. That's bad". It reminds you where your priorities should lie.

Right now it is...make the fucking offer already.

And be vewy, vewy quiet...

Cross posted at Rock the Cradle .

My Ultimate: Mr. Right for a Night

("My Ultimate" will run most Tuesdays and will feature any topic that hops into my head.  The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the other New England Mamas. . . although they should).

I have found my poison for the summer.

It is called "Grape Lemonade" and this drink brings me back to those days of. . .well, those days of never, since if I had discovered this when I was younger, I'd probably be sleeping in a gutter somewhere right now.

Grape Lemonade and I met at Providence's Parkside Rotisserie & Bar.  He was sweet but came on strong.  I needed to watch myself around him because he would've had me singing Sweet Caroline and high-fiving everyone at our table if I'd spent too much time with him.   

He's gone now and all that is left is a memory.  I just wish this memory could remember what went into him so that I could recreate his magic myself. 

(so far, I recall that this drink had Three Olives Grape Vodka, lemonade and possibly sour mix; if I hear from the fine people at the Parkside, I will update you all.  Don't say I didn't warn you).

Taking a stroll on Avenue Q

Warning: You Tube clips in the post below may use strong language and definitely refer to puppet sex.

I'm going to ignore.. for the time being only (trust me I will get to it) .. the latest blogger relations kerfuffle involving monster consumer brand J&J, and instead focus on my recent interactions with a different monster.

The puppet Kate Monster from Tony-award winning musical Avenue Q.

Yesterday, my husband and I saw Avenue Q at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. I knew it would be funny. I just didn't realize how funny. Even David, who thought Rent was like Friends only on Broadway, laughed his ass off.

It Sucks To Be Me, from Tony Awards

If you have a chance to see this show, go. The underlying theme, much like the Sesame Steet of which it is a loving parody, is quite optimistic, if also realistic. The music is terrific.

More importantly, the spirit of the show leaves you up on life. Which may be hard to believe of a show with key numbers like "It Sucks To Be Me," "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," "The Internet is for Porn," and "Schadenfreude" but is nevertheless true.

Before I saw the show, I wondered if I would find the visible puppeteering distracting? Would I watch the puppet? Or the actor? To the credit of the performers, it is seamless. You watch both. And neither. It's weird, but you simply watch the character as it is portrayed by the puppet and the person.

And then there's the hot puppet sex....

Best line of the show? There are so many, but I think I have go with Trekkie Monster from " The Internet is For Porn."

Before starting my consulting business in 2004, I spent 10 years working for Internet filtering companies, building and promoting software to protect kids from unacceptable Internet content. And my husband and I spent the better part of the weekend dealing with a porno-spam hack on one of my blogs. So I can absolutely believe that for many 'Net users, it is all about "Grab your dick, and double click."

Enjoy the clips.

Tags: Avenue Q, Colonial Theater

My Ultimate: How to Survive a Booty Call

("My Ultimate" will run most Tuesdays and will feature any topic that hops into my head.  The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the other New England Mamas. . . although they should).

Many women spend a lot of time worrying about their butt:  Is it too big?  Too flat?  Too wide?  Does my ass look too big in these jeans?  (don't answer that too quickly, mister).

I daresay, though, that many women do not spend much time thinking about their colon.  This is a shame since colorectal cancer strikes an equal amount of women as it does men.   The kicker?  This cancer is one of the most easily prevented cancers. 

Last September, I thought a heck of a lot about my colon because I had a colonoscopy.   Although the general recommendation is that people start getting colonoscopies at the age of 50, I was told to start ten years earlier due to a family history of this disease.   Some people should start getting screened as young as 30 depending on their risk factors. 

The idea of getting a colonoscopy scares a lot of people.  I've talked to many whose reaction is, "There is no way anyone is sticking a tube up my butt!"  So, when I had to get one myself, I decided to write about it so that some people could learn what a real procedure was like. 

In honor of March being National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month (NCRCAM for 'short'), I will republish my posts from September for those of you who are still thinking, "There is no way. . .". 

Day One:  The Prep  (written at about 8:30 pm, the night before the procedure)

I've had a few disgusting things happen to me in my life: I've had two non-wiggly baby teeth knocked out of my mouth by a sadistic dentist who didn't use Novocaine;

I've broken my arm and watched as the doctor squeezed the two bones back together;

I've had my bladder partially fall out of me;

I've given birth three times. While these were beautiful events, what comes out after the babies arrive is NOT pretty;

I've also had, like most people, the common stomach bugs, morning sicknesses and snot-filled, allergy-ridden springs.

But, nothing could quite prepare me for tonight.

I'm preparing for my first-ever colonoscopy and thought that the worst part of it would be the procedure in the morning.

But, after fasting all day long and then drinking 80 ounces of somewhat thick, salty-sweet liquid, I've changed my mind.

I am dreaming of food and, inexplicably, unable to watch anything on TV but Top Chef and The Food Network. I almost licked the television screen when they made a muffaletta, despite the fact that I rarely eat any meat.

I'm dreaming of food even during the "cleansing", which is pretty remarkable.

Oh, the cleansing. If you've ever told anyone they are full of shit, well, think again, because you are too. Yes, you are full of more shit than you think is possible.

I am astounded by this, and hungry. And probably 10 pounds lighter. Wait, let me go check that one. . .

Nope, dammit, exactly the same weight. How is that possible???

OK, all appears to be quiet in the belly region. I'm off to bed to dream about muffaletta and bagels and goat cheese and french fries and ice cream.

Day Two:  The Procedure (written around 6:00pm)

After yesterday's post, which was full of poop and woe, I feel kind of silly posting tonight.

I think I get it now. . .prepping for a colonoscopy: kind of yucky; having the actual colonoscopy: as easy as taking a nap.

Seriously, once the sedatives were put into my body, I disappeared into la-la land, waking only to think, "Oh, this must be the beginning", but hearing the doctor say, "All done!"

I had planned to chat throughout the entire procedure, a la Katie Couric. Instead, I probably snored.

Once I had regained consciousness, I was relieved to hear that all looked good---one polyp was removed and will be biopsied, but this is apparently pretty common. I was on my feet and scarfing down an egg-and-cheese bagel sandwich before Fairly Odd Father's car drove us out of the parking lot.

One benefit of the fasting? It allowed me to see what a flat stomach looks like. Either that or I hallucinated due to lack of food.

I am a bit worried that yesterday's post may have convinced some people never to have a colonoscopy, so I will attempt to re-convince those of you who feel this way.

First, fasting isn't THAT bad. You can eat popsicles, jello and drink soda! You can feel virtuous, like "my body is my temple and I will not eat for a whole day!" Plus, after I got through the night, I was no longer hungry in the morning (that is, until the bagel sandwich appeared in front of me).

Second, here is a tip for drinking down glass after glass of HalfLytely (the stuff that will 'cleanse' your system): pretend you are in college, at a bar. Grab your glass like a shot and drink it all---yes, all 8 ounces at once (you know you could do this at one time). As soon as the glass is empty, grab a piece of lime and suck it. The lime wipes away all the nasty taste from your mouth, plus you can almost pretend you just drank a tequila shot. If the fasting is going well, you'll be a bit dizzy anyway, so the illusion of drinking is there. If you repeat this every ten minutes, you will be finished with the solution in less than an hour and a half.

Third, make sure you have NO responsibilities after 6pm. Lock yourself in your bedroom and keep the path to the bathroom open. Watch TV, read, play on the computer, whatever. Light lots of candles in the bathroom for odor control. When you feel the rumbling, run for the bathroom. Repeat this until the rumbling quiets down. I was still able to get a decent night's sleep, with minimal interruption.

Finally, schedule your appointment for first-thing in the morning. My appointment was at 8am, and I was out of the hospital by 9:30. Just get it over with before you have too much time to wake up and worry about it.

All joking aside, do me one favor: ask your parents when they had their last colonoscopy, and if you are 50 or older (or as young as 30 with family history), ask yourself. The procedure is so easy, mostly painless (even the cleansing was pain-free; it isn't like having diarreah because there are no terrible stomach aches or gas) and quick.

Colorectal cancer is a horrible, terribly painful disease, and yet preventable with regular screenings. I lost my dad to it when he was only 62 years old, and that was because he let too much time pass between his appointments. Don't let too much time pass for you.

The Right Stranger for the Job

My husband and I decided to transplant ourselves into New England in our early 20s.  I attend grad school in Boston; he came out right after his master's degree and we got an apartment in Salem.  We could've stayed in New York; after all, that's where both of our families live, we know the political and educational systems there, and we had been their all our lives.

But on the other hand, the down side was, that's where both of our families live, we know the political and educational systems there, and we had been there all our  lives.   It was time for a change, one that involved living nearer to the ocean and farther from his mother, and New England fit the bill.

We've been happy here, at least as happy as a family can be which has had at least one full-time doctoral student for the past 7 years.   The landscape is pretty, the schools aren't too bad, and the seafood isn't all bland and rubbery.  I do wish we could live closer to my mother and sisters, but that would require a move nearer my mother-in-law, so we're placating ourselves with visits and encouraging them to move eastward, as well.

The huge, big, major, unignorable, inevitable downside to moving far from family is that you don't have any family in the area.  Telephone calls about how confused and exhausted you feel after your tenth straight month of sleep deprivation just aren't the same as a chat around the kitchen table, and you have to keep up-to-date scrapbooks early on to remind the children that they have a whole flock of people that love them.  And it's darn near impossible to find a consistent and reliable source of babysitting.

It's not just the babysitting, though.  The process of finding any number of services becomes difficult and nerve-wracking.  You can ask around at work and among friends, but being new to the area, you don't know whose word to trust when it comes to plumbers, mechanics, cell phone reception, contractors, grocery stores... you get the idea. 

But the daycare thing, that's a big one, and about as nerve-wracking as any opening of the phone book can be.  This isn't the kind of decision that might result in you getting overcharged for a brake job or left with caulk peeling off your newly redone bathroom (ask me how I know), it's the kind of decision that can end up with your child being exposed to physical dangers, unethical care providers, or the Teletubbies.  It's a scary proposition.

I got my current job in June of 2006, which gave us a little time before my husband returned to school and we needed somewhere other than a closet to house my son, who would be two when enrolled.  I asked anyone who would stop and listen to me, I read newspapers, I compares prices and wait-lists and teacher turnover rates, and I still didn't have a good sense of what I wanted.  I knew I wanted something accredited by the state, only because I didn't have any reliable word-of-mouth recommendations and I wanted some sense of oversight and accountability. 

And lo, I found a website that cleared the way. The Bureau of Child Care Licensing in New Hampshire has a website which allows you to search by town to see a list of all accredited child care providers, and read through their recent accreditation visits and reviews.  It wasn't an entirely good experience for me, just as visiting WebMD can leave you in a panicked and overwhelmed state when you're searching for information on a headache and you end up thinking you might have cancer.  There were places that had slick websites or friend-of-a-friend recommendations which were listed as having major safety violations, and I was left with these images of my son being trapped under heavy, unrestrained furniture while drinking bleach and suffering alone because of the low staff-to-child ratio. 

But at the end of the day, I narrowed it down, found a place I'm happy with, and have kept my son there for a year and a half (well, we do take him home on weekends, ha ha).  I was reminded of this all this morning, as I dropped him off after a three-day weekend.  He always has three-day weekends, because I have Mondays off, so he settled in comfortably.  Not so some of his friends; to listen to their wailing and schedule-disrupted angst you'd think they were conducting product-testing experiments on their little bodies.  But, no, it's just a first-day-back adjustment thing, and I'm happy with the choice we made.  I wouldn't consider that website a total lifesaver... but it helped give me one less reason to lose sleep at night.

Mistletoe is for Sissies

Inspiration struck me as I came upon the Christmas stockings that my husband and I had filled and exchanged when we were still dating.  These were not our childhood stockings, which now hang over the fireplace along with those of our three children.  These were 'extras' that I normally just threw back in the box of miscellaneous Christmas stuff.

But, now I had an idea.  A definitely "NC-17"-rated idea. 

I shared this idea with my husband a few nights before Christmas when I presented him with a stocking filled with little items that would not be suitable for exchanging Christmas morning.   He understandably loved his 'grownup stocking', and we have continued the tradition ever since.

Now, before your mind goes too deep into the gutter, let me say that there is a pretty big range of items that will fit into a stocking and that won't make you blush too much.  A gift certificate to Victoria's Secret.  A bottle of massage oil.  A homemade coupon book, redeemable for back rubs, a bubble bath or a candlelight dinner.  A CD mix of songs that remind you of when you were dating.  A letter telling your spouse how much you love him or her.  A poem. 

Or, you can go right for the jugular (or whatnot) and get much more adult in your approach.  I am admittedly a wimp in this area, so I'll just send you over to Kristen's fabulous gift guide at Mominatrix (not suitable for kids, or my husband's aunt, our parents or anyone who knows me from church). 

Yes, Christmas is for the kids.  But, that doesn't mean we can't have fun too.