New England Mamas

Secret Spaces/Hidden Gems: I want even more candy! This time, the homemade kind.

Candy.  Mmmm, candy.  I love candy.  No, I REALLY LOVE CANDY.  Nom nom nom.

I particularly love chocolate.  If I could, I'd sprinkle pounds of it on the floor and roll around in it... But that would be a waste of some fine, sugary, chocolaty goodness.  Not to mention a horrible mess.

In a place near where I grew up there is a fantastic candy store where they make their own candies on site, and the smell when you walk in the door... Oh my LAWD.  I still have dreams about it.  It's called Priscilla Candy Shop and they have two locations - One in Gardner, MA, where they not only sell but also make the confections that I dream about nightly, and another in Concord, MA.

I was raised on the candies from this place.  Which might account for my poor eating habits.  My earliest memories involve an extremely large plate of chocolates, like Smidgens (small chocolate covered peanut butter shapes, usually whimsical in nature, that will make you forget there is such a thing as Reese's peanut butter cups), homemade chocolate mints (Peppermint Patties?  I'm sorry, these knock those out of the water),  and the piece de resistance, individually wrapped slices of French Roll in wax paper, on my grandmother's coffee table every Christmas. 

Now these French Rolls are not like anything you've ever experienced.  And, no, these are not bread rolls.  A French Roll, Priscilla-style, is a log of fudge-y, chocolate-y heaven covered in crushed nuts.  But it's not fudge.  I suppose it's a sort of ganache.  I really can't describe it except to say you'd sell your first born child for one.  It's really that good.  My Godmother worked for Priscilla Candy Shop for awhile and every Christmas I'd have one of those bad boys waiting for me as a gift.  It wouldn't even make it to see the New Year.

Though I realize pictures of these candies would be great in this post, I'm happy to say they don't last long enough in my house to photograph.  I barely make it out of the store before stuffing my face with them.  You'll have to check out the place for yourself or order some from their website.  Trust me and order the French Roll.  You won't be disappointed.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, But No Fences Make Me Really Vindictive

"...And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go." - Robert Frost Mending Wall

As any good New Englander, I believe in a good fence.  A fence keeps my children and dogs in my yard and my neighbor's children and dogs out.  And the higher the better - I live close enough to the people around me to know I don't want them all up in my business every time I step out the back door in my bathrobe and slippers, hair sticking up in every direction, when I want to do something like let my dogs out to do their thing.

To some people this would sound anti-social, even downright surly, but I disagree.  I've always found, both in my own adult life and while growing up and observing my parents and grandparents, that a solid division of property keeps the peace.  There's little quibbling over who has to mow which piece of grass or which tree belongs to who.   Is it within the boundaries of my fence line?  Then it's mine.  Don't touch it and I will be more than happy to pay the same courtesy.  Simple. 

I've seen great neighborly relations break down over something as inane as blowing leaves in the fall.  Get yourself a fence, I say.  That'll keep most of the leaves in or out.  You know what you should rake and I know what I should rake and never the two (hundred bajillion leaves) shall meet.

When my husband and I moved to the house we currently live in six years ago we had a shared fence along the back of our property that met up with two other fences we owned.  When we redid the fences this year (old wooden ones that were not properly taken care of and were left to the bugs and the squirrels to destroy) we, stupidly I'll admit, assumed our neighbors, a seemingly nice and reasonable couple we might want to be more friendly with someday, would let us connect the new fences to the existing one.  The fence, as we found out, technically belonged to them, something the previous owners of this house didn't tell us about.  And while we were having new fences put up to surround our property and our pool, our neighbor was taking down the perfectly nice six foot chain link fence between our backyards.  For no reason other than he felt like it.

We asked if he would keep it up but he said No, why should he?

Why should he, indeed.

We couldn't force him, only appeal to his kind nature.  Yeah, apparently he was not that kind.

 

That lapse in our judgment ended up costing us a large sum of money to put up a longer section of fence that we hadn't budgeted for.  And a sizable portion of our backyard is now open to another neighbor's hoodlum kids with paint ball guns and ATVs kids because we simply could not afford to fence the entire property.  But more than that, it ended up costing us a decent relationship with the couple who took down the fence. 

And that meant war, to me anyway.

I dare you to find anyone more stubborn or vindictive than a New England woman with an ax to grind.  I have no desire to be friendly with them now.  If anything, they should probably watch out come fall because some extra leaves might end up on their side of the property line.  Hey, there's no fence there now.  Can I help it if the wind might blow that way?

I need to have some division between our properties but a fence is out of the question unless a large pile of cash falls in my lap.  Since that's not going to happen any time soon I'm thinking of planting picker bushes to put a nice visual division between our yard and theirs.  Have fun mowing your lawn then, buddy.

Heh.

How rude

Residents of Massachusetts have a long history of being reserved and not, if I may be so bold to say, overly polite.  If you want friendly people go South.  If you want to hang out with someone who's chill, go West.  If you want a bunch of overworked stress bags who are just friendly enough with their neighbors to make sure if they ever were to drop dead in their homes their bodies would be discovered before the cats ate it, the Northeast, and especially Massachusetts, is where you want to be. 

We've even been called "rude".  Not by me but by, like, other people.  Which is why this particular This is Not Boston commercial is so damn funny.

Or maybe I'm just projecting my own experiences on the residents of my fair state?

I've lived here all my life and while the people I have met are generally affable I wouldn't exactly call the majority of them warm.  Sure, there is the odd neighbor who will go out of their way for you but they're usually the exception to the rule.

Not that this bothers me.  I like to smile and wave at my neighbors and I expect the same in return but I don't expect to become BFFs with the new couple who moved into the house on the corner.  Would I like to if we had something in common?  Absolutely, but I'm not going to force it by showing up on their doorstep with a plate of cookies or a tuna noodle casserole.  If you're from another part of the country where this is not only acceptable but expected you're probably horrified but this is just the way it is usually.

But sometimes I'd really like my fellow Masshole to go a bit above and beyond for a fellow member of the Commonwealth.

The other evening my husband and I took our daughter out for an early dinner at one of those obnoxiously loud chain restaurants.  Apparently we didn't get there early enough because there was already a 20+ minute wait for a table.  We chose to bide our time in the packed waiting area.

We stood in front of an L shaped row of cushioned seats because that was the only place to wait.  All the seats were taken by able bodied people and their young children.  Mothers and fathers all of them.  I'm seven months pregnant and although I'm not huge my bump is clearly evident to those who choose to notice, especially to a person who has been in that position themselves.   And for the first five minutes it never occurred to me to be put off by the fact that no one offered me their seat.

Then my back started to hurt.

I didn't make a big show of being ticked off - and I was - but I did make eye contact with more than a few of the people who were sitting and noticed most of them looking toward my baby bump.  For the next ten minutes, until someone got up anyway because their name was called for an empty table, not one person gave me a place to sit.

Was I expecting too much? 

Like I mentioned before, I don't expect much of my neighbors but we do go out of our way to help each other in times of need, because that's what neighbors do.  But was I wrong to expect that total strangers from my area of the state would notice an uncomfortably pregnant woman and offer her a bit of kindness?

I mean, geez, it's not like I forced my tuna noodle casserole on them.  Now that would be cruel.

Do you love the Patriots more than you love your country?

We've got a couple of very (very very) important events coming up for ol' New England in the next few days - First being the Super Bowl

(Have you heard about this? Apparently this little team called the Patriots are playing some team called the Giants?  Anyone?)

and the second is Super Tuesday.

Or is it Super Duper Tuesday?  Can we make a decision on this please?

Anyway.

When my secret lover, Tom Brady, and the Pats annihilate the lesser Manning brother and his team there will be a scheduling conflict between the rolling rally and Super Tuesday.   

The problem is this - The rally needs to be held on Tuesday, due to the fact that Brady and seven other players need to leave for the Pro Bowl on Wednesday, and if you haven't caught on yet from the name the Massachusetts primary is that same day. 

Will people be interested in voting in the primary if they're too busy packing up their families to head to Boston to celebrate the Patriots' 19-0 season?  Will they choose to vote before or after the rolling rally or will they even bother?  And if they bother but then partake of a few too many spirits during the celebration before voting do we need to chance all the "Bill Belichick for President!" write in votes?

What would you do?

First, are you planning on attending the rolling rally if the Patriots win?  Will you still vote in the primary if you do?  But more importantly, are we risking a jinx by even speaking about this?

Um...

Forget everything I just said.  Just forget this discussion ever came up, okay?

Nope, no talk of rallies here.

*backing away slowly*

Go Pats!

No woman left behind in '08

I opened up my email inbox today to find that I had a message from Bill Clinton.  A special message for me?  From BILL??  It's only Monday and this week is already shaping up to be a bang up one.

After my heart finished its pitter patter thumpity thump thump (Bill still does it for me and I have no idea why) and the blood returned to my brain I could focus my eyes on the email itself.  It was not in fact a love letter but a message about his wife Hillary and her presidential aspirations and, more to the point, tomorrow's primary in New Hampshire.  Bummer.  I had already mentally packed my suitcase.

A while ago I went to Hillary's website to leave my two cents (hence, the email from Bill on her behalf and the countless others I get asking for campaign contributions I receive every other day) on her and every other presidential candidates reluctance or downright refusal to speak with representatives from Blogher.  I told her, or the lackey who is responsible for weeding through all the crack-pot comments on her website's feedback page, that women bloggers were not only intelligent and large in number but also vocal and extremely opinionated.  I didn't come right out and say it in so many words but the gist was women bloggers could be this election's soccer mom vote if only the candidates would get their collective heads out of their arse's and take notice.

Needless to say, no one from Hillary's campaign got back to me.

I saw Elizabeth Edwards speak at the Blogher conference this past year.  As a woman who had lost her mother to cancer I was keenly aware of her own struggle with the disease and am a supporter of her choice to pull her kids from a traditional school to keep her family together as her husband John continued his campaign.  So, yes, I was already enamored with her.  But when I heard her speak I was very impressed by what she had to say.  Elizabeth Edwards is one smart cookie, but what really got my attention was that she had the guts to say she did not agree with everything her husband did.  They were a team but she was not a mindless politician's wife.  She had me at "hello", the rest sealed the deal - I was an Edwards supporter.  Well, all that and the fact that I like John Edward's politics.

I enjoyed that first foray into politicians wanting my vote and going out to get it.  It's all fine and good that Michelle Obama might be willing to be interviewed by Blogher but now I want the real deal.  I won't be happy just listening to a candidate's wife - or husband for that matter, even if it is Bill - talk about their spouse's campaign promises, I want to hear from the horse's mouth.  So why don't I feel as if any of them want to talk to me, Blogher or not?

Today I wish I lived in New Hampshire so I could hear in person the candidate's themselves speak.  I'd like the opportunity to ask a question about the rising cost of health care and child care.  I'd like to ask them what so many politicians seem to have against the American family, seeing as mother's only get 6 to 8 weeks of maternity leave and paternity leave is a joke.  I'd like to be noticed as an important vote.

Some, and from what I've seen mostly the Democrats, have mentioned education reform and talked about major health care changes but I still don't feel as if they're trying to get MY vote.  My problem with this election is not just the candidate's ignoring women bloggers as a group but, from my point of view, women as a whole.   Except to ask for campaign contributions, which I will concede to and agree that if women want their voices heard they need to give more money.  It's a sad reality but our reality nonetheless.

But I do like it more when Bill asks for it.

So what can we do in '08?  How can we get our presidential candidate of choice to listen to us?  Is it money?  Do we need to get in their faces during this primary season and make them hear us?  And if we had their attention, what would we tell them?  We want cheaper but still well-run daycares for our children?  We want health care reform and senior care to be a priority because our parents are getting older and we'll soon be responsible for their care?  Is the No Child Left Behind act a joke and education should be the priority?  What would you say if your party's candidates were sitting in front of you?  Not their spouses, the men and woman themselves.

Okay, maybe Bill could be sitting by Hillary's side during all that.  A woman can dream.

So you think you're a Pats fan? Are you really?

Maybe you've noticed a phenomenon happening in the New England sports scene since Spygate back in September.  Maybe you didn't notice it until ESPN the magazine and Sports Illustrated (not to mention all the sports television channels) started referring to the Patriots as Villains of the NFL.  Or maybe when they started to compare New England teams (mainly the Pats and the Red Sox) to the Yankees' evil empire.  Maybe you haven't noticed at all because it's been pretty quiet.

The phenomenon?  The non-diehard fans are quietly jumping off of the New England sports band wagon.

To which I say, "Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you". 

I really could not be happier.  Have you tried to get tickets for a Sox or Patriots game in the past few years?  Impossible, totally impossible, unless you have connections.  Which I don't.

It's not uncommon for the casual fan to jump on a particular team's bandwagon.  People love the underdog, don't they?  But they especially love it when the underdog, the really likable team, starts winning.  When the Sox won the 2004 World Series it was easy to see from every other game played in every other city in North America in the 2005 season that they had generated a larger fan base.  The sea of Red Sox hats and t-shirts were everywhere.  In Toronto.  In Florida.  All of the American League people hopped aboard the bandwagon because the 2004 team was so damn likable.  When the Pats won their first Super Bowl in 2002, as the underdogs, the every man, the guys you just had to love as they left entered the stadium as a team instead of being called individually, the same thing had already happened. 

Because people love the underdog.

But when the underdog starts winning more often, when they win a Super Bowl not just in the '01 season but in the '03 and '04 seasons (and quite possibly in '08 but we won't talk of that for risk of jinxing something), and when they not only win but demolish their competition and break all sorts of records... Well that's just no fun for the casual fan.  The team isn't as enjoyable to like.  And the casual fan starts jumping off like rats from a sinking ship even if this ship is not sinking.  Imagine if the team just sucked?  The traffic jam generated from all those casual fans throwing themselves off the bandwagon would be worse than trying to leave Boston before a holiday weekend.  With a snowstorm in progress.

Buh-bye.  Please don't forget to take your commemorative plastic beer cup when you leave.

The real Pats fan (and for that matter, the Red Sox fan) loves that their team is on top right now.  A real Pats fan remembers the lean years of the late 80's-early 90's, when it seemed we couldn't buy a win, and sees this dynasty as a gift from the football gods.  A real Pats fan watches Brady throw to Moss (or Welker or Stallworth or Gaffney) for a touchdown and wants to see it again and again.  A real Pats fan wants to enjoy our good fortune and roll around in it, naked, like Demi Moore on a bed of money.  A real Pats fan sees the score run up against our opponents and wants to yell at the television, if I can borrow one of Bill Simmons the Sports Guy's - originally the BOSTON Sports Guy - favorite quotes from The Karate Kid, "Get him a body bag! Yeah!"

Only a true fan could route for the villain.  Not that we see our team as the bad guys, we just don't care that much that the rest of the country does.  You don't like our team?  We can live with that because we love them.  And if, God forbid, they don't win the Super Bowl (*crossing myself to ward off jinxes*) or if next season they don't play as great as they did this year we'll still love them.

Because a true fan doesn't just love their team when they're winning, they love them when they're losing.  But when they're crushing the competition into the ground we love them even more.

16 and oh, baby!  Yeah!

The dog may eat your homework but he should never eat a World Series ball

Given my chosen profession as a dog trainer I love a good dog story in the news, but this one almost broke my heart.

ESPN is reporting a dog belonging to Jonathan Papelbon - the Boston Red Sox's World Series clinching closing pitcher - ate the baseball from the final out of the 2007 World Series.

Now, my dogs have eaten enough things in their day.  Just the other day they stole a few apples off the counter while I was out of the house.  My fault entirely, as I left them where they could be reached.  And my dogs have been known to steal Girl Scout cookies from a closed pantry.  But something as important as the ball thrown during the final out of the Sox's second Series win in four years? 

What the heck happened Jon?

"My dog ate it," Papelbon reported to the Hattiesburg American. "He plays with baseballs like they are his toys. His name is Boss. He jumped up one day on the counter and snatched it. He likes rawhide. He tore that thing to pieces."

"I'll keep what's left of it."

Well, yeah.  Of course you'll keep what's left of it, dog slobber or no dog slobber.  I almost licked the crumbs of those Girl Scout cookies that were left on my floor, I'm sure you'll keep the chewed hide of the ball.  But those cookies were left on a fairly high shelf in a pantry (that my dogs are clever enough to open).  What I'd really like to know is why the ball was on a counter where the dog could reach it.  Bad dog owner.  Bad, bad, bad...

So, to one Jonathan Papelbon - I'm offering my services as a trainer to you.  Given my history I certainly know what it's like to mess up and leave my dogs in a situation where they have no choice but to be naughty.  However, it only took one chewing of my shoes to train my dogs to never, ever touch Mommy's pretty things.  I can help you too.  And it won't even involve a shock collar... For the dog.  You might be a different story.  I mean, really.  Who's the "Boss" in your house?

Do you think the ball will be worth slightly less now?

Tips on tipping

This is hands down the biggest tipping season of the year.   Myself, I just returned from picking up my dogs from the groomer where they only go a handful of times a year and dropped $20 on the tip alone.  And I'm feeling like I gypped her. 

Yeah, now that I think about it I totally gypped her.

But I stink at this kind of thing.  I spent a few years as a waitress in college and then a couple of years as a bartender while in that I-don't-know-what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up phase so I have no problem with tipping those people.  I am a straight across the board 20% tipper in restaurants if the service is good, 15% if it's just adequate.  And I've been known to leave less if I need to point out that they should consider trying another line of work.  Bartenders I tip accordingly on a case by case basis.

After that, however, I get frazzled.  And now with the holidays coming up I'm really stuck.  It's easy enough to go online and find the unofficial guidelines for holiday tipping but I want to know what real people do.  For instance, I have a house cleaner who comes once a week but we've only just hired her.  She's only cleaned our home, as of tomorrow, three times.  What do I tip her?

Ditto for my stylist.  I've only seen her four times, less than half the year.  She's pregnant so I plan on bringing her a cute onsie or something like that for her baby and I'll increase my usual tip by at least ten percent (I'm generous with my stylists, too).  Is that enough?

So what do you do?  Do you tip or give small gifts to your garbage men?  Your postal carriers?  How much do you tip your hairdresser or the person who delivers your newspaper.  And are Christmas cookies as gift ever a good idea?

And should I go back to the groomer and leave her a big, fat tip and many apologies?  Because no one trims my dogs' nails like she does and that's worth its weight in gold right there.

Stop the insanity! Another recall.

Boppy, maker of the popular pillows so frequently used by breastfeeding mothers, is recalling 38,000 thousand of their slip covers because the zippers could break and could be a choking hazard. 

If that wasn't bad enough, and honestly a possible broken zipper didn't scare me too much, but the zippers are also said to contain excess lead.  Not just lead, but excess lead.

I'm not naive.  I know that lead paint is common in many areas of our life.  Certain candles, for instance, contain lead (which is why I burn soy candles that specifically say on the label "No lead", 'cause I love my scented candles).  Water, for the love of Pete, contains a bit of lead.  And I know as a child I chewed many a painted windowsill that no doubt was covered in toxic lead paint.  Which, come to think of it, explains a lot about my personality.  I never have had much of an attention sp... What was I saying?

But I digress.

I'm not an alarmist and so far, to my knowledge, my family has escaped the lead paint toy recalls.  But don't think I haven't considered buying one of those lead paint home test kits.  My father in law, who is an alarmist, told my husband and I just the other night that we should purchase one and I almost began to agree with him, until my husband started rolling his eyes.  Then I was 100% on board with the idea.

The Boppy recall may seem small compared to Thomas the Tank Engine and Dora the Explorer (quick aside: does anyone else want to call her "Dora the Explorah" is it just the ghost of my New England accent I fought to kill?), but I know that my daughter as a baby used our Boppy on many an occasion for tummy time.  I cringe at the thought of how many times she had the zipper in her mouth.

I'm tired of recalls but I'm afraid we've only scratched the lead painted surface.  I think this is just the beginning.  The question is, how much lead are we willing to live with before we tip the scale from concerned parent to overprotective, psycho parent?

Testing

Just to test the categories.