Choices

Hello Busy Subscribers!

I’ve been reflecting on time management this week. You know that satisfaction of hopping on the B train just as the doors close on your backside? “YES!” You made it. Just in time. In fact, it’s a timing coup: no missed train, yet no time wasted on the platform either. This is how I live my life lately, jumping to appointments like hopping subway cars. I’m always optimizing time, intolerant of unproductive moments—impatient to the point of a diagnosable disorder no doubt. Okay, you’re probably more chill than me, but I assume your days are still much like mine, packed with obligation, enrichment and recreation. So I want to start off this week with a huge THANK YOU for:

1.  subscribing to my blog,

2.  not yet unsubscribing,

3.  opening my posts and (more or less) making it through them. 

This makes Post #17 in the new year. That’s a lot for you and me... and a lot has been falling by the wayside because of it. I’ve been making different choices lately:

Choice A  OR  Choice B

write my blog OR change out the boys’ winter wardrobe for summer shorts

write my blog OR rout out size 6 underwear from the 10-year-old’s skivvies drawer

read someone else’s blog OR make homemade applesauce

write my blog OR clean out the china cabinet

peruse Pinterest boards OR clean out the kitchen drawer

follow friends on Twitter OR scrub the shower curtain liner

plant bulbs in public spaces OR sew buttons on shirts

write my blog OR give myself a sloppy pedicure

try a radical recipe for ground turkey OR wash out the garbage cans

write my blog OR clean the microwave

write my blog OR fold laundry

read someone else’s newsletter OR match mittens and socks

join a book club OR clean out the car

do a set of push-ups OR dust the blinds

write my blog OR sleep

I’ve been favoring A over B these days…. overlooking the gummy corners of the kids’ mouths and the kitchen floor. Slacking on changing sheets. The pots and the poodle go unwashed.

The daily must-dos are enough for me these days. It’s enough to slide supper on the table, correct homework, sign school trip permission slips, enforce piano practice.

When the kids finally nod off, column B beckons, but I’ve been plugging the ear buds into the MacBook, raising the volume on my iTunes The Cure radio station, and going for A…  

I LOVE choosing A and I’m managing the consequences… 

What are your housekeeping shortcuts?  

Here are 3 of mine:

1. Clorox wipes by every toilet.

2. Dressing from the clean laundry basket.

3. Dim lighting.

One area I don’t take nearly enough shortcuts: the stovetop. But that’s my choice too. I still love to cook. When a 5lb bag of last October’s Macintosh apples scans at $2.99 in April, it’s time to make applesauce, and screw the blog. Homemade applesauce is worth the effort.

What’s worth your effort these days?

Old Goat!

When the boys toddled around, weighed down by infrequently changed Pull-Ups, and still occasionally now, we stop by the barn at the Prospect Park Zoo. Spend enough time in petting zoos and you will A) lose your mind B) contract an animal-borne illness because you neglected to use the hand sanitizer provided or C) gain valuable insights into human nature. (A and C so far for me).

Insert 2 quarters, dial up a palmful of compressed hay pellets and head for the pens. That’s my limit by the way: 50 cents worth of family fun and slobber. If they want more, I make the boys scrounge for fallen kibble. I think they like this part best, down in the dirt. If I could get away with it, I would sneak the wooly beasts heels of bread, but there are docents milling about. Feeding gluten-rich crusts to domesticates and water fowl is a big no-no. Even if I get around the docents, my boys know this no-no and are the worst enforcers. They would turn me over to the rangers in bermuda shorts in a little boy heartbeat. But I’m just not convinced Tom Turkey’s gizzard will explode if he pecks at an organic crumb of pumpernickel, priced at $4.39 per loaf.

Ever try to feed a Cotswold sheep with a goat standing by? Guess who gets the pellet from your palm?  Goat muzzles out sheep every time. As a kid, my favorite sculpture in the MOMA garden was Picasso’s She-Goat, a sway back, proud, pregnant goat with enormous teats. No coincidence there. Picasso strikes me as a randy, bearded billy. I love Picasso and I love goats, with their weird vertical iris, asymetrical markings and endearingly insistent natures. I love how they frisk up to the fence with a “Wassup?” Makes my day.

It was in watching this bully billy, on a recent Sunday afternoon, that my barnyard epiphany hit me:  the personalities we attribute to individual animal species can be reduced to single traits. Sheeps are sheepish, lions are leontine, and goats are, well, rascally, old goats. True to their natures, this old goat muscled out Mary’s little lamb, who backed away without a bleat. Yet here’s the crazy thing: this Noah’s ark of personality traits that manifest individually in our furry, scaly and feathered friends, floats within our single species. Homo sapiens exhibit a wild range of disposition, from self-effacing sheep to proud peacocks, from faithful dogs to fickle felines, stealthy scorpions to stupid asses. Zookeepers who dish out yams daily in the baboon habitat may rightly object to my generalization, pointing out that there are braggarts as well as cowards within this old world monkey family. Yet hide for hide, kittens are basically skittish, wolves wolf down their dinner, and baboons bear teeth, flaunt red butts and generally monkey around.

Ask yourself: why are humans so different, one from the next? Why are your kids so different? Why aren’t we all bearish or dovelike? My spin? Just another example of an inscrutable intelligence at work. It takes all types and a breadth of talents, to fill the jobs that keep this planet spinning. We need them all, the goats and sheep, wolves and owls, and especially the doves. (We can lose the slumlord cockroaches). I know God exists because for every job on this planet there is someone to do it. Some kids actually want to grow up to be phlebotomists. They see the reward of painlessly puncturing a hidden vein. Or how about offensive linemen? Plenty of boys want to grow up to be knocked down, again and again.

I have experienced God’s perfect floor plan first-hand at the American Museum of Natural History:

5th fl: arachnologists and entomologists corral tarantulas and stinkbugs

(astrophysicists are off in their own orbit)

4th-3rd fls: curators and exhibition crew build temporary shows

3rd-1st fls: finance, education, development & HR departments are tucked away behind permanent exhibits. Gift shop workers sell field guides and lava lamps

lower level: cafeteria workers and custodians serve it up and clean it up

And tourists everywhere. Eurotrash in expensive loafers pound the marble floors to see sulfide chimneys and duck-billed dinos. In its third century of existence, the museum swims along in its talent pool, a cultural triumph, a self-sustaining tourist trap.

I just gotta believe there’s a divine intelligence sparking the solar plexus of each individual, igniting our passions, guiding our vocations. The crossing guards ferry our children across 4 lanes of traffic, the entertainers lighten our load, the philosophers and shrinks make sense of it all. It’s not our superior intellect that gives us the edge over those that creep, cantor, fly or swim. It’s our varied temperaments that define our success as a species. The next time you find yourself in a room full of personalities, at a cocktail party, or PTA meeting, remember this: where would we be without the goats and the sheep and everything in between?

careers for goats:

• mayor of an urban mecca
• Food Network celebrity chef
• paramedic
• butcher
• graffiti artist
• rocket scientist
• romance novelist
• offensive tackle
• NASCAR racer
• baseball manager of an urban mecca
• ambulance chaser
• fashion designer
• plastic surgeon
• WWF smackdown superstar
• power/ashtanga yoga or zumba instructor

careers for sheep:

• mayor of a small, homogenous town

• vegan chef on public television’s Create Channel
• mortician

• independent, family farmer practicing humane animal husbandry
• origami artist
• rocket scientist
• business writer
• distance runner
• golf cart driver/caddy
• baseball manager of a single-A franchise
• real estate attorney
• quilter
• neurosurgeon
• restorative yoga instructor

animal adjectives to describe humans:

• antsy
• batty
• bovine
• buggin’
• bullheaded
• bullish
• dogged
• dovish
• feline
• foxy
• hawkish
• horsey
• mousy
• mulish
• piggish
• sheepish
• sluggish
• sphynx-like
• squirrely
• wolfish

animal nouns to describe humans:

• ass!
• chicken liver!
• horses’ ass!
• little monkey
• louse!
• minx
• old goat!
• pig!
• rat fink!
• shark
• snake in the grass….
• swine!
• tiger!
• turkey!
• vermin!

animal verbs to describe humans:

• badger
• crane
• goose
• hawk
• lark

Support

To defend against the fireballs launched daily at our vulnerable walls, these are some buttresses that keep the building standing…

The Usual Supports:

• family
• friends
• therapists (psychiatrists, analysts, shrinks, witch doctors)
• spiritual advisors (priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, gurus, senseis)
• psychics (soothsayers, astrologists)
• bartenders
• 12-step programs
• self-help books
• praise music
• spirituals
• Bach
• bubble baths
• televangelists
• vitamin supplements
• furry pets

and here are...

The Less Usual Supports:

• ex-bosses (the ones we left on good terms with)
• ex-boyfriends
• mothers-in-law
• sisters-in-law
• hairdressers
• barbers
• manicurists
• Zumba teachers
• tailors
• cobblers
• auto mechanics
• supermarket cashiers
• letter carriers
• disco
• techno
• tech support teams at the Soho Apple Store
• department store make-up artists
• guided meditation
• Tom & Jerry cartoons
• chewing gum
• non-furry pets

God defies categorization. She manifests in all these.

Tap into whatever supports keep your citadel upright until the fireballs burn out. You can also counterattack with buckets of hot oil.


Did any special supports of yours go unmentioned? Leave a comment so we can pool our wisdom!

Promise

Step outside. Look up. The trees are still bare, the branches unchanged.  Not quite. The tree tops are swelling at their tips. Getting ready.

A child, looking out the window at a snow sky is getting ready too.

A runner at the starting line of the New York Marathon: on her mark.

A crocus pushing up through the earth.

A first kiss.

A child, placing a plate of cookies beside an empty stocking on Christmas Eve.

A roast turkey, just pulled from the oven.

Anticipation of something good to come. This, in itself, is a gift.

What promise does the closed bud hold for you?

It was a punishing winter. Happy spring!

Healthy Hoarding

Picture this: a low-ceiling cellar and 4 walls lined with storage shelving. The shelves are stuffed with: kidney-shaped hospital bed pans, vases from FTD floral arrangements huge pickle jars of duck and soy sauce packets.  Add gallon Ziplocs of medicine dispensing cups, travel-size shampoos and mouth wash.  Throw in, say, 19  gunky-eyed kitties snaking the legs of a de Kooning abstraction of beat up lawn furniture in the center of the floor.

No, this is not my cellar.

Now picture this: a low-ceiling cellar, a clear expanse of indoor/outdoor carpet, and one shelving unit. A bag of unopened cat litter sits under the slop sink, purchased in the hopes of soon adopting one clear-eyed kitty. The shelves are crowded with: chinese take out containers (the “bad” plastic,) styrofoam containers, leaning towers of pizza boxes. Also: aluminum lasagna pans, cardboard cake boxes, lightly used Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts cups, and a rabble of unmatched Tupperware and lids.  Oh and gift bags: Happy Birthday, Happy Purim, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year,  folded and

stored, holiday-ready.

This is my cellar.  Is there a difference?  I think so.

One riotous storage unit in an otherwise manageable basement. Not bad.

My clutter represents short-term, healthy hoarding. Healthy hoarding is saving stuff with the concrete intention of repurposing it. It’s the middle “R” in Reduce, Reuse, Recyle.  I mostly hoard packaging, packaging that has several more lives to live--like me.  I can’t get myself to toss a styrofoam clamshell that only housed undressed iceberg lettuce. Alas there’s not room enough for clamshells in the kitchen storage bench (already home to a family of paper bags) so down the stairs the styro goes, to be wedged between baby food jars and balled up Shoprite plastic bags.  But the clamshell will come back up soon, be filled with meatloaf and mash and depart with a dinner guest.  

Unhealthy hoarding, by contrast, is collecting stuff you’ll never use, for no good reason. Unhealthy hoarding fills subconscious needs; provides the salve to unspoken wounds of childhood. But hey, I’m only guessing.  I’m not going there. Google it yourself.

Two other robust hoarding habits I proudly practice: composting and old clothing collection.

I amass food scraps, and,  because I cook, that amounts to pounds of peelings, parings, egg shells, and coffee grounds, lots of coffee grounds.  Every week.  Luckily, I’ve got Compost 4 Brooklyn nearby, a community composting project  (compostforbrooklyn.org.)

Darning died alongside his evil twin, ironing. I don’t do either anymore.  Holey socks and T-shirts wth split seams go straight into a tattered pillowcase, bound for the clothing recycling bin at any Sunday farmers’ market. Plastic produce bags of potato peels and a laundry bag of long underwear with spent elastic, I co-habitate comfortably with these, along with my passion for packaging.

Why do I do it? Hoarding down to a single square of paper toweling?  (BTW, did you know a Bounty that shines a mirror, will then beautifully mop up the piddle of an incontinent 15-year-old poodle?) I do it because of the black and white film, still looping in the prefrontal cortex, of bulldozers pushing pyramids of garbage: trash = landfill. And setting the right example for my kids. There’s that too.  My boys are Pavlov’s pups when it comes to peeling tangerines. They frisk straight to the ceramic crock next to the sink to off their rinds. Kids follow their mommies leads, good and bad, don’t they? Mine will likely grow up cursing like former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn,  but golly, they won’t ever throw an apple core in a garbage can!  

FEAR

what I fear:

elevators that stop between floors

rejection

meter maids 

missing bill payments

loving too much

finance fees

disappointing my parents (still)

retirement fund statements

disappointing my kids

annual reports

knee injury

making big decisions

being alone with a box of powdered donuts

fundamentalism

bed bugs

humorless people

Martha Stewart craft projects

aiming too high

aiming too low

spreadsheets

getting:

1. old

2. sick

3. infirm

Dying

losing friendships

dull knives

losing opportunities

and I REALLY fear feeding my six-year-old:

Me: “You haven’t been eating your oatmeal lately William.

Is Mommy making it wrong? How would you like me to make it?”

William: “Mommy, make the oatmeal. Then sweeten it by not using sugar. (?)

Then add chocolate chips and bake it. “(?)

Me: “Bake it?”

William: “Put it in there.” (pointing to microwave)

Me (serving it up): “Do you still want a bowl of brown sugar on the side?”

nod

William (heaping brown sugar into his bowl, patting it down, tasting): “Brown sugar mixed with chocolate mixed with oatmeal doesn’t taste that good. I’m full.”

what I fear but face anyway:

elementary school principals

spreadsheets

disappointing my parents

social media

disappointing my children

driving on superhighways with kids and no snacks

making big decisions

baking soufflés

bungee jumping

cleaning artichokes

rejection

cleaning the cavities of raw chickens

Martha Stewart craft projects

losing opportunities

what/who I don’t fear:

needles

spiders

sharp knives

food processors

the left lane

the dark

dogs

people whose job it is to serve the public (politicians)

people whose job it is to protect me (police)

people whose job it is to cure me (doctors)

people whose job it is to fix my computer (IT)

people whose job it is to fill my spiritual needs (priests/ministers/rabbis/imams/gurus)

steep sledding hills

roller coasters

Martha Stewart

a good cry

This morning, I got it right. William ate his oatmeal. Face your fear.

Soufflé Au Fromage

courtesy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking

by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck

This recipe follows seven pages of mandatory reading on soufflé engineering. Skip them and risk your soufflé falling flat. 

Bridget of Bensonhurst

Why would you want your Zumba teacher to be sane?  Mine isn’t.   Let me revise that. Bridget isn’t exactly insane— she’s just got a screw loose, the screw which holds back inhibition.

The over forty gram strides onto the mat Monday at noon, her green eyes naughty beneath blue shadow:  “Do you girls want hip scarves?”  We look at each other, the devotees of Bridget. “Sure,” I say.  Like a peddler in a Turkish baazar, she reaches into her duffel and pulls out chiffon teasers in primary colors. With bells. You’re jingling baby. “What color?” she asks.“Red,” I reply.

Are there other colors? I tie it on, and step through a beaded curtain into a hookah bar in Ankara.

Bridget sets our soft bellies on fire as she engages our abs with her undulating lead, vamping jazz hands over lunatic eyes— I can do that.  She pats her thighs assuredly to show which foot goes forward next. God I love those dumbed-down visual tips to keep me in the routine.  “You like eighties?” I nod, “Good, I’m an eighties girl myself,” and just like that, Bridget goes old school. We move from Turkish delight to Vanilla Ice. I haven’t had big fun like this since I was in skates with lightning bolts stitched over the ankles, and techno group Inner City was pumping through the English muffins over my ears as I traced figure eights in the asphalt in front of my house...

What’s really sane about exercise anyway? It’s a waste of energy when we should be focused on conservation. Aren’t we active enough moving those little playing pieces—named Theodore and William in my home—along the game board of life? Breakfast (rushed and largely uneaten) school drop-off, pick-up, after-school activity (piano/chess/tennis,) dinner, homework, fraternal fighting, brush, floss, gargle, books and bed.  Just getting to work too, that’s exertion enough: standing forty-five minutes from Midwood to midtown. Makes you want to put your feet up and eat a cream-filled, don’t it?

Yet exercise demonstrates one of life’s weird inversions—along with love, generosity and holiday cards—the more you give, the more you get back. Put out on the dance floor or the dinner table, scrawl or send out digital seasons greetings: guaranteed you’ll get killer energy, unmanageable leftovers and an inbox full of yule.   

Beyond the power boost, there are those long-term bennies of raising your heart rate, you already know:

Why Women Over 40 Should Work Out:

weight management

heart health

blood vessel health

bone health

joint health

boob health

Terrific. But I’ll take the short-term perks too. The instant rewards for sweat and spasms in my seat cushion:

Why Women Over 40 Should Really Work Out:

COSTCO 

Hauling spoiled six-year-olds

High school reunions

College reunions

Running into old flames

Running around in high heels

Running around in skinny jeans

Pencil skirts

There’s less time ahead of you than behind: get more hours out of your day.

Bonus: Endorphin rushes that beat back lukewarm depression and those occasional, gaping panic attacks that whisper you are alone in this world -- despite the mountain range of dirty laundry on the cellar floor to suggest otherwise.

But Zumba only starts my week. What about the rest? Given little time and less money, here’s my solution to Tuesday-Saturday (God and I rest on Sundays. Sort of.): dated exercise tapes.  Last summer I rediscovered Tae Bo at the bottom of a tag sale box and I’ve been kicking back with Billy Blanks ever since. Passé push-up drills have their advantages. For one thing, there’s Bllly’s shorts.

Puts a smile on my face every time I pop in the DVD. Then there’s the seven-time World Martial Arts Champion getting deep, real deep, in the cool-down, in those shorts: “Tae Bo Cardio Workout is to do one thing. It’s to test your endurance. Get your heart pumping, get you moving, and bring life into yourself because remember your heart is the big muscle inside your chest that shows love, shows power, shows endurance, strength everything that God has given us, that heart shows. So if you keep that in shape you will have a long life...”

I’m also wearing out Chalene’s tape. No typo. It’s Chalene sans the “r,”  alpha bunny of Beach Body Turbo Jam. It’s a work out for the rods and cones just to manage the contrast between her teeth and her tan. Giggly Chalene likes to punch. Hard.  “Imagine there’s a guy on the floor.. Right there… BAM!!... Is that too violent?” Tee hee.  “No Chalene. Bring it on.”  Turbo Jam: Punch, Kick & Jam

Also worth mentioning, a fab friend recently gifted me with a couple of newer videos by celebrity fitness gurus:  

Physique 57: Express 30 Minute Full Body Workout. Manhattan-based Tanya Becker gets it all done, head to tail, in a New York minute.   Her hotties lead you through strange but effective reps with playground balls.

 

The Tracy Anderson Method Post-Pregnancy Workout

Tracy, Gwyneth’s girl, pushes you through a punishing post-preg workout,  swearing she can tighten up that belly baby flap.  Promises, promises, but I’m starting to see my navel again. 

It’s 12:55. I’m more than dewy. I smell like an Ankara goat.

“What do you think about me getting us some wrist cuffs and tiaras for next time? I can get those you know...”  Bridget’s serious. I am too. “Absolutely.”

Zumba with Bridget, gyrating out of control, and customizing her playlist to whoever’s in class: Mondays at Noon

Midwood Martial Arts and Family Fitness Center

1302 Avenue H

Brooklyn, New York 11230

718-258-KICK (5425)

http://youtu.be/PVTKip0kX9Q 

More Insane Energy Tips...

Eat more of this:

Oatmeal: In our home, only the dog and I eat oatmeal joyfully, but it stokes us both.

Lentils/chick peas/split peas

Chops: lamb, pork veal. Down to the bone.

Fresh fruit by the bushel

Greek Yogurt with granola (see recipe in blog post: “The Great Consolidator”)

Okay, okay, let’s cop to coffee too..

And less of this:

Kiddie carbs (pretzels, goldfish crackers, saltines)

Grown-up carbs (baguettes, croissants, crêpes...Quel dommage!)