Travel Advisory

Don’t hate me because…well, because I’m well rested. Actually, that’s not even true anymore. I just like saying those words that are more delicious than a chocolate soufflé hot out of the oven. Well rested.

After yesterday’s three-hour drive to the Boston airport, three-hour airport wait and seven-hour flight with two children in tow, those words are becoming a fond memory. Soon to be a thought of as a faint memory.

You probably already hate me because I went to Bermuda with my husband, sans children, for five nights. Our two daughters stayed in New York with my mother-in-law who paid for our little get away. She is a generous woman who wanted to give her son a special gift for his 40th birthday. But, I also know that she was happy to get Mommy and Daddy out of her house, so she could be in complete control of the kiddy situation. Not that she waited until I left, mind you. As soon as I had unpacked the kids’ clothes, she pulled out what she didn’t like and put it in the basement. We don’t share the same taste in clothing and a few other things. Fortunately, we love the same man.

After a week at my mother-in-law’s filled with events almost every evening, my husband and I flew to Bermuda on a late afternoon flight. We had one thing on our mind: Rum. After all, Bermuda is the home to Bacardi International. We spent the next four days sampling such medicinal drinks as the Dark and Stormy, Rum Swizzle and Pina Colada.

It rained a couple of days so I actually got to read a book, watch a few movies, and exercise in the gym. I was frankly shocked at how much time I had on my hands. I spent a chunk of it either worrying about my kids or fantasizing about how much I would have accomplished if I didn’t have kids. Blasphemy, I reply. I love my kids. How could I think such thoughts?

While sipping on a Bermuda Triangle (Rum Drink #6), I found myself reflecting on my trip. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, “reflection” is a process of review and consideration that occurs when you don’t have someone yelling “Mommy, come wipe my butt” or “Why do I have to go to school today?”

This period of reflection caused me to jot down a few things I learned on this trip.

1. Check your passport’s expiration date before you get on the airplane. That way you can grab your birth certificate, which will allow you to enter most surrounding countries. If not, the nice folks at passportplus.net can help you cut through the red tape faster than you can say “mommy’s having a meltdown.”
2. The “old Benadryl on the airplane” does not always work. It has never worked with my kids. They fall asleep in the car, just making the transition from car to hotel that much more fun.
3. Two weeks is too long to stay away from home. Mathematically speaking: 14 days of travel + no grocery shopping, cooking, laundry ≠ happy mommy. It seems like it would zero out, but it doesn’t. My happiest moment was when I walked in the door of our house.

And finally, I must share:

4. Brown fat does look better than white fat. Fortunately, I read on the airplane about a beauty editor’s obsession with Lancôme Flash Bronzer and was able to pick some up Duty Free. Great for those trouble spots like under the arms or, in my case, my entire middle section.

Hopefully, these tips have been helpful. If not, please take this time to feel better about yourself and thankful that you are not like me. Even if I am well rested.

Spring breaking

“Life-it’s the yin and the yang, baby,” Annie often tells me. And she’s right.

Here I was last week getting all high and mighty about how my life is so blissfully simple compared to the TV shows OC Housewives and Big Love, when BAM, my husband and I were rear-ended on our Thursday date night. I am so grateful that the kids were not in the car and that after getting pushed out onto Coast Highway we were not hit by oncoming traffic. But my thankfulness ends there. The driver who hit us got out of his giant Lexus, looked at the front of his car where there was paint from our now crumpled bumper, and promptly declared, “I don’t see what the problem is here.”

So you can only imagine where things went after that exchange. He refused to give us his insurance information, so we had to call the police. I was never so happy to see a Laguna Beach man in uniform. The officer took charge, extracted information and we were on our merry way.

Except that when I got home my neck really began to throb. And burn. So on Friday, I went to the doctor who diagnosed me with whiplash and sent me to physical therapy. And the week only got better from there. On Saturday, we did our taxes; Sunday, my oldest daughter got a stomach virus; Monday, I got my daughter’s stomach virus; Tuesday, I cried after physical therapy and on Wednesday, I performed the kicker of them all, I ruined a surprise party that my husband’s office staff had planned. Yep, I single-handedly brought down an office party being thrown in my husband’s honor. I knew about the party, but I asked him to go pick up the kids during lunch. Which was the same time as the party. Ouch.

I had no other excuse except that I completely forgot that the party was happening that day. I was sure the accident was to blame for this failed neurological mishap, so I went to see Dr. Alex, a doctor I have known for years and asked her, “What is wrong with my brain? It is working worse than usual.”

“Well it might have gotten jostled a bit, but I don’t think you have a concussion,” she replied after examining me.

“Are you sure?” I pressed. It would be so much easier to explain the whole surprise snafu to my husband’s office if I just had a concussion or something serious like that, as opposed to a case of normal mommy dementia.

As I was driving home, I realized what needed to happen. It was obvious. It was time to press the re-boot button. And it is my time of year to do so. Easter. Passover. The beginning of Spring. This time of year is my personal New Year’s Eve. I can never reflect upon my life on everyone else’s New Year’s Eve. I am too exhausted and over-loaded with sugar to process a clear thought. I need a couple of months to recuperate from the whole holiday season, before I can step back and take a good look at my life.

I was raised in a Christian home and Easter was always a special time for us to attend early morning services and be with family. When I married into a Jewish family, I came to love Passover and its emphasis on gratitude for the lives we live. The new buds of our dogwood tree remind me of re-birth and an opportunity to start anew.

While I would like to start anew with a brand new brain, that doesn’t seem scientifically feasible at this point. I need to take my weary, tired self on vacation. I want to sit on a sandy beach, drink cocktails with umbrellas and read Jackie Collins for days at a time.

So for my New Year Eve’s, I’ll be heading to Bermuda for an umbrella in the sun. That’s pushing the re-boot button. Let’s just hope the hard drive doesn’t crash before I get there.

The Boob Tube

Have you heard the one about the man who goes to the Rabbi complaining that his house is too small? Each week, the Rabbi tells him to put an additional farm animal in the house until it is filled with chickens, goats, and a cow. Finally, the Rabbi tells the man to empty his house and put the animals back where they belong. The next week, the man returns, “How can I thank you, Rabbi? My house is so big.”

That is exactly how I feel about TV these days. After the watching the Soprano’s premiere on HBO, my husband and I decided to stay tuned for HBO’s new show, Big Love. Bill Paxton plays a Mormon husband with three wives, three households and seven kids. After fifteen minutes, my husband said, “This is too exhausting. I can barely handle one wife, why would I want three.” And with that comment, I turned the television off and watched my husband slip into a deep slumber. I couldn’t really argue him. One husband was plenty-the thought of having three? No, thank you.

However, I began to wonder, would my life be easier if there were two other wives to help carry the load? I decided to tune in the next week. The three wives, Barb, Nicki and Margene, do get along better than one would imagine, except for their jealousy issues. This I find a bit unrealistic. After a long day of wiping my daughters’ butts and enforcing time-outs, would I really mind if my husband wanted to spend the night with his other wife? Would it be so horrible for one or two nights a week to have the bed to myself with complete control of the remote and covers?

It was the weekly staff meetings between the wives that freaked me out. Everyone has their to-do lists for the handyman, grocery store and who knows what. They were so busy giving each other biting looks and snappy words that hardly anything got done. At this point, I became immediately exhausted. This was the reason I left my sorority in college and began hanging out with Vietnam Vets at the local bar.

I decided to tune into something a bit more familiar, The OC Housewives, a docu-soap about five housewives who live in Coto De Caza, an extremely wealthy gated community in Orange County. Even though I happen to live down the road in Laguna Beach, I have never been to Coto. How different could we be? It turns out that OC Housewives follows women who are just like me: a Playboy bunny turned real estate mogul (Jeanne); a kept woman who is bored (Jo); and a trophy wife who is an extreme athlete (Kimberly).

Kimberly is the one I related to the most, because she used to live on the east coast and feeds her kids organic vegetables. That was until she shared that after she turned forty, her husband decided he wanted a lingerie model for a wife. So, she got a boob job and went from an A cup to a D, because as she says, ‘who wants to have surgery twice?’ I’m thinking she could have benefited from the Big Love model and gotten her husband another wife, a lingerie model. That would have freed up her time to do more surfing, an activity that I find a lot more fun that hanging out at Victoria’s Secret.

“How can this show be real when they all look so fake?” exclaimed my girlfriend Samantha. She’s my only friend who watches television like me, with obsessive tendencies towards particular shows. “I’m sticking with Desperate Housewives,” Samantha added. “At least Bree drinks a lot of wine and Lynette has control issues with her husband. Those are problems I can understand.”

She’s right. Desperate has a more wife next-door feeling than The OC Housewives and Big Love, but it just doesn’t give me that same sense of relief. When the other shows end, the chickens and goats are gone and life feels so light and free. Sure I have to get up in the morning and start that exciting mommy routine all over again, but at least I don’t have to worry about my husband’s other wives telling me what to do, what color of lingerie my husband wants me to wear and most importantly, who I will be sleeping with tonight.