Happy Hump Day

I can't think of a better way to spend a Hump Day afternoon than enjoying a glass of red wine and an hour with my favorite frenemy, Oprah. So at four o'clock yesterday I opened the screw cap (classy) on a new bottle of Malbec and filled up a white wine glass (trick: use a white wine glass to drink red because two glasses of white equals one glass of red) and I flipped on Channel 707 to watch Ophs. In order not to feel too guilty about enjoying the afternoon, I parked my laptop on my, well, lap and jotted down some thoughts about a few things that cross my mind but don't necessarily warrant their own posting.

Lounge Clothes

Ever since my college days "lounge clothes" have been a staple in my wardrobe. Long before Victoria's Secret and Old Navy had a "Loungewear" section on their websites, I would strap on my roller blades, grab my roomie and head of to KMart where we'd buy identical pairs of boyshorts with the matching tank. We'd then unabashedly wear our new lounge "outfits" (aka: undies) around the dorm for all to see thinking we were cute. The only problem was my roomie was 5 foot 2 and 95 pounds while I, on the other hand, was pushing a deuce at the time. Luckily since then, I've lost the weight and the habit of wearing glorified undies in public. My old roomate, on the other hand, still finds a way to call boyshorts and a see-through tank an outfit and wear it down to a hotel buffet breakfast (in Vegas of course).

But just because I no longer wear these "outfits" in public by no means is to say that my love for and obsession with lounge clothes has faded. In fact, over time, with less pounds and more money than my college freshman self, it's grown exponentially. Some may say it's a problem, but I just love me some loungewear. Just before sitting down to watch Oprah I showered, lotioned, brushed my hair and took a good fifteen minutes to pick out the perfect lounge outfit to sit on the couch sipping wine and typing. It's sort of an out-of-body experience how I picture myself and what I'll be doing then choose the appropriate lounge outfit for whatever relaxing activity I'm in for. Sure, I could've thrown on mismatched sweats and a big T shirt and since I was by myself, literally no one would've noticed, but to me, lounging is an art. And so I chose a black one piece shorts romper to wear with a lightweight cotton cardigan (also black but white would've been cute too) and new leather flip flops that I purchased in Argentina. Hey, if Oprah had Skyped me into the show, I would've been ready!

The Wine Diet

I'm always reading some women's magazine article that consists of an editor's repackaging the same old "healthy living" tips (we don't dare say diet anymore) from "Expert Trainers!" or "Fifty Doctors" that "Weighed In." It never fails that over and over again we are spoon fed the same common-sense health tips in a way that tries to convince us that they've stumbled upon some earth-shattering fitness secret like, "Get at least a half hour of excercise in five times a week." Thanks Doc. And so recently I've decided to pick two of my favorites and put them into serious practice with my own spin on them.

Tip 1: Drink more fluids.
Tip 2: Have a conversation during your meal. You'll eat slower and get full faster.

In deciding to implement these two "health quickies" I figured the best way to do so was to
a) institute Happy Hour and
b) start eating meals at the kitchen table rather than in front of the TV as we normally do.

Instituting Happy Hour was easy thanks to the bargain bin at our favorite wine store and before I knew it, I was drinking more fluids. Check!

Eating meals at the kitchen table proved a little more difficult being that in order to eat the meals at the table, I have to cook the meals in the kitchen. Luckily my status as one of the millions of unemployed Americans has alloted me the free time to learn to stand the heat and keep my ass in the kitchen. Now almost every night as I ingest my doctor-recommended fluids I set the table, cook up something delicious and have a nice piping hot meal ready for when my husband, T, get's home.

The whole point of eating at the kitchen table is to have a conversation and thus eat more slowly. I thought this was going to prove extremely difficult for me since my usual M.O. whenever a plate of food is in front of me is to put my head down and go at it hoover-style grunting at anyone who speaks to me letting them no that there's no time for talking and then when I've licked my plate clean, I move on to my husband's.

However, thanks to all the extra fluids I've been drinking, I can't shut up! Just the other night, for the very first time in the five years that we've been together, when I finally stopped rambling on about whatever really interesting thing I'd been thinking about while cooking dinner and drinking "fluids", I looked down at my plate and saw it was still half full while, amazingly, my husband had finished his. The diet only backfired a little bit at that point when I had no choice to shut up and inhale the rest of my food before he had a chance to get at it. I guess my survival instinct kicked in.

But needless to say, I think I've stumbled upon something genious here.

Drink a lot of wine while you cook dinner so you won't be able to shut up when you sit down to eat it and low and behold, the pounds will melt off. Oh, and I highly recommend wearing some cute loungewear while you do it.

Dating

When we woke up this morning, my husband T rolled over, exhaled an ungodly combination of raspberry, mango and tequila into my face and then scratched himself. He got up, sauntered into the bathroom to do what we all do after a long night out on the town. Through the bathroom door, I heard him fart and before the look of disgust could spread across my face, he chuckled at the sound of his own flatulence and somehow I was charmed. I stretched out, smiled and thought, "I love him so much." I burped loudly, rolled over and waited for him to come back to bed so we could tell each other how cute (read: disgusting) we are.

This situation is nothing out of the ordinary. We've been together for five years and there are few boundaries left between us. For better or for worse, we pick our noses in front of each other, we force each other into Dutch Ovens and we've most recently forayed into the mysterious arena of belly-button lint (a fascinating phenomenon.)

However, this morning was different. It was different because instead of waking up, warm and snuggley, in our own bed, in our little apartment where no one can see us, we woke up on an air mattress in the living room of the apartment that our friends D & K share as a couple. They were just a few feet away sleeping with the bedroom door open, in full ear shot of anything and everything we said or did and knowing full well that they would not be spared a smell or sound that emanated from us, we continued on with the same comfort level that we would've if we'd been hungover and disgusting in the privacy of our own home.

We finished the morning with a cup of coffee, a four-person-revolving-door visit to the john, and the unabashed devouring of the first bagel I've had in over a year. As D & K kindly drove us to the nearest New Jersey Transit stop, my husband shamelessly insisted that if we didn't make it the train, they'd be driving us all the way back to Manhattan in much the same way he would half-jokingly coax a ride out of one of our family members. It was at this moment, I pulled out my travel-pack of Pepto Bismol chewables and asked if anyone else in the car was churning the kind of butter in their stomach that I was. Just then, I started thinking about just how long we'd been "dating" this couple and how the relationship had evolved.

We met D & K sometime around 2 and a half years ago through mutual friends and bonded instantly over the fact that we were both "JewTalian". A few weeks later we saw each other again and bonded over the fact that we all like champagne. Lots of it. It wasn't long after that that we ran into each yet again and had the first of what would be many dance-offs at our mutual friend's wedding. Things just clicked and somewhere along the line, one of us suggested that we get together, outside of the mutual friend's celebrations to, ya know, have dinner or something. After four two many cocktails, the next thing we knew we were having our first sleepover when D & K came into the city for our first official "date" as a couple.

The morning after was slightly awkward as is any "morning after" the first time a Saturday night date turns into a Sunday morning, "can I get you breakfast?" Fortunately, when you're a couple dating other couples, the day after the "third date" doesn't require an STD test or Plan B. What it does involve is staying in bed just a little longer than you normally would, not sure when you should go out into the living room where your new friends are sleeping on your air mattress and when you finally do, odds are they've already silently snuck out leaving you an adorable note and letting you know they had a great time. That's how our first morning after with D & K went and shortly thereafter we were making plans to visit them in New Jersey.


Slowly, but surely, you start to bond. Just as two single people bond over their likes, dislikes, random coincidences and shared bad habits; when you're dating another couple you start to bond over the same things. Take D & K for example, as we got to know them we realized we shared some:

Shared Likes: Wine, Drunken Hugs, Guitar Hero
Shared Dislikes: Running out of Wine, Passing out Too Early; Mean People
Random Coincidences: Being "Jewtalian"; Shared Zodiac Signs
Shared Bad Habits: Sneaking Shots, Starting Ridiculous (but-totally-justified-at-the-moment) Arguments with Each Other, Giving Customer Service Representatives an Attitude.

Unlike a date between two single people, a couple date lacks the prospect of sex (unless you're dating at the Burning Man). In fact, a couple date generally lowers the chances of anyone having sex since it usually involves an ungodly and unsexy amount of food. It also usually ends in some rendition of "Oh my gawd! He does too!" and "She gives you shit for that too!" So by the end of the date you feel fat, drunk and too annoyed at your significant other to even think about quietly banging one out while your newly acquired couple-friends sleep no more than 30 feet away.

Dating other couples generally leaves you hungover and having spent too much money without the promise of sex, diamonds or someone to split the rent with. It almost wouldn't seem worth it, but when you wake up one morning with dragon breath, diarrhea, and only a vague recollection of why you told off that cab driver/coat check girl/bartender as a team, it's nice to know you can walk twenty feet, fart in unison and turn to your friends to ask, "what the hell happened last night?!"

Lunch With An Ex

How long are you supposed to wait before seeing an "ex" after a painful break-up?  A month? Two? I'm not sure what protocol is, but when I got a text message from an ex late last week asking me to lunch, I was somewhat tentative, but also intrigued so I said yes.  Besides, I never turn down a free meal.

Before you start calling "T" and telling him I'm running around town having liquid lunches with a man who may or may not have seen my breasts before, let me tell you that I'm talking about about an ex-coworker, not an ex-boyfriend (and no, he hasn't seen my breasts - unless he was at Key West Fantasy Fest in 1998-2000).  Our breakup was somewhat painful, I didn't want to leave, he didn't want me to go, but due to circumstances beyond our control (the massive layoff my previous employer went through), things just weren't going to work out.  So about a month ago, we hugged goodbye, went our separate ways and promised we'd stay friends.  It's not you, it's me. 

As I bussed-it across town wearing a cute-but-casual outfit, the kind you always wanted your co-workers to see you in, but just couldn't get away with at the office, I wondered to myself what we would talk about.  Would we keep our distance and keep it all business?  Would the conversation revolve around the co-workers we used to share but he now has custody of?  Or we would "go there" and talk about the stuff we could never talk about when we were "together", entwined as professionals.

I got my answer about 10 minutes after we hugged hello.  As soon as "The Ex" said, "UnPlain Jane, let's have wine," I knew where it was going and within five minutes the conversation turned from "How's Business?" to "Tell me every last dirty detail of your trip to Vegas and I'll tell you how I was no different from you 8 years ago."  I guess some things never change.  All it takes is an expensive meal and a $16 glass of wine (which is better than the $1 pitcher of beer and plate of hot wings it took in college) to seal the deal.  By the end of the meal we were both fully aware of a) how funny we each think we are and b) how awesome his wife and my future husband are for putting up with each of us.  

As sad as it is saying goodbye to the people you spent at least 40 hours of every week with, there's something especially fun about getting together, after you've split, and getting to hang out without the looming threat of "Monday Morning" and revealing just a little more than you ever would've in the office over a muted conference call. 

I would love to have the opportunity to get to know all of my "EXes" is this way, but I think it's best kept to those I've always had the sneaking suspicion are "just like me."   I have a reputation to maintain and I wouldn't want to ruin the image of the sweet-nice-class act-UnPlain Jane.  After all, if I wanted them to know who I really was, I would've owned up to spreading the funniest-but-most-vulgar-joke XYZ Company has ever heard. Instead, I gave credit to a man, because that kind of joke couldn't have come from the mouth of a woman and certainly not UnPlain Jane.  Not the one my ex-co-workers know anyway.

Happy Hour

When it comes to being on vacation there's really no inappropriate time to have a cocktail. Bailey's and Coffee over breakfast?  Sure.  Bloody Mary at brunch?  Absolutely.  But what about when you're home on a random cold Tuesday afternoon?  When is it really appropriate to pop the cork on that bottle of wine that's been calling your name since you walked by your overly-full wine rack in the kitchen to cook breakfast?  

As my best friend likes to say when we're down at her shore house and the clock strikes noon, "It's five o'clock somewhere!"  And it is.  Especially now that I'm enjoying a life free of a job, a boss, and tomorrow's early meeting/conference call/Gossip Girl discussion at the water cooler, it seems like every hour should be happy hour.  

Upon first receiving my pink slip I firmly decided that I would not lose my motivation or become lazy in any way.  I told myself that I would continue to get up early to workout and keep myself on a strict schedule designed to pack as much possible into each day; furthermore,I would achieve world peace and end world hunger.  This lasted for about a week.  Since then, I've decided to become, as I like to look at it, more European.  I am doing so by sleeping in, getting workouts walking about town rather than in the gym, and eating late lunches that are full cheese and wine.  

So when I decided to become a connoisseur of my local wine store's bargain bin, I began my samplings at around 7 or 8pm over dinner.  Soon I started having a glass at 5 or 6pm as I cook because a little vino just makes everything taste better (and look a little sloppier).  In fact, think vino is responsible for me inventing the suprisingy delicous, zuchinni-cinnamon-jalepeno burger. A few days later, when 4pm rolled around and I took my "Oprah break", I thought, "What the hell? That malbec is calling my name."

Now as I sit here, fresh off a late lunch thinking about how nothing gets my creative juices going like a yummy cabernet, I'm wondering, how early is too early?  Would one consider me to have a problem if I were to sip a cocktail in front of my computer at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday? If I changed my name to something French, would that make it OK?  If I started wearing lots of black eyeliner and smoking, would that make it OK?  If I started hanging out with Lindsay Lohan, would that make it OK?  Throw me a bone please! 

Until I can justify it in my own head, I'll have to stick to a 3pm coffee fix instead of a mainline of that sweet-grape-nectar-of-the-gods.  I don't think it'll take too long to figure something out. 

For now, having no better excuse, I'm just going to call myself Jean-Francois-Michele-Baguette, so I can sip my wine and eat my cheese guilt-free no matter what time it is. To my close friends, I look forward to the intervention.  To my party-buddies, I look forward to the relapse.

Two Kids, A Dog and a Large Glass of Expensive Wine

Not by choice, but by nature, I am uncomfortable around other people's children.  They are strange, small creatures who look at you with innocent eyes and expectancy, waiting to be entertained.  It's so unnerving to me that every time I find myself around someone else's children I wind up acting like I would around a dog.  

Step 1)  Pat child on head.  

Step 2)  Smile and speak loud, high-pitched statements at said child like, "You're a good girl!".  

It's awkward for everyone involved and reinforces my nagging insecurity that I am going to raise a child that either thinks it's a dog or behaves like a 40-year-old when it's 10.  I was going to go back and correct myself in the previous sentence, but I think the fact that I used "it's" as a pronoun when referring to my future child, just further illustrates the deep disconnect between me and my maternal instinct.

You can imagine my fright when one of my favorite cousins asked me to babysit for her at the last minute yesterday.  I was visiting for the day when she had to run out for a couple hours. Now, having spent a few hours prior with the whole family, I was slightly more comfortable around these teeter-tottering little people than I normally would be, but that's not saying much. Perhaps sensing my fear or perhaps because I blurted out the word "wine" like someone with turrets syndrome, my cousin's husband whipped out a bottle of the good stuff and poured me what was the equivalent of a bowl of my new favorite Cabernet.  

Halfway through the bowl of wine, I was feeling much more comfortable, enjoying The Hound and the Fox Sequel # 576 and making up scary stories at the four-year-old's request.  Then, just before the 1 and a half year old's bedtime ( I know - in baby speak I'm supposed to say how many months she is),  the half bowl of wine hit me and I had to pee.  I told the kids I'd be right back and headed toward the bathroom just a few steps away, petrified that as I emptied my bladder, they would somehow learn how to skateboard, build a ramp in the house and crack their heads open trying to do Ollies.  What I didn't expect was the 1 and 1/2 year old to teeter as fast as she could behind me, appearing as if out of nowhere, just as I was about to unbutton.

Now, I am sure, for parents this is common and not even thought about.  However, as someone who's babysitting experience does not extend beyond the number of fingers she has, and as Aunt UnPlain Jane, it's a little awkward.  

Pop Quiz Hotshot

You're babysitting and have to pee.  The child follows you into the bathroom.  You really have to pee. Do you:

a)  close the door on a crying child's face so you can take down your pants and go in peace, or

b)  drop trou in front of the about-to-scream-if-you-shut-that-door child's face?

I went with A and here's why:

I could deal with five minutes of crying and my own intense fear that these two were going to break their arms/heads/legs/insert body part of choice.  I could not deal with the thought of little Suzie watching me pee then announcing to mommy and daddy later, "I saw Aunt UnPlainJane's Hoo-Hoo on the Potty Today!"

It made sense at the moment.  

Magically, thanks to either the wine or my cousin raising insanely good children, putting them to bed was a snap.  Before I knew it I was on the couch, back in my comfort-zone, surrounded by adults and downing bowl of wine number two while thinking to myself what a great mother I'm going to be one day.  So long as there's wine.  Lots of wine.

Lazy Bones

Most people wouldn't consider four loads of laundry, an hour of ironing, a workout and an at-home mani-pedi followed by a home cooked meal an unproductive day, but given my non-stop hustle and bustle of late, I consider yesterday a bust.  My deeply rooted Italian guilt combined with a healthy topping of my neveau-Jewish guilt, left me feeling like a failure, making excuses for all that I hadn't done by the time T got home from work yesterday.  

I couldn't help but focus on what I didn't do, instead of what I did do.  I didn't meet anyone new.  I didn't go anywhere cool.  I didn't discover some new corner of NYC.  In fact, I barely left my neighborhood save for a trip to the 27th street Food Emporium in the search for some Kosher Chicken Cutlets (also known as the bane of my existence).  At least I took a shower, but that wasn't until 3pm and was followed by me soaking in a few episodes of Dr. 90210 that subsequently resulted in me deciding I need breast implants and a Brazilian butt lift before I can ever go out in public again.

Before I knew it, 5 o'clock was rolling around, I had poured myself glass of wine number two while starting the second hour of a phone call and watching the episode of Oprah that I had DVRd.  As I uttered the words, "Oh my Gawd, what a freakin' more-on," I heard my long-since squashed Long Island accent come out in full force.  It was when I stretched  out on the couch, grabbed my wine glass off the table and continued my conversation that the outer-body experience occurred.  I watched the floor turn to linoleum, the couch morph into black leather and my hair grow to a height only a body wave could achieve.  That's when it hit me - I am my mother circa 1987.   All I was missing was the Spiegle catalog, a cigarette and two kids to tell to be quiet because I am "on the phone with your Aunt!"

Half frightened, half loving the "good life" I chugged the rest of my wine and watched the room morph back to the present day.  At that point I vowed that tomorrow, with it's upcoming job interview, doctors appointment and plans to work on my book would be at least more productive than today had been.  As T and I settled into bed he thanked me profusely for all the laundry and ironing I had done for him and told me how much he loved the dinner I had made.  I think he even called me "the little woman", unable to wipe the smile off of his face thanks to my day of housewifery. It was then, feeling like just the right moment, that I filled him in on my new-found need for boobs, a butt and a couple of kids to yell at.  Two seconds later, just before drifting off to sleep he whispered, "please get a job."

I don't think so.