Monday, November 30, 2009

You Down with OPM?

They have been referred to as "helicopter" parents...because they hover. A recent Time magazine article chronicles the evolution of this overparenting phenomenon. Hands-off parenting steadily groped toward hands-on parenting in the 1990's, and now parents apparently seem to have completely forgotten that their kids have hands of their own. Many modern day parents are like anxiety-heightened personal assistants with really unhealthy attachment issues. They are parents to the extreme. Today, parents who leave their kids alone to fail, fall, and falter are considered bad parents, renegades who are often bullied by what I like to call the OPM (Over-your-shoulder Parent Mafia). The OPM's fear is often irrational, but their criticism of other parents who do not agree with their safety/educational tenets is loud and proud. OPM sounds like "opium", I know. That's because I wonder if some of these parents are high when I observe what they are doing to these overscheduled, overinstructed, emotionally and materially overindulged kids of theirs.

Sylvester Stallone was recently reprimanded by countless media outlets and called "The Worst" (on that mess known as The Insider) because he had two of his daughters (ages 11 and 13) sitting in the passenger's seat of his sports car as he drove down a residential street in Miami. Poor judgement? Yes. The worst? No. Not unless he forced them to watch Rocky V when they got home. Some even went so far as to suggest the girls should still be riding in car seats. Honestly, I believe in car seats. I sincerely do. They save lives and that's a fact. But these car seats nowadays are an unbelievable sight. A feat of mind-bending engineering, really. When I strap my six-year-old niece into hers I feel like I'm prepping her for root canal surgery on the moon, not a five minute drive around the block at 15 MPH. Yes, it's better to be safe than sorry. I get it. I agree. Still, the idea of her being strapped into one when she's an adolescent or a teenager makes me wonder what will be next. Perhaps we should slow down the earth's rotation because, you know, it is spinning pretty quickly. And, you know, spinning is dangerous. Why do you think those tires on those chains at playgrounds have been extricated? Kids die when they spin.

My father always let us ride in the front seat of his car. In fact, as kids we used to beat the holy shit out of each other just to get to the car door first so that we could ride shotgun. And, no, we did not wear seatbelts. A seatbelt would have just gotten in the way. How would we have been able to slide over and steer the car while our father picked his teeth with a toothpick, or counted out his change as we approached a tollbooth? The kicker is this: My father thinks he was a very good father. Why? Because he never killed us. He means intentionally. Growing up, had we gotten hit by a bus because he let us cross highways, I suspect he would not have taken any sort of blame for our deaths. It would have been an accident, after all. An accident caused by our own inability to not get hit by a bus. No, when he says he's a good father because he never killed us, he means killed us because we were getting on his nerves by being too loud while he tried to watch the soccer game, or taking too long to fetch him a pair of clean socks. When a story came on TV not too long ago about some sonuvabitch father who set his triplet baby girls on fire, my father pointed to the TV and said, "You see? I told you I'm a good father." Because he never roasted us on a spit over an open flame, he thinks he deserves a prize. Perhaps, a new pair of socks.

And yet, for all the lack of caution, for all the lack of interest and concern, we're pretty much fine. We have our problems, of course, but guess what? I have yet to experience a broken bone. For all my careening downhill in a shopping cart sans helmet, swimming in the ocean without swimmies when I couldn't swim, and doing my "gymnastics" routine on an open staircase with wads of Bubbliscious gum in my mouth, I survived. My siblings and I are social, educated, moral, and respectable people...and our parents never went to one PTA meeting. I never even showed them my homework. I'd occasionally turn to them when my pencil needed sharpening, but that's just because that wood whittling with a butcher knife was tricky business. My pencil tip may have looked like it had been gnawed on by wild animals, but in my hand, it did its job. And I did mine. With my own hand.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Eviction Noticed

About two months ago, in the middle of the night, I was startled out of my sleep by a very peculiar happening. Seconds after I "awoke" from my "sleep", my personal perspective was completely inverted. I wasn't where I thought I was anymore. Instead, I was floating above my bed, looking down on myself from somewhere over my body. What I saw scared me so thoroughly, I'm getting the chills again just thinking about it. What I saw was, well, me. I was lying on my back, but slumped to my left. My mouth was agape, and my eyes were open. I wasn't blinking. The moment I caught a glimpse of myself, I gasped. Was I dead?

Suddenly, with that same gasp of breath, I returned to my physical form. I sat straight up in my bed, my left arm tingling with pins and needles. The sound of my heart racing and skipping more aggressively than it usually does was both frightening and comforting. I was alive. Sandra Spirit had apparently taken up residence in Sandra Body once again. I could see my wall now, not myself. I was looking through my eyes, watching the dark. What, I asked myself, had happened to me in those few seconds just prior?

Naturally, I solved my fear by doing what any reasonable person in this situation would do: I covered my head with my comforter and buried myself between my pillows. Had I wormed myself any further into my mattress, it would have folded itself up and around me and made me into Sandra Taco. Surely this would keep me safe from whatever it was that had lifted me out of my body and into mid-air. I mean, if I had died for a few seconds, surely barricading myself with down bedding would protect me. My heart, if it had stopped briefly, couldn't possibly stop again in one night, could it? No. Not if neither one of my feet was hanging off my bed.

I wondered if this had been my Intro to Death 101. A little taste. An appetizer. One crabmeat stuffed mushroom before the prime rib is served. But if that is, in fact, what dying is, I don't want it. I'll pass, thank you. Even though I felt zero pain, just a jolt followed by confusion followed by fear, I'd rather stay alive. I always hear people announce, "When I go, I hope I go in my sleep, in my own bed...quietly and in peace." Yet, if life has taught us anything, it's that hope isn't always the most realistic route toward peace. Perhaps this is a life lesson that the concept of death and dying should appropriate. There is no real peace in the transition. I think we can assume that, regardless of how you die, whether you experience pain in the process or not, dying is always going to be a shock to your system. Let's assume it's the most difficult move you will ever make. Let's think of it as being evicted from your body. Even if you've been given notice, you don't want to leave. Once you're out, you're wondering where you're going to go next. You want to break back in and live where you've been living.

I think that's what I did on that one suspicious night about two months ago. I think I broke back into my body before it had been completely boarded up. Clearly, death didn't last very long in my case, but it did leave quite an impression on me. I wonder how long it's going to be before some kind of governing celestial force realizes I managed to slip back into my body soon after I was kicked out of it. The irony, of course, is this: I don't even like my body. But, really, it's better than no body at all; that's what I've come away with. So, I guess I'll keep it with me. I do wonder about being pulled back out of it, but I try not to worry about it. All I know is, should I be snagged for trespassing any time soon, I intend to put up one hell of a fight. My soul is a squatter, so to speak. But she won't go quietly.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

A Chicken Lives in New Jersey

My grandfather, who lives in suburban New Jersey like the rest of us, recently had a chicken. Her name was Clementina and she was akin to a pet cat. Self-sufficient and a bit of a snoot, she roamed his yard and went about the neighborhood with her head held high as though she had every right to be strutting along the asphalt. I'm going to assume that she died of natural causes, but one never really knows.

As kids, we, too, had a chicken. My father had bought her for us where they slaughter chickens at some place in Jersey City. This is just one of the many inappropriate places my father would take us as children. Horrified, my older sister and I would watch as they’d slice the chickens' heads off with a blade that was built into the counter. Some kids get to go to the zoo; we got to go watch chickens go bye-bye.

However, on one occasion, instead of with the usual, freshly killed chicken, we actually returned home with a live one. Hoping she would provide eggs daily, we kept her in the garage…in a Foodtown shopping carriage my father had stolen and transformed into a coop. My sister named her Chicky. Her full name was Chicky Feathers Joey Bazzarelli because my father let us each pick a name. My little brother contributed the Joey part, and I nearly blew a gasket.

“Chickens are girls,” I said, losing my patience.

Of course, my father told me to leave my brother alone, unless I wanted a schiaffo across my face. So, yes, the name stayed, but I was very annoyed about it. I still think it's totally stupid. I don’t think I need to tell you that, as a child, I had high blood pressure. Anyway, Chicky never laid eggs. No, she gave us something better, something no other pet could: chicken drama.

One afternoon, while we played outside with the garage door open, someone’s unleashed dog made a beeline for Chicky. It knocked over the Foodtown shopping carriage and, Chicky, understandably, went from frazzled to certifiably nuts, flapping and running across the washer and dryer, sort of flying around the garage, fumbling across my father’s tool-strewn workbench to get away from the dog.

Being that we were kids, home alone, and, well, chicken shit, we scrambled inside to call the police.

“There's a dog,” I said. “Loose in our garage,” I said. “It's going to eat our chicken!”
“Is it your dog?” the cop asked.
“No,” I said. “We don’t know whose dog it is.”
“Whose dog is it?” the cop asked.

My blood pressure rising, I didn’t answer for fear that I’d curse and earn myself multiple schiaffi in the process.

“Well, the dog’s probably just hungry,” the cop finally said. “Leave it alone. Let it eat your chicken. It'll run off after that.”
“But the chicken's ALIVE!” I yelled.

Eventually the police showed up, caught the dog, and made us call our father who got in trouble for not having a permit for Chicky. He couldn't have cared less. I remember him telling the police something about a dog’s not being on a leash being “more danger” than a chicken in someone's garage. Not that any of the hunting dogs my father owned over the years even knew what a leash looked like.

Needless to say, Chicky survived the dog chase, and we continued to keep her. Albeit, illegally.

“No worry,” my father said. “They no do nothing.”

Unfortunately, Chicky didn’t last too much longer. Chicky got cancer. Her right eyeball protruded at least an inch due to the tumor growing behind it. When she’d let you, you could feel the clusters of tumors under her wings. She also couldn't poop anymore because there was a tumor growing on her rectum. My father had to use pliers to pull out the feces she struggled to release. It was heartbreaking, watching her suffer like that. She really did suffer.

Then, not long after the first tumor appeared, Chicky died. We came home from school and she was gone. I asked my mother if my father had put her out of her misery. He hadn’t.

Recently, over one of our Saturday family lunches that starts at 2 PM and doesn’t exactly end, I brought up the subject of Chicky.

“Really, Dad?” my sister asked. “You didn't kill her?"
“No,” he insisted. “Justa she's die. By sheself. I find dead.”

It was quiet for a beat.

“You know,” I said. “The one time you should have killed a chicken, you didn’t.”

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Ode to Panettone

Raisin bread,
seasonal,
or, rather, brioche
Light and fluffy
with a bitter brown crust.
Inside, diced orange peel,
scattered and candied-
or should I say, petrified?
Why do paesani
like you so much?
You give me agita,
literally.
Whether I eat you here-
or in Italy.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Alone All By Myself

I hate going on dates. I hate hate hate going on dates. I'd rather sweeten my tea with pulverized glass than go on one more awful date. The idea of even attempting to have one more one-sided "conversation" with one more one-word-answer manbot is so excruciating to me that I suddenly understand the logic behind that show Snapped on Oxygen. Here's an example of a somewhat recent exchange I had during one of my more painful dates:

ME: So, then you like what you do?
HIM: Yeah.
(Silence.)
ME: Great. So, what inspired you to go into that industry in the first place?
(More Silence.)
ME: Did someone encourage you to go into that field?
HIM: Dad.
ME: Your dad?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: Great. That's great. So, do you and your dad work together?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: Really? Oh, that's nice.
HIM: Yeah.
ME: Do you like working with him?
(Again, Silence.)
HIM: Sometimes.
ME: Sometimes? Why's that?
HIM: (shrug)

Anyway, the date wound down with this:

ME: Yeah, I don't think this is going to work out.
HIM: No?
ME: No. I actually feel like I'm alone on this date. And, to be quite honest with you, ______, I don't really need to date you to be alone. I can be alone all by myself.
HIM: Okay.
ME: Yeah, I actually prefer being alone all by myself.
HIM: (shrug)

I am 33 and single, and, frankly, the only times I wish I had a man in my life are a) when I'm having car trouble b) when I have a lot of parcels and/or bags to carry while I'm shopping and c) when I see men walking around with their kids hoisted up on their shoulders. Were it not for these three disparate moments in time, I'd be fine. I'd scarcely consider pairing up. The problem is a) lately my car has been having quite a bit of trouble b) I always seem to have a shitload to carry, and, c) to make matters worse, I work with kids, so I see lots of men carrying their kids up on their goddamn shoulders.

I don't like to gripe about men because it's basically been done a gazillion times over by many other women who do it so much better than I ever could but, seriously, what the hell?

If the men I date aren't legally mute, they're talking non-stop...about sex. In odious detail. They don't even know my last name, but they want to know what color my underwear is. So, when they ask, I tell them.

"It's black," I say.
"Ooooo, black, sexy," the horny bastards reply.
"Yeah, and guess what?" I say. "You're never going to see it."

Not unless I also tell them the style, the designer, and the size of my underwear so they can then go and peruse the lingerie section of Bloomingdales on their own...the pervs that they are.

Now, I cannot speak for all women on this subject, but I can speak for myself. The sex talk does not work. The no talk does not work. Why can't the interest a man expresses in a woman be, I don't know, sweet? A respectful, yet charmingly playful, effort toward genuinely getting to know the woman because he genuinely likes the woman. You don't want to hold her hand unless it's immediately going to lead to nakedness? Somehow that just doesn't seem right to me. If it really is only about sex across the board then, really, I'm in trouble. One guy proudly told me that he doesn't know if he loves a woman until he has sex with her. In my mind, love should develop first. Sex should be an expression of that love.

But, apparently, I'm alone on that one.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Single Turkeys (Put A Wing On It)


All my single turkeys
(All my single turkeys)

All my single turkeys
(All my single turkeys)

All my single turkeys
(All my single turkeys)

Put your wings up...

Listen to us
you're not gonna stuff
any of that mush
in our guts

We've had enough
of the buttery brush
Your drumsticks were our
legs and butts

Pay us attention
Did we mention,
beef and pork are very
deliiiicious?

We buzzards are tough
Yes, ugly and such,
but come and touch us and you'll suff-er

Try and catch us cuz we're gonna put a wing on it
Barely fly, but we're gonna put a wing on it
Baked and sliced, bitches, we can put a wing on it

gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gobble

gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gobble

Your oven is hot
and you think you've got
a holiday meal to hit the spot

But we think not
We're hiding your pots
and pans out in the garage

Pay us attention
Did we mention,
fish and duck are very
deliiiicious?

Want to carve and cut
us birds into what
you'll just serve tomorrow for lunch

Try and catch us cuz we're gonna put a wing on it
Barely fly, but we're gonna put a wing on it
Baked and sliced, bitches, we can put a wing on it

gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gobble

gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gobble...

So
many pilgrims served
It's worse than what you've heard;
it's so absurd
Thanksgiving and Christmas,
both traditions
to uplift us,
not kill us,
slit our throats...
Drown us with gravy boats
See this is what we know
Atop a stove, a Macy's float,
cartoonish oaf
about to roast

All my single turkeys
(All my single turkeys)

All my single turkeys
(All my single turkeys)

All my single turkeys
(All my single turkeys)

Put your wings up...

gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gobble

gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gob, gob, gob
gobble...