F.P.S.

I spent this weekend chaperoning my son Micah at a Future Problem Solving competition. For those of you fortunate enough to not know, Future Problem Solving, or F.P.S., is a group of academic overachievers who solve problems that don’t yet and probably never will exist, hence, the F.P. part of the acronym. As one might expect, F.P.S. attracts many Harry Potter fans.
While I did get to do some stuff I’ve never done when I wasn’t high, such as walking down high school hallways and eating high school cafeteria food, my sense was that the weekend lasted several days longer than normal. Along with fellow FPS parents, I stayed at the Nathan Hale Inn. Nathan Hale was a Revolutionary War hero who was hanged by the British, and around five hours into the weekend, I found myself starting to envy him.
Not only was I a chaperone, I was also a skit judge. The skits were about finding solutions to rapidly accruing debt in developing countries. As fun as these sound to perform, they were even more fun to watch. I started taking bribes late Friday night and by the competition on Saturday afternoon, I had stockpiled some serious cash, which I then used to score some cool educational games and a sweet F.P.S. T shirt that has a human skull with an open zipper and massive brain popping out of the top of it. Anyway, predictably, the first place skit was from Greenwich.
After the skits, some disgruntled parents complained that my scoring reflected my intellectual inability to comprehend the F.P.S. philosophy. I had to set them straight. I told them, hey, we don’t live in the future. We live in the real world, a world in which your kid’s a dork and you, apparently, haven’t figured out how extortion works. So, who’s the stupid one? You tell me.

Impulse Control

Jake was in fourth grade when I got a call from the school nurse.
“Mrs. Hurwitz, can you come in? Jake’s in my office and I have some waivers for you to sign.”
Waivers? That sounded ominous. “Is he okay?”
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
I arrived to find Jake sitting in a chair, sucking on a lollipop, an ice pack on his neck. “I’m afraid we’ve had an incident,” the nurse said, closing the door. “Jake was bitten by a classmate.”
I looked at Jake. “Someone bit you? Were you fighting?”
“No,” Jake said. “Catie just bit me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She said she wanted to.”
The bite had broken the skin. I examined the circle of teeth marks as the nurse briefed me on AIDS and hepatitis. She was just being cautious, but it freaked me out. I signed some forms saying I wouldn’t sue the school system and was instructed to make an appointment for blood work. Catie was also being tested. “She understands the seriousness of bite wounds, and she’s going to be punished.”
“Isn’t a fourth grader kind of old to be biting?” I asked. “I thought kids stopped biting in, like, nursery school.” This Catie chick had to be ridiculously immature.
There was a knock at the door. “That must be Catie,” said the nurse. “The principal called her down to apologize.”
Catie shuffled in. “Sorry,” she muttered, her eyes on the floor. She was easily three times the size of Jake, with an impressive of boobs for a fourth-grader. She didn’t look one bit sorry.
“Why did you bite Jake?” I asked. “Did he do something to bother you?”
Catie shrugged. “He sits in from of me. His neck was sticking out and I wanted to bite it. I didn’t mean to hurt him but his neck was so soft. I like Jake.”
Catie’s revelation did little to comfort me. In fact, it upped the creepy factor exponentially. Stating the obvious, the school counselor concluded that Catie lacked impulse control.
Jake complained a bit about the turtleneck and scarf combination, especially as summer drew near, but tough.

Alumni Notes

I was reading through my college alumni magazine the other day. It is eminently skimmable, hardly unique in a genre which features pretentious articles about new research and building projects, all calculated to inspire loyalty and open wallets. One small section features notes from specific graduating classes. Here’s a fact about class notes: very few things in life strike such a perfect balance between fascinating and repellent.
If any of you are wondering what my classmates are up to, I can tell you this: they are up to bragging, big time. Sometimes their bragging is overt and shameless, and sometimes it is coyly framed in humor or phony self-deprecation, but anyway you look at it, it makes me pray to God that they might soon suffer a public and exquisitely humiliating downfall.
Recently, I’ve noticed a shift from boasting about personal accomplishments to gloating about offspring. I know the future promises they’ll be crowing about grandkids, followed by a short foray into self-pity when they are old and infirm. Then, I’ll get to read about them in the class necrology. I can hardly wait.

You Might Not Want to Eat That

I think it’s pretty safe to say that cocktail parties are best suited to adults. If you have to bring a child, a sleeping infant is the top choice. Older kids, who migrate to television sets or filchable alcohol, are okay, too. Toddlers, though, are a distinct liability, especially when you throw easily accessible hors d’ouvres into the mix.
At this particular cocktail party, I was awkwardly minding my own business when I was accosted by a toddler. I heard her parents blathering about how their babysitter bailed at the last minute. Truthfully, I didn’t mind. She was really cute, two or three years old, with curly dark hair and soulful eyes. Since the party was made up almost exclusively of my husband’s business associates, I didn’t really have anything better to do than cozy up to the little tyke.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Zoe.”
“How old are you, Zoe?”
“Free.” She held up three chubby fingers.
“You’re a big girl, for only three! What are you eating?”
“Grapes.” She offered me one, which I accepted. She giggled happily.
Boredom and social isolation do strange things to a person. I found myself indulging little Zoe in a game, which consisted of her inserting grapes into my mouth. I would chew them dramatically, saying things like “Yummy!” and “MMMMMmmm good!” We’d been playing this game, which as heinously repetitive as it was, beat conversing with the vast majority of the assembled adults, for quite some time when I overheard her mother talking to someone.
“Zoe was vomiting all last night, but she pretty much stopped by noon. She managed to hold down some Teddy Grahams and apple slices, but before we got here, she had this weird, foul-smelling green diarrhea.”
“Game over,” I announced to the chortling bundle of bacteria who had been plying me with disease-laden fruit. I got up and ran into the kitchen.
“Play with me, Lady! Lady, play with me!” cried Zoe, following me as fast as her pudgy legs would allow.
Couldn’t she take a hint? “Go away,” I told her, and the little crybaby burst into tears.
Her mother came flying into the kitchen. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? Do you have to make another poopy?” Zoe nodded, looking at me balefully as her mother swept her up and whisked her off to the bathroom.
I can’t wait until the next time I get really sick. The first thing I’m going to do is get on the phone and invite Zoe and her parents over for cocktails.

Surprise Travel Tips

The first day of my trip to Costa Rica was full of surprises. The first and perhaps biggest surprise was that I didn’t actually get to Costa Rica because my passport, marked valid through April 4, 2008, was no good. Apparently, to visit Costa Rica, you must complete travel at least 30 days before your passport’s expiration date. Go figure. I guess I was supposed to know that a specific, cited expiration date was not definite, but approximate, and whimsically variable from one country to the next. The manager of customer service at Delta told me this as I watched, holding back tears, as my daughter left without me. I convinced myself said manager was just providing me with sudden and unwelcome information. It wasn’t her fault; the freakishly tall, ferret-faced bitch was just doing her job. I knew, too, that I was not giving up this trip without a fight.
Which brings me to the second surprise: it is possible to get a passport in one day. This is especially true if you enter the passport office sobbing “I have an emergency! My daughter is on a plane to Costa Rica right now, and I have to find her!” While I neglected to mention that my daughter is 25 and quite self-sufficient, that was only because I didn’t want to take away from the drama of the moment. This strategy proved effective. The passport office employees totally came through, from the chubby self-important security guard to the nondescript bureaucratic drone who took a few minutes of attention away from his ham sandwich to process my paperwork. Thanks, fellas! Thanks, too, to the guy at the Express Photo adjacent to the passport office, even though the picture he took made me look like a brunette version of Nick Nolte in that unfortunate D.U.I. mug shot. Not pretty, but valid, until approximately March 16, 2018.
The next morning I arrived back at the Delta terminal. The manager was busy humiliating some old codger in a wheelchair who’d missed his flight to Dubai. I checked in and proceeded through security with a smile on my face, confident I’d be well on my way to Costa Rica before she “discovered” the thumbtacks I left on her chair. Surprise!

Costa Rica

I’m leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow! I’m really excited. I’d be even more excited if, for every one person to whom I mention the trip and get the response “hey, that’s awesome, I’m sure you’ll have a great time,” there weren’t three other people warning me that Costa Rica is where their friend/sister/chiropractor had his/her identity/backpack/car stolen.
That’s okay, though. I’m still psyched. How can you not want to visit a country with rainforests and volcanoes and beaches where you can watch the sun rise over the Caribbean, then drive a few hours to watch it set over the Pacific?
Have a great week, North America. I’ll write you when I get back.

After the Fall

Last night, my book group started talking about what I suspect is the main topic of conversation in the tri-state area: the fall of New York’s soon-to-be-ex governor Eliot Spitzer. Our discussion covered arrogance, sexual addiction, and the triumph of the id over the super-ego. We talked about how, if a man allows what is essentially a brainless, sightless organ to lead him, he will get lost.
Finally, we settled on the most compelling aspect of this unfolding drama of human fallibility, namely, what, precisely, could a twenty-two year old hooker named Ashley do to make a two-hour “date” worth $4,300? We speculated about possible sexual techniques. When does one make that leap from amateur to pro? How does a penis even know it’s being handled by an expert? Is there a sodomy training school? If so, one might assume an oral exam is a given, but how about a written one? I know we won’t need to wonder about any of the sordid details for long, because doubtless, each and every one will be examined publicly, in microscopic detail, like Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress.
Anyway, as the previous paragraph suggests, we were able to joke about it for a while. But then the conversation-like this post- took a more serious turn. When you consider the fallout from this- fallout which will land squarely on Spitzer’s wife and three teenage daughters- it stops being all that funny. Archetypical tragedy occurs when a person’s most noble characteristic results in his or her demise. In Spitzer’s case, his greatest moral failing brought him down. Tragic, maybe not, but terribly, terribly sad.

Loyalty

I went to see my dermatologist today. She doesn’t like to waste time on actual medical diagnosis. Instead, she prefers to nuke anything suspicious with liquid nitrogen, courtesy of a device that looks like a blow torch. Generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with this. I don’t like to waste time, either, and the blow torch adds a nice element of drama.
I was reading a magazine in the waiting room. It was an issue of Time with Hillary Clinton on the cover. I took it with me and was reading it in the examination room when the doctor (I’ll call her Dr. J.) walked in. She poked at the magazine and hissed, “I despise her.”
This surprised me. If I were to make an assumption based on ethnicity, demographics, and gender, that assumption would have been that Dr. J. thought Hillary was A-O.K..
“Why?” I asked, after which Dr. J. launched into a ten minute invective packed with words like liar, scumbag, and monster, concluding with “if she gets the nomination, I’m voting for McCain.”
I didn’t know what to say. I happen to like Hillary. But Dr. J. is standing a foot away from me with the blow torch. She moves closer. “You have some sun damage on your nose. Let me take care of that for you.”

Today, I learned that the depth of my political loyalty falls somewhere between the second and third layer of my epidermis.

Show and Tell

My oldest daughter, Hannah, has always had a great imagination. One day when she was around three she came into the kitchen, hauling an armful of stuffed animals.
“Want to know their names?”
“Sure.”
First was a dog. “This is Feven.”
“Hi, Feven.”
She handed me a kitten. “This is Choonie.”
“Hi, Choonie. Aren’t you cute?”
Then came a rabbit. “This is Benda Bunny. She’s a girl.”
“Hi, Benda Bunny.”
Then she showed me a stuffed deer.
“This is Deerfuck,” she said.
I was quiet for a moment.
“Don’t you like that name, Mommy?”
“Of course I do, sweetie.” I mean, why should I frighten her by freaking out at her unfortunate name choice? I would leave that job to Mrs. Miller, her nursery school teacher, when Hannah brought Deerfuck in for show and tell the next day.

Admission

My kids would occasionally mispronounce words and I wouldn’t correct them. In fact, I’d sometimes encourage them to keep mispronouncing stuff because it was so incredibly cute. For example, when asked who his favorite president was, my son Jake would reply “Neighborhood Lincoln.” I felt kind of bad when he found out Lincoln's actual first name, though I can’t imagine one wrong answer on the SAT made that much of a difference.

The Party Pack

My son Micah had a couple of friends sleep over last night. After breakfast, they start trying to figure out what they can do, since it’s rainy and miserable outside. They finally decide on bowling, which not only involves me driving them to the local lanes, but since no one has money, I’ll have to pay. Micah convinces me this is no big deal. “The Party Pack costs forty dollars. That includes everything, shoes and soda and bowling for four people for two hours.”
“Wow,” I say. “that’s a good deal.”
“Yes,” he nods. “The Party Pack is awesome.”
“The Party Pack is totally awesome,” says his friend J.P.
“The Party Pack is amazing,” says his friend Johnny.
Micah calls a fourth kid. “Austin, want to go bowling with me and Johnny and J.P.? We’re getting a Party Pack.”
We pick up Austin. When he gets in the car, he attempts to hand me some money. “Don’t worry,” Micah says. “We’re getting a Party Pack. It’s only forty bucks.”
“I forgot about the Party Pack,” says Austin. “That’s a really good deal. Thanks, Mrs. Hurwitz.”
“No problem,” I say.
We get to the bowling alley and I follow the boys in. I smile at the guy behind the counter and announce, “We’d like the Party Pack.”
Micah rolls his eyes in disgust. He points to the huge sign over the counter. It’s obvious that he can’t believe I’m so incredibly stupid.
“Oh, my God, Mom. FUN Pack. It’s called the Fun Pack.”
I just hope they manage to find a ride home. It’s really pouring out there.

The Party Pack

My son Micah had a couple of friends sleep over last night. After breakfast, they start trying to figure out what they can do, since it’s rainy and miserable outside. They finally decide on bowling, which not only involves me driving them to the local lanes, but since no one has money, I’ll have to pay. Micah convinces me this is no big deal. “The Party Pack costs forty dollars. That includes everything, shoes and soda and bowling for four people for two hours.”
“Wow,” I say. “that’s a good deal.”
“Yes,” he nods. “The Party Pack is awesome.”
“The Party Pack is totally awesome,” says his friend J.P.
“The Party Pack is amazing,” says his friend Johnny.
Micah calls a fourth kid. “Austin, want to go bowling with me and Johnny and J.P.? We’re getting a Party Pack.”
We pick up Austin. When he gets in the car, he attempts to hand me some money. “Don’t worry,” Micah says. “We’re getting a Party Pack. It’s only forty bucks.”
“I forgot about the Party Pack,” says Austin. “That’s a really good deal. Thanks, Mrs. Hurwitz.”
“No problem,” I say.
We get to the bowling alley and I follow the boys in. I smile at the guy behind the counter and announce, “We’d like the Party Pack.”
Micah rolls his eyes in disgust. He points to the huge sign over the counter. It’s obvious that he can’t believe I’m so incredibly stupid.
“Oh, my God, Mom. FUN Pack. It’s called the Fun Pack.”
I just hope they manage to find a ride home. It’s really pouring out there.

The Party Pack

My son Micah had a couple of friends sleep over last night. After breakfast, they start trying to figure out what they can do, since it’s rainy and miserable outside. They finally decide on bowling, which not only involves me driving them to the local lanes, but since no one has money, I’ll have to pay. Micah convinces me this is no big deal. “The Party Pack costs forty dollars. That includes everything, shoes and soda and bowling for four people for two hours.”
“Wow,” I say. “that’s a good deal.”
“Yes,” he nods. “The Party Pack is awesome.”
“The Party Pack is totally awesome,” says his friend J.P.
“The Party Pack is amazing,” says his friend Johnny.
Micah calls a fourth kid. “Austin, want to go bowling with me and Johnny and J.P.? We’re getting a Party Pack.”
We pick up Austin. When he gets in the car, he attempts to hand me some money. “Don’t worry,” Micah says. “We’re getting a Party Pack. It’s only forty bucks.”
“I forgot about the Party Pack,” says Austin. “That’s a really good deal. Thanks, Mrs. Hurwitz.”
“No problem,” I say.
We get to the bowling alley and I follow the boys in. I smile at the guy behind the counter and announce, “We’d like the Party Pack.”
Micah rolls his eyes in disgust. He points to the huge sign over the counter. It’s obvious that he can’t believe I’m so incredibly stupid.
“Oh, my God, Mom. FUN Pack. It’s called the Fun Pack.”
I just hope they manage to find a ride home. It’s really pouring out there.

For Future Reference

I don’t exactly command respect, but that’s fine with me. I don’t even want respect, because respect is not what I’m about. I mean, we’re all just human beings, living on the planet, right? But there’s something I do believe in, and that’s being polite. When I offer someone younger and less experienced than myself some well-intentioned advice, I don’t think that person should look at me like I’m some idiot and snap, “What are you even talking about?”
To this person, I might say it isn’t the lack of respect, but the lack of politeness that I find offensive. I might also add that they may want to re-think being such a huge bitch.

The Uterus Monologues

From time to time I get asked to simplify scientific facts for the children’s books I write, so they are more easily understood by our six to nine-year-old readers.
Usually it’s no big deal, but I was given this fact the other day and it’s proving to be quite a challenge:
“Embryonic great white sharks do not have a placenta and obtain their nourishment by feeding on eggs in the mother’s uterus.”
I am quick to isolate the three problem words: embryonic, placenta, and uterus. “Embryonic” can be changed to “baby great white sharks before they are born.” “Placenta” is only mentioned as something they don’t have, so I pretend it’s not even there. That leaves “uterus.” If I try to ignore that, too, my simplified fact reads “Baby great white sharks before they are born eat their mother’s eggs.” This makes “fried or scrambled?” seems like a logical follow-up question. Clearly, I need to introduce the uterus, but how? I can’t call it a tummy, because not only would that be physiologically incorrect, these kids know their tummies are what makes them throw up when they eat an entire box of Fruit Roll-Ups in one sitting. “Womb?” Biblical overtones. “Belly” is non-specific. And “privates” makes sharks sound like prudes.
My plan is to give the uterus a cute nickname, like Oprah’s trademark va-jay-jay. Right now I’m leaning towards utee-patootie, but any suggestions are welcome.

The Tipping Point

I’ve been working on a young adult novel for three weeks, and today I reached the tipping point. That’s when the plot’s momentum takes over, and odds are good that I’ll actually finish. I’m happy about that, but not too happy, because getting happy and self-congratulatory smacks of hubris and we all know what happens then.

On second thought, just forget I said any of this.

Dream

Last night I had a dream that I was sitting at my computer editing text. Not only was it boring, it was really annoying because most of my waking hours had been spent sitting at my computer editing text. I felt like I couldn’t catch a break.
On a more positive note, I did enjoy swimming to my computer through the milk chocolate river with Bill Clinton.

Protocol

It occurs to me that there’s no protocol for farting in yoga class, and there really ought to be. The bending and twisting aspect of yoga postures all but guarantees the expulsion of gas lurking about the intestinal tract. Add to this the fact that yoga is traditionally practiced in near silence, unlike, say, step aerobics where you’ve got a soundtrack loud enough to drown out even the most powerful alimentary explosions. I attend yoga class regularly, and at least a dozen times over the past year one person or another has let one rip. It can be pretty awkward, but I think I’ve found a way to solve the problem.
The most basic precept of yoga is that one be “present.” We are encouraged to occupy the moment, rather than dwelling in the past or anticipating the future. Apologizing for gas already out of the gate would be a clear indication of dwelling in the past. The only solution is to fart and yell “sorry” simultaneously. This serves to not only underscore the fact that you are, indeed, “present”, it also conveniently masks that embarrassing trumpeting sound.
I can’t wait to try this out at my next yoga class.

Interstate Karma

Driving on the highway the other day, I was maintaining my passing lane speed of 80 mph and singing along to Rag Doll when the chrome grill of a Lexus SUV exploded into my rear-view mirror. Passing me on the right, the driver then insinuated his car between my vehicle and the car ahead of me. He wasted no time bullying that next car, but his dangerous and illegal passing maneuver was thwarted by the steady flow of traffic from the right. Ultimately he managed to bob and weave his way forward, extending his arm out the window and waving his middle finger vigorously at the same time.
A short time later I came to the crest of a hill which offered a sweeping view of the road ahead. I could see the Lexus boxed between two lumbering 18 wheelers in the left lane, with a third truck cruising exactly parallel in the right. While it wasn’t quite the fiery wreck I’d been fantasizing about, it was interesting to note that karma is both swift and cleverly ironic.

Betcha Didn't Know. And Pretty Moving, Too.

Did you know the word “hobo” is likely derived from the syllabic abbreviation of “homeward bound”?
I know. This sucked all the fun out of “hobo” for me, too.