Archive for November, 2009

I remember feeling something crawling across my bed in the middle of the night. Something small. Something furry. I jumped out of my bed and flipped on the lights to find Salt on my blanket. Pepper, I soon found out, was in the closet with the kids. I didn’t bother to wake up my parents. (more…)

I’m convinced that my mother has a secret compartment in the back of her closet that opens to a room filled with filing cabinets. There, men in visors type feverishly on old fashioned typewriters until my mother appears at the back of her closet to make a request for, say, a brochure from her 2006 trip to Canada or the Playbill from Bye Bye Birdie — the original 1960 production as well as the latest Broadway revival. (more…)

While America is busy running around today, buying turkeys and flying to relatives’ homes, I thought I’d make today’s blog brief. I wasn’t sure what to say until I was stuck in traffic behind this ambulance today:

I can hope only that they're better at saving lives than they are at spell checking.

Essentially, it says, “EMS at it is best.” which makes no sense. Now, before you go calling me a grammar snob over my it’s vs. its, please remember that words and spelling do matter. They really do, as shown in these, some of the world’s most expensive typos. After all, forget a space between two small words and suddenly “the pen is mightier than the sword” has an entirely different meaning — one that many men probably believe, but has never been substantiated. Just ask Lorena Bobbitt.

Actually, this year it’s a race car, and I’ve got one to give away, courtesy of the folks at Hess. You may recall that I’d asked for two, so I could give the second one to the pediatric oncology floor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey. But supplies were limited, so I’m going to buy one to give to the hospital and give the freebie to one lucky reader here at MommaSaid.net.

Here’s how you can get your chance to win: (more…)

I should have stuck with the Mohawk look, no?

When the producer got up out of her chair and walked over to brush my hair away from my eyes, I had to stiffle giggles. I was thrilled not just because CBS was in my living room filming me for a segment on families and the recession, but because my hair had gotten so long, it temporarily stopped the shoot. It was official: I’d reached what I consider the sixth stage of grief — shallowness. (more…)

You know you’re transitioning from one season to the next when you can’t find matching shoes. We have one red boot still missing from the summer, as are the matches for two right-footed sneakers that belong to my children. No matter. They don’t fit anyone here anyhow. (more…)

I wanted another Hess truck. I’d agreed to give away one of them on my blog, but when I asked for a second one to donate to the pediatric oncology ward at a local hospital, I was told that there were limited supplies of the freebie holiday trucks (actually, it’s a race car this year), and so, I’d only get one. (more…)

Someone close to me found out that his teenage daughter was in a relationship from Facebook. It came to him on his Blackberry one morning before he’d had enough coffee to handle it. (Or perhaps wine was more in order.)

Welcome to 21st century parenting.

I was quick to help him out (i.e. needle him) by translating the emoticons in his daughter’s message:

“<3 means love,” I informed him. “Have a fabulous day.”

So I thought I’d help parents everywhere — especially dads of daughters — by translating more emoticons they may come across on their kids’ Facebook pages:

:-) is a smiley face. It’s often accompanied by more exclamation points than the New York Times uses in a year, as in :-) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-D is a big grin or laughing, used by kids who have overused their exclamation points so much, they’ve rubbed it off their computer keyboards and can’t find it anymore.

:-( is a frown. As in Dad won’t let me go to the party :-( or The Abercrombie at the mall is closing :-(

;-) is a wink. It could mean your kid is up to no good, she’s flirting or she has some inside joke with her friend involving the science teacher’s bad breath. It’s hard to tell.

:-P means she’s sticking out her tongue. You know, what you taught her not to do when she was 5.

:-o means she’s shocked, either about the Abercrombie closing or something her friend did at the party at your house while you were away. Uh oh. party? Now you’re :-o, huh?

<3 means love. <3333333333333333333333333 means a whole lotta love, perhaps like Led Zeppelin used to sing in your car back in the day when you were, oh you know ;-).

:-* is a kiss and can proceed or follow <3 and make you go :-(  or perhaps even :’-( (that means cry) right Dad?

:-X means embarrassed, which you’re going to be if your kid finds you using this list to translate her Facebook page, so get back over to CNN.com where you belong, Dad.

:-D

Dinner at the 21 Club or leftovers? Count me in.

Getting there was like being in a video game. As I drove through rush hour traffic in Manhattan last night, I maneuvered my mini-van to avoid an opening car door here and a cyclist there. Pedestrians dashed out from behind delivery trucks, which were double-parked along the way. Taxis cut me off, and some guy from Michigan really ought to consider public transportation if he’s going to come to New York City and drive that way. Move it, pal! By the time I parked in the garage next door to the famous 21 Club where I was going to have dinner, I was pretty sure I’d scored enough points in my real world video game to move up a level.

So I suggested to Reggie Fils Aimé, the down-to-earth and funny president of Nintendo of America and host of last night’s dinner, that Nintendo should create a game involving a mini-van in rush hour traffic. He chuckled, saying he’d consider it.

You are my witnesses.

At dinner last night, I looked around the table, and a Sesame Street song started to play in my head. I had the wonderful experience to dine not only with Reggie and several of his colleagues, but also a handful of reporters from mainstream media like Time and Business Week. And that’s why the song started playing in my head: “Which one of these is not like the others…”. (more…)

I’d just sat down for my pedicure when I realized what was on TV in the nail salon: The Young and the Restless had a cancer storyline.

Of course. (more…)