Open Letter to My Sons or Do As Mama Tells You 'Cause She's Getting Smarter Every Day

Oh, yes...this brain is on fire.

Dear Tom and Charlie,

While I was scooping out the litter box this morning, as is my habit, I was keeping an eye on the morning news. 

I watch CBS because it just so happens I have a bit of a "thing" for Charlie Rose and those droopy eyelids plus I cannot stand the uproarious guffawing and forced jocularity of the other news shows (especially Good Morning America where live reports of a Kardashian hang nail come before, and often instead of, serious world events).

The news is just so awful.....wah!

George Stephanopoulos, we all know you want to unseat the perpetually angst-ridden and unstable Diane Sawyer as world news anchor but is this the way to do it? I fear it is.

In any case, over the scrape, scrape of the turd shovel, I heard something about the fact that conventional wisdom about the brain -- which is that you reach your peak of mental acuity around age 25 and then slide into an inevitable decline which involves wearing polyester sweatshirts with pictures of kittens wearing pretty bows and needing a booster seat when driving -- has been significantly altered by additional research.

Despite the suspicion that I've never been smarter (yes, I said it....now you say it with me, fifty-somethings all over America), I began looking for a kitty sweatshirt at Wal-Mart, fearing that at any moment I would forget how to turn on the oven or use a tea bag but wanted to be dressed appropriately.

I've warned you both that the moment would come when you saw me falter for the first time and that it would be tough to handle---although that never happened to Grandma and I had been banking on a genetic life preserver when it came to the thinking department.

As it is, I got Grandma's short fingers, unmanageable hair and proclivity to laugh at everything but, being a glass-is-half-empty kind of gal (honestly, I am more of  a there-was-never-anything-in-the-glass-in-the-first-place-and-it's-now-in-jagged-shards-on-the-floor but that's another blog post or fifteen years of therapy, entirely) I assumed I'd soon be stringing big wooden beads on a shoelace before too long.

Well, hah! It seems that scientists (most likely ones over 50) have discovered that the brain regenerates itself quite nicely into the 90's and older people can be expected to reach their most creative and cognitive well into their advanced years. Using the famous author Herman Wouk (The Caine Mutiny, Winds of War) as an example, they cited that he wrote a new (and totally coherent) novel last year at the age of 98.

Go, Herman!!!

Charlie Rose was as excited about all this as I was and, making a valiant attempt to open his eyes all the way, asked whether these findings just might indicate experience accrued over a lifetime as opposed to the actual growth of more gray matter.

He was told that it was, indeed, growth and that this regeneration combined with experience, now makes anyone over the age of fifty super human and completely infallible.

Charlie Rose, super excited.

Okay, maybe that isn't exactly what they told him but that is how I prefer to interpret it.

You, my sons, are the fortunate beneficiaries of this good news since I fully intend to put my new lease on cognitive thinking to good use by helping you both decide on your life's trajectory...this will include wardrobe advice, career counseling, romantic guidance (Charlie, keep up the good work in that department) and, of course, penmanship classes.

In fact, I suggest that you do not make a move without consulting me first since it is now officially confirmed that I am smarter than everyone and never, ever wrong the beneficiary of not only experience but brain growth, as well and, therefore, a freaking national treasure reliable source of advice.

Itching yet, Miley?

Miley Cyrus, I am available. Please call me so I can advise you to stop twerking and start preparing for your career of working at a drive-thru. Start by rolling up your tongue and storing it safely inside your mouth and putting on some sensible cotton underwear instead of latex which we all know does not breathe and can only lead to the unfortunate need for prescription ointments.

So, Tom and Charlie, I can only imagine how relieved you must be at this news of my prolonged comprehension and insight.

I eagerly anticipate the many questions you are, no doubt, jotting down at this very moment as you joyfully prepare to pick my brain for the counsel you seek. You're welcome, my sons...and please cancel that order for the kitty cat sweatshirt I requested for Christmas. I no longer need it.

Love, Mom

Advice isn't always good.....

My Horrified Review of the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards...but, yes, it's mostly about Miley Cyrus.

Please, put that thing away before
someone gets hurt.

I have always tried to keep up with the music scene....even if that very statement alone is evidence of how out of touch I have actually become.

But, in my defense, I have not stagnated (like some people to whom I happen to be married), forever stuck in the music of the seventies despite the fact that I do agree that era wins the day. After all, we have "Ride Captain Ride" and who amongst us can resist singing along to "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo?" 

Beat that Gen-Xers or whatever the hell you're calling yourselves these days!

I know who Drake is, hate Kanye (but love his music) with the rest of the universe, know the band Fun. always has a period after its name despite its location in a sentence and have been practicing twerking in the privacy of my own home with only the cats to witness....so far.*

I cannot, however, condone what Miley Cyrus did last night. It's the kind of thing that shakes up any parent pretty badly.

I understand her apparent determination to undo a syrupy child star image but what Miley did last night....well, it made Amanda Bynes look like an excellent role model for America's youth. Don't set your dogs on fire, kids but feel free to urinate in pubic while wearing a waist length neon wig because that was preferable -by a lot - to Miley's insane hijinks at the VMAs.

Miley made this look stable.

In a nutshell, she spent far too long on stage prancing obscenely (and I do not use that word loosely) in a nasty fur bathing suit which was later stripped off -- of course -- to reveal a satin flesh colored two piece number that covered her tushie while not enough, more than Lady Gaga's thong did---yet, last night, Gaga had the dignity of Margaret Thatcher compared to Miley.

Do not drag my name into this, I beg of you.

Stop, just stop!!!!

The weirdest part was that she stuck a tongue that Gene Simmons would envy out of her mouth at odd and frequent times, letting it hang to the side in what, I assume, she thought was an erotic manner but just looked like she was having a stroke. 

Combine this with perfunctory crotch touching, the crotch touching of others, the inappropriate use of a foam finger, crazy eye-popping and lots of awful stampeding women with giant teddy bears strapped to their backs and you have a perfect scenario of what I am absolutely certain hell must be like.

I also suggest that the entire live audience get themselves tested for a wide spectrum of STDs after all that. If you were in the first few rows, please seek therapy, as well. I am quite sure there is a Miley Cyrus proviso in your health insurance now that Obama Care is here.

Robin and Miley in hell.

And Robin Thicke, what in the name of Yeezus were you thinking to participate in that insanity? 

Your song "Blurred Lines" is super naughty but oh-sooooooo delicious and and, while I wish you had not "pre-emptively" sued the estate of the incomparable Marvin Gaye for, er, musical confusion, you have more class than that. You did look pretty darn goofy in that striped suit, though.

During Miley's performace, all I could think of was how embarrassed her parents must be but the camera swung over to show her beaming mother in the audience. If that were my kid I would have dragged a fire hose in and aimed it at the stage.

Watch out, Selena. She doesn't
really like you.

I always try to be a
gentleman.

As annoying as Miley was totally gross, was the simpering and smug Taylor Swift. Dancing in the audience and singing along to every goddamn thing, she is the embodiment of the cloyingly sweet but secretly evil girl in high school who you simply cannot catch being a bitch but who quietly and systematically destroys the world.

Did I enjoy anything? Yep, I loved Kanye and Katy and happily sat through an endless Justin Timberlake performance. I cannot tell you the difference between a Back Street Boy and an  N' Synchian but I love me some Justin.

Lady Gaga, herself.

I am currently recovering from last night's spectacle.   I have a few pieces of poster board left over from when the kids were in school and am going to spend the rest of the morning trying to reconstruct Lady Gaga's head gear (think the Flying Nun as interpreted by an angry cubist on LSD) so I can wear it to the supermarket later.

 *This may explain all the recent hairballs I've been finding.

Will Smith and Family watching Miley Cyrus last night at the VMAs. Look at Jaden! Hahahaha!

Why I Love Iowa

Seth and I are seated across from one another at the kitchen table. He is wearing football padding and eye black and I’m dressed entirely in green camouflage salvaged from the pile of old paintball stuff in the garage.  

Between us is a map, several grease pencils in varying colors and a few electronic devices whose bright screens blink as we huddle over our task. The musky scent of stress floats above us as we lean close to draw the first quavery line in red, and another in green. Suddenly Seth leaps to his feet and shakes his fist at the ceiling, “THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!” he sobs, burying his face in his hands. We will soon “Tebow” together by the cats dishes.

What are we doing, you ask. We are simply planning a trip through Manhattan to a distant land called Staten Island for a ten o’clock appointment tomorrow morning. 

And, yes, all of you who have ever driven into the city for a specific time with no room for error, comprehend the enormity of the task, the obstacles we face and the patience and self-forgiveness  (as in “WHY did we use the West Side Highway!!?? We should have taken the tunnel! How could we have been so stupid???”) we must exhibit when it all, inevitably, goes horribly wrong. 

The devices are GPS apps that forecast traffic flow, the pencils mark prospective routes which we must be flexible enough to abandon and that little heap of Hershey Kisses is for when things get really rough.

They're not kidding.

This is how most New York drivers operate and, even though we haven’t lived in the city for nearly two decades, once a New York driver, always a New York driver. You plan, plot, curse, rant, weep and try to outfox every other driver on the road every time you turn the key in the ignition.

We are, actually, attending a funeral and do not wish -- yet again -- to be the people who open the remarkably noisy door of the church once the service is in full swing and in prayerful silence. So, based on realistic conjuring and consultations with everyone we know (including young children), we have decided to leave four hours in advance in order to reach a destination of just 70 miles away.

We left at sunrise. The Taj Mahal has nothing to do with anything.

All of this is why I love Iowa. 

See how nice they are....

We visited there last summer and were amazed to learn that  places actually exist where you calculate how long a trip will take based on something as novel as the number of miles between you and your destination. 

How far away is the Dairy Queen? Three miles, you say? Well, then---see you in three minutes! Can you imagine?

In fact, to anyone from the tri-state area who has experienced apoplexy while inching along the highway for no apparent reason and allotted ample drive time in any other part of the known universe, but will still miss the ceremony and, likely, the part of the reception where the bridal party enters wearing sunglasses, pumping their fists to the strains of “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang---today’s post is for you.

While Iowa lacks certain things (namely the transvestite on the corner who looks just like Drew Carey--oh, wait, that actually is Drew Carey…and people bellowing “Fuhgeddaboutit!!!” directly into each other’s faces as they wait for the nice man to spear their hot dog out of water that hasn’t been changed in forty years), it’s easy and relaxing on the roads.  Not to mention, when you arrive at your destination -- without having burst a blood vessel in your eye from screaming --  there is a guaranteed parking spot with no broken glass to pop a tire or some fresh, warm spit to track in to your carpet, waiting for you.

The contingency plan, in case the miraculous occurs and you arrive at your destination several hours early, is that you scout out a good diner and drink enough coffee to eliminate the need to blink for a month. You are also obligated to talk about it  -- “Can you believe it! We got there in 40 minutes! We didn’t know what to do with ourselves!!!” -- at every family event for the next fifty years.  I’ll let you know what happens.*

You knew I'd get a cat photo in here somehow.

* We left early enough to avoid really bad traffic and had about an hour to spare...so we drank lots of coffee at a weird little diner. I have yet to blink.

The Best Snack in the World

Snack's matter.

 

They're not a throwaway topic in favor of a main course and need not take a back seat to a steaming combo of meat and potatoes, spaghetti and meat balls or even a decadent dessert complete with whipped mascarpone or Fizz de Limoncello ( I just made that up but it sounds tasty and weird at the same time).

 

Snacking can mean a handful of nuts, a cookie or three, a bowl of cereal, a half bagel...the list could go on until the world becomes a cinder (the only surviving species being cockroaches and Kardashians) but many people -- mothers in particular -- believe that the very best snack of all is some delicious fruit.

 

No one can really argue with that....even I, who would scale the side of a building if I knew a single red velvet cupcake awaited me on the roof...and the elevator was broken. But fruit can be even better depending on the presentation and delivery method. Yes, I did say "delivery method."

 

Casually "liberated" from local groceries.

When I was little (yep, it's one of those stories), I spent many happy days in the tiny backyard behind the family brownstone. 

There was everything we needed back there...a swing set (glider, no teeter totter) that rocked and lurched the higher you swung, a wading pool on the hotter days, a small enamel table with four kid-sized chairs, cats that came and went as they saw fit and an assortment of balls, dolls and art supplies that we kept in old milk crates in the pantry. 

While there were no such things as juice boxes yet, a variety of adults (mother, aunts, my best-friend-who-lived-next-door's mother) would keep us hydrated with awful but delicious crap like Kool Aid and Hi-C. Lunches would, mostly, be served inside and were pretty darn good...peanut butter--of course, spaghetti, grilled cheese.

 

No juice to be found in there, I'm afraid.

But snacks were a different story. They were Grandma's domain.

 

A woman who rarely left the tiny kitchen, we could see Grandma toiling at the stove on the warmest days. Her form, clad in cotton dresses she sewed herself and partially obscured by the fire escape, she served a three course meal to my grandpa and uncle every day of the year.

 

Soup was served on 100 degree days and my grandfather, dentures a-clacking, would chew each mouthful diligently. On days my mother and I would join the men for supper (We never, ever used the word "dinner." That was reserved for the TV family in "Father Knows Best" or well-off White Anglo Saxon Protestants we hadn't yet met), his soup chewing would me drive me white-hot insane. But that's another post...

"Ready for dinner, dear?"

Grandma had moxie and liked fun stuff. She had a good grasp on how to delight children and snack time, often was her canvas.

 

Every summer afternoon at around 3, she'd lean out the window. My friends and I would often be languishing in the heat by then...lethargic, our low blood sugar causing listless arguments over whose turn it was to drink from the red plastic Mr. Peanut mug next, the sight of Grandma's arms braced on the sill would revive us. Snack time!

 

What would it be today? But how it came was just as important as what it was and the next thing we knew, Grandma was lowering a brown paper bag tied with thick string down from the second floor--one for each child. 

 

We'd reach up with grimy little arms to receive it, untie the string and she'd pull it back up, smiling at the chorus of thank yous we'd offer in exchange for the ripe peaches, unshelled peanuts or sunflower seeds, sliced apples or rosy plums we'd find within.

 

My favorite treat to find in the brown paper was a few handfuls of dark red cherries. Seeking out the firmest ones to eat first, we'd spit the pits back in the bag (except for the ones we "planted," absolutely certain we'd soon have a cherry orchard growing along the chain link fence that separated my backyard from the apartment house across alley.

 

Developed in part, I'm certain, by an aversion to walking stairs and simple as it was, getting a snack lowered from a window by string remains one of the best summer memories I have. Despite the thanks we gave Grandma in response, I doubt she realized the impact of her creativity.

 

When my kids were little, I'd interrupt wiffle ball extravaganzas by pitching ice cream sandwiches off the deck into outstretched hands, but nothing beats juicy cherries lowered from the kitchen window in a brown paper bag.

 

Not that I've been invited but, in my catalog of nostalgic tidbits, it beats tea served by the queen at Buckingham Palace any day.

 

Grandma, in a very rare moment of recreation.

 

 

The Fantasy

How often in life does one actually have a secret fantasy come true? Not too often, I'd imagine. 

Think about it...have you? 

Yet we all have them...often imprisoned in our hearts, locked away only to be revealed by a frisky subconscious, our fantasies tend to be unrealized as well as deeply private.

Just recently, however, a fantasy of mine did come to life...bursting into three dimensional reality not unlike those sped-up flowers that, in mere seconds, go from bud to bloom on the Discovery Channel.  

Materializing with a thunk and a roll, it was a moment I won’t soon forget. And, because my life is an open book to my readers, I would like to share it with you.

I love ShopRite!

It began yesterday as I was driving home from ShopRite. 

My favorite supermarket, normally a teeming hive of activity, was unusually empty. Maybe it was the heat or the threat of a storm but it had a summer-quiet kind of feel as did the entrance ramp leading to the highway. There were only two vehicles -- an SUV and a truck --  accessing the road at this fateful intersection of harsh reality and gauzey dream-come-true.

Mine was the SUV...tootling along, radio on...and, here comes the magic-- the other just happened to be a Haagen Dazs delivery truck from which a giant tub (the kind they scoop from when making your cone at the mall) of ice cream had somehow broken free and was now rolling towards me at a good clip, coming to a full stop in the weeds beside my car.

The truck was very similar to this...

My mind works nimbly where ice cream is involved and, developing an immediate drool as I observed its frosted sides and easily removed protective lid, I understood that this was probably the only chance fate might ever offer to throw the car into park and leap forth to abscond with a vat of Haagen Dazs to enjoy all alone....in a darkened room, no phone, no TV, not even any cats. 

Even a spoon was optional…just me and the creamy.

I didn't even know
this flavor existed!

Slowed down to a crawl (and yes, Seth, keeping an eye on the rear view mirror) I tried to ascertain what flavor had escaped. 

Might it be Cookies and Cream? Pistachio? Something trendy like Caramel and Sea Salt? A cherished favorite such as Rum Raisin or Vanilla Swiss Almond?  Mint chip? Dulce de Leche? Simple but sinful chocolate? Classic French Vanilla? WHAT WAS IT?????

The tub was this size but this
particular lunatic is not me.

There was no time to tell because I realized the driver had slammed on his brakes several car lengths ahead and, having leapt from the truck’s cab, was – literally -- running towards me and the errant tub of ice cream. He ran with pure determination and the unspoken intent to fight me if I attempted to "scoop" it up before he was able to reach it.

I don't know how ths picture got
in here....

If ever rebel impulses are to exist within me, it would be if dessert is involved. If I'm going to fight, it might as well be over ice cream but this guy was big and surprisingly fast and I sized up my chances for victory. They were very low. 

Believe it or not, he looked crazier than I felt so I pulled away, pointing the car back toward the highway and accepting the fact that an opportunity such as this  -- like when I was 19 and fate placed me face to face with Eric Clapton on a street corner in New York City...I am fairly certain that if I'd had the guts to express my true feelings for him, he'd have whisked me to his mansion across the pond for a life of rock 'n' roll decadence…but I wimped out then, too --  would not come again.

How he looked at the time.



As in most fantasies, there are a few inherent variables…I can tell you that I wouldn't have even considered fighting if it had been a tub of sorbet (any flavor) but might have gone all Russell-Crowe-in-Gladiator on his ass for their new Cappucino Gelato. 

Eric Clapton went on to install another as his queen and the Haagen Dazs driver retrieved the ice cream before I could snatch it away…but for the few seconds when the possibilities loomed large, I was a woman in complete charge of her fantasies. And that’s more than many can say.

"My name is Maximus and I WILL have that ice cream!

Mrs. Blau and the Sting-Ray

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Sting-Ray bicycle by Schwinn. I'm sure some of you had one in the 70's. I did.

Often featuring a smaller front wheel, bright metallic colors, a “banana” seat and signature "butterfly" handlebars, my bike lacked only the tall chrome bar in back called a "sissy bar.”  

How I loved that bike. 

I wish I’d never spent my hard-earned after school dollars to replace it with the fad of the razor thin English racer in my later teens. I may have felt cool  wobbling around, hunched over the handlebars (Who needs racing handlebars tooling about on the Belt Parkway bike path, anyway?) but I missed the sturdy and, yet, snappy ride of my very first two-wheeler.

Mine was similar but lacked
the adornments. I would have loved that flowered seat.

We got it used for 11 dollars and it just happened to be pink. With a few tired plastic streamers on the handlebars, it rode great and its sleek form was undiminished by the span of years between when it gleamed in a showroom and the day my smiling mother wheeled it home for me. And, since it was low to the ground, it was perfect for learning to ride a two-wheeler.

No offense, kid but training wheels
are stupid.

                                                

Soon after its arrival, I rose on a steamy summer-vacation morning determined to learn to ride it. 

Training wheels (for babies!) were out of the question and I had no one to hold the back and run along behind like on the Brady Bunch so my plan of action consisted of simply getting up every time I fell over, propelling myself along until it "took."

The only acceptable
training wheels I've seen yet.

I did this for hours, scattering pedestrians on the busy street and nearly running down Mrs. Blau who lived three doors over.  

An older woman, she was much younger than I thought at the time, probably in her late 50's. Often spotted leaning on the stone wall by her front gate, she always had a smile for me and enjoyed chatting with my mother.  As had so many in my neighborhood, Mrs. Blau had survived Auschwitz but was nearly flattened by a determined ten year old trying to ride a bike.

Learn I did, later that same day and will never, ever forget the sensation when I realized I was no longer toppling over, battering my shins on the pedals as I fell but that I’d finally caught the wind and was flying down the street. My two long braids airborne in the breeze of victory, it remains a benchmark moment and was one of my first experiences with perseverance actually turning to triumph.

A few weeks later, when it felt like the bike was part of my anatomy and I could barely remember not being able to ride, Mrs. Blau approached me shyly and asked if she might try out my new bike. 

I was stunned. Did grown-ups do such things? But I followed her to the paved driveway between her house and my row of brownstones and handed the pink Sting-Ray over. I watched as she arranged her house dress over her knees and climbed aboard. Before either of us was quite ready, she was off—riding up and down the alley, bumping over the uneven asphalt and, at one glorious moment, lifting both feet off the pedals and, making glee-ful eye-contact with me, shouting "Wheeeeeeeeeee!"  

I knew where Mrs. Blau had been. Growing up in my neighborhood, home to as many Holocaust survivors as Tel Aviv, even young kids knew what the blue numbers on the arms of shop keepers and friends' parents meant. Neither her past nor today's moments of joy joy were lost on my young heart.The irony of Mrs. Blau’s simple pleasure was interpreted childishly but sincerely by my ten year old sensibilities.

Now, remembering Mrs. Blau on the Sting-Ray -- the late afternoon sun tilting down on both of us that summer day in a Brooklyn that exists only in memory, I wish I'd kept that bike forever.

Once upon a time.

You Cannot Juice a Fluffernutter Sandwich

So help me God, since I've started juicing again, the brain farts are fewer...and less foggy.

There I was, lying in bed. Suddenly I desperately needed to know the name of the guy who played Jessie Pinkman on Breaking Bad and, there it was: Aaron Paul. Trivial, yes...but trivia is my oxygen...and the reason that, in the past, I have been able to beat your ass at, well, Trivial Pursuit. 

How many of you
remember her?

Lately, it's been problematic. What was the name of the original actress who played Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched...the name of the kid* in first grade who wanted to borrow my copy of "Blueberries for Sal?" And what, in the name of all that's holy, did I come into Shoprite  to buy???

I loved this book.

Before the juicing or, more accurately, when a handful of Cheetos was my personal breakfast of champions -- as opposed to a pretty swirl of spinach, beets, ginger and a small organic lemon (the tang of citrus helps lessen the impression that one is guzzling a meadow) -- there was a grand, and rapid loss of mental acuity...and I ain't kidding, people.

I barely could remember who I was much less the names of your children when I ran into you in the very same Shoprite whose aisles I wandered in confusion.

I represent the certainty that if you eat Cheetos, you become a Cheeto...a slothful orange slug. Something that Dr.Oz longs to eradicate with a stomp of his enormous shoe (ever notice how huge that man's feet are?)....something that the current (this week's) object of my derision -- hipsters! -- would turn from in disgust, their lensless glasses fogging up until, that is, they decide that Cheetos actually are the hot, new trend. They're probably vegan since there are absolutely no natural ingredients used to extrude them.

Why, yes, ladies. I do have gignantic feet.

Cheetos, of course, merely represent my periodic poor eating. It might be a half sleeve of Oreos...and they might not be breakfast as much as a perceived "treat" after a tough, long or stupid day. Luckily I retain enough sense to remember how much better I feel when a handful of almonds or a hard boiled egg and banana are consumed, fueling productive thoughts instead of the desire to watch the (secretly mean) Wayne Brady be passively aggressive to a whole new generation of people dressed as playing cards on "Lets Make a Deal."

I am mean because I hate
making deals with idiots.

So, off to Trader Joe's I went, returning with several shopping bags full of leafy greens and colorful fruits.

Supplement that with some organic garlic and a few tablespoons of Chia seeds and, hopefully, I will no longer need to ask strangers in the supermarket -- in fake jocularity -- why I am there ("I am just so forgetful lately! Isn't that hilarious?")

 

My mother did not teach me to eat badly. In fact, that woman, unbeknownst to us at the time, was a true visionary. 

She wore Birkenstocks before they were mainstream and demanded white American from the deli man, citing formaldehyde as one of the ingredients in artificially colored cheeses.

She added tofu to stews and sauces before anyone knew what it was and, to my horror, removed every vestige of non-whole grain bread from the enamel breadboxes of my youth, rendering me the sole diner at the Shallow Junior High lunch table who could not make (and "flick") tiny little balls of their Wonder Bread sandwiches. At the time, none of these things pleased me.

...not in my house it didn't.

It is possible that the desire for Cheetos is a result of a junk food deprived youth. Not that I didn't get fun stuff, too...there were salty lunch meats (until Mommy read about nitrates and nitrates) and instead of Fluffernutter sandwiches -- which I desired with the fire of a thousand suns -- there was home baking, so delicious that I dream about it to this day. 

Truth be told, I still want
one of these.

Pizza was exempt from any rules. This was smart on my mother's part because I would have left home sooner than be cut off from the single most wonderful and delicious thing ever invented.

That woman was so ahead of the damn curve that she used to mix skim milk equally with whole, thus creating her own version of a reduced fat milk. I, literally, thought she was psychotic at the time. Then a few years later, "Light and Lively" reduced fat milk hit the shelves and her status as legend was cemented.

The other day I was in CVS when the local high school had recently been dismissed and watched a group of rowdy teens lining up to buy their snacks. Their choices consisted exclusively of glowing neon-colored beverages, chips and other assorted junk. I had to turn away...partially out of desire to grab and inhale their candy without even unwrapping it but partly from disgust at those very same choices.

I couldn't help but wonder what great ideas and clever thoughts they would not have as a result of the brain-stultifying crap they were about to consume.

My nutritionally precocious and well-informed mother would have certainly had a juicer. She would have been stuffing wheat grass and ginseng root into it every morning and I think of her as I prepare my morning's array of fresh veggies for their journey through the gnashing teeth of my Breville Juiceman.

I dedicate today (and everyday's) good eating to her.


Cheeto anyone?

* The boy who wanted my "Blueberries for Sal" was Montgomery Evans.