Pong

Isn't it weird when something from your past whizzes back into your life like a motorcade?! It stops you in your tracks and makes you take notice. The president came through Kensington this week, causing much ado with flags a flying and SUV's a trailing. Our fab Delegate Al Carr captured the moment. The traffic diversions gave me an opportunity to ponder my week.

Several random things transported me back in time, like Kate Gosselin. I wrote about her in my second blog post back in June titled, "Hair-Brained Honking." It poses the question, "Does short hair make you bitchy?" Little did I know that I would be this crazy character at a Halloween party. My friend Deborah knows that I love a wig and she gave me this spiked hairdude. Check out the tummy tuck scar. Dan was "Jon," complete with hair-plugs and Ed Hardy t-shirt. Notice the name tag, "I'm Jon. Want to date?" However, the better costumes were Amy Whinehouse and Balloon Boy.

Another party we hit time-traveled us back to college days. We sported Greek letters and headed for our friends Kristine and Nate's Frat Party. As one entered the "house," the hand was stamped, jello shots were offered, and you were ushered to the beer pong competition. Beer Pong...it was even on the nightly news this week about how it is very dangerous to play, considering all the germs with H1N1 and all. I didn't play it, Dan didn't play it, but he got something that reeks of the flu. Gigi has been fighting a 103 fever all week and our house has the lovely perfume of Lysol. Hence the reason why I am writing later than normal this week.

David Dean and I needed to speed away from the coughing cloud, and even though there's no pong, Chuckie Cheese seemed like it would provide some fun and games. It perplexed me that, for the second time within days, my hand was stamped. Gotta love the "kid check" system that ensures you leave with the child you brought in. David and I attacked that place like VIPs. There was a "teachable moment" when I showed David how to play pinball. Things got a little out of hand with the driving videos - I wondered when the Secret Service of that establishment was going to kick me out for yelling "get out of my way mo-fo" as I drove over pilings and crashed into the perpetrator my car was chasing. It's yet another example of why I will not ever drive in a governmental motorcade OR win Mom-of-the Year. I did, however, make sure we washed our hands when we left.

Stars Upon Thars

Something happens in a suburban town
That makes you freak out when the widgets and whatnots
Start to break down.

You're stuck in a whirlywig grind.
You get all crazy when a broken garbage disposal
Leaves you in a bind.

The hood has a frenetic hullabaloo.
With demands of children and errands to run,
Hours are too few.

A meeting with your self needs to be had.
The world has greater causes, issues, and missions
To make you glad.

Last Sunday, the issue was about equal rights.
My gay friends and I rallied on the steps of Capitol Hill
And fought the fights.

"That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
And whether they had one, or not
Upon Thars."*

* The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss

Nice Rack

Wildlife is encroaching on suburban sprawl. Five raccoons attacked a woman in Florida this week. Bears are breaking and entering on a regular basis. Deer have taken over the Hamptons, bejeweled like fashionistas with ear tags and neck tracking devices. Recently, a brazen young buck tracked through our back yard, rubbed his antlers on our trees and ate most of my hostas. Dan said he had a nice rack and it made me think about how the phrase is used to describe a well-endowed woman.

Our racks get a lot of attention. There is a plethora of nicknames - boobies, ta-tas, bazunkas, melons, jugs, titties, hooters, headlights, dirty pillows, gazongas, breasticles, cans, bosom, mammaries. Did I miss any? Our "girls" are loved so much that October is dedicated for National Breast Cancer Awareness. http://www.nbcam.org/index.cfm Ladies, feel your girls. Guys, feel your girl's girls. Get a mammogram. Drink milk. What???? Dr. Northrup, a frequent guest on Oprah, advices us to increase our intake of Vitamin D to help prevent breast cancer. "...researchers determined that women with vitamin D levels above 52 ml have half the risk of developing breast cancer..." More info on the study at http://www.oprah.com/article/health/womenshealth/20090826-orig-christiane-northrup-vitamin-d

I want to honor my "girls" after my first mammogram this month. I'm going to buy some pretty lingerie as a tribute to my "peaches." Glamour magazine uses fruit for "cup comparison": A cup is the size of a kiwi, B cup are peaches, C cup are apples, D cup = oranges, E cup is a grapefruit and F cup is the size of a coconut. If you honor your fruit, watch out for the booby trap gimmicks such as the Nipple Erector Set or the Brava Breast Enhancement System. I'm going for a bra that makes my breasties look sexy in the hopes of promoting more wild life in suburbia.

*** Be educated about Inflammatory Breast Cancer which is not detectable in a mammogram and progresses quickly. http://www.nbcam.org/disease_inflammatory_breast_cancer.cfm This type of breast cancer is called "inflammatory" because the breast often looks swollen and red, or "inflamed" IBC accounts for 1 to 5 percent of all breast cancer cases in the U.S.

*** I dedicate this entry to Julie's "breasty dumplings."

Got the Edge

His pants were ripped from knee to knee and he was not wearing any underwear. It was the last thing I wanted to see as I tried to move my busted-up legs. The right foot was twisted, flopping around like a piece of cooked pasta and the left foot was shooting pain from the heel. I was on a behind-the-scenes shoot of the series Stargate in Vancouver and my co-producer and I had a free afternoon. We rented a snowmobile which crashed into a tree and tumbled over the edge of a mountain with me on board. Even though I was in pain, a part of me smiled that my friend's "package" was exposed to the freezing cold. As the emergency crew strapped me to the toboggan for the long journey down Whistler mountain, I realized I was stuck in a moment and couldn't get out of it.

Breaking my legs was one of the best things to ever happen to me. My friend Angel arrived at the hospital just in time to keep those socialized medicine nurses from giving me a hip replacement. (They were wheeling me away for a surgery I didn't need!) Back in NYC, it was evident that a wheelchair was not conducive to reaching my fifth floor walk-up but my friend Stephanie set me up in her swanky doorman pre-war with an elevator. My dad and brother flew from Atlanta to provide assistance of getting me into an ambulet for the daily doctor visits. They even bought me a female urinal. (Until I got the "quickie" wheelchair, I couldn't fit through the door frame.) Because I was a constant fixture on the sidewalk in my quickie, catching rays in a bikini and a cast, I was nicknamed the 'Mayor of the 91st street.' Four months post-surgery, Krysia & Liz switched apartments with me so that I could do the Mrs. Wiggins shuffle with my walker around their super-fab garden apartment. One special guy took me on many dates, and on a few occasions, had to carry me over his shoulder to reach to an awkwardly-located NYC restaurant bathroom. Dan became my man. It was all in the name of love.

The accident happened ten years ago and now I am a runner. In the words of Forrest Gump, "For no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town." Running is like life - you keep your head up, put one foot in front of the other, make small goals that build upon each other, you reach a goal. In every city, town, or suburb, "there are clubs you can't belong to, neighborhoods you can't live in, schools you can't get into, but the roads are always open." - Nike. I will follow.

I followed two friends and entered my first 8K on Saturday. There is euphoria around a race and the adrenaline kicks in. The gunshot blasts. People cheer. Deborah waves and claps to all the track marshals. Jackie coaches us to keep going. We see neighbors. Feel the community. All was good until the last half mile. My breakfast was knocking on my uvula. I needed some rockin' music in order to reach my goal - beat the man who juggles while running. Elevation!

**********************************************
Review of Tuesday's concert:
The beltway was jammed with limos inching along for two hours to join 80,000 people at the stadium.

In keeping with the DC vibe, Bono introduced the band as Larry, the man who wrote U2's constitution, Adam, the Minister of Culture, Edge, 'the leader of my free world' and he himself might be Majority Leader...'verbal, elegant but tough when I need to be.'

Being in DC, a few political mover & shakers were in attendance - Nanci Pelosi, Speak of the US House of Representatives and broadcaster George Stephanopoulos, as well as African leaders like Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda. Bono dedicated Beautiful Day to Eunice Shirver and New Years Day was dedicated to Teddy Kennedy. 'For a peaceful Ireland we salute you Teddy...'

My favorite moment was when a boy named Andy ran around the stage for City of Blinding Lights. Bono said he called him up because he had a face that looked at the world before it was vain. Least favorite moment was in the long line of the ladies bathroom, with the gal behind me saying she needed to throw up and the lady in front of me hacking like she had swine flu. Stuck in a moment but it was a beautiful day!
The set:
Breathe
Magnificent
Get on Your Boots
Mysterious Ways
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Elevation
Your Blue Room
Beautiful Day
New Year's Day
Stuck In A Moment
Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy - Remix
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Encore:
Ultraviolet
With or Without You
Moment of Surrender

Ash of Cumin and a Teaspoon of Old Spice

Gigi walked into the kitchen and asked me, "Mommy, why are you wearing your kitchen skirt?" She was referring to my apron. A memory flashed of when I tried to work my metaphoric kitchen skirt while pitching a television show at a national cable channel that does a lot of food programming. The series starred Mama Gena cooking up sexy dishes we called Culinary Seductions. They laughed me out of the door after telling me that each morning the corporate offices start their day with prayer. That was before I knew how to cook anything but bake sale items.

Baking has always been my thing because of my amazing grandma Cecil. When we visit her house, our teeth hurt after eating too much eclair pie, pea pickin' cake, and cobbler. Those are the staples, no matter what time of year. Grandma Cecil taught me to make the goods from pie crust to Almond Joy Cake. I needed a little dessert inspiration for a dinner party we are attending this weekend and pulled out a worn, well-loved recipe. The theme is Italian and I chose the Italian Cream Cake card. It may not be authentic but it is one sweet example of grandma's Southern baked goods. Maybe I'll blog about the party next week.

Cooking and baking blogs are everywhere now. Evidently there can't be too many cooks in the kitchen. There was an article in the Washington Post about the modern day phenom of cooking and baking blogs with The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Daring Bakers/Daring Cooks, and The Mixer and others. The article attributes the cooking and baking groups to people wanting to connect to a community of like-minded people. It also mentions the movie "Julie & Julia," which I saw last week on Boovie Night, my book/movie club. It inspired me to do my own cooking vlog (video blog), with the kids helping me prepare maple/cider pork with smashed cauliflower. The video is low-rez but the meal is good enough to serve at a dinner party AND if you have kids, they will eat it because it has syrup. Click on the box after the recipe to see my helpers add an "ash" of cumin and a half teaspoon of "old spice."

Maple & Apple Cider Pork*
1/2 c maple syrup
4 tbsp course mustard
1/4 c apple cider
1/2 onion
1/2 tsp all spice
1 tsp cumin
pork loin cut into 1 inch thick or pork chops

preheat oven 350
Combine maple syrup, mustard, cider, onion, all spice, and cumin in saucepan and cook over medium heat, 7-10 minutes, until sauce thickens. Stir occasionally.

Grill pork on stove top, 2-3 minutes until bottom is brown. Flip and smother saucy sauce on each piece of pork. Grill another 2-3 minutes until bottom is brown. Pour more sauce and transfer pork to a baking sheet. Set aside remaining sauce for drizzling when serving.

Cook in oven for appx. 10 minutes.
*(adapted from Rachel Ray)

Smashed Cauliflower*
Steam head of cauliflower

Smash with :
1 cup chicken or veggie stock
1/4 c plain yogurt
2 cloves of minced garlic
pinch of red pepper flakes

Stir and add salt/pepper
* (adapted from Tyler Florence)

I'm Getting A Facelift

I'm looking a little tired. When I had my daughter three and a half years ago, David Dean came for a hospital visit. He nuzzled up next to me and held his newborn sister in his arms. Then he looked at me, and said, "Mommy, your eyes have cracked." It was the beginning of the beginning - mid life.

Professional advice is needed for my cracks. There are many products to try for wrinkle reduction and my list goes something like this: L'Oreal Collagen Filler, Dermalogica Anti-Aging Serum, Soap & Glory Eye Trick and Treat. There are books and articles everywhere but I thought it opportune to ask the dermatologist, since we were already there for an issue Gigi was having. He told me I have "fine lines." However, they don't look so fine to me and I urged him to tell me about Botox. Evidently, Botox is only for the area above the eyebrows. He gave me a sample of Retin A which will take months before there is any change.

It sure would be great to get an instant improvement, like the beauty product commercials promise. Since it is too soon to go under the knife, I opted for a jackhammer. The lines in my face are manageable, for now, but the crack in our guest room pedestal sink will not go away. I called our friendly neighborhood transformer for a face lift that could occur in a matter of days.

Little did I know that Jodi Longo of Renovation Studios has a gift that is better than surgery; it's borderline supernatural. She is a modern day Wonder Woman with kick ass super hero powers of remodeling, a visible fleet of red trucks, and a tape measure lasso of truth. Not only did she plan our bathroom makeover, she took care of an emergency on the first visit. The day she came to do the "take off", we had an unrelated leak in our basement ceiling. Jodi called Joe (her Alfred of sorts/project manager) to take a look. They threw on their metaphoric capes, and saved the day by rescuing us from a flood.The rejuvenation is in progress and it is minimally evasive. As I write this entry, there is pounding going on above my head. Debris is sliding down the inner makings of our 100+ year old home. The planning and trips to Home Depot, Lowes, and various plumbing stores have been enlightening. Can you believe people still order colored toilet seat covers? If you have one, call Jodi immediately!

I understand the joy that one experiences with a face lift. There is hope for something better, something new and improved. The change is about getting rid of the proverbial frown lines.

Type in your deep thoughts. Comment as "your name" or "anonymous." Click button "post comment." Yee ha!

Scanning for Wieners

The village of Kensington, Maryland is the greatest place to be on Labor Day Weekend - it's the last hurrah at the neighborhood pool, an amazing parade, and the Pitchfork Block Party. (It has that title because three streets that host the party form the shape of a pitchfork.) The shindig starts on Sunday afternoon with music rocking, children running, and grown-ups grilling. Some adults mingle into the wee hours of the morning which was when my neighbors ravenously opened a package of Oscar Meyers that sent one dog flying into another person's back yard. The recipient is a master gardener and would be perplexed if she pulled up a wienie weed of that sort. Someone had to go on a hunt for the hot dog.

Looking around for a snaaaausage is a daunting task in the dark, but I've also found it overwhelming in the fluorescent lights of the super market. The first time I entered a grocery store after moving from New York City, it took me over two hours to find what we needed. In NYC, I had a service deliver the goods. There were not many products because the only thing I knew how to make was reservations. Ok, bad joke but true. I could scramble eggs. In college, I lived off of stewed tomatoes and macaroni. Ask my college roommate and dear friend Jennie Plentie. Not anymore. We moved here and somehow I magically became a cooker. My kitchen is sizzlin'. Maybe it was because someone had to feed my kids. Maybe it was because I needed a creative outlet.

Ingredients are necessary for my "hot cookin' that's going on tonight, and the temperature is rising just right", as G Love and Special Sauce sings. (The music video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stOfN0y_bpo) I know, I could order my groceries to be delivered even in suburbia but I want to experience the food, to touch it and smell it. I love how I FEEL when I walk through Whole Foods. I feel a sense of the primal when I go on a quest to Balducci for miso paste and other obscure ingredients. But lo and behold, there is always the utilitarian markets trips that remain daunting.

Even though it's swell to forage for food, the grocery store process is stuck in the 1950's! It is inefficient. You put products in a cart. Take products out of cart. Cashier picks up each product, scans it. Each product is put in bag. Bags of products go back in cart. Bags are put in trunk. Products are emptied into kitchen. It is enough to make you put on a poofy petticoat and do yourself in. However, the grocery goddesses heard my prayers and someone decided to help me work my skirt in the food aisles.

The grocery store revolution has begun and I may seem hopelessly suburban* but I am loving it. I'm now my own checkout chick. The hand-held scanner at Giant allows me to ring up my products as a I go along. I put them in the bag I want. When it is time to pay, the cashier takes my scanner and POOF, I'm outa there. I've saved four steps in the store! Even putting away the food is much quicker because I've bagged things according to where they go. And, I know this sounds silly, it is satisfying, maybe even borderline fun. Ever play cashier when you were a child? You can re-live the moment. My daughter is living it as a reality. She doesn't even want to watch Dora in the kid grocery carts anymore. She is busy being my helper, zapping UPC codes on Oscar Meyer wieners. Hot diggity dog!

* "hopelessly suburban" was coined by my friend Brooksie Brooks
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Ruckus Amok Us

There was some family drama in August but I bet my son won’t include it in his first grade homework assignment - I Had a Ball This Summer. I would write about how we swam across the country. We were filmed in the Bahamas for a Shark Week promo, skimboarded in the Hamptons, swam through a sea of people in NYC, dove into the Delaware shores, and jumped off the “tower of power” into Lake Coeur D’Alene in Idaho. That’s where the hullabaloo happened.

Each year twenty-one family members gather for a week at Dan’s family compound. Three Bragg houses shoulder the lake, located in the northern panhandle of Idaho. The air smells fresh, the hills are hairy with pine trees, and the lake is crystal clear. Those waters get stirred up a bit when we reunite.

Over the years, the family has adjusted to various drama bombs. Cooking for twenty-one people equals chaos. Dan’s mom hires a chef to be on duty the week we invade. (That is what I call a woman workin' her skirt!) Chef Steve does all the shopping and prepares an early dinner for the children, and the adults are served a fabulous meal at 7:30p.

Another issue on the lake-911-list is babysitting. The adults want to have a vacation to water ski, ride the inner tube, hang out on the dock, have drinkies, etc. A hired crew of nannies is on duty in the afternoon through early evening, thanks again to Matriarch Marcia. These gals ensure the little people wear a life vest, prepare lunch, play in the sandbox, organize art projects, assist in multiple trips to the bathroom, and fulfill hundreds of snack requests. It is a camp of sorts. We even had a talent show for Nana/Papa’s anniversary.

This year the brouhaha came out of the blue because it was brought on by something we've never done before - build a shed. It became a typical case of boys vs. girls. The adult “boys” started constructing it in the courtyard of House 1. Several grown up “girls”, including me, expressed that they did not think the storage unit should be located in a place where everyone would see it. The ruckus-amok-us started when the “boys” refused to relocate and continued erecting their unit. An hour later, Auntie weighed in as the voice of reason with Papa's support. The “boys” understood their plight was over and an effort commenced to shed the shed from the courtyard and move it into a more suitable backyard location. Lots of cousins and several aunts and uncles were recruited. As we lifted the little house above our heads on a treacherous hill, I realized I was having a ball on my summer vacation. It’s not where you go or what you do, it is who is standing beside you that counts, especially when it comes to heavy lifting.

The Quest

It was an unfavorable day to be on a walkabout for our automobile. Not wanting to be a dowdy mom, I dolled up and wore heels to take Gigi to a doctor's appointment, with the hopes of possibly doing a little shopping after the checkup. However, it was 95 degrees in DC and the air was close. My little doozie was tired and didn’t want to walk. I thought, “I’ll get the stroller,” but as we approached our parking spot, I realized we were in trouble. The stroller was in our MISSING vehicle. I noticed a tow truck a block away and with my dogs-a-barkin', I scooped up Gigi and ran after it. The driver told me the address of where my car had been towed which was about a mile away. Ugggh! If only I had noticed the instructions on the sign, “No parking 4p-6:30p.” It was 4:15p. Off we went on a quest for our Quest with me in my heels and a 30-pound child on my hip, wishing I had worn flip-flops.

We turned the incident into an adventure. A cop pulled up, reported that she had given me a ticket and would follow us. I proclaimed that we were on a special mission with a police escort on a race to our car. There was a lot of traffic - the lady po po inched along beside us as we scurried along the sidewalk. Pedro the tow truck driver was waiting for us with a big smile, watching us jump up and down as we won the race. He said he had never seen people having fun after having their vehicle hauled away. I praised him for such a fine relocation job and he surprised me with the best news I'd had all afternoon. He threw out the fine and I hugged Pedro's tow-truck sized neck.

In the future, I'm going to heed the signs better than I’ve done in the past. Dan and I were in Morocco a few years back, driving across the Atlas Mountains. There was a road sign that looked like falling rocks, which was not very comforting on a jig-jag road with a shoulder that drops off hundreds of feet below. We were in a bit of a predicament as nature was calling. There are not any rest stops so we pulled over for an old-school style pit stop. Both doors should be open and you squat in between them. As soon as my pants were down, oodles of kids had surrounded us and were asking for candy. That's when we realized what the sign really meant - “Little Children Run Out of Caves.”

IF only more signs were provocative, people like me would pay attention. "Park here after 4 and I'll tow your ass." Or, "Slow your roll sister" on the flashing speed sign. The entrance sign to the beach community in Lewes made me stand up and take notice. It welcomed us to “Ape Hores” instead of “Cape Shores.” That's some kind of vacation community!
My favorite inciting sign is near our house, just north of DC on Hwy 495 at the Kensington/Chevy Chase exit - “Open Joints on Bridge.” What a call to action - get a motorcycle and light up. Now there's a quest that would be amusing but I bet I'd get another ticket.

About Face

Pretend play is a big deal in our house. Rarely a day goes by when someone isn’t wearing a mask, cape, crown, or a wig (and that's just Dan and me). It is no wonder we are crazy about face swapping. It is the virutal, photoshop way to put on a costume. I first experienced trying on another person's body when we were given a card by a Showtime friend. He designed it so that my face is on a well-endowed woman sipping tea, and Dan is mowing the grass naked while smoking a stogie. Welcome to the suburbs. >>>>> For our Seven Year Hitch Party invite, Dan was Tom Ewell and I was Marilyn. Then we discovered jib jab which allowed us to insert pictures into videos of us doing a square dance, tango, or striptease. See Hoe-down in box at the bottom of this story.

Now with all the face swapping sites, grown-ups can play virtual dress-up with oodles of options. Try on various superhero bodies. Trek yourself into a character that actually talks. Mad Men yourself onto the set of of the tv series. Get eaten by a shark in frenzied waters. (By the by, DISCOVERY’S SHARK WEEK starts this Sunday at 9p.) Try on celebrity hairstyles. Or, if you are lucky, someone will swap you up and send it your way. Dan make me into a Fembot yesterday. I love that man!

Face it, we all need as many ways to have fun as possible. If you find yourself stuck inside on a rainy summer day, here is a list of a few sites that will entertain. Send me any other links that are not listed and forward along your face swap pictures & videos. I'm starting a web site for Workin' That Skirt and would love to have some eye candy.

• http://areyoubotornot.com/verify/?dest=builder_standalone& Turn yourself into a speaking robot
• http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/madmenyourself/ - Mad Men
• http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/frenzied-waters/ Click on the jar closes to the right side of screen and put in your story (or a friend) about your “own” shark attack.
• http://bebe.dmimusic.com - Promotion for new Bebe jeans of three, hot girls dancing.
• http://www.instyle.com/instyle/makeover/# Try on new hair & makeup.
• http://hairmixer.com/?gclid=CPaEuYzFgJwCFclL5Qod1jqE9A Check out a new hair style.
• http://www.facedub.com/?gclid=COSH3vHEgJwCFdZD5godhziW_w - Swap your face and body!
• http://www.bodyswitcher.com/ - site to put your face in hundreds of celebs bodies or on the cover of magazines.
• http://www.trekyourself.com/?mId=29977449.3 -
• http://www.news3online.com/spread.php - You for president.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/ - send videos, greeting cards

?4U

Have you ever texted inappropriately? Here’s a call to put down your fingers when in the car. I am a vigilante on this issue and am taking it to the streets. On a recent road trip, inching along the highway, the guy next to me was typing on his phone WHILE DRIVING. The other day in DC, a teenager had her left leg up under her bum and was typing a note WHILE DRIVING. I held up my homemade sign on each occasion -– "QUIT TEXTING."

July is "Cell Phone Courtesy Month." It was designated by Jacqueline Whitmore, author of Business Class and “authority on business etiquette and protocol.” She cites a few rules I love: "focus on driving", “avoid cell yell” and “learn to vibe.” http://www.etiquetteexpert.com/cellphone.html.

Some people seem to have lost their manners when it comes to using the cell phone. We were in the backyard yesterday and there was a lot of scwalking coming from a yard a few houses over. My son asked me, “What in the world is all that noise?” I looked over and realized that there was a pool man holding a cell phone with the call on speaker. It was disturbing our swingset screaming! Juxtapose that to my friend who before she popped inside said, “Excuse me, I have to make a call to a doctor. I’ll be inside in a few minutes.”

Using the phone inappropriately is not only annoying, it is downright dangerous. One in five drivers text even though they know it is wrong, according to AAA. That is frightening! A recent report by VA Tech shows that texting while driving, TWD, it is as dangerous as drunk driving. For more information on the VA Tech Institute driving study, go to http://www.vtti.vt.edu/whats-new.html#driving-distraction.

It is against the law to DWT in 14 states and the District. The cops are pulling people over and the fines range from $500 in Maryland for writing, sending or reading a text to being convicted of a 3rd degree felony if there is an accident that causes bodily injury or death in California. After seeing the Texas bus driver crash on the highway and the reports of the CA train collision that killed 25 people, it convinced me to keep my phone in my purse while I’m behind the wheel (unless I use my headset).

Walking while texting is also a problem. A recent study in England indicates that 1 in 8 people has been bruised, fractured or cut while walking and texting. I bumped into a pedestrian the other day on the way out of a movie while checking my email. People are so distracted on the streets in London, street lights and sign posts are padded to prevent injury. Check out the video on You Tube. >>>

One final request on the use of cell phones. I ask you to consider a most important rule: Love the one you’re with. It is just plain rude to talk on the phone while at dinner, or out for drinks, or at the beach/pool, or on a date. Excuse yourself, make your call, and focus your attention on your people, at least for the rest of this month. Mawh, Mawh.

Pulling An All Righter

Ever had one of those days when you wake up and even though it is not Monday, it feels like it is? A fog would not leave my head and has stuck with me. It’s a holiday hangover, a daze from having too much fun last weekend at our mini Hamptons vacay of riding the waves, shooting darts at Murph’s, eating lobsters, and chillaxin’ with our friends. I’m paying the price and learned a few things on how to survive good time grogginess.

You're crazy to run errands on a day when you're depleted. After a trip to the grocery store, I put Gigi in her car seat and the groceries into the trunk. I rolled the cart a few feet to the buggy station and turned around to find a man peeking into our car, saying to his friend, “Look, there’s a baby in the backseat.” I shouted, “It’s OK, I’m right here.” He proceeded to tell me that I could get a fine for leaving a child in the car and that I could go to court for child neglect. I smiled, said thanks, and went on my way.

Do not shop on a detox day. My eye glasses broke for the third time this year and I went to the frame store. The salesman who helped me replace the frames was there and I relayed that my specs are being held together with super glue. "This is a great opportunity to replace the old ones and go Grand Dame," I said as I tried on some fabulous Chanel eye dudz. He proceeded to say in an exasperated tone, "You are hard on glasses. I told you how to take them off your face with two hands. We have never had this problem. We don’t carry frames that fall apart.” I smiled, said thanks, and went on my way.

Forget about money matters until you have recovered. At the bank I put my name on the customer service list. A manager-type pulled me out of the line to review my account. My goal was to get the bank to dismiss a line of credit overdraft charge on my business account for an 80¢ bounce. In order to get the pay off amount, he told me to go to teller line. I waited with two kids in tow, ten people deep, and was informed by the teller that the tellers can not get pay off information because they do not have internet access. Teller lady said to wait in the customer service line again! Do you feel my pain yet? In the customer service line, I noticed a bank phone and decided to head over and call for my balance. The manager-type approached me and tried to hang up the call! He said he wanted to help me! After I went kookoo for cocoa puffs, I smiled, said NO thanks, and went on my way.

If you have a headache, get a babysitter. Our kids have the good-time-groggies too; they are exhausted, whining, and fighting A LOT. Their behavior indicated quiet time was in order. David Dean disagreed and put up a fight. I asked him why he was angry and he told me that the way I was acting was teaching him how to behave. Oh, my aching head signaled to let this one go for now. Our amazing babysitter Daniella arrived so I smiled, said thanks, and went on my way.

Replenish with something that brings you joy. This is a tool from The School of Womanly Arts taught by my friend Regena Thomashauer. www.mamagenas.com Do something pleasurable every day, especially when the blues are playing their song. Chocolate seemed like it could provide a quick attitude adjustment. Cake Love had lots of options – German Chocolate, Chocolate Butter cream, Red Velvet, Almond Toffee. I chose Cynthia’s Syn, which is a chocolate cupcake dipped in chocolate genash, topped with peanut butter cream icing, drizzled with caramel. The baker pulled the cupcake out of the frig and wrapped it while saying they recommend waiting to eat it at room temperature. I smiled, said thanks, and ate it on the way.

The best cure for what ails you is to have some more of it - hair of the dog**. To top off the insanity, our minivan had to be taken to the shop for $2,000 worth of repairs. We are a one car family until it is fixed so I picked Dan up from work. He noticed that it had been a rough one. My spirit was depleted of all the "fun" we had imbibed over the weekend but Dan helped me smile at the craziness of being accused of child neglect and being berated by a salesman. Laughter was the hair of the dog I had been missing all day. Like cures like. I smiled, said thanks, and thought, "tomorrow is on the way."

P.S. Upon returning home, there was a message from the eyeglass man who called to let me know they are replacing my frames again. David Dean said he was sorry.

** Origin and derivation from Wikipedia: HAIR OF THE DOG - The origin of the phrase is literal, and comes from an erroneous method of treatment of a rabid dog bite by placing hair from the dog in the bite wound. The use of the phrase as a metaphor for a hangover treatment dates back to the time of William Shakespeare. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer writes in the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898): "In Scotland it is a popular belief that a few hairs of the dog that bit you applied to the wound will prevent evil consequences.

Dreamweaver

A crazy thing happened Saturday night "as I closed my eyes and climbed aboard the Dreamweaver Train." I dreamt that someone stole our Scooby Doo minivan. It was such a clear vision: I was sad that we were violated but happy to replace it with a sporty car. However, "on the bright side of the moon," I missed the automatic sliding doors, the spaciousness, the DVD. It was 4am and I took a peek out of the window to make sure that our minivan was still in the driveway. There were 2 police cars in front of our house, cops in the yard with flashlights and a search dog. Zoinks! They were on a man hunt for four men and at least one of the crooks was in our Mystery Machine van when the police arrived!

These brazen burglars went on a rampage. They broke into a neighbor's property using their garage door opener, hid on my friend's front porch, rummaged through my car and my next door neighbor's car, and fled in a stolen Lexus going 110 miles an hour toward Chevy Chase in a 30mph speed zone. Finally there's justification for those the speed cameras that take my picture regularly.

Oddly, the thieves left our GPS system in the Scooby van but they took my flex flop cosmetic bag. I can't blame them for thinking it is special because it's the best invention for women since lipstick. A friend of mine gave it to me so that I would always have my portable flip flops and be on-the-ready for a pedicure. The police officer said he found it in the my neighbor's back yard. The irony is that bag is bejeweled with the word "RELAX."

"Ruh-roh!", I can't relax. Being around a crime scene makes me uneasy. We have a false sense of security in our quaint town of Kensington, especially given the statistics that a house is burglarized every fifteen seconds in America, according the FBI. I went online to get some home protection ideas. Obviously a security system is the best but there were a few intriguing options: door & window squeelers and a safe room. The site No-Nonsense Self-Defence suggested creating a less extreme area than the one in the movie Panic Room with a solid wood door, a cell phone or internet in the room, reinforced door frames, safe bolted to the closet floor, and a Fox Police Lock (see picture at right). The site is hosted by Marc "Animal" MacYoung who has written at least 14 books such as Street Safe and Effective Offense. He even offers a parenting solution to having a safe room: "putting it bluntly teenagers do stupid things now and then. And if they do stupid things with not nice people, them having a safe room is a very good idea. If nothing else it also gives squabbling siblings a means to end the fight." http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/saferoom.htm

Having a dream and awaking to the scene-in-reality is bizarre but "I believe we can reach the morning light." Maybe I have a supernatural gift. A few days ago I pledged to pay more attention to my intuition and wrote about it in a blog entry that I decided not to publish because it seemed too "Sylvia Brown." IF I am on a dreams-come-true roll, I hope to "cross the highways of fantasy" to win the Mega Millions. "In that astral plane", we'll have a safe room in a beach house that we private-jet our friends and families to visit.

* lots of quotes from the song "Dreamweaver" by Gary Wright

My Fireworks Go "Boom Boom Pow"

The skies are blazing. Fireworks are filling the air. It’s Independence Day! We will be eating Maryland crabs at the beach. Until moving here I never realized how tasty they are. Those little critters have a built in can opener to help you pop the top and get to the meat. It is nature’s art direction.

There’s a show on TV about a different sort of art direction. Take a look at an episode from Mad Men, which is about the NYC advertising world in the early 60’s. All the women are objectified – the secretary who had to wear a tight shirt to show off her rocket-bra supported chest, the wife who had to have dinner on the table at 6p and look like she was going out for cocktails in her full-skirted dress. In the clip to the right, the new girl is getting advice on how to "fit" into the agency. The experienced gal tells her to “always be a supplicant.” A supplicant is someone who is humble, a beggar, a bum, a have-not, a dependent. That is the way it was and it's no wonder the women were crabby!

While running today listening to BOOM BOOM POW, I realized how lucky we are to have the ability to do what we want in this country. Trying not to sound corny, we have freedom. We have choices that women in the 60’s did not have. We are no longer begging or dependent. We can chose to do whatever career we want. We can decide to be a stay-at-home-mom, work full-time or work part-time. We can choose to not have kids. We can decide to not get married. It’s all ok. We’ve come a long way in just fifty years! We have our independence, our boom boom pow, let the beat rock!

Celebrity Tourette Syndrome

“Hi Michael Jackson” is what I would have said if I’d seen him on the street. That’s one celebrity I sadly won’t be able to glam. Glam is the positive way of describing how one uses a special ability to charm a famous person. Celebrity Tourette Syndrome is the other way to describe it, especially by those people who are embarrassed by my actions. It is an uncontrollable urge to connect and blurt, “Hi, (celebrity first name) + (celebrity last name)”.

Sorry to name drop but I have made some involuntary "Hi's" to really big names. It first started with George Clooney at a bar in LA called Jones. “Hi George Clooney.” The next thing I knew I was having a cocktail with him and his posse. (Those were the early ER days, before he was a superstar.) “Hi Robert Redford,” I said as he was getting out of his town car outside the Sundance building in NY. He looked at me stunned. Was he thinking, “Does she know me?” or “Should I call security?”

In most instances, the tics are a positive social grace. In my favorite restaurant, Il Buco, a man was blocking the entrance. I gently touched his back to try to get a little movement so that we could get to the hostess area. He turned around and looked a bit miffed, which is when I realized who I had pushed. “Oh, Hi, Dustin Hoffman.” He wasn’t mad anymore. (By the by, my tic kicked in at that restaurant on various occasions when I brushed up beside Matt Damon, Harrison Ford and Liev Schreiber.) I had a “Hi Diana Ross” outburst in the gift store at Canyon Ranch. We actually had a conversation but she was trapped because she was paying for her merchandise. Jon Bon Jovi was my latest “Hi” last December - I was at a very crowded club and the only way to the restroom was to walk by me. I gave him enough room, patted his shoulder and said, “Hi Jon Bon Jovi.” He smiled. Ooh la la!

My favorite celebrity tic was to Esther Williams because many moons ago, I produced the show packaging and promos for an all day movie marathon, The Esther Williams Splash Bash on TNT. She is amazing in her films - she dives, does tricks, and glides through the water wearing a smile with perfect lipstick. If you know me for five minutes, you know that I don’t go anywhere without my lippy. When I lived in London, my friends knew that if I got ran over by a double-decker bus, before calling an ambulance they were to apply a fresh coat. The same love for lipstick has been passed on to my daughter. See picture at right.

Is Celebrity Tourette Syndrome inherited? My children may have it. For two and half years, they seemed pretty excited to see the mailman EVERY day. The mailman is a big deal in a child's life. The scene : Mailman Willie slides the mail through the slot on the front door. The kids open the door when he is barely off of the front porch. They blurt, “Hi Willie.” My son tells Mailman Willie he is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Willie asks, “Again?!” There is a picture of Mailman Willie with the kids at right. The same impulse happens when we see the Mayor of Kensington. “Hi Mayor Pete.”

I’ve decided while writing this entry that the outbursts are not a disorder but should be considered the gift of glam. The sexy vampires in True Blood glam people all the time. I don’t want to suck anyone’s blood but merely want the person of influence to feel the adoration. Tonight we are having a King-of-Pop-family-dance and I’ll say to the sky, “Hi Michael Jackson,” wherever you are.