While I was at a conference this past weekend I noticed something interesting. Whenever two people met for the first time, the first thing they usually asked each other was where the other person lived. Not that strange, right? But what was strange was how the answer was different depending on who asked it to whom. When two women asked each other this question, the answer was usually fairly short and to the point and had something to do with proximity to a shopping destination. For instance when I told someone where I was from, I didn’t tell them what town I lived in… I told them what mall I was near. However, when two guys asked each other the same thing, the answer wasn’t merely a location, but an entire set of directions on how to get there.
Guy #1: “So, where do you live?”
Guy #2: “Oh, you take 95 north to Exit 43, turn right and go about 2 miles up the hill past the liquor store, and then take your next left. I’m the last house on the right with the basketball hoop on the garage. But don’t park in the driveway cuz it ticks off my mother.”
I realized that guy #2 wasn’t just giving a location; he was actually extending an invitation. What he was really saying was “Come to my house, bring a six pack of beer and come shoot some hoops with me.”
Guy #1 got this right away.
But my takeaway was slightly different.
All I got was, “You still live with your mother???”
In contrast, when I told my new girlfriend what stores I lived near, she knew I wasn’t really telling her where I lived. I was extending an invitation, as well. What I was really saying was, “These are the kind of stores I like and if you like them too, you should come shopping with me.”
This is exactly what the other woman heard.
What the guys heard was: “Blah blah (name of store) blah blah.”
Now here’s where things got dicey. When a man and a woman met and the same question was asked, he gave her directions and she thought he was trying to pick her up. When she told him what mall she lived near, he thought she was telling him where to go to buy an engagement ring.
Once I realized this dynamic, I decided I should shake things up and talk to a guy in a way that he could understand. So when I met some guy and he asked where I lived, I said,
“Take 78 west to exit 7B, go past the mall, up the hill, take your second right and I’m around the circle with a soccer net in the front yard. But don’t park in the driveway cuz it ticks off my husband.”
And what he heard was: “You have a husband?”
Which was exactly what I intended him to hear.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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“Ugh! What stinks?” asked my son pinching his nose. “It smells like something died in here!”
I glared at him. I had spent the past 20 minutes looking in every nook and cranny in the kitchen to find the source of the stink. I had gotten a whiff of it when I came downstairs to make breakfast, confident that the dog had done something unmentionable. But there was no evidence of a doggy felony anywhere and there were no obvious culprits in the fridge or elsewhere, either. Whatever it was, it threatened to tarnish my spotless reputation as a domestic goddess extraordinaire. Yes, my house looked clean. But it smelled like a hot day in an Odor Eaters testing site. Not an appealing smell unless you have a foot fetish…
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Believe me when I tell you that I love my dog. That being said, I have to admit, I would never, ever let him lick me on my face and I cringe when I see other people locking lips with their dogs. Although some people would make the case that the human mouth is far more disgusting than a canine’s, I would beg to differ.
Let’s start with a rundown of how my dog spent his day today:
6:30am: Went outside. Peed, sniffed some grass, and ate a slug
7am: Ate breakfast (actual dog food)
7:15am: Washed down breakfast with a toilet bowl chaser (I can’t swear it was flushed) and then helped himself to a dessert of used tissues from the garbage can
8am: Went outside a second time. Pooped, found a partially decomposed squirrel and tried to have it for second breakfast before I tossed it into the bushes
9am: Spent a good half an hour licking himself in places where the sun don’t shine
10am: Went outside a third time. Found a puddle filled with worms from the previous night’s rain. Had worm soup
10:20am: More licking. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Doggie Pop?
11am: Chewed up dirty socks left on teenage son’s floor. A little dry but tasty.
Noon: Went for a long walk with me. Tried to eat a) dead bird, b) a rock and c) empty can of Red Bull.
1pm: More licking. His mouth may be filthy but this dog has the cleanest nether regions in the western hemisphere.
2:30pm: Went outside. Discovered a veritable buffet of deer poop.
3pm: Kids came home. Threw dog Frisbee. Dog returned with decomposed squirrel from earlier in the day
4-6pm: Naptime. Can’t eat disgusting things while sleeping
6pm: Served dinner (kibble). Did not eat it. Probably full from deer poop, slugs, worm soup, dead squirrel, red bull and rocks
This is a pretty typical day for him. And before you start going all PETA on me about letting him get into all this, I will swear that I watch this dog like a HAWK but he is like Houdini when it comes to quickly getting out of sight to find something disgusting to wolf down.
Now maybe your dog isn’t this bad, and if that is the case, I apologize for making disparaging remarks about being kissed by a dog. But experience has taught me that dogs can, and will, eat anything that smells interesting, chew on whatever is chewable, and lick wherever they can reach because they are dogs and that is what they do.
I love him no less for this…
But kiss him I will not.
However, if you would like to smooch with your pooch, knock yourself out.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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The dog has decided to boycott his food. One day he just made up his mind that he’d had enough of the kibble, sniffed the bowl, and pushed it away with his nose. This coming from an animal that will routinely eat dirt, slugs, socks, deer poop and an occasional rock. I guess compared to slugs, the kibble may seem bland. But after ten years, I had to wonder why he’d suddenly developed a sophisticated palate…
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©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
I have been part of the Blogger Community at The Balancing Act on Lifetime for a couple of years and it has been a really, really cool gig. So you can imagine how excited I was to find out that I had gotten a promotion.
I am now an Executive Blogger!
At first I was really flattered because I love the people involved in the show, love the other bloggers, and love that the program showcases great products and new trends for busy moms.
But then I got a little nervous.
It was the title, “Executive.”
In some circles, an Executive Assistant is really just a fancy name for a Secretary.
I wondered if maybe an Executive Blogger was something like that. Would I be expected to routinely fly down to the studio in Florida and get everyone coffee? Was picking up everyone’s dry cleaning part of my job description? Did I have to go out during my lunch hour and buy a pretty scarf for the boss’s wife for her birthday?
Then I thought that maybe an Executive Blogger had buckets of power like the Executive Branch of the government. Would I have the ability to veto any pictures they tried to post of me that showed my double chin? Could I send the FBI to arrest anyone who wrote a negative comment on one of my blog posts? I know I am Commander in Chief in my own house, but could I now ride on Air Force One to go to the Blog Conferences and once I was there, could I get the Presidential Suite and have the Secret Service bring me bon bons to eat while I write my blog for The Balancing Act?
I thought it was safe to assume that the Powers That Be at The Balancing Act did not have the authority to give me quite such a big promotion. But maybe the Executive Blogger would be like the Executive Producer and I could sashay onto The Balancing Act set and tell everyone what to do and demand that every show feature a segment about my book, “Rebel without a Minivan.”
Although that is a pretty unlikely scenario, too, I thought as an Executive Blogger, at the very least I would be empowered to make an Executive Decision from time to time.
So I thought my first Executive Decision as an Executive Blogger would be to change my title.
And when I explained why, the Social Media Director agreed that it was a good idea…
… and she suggested “FORMER Executive Blogger,” instead.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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Last night I went to Jennifer Aniston’s wedding.
What? You didn’t know she got married? I don’t think she knows either… because the wedding happened in my dreams.
Just to clarify, I do not usually dream about hanging out with celebrities. I usually dream about realistic things like dancing gorillas in bikinis who take me for pedicures.
But last night, for some reason, I was in Dayton, Ohio for Jen’s wedding. The Dayton part actually makes sense to me, because I just got back from the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton and I remember thinking at the time, “Gee, this would be a great place for Jennifer Aniston to get married.”
Accompanying me to the wedding were my blogger friends Wendi Aarons, Marinka, Liz McGuire and Ann Imig. This also made sense to me because they were all at the conference with me in Dayton and I remember thinking at the time, “Gee, it would be really fun to go to Jennifer Aniston’s wedding with all these ladies.”
But now, this is where things got a little nutty.
Apparently Jen asked all her guests to wear white. I wore a sexy white dress which, as it turned out, was the same dress Jen was wearing to her wedding. Since it was her second time at the alter, she had decided to forego the traditional long gown in favor of something short and sexy which showed off her great legs. Naturally, I had the same thought in mind when picking out my dress, although admittedly, it did look slightly better on her than it did on me. Nevertheless, when my blog posse and I arrived at the wedding, Chelsea Handler came dashing across the room and reamed me not only for wearing the same dress as Jen, but also for stealing Brad Pitt. (Hey this is my dream. If I want to think I’m Angelina Jolie, that’s my prerogative).
I told Chelsea that Jen and I had gotten past all that and I really needed to go find my seat before I had to get back to Brad and the six kids in France.
As I stopped a waiter to get some andouille sausage hors d’oevres, W. Bruce Cameron, the author of the books “A Dog’s Purpose” and “Emory’s Gift”, arrived with his date, Nicky Minaj (who was NOT wearing white, I might add) and a giant grizzly bear on a leash. This also kind of made sense because Emory’s Gift is about a bear and Bruce had been at the Erma Conference with me. I really have no idea what Nicky was doing in my dream though because she is not friends with Jen, she was not at the conference, and I didn’t think much of her performance at the Grammy’s.
Apparently Bruce was supposed to give Jen away at the altar and Nicky was supposed to perform the wedding march, but I still didn’t know what the bear was there for. Before I had a chance to ask him, though, he reamed me for wearing the same dress as Jennifer Aniston and then stormed off.
Meanwhile my blog posse had holed up with Jen in the bridal suite and they were trying to convince her to skip the wedding and start a blog instead. They told her she could make some really good cash from Google Ad Sense and that blogging would be much more fulfilling than any part of married life.
As I banged on the door to the suite to let her know that if she didn’t come out soon and go through with the wedding, I was going to run off with Justin Theroux or possibly Bruce Cameron, or maybe even the bear, I heard a siren go off in the distance. At first I thought it was a police siren and the fashion police were coming to arrest me for trying to steal Jen’s thunder on her wedding day, and also, quite possibly, her fiancee and bear, but then I realized it was the alarm on my clock radio and I woke up.
Shaking off the remnants of this crazy dream, I realized three things:
1. I need to stop reading Perez Hilton before I go to bed.
2. I shouldn’t eat andouille sausage before I go to bed.
3. I should probably check with Jennifer Aniston to make sure we don’t end up wearing the same dress to her wedding.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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Having just returned from a ten-day family vacation in Israel, I thought the best follow-up travel location would be Dayton, Ohio.
Although this might not make sense to you, it makes perfect sense to me because Dayton is the location of the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers Conference.
This is my fourth time at the conference and my second time attending as a member of the faculty. I remember coming to my first conference in 2006 and being incredibly nervous and in awe of the other writers who seemed like they were so much further along in their journey than I was.
On the first night, I noticed this one writer holding court who was syndicated all over Canada and the US, who had written a dozen books and was like Erma royalty. I thought, gee, if I can get to know him, maybe he can show me the ropes and help me with my syndication dreams. So I introduced myself to Gordon Kirkland and he invited me to sit next to him at dinner.
Being the cool, calm New Jersey girl that I am, I tried to entertain him with funny stories, and in the process, waved my arms around… and accidentally knocked an entire glass of wine into his lap.
Then I tried to wipe it off.
Although this was not the impression I was looking to make, it was AN impression, and not one I thought he would forget too quickly. Being a humor writer, though, he could see the funny in the situation and invited me to sit with him at dinner again the next night.
Dinner with Tracy: Take 2
We made it through almost the entire meal without incident. And then while we were having dessert, he made a joke, and I laughed. Unfortunately it was while I had a large wad of partially chewed strawberry cheesecake in my mouth. Did you know that when you laugh with strawberry cheesecake in your mouth, it sprays out in a million little tiny yellow and red spots all over whatever or whomever is directly in front of you?
Now you know.
Gordon assured me that he would not hold my dual dinner faux pas against me, would be happy to mentor me in my humor writing endeavors, and would most likely make sure to wear a raincoat for all future meals together.
I came back to my second Erma Bombeck conference with a syndicated humor column, a website, a new book and a lot more confidence than I’d had two years earlier. With this newfound confidence, I marched right up to the keynote speaker, Garrison Keillor, whom I had actually met twice before and with whom I‘d had extended conversations on both occasions.
I said, “Garrison, it’s so good to see you again. That was a such a great keynote speech.”
He looked down at me and said. “Do I know you?”
In 2010, I came back as a speaker followed by a TV crew from CBS Sunday Morning who came to Dayton to do a story on Erma Bombeck, the conference, and me.
I was feeling pretty cool as I arrived at the hotel and ran into Andy and Betsy Bombeck in the lobby. In case you do not recognize the names, they are two of Erma’s three kids, whom I had met at the previous two conferences.
“Did you hear that CBS Sunday Morning is coming to do a story on you?” I said graciously to them.
“They’re not here to do a story on US,” said Andy. “They’re here to do a story on some hot shot syndicated columnist who thinks she’s the next Erma Bombeck.”
Silence.
Betsy hauled off and smacked her brother in the head. “Andy, you moron,” she said. “It’s Tracy. They’re doing the story on Tracy.”
Andy looked at me and smiled sheepishly. “Oh,” he said. “Well you’re a very nice hot shot syndicated columnist.”
So now here we are at the 2012 conference. Having been to the conference three times before and having experienced various humiliations, this year I came with a much more subdued demeanor and the decision to keep a somewhat lower profile. As a member of the faculty, I was provided with car service from the airport, and when I got to the meeting spot, I saw a sign that said Tracy Bombeck Conference.
Although I have some notoriety as a nationally syndicated humor writer, I was still kind of surprised when the driver seemed to fall all over himself to greet me.
“It is SO great to meet you,” he said when I got to the exit. “Really, REALLY a thrill!!”
“Um… nice to meet you too.” I said.
“Where are you coming from?” he asked.
“New Jersey,” I said.
“Oh. I didn’t realize any of you lived there,” he responded.
I wasn’t sure which of any of you I was, but I thought maybe he meant humor writers in general.
“My mother actually talked me into it,” I responded.
“Well, you know what your mother always said,” he replied. “‘The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank.’”
I thought… MY mother didn’t say that. My mother said, “If you move to New Jersey maybe you can live next to Bruce Springsteen!”
As we got to the car, he said, “So, are your brothers coming, too?”
My one brother is in pharmaceutical sales and the other one is a gynecologist. I wasn’t sure why the driver thought they would be coming unless it was to give out free samples of Prozac to the humor writers or offer them pap smears.
“No.” I said. “They’re not coming.”
“Too bad,” he said glumly. “So can I ask you something? I’m dying to know. What was it like growing up with HER for a mother?”
I thought, HUH? Her WHO?
Suddenly it dawned on me that the driver thought I was one of Erma’s kids! Here I believed he thought I was special for being me, but he actually only thought I was special because he thought I was a Bombeck. I thought back to the sign he held up in the airport that said Tracy Bombeck Conference and it occurred to me that a little punctuation would have gone a long way in this matter.
Now, at first I was insulted. And then I was pretty amused. And then, being a humor writer, I was inspired.
“Oh. It was terrible!” I said. “She beat us mercilessly and fed us out of the same bowl as the dog.”
“REALLY???” he exclaimed.
“Oh yeah, that whole ‘great mom’ thing was just an act.”
“Wow.” He said. “I’m stunned. Wait until I tell my wife!”
I realized then that I’d better set the record straight before I trashed the reputation of one of America’s best loved icons and my personal hero.
“I’m just kidding,” I admitted. “She was a really amazing mom…
“…Even if she did make me move to New Jersey.”
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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I really don’t understand the point of a uterus and ovaries once you are done having kids. I think once you make up your mind that the kitchen is closed, you roady parts should just fall out so you don’t have to deal with them anymore.
I’m 47 and my kids have one foot out the door to college, so for me, the idea of having more kids is about as tempting as getting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Although a lot of my friends in a similar stage of life have gone in for the Housewife Hysterectomy Special, I’m not a big fan of surgery unless some doctor is willing to throw in a Tummy Tuck and some Lipo for free.
Yes, I know there are some good hormones associated with having all my lady parts intact. But my hors are not happy. My hors are moaning about having to keep up production this late in the game. And since my doctor has assured me that I show no signs of early or even late menopause, I get to keep on being pre-post-peri and during menopausal three to four weeks out of every month.
Yee-freakin-ha.
The problem for me is that although everything is still in working order, I have developed a Cranky Uterus. I’m not sure if this is an actual medical term or just something my doctor came up with because he thought it was an adjective I could understand. My uterus gets upset when I ovulate and it stays upset until the whole cycle is complete. I can relate. I’ve been known to hold a grudge too. However, I can usually be won over with chocolates, flowers or jewelry. My uterus is not that easily swayed.
Having a Cranky Uterus obviously makes me cranky which makes my husband unhappy. Having survived two Cranky Pregnancies, two very Cranky Labor and Deliveries, and some really, really Cranky Hemorrhoids (are there any other kind?), he’s pretty much had it with my Petulant Lady Parts. He said if we spent nearly as much time talking about his Moody Male Parts, I would have divorced him years ago. I told him his male parts have two settings: Happy or Waiting to Be Happy and therefore, there is nothing to discuss aside from the fact that when my Uterus is Cranky, he is stuck in that Waiting to Be Happy place for a good long while which, obviously makes him very Unhappy.
At my most recent check up, I told my doctor the saga of my Cranky Uterus, my Moaning Hors and my husband’s Unhappy Male Parts and he told me I had two options: either get my lady parts sucked out with a straw, or deal with them and stick it out until the hot flashes set in.
Since neither option really floated my boat, I decided to buy my Uterus some Chocolate and try to woo it to a happier place. Hopefully that place is a nice womb with a view.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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I usually spend my blog space talking about my issues with household appliances, my moody teens, and my hapless husband. Occasionally I will also indulge in some shameless self-promotion for my book or a TV appearance or speaking engagement. However, since I have not blown up any toaster ovens of late and I have no appearances scheduled and my book does not come out for another year, I thought I would take a moment to extol the virtues of a new book coming out by my friend Jill Smokler, known to many in the blogosphere as Scary Mommy.
Jill’s book, “Confessions of a Scary Mommy” is really pretty hilarious and I know this because I read it and found myself wishing I had written it. If I consider actually bumping someone off because they are funnier than I am then I know their writing is REALLY, REALLY good. I also found myself incredibly relieved that Jill’s book came out a year before mine so I do not have to go head-to-head with her over Mother’s Day when all the kids go to the bookstore and look at the table with the “Recommended for Mom” books on it and they pick hers over mine.
Thank you for that, Jill.
The thing that I really like about Jill’s book, like her blog, is that she doesn’t sugarcoat all those miserable, poopy, sleepless, messy moments of raising kids, but instead, calls ‘em out, and in doing so, gives all the rest of us permission to admit that sometimes being a mom is just a big pain in the patootie. This is not to say that motherhood is without it’s rewards. Jill will be the first to admit it is the best job she’s ever had. But she will also be the first to admit that it is not always a bed of roses. By laying bare the challenges of child-rearing with a big serving of humor on the side, she portrays the experience of parenting in a way that is eminently relatable and comforting to those of us who are often afraid to admit how tough it is.
Jill writes:
“My firstborn child was – how do I say this eloquently? – a very pleasant surprise! No, that’s not true. She was a complete and utter shock. A hysteria-inducing, this-cannot-be-happening-to-me, why-did-I-not-triple-up-on-the-birth-control shock that rocked my selfish, skinny life to the very core. Just so we’re clear.”
Although my kids were actually planned (we launched our efforts in a sleepy, seaport town at a charming little B&B called “The Seamen’s Inn. Yes, that was on purpose), I can still relate to Jill’s shock at actually seeing the double line on the pregnancy test. This was followed by the nine months of less than idealic pregnancy Jill describes in her book, and the early days of post-pregnancy when you feel like you will never change out of your bathrobe, take a shower, or leave the house without a child strapped to your body again.
The fact that so many of us do this a second, third or more time, is a testament to the endurance of the human race or the likelihood that labor and childbirth kills the brain cells responsible for rational thinking.
The book also includes hilarious and achingly true confessions from lots of other mommies, and a Scary Mommy Manifesto. Repeat after me: “I shall not judge the mother in the grocery store who, upon entering, hits the candy aisle and doles out M&M’s to her screaming toddler.” We’ve all done it, you know we have.
As I read the book and snorted with recognition, I silently thanked Jill for reminding me that although it is a tough job, having kids is a gift, and the hemorrhoids you get from having them, is the gift that keeps on giving.
*”Confessions of a Scary Mommy hits the shelves on April 3 but you can pre-order it now. For more details, click here.
There is this thing that I do that annoys the heck out of my family. Well, to be honest, there are a lot of things, but I am thinking of one thing in particular.
Whenever someone is in the bathroom for what I determine to be an abnormally long period of time, I stand outside the bathroom door and yell,
“EVERYTHING OKAY IN THERE?”
I don’t know if it’s a woman thing or a mom thing or a Jewish thing, or maybe a combination of all three. It’s definitely not a guy thing because when the guy in question exits the bathroom, he glares at me and asks me why I do that.
“Do what?” I respond.
“Ask me if everything is okay. What are you, the Bathroom Police?”
“Well, I just want to make sure you ARE okay,” I stammer.
“If I am NOT okay, I will either yell for help, or slip a piece of toilet paper under the door that says, “I’m constipated. Call 911.”
I shrug. “I can’t help myself.”
“What are you worried might be happening in there?” He wonders. “I’ve fallen into the toilet and drowned? Hit myself in the head with the plunger and got a concussion? Climbed out the window and ran off with some woman who doesn’t ask me if everything is okay when I’m in the bathroom too long?”
“Not the first one,” I respond. “Possibly the second. Definitely the third.”
I’m not actually sure why I ask that question. I think it comes from the days when the kids were little and new at the whole bathroom thing. Although I understood that part of them feeling grown up was having privacy in the bathroom, I was nevertheless concerned that they would break some toilet taboo like not get their pants down the whole way, not wipe well enough, or, heaven forbid, miss the toilet completely. Since this was most likely to happen at someone else’s house, it had the effect of making me a nervous wreck whenever one of the kids announced they “had to go.” For a while I tried the old, “Can you hold it in?” plea, but when their face would start to turn blue and the legs started to cross, followed by the telltale crotch grab and the “gotta go now” dance, I knew I had to give in and let the chips fall where they may, or rather, the pee fly where it did.
So I got into the habit of standing outside the bathroom door and asking, “Everything okay?” which loosely translated to, “Do I need to come in there with a mop and bucket and hazmat suit?”
Soon, I was asking everybody who used our bathroom the same question: The kids, my husband, visiting relatives, friends and dignitaries who were in the bathroom just a little too long.
(note to readers: When the Dalai Lama uses your bathroom, it is not necessary to ask if everything is okay in there. If it is not, he will get it right in his next life).
Although I knew it was not really appropriate to keep track of someone’s bathroom time and then question their status when I decided they had been in there too long, I still had trouble shaking the habit. This is when I realized I didn’t need to stop asking the question, I just had to find the appropriate time to use it.
So the next time I let the dog out to do his business and it took him a while to come back in, I felt perfectly fine yelling out the back door, “Everything okay out there??”
He doesn’t typically respond. But then again, neither did the Dalai Lama.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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When our dog starts to smell like Eau de Garbage, his breath is bad enough to peel paint off the walls, and people think he is a brown dog when really he is black, I know it’s time to give him a bath. Since I am the one who feeds, walks and cleans up after him, it has fallen to me to be the official dog bather as well. Naturally, there are many different books written on this subject, and many people who think they know the best way to bathe a dog, but I like to think that over the years, I have really perfected this particular duty of pet ownership. Having a vast amount of expertise in this area, I will share with you the procedure for the absolute best way to bathe a dog:
1) Fill tub with warm water up to your dog’s elbows.
2) Carefully lift dog into tub.
3) Chase dripping dog through house after he jumps out of the tub, out the bathroom, up the stairs, and onto your bed.
4) Drag dog back downstairs and bring him back into the bathroom.
5) THIS TIME, remember to close bathroom door behind you.
6) Lift dog back into tub.
7) Turn on water and shriek helplessly as hose attachment whips around spraying water everywhere.
8) Clean up water that sprayed everywhere.
9) THIS TIME, remember to switch off hose attachment before you run water.
10) When the water is lukewarm, switch faucet back to hose, hold dog firmly with one hand and spray dog until fur is soaked through.
11) Release dog to get shampoo that you left under the sink and shriek helplessly as dog shakes repeatedly and sprays water everywhere.
12) Clean up water that sprayed everywhere.
13) THIS TIME, remember to keep firm hold on dog as you apply dime-sized amount of dog shampoo to fur and work into a lather all over dog.
14) Scream, “NO, DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!” when daughter opens bathroom door and comes in to see what you are doing.
15) Chase very soapy dog through house after he jumps out of the tub, out the bathroom, up the stairs, and back onto your bed.
16) Make mental note to put “DO NOT OPEN!!!” sign on bathroom door next time you wash dog.
17) Drag soapy dog back downstairs and lift him back into tub.
18) Remember that floor is now quite slippery and take caution lifting dog.
19) Abandon dog to get ice pack from freezer. Apply to forehead where you slipped and banged head on side of tub.
20) Return to bathroom to find daughter, covered in dog hair and soap, in bathtub with dog.
21) Abandon dog to go wash daughter.
22) Realize you left bathroom door open when you went to wash daughter.
23) Go get dog off wet and soapy bed.
24) Drag dog back downstairs
25) Put leash on dog and drive him to professional groomers.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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“Mrs. Beckerman?”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Beckerman, This is the Garage Door Police. We understand there was an altercation today between you and your garage door.”
“An altercation? I’m not sure what you mean, Officer.”
“Mrs. Beckerman, did you or did you not ram your car into your garage door?”
“Um… how do define ‘ram?’”
“Ma’am. When you were backing out of your garage, did you hit the garage door with your car?”
“I may have done that.”
“And in doing so, did you knock the garage door off its track so now it will neither go up or down?”
“I might have done that, as well. But in my defense, the garage door started it.”
“How so?”
“Well, when I went to leave in the morning, I pushed the button to open the garage door, like I always do. But for some reason the door only went up two thirds of the way and then stopped. I didn’t realize this had happened, so when I backed out, blammo.”
“Blammo, Ma’am?”
“Yes, blammo, Officer.”
“Mrs. Beckerman, this is not the first time you have had an incident with an appliance in your garage, is that correct?”
“Are you referring to the second refrigerator we keep in the garage, officer?”
“I am.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“How do you figure?”
“It jumped out in front of my car.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it had a death wish. It was on its last coils and wanted to be put out of its misery. It was a mercy killing, really.”
“And how about the incident involving the side view mirror on your car?”
“You mean the side view mirror that I allegedly knocked off the car backing out of the garage?”
“Yes.”
“Never happened.”
“… And the bicycle you ran over?”
“It rolled in front of my car.”
“On it’s own?”
“Yes. It was a magic bicycle.”
“Mrs. Beckerman, based on your garage history, I am going to have to write you a ticket for reckless garage endangerment. Do you have any questions?’
“Just one. Is your car parked behind me?”
“Yes.”
“I’d move it if I were you.”
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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“Oh, look, there is Chris Mann,” exclaimed my friend Nicole. “Let’s go get our picture taken with him.”
Nicole (who writes the wonderful blog By Word of Mouth Musings) pointed across the party room at the recent Blissdom Conference where Singer/Songwriter Chris Mann was holding court with a bevy of blissful women.
Nicole has a lovely South African accent so she could suggest we lather up in fish oil and wrestle hungry alligators in the Everglades and it would sound like a good idea. But I was NOT on board with this particular suggestion.
It’s not that Chris Mann, an emerging talent on the show “The Voice” who had stunned us with his amazing vocal abilities at lunch at the Blissdom conference wasn’t photo-worthy. He seemed to be very down-to-earth and genuinely nice, incredibly talented, and also, ridiculously adorable. The problem was that I had just humiliated myself the night before with Joe Jonas and was trying to reclaim what little was left of my self-esteem in the wake of coming across like the world’s most desperate cougar.
“Tell you what,” I replied. “You go stand with him and I’ll take the picture FOR you, OK?”
She was perfectly happy with that arrangement, but when we approached Chris Mann, he invited me to pose with them.
“No thanks,” I replied.
“Why not?” he wondered.
Why not, indeed? Why not have my picture taken with this handsome twenty-something year old with the piercing blue eyes who sings like an angel? Why not pretend we were good friends or even better, that he was my boy-toy? Why not have a picture to post on Facebook that would make my friends pant in envy?
Because I would look like his freakin’ MOTHER standing next to him, that’s why!!
But I didn’t want to tell him that. It’s one thing to look at a guy and know that you were probably listening to the Bee-Gees and roller-skating at a disco when he was being potty-trained. It’s another thing to actually admit that out loud.
“Well, um,” I stammered. “Cuz, uh, I don’t really know you and I only take pictures with people I know.”
He stared at me dumbfounded.
“Okayyy. Well, what do you want to know about me?” he wondered.
“Uh… Uh… where are you from?” I punted.
“Wichita, Kansas. How about you?”
“New Jersey. Well, I’m not actually FROM New Jersey,” I added. “My husband is from New Jersey. He convinced me to move there because he said his parents would help us out with the kids.”
(Note to self: Do not talk about husband and kids if you are trying NOT to come across as a desperate cougar!).
“Did they?” he asked.
“Did who what?”
“Did your in-laws help you with the kids?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “It was a bait and switch. But it’s OK. I told him I wasn’t going to gain any weight after we got married, so I guess we’re even.”
(note to self: Do not talk about what a married hog you have become when trying to impress a hot young guy).
He laughed. “So what else do you want to know about me?” He wondered.
I shook my head. My friend Nicole tapped her foot impatiently. “Look, I’m sure you are a great guy and lots of women would kill to have their picture taken with you,” I finally said to him. “But you are young enough to be my son and it’s just embarrassing, you know.”
He flashed me his devastatingly good-looking grin. “I bet I’m older than you think I am.”
“OK. How old?”
“I’m 29.”
“I’m 47,” I said.
He did the math in his head. “OK. You’re right. You’re old enough to be my mother.”
I grimaced.
“But now that we know each other, let’s take a picture anyway!” he said.
Since all the cards were out on the table and he knew a) I was from New Jersey b) I was heavier than I had been when I got married, and c) I was old enough to have birthed, nursed and raised him, I relented and stood in for the photo.
Confident that I had salvaged my reputation, I reached out and shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you!” I said honestly.
He grinned. “You too… Mom!”
(PS… Nicole says the two of us look like we are sending our son off to college in this picture. Yeah, thanks for that Nicole!)
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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When you go to a conference, you expect to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, and learn some great tips to invigorate your career.
What you do not expect is to make a fool of yourself in front of a celebrity.
I had already done this once, at a blog conference called Blogher, where I met the incredible star of “Glee,” Jane Lynch, and made a comment to her that neither of us looked particularly good that day.
Note to self: OK to insult yourself. Not OK to insult a celeb.
You’d think I would have learned from my mistakes. But alas, I am a two-time conference offender.
This past week I was delighted to attend the Blissdom Blog Conference. Blissdom is a fabulous gathering of talented bloggers held annually in Nashville. I was doing a great job of keeping my foot out of my mouth until I met Joe Jonas.
For those of you without teens or tweens or who may live under a rock, Joe is one third of the adorable Jonas Brothers trio and the only one who is able to grow facial hair. I suspect this is the reason they had him come perform for this group of 30 and 40-something year-old moms so we did not feel like cougars when we screamed in adoration at him when he was on stage.
Anyway, I hoped to get a picture of him at some point for my 14 year-old daughter. I did not expect to actually have the opportunity to meet him one on one. But as luck would have it, he sat down at the table next to me and my friends for dinner before the show.
“OMG, I have to go get his autograph for my daughter,” I said to my friends. Without giving them a chance to talk me out of it, I ran around the table with my placemat and asked for his autograph.
“It is for my daughter Emily,” I assured him.
He graciously signed the placemat. I thanked him profusely and went back to my dinner.
“You know… he probably thinks YOUR name is Emily and you just made up this daughter story so he would give you his autograph without thinking you were a creepy cougar,” said my friends Nick and Matt from Time Dog and Pamela from Chick Clique.
I was mortified.
While I mulled over this possibility, another of my friends went over and asked Joe for his autograph. When she came back to our table, she informed me that she had told Joe, “Emily suggested I come over.”
Now I was truly horrified.
Throwing my dinner napkin to the ground, I went back to Joe’s table. “You probably think I was getting your autograph for myself, but it really was my for my daughter, Emily,” I assured him. “And just to prove it, I am not even going to ask you to take a picture with me. I’m going to ask you to take a picture of me WITH YOUR BODYGUARD.”
“Cool,” said the bodyguard.
“Seriously?” wondered Joe Jonas.
I handed him my camera and posed with his bodyguard.
Then I gave him my business card. “Here. You’re from New Jersey, right?” He nodded. “I’m from New Jersey too. I write a syndicated newspaper column about living in New Jersey with kids. Give my card to your mom. I think she’ll like my column.”
He blinked.
“You want me to give your card to MY MOM?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you don’t want to take a picture with me?”
“Right.” I said.
He snorted. “Well, this is a first.”
We shook hands and said goodbye. I was confident that I had redeemed myself and reclaimed my credibility.
An hour later he did his show for the screaming masses of moms and then he stood in front of the Blissdom screen to pose for pictures with all the bloggers. My friends got on line to pose with him and I waited with them. But when it was their turn, I peeled off to the side and stood with my new friend, Joe’s bodyguard, to wait while they were photographed.
“Hey come take a picture with us,” they yelled to me as they stood with Joe Jonas.
I shook my head.
“Yeah EMILY, come on over!” yelled Joe.
“Go ahead, Emily,” said the bodyguard.
“I’m NOT Emily,” I protested. “Emily is my DAUGHTER. My name is Tracy!”
Realizing I was not going to come out of this situation unscathed, I went over and took the picture with them.
I shook my head as I joined the group. “My name is Tracy,” I insisted softly.
Joe Jonas winked at me. “Sure it is. Tell you daughter I said hi!”
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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It’s happened. I’ve officially become my mother.
It started at 5:45 this morning when my 16 year-old son got up to work out and blasted his music so loud Elvis could hear it on whatever planet he now lives on.
“You know you can go deaf from listening to the music that loud!” I scolded him.
“What?” he asked, cupping his ear.
At 6:30, I saw him packing up his backpack.
“Did you have breakfast?” I asked him.
“No,” he said.
“You have to have breakfast,” I responded. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”
“No,” he said. “Dessert is the most important meal of the day.”
At 7am he got into the car to go to school.
“Where’s your jacket?” I asked.
“I don’t need one,” he said.
“It’s freezing out!” I bellowed. “You will catch your death of cold.”
“What the heck does that mean?” he wondered.
“It means you’ll get sick.”
“Then just say I’ll get sick,” he retorted.
“You’ll get sick,” I repeated.
“That’s an old wives tale,” he said.
“Well, I’m an old wife,” I said.
At 7:15 we got to the school.
“Have a good day!” I said cheerily. “Mind your P’s and Q’s.”
“What are those?” he asked.
“Your manners.”
“How does manners mean P’s and Q’s?”
“It doesn’t,” I admitted.
“Then why did you say it?” he wondered.
I sighed. “Because I have become my mother.”
“That’s OK,” he said. “I’ll probably become Dad one day.”
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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According to a recent report by the National Research Council, ¼ of our nation’s pets are overweight.
So apparently now, even dogs have to worry about bathing suit season.
Not that I’ve caught my dog Riley staring in the mirror with angst over the size of his thighs or anything, but when the vet told me he was a couple of pounds overweight (the dog, not the vet), I felt for him.
“We have to do something about Riley’s weight,” I told my husband. “We don’t want him to feel insecure around thinner dogs.”
Clearly, I have my own weight issues.
Yet, since I am the person who feeds the dog, I felt somehow responsible for his extra poundage. However, I soon realized it wasn’t his meals that were the problem, but rather what he was eating in-between meals.
On many occasions I have caught him helping himself to the kids’ abandoned chicken nuggets at the table. And their mac and cheese. And their hot dogs. Perhaps, I thought, I should change what I’m feeding the kids, ergo, the dog will eat better.
Not that I don’t provide them with healthier fare most of the time. But Riley is just as happy to steal the remains of the grilled chicken, pan-seared snapper and vegetable lasagna I make, as well.
So we started clearing the table right after dinner.
And then I caught him licking the dirty plates out of the dishwasher.
The article went on to say that while cats are more snackers, dogs tend to be binge eaters.
Tell me something I didn’t know.
However, binge eating is not really the issue for Riley. His problem is indiscriminate eating. Does a ball of yarn have a lot of calories? He ate one of those. My son’s collection of rubber insects is now a half collection thanks to Riley. He’s bitten off and ingested most of the limbs of my daughter’s wooden dolls, two legs on the kitchen table and a ½ dozen supposedly indestructible chew toys. Not much fat content in those.
We soon realized that the contents of the house had become a veritable buffet for the dog, so we began cleaning up and closing doors on a regular basis.
If nothing else, the dog has certainly improved my family’s messy habits.
Without the kids’ leftovers, the fallen bits of food on the floor, and the food residue in the dishwasher, we thought we’d nicked the problem. But, alas, he was still tipping the scales.
“Does he get a lot of treats,” asked the vet.
“Well, yeah,” I answered sheepishly. “But in obedience training, they taught us to motivate the dog with food. A treat after he potties. A treat when he sits on command. When he comes. When he stays.” I realized that all the treats were probably adding up to the equivalent of a third meal.
So I checked in with a friend of mine who had taken the class with me about the treat issue.
“Don’t you remember, we’re supposed to wean them off the treats,” she said. No, I didn’t remember. Probably because we didn’t get that far in obedience school before Riley had to drop out for emergency stomach surgery after he ate the aforementioned ball of yarn and developed a bowel obstruction.
So I cut out the treats. He responded by eating my laptop manual. I let him run loose in the backyard three times a day for exercise. He responded by eating rocks from my garden. I took him for runs in the park. He ate mud.
I said to my husband, “He may be too fat for a dog but he is probably just right for a goat.”
Finally I brought him back to the vet and we dumped him on the scale. I held my breath.
“Riley’s weight is down,” she told me. “Good job.”
Yeah, good job for him. But the whole ordeal stressed me out so much that I put on five pounds.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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I never realized how indispensable I was to my family until I left them alone for the weekend to go to the Blissdom Blogger Conference.
Before I left, I wrote out a couple of pages of instructions and when I handed them to my husband he laughed.
“I think we can figure this all out on our own, Honey,” he assured me, tossing the pages to the side.
I sort of remember George W. Bush saying the same thing when Clinton left him the instructions on how to keep the budget balanced, but whatever.
Pretty confident that they would survive in my absence, I left for my trip.
An hour after I left, the text messages started coming.
Husband: When does the garbage go out?
Me: When it is full.
Him: All the toilet paper rolls are empty.
Me: That means it is time to put on a new roll.
Him: What time does the dog go to sleep?
Me: He is a dog. He goes to sleep whenever he feels like it.
Him: Do you know where my dry cleaning is?
Me: At the dry cleaners.
Him: Do you know where the kids are?
Me: I’m in Tennessesse. You’re home. I’d hope that you would know.
Him: The house is kind of a mess. When does the cleaning lady come?
Me: When she gets back from her Blog Conference on Sunday.
Him: How is the conference going?
Me: I wouldn’t know. I’m too busy answering your texts.
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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There are some mothers I know who are so obsessive about their kids’ appearance that they carry entire kiddy wardrobes around with them so when their kids get dirty, they can strip the kids down on the spot and change their clothes.
Of course this can start to become pretty embarrassing for the kids by the time they hit 12 or 13.
It also means mounds more laundry than is really necessary. But really, what’s a few hundred more loads when your reputation as SuperMom, Defender of All that is Good and Clean, is at stake?
Fortunately, this has never been a particularly important goal for me. My kids get one outfit a day: If it gets dirty, they wear it dirty. Do I care that half the time they look like they rolled in garbage. Of course I do. But I’ve come to realize that a clean kid is somehow unnatural. It goes against nature. It’s like having a clean dog: It’s cosmically unattainable.
None of this is to say that I don’t do laundry. Truthfully, I do laundry almost every day. I am the Queen of laundry. And sometimes, I actually fold it and bring it upstairs the same week, too. But in the grand scheme of laundry issues, I have much bigger fish to fry.
My thing, is static cling. I’m not talking about the static that makes my daughter’s hair wrap around her head like some electric comb-over. Nor is it the static that my son likes to create when he purposely shuffles across the carpet in his socks and then zaps my nose. And no, it’s not the static that makes the dog look like a canine Don King.
No, what I’m talking about is the evil, fabric-softener-defying, dryer-sheet-resisting, winter static build-up IN THE DRYER that causes all the clothes to come out in one big, shocking, static clump.
Call me crazy, but I want sparks to fly when I kiss my husband, not when I peel my clothes apart.
“Aaaaarrrrggghhhhhh,” I groaned as I pulled a sock from a towel and got zapped. “I HATE STATIC CLING!!!!”
“What’s the big deal,” said my husband. “Just get some of those dryer sheets.”
I glared at him. “They don’t work.” He shrugged and went back to reading his magazine while I folded the shocking pile of laundry. Sure what does he care… I’m the one who had to run static interference all season. By the time the socks got in his drawer, they had been surgically separated from the rest of the clump and are nice and fluffy and static-free.
But sometimes, somehow, one escapes.
Such was the case the day I went to our town hall on business. While I stood talking to one of the officials, one of his associates behind me said, “There’s something stuck inside the hood of your sweatshirt.”
With an audible static charge, he peeled the offending article away from my hood and dangled it out for all of us to see:
A pair of women’s black thong underwear.
We all stood paralyzed for a moment with my underwear suspended between his thumb and forefinger. The men looked at me expectantly, but my mind was a blank. Finally, I came out of my coma, grabbed the panties and said the first thing that came into my head.
“Oh,” I laughed. “Those are my husband’s.”
©2012, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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In honor of Presidents’ Day, I thought it would be fitting to rerun my Presidents’ Vacation Rant. As they say during summer rerun season on TV, if you haven’t seen it, then it’s new to you.
I’m just as patriotic as the next girl. I sing the National Anthem at baseball games. I vote in every election. Heck, my daughter was even born on the 4th of July, although I think that was more her decision than mine.
However, there’s one thing I just don’t get. Why is school closed for an entire week in honor of the Presidents’ birthdays?
Yes, I know George Washington was the Father of our Country, and Abraham Lincoln’s stand on slavery was the first critical step toward racial equality in this country.
But why should we dedicate a whole week of school vacation to these guys and nothing at all for the other forefathers (and foremothers) who’ve made an impact on the old U.S. of A. How about a day for Betsy Ross? The poor woman sewed her little heart out without the benefit of an electric sewing machine to make us the incredible flag we have today. And then there’s Ben Franklin. He got the shock of his life when he discovered electricity. After all those winter power outages we’ve had, we all know where we’d be without his discovery… on the phone calling the wax company to say, “Hey, when are you going to get the candles back on?”
Remember Alexander Graham Bell? I don’t know about you, but I can’t even imagine my life without a phone. To me, the telephone is the greatest invention second only to the washing machine.
How about a school vacation day for Elvis Presley, the King of rock n’roll. On second thought, I’m not sure we can make his birthday a national holiday until he’s officially dead. Considering I think I saw him just last week at the 7-11 buying a Big-Gulp, I don’t think we can call that one a done deal.
Personally, I’d like to know who invented Chicken Nuggets. I think that person should have a national holiday in their honor. Basically, it’s the only food my kids will eat… so I owe that person a huge thank you. Of course, my kids eat French Fries, too, but I must assume France gets credit for that creation.
And why should we stop at real people? What about Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Mrs. Butterworth? They have all contributed significantly to my family’s standard of living.
But seriously, it seems silly for my kids to take a week off from school in observance of the birthdays of a few, when they could be in school learning about the contributions of so many. I say, celebrate and educate simultaneously. I think my kids would gain a much greater appreciation of our American history by discussing it in school rather than watching “Family Guy” on TV at home while on break in observance of Washington’s Birthday. One day off, maybe two, out of respect of our founding fathers is fine. But a whole week? That’s just an excuse for a Disneyworld vacation.
My plan this presidents’ week is take a few moments with the kids to talk about why these people from our past are so important to our present. It might not be as interesting to them as who gets voted off “American Idol,” but perhaps they may come away from the week with a better appreciation of what it means to be American and be free.
Would they prefer to sleep in, eat sugar-coated cereal, and play video games until their eyeballs start to melt? Maybe. Would I prefer to have them in school for the week so I could go to the gym? I suppose. But perhaps the compromise is I give up some of my Spin classes and they give up being couch potatoes for a few hours so we can all understand how we got to where we are in the first place.
Then, maybe, when they grow up, they can really appreciate their freedom to run for president, or invent things, or write a column and complain about the school vacation schedule.
©2011, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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“What’s in the bag?” I asked my mother as she got into the car following her trip to my hair salon. Whenever my mom comes to visit me from Florida, our first stop is always the hair salon. It must be Jew thing because whenever the snowbirds fly up North, the first thing they do is get their hair colored. She claims that the Florida sun bleaches out her hair, but I think she just wants to make sure if she runs into any other alter cockers up here that she knows, they will think she looks faboosh…
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