Kate, you are a hoot....

Just call her the master of information gathering, the grandmother of Google, the innovator of non-computer based data collection, the surveyor of all things obtainable, my inventive mother. There is a new restaurant in our town which is not listed in the phone book yet. To call 411 involves a charge on the phone bill, and my mother has never been one to incur extra charges on her bill. I can remember as a kid her going through the phone bill with a fine toothed comb and a pen, determining which children made what calls and how much they owed. She has a new way to call 411, and it involves calling the establishments surrounding the intended target of her curiosity. Just the other day, she called the busiest submarine sandwich shop in town at high noon. When they asked for her order, she said, in her best Boston accent, "Can ya tell me what tha name of tha new restront is across tha street? I want to go theeh fah dinnah and I don't know what time they open." At which point, the extremely stressed and harried employee screeched, "What? You've got to be kidding!" and promptly hung up. My sister and I laughed so hard we couldn't breathe, because even though we are never surprised by my mother's hijinks, we sometimes just cannot believe what she can get done in the course of a day with her trusty phone.

Cameron, Cameron, this is your mother talking, Are you listening?

As some of my friends know, I have always wished that I was born Jewish. I love the closeness of Jewish families and how they are so demonstrative. Growing up in an Irish family, the only time someone touched us was if we were getting a Cootie shot or playing touch football. (And then there was the old man up the street who wore his wife's pink bathrobe and played with Barbie dolls, but that's a story for another day). Cameron, who is not Jewish, could certainly use a Jewish mother right about now, to help her in the dating department. This is the advice I would give her:

Cameron, are you sure you want to date that Justin fellow? What kind of a Jewish name is Timberlake? His family can't spell, that's not a good sign.

Cameron, why are you in a movie with Tom Cruise again? You better not be hemming his pants in that trailer of his. No daughter of mine is going to hem pants without a ring on her finger.

Cameron, in that Angels movie, can't you put the plumber from down the street in the movie? Maybe I could get him to build me a sukkah with a nice Kohler toilet.

Cameron, I heard that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is going to be at the flea market today. I cannot possibly make my chicken soup without the kreplach. Please, for your mother, please be a dear and get me some. Put on a little mascara, too.

Cameron, how are you ever going to find your bashert? Stop running around in your bikini, show some respect. Or at least if you're gonna wear that thing, put some nice cutlets in the bra, it couldn't hurt. You never know who you might see at the beach. 

And for God's sake, go to Synagogue once in awhile and settle down.

No more expensive comedy clubs for me, I'm going car shopping instead....

Unfortunately, and not by my own doing, I have been propelled into an unknown and very strange place, a third dimension known as the car dealership. Accompanied by my better half instead of the more appropriate professionals of the MenInBlack, we ventured into a very odd part of culture we had not experienced in years. In one dealership, the salesman jumped up and down and walked back and forth to "speak to his manager" so many times that he burned the equivalent of a spin class. My husband believed he was negotiating on our behalf. I, on the other hand, knew the real truth, and that was that he was a fellow sufferer of inflammatory bowel disease and had tied one on the night before, and from my experience and astute analysis, probably in a Mexican restaurant. (I was tempted to offer him some of my anti diarrhea medicine,  but my husband would have none of that.) I'm almost certain that when we left he was wearing different pants. At our next stop, we were there before closing time, and definitely after the start of happy hour. We had loads of fun with that happy fellow, who with geriatric sunglasses glued to his face, proceeded to give us the keys to every car in the lot without once asking for an i.d. or even a name. I asked my husband if he thought the guy could be having some kind of insulin reaction and he looked at me like I was nuts.  Then there was the guy who had a very bad case of nystagmus. I spent so much effort trying not to look at him that I walked into a giant cardboard zero percent financing sign. He asked if he could drive me back to my car and I broke out into a cold sweat. I have finally gotten my new car, but I think I might still go car shopping. Just for fun...

What would my husband be like if he ever had skin to skin as a newborn?

So, lately at work we have been big advocates of a beautiful bonding process called skin to skin. It's a lovely thing, watching those babies snuggle up close to the sweaty, sticky skin of their exhausted mothers chests.  It erases the pain of five days of hard work during which time they've eaten fourteen chicken salad sandwiches and watched countless episodes of Full House. I've started to wonder what it was like for us as newborns back in the 1960's. For example, my husband is one of those amorous guys who loves to snuggle (likely wishing it was not always just with me). You can be sure, that back in 1963, there was no skin to skin being practiced at St. Margaret's Hospital. He was most likely, probably before the umbilical cord was clamped and definitely while it was still pulsating, carted off to a warehouse stuffed with row after row of Catholic infants, who may not have even been wearing id bands. Three days later, when his poor mother came to from her spinal ether succinylcholine coma, she was probably forbidden to hold him because he would become spoiled. He was most likely given evaporated milk mixed with Karo syrup by some frustrated old nun and discharged on day 8 after spending a total of 5 minutes with his new parents. Let me say, it hasn't affected his bonding with her one bit. He checks on her every day, visits three times a week and rarely says no to a Sunday pasta dinner. I'm glad he didn't have skin to skin, or he'd be getting his mail delivered to her house...

Nachos grande was the real inspiration for the movie, "The Exorcist"...

When you're used to eating very healthy, there are many reasons to continue eating very healthy. 

Nachos grande with beans, cheese, chili, guacamole, sour cream and salsa looks so beautiful on the plate. The cheese is a beautiful sunset orange color, the guacamole brilliant pea green, flecked with red hints of the freshest garden tomatoes. The tricolor chips are so pretty, like a beautiful fourth of July pennant strung from your front porch. The bright white sour cream is almost angelic in appearance again the chunks of pungent chili. Have this feast on top of a couple of glasses of white zinfandel and magically, two hours later it all turns to hell...

You've transformed into Linda Blair, as you crawl upside down with your head spinning to the toilet. Your husband mistakes your moaning and groaning for affection, forgetting that the real reason you're saying "Oh God" is because you think you might just be on your deathbed. You're hoping that the priest that shows up at your bedside can give the last rites super fast because you've got to get to the hopper stat. That beautiful green guacamole pretty much comes up looking like it did going down. 

There's no horror movie based on a mesclun salad, and that's what I'm ordering next time...

Some signs that you're not a young lady anymore...

Gray hair...This year I can play George Washington on Halloween without buying a powdered wig
Dryness...The other night I caught two men trying to cross my body to get into Arizona
Wrinkles...I've spent more on Oil of Olay than most people have spent on their house
Thinning hair...at least I'm saving money on razors
Magazines...Cosmopolitan is to me what Highlights is to my 17 year old daughter
Fashions...I asked some salesgirl where she got her tube top and she told me it was a dress
Movies...they ask for your i.d. at an NC-17 movie and it's because they want to give you the senior discount

How going back to get your bachelor's degree is not at all like being on "The Bachelor"....

Okay, so I have only really watched the Bachelor a few times, but this is what I have taken from it...

1. There is a lot, lot, lot of sleeping around
2. There is a lot of kissing
3. There is gorgeous man constantly saying, "you're amazing"
4. Contestants are slowly eliminated and it's done very gently
5. When you are booted off the show, you have the chance to get your own show, "the Bachelorette"

Getting your bachelor's degree online at the age of 47 involves:

1. Absolutely not an ounce of sleep, because you're up all night trying to figure out the difference between a WIKI page and a WIMBA room
2. Your family telling you to kiss off because they're tired of eating frozen fish sticks with moldy tartar sauce
3. There is a very flirtatious yet inappropriate man with no teeth telling you that he's amazed you found your way to the campus bookstore at your age
4. Your professor sends you a 40 page syllabus and tells you to memorize it in 24 hours or you're out of the program
5. If you flunk out of the course, you still get the bill and the chance to become a divorcee when your husband finds out