if you can't stand the heat, get off the jungle gym

there's been a ridiculous situation in new york the last few weeks and i'm a little fired up about it. 

in playgrounds throughout the city there are black rubber mats strategically placed beneath the equipment—presumably to protect kids from broken bones if they happen to fall off the monkey bars or the swing set. rubber mats are, one would think, preferable to plain old hard-core asphalt. 

one would think. 

it seems these black rubber mats can be rather treacherous. in the sun, they heat up to very high temperatures and have burned poor innocent children who walked across them barefoot. there were pictures splashed everywhere of one particular boy's badly burned tootsies. poor kid had to be hospitalized. parents throughout the boroughs are outraged and demanding something be done about these life-threatening playground hazards. 

i admit i got sucked in to their plight initially. who wants to see a little kid in pain? i couldn't believe the city's parks department would be so foolish as to install such torturous mats in every playground. 

then i read Mayor Bloomberg's response to the uproar. 

he said (more or less), "uh, hello? don't walk barefoot on the mats. if the equipment is too hot, don't go on it. we can't air-condition the slides." 

when i read his response i had an immediate flashback to the old playground at the Hatfield Township Pool circa 1984. there wasn't much to it back then, but we loved it. and every damn piece of equipment there was a death trap. the seats of the swings were black and made from some kind of rubber and you were a fool to sit on them in short-shorts or just your bathing suit. the big slide was a vertical metal frying pan (if you were dumb enough to climb up there on a hot day, your thighs would stick to the surface and it would be painful and embarrassing trying to inch your way down). the merry-go-round (the kind without the horses, remember those?) had bars that were always too hot to touch and a big rubber tire in the center that would scald you if you went anywhere near it. 

and—and!—there was gravel on the ground. lots of tiny stones that would get lodged in the treads of our jellies, stuck inside our sneakers, embedded in our knees if we tripped and fell (which of course i did regularly). 

and you know what? not one kid i knew ever wound up in the hospital from playing on that playground. no one ever complained if a kid fell jumping off a swing or got spun off the merry-go-round. we were kids. we did dumb kid things. we got hurt. we survived. 

so i'm with Bloomberg on this one. it's not the city's fault these kids got their feet burned. why the hell are their parents (i mean, nannies) letting them run around shoeless on a city playground anyway? when is that ever a good idea? i love how these people make thoughtless decisions that harm their kids and never take responsibility. it's always someone else's fault. great example you're setting for your kids, folks. 

so i don't know what these people want—plush carpeting under the jungle gym? feather beds beneath the swings? whatever it is, they're not getting it and—call me crazy—i can't tell you how glad i am about that. the yuppie parent madness has got to stop. 

mb

magical things happen on the subway

i haven't written much about my personal personal life lately, because, i don't know... number one, it's been sort of a work-in-progress, and number two, i don't want to be that person who blabbers about that stuff constantly to a sea of faceless readers. (or to the eight people who read my blog.) i just didn't want to go there. 

but this story deserves telling. so i'm going there.

in case you haven't caught on or read between the lines, my life has come full circle since last summer. i'm back together with Michael and all you really need to know about how that came to be is that i'm happy now. happy from the inside out. balanced and at peace. it's all good. 

the only downside to my "new" relationship with Michael is that our schedules are still often at odds. he's off during the middle of the week when i'm at my most stressed and exhausted, and when the weekend comes and i'm ready to play, he's at work because that's how they roll in TV. we were making it work for a while there, but the last few weeks have been harder because my job has been sucking the life out of me. Michael, meanwhile, has been on vacation. bad timing.

anyway, on Wednesday night we had tickets to see Damn Yankees (because even the theatre i see now has to relate to baseball somehow) at the City Center. Michael bought them for me and it was such a welcome break from the grind—and so nice to walk out of work at five minutes to six for a change, to meet him for dinner. 

we were tucked in a cozy corner at Rue 57, and while we ate we talked about lots of things, including all the various stresses in our lives at the moment. at one point i brought up something that crosses my mind from time to time. we've been together for many years. we're back together now and i really don't think we would be if it wasn't going to work this time, if we didn't want it to work. it's like Yoda says: there's no more "try" at this stage—we just "do." 

sometimes i find myself yearning for more settled days. perhaps with a house, perhaps with a wee one. i'm all about my independence (i'm a Sagittarius for life, after all) and lord knows i have eight million things i want to do before i die. but one of those things, hard as it is for me to admit sometimes, is to be married. to end all the wondering, the what-ifs, the perpetual "dating" status. to just be content, and really settled. 

so we talked about it a little over dinner, and then we moved on, and then we went to the show, which was a blast. (though i realized why i don't go to the theatre as often anymore—knowing i will never sing and dance like that on a Broadway stage still gives me pangs deep down...) it was pouring when the show was over, so we headed for the F train rather than stroll around the city. 

the F pulled into the 57th Street station not long after we got there (always a treat) and we took two seats in a mostly-empty car. i think it was the next stop when a guy with a guitar got on and sat down near us. almost immediately he stood up and told us he was going to sing us a song. he asked us our names and shook our hands and told us we looked like a nice couple. 

"i'm going to sing you a romantic song," he said. he told us he'd played a wedding the previous weekend—the wedding of a female friend he used to be in love with, but let go of because he knew he wasn't good enough for her. he told me i reminded him of this woman. "because you look like a real lady," he said. he went on and on about how happy he was for this woman, because she married a good guy, but he was still jealous and sad that he didn't wind up with her. 

he went on to serenade us with "Norwegian Wood." Michael leaned over and whispered to me, "romantic? this is about a one-night stand." but the guy played it quite nicely, i thought, considering it was on a subway and his guitar looked like it had seen better days. we applauded when he finished and Michael stuck a couple bucks into the hollow of the guitar and the guy was our new best friend. 

"so when you gettin' married, how long you been married, where's the rings?" he asked us, peering down at our hands. ha. ha ha ha. we told him we weren't married, and he asked how long we'd been together. 

Michael—turning slightly pink, though maybe i was imagining it—told him, "almost eight years." 

and this guy laughs and says, "i don't mean any disrespect, man, but you know—sometimes you gotta shit or get off the pot." 

i burst out laughing, and the guy went on, "no, really. i mean, sometimes you see couples and you're like 'no way, no way, what are they doing?' but i get a really good vibe from you two. i can see you should be together." 

then he said he was going to play another song for us, and even though he preferred to play funk, he was going to stick with the romantic genre. this time it was "Dream a Little Dream of Me." (my music taste tends to be... vintage, so i loved his choice.)

we applauded again when he was finished, and he told us he had to get off at the next stop but real quick wanted to tell us another of his sad love stories, about this girl he used to be with. "she told me she wanted our children to look like me and i got so scared, man," he told Michael, "i got so scared that i ruined the whole thing."

the doors opened at Delancey Street and he was backing his way out of the train, still talking. "i regret it, man, i regret it. so don't be like me, don't let something get away because you're scared." as the doors were closing he yelled, "GET MARRIED!"

other people on the train were quite amused by the scene, and so was i. and so was Michael, though i think he was flummoxed more than anything. when the train started moving again, i looked at him and said, "i paid him twenty bucks for that." 

it really makes you wonder sometimes, about what goes on behind the scenes. it wasn't the first time a virtual stranger has said something like that to us—about having a good feeling about us. i always find it funny, and comforting, and a little strange. 

i still haven't been able to get "Dream a Little Dream of Me" out of my head. 

mb

guess i was due

i've been meaning to tell the story of the very stupid (and painful) spill i took two weekends ago at the MLB FanFest at the Javits Center. i went with Michael and his sister and her boyfriend, and it was a really cool event for a big dork like myself. 

i took too many pictures of all the memorabilia (Thurman Munson's golf bag included), bought an overpriced All-Star Game cap and beat Michael easily at the baseball trivia booth. there were a lot of things to do there—call a famous play, race someone 90 feet between bases, throw virtual pitches to, say, Derek Jeter. most of the lines were too long to wait in, but toward the end of the day we decided to try the batting cages. 

the queue for the cages was also pretty long, but looked worth the wait. Michael, his sister and her boyfriend easily stepped over the velvet ropes that were set up to keep the queue organized. as i lifted my flip-flopped foot to do the same, i had a premonition that it was going to end badly. about 1.3 seconds later i knew i was right.

my back foot got stuck somehow on the rope and i landed very, very hard on both knees. the cement floors of the convention center were covered with green carpet for the event, so i had scrapes and rug burns to boot. my left knee also swelled to the size of—how appropriate—a baseball. 

but the best/worst part was that the disruption i made at my part of the rope line caused the silver poles holding the ropes to fall down, one by one, like wooden soldiers. and there were many silver poles. they just kept going. clunk, clank, clunk. 

Michael helped me up and tried to make it better, but i was mortified. my eyes welled up like a big baby, partly from the pain, partly from—when can i NOT make an ass of myself in public? i can't imagine my clumsiness will magically get better the older i get. 

i was able to laugh about it a little later, and the swelling went down once i got home and put an ice pack on my knee. while the scrapes and burns have healed, the bruises are just ripening now, a lovely reminder of my gracefulness. 

and after all that, i didn't even have a good session in the batting cage. the best i did was foul a few pitches off. 

put me on the DL, please.

mb

please god i hope i look like this in 30 years

no time to write, but i saw this picture of Helen Mirren in the paper this morning and i think i might tack it to my refrigerator. 

because the only way to look like this at that age (sixty-two) is to make sure i look like this now. 

i still haven't been to the gym lately, but i did get myself up for a run this morning and i'm so glad i did. because if i opened the paper this morning, saw this picture and hadn't worked out, i might've burst into tears. 

mb

trying to figure it all out

Henry can't figure out this life thing either

i had a great Fourth of July weekend. 

got to spend some typically fun and funny time with Scotty and Henry in my parents' pool—supercool remote control mini speed boat included—and in the driveway with sidewalk chalk and in the backyard with sparklers (despite the rain). 

on Saturday night i went into the "other" city (that would be Philadelphia) for a party at Christine's sister Jessie's place. such a great time. i rarely venture into Philly (too many field trips there in grade school? maybe i'm just a snob?) but i was so glad i did. Christine and Kate and i trekked from Jessie's party to Penn's Landing for the fireworks (despite the rain) and then stopped in at another party and then went back to Jessie's again. i saw a fair amount of that part of the city and i loved it. (real estate prices, it seems, are also light years more reasonable there than in New York and that gives an ever-more-practical girl like me something to think about.) anyway, it was just a really fun time...so fun, in fact, that i didn't get home 'til four-thirty in the morning, which never happens anymore. i just love hanging out with Christine and Kate. it happens so rarely that we gotta make the most of it when it does.

anyway, by the time i was riding the train back into New York early Monday morning, i was relaxed and happy and excited about life. the weekend felt full and long and despite my late night Saturday, i felt refreshed. 

that lasted 'til about three o'clock Monday afternoon. then i hit the wall. the wall of stress, agitation, frustration. and i really started missing the weekend.

so i'm wondering: is this normal? is a job supposed to have this effect on you? when you get to a certain point, a certain level, is this kind of craziness just part of the package? my father, who's less than six months from retiring from the company he's worked for the last 186 years, is putting in sixteen hour days right now, staying up 'til all hours working on spreadsheets or some such mind-numbing stuff and i just can't imagine having the energy to work like that thirty years from now. i can barely keep it together right now! i miss going to the gym, i miss having time to cook, i miss my writing classes, and i miss being able to leave the office when my friends do so i can meet up with them for drinks or dinner. 

but i just don't see any other way. life costs money. a lot of money right now. and we all know: it don't grow on trees. the only way to earn enough of it, it seems, is to bust your ass to the point of exhaustion, to the point where you come home, flop on your couch, turn on the television and lack the energy to change the channel, even though Kathie Lee Gifford is on the screen, with her weird facial ticks in full force, playing Celebrity Family Feud with her creepy family, deeply damaging your psyche. (true story—happened to me last Tuesday.) 

i dunno. i'm trying to think of various solutions to this dilemma. i want to enjoy life, that's all. i'm no money grubber, i'm not materialistic, i don't need to be the richest person in the world with the biggest house and fanciest yacht. but it seems to be getting harder and harder to enjoy the even most simple things without stress, because necessities like gas and milk now require a trust fund. 

but i suppose i should look on the bright side. it's now been more than a year since i sort of uprooted my life and mixed it all up. i can say with utter honesty and complete confidence that my life is one hundred percent better now. even if i wound up in almost the same place as i started, it's like that saying goes—life's not about the destination, it's about the journey. the path i took to get where i am now made me a stronger, happier, more at peace person.

and as soon as i figure out this work-money-life balancing act, i'll be golden.

mb