Scotty x 10

my cousin Scott turns 10 years old today. i've had the privilege of being around quite a bit the last decade as he's grown up and i can't tell you how much fun it's been. with perhaps the exceptions of the hubster and my dad, i think Scotty makes me laugh more than anyone. i am amazed by his imagination, in awe of his endless energy and my only hope for the next 10 years is that he doesn't become too cool to hang out with his cousin Megs. 

i have a glimmer of hope: last Saturday, at his birthday party, he was up in the playroom with Michael and said to him, out of nowhere, "you guys were my best babysitters ever." 

Scotty, you're our favorite kid to babysit, ever. happy birthday, maniac. love you. 

hmph

i posted this in the kitchen at work this morning and people are sort of laughing at me. they think i'm "cute." i think i just want my damn bowl back!

mbm

if i had to do it over...

...i would create a wedding invite like this. i sort of did our program this way, but the invite format is genius. click here to see a more legible version. 

mbm

is this for real?

my new sign?

how do these sorts of things happen? i go to bed one night a Sagittarius (a sign whose traits i've always exhibited), and wake up the next morning an Ophiuchus? i don't even know how to pronounce that! and i don't get it—they just realized the earth and sun have been moving? (read all about it here and here.) were the folks at the Minnesota Planetarium Society just bored? i mean, they're likely stuck inside 24/7 during winter, right? too much snow will make anyone go bonkers. "hey, guys! let's tell the world they're all off by one zodiac sign and watch everyone have existential crises!" 


just to confuse matters, CNN reports that nothing is actually changing, if you've been following the tropical zodiac, which i guess most of us on this side of the planet have been doing. apparently that zodiac system is tied to the seasons, while the one the Minnesotans are referring to—the sidereal zodiac—is the one tied to the constellations. and typically only Easterners follow that one. 


my brain is starting to hurt. yours too? 


anyway, i may try this Ophiuchus (gesundheit!) on for size, what the hell. maybe that's been my problem all these years—i've actually been off the star chart until now. life's been just peachy so far, but maybe things will really start to click from here on out. maybe the Easterners know what they're doing...unlike us. 


mbm 

thoughts on Arizona and Horace Greeley

"the illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages."

— Horace Greeley, American newspaper editor

i haven't wanted to write about what went on in Arizona because, frankly, it fills me with something i think is despair. what put me over the edge was seeing Christina Taylor Green's dad on the Today show the other morning. the interview cut right through me, partly because for some reason he reminded me of my own dad and partly because this is the hard, awful truth—parents cannot protect their children from everything. terrible, tragic, unfair things happen all the time and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, short of locking children up in towers (i saw Tangled over the weekend and can tell you even that plan always backfires). it's just a hard thing to accept.

but today i changed my mind about writing. the President's speech got me thinking.

i did not see the speech last night. i checked at 8 o'clock but nothing was on and by the time he did go on the air, i was napping on the couch. but i read some quotes from his speech on facebook early this morning and understood the gist of it—be kind to each other. work together and be kind. set a good example. (you can read the transcript here.)

those thoughts were in my head this morning as i walked into the subway station. ahead of me, a high school boy noticed an older man had dropped one of his gloves and chased after him quite a few steps to return it. the man looked surprised, thanked him and they went their separate ways.

i was touched by this, mostly because i expect most high school boys to be oblivious to something like someone dropping a glove. but then i realized i see things like this every day. of course i witness people having meaningless shouting matches on the train, road rage of all kinds on city streets, people who see others approaching the elevator and either don't move a muscle to hold the doors or who continue to press the "close doors" button as if their life depended upon it. yet, more often than not i see people being considerate—holding doors, saying good morning to strangers, giving out random compliments, offering a hand to someone in need.

the quote at the top of this post came from my calendar yesterday. i tend to think that the world is becoming worse and worse and there's no hope for any of us, let alone our children (see above: despair) but Greeley's words were a good reminder that perception is everything. everyone who has ever lived has probably thought no one lived in a world as confused and twisted as their current one. and it's not true. but i do think there is one legitimate difference today—people out there who are depraved, deprived, desperate and dangerous are much more highly visible than they ever were before. updates on iPhones, links on Facebook, news crawls on CNN, blog entries, tweets, voicemails and e-mails— we're all over-aware, all the time, of everything going wrong with the world. how can that not affect a person's outlook?

i learned many, many years ago when i was studying journalism: "if it bleeds, it leads." no one wants to read happy news, at least not according to TV producers and newspaper editors. they tap into the part of human nature that can't turn away, that may shudder at the details of a car wreck or a murder or a house fire but somehow keep watching or reading anyway. it's like a collective schadenfreude—yeah, we may be unhappy with parts of our own lives, but at least it's not as bad as that [fill in current news cycle tragedy here].

the other thing: we can't just let anything be. consider Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice who—courtesy of YouTube—became a household name in about five seconds and, over the course of 10 days, was rumored to have offers from MTV, ESPN and the NFL, was reunited for his mother on national television, recorded a commercial for Kraft, made appearances on a number of talk shows... and just entered rehab—after a conversation with Dr. Phil, of course, that will air on TV, check your local listings—for drugs and alcohol after being arrested for assaulting his daughter.

from zero to hero to zero in about a week. that's America for you.

maybe i'm getting off the subject now, but my point is—i think people are generally good; i think our ever-growing means of artificial communication and how quickly anyone, despite the reasons why, can become 'famous' are not. President Obama asked us last night to talk with each other "in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

i think that's excellent advice, except—who knows anymore how to talk with each other, period? our current society is all about offering opinions, whether on a talk show or via Twitter or a status update (or, yes, a blog). politicians and other people in the spotlight all want their wisdom heard, but don't stop to actually hear anyone else's input. all that creates is a lot of white noise. i think people wind up feeling isolated. and it's doesn't take much, when one is isolated, for everything to go downhill really fast.

we'll probably never know the whole story behind Jared Lee Loughner and why he acted the way he did, but i'd bet almost anything he felt incredibly disconnected. when YouTube didn't gain him the superficial attention he might have been after, he resorted to what he presumed to be a grander scale. and two days ago his face was on the cover of every single newspaper in New York. i guess it worked.

Horace Greeley referred to people believing times were better before; i wonder what his opinion would be on times being simpler. that's what i hope for. i check Facebook as many times a day as the next person, but if it all went away tomorrow i'd be fine. maybe relieved. i think we need less news, fewer outlets, less room for error, fewer opportunities to exploit. less brain clutter. more strangers striking up conversations wherever and whenever, more handwritten letters arriving in mailboxes, more families around the dinner table without their iPhones nearby. sign me up.

for now, i'm heartened by this. this is a true miracle, an amazing story and tangible, living proof that the world is a good place, that the bad guys don't always win and that the human spirit is about the most resilient thing in the world—an American trait i'm pretty sure has pervaded all ages, too.

(for the record, i would love to hear anyone's opinion on this post, the Arizona story or anything else you'd like to talk about. please leave a comment or e-mail me at megalbagel (at) comcast (dot) net.) 

mbm

ready, set... JUMP

so yesterday was, for sure, the second most important day in the History of Michael and Megan. we took a deep breath, closed our eyes and officially entered into escrow on the place in Hoboken.

on Saturday we put in an offer. on Sunday we countered and re-countered. by Monday we had gotten the price down to a comfortable (relatively speaking) place and had a tentative deal. yesterday we took the PATH across the river to make it official (and write the biggest check of our lives). it was not easy. there were about 200 different documents we had to sign (apparently the norm for a newly constructed condo) and we had to fork over a lot more of our hard-saved pennies than we'd initially planned, which sent us both into a minor tailspin until we confirmed with a few sources that we were not getting screwed.

the whole process took about three hours and afterward we were spent. and there's still more to do—find an attorney before the attorney review process (anyone know a good real estate lawyer? let me know!); make sure we have the best mortgage rate available; and keep our fingers crossed that everything goes according to plan and in a timely manner (yes, i know from talking to people that this may be a pipe dream).

still. as drained and anxious as i felt last night, today i can't keep myself from feeling pretty damn psyched. almost giddy. we're crazy, the two of us, but life requires a little crazy sometimes. with great risk comes great reward, right? or something like that? it won't be easy, we'll have to work hard and sacrifice and make adjustments but i just feel in my gut that we'll be really happy. it may take us a few months to master our new budget, but man—a place that's ours. an investment in ourselves. a cozy home that will be our kiddo's first. this is what it's all about, isn't it?

i have my moments of worry and pockets of apprehension but i find they're easily quelled by looking ahead to decorating the baby's room, being able to load dirty plates into a dishwasher, cleaning my underpinnings on the gentle cycle in our very own washing machine rather than hunching over a rubber tub filled with water and Woolite, taking a warm bath in the soaking tub in our en suite bathroom.

i'm thirty-four years old! i deserve this! i once lived in a windowless bedroom in the basement of a two-floor apartment with four other girls, into which one of the girl's boyfriends wandered one night, buck naked, and proceeded to pee on my area rug. and that's just one of many. many nightmare roommate/apartment stories i've collected over the last 10 years. i've earned this, dammit!

i know that my gut would be nagging me if this weren't the right move, if this weren't the right place. in fact, my gut is peaceful. it's content. it's excited.

(my gut has been waiting for a dishwasher for a very long time.)

mbm

dangling

the daily quote from my calendar yesterday was:

"at the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can." (uttered by Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo in Frida)

i sure as hell hope that's true. because right now i feel like i'm dangling a little. as in, from the end of my rope, the edge of a cliff, etc.

why? well, let me start with the untrue thing first. i spent about a half-hour today thinking that the hospital where i am scheduled to deliver three months from tomorrow is out of my insurance network. i made an innocent phone call to my insurance company, to find out if i needed an authorization code before i sent in my pre-maternity paperwork to the hospital. imagine my reaction when the United Healthcare customer service rep on the other end of the line told me my hospital was out-of-network. "you'll be responsible for all charges," she told me.

i think i went numb. i'd assumed all this time that of course my OB would let me know if my insurance was not acceptable at the hospital where she delivers babies. i mean, how could she do that? i immediately called my doctor's office, where the receptionist asked me to please send a copy of my insurance card—never mind that they have it on file there—and they would investigate.

i could not wait—not with everything else going on—so i did my own research and discovered that the folks at United Healthcare are basically idiots. they don't keep their records currently, apparently, and have my hospital filed under its previous name (which is extremely similar to its current name, but that doesn't seem to matter to them). after finding the information on the UHC website, i double-checked with the hospital and they reassured me that i'd be covered—and also that this happens all the time with UHC.

thank GOD.

i was freaking out for those 30 minutes because so far this week has been about crunching numbers, dealing with the stark reality of what it really takes to purchase a new home and it just seemed to figure that of course something else would pile onto that heap of stress, something money-related.

we decided in the last month or so to not flee to the suburbs after all, but to try to find a place in Hoboken, just across the river from Manhattan. it seemed a happy medium—on the other side of the Hudson, but not so far away that long commutes or a lawn mower were required. i went on an exploratory outing before Christmas and loved everything—the ease of the PATH train, the feel of the town, the look of the condos. Michael came with me a few days later to see my favorites and then this past Monday we went back and looked at our two favorites, getting closer to making an offer.

it was terrifying and thrilling.

but then. we were reminded of this little thing called PMI—private mortgage insurance. if any first-time homebuyer in this neck of the woods is able to put down twenty-percent on anything more than a closet-sized studio, i tip my hat to him or her. it is not the case for us. with less than twenty percent down, a monthly PMI payment is required to protect the lender. this is understandable, especially considering all that's gone on in the last year or two.

however, as the numbers pile up, our confidence plummets. the mortgage was one thing, the maintenance fee was another. taxes—well, OK. but then add the PMI on top and, uh, pardon us while we tuck our heads between our knees so we don't pass out. when we're used to paying a rent that, while probably considered exorbitant outside of New York, is pretty reasonable in Brooklyn, it's nauseating to contemplate shelling out twice that amount, even if it's a great investment and a helluva lot more productive than paying rent. when you add in the fact that we are not parents yet and have no idea how much our little bundle of joy will cost us, it's nearly impossible to figure out whether we can do this or not.

it feels like the only way to really find out is by giving it a shot, taking a chance. but there's a big WHAT IF hovering nearby: what if we can't? it's not just us we have to worry about anymore. 

here's the thing: you all know that i always wanted to live in New York. i made a conscious decision to come to this city and to continue to live here for the last decade. i made a pittance at my first job, barely more at my second—in fact, only in the last few years have i felt able to breathe financially.

Michael and i have both been contemplating the last few days that we could have/should have been saving more along the way because life would be easier for us now. but what i keep coming back to is that there was no way to save and live a remotely interesting life. there just wasn't enough to go around. and aren't you supposed to have fun in your twenties? aren't you supposed to be more foolish than wise, live a little recklessly, travel and play and blow your paycheck on clothes and shoes and margaritas once in a while?

i don't think i'd trade any of the experiences Michael and i have had (those spur-of-the-moment road trips, the reunion with my old friends down in Disney World, that vacation in California, all the concerts and dinners out and happy hours and baseball games) to have a bigger pile of money now. i just don't. i think we're better people—and i think we'll be better parents—for all the life we have lived, the things we've seen and done.

(if we were lawyers or doctors or stock brokers or the founders of Facebook, maybe we could have had it all—amazing experiences and enough left over to buy a home with cash. but we're not.)

still—as worried as i am right now, as spent as my brain is from tinkering with spreadsheets for hours on end, the feeling vibrating through me, underneath all the stress, is faith that we'll figure it out, that there's a way to make it work, that this is just another leg of the journey. i mean, it has to be, right?

at the end of the day we can endure much more than we think we can. 

amen, sister.

mbm

why to have a husband

just one word for this shot: love.

[part of an ongoing series]

• because on a morning when getting out of bed was extra-challenging and you couldn't find the right thing to wear and, once again, you under-estimated the amount of time it takes to get ready these days, so you're on the verge of tears because 1) hormones, 2) there are clothes everywhere, and 3) your new supply of contacts still hasn't arrived so you have to wear your glasses again which makes you not quite feel like yourself, he offers to drive you into the city during rush hour, even though it's his day off and he so deserves a break.

• because he spent his other day off cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator of all the myriad things that had expired over the last month (or, okay, several months)—something you'd been meaning and wanting to do but just couldn't find the time for. he proudly shows you the pristine, meticulously organized cabinets when you get home from work and you're so grateful you could cry (but you don't because your crying sorta freaks him out).

• because at the party you threw last week, to which some of your oldest friends brought their children, you found him teaching a bunch of the wee ones how to play War with a deck of cards. he wanted to let the grown-ups be grown-ups and have real conversations and relax for a while, so he did his usual thing. at one point you see a little boy gleefully climbing up on his shoulders, the same way your little cousins had done the day before when they were visiting. he's a total kid magnet, without even trying. they just love him, like everyone does. you wonder if it's luck or some kind of cosmic master plan that you fell in love with someone who's going to be such an awesome dad. that nugget of knowledge has always meant the world to you, but even more so now that parenthood is imminent. 

• because he's taken to DVR-ing Jeopardy every night so that, even when you're not home from work in time to watch it right at seven o'clock (which never happens, unfortunately), you can still watch (play) together—and damn if that's not your favorite thirty minutes of the day. just the two of you, the couch and Alex Trebek, thinking and worrying about nothing other than which president, of the nine who had a beard or mustache, is the only Democrat with his portrait in the Hall of Presidents at the National Portrait Gallery. (Grover Cleveland, if you're curious.) especially now, when there are so many big life issues to tackle, making time for distraction is necessary for survival. thank god he knows this.

mbm

words to live by, 2011

i bought myself one of those day-by-day calendars on sale a few days after Christmas. it was inspired by the "Keep Calm and Carry On" slogan (which i didn't know the background of until just now—interesting—read about it here if you'd like) and consists of 365 quotes, slogans and sayings. i'm a sucker for quotes (if you went to college with me, you may remember my plastered dorm door) so i thought i'd periodically, throughout the year, share my favorites with you. this is today's, which is even more appropriate given that the hubster and i were talking this morning about how drastically our lives are about to change, in every way possible:

"you're gonna make it after all."

— Sonny Curtis, from the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song

damn right we are. 

mbm

no, i didn't take LSD before bed...

i had another really weird dream last night. i've gotten used to them as just another wacky pregnancy thing, but last night's was especially odd.

it started with me sitting down on our stoop in Brooklyn. it was just starting to snow and i guess i needed to rest. no idea. next thing i know i was waking up—on the stoop, covered by about half a foot of snow. i woke up out of a sound, sound sleep, stunned that i'd slept not only on a stoop, but through a snowstorm. i was disoriented when i woke and i think there were people (including my sister-in-law Joelle) curiously watching me. i felt sort of like a freak. but all that was forgotten when i looked at my watch (which was ugly and digital, hmm) and saw that it was after eleven in the morning. from that moment, all i could focus on was that i was late for work.

i made every attempt to text my co-worker Kennedy to let her know i'd fallen asleep in the snow (oh, that old excuse?) but would be in soon. except i couldn't seem to finish writing the damn text. i kept getting distracted. one of the distractions was my sudden insatiable hunger. i wound up wandering around Brooklyn (which looked nothing like the Brooklyn i'm used to) and stumbling into a Domino's, where i interrupted a kid's birthday party. i offered one of the party guests—maybe the kid's mom?—twenty bucks for two slices of pizza. ohhhhkay.

after i ate, i couldn't find my way back to where i thought i needed to be. and i still hadn't sent that text message! i was feeling dazed and uneasy and on the verge of panic (i was utterly convinced my boss would fire me) when i woke up, for real, in my parents' guest room. no snow involved.

i'm not real big into dream psychology or symbolism, but i admit i'm extremely curious what the hell was going on in my brain last night to cause me to dream that. any ideas?

mbm