Who’s Your Daddy?

I was looking for a birthday card for my father. First I had to machete my way past the Mother’s Day display. I adore my Mom, and in another week or two I’ll be looking for the perfect mass-produced sentiment to tell her so. But today was for Pops.

The pickings were slim. I personally make it a habit of boycotting all cards featuring a sailboat, a stream in a forest, or a duck decoy, effectively eliminating 90 percent of my options. I have nothing against ducks, but why is the decoy the universal symbol for manhood? My dad does not hunt. My dad does not fish. He can’t swim and has a fear of water. I never see any lifejackets on those sailboats.

I kept searching. When they’re not busy shooting at duck decoys while floating downstream through the woods on their sailboats, dads appear to:
* mow the lawn
* drink beer
* hog the remote control
* serve as human ATM machines
* golf

My dad does golf—and my siblings and I have aggressively mined this lode for lo’ these many years. Not to mix metaphors, but the well is running dry. There is more to this man than his nine-iron. Besides, I’ve got to keep something in reserve for Father’s Day.

On the hearts and flowers side, you’ve got your cards depicting dads as pillars of strength who keep their children safe from harm—the original Homeland Security. Sounds good on paper, but like the Father of our Country, I can not tell a lie. In our household, all spiders and associated members of the bug family were dispatched by Mom, who was raised in the country and could kill arachnids with her bare hands. When I would lay awake at night waiting for the axe murderer to break into our house, I whiled away the hours planning my escape route. In the battle between pitching wedge and axe, I knew Dad was going down. I would have to soldier on as Sole Survivor, having climbed out my bedroom window onto the roof, where I would A) hide until the attacker left the premises, B) grip the eaves trough and drop onto the driveway, probably only breaking an ankle or C) shimmy down the rain spout.

I was striking out. In an effort to be helpful, and to get home in time to watch the Cubs game, my husband scoped out the Humor section, where he ID’d likely candidates in the “You’re so old…” genre. Apparently, fathers of a certain age pass a lot of gas in public. My dad does not. Nor does he drive with his blinker in perpetual “on” mode.

I left Walgreen’s empty handed.

Clearly, Hallmark has not met my Dad. He’s the man who taught me not to throw like a girl. He’s the guy who insisted we all eat dinner together, every night of the week. He’s the one who always tells me, “Be kind to yourself.” When we danced at my wedding, he blubbered like a baby. He’s also the man who wouldn’t let us play in the yard because it would ruin the grass. Who thought nothing of destroying his 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds in Monopoly. Who didn’t understand why a teenage girl couldn’t show up to school on Thursday in the same outfit she wore on Monday. Who goes berserk on road trips if you need to make a pit stop.

I can see how someone would have a difficult time turning that into a pithy rhyme.

All I really wanted to say was Happy Birthday, Dad. Pour yourself a Manhattan and pop open a can of peanuts. Try not to slop ice cream on your shirt. I love you.

Luminous Sightings

Chicago Tribune, April 20, review of Julia Roberts Broadway debut: “Perchance it’s a matter of being slightly embarrassed by the veritable riot her luminous presence is causing 45th Street.”

In Style, April issue, Mandy Moore “Fashion Flashback”: “Indeed, even when revealing plenty of torso, she projects a luminous innocence.”

The New Yorker, April 17 issue, article on the Gospel of Judas, by Adam Gopnik, pg. 80: “At the end, he supplies Judas with a beatific vision of a luminous cloud.”

Mission Accomplished

Easter passed and I forgot to mention that I made good on my Lenten Resolution: The iPod is out of the box. And then some. I have imported all 465 songs from my computer’s library and created a handful of playlists. I have mastered operation of the Click Wheel.

Mission accomplished. Sort of.

Do I love my iPod? You betchya.

Have I downloaded any photos? No. Video? No. Visited the iTunes Music Store? No. Investigated menu options like “Extras” and “Settings”? No and no.

For a good week, I wasn’t able to locate the “Shuffle” function and was forced to listen to tunes in alphabetical order. It took me two days to get past the letter “A.” I made it all the way to “D,” and then the devilish device sent me back to the beginning. Aaargh.

At some point during the initial charge, iTunes pulled a switcheroo, swapping out my library for an imposter, loaded with chestnuts by the Rolling Stones. An ambiguous pop-up message, which required a PhD in sentence diagramming to parse, asked if I wanted to replace “this” with “that.” I acknowledge that Apple’s programmers are technical gods, but someone needs to school them on the proper use of pronouns. Believing “this” to be the faux tunes and “that” to be my tunes, I clicked yes and poof! there went my 465 songs.

I pointed an extremely accusatory finger at Dave because A) he was there and B) he’s a huge fan of the Rolling Stones. Mere coincidence? I thought not.

Eventually, I salvaged my library by re-starting the computer, a technique I learned from the Desktop Support staff at my last job. Every single time I called to complain—like when Entertainment Weekly’s website failed to recognize my “cookie”—I was met with the same solution. “Have you tried to re-boot?” Well, no. I just despise having a good rant stymied by a simple, rational explanation.

With my library recovered, I thought my story would end at “and they lived happily ever.”

Not so fast. The iPod has spawned a cottage industry of supporting gadgets designed to ensure I never have to go without my own personal jukebox. Normally, I am not a huge fan of accessories. Some women simply must have the latest handbag, whereas I consider them the object that constantly swallows my keys and Chapstick. I haven’t worn a belt since George the First was president and scarves are too much like origami.

Yet I find myself longing for a cable/converter that will allow me to plug my iPod into the car stereo. I envision the blessed day when we can drive through Indiana without ever stumbling upon a Christian rock station doing its best to seduce us pagans with Nickelback soundalikes. (But I will miss the occasional detour into Country music, especially gems such as Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying.” Never underestimate the lifetime entertainment value of a lyric like “I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.”)

I’d also like one of those Bose iPod docking stations—or a reasonable knock-off thereof—which would allow us to streamline our array of electronics. We have a tuner so ancient it has a “phono” connector for a long-since amputated turntable. It’s time to concede my Barry Manilow LPs have taken their last spin.

I’ve already sprung for the athletic strap. I snapped my iPod into the provided case, wrapped the Velcro band around my arm and headed out for a run. I quickly discovered that A) my video iPod is heavy, and B) my arms are scrawny. I couldn’t pull the strap tight enough to keep the iPod from chafing my skin. I wound up with half a dozen scabbed-over blisters, just in time for short-sleeved season. I’m waiting for the medical community to recognize this as a legitimate condition, like “Blackberry thumb.” The way I see it, I can either begin a strict regimen of bicep curls to bulk up the limb in question, or hope that the accessory gurus devise a strap for toddlers. Until then, I run with the iPod in my hand, which I’m sure will result in carpal tunnel.

But at least the damned thing is out of the box.

The Name Game

The wait is over—the TomKat baby has arrived. It’s a girl, not an alien, so that’s a relief. But we all know what really matters. The name. TomKat did not disappoint. Introducing…Suri.

Now can’t you just picture Suri pairing off with Moses, the latest production from Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin? “Suri and Moses sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Shaloola in a baby carriage.”

At least Suri has roots as an actual name: it translates as “princess” in Hebrew or “red rose” in Persian, unlike the moniker Penn Jillette bestowed on daughter Moxie CrimeFighter, which has its origins in Insanity, meaning “my parents hate me.”

Now, don’t fret for little Moxie or her sisters and brethren in celebrity offspring-dom—Apple, Pilot and Banjo. A freak show name is a small price to pay for a silver spoon lifestyle, and if they get teased by classmates or laughed out of job interviews, well that’s what tell-all memoirs and drug addictions are for. Lest we forget, Michael is the second most common name for boys in the U.S. and that didn’t spare Mr. Jackson from becoming a late-night talk show punch line.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with a little creativity, and by creativity, I do not mean yet another variation on Kaitlyn/Caitlin/Caitlyn/Kaitlin/Katelyn/Katelynn. People, you can buy all the vowels and consonants that you want, but at some point it starts to look like you just can’t spell.

Remember that family who got stranded in a snowbound RV a few months back? I knew there was something fishy about their story. How? Because the kids on board were Sabastyan and Gabrayell. I immediately thought, “Bunch of stupid, hippie pot smokers.” Sure enough, the grandparents were wanted for possession of methamphetamine.

Prospective parents looking for something outside your basic Joshua and Emma might want to take a gander at alternativebabynames.com.

You’ve got your Cowboy category: Colton, Grady, Lantry and Stetson. For fans of “Titanic,” the site provides period names like Philomena, Winnifred, Erasmus and Haskell. Wiccans can choose from Amayia, Sangwuine, Valdeth, and more.

In “All New,” the site offers Creegan, Drae, Koah and Quade. But don’t wait too long to make a decision. Arley, Evalee, Haylen, Jentry, Lathan, Thatcher, Wakely and Zayden are all “gaining popularity FAST!” If you’re reading this, you’re already behind the curve.

Nothing against the folks at alternativebabynames, but I think they’ve missed the boat on a potential goldmine. I’m talking about pharmaceuticals. That’s right. Meet my boy Lipitor, his brother Zocor and their sisters Propecia and Lunestra. Imagine little Lippy’s first day of kindergarten. “I am Lipitor. I command you to sharpen my pencil.” This kid will rule the world and have low cholesterol to boot.

Further inspiration is just a mouse-click away. Check out my e-mail Spammers: Chrysler, Opaline, Ambroise, Okura, Bradford, Stavro and Bertie. New options arrive every day: Sianna, Gwenora, Atefeh, Rorke, Timika, Kessler, Arnulfo.

Suddenly, Suri looks like plain Jane. Brangelina has their work cut out for them.

Girl Gone Mild

When you’re married to a teacher, words like “spring break” creep back into your vocabulary. Dave had the week off before Easter, and while we had used this opportunity to travel out West the past few years, current financial constraints kept us homebound. It wasn’t the best vacation ever, but it could have been worse.

Spring Break 1989: Islamorada, Florida Keys

It was my senior year in college. Ten of us rented a beach house, but we were really two tribes of five—Friends of Cindy (FOCs) and Friends of Bobby (FOBs). (Names have not been altered to in any way resemble members of the Brady Bunch.)

That Cindy and Bobby were sister and brother did little to merge the factions into one shiny, happy group. Among the sticking points: A contingent of “the others” arrived at the house before we did and laid claim to the larger of the two bedrooms. (Actually, there was a third, but it lacked air conditioning. My friend Bill was the only one willing to brave the sauna.) That left five girls and a single king-sized bed, which was judged roomy enough for a threesome. Men everywhere may drool at the thought. But A) I’m not a guy and B) we weren’t talking about the cast of “Charlie’s Angels” here. I knew that one of my companions was prone to farting. I opted to sleep on the floor, which frankly I considered the better end of the deal, until the very last night when a bug of the size only grown in Florida encroached upon my territory. But still I would not seek refuge on higher ground.

Food proved an even more contentious issue. Our group, the FOCs, was composed of females and Bill. The FOBs boasted a pair of Big & Tall men. They’d bring back groceries from the store, ask us each to pony up an equal share of the bill, and then proceed to inhale the majority of the provisions. On a good day, I might walk away with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Which, last I checked, does not cost $20. We took to hoarding essential rations, like Oreos, turning our bedroom closet into a larder. But there was a GOB (Girlfriend of Bobby) in our midst. She ratted us out, launching an all-out war that culminated in Cindy calling GOB a “bitch.”

I couldn’t wait to go home.


Spring Break 2005: Capitola, California

My fellow Midwesterners, raise your hands if you think of California as the Land of Eternal Sunshine and Warmth.

It’s not.

We had planned to go hiking in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. The guidebooks told us spring would be ideal for a visit. We could enjoy nature’s beauty in near solitude, avoiding all those pesky summertime crowds. I tell you, there’s a reason June, July and August are popular with the tourists. Because in March, the parks are blanketed in snow. Who knew? Not us. Thanks for nothing, Fodor’s.

We flew into Fresno, Dave’s luggage stayed behind at LAX. Strike one. Driving to Sequoia, where we had reservations at one of the park’s lodges, a light rain started to fall, then gave way to pea soup fog. The pavement turned to ice. Warning signs flashed: “Road Closed Ahead. Four-Wheel Drive Vehicles with Tire Chains Only.” Our rental PT Cruiser came equipped with neither. Strike two.

We headed back to Fresno. I called the lodge to tell them we might be a little late. The desk clerk informed me that four to five feet of snow were expected; he suggested we push our arrival back a day. Dave and I were sick. Assuming the Cruiser got us to the lodge, what were we supposed to do in five feet of snow? Build an Igloo? We hadn’t exactly packed for Alaska. This was California. You know, leave your cares and your mittens and longjohns behind.

We holed up for the night in a hotel near the airport. Stress oozed out of our pores. “This is not a vacation,” I said. We woke the next morning and called the lodge. The road into the park was still generally impassable; the clerk told us where we could purchase tire chains. Again, I have to say, any trip involving tire chains, not a Spring Break. Strike three. So we canceled our reservations at Sequoia and Yosemite and weighed our options: in order to make our flight back to Chicago, we needed to stay within a few hours of Fresno. We looked at a map and discovered Capitola.

Capitola is a small beach town just south of Santa Cruz, the kind of place where surfer memorials dot the cliffs along the ocean. California.

We took the Cruiser down to Carmel and paid an $8 fee for the privilege of motoring the 17-Mile Drive at Pebble Beach. I am the daughter of a golf fanatic; it would be treason to pass up Mecca. I bought souvenirs for my Dad and called him on the cell. “Guess where I am?”

From Carmel, we continued on to Big Sur. Few things in life live up to expectations. California’s Highway 1 is not one of them. We pulled over every few hundred yards, awed by the breathtaking views of ocean meeting mountains. My brain felt like an outdated computer, attempting to process gigabyte scenery at kilobyte speed.

I never wanted to go home.


Spring Break, 2006: Chicago

The weather was unseasonably warm. We went for walks in the park and took an urban hike to Margie’s Candies, where we rewarded our efforts with an ice cream sundae. We debated going downtown and taking in a museum or two but decided on Costco instead. It proved a wise decision, as they were sampling tiramisu.

For entertainment, we got creative. One night, we dropped a raisin into a glass of water to see if it would re-hydrate into a grape. From the looks of things, it did, although neither of us was willing to definitively confirm the results by eating the Frankensteinian fruit. We also played a round of the Mexican Train Game, which involves dominoes and a score sheet and is all the rage among retirees. While “Mexican” is part of the game’s proper name (I have no idea if there are other versions, like the Namibian Train Game), we are not allowed to refer to it as such in our family because my sister-in-law is Honduran.

We capped off Easter weekend with a visit to Ohio, where my parents taught us “Golf,” which involves two decks of cards and a score sheet and is the newest rage among retirees. Leading me to wonder, is there money to be made in score sheets? As the Baby Boomers age, will demand outstrip supply? Is this the one Big Get-Rich-Quick Idea I’ve been looking for?

Sometimes, it’s pays to party in your own backyard.

Tax & Spend

Financial advisers would have us take our tax refund and do something responsible with it, like open an IRA, make an extra mortgage payment or hand it over to one of their brethren for safekeeping. But I spent an entire Saturday wrestling with Turbo Tax. I figured I deserved a reward. So we took a portion of our Fun Money and in a sudden burst of consumer confidence, we bought dishes.

I am now the proud owner of eight five-piece place settings of Crate & Barrel’s Century Classic. I have been eyeing this pattern since it was introduced in 2005 and paid periodic visits to the store’s display model. But our IRS-fueled shopping spree was nearly iced by a case of Cold Feet.

I entered the store, single-minded. The first hint of wavering: a quick look at the other patterns, “just to make sure.” It was then that I noticed the signage describing the differences between stoneware, porcelain, bone china and earthenware. Based on the preponderance of young couples clutching registry forms, I suspect the information was positioned as a pre-emptive strike against an influx of June brides. It so happens that Century Classic is earthenware, the least sturdy and most prone to cracking. One wonders why it’s even manufactured, save to boost sales of replacement pieces.

(Eavesdropping on a sales clerk, I hear that bone china is durable enough to stand on. I’m selling tickets to Easter dinner, where I will test the concept on the set my parents inherited from Grandma. I promise my father’s reaction will be infinitely more entertaining than Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea.)

Wavering developed into full-blown indecision. Should we pick another pattern?

Dave and I are the masters of inaction. At our old apartment, we suffered through a rat infestation and sporadic sewage backups rather than re-locate to a hygienic, rodent-free dwelling. Because that would have required planning and effort. Currently, the walls of our spare bedroom are splashed with paint samples, and have been for the past eight months, while I debate the relative merits of Shelbourne Buff, Waterbury Cream and Dorset Gold. I should just frame the trio of splotches and tell visitors it’s an early Mark Rothko.

It took me nearly nine years to settle on Century Classic. I may never love again. So I took a deep breath and vowed to protect the fragile earthenware from that pair of death traps known as the dishwasher and microwave. Which should be relatively easy, in that we don’t own a microwave and will continue to eat off our old dishes.

Three C&B staffers packed up our place settings, cocooning each piece in an inch of tissue. I counted—a total of 126 sheets of packing paper. A couple of years ago, Dave and I vacationed in Washington—the state, not the D.C. We went hiking in Olympic National Park, where the old-growth forest predates Columbus’ “discovery” of the New World. The park is surrounded by National Forest and just plain forest, both of which are open to loggers. Driving to trailheads, we passed countless trucks hauling away loads of fallen trees. I hoped some of the timber was slated for resurrection as a hardwood floor or a baby’s crib, but now I fear the majority was destined to cushion fondue pots at Crate & Barrel.

Once home, I extricated the swaddled dishes and set about making space for them. Sent to the trash heap: assorted mismatched mugs, the last remnants of the Currier & Ives borrowed from my parents 12 years ago, and an entire set of chipped Jadeite cereal bowls. Dave confessed that the bowls made him nervous. He feared a microscopic sliver would get mixed in with his oatmeal and destroy his digestive system. I might have laughed this off had I not once read about a woman who killed her husband by grinding glass into his food. Our purchase of Century Classic may literally have saved Dave’s life. I wonder if we can deduct this on next year’s taxes as a medical expense?

Because I’ve already mentally spent our 2006 refund. I still need serving pieces.

Luminous Sighting

Lips get gloss, nails get polish, now hair gets glaze. John Frieda’s Luminous Color Glaze. It’s the first and only at-home glaze that adds a touch of color, a boost of shine and a glossy luxurious feel in just 3 minutes.

I already shampoo with Frieda’s “Brilliant Brunette.” I ask, how, exactly, does one differentiate between “brilliant” and “luminous”? I shall purchase the Color Glaze and report back on my findings.

* * *

The Cupcake Files: Case Closed

In my ongoing pursuit of truth, justice and a scapegoat in Wednesday’s cupcake catastrophe, I came across the following from Cook’s Illustrated.

Baking Outside the Tin
If you don’t own a muffin tin, we found that foil liners are sturdy enough to hold our cupcake batter.

There you have it. The culprit: flimsy UnFoil liners. Or possibly, just possibly, the person who overlooked this detail.

While I promise to get back up on the cupcake horse one day soon, next up is an Angel Food Cake for Easter. Will Martha Stewart tempt me with her Brown Sugar and Fudge Sauce recipe or will Cook’s Illustrated woo me with their fool-proof techniques?

Stay tuned.

Adventures in Baking: The Cupcake

Cupcakes make me smile. I think of birthday parties and summer picnics. Of pastel-colored paper wrappers and beaters waiting to be licked. A treat for the 8-year-old in all of us.

Yet on baking’s Richter Scale, the cupcake earns a relatively lowly rank—more difficult than toasting a Pop-Tart but several degrees of magnitude below puff pastry. To the experienced baker, and I consider myself such an individual, it’s the equivalent of Barry Bond’s playing slow-pitch softball.

Why then, does the cupcake plague me so?

Yesterday, I was aiming for 12 jumbo vanilla cupcakes. When I flipped on the oven light halfway through the allotted 30 minutes, I saw the paper wrappers drowning in a sea of batter that had overflowed its levees. Ruined.

My gut reaction—blame the recipe. I had downloaded instructions from marthastewart.com, and this wasn’t the first time the domestic doyen had led me astray. After a near debacle with Palmiers during my holiday baking extravaganza, I’ve learned to treat Martha’s oven temperatures, baking times and quantities yielded as approximations. I had adjusted for those variables and still produced cupcake soup.

I turned to the list of ingredients—nothing more exotic than cake flour, which I actually had on hand. I even sifted it with the baking powder, soda and salt as directed, a step I usually ignore but have been shamed by my brother Joey into following.

I revisited the process. This was my second stab at cupcakes in the past year. My first attempt, in which I also followed the recipe to the letter, had produced perhaps 10 times the batter necessary. It filled my baking cups twice over, plus two loaf pans, resulting in a sort of pound cake. If I had wanted pound cake, I would have made pound cake.

Martha’s recipe specifically stated that these were to be jumbo cupcakes. So as I once again eyeballed a vat of batter, I wasn’t alarmed.

“Divide batter evenly between baking cups (2/3 cup batter per cup),” Martha ordered.

I did as commanded, using a 1/3 measuring cup for added precision. My baking cups were filled nearly to the rim. I felt a slightly sinking feeling. Experience with muffins told me this couldn’t be right. Perhaps Martha had meant to say, fill baking cups 2/3 full. In which case, I would have another pound cake on my hands. So I took Martha at her word—and pulled a sheetcake out of the oven. Were it not for the pesky issue of the embedded paper liners, I could have frosted it right there and called it a day.

Much as I would love to try and convict Ms. Stewart and send her back to that prison in West Virginia or wherever it was, I must present one final bit of evidence.

I do not own a jumbo muffin/cupcake tin. So I purchased large liners at Sur La Table and arrayed them on a jelly roll pan as a substitute. I learned this technique from Costco—actually, from a box mix of Cinnabon muffins purchased at Costco—and enjoyed spectacular results. Only in that instance, the baking liners had been provided as part of the package. In retrospect, it’s possible they were both thicker and roomier than the ones I used for the cupcakes.

I am left to conclude:
A) All cupcake recipes are inherently flawed and produce too much batter
B) Never trust Martha Stewart
C) “Large” is not the same as “jumbo”

The experiment was not a complete wash. I excavated the dozen amorphous UnCupcakes from the jelly roll pan and peeled off the liners. I tossed aside Martha’s buttercream frosting recipe and turned to one devised by the editors at Cook’s Illustrated. It takes these folks a good two pages to explain how their Test Kitchen arrives at each “Best” recipe, which is annoying as hell but damned if they aren’t right. The buttercream was perfection.

I pulled down my 13x9 pan and layered a half dozen UnCupcakes along the bottom, filling in the gaps with scraps from the sheetcake. I slathered on the buttercream, smoothing over the cracks. On went another layer of UnCupakes topped by enough buttercream to disguise the imperfections and plug all the holes. (If sliced just so, I imagine it would be possible to hit a pocket of pure frosting.) The finished product: a perfectly delectable two-layer confection.

But not a cupcake.

Have You Seen This Magazine?

If “CSI” has taught us nothing, it’s that evidence is king. And not of the O.J. ill-fitting-glove variety, but iron-clad proof of guilt.

I learned this lesson myself as I attempted several months back to have an illegal dumpster removed from our street. Along with other residents of our building, I contacted the city and our alderman to complain. The linchpin in our case turned out to be a log I kept of the illicit activity. I handed it over to Streets & Sanitation, they used it to determine the best time to conduct a stakeout, and then nabbed the culprits in the act as I spied from between the slats in our blinds. The dumpster was gone the next day.

Flush from that success, I’m beginning my next campaign, this time against the United States Postal Service. I realize this is a much bigger fish to hook but the mere act of trying promises to ease my sense of powerlessness.

I am talking about the ongoing non-delivery/disappearance/theft of my magazines. I subscribe to The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and InStyle. In any given week, I am never sure which will actually arrive.

My first course of redress, logically, would be to place a call to our local postal branch. But if there is a single group of employees less interested in customer service than the USPS, I have yet to make their acquaintance.

I once requested via Post-it note (granted, a communication faux pas, as any “Sex in the City” fan can attest) that our carrier cease and desist the practice of placing magazines in bins that sit on the floor in our entryway. This is the dumping ground for catalogs and circulars, not mail we actually pay to receive, and it seemed the simplest way to nip any potential theft issue in the bud. Admittedly our mail slots are narrow, but it only takes a nanosecond to fold a magazine in order to make it fit. I know, I’ve tried. The carrier’s response, on same Post-it, assured me otherwise.

For my retaliatory salvo, I contacted the carrier’s supervisor, who said they would work on the problem. And for awhile, my magazines, save the steroidal InStyle, appeared in my box. And then they were back in the bin. And then they were in the box. And then they were in the bin. I began to speculate that someone was playing mind games with me, which would suggest a certain level of cleverness or malice. I am willing to attribute the latter.

Typically, months pass between incidents, lulling me into complacency. And then suddenly a New Yorker goes AWOL. I wait a day or two to make sure delivery isn’t just late, and then report the wayward issue to the magazine in question. (It is never Sports Illustrated, which I find the most curious piece of this puzzle. For a time, this led me to suspect that our gay neighbors across the hall were swiping InStyle and EW, but several of us in the building subscribe to the same magazines and multiple copies go astray at once.) I’m typically offered another copy sent via regular mail, which for some reason takes 6-8 weeks to ship, or to have another week tacked onto my subscription. Given the source of the matter, obviously I choose option #2. But I’m starting to worry that I’m on some watch list as the potential perpetrator of an elaborate subscription extension con.

My new strategy: I plan to keep a running tally of each issue I fail to receive, along with the cover price of replacing each copy. I will present a bill to the Post Office at the end of the year and demand recompense. And then I’ll move.

***

Luminous Sighting

April issue of InStyle (non-delivered, purchased at Border’s, $3.99), pg. 149: “…Donna Karan’s deep jonquil blend of cotton and silk, worn by the luminous Maria Bello…”

Will You Marry Me, Again?

There are days when I can identify with Elizabeth Taylor, not so much in her preference for caftans and over-teased hair, but what woman wouldn’t want to get married eight times. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not looking to trade in my guy for a newer model.

But I would like another wedding.

Surely I’m not the only woman who’s contemplated stripping off her wedding band and waltzing into a bridal shop brandishing her engagement ring. Proprietors could make a mint off this untapped market—charge us “matrons” an entrance fee and let us roll around in the taffeta, tulle and tiaras.

My first go-round was successful in many respects. Take the wedding cake, for example, a rolled fondant confection featuring four glorious layers: Banana Walnut, Lemon Raspberry, Chocolate Sabayonne, Raspberry Chambord. But other details are in dire need of a do-over. I lay awake nights ruing my hair and makeup choices (gold lipstick, what was I thinking?!) and lack of control over our deejay. If a person requests a sprightly ditty by The Jackson 5, “Beat It” is never an appropriate substitute. Try dancing to this tune at home. It can not be done.

I would also like to register for another round of presents. I am married to Dave as long as we both shall live, but a bread machine. Puh-lease. So 1997.

I find it one of life’s curiosities that we are bound for all eternity to objects selected under duress at a specific point in time. Do we go to our graves wearing the same shoes, carrying the same handbag, sporting the same hairstyle as the year in which we married? Not unless we’re Miss Havisham or Queen Elizabeth. So why only one crack at picking a china pattern?

Personally, I was not equal to the task. In fact, I’ll go so far as to admit that I choked.

I stood on the seventh, or possibly the ninth floor of Marshall Field’s behemoth State Street store, which boasts more than 600 dinnerware patterns. I stared at the Wall of Wedgewood and the rest of the porcelain gods. I tried to envision presiding over an occasion that might require a gravy boat.

The gravy boat, I believe, is what separates your Fine China people from your Everyday Ware people. I grew up eating off plates purchased at the supermarket by my great aunt through some sort of coupon book program. I guess that makes me Everyday.

I looked at my registry and left the space next to “place settings” blank. I couldn’t find a pattern deserving of a lifelong commitment, so we made do with Dave’s dowry, a set of stoneware from Pier 1. I didn’t want to rush this decision, my sister’s reviled Pfaltzgraff serving as a Lesson Learned.

Nine years later, the Pier 1 is long gone and I’m trying to extricate myself from a disastrous affair with jadeite. For the uninitiated, jadeite is the milky, key-lime-pie green earthenware that makes for a picturesque accessory when set behind glass-fronted cabinets, but chips like mad when run through the dishwasher. We’ve replaced an entire set of cereal bowls and currently are unable to field an entire team of mugs.

Were I to see it in a shop window today, I would pass the jadeite by. It was purchased during a retro phase—I could just as easily be talking about Fiestaware—when my true taste has steadily evolved toward modern classic.

So, given a second (or in the case of Ms. Taylor, a ninth) chance to get things right, what would I do today, standing in the upper reaches of Marshall Field’s, facing that same Wall of Wedgewood?

I would march myself over to Crate & Barrel. There I would register for eight five-piece place settings of Century Classic. I know it’s “the one” the way I knew Dave was “The One.” The pattern, originally designed in 1952 by Eva Zeisel, was re-introduced in 2005 and features rounded curves and quirky teardrop serving pieces. I might even ask for the gravy boat.

Now I just need Dave to jump on board the whole divorce/remarriage thing and we’re set.