The Bewildered Housewife

Well, THAT didn’t last very long. 

Narcissists apparently suffer from amnesia quite frequently.  Every point made in the recent blowout between me and my mother-in-law has vanished into thin air, every last bit of lightning-sharp anger has been dutifully swept away like a broom to her size 5 footprints.  It has been nary three weeks since, and the woman has already reverted to her old ways. 

This is the problem with resting on one’s laurels; they bio-degrade entirely too fast.  I am foolishly disappointed, but I am not surprised.  I feel like a superhero who had been flying along famously until she looked down, at which point her cape deflates and she tumbles past skyscrapers to the city floor.  I thought for sure my venom had more staying power, but will dust myself off and take it as a lesson to further hone my fury.

Father’s Day is quickly approaching (and I’ve got ideas about the origins of that day, too.  It was most likely created by the same woman who dreamed up Mother’s Day, in order to a. have another reason to guilt her children in both May and June, because we all know there is little guilt to be found in August and b. have a way of gauging which parent is favored, by who got the better gifts). 

This means that another Royal Family Craptacular is on the horizon.  It’s brunch at the castle this time, which is bad because it will no doubt entail my mother-in-law’s cooking, but good because of the close proximity to my pick of ten private bathrooms in which to vomit. 

I shall wear my best tiara.

There is a baby boom happening here on the West Coast of the United States.  The wealthy Jewish daughters of my mother-in-law’s friends in particular are popping out children at breakneck speeds, destined to be weaned from supple breasts straight into Juicy Couture.

My mother-in-law delights in these children (which on most days, I find odd, given that I am halfway through my pregnancy and she still hasn’t told a single soul).  She takes every occasion we see each other as an opportunity to describe each of their births in detail.  Fortunately, these stories are never very long; most last about two sentences and invariably include the words “scheduled”, “induced” and/or “voluntary c-section”.  But there is an art to my mother-in-law’s storytelling.  Her labor tales are always related with a soft tilt of the head, the last syllable drawn out long, and the whole thing colored by a tone of voice usually reserved for explaining something incredibly complex to a five-year-old, such as “That big bad tiger wouldn’t be nice to people, so that’s why we keep him in a zooooooo,” or “People are putting money in that man’s cup because he has no place to liiiiiiiive“.

Once my mother-in-law burps up the initial news and the method of birth, she narrows her eyes and pauses to look me over for a moment.  Now comes the head-tilt.  I watch in slow motion as she opens her mouth.  Here is where she inserts her expert medical opinions, apparently earned during her lengthy residencies at Saks and Nordstrom. 

She opted for surgery because:
(choose all that apply)

She’s just such a tiny girl.

Her hips were far too narrow for a natural birth (for the eightieth time).

She was just so exhausted, she couldn’t bear to be pregnant anymore.

and my favorite, which rolls the soothing voice, the narrowed eyes, and a slow head nod all into one bundle of condescending bliss:

It’s just what people today dooooooooo.

I follow along with all the rapt attention of a giraffe on qualudes.  Who knew that a woman oblivious to the dangers of injecting botulism into her face could be so knowledgeable about labor and delivery?  And here I was making monthly appointments with amateurs.  Boy, am I naive!  Hopefully she will break through the line of security officers instructed specifically to keep her out of my delivery room, and show us all how it’s really done.  But that will only be if I am very, very lucky… but then, I AM her daughter-in-law. 

If that doesn’t make me lucky, I don’t know what does.

I am the type of woman whose throat physically hurts if there is something I wish to say, but don’t.  When I am not just merely miffed but genuinely angry, I pace, fragile things spontaneously break with the slightest graze of my fingertips, and the top of my head tingles as my hair literally stands on end.  I become an impossible, immovable force and when I have finally had enough, you will know it.  I ought to wear a sign across my chest that says, Do Not Reach Inside the Animal’s Cage, or Don’t Fuck With the Mama Tiger.

Cut to early this weekend.  Telephone.  Living room.  Mother-in-law.  Pregnant woman who had not yet eaten breakfast.  You see where this is going…  I shall not re-enact the torrent of fury unleashed that morning, but I think its quake may have postponed the Big One in Los Angeles for at least another few years.

Confused, silenced and stunned, I do believe my mother-in-law is now beginning to understand how serious this Mama Tiger really is.  So a bit of advice to all the accomodating and polite ones out there, sweetly operating under the pretense that whatever must be said can be communicated kindly:

“Kind” only works if the party you are dealing with is SANE.  Don’t squeeze another compromised moment’s worth of sweetness from your body.  Pounce.  Hard.  Show your fangs and watch the unheard points you’d been offering with honey for a year suddenly received in an instant.

And sleep like a baby.

My husband is a wonderful critic.  He enjoys my use of humor as defense, and prods me to keep writing even when my mind goes blank for days, or weeks, at a time.  Last night we were talking in bed, various arms and legs asleep under the weight of our animals. 

“It’s just a little dark,” he said.  He was talking about yesterday’s post, which apparently reads like a Grimm Fairy Tale.  He’s right, it is dark, but only because it’s true.  I huffed and puffed and channeled my inner Steve Martin and said, “Well, I can’t be funny ALL the time!”  People who are funny ALL the time are a bit creepy, to be honest.  I want to smack them upside the head and tell them to come out with what’s really hurting them.  I figure that if I falter into such “darkness” every once in a while, I’ll escape the resident creepiness that comes from denying it.

People have been asking if I truly hate my mother-in-law, so let me clear this up.  I do not hate her; I simply don’t like her.  This is a certain distinction.  I don’t wish her harm or that her airplane will fall out of the sky, and if it did I would surely feel badly.  Kind of like when my husband immediately apologizes to the big black spider we just smashed and flushed down the toilet - sorry, little buddy - even after I’d hopped from foot to foot shouting, “Kill the bastard!”  It’s not the spider’s fault it is ugly and potentially poisonous; it is simply being itself.  I, however, don’t have to give it the chance to bite me.  This is the way I feel about my mother-in-law.  Make sense?

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and the second year in a row I have managed to escape spending the afternoon with my husband’s mother.  Last year at this time, we were newly engaged and I was plagued by a string of migraine headaches that were miraculously cured by saying the word No.  (I ought to bottle the word and sell it freely to daughter-in-laws everywhere, sparing them unpleasant experiences while simultaneously making myself rich.)  This year, it is refreshing to have stated openly and weeks ago that I would not be attending the worship ceremony.  I have my OWN mother to adore (albeit, over the phone) for being such a wonderful woman; I have no need to make smiley faces at another dame who would change my hair, my clothes, my attitude and, oh yeah, my husband if she could.  Call me crazy for banning the holiday, but the last time we celebrated an occasion in public (aka my rehearsal dinner), she pulled me aside before leaving the house and pounced on me with a tube of lipstick and a can of spray-on tan for my legs.  Do I feel like being accosted AND bringing flowers this time?  Sorry, but no.

Oh, look!  There went my headache!  Damn, this stuff WORKS.

It’s that sweet time of year when the apricots are ripening on the trees out back, the birds wake me up before the alarm clock, and mentally ill mothers everywhere expect their alienated children to come bowing, hat in hand, at their feet.  And somehow, for no logical reason, it works.

Now this is what I call a neat trick.  I’d love to learn how to be needy and rude for 364 days in a row and still have people bring me flowers and candy.  I wonder if the size of the bouquet would be to scale with the degree of misery I impart?  Imagine the possibilities!

Given the imminence of this special day, I’ve done a bit of research and discovered its true origins.  Mother’s Day originated not in the heart of a strong, loving Mama whose only requested reward was her child’s happiness.  Nay, the day sprouted from the darkened mind of a short, tyrannical woman who insisted on being praised for her marginal mothering.  And it goes a little something like this:

The poor lonely Mother awoke one morning to find herself utterly alone; alone in her bed with the ironed sheets, and alone in her mansion with only the live-in housekeeper as company, but he’s Philipino, so he doesn’t count.   She rolled out of bed, casting a remorseful glance at the four Snickers wrappers lying empty on the bedside table, and padded on pedicured toes into the bathroom.  There, she slathered cavier on her face, just as the doctor had ordered to preserve her face-lift.  Mother looked into the mirror and sighed.  Oh, how she wished her son would just show up with flowers and tickets for a cruise.  Or that her daughter-in-law would surprise her with a stack of magazines, from which she’d permit her to choose a haircut that she felt more suited the young wife.  These kids today, they need guidance, they need HER.  Why can’t she make them know that?

Mother wrapped herself in her robe and sauntered toward the kitchen in search of coffee and doughnuts.  She stopped along to the way to check her emails and voicemachine for the familiar presence of her grown children, only they had long since stopped phoning, although she had no idea why.  She thought they’d said something about “invasive” or “manipulating,” but clearly they were high on drugs because they made no sense at all.  Whatever they had said, apparently they meant it, for she hadn’t heard from them in a very long time.  Mother could barely even remember what the youngest one and his wife looked like; she’d never bothered to put up a picture.  How typically selfish of them to leave her memory!

Mother chewed her doughnuts in a silence that no click of Vivier heels could fill.  She stewed.  She lamented.  She made a few phone calls, and then wept herself into a frenzy in the presence of her similarly surgically-altered friends. For she did, after all, sacrifice everything for her ungrateful children, who only sought to take from her every other day of the year.  And for what?

‘Is it too much to ask for these selfish little brats to at least pretend to love me for one measly afternoon?  Don’t you see how they treat me? ’   Her friends, drunk on the standard Upper Class Cocktail of acrylic nail fumes and Xanax, clucked their tongues and helped her devise a way to guilt her adult children into submission.  Once they felt confident with their plan, they telephoned their good friend Ari Hallmark in New York and sold him the idea.  The rest is history.

Yes, folks, that’s where Mother’s Day came from.  Just because you didn’t know it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Coming up:  Mother’s Day Countdown - The Revolution!

Today I am baking banana cookies, replete with walnuts and chocolate chips.  I hope my husband doesn’t read this at work, because I’d like for them to be a warm surprise when he gets home.  I feel myself about to enter into another cycle of recipe exploration, because I have adopted the following tried and true methodology to life:  When all else fails, cook.

If you’re anything at all like me, you occasionally feel guilty for crimes you have not committed.  With such venom being spewed from the doors of my in-laws’ mansion lately, I have naturally spent some time pondering the possibility that there could be some truth to their accusations.  I try to be fair, just in case I need to learn something.

For instance, is it true that all of my husband’s actions are designed to mortally wound his mother’s feelings?  Did he really marry me with the sole intent of abandoning her ? 

Curious!  I ponder on…

Might it be true that I, in marrying my husband, was not expected to merely be an excellent wife?  Did I also sign up for the required task of frequently lunching, shopping and closely bonding with my mother-in-law, at which I am failing miserably?  Is it possible that my independence is indeed a cruel, purposeful display of defiance?

After much consideration, I have reached my conclusion.  It goes a little like Kiss My Ass.  It ain’t all about you.  Put on your big boy shorts and take some responsibility for your own unhappiness.

Mother-in-law has been in New York, purchasing yet another Park Ave. apartment to become bored with and sell again 12 months from now.  In her absence, she left a string of nasty emails, and a Father-in-law to scold the two of us for being so terrible.  He called us over to his study last week, and proceeded to spend the next three hours counting off each of their resentments. 

In no particular order:  My husband hadn’t sought their approval for his car.  I hadn’t sought their approval to leave my job.  We hadn’t sought their approval before conceiving a child.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  And the best part is that we’ll either shape up and obey, or ‘not be part of the family’. 

“What brought this all on?’”  I wonder for the next week.  “They’ve never hidden their disapproval, but why are their resentments suddenly surfacing with a vengeance?”   And then it dawns on me.  I look at my watch and glance up at the fan that has been visibly covered in shit since the day we informed them we are pregnant.  Coincidence? 

My willingness to tolerate other people’s crap is shrinking in direct proportion to my expanding belly.  Really, the more room my womb takes up, the less room there is for bullshit.  So, in the interest of not committing homicide, I decided to enlist some help.  But how?  I’ve never been huge on self-help books.  All the ones I’ve ever read usually have me doing primal screams at the moon or sucking my thumb in the fetal position and I, as a rule, prefer to do neither.  But I’ve been diligent lately about making sense of the situation, and this is a task too large for one person. 

And so, against my normally stellar judgment, I surfed around Amazon until I landed on this book by Susan Forward, mostly because I love her name.  She’s eloquent in a Take No Prisoners kind of way, and I do love a woman who tells it like it is.  In it, she outlines his parents’ behavior with such ease that I seriously wonder if she’s teamed up with my astrologer and camped out in our bushes.

“…the crime is that he had become independent.  In response, his parents had become desperate, and lashed out with the tactics they knew best: withdrawing love and predicting catastrophe.  Like most controlling parents, his were incredibly self-centered.  They felt threatened by his happiness, instead of seeing it as a validation of their parenting skills.  They see the new spouse as a competitor for their child’s devotion. They make every choice an all-or-nothing decision.  With directly controlling parents, there is no middle ground.  If the adult child tries to gain some control over his own life, he pays the price in guilt, frustrated rage and a deep sense of disloyalty.”**

Wonder how they’ll take the news that we’re selling the house and moving 900 miles away.  Get out your crash helmets, kids.

** Toxic Parents, Susan Forward, Ph.D.

Most mothers teach their children that if they’ve nothing nice to say, then saying nothing is preferable.  My own mother, however, taught me that if there is truth worth telling, to tell it. 

So Ima gonna tell, and youra gonna listen.  Here’s an open letter.

Dear Mother-in-Law With the Quintessential Chicken-Headed Haircut that for Some Reason You Paid For,

Next time you whine about not having a closer relationship, don’t preface it by saying that you “made a big mistake” by “agreeing” to our wedding.  I know this comes as a great shock to you, but we never asked for, nor required, your permission. 

Next time you hijack your son’s entire wedding and ruin any chance at a healthy relationship with your daughter-in-law, at least put up a fucking picture.  It’s called “follow-through.”  No time or space to hang a portrait, you say?  The wedding was eight months ago and you’ve got a 13,000 square foot mansion.  The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the photographic evidence of our marriage in no way means it did not happen. 

Next time your grown, married son lets you know he’s having a child, try to say something other than “Oy.” 

Next time you have a shot at therapy, for god’s sake TAKE IT.  While difficult, it’s not impossible to treat Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  There are medications, and if those don’t work, I will happily commit you for extensive treatment.

No, you are not merely a “Jewish mother” who simply “can’t help but be involved”, nor any number of benign, stereotypical caricatures with which you identify to make excuses for your inappropriate and infantile behavior.  Really, you’re just an asshole who has had her butt kissed for far too long.  The sooner you cop to it, the sooner I can let you out of this armbar.

Your comments about “the working-class” are anything but elegant.  This is the problem with the nouveau-riche.  You forget that your parents could not afford a bed, and that you and your husband lived in their basement until you were thirty.  Your elitism stems from self-loathing.  Your ostentatiousness is a desperate attempt to compensate.  Pull your head out of your ass.

The night you scolded your son in public for expressing an ambition not in line with your wishes, you failed to recognize that you were lecturing a grown man and his wife.  Plenty of other people did notice, however.  They stared, and it made even your diamonds look ugly.

Next time, try to save the remark, “Good boy!  You finished your plate!” for a four-year-old.

Next time your son attempts an adult conversation, try not to fly into a personal attack deliberately aimed at making him feel guilty and small.  Try not to become enraged at his adult communication or begin slinging veiled threats.  By the way, thank you very much for wishing us a happy life - we shall have one.  You, on the other hand, are quite unhappy and I feel sorry for your utter lack of joy, empathy, or ability to be accountable for your own fulfillment.

In Summary (take a note if you have to):

I. Personally. Have. Had. It.

He may be your son, but he is my husband, my lover, my best friend and the father of my child.  According to my calculations, I have you outnumbered by the sheer nature of my being.  There will be no further contact until you can act your age and show up with an honest apology and a little fucking respect.  Until then.

The Queen is dead; Long live the Queen!

The life of a writer brings with it some reasonable degree of danger - that of being pummeled to death by our subjects.  It isn’t as romantic as running from the CIA, but I do spend some time looking over my shoulder or peering through the blinds, where I half expect to see an angry mob of well-dressed wives descending upon my lawn. 

This mob is, of course, led by my mother-in-law.  She times their advance and, in groups of five or six, the women take turns trying to break down my door with the heels of their Manolo Blahniks.  Obviously this takes a while, so I pour a cup of tea and watch from the sofa as they each chip a nail and quit in favor of lunch.

I have become increasingly aware of my mother-in-law’s lack of appreciation for me.  It’s not easy being the wretch who is ruining her son’s life, and I’d like a little respect.  I spent years perfecting the art of wrestling sons from their mothers, after all.  While other 12-year-olds were listening to Bon Jovi I was studying mortuary science, and one day someone will excavate my parents’ lawn to find a heap of dismembered Ken parts.  As if it isn’t work to saw off all those limbs. 

Occasionally my mother-in-law forgets about these skills and challenges me to spar.  When she realizes that her Blinding Golden Earring stance is no match for me, she goes into another style of fighting altogether.  It’s called Food Warfare.  She introduced me to this art the night of my rehearsal dinner where she, well aware of my distinct dislike of lamb, served it and its disgusting green jelly counterpart to our guests.  I foolishly thought this choice odd, but benign.  Only months later did it occur to me that I’d been played for the first time.  The second time was Thanksgiving Dinner (read Vices and Spice Part Deux below), but by this point I began to get wise.  My husband and I began making reservations for the meals shared with his parents, where no yams could be laced with either distrust or heavy cream.  We even stepped up our offense, bringing wine to each dinner because when tipsy, his mother’s aim is far less true.

But I must concede to her this third, and final, victory.

My husband and I dined with the in-laws last night, and she brought along a batch of homemade cupcakes.  My mother-in-law fancies herself quite the baker; I maintain that she is a far better shopper and wish she would use those skills to purchase her baked goods rather than make them.  But this was a special occasion and so, in the spirit of kindness, we politely ooed and ahhed at the… what was that… icing? 

I generally avoid eating things that cannot be readily identified, especially if these things have a sequined skin that is usually reserved for lizards and various insects.  But as a show of good faith, I dug in.  Whatever it was left a greasy slick on my tongue that tasted vaguely of petroleum and lingered far into the evening, despite my attempts to douse it with an array of vodka and menthol lozenges. 

No, the cupcakes were not sitting right.  By the time my husband and I made it into bed, I had spent ample time in the bathroom and was beginning to feel nauseous.  I reiterate that there is something about my mother-in-law’s cooking that my body just does not like.  Perhaps it is the dash of resentment folded into each bite; or perhaps the amount of plastic surgery the woman has had somehow seeps through her fingers as she cooks, magically bestowing even the most whole, live foods with the shelf life of a twinkie.

Whatever the great, bilious mystery, I applaud her efforts to debilitate me.  This is the most calculating she’s done since reducing a recipe by two-thirds.  I am sure she is clapping her hands with glee this morning.  Certain that I am well incapacitated behind the walls of my home, she phones her friends and rallies the mob into action, instructing them to circle the Mercedes around the block, stilletos in hand, waiting to pounce.

The water’s in the tea kettle, ladies.  I’ll be waiting.

I am noticing a distressing theme to this blog.  This is my third post, and also the third time I am talking about my mother-in-law.  Damn it,  she really is everywhere.

But she likes it that way.  I’m sure she does it on purpose, to inject just enough under-handed slight into a situation as to first, leave one speechless and then to second, cause one to awaken at 3am whispering venomous, imaginary comebacks that one rarely has the gall to utter in the daytime.  I’m sure I can sense her smiling in bed, pleased that her nefarious plan has worked.

Take last night, for instance.  I spent the usually sedate hours between 2 and 5am tossing and turning, plagued by a resentment I hadn’t realized mattered so much.  My mother-in-law never had a daughter and so spent the first two months of my engagement to her youngest son finally living out her fantasy.  She began buying me clothes and taking me to luncheons.  In my naivety, I miscalculated.  What I thought was a genuine interest in me was, in fact, a predator’s gaze.  I was in dangerous territory.

I got a taste of how dysfunctional things could get when she began talking about ”her” bridal shower.  While my guest list consisted of my mother, sisters, a few best friends and myself, I was instructed to purchase six (count em, SIX) hostess gifts.  I was puzzled.  Why on earth it took 6 women to organize a shower was beyond me.  Would there be giraffe rides?

In the end, it became clear why so many troops were required.  Any one of those women alone would have been crushed beneath the weight of the nametags.  Yes, nametags.  I’m going to let you sit with that for a moment. 

Right.  I’ve never met another woman who had to wear a sticker to her own shower identifying her as the betrothed.  Hello, my name is The Bride.  Won’t you admire this cute little flower drawn in red felt marker next to my name?  By the way, who the hell are you people?

And so, I spent a lovely afternoon getting drunk with sixty women I had never met before.  Sixty women from The Valley; sixty wives with diamonds; sixty sets of face-lifts in various states of disrepair.  The more champagne I had, the harder it was to tell between the pulled faces and suspiciously perky breasts.  It was like being in a room of identical, animatronic dolls, only worse because they actually talked.  In the end I suppose that the nametags were useful, though only to me.  (Note to Darwin:  It seems that once women achieve aesthetic uniformity, they are able to identify each other by scent.  This is a skill I have not yet honed.)

Months later, after The Wedding (another blog post… better pack a lunch for that one), I am thankful for the gifts and the graciousness of these strange women, none of whom I could pick out of a lineup.  I remember how my mother-in-law was lavished with the most attention that day; how she glowed and basked; how her friends strutted proudly around the garden tables, satisfied to have given her the best bridal shower a mother-in-law could ask for.

But I will have my revenge.  I planned it out last night somewhere around 4am.  My husband and I are trying for baby and I am waiting patiently, positively stalking the moment when we offer the news - that there will be NO baby shower, the nursery will be painted yellow, the baby will be sleeping next to me, and the pregnancy will NOT be televised.  I am anticipating what might pass as shock across her paralyzed brow.  And I will laugh.

Oh, I will laugh.

Is that how you spell “deux?”

 Today is Day Three of the Ultimate Cleanse.  My husband and I decided we needed a good scrub for our innards, but he abandoned the product last night.  Tummy is just too sensitive.  I, on the other hand, am continuing en force and I’m glad I’ve stuck it out thus far.  My intestines are slowly - slowly - giving up the ghost.  Actually, it’s more like a gaggle of spooky spectors, but you get the idea.

I’ve been hearing about this product for years but had always been reluctant to pass an alien mass from my bum.  These past few weeks - nay, these past two MONTHS - have been brutal to an already sensitive system.  In fact, it started with Thanksgiving dinner at my mother in law’s house.  I took one look at the dinner table and knew that the entire holiday was not going to be pretty.  Yam souffle - as in, yams whipped with what, cream and sugar?  Creamed corn?  Sausage stuffing?  Gravy made with starch and flour?  Sure, I’ll have seconds!

 …and thirds and fourths and fifths, only those were coming out the other end.  My mother in law’s cooking is just the gift that keeps on giving.

Since then I just haven’t been the same.  It was like a sonic boom of processed food that sent my system spiraling in another direction that I am only now, with the aid of copious amounts of vita-pills, beginning to stabilize from.  Add christmas baking, sour cream dips (oh god) and thoroughly hydrogenated chips to the mix, and you might just stop me on the street and ask me what my due date is.

 Because that’s how my belly looks: impregnated circa oh, say, October or so.  Only, it’s not.  It would be charming if it was, because that’s exactly what my husband and I are trying to achieve.  Only, we haven’t yet and I am still thinking about buying some maternity tops to hide this basketball I seem to be carrying around above the button of my skinny jeans.

What I like about the Ultimate Cleanse is that you don’t have to fast or follow a severely restricted diet.  Probably it would be best if one did, but it seems to do the trick on its own.  I’ve been pretty conscious and have been sticking to mainly vegetables, fish and chicken in the hopes of helping the process along.  I definitely do not have as much of an appetite, except for the times when my odd brain tries to talk me into pizza or a burger under the flawed premise that it’s all going to be flushed out anyway.  I call bullshit and go back to my salad.

I’ll post updates on my progress with the Ultimate Cleanse, but I will NOT post any manner of disgusting photographs.  Hopefully the effects will be great and long-lasting, so that the next time my belly looks this way, it will be a happy occasion.

In the last year, I have realized that the location of The Kitchen is very far away from Mali, Kenya, Darfur, Guatemala, Peru and… well, pretty much everywhere but The Kitchen. Standing over the sink is certainly not the same thing as organizing an HIV prevention outreach event, and in no way does dicing a garlic clove resemble saving the world. While “sautee the onions over low heat until transparent” is not code for “meet the caravan of refugees at three o’clock”, I can - and often do - find a little morsel of meaning here and there.

 Funny that lately, it’s been in the form of food.  Cooking dinner is one of my greatest joys, and I put an obsessive and inappropriate amount of time into deciding a menu for just my husband and me.  I close my eyes and envision a tender pink salmon filet poached with fennel and champagne.  I watch it nestle happily into place beside the darling snap peas beaded with sweat.  Sigh.

Ok, that was weird.  Moving on.

Another food-based passion is my volunteer work at the Food Bank.  Each week we stuff 150 backpacks full of easy to prepare or ready-to-eat food, plus fresh fruit.  These are distributed to local elementary school kids who, for one reason or another, don’t have a stable food source.  I found a call for volunteers online (VolunteerMatch.com is great) and this nearly broke my heart.

I happily began my time at the Food Bank two weeks ago and reported this to my mother-in-law, who has an itchy need to know what the hell I do with my time since I’m not calling or seeing her every ten minutes.  In addition to catering hand and foot to *gasp* her spoiled rotton yet wonderful son, I informed her of the food program for kids.  And then she said something that made me realize yet again that for all of her incredible resources, her Gucci, her Hermes and her Botox, she will never be anything more than typical:

“You’re sure it’s going to the right place?” she asked.

This is the odd thing about charity.  My husband’s parents have given literally millions to (already fancy) hospitals, foundations, country clubs, you name it.  This is the woman who told everyone she was going to volunteer in the newborn nursery, and then quit after one day.  Her veiled explanation translated to one of being that there weren’t enough “white” babies to hold.  Yes, this is the woman who asks me if FOOD is going to the right place.

It took me longer than usual to respond, as I was suddenly taken by the mental picture of a man in an Armani suit filling his pockets with cheese.  He has a wicked grin on his face and is salivating.  He has a thought bubble over his head as his hands manickly swipe every plastic fork in sight: Today, pretzels; Tomorrow, the CARIBBEAN!  I mean, fuck.  A person has to try REALLY HARD to embezzle applesauce.

At any rate, it’s funny to see people’s reactions toward public aid agencies.  Everyone has a political chip on their shoulder, bitching about how their tax dollars are feeding, god forbid, the hungry.  Then they get in their Benz SUVs and drive home to their estate to boss around the nanny.

Please god, you there, past the telephone wires and up in the stars and airplane lights, don’t ever let me be so ignorant.