“Can you give these books back to your mom?” I said to my son’s friend, handing three novels out my car window.“No, I can’t take them,” he said. “I’ll probably lose them.”“Just bring them into your house,” I said.“I’ll lose them before I get inside,” he said.We were having this conversation at the curb just a few yards away from his front door. I took the books back and replaced them on the passenger seat of my car, because I suspected that he was probably right.“Remember yesterday, B went to the bank to get a debit card?” my son said. I nodded, one of the few things I did remember about …

  Early on I would just go to see who vomits. Which is really out of character for me. I usually can’t abide anything bilious, but somehow, in the runners, it didn’t make me gag, but instead left me with a feeling of awe that was at first unexpected and which later I feel like I became almost addicted to. When people talk about runners, they usually focus on the Runner’s High. The euphoric feeling afterwards that you can do anything. That you’re gorgeous and invincible and, well, perfect. However, that is not how the runners present when they’re walking beyond the finish line, holding their …

On Saturday afternoon, at approximately 2 p.m., the power went out. It was hard to tell at first because everyone was in the dining room by that point, and the dining room had floor-to-ceiling windows; it was extra bright out with the snow, so it’s not like it got dark or anything. In fact, the main clue was that the music stopped, but everyone just thought the deejay was taking a break, because, really, who would imagine losing power in the middle of an October Bar Mitzvah? Actually, it wasn’t the middle; it was very near the beginning. After the cocktail hour, but well before dinner was …

I was about 17, when I went to my first concert. I was with a bunch of friends and we drove what seemed like a million miles from suburban New Jersey to the Nassau Coliseum to see Jethro Tull. There were maybe eight of us and we situated ourselves inside of a flower delivery van that one of the kids drove for his job. There were no seats in the back of the van, just hard corrugated metal and errant Baby’s Breath. The drive was long. It was raining. And I remember that bumpy, endless trip as being not only one of the first times I felt really grown up, but also my first introduction to that …

There’s a store on Church Street that I’d never been in.  By all accounts it looks like a florist.  This is mainly because the sidewalk in front of the store is filled with plants, planters, birdbaths and various other items you might find in front of a flower shop.  Also, it has the word “flowers” in its name.  I was stalking a new friend the other day and saw her slip in there, so, despite not needing flowers, I decided to follow. The entryway of the store is filled with little gifty things – indeed, the type of things you might find in a flower shop.  There were a few racks of greeting …

Not long ago, I found a jar of honey in the living room. It was just sitting there on the stereo cabinet beside a framed photograph of my kids. I snatched it up and marched straight into the TV room. “Whose is this?” I demanded, holding it straight out in front of me. I tilted my wrist side to side for emphasis. “Whose honey is this?” My kids just looked confused. Why is their mother yelling about a honey jar? Why is she treating it as if it were contraband? I’ve been losing a lot of things lately, and that troubles me. But finding things almost feels worse. I recently lost my favorite RayBan…

I was almost late for an Emergency Coffee Date the other day because I was having A Moment with the meter maid. I’d put my quarter in and nothing happened and while I was cursing, I saw her walking to her car. I yelled, “Excuse me,” in that voice I reserve for people at whom I’m about to launch a hissy fit at–although she didn’t know me, so she was unaware that my usual voice is not so shrill.  “I just put money in the meter,” I called over to her, “and it didn’t give me any time.” She started toward me. “This happens all the time,” I added in a voice you could tell was exasperated whether …

My youngest is off to a new school this week and the preparation makes me sigh. My preparation. For revisiting that strange planet called Middle School with its unique brand of intrigue.  Not so long ago, my older son introduced me to the finer points of Middle School during a shopping expedition and I remember thinking, Lewis Carroll, step aside. We were off to buy sneakers, a once simple activity that had suddenly become highly complicated. He’d asked me to take him for weeks, and I’d put him off. He already had a pair of sneakers, and I didn’t understand why he needed another one. Finally…

I was at the beach with a bunch of teenagers recently and the language was as salty as the air.  It made me feel right at home.   It also made me think about the first time I dropped the F-bomb with my son.  At the time, I remember thinking it was noteworthy not because I’d finally cursed in front of him, but rather because I’d been able to hold out for so long.  In general, I curse like a – I was going to say longshoreman, but the fact is, I curse like a girl raised in New Jersey. Which is to say, easily and often. The decision not to curse around my children was never very high-minded. I …

I’m not sure if it’s a Leo thing, but many of us with August birthdays don’t just celebrate the day we were born, we celebrate the whole week.  Sometimes the whole month.  For me, celebrating doesn’t entail much more than saying, “It’s my birthday!”  To which someone will respond, “Oh, Happy Birthday!” and I’ll offer a big, gushy, “Thanks!” and, voila, I feel celebrated. I usually keep my birthday expectations very low.  Similar to Mother’s Day, if no one ends up in the emergency room and/or I don’t have to clean up vomit, I consider the day a resounding success. I was not born with this …

I now know that there is a qualitative difference in reading about teenage boys being mauled by a bear in Alaska and reading about them when when you yourself actually have a teenage boy in Alaska.  Even though I learned about this horrific incident after I had spoken to my teenage boy who was safely waiting to board his plane in Anchorage Airport, I spent the whole day troubled and distracted, a sinking feeling inside that I just couldn’t shake, as if he were still in some kind of imminent danger. Thirty days ago, I said to him, “Don’t get killed by a bear,” and he smirked and said, “I won’t…

There was a huge beetle in the basement the other day.  My 12-year-old discovered it when we were down there looking for an old toy gun.  When I say huge, I mean by general Northeast Bug standards.  It was a big, hefty beetle, but he could probably have fit inside a ping-pong ball – if he could bend at the waist, that is.  But this guy couldn’t, which is why he was in the predicament he was in. His main problem was that he was upside down.  I had a boyfriend in college who, largely to amuse me, used to drop to the floor onto his back and jerk his arms and legs back and forth in a silly, …

I lost my cart at Kings this morning.  I went to Kings to buy almond butter because I forgot to buy it at Whole Foods when I was there yesterday.  The main reason I went to Whole Foods was to get some Omega-3/6/9 oil that I heard about here on Patch.  I’ve known about Essential Fatty Acids for a while, but I am grossed out by fish oil.  I’ve tried to get my EFAs through sprinkling ground flax seed on my oatmeal in the morning, and while I enjoy its fibrous, nutty goodness, it doesn’t seem, after a year of sprinkling, that it’s done what I had hoped it would do.  Which is to make my brain a …

I play tennis with Ann on Fridays. Or, I did, until her surgery. She had to get some stuff in her wrist fused together and she hasn’t been able to play for a while. Ann loves Friday tennis for much the same reason I do: it makes us feel better. Not just the hitting (or the occasional winning) but the being together – a sometimes unlikely group of women who know just enough about each other’s triggers and downfalls that with a little time and a lot of good vibes we are often able to put our collective Humpty Dumptys back together again. Ann is especially good at this. Probably the best of all …

My husband was all for it, but I was on the fence for weeks. My son was still very young and I wasn’t sure he was ready. Finally, they won me over.  We were given instructions – Chick Care 101 – and asked to show up on the appointed day with a large cardboard box, chick bedding and food.  My then-second-grader’s class egg-hatching project would be coming home to roost. On my way out to pick up supplies, the phone rang.  Another chick mom was at her third store trying to buy feed. I hadn’t considered that, with all the chick pick-ups, there might be a run on chick food.  She finally found a …

I’m not really married to Spiderman, it just feels that way sometimes.  Mainly, because my actual husband owns his own Spiderman suit and is not at all shy about popping it on if the occasion calls for it.  Lately, there have been a few calls.  My husband told me weeks ago that he would be spending some portion of July 4th at Egan’s Pub, dressed as Spiderman.  He’s often an absentee husband for much of July 4th.  The past few years he’s been invited to ride in a float in the parade.  When I say “he,” I mean Spiderman.  The July 4th Parade passes right in front of our house.  In fact, when we …

Last Thursday, I spent the whole morning nearly buck-naked with a perfect stranger. And it wasn’t by accident. In early May, as Mother’s Day approached, I said to my husband, “Please don’t send me flowers. If you’re going to spend money on me for Mother’s Day, buy me a session with Jennifer.” This was a big step for me on many levels. The first being Asking For What I Want, and not because I’m depleted and at the end of my rope, but just because I might enjoy it. The second was Asking For Help, specifically for something other than killing a bug or plunging a toilet. And finally, of course, …

I noticed the boy and his mother right away, not just because they had taken the two seats next to me, but also because it was 8 o’clock in the morning and they were both eating bags of Dipsy Doodles. I heard them speak to each other once, the boy sputtering something through a mouthful of food. He was a very messy eater and I remember thinking at his age, (18 maybe), he should not have been. I didn’t understand what they said to each other, but recognized they were speaking Arabic.  I was up and down, up and down from my seat. I probably used the bathroom six times in the hour before we …

In 1999, my best friend and I bid on the same house. I was pregnant with my second child; she already had two small children.  We both lived in a town where people with school-aged children all seemed to be moving away. I was sad and exhausted from losing friends and neighbors. I said to my husband, “I don’t want to spend the next two decades saying goodbye to people.” So he agreed to move to the suburbs. I didn’t think my friend and I would even look at the same houses. Our situations were completely different. We were selling a brownstone whose value had doubled since we’d purchased it. …

It was years ago. We were at a party. I barely knew her. But in an attempt to make conversation, I asked about her bulky waste. “Excuse me?” she said, looking down at her belly. “When is it?” I repeated. “When is what?” she said. “Your Bulky Waste Day. You know, the day you put out all the big garbage that the regular garbage men won’t collect.” “Oh! You mean Special Trash Day?” Apparently that’s what she calls it in Glen Ridge. Here in Montclair it’s called Bulky Waste Day. “I thought you were asking about my midsection,” she said. From there we talked about how perfect it is that Glen Ridge…