Archive for the ‘Big Wide World’ Category

The next best thing to the real deal.

In the cute-yet-bleak new movie Young Adult (love Charlize, but she needs to stop smoking – I can see it in her skin), a group of hip local moms in the fictional podunk town of Mercury, Minnesota form a hobby band so they can bond, let off steam, sport flannel shirts and rock old Nineties ditties.

The adorable name of this not-bad musical ensemble? Nipple Confusion.

But here’s what’s not adorable, in the slightest: Real, genuine nipple confusion. The kind that can make life for traveling breastfeeding mamas a sheer, living hell.

Enter mimijumi, bottles crafted to be eerily similar to the real deal. They come in two sizes (Very Hungry and Not So Hungry), and they’re blessedly free of BPA and phthalates, so you don’t have to add that to your long list of Stuff To Stress About.

You can order them online here.

I didn’t even breastfeed the Wee Lass (I know; alert the Mom Police), but I just remember that air travel with a newborn was really, really rough. As far as I’m concerned, changing a diaper in 2 inch by 2 inch airplane john should be its own Olympic Sport.

So I give a massive thumbs-up to anything that makes heading to Grandma’s for the hollies more enjoyable – and less stressy – for us hardworking mommies. And to all you first-timers: Yes, you’ll actually get through this. Pinkie swear.

Happiness is a posse of friends and a dozen empty Champs bottles.

Joy joy joy. Our holiday party was a success, complete with shrieking kids clattering up and down the staircases at midnight. Our guests trekked in from Gotham, Brooklyn and considerably further away in Jersey, which was so sweet. And the catering – which Hubby fully orchestrated – rocked.

You gotta love outsourcing. And a tag team of energetic nannies to corral those tots like a herd of raging buffalo.

After a massive nap this afternoon, I’ve had a chance to reflect. And here’s what I found unusual about the chit-chat last night: There was much talk about how my great friend Alev, who has written for Momover several times and just moved back to the States from the Netherlands, hasn’t aged a bit over the last six years. “You’re just not seeing me in harsh daylight,” she demurred. “Trust me, I look older.”

This is my theory about Alev’s youthfulness: She’s a really happy person. She loves being a mom and she doesn’t want the stress of a super-intense full-time job. There’s nothing like being mellow and relaxed to take five years off your face.

Or maybe it’s because she’s spent so much time in Europe. Between a dozen post-college years in Paris, followed by the stint with her hubby and kids in The Hague, she is the most Euro-y American pal I have.

It’s a huge cliché, but one probably steeped in at least partial truth, that Europeans aren’t as work-obsessed as Americans. But that can also be said for other parts of the U.S. that aren’t in proximity to New York. And that I can say with complete certainty. Why? Because I hail from the heartland, lived in New England for 10 years, moved to NYC to go to college and never left.

This morning, there was a kindergarten class playdate at a park by us. (Yes, on a Sunday at 9 a.m. In December. On the East coast. Brrr.) And as I sat on a bench, shivering and trying to read a few pages of Keith Richards’ kooky krazy autobiography, I caught snippets of a blistering conversation about careers. It was the mom of one kid talking to the dad of another kid, and it was exhausting.

Oh, where am I going with all this? I absolutely don’t want to posit anything ridic, like that women who stay home with their kids and aren’t freaking out about work are categorically more beautiful than women who kill it – corporately or in their own business – and have to deal, daily, with high doses of stress. Because that is just straight-up inanity. Inane, and cruel; tons of moms work because they don’t have any choice.

I’m just drawing a conclusion about my pal Alev, who hasn’t come within a 10-mile radius of a Botox needle in, oh, forever. She’s just relaxed and happy. And that reads youthful – even in blinding sunshine.

Yay! She bakes, beautifies AND does ballet!

I’m sure a lot of you beauty-junkie Momoverettes already know all about my left coast pal Rebecca Giles. For those who don’t, here’s the 411 on this chic, hilarious, multi-faceted mama of two:

1. She is a major, major skin whiz and owns a stunning beauty emporium on the Pacific Coast Highway – vroom vroom – called FIX Malibu.

2. She is a pioneer in “medical skincare” and her great products are beloved by many taste-makers, including my imaginary bestie Rachel Zoe. Apparently Rach loves the Wish Wash. Who wouldn’t? It’s utterly divine.

3. She originally thought she’d be a straight-up doc, and did her residency training in general surgery at University of California at Davis Medical School. But thankfully for a whole slew of celebs and civilians who need her skin help, she switched gears to beauty.

4. She is spearheading a bake sale to benefit Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, which will be held this Sunday, 11 December, at the Malibu Country Mart. Prior to med school, Rebecca spent two years volunteering in the bone marrow transplant unit of Stanford’s Packard Children’s Hospital, which is why this cause is especially dear to her heart.

I e-chatted with her about the insane amount of baking she and her gorge kids are doing to prep for the sale, her desire to help build awareness about children’s cancer – and her upcoming polka debut at the Malibu Ballet! I didn’t see that one coming, but Madame Giles never ceases to surprise.

Dana: Why do you suspect the awareness level around pediatric cancer is so low? Is it because people just automatically think “grownup” when they hear “cancer”?

Rebecca: I think that may have something to do with it. The National Cancer Institute quotes a statistic of 1 to 2 in every 10,000 kids getting a cancer diagnosis. Unless you’ve been personally touched by it in some way, it’s quite possible that it seems like a rare thing. But it isn’t. And if you’ve been in the thick of it, it becomes your whole world. I wasn’t yet a mom when I did all that volunteering in the pediatrics cancer unit at Packard. Now that I have kids of my own, I get knotted up thinking about the suffering all of those families endure.

I can’t fix that. But I can put on my apron, fire up the oven and bake some cookies to raise money to make it better. That’s where I think the genius of this organization lies. It’s accessible, immediate and just brilliant.

Dana: Any ideas how many moms will be partaking in the sale at Malibu Country Mart?

Rebecca: I have so many moms helping – from publicizing it at our local schools, on TV (I’m on FOX News LA at 6:15 this Friday morning–oy!) and online, helping with pre-orders of the cookies (we’re already selling them in advance, through the local restaurants here, the schools, and–if you can believe it–the hot Pilates spot in town).  I have another team helping to bag up the treats, then more moms still on the day of the event itself–including my pal LeAnn Rimes and her family. Probably 30+ moms, all in.

I actually will miss two hours of the sale on Sunday, since I’m in the Malibu Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker. Yes, you heard me.  My daughter Ava is a party girl in Act I for the first time ever (it’s a “big girl” role) and she begged Jason and me to be her parents. Back in October, I gave in to her pouty begging, thinking, “How hard could this be?” Turns out we have to polka, we have to waltz, and there’s some acting involved. I am entirely unqualified for all of the aforementioned activities.  At any rate, I will exit stage left on Sunday at 2:00 and head back to my bake sale. I plan on ditching the 19th century costume, though. I’m actually in four performances of the ballet this weekend, and I’ll be baking every free minute in between them.

Welcome to my kooky cookie life…

Scrunchiegate: Personally, I think she looks cool.

Full disclosure: At some point this week, I caught part of a news clip featuring Hillary Clinton going about her business and being all Secretary of State-ish in Myanmar.

And because I’m endlessly distracted by all things superficial, I thought: “Wow, her hair is really long right now. I don’t know that that’s the best look for her.”

(Gratuitous pop-culture sidebar: Remember when Myanmar used to be called Burma? And there was that band Mission of Burma? All the cool punk rock kids in my high school totally swooned over Mission of Burma.)

Anyway, back to Hillary.

So I had the fleeting unkind thought about how maybe she should hack a few inches off her hair, and then I had the good sense to mentally move on.

Because. It. Was. Ridiculous.

Hillary Clinton embodies such substance and smarts that her hair, or what she’s wearing, shouldn’t even register – even for those who reside permanently in the Barbie Bubble, like Momover Lady.

But then this morning, I wake up to two earth-shattering reports about numerous scrunchie sightings, and her alleged habit of deliberately “mirroring” both the wardrobes and hand gestures of other VIP, Secretary of State-level women she’s meeting with. I’m pretty sure I saw the latter piece on Nymag.com, but it’s giving me computer fits right now, so I can’t link to it.

Without question, Nymag.com is my favorite website. And I know the mirroring story was just supposed to be cute and clever – a little pick-me-up filler fluff.

If you Google “Hillary Clinton scrunchie,” however, about a gazillion reports and blog posts will pop up.

This is exactly why a dear friend of mine – Regina Kulik Scully – decided to become a producer of a much buzzed-about documentary called Miss Representation, which brilliantly captures the umpteen million ways women of power and influence are undermined by media reports about what they’re wearing, whether they’ve had plastic surgery, whether they’ve packed on a few pounds…on and on, ad infinitum.

If you’re unaware of the film, which was screened at Sundance and recently aired on OWN, go here and watch this eye-popping trailer.

What’s really amazing about Miss Representation, besides the fact that my idol Jane Fonda is in it, is the spotlight it throws on the trickle-down effect of all this media bashing.

Let’s put aside, for a moment, the Hillarys of the world, who are – theoretically – tough enough to take it. (Although please, can you imagine what it’s like to be picked apart like that? Horrific.) But what about our daughters? All of these “news” reports – not to mention sexist advertising – is effectively showing them that no matter what they accomplish, if their thighs aren’t up to snuff, they aren’t either.

To semi-paraphrase another woman of power and substance, albeit one with amazing hair  – Martha Stewart – that is the polar opposite of a good thing.

Okay, climbing off my soapbox now. TGIF, my lovely Momoverettes.

Way too many children don't get enough to eat.

A slow day of stomach-virus recovery for Momover Lady, during which I shredded two ginormous trash bags of any document with a trace of financial or personal information. I don’t eff around with that identity-theft stuff. And though I’ve heard of “community shredding events,” in which an Iron Mountain-type of company will pull up in one of its big ol’ trucks and destroy your sensitive paperwork, right then and there, as a public service, I always somehow miss the ones in my ‘hood.

So there I sat on the family room floor for hours, shredding with my trusty Black & Decker and watching television.

Of course Nate was on the TV docket. He sure manages to cram a lot of content into one show. And I love that he champions really sophisticated colors for the home, like a mashup of black and navy that he’s keen on at the moment. I’d like to think that he’d swoon over “Geyser,” the decidedly uncheerful teal I just picked for the “accent wall” in my office. I know that my imaginary BFF Nate would be thrilled to learn that I even have “accent walls” in my abode. Oh, but I do.

Later, after a little channel-surfing, I settled on Dr. Oz. What a heartbreaker today’s show was. Themed around child hunger in America, he pinpointed the top 20 most poverty-stricken cities in the country.

My eyes lit up, and not in a good way, when I saw that my birthplace – Tulsa – was one of the 20. And then, as luck would have it, the Tulsa family (along with one in Orlando), was chosen for an in-depth profile.

God, it was so sad. Five kids, this close to starving on the days – the frequent days – when the milk runs out, when the cereal box is empty, when there isn’t enough for a second helping on the meager portion of spaghetti with meat sauce served up for dinner. If it weren’t for the free meals they get at school on weekdays, some of the older kids in the family would barely be able to focus on their studies.

Listen, I realize how heavily I traffic in superficiality here on Momover.net, and how so much that I write about entails getting and buying. If you’re worried about putting food on your table, you’re sure as hell not gonna give a flying —k about whether you just spotted a spider vein on your upper right thigh, or whether you have the right shoes to wear to some stupid event.

But the fact is, 30-plus years ago, I was one of those kids. The free hot lunch kid, the food stamps kid. And back then, when America was in much better shape, that was a true rarity. Today, although the stats I hear bounce around a bit, the number of children in this country living in poverty is either 20 percent or 25 percent. It’s staggering, and it’s tragic.

So, it’s in the spirit of both my former life and my current life that I’ve just donated to Share Our Strength, the end-hunger program Dr. Oz has aligned himself with. I hope you will too.

Running the numbers on motivation.

The blog post “headline” above is an actual cover line from a fitness mag I picked up at the newsstand this week.

How insane is that?

I don’t want to slam this particular mag on a happy, peppy Friday morning – especially since I consider it to be one of the most motivating, git-yer-fanny-in-gear workout and nutrition guides on the market.

But when I see stuff like that – 8748 of anything – one and only one thought runs through my head: Amateur Hour.

Know that this is an informed opinion; I have worked and written for women’s magazines for a very, very long time. Thus, I’ve seen various cover line trends come and go.

And in the not-too-distant past, it was very much a numbers game. It was all,  “579 Ways to Wear the New Fall Looks,” and “197 Reasons Why You’ll Die If You Don’t Use Sunblock” and “433 5-Minute Chicken Recipes.”

It got a little crazy, particularly for the low-level staffer whose job it is to literally count these ways, reasons and recipes. Seriously. Any magazine of quality has a designated “counter.” I have witnessed the struggle they sometimes go through when upper management really, really wants to use the number 213, and they can only sleuth out 209 of whatever it is that’s supposed to change the reader’s life.

Now, happily, the pendulum is swinging in a much more realistic direction. Those crazy numbers have been dialed back in. I just picked up a recent issue of O in a stack by my desk and this is verbatim cover verbiage: “What’s Holding You Back? 9 Ways to Change Old Patterns and Spark New Breakthroughs.”

Nine I can handle. 8748? Not so much.

Don’t get me wrong – I am the biggest cover line sucker on the planet. I’m completely addicted to magazines, and have been since Mommy got me a subscription to Vogue circa ninth grade. And clearly, I’m wildly aspirational; I always want to believe that if I just do this, or just do that, all will be magically transformed and I’ll be 10 inches taller. (Without the skyscraper “ER” shoes.)

But I don’t think I need almost 9000 ways to sculpt my hottest lower body. I’d settle for 90. Think I’ll deploy some of ‘em at the gym right now. Bon weekend, chère amies.

Evelyn Lauder, surrounded by lots of Pink Ribbon paraphernalia.

I woke up this morning to the sad news that Evelyn Lauder died yesterday. In her Manhattan home, of nongenetic ovarian cancer.

According to the obit in the New York Times, Evelyn was 75, which shocked me a bit. She was such a gorgeous lady, and I’d occasionally wonder how old she was. But then I’d be enveloped by her personal warmth – she was one of those people who actually focused on what you were saying at the precise moment you were saying it – and I’d stop trying to run the numbers in my head about whether she was 50, or 60 or whatever. I first met her when I was 26 and a tiny cub beauty reporter; you ponder such superficial matters as how old Evelyn Lauder is when you’re a tiny cub beauty reporter.

Over the years, I continued to clock some of the other stuff that didn’t matter. Her ever-changing hairstyle was definitely a biggie. “Oooh, Evelyn’s going a little longer this season,” I’d think. Or, “Wow, she’s rocking a full-on shag now.”

But increasingly, as I grew up, I came to realize how amazing Evelyn Lauder was. Among her long list of accomplishments: A world-class “nose,” she was the driving force behind some of the biggest Estée Lauder fragrances ever, including Beautiful and Pleasures. Oh, and she’s credited with coming up with the name Clinique, which is pretty much the epitome of brand-moniker genius.

Evelyn’s 52-year marriage to Leonard Lauder was also something I always greatly admired. The love and mutual respect between them was palpable – definitely a union for the ages. Evidently they met on a blind date. And I can just picture this vivacious young woman – whose family fled Nazi-occupied Vienna during World War II -  sweeping Estée Lauder’s eldest son off his feet. He probably didn’t know what hit him. But he was obviously smart enough to hang on, and hang on tight.

Still – and rightfully so – Evelyn’s legacy will be about the literally hundreds of millions of dollars she raised for breast cancer research. The Pink Ribbon? Evelyn. All the pink this and that we buy every October? That whole movement was originally plotted and schemed by Evelyn, way back in the early 1990s.

There is so much more to this woman you need to know. Please go here, and read more about Evelyn’s fascinating, powerful life.

Pioneer Lady, Cleopatra + Draculaura, en route to a monster mash.

I have the house torn to smithereens – I’m in holiday-party prep mode and it is NOT pretty – so I really shouldn’t take the time to blog full-tilt right now.

So instead of one of my epic prose masterpieces, I’m running a post-Halloween pic that Aunt Jan sent my way after she got back to Vegas and recuperated from her fun-filled visit.

Obvi, she and I are in the ballsy get-ups I procured for us. Well, mine’s a little ballsy, given my advanced age. But I think my sis looks rather regal, in an el cheapo costume kinda way.

Too bad you can’t see more of the Wee Lass in her little custom-tailored Draculaura ensemble. I don’t even know what a Draculaura is, but I think it stems from all the bad television I let her watch. She looked pretty cute in it. Shocker.

Okay, gotta get back to my obsessive organizing. TGIF, my lovelies.

I want to go to here. And I am.

If there were ever any doubt that I need to get a life – stat – the fact that I’m daydreaming about our spring vacation five months out should set me straight.

I actually think there’s something wrong with me that I love Disney this much. But I just do. Once, years before the Wee Lass was even a glimmer on the horizon – and I’d even met The Man Who Would Be Hubby – my sister and I parked ourselves there for an entire week.

And, oh, it got weird. Like when one of the guys dressed like Chip, or Dale, (I get them confused, but they’re chipmunks) took it upon himself to try to get frisky with me during breakfast in The Land at Epcot.

Rude, right? I thought so. Just because I don’t have a tot in tow doesn’t mean I want you to get all handsy on me. Sheesh. The noive.

Flashforward a decade-plus and my trips to Orlando are utterly G-rated. Hubby and I have come up with a slightly arbitrary plan that we’ll take the Wee Lass when she’s 4, 6 and 8. And then she’ll be “over” it, the way she’s already dismissed with so many childhood pleasures. (Except for two sleep-related biggies: Sucking her thumb and clinging to her threadbare “night-night.“)

Since we’re already embarking on the second of our three planned extravaganzas (sniff sniff sob sob), we’re going all out in April and camping out at the Grand Floridian.

I’ve been lucky enough to have stayed at some stunning hotels in my life, including Le Meurice in Paris (the be-all and end-all) and a number of really gorge Ritz-Carlton properties (Key Biscayne and Laguna Niguel are off the hook).

But there’s just something about this crisp white mega-resort that’s really beckoning to me. Maybe it’s all that crispy whiteness. Even the manufactured beach encircling it looks crispy white.

Until five minutes ago, I was even thinking of visiting the on-site spa while I’m there. But evidently it’s “under refurbishment” until 2013 (that’s a lot of refurbishment), and if I’m hankering for a Disney-fied facial or body scrub, I’ll need to visit the spa at the Saratoga Springs property.

I guess I can handle that. As long as I can hightail it right back to all the crispy whiteness for a post-spa siesta.

OMG, just thinking about all this is mentally taking me to my Happiest Place On Earth. Counting. The. Seconds.

I never met a pat (or block) of butter I didn't like.

For fun (I guess I’m feeling a tad scholarly today), I just looked up The Seven Wonders of the World.

Who knew? There are several riffs on this list.

There are the Seven Ancient Wonders:

1. Great Pyramid of Giza

2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Wait, isn’t there a Siouxsie + The Banshees song about this? Actually, I just checked and it’s another garden ol’ Sioux is singing about, but it’s a punk classic that reminds me of my wayward youth, so go listen to it here.)

3. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

4. Statue of Zeus at Olympia

5. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Okay, starting to feel a little uneducated now…never heard of this one…)

6. Colossus of Rhodes

7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

Oh by the way, don’t go booking some “trip of a lifetime” to go see this stuff. With the exception of the Great Pyramid of Giza, it’s all been destroyed by earthquakes and sandstorms and such.

And then there are Seven Natural Wonders of the World:

1. Grand Canyon (Yay! I’ve been to one! Twice! At least! Can’t remember! I have family out that way!)
2. The Great Barrier Reef

3. The Harbor at Rio de Janeiro

4. Mt. Everest

5. Northern Lights

6. Paricutin Volcano

7. Victoria Falls

And now, as of 2007, there’s even a list called The New Seven Wonders of the World:

1. Chichen Itza

2. Christ The Redeemer

3. Colosseum (Yay! I’ve been to another! Twice – for real! Once on my honeymoon! Rome is an impossibly sexy city!)

4. The Great Wall of China

5. Macchu Pichu

6. Petra (Hmmm….I went to the “Petra: Lost City of Stone” exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, but I guess that doesn’t really count, right?)

7. Taj Mahal

Suddenly, I want to read about all of this stuff, don’t you? I own not one, but two copies of History of the World by J.M. Roberts, so I’m hoping a lot of it’s in there.

Anyway, to one of these lists – I really don’t care which one – I would now like to add an Eighth Wonder:

8. Momover Lady’s Mysteriously Decent Cholesterol Level

I’m as shocked as anyone, but when my internist was recently drawing blood for my (seemingly endless) thyroid-level checks, I asked him to please take a gander at my cholesterol level too.

Within a few days, his “person” called me with a double dose of good news: One, my thyroid seems to be behaving itself, and I may soon be able to lower my meds dosage. And two, my cholesterol level is “very good.” This person person didn’t provide any specifics beyond that, and I didn’t press the issue. But I hung up feeling both happy and utterly perplexed.

Why? Because butter is a food group for me. Seriously. And now that I’ve officially started cooking, it’s a food group for Hubby and the Wee Lass as well. I’ve even been adding it to oven-roasted vegetables, which I’m pretty sure kind of defeats the entire purpose of oven-roasted vegetables.

It’s gotta be all the exercising. Although it’s a bit science-y – and I’m clearly in “history head” today – I’m glad that all my huffing and puffing is somehow helping to mitigate the effects of all that butter.

Because I doubt very seriously that I’ll be giving up the butter. Life is too short to give up the butter. Well, maybe if I find a yummy vegan substitute I’ll give up the butter. Project.