Summer, Summer, Summertime....

Summer is officially upon us! It's time to hit the beach, neighborhood pool or fire hydrant. It's also a time that is loaded with Nostalgia. Yes, I am talking about it with a capital 'N'.

As I type this I'm coincidentally wearing a t-shirt from my home state of Rhode Island. Nothing says summer to me quite like the shores of Rhode Island. Land of the oldest carousel, clam cakes, Del's Lemonade and salt ponds with the scent of beach plums in the air. The beaches there are simple. There are not a lot of snack bars or distractions. It is just stretches of soft, golden sand, cold Atlantic ocean and views that put the movie Jaws never far from your mind. It's one of the reasons why I watch that masterful movie at the start of every summer. It completely gets me in the mood for these warmer months.

Just a short ferry ride away was East Hampton, a place that E and I spent a magical summer. We danced on the beach at dawn, drove through winding roads all night long and had more freedom than either of us ever knew before. We saw couples having Hollywood kisses on sidewalks and dined on pasta primavera for the first time. We felt quite continental.


And of course, there is always the music. After food, music is what evokes memories of summer unlike anything else.







What music and food remind you of summertime?

The BFF

We dropped a few pennies into a well and made the wish that we would be friends forever.  We were three years old. 

We were so small we took baths together, slept in the same bed, shared movie theater seats, Happy Meals and even toilet seats.  We were that inseparable. 

We thought we were witches casting spells on the other kids at Vacation Bible School.  We were that anti-social with everyone else but each other. Two little peas in a pod.

We peed on the floor because we were pretending to be babies.  We were five years old and that authentic.

We grew into gawky girls together dressing alike, pouring over Seventeen magazines on our bedroom floors together reading aloud the articles and imagining ourselves ten years older.  We thought the movie Ghost was the epitome of romance and true love.

We biked to different states, broke curfew, shared New York seltzers (lime flavored only) with Twinkies, got grounded from each other as punishment and started high school. 

Four years of our own varying hellish experiences in those slamming locker halls.  One went to AP classes and dissected cats. The other "mourned" something new each day and maintained a "C" average, when A's were just as accessible but required slightly more effort.  We shared a hatred for Nirvana and anything that sounded like "DDDDDDDDD SHELTER!!!"  We learned to drive and went in search of coffee bars and broader experiences. Buying countless pairs of brightly colored and patterned tights we wore tiny jean shorts and statement t-shirts with them daily.  She never made fun of the fact that I wore orange almost every day.  High school dances, hours of post-school phone calls, late night drives and obsessive movie watching we were together 24/7 until we left for different colleges.  It was one of the hardest days of my life saying goodbye to her.

All those memories.  Dancing on the beach in the dark.  Watching the sunrise over that same stretch of sand.  Sunning ourselves by my parents pool with Chi-Chi's in hand.  Sharing absolutely everything with each other from proms to bad dates (More cushion for pushin'!), fights with our parents and the same need to break free from our tiny town. 

She went to Boston and traveled the world. I went to North Carolina and cried my eyes out for two years until I transfered the hell out of that too small for me school and found my place and heart in DC.  We wrote countless letters, shared ginormous phone bills on our Sunday post-hangover phone calls and used that new fangled email to describe our college adventures to each other.  She lived in a jungle and I a sorority house.  She studied science and I couldn't stop writing papers about dead people and the past.  On paper we seemed so different but as Anne of Avonlea put it, we were "two kindred spirits".

Our lives continued to grow and change.  We moved to different states.  We saw each other less and emailed more often.  It became harder to see each other on a regular basis but when we did we always picked up where we left off drinking wine, smokin' butts and staying up all hours of the night catching up.  It's what best friends do.

When I was nervous and panicky the night before my wedding all she had to do was hug me and I instantly calmed down.  The scent of her was so familiar it was a safe haven to me.  She handled my nerves on my wedding day better than anyone else could and knew how to make me laugh and smile when I was freaking out.  To this day no one can handle my panic attacks better than her.

She lives on the other side of the country now.  Our lives could not be more different.  It's been years of laughing, crying, peeing our pants and countless "dead soldiers".  To my best friend E- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!   Yeah, it's a day early but who posts on a Saturday?!  I love you and am thankful for you each and every day. 

What Rocks!

You know what rocks?

-Actually managing to surprise your best friend with a visit. E thought her boyfriend's mother was coming into town. Lo and behold, c'est moi! She jumped me like a spider monkey as soon as the shock wore off. That alone was worth the trip.

- A $20 foot massage that really is a full body one. Why don't we have those in my area?!

- Finding designer duds for less at consignment stores on Melrose and watching LA rich girls drop off never worn clothing while wearing tanks emblazoned with the words, "Trifling Ass Bitch".

- Absinthe. I can see the point of that stuff. Really. I like a spongy world.

-Having loads of time to hang out with my best friend that I haven't seen in a year and a half whether it was on the couch in our pj's, in a club, taking a walk or sinking our feet into some Malibu beach sand while sipping Bloody Mary's and noshing on a fried platter of goodness.

Two Hot Girls

Her boyfriend called it regressing. We just called it time well spent.

Where's Mummy- #35

Guess where I am today and all through Saturday?

I'll give you a few hints.

- You may not hunt moths under a streetlight.

- Toads may not be licked.

- Nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool.

Finally, there are over 75 Starbucks in this city.

Figure out where I am by Monday, September 28, 2009 and I'll give you a free month of advertising on Mummy's Product Reviews. I'll put up your button, favicon, link - whatever and list your blog, website or company as a Fun Find in the month of October (That's an over $40 value.).

I'm Getting All Schmaltzy About My Friends

Along with all the other things you are thinking about this month- heading back to school, stocking up on the latest fall fashions, closing down that summer house (heh), you can now add in that September is NATIONAL FEMALE FRIENDSHIP MONTH.

According to a 2009 University of Michigan study women with close female friends have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. I fully agree with this statement because I know it isn't just the wine on girls night that makes me relaxed. It is the sharing of our week's stories, the cackling laughter, encouragement and support that we give each other weekly that keeps me going and it is better than any magic pill in a bottle.

I feel truly blessed to have as many friends in my life as I do. It is a lot of work to keep some of those contacts going through the years, miles and sometimes tribulations but the ones who have stayed in my life make my moments, days and years. They say you have friends for seasons and reasons. I believe that too. It has been studied that women's friendships can fall off during their thirties when careers and life really ramp up. If you can maintain your friendships throughout that busy time then the relationship will most likely last for the rest of the individuals lives. That is pretty amazing.

E and I are a perfect example. We have been friends for thirty years now. She is the sister I never had. On the exterior we could not be more different. She tans like a mofo and I burn unless the tan comes in a bottle. I'm taller and blond. She's petite with glossy dark hair. As kids we fought often, our differences seemed glaring, but then something clicked when we hit junior high and despite being in separate school systems we banded together and became life lines to each other. Sometimes I think she knows more about me than my parents or H.

When I had a series of massive panic attacks right before my wedding it was E that I wanted to hug me. I know, I wanted a hug. Even as a ripped through my parents luggage for my father's stash of xanax I knew that just having her by my side would be enough. She wasn't going to try and make me laugh or take my mind off my nerves. Her presence was enough.

When I was 'in the shit' that was my sophomore year of college tearing up bathrooms, burning things, sobbing at random times and an all around hot mess, she would sit on the phone for hours listening to my woes ($300 plus phone bills!) from her study abroad program in Ecuador.

In big and small instances she has been by my side through the good (SATC marathons, high school dances, college visits and happy hours), the bad, the ugly (high school dances, junior high haircuts, and lime green skeggings) pet deaths and more. I only hope I've been able to be there for her like that too.

In honor of National Friendship Month, it's time to check your friendship inventory. Call that girlfriend in Texas you keep thinking about, the friend who just lost her job or just the one next door. Keep those friendships going. They keep you strong both in body, mind and heart.

Leave a comment about one of your friends and why you love them and it will automatically enter you into my Mummy's Product Review giveaway. I'm giving away five copies of the CD/DVD of Michael Buble Meets Madison Square Garden this week. Good luck!

I Wanna Rock With You

Dear E,

I am sad today. Michael Jackson has died and while I wasn't a fan of his later stuff (minus Remember the Time and that Home Alone kid in his videos) I have such fond memories of us dancing to 'Rock With You' while I toiled away at my after school job at CVS. You perfected those dance moves and it always made me laugh so hard to watch you do the leg kick move while I stood behind the register waiting on sick customers and kids buying their first box of condoms (with a pack of gum, of course).

And who could forget you kissing your MJ poster each night before bed. Red leather jacket, sequined glove and all.

Watch the awesome dance moves here. (Damn removal of the embedding code. Curses! YouTube! Foiled Again!)

Firsts

Part three of Nostalgia week continues-

It was a summer of firsts. I was seventeen and just like the song by the Stray Cats, I needed to let off a little steam. I wanted to be on my own so bad and yet I had no idea how in the world I was supposed to get out of my little village of a town. To top it off E was taking a job as a nanny (seriously E? What was that about?!) in the Sag Harbor/East Hampton, NY area and we would be apart for most of the summer. I thought I was going to just curl up into a dried ball of debris and die. The summer yawned before me a in a dull, hazy way that seemed to float on forever with absolutely no point if I didn't have my partner in crime. That is until it was decided I should take a few weekends to visit E up in NY. Now the taste of freedom was on the tip of my tongue and suddenly everything looked brighter.

That summer, not only did I take the ferry for the first time, I also found out what it was really like to be on my own, to budget myself and to learn the lesson that with such freedom can come a whole lot of confidence that I never knew I could possess.

It was that summer that I bought my first pack of cigarettes, deciding that, "Hey! I'm 17 and I've never smoked! I'm going to walk into that corner store and buy the first pack of kill sticks I see!" Thus my love for Winston Lights was born. I smoked the whole pack that night. I bought alcohol for the first time (did I mention that we forgot our money because um.. you can't put money in a bikini, but the old guy at the liquor store knew we were good for it and we could pay him back later. Later when his wife was there. She? Was not too pleased.), I stayed out until dawn for the first time, killed a mouse by drowning and then freezing it, took care of my first drunk friend and vice versa. I also experienced how painful it can be to sleep in your car.

The weeks in between my weekend jaunts were rough. I felt chafed at having a curfew and not being able to come and go as I pleased. I had to eat what my mother made for dinner again and not what I felt like. I spent my days toiling away at CVS in my oh-so-fashionable red smock too.

When I think back to those weekends it is a mess of memories all tangled up together. I remember the blazing hot sun and sand, the wild nights with my best friend who liked to dance with a vacuum cleaner when she was drunk and climb trees. I remember dancing to Enya in the moonlight with the ocean as my backdrop. There was tasting pasta primavera for the first time, drinking coffee in the morning or should I say the 90s staple, cappuccino and creating my own schedule. Everything I did was magical and fun. Every moment was golden.

In September, when school started up again, I felt invincible. I had a self-awareness and confidence that I never had before. I dubbed myself 'Super-Girl!' (she was a lot like Wonder Red) and I felt that nothing could stand in my way. If my parents had known what I was up to I'm sure they would have put a big ol' kabosh on my weekend trips to visit E but looking it back, allowing me the access to experiment and do all those things gave me the power to know that I was stronger than my 98 lbs. I needed that more than anything. The summer of '93 was one of the best in my life and it wasn't just because I found out I could drink like a fish.

By the way, the song is 'Downeaster Alexa' by Billy Joel. I traveled to many of the places he sings about during that summer of firsts and every time I hear it I feel as if I'm being transported to that youthful, carefree summer. I can't think of any other song that makes me feel more nostalgic than that one.

Side Effects

The other day I was reading the fine print of side effects on this new "happy" pill I'm supposed to be taking for all this Postpartum junk.

-May cause vomiting that looks like coffee grounds. Awesome! So even if I am not drinking the java it will look like I am! Yippiee!

-May cause sleeplessness. A few side effects down it says. May also cause yawning. Gee, ya think? And yes, it does. Just what the PPD lady needs. More sleeplessness. They should just add 'and increased irritability.'

On a bottle of natural teething tablets I found the warning:

- Consult your physician before taking if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Um.. how many of you out there are still teething or have a secret addiction to all natural teething tablets? Yeah? That many of you. Wow. You should really form a support group or something.


Check out the latest episode of 'Exposed Brick' here. Episode three 'Shakespeare is Obnoxious' is the best so far!

Harry Potter Thinks I Need to Clean My Tub

They say that with pregnancy comes cravings, the frequent need to pee and a host of other fun things that we have either forgotten about or never experienced. Do they ever mention the bizarre host of dreams though?

Since becoming 'with child' as H calls it I've -

Walked in on Harry Potter making acne medication/potions in my guest bathroom only to then hear him complain about the dirty state of my bathtub. My father then entered the room and said, "Eehh, it's not so bad. I've used it plenty. Relax, Harry!" Hmmph. Good enough for me and I told 'ol Potter there that if he didn't like the tub then he could just 'magic' it clean himself and left.

Had Michael Caine over for dinner. He wore a blue blazer, white shirt and a gold ascot. We had loads of fun and it was a fine evening had by all. I didn't even look at his teeth once!

Had numerous dreams about T.D. being kidnapped by anyone from some religeous sect (too much news watching that day) to little old ladies who look sweet but pack heat.

Most recently, there was the shark movie I was in. Uh, yeah. It was all Tron looking and at one point one of the actors, might have been Michael Caine, had his whole sharky face fall off and we just kept filming. I think that film might be up for an '08 Razzie award shortly.

Other than the T.D. nappin' nightmares there seems to be some sort of movie theme going on here. Maybe, I have been really needing a taste of Hollywood after all and it was a good thing E visited.

MPR is giving away a beautiful Provence inspired hand-printed tablecloth today! Visit the site to find out how to get your hands on one!

Like a Tonic

What is it about having your best friend visit that works on you just like a tonic?

Is it the hours and hours of loafing about as you converse on anything from organic food, insane drivers, politics or basically nothing at all?

Is it the concentrated girly time despite my not being able to stay up past 10 pm each night? (Sorry E!)

The sitting over breakfast in our pjs or making dinner together as we jam to bad itunes?

I pick all of the above and more. Before, H surprised me with E's visit this weekend (where I turned into a blubbery mess in front of many people and it is documented on film that I do in fact, have tear ducts that work) I was getting into that zone where you feel a bit dried up. You crave dear, old friend time. New friends are great but there is something to be said for that person who has known you for a lifetime and the bond that is sisterly in strength. To see your best friend meet your child for the first time and watch them hit if off completely makes you love them that much more. I think I even garnered a new appreciation for T.D. seeing her through the eyes of E.

I feel restored and happy. Like a light has been back on despite having just dropped her off at the airport. When T.D. exclaimed, "I want my Rika! I miss Rika" as we pulled away from the departure zone my heart broke a bit and I could only say, "Yup. Me too, kid. Me too."

Ringworm or Puke in the Pool. Take Your Pick.

Today's mission should you choose to accept is to guess which story is true and which one is the April Fool's. It's all part of April's Blog Exchange, though um, we're not really exchanging any one's blog this time... See more stories true or false here.

During my freshman year of college a group of girls and I, OK about half my hall, would regularly hang out at a nearby fraternity house. Friday night? We were at the house. Saturday afternoon? Probably playing flip cup and eating pizza at the house. Saturday night? Still at the house. The wee small hours of the morning? You got it. We were at that house. It's not that the guys were especially hot or that they were even that charismatic but for some reason we all took a liking to each other. Then one day as I was sitting on my bed I noticed a little dry patch on the back of my upper arm. Scaly even. Huh. What could it be? I scratched. I showed it to my roommate. She skeeved out completely and scrambled across her bed away from me making a yuck face. "Ick! That's sick! You have ringworm!" Ring what? Never heard of it. Puritanical New Englanders do not get worms. Even those that come bearing rings.

The next morning as I walked down the hall I noticed something. My friend had a big red scaly patch on her cheek and her neck. Uh-Oh. So did her roommate. And another girl. And another. That's right. About half of us had either a mild (me) case or totally flamboyant (cheek girl, it was almost six inches of worm) degree of this nasty thing called Ringworm. Lest, you think we were all a bunch of ho-bags living in some seething nest of nastiness it boiled down the some particularly nasty couches that we all sat on, passed out on, or simply squished our then tiny butts on for hours on end. A little bit of anti-fungal cream and we were all better but it sure tainted our view of that house and for the most part none of us ever went back.

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In high school, I had a pool. It wasn't some ginormous Olympic-sized thing but it served its purpose and was great to hang out around in the hot summer months. Almost every day E and I would lounge by the pool reading Seventeen, Glamour and Cosmo talking about her weird shedding skin ailment, drinking on the sly and soaking up the suns weak New England rays. E would get this amazing tan and I would look tan only if I stood next to a white wall.

We spent a lot of time experimenting with the likes of our friends vodka, gin and rum. Vodka we quickly realized was highly versatile and we could make these fun little drinks called, Chi-Chi's. We felt so grown up using the blender, crushing ice sipping Chi-Chi's, Cape Codders and Greyhounds by the pool. Until one day we uh, did all three. Back to back on empty teen stomachs. There might have been a few other suggestions from our friends rum and gin too. Not the best idea at the time or in hindsight but when A-ha, Annie Lennox and some gem of a mix tape or two are blaring away and the sun is shining by the glistening pool it all seems in good fun.

It's all fun and games until someone pukes in the pool isn't it?

They puke in the pool and you try in vain to clean it up fast with a mixture of throwing it over the side, using the skimmer and just shoving water into that thingy that collects leaves and frogs. Then you try to act sober and not horrified when your Dad comes home from work early and decides to take a dip in the pool. Which on the surface looks clean but well, we all knew better.

*If you guessed the ringworm story then you are correct! While I did have a pool growing up and I did drink by it with E, no one ever threw up in or around it.