The party's over

My husband and I noticed a few years ago that when you are at a dinner party in Manhattan, one of the first things everyone talks about is real estate. But when people run out of things to talk about, they start talking about where they were on 9/11.

And we decided that when that happens, the party's over.

It's really astonishing how often this happens. I suppose it is a symptom of a really pervasive problem, that we were all so deeply scarred by the events of this day that whenever we are given a chance to just empty our minds, it all comes down to that: Where we were on Sept. 11th, 2001.

For the most part, these stories are banal, and I include my own stories in that category. Unless you lost someone that day, what is there to say, really? And not surprisingly, I have found that the people who lost someone that day never want to talk about it.

So tonight we were eating dinner at someone's house and a 9/11 story did get told. After a few minutes, I realized that I didn't want to leave yet, but I couldn't stop thinking, "The party's over! Someone's telling a 9/11 story!"

So I did what might have been a rude thing, but I couldn't help it. I explained our little rule and asked the person to stop telling the story. It worked, seemed fine, we moved the conversation along, and stayed for another half-hour. Person who was telling the story, please forgive me if you're reading this! I just couldn't help it!

The author's life

So today I got in the New York Post without getting arrested or having a wardrobe malfunction: http://tinyurl.com/b4pmu6. The writer liked my book and wrote a very nice article about it. Thank you, Jennifer Shaw! I am so grateful!

And now if someone would just tell me how to convince 20,000 more people to buy my book, I'd sure be grateful.

Thank you and goodnight.

free time

i can't remember the last time i had nothing to do.

I can't remember the last time anyone I know had nothing to do.

Life has become one long to-do list and I can't figure out how it happened.

If it wasn't this way, would I be lonely and bored? Or would I feel relaxed and happy?

Even the kids have too much to do. Especially the kids. I'm starting to think homework is training for how annoying their lives are going to be when they grow up.

Surely it doesn't have to be this way but I can't figure out how to stop it.

Snow day

Today in New York City we had a snow day. We almost never have snow days so it was a special treat. The best thing was, even the teenagers went to the park to play in the snow.

It's so great when kids find something fun to do that doesn't have a screen, batteries or ear buds.

First Mugging essay at NYTimes.com's Motherlode blog

Lisa Belkin at the NY Times was kind enough to ask me to do a guest blog for her Motherlode column, which many parents are quite devoted to. I wrote about 'First Mugging' as an urban rite of passage for kids who grow up in the city, and I also mentioned that I'd take that over the suburbs with their teenage drivers and ticks any day.
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/raising-kids-in-the-city-or-the-suburbs/?hp

The post has generated a ton of comments - 149 at last count - and it's interesting to read them.

Most of them debate whether it is better to raise kids in the city or the suburbs, which is fine - we make our choices for whatever reasons and obviously we think we've made the right choice or we'd move, right?

But I was a bit puzzled by two types of other comments. One seemed to think I made up this stuff about fear of ticks. I assure you I did not.

My sister lives on Long Island and had Lyme disease. When I visit my college roommate in Rockland County, she always tells us to check for ticks when we go in her house. One friend at work had Lyme disease; she lives in New Jersey. Another lives in Connecticut and says she pulls ticks off her and her kids all the time. My neighbor's dog got bitten by a tick on an excursion to the 'burbs and actually died.

So anyway, just for the record, my fear of ticks is not hypothetical, in case anyone was wondering.

The other thing that has generated a lot of postings is questioning how common it is for kids to get mugged. I did not research police statistics for this story. I only know that among the teenage boys that I know in middle-class Brooklyn - admittedly a small unrepresentative sample - it seems like many of them get jumped (i.e., punched, assaulted or beaten in some way on the street) or robbed of some item - whether it's a cell phone or an iPod or a Gameboy - between 5th grade and high school. And by the way, I bet that 90 percent of those incidents do not get reported to the cops.

Many posters proudly stated, "I have lived in NYC all my life and never been mugged!" Well actually that is true for me also. But I have certainly been a victim of many, many crimes, and that was my larger point in the story - that if you live here long enough, someone is going to smash your car window, break into your apartment, steal your bike ... or mug your kid. And that it is one of the tradeoffs you make living in the city, and of course you hope that no one is ever seriously hurt.

I'll end by restating something I said in the story. If you are a New Yorker and you get called for jury duty, at some point they ask, "Has anyone here been a victim of a crime?" I have never been in a jury pool where every single person didn't raise their hand. This does not make me want to live in Larchmont. It merely makes me feel at one with my fellow New Yorkers. And the point of my story was simply that kids who grow up here get that, and they are OK with it.

Thai chili sauce

The other night I made steak in a marinade of ginger, garlic, soy sauce and Thai chili sauce. My teenage son liked it, but he asked me, "Didn't you use a different Thai chili sauce last time you made something like this?"

Um, I had, yes. About three months ago. And as he duly noted, the other Thai chili sauce was sweeter than this one.

But can I just say that I am amazed that a kid can have a memory for Thai chili sauce that allows him to distinguish between two types, each of which he has only tasted once, three months apart?

When I was his age, I liked ... Yodels. And I thought putting soy sauce on broccoli was really exotic.

And the only place you could get Thai chili sauce was in Thailand.

And I had never met anyone who had been there, and didn't imagine that I ever would.

When I was his age, it was a big deal taking the subway from Manhattan to the Bronx, for God's sake.

And it sort of still is.

Tears over a game

Most of the time I couldn't care less about sports. Never played it, don't understand it, never really cared much about any team. In fact, I usually find it downright boring unless my own kids are playing, and even then, I just have a hard time paying attention and understanding what's happening.

But this past weekend something happened to me. I felt like crying after my son's team lost a basketball playoff game. First time in my life that happened to me. It was weird, feeling emotion about sports.

First quarter, looked like they were outmatched. Second and third quarters, they did great and pulled ahead. Fourth quarter, it was tied. They went into overtime. My son fouled out. The other team scored four points and won.

A lot of the kids were crying. Often when kids cry after losing, I want to say, "Get a grip! It's just a game!"

But this time I wanted to cry too, I guess because it seemed like they were going to win, and it felt so tragic that they ended up losing.

After the game, I heard the referee say, "It's good when they cry!"

"Why is it good when they cry?" I asked, feeling like crying myself.

"Because it means they really wanted to win!" he said.

Right. I guess that's why I felt that way - I REALLY wanted them to win. And I felt really sad for all of us when they didn't.