Working at Homemaking

  When I read this interesting tribute piece by Sally Friedman in the Philly Inquirer about the recent death of Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver, I could only think of the irony.  The show celebrated traditional family life, no argument there. June was the perfect 1950s mother on Leave It to Beaver. My own working mom loved the show and its reruns.
  June always looked beautiful, perfectly coifed and never frazzled, despite Beaver's shenanigans. She always had a real dinner ready on time. She never forgot a key ingredient. No frozen TV dinners in this house. I'm sure she never did laundry at 11 p.m. Or bought cupcakes from Acme for the bake sale. Yes, she was happy -- or at least portrayed that way.

  But that's just it. She was a fictional character. Billilngsley, herself, must have been the antithesis of Cleaver. Here was a woman who was squarely in the workforce as an actress portraying the stay-at-home life. Reality meets fiction. Barbara Billingsley was the working girl homemaker -- not unlike most modern-day women on the double shift.

The Middle Ages

  You know middle age has hit solidly when three women -- two just that side of the half century mark, one  rapidly approaching (that would be me) -- gather at scrumptious Zahav,  look at the menu and immediately squint and grumble about eyesight or lack of. Quickly, the menu waltz ensues. That's when you stretch to arm's length, then inch back and forth, struggling for a distance that encourages visual acuity. It would not pass muster with Bruno.
  This being a stylish place, the light is low, akin to the depths of the mine that recently entrapped those Chileans.  Reading glasses, wonderful instruments of comfort for the over-the-hill crowd, have been forgotten, as usual. One friend hasn't succumbed to the glasses yet, but still can't decipher the minuscule -- is that agate type? -- print. The other is on her way to trifocals (who knew what fun awaits?) but doesn't have the right pair. I don't remember the details. Memory goes around now too.
  So, my only chance at satisfying my appetite is a single tea candle at the table, the only source of wattage. I pick it up and hold its flickering flame to the menu, so close that I'm in danger of starting a three-alarm blaze. Is that beef or peas? We each call out words we think we can see and prices that we hope we're misreading. And so it goes for many minutes, long enough that our waiter checks in twice and a twentysomething maitre d approaches. He inquires about our evening and then proffers a small black tube. With a click, it provides a shining beacon. A flashlight! We have no shame. We all exclaim in delight. My friend grabs it. We are ecstatic. We pass it from one to the other, its powerful beam dancing across exotic ingredients.
  When you're middle aged, a girls night out is all about the quality of the conversation, the food and the flashlight.

The Cost of Motherhood

Sociologists Find Lowest-Paid Women Suffer Most From Motherhood Penalty

Released: 10/5/2010 1:00 PM EDT
Source: American Sociological Association (ASA)

Newswise — In a study of earnings inequality among white women, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst find that having children reduces women’s earnings, even among workers with comparable qualifications, experience, work hours and jobs. While women at all income levels suffer negative earnings consequences from having children, the lowest-paid women lose the most from motherhood. This earnings penalty ranges from 15 percent per child among low-wage workers to about 4 percent among the highly paid. The findings are published in the October 2010 issue of the American Sociological Review.

The research was conducted by Michelle J. Budig, a professor of sociology at UMass Amherst and Melissa J. Hodges, a graduate student in sociology at the university. It focuses on the motherhood wage penalty – meaning how much less women with more children earn relative to similar women with no children, or with fewer children.

Budig says although there hasn’t been a lot of scientific study of the work-family issues involved in this wage gap, ordinary working women deal with it on a daily basis and are acutely aware of it.

Budig and Hodges find low-paid women lose proportionately the most earnings for having children, though almost all earners experience significant motherhood penalties. They also find that different processes create the motherhood penalty at different earnings levels. That mothers work less and may accept lower earnings for more family-friendly jobs partially explains the penalty among low-wage workers. Also, that mothers have less experience due to interruptions for childbearing, explains some of the penalty among the highly paid. But a significant motherhood penalty persists even in estimates that account for these differences, the researchers say.

The authors show that estimates of “average” motherhood penalties obscure the compounded disadvantage low-paid mothers face, as well as differences in the processes that produce the penalty. For example, low-wage workers, who are less likely to have leave benefits, may be more likely to quit their jobs when child care demands escalate, thus losing wages through high job turnover. In contrast, high-paid workers with greater access to employer benefits may be better able to maintain connections to employers during childbearing.

And it’s only at the very highest level of incomes for married women that the penalty disappears or even reverts to a benefit, the researchers say.

“Based on our findings, the typical full-time female worker earned $1,100 less per child in 2009. This wage penalty for motherhood increases with each additional child and doesn't go away as kids get older. In fact, the penalty grows in size as children age and is a permanent penalty,” Budig says. “The motherhood penalty is strongly linked to the gender pay gap, which hasn't budged in size since the late 1990s. Policies aimed at reducing the motherhood penalty should have significant effects on the overall pay difference between men and women with equivalent qualifications and who work in similar jobs."

Using data from the 1979 to 2004 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor, researchers tested whether the size of the motherhood penalty, and the processes creating it, differ among white women who are low, middle, and high earners.

For the study, Budig says their definition of top earning women, the upper 10 percent, encompasses those who earn about $60,000 or more in annual salary.

In order to mitigate the effects of the motherhood penalty, Budig and Hodges recommend several policy changes. These include expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income families, along with expanded benefits for child care and early childhood education.

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Just Say No!

  I'm not the R&R type as anyone who knows me well realizes pretty quickly. I hate to sit around. At the last family gathering, I was antsy before we even arrived. I wanted to know what we would be doing. The bossband explained patiently that most of the family enjoys sitting around and reminiscing and talking to each other -- for hours on end. How is that possible? Well,  I wouldn't let up. I wanted to go to the mall, at least. I was dependent on someone to drive me there. I finally got my way -- even inspired a couple of other relatives to leave the house. (BTW, I found a fabulous sweater at Free People.)
  So when I retired a few months ago, I clearly was not going to really lead a life of retirement, as in rest. I immediately signed up for everything -- neighborhood board,  school PTA, freelance assignments. Ask, and I shall say yes was my motto.
  Until this month. When my editor at the Inquirer sent me an email with a cool assignment, I knew I had to force myself to say the word: No. It was like a drug addict turning down a hit. But I'm now working -- both for pay and not -- so much, that the resident teen constantly reminds me that I'm supposed to be retired. I'm staying up way too late. I'm missing my exercise classes. I haven't been to the mall in forever. Which might be a good thing, in a certain person's opinion. And, of course, the last time I blogged, it was another season.
  So I had to do it. I said no to the assignment, explaining I couldn't take on anything new til October. It felt good, after the initial shock of turning down something that I would have liked to do. I don't like to miss out on things. But I'm headed right back to Stressville. So as soon as I finish the 2,000 word magazine story on an Updike friend, and the marketing view book for a university, and the newsletter for school, and the lawn check for the neighborhood, I plan to take a break, as I told my mother-in-law recently.
  "How long?" she wondered.
  I quickly answered: "For a week." Seven days of nothing (whatever will I do with myself?), and I'll be ready to go, go, go.

Empty Nest Musings

  A former colleague mused recently about the emptying of her nest, though she didn't care for the term empty-nester. It's a lovely piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Read it.
  I've got four years to go, but the impending end of a phase -- official momhood -- is never far from my mind. I think of it as the approach of my second retirement, when all the time consumed by mom stuff will no longer beckon - at least not until Thanksgiving break and winter recess. I'm not necessarily sad. It seems rather exciting to finally see the fruit of so many years of labor. But it will certainly be different. Even one child gives a house an energy, a noisy bustle that nothing else can replace.

  Of course, if he goes to a college nearby, perhaps the rhythm won't be all that different. I went to the University of Kentucky, in my hometown of Lexington. I lived on campus that first year. Technically, my parents had emptied the nest. But they were both professors at UK, so I saw them often -- even tried to get homework help with an essay I waited til the last minute to write, until Mom, in her white lab coat, said, "Sorry, it's all on you now." (Her actual words, though, were tinged with a great deal more annoyance that I, now a full-fledged college student, would really expect her to break from her research to edit an English paper.) Weekends always meant a 15-minute drive home to wash the week's worth of dirty clothes, eat a home-cooked meal and hang out for a while in my old room before going out with friends. Those early years of college  felt more like a series of long sleepovers, with family never far.

   I never really felt I left home until my junior year in college, when I had an internship at the Detroit Free Press. My mom drove me to that bleak city and deposited me there one May. As she drove away, I never felt so lonely. I think my mother had it easier. She had a home and a busy job to occupy her. By then, I had been in college for three years, so she and my dad were used to my absence from the home front. This internship didn't change much for them. Or so it seemed to me.
  I, on the other hand, had to find my way by public transportation to downtown Detroit. For a Bluegrass girl, that was huge. I had never ridden a bus before, certainly not by myself. I had to buy groceries -- no campus cafeteria. I used to walk with a wire cart to the nearby market, passing through neighborhoods still deciding which way they were headed on the socio-economic scale. My roommate, another intern, was not exactly friendly.
  But just as my parents had adjusted to the new tempo at home, I too came to at least like my time in Detroit -- new friends, new cuisines, new experiences -- if not the commute to work. I was OK. I had survived this appetizer to independence.
   Four years from now, it will be my turn to launch a child. I think he'll be OK. And I will be too.

Work, Part II: Unpaid, Is Volunteering Anti-Feminist?

  When I left work, priority No. 1 was to volunteer more at my son's school. It didn't take long -- all of a couple of weeks -- before the PTA moms homed in on me. Now that I wasn't working, how about taking on the newsletter and publicity for the various parent activities and fundraisers?
  I was all smiles on the way to the volunteer altar.
  Sunday, I worked on cutting and pasting copy for four hours straight. I was still in my pajamas at lunch time -- which caught the attention of the resident teen, who makes sure to remind me whenever I grumble about stuff I have to do that I'm supposed to be retired. It took two additional hours after dinner to fine tune the newsletter. The next day, I worked three more hours to make sure everything looked just right in the template and proofed it. The bossband was holding his tongue, but he clearly does not see the value in this endeavor. Then the next four days demanded innumerable emails and adjustments to confirm the format was set up properly. Finally, the newsletter went out -- two days late because of technology issues.

  What did I get out of it? Certainly not monetary compensation. I'm not working for pay, I'm working for free. When I told a friend that editing the newsletter was like a job, she winced. She questioned giving hours to a project that went unpaid. It was the feminist in her, I think. Why is it that we women are so willing to spend oodles of time for schools, religious organizations, community groups, extracurriculars, you name it, for zilch pay? The minute a well-educated, professional quits the workforce, or goes part time, or sometimes even if she's still doing her 40 hours, she's called upon to help out at school and usually says yes. Women warned me about this when I said I was leaving the workforce. Men certainly do their share on the athletic fields, but the vast majority of school support comes from women -- often in activities that do not involve direct involvement with their children.
  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the volunteer rate in 2009 in the United States was 30.1 percent for women and 23.3 percent for men. Those 35 to 54 years old are most likely to volunteer, and the higher the educational level, the higher the volunteer rate. In other words, highly educated women in the prime career years are giving time and talent to keep religious, educational and  youth services -- the top three organizations that get the most volunteer hours -- running successfully.
  What's the reward? Not money and definitely not admiration from the bossband, who thinks way too much time goes the way of the school newsletter. And he never really cared for his own Sunday mornings spent in hard labor over the Little League fields. It isn't bonding with my child -- unless you count the pleas for help with Word template issues and the irritated, "Mom!" as in how clueless can you be. And it isn't a Mother Theresa moment, either. While the newsletter is most certainly helpful, it's not saving the world or any one person.
  The satisfaction comes down to a job well done. It's my own little -- and we do mean little -- newspaper that's visually pleasing (when the pictures align with the text) and full of important information for the school community. The unsolicited compliments make the good girl in me beam. I'm helping my son's school succeed. And I'm keeping my writing skills sharp and even gaining some new tricks of the trade as far as editing and mastering that monster known as Word.
  Of course, that's part of the problem. Even in the workplace, compliments too often take the place of raises or bonuses. Women, too often, get sucked into giving away their skills for low wages or free. And ultimately, doesn't that devalue the work of women, especially in a culture where skill is rewarded in dollar and cents?
  I have to admit that my friend's unhappiness with my volunteer work has me thinking. And I don't see an easy solution.
  I'd love to ponder more, but I've got to go. Deadline for the next issue is three days away.

Work, Part I: Paid

  Last week was busy, busy.
  I had an 1,800-word magazine story due on the business of fashion. I spent the better part of a week logging nearly full-time hours on interviews of academics and fashion industry insiders. Then another two full days to write and rewrite.
  It almost felt like work, work. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, even for a LOL who has grown accustomed to a relaxed pace of freelancing. I was doing what I like doing best -- writing. And this time, I was getting a decent wage, which made it worth the effort but also added to the pressure. By the end of the week, the tension had built. Down time was next to nil. I had to skip exercise classes, and clean clothes were sparse.  Back came the perils of journalism -- writer's block when faced with thinking of a lead, self-doubt over whether my editor would like the story and anxiety about meeting deadline. Why, I wondered, had I taken on the assignment?
  I think it's all part of the process. It wouldn't be the same rush if not for all the worries along the way. Those restless nights inevitably deliver a good start by morning, and somehow, deadline gets met (almost) always. Self-doubt is a little harder to overcome. But that, too, is usually vanquished.
  But the biggest payoff is more intangible. It comes with the filing of the story. It's a high, simple as that. As deadline approaches, the adrenaline pumps at full throttle, and I know I'm close to the finish line with a solid product. I imagine it is the same pleasure that a craftsman must get from a finely turned cabinet or a mechanic from a rebuilt engine. A job is done and done well, and now what's left is only the anticipation of seeing the story in print and hearing from readers.

I'm an editor, mid-80s. Gotta love those glasses!

  The feelings haven't changed much since the Fall of 1980, when I got my first assignment from the  Kentucky Kernel at the University of Kentucky. I was incredibly shy -- still am, in lots of ways. The thought of picking up the phone and dialing (this was the days of rotary phones) a complete stranger, and a professor at that, was nearly paralyzing.  I still remember the topic:  It was a feature on a restaurant run by home-ec students. With lots of urging from my mother, I made that first call to set up an interview, after picking up and putting down the handset a dozen times. In the end, I was more scared of disappointing Mom than flubbing my call. In the face-to-face interview, I stammered through a series of questions from a prepared list. The professor was kind and patient. Then I stayed up all-night banging out copy on a blue, electric typewriter. When I handed in the pages, I was queasy but also thrilled, as if I'd just climbed off a roller-coaster and survived. A couple of days later, the story ran on the front page of the Kernel, pretty much the way I had written it. The fee was around $5. That day, I asked for another assignment.
  It was the beginning of my love affair with journalism.

Howling Over these Exam Howlers

  I've had my share of verbal missteps. Ying yang for yin yang. Click for clique. And now that I'm blogging with no copy editors (not appreciated enough when my copy regularly passed through their hands), I'm sure I'll continue to make my share of blunders in print.
  Still, I laughed heartily at these examination howlers out of the UK, as picked up in a report on Inside High Education's Website. Here's a sample:

British Exam Howlers

One student has inadvertently invented a new name for the phenomenon: "Confusionism."

In fact, the third-year student had intended to refer to the system of philosophical and ethical teachings founded by the Chinese philosopher Confucius.

Proving that they are just as fallible as all those to have gone before them, students' comical cock-ups have been revealed in entries to Times Higher Education's "exam howlers" competition 2010.

Thank you to Michael Gold, senior lecturer in employment relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, for sending in the Confucianism error.

Many of this year's entries have a medical theme. John Lee, head of undergraduate studies in nursing and midwifery at the University of Dundee, was told that "Vagina Henderson" was one of the first modern nurses of the 20th century (her name, of course, was Virginia).

Along the same lines, Anthony Pinching, interim dean of medicine and associate dean of the Cornwall Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry Knowledge Spa, was informed by a student that HIV was discovered by Galileo (rather than Robert Gallo). And Mary Williams, senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Portsmouth, enjoyed a feature by a journalism student on "complimentary" medicine. "I quite liked the idea of picking up a pill and it saying nice things to you to make you feel better," Williams said. She also appreciated a fashion article that described the subject's sense of style as very "sheikh."

Also on a medical theme, a student who was asked to define otitis media - a medical condition known as "glue ear" -- informed Liz Morrish, principal lecturer in linguistics at Nottingham Trent University, that it was "a text specially designed for people who are otistic."

To read more, click on British Exam Howlers.

Is It Monday Yet?

  "Enjoy the weekend!" says my aerobics instructor.
  The farewell startled me. I had to think for a moment about what day of the week it was. Yes, it was Thursday, and the weekend was fast approaching. Now that I'm a LOL, the days of the week and weekend blur. No longer do I have the demarcation, as harshly drawn as the 38th Parallel, of work week and weekend. Hump Day means nothing more than yoga class. TGIF? Ho-hum.
   I do not hunger for the weekend and its restoration. Neither do I dread Mondays and the onslaught of work it used to bring. Sure I get more time with the family and Bossband on Saturday and Sunday. And that's always enjoyable. But it's also hectic in a way that the rest of the week is not.
   In the world of LsOL, there is a calmness to Monday through Friday that I rather enjoy and, dare I say, anticipate. It's the time to go to the gym, read the newspaper out on the deck, Kindle, write a little in peace and quiet, and shop, of course. It has its own rhythm and pace, especially during these mostly lazy summer days.
  So, yes, I will enjoy the weekend. But I'm looking forward to Monday.

Family Feud: U.S. Parents More Likely to Have Conflict with Adult Children than European Parents

Food for Thought: 

 Tolstoy wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and a new study in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family finds significant national differences in the degree of conflict between older parents and their adult children, according to a Newswise report.

“Given that family life has its basis in the tension between the desire for autonomy and the need for interdependence, it is not surprising that intergenerational relations—throughout the family life cycle—are among the most ambivalent of social relationships,” said Merril Silverstein, University of Southern California professor of gerontology and sociology, and lead author of the study.

Prior research has shown that quality of life for older persons, including both mental health and physical health, depends heavily on how well older parents get along with their adult children.

To identify the social policies that might influence these relationships, Silverstein and co-authors looked at six developed countries with a range of welfare regimes and various family cultures: England, Germany, Israel, Norway, Spain and the United States.

They found that affection and conflict exist simultaneously in all countries examined, but significant differences exist in how the emotions are likely to interact.

“The simultaneous presence of affection and conflict in intergenerational relationships reflects emotional complexities that are intuitively obvious to anyone who is part of a family,” Silverstein said. Among the findings:

* Parents in the United States and Israel were far more likely than parents in England and Germany to have negative feelings toward their adult children, according to the study.
* However, negative emotions in Israel accompanied strong positive emotions more often than elsewhere, indicating emotional intensity and ambivalence.
* While German parents were unlikely to have negative feelings towards their adult children, they lacked positive feelings as well, indicating overall detachment.
* In the United States, “disharmonious” relationships—defined as the presence of strong negative emotions without strong positive emotions—were more than twice as likely than anywhere else studied.
* Older parents with difficulty climbing stairs were more likely to have a disharmonious relationship with their adult children.

A plurality of respondents in every country surveyed had affectionate relationships relatively free of conflict with their adult children. In England, 75 percent of parents had “amicable” relationships with their children, compared to about half in the United States (51 percent) and Germany (49 percent).

“Parents in poorer functional health tended more to have detached and disharmonious relationships with their children, and those who received help from children tended more to have ambivalent relationships with them,” Silverstein explained. “Together, the finding suggest that frailty and dependence on children introduce elements of friction and strain into intergenerational relationships.”

The study used data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG), concentrated in Southern California, and a multinational study of intergenerational relationships funded by the European Commission, OASIS. The final sample, across the six nations, was 2,698.

Vern Bengtson, AARP Chair of Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology, also contributed to the study.

Source: Newswise and Silverstein et al., “Older Parent-Child Relationships in Six Developed Nations: Comparisons at the Intersection of Affection and Conflict.” Journal of Marriage and Family: August 2010.

Blue's Clues, Chuckee Cheese, Sleepovers and the Perfect Jinx

  For 13 years, I've made sure that my son's birthday was celebrated big, spending weeks planning a theme party and fun activities for him and his friends.
  For his first birthday, we had the Singing Library Lady come to our house, play her guitar and sing "Wheels on the Bus," "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," and other rollicking favorites. He got a toy chest full of toys. And birthday cake. And each child got a specially selected present as a favor. All this, even though the parenting books discouraged grand celebration and warned that the birthday child might freak out. My boy seemed to thoroughly enjoy it all.  I still remember him holding on to the coffee table, unable to walk but happy to stand, and swaying to the beat of the music.
  At three, he was in love with Blue's Clues. That was the obvious theme. But I couldn't find anyone who had a Blue's costume, so I had to settle for a big, furry Elmo. He greeted my son, who was decked out in his green-striped Steve shirt, and he had the children search for Blue's Clues. I was particularly proud of myself for the party favor that year. I had stayed up to the wee hours making Blue's Clues notebooks out of reporter's pads. On the cover, I pasted green construction paper and drew the Big Red Chair that Steve used to think in and decorated it with red glitter. An oversized crayon was stuck in a red spiral. It looked perfect, if I say so myself.
  Other years, we had face painting, Power Rangers,  and Chuckee Cheese, of course. A whole string of years focused on sports -- soccer parties, basketball parties, football parties, you name the ball. One year, we held the festivities in a park. With a summer birthday, outdoors always seemed like a good idea until it got near to the date. Then I would panic over the weather forecast and pray for a clear day. Once it poured an hour before the outdoor party. That time we switched to indoor bowling, scrambling to find an  available alley. This particular year, the weather was fine. I had chosen a beautiful, expansive park not far from the house. Technically, you had to live within a certain distance to book it for gatherings. We were a bit outside, but I figured I could simply show up and stake out a spot. Who would care about 15 little kids playing in a park? That morning, I went over to check out the picnic tables.
  Then I saw a big sign announcing a concert. At the park. That same day. No tables would be available. It was hours until guests would arrive.

  I frantically started roaming other parks. I tried to book a shelter. Everything was reserved -- since the previous year! Finally, in desperation, I approached one family who had a large shelter at Ridley Creek. They were only using two of the four tables. I appealed to them -- telling them how my plans had gone awry, how my son was turning seven, how he'd be so disappointed, how we wouldn't take up too much space, how we'd pay whatever the fee was. Could they please, please, PLEASE share? They looked at me like I was crazy, but bless them, they agreed. 
  And so it went, through laser tag and sleepovers and go-carts. Until this year.
  Now that he was turning 14, the big birthday bash, even a sleepover, seemed too childish. Instead, we planned to spend the day as a family and meet up with other relatives for a day at the beach, picnic lunch, mini-golf and carnival rides on the boardwalk. Everyone was psyched. The weather was blisteringly hot -- a perfect day to escape to the beach.
  And then the plan began to unravel.
   The birthday present -- an $80 Sneijder jersey -- that I had received a couple of days earlier was too small. I had overlooked the size when ordering, and now it was too late to exchange it. The first phone call of the big day was to say that one of his favorite cousins was sick with a temperature of 101 degrees F. The family had to cancel. That left us heading to the beach with the grandparents. We loaded up the car and headed out. Within half an hour, we hit traffic. A 90-minute ride to the beach became a four hour, exhausting odyssey. Everyone was starving. We had our picnic on the side of the road. The view was a forest dotted with trash. Biting flies kept us hopping as we downed deviled eggs.
  Finally, we reached Avalon and set out our blanket. As we put up the two umbrellas, a gust of wind caught one of them and flung it onto nearby beach goers.  It ripped and my efforts to resurrect it failed. That left one umbrella for the five of us. The wind, though, was unrelenting, and I'm convinced, attacked our umbrella more than anyone else's.
  Let's just get in the water, I thought. We set off for the ocean as the grandparents clung to the umbrella stand and squeezed into the speck of shade. Seconds into the water, our feet became numb. The water, on this record-hot day, was Arctic cold.
  We stayed another half hour or so and decided to pack up and go home. I was sullen. This was not the birthday celebration I had intended. I started to apologize to my son. I felt so bad about it all. But somehow he knew how much it meant to me for his day to be perfect. Even though he had to be just as disappointed, he never showed it. Instead, he said, "It's OK, Mom." And then added, with a sweet smile, "You're the best mother ever."
  I was stunned and touched -- and proud -- at this show of maturity. My little boy wasn't a kid anymore. And those unsolicited words of comfort provided a perfect end to a jinxed day.
 

Happiness is Shopping at Wegmans

  Our neighborhood grocery store closed this weekend. It had deteriorated ever since the local store sold out to a national chain. But it was familiar and we liked the folks who worked there. So over the last few days, it was rather sad to see the half empty shelfs and long-faced cashiers and baggers we've known for most of our years in suburban Philly. Now, I'll have to travel another five minutes to the next town's supermarket for last-minute runs for forgotten ingredients, an unfortunately common occurrence around dinner time.
  But all is not lost. Just as one store closed, another opened. And this store is the Shangri La of grocery stores.
  Wegmans in Malvern.
   Forgive my gushing; it was my first time at a Wegmans. The size of a Walmart but with the class of a Neiman-Marcus, it takes the super part of supermarket seriously. The grand opening on Sunday was a cross between Black Friday at King of Prussia Mall and the Devon Horse Show -- a must-go, see-and-be-seen mob event. The whole family came out for the big day. After a 20-minute drive, we had to park half a mile away to get inside. 
  Aisles were as packed as the baskets of produce. Free samples abounded. Strawberry smoothies. South American roses. Cheeses. Fresh-made rice cakes. Candies to rival Willie Wonka's factory. Who knew grocery shopping could be this much fun? And that doesn't even include the food bars. Where else can you find palak paneer as tasty as the local curry house on a "salad bar"? Even the Bossband was impressed.
  LsOL spend a good deal of the week restocking the pantry. Grocery shopping is as important as a client meeting. It should not be a chore. Wegmans takes the experience to a whole other level.  Right away it exudes luxuriousness in sheer size and choice alone. The fact that its prices are competitive satisfies the bargain hunter inside every LOL. And the type of items it offers --  8,000 specialty groceries, 10,000 natural an organic items, 500  premium teas -- has to please the foodies out there.  Heck, Wegmans carries Lakshmi, a South Asian brand usually only found at the ethnic grocer.
  Grocery shopping will never be the same again. Instead of a weekly chore, it's a bonafide event. Of course, a LOL would have it no other way.

In Search of the Perfect Swimsuit

  When did buying a swimsuit get this difficult?
   At one time, I could go to the store and pick up the latest flowery bikini and go off to the pool. OK, I was 12. But even in my post-college years, I could find a decent suit in a couple of hours. Even 10 years ago, the perfect one-piece did not require moving into a dressing room.
  The trend toward tankinis and bottoms and tops sold separately has turned into a nightmare. If you miss the initial arrival of suits at top dollar or choose to wait for the sales, all you get are bottoms in x-small and tops in x-large -- or one-piecers that look like leftovers from great-grandma's closet.
  Ideally, I want a swimsuit that looks sort of fashionable and a little pretty without exposing more than a Playboy centerfold. Is that asking too much? Not everyone is 16 still and able to sashay around the beach in an itsy, bitsy polka-dot bikini. Or at least, they shouldn't. Not after children and middle-age.
  This year, I figured as a LOL, I would have plenty of time to look. I was even willing to pay a little more than my usual under $40 limit. But my search for a suit -- after I finally had to give up my raggedy one-piece from a decade ago -- took me to a dozen stores over three malls and two weeks. If I found a color I liked, then the style was too skimpy. If I found a more modest suit, without a plunging neckline, then the only shade was blue, and I do not like blue. (It's just me.)
  If it looked perfect on the rack, it was a whole another sight in the dressing room. Half the time, I could barely squeeze all of me into the suit. And I'm not really all that big at a Size 8, even Size 6 at times. Those little pads in the tops would always scrunch up or slide around, looking as if I had a boob job gone terribly wrong. Then the bottoms would ride up, letting a little too much derriere hang out. Sometimes the front was great, but the back was all wrong. (FYI: Plunging backs are really meant only for aerobics instructors.) Once, a long, long time ago, I was so close. But then the price tag was over $100 -- and really, even at my level of desperation, I was not paying that kind of dough.
  Then, when I was ready to limit my water play to my bathtub,  I spied a shorts-style bottom -- one of three left. It fit. It was hot pink. I took it. The top, on the other hand, was designed for a flat-chested tweener. Hot pink seemed to be a popular color this season, so figured I'd match it pretty easily elsewhere. I was wrong.
 Three stores later, I settled for a brown and yellow tank-top that cut straight across the neckline and flattered the mid-section. The two pieces fit nicely, covered everything I wanted covered while not making me look like a bather out of the 1920s.
  I know.  Brown and pink? It's a match only Ugly Betty would love, or the colorblind. Well, there's always next season. A girl can dream, can't she?
  
 

Packing Love Notes and Other Goodies

 I'm one of those moms who loved making lunch for my son. When he was in pre-school, I'd write a love note on his napkin -- after I read about a mother who did that in one of the parenting magazines. I'm not sure my own son appreciated that the same way that other child in the magazine did, but I persisted through much of his toddler years.
  Food, and the making of it, is one of those odd ways a mother shows her love. So a lunch box is packed full, with more items than a child could ever eat in one meal, especially when a one-year-old is sent to daycare while Mommy goes to work. Once I overheard the daycare teacher joke about another child whose mother sent a "buffet" for his lunch. They laughed at the mighty meal. But I understood.
  In elementary school, I still got to pack -- minus the love notes. And no more occasional candy treats, because the school didn't allow that. That was OK. I was always into healthy lunches. Sandwiches on whole wheat or multi-grain. Lots of fresh fruit. 100 percent juice. Terra chips.
   Eventually, in those middle elementary years, my son started complaining that he never had "anything good" in his lunch. He meant no Doritos or fruit roll-ups or Oreos or Gatorade. I tried explaining he had lots of good stuff and that other stuff was junk food. But over time, I relented, and he got those items now and then.
  By middle school, he was insistent on buying lunch. Taking a packed lunch wasn't cool. Other mothers were delighted when they no longer had to send a lunch. Secretly, I was heartbroken. He was growing up, and I was a little less relevant in his life.
   That's why Philadelphia Inquirer food editor Maureen Fitzgerald's  piece "For 21 years, packing a little love with lunch" touched a soft spot. I completely related and am a little envious she got to keep at it for 21 years compared to my short 11 years. Her story brought back a flood of memories. And it made me realize how much a I enjoy those rare moments now when I can pack a lunch and "a little love" for a field trip or week at camp -- even if this LOL has to wake up a half hour early.

Photo credit: www.iStockphoto.com/jskiba

Home Sweet Home

  The wind rustles through the waves of trees. The deck is drenched in sunlight. The robins and sparrows chatter. A black butterfly with blue patches flits among the potted plants of peppers, tomatoes, eggplants and one glorious sunflower that towers nearly seven feet. I smile.

  A LOL can finally enjoy her home. Some LsOL, of course, have grand mansions out here in suburbia and well-tended gardens. My abode is more modest, and what I can now savor really has little to do with  grandeur as much as moments that got lost in the frantic insanity of before. I can sit on this deck and read my Kindle (nearly finished with The Girl Who Played With Fire) as the birds sing their tunes  and the butterflies skip from one flower to the next.
   With more control over my time, I can literally stop to smell the roses out front, or better yet, the pots of jasmine arrayed on the deck.
  I have had one plant for more than 20 years, given to me by my mother, who bought the original from a Houston nursery more than 35 years ago and painstakingly grew several more from cuttings.
It was a tangible reminder of her native India. When she passed away earlier this year, I inherited two more jasmine -- now, I like to think, my connection to her. At this time of year, the plant is loaded with small white flowers that give off an intoxicating fragrance. She would  have been very pleased.
   I lean back in my deck chair, a piece of furniture that seldom got used in the past, and I am delighted to be able to enjoy this moment, on this day, in this way.