Bad Hair Day

  LsOL do not like power outages. Not at all. How does one manage one's hair? A swift moving storm with 70 mph winds wiped out the electricity to 200,000 customers in the Philly suburbs on Thursday afternoon. We did not get power back until late Friday. Very unpleasant. So, the morning shower meant that I could not blow dry my hair and had to go au naturel -- not a pretty sight with my curly, frizzy locks. But at least I could go swimming without the arduous task of the one-hour post-blow dry.
   When the power came back, we still did not have the Internet or cable. That meant no blogging or alerting folks to Friendly Suggestions. That's a Website by Hal Janssen where "Friends can share Suggestions and Ideas on any topic." Hal, a former Inky-ite, picked up my post on my run-in with the Bossband over that bottle of wine. Check it out at FriendlySuggestions.com.
  Finally, here's a riddle: How do you get a teenager to talk to you?
  Answer: Cut the power/Internet/cable.
  Now that we're back to civilization, the Bossband is checking his email, surfing the Net and watching soccer/tennis; the resident teen is playing Call of Duty, and this LOL is off to a very important task -- blow drying her hair.

That Not-So-Perfect Getaway Weekend

  Recently, my husband and I went away for a weekend. Many of my LOL friends do that all the time. They take a few days in New York, or Florida, or California, either with the husband or with the girlfriends, in which case the husbands are left behind, but never with the children.
  How does that work exactly? Our baby/child/teen is always on board -- even on our anniversary trips back to where we met (Chicago) and where we first lived together after we got married (Boston). When we have left him with grandparents for a long weekend, we usually feel guilty and end up missing him.
 This time, though, we had the perfect, guilt-free excuse to leave home sans child. He was on a Spanish class trip to Puerto Rico. When my husband suggested we go to New York, see a show, I was happily surprised. OK, I was stunned and then happily surprised. We never do anything that spontaneous.
  We drove up Saturday morning and immediately stood in line for half-price Broadway tickets at the TKTS booth. Our getaway weekend was on a budget, afterall. What should we see? My husband graciously deferred to me. I chose West Side Story. It's a classic. It has a love story (for me), lots of actions with all that gang stuff (for him) and beautiful music. I knew I'd love it. Surely he would too.
  We spent the afternoon hanging out in the hotel room. I was reading The Girl Who Played with Fire on my Kindle, while my husband was catching the World Cup, though he might have been better off with a nap.
  After a delicious dinner at an Afghan restaurant, we arrived early at the Palace Theater.  We had seats 17 rows from the stage, which sounded really close when we bought the tickets, but wasn't all that close when we got there, especially if we dwelled on the $140 we had paid. Still, it was an improvement over our usual mountaintop theater seats that cost less but require the Hubble telescope to make out the actors.
  The curtain went up and the play began with the familiar confrontation of the Jets and the Sharks. I loved it from the first minute. The price tag was well worth it, I thought. This weekend in New York was looking good. When Tony began to sing my favorite song, "Maria," I turned to my husband, expecting to see my smile reflected back.
  He, however, was in full slumber. The highlight of the weekend for one half, it turned out, was a $70 snooze.

The High Expectations of a Bossband

  When I left the workplace nearly two months ago for a life of leisure, I traded 9 to 5s for my own pace and priorities. No more bosses who expected more with less, no more stressful deadlines, no more stuffing the day full of grunt work until it finally burst like a balloon with one puff too many. Right? WRONG! I am discovering that one's dear husband is a way more demanding boss than that other boss ever was.
  The other night, we had plans to meet friends for dinner at a restaurant. My dear husband asked nicely if I would pick up a bottle of wine, Riesling perhaps? No problem. I had to grocery shop anyway, and the wine store is right next door. I hadn't really set a firm time to go as I had a couple of other errands to do and a freelance story to write. But I figured I'd take care of the wine by mid-afternoon, well ahead of our 7:15 p.m. reservation.
  At mid-morning, the dear husband calls: "Did you buy the wine?"
  "Not yet, honey." Long pause. I was urged to buy it soon so that it could cool sufficiently before dinner. Okey, dokey. Two hours later, I was getting ready to leave the house to shop. I get another call. Any wine yet? On my way there now. Long pause. Little sigh.
  Now that I'm a LOL, I like to take my time grocery shopping, even visiting a couple of stores for particular items. After all, I don't have to rush to fit the shopping around the sports lesson for my son and the aerobics class for me and the tennis game for my husband.
   I set out for grocery store No. 1, got most of the items, lingered over the ethnic foods and the cosmetics and then drove to store No. 2, stopping at the bank. By now it was 3:30 p.m. As I loaded the last of the groceries into the trunk, I went into the liquor store and picked up a Yellow Tail Riesling, the first bottle I saw.
  At 4 p.m., my cell rings. "I don't see any wine." My dear, dear husband has summer hours and was home already. Oops! "I have it," I said. "It'll have time to cool. Don't worry." Long pause. Big sigh.
  I race home, run in with the bottle of wine without even unloading the melting groceries and push it into the refrigerator. My dear bossband comes over to inspect. "Why'd you  buy Yellowtail?" Apparently, I was expected to know that we only buy the German one. Darn! "This is good enough," I insist. Long pause. Bigger sigh.
  At that moment, the workplace and that other boss, who was actually quite sweet, was looking mighty fine.

Let Me Check My Calendar

   The Board Meeting, a.k.a. the PTA gathering to introduce the new leaders,  was winding down. The president wanted to know if I was available to meet the following week to go over the agenda for the community life committee I had joined. Uh ... .
  A true LOL is only as good as her technology. Let's just say I'm a work in progress.
   I probably was the last person over the age of 8 and under the age of 70 to get a cell phone. And that only happened because I was offered one for free through work a couple of years ago. When that gig came to an end in April, I was hooked enough to invest in one on my own dime. But I just couldn't fathom a monthly bill the size of a small nation's budget. So I went the pay-as-you go route, splurging on the full-keyboard Samsung model. All of a sudden, I had access to a portable calendar that I could use without having to struggle with clicking through rounds of letters.  Better yet, I could set alarms that would go off during various points of the day, usually while around others, and, just like all the other LsOL, glance down and say, "Oh, that."
   It's the minor leagues, I know. Not close to the iPhones that keep those manicured fingers twitching on the LOL circuit.  But better than a brick, which I'm told by the resident teen, is the moniker of the basic, cheap phone. Because the phone really has nothing to do with phoning anyone. It's all about the level of eye-candy appeal.
  So, I was thrilled, even with my sub-par model, to be able to say to the PTA prez, "Let me check my calendar" and then wage a strangely satisfying thumbie war with those miniscule keys.

Retrosexual Neanderthals Should Stay in Their Caves

  No one should have to be a LOL. It's a choice. It should be made by the lady, perhaps in consultation with the manly man of the house, but not, no way, at his demand. That's what feminism is all about: Choose  to  be the role you want to be.

  The retrosexual trend is all cool on the clothing front (love those suits) and as far as etiquette is concerned (please, do hold those doors open), but what's with all this Neanderthal behavior?

  For more on the retrosexual trend, check out my story: Manning Up.

LsOL in the Making

  These young  women seem sure to grow up to be LsOL extraordinaire as they "haul" 'til they drop -- though I am a little concerned about the underage ones flaunting a little too much. Atouch of modesty is important, young ladies.
  On another front, the journalist in me can see the fine line between objective product endorsement and PR for the Big Company that sent that fine blouse for free. But then again, plenty in the media get freebies (can anyone say review copy of the latest bestseller?) or admission passes all the time.
  Is this a case of holier than thou?