Today, I’m continuing the saga as we enter The Dinner Hour!! (cue scary music)

The Southampton Hospital Benefit is so huge, so gigantic, that it can only be held in a tent.  Nine hundred people were at this benefit.  And not one of them knew or cared who I was. Typical day in the life.

After the hors d’oevres free cocktail hour, we entered the dinner tent.  Our table, #79, or as I like to call it, The Jewish Table, (why the Jewish table?  I’m guessing that our dinner companions, the Kaplans, the Fienbergs, and the Goldsteins were Jewish. Just a guess.) Anyway the Jewish table was in the back.   But haha on them, because the back was also where the food was, and since we’ve already established that at a party, Jews eat – well, good luck to them getting any rubber chicken!

I could write about the long lines for the buffet dinner.  I could regale you with stories of  how the aggressively white crowd got down to the strains of Brick House, played by a band of 60-something white guys. But the real story of the dinner took place at table #79, where the first person we met was a bleach-blonde, fake breasted, poufy lipped, heavily eyelined and even more heavily jewel encrusted woman of an indeterminate age.

After all that surgery, it was hard to tell.  I’d put her anywhere between 35 and 55. Only her plastic surgeon knows for sure.  She introduced herself:

“Hi. Do you know anyone single?  I’m going through a divorce and I’m getting $50 million dollars in the settlement.  So the guy has to worth at least half that much. Got anybody?”

Well, you had to hand it to her: she wasn’t coy.

BBB (bleach blond bimbo) went on to tell us how she had a driver, an assistant, and two boys who were living with their father.  She grilled the men at the table about their friends.  Were they rich? Could she have their number? Did we know that the diamond earrings she was wearing were three carats each?  At one point, Mr. Kaplan, a charming, funny man in his seventies, looked at me over her flat-ironed head and mouthed the words “Help Me!”

Help him?  Why of course not!  I needed fodder for my blog post!

I spoke to BBB’s date – her mother. “Who’s gonna take her seriously?” she moaned. “She tells everybody everything! Me? I’m not like that. I’m quiet, private. Ever since my husband died.”

And then, quiet, private Mom told me the totally unfunny and truly sad story of how her husband had been killed in a car jacking. Not to be insensitive (did you ever notice that when people start a sentence with “not to be _____” they’re about to be totally and completely _____?”  but what a buzz kill.

Meanwhile, BBB hounded my husband. At nearly 50,  and the youngest man at the table, he must have seemed her best bet for a kill, date. “Gimme your business card!” she yelled at him over a very loud rendition of Kool and the Gangs Celebrate.

“No!” my husband yelled back, and – and I’m not kidding here – physically ran from her.

So she descended upon me: “Your husband won’t give me his business card.  He thinks I want to break up your marriage.  I would never do that!  Never!” Well, that was a relief!  I mean, any man who is interested in me – a size 10 (eight on a good day), ethnic looking, ivy educated, left-wing upper west side Jew – well he’d be bound to go for a girl who looked like she was an “air quote” dancer.

“I know!” she squealed! “let’s be best friends! What’s your name?”

Luckily, I was saved by the Blackberry: “Ma!” she said “It’s my assistant! The driver is here with the Bentley.” then, to my husband “I have a Bentley.”

“You have a Bentley!!” my husband suddenly grew animated. “We have a Bentley!” And then he showed her a picture of our Bentley, that’s him there. The Shelter dog from Arkansas.  BBB was not impressed. She stormed off.  But me and my husband?  Well, we’d had the time of our lives! I guess society ain’t so bad after all.

Anyhoo, I guess we got lucky, as we were still in what I will delicately refer to as the “planning stages.”  And under the covers. And, needless to say, in the dark.   (seriously, have you read anything about me and my body image?)

Plus, hubby reacted perfectly.  Instead of jumping so high he hit his head on the ceiling, he casually greeted her with a “What are you doing out of bed, sweetie?”

She wasn’t falling for it. “What were you doooo-ing?” (you have to draw out that “dooo” sound and lilt up on the “ing” to get the intonation. Try it. Got it? Good.)

I decided to let hubby handle it.

“You caught Daddy kissing Mommy.”

Brilliant! Not a lie….just not exactly the truth.

“Naked?” she asked.

“I’m naked,” I said (and please, spare yourselves the mental picture.  It ain’t pretty.  Remember: under the covers, under the shield of darkness.) ‘But Daddy is still wearing his pajama bottoms, see?”

“Why are you naked?” Yeesh, won’t this kid give it a rest?

“I was on my way to the shower when Daddy started kissing me.”

“Do you do this….usually?” Evidently she was NOT ready to give it a rest.

“Well, it’s really cozy under our new comforter.  Why don’t you come in with us?”

“Naked?” ahhh, heading towards giving it a rest.

“OK!”

And with that, hubby got up to get ready for bed, daughter whipped off her nightie and got under the covers, I got a chance to cuddle with my little girl, and all was right with the world.

Crisis averted.  Innocence maintained.  And lock purchased.

Please, please, leave a comment telling me I’m not the only one who may have scarred her child for life.  This happens. Right? Right? Right?

Oh, and please don’t mention to hubby that I posted about this.  This would NOT make him happy.  No, not at all.

Notice the last names I’ve fabricated.  Not so very ethnic, are they?  Jews don’t hyphenate.  Take me, for instance.  My maiden name is Rabinowitz, my married name is Friedman.  I considered hyphenating for about twelve seconds.  And then I realized I’d be Nancy Rabinowitz-Friedman; I might as well introduce myself has Nancy Double-Jew.  Twice the guilt!!  Twice the neuroses!   So when I got married I just decided to get rid of my middle name, Jean, and replace it with my maiden name.  That way, the clerk explained, I would legally be able to use either my maiden name or my married name. If I hyphenated, he told me, I would always have to use both names.  Quite a mouthful, don’t you think?

For a moment there, I considered going with a one-name moniker:: Madonna, Cher, Bjork, Elmo.  I tried Nan – but that sounded like a pug-nosed, perky cheerleader.  And I feel pretty confident with my big-nosed, sarcastic, pessimist persona.  I thought  I could take my new initials, NRF, and call myself Nerf.  Only that sounded like a squishy ball, and frankly, I didn’t need any name-based reminders of my physique.

Maybe my husband and I should have combined our names to create a new one. We could have been the Friedowitz family, or my personal favorite, the Rabinimans. Then again, maybe not.

So I stuck with the old switcheroo – sometimes one name, sometimes the other.

What’s in a name?  A lot.  If there weren’t, there wouldn’t be websites devoted to helping us choose names for our kids, or forums online for women deciding whether or not to give up their maiden  names.  Hilary Rodham Clinton wouldn’t be, well, Hilary Rodham Clinton.  She’d be Hilary Clinton or Hilary Rodham.  Not both.  Names are complicated.  Maybe that’s why Elizabeth Taylor never changed hers.  Imagine if she had, she’d be Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky. (I think she stayed Taylor not for the celebrity, but because somewhere in her mind she knew she’d one day marry a man named Fortensky – and she just couldn’t bear to called that.)

Once we had kids, it got a bit complicated, but I figured it out. Generally, anything professional – writing, producing – I used Rabinowitz.  Personally, I used Friedman, since I wanted to share a name with my kids. Aside from getting doubles of every catalogue in the universe, it’s worked out pretty well for the past 12 years.

But this fall, when I decided to publish as Nancy Friedman for the first time. I don’t know why I did it. I guess I just figured that at this point, I’ve pretty much stopped working, and most of the people I know, know me as Nancy Friedman. So why not publish that way?  Plus, I think it kinda bugged my husband that everything else I’d ever written had been under my maiden name. And I wanna keep him happy.

Now is where the giveaway kicks in (yep, you had to read this far to find it!).  I’m giving away two copies of the new anthology See Mom Run, edited by Role Mommy Founder Beth Feldman. It’s a collection of essays by moms…including me.  And it’s really, really, funny.  I promise. Just leave a comment below with your “dancer name” for a chance to win. What’s a dancer name? It’s the name of your first pet, follwed by the name of the street you grew up on.  If you were a stripper, it would be the name you’d dance under — hence “dance name.”  I’d be Honey Whig.

Hey — maybe I should publish under that next time!

Good luck!

Contest ends Friday, January 29th at 11pm.  Must be 18 years or older. US residents only. Two winners will be announced Saturday, Jan 30th.

It made me think about a book I’m been reading: “What Happened to the Girl I Married” by Michael Miller.  Which is good, because I’m reading it as part of the Silicon Valley Moms Group book club. (I write for NYC Moms blog, which is part of the SV Group.  Confused yet?)

Anyway, the book is about a guy (Miller) who spends a year “in his wife’s shoes at home.” (wonder if she wears Blahniks!), as a way to discover what happened to the girl…well, you get the drift.

I know what happened to her.  She lost herself on the way to the dry cleaners and the pediatricians, and the exterminator, and the optometrist, and and and and and.

How does that happen?  How does the day get away from you so fast?  Miller thought his wife was just inefficient. Ha! He learned the hard way what a hard way of living being a full time stay at home Mom can be.

Miller really does give it his all — He tackles the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning. But for all of his realizations — some of which, I admit, are validating and worthwhile to read (I especially liked his idea of SAHMs living life in fragments)– the book is really about him.  His journey.  His conquering it all.  His realization and transformation from corporate egomaniac or domesticated, sympathetic uber-husband and father.

All I could think of while I was reading it was — where is the girl he marred in all of this?  What was she doing while he took over her life to learn how to respect what she does?  Why don’t we hear from her?

I know why.  It’s a man’s world.  Even in a book written to help men understand what their wives go through each day.Even in a book that advises men to acknowledge and praise their wives.(And Michael, I do acknowledge and praise you for doing this.)  Because, what he doesn’t say is: encourage your wife to be herself.  Encourage your wife to follow her own dreams while you hold down the fort.

In the end – he’s just making life more palatable for women (not to mention himself — there’s a lot about getting enough sex)…as long as they’re still at home waiting for him when he gets back from wherever he’s been all day. I don’t mean to say that he hasn’t genuinely changed the way he perceives, appreciates, and communicates with his wife.  He has.  But it’s still a book about men.  About husbands appeasing wives, understanding wives — as if “wife” were some state of being universal to women.

On days like today, I’d love for my husband to read this book – lacking though I found it. Because at least this guy made the attempt.  I’d rather he universalized, instead of personalized the whole thing. I wish he didn’t repeat himself quite so much. (yes, I know.  Your father was a produce man)  but still — he tried.  Which is more than I can say for a lot of husbands I know. (not mine.  of course.  never mine.)

But honsetly, what I really need is a book about how to clean the house, make the beds, do the shopping, wipe the tears, arrange the flowers, prepare the meal, do the dishes, fold the laundry, “do” the husband, and still have time to hang out and be myself.  That book, I’d love. I But until it comes out, I’ll still be searching.

Still, nothing prepared me for my recent beach-side discovery:  post-forty, bodies age exponentially.

Think about it: what was your body like at 20?  Was it so different at 25?  At 30? Probably not. As a matter of fact,  I was actually in better shape at 32 than I was at 22.  At 32 I was working out, jogging, eating right.  At 22 I was living in Paris, smoking, drinking wine, and thought exercise was something I only had to do in America, and only then when some oversized PE teacher was forcing me.

Now think of your body at 38.  Then at forty.  Then at 42. (If you haven’t reached this milestone, don’t read on: you might not want to know what’s next).  Still the same body?  Not so much, huh?

Last year, I noticed that my knees were wrinkling. Knees!! What the hell can you do about that?  This year, my quads have joined in.  Mind you, I weigh less (thank you Weight Watchers) this year than I did last,  and the muscles are still under there: yoga and Nia, and weight training, and even ballroom dancing sees to that.  But my skin doesn’t care.  My skin is aging.  Fast.

So is the rest of me.  Today, I went to Tip Top Shoes to try to find stylish shoes that don’t bother my back or my bunion. There, I said it.  BUNION.  If that doesn’t say “your body is aging” well, what does? (By the way stylkish shoes adn bunion really don’t go together. I don’t care what Mephisto says.)

Then there’s the fact that I can no longer drink alcohol.  I was never much of a drinker.  Maybe a few glasses of wine once or twice a month.  But now?  ONE glass, and I’m out of commission for three days. Jeez.

It isn’t that I don’t want to get older (well, I don’t, but that’s not the point) The point is, why is it happening so fast?  I pretty much looked the same from the time I was 20 until I was thirty.  There were little changes – maybe my skin wasn’t quite as vibrant – but overall, the changes were just a difference – not a decline.

So all this leads me to one thing:  should I change the name of my blog?  Let’s face it, agelessbodytimelessmom.com is quite a mouthful, quite a thing to type in, and awfully hard to remember, from what I gather. (Does no one get the Deepak Chopra reference?  Anyone? Anyone?)

I have been working on a manuscript for a while now, it’s called: From Hip to Housewife in Two Kids Flat.  So I’m asking here — should I change my website’s name to FromHiptoHousewife.com?  FromHip2Housewife.com?  Or just keep it as is.  Because, let’s face it, despite my best attempts, I’m not exactly ageless here.  

Votes welcome.  Vote, please, and fast.  I’m not getting any younger.

The Animal Crossing Gang

Here’s what was happening in my professional (if unpaid) life last week:  I was invited to a media preview of the hot new Wii Game, Animal Crossing: City Folk.  At the party,  the game was there, and in the spirit of the game, in which you create and can change your Mii to suit your mood, and live a virtual life, there were make-over artists, stylists, fortune tellers…and most importantly, martinis. (Though I’m pretty sure that Mii’s don’t drink.)

Here’s what happened in my actual life:  I stayed home with a sick child.

Now, I know that kids get sick.  I know that it’s just part of parenthood:  the puke-filled nights, the snot-filled tissues the kids never seem to remember to throw into the trash.  But did it have to happen when I was invited to a ladies night out?  By a company in whose best interest it was to show all of us bloggers a fun time?  (And in this blog post, it does look like it was fun.) Did it have to happen when I could have gone to a bar in the East Village and not felt like the oldest, least hip, woman in the room?

Of course it did.  ‘Cause that’s the way it’s been going lately.  Even at the Leap Frog Party – at which I had a great time (and to which I got to go – shock of all shocks).  At that party, there were display toys strewn all around the room.  Or at least I thought they were display toys.  Evidently, they were up for grabs.  And grab these women did.  You’d have thought they were giving the stuff away.  Well…they were.  But that’s not my point.  My point is, it was worse than the half-off sale at Barney’s.  These women were vicious.  One woman (and I swear this is true.  I saw it with my own eyes.) actually grabbed the Didj the PR person was using as a demo — WHILE SHE WAS USING IT — and put it into her shopping bag.  These women were taking as much as they could carry; some even brought their husbands in to help with the haul.  There was no way they were taking all this stuff for themselves.  Either they were planning on scoring big on Ebay or they were planning on playing Santa at their local charities.  And by local I mean their own living rooms.

What did I do?  I took my allotted, pre-packaged (and quite generous enough, thank you,) goody bag and headed for the door.  Actually, that’s not true.  I went so far as to GIVE BACK a Crammer (the handheld that makes studying – if not fun – at least cool-looking), because I thought my kids were too old for it.  That did get me the promise of a Leapster 2 for my daughter…but I’m not holding my breath.  After what those women did to their inventory, they probably don’t even have enough to go to market for the holidays.

I know, I know, I should be happy with the freebies I got and not be greedy.  But it isn’t about wanting more swag (or at least not only about that)- it’s about wanting to get out of my self-effacing posture and take what’s mine.

I have plenty of friends who would have said to their husbands:  “Too bad the Wee One is throwing up on the night I have a great party to go to downtown.  Here are some plastic bowls and a few towels…See you later!” But I can’t do that.  I stay home and spray Woolite Carpet Cleaner on the new white rug because she’s missed the toilet for the third time. (Why can’t they ever make it to the bathroom?  It’s like the mystery of lost socks.  Unsolved forever.)

Plenty of women saw free stuff being offered and they took it with gusto.  Me? I was embarrassed.  I couldn’t even bring myself to take the stuff they’d actually handed to me in a bag with my name on it, much less grab for more. (though if anyone from Leapfrog is reading this: I wouldn’t mind if I did get that Leapster)

Animal Crossing is a game that’s all about community.  In it, up to four people in your household can live and work together to build the perfect town.  You can design your own clothes, your own house, your own life.  You know what I’d like to design?  A life in which I don’t always sell myself short.  A life in which someone else is wiping up the puke once in a while.  A life in which I’m not embarrassed to assert myself, change my look, drink a martini in the East Village on a rainy night.

I did get an Animal Crossing game in the mail to try out.  And I’m going to use it to be all about me.  ‘Cause the truth is, I’m never going to be able to do that in the real world: I’m too worried about my kids to put myself first, too “well brought up” to grab at the freebie table.  In Animal Crossing I can do all that.

Who knows, maybe being virtually selfish and aggressive will make me reality happy.  I’ll take the leap (frog) and see what happens.

We have the same hair (ish), the same color eyes, the same large-ish nose with a bump, even the same little mole on our chins. Hey, knock six inches and forty pounds off me, and you’d swear we were twins!

The difference is, even though we’re the same age, we’re both moms, and we both live in NYC, she’s still considered a sexy woman and I’m considered…well, not. The only men who think I’m sexy are over sixty. Ouch.

Back when the Sex in the City series was in it’s heyday, people used to literally stop me in the streets. “Are you Carrie?” they’d ask. I was young and single and dating in the city. I really was Carrie (minus the inches, the pounds, the fame, the shoes, and the wardrobe). But it was also that I was — dare I say it — sexy. Not so pretty maybe, but I had… something.

Sarah Jessica Parker still has it. Me? Seems like somewhere between changing diapers and helping with homework, I’ve lost it. I’m not really complaining, mind you. I think that a big part of being sexy is putting yourself out there, and back in the day, well, let’s just say that I was out there quite a bit. Now, I’m in here. I’m with my kids. I’m at my computer. I’m not looking for love, I’ve found it. I’m not trying to prove myself by attracting strangers. My husband still finds me attractive (God bless him) and that’s good enough for me.

Still, if Carrie can come back bigger than life on the big screen after four years, would it be so terrible if just once, someone could think that was me? Chic, and sexy and fabulous?

Maybe I should get a huge flower and pin it to my dress. Maybe I should get a tutu and stand in front of a bus. Or maybe I should just thank the powers that be that after fourteen years with me, my husband is still glad to be having sex in the city with me.