After the Ritz

After our 3 nights at the Ritz, we drove back to my parents house in picturesque Melbourne Beach and spent a week there. We all loved being with them and as usual, I spent most of the visit selfishly trying to convince them to come live with us. Of course, they would never give up their beautiful home on the Indian River where they watch dolphins frolic daily to come back to New York and the cold winters. I couldn't help but try though. After all, have you ever seen me frolic in a shopping mall?

There are many parts to their charm. They are beyond generous, painfully considerate, and a comedy tag team in their own right. A perfect example is the day Mike and I were taking the kids to Disney World. My dad held up a map and started to tell me the directions. He barely got 3 words out before my mother interrupted him. As she was talking to me, my dad had taken a magazine article from the drawer and was waving it in her face. Apparently, they had just read that people who frequently interrupt others are more likely to have heart attacks then their polite counterparts. My dad thought it would come in handy and saved it for just such a time. It did no good of course. She kept on talking even as the article was hitting her in the face. You see, she's a Jewish wife. Jewish women have their right to interrupt their husband written into their wedding vows. It's right up there with the vow to consistently make restaurant reservations for dinner. Luckily, after 55 years of marriage my father is relatively immune to all of it.

With my luck my parents will finally agree to live with me when they are sucking their meat through a straw and my mom has lost the will to interrupt my father. Something tells me they would still be wonderful to have around. I would just have to get my mom one of those motorized carts so she could still shop at a steady pace and keep up with me. No biggy!

The Ritz Carlton, Orlando

I'm back from my absolutely fantabulous 10 day Florida vacation. We were away from March 9th through the 19th and loved every minute of it. I return with wonderful memories and stories for my blog.

First, we dropped the kids off at my parents house in Melbourne Beach. The next day, we left for 3 nights to attend my husband's conference held at the amazing Ritz Carlton, Orlando. We were greeted warmly with offers of hot chocolate at the front desk and a personal escort to our room. In addition, Mike's company had an array of beverages and snacks, including a variety of fresh baked cookies the size of a small child's head. Having no couth, I began filling an empty 6 pack holder with water bottles and diet coke (I like to stay hydrated) and carried cookies in my hands and under my chin (I'm a pig). The stuck-up wife of one of my husband's associates (her name is Fran but I nick-named her Frown) looked completely appalled, while others started to follow my lead. Truly, I was in paradise. We met up with our friends at the pool and spent the next 3 days eating, drinking and relaxing.

There were a number of note-worthy events that happened during my stay. Much to my surprise, the bellman saw me naked one day. I had just gotten out of the shower and hadn't heard a knock. Someone came in and I assumed it was Mike coming back from the pool. I walked out of the bathroom naked and said, "Hi honey" only to realize it was the bellman delivering a gift from Mike's company. I yelled, "Oh my God!" as he nervously offered to leave the gift by the door. As I ran for cover, I said a loud goodbye and later got lots of laughs from friends hearing my story. I heard the poor schmuck went hysterically blind and took an immediate disability leave. At dinner that night, Mike thought the waiter was extremely attentive to me, even taking the time to walk me to the bathroom located outside of the restaurant when I asked where it was. I figured he must have spoken to the bellman and was expecting a special tip after dinner.

I also spent a lot of time with a woman named Joanie, and feel that I can now call her "my friend". If you have read prior postings in my blog (which really no one has) you know that I have very few people that I consider true friends. Joanie shares my shopping addiction and love of shopping magazines. She has a lot more money than I do, so I can live vicariously through her shopping expeditions. The salesmen at Nordstrom even know her by name and start celebrating when she enters the store. Besides all of this, she is down to earth, funny and thinks I'm hilarious. All of this qualifies her as my friend. On top of all this, she is blonde, skinny and stunning without plastic surgery even though she is 10 years my senior. I am graciously trying to overlook these facts.

I even reconnected with old, and dear friends Kevin and Denise who I have known for 12 years but have spent less time with because they live a distance from us. Life was truly blissful at the Ritz Carlton. Now I'm home wishing someone would escort me to the bathroom and longing for gigantic cookies, the remains of which are still stuck permanently to my thighs.

The Winter Blechs

During this time of year many people suffer from the "winter blahs". A relatively bland form of unhappy, winter-listlessness brought on by this seemingly endless season. Today, I suffer from a much more severe form of this syndrome, that I have aptly named the "winter blechs". Symptoms include but are not limited to; a deep and utter hatred for all weenie, school officials that cancel school days because of meager amounts of snow, which in turn, directly results in my children draining any shread of life force that the "winter blahs" haven't already taken from me. (I'm pretty sure that's a major run-on sentence that can be considered only one symptom, but screw it).

My morning began with the sad revelation that school had been cancelled. Ben and Max were ecstatic and agreed to let me go back to sleep for a while (it was 6 AM). At 7:15 Max woke me up screaming that it wasn't fair that Dad was out shovelling and he wasn't. Unable to grasp the concepts of time and work, he proceeded to freak out and call me mean. I snapped, and grabbed him and his snowpants and tried to throw them both out of the house. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far between Max's hysteria and his carbohydrate dependency. After numerous apologies from him, I ended up sledding at 9:30 am and then he and Ben played in the snow with the "Menace" (my nickname for our ADD neighbor's kid) for 5 hours more. Understandably, I am a shadow of my former self.

I think what bugs me the most is other school districts opened after a 2 hour delay. I would have happily dealt with that. Instead I'm a broken and pathetic woman, who will spend her free time tracking down and harming the school decision-makers. When I catch them I will make them spend an entire snowy day with my kids, and see how they like it. I'll know that justice has prevailed when they have ripped out all of the hair from their pitiful, little heads. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman with a dream.