No Cable for Old Ladies

My beloved grandmother devotedly reads my blog, so I feel a little pressure to deliver sometimes. And, of course, some pressure not to talk "street slang," as she graciously puts it. The other kind readers who voluntarily choose to tune me in simply can't get enough of my bail-out bonus blockbuster posts, my brilliant analyses on the economy. Indeed in the last several days, I've received hundreds two emails from adoring fans, urging and beseeching me not to do a post on the Geithner Plan.

Friends, you have been heard and I am on it, working fast and furiously to bring you the facts about the Geithner Plan that Rush Limbaugh doesn't want you to know. Facts we will not hear from the mainstream media or the paranoid. But dissecting this plan has proved to be tough going for this soccer mom. Getting a grip on Geithner requires research, rubber gloves, and a staggering grasp of securities law.

Beleaguered and befuddled, I felt compelled to find a mindless distraction, a less taxing pursuit. And find it I did. I blame my brilliant friend and former law office partner for my now nightly, obsessive diversion.

She remarked over drinks a few weeks ago that I really should check out the Showtime series Weeds, about a suburban mom turned drug dealer.

Huh? Could she be serious? She was emphatic. And did I know, she pointed out, that I could watch Weeds free on demand, if I had a Netflix subscription, right there on my computer? No, I did not. Nor could I see myself wanting any Weeds.

Now, understand where I'm coming from. Mr. M watches Little House on the Prairie, Underdog, All Creatures Great and Small. When Mr. M hears "Another Brick in the Wall" he thinks the lyrics say, "we all need an education, we all need adult control. . . . . Hey! TEACHERS! Don't leave those kids alone."

Of course we all know I own a few Sex and the City DVDs. Yep, even Mr. M's school knows about that transgression. But really, the raciest television I've watched of late is "Fast Money" on CNBC.

Get the picture? In a word, I'm a prude, pretending to live on an isolated compound. I'm not homeschooling Mr. M . . . yet . . . but . . . I never say never. So, umm no, I couldn't see myself cottoning to some show about a drug wheeling mom called Weeds.

But after slogging through fact sheets on http://www.treasury.gov/, reading language like, "PPIFs cannot purchase legacy securities from a seller who is an affiliate or has more than a ten percent equity investment in such vehicle," my eyes glazed over. So last night I logged on to Netflix and there it was: the first Weeds series right there for me to watch in its entirety, entirely for free.

Although skeptical of the plot line, I thought what the heck. The episodes are only thirty minutes long so I can't waste much time deciding I don't like it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. On the other hand, if my very good friend liked this show, there was a very good chance I'd be planted in front of my computer until sunrise.

And I was. Planted in front of my computer until the rooster crowed in our backyard victory garden. From the first episode, I was hooked.

This suburban mom (Mary-Louise Parker -- Josh's girlfriend from the West Wing) goes from her Range Rover to her dealer's clunker (the Rover fell casualty to a demand for more collateral). She moves from PTA meetings to pot dealer meetings, from rallying moms to ban high fructose corn syrup from the school grounds to baking "high" gourmet corn bread in her granite-countered kitchen.

And we get plenty of sensational situational ethics in the mix. Why she is dealing pot, for instance. Her husband died, leaving her high and dry with two kids, a lot of debt, and his enterprising younger brother, who pops in for an extended stay.

The show is edgy, profane, and funny, with some of the wittiest dialogue not seen since the West Wing. Even West Wing's famed CJ Craig makes an appearance, this time as a lawyer and medico-legal expert navigating California's mind-boggling marijuana laws.

Best of all are the children in the cast, who curse, act out, and run rings around the grown-ups in their lives. One of the PTA moms puts a nanny-cam in the pantry to capture her overweight daughter's illicit consumption (spoiler alert: there will be revenge). Another PTA-er is addicted to Bible Study and Oxycontin, while her kid is into something else entirely.

When I needed parenting validation, used to be I'd turn on Super Nanny. Just look at those hellions, I'd console myself. You are too a good mom. Mr. M doesn't assault teachers, jump off the roofs of mobile homes, or torture small animals. He even cries during sad movies. Everything is just fine.

But I can't get Super Nanny on demand. She is catch-as-catch-can. Weeds, on the other hand, provides me immediate validation, instant gratification, appearing on my computer 24/7.

My parenting style has indeed been altered. Used to be, when Mr. M picked up the "Bad to the Bone" singing card at the grocery store and played it endlessly, I'd call the store manager and report an abandoned child. But after Weeds? I loudly sing the lyrics right along with him as he plays his imaginary guitar. I'm more relaxed now. "Fly your freak flag," as one Weeds character declared.

So, my friends, you'll have to stay in Geithner limbo land for a tad longer while I troll through Weeds. Though I do hate to leave you in the lurch. If you get caught at a cocktail party in the meantime, just furrow your brow and say, "the banks are going to game the system on the backs of the taxpayers" in a knowing fashion. I tried it out on some lawyers at the courthouse today and it totally worked.

P.S. I have no financial interest in or hold any stock of Netflix. I do, however, hold a grudge against Blockbuster for all the years it was so greedy with its late fees and toward it harbor no good will.

Going Without Day

When Mr. M was little, he'd try out new words, counting on me to correct him if he was wrong. He looked at an empty green olive one day and said, "Gee, Mom. It's too bad they removed the placenta."

He knows I'll correct him because he also knows a particular peeve of mine is using a word or expression when I don't know what it means. In law school, for example, people would say, "oh, you've got to have a hornbook for that class!" A hornbook is nothing more than a treatise that hopefully explains -- better than your professor -- a particular area of the law. But why not just say "treatise"?

Where the hell did hornbook come from, I asked everyone in my first week of law school, including several professors. No one knew. Finally I stumbled across the explanation: back in the old days, children would write important things -- like the alphabet, the Lord's prayer -- on parchment paper. To protect the paper, they would cover it with a thin sheet of tortoise shell, or horn. Ah. Hornbook.

A partner at the firm where I worked told me, "See if there's a white horse case out there." Huh? "Oh, I mean a case that has the same facts as ours does," he explained. Great. But where did "white horse" case come from?

Let me relieve you of your suspense. Here's the shorthand version of the "white horse" legend: a widow sued a taxi company. The white horse drawing the taxi carriage reared up and injured her. The taxi company's young lawyer researched its liability for hours. Finally he found a case just like the widow's and presented it to his senior partner. "Uh, thanks, but the horse in this case you found me is black. Our horse is white! Find me a white horse case." Amusing, eh?

And how many times did I hear, "We need a case on all fours!" WTF? This conjured an awkward yoga position, and err, other positions. I was too afraid to ask, certainly too afraid to repeat it. But it was all boringly innocent; it means the case in the books is similar to yours, derived from a latin maxim which translates to "No similar thing is the same unless it runs on all four feet."

Legal jargon is just not steamy. Although there is the tired old saying, "Comes now, Plaintiff So and So . . . " Legend has it that a senior partner at my old firm loathed this arcane expression and once told an associate, "Young man, delete that phrase from the pleading at once. Coming in court, I assure you, is most unbecoming."

See? Lawyers can be witty . . . on occasion.

Of course you know where I'm headed after this lengthy introduction. I'm lead inexorably to AIG. Just as it seems foolish -- at least in my view -- to blindly repeat words and phrases because everyone else does, it is equally foolish for us to serve as Obama's or Congress's chorus, repeating their refrains without questioning their words.

Across the country the scorn for the employees of AIG spread like wildfire. For all of last week, legislators kept one-upping each other. Who could spew the most venomous vitriol about AIG? "They're criminals! No, they're reprobate! They should kill themselves! Resign and die!"

This bawdy peacock display was preposterous and not a little embarrassing. They sure showed us, didn't they. The House of Representatives even passed a punitive tax on their "bonuses." No more booty for those bad boys, no more birthday parties either.

Obama, for his part, seemed uncharacteristically eager to feed the populist rage: "Under these circumstances it's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less 165 million dollars in extra pay. I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"

Just using the word "bonus" is inflammatory. Put "165 million" next to it and people became rabid. It takes some work to understand what is a "counterparty" or a credit default swap contract, where the bail-out money is going, and certainly the Geithner plan. But what everyone could understand, instantly, is "GREEDY EMPLOYEES GETTING BONUSES = TERRIBLE" and the goons in DC happily capitalized on it.

No one in Congress or the Administration bothered to accurately explain the AIG bonuses. Perhaps, although doubtful, they never even bothered to get the facts. And shame on Edward Liddy, AIG's CEO, who unquestionably knew the truth yet stood silently by while the rest of the country threw his employees under the bus.

Oh, I was tempted to get on the bus, too. After all, Obama himself told us these bonuses went to derivatives traders, that the bonuses were outrageous. Except, umm, I didn't think there were any derivatives traders left, Mr. O. For all of these bald assertions I could not find the facts to back them up.

Things didn't add up. Geithner and Obama said they were "shocked" to learn of the bonuses, yet Senator Dodd was careful to include an amendment to the bail-out legislation that specifically protected these bonuses. Moreover, he said it was the Obama Administration that had asked him for this protective language.

So what was Obama's, Congress's, or the media's basis for saying the bad guys at AIG were still there, swooping in for bonuses like vultures?

Well, guess what? Most of the employees now working in AIG's Financial Products Group who were due these "bonuses" had nothing to do with leading AIG into the quicksand.

Indeed, at least one AIG employee (besides Liddy) drew a salary of $1.00. The "bonus" was to be his real compensation. Here are some excerpts of his resignation letter to AIG:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

* * *

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

* * *

I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

* * *

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

* * *

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

* * *

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

* * *

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis

Powerful stuff, pretty damning.

There's one more arcane saying that lawyers use, although few of them know what it means. "Go hence without day." It's another way of saying, "Go away without getting your day in court; you shouldn't get paid."

For the employees of AIG, at least, this kind of thinking needs to stop. We deserve to hear the truth and the employees deserve to be heard.

Nation of Suckers Sucklers

Okay. Help me out here. Am I wrong to think that before the U.S. government, and I'm talking the Obama government, agreed to MORE bailouts, it would conduct due diligence of the entities seeking funds?

Or am I being too hopeful, too optimistic? Or too logical, perhaps.

The Obama administration is only now finding out about these AIG bonus contracts that were signed, per Obama's press secretary, in April of 2008? Even though Christopher Dodd inserted an amendment into bailout legislation last month which specifically protects bonuses contracted for prior to February 11, 2009?

Umm, I don't get it. Either the government failed to conduct due diligence before pouring more money into AIG's coffers or it knew all along the company had contractual bonuses owing to these employees. Did no one look at AIG's accounts payable? I mean, I'm no accountant but 165 million seems a little hard to miss.

If Obama's team didn't know about them, that's bad. But this "Holy shit! These bonuses are outrageous. Put a team of lawyers on this, ASAP" crap? Feigning shock and righteous indignation when they knew about the bonuses all along? That's worse.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, got hit with these questions today, albeit they were more politely framed. And poor Mr. Gibbs had a bad day today. A very bad day indeed.

He tried to wing it on the AIG bonuses and it was an abject failure. Watching it was painful.

He rambled and rambled. I'm not sure how many times he said, "and again, I'm not a contract lawyer . . ." but it was a lot.

And pay special attention right around 6:37 on the video. Gibbs patiently explained that unlike a business, which can be unwound through bankruptcy, or a bank, which can be taken over by the FDIC, AIG is some kind of sui generis alien juggernaut that can't be taken down. To wit:

"But for an entity the size and the structure of AIG, there's not a legal mechanism with which to resolve those issues in a way that protects the taxpayer."

We're living in a Japanese horror film. The monster is sucking up our money and we can't kill it. It can't fail. Help.

We're pouring billions of dollars into an entity over which we have no meaningful oversight.



Not only do we have no meaningful oversight, we don't even know which agency is unmeaningfully overseeing this thirsty King Kong. When a reporter asked Gibbs point blank which government entity is in charge of AIG oversight (we do, after all, own 80% of the company), Gibbs had NO CLUE.

Gibbs was also asked the straight-forward question: "when did Obama know of these AIG bonuses?" He simply would not answer the question.

Which is not to say the Republicans are faring much better. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa is making gaffe after gaffe. What should the AIG bonus holders do? "Resign or commit suicide," Japanese style, said Grassley.

And what about us, Senator Grassley? We, the people, of the United States? Umm, Grassley says someone is sucking our tit.

Now if that doesn't stimulate us, nothing will.

Saturn's Rings and Armageddon

We experienced our first science project this weekend. It was hell. Pure, torturous hell.

Two weeks ago, Mr. M was given the choice of writing about black holes (his idea) or the topic suggested by his teacher: Saturn's rings. He quickly figured out that black holes are way complicated -- a PhD is required to even read about them -- and opted for the rings.

Despite my gentle reproaches for two full weeks, Mr. M chose to wait until yesterday, the day before the report was due, to even start his research.

The instructions for this odious undertaking were onerous: the report was to be typed or NEATLY handwritten. It was to be presented in a folder, accompanied by a model. Moreover, the topic was to be extensively researched.

In other words, the parents had been assigned a one-page science report. More specifically, the mothers had been tasked with researching and writing a one-page science report. I mean, come on. What non-genius seven year old knows how to type? Or constructively google?

So, yes, I was irritated. Frankly, I don't do well in Alphamomville; I'm just not that competitive. But it felt like I was going there. Nor do I have the time or inclination to research Saturn's rings.

But hells bells. I had to give it a whirl, at least jump-start the poor kid. I couldn't just sit idly by, hoarding research skills honed from years of legal research, while my first-grader laboriously pecked out S-A-T-U-R-N, struggling to master Google. Bet the other kids don't have a Westlaw wizard for a mom. I am mother, here I roar.

Besides, the copyright on our Childcraft encyclopedia is, umm, well, 1964. My mom bought the set for us at a garage sale. The volume called "World and Space" devoted one meager paragraph to Saturn. Clearly, we'd need to consult more up-to-date sources. In the sixties, you see, scientists believed Saturn's rings were made out of ice. Get out!

Alrighty then. This was not going to be as easy as I thought.

Still, this was Mr. M's assignment, whether the teacher liked it or not. I was determined that he do the work himself. So I found an astronomy website for kids, clicked the article on Saturn's rings, and told him to have at it.

And make it good, I admonished him. No silly "Saturn has many rings. It is a nice planet. The end," report was going to come out of this powerhouse think tank. Oh, no.

Except . . . there's a raging debate about the age of Saturn's rings. GD it. Who knew?

Turns out, the particles in the rings are shiny, which suggests the rings are young-ish. The shiny particles haven't been around long enough to collide with meteorites (or was it asteroids?) and collect dust, so goes one argument. If they were older, they'd have dark spots. Astronomical signs of middle age, I suppose.

The other school of thought is that the rings are in fact old. They are re-forming all the time, due to some complicated gravity-pulling merging-with-other-matter clump thing going on. So naturally, indeed this should be intuitive, the dust from prior collisions is knocked off. Thus the particles, old as they may be, remain shiny.

Got that?

Mr. M certainly didn't. And neither did I, not completely (thinking about gravitational pull hurts my head). Mr. M and I became frustrated by the entire topic and with each other. Enter Science King Husband. But he didn't get it either, though he was loathe to admit same.

Then all three of us got flummoxed and frustrated. There was yelling, weeping, gnashing of teeth. I got so stressed out that I grabbed the Economist and headed outside to relax, to read about the economy.

But through the screen door, I could hear Science King and Mr. M hashing it out at the kitchen table.
_______________________________________________

Science King: Write down that Saturn is the most gaseous planet.

Me, yelling, from the backyard: Says who? You are totally making that up.

Mr. M: Dad, I'm only supposed to write about the rings.

Science King: I think this paper should at least say something about the planet Saturn.

Me, from the backyard: We have already spent hours researching the age of the rings. If you want to change topics mid-course, reinvent the wheel and spend all of Sunday investigating Saturn, be my guest. But I'd suggest you stay on point.

Science King (to Mr. M): How many rings does Saturn have?

Mr. M: Dad, I have no idea.

Science King: Well, let's look it up on google.

[FIVE MINUTES OF TOTAL SILENCE ELAPSE]

Science King: Okay. Just write down, "Saturn has many rings."

Me (from the backyard, now a shrew at fever pitch): The point here is that there are two competing views on the age of the rings. He needs to explain both of them and the significance of the shiny particles.

Science King (shouting to me): How do you spell Voyager?

Me: Is it not in the article you just read on the internet, or are you just making "Voyager" up?

Science King: You're my net, baby.

[MORE TIME ELAPSES, THEY ARE TALKING IN LOWERED VOICES]

Expediency has quickly overtaken substance in importance; they are now unabashedly making it up as they go along.

Science King: Okay, so what are the rings made of, anyway? Probably gas. Yeah, that sounds right. Write, "The rings are made up of gas."

Me (from the backyard, having totally lost my composure): PARTICLES! The rings are made up of particles!

Science King: But gas can have particles in it, can't it?

Me (now insane): Hell if I know. All I'm saying is that the particles are shiny and there's a lot of controversy about the age of the rings. Just say no one knows how old the stupid rings are, few people care, and put forward the two competing views. This doesn't have to be hard.

Science King: Umm, Mr. M's pencil just broke. We're going to walk to the store to buy a pencil sharpener.

[FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, THEY RETURN]

Me (calling out from the backyard): Did you get the folder?

King: Folder?

Me: Yes! The folder! For his report.

King: You didn't say he needs a folder. They didn't have a pencil sharpener, anyway.

Mr. M: Mom, they were selling Girl Scout cookies up there and I told Dad you wanted Thin Mint and he just refused to buy them.

Me (to Science King, now rabid): You mean there were Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies up there and you REFUSED to buy me any?

Science King: Umm, Mr. M, let's go make the model. I think we've researched enough.
____________________________________________________

Talk about trials and tribulations. Jesus H and a flat pancake.

Why can't it be like it used to be, back when I was growing up? My parents didn't stand around arguing about Saturn's rings. There were no family meltdowns over piddly-ass science projects. So what's changed, I'd like to know.

And to think this is only the beginning, the second semester of first grade.

P.S.: Stiletto Mom? Girlfriend, you've had it easy. Book report, schmook report. Sage mother at Mothers Handbook, what sayest ye?

Kindergartners on the Road to Damascus

Reuters has a fun little subscription called "Oddly Enough." They send me a daily email so I can stay up on the weird stuff. This week, though, I saw an alarming story.

Turns out, kindergartners who are inattentive, distracted and hyperactive turn to gambling in greater numbers than their peers. The study controlled for parents' income, education, and family composition. These fidgeting pre-schoolers are likely to start gambling when they reach the age of eleven or so, claims the study.

And why should we care about prepubescent betting? Because, according to this broad, in-depth look at 163 children subjectively evaluated by their kindergarten teachers, these rambunctious young gamblers are statistically prone to serious problems down the road: mental illness, failure to complete high school, problems with addiction.

This tragic prognosis got my attention. Mr. M was definitely a squirmer in kindergarten, and I'll be damned if he didn't start gambling at the tender age of seven. He wants to bet on everything. "Bet you a quarter I'll beat you at Sorry," he often challenges me. "Bet I can run up and down the stairs in 4 seconds." "Wanna' bet I can't spell telephone?" "Betcha' I can burp." Betting seems to pervade his every thought.

The fundamentals of betting, however, are lost on him. Mr. M doesn't understand that if he gambles a quarter, he better damn well have a quarter in his pocket so he can pay if he loses. In fact, he is certain he'll win every bet, so being a responsible counterparty is irrelevant. Besides, he tells himself, mom will lend him some money if he loses a bet and is forced to pony up.

Shit. He's starting to sound like Lehman, Bear, even AIG. My kid is an investment banker and he's only seven.

Middle-age Spread is Screwing with my Head

Every Tuesday and Thursday I take Mr. M to the Y for swim practice. And every Tuesday and Thursday I walk past a room marked "Active Older Adults." As if active older adults are anomalies, deserving of a special label; the exception to the rule. Is there a room, I wonder, marked simply "Older Adults"? It would help the older actives distinguish themselves from the older nots. And what is "older" anyway?

The other day someone called me for my fax number. I couldn't remember it. A few days later, Mr. M and I were in the car; he wanted to play the "spelling" game. Inspired by a fire hydrant I'd spotted ahead, I was going to give him "hydrant." Except I couldn't remember what the damn thing was called. Spell "hydrate," I said, "no, no wait! Spell . . . . hell. Mr. M, what is that thing right there that the firemen use to get water?" What the hell is happening to me?

No one told me hitting forty would be like being hit by a freight train. Now, the aberrant squiggly hair occasionally appears on my chin. Last Sunday I felt one and immediately ripped it out, like it was a tumor. Every morning I check vigilantly for visible nostril hairs. This is not fun.

For younger moms, there are all sorts of clever sayings. They bug me. Things like "sleep is for the weak." Ha! How about "sleep is for a week"? Or "sleep is not for cheeks" unless you want to wake up with wrinkles on your face that stay there until, oh, around four o'clock in the afternoon. Why did no one tell me about pillow face?

And oh, the unexpected joy that comes when someone mistakes me for Mr. M's grandmother. My mother just laughs and gloats when this happens (she's never been mistaken for his great-grandmother, you see).

Nora Ephron says she feels bad about about her neck. Just her neck? Oh, go on! I feel bad about my neck, my nape, my frenulum, even. And I feel really bad about my BAT. I may not have cankles but I've sure got back fat. And thighs? Are not to be discussed. You think you've got cottage cheese? Girlfriends, I've got mansion cheese. And a lot of unwanted cleavage. I can be up to my neck in it instantly, just by turning on my side.

The Cyberswim catalogue came this week. Oh, happy day. There were funny little initials under the suits that I had to look up. MW stands for minimize waist, TC means tummy control. There are just so many initials; MT: minimize thighs, EL: elongate legs, ET: elongate torso. MB is one I'm sure we'll all want: "minimize backside." My personal favorite is SH, for "slenderize hips." I'd take the "all of the above" suit, but they don't sell one. How about an MM, for "minimize matronly"?

Gentle unlined readers, like beautiful Becky at Suburban Matron, email me the dearest, most earnest questions, like "what are Frownies? how do they work?" These young women haven't encountered the vertical lines between our brows, the horizontal ones that streak across our foreheads. "My dear young Becky," I'd like to reply, "if you don't know what they are, you don't need them." But that would sound too harrumphy, too Andy Rooney curmudgeonly. It's not her fault she's never heard of my botox in a box. It's my face's fault that I have.

As for my vision? Gone, completely. I'm so dependent on my reading glasses I can't even start the dishwasher without them. I've taken to sprinkling them in random drawers throughout the house so that when I need to, I can see. But I will NOT wear a pair around my neck. No sir. Well, at least not this year.

Of course, not being able to see is a blessing at times . . . especially in hotel bathrooms under cruel fluorescent lights. Is anyone besides me hoarding incandescents? Pretty soon there won't be any more. I imagine the day will come when I treat my incandescent bulbs like Faberge eggs, hauling them out on holidays, or for special dinner parties.

Alrighty then. I'm off to pick Mr. M back up from swimming. He reports that last week he saw an older man in the men's locker room and "his bottom sort of flopped when he walked." See how it is for men? They flop around in happy oblivion. It's just not fair.