My mother does it.  So does my friend Susan.  My sister does it, and most of my friends without kids, but not Elena, so you can’t generalize like that.  Actually now that you mention it, Lizzie doesn’t do it either, so it’s not an annoying you-don’t-have-kids-and-you-do-this-thing, thing.  It’s just a regular you-have-undiagnosed-borderline-personality-disorder thing, thing.  Guys do it too, but not nearly as much. 

What they do is this;  follow me around, starting a humongous, long, self-involved story, JUST as my son is about to poke the metal marshmallow skewer into the toaster socket.  My friends and family with this enviable trait seem to know just exactly when my daughter is going to jump off the kitchen counter and take a fist sized bite out of the wood, and recognize this as the excellent opportunity it is to discuss Aunt Kathi’s death wish or

David’s inability to hold onto his job at the adult video store. 

It’s uncanny, and it would definitely be a talent I would want to have if I were, say, a person who’s job it was to run through a slide show of wound care for med students, or the person who has to hand out little cups of

Pomegranite-akai berry smoothie at Robeks.  I would then want the ability to circle and  mesmerize my well mannered, unsuspecting victims with my narcicisstic stories and creepy obsessions, forcing them to watch my presentation or gulp a gross drink.  Instead, their talent is wasted on the likes of me, a busy working mom who has so little free time I once multi tasked and used my flat iron to make my kids quesadillas (yes, and then I washed it and used it on my hair.  Happy?) 

I happened to be in New York a few weeks ago for work.  I got up Wednesday at 4am LA time, to land at JFK at 5pm, and head out to dinner with clients at 8pm.  A 16 hour day Thursday, followed by drinks-with-clients-til-2am, followed by a 12 hour day Friday culminating in a 2 hour train ride to NJ where my mother picked me up at the train station.  It was supposed to thunder, the weather was muggy and overcast and the handle on my 6 year old Tumi roller- bag had clicked and stuck in the ‘up’ position, making it pretty hard to get into my mother’s Honda hatchback trunk.  I slid behind the wheel and looked in vain for a GPS.  My mother handed me a Coffee Bee napkin with a faint penciled scrawl on it. 

Me Whats’ this? 

Her Directions to the beach. 

Me But, I can’t read it, it’s getting dark, it’s about to rain, and we’re in rush hour traffic -  

Her (huge sigh)  Did I tell you that I’m collecting $200 less a month from my pension which couldn’t come at a worse time, not to mention that Debbie has gained at least 40 pounds but it looks like Jan and Ricky are NOT going to go through with the sex reassignment surgery after all… 

Yes, it’s not limited to when my kids are about to do something dangerous or disgusting.  No, this special quality, if I might call it that, can be called upon anytime there is any kind of activity going on that needs my full attention (driving, making crepes, bleaching my moustache) or anytime I’ve been on hold with the DMV for say, an hour and they have just picked up.  It’s unbelievable. 

My mom and friends with this sought-after skill live on the east coast, so since I now live 3000 miles away I recently realized it was a special something that I might not experience for awhile.  A shame, really. 

Saturday morning I went into my closet as my family slept, dialing the cell phone company to find out why I had been charged twice for august, and to simultaneously lug down a 30pound box filled with stuff I should sell on ebay but won’t (unworn Gucci shoes with Austrian crystals in 2 colors?  I might need them, right?), when my son appeared suddenly behind the stepladder. 

Him Mom? 

Me  (on hold, 30pound box balanced un-safely on my large head)

      yes sweetie?

Him The thing is, in the clone wars, the bad guy?  He’s like a really badguy…plus we have mealworms in our class, REAL mealworms and they’re gonna turn into beetles but (sigh) when I told the teacher about the whole beetle situation she was like ‘it’s supposed to
be a surprise…and also….

His little voice drones on and on, as the large container store bin wobbles on my head and Headknocker plays in my ear.  He is absentmindedly gripping my unshaved leg as I stand on the stepladder, and I can’t get a word in edgewise to tell him to move.  Just then my daughter comes in. 

Her Mommy? 

Me Yes sweetie? 

Her Ok, so this girl? At school?  She choked me and when I told the teacher and then we found this moth?  And I really really really  want a zhu zhu pet did you see mommy they are so so so cute  and I really want one for my birthday or for whenever I make  a huge poopie or for whenever you think I need one….. 

cell provider Hello can I help you?  Hello? 

I realize, standing there balancing this box of stuff on my head that this amazing, amazing quality, has been passed on to my kids.  I can’t believe my incredible luck. 

cell provider Hello?  Hello? 

Me   One second, I just need to talk to you about - 

Just then my husband walks in, still half asleep, passes all three of us in the closet without blinking, gets his stretch band so he can stretch out his back, and leaves.    

My son and daughter are momentarily silent, then: 

Her …and the zhu zhu pet can live with us and maybe we can fly

      to Alaska and then – 

him …what I really want is to grow butterflies again but it is kind of babyish but I don’t care I still like to do these things anyway – 

I cover the phone with my chin and tell the kids to go talk to daddy, then I turn my attention to the cell service operator.  I wonder if I too have this incredible skill?  I’m a giving person, ask anybody (well anybody who I’ve ever given anything too).  I want to give back, no, I HAVE to give back.  Maybe I can work with the phone lady, and share with her the way so many have shared with me? 

Me (sigh) Listen, the thing is, I think I got charged twice and my point is that the prices are so high anyway I don’t really even want to pay once but honestly I need to use it for work and then the kids are always playing games on it 

Phone lady  (cold, pissed).  Don’t try to talk-fuse me. 

Me What? 

PL Talk-fuse me.  That’s when you’re talking at someone so much that you confuse them and they can’t get their job done.  You  need to be quiet if you want me to figure this out, ok? 

Me Uh… sure. 

 So I guess this special skill skipped a generation.  I slip the 30lb box with my Gucci shoes and various other previously necessary stuff back onto that high shelf, come down, and close the stepladder, as silently as possible.  Then I sit on the floor of my closet and wait for the phone lady to come back on the line to help me.  I don’t want to talk-fuse her anymore than I already have.

Get this - I just wrote a check to a sweating man for $347.75.  NO that’s disgusting, get your mind out of the gutter.  Ok, I wasn’t buying shoes at the Barneys’ warehouse sale (that’s not til October, right?) and anyway I live in LA now, so I wasn’t buying shoes at the Fred Segal Sale (also October). Nope.

I am in NJ in 100% humidity and I just wrote a check to a sweating man who operates a drain-cleaning service because I clogged my shower drain.  With my hair.  Again.

We live in LA, yes, but my heart is still in NY (as you already know) and more specifically down-the-shore in NJ (that’s how we jerseyans say it). The Jersey Shore.  When Carmella and Tony bought a house just prior to their break up I was more focused on whether they were in Point Pleasant or Mantoloking, because I know they weren’t in Deal (too Jewish) or Asbury (too falling-aparty).  I also knew that if they hadn’t bought a new-ish house Carmella was gonna have trouble with her shower drain.

I have thick, curly, ridiculous hair.  I have enough hair on my head for an entire family, and no, thank you, it’s not a blessing.  They say that we always want what we can’t have, and I really want straight shiny hair.  I want hair that doesn’t react to the humidity, but that’s not what I got.  Along with circles under my eyes (miss you dad) and thunder thighs (big kiss, mom) I have freakishly curly hair.  Recently, at my daughters’ school, one of the orthodox jewish mom’s jealously fingered a lock and asked where I got my wig made.  When I had a mid life crisis a year ago and got hair extensions for 9 days (oh c’mon, like you don’t want to try that) I lost some hair when they were removed prematurely.  As the stylist yanked the individually glued in pieces off my own thick hair, she said ‘lucky for you your hair looks better a little thinner’.  Within 6 months it was all back, curlier than ever.

I checked out the Japanese straightening thing (too drying) and the newer Brazilian mode (too expensive) and decided I would just have to step up in this economy, start skipping the $85 professional blowouts, and learn to live with the curls.

This new attitude lasted exactly one day, btw. My daughter and I were spending 7 hours of quality time together in a rainstorm, and after the 4th DVD, she threw a tiny littlest-pet-shop-doll at my head in a fit of anger, and it disappeared into my hair.  We looked for about 45 minutes and then gave up and had some dark chocolate covered raisins.  At that point I figured I needed to learn how to give myself blowouts.

Now, you might be thinking, oh how spoiled and lazy, blowouts every week? But you’re wrong my friends.  First of all, I was late to the blowout-club.  It was literally about 3 years ago when, after getting my hair cut and blow dried I was flipping through an old Star magazine, and said to the stylist:

Me    I wish you could blow dry my hair all the time, not just when I get it
cut.
Him    I can
Me    WHAT?!
Him    Pam, people get their hair blowdried once a week. 
Me    NFW! (no f&%#% way)

And thus started the evil, insidious addiction of getting my hair blowdried.  At the height of the boom, I was going once, sometimes twice a week.  When you have hair like mine and a simple exchange of money can make your hair look like Farrah Fawcetts (may she rest in peace poor thing I STILL can’t believe she died the same day as MICHAEL may HE rest in peace).

Well.  You’d be addicted to. 

It started slowly, like if I had to make a presentation for work, I’d get it blowdried in anticipation. If I had a meeting.  Then if I had a dinner.  Of if I was going to eat dinner.  If it was Tuesday.  If it was sunny.  I HAD to have straight, shiny hair.  Every.  Single.  Day.

 One day after sneaking in a blow dry in anticipation of filling out some tax documents, my daughter caught me fingering my hair while staring at myself in the mirror.
Her    Mommy, you have pretty hair.
Me    Thank you honey.
Her    I wish I had hair like yours…
She fingered her own rasta-like-unbrushed-adorably-twisty little curls and I realized – she DOES have hair EXACLTY like mine…. But she doesn’t know it because -

I never wear my hair like that. 

But even that wasn’t enough to break my addiction.  I was having a busy
lead up to the economic shut down – a meeting here, a trip to the DMV there….my hair needed to be ready for anything.  I couldn’t just stop.  Could I?

Then, right around April of last year, things started to slow down at work.  I had a lot of free time on my hands…and there was my daughter with her
Now-constant whining for me to blowdry HER hair….so it would look like mine.  I had to get control of this addiction that was ruining all of our lives.

So… I started paying attention at the weekly blowouts…which petered out to bi monthly, then monthly.  The salon in Santa Monica called me to make sure I was ok, since I wasn’t there every week bringing People magazines and Starbucks for the entire staff.  I watched the products they put in, asked about the blow drier (Super Solano – it’s expensive but worth it) and dusted off my trusty flat iron.  I learned that no, I can’t really get it as good as the pros.  But – I can get it close.

And then we went to NJ for vacation.  I wasn’t going to have any meetings, it was going to be a few weeks of blissful laziness and laying on the beach with the kids and husband.  I packed my Solano (just in case) but was ready to go cold turkey.  We arrived and I stowed the stuff close at hand, but then a heat wave hit, the likes of which the east coast hadn’t seen in years.  Simultaneously my husband took off on a job in LA, so I found myself alone with the kids in NJ.  In 100 degree heat.  And humidity.  So I shut the drawer with my pro-tools, and started washing my hair…and letting it dry naturally.

At first, none of us knew what to make of it. I made a few feeble attempts to tame it, and wound up scraping it back into a tight headband and pretending it looked chic.  I stayed away from the tiny could-get-lost-in-there-toys, and bought a lot of hats.

Honestly?  I was proud.  NO blow outs.  Just me and my hair.

Until the drain guy showed up.  The kids were taking showers knee deep in soap when I realized something was wrong.  It took an entire roll of Bounty for them to clean out the drain.  I had them snake the toilet too (sort of how your husband goes to buy tampons and winds up getting all this OTHER stuff to disguise the fact that he is buying TAMPONS) but it didn’t work.  The drain guy handed me the receipt and stood there, sweating, looking at me.  I’m pretty sure he was judging my hair.

Get this – I’m sitting on the faux terrazzo bench in the American terminal at LAX (I know it’s faux because in our old house we insisted on poured stone terrazzo old school style which immediately cracked and when we complained the contractor said ‘everybody does faux now, like the benches at LAX’ so don’t question me, alright?)

Anyway.

I’m sitting there and this girl walks by me, presumably for a flight, in daisy duke cutoffs and a bikini top barely covered by a Christian Audigier T-shirt (quite possibly designed by Jon Gosselin) and Lucite heeled shoes.  And they weren’t Chloe Lucite heels either, she got them on Hollywood boulevard (don’t ask how I know this, just let me finish).  She handed the woman at the bottom of the escalator her ticket (business class) and strolled toward security.

I was waiting for my travel companion as we headed to NY on a coach class flight.  I am dressed nicely for me – which means jeans with holes I PAID for, and a nice blouse and leather jacket.  She texts me the good news – we’ve been upgraded – followed by the bad news – we’re not sitting together.

I’m sure you’re thinking ‘who cares if you sit together, it’s not like you’re 5 years old’ and you’d be right to think that, but I’m claustrophobic and not a great flier so it greatly helps to have someone beside me that I don’t have to constantly explain myself to (yes…I get to travel constantly for work and no, I don’t like to fly….because I don’t like hurtling through the air at 1000 mph in a metal tube like a veal in a pen headed for slaughter….what were we talking about?)

ANYway.

I walk in and I’m standing by my aisle seat and my friend is by her window seat a few rows away.  There’s a nice girl, skinny, hair in a bun expensive cashmere-ish sweats in the seat next to me.  I smile at her and turn to my friend and mouth “should we ask your person if she’ll trade aisle seats with me?” when the woman beside me taps me on the arm (and you know I hate to be touched) and said ‘I can switch with her.’

Me    Really? That’d be great.  Well, you have an aisle (we are the center
aisle seats) she’s by a window…

Her   That’s OK.  I’d prefer a window.

Me    (can’t believe my luck) really? Wow – are you sure? That’d be
awesome.

Her    You should sit with your friends.  I have enough friends, I don’t need
    any more.

She said it nicely but it should have clued me in to her deep seated anger toward people wearing jeans with holes they paid for, not to mention undiagnosed borderline personality disorder.  But I ignored it and we settled in.  As I dumped my pile of tabloid magazines, gum, M&Ms (last meal kind o thing) onto my chair, I reached into the seat pocket in front of me to stash my goods and my hand touched something cold, and wet.

Me         Ugh!

My friend    What? What?

I peeked into the blue American fasten-seat-belt-while-seated pocket and spied 2 half open bottles of water – one lukewarm and one cold.  Both opened.

Me        Ugh! Garbage!

Friend   Ugh! Garbage – here use this bag. 

She helpfully handed me an extra Hudson News bag and I dumped the offending garbage in and walked to the stewardess, who said ‘what’s that?’ and when I said ‘Garbage in my SEAT POCKET” she exclaimed ‘ugh – give me that’ and ‘sorry’.

I flopped back down in business class, happy as a clam, stowing my own mélange of soon-to-be-garbage in the now empty seat pocket.  I dialed my husband to say bye to the kids before we took off.  They got on the phone and my son started a long involved conversation about picking his nose and clouds, when out of my peripheral vision, I see my former seat mate standing by my friend.  My son is asking if you could eat clouds, and if so what they might TASTE like when former-seat-holder (FSH) reaches across my friend and grabs my bottle of water.

I motion ‘no that’s mine’ and she storms down the aisle as my son goes on and on about his stuffed animals and whether or not he should get cages for each of them, and as he’s talking it dawns on me, the garbage waters were hers. 

My son has passed the phone to my daughter who is 4, and now FSH is with the stewardess who took the garbage and they are pointing at me.

I don’t know about you but I find pointing very very aggressive, practically the precursor to ‘let’s take it outside’ or ‘let’s take it into the backyard’.  It’s almost a throwdown.  I realize what I’ve done and I hang up the phone and meekly offer my water, mouthing ‘do you want my water?”

But before the words are mouthed out of my mouth FSH is saying (to the stewardess)

FSH    …I don’t WANT her water.  I don’t WANT a NEW water.  I had TWO
    bottles of water, one warm and one cold and I want THOSE bottles
    those very bottles of water that are mine.  They’re mine.  Mine.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care if I’m drinking my old water from home or my old water from Hudson News, or my brand new water from the flight deck.  Does it matter?  It’s not like it was vitamin water, and it’s not like it had valium crushed in it (don’t question me on this, I would know) and it’s not like it was some kind of fountain-of-youth-water - we were flying from LAX to JFK for crying out loud.  LAX with the faux terrazzo, remember?  It was Hudson News water, and we both knew it.  She glared at me – squinting her eyes

Would I have a bad flight?  What would happen now?  I stewed over this for awhile, chewing the inside of my lower lip which is sure to make a sore…. And then IT came to me.

She was drinking water….out of the garbage. The AIRPLANE garbage. She was drinking garbage water.

I smiled to myself and opened up US magazine.  And had one the best flights of my life.

I have my mother's thighs, ok? This is not just me being insecure. I’m serious.  She was just here 2 weeks ago for my son’s 7th birthday, following me around, and when I walked into my closet to weigh myself after I ate a cookie she was right next to me, pulling her pants down, ready to jump on the scale.

Me:  Mom, what are you doing?
Her: What do you mean?  What are you doing?

We have endless, intimate conversations like this, my mother and I. It’s enough to drive me crazy, and if I was the type of kid who had killed squirrels for instance, it might push me over the edge.  But I wasn’t that type of kid.  I was the type of kid who sat eating cookies while other, skinnier kids, braided my long hair.  I let them call me “Spam’. I wasn’t particularly upset by it, because it felt really really good to have someone other than my mother braid my hair. But I digress.

I have my mother’s thighs, and one day about 4 months ago I spontaneously gained 7 pounds. I was a little worried because any time you watch a medical show on Discovery they say that ‘sudden weight gain’ is a sign of about 4000 things like syphilis, or that thing on 20/20 where ‘thread’ is embedded in your skin, and will ultimately kill you.  But for some reason I wasn’t worried that I was gonna die (a first for me), instead, I was worried that I was gonna be fat (not a first, but equally troublesome).  I’ve weighed about the same amount (except for being pregnant) my entire adult life.  So the sudden weight gain had me freaked.  I ichatted my husband from downstairs to upstairs.

Me: Honey, do you think I’m gonna die?
Him: We’re all gonna die.
Me:  No!  Wait…I mean because… you know… I just gained 7 pounds.
Him: You are fine.  You look fine.  I’m going to bed.
Me:  No!  Wait…do you think….do I LOOK like I gained 7 pounds?
Him: I’m not having this conversation.
Me:  Or does it look more like I gained 4 pounds, instead of 7?
Him:  Goodnight.
Me:  (yelling upstairs as he logs off)I think we better get a new scale!

They say if you have a daughter (which I do) you have to be really, really careful not to talk about food, or weigh yourself obsessively around her, or she’ll develop an eating disorder.  Well I NEVER weigh myself obsessively around her (on purpose), but she keeps following me around and touching me and walking into my freakin’ closet TWO SECONDS after I’ve stripped naked and gotten onto the scale.

Her: Mommy, what are you doing?
Me:  NOTHING, sweetie but mommy needs privacy, ok?!
Her: Why are you looking at the pounds (points to scale)?
Me:  I’m not.  What do you mean?
Her: Do the pounds matter?
Me:  NO honey of COURSE not.
Her: Then why are you always on the scale looking at the pounds?

Clearly she’s gonna have issues.  

Now – if you saw me walking around, or in Starbucks for instance, you would not think I need to lose 7 pounds.  Lest you think I’m one of those annoying bitches who is super skinny and then wanders around in skin tight jeans and a thong all day complaining that they accidentally gave her sweetened ice green tea instead of unsweetened, I’m not.  I wear baggy clothes, at least one size too big. You haven’t seen me in my underwear, or in a bikini, and you’re not going to. You don’t know my mother and you haven’t seen her thighs. I need to lose the weight – you’re gonna have to trust me on this.

Yes, I have them and they are apparently here to stay.  After 3 months of living with the weight gain and four Dr visits (OB, gyno, internist and NEW internist because the old one was starting to look at me funny and question my endless phone calls about my imminent death). I took stock and buckled down; no more bowls of chocolate chips at 10pm, can’t have 3 helpings of salad at dinner.  Probably should cut out the lemon loaf with the latte, in fact, as the pounds continued to creep up I went to depcon 7 and just ordered a tall drip.  I started working out with a trainer, eating egg whites for breakfast and carrying a ziplock bag with almonds and dried cranberries everywhere I went. But at 6:30am when I get up and 11pm when I go to sleep there they are – my mothers thighs, taunting me in the CVS full length mirror that I made my husband tack onto the wall above the scale so I could stare at myself (and see my daughter approaching, the little sneak).  

This week I did some soul searching. Can I get used to this?  Can I just be grateful for being healthy, for having a healthy family, for all the things in my life that are wonderful?  Can I have the wisdom to accept what I cannot change…or whatever that saying on the bumper sticker on the BMW that was ahead of me the entire way to the 10 west yesterday said?  The answer is….

No.  I cannot.  I am going to be sullen, I am going to weigh myself after every raisin and granola bar, I am going to continue to be frustrated by the fact that I have inherited something that I don’t need, or want.

I will tell you one thing that I DID do though….and I hope this isn’t too much information, but I feel like sharing so here goes….I am going to make SURE that I NEVER have my mothers’, uh look "downstairs." That day in the closet when she pulled down her pants, I realized that my mom has been rocking her 70s "look" through the 70s, 80s, 90s and on into the millennium.  And the thing is – if I have to accept the thighs I inherited, I realized I do not have to keep the puff. Period.

Remind me to tell you about Luba sometime, my Russian waxer.  She’s amazing.

Well, I live my life in Starbucks and if you have a problem with that you should stop reading right now.  Actually, you should read this because you know you live your life in there too.  I’ve seen you, you’re standing right behind me in line, ashamed but unwilling to leave.  You look hot.  Anyway.

Last week, I’m standing in line at my local Starbucks, having just dropped my kids off at school. Actually, it’s my third time in Starbucks that morning.  Visit #1 was on the way to my son’s school (kid’s hot chocolate, bagel).  Visit #2 was on the way to my daughters school (kid’s apple cider no whipped cream, lemon loaf, no thanks, nothing for me I’ll be right back-because-the f’in-schools-don’t-coordinate-the-start-times-and-I-have-45-minutes-to-kill…you try pushing a stroller with a tall scalding hot drink. I’ll be back later). Visit #3 was me, now showered, actually semi-dressed up for some reason, waiting in a hideously long line for my tall drip.  And yes, I know I could make it at home, I should be a recessionista, blah blah blah.  I tried it for a week and it didn’t work out, so I’m back.  I told you already.

“Excuse me, I love your shoes” the girl has long brown hair and a really cool peace sign necklace with a tiny diamond in it.  She has on a dress and boots with bare legs, a look I am unable to pull-off without spanx, so I’m guessing she’s in her 20s.

“Wow, thanks.” I am purging my closet and selling stuff on ebay and I am wearing some awesome green suede Prada shoes I bought 2 years ago because I had a screaming two year old and hadn’t lost the baby weight.  They’d been in the box until 20 minutes ago, when I decided to strap them on.  I was kind of excited she noticed.  I should get dressed up more.

“They’re really cool, I love them.  They look awesome with your jeans – are those boyfriend jeans?”  Her hand shot out and touched my hair.  Stroked it.  Then she stroked my arm.

Now, I don’t like to be touched.  Ok, wait, let me explain that.  I’m really claustrophobic, which is apparently normal in NYC (where I’m from) but not in California (where I now live).  After 18 years of fighting for my personal space every time I had to navigate a pretzel cart, my family and I moved here.  To Los Angeles – land of eternal sunshine, juicy sweatpants and personal space.  And I got used to it, hell, now I demand it.  (So if you see me walking around, please don’t touch me, ok?  Thanks.)  I think I pull off a pretty good ‘I’m nice don’t touch me’ vibe.  Well I thought I did.  Until this Starbucks chick stroked me.

I was so shocked I froze.  She went on to touch the following parts of my body
    - my neck (fingered my necklace – helen ficalora, kids’ initials)
    - my arms (both, I had a blazer on, she kinda lingered on the right arm)
    - my hair (I washed it so whatever)
    - my ear (pierced ears, barely visible holes)
    - my forehead (I don’t know, I said I was appalled, remember? I was in shock)
   

She was talking and touching and then it was my turn at the counter.  If I’d had a napkin I would’ve written help me on it and pushed it to the barrista.  Or not.  He recognized me.

“Tall drip?”

“Thanks”

Now she was being helped at the other register, and even though she had sort of touch-raped me, I still wondered – should I say good-bye?  What’s the etiquette for these situations? I wondered what Jerry Seinfeld, or better yet, Larry David would do. 

I turned to her and smiled as I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes.  She was rifling through the CDs and didn’t see me. Damnit. Now the people in the line were waiting for me to get the hell out of the way.  The tall drip was in my hand.  Move.

So I turned, and just as I was about to make my way to the door she grabbed my upper left arm in a friendly-aggro squeeze, pulling me toward her.

“Thanks for the girlchat” she said. And left. Girlchat. No one had ever said that to me before.  I mulled it over, then used it in a sentence 10 more times that day.  Now it’s part of my vocabulary. 

Yesterday, when I wheeled my daughter into Starbucks (visit #2) and ordered her apple cider she pulled on my arm and whispered ‘mom, let’s have a girl chat’.  It was nice, but it wasn’t the same.