I‘m feeling anti-social lately, and I think it might have to do with holiday “nesting.” While there’s no baby on the way (I’m eating as if there were), I still feel a strong pull to home, to snuggle with my sugarplums, making snowflakes and melting our own chocolate for cocoa. Usually, I’d take a bottle of wine with friends over glitter and craft glue—though ideally, who am I kidding, they’d be two in the same. But, here I am searching for “experience gifts for kids” instead of pulling clothes for a night out.

Tonight I’ve RSVP’d “yes,” to a “New to Boca” dinner, but I feel like staying home instead. Or, like stealing away to the movies. I think socializing, especially when jeans are involved, can take too much effort. Putting on makeup, particularly now, feels like a chore. I’m almost always happy that I go, and I’ve grown quite fond of some of the women individually, so I’m not sure what my problem is.

Maybe it’s this particular group of women. I never feel like I truly connect on these girl nights, probably because there are too many of us, too many different conversations at the table, dipping in and out. Yet the other night, with a different set of six women in pajamas, we had the best chemistry, each of us confiding and growing closer. I guess the difference is that these “New to Boca” nights feel like gloss. There’s no real texture, and we’re in a setting that doesn’t cultivate intimacy. I’m learning that I value intimacy and wisdom over “fun.” And I’m a fun fcuking person. Though, I imagine everyone thinks they’re fun. Maybe I’m no fun at all. I really don’t give five shits.

Pirate’s Cove, Patch Reef Park, Boca Raton, FL

What I do care about, though, are experiences, making new memories. And you don’t go about making new memories by staying home on the computer. You say yes, even if you’re tired and don’t feel like getting dressed. You say yes because anything can happen. It’s why this holiday season, most of all, I want to give our children gifts of experience, for them to unwrap a box full of pirate costumes, with a wooden plank inviting them to a special Family Pirate Picnic at Pirate’s Cove Park (just a public park near our home with a pirate ship playground). It costs nothing but it means everything. I’m on the hunt for more treasures, for under the tree and otherwise.

Chocolate caramel tart with sea salt; it’s what I was going for. A new friend—mind you all my friends in Florida are “new,” though all aren’t “friends,” but we’ll scratch that surface later—invited me to a new tradition at her home: It’s A Wonderful Life Night. Her movie theater room will soon be flooded with sweet friends, salty confections, and booze. She’s invited us for a cozy showing of the holiday classic, with only one mandate: the dress code, much to her husband’s chagrin, is PJ’s, the fuzzy kind, not the “Hopeful Ho” variety.

After shopping for fuzzy pajamas—because no, I didn’t own any—I decided to confront my stack of cookbooks, and leafed my way to the Chocolate Caramel Tart with Sea Salt from The Perfect Finish: Special Desserts for Every Occasion because I could make babies with salt. In truth, I was deciding between this and the Walnut Layer Cake with Apple-Caramel Filling and Calvados Cream Cheese Frosting (I know, right? The best recipes in this book!). Then my mother offered to drop off some meyer lemons from my aunt’s tree, and I considered making my all-star all-time favorite lemon cake (email me for the recipe, if you’re a tart freak). Ultimately, I chose the chocolate caramel tart with sea salt because I judge books by their covers. That, and I left my spring-form pan (needed for the other two recipes) in Texas.

While contemplating how I’ll work Zuzu’s petals onto the dessert plate, I’m here to tell you this. If you over-whip a fragile homemade mayonnaise, it breaks into pools of oil and water, and yolk by yolk, you must coax it back to health (relative health; it is mayo). Overworked mascarpone mixed with heavy cream meant to construct a creamy tiramisu can instead create a curdled dump, rescued only by patience and another container of mascarpone.You can’t unscramble an egg, and there’s no, I realized tonight, rescuing bitter caramel. It’s good for flan, but it doesn’t suit much else.

Friendship can work the same way. You can see it progressing, thickening in a pot, then without explanation, like an overworked emulsion or an unattended sauce, it can turn into something unrecognizable.

I have been blown away by the high school crisis of friendship in Boca Raton. It takes more real estate than a single post to cover the damages. It takes a book, or at least a chapter or five. Chapters I’m now writing, or, more pointedly, chapters they’re writing for me. Because you can’t make this up any more than you can turn shit into shine-ola.

While we’re on the bitter, my burnt caramel has been painted onto buttered crusts, each an individual tart. Tomorrow I plan to flood each tart with an eggnog custard that makes flan faint and brûlée boil. Island rum whipped cream. Because all in all, life really is wonderful. Even the mess of it, the Potters and burnt pots, it’s really nothing in the face of family, in the face of friends who come as they are, and who act as they appear, jammies and all.

Tonight was good. I had planned to meet a few women for drinks and dinner, then I’d race off early to make it to the new book club I was invited to join. Love nights like that, where you get to up and switch, like musical chairs, but with different chairs, and different music, and well, no. Sorry.

But that’s a lot of girl bonding to race through, which even for a seasoned over-sharer like me, still takes time. Before my first sip of the margarita, I knew. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hoo city that I’d be making it to book club.

Mind you, as much as I love to read, the types of books I have stacked bedside are written by shrinks and chefs. Right now, on my nightstand: Your Child’s Strengths, Pasta Harvest (it’s my bible, seriously), Defusing Angry People, Working the Plate, Nigella Christmas, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, Bullies, Tyrants & Impossible People, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, and obviously, Around My French Table. Because that Dorrie Greenspan can end anything—even this list!— on a high note. Also, now on my to-buy list: Out of Our Minds.

For me to miss the very first meeting of the club, especially after reading the book? And by “reading,” I don’t exactly mean “completing,” and perhaps “reading” isn’t the right verb either. “Mostly listening to most of it,” is more fitting. No, I didn’t join a book club with the intention of reading. I joined for the social aspect. Which, given that I missed NIGHT ONE, would be a FAIL. I digress. I purchased the AUDIOBOOK of The Paris Wife and even that I wasn’t able to finish on time. And yet, I’ve still managed to successfully paw my way through self-help and help-yourself-to-food books, no problem. Know what that says about me? Me. Me. And yes, Me. Interesting that I choose subjects that pertain to me and my life and my interests over wanting to escape all of it in the pages of fiction. No judgment (either way) on that observation. I think I just really like to learn.

What surprised me most about the night was the depth of our girl conversation. We spoke about such real topics, things for whatever reason people don’t usually disclose until they’re on sure friend footing. Death, abortion, adoption, fertility, marriage. And it wasn’t the tequila. It might just be that later in life, we rip through the light and get into the grit, straight off. I liked it. Though, next time, I won’t be double booking. Next month’s book: The Hunger Games.

I‘m cranky and tired and don’t feel like adventure, which isn’t like me. Today I went into a Forever 21 inside the Town Center mall, and I found myself letting out a little whine because the Forever 21 here in Boca is a quarter the size of each of the two in Austin. Mind you, I realize a 35 (almost 36) year old woman shouldn’t be shopping at Forever 21, but still. I do. They make great tank tops and accessories and, surprisingly, fantastic shoes. I digress. It just felt like the small store was the straw.

Making friends here feels like a race. Like, you have to time that friendship right, and make sure “she” whomever she is, is as friend-open as you are, that she, too, is looking to open herself up to new. Because there are plenty of people who aren’t looking to make new friends—it’s hard enough keeping up with the friends we already have. I think it feels like a race here because I know so many new people who are in the same boat. You’d think that would draw us closer together, faster, and with some it really has, but in so many ways it feels like this strange unspoken competition. I’m sure it’s just me and my insecurities, and that no one else feels it. Which actually makes me feel it all the more.

If she makes plans with her first, if they’re close first, I’ll just be the “sometimes” friend. I guess I’m looking for a replacement of you. Not that I could, ever, obviously. But I was always able to open up to you, in part because you were just so much fun, so confessional, so… sister-like. And I find myself here, now, asking myself how you’d act. “If she were here,” I tell myself, “she’d get out of her car and wait with the other mothers at early dismissal. She wouldn’t be sitting in her car, waiting in the carpool pickup line instead.” And then, I sit in my car. Because, I suppose, I’m just too tired to race off and get me some friends in a hurry.

It might also have to do with circles. Aside from the ones beneath my eyes, the circles in Austin were big, like, Texas big. It didn’t feel incestuous on any level, and when I’d bring friends together they never knew one another outside of knowing me. Our worlds were wider. In Austin I had friends without children, single friends, mom friends, foodie friends, dinner party friends, photography friends, let’s mock The Bachelor granola friends, craft night scrapbooking / sewing friends, friends who’d host baking orgies, older friends who had better wine and better wisdom, country club let’s cozy up to the bar friends, live music scene friends, writer friends, game night friends, and best of all, drinking friends who’d sometimes conceive children in our guest room.

Boca feels crowded with people who all know one another. I think that just means it’s time for me to branch out beyond Woodfield, beyond the preschools and playgrounds. I need more touch points. I think we all could use more diversity. In fact, I think we can create our own. Here’s my plan. I’m making a list of the things I love. And I’m going to join a group for it, a class, whatever it takes to widen my circle. Mostly, I’m going to do the things I love. Because it’s just too incestuous having so much overlap. Like, you know you’re all seeing a movie together tomorrow night, so who do you call to hang out tonight? If you had a completely different set of friends who you adored equally, you’d have an answer.

Tears for Fears (and for the quilt of love)

Tonight Phil is off in Ft. Lauderdale until 10pm, and it’s 4:50pm here now, and I could be getting together, drinking some mama wine, watching chick TV, or meeting at some kid-friendly dinner destination. Instead, I’m on my sofa, shoes off, hair up, glasses on, typing at the computer about how lost I feel. Only, I know that this is temporary, that I need to rest. Holy shit, seriously, don’t I sound exhausted? Moving is stressful. Marriage, kids, all of it. Abigail goes in on Thursday for her chin “revision,” where they put her under. It’s way worse on me, I already know. I wish I had a stay-at-home friend here. A pajama friend. A no makeup, no bullshit, let’s tell it like it is and live it like it’s not friend. I guess I’m just feeling blue. Think it’s about time to crack open that green little notebook* I’ve been saving.

I love this photo above because that, right there, is my “I love you” face. You can’t fake that face, that emotion of watching someone across the room and just being so in love with who they are as a person that it makes you want to cry. And “you” is so many of the genuinely sister-like friends of mine in Austin. Many of them mark these pages and stud these photos, and others, some of the closest, weren’t able to make it on this particular night. I miss the details of your lives, your voices, and our casual touches throughout a day. Now, I’m crying and wiping my nose. Which is a good look with the glasses and hair bun. I miss you. For real.

My two talented friends Erica and Lisa made this quilt just for me. I don’t know if I could feel more loved. Do you know what a bitch it is to make a quilt? That’s lots of love right there. Turtle Dove Love…. notice the personalized turtle detail (below)?

I’m pointing to the turtle with my finger. It’s a symbol that holds so much weight for me. We should all have our own power animals and power friends that somehow channel strength to us, wherever we are.

* The green notebook was a gift from a Give Get friend, who invited my other friends to write me love letters. I haven’t cracked it open yet; I’ve been saving it in my bedside table for moments like this.

I‘m just going to come out with it. I’ve met “The Mothers.”

If you had nothing more to go on, and you closed your eyes and tried, perhaps the following free-associations might bubble to the top:

Talk of product recalls
Tapered, stonewashed jeans
Jokes about wine and sippy cups
Designer strollers that cost more than your first car

No. No. Yes. And, no. Dayna, Devon, and Demi—the triple D’s with the double D’s—are not those mothers. They’re the motheryuckers. They live off the belief that everything and everyone adore children, most especially theirs, and that life should be “yukked up.” Literally and figuratively.

It was Demi, queen motheryucker, who’d invited me to meet her friends, the otherfcukers, and their accessorized younglings for breakfast. I thought it was wholly generous of her, especially with a name meaning “half,” to extend the invitation, and I’ll admit, I was looking forward to meeting other moms, even if our kids did attend different summer camps.

The Street on the Way to My Florida Home

Demi scribbled the meetup spot on the back of an envelope she’d fished out of her Marry Poppins Purse. “Just a local spot.” One day and a twenty-eight minute drive later, I was meeting her and her crew at the un-local breakfast spot (although Demi lives around the corner, her friends were further out). It was your basic muffin and donut shop, with smells of cinnamon, butter, and the centers of wet eggy French toast triangles—only there were mostly offerings of egg white salad, flagels and diet lobster salad. In lieu of booths, stools and a breakfast bar, there were board games and newspapers dotted throughout the B-lounge, inviting patrons to settle in on sofas, to relax with a strong cup of coffee, maybe even make a new friend. Perfect.

Except, it wasn’t perfect. Before Luke, Abigail and I walked through the front doors, I crouched to meet their eyes, reminding them to be on their best behavior, “as you always are because that’s what we do in our family.”

Total side note: when my children do misbehave, and they do, I try to remind them, “You have very good manners and are such good listeners. And this behavior isn’t who you are, at all. I know that. You know that. So, let’s be ourselves now.” It works, unless it doesn’t. I’m learning to embrace the bad mother in me, the lazy mom, the mom who says that’ll just have to be good enough. But I always do try… unless they’re absurdly tired, in which case, I haul ass. Which, I should say, “sometimes involves leaving without getting my shit done,” but in truth, no. My checklist items are getting crossed off even if I’m cross with my overtired offspring. Basically, their asses will be dragged down with me.

Upon entry, we were greeted by The triple D’s, waving us down from their coffee clutch, glossy smiles, makeup, coordinated gym and tennis outfits. Each of them looked photo-ready. Their children, however, were another story—a poorly laid out story, with disjointed unruly little verbs and nouns bouncing from walls, weaving through the legs of patrons. To their little boys and girls, the armchairs and sofas were a theme park knot of slides, to be slid down, and climbed upon. Their tutu-clad girls with pigtail curls and sparkling light-up sneakers raced up and down the cafe, chasing one another, screaming full throttle. I looked over my shoulder; was I the only one seeing this?

It’s one thing when a parent is trying her best to handle the situation. She’s flustered, exhausted, an apologetic mess. But The D’s didn’t do sorry. And they didn’t come close to rolling out the “R” in “reprimand.” Instead, one seized a Splenda, offering up an unimpassioned, “Yeah, the staff just loves when they see us walk through the door.”

So here’s my question, can you really be friends with someone who raises her children in a manner to which you strongly object? We’re not talking some one-off bad day, where you just don’t have the energy to deal. I’m talking a consistent parenting style that evokes images of Mr. Wonka’s Veruca Salt. I don’t see how. Because I don’t want my children to be around that. I don’t want to be around that.

Though I will admit I do have friends, friends I adore, who have wild boys who play with sticks and throw things and act like sour patch kids. But it’s too late. I’m already in love with their mothers. I can’t take it back, even if I wished she could take them back. But starting out fresh, where I have somewhat of a choice in the friends I keep, if I judge them so harshly, how can I ever imagine being their friends?

I basically prefer asshole moms who don’t let their children get away anything. They might not always listen—what child does?—but their parents at least attempt to correct their child’s behavior. And what do I do about this? When my own children continually ask for a playdate with an adorable boy whose mother is a demi-glazed groaner whose stories make me want to debone a chicken and stab her face with its carcass?

Ignore her.
Always be too busy.
Say you’re available when you KNOW she’s not, so you’re not the aloof stuck-up bitch.
If you must have plans, because your son really wants to play with hers, invite other people, so you’re not stuck with her one-on-one.

All sounds reasonable enough. Because I genuinely believe it’s crueler to have a conversation about it, and I’m sure she’s a good person who’s capable of taking a hint, right? Wrong. She calls and calls and emails and texts and does not go away. She gives me the opposite of a lady boner.

So, what is it? What is it about her that I really don’t like? Is it just her parenting? No. I don’t like how eager and panting, and negative she is. She’s OPINIONATED in a really aggressive way—like Phil and his mother. I don’t need any more opinion pushers in my life. You know, aside from when I ask for help and opinions, as I am doing here, now. 

It dawns on me now that I actually liked the other two double D’s. It was just Demi splashing over that had colored my opinions of the other women. I don’t like how bothered I am by her, this person who clearly only wants to do right by her son. Perhaps it wouldn’t be awful if she’d say, “We’ll have a little wine while they play, just come over, you’ll see.” That relaxed way of doing things is what I need in my life. I don’t need wide-eyed heroin hopped up rats gnawing at me for plans. Just no. That’s not who I want to spend time with. Do I love Boca? I love the palm trees, love the weather and ocean, love being close to more family, especially my mother. I think I’d learn to love South Florida, I already am, if I found friends that inspired me, friends who made me laugh, that were characters or quietly interesting, but who were generous with their knowledge, contacts, friends and wisdom. Something I try so hard to be for my own friends.

There is a really shiny glimmer of hope: I have met a several women at the kids’ preschool with whom I’m genuinely looking forward to spending more time. Friends of friends have made introductions via facebook. Alexandra has thankfully introduced me to her swarm of Pine Crest alumnae. And we’ve made two “couples” friends in our greater neighborhood (within Woodfield, but not our particular development) with whom we’ll for sure include for game nights and dinner parties. I’m already thinking of a theme: Polynesian Night… where I’ll be serving a beef filet tenderloin with a Kona coffee demi glaze in honor of the friends I haven’t made. And piña colada ice cream, obviously.

All in, I think I’m doing pretty well. And so long as I’m real, I’m sure to continue to meet real people who’ll hopefully grow into real friends.

A few things. There’s been some back and forth book drama and headaches and not enough sleep, but I’m fine. In a crazed, still-adjusting, holy airbags, did I really just cut someone off in the B’nai Israel morning drop-off? I have been earmarked for jail. (I’m so so sorry! I didn’t realize I was in the carpool lane and not the park lane). When I tell you I spent the day (half the day) feeling sick over it, I’m not exaggerating.

Now then…

One of my neighbors came *this close* to running Lucas down with her golf cart (she was gunning it down THE SIDEWALK). She looked mid-50′s and manic. Apparently, her dog had wandered off and she was searching the neighborhood for him (she found him, called security, and then came careering down the sidewalk). I saw her. Lucas was standing outside the passenger side of my car. Abigail was climbing into her seat (which is passenger side). Lucas sprung out to come around to the driver side, where his seat is, and that’s when she slammed on the brakes and screamed, “ARE YOU FCUKING KIDDING ME?!” And I just stood there, my mouth, I’m sure, hanging. I was shaking and hugging Lucas. She said nothing else, no, is he okay, or I’m so sorry.

Stop. Think about this. Had you almost accidentally run over a four year old while driving, wouldn’t you, I dunno, stop, get out, make sure he’s okay? Say something without the word fcuk?

No. She rode off into the sunset. And I called the Home Owners Association. And by I, I mean Phil.

And that would be a no. Driving on sidewalks with golf carts is NOT permitted. In case you were siding with the runaway neighbor.