Spring Break Flakes

by Cathy

Yesterday, my kids went back to school after almost two weeks off for spring break. We decided to forgo any trips because we are a) planning on taking one this summer b) it's just one more thing I'd have to schedule and c) we didn't want this to turn in to Spring Broke. Quite frankly, we were all looking forward to a little under-scheduling. 
 

There was going to be none of this nonsense.

So, while Florida, Hawaii and Washington D.C. were overflowing with strollers, cranky parents and even crankier kids, we decided to sit this one out and have a staycation of sorts. We decided to go local.

The week before, my husband and I were filled with fantastic ideas! Activities! Trips on the train! Museums! I was humming along making lists in my head and envisioning fun, productive days off! Oh, what we will do! Oh, what we will see! This didn't feel like scheduling - this felt like fun planning! Let's take trips to different cities in our own hometown!, we said. Chinatown! Pilsen! Greektown! Little Italy! The world was our oyster and we didn't even have to board one overcrowded plane or wait in one miserable line. Oh, were we gonna be smart. This was genius!

Apparently, we were all looking forward to that under-scheduling more than any of us thought. Each day started off with a glimmer of hope - hope that I'll get them up early enough, hope that they'll still feel like checking out that museum, hope that they'll want to do more than just veg. Alas, it didn't happen. (Not to mention that the weather was more conducive to staying in rather than hitting public transit.) On the days I had to work, I felt bad they were sitting at home, doing nothing. Little did I know, they preferred it that way. I wanted to give them a memorable spring break so when they went back to school and get asked "What did you do over spring break?" they would have a weighty, productive answer, worthy of two weeks time.

So what will they go back with after almost two weeks? ('Two weeks?!' Patti shrieked in an email to me. 'You could have gone to Greece!!') "Oh, we just hung out at home, did lots of shopping, saw a movie, got together with friends and family and just relaxed."

And you know what? That sounds like a break we all deserve.

Aruba (not Jamaica) Is Where I Wanna Take Ya

by Cathy

Bon Bini to Aruba!

One of the best perks about my job is getting to travel. I'm not talking about seeing the inside of airports and conference rooms business trips here; I'm talking about experiencing these destinations as potential getaways. So when the opportunity arose for me to fly to Aruba, I cannonballed into it. Granted, we had to take notes, jot relevant stats, info and details down, meet the right people and ask the right questions, however it's all done in a casual, very non-business like setting. In other words, as many friends described it complete with airquotes: "work"

The start of my trip started off a bit frantic, thanks to an hour and a half delay with my connecting flight, which pushed into my scheduled itinerary once on Aruba. I literally had 10 minutes to check in, change into a fashionable-ish outfit and meet the rest of my media group in the hotel lobby. Once at our event, I eased into the DJ's drumbeats and slowly melted into my Vodka Mango concoction created especially for this press event, which took place on the pool deck of the swanky Renaissance Hotel across from the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea. Aahhh...this "work" was more like it.

Part of my "work" included covering this:

2nd annual Aruba InStyle Fashion Week

This is when designers from Latin American, the Caribbean and even the U.S. showcase their new collections. As I eventually found out, there was press coverage from all of these places: Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela (which we were only about 18 miles off the coast of), Curacao, Columbia, Costa Rica, Barbados and even from Spain. Combined with the diverse cultures already present on Aruba (the national language spoken is Papiamento and are taught Spanish, Dutch and English in addition to this in school), I was in for a multi-cultural treat. And as I also found out, Latin Americans are NEVER on time for ANYTHING. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?

Needless to say we attended some fantastic open-air fashion shows/club parties:

Ronchi de Cuba show at the famed Versace Mansion. This is someone's house, y'all.

Swimwear show while dipping my toes in the water? Why, thank you.

We had an amazing island tour on the Kuckoo Kunuku party buses:

Turn up the music and shake your maracas!! (Famed California lighthouse in the background).

Walked through natural boulder formations a la 127 Hours.

 We visited Gold Mill ruins on the rocky northern coast of the island and came across these stacked rock piles. Island folklore says that you must stack five rocks (any size), make three wishes and in three months, given your stack is still intact against high winds, your wishes will come true.

Wishes, wishes everywhere, as far as the eye can see...

Me with my wish stack. Fingers crossed!

We were refreshed from the hot sun with fresh coconut juice, macheted open for our drinking pleasure.

Tasted some amazing local cuisine like Keshi Yena

Went on a tranquil catamaran/snorkeling excursion. Anyone want a gander at a real, live shipwreck?

And of course, no trip would be complete without a shopping excursion. Just FYI, Aruba has 1.5% sales tax and boasts every luxury brand store you can think of, so ladies, this is the place to get that Gucci purse. Speaking of which, while in that store perusing the handbags - I have my eye on one or two I'm salivating over - another woman comes in and the sharp-dressed suit asks, "Hello, what can I show you today?"
Her reply was my favorite: "Oh, nothing. I'm just here visiting my purse."
Ladies, can we relate or what? Loved that.

Instead, I chose to shop in a little Gingerbread-looking outdoor "mall" that clearly evoked the Dutch architecture the island inherits from its owners. 

Little pink houses - for shopping!

Our media group. And, oh, that amazing, fake-looking sea.

My visit there was quite the sensory and cultural experience to say the least. I will always cherish the sights, sounds, flavors and company. Until the next time...

(Oh, and nothing against Jamaica. Been there, done that. Just keeping with the flow of that breezy Cocktail theme song.)

Secretly relieved that you're secretly relieved....

by Patti

My friends Kristin and Traci and I decided enough was enough -- we needed to plan a night out after work. So we somehow magically found a date that worked for all of us ( - we all work+we all have kids = Never Afreakingvailable. Traci, bless her insane little heart, has THREE kids -) and wrote that date into our respective calendars.

Truthfully, the date was a stretch for me. The day we picked is the day I normally take S to ballet, and S has this "thing" about changes in her routine. But I figured M could take her and she'd just have to get over it, even if meant the earth would start spinning in reverse and then fly right off its axis and go floating off into space totally untethered.

The day finally arrived. I made sure to wear my "drinking" pants, and went into work. And then... the text. The one from M that meant my plans would have to change because "something came up". That "something" was unfortunately a little more important than my doing shots after work, but it still annoyed me unto no end. Why? BECAUSE THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS, ALWAYS. Every single time I, or any of my other friends for that matter, make a plan to do something that means no kids? The kids get sick, the husband has a meeting, the babysitter gets hit by a car...the combination of disasters is endless.

I remember once when Cathy and I had exuberant plans for a night out, and after a series of canceled plans, we had what we thought was a full-proof plan. That is, until her husband Joe's plane got DELAYED OVERNIGHT IN MIAMI. Of COURSE it did. Because we had plans!

So on this day, when M put a dent in my plans with Kristin and Traci - I got nervous. Poor Kristin and Traci, frazzled working mothers that they are. I was about to ruin their plans. I was about to be a plan buster. I shot off an email to both of them, hoping they would understand; encouraging them both to still go and "tie one on" without me. Within moments, my phone rang. It was Kristin. "Hi..." I said sheepishly, fully expecting the guilt her disappointment would make me feel.
"Ohmygod, I am so secretly relieved!" she blurted out breathlessly.
"What? You ARE?"
"Because!" she told me, "Mallorie had a total meltdown this morning when I dropped her off at my mom's. I felt AWFUL knowing I was going to go out tonight instead of seeing her after work!"
"Awwww..."
"Yeah... my mom even told me she couldn't believe I was going to still go out after the way Mallorie cried. I felt so bad. But I didn't want to cancel on you guys."
I found the silver lining. "See? It all worked out for the best!"
"Plus!" she continued. "Rob and I were totally trying to figure out the logistics of how it would work if I went out."
The more she talked, the more I realized I was saving her life. I silently thanked M for ruining my plans.

And then I realized: Traci. She comes into work later than Kristin and I, and her disappointment still awaited her. "She wasn't feeling good yesterday," Kristin offered hopefully. "Maybe she'll feel like crap today!"
How sad. To save ourselves and our friend disappointment, we wished her ill. "She's here!" Kristin whispered. And then we hung up.

Five minutes later, I got an email from Traci, "No worries, guys. I feel like total crap today anyway. I was still going to go out because I really need a drink, but...." So SHE was secretly relieved, too!

In the end, it seems the whole disintegration of plans ended up oddly working in our favor: Kristin because her baby guilted the need for fun right of her; Traci because she was feeling like crap, and besides, hey! She could use that window of "alone time" to shop for her son's birthday; me because I felt bad for being the plan buster. Plus, I had been a little worried about making the earth fly off its axis with my inconsiderate ways.
And my keeping the earth from floating off into space totally untethered? For that, I'm sure we are all secretly relieved.

Non-Weekend

by Patti

week·end/ˈwēkˌend/

Noun:

The period from Friday evening through Sunday evening, esp. regarded as a time for leisure

Long ago, at some point in this life, I had weekends. They consisted of leisurely strolls through book stores, and coffee, and shopping, and sometimes, sometimes? JUST NAPPING AND THAT IS ALL,WHY? IS THERE SOMEPLACE I NEED TO BE? "What are you doing this weekend?" would be the big question at work. "Oh, going to a couple of parties, brunch on Sunday, you know... stuff."

Along the way and somewhere deep into motherhood, my weekends vanished. As the work week comes to  a close now, I know I won't be sleeping in the next day just because it's Saturday. And that is because Saturday will consist of ballet class, harried errands that can't get done during the week because we're too busy with work and school, probably a birthday party or two, and some serious shuffling in-between. Sundays will most definitely include laundry and cleaning and weekend homework and groceries, and maybe, possibly if we're lucky, dinner with friends AND THEIR KIDS. And then, suddenly and just like that, it's Monday again and the whole Groundhog Day of Life begins again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

It's funny - if I find myself driving through the city on a Saturday afternoon, I see the joggers, I see the girls in jeans and oversize sunglasses with shopping bags in one hand and Starbucks in the other, I see the people walking their dogs in a way that I can tell they aren't really going anywhere; they're just walking. And then I remember that I just came from a dance studio stuffed with ten other moms that were also experiencing the same non-weekend I was - the one that found them hurriedly shuttling their kids from activity to activity to activity, the minutes of the weekend ticking away toward Monday.

I wonder how many weekends my parents gave away to us, and then I remember that our weekends were spent climbing trees, playing football in open fields with friends, riding bikes that were thrown carelessly onto each other's lawns as we ran from house to house... We didn't have "lessons", "playdates", "activities"... we just burned daylight from Saturday through Sunday, and my parents were allowed to do the same. We didn't need entertaining and we didn't expect to be entertained. We just... were.

Now, every. single. day is scheduled to within an inch of its life, and those long-ago weekends that often provided such reprieve and separation are now just an extension of every single day. To be fair, it seems that even kids - the very ones we have given our weekends to - are wishing for weekends that they never knew. Just the other day S said, to me, "Mom, I don't feel like doing anything at all. Can we not have any plans?" Without even knowing, she expressed the very thing I was feeling -- can we not have any plans. Can we?

This weekend just passed, and, it being Easter weekend and most things being cancelled or closed, and us being kind of heathen-like in our non-attendance of Easter-related things, did just that -- we had no plans. It will be quite some time before that happens again, before a Saturday calls for sleeping in and coffee in a coffee shop, and a Sunday calls for pancakes, pajamas, naps and a movie -- as all of the upcoming weekends are kind of jam-packed with "stuff".  Because of that, I have decided to stop waiting for the weekend to have a weekend. Instead, I will snatch pieces of time whenever I can and turn moments into that "time for leisure".  It's Tuesday, but it feels like Saturday! Let's rent a movie! Pancakes? Are not just for Sundays! It's Wednesday night - time for breakfast!

Hey! It's Monday. What are you doing tonight?