February snow blows into town with a vengeance.  And with it comes many unwelcome three-word combinations, like ‘shovel the walk,’ and ‘scrape your car,’ and ‘major traffic delays.’  But perhaps the dirtiest, filthiest, most dreaded of three word phrases that can be uttered from male to female during the long, cold days of winter…

Working From Home.

I imagine this prospect presents conflicts for the dual-working couples with stand-offs over shared DSL lines and whose conference call earns the louder voice.  But the true pain and suffering is felt uniquely by the stay-at-home mom.  While normally the Queen of her castle, the master of her domain, she is suddenly and unapologetically dethroned  from her post and stripped of her royal garb.  Sometimes she’s even made to pack up her earthly possessions and small loyal servants into a Jeep and travel to a far-away kingdom, crown clattering on the street like a discarded tuna can.

As one such Queen today (and yesterday), this weather-induced coup is bringing the castle walls in.  We’re all used to seeing the King in his bedclothes at night, but there’s something unsavory about it on a Thursday at 2pm.  We’re accostomed to being asked, “what’s for lunch,” on a weekend, but to hear those words on Friday, by 10am no less, is something different altogether, particularly when followed by “what’s for dinner,” 15 minutes after lunch is finished.

The near-constant (and far too casual) presence of the King confuses the subjects, as well.  Questions like ”Daddy, milk?  Daddy, play?”  are met with rejection for he’s too busy, working.  And when I ask for a few minute’s aid so that I might do something exotic and liberating, like laundry in the basement, I, too, am rejected.  See, while working from home may seem like a lot of sofa-sitting and genital-scratching to an outsider,  it always becomes a dire and mandatory duty when confronted with a request to change a diaper, scrape a windshield, or permit the wife a private toilet experience.

One might think this rare peephole into the day to day rigors the Queen experiences might give the King some added respect for her role within the royal hierarchy.  No.  It doesn’t.  Instead she’s met with questions about the way she manages the Prince and Princess.  “Do you let him play with markers on the counter everyday?”  “Are you allowing them to touch my guitar when I’m not here?”  “Do you think they need to pour applesauce all over the floor?”  Before I can even defend my position – “Hold that thought, conference call.  Can you take the kids upstairs?”

That’s the worst part of spousal work-at-home, the exile to a bedroom.  With inclement weather, the upstairs bedrooms become like the holding pen of a castle tower.  Inevitably the 15 minute conference call (promise!) becomes a 2 hour one.  The kids and I start jaundicing and withering like the family from Flowers in the Attic.  By the time the tower door is unlocked, the kids seem like the cooped up and jittery dog from There’s Something About Mary, ready to pounce at the crotch of their captor.

So I close this entry plotting ways to get him to take his horse-drawn carriage to a Starbucks for awhile, and my heart goes out to the ultimate Queen and King and work-at-home example, the Obamas.  At the end of a grueling week in the White House, I wonder if Michelle sneaks a call to the Queen of the United Arab Emirates, pleading for an urgent summit in Abu Dhabi:  “Please,  Mrs. Nahyan, I just need him out of the house for a couple of days.  I’ll take the Sheikh next month for you…”

It takes SVU Detective Olivia Benson 60 whole minutes from the time she tapes off an area until she slaps cuffs on her perp.  It took me all of 4 to make sense of the crime scene in my house, left behind by G after I’d been out of town for a rare all-day meeting.  It helped that I didn’t need to interview any witnesses (they can’t talk anyway), and I certainly didn’t need a lineup to pick out my perp.  It also helps that my offender is about as careful at cleaning up his trail as a Labrador Retriever is at hiding a kitchen garbage can raid.

Before I take you through this crime scene, let me just say that I recognize from my own upbringing that Dads don’t do it quite the same way as Moms.  My own father used to take us to Tony Roma’s steak house and midnight showings of Arachnophobia when my mother was away (and we loved it).  Excessive late-night viewing of Wife Swap alone has taught me I shouldn’t expect G to teach them French, run through mathematical flash cards, and debate the public option all while playing Mozart in the background.  I simply requested both verbally and in Post-Its, emails, text messages, voicemails, and one Facebook update that he not feed them crap (considering I prepared the proper food and lined it up in containers in order of consumption at 2am), turn the TV off at some point, change their diapers, and clean them up before bed.

Seemingly entry-level duties, like all falling under the ‘basic needs’ umbrella of child rearing.  G seemed to agree…at least at 6am when he was ‘yeah, yeah, yeah-ing’ me out the door.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to see my house  had reverted to the lawlessness of the Wild West by my return.  That high-pitched squeal from ole western movies that always precedes someone like Billy the Kid pushing open the saloon doors definitely sounded from somewhere when I opened my front door.  I’m pretty sure I saw a tumbleweed skip by, but that was more likely dog hair from the beast he allowed into rooms usually verboten.

Everyone was asleep so I could proceed through this little shop of horrors uninterrupted…

Ahh, the warm embrace of Sports Center as you walk in the door after an 18 hour day.  If it’s still on despite a vacant living room, you know it was on so long that the neurons in the brains and rods and cones in the eyes of G and kids eventually became so numbed to it that they couldn’t even percieve it to be on.  Yes, folks, this is not a Loews or an AMC; that’s our living room and the TV that G calls ‘First Wife.’

Oh no he didn’t…Coke.  I’d have preferred he give them actual street coke.  At least that’s tougher to come by and it might seem like medicine to small children.  Soda addiction starts young, people, and there’s no support group for it.

Notice the careful positioning of the baby’s bottle next to G’s ‘bottles’.  I figured they’d each suck on one, but clearly the baby never got hers.  But who knows, maybe they ALL had a few brewskis together, as a family.  Isn’t that a Rockwell picture?

My golden children have now experienced the Golden Arches.  Given the baby’s fondness for all food, she probably ate a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese  and a McFlurry without blinking.  Glad I’m wasting my money at Whole Foods Paycheck when the Dollar Menu has so much more to offer.  Note to self:  Rent Super Size Me and Food, Inc. again for G to watch.

This is what I am calling the Tooth Truth Test.  I left the toothbrush and toothpaste at a memorable angle and location to see if it was used.  Negative.  And while in the bathroom I noticed the bathtub to be as dry as the Sahara.  No baths.  Predictable.

I creeped into the nursery to see if the kids were still showing vital signs.  A parade of terribles ran through my head…a dingo stole my babies…there’s going to be receipts from human traffickers in the crib…the kids revolted and took to the streets to find a new home.  Before I could even register the sounds of their breathing, I was overwhelmed by the stomach-turning smell of spit up and sour milk.  WTH is that?  I hover over the crib where my daughter lay to discover exactly why she stinks like bad dairy.

She’s still wearing the pajamas I left her in from the night before.  24 hours and counting in the same clothing.

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I may not be bar-certified to prosecute crimes in the State of New Jersey, but I’m pretty sure that serving babies fried food and ESPN while allowing them to fester in pajamas (and I can only pray not the same diapers) without bathing and teeth brushing is a series of crimes worthy of lethal injection.

While I wait for his appeal to a higher court, I will begin investigating babysitters slightly more qualified.  Thinking Britney Spears or pack wolves might be good choices.  Wonder if pack wolves come with references…?

We’ve all seen the photos of Katie Holmes crossing the finish line of the NY Marathon in her designer running gear and makeup-free face.  She glides across the finish line, breathless and happy, into the waiting arms of Tom Cruise and that impossibly cute alien baby of theirs (seriously, how did people think this most spectacular of offspring could be an E.T.?  Maybe from the Planet Too Cute for Words).  They kiss.  They smile.  Tom gazes at her and whispers some affirmation in her ear, something like, “I could never have done what you just did.  You are my hero.”

Imagine the marathon Tom ran to get to that finish line – he probably had to wait for a nanny to finish feeding Suri her breakfast of gold-glinted Cheerios and caviar-stuffed Pop Tarts, allow a stylist to pick out the perfect casual-yet-refined ensemble, get his bangs trimmed to hover just so over those Aviators, mani/pedi (for him and Suri), rise through at least one more of Scientology’s Operating Thetan levels, have his security detail ensure there are no post-partum women or Matt Lauer supporters in the vicinity, steamroll his Escalade over thousands of fans ogling to see just how miniature he is, only to FINALLY get his ‘good side’ in position for the finish line photo op.

So it would only follow logic that if Katie Holmes can expect her husband to endure all that, shouldn’t the everday gal feel certain her everyday guy is going to be there with the kids at the end of the race?  Apparently not, as one IGKH reader recently discovered:

Wife looks forward to seeing the children at the finish line of her first race in a long long time. Husband has approximately 90 minutes from the time that wife leaves the house until she thinks she will cross the finish line. It is not early in the morning, and both children and Husband are awake when she leaves the house.

Wife enjoys the run and the invigorating feeling of so many people coming together on a cold Saturday morning for a good cause. She runs happily and is feeling excited about heading towards the finish line and seeing the faces of Husband and Kids in the crowd. She gets closer and closer and then there it is the finish line and… no faces.

She walks through the slowing crowd, sending a couple of texts to Husband… Nothing.  Finally, Husband answers the phone.

H: Hi! We’re here!

W: Great. I finished 10 minutes ago.

They meet. The children are not excited about the race or even cognizant of the fact that Wife has just finished it. They are too distraught over the fact that they have not yet HAD BREAKFAST.

No matter. Husband is prepared. He produces bagels, which he explains he has gone to great trouble to acquire. In fact, it is the acquisition of these very bagels that has caused him to miss the race. The children were hungry, he explains. And “there was nothing in the house”.

W: Nothing?

H: They wanted bagels. There were no bagels.

He HAD to go buy bagels. See? It’s not his fault. What else could he do?

What could he do indeed?  WWTCD?  What would Tom Cruise do?  Well, Suri certainly wouldn’t have arrived hungry because 24K gold empties slowly from the stomach, for one thing.  I’ll tell you what else he would have done.  He would have bought that entire bagel shop and brought bagels to the hordes of hungry runners.  He would have hired additional runners to run beside them, dangling those bagels in front of them, inspiring them to move their leaden legs forward.  He would have constructed a giant sign made with bagels, spelling “Go, Katie, Go! ”  And when she crossed that line, he would have been there on bended knee, holding a giant diamond sparkler that he carved out of…a bagel.  That’s what Tom Cruise would have done.

But it’s possible that it took 2 previous marriages for Tom to learn to do this.   Nicole and Mimi probably sat around at the finish line, rubbin’ their temples, saying, “Where the hell is Tom?”

Who would have thought that within one day of launching this site, I would find the world’s worst mother-in-law?  I didn’t have to look far, thanks to my compulsive tendency to check People.com before I make any and all daily decisions.  And you, too, are probably familiar with her after that stellar press event delivered by every woman’s least favorite husband of the year, Tiger Woods.  Unlike most media outlets focusing on the monotone of his speech and debating whether the misty eyes were from tears or Visine, I can’t move past the stream of ludicrous words that poured out of his mother’s mouth:  “I’m so proud of you.”

?

Okay,  I’m a mom.  I have a son.  I, too, am prone to overusing the word ‘proud’, like when he poops on the floor rather than in his diaper.  He understood he needed to get to the toilet!  Or when he shoves another toddler at the playground for trying to touch his sister’s face.   He must have sensed that child to be a Swine Flu carrier!   But I can say with certainty that I will never be “so proud” of my son for confessing to doing the nasty with like 107 woman while his wife is left alone with their children.  Maybe I wouldn’t be the one to take the driver to his head, but I think I’d respect the fact that his wife did.

As if Elin isn’t suffering enough indignity between knowing her husband has an affinity for both vapid cocktail waitresses and using expressions like Blasian, now she has to endure his mother telling the entire world that she’s proud of this dude.  Imagine what she must be telling Elin at home!  Being an only child made him attention-seeking…it was all that hanging out with P. Diddy…the golf made him do it…he took his Nike ‘Just Do It’ endorsement too far.

Elin is probably wishing she could have whacked SAVED them both with a golf club that night.

PS – I’m not really closing this section down.  I find Monster-In-Law stories to be the spice of life.  It must go on!

Secret love letters written by former US President John F Kennedy to a Swedish woman are being put up for auction.

The letters were written to Gunilla von Post when Mr Kennedy was an ambitious US senator in the 1950s.

Their love affair began before Mr Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier – but continued afterwards.

Can you kill someone if they’re already dead?  I think the loophole might be if you’re dead, too.  If that’s the case, then President Kennedy better watch his back because these letters are bound to make the Mrs. a little agitated.  I’m sure the revelation that JFK had a Swedish lover he pen-palled around with is old news to women like my mother who will watch CNN for 38 hours straight if it’s covering a Kennedy, but I, for one, was shocked.  How could a woman so fine, so illustrious, as Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy, be improved upon?  She can’t be is the answer.  And certainly not by a woman whose name sounds like Gorilla.  Jackie spoke French, she rode horses, she renovated the White House, and, hell, she wore tight denim into her 60s.  This is no woman to be trifled with!  This is the one that really burns me up:

In the last letter – dated August 1955 – Mr Kennedy wrote: “I just got word today – that my wife and sister are coming here. It will all be complicated the way I feel now – my Swedish flicka [Swedish for little girl]. All I have done is sit in the sun and look at the ocean and think of Gunilla. All Love, Jack.”

Flicka??  That’s a book about a horse that you should have been reading to Caroline and little John, not crooning to some trampy Swedish filly!  I’m not even going to get into the Marilyn years and the Happy Birthday debacle.

I can’t be sure if Heaven has Wi-Fi – God, I hope it does – but, Jackie O., this one’s for you.

Every Wife's Dream

As I stared at the TV screen, accompanied by 4 million other motorists distracted by this multi-vehicle pileup known as the Jersey Shore, I was dumbstruck by the notion that these self-professed Guido ‘creepers’ would become husbands one day.  Watching Ronnie toast to Sammi and their future “past the Jersey Shore,” I realized that these guys and gals will eventually vow to have and to hold, for better or for worse, to eat chicken parm, to tan without the sun, and to hurl the ‘F’ bomb at each other from this day forward until death (from premature squamous cells) do them part.

But which Jersey boy (alright, alright they’re not all from Jersey, take it easy) is best suited for the ultimate journey of marriage? Which guy is going to leave a string of ex-wives in his wake, all screaming, “I’m gonna kill him!” vs. the guy who figures out how to keep a “good vibe,” as they like to say, in their union.  I know you’re all going to jump the gun and name Vinny the best candidate, but I’m not so sure.  Let’s peel back some layers…these guys won’t mind, they’re always peeling…clothes, skin, garlic (I’m Italian, I can say that!)

Vinny – Probably your front runner for ‘best case mate’ because he was the least skanky and, hey, everyone knows a nice guy named Vinny, right?  Hey oh! I, however, think his wife would be ready to kill him after she found herself still living with his mother 5 years in.  Even graver, she’s going to need a rhinoplasty after he cracks her in the nose with a vigorous fist pump at the wedding reception.

Ronnie – This muscle-bound creature, I think the kids are calling it ‘juiced’ these days, would have me ready to tear out my hair…but I’d probably regret that move immediately given he would have raided my closet of hats and jewelry with which to hide the baldness.  I know women are supposed to love a man who can dance, but the second he busts one of those moves at the company holiday party, I’d be fleeing that crime scene. Not to mention, the near-constant breakup/shove/reconcile behavior does not a happy marriage make.

Pauly D- I think this one is a non-issue; DJ Pauly D will never give up the turntables for a woman!  He would miss taking the vows at the ceremony because he’d already be at the reception “gettin’ the pahty stah-ted.”  Try to envision that mile-high hair on top of a tux at the end of the altar!  Plus, could you imagine being called a ‘Trashbag’ every time you had a dispute?  I’d rather be married to Charlie Sheen and take a knife to the throat!  And, it has to be said…it’s a likely bet a marriage wouldn’t be consummated because of an accessory we all wish we didn’t know about!

Mike “The Situation”-  You know he’s putting ‘The Situation’ on the marriage license – she’ll  be Mrs. Situation.  Do you think that’s a family name?  With Italian’s love of naming for the patriarch, there’d be a Situation Jr. and a Situation III.  Imagine that on their college diplomas!  But he makes some mean chicken cutlets and can pull out a warfare analogy faster than he pulls up his shirt upon introductions.  My dad does that, too – the war analogies, not the ab exposing – and he became quite a good husband.  And, Mike has bedded most of the East Coast so he’ll probably tire of the “creepin” by the time he settles down.  As long as she had a total-body transfusion of Gardasil prior to accepting the rock on her finger, she should be just fine…

While he may seem the most unlikely spouse in the minds of most, I think I’ve offered a pretty persuasive argument as to why Mike The Situation Sorrentino would be the Jersey Shore husband least likely to drive his spouse out of her mind.  What do you think?  Which ‘bro’ is MOST likely to have his future wife screaming, “I’m Gonna Kill Him!”

We are in the process of selling our home.  Don’t write me off as a crazy person yet – I know it’s a dismal time to sell, but we’re trying our luck.  However, acknowledging the dismal times the housing market is experiencing places the additional burden of beautifying one’s home on the seller.  Beautifying is really tough when you have a  husband, two dogs, and two babies as your flatmates.  De-sliming and un-mucking might be more accurate.  We have some extra-special obstacles inherent to our home to overcome, namely a large, creaking, tipping, bat-filled, and potentially haunted barn in the backyard.  If we were in a place like Maine or Mississippi, people would expect to see this structure accompany the house.  In suburban New Jersey, people stop dead in their tracks and say, “oh my gaaawd…what. is. that?”  I shudder to think of their reaction should they see the inside of the barn, which contains a 1945 apple truck that is surely serving as a Four Seasons to raccoons as well as my sister-in-law’s mattress propped up on cinder blocks (G’s handiwork).

I’ve been doing my best in my limited time to put to use all those staging tips we all learn from shows like Sell This House and Curb Appeal (seriously, throwing out 92% of your belongings, putting your couches and beds on a diagonal, and throwing white sheets on everything seems to be all they do).  G is so darn resistant to parting with any of his things.  Forget parting – I’ve already learned that words like ‘Goodwill’, ‘Salvation Army,’ and ‘Clothing Drive’ are synonymous with ‘vasectomy without anesthesia.’   I simply want to relocate some things to the basement where they will not be studied and pondered over by potential buyers:  “Why are there 4 different cases of beer on the floor in the kitchen?” or “What kind of people convert a dining room to an Irish pub complete with billiard table?”  My sentiments exactly…except I know what kind of person does these things.  The same person who strung up a punching bag in the playroom (heavy hanging object over floor-dwelling babies?), placed an exercise bike in the living room (good for hanging damp clothes), and hung a giant framed photo of Muhammad Ali in the guest room (in case overnight visitors need some inspiration about being ‘the greatest’).

The straw to break the camel’s back came last night.  Rather than reveal first what it is that I asked to relocate, I’ll begin the tale with G’s diatribe over being asked to move said item.  Went a little something like this, “NO, No, Nooo, NO!  I am finished moving my life around.  I will not put any more of my things in the basement.  I can’t live like this – I have to be able to use my things and be surrounded by some of the things I like to have around me.  Forget it, you can forget it.  If you ask me to move one more thing, I’m going to move that FOR SALE sign down to the basement, that’s what I’m going to do!”

What could have riled him so, you must be asking?  Surely an implement so useful and necessary in one’s daily existence.  The refrigerator?  Our bed?  His toilet and all the household toilet paper?  No…  A tupperware containing a jump rope, a few free weights, an extra set of billiard balls, and some purple plastic thing with wheels that was regretably purchased from an infomercial.