The Quicker Picker-Upper

If you thought bleach cleaned your counter really well, just imagine what it would do to your baby's bottom!

Oh...bleach shouldn't be used on human skin? Well, what about bleach wipes? Wait, those either? I guess that warning label makes a lot more sense now:

In retrospect, is just seems so obvious!

Down the Hatch

Last Friday I was informed by my doctor that I have a duodenum and an esophageal junction.

No worries, though. Apparently they're lurking within all of us. I found this out following my endoscopy. Considering a colonoscopy is actually in your, um, end, I think an endoscopy, which involves a camera down your throat, should be called an other-end-oscopy.

Here is what I learned from pictures of the procedure: I am very pink inside. On a side note, I also learned that my stupid veins will explode spontaneously, leading the anesthesiologist to have to stick me FIVE TIMES before we found a successful vein. (By the by, oh-my-god-sweet-jesus that hurt.) And I learned that I do not like anesthesia. I was fine right afterward (although thanks to those damned Yankees and their ticker-tape parade, I was forced to take the subway home -- the bridge-and-tunnel crowd stole all my taxis!) and stopped at the Union Square Greenmarket for a fresh cup of steaming hot apple cider. I went home, took a brief nap, during which I was convinced I was sleeping on a bed of velvet. But once the anesthesia wore off I was jumpy and incapable of sleep.

Cue me at 4 a.m., waiting for slumber and considering some heavy subjects, including why I didn't know Veteran's Day was coming up, but I could give you the date of Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th); what kind of reviews Fantasy Island would get on Expedia, since it never actually fulfilled anyone's fantasy; and why you would name a medication Aciphex, when it clearly sounds like "Ass Effects."

It's almost a week later, and this Friday I go in for my IVIG treatment, which I get every four weeks. I can tell when I'm due for treatment depending on how I'm feeling. The first week I'm a little tired and then slowly perk up. Week two I feel much better. Week three starts out well, but by the end I'm getting a little tired. And by week four I'm ready to go in again. I call it my "monthly cycle." Which, in retrospect, might have another meaning.

My endoscopy took 10 minutes. The IVIG infusion takes several long, Benadryl-filled hours. But I'll take IVIG over another endoscopy any day.

Never saw that coming.

Quick Question...

So what am I supposed to use?!

Market Research

I love my local Rite Aid. Besides their delightful shelf combinations, the scowling man near the entrance who is either an ineffective security guard or an unfriendly store greeter, and their propensity to stock onesies that read "Somebody in Queens Loves Me!", their staff is always looking for ways to improve my shopping experience. And I appreciate that.

Someone at the store has clearly been taking a correspondence class in the benefits of cross-selling. However, I don't think they've reached that point in the pamphlet that mentions how to employ this useful marketing strategy in a subtle and appealing way. For example:

Target demographic: Mothers who never read "What to Expect the First Year" and don't know they can't feed their newborns Gatorade and pizza.

Public service?

Maybe.

However, I quickly realized that this was not isolated when I spotted the following:

If you can't figure out that you need ice in order cool down that sparkling glass of lemon lime Big Fizz (preferred by those who feel Sprite is a luxury), then you don't deserve to be told. Warm drinks for you!

Needless to say, I felt my shopping trip was a success. I went for a bottle of detergent, but left with a smile. I want to hug everyone who works at the Rite Aid. Best store in Queens!

Kosher for Passover

Behold, the nation's first religiously-sanctioned shoe store:


This was taken during a recent trip to Florida. I know there's a big Jewish contingent, which necessitates all sorts of glatt kosher delicatessens and markets, but I'm still trying to figure out which part of the shoe is considered edible.

The tongue?

The sole?

Exeunt, Stage Left.

I always go to the movies on two occasions: 1) Christmas and 2) any weekend during mid-August when running my own air conditioning would cost more than $10.50 per hour. As the 90-degree days seem to have made their debut, Monday morning reviews are on the rise at work.

My boss recently reported that he saw 500 Days (of Summer), which he called “Summer 500” – revealing his desire, I believe, to see a drama about a fictional Indy 500 – and said he quite liked it. I was surprised. Much like my father, who believes that all movies can be improved with female nudity, car chases and explosions, this was not something my boss would pick. (In other ways they are nothing alike, but I wonder if this is more a Y-chromosome issue than a matter of taste in movies.)

On the other hand, I saw something that I would definitely pick, although in this case it was my brother who suggested we see Julie & Julia. This is a spoiler-free zone (unless I hate the movie), so I will not reveal how it turns out, except to say that she was a man (The Crying Game), the crew survived (Apollo 13) and they won the championship (All Sports Movies Ever Made).

I will say this: Meryl Streep is fan-freaking-tastic. Over time, I have grown more enthusiastic about her work. I wasn’t particularly impressed with Ms. Streep in my youth. This may have had more to do with my introduction to her in She-Devil, starring Rosanne. I’m sure she was fine in it, but it was more notable for the eye-searing moustache that Rosanne wears before her makeover than for plot or acting. It was released in 1989, when I was in my pre-teens, which I guess is why it was my first Streep film.

It was hard not to be won over by what I saw later, including Kramer vs. Kramer, Angels in America, and Doubt. By the time I arrived at the theater on Friday night, I needed no convincing that she is a great actress.

However, my favorite Meryl Street moment occurred off camera, about seven years ago.

It was a summer weekend, and I was wandering around Union Square, downtown. As I walked along 14^th Street, I stopped to check out a cheap clothing store. I picked up a t-shirt, put it back. Looked at a pair of shorts, figured I’d try them on. And right before I went into the dressing room, I spied…Meryl Streep. I froze, mid-perusing, and gave her a second, covert look. Definitely Ms. Streep. So I did what any honorable New Yorker would do – I pretended not to notice her. This was before camera phones, so I couldn’t even contemplate that, thank goodness.

I stepped into the dressing room, my heart still racing, and tried to peer through. I couldn’t see anything. Damned privacy curtains! What I heard was this: “MoooOOOM, it doesn’t fit. It’s the wrong size!”

And then Ms. Streep responded, “Bigger or smaller?”

She came over to her daughter’s dressing room with the new sizes. They continued chatting, just like any mother and daughter would during a Saturday spent wandering around the City.

You can’t interrupt, be smitten with or be covertly obvious about noticing a celebrity when they’re out shopping with their daughter. It’s just…tacky. So I tried on the shorts (didn’t like how they looked) and left.

She may be a fantastic actress, but even better – she seemed like an awfully nice mom.

Exciting Investment Opportunity!

Dear Prospective Investor:

I am currently seeking people to invest in two projects that are sure bets. When I say "sure bet," I mean "projects that, despite this economy, cannot fail to reap Midas-like rewards." I truly believe that immediately after learning about them, you will clamor at my door to hand over your check.

You may be skeptical. "Nancy," you will say, "in these dismal economic times, why should I part with my hard-earned money?" And I will tell you, with a grin and a wink, "Because a sound investment idea can weather anything."

Are you curious? Of course you are!

So let me tell you what sizzling opportunities await you.

Idea Number One

After visiting Key West last year, I quickly realized that there is a revenue stream that is, as of now, currently unexplored. Thus, I propose:
During the day, Banana Hammocks will be a smoothie bar/hammock store. Customers sit on hammocks, which are also for sale. Each evening, the store reopens as a gay nightclub. Instead of smoothies, there are cocktails with smoothie names. And there are hammocks instead of generic bar seating.

Picture ABC Home and Carpet selling smoothies and then turning into a nightclub on weekends.

Idea Number Two

I propose a store that sells quality, upscale undergarments in a fun atmosphere - the style of La Perla with the price point of Victoria's Secret. The ideal first location would be Las Vegas, where a themed lingerie store would fit the local aesthetic.

Capitalizing on the atmosphere of one of North America's premiere party towns, I propose: Mardi Bras.

This store would be an interactive experience. Employees would be stationed on balconies (modeled after those in New Orleans). Any customer who flashed their chest would then receive a beaded necklace thrown to them by the employee. Market research shows this would be a great draw to the men accompanying their wives or girlfriends to Mardi Bras.

Advertising would look like this:

These are but the bare bones outlines of two very exciting investment opportunities. For more information, please contact me at 555-1212.

I look forward to taking your hard-earned dollars!

Bed Bugged.

Two apartments and seven years ago, I was doing what most New Yorkers in their mid-twenties were doing – finding a new place to live after being kicked out by my insane current roommate.

She decided to move her boyfriend in and me out. But after only two months, I couldn't afford to leave. I asked if I could send the rent in two weeks so I could pay to move as quickly as she requested. And that's when she started screaming, saying she would call the cops if I didn't pay and leave immediately. So much fun. (On a side note, she was pretty and had a son who was staying with her parents in her native country in Eastern Europe. When I asked what she did for a living, she didn't want to say, but later vaguely referred to a job in "finance." To this day, I suspect she was a dancer or an escort.)

Thanks to the miracle of Craigslist, I found a new roommate pretty quickly, and moved into a miniscule room in a fairly nice Hell's Kitchen, sorry, "Clinton," apartment. If I bought a full or queen-sized bed (which was my preference), the entire room would have been bed, bed and more bed. So I compromised, bought a twin, and shoved a couple small pieces of furniture in there.

Two months later, Laura decided she wanted to move. She held the lease, and they were looking to jack up the rent, so I was once again out on my ear. I was furious she had taken me in, knowing she would be leaving so soon. I was also crushed and emotionally wrecked about moving for a third time in one year.

I called my best friend, K, and wailed, "She" sob, wheeze, sniffle, "toooooooooold me," sob, sob, hyperventilate, "to MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE," sniffle, sob, drop the phone, pick it up and start deep breathing. Because K has the Nancy Rosetta Stone, she understood and started to cheer me up and calm me down.

This is when I decided I was done with roommates. I felt like I had checked off a list of things I needed to accomplish. I had lived with a roommate's parrot, waking up each morning to violent screeching at 6 a.m. I had cleaned up the dirty dishes a roommate had left on my bed. I had been tormented by my roommate's mother constantly screaming about her daughter’s good-for-nothing ex-husband and unruly children. I had even been directed not to speak to the private detective following my roommate's married lover.

This is how I found myself paying way too much – and loving it – so I could traipse around naked in my Upper West Side apartment any time I wanted, sleep in, cook at midnight, and decorate any which way I wanted. I was in a studio apartment, so while it was bigger than the prison cells I was previously housed in, I now had to fit an entire apartment of furniture into one long room. Which meant I was stuck with the damned twin bed.

Three years and two rent increases later, I was looking at an empty bank account and a quickly gentrifying neighborhood. Next door, a sign went up over new construction that read, "Coming soon – 2 to 5-bedroom Condos!" However, what I read was, "Dear Nancy, it's time for you to move. You can't afford it here anymore!"

I can take a hint, so I started looking. Washington Heights, the Lower East Side, the Upper [Upper] East Side. My mother kept recommending Astoria. And I kept telling her, "Forget it! Queens is where old people go to die."

In a moment of desperation, I considered having a roommate. She and I went out to Astoria, where she showed me the neighborhood and explained that, 1) she didn't believe in air conditioning, and 2) she had an algorithm to determine television volume, based on a variety of factors: time of day, number of people at home, and if she was taking her meds (that last one was unspoken).

Needless to say, we parted ways – but I was hooked on Astoria.

So here I am, three years later, loving my family-friendly neighborhood and my one-bedroom apartment. Yet I never replaced that effing twin bed. Yes, my living room couch pulls out into a Queen-sized bed, but it’s lumpy and awful. And not particularly practical.

On Friday, mother called and said, “Sleepy’s is having a sale.” With her bartering skills (by telephone, no less!) we used her senior citizen discount to take $200 off a fantastic mattress set.

It was delivered on Saturday, and I couldn’t stop grinning. Here we are (“we” meaning me and Sleeping Beauty, my new mattress):

I keep smiling every time I walk into my bedroom. No more pushing pillows onto the floor when it’s time to go to sleep. No more feeling like I’m laying in a coffin.

Here she is on Sunday morning, after the first test run:

I’m in love. What a beauty!

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

On a recent trip to Stew Leonard's -- the inestimable, incomparable grocery store that my grandmother Barbara often called a museum of food -- I discovered that my photo-resistant younger brother, Josh, is a big chicken. Wait, no, I meant he likes chickens.

The same guy who will only take family photos after no small amount of coercion, will apparently jump into any old shot if it involves this:
Really, could he look any happier? I have NEVER received a grinning, twinkly-eyed, thumbs-up pose from Josh. Not even once.

If you look closely, he's even subtly restraining the man-chicken from running away from this momentous occasion by stepping on his large, orange toe. (Do chickens have toes?)

So Josh, be forewarned, I am hiring the man-chicken! You will appear in family photographs, and you will like it, even if it means that Six-Foot Sammy next to you will be in them too.

Bananas & Nectarine

Dear Barnes & Noble:

I get it -- times are hard. People are losing jobs and don't have the paper to spend on your paper, so I understand wanting to branch out, see what other revenue streams might be available.

Maybe you're afraid that you're going the route of The Shop Around the Corner in "You've Got Mail." I mention that movie because: a) everyone knew the fictional Fox Books was a B&N stand-in; b) Fox Books was on the Upper West Side, where there's a real B&N (the one where I used to shop, when I lived there); and c) my brother had small recurring role on a Meg Ryan project when he was an infant.

Maybe you're concerned that Amazon's cheaper prices, access to used books and Kindle are hastening you toward an inevitable, vestigial, Blockbuster-like existence.

Or maybe you see the writing on the wall -- books are out, fruit is in!

Really, that's the only explanation I can come up with for this: