Babies use side door to leave – and take the drunk chick with you.

Every morning I peruse my favorite online news and feature blogs, hoping to find a new topic to get pissed about as I chug my coffee, ultimately setting a grim tone for the rest of the day. Yesterday, it was the dysfunction of our government (like, pretty much the entire thing). Today, a brand spanking new instigator splashed across my screen, on Yahoo’s Shine. The lifestyle “news” site, of which I’m entirely ashamed of including in my list of favorites, posted an article about yet another social war that has been manufactured by self-important people who hate other self-important people…and, apparently, their self-important babies.

(Photo by ThinkStock)

“What’s the matter with kids today and why doesn’t anyone want them around?”

Yahoo immediately asks this poignant question under the headline “The No-Kids-Allowed Movement is Spreading”, probably in an effort to fire up their comment boards with swarms of inconvenienced Dinks (double income, no kids), defensive momtrepreneurs, and good old boys who don’t understand why America abandoned spankings by tree branch in order to instill discipline and respect for elders.

This supposed movement is being propelled forward by numerous reports of airlines, restaurants, movie theaters, and even grocery stores establishing “brat bans” – either full-on banishment of people under a certain age or designated hours in which patrons can enjoy adult-only company. Not surprisingly, these reports have elicited passionate responses from all points on the spectrum.

So why are Dinks irritated and mommy bloggers feeling attacked and Grandpa Joe angrily gesturing with the end of a canoe oar for emphasis? Because kids are loud, wiggly, and selfish. They’re also the future of the planet. They’re our spawn, our spitting images, and our neighbors and  we have no choice but to coexist with them for better or worse. A child’s value or lack of value (socially speaking) is somehow both indisputable and at the same time up for debate. And this is why Yahoo Shine got probably 50 million hits today and their reader boards are bursting at the seams, making me want to smack moms, grandpas, and gay dudes. How did this happen? Reason #164 Why Rachel Shouldn’t Read Comment Boards.

So before I launch into a not-so-carefully crafted diatribe about why the basis for  The No-Kids-Allowed Movement is a load of crap, let me say that before I became a mom, I wasn’t Mother Goose’s protege. Not exactly a feminist but not exactly an aspiring homemaker, I was a typical middle class 20-something, happy hour-loving, Cosmo-reading (ugh, pains me to admit) woman armed with a college degree with about fifty different opinions about how ALL women should live their lives, including when they should get married (late 20s), when they should have kids (early 30s, after a few years of enjoying the “newlywed” phase and allotting a good 10 years for career growth) and how other people’s kids should be birthed, disciplined, and nurtured. As I was forming those opinions, I was also strongly committed to ignoring all children/babies in my peripheral and believed (and still do believe) that bars and upscale restaurants should be a safe haven from childish behavior.

So I guess you could say that I’ve looked at life from both sides (thanks, Joni Mitchell). So there are my “credentials.” And now I’m a parent so I guess my case is pretty loaded from the get-go but then, this is my blog.

Let’s backtrack a few sentences to what I said about bars and upscale restaurants being safe havens from childish behavior. Let’s assume we take those rascally kids out of the restaurant and what’s left? Just you and your lover, talking about other destinations with which you have a mutual disdain for runts, surrounded by a myopic sea of quietly chatting adults who all look like movie scene extras, right? Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Maybe 3/4 of the diners around you will be quietly chatting about Frank Lloyd Wright and the other 1/4 will already be visibly drunk before the calamari appetizer and smell like weed. Or they’ll loudly announce to their six top table that they landed some important business deal and then snap at the server to bring them the finest merlot (GASP) and then leave a 5% tip – in cash, of course, because they are clearly a baller. Or maybe you’ll overhear someone ranting on about how Michele Bachmann is the only sane choice or how Obama is the second coming and you’ll want to light your hair on fire out of exasperation but can’t because the candle is an LED.

Or maybe you and your lover want to go see Transformers in a no-kid time block and you find yourself seated next to a gaggle of 20 year olds who are no more emotionally developed than they were when they were 8, awkwardly flirting by clickity texting and by poorly constructed, loudly whispered verbal diarrhea. Or the dude in the middle of the aisle hocking lugies and getting up to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes.

Or on the airplane, you breathe a sigh of relief at not having to listen to the whiny cadence of an antsy toddler. You take a sip of your bloody mary and lean your head back on the seat, tilt your head and eyes meet those of the lady next to you who is reading Tuesdays with Morrie for the 10th time and wants to know if you’ve ever read it and what are your thoughts on the Kindle and did you vote for Hilary Clinton and can you switch seats because the air coming out of this vent is much colder than the one over your seat and did you know that a study just came out that drinking can increase your risk for flamphetyflimflamzoodledidoo?

Or maybe you just want to go to the bar where there is little-to-no-chance of a baby sighting. You want to go there with a group of your girlfriends so you can catch up on office gossip and chat about this girl you knew from HS who is pregnant again. But you have to go to the bathroom so you excuse yourself and squeeze your way through a mosh pit of Pauly Ds who accidentally fist bump the side of your head to the beat of Pitbull’s latest joint. And you finally get to the stall where you promptly slip on the vomit cascading across the tile because someone had too many Jager shots and is now crying and peeing her pants.

Good thing my daughter wasn’t around to ruin the night, eh?

So I guess basically what I’m trying to say is that if this country is ever going to survive 10, 25, 50 years down the road, maybe we should also try a little bit harder to be more civil towards one another – children, adults, parents, newlyweds, singletons, black, white, gay, Snooki look alikes at a crappy dance club that charges $10 at the door (just so you can slip on puke and get punched in the head).

Maybe I’d be better off not focusing on the 1/4 of adults that could potentially ruin every hour of my day and embrace the 3/4 that hold the door, don’t cut in line at the deli counter, and do their job at work.

And, in turn, kid haters can remember that not all children want to ruin your brunch, just some. The good kids will eat whatever you put on their plate and say please and thank you and quietly watch Dora on their parent’s iPhone Netflix app until Mommy and Daddy have finished their after dinner drinks.  As for the brats – unfortunately, they learn by example…and it’s a small, small world.

I’m back and better than ever (well, better might be an overstatement).

Almost an entire year has passed since I last updated. Due to popular demand, Okay Pokay is back. And by popular demand, I mean 3-4 people who consistently stroke my ego for reasons unknown. So, to the handful of individuals I am starting to grow suspicious of (why do want me to post on here so bad? so you can silently mock me on the other side of the computer screen? to judge me for not being as interesting as you remember me being? ahhh)…I’m back.

A lot has happened in the past year.

I love it when people start an overdue recap with that. Like there has ever been a year when a lot hasn’t happened. Even if your year was particularly boring, lots of really interesting things happened to other people. Like, I don’t really remember my 9th year being especially mindblowing. It was 1992. So I guess while I was wearing culottes and sitting in an Alabama cotton field with a water logged deck of New Kids on the Block trading cards and a bad case of seasonal allergies, the Bosnian War and LA riots were raging. I was sucking horribly at pull-ups in gym class and accidentally striking myself in the face with a slap bracelet while Kurt Cobain became a cultural icon. Soooo….yeah. Big year.

I put a mental picture of grade school me wearing culottes in your mind to reinforce that I was a big dork in 1992…until I went to find a picture of culottes and realized that hipsters have brought them back – I think ironically. Ugh, so now I’m suspicious of the hipsters too. This blog just keeps presenting opportunities for people to laugh at/judge me, including this girl in floral skorts.

Anyways, I won’t bore you with too many details of the past 12 months. Basically, I still can’t cook, I got a new job, my daughter is another year older and also thinks I can’t cook, and my husband is still awesome (and now does most of the cooking).

I think I might be selling my life short here. It really is fabulous. Now, you can allow yourself to feel annoyed by that last statement but I think we can all agree straight up SAYING your life is supremely amazing is better than smugly alluding to it with 23 Foursquare brunch check-ins a week.

OkayPokay @ Hip Bar Designed to Look Like a Farmers Market   OMG, this frisee salad is rocking my world.

And speaking of online bragging, my kid totally crushed her first dance recital and is going to grow up to be the next Bette Midler and we will be rich and famous. While we eat fancy frisee salad at douchy restaurant in the meatpacking district, you’ll be eating an overcooked swiss mushroom burger at the Hard Rock where you’ll be staring at her fur-trimmed sequined unitard in the glass case above your head.

So after an agonizing one year hiatus, consider this my soft launch of a new blog year to be filled with lots more Pokay hijinks. I hope you’re looking forward to a roller coaster ride of gratuitous boasting and self-deprecation.

Check back often…you know, if you want to. I don’t really care either way, whatever. I don’t need readers to validate me as a blogger who also cross-posts her updates to Twitter and Facebook. It’s for love of writing. Seriously.

How a hot dog led to a path of self-discovery

I can’t say I’m one of those high-strung parents who trolls the internet daily for answers to all my parenting dilemmas or calls the pediatrician every time Eva clunks her head on the coffee table. I let her watch prime time television with us and on occasion, we let her go to bed later just so we can sleep in longer the next morning. We do, however, take her nutrition very seriously and for that reason, I’ve been trying my hand at cooking more these days. I know what you’re thinking – if I care so much about her health, why am I feeding her stuff that I’ve made? This is an excellent question and I’ll give you the answer. Because sometimes I like to pretend I’m a star on the Food Network and I found a really cute apron that coordinates well with most of my clothes.

As I’ve mentioned several times, my mom is an excellent cook. Up until college, I was provided with a bevy of nutritious food options  – three square meals daily and lots of exposure to international cuisine. Although often times met with resistance, she tried to pull me into the kitchen and teach me the fundamentals – how to properly gut a squash, how to efficiently chop an onion, the art of cooking with wine (that one actually did stick with me – you gotta pop that puppy open before you even crack the cookbook). Once I got to college, I made lots of friends whose cooking skills matched or even fell short of my own and this was when I really jumped on the dry cereal and pasta bandwagon. When I graduated and moved to Chicago, I met a foodie and never had to cook because I was too busy trying new restaurants. I was sitting on my arse at a desk all day and living the life of a Zagat’s editor by night and needless to say, my health and wallet took a hit. Fast forward a few years and here I am, wife and mother with a kitchen full of appliances and cookware that hath never seen the light of day.

One night, a couple weeks ago, I was awoken from a deep slumber by the cries of my daughter at about 1am. As I approached her crib, I heard her whimpering “HAW DAW. HAW DAW. HAW DAWWWW!” It was 1am and she wanted a hot dog.

Okay, soooo….gross. Who gets a hankering for a hot dog at 1am besides drunks and…drunks? Apparently my kid and that’s when it occurred to me that even though she can’t say her own name, she can call emulsified meat by name and that’s a problem. It’s kind of like when I was at church and asked her if she could say hi to God during prayer time and she kept saying “Gaga. Gaga. Gaga. Gaga.” Not making mommy look very good, sweetie pop.

Anyway, the Hotdog Incident was what inspired me to tackle more sophisticated meals. First, I made a stop at William Sonoma. I bought two bottles of sangria mix. Seriously, who needs a $25 tart pan? On my way back to the car, I stopped at Anthropologie and instead of buying this:

I bought this:

  and this cute kitchen timer –>   

I then skimmed through the new book and selected three unique recipes that I believed would warm both the hearts and stomachs of my delightful family over the course of the week. I would finish work at 5:30, stop out at the market for the week’s ingredients, engage in some lively banter with produce manager, and then whip up the first of many simple yet satisfying feasts for my grateful little daughter and doting husband. So, naturally,  I finished work at 6:15, rushed through the grocery store looking for strange ingredients like cumin – was this a vegetable? Apparently not, according to the irritated sigh I got from the produce manager. Clearly he was not in the mood for lively banter and I still had no idea where to find this elusive cumin. This trip evolved into a 45 minutes of sweaty scavenger hunt through the jungle that is the Jewel-Osco (requiring me to open a package of Kraft Singles and force feed Eva slices of processed cheese in order to her from screaming “HAW DAW! HAW DAW!” as I waited in the checkout line…this is one of the most disgusting of practices – one that I engaged in out of pure desperation).

After driving home, unloading the car and putting away all the groceries, preheating the oven, and relying on that Elmo character to distract my kid from the near-catastrophe that was developing in the kitchen, I was exhausted and Eva was full from all that fake cheese. Yet I forged ahead with the determination of a battered Olympian. Yes, I was Kerri Strug in the ’96 Summer Games, flinging my battered body over that vault when all logic and reason said to just give up. Yet my spirit was Bela Karolyi, screaming “YOU CAN DO IT!” in a crazed Romanian accent.

And I did indeed do it.

Over the course of the week, I made that Fisherman’s Pie. And then tackled Shells with Squash and Sage. And then Mediterranean Burgers. I clogged our sink with clumsily chopped onion. I rubbed garlic in my eye. I burned my forearm on the top of the toaster. I set off the fire alarm, sending Eva into a panic as she ran and hid in her bedroom. But it was all worth it. The pride I felt in that smoke-filled kitchen as I handed my daughter her plate of squished fish casserole…my garlic-burned eye bulging out of my head like Marty Feldman….you can’t beat that feeling.

And so there we sat at the kitchen table…I watched her eagerly as she took her first bite of the Fisherman’s Pie. She paused and with a poignant shake of the head said “HAW DAW.” Awesome.

I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and…oh, crap. My tire is flat.

I woke up this morning intent on taking the proverbial bull by its horns and finishing up this epic work week on a positive note. These fleeting moments of empowerment always begin with daily affirmations in the bathroom mirror and then end with melodrama – you know, coffee on a white shirt, tripping on the sidewalk, getting lost on the way to work (don’t even ask). This morning I went from a rather upbeat tooth brushing session to a flat tire at an unsavory gas station in a matter of 45 minutes.

Now, I could have avoided this morning’s predicament. I’ve had what we’ll call a “slow leak” for some time but since I am a chronic procrastinator (and I mean that in a very clinical sense), I thought the best way to handle that was to keep a stock of quarters in the glove compartment so that I could hit up the air pump on a weekly basis. In an effort to avoid having to buy a new tire, I simply threw money at air pump machines for six months. Smart cookie, I know. This genius approach also cost me my tire sensor. Mechanic said something about how driving on a broken tire for six months caused the sensor to freeze and by the way, stupid girl, your bill is $300. Unfortunately I did not have enough quarters to cover this balance.

See, kids, procrastination is not the answer. It is not a victimless crime. A tire and a tire sensor died. My credit card took a hit. I can’t buy these this weekend:

Nope. Those pumps are but a distant memory because I chose to give my money to people who produce air machines.

I did, however, touch the life of the tow truck guy. We had an important conversation about how Foxy Brown is hating on Nicki Minaj.

  

I also got to drink something that was kind of like coffee (and labeled “French Roast” although I have my doubts about the validity of that claim) and listen to some light rock on XM radio at the Mazda dealership. Yes, I suppose the morning wasn’t a complete bust.

I did get lost on my way back from the dealership. I ended up on the tollway, going the complete opposite direction of my house…but I went the wrong way with a little more zoomzoom, thanks to my new Dunlop tire.

Mixtape Time!

Every year I carry out the grand tradition of the Summer Mixtape. Even as we are well into the iTunes revolution, most Gen Xers and Gen Y “cusp” kids like myself still refer to the DIY compilation album as the mixtape, and consider the whole process a sacred art. Said Gen Xers should RUN to the nearest bookstore and purchase Rob Sheffield’s Love is a Mixtape, which will make you cry your eyes out as your stomach flip flops from the nostalgia that will surely overwhelm you. http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/mixtape/

In the past, my summer mixtapes have consisted of songs that inspire a trip to the beach or, if there isn’t a beach nearby, a quick stop at the liquor store for the margarita mix that only requires you to pour a handle of tequila into a powder-filled plastic bucket. Originally I had songs like Xavier Rudd’s “No Woman No Cry” and a handful of bands from Long Beach. This predictable assortment quickly bored me and now I have a handsome set of mostly moody numbers that are more suited for the stormy, basement-flooding weather we’ve been having in Chicago.

1. Crash Years – The New Pornographers // This is one of those infectious indie pop ditties that features whistling. In case you didn’t know, whistling is really hot right now.
2. In the Waiting Line – Zero 7 // This song serves as the background track to a scene in Garden State in which an overly-medicated Zach Braff is standing still while those around him stumble around in ecstacy-fueled stupors. It’s presence on my list has nothing to do with me frolicking about with druggies but rather because I just kind of like it.
3. The Last Day on Earth – Kate Miller-Heidke // This  quirky new artist opened for Ben Folds this year. She has mad crazy vocal range and wears pastel Breath Right strips.
4. Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap // What’s not to like about an adrogynous-sounding robot voice singing over silence for four and a half minutes?
5. Fast As You Can – Fiona Apple //With 400+  characters of text, When the Pawn… was the longest album title on record when it was released in ’99. This record was later trumped twice over by one of the lamest bands on record, Chumbawumba, with their album title The Boy Bands Have Won… – at 865 characters. Keep that in your back pocket for trivia night.
6. Be Here Now – Mason Jennings // Throw open the windows and light some sandalwood candles…this song has a total “live in the moment” vibe.
7. Two - Ryan Adams // “It takes two when it used to take one,” sings Mr. Adams. I like to listen to this while Allen and I pay rent.
8. Do You Realize – The Flaming Lips // The first line is “Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?” Good song to play for a prospective lover…until you realize that the rest of the song is about how everyone around you will die and that we’re floating in space. Still, a good song….about pretty faces and dying. Yay!
9. Exit Music (For a Film) – Radiohead // It’s actually the exit music for one of my all-time favorite films, Romeo + Juliet.
10. Blackbird – Brad Mehldau // Calls for a cup of coffee or glass of red wine…like what you hear? Check out the rest of Brad’s broad portfolio of jazz piano covers, including that of #9.
11. Chasing Pirates – Norah Jones // I almost didn’t recognize this as Norah the first time I heard it. Nice change of pace.
12. Mr. Brightside (Jaques Lu Cont’s Thin White Duke Mix) – The Killers // Remember in college when you used to drink amaretto sours while grooving to house music? This one will take you back.
13. Fade Into You – Mazzy Star // Although this was once the quintessential early 90′s makeout song, it’s now a song that I play when I feel like pouting in the dark after a stressful day at work.
14. Sex on Fire – Kings of Leon // There are a couple obvious jokes I could make here about the song title but instead I’ll just say that this dude’s voice is stellar.  Also, when I was the music director at my college’s radio station, I was given their release Aha Shake Heartbreak to review. I tossed it aside with boredom and assumed they’d slip away into the dark forever. Good call, Rach.
15. The General – Dispatch // This is one of those songs to which I sing along with the guitar part. Can’t help it.   
16. 6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps // Another throwback 90′s pop wonder…also the track that introduces Jennifer Love Hewitt’s totally annoying character in Can’t Hardly Wait.  

Ah yes, I love a good mixtape.

Movin’ On Up

When you’re 20, moving involves stuffing personal belongings into giant Hefty bags. You befriend the dude down the street with the pickup truck so that you can transport the grubby living room set you purchased from Goodwill for $50. Also, $50 is a LOT of money. Like, a lot. You have to convince yourself that a black and pink floral patterned sofa  is a smart investment…an investment that smells like talcum powder and Fritos, an investment you will leave by the dumpster six months later.

When you’re 22, moving involves less Hefty bags and more actual cardboard boxes, which you snatch up from the back alley of the liquor store. All boxes are maticulously labeled with a Sharpie: “Books, Media, Pictures, Etc” and “Misc.” These boxes should be labeled “Crap I’ll never look at or use again.” In a few years, these boxes will be inherited by your new husband, wife, life partner, or puppy cleverly named after your favorite author, dressed in a sickeningly cute mini Cubs jersey…whatever does it for you.

If by 26 you’re married with a kid and working full-time, then moving involves being completely exhausted pretty much throughout the entire process. Said exhuastion lasts approximately 14 days before the move and at least another month afterwards.

Now there are all these sudden unexpected costs like new bath rugs and full length mirrors and trendy polka dot wall decals for your daughter’s room. Suddenly you become obsessed with this polka dot motif and have to purchase matching bedding and even a mushroom-shaped nightlight. Mushroom nightlight does not fit with the theme but is still very cute  and is a quick and easy way to still be weird. All that’s needed is an obscure JD Salinger quote stenciled above the crib and hipster credibility can be restored.

We’re back in the town of Forest Park, about 10 – 15 minutes away from our previous location. Our new spot is great – walking distance to the Blue Line, the park district, the grocery store, and most importantly, the liquor store.

I say “back” because I lived here four years ago, back when I first started accumulating all that “crap I’ll never look at our use again.” This was when my bed was an air mattress on a metal fold-up frame. Now I see this little village in a whole new way yet the convenient proximity to alcohol vendors is still a major selling point. In fact, the more I stare at the large stack of boxes in the corner of our living room, the more my tastebuds yearn for the nectar of the gods - aka the $6 red wine from our beloved Famour Liquors five houses down.

This past move was an exhausting, expensive ordeal that involved Eva getting a giant gash in her chin, movers trying to shove an oversized armchair through a window, and me eating a shrimp Po’ Boy that tasted like wet dog as well as slicing my hand open multiple times (with scissors, a broken martini glass, and a giant butcher knife…yeah). I’ll spare you the details but between the flesh wounds and the disgusting sandwich, I really need a three day nap. Fortunately, the bed is totally “unpacked” and because I’m now 26, it no longer requires an air pump…but I’ll tell you, it was pain in the tuchus to move.

Overheard in the suburbs (and in my head)…

This evening I decided to take the Lazy Mom approach to dinner and took Eva out to a little Italian cafe down the street. Though I  won’t pretend like I don’t take the Lazy Mom approach every night…heating up frozen Tyson chicken tenders isn’t exactly Food Network material however it DOES require me to read printed instructions so Giada can kiss my butt.

We dined al fresco and I must admit I felt a bit foolish given the temperature wasn’t exactly balmy. I was a bit like those morons Allen and I like to make fun of as we drive by the beer gardens in April - you know, the classic Chicagoans who insist on eat outdoors on the first day the thermometer cracks 60. If a dinner situation ever calls for a Snuggie, outdoor heating unit, and/or three cocktails before the first course in order for you to be comfortable then you are being an idiot. Tonight I may have been borderline idiot. Eva was comfy in three layers with the hood pulled up over her ears and I was admittedly cold in a long sleeve tee but I opted for the three cocktail option so the meal ended up being pretty enjoyable. It was also about five minutes into dinner that my writer’s block was squashed, thanks to the couple next to us.

If you choose to dine at a restaurant with a decent wine list, an outdoor patio, a commuter train within two blocks, and in a town with a median household income of $95k a year, chances are you’ll be seated within earshot of a group or couple loudly discussing one of said topics: wine/spirits (honeymooning in Napa makes you an expert on all libations), dining (“you were BORN to be a food critic!”), and commuting. “OH, ABSOLUTELY – living in suburbs gives you easy city access but with small-town charm and GREAT schools!” This conversation almost always evolves into favorite TV shows. Someone will inevitably bring up Two and a Half Men, another will  lament the cancellation of Arrested Development…and because only a quarter of the party will even remember that show, someone will need to save the day by bringing up that great scene from last week’s Modern Family in order to salvage the group chemistry.

While I do enjoy overhearing a Penn Badgley look-alike give his fellow diners a comprehensive tutorial on the hierarchy of Johnnie Walker labels, nothing compares to listening to a pair of 50-something academics pigeonhole everyone they know into textbook personality disorders. In short, my bread basket tonight came with a heaping serving of psycho babble.

The husband bore a striking resemblance to Project Runway‘s Tim Gunn, both in his appearance and in his mannerisms. Not to be presumptuous but I think his wife may have been his beard. Okay, so that’s a little mean but trust me, these people had it coming. First, they were having a contest over who could punch out the most multi-syllabic words in a single breath.

“In order for him to subjugate his obsessive tendencies he must yada yada yada…pass the parmesan.”

At dinner, Allen and I disagree over whether the calamari should be grilled or fried. This couple argues over whether some poor, unknowing bastard is suffering from clinical anxiety or depression. “You’re confusing anxiety with the social issues that result from severe depression. It manifests itself into what could be mistaken as an indicator of anxiety. Wow, this pizza really has a lot of bacon,” he said.

At this point I can’t decide whether to be completely fascinated by their insights or completely disgusted and bewildered by the stiff and pretentious nature of their exchange. The only thing I knew for sure is that I wouldn’t want to be a guest at their holiday cocktail party. Can you imagine? I can’t decide whether I want pigs in a blanket or a slice of manchego and suddenly I become a poster child for some neurocognitive dysfunction exhibited by indecision. It seemed like every person the two of them had ever encountered was fair game for dinner discussion, ready to be torn apart by their ravenous, Freudian-fueled desire to reduce us all to malfunctioning brain nodes.

Even my own sweet Eva could not escape their talons. When she waved to a cute little boy wearing a Sox jersey, I heard the man knowingly say to his wife “The two year old girl behind you just greeted that other child in passing. Fascinating how her little mind could quickly identify a member of her own peer group. You know, social-behavioral studies reveal yada yada yada YADA…”

“SHE’S NOT TWO, SHE’S ONE AND A HALF AND EVEN SHE KNOWS YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!” I wanted to scream. In this sudden bout of anger it occurred to me that should a therapist ever observe my day-to-day routine, I would most definitely be pegged with some sort of personality disorder…and no, not just Sheer Awesomeness. This segues nicely into my results from this personality test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv  Apparently, if you HAD to slap me with a label, this silly site seems to think I exhibit moderate tendencies towards narcissistic behavior. Guess that explains why I keep a public journal.

Psh, narcissist. Whatever! These self-righteous quacks are so off their rockers.

Next time on Okay, Pokay: Rachel gives you a HILARIOUS account of her weekend, including a convivial synopsis of Sunday brunch at the local deli and five incredibly witty paragraphs that capture her edgy, unorthodox parenting style.