HAIL! to the victors (dah dum … can’t remember the words, but) HAIL to the champions (dah dum) HAIL HAIL TO MICHIGAN THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WEST!

So the Michigan fight song is sort of My Sharona (where everyone knows the important words, but no one really knows all the words).

College football weekend. Woo Hoo! Good thing none of us went to Notre Dame or I’m not sure we could be friends; at least not until playoffs.

It’s Pete’s birthday; I’m volun-told-ing (where we volunteer for work credit to get the day off, but you only get it if you volunteer so it’s not wholly gratuitous) at a convalescent home. It’s schwank. I hope I can afford something this nice if that day ever comes. I was assigned to a 94 year old guy named Ollie. I thought he was living in the land of happy mental alternatives when he told me how he crashed his 1951 Hudson Hornet into the stands at Soldier Field. Turns out that place really was home to the early days of racing YEARS before the bears homefield legacy traded finish lines for goal posts.

The latest from Upscale Mayberry:

I’m enjoying a long weekend of adulting. I only really sleep well when Syd&Julian are under my roof, but there is an exhale factor to them going to Chase’s who is absolutely entitled to his time with them and too terrified of the judicial system to misbehave when he’s got them. They are playing putt putt and ordering pizza. Pete and I are getting massages and having sex. Handing them over feels better when I think of it as babysitting that pays me.

My neighbors had a bunch of trees taken down. Their tree guys needed to use my driveway to park their trucks and equipment. No problem. I asked if I could have the mulch from the trees; they were happy to leave it unloaded and not have to lug it to wherever it goes. My backyard is all shade, no grass and in dire need of mulch having been abandoned for years when the house sat empty before I bought it. I hate yard work. The gardening club sounds like sheer punishment. So I’m gonna make it mulch spongy for the kids to romp around and enjoy the lone (yet epic old school glide style) tree swing anchored to a high bough back there.

Yesterday I got up when the rooster crows to tackle my mulch. My neighbor said the night before that maybe SHE should get the mulch since it was her tree. Sure, the tree that the tree guys would have ruined all that spendy sod you put down to drive to get but for my driveway. So I set the alarm early to get it all moved to my backyard. 44 wheelbarrows of it. The mulch pile was bigger than my car. Hugo was flummoxed not knowing if he should climb it, eat it or pee on it.

I got ninety percent of the yard done. Looks great. There’s just one patch left. So I go to our local gardening center that has HUGE stories high mountains of mulch that look like giant piles of nutmeg and cardamom (if we were ants and the mulch were spices). I tell them I’d like 10 cubic feet of mulch which will be more than enough. They ask me what kind and I tell them I’d like the natural kind like the tree that just got pulped to be my new backyard ground floor. The clerks looked at me as if I had five tits and twelve eyes. The lady patron at the register (wearing HUNTER brand boots and a sunhat to prove she’s clearly a legit gardener compared to me in my circa 1992 sorority sweatshirt and zip off well worn cargo pants) says “you use NATURAL mulch? How quaint.” in this hyper condescending tone. And the clerk asks what my neighbors think of my natural mulch. And another patron says that most people prefer the polished look of dyed mulch.

Seriously?

I said, no thanks. I don’t need snobby mulch. I just need the tree kind. They do me the great favor of taking my order and I’m on my way.

Since when did MULCH become de rigueur? My backyard might not be “polished” but it’s a haven for a host of animals. I love to sit out on my deck with the paper or a book to feel the sunbeams filtering through the tree leaves. There’s a woodpecker and cardinals. A raccoon peters around the perimeter. Chipmunks and squirrels chase and frolic. I don’t pay the mosquito fumigators and I don’t buy probably carcinogen laden dyed mulch, which is probably why all the wildlife hangs out on my lot. It’s the one safe haven they’ve got with the pesticide riddled golf course greens on the other side of the street and the manicured everything on every other lot. I refuse to feel anything but indignant about mulch judgers. They can all look at me with green eyed envy when they’re in the home with Ollie and I’m still prancing around in my WT tank tops pushing my wheelbarrow up and down the knoll with my natural (gasp!) mulch.

Onto food – tomorrow night Pete and I are having dinner with Remy&Jess: correction, we are having LOBSTER dinner. Swoon! Bea Mensch (whose daughter is in Sydney’s class and son is in Julian’s) posted on the town social media board that their church mission group is supporting the local homeless shelter (the double whammy of religious insurance with an umbrella homeless layer dose of guilt reinsurance on top) by a fundraiser. For $27 you get a 1.5 pound flown in that morning from Maine lobster. You pick it outta the tank, they boil it right there and send you home with cooking instructions. I guess folks have moved on from sacrificial lambs to for profit crustaceans.

Now I LOVE lobster. But I’ve got a nasty breed of Scotch Irish grudge fueled blood coursing through my geneological vascular system that makes me not so fond this past year of the Mensches.

Bea manipulated herself invitations to things Sydney was kid-hosting: made Syd feel awful about not including her at her spendy per person concert tickets theater party, so I buckled and let Sydney add one more to the list because it’s awful to be excluded even though I’d set a firm invite count. THEN because Bea is not allowed to have her own phone, texting or phone access, she goes boy crazy over here trying to send messages to guys (like Tennessee Cian and other friends only of Sydney’s) she has crushes. Sydney is embarrassed but I said to let is slide since it’s tough growing up in a house with more rules than others (we were like the last people on earth to get a VCR, so I get it). THEN she invites herself to a holiday party Syd was hosting for friends. We had plenty (we midwesterners rarely run out of food); her mom was mortified, but we honestly had more than enough to go around and what’s one more to spare hurt feelings if it’s not gonna really put you out? PLUS, Bea’s brother had his own plans the next neighborhood over where they live. Our neighborhood is custom homes and people that respect their space, privacy and except for a small sect of caddy that pays to have things like professional Christmas light companies decorate their homes in December, drive mostly American or long ago paid off upscale cars. Nice but not flashy. The neighborhood next to us is much more keep up with the Jones’ who has the newest bougiest brightest SUV that they’ll get pissed off when their kids actually want to eat a chicken nugget in it or put a dirty baseball bag in the back. Much more nouvo riche. I saw five women at a school orchestra function from that hood all with the same Louis Vuitton tote bag. They all complimented each other on it; because it doesn’t count if it’s not noticed (which I’m not decrying) but ironic that not a word was made of the more subtle Gucci horsebit on my neighbors lap or my splurge Bottega Veneta on mine. If you’re gonna be a snob (I bet they ALL buy snobby mulch), at least be in the know.

Anyhow, Bea and Mitchell have been here many times. Mitchell is one of my cub scouts as I run the den for Julian’s grade because no one else will and desperation requires no outdoor skills. I host those meetings in my home. And when I got divorced, Mama Mensch offered to and did me a solid and watched my kids for a few hours so I could decorate right after my closing for Christmas since we moved in two days before Santa’s debut. I am forever grateful for that.

The year right after my divorce was really tough. We didn’t complain about it, but just because we were smiling on the outside doesn’t mean we didn’t feel three seconds from drowning most minutes. The scouts are a really nice group of kids. And one really nice aspect is that the kids all invite each other to their birthday parties. I make a big deal out of birthdays, and that year those parties meant an especially lot to us. I spaced and missed a date for one of the boys and felt just awful, but I made up for it and apologized very publicly to a very empathetic mom. That same year Julian had a crap bully non stop target of all things school awfulness. So those parties were highlights.

In planning Julian’s party last Spring, I sent out eleven invites to the other scouts and all but two said they had a conflict. The conflict was Mitchell Mensch’s birthday party to which all but two Scouts, of which Julian was one of the two excluded, were invited. And they were camping in their yard. So not a space head count issue party.

I was hurt and pissed but took the high road, rescheduled and sent a (not seething) email saying that I wanted a date when more kids could go. I did NOT mention Mitchell’s party. Mama Mensch responded that she never got Julian’s invite and then had to reneg when it arrived in the mail the next day. Which I believe because our mail lady sometimes delivers the post on Sundays if she’s having too good of a day at the track on Saturday. Or Wednesdays mail on Thursday if Jose Cuervo was a little too terse with the hangover from Taco Tuesday at the local Mexican joint.

Despite all of this, there is STILL no invite to Julian. We had Julian’s party a week later. Mitchell (who is a super nice kid, never had a beef with Julian or any kid that I know of) attended and I calmed down while telling Sydney that never again was Bea gonna weasel an invitation to anything she hosts.

I told Julian I will take him on a Disney cruise next year for his birthday if it means evading this ridicudrama.

A month later, Sydney was having friends over because the force of the century Taylor Swift was releasing yet another album. I set a limit of four girls (because I only take as many kids into the house as my insurance risk crazy brain believes I can get out in case of fire or to the basement expeditiously should an errant tornado strike). Bea (NOT one of the four Syd invited) caught wind, tried the usual guilt trip, and then asked directly why she could not come when Syd didn’t buckle.

Sydney said, “You can’t come because my mom is A REALLY BAD PERSON to make mad. And nothing makes her madder than when me or Julian get hurt.” At which point even Bea realized the pure defeat futility of her efforts.

Nevertheless, I have decided I love lobster more than I love being consumed by the course of events that realistically hurt me more than either of my kids. Sure wish you guys lived close as we would have ordered dinner for six.

On an upnote, I popped into the Hotel Belvedere Bar for a drink with a swim team mom friend. Got some scoop on our favorite bartender, Saul. Not sure anyone makes a better pomegranate martini than him. Turns out he is a repeat offender as in restraining order style trouble with the law for stalking female patrons. This makes me said because:

1. I really like Saul; and,
2. Apparently I didn’t make the stalker worthy cut.

Miss you tons and hope you’re feeling better now that the mega chemo blasts are done. Next time we are together “we” should get more wigs! Channel your inner Carol Channing, or maybe the permy one we saw like Charlie from Top Gun (c’mon, we ALL had that perm in middle school! Kelly McGillis was the bomb! It took like ten years and the Rachel from Friends to top that coif).

Hang in there – xoxox love ya, Stormy