The 40-Year-Old Party Girl
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In a recent article for The Awl , author Amy Sohn explains “The 40-year-old Reversion,” in which she talks about partying regularly with her Park Slope mommy friends, who semi-jokingly refer to themselves as hookers, sluts and drug addicts. I call my friends neat freaks, tennis junkies, and uber-readers, so I guess we hang out with a slightly different crowd. Then Sohn goes on to explain her – which, to be clear, is also my – generation of moms. To warn you, the language she uses is strong and I found her description shocking. In fact, my very own mother, upon proofreading this article for me, didn’t even want me to print Sohn’s words, worried that readers would confuse Sohn with me. But it’s important that you get just a taste of her point of view in order for me to then tear into it a bit. Sohn writes:
“We’re masturbating excessively, cheating on good people, doing coke in newly price-inflated townhouses, and sexting compulsively—though rarely with our partners. Our children now school-aged, our marriages entering their second decade, we are avoiding the big questions—Should I quit my job? Have another child? Divorce?—by behaving like a bunch of crazy twentysomething hipsters. Call us the Regressives.”
Now back to me.
I read the article and then skimmed through the 450 or so comments following the piece, in which Ms. Sohn and her friends were oft called selfish a-holes. As much as I was disgusted by the behavior of the people described in the article, I also had to admit that I recognized some of the acts and actions she listed from witnessing them in my own mommy world. Yes, occasionally, moms go out and have a fun Girls’ Night. The ones I know do not aim to get wasted every Thursday, but they do plan time away from home to socialize with girlfriends. But while Sohn goes for shock value in her recounting of these people, I would like to re-frame her understanding with a little bit of compassion.
Do we enjoy parties? Yes. Do we do it because we have regressed to our 20-year-old selves? No. We do it for precisely the opposite reason: because we know, by looking in the mirror at our wrinkled or Botoxed faces, how very far we really are from 20. We are not regressing and acting like kids. We are coping by acting out as adults.
We are adults who bury our mothers when they die of breast cancer in their 60’s. We bury our fathers who die quietly in their sleep. Sometimes, we bury our young husbands, and, incredibly, while somehow remaining erect, we bury our children. We bury a friend, who leaves behind small children that we promise to help raise. We console each other with hugs and tears and food and then pound it out at the gym and pedal fast at Soul Cycle to manage our stress and tame our grief.
And, occasionally, we spin down a pole on a party bus while slurping down Jell-O shots.
We are very much 40.
Our husbands look for work. We look for work. We sell off possessions while looking for work, and consider moving to a state that offers better lifestyle deals – lower taxes, cheaper property, better quality of life - than New York. We move to those states or we don’t.
We sing karaoke very loudly and off key while drinking Pinot Grigio from a pitcher.
We are not regressing.
We are very much 40.
We consider divorce. Our husbands come out of the closet. We definitely divorce. We get new breasts, and tuck in our tummies, and search for lumps. We manage our children’s homework and their ADHD and their demanding soccer coach. We take charge of family gatherings and dread Thanksgiving.
We attend a sex-toy party and look on in wonder and horror at all the things we don’t know while downing shots of some type of nameless alcoholic concoction that tastes vaguely like Children’s Tylenol.
We own it all and let it be a part of us: the good, the bad, the very real realities and the nights of drunken mayhem.
I am not trying to make excuses for bad behavior. Sohn mentions illegal acts and very large lapses of judgment that I think represent a fraction of the whole. I am merely trying to put occasionally outlandish nights in context by looking at them from my own, 42-year-old perspective. I remember being 20. 20-year-olds may party because they think they are immortal. I believe that 40-year-olds go clubbing and have a damned good time every once in a while because we know all too clearly just how human we are.
And so, I’d like to raise an imaginary glass and toast us moms. We have a lot of crap to deal with, quite frankly, and we need to bond together in a special kind of support group, not unlike AA. To the triathletes and cancer fighters, the boozers and the dancers, the PTA moms and dog-walkers, whether you are a karaoke-singer, pot-smoker, or pill-popper, whether you live for dermatological injections or despise those who do, Cheers. Whether you work in an office, from home, or not at all, Cheers. Whether or not you like your in-laws or even your husband, Cheers. If you are a mom, then you endure what we all do: the love, the heartache, the guilt, the worry, the stress. If you are a wife, then you know that sometimes you look forward to a drink with your husband and sometimes you crave one without him.
To all of you 40-year-old moms out there, good luck to you, and Cheers.
Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia. She recently published her first novel, Lauren Takes Leave.
Funny Letters From Camp
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If you’ve ever received one (or many) of these, then you know: letters from camp really are a treat. Whether they make you laugh or cry (or, sometimes, both), they are filled with humor, from the bad grammar, inventive spelling, and pure honesty to the beauty of the randomness of a one-sided conversation with your child. I have collected some of this summer’s best from my friends, and would like to share them with you. You can see the visuals of some, while others will be re-written below. Feel free to write in with some favorites from your own children.
Some highlights:
“Right now it’s rest hour and I’m on the toilet. Sorry, gotta go.”
“Dear family, I am forced to write home but I have nothing to say.”
“Dear family, have you seen the camp fashion show pix? Don’t I look hot? Sorry about the language. I’m going to need more privileges to fit in at home.”
“Dear peeps, I figured out that my flashlight went missing. Got another one?”
“’Sup! What’s chillin my homies? I’m hangin with my dawgs.”
“Camp Rox! At dinner we stood on the tables. My counselor asked if a cupcake smelled weird and then when I 
smelled it he smashed it into my face. It was awesome!”
“Dear Mom, have you been getting my letters? If you haven’t, I broke my toe. Love, Jenny.”
“Just out of curiosity, what if I came home for second session? We could go to Europe or something?”
“How come I have Lisa’s fan and water bottle and you forgot to pack my toothbrush. Can you bring one up on visiting day? It’s getting kind of gross not brushing my teeth.”
Complete Letters:
Dear D,S,E,
Hi. Not much new. One question (respond in letter) is it okay if I stepped in a piece of gum and its stuck to my shoe. I tried to get it off on a rock and a bit may have gotten on my hand. I washed my hands after but can I get something bad from that (AIDS, Parkinsons Disease, Cholera, etc…). Respond in letter ASAP. See you in less than 3 weeks.
Love,
Kenny
P.S. It is still on my shoe.
Dear Mom and Dad,
EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! This is my emergency letter because I have health problums. I have rashes on my chest, thys, neck, butt, arms, and shoulders. What should I do?
Love,
Lisa
Dear Mom,
I’m really homesick. I cry every day. I cry all the time. I am crying now. I can’t speak. I think I should go to the nurse. I am finishing this letter 3 days late. I went to the nurse because I couldn’t speak. The nurse gave me a strep test. I didn’t have it. She said to take Motrin (pills) for 2 days. Then after take 1/3 of salt water RH, then at GZ then at GNT. I’m good now.”
Love,
JessieColumnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia. She recently published her first novel, Lauren Takes Leave.
Lauren Takes Leave
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Looking for some beach reading? Scarsdale’s Julie Gerstenblatt has just published her first novel on Amazon , and it’s the perfect vacation escape at just $4.99 per download. Lauren Takes Leave is about a stressed-out working mom with an absentee husband and a pre-occupied babysitter. So what does she do? She takes a vacation making this a good one to take on your vacation.
Here’s a description of the plot:
Wife, mother, and middle school teacher Lauren Worthing needs some time off from her busy, suburban life. So when a jury duty summons arrives, it creates the perfect alibi for ditching her slightly unfulfilling career, slightly spoiled children, slightly absentee husband, and slightly criminal babysitter.
With uninhibited friends like Jodi Moncrieff and Kat O'Connell by her side, Lauren takes leave of her senses and embarks on a weeklong pleasure bender.
From the chilly exam room of a local dermatologist’s office to the marble master bathroom of a suburban McMansion, Lauren explores deep, probing questions that come with middle age and upper middle class complacency. Questions like, who is she, really? And, why didn’t anyone tell her not to pole dance in Louboutins? Before the week is over, Lauren and her friends have moved far away from the chick-lit stereotypes they've become and closer to the lying, cheating, stealing bad-asses they didn't know they'd ever want to be. Lauren Takes Leave is a riotously funny tale of women on the verge.
Gerstenblatt’s first book came out on her birthday, July 3rd, and so far the response has been great. She spent the holiday at the Scarsdale pool and was thrilled to find people already reading her book on their Kindles.
Gerstenblatt hired her own editor and got help for the cover from her husband who is an art director. Designer and friend Gary Chews and illustrator Liz Starin produced the book jacket that is based around clues from the story with an object for each day of Lauren's vacation week
Check it out here: and when you click “Look Inside” you can sample the first few chapters.
Columnist, blogger and author Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
Top Summer Reads
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Reading shouldn’t be a seasonal activity. But for many of us, with busy schedules and little time for pleasure reading, summer becomes that boom time, that let-me-just-sit-on-the-beach-with-a-great-book-and-disappear-for-a-while special occasion. So, whether you read year-round or read more (or only) in the summertime or while on vacation, here is a list of hot new (and new-ish) releases to keep you occupied through Labor Day.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
This is a psychological thriller tracing the collapse of a marriage from both the husband and wife’s point of view. When the book begins, Amy Dunne has gone missing and, very quickly, her husband Nick becomes suspected of foul play. The first half of the novel unfolds through Nick’s point of view in the present time and through Amy’s old diary entries. I won’t tell you about the second half of the novel. You’ll just have to read and discover the truth for yourself. Hoda Kotb and I both really enjoyed it!
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
This one’s a little odd, but in a good way. It’s humorous fiction about a husband and wife team of performance artists, who involve their children in all of their work. Caleb and Camille Fang’s disregard for their children’s feelings as they continuously include them in these performances over the years is more than slightly amoral, but it provides an interesting commentary about the lines that blur between art and life. Ultimately, Wilson presents an entertaining tale of what it means to be an artist, questioning all-consuming self-obsession and the role of pain and suffering needed to achieve greatness in the arts. Recommended for people with dysfunctional families, a sense of humor, and/or a creative bent.
What Alice Forgot by Laine Moriarty
As Amazon.com says, “this is an engaging novel for anyone who’s ever asked herself, ‘How did I get here?’ Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time.” A satisfying read.
Gold by Chris Cleave
From the author of Little Bee comes this (rightly-timed) tale of Olympic success, dreams deferred, and the competitive nature of friendship mixed when mixed with a longstanding rivalry. The book begins at The 2004 Olympics and follows cycling athletes Kate and Zoe to the present time. To quote the Amazon blurb: “Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose.” I have read the first 10% of this book and like the alternating points of view and the engaging drama. I’d like to give it a gold medal, but at this point in the race, I cannot yet call it a winner.
The Rook by Dan O’Malley
This seems to be one of the hot new reads on everyone’s radar, but I haven’t read it yet and probably never will. Part mystery, part supernatural thriller, and part humor, The Rook weaves an interesting tale, though I find its plot confusing, to say the least. "’The body you are wearing used to be mine.’ So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her. She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.” It sounds like something that might be made into an HBO series, right? Let me know what you think of it.
Lauren Takes Leave by Julie Gerstenblatt
I couldn’t resist putting my own title on the list. This humorous tale centers on Lauren Worthing, a suburban wife, mom, and teacher who uses jury duty as an alibi to cover the trail of a weeklong escape from her responsibilities. Each day, the stakes rise as she and her kooky friends push their deceit further. As my favorite line from the book’s blurb explains: “Before the week is over, Lauren and her friends have moved far away from the chick-lit stereotypes they've become and closer to the lying, cheating, stealing bad-asses they didn't know they'd ever want to be.” (I wrote that, too.) Lauren Takes Leave is meant to be a fun beach read, while also providing social satire, showing what can happen when upper middle class people facing middle age grow bored and complacent.
One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper
This title will not be released until August 21, but I want you all to pre-order it (and read my novel in the meantime, why don’t you?!). I love all of New Rochelle-based writer Jonathan Tropper’s novels, including This is Where I Leave You, Plan B, and The Book of Joe. Tropper recently made headlines when he sold his screenplay of This is Where I Leave You for $1 million. Here is the cover copy for his latest:
“You don’t have to look very hard at Drew Silver to see that mistakes have been made. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. He lives in the Versailles, an apartment building filled almost exclusively with divorced men like him, and makes a living playing in wedding bands. His ex-wife, Denise, is about to marry a guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down. So when he learns that his heart requires emergency, lifesaving surgery, Silver makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to use what little time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment, even if that moment isn't destined to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving. With the wedding looming and both Silver and Casey in crisis, this broken family struggles to come together, only to risk damaging each other even more. One Last Thing Before I Go is Jonathan Tropper at his funny, insightful, heartbreaking best.”
Happy reading, everyone! Feel free to share other great titles below.Columnist, blogger and author Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
Summer Cocktails for Moms
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We moms have it hard in May and June. The social calendar that we tend to throughout the year virtually explodes for the spring season, with graduation parties and birthday parties and class parties and final exams and proms and cookies to bake and brownies to bake and teachers to thank and yearbooks to distribute and camp trunks to pack and backpacks to unpack and trip forms to fill out and letters to send to camp and Father’s Day to plan and little league playoffs and final recitals and band concerts and about a million other obligations that keep our heads spinning. Until now. Because now, we have reached Nirvana. We have reached the end of June.
Ah. Say it with me. The end of June. Now exhale.
At the end of June, and well into July and August, Mommy needs – no, Mommy deserves - a cocktail.
Here are some of my personal summer faves.
The Literati
I first tasted this drink at a meeting of my book club, and have thus duly named it in honor of the occasion. Thanks to my friend Emily for serving it up in beautifully elegant stemware and making me feel special, even though I hadn’t read the book.
1/3 Prosecco
1/3 St Germain
1/3 San Pellegrino
“So, it’s a poor man’s champagne cocktail,” my friend Amy said.
“No, it’s The Literati,” I explained. “And, if you want to get crazy, try this.”
The Crazy Literati
2/3 Prosecco
1/3 St Germain
To hell with the San Pellegrino
This is how Emily served it, and, I must say, it’s quite deeelish. Thanks to Alex Javadi, Senior Wine Consultant at Zachy’s, for originally sharing with Emily this concoction, which is similar to the St Germain cocktail on that liquor’s website.
St. Germain is elderflower liquor that gives a wonderful aromatic to the drink. The St Germain website explains the process by which this liquor is brought to you: “After gently ushering the wild blossoms into sacks and descending the hillside, a few of the men who gather blossoms for your cocktail will then mount a bicycle and carefully ride the umbrells of starry white flower to a collection depot. Vraiment.” Really! They do all this for us!
St Germain comes in a killer bottle, making it a most impressive gift to bring to a summer soiree for about $30. (Be a real dahling and bring with it a few bottles of chilled Prosecco, won’t you? Your hostess and the other guests will love you.)
The Chat Punch
The Chat Punch is the kind of sticky-sweet drink reminiscent of a late 1980’s booze cruise, which is perhaps why I instantly fell in love with it. This is the drink my friends Gaby, Allison and I drank at Chat American Grill last summer, before sending dear Gaby off to her new home in St Louis, MO. When we reunited a few weeks ago at the same spot, we immediately ordered a round of Chat Punches, only to discover that the drink had been removed from the menu.
“How could they?” I wondered aloud. But then I realized that, if people are like me and only order it once a year, it might not be their bestseller.
“The bartender is gonna make it for us anyway!” Gaby said. We hoorayed.
And then I hoorayed again when the general manager of the bar shared the recipe with me.
1 oz. Absolut peach
1 oz. Absolut Mandarin
2 oz. orange juice
1 oz. cranberry juice
a splash of peach schnapps
a splash of pineapple juice
Serve with ice in tall glass and garnish with an orange slice
Sip through a straw
Warning: this does not mix well with spinach and artichoke dip.
The Rosie Melons
One of my favorite places on earth has to be the Top of the Standard (formerly known as the Boom Boom Room), at the Standard Hotel 
in the Meatpacking district of NYC. Just getting ushered through those big double doors into the swanky glass-and-leather-and-velvet lounge makes me feel better about my mediocre life. And sipping a $14 cocktail makes me believe that maybe my life is actually pretty damn fantastic, since I can apparently afford such a decadent libation. Alas, according to my sources (I called and asked the hostess), the Rosie Melons has been taken off the menu. But I have spent hours in my lab recreating for you the drink made exclusively for the Standard by mixologist and self-proclaimed cocktail architect Yusef Austin. (Actually, I watched the great tutorials he gives for mixing drinks on his website and modified them using the right ingredients. And then, just when I was this close to cracking the code, through a friend-of-a friend at Scarsdale10583.com, I was given the actual recipe from the Beverage Director at The Standard. Phew!) And now I am sharing the Rosie Melons with you.
Are you laughing at the name? Could you maybe stop? Because this drink is serious, people. It contains rosemary.
2 oz vodka
1/2 oz rosemary-infused aquavit
2 oz. cantaloupe puree
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
½ oz. simple syrup
Blend and shake well with ice
Serve with a rosemary garnish
So, fine, this one takes some advanced planning. Like you have to buy aquavit and then infuse the aquavit with rosemary sprigs for a few days. And you have to puree a cantaloupe and make simple syrup. The good news is, that by the time you’ve finished making it, you really are in desperate need of a drink.
If you are looking for a nice, non-alcoholic summer refresher, look no further that Martha Stewart’s berry spritzer. I personally enjoy the berry spritzer at Eli Zabar’s E.A.T. on the Upper East Side of NYC, but when I called there for the recipe, they were suspicious and hostile. “How do I know you aren’t going to steal the recipe?” A man from the kitchen staff asked me when I was connected to him on the phone.
“Well, that’s kind of the point of printing your recipe in an online newspaper.” I said. “I am asking to steal it for the benefit of the masses.”
“Berries and seltzer,” he said.
“How many raspberries?” I asked. “And, do you, like, mash them? So they don’t get caught in the straw?”
And that is when he hung up on me.
So you will have to go there to enjoy one for $8 or make Martha’s, below.
Summer Berry Spritzer
3 cups blackberries
1 cup raspberries
½ cup simple syrup
½ cup white grape juice
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
ice
seltzer (or sparkling wine, if you’d like alcohol)
Add patriotic fruit skewers for the 4th of July, with raspberries and blueberries, if so inclined to be like Martha
Place blackberries, raspberries, simple syrup, grape juice, and lemon juice in the jar of a blender; puree until smooth. Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve, discarding solids. Fill 8 Collins glasses with ice, if using. Divide mixture evenly between glasses; top with seltzer or wine and serve immediately garnished with fruit skewers, if desired.
Lastly, apply SPF and relax. So, moms, let’s toast to summer! What are your favorite warm-weather libations? Do tell!
Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
