Casserole!

I went back to Jersey on Saturday to visit two of my girlfriends. They are like medicine for my soul. A dose of them and I am left feeling like everything is gonna be just fine.

I caught the train back to NYC early yesterday afternoon. Have I ever mentioned just how much I hate the NJ Transit on weekends? It is full of the loudest, most obnoxious people and yesterday was no exception. The train was carrying a bunch of people the the Giants game. Picture oversized people in Giants jerseys drinking open containers and running to the train bathroom every 10 minutes. Ugh. Then a group of 5 moms got on with 15 of their spawn in between them. It sounded like a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Indoor voices people! It was a miserable train ride and with one side of my headphones broken I could not tune them out. One of the moms said loudly, "Did any of you guys see the last William's Sonoma catalog? I just made the potatoes au gratin recipe and it was so good!" I sunk lower in my seat, rubbing my temples and rolling my eyes.

I called my girlfriend, K, to recap the scene for her. I said is this what our lives will become? Are we just gonna talk endlessly about our children's achievements and swap recipes while they are tugging on our mom jeans and yelling, "Mom! Mom! Mom! MOMMMMMM!!!"

K laughed and then paused for a minute. "I think it might be," she admitted in a lowered voice. "I talk way too much about my dog right now as it is." Ugh. I just can't accept this. I told her we need to appoint a conversation patrol and I was more than willing to step up. Somebody who would catch the conversation turning a bit too "Jersey Momsy" and steer it back in the right direction; men, booze, and the last bar we danced on. In college, I made these little paper flags for my friends and wrote the word "inappropriate" on them. We would take them out with us to the bars and start waving them whenever something inappropriate was said or done. These flags were waved often. I need to make a conversation patrol flag for us as we are inching dangerously close to our 30's. I'm just gonna write the word "Casserole" on the flag because when was the last time you were in a conversation about casseroles and thought it was really intriguing? Exactly. Casserole!