suburban kamikaze

The Suburban Kamikaze goes to cooking school and no one is seriously injured

Cooking school credentials will probably not stop the members of my family from complaining about their meal options.

The point is, their complaints can no longer be taken seriously in light of the fact that I am the only one in the family who has even been to cooking school.

I don't want to get too technical about it, but the fact is, there is a right way and a wrong way to stir green beans in a pot and the difference is professional training. 

You can read all about it here.

Or you can wait for my forthcoming cookbook: Passive-Aggressive Casserole Recipes and Other Reasons to Stay Out of the Kitchen. 

Photo courtesy of Coca-Cola and Bruce Powell photography.

The Underachiever's Guide to Suburban Style

The look is effortless.

The Underachiever's Guide to Spring Cleaning

Advice from The SK Housekeeping Archives In Which: 

I establish once and for all that bins are the answer. Or possibly baskets. But definitely not hooks.

It is demonstrated that SK readers will compete for anything: Win the stuff under my couch

I flirt with the idea of getting my house in order: Dear Container Store

I surrender: Crate and Barrel introduces Apocalypse Teen collection

You're welcome. -SK

The underachiever's guide to French parenting

FRENCH PARENTING FAIL: Attempting to instill a sense of art appreciation by dragging teenage daughter and her BFF through the Louvre.

 

FRENCH PARENTING ROCKED: Facilitating cultural exchange by acting as their decoy as they scout for cute French boys to photograph on the Paris metro.  

 from the French parenting archives: French country life, loosely translated, We fail to drain the bottomless box of French culture, Western world's most famous art collection very close to #1 in middle schoolers' ranking of Paris sites

The Underachiever's Guide to Thanksgiving

In which we continue our quest for the perfect olive no-fuss Thanksgiving dinner and are outvoted by our family members. Just like every year...

But that doesn't mean it won't work for you! Here is a collection of the unbelievably useless savvy advice we have accumulated as the result of painstaking trial and error. By which I mean, potato fights. Which, at a certain point, become enshrined as tradition. Which is exactly what is wrong with tradition in the first place, if you think about it. Not to mention marshmallow-topped vegetables.

That is 24 kinds of wrong, but no one seems to have the power to stop them.

My point is, if Thanksgiving means anything at all, it means that we must never, ever stop trying to substitute vegetarian tapas. Or possibly just an olive bar.

So here, free of charge, is a selection of inspirational Thanksgiving ideas from all of us at Suburban Kamikaze.

You're welcome.

Inspirational Thanksgiving Ideas:

The Hot Air Turkey

Survive a Midwestern Thanksgiving

Make Your Children Appreciate You

Or not.

Get a Man to Do the Dishes

Compromise

The Underachiever's Guide to Talking Dirty

Ever since I wrote Mr. Kamikaze a novella-length Christmas poem in which I promised to perform a variety of sexual feats so exotic they didn't actually exist, he has taken a skeptical view of my romantic propositions.

I am pretty sure he harbors doubts about the prepositions too.

I realize now that in my slavish adherence to a rhyming scheme, I may have overpromised a little, but in my defense, there are very few real sex positions that rhyme with tannenbaum.

My point is, apologies are just words. And I am pretty sure that is what I am apologizing for in the first place, so I have resolved to shore up my all-rhyme-and-no-action reputation this Valentine's Day with a little prose. If you know what I mean.  

I find what I am looking for on the Internet on one of those sites everybody visits - even if they don't admit it - and where the merchandise arrives on your doorstep in a plain brown box discreetly marked "Amazon.com."

My new erotic thesaurus is the book that "dares to go where no thesaurus has gone before" - 150 pages of synonyms for everything from auto parts to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.  You will never take your car in for service  - by which I mean "bring an actual automobile in for repairs" - with quite the same level of poise after reading this book.       

As I fondle the pages, I learn two things right off the bat - by which I mean "from the outset":

1. Pretty much every expression you have ever heard has been appropriated as sexual innuendo somewhere, and 2. You do not want to engage in dirty talk with an Australian.

There is also rumbusticating, cavaulting and a little bit of the old hogmagundy. 

It is a like a Valentine on every page. 

You're welcome.

SK

On point: Anne Nahm says her euphemisms are "unintentional" and misses the cutoff for nationals by one point.

You know you want more:  Fresh Towels, 237 Reasons You Did Not Get Laid Last Night

The Underachiever's Guide to Vajazzle

If there is one complaint I hear everywhere in the Midwest these days it is this: it is so hard to keep up with the latest in vaginal grooming trends.  

By the time Garfield's co-star is sporting the latest in lower deck ornamentation you've got to figure things have pretty much run their course.   

No one wants to be the last one at the pool party to figure out that, Hello? We're all growing our hair out now.  

Which is why I have developed my own System for Keeping Up With the Latest in Fashion, Cultural and Grooming Trends:  I make them up.

It's true. In fact, the next Big Thing in Waxing, coming soon to a salon near you, just came to me in the course of a brief, but awkward conversation with a man who answered the phone at my salon.

SK:  I'd like to make an appointment with Lenore next week for a bikini wax.

Strange Man:  Is that a Brazilian or a regular?

SK:  In between.

Strange Man: (Awkward Pause #1) I don't know what that means.

SK: (Awkward Pause #2) Yes, but she does.

Strange man: Uh. Well...

SK:  It's not quite a Brazilian. It's like halfway. What would that be, Venezuela? I'm not very good at geography.

Strange man: Um.

SK:  Maybe Puerto Rico? Although when I think of the Brazilian, I always think Rio, which is a lot further south ... so Barbados maybe? Trinidad?

Strange man:  Uh. How does next Wednesday sound?

 

Photo: The Venezuelan. Duh.

From the Beauty archives: The underachiever's guide to beauty

The Underachiever's Guide to Tiger Parenting

So Chinese mothers are superior, our children are never going to make it to Carnegie Hall and we've all wasted a lot of time on those now discredited Celebrity Parenting Theories. In our defense, the diaper bags were fabulous.

But that is no reason to feel bad about ourselves. In fact, as so-called "Western parents,"  we are pretty much immune to such feelings. Inferiority complexes are for people too lazy or unimaginative to find someone to feel superior to. You may quote me.     

We don't care how Amy Chua did it.  We are just happy at the end of the day to sit down with a glass of red wine and reflect on the fact that none of our children are home yet.

We don't care whether they're playing the violin or the kazoo, as long as they don't spend too much time practicing where we have to listen to it.

Does that mean our system of parenting has nothing to recommend it?

Are we, as Chua accuses, producing lazy and overly-indulged children who can't remember which day the garbage goes out and whose extracurricular life is crowded with frivolous entertainment?  Duh. Who cares as long as they're at someone else's house?

And if they never make it to Carnegie Hall? That is one more place we won't have to drive them.

Photo: The kids are all right.

From the Underachiever's Archives: Motherhood is the New Black

The Underachiever's Guide to Hostessing, Chapter 11: Creating the Authentic Local Experience

 

There is very little I won't do for my houseguests. Here I am instructing the Suburban Executive on the art of snow removal.  Wine pairing: Cotes du Rhone.

Photo by Rick McCawley

The Underachiever's Guide to Herb Gardening

You can't throw a rock in the Midwestern suburbs without hitting an herb garden. Unless you happened to hit my yard - but the point is, there is really no excuse to ever reach for a jar in the summer. 

From fresh mint in the mojitos to the cilantro in the salsa, follow these ridiculously easy steps and you will never lack for fresh seasonings.

1. Carry a pair of scissors with you at all times.

2.  Use them.

3. Lavish praise on your neighbor's horticultural skills as you snip.  But only if they are home.

You're welcome.

 
Photo: A rosemary rustler admires her neighbor's garden. 

The Underachiever's Guide to Accessorizing

I have been following the middle school girls around the mall for an hour, pretending to admire the endless racks of branded t-shirts and hoodies that pass for fashion in the seventh grade, when they finally wander into a store where everything doesn't look like part of a Little League uniform designed by The Gap.

"This is cute," I say, drawing something from the racks at Forever 21.  "Look at this."

I make a few other suggestions, which they do not even pretend to consider. They head across the store to search out novelty t-shirts and hooded jackets. What is the point? They talk fashion, but they dress like clones.

I browse the $5 treasures strewn across a lace and candelabra covered table and come up with a forearm's worth of cheap bracelets and a dangly piece of third-world craftsmanship to hang around my neck.   

I am at the register when I feel their accusing glances. Over my shoulder I can see them murmuring. Each holds a small yellow bag containing a t-shirt.

What? I say.  

"Mom," says the 12-year-old. "We can't shop here anymore if you're going to shop here. It's uncool."

"You call that shopping?" I say. "You bought a t-shirt." 

I pull the tags off and proceed to accessorize right outside the store.  They pretend to be mortified. I pretend that $10 worth of costume jewelry makes me a fashionista.  

Then I buy them each a snowcone and everything is cool.

The Underachiever's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

If there is one thing I have learned in my years as household manager and valet to a family of barbarians, it is this: the middle school's Dress Up Like a Tudor in an Authentic Costume Your Mom Must Produce from Scratch Day will be scheduled during the same week in which you are expecting 25 guests and the hormone combination drama known as PMS versus Teenager.

Also: No one is ever going to move the enormous pile of wet towels covering the floor to a laundry basket no matter how many Post-It notes you attach.

So I take it for granted that in the event I am faced with an approaching horde of the ravenous undead between dinner and Last Minute Homework Emergency Hour, I can handle it.

 

Please. I have teenagers. Your oozing, undead faces pressed against the glass do not scare me. I knew something like this would happen the minute I got around to cleaning the windows.

Plus I work out.  As a result of my two, sometimes three-day a week regimen with the little weights I bought at Target, I have a achieved the ultimate fitness goal of every 40-something mom in the suburbs: No upper arm jiggle. 

So, yeah. Bring on the zombies.

But a half hour on the telephone with Rich Gatz dispels any fantasy I may have had about kicking ass and taking zombie names. Gatz is a 28-year old fitness fanatic who runs the apocalypse-themed Zombiefit program in St. Charles, a leafy riverfront suburb on the western edge of Chicagoland.

I read about the program in Wired magazine and I call him immediately. If there are zombies in the suburbs, I need to know.

Gatz's students undergo intensive strength training and conditioning combined with parkour, which is the art of being able to escape James Bond in a footrace that winds its way up, over or around any obstacles in a path through the world's most beautiful cities.

The goal of Zombiefit students is to be able to outrun, outclimb and outmaneuver any creature or obstacle in their path as they flee the relentless hordes of undead that may or may not already have a foothold in the Midwestern suburbs.

And with block party season upon us, you really can't be too careful. "If you're ready for the zombie apocalypse, you're reading for anything," says Gatz. Which presumably includes side dishes made with green Jell-O.   

I watch the video and realize I am a zombie side dish. Gatz as much as tells me so.  There are people who work out a few times a week, look pretty good in a bathing suit, but can't do a single pull-up, he says. He doesn't mention the Target hand weights, or the Ralph Lauren bikini, but I know he is talking about me.  

Well, I say defensively, I do a lot of ice skating.  That's got to count for something. 

"If zombies come, hell might freeze over," he says, which is not meant to be encouraging.

But I watch the video again and realize that my whole life is an exercise in parkour. 

A mountain of laundry and two flights of stairs lie between me and the washing machine. There is a skateboard in the middle of the living room and someone has left every cabinet door in the kitchen wide open, which I can't see because I am carrying 45 pounds of groceries and a backpack.

I don't have to imagine zombies because my house is crawling with middle school girls. As soon as they hear my footsteps they swarm around me, demanding to be fed. 

And if you think zombies are relentless, you have never been between a 15-year-old and the last remaining bit of currency in your wallet.

Trust me, I'm ready.

 

The Underachiever's Guide to Anti-aging

CoverGirl and Olay want to know:  Tell us what you do to live agelessly!

People are always asking me how I manage to stay so youngish and vibrant well into what should rightfully be my declining years, if I were not one of those hateful skinny bitches with a personal trainer and a calendar full of salon visits.

At the lavish birthday parties I force my friends to organize for me every year, I am frequently accused of aging backwards, as if that were even possible! 

I laugh and open the gift certificates for expensive spa and beauty treatments that I have asked them to bring and say "I don't know what you are talking about! Just the other day, I thought I saw a gray hair!"

But when they insist on knowing my secrets, I tell them:

Live, love, laugh; do not concern yourself with age! After all, you are only as old as your last birthday and it won't be long before things like that are going to slip your mind anyway, along with the location of your car keys and the names of your neighbors. I am just kidding, I say. I crack myself up. Which may explain some of those little lines around my eyes...

Seriously, I say, the important thing is...  Then I go through a list of cross-stitch platitudes about wisdom and fine wine and agelessness, all of which is meant to convey the idea that age is really just an attitude that has nothing to do with whether CoverGirl's Simply Ageless concealer does or does not settle into the fine lines and wrinkles across your ageless face.

Because agelessness is kind of a mixed message when you think about it.

Photo: A tiara and a scowl add a little glow to any makeup routine. You're welcome.

The Underachiever's Guide to Dressing Clever: Does this irony make my ass look big?

I have been pondering New York Times writer Cathy Horyn's fashion advice for days and I still can't decide what it all means.  

"First go the knees, then goes irony," Horyn writes in the Styles section.

She's not talking about miniskirts or high heels or long hair, or any of the other clichéd ideas about what can and cannot be worn into middle age and beyond. She's talking about dressing "ironically."

"Sometime around age 50, women start to let go of certain ideas about themselves and fashion," Horyn writes. "Up until then you wear lots of silly or brash things and if you are reasonably fit and attractive or consistently daring, it doesn't really matter."

I have (technically) years to go before I am required to forswear "fashion's clever twists," according to Horyn's research, but sadly, I have no clue about how to use them.  I had no idea the clock was ticking on my ability to wear knee socks with high heels, goofy hairstyles or vintage hats - and yet, I can't help but feel I am closing in on my peak irony years.  How ironic is that?

Worse is the recognition that I have never had any inclination whatsoever toward wearing things like that; I don't own a single vintage hat for example.  I can't really take credit for the accidental ironies; the red underwear under the flouncy dress on the first day it was warm enough to walk around Chicago with any skin showing. "Finally!" I said, just before my dress blew up to my armpits the first time, "I can see my own skin again."

They call it "the windy city" but "the city where you're going to need a little bit of weight in your hemline" would have been more helpful.

Leggings might be the obvious solution, but I don't have a lot of time left for anything so obvious, so conventional, so sincere.

Any ideas?

Photo: Ladybug tablecloth weight from Always Brilliant.com.  Discontinued.

The underachiever's guide to gardening

 

Here is Phase One of the backyard bunny garden we are creating.

Phase Two is where Mr. Kamikaze comes out and wants to know did we dig out a proper bed of gravel and sand leveled to within 1/32 of an inch before we ... something... placed the stepping stones using a guideline to ensure proper ... and something about compacting?  And were we careful to something something ... and who can stay interested long enough to hear what comes after that?  We are making memories here, not building a pool deck.

The underachiever's guide to beauty

If you think the experts on television makeover shows are harsh, you have never suffered under the appraising glare of an 11-year-old girl.

From the beauty mark she has dubbed a "lunch-lady mole" to my choice of shoes ("all wrong"), nail color ("eww") or the slipshod attention I pay to my hair, my personal beauty consultant does not mince words.

But despite my repeated failure to rise to the level of glamour to which she aspires, she is constantly vigilant for fresh opportunities to intervene. I come out of the shower to find her laying out clothes on my bed. I duck out from under the hairbrush as she swipes at my head. I decline her offers of a makeover as often as I can.  

She is pretty sure she has me at a weak moment when I agree to take her to the library despite a cold that has left me bleary-eyed, red-nosed and pale green in color. "Ugh," I say, looking in the mirror. "Give me a minute so no one calls the health department."

"Let me," she says, grabbing an eyeliner and moving in.  "No thank you," I say, carelessly daubing concealer into the blue crescents under my eyes. I repeat the underachiever's beauty motto:  "Good enough."

She sighs. I have disappointed her again. 

A half hour later we sink into a low couch at the library with our books. Then I see the sign: "Young adults section, 12-18 only."

"I'm not supposed to be sitting here," I say.

 "Me either," she says.

"You could pass for 12," I say. "But I don't think I could pass for 18."

She looks closely at my face as if to gauge the truth of this. 

"I told you to put more makeup on," she says.  

Photo: Is that what you're wearing?

The Underachiever's Guide to Mommy Chic

I knew if I waited long enough I would be in style.

The New York Times Style section confirmed my aspirations this morning when they highlighted the latest straight-from-the-playgroup fashion trend: Chipped nails.

According to the story, chipped fingernail polish, like visible bra straps, untied shoes, thread-worn jeans and bedhead, is "now part of a deliberate look."

I don't like to brag, but my friends and I on the mommy track were sporting sloppy manicures long before they showed up in the Style section. Will fashion-savvy women soon be heading to the salon to have an inch of gray roots added to their coiffure as well?

Because you don't have to go any farther than the nearest playground to spot the latest in soon-to-be-everywhere style trends.

After all, what is the coveted Birkin bag but a $9,000 knock-off of the Target diaper bags we carried for years?

And visible bra straps? Puh-leeze. We invented the look, which, when paired with visible milk leakage and grape jelly smears, practically screams "mommy's got it going on."

Like heroin chic, only with less pep, mommy chic seems destined to find its way to the pages of Vogue, where concealer will be so last year, replaced by products that accentuate under-eye circles.

It is only a matter of time before this trend moves to the lingerie department where women will trade in their push-ups for a bra that exerts enough downward pressure to create the silhouette of a woman just past her nursing years.

Don't hate me, but I'm not even going to need one.

-SK