entertaining to a different degree...

Scene: Christmas Vacation dinner party at my aunt and uncle's.

Guests: aunt and uncle, uncle's daughter and husband, one of their sons, Dean (who directs and edits films) and his girlfriend Jenny, one of the cast members of Saturday Night Live, my uncle's ex-wife, my parents, and our family. Reggie and Hoby (dogs).

As the luck of the place cards had it, poor Dean and Jenny, got stuck not at the grown up table but at the kids table with me, Allen, and our 3 boys. (As we are the closer generational equivalents) Although in thier minds, this was probably taking the "just treat celebrities like normal people" thing a bit too far.

Really they are very delightful and excessively affable but, as NYC dwellers, I am sure they are used to a more thoroughly fascinating crowd (as comic as my children's dinner table antics maybe).

A simple a run down of the following words illustrates the dichotomy of our lives

after-parties (them)=hip weekly dinners with SNL cast after the show
after-parties (me)= me with a headache after 2 hrs of smelling vinyl and stale air at one of those warehouses filled with giant, bouncy house inflatables for preschooler's birthday parties

driver-(them) someone to drive you to swanky parties at secret locations
driver-(me) me in the minivan which desperately needs vacuuming and has boys names graffiti ed in the accumulated dirt on the side-panels, passing pretzels to the backseat.

Funny- (them)- a great SNL skit that 6 million people watch or editing a good episode of Food Party for IFC
Funny-(me)-my child procuring cake with a lacrosse stick, me envisioning MacGuyver like ways to escape when locked in my bathroom, using my emergency supply of pleather in my attic, pan-handling on the side of the mass pike, my parents thinking I was not mature enough for really sharp knives (part 1 & part 2)

Our dinner of Yorkshire pudding and prime rib was interspersed with enjoyable discussions of NPR fund drives (hold out for the good donor appreciation gifts I say- don't be a sucker for the tote bags!), reminiscence of memorable school projects, the recounting of our recent lego Guggenheim creation, and missives on food, cooking, & New England life (jenny is native of my fair state).

At one point, amid peas with pearl onions and roasted potatoes, as my boys played with Reggie the dog, we talked about the proclivity of young boys to use everything in a way which is dangerous or destructive (or at least potentially so). I recounted my recent blog inventory of the top of my fridge, resting place for all such confiscated items.

Dean said, (In polite dinner party conversation form) "You have a blog? I want to read it!"

At this point I choked on my water.

"No--really it's just a mommy-blog" I back peddled-- quickly. I really hadn't meant it as a "oh I have a blog" but it rather it slipped out in the course of the story. The recent years up-shift in activity and responsiblities have left my writing languishing as well as often un-spellchecked (I am a publish in rough draft form kind of girl-- too busy to revise- you know I am always doing 500 things at once). It has become this random compilation of recent paintings, my harrowing motherhood escapades, shameless shows-offs of my progeny and their projects (ewok gingerbread village anyone), and something occasionally mildly thoughtful or funny.

(note in the course of the conversation I also learn Jenny's sister is a food writer/blogger and her dad is a poet, who publishes in the New Yorker)

I know my place though. Not a top ten blog read, (it may hold a certain voyeuristic suburbian mom appeal like the people of Walmart site). I should have said it's entertaining to a different degree- and I use the word "blog" loosely.... It's amusing to my friends... Surely the 19 followers in my sidebar stands as a testament to my mass popularity (hey maybe I should do a giveaway just to followers to pad my numbers a bit!). In defense of my "high celebrity" blog status I will provide the following supporting evidence)

exhibit A. Actually most of my 19 "followers" are not IRL friends but are indeed strangers.

exhibit B. Most of my most beloved fans/commenter's (aka real life friends) are not "followers" just catch up via their google reader (maybe because I made some disparaging remarks in the past about term followers sounding Jim Jones-esque)

exhibit C. My stat counter log and meager blogher ad revenues (wait those stats probably come only from other suburbian moms reading my how to make an R2D2 cake tutorial for their kid's party)

exhibit D. I have actually had people in public recognize me from my blog and once even had someone ask to come over to a mutual friend's because they heard smartmama was going to be there and wanted to meet me(my 5 minutes of blog fame).

I brought cards with prints of my new domestic paintings on them as holiday favors (I mean at least being a artist who paints headless women engaged in domestic tasks probably buys me a little space in quirky artist department which makes room for some "allowances". Maybe next year if they are lucky they'll get a seat at the grown up table and a self-published compilation of the best of smart mama...

(really Dean and Jenny always a good time- such a nice evening, and maybe I should sculpt some golden award for your endurance of dinner at "the kids table"!)