MacLaren or Bugaboo?

What a pickle!  Which stroller to choose? MacLaren or Bugaboo? A good MacLaren will set you back $600, but the Bugaboo Chameleon (that's what allll the WV moms have) will cost you 1200 smackers.  So does this fabulous Bugaboo stroller live up to the price tag? Does it make your baby safer and happier, and you a better mother? Will it make your husband stop fucking his secretary and start to love you again?  Let's take a look at the facts.

A commonly-read guide-to-having-babies-and-all-the-things-you-should-buy-to-prepare-for-them makes comparison charts of all of the strollers that are out there, and the Bugaboo Chameleon is in the "You've Got To Be Kidding Me" category. It's twice as expensive as the most expensive MacLaren, but half the quality. The official book actually says "if you buy a Bugaboo, you are buying a name, not quality."   So if you're like me, you're now asking yourself, "Then why do all the mothers in the WV have a Bugaboo?" 

Because that's what Charlotte and Miranda had on Sex & The City.  Yep.  Watch those last few episodes, and you'll see 'em, plain as day. 

I've become an expert on baby strollers because they're now more populous here in the WV than they are in the UWS. The double-wides (for twins) are especially popular down here because sooooo many people are having babies-in-a-jar these days. A girlfriend clued me in about why it's so rampant...  here's the process:

- woman gets married, insists on purchasing townhouse

- hubby buys townhouse, wife starts talking about having a baby

- wife's physician hears "I'm thinking about getting pregnant soon" and instantly prescribes dozens of fertility medications, even though they're not needed, and even though the woman is in the 28-32 age range.  NB: feels like payola going on here. (Or maybe yesterday's Zoloft is wearing off cuz I forgot to take one today, and I'm starting to get paranoid about stuff.)

Then, BINGO -- ya got twins.  I saw something recently though, that really and truly took the cake.

Two African nannies were walking strollers side-by-side with babies in them, and the mothers were trailing behind them, talking and drinking lattes. They were on their way over to the playground on the pier at Horatio Street, and the part of the convo I heard as I walked past was, "... well I have pilates tomorrow, but maybe we can do it the next day?" and the other mother replied, "Oh I caaaaan't because that's when I have my mommy support group."

OK, let's recap:

- you have nannies taking care of the kids even though you're there.

- you have a MOMMY SUPPORT GROUP???!!!?  Because living in an $8M townhouse and having someone else raise your child is pretty fuckin' tough.

What's really sad is the realization that some of these women (OK, most) have had these kids not because they want kids, but because 1) they're competing with their neighbors, and because 2) the kids are an insurance policy against the husband ever leaving.  Cuz if he books, they get the townhouse and 50% of everything for the rest of his life.  

Cynical? Not really... live here for a while and look around and do some listening and you'll realize how true it is.  You'll look at these people and you'll see that something just isn't quite right, but you won't be able to articulate it.  You'll see the husband + wife + twins exiting the $8M townhouse, but the vibe surrounding them is weird...  distant, angry, maybe even a little bit mean. You'll see that even though they're very fit and thin and attractive, they really just look brittle.  I guess that's what unhappiness will do to you.   But if it worked for Charlotte and Miranda, then hey -- I guess these women have something to aspire to.

There's a new kind of entitlement that has moved into this neighborhood, and it ain't pretty. 

False Alarm: Socialista

I walked past Socialista (which, moving forward, we will just call "The Jane Street Hotel") last night, around 12:30, and I'm sad to say... it's back in full swing. Apparently the slow Thursday night was just an anomaly.  There was even a fight that broke out outside, but I missed it!  It must've been the combination of the heat, humidity, and all of that faux-Cuban-testosterone goin' on at the Jane Street Hotel.

New TV show update: I've gotten hooked on HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me" series, in that can't-avert-the-eyes-from-a-trainwreck sort of way. I think someone is spying on the West Village for info on how straight couples interact here, then writing it down in script form. It's an interesting take on coupledom: the women are all very unlikeable, and the men are all henpecked and put-upon, but you feel for them.  Makes me happy I'm into guys.... much lower maintenance and no hissy-fits over why I bought a new flat-screen TV when I should've been spending that time worrying about her ovaries.

This is why people hate Americans.

This was the conversation between two girls in the laundry room of my building two nights ago. For the purposes of context: just roommates, between 30 and 32, look like sorority girls, from the area but have that Valley-Girl accent that early-20-something girls often have. I entered the room partway through the convo. Capitalization and bold/italics used for proper conveyance of tone.

Girl1: ohmy GAWD, like what did you DO??!?
Girl2: Well I had this other credit card, BUT...
G1: NO. WHAT HAPPENED.
G2: Well it's like one of those credit cards where everyone in the whole FAMily has one, yknow? Because it's my dad's credit card. And here I am in EUROPE (pronounced "uh-YER-up" with combination eyeroll-sharp exhale) and I HAD to use it because my credit card wouldn't WORK!
G1: Oh my GOD, and that all HAD to happen while you were in EUROPE. Oh my GOD.
G2: RIGHT??!? So it set off some kind of alarm or something and everyone in my family got a PHONE CALL about like, is there some kind of like unAUTHORIZED activity on your credit card? And I'm like, I'm in EUROPE right now, I TOTALLY don't need this. So my mom was totally freaking but my dad, he was laughing. He thought it was fucking hysTERical.
G1: Totally. I mean, it's Europe, it's not like you're in some third-world country or something. Ga-AWD.
G2: No but wait, it gets WORSE. So we go down to the front desk to see the concierge, because you know, we want to go OUT (pronounced OW-out), and we were like, can you tell us where the best clubs are? And you know what he said? "What age range are you looking for?"
G1: NO. WAY. GOD, it's almost like he was talking back to you!
G2: I KNOW, right??!? I was like, UMM, we didn't come to EUROPE just to sit in our hotel room! You're like the CONCIERGE at the ST. REGIS in ROME, you should totally know where to go if I ask you.
G1: RIGHT?? I mean, you're in EUROPE and you already had that whole problem with the credit card. I mean, how could it even GET any worse?
G2: Well he told us where to go but he said there would be thousands of people in line, and I was like, UMMM, we're from new YORK, does it LOOK like we'd have to wait in a line? Ga-AWD.
G1: This whole thing is like SO unbelievable, it makes me not ever even want to GO.
G2: Totally. So we got to this club and there were like, SO many people in line, so we just skipped it and went back to the hotel.

Hmmmmm.....

It's Thursday night, 11:28 pm, and I just came in after walking past Socialista, the latest scourge on the West Village.  I think we can officially declare "it's over" cuz there aren't too many people there, and if a new club isn't busy on a Thursday night, it's not long for this world.  Maybe there is a God after all?

Latest conundrum: I love Sex & the City, but I hate Sex & the City. I've seen the blurbs about it on gawker.com and I wonder if I'll actually go to see the movie, or if I'll just wait for Netflix so I can watch it in secret, like the guilty pleasure it will probably be.  But here's the thing:

Now that there has been several years' worth of women running around my neighborhood acting like they're Carrie Bradshaw, when I actually see SJP as Carrie Bradshaw in the on-set pictures for the upcoming movie, I think she looks like a parody of a parody of herself.  You can't picture Carrie Bradshaw like she was during the TV series, because now we have to see her through the filter of a few years' distance, and it just ain't workin' fer me.  Six years ago, when I watched Carrie Bradshaw on HBO every Sunday night, I saw a really cool person. Now when I look at Carrie Bradshaw, all I see is a freak who's trying way too hard.  And that really sucks.

Is "Socialista" over already?

Could it be that the uber-fabulous Havana-wannabe bar "Socialista" is already on its way out? It's been quite empty the last few nights.... seems like they shot their wad a little too early. Tomorrow's Thursday night though, which will be the best indicator of this pretentious and annoying club's fate.  Stay tuned.