Who: Shoofly – The Freckle (14.5% alcohol)

What: White wine blend (40% Marsanne, 37% Roussanne, 23% Viognier)

When: 2008

Where: Adelaide, Australia

Why: Because you really need another song from kindergarten playing through your head all day long.

How: Ok, everyone, sing it with me: “Shoofly, don’t bother me, Shoofly, don’t bother me, Shoofly, don’t bother me… ’cause I belong to somebody.” I know, I know: it DID bother you, didn’t it? You’re very welcome for making that your ear worm song of the day. And if you can get over your (understandably) very deep resentment of me for the moment, I’d like to tell you about the wine itself.

I first glimpsed this bottle on the shelf of my favorite local wine department. They consider it to be one of the top 75 wines under $10 and gave it a special place in the store. So who am I to argue? (For the record, it was $9.99.) Anyway…. No, the bottle had not been lax in sunscreen over the years and wound up with a bad case of sunspots – the “freckle” in this name comes from the Roussanne grape, which is, in fact, freckled (or “famously spotty” if you go by what the Shoofly website has to say).

Right away, the nose on this wine took me to the seaside. Some salt air, some melon and I was completely refreshed just from sniffing. But being the trooper that I am, I moved on and started sipping. WOW! The wine just burst into my mouth. Didn’t expect that! The taste was slightly oakey with a bit of honey and some heavier minerals. To look at this pale gold wine, you wouldn’t think it had a lot of body to it, but it was heavier in my mouth than I expected. The finish was lightly tingly and tannic (again, not what you’d expect from a freckled white) but it makes sense once you read that the wine is first fermented in stainless steel and then moved to French oak for three months. I’d say it that was perfect timing!

I would be remiss if I didn’t add that Shoofly Freckle comes bottled with a handy-dandy, I-need-the-wine-RIGHT-now, Mom friendly screw top.

New lyrics: “Shoofly, you don’t bother me. Shoofly, you don’t bother me. Shoofly, you don’t bother me. Because your wine is so tast-y.” (Yeah, I know, they probably won’t win me a songwriting Grammy, but I did find us all a great new wine!)

As I’ve mentioned repeatedly all over this wee corner of the world wide web, I dig being a girl. A lot.

But yesterday, not so much.

I was at work, minding my own damned business, when I was attacked. By my own insides. And they were pissed. My instinct? Move through the pain. As if I were in a friggin yoga class or something. So, I ever so slowly, got myself over to the bathroom. Because, as I tell my kids, if you have a belly ache, it usually goes away after you poop. Right? Yeah, bad call. Bad, bad call.

That set off all little gangsters armed with shards of glass who were camped out in the right side of my oh-so-bloated abdomen.

I couldn’t stand up straight. I couldn’t zip my pants. I couldn’t control the tears shooting down my face.

It hurt like a mofo.

Here’s the thing: it was 11am and I was at work.

I called my OB/GYN all set to blame my stupid IUD who, clearly gave the little gangsters inside me their marching orders. But, my OB passed me off to my internist (”sounds like appendicitis…or something…”). My internist passed me off to urgent care. Which is all well and good except that I was making these calls doubled over in pain and oh my God don’t put me on hold again and I’m crying at work you assholes and there’s no way in hell I can drive myself over to urgent care and who the hell is going to pick up my kids at 3 this needs to be resolved ASAP and jeezus! I’m standing up crying with my pants unzipped at work.

I called my husband. He left his job and came to save me. Immediately. Because he’s the awesomest.

12 pm: He took me directly to the ER. He held my hand while I screamed in pain, with my pants unzipped, sitting in a wheel chair, in the ER lobby, waiting for triage.

The little gangsters were waging a war. On my ovary.

I was forced to tell my story like 18 times to 18 different people: I’ve been bloated and farty since Tuesday no I’ve only had a cup of coffee and chocolate covered almonds to eat this morning yes they’re delicious and yes I have a UTI I mean no I have an IUD not a UTI the pain started at 11 am no I’m not allergic to any meds I know I should try to drink more water I don’t remember when my last period was wait it is 10 days ago PLEASE don’t touch me no I can’t lie back you moron, I’m doubled over in pain seriously you’re gonna screw up the IV? Ouch, c’mon really? That’s not where the damn needle goes, haven’t you done this before? Wait, no…pain…ahhhh.

I love morphine, don’t you?

Wait! Who’s gonna pick up my kids?

And after four hours of unpleasantness including a lovely enema, I was discharged with a script for percocet and a directive to call my OB/GYN. Because it wasn’t appendicitis, people. An ovarian cyst that I didn’t know I had blew up.

But I’m feeling much better now. And my kids were protected the whole time. They weren’t inconvenienced in the slightest. Blessed be babysitters with cars. And damn these girly parts!

I don’t know why they even bother to go out to dinner. You know them: the couples who sit, picking at their food, staring into space? Often at the best table, wearing their finest, they manage somehow to make all the other diners uncomfortable with their obvious lack of interest in one another. Mostly, they are of a “certain age.” I think these older couples just need a little nudge to get the dialogue flowing. A few good conversation starters, and even the least communicative duos might find themselves having a fascinating evening. I imagine them now, sipping their Old Fashioneds, and chatting gaily about topics like:

What will those crazy kids say next?

“Frank, did you know that a “wedgie” isn’t a kind of shoe? I think it has something to do with buttocks.”

Reality television

“Bernice, have you watched any of those new shows out? You know, the ones about real people? I hear that some of them have people dancing on tropical islands, and then a panel of British chefs vote and send the worst ones home. After that, they all have a great big scavenger hunt. I don’t understand why they are so popular. I find them quite confusing.”

The state of the economy

“Harold, you are just going to have to start eating stewed prunes with me every morning. The price of Metamucil has gone up ten cents in the past year! I don’t know what those drug companies are thinking—that we seniors are made of gold?”

Sports

“I don’t know how your brother plays golf with that truss on.”

Politics

“That Mitt Romney seems like such a wonderful, handsome young man. Really, Milton, he is such a family man! But do all Mormons put their dogs on the top of their cars? Or is that just a Romney family tradition?”

The internet

“Florence, are you familiar with Facepage and Twitler? They are very popular these days with the kids. They do that stuff on the internet. I got on the internet one time, at my niece’s house. She’s always on Googler. I think all of that is such a waste of time. Why do young people like typing so much? What’s wrong with the telephone?

Gossip

“Frank, did you hear that the Bensons have separated? Yes. They tried everything to stay together: rhumba lessons, skydiving, yoga, and even gourmet cooking classes. But Harvey got gout, and Gracie slipped a disc. So now they are divorcing…”

But I might just be barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps older couples don’t want to have conversations. Maybe Frank, Edna, Bernice, Milton, and Harold are all talked out. And the Bensons are obviously exhausted. Maybe “date nights” are overrated, once you hit a certain age.

There is a lot to be said for peace, quiet, and a nice shrimp cocktail.

Name: Beringer Founder’s Estate Merlot
Country: California, USA
Type: Merlot
Average Retail Price: $9.99
Taste (1 = yucky 10=yummy): 10!
Snobby Wine Words: Full-bodied, earthy, rich, with that distinct merlot-ish je nous se qua

Drink When:
You really need to impress someone.

Notes:
You are so going to thank me for this. Seriously. I am about to blow your minds out your butts.

(Saying things like that are what prompt my husband to call me a “bad influence” on our 3-year old.)

I’m reviewing this wine in January because it is the gift that will keep on giving all year long. As you muck your way through 2012 going to birthday parties, summer barbeques, housewarmings, bachelorette parties, baby showers, Passover seders, funerals, and whatever else, you’re going to need a nice wine gift for your hostess. Beringer Founder’s Estate Merlot is that gift.

It’s one of those wines that tastes way more expensive than it actually is, but here’s the kicker: even if your hostess is famed Wall Street Journal wine writer Lettie Teague herself, you can happily and proudly stand by your bottle. Why? Beringer Founder’s Estate Merlot is listed in no less than the Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia as “one of the very best wines” when it comes to California merlots. The entire reason I own this massive wine tome is because it is listed as a course textbook for some of New York’s finer sommelier professional classes. So, you know, that’s pretty high praise.

Let’s review: Less than the price of a movie ticket. And mentioned by name as one of the top California merlots by one of the most respected books in the trade.

So when that wine snob friend of yours – the one who watched “Sideways” and took it for the be-all, end-all authority on the subject of wine – is all, “A merlot? Seriously? Isn’t that, like, the most low-brow of wines?” you can laugh in her face and tell her she tucked her skirt into her pantyhose. And then you can mention that Tom Stevenson, author of The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia, arguably a more knowledgeable wine expert than she is, loves this wine. So shut up, phony “wine snob” friend.

I like to keep a bottle or two of this around for when we have company that I need to impress – you know, all those times Lettie Teague drops in to say hi – and for gift-giving; I recently gave a bottle to the parents of a birthday girl I desperately want my husband and I to be couple friends with. But also I keep a bottle or two on hand because the one store by me that sells it only ever has it in stock once a month or so. It’s that popular.

As for taste, even before I discovered the listing in the Sotheby’s guide, this was one of my favorite wines. It’s rich and complex, like the expensive French wines we make my dad buy when my parents are in town and he insists we have dinner at the Palm Too for the hundredth time instead of any number of New York City’s other fine dining establishments. This wine goes beyond the old, “Kids in bed. Mom needs a glass or five of wine.” This is a wine for enjoying, for treating yourself. Think of it as a reward for a parenting job well done.

Ingredients

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
4 tablespoons butter
2 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
3 eggs (some people omit the eggs)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 (10 3/4 oz) can condensed cheddar cheese soup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1.) Boil the macaroni in water for six minutes. Drain.

2.) In a medium saucepan, mix butter and cheese. Stir until the cheese melts.

3.) In slow cooker combine cheese mixture and add the eggs, sour cream, soup, salt, milk, mustard and pepper. Add the drained macaroni and stir again.

4.) Cook on low for 2.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

I have a secret. Well, not so much a secret really, as much as the elephant in the room – you know, the thing that no one ever talks about. Actually, I think it might be your secret, too.

This whole mom thing? I’m completely winging it.

Yep. You heard me right. I didn’t go to school for this whole parenting gig. By any normal means of measurement, I came to motherhood a COMPLETE amateur. Imagine, if you will, interviewing someone for a job who has absolutely no specialized education in the field, nor any recent on-the-job experience (no, babysitting at 12 for cash to buy Guess jeans doesn’t count anymore) – and you’ve got the parenting resume of probably 95 percent of new moms.

I didn’t spend years studying medicine so I’d know how to comfort a colicky child, know exactly how to measure out the right amount of children’s ibuprofen (I think that stuff may have been scientifically proven to be the stickiest substance on earth), or know what to do when my children shove packing peanuts (Ryan) or raisins (Emma) up their nose.

No lion taming or cat herding experience on which to draw, so trying to get cranky toddlers to do my bidding was an exercise in frustration. Sorry, no advanced mathematics degree (not to mention the fact that story problems have never been my forte), so helping with homework is also homework for me.

I’m not a licensed psychologist or nutritionist, so knowing off-hand how to emotionally bolster a pre-tween who’s had a hard day while also providing a proper nutritional balance day in and day out isn’t immediately apparent to me. And I have absolutely no background as a professional referee, so I’m not precisely sure what the rule is on soccer flags, flag football flags and all those flags over the top of the swim lanes. (Though I do think I should get life credit for having to referee fights over whose turn it is to roll the dice first in the next game of “Clue.”)

So yep- the cat’s out of the bag. I am, 100 percent, completely and totally making this parenting thing up as I go along. But it’s kinda liberating when you realize that everyone else out there is doing it, too! And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I work hard at being a mom — I try to be the right kind of parent that each kid needs, read up on things that might help, etc. And I love those kids beyond anything my pre-child brain could even conceive of, which drives me to do better and be a better mom for them.

But when it comes down to the day-to-day “holy smokes, what do I do now??” moments? I’m taking a guess. It’s my best guess — a guess based on knowledge of my kids, my love for them and the desire to do what’s right and what they need (and, sometimes, Dr. Internet) — but it’s a guess all the same.

But shhhh! Don’t tell the kids. We’ll lose all our parenting cred if they find out!