T A B L E++T A L K

It's back to school time. Anyone else amazed by how much stuff their kids need? Join the discussion in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Black like (white) me
By Janet McDonald
"A Hope In The Unseen" tells the story of an inner-city black kid at Brown -- through the eyes of a white author who tries to channel him
(08/24/98)

A melody of his own making
By Beth Kephart
My child needs me too much
(08/21/98)

First family on the couch
By Lori Leibovich
Therapists analyze the Clintons
(08/20/98)

An affair to remember
By Nell Bernstein
President Clinton is trying desperately to salvage his reputation. Monica Lewinsky has lost hers forever
(08/20/98)

Clinton's silvery web of words
By Katie Roiphe
Once again, the president teased us and left us hanging
(08/19/98)

BROWSE THE FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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Don't wallow in the last fiery days of the season, take action! Spray your kids with whipped cream and dive into the kiddie pool with abandon.

BY LISA MOSKOWITZ | Hot and sultry, these end-of-the-summer days seem endless. Heat shimmers above blacktop driveways and parking lots. Barefoot is not an option. The humidity feels like a damp wool blanket that you can't seem to shake off. Even the dog refuses to go outside.

The kids, home from their two- or three- or four-week stints at camp, loll in the air-conditioned house, oblivious that the start of school is just a few days away. Instead of racing around in the sunshine, they're wasting their last moments of freedom playing computer games.

But there's got to be one last hurrah, one last burst of recklessness to honor the departure of tanned limbs and Kool-Aid-stained lips. How to rally the troops from their heat wave reverie? For Kate Moses, the ultimate act of impulsive gaiety involves whipped cream and the urge to judiciously dollop your kids with it. In Paris, Debra Ollivier found refuge from the heat at the Bassin d'Enfants, otherwise known as the kiddie pool. Petite turds and topless bathers aside, sometimes a dip in a chlorinated swimming hole is just what you need to chill you out.

Once you've soothed your savage summer beasts, it's time to indulge your own heated yearnings. And what better way than with long, icy sips of the ultimate adult refresher, the Cosmopolitan. There's nothing like this surreal concoction of vodka, cranberry juice and Cointreau to cool you off.

In the dead of winter, you'll remember the whipped cream and cosmos, not the sweat and sunburns. But if that's not enough to take you back, do what my mom does: Rub suntan lotion under your nose in December. Works every time.
SALON | Aug. 25, 1998

Lisa Moskowitz is an associate editor at Mothers Who Think.