Something I Vowed I’d Never Do

So here I am yesterday explaining all the end of the year school stuff that’s coming up to Kate. Her preschool closes for a few weeks in August, probably so the teachers can get electric shock therapy and be refreshed for a new school year in September. And really, who can blame them.

Anyway, there are all these little events happening like a pot luck (blech) and one of those useless-for-any-reason-other-than-parental-nostalgia “graduations”—she’s not even off to Kindergarten next year, just more preschool. And as I’m in the process of telling her about all these items on her social agenda, I realize that after her three-week break she’ll be going back to a different classroom, a different set of teachers—the same school but a whole new scene. She’ll no longer be a Duckling, but a Wood Duck. Or is it a Gosling? The classrooms there are as confusing as their non-parallel naming structure.

This was a dramatic realization for me, since Kate is blindly devoted to and some would argue co-dependent with one of her teachers. Had I realized sooner that this change was upcoming I’d have started an elaborate debriefing process to ready her for A) not being in that teacher’s classroom and, B) having to deal with some other woman who will no doubt be nurturing and kind, but whom Kate will likely reject like some disfunctional kidney.

I mean, I for one am not a fan of change. Or maybe I just don’t even get why anyone would ever want to change anything, never mind actually welcome it. Call me the gal who grew up in the same house, went to the same school for nine years with the same 35 other kids, and has worn her hair the same way since it grew out from my newborn crew cut. Be it nature or nurture, in all things other than, say, fresh underwear, my default switch is set to No Change, Thank You.

So, not only did I need to wrangle with my sudden realization about Kate’s imminent new classroom, and the fact that I’d been remiss in bracing her for the change, I also had to come to terms with the fact that I was doing exactly what I’d vow I’d never do as a parent. Since, it was what my mother did to me. Or rather, didn’t.

It all goes back to my own elementary school experience, at the hallowed halls of The Rockwell School in fair Bristol, Rhode Island. On the playground the different classes lined up in military-like rows after recess to file into our classrooms. For some reason on our first day back at school the fall after Kindergarten, we all had to line up this way when we first arrived in the morning. But when I went to stand in the line my Kindergarten teacher was heading up, she laughed and told to go stand in another line with the First Grade teacher. To which I thought, “Wait, what?”

Although this Childhood Traumatic Incident (TM) seems fairly ‘lite’ it somehow threw me for a loop. I guess I was just more confused than anything. The thing was, my mother hadn’t thought to tell me I’d be going into a different classroom, a different grade. And, when you’re a kid, if no one tells you stuff, then you often don’t know it.

I know that sounds like a basic premise, but I have other Mama friends who clearly weren’t neglected this way by their parents when they were kids, and are just realizing this now. My friend Becca recently posted in her blog about reading a library book about bees to her son. As she read it–stuff about hives, honey, yadda yadda–she was shocked by how fascinated and blown away her son was. It dawned on her that he didn’t know anything about bees. And she thought, “Well, why should he? We haven’t told him any of this stuff.”

And here’s the thing: The kid is 16! Well, not really, but my point being, I feel like I’ve been pretty good about trying to put myself in Kate’s shoes and explain to her things she has no background on. I’m not saying I’m a better parent than Becca–okay so maybe I am a little–but really, since I realized at a tender age that parents need to tell kids about the obvious-to-us-adults things or else they may find themselves trying to convince the teachers at school that, really, they are supposed to still be in Kindergarten, and could they just let them come back into the same classroom again, and please let’s not make a scene here.

I mean, I’m grateful those teachers found a way to get through to me back then or God knows how many classes I would have held myself back in over the course of my academic career.

So here I am. Tragically I’ve somehow managed to almost stumble into the same parental snake pit that is perhaps my legacy. Though Kate will likely outshine all her Mama’s childhood foibles and sashay into the Gosling?/Wood Duck?/Mallard? room in September all cool and easy and down with the different teachers and the whole new scene.

For her sake, and mine, I hope that’s the case.

Move Over, Lance

Was it sheer coincidence that on the last day of the Tour de France Kate took possession of her new Big Girl bike?

Well, it’s true. Yesterday, with the help of Mark’s fervid encouragement and a set of training wheels, Kate rode about one-twentieth of a mile and .5 vertical feet.The sidewalk by our house wasn’t lined with spectators waving flags and shaking noisemakers, though our neighbor Tom was out doing some gardening.

Really, it’s only a matter of time before she develops her following.

In the meantime Mark is working to put together a customized training regimen for her, and has equipped her with all the latest protein goos and energy bars, not to mention state-of-the-art heart monitors and GPS systems.

We’re looking forward to being so proud of her.

Sponsorship, anyone?

Paigey Scissorhands

We think that Paige might be participating in some sort of underground Baby Fight Club.

I know. I know exactly what you’re thinking. Serves us right for raising our kids in Oakland.

Be that as it may, it’s still distressing to put an otherwise unmarked baby to sleep, then fetch her in the morning to see that her face and head are covered in scabs and bloody scratches. It so terribly sad, until Mark makes some comment like, “Yeah, but you should see the other baby.” Then you can’t help but laugh at your little cherub’s expense.

And before you suggest that we clip her fingernails, we have. On a nearly hourly basis.  In fact, several times we’ve considered taking her to a vet to get de-clawed. Unfortunately our insurance doesn’t cover that.

But seriously, it’s a bit of a mystery. Sure, there was a time when Paige had legitimate reason to scratch. But the eczema and cradle cap that for so long plagued her appear to be–please please don’t return just cause I’m writing this–gone. Is there some kind of phantom limb phenomenon at work here? Is she clawing at the memory of a dry itchy patch?

Or worse, is this some sort of compulsive behavior, like that sad polar bear at the Central Park Zoo who spent day after day swimming back and forth in the same exact rhythmic pattern? Sure, he delighted scores of schadenfreudian New Yorkers who came to gawk at something who was clearly more miserable than themselves. Despite the community service he was providing, I still wouldn’t want to be that poor bear’s Mama.

Call me a silver-lining seeker, but I can’t help but wonder whether all this self-mutilation means Paige is poised for greatness. I mean, take Angelina Jolie. She was a cutter in her younger years and look at her now.

Toddler Recidivism

When we were up in Pawt-land a few months ago, Kate and Paige and I went on a little road trip to see a friend and her kids in Eugene. After a weekend of family fun Mark had meetings to go to, and far be it from me to sit in a hotel with two children waitin’ for my man.

As someone who A) grew up in microscopic Rhode Island, and B) had parents who opted exclusively for air travel, I haven’t logged many miles in the car. But I figured what could be more come-what-may wacky and romanticizable than a road trip? Granted with a two-year-old and a three-month-old we weren’t exactly yucking it up at campy roadside attractions, shooting pool at honkey tonk bars, or flashing truck drivers the old fried eggs. Still, it was an adventure.

Our one-night visit was brief but totally worth the travel. When our hosts headed out early the next day for work and school, it seemed wrong to hit the road without seeing a bit more of Eugene. Since one of the things I love about not 9-to-5ing is the mini-indulgence of weekday breakfasts out, I got a tip on a good local spot and made my way across town with huevos rancheros on my mind.

Now everyone has their limits for what’s reasonable to do with two kids. I certainly don’t want to count breakfast out as one of those things. Mostly because I enjoy it so much, but also because if we can’t eat at a greasy spoon full of vegan college students and bearded men, what can we do? I might as well not leave the house. And I, for one, never understood why motherhood and the hermit lifestyle seem to go hand-in-hand for some women.

At the restaurant, when we’re about 80% through our good but not to-die-for brekkie, I realized I should nurse Paigey in the hopes that she’d sleep on the drive back to Portland. I’ve snarfed down many a meal crouched over a breastfeeding baby, at home and in public. But for some reason that day Kate sensed my mobility vulnerability, and saw an opening for some attention-getting of her own.

At first she just got down off her seat and started walking away from the table while looking at me tauntingly. My upbeat-Mama-voiced entreaties to “Come back to the table please, Sweetie” quickly turned to “Get over here, Kate” commands hissed between clenched teeth. At which point it seemed that Kate decided: Game on.

A couple times I managed to get up while propping up a latched-on Paigey with one arm to lug Kate back to the table. But then, like all sly toddlers, she decided to up the ante. It pains me to even recollect–never mind share–this. Since it was clearly so delightful to see me lose my patience, Kate went for the big guns, and while standing a few feet away from our table, got my attention somehow then puckered up and, well, she spat at me.

I was mortified. Open up the earth and swallow me now mortified. Mortified that this diner full of breakfast-eating collegiates, hippies, and misanthropes who I didn’t know and would never see again were witnessing my daughter’s ghastly behavior–as well as my inability to make it stop.

And two disclaimers I must share. Behavior like this is, blessedly, out-of-character for Kate. And the spitting wasn’t all out loogie-level gobs–more a light spraying of spittle. But still.

In my fury I don’t even remember what happened next. (Or at least that’s what my attorney has advised me to say.) I jarred Paigey off my boob, slapped some cash on the table, scooped a soon-screeching Kate under my arm fireman style, and lugged the whole happy McClusky family to the car, vowing to Kate under my breath that she’d never enter another restaurant as long as she lived. I thought I used to be bad at walking through lodges carrying skis, but holding a howling horizontal toddler takes that to a whole new level. To any diners whom I errantly whacked upside the head with my evil child, I extend my most sincere apologies.

So here we are months later with plenty of time to have figured out what to do if a spitting-type situation like that were to arise again. I wish I could say that that lovely behavior has ceased, never to rear its ugly head again. Instead, Kate has cataloged spitting as The Ultimate Way to Piss Us Off. And frankly, she couldn’t be more right.

Not that it’s happened a ton more, thankfully, but in the rare (knock wood) times she’s busted out this move, we’ve found that denying her things that are too far removed from the situation is an utterly ineffective punishment. “That’s it! No dessert for you!” we’ll say at 10AM–child light years before dinner. We might as well threaten that she won’t attend her prom.

The we’re-not-going-to-do-what-we’re-about-to-do approach is also a wash. If she doesn’t get to go to the pool or the park or the zoo, then we don’t get to go there either, and honestly we don’t want to punish ourselves in the process. Then we all just sit home covered in spit in exceptionally bad moods.

All this talk of punishment may make it sound like we’re using the ACME Abu Ghraib Child Rearing Kit, which is hardly the case. 99% of the time Kate is a pure joy–which most every other post in this blog will attest to. We try to explain why certain of her actions are inappropriate, we don’t spank, yell, or waterboard. We’re generally pretty mellow and groovy parents. It’s just that the spitting thing is so ugly and base, we’d really love a magic bullet to make it stop. And so far the groovy tactics have fallen short.

The fact is, recidivism in the toddler set is a bitch. Just when you think you’ve gotten through to them, the bad behavior rears its head like some unkillable alien that bursts out of your stomach when you least expect it.

After something or other the other night, Mark asked Kate again and again to stop what she was doing to no avail. Finally he told her if she kept doing what she was doing he was only going to read one bedtime book to her–instead of the usual two. When moments later at bedtime Mark stuck to his guns on the book reading, it was devastating to Kate. Between sobs she tried the work-around of “But Mama read me books, Dada?”

Of course, Softie Parent that I am this killed me. I wanted to sneak in her room and read her endless books. (This is why Mark and I could never train a dog together.) And even though I know Kate was in the wrong and Mark gave her every opportunity to stop whatever she’d been doing, I was suspect about denying her books–something we love that she loves. Denying her reading time seems like telling her she can’t eat brussel sprouts or take a nap. Like, “Okay then Missy, no math homework for you!”

But the book thing ended up to be Kate’s Achilles tendon. When she woke up the next morning the first thing she said was, “I didn’t get books because I spit, Mama. Dada said no books.”

Of course it broke my heart and made me want to slug Mark, but also made me grateful he’s willing to take on the Bap Cop role. It’s both noble and no fun. And God knows I cower away from doing it.

So now that Kate knows we mean business around the ‘no book’ thing, there’ve been a couple times when we–well, Mark–has mentioned it when Kate continued to do something after we asked her to stop–like clobbering Paige in the head with a wooden toy. The thing is, the consideration of not getting her Curious George fix actually makes her stop and listen. Hey, this setting boundaries for kids thing seems to have its merits! Who knew?

Mind you, Mark is not goose-stepping around the house trying to come up with beloved things he can take away from Miss Kate. And I’m not always sliding candy bars to her when he’s not looking. And, thankfully, she’s not getting tattoos (yet) or sneaking out her bedroom window at night–giving us many opportunities to have to come up with appropriate behavior-snuffing consequences.

Mark and I are just feeling our way along the path to mutually-acceptable parenting techniques, and hopi
ng that we’re doing a better job of it all than a pack of wolves might. Someday when Kate gets in a fight with her college boyfriend, perhaps she’ll find a better way to express her frustration than spitting in his eye.

Jiggety Jig

Paige woke me up at around 2:30 this morning and in the first instant of wakefulness I had one of those bleary-eyed “Wait, where am I?” moments. Then I realized I was home. Back in good old Oakland, C.A., in my very own bed.

We had more than a two-hour flight delay yesterday, most of which was spent in the plane on the tarmac with Mark furiously tapping away on his iPhone to get to the bottom of why we weren’t leaving (or being given any information). All he managed to find was something that said we’d already departed, which only spiked his blood pressure further. 

The girls did am impressive show of resisting sleep through most of the flight, a particular feat seeing as it was their bedtime by the time we finally went ‘wheels up.’ When they eventually managed to conk out they were held or propped up by Mark and I in ways that left our cramped immobile limbs feeling like they’d never come un-numb. (Yet we were still grateful for their sleep.)

It being Jet Blue, I watched something on the order of 7 straight hours of that Bravo show about the Type-A OCD gay guy who flips houses in LA–something people had told me about but I’d never seen. I now feel like I’m dear friends with the cast and if I never watch TV again it will be too soon.

We staggered through the airport bleary-eyed at 9PM with Kate bawling dramatically over something or other, waited forever in the chilly NoCal air for the parking lot shuttle to fetch us and our eight–yes, eight–bags, and finally cracked open the door to our neglected stuffy house after 10PM.

Everyone crawled into their beds in short order. I think we were all sucking our thumbs and asleep within minutes of hitting the sheets.

Sometimes it takes a harrowing trip home to make you appreciate the end to an excellent vacation.

Don’t Fail Me Now

Sure there’s your wedding day, and the days your babies are
born. Those are fun and memorable and all. I’m not saying July 4^th
has a leg up on those days. It’ s just that I’ve lived through so many of my
hometown’s famous Forta Julys–so many of those days with so many great happy
silly patriotic friend-drenched food-filled and sometimes boozy celebrations.
And this year I came frighteningly close to adding one really horrible memory
to all the others.

It was after the parade, which we watched this year by the
Demopulos casa, since the famous Connery party has sadly ceased with their family
home being rented out. Post-parade we ambled back to Dad’s where a good
selection of family and friends convene–some non-parade-watchers who hang at
the house all day, some who just come for the post-game barbeque, and those
like us who despite exhausted children (and their parents) do it all with
childhood glee.

Back at the house, after critical diaper changes, drinks of
water, and potty breaks, Mark rolled up his sleeves to do some grilling and
Joan and others got the spread all laid out buffet-style on the long table
under the tree. Jill and Kevin, formerly SF friends are now RI residents. They
and their three boys have become fantastic die-hard fans of the parade and the
Bristol celebration shenanigans in general. So, happily, they were there as well. The kids were running around on the lawn, playing some stompy-rocket kinda game.

So after greeting all the guests and introducing Miss Paige
to eager relatives, and doing the Mama thing tending to everyone else’s food,
fun, and fecal needs, I finally sat down to eat a lunch it felt like I might
never eat.

I joined Jill, Mark, and some of the kids on a blanket on
the grass, and in the midst of some little chat about something, or maybe
helping Kate cut her meat, or whatever–in the midst of that totally unmemorable
life going along moment–a couple people from the patio scream and I look up to
see my father lurching, stumbling, and nearly falling as some nearby people reached out to
hold him up.

I looked up and had the sickening thought that this was it.
This was the way my father was going to go. With me not even paying attention,
just biting into my chourico and pepper sandwich and otherwise having a lovely
day, and then totally out of the blue something could happen and he could be
gone.

Trust me, this is the most sickening scary feeling. I
sprinted into the house on pure adrenaline, quickly taking stock of the
situation as I ran past. It seemed like he was talking to people, like he hadn’t
lost consciousness. Was it too presumptuous to assume he was okay? If I paused
for even a moment to assure myself of what I wanted to feel—that it was
nothing and he was totally fine–would I be wasting precious help-getting time if suddenly in
the next minute he clearly wasn’t alright?

In the kitchen I squeezed behind the chair my Uncle Joe was
sitting in as he and Aunt Mary ate their lunches, and fumbled for the phone
dialing 911 as I craned to look through the window to see what was happening outside.

As I heard myself talking to the 911 person I was overcome
with how utterly plausible it could be that something like this could happen.
“My father. He’s 79 years old. He nearly collapsed, but I think he might be
okay now but I’m not sure. Please send someone quickly to take a look at him.”

Every year for as long as I can remember, since being a
little kid, seeing the rescue squad–the Rhode Islandism for ambulance–make its
way through crowded streets on July 4^th was part of the whole steamy hot, crowded throngs, hectic activity tableau. I’m sure at times I stopped what
I was doing for a second to take note of the siren blasting past. But only ever
for a brief moment before returning to whatever happy-go-lucky thing I was
doing. Never able to empathize that a family could be dealing with a crisis, a
stomach-wrenching tragedy, a loss.

But when it’s you in that mode, it’s too late to get the
karmic benefit of having concerned yourself with all those other people. The
best you can do is just hope hope hope that this isn’t happening, that it’s all
okay, that in the midst of a lovely easy afternoon of no particular importance you haven’t been shot through a cannon and to your utter shock and disbelief landed in a devastating and
unforgettable day.

And somehow, blessedly, my internal mantra of “no no no no no” together with a huge dose of luck worked. 

By the time I stuttered
my way through the 911 call and their follow-up call to me (since I’d hastily
hung up before giving them all the necessary information), Mark came in from the
patio holding a scared bewildered Kate to give me a hug and let me know my father seemed to be totally fine. He was
sitting in a chair in the shade, no doubt embarrassed by all the hoopla, and making jokes.

Sure enough by the time I went out and saw him with my own
eyes he was eating fruit salad from a plastic cup and stubbornly refusing the
bottle of water I was handing him. It felt good, normal even, to feel annoyed
with him that he wouldn’t take a drink. He was back. 

As the adrenaline drained from me I broke it to Dad that the
ambulance was coming, fearing his annoyance that I’d called them. It seemed that he’d gotten up too fast, felt a bit woozy from heat, a late lunch, a drink. He never actually passed out–just got wobbly and light-headed. But I was still too scared to trust the party attendees’ non-professional assessment. 

Surprisingly he said he wasn’t mad; that it was okay. They’d just check him out
and if everything was okay, no harm done.

Maybe Dad felt enough of a jolt of fear himself from the
whole thing. Maybe like me the years of hearing ambulances cruise through
town on Fourth of July headed to other unlucky families we barely stopped to
think about made him take stock. If this year they came our way but left
without any real work to do, in the grand scheme of things that’d be just fine.
 

I love you, my little dumpling

Dear Paige:

Here we are in Harrisburg, PA at Daryl and Christian’s house
on the third leg of your first East Coast Tour. It’s getting late and I really should be sleeping since it’s
my turn to wake up early with you and Kate tomorrow. But instead I need to write you a love letter.

Some people thought it was ambitious of us to travel with a
five-month-old and three-year-old for over two weeks and to four different
places. (So, if the train travels at 80MPH and makes three stops, how many miles did it go?) Of
course it’d be easier to just stay home, but we’re parenting with the educated
guess that giving you and Kate new experiences will be enriching even if
Dad has to stagger though endless airport terminals strapped with carseats,
bags, and overtired babies, and we have to pack and unpack a really-too-small-for-us rental car every few days.

You know. Nothing
ventured, nothing gained. Besides, we were really excited to show you off, Little Miss
Paige.

Going to Rhode Island each summer is more than a good
vacation for me. It’s like a pilgrimage that refreshes my spirit. Aside from it being home, and beautiful
and beachy, and the setting for the beloved historic Forta of July parade, many
of the people who I love most in the world happen to live here.

So, take a trip that I look forward to all year, and add
you, my new little Love Dumpling, who most everyone has yet to meet, along with
your big sis and Dad. I get the Del’s Lemonade, the garlic-icious spinach pies,
time with my father, Aunt Mary and Mimi, and my Big Sis, Marie–all this and I
get to present to them this beautiful sweet sweet sweet baby–you!–and tell
them, “So, here’s my baby. Don’t you just love her?”

Sure, I was proud of the leather jacket I got when I
was a kid that had a real-fur collar (yeah yeah, throw some ketchup on me), but
I’ve never experienced pride in something–or the desire to show something
off–in the way I have with you and your sister. As a parent I now understand
my father’s “Did I tell you about my daughters…?” M.O. that always slightly embarrassed me.

Don’t worry, I hope to some day refrain from the “My kid is on the honor roll” bumper sticker. I’ll just have to let everyone know about that verbally.

So this trip. On this trip you have traveled like a champ, Paigey,
sleeping through long car and plane rides, teetering on awkward, cramped and God
knows immodest places to get your diaper changed. You’ve camped out in various
porta-cribs in home offices and guest bedrooms, and sweated through hot nights
with staggering humidity, insufficient fans, and ear-splitting firecracker
blasts without waking up once. You watched two-plus hours of an Independence
Day parade, sitting contently through loud marching bands, over-crowded
streets, and being handed from cooing friend to cheek-pinching relative. You
even rocked two different red-white-and-blue outfits, because at one’s first
July 4^th parade how can you wear just one?

Through it all you’ve flashed your huge mouth-agape smile over and over. Never once have we had to say,
“She just woke up” “She’s jet-lagged” or “She must be hungry.” Your default
setting is Sweet/Easy/Happy. It’s incredibly fun to introduce you to
people because as sweet lovable babies go, you’re pretty damn bulletproof. Thank you for that.

I wish our cable signal was as reliable as you.

Does it go too far to also point out the ripple effect your
smile has? That whatever happy dumpling-ness makes you all shiny and
bouncy gets passed on to other people who I love so very much? Let’s just
say seeing a smile-and-laugh-fest between you and my 94-year-old Godmother is
reason enough for two 6-hour plane rides.

Thank you, sweet Paige, for being the little beacon of joy
that you are. I’m truly honored to be your Mama. To be the one that doesn’t
only get you for a visit, but gets to come home with you, be the last to kiss you before you sleep
at night, and drag my sorry ass up in the morning to fetch you gurgling from your
crib. You manage to turn bleary-eyed 6:30AM into a nice
time to be awake with someone.     

Thank you for all the blissed out Mama moments I have with
you, doing everyday things like changing your diaper or feeding you, when I have a few just-you-and-me
quiet minutes to squeeze your ham hock thighs, blow raspberries on your belly,
or kiss kiss kiss your delicious neck.

Sweet Paige, you dazzle me. How lucky we are to have you. And how blessed we are
that you are you.

xoxo,

Mama

The Smoke has Cleared

It’s July 5^th. For me it’s like December 26^th
is for many other people. The day after all the hoopla, and when you need
to start counting down until it happens again next year.

It’s noon but we’ve already done a hearty round of visiting,
and all around town it’s the same. It’s like every Bristolian has an over
abundance of home-grown tomatoes and zucchini–but in this case it’s desserts
from their Forta July celebrations. Everywhere you go people are either foisting
off or fending off cookies, brownies and red-white-and-blue cakes. What’s that
joke about having to lock your car doors or else someone will load it up with
stuff for you?

Anyway, what ends up happening is everyone ends up with the
same amount of leftovers to eat their way through. It’s just that some of it
wasn’t yours to start with.

So of course, we decided to order out sandwiches from Leo’s
for lunch. The over-stuffed refrigerator be damned.

Greetings from Rhode Island

Greetings from Rhode Island
where men with moustaches manage to get dates, a place called Van’s Spa purveys
“mile long hot dogs” not massages, and the exercise craze of walking with Heavy
Hands never died in the 80′s.

We’ve been here since Sunday
night, kicking off two-and-a-half weeks on this here coast. And if you’re
reading this and planning to rip off our house while we’re gone, the old lady
across the street assured me she’d be keeping an eye on the place. I’m not sure
but she might have some mean judo moves up her sleeve, so don’t try anything
funny.

Little Rhody comprises the
first leg of our multi-part vaycay. After this there’s Cape Cod, Harrisburg,
PA, and the metro DC area. Wish us luck.

Alas, despite a small
inconvenience with dehydration that resulted in my visiting the town medical
center on Monday (I’ve long contended the intake of water is overrated), we’re
having a lovely time. Past summertime visits home have reminded me of the
famous mercurial weather that New England serves up, but thus far–knock
wood–we’ve already gotten in two beach days. No better tonic for the soul, I
say. Plus, Kate’s honing some serious sand castle skills.

What else? The humidity is
just above what you’d think would be bearable–though it adds some nice volume
to your hair. There’s a slightly annoying light layer of sand on the floors, my
breath is offensively garlicky from a lunchtime spinach pie (despite a couple
aggressive brushing sessions), and the Del’s Lemonade cart is stationed along
the bike path at Colt State park doing a brisk business.

And let’s not forget the knuckleheads
who ride their motorcycles through town wearing muscle shirts, shorts, and no
helmets. Like many of the state’s charming idiosyncrasies, there isn’t a law
requiring that you wear a helmet on your motorcycle. Despite my theory that–especially
in such a petite state where this population is correspondingly small–this would result in the Darwinian extinction of this
group, somehow at least some of them have managed to hang on.

But, like the local custom
of drinking coffee milk, calling drinking fountains “bubblers,” and being the exclusive
breeding ground for the large clam-like quahog, things here are just not like
they are other places.  

It’s good to be home. 

Close Encounters

I went on a shower-free long weekend camping trip several years ago with my then-boyfriend, the long-haired tie-dye-wearin’ Mike. We flew to Oregon for some hippie-fest where the temperatures were blisteringly hot and the fairgrounds served up billowing gusts of dust like some kind of movie set fog machine.

At the end of the trip we were chicken-fried in sweat and dirt, exhausted from excessive indulgences and poor Therm-a-Rest sleep, and each sporting our own musky funk. It was the first time I’d ever flown somewhere to camp, and as we waited for our luggage, tent, and sleeping bags to come around the baggage carousel I realized I wouldn’t have minded the airline losing my stuff. The connection I had with those belongings was like the one I had with my backpack contents after a month of collegiate Eurailing–gratitude for having served me well, along with the desire to burn it all and never see it again.

As I’m yawning and scratching at myself like a geriatric Basset Hound, I’m suddenly jolted by a woman’s voice calling from behind me at close range. “Kristen? Kristen Bruno?”

And before I have time to do a flying dive into the crowd and log-roll my way to anonymity, a perky woman in a crisp linen suit presents herself before me. She was someone I’d gone to college with. I didn’t know her really very well, but in that small liberal arts school way, with any given person there tends to be at least one person in common who you both slept with. (Just kidding, Dad!)

She seemed to want to lean in to hug me, but on scanning my rag-tag clothing–or maybe smelling it–she reconsidered and just said, “How are you? How long has it been?” All this while no doubt thinking pityingly what a shame it was that I’d become homeless.

For a split-second I considering busting out a, “No hablo Englaise.” Unfortunately though I took French in school so I’m not really sure how to say that (or, obviously, write it). My luck.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time I’ve had an encounter with my past that I’d rather not have had. But everyone has ducked behind a life-sized cut-out of Michael Moore to hide from an old high school classmate at their home-town movie theater, right? Or veered into a random store to avoid passing an old acquaintance on a sidewalk? Surely I’m not the only one to have sunk my face in Common Grounds to hide from/spy on an old boyfriend at a coffee shop. (Hey, at least I inadvertently upped their readership.)

Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of times when I’m actually the person to prance in front of that past-life chum and ask in a dramatic lilt, “Tracey Phillips?” There are times when I’ve managed to comb my hair before going into public, am sober enough to not slur my words, and feel genuinely happy to see and reconnect with someone I used to know. Even when it’s been since I had an asymmetrical haircut and listened to Dead Kennedy records (yes, records) that I saw the person last. Sometimes I’m actually eager to show off the life progress I’ve made!

And sometimes I’m just not in the mood to hear about the hockey team the other person’s husband just bought. So sue me.

There’s also the other problem I’ve harbored in these situations. It’s the inexplicable seemingly-incurable syndrome I suffer from which makes anyone I bump into–whether we were good friends, barely knew each other, or threw blue drinks at each other in a girl fight at a Funky Cold Medina party. No matter who it is and my level of fondness or disdain for them, for the life of me I cannot manage to end our sidewalk encounter without saying, “We should get together some time!”

Truly. I need to have some kind of electric cattle prod classical conditioning therapy to break myself of this habit. There must be some way that other people manage to just say something clever like, “Okay. Bye!” And then walk away.

How can something so simple be so impossible to do?

Anyway, these days what I’ve come to realize in a reverse engineering sort of way is that the spate of old friends that the universe recently served up to me, I’ve been happy–no, delighted–to reconnect with. And it’s not because I’ve been walking around lately in smart starched clothing and wearing a becoming shade of lipstick, with nary a speck on my teeth.

I can only deduce that I’m feeling quite happy with my life. I’ve got this little love dumpling Paigey who, lizard skin and all, dazzles me daily with her sweetness. And Miss Kate, a gorgeous blond with little braids who can talk circles around kids twice her age. Not to mention the man who made it all possible, Mark, who is either smarter than he is funny, or sweeter than smart–oh, I sometimes just can’t make up my mind which of his many fabulous qualities wins out over all the others.

Knock on wood, but, surrounded as I am by these three blessed ones, how can life not be divine?

Oh sure, there are plenty of things that if pressed to I could conjure up as “wants.” Things that I feel we should have, or do, or be like in order to be fully self-actualized. (And let’s not forget the where we could/should live issue.) But really, if it weren’t for those things existing in their state of not-yet-thereness, what would the impetus be to ever, say, go to another yard sale? Knowing there is room to grow doesn’t have to be crippling. It can just help you justify buying more crap.

Last Sunday I spent such a lovely few hours visiting with my junior-year-in-France pal Randy. Just chatting and catching up and noshing. After Kate’s initial two minutes of shyness melted away, she was having Randy carry her on his shoulders at the farmer’s market. Which was sweet in that way that it is when your dog instantly accepts the new person you’re dating. And then, in that small world thing that is frankly no longer getting surprising, it turned out Randy and Mark somehow knew the same academic-type person from some college or other.

I’m hoping to see more of Randy: Some nights where I can act like a non-Mom and hang out like a kooky kid in the Mission, and some times when he can come to Oak-town for a family dinner and to get his dapper shirts covered in baby spit-up.

The visit we had several weeks ago now from no-longer-long-lost Sydney was also great. I mean, she and I were friends long before either of us ever even had a boyfriend, and here she is walking into my living room with her husband of 17 years. It was wild. Being able to go out to dinner with someone you haven’t seen for 25 years–and really having fun–validates my childhood character-judgment and friendship selection process.

As visual aids to going down memory lane–and to really bore our husbands to tears–I pulled out an old box of stuff I’d saved from the era of Sydney and my friendship. We flipped through yearbooks, those photo albums where you pull back the clear plastic sheets and stick your pics on the tacky pages, and embarrassingly enough some of my old school papers and report cards. (“Kristen is such a bright girl. If only she was less distracted in class she could really live up to her potential.” Imagine that repeated over the course of 10 or so years by various teachers.)

Of course, it wasn’t until I put all this old stuff back in the box to stick in the cellar for another 20 years that I found a letter Sydney had written me. Assuming she’d give me her blessing to reprint part of it here, I think it’s a testament to just how long ago it was that we were friends back in my beloved smallest state. The fact that it’s a real old-fashioned-type handwritten letter is maybe proof enough.

“Do you have cable? We don’t but Sharla does. There is this new channel MTV. Do you get it if you have cable? It’s like radio but it shows the groups videos for their songs. I
t’s excellent!!”

But wait, there’s more…

“I’ve fallen in love with Aldo Nova. “Fantasy,” Foolin’ Yourself,” “Ball and Chain,” etc. I listen to that album constantly.”

Reading this letter explains a lot. I now understand why Sydney was eager to come out to San Francisco to see me once we’d reconnected. Like me, she’s not the only one who periodically feels the need to prove how far she’s come since way back whenever.

And in all honesty I was really thrilled that she came. Not only do we have the memories of our foolish Aldo Nova-lovin’ youth–though, to be clear, that was really more her thing than mine–but we’ve got the makings of a whole new now-we’re-grown-ups friendship. We’re determined to not wait another twenty years until we get together again. Hopefully Mark, the girls, and I will make our way to Austin one of these days to see Sydney and Tere and meet their kids. 

And when that does happen, you can rest assured that I’ll be wearing my linen suit to the airport.