Farewell to Beauty

I used to have a housemate whose name was Beth. As an adult, prior to going off to work at some hippie commune/primal screaming retreat on the Monterey coast, she decided to start calling herself Joey.

Somehow one of the nights I was hosting Bad Movie Monday this came up. Mind you, the now defunct BMM posse was comprised of some of my most ruthless and hilarious friends. When Rick learned of this Beth/Joey thing it was like throwing his sarcasm an immense piece of bloody chum. I think every time he called me thereafter–in the time that I was still living with that cah-raaazy woman–he’d say, “Hi. Is Beth–I mean Joey–there?”

Ah, the fun we had mocking her.

The closest I ever got to some kind of name change was around the issue of my non-existent middle name. I blame laziness on my parents’ part for why my three sisters and I feel bereft every time we fill out a form requiring a middle initial or name. Or, I could say something like what my friend Scot who only has one ‘t’ in his name says: My parents couldn’t afford to give us middle names. In his case it’s a second ‘t.’

Anyway, my father once made up some line about how he and my mother wanted to let us pick our own middle names. Riiiiight. To sweeten the deal he said when we came up with middle names we wanted we could go down to Town Hall and make it legal–have it be like a little field trip. As a lawyer I think my father over-valued the thrill factor of a trip to Town Hall, especially for an eight-year-old.

Determined to be like all the other kids I went to my room to ruminate on my new name.

And let it be known that for a great stretch of my life I was hellbent on finding a way to Wasp-ify or feminize my last name, Bruno. I even went through a short stage of spelling it Bruneau on my homework until some teacher put an end to that. I was happy with the name Kristen. But I saw this middle name thing as an opening–an opportunity to inject more femininity into my name as a whole.

After some musing I came down and told my Dad I’d decided on a name. Told him to grab the car keys, we were heading to Town Hall. Of course, he asked me what I’d decided on, and I announced with great pride: “Cherry.”

That’s right. Kristen Cherry Bruno. I thought it was brilliant.

At any rate, my father did the ole look at his watch and say, “Oh no! Town Hall just closed.” It was probably something like 2:20PM. Undeterred I pointed out that there was always tomorrow. At which point he likely fabricated some kind of week-long government holiday.

Whatever his stall tactics were–and I’m sure they teach you some great ones in law school–they worked. Thank God. To this day I am middle name-less.

Actually, now that I think of it, that’s not exactly true. In some cruel twist of fate I decided to take Bruno as my middle name when I got married and took McClusky as my last. (McClusky not exactly being the Smith or Jones I’d always longed for, but what can you do when you’re in love?) So, ironically, the frilly and pretty middle name I eventually got was, uh, Bruno. Ah well.

So a couple weeks ago when I took Kate to preschool she marched me over to meet her classroom’s resident caterpillar, Larry. But by week’s end on the notes outlining what the kids did during the day I learned that the children had named the caterpillar Beauty.

I never found out what brought about the need for a name change. Did Larry just come to a place in his life where he wanted to reinvent himself a la Beth/Joey? Do caterpillars have penises? If so, did what the teachers suspected was Larry’s turn out to be something else altogether? Had there been a terrible gender mix-up when Larry was originally named?

Maybe Larry was just looking for something a bit softer and more feminine in a name. I feel you, brother.

Soon after Larry became Beauty I was picking Kate up from school and one of the teachers scurried out of the nap room to talk to me. It was Monica, a kind of wacky older Chinese woman who has been working at the school for a few hundred years.

“Big day today! Big day!” she yelped.

I’d never seen her so keyed up.

“Today the caterpillar made a cocoon! While we watch! It take one hour. One hour! It so incredible! We watch! The children watch! In many many years of teaching this the most special day for me!”

When we were walking to the car I asked Kate about it. But I think she changed the subject to something like, “Emily picked her nose today.” I could appreciate that. With someone else so hopped up on something it can be hard to find room for your own excitement.

Needless to say there was a lot of anticipation awaiting
Larry/Beauty’s debut as a butterfly. They moved the cocoon into a small
netted enclosure so they could contain it once it was born. (Is born an appropriate word to use here? I’ll have to ask Kate.)

The daily activity notes and Kate kept us updated. Mark would ask how school was and Kate would say something about “Beauty and chrysalis,” causing Mark to ask, “Who is Beauty and what happened to Larry?” And me to ask, “What’s chrysalis?”

Along the way Kate learned a caterpillar-to-butterfly song complete with little hand gestures, and how to say ‘metamorphosis.’ Despite the call I put into MIT as a result, they still seem to think we should hold off a bit until she at least takes the SATs.

On Tuesday’s preschool pick-up, before I had a chance to read about the days happenings, Lilia, Kate’s most favorite and adored teacher, walked out of the nap room to meet me. She closed the door behind her and leaned her back against it with a dreamy look in her eyes.

“Oh Kristen. When I saw you I just had to come out and tell you. Beauty turned into a butterfly last night, and today we had such an incredible ceremony at the meadow. I mean, it really really was magical.”

During this Kate sticks her head into the carseat carrier and screams, “Hello, little Paigey!!!” at volume 11, causing Paige to shriek and start bawling. Then Kate comforts her by leaning all her weight into her for a hug. I try to pull them apart while still looking up to listen to Lilia.

“In my 14 years of teaching, today was no doubt–it was–it was really the best day. Ever! And Thalia took her harp and we had the most magical ceremony in the meadow, and the children danced and sang. Then we set Beauty free. It was just beautiful.”

I thought of my most magical work days and none of them sounded even close to this. Was I ever misty-eyed with joy over delivering that perfect e-commerce platform to a client? Uh, no. Then again, the thought of changing diapers all day–other people’s kids diapers, that is–pales in comparison to developing Excel pivot tables, in my mind at least.

But truly, I was happy they had a good day. It’s such a great little school and Kate really loves it there. And it’s nice that all her teachers are having peak experiences.

On our walk to the car I asked Kate what her favorite part of the day was. She looked up at me and said, “The hawp! The hawp!” Leading me to realize that no matter how far I raise my children from Rhode Island the accent may still find its way to them.

So, aside from the leaf-chomping, cocoon-makin’, chrysalis and metamorphosis, Kate has also came to understand that you sometimes have to set the ones you love free–while a hippie preschool teacher serenades you on harp.

Fly away, little Larry/Beauty! We have learned much from you, and hope you are happy in your new home in the meadow.

The Blue Ball is Dead! Long Live the Blue Ball!

Peggy and Gary, Mark’s mom and stepfather, left today after a great visit packed with NorCal sightseeing, eating and drinking, and excessive granddaughter adoration. One of those visits that make you wonder why we all live so damn far away. I wasn’t at the airport this morning for the final farewell, so I don’t know exactly what took place. But even before Kate and Paige were on the scene, Peggy was known for getting teary-eyed at goodbyes, especially when she didn’t know when she’d see Mark next.

If my memory serves me, my mother and I used to cap off most visits with a rousing argument. It made parting so much easier. Even without a separation anxiety spat, my mom was hardly the crying type.

There’s actually a famous story in Mark’s family about when his mom and sister dropped him off at college for the first time. When they left to head home, Peggy was crying so hard she somehow managed to drive off the road into a corn field. (Mind you, they were in rural Minnesota where such fields are abundant, not Manhattan.)

Needless to say, Mark and Lori will never let Peggy live that down. But now that I’m a Mama myself, I can totally empathize. How in God’s name do you deposit your beloved sweet baby at college–off in another state or even a different time zone–to not see them again until Thanksgiving, if you’re lucky? I’m hoping by the time Kate turns 18 homeschooling will be a popular collegiate option. Or that she’ll insist on living at home and attending a nice local costmetology school so she can be near her Mama.

Even though the kiddies are still so young I’m finding I’m already nostalgic about things. At the park the other day there was a three week old baby I was mesmerized by. “A baby!” I thought to myself, as if it were such a novel thought–an unattainable object of desire. All this while I’m holding my own four-month-old. But, you know, Paige seems so big already. And the thought that she’s probably the last of the little McCluskys makes it that much harder to watch her mini milestones pass by.

Mark, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to share my sentimental streak. Nor does he share my on-again off-again yearning for another baby. In fact, after a long evening of bouncing Paige on the big blue yoga ball–our favorite method for getting our fussy babies to sleep–he turned to me and said, “God I’ll be happy when I never have to do this again.” And despite how my own lower back was crying out for an end to non-stop bouncing, my mind was aghast at the thought.

When that ball goes away, that means Paige will have grown up a bit. She won’t be a teeny newborn who needs the motion of her Mama’s movements replicated to soothe her. She’ll nearly be independent!

And another thing. When that ball goes away after Paige, it’s retiring. It will never be called to serve again–at least for anything other than yoga. And still for Mark there’s no looking back. I think he mentioned something about gleefully taking an ax to it…

Well, unbeknownst to him, the other day as I was vacuuming the house I lamented that that huge ball, wedged under the lip of the TV stand, was taking up too much space in our small living room. And really, we hadn’t had to use it for weeks. So I figured I’d stick it down in the basement where we could always grab it if we needed to.

The impulse to stow crap in the basement comes up often, so it wasn’t until I was walking up the stairs that I thought, “My God. We are now officially finished with the baby-bouncing segment of our lives.” May the big blue ball rest in peace.

No, no. I didn’t cry. But hey, it’s on to a new phase and goodbye (forever) to an old one.

Another thing that Mark doesn’t know–not that I’ve actively been hiding it from him–is as Paige has been outgrowing clothes I haven’t had the heart to give them away quite yet. For now I’m taking some comfort in just putting them back in the age-labeled plastic bins on the shelves downstairs. (See? The basement is my enemy and my best friend.) How can I let go of the soft froggy jacket with the satin bow that Lindelle got for Kate? Or the brown cable knit sweater-suit Mark got at his office shower?

In part, there’s just so much cute stuff. I can’t just give it to Salvation Army. But there’s also the thought that there won’t be another baby here to wear it some day–a thought I clearly haven’t gotten my head around.

And for the record, I’m not planning to do some soap opera poke-a-hole-in-the-condom move for a third child. In my rational, non-emotional moments I truly agree with all the reasons why we’re better off as a family of four. It’s just–babies are so sweet!

Is this how my brother-in-law’s parents ended up with 15 kids? Perhaps.

Maybe I just need to reflect more on my neighbor’s deadbeat 37-year-old son who’s just moved back home. Oy! Imagine finally being back in the swing of what life was like without kids, then being tossed into telling your grown son to pick his socks up off the floor. Even for a crazy love-addicted Mama like me, that just seems wrong.

I’ll have to remember that when I’m veering off into a corn field 16 years from now.

Sign of the Times

My mother’s group had been trying to settle on a night to get together to go out for drinks. Five foreign dignitaries can more easily schedule a summit. Finally Sacha suggested we see the Sex in the City movie on Monday night. And despite the endless email cycles to solidify a plan up until then, it suddenly stuck and we were all game.

Of course, plagued as this house has been with pink eyes, hacking coughs, sore throats, and utter exhaustion, I surprised myself by making the grown-up decision to stay home to try and get better.

This morning at the preschool Parent’s Day breakfast I asked Sacha how it was. As silly and Rocky Horror-esque  as it’s been that women everywhere are dolling themselves up to see the movie, part of me thought it’d be kinda fun to do it.

You know, pay homage to the days when an impulsive purchase of La Mer eye cream didn’t make you feel guilty about the semester of college you’d be denying your child. The days when you ran your fingers through your blown-dry hair and smelled the fancy salon product you’d put in it, not day-old spit up. Those bygone days of buying skinny jeans that didn’t require you to wear a corset over your jiggly Mummy tummy.

No, Sacha said. They didn’t dress up.

But, she offered brightly, Mary did sneak a bottle of wine into the theater. And the two of them (the only two who managed to make it out that night) polished it off during the movie. Drinking the wine out of sippy cups.

My Famous Friend, David

OMG! Sorry to sound like a text-messaging teenager but I just went to my bookstore (Kate has this way of calling all the places she likes “my toy store,” “my library,” yadda yadda) to buy the new David Sedaris book (which they were sold out of), and the woman working there casually mentions, “You can order a book and get on the list to have him sign it when he comes here.”

WHEN HE COMES HERE? Like to MY BOOKSTORE, just two blocks from MY HOUSE?? This news was nearly more than I could bear.

If you were about to ask me to do something on Friday, June 27th, sorry, but I’ll be waking up that morning in a tent in front of the bookstore, using a generator to blow dry my hair and iron my fabulous outfit, and preparing myself to get into the sold-out reading later that evening.

My diet starts now! My God. What. Will. I. Wear?

I mean I truly feel far more Tiger Beat pubescent adoration excitement over David Sedaris than I ever did over Shawn Cassidy, or, uh, Michael Jackson. And my feelings for them at one point in my life I must confess were considerable.

I don’t know if I’m alone in playing the Who Would My Celebrity Friend Be? game. It’s not like it’s really a game, but a form of day-dreamery. And puhleeze I really don’t spend all day sitting around thinking about this, if you’re starting to feel all like my life is so pathetic and tragic. Come on! I spend my whole day changing diapers, thank you.

Anyway, so my ex-best celebrity friend was Renee Zellweger. I know, I know, it’s a weird choice, but sometimes these people who you somehow envision as your good old friends from before they got all famous but they still have you as a womb-to-tomb friend, someone who really knows them and is steeped in the real non-celebrity world, someone who they give their cast-off designer clothes to and who they visit on the weekends after they’ve broken up with some famous drummer and just need to not be in LA and not wear make-up and not be followed by paparazzi and feel grounded by coloring in a princess coloring book with your daughter–sometimes you don’t pick those people in your imaginary game. They pick you.

So it’s not like I think she and I have a ton in common, or that she’d even necessarily be super fun to hang out with. (Not like Mark’s imaginary celebrity friend, who is–get this–Cameron Diaz! Someone who he thinks would be fun to hang out with because she seems “game” despite the fact that Mark himself admits that’s he’s not game.)

Anyway, at some point Renee just sort of stopped being my celebrity friend and I realized that of course it should be David Sedaris. And Hugh. I kind of thought maybe Hugh and I were the good old friends and then of course ages ago he and David got together and now, after so many years of me hanging out with them in Paris and Normandy and all those summer rentals in Tuscany that we did together–never mind all the wild times in NYC and their burrito-fest visits to me in SF–I mean after all these years it’s really hard to remember that I was friends with Hugh first since David and I are so close now. (Oh and Anderson Cooper and I are also dear friends. In my mind, that is.)

I a moment which could have turned into one of those times where you say “You know how after you floss your teeth you sometimes swallow the dental floss” to someone and they look at you like, “Are you fucking serious?” and then you nervously laugh and say “Of COURSE not. Of COURSE I don’t ever swallow my dental floss, silly!” Well, in one of those moments I asked my sister-in-law Lori who she envisioned her celebrity friend was. To be honest I can’t remember if she had her answer at the ready, or needed to think about it a bit. (I was too busy being thrilled that she didn’t mock my question.)

Anyway, I think she did think about it for a bit and said, “I think John and I would be a good couple-friend match with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. I figure John and Ben could bond over their Red Sox fan-dom, and Jen and I could talk about the kids.”

That was such a good answer! Of course I emailed David and Hugh right away to tell them all about it.

Three is a Magic Number

Okay, so I was a bit off when I projected that, in my recent spate of connecting with people I’ve long fallen out of touch with, it would be Miss Vermette, my crotchety second grade teacher, who’d be the next person I’d stumble across. In fact, the person is Randy Williams, a hilarious fabulous fellow from my junior year abroad program. And Randy’s nothing like Miss Vermette!

So at Kenyon I was an English major. Which is kind of what one does at Kenyon. Go to “the hill” and read the books, and write the papers. And as such, the canonical junior year abroad program was to some British university an hour’s train ride from London, the name of which I can’t even begin to remember.

Getting into this program was something only a select few of us lit junkies had the privilege of doing. I remember when I got in (see how I casually mention how totally smart and cool I was then?) random people I didn’t even know would come up to me on Middle Path (don’t even ask) and congratulate me.

So wasn’t everyone shocked and dismayed when I decided to blow off the hallowed halls of lit-dom to craft a junior year program that included–mon Dieu!–France. This, as an English major, was a wild act of rebellion. But heck, I decided to do the other half of the year in London, just to make my homies happy. Oh, and to do the necessary coursework to fulfill my major’s requirements and, er, graduate.

What’s funny is, no one ever said no to that other program, so by being accepted into it I made it onto all these mailing lists and never was removed from them. Last year I even got an invitation for a reunion of all the Blah-Dee-Blah U attendees. (I didn’t go to that either.)

Okay, so my France program took place in Nantes for the summer, then there was a super weird and random artist’s stage in Rodez (rural southern Nowheresville), and then the fall semester in none other than Gay Paree. The program was a joint one between Kenyon and Earlham College which is somewhere in Indiana. (I’m scraping off rust flack from my brain to remember all this, mind you.)

Earlham hosted an orientation weekend for the 20? students going, since a prof from there was heading up the trip that year. So the Kenyon students drove over to this guy’s house where we all camped out for a night (or two?) and essentially set ground rules, did trust falls, and were awoken from our sleeping bags at an ungodly hour by the prof blasting classical music and announcing in his horrendous French accent, “Bon matin! Nous commencons la jour!” If you’ve never heard the French language, read that sentence in English while jutting your jaw forward and over-enunciating each syllable and you’ll have nailed his accent.

The culture clash between the Kenyon and Earlham kids was grave. The Kenyonites were hopelessly white entitled kids who saw college as four years of boarding school after boarding school. We were apolitical, somewhat lazy, and as painful as it is to admit, likely preppie. The Earlham kids on the other hand were groovy, diverse, socially aware individuals. You know–crunchy.

We were all probably a bit horrified by each other, and they probably had better reason to fear us than the other way around. To wit: Since so many of us were staying with this professor he asked that no one showered–a request my friend Melissa’s sense of hygiene just could not oblige. So while the Earlham posse was following the “if it’s yellow let it mellow” adage with their bathroom usage, Melissa sashayed past a line of people waiting to pee, toweling dry her hair after a nice long hot shower. Utterly obnoxious, but I’ll bet we found it hilarious at the time.

As you’d imagine, the wacky fun of a foreign adventure in which we were forbidden to speak English and were packed together on buses in enriching field trip after enriching field trip  eventually brought us all together. Or at least many of us. Shucks, us kids learned from each other! I don’t know that the Earlham women went so far as to start shaving their armpits by semester’s end, but they were certainly making better stock investments. (Kidding! Wow, wait. I’m still obnoxious!)

But all this blather and chatter and rememberage really is to say that Person Number Three who has woven his way into the game of Kristen Bruno, This is Your Life!, is Randy. Randy who served, by sheer virtue of how fucking funny and sweet and delightful and sassy he is, as a nearly immediate bridge between the two groups. Maybe he wasn’t even an Earlham student, and was a paid actor tasked with bringing us together. At any rate, I remember driving back to Ohio from that orientation excited to have many a milk-out-the-nose laughing session with him in France.

Which it turns out we did. Except substitute wine for milk.

And now, Randy who I never dreamed would crop up in my life again other than in photo albums, posts a little note to THIS VERY BLOG the other day. A little, “Is that you?” kinda note. And yes, by gum, it IS me. So the commenting here thing first off means there are now seven of you reading this. And that his memory is far better than mine since he was able to successfully cyber-stalk me by not only remembering my name, but also that I’m an e-n Kristen. Whereas nearly twenty years after having graduated I’m proud that I remember where I went to college.

To make it all the more fun, Randy lives in the Bay Area. Just blocks away from my sister, Ellen.

See? That’s just the kind of guy he is! You reconnect with him and think, wouldn’t it be great to not only exchange email but to actually see him again, and there he goes making it easy to do so. So a lunch or coffee or night of heavy drinking awaits us soon. Joy!

Funny that in a recent one of my life-analysis phone calls with Mark’s Aunt Terry I mentioned that I was ‘taking resumes’ for new friends. Not that I don’t adore the existing set mind you. (Last thing I want to do is offend my six long-time readers.) It was just that with my new at-home status it seemed I was more available to support a larger friendship infrastructure. (Clearly I still need to learn to talk like I’m not at work.)

And what’s cool is that instead of making new friends–which I have done a bit of recently, sure–I’ve managed to recycle some old ones. How cool is that?

My friends from Earlham would be so proud.

Sweet Solitude

When I was an editorial slave at a health magazine in New York ages and ages ago probably long before you were even born, I got to go on a couple amazing press junkets. One was a cruise through the Caribbean.

Cunard was trying to appeal to a younger demographic by billing the typical cruise–gambling, midnight gut-busting all-you-can-hork buffets, and oldsters bobbing in the pool like some scene from Cocoon–as some sporty excursion-based boat trip with a healthy menu and lots of other young active folks who can stay up late without having to modulate their pacemakers.

So here we were–about a dozen health writers in our twenties, mostly from New York–all feeling very cynical that the cruise would offer anything than overcooked food drowned in cream sauces (it didn’t) and all very smug that, starving journalists that we were, we were able to cruise around the Caribbean eating overcooked food drowned in cream sauces for free.

We flew from New York to Florida and then to Peurto Rico where the cruise ship was docked. Rather where she was docked. (I love any excuse to call a boat “she,” don’t you?) In Puerto Rico we had some time to kill so the turbo-chipper PR gal who was chaperoning us in a desperate attempt to ensure we were ga-ga over all things Cunard, took us to a little outdoor bar on the beach.

It was warm. It was sunny. There was no traffic, towering concrete buildings, burnt peanut smells from sidewalk vendors, or homeless men sleeping in the gutter. It was quiet, except for some tropically music playing on some crappy stereo. Manhattan and all its smells, sounds and stresses was worlds away.

But as they say, you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t–well, you know the saying.

Let’s just say that the service at this little cantina wasn’t exactly snappy. And although everything about this setting would have any other mortal content–happy even–our group was collectively busting a neck vein with stress. “Where the hell are our drinks?” one guy groused. “What in fuck’s name happened to our waiter?” someone else demanded. “This is totally unacceptable. They’ve got to be kidding if they expect a tip after this.” (I happen to have committed these actual comments to memory…)

I was right along there with everyone. Well, I think I was probably willing to give the waiter a tip, but anyway it was the first time I realized that it takes at least a few days for a vacationing New Yorker to decompress enough to even realize they aren’t in their office any more. I think for some people it takes longer. (Those men you see lying on the beach screaming, “Buy! Sell!” into the waves? New Yorkers.)

Once they do relax, let’s just say how one defines “relax” certainly varies. The state of relaxation some New Yorkers eventually attain sipping umbrella drinks under a palapa, may well put, say, a Californian, into cardiac arrest.

I have a friend whose family lives in Bermuda. You’d piss your pants laughing to hear him talk about what it’s like getting off a plane from New York and into a car there, where the speed limit is 25 MPH. For him it was the cruelest form of torture.

At any rate, I’m thinking about all this as I sit on our front porch with an iced tea and a baggy full of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It’s in the high 70′s today and there’s a slight breeze causing my new hanging plants to waft gracefully and send out a hit of jasmine-smell every once and a while. And aside from the intermittent crackling of the baby monitor, it’s pretty quiet here. Especially because both the girls are asleep.

I should put that in italics: Both the girls are asleep.

Yes, without having to invest in the Pottery Barn Kids monogrammed kelly green leather restraint straps, it appears that Kate is actually taking a nap. (This, if you can tell, hasn’t been happening very consistently despite all my desperate entreaties to The Man Upstairs.)

This lovely calm and aloneness is strange. I’m so unaccustomed to it I need some time to settle into it. I spend the first few minutes walking around in circles like a dog trying to find the right place to lie down. Something so rare, so special, must be appreciated and savored to the fullest extent.

But how?

After wracking my brain to determine what I need to do–no wait, what I want to do with this time–the realization washes over me like a warm gulp of bourbon.

I’m going to sit here with my feet propped up on the wicker chair, stare out across the porch, and do absolutely nothing.

And….begin!

Bad Mood Mother’s Day

Let’s just say that yesterday I wasn’t one of those Mamas who was at brunch serenely residing over perfectly behaved children in a state of maternal bliss. Mind you, it wasn’t anything that anyone did per se. We had a lovely day planned and took the ferry to SF and ate a delicious lunch at The Slanted Door.

I think with my birthday the day before and the expectation of a double-billed weekend of an all-about-me Saturday followed by an all-about-me Sunday, somewhere along the line I somehow lost steam. Imagine! It must be my newly advanced age… And, sure, maybe there was a bit of the it’s-my-party-and-I’ll-cry-if-I-want-to syndrome (something I’d hoped I’d outgrown after the weeping by the clothesline incident on my 6th birthday).

Whatever the reason, ooh-wee! I was unsatisfied, dehydrated, impatient, and willing to sell Kate on eBay for five cents. Thankfully I can’t get online with my cell phone.

Hindsight being 20/20, I realize now what I really needed to do was be curled up alone in bed with an IV drip of something renewing. It’s always a struggle deciding whether to spend Mother’s Day with the family or miles and miles away from them. And I think the solution is one part family time, one part alone time, and one part “something renewing.” You know, like whatever Keith Richards uses to reinvigorate himself.
 
I had a brief emotional upswing in the afternoon after the whole family managed to simultaneously nap, but it wasn’t until I got up with Paige at 12:30AM that I started thinking happy thoughts about Mother’s Day–how kinda weird and cool it is that it’s become a holiday that’s celebrated by my contemporaries now. It’s like after all those years as an underclassman, we’re finally the seniors. Woot!

So as it sometimes happens when I get up with Paige, I spend the whole time desperate to crawl back in bed to sleep, but when I get there I find that I’m wide awake. So I started thinking of all my Mama friends–quite a long list of them at this juncture in life–and how all of them really are rocking hard as moms in all different kinds of ways.

So here’s a shout-out to you gals. Toss your breast pads in the air like the hat in the opening sequence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and take a long deep bow for an exhausting, harrowing, heart-warming, and hilarious job well done.

To Julie, Gianni and Tea’s mom, who realized what her family needed was (sniff!) no longer in SF, and like a protective Mama bear whose instincts are keen, moved the clan to a new family-fabulous life in Boulder. Some moms get practical short haircuts when they have kids, but Julie keeps it real by dying her hair bright red and being more likely to be mistaken for a rock star than a mom who brings home the bacon, wipes snotty noses, and writes a brilliant and funny blog.

To Megan, Mama of the delightful Miss Ella B and twins Kate and Wes. Twins who she not only gestated (which alone was an act of staggering bodily strength and heroism) but who she’s raising with incredible patience, love, and enviable organization, oftentimes solo due to a hard-workin’ hubbie. May the gods send you endless blessings for each diaper you’ve ever changed, Megan! You are a wonder, even when you’re way too tired to realize it yourself.

To Story, my homie from RI who is bringin’ up two male Savages–that being their last name. It’s an ironic name since these boys will no doubt be the ones you want your daughter to hang out with in college–the ones you hope she’ll be smart enough to date since they’ll not only be well-mannered and have hearts of gold, but they’ll be hot and kick-ass snowboarders.

To Sacha, mother of fearless Owen and future supermodel Ellie, who manages to make motherhood look like an effortless task on an endless To Do list. These children will never comprehend why other parents don’t consistently throw perfectly-appointed theme parties with clever give-away gifts and cupcakes so good the adults must resist wrestling them from the hands of children.

Speaking of hostesses, Shelley, mother of three beautiful kids who The Gap should be commissioning to model–has never once had her title of World’s Greatest Cook and Impromptu Hostess jeopardized with the birth of each successive child. (Don’t most other moms of three serve Tombstone Pizzas four nights a week and have a dinner party, say, once every three years?) May we always be able to drop in for dinner on a Tuesday night to see that you’ve made the recent Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Shrimp Fra Diablo and an apple pie, and have plenty to happily share. We are truly not worthy, yet we tuck our napkins under our chins with wholehearted amazement and appreciation.

And to Mary, my new friend and mother of the gorgeous doe-eyed sweeties Will and Skylar, who has taken sleep deprivation to an art form nearly as formidable as her photography. My wish for you is that the Sand Man not only pays you a visit, but moves in as an au pair, forever at your disposal. For each wakeless hour in which you should be in a deep REM cycle, may you someday bask lazily in the sun at the vast Italian villa your children eventually buy you.

Oh, there are so many other Mamas whose incredible accomplishments and myriad mundane daily duties I wish to salute…

Jennifer, the do-it-all working stay-at-home mom who doesn’t let the fact that brewing daily adventures takes time and energy stop her from doing it anyway.

Lisa who wrangles two big-brown-eyed beauties, has taken on some godforsaken tech consulting project that she’s effectively teaching herself how to do as she goes, and through it all is a devout reader of this blog!

And there’s Brooke, my neighbor whose mothering I’ve really just witnessed from intermittent sidewalk exchanges but from what I can tell has managed to raise two adult sons who are polite and sweet and who–from the looks of it over here across the street anyways–all seem to enjoy spending time together. (Mental note to interrogate her to determine how she did it.)

Oh, and Lori. Lori! Let’s not forget my sister-in-law who seems to be a made-for-the-job natural, and thank goodness as she often holds down the fort with Gavin and Olivia when her husband is out for days–sometimes weeks–Coast Guarding. All that and she still manages to paint every room in her house and make the world’s best homemade mac and cheese.

There are countless other Miracle Mamas who spring to mind who I’d love to mention–my sister Marie, for instance, who by now is no doubt washing the entire freshman class at Brown’s laundry–but if I enumerate each one and try to pay them justice I won’t have time to replant the flowerbed annuals, have a hot meal on the table when Mark gets home, wax my armpits, or finish sewing all the kids clothes…

So, in the imperfect but well-meaning way that many mothers take it all on, I salute you all, Mamas! Like some Oscar nominee I humbly declare that, shucks, it’s an honor to just be in your ranks. Happy belated Mother’s Day to you! Keep up the good work women, and here’s to hoping you didn’t have your grumpy on quite as much as I did yesterday.

xoxo,
kristen

Kristen Bruno, this is your life!

It’s just like they say in the book. At Kate’s age kids get really interested in hearing stories. Stories about when they were a baby. Stories about when you were a kid. Kate has even asked us to recount endlessly the story (if you can even call it that) of when our neighbor Matt came over after Paige’s birth to bring us some cookies and a rattle.

More often than not when we’re driving in the car these days if we’re not singing Farmer Jason‘s arrowhead song, I’m telling (or retelling) Kate some tale about my youth. The one about when the cop drove me home from first grade being one of her–and sure, one of my–faves.

So it only seems fitting that in the past couple weeks my youth is catching up with me. In part, due to my attempts to make that happen. Every now and again I get to wondering what happened to my friend Sydney Smith–my beloved ally and cohort from 4th grade until her parents ruthlessly decided to move to Texas before 8th grade.

Turns out that Googling the name Sydney Smith doesn’t get you very far.
Especially when names are changed through marriage. I need to get the good folks at Google to crack that nut. Search:
Sydney Smith. Search results: Did you mean: Sydney McCann? 

I’m sure everyone has their own Sydney. A friend who had a comforter
with peach-colored fuzzy lining that you envied? Someone you did an
elementary school gymnastics routine to the theme song of Rocky with,
and then forgot what you were supposed to be doing part-way through?
The person you used to walk to the downtown pizza parlor with, and
would see the crazy man with the dime on his forehead?

You know. That friend.

It was my wise old dad who brilliantly offered the best way to track Sydney down. Ask the school where we both went for her contact info. It’s true. Any time I’ve ever moved it seems some school or other that I’ve attended sends me mail hitting me up for money long before the thought of telling anyone my new address has even crossed my mind. If anyone would know where Sydney landed, it was Wheeler.

But it turned out that even The Wheeler School had lost touch with her. Lucky for me, they got their crew of former CIA agent PIs on the case, because within a couple weeks of my inquiry, I got an email from none other than Sydney herself. 

Of course I imagined that if we ever crossed paths again she’d still have that strawberry blond bowl cut and like to pass notes in class. But turns out some twenty-odd (!!) years later, she’s all grown up with a husband and three kids. What’s more, her braces are even off!

After some email exchanges and phone tag we finally connected, and amidst Kate’s endless interruptions managed to skim through some of our major life events from the past two decades. Now she and her hub are planning a trip to the Bay Area at the end of the month. Before I know it we’ll be sitting across the table from each other drinking wine! I hope our husbands don’t mind if we pass a few notes too.

Damn it, I want to call my mother and tell her all about this. I’m sure she’d remember some funny thing Sydney and I did together that with my dementia-grade memory I’ve forgotten all about.

So, on top of Finding Sydney (soon to be a major motion picture), after a Friday morning latte run in the ‘hood with the girls–back when I was still ‘on dairy’ (sniff!)–I got home to hear this message on my machine:

“Hey, if this is Kristen Bruno, this is Leah Katz. I think I just drove past you pushing an orange stroller on College Avenue at Hudson. Oh wow, I really think it’s you! If it’s you will you please call me back? And if it’s not you, I hope the McCluskys are doing great!”

Leah was one of my dearest friends at Kenyon, and my roomie sophomore year. She was a great integrating force for me when I moved to SF 16 years ago, but along the way we managed to fall out of touch. Last I saw her was at our ten-year Kenyon reunion and I think she was living in Berkeley and teaching. We still haven’t managed to connect over the phone, but I’m dying to talk to and hopefully see her, and learn all the details of her grown-up life.

It seems like it’s only a matter of time before my ornery second grade teacher, Miss Vermette, jumps out of the bushes at me. And when she does, I’ll be totally ready for her.

Yo, Pizza Face!

In your elementary school, did your local version of Les Dunbar and Danny Palumbo run around the playground one day stirring up a frenzy of confusion and embarrassment by cattily informing each kid that their “epidermis is showing?”

Oh, well maybe it was just a Rockwell School thing.

At any rate, without knowing what your epidermis is, this can instill in a young’un a fair amount of insecurity and shame.

Well, it’s all I can do to not whisper into Paige’s ear that’s hers is showing. In fact, since her second day of life her epidermis seems to have been doing absolutely everything it could to make its existence known. Well, short of spelling out “bitch” on her stomach.

The poor lass has been plagued with baby acne the likes of which has caused a woman in the Safeway parking lot to exclaim, “That baby has hives!” and our house cleaner to ask, “Have you taken her to the doctor for that?”

Her cradle cap is like some Zen life challenge that has been presented to Mark and I. We scour, scrub, pick and peel at her head. We apply salves, ointments, oils and tinctures. And yet every morning it’s returned without fail. Sometimes it evens doubles its strength.

And then, though it’s hard to notice when you’re taking in all the other maladies, I recently discovered that her shoulders and arms are covered with a thin scaly rough rash. Nothing that jumps out at you with the look-at-me drama of the whiteheads or head crust, mind you. But it’s there. Just something lurking there un-seen by most–another secret dermatological war that’s raging.

A few days ago when the acne outbreak was taking a temporary break in intensity, I got her from her crib after a nap and saw she’d gouged a small hole out of the corner of her nose with a hand she freed from her swaddle. Despite the sea of vitamin E I’ve applied to it, the dark red scab is still there today, doing its part to mar whatever Gerber-like baby qualities she might ever dream of possessing.

But really, all this is superficial. The fact is, I did talk to her pediatrician about it and he promises it’s normal, it’ll be short-lived, and won’t affect her chances of getting into Yale. But still, my inner pageant mom wants my sweet baby to look better. 

My dearest friends peek in at her in the Moby Wrap and encourage me with strength-seeking sayings like, “This too shall pass” and “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” Some even look past the scales and coo over Paige’s cuteness. God bless them.

I can only hope that Paige is paying out a lifetime of dermatological penance right now, and that in her teen years, when all these other peaches and cream babies are considering derm-abrasion, she’ll glow with a perfect, radiant complexion. She’ll be able to walk around the dance floor on prom night kindly informing everyone that their epidermis is showing.

Hipster Imposter

So tonight we are going to this gallery opening. Or is it called an art opening at a gallery? See? It’s clear I’m totally baffled about how to approach this. I’m not even sure what to call it.

The thing is, my friend John from RI sent me an email saying his friend, Josie, was going to be out here showing some of her paintings in this group show, wittily entitled Group Sects. We know Josie from our annual pilgrimages home for Forta July, and she’s a groovy gal.

So, I take to looking at her website, and it turns out she’s an amazing painter. Who knew? I mean, I knew she was a good heckler at the Bristol parade, and I was satisfied with that being the extent of her offerings to society. 

What’s more, she paints birds, which aligns quite nicely with my chicken obsession. (The topic for a whole other blog entry.) She and I send a few emails back and forth with me  saying things like, ‘Hey I heard about your show.’ And her saying, ‘Yeah you guys should come and where can I get the best burrito in SF?’ She also mentioned that she’d never been to the gallery before, but she’s seen it a bunch in “her art magazines.” She didn’t know what it’d be like but she’d be getting her hair cut just in case.

This from the platinum blond pixie with sleeve tattoos. Somehow I think she’ll pass fashion muster, even with her old haircut.

As for me, I’m anticipating someone suddenly pointing to me in my high-cut Costco mom jeans and shouting across the crowded room, “What’s she doing here?” Then a spotlight will move over to me, revealing me shamefully shoveling large chunks of orange cheese into my mouth and guzzling wine from a plastic cup.

What’s worse, we’re bringing Paige with us since, like her big sister did, she refuses to take a bottle despite Mark’s most valiant and ceaseless attempts.

So not only will I be outed for my lack of hipster-tude, I’ll also likely be trying to quiet/hide a squalling baby by breastfeeding–while balancing my cup of wine (yes, drinking and nursing–in public no less) and trying to not topple my paper plate of cubed cheese and crackers.

All this aside, the worst of it is I’m desperate to buy one of Josie’s paintings. So through this all I’ll be doing my best to convince Mark that despite the fact that I’ve just quit my job, we really should spent several thousand dollars on an immense 4×4 foot painting of a rooster. (Seriously.)

Thankfully, the one thing I am kidding about is owning jeans from Costco. I think I need to rack up a few more years at home with the kids before the nexus between value and fashion  that they afford me starts to make sense.