Bad Movies, Bad Jokes, and Good Eggs

Today we had a brunch for the old Bad Movie Monday clan. The BMM posse is one I’ve been a proud part of since, well, the lion’s share of the 14 years I’ve lived in SF.

Through the years the core contingent has been whittled down due to members selfishly moving to other coasts and cities for reasons like “jobs” and “family” (harrumph), but we’ve never lost anyone out of dissipated interest. And as much as we’ve toyed with the idea of getting some fresh blood when our numbers dwindled, of the “funny friends” that one or the other of us has invited at times no one has really stuck to form a next gen. We operate now, when we do operate that is, as a lean machine. Generally a quorum is required in order for a screening.

At any rate, Hlinko, one of the BMM posse who now lives in DC (which, were it on the big screen would be it’s own bad movie) was in town with his new-to-us wife. So we brunched.

I was supposed to be on early Kate-up duty, but Mark graciously offered to jump in, and made a fruit salad, the fruit of which was all perfectly, uniformly diced (as he does), a bunch of bacon, and a huge delicious frittata. Everyone arrived late and stayed late, and silly gifts were exchanged. (I got a Styrofoam wig form and a plastic rain bonnet, and Sue got some garlic shampoo.)

It’s amazing to think there was a time when we all had the ability and the discipline to meet nearly every Monday. One person would host at their house, which required them to rent a movie and provide food for everyone. (One needs strength for heckling.) In the early days when we’d order pizza we’d all chip in $5 or whatever so the host didn’t have to pick up the tab, but over the years our intermittent inspirations to cook for each other became more the norm. No gourmet meals, mind you. More like pasta shaped like Santa Clauses (seasonally, of course) and bottled sauce with salad and a cheap red. After a long day at the office, there was nothing like it.

The movies we’ve seen have ran the gamut from the classic B movies like Strip Tease, to the more rarified Mac and Me (a MacDonald’s branded spin-off of ET), to Can’t Stop the Music (the story of The Village People). Add to that some creepy twisted movies with rapist midgets, village-swallowing pancake batter, and Italian Romeos who used olive oil in their seductions.

Movies featuring a now-respected actor or actress who’s likely mortified by the film today, are especially delightful. Grease 2 (Michelle Pfeiffer), The Island of Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando), Popeye (Robin Williams), and Evel Kenievel (George Hamilton), to name a few. Okay, so maybe George Hamilton isn’t the best example of a respected actor, but you get my point. We’ve also enjoyed some quality made for TV movies about people like Amy Fisher, or with really any actor playing someone with mental retardation. (I know, I know. We should burn in hell.)

The Politos were the first of the group to procreate making Gianni the premier BMM baby. They made a strong showing of still attending even in his wee months. Then Tony had the twins–or did Sue have Georgia first? At any rate, babies took their toll on our time and energy and bad movies fell low on our priority lists. Damn those kids.

It’s still a hoot to get together when we do though. Thankfully becoming a parent doesn’t totally eat away at your sense of humor. In fact, these days I think we all appreciate more than ever how indulgent it is to waste time with a truly terrible movie.

Of course, seeing everyone today has renewed my desire to get together more often, which means I need to start racking my brains to come up with a really good bad movie.

Aunts and Uncles Everywhere

Growing up on the Least Coast as I did, there was a certain amount of formality that’s not present in Cali. And I guess it was Different Times then, as they say. So when it came to addressing my parents’ friends, or anyone a few decades or so older than myself, I referred to them as Mr. or Mrs. Oh, and I guess I used Miss too. My second grade teacher, the crotchety Miss Vermette, was never married (Ye Olde Stereotypical School Marm) and lived with her sister (another bachelorette) into her decrepitude. So she was a Miss.

At any rate, the thought of having my friends’ kids—or anyone else frankly—call me Mrs. McClusky, is laughable. In these times and these parts we go by first names, or Aunt or Uncle.

Sunday we had the pleasure of attending Lisa and Jackson’s co-birthday party. Last year instead of doing something like getting a massage for her birthday, Lisa got an epidural and gave birth to the sweet dark-eyed Jackson. I tell you that boy will be a lady killer. Oy, is he cute!

When you have the same birthday as your one-year-old and you are as clever a hostess as Lisa is, you have a Cocktails and Cupcakes party. So once Kate and Mark woke up from naps and we all got clean diapers and/or clothes on, we headed to Burlingame. The shindig was in their lovely yard, a warm, sunny afternoon—and it was one of those parties where the true-blues stay a little later than everyone else and you leave feeling all lucky to have the friends that you do.

At one point when I was on the blanket the babes were playing on I think I was trying to give little miss Ella an Oatio (organic Cheerio, if you’re not down). Her dad Jason said something like, “Ella, Aunt Kristen is trying to give you something,” and although it was a blip on my mental screen then, I thought later (just about now, in fact), that I had a little flicker of pride for getting the Auntie title. I fully intend to live up to it.

In our world of bringing our kids everywhere (my mother asked once, “Does anyone in California ever get a sitter?”), and relaxed “I wipe your kid’s nose, you wipe mine” friendships, we’ve dispensed with the formality of the Mr. and Mrs. titles entirely and opted to keep it all in the family. Maybe, probably, these crazy Californians have been doing it that way for years, but be that as it may, I’d like to think the fact that our friends’ kids call us Uncle and Aunt is something that’s more unique to our brand of friendship, or what some would call our “urban tribe.”

I think there’s also one part that’s a recognition of the importance that these kids—be they mine or yours–have in our world today. The children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard era is ancient history. We care deeply about what these kids think, feel, say. The profusion of parenting magazines, books and websites out there may make some think we care too much. And sure, it bugs me when I hear parents be overly precious with their kids instead of letting them tough out some things on their own. But net/net I’d like to think you can’t really care too much when you’re talking about your kids. And if you could, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.

So real Aunts and Uncles be damned! It’s the families we’ve assembled intentionally that deserve a little credit. I’m right here and plan to stick around to watch you grow up, Little Missy. You can count on me bawling at your wedding some day. Aunt Kristen is here to stay.

The One that Got Away

If there is one thing I am proud of myself about, it’s having gotten hip when I did to the kind of man who is fit for marryin’. Sure, there were other men in my life who at times I toyed with playing house with, but in my heart of hearts I knew they weren’t right. Some guys are fit for dalliances (even year-long ones), but not for reading the paper with over breakfast when you’re 65. Mark, thank God, is.

In college my friend Ben was my best male girlfriend. He was smart and sweet and even pretty damn cute. We’d while away long boring Gambier, Ohio afternoons in his room in the slightly dorky co-ed “society” he was in. I’d bemoan whatever romantic foible I was entertaining my psyche with at the time, and he’d listen, help me strategize, and then we’d analyze his crushes.

We were no fools though. Hot-blooded collegiates that we were, each of us at times considered the other as a potential girl/boyfriend, or at least a one-time conquest. But never at the same time, thankfully. And neither of us ever said or did anything in the times when we were feeling curious/smitten with the other—probably out of fear that one awkward kiss had the power to ruin a great friendship.

It worked out for us that those “what about him/her?” episodes made up the minority of time we spent together. Mostly, we watched a bad game show where kids did things like crawl between the pieces of bread in a 10-square-foot peanut butter and jelly sandwich in order to win cool prizes (the name of which I can’t believe I’ve forgotten), play drunken air guitar to ACDC, and lounge around chatting idly and snidely about nearly ever other person at our rural 1,400-student college. Ah, Ben.

Of course, the guys who I spent most of my time interested in were compelling to me because they were either A) not interested in me, B) clannish in that I-never-outgrew-boarding-school way, C) insensitive and immature, and D) cute. (At least they had one redeeming quality.) All in all, the social dichotomy between them and Ben served me well. The guys from the football fraternity were fun to swim in the fountain with (there was no fountain–that’s just my metaphor for hijinx). And Ben was fun to philosophize and gossip with in the sober light of day.

At one point in our senior year some smart gal got hip to all that Ben had to offer, and suddenly he became one of those guys who held hands with his serious girlfriend while walking down Middle Path. In what seemed like no time, we grew apart. Understandably, he had a new confidant, and she was probably not too keen about him spending time with me. I learned from the alumni magazine a while back that he married that woman not long after graduating, and at the time at least, they lived not far from where I do now.

Thinking about him tonight, more than I have in over a decade, I can’t help but be nostalgic. But I am happy that his memory doesn’t bring me a feeling of regret, which it might if I were single. It would be easy to label him “the one that got away,” and dozens of other gals from Kenyon probably do. In my teens I just didn’t have the foresight that his wife had to snatch up such a wonderful guy, such a keeper.

Thankfully, on my own timeline, I managed to smarten up and find a keeper of my own. When Mark and I go to his college friends’ weddings I always have a moment of realizing that some of the women we’re with look at Mark as the one that got away. It’s one of the things that makes me squeeze his arm a bit tighter when the bride and groom are exchanging their vows.

Lucky for me, I’m the one that gets to turn down the page of the newspaper at breakfast 30 years from now, and see him there.

Not What I’d Intended

Growing up my godparents, Mimi and Uncle Ant, lived next door. They never had children of their own. As Mimi puts it, “The only thing that ever ran around my house was a picket fence.” So, with their physical proximity and the closeness that our families had in that good old-fashioned neighbor way, Mimi and Uncle Ant were like grandparents to me. Wonderful kind Italian Americans who taught me about my heritage (i.e. how to swear in Italian), fed me often and well, and both corrected my ways and boasted about my accomplishments like family.

It should be known that Mimi and Uncle Ant were set in their ways. Dinner at 5:00, basement tools organized to perfection, and never so much as a mote of dust wafting through their living room. Comparatively, the Bruno girls, as my sisters and I were known, were a catastrophic train wreck–always late, wrinkled clothes, arguing with each other in inappropriate places, and invariably cutting the cord on the hedge trimmers we’d borrow from them. Typical family stuff, as my mother would rationalize. Mimi and Uncle Ant were the way they were because they didn’t have kids, she’d say. Kids force you to be flexible. (I can’t help but think that even with a family you’d be able to bounce quarters off the beds in their house.)

Like all good Italians, Mimi and Uncle Ant were into food. Mimi and her sister (and neighbor) Mary could cook a meal that would make a dead man salivate. And in that finicky perfectionist way of his, Uncle Ant could always find fault with it. “Emily!” he’d bellow. “You overcooked the spaghetti! And what’s with the olives? You know I hate olives!” Uncle Ant was a renowned picky eater.

So, whenever I’d mince my way around a pickled beet or a tomato as a kid, my mother would sigh and call me “a little Uncle Ant.” And instead of being put off by the comparison, I loved it. In fact, Uncle Ant (short for Anthony, if you were wondering) and I used the food thing as a platform for some serious intergenerational bonding. “Mushrooms!” we’d cry. “Blech! Who’d ever want to eat those?” Even as my palate matured and there were fewer foods I was averse to, it remained my favorite way of getting Uncle Ant going.

When I was pregnant Mark and I would crawl into bed at night and sometimes talk about the things that were important to each of us as parents-to-be. Sometimes it’d be spurred on my some friend’s kid who we’d seen that day. “Our kid will eat all different kinds of food,” I’d say. “Definitely,” Mark would agree. “I don’t want her living off of mac and cheese.”

Making your child a different meal than yours every night not only took extra time, but it showed that the kid ruled the roost. “There will be one dinner in our house, and one only!” I’d proclaim. “This is what’s for dinner, boy-o. Love it or leave it.” Besides, there’s something cool about being able to feed your kid pate in front of other people—like our friends, the gastronomically-advanced Surh kids–and have him eat it without batting an eyelash. We’re foodies, therefore our child will also like food. Right?

Ah well. Ten months in I’ve already caved. In an attempt to get Kate to eat something tonight, here is what I offered her:

1. Multi-grain toast
2. Monterey Jack cheese
3. A scrambled egg yolk (babies her age can’t eat whites for some reason…)
4. A nectarine
5. Summer Vegetable Medley baby food
6. Peas and Brown Rice baby food
7. Sweet Potato and Turkey baby food
8. Oatios (organic Cheerios)
9. Puffs (Gerber cereal that’s probably packed with preservatives, chemicals, and carcinogens)

Of these NINE items, she ate a small ration of Oatios, and of course, some Preservative Puffs. God help me.

I think I’ve been a pretty patient and easy-going mother, but the one thing that has driven me to call Mark in a “when-are-you-getting-home-I-need-back-up-fast” fit, is The Dinner Stand-Off. All I want is for her to eat something. Preferably something with some nutritional value. And not cry and wimper and whine throughout the whole meal. Is that so wrong?

Where most parents probably want this for their kids, I’ve got a strong streak of the Italian “need to feed” thing. When we first introduced solids, Mark asked me when he was feeding her how much food to give her. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just feed her until she cries.” And I wasn’t kidding. I’d just keep spooning in that rice cereal until she had to wail in protest, in lieu of being able to say, “Enough already! Back off with the spoon, lady!”

So she wasn’t always so picky. But now her will has sprung forth fully-formed. I come at her with a piece of fruit and she pushes against the high chair tray and turns her head while clamping her lips shut. I must say, she’s gotten good at screaming with her mouth closed. When she used to let her guard down on the lockjaw, we’d often sneak in a spoonful. No such luck these days.

Tonight I finally gave up. It’s getting to the point where I’m fearful that the neighbors are going to wonder what I’m doing to her every evening when they hear her screams from our open windows. Running on the “she’ll eat when she’s hungry” assumption, I took her out of the high chair red-faced and wailing and minutes later plunked a cheerful babbling baby into the bath tub. Move her from one room to the next and you’d never guess it was the same kid.

What everyone seems to say is that at this age everything comes in phases–both good and bad. So, when your kid is sleeping through the night, don’t get cocky and tell your friends. Next week he’ll start teething and be up every two hours. I’m hopeful that’s the case with Miss Kate and her food issues, though Uncle Ant was 92 when he died last year, and he was a picky eater to the very end.

A Blast from the Past

A couple weeks ago I got an email from my friend Mike entitled “You won’t believe who I saw.” For some reason I immediately thought it was our old friend Kelly. Kelly, Mike, and I were at the University of London together for a junior year abroad semester which was somewhat oddly called the Beaver program. Kelly was at Simmons College (I think), Mike at Tufts, and me at Harvard, I mean Kenyon.

Over bad cafeteria food, endless pub pints, and Eurail adventures we formed the kind of friendship you develop when you’re 19 and living even further away from your family than your college got you. Add to that we were in a huge city and another culture where no one knew us or expected us to act or dress or talk or think a certain way. College is liberating, but studying abroad takes it all to another level.

Mike is one of those people who is still in touch with the other kids from his kindergarten class. (He’s also saved the Playbill from every play he’s ever been too.) It amazes me that he’s managed to maintain those friendships, but Mike is such an incredible human to have in your life some of the effort must have come from the other people. Despite all this (maybe I should have taken the hint?), Mike and I fell out of touch after our British educational adventure. Then, a few years later walking down the street in the West Village one evening, we bumped into each other and have been fast friends ever since. He was my partner in crime in my NY years, and the one person who’d make a move back to NYC seem do-able for me. I still regret not having him as a bridesmaid, but at least I have something from that day to beat myself up over.

So every once and a while Mike and I have wondered what ever happened to Kelly. She was so smart and fun and excellent, and as I mentioned, in the 6(?) months that we were in London we became pretty damn good friends. No doubt she was up to something cool. And for Mike, I’m sure he was just confused and frustrated by ever having let a friend slip away.

In fact, like Mike and I, Kelly and I bumped into each other in NYC back when I was living there too. Of all weird coincidences she lived on my block and I saw her walking a huge German Sherpherd one day. And her boyfriend was from Bristol! He grew up a couple houses down from my Uncle Joe. I remember hanging out with her a few times after that and going to hang out with her at her parents house in Massachusetts, but then somehow we drifted apart again.

So Mike sends the “You’ll never guess who I saw” email, and it ended up being some random political spam he sent out to like 300 people, which I didn’t even read. I emailed him about my disappointment that he hadn’t found Kelly. Especially when you have an friend like my 4th grade best friend Sydney Smith, who has a kinda generic name, you think even the powers of Google will never reunite you.

Well by that day’s end, God bless him, Mike had found her. All hail Google, where he (freakish memory that he has) remembered Kelly’s home town amongst other details about her (like her last name). He tracked her down to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts where she’s worked for a decade now. He even found her email address and had exchanged a few messages catching up with her.

You know you’re getting long in the tooth when you reconnect with someone you haven’t seen in 15 years. And it’s not a childhood friend. At any rate, Kelly just got back from a vacation today and sent me an email after having gotten the run-down on my life from Mike. Hooray! She is well and married and has a sweet 3-year-old son named Cole, and by the looks of the photo she sent Mike, she hasn’t changed a bit. I’ve got to make a plan to see her when I’m on the East Coast next.

Now I just need to get Mike on the scent of Sydney Smith…

California Re-Entry

Last night Kate and I returned from our nearly 3-week East Coast Tour. We didn’t have baseball-style t-shirts made to commemorate the event, but if we did the backs would read:

Bristol, RI
Harwich Port, MA
Westfield, MA
Chappaqua, NY

What’s great about going away for so long is that you don’t worry about not having time to do all the things you want to do. The down side is that gives you the “we’ve got plenty of time for that” attitude, which ultimately leaves you realizing that you didn’t do as many of the things that you wanted to do because you thought you had so much more time to do them.

For instance, we only got to the beach twice. For shame! (Some of this had to do with poor weather. For all the time I spend longing for East Coast summers, I forget that it rains there a lot, and there are also a lot of overcast days. RI really should consider having a rainy season as we do here. It sucks during it, but it gets it all over with in one fell swoop.) And we didn’t spend anywhere near enough time with friends like Ellen, John, and Story. Kate never had a play date with Danny’s daughter, Jekka. I’d wanted to call my mother’s Polish friend Sophie to introduce her to Kate, and that never happened. And I wanted to maybe visit my mother’s other friend Linda, but no.

I’m sad to report that I also only had Del’s Lemonade once. Tragic. For those of you who have never truly lived–i.e. never had a Del’s–it’s a delicious slushy lemonade that’s native to RI and sold at carts and some actual bricks and mortar Del’s establishments throughout the greatest little smallest state in the union. To be honest, if I’d never had one, and someone served me a Del’s on a cold winter day in South Dakota, I might not think it was The World’s Best Beverage, as I do. But there is something about having one on a hot humid day, combined with the fact that you can only get them at home, and of course the nostalgia/childhood taste memory factor, that make me a rabid Del’s fan. God they are good! We served them at our wedding, in fact–in martini glasses before the ceremony, not the traditional waxed cup.

Which leads me on this stream of consciousness to extol the supremely perfect wedding present my beloved friend John gave us when we were home–a framed Del’s cup. Not just framed though–it’s under this museum quality glass to preserve it, and it’s on maroon velvet. The frame is a thick dark wood, ornately carved. It’s fucking brilliant, and as much as I love owning it, I love that I’m lucky enough to have a friend cool enough to think of giving this to me as a wedding present.

At any rate, I’m happy to be home with Mark and to have our sweet nuclear family together again. But I feel the need to have some great why-I-love-living-in-California experiences quickly to help ease my re-entry into my usual world here. It’s just so damn charming and familiar and comfortable in RI. And the houses are all so old and cool, and the trees are big and shady and there is Dunkin Donuts at every turn and good spinach pies and Sam’s Pizza and funny childhood friends who I still like in their adult form, and of course my family. So you put all that in one hand, and then in the other hand you have our life here and our friends here and Mark’s rad job and the no crappy winter thing, but the expensive housing… It just seems like both ends of the scales weigh in pretty close sometimes.

But anyway, the long visit did give me a good dose of it all. And for all that I’ve complained that I didn’t get to do, I did do and see a lot. The Forta July Parade rocked our world, per usual. This year we were happy to have the Eberdave clan, now featuring Baby Henry, for their second year. And Dana (our wedding photographer) and her great hubby Joe joined in the fun. Words can’t describe how fantastic the parade is, nor how soul stirring it is to be part of the mayhem at the Connery’s. Kate was a trooper and wasn’t freaked out by the excessive people, noise, etc. And this year we boasted four high school bands that stopped marching, turned towards Casa Connery, and played a command performance for us. Four bands! Until you have a huge marching band with horns, drums, cymbals, and polyester-clad teens blast you with song, you won’t know how immensely thrilling it is. God it’s fun.

Post parade day Mark, Kate and I headed to Cape Cod where my sister Marie’s family has a house. We had one night there solo, in which Mark cooked excellent steak on the grill, and then Marie and cousin Nancy came to join in the fun. The beach there is like the Caribbean–blue and clear. It’s not super warm, but it’s no nut-shrinking Pacific Ocean. Ah summer.

After Mark left (sniff!) to return to CA and work, Kate and I went to Westfield to visit my dear dear Aunt Jenny, Mom’s sister, for a night. She is an act of nature. She’s almost 80, and works taking care of old people, if you can imagine such a thing. (To meet her, you wouldn’t be surprised one bit.) She had 18 relatives over for dinner when we were there. The woman makes a ham that could bring a grown man to tears, and she is scurrying around taking care of grandchildren, ironing her grown son’s shirts, and talking smack about the dozens of women who call her daily to chat. Don’t ever ask this woman to sit down and relax. She says she’ll die if she stops, and she’s happy going, so there’s nothing to do but stand back in amazement. At any rate, it was great catching up with her and having her meet Kate, with whom she was smitten.

Kate and I also spent a night in Chappaqua, NY visiting my friend Lauren who was at her parents for the month, but has been living in Hong Kong for nearly 5 years. So happy we decided to make this detour. Despite a hellish drive home to RI after it, our visit was deeply happy-making. Her children are dreamy and her mom is really interesting to talk to at the kitchen table. They live in this super-cool Frank Lloyd Wright community. If we’d stayed another night I would have had my bags sent for and moved in. Again, Kate made a splash. The neighbor came over one day and said she was told she had to see this baby “who is like a model.” Ha!

And for the record, Kate really was an angel for the whole trip. It is such a treat introducing her to people and sitting back and agreeing with the compliments about her cuteness and smartness and sweetness. I keep feeling like she and I have these bonding experiences and they just keep accumulating. I guess it’s that whole “I love you more to-day than yes-ter-day, bah dat da da daaah” thing.

For all the visits and lunches and dinners and gatherings one of the nicest things about our trip was the little routine we had at my Dad’s house. Kate would wake up early and I get her and go downstairs where my Dad was already awake with the dog and doing the crossword. Kate would greet Grandpa and Katie the Dog with a hearty “bye-bye”, then when Joan woke up we’d all go into the kitchen and Kate would sit in her booster seat and the four of us (or five when you count the dog) would each eat different breakfasts. The adults would take turns trying to convince Kate there was food beyond Cheerios she should eat, and Katie the Dog would happily eat any baby food that fell to the floor.

Sometimes with travel it’s about the museums that you went to and the sights that you saw, and sometimes it’s about the little things like finding that great place for breakfast that you go to every morning.

Familiarity Breeds Content

I’ve never been one for change, and after a few days in Rhode Island I’m starting to realize why. It turns out my people seek shelter in familiarity too.

Perhaps it’s just another way for New Englanders to boast about how long their families go back (stepping off the Mayflower onto Plymouth Rock has ungodly social cachet here), but these folks seem unable to enjoy the present without harkening back to the past.

One of the best examples of it is weather. In California you may have an unusually hot day in, say, February, and people take it for just that–unusual. In these parts, on a March day when there’s a 6-inch snowfall, the topic of chitchat at the grocery store is, “Last time we had this much snow on March 23rd was 1948.” People cling to these stats (be they real or constructed from creative memories) like boys and baseball trivia. And the stats also serve as a jumping off point for tale telling about whatever else (interesting or mundane) happened back then. “I remember I was working at the Pastime Theater. Movies were ten cents then, and when they went up to 11 cents I thought I’d never be able to see another movie again.” I wish I had ten cents for every time I heard that story…

So Thursday Ellen Connery came to Bristol to help her dad get ready for The Fourth. Kate and I walked over for a visit and from the second Ellen caught sight of me we were thrown in a time machine back to 1982. “Hey! Check this out,” she called from were she was crouching under their raised deck. “You ever seen an albino earwig?” Sure enough the thing was stark white. I love that Ellen didn’t need to be all precious about her first time meeting Kate. Much better that we reverted to a youthful bug-inspection mode.

Inside the house, Mr. Connery was also prepping for the festivities. I was proud to see the picture of John and I mugging for a self portrait on the fridge, along with photos and newspaper clips showing the Connery’s packed front porch on July 4th, and some heart-wrenching shots that include the late Mrs. C. There’s a smell memory that hits me when I go into that kitchen too. Everything is as it should be–with the exception of a new stove, which I’m willing to allow for–and I’m happy as a clam to be back home on the brink on my favorite holiday.

The Connerys have taken celebrating The Fourth to a stratospheric level. There’s a baseline you need to achieve as a Bristolian, and it’s much higher for folks who live on the parade route, as they do. But the Connerys bash is a party to be reckoned with. Family friends, former Bristolians in town visiting, relatives, and every friend the three Connery kids have ever had are welcomed (now with their kids, too). And I’ll tell you it’s like crack. Come to the Connerys for The Fourth once and try to go anywhere else that day. It can’t be done.

Since they were in prep mode, it made me wonder how they cook for the crowd they get. Do they have any way of knowing how many people are coming? “Nope. We never really know,” Jack (Mr. C) said. I’m terrible about assessing crowd sizes, so I guessed that they have around 80 folks. “No, no–much more than that.” He grabbed a calendar and flipped back some pages. “Last year: Temp was 87 degrees, parade lasted 3 hours and 20 minutes, and we had approximately 125 people,” he read. “Well, I think our numbers were low since it rained the year before and maybe people were afraid that was going to happen again.” I asked Mark last night how many people he thinks are there most years and his guess was 200.

But back to the topic of food. As tradition has it, Ellen does the house prep and John does the cooking. As Mr. Connery has gotten older and Mrs. C is gone, the kids have graciously jumped in to take over the work. Jack pulled out a yellowed and tattered 3×5 card–the chourico and peppers recipe (just one of the many food offerings that day). “How much do you make if you don’t know how many people are coming?” I asked. “Well, let’s see,” he said squinting down at the card. “Last year we made five pounds. Year before that, four–with the rain and all. But I see here we’ve made as much as 11 pounds some years.” I looked over his shoulder. Sure enough the card had each year and the amounts cooked neatly pencilled in on it. Amazing.

Not sure how far back it went, but now of course I want to go there and check that out. It would be kind of fun to know how many pounds they made on my first Fourth, so I can tell Kate some day how it compared to her first one.

Church Bells in Bristol

We have arrived. (Well, Monday, but our internet service has been down.) The flight, car rental, luggage lugging, etc. were all at times something I could have used another set of hands for, but I took pride in my hard work and Kate was a dream baby. She ended up charming half the passengers on the flight, and by the time we landed had learned to (finally) wave hello back at all her admirers. That baby is sometimes, okay often, too good to be true.

So here we are in Bristol. Funny that I can hear the house painter’s radio right now and there’s a John Mellencamp song on. I do declare I am the queen of Lovers of One’s Home Town. This lil’ New England town couldn’t be any more beautiful. And of course it’s packed with memories, and my nostalgia wells up along with my histamines as I saunter down the tree-canopied streets.

I’d promised Kate a morning walk downtown. Now that I stay with my Dad when I’m home downtown is in easy striking distance, and aside from the harbor, the ancient rippled sidewalks (nostalgia), the red, white, and blue lined streets (a Forta July tradition), and all the beautiful old homes I wish I’d bought when they were affordable, there’s also now a Dunkin’ Donuts downtown. So, we walk.

Lately when I’ve been walking around Oakland I’ve been thinking about what it’d be like if we lived in a small town. But that’s no surprise. I yearn to live in Bristol again every time I come home for the summer. You can set your fancy Swiss watch to it. And when I go home in the bleak winter months, I thank God for California.

Yesterday Kate had plenty of new things to admire on our walk. She was impressed with the myriad American flags out in front of nearly every home. Bristolians aren’t making any political support-our-boys or Bush-family-values commentaries by flying flags in front of their homes. These folks (okay, we) are just truly patriotic. It’s old school, and it charms the bejesus out of me. At any rate, there are some “wicked big” flags that people hang straight down sorta perpendicular to the sidewalks and as wide, so when you walk past them they skim your head and it’s like you’re passing through a gate of some sort. Why see the Cristo exhibit in Central Park when you can pass through the flags in Bristol? Kate loved it. (Good girl! Like what Mama likes!)

Kate and I lunched with Aunt Mary (87) and Mimi (92), and those sisters have it going on! Kate smiled and laughed and played the whole time and they adored her. And we came up with the term Great Godmother to refer to Kate’s relation to Mimi (who is my Godmother).

And if the whole scene–us eating chicken parm (read: pahhhm) at Leo’s sidewalk cafe and taking in a muggy Tuesday afternoon in Bristol–wasn’t enough to send me to heaven and back, noon struck and with it the church bells.

Give me a ding-dong every noon from the church bells and I’m thrilled, but this bell ringer was clearly an over-achiever. The first song–yes the first–was The Star Spangled Banner. Yes, some dude was in a belfry and busted out The Star Spangled Banner on church bells. And it was no Ronco Bell-amatic. This was clearly some guy reading some arcane type of sheet music in order to play this complex song in its entirety. Though everyone else was clearly unaware that you don’t get this kind of show in other towns at noon. I appeared to be the only one losing my mind and glaring at the diners who’d carried on with their conversations.

Next up for our listening pleasure was My Country Tis of Thee. At this point I’m practically letting down milk with joy. And when it got to tricky points in the songs (can you tell by my verbiage here how musically savvy I am?) I swear there must have been another person or two pulling ropes on other bells. At least I envisioned some team doing Quasimoto-style bell pulling.

The guy(s) finished off with a third song which Aunt Mary, Mimi and I couldn’t place. Perhaps it was an original score. Not my taste, but good for him for trying out something new.

So yes, this is just a wee bit of what small-town life has to offer. Just staggering. I’ve got to track down that bell-ringer’s manager and recommend the guy for a raise. Who am I kidding: “track down.” I’m sure my father knows the guy.

Dueling Grandmas

Today Kate and I took my mother-in-law, Peggy, to Chaparral House for our weekly visit with Rose.

I think I conduct my life at a far more hectic pace than Peggy (and most humans), so by the time we were supposed to hit the nursing home we’d already gone clothes shopping, had a dip and a picnic lunch at a nearby lake, and I’d gone grocery shopping. Kate had also managed to take two naps in her crib around these activities.

So, when it was time to head out to Chap House, I’d offered Peggy the option to pass and just chill out at home. I could easily be responsible for short-circuiting my introverted mother-in-law with excessive socializing and stimulation, and I’d hate to do that since I really like her. Besides, I regulalry challenge her introverted son in this manner and it seems just plain cruel to run the whole family ragged. Peggy had thankfully managed to squeeze in a micro-nap along the way and assured me she was interested in witnessing her baby granddaughter’s volunteer work first-hand.

It should be noted that Chaparral House has essentially become the Cult of Kate. It used to be just the oldsters who hopped out of their pants when she entered the building, but along the way she’s also captured the hearts of the nursing staff. A machine could start beeping urgently from a nearby room and the closest nurse won’t flinch as she holds Kate on her knee and does the “sooooo big” thing for the 36th time.

And it turns out that having a child who is a messiah makes me kinda proud. We walked into the nursing home and all manner of wheelchair-bound folk and nurses in those goofy smocks that have everything from teddy bears to Sponge Bob Squarepants printed on them are calling out, “Hi Kate!” It’s nice.

We made our way through the adoring masses towards Rose’s room. She was asleep in her wheelchair with her back to us. She has this kind of funny hipster haircut she must have gotten from Jackie, the nursing home’s very own stylist. It’s kind of blunt across the back, really short at the nape of her neck, and longer and choppy on the top and sides. It’s what you’d expect on a German designer, but it’s powder white and on the body of a slumped octogenarian.

I woke up Rose and the second she saw Kate she shook off sleep and was crying out, “Katie!” I introduced her to Peggy and from there it was essentially the typical flow in which Rose gushes over Kate’s physical attributes, utters no less than seven Yiddish terms of affection, and gives the requisite “evil eye” warning. Today she also delighted in Kate’s hand clapping, Cheerio-eating, and senseless babble. As often as she cooed over Kate’s beauty, she marvelled at her intelligence. “So smart, this one!” Rose isn’t just swayed by good looks. “It’s a smart one too,” she says solemnly.

Rose may be old and frail, but it’s hard to rival her fervid Kate-adoration. If anyone can keep pace though, it’s Peggy. It was like watching a tennis game where two players lobbed comments back and forth to keep pace with each other, yet they were on the same team. With Kate’s virtue-extolling sufficiently covered, there was little left for me to do other than get everyone cups of water.

Due to her uneven memory, a few times Rose asked Peggy if she was the grandmother. At one point when Peggy said yes, I found myself fretting the smallest bit. I’ve spent so long assuring Rose that she’s a grandmother to Kate, that I hoped bringing the real McCoy into our circle wouldn’t dismay her somewhat. She’s not one for sharing Kate.

But a few minutes later I realized I had no reason to worry. As Peggy helped Kate sip from her cup of water and Rose scolded her, “Don’t give her too much! It’s too cold! She could choke a bit on it!” I realized that Rose was secure in her grandmother-ness. To her Peggy was just another young woman like myself who needed reminding about the potential hazards to Kate that lurk all around us.

And thankfully there’s no limit on the number of grannies you can have–be they biological or adoptive. We could have worse problems than having to make room for all the women who love Kate.

Old Friends, New Friends, Red Friends, Blue Friends

A couple July 4ths ago Mark and I were walking past my first grade teacher’s house, and one of her daughters (who was a friend of my sister’s back in the day), drunkenly spotted us from their front porch and dragged us to their backyard BBQ to be introduced to legions of similarly boozed-up folk. My former teacher, Mrs. Parella, was looking terribly old and frail. So after all the nice-to-meet-yous, I sat next to her and in a wave of nostalgia told her I remembered a song she’d taught me back in first grade. It goes, “Make new friends but keep the o-old, one is silver and the other gold.” After singing it to her she looked at me like I was mad and said, “I taught you no such song!” Well, I think the old gal is getting a bit soft in the memory department. Despite her haughty dismissal of my fond memory, I hold fast to the notion that I learned the ditty in her classroom.

At any rate, as it turns out Mark and I are taking resumes for new friends. Which isn’t to say that we’re tossing our current ones asunder. (See “one silver/other gold” lyrics above.) It’s just that A) many of our friends—especially those who Mark brought to our relationship—have left SF, 2) we moved to Oakland, and C) we’ve got the kid now. So, in light of geographical changes and new interests, we’ve got some openings.

A few months ago Mark was in a funk about it. I think it was the Super Bowl, and there was no one around for him to watch with. As he sees it (and of course I’m over-simplifying it), he has his five good friends, damn it, and he doesn’t need other ones—he just needs them all to move back near us. Eternal optimist that I am, I see the sitch as an opportunity to get out there and flex my extroversion. But I’m also the one who likes looking for a job. I guess I’m always convinced there’s something (or in this case someone) great out there.

Though some friends are no longer in our backyard, they are within striking distance. On Friday we ventured to Sacramento for the night to stay with the beloved Mullin clan. I worked with Dave a few gigs ago, and he’s a super good egg. We shared an office, so he’s heard me make appointments for bikini waxes, flirt with Mark on the phone early in our relationship, and have any number of difficult, frustrating and/or weird conversations with clients, bosses, and subordinates. He was also the first to point out that I make a quiet humming sound when I’m typing and really focused. (It’s something Mark has also noticed, but it’s strangely inaudible to me. For all I know, I’m doing it right now.)

When the ship was sinking at our old agency and there was a scramble for volunteers to fill the lifeboats (with nice fat severance packages), Dave signed up. I was crushed when he left. He and Scott, the head of Creative, practically clicked their heels, linked arms, and skipped out of the office that day. It was no doubt my saddest work day. My two closest cronies and allies were giddily ditching a once-great workplace for greener pastures, leaving me to manage the team and to attempt (impossibly) to rectify rock-bottom morale. It sucked.

Dave’s next endeavor was as Mr. Mom. His wife was wrapping up her OB residency and they couldn’t bear putting their newborn in daycare. These days, residency is just a memory in one of Deanna’s scrapbooks. They’re now the owners of an immense fabulous house, take jealous-making annual vacations, and are living quite an appealing suburban dream.

When we’d seen them last I was pregnant, so this time we were able to swap tales of parenthood. We’ve had a lot of fun with Dave and Deanna in our kid-less days, but now that we’ve treaded some of the same path they’ve been on for eight years, it’s fun comparing notes. And those two are rock-star parents, so when they talk, I take notes. They should teach weekend seminars on how to raise sweet, polite kids.

And then there’s their dirty little secret—which actually isn’t a secret at all—which is that Dave’s a (gasp!) Republican. The horror! And yet we still like him! In fact, whenever we see them, I wonder why we don’t see them more.

Saturday night, Mark’s new work friend, Scott, and his wife, Courtney, came over for dinner. Mark likes Scott enough to willingly make back-to-back social plans on a weekend. This cuts into Mark’s time doing nothing, which he cherishes. So, a few hours after returning home from our night away in Sac (as I like to call it), Mark whipped up a delicious dinner and we were showing off Kate, opening more wine, discussing the merits of stinky cheese, and getting to know some new folk.

Scott and Courtney are life-long Texans who pulled up roots in Austin for Scott’s cool new job in SF. In the Lone Star State they had a fab house with a pool, more friends than you could shake a stick at (my Dad’s odd expression), great jobs, and family. Now they’re experiencing the foggy version of an SF summer, trying to find grocery stores that sell the kind of food they like, and carving their way into new social circles. Based on one evening of interaction I sure hope that they plan to stay a while in these parts. What a great couple! And not one of those “I like her so I’ll put up with him” duos. They both appear to rock. It was so easy to talk to them—they’re funny and smart and like stupid movies, and even claim to have a cute dog named Maggie (though that might put them over the edge for being *too* perfect).

As they were leaving they offered to reciprocate with dinner at their house some day, and Courtney and I determined we should get lunch at the Ferry Building on one of my Kate-less Thursdays. She’s going to take a crack at showing me the gastronomic virtues of oysters.

But what made me super happy about the whole evening was despite the mantle of people-aversion Mark likes to pretend that he’s cloaked in, he’s been doing a bang-up job of making new friends lately. He’s been responsible for getting us invited to a few lovely dinners that have caused us to say before turning off our night-stand lights, “That was really fun. Those guys seem cool. We should get together with them again.” Then we smooch and go to sleep.