Guest Post by Miss Kate, Age 7.5

A Great Winter Braeck

HI! I am Kate and I am going to tell you about my winter break.

So it all steard in the airport. I was pulling my things so were my mom and dad. my sister was dansing  all about are feet. oh great. On the plane I playd  on the ornge ipone. before we  new it we were in NYC.

In NYC we were staing at or friends Mick and Lorn’s house.

My mom and dad took me and paige to FAO SHWOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was soooooo cool. Then we wint to American Girl and had a tea party with the dolls! It was sooooooo cool to!

I loved it in NYC! In NYC we wint on a horse dron carge ride. The horse’s name was Bruno like my grandpa and grandma’s dog!

After 2 days we wint on a bus to Bristol, RI. In Bristol we selberadit Christmas with my grandma and grandpa, thare dog Bruno, my Aunt Ellen and 2 casins and my Aunt Mrey, Uncal Jonh, and casins Rory and Jonh.

My sister thinks Christmas is geting not giving. Not rite.

IT SNODE WEN WE WERE THAR! I made a snow pup!

My Dad left bofor New Year and my mom and sister and me had New Year in Bristol too.

On or last day we wint ice sckading! I loved it! It was my first time. My sister did not go on the ice. It was silly. Ice sckating was her iday! But she is going to try agin.

So that was my winter brack!

The end.

Lessons in Gift Giving

The holidays are the perfect time to show kids that giving can be as much fun as getting. But I bungled my shot at teaching that lesson this year.

At Thanksgiving I had the harried working-mother last-minute realization that I wanted to find a way for us to give back somehow. But by the time I tried signing up to serve at a soup kitchen, all the places were flush with other more organized, plan-aheady do-gooders.

At Christmas I wanted us to bring toys to the local firehouse for Toys for Tots. At least, I had that thought then must’ve seen something shiny, got distracted, and forgot about it. It wasn’t until YESTERDAY when I saw a weeks-old photo of my friends’ kids on Facebook, arms laden with toys for those less fortunate that I slapped my head in a shoulda-had-a-V8 kinda way and remembered my intention.

Oh well.

Of course, it’s never too late to help others. All those soup kitchens still need donations and help and homeless kids need toys and clothes even though the Christmas spirit has been packed away and stowed in the attic for a year.

And it’s not like my kids learned nothing about the finer points of gift giving this year. There were plenty of gift swapping exchanges between them—trading toys they’d gotten that they decided they didn’t like as much as the thing their sister got. Inevitably once the new recipient of the item showed interest in it, the original owner howled to have it back. And Big Sis Kate, who’d usually contrived the often-unfair trade, would call Indian Giver. Which of course, we were always careful to point out should be Native American Giver.

They’ll learn eventually.

Other lessons in giving and receiving took place, and not just with the kids. After a long campaign between my three sisters and I, I’d tiraded against getting the ‘rents iPads feeling certain they didn’t want and/or wouldn’t use them. Instead I convinced one sib that a year-long subscription to The New York Times was just what they needed. On Day One of our visit home—with zero shopping days remaining—I saw that they already got the Times. D’oh! (And they LOVED the iPads they got from my other sister.)

This, I’ll note, was my follow up act to the previous year’s attempt at paternal gift giving. I’d decided a donation to a school in Africa was just what the man who had everything would appreciate. Paige’s preschool has a sister school in Zimbabwe and the kids there needed water canteens for their epic walks to school. After conferring with a sister on this donation-in-Dad’s-name concept, I was convinced that a gift card to a local restaurant would be more appreciated.

Dad called that Christmas, his voice cracking with emotion, to report he’d received the best gifts ever that morning. His wife had paid for some third-world kids to have surgery on their cleft palates. Another of my sisters bought desks for a dirt-floored school somewhere in Africa.

“Such incredible, thoughtful gifts,” he croaked huskily. “It was really the best Christmas ever.”

Seemed silly at that point to inquire if they were looking forward to their dinner out.

This Christmas also provided us with lessons in re-gifting. Dad and his wife received a bag of red and green dog biscuits. For their pooch, of course. They have one of those immensely-adored retirement dogs who lives the life of Cleopatra. No nutritional or manufacturing information came with the canine treats—they were in a clear plastic bag cinched with a festive red bow.

The dog treats were deemed suspect. References to babies dying in China from bad formula were made. Undaunted by the potential harm they could cause I grabbed the sack before heading to visit friends who have two very large, very hungry dogs. Those nefarious biscuits might take down Dad’s small Dachshund, but my friends have a German Shepherd and a Great Dane. I figured a few bum biscuits were less likely to kill them, based on their body mass alone.

Batting the muzzles of the dogs away, my friend took the bag, thanked me and holding it up out of reach, twirled it around to find an ingredient list. Did I know, she asked, if they contained chicken or beef? Turns out that Duke, their Great Dane, is allergic to the processed versions of those proteins. But, she said, setting the bag on her counter, her dog walkers’ dogs would most certainly appreciate the biscuits.

Or would they?

Let it be known that there’s a bag of Christmas-colored doggie treats currently making their way ’round South Eastern New England like some hot-potato fruitcake.

So then, my gifting take-aways to keep in mind for next year:

1. Reserve volunteer opportunities early at soup kitchens. Turns out those are some of the hottest reservations to book at the holidays.

2. Prioritize gift-buying impulses in this order: anything related to children in Africa or made by Apple.

3. Do not consult with—or lobby to—your siblings when buying gifts for your parents. Both approaches inevitably backfire.

4. When it comes to selecting gifts for pets, dispense with any notions of packaged snacks or treats. Opt instead for a gift card to the local fancy restaurant.

Wat I Did on My Summr Vacashin, by Kate

We’re back from our epic, excellent, six-week trip to the East Coast.

We spent time in five states, saw dozens of friends, had one car get hit and another break down, and—despite what my friend Drew thinks—attended only one parade. But it was a doozy.

My father and his wife should get blood transfusions to revive themselves after the tantrums, food fights, sibling spats, and other appalling behavior we exhibited while under their roof. And I wish their cleaners luck removing all the sand we dragged in.

The girls ate three things all summer: hot dogs, carrots, and ice cream. A couple times they had corn. Me? I lugged my juicer everywhere and obsessively counted my steps with my FitBit.

We visited the town library A LOT, and leathered up our skin from many long days at the beach.

So much more happened, but I’ve got a cold and I’m cranky and I’m on Day 30—yes, THIRTY—of solo parenting. So I did what any self-respecting, lazy-ass mother would do: I had my kid do it. Which is to say, I asked my six-year-old, Kate, to come up with a post on our summer vacation.

She LOVED the idea. She’s told every person who’s called our house, every friend we’ve seen, our fish and our mailman that she’s going to be featured here. So this decision was also a good PR move.

Kate wrote this herself (on paper first) and picked out all the photos. Keep in mind she’s at a groovy progressive school where phonetic spelling reigns supreme. As do exclamation points, apparently.

I got a shot of her entering some last-minute edits. She’s already asked me how old you have to be to have your own blog. So look out world.

Wat I Did on My Summr Vacashin, by Kate 

I love sumrre! It rocks!

I wint to Bristol! My sister Paige ate a lot of donuts.

I saw the 4th ov Joliye prad! There wre horsis ther. It wus loooooooong! The bands wer asam!

I have a unckl hoo is a dog. He is so cut! His name is Bruno.

In Cape Code it was fun. We wint on a bote cold Bristol Girl! It wus fun!!!!! We saw seals. Thay wre cyot!

We wint to to Broklin. I got a doll. A Amarukin Girl Doll. My frend gav it to me!

We wint on a long driv to Vrginya! Ther we wint to a weding. The brid wus byotefll!

My grandma gave me a french brade.

I lost 2 teeth. I got a silvr dolr!

We wnt to Cunnetecot. Thear we wnt toobing.

My hayr trnd green from a pool! It looks bettar now.

We had a grate sumre!

The Name Game

On the brink of my eighth year of marriage I’ve discovered the key component of successful matrimony: that both parties find stupid, ongoing jokes hi-larious.

This is what it is like in my marriage. There are things that are so horrendously obtuse–absurd things that we’ve joked about for years—that we still laugh wine out of our noses about. Yes, it’s the spewing of wine from our nasal cavities–a sort of pinot noir neti pot cleansing—that keeps our love alive.

That, and we both hate mushrooms.

Anyway, one of the things we find freakin’ side-splitting has to do with names. And pretending we regret what we named our girls whenever we hear another, well… ‘noteworthy’ name.

Of course, the names don’t even need to be first names. Anything ridiculous will do.

Take last night. Had we been watching the Olympics together (versus me watching on my parents’ TV in Rhode Island and Mark watching LIVE in London), when the female swimmer Ranomi Kromodijojo’s name appeared on the screen, in a matter of seconds either Mark or I would say, “Remember when we almost named Kate Kromodijojo?”

I know, I know. It’s only funny to us.

Opportunities for this name game ABOUND. And thank God, really, because our marriage is strengthened mightily every time we repeat this joke.

Just this weekend, with Mark nowhere in sight, I was visiting friends in Connecticut who offered to take me and the girls to an amusement park called—get this—Lake Quassapaug. QUASSA-paug? How freakin’ beautiful is THAT? I couldn’t resist. I turned to my friend’s niece Sarah and say, “Your parents almost named you Quassapaug you know.”

I got an excellent tween-aged whatchu-talkin’-bout-Willis look. Then she walked away.

Anyway, the past several weeks in Rhode Island have provided rich fodder for this game, specifically in the arena of Native American town names. Like, on the drive to my dad’s from Logan Airport we pass a town called Assonet. There’s just so much to love about that. It never fails to pique my stuck-in-second-grade sense of humor.

In fact, I believe on more than one occasion I’ve busted out in my best 80′s Newcleus voice, “Ass ON it. Ass ON it. Ass on-non-on-non-on ON it.”

Think of those poor soul’s at Assonet High. College admissions officers must accept them based on pity alone. Who cares about his SAT scores! Get that child OUT of that tragically-named town!

Yawgoo Valley, Wickaboxet, Mashapaug, Pettaquamscutt Rock, the Woonasquatucket River. If I had a piece of wampum for every excellent Indian name I’ve encountered this vacation I’d be a rich rich woman.

I can’t imagine saying these words in every day parlance. My friend’s son played little league against a team from Wanskuck. What do the kids from that team chant to psyche themselves up before a game? “Wanskuck! We don’t suck!”

A couple weeks ago I got fired up on the idea of renaming Paige Wampanoag (pronounced WOMP-uh-nog) after a small, un-impressive highway—the Wampanoag Trail—we sometimes take to Providence. After several weeks of blissful Rhode Island livin’, it seemed a fitting homage. Or rather, a wicked good idea. (We’d also considered Sachuest for Paige, to honor our favorite Newport beach, since it’s other name, Second Beach, wasn’t as pretty with McClusky.)

As for big sister Kate, I was thinking of rebranding her with a more food-related moniker: Little Neck. You like?! Quahog (pronounced KO-hog)—the giant hard-shelled clam the state’s renowned for—is another contender, though we could always employ it as a middle name.

Anyway, I’m en route to New York to the annual BlogHer conference. I had grand plans to redesign this blog before the event—like making the push to get in shape before your wedding day. I even considered renaming the thing. But as you can see, I never quite got around to it. And honestly, the way my brain’s been working this summer, it’s probably best I didn’t.

Things Dads Do

The other day The Husband delightedly informed me that he’d taught our six-year-old how to pee in the shower.

I was so proud.

I mean, this from the man who (until I set him straight) believed you shouldn’t flush Kleenex down the toilet because it’s somehow different from toilet paper. And here I’d always thought sending pee down the shower pipe was verboten. There’s so much we can learn from each other.

Having Mark coach our sweet six-year-old on such a great time-saving tip made me think of all the other gaps I’d leave in our children’s knowledge base if I didn’t have him around. This thought was underscored by the fact that I’m on Day 13 of solo parenting. (Not that I’m counting.) That’s because Mark had to touch base at his San Francisco office before jaunting off to cover the Olympics in London. All the while I’ve remained on vacation on the East Coast with the girls, clinging to my charming hometown like a rabid koala.

All together, I’ll be tending to the child-folk for a sum total of 31 nights (32 days). But again, who’s counting?

Anyway, I started thinking about the other things that Daddy does that the kids will miss out on while he’s gone.

Changing batteries: This is something that I really never even CONSIDER doing. Paige could be ecstatically interacting with a toy that suddenly craps out and I’ll report through her tears, “Well, Dad will be home in seven hours, and he can change the batteries then.” I can’t imagine what I’d do about this if I were a single parent. I’m somehow trapped in some ivory tower were battery changing is just not done. Without Mark I can imagine the smoke detectors in the house starting to beep. I’d have to take them off the wall and silence them with a hammer. If any of the kids’ toys ever ran out of juice we’d have to just toss them in the give-away pile.

Gluing stuff: Not far from The Husband’s “Needs new batteries” pile I’ve amassed a small “Needs gluing” pile. This includes the shattered legs of a porcelain doll Kate insisted on taking to a taqueria for dinner and promptly dropped on the sidewalk. (She may never walk again.) It also includes a tea-set teapot handle, and distressingly, the head of a Cinderella piggy bank. Gluing is man’s work. Mark reinforces this in my mind when he informs the children of the special types of glue that he needs for various broken items. Though that could just be his way of staving off having to deal with this chore. That Cinderella head has been unhinged for some time now. Whatever the case, the whole glue scene is Greek to me. If something breaks while Daddy is away, maybe all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can swing by to help me out—though I hear their track record isn’t so good.

Making pancakes: Do you know of any mother who makes pancakes for her kids on the weekends? NO. This is what father’s are uniquely wired to do. Sometimes my kids ask me to make them pancakes, and I just laugh. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how two-mom households ever enjoy homemade pancake breakfasts. I will have to ask around about this and get back to you.

Teaching driving: This is blessedly not something I’ll have to concern myself with while Mark is away. Unless they suddenly lower the legal driving age by ten years. But when the time comes this SO seems like a Dad-will-do-it kinda thing. I know I bucked and jolted and skidded across the Newport Creamery parking lot when my dad endeavored to instruct me on driving a stick shift. All that tension and repeated bellowing of “EASE UP on the clutch–EASE UP ON IT!” seems to clearly be father’s work. (See also: Teaching Skiing.)

In our house Mark also does a bunch of things I realize many other dads probably don’t. And for that I’m grateful. Anything remotely technical, gadget-y or computerish, of course, falls to him. As does the assembly of any toys more complicated than putting a tube top on a Polly Pocket. (Although I did assemble a high chair once, and I’m proud to report that no children were ever injured sitting in that chair.)

The Husband is also the primary kid bather in our division of labor, and as a subset of those responsibilities he most often clips the children’s nails.

He performs all the small surgeries in the house too–removing splinters, trimming hangnails, washing dirt out of skinned knees, and doing whatever is needed to blisters, burns, and boil-like things (which I’d really rather not know about). After these episodes Kate invariably staggers from the bathroom brandishing big bandages or tourniquets and proclaiming, “Daddy is just like a doctor.”

When the time comes for me to contemplate cosmetic surgery, I’m considering just having Mark do it to defray costs. But hopefully, in the month that he’s away the toll of taking on parenting without my dear husband won’t be so great I’ll need to accelerate the scheduling of any anti-aging surgeries. Which is a good thing since as soon as he walks in the door I imagine there will be a lot of gluing and battery-changing that he’ll have to catch up on.

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By the way, you can follow Mark’s excellent coverage of the Olympics for Wired at Wired Playbook.

Where I Learned How to Throw a Party

Whenever someone comes to our house I set out a dish of nuts. It’s some old school hostess impulse that I just can’t suppress.

My husband mocks me for this. In that good-natured way spouses goad each other about idiosyncrasies they’ll have to endure in the other person for the rest of their lives.

For the longest time I explained my setting-out-of-nuts as a behavior I gleaned from my parents. In ancient days I remember their cocktail parties where bowls of peanuts and cashews littered every end table in the house. The soul-mate link between nuts and booze was imprinted on me at an early age.

But last week I realized where I got it all from. Not just the nut thing, but any knack or know-how for party-throwing in general. I didn’t learn it from my parents, my college friends, or even my nut-mocking husband. Turns out I learned how to throw a party from my hometown.

This came to me while reading The Bristol Phoenix, the fine local paper I’ve no doubt Sarah Palin reads religiously. (She was, I assume, hesitant to reveal this to Katie Couric for fear that the paper’s exclusive, small readership would be threatened by mention of it in the mainstream media.) So there I was on the treadmill at Dad’s house, pouring (quite literally) over the Phoenix‘s July 4th retrospective edition.

Bristol, Rhode Island—if you didn’t already know—is home to “the oldest and longest-running Fourth of July parade.” Or, as the locals say it, “Forta” July. The Husband recently asked me just what “longest-running” meant, and I explained (sighing) that the town has thrown this party every year for 227 years straight. Longer’n anyone else.

Each parade is also long-running in and of itself. They tend to last three hours, sometimes more. No joke. They’re epic. Replete with marching bands from as far off as Minnesota, Mummers, politicians, jugglers, Indians, war vets, vintage cars, ear-splitting cannons, majorettes, and Miss Forth of July and her resplendent lip-glossed court.

And I don’t want to brag, but when I was a kid Lorenzo Lamas was in the parade once too.

Bristolians have a rabid, all-consuming love for this event. Their patriotism borders on the obsessive. How to explain… You know that one street in some towns where every house goes turbo-overboard with Christmas decorations? Like, if you buy a place there you’re committing to spending weeks on a ladder hanging lights and have to shell out a staggering sum to recreate Santa’s toy shop on your front lawn?

Well, the whole town of Bristol is like that one crazy uber-Christmas street. But instead of animatronic reindeer and dads in Santa suits handing out candy canes, patriotic bunting is swathed across every house. Red, white, and blue flowers fill each garden bed and window box. And to mark the legendary parade route the lines down the streets are painted—you guessed it—red, white, and blue. Oh, and it looks like Betsy Ross barfed up flags over every inch of the town.

I’ve been in homes with red, white, and blue toilet paper. For realz. Even your ass can get in on the action in Bristol.

I’ve talked up this event to roughly every person I’ve ever met and no one I’ve brought has ever felt disappointed by the divine spectacle that is the Bristol Forta July Parade. Just this year my friend Lily came from California with her family. Her husband spent the day shooting photos like a madman and muttering, “I want to move to this town. I want to move to this town.”

What I’m trying to say? My hometown knows how to throw a party.

So then, here are The 6 Things My Hometown has Taught Me about How to Throw a Party:

Over-serve your guests: On Forta July every grill is Bristol buckles under the weight of burgers, sausages, and these local hot dogs called saugies. Vats of chourico and peppers sputter on every stovetop. And backyard coolers are stockpiled with bottomless supplies of canned, volume-drinkin’ beer. Everyone eats and drinks “a wicked lot,” and there are always more leftovers than you know what to do with. It’s perfect. In my worst nightmares I host a party where we run out of food or drinks. It’s an Italian girl’s most vile fear.

The more the merrier: 364 days a year Bristol‘s a sleepy seaside town of 20,000. But on July 4th the place is off the hook. Town officials claim as many as 250,000 revelers have attended some year’s festivities, though they may’ve inhaled a bit too much cannon smoke when coming up with those numbers. At any rate, at 5AM you can start staking out sidewalk space with blankets and lawn chairs. And the place is suh-warming at the stroke of five. Call New Englanders crusty, unfriendly, and provincial, but this town welcomes one and all on Forta July, and come they do. I guess that’s what a 227-year-old reputation for a good time will get you.

Build the hype:  Weeks before The Fourth there are orange cart derbies, firemen’s water battles, concerts, fireworks, a carnival, and large patriotic Mr. Potato Head statues everywhere you turn. (Don’t ask.) It’s pre-party central. When I was a kid there was even a greasy pole-climbing contest. (Don’t ask.) If you’re not in the Forta July spirit by parade day you might as well move to Canada. Now personally, I don’t have pre-parties before any parties that I throw (though the greasy pole thing isn’t a half-bad idea), but I do sent out invitations. There’s something about having a paper invite on your fridge for a few weeks before a shindig that helps to get you fired up for a good time.

Make it a regular event: One of the best things about Forta July is knowing it’ll come again next year. Four years ago The Husband and I threw a Christmas par-tay—a kid-banishing get-a-sitter kinda event. It’s become tradition. Mark wears a plaid blazer and brews a toxic vat of bourbon punch. I bake a terrifying tower of cookies and line the path to our door with paper bag luminaries. And we have a ham. It’s the second Saturday after Thanksgiving every year. Long before invites go out people tell us our party is on their calendars. Friends have texted me in October to say they’ve found the perfect dress. I love nothing more than a party that keeps giving year after year. Apparently others do too.

Uphold tradition… and toss in some surprises: Parts of the Bristol parade have been the same since I was a baby—likely decades (maybe centuries) longer. There are always marching bands, Budweiser Clydesdales, white-uniformed sailors, and Boy Scout troops. The parade  starts with the Bristol P.D. (on motorcycles) and ends with the town’s fire trucks. There’s beautiful security in knowing how it will all be. Well, not all. There’s always plenty of new crap too—skateboarding stunt kids, Colonial-clad singing troupes, floats featuring 4-H goats. Stuff you’re delighted by or need to bitch about later. Give the people what they want, I say. But toss out some unexpected elements too. Especially if you know of a good band where everyone’s dressed like the cast from Little House on the Prairie.

Happy hosts, happy guests. Why do so many people suck at having fun at their own parties? On Forta July most Bristolians have houses packed like clown cars with out-of-town guests, but I assure you the fine residents of this town are still having themselves a BIG OLD TIME, almost like it’s Texas or something it’s so big, the good time they’re having. What I’m saying is, it’s large. I make it my business to have fun at my own parties, even if someone has spilled red wine on the white dog or knocked over the potpourri bowl while having sex in my bathroom.

Oh and the other thing? Set out a bowl of nuts. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen done here on the Fourth of July, but the way I see it, it can’t hurt.

Guest Post: Photographer Mary McHenry

I’ve been thinking a lot about my upcoming trip to Rhode Island. Every summer I seem to tack another week onto our visit there. It’s so heavenly with the beaches and the old friends and the small town vibe. Not to mention the love-fest between my dad and stepmother and my kids.

This year since Mark will be in London covering the Olympics and I’m not working, I decided the girls and I should just stay ’til I go to BlogHer. So we’ll be there for about five weeks, with some jaunts to Cape Cod, New Yawk, and a wedding in Virginia.

Yippee! We leave Saturday. I can already taste the Del’s lemonade.

As it turns out, some of my best friends in Oakland venture back East for a chunk of summer too. My crazy-talented photographer friend, Mary McHenry, is one of them.

Mary has a fabulous photo blog that’ll keep you up all night scrolling through to the next post. Mine, as you know, is all about words. It struck me that a guest post from Mary about her summers in Maine would be a real treat for you all.

Lucky for you, she agreed to do it.

Enjoy!

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Do you have one of those places that you keep traveling back to, year after year? You know, like your personal Wailing Wall? Maine is my spot.

I was born in a little coastal town in Maine and lived there until I was 12, when we moved to… Miami!  I know, strange.  My mom learned to salsa dance and order Cuban food. I learned there are such things as “brand names” and “different religions.”  This strange world was surprising and fun and we made wonderful new friends.

But as soon as school ended in June, we would pack up our cats and go back to Maine.

An old summer house had been passed onto to us, which we share with a bunch of cousins. Imagine faded shingles, fine chipped china, no TV, and the same Newsweek in the bathroom since 1986.

Many years later, I still return every summer. I go through all sorts of life changes but the house and land I visit there doesn’t. There is something so deeply comforting about this.

These days I make this pilgrimage from Oakland, California with my own family. We grumble over the expensive tickets and the ten-plus hour flying days, and we arrive at the house bedraggled at around 1AM. But it doesn’t matter. It all falls away—in fact, the world falls away—and I am back.

My bones just feel right there. I see my children, now four and six, starting to form the same connection to the place. I want the smells and feelings of Maine to imprint in their little psyches so they too will have this strange calling to come back.

Mary McHenry is a documentary wedding and portrait photographer based in the Bay Area. To see more of her work visit www.marymchenry.com. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Sundays with Dad

I’m taking a writing class on Tuesday nights. I care that much about improving the quality of the crap you read here.

We do a half-hour writing exercise at every class. This always kind of annoys me because I figure we can just write at home. But then if I end up liking what I write, I’m not annoyed any more because I can read it out loud to the other boys and girls. And I like attention.

Last week we analyzed an essay about cooking, that turned out to be a big metaphor for sex. For our in-class work, the teacher asked us to write about something we know a lot about. It could be about anything—playing tennis, fixing a carburetor, painting your toenails.

There’s an attractive woman in my class with a really skinny butt, who I was shocked to hear has a daughter in her twenties. After I read my piece last week she said, “Okay, so with that one?” then pressed her index finger into the table, “Post to blog.”

So I decided I would. Because I always listen to women whose asses are smaller than mine. And because I had nothing else to post today.

I thought of saving this to run on Father’s Day, but for me growing up, every Sunday was Father’s Day.

So here’s to you, Daddio. I love you madly, and expect you to share this with everyone at your Rotary Club. You know I like all the extra traffic I can get.

And happy weekend to the rest of you. I’ll be camping with my daughter’s school. (Plenty of blog fodder to come out of that, no doubt.)

See you back here next week. xoxox

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Sundays with Dad

When your parents get divorced when you’re a kid you play lots of miniature golf. And eat lots of soft-serve ice cream, and get to order soda out at restaurants, and sometimes even see movies that are PG-rated when you’re really only allowed to see the G ones.

This, at least, was my experience on my Sundays with Dad.

But mini golf wasn’t always the plan. Some days we’d get a wild hair to go further afield from our little hometown. We’d wander down rural routes to flea markets, or make the hour-long drive to Faneuil Hall in Boston in his tiny Mercedes, which he pronounced MER-sid-eez and insisted was the correct pronunciation.

That car was an extension of Dad himself—a luxury, an indulgence. Something my Mom—who I lived with and who set the rules, doled out the punishments and certainly never even ate at restaurants forget allowed me to have soda—something that she, who drove an old beater Volvo, would roll her eyes and say, “That car.”

On Sundays at 10:30AM when he’d pick me up, Dad would pull “that car” into our big semi-circular driveway and beep the horn for me to come out. This was divorce East Coast style. He and mom never talked, and avoided contact at all costs. Every weekend he’d beep, and every weekend Mom would say, “Does he HAVE to beep that damn horn? Can you please tell him not to do that?”

And every time I’d forget, because by the time I got out to the car and climbed in and slammed the door, I was transported into the special world of Dad. My mind was already racing about where we’d be going, what we’d get to do. Mom and her requests were a million miles away.

And on the drive to wherever it was we went, we’d talk and talk and talk. Dad talked to me like a grown-up. He got excited by my ideas, what I was learning about in school. He’d add new thoughts, challenge me. Share stories that seemed like the kinds of things I imagined he talked to other grown-ups about.

“Do you know what really happened when that volcano erupted in Pompeii?” he’d ask.

Or, “The president has really painted himself into a corner this time…”

We’d talk about travel, or geography, or politics. Or I’d hear some story about when he was a kid and how his mother saved some choking dog that everyone else thought was rabid.

And sometimes he indulged the kid in me. On the country road to Newport he’d suddenly declare, “Okay, I’ll close my eyes and you tell me where to drive.” He kept his left eye open, I assume—the one I couldn’t see from my passenger-seat vantage point. And even though I think I knew that then, I’d still try to pretend I thought both his eyes were shut. I’d howl and cry out, “Slow down! Wait—we’re veering into the other lane!” Or, “Right turn–now! Now! NOW!”

When we’d get out of the car, he’d hold my hand, and we’d do the three squeezes thing. Do other people know this too, or was it our own special code? Three squeezes is the code that means ‘I love you.’ My husband does that now sometimes, but I think it must be because I told him about it from Dad.

On one of our Sundays together we saw the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. Or maybe we saw them twice. (This spurned my epic pen pal relationship with Mishu, the Smallest Man in the World.) Dad was always getting tickets from clients to things that came into town, like random radio station events or the Harlem Globetrotters.

We even were invited to ride on a Goodyear Blimp once, though in that foolish didn’t-realize-what-I-was-passing-on way I decided I didn’t want to go. I remember I was nervous that there wouldn’t be a bathroom onboard.

To this day, when I see a blimp in the sky I laugh to myself wondering if there’s a toilet up there.

Getting Schooled

I have a shameful confession to make. I have a bit of an educational superiority complex.

It’s not like I’m some Ivy-Leaguer with any real reason to have this attitude. But when I recently signed up for a writing class in San Francisco, I was a bit leery about, well, about the level that the other writers would be performing at. (See? Total snob. Terrible!)

I was also uncertain about the teacher. She had great reviews online. Students seemed to adore her. But she’d spent the lion’s share of her career at a community college, and teaching adult-ed classes at random adult-ed-class places. She’d had some books published—maybe even won an award or two—but nothing I’d ever heard of.

Worst case scenario, the class could be a waste of time. (And money.) But it might at least focus my writerly energies a bit.

Writing is so solitary and personal. And if you don’t want to do it, you just don’t. But I’d been feeling like I could use a personal trainer for my writing. You know, some tough-love coach to put me on the machines that I don’t like to go on, and force me to do 20 more reps than I’d ever do on my own. Painful in the moment, but beneficial long-term.

This blog has become like a comfortable elliptical machine that I spend thirty minutes on, wipe my brow, then go crack a beer. I need someone to force me over to the kettle bells, or make me do a shit-load of squats. And if I ever hope to write a book, I need to be nudged out into the cold for a long, long run.

I was also hopeful that at least one or two of the other students might be good—at writing, of course, but also at giving smart feedback on other people’s work. A class I took in ninth grade seems to have set the standard in my mind for the value of sharing work aloud, and the joy and pain of group critiques. I’ve been wanting to form a writer’s group, and a class seems like a good setting to suss out others to join me.

On the first day of class I parked my car at 2:28. And as I grabbed my bag and marveled at my timeliness I was suddenly struck by the thought that 2:30 was an odd time to start a class. 2:00 would’ve made more sense. Moments later as I walked into the loft where our class meets, it was immediately apparent that I was late. I’d missed the first half-hour, the ever-critical why-I’m-here and what-kind-of-writing-experience-I-have introductions. I’d have to work overtime at our 10-minute tea breaks, casually interrogating everyone and sizing ‘em up.

Last week—our second time meeting—we did an in-class exercise. When it was time to share what we’d written, I didn’t love what I had, but figured it would cut the mustard. Someone volunteered to read first. And can I just say, they were good. Very good. As in, I looked at my laptop screen meekly and wondered if I’d tackled the assignment correctly. Another person read and I quietly closed the lid on my computer. I could just volunteer to read another time…

Mid-way through Reader #3, my superiority complex left the building. I don’t anticipate it will be coming back.

As for the teacher, she invited us to a women’s writing conference at her community college. An old friend of mine calls junior college “high school with ashtrays.” I love that. It reflects, once again, my shameful snobbery about schools.

Anyway, I went to the event on Saturday. And it rocked. Two impressive and super-cool authors read. (And I’m totally making my book club read this book, written by one of them.) Some students got awards for their writing. And there was an open mic on the theme of “roots” that I participated in at the end of the program. Because my teacher encouraged me to. Which I thank her for.

I got some really nice feedback—both during my reading, and from folks coming up to me afterwards. A young Asian man who I think was semi-retarded even tried to pick me up.

So I’m sharing here what I read. It’s something I wrote last February while visiting my dad in Rhode Island. I’ve changed it at bit since I originally posted it.

Here’s to me and my new attitude about school. I’m polishing up an apple to bring to my teacher this week, and I’m planning to give those other student-writers a run for their money.

Wish me luck.

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The Bristol Two-Step

We were in the library, so I decided to let out a blood-curdling scream.

I’d been chatting with the librarian. There are two gray-haired gals who still serve there—at my hometown bibliotheque—since back when I was a kid. I mentioned that to one of them once, thinking we might have a nice moment. Instead she looked at me like she’d sucked a lemon.

But yesterday I took a chance and whispered to Kate as we were checking out books, “The woman who’s helping us was the librarian when I was a girl.” And, thankfully, she looked up and smiled.

Then we did the who-are-you? Bristol Two-Step. Which is to say, she asked me what my name was and who my parents are. And when I told her she said, “Oh sure” then listed off the names of all the streets we ever lived on in town. “Now your mom was up on Hope Street for a long time, then she moved to Beach Road, right?”

“Your mother,” she said, hunched over the desk leaning towards me. “Her and my friend Dottie DeRosa? Those two were out in their gardens at the very first signs of spring. We’d say the ground is still frozen, but there’s Vicki out there gardening.”

I admit my awareness of my daughters’ whereabouts had faltered a bit. I was drawn in by the kindly librarian. I wanted to hear another little story about my mom. I devour whatever tidbits of her life anyone shares with me. But before I could coax more out of her, I looked up to see Paige step into the empty elevator, and the door start to close.

“PAAAAAAAAAAAIGE!” I bellowed, as I did a sideways-flying Superman-type lunge for the door. I wedged my hand in without a second to spare. Blessedly the door lurched back open. Paige was standing inside smiling, as I skidded into her like home base.

After that wake-the-dead Mama shriek, those librarians should have no trouble remembering me the next time I drop in.

At dinner last night, at my favorite chicken parm place, a couple walked in and sat at the table next to us. Some sort of comment on Paige’s ability to pack away the pasta ensued. Then my father held out his hand towards the man, but squinted by way of saying he didn’t remember his name.

Cue the Bristol Two-Step.

“Oh yes,” my father said, hearing the guy owns the photo shop in town. “You live on Court Street! My cousin Jimmy Rennetti used to own that house.”

There have to be a million annoying things about the lack of anonymity that comes with living in a small town. But this absurd form of interconnectedness is so extreme–is such a weird form of sport–it’s brilliantly entertaining. At least for someone who only experiences it for a week or two every year. And despite the fact that I’ve been away so long, I love that I still have enough hometown equity to play a fair game myself.

At the end of our meal a little girl wandered over to say hi to Kate, her mom trailing behind her. Kate, demonically thrilled to be in possession of a piece of chocolate cake, was disinterested in the other child’s attention. So I tried to jump-start their conversation.

“Are you in kindergarten, honey? Where do you go to school?”

When she responded “Rockwell”—my own elementary school alma mater—I nearly squealed with glee.

Though really, of course she goes there. It’s a small town—not many schools. Not much has changed since I was a kid.

But as someone whose grown accustomed to the sprawling anonymity of the Bay Area—of Oakland, for God’s sake—learning that I had something in common with this little stranger felt like such a sweet cozy coincidence.

Sometimes when I’m back in Rhode Island I somehow forget I’m there, then I find myself getting excited to see someone wearing a RISD sweatshirt. Or I’ll be driving along, then perk up at the sight of an Ocean State license plate.

Proof that this place that I think of as home is somewhere I’m not used to spending much time any more. Somewhere along the line I got re-programmed as a Californian, so my default mental setting is that any Rhode-Islandisms I ever come across must be far-flung artifacts that’ve managed to make their way out West. Like me.

At any rate, Kate’s would-be restaurant friend didn’t find my enthusiasm about Rockwell School far-fetched. “Did you have Miss Sousa too?” she asked, wide-eyed.

Aw, honey. The thing is, I probably did have a Miss Sousa, but a very different one than yours.

There’s a strong tug of temptation to run around and see a ton of people when I’m Back East. To schedule non-stop activities, and of course hit up all my favorite places to eat.

But on this visit I’m just trying to melt into the scenery. Just enjoy it at a normal intake dosage—not feel compelled to have to soak it all up so frantically. So aside from a grandparent-sponsored jaunt to the toy store, and dinner out for Dad’s birthday, the only real plans we have are to go to story-time at the library.

In fact, we arranged to meet Kate’s new friend from the restaurant there. Which is great since I never got a chance to ask her what street she lives on, or who her teachers were at preschool.

Tears of a Non-Football Fan

About a month ago I cried about the New England Patriots. This took place the night before the Super Bowl, mind you. And it had nothing to do with the team, their ensuing game, or giving a rat’s ass about football whatsoever. It had to do with the last time they won the Super Bowl. Or at least, what was happening in my life at that time.

For some reason I thought about this as I was brushing my teeth to go to bed. As I thought of our next day’s plans—going to a friend’s house to watch the game—a distinct image popped into my mind, and started me bawling.

It was of a long table that was set up as you entered the cafeteria at Rhode Island Hospital. It was 2004 and the Patriots had just won the Super Bowl. And three adult goofballs dressed top to bottom in Patriots-branded, -logoed, and -colored clothing, were selling t-shirts. Or giving away memorabilia. Or something. The women were wearing plastic dangly football helmet earrings, the man some sort of over-sized foam hat.

They were assaultingly upbeat, overly-chatty, and blindingly bright. If Saturday Night Live were to do a parody of three football fans who were manning a table selling sports schwag, this would be what they’d look like.

I half-expected Will Ferrell to jump out from behind the rack of cafeteria trays and start doing a Patriots cheer.

My mother and I managed to make our way past the Patriots posse without becoming ensnared in their boosterism. To call Mom and I football fans would be an outrageous, imprisonable lie. Neither of us had ever really watched a game, nor did we understand the most fundamental rules of play. And, as with all things we personally didn’t care for, we felt compelled to mock those who did.

I have no idea what it was my mother muttered under her breath to me that day, but I’ve no doubt it was brutal and hilarious.

So then, it was that little flash of a memory that got me teary. Okay, so maybe it was closer to sobby.

Thinking of that dumb table of dumb people was like a time machine blast back to the days when my mom and I were no stranger to that hospital. In fact, we had little routines set up—bunches of them. I’d drop her at the curb, park the car, meet her in the waiting room. I’d have my needlepoint, she’d have her crossword puzzle books. Between appointments we’d moon over how sweet her oncologist was, and we’d walk the long mural-lined hallways to the cafeteria where we’d both get the soup we’d decided “wasn’t half-bad.”

We came to know nurses. We smiled at receptionists. We complimented cheerful hot pink cardigans. And every new doctor my mother met she’d insist was “about 14 years old.”

The telling of it makes it seem nearly pleasant, and in some ways we made it so. Mom was a pro at pretending none of it was happening—so I had a good mentor. She’d shop at her small-town grocery store weighing 90 pounds and wearing a wig, but lecture my sisters and I to not tell anyone she was sick. Everyone just played along.

Minus her intermittently nauseous chemo days, or the bad-news doctor’s appointments, or the moments when she seemed to be vying for Most Ornery Patient (for which she was a worthy contender) we maintained a sort of emotional equilibrium.

But this veneer of pleasantness came with a persistent low-grade stomach ache. Mine that is. Little breaks in the day—counting out a fist-full of pills and marking them off on the refrigerator spreadsheet—reminded me that my days having a mother were a limited time engagement.

An undercurrent of heartache was lurking inside me, waiting for any chance it could get to rise up from the strict diet of denial that my mother had put us all on.

Thinking of that damn Patriots table was like an express train to that slice of time. A stretch I rarely harken back to now. There’s not much reason to, really. Most memories skip over that period to all the pre-cancer days. And in a numbers game kind of way, there are simply many more of those for me to draw from. Thank God.

But here’s what’s weird. As I sobbed with my foamy toothbrush sticking out of my mouth, it somehow felt kinda good to feel so bad. To connect with such a raw emotion about my mom again. All these years have diluted that heart-wrenching time for me. Now I’m used to her not being here. I’ve nearly lost the urge to pick up the phone and call her (unless I hear interesting news about a childhood friend). I can even think of her now and feel happy.

Tapping into this bygone sorrow got me thinking I should go back to the hospital on my upcoming trip to Rhode Island. I was even thinking I’d take the girls.

I’m not sure why this seemed like a good idea, or what I was intending to do there. Trust me, the chicken soup wasn’t that good. I guess I hoped wandering through one of our last stomping grounds might make me feel closer to my mom—even if it was in a sad way.

Or maybe I was hoping some nurse would recognize me—seven years later. You always want to think you were memorable. That you were their favorites, right?

I got back from Rhode Island last week, and while I was there I never made it to the hospital. By the time I touched down—hell, by the time I woke up the day after my tooth brushing tear-fest—I was in a totally different space. In fact, when I thought again about the table of goofball football fans I realized something about that moment. As my mother and I were walking past and secretly mocking them, they were looking at us and seeing a somewhat shell-shocked woman guiding along her older, very sick mother.

Interesting to put yourself in the foam Patriots hat sometime.

Anyway, those poor chumps were no doubt just trying to bring some cheer to people’s days. Distract folks from their current states of mind. And that day—and again the other night—in a twisted way, they certainly did.