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.

First Cross-Country Solo Flight

Tomorrow Kate and I fly to Boston alone. Mark comes on Friday, since someone in this family has to work.

Kate has already been on four round-trip flights, only one of which she and I took alone. It was a short flight to SoCal, and I figured I could withstand anything for an hour.

Generally Kate has done well on flights. She tends to lose it on landing and even though everyone says nurse the baby when you’re landing, they haven’t tried this with a baby who has no interest at that moment in eating and/or one who has already lost their shit and refuses the nipple you are woefully trying to shove in its mouth. Modesty, at that point, goes out the window–along with thoughts of ever leaving home again. But truthfully, for the majority of the flights she’s been great–with the exception of that one trip back from Boston, but that was so bad I think it’s damaging to my psyche to dredge it up from the deep place where I’ve repressed it.

So tomorrow Kate and I are staring down the barrel of a six-hour flight. My sister Ellen has flown to Asia multiple times with a baby and toddler and made it look like a drive to the grocery store. Until today I’ve been trying to emulate her and have successfully embraced a devil-may-care attitude about the whole thing–even when friends have freaked out at hearing that Kate and I were leaving before Mark. I figured a successful flight with a baby is 90% attitude, right? If I’m stressed, Kate will somehow sense it and will abandon her plan to sleep the whole time in order to persistently wail, writhe, and scream. If I adopt Ellen’s laissez-faire aero-Mom appraoch, hell, I may even get a good nap or two in along the way.

But today’s packing process has served to deliver a dose of reality. It started with the back-pack I bought to transport the car seat. When I have it on, I just need a pair of hiking boots to make me look ready to mount Everest. So, how it’ll work is I’ll wear the thing on my back as I gingerly negotiate my way down the aisle (while clutching Kate and our awkward and sizeable carry-on). If there is no one seated by me, I remove the car seat from the case (while still holding Kate?!), and buckle it into the seat next to me. If the plane is full and/or I can’t convince the masochist next to me to move to another free seat, I will have to take the gargantuan pack back down the aisle to be checked with the luggage. Oh phew–now that I walk through that in my mind I realize that should be noooo problem at all.

But wait there’s more. Luggage, that is. There’s the stroller (also checked at the end of the gateway), the world’s most immense roller bag, and the earlier-mentioned 20-ton pink carry-on packed with toys (all new and all hopefully endlessly captivating), diapers, extra clothes, food, spoons, washcloths. (Oops. Just realized I forgot a bib…) Oh, and the fragile squirmy 18-pound human.

So then, I shall muster and renew my sense of confidence and ease about this voyage! Attitude, attitude, attitude! And hopefully the kindness of a couple strangers along the way. (Shelly says that’s been imperative in her solo travels with kids.) I’m sure it’ll all be easy-peasy, but if you happen to have a free moment tomorrow, it wouldn’t hurt if you could look skyward and send some good thoughts my way.

Puppy Love

When I was little, when my family got a new dog, I’d get all excited when I woke up in the morning and remembered that there was an adorable puppy that was mine to play with as soon as I ran down the stairs. It was like a Christmas-morning feeling that went on for days.

That’s how I feel about Kate, except I start getting excited about when I get to see her again after she’s been asleep for only a few hours.

Eventually my excitement about the family dogs waned. So far that hasn’t been the case with Kate, who turns 9 months old tomorrow.

I’m so happy my family got this baby! Hooray!

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.

Our Two Trick Pony

We’re back from a weekend in Tahoe where our friends Dennis and Marcelle renewed their wedding vows and had a blow-out party on a fabulous deck overlooking the lake. It was a fantastic party, chock-full of great friends who I’ve known since first touching down in SF some 14 years ago. Today my hangover has a hangover.

Much of Mark and my merrymaking was enabled by his mom and stepfather who came from Ohio to care for Kate and check out Tahoe’s summer offerings. I must say, the second best thing to adoring your child directly is watching her grandparents adore her. Gary decided that Kate should call him Papa–the name he used for his own grandfather. Very sweet.

On Friday, quite by accident, I was saying something about Kate’s new trick–clapping her hands–and as I said “clapping her hands” she did it. I did a double take, said it again, and she did it again. Amazing! It was our first two-way communication. There is someone in there, and apparently she is catching on to this whole language thing.

So there I am amazed and impressed and frankly feeling like I’d be content if this was her last great accomplishment, and when we returned from the wedding Peggy says to Kate, “How big is Kate? She’s soooo big!” and Kate holds both her arms up over her head.

The child is a genius.

I have now moved on to teaching her the next sensible stunt, the giving of “high five.” Await a report.

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.

Meeting Rose

Last week there was a volunteer meeting at Chaparral House, and a woman from hospice came to talk about death and grieving. I was looking forward to it. A few times on our Wednesday visits Kate and I had gone to Rose’s room and found the door ominously closed. I panicked on my walk to the nurses’ station with my heart rising up in my throat, but each time one of the nurses has bluntly told me something along the lines of, “Rose is in the activities room watching a movie.” Okay. Phew!

I’ve intentionally avoided asking anyone about the state of Rose’s health, even when she was briefly hospitalized a month ago. I don’t even know how old she is, but I assume somewhere in her eighties. For a while I told myself I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but I knew I really just wanted to be in denial about Rose’s age and frailty. So, I figured this meeting might push me towards a reality check, and help to gird me for what inevitably lies ahead.

The hospice woman, Karen, was amazing. Kind and articulate. I savored every word she said. She was the kind of person who you wish you could go up to after an inspiring lecture or concert and say something to them that would make them like you as much as you like them–make you stand out in the crowd amidst all their other admirers. You just wanted to be her friend.

So, cool Karen talked to us about the people who we visit at Chaparral House, and the fact that they’re at the end of their lives, what that means, how we can talk to them about that when/if appropriate, and how to handle those conversations in the moment and in our own heads. All really good practical stuff that got me a bit more geared up to some day deal with these things with Rose.

Then she opened the meeting up for more of a conversation, and asked us (about 10 volunteers and a few staffers) to share what experiences we’d had, if any, with grief. A few people spoke, then the woman to the left of me offered up her story. She said when she was 20 her 45-year-old mother died. As a result she and her sister had to care for their six younger siblings (including two–yes two–sets of twins). The woman said she was so overwhelmed by having to take on all that work that she never had time to mourn for her mother. Understandably, in the course of saying all this, she broke down.

Here she was crying for what seemed like one of the first times about her mother’s death over 30 years ago. And then she started talking about her work at Chaparral House—that she’s visiting with women who are around the age her mother would be now. It doesn’t take a shrink to see why she’s there and what she is doing. Her story was so tragic. I couldn’t imagine being in her shoes so I couldn’t quite empathize, but my God I felt for her. How great that she found Chaparral House, I thought.

And then I started to piece together my ‘grief experience’ in my mind, and considered whether I wanted to say anything aloud to the group. I also thought about how I’d explain what brought me to Chaparral House.

This is essentially what I said:

“My mother died a little over two years ago, and she said she never wanted my sisters or I to care for her if her illness got to a point where she was really incapacitated. And it ended up that her descent was really sudden and rapid. One day my sister Marie called to say I should probably fly home.

At one point during that first visit Rose muttered something that sounded like Polish to Kate. Yes, she said, she was born in Poland and left after the war. My mother was also Polish–well, born to Polish immigrants.”

So, it seemed somewhat fortuitous that Kate and I found Rose. She needs a grandchild. Kate needs a Polish bopchi. And so in that way that it’s easy to make a crack psychological diagnosis of the person sitting next you but seems impossible to diagnose yourself, it became more clear than ever to me in that meeting why Rose is so special to us. Because of my mother, it will be extra hard for me when Rose is gone.

I’ve lamented before that without my mother here I miss being able to call her to drone on about Kate’s many wonders—and to know that avid grandmother that she was, she’d share my enthusiasm for every small thing.

This past Wednesday I was holding Kate on my lap and Rose leaned in to look at her and said, “Ah, you see that? Her ears.They are so tiny and so perfect.” I shot back, “I know! Aren’t they?” And for the next five minutes we talked about Kate’s precious ears. It was great.

Out of Her Shell

In the past couple weeks Kate has experienced what can best be called a personality emergence. Our former baby, the one who’d cause Mark to sometimes say, “Would it kill her to smile a little more?,” has suddenly become a people person.

Kate and I were at Berkeley Bowl again last week (though thankfully she was spared a near concussion this time). She was practically jumping out of her pants to interact with people. She leaned out of the Ergo pack to smile and clap her hands at other shoppers. She craned her neck at children passing by in shopping carts, and went to great lengths babbling and flapping her arms to woo the strangers in line behind us.

She also practiced her newest move, in which she raises one arm out, and holds her hand open, palm to the sky, in a sort of papal-blessing type way. She just sort of aims this at people. I take it to be a gesture of good will.

This is the baby who weeks ago staunchly refused to eek out a tiny grin for old women who did cartwheels in the aisles to get some reaction from her. This is the former Winner of All Staring Contests, who could deflect smiles with a stern unblinking gaze, for what seemed like hours.

Well, for now at least, those days seem to be gone. Maybe this is my daughter after all!