From the Hands of Babes

A friend came over for dinner recently and brought a bottle of wine and a copy of The Girlfriends’ Guide to Getting Your Groove Back: Loving Your Family Without Losing Your Mind. It was written by that chick Vicki Iovine—the skinny-ass former Playboy centerfold turned domestic advice-giver who’s married to a gazillionaire music exec. Or maybe they’re divorced at this point.

Whatever the case, it’s crazy how much she and I have in common.

Anyway, I haven’t cracked the book, nor do I intend to. I’m a firm believer that reading about how overwhelmed you are is neither entertaining nor productive. Whereas reading about absolutely anything else—say, hot teen vampire sex—has a much better chance at alleviating standard-grade housewife malaise. (Note: I have not yet succumbed to the smut-lit allure of those books. But I do have the first one in a pile by my nightstand.)

And I wasn’t offended by my friend’s offering. I didn’t think it was some sort of hand-patting, “Honey, really, read the book” kinda intervention. Especially since it wasn’t even intended for me. (Or so she said.) Her daughter had allegedly been rooting around in their house, and dragged it into the living room. And seeing as my friend’s groove is apparently intact, she dropped the book in her bag in case I, or the other friend we were seeing that night, were in need of some groove restoration.

But the truth is, I had been lamenting that ever since the calendar flipped to 2010 I’ve been in a bad mood. My groove in this new decade–or lack thereof—has been informed by my wretchedly out-of-whack back, my agita over getting Kate into a good school next year, and the dreary fact that my book proposal has gotten nowhere closer to being completed than it was in, say, early November. Add to that the extra pounds I packed on over the holidays, for a nice veneer of flagging self-esteem.

Even though it’s just been sitting here, my friend’s kid having unearthed the groove-regetting manual maybe did have some impact on my psyche. Perhaps by its mere presence in my house, the tides of ill-humor have started to change.

First-off, we’ve made progress on Kate’s school applications. Two of them are already handed in (despite an 11th-hour explosion of loose powder blush that came close to rendering the hand-written one, well, “Warmth” pink.) All the nail-chewing over writing the damn things has suddenly changed into an optimistic excitement about how amazing it’ll be for Kate (and us) to be part of one of these cool schools. I’m already planning to volunteer in the classroom constantly. (They’ll have a maternal restraining order out for me by late fall…)

My back still sucks. As in, hurts nearly constantly. But Paigey got into a fabulous preschool for next year. And my book proposal’s still dead in the water, but I’m resolved to get childcare in the coming weeks to make some headway on it.

And I’ve got two great trips to look forward to. A hopefully snow-covered jaunt to Rhode Island and a most-certainly white-capped visit to Vancouver. Thanks in no part to my athletic prowess, I am going to the Olympics!

Also, in a totally not-me move, I decided to Just Say No to my book group book. Just not read it! How liberating is that? Usually I stressfully speed-read in the final days before we meet, as if I’m prepping for the LSATs or something. But after reading the first five of the book’s 400-plus pages, I simply decided I just wasn’t 400-plus-pages-worth of interested. To some this may seem a minor act of rebellion, but for a rule-follower and perfect-attendance gal like myself, this felt as bad-girl liberating as the Queen must feel peeing in the shower.

I also recently picked up a wee freelance gig at TV.com. My first piece, a recap of the show Brothers & Sisters, wasn’t half-bad. (At least according to my father.) Mark’s also got a 14-pound brisket slooooow-cookin’ in the smoker I got him for Christmas. And really who can feel gloomy at the prospect of the lifetime of smoked meats that now extends before me? (His enthusiasm for this new toy is such that we may also be eating smoked breakfast cereal Chez McClusky soon.)

Even my dream life is showing signs that I’m relaxing a bit. Like last night, I had a kinda sex dream about one of the schools Kate’s applying to. And I call it a sex dream, but when I described it to Mark he pointed out that there really was no sex in it whatsoever. But you don’t always need sex for sex, right? I mean, didn’t we learn that lesson years ago from Bill Clinton?

So in the dream I’m at this school (our top pick for Kate, in fact) and I’m taking a tour. And on the tour all the perspective parents get shunted into the school’s wood shop, where there’s this strapping, black hottie of a wood shop teacher. (This, by the way, is nothing like their real wood shop teacher. It’s a dream, people.) And then in that weird dream-way that you just skip over some of the boring how-things-unfolded parts, next thing you know he and I are in my car! But no no no, not groping each other or anything, just driving around. You know, with our thighs all close together and almost touching in the way they are when you are in a close-quartered dream-car next to the hot wood shop teacher. Like you do.

So he tells me he’s been working at the school for 30 years, but he says, “thirty years of radiation” which in that weird dream-way I don’t find to be an odd turn of a phrase and simply take to mean he’s been getting cancer treatments all that time. But it’s not like that’s a sad thing. In fact, this virile wood shop teacher who for some reason I’ve kidnapped mid-school-tour looks altogether healthy. And I just say to him, “Yeah I don’t want to go there.” And, dreamily, he’s not offended at all, and we just keep driving and I think, “I really should get back to the school tour.”

And then I woke up.

Chaste. And still even Dreamland-loyal to my husband.

Several weeks ago we were at a birthday party. We were at the friend’s house who brought me the Groove book. Paige was still somewhat new to walking. One of her favorite places to toddle off to and explore is bed-side tables. They have fun little drawers it’s easy for little hands to open.

So as we’re in the kitchen chatting with some other parents, Paige staggers from the back of their house out into their living room and heads towards me with a violet-colored tube in her hand. Turns out it was our hosts’ Astroglide. Ahem.

Of course, those of us in the kitchen who saw what Paigey had poached found it uproarious. Funny enough to not sweep it under the so-called carpet, but to send Paige back across the guest-filled living room with instructions to hand the item over to its rightful owners.

Paige obliged. Much giggling and blushing and good-natured heckling ensued. Good times.

Thinking about that now, I can’t help but wonder if Paige was on to something. Was it really a random offering? Or was she trying to communicate in some childlike intuitive way, “This is what you people need. This is the answer!”

Now I’m not implying that Paige thinks I should have a romp with the dream-based wood shop teacher. There’s a time and place for people from The Land of Make Believe. I think she was maybe just making her own down-home suggestion about how us Mommies and Daddies could get our groove back.

I Love You, I Love You Not…

There’s been a cold snap here. Gray skies, biting winds. The children of the Bay Area have insufficiently-warm outerwear, and their parents are all thin-blooded wimps. During the day when we might normally be at the park, or on the front porch, or cruising around the neighborhood on bikes, or strollers, or the red wagon, we’ve been stuck inside, hiding from the cold.

I’ve loved it.

The girls and I have spent such sweet happy afternoons snugged up indoors. We’ve cooked elaborate feasts with wooden toy food, conducted tea parties with real cinnamon-laden victuals, and read countless books about Christmas. It’s been so freeing knowing that getting out of the house just isn’t an option. Usually once Paige wakes from her nap I’m on a madwoman’s mission to get everyone’s shoes on and diapers changed and bike helmets secured. Channeling my mother I bellow the rallying cry, “It’s a beautiful sunny day! Let’s get out of this house!” I’m a self-professed fresh air fetishist.

But lately we’ve been padding around in slippers. Assembling puzzles. Doing projects with Popsicle sticks. Digging to the back of the closet and finding long-neglected toys that the girls delight in reacquainting themselves with. And a couple times this sugar-stingy Mama has even thrown caution to the wind and whipped up a pot of hot chocolate.

All that plus streaming Pandora Christmas carols. Now this is living!

During one of these happy floor-dwelling moments, when Dr. Kate and I were injecting Paige with some pretend inoculation or other, I thought about our warm weather life. I dug up the following post, which I’d written last year (for pay!) for a wine company blog. The blog—which several woman across the country were hired to contribute to—sadly never emerged beyond the marketing firm’s conference rooms.

Aside from the contrast it shows to our current indoor existences at Camp McClusky, the post brought to life how mercurial my love for this city is. One minute I can’t imagine living anywhere else, and the next I’m calling Mark at his office to announce we are packing up and moving to a small town. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just not HERE.

I’m like a dramatic child lying in the grass plucking daisy petals. “I love you. I love you not….” The only difference being I’m not talking about a youthful crush, something it’s okay to be fickle about. In this case it’s where my husband, daughters and I live. My “I love you not” episodes have the ability to rock other people’s worlds much more intensely.

But today? This morning I’m still reveling in a lovely neighborhood party from last night. This afternoon the Mama Posse is taking our older kids to San Fran to see The Velveteen Rabbit, and there are cookies to bake before then.  I’m filled to the gills with the holiday spirit.

I’ve got love for all people, all places. Even Oakland.

So, despite the fact that our front porch has just been functioning as a pass-through these days, this old never-posted post still captures my current emotional reading on our little corner of the world.

The View from the Front Porch

This is the story about a woman in a strange city, with a new baby, and how a bottle of wine saved her. Or as it were, saved me.

But before we get to the wine, let me back up a bit.

At the time I was managing a complex jumble of major life changes. Like some guy in a lumberjack contest running to keep his balance on a log so he won’t fall in the water.

I was so busy wrangling with it all that I didn’t fully realize how much of it there was, until a few different friends commented on my excess of Major Life Stressors. Most people, they all said, could only handle two of those doozies at once. But there I was exceeding that quota. As if I had any choice.

And while I’m at it, what up with that whole “two big life stressors” urban-legend-like theory? It seems like one of those Ann Landers quizzes that circulated in high school. (You know, the one where your final score revealed if you were a slut or not?) In this case I picture it as being an actual list of Life’s Hugest Stress Triggers with checkboxes next to them. And the smart mortals only check two at a time.

Aaaaanyway, where was I? Exceeding my stress quota. Okay, so what I had going on was having just moved to a new city—just over the bridge from where I’d lived for 12 years, but still. Devoid of local friends and the ever-presence of my lived-just-five-blocks-away sister. It felt like worlds away. I feared I’d be offering monetary incentives to get our city friends to ever visit.

Other stressors: I’d taken an indefinite hiatus from my maniacal love-hate time-sucking career. I was mourning my mother’s recent death. And I just had my first baby.

Oh, and did I mention I’m not really one for change?

I handled it all swimmingly. Which is to say I nearly refused to conduct commerce in Oakland, driving to San Francisco with my dry cleaning and sometimes even to grocery shop. I seethed every time my sister asked about traffic before deciding to come by. And I rejected the social value of neighbors as friends since, well, they lived in Oakland. They were Oakland people and I, well, I was from San Francisco. And likely just passing through.

But thank God for sidewalks. Where our new neighbors imposed their friendliness upon us despite my cynicism and Urban Girl guard being up. A friendly wave from the lady across the street when I grabbed the morning paper drove me back in the house ranting, “What’s up with her? Does she stand there all day waiting to pounce on people with her chirpy hellos?”

I was resistant. But even I can be worn down.

Because when you are tired, and smattered in spit-up, and have already called your husband’s office seven times by noon desperate for adult conversation, even the freaky old neighbor ladies and their little yapping rat dogs start seeming kinda nice.

Oddly, the women my age—especially the mothers—I held further at bay. With their older children, I considered them to be professionals at the mom thing, where I felt like a newbie, a maternal imposter.

It wasn’t until one evening when a random sidewalk chat stretched out, and seemed silly to continue just standing there, that I invited one of those moms to take a seat on my front porch. And like some bad movie montage, where the calendar pages flip to show time passage, eventually we’d see each other, sit longer, chat more, pass off outgrown kid clothes, and watch as the hip-held babies interacted. It wasn’t until one evening—both bushed from grueling kid-tending and diving deeper into some conversation or other, that I offered up a glass of wine.

“Well,” she said, performing an etiquette dance that’d do her mother proud, “I don’t want to put you to any trouble… Do you have anything that’s open?”

“Yes!” I yelped, over-eagerly, thrilled by the prospect of an impromptu happy hour, a new friend to talk to while the babies lolled contentedly on a blanket by our feet. “I have something we opened last night,” I said, trying to tone down the mania in my voice. “No problem at all.”

At which point I went into the house, grabbed a bottle of chard from the fridge, opened it, dumped a bit in the sink, grabbed two glasses, and waltzed back out to the porch.

Sometimes you don’t know which cork it is that you should hold onto—which bottle of wine will mark something worthy of a saved-cork tribute. In retrospect I wish I had that one now.

It’s three years and another baby later. I can’t count the number of front porch hangouts I’ve hosted on the fly—or with much-anticipated planning—since that first one.

Nor can I count the number of times that after calling Mark to lament that maybe this wasn’t working (this me staying home with the kids thing), maybe I needed to go back to work, get the girls a nanny—that he’d come home a few hours later, to find me commandeering the front lawn sprinkler for a gaggle of sopping screaming kids. And Jennifer, and maybe Bob from down the block who works from home, or really any number of other stopped-by-on-their-way-past neighbors would be on the lawn or perched by the porch table, which was loaded with a hodge-podge of kid and adult-friendly snacks, sippy cups, and a bottle of unapologetically opened-just-for-the-occasion wine.

And here Mark walks into the scene, expecting to find me pouting inside, resentfully changing a diaper or playing my fourth game of Chutes and Ladders, but instead I’m half-soaked and laughing, on a totally different plane from the frustration and self-pity of just hours before. But, sweetheart that he is, he never calls me on it. He just greets the gang, goes in the house, drops his lap top bag and grabs a wine glass for himself.

Thank you thank you Universe for getting me past that hard lonely sad first chunk of time here. Thank you neighbors for not giving up on me. Thank you dear daughters for coming along on the ride where I figured out that being a mother doesn’t mean leaving all of person I used to be behind—that I can be responsible and grown-up and still have some fun.

To my beautiful family, my great city, and my groovy little street of friends—I raise my glass to you.

I think I finally feel like I’m from Oakland.

Crimes of Passion

I can’t wait to see what the first thing will be that Kate steals.

Today I was stunned to see bras at Target that appeared to be marketed to six-year-olds. The triangles of fabric comprising the cups—in bright blues, pinks, and yellows, with colorful contrasting trims—were the size of a pirate’s eye patch. If those bras were intended to support a sagging breast, I’ll eat my nursing pad. They could fit squirrels.

After 1.7 beers in the Grippie family’s backyard tonight, I opened up on this topic. The sorry state of the rush to adulthood in this country, that is.

Kate, for all I knew, was already grossly delayed in owning a bra. A milestone of apparel ownership that I have every intention of staying on top of so as not to leave her, or Paige, tragically behind the pack as I was as a kid. It’s true. I was the last girl in my class to get a bra. The adolescent trauma of it all still grips me with an uneasy feeling, bringing to mind the florid tones of Love’s Baby Soft perfume.

My tardiness was due mainly to my inability to tell my mother what I wanted. All the girls at school had bras. And not just any bras, Sassoon bras. (Someone at the 80’s-era jean co no doubt got a big thump on the back and a promotion when she suggested they break into the training bra market.) Anyway, my awkwardness in discussing this subject was one part New England prudishness, and one part fear that my old-school mom would never understand that my need for the bra had little to do with mammary support, and everything to do with social survival.

I will not allow my daughters to suffer the same delayed-ownership-of-unnecessary-bra fate!

And yet, half of Kate’s preschool class may already be clad in the latest La Perla Preschool Demi Cup when school starts in two weeks.

Amidst my boozed-up-on-barely-two-beers rant, my friend, who I’ll call X since I’m uncertain what the statute of limitations is for her crime, and truly hope I won’t be implicated as her accomplice since I’ve been made aware of the details of the offense… Wait, where was I? What I’m trying to say, is X listens to my diatribe, then casually tosses out, “The first thing I ever stole was a bra.”

Um, helloooooooo? This pre-teen factoid is such an utterly perfect and tasty life morsel (even to me now, sober) I was shocked to think it wasn’t the first thing she said upon our introduction a year back.

“Hi. My name is X. I shoplifted my first bra.”

Just when you think you can’t love someone any more than you do, they wallop you with a brilliant gem like that.

Well, one stealing story deserves another, right? And since I never went to sleep-away camp or got a perm or took a same-sex partner to prom—since I missed out on so many of puberty’s best life-intensifying moments, I wanted to bond about thieving.

I was hardly a Dickensian pick-pocket mind you, but oh, I’ve done my share of shoplifting. One—well, really three—items started my limited career, and later (and finally), I nabbed a greeting card from a long-deceased Providence store called Ashby Dean. An establishment whose demise I no doubt accelerated from depleting them of one unit of their belated birthday card inventory.

To summarize: In my lifetime I’ve stolen a total of four things. (Though really, I’m not dead yet.)

At nightfall, the evening of my first foray into the thieving life, I tossed and turned in my sheets. My heart was filled with anguish, my conscience wracked with guilt. Sleep seemed an impossibility.

I went to my mother’s room. She was sitting up in bed, reading. It could have been very very late, since Mom was a hardcore night-owl. Or maybe it was just, like, 8:30, since I was pretty young at the time and had a correspondingly early bedtime.

Me: “Mom? What happens to people who steal?”

Mom: [casually looks up from her book] “They go to prison.”

Me: “Oh, okay. Well, good night then!”

She let a few minutes pass. Minutes in which, back in my bed, I began sobbing at the thought of a lifetime relegated to horizontal black-and-white striped jumpsuits. Even if those stripes might be slimming.

Eventually, she came in and sat at the edge of my bed.

Mom: “Do you have something to tell me?”

Me: [wincing] “Yes. I… I stole something. Three things, actually.”

Mom: “Would you like to tell me what those things were?”

At which point I got up, went to my bureau, and pulled down a lacquer box with a gold and orange leaf design that my Dad brought me back from a business trip. I opened it, turned it over in my palm, and dumped out three seeds.

Seeds for purple flowers of some sort. A blossom so beautiful its image compelled me to tear a wedge off a paper Burpee pack, and hide the seeds away in my pocket. If only I’d thrown them out my window to sprout a tall vine climbing into the clouds, the course of my life might’ve taken a very different turn.

But I digress.

The next day my mother marched me into Almacs. (That’s the kinda weird local grocery store you shopped at when you lived in Rhode Island back then.) Some pimply-faced stock boy was piling up heads of iceberg lettuce, like they do. I swear I’d be able to pick him out of a line-up today. (Yet somehow I have difficulty remembering my husband’s birthday.)

Mom pushed me towards the kid, and made me recite, “I’m sorry. I took these and I shouldn’t have. I will never do it again.”

I dumped the seeds from my clammy hand to the kid’s clammy hand in an exchange which can best be described as deep contrition meets utter confusion.

The kid muttered some, “Okay, yeah” type thing. My mother, I imagine, gave him some kinda high sign for the role he played in her parenting life lesson, and we left.

So tonight X explained that she used a yellow raincoat her mom bought her to smuggle the bra out of the store. She never said whether her mom found out. Or if, when her mother saw it in the laundry weeks later, X easily covered up her crime with a, “That bra? Oh, that’s Betheny’s.” (”And the joint you’ll find in my jeans four years from now? Also Betheny’s.”) Maybe her mother did figure out the unethical origins of the undergarment, but didn’t enforce the zero tolerance policy my mom ascribed to.

At any rate, the conversation got me all excited to see what it is that Kate and Paige will steal some day.

And reminded me that, for so many reasons, it’s never to early to buy a girl her first bra.

Chalk One Up for Me

People are constantly going on about how Paige is a mini-Mark. And some folks say Kate looks like me.

Frankly, I don’t see it at all. I mean, Paige looks like Paige. A small delicious dumpling with loopy blond curls, a button nose, and pudged-out cheeks. She’s still got those inverted knuckle dimples on her hands. You know the ones? I meant to take note of when Kate went from having those to getting normal convex knuckles, but I missed it. It must’ve happened overnight.

Anyway, Mark. If you ask me, he looks nothing like Paige. He’s a grown man for God’s sake. Lean—in case you haven’t met him—and all chiseled and angular. Not many pudgy parts to him.

I guess when I look at those two I just see Paige and Mark.

As for Kate, it’s even harder—or maybe just weirder—to see myself in her looks.

Which isn’t to say that Mark and I aren’t constantly labeling the things that the girls do as being either him-like or me-like.

Kate screaming a conversation from one room of the house to another? My genes. Her morning rat’s nest hair snarl? That’d be me. Kate’s love of sour cream, non-stop banter from the moment she wakes, and occasional “No one’s paying attention to me!” whining fits? Well, uh, that’d be me too. I’ll also lay claim to both girls’ ability to pack away the pasta, and Paige’s Herculean ability to sleeeeeeeeep.

As for Kate’s skinny butt, obsession with books, and tendency to hang back in new places? Mark, Mark, and Mark. Also Mark: Paige’s love of bikes and music.

At our nephew’s eighth birthday party this summer, Mark discovered something he never knew about me. It was at a pool party, at some fancy suburban community center. There were three pools, and they had one of those bright blue three-story water slides. The kind that have an enclosed tube that loops around like a big spiral staircase and spits you out at a high velocity at the bottom.

When Mark first laid eyes on it, he practically shoved the kids, bags, and towels in my hands and ran towards it, arms flailing overhead. He was giddy, grinning, and asking permission if I could watch the kids so he could do it, as if I was his mother. It was sweet.

Later, back at the kiddie pool, still all smiles from his water slide high, he asked if I’d gone on it yet. I looked over at the thing and said softly, “No.”

“Oh my God, GO!” he commanded. “You HAVE to go on it RIGHT NOW.”

So I went. Spurned by his excited insistence. Buoyed by a desire to be the mother of two who might not wear a bikini any more, but is still game for a good time. But really, scared shitless.

As I got closer, my spontaneous bravado faltered. I still wanted to go down the thing, to surprise myself with how much fun it’d end up being, but I needed back-up. So I enlisted the birthday boy who was waiting in line for some other treacherous thrill ride. I tried coming off like I was rallying him to join me for some big fun. Really I just thought it’d be nice to have some family around at the time of my demise.

En route we saw my niece. I got her to come along with us too.

At the slide, the teen monitoring the line indicated I’d have to go up the staircase alone. “One at a time,” she droned, staring blankly ahead. Here I was taking my life in my hands, and she’s just wishing she was texting her boyfriend.

I had a tight feeling in my gut, but dropping out of line at this point would be embarrassing. So I butched up and trudged onward alone.

At the top, another compassionless teen instructed me to “just lie down with my arms crossed over my chest.” How fitting, I thought. They make you assume a corpse pose.

Motivated only by my wish to get it over, plus pressure from the long line of young sadists behind me, I assumed the position and pushed off. My niece, who’d picked up on my anxiety (smart gal), cried out behind me, “When you see the light Aunt Kristen, hold your breath!”

It was every bit as horrifying as I’d feared. Claustrophobic, jarring, and with a slamming plunge into cold water to cap it off.

For 15 minutes afterward, I shook. I fretted. My stomach flip-flopped. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t trusted my instincts, and vowed over and over in my head, “NEVER AGAIN.”

Gathered round the picnic table, shivering and soothing myself with pizza, Mark was astounded. He had no idea I’d been so afraid, that I hate those fucking things, and that even after it was over the experience could continue to seize me with terror.

Rather than suffer the spectacle of my supreme wimpishness alone, I felt compelled to drag my sister (the birthday boy’s mom) down with me. “Well, SHE’D never do it either!” I said to her friends, pointing to the woman who bushwhacked her way through remotest Mexico, outwitted spies sent out to trail her, and shot films solo (and on the sly) in Asia’s Golden Triangle heroin hub. That gal’s sweet-talked her way out of tight spots and international dramas that’d leave James Bond stymied and whimpering.

They didn’t believe me. So I called over to her.

“Ellen?” I said, nodding my head in the direction of the slide.

“SHIT, no!” she said, knitted her brows together in horror. “You crazy?”

I turned back to her friends smugly, and reached for another slice of pizza.

A couple weeks later, I returned to the scene of my trauma. Or tried to. I wasn’t with a PTSD therapist, just a friend and our kids. But I screwed up the times, and it was closed. As a consolation prize to our disappointed wee ones, we went to some other suburban dream park, replete with a mushroom-shaped water sprinkler, paved wading creek, and a playground the size of Delaware. (I’m telling you, that playground was bigger than Rhode Island.)

The kids stripped down to their suits the second we arrived, and ran off willy-nilly, not sure where to head first.

Basking in the serene sense of suburban safety, my friend and I got to chatting and weren’t hawkishly watching the older kids. And mid-way through some “We have GOT to get sitters and all go there” kinda conversation, Kate runs up to us tear-drenched and screaming. I could barely understand her.

“It’s not like the one at school! It’s not like the one at school!” she shrieked, shaking and snotting and wailing loudly as I snugged her up in a towel.

A minute later Owen cruised up, smiling his sweet charmer’s smile. My friend turned to her son. “What happened to Kate, Owie?” Ready to accuse him of wrongdoing, as we often do with our own kids.

“Uh, she went down the slide,” he said, then took off to get in line for the swings.

The slide. Ah yes. Well that explains it.

That right there would be my genes.

Welcome to the Team

I have a public service announcement.

The next time you find yourself about to tell someone, “I don’t know how you do it!” please hit your internal Pause button. And while the world is freeze-framed, ask yourself whether whatever it is that the person is doing that’s wowing you so much is even something they want to be doing. Or ever imagined they’d have to do.

Then, before hitting Play and returning to live-action life, decide whether or not to open your trap.

Like, right after my mom died. Amidst effusions of sympathy (that I truly did appreciate) people would say things like, “Personally? I just couldn’t deal with losing my mother.” Or, “You and your sisters caring for your mom like you did. I just don’t know how you did it.”

The thing is, it wasn’t like we signed up for a maternal cancer crisis like you do for the NFL football package on DirectTV.

How do you do it? I don’t know. You just do it because you suddenly find yourself in the shit-sucking situation of having to.

So Saturday. Footloose and giddy with a sitter home with the kids, Mark and I skipped up to Napa to celebrate Surh-Luchtel Cellars’ ten year anniversary. An occasion which, as you might imagine, requires one to drink excessively so as to not hurt the winemaker-hosts’ feelings.

At one point in the party, a point where I’d amply soaked in the fine Surh-Luchtel product, I met the First Lady of the winery’s local Mama friends. And all loose and boozy as I was—though God knows my social skids need no greasin’—I blathered and fawned over one woman’s great haircut.

It was super short and fabulous. One of those styles that the topography of my head and the girth of my schnoz would prevent me from wearing. A look few women go for, and fewer pull off well.

Me: “Blah blah blah known Shelley for 17 years, blah blah blah perfect day for this party [panting boozy wine breath], blah blah blah I just love your hair!”

Her: “Oh, thanks. My six-year-old’s getting chemo, so I decided to shave my head when she started going bald.”

You’ll be happy to know that, even in my wine-saturated state, I didn’t start weeping, throw my arms around her neck, and sob and snot on her dress. I mean, it was the last thing I was expecting to hear on that carefree (and did I mention wine-laden?) day. But I just loved the straight-shootin’ matter-of-fact way she told me.

And I immediately wanted to shave my head too.

Tousling her hair she said it’d been growing out, and was actually fairly long at that point. She told me it’s the third time she’s shaved it. The first time, she and her husband threw a party and pledged a donation to a leukemia charity for every person who shaved their head. And forty of their friends did.

At this point, I was casing the catering table for a plastic knife so I could start lopping off my own locks.

I wanted to be her best friend. I wanted to imagine that I could handle the unthinkable misery of a child with cancer with the same degree of spunk and love and strength. All that and her hand bag was really fabulous too.

Our conversation continued with me rambling on about life and cancer and dealing the hand you get and the infinite wellspring of a Mama’s love that brings you to places of being-able-to-deal that you couldn’t imagine you could ever get to, but hey look, there you are.

I wanted her to see me as someone who got it. One of the cool people. Not one of the folks who I’m assuming react to her story with fear and discomfort, stammering out awkward apologies and aw-that’s-awfuls.

But really, she probably just thought I was drunk.

Whatever the case, before I left we exchanged blog URLs. And I found out where she got her purse. (Though, damn it, they only have the tote left.)

I’m sober now and all I can say is, MY GOD, I have no idea how she does it. And I hope hope hope I never have to find out.

It’s comforting knowing a good knee surgeon, a defense attorney, a locksmith—even though you hope you’ll never have to use their services. And now, without even looking, I found myself a model for amazing maternal behavior in the face of heartbreak. Someone who I’d be thrilled to be even one-third as impressive as, given the same situation. A most excellent addition to my team of experts.

Rock on, sister. My heart—and maybe even my hair someday—goes out to you.

And So

I am full of beginnings. That’s just how it’s been with me the past week or so. No middles. No ends. Just beginnings.

The biggest of which is this project that’s burning a hole in my pocket. A writing thing. A book actually.

But it’s just an idea still. So fresh and young and new. Something I tend to and nudge along by sitting up with my laptop deep in the night, the rest of the house asleep.

I keep trying to crawl into bed at reasonable hours, but then this need to serve as the night sentry to my thoughts wins out. Causing Mark to stumble into the living room at 1:30 or 2:00, squinting in my direction and and muttering, “You okay?”

“Oh yeah,” I say, barely lifting my eyes from the screen. “Just thinking. Working out some ideas. Figuring out how to get started.”

I’m blessed with that gentleman spouse in scads of ways, really. But one that’s especially handy right now is his writerly, editor-like, contemplative, and frankly genius side.

To say I’ve been using him as a sounding board puts things lightly. If I were to draw some kinda schematic—one of those cool data-driven illustrations—to show just how many ideas I’ve bounced off him recently, there’d just be an outline of his body, covered with big hollowed out holes. All battered and dented, poor thing.

And the dear takes everything I hurl his way so well. In fact, instead of holding his arms up to shield himself, he returns my book-frenzy onslaughts with enthusiasm. Thought-provoking questions. With smart tips and insights.

Like this: A book that lays out a particular premise—like, uh, the growing acceptance of gays in America—isn’t really much more than a term paper, right? Nothing anyone will care to read, and no publishing company will buy. It needs to answer the question, “And so?”

This tidbit (from a book he gave me I’ve been too sleep-deprived to read), was just what this currently stuck-on-beginnings gal needed to hear.

Like today, I met some new women. Mamas who I’ll spend two hours a week with soon, for the foreseeable future. It’s a rotating playdate type thing, where two of the mother folk tend to the young ‘uns while the other two go off and bask in sweet aloneness.

And although I barely know these women, I decided to take the plunge. Sign up to do this thing with them.

A beginning see? No middle yet. And world’s away from an end.

And so?

Well, another thing.

Last week Mark had a company softball game. Some one-off thing someone in his office arranged. I planned to take the girls to SF to watch, then we’d go out for dinner after.

What slayed me about this game–just tore me up really—was the nature of the opposing teams. Two magazines. Wired versus Dwell.

The day of the game I mentioned this to nearly every friend I saw. Wired versus Dwell. The geeks go up against the designers. Isn’t that rich? I mean, who’re the better athletes of those groups? Who wins a showdown like that?

And so?

Well, one last beginning. Or what I’m calling one, at least.

Kate ran a long droopy piece of Scotch tape from her bedroom door to the wall in the hallway today. It was her woefully insufficient attempt to prevent Paige from slamming the door.

Because these days Paige cannot imagine an activity more fascinating and thrilling than opening and closing doors. A phase of toddlerhood I’d totally forgotten–or perhaps repressed–from Kate’s younger days.

And so?

Well, see? That’s the thing. I’m not really sure where any of these things go.

Okay, so that’s not totally true. The book and the babysitting club, well that’s anyone’s guess.

As for the softball game, the geeks beat the house designer/decorator clan. Woot! A victory for those who were smart and unpopular in high school everywhere! Take that you liquid eyeliner designers!

And Miss Kate’s attempts to control her space from the door-banging efforts of her sister? I couldn’t bear to tell her that her tape rigging was futile. Instead I hung back. Marveled at her craftiness, and the innocence of her optimistic undertaking.

As it turned out, Paige lost interest in showing all the doors in the house who was boss. After skulking around the entry to Kate’s room, she eventually scooted off on her ass, seeking adventure elsewhere. I later found Kate’s tape in a wad, clinging to the lid of the kitchen garbage can. Apparently she’d gotten bored with her door-stays-open engineering and yanked it all down before Paige even tested its strength.

Which seems to indicate (to me at least), that the middles and endings for all these beginnings may be utterly unexpected. Which is certainly something to look forward to.

Spider Bites and Love Webs

The greatest truths are spoken in the kitchen. Don’t you think?

Like yesterday. I was with two Mama friends waiting for some mac and cheese to cook. Our five girls were playing in the next room. And my friend, who I’ll call Molly, started riffing off Ayelet Waldman’s media-frenzy “love my hub more than my kids” comment.

Molly’s all, “I mean, if the girls and J were all standing at the edge of a cliff and someone had to go? I’m sorry but, ‘Goodbye, J!’”

That life-altering decision would come as little surprise to her husband, she explained. In fact, the two of them make sport of those kinds of things.

“Oh we play this game all the time,” she said. “Which could you stand to live without—mint chip ice cream?” holding one hand up in the air. “Or the baby?” raising the other hand, then balancing them back and forth.

Giving the pasta a stir she looks at us laughing. “Mint chip ice cream IS pretty good.”

It sounds crass, but Molly’s an all-star mother. And she adores that fine man of hers.

The thing is, those of us who work this Mama gig fulltime need this kind of emotional outlet. It’s like love leeching. Undistracted by conference calls, irate clients, and Friday bagel days, we’re immersed undiluted in the worlds of our children who we love so fiercely. To the point where it can gets sickening. You need a break, a little let-up.

Before having kids I’d heard parents yammer on about their hearts existing outside their bodies. They’d say they couldn’t watch Law & Order any more. The crimes they’d show against kids were just too painful.

I always found that a bit dramatic. And, in my pre-Mama days, frankly boring.

But then I had Kate. Not only did I feel some version of my heart living outside my body, I felt at times like it was wrapped in barbed wire. Some days it was being dragged down the street behind a speeding car.

Last week, during her after-school snack, Kate mentioned, “No one wanted to play with me today.” This news flash, delivered so off-handedly, made me want to turn from the table and barf.

When Kate was a wee babe-ish, I was in her room, rocking her in a chair that was positioned in manner that could best be described as a feng shui train wreck. I’m not sure what compelled me to cram it at the window alongside the crib, but there it was. And there I was. Wedged in and rocking.

Maybe it was the hormones, maybe the tragic feng sui, but as I sat there gazing at her small human-ness, I had the thought that some kid might tease her on a playground some day. That someone might be mean to her. And that nearly destroyed me. Tears and snot started dripping down my face.

Then, because it’s fun to sometimes push oneself to an even more painful level, I had the thought that she could get sick. I’m not talking bad scary sick, just like a cold. And that threw me over the edge.

I was shaking and snorting and wondering how we could hole up there in that room with the poorly-arranged furniture and live out our days. Safe from mean children, germs, the world.

And then, since none of these imagined atrocities were even upon us—or her, as it were—and I was handling just the thought of them so poorly, I started blubbering even harder. Dismayed by how poorly this all boded for my ability to cope as a parent.

As I said, it might’ve been the hormones. But it might also have just been my first concentrated dose of Mama love. It’s so huge it can be downright staggering when a wave of it rolls over you sometimes.

But blessedly, that love spigot ain’t turned to full blast 24×7. That’s what refusing-to-get-dressed tantrums are for, right? To give one a bit of perspective that, well, someone being mean to her on the playground might not be the worst thing ever.

I mean, in Molly’s game if you don’t pick the ice cream answer sometimes, you’ll just sit in a rocking chair weeping and forlorn with love all day. And that’s just not productive for anyone.

But hearing no one wanted to play with Kate—when friendlessness ranks high as an unimaginable hell for me—was brutal. There she was, eating her vanilla yogurt. Not being whiny or demanding or grabbing toys from her sister. Being so mild and wide-eyed and innocent.

Add to that, changing Paige’s dipe that morning, I noticed 20-odd angry red splotches on her legs. Marks that, after several friends inspected them throughout the day, I concluded were spider bites.

Some malevolent spider invaded Sweet P’s crib to prey on her while she slept! And now the poor girl was distraught, clawing at the itchy welts and looking, well, diseased.

I’m scared shitless of spiders, but if I ever saw the thing that did that to her, I’d punch it square in the eye. Damn baby biter.

Though I have to admit thinking that spider must’ve been psyched to’ve found Paige. One bite of that plump gam and he knew he’d hit the flesh-eating jackpot.

I went to a writing class Wednesday. The teacher, a divorcee in her 40s with no kids, writes mostly memoirs and personal essays. She mentioned she’d recently hit a dry patch. Not finding much life fodder to make the subject of a story.

Here she is, wrung dry. And I’m desperately—sometimes painfully—in love with three people, who all live under the same roof. I spend idle moments daydreaming about a third child, thinking it could maybe sop up some of this surplus of love.

With my luck though, I’d likely just produce more.

Only in Bristol

Mark and I are still shuddering with PTSD from our day of travel yesterday. One which commenced hellaciously waking at 5AM, arriving at the SF Airport at the spry hour of 6:30, and due to all manner of evil airline juju, finally had us on a plane at noon. By which point, after hours in United queues and some neck-vein-popping negotiations with airline personnel, we found ourselves heading to Boston not Providence and arriving at 10PM, not the too-reasonable-to-be-true 6:30.

Before even setting foot on an aircraft I had the Bad Mother realization that I’d forgotten extra travel duds for each girl. (I know. Total rookie move.) So 16 hours later when we stumbled woozily into my Dad’s house, the kids were not only wrung out and weak from hunger, but chicken-fried in a coating of sweat, milk, Cheerio grit, and sugar drool from the Mike & Ikes the boys seated behind us snuck to Kate.

Well then, what doesn’t kill you, gets you cross-country for $500 a ticket, right?

And so now we’re here. And though I’m still scuffing around in a groggy haze, Bristol isn’t waiting for me to come to before packing its little hometown punches.

At the back road’s Super Stop & Shop with the embedded Dunkin’ Donuts (please scatter my ashes there when I go), I’m ambling down an aisle trying to remember what my kids eat when someone bellows, “Kristen Bruno!” It’s my cousin. The sister of the cuz who gallantly fetched us at the airport the night before.

And before she and I made our way through basic howayas, another woman pulls her cart up right near us, looking me square in my eyes. “You,” she says wagging a finger, “look just like Marie Bruno.”

I mean, how small is this town that someone calls me out for looking like my oldest sister who, if you ask me, I look the least like of all of them? (She of the wee button nose. Damn her.)

Anyway, it was the daughter of an old friend of my mom’s. The owners of the pool that’s responsible for my eyebrow scar. (Back flip—okay, attempted back flip—off the diving board.)

When my mother drove me to the doctor’s house (old school) to get me stitched up that day, I had a bloody towel clamped to my head. But what transfixed me was the fact that my mom put her hazard lights on to get us there right quick. I couldn’t remember a time when she’d driven with those lights flashing, so whatever’d happened to me musta been serious. Cool even. Warranting my mom to transform her old Volvo into some kind of citizen’s ambulance.

Pull aside, people. Comin’ through.

To this day, whenever I double park and flick on those lights, I think of that.

So I realized that this grocery store woman, Cathy, appeared in a photo someone gave me this winter of my mother. It was old and orange-toned. One of those square ones with rounded corners—the format even screamed 70s. Cathy then was a teen, a long-haired brunette beauty in a brown knit bikini. She was holding a bottle of hootch out to my mom and hers, and they were both laughing. It was, the giver told me, a going away party for a friend.

My mom at that time had short hair—a pixie she’d call it—and was thin and tan. I figured out the year it was taken, and realized she was 42 at the time. My age now. Weird.

So in the juice aisle, Cathy (who I’d introduced to my cousin who she said also looked familiar) and I were well on our way down Memory Lane. I ran through how my sisters were doing, Dad’s impending hip surgery, got the report on her mom’s hip job, her dad’s dementia.

If it weren’t for Kate’s embarrassing, huffy, “Let’s GO, Mom” laments, I could’ve leaned over, cracked open a bottle of Cran-Apple and chatted with those two for hours.

But before Kate’s whining became painfully rude, I shoved off in search of Portugese chourico. And without us having directly mentioned her in our chat, Cathy said by way of good-bye, “Your mother. She was TOO much. God, I loved her.”

Later, screeching into the liquor store minutes before the sign flpped to CLOSED, I chatted up the old Italian owner about the bleak weather. “What’s up with this?” I said. “I came home to go to the beach.”

“FUH-get about it!” he grumbled, swatting the air. “I just took the afghan off my bed. YEStuhday!”

By the time Kate and I got back to the house, hours had passed. Paige’d gotten up from her nap, and the pocket of kid-free time I’d tried to give Mark had turned into him waiting out our return, wondering what’d become of us.

I hadn’t gone far, nor accomplished terribly much, but by the end of my errand run I did feel, despite our flightmare and my numbing case of jet lag, like I was finally home.

Four is a Magic Number

Today I had to jump in a lake.

Because yesterday, the wretched gray-skied June gloom we’ve been enduring finally skedaddled. If only temporarily. And at last, it seems that summer has arrived.

So like some child slave from an episode of Law & Order, I positioned Kate on her stool at the kitchen counter to make PB&Js, while I threw towels, swim diapers, and sunscreen in a bag, and lamented Paige’s famous just-as-we’re-about-to-leave poop.

Lakeside, my friend, uh, Lulu and I wrangled the kids and attempted to catch up. The topic du jour at every barbeque this summer—at least for the men at the grill—seems to be The Big Snip. When they’re doing it to maximize sports viewing. What they heard about how bad it was from other guys. And jokes about snuggling up with a bag of frozen peas.

Lulu’s husband and mine are both game to get the job done. And, after years of having our bodies be the setting for baby growing, baby feeding, and the fending off of potential pregnancies, it does seem nice to have the lads take their turn.

Their willingness to step up for the snip is both noble and kinda cute.

But still, Lulu and I agreed. We’re just not ready.

“I tell Mark he’s got to think about his second wife,” I tell her, ankle-deep in the lake, and watching that the kids don’t go out too far or sneak off for ciggies. “I mean, she’s younger. She doesn’t have kids yet. What about her?!”

But seriously, Mark knows I’d kill anyone who he ever tried to leave me for, so that’s not much of an issue. What has been though, has been my lingering baby lust. My lack of conviction that I’m altogether done with the baby-makin’.

Though, driving home later it dawned on me that my hunger for another cherub seems to have subsided a bit. I mean, I saw a 6-week-old napping angelically in one of those beach tents today, and didn’t feel at all compelled to crawl in there with it. A few months back, Lulu would’ve been holding me back by my ponytail.

And other little things. Instead of waiting for them to rot and fall out, I decided to go all out and buy Paige her first toothbrush. She’s got six and a half teeth now, so it seems as good a time as any. So yesterday, while Kate and I brushed our morning breath away, Paige for the first time fervidly got in on the action.

And after prying the thing from Paige’s steely baby grip, I plopped the toothbrushes back in their little stand.

“Here’s Mommy’s, Daddy’s, Kate’s and Paige’s!” I singsonged, in a vain attempt to quell Paige’s give-that-damn-thing-back-to-me hysterics. And, ignoring her wailing screams, and Kate’s ensuing, “She’s TOO LOUD, Mommy!” laments, I went into my own little housewife daydream… Four places in the toothbrush holder. Four of us. Why…. it’s perfect!

Of course, not everything on the domestic family-of-four front has fit like a glove.

Sometimes I need a hit upside the head when change is required. And Mark recently pointed out that I have to start making more food for us. Usedta be that one kielbasa fed he and I perfectly, sometimes with a bit leftover. Well, turns out our little Polish princesses can hork down some serious sausage. Seems we’re no longer a one-link family. One pound of ground beef just wasn’t cutting it for our taco nights any more either.

But thankfully, I’m a fast learner.

Not enough food you say? Some intense Italian Need to Feed surged up through me like a tsunami, and the next night I’m setting out a dinner that’d put a midnight cruise ship buffet to shame. (Though sadly, I offered no melons carved as swans.)

And once again, order is restored. Two more eaters? Need more food. Check.

But what if we were to add a fifth? Eventually would two kielbasa links not be enough? Would the implausible two-and-a-half links be what we required? And what of pre-weighed pounds of ground beef? Boxed rice pilaf? Packaged chicken breasts? I mean, two two-breast packs are reasonable enough to purchase and prepare, but five breasts? There’s no situation in which five breasts ever make sense.

It’s not the cost of the food that concerns me, it’s the likelihood that we’d find ourselves in the OCD-unfriendly need for half of this, a third of that. Would we be trapped in the untidy position of always having too much or too little?

To say nothing of the toothbrush dilemma. Does one buy another holder then simply leave the three extra spaces vacant? And worse, do those three voids then loom, challenging you, your aging body, and mounting college tuition fees to produce even more children? How would I be able to face down those taunts twice a day—or even more if I’d eaten something garlicky?

On the walk back from the lake, we came to a dark patch on the sidewalk that was soft and gummy in the sun. We’d passed over it on the way in, and Lulu was smart enough to direct her kids to walk around it this time. Me? Kate and I just tramped through it again. Leaving, what I noticed later, was a thick coat of tar on the bottom of our flip flops. (Paige, the non-walker, smiled at us smug and clean from her stroller.)

At home, Kate stomped across our overpriced Crate and Barrel porch rug, leaving a trail of black shoe prints like those Arthur Murray dance class footsteps. I kicked off my flip flops just in time to not make the same mistake. And setting Princess Paigey on the living room floor, felt grateful that there wasn’t another little McClusky tearing through the house, leaving a mark of her own.

For us it seems, for now at least, four is a magic number.

The Weepies

For the last day or so I’ve had a mild case of the weepies.

I mean, nothing that’s even resulted in actual tears, but some intermittent on-the-verge-of moments that come about suddenly and vaguely, unrelated to anything that’s even happening at the time. You know, putting the sliced turkey back in the fridge, handing Mark a washcloth for the kids’ bath, driving on the highway through a torrential thunderstorm when we arrived in Kentucky tonight.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking, and NO, I don’t have PMS. I’m not sure what’s to blame, but it ain’t hormones.

Though I wish that it was, because frankly this wimpish state of neither glee (my default) nor despondency is so not for me. I prefer my emotions with more dramatic flourish, thank you. At least more decisiveness, for God’s sake.

If there is crying to do, better to have an all-out bawl sesh like Holly Hunter’s daily one in Broadcast News. Sob and wail like a baby, then take a breath, wipe your face, smooth out your shirt, and get on with your day.

God, I loved that movie.

Anyway, I’m certain that my bulletproof chipperness is bound to be back by daybreak. We’re settled into a gracious old hotel in downtown Lexington—center stage for Mark’s favorite cousin’s long-awaited wedding. Which isn’t to say we’ve all been wondering when the hell she’d finally git hitched, but that ever since she and her fine fellow got engaged the family’s been champing at the bit awaiting this opulent Southern shindig. (Equine pun intended. Hey, it is Kentucky, after all.)

It also should be noted that the dress-shoe-and-accessory shopping that Mark’s relatives have done in preparation for this event has likely had a significant impact on stimulating our nation’s tragic economy. So, you’re welcome.

As for me, resolved to not spend money on something new (per the aforementioned recession, and that my dress closet overfloweth), I buckled at the last minute, but decided to be thrifty and went to Nordstrom Rack. Where, as luck had it, a fabulous frock for a fraction of the retail price fell off the rack at my feet and squawked, “Take me home!”

Okay, okay, so I actually got three dresses—and three pairs of shoes—but they were all dirt cheap. And if I don’t release the shopping pressure valve a little bit every once and a while I could fall prey to some unanticipated retail incident that’s far far more devastating.

So, I’m not sure really where this is all going, but why not come along for the ride because it could eventually get interesting.

Okay, so just to prove to you what a BAR-GAIN this dress is I’m wearing to the wedding—because I’m quite certain you’re sitting there desperate to have some way to understand more deeply just how much money I saved. Just to be able to illustrate that for you I’ll out and admit that I went out and bought my first, uh, well, girdle.

I mean, when I talked to my friends about this I’d actually thought it was a legitimately seismic confession. But everyone’s all “Spanx this” and “Spanx that,” like they’ve been wearing some form of corseture under God knows what clothes for God knows how long when I’d just been going along thinking that exercise and watching what I eat are the best ammo against a fat ass. Hell, they’re all downing 8-foot subs at lunch and just wedging their lower halves into girdles.

So the fact that my deep dark confession made everyone turn to me and say, “Duh,” made me feel like I’d told them I hadn’t read Eat, Pray, Love yet or something. Which, by the way, I have. So my ass might have naively been shakin’ around unclenched by Spandex all this time, but I have kept up with some other realms of modern female life. Sheesh.

Okay, so but what I was trying to get at was, this girdle, this gut-and-ass-confining contraption that I bought? It cost MORE than the dress I’m wearing over it. And just how many bourbons does this Northern lass have to drink under a tent at a schmancy reception at Keeneland before she’s admitting that to everyone?

Well, I’ll be sure to report back and let you know.

Again, taking my patented Pressure Valve Release Approach, I was hoping that if I admitted it here, it might mitigate my need to inform the pastor of this fact after the ceremony on Saturday.

Yes, this is what it’s like being me.

And speaking of the wedding, I can’t help but wonder now if there’s some little emotional nugget inside me that can attribute my recent state of sometimes-not-estatic, to the dismal fact that the groom—whom I truly think is the bee’s proverbial patellas—is mourning the recent death of his mother. A thing that, if it weren’t so altogether crappy on its very own, unfortunately happens to be a situation which is very damn similar to the one that I found myself in on my wedding day.

So before tomorrow morning’s hotel breakfast where we’ll descend into a slew of family and friends, before that slings me into extroverted socializing heaven, and this little case of the droop is whisked away never to be thought of again… Before all that happens, I’m here now, on the hotel bed in the shirt Mark wore today, him next to me, sleeping with a pillow over his head. And I’m sending out some thoughts the groom’s way.

Hoping that he manages, like I did, to spend his wedding day in a flurried blitz of joy and love and luck. And that without too much guilt or sorrow, he’s able to make this grown up, big boy, life-rocking move happily. Even without his Mama there.

As for me, I’m hoping the next wave of weepiness I contend with is during that inevitable hand-squeeze that Mark and I—and likely every other twosome who still takes a shine to each other—will make at some uncontrived and true, love-drenched point in the ceremony.

And I plan to follow that up promptly with a nice large glass of local bourbon.

Did I mention how cheap babysitters are here?