Merry Christmas, Mama

If I should ever leave you whom I love
To go along the Silent Way, grieve not,
Nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk
Of me as if I were beside you there...

And when you hear a song or see a bird
I loved, please do not let the thought of me
Be sad...For I am loving you just as
I always have...You were good to me!

There are so many things I wanted still
To do---so many things to say to you...
Remember that I did not fear---it was
Just leaving you that was so hard to face...

We cannot see beyond...But this I know:
I loved you so---'twas heaven here with you!

-Isla Paschal Richardson

Mattie is coming to visit today!

So I had to quickly clean up. I can't believe I got everything in there; all those years of playing Tetris finally paid off. The Spoffice closet doors will likely remain closed long after his departure.


Also, on a totally unrelated note, I made something in my Dutch ovens (I used both!) and wanted to share. Corie (the babysitter), I made your recipe the very next night!

Except I used too much wine so we ended up making a creamy white wine sauce to serve with it. (Read: Dan ended up making a white wine sauce while I flipped out about fucking the whole thing up.)

Looks good though, right?




And of course Dan had to have his fun along the way.

Tonight's dinner

Fuh real.

Dan made up this little plate for me to enjoy while wrapping (which apparently became blogging). I bet you're wondering, "Hey, Lola, what's in the bowl?" And I shall tell you---it's cookie cereal. Or cookie soup. Whichever name you prefer. We took a bag of all our treats from the cookie swap last week to the Cape to enjoy in our room (because what's a romantic getaway without cookies to gorge on?) and they got crushed amidst our purchases on the ride home. "Don't throw them away," I said calmly (or maybe screamed), "We can add milk and eat it with a spoon. It will be fun!" And fun it was. And tasty. And I feel pretty brilliant. Win, win, win.

In other news:

I'm posting the following picture because the whole scenario made me laugh. The other day after enjoying a breakfast of steak fajitas (yup) (and, no, I'm not pregnant---I just eat like this), Dan alerted me to the fact that I had food in my teeth. (We all know I'm a sexpot.) I handled it as best I could without having to go to all the trouble of flossing and used my tongue to work it out. Then I got in the shower. When I stepped out (and wrapped myself in a towel, so we're clear) this is what was on the bathroom mirror.

He does this kind of shit every day:

I fell to the floor laughing. I so look forward to Dan making me laugh like this when we're cute old people.

Until then---we're still at war.

The Battle of the Christmas Cards score is as follows:

Dan: 10

Lola: 31

I almost feel bad now. Except I love it. Except I feel bad. Except I don't.

We've decided the contest will go until January 1st to give people plenty of time to get their cards out (and send me oodles). I'll give you the highlights then (or sooner if I feel like it) but I'm psyched to report that some people---Spew Crewer Sassy and good friend and "Punkin Chunkin" champion Buffster McDavey--- have sent multiple (four apiece!) cards. Sassy sent a leftover card from 2007 featuring a picture of only two of her daughters because the third hadn't been born yet! And two of Buffster's cards were ones that she received and then slapped my name on so I now have season's greetings from "The Flemings" and "Ken" (which also made me hit the floor laughing).

This has brought much joy to the season. Despite getting trounched (and let's hope for no Hail Marys), even Dan is enjoying it.

Which makes me feel bad.

Except it doesn't.

I'm sure it's just another thing we'll laugh about when we're cute old people.

Round Yon Virgin Mother and Child

They really do remind me of mother and daughter.


I'm in red heaven.

Can you stand it?

This time it was my Aunt Gail who made a Christmas dream come true.  I am awash with gratitude.

She gave me the Dutch oven from her own kitchen...which was given to her by a woman who made luscious tomato sauces in it for 30 years before gifting it to Gail.  It is browned and marked by meals past and this gives me such joy.

I love that one of these ovens comes with its own story and personality and the other is for me to create.  And there will be feasts.  Oh there will be feasts.  I feel a strong need to use these vessels to pass on the generosity and love and sacred human connection with which they were sent to me.

So stay tuned for pictures.

And, my dear, dear G.Bird, my heart is swollen with you.

I just can't take it.

Right this minute---All is calm, all is bright.

I don't mean to rub it in but we even got snow...

...and room service because it was just too cozy to go traipsing about in the cold.  I'm just not sure it gets much better than this.

Here's a fun e-mail to get on a Friday afternoon

From: Danny Boy
To: Lola
Subject: Crazy Idea

When I get home, let’s take off for the Cape. We will stay tonight and Saturday---Christmas shop, get cozy, do Christmas Cards and relax. No plan – let’s just go. What do you think?


What do I think?

What do I think?

Well, I'll be honest. Because I sometimes tend to have an Aspergian reaction to change, I was taken aback for a minute. I had already planned some of our weekend---the Farmers' Market, pork chops, a movie.  But I "recalculated," set my brain to its spontaneity setting and off we went, arriving in Chatham last night at 10pm.

It's gorgeous here---beaches everywhere, pink roses still in bloom, white lights adorning some of the most beautiful homes I've ever seen. Our room overlooks a big sandy beach, ocean and then long sandbars further out. It's a great big room so we're not on top of each other and there's a fireplace which of course ups the coziness factor. When we got in last night we poured a couple of glasses of wine (oh, you know it) and I read my book under a blanket by the fire while Dan worked on Christmas cards.  Because life is sometimes perfect, I even saw a shooting star when I went to take in the night sky from the deck.  This morning I got up extra early and went and had my coffee at the main inn, alone in this stately room decked out with Christmas trees, red and white Poinsettias and a whole gingerbread village. My favorite part was the deck railings made out of white chocolate covered pretzels.

Now we're readying to head out for a little shopping in downtown Chatham, an adorable little town. I've been to Chatham one time before and fell in love with the place. I have little desire for a life more complicated than that which Dan and I are currently living but if a windfall were to hit, this is where I'd land---in a sweet little cottage with a boat.

My mom always said that if she was going to live anywhere besides Rhode Island that it would be on the Cape and I feel her all over this place; it was where she came for her last weekend getaway just two months before she died.  I'm glad she got to experience this one last time. I keep looking around and feel so fortunate to be around such beauty. My mom would love the whole idea of this Dan and Lola Christmas weekend and I keep hearing her telling me to relax and enjoy it.

And so we will.

And so will you.

Monologues With a Drunk: A Dialog

Photo courtesy of Danny Boy. (Impressive, right?)

A winter’s evening in New Hampshire. A redhead who doesn’t look a day over 20 sits in her apartment pondering her therapist’s suggestion that she give up drinking for a couple of weeks.

Me: I think I’m going to have a glass of wine. I really need a glass of wine.

Asshole Inner Voice: But you should at least think about not having it. She only suggested you give up drinking for two weeks ‘just to try it.’

Me: Yeah, but it’s December 14th. Nobody gives up drinking on December 14th.

Asshole Inner Voice: You can’t even go the night?

Me: I didn’t drink last night!


AIV: Yeah, but that’s because you were still drunk from the night before. It doesn’t count.

Me: (Huffs) If I wanted to skip a night of drinking I totally could.

AIV: Then why don’t you?

Me: Because it’s December 14th! WHO GIVES UP DRINKING IN THE MIDDLE OF DECEMBER? WHO, I ASK?

AIV: Getting awfully defensive aren’t you?

Me: Well you’re being a total fuck!

AIV: I’m just saying, I don’t think people without drinking problems have conversations like this with themselves.

Me: That’s ‘cause they do meth and their inner conversations are about that!

AIV: It’s just one night.

Me: But I’m feeling edgy. How about just a small glass?

AIV: Ah, the bargaining stage of alcoholism.

Me: You really are a fuck.

AIV: Why don’t you just take a bath?

Me: Who takes a bath without a glass of wine?

AIV: Why don’t you just go to bed early and read your book?

Me: Who reads in bed without a glass of wine?

AIV: Are you hearing yourself?

Me: Are you hearing yourself?

AIV: I’m you.

Me: Yeah, the lame part. DORK!

AIV: Don’t you understand that when you insult me you’re insulting yourself.

Me: (In whiny mocking voice) Don’t you understand that when you insult me you’re insulting yourself.

AIV: Real Mature.

Me: Real Mature.

AIV: Ugh, you are such a child.

Me: (Opens and closes hand while mouthing blah, blah, blah.)

AIV: I don’t need this. Have your wine. Kill your brain cells.

Me: I knew I’d break you.

AIV: You realize this is a problem, right?

Me: (Pouring wine) Add it to the pile, biotch!

AIV: I can’t believe you couldn’t go one night.

Me: I can’t believe you’re still talking. (Takes first sip, swallows, closes eyes and smiles.)

AIV: Well, what are you going to do with yourself now?

Me: I’m going to write!

AIV: You should have said that in the first place! Who writes at night without a glass of wine?

Me: (Glug, glug, glug.)

Asshole Inner Voice and Me in unison: It’s our artistic temperament!

In the spirit of Christmas---I'm kicking Dan's ass!

And the Battle of the Christmas Cards score is:

Dan: 3
Lola: 12

Wassup now, Danny Boy?

There is no game on the planet (okay, except Scrabble) where I beat this guy and while I hate to get ahead of myself, I smell candy cane-scented victory.

Keep sending 'em, kids. Every little bit helps.

So I've been getting some shit for not posting more regularly and all I can say is---I am a temperamental artist and sometimes my temperament forces wine, cookies, and sweatpants on me and allows for nothing more.

For instance, yesterday I was as hungover as I've been in years and I simply couldn't move beyond drinking water and reading my book all day. (I'm hoping that the opportunity for vicarious living makes up for how annoying it is to hear that I actually spent an entire Tuesday recovering from a hangover. And I did. By God, I did.) (Also, next week when I am in a panic because no holiday tasks have been completed, I give you all permission to point and laugh.)

Why the hangover? Well, peeps, the blog and outside world converged on Monday night when I was invited to a cookie swap over at Spew regular Sassy's beautiful home. There is a Spew Crew---Sassy, Manchestaaa!, and Dammit Janet (formerly known as Just Janet and before that BFYNM: Best Friend You Never Met)--- who became followers of this blog via my sister Bec and who have been as supportive and enthusiastic of it as family...but we didn't really know each other outside of here. I had crossed paths with Sassy and Manchestaaa! a handful of times back when I watched my niece but the first time I ever met Dammit Janet was at my mom's funeral (which is when she changed her Spew handle from Best Friend You Never Met to Best Friend You Finally Met). I hadn't seen any of them since then but Sassy invited me to her party (and Danny Crocker contributed six dozen peanut butter balls for the swap so I could play) and it was a most fantastic time. Apparently cookie swaps are just awesome holiday parties that dudes aren't invited to (except for Sassy's hubby, of course, who surprised everyone by serving up Kahlua and Baileys in sugar-rimmed glasses and should therefore be invited to every party ever). It was fantasmo and so great to spend some time with these ladies---I got to actually learn about them which was such a treat.

Yet another way this blog has brought me joy...

I never take it for granted that I get to connect with all of you lovelies so even though I take sabbaticals and try to get away with posting songs or pictures as Spew filler, please know how appreciative I am that you show up here. I'll try to do better...I'll try!

Normally, I never really have to think up what I'm going to post here. It usually just comes Spewing out and (if my temperament allows it) gets caught on the page. The truth is that it's the editing that keeps me from posting. I've written so many entries that just never made it up because I didn't have time or the temperament to clean them up for posting. Temperament (which I have spelled incorrectly each time I've typed it so far in this post---you complete me, Spell Check) is now going to be my scapegoat for all things. I wanted to clean the Spoffice but my artistic temperament would not have it. I wasn't going to drink tonight but my artistic temperament was thirsty. The point is that the actual writing doesn’t usually require much effort.

The reason I bring this up is because right now I’m working for it. Right now I am not Spewing; I am faking it. (The first part was real, I swear. Only since the last paragraph have I been faking it. And all the other times before this were real too---don't go getting a complex.) I'm just a little jammed up. I've written about this before--- how my brain freezes like a computer with too many programs running when I've got a lot on my mind and that's what's going down right now. And before you say it, yes, if I didn't spend entire days nursing hangovers I would probably have a better grip on life. (But, as I see it, we deserve to be rewarded for drinking bottomless glasses of wine. And it was not so much a reward as it was---I cannot go anywhere or do anything today without dying so I will move as little as possible and hope the dying wanes.) (Wanes, Rob. Wanes.)

I’m trying to get ahold of my brain though because I told myself I just wouldn't do holiday stress this year. Really I just I can't . My body can't afford the energy depletion and my brain cannot take any more frazzle. Last week I showed up an hour early to my therapy appointment---which has been at the same time for the last two years---and was so oblivious to my mistake that I actually called my therapist from the waiting room and left a message asking what’s up with this shit (as nicely as I could). When I figured out I was early---Dan reminded me after I started sending him angry texts about the situation---I left another message explaining my mistake and then apologized for the negative psychic energy I sent her way. My brain is fried and there is no hustle to my bustle. I collapsed after we finally got our tree up the other day not from a physical fatigue but an emotional one. I felt a longing for my mom with every red ribbon loop and wire hook I hung from the branches and while in the end it was beautiful and I was glad it got done, I couldn't go on. I told Dan that was all I could muster this year in the way of decorating---if he wants the stockings up, he'll have to hang 'em himself.

And I'm not alone. I went to a holiday grief support group the other day where women told stories of how for years their one effort at "celebrating" the season was to go out to the backyard, grab a pine tree branch and throw it in a pot of soil. Many of the women there felt, as I have, that sometimes they seemed to the outside world that they are through with grieving when of course this isn't true. It's something I've talked about with my sisters too. You smile, you say I'm fine and then you go home and remember that a piece of you is dead and nothing will ever be the same. The other night I got a text message from one of my sisters late into the night which explained the agonizing emptiness that had just come over her as she remembered my mom's goneness. She didn't want me to do anything, she wasn't holding a knife to her wrist, she just was in immense pain and wanted someone to know. I got it. Not everyone gets it (though all of you seem to) and that can be hard. You feel like they expect there to be some sort of expiration date on your pain and of course there isn’t.

I thought that I had gained little from this support group---other than writing material, of course---but I'm recognizing now that it helped to be in a room where there were no such expectations. To be around a group of people who understand why I’m still having thoughts like, "Oh, I better call my mom, it's been a while since we talked," only to remember she’s gone and then feel so stupid and sad that this is still happening. That's what put me down the other night. I wanted to call my mom and tell her I put my tree up. I wanted to just chat with her and see if she had decorated her tree yet and ask her how her shopping was going.

I just want to go home to her.

And then today my therapist suggested that I give up drinking for a couple of weeks.

I actually laughed.

And just so we're clear, although I certainly do like my wine these days, I really don't have a drinking problem. I have plenty of problems, most of which I've admitted on here, why would I start lying now? The suggestion to abstain from alcohol was more about maximizing my energy by avoiding the depressant properties of booze. Fuh real, I can quit any time I want...just not in the two weeks before Christmas. Just not.

And like that, I'm Spewing. I can tell because I have no filter and told you about the drinking thing.

Apparently my artistic temperament doesn’t know what an inside thought is...

So, this happened.

I wrote a blog on Saturday about how owning a Le Creuset Dutch oven was my dreamiest of Christmas dreams. I might as well have been writing about wanting a Benz, the thing seemed so far out of my reach. And I wrote it because it was really just a funny little scenario going through my head---the family members of Le Creuset employees going, “Oh great, another fucking pot,”----while I so covet the things.

Four days later---four days later!--- it arrived and an actual smile rose on my face as I lifted the heavy package from the front porch. I made my first meal in it that very night and it was tastier than anything I'd ever made because it was born in a red cast iron castle.

So, how did this come to be?

Well, allow me to introduce you Spewers to Rob, who is known by everyone in his life---his family, his friends, his clients---as Bob. Only my mom and thus all of her daughters and husband ever called him Rob. Even back in seventh grade when my mom and Rob first met, everyone called him Bob. I’m not quite sure why she christened him Rob, only that she did and then the friendship lasted for the rest of her life.

Rob has shown up occasionally in the comments section here, usually expressing a loving sentiment about my mom or a smart-ass witticism. Take this comment he wrote the day I was going in for my colonoscopy: “...I hope by the time you read this it will all be over and you'll be pronounced a perfect asshole.” He also sends me private “Gotcha!” e-mails every time I make a spelling or grammatical error on here and, with my mom gone, he is the first person I would consult for guidance in this area. (Actually, he probably doesn’t “Gotcha” me every time which my self-esteem appreciates.) But I work to keep a close eye on errors in large part to stay off his Grammar Nazi radar so you can attribute at least my hearty effort to post mistake-free entries, to Rob.

And you can definitely attribute every single “fuck” I’ve ever written on here to him too. Every fucking one. Growing up, Rob was like an uncle to my sisters and me and in addition to visiting often he was also my first real pen pal. And though I was probably not even 10 years old, though I was but a young and innocent fawn just awakening to the workings of our planet, Rob never shied away from dropping an f-bomb on me if the situation warranted it. (“Ah, fuck your sisters if they’re being mean to you.”) The swearing---in person he could do it in Donald Duck’s voice!--- along with his owning this Mickey Mouse phone



cemented him as the coolest guy ever.

I also somehow knew that he had written at least one novel in the years my mom had known him (though I think he totals more than this now) which made him the first real writer I knew and this of course upped my appraisal of him. ”Whoa, a novel,” sweet young Lola thought. “The guy wrote a fucking novel.”

Not only were his letters great---and typed!---but sometimes he even sent us packs of Garbage Pail Kids, the collecting of which I lived for at the time. One afternoon, delivered in a fantastic cardboard tube addressed specifically to Cherie and me, this arrived.



And now he was a God.

He also would often include funny little poems in his letters, poems which I can still recite to this day.

Little Miss Muffet
sat on her tuffet
eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and she ate him too.

And also this:

Mr. Antiselli
had a pimple on his belly.
His wife cut it off
and made it into jelly.

I suppose I stored his writing tone somewhere in my brain without realizing it--- the irreverence and humor and of course all the fucks. In many ways, his tone and my trying to emulate it became part of the foundation of my writing style.

It was also this sense of humor that my mom, a woman born to laugh, loved about him. Rob’s story of their meeting goes like this: He was a year older than she when this cute redhead walked into his math class and because my mom was such a fox, he assumed she was stuck up. When the teacher sat her beside him in the classroom, in part so she would set a good example, Rob assumed my mom would never talk to him. The two ended up laughing their asses off for the rest of that school year, throughout high school and into adulthood. They dated briefly just after high school but the relationship was destined to be a friendship. They saw each other through years of new partners, counseled each other through hardships and, even during a large span of years when they lost touch, always kept a place open in their hearts for one another.

It’s a friendship I love hearing (and I think Rob likes telling me) about, especially since her passing. The stories of this time are magic for me. If I could go back to any moment in her history, I would position myself behind some tree and just watch her walk home from school. How did she walk? Did she carry her books or was a bag slung over her shoulder? What was her throaty laugh like then? Every time Rob paints a picture of my mom as a teenager or a twenty-something, he is giving me the gift of getting to know her then. So, though we’ve been in touch through e-mail for over 10 years, I think our correspondence means more to both of us now. I am his connection to her and he is my connection to a version of her I didn’t know, one which gives me an opportunity to understand her even more than I could when she was here.

When she died, Rob was the first one at the wake, sitting there---clearly broken---staring at her closed coffin. I hadn’t seen him in 12 years and left the reception line to sit next to him for a minute. I can’t remember what we said---what could we have said?---but I knew, undoubtedly, that his grief was as deep as mine. Though I haven’t been the most consistent pen pal he still checks in at least once a month and wrote me notes on my mom's birthday and the anniversary of her death. He also asks about my dad’s health and is always wondering how my sisters are holding up, how I’m holding up.

And he sent me a fucking cherry red porcelain-finished cast iron Le Creuset Dutch oven (which is much better than an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle). (Though he did say that my choosing a red one made me seem kind of whorish.)

“Yes, Virginia, I read the Spew and found that you want a red Le Creuset,” he wrote to me. “Aha...time to bring joy and cheerfulness to one who deserves much of it...”

Can you take it?

I could hardly take it.

In fact, when I told Dan about it I cried because the thoughtfulness and kindness and beauty of doing something like this just overwhelmed me. (I could almost hear him retching while reading the similarly-worded note of thanks that I wrote in response.) “Joy and cheerfulness”---man, did he bring ‘em. It’s not just that I have a shiny red new toy (but I do! I do!) it’s the whole gesture which just shook me. (Rob, I admit to having a "which" versus "that" problem. Help me.)

But seriously, can you take it?

Now, because I respect his desire to preserve the illusion of his being a cynical prick, I must mention that he insisted that I understand that it “is most assuredly NOT a Christmas present.” He loathes the exchanging of Christmas gifts and says that he has everything he needs “so I wind up getting meaningless crap that I make a point of throwing out disdainfully in front of the giver.” When I asked him if he wanted the complimentary red tea kettle that came with the Dutch oven, feeling a little greedy at this point, he answered only, “I need a red tea kettle like I need a second asshole.” (Can you imagine how much fun it was for little mischievous me to get these kinds of letters as a kid?)

Guys, I almost still can’t take it.

It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. There I was just rambling about my kitchenware lust without even a thought---I swear, not even a thought----that anyone would read it with anything other than a sense of humor; and there he was reading it with a sense of tenderness and altruism. (It almost made me feel bad for making fun of the Jordan Marsh ladies.) (Almost.)

We’ve exchanged a few notes since---he says it’s just a fucking pot and I’ve told him that it’s so much more than just a pot.

See, of course this is a hard time of year. Of course it is. I know people expect the pain of losing my mom to have waned but the truth is that it hasn’t and is even more pronounced in the midst of this season...especially since my mom was practically, as Dan said it, Mrs. Claus. She is Christmas for me. Even as I got older---and this is something I am only recognizing now---the entire month was always about moving one day closer to my returning to her, to my returning home. If “home is where your mom is,” I must admit that I'm a woman lost. So I was getting cynical about the season. $52 billion spent on Thanksgiving weekend---what the fuck is wrong with this country? The song “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” felt like it was taunting me. “Oh is it? The most wonderful, huh? The MOST FUCKING WONDERFUL? I call bullshit on you, holiday radio!” (You see Rob’s influence, right?)

But---and I’m sorry, Rob---despite his declaration that this gift did not come carrying even an iota of seasonal cheer, that’s exactly what it brought me. Holiday fucking spirit. My mom would have loved this story. She would have loved to have done this for someone and she would love that Rob---that guy from her math class all those years ago, the guy with whom she road around all night on the Staten Island Ferry at 18 years old---did this for her daughter. And so through this gift, through Rob’s generosity, I feel loved and I feel her. And fuck me for even writing the following Lifetime movie line---but it helped me feel Christmas. (Vomit, vomit, vomit.) The rest of the season will still be difficult, I’m sure of it. But it’s already better because of this red Dutch oven and the reminder it brought of what's real about this season---the love that connects us all even when we're not all here.

Rob, I am quite certain that this entry is error-laden (and I expect a list of my mistakes) but I wanted to get it up as quickly as I could because I am just so grateful. For the Dutch oven. For the Garbage Pail Kids. For showing me that the word “fuck” could be a tool of this writing trade---a trade which I’d always hoped, in large part due to our letter-writing---to pursue. For the stories of my mom. For the friend you were to her. For loving her laugh as I did. For reminding me that if you can get past the onslaught of Advertising and Assholes (I smell a carol) there really can be Divinity in giving and receiving and in this whole season, something my mom was always in touch with. The gift you gave, hiding in that red Dutch oven, was a glimpse of the realization that someday I'll settle a bit more into the idea that even just remembering her means going home for the holidays.

Thank you for that.

God (GiG) bless us, every one. Especially you, you old fucker.

And I'm on the board!

I just love this picture too much to take it down. Unless something else fun comes to me, it may stay up all month.

Thanks to Mattie's parents---who are always my first card of the season (holla atcha Pat and Henry!)---we have ourselves a tie game.

Dan: 1

Lola: 1

I fear that this contest is going to expose how few holiday cards Dan and I get compared to the rest of you.

Oh well. When baby Solomon is born someday, we'll up our game.

Dan feels very threatened by this competition. He told me that I am mistaken and that I win The Battle Of The Christmas Cards (title pending) every year due to my large extended family. While it's true that my family would beat his family in a tug of war, he has more adult-y friends with kids and everyone knows that it's the child population that brings the numbers up. Also, he has consistently sent out Christmas cards for like 15 years (have I mentioned he's waaaaaaay older than I am?) where as I have been, well, less consistent, so that works for him too. I used to send handwritten cards to the people with whom I wanted to connect around the holidays (like both sides, long-ass letter kind of cards) but eventually e-mailing throughout the year made more sense. Not so romantic, I know, but fuck, I got 'em out. It's family lore---and I think it really happened---that my mom once sent her Christmas cards out right before Easter. Love that lady. The fact that she still sent them...just love her.

Regardless of Dan's excuse-making and boot-shaking--- it's game on! (He tells me he has some tricks up his sleeve too.)

I also want to declare publicly---because I've held this secret in for far too long---that Dan writes and addresses and mails all of our Christmas cards. I choose to no longer be ashamed. He's just better at it and just generally more responsible and efficient than I am. For years and years (starting long before he met me) he's been writing these wonderfully funny Christmas poems that he sends out to all his loved ones (and now mine) and it's gotten to the point that people hold on to them and look forward to getting them each year. He's just so adorable...

...and also so much better than me on so many levels...

...which is why I really need to kick his ass in this contest!

If you send me a card, I promise I'll send you one in return! Er, Dan will. (And not to ruin his fun, but just wait 'til you see what he's come up with this year.) (At some point I'll post it just so those of you who don't want to send me a card---Jerkfaces!---can see.)

Scenes From a Mall Santa

This really happened---a (half) family Santa shot in the middle of the day at the bleakest of malls---and it was glorious. Not pictured: Shiloh, Pax, Vivienne, Maddox, Knox and Zahara. (Also, Cherie who was not in love with this picture of herself.)

It's a little heavy in these parts these days so let’s just have a little levity, shall we?

Some holiday thoughts and observations:

--- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is in essence a romantic duet which recounts the tale of a cozy, fireside date rape.

--- I would like to marry or closely befriend an employee of Le Creuset. I bet that the family members of these people probably get whole sets of this cast iron cookware of the Gods for Christmas and I want in. I just know in my heart that I would be a better cook if I only owned a red, porcelain-finished Dutch oven.

--- I gave a go to holiday shopping the other day---I was getting new tires put on Dan’s car (Who’s a good wife? I am.) and had no choice but to mill about a shopping plaza while I waited. While it turned out to be a win for the economy (and a lose for our bank account), I grew so weary that at one point I parked myself on one of the leather couches in the Best Buy entertainment section and donned a pair of 3D glasses just to get a break. December 3rd prediction---not a chance in North Pole hell that I will make it through holiday bustle with any measure of efficiency or grace.

--- On the aforementioned shopping trip I overheard an older (though not elderly) woman telling her similarly aged friend that she wanted to go to “that store, you know that store over there…you know that store to get that movie.” (The store was Best Buy.)

To which her friend answered, “You mean Jordan Marsh?”

Huh.

“Yeah,” the first woman said. “I wanna get that move, you know that movie…that movie that was on HBO but first it was a movie.”

Quickly surmising that it was not likely that the two were going to come up with the name of the movie if they were of the mindset that they would be doing their Christmas shopping at Jordan Marsh (probably after hitting up the Woolworth's counter) I told them I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation and offered my help.

“Okay,” the first woman said, readying, I thought, to give me a short description of the film. And with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old during a guessing game she said, “It’s a movie I would like,” and then referring to her friend, “but she wouldn’t.”

Huh.

The first woman continued, “The people are in another world...you know they showed it on HBO...and they can’t breathe.”

And the second woman, who was clearly more of a cinephile than I gave her credit for, said, “That sounds like Avatar.”

“Yeah,” said the first. “And they speak another language.”

“That sounds likes Avatar,” the second woman said again. “Are the people blue?”

“YES! They’re blue! And it was on TV…”

“It’s Avatar,” the second woman said again.

“YES!” the first woman exclaimed. And then she added, “Now if only we could come up with the name of it.”

I was mostly silent for the whole exchange. I have never seen Avatar and I also felt like someone was playing a trick on me.

--- We got our first Christmas card the other day and it was from a friend of Dan’s prompting him to exclaim, “I’m in the lead!” This has become our yearly contest---who gets more Christmas cards. (We have mostly separate friend-sets so it’s easy to keep score.) I often lose. In the past, I’ve attributed this to my being waaaaay younger than him. “My friends are too busy with raves and hallucinogens!” I’d say. But this doesn’t hold much weight now that I’ve hit 30, so I’m using my online resources to wage war. I guess what I’m saying is, send me a holiday card! (For mailing info please contact my publicist, Becky Breslin...or me via Facebook or e-mail.) If the numbers aren’t too dismal, I’ll give you an update on the score as the season progresses. Currently it is Dan: 1 Lola: 0. Help the needy, would you?

And with that I bid you adieu. I hope to return to you soon but I have been experiencing more ups and downs these days than a bipolar elevator, so one never knows.

Happy Holidays, my friends. And if any of you work customer service at Le Creuset…let’s do lunch.

I love my nephew.

And also I can feel my mom starting to get pissed about me posting that last photo, so I needed to get something else up. (She thought it wrong to even take a picture of someone wearing oxygen.) Because I can't seem to words together put nicely, my cute little Benny Boy will have to do for the moment.

Also, here is a link to a great post on my friend Amy's blog. Amy is a fairy of a human being.

Stay tuned: Depressing blog post of the year coming soon! Starring Brain Cancer, My Dad and Sally Field! Get the hankies!

Happy Thanksgiving, all you loves.

It was a Good Night, Mama.

My mom would be sooo pissed that I am posting this picture. But I LOVE it! And would do anything to have her hand on my face right now. So, if you want me to take it down, Ma, you better show yourself to me somehow and say so! Otherwise, it's staying! You hear me, Gigi!

A year ago today I spent the last day I ever would with my mom. Having been up since 3am that morning---we had tea and split an English muffin in the middle of the night; our final tea party---we talked about how we wanted to nap the day away together. She’d stay on her couch, which she barely moved from in those last days, and I would take the hospital bed, she said. But things happened---a few visitors came, I had to try two different pharmacies and fight construction traffic to pick up a refill of liquid morphine, and relatively unremarkable hours of the day passed us by. By then I had the morphine administering down. Its conversion from grams to ounces, its equivalent dose in Oxycontin. I would fill the dropper, sometimes twice, and if it was a good day, my mom would get relief. This was not her worst day. Had it been, there would have been no visitors---even daughters---welcome.

There was no reason to suspect it was the last day of her life. Except for maybe every reason. We all thought we had longer. We were waiting for the stuff of comas and catheters and while I'm so grateful it didn’t get to that, those were the markers we were waiting for. Because they never came, we were all shocked.

It’s still light out so I haven’t died yet today. When it gets dark lately, I die a little and cry on my couch and wish I could just be asleep and unfeeling. I downloaded Little Women to watch tonight--- the movie my mom, Cherie and I watched this night last year. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to watch it or if I even want to. I’ve never felt so unsure of what I want or how to be. Settled in this pain or afloat in distraction?

Outside myself. Away from me.

We ate Halloween candy. My mom’s appetite had returned and though she couldn’t walk, or sleep lying down, or breathe without oxygen flowing at its highest setting into her nostrils, we saw her appetite as a sign of improvement.

You see what you can.

I told her I loved her. See, I didn’t know but somewhere I knew.

I slept on the hospital bed that night. She stayed on her couch. Around 3am I woke up, startled and surprised that we hadn’t been up yet in the night together. I brought all my blankets with me to the couch and sat beside her and covered us both. She was alive. I made sure our skin touched. Our arms. The outside of our thighs. I rubbed her back and neck. I didn't know. Somewhere I knew.

The sun is already west. Our day together nearly gone.

My head on her shoulder, I held her hand. She was barely awake and I suppose barely alive, but we held hands.

We took our nap together then.

And Now For Something Completely Different.

Just two years ago...on a planet far, far away from the one I'm on now.

I can't remember if I ever posted this, but I just stumbled across it and it gave me a deep (and deeply needed) laugh. Mattie came to NH for a visit a couple of falls ago and this is the kind of shit we get into when we're together. All editing credit goes to Mattie. Dirty Chirl (sister #4) is on camera duty and Katie (sister #3) is on commentary. Bec (sister #2) provided the backyard and I'm sure Tara (sister #1) called at some point that day. I'm in charge of gravity (though some might argue Mattie had some responsibility there as well).

Let's all get a laugh at my expense, shall we?

P.S. Don't we all think Mattie should come back to the 'shire again soon so he can cheer me up and we can make more fun videos?

(Can I get away with the 'shire? I mean, can I?)

And fall used to be my favorite time of year...

I’m enjoying a spiced pumpkin latte right now at my usual coffee shop. I haven’t been here in weeks, wanting to be mostly home these days. Even a coffee shop feels chaotic and overwhelming lately.

I sat in this exact seat last year when I returned to New Hampshire after spending October 10th to November 5th in Rhode Island. Only a couple of days after my mom died.

The crisp air brought sorrow this year. I hadn’t expected it to hit me this early but the wind changed and my body understood its meaning before my mind did. A limbic brain remembering the chilling fear that came with the chilling air; the falling hearts with the falling leaves. The anniversary of her dying is hitting before the anniversary of her death.

I am slipping into darkness, I can feel it.

Let me say this: I have safety nets in place. Medication. Therapy. Dan.

Still a sadness cloaks me so completely that I sometimes experience a sense of almost amnesic displacement---Who am I? Where am I? What am I to do? It's worst at night, of course.

I look for her everywhere. When Dan and I drive through new towns, I expect to see her walking out of stores. Like she’s hiding out and not gone. I found an old cell phone recently and when it worked and I saw that there were messages from her, I thought that I had found her. She’s been writing to me here this whole time! My heart swelled and deflated so quickly that it was in sharp pain, like when you turn your neck too quickly in a way it's not meant to go. My heart won't ever know my mom in the same way and it is straining to catch a glimpse of her.

I am looking out this coffee shop window now, hoping to catch that glimpse. I am imagining spotting her across the street and watching her look both ways before crossing towards me. Sneakers. Her brown felt coat. Her purse strap across her chest. Smiling. Laughing and waving to the drivers who let her pass. Beaming as her eyes meet mine in this window. “Here I am,” she’d say. “Here I am, my Laura.”

I can picture this so vividly---I understand now why they put these sorts of scenes in movies---that I am crying in this shop now, my face down and covered with my hand.

The memories of last October are haunting me. The fear. She began sleeping sitting up, falling asleep mid-sentence. Sometimes she woke not quite herself, speaking words that didn't make sense and scared because she was aware of it. I would tell her to ride it out, to not worry if she didn't make sense. Her fear haunts me most.

So, I'm not sure how much I'll be writing this month or even during the coming holidays. When I do write lately it's about these memories that keep flashing through me, in feelings if not pictures. The 911 calls, holding her hand through panicked, insufficient breaths---I'm not sure I can share those here. I mean just how much of a downer can this blog be? But maybe I'll want to. Hard to know anything for certain these days.

Who am I? Where am I? What am I to do?

Lots of laundry and cleaning and even cooking. Sometimes moving seems the only option. Sometimes not.

Which isn't to say there aren't moments of levity. My mom was laughing the night before she died and taught us how to always find the crumbs of joy even in times of famine.

The other night Dan painted my toenails in the most beautiful act of just being there that I have ever witnessed or experienced.

Modern Family has me laughing hysterically every Wednesday night. (Dan and I started this comfortable little tradition of watching it from bed because 9pm seems a reasonable---if not late---bedtime lately.)

I've had two nice lunches with my sisters and dad in the last week.

And then there's the wonderful warmth of this spiced pumpkin latte.

My mom would be glad for all of this. Still, particularly on rainy days like this one, I only wish she and I were watching a Lifetime movie in her family room, both of us falling asleep after having been up all night like we were last year. Even at its worst, I loved just sitting with her.

Sometimes when I close my eyes for a nap it feels like she is in the room with me.

My dad's health is uncertain to say the least and saying the least is what he'd prefer I do, a choice I understand and will honor. My family is in a sad transition of trying to relearn who we are to each other within the context of this broken version of our family.

It's just hard. Like I said, I hadn't expected it this early but then nothing has been as I anticipated.

She would love the orange leaves. She would love this rain.

And I would love her loving them.

This is where I am. Who I am. And there's nothing to be done other than acknowledging it is so.

How satisfying is this?

I should be embarrassed, shouldn't I be?

But I'm not. I look at this and feel a really ridiculous amount of pride. We don't even have pets or kids! What would your sludge pot look like? Perhaps I could make a business of doing sludge pot readings.

My Mama's Rainbow is back and all cleaned up and purty and yesterday it had its first romp around the apartment. So...much...hair. Also, spiders. Our apartment is where daddy longlegs come to winter. This is extremely unsettling for those of us in this apartment who are certain that spiders mess with sleeping humans for sport.

I am cracked up by the amount of Rainbow loyalists that I've heard from since posting this. I feel I've tapped into some type of underground cleaning society. Perhaps we should all meet up and cross hoses.

So, apparently vacuum sales are born, in large part, from leads generated by users. For instance, when I told Brian that my sister mentioned hating her Kirby, he suggested I talk her into having him to her house for a 45-minute free demonstration on the latest model (which is apparently Rosie-from-The-Jetsons-good). I told him I'd see what I could do. This being my "public forum," I am mentioning it here because somewhere in my heart I feel this is an old-school good deed during hard economic times.

If anyone wants a Rainbow demonstration (I can't believe I'm writing this), let me know and I'll contact Brian to give him your info. Full disclosure: If I get him two demonstrations---without anyone purchasing a thing---I get a free Rainmate which is an air purifier that sounds like the porn version of Rain Man. I don't really need an air purifier but the idea of winning something is always delightful.

Did I mention that Dan has suffered from asthma since he was a young child.

I know Brian will travel anywhere in New Hampshire, which I assume means he'll likely cross a New England state border or two. Did I also mention that, "The Rainbow is certified asthma & allergy friendly™ by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America*."

So it's sexy too!

IF YOU CALL NOW, I'LL EVEN THROW IN THIS LIGHTLY USED PLUNGER!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

I'm really not trying to break into the vacuum business here but I told Brian I would do my part and now I've done it.

Today Dan and I are going on a Target/Christmas Tree Shop field trip. Welcome mats, throw pillows, storage totes, oh my! I woke up excited about it which I find a bit depressing. Maybe we'll even have lunch at the Target food counter!

Vacuum referrals and weekend trips for household wares---it's all feeling very domestic around here. We'll have to have sex in a movie theater tonight to prove to ourselves that we're still a childless couple in our prime.

Or, we could take turns throwing random crap on the rug and vacuuming it up to see what it looks like in the Rainbow's water tank.

Tough call.

And now I'm in Dublin with a broken heart

It’s 2011 and I just had a vacuum repairman in my living room on a Sunday morning. (Dan and I keep calling him the Hoover-Fixer-Sucker-Guy and singing the song from Once.)

He was here to assess my mom’s Rainbow. Just “My Rainbow” to her. It had been making an awful high-pitched noise and there was a terrible smell of burning last time I used it so I wanted to get it a tune-up. Since the shop is an hour away and he lives here in town, Brian, a third-generation vacuum repairman whose father owns the place, offered to come out and have a look. A new hose and some basic clean-up and the machine should be good as new.

Anyone who knew my mom well understood that this vacuum was her most valued possession. She never cared for cars or furs but---with five long-haired daughters and various cats, dogs, and litters of puppies along the years---a good vacuum was important to her. She would extoll the virtues of her Rainbow to anyone who was in the market for a new vacuum. So effusive was she, that the Rainbow representatives who came out to our house to repair or upgrade her models over the years asked her to work for the company.

The Rainbow, an R2-D2-looking thing, locked into a water basin which sat on a wheeled ring on which you dragged the whole apparatus. There was a long, elephant’s trunk of a hose and various wands and attachments for dusting and upholstery and crevices but the water basin was what gave my mom her sense of vacuum superiority. There was no risk of all the dirt and hair and dust and bugs she sucked up erupting out of an over-filled bag. The spiders were dead. The dust was drenched. It all whirled in a cyclone around the basin so at the end you were rewarded with a gruel of dark water and sludge.

As a kid I was mostly just annoyed with the noise of it. If I was watching TV, the sound of the vacuum's wheels hitting the linoleum as my mom turned the corner from the dining room to the kitchen sparked irritation in me, aware of the impending interruption that would occur when she reached the family room. It was loud and it was cumbersome and I got annoyed whenever I was asked to schlep it from one part of the house to another.

Schlep it, not run it. She preferred to do the vacuuming herself than have us break her machine. You could borrow her sweater and stain it, you could shatter her favorite pitcher and my mom would have laughed. But I was scared of breaking her Rainbow. I once asked her if I could bring it up to NH to give my apartment a solid cleaning (the kind an electric broom just couldn’t handle), and though she let me, I saw a hesitation on her face that I had never before seen when I had asked to borrow anything. Of course before I could take it anywhere, I was first subjected to her Rainbow orientation speech which stressed, above all, the importance of not leaving the water basin attached after you’ve finished as condensation in the engine would prove fatal.

Thinking of her ambivalence now, I love it. I almost wish she would have told me no.

It wasn’t until last year when I was vacuuming her house every week that I finally understood the machine’s greatness, its efficiency and power. When I told her the floor attachment kept coming off she was stern----“That’s because you’re not putting it on right”---before showing me how to do it. It was a simple fix, you just had to know the machine. I took pride in the fact that I knew how to do it right. That she knew I knew. She was as grateful that I was cleaning her home as she was that I was respecting her machine.

She laughed when she saw me detach the water basin even just to take a bathroom break.

When she started losing her hair, I vacuumed twice a week if I could. The hair would amass in broad, thick webs on the couch cushions and floor and I tried to keep up with it all, protective of her pride. Once, after the hospice nurse had just been to the house, I eyed a small hair nest on the rug and grabbed it up with my hand, trying to be nonchalant about it so she wouldn’t see.

“Was that hair?” she said, missing nothing, and then she asked if I thought the nurse had seen it.

The day she died, after making arrangements at the funeral home, we came home to the family and friends who were still at the house and my mom’s hospital bed was gone, the furniture back in place, the floor vacuumed. The gesture was meant in kindness but I was disarmed by how gone it all made her. I missed even the threads of her scattered on the floor. Whenever I visited the house in the months following her death, I wished that I had vacuumed less and I would scour the rugs and floor, even around the toilet, hoping to find a little web of her hair.

Before she died, she told me she wanted me to have the vacuum, knowing I was the only one of her daughters who didn’t have a good one. But she had said this to only me and when my sister was moving into the house to help my dad out, it didn’t seem right to say anything or take it when there was still all that house to clean. My sister gave me her Kirby to use knowing I didn't have a solid vacuum.

“Mine is far superior,” was what my mom had to say of the Kirby when she was alive and she was right. I hated it. Fortunately for me, my sister and dad didn’t like the Rainbow and we traded back. I was ecstatic that I was actually getting it, but back in my apartment I found that its hose was ripped and had been duct-taped and it wasn’t working well. Then Dan accidentally broke the caddy for the extra attachments. Initially I felt intense irritation that it had been so mishandled and then I felt grateful for the chance to restore it.

The entire time Brian was here this morning, I fought a strange mix of tearfulness; I felt the pride a son might in fixing up his dad’s old Cadillac. The whole thing---a Rainbow man in my living room, my offering him coffee the way my mom would have---made me feel so much like her. She would be so glad that I’m putting the money into her Rainbow. “It’s a good machine!” she would say.

I told Brian I would be a Rainbow customer for life---one of those moments when I hear myself sounding exactly like her---but I wasn’t ready to spend $2,000 for a new machine.

I want to keep this one alive as long as I can, I told him.

I’m not even sure how old it is, though I think it’s the second one she owned. It could be over 20 years old. Brian said some people keep them running for 40. I’m sure somewhere my mom wrote down when she bought it. If it hasn’t been thrown out, there undoubtedly exists somewhere a manila folder held closed with an elastic band, which contains all documentation on her Rainbow complete with notes from the day she bought it jotted down in her warm scrawl. ”Brian---nice guy!” she would have written of today’s visit.

Walking in on me writing down my own notes after the appointment, Dan smiled. “Gig!” he said.

I kept writing.

9/25/11...Option to trade-in, refurbished models available...

But there was one piece of information provided that I didn’t need to write down: Brian’s warning about leaving the water basin attached when the machine isn’t running.

When he said it, I arched my eyebrows at Dan. He has been warned about this several times.

Lifetime Movies present - A Writer's Dilemma: The Lola Mellowsky Story

I take every opportunity to post this photo. The power of visualization.

So, there I was---“writing.” When I put it in quotation marks it means I have the document on which I am supposed to be working open on my desktop but am instead engaging in “research”. ( For example, today it was integral to my “writing” that I watch the Jim Carrey/Emma Stone video ). (The Spanish subtitles made it somehow better for me.)

Then I got to thinking of the really important stuff.

I got to planning which, as any successful human knows, is something regular people think successful people do a lot of. (This is what I’ve heard. Being neither successful nor particularly regular, I can’t speak with any certainty.) So I’m sitting there and I’m doing my planning thing---if I write for a few hours before tomorrow’s dentist appointment and then return e-mails afterwards from the coffee shop then I’ll have plenty of time in the evening to check and see if Emma Stone made a response video (she really should). It was then that I realized that I have left the most important detail of my writing career---perhaps the most important detail of my life; perhaps the most important detail of all the details in the land--- completely unexamined.

What picture am I going to use for the book jacket of my as yet unwritten book?

HOW COULD I HAVE OVERLOOKED THIS?

This is way more important than unquotationed-marked writing.

Shall I hold a cup of coffee? French-pressed or cappuccino? Should I be snuggling with a dog? Do I need to get the dog now so it will like me enough by the time I publish to sit through the photo shoot? A well-bred black lab or an orphaned three-legged mutt with cataracts? Will a downtrodden dog upstage me?

Should I smile warmly from a riverfront porch or try for depth and intelligence against a backdrop of bookshelves and a Manhattan skyline? Do I put my chin in my palm? Should I be on a swing set laughing joyously in long braids? Should I start growing my hair out now?

Do I need to start working on my Blue Steel? Should I sleep with the photographer so he goes heavy on the air-brushing? Should I use a picture of Emma Stone instead?

Should I wear a vest?

Do you think vests will be in by the time I publish?

Are vests in now?

Should the caption under the photo say “The writer at her home in NH” or “The writer on a water slide” or the “The writer making a ham sandwich”?

And what of the “About The Author”?

This is Lola Mellowsky's first published work though she always wished she had come up with the idea for the Encyclopedia Brown books. She looks forward to embarking on her own young adult series, Thesaurus Blue.

And the acknowledgements?

I wouldn’t be here were it not for the generous spirit of a kind-hearted many who let me blow them to get published. And this book certainly wouldn’t have come together without the CVS clerk who let me blow him for the Scotch Tape.

Of course a shout out to my 11th grade PE teacher is in order for flunking me and thereby cementing my understanding that I would never play professional badminton but I was hoping to save that for my Oscar speech.

Now that I've identified this oversight I'll be sure to give it far too much undivided attention.

But not now. Now I must go and "write."

Thesaurus Blue isn't going to write itself.

Besides, I'm pretty sure I've found the perfect photo.



The writer after Nog-Bombs on Christmas morning.

Home stretchin'.

I am now on my third leg of this Tour de Niece watching Molly Moo for the rest of the week and into a bit of next. I can handle the child with no degree of difficulty. I am going to murder the new family dog. She’s a puppy still at six months old and she is a giant pain in the ass---chasing the cat around, spazzily prancing from couch to chair, eating pillows when nobody’s looking. I am bottomlessly grateful that Dan is allergic to dogs and cats and this will never be my fate. (Also, I kind of love the little barking shit and am happy her sleep crate is in the room I’m staying in so we can engage in psychic snuggling. I would let her in the bed but it’s against house rules.)

Last night Dan and I helped Mol with a little homework project which had her cutting off the top half of a cereal box to be used in her classroom as storage for library books, folders and whatever other presumed crap a fourth grader acquires throughout the school day. After the adult-guided scissor portion of the exercise, Molly was to decorate the “book box” as she wanted. While the kiddo was out of earshot, Dan and I brainstormed potential decorating schemes. Swastikas and pictures of horse genitalia were our first ideas. Writing “White Power” in bubbles letters along its side was Dan’s next suggestion. We shall not soon be parents though I think I’ll take several birth control pills tonight just to be safe.

The niece-nuzzling time certainly has its rewards though. Last night Mol and I took turns reading aloud at bedtime and both of us performed the piece in animated British accents. Blimey, the little wanker is good! I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of her than I was listening to her deliver a big book of animal facts as though it was a National Geographic documentary. The kid is funny which is really much more important than having manners or proper wiping technique ( both of which---I will clarify because she’s almost nine and it would be disturbing were it not the case--- she has). Bottom line, I just like the kid which soooooo helps when it comes to the whole not-beating-her thing.

The first night I stayed over Mol didn’t sleep in the bed with me which is a departure from my typical stay-the-nights which always have her asking me,”Lola, can I sleep in your bed tonight?” as soon as I walk in the door. I was sure to let her whenever she asked because I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and when she stayed in her own room that first night I was sure it was the end of our slumber parties. (Were she not the type who sleeps horizontally I might have been broken up over it.) But last night she returned to my side (as in, her feet in my side) and first thing this morning she asked if she could sleep with me again tonight. I won’t lie, I love it. There is such a peace to looking over from my book and seeing her sweet little freckly face.

Yesterday I drove Mol and a pal to dance class and realized I’ve been picking these kids up from school and schlepping them to that studio since they were three years old. On the drive over, Mol’s friend, A, told me she had been telling another fourth grade girlfriend how Lola was picking her up from school and that I was---and these are A‘s words---”so awesome.” She used her stretched arms to indicate just how awesome she explained me to be. To which Mol remarked, “Did you tell her she’s my aunt?”

Fourth graders---my target demographic.

When I dropped Mol off this morning and she showed me a flash of too-cool-for-Lola, I lectured her, “Remember, the girls are talking about me on the playground these days. Your aunt is sooooo awesome.” Then, after she jumped out of the car and was heading into school I rolled down my window and started shouting, “I love you, Molly! I’ll miss you! Have a good day! You’re the best little girl in the world! Be sure to use a napkin at lunchtime! I love you!” She laughed and smiled back at me.

Sooooo awesome.

Hopefully she still feels this way after the rest of our time together. I am as tired as it gets from all this house-hopping. No, this is not true. I just left a house where my sister was taking care of a two-year-old and a newborn...I could be a breastfeeding zombie, which I am not. (Not a bad idea for a Halloween costume though.) But it’s all catching up to me and l look forward to locking myself in my apartment for several weeks once all of this done. I suppose I’ve just recognized the rhythm of my life---surges of family and friend-focused energy and output followed by plunges into isolation. I guess that’s just how I do.

But just so we’re clear, I’m not leaving you guys hanging on summer camp stories. I've got something in the works though I may have to wait to post it until I get home again. I want the time and quiet to release it naturally and gently. But it’s coming, I swear. I need to relive it on paper to be sure it really happened.

Guys, it was sooooo awesome.

I beat the crotch!

Though, in the end, I suppose the crotch was also a victor.

Evangeline Lynne is here. Katie and bro-in-law Gary waited a bit to settle on a name (though Dan spread a pretty far-reaching Facebook rumor that her name was Eunice Gertrude and that she was close to fourteen pounds at birth...she was eight pounds three ounces) but the kid came home a titled person. Despite my flight out of Boston being delayed an hour, and having only twenty minutes to sprint through the Atlanta airport to catch my connecting flight to Dayton, and a cab driver who didn’t seem to understand the significance of ten centimeters dilated and pushing, I made it to the hospital in time for the birth. Though Katie and Gary seemed shocked by this, given the fact that Katie had been in labor for four day and at the hospital since the night before, I was certain the universe was working to get me there in time. Between my telepathic directives to my unborn niece to wait me out and having a sense that Gigi was pulling all the strings, I just knew it was going to play out exactly as it did and, indeed, I was in the hospital room the moment little Eva Lynne inhabited a body and came to earth. Four days of labor is not a pretty tale no matter the ending, but Katie and Eva are healthy and well as is the rest of their crew. A family has grown in size and happiness.

Today I held my little bundled niece and wondered aloud, “Who are you going to be?” and it’s such a point of curiosity for me. Of course she already is, in many ways, who she is going to be---but who is that? Who just entered our lives to change and shape our world in her unique way? And what way will that be?

I’ve been a witness to two births and one death in the last ten months; the richest of years in sorrow and joy. Holding a newborn---a new person in the room where there wasn’t one before---feels like the closest proximity, the closest connection to that which we don’t know. That other world. But I have to say, I felt the same way about my mom dying at times. Like I was just as near to that which is---in a different way (or is it the same?)--- miraculous. The last night my mom spent at the hospital, about ten days before she died, laying in her bed in and out of sleep, she told me that she felt the presence of others in the room. She laughed even, saying I probably thought she sounded crazy but she felt them touching her fingers playfully. When I asked her if they scared her, she said no.

“They’re guiding me,” she said.

When I speak of a year rich with sorrow and joy, I’m not sure which category this story falls under. I feel as grateful to play with the little matchstick fingers of my new niece as I am to have seen my mom laughing about the unseen playing with her hands. Grateful to have been able to go that far with her.

It’s moments like these that I am remembering now. Those which were too painful to recount for some months. All I want now is to remember, so I’m going back even as things move along.

Katie and Gary are sleepless---balancing the needs of a two-year-old and a three-day-old with their own food, rest and showering requirements. I am equal parts envious and relieved that this is not my life. When the babies cry at the same time, that ratio shifts. I feed Savvy pad thai, empty the dishwasher and reheat Katie’s cup of coffee when I can, trying to make myself useful.

I’ll leave here Wednesday and have a handful of days to unpack, sleep with my husband (get your heads outta the gutta...or don't), and put a few things in order before heading to my sister Bec’s to stay and watch Molly for a stretch while she and Jeff are in Hawaii.

I feel like I’m heading from family member to family member right now---painting walls, reading books to nuggets, holding babies. I’m not patting myself on the back here; none of this is up to me.

I’m touching miracles again (my island retreat, the lips of a newborn) for one reason:

She’s guiding me.


Swaddling a miracle. (Mother and child photos are pending final approval so an auntie and child photo will have to do.)

Leaving on a jet plane.

I should be ashamed of the lack of creativity here, but I'm boarding in ten minutes and I have to pee!

Been on a whirlwind tour since my writing retreat, so my apologies for holding out on camp stories (it was too wonderful for tidbits). I ended up staying in RI for five days, helping Cherie and bro-in-law Pete as they ready to move into their first home. I packed, I primed, I got sawdust in my eyes and Dan said I came home a little bit tougher now that I'm a laborer. It is such an exciting time for them and as long as Hurricane Irene doesn't screw things up, they will be in their new home by this Sunday. It was fun to watch a sweet little family heading into one of those rest-of-their-lives moments.

I'm at the airport now flying off to Ohio for another of these moments, as my sister Katie is due to deliver her second daughter any moment. She's been at the hospital since last night and my flight doesn't arrive in Ohio until 3:45, so I feel like I'm playing beat the crotch. I'm hoping to be there for the big moment, but what can ya do? They grow up so fast but I'm sure a few hours won't make much of a difference.

While all of it may be taking me away from my writing, it is also setting me at the center of life's truest elements---first homes, babies, airport stank.

These were Dan's suggestions for how I spend my week away:

Thing you should do while in Ohio:

1. Enjoy the moment for what it is.
2. Squeeze Savvy often.
3. Make some time for yourself (a morning walk, an afternoon drive, journal in the yard).
4. Talk to your Mom. She’s on your shoulder these days. I hope you can feel her.
5. Miss me. I’m adorable.

He's right---he is adorable. And I do feel my mom on my shoulder. She's the one bossing me around, having me romp about tending to all her girls.

While I can't promise updates since I'll be hanging out with two-year-old Savvy when not nuzzling a newborn or caring for my sister, I will try to get some pictures up.

Wishing you all more of these rich life experiences...and less of the stank.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

I promise I will write all about summer camp soon. I've been home for only five days and now am heading down to RI for a three-day Ocean State jaunt. When I settle and finish the laundry, I will return to all you Spewers in full form. (I am, of course, a changed Lola after this week.)

Today, however, is a Gigi-post day. It is her birthday. I find myself wondering if the expression "another year younger" fits now. Like there's some Benjamin Button effect that has her aging in reverse out wherever she is. I like to think she's 42---the age I kept her at for years in my head---and that she's dancing and laughing her laugh and feeling proud of herself and her girls.

Mom,

If I could, I would rub your feet today. I'd make you coffee and we'd have it on the deck and then go to Reidy's for breakfast. We'd drink lemonade later. I'd make up a pitcher and we would drink it down in the yard and maybe we'd go in the river together. I wish I swam with you more. I would love you up. I would look in your wise blue eyes (gorgeous, those eyes) and say, "Thank God you're mine."

Thank God you were the mother I got this go-around because it's made life a gift. I get to see what you showed me. Real things, not distractions. I get to feel another's heart when I look at her face because you taught me how. I can open my body in laughter--freely, loudly--because you showed me and let me. Your laugh, Mom, I get it now. It was also your tears. It was also your life. Your joy. Your generosity. Your intimacy. Your gift. I will have it always and give it always because that's what you did. Thank God you were my mom.

Happy Birthday, Mama. I miss you, I feel you, I love you.

Your Laura

Alabanza!

Me again, your substi-spew blogger. I am here to report that Lola is alive and doing well on her island writing retreat and she is actually having an amazing time. She is still fairly isolated out there and contact with her has been limited to a few random texts throughout the day and perhaps a brief phone call at night. But, every message from her has been so filled with excitement and joy about what she is doing, that I know this will be a week of her life that she will cherish forever. She deserves one.

If you wonder what you do in a writing retreat as I do, apparently, it seems you write. You write, and read, and revise, and write. Throw in some time for meals and perhaps a glass or wine of two, but otherwise, it’s all business. I will hear from Lola in the morning and she will already be writing (usually having her morning cup of Joe with the sun on her face). She writes all day with her group. Then she writes at night. I usually get a call as I am going to bed, and Lola is just finishing up. She’s writing and writing and writing.

My only fear that she is just filling up journals by continually writing, “All work and no play makes Lola a dull girl.”

But I don’t think so.

She is so pumped about the whole experience. She loves what she is doing. It has made her excited about doing more and is she is just relishing the supportive environment that her new writing friends provide. She loves the serenity of the island. She is overjoyed by the guidance of Joyce Maynard. She is appreciating every moment and all her surroundings. She is just soaking up every minute of this experience.

Alabanza.

That’s a new word that I fell in love with this week. For some reason, one day this week, I woke up singing the title song from “In the Heights”. It’s a Broadway show, one of Lola’s favorites, about a neighborhood in New York and the people. Definitely has a Spanish flair to it, but with a slight hip hop twist – my Lola can, and will, bust it out. But this day, the song got stuck in my head. So, I decided to listen to the whole soundtrack. That’s where I found “Alabanza.”

Alabanza is a word that Abuela, the grandmother of the neighborhood in the show, uses when she appreciates the small little blessings in her life (glass Coke bottles, breadcrumbs, a sky full of stars.) It means, as they explain, to raise this thing to God’s face and literally, to sing praise to this. The song has a sad tone to it, given the occasion upon which it is sung, but the word has such a subtle and profound beauty to it, that it keeps ringing through my head. How many things in our everyday life which we take for granted deserve our praises? We all need to cherish the blessings of our life.

So to this workshop and retreat that Lola is in the midst of, I say, “Alabanza!” I sing your praises. It’s a little gift to Lola to be where she is and to having the time she is having. It’s a blessing to have her feel the freedom where she can write all day, without worry, without interruption, without guilt. It’s just her and her pen. It’s a blessing to give her time out on a peaceful island where she can appreciate the rolling sounds of the surf, the squawk of the seagulls, the smell of the ocean. It’s time for her, time to feel her Mom with her, and time to breathe – deep and long – soaking it all in.

Alabanza.