Mighty Fond of You

2011-09-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Radar Ward, a Chihuahua whippet mix of unknown origin passed away on September 15, 2011. Born in 1996 in the wilds of Albuquerque’s North Valley, he spent his formative years wandering solo until a potent combination of fate, luck and horse sense brought him to the Ward family.

The small white dog, dubbed “Radar” in tribute to his outsize ears became the immediate friend and muse to artist Ross Ward. The inseparable buddies spent many happy hours sun bathing, catnapping and perfecting the mid-air tennis ball catch. Proclaimed “best dog in the world,” Radar became the subject of a series of late career paintings by the artist where he was depicted as a bright spirit of hope and once as The Pope, himself.

Radar’s dedication to the creative genius only deepened as Ward battled Alzheimer’s disease. Whether sharing a table, a bed or a particularly warm patch of sun, Radar rarely left Ross’ side and seemed to share a freeflowing path of communication with the artist long after words had been lost.

With a bouncing step and a jingling collar, Radar brought great joy and comfort to Ward and the many other residents of the Manor Care Alzheimer’s wing.

After Ward’s death in 2002, Radar continued to live with Carla Ward in Sandia Park, as Mayor of Tinkertown Museum. After a full season of meeting and greeting visitors from all over the country, Radar spent winters relaxing in Phoenix, Arizona. Vacationing in the shadow of Camelback Mountain, Radar developed a taste for organic chicken and long hikes in the desert.

During his tenure as Tinkertown Mayor, Radar was the inspiration and star of the picture book "Emily Finds a Dog," written by Carla Ward and illustrated by Megan Ward.

Radar is survived by feline friends Franny and Zooey, devoted humans Carla Ward and Eric Rasmussen and legions of loving fans. This best dog will be greatly missed.

2011-06-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

Happy father's day. Found myself telling lots of stories today. Wondering if my son was old enough to whittle. What my dad used to call "parking lot pine" is good whittling wood and the name made my son say, "what the ( mouthed hell) is that?" He giggled hysterically over the silent swear word and my non-reaction to it. I'm hard to shock and part of that is thanks to my Dad and that makes me a good Mom and for that (and a million other reasons) I am grateful to my Pop. I miss him still.

My own husband, the father we celebrated today, is a good man in more than name. He deserves a day all to himself. All parents do. More than one.

2011-04-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, Dad.

I spent today doing mostly things I love. I wrote some and walked in the bright spring sun. I tickled the kids and made up silly songs. My daughter and I had a sword fight with cooking tongs and socks and my son laughed the high cackly laugh that lights me up like a string of Christmas lights.

It was a great day.

2011-03-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's as easy as riding a bike. But is it? I've just spent forty minutes trying to remember how to inflate the tires on my bike. Granted, I haven't ridden the darn thing in a year and it's got those tricky little Presta valves, but I'm still a little abashed by my need to watch a tutoring session on tire inflation on YouTube. (Thank you, cute bike guy, for all the info.) Inflating the tires on my bicycle is not the only thing that I've forgotten. I forget regularly how to pay my bills (some of them are paid online through the bank, others come out at intervals through auto withdraw and some I actually have to sit down and write a check.) I've written a list of how and when all these things happen, but then I forget to look at it. I forget the passwords to my various online accounts (why in the world do I need a security question to buy a top from J. Crew?) I forget what book I'm reading and then when I remember the title, I forget where I am. In all the catching up, think I probably read each paragraph five times. And then, when the book ends, I promptly forget all about it.

Am I overloaded? Under brained? Sometimes I worry about Alzheimer's. But mostly I figure that there's a lot going on. With over forty years of stuff crammed into my cranial file drawers, things are getting a little crowded, a little dusty.

Besides, I can remember how to make a souffle, how to saddle a horse, how to make paper dolls for my daughter. For everything else, there's a recipe book or a cute guy on YouTube.

2011-03-30T08:50:00.001-07:00

I'm up at The Next Family

2011-03-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

Spring is here. I can feel it. The park is lush and green and filled with flowers. The scent of orange blossom drifts in the air. The sun feels warm and the sky is still blue blue, not the smog tinged blue gray of summer heat. I love Los Angeles in the spring when the stiff branches of trees fluff out into blossoms the color of prom corsages and the earth is plump and damp from rain. Grass grows overnight, spreading a dense emerald carpet over hills that will, too soon, turn crackly and brown in the summer sun. Too soon there will be fire danger and baked hard clay beneath my feet. But for now, the moist air adds an ever so slight curl to my fine, straight hair and bright orange poppies spruce up even the most bedraggled median. Spring in the air. Spring in my step.

Fried rice for a new year

2011-02-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

My daughter cooked dinner tonight. Fried rice in celebration of the chinese New Year. She and I were both born in Monkey years. She tells me that means we are both "problem solvers" as in we know the answer to nine times one-hundred and five. She doesn't, though, and I really have to think about that one. The problems we are made to solve are not, perhaps mathmatical problemes. Tonight (as I do most nights) she solved the problem of dinner. She took the factors of left over rice, a bag of carrots, some purple cabbage and the chicken from two nights previous and she added them until they equaled dinner. It was good. What was better was watching her take charge of the big bowl of rice, seeing her happy smile as she dished out seconds (and thirds) to her brother. My husband (because he was born in the the steady year of the Ox) took this on as a teaching moment. He asked her to notice how happy she felt as the cook whose dinner was eaten with happiness and delight. He asked her to put herself in her mother's shoes (her mother who is often the cook). "Isn't it nice," he said, "to cook for happy eaters?"
"I know," she said. "I know what you are trying to do."

We monkeys are problem solvers, but we are also problem makers. We can't seem to help ourselves.

2010-12-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

December already.

A hard rain last night almost convinced my kids that there would be snow. They drew faces with their fingers in the steamed windows and then asked for more cookies.

It was a big sugar day -- one more in the season of sugar. My boy arrived home from a two hour soccer/wrestling/football/basketball match with his pals, stuck his hand in his pocket and came up with a wad of gold foil, bouncy balls, tiny erasers and plastic farm animals all welded together with melted chocolate. Gelt should not be kept in the pocket of an eight-year old for any extended period of time.

The eight-year old is a furnace. He is a fiery pit of rage and tears and roiling, boiling emotions. I hesitate to put the butter dish near his place at the table lest it melt into a pool in the heat of his passion.

An evening that began with a Christmas tree and ended in tears and recriminations. So like so many of late.

Once we'd finally gotten the kids soothed and to bed, I read aloud to my husband. Not "A Christmas Carol," but "Your 8 Year Old." I read this bedtime story to soothe my beloved, to reassure him that our 8-year old was not different from any other boy of that age. That ours was to move through this fiery inferno -- keep calm and peaceful as that much awaited layer of winter snow.

2010-11-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

Just ate a green chile cheeseburger and drank a beer in honor of my Dad. I can't even imagine how many similar meals we shared during his life. Eight years, later, I still miss his company.

2010-11-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

Writing my head off for NaNoWriMo, so not much here.

But try here at Smartly

and here at The Next Family!

2010-10-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Took the kids to LACMA yesterday on the first of what I've decided will be "Terrific Tuesdays." Thanks to constant LAUSD budget cuts they get out of school early on Tuesdays and rather than spend these extra hours battling over who gets to watch television and why can't we play computer games until nightfall, I thought it would be good to get out in the world and take advantage of some of the wonderful things Los Angeles has to offer.

I chose LACMA for our first adventure because I wanted to check out the brand new Lynda and Stewart Resnick Pavilion where there is currently an exhibition of gigantic stone carvings from Mexico. I thought the big primitive heads would be a source of great delight to my children, but they gave them only a quick glance and then headed into the costume exhibit where they oohed and ahhed over hoopskirts, bustles and corsets. My son chose a fox hunting costume complete with top hat and crimson tailed jacket as his favorite while my daughter gravitated toward the all white lace dresses from the 1800s. We made a quick run through the decorative arts exhibit and I asked pointed questions about the differences in the bronze sculptures of Roman gods and godesses and the big, crudely carved stone heads.

"They're all people," my son said.
True enough.

The real treat for my kids was the bright red escalator that ascends three stories up the side of the new building and affords a terrific view of the surrounding neighborhood. They also greatly enjoyed the gigantic glass elevator in the Broad Contemporary museum while being only marginally impressed by the Koons balloon dog. We wondered why the inflatable pool toys stuffed into ladders and chain link fences were art, until a guide informed us that the toys were actually made of metal and painted to look like plastic. This crazy Koons magic trick was enough to temporarily "wow" the kids until my son started to wonder "why in the world you'd want to make an inflateble about of such heavy stuff as metal."

We made a quick trot past the Picassos, a Matisse mosaic, a Rothko and a couple of Pollacks before my son drew up quickly in front of a troupe of emaciated Giacometti sculptures.

"Hey, we've seen these before."
"Yes?" I said. "Do you remember where?"
"They live at the Norton Simon," he said.
"That's right," I said. "They were made by an artist named Alberto Giacometti."
"He is a good artist for Halloween," my daughter said.
"Because these people are a little like skeletons?" I asked.
"No," she said, rolling her eyes. "Because Jack-O-Metti is like Jack-O-Lantern."

Duh.

Outside, we counted the streetlights in the arrangement dubbed "Urban Light" by Chris Urban. My son estimated somewhere between 175 and 200 while my daughter methodically counted each one and arrived at 21-Million-billion. (Later, because I like to know these things, I looked it up. There are actually 202.)

We ran across the rain sprinkled grass and checked in with the Mammoths in the tar pit (still stuck.)

In two hours, we saw more "official museum art" than I saw in my first 10 years of life.
"What'd you think of the museum?" I asked as we braved the rainy afternoon traffic jams along Beverly Blvd.
"Boring," my son said.
"I liked the elevator," my daughter said.

Terrific Tuesdays. One down. Hundreds to go.

2010-10-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

I'm over at The Next Family!

2010-10-05T12:22:00.001-07:00

Two posts in other places and not a lot of posting here.

(Instead of posting today, I've pruned all our trees, researched tree scale, placed a bunch of items on craigslist, sorted American Girl clothes and doo-dads into baskets, printed out my credit report and taken the dog for a walk. This is to make up for the fact that yesterday, all I did was eat ice cream out of the carton with the freezer door open.)

The Next Family

The Smartly

2010-09-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

I'm also over at The Next Family! Check it out...

2010-09-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, the heat broke for a moment and the sky turned pink. My daughter and I ran outside to see what we could see. There was lightning over the mountains, rain falling in dark, smudgy streaks and, miracle of miracles, a rainbow. On the green hill just over the freeway, the big white building that is part of a cemetery shone like a shell in the last of the sunlight.

We saw a man with a dachshund on a leash and he stopped talking on his cell phone to admire the sky with us.

"I was just telling my friend about what a beautiful night this is," he said, gesturing to his phone.

"It is, it is," my daughter shrieked. "It's the most beautiful, wonderful, best night..."

She did a couple of twirls for emphasis and because she was, after all, wearing a leotard and floaty ballet skirt.

We saw our well-groomed neighbor and his well-groomed dog out for their evening walk. Both man and dog seemed relaxed and happy. We exchanged our mutual happiness with the cool evening, with the pink sky. We exchanged our shock at the recent heat and our theories of inevitability. A cool summer = a warm fall.

My daughter waved to our neighbors across the street who sat at their dining table and their own daughter rushed outside to shout hello.

We ran into our house to where my son sat in the darkened office and raced a computer car on a computer track.

"Come outside," we begged.

"In a minute," he said, waving us away, his eyes wide and fixed on the screen.

"There's a rainbow," we said.

Very begrudgingly he stood up and walked outside and looked up. He smiled his biggest smile.
"Wow," he said. "That IS beautiful."

And before we could agree, he ran back inside to the dark and the computer and the racetrack.

2010-09-29T10:33:00.001-07:00

I am running out the door, but wanted to take a moment to be publicly grateful. I am grateful for the kindness of neighbors and cousins. I am grateful for doctors who had the skill not only to stop, but to start the heart and lungs of my uncle. I am grateful to friends for their good listening and for their thoughts and their love and their support. I thank my husband and my children for opening my eyes and my ears every day. I am grateful that the temperature has dropped and that my dog hasn't eaten any beloved stuffed animals in at least a day.

Thank you.

2010-09-24T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm writing for a new site. Check it out!
The Smartly

2010-09-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yep, still over at The Next Family. More soon from this front!

2010-09-17T09:44:00.001-07:00

I promise to write more here, soon. But for now, here's a link to me over at The Next Family

Thanks for reading!

2010-08-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm over at The Next Family http://thenextfamily.com/2010/08/new-floor-plan/

Thanks for reading!

2010-08-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

"I feel like I've been smashed by a landed comet."

This is what my daughter said to me a couple of days ago. And right now, I get it. I am right there with her under the rubble.

Tomorrow, I drive off to New Mexico and tonight I'm trying to conjure up a few more words to fill my promised twenty minutes.

At least twenty minutes of writing every day. Twenty minutes every day for ninety days. It's a plan and I need a plan.

I am tired, but I am writing. I am tired, but I am thinking.

I am looking forward to the long solo drive across the desert and up into the mountains. I am looking forward to those red rocks around Gallup and the last long hill that glides you down I-40 into Albuquerque.

The last time I made this drive, my dad was in the passenger seat next to me. We'd spent four days in Los Angeles together. We rode roller coasters at Knott's Berry Farm and ate lobster burritos on the beach. I was driving my stepmother's big, diesel pick-up truck and because Dad had Alzheimer's, I drove the whole way. He drew cartoon pictures of us on napkins and picked up stacks of brochures in every rest area and truck stop.

Ten years have passed since this last, wonderful trip. Ten years in which I've gotten married and had babies. I have made friends -- dear friends -- who never got to meet my dad. My children are growing tall and slim and strong and smart. So much time has passed. I still miss Dad. I can still see his thick fingers trace our route across the spread pages of the road atlas. I can here him wondering how soon we'll "hit the road." He'd tell me to "blaze on out of here," or "pedal the metal it."

"Happy trails," he'd say.

My daughter is sleeping in my bed, the comet of her emotion has landed her flat. She's sad that I'm leaving, missing me before I'm gone. I've left her a beaded barrette and the promise of a surprise from my journey. I'll be back soon, I say. But she has no sense of time. To her it seems like I'll be gone forever.

But I know how forever really feels.

2010-08-25T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning, when the kids left for camp, I headed out into the garden with the shovel to dig a little hole to bury the hamster. My husband had kindly wrapped her in paper towel and placed her in the animal cracker box that would be her coffin. I was grateful not to have to feel her fur, so soft over such a stiff and awkward form.

I dug the hole, placed the box at the bottom and scraped the dirt back on top. All the while, I was acutely aware that I was being watched. Next door, a gardener was standing on a folding chair clipping the hedge atop the fence that separates our yard from our neighbor's. He was wearing a safari hat and a jacket with many pockets. He observed me quietly and without judgment the way a birdwatcher might watch a bird. I felt like I should say something. I should say something to him or to the earth or to the spirit of the hamster. I said, "you were a good hamster. Thanks for being here..." I realized that it's hard being an adult at a hamster funeral. I can't blame my daughter for wanting to run away from this event, for wanting everything to be put away when she returned from camp.

Recently, I returned to my childhood home to find the closet in my old room entirely empty. It was the first time in my life that I'd ever seen all the walls and the floor at the same time. It's an extremely large closet, like a room, but I don't think it ever seemed large. I'd been putting things in it for over forty years and then, suddenly, everything was gone. There are not words large enough to explain my relief. My stepmother assured me that my wedding dress and a couple of boxes labeled "do not throw away" were in another closet, but I didn't even check. I didn't ask about the other stuff, the stuff that wasn't labeled. The vision of those walls, that floor return to me from time to time like a breath of air. Even the hollow sound of emptiness is a peaceful one.

Yesterday, after the burial, I took the aquarium outside and dumped the paper bedding into the trash. I tossed the little cake house that had been pretty seriously chewed and the paper towel tube that Flowersheartsandstars had used for a hiding spot. I washed the glass walls of the aquarium and the ceramic food dish and the water bottle. In addition to these very useful every day items pertaining to food and shelter, the estate of Flowersheartsandstars contained only one plastic hamster ball and a fancy, blue sparkly Cinderella carriage that rolled when she ran inside. She left an almost full bag of bedding, some timothy grass and a box of hamster pellets.

In the last two years of my grandmother's life, I moved her three times. Each time, I edited her possessions, divesting her of unnecessary items. Extra cutting boards, sets of china, the bedroom set, nearly twenty pairs of scissors in different sizes. I sorted through her clothes and her books and cleaned the food from her cupboards. There were bags of prunes and bags of candied orange slices and boxes of oatmeal. She saved plastic bags and glass jars and shoe boxes. She saved tiny bars of soap and had a dozen nail clippers. I tried to be tender as I sorted through her things, tried to be gentle. I tried to watch with the kind of interested distance of the birdwatcher or the gardener. But I thought about my own drawers, my own cabinets, the little hoarding tendencies inherent in my own life.

Disposing of the hamster's estate took about fifteen minutes. It was a sad business. Somewhere, some time, I will do this for other people and somewhere, sometime, someone will do it for me. It is part of the ritual of death and loss, I think, this careful going through of things. I think that somehow, touching all the things that belonged to my Grandmother made her eventual death a little easier. I felt as though I had known her better, known all the little ticks and oddities she wouldn't have ordinarily shared. I don't know much about the hamster except that she had a little stash of food hidden in the corner of her cage, but I do know that the act of putting her things away and setting our house into a new kind of order brought a soothing movement to my sadness.

2010-08-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Howdy!
I've got a piece over at The Mother Company -- gorgeous website with nifty things for the wee ones.

http://www.themotherco.com/2010/08/the-last-days-of-summer/

2010-08-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

I will never again keep a small creature in a glass box or cage. I will refrain from bringing home anything small and furry and scritchy-scratchy in a little cardboard box from the pet store. This will be hard. I have a child who loves little things: mice, hamsters, rabbits... they are impossible for her to resist with their soft little ears and beady little eyes. Their twitching noses and pink feet.

We must resist.

It is difficult to know a creature so small, so dependent. Little feet behind glass. Little heart beating. And not beating.

Another dead hamster and this one a complete surprise.

Upstairs, the kids and their dad engage in a pre-sleep wrestling match. They shout and laugh. I don't know how to tell them. Don't know when is the best time to reveal a small, dead thing.

Not before bed. Not tonight, when the tooth fairy is headed to our house.

Maybe I can tell them the tooth fairy took the hamster, too.

Tomorrow, a garden funeral before summer camp followed by the retirement of the glass aquarium and the running wheel and the house shaped like a cake.

No more small pets. I am writing it down so I don't forget.

Here's what we're doing today...

2010-07-19T14:27:00.000-07:00

We've eaten cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes. We've walked the dog around the block. Twice.

There is a lot of fighting. When I hear a loud thump or scream or bump, I say "is everything okay?"

My son says, "It's fine, that's just the sound of a sister being tortured by her big brother."

Today, my daughter coined the term "nipple pit," as in "you are such a nipple pit."

Today the paper says it is not as hot as yesterday, but I'm not sure I believe it to be true.

It's summer. And both of these kids are as bright as the sun.

2010-07-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

Because we recently found PhotoBooth. And because the weekend is over. And because the kids are going to camp. And because shouldn't we all look at ourselves like this sometimes?

2010-07-10T20:29:00.001-07:00

And, so I was wrong.

Wrong headed yesterday and wrong about Theo being alright.

Though he seemed fine when we went to the movies, just before the show started, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

"He's pretty red. And breathing funny," our babysitter said.

We were already standing, already moving our way through the darkened theater.

My husband and I, in times of urgency, move together easily, both cruising toward a solution. Day to day, when our movements are not so synchronized, I forget we have this skill. It is as satisfying as the crisis is alarming to find that we are, indeed, both level headed.

Home to find our boy the color of a beet. His eyes were wide with worry. He held a tissue clamped to his nose.

We piled in the car and headed to the E/R. We've been there before with my son. A febrile seizure, a split forehead, stitches to mend the spot hit by a thrown chair (kindergarten can, apparently be a bit wild.) Theo was sent back right away and he asked for my husband to accompany him.

I stayed in the waiting room with my daughter. She sat on my lap and we watched other people and their children. A mother and grandmother rushed to inquire about a boy who had been brought in by helicopter. Another mother tried to explain in broken english that her daughter had a pain in her "private place." A toddler with a fever drank Sprite poured from a McDonald's cup into his bottle and another boy cried and cried. Through it all, the intake nurse, a tall, man with a kind voice said again and again, "tell me what's wrong, Mom, tell me what hurts."

"What are you thinking?" I asked my daughter.

"I'm thinking nothing," she said. "I am listening to everything."

My husband sent cheerful text messages from inside which calmed me only a little.

Finally, we were allowed to join Theo and his dad and it was a great relief to see my boy sitting up, red faced, but smiling.

"You carry an Epi-Pen, don't you?" the doctor asked. His son, the same age as mine, had a peanut allergy, too.

"When we are camping," I said. "But not all the time."

I felt sheepish. Why didn't I carry it all the time?

Have I grown complacent? My kids are usually healthy. We are all blessed by this health. I don't have to think about their health every day and for this I am grateful. But I worry that Theo's allergy is like the bad news in the paper. It is something so scary to me that I ignore it entirely. I am not going to panic, but I am going to be mindful of this thing. David and I are calm in the face of crisis, but it would do us more good to be calm on a regular old day, too.

Yesterday was not my best day of parenting, but I am trying not to beat myself up. I am watchful. My boy is okay and I have an Epi-Pen next to the lipgloss in my pocketbook.

2010-07-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today, I told my son to "stop behaving like an idiot." When he looked at me in shock, I immediately followed that with "I didn't say you were an idiot."

So wrong in so many ways.

It's been a tough day. Too much time, too little structure. I'm worn out and worn down and worn in. Like an old shoe.

The kids bickered constantly. When they weren't bickering, they were asking for stuff. They want Legos and ice cream and popsicles and plastic ponies. They want toys and more toys. I pointed out that they already have lots of toys. Lots of toys they don't even play with. We made a plan to sort these toys and send some to live with other children. But the sorting didn't go that well. Even a kid without any toys isn't going to want the sad and broken assortment my kids were willing to pass on. Unless that kid was planning on building his own version of Watts Towers, I'm afraid the three stray marbles, broken plastic dinosaur, tangle of beads on lanyard, head of Batman and a few mishapen plastic cowboys aren't going to be that useful.

So, I got overwhelmed by all the trash we have accumulated under the guise of entertaining the kids. Educational or not, it all turns into a big mismatched hodgepodge mess. Oh, Melissa and Doug, you purveyors of wholesome wooden toys, damn you.

At any rate, when things got tough, I snapped the leash on the dog and led the troops on a walk. Our first trek took us to the Griffith Park pony rides and then second, much longer walk ended at the new frozen yogurt store. (Yes, I am not all evil parent.)

At the frozen yogurt store, the kids filled cups with crazy flavored yogurt (red velvet?!) and piled candy on top. Marshmallows, frosted animal crackers, gummy bears and sprinkles. As they spooned their way through this sweetness, my son thought he tasted peanut. He's allergic to nuts of all kinds and peanuts especially (though they aren't a tree nut.) His face went white and I tried to maintain my cool.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"I feel like something is weird," he said.

He wheezed a little and my heart felt a little smashed.

We tossed the yogurt and started our walk home. I'd left my cell phone on the kitchen counter and I had only a few dollars in my pocket and my kid had possibly eaten a nut. For the millionth time today, I wondered what the heck kind of mom I was.

"Are you sick or are you worried?" I asked.

"More worried," he said.

"I'm here," I said. "It's okay."

And it was. We got home. He took some Benedryl as a precaution. He felt better.

I'm crazy about him. I'm crazy about both of my kids.

I think I was the one behaving like an idiot.

2010-06-30T08:40:00.001-07:00

Just finished reading the paper. The good news is that a big chunk of open space in Orange County has been preserved. The bad news... well, shithousemouse, where to begin?

Yesterday, I took both kids to the grocery store -- always a challenge -- and while we were there, Sadie decided she wanted to surprise me with a birthday gift.

"Don't look," she said, "I'll be right back."

I dutifully averted my eyes (while still keeping an edge of her pink skirt in view) and went about my shopping. She returned a minute later with a gigantic mylar balloon shaped like the sun. The thing was, I kid you not, two feet wide. And shiny gold.

"Don't look," she said.
"I'm not looking."

We walked this way through the grocery store. Me, face averted, Sadie trailing behind with her balloon and my son bouncing in and out of my field of vision, each time holding some new thing.

He wanted mini-marshmallows, bright green yogurt in tubes, chocolate granola bars, chocolate milk, gum, a bag of mints wrapped in patriotic plastic... And the list goes on.

"No," I said. "Not that," I said.
"Don't look," Sadie said.
"Can I have," Theo said.
"Holy shit," I nearly shrieked. (Still with eyes averted.)

Somehow, we made it out of the grocery store. Somehow, the giant sun-shaped balloon made it through the check-out desk and into the car without my detection being detected.

At home, the children rushed upstairs to prepare the the gift in secret.
Moments later, Sadie appeared, grabbed the tongs from the kitchen drawer and retreated.
"We have a situation," she said. "But we are problem solvers."

The balloon was captured and presented and my surprise was as real as I could make it (thank goodness I was a theater major...) Now, it bobs around the dining room, startling the dog.

The sun is in our house. It's trailing behind me in the grocery store, it's in the faces of my children and the sweet way my husband looks at me. It's the goodness of our friends. The sun helps the trees make lacy shapes on our lawn. It's summer and the sun is in our house and in our life and I look out at the world from my sunny spot and I am so grateful.

2010-06-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

My son would like a GPS for his life. It's not a bad idea. I wouldn't mind having one, too.

Imagine what it would be like: this nice voice (probably with a British accent) would say things such as, "You will experience frustration in 1.5 miles." or "Great joy at next exit." It might say, "Take the next job ahead," or "bypass this relationship for the one around the corner."

I want my son to know that he has a kind of built in GPS. I am trying to help him tune into his internal voice. I want him to "trust his gut." It's hard work, this tuning in. I am still working on it. But when I listen, I know it's there. And it's usually right.

2010-06-21T16:43:00.001-07:00

On Saturday morning, we looked out into our yard and saw hundreds of bees. In the sunlight, they looked almost metallic, whizzing through the air like tiny spaceships. For some reason, they had decided to gather on a slim branch at the top of one of our trees. As they gathered, they clumped and their collective weight pulled the branch down toward the grass.

I thought at first, they had come to harvest nectar from a particularly great bunch of flowers. I thought perhaps one bee had taken a sweet sip and then sped back to the hive to do a little "great grub," dance and everyone followed him back for a picnic. But at day's end, they had stopped flying. They looked like they were settling in.

A bunch of bees on a low hanging branch is not a great match for a kid with a frisbee. I herded my son indoors and typed "Silverlake bee rescue" into my computer. (Isn't it amazing that we can find almost anything in just few keystrokes? I continue to be overwhelmed by all the information out there, but also so incredibly grateful for it. A conundrum of our time, I suppose.)

The next morning, Vincent showed up. He's a bee guy. He brought a mesh hat and gloves that fitted tightly over his shirt up to his biceps. He also brought a cardboard box and a mini shop vac. He would collect the bees and take them home to his collection of hives where, this year, he'd already harvested five thousand pounds of honey. Holy smokes!

Vincent let us stay in the yard while he suited up. He told us that our bees, if left alone, would start to build combs in the tree. He looked around our yard and said it was a good bee yard. He told us that once he'd fallen twelve feet from a ladder and landed on his back to protect the clump of bees he was holding. He told us that the bees in our tree were in their most docile state. And then he told us to go inside and watch through the window.

From our vantage point atop the washer and dryer, we watched while Vincent sprayed the bees with sugar water (to keep them busy) and then carefully climbed the ladder and clipped the branch holding the largest cluster of bees. I had a momentary fear that when he snipped it, the branch would swing upwards and launch it's buzzing cargo into the neighbor's upstairs window, but Vincent held it still and worked the clipper with his elbow. The cluster of bees looked like a bunch of grapes clipped from the vine. Vincent settled them carefully into the cardboard box and secured the lid with duct tape. The bees outside the box took to the air.

"They're going to land again," Vincent assured us. "They want to be in the box, too."

We ran upstairs to press our noses against the window for a better view. The bees did want to be in the box. They wanted to stay together. In a matter of minutes the screened end of the box was covered with bees. Using a little whisk broom, Vincent gently swept these bees into a second box. Those bees that evaded the broom were collected with the mini shop vac.

In less than ten minutes the bees were gone.

Vincent removed his mesh hat and gestured for us to come out. He showed us photos of bees nesting in hot tubs and bird houses and even in the head of a fiberglass snowman.

"I am totally writing about this in in my journal," Theo said.

Me, too.

2010-06-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

School's out for the summer! Holy smokes. In a short forty minutes my kids will be all mine for nearly three months. To paraphrase Shaggy and the Scooby Gang: Zoinks!

I've been thinking about WHAT WE SHOULD DO. How to keep busy (but not too busy.) How to keep them from fighting each other, me, the dog... How are we relaxed, but alert. How do I keep my boy from spending every waking hour hunched over the keyboard lost on some computer generated island.

Two days ago, I said, "We've got to keep active."
And he returned, "My computer body is active."
"No," I said, "Your BODY body."
"I kind of like it when it stiffens," he said. "When I'm on the computer parts of me fall asleep and that feels good."

In order to keep most of our parts mobile and awake, I'm making a list. It might start this way:

Walk the dog, kick a ball around the back yard, see how many different kinds of leaves we can find on our street, paint a picture, dig a hole, make a mud pie, practice your headstand...

There's lots and lots of options. And, yes, computer, too. Writing for me, games for the boy. We all have our own islands.

2010-06-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm over at The Next Family. Check it out!

http://www.thenextfamily.com/topics/family/urban-dwellers/urban-dwellers-tanya-ward-goodman/

The Trees on My Block

2010-06-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about being present. I've been reading some books about "mindful" parenting and "mindful" living. I've had a few conversations where I tried to explain what "mindful" really means. It's a funny word and one, I think, that gets thrown around an awful lot lately.

For me, it means being present. It's the act of standing on the ground, with your eyes open and looking around at your world. It's about taking in an experience before reacting to it. Being mindful is not knee-jerk. But it isn't so relaxed that you're letting the world wash over you. It's about being alert and aware and ready. Sometimes I think we confuse being ready with being in action. Ready is not pulling your jacket on as you unlock the car. Ready is having your jacket on before you open the front door.

At any rate, a dear friend of mine has an art show up for just a few more days and her paintings make me think of being "mindful." She has painted all the trees on the block surrounding her house in Pasadena. When I am feeling like my head is about to pop off with stress and fear and anger, I like to think about Elizabeth walking around her neighborhood looking at the trees. She's given each tree (or bush or artfully carved shrub) its own place on a small square of plywood. These paintings are so small they invite you to come closer, to participate in Elizabeth's mindfulness. They ask you to take a moment to admire the curve of a carefully carved topiary or register the starkness of bare branches against a winter sky.

Because I am lucky enough to know Elizabeth, I know that her paintings are always this specific. I know that being "mindful" is part of how she defines being an artist. In other series, she has paid careful attention to all the bits of trash in the vacant lot across from her studio and to the things she sees on her commute. In this way gum wrappers and streetlamps and the shiny handle on a car door are all elevated. These things are part of Elizabeth's world and part of ours.

As I type, I am aware of the way the keys press against my fingertips, I hear the whir of the refrigerator and the shrill peeps of the young birds nesting in the magnolia. I see dust bunnies in the corners of my office and I resist the urge to spring up and grab the broom.

If you have time, take a trip to the Pasadena Armory for the Arts and check out Elizabeth's show. It's only up for a few more days and it is worth the trip.

http://www.armoryarts.org/exhibit.php

2010-04-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, my dad would have turned 70. I got through most of the day without remembering this fact. It's been nearly eight years since he died and over those eight years, my commemoration of specific anniversaries has slipped. This is, I think, a good thing. It's what Dad would want. This does not mean that I don't miss him. I do. Sometimes with a fierceness that takes me off guard and sends tears literally spouting out of my eyes.

Dad is not buried anywhere. We cremated his remains and have scattered his ashes in many places that were special to him and to us. I have saved a little bit in a small brown box wrapped tight with a rubber band. There is no grave to visit once a year and this seems freeing to me. He is tied to nothing and because of that, he is tied to everything. I mourn him and celebrate him and I move on with my life all at the same time.

2010-04-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

Once a week, I'm blogging over at http://thenextfamily.com Check it out!

http://thenextfamily.com/blogs/2010/04/01/urban-dwellers/spring/

In Memory of Pokey the Cat

2010-03-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

At the ripe age of eighteen, Pokey Goodman (nee Damler) has passed away. Born in La Jara, New Mexico, Pokey was adopted as a kitten by the guitar playing sea captain and harmonica expert, Fritz Damler. First dubbed “Slowpoke,” she spent her youth engaged in mousing duty on the ranch.

When Fritz’s craving for adventure lured him from ranch life, Pokey moved to an elegant condo in Santa Fe, where she grew fat and comfortable lounging on the heated brick floors in the company of art lover, Connie Dempsey. It is perhaps here in Santa Fe, that Pokey developed her fondness for the word marvelous and her smoker’s meow.

It was during her stint as museum cat at Tinkertown Museum, that Pokey met Tanya Goodman (nee Ward) and a partnership would be formed that would prove to be lifelong. Tanya and Pokey moved back to Los Angeles together and into an apartment in the hills of Echo Park. Tanya’s fiancée, David Goodman, former cat hater, was soon won over by Pokey’s loving nature.

David was not the only one whose heart was melted by this small cat. Handsome Italian actor Allesandro Mastrobuono proved a passionate soul match for Pokey. Until she was found out, she crept from the Goodman bedroom each night, squeezing herself through a loose air-conditioner vent, leaping from a balcony rail to a narrow window sill and into Sandro’s humble yet romantic cottage.

As Pokey moved with the Goodman family from Echo Park to Silver Lake to Los Feliz, she did not waste time by slinking around under the sofa or shivering in the closet. She welcomed each new experience with a loud meow and a healthy curiosity, consistently endearing herself to realtors, contractors and moving men.

When the Goodman family expanded, Pokey was delighted. She was patient enough to withstand the rough, yet loving attentions of a baby and a toddler. She attended tea parties, wore numerous doll dresses without complaint and was only too happy to share a large cardboard box with Sadie Goodman. Sadie and Pokey formed a tight bond. Sadie designed many hats, collars and necklaces for the cat and consistently celebrated her with cards, drawings and parties. “Pokey might have been the best thing in my life,” Sadie said, after hearing of Pokey’s passing.

Pokey never met a person she didn’t like. She was just a cat, yes, but she had an open, kind heart and a kind of knowing gaze that made her a friend. She will be missed.

The Filthy Cupcake

2010-03-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

My children were born in the autumn so, for me, the “holiday season,” begins in September and continues right on through January 1^st, at which point, I take a long hard look in the mirror and see just why it’s become so arduous to zip my jeans. Birthday cakes, Halloween candy, stuffing, pumpkin pie, latkes with sour cream, Christmas roast, (because we’re a mixed faith couple), pie and pie and pie, all washed down with wine and capped with a Champagne toast.

Thus begins the yearly urge to eat “clean” food. Every woman’s magazine at the checkout line touts a New Year’s cleanse. The newspaper health section offers helpful hints to clean out your kitchen cupboard and Oprah urges us to clean up our acts. And for the most part, I’m in favor of all this cleanliness. It feels good to eat steamed spinach and lentils and roasted vegetables and tofu. It’s lovely to spritz a bit of lemon juice over a plate of greens; so darned satisfying to munch up a bowl of brown rice…

Maybe it’s because my college boyfriend turned vegetarian only slightly before he turned celibate that at a certain point in my clean food crusade, I have to get just a little bit dirty. It starts small. I’ll have a square of dark chocolate. For the antioxidants, I’ll rationalize. A midweek glass of red wine is helping my heart. That slice of white toast spread with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar is a trip down memory lane. How can something so comforting be dirty?

And then, slowly, but slowly, I begin to construct solid defenses for more and more food that, at first glance might appear suspect. Home baked chocolate chip cookies are not as dirty as those that are store-bought. And, by the same token, a grilled cheese sandwich toasted to gooey perfection on your own stove can’t possibly be as naughty as one made by a complete stranger at your local diner. Seeking to right further injustice, I spend a day stirring ground beef, veal, milk, wine and tomatoes together until they marry in the perfect sauce Bolognese. It would be a crime to serve this over anything but the most hearty of egg noodles.

Because my parents were born in the Midwest and traveled with the carnival, I believe myself to be a kind of expert on dirty food. Chocolate chip cookies skim the surface. I’ve dug deep, through the loam to the hard clay below. Cheese curds, for example, with their earwax shapes and squeaky exteriors, are most certainly dirty. For family picnics, my grandmother made what was known as a “dump cake,” an ungodly (yet delicious) combination of fruit cocktail, yellow cakemix, and melted butter all dumped unceremoniously into a pan and baked. On the midway, we ate corn dogs and chilidogs, and candy apples with their burnished red sheen of a classic car. We devoured churros and funnel cake fried in oil the color and texture of a prehistoric tarpit.

My father’s father passed to him a taste for canned corned beef hash and he, in turn, passed this love to me. And it’s a dirty love. Mary Kitchen Hash comes in a big can with a red label. With the first plunk of the can opener blade, the salty, sweet scent of chopped corned beef wafts through the air. When the lid is finally cranked open, the meat, studded with waxy cubes of potato stares up at you pinkly. Congealed fat holds the meat and potatoes together in a cylindrical shape that is so solidly packed into the can, it must be scooped out with a heavy spoon. This step of preparation can be slightly off putting because at this point, the hash has the aroma and texture of dog food. Forge on. Scrape the last stubborn bits into a frying pan and let it sizzle. When the hash has browned and bits are sticking to the bottom of your pan, do what my dad always did and crack a few eggs over the whole mess. Let everything cook together and then scrape it all out on two plates. We always enjoyed the hash with raisin toast and a couple of good laughs.

A fancy schmancy coffee house in my neighborhood serves up the most divine scrambled eggs with house-cured salmon and spring asparagus. I love it, but I would gladly pass up this bowl of organic, free-range goodness for life if I could pull up a chair next to my dad and dig into one more plate of his hash and eggs.

Clean food is good for the part of the heart that pumps the blood, but dirty food seems better for the heart’s more sentimental workings. When I think back to that college boyfriend, I remember once when we argued, he threw a piece of broccoli at me, but I don’t remember the taste of his steamed broccoli. What I do remember is his French toast. I think fondly of his floppy blonde hair and the lobster rolls we ate in Maine. I imagine the rough wool of his favorite sweater against my skin and I can almost taste a plate of blueberry oatmeal pancakes we shared on spring break.

It isn’t that I don’t enjoy cleaning up my food act. I actively like lentils. I love kale. My cupboards are filled with mung beans and black beans and grains of all kinds. I harvest fresh chard from my garden and my husband has, on occasion, had to ask if we could have a meal that doesn’t include squash. Brown rice is better than white, and the whole grain is a good grain. These foods will keep me strong and healthy, but truth be told, it’s the filthy cupcake that keeps me young.

2010-03-04T10:16:00.001-08:00

A walk up the hill this morning revealed a clean scrubbed city and vibrant green grass. There were three tiny clouds floating across the mountains to the east and nothing but blue sky overhead. Pretty gorgeous stuff.

Nearly every day, my husband and I walk up our street and into Griffith Park. Our loop begins with a long, steep hill and ends on a street lined with magnolia trees so large and they seem out of a fairy tale. Every morning, we see the same people -- the lady in the red hat with the big, brown dog, the guy with the beagle, the serious young girl with the I-pod. My favorite dog is named Tiger. He's some kind of pit bull combo platter with really short legs and a huge head. If a dog could laugh, this dog would laugh all the time.

Our walk gives us structure. It helps reset our brains after the hurry-scurry of getting the kids off to school. Our mornings lately have been hectic. The kids are intense. They don't want to get dressed, or eat or pack their backpacks. They are tired and cranky. They are loud. Today, they both started screaming for no reason other than to see how loud they could scream, how wide they could stretch their mouths. They jack up the volume on the stereo, bounce tiny rubber balls ten thousand times in a row and pour the box of crayons out on the floor. In the single hour that between the second they open their eyes and the moment they walk out the door, they never, ever stop moving. They never move toward anything practical like breakfast, clothes or a warm coat.

It is good to walk. The blue sky, the clean city, the tiny clouds want nothing from me. The short dog laughs, the woman in the red hat waves hello and my feet are almost silent on the ground before me.

2010-01-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

Just finished watching E.T. with my kids. Am soggy with tears. I wasn't sure if it would stand up -- it's been so long and there's that silly Neil Diamond song and I couldn't quite separate the film and the song, not to mention one of the greatest product placements of all time. Oh, for a bag of Reese's Pieces.

At any rate, watching it with the wiry little body of my son curled like a spring next to me on the sofa, I felt the way I would guess E.T. and Elliott feel. That is, I felt what Theo was feeling. He was excited and sad and happy. He thought things were hilarious and terrible and scary. And I did, too.

Tonight, sitting on the couch, eating handfuls of slightly burnt popcorn and feeling exactly the way my boy felt is, I think why we have kids. And if it's not why we have them, it's really one of the great perks.

I've been in need of perks. Tonight, Theo jumped into my arms when the movie finished. He jumped into his father's arms. His eyes were bright and the blue of my hometown skies and his smile so big, his face so wide with wonder it's impossible to think of anything else.

So, thank you, Mr. Spielberg and goodnight.

2010-01-27T19:42:00.000-08:00

So, our fish died. From what? Hypotheses include "curl up and die" and "die-a-betta."

She is technically not our first fish. She replaced our first fish who had the good sense to pass on while the kids were at school. We switched her out like Darren on "Bewitched" and no one really seemed to notice. The original fish was called "Lolly," at some point the new Lolly became "Tanya the fish" and then without any rhyme or reason TTF became "Pebbles Goodman." The new fish is blue and red and has some jazzy shell shaped glass rocks to float above. Her name is Lily Goodman Daisy (though really, I think all Betta fish are male -- at least the pretty ones.)

The old fish died on Sunday while my son was in the bathtub and I was searching through my daughter's hair for lice. Oh, yes, more pets.

I found a louse, Sadie noticed the fish was dead and Theo swore for the first time when my husband tried to get him out of the tub.

"Jesus Crisis," he screamed.

My husband and I turned away, hiding smiles, holding our speeches and waited for the storm to pass.

2009-11-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

Our hamster died this morning. Or rather, I found our dead hamster this morning. She hadn't moved from the little nest she'd made in the shavings last night. Hadn't moved from the spot where I'd last given her a gentle goodnight pat between the shoulder blades.

"She seems a little slow," I'd said to my husband.

"Are you poking her?" he said from the next room.

I removed my hand from the cage. "Not poking," I said.

"Let her sleep. She's sleeping."

It's been established that I'm a worrier. I worry. Sometimes for nothing. Sometimes I wake up to a dead hamster.

Her name was Sunshine.

My daughter sobbed when I told her and then she wanted to touch the little body. She wanted to stroke the soft, black fur and she wanted to have a funeral.

My husband went somewhat sheepishly to the garage and returned with a small box that he'd quickly emptied of deck screws.

My daughter drew a small picture -- herself: stick arms and curly hair, a big upside down "u" for a mouth and Sunshine like a small, prickly pickle next to her.

We dug a hole in the garden and my son said "This is just like a real funeral." When Sadie didn't want to put the first shovel full of dirt into the grave, Theo took the shovel and did it with a gentleness that belies his seven years. He put his arms around his sister and said he liked the way Sunshine's whiskers had wiggled.

Later, Sadie took her little dry erase board and asked me for each letter of the word, "Sunshine." She drew hearts above the word and beneath it, in a small rectangle, the little hamster. She showed me the picture and made a sad face. Not the sad face of this morning, but the practiced sad face of a dramatic child. Seconds later, she'd erased the whole thing.

The next drawing she made was of the new hamster, (for of course there is a new hamster) complete with her white spots. Above the new hamster, she draws a slightly smaller version of the old hamster.

"Both," she says.

She loves them both, her memory as easily wiped as her dry erase board.

The new hamster's name is Flowersheartsandstars. I love her less than the first hamster. I know from experience not to attach to so ephemeral a creature.

Small body, warm last night, stiff and cold this morning.

A new year

2009-09-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

On Friday, my yoga instructor spent our whole class talking about sweetness. It's Rosh Hashana and it seems apples and honey are both literally and figuratively on the tip of nearly every tongue.

"Sweet," she said, guiding us into our first forward bend. "Sweet," I whispered to my tight hamstrings and cranky neck. "Slow," she said. "Like honey."

I bent over, thought of dripping honey, the slow undulation of syrup and the guy next to me popped down into a quick push-up before bobbing back up. I was working on languid and he was pumping away with the regularity of a piston. I breathed slowly and he exhaled loudly and did a couple more push-ups before lowering down into chaturanga dandasana.

I tried to channel sweet and slow, but eventually, I found myself going fast and loose. In the way that my chewing grows more rapid when I eat with my children, I found it almost impossible to slow down with this machine next to me. At one point, he and I rose to standing and spent a good two beats with our arms in the sky looking at the relaxed, folded bodies of our classmates.

I started to develop a very un-yoga-like hatred for this guy.

Of course he turned out to be my partner for stretches.

The first stretch had me on my belly, knees bent, my hands around my ankles. He was to sit on my feet and pull my shoulders back. If it's tricky to imagine, it's trickier by far to do comfortably when the grumpiest guy in the world is sitting on your feet and pulling your shoulders back as though he were reining a team of runaway horses.

Still the hatred.

And then we switched. And he was confused and I could see how tight his shoulders were. And he mumbled something about "not knowing why he was even there." And then, I put my hand between his shoulder blades and helped him slow down. Anusara yoga is about opening up your heart. A sweet sentiment if ever I've heard one. Sometimes I'm kind of grossed out by all the heart opening, but I get it. It's not easy for to say "soften your heart," without feeling a little silly, but when I actually do soften my heart, I feel better. My shoulders, tight little monsters that they are, relax. I feel calm. It's all good stuff. Perhaps because of that open heart, I suddenly liked this guy.

And, more importantly, I realized that his rhythm didn't have to be my rhythm. And that can apply to lots of things. Not just yoga. My kids can run around and scream their heads off, but it doesn't mean I have to. Just because there are folks who have found their "in" to writing at twenty or thirty does not mean I can't do it a hair past forty.

These are good things to remember at the new year.

The Jewish new year coincides with my children's return to school and is therefore a kind of double new year for me. I am back to work. Trying to practice every day. Sweetly some days, fast and furious others. But trying to set my own speed.

One of these days...

2009-09-14T15:53:00.001-07:00

So, I got this note from my agent and she says she's a bit "stymied." We've sent my book to lots of publishers and though they've all been incredibly complimentary and encouraging and impressed and excited, not one of them has been able to see clear to publish my book.

I got pretty darned sad when I read her note the first time. The next day, I read it again and I felt disappointed. I went to the bookstore and right there on the "new arrivals" stack were memoirs by a cat and a dog (sure they were told to humans) but for the love of Mike, cats and dogs can get their furry little mugs on a book jacket, while I, the woman who helped look after her dad AND her grandmother while they simultaneously suffered from Alzheimer's disease can't catch a break. This is where the wallowing in self pity part began.

But then, a couple of days later, I started to think more clearly. I can do this. My Dad was the guy who boasted about building his own roadside attraction without a government grant. He was the King of DIY and, that said, why shouldn't I take a page from HIS book when trying to sell my own. So, I'm looking at other options. There are lots of possibilities.

All I can do is keep writing. All I can do is keep moving forward with an open heart and the belief that what's supposed to happen will happen. All in good time.

So, I've started another blog. Yes, it's true I'm not so regular with this blog, but the new blog has a theme! It's called Dearest You. Borrowing from Neil Young, "I'm going to sit down and write a long letter to all the good friends I've known." One of these days might as well be today.

check it out http://youdearestyou.blogspot.com/

2009-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

First day of school. Whew!

Immediate relief followed by a wave of nostalgia, longing and generalized weepiness.

My daughter walked into Kindergarten like Sarah Bernhardt taking the stage. Despite an unscheduled fire alarm, despite a weeping mother (nope, not me) leaning against the door frame of her classroom, Sadie was fine. We saw her through the fence, heading out for the fire drill, hand in hand with some tow-headed fella in a striped shirt. She looked like she belonged.

My son, dove into second grade head first much in the way he dives into everything. I could see his big smile clear across the playground.

Afterwards, my husband and I drove to a strangely silent house. I swept and vacuumed. Paid those bills I've been trying to get to and organized the closet and then I just sat. The next nine months opened up wide to me. I'm filled with ideas. I've got seeds in the raised beds and stories in my brain. I'm ready to go.

We picked up the kids after school and celebrated a successful first day with frozen yogurt. Sadie said a boy had "snatched" some of her crayons and Theo wished he could take the walkie talkies to school so she could alert him to bullies.

"What would you do if she called," I asked.

"I would come and tell that guy to give back her crayons," he said.

I got misty eyed. My husband did too and then he ordered an extra sundae for us to share.

It was a great, great day.

2009-07-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

It's been just about a month since my last post and in that month the weird, white larvae in a jar on the counter made it's last transformation in the long trip from meal worm to darkling beetle. The creature, christened "Isabella" by my daughter started as "live bait" about two months ago where she (he?) was scooped unceremoniously from a cardboard box full of wheat germ at our school science fair into a chinese takeout container held by my beaming child.

Oh, glorious worm.

When the take-out container seemed less than escape proof, we moved the little guy (gal?) to a spaghetti sauce jar. We were careful to move the remaining wheat germ (food and housing) and also added one leaf of lettuce from our garden.

The next day the worm had disappeared beneath the lettuce and for two days, he didn't come out.

"He's dead," my husband said.

After a quick Google, I returned certain. Meal worms are stiff and dark brown when dead. Ours, though unmoving, was still creamy colored.

In a few days, the critter emerged sporting longer front legs.

A few weeks later, things looked bad.

"He's dead," my husband said.

"Her name is Isabella," my daughter declared. "He's just fine. You don't know anything."

I hoped for the best and added a newly harvested baby carrot for good measure.

Eventually the worm turned into the kind of creature I'm certain Stan Winston turned to when looking for inspiration. If it had been any bigger than an inch, I'm not sure I could have slept through the night. Pale and still, with a bulbous head and tapered abdomen, it slept all day, it's arms folded tight over it's chest.

"It's dead," my husband said, holding the jar close to peer inside. Moments later, he shrieked and returned the thing to the counter. "It moved."

For days, it lay in a kind of half suspension, twitching as though dreaming of... what? A juicy leaf, a pile of wheat germ? Another meal worm? Longing for legs, longing for movement?

And one day it emerged from the pale crust, a beetle. Rosy colored at first, but totally beetle like in every way. No sign of the worm left at all.

"It's the best day ever," my daughter announced. "It's water day, I'm wearing my favorite dress and my darkling beetle has hatched!"

It was a good day. There have been lots of them.

We let the beetle stay in the jar until it turned black. We celebrated his arrival with a wedge of fresh peach and then we set him free in the garden to go on about his way.

This summer both of my kids are growing. The inch of bare skin between the waistband of Sadie's skirt and the hem of her shirt let me know just how much. Theo's lost a front tooth and the gap gains him a year at least. I'm a year and a month older -- more flexible and less. Looking around at the changes and marveling at how fast time passes and how glad I am to be here no matter what.

2009-07-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

In honor of my birthday, a short list of things I like about myself:

It is very easy to make me laugh.

My collar bone.

My curiosity.

I make good cookies.

I'm a good reader.

I have great friends.

I say yes more often than I say no.

I make up really silly songs.

My big, white, Chicklet teeth.

I am forty-one. I feel pretty, darned good.

2009-06-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I went into the woods. In the company of old friends and new ones, I pitched a tent and cooked food over a fire. I washed my dishes in a white plastic tub while the outdoor spigot splashed mud around my ankles. My children climbed trees and rocks. They stood on picnic tables and hooted at the sky. My children ate perfectly toasted marshmallows and marshmallows that were burned to crisp black shadows. There were crickets and stars in the black sky and the sound of wind in the trees.

The first morning, I woke before the others and went out of my tent into the clearing. On the cement tables there was scanty evidence of the night before -- a few tin cups bearing the sticky residue of red wine, a sticky smear of melted chocolate, some silverware that had not made it into the wash bucket. The sky was light, but pale, sheltered from the sun the way a face can be light but pale under a parasol. I stood and let my ears open to the silence. On a day to day basis, I feel like my hearing tightens against the city noises and even to the sounds of my own children. When I find myself in the company of silence I need to relax myself into it the way I might sink down into a hot bath. Staying still and letting my ears open, I heard birds, the rustle of leaves above my head and then a louder sound. Immediately I looked to the sky for helicopters, up the hill to the road for a car, but found nothing. The more I listened, the louder the buzz became. I stood under the largest tree at the edge of the clearing and the buzz grew louder. Bees. So many bees they roared like an engine. So many bees I half expected to see the pale morning go dark, blotted out by their small velvety bodies. It was a little frightening.

But the sun continued to rise and people emerged from their tents. Our children spilled out into the clearing, billowing dust into the air and the buzz was lost beneath all the human sounds of breakfast and teeth brushing and ball kicking. The bees appeared in groups of two or three to lap at the syrup on our plates or land with relish upon a strip of bacon. The storm of bees never came.

I think of this storm now that I am home and the sound of traffic is keeping company with the tap of my fingers on the keyboard. I hear the pages my husband turns in his book and the deep breathing that makes me almost completely certain that my daughter has fallen asleep. We are safe here, safe in the noises of our life. The click and whir of the dishwasher, the cat's claws against the wood floor, the creak of my knees as I cross and re-cross my legs. These noises are familiar and comforting.

The storm of bees never came, but there was something unsettling about the possibility of the storm. This is true of a perfectly pale morning and, in the woods, I found it is true for people, too.

2009-06-09T21:53:00.001-07:00

My son is worried about dying. He doesn't want to miss anything. He wonders if when you're dead you still see people. He'd want to see his sister. He doesn't want to stop seeing things. He wants to know if there is a heaven and if there is will he go there? He wants to know if when we die, we turn into something else. What's a soul? How does it feel to die? Do you still sleep in heaven? Do they have computers there?

Holy shit. Tonight I handled all these questions solo while my husband was at a Dodger's game. I held my sweet son and kissed his sweaty head and tried to come up with explanations or theories or at least a good yarn. After a while I realized that pretty much every other sentence began with "well, some people believe..." I started to think about what I believe.

I believe in the soul. I believe that the when we lose people, they are still with us in some way that is bigger than memory. I believe that my Dad looks in on me from time to time. While I don't really know about a heaven full of angels, I do like to think of all the people I have lost together somewhere, strangers at first, but slowly discovering each in the other some common thread. I like to think that in this place my Dad finally had a beer with John Wayne and Roy Rogers and Jimmy Stewart.

I tried to explain death to Theo, but I couldn't say it won't happen. We have a long, long time together, I said. He wondered if his pediatrician could invent a medicine that would stop him from aging. He'd like to stay six forever. I promised him that seven would be just as good --that there would wonderful things in every year and then I curled up around him and let him fall asleep in my arms because in the end, my love is the only thing I know for sure.

2009-05-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight, pizza and wine with a dear friend. Feel ever so grateful to have these people in my life. She's reading "Little House on the Prairie" to her girls and I'm envious because I don't think my Sadie is old enough to really, really love it. I want her to really, really love it. I think about when I first read these books. I was nine. It seems that many of my strongest memories rooted deeply in my ninth year. I read "Little Women." And figured out that my Dad was mortal. I got my ears pierced. A friend died. Big things. But I remember little things, too. Like singing Christmas carols with my brother in the backseat of my mom's old, yellow Volvo. I remember my winter jacket. Bright blue with yellow elastic at the wrists. I hated that jacket.

My kids have memories now. They have memories with more staying power than the soap bubbly remembrances of their youth. This makes me self conscious. What will they take with them into their forties and beyond? Though I want them to take the same things I did, I know that everyone has their own packing system. When I travel, I always pick a color scheme before I pack my suitcase. My husband just takes whatever is clean. It's just what we do.

2009-05-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

I just finished making a bundt cake for my son's elementary school fundraiser. It will be delicious. I know this because I licked the batter from the spoon when I had finished filling the pan. I'm a batter eater. I love batter. And cookie dough, too. Bring me your raw, your uncooked, your bowls teeming with salmonella.

Years and years ago, way back when I was in elementary school, I remember an afternoon spent baking cookies at a friend's house. I remember the horrified look that crossed over the face of my friend's mom when I popped a big wad of dough into my mouth.

"Spit it out," she demanded. And, because she was very tall and also the gym teacher at my school and I was used to obeying her barked commands, I did.

"It's not ready," she said. "It's filled with bacteria. You could get very, very sick."

I opened my eyes wide and tried not to cry. As a child, (and truthfully as an adult) I hate to disappoint.

Later when I returned home with a little baggy of crunchy cookies, I asked my own mom about the dough. We always sampled. We never talked about bacteria. Were we going to die?

"Some people worry about that stuff," she said.

I thought about Mom this morning when I dropped my daughter at pre-school and a fellow parent confided that he had a stash of Tamiflu. He'd picked it up for the Avian flu, but it's still good and it'll work for Swine Flu, too.

"Wow," I said. "You're prepared." I was impressed. I'm impressed because I haven't thought about the Swine Flu too much. This is the same Dad who thinks nothing of lighting up a smoke in the parking lot of our school. For him, the distant threat of Swine Flu weighs heavier than cancer.

Some people worry about that stuff.

Let's be clear. I do worry. The list of things that keep me awake at night is long and varied. Of course I worry about things that may never happen. But I try to remember that while sometimes a noise in the dark is a serial killer, more often it's just a noise in the dark.

2009-04-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I returned home to find my daughter's play date heading out the door with a bag of parting gifts.

"Sadie gave me all these things!" the child shouted with glee, clutching her grocery bag of booty.

"Yep, Sadie gave her all those things," the play date's dad said with a little sigh that I know meant "I'll be picking these things up at my house now..."

I sat down on the grass next to my husband and watched our friends drive away and then I congratulated him for clearing our house of a bit of the clutter.

"Yep," he said. "She even gave away Squirrel."

"You let her give away Squirrel?" I barked.

"I asked her twice if she was sure about it and she said she was," he replied.

"I can't believe you gave away Squirrel," I hissed. I launched myself off the grass and stomped inside, mumbling.

A bit of back story: Nearly three years ago, when Sadie was brand new to pre-school, she formed a tight relationship with this little stuffed squirrel in her classroom. Every day we would find her making up songs for the squirrel and carrying on intimate conversations with the squirrel and one day, with the assistance of our babysitter, Sadie liberated Squirrel from the confines of the classroom and brought him home to live a pampered life. Squirrel has attended zillions of tea parties, worn a tutu to ballet class and donned striped pajamas for bed. For Halloween last year, at Sadie's behest, I made him a witch costume. For no reason at all I made him a kimono out of some silk pajamas headed for the hand-me-down pile. Sadie was attached to the little guy and (not to sound too squirrelly) so was I.

So I was mad at my husband. Mad at him for failing to understand the importance of this little toy. Of course instead of bringing up my issues in a calm and rational manner, I sped through dinner preparation and gave terse directions for table setting and hand washing.

My husband (bless him and bless him again) was patient. "I thought it was a good thing," he said. "I knew Squirrel was a big deal and I thought it was very kind of her to give him to a friend."

I opened my mouth to say something, but suddenly all I could do was cry. In between sobs, I tried to explain. "It's not Squirrel," I said.

"I didn't really think it was," my husband said, wrapping his arms around me.

I cried for the fact that my daughter was growing. I cried because I miss that funny little girl with the nonsensical language and the round baby belly. I cried because she's almost in kindergarten and because she's sometimes mean as a snake. I cried so much, my husband offered to drive over to our friends' house and bring Squirrel back.

"It's okay," I said. "Things change." I figured if at four she knew how to let go, then at forty, I should know how to do it, too.

The next day, our babysitter, A., arrived and as usual I gave her the schedule updates and kid mood forecast for the day. "Also," I said, "Sadie gave Squirrel away."

A's eyes filled with tears. "Our squirrel?"

I turned to my husband. "I'm bringing him home," I said.

Squirrel is back. And my daughter is delighted. "How was your sleepover?" she asked. She packed him into a basket and took him to a birthday party. She made him a bed in my husband's slipper. She is not headed to college. She is still small and silly and thinks nothing of wearing a tiara to the grocery store. She is four going on five and we have all the time in the world.

2009-04-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

My son is home sick with an earache and a sore throat and a little fever all of which combine to slow him down and make him especially prone to hand holding, lap sitting and shoulder leaning. I am amazed by my child's capacity for tenderness. I'm sorry he has to be sick to let it surface, but I can't help but be grateful to see it under any circumstance.

Lately his attitude has been so bad that I've begun to wonder if the downhill slope from six to seven is a slide into certain juvenile deliquency. He shakes his fist at me when ask him to put on his clothes. He shouts at me when I wonder when he'll finish his homework. He grits his teeth. He kicks his sister. And then, just when I think he's become as hardened as Tony Soprano, he sobs inconsolably over a missing sock or the discovery that we're out of "Triple Berry O's."

Some time ago, our pre-school teacher suggested I read a series of child development books which distill each year into a handy Cliff's Notes size tome. According to these books, my 4 year old was "Wild and Wonderful" and my 5 year old was "Sunny and Serene." I'm wondering if my seven year old will be "Incarcerated or Institutionalized."

A couple of days ago, I was talking with two of my dear friends, both mothers to six and half year old boys. "You look tired," they said. "How are you?" they asked.

"It's been pretty rough." I said. "Theo is crying all the time. Or yelling all the time. One or the other."

They both looked relieved. "You, too?" We all started to talk at the same time. Threats, tears, violence, remorse. All part and parcel of being almost seven. And all happening in other houses all over our neighborhood. Normal kid stuff. I had almost forgotten one of the most important things you can do as a parent. You can talk to other parents. Though what's going on in your house might seem like the fifth act of a Shakespearean tragedy, nine times out of ten, it's going on somewhere else too. Labeling something "developmental" is just another way of saying it's not going to stay that way. I think suddenly of the now defunct Polaroid photo. Holding that blank square and waiting for the image to develop was one of the pleasures of my youth and young adulthood. My boy is emerging, he's developing. It's hard work. He's entitled to be cranky and crazy and crying. Just as I am entitled to be all of those things in the hard process of becoming a parent. Because I'm developing, too.

Today, I played two games of Yahtzee, three games of Trouble and too many rounds of Connect 4 to count with a boy who sometimes calls me Mom and sometimes calls me "Turkey Pants." Today, he leaned against me and gave me kisses on the palm of my hand. Today he fed me a strawberry and told me he loved me. Tomorrow, the fever may be down and the hackles may be up, but it's only a stage.

2009-04-01T21:57:00.001-07:00

Last night, I sewed the tail on a little purple mouse named Squeaker. The mouse was not alive, though its tail was so leathery that it must have been something alive at some point. It's the kind of little mouse you buy at the pet store to give to your cat. A kind of training mouse, I suppose. Though we have a cat, this particular mouse belongs to my daughter. She likes to go to the pet store and often buys things for our cat that I know she actually wants for herself so I'm pleased in a way that she's cut the charade and taken full ownership of this mouse, whose name she pronounces with the emphasis on the first syllable so it's "SQUEAK...er." I do not pronounce the name correctly, nor did I sew the tail correctly. I used red thread which was the only color I could find and contrasted nicely with the dyed purple fur and matched the little critter's eyes, but Sadie was appalled. "You wrecked it," she shouted. "You are always messing things up," she continued. "I hate you. Why do you have to be so wrong?" I took a deep breath and reminded myself of my new plan to REMAIN CALM and BE PEACEFUL.

I have been taking a lot of deep breaths lately and asking my children to take them with me. "Slow down," I say. "I understand," I say. I say these things in what I hope is a loving voice. I say them even when I want to throw my hands in the air and scream.

My clumsy repair of Squeaker's tail was not the first thing to go wrong in Sadie's day and I tried to remember that. First of all, Squeaker had lost his tail. More to the point, he'd had it yanked off by one of the Star Wars loving, gun-finger pointing, girl-teasing boys in Sadie's class. The biggest problem, though and one that recurs with alarming frequency, is that Sadie wants a pet. She wants a real live pet. She wants any kind of pet. Yesterday it was a white mouse with red eyes. Before that it was a hamster that would live in a pink, sparkly castle and before that a rabbit and before that a dog and a pony and a turtle and on and on.

We do have a cat named Pokey. And a fish whose name is Tanya. But if it were left to Sadie we would have a menagerie.

Over the course of my childhood I had somewhere around sixty-eight pets. Your standard dogs and cats gave way to guinea pigs, ferrets, a pair of gerbils named Sam and Janet Evening, an iguana, a goat, an owl, chameleons... Two guinea pigs quickly became four and then eventually ten. The gerbils multiplied. Everything smelled of cedar shavings and urine.

There are days when I like the idea of a dog. There are days when I come dangerously close to bringing home that sparkly hamster castle. My mother was a volunteer at the zoo. My brother went to the State Fair and brought two baby goats home in his car. Perhaps the need for a menagerie is in my blood.

Last night, when Sadie seemed to be about to stop crying about Squeaker's tail, my son looked up from his homework.

"So, it looks like that pet situation is over," he said, rolling his eyes.

Sadie looked at him for a second through soggy lashes.

"I want a white mouse with red eyes," she wailed.

I will remain calm and be peaceful, but that "pet situation" is far from over.

2009-03-11T20:15:00.001-07:00

I read my writing in front of a live audience two nights ago. Thrilling. And terrifying. Left me wanting more. More chances to read my words, but also more chances to hear the words of other writers read aloud. We sit hunched over our desks, fingers racing or limping over the page and we fill hard drives and notebooks and binders with words but rarely do we speak these words aloud.

The piece I read was a section from my memoir. It is the story of how when my son was born, my father was dying from Alzheimer's. It is the part of the book that always chokes me up no matter how many times I have gone over it. I was worried that there, on the stage, with the bright lights in my eyes, I would burst into tears. I read it over and over to myself, trying to sap the emotion through repetition.

About an hour before the show, after I'd made dinner for the kids, changed out of my day jeans (a couple days in, baggy knees, some dried yogurt from Sadie's breakfast keeping company with a smudge of turmeric from my lunch of lentils and rice) and into night jeans (clean.) To my daughter's delight, I put on lipstick. At the computer, I increased the font size on my pages before printing my selection and because Theo is a six-year old boy and because his ears are tuned to the sound of the computer waking itself from sleep, he appeared at my side.

"What are you reading?" He asked. Instead of waiting for an answer, he started to read the first couple of lines. He's reading, but still slowly, his mouth feeling the words as he sounds them out.

"What's it about," he asked.

"It's about you," I said.

"Read it to me."

And so I did. I read three pages about how his birth coincided with my Dad's death. I read about contractions and the feel of a newborn head between my legs. I read about my realization at age nine that my father would not be with me forever. As I read, Theo leaned against me, resting his cheek against mine. When I finished, he smiled his happiest smile. It's the one that makes his dimples sink in all the way up to his eyebrows. It's the one that shows both rows of tiny baby teeth all the way back to the molars.

Sadie had joined us somewhere around the middle and she lifted her head off my shoulder to take in her brother's wide grin. Then she looked up at me.

"Where's my story?" She asked.

"I haven't written it yet," I replied.

"We could help you write it," Theo said.

I assured him that they were helping. Every day they help me write even if I don't write a word. Everything that they give me is accumulating just the way my written words pile up on the hard drive and the notebook and the scrap paper in the glovebox. At some point, what goes in has got to come out.

There is a book somewhere for Sadie but because I haven't written it yet and I don't want to forget here are a few gems from the last couple of days.

When I bought her a new skirt, she cut the tags out and pulled it on, turning to inspect herself from all angles in the mirror. When she was satisfied, she gave her hair a little pat and clapped her hands joyfully. Then she took a bow as though the applause had come from someone else.

Yesterday, when I arrived home, she was lounging on the stairs wearing silky pink pajamas. "This," she said giddily, holding up a pink stuffed rabbit with a big turquoise silk flower clipped to its head, "used to be just a bunny. But now, he's Hawaiian bunny!"

Later she wondered if I'd met the "newest member of our family." She pulled me upstairs to her room and there on the tray of the doll's highchair was a small plastic bowl filled with dirt and leaves. "He's having his dinner," she said. "But he really wants to meet you." She picked up the bowl and held it under my nose and announced "It's a roly-poly! His name is Junior Mint."

2009-03-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

After an extended silence, I feel as though I ought to have something momentous to say, but all I can think about is dust. We've been in the new house long enough for dust to accumulate. It's our dust and not the dust of the previous owners which I swept away along with crumpled newspaper and frayed bits of brown cardboard packing boxes. Though their Sunday New York Times subscription remains, their dust is long gone. Our dust is clouding the wooden mantle in the living room and mixes with bits of crushed corn puffs along the edges of the dining room rug. Our dust sparkles with glitter fallen from pre-school art projects. Our dust becomes tangled with a strand of my mother's silver hair and takes on new life as a dust bunny. Our dust is made of us: skin, hair, cereal, sparkle, the whole shebang, and it filters into the cracks of this house and makes it ours.

Perhaps I am rationalizing my inability to "dust." Isn't it funny that the verb that means to remove dust is the same as dust? Makes it seem like dust has the upper hand.

2009-02-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

Today is the last whole day I will have in my old house. Tomorrow, I wake up to watch burly movers carry all of my things down thirty-five cement steps to the truck that will transport everything to the driveway that leads to the new house.

The steps. Thirty-five steps. Marked with a stencilled address and divided right up the middle by a heavy chain strung through metal posts.

These steps made me angry when I first laid eyes on them; made me doubt the sanity of my realtor. But once I had scaled them, my not quite year-old son wrapped tight in my arms, I marveled at the view and the little oasis of a yard created by the distance of these thirty-five steps.

I carried groceries up these steps. And my son in the little car-seat we always called "the bucket." I taught my not quite two year old son to climb these steps while his sister grew in my belly. I carried my big pregnant body up these steps along with my son and my groceries.

When my daughter was born through an emergency c-section, my doctor came to my house to remove the staples in my incision. He didn't want me to have to walk down all of those steps.

Now that my children are older, the steps take less time to climb or more depending upon the day. Theo runs up the stairs while Sadie dawdles somewhere in the middle visiting with a line of ants or admiring a fallen leaf.

These steps place distance between my family and the slightly grimy street below. As I climb them, I leave behind the broken glass, bits of scattered trash and the constant graffiti dialog on the walls of the restaurant across the street. I fix my eyes up and ahead, climbing toward my palm tree, the tidy row of cypress that lines one side of our yard, the bright stripe of our patio umbrella.

My neighbors on both sides have as many steps into their houses and in order to maintain a kind of basic familiarity and friendliness, in order to remain "neighborly" we have to be ascending or descending at almost the exact same time. This rarely happens. Our house is private, but it is also isolated. I like my solitude, but I can be lonely. When I am alone too long, I start to forget how to interact.

At our new house, there are no steps, just a long, smooth driveway. There are houses on both sides and we've already met our neighbors. They stop to talk over the hedge, wave hello through the kitchen window as I roll out the trash cans and offer us the use of their telephone until our new line is activated. (They're of an age where cell phones are still a new-fangled invention.) I can already see that there will be days when I might long for the anonymity of a flight of stairs. But I also see how, for me, it will be helpful to have this little burst of contact; this practice at relating with the world.

2009-01-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

The very first thing that happened when I walked through the door tonight was that my six year old boy rocketed across the room, offering a library book.

"It's about Abe Lincoln. He died. He was shot. By an actor."

I settled my groceries on the floor at my feet and when I knelt to take in this news, my eyes met the wide, blue eyes of my son.

"It really happened." He said.

He was thrilled. Thrilled. More visibly thrilled by this book than by any number of "Star Wars" comics and the unending adventures of "Captain Underpants" combined. Those were stories. This was true.

"Read from here," he said and then he lowered his voice. "It's about the killing part."

I sat back on my heels and listened as Theo described the blood on Lincoln's head, the shape of the gun and Booth's jump to the stage below. I don't like guns. I don't like shooting. When we read, I usually skip over the gruesome parts, cutting with agility around all kinds of bleak scenarios. I thought that by trimming around violence, I could build for my children a more peaceful world. Turns out I was wrong. For Halloween, Theo did not want to be Luke Skywalker. He wanted to be Darth Vadar. My daughter invents stories of Evil Queens and Lost Orphans and Wicked Stepmothers. It's the bad guys who get all the best lines; the bad guys who stick in the imagination and become the kind of titillating ghost stories that are too scary to continue, too delicious to end. Violence is interesting. When Theo finishes talking, I wait. I'm wondering if John Wilkes Booth is going to find a place in Theo's imagination. Is this drunk actor going to be more interesting than the man who freed the slaves?

"Mama," Theo said, "Read about Abe Lincoln. He did so much."

We learned that Lincoln started his career at 28 and that he married Mary Todd. When I try to skip over the fact that Lincoln lost two sons to illness, my own son catches me and makes me re-read the paragraph. My voice cracks. We read through the Civil war and I muscle through paragraphs about screaming men and drowned horses. When I get to the Gettysburg Address, both of my children are still listening.

"Should I read this?" I ask pointing to the big block of text on the page.

"Read it, Mama," Sadie says. She settles against me and her curls tickle my chin as I read Lincoln's dedication. It is a beautiful speech to read aloud. I am grateful to read it aloud to my children. By the end, my eyes are wet and both of my kids are solemn.

"That is important," Theo says.

I ask if he knows what it is about and he replies, "it's about being good to people."

"It's good to be good," Sadie says.

The book ends with the shooting. It's only one page and I read the whole thing.

Theo can read. He can read about the death of a son, the loss of a battle and the big, giant billboards for "My Bloody Valentine in 3D." But he can also read the words, "with malice toward none; with charity for all..." And I am here to help him understand.

2009-01-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

Last week, my daughter Sadie twirled around the kitchen floor while her brother Theo sang "We Shall Overcome" from his hiding place behind the laundry basket. Along with a frayed purple princess dress, trailing tulle, she wore an expression that mingled complete seriousness, total concentration and supreme confidence. The linoleum, lit by the the morning sun had become her stage and she belonged there. Performing for an audience of one coffee swilling mama, Sadie was in her element, her hands traveling skyward like two graceful birds.

Yesterday morning, our new president seemed to greet his audience of thousands with the same even certainty. He seemed to be listening to his inner voice in the same way that Sadie, decked out in glittery wings and tiara is listening to hers.

When I picked Theo up from school, the inauguration speech was being replayed on the radio.

"It's Barack Obama!" Theo shouted. "Roll down the windows! Turn it up so everyone can hear." I gave the volume knob a spin and felt the wind in my hair. "This is history!" Theo shouted. "This is history!"

Last year, when he was in kindergarten, Theo played "Man on the Bus" in a play commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. In this play, Mr. King rode in the back of the bus with Rosa Parks and Ghandi and a group of pre-schoolers shouted "We Protest." In the end, everyone was allowed to sit where they wanted and they all sang "We Shall Overcome." Last year, Theo didn't really understand that King had been killed. This year, he told me that someone threw a bomb in King's house and when that didn't work, they shot him. Last year, he wasn't entirely clear why Rosa Parks wasn't given a seat on the bus, but this year, he understands.

Theo is sometimes shy and sometimes exuberant. His face is wide and his skin so pale as to be almost luminescent. When he is nervous, he chews on the cuffs of his shirts, sometimes gnawing a hole through the fabric. As he struggles to read, he chews a pencil. His eyebrows come together and his jaw clenches with effort. His body twitches, feet always shifting beneath the table, knees bouncing, fingers bending pages. When, at last, his homework is finished, he springs out the door, ball and mitt in hand to throw and catch and throw and catch. Looking up, squinting into the late afternoon sun, he is certain his ball will meet his glove and this certainty relaxes him.

I'm not going to say that Obama should be honored for helping folks realize that anything is possible. It's true, but I think if you stop to look, there are signs of that all around us at all times. I will enjoy watching our President do the thing he seems most content to do. He will make mistakes and bad decisions and some people will be angry and others will forgive, but at any time, it seems he will approach this job with certainty. Just as Sadie's tiptoed feet follow each other across our linoleum, just as Theo's ball meets glove, Obama will move through the next four years in his element and that will be a pleasure to watch.

2008-12-15T20:46:00.000-08:00

Every night, just after I've tucked my daughter Sadie into bed, just after I've given the final squeeze, kiss, butterfly kiss and super-secret-finger-wave, she waits about ten minutes and then she reappears. She has to pee, of course. She needs my company. I follow her into our bathroom and lean against the edge of the sink while she gets herself settled. Tonight she told me that Celina likes to sit on the toilet a little while after she pees so that the drips will stop dripping. Celina is Sadie's stuffed frog. Celina often has some good advice. Sadie took her time measuring out exactly four squares of tissue and then rolled the word "tissue" around, eventually morphing is into the word "tush." This, of course, made her laugh hysterically because what, at the age of 4, can be more funny than a butt?

My son, Theo, too likes my company in the bathroom. We've had some of our best conversations while he is on the pot. In our house, we have only the one bathroom which makes for some intense dancing in the hallway on occasion. It's a rare homecoming that isn't accompanied by a race up our front stairs and a mad dash to secure a spot on the toilet. At some point during my shower, an ill placed knee will send an armada of plastic boats clattering into the tub. In the lingering fog that follows, my husband shaves, I dry my hair and the kids sit on the counter and draw shapes in the steamed mirror. It's a tight fit and one that often seems just shy of unbearable. When, oh, when will we have any privacy?

Soon, perhaps. We've put an offer on a house. A house with more than one bathroom. Already, I miss the crowd. I wonder where I will have those conversations? How will I manage to shower without the company of rubber turtles, and Playmobil pirates? A small house means we're all piled on top of each other, we know everything that's going on with everyone. For better and worse. I like knowing these things, but I have begun to realize that even at the ages of four and six, my children will want a bit more space. Theo's begun to knock on the bathroom door before he enters, instead of flying through like a cannon ball. Six months ago, he'd pull off all his clothes and run naked through our yard with reckless abandon, but by midsummer, he was asking for his swim suit. Sadie builds complicated Lego castles or sets her table for a tea party with Celina. Theo heads out into the yard to toss and catch a ball again and again and again. When they are thirsty, they go to the cupboard and get a glass and fill it with water. This is as it should be. We all need our own space. We need privacy to figure out who we are and what we want.

In this possible new house is a small room, too small to be much of anything, really, but big enough for a desk and a chair. I've got my eye on that room, that tiny one that overlooks the back yard. It's a good private spot right in the center of the house where I can still be found.

2008-12-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

"Say your prayers and you die..." Hearing these words from the mouth of my six year old son, Theo, was tonight's last straw. There isn't always a last straw, most of the time we make it all the way through the whole bedtime ritual without nearing even the end of the straw line, but then there are the nights that build with a quiet intensity from dinner onward. Tonight was that kind of night. The kind of night where each bite of soup was the end result of an extended and excruciating bargaining process, and the road to the pajama drawer was paved with a thousand distractions. Tonight, at my daughter, Sadie's request, I dressed her toy frog, Celina, for bed in a two piece powder blue track suit. Once I'd wriggled the furry green flippers into the little sleeves and straightened the hoodie, I was informed that "Celina hates that outfit. She hates it. She would never wear that to bed and she needs to be changed." Sadie, in striped leggings, her bare belly a sweet reminder of her babyhood, rummaged through the doll clothes while Theo pulled on his pull-up (yep, he's six, but a damned fine sleeper) and peed right into it. I tried to remain upbeat and non-judgmental while reminding him that if you're peeing in your sleep, it's a "pull-up" but if you're peeing and you're awake, it's a "diaper." He shrugged it off and went down the hall to clean up. I have to say, that even in the middle of things, I appreciate his nonchalance.

Finally, everyone was in pajamas and cuddled on my lap in the big red chair for books. This is often my favorite part because I love a good story. Also, once a theatre major, always a theatre major and so I have to admit it's nice to let my inner thespian run if only over the pages of "Go Dog, Go." Tonight's selection, however, was a double dud. No stories, just a counting book and a Spanish words board book. I counted thirty oddly drawn monsters and rolled all the Rs in words taking us from La Cochina to El Bano and beyond and the kids listened. The selective power of the child's ear is amazing to me. They sit rapt while I count "two whiskers, three warts, four lumps..." but try to tell them how the moon rises or ask them to stop banging the wooden hammer against the French doors and I might as well be speaking another language.

At any rate, you're probably wondering what got me to the last straw. I'm wondering that too because now that they are asleep and breathing softly down the hall, I miss them.

"Say your prayers and you die..." Theo shouted. And I, in my best authoritarian Mom voice said, "That is inappropriate." He's flinging action movie jargon my way and all I can come back with is a bit of flustered librarian speak. It's troubling to hear this kind of strange threatening language come out of my boy and as much as I know he's testing out the power of these words, it's hard not to become hurt and worried. Violence is out there and its power is undeniable. It is my job to accept this and help my son find the way through it to peace.

2008-11-25T21:27:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since my last (first) post and though I've been thinking about writing almost constantly, I haven't actually written. I spent the entirety of last Wednesday and Thursday at a workshop taught by Lynda Barry. Based on her amazing and beautiful book, What it Is, the workshop was basically all writing -- moving my hand across sheet after sheet after sheet of loose leaf paper. When I wasn't writing, I was making spirals on the page, circling and circling and circling my pen until I'd almost hypnotized myself. Every exercise started with a list. Number your page from one to ten. Now think of ten walks you have taken, ten friends you have had, ten things you think of when you hear the word "lie." We list quickly, stopping perhaps to worry out a name or a detail, not pausing too long and if the pause grows too uncomfortable, we return to the soothing spiral, or write the ABCs, anything at all to keep the pen in motion, the brain fluid and flexible, like water rolling over rocks. Next, we take the list and pick one thing. Think of that thing. Where are you? What's in front of you? Behind? To the right? To the left? What's further in front, further behind and so on and so on... By the time I began eight minutes of writing, I knew where I was in the world. After eight minutes, Lynda would ask for readers. In order to give the reader our ultimate respect, to leave them alone with their words, we bowed our head over our notebooks and drew spirals. I heard the words of dozens of people, but I did not see their faces. I heard their stories, but because I was not aloud to speak, these stories came at me in a different way. I listened instead of thinking of something wonderful to say. While we read, Lynda would crouch at our feet, listening, and when we were finished, she'd pop up and say, "Good, good!" That's it. That's all. No questions about where the story was going, no requests for more information, no dissection of metaphor, symbol and simile. Just "GOOD!"

I am about to begin work on another draft of my memoir. After a sending out to our first round of publishers and getting a pile of loving and enthusiastic rejections, I'm setting out to cut forty pages. Before Lynda's class, I was a little daunted by this. A little dejected by the rejection despite all the warm feelings. Now, though, I feel ready. Lynda described the arc of the story as "having something, losing something and finding it again." I had my father, I lost him to Alzheimer's and then I found him again in me. When I think of my manuscript, I can think of at least forty pages that have absolutely nothing to do with that story. I am ready to work. "Good! Good!"

The blog begins...

2008-11-18T21:19:00.000-08:00

So, I was sitting around a small kitchen table today with a couple of fellow writers. We get together every month or so to read our work aloud and jaw about books we've read and people we've met. We talk about our amazing kids (among them a tall ship sailor, a couple of soccer players, a boy who'd like to be a mailman...) and then we go back to talking about writing. And it's amazing. Three hours fly by, soup gets eaten, words are read and I am back in my car with book recommendations, support, encouragement and an assignment: start a blog. Do it even if you don't show it to everyone (or even anyone.) Do it so that you write everyday.

Though I consider myself a writer, I don't write everyday. I don't know how to go about it as a "job," even though it's the only job I really think I'm qualified to do. My husband says that since I've finished a book (yet to be published) I am doing okay so far. But this book took 8 years on and off to complete while simultaneously having and raising two kids and I'd like to think that as the kids grow, so too, can my productivity. But how? What does this practice look like?

My yoga practice, such as it is, needs to take place in the company of others. I look forward to a class where I can be there to steady the legs of the person next to me, where I can reach a hand toward the sky and know that all around me others reach as well. It means something to me to know that I am not alone.

So these monthly gatherings around a kitchen table, a bowl of soup, a plate of muffins -- these gatherings are a way of group practice. As I write these words, I can almost see, out of the corner of my eye, other fingers moving across other keyboards. Writing every day. At least here. At least a little. I am in good company.