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July 2005

War of the Worlds

Sometimes when I am at work, I feel like time has stopped around me in terms of my blog, my art, my writing. I think of it as existing in a a separate world, one that is frozen in time and suspended in silent, black  space, waiting for me to get back into the correct orbit, but I have trouble firing the right rockets.  Someday, I am afraid I will look back on my life and see my creativity permanently entombed in that cold dark place, and I will only exist in the world of exhaustion and fear. 

Stan's still in a lot of pain and after a week, the health insurance still has not approved a MRI, and I suspect there is a breakdown between the very busy medical practice we use and the insurance company. At work, a  major retrenchment of support staff is going on and some fine people are losing their jobs. We are reorganizing yet again and it will be  a startling change in our staff and our work methods. Good friends are looking for jobs and well-tested work relationships are being torn apart. 

It seems easier at night to just go home and go to bed before sunset, finding relief in the haze of my pillow and the air conditioned temperature. But while all this weighs so heavily on us, summer has begun and my kids are home. Before I know it, the big ones will be back at school and we've barely had a dinner together.  The Little One is in her first week off and I owe an enormous debt to my sisters for keeping her entertained with company, leaving Stan and I to collapse each night without guilt.

Yet, who wants to live like this?  I didn't have a family so I could work my ass off and see them on the way to the bathroom before going to bed each night. It's the same  syndrome I fought to avoid when they were babies. I was damned if I was going to have children and leave them with a babysitter everyday, being a night and weekend mommy only. I was very lucky to find part time work as a lawyer and a great babysitter, and we struggled financially, and are still struggling because of our decision, but I had years and years to be a  full time parent and be involved with their lives on all levels.

So last night, I went to the movies. It would have been easy to come home and crawl into bed with Chinese food and the boob tube on while Julia went with my sisters. I'd been at work since 7:30,  sat through an early morning  meeting where they outlined who was being axed,  went to court, had an excruciating deposition in a room with no air conditioning and a recalcitrant witness, then walked three blocks in pouring rain with no umbrella, and spent another few hours at the office trying to wade through all the "critical" paperwork  on my desk. But if they all went together to see War of the Worlds, who I was I going to go with later on ? It was one of those times when I knew that if I just kept moving, I'd make it, but as soon as I sat down, I'd never get up, so I drove right from work to my sister's and we all piled in their car to race to the early show.

It felt luxurious to spend two hours in a dark theater, huddled with my Little One under my jacket a we both screamed and grabbed each other with fright. Fortified by a cold, sugary Slurpie and a plate of salty tacos and spicy, warm cheese,  we ate and drank and cringed and held our breath, and shrieked  and laughed.  The movie was fast-paced, loud, and didn't leave much time for thinking- just what the doctor ordered!  As we were leaving the theater, the Little One put her arm around me and said, "This was fun, Mom".  And it really was.


2_2Just poking my head up to say hello. Working behind the scenes tonight  at some writing. Had a long work day that included a 90 mile round trip to an upstate county. I don't mind it - anything that is a break from going to the Bronx each day. During the ride I suddenly had an idea for a large writing project. It will be my summer focus.  Everybody stay cool until I'm off on Thursday and Friday - unless the weather is as crummy as it's been and then I'll save the days. Check back later.


Church of the Gooey Death

Cc24_1Sunday mornin' and rain's not fallin' - hot, clear, sunny, and time to find water somewhere, anywhere, to plop in. First my job as the Motha of the House is to attempt to get everyone out of bed and go to church. Remember church? That place we went to every week from when you were old enough to stay in the pew without throwing your bottle across the aisle or cause your parents to curse like drunks under their breaths until they could gracefully cut out from the communion line?

The DH won't go anymore because of his back/neck/insert your favorite excuse  here, but I think it's more deep rooted than that. However, I am not responsible for his spiritual composure, so I ignore it. The older two are just lazy and won't get up, but I still have this younger child, who likes to be an altar server. Somehow is seems particularly blasphemous to only go to church when she is an altar server. It leads to conversations such as this:"Mom, we haven't been to Mass for awhile and I'm afraid I don't remember what to do." Just keep throwing the dirt on my grave, kid, I can breathe through a straw. [These are the times when I am grateful that my mother refuses to read my blog or my sister's because they're too "upsetting".]

I have tried the whole guilt trip thing on my older kids. I just now called my son on his cell phone [I know it's across the room from his bed and he will lurch up to answer it in case it's a friend, while he won't raise his head from his pillow for me]. I gave him the whole we'd like to be at church as a family today, why does no one go anymore, think of the years we went to Sunday School, brought you to church, had you receive the sacraments.....It works as successfully as it did for my mother, although then there was a lot of yelling and threats of what my father would do. Here, the father will watch baseball with them while I am at church.

In the end, they'll all probably start going back when they have their own kids. That's what I did. I don't find going to Mass particularly compelling anymore. I enjoy it once I get there, usually as long as there isn't an after liturgy speaker shilling for money for some mission or another. It's not that I don't want to go, I just want a day interrupted by any obligation, which doesn't exist anyway. So I'm throwing on some clothes and driving down the hill. And I thank God that I don't have to put on a hat, gloves, hose, and matching bag. I don't know how my mother did it. Then again, I remember kneeling in a row at the very same church, my parents at either end of a line of five girls, and having discrete raps to the back from either of my parents as my sisters and I jabbed and kicked each other under the pew. By the time we left church, my father would be sputtering, my mother had a headache and we were in more trouble than when we left.

Perhaps it's better that we all stay home.


It's Summer; It's Sizzling: Time to Go to the Movies

Now here's something to shake your faith in my intellectual abilities: I am dying to see the Bewitched movie. Or should I say I was dying to see it and then I read the reviews and now I"ll wait for the video. I grew up with the sitcom and watched it reruns for years. I don't know why it appealed to me so except for the zany characters and the intrigue of magic. What could be more intriguing to a young teen than having the ability to change her world. What a fantasy! With a twitch of my nose I could do everything from have a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk appear next to me, to buy all the new clothes I wanted, to having all the girls who belonged to country clubs and didn't invite me to their standing Friday night sleepover turn into donkeys. Really, who doesn't want the ability to do that?

I was so hoping when they made this movie that it would end up being the 21st century version. I wanted to see  Samantha use that nose for whatever she wanted, to be totally unafraid to admit her power, to be the modern woman who can have it all.  Instead, we have a movie that focuses on a woman somehow falling in love with an inane man.  Maybe I'm reading way too much with my adolescent infatuation with a sitcom, but just for once, I'd like to see a fairy tale about a woman with power who doesn't end up in the dungeon, the guillotine, or giving it up for a pompous oaf. When will Hollywood figure out that women won't fall in love with the loudest, crassest man on the planet - but then, I assume that's who is making these movies.

What movies are you going to see this summer? I admit that despite Tom Cruise's morphing into the strangest man in America, I'm dying to see War of the Worlds. I like to be scared out of my mind in a theater, as long as it's not a splatter movie. I also have been wanting to see Crash. Last night we netflixed Mambo Italiano. I started off hating it, and then it started to grow on me. Unfortunately, it tried to deal with a heavy subject with too many stereotypes. Yes, Italians are emotional. The stereotype of the screaming and the hugs and the smacks and the kisses has some kernel of truth, but it's more of an expectation than a reality.  The movie is funny and has a few really good laughs. The sets verge on the surreal and the editing is very edgy. So I ended up enjoying myself when I expected to see a fast forward movie.

Let me know what you're going to see or rent. There must be something out there. Right? Or should I just boost my Netflix up to 4 movies at a time and start with "a" in the foreign films?


App0188Here's my handwriting for Blackbird's Friday photo meme. It's a lot neater on journal pages than at work when I scrawl a jot for a signature when singing a foot deep of documents.

Based upon the acerbity of the last several posts, you can figure out that's something's going on around here. I hesitate to write about it because there's been too much of health issues  on this blog in the last several months. But it is like trying to write with the elephant in the room and I'm being squeezed off the page.

Stan's back has been so bad in the last two months that he's back to going from doctor to doctor and working from the bed. We've held our breath for two months that we would make it to Italy. Two weeks ago I started buying clothes, a phrase book, travel purse. This weekend his neck injury flared up out of nowhere and he's been in bed on major pain meds since Sunday. Today he spent at the ER and at the doctor, with nothing really done except to put him on steroids and prescriptions for EMGs and MRIs. So, the trip is off. Maybe it was never meant to be. Maybe the plane will fall into the ocean and we'll understand why all this shit is going on . Maybe not.

I'm not Mrs. Miniver when the curtain lifts on our drama for an encore. Whatever lesson we are supposed to be learning from the continual drama, we still have not learned. If anything, I have become more resistant to it than ever. I tune it out, place myself emotionally at a great distance from it, and still suffer the same anxiety symptoms that eat away into my dreams, my sleep, and finally into my gut, leaving me as exhausted as if I ran a marathon.  We have been tried to carry the boulder of this recurrent pain while madly dancing away, but now the missed steps are closer and closer and ultimately we will fall.

I spent an hour by myself this afternoon, having come home a few hours early from work due to Stan. Everyone was out of the house and he was asleep upstairs. I sat on the porch in the big rocking chair and had my feet up on the ottoman. The birds were out and a neighbor was mowing the lawn. The smell of cut grass wafted over. I noticed that the nasturtiums had a yellow bloom as well as orange and the bronze fennel was thriving in the big pot. There were even a few strawberry blossoms. I could see the big pot of cascading petunias. It looks like it needs a good cutting back as it's getting scraggly. The bamboo blinds swayed gently in the breeze and after I read the paper, I closed my eyes. I decided that we had made our home here, that we had settled into the quirks of the house, and managed to make a home despite its drawbacks. I hope we don't have to give it up. I think it would be the death knell to our little dance. There are some steps that just can't be learned. 


18Midweek evening slump. No food cooked in this house tonight. Leftover chicken is scarfed up and there's not enough to go around. Luckily, two kids are out tonight and there's always cereal for the mother. Except, after I bring it upstairs to eat it like a sloth on my bed (do sloths have beds?), I discover that the milk is turning sour. Of course, I only discover it about halfway through the bowl. I switched entrees to Funny Bones.

It was a big game day at Yankee Stadium today. I left the court reporter's at 3:30 and walked through the crowds of very pale people with sunglasses, hats, funny t-shirts ("Yo, Boston SUCKS!"), cameras and giant foam fingers. I'd like to call it a festive atmosphere, but it's more like an incredibly crowded, messy, grungy area filled with people who aren't watching where they're going, spilled beer everywhere, and sidewalks blocked by guys selling t-shirts, hats, and souvlaki on a stick. Plus, my garage is literally STUFFED with cars and I have to drive home a different way because they block certain roads. And tomorrow, we will have the delight of picking our way through all the litter, including cabbage leaves and kitchen garbage all over the sidewalk by the bar. What's up with the cabbage for every game? Are there nursing mothers there or just a lot of Irishmen looking for corned beef?

After that, I am stuck in traffic leaving the stadium in a thunderstorm. I am hot, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, and have to pee. I listen to my messages and find out my schedule for tomorrow includes a court appearance 40 miles from the office, then an afternoon deposition in the Bronx, a round trip of about 150 miles. I curse into the phone, and finally drag my bedraggled ass into the office where everyone else looks calm, cool, and collected and give me puzzled looks as I am slamming drawers and phones and glowering at whomever tries to stand in my doorway to have me sign anything.

So now I am enjoying the pleasures of HOME. Quiet, cool, no expectations. The poor DH has a pinched nerve in his neck and is in agonizing pain. He's hopped up on painkillers and muscle relaxers and almost fainted at the chiropractor today. He's propped up in his chair and drinking a beer, which I am sure is not good with all the meds. He gives me the same look I gave everyone at the office when I suggest same.

The Little One had her last exam today and is done with school. She's sleeping at my sister's. Mystery Man left with his laptop for an overnight of of X-Box, and The Princess is at an orientation for camp. Me, I'm sitting on my bed in my pajamas and thinking about what to do in this month's collaborative journal. I've been staring at it for two weeks and nothing is coming to me.  Nothing bothers me, however, because I have chocolate cake stuffed with peanut butter and the second half of the Mapp and Lucia series to watch.


My Night Job Is At UPS

Now, if my sisters were to read this, they would laugh, but until they get their own blogs, they are stuck with my version of reality: I hate to shop. Note: I didn't say I hate to buy things; I said I hate to shop.  I hate the  mall, I hate parking garages, I hate crowds, and I hate looking through crowded racks of clothing. Add to that my fear of someone watching me dress in a dressing room mirror ( I know you're on the other side), plus a bum knee, and you can pretty much guarantee that I won't run into you at the  Short Hills Mall anytime soon.

But here's the thing: I do love to buy stuff. And sitting on my lap at this moment is the single biggest reason why I will have to live in senior housing when I retire: my laptop. Oh, the goodies I can buy online! Oh, the goddamn packages I have to return to the post office! Yes, it's the single biggest drawback of buying online, after my bank balance. Today I returned an Eddie Bauer package (shorts for Mystery Man; linen pants for me); $300 worth of Flax clothes (lovely togs if you are not short and fat - I am both); Travelsmith carton ( it may be a washable dress, but it's nylon and I hate it, and I just don't do backpacks). Tomorrow is the return of the Lands' End unlined white blazer (why did I ever think I would white to the Bronx?); 2 pairs of walking shoes from Zappos (ugly is ugly); two of the same books to Amazon (I cancelled both orders and got them anyway)

Of course, the rolls of packing tape that I bought the last ten times I had to return stuff is missing, so I had to buy 2 more, one of which I have taped to my rear end so I never lose it again; the other of which I attached a bicycle chain to and nailed into the dining room table. With just three more lunch time runs to the post office,  my dining room will stop looking like a Mail Box Etcetera and turn back into the sunlit, relaxing domain for goumet meals (my kids are rolling on the floor).

Now, if I could just gather up all the Netflix mailers all over the house, and find the library books stacked up in corners to be returned, along with the checks from my mother, my sister, and some magazine paychecks, all of which are in danger of being declared stale by the bank, I will have totally gotten my life under control.

And then I can start with the contents of the freezer, the stuff that is covered in aluminum that is, not the 10 varieties of ice pack (soft gel, fabric, heat/ice, block) that is the currently taking up valuable space best used by individually wrapped pizza slices, odd hamburgers, leaking year-old popsicles, and smashed hot dog rolls.

Oh shut up, you know there are loose peas rolling around in your freezer drawer and you can't find the check your mother in law sent you for your birthday. Let's  hope you find it before she calls her son  to say that she can't balance her checkbook and next year she's sending you cash. Which you can't spend online.


HBMM

14_2Mystery Man is in the last year of teenagerhood - if that's a word. He turned 19 yesterday (yes, I was a child bride), and like most mothers, I can't believe how old he is. On the day he was born, we drove at dawn to the hospital. It was a good 40 minutes away and we had to leave early to be there on time for a scheduled C-section. As we turned off the highway to the exit, we saw an enormous deer with a full rack standing at attention at the side of the road, looking off into the distance. We knew then that we would have a boy and that he would be a healthy, sturdy boy blessed for life with a sensitive heart and strong intellect.  His main summer job is as a camp counselor for four-year old boys. "Mom", he tells me, "they cry - a lot." I laughed at the picture of this tall, broad-shoulder and barrel-chested teen looming large over some wailing four-year olds. He was gruff in the telling, but I know from his cousins  that he is gentle and silly with little ones, allowing them to climb his shoulders and sit on his head and bop him over and over with nerf balls.

So tonight we celebrate with steaks, mashed potatoes, and artichokes steamed with garlic and olive oil.  We have an ice cream cake and half a sheet cake that the camp thoughtfully got for him. He's going out later - much later of course- and we'll spend some time on the porch with the candles and our new Chinese battery-operated lanterns.

16 I finally had the time and energy to trim the small magnolia tree by the corner of the garage. The roses, sage, and spider wort are thankful for the sun. I planted  a pot of narcissi, basil, strawberries, and bronze fennel. Stan planted two tall planters with purple New Wave cascading petunias. 6Then we hacked at the bamboo that our neighbor planted that is encroaching on our garage. We're never in need of plant stakes and the bamboo makes a wonderful clack clack clack when the wind blows, but it is too invasive.

It is a big eating weekend. Tomorrow we celebrate Father's Day with lobster and grilled shrimp and crab claws. Stan's back is too bad to go out to dinner, so we bring the shore to him. I am hoping for a full moon tonight so I can lay a curse on Crate and Barrel for not shipping his gift until yesterday although I ordered it ten days ago ( I really did!)

To paraphrase, what is so rare as a breezy weekend in June?


App0186A good way to wind down after a week of work is to sit on your bed with a pile of paper, scissors, vellum, and ribbons. I can't say what I was doing because it is a secret project, but how wonderful it felt to run my sharp scissors up printed vellum, to feel the satisfying click of a hole punch and to thread wide organza pink polka dot ribbon through it all. I meant to buy a gold marker pen, but I forgot and have to make do with a Pitt Pen. The black ink scratches satisfyingly across paper the color of the lilacs by my front door.  A pleasurable activity designed to bring happiness in the dog days of summer. Cut and punch, thread and lick. I am a kindergartener learning to tie my shoes on a thick pasteboard shoe with chunky plastic shoelaces.I am a first grader sticking my finger in the paste glue and tasting it when the teacher's back is turned. I am a kid with a brand new pack of construction paper and a pair of scissors with orange plastic handles in the shape of a duck's bill. I am a Girl Scout learning how to weave folded newspaper into a sit-upon.

Craft. The art of the hands.


What I Did Today

9:30 - 12:15:     Sat on a bench outside the pretrial conference part while I tried to get 5 other attorneys appearing on 3 consolidated cases to all remain in one place at one time so we could put in the slip that we were ready to be conferenced. Based on how long it took, you can see how successful I was. Note to self: next time bring a bottle of water, but kudos on remembering a baggie of chocolate teddy grahams and the Rome Smiles book.

12:15 - 12:25:   Have said conference with judge wherein she twisted my arm to get $2000 more for my passenger and then yelled at my passenger's attorney because he couldn't reach the attorney of record.

12:40 - 1:00: Surreptiously ate my ham sandwich from home in the bar library and checked messages at the office while reviewing file for deposition.

1:00 - 2:30:  Conducted plaintiff's deposition in County Clerk's office, at table downstairs by screaming babies because I refused to walk up the steep stairs and since I carried a cane today, the court officer had to accomodate me. (Note to self: wow, people are much nicer to you when  you have a cane. Now I just have to get over feeling like Professor Joseph, my hated first year Contracts professor who used a cane....)

2:30 - 3:30:  Stuck in traffic on Deegan while fielding calls to/from pediatrician, who just gave Julia her physical and needed to discuss a few things with me; to/from The Princess who took Julia for me and needed directions to the lab where Julia had to have blood taken and The Princess didn't have enough money to pay the $3 parking fee;to/from Julia who was freaking about having to have blood taken; to/from husband who was stuck on another highway in traffic on way back from his doctor's appointment and was freaking out about what the doctor told him about his back; to/from my paralegal who listened to me rant about the aforesaid phone calls.

3:30 - 4:30: Commiserated with colleague over a horrible trial decision and reviewed calendar with para for tomorrow's appearances. Called all of the family members above to see where they wanted to eaet dinner and when.

5:30 - 6:30: Picked up girls and ate at Dudleys on the water. My soft shell crabs tasted a 100 years old but the gin and tonic was strong, the sun was out, the breeze was light, the gulls were circling, and did I mention the g&t was strong?

And now I shall pass out with a copy of Gwen Diehn's new book, The Decorated Journal, in my hot little hands.

Is it time to get on the plane to Rome?


When In Rome.....

Cc40When Spring was this early, we were thrilled when the thermometer hit 85 degrees one day. It was like a gift that entitled us to run to the beach and swim in April as though it was August. Now that it is June, and we're on Day 7 of temperatures in the 90's, we are all bemoaning Spring's morphing into the dog days of Summer.

It's funny how much the heat has vaporized the energy of my coworkers. I can understand the attorneys feeling the lassitude, but for those that enter the frigid offices at 8:00 a.m. and don't emerge until 5:00, it's hard to understand why they are so drained by the heat they haven't experienced all day.

I've come home each night with the intent to finish an art project that requires about two hours of cutting and assembly. Night 3, and I still haven't touched it. The drone of the a/c is luring me onto the bed and in my favorite position -- with laptop on the lap and a bar of dark chocolate on the night table.

However, I did go to Borders tonight and pick an English/Italian phrase book and selected my books for Rome. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. I just knew I wanted a good mix of writings about Rome, both literary and non-fiction. I was delighted that I was able to get one book with both ad some very good novels to accompany that. All I have to do is find my Henry James from college, and I'll be ready for afternoons on the piazza reading.

Here's the book list (as the trip date approaches, more and more lists will be featured entries):

Vene_2

A Venetian Affair by Andrea di Robilant






Vene_5The Smiles of Rome: A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers, ed. Susan Cahill. Each essay, by authors as diverse as Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Updike, is followed by directions and descriptions of the present-day area that the author wrote about.





Vene_4Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King. History, passion, intrigue, and the stunning results for me to view in person - what an incredibly rich experience.






Vene_6When in Rome: A Journal in the Life of Vatican City by Robert J. Hutchinson. A behind the scenes look at the Vatican and those that live and work there.







Vene_7
Italy Out of Hand by Barbara Hodgson. I haven't bought this yet, but I'm about to order it. I didn't know Hodgson had written another Out of Hand book, the first being about Paris. I was so excited when it came up in one of the searches I did for the covers of the above books! Amazon describes the book as:
Co-creator of the cult favorite Paris Out of Hand, Barbara Hodgson has neatly brushed away the chaos and assembled an eclectic treasury of forgotten and overlooked oddities: long-lost popes, bloodthirsty mercenaries, tempestuous artists, and inexplicable follies. Italy Out of Hand is not a traditional guidebook, with hotel addresses and hours of operation. Rather, it is an idiosyncratic tour of a country that is too overwhelming and extravagant for most of us to comprehend without a little guidance. Illustrated with an equally eclectic selection of photographs, portraits, and art, Italy Out of Hand is the perfect companion for those who like their truths to be stranger than fiction.

Some people worry on a trip whether they'll have the right shoes for walking, the right camera lens to capture the landscape, or the right little black dress for dinners out. I worry that I'll have enough books to read in a country where I can't read pop into the local bookstore and pick up a book in a language that I can read! You know of course, that this won't stop me from buying books in Italian. My sister brought me back Italian children's books when she went, and now that I've remembered that, I'm even more anxious to get there. Must remember to bring large, empty duffel for book purchases....must remember to bring blindfold for husband so he can't see what's in duffel....





App0187Our office reorganized - again- and I lost my sunny, quiet office on the first floor where I could look out the windows and had a view of  rolling grass and trees as far as I could see. There even was a  little robin who visited each afternoon and spent the mornings with the proverbial worm in his beak. I am also two floors away from my staff, which makes retrieving files and documents back and forth more cumbersome. My secretary is going nuts because when she comes upstairs with papers to sign she invariably leaves one somewhere and ends up spending valuable time retracing her steps to find the errant file. Eventually, another major reorganization is going to occur, which will resolve all this.

I went upstairs kicking and screaming, but now that I am there, I am noticing an interesting twist: getting us all the attorneys back on one floor has created a buzz of collegiality, at least until the novelty wears off. Attorneys that I didn't see for months at a time stop by and say hi as they come in from court. When I first began this job, a large group of attorneys ate lunch together in the lunchroom several times a week.  That has completely disappeared and now that they've shortened our lunch "hours" to half-hours, it'll never reoccur. I feel badly for the younger attorneys, because so much of what you need to learn as a young attorney can be picked up through just spending time with other attorneys. There's an enormous learning curve that has nothing to do with case law or statutes, but has to do with finessing your cases through the gauntlets of judges' attitudes and adversaries' manipulations.

In other news - it's hot! We are having the dog days of August in June. We rush home from work and turn on the air conditioners and spend the evening holed up like midwinter. We all watched the verdict being returned in the Jackson case. My kids were aghast and the credibility of our justice system took a terrible hit because now they, and I'm sure millions of others,  believe that money gets you out of anything you do. It was a tough case because of the big character issues of the accusers. I think the mother sunk the case, according to the jury exit interviews.

I am now off to find something to wear that accommodates 90 degrees and humidity and 50 degrees air conditioning. Will anyone notice if I wear flip flops to court?


App0185Blogging is such a strange affair. We all think we have something to share and most find a following, however small. As Susan notes on Spinning, change if afoot in many blogs, including one of my favorites, one of the first I'd ever read. There's nothing magic about publishing a blog. Anyone with a little more than a passing knowledge of how to log onto a computer can figure out the point and click variety offered by free blogging services. The challenge comes in the maintenance of the site, and I don't mean the skins, though that obviously is an important rudiment.
No, the challenge lies in keeping it fresh and interesting in every post. Sometimes we succeed and often we don't. I think of it as a conversation with a friend: in the beginning, you madly tap dance away to leave your friend fascinated and intrigued by all you do. But after years of friendship, you are content sometime to just check in and say "what's up - nothing here, cool, see you later."  I had hoped to make this blog a deeper, spiritual read than it has become. It's been a rough year and work drains the creativity right out of me. No, I'm not going anywhere, at least right now, but I still worry that although my page views are higher than ever,  my page reads have steadily decreased since March. The good weather brings comments down all over the blogosphere, but mine are down despite my hits, which causes one to worry that the content has just become so boring that there's nothing left to say.

Here's a really interesting site to check out while we bloggers get our ducks in a row. The New York Times published a notice for readers to send in their favorite literary references about New York. The result is an interactive map about literary New York. Take a virtual tour.


2_1Today is a putter around day. We started it off with an early morning grocery delivery, followed by coffee and the New York Times on the porch. After an hour, Stan and I decided we were sufficiently motivated to put up the bamboo blinds we bought almost a month ago. Like all household projects, the assembly of tools such as drill, pencil, folding ladder, and cup hooks, was the hardest part of the job. And like most projects, it lend to many others, such as sanding the columns where the paint peeled over the winter and cleaning all the rails and stops between the screens. The Princess helped finish up the job by washing all the candleholders, lanterns, and other tschotckes that have migrated to the porch.

Then I went to get my hair cut where I luxuriated in talking about Italy and listening to Italian being spoken by most of the employees at my hairdresser's. Teddy, who cuts my hair, and now also cuts my mom's and all my sisters' hair, is from Sicily, near Taormina, and he told me where to not eat in Rome, what areas I must see, and what to wear (cool, cool, cool). If I was wealthy, I'd pay for him to come with us and be our tour guide, interpreter, and stylist. What a luxury!  He only laughed a little bit when I tried out my few sentences of language-tape-Italian.

I haven't talked much about the trip because up to last weekend, we were in a dither about whether to go or not. Between Stan's back, my knee and stomach, and our finances, it seemed best to cancel. And then we discovered that we couldn't reschedule it as easily as we wanted to (read:big bucks) and Stan took the reins and said: we're going! So now I am officially allowing myself to get simultaneously psyched and freaked out, i.e. my usual state of panic before any big change.  I want to thank Jane for the tip about buying Flax clothing, which is just what I was looking for. Today I went to a small travel store and bought a stylish, though expensive, purse that can hold my watercolor journal, palette, brushes, wallet, and a bottle of water.  I had fun buying the little laundry line with tiny travel packets of Woolite, an inflatable neck pillow, sewing kit, and first aid kit.  Soon I'll drag the big duffel out of the attic and start throwing things in it.

But for the rest of the day, I am planning no more than eating the turkey breast that is roasting on the gas grill, assembling the angel food cake, strawberries, and whipped cream for dessert, and reading more of Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art by Jennifer New.

Have fun today.


My Most Trivial Blog Post To Date

It's official: I'm completely addicted to the Internet. I have wasted several hours since I came home doing this:

  • reading all the blogs I have bookmarked, which is easily 3 times as many as I have on my blogroll, which needs serious updating;
  • surfing sites to find comfortable, cool, LOOSE pants for Rome;
  • surfing for a purse that I can fit the journal in, plus watercolors, water bottle, wallet, and still be lightweight an impenetrable to pickpockets but doesn't cost $89;
  • surfing for nice polo shirts and tee shirts that look polished but not hot;
  • getting obsessed about the name of a  movie I couldn't remember and calling my sister, Maria, who became as equally obsessed, calling my  mother, who didn't have a clue, and Stan, who finally beat me to it at a British film awards website: Shirley Valentine ( no link - find it yourself);
  • ordering Gwen Diehn's new book on Amazon and  then cancelling several other orders where I had books that were back-ordered and holding up my order;
  • going to Barnes and Noble to see if they had Gwen's book and they didn't, but they had another  I wanted, so I ordered it and then had to go back to Amazon again and can celled and reordered a bunch of stuff;
  • read the rest of my blog roll and checked a few I read this morning to see if they had updated;

Whilst pursuing this vapid waste of time, I ate:

  • a slice of whole wheat pizza with fresh tomato, basil, fresh mozzarella, and a lot of garlic
  • a bowl of cornflakes with whole milk since the half gallon of skim soured in last night's black out
  • a glass of crangrape juice
  • and sent my son our for a pint of Ben & Jerry's

What I didn't do tonight:

  • read
  • write something besides this post and a draft of another that is still eluding me
  • draw, paint, sketch
  • knit
  • work on the book proposals

And now, just to top off an evening of eating on the bed and closed-in-the-bedroom-with-the-a/c
-after-my-first-day-back-at-court-and-afternoon-trip-to-the
-urologist-where-I refused-to-have-cystoscopy-since-he
-couldn't-even-say-whether-I'd-ever-had-a-kidney-infection:

I am going to watch the dumb Tommy Hilfiger reality show for as long as I can stand it.

Tomorrow I will resume my "one wild and precious life" a la Mary Oliver.

For tonight I veg.



Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson

I went to a bar association annual dinner tonight. It's the only bar association that I attend at all anymore, and I only go to the annual dinner (unless I need CLE credits and then I might go to a lecture). This bar association was founded for women, one of the first in the state after the NYC bar association. When I joined it, it was a fledging group that met at the Y and served some cold cuts and rolls and we talked about things like why interviewers asked us if our husbands would mind waiting on dinner if we had to work late and why we had to wear skirts to court and couldn't wear pantsuits. It was a long time ago.

The women who were the founding members of this group were hard core feminists who had gone to law school when women comprised  less than one percent of their class. Some of them were such hardcore feminists that they didn't know what feminism was. They had never named these principles, but had invented them with qualities of social justice, selflessness, hard work, and knowing that they always had to work harder and be more prepared than their male colleagues. They didn't pave the way for the other women as much as dynamite a path for us to take. These were the days before glass ceilings. These were the days of brick doors.

We young'uns rolled our eyes at  most of them, pitied their arthritic knees, were aghast when one was seen KNITTING at a bar meeting, and generally acted like the little snots we were. We did bring  a certain professionalism to the organization, got them out of the women's club mentality, and helped open the membership to new classes  who were graduating and discovering  that although their class was 50% female, the hiring partners were not honoring that percentage in their offers.

Tonight I got to see some of the founding members who are left.  and some of the presidents and officers with whom I'd worked and hadn't seen since I left for California in the 90's.   Some were thinner, some fatter. Most had bags and wrinkles and newly colored hair that matched my own.   There were some with eyes seemingly more youthful than their years; some who were remembered in memoria; and some I didn't recognize at all.  I've never aspired to be a judge, but I did choke a little on my coconut shrimp when more and more of my former classmates walked past with "Hon." on their nametages.  Of course, my friends and I had a good time kicking each other under the table when a newly-tightened face went by, or a once lithe figure plodded past with excess pounds of menopause and too many deskbound days. And the new class of women who were bright eyed and eager to chair those committees we had long lost use for, seemed, well, too young to be attorneys and looked more like the babysitters we used to employ to enable us to juggle those kids and the career.

Some of the changes were more sobering. At the cocktail hour, I sat across a table for a few minutes from someone whose name sounded familiar. I  knew I "knew" her and she met my eyes at one point quickly as if she expected me to greet her. I figured I must have been on a case or a committee with her at some point and smile. She was frail and thin and her hair was cut too severely for her shrunken face.  She had a walker and had someone who was helping her around the crowded room. Hours later on the way home, I almost slammed on my brakes in the middle of traffic when her name finally clicked with me and I realized that this ill-looking woman was  once a robust, larger than life attorney who specialized in elder care. I had referred a relative to her once, and now she looked like she was the one in need of elder care planning. It is startling to see age reflected on bodies that used to look no worse than mine, but now mirror back to me my own aging that I cannot see. 

And when I switched on the news tonight, I found out that  Mrs. Robinson is gone. She who flashed her sexy legs at Dustin Hoffman's pathetic youth. She who was Italian, sexual, strong, intelligent, dynamic, married to a little Jewish  man who matched up to her litheness like a fire plug, and made us roar with laughter at his comic genius. Did I mention that she was Italian?  She was the type of woman who had she chosen law, would have been one of the strong,  powerful women who put their heads down and plowed ahead into law, politics, lobbying, the judiciary, women who were adept and frustrated and harried and serene as they did it all while raising kids, maintaining marriages and partnerships, battling breast cancer, coming out of the closet, running for office, building practices, taking care of aging parents, and never having time to wonder how they did it all. 

The Boomer generation, heralded in by The Graduate, is now officially wearing the tag line on it's sleeve. We really were a generation apart - and I know there are younger readers out there rolling their eyes at me, and that's cool, because we get to stand for wisdom and you get to stand for change. That's how the generations pass. 

We are in mourning for you, Mrs.Robinson and for the generation whose cherry you took. I hope you are unrolling your stockings for some young stud in heaven. 


100_0113Early Saturday afternoon, I realized that the day was morphing into a sad spectacle. The only people home were Stan, me, and the Little One, yet the atmosphere in the house was heating up like we were anticipating a crowd of hungry Italian relatives and no one had remembered to clean the bathroom.

So I did what any mother would do: I sent my kid down to the basement with a note for her father, who was frothing at the mouth over certain urinary damage by a certain cat, and the amount of laundry no one had bothered to do, and ten minutes later, we were on the road.

Fifty minutes later, we were  going over the causeway to our favorite beach: Robert Moses State Park, leaving behind dirty dishes, laundry piles waiting to be put away, and a bunch of grouchy people wanting to be anywhere but in the house dealing with a week's worth of errands.  Sometimes a girl just has to do what a girl has to do.

We used to make this trip every weekend when we first moved back to New York, but then we got lazy because Stan used to make us get up at 6:00 a.m. to beat the traffic. As much as I loved it once we got there, especially when we'd spend the first hour having coffee and staring at the marshes and watching the egrets pick their delicate way through the grasses, I put up a big fight to lose that much sleep on the weekend. So it seemed like a radical idea to leave te house at 12:30 in the afternoon, traffic be damned. 100_0121_3

Instead, we found clear roads, a semi-deserted beach, and one of the most glorious beach days we could remember. The sky was absolutely cerulean and the clouds were just brush strokes to highlight the luminosity of the sky. The sun was warm, the breeze was blowing, and I only heard about one cell phone ring while we were there.
We ate a burger at the stand, and went without drinks or snacks until Julia got hungry a few hours later and made the trek for some chips and cookies.

100_0118Julia, who at first didn't want to go without a friend or cousin along, had a swimmingly good time. The water was clean, perfectly clear, and surprisingly warm. She jumped the waves, body surfed, then boogied board for several hours.
100_0140The day ended with a beautiful dinner at Captree State Park in a restaurant overlooking a boat basin filled with charter fishing boats going out for an evening of blues and weeks (that's what I was told - I know what blues are, but have no clues as the weeks/weaks). Stan and I had striped bass and Julia, the family's carnivore, had a strip steak. Afterwards we walked along the dock and looked at the charter boats and made plans to come back on a Friday night when they have live bands by the water.
100_0145_1If Stan had a blog, he would tell you all about
the history of Robert Moses and his autocratic building of the state park system, roads, and parkways along Long Island. He was a ruthless man, but he created a beautiful, accessible series of park areas that are as beautiful and scenic as any New England coastline. As Stan and I sat at the water's edge, we couldn't help but compare it with Nauset Beach, our favorite Cape Cod beach. We had to admit that Robert Moses had it all over Nauset on a pre-summer day, when the crowds were gone and the wind was soft and there was lots of sandy beach to get lost on. Of course, on a hot summer day, neither beach is a picnic what with the crowds and the traffic jams. We realized how little we take advantage of the gorgeous scenery of New York, from the skyline of Manhattan to the estuaries of Long Island.

100_0149_1Like most people, we've become used to our surroundings, rarely venturing outside our comfort zone except for special occasions. We've become my family, who only went into Manhattan when we were up from Memphis. Their kids saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island  for the first time the same as their cousins who  lived here year round. Now we find ourselves only going into the city when friends are in. Granted, we've had a few medical issues to deal with lately, but life goes on and the laundry will still pile up, and backs will hurt and stomachs be upset. We just have to seize the day and venture out despite our ills and let the world become our comfort and our distraction.

100_0141

And as you can see, others agree with me. Yeah, I got big props for dragging them out to the beach with only a towel and sunscreen, then hanging out all day, getting my pants wet in the waves, not to mention the great dinner afterwards. And yes, it did take us two hours to get home because we got stuck in the biggest freaking traffic jam we ever saw as it seemed everyone on Long Island just had to get off it on a Saturday night. So next time, we'll avoid the Southern State and head north earlier on the return trip.

As for me, you can find me at Field 2 next weekend. I"ll be the one holding the kite string  and listening to my Italian tapes. Io capisco molto bene!


A2_2My favorite part of the weekend is Friday night.  On Friday night, the weekend is still anticipation, an untouched slate that I can sully as I please. Come Saturday morning, the weekend begins to take shape and errands fill in the hours, and appointments, shopping, games, and soon the unsullied 48 hours is scheduled and rigid. But on Friday night, even if I know what the weekend has in store, I am still thrilled at the release from the confines of the office, and content to shuffle through the take out fliers, indulge in some fatty food and contemplate a trip to Borders for a latte, or just stay in and watch What Not To Wear.

There, I've just let you all in on the complete torpidity of my lifestyle. Tonight I was invited to dinner with Faith and Dana and a well-known artist who has a great book on journaling. I was looking forward to it for a month. Then this stupid infection came on and has lingered for two weeks and I realized I'd never be up for the drive to Brooklyn in rush  hour, eating at a dinner party, and trying to be charming and witty while exhausted. So I did the unthinkable and canceled. I know Faith and Dana will understand and I hope another opportunity will present itself to meet their friend.

So Stan and I settled on take out Japanese - he's having sushi, I'm sticking with noodles, and Julia gets her usual steak teriyaki. A call to Mystery Man reveals that he has a life and is going out to dinner. And a call to The Princess reveals that she is in...Binghamton. Yes, she told us several days ago but she never called anyone to say goodbye. Enough said.

So tonight, at 6:00, while I wait for my noodles and Ben and Jerry, comfortable in sweats, watching Gilmore Girls, I am sure this weekend will be relaxing.  I have The Life Aquatic and the first year of Six Feet Under to watch. I am going to do an art project for someone, and I'm going to Borders at some point to get some novels for Italy. I have to find just the right books to bring with me. In the meanwhile, I will ignore the low grade nausea and chills and call the doctor in the morning.

And by the way, yesterday was definitely a watery green day. Everywhere I went was surrounded by trees, bushes, shrubs, and lawns deep into the green stuff.

Life is simple, and pleasurable, when you don't expect much.


A8No, my blog wasn't hijacked by a bunch of sailors. I just thought it was time for a fresh look for summer. Julia took this great photo of buoys hanging on restaurant in Rock Harbor and it looked like the perfect impression of summer.

I wish I could tell you that I haven't been blogging because I've been lolling by the water playing my flute like this Pan, but I've just been sucked up into work and feeling ill. I'm operating on my drag myself out of bed plan, which consists of going to work, trying to pick between bread and breadsticks for most of my meals, and passing out early each night.

If I could just get to a spa, have specially prepared meals, massages, yoga, aromatherapy, seaweed wraps, and soothing flutes playing in the background, I'd be fine - and BORED.  It's rather comical to see the two of us in bed at night, both reaching for our pill bottles, special pillows, fluids, and a race to see who passes out first before the other starts snoring.

I'm sure this isn't a real sample of mid-life - is it? I'm certain that this too shall pass. In the meantime, I just plaster a smile on my face, answer questions as how I am doing with a big "great!" and bore my family to death with my list of complaints. Each day i resolve not to say a word about the variety of absurd ailments that have taken hold of me, but a sympathetic ear is usually filled with my nonsense until it can slink away.

In the meanwhile, I am painting a little bit each night as my art therapy. It is relaxing when not frustrating. Last night, after a feeble attempt to paint the correct perspective of a rocking chair, which is all rails and connecting pieces of wood, I gave up and just made swatches of color. It was delicious to see the pigments smooshed across the page, just like you see in the watercolor catalogs, going from dark to a faded, watery hue.  Really, all I want to do is live inside some color: watery blues, spring greens, rosy reds, and glowing yellows. I'll see what color presents itself as the theme of today.