Sister Friends

I didn't grow up with a sister. I often imagined what that would be like as my little brother smacked me upside the head with his Darth Vader lightsaber. Like my own two daughters, we would certainly always support one another, no matter what:

"One day, I want to travel way up in the sky and bottle up some clouds to bring home in a jar so I can watch it rain next to my bed," my youngest told us one day. I couldn't help but smile.

"That's the silliest thing I have ever heard of," said my oldest. "Don't you know that water vapor floating in air would condense? Go ahead if you want to, but I'm telling you right now, all you'll end up with is an old mayo jar full of air with a few drops of water in it."

"Thanks for crushing my dreams," the little one sniffed.

"Well, I didn't sit throughout thirty six weeks of fourth grade science for nothing," came the reply.

When my brother would get mad at me, lock me out of the house and then turn on the sprinklers, I would think that surely sisters had their own secret language and would never let anything get in between them.

"Punch buggy, no punch buggie," my girls scream in unison from the back seat, scaring me senseless. I narrowly avoid the yellow VW bug that's pulled out in front of us.

"American jinx," they yell again directly into each other's faces.

"No fair! I said it first," says one.

"Ouch!!!" spits out the other. "Why did you go and hit me again?"

"Because my mind told me to!"

"Meanie!"

"Dork!"

"Baby!"

"Whatever"

Growing up, I figured I had missed out on that most precious and coveted relationship dynamic called sisterhood. As a child, finding solid friends that were girls was a tough prospect. We moved around a lot and attended way too many schools. The fact that I was shy, awkward, and lived in my own head didn't help matters all that much. And let's face it ladies, in middle and high school, girls can be just plain, awful mean. It's easy in hindsight to say, “Hey, those were their own hang-ups and insecurities coming through, not mine,” but mean words and rumors still sting and are hard to forget. I did find though, that once the Jordache jeans wore out, the friendship pins retired, and the hormones settled, everything changed for the better.

Friendships are precious. You have to seek them out, put in the time, open up, and hold on to them. Only some of them are simply serendipitous, kismet . . . meant to be. I call these my sister friends: the women who, if I were lucky enough to have a sister, would most definitely fit the bill.

One in particular, wandered into my life quite by happenchance, after a yoga class almost five years ago. Her extended family quickly became my extended family, her children like my own. Even our kids fight, laugh, and play like cousins together.

She has such generosity of spirit, grace, and most importantly, one wicked sense of humor. One of the things I have learned from her is that no matter what happens, to stay strong, stay on course, and never give up. From time to time, I still pull out my acorn bracelet she gave me after a particularly stinging personal rejection of my work. It still helps stop the flow of self-doubt that is always there around the edges, trying to find its way in. She is right, you know.

True friendships aren’t meant to bring you down, but to hold you up. I know without a doubt I am stronger with her in my life, just by knowing her. She might not be down the road anymore, but she will always be a part of my life.

I am going to miss you, Stacey, so much. And I know, I know. Buck up, Atlanta isn't that far away.

Alicia, another one of my “sister friends,” gave me the book “Love You, Mean It” four years ago for my birthday. It is a heartbreaking, tear-jerking, honest account of four 9/11 widows who came together in the aftermath of such despair and destruction to form a beautiful and unbreakable bond of love and friendship. Soon, they began to end their conversations, emails and texts with those very words: “I love you. Mean it.” They wrote, “what had started as a lighthearted goodbye . . . became something much more. The more we said the words, the more we realized how much we did love one another and how grateful we each were to have the other women in our lives . . . To us, the message was clear: Love is a gift. Share it.”

I hope my girls find this in each other, as well as in the many friendships with other women that they will form over their lifetimes. After all, no matter where you go or where you end up, with great girlfriends, anything is possible. We just have to love each other. And mean it.

LUMI, Stace. See you real soon.

The Wheels on My Bus

A few weeks ago--quite spontaneously, I might add--I found myself sitting behind a large desk in a small windowless room. Dozens of forms streamed out in triplicate from an obnoxiously large industrial size computer the likes of which I'd never seen. A nice man of medium build and unprecedented dexterity sat in front of me, perforating and tearing edges off the printed papers with superhuman speed.

I couldn't blame him. After three hours of delicate negotiations and only a pen poised in hand, I could easily change my mind.
"Congratulations," he said, beaming. "You must be overjoyed to be moving on and experiencing something new."
"Well, you know Jeff," at least I think it's his name. I really wasn't paying close attention, because, as usual, I found myself at a crossroads of sorts, not sure what I wanted to do. "One would think one would be, wouldn't they?"
His expression changed from giddy optimism to puzzled confusion. Again, I couldn't blame him. I was the equivalent of a ten-car pileup of an emotional wreck (not to mention I was speaking in tongues).
"See, Jeff. It's not like I was asking for a change, or actively pursuing one. We have been together for almost eight years now, you know. It's not an easy transition to say the least. We've raised a family together, from the first trips home from the hospital in infant carriers to countless Saturdays in booster seats to visit the zoo. There were field trips and road trips to the lake for the summer, singing ABBA songs and counting cows, cornfields, and inappropriate licenses plates along the way. We've coordinated sleepovers, birthday parties and unexpected rides to the pediatrician with a broken arm and strange high fevers. There’s been laughter, tears, and fights. We've never really ever been apart."
"I know it must be hard,” he tells me, placing the forms in front of me. "But if you could just initial here, here, and here, and sign here after dating there . . ."
"I know, Jeff . . . I know. It's time to let go. How long can something this great last in this messed up muddled up world? All the wear and tear, the mileage and the money that's required to keep it up. It's just . . . you know, Jeff, it just not that easy to let go."
"Lady, do you want to buy the car or not?" I swear the lights dimmed and the
Muszak died.
In the end, Jeff was right. We had a great ride, my Yukon XL and me, but it was time to move on. After my wrist developed carpal tunnel and my right thumb and forefinger went numb, I somehow was able to release the pen, grab my purse and head for the door
I turned to him, "Can I at least say goodbye?"
"Of course," his mood suddenly brightening again. It was two hours past closing after all. "Don't forget all your stuff inside it."
Oh yeah. The stuff. All eight years worth of it.

Three hours later and all I can say is my new car seems, quite suspiciously, to look like my old car; only smaller and sans the large mango smoothie stain, that for whatever reason, I was never able to get up. Here's a quick inventory so far: A large push up bar that was supposed to go with the p90x so Charlie and I could both lose a "few" pounds before swimsuit season. That ship has obviously sailed, but not the box of resistance weights and the DVD in the way back that tells us how we’re supposed to do it. Three extra large noodles (not the pasta kind but the pool kind that my girls more appropriately have dubbed "wedgies"), one deflated inner tube, a pair of mismatched crocs, and a leaking tube of SPF 50. Seven Harris Teeter recyclable green bags, three thermo cooler totes, and several wine discount carriers that somehow crawled behind the back seat with good intentions but have never since ventured forth; 75 lbs of change, golf tees (?), an assortment of random rocks, Polly Pocket legs, and a mini fold-up Strawberry Shortcake toothbrush (used). And that's just scratching the surface, though I was pleased to find my Coach leather boot that’s been MIA for two winters in the Bus.
See, in our family we have a habit of naming our cars. Charlie’s is the Bat Mobile, because, as he tells it, the car is like its namesake: a “sleek, mean street machine,” and . . . oh yeah, it’s black. The Jeep is the Green Hornet because, well . . . you guessed it, it’s green. My Yukon was called the Bus. That name is pretty obvious, too. Not only can it transport a family of eight, half a dozen pets, and two 12-foot tandem kayaks, but the way back could house the entire wardrobe for all the cast members on a seven-day Disney Cruise.
So y’all, riddle me this: How could I be so attached to a two-ton moving mud room that cost more to fill up than a round trip plane ticket to Miami, as well as, dinner for four at Barton G’s including after-dinner drinks and dessert? I guess it’s just that I got a lot more mileage out of those four, recently converted hydrogen-filled tires than just tread on the pavement. For almost a decade, it carried us all safely, reliably, with great strength and fortitude through our many milestones as a family. And, as my husband liked to point out for the past several years, she was finally paid for so we were stuck with her whether we liked it or not.
My husband did get a call a week or so ago from the new family across the way who bought our bus. They wanted to know if it had been good to us all of these years. After he assured them everything was just fine, I swear I spotted a tear in the corner of his eye as he hung up. It had been good to him too.
So, happy trails my sweet, old reliable bus. Thanks for the memories. I’m sure you are already making more as we speak in your Cheerio-encrusted, smoothie-spilling, gas-guzzling trip called life.

Writers Note: I usually pride myself on the fact that almost all of my stories are 95% true. I am known to embellish though from time to time, and this story would be one of those exceptions. First and foremost, the folks at Nalley are wonderful, courteous, and always professional. Thanks for always taking good care of us. Second, my husband wants me to tell you he never shed a tear after talking to the new family who bought the bus. He’s right. But when asked “What if I accidently backed into the Bat Mobile, then had the girls cover up the dents with leftover black spray paint?” he did get a little misty.

Any Way You Slice It

                 "It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato."- Lewis Grizzard

"Hand it over," I say, tapping my foot in nervous anticipation over and over again on the asphalt in the back parking lot. It could all go wrong at any moment, I think to myself, glancing back over my shoulder.

"Hold your horses, already," my friend Alicia whispers. "If I get caught I'll be in big trouble, you know. I'm supposed to be in there working." She nods to the heavy, metal door behind her.

"Whatever," I tell her, holding out my hands. I can see what it is I'm after poking through the reused white Winn Dixie plastic shopping bag with black lettering. Time is of the essence.

She finally gives it up. I snatch the bag before she decides to keep it for herself. I open my car door and make a hasty retreat.  Not before gently laying my precious cargo on the seat beside me, wondering if I should've turned on the passenger airbag and cranked up the AC.

As soon as I get home, I take the steps two at a time, unlock the front door, slap some peppered bacon in the oven, wash my iceberg, and pull out the hefty two gallon jar of Hellman’s from the fridge. After placing two slices of white bread on a plate, there's nothing left to do but open my bag.

There they are in all their God given, delicious glory -- straight from Alicia's mother-in-law, Amanda's family farm in Hortense -- eight of the most perfect homegrown tomatoes I'd ever seen.

I grab my serrated knife, thank God for His bounty (not to mention the paper towel kind I was about to need to sop up all the juicy goodness), and start slicing.

I just love summer, especially during the month of June in Georgia. What's not to love? Fresh peaches, tomatoes, squash, okra, onions, corn . . . It's a smorgasbord for your taste buds and a bright and beautiful mosaic to your eyes as well. As with Monet and his gardens in Giverny, Southerners are equally inspired by the summer fruits and vegetables that spring forth from every field, farm stand, and family gathering across our region for miles and miles, or wherever our roots call us back to.

See, there are a multitude of definitions for the word "root" in the dictionary, but, for me at least, there are only two that I associate with growing up in Georgia. The first is the part of a plant that grows downward in the soil and the second is the source from where all things come. To Southerners, the two meanings couldn't be more intertwined.

We are to our roots like homegrown tomatoes are to the vine. Connected, nourished, and strengthened through the generations before us. Any way you slice it, it doesn't get any better than that.

Now, I would love to share with y'all a favorite recipe passed down through my Mom that will always remind me of my love for the South, in all its summer glory:

                  
                  AnnieMa's Fried Okra with Green Tomatoes and Onion

2-3 small green tomatoes (For those not in the know, this is a tomato pulled straight from the vine before it fully ripens into all its red, yummy juiciness. This is in no way a bad thing, but something equally as delicious. This means you get a firmer tomato that is perfect for frying and tastes sweeter.)
1 1/2 pounds small okra pods (If this is your first time handling an okra pod, don't fret if it feels as slimy as an old toad fresh out of a backyard pond when you cut into it. This is actually quite desirable seeing as (unlike putting on your swimsuit for the first time after a frosty winter) you need something extra to make it stick -- to the cornmeal coating, that is.)
1/2 white onion
1 egg
White cornmeal
All purpose flour
LOTS of salt and pepper (This comes from a woman who salts her limes before she bites into them and eats hot peppers straight from the jar without something to drink. To NOT season, my mom might say, is for sissies.)
Vegetable oil for frying

Here's how it goes:
Cut okra into horizontal slices. Cut tomatoes and onion into pieces comparable in size to okra slices. Use paper towel to absorb liquid from tomatoes. Mix okra, tomatoes, and onion in bowl; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Beat egg well with fork and stir into tomato mixture and coat well. Add equal parts flour and meal in a plastic bag. Add more salt and pepper (See what I’m talking about!) Add okra mixture and shake to coat well. Add to hot oil in skillet and fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towel and serve while piping hot.

As with all properly trained Southern cooks, i.e. trained from their mother’s apron strings as soon as they could walk, talk and hold on tightly, my mom never measures anything. She knows it by heart. Trust me, it will taste like it came straight from her heart as well, served to you with a whole lotta love! Enjoy!

Writers note:
Many, many thanks to Amanda Moore who always thinks of me when she brings back her gorgeous tomatoes and squash from her family farm. I can't wait to take the girls there one year to go pickin’! Also, thanks to Patty and Kent Capper, owners of the very posh Joseph Jewelers and the coolest bosses in town. Thanks for letting Alicia help me create and then write about some of the funniest adventures ever. Love you guys! Last but not least, thanks to my Mom who has taught me what is means to embrace, own, and pass on my Southern roots. I love you!

Carports and Collard Greens

I love country roads.

They are like the lines you’ve earned on your forehead, all the well-worn wrinkles around your face. They tell a story all their own.

Some country roads are nothing but dirt. Some are filled with gravel. Some go on and on without a destination in mind while others get your right where you need to go.
They have great names like Edna’s Road or Sit and Stay Awhile Street.

I guess I just love the wear and tear, the potholed hominess of them all. They remind me of family, because that is usually what you find at the end of them.

Growing up, we would wind our way up and down these roads, back and forth from Augusta to my grandparents’ house in Colbert. It’s a teeny, tiny town off Highway 72 going up to Athens. If you sneeze, you might just miss it.

Once you arrived at the house, you’d have to find a place on the side yard to park. My grandparents had a carport, but they never a parked a car in it. If you pulled one in there, where would everyone sit and cook and watch the cars go by?

That’s about all we did there, you know. As a child, I really didn’t understand why it was supposed to be so much fun, this congregation of family on a grease-stained slab of concrete more worshipped than Bethlehem. All the grownups ever did anyway was eat and talk, then eat and talk some more, and while they were talking, they were talking about eating. I just wanted to go into “town” and grab a pizza and a movie.

You should always be careful what you wish for. It’s true that you end up really missing something once it’s gone.

My grandmother made the best collard greens. It was one of the first things you smelled walking up to the carport. That and the smell of hot grease cracking in a fryer. See, the grease stains on the concrete in the carport didn’t come from my grandfather’s Pontiac, but from his Fry Daddy that lived a few inches away from the foot of his rocker.

Down here in the South, if you can eat something, you can fry it. So that’s what we did. We didn’t iron, starch, or press the sheets either. Why bother when we were just going to use it to cover the lunch dishes on the dining room table so the flies wouldn’t get them before pulling it back off again for dinner?

I haven’t been back to Colbert for a while. My grandparents passed away many, many years ago. I still think of them often, usually when I smell or taste something that brings me back to that small speck of time on that carport all those years ago. Especially if it’s fried okra, collard greens, sweet cornbread or vinegar based barbecue.

There are some memories that are not relegated to a faded photograph hanging in a frame or a letter saved in a shoebox. Some are sensory. They can replicate a past experience with one bite. They are to be savored, enjoyed and passed down to generations to come. Cooking was the centerpiece that brought my family all together. It still does.

My mom and her sisters still get together a few times a year at the beach house. It’s not the same little house they grew up in down by a winding country road.  It’s a new little house off a causeway on a barrier island off the South Carolina coast. The two places couldn’t be more different, but the smells, the food, the laughter, and the stories coming from the kitchen when they are all together are exactly the same.

It’s funny how we are always in such a hurry to get down the road a ways, but I think everyone gets to a point where they don’t have any other place they’d rather be . . . except maybe gathered under a small carport or at a small beach house filled with family and a pot on the stove full of collard greens.

So, now let me share one of my memories with you. This recipe is ridiculously simple but taste divinely complex. It smells so good slow cooking in the oven. It reminds me of the carport, my mom’s family and those lazy days of cooking, talking, eating, and watching the cars go by.

                                                        Aunt Shirley’s Apple Cider Pork

1 large Boston Pork Butt
3 cups apple cider vinegar
Red pepper

Sprinkle the pork with red pepper, cover with vinegar in a Dutch over, and bake in a 300 degree oven for eight hours.

As Aunt Shirley will tell you, the amount of vinegar might need to be tweaked according to
the size of the pork, so like any proper bathing suit cover, you just want to make sure it covers enough of your butt.

Aunt Shirley recommends mashed potatoes from scratch. I don’t know how to operate a mixer that has more parts than a small aircraft carrier, so don’t tell her, but I always cheat and buy the pre-made ones at the store.

Also, the leftover juices make excellent gravy. Now I was born in raised in South so I know better than anyone not to tell someone else how to make their gravy, but I never, ever cheat with a bottle of brown gravy. Aunt Shirley would definitely have my hide on that one! Enjoy!

What Would Nancy Drew Do?

I loved Nancy Drew growing up. Adored her, actually. Why? Who wouldn’t look up to a blue convertible-driving sixteen year old, recent high school grad and amateur sleuth who could single-handedly solve the greater mysteries of the universe with only a flashlight, intense studies in psychological behaviors, and a magnifying glass to guide her? Simply put, she was my hero. To me, heroes seemed hard to find in abundance in the early eighties. As little girls, we were subjected on a regular basis to the tummy-baring unitards of Cher and the model singing the lyrics of the Enjoli perfume commercial that told us we could, in fact, bring home the bacon and then fry it up in a pan while never letting our husband forget he’s a man. And I know, Cyndi, I know; “Girls just wanna have fun,” but we were left wondering if there was more waiting for us out there in this big, wide world of opportunity than shoulder pads, Dallas reruns, and nightcaps on the Love Boat’s promenade deck? Luckily, a “plucky,” intelligent, independent, capable, and, yes, stylish, heroine to look up to had already been created by a man named Edward Stratemeyer in 1930. Stratemeyer was acting on a hunch following the success of his characters The Hardy Boys, when he created Nancy Drew, a character who remains timeless to this day. For me, it was love at first sight when my mom brought home the whole set of the Mystery Stories with their smart covers and canary yellow bindings in 1981. Not only did I quickly devour the books as a nine year-old female reader, I actually wanted to be Nancy Drew. It seemed to me, if you put your mind and talents to the task at hand, like Nancy did, you could figure out pretty much anything. I imagined an exciting and glamorous life filled with phantom horses, hidden treasures, stolen diamonds, secret staircases, old attics, and coded messages arriving via homing pigeons. Who wouldn’t find this fast-paced life tackling tough questions and dangerous enemies intoxicating? Alas, an amateur sleuth I did not turn out to be. But in my own hectic, crazy life, I still look to Nancy for inspiration and help in unraveling the vast mysteries that surround me every day. Here are a few examples: The Mystery of the Odd Odor in the Pantry Where is that smell coming from? How did it get there and why can’t I find its source after taking everything out and putting it all back in again? Was it the missing Yukon Gold potato that I haven’t seen since it was on the conveyor belt at Harris Teeter? Did it not make it home, or if it did, simply rot somewhere in the pantry, sprout legs and then run away?
The Secret of the Broken Step on the Front Porch Why, when my husband says he has put a nail in it, do I still trip on the step, stubbing my pinkie toe and spilling my grocery bag and mail every other day? Does someone sneak up to the porch every night and pry it out? Do I need 24-hour surveillance or eight hours of sleep? Could the nail be a “phantom” nail that my husband has substituted for a real one so I will stop nagging him and he can blow up stuff on his Play Station 3? The Clue in the Bag of Mini Snickers How do these mini candy bars keep disappearing even though I alternate hiding spots two or three times a day and seal the bag back up with Elmer’s glue, invisible double-sided Scotch tape, and modeling clay? Am I being followed? Has someone planted a GPS tracking device somewhere in the bag? And why do they leave all the little empty wrappers inside the bag instead of throwing them away in the trash can like civilized human beings do? The Case of the Missing Hair Brush Where does it go every night after I place it right by the sink? Does it have a hot date with my husband’s comb or perhaps the blender where I sometimes find it? Do I sleepwalk every night for the sole purpose of hiding it from my girls, making us all late, and then ruining my morning? Why do my children promise me that they use it and then put it back in its rightful place when their hair looks like birds could nest in it.

So now you can see how indispensible Nancy’s skills are even today, almost 75 years later. Though, I might even venture to say, in today’s world, the mysteries seem more complex and are that much harder to crack. I doubt even our French-speaking, hot rod- driving, pearl choker and pencil skirt-wearing heroine can figure out who keeps locking my keys in the car when I’m not looking and why I do laundry twice a day and no one ever has anything to wear. I’m sure that I am not the only one who owes my mom a lot for introducing me to Nancy Drew and all that she embodies. She saved all the books for my girls and I find immense joy in watching them curled up on the couch with Nancy unraveling all of her baffling cases right along with her. I hope they learn that yes, sometimes problems seem pretty impossible to work out, but to never give up. Like my favorite amateur sleuth, you just have to use your wits and keep on looking for clues. Blonde bob and college boyfriend four years their senior not required, however.

The Dogwoods Will Bloom

I love spring. Everything about it is intoxicating and wonderful, even with one of your eyelids glued shut and your sinuses caked thick with a layer of pollen. It’s like passing “Go” on the Monopoly board of life. You don’t automatically collect a hundred bucks, but you feel like it, knowing you get to leave a lot of hardships from winter behind and start all over in a season where beauty abounds and life is how it should be: reborn, fresh, and new.

Another one of my favorite things about spring is weddings. They just seem to go together like Sonny and Cher, peanut butter dipped in chocolate, and sea salt with tequila on a sunny day.
This particular spring seems to be different, though, as if I have passed “Go” so many times in a row without keeping track that I’ve forgotten just how many times I’ve been around the board. That was until I opened up our first wedding invitation of the spring.

“What’s wrong? You look pale,” my husband looks up from his cell, a hint of panic rippling across his forehead as he wrinkles his nose. “Don’t tell me your old college roommate decided to marry that 25 year-old surfer from Ecuador with dreadlocks and a portable herb garden? I give it three months; six months tops.”

“No, it’s worse,” I tell him, though I do admire his optimism. “We‘re invited to a friend’s wedding, but instead of guests of the groom, we are now guests of the groom’s parents.”
“It’s official.” He looks at me with such despair, I’m afraid he might faint, or worse, drop his cell phone into my spaghetti sauce and that’s all we have for dinner.
“I know, hon.” I try to comfort him as best as I can while moving my saucepan to the back burner.

“We’re old.”

I’m not sure how we missed it. Along the way of paying mortgages, utilities, mowing lawns, changing diapers, MacGyver-ing science projects, and attending parent/teacher conferences we became bona fide grownup . . . or old fogies, as we used to call them.
One would think we should have figured all this out much earlier, but who has time to stop and think about such things while you’re right smack in the muck of it all? I will concede we should have caught on when we started to hold menus and price tags two or more feet from our face in order to read them. Not to mention the cacophony of sounds orchestrated by the creaks of our bones and the wheezes from our deviated septa as we toss and turn in bed at night that also might have clued us in. We just aren’t spring chickens anymore.

I was thinking about the stark contrast of the grown up world compared to a child’s world the other day while watching my daughters swim in the pool. It was quite a beautiful sight: the way their arms and legs and strands of long hair seemed to move like silk in between what looked like, from the surface, layers of pale blue water. They appeared as if two ethereal beings, not young, not old, not really of this world, but of a middle place. A place where there is great lightness and buoyancy and beauty; a place totally unaffected by the weight of the water from above or the crushing enormity of the worries of the world resting just above the surface.
Ripples of water slid silently above their submerged bodies. A storm would soon be coming in from the ocean, but in that moment, they didn’t have a care in the world. Why would they? They were completely unaware of everything around them because they were deeply and completely immersed in that moment.

It’s hard to remember how that feels sometimes. The older we get, the more burdens we carry and the more darkness we see where there used to be light. Every day, we see neighbors we love, loved ones we cherish, and people we have never met or had a chance to know suffer from a long list of things beyond their control and we feel helpless about how to make it better.
How can everything around us be so sunny and green and new, when there is hurt and grief and loss just beneath it all?

My dad is a surgeon who has spent four decades face to face with both life and death. He is also the epitome of a modern day Renaissance man and said it best in a poem about spring he wrote many, many years ago and shared with me when I was eighteen. I have carried it with me ever since and whenever I feel weighed down I read it. Here is how it ends:
“And as I survey this world around me, my senses are overwhelmed. But deep in my heart the snow is still deep, the winds blow cold, and the boughs of the Dogwoods hang heavy with ice. Why such contrast, such disharmony? It’s as if my heart lies waiting, still asleep, still dormant but safely tucked away from the elements, but I am forever secure in the knowledge that this too will pass for just as ceaselessly as the seasons change, so too will the Dogwoods and Azaleas bloom for me.”

I’m reminded of my spicy Columbian friend Bert Snyder who has been bravely battling stomach cancer. I wish everyone knew Bert. Many of you do. She has filled up every ounce of her small frame with humor, grace, dignity, and a resilience of spirit. When the doctors recommended another bout of chemo, she said no. For her, it’s about the quality of our time, not the quantity of it, that defines a life lived well.

She told me, “I choose life.” Bien hecho, Bertica. Life it is.

Money for Nothing

It finally happened. I knew it would. It was only a matter of when, not if, the chips would fall and the payment would be due. Only I had no idea that the cost would be so high or the consequences of my actions so steep.

Therefore, I guess I’ll just go ahead and ‘fess up. But try not to judge me too badly; sometimes a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do.

“I want an iPad,” my ten year old told me the other day. I should have known right then by the tone of her voice that I was in big trouble, but we all know that denial does funny things to people.

“Me, too,” chimed in my eight year old.

“What in the world are the two of you going to do with a couple of iPads?” I asked nervously. The little hairs on my arms stood up. Something about their eyes was unsettling. “Face Time the dog? Read Tolstoy? Balance the household budget? Play online poker? I mean, aren’t y’all a little bit too young to interface with the big, bad time suck of the ever changing and often volatile void of cyberspace? Besides, aren’t they like 900 dollars apiece or something?”

A look passed between them that made my stomach churn and my skin go cold. I tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

“Actually,” they pulled out a giant glossy white piece of poster board from behind the couch. “We’ve been meaning to talk to you about all that.”

There it all was, laid out in crayons, scented markers and Littlest Pet Shop stickers. It had finally caught up to me and I had no choice but to pay the price. Talk about needing a debt ceiling. According to the girls’ calculations, I might have one-upped Washington.

As the dollars signs began to blur before me, my life up to that point started to flash before my eyes:

“The first person to find my sunglasses gets five dollars, so get moving, we’re late,” I told the girls as they stood by the front door.

“They’re on top of your head,” one of them pointed out, extending out her little hand.

“Can you break a $20?” I asked.

“No. What am I, a bank?” She replied.

“I’ll get you back later, then.” This is where my trouble began.

The same thing has happened many times with my keys, purse, phone, pen, dog leash, checkbook, wallet, iPod, journal and daybook. The typical exchange:

“Five bucks for whoever can find my (insert any above item here), we’re late.”

“It’s in your hand.”

“All I have is a fifty.”

“I know, I know. You’ll get me back later.”

It is true that the bulk of my debt goes towards lost items but a lot of it goes towards absolute, pure laziness.

“Can you take your sister to the bathroom again?” I ask my oldest, through a mouth full of food.

“Two dollars,” she says back, somehow sensing I haven’t eaten all day and that her younger sibling can’t hold it in her Elmo pull up training pants any longer.

“A dollar,” I barter back.

“Buck fifty.”

“Sold.”

And then there’s this costly one, seeing as it happens every Saturday:

“Ten more minutes,” I mumble, pulling my duvet back up over my head. It’s always a little unnerving to wake up to four little bleary eyes mere inches from the two of mine, staring directly into them.

“But we haven’t eaten breakfast yet,” they cry in unison.

“What time is it anyway,” I ask, sitting up in bed grabbing my phone. “How come I have to drag y’all out of bed in the morning all week long to go to school and make a nutritious breakfast that all you do is stare at, but on Saturday morning you are up at 5:45 am, claiming you might quite possibly be starving to death?”

Silence.

“All right then. Three dollars?” I offer.

“Five.”

“Done. Can you close the door on your way out?”

When I come out of my trance and look into my daughters’ sweet but determined faces and then at their homemade charts and graphs made from glitter and glue and my own doing. It really is like Kenny sang, sometimes “you gotta know how to fold ‘em.”

Two brand new generation 2 iPads should be arriving here via UPS any day now. Good thing we bought that Apple stock not too long ago. The only question now is if they will let me use them. I can’t take my dog with me some places. It sure would be nice to Face Time with him.

Writers Note:

Obviously, this article is completely embellished. No, my girls don’t have iPads, and I don’t pay them to let me sleep in on Saturdays (seeing as I just do that on my own anyway). They’re smart, they’re tall, and they know where the cereal is. But seriously y’all, what mother hasn’t paid her child a buck to take their little brother to the potty so you won’t miss the end of Regis and Kelly? Just sayin’.

Oh, yeah. Here’s an interesting tidbit. My financial whiz friend, George, just told me that, as of the last week of July, Apple now has more available cash than the US Government.

A Nose Knows

If you have a minute, I want to tell you a story. It’s a story I’m quite certain you’ve never heard. It’s also one of those stories you can’t make up. It’s a story about a girl, a skunk, and a cell phone. To get started, we have to go back to the very beginning on a small highway in the rolling hills of Vermont.

“What was that?” I asked my husband when I was startled out of a deep sleep by a sound similar in decibels to a sonic boom or Fran Dresher’s voice – I couldn’t tell which. It was midnight after all and we’d been driving since 8:00 a.m..

“It was nothing, just a bump in the road,” he quickly replied, as his eyes darted back and forth across the hood.

“A bump?” I couldn’t help but stare at him, mouth open. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I think whatever it was just cracked my back molar. See?”

“Shhhhhhh,” he quieted me. “You’ll wake up the kids.”

“Me? Are you serious? I think your bump (this is where I mimed quotations marks in the air with my fingers) took care of that. Or are you sure it wasn’t a turkey or a moose, a deer, maybe an intoxicated wandering pedestrian or something?” I just couldn’t help it, I ramble when I’m nervous. “Maybe it was a…….”

“EWHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” the kids yelled in unison from the backseat while making loud gasping, gagging sounds in between breaths. Meanwhile, I was frantically pressing the switch that rolls down the window like it was the emergency blow up button on an inflatable dingy attached to the side of a sinking ship. “What is that awful smell? Gross!”

Yep, they were up now.

“I’m sorry, alright?” my husband shouted before turning the car into a parking lot of an old, abandoned gas station. “The skunk ran right out in front of me. What was I supposed to do? Swerve and kill us all?”

“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?” I shouted back as we all tore out of the car as fast as a silver bullet or a train or a Coors Light can or whatever it is that describes how Superman exited small, enclosed phone booths, I can’t really remember. Now, maybe it seems like my actions were a little bit dramatic, but we needed fresh air. Stat.

“Daddy,” our ten year old cried, her lower lip trembling. “Are you sure it’s dead? Shouldn’t we go back and see? What if she had babies somewhere that needed her?”

The eight year old chimed in to ask, “Does this mean we have to wash the car in tomato juice? ‘Cause I hate to break it to you, Dad, but this convenient store looks like it hasn’t been open since the Bush Administration.”

Unbeknownst to us, as my husband checked under the hood and in the grill for body parts with a broken Wizards of Waverly Place pencil, a book light he swiped off my Kindle, and an “I heart Spaghetti O’s” vintage T-Shirt he pilfered from the traveling dirty clothes bag to tie around the bottom part of his face, a similar situation was unfolding one state over on a small gravel road next to Lake Winnipesaukee in Meredith, New Hampshire. A place which, believe it or not, would be our final destination the very, next day.

When we finally did arrive there the next day, I couldn’t hide my excitement. “Oh my Gosh, you guys! You’re all grown up!” Well, the excitement might really have been over getting out of the car after two long days and realizing my two legs really did still work, but it was also about getting to see our extended family. This is definitely the highlight of our annual lake vacation: seeing our nieces and nephew, cousins and friends for the first time in a year.

“Oh no, it can’t be” said my husband, skipping all pleasantries and breaking up the circle of hugs with his elbow and a bottle of Febreze he must have found under the passenger seat. “It must be following us.”

“What’s following you, Uncle Charlie?” asked our sweet 14-year old niece, Jodi.

“The smell of the skunk we ran over in Vermont last night,” he told her while he sniffed our girls’ hair, and (I’m not really sure why) under their arms. “We can’t get rid of it.”

“Oh no, that’s just Couch Potato and Oreo,” she said, gesturing over to a blue laundry basket sitting in the shade on the beach. “The neighbors told us their mom was run over last night, right up there, across the street.”

Not being able to help ourselves, even after our late night escapade of the night before, we cautiously peered into the basket. And there they were: two of the most adorable teeny, tiny baby skunks I have ever seen. Well, actually, the only two baby skunks I’d ever seen, but who’s counting, especially while you’re trying to hold your breath.

“Aren’t they cute?” Jodi leaned over, reading my mind. “But my mom won’t let me keep them.”

That’s what I love about Nan. She’s a lot of fun, and she’s really, really smart.

“It’s okay,” Jodi shrugged. “They don’t allow you to remove the scent glands in the state of New Hampshire, anyways.”

“How do you know that,” I asked.

“I looked it up on my Droid, of course.” She held up the phone in its hot pink case just as it started to ring. “That’s probably the Wild Life Department now, calling about the babies. I gotta take this.”

While Jodi was on the phone, we all stood staring at the basket in silence, admiring little Oreo and Couch Potato . . . not to mention the girl who was resolved to save them. No one spoke -- probably because we are all still using our mouths to breathe in and out.

“Guess what, guys,” she said, waving her cell phone excitedly. “The Wildlife Center in Holderness will take them, but only if we get them there ASAP.”

“Alright, fine.” Gramma Flo pulled herself up out of her beach chair and grabbed her keys. “I’ll take them. Only they’re not riding shotgun, I’ll tell you that right now!”

So off they went. Two baby skunks, one cool, red mini-van driving grandma and a redheaded 14 year-old beauty with a heart of gold.

We found out later that Couch Potato didn’t make it. They tried everything they could, including hooking him up to the IV machine, but he was too dehydrated without his mom to make it. But thanks to Jodi, his sister is doing great. If you ever get up to Lake Winnipesaukee, you can even go visit Oreo in her new home in the wildlife center in Holderness. You might even run into Jodi and her friends checking up on her there.

I’ve thought a lot about the crazy parallels of the universe since then: how two things can be the same or happen at the same time but have totally different outcomes. The only thing I do know for sure is that life happens. It’s what you do in its aftermath that counts. I even got to witness for myself how – thanks to the power of a Droid and the love and determination of a teenaged girl who knew how to use it -- one person can change the fate of another living, breathing, and, yes, stinking thing.

Diary of a Sleepover

“Happy Friday!”

I can’t stand those two words, especially when strung together and intoned in a really annoying sing songy voice. Obviously, the person who relishes this phrase doesn’t claim any dependents on their tax returns.
For the rest of us, weekends are a whirlwind of activity that takes place at a feverish pace and requires more car laps around Glynn County than a week’s worth of races at the Daytona 500. There are birthday parties, soccer practices, riding lessons, basketball games, cheerleading tryouts, and piano recitals. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Not only does your weekend revolve around the little people with runny noses and untied shoelaces that you chose to bring into this world (possibly after a few too many margaritas), but it also involves a few others that you didn’t.
Which brings me to the two other words that when put together make me want to go back to bed and call my mommy: “sleep” and “over.” Here’s what occurs during a typical weekend sleepover at the Packard house:
5:00 PM- Four girls arrive with enough luggage for a two week European tour, not to mention enough cell phones, iPads, iPods, and other electronic gaming devices to power through a nuclear winter.
5:05 PM- Two iPods and one cell phone are now missing. One of the cats is AWOL and the dog has pink curlers in his hair and moustache drawn in with my black Laura Mercier coal eyeliner pencil.
5:15 PM- I try to sit down but all of the cushions and accent pillows and bed sheets in the entire house are stacked like the leaning tower of Pisa in the sunroom. There’s a note attached that reads: “Whoever knocks down this fort will either die a slow and painful death or have to sleep on the floor.” I back away carefully.
5:36 PM- Girls have melted all the chocolate in the house to make mud masks and two of them have glued their eyes shut with purple glitter nail polish from Claire’s. Good news: the cat has shown up. Bad news: she won’t stop shaking and refuses to eat.
5:57 PM- In survival mode, I decide to make a cocktail with some watered down Fanta orange soda and a rim of crushed Nerds found all over the kitchen counter top.
5:59 PM- I take my cocktail outside to the driveway to check on the girls, where one of them points out, with pride, a sidewalk chalk portrait of me that could only be described as a cross between Barbara Bush and Smurfette. I ponder throwing my drink on it to make it go away, but it comes down to sanity vs. vanity. For me, sanity wins every time. I down the rest of my drink and pray for rain.
6:33 PM- The pizza delivery guy shows up. Unfortunately, the girls descend on him like a band of over-sugared, over-accessorized princess-look-alikes at Disney who finally spotted Minnie after standing in line for half a day in extreme heat. He throws the pizza at the porch and makes a hasty retreat, no doubt to call for a restraining order and to block our number from their phone database worldwide, including Canada.
7:03PM- After lugging down four extra-large Hefties to the trash and unclogging the sink, it’s time to pick out a movie.
8:00 PM- Following three total melt downs, two fits of hiccups, and a call for mutiny, we still haven’t picked out a movie. I double check the dead bolts and set the alarm just in case someone really does try and walk home.

8:15 PM- After some more careful, but healthy debate, three gigantic tubs of popcorn, and a few iTunes gift cards left over from Christmas for the obstructionists, we finally come to a decision and press play.

10:15 PM- Finally. I was able to read my book in peace. I did have to make a run to the garage for more toilet paper, fix an overflowing toilet, remove a splinter, clean up an exploding Coke, find a stuffed bunny and a bear, recharge a cell phone then turn it off, wriggle two blankets from the leaning tower of Pisa without it falling down, but I did manage to read six pages. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?
10:30 PM- Time for bed. I can still hear them like little rats scurrying back and forth across the hardwoods upstairs, but I am just too tired to care anymore. The alarm is on, the smoke detectors are hardwired to the fire station, and if something goes off, the good news is they will all have reliable and fast transportation back to where they came from.
8:00 AM- The kids are already up. Actually, they have been since 6:00 AM after admitting they went to bed at 1:00 AM. I run around the kitchen taking down breakfast requests like a short order cook, only to end up with maple syrup in my hair, burnt toast, and two stacks of uneaten pancakes.
9:01 AM- We have packed up what we can find, which isn’t much, and six girls stare at me with red rimmed eyes like a horde of college freshmen who just pulled an all-nighter for finals while inhaling twelve pots of coffee under fluorescent lighting. The only thing left for me to do is inhale twelve cups of coffee and stare at the driveway, hoping their parents will show up soon.

My friend, Alicia, asked me what the appropriate age is for her 5 year-old to have a sleep over. My answer is always the same. “When she is thirty,” I tell her, “and she has to have a ring on her finger and have already negotiated the best side of the garage to park her car in.”
Actually, it really is worth it in the end. I get to watch my girls cultivate friendships, laugh till their sides split, and figure out what it means for someone to have your back and vice versa.
In the words of the late Erma Bombeck, the world’s wisest woman: “friends are –‘annuals’ that need nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a ‘perennial’ that comes up year after year, enduring droughts of absence and neglect. There’s a place in the garden for both of them.”
So, bring ‘em on…over, that is. I’ll always have Monday.