October 2013 – Page 2 – *the gratitude-a-thon

gratitude-a-thon day 257: jake is 19!

October 22, 2013October 22, 2013Uncategorized6 Comments

I thought I would have kids later, like my mom did. I was working in advertising, which i really liked, and Peter was busy trying to get tenure, and we just thought we’d have babies in our late 30’s. But, then I got a stomach ache that wouldn’t go away. I found out I was lactose intolerant during the myriad of tests that were run, and while that discovery helped the pain some, it persisted. An exploratory abdominal surgery resulted in the doctor telling me this by phone: “You’re a mess inside. You’ll never have a baby.”

Yes, that happened.

The next three years of infertility would be like an emotional hike up Mt. Everest, followed by a depressing descent into the Grand Canyon. We’re talking get out your insurance card and your savings account, because you’re going to get poked and prodded in places you like to keep private, including your wallet. You’re going to have surgery, and need therapy, and make Ben & Jerry’s stock go up, way, way up. You’re going to have sex on demand and sex when you’re mad and sex in your sleep. You will no longer see anything but pregnant women and babies. Even in your dreams. You will wonder what’s wrong with you. You will ask the clouds why you can’t just be like everybody else, planning a nice summer baby, so you can take nice long walks to lose the pregnancy weight. You will want to move to another planet where babies are hatched from seeds you plant in your weightless backyard.

If it weren’t for an exceptionally talented doctor named Robert Hunt, who performed a five hour surgery that rid me of the stage 4 endometriosis that was preventing the egg and sperm dance, and allowed me to conceive naturally, and the Mind Body Program for Infertility run by the talented Ali Domar, which helped me through my severe baby-less depression through meditation and cognitive restructuring, and allowed me to meet a group of women just like me, I wouldn’t be celebrating my son’s birthday today. But I am. And let me just say, he was worth the wait.

Happy birthday to my boy, Jackson Robert Gabriele, who made me a parent, who has taught me more than any philosopher, any institute of higher learning, any text book there is. To my guy, who has pushed me to be my best self, opened my eyes to the deepest kind of emotion, made my heart grow like the grinch’s when he finally learned his lesson. To my little bunny, who is charming and brilliant and interesting and funny. To my messy, first born on his birthday, you gave me a whole new kind of life when you came tumbling into the world 19 years ago. You’ve helped me heal the ugly wounds left by a difficult dad, and shone a big fat light onto what’s really important in the world–relationships. Whether they’re family, or not, you’ve helped me see that having people you love in your world is better than anything else there is.

I love you in the deepest, hardest to get to parts of my heart and the dead center of my soul. I am proud of you in a million little ways. I admire you and wish for you all that is real and good. This is the first time we aren’t together on your birthday, but make no mistake, you’re right here in my heart.

gratitude-a-thon day 256: I LOVE MY DOG

October 21, 2013October 21, 2013Uncategorized2 Comments

I used to not love dogs. There, I’ve said it. I’m horrified and sad that I lost all those years not having a relationship with the furry guys I now think of as the best people I know, but, well, there it is.

I didn’t exactly hate them. I just wasn’t interested in them. My dad brought a dog home and I wasn’t really prepared for him and he was too big and strong for me to walk, and so he wound up on a long leash in our yard, which wasn’t nearly the kind of exercise he needed. He was sweet, but we didn’t do training classes or pay the kind of attention we pay dogs now, so he one day, straining to get out and run free, squeezed past me out the front door and directly into the street, where he was instantly killed by a car and I was instantly scarred for life. My dad brought home two more dogs, the fate of the next one was exactly the same. The scar grew deeper. The third dog didn’t meet the fate of a car, but I was not able to open myself up to him, for fear he might be gone. So, as I grew up, dogs meant one thing and only one thing to me: pain.

My kids nagged for a long time for a dog. I was at least intelligent enough not to get one until I was ready to take care of one by myself. Because everybody knows even the kid who fervently, passionately wants a puppy, will not take care of one. The hunt for Riley was about six months long with lots of twists and turns. It ended with a casual email about a puppy five minutes from my house, who was flown here from a breeder in Minneapolis, and who was supposed to be hypo-allergenic and was not and now needed a home. It was love at first sight. He was ours within days.

All of this is to say that yesterday when Riley began yelping, and making that “pain” sound that dogs make, I scooped that boy up and carried him to Angell Memorial, with total and complete terror in my heart. I sat in the waiting room sobbing, because I could see he was hurting, and there was no obvious reason for it. I was stumped. He hadn’t seemed to eat anything. He was just spontaneously in pain. My mind went on a vivid excursion of disease and death. And all I could image was a life without one of the best parts of every single one of my days.

The doctor could find nothing. Finally, we settled on the idea that he may have subluxed his knee and that it popped back in. He’d done this once several years ago. He hopped in the car and came home and promptly fell into a deep sleep, exhausted from his hosptial trip, the stress of having his anal glands expressed, and probably my intense psychic pain.

It’s hard for me to even understand how much my furry little guy means to me. He is the first one up with me in the morning. He practically throws a parade for me, when I even so much as return to the house after emptying the garbage, he is steadfast in his adoration, as he follows me around the park like a shadow. I know that he won’t be around forever, and that fact is as sobering as losing my closest un-furry people. But am I grateful this dog came into my world? Grateful isn’t a big enough word. Grateful doesn’t touch the feeling I have for Riley and how lucky I am that he causes allergies. But grateful will have to do.

: this was taken by the fabulously talented rania matar (raniamatar.com). i love it almost as much as i love riley.

October 21, 2013October 21, 2013UncategorizedLeave a Comment

gratitude-a-thon day 256: here we go again!

October 20, 2013October 20, 2013Uncategorized1 Comment

Stock up on the cucumbers to soothe your swollen eyes from lack of sleep. Put away your designer clothing, the only names you’ll be wearing if you live in Boston are Victorino, Pedroia, Ortiz, Ellsbury & Uehara. Grow your beard (I’m Italian and Jewish, this shouldn’t be a problem). Tell your kid’s teachers there probably won’t be much homework doing for a few weeks. Root, root, root for the home team. Forget college for your first born, and spend the savings on the best seats at Fenway. Plan accordingly for Kenmore Square traffic. Fuck the law and scalp some tickets. Pretend you’re on the team. Buy some peanuts and cracker jack, don’t care if you ever get back. Stock up on beer. Eat only hotdogs until we win. We want a Victorino, I mean victory. Bring it Cardinals. You’re in Boston Strong territory. Ba, Ba, Ba.

gratitude-a-thon day 254: clean up without the “up” part

October 19, 2013October 19, 2013Uncategorized1 Comment

I hate to clean, but this article, which i could not get to link, so you’ll have to do some work and cut and paste this into your browser–sorry! (http://www.nbcnews.com/health/good-nights-sleep-scrubs-your-brain-clean-researchers-find-8C11413186) describes a cleaning process that’s so effortless, you don’t have to do a thing. Good night.

gratitude-a-thon day 253: small bites friday

October 18, 2013Uncategorized1 Comment

GO SOX! Game 5: check! And now back to crazy town, I mean Boston. We’re ready for you boys. WE BELIEVE.

It’s October and yesterday was 75. I will take it.

Congrats to Dax Shepard and Kristin Bell, who waited to get hitched until it was legal for same sex couples to do the same. As Andy Cohen would say, “mazel.”

And speaking of same sex marriage. I am loving this proposal. Now, that’s how you do it.

As my brilliant friend and global warming expert, Mindy Lubber (check out her company Ceres) and Peter and I were discussing the other day, it’s hard to really experience the impact of global warming simply through statistics. You need to somehow see it it and feel it. Here’s an eye opener–your city underwater.

Kate Middleton goes outlet shopping. I knew I liked her.

The phenomenally talented author of Interpreter of Maladies, Jumpa Lahiri is up for the Booker Prize for her new book The Lowlands. I knew she wasn’t a one hit wonder.

Is anything as fresh as Mcsweeney’s?

BHS Back -to-school night was fun, as always. I am fairly sure I walked a mile and lost a pound!

If you’ve never taken a Duck Tour through Boston, now’s the time, it’s a blast and just for today, it’s free!

Hey Jake, this one’s for you. I wonder if buying really expensive green sneakers could be considered “self-compassion?”

gratitude-a-thon day 252: fail, fail again, fail better

October 17, 2013October 17, 2013Uncategorized2 Comments

Who doesn’t love an inspiring coffee shop quote? This one is funny, but it’s damn true. Why are we so hard on ourselves in regard to failure. Why is failure the worst “F-word?”

I have failed so many times at so many things that I have completely, (and joyfully) lost count. I brought Jake home from the hospital all cocky that I knew what I was doing, cut his tiny little translucent nails, so cavalierly that I made one of his fingers bleed. He wailed so loudly, I was sure he was saying, “Let me back in.” MOMMY FAIL. I paid more attention to my social life and boyfriend status in high school than high school. TEENAGER FAIL. I permed my hair from 1985-1993. BIGGEST STYLE FAIL EVER.

I have made mistakes all over the place. And when I was younger, each time I failed, I interpreted it as a character flaw, another reason to think I didn’t get the “Rule Book on Life” that everybody else got (wrong address? Was it accidentally thrown out with the junk mail? I could never figure out the reason it never came). But as I have gotten older, I haven’t only wrinkled, I have also accepted that failing is the beginning of learning. You burn the chicken, you know what temperature to put it on next time. You choose the wrong job, you quit and find another. You make a bad parenting decision, and you learn to make a better one. It’s ok to fail. It’s worse to be so afraid of failure that you never try anything and live a life of quiet blah. “Dribble,” you say? “Who wants to fail?” The truth is that failing is the educational road to succeeding. We should really be packaging it more like that. It would take away the fear and loathing of failure and make it into the positive it really is. Ben Franklin might have said it better, “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” And now, I will go and start my day of failures and successes. I’ve realized both are fine, because both will keep me learning and growing. And not doing that would really be an EPIC FAIL.

gratitude-a-thon day 251: cultivating gratitude

October 16, 2013UncategorizedLeave a Comment

I’m a heat seeking missile for anybody who promotes gratitude. I so fervently believe that the more we notice the things we have, the more we notice our happiness improve. And so I present another little compilation of how to make gratitude easier to grab. Here’s the article. Now, go, get a journal.

gratitude-a-thon day 250: community dinner at rifrullo cafe

October 15, 2013October 15, 2013Uncategorized2 Comments

51ca10e1e4b04a2426bf4394 — Rifrullo, is where the old Sealy’s used to be. No, I’m not doing their advertising for them, I’m just a big fan (and getting bigger)!

The first Community Dinner last night. It was really, REALLY fun.

I’m kind of a picky eater. Always have been. This was a major feature of my childhood. It wasn’t that my mom wasn’t a spectacular cook, it was that my palate was limited. And it’s sort of stayed that way. I love food. LOVE. FOOD. And I eat it. A. LOT. But I’m not the one who you should take to dinner if you are eating fish (which makes me gag, even the smell, EVEN THE IDEA, EVEN AN AQUARIUM IN THE RESTAURANT COULD MAKE ME WANT TO PROJECTILE VOMIT).

But there are plenty of things I do eat, and adore and become obsessed with. And my latest obsession, is the new restaurant Rifrullo Cafe. It’s an “Eat In. Hang Out. Take Away.” place, gorgeously decorated, with fresh and inventive fare, and I seem to be unable to stop eating in, hanging out, and taking away from it.

Shoot, I don’t know the warm and attentive waitress’s name (maybe Marina?), but here she is with owner Colleen Suhanosky.

Bobby the chef. You killed it last night, Bobby–it was amazing!

Last night was their first Community Dinner, which will happen every Monday night. It’s a candlelit, BYOB deal. I went with some friends and we had a super great time. The food was just unbelievable, and I was with some foodie folk, so don’t just take my word for it (now that you know I’m not the Anthony Bourdain of Brookline).

I should have written down descriptions of all the dishes, but I was laughing and talking too much, but I’ll give you a little run-down of what I remember. We started off with ricotta crostini with a swiss chard topping. I could have eaten the entire plate for my meal. The main course was a pork tenderloin with a chick pea side dish. The tenderloin, which I always find hard not to overcook, or undercook, was exactly right and chock full of flavor. And the chick pea thing was fantastic and satisfying. The side dish of fennel with bread and some sort of cheesy sauce made us all swoon. LITERALLY. SWOON. The dessert was a lemon curd and plum tart. Major delish. By the end of the meal, I was thinking of asking the owner, Colleen if she would adopt me (she already has three kids, so I decided she might not want to, and who wants to face rejection if you don’t have to).

The lemon curd, plum tart. Cue the harp music.

Colleen Suhanosky has owned restaurants in New York and Nantucket, and has created a unique space with food not available elsewhere in Brookline . Her baked goods alone are insanely outrageous, and could become a real problem for me, without careful monitoring. I may need house arrest to stay away from the gluten free, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cookie, which is the size of a small midwestern farm.

Ah, gratitude to Rifrullo. Glad this place is here. I miss Sealy’s, but I am just a little bit in love with this new incarnation. Thanks, Colleen & Company! I’m going to do a few laps around the reservoir now.