Month: October 2017

gratitude-a-thon day 1099: mueller time

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I am literally waiting by the computer for word of the Mueller indictments, with the same fervor I would have if you told me my mother was going to come back from the dead. Puh-lease make there be something that is as dreadful as this presidency, Mr. M.

The state of affairs in politics right now is as appetizing to me as restaurants who serves whole fish, with the eyes in tact. I am an avid seafood hater. Oh, I know how good it is for me and that it’s part of every smart girl’s diet, and believe me I have tried to like it, but let me tell you about the gag response nearly all fish gives me, and has always given me since I can remember. The faintest smell of underwater taste treats makes me want to regurgitate everything I’ve eaten since I was born. Not even kidding. At all. Seriously. If someone wanted to torture me, they would lock me in the seafood department of Whole Foods.

I am utterly overwhelmed by amount of lies that are spewing out of that orange disaster’s mouth. And it’s a continuous stream, with no breaks. The Twitter rants alone are a historical low. There is a lot of chatter about our predator in chief wanting to fire Saint Mueller, and if this happens I am going to have to take to the streets.

I had been on a small hiatus from the news, because I was just finding it too stressful to mix in to my daily life, but I am back at it, waiting, wondering if Mueller time might bring down that disgusting, grotesque and altogether abysmal thing that we currently have running (into the ground) our country. Something has to change. And soon.

 

 

gratitude-a-thon day 1098: drugs when you need them

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Barbie demonstrating what a migraine feels like. 

 

For the past six weeks I have been plagued with sinus headaches that morph into migraines with morning sickness-type nausea. There is little I like less than feeling like I am going to projectile vomit everything I’ve ever eaten. Except for a headache, oh, and Trump being president, and cellulite sucks (why can nobody get rid of this stuff) and fish, Jesus I have tried to like it, but I hate fish, and people insulted by the word “fuck”….but I digress.

If you have never had a migraine, let me try and explain, so that you have some empathy for someone who tells you they have one. It’s so interesting — I just am living my life, all fine and dandy, when I turn my head any which way, and there it is, like it was waiting for me in a particular air space. It starts off in my eyes, and before I know it, I am nauseous like I have had seven kegs of beer the night before. Then the light hits me like a light saber in The Star Wars movies and pretty soon after that I feel like I cannot hold my head up there on my shoulders, like there are just not enough muscles or ligaments to keep that thing upright. Then I’m in it and the only place that makes anything one inch better is a dark room and a bed.  Sleep is actually the only thing that acts as a friend. Gone Fishin’. No computer, no tv, no noise, no phone.

Anyway, I got some drugs yesterday–antibiotics and steroids to de-swell the whole situation and I am hoping that the sinus infection will just disappear and the headaches will take a hike outta town and get lost and never visit me again. Gratitude for pharmeceutical miracles. Amen.

 

gratitude-a-thon day 1097: jakey light

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Instagram should have a filter called “Jakey Light.”

My son was born on October 22 and I vividly remember the next morning’s sunrise as being the most extraordinary blend of pink and deep red with yellow borders. I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture window in my hospital room because its beauty was so overpowering, but  I figured I was probably viewing it through the elation, fatique and surrealness of the moment. But then I began to really put my eyeballs on October’s lens and came to realize that it had the best color sense of any month of the year.

And it’s not just sunrise and sunset, by the way. There is something about the angle of that ball in the sky that turns the whole day into the kind of atmosphere you want to have a photo shoot in.

Forget the oooohs and ahhhhs of summer sunsets in Menemsha or the picture perfect Hawaiian sundowns. Even rainbows are no contest for what the sky cooks up in October.

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It’s perfect that my boy was born during a month with this kind of magical light. It represents him so succinctly to me–his miraculous birth, the way he sparkles from inside, his wit, charm, warmth and smarts. I’m grateful for it every October. And for him, every day of my life.

 

 

gratitude-a-thon day 1095: the girl with the ball(s)

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22050128_1483625071722574_971191049338250229_nIt’s soccer season right now and we have traveled to Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, twice a week, to night games, morning games, tailgates with so much food, a small Italian village could show up and we could feed them.

I have a Grand Canyon of gratitude watching Ally play soccer. It makes me feel like I  could literally burst wide open and need an ambulance to bring me to Grace Memorial on Grey’s Anatomy. It’s not the usual pride a parent feels watching their kid on a field. This has to do with watching my kid on a field after not being on a field for two years. It has to do with the crushing blow of tearing her ACL senior year and the deep sadness that followed that event, the confusion, the pain, the surgery, the mental anguish, the endless rehab, the scar tissue, the wondering if she’d ever again play the sport she’d put enormous chunks of her life into, that she’d given up so much for, that she’d loved like a boyfriend. Nobody knew if she’d really make it back.

So, she worked. She battled. She pushed.

Still, she came up short freshman year and didn’t play during the season. Too much scar tissue dogged her with pain. Still we went to every game just to see her warm-up because seeing her run on a field is better than Caribbean blue water and if you know me for one second, you know  I want to marry Caribbean blue water. Seeing Ally run with the ball at her feet lit us up, since we so intimately knew what it meant for her to be doing so. It mattered little that she wasn’t playing. She had fought. She was still fighting. It wasn’t her cleats we loved, it was her spirit.

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And this year she plays. Her strong powerful legs run back and forth, and her eyes dart up and down the field assessing and strategizing. Her passes can look effortless, leaving me to wonder how they can make it across a field of opponents and find her teammates feet. Her mistakes cause us to gasp, but really, we just feel punch drunk that she is is out on that field, the place she has run a million physical and mental miles to get back to. Never matters whether she wins or loses. She’s already won.

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gratitude-a-thon day 1093: I was born in a small town: the reunion

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The last and only time I went to a high school reunion, it was my 20th and I was pregnant (yes, I double as my children’s mother and grandmother). I did not even let a sip of wine cross my lips (note to self for next life: DO NOT ATTEND A HIGH SCHOOL REUNION UNDER THESE CONDITIONS. You don’t need a lot, but a little social lubricant at an event like this is um, money in the bank). Anyway, I felt like it was a little bit wierd and that I just went from person to person asking the same couple questions: Where do you live? What do you do? Married? Kids? And I did that, like, 30 times. Very impersonal. I’m more of a one-on-one person. I prefer to have one deep conversation than many surface ones. I left feeling unsatisfied and empty.

 

 

I decided a few months ago, I’d attend my 40th and just see what might happen. And you know what, the best happened. First of all, there were a few more intimate gatherings before and after the reunion where I was able to connect in deeper ways, which felt really good. I did have a bunch of those more surface conversations, but somehow they were better than last time, but what was really amazing and made this event worth missing a Bruno Mars concert for (I felt awful when I got home and had to give the tickets I’d had since last Christmas, away–DAMN IT), was getting to know people I grew up with, but really didn’t know. Because of Facebook and the overlapping of friend groups, I hung out with a bunch of people I’d not been good friends with in high school, but now had a lot in common with.  And how fun is that? New friends, but who know everything about that little place I grew up, who have knowledge of the crazy teachers and bizarre tales of our small town.

And of course, there were the friends who I love deeply, who I was close to then, some still close to, and some I am now reconnected to, after being disconnected for who even knows why, over the years. These are people I carry with me always. This one’s laugh, that one’s thoughtful observations, all of them, deeply embedded inside of me, each one a part of my  DNA.

The now, the present, the right this minute is the place to be. But the past is a lovely place to visit, especially when it influences your present and future. Gratitude for the BHS reunion. I was born in a small town. Yup, I was. French fries!

 

 

 

gratitude-a-thon day 1091: shots heard

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IMG_4424I was in the kitchen unpacking groceries, where I spend half my life, I swear. The sound on my phone was turned off. After I unpacked the groceries, I stuffed a big plate of food in my fat mouth, while reading the paper. Then I grabbed my phone to head up to my office to do some work. That’s when I saw the five way text that was discussing the active shooter at USC. WHAT? I was in a panic as I dialed my son’s phone. The first thing he said was that he was at home and safe. I was relieved, but what the hell was going on?

We were all googling and going on Twitter to figure out what was happening. Jake was getting texts from the school telling him to shelter in place, and friends were texting to let him know it was in the building next to where the class he was on his way to, was. We kept texting. I tweeted to see if USC could confirm for a freaked out mom in Boston, but only got an answer from an L.A. woman saying that there had been gunshots, but police had yet to find a shooter and kids were out of harm’s way. We kept actively texting with Jake for the next 15 minutes. I saw video on Twitter of kids running through the quad where the Tommy Trojan statue stand loud and proud. Was this the next mass shooting, I wondered?

Jake got the all clear from the school and a message that there had been no shooting. His friend told him that he’d heard (AND WHO KNOWS IF THIS IS ACCURATE) a teacher who’d lost several friends in Las Vegas the previous night (and might not have been entirely stable) thought she’d heard shots and called police during a class.

These are the times we’re living in. Nothing happened here. But the sad thing is that it could have. And lawmakers are doing nothing to stop this scenario from happening anywhere, anytime. Nobody needs an automatic weapon to feel safe or to hunt. Let’s start there. This Tweet couldn’t be anymore true:

Retweeted Patrick Galey (@patrickgaley):

Sandy Hook was the point of no return. As soon as legislators signal no opposition to mass child murder, anything goes. #LasVegas

Is this who we are? Will it be my kid next time? Will it be yours?

gratitude-a-thon day 1090: change the world, say hello

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Yesterday I realized that while I was driving, I was waving people to go ahead of me. I was trying to be extra polite in the grocery store, saying big thank you’s and smiling at people. No, I don’t think anybody had come into my house and switched my vitamins for Ecstasy. But what I do think is that the world seems out of its ever loving mind right now, and it feels intuitively right to try and sweeten up my immediate surroundings. I don’t have to fall for the president’s tweets. I don’t have to tangle with Mother Nature’s fury. I don’t have to bow to the crazy of a man in a hotel room shooting down at a people grooving to a country concert.

I implore you to try and be a little nicer to your fellow strangers today (and tomorrow and the next day). I think it’s the very least we can all do for each other. The violence and out of control wackiness that is politics and weather right now is out of our control. But our own actions, our own way of being out there, it’s all ours.