Boston, you’re my home.

I was feeling so homesick yesterday morning. Watching the coverage of the Boston Marathon, I remembered what a shock it was when I moved to Texas and realized that Marathon Monday - er, rather, Patriots’ Day - wasn’t a holiday to the rest of the world. Weren’t they patriots?, I wondered. Why weren’t they home watching coverage on TV? Didn’t they care about how the runners fared? Didn’t they want to watch the seemingly death-defying feat of runners’ pushing themselves up Heartbreak Hill? Sure, everyone still knew of the Boston Marathon – arguably the toughest, most famous marathon around – but they couldn’t tell you so much as when it was held. Apparently that’s more of a local thing. And so year after year I watch from work, wishing I was back in Mass., where my kids would have the day off school and so I would probably be home, too, watching on TV and cheering on my fellow runners. Instead, I cheered from my office in Texas, following on Twitter and chatting back and forth with a running buddy who was there, cheering.

And then I went to lunch.

All I did was go to lunch, that’s what I kept thinking as I read through the dozens of messages online, through the news reports of the explosions that had just gone off near the finish line. Two killed, six injured. 20 injured. 40. The number climbed, my anxiety climbed, the activity at work started ratcheting up, too. Was it terrorism? Would this affect the airlines? Rumors swirled. Boston may or may not have shut down cell service [we know now that service was overloaded, not shut down]. I was glued to the newsfeeds, constantly comparing my reactions and feelings in real-time to those of 9/11. As the afternoon crawled forward, I found myself curiously torn between feelings of “I want to move home right now, Sam-I-am” and “Screw you. Imma go running, tonight. You want us to feel terrorized? I decline. I decline to change my routine in any way other than to very purposefully turn my back on you. See how you like it when instead of attention, what you get is derision.”

But could I do that? This attack felt so personal. Boston is home. Two of the planes used for 9/11 departed from Boston Logan. Now this, whether foreign or domestic. It felt personal. Would that make me be all angsty? All, Oh, you terrorist bastards! Again?! I HATE YOU! Or could I keep my routine normal? Could I use the fact that this was home to be all, Oh, you bastards. Well screw you. We’re from Boston. Let’s donate blood, catch the morons, change out our Bruins tickets and hold another marathon tomorrow. It turns out, yes. Yes I can. The girls and I ate a quick dinner out and went for a walk (since I had the girls, it was my compromise because I couldn’t go for a run), chatted on the phone with Auntie Kim, did homework and took baths. We did it. I chose normal and we did it. I could mourn for what happened, for those killed or injured, and keep on keepin’ on.

Tonight I will go for a run of epic proportions. (For me at least. Heh.) Then I’ll come home and do some transcription. It’s all good. Okay, not really - it’s HORRIBLE. It’s a national tragedy and my heart is overflowing with anger that this can happen, and compassion towards the runners, the spectators, and all of the friends and family members who were panicked and worried and scared yesterday. My heart is feeling all the feelings for everyone in Boston. I don’t want anyone for a minute to think that they are not loved with a very full heart. BUT. I choose to go about my day as I would any other day. I choose not to avoid any crowds I would have been a part of the day before yesterday. I choose to attend ball games and hockey games and gatherings as usual. I choose to use mass transit. I choose to not change my life because of these morons. I choose hope and calm determination over anxiety and fear. Throw another marathon tomorrow and I will choose to fly home and stand right there cheering everyone on. Because I am from Boston and I choose to use that rather endearing “Screw you” attitude that we have for good not evil.

So screw you, you morons. The redcoats didn’t scare us. City planning and rush hour traffic doesn’t scare us. 9/11 didn’t scare us. TSA security lines don’t scare us. Yankees fans don’t scare us. And you will not scare us either. You will not scare us and you will not change us. We’ll catch you, and then we’ll forget about you. And if we don’t? We’ll still be here in a year, running our marathon and cheering from the sidelines. It takes a lot to change something that Boston holds dear. And you, sir, will never be anything more than a local footnote.

There. I feel a little better now. Who’s up for a run?

Case of the Mondays? Not this girl.

And by “this girl” I mean my sister Rhi. Not me – I’m Mondaying all over the place.

Wanna guess why Rhi is a little jazz-hands about today?

 

She’s going to meet the President! Okay, well, maybe. She’ll be there to listen to his speech, at least. She’s very excited. And so are we…although we are having a little fun with it, too. As her sisters, it’s kind of our job, right?

Kim: Rhianyn’s got her Obama ticket, an outfit with pockets, a losable book, and big plans to NOT ATTRACT THE MEN IN BLACK.

I assume Kim means the Secret Service and not, you know, Will Smith. Because if Will Smith is there, BY ALL MEANS, ATTRACT HIM, RHI. And then, I don’t know, sit on him or something until I get there. Yes, please.

I suggested that if Rhi were to meet with the Secret Service, she should try to pick them up. Can’t you just see it? “Hey Handsome: I wouldn’t mind if my codename was ‘Flamingo.’” You know – based on Rhianyn’s love for all things flamingo and that West Wing bit… yeah, okay. It was funny in my head.

I’m sure I’ll get updates throughout the day, but so far, all I’ve heard from Rhi is that she had been on campus for 20 minutes already and bygolly NO ONE had frisked her yet! Which – gah! Do they think she wears that much glitter for FUN? (She does, actually.) I mean, what’s a girl gotta do to have a little fun while waiting through the longest wait of her life? Heh.

So, dear bloggy peeps, as you trudge your way through your own version of Monday, try not to hate on my lil sis too much. And if you really can’t get past the fact that she is having the experience of a lifetime while we are stuck at work, just remember – eventually she’ll have to face that post-speech traffic.

Make new friends…

Last Friday the girls attended their first girl scouts’ meeting. I’ve been wanting them to join Girl Scouts for awhile, they’ve been asking to join – really, it’s a wonder it’s taken us this long. When the flyer showed up in the girls’ backpacks, a very resounding “Yes, please,” chorused from Casa de Katie.

I’ll admit, though, that even with all of the anticipation and excitement, I was a little nervous. I’ve talked before about how awesome my own Girl Scout experience was. My troop leader? It is humanly unpossible to live up to her level of awesomeness. But I still expected the girls’ troop leader to try. For instance, there must be singing – what is a Girl Scout troop without singing? My girls already know dozens of songs we sang. Probably there wouldn’t be a flag ceremony – our troop divided into three groups of girls; each week one group was responsible for preparing snack, one group was in charge of clean-up, and one group was responsible for the flag ceremony. The flag ceremony was the opening of the meeting. The six or eight of us who were in our group would each have a role: flag carrier, two on each side of her, one behind her. We’d pick up the flag from where it was stored, and march it to the opening of the horseshoe. There were words that were spoken, we led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Girl Scout pledge, and then we picked a Girl Scout song to sing. Anyway, since our troop wasn’t meeting in the basement of a neighborhood church, there probably wasn’t a giant flag to use for a flag ceremony. I was mostly okay with this. As long as there was some kind of opening ceremony-ish something. And there must be a closing ceremony. Our troop would gather into a circle, cross our arms, and hold the hands of the girls next to us. Our troop leader would impart some final lesson summarizing what we’d learned that night, and then simultaneously squeeze the hands of the two girls next to her. When you felt your hand squeezed, you had to make a wish and then squeeze the girls’ hand on the other side of you. Whichever girl got squeezed on both sides said “Good night, Girl Scouts.” Ta da! So that had to happen, too.

I knew things would be different for Bee and Gracie. For one, our meetings had been moved into the home of the troop leader. So for one thing, there were probably fewer girls in our troop. That made me a little sad because how would they play things like Giant’s House if there weren’t an oodle of kids to break into groups? On the other hand, the troop leader lived in our neighborhood, so we could walk to Girl Scouts meetings. Holla! And indeed they were different – when we walked in, the meeting was already…in progress. There was less structure than there had been in my troop. Everyone just sort of joined in the activity as they got there. Gracie’s Brownies were in the large front half of the house, and Bee’s Daisies were in the back half of the house. The division worked out well. We quickly learned who most of the girls were, and I met several moms. Gracie’s best friend from after-care was there, so she was psyched. It was happy, happy chaos. Everyone was very friendly and talked over each other, and younger siblings played underfoot. If it wasn’t like my troop experience, that was okay, because it was a lot like my family get-togethers where a million people were all visiting at once.

There were a few moments that made me smile: I overheard the Daisies in the back room all reciting the Girl Scout pledge. It’s funny how quickly something comes back to you: all week, the only line I could remember was “…and to live by the Girl Scout law,” but as the teeny tiny 6-year-old voices rang out, I found myself reciting along with them, if maybe half a beat behind. Goodo, there was at least one meeting that opened with a pledge, if not a full-on flag ceremony. And then at the end of the meeting, after the project had been half-cleared, all of the Brownies were asked to gather into a circle (YAY!), hold hands (no crossies?), and they sang ”the Girl Scout song,” by which they meant the one that starts “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” Then a girl was picked (this week it was Gracie) to make a wish, stick her right foot into the middle of the circle to show she had finished, and squeeze the hand of the girl to her left. When every girl had a foot in the middle, they all yelled “GOOD NIGHT, GIRL SCOUTS!” and raised their arms into the air. Go team! Er, or something.

Good times, all around. I love our troop, I love our leaders, and I can’t wait to get into all the fun kind of trouble we have planned for the rest of the year. And if it’s a little different from how things were done when I was little? That’s okay. I’ll learn to adjust. Or maybe just take over for a few meetings. (Oh, like you didn’t see that coming!)

 

The blanket conundrum.

The amount of time and attention Gracie is devoting to the arrangement of blankets on her bed has been elevated recently from “particular” to ”nearly neurotic.” On one hand, I feel like I don’t have any room to chastise Gracie for her strange insistence: it’s something I was also quite particular about when I was her age. I remember quite clearly being annoyed when my blankets were not straight and smooth and tucked neatly around me; I can remember dozens of specific times in my childhood straightening and neatening; but I don’t quite remember why. Was it to create a sense of control over nighttime routines since I had trouble falling asleep and was visited by nightmare after nightmare when I did sleep? Was it because I hated making my bed in the morning, something my mother insisted upon? Was it to create the illusion of a barrier between me and all things scary that lurked in the darkness, and therefore the barrier needed to be as perfect as possible? Who knows. But now Gracie is developing the same habits – to a point.

My blankets needed to be perfectly arranged at all times. If I woke during the night and my blankets were tangled or askew in the slightest, my bed needed to be remade. When I was older, I would even go so far as to put on my reading lamp and get out of bed, pulling down all the blankets and actually remaking my bed. Before bed, during the night, or during the day while I was sitting on my bed – at all times, (near) perfection was necessary. Gracie, on the other hand, only requires perfect blanket arrangement when she first gets into bed. During the night – well, she’s barely conscious and wakes up for nothing, so who cares? When she wakes up, all blankets are thrown aside violently and without a backwards glance. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen her bed made during the day this past year. Nope, she only cares when she’s getting settled. But boy, when she does care, she really cares.

Every night, Gracie will climb the ladder onto her top bunk and say, without fail, “Oh, I forgot to make my bed.” She will then make sure her pillows (one Tiger pillow mattress pet, one pillow pet, one actual pillow) are properly layered to give her a throne-like repose, and then no matter how close to perfect her blankets are (which, okay, honestly, they usually aren’t), she will gather them up and try to hand them to me. Because The Insane One only works with a blank canvas, you understand. Before, I would take the blankets whenever she handed them to me. It seemed quicker to just give in. But lately, as I’m trying, foolishly maybe, to make Gracie see how unnecessarily complicated she’s making this process, I’ve been trying to get her to just leave the blankets at the foot of the bed until she’s ready to smooth out another layer. Instead she’ll try to drape them over her footboard where, more often than not, they’ll slide to the ground. And then I have to pick them up. And hold them. (See: Square One, Back to.) She’ll lay out her fuzzy green blanket. And then her afghan that Grandma made her. If she’s been cold lately and her sister hasn’t noticed, she’ll also layer a second fuzzy green blanket and afghan stolen from her sister. She used to have a quilt, but about a month ago – when the Even Crazier Fastidiousness started – Gracie decided the quilt was too bulky. I could kind of understand because with all of those blankets and the fact that both girls are hot-blooded and kick all blankets off during the night, the foot of Gracie’s bed did get awfully crowded, and that’s where the ladder is. It’s hard to climb in and out over all of the blankets she’s kicked off.

What kills me, though, besides the lack of caring about the State of the Blankets during any other time, is that it’s not like the rest of Gracie’s bed has any sort of order to it. She has about a dozen stuffed animals tossed all about. Her tissue box is sometimes wedged between the safety railing and her pillows, and sometimes floating on top of…something, somewhere. There’s usually a book under the covers or inside a pillow case. Sometimes a flashlight. She doesn’t even see the rest of it. It’s just…there.

And I wouldn’t care, really. As a single mom, I only have so much time and so much willpower to care about a limited number of battles. The making of the beds is not one I care to wage (obviously). But the straightening of the blankets routine is one that holds me up for a goodish bit of time at the point of my day when I am just done. I get that because I was needed in the beginning to shut the light off after the girls were tucked in. But then I bought an extension cord so Gracie’s reading lamp was attached to her headboard near her pillow instead of at the foot of her bed over her desk. So she could – theoretically – turn her reading lamp on, arrange her blankets, snuggle into her pillow, give a sigh of contentment, and shut the light off and go to sleep. But nooooo. Her Highness insists I stand there and watch her and only then am I allowed to give her a goodnight hug and kiss. And I do it, too, because one more hug and kiss is a mama’s kryptonite, world without end, Amen.

I get the blanket neurosis, I really do. But I’m thinking maybe it’s time to curb it back just a leeeetle.

The Thanta Bwiefing.

For those of you who weren’t blessed with my pitiful little hyperventilating self yesterday, yesterday was A Day. The morning started out quite normal; we were all bustling around getting ready for school and for work, when all of a sudden, Gracie bit down the wrong way on a piece of cereal, yelled, and then declared that she was pretty sure she could pull her tooth out. And then she did. Normal so far, yes? Except then it happened…

After biting down on a paper towel to stop the bleeding, Gracie says, “Mom, I think the tooth fairy should give me some extra money. Since I pulled the tooth myself.”

Oh ho ho ho – the words sounded innocent enough, but I looked up at my darling little eight-year-old because those words sounded awfully full of knowing. I looked right at her, Gracie looked right at me, and damnit to the mothership if her eyes were sparkling with mischief. Did she know? She must! Wait…did she? Was she in on the Tooth Fairy Conspiracy? She had asked very leading questions about Santa the past two Christmases, but since her sister had been around each time, so there wasn’t a chance for me to confirm her suspicions. The only option I had was to heap shovels full o’ magic and believing on top of her and cross my fingers. I thought it worked…but did it?

I sent the kids off to school and then, yeah, I started breathing into a paper bag. The Ex agreed. I was going to have to do it. I was going to have The Talk with Gracie about who exactly was behind all that magic. And then her childhood would be over and she might hate me and my heart would break into a million pieces. And how was your Monday?

One of my co-workers tried reassuring me: didn’t I remember when I knew, but didn’t want to know, and didn’t want to let on that I knew so I could keep the presents coming? NOOOOO!, I told him! I never suspsected! I was the gullible kid who kept right on believing, until my mom had to break it to me sometime after Christmas in third grade, and before fourth grade. I remember bawling, sitting there on my bed. I felt so betrayed by my mom, and so sad that there was no such thing as magic. I think having the magic ripped away was even worse than feeling betrayed.

You can see why I was little worried. Kim told me she thought Gracie would be fine. Gracie loves being in on secrets, and feeling like a grown-up – what better set up for that is there?! She could help me wrap Bee’s presents and feel like she’s in on alllll the secrets. Massive power trips always make her feel better. Ah, but I know my Gracie, and she’s also prone to dramatics. Her heartbreak could be epic. This could have gone down either way.

Which is why, last night when her sister was in the bath, I handed the kiddo a soda to try to buy me some goodwill. “Gracie, I have to talk to you about something.”
“Uh…okay.”
“When you said you thought you should get extra money for pulling your own tooth…did you believe that? Do you really believe in the tooth fairy?” I allowed a note of incredulousness into my voice, trying to lead her to the right answer.
“Absolutely!” she fervently agreed. “Who else could find Bee’s tooth when she lost it outside and put it back under her pillow?”

Crap.

I changed tactics. “You don’t believe that Steggy – your sister’s dinosaur is real, do you?”
“No. I just say I do so she won’t be afraid. There aren’t dinosaurs outside, Mom. And they’re not nocturnal.”
“Right. Because that isn’t logical. It doesn’t make any sense. We just pretend so she’ll feel good and so she’ll believe in magic, and because it’s a little fun Like tooth fairies.”

I had to spell the whole dang thing out for her. And, um, whoops – she really didn’t have any idea. I explained the tooth fairy – and assured her that she would still get money, that nothing would change even after her sister had outgrown it. Then I had to explain that meant Santa too. I thought Gracie would break down then – she looked absolutely devastated. But she rallied when she remembered that she had even said that Santa’s handwriting looked like mine. Bless her little codebreaking heart. She connected the dots to the Easter Bunny on her own. And then she did panic.

“What about God, Mom?”

Rather than give her a complete existential crisis (hey, an 8-year-old can only take so much), I said simply, “God is real. Well, God is still the same.” She can grapple with this is-he-or-isn’t-he when she’s a little more equipped to figure out her own answer. But it made me giggle a little later that one of her first reactions was to think that the entire religious sector was in on pulling a fast. I mean, I guess that made as much sense as learning that parents were playing Santa.

After that, she was completely okay. As in, unfazed. As in, really, not a single tear shed. The complete opposite of where I thought the night was going. “Are you okay? Really? You’re fine?” I asked her more than once. I told her about when I found out so she’d feel like she had “permission” to lose it a little, if she wanted. Then I played up the whole top secret nature of the Santa conspiracy. She was NOT to tell her sister – she could help me play Santa, but she wasn’t to say anything. She could NOT tell her friends. Most of them probably didn’t know, and even asking if they believed might be the thing that made them not believe any more, and that wasn’t fair. She could talk to any grown-up about it as long as she made sure it was in private, so little kids didn’t accidentally overhear anything. And, most of all, she was NOT to overdo it around her sister or anyone. “You’re a horrible liar, Gracie,” I told her. And it’s true: if she’s lying for someone else, if there isn’t any self-preservation involved, the kid couldn’t lie to save her life. Lying to me about brushing her teeth, though, sometimes she can get away with it.

Gracie laughed, knowing how true my statement was, and agreed to all of the club rules. That was it. In the blink of an eye, my kiddo wasn’t a little kid anymore. In real life. She was cool with it. We didn’t even need to make an emergency phone call to Auntie Kim, who, anticipating her ability to talk out loud after a root canal, starting practicing saying, “Thanta ith weal in thpirit, Gwacie.” But all the practice was in vain – Gracie, it turns out, is more ready to grow up than any of the grown-ups in her life are. Which is just as it should be.

Hope, a hobby, and holding my breath a little.

My mom used to be so much easier to shop for. She never bought herself anything, so there were always books or movies or new clothes or dishes or any number of things that would make her happy. She’s practical, and she didn’t used to be particular. She truly believed that the thought was what counted (though that was probably because as a traditional housewife and a mom to four children, she was used to be not being thought of at all). But the point was that it was never too difficult to think of something to buy for her birthday or Mother’s Day or Christmas; the hard part was finding the best thing that would make her smile bigger than when she opened any other present.

Then the Parkinson’s. At first there were lots of things Mom needed to make her life easier. Satin sheets to help her slide herself into or out of bed. Lap blankets because she spent so much more time sitting and got chilled from a more sedentary lifestyle. Early on, easy-to-grip everything was in high demand – scissors, cooking utensils, pens. The more progressive the disease, the smaller my mom’s life seemed to become and the harder it was to find things that she needed or would use. We can’t buy her clothes because she’s particular, but won’t go shopping to try what fits. She can’t write or craft or sew. For awhile, she decided she would work on puzzles, if we could find her ones with pieces big enough to grip. A puzzle or two was bought, but I don’t think her plans to have her home aid set a tray out for her ever materialized.

And so it became not only an adventure to find a present worthy of my mom, but a brainteaser to puzzle out what in the world could help her fill her days with something besides watching the same TV shows? What could make her happy?

I still have no idea. [Spoiler alert.] I don’t think this is a problem with an easy solution. But I’ve been thinking about it for so long, talking it over with my sisters for so long, and finally there might be a small speck of…something. Could be hope, could be a dust mote. Either way. But there’s something. Maybe. Finally.

No one will be surprised to hear that I keep turning back to reading. My mom wasn’t ever what you’d call a great reader; she wasn’t devouring book after book, the trips to the library were mostly for us kids (though my mom always had a book or three for herself in our library bag), and the books she did choose weren’t ever on literary awards lists. Okay, I take that back – my mom always read whatever books we kids were reading. Not every book, certainly, but if we were raving about it, or if the back sounded good, or if she had heard that it was A Book We Should Talk About, she would read it. And then discuss it with us. She liked to let us know that she was interested in us and what we were doing and what we thought. That is one of my favorite things about how she parented, actually. So there were all those books that she read. But when I think of my mom reading, I think of her standing in the kitchen at the door to the pantry, by the radiator of course, with one foot hitched up on the extra kitchen chair that sat in front of the window, with her index finger caught between her teeth, reading some romance or chick lit book. If my mom wasn’t cooking or cleaning or chasing my brother or driving any one of us to any number of places, if my mom was standing still at all ever, it was reading for ten minutes in between chores.

So, yes, my mom was a reader. She read all the time. In bits and pieces, maybe, but so what? It’s something she loved to do. Something that was a part of her. And now she doesn’t. But maybe…maybe she could. Maybe she should. The problem is how.

Because of the Parkinson’s, my mom can’t move very well. Not to walk, or get up, or even to move her arms or hands. She does okay – she still feeds herself, and she can walk if she has her walker and a clear path and a goodish bit of time to get there. She just doesn’t have fine motor skills or control over when. But she still can. So I thought about maybe if she couldn’t see the pages of a large-print book, maybe she could try listening to audiobooks? The problem there is that if she didn’t catch what was said (on bad days, her mind does take time to process things, though not too bad), it would take her awhile to hit the 30-second rewind button. Whenever I talked to her about it, she was afraid she would spend more time rewinding than listening and lose the flow of the story. Audiobooks were out.

And I was frustrated. Reading was cheap – my aunts could bring her large print books from the library, or books on tape. It was something we could treat her with – audiobooks, a nice stereo to play them (if they were discs), an MP3 player, whatever she needed. The stories would entertain her. My mom wouldn’t feel so lonely and her days wouldn’t all be the same. It would be something else for us to talk to. Seriously – we could have a book club. Even if she stuck to stories she knew well, it would be something for her to do!

At Christmas my mom surprised us all by asking for a page magnifier and large-print editions of Little House on the Prairie and Little House in the Big Woods. I had been pushing different ways to try audiobooks; I had no idea my mom was thinking about trying “real” books. Kim picked up the books, I found a cheap page magnifier that I thought would be easy for her to move, and I, for one, held my breath to see if it would work. This weekend, my mom asked for large-print copies of Anne of Green Gables. She hasn’t finished Little House, and she said it’s not the easiest thing in the world, turning pages and moving the page magnifier, but she wants to keep going.

I only showed her a little of how happy and excited I was. I don’t know why. I don’t want to pressure her, I guess. I want to treat her normally, whatever that is. But I have such hope. I REALLY want this reading experiment to work. It could improve her quality of life so much if she had a hobby that helped her think and imagine and gave her something to do besides just watch TV. It would be something we could share again besides “What are the girls up to?”

So here’s hoping. If you could all send some hopeful vibes and, hell, maybe some finger dexterity vibes my mom’s way, that would be groovy. And maybe some patience my way so I don’t blow this whole thing with my excitement and neediness, well that would be swell, too.

Like a breath of fresh air.

It was unseasonably warm here this weekend. No one had the flu. Everyone was healthy. Cranky, maybe, but healthy enough for me to send the whiners outside to play, so that was okay.

Not that there was any complaining about the outside time. About everything else in their lives, yes. Complaining. And maybe about the fact that we didn’t have time to drive to the park. But there was no complaining about getting to ride scooters outside. They were happy enough to share the 3D chalk set that one of them got from Santa. They made soup from dead grass and obediently stayed away from the rain water that had gathered in pots…after getting yelled at for it, but who can blame them? It was gorgeous outside.

Their souls rejoiced in the warm weather clothing options, too. Being able to wear skirts and short-sleeved shirts that the girls beg for all winter long. (Woe is the child who isn’t allowed to wear skirts when it’s 40° outside. I’m a mean mama.) I was even temporarily queened Best Mom Ever! when I could finally tell my Bee-child that Yes, she could wear her sandals after weeks of requests during much chillier weather.

Being able to eat lunch outside on the patio was a treat. I think we were all as starved for outside time as we were for food; no one complained when the wind gusted and we had to hold on to our paper plates.

It was the kind of day when no one minded running errands, because it was nice outside and the music in the car always sounds better when the temps are warm. A car-full of ladies singing Michael Jackson at the top of their lungs? Pretty awesome. So are lady bug hunts and actually having to say out loud: “Jesus never lived in Texas.” Hearing your eight-year-old play in the bath at the end of a dust-covered day and act like the child she is instead of the pre-tween she wants to be? Extra awesome. Complicated plotlines involving Polly Pockets and getting eaten by boa constrictors after a horrible canoe accident optional. (But recommended.)

By the end of the day, I was just happy. Grinning with actual contentment. I didn’t mind the humidity inside the house, or the fact that the temps inside climbed as high as 74°. There’s something about that first warm air inside the house after a cloistered winter that makes everything seem more cozy. I spent a good portion of the late afternoon lounging on my bed, reading and listening to the kids catching ladybugs outside and listing every bug they found crawling around. Something about the outdoors sounds and indoor reading on my bed next to my window made me feel like I had been whisked away to my mom’s house, where I spent many, many weekend afternoons reading in my bed by the window, listening to my brother and his friends playing outside. It didn’t hurt that I was re-reading an old favorite, a novel I read several times in those days. The nostalgia was so strong that it was a little jarring later that night when I padded around the house barefoot, checking the locks and shutting down the house for the night, remembering I was the grown-up in charge of such things.

It was just one day – and not one without bumps -  but the breath of fresh spring air was just what Casa de Katie needed.

Hunker down and eat cupcakes.

My sisters, who live in the (northern) backwoods of Connecticut, decided to evac to northern New Hampshire, rather than risk losing life, limbs, and electricity. They arrived safely last night and texted some pics from their new digs:

That would be Rhianyn there, hiding behind the laptop.

Kim briefly considered evacking to Tejas because tix were less than $200 roundtrip if she came down on Saturday, but we were at a loss of what to do with the kitty.

Friedrich is camped out in New Hampshire, too. If, by camped out, you really mean “running around and finding alllll the places (ALLLLL THE PLACES!) where he can hide.” So far, that list includes under the bed, between the couch and the wall, behind the curtains, and on the chair under the desk. I suggested to Kim that he was playing Hide & Seek In The Dark, With A Very Special Guest Star! Of course he is.

Not pictured is all the food crammed into the car for the trip, including the 2-for-1 packages of Hostess Cuppacakes.

You CANNOT disaster-prep without cuppacakes. It’s a rule of the universe and general known order of things. Or, um, something.

So far the ladies only have light rain in their area, while Connecticut has an additional 6 feet of tidal surge above what was predicted, is closing roads at 1 p.m., and has started shutting down electricity along the coast. Not as bad as New Jersey and NYC, but still – sounds like getting the heck out of dodge was the right call.

Because every Friday needs a laugh.

I should warn you, though, that I might be the only one laughing at this. Maybe because I’m slightly hysterical after a week of my chicken broth and fruit and spinach diet AND all of the calamities that have befallen us this week. But maybe because it’s a family joke, this banana story.

See, many, many, many moon ago when my sister and I were little – like, I was maybe in middle school and Kim was in upper elementary – there was this one day when Kim wanted a banana. Really, really wanted a banana. No problem – we often had fresh fruits and veggies in the house because of a family run fruit stand down the street a ways that sold fresh produce pretty close to dirt cheap. We usually had fresh bananas in the wire fruit basket that hung in front of the kitchen window. Kim found a bunch of bananas, took one, and started to peel it.

Only it wouldn’t peel.

It was pretty green, Kim’s banana, and it wasn’t quite ready to be eaten yet. But Kim liked green(ish) bananas and so when the peel wouldn’t start, Kim decided the thing to do was get a butter knife to get it started. This is the point of the story where I always wonder where my mom was. She couldn’t have been at home or else the banana situation never would have gotten quite so out of control. Mom would have stepped in, worked her magic, and voila! Kim would have been enjoying her banana. Instead, she was now losing the battle of peeling that sucker, even armed with a knife. First she tried cutting into the step so she could get purchase. When that didn’t work, she tried peeling the entire banana with the knife, as if it were an apple. Yeah, that didn’t work so much either. So Kim ended up with a half-skinned, sorry-looking green banana that she really couldn’t eat. And a big sister who was in tears because she was laughing so hard.

All of that is faintly amusing, yes? A smile, but not a laugh. Except I walked in the kitchen last night and saw that this happened:

That would be Gracie, standing there with a rather amusing, sad little look on her face as she kind of laughed, held up her green banana, foiled butter knife, and pleaded, “Help?”

This time Mom was home, stepped in, and worked her magic. Right after she grabbed her cell phone and snapped a pic to send to Auntie Kim. Because this? Is just as funny the second generation time around…

I do not think that means what you think it means.

My sister sent me some pictures yesterday from vacation, including this one that I had forgotten all about – even though when we took it I laughed so hard I was in tears.

Bee was being a goofball, just a gal trying to have a bacon moustache. (Duh.) Or maybe Gracie asked her for her bacon and she knew exactly what she was doing. Heh.