I grew up with only one television set in our house.  That TV was black&white until 1980 when my parents proudly brought home a big cabinet-style color TV.  That day was cause for much celebration in my childhood home!

Remember when this was the height of fashion?

We only had 3 channels and those 3 channels only broadcast from 6 a.m. until 1 or 2 a.m.  No cable TV for me, no VCR (until 1987), no premium channels, no movies on demand, no hulu tv on the internet, nothing that we mostly take for granted today as an ability to watch pretty much whatever we want whenever we want to watch it.

All of the choices today and the easy availability of constant entertainment have some experts arguing that TV is too important, too much a part of our daily routine than is good for us, and certainly more than it was 20 years ago.  I'm not going to dispute whether that is true for everyone I'm simply making the statement that's it's not true for me even though I make use of just about every single technological advance available for TV viewing.  Here's why:

Back in the 'old days' I'd be outside playing with my friends.  We'd all be involved in a game of kickball.  Or pickle.  Or Smear the Queer (because political correctness was not yet a soundbite in the '70s).  Suddenly doors would open all over the neighborhood as mothers called their children to come inside because the Charlie Brown special was starting in 5 minutes.  The kickballs, softballs, and baseballs would all be abandoned as each child stopped playing to go inside and watch television.  In the old days if you missed a show when it was aired you had to wait a whole year, or possibly longer, for the show to be aired again.  Not so these days, my friends.  My daughter frequently asks "Will you TiVo that show for me?" regarding some Disney special, ABC Family movie, or Nickolodeon premiere that she wants to watch.  "Sure," I say, "I'll make sure it records for you."  I program TiVo and then we both forget about it until one day when we are sitting down to watch TV and the desired program magically appears in our TiVo To Do List.  Our children don't have to stop playing in order to see a desired program.  They don't have to schedule their lives based upon the TV schedule.

I think the technology also helps me better screen the choices available to my daughter.  Before the advent of the internet a parent had to go by the 1 or 2 reviews of a movie that we published in the newspaper.  They may have gotten some word-of-mouth reviews from other parents who had seen the movie, but there wasn't an easily accessible, wide variety of information and opinions about any given movie.  Now if I want to decide if the Twilight series is appropriate for my 11 year old (my vote is NO, not for my 11 year old!) I can read thousands of book reviews, thousands of movie reviews, and see enough trailers to feel like I have a handle on the movie content.  When I was 11 my parents let me go to the theater and see Poltergeist a movie I had absolutely no business seeing and a movie that my mother was appalled that I had seen when she finally saw it herself.

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of technology.  I believe that the latest advances relegate TV viewing to a lesser importance than 30 years ago because it can be at our convenience, with informed consent, and doesn't have to interfere with any 'real life' activities.

What do you think?

We all had the same mom, but we're not related

Yesterday Steve and I were chatting with the server at a restaurant (Side note: I truly feel sorry for the servers in restaurants who get Steve and me for customers because we just looooove to chat so God help you if you have other tables to attend to 'cause we are about to monopolize your time!) and laughing about sports teams, childhood, marriage, you know the usual stuff you chat with your poor can't-I-just-take-your-order-and-move-on server about.

It struck me how common our human experience is: take sibling relationships, for example.  We had a big ol' brown station wagon with jump seats that popped up out of the floor of the back.  Seated 10, comfortably.  Our bench seats were made of vinyl so they had these stitching lines that ran vertically down the seat.  My 2 brothers and I sat in the back with my baby sister in the front (my how times have changed) so that meant that one person in the back didn't have a window seat.  That's a recipe for a knockdown, drag out fight if I ever heard one.  My mom had designated certain stitching lines as our 'boundary lines' and we weren't supposed to put our hands or legs or any other body part over onto anyone else's seat.  Because we were good little children with immaculate behavior and sweet dispositions we spent most of our time creeping our fingers, legs, elbows, basically any body part we could stretch, move, or pull, over those stitching lines just to annoy each other.  I would creep my pinkie finger over my older brother's stitching line, he would promptly take his fist and try to pile-drive that finger into the seat (which didn't really hurt because the seat would give a little and absorb some of the impact).  I would snatch my finger away.  Meanwhile my little brother was moving his leg over my stitching line so I had to pound my fist into his thigh (which did hurt a bit more) and then he would yelp and my mom would threaten and I would deny and my older brother would laugh so I would have to breathe really hard on him so he would yell "Mom!  Beth is breathing really hard on me" so my mom would start to lose her mind and the baby would start to cry so finally Mom would reach into the glove compartment, pull out the wooden ruler she kept there for just these sorts of occasions and she would take that ruler and begin to smack whatever she could reach.

The ruler smacking generally didn't work out too well for the person sitting in the middle because my mom's reach was limited and the window-seat folks could suck their bodies into the doors as much as possible but the poor middle seat person just had nowhere to go.

I'm willing to bet that most people reading this (who have siblings) can relate to some version of that story.  I don't care where you live, what God you worship, what your socio-economic status is or was: if you have a brother or sister at some point in your childhood you were willing to risk pain, retaliation, and a wooden ruler just to annoy that sibling.  And you'd do it all over again if given the chance, even knowing what you know now.

You may even have a slightly different but no less immature and annoying game you play with your spouse, I know I do.  I know it drives Steve crazy if I get the remote before he does.  I like to get the remote and then put it on my legs with my hand loosely on top of it.  Then I can be "too slow" to fast forward the TiVo, something which is guaranteed to make Steve lose his mind, but before he can grab the remote away I snatch it out of his reach and then speed up the fast forwarding.  Seeing poor Steve's hand twitching on his lap as he tries to control his urge to pile-drive me into the couch and take that remote is true entertainment my friends, it really is.

So 'fess up folks.  What did you do or are you currently doing to annoy your siblings or spouse?  Don't be shy, chances are that whatever you did/are doing we have all done or will use as something new to try!

Scary Cousin Terry

I have really enjoyed going through all of the pictures my dad sent to me for Christmas.  It's great to look back on Christmases past and see the family...well, most of the family.  I have a scary cousin Terry.  He's really my second cousin, but still too close in the gene pool for comfort.  In deference to the fact that Scary Terry is still alive I won't post his real picture, but he really does look a lot like Charles Manson.

It's the eyes that remind me of Terry...and the scary goatee.

I got to thinking about what made Cousin Terry so scary.  My mom said she first started being a little weirded out when she noticed that although he was over 30 years old he always wanted to go play Barbies with me in Grandma's bedroom.  Alone.  She wasn't weirded out enough to actually stop him, just enough to check on me regularly.

My brother thinks that it was Cousin Terry's weird stare that made him so scary.  He would just stare at you with these hooded eyes and then kind of smile.

For me it was the smile.  Whenever I looked at Terry he was smiling at me.  Just smiling.  I don't remember him ever actually saying anything to me, just that little smile.  It gives me the willies just thinking about it.

I realize that every family must have a scary member.  Even the Brady Bunch vilified poor Jan, making her wear wigs, glasses, and 2 tiny curls on either side of her forehead just to show that she was the Scary One.

Again, look at the eyes!  (No goatee, thank God)

Who is the scary member of your family?  If it's you, that's okay, name it and claim it.  After all, even Jan Brady ended up selling her bike to save the Brady Kids' gift to Mrs. Brady.  As for Scary Cousin Terry...I think he may still be an elementary school teacher...

Smells Like Home

I always find it amazing how powerful a 'scent memory' can be.  Every December I make Chex Mix for my family.  My mother always made it during the holidays and I guess the tradition just stuck.  Everytime I smell that mixture of Worcestershire sauce, seasoned salt, butter, and garlic it transports me back 30 years to childhood and smelling that same smell.

It happened last night when I opened a tube of AIM toothpaste.  My mom was a Crest-woman and only very, very occasionally did she buy anything else.  My brothers and I were always clamoring for her to buy AIM because we thought it tasted soooooo good.  Trying to bring a little more enthusiasm to my daughter's lackluster brushing I bought some AIM toothpaste, convinced I had hit upon the magic solution.  She didn't like the taste (!) but last night I used some, just feeling nostalgic.  The moment I took the cap off the tube I smelled that AIM toothpaste smell.  I could almost feel the scratchy lace of my old flannel nightgowns; almost hear my brothers arguing in the background; almost see my old brown and yellow bathroom of childhood.

I use vinegar a lot for cleaning (more on that next Tuesday!) and everytime I open the bottle I think of dying Easter eggs.   I had graham crackers and milk almost every day for after school snack for 12 years, so the smell of graham crackers makes me feel a little uptight - like maybe I have homework still to do...

And finally Bubble Gum Lip Smackers Gloss.  Junior High my friends, Junior High.

What scent memories do you have?

I am being driven slowly and inexorably insane...

...by the wind. The snow I can handle, snow is a Grace and I stand by my Graces. But the wind. The constant blowing howling screaming shaking-the-house-and-rattling-the-windows wind. It's become my new decorator: screen doors are blown open, deck furniture rearranged, the outdoor thermometer carried away, Christmas lights swinging madly, and beautifully lit topiaries on either side of the front door thrown down and blown across the front porch. And still it continues to blow. Could there be a downside to living on a mountain?, I used to wonder? Yes, my friends, the flipside to my gorgeous view is tremendous exposure and winds coming down the side of the mountain at a gale-force.

The problem is, I'm afraid of wind.

Crazy right? Well it all began 35 years ago... One of my most pronounced childhood memories is of huddling in the bathtub with my brother, pillows on our heads, breath held, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for the all-clear from my dad to come out as the twister passed overhead or on the next street or wherever it went. I remember the air earlier in the day: it was yellow. Can you see air? Well, I could and it was yellow and heavy and hard to breathe. I remember my mom yelling at me "Where are your shoes? I can't believe you can't find your shoes! We have a tornado coming and you're just going to have to put your sandals on and if your feet get all cut up then it's your own fault!" The next morning my beloved swing set was found in a neighbor's yard and stories of devastation were all over the news: homes gone, families killed, children missing. Good times, good times.

Fast forward 25 years and you have me with my 5 week old baby. Steve is out of town on business and my mother-in-law came to stay the night. There is a bad storm that night with high winds. Wee hours of early morning my father-in-law calls sounding slightly panicked "Are you all right?" "Yeah, Dad, why?" "There's been a tornado about a mile from your home, major damage!" Later that morning it's all over the news: apartment buildings sheered open as if with a giant can opener, cars thrown about, lives destroyed.

Fast forward to December 2008. A major ice storm hits the northeast. I awaken in the wee hours of the morning to what sounds like gun shots. I wake Steve and insist he come downstairs with me. The wind is howling, the storm is raging and the "gunshot" sounds are tree limbs breaking all around us. Our power is out for days and the damage to the area runs into the millions. 100-year-old trees are uprooted and one falls through our garage, just a few feet away from the room in which we'd been sleeping.

Wind. I have to find a way to feel sanguine about this force of nature or I'm not going to be getting a lot of sleep at night or peace during the day. "Why are you so crabby today?" My husband asks, and I don't know what to say. Do I tell him how on edge I feel? Do I yammer on about childhood traumas involving wind? Do I just suck it up and get over this fear?

I keep trying to provide myself a peace filled spiritual outlook on the wind: winds of change, out with the old, in with the new, I am like the willow I bend with the wind I do not break.

But the howling just creeps me out.

"Me" Time

Today is the last day for uninterrupted, at my own leisure, on my own schedule "me" time. Tomorrow school is over at 11 a.m. and my real job revs up from 11:01 a.m. on June 19 to 8:29 a.m. on August 26th. I am ready for this school year to be over. This has been a year of ups and downs, excitement and sheer terror, sadness and loss coupled with wonder and gain.

I think 4th grade is a hard year no matter if you move 800 miles and start a new school or not. I know my 4th grade experience was terrible: I was extremely awkward looking, my parents were having a lot of marital problems, my best friend Maria didn't want to be best friends anymore as she discovered her 'inner jock' and I discovered loneliness. My homeroom teacher Mrs. Gatchell had favorites and I was not among them. My math/science/gym teach Ms. Toby was scary beyond all reason. I was struggling academically, emotionally, and socially. I had absolutely no one to turn to at home but school was also a battleground of loneliness, isolation, being excluded, and feeling baffled about how it had all gone so wrong so quickly.

Needless to say I am glad that's over.

Now the dreaded 4th grade year is ending for my daughter. Our "newness" in Massachusetts is wearing off. Our closing date on our house is approaching. I am consuming a little too much sugar, exercising too little, and worrying a lot but I know it's all symptoms of stress and that too will soon end as soon as the moving truck arrives. A new kind of stress will take its place: the stress of full-time parenting. Decorating. Not enough time for myself. Too much time with the neighbors. The good kind of stress. The kind of stress on which I thrive.

Needless to say I can't wait for it to begin.

The Church Basement

My sister-in-law and I have recently found a great way to connect though we are 800 miles apart and vastly different in many ways. She is also a blogger and in her blog she sometimes posts pictures under the heading Scary Jesus. The Scary Jesus pictures are images she finds of Jesus, usually on the cross, that are particularly gory, or where the artist gave Jesus a particularly scary body or expression. I always love this segment of her blog, a fact which boggles her mind as she knows I am Catholic.

But I know the real reason I love these images: it is therapeutic for me to have someone identify some of the images of Jesus as scary because I have frequently found some of the statuary, pictures, and even images in textbooks to be quite frightening.

It all began when I was 6 years old. I went to a Catholic school called Queen of Martyrs. We were learning about the parts of the Mass and my teacher had borrowed an old chalice and bowl from the church to use as visual aids. After the lesson was finished my teacher asked if I would return these items to the church basement storage room. I obeyed, of course, and skipped off toward the basement door. I wasn't scared. After all our cafeteria was in the basement. Our first grade classrooms were in the basement. This was my school. There was nothing scary on the other side of that big red door that marked the entrance to the church basement. Right?

Wrong!

I opened that door, probably still humming and skipping and instantly all of the breath was knocked out of my body. On the other side of the door was the storage area for all of the old statues, posters, pictures, and crucifixes that weren't currently being used for one reason or another. The room was dark because the windows were mostly obscured by stacks of boxes and a huge trifold screen upholstered in a garish floral pattern. I couldn't reach the industrial sized light switch to turn on the lights. I could see the table in the center of the room where I was supposed to put the chalice and bowl, but that meant walking into that room, that dark room where the walls were lined with bloody Sacred Heart Jesuses, Agony of Christ crucifixes, a huge looming statue of Jesus with his bloodied hands outstretched and a menacing look on his face and blood dripping from his REAL crown of thorns.

I was terrified.

I knew I couldn't go back to class with the items. I knew I had to put them on that table. I had to walk past that statue. I felt frozen to the spot.

Finally I decided to just do it fast, you know, kind of like how you have to jump into bed when you're 6 and you know there are monsters under that bed so you leap really high and fast so they can't grab your ankles. I ran in the room, slammed the bowl and chalice on the table and ran back out. I was running so fast that I created a draft and the real fabric tunic that draped the outstretched arms of the Resurrected Jesus brushed my arm as I went by. I couldn't stop shaking. My teeth chattered, my skin had goosebumps, and my heart thumped as I slammed that door shut and ran like the hounds of hell were chasing me back to my classroom.

Shall we say that the experience made an impression?

Ever since then I have been a little nervous whenever I walk into a new church because I never know quite how graphic the statuary and crucifix will be. I have deliberately chosen to attend churches that have positive, loving, kind images of Jesus, rather than churches with the bloodier, more menacing versions. I never told my parents or siblings or friends what I had seen and how it had scared me. I thought there was something wrong with me that I didn't find sanctuary in the Image of God. Then my sister-in-law began her Scary Jesus posts and I felt relief, for the first time ever, that maybe I wasn't the only one who found some of these images scary. I realized that perhaps some of the artists were a little zealous in their quest to ensure that we knew how much Jesus had suffered. I was able to see the images for what they are and acknowledge that to a 6 year old, those images were the stuff of which horror movies are made.

Needless to say, I have NEVER gone into a church storage room since. NEVER.

Letter to my Mom

Today is my mom's birthday. I am going to do the gift-giving a little differently this year: this year I am giving my mom the gifts of gratitude, acceptance, acknowledgement and love. I have held back on one or more of these gifts for the past 30 years, I think it's time. Here is the letter I sent to my mom:

Dear Mom,

This year for your birthday I am giving you four gifts: gratitude, acceptance, acknowledgement, and love. I hope they fit. I hope you like them. I hope you already have them. I hope you can always use more. I have spent plenty of time telling you the things you did wrong the last 39 years, now I want to tell you what you did right.

Gratitude

Thank you Mom for my childhood. Thank you for surprising me with a canopy bed and matching dresser. Thank you for attending all my band concerts and soccer games. Thank you for staying home with me during my 100+ bouts of strep throat. Thank you for taking me on emergency "Mom! I don't have anything to wear tomorrow!" shopping trips. Thank you for my adulthood. Thank you for buying my first set of dishes and towels. Thank you for buying my wedding dress. Thank you for attending my wedding and giving me away. Thank you for believing in me when I said I wanted to go to law school, medical school, be a computer programmer, a personal trainer, a teacher, and now a writer. Thank you for ooohing-and-aaaahhhing over my new house(s). Thank you for baking chocolate chip cookies for me when my daughter was born. Thank you for helping me leave the house in Cincinnati and move forward to Toledo. Thank you for not breaking down when I told you about the brain tumor. Thank you for staying up all night, every night, with me in the NICU after my brain surgery. Thank you for not looking away from my scarred, shaved head. Thank you for introducing me to Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer. Thank you for imbuing me with a deep spirituality that transcends Catholicism or any organized religion. Thank you for sharing your love of nature and Mother Earth. Thank you for introducing me to Karen Drukker's music. Thank you for giving me my first Janet Evanovich books. Thank you for understanding when we moved to Massachusetts. Thank you for being my mom.

Acceptance

I accept you Mom, exactly as you are. What ever relationships you have, with whomever you choose, for however long they last, they are fine by me. I accept your parenting. I accept your friendship. I accept your grandparenting. (I'll even accept your chocolate chip cookies, if you're offering them, though that is really another letter...).

Acknowledgement

Your parenting, your personality, your genes, and your spirituality have helped to shape me into the person I am today and will be tomorrow. It is from you that I inherited my spirituality, my love of laughter, my silliness, my ability to budget, my sense of responsibility and work ethic, and my appreciation for fine chocolate. (You also contributed to my unibrow, but again, that's another letter...).

Love

I love you Mom. Happy Birthday!

Reconnecting

Recently I reconnected with my best friend from high school and all through my young adulthood, Cathy. As Cathy and I caught up on each other's lives during the past decade, I felt great talking with someone who knew me when, but a lot uncomfortable when she was asking questions about my relationship with my mom. It was when Cathy said "you're still having problems with your mom?" that I realized how long it has been since Mom and I have been totally sanguine with each other.

Like many teens, I had issues with figuring out where my childhood ended and my adulthood began. After my parents divorced and my mom went back to school I took over much of the household duties for my younger two sibs. This "playing house" gave me a really inflated sense of myself as an adult. I justified that if I was taking on adult responsibilities (like cooking dinner and helping my younger sibs with homework), then I should be allowed adult privileges (like not having a curfew or wearing whatever I wanted). With my dad temporarily out of the picture, I resented any parenting by my mom as interference. Unfortunately, as I was only 16, my maturity hadn't caught up with my ego and I was still naive enough to believe that my mom knew everything that was going on in my life (especially with boys and dating) and that her silence was acceptance. By the time I matured enough to realize that my mom had been oblivious to much of my teen-hood due to her preoccupation with her own personal life, I was married and had a child. Add to the mix that no one in either of our families ever thought Steve and my marriage would last (18 years and counting) and that my mom has very little relationship with my daughter (20% geography, 40% her, 40% me) and you have the perfect recipe for a mother and daughter that really don't know each other very well.

I'm not entirely sure how to go about reconciling this situation, especially with an 800 mile distance between us, but I know that it is time. I think I'll start the way I started when I reconciled my relationship with my dad: with a letter. I sent Dad a letter thanking him for all the things he did right in my childhood. I'm going to think about that letter and I'll blog it tomorrow.

I am grateful for reconnecting with Cathy. She has brought more dimension to my life because she is able to look at the 15 -year -old me she once knew and see what's changed and what hasn't.

I've certainly grown older, it seems to me like it's time to grow up.

Grace #7: '80's Music

By now it's probably a cliche, the late-thirty-something woman listening to her '80s music and teasing up her bangs. I don't care. I love '80s music. My favorite songs at the gym are all the '80s songs. I listen to '80s music on the radio and through my cable TV at home. I can't decide if the music is really more attractive to me or if it's the incredible sense of familiarity I have whenever I hear it. Like many teens in the '80s I logged hours listening to my clock radio. I patiently waited for the DJ to announce when the song would be played, held my tape recorder just so close to the radio and groaned with frustration when the DJ talked over the music thus destroying my perfect recording. I don't know where any of those tapes are anymore. I imagine there's probably a box in my mom's attic that contains carefully lettered tapes detailing all the songs for that week, month, decade. I imagine on those tapes there are probably other things as well: my mom calling me for dinner and my irritated reply "Mo-om! I'm trying to make a tape!" or one of my brothers banging on my bedroom door and the sound of me striking them as Boy George croons "do you really want to hurt me?" My baby sister asking me a question while the Go-Gos insist that their lips are sealed.

Steve is around college kids all day, so he is way more hip than me (does using the word 'hip' kind of prove that?) and my daughter hasn't ever met a Jonas Brothers or Cheetah girls song she didn't like, but me, I'm loyal.

And I'll always party like it's 1999.

...and that's why I have a prosthetic finger!

We went roller skating on Sunday. I am a very good roller skater. In Toledo there was a 12 mi round trip trail that I skated on daily. I usually did all 12 miles. Did I mention I'm a good skater? In the '70s when I was in school I faithfully attended every skating trip our school offered. I logged endless hours in my basement, stirring up the dust as I went round and round and round. I begged for my own skates and cut my teeth on the metal adjustable kind that need a skate key and are guaranteed to face-plant you as you navigate the seams in the sidewalk. I finally graduated to the boot-type and thought I was the queen of Egypt. Good times, good times.

As part of her search for a new best friend, my daughter asked if we could take her and a classmate skating. No problem, Steve and I like to skate. We pick up classmate and go to skating rink. I love skating rinks: the disco ball, the oh-so-cool-skating-referee-in-his-black-and-white-shirt-trying-to-look-not-embarrassed, the middle-aged roller queen wearing spandex and neon, the little kids in Fisher-Price plastic skates pinwheeling madly as their wobbly parents try to help them, the smell of scorched popcorn and sweat, the ringing of the arcade, the garbled PA announcements -- the roller rink has something for everyone. I was blithely skating along when the garbled announcement (are they even speaking English?) crackled something about a limbo contest. I hadn't had a skating limbo contest since 1982! I immediately skated to the center of the rink, lined up and prepared to limbo. First round: no problem. Second round: confidence up, I glided beneath that bar with panache if I do say so myself. Third round: a little less panache, a little more grunting, but I cleared the bar. Fourth round: grunting, sweating, trying to suck fat roll in so I can get lower, barely cleared the bar. Fifth round: disaster! Had too much speed, wasn't low enough, crashed into bar, bar went flying, I went sprawling and somehow, in all that mayhem, I managed to roll over my pinkie finger.

Fast forward about 2 hours: finger is throbbing. Finger is black. Finger is so swollen and shiny that I wonder if a finger can burst. I worry that I'll lose that nail.

Fast forward another 2 hours: finger is a dusky blackish-gray. Forget about the nail, I wonder if I'll lose that finger! I have trouble sleeping because I see explosions of stars everytime finger is touched by blanket.

Current update: finger is still attached, blackness is giving way to purpleness. Hitting the 'A' key on the keyboard is an exercise in pain. I think I'll live.

Did I mention that Steve won the limbo contest?

Poking the Green-eyed Monster with a Stick

Over the summer my sister came to live with us for about 2 months. Her husband was deployed in Iraq and she was alone, caring for a 17-month-old daughter, and feeling overwhelmed and lonely. My sister is significantly younger than me and we hadn't resided together in the same house for almost 25 years. It is safe to say I really had no idea what I was getting into, but I jumped in all the same. I enthusiastically decorated the baby's room: finally I was able to create a pink paradise for a baby while not actually having to feed, clothe, change, and entertain a baby! It was so much fun creating a warm, inviting, child-like, and feminine room for my niece and I couldn't wait for them to come. Next I moved on to my sister's room. With equal love I moved the furniture around, purchased new bedding, a reading lamp, a vase for fresh flowers. I envisioned a summer filled with long walks with the baby in the stroller, my daughter riding her bike up ahead, and my sister and I bonding in ways we were never able to do when we were younger.

It didn't turn out quite that way.

We did actually take one walk together, the baby in the stroller, my daughter riding her bike up ahead, but the bonding talk was more of a monologue by my sister of how much she hated the Marine Corps and specifically President Bush for taking her husband away from her. I wasn't surprised by the topic of the conversation: I had been hearing this same talk since she arrived and even well before her arrival when we would chat on the phone. It's not that I don't understand my sister's pain, I simply don't understand how she thought things would turn out marrying, and then having a child with, a man who was in the marines. It's his job and he's going to work. She knew that before the first date, the first kiss, certainly before the wedding.

My sister was not happy at my house. I attributed this unhappiness to the fact that her husband was at war and she was worried and sleep deprived. Probably all those reasons are contributing factors, but I now think the reason my sister wasn't happy at my house is because she was mad at me: mad because my husband was home every evening at 6, mad because my child slept through the night, mad because my child could feed herself, clothe herself, and entertain herself, mad because of all the free time I had, mad because of all the space I had in my house, mad because I wasn't worried and anxious for my husband's safety.

Some people would say all that "mad" is really jealousy.

I didn't recognize my sister's jealousy for what it was at the time. Blithely I regaled her with tales of how much I like my life, my marriage, the age my daughter is at, the free time I have. I have searched my heart again and again to try to learn if maybe I really did sense she was jealous and was rubbing her face in it...I wasn't. I don't begrudge her an ounce of happiness and it really didn't occur to me that she would begrudge me anything. After all, we all make our own choices, right?

The visit ended rather abruptly when my sister and husband engaged in their first, last, and only discussion about politics. To say that my sister is passionate about politics is a huge understatement. She is obsessive about her candidates, still young enough to believe that she can change someone's mind by arguing with them, and when you combine that with the slow burn she had been doing while living with us all summer you have a recipe for combustion that put the 4th of July fireworks to shame.

The fight, from my perspective, went something like this: My sister tried to convince Steve that her candidate was better than his. Steve said he really didn't have a candidate, he didn't like any of the people running. My sister took offense at his laissez-faire attitude toward something about which she is passionate and figured if he didn't like anyone anyway he might as well vote for her guy. Steve, seeing how upset my sister was getting, began enjoying pushing her buttons and became more adamant that he would never like her candidate. My sister began to get personal, insulting my husband for serving in the army only during peacetime (?) and proclaiming her desire that he should get drafted so her husband could come home. Steve took offense about the besmirchment of his service record and suggested that she hadn't served her country at all and was just sitting home safe and comfy while others did all the dirty work. She freaked. She gathered the baby. She gathered her things. She packed her car. She left.

So much for bonding.

My sister and I have had several stilted, polite conversations since that fateful day, but things are definitely not the same. I am being punished by not having pictures of my niece sent to me and by her ignoring my daughter. I am punishing her by not calling and putting all this behind us. I know I have to be the one to make the first move, and possibly the second, third, fourth, and fifth. I have tried, in a lukewarm fashion, to bring up the subject with her so we can resolve things before the holidays arrive and we are forced together in the pressure cooker called my mom's kitchen. She isn't making anything easy for me and I don't think I am really committed yet to conceding anything because in my heart of hearts I still think of it as her fault. But assigning blame won't get me any access to my niece, won't mend the relationship, won't make the holidays go more smoothly, and won't bring my sister back to me. I'm going to have to apologize.

After all, I'm older and I should know better.

Last Catholic Standing

I was raised Catholic. First through 10th grade I attended Catholic school. My parents were Catholic, their parents were Catholic. All my aunts and uncles were Catholic. We attended church every Sunday as a family until my parents divorced. No exceptions. We once attended church on Saturday evening, I can't remember exactly why, but my mother felt that this was wrong, violated the spirit of the Third Commandment, and we never did that again.

I am the only remaining Catholic in my family. My parents, siblings, and many of my aunts and uncles have all gone on to different religions, agnoisticism, or atheism. It's strange believing something so fundamentally different from the rest of my family. It's like my parents spent my entire childhood telling me how great the color red was: "We're a red family. We like the color red, we believe the color red is the right color. We expect you to wear red, like red, attend school to learn more about the different tones, hues, and shadings of red, and to marry a man who also likes red and believes it to be the right color too." So finally, after 25 years, I decided that red would be my color too. My husband decided that he liked red so much he would learn all about it and convert so we could have a red family. Then, one day, post-divorce, my dad decides that he really likes blue, indigo, or violet better. Red is too vibrant, too pushy of a color. He wants something more subdued. On another day, post-divorce, my mom decides that it isn't about one color at all, it's about the whole rainbow. No color is better than any other color, they are all equal, they are all connected, part of the rainbow. And my siblings, tired of the color red anyway, quickly threw off their red garments and put on black or white. No color. No choice. Certainly not a rainbow, but no blues, indigos, or violets either. And there I stand, wearing my red, feeling a little confused and a lot betrayed.

If something so integral to my childhood, my values, the morals with which I was raised, the very fabric of our family could be tossed aside by my parents as being an oops-we-didn't-really-like-Catholicism-as-much-as-thought-we-did, what other parts of my upbringing would be overturned? I always feel a little awkward around my parents now when it comes to Catholic rites of passage, such as my daughter's baptism and her First Communion. I know these are things they once believed in deeply but are now only attending to see their granddaughter. I wonder if their new beliefs are true or if someday they'll swing back to Catholicism, or off in another direction completely. I wonder if they clung to Catholicism for so long because it was the one thing they had in common. Perhaps the only thing they had in common.

I like being Catholic. I am not, by any means, the most traditional Catholic, but I believe, very deeply, in what I teach my daughter. I'm not the Last Catholic Standing, I have a husband, and daughter standing by my side too. And we all look good in red.

Separated, but Equal

My dad left the family home when I was 15. My parents’ divorce became final when I was 18. When I think back to how I thought my parents’ lives would turn out post-divorce, I have to laugh at how wrong I was. My dad, who for years I cast in the role of villain and main perpetrator of the divorce, went on to marry again and has been successfully remarried for almost 18 years. I definitely would have figured him for being alone the rest of his life, becoming more and more of a recluse. I thought he liked solitude but now I think he was just hiding from my mom. My mom, who for years I cast in the role of woman-done-wrong, has gone on to have a string of somewhat bizarre and mostly unsuccessful relationships that seem to repeat again and again the patterns she had with my dad. I figured she would re-marry within a few years, even possibly have another child, and pretty much remain a stay-at-home-mom and housewife for the rest of her life. I thought she liked having kids, now I think she was just trying to create reinforcements against my dad.

It took me several years of marriage to figure out that it’s not possible for my father to have been completely at fault and my mother an innocent bystander. I see the role I play in my own marriage, how I antagonize, compromise, criticize, complement, annoy, and love just as much as my husband does.

My parents now live completely separate lives. I would say they are separate but equal, though I doubt my mother who is not as financially successful as my father, would agree with the equal part. The equality comes from the freedom they now enjoy to be who they really are. Who they really are has certainly been a little unexpected for me: I never thought I'd have a stepmom with a tatoo or a stepdad who wasn't, um, a man. I never thought my dad would become a pilot or my mom would be a (wait for it...) marriage and family therapist. I certainly never thought I'd get along as well as I do with my dad or be as frustrated as I sometimes am with my mom.

I'm probably a little unexpected for them too. The daughter who insisted upon wearing parachute pants to Catholic school and mini skirts that left little to the imagination has settled down in a traditional wife/mother role in a small New England town. My brothers, sister, and I are spread around the U.S. making getting all of us together something that hasn't happened since my grandma's funeral 4 years ago. Maybe it's easier for them to like us, separated as we all are. I'm sure if asked they would say they love us all equally. In spite of all the unexpected changes, and maybe because of them, I like my parents too, separately, but equally.

Life's Embarrassing Moments

Yesterday a very dear friend of mine suffered a very public, very embarrassing moment. As this little guy is only 9 years old, I am able to provide the perspective that with all the opportunities for embarrassment provided by girls, friends, co-workers, bosses, condoms, and the IRS, this moment may not even make it to his Top 10 list by the time he is my age. However, his predicament did get me thinking about my own “most” embarrassing moments. There are so many to choose from that I can’t really qualify one as the number one moment in my life, but merely as the number one moment during that time of my life. There was the time that I was so deliberately vague when asking a boy to my junior high Sadie Hawkins dance that he got the impression that I wanted to have sex with him, an impression which he shared with the rest of my 8th grade class. There was the time that my irritable bowel syndrome produced a bout of the wicked twisties so violent I was forced to ask my co-workers with whom I was carpooling to pull over at an underpass so I could “evacuate.” That particular bout left me so ill and weak that I wasn’t even properly embarrassed until the next day. Then of course there was the time that my new husband and I were engaging in a very intimate moment and my body chose to make its gaseous emissions. And those are just the biggies from each decade! Add to those all the little times of having my name forgotten by someone, or being wrong and too dumb to admit it before I looked a fool, or wearing all the wrong clothes…the list goes on and on. I feel confident in saying that I will have more embarrassing moments to add to this list, maybe even by the end of the day. I feel bad for my friend, Jack, but not too bad, because someday I think he will laugh at this and after all, laughter is the best medicine!