We decided to make Heidi’s birthday on November 30th every year, because it was this day a year ago that my mom died. We didn’t want the day haunted by sadness forever. Heidi is six today, my mother would have been 75 this December 28th. Tin’s guardian and our dear friend brought him a book from Germany to explain to him about my mother, his Mimi, passing. It is Jutta Bauer’s Opas Engel and it…
I went to the airport yesterday evening to pick up a colleague and friend of T’s from Spain – “how will I recognize him?” – why bother asking, this gorgeous Spaniard parted the crowd like Moses – while all the other guys were wearing oversized shirts and jeans and hoodies, this guy walks through the crowd impeccably dressed like only a Spaniard could. I wondered why I couldn’t have mustered a little more finesse in…
I became a mother at 50 and lost my mother at 50 – what could be more profound? A woman on the bayou told me she doesn’t know if she would be brave enough to become a mother at 50 and I said that’s because you were a mother at 20, so you don’t have to think about those things. Today the man at brake tag office was smiling as he was applying my new…
I was going through and taking myself off a couple of networks that I somehow got on – Xing, Plaxo – I already got off Facebook – I don’t need these things complicating my already complicated life. But today from LinkedIn – the one network I am staying on – I got an update about a woman who is doing a webisode and it’s fabulous – this is the third in I believe 18 episodes…
A menorah is a candelabra, but is usually represented by the seven branched version that is described in the Torah. The Chanukiah has nine branches. One for the eight nights candles are lighted, and a branch for the shamus. A chanukiah is a menorah, but a menorah isn’t a chanukiah. I didn’t know this till now – I thought the menorah was only for Hanukkah and had nine candles, one being the shamus to light…
My neighbor’s huge pecan tree came down in Katrina – right across my yard that is – causing me to have deal with it. But thankfully a lot of pecan trees survived the storm, such as the one in front of a neighbor’s a few houses down the street. I stop and pick up what I can fill my pockets with almost every day. My other neighbor across the bayou brought me a sack of…
Tin’s love of going to the playground knows no bounds – all you have to do is say park and he brings you his shoes. And it’s at the playground where I notice that every day that ticks by he grows, develops, acquires, learns and all of this is about him pushing off of me to gain entry to these thresholds. “Need Mommy’s help?” – a resounding “NOOOOOOO.” Every once in a while he reaches…
The Afternoon Sun This room, how well I know it. Now they’re renting it, and the one next to it, as offices. The whole house has become an office building for agents, businessmen, companies. This room, how familiar it is. The couch was here, near the door, a Turkish carpet in front of it. Close by, the shelf with two yellow vases. On the right -no, opposite- a wardrobe with a mirror. In the middle…
We made a birthday card for a friend who is coping with the end of a relationship while musing on her mid life arrival. Here are some of the quotes harkening to the authors we read from on Thanksgiving that we put on her card – another friend of hers called it a sad card. Really? Then you view life as sad. “Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are…