On the Way

Seems another friend of mine has a baby on the way! The baby will arrive at the end of July 2010. Congrats, friend (you know who you are) <3 What a lucky baby to have you for a mom xoxo

So happy that my friend family is ever growing!

August Review

In Maine, we visit with family and the puppy learns to swim.

At home, men come to repair the foundation.

The puppy gets sick and goes to the ER. I cook for him for more than a week.

There are lots of neglected chores to do.

One of them is a mountain of clothes to be ironed.

I clean out my closet and dresser and drop giveaways in the PlanetAid bin.

Many hours spent weeding gardens and the driveway.

Evenings watching Mr. B&B play softball.

Outings with friends new and old.

Immersed in my novel that is slowly coming together.

Now, I come up for air.

Past is Passed

I keep feeling like I should write about what happened in the past few weeks, but I am not sure where to begin. Is it really interesting or relevant any longer? Do any of you blog friends care that I walked the puppy a million times a day, visited with x & y & z friends, made new friends in the neighborhood?

If I do try and catch up, how do I decide what incidents to write about and what to leave out? What about all of the things that are happening to me presently?

So, I've decided the past is passed. In the spirit of Buzz Lightyear, "To the present and beyond!!!!"

Playing Catch Up

So, I've been away a few days due to end of semester work and Teen Voices internship stuff. I'm overwhelmed. I'm tired. I am totally feeling the pollen attack that is spring in New England.

I can't wait to get on the plane to San Francisco. May 10th can't come soon enough.

Today my dear friend Irma came over. We cleaned my kitchen, made Amish Friendship Bread, ate the bread and drank some tea, and took a walk to and from the post office.
We literally stopped and smelled the flowers on the trees. It was refreshing. How I love girl time.

Hope you all had a Happy Friday!

Connections

So, once upon a time I started a blog. Then I started reading other people's blogs. First I met this radiant lovely, Melissa, of Stay Forever Sunday. Next, independent of meeting Melissa, I met this incredible talent and dandy of a lady, Julie of Tangobaby.

When Julie sought subjects for her I Live Here: SF project, I instantly thought of Melissa. They were both interested in working together. I virtually introduced them via email.

Here are the MAGICAL results of their connection:
M&J on Tangobaby
M&J on I Live Here:SF
M&J on Stay Forever Sunday, twice
M&J plus B on Stay Forever Sunday

I dare you not to smile!

Darling DeLaune

A few summers ago I took a literature class. One of the books we read was by a burgeoning new author named DeLaune Michel. Her debut novel, Aftermath of Dreaming, was by far my favorite book all semester. As an additional treat, we had a group phone chat with DeLaune about her book. She did not disappoint.

After the phone chat, I emailed DeLaune to thank her. We have continued to email intermittently ever since. She is the sweetest, most thoughtful, lovely person. She is super busy with family and career, but always makes time for little old me, a mere acquaintance. Her encouraging words keep the aspiring author in me going.

DeLaune's second novel, The Safety of Secrets, was released last summer. When she came to Jabberwocky Books in Newburyport for a reading and signing, I went to meet her in person. It was a thrill! Her cousin, the talented & charming & alarmingly handsome Andre Dubus III, was there signing his book The Garden of Last Days. Newburyport is his hometown. Translation: The reading and signing were a mob scene, but meeting DeLaune was well worth the wait.

DeLaune Michel, Sue of Jabberwocky Books, and Andre Dubus III
via DeLaune Michel

Shortly after that, I began following DeLaune's blog, Scribble Interludes. A candid peek into the person behind the books and the life of a professional author.

A few days ago I got an email from my dear writer friend. She has been traveling around the country to different literary festivals. In April she will be at the Newburyport Literary Festival and would like to see me. I have already booked a room and roped my best friend into accompanying me.

I can't wait!

If you live in Arizona, meet DeLaune at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend.

Everyone should read at least one of DeLaune's books. They are a great escape and a quick read. Just be sure to set aside a whole day or at least an afternoon because you will no doubt be sucked in and unable to put the book down. For Aftermath of Dreaming, I suggest a bubble bath, candles, and wine. For The Safety of Secrets, a rocking chair and lemonade on your front porch will do. For either/or, I suggest a comfy chair, blanket, and tea. Enjoy!

Cat Bath

Almost four years ago, my husband and I adopted a cat named Iris from The Buddy Dog Humane Society. She has been a welcome addition to our home. She is generally quiet and easily pleased. Sleeping, petting, and sometimes being held are at the top of her list of favorites. Tooth brushing and nail clipping are low on her list.

There is one apparent oddity. She follows me into the bathroom no matter what I am doing in there. No matter where she is or what she is doing, no matter how deeply asleep she is, the second my hand touches the bathroom doorknob you here her kerplunk off the bed or the couch and pitter patter straight to the bathroom. She never follows Mr. B&B. Sometimes if she isn't sure which one of us is in there, she'll peek in and if it is Mr. B&B she just passes right on by. This is endlessly hilarious to Mr.B&B.

We have decided that she just knows the "girl code" as Mr. B&B calls it. What is the "Girl Code", you ask? "Friends must go to the bathroom in pairs or packs if they are in the same place at the same time."

Do you have pets? If so, any apparent oddities to share?

Fresh Stars

Over the weekend, Mr. B&B and I went out with our friends Brian and Melissa. We met them at Big Fresh for fantastically filling food and drink. All Organic. Most Vegan.

Melissa's Peanut Satay


My Big Fresh Special (tofu, peanut sauce, brown rice, mixed vegis, collard greens)


The Guys both had Falafel Wraps


Then we went to The Prettiest Starbucks Ever.

I checked, but the mirrors weren't for sale.

Talked and talked and talked. Sipped and sipped and sipped. Good Bye! Good Bye! Good Bye! Farewell!

The End.

10 Things I Have Learned in 2009 Thus Far

1) Seize the moment.
2) Friends, real and virtual, are fabulous.
3) If you show a toddler your belly button they will demand repeat viewings.
4) At least five minutes of cuddling should be mandatory every day.
6) I like being behind the lens of a camera... and in front of it.
7) Sesame Street was right, Cooperation makes it happen.
8) Exercise supplies energy.
9) Even Chamomile Tea will not put my insomnia to bed.
10) Support is everywhere, you just have to be willing to recognize and accept it.

Sunday Scribblings #119: My Oldest Friend

Though I always read others Sunday Scribblings, I have never written a Sunday Scribbling of my own. This week, though it is now Monday, I will give it a try.
I am my oldest friend, my mother is my oldest friend, but I choose to write about my oldest friend outside my family.
________________________________

Born in March 1981, she was just a squirmy, three month old infant when we met in June 1981, shortly after I was born. Her mom, Ida, and my mom, Mary-Lynn, met in college in the early 1970's and became fast friends. There was no question that Alison and I mostly likely would be too. They gave us the gift of knowing each other from infancy and, for a long time, growing up together. I always felt this somehow made us sisters, somehow linked us for life.

Maybe part of why we delighted so much in each other was the joy of looking at another person and seeing one's self. As little girls, many people mistook us for twins. Round faces; wide-set brown eyes like bottomless puddles thick with mud; and impossibly curly, impressively dark, brown hair that shown bits of red in summer. One day when we were about 4, we were out with my mother doing errands. As we walked hand in hand across the parking lot, a woman stopped my mother to ask if Ali and I were twins. Before my mother could speak our two lilliputian voices giggled, in unison, "No, best friends."

My memories of our childhood are vast, innumerable. Days on the playground, feeding the ducks at Jenny Gristmill, playing in the dirt when my dad was building her new house, visiting her on the Cape to bring her coloring books and a Snow White doll when she had her tonsils out, playing dress up, riding in the go-cart while she drove, tea-parties at the bottom of her paternal grandmother's swimming pool, swimming lessons at TiTi's, the first time my mom left us alone in the house and we ended up huddled together hiding in the bathtub, days on Duxbury Beach, birthday parties, staying over her house the night before my brother was born and when my parents went to Bermuda, a week in Maine with her paternal grandparents, just everything that makes up childhood, that is a part of growing up.

When I was 10 and a 1/2 my parents went bankrupt and we had to move forty-five minutes away from our old life and in with my paternal grandparents. During that time, my parents cut us off from everybody we had known. As a result, Ali and I were separated, seeing each other only sporadically. The gap widened as we got older. Still we were always there for each other when it counted, for the big life events. I lived in her bedroom for a few months when I transferred colleges and she was in California. It was she who called me when she found out I had abruptly moved out of my parents house, at the age of 19, leaving only notes behind. She who met me in Boston for lunch and sat across from me listening, understanding, interjecting her own thoughts and ideas only when I had finished speaking, sensitively and respectfully asking what information was o.k. to pass on and what I would rather keep between us. I guess we have an innate understanding of each other born from knowing each other since infancy.

Waiting for her in bustling Davis Square two weeks ago, having not seen her for over a year, I was filled with girlish excitement and an inexplicable inner calm, a sense of coming home or of home coming to me. Leaning against the brick facade of the restaurant, looking up from time to time into the sea of faces milling around me, I spotted her in the old Jeep, evidence of the four years she spent in Malibu at Pepperdine University, a self-imposed exile during her parents divorce. It is not the Jeep that I recognize first, but her profile. The plane of her face, her wild curls made wilder by the summertime heat, the spattering of freckles across her shoulder, the almost imperceptible parting of her lips as she pauses before turning into the parking lot, and the movement of her hands on the wheel. I would know her anywhere.

Hearing the beep of her car alarm activating across the street, I close the book I have been reading and look up. As she exits the parking lot, fumbling to put her keys into her quilted purse, she glances up and spots me. Instantly her eyes change and she smiles revealing a perfectly straight and perfectly white expanse of teeth. Her father was a dentist. At the whir of an engine coming toward her, Ali's stride quickens and she opens her arms to embrace me as her feet clear the curb.

Inside the restaurant our conversation is easy. Over gnocci and pizza, we talk of jobs, family, travels, Italy, friends, love, adoption and real estate. She is looking for an apartment closer to Boston, to work, and tonight, after dinner, we will go to look at one together. I love how we are still so non-judgmental of each other, how there is no hint of one-up-man-ship in what we reveal of our lives. If it is possible, we are still as open to each other now as we were when we were children.

Outside J.P. Licks we giggle over ice cream and sorbet, our conversation turns lighter, except for the bit about her cousin leaving for Iraq this week. I make a mental note to add him and Ali to my nightly prayer list. After looking at the apartment, she drops me at the t-station and even then it is difficult to say goodbye. I hop out of the Jeep and we are still talking. We've missed each other. We promise to make this a monthly occasion and I am grateful. She blows me a kiss from the driver's seat. I catch it, blow one back, and descend into the cool dark of the subway system.