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Archive for May, 2012

It is What it Was

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on May 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The nine hour drive home from Nashville can be eye-crossingly boring. I reluctantly passed by Dollywood in favor of listening to the continuing saga of a Janet Evanovich audiobook. One McDonalds with Elvis all over the walls blends with another rocking chair on a Cracker Barrel porch until the Blue Ridge Mountains appear just in the nick of time. Only a sporadic NPR signal saved me from driving off a cliff.

Our dearly beloved Vice President got me wondering, what does the President think of gay marriage? One answer might be, “Who cares?” After all, we know he is a constitutional law scholar and downright brilliant. We also know he ate dog meat as a child in Indonesia because if we were a kid, in that part of the world, we’d eat what our parents gave us too. One culture’s delicious blue cheese is another’s smelly mold. But watching the polls on gay marriage ‘evolve’ in this country is inspiring: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/same-sex-marriage-support_n_1499247.html

Listening to the White House Press Secretary dance around good ole Biden’s plainspeakin’ ways and say that the President’s opinion on gay marriage “…is what it was” made me smile. And now the Republicans would just love to force his hand on this, but don’t let them set the agenda for us Mr President. If Mitt could carry his dog on top of his car at one time in his life, we know he wouldn’t do that again today. If Mitt can embrace health insurance reform in MA, we know he can and did ‘evolve’ and would like to destroy it for the rest of us. Surely Mr President, you can continue to help breathe life into our Constitution. Remember that gay rights are human rights, and that words have meaning.

Here are some shots of Ann Patchett’s independent bookstore in Nashville where anyone can stroll in and play the piano. Browsing among books is a guilty pleasure for this word nerd. We Americans are an independent lot. We respect truth in politics, and in fact we long for it. We give you permission Mr President to keep evolving, along with the rest of us.

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an Early Mother’s Day

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on May 6, 2012| 1 Comment »

If you’ve been following along my journey – from North to South, from Mom to Mother-in Law – then you know the Flapper’s story. Gertrude (aka Gi) was indomitable. Unsinkable is another word that comes to mind; widowed three times and crippled after a car accident in our Year of Living Dangerously, Grandma Gi managed to raise five children in PA. Her sixth child, the baby, was raised in NJ with another mother.

My second mother Nell was a first generation American housewife. Her parents emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the same PA coal town that my birth family called home. She moved with her husband Jim to NJ during the Great Depression to find work at Picatinny Arsenal. Little did she know that after raising one daughter and sending her off to nursing school, she’d find herself raising another when she was fifty years old for her friend the Flapper. Nell was the kindest, funniest, most loving mother imaginable. She was in fact “Mommy.” When I was 18 months old, and we would visit the Flapper in the hospital in PA, Nell would let me push Gi’s wheelchair down the hospital hallways. Gi was my other “Mother.”

I felt lucky. Two mothers might seem like one too many, but in fact they gave me a special gift. One taught me to be strong and independent, while the other taught me to love unconditionally. One worked outside the home her whole life, while the other never learned to drive and welcomed me home from school each day with a hug. I had two birthday parties and two Christmas trees; twice the fun. Neither one was a gardener, but one was a tremendous cook. My green thumb did not come naturally, but my daughter seems to have inherited it.

Mother’s Day is always the day we plant, so today we planted tomatoes and herbs and peppers in pots. Matt was in charge of protecting the tender plants from rabbits. The soon-to-be parents will be moving into a new house in June, so we now have a movable garden. Their new baby girl is due in August. Between her Great Grandmother Ada, Shavaun (Matt’s Mom) and Nana me, she’ll have three times the Grandma love!

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What’s in a Name

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on May 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

I’ve been on the road these past two days. Listening to a book on tape (a disc), country music and NPR and finally pulling into Nashville as Adele starts singing about the rain. Now it’s raining, but as the Irish like to say, “It’s a soft day.”

I am overcome with love for my daughter and the baby girl I felt kick me for the first time today. I wonder if she will be a soccer player, or maybe a ballerina. I know she will have long Lynn legs. We talk about names and how important they are and we laugh about some of the birthing escapades of friends. This child of mine is about to become a mother. She seems so serene, so mature and still I can see her sitting on my kitchen floor, feeding raisins to her raggedy ann doll.

Ann Patchett wrote an article about Nashville as part of the Love Letters project on the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/love-letters/ann-patchetts-nashville_b_1470141.html. How the people here are very independent, free spirited. It is the perfect city for your birth in the year of the dragon.

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The Tony and Tennis

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on May 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »


Happy first day of May. We were lucky enough to watch the final game of a USTA tournament at UVA’s Boar’s Head Sports Club. Its official name is the Boyd Tinsley Women’s Clay Court Classic and after many days and hours battling to the top, in rain and sun, an underdog won. Melanie Oudin http://melanieoudin.com/ had been destined for greatness on the tennis tour in 2009, but started sliding down in rank until now. She collected her trophy and the $50,000 grand prize from the gracious Dave Matthews Band fiddler himself, Boyd Tinsley. “It wasn’t Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, but the win in Charlottesville did cause Oudin’s ranking to jump 92 spots to No. 278 and that is welcome news to the Georgia native.” The crowd was defintely star-struck on Sunday, clapping and chanting Melanie’s name…discretely…between sets.

Stars are coming out on Broadway today too with the announcement of the 66th Tony Award’s 2012 nominations. A low tech, sentimental musical “Once,” about a Czech flower seller in Dublin, is going up against the mega tech musical “Spiderman.” Considering the rocky (no pun intended Bono) start on Spiderman, I was only slightly surprised it garnered any kudos at all. This is when I miss living an hour outside of Manhattan. Over the years I sat in awe as Barbara Striesand triumphed in “Funny Girl,” and Angela Lansbury was “Hello Dolly.” The Rocker was a mere tot when he saw “Into the Woods” with Bernadette Peters playing the Witch. Actually we sat right up front, and he was watching the orchestra and jamming with the conductor. In 1997, we (Mom and 13 year old Rocker/Son) even won a pre-show dance contest on a Broadway stage, before watching Xena Princess Warrior Lucy Lawless star as Rizzo in “Grease.” This old song and dance girl was ecstatic; and surprisingly, the Rocker wasn’t embarrassed.

Broadway, it’s not just for Gays and Jews anymore 🙂 Delighted to report that Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting, and that I’m seriously considering either tap or tennis lessons, or both?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiWwteWIjJc&feature=player_embedded

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