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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Planes and Conch Trains

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 3, 2013| 2 Comments »

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We were not leisurely shopping on Cyber Monday. Oh no, we were desperately trying to make our way home via Key West airport. For some inexplicable reason, Southwest decided to cancel their flights out of our tiny island. One couple managed to score a Delta flight, while the Love Bug and her Mama hitched a ride to Miami with another Big Chill couple. The Groom left us a little early to start his ICU rotation. Only US Air delivered us on time back to the Blue Ridge.

I thought I would share some Tuesday morning quarterbacking memories with you. First of all, there was the butterfly. Or I should say thousands of butterflies http://www.keywestbutterfly.com

Right in the middle of Duval Street – a veritable hub of humanity with every imaginable language you could think of – we strolled into a magic garden; “50 to 60 butterfly species from around the world, along with over 20 exotic bird species, all under a climate- controlled, glass enclosed habitat.” The Bug was enchanted. The moving sea of fluttering colors caught all of us off guard, it was as if we were a part of a living and breathing terrarium. I turned to Bob and said, “This exceeded my expectations,” and it did!

Then there were the chickens. IMG_2235We spotted a rooster when we first got out of the car on our little lane, and every day after that the search for chickens continued. Our 15 month old toddler loved to find hens with their chicks and red-combed roosters lingering nearby. These gypsy chickens are free-roaming on every street and nest in the trees at night. It seems the combination of outlawing cock fighting in the 70s and buying chicken in neatly wrapped packages at a grocery store led to this laissez faire attitude toward poultry. They are so tame, they will eat out of your hand and let you pet their chicks!

We hopped on the Conch Train for the 90 minute tour of Key West. Keeping the Bug occupied and safe meant I only heard pieces of the island’s colorful history but we enjoyed the ride and the ice cream stop especially. Later, the Bride stayed home with the baby and we took in a drag show at 801 Boubon. Our MC was Desiree, and she was a grandfather! Instant connection, I have to admit, since we are both redheads. Hysterical night, including the part where Cait and I did a little back-up singing! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/travel/09hours.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

What more can I say? There was La Creperie and croissants galore. Salsa dancing and delicious Cuban food. Art galleries on every corner, and Serbian rickshaw drivers. Key West is a melange of Vegas, New Orleans, and Miami and I didn’t want to click my heels together.

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Brothers in Arms

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2013| 8 Comments »

On this Veteran’s Day, I’d like to pay tribute to my four brothers.

Michael Edward Lynn passed away last year, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/sports/mike-lynn-former-vikings-general-manager-dies-at-76.html?_r=0 but I remember when our younger brother Jim received his First Lieutenant Bar and  Mike had to salute him! He was 22 by the time I moved back with my family of birth., and was already out in the world seeking his fortune. But Mike served the Army proudly in Korea.

James Joseph Lynn was an Intelligence Officer in Vietnam. My psychologist brother had just graduated from Columbia University when he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Monterey Language School. He met his wife in California and only told me one story about the war. He was at the bar on the top floor of the officer’s club in Saigon when an air raid siren rang out in the night. Only one guy did what he was supposed to do, go back to his bunker. That was the soldier who was shot by a stray bullet.

It made a big impression on teenage me, that subtle message of karma, bravery, and fate all rolled into one little anecdote.

Eric Berla (step-brother) was an original beatnik. He introduced me to Pete Seeger and rebellion. We were both against the war.  Not wanting to kill anyone, but still having to face the draft, he enlisted as a pilot and flew Med Evac helicopters all over Vietnam. I imagined it was like being in a continuous replay of MASH, but in fact most of his fellow pilots never made it home. The red cross on his Huey was like a target.

John (Brian) Cerullo (half-brother) was career Air Force. He was stationed in Germany and later married a German woman. The Flapper’s second child never went to college but rose through the ranks and wrote books about radar, finally becoming a teacher. Though I didn’t know him well, I think we share a certain dry sense of humor.

Here we are at the wedding: Jim is seated in the red tie, and Eric is behind him to the right. Mike’s wife Jorja is in red, but he and Brian were not able to travel. I’m so proud of my brothers, but somehow just saying thank you for your service doesn’t seem like enough.

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Fat, Sugar, or What?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

Who can resist a Snickers shaped like a pumpkin masquerading as a Reese’s peanut butter cup?

It’s funny really, I’ve never had a sweet tooth. Never stored bars of candy in a drawer in the kitchen. Maybe that’s why Halloween was so sacred to my kids, and they milked it for as many years as they could. They knew which houses had the full-size candy bars and which gave out bags of raisins. 

The first time I said “No” to my baby Bride was in a check-out line at the grocery store. I was trying to be all “natural mom” back in the 80s. with real diapers and pureeing my own baby food in a Mouli grater. We even joined a food co-op from Vermont! I didn’t think I’d ever have to say the word “No” about anything, after all couldn’t distraction and/or avoidance solve most discipline problems? Turns out, there’s no avoiding that stack of candy within arm’s reach of a toddler determined to get her hands on some gummy bears.

Now put a bag of chips in front of me, and it’s a different story. I’m just a pushover for salt.

Which is fine, since it turns out that Americans ingest about 138 pounds of sugar a year, and that only serves to increase our risk of heart disease. Because a new study in the British Medical Journal suggests that sugar could be worse for us than fat – raising our cholesterol etc. It’s certainly always been good news for dentists,  Sorry Eric. Now we know something I’ve always known intuitively – grass-fed Irish cow butter is better for us than cookies! There, I said it. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/top-heart-doctor-unprocessed-fatty-foods-may-actually-be-good-for-you-8897707.html

Don’t get me wrong. I’d much rather put a little real sugar in my coffee than an artificial sweetener. Sticking with real food can never lead us down that scary grocery aisle with processed homogenized cheese spread. I recently modernized the Flapper’s version of Depression mac and cheese when my Bug was visiting.

Mac and cheese please

Mac and cheese please

Since butter was scarce in the 30s, my Mom used bacon to start her scrumptious recipe and inserted slices of Swiss cheese from the deli. I found some Gruyere and shredded it instead. I can still remember her saying that she made this mac and cheese for my brother Michael, because it was his favorite dish. It turned out he was her favorite child.

And no matter how many times I said it was my favorite dish too, it didn’t matter. So when you watch this video poetry slam by Lily Myers about “The Shrinking Woman,”  “I have been taught accommodation, I have been taught to grow in…to create space around myself.” Think about how we too are entitled to calories, about how we women are worthy of filling that space. And pass the bread and butter please. 

You may have to click over to the wordpress site to watch the video, but believe me, it’s worth it.

 

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Tradition

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2013| 2 Comments »

It’s all over the news. The Royal Couple has posted their very first family portrait, with little Prince George all swaddled in sunlight and the Royal dogs (not Corgis btw) posed like bookends. And as usual, this new Royal Dad and Mum are doing things their way. Breaking with tradition, royalswithdogs202way-2d70d30b93779950a5f74576222866817a37caec-s4-c85

“The pictures were taken by Kate’s father, Michael Middleton, in the family’s backyard. The casual images are a departure from the royal tradition of hiring professional photographers for baby portraits.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/20/213761688/prince-georges-first-official-photos-break-with-tradition

And this made me think of what the common folk do, at least here in America. We used to run to Sears, or another big box store, to have a suitable portrait done of our wee ones. But this year, for the first time in 60 years, those smiling baby faces behind cloth clouds will be no more. Sears and Walmart unexpectedly shut down their portrait studio operations. “To take the family to a portrait studio in 2013 was akin to taking it to a phone booth to make the day’s calls or sitting it down in front of the Betamax for movie night,” according to Jason Notte on MSNMoney.

So I thought I’d share with you this morning the family portrait I received, along with hundreds of the Bride and Groom’s Facebook followers, this past weekend. They have been faithfully cataloguing the Love Bug’s growth with monthly shots by her semi-professional photographer Dad. But at this wedding in Denver of a high school friend, someone “snapped” or more likely touched this lovely triptych in a botanical garden.  1098150_10201464515316824_686007004_n

DIY has never been easier in our digital age; Apple, Shutterfly, Photobucket, Google and Snapfish make taking and sharing photos simple and painless. I overheard a young girl of about 11 asking a boy if he had “…an Instagram?” He replied yes, he does. Her quick retort, “How many followers do you have?”  And so it begins…

I don’t have lots of Instagram followers, probably not as much as that little boy. But I did get the Groom’s eye view of his family from this weekend, and it always makes me smile.photo

 

 

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To Infinity

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 28, 2013| 1 Comment »

At some point, we will all become teachers. Some of us have the gift, others will struggle. Patience is a prerequisite.

Great Grandma Ada is not afraid of technology, she embraced the iPad with her usual flair. The Rocker put a picture of the Love Bug on her home page and we downloaded the NYTimes. I taught her how to use the Notes App, and Bob explained the fine points of email. Then the Bride put her Great Grandbaby right into her hands…virtually.

Is FaceTime great or what?

While we were in NJ, teaching Ada the finer points of iPad, our little Bug was in Nashville learning how to clap her hands. Her Dad was playing his music as usual, and out of the blue her arms opened wide. She’d already started dancing, bouncing and swaying to the beat, but this was new, real clapping!

And I thought of all the possibilities all the joy all the sheer number of “things” this beautiful baby girl has ahead of her to learn. She is a perpetual student of life, much like her Great Grandmother. And experiencing this through my daughter’s eyes is magical.

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That’s Why

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on June 15, 2013| 2 Comments »

The Groom came home carrying groceries. Earlier, he and the Love Bug went out for a stroll with their rescue dog Guiness. Later, he’ll give her a bath.

Bob would sculpt science projects with the Bride. He’d cheer at the Rocker’s hockey games. He would always suggest ice cream. He’d keep me at an even keel when teenageitis hit.

Jimmy Mahon played gin rummy with me many nights. He’d bring home small presents every day after work. He built me a dollhouse out of popsicle sticks and drove me to ballet class.

And that’s why we celebrate Father’s Day.

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Still Crazy

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on June 2, 2013| 3 Comments »

Well folks, 34 years ago tomorrow I was busily sweeping up around the swimming pool and hoping the sky would clear up for my wedding day. Bob was trying to find the rabbi, in an age before cell phones, and got lost in Livingston.

We did everything wrong. We were not only co-habiting before the wedding, we bought a house, got pregnant and moved all in that same year – the trifecta of stress inducing change. Oh, and Bob started his first job as an Assistant Director of an ER; it was 1979.

The Deer Hunter won an Academy Award; Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” won the Grammy’s Record of the Year; the Iranian Hostage Crisis happened while Carter was in the White House; Mother Theresa won the Nobel Peace prize for her work in India, and in PA, a nuclear reactor had a meltdown on Three Mile Island.

We, surprisingly, survived after all these years. Through shoulder and back surgeries, through deaths of parents and our siblings, through 3 miscarriages, through 2 more monumental moves. One back to NJ from the Berkshires, and this last (I hope) to the Blue Ridge Mountains. What, you may ask, are we doing right?

Well for one thing, we talk A LOT. We can easily be quiet together, don’t get me wrong, but there’s always something that needs discussing. I will say, “Did you hear that author speak about her book “Gulp” on NPR?” He will say, “Yeah she was fascinating.” Then I’ll ask him why my shoulder still hurts, and he will say, “Your problem is ‘ballistic movement’ with your AC joint.” I will say “What?” And usually this will lead to a long explanation, so I will interject, “What should we do for dinner?” And usually we end up with, “Don’t get me started on health care in this country…” Full disclosure, we both think Obamacare didn’t go far enough to effect real change.

And for another thing, we still LAUGH. We can still kid around together, we can call each other out on things, maybe because that time when we went to the Prom together feels like yesterday. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/05/19/us/20110519_PROM_USERGEN-5.html I forgave him for going to Woodstock without me, and he forgave me for setting up housekeeping in Westchester first. We’re on the same side in this game they call marriage, and that’s maybe one of the most important lessons I’ve had to learn.

The truth is, we made a pact to renegotiate the marriage contract every 5 years. Here’s a news alert for newlyweds, gay and straight:

It’s never equal you know, never a 50/50 split. Some days it’s 70/30 and others it’s 51/49.

I wanted to be closer to family once the Rocker arrived, he wanted to open an Urgent Care. Every anniversary we’d celebrate at a fine French restaurant, but this year L’Etoile is closed on Monday. Mon Dieu, what to do? Maybe we’ll just use the Maps App to find a new favorite restaurant. Man, look at those bat sleeves Robin!

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Tchin Tchin

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

Let’s raise our glasses, or our coffee cups, to the French! Today Marriage Equality is de rigeur in this predominantly Catholic country. Legalizing same-sex unions wasn’t easy, even though the mayor of Paris is openly gay. In fact it’s the biggest shift in policy since abolishing the death penalty in 1981…I wonder if SCOTUS is listening? I am ecstatic, and hoping for a complete overhaul of the wedding industry, which could use a touch of LGBT creativity.

But it’s not just the business of getting married that may be overhauled as state after state grants gays the right to marry. A recent article in The Atlantic posits that we heteros may learn a thing or two from gay marriage.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wedded-bliss/309317/

“Same-sex spouses, who cannot divide their labor based on preexisting gender norms, must approach marriage differently than their heterosexual peers.”

Liza Mundy has gathered most of the data from around the world on the sociological complications of straight vs gay marriage. Who will pay the mortgage? Who will run the kids from school to tennis? Who cooks and who will do the laundry? There is even a study where researchers threw a bunch of toys out on the floor with a child and its parents to see how parents interact during play…sure enough, it was the hetero dads who played lincoln logs in the corner by themselves.

I was in a bank line that wasn’t moving the other day, so I struck up a conversation with the dad and a stroller directly in front of me. I told him about my Love Bug, and he told me all about the same age baby girl he was caring for, his daughter, who was happily smiling at me whenever I looked at her. By way of explanation he said she was getting fussy so he thought he’d venture out. Then he volunteered that his wife was finishing a fellowship at UVA and they were moving to Seattle in just a few weeks. I said that must be exciting, and told him about my son-in-law’s fellowship in Nashville. But he didn’t seem very excited about moving cross country, and then the line started to move and he was gone.

I didn’t ask him “What do you do,” as I know some others might have done to try and pigeonhole his motives for staying at home to care for his daughter. I could see very well what he did, he had a clean, smiling, happy baby with him. I love to see young men caring for their children, during the week, when it is obvious this is their role for now, while the wife earns the money. Religious zealots, who fear gay marriage for whatever reasons, should take heart to learn that gay men are just as likely to denote one partner to stay-at-home (“specialize”) in their marriage as heterosexual partners. According to the latest Census:

“32 percent of married heterosexual couples with children have only one parent in the labor force, compared with 33 percent of gay-male couples with children. (Lesbians also specialize, but not at such high rates, perhaps because they are so devoted to equality, or perhaps because their earnings are lower—women’s median wage is 81 percent that of men—and not working is an unaffordable luxury.)”

Maybe this fact alone should put an end to the “mommy wars?” My friend Lee was an assistant DA in MA, a high powered attorney. She found a wonderful nanny, from France in fact, and had a very supportive husband with more reasonable working hours. It never occurred to us, both feminists, that we might be at war because I chose to stay at home!

So look out all you newly married heterosexual couples. Gay marriage just may have a profound effect on our culture, in a very good way. The old playing field is getting some brand new sod, and everything you may have once thought was traditionally your duty in marriage, is up for debate. Now, Bob, about that cooking class in Italy…

First French gay couple wed

Meet the first French couple – Vincent Autin, left, and his partner Bruno Boileau sign a document during their marriage in Montpellier, southern France, on May 29, 2013

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/05/29/meet-frances-first-married-gay-couple/#ixzz2UmudbzoC

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A Tale of Two Sisters

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on May 5, 2013| 7 Comments »

I found out yesterday that my half-sister Shirley died. My sister Kay called to tell me. It was peaceful enough, she died in her sleep after refusing to be hospitalized for “low sodium.” I asked Bob what that means, and he said basically your system is shutting down. I have absolutely no memories of Shirley; she was 24 years older, she was having a baby at the same time I was born which I guess happened frequently back then. So, just as soon as I was born I became an aunt. She was out of the house long before our Year of Living Dangerously.

Shirley was the Flapper’s first child. The product of a dare, yes my mother married Shirley’s father on a dare. They met at a wedding in PA, and got along so well their friends dared them to get married. She was 16 years old, and I assume that kind of thing happened all the time too – the getting married at 16 part. Gi Closeup 20130505 Web

Before the Flapper’s first husband died, she had a son, Brian. At 21 she was widowed with 2 children. At first I thought their father died in the Great War, later I learned he died of a ruptured appendix, before penicillin was discovered. The Flapper moved to NYC with her sister in order to work, and left her children with their grandmother, my Nana.

And this is when the troubles started with Shirley. After awhile my beautiful mother moved back to PA and caught the eye of a young pharmacist at her street car stop. Enter my father, who promptly married her and insisted on adopting her 2 children…although maybe he didn’t since they never took his name. He raised them just like his own – the 4 who followed, Kay, Mike, Jimmy and then me. I told you this is all third hand knowledge.

The family folk tale is that Shirley never forgave the Flapper for taking her away from Nana, the woman she loved and considered her true mother. Certainly holding a grudge was a time honored tradition in our family. The result of this grudge fest is the eternal rift between Mother and Shirley. Show me a family that hasn’t experienced years of ‘not talking’ between relatives; still this mother/daughter feud was stellar in its length and complexity.

Recently I found out that Shirley contracted TB as a young, new mother. She was sent away to a sanitorium and her baby boy, the one who is my nephew, came to live with the Flapper after her accident. It was while looking through old pictures with Kay that I wondered who the baby was, the one who wasn’t me. The Flapper never told me – which is telling in itself – that after giving me up to foster care, while she was still in the hospital, she ended up caring for my nephew at home. Even Kay has no explanation for how this happened.

I was always told that I was never taken from my foster parents, Nell and Jim, because Mother was afraid of losing another daughter to a grudge fest. I have to think, considering our level of poverty, that we were lucky in avoiding placement in an orphanage, all of us. So maybe it was just the Flapper’s pride, which was fierce, that kept her from placing her first grandson in an orphanage. And even though she was bed-bound, crippled by that drunk driver, she would fight to keep him. Kay was 15, so she not only helped Mother with her physical rehab, she helped care for her younger brothers and her nephew. Without Kay, the middle of this family would not hold.

In this picture Shirley is on the far left, and Kay is on the far right standing. I wasn’t born yet.

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Poetic Vision

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

On my long drive home this past weekend, I listened on and off, between mountain ranges shrouded in fog, to an interview on NPR with New York’s Poet Laureate, Marie Howe. It turns out April is Poetry month and this was a repeat of Terry Gross’ Fresh Air program from last year. Somehow I knew she was a kindred spirit. Howe grew up in a large Irish Catholic family, and attended the Convent of the Sacred of the Heart. As my BFF Lee from the Berkshires likes to say, we went to different schools together.

“Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we know we’re going to die,” says Howe. “The most mysterious aspect of being alive might be that — and poetry knows that.”

Howe has written 3 books of poetry: What the Living Do, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time and The Good Thief. She talked about teaching poetry, about describing the way water looks in a glass that has filtered sunlight streaming through it. About getting her students to bring their focus into the world of everyday things without using metaphor. Saving metaphor for much later, like a gift left under the Christmas tree. Yes, I realize I didn’t wait.

Howe’s father was an alcoholic, which she states as if this is the most common thing for a family, which of course it is. How many fathers in the 50s functioned fine enough by day, only to return home to drink and brutalize their family? There is, “A sense of retroactive dread…so many of us are afflicted with addictions,” she says. One of her brothers, Johnny, died of AIDs in the late 80s, and she memorialized him with this poem:
What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.

Johnny, who ran away from his father but found his own demons, finally found AA and used to tell her that, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice.” She loved him dearly and said sometimes he would just stand in the middle of her kitchen and say, “This is it.” And she would say, “What?” He would just raise his arms, look around with a smile, and say, “This.” I was reminded of my brother Michael, who died last year. Every time I would see him, he would smile and tell me, “This is the good life.”

The Flapper would read poems aloud to my brothers and sisters from an old anthology, “101 Famous Poems.” First written in 1929, I remember its well worn blue binding, and managed to find a revised edition from 1958. Shirley, Brian, Kay, Michael, and Jimmy heard about the sea, and a cautionary tale about a spider and a fly while doing household chores. Poetry was the music that accompanied everyday life while the Flapper could only sit and read, her legs broken in so many places. As Marie Howe said, art allows the heart to break open.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/13/150495862/poet-marie-howe-reflects-on-the-living-after-loss
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