A tragical birthday

Our family of six moved from Phoenix to Albuquerque four days before my daughter Ana’s 14^th birthday.

But, so help me, I tried to make it good. I tried!

With boxes still enveloping us, I made homemade pancakes. A good beginning if not for the fact that we had no syrup. Midway through cooking, I ran to the store and picked up a store brand variety called “Old-fashioned Syrup” which I thought might be code for “slightly healthier.” Why, oh why, was I thinking healthy on a birthday?

Unfortunately, old-fashioned meant pure unadulterated molasses with a hint of sugar to take the edge off. We should have made gingerbread cookies with it.

“Yuck!” my kids exclaimed in unison with properly contorted faces.

“What? What is it?” 

Even with my penchant for gingerbread men, I couldn’t stomach the flavor.

Out I trot to a different grocer to pick up some that was unapologetically sugar, and since we had just moved, ran to the discount and dollar stores next door to find laundry hampers, curtain rods, and waste baskets. Feeling guilty about my long absence, I picked up a bunch of sunflowers to present to my birthday girl.

I still needed to figure out the cake. It was supposed to be a purchased ice cream cake instead of a homemade confection per tradition. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where any creameries were and before I could find one, I had to spend an hour on the phone with our insurance company sorting out the new home and auto policies with a very talkative, if helpful, young man. When I finally was released to call an ice cream shop near us, the lady nicely informed me that I should have placed an order yesterday.

I dove into boxes for missing baking gear. Then I went to the fridge to lay out ingredients for cake.

We had no butter or eggs.

Well, I still needed to get my daughter gifts anyway, so I rounded up Ana and her younger siblings, and off we went to two more stores. At a home improvement store Ana got her wish: plants to place in a large flower bed that was all her own. Though she fretted they were too expensive (I guess her dad and I had been stressing a lot about the new mortgage), she finally choose four blooming beauties, and we headed to my sixth store of the day.

I may say that I am disappointed that Albuquerque did not fly a banner over our heads at this point declaring exuberantly, “Thanks for helping our economy, you fabulous, frustrated new residents!”

We grabbed butter, eggs and a can of whipped cream topping.

On the way out of that shopping center, I turned right onto a busy street, and we nearly got hammered by an aggressive sedan that raced up behind us. I thought rush hour was supposed to be better in Albuquerque!

At home safe but flustered, I labored over a fatty chocolate cake for my sweet girl and offered to spread mint chocolate ice cream between its layers.

My husband came home late from his new job, and after I had irritated him by crying and complaining about crazy Albuquerque drivers, told us that we shouldn’t physically put ice cream in the cake. Instead of homemade ice cream cake, my daughter was to have plain old cake with ice cream!

Valiantly my son Berto and I attempted to write “happy birthday” with the whipped topping on the barren expanse of the cake. Alas, the pressurized cream ejected from its can with all the force of a fire extinguisher. It was all we could do to make the carnage resemble “Happy Birthday Ana”.

As we woefully surveyed our erratic clouds of whipped writing, we realized we had no matches, no lighters, nothing to spark her candles, those candles we had lumped together from the junk drawer the movers had packed with the kitchen stuff. (You cannot imagine our relief when we came up with 14!)

“Really?” said Ana.

My husband and I argued about what to do. Try to start a flame with flint and knife? Search all the boxes yet unpacked for matches that were overlooked? Go yet again to a store for a lighter? He left to procure a lighter.

After his return and a chorus of Happy Birthdays, I sliced into the cake which quivered and…

“Oh, Ana, it’s crumbling,” I moaned.

My daughter and I looked at each other and burst into tears. It had all become far too "tragical", as Anne of Green Gables would say.

But we soon realized that such a mad birthday must surely be more hilarious than heart-breaking 10, maybe 20 years from now – give or take a few.

Nevertheless, I vow that Ana’s 15^th will be a different level of celebration. Perhaps I’ll launch fireworks, organize a parade, buy her a pet ferret, send her up in a hot air balloon, or hire a boy band to serenade her all evening.

But we will never – EVER – move near her birthday again.

Joy, plans gone awry, contentment lost, and hope regained

Three weeks ago when my family returned from Idaho I was very content. I was feeling very homey, too. Inspired my Aunt Cheryl's welcoming and cozy home, and my Aunt Stephanie's beautiful framed prints - all garage and estate sale finds - I had plans to improve this little house for my family by bending my mind to something that doesn't come naturally: decorating.

The main way I planned to make our house more a home was by putting up pictures of grandparents. We have none on these walls. I arrived home, and I couldn't believe that I have neglected to put up photos of my beloved Grandmama, of Matthew's grandparents who have all passed on now, and of all our grandparents and parents. This is a serious lack. Matthew and I have never been great about taking or displaying pictures, but there is no excuse. I thank my Aunt Cheryl again for inspiration, for she took me around her home and showed me the history of our family in many photos set in myriad frames.

I had such plans a few weeks ago for being a "homemaker" in the best sense by lovingly improving my family's comfort, peace, joy and sense of connection to one another through simple but thoughtful means. I was going to labor in the yard, too, planting a lush winter lawn.

And I was going to write about the joy of our Idaho visit. Of how my children were amazed by how many relatives they have on their Paca's and their Grandmama's side. How Berto said the parade of relatives was like an "endless pit" (he meant it in the best way); how my kids asked from time to time in awe, "Mama, how many relatives do you have? They just keep coming!"; how I felt immense pride that I could claim all these great and interesting people as part of my extended family.

I was going to make you hungry by recounting the wonderful meals prepared for us by Uncle Kip and Aunt Cheryl on one side and my Uncle Bryan on the other and even confess how we went to a wonky Asian-Western inspired and golf-themed restaurant called Little Orphan Annie's with my cousins and aunt.

I was going to share that my kids rode four-wheelers for the first time with my cool uncles and talked about nearly nothing else the day after, so thrilled were they by that grand small-town experience.

And there were tremendous surprises during our trip. We missed our flight going to Idaho. That was nerve-wracking, but when we got there my kids saw Paca and Grandmama (my parents) at their great-grandparents place (on my dad's side), a big surprise for them that I almost ruined at least a dozen times. When we went to my Grandpa's the next day, my Uncle Jim was there and I had no clue he would be in town! He tried to teach me to play pinochle once when I was in high school. I reminded him of my inability to learn and my parents frustration and how all the while he was patient. We were blessed to visit with every one of my mama's surviving siblings that Sunday. On the next day I saw my Uncle Ruben whom I have not seen since my wedding 15 years ago when he filmed the ceremony. He used to drive to Tennessee often to visit our family when I was a kid, and he would let my siblings and I raid his cooler full of drinks and snacks and bring his video camera so we could make goofy movies. One even had a Star Trek theme, and Uncle Ruben was Spock!

It was such an amazing trip, the best we have had yet. It was overflowing with family and adventure, better than the excursions we used to make to San Diego to visit the beach.

Then my joy was suddenly stolen because I woke up Tuesday morning of last week with vertigo. It hasn't plagued me in years, but it was just as bad as I remembered.

All my plans as a wife, mother and writer for that week were utterly destroyed. I won't bore you. Instead "let me sum up". I barely touched my husband for several days. I couldn't work or accomplish my simple goals. I was prey to my own caprices.

And I lost my gratitude. I knew I should thank God for my overall health, that it was just a bad case of persisting dizziness. I knew I should remember, "this, too shall pass". Instead I became very depressed, felt disconnected from my spouse and children, and by the end of the week began to have some very unsettling thoughts as I battled depression.

Shudder. I don't really want to dwell on it more. Until yesterday morning I was still battling the after-effects, being blown about by my own mood.

But today? Today I saw a rainbow. Today I caught up on a good amount of work and even sorted my email and hopped on Facebook. Today I am writing.

My thoughts are tame and friendly once more. Thank, thank God.

And I am remembering that trip to Idaho and all the faces of my loved ones.

And feeling grateful and content.

The struggles of a humor writer

For a while there - not long ago at all - I felt like my creative aspirations were dust in the wind, at least where my humor writing was concerned. Primarily, my outlook was all wrong. I was attempting to take some real crises I was having and make them funny, but I wasn't in the mood.

I spent weeks working on and off on a few pieces, but I couldn't get the tone or flow right on any of them. They had no punch. It got to the point where I was chewing obsessively on petty words, paring paragraphs, and cutting and pasting content back and forth between posts.

Finally, I decided to write a little about my creative struggle here, and quite suddenly inspiration came back to roost. Not only was I able to finish pieces I had been working hard on with very little success, I wrote two more - one of which I thought needed very little editing.

Well, the one I thought needed little editing just got rejected. Such is life. Perhaps I should revisit my original judgment on its readiness for the online stage. And of course I will, because after asking for insight I received some constructive feedback on why the site declined to publish it. I'm grateful to know it was considered.

One of the former pieces I had been fiddling with for what seemed like far too long - perhaps a few months - I submitted this month to a prestigious humor contest. I was terrified that I would have nothing worth entering but was determined to jump in the pool. Whatever was least dreadful at deadline would simply have to be my submission. In the end - after inspiration found me again - it really only retained the bare bones of the original idea, but I was proud of and pleased with it. I believed I had finally made my crisis funny. My hopes? Very slim. But I'm not embarrassed. The past winners are hilarious and very talented.

A third piece just got published at Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. It was inspired by a visit from my sister Annie over my birthday weekend. With her permission - and giving her credit, of course - I ran with her idea of "anger pies", Extra inspiration was provided by a recent visit with my in-laws at Christmas.

That last post is called Family Pains. Let me know what you think of it here, if you like. Can you relate? If you enjoy it, any shares would be appreciated.

I know some other Wise Men (and Women)

Happy Three Kings' Day!

Did you know that in Puerto Rico they get this feast day off? It's a national holiday. They know the holidays to celebrate, in my opinion. I wish we Americans would catch on.

I love the Three Kings or Three Wise Men, as you may know them. It's a celebration for Gentiles; Christ is for us, too. I have nutcrackers and wooden statues and even a tapestry depicting them and their journey and gifts. And around this time of year I stuff myself with figs, dates and apricots and make exotic homemade breads spiced with saffron and cardamom for my family and sometimes camel gingerbread cookies, too.

Speaking of important gifts, last year I wished to write a Thanksgiving post and then, when that failed to happen, a New Year's Eve post thanking people for the gifts they gave me in that good old 2015 of yesteryear. Obviously the post never got written, and so here I am in 2016 making a correlation between the gifts of the Magi and the gifts others brought to me when I needed them.

On this theme I must thank my dad for writing a Three Wise Men post. He knows how much I love the Wise Men, how I make a point to mark this holiday each year, fascinated as I am by their journey and their commitment and their grace (though, honestly, I really don't know why I love them so much). I am also enthralled by Dad's journey, and it is a great treasure to me that an important part of it is now written here. But, really, I think he wrote it to cheer me up, a gift! A great gift of the Magi.

My lovely mother

And, Mama, thank you for that long talk on the phone when you let your youngest girl pour out all her fears and insecurities, patiently listened to me and then responded with encouragement and wisdom and love. You pulled me back with all your might from a mental and emotional black hole. I wish I lived closer to you, so that we could have those conversations over coffee or tea in some quaint little shop, but I'm grateful for what you have given me, and your loving and calming presence could touch anyone across thousands of miles.

And, hey, sisters! I haven't forgotten you. Vinca, Annie and Natalie, thank you. Thank you for reaching out to me over the phone and online when you found I was struggling with myself.

Readers, my sister Vinca has a very demanding job, but she still gave her time to me, investing in a long conversation where she gently but firmly corrected some harsh opinions I was harboring in my angst. My sister Annie was working two jobs last year but still made the time to come see me for a weekend and to call late one night - when she had plenty of paperwork that begged for her attention after a grueling day - to stand by me, so to speak, and make sure I was making progress in my OCdemon adventures. Natalie has two twin baby boys, but she contacted me via Facebook from across the pond and seemed to understand just exactly where I was at and how I was floundering as we messaged back and forth. Wow. I love you all immensely.

Big bro Nate in the British Museum

Natie, thanks for being my big brother and for all the great memories I carried back with me from the UK. Boy, I miss you, but that overdue visit was such a gift that I don't feel as far from you as I did before. I cannot wait to meet your sons!

Last but certainly never least, I thank my husband for standing by me throughout...everything, and for allowing me to chase wild horses in my writing, for shipping me off to London on a grand adventure for 10 days and, most importantly, for supporting me all these years at home with our children. It was a great gift to them and to me to have that time.

And thanks, kids, for all that you are.

Even when it drives me bonkers.

Because family, faith and love really are everything, the most powerful and enduring treasures we can enjoy and share.

So, now that I have given thanks at long last, let me conclude by wishing a very Happy Three Kings' Day to all of you reading. If you don't know much about this feast, well eat some chocolate cake! That's always a good plan. And may God bless you this new year.

Me, a brown eyed girl

I feel like I'm in Groundhog's Day. Every day in the car for several days now, I have heard the same song playing on a variety of stations. Only it's not "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher. It's Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl".

It was one of my favorite songs when I was a little girl. My sisters both had blue eyes, exotic. I was the plain brown-eyed one. That song made me think it was special, not boring, to have eyes the color of freshly turned soil.

My siblings teased me about that song. I used to tattle on them for watching any inappropriate television or listening to suggestive music, but here I was, the baby, listening to a song that said, "Sometimes I'm overcome thinking about....making love in the green grass."

One time, indignant at their teasing as I danced around to my happy song, I stopped and shouted at them, "Making love means hugging and kissing, that's all!" Leave it to me, a young devourer of classic literature with archaic language to make such an argument about a song written in the 1960s.

They all smirked back at me, so I turned to my dad for backup, "Isn't that right, Daddy?"

My dad smiled and said, "You're right, Hoodoo." Then he told the older kids to stop teasing me about my favorite song.

I don't hear that song much at all anymore, so I guess the universe has been trying to tell me something this past week with repeated emphasis. What could it be? Well, considering that I have not slept at all well this week and am very mad about it; that I have allowed my calamitous thoughts to attack my brain and pillage my reason for over a month now, an auto-thought disorder; that I am beating myself up today for forgetting a second night in a row, despite lying awake until almost midnight, to reward my son for his lost tooth, the benevolent message might go something like this:

Be happy. Be happy, for crying out loud! 

BE happy, you brown-eyed girl. 

Humble Pie Housekeeping

There was a strange man by our mailbox when we got home one Sunday. He coolly sat there watching us pull into our driveway, his white sedan near where weeds were choking the landscaping rocks. The guy kind of looked like my husband Matthew, but my husband was golfing that afternoon.

I was on to this guy - whatever he was trying to pull by resembling my husband. I told the kids, "Nobody move. Don't get out of the van until I see what he's about."

So we parked and didn't move until the man casually emerged from his vehicle, and my oldest son Berto cried, "It's Uncle Tim!"

Then the doors were pushed open, and the kids sprinted down the driveway. I had forgotten my husband said he might come by, and sirens whistled in my head as I desperately tried to think with a dumb smile on my face, WHAT DOES THE HOUSE LOOK LIKE?

Yes, what does the house look like? So many times in my life I've asked myself this sorry question. I've had my share of humble pie at the hands of unexpected visitors.

I mean, sure, when you're deadly ill, being rushed to the hospital, you can let the shame go reasonably well when your friends come to watch the kids in your smelly, disheveled home. After all, they can't judge you too harshly while your fate seems uncertain. And when the repair man comes for the AC unit, puts on his little booties so as not to mark your juice-smeared floor, and you realize you forgot to cover the duct tape that holds your couch together at the seam, you can trust you won't see him again...or you can logically explain that your couch hasn't reached its 15 years of mandatory service yet, and you're not cheap - really!- just frugal and resourceful. Then you can ask if he watches the Red Green show.

But when your brother-in-law walks into your littered home and sees St. Paddy's Day signs waving in the vented breeze, wishing him the luck of the Irish in late April, you have little option but to joke as you turbo-sweep and straighten the clutter about his feet, "Come back in July, and we'll have the Easter signs up!"

And he glibly responds with, "And by Christmas, Halloween!"

Worse is the exposure of your poor housekeeping methods at the hands of expected visitors. A dear friend comments every time she enters your door, "I'm so glad your home is cluttered like ours - stuff everywhere!", and you comfort yourself that you're a reality ambassador, spreading cheer and lowering expectations. Party guests innocently open the microwave, believing you maintain your appliances, and find what looks like a hideous laboratory from a horror film, so you try to show appropriate horror and blame it on the kids' experiments in blowing up spaghetti. Your father-in-law uses your master bath and is greeted by feminine unmentionables dangling from the doorknob (You're not overly proud of them; you just think they add that extra something to the décor.) and bits of mustache trimmings in the sink. Too late at night, you pull out the bed from the sleeper sofa to make it up for relatives, and they jump back with an, "Oh my gosh!" and then giggle and point at What Lies Beneath, awed by the magnitude of the decaying debris. You can grumble that you cleaned under there only a few weeks ago as you fetch the vacuum, but they won't believe you.

It's always something that you forgot to hide or clean. Humiliation is just a pair of thongs or a moldy, forgotten sippy cup away.

I used to be prouder of my home...before I had kids and lost a critical, maybe fatal, amount of sleep. I used to make huge, long lists, weeks before entertaining, that included such ridiculous items as these:

Mop floors

Dust ceiling fans and pictures

Polish table, chairs and hutch with olive oil/lemon juice

Mow lawn

Remove bras from bathroom doorknobs

Clear off entertainment center and book shelves

Now my list looks like this:

Try to sweep

Load dishwasher if possible

Hide laundry

Comb hair

Take a nap

Perhaps someday I'll get back to mopping floors with more than wet paper towels stuck to the bottoms of my feet, polishing furniture until I can see my haggard face in it and scrubbing bathrooms every Tuesday morning, but right now I'm tired, and sick of society telling me what the perfect house should look like. Houses come in all shapes and sizes, darnit, and different levels of disorder, decay and maltreatment by dwellers, and I'll take mine as it is, so lived in it's beautiful, with a slice of humble pie to stay.


This post was originally published on this blog in July 2013.

Identity Crisis....On Paper

Signature rehab. That is what I need, and I need it now.

By that strange statement I do not mean I need to go to an extra-fancy, personally-tailored rehab for some well-researched issue. I mean I need to seriously go to signature rehabilitation where I figure out how to properly sign my own name in a hurry...with style. After all, if I haven't worked out how to write my name nicely by 35 years of age, it's time to call in the professionals. Perhaps I need some tough-love boot camp where they make you do manual labor, take cold showers and eat nothing but stale grilled-cheese sandwiches until you straighten your cursive alphabet out.

Every time I sign my kids' agendas in the morning, I stare in horror at my handiwork, dreading what the teachers must be saying in the break room about how my kids can't get their mother to sign their agenda but have to enlist their little brother's help instead.

I'm so paranoid that I've asked my daughter Ana, "Has your teacher mentioned my signature? Does she know it's mine? What did she say?"

"Nothing, Mama...really. You're fine."

Yeah right.

I'd like to own my own signature, be proud of its "uniqueness", but as it is I really don't know who I am. I just can't figure out what it says. It could be my name - at least a couple letters from it (like the H and a...uh....hmmmmm) - or it could be some lost orc-speak from Middle Earth that could pull the whole world under the power of the one ring.

Scratch that. It's not pretty enough. Even an orc, twisted elves as they are, would be repulsed by it.

Every time I scrawl my X on the line of our tax forms or a check, my husband grunts in pure disgust. Each and every time. Yes, that is very ungallant of him, I agree, and you would think he had gotten used to its illegibility by now. I really can't call him on it, though, because "to love for beautiful cursive or for chicken scratch" wasn't in the vows. I probably shouldn't provoke him, either, because if he sees my signature too many more times, it could be bad.

I recently applied for a passport, and the forms asked for my "legal signature". I froze, started to sweat and stared blankly at the Postal Lady. Honestly I don't think my signature is real or "legal" in any language. Even if the US government accepts it, I could be dragged to the basements of foreign airports, detained by strange men with funny accents as they slam the table in front of me and shout ominously, "Our patience has run out! Now who are you really? Tell us what this says!" Covering my face with my hands and sobbing, "I don't know! I haven't known for years!" probably won't cut it.

If I'm to be brutally honest with myself, it's not just about the signature. My handwriting is atrocious in general. When I was in high school, I'm certain my teachers couldn't read my writing more than half the time and only gave me As because I did well on multiple choice tests.

As I persevered in writing a paper in my excruciatingly hideous scrawl one day in History, the pretty boy in the desk behind scolded me with, "Your handwriting looks like a man's!"

I didn't see what was so wrong with that at the time. It wasn't beautiful or feminine with soft curved letters or artistic curlicues, but what's wrong with writing like a man? Of course, judging by the tone in which he said it, what I think he meant to say was, "You write like a Neanderthal man, and not one who reproduced with modern humans!"

And that brings me to the love letters I wrote to my husband before we lived in the same state. He asked me to send them to his grandmother's address, because he was too embarrassed for his roommates to think he had an ape for a pen pal. His grandma opened a letter from me by mistake one day, and she apologized profusely. Matthew laughed and told her not to worry one bit. Then he held up the missive to show her.

"You wouldn't be able to read this anyway," he insisted.

She agreed, shaking her head and no doubt bemoaning the type of unruly girls her grandson insisted on courting.

But you have to give my man props for that. He spent a good deal of time deciphering each letter before he wrote back....or at least I assume so. Maybe that's why I received far fewer letters than I wrote; he couldn't quite make out my words or my feelings.

But at least I signed them.

Modesty, That Hard Battle

I'm just going to say it. I have struggled, and I still do struggle with modesty. I wore a tube top on my honeymoon, and unfortunately I have the pictures to prove it. (Stinkin pictures!) During the early years of marriage, I sometimes donned a tight, short jean dress that I can't believe I ever wore out in public. And even now I must confess that my favorite everyday look is a simple, brightly-hued tank top with a pair of  dark jeans.

Sigh.

What is so ironic about my past and present clothing choices is that there is nothing I hate so much in mainstream media as the constant glorification of immodesty. I absolutely despise ridiculous commercials with fully attired men gawking at women in string bikinis - worse yet if the women are giggling like idiots. I am furious that it is always women's bodies that are used as advertising bait for everything from alcohol to fast food to vehicles.

I do my best to turn these commercials as quickly as possible. My daughters should not be exposed to these cardboard cutouts of our sex or feel compelled to compete with flimsy portrayals of womanhood. I am upset that my 12-year-old son is bombarded with these cheap (because they are so very easy to come by) but alluring images as he watches anything from a football game to a sitcom. If I am not careful, all my sons and daughters will be slowly inculcated into a culture of progressive immodesty by a bombardment of redundant and insidious but attractive messages.

So I turn the channel as quick as I can, and likewise I turn the radio in the car when songs about hot girls in tight jeans or short dresses at a drunken party come on. (My kids all like country music, but the aforementioned lyrics are a common problem with the formulaic genre aptly dubbed "Bro Country" by a music critic.)

Women have always been judged more based on appearance than men. I know that. I also know it is the reason why so many of us struggle with modesty. An unhealthy competition among the female sex has been praised and an unhealthy appetite in males has been encouraged by all forms of media. And we pay for it in the ways we treat each other based on these appearances.

The last thing I want to do as a mother and wife is to speak one message while projecting another. I do not want to be a hypocrite. It's a hard battle. We none of us want to be frumpy or plain, but we also, I sincerely hope, do not want our cleavage or bum ogled by every weak male who passes by or to scandalize others with our "daring" wardrobe choices that rival the outfits of music video performers.

This has been brewing for awhile in my mind, and today I read some very interesting takes on modesty, and I thought they hot the nail straight on the head. They are from a Christian perspective, because I don't think modesty is valued very highly in the secular sphere, as is pretty obvious.

Modesty is an Opportunity to Love examines how modesty shows love and respect for ourselves and others, including the men in our community. Jennifer Fulwiler also wrote about how it improves female friendships in Modesty Helps Women Be Friends. That last one is spot on. Lies I Tell Myself About Modesty is perfect to share with daughters or young friends who are fighting to retain their dignity and freedom on this important issue.

Short, mostly unedited: Picture

Every year around Thanksgiving my husband and I grab one of our friends and ask nicely, "Can you talk a picture of our family in front of this tree/cactus/flowering shrub?" If our relatives and friends are lucky, this photo ends up as our Christmas card. It may be the only family picture we take all year. We have never had a professional portrait taken of us all together.

This trend started with the wedding. Even then we were not willing to pay a professional. A friend of my sister's offered to take both the engagement and wedding pics, and we gladly accepted. The pictures were not bad at all, but they were not the glossy, perfectly-staged, marvelously-lit, photo-shopped masterpieces of so many other couples.

Not movie stars, but very happy

And so it continues, not a single perfect family portrait. Not one couple's picture that makes us look like stunning, impossibly perfect movie stars.

Yeah, sure, we've gotten school pics of the kids - but not both fall and spring. We've gotten sport pictures, but not a whole portfolio. We've gone on vacation and caught cute moments, but often we've gone to capture those sweet stills of time and realized we forgot our camera. That has been a chronic problem.

One time when coming home from vacation, I told the kids not to worry. If they wanted to see pictures of themselves, they could always ask Aunt Vinca. We know she takes lots of pictures of her loved ones.

Alright, that was a joke. It's not as bad as that. We usually take 10 or so pictures on birthdays and five on Christmas morning. But we, regrettably, never even thought to take the month-by-month-baby-growth snapshots. And just this year I realized that I didn't perform that essential mommy task of capturing my little angels as they flitted off back to school that first morning. I mistakenly thought that tradition ended with kindergarten.

This awkward list of my deficiencies in camera manipulation could get me kicked out of certain Mom's clubs, I'm pretty certain.

But, still, I regret I didn't get those back-to-school pics this year (and I felt guilty as heck when I realized I was maybe the only mom who didn't post such adorable time-keepers on Facebook). I also wish I had more photos of me and my man making out for the lens in a field of wildflowers (if we were ever in a field of wildflowers?) or just smiling and clasping hands on a beach. And I certainly wish I didn't have to tell my dad that, sorry, we don't have any fancy pictures of Daniel, because he's not in school yet.

The only thing I can say in my defense is that all my years of growing up in Tennessee, my parents had the same four pictures of their kids up on the living room shelf. They never switched them out for more recent renderings. They were taken all in the same year, and we were for 11 years frozen in time just outside the kitchen door. I will always see myself as a chubby, golden-brown haired, slightly cross-eyed four-year-old.

Okay, that's not a very good defense in this age of never-ceasing technological advancement. Maybe I'm just not a photographer; it's not my medium. A picture is worth a thousand words, but even five hundred words do more than take a picture.

I love my kids madly, but the proof is in the time playing or conversing with, the discipline of, and the raising up of these timeless treasures known as our children, not in the family portraits. And you can bet that I have grabbed that camera to capture their sweet, silly, messy, outrageous and candid moments - provided the battery wasn't dead when I found it. And, yes, some of my favorite photos are from vacation when I snapped away happily as my family was collecting shells, jumping waves, or standing by exotic animals. But there have been times when a camera felt like a burden and the absence of its demanding weight felt like the freedom to enjoy the moment more thoroughly and more presently.

Still, this October our family will, for the first time ever, have a family portrait taken, and you can bet Danny will have his own glossy headshot.

So if you are a close relative, and I do actually remember to send out these pictures with the Christmas cards, don't ever say I never gave you nothin'. I may even send out the last two years of school and sports pics with them. Never fear, though, we won't let the professional photography go to our head. On Thanksgiving we'll still have our picture taken in our friend's backyard by some cypress tree or rose bush - just for old time's sake.

Facebook and My Habitual Failure to Launch

My family and friends might not believe it, but I have thoughts, too - ideas and dreams even. I just don't share them on Facebook.

Call me lazy. Call me a social media klutz. Tell me I need a smartphone, so I can stay "connected". Just don't slam me for having no reflections on life, because I do, my friends. Here are the slew, and I mean slew, of things I meant to share on Facebook in July:

The Lamb Chop Litmus Test for Home Cooks

My husband made a lovely lamb chop dinner for Mother's Day. It had fresh mint and rosemary and a white-wine cream sauce. I loved it, and I tried to replicate it. It was NOT  the same.

Either I messed up the ratio of ingredients - easy to mend - or it's a surefire sign that my man is meant to do all the cooking from now on. I'm going with that last one.

The Bonsai Trial (Like So Many Others)

Yep, my beautiful bonsai is already dying. It took me barely a month to destroy it.

One night over dinner I was telling my husband how Daniel knocked me into it as I was attempting to revive it, and it skewered my fingers with some of its bone-dry needles. I cried out, "I knew this bonsai didn't like me! It's like, 'I'd rather die than stay here with you, Lady!' "

Berto held up a forkful of food and pointed. "Or you'd rather kill it than have to take care of it."

Matthew eyes widened as he added, waving his fork accusingly, "Now normally Berto's not right when he says stuff like that, honey, but you got to admit - that's got a ring of truth."

"It's not true! I love my Bonsai. My poor little, beautiful tree." I turned sad eyes upon it to prove my point.

But our little Ella Belle had the last word:

"Maybe it's not a tree," she said. "Maybe it's a bush."

That explains everything.

My Favo-right Meal

When I gave birth to Ella, I had the best meal I've ever had in my life; a nurse brought me a platter of cheese and fresh fruit. It hit the spot, and there is no spot worth hitting quite like the one belonging to a woman post-labor.

No, I don't love to cook, but I do love the ingredients of this brilliant, simple meal:

Cheese, two or three varieties
Crackers, two kinds (one should be fancy)
Fruit (grapes, melon slices and strawberries recommended)
Sliced meat - optional
Crusty bread - optional
Raw veggies - always a good idea
Wine - very good idea

Enjoy!

Happy

All you need to be happy is the opportunity to watch your kids, even the 11-year-old, dance to the Happy song.

You look old

I found my first gray hair. I mean, really, it was iron lady material, coarse and shiny. Matthew has always claimed that I would finally start dying my hair when it turned gray. I have always protested that I shall not if it comes in as I hope: a thick, stylish skunk stripe (wait...that does sound stylish, right?)

But this was just one wee hair, and as I bent over, peering into the mirror, Matthew had just the solution for it: he brutally yanked it out and cried, "There!"

**************

Ooops, that was only five - hardly a slew. Oh, well...maybe I'm just not social media material.

Thoughtless Betrayal

This week my brain betrayed me again, and I've got the bruise on my thigh to prove it. I wasn't injured seriously, of course - that would spoil the game - but enough and in so ludicrous a fashion that any bystander couldn't help but laugh.

Normally, you understand, the two of us get along quite well, my brain and I; the command center has only my best interests in mind. Then there are times when I slam my own fingers in the sliding glass door. After I am done making incoherent noises that sound something like pig-Latin cursing, I say out loud, "Really?! How does that happen?"

How does it happen, indeed! Slamming someone else's fingers in a door is an honest mistake, but it's a rudimentary thing for my brain to advise my own fingers to remove themselves before a glass door trundles into them. There is either a leprechaun up there pushing buttons (as my brother always suggested), causing glitches, or I am hitting a snooze button inadvertently during some simple but necessary action.

I once...or twice....or, uh, a few times, tried to move a cookie sheet, fresh out of the oven, with no protective mitts, systematically killing the nerves in my hands. How does that happen?

Several times I've stood up into an open cabinet door, the one I just left open, scarring my back in a couple places. How does that happen?

Just two weeks ago I rounded the corner into the laundry room, shoving open the door, and planted my face square into the door jamb as I turned. Dear sweet heavens, I HATE having my glasses rammed into my brow and nasal bones - especially by me! And, blast it, my sweet, new spectacles got all bent out of shape. Now, really, and I mean really, how DOES that happen? 

The latest incident happened a couple of days ago. I was pitching baseballs to my youngest two outside when my daughter Ella decided to set up an old bat, its top missing, as a tee. She placed a hard plastic whiffle ball gingerly on the base of the handle and got ready to hit.

"Hurry up, Ella!" I said, standing right in front of her - not twenty feet away. "I promised to pitch Danny some more balls."

So she wound up and fired that ball at a bazillion miles an hour straight into the soft, fleshy part of my inner thigh (as opposed to the flabby, squashy part of my outer thigh). I immediately doubled over in pain and indignation. Crying out loud, didn't she see me standing right in front of her? Why on earth would she take out her poor mother like that? Couldn't she just tell me to move?

Ella rushed over and kept murmuring, "I'm sorry, Mama. I'm so sorry, Mama," as I stared at the pink half-moon on my leg for a couple moments in outraged silence. Then, quite suddenly, the absurdity struck me, and I began to chuckle, and chortle, and threw my head back in laughter. Ella quickly joined in, slapping her knees in relief.

"I was standing right in front of you!" I cried merrily, breathlessly. "And I didn't even move out of the way!"

And I know exactly what my bemused brain, that eternal mischief-maker, must have been thinking:

Well, lookey there! Wouldn't you know it? The girl has a sense of humor!

My thought is my gift - no rainchecks

They say it’s the thought that counts, and that’s lucky for me; my presentation is hideous – Christmas presents mangled up with string, cookies begrimed with runny frosting, and a signature so indecipherable, illegitimate even, I'd have to pay someone to autograph my work if I ever became famous.

But what if the thought is unshippable?

This morning I had an engagement present to send. I go to the United States Post Office to send such gifts of goodwill, because it's patriotic and philanthropic, considering the USPS deficit.

Today I hauled in bubble-wrapped wine, raspberry-habanero jam, and a few dozen plastic grocery bags to use as packing material and so free myself from their suffocating presence in my home while pawning them off on a relative. I stuffed them enthusiastically around wine and jam in a crisp, fresh box, hoping there were no dead insects to be discovered upon their arrival hundreds of miles away. I found a card that was perfect among the post office selection, and I had the cumbersome, official priority-tape dispenser on loan from a kind USPS employee.

"Take this - it's free," she said.

Free, yeah, but no instruction manual. I banged it against the counter top with a resounding crash while trying to wield it, caught my hand on its sharp cutter, and twisted the adhesive on itself, the dispenser and my fingers. Daniel, my preschooler, was yanking on the poor chained pens in an effort to free them and make Picassos of the Hold Mail cards as I tried to figure out which way the tape was supposed to face on its wheel. I taped myself, the plastic grocery bags, the table, and - with much difficulty and decidedly bad form - the box. I would have taped my son to the chained pens and their counter had he deigned to stay beside me.

Balls of discarded tape piled up on the counter. I thought, Free, my foot! They'll never let me have this tape again! Feeling self-conscious, I barely managed to repress a fit of laughter during my trials, pretending my broad, involuntary smile was provoked by my adorable, mischievous boy, but I grinned back at a middle-aged woman grinning at me as I slapped that tape on in folds and ripples across the seams of the box.

At last, a USPS employee called out, “Can I help someone?” And there was no one but me to help.

I trotted myself up there with my indecently-wrapped package. I’m surprised he didn’t say, “Well, it’s the thought that counts…” in the same wry way my son did when his birthday cupcakes wouldn’t dislodge from the pan, and I subsequently squished their crowns back on while trying to reshape their bruised bottoms.

"I have this package, and a card like this one that I put in it."

“Do you have anything liquid, breakable, perishable, and possibly hazardous in here?”

“Yes, I do,” I piped up. “Alcohol.”

“Can’t ship it,” he said, shaking his head and pursing lips.

“Really? You can’t?”

“No, I'm sorry. I could give you some shady advice, but..." He looked me over with sympathy or admiration. "Most people aren’t as honest as you are.”

“Well, I’ll pay for the box at least.” It was such a work of art, so much effort.

“The box is free, but you still owe me for the card.”

I laughed, and just then, Danny whispered urgently, “Mama, I need to go peepee!”

Of course. Well, it was truly time to bow out…gracefully, as I always do. I paid for the card, hurried home with my new found wine, and vowed to make the thought count another day - with better packaging.