tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238775437106383392024-03-13T18:48:55.560+01:00 Weaving in and outJennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-80293537178253767582024-02-19T00:04:00.014+01:002024-02-20T16:59:13.293+01:00#WilliKid<p> </p><p>There was only ten minutes in between the junior varsity and the varsity game. Ten minutes to explain how the scoreboard which was dedicated to my brother came to be. Ten minutes to leave people with a sense of who he was and why he mattered to so many people. Neal Curland spoke first. He thanked all the people who made this happen. </p><p>It went something like this...The Windham High School gym was beautifully renovated but there were only enough funds for one scoreboard. One. People were disappointed. Chatter began. Neal hatched an idea, went to the Board of Ed and got their support. Unusual, yes. But let's just say, Neal was highly motivated. </p><p>Why did one basketball player have such an impact that once Neal's idea was hatched to raise funds for the second scoreboard, $7,000 was raised in a matter of weeks? By the way, all of this was done without contacting our family. And those who donated? They have zero interest in being named. None. It was the best kept secret of the year. </p><p>Neal (himself a WHS alum) coached the basketball team Thad's senior year, and as it happened Neal wasn't all that much older than many of the players at that point. He's got stories. Some wild days trying to tame players who were a little resistant to discipline and order. Neal prevailed. And made life long friends in the process-friends who heard his call to rally one more time in the name of one of their own.</p><p>Janel, Thad's wife, thanked everyone for coming and said how much Thad would have loved and appreciated this gesture and how much it meant to our family, in particular his kids, Owen and Grace. </p><p>I didn't speak at the dedication but thought of all the time I'd spent in that high school. My siblings and I all went there. Our sister, Blair, painted a mural that survived a renovation and countless hallway re-paintings. My first job as a school counselor was there and after Dan, our older brother died, Thad and I pitched in and gave a small prize to a graduating student who loved art. We did that for ten years. But never in my wildest nightmares, did I see myself coming back here to memorialize another brother. I wasn't so sure how I felt about this. </p><p>But there I was. Sitting in the bleachers watching a basketball game next to best friends like it was 1985. And I wondered what the players were thinking as they waited patiently for their game to start. They had no idea who Thad was. </p><p>If they'd asked, I would have said, "He's all of you." </p><p>He is every kid that walked through those gym doors and tried out for the basketball team. He didn't have any money. He didn't have expensive sneakers. He's every kid who loved basketball, every kid who imagined playing in college or had even bigger dreams. He's every kid who wakes up and shows up, day after day, for the highs and the inevitable lows a sport can bring. He didn't have season after season of AAU or travel basketball. He had a dog to retrieve balls when he pitched them against the wall in our yard- he loved baseball too. He had any public basketball hoop. He had the local Y. He had a wide, easy smile and made what he had work. He didn't have parents devoting weekends and thousands of dollars a year to a sport. None of his friends did. Willimantic is just not that kind of place. </p><p>What kind of place is it then? It's the kind of place you're desperate to leave but you're proud to be from. It inspires hashtags like #WilliKid. It inspires love and devotion to the coaches, teachers, and adults in the community who stayed and loved these kids. Coaches took those kids and loved them hard enough to feel it and then served as life-long mentors. These same coaches took these big sloppy messes of kids and tamed them into teams. The kind of team that shows up when one of their own is lost to cancer and they celebrate that life. They put his name up in lights to remind the whole town Willimantic is good, the people are kind, and the kids have promise. </p><p>As Thad lay dying that Easter weekend a few years ago, he drifted in and out of consciousness. Lost in a haze of memories. Once he asked if the team (that only he could see at this point) was the varsity team. Someone gave him the answer he wanted and he drifted back to the movie playing in his head. That was the hardest week of my life. Harder than finding out about my own cancer. Harder than losing my older brother- his death was swift. There is mercy in that. There's little mercy in a death caused by cancer. But there was grace.</p><p>Grace in the form of a friend who came to read to him once a week. Grace in a high school friend that left his own busy life with four boys to regularly come sit and visit with Thad. Grace in the friend that FaceTimed from Portugal busy with his own life teaching, coaching, and raising three boys. Grace was the weekend in Florida to celebrate a college roommate's professional success. Grace in the form of a best friend who came and spent a week and got Thad, so tired he could barely walk, outside to feel the sun on his face. All were former teammates, lifelong friends, and Neal, of course. Our gratitude to all of you. </p><p>I don't typically associate a high school gym with moments like these, but that night I did. All the friends that came...and all the stories afterwards at a local bar. The night was full of laughing and friends and good memories. We've been sad for a long time. This didn't feel sad. It felt right. I think Thad would have loved it too-once he got over being mortified. </p><p>Thad didn't want a funeral, so we had a very private sprinkling of his ashes in a river in Vermont. But I was keenly aware that others needed to say good-bye too. This was a pretty excellent good-bye. And finally, it felt like closure-in a high school basketball gym. Who would have guessed? </p><p>You are loved, you are missed, but damn if your name won't be up there for a good thirty years. </p><p>The team won that night, by the way. đ</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2sKYuJyLqDulSa5nDHfNnY9aGvRHAHNa7AoSmAfnvdbCu3c6cNajOtEhWLGV79nZQz9b5vOD05xWClQ_53WjW_8MGcpFE0mOG_ZLYEYwU3PmpznII3XTCsAqW2jB4GMm8u_02M-FNZVz-WGS5F5L9bDmOQfEy_VZv7NxSxyY6F3g7F0VHJ6Fn5CPmIAO/s640/IMG_6631.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="494" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2sKYuJyLqDulSa5nDHfNnY9aGvRHAHNa7AoSmAfnvdbCu3c6cNajOtEhWLGV79nZQz9b5vOD05xWClQ_53WjW_8MGcpFE0mOG_ZLYEYwU3PmpznII3XTCsAqW2jB4GMm8u_02M-FNZVz-WGS5F5L9bDmOQfEy_VZv7NxSxyY6F3g7F0VHJ6Fn5CPmIAO/w247-h231/IMG_6631.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-33797755472763785042024-02-13T20:24:00.001+01:002024-02-13T20:24:55.512+01:00Thad<div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="x1n2onr6" id=":r30e:" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="x1n2onr6" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="x9f619 x1lliihq x4uap5 xkhd6sd" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;"><div class="x11jkl0l x182zwpg x8cjs6t x1ch86jh x80vd3b xckqwgs x1lq5wgf xgqcy7u x30kzoy x9jhf4c x13fuv20 xu3j5b3 x1q0q8m5 x26u7qi x178xt8z xm81vs4 xso031l xy80clv x6ikm8r x10wlt62" style="border-bottom-color: var(--divider); border-left-color: var(--divider); border-radius: 8px; border-right-color: var(--divider); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--divider); border-width: 1px; font-family: inherit; margin-left: 13px; margin-right: 13px; overflow: hidden;"><div class="" style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="x1iorvi4 x1pi30zi x1l90r2v x1swvt13" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px 16px;"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf xz62fqu x16ldp7u" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="xu06os2 x1ok221b" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--primary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When youâre asked by a friend, <span style="color: var(--primary-text); font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem;">âWould you like a copy of his obituary?â</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And you think, âMaybe. Do I?â</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>Where will I put it? Next to Danâs? In the âDead Brotherâ file which until now only held one? </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Who will find it? Will they even know? Will it get yellowed, soft, and torn, something to be thrown away with the rest of things people donât want any more once you too are gone? </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Do I want it? Heâs ashes. Memories and flashbacks. An unopened voicemail. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Do I want it? It says nothing of the suffering and the trauma and the body that failed him or of the confusion about why he was the one to lay wasted and gaunt haunted by âwhat ifs.â</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention the little boy so shy, heâd rather cover his head with a dishtowel than speak to you. It doesnât mention the first time he could dunk and you were the only one around to show. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention trudging along on the campus of the University of Southern Maine, so cold you had to take your earrings out because your ears were freezing, and tuck your chin into your jacket, your gaze on the ground to keep warm on the way to class. But because you did, you saw a flyer on the ground, an advertisement of the boys basketball game that night. His face, the player in profile, looking up at you from the ground. So you go and cheer for the opposing team. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention sharing a bedroom with him when youâre six and heâs four and he wakes up with the sun and jumps on your bed begging you to wake up. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention the ten thousand memories that make up a childhood and form a sibling bond. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention going to chemo with him for his first dose and youâre petrified and heâs petrified and heâs trying to remember all the medications he was supposed to take beforehand. And youâre no help. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And it doesnât say how he walked into chemo looking like a god among men who were already wasted but refusing to quit. No one in that room was a quitter. They talked of sports, of hometowns, and of better days. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">They loved him but maybe they also saw themselves in him, the way they were before. Before the cancer and the chemo, when they were gods, too. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention that he played with me the very first time I went on a golf course and he hugged me at the end and said, âYou did it.â</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It doesnât mention what that last week of hospice felt like. Maybe that part is a blessing. Because no amount of jumping on his bed saying, âWake up! Itâs morning!" was going to matter. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Morning came. And he was gone.</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl x1qjc9v5 xjbqb8w xjqpnuy xa49m3k xqeqjp1 x2hbi6w x13fuv20 xu3j5b3 x1q0q8m5 x26u7qi x972fbf xcfux6l x1qhh985 xm0m39n x9f619 x1ypdohk xdl72j9 x2lah0s xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x2lwn1j xeuugli xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x1n2onr6 x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1ja2u2z x1t137rt x1o1ewxj x3x9cwd x1e5q0jg x13rtm0m x1q0g3np x87ps6o x1lku1pv x1a2a7pz x1lliihq x1pdlv7q" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10222692700078878&set=a.1630907325295&__cft__[0]=AZVVDy-FPGm2l4sBB7Kt6GqvaXlpg_S6L8zY-2ztKzHkKNXqL9qXjkzRkpq_giQPY4Hd4ocIFlAd-YSr0RuQt12hIlZHSM9qeGlOsIP-m0YSX7vEBRhfLeIEE9IHui61ok9gcSzWwciItvlR82do-5fKXZ1vQYXlr0lkrBUT7Ny8eD9116pJP65peTwr5TgnON0&__tn__=EHH-R" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; align-items: stretch; border-bottom-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-left-color: var(--always-dark-overlay); border-radius: 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x1i1rx1s" style="box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: inset(50%); clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); font-family: inherit; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px; z-index: 0;">All reactions:</div><span aria-hidden="true" class="xrbpyxo x6ikm8r x10wlt62 xlyipyv x1exxlbk" style="float: left; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; width: 100px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="xt0b8zv x1e558r4" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 4px;">135</span></span></span><span class="xt0b8zv x2bj2ny xrbpyxo xl423tq" style="background-color: var(--surface-background); float: left; font-family: inherit; margin-left: -100px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="x1e558r4" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 4px;">Jillian Elliott, Pamela Q. Weaver and 133 others</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="x1e558r4" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 4px;"><br /></span></span></div></div></span></div></div><div class="x9f619 x1n2onr6 x1ja2u2z x78zum5 x2lah0s x1qughib x1qjc9v5 xozqiw3 x1q0g3np xykv574 xbmpl8g x4cne27 xifccgj" style="align-items: stretch; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #65676b; display: flex; flex-flow: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; justify-content: space-between; margin: -6px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-37755051642861967092024-02-11T23:22:00.021+01:002024-02-14T00:30:17.521+01:00Taming Coco<p> </p><p>The Coco Saga continues. Three private lessons were not enough to teach her some manners. It was off to Saturday school with all the other dogs that needed to amend their rude ways.</p><p>We were last to arrive at the facility. All the other dogs and their parents apparently subscribe to the 'If you aren't early, then you're late' philosophy. We are the kind of people that need frequent reminders of what day it is and on a Saturday, time is suspended if you're my husband. He only comes in if it's dark and sometimes not even then. We arrived two minutes before the start of class.</p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1rAZ9SnxP4cgkrCpbbT81pFc02Je8tGP84jCfGiy5l_hwzvc_Dw4X_GD234P8JoZLMZQkq61PFnrpAmzS4x-EtLIF_DU1LNYOaZVDp2xYvt_LOspHzMTfbEwFhc-vr4MxORHs8xx3YDxrdCCLIO008WCrObE2Ym2GhRMsmj6i5PIgNNROXrZ7aEx5r1E/s640/IMG_5123.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1rAZ9SnxP4cgkrCpbbT81pFc02Je8tGP84jCfGiy5l_hwzvc_Dw4X_GD234P8JoZLMZQkq61PFnrpAmzS4x-EtLIF_DU1LNYOaZVDp2xYvt_LOspHzMTfbEwFhc-vr4MxORHs8xx3YDxrdCCLIO008WCrObE2Ym2GhRMsmj6i5PIgNNROXrZ7aEx5r1E/s320/IMG_5123.PNG" width="150" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She claims she's just misunderstood. Don't fall for it.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Coco is very large- granted that's compared to the chihuahua and the terrier-mix who also live here. Though she does need the very large, take-up-half-the-living-room-dog crate. But all the other dogs? ENORMOUS. I wanted to leave. Clearly this was not the right class for us. The <i>enormous</i> dogs waited in the vestibule. We waited outside. Once the enormous dogs began filing in, we entered. </p><p>We found our space quite near the door- in case we needed a quick getaway. Me, Coco- whomever cracked first. In a surprise move, Coco cracked first. She reared up on her hind legs and gave her best bear impression. A solid move if you're a hiker confronted with a black bear. A brown bear will probably just eat you anyway. The other dogs perked up- a common enemy is such a good distraction. The French Bull Dog was already throwing a temper tantrum, he didn't care about Coco. He looked snack-sized next to the rest of the dogs. And he knew it. He shrieked and complained the whole class- he knew he walked into the wrong bar. </p><p>The other dogs: an Anatolian mix-you know, the ones bred to guard their flock against any and all intruders, a Rhodesian Ridgeback-bred to hunt lions, another couple of shepherds minding their own business, <i>twin</i> shepherds awaiting modeling contracts with Abercrombie and Fitch- they all looked like they would rather be anywhere else but here, though they were not doing bear impressions. </p><p>Then there was Lassie. Lassie was like Brooke Shields dropping by a very unorganized Book Club where no one read the book. Hair freshly blown out and slightly aloof in her demeanor, Lassie was already a professional. I'm convinced she was a plant to give the other rude dogs something to aspire to and other parents hope. Go home, Lassie. I'm not delusional. Coco will always be more Mick Jagger than Lassie. The French Bull Dog continued to shriek. I started to sweat. </p><p>I got the 40 dog treats out of my pocket. We went through 30 in six minutes. The last ten I broke into quarters, my fingernails savaged in the attempt. It's not easy breaking an inch-long dog treat baked rock hard into quarters. I silently begged her to behave herself lest we run out and she reverts to her savage ways.</p><p>After Coco's misguided attempt to command control of the room, she grew bored and gnawed on the orange cone marking her bubble. The trainer wasn't happy. Then Coco threw herself on the floor. "I think that's fine, don't you? Maybe she should just watch this class," I said to the trainer. The trainer didn't disagree exactly. But she did have other helpful things to say like, "Switch places with Lassie. Coco needs a bigger bubble." And, "Well, that didn't go too badly," at the end of class. But we did not get kicked out of class. Coco was invited back. </p><p>However, I made Doug go alone. I quit. I couldn't take the stress. The Frenchie is still attending. Poor guy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5qsRAHAitf584luurqHRcYry0YIfxPXUQ3XpXU6WKQUZrT0FRX9ZWUgd6XQo6NBj-zzbaTSEi4bDR4rnV7_zhM87WVtoGUpmsdtaYZ6VcpTIh_wGqsQtDMG1KAavw21S-RhyphenhyphenGhcyyrSoreABhURhsaZQfpo55e9q-KV7o-DhyphenhyphenhSjk6fi68DAInZ3vu69/s4032/CD20EFB9-3965-4E0E-AD01-57219B8710A2.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5qsRAHAitf584luurqHRcYry0YIfxPXUQ3XpXU6WKQUZrT0FRX9ZWUgd6XQo6NBj-zzbaTSEi4bDR4rnV7_zhM87WVtoGUpmsdtaYZ6VcpTIh_wGqsQtDMG1KAavw21S-RhyphenhyphenGhcyyrSoreABhURhsaZQfpo55e9q-KV7o-DhyphenhyphenhSjk6fi68DAInZ3vu69/s320/CD20EFB9-3965-4E0E-AD01-57219B8710A2.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-2888448099913051422020-02-03T15:03:00.001+01:002020-02-04T13:37:27.638+01:00The Importance of JLo. 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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I loved her costume. I loved Shakiraâs costume. I didnât find them offensive nor did I feel like "the kids should leave the room.â If my kids were in the same room, I would have pointed at JLo and said, âSheâs in her 50âs, too.â Besides have you seen what the kids are watching on Netflix or Tiktok or Youtube or a million other places? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iâm not advocating for unfettered internet access- keep them off social media as long as you can. But some of the shows they are watching are so good. They are good at laying all those things parents have a hard time talking about with their own kids right on the table. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">They take these âthingsâ and dissect them, hold them up to the light, and see how they apply to them in their own lives. And thatâs not a bad thing. So JLo and Skakira doing what they do better than nearly anyone else on the planet? Everyone should stop and watch. And a hundred million of us did. Except me. I was at work. I watched it the next morning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take what you want from that whole event. Athletes doing what they do best. Advertisers do what they do best. And JLo and Shakira doing what they do best- setting that stage on fire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I collect aprons. Itâs an unofficial collection that is used on a daily basis. But I wear one every day. I started this years ago after getting annoyed for the 1,000th time that my stomach always ended up wet while washing dishes. At 5â2â, I am just the wrong height for remaining dry while standing next to the sink. Aprons solved the problem. But then I came to appreciate the fact some had pockets for storing my glasses and some had pockets big enough to take a portable speaker with me as I traveled the house doing the necessary but mundane chores of everyday life. When I put my apron on, it means I am going to âworkâ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When JLo put that silver outfit on, she also went to work.She did what she does best and she will never apologize for it. Nor should she. Because what she just did was to give everyone a wake-up call. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Phone vibrating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me (also a Jen): âHello?â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">JLo: âHeyyyy, Jen. Whadda ya think?.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: âIt was better than I imagined it would be. People are freaking out.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">JLo: âI banged up my knees pretty good. But I think it was worth it. Did you see me on the pole?â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: âI did. You rocked it.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">JLo: âI just wanted to say hi but I gotta go. My daughter lost her iPhone. And we are late for school.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: âIce those knees. See ya.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Under that apron and that silver outfit, we are all the same. Age doesnât make all those feelings and desires and the need to feel sexy once in awhile go away. Itâs all still there. Under those aprons, beneath that extra 15 or 20 pounds. Underneath the worries children bring, underneath the layer of exhaustion work can add. JLo just brought it all front and center. She held what it means to be 50 up to the light for everyone to dissect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We may have kids in college. We have more silver than red in our hair. We may have just traded in a fun little car for the mom mobile, but we didnât trade in who we are at our core. We are still here. Just a (heart)beat away dancing to a JLo song. </span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-71113602521568862722019-11-17T07:06:00.000+01:002019-11-25T14:08:48.376+01:00Loving Lo<br />
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">It was move-in day at college. She
was in and we were both exhausted. It was 102 degrees but we did it. I swear it
was 83 degrees there at 4 a.m.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">I swiped my $8.00 parking ticket off my
windshield, bought her lunch, got a Carolina cap for my collection, and then I
left her standing in front of her dorm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">It's was too late to start the drive back. I
stayed in a hotel that night after deciding to leave in the morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">But talk about feeling
conflicted. I was telling her the story recently about how after she was born I
had postpartum depression. It took me awhile to feel like I bonded with her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">When I had my son, I would
have laid down on train tracks for him the minute after he was born. I expected
the same intense reaction when she was born but it didn't happen like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">Then her toddler years came
and she was so high energy and demanding and so smart, I often wondered out
loud if I was the right mother for her. Like seriously, had there been a mix
up? I had two other kids who were so content in the moment, who didn't defy me
fifty times a day, could this be right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">But when we moved to
Switzerland for an expat assignment, it was Lo I counted on. She was too
demanding, too relentless in her own needs for me to think too much about how
sad I was that first year. And it was a hard, hard year. That was when I
realized I needed her as much as she needed me. There was no mix-up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">Four more years of her doing
things her way and she picks the school so far away, there are palm trees on
campus and it's so damn hot the heat shimmers up from the sidewalk in waves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">We took three days to drive there. We shared a bed each night in the houses we stayed at. I didn't sleep
very well either night. She didn't either. But for different reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">We got to campus early and I
sat outside where you could have fried eggs on the sidewalk while she checked
herself in and got her room key. Then we moved it all in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">I hung up her dresses and
folded her towels and then we made her bed together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">Her bed is next to the window
and as we made it, I heard the train blow its whistle as it went through
downtown Columbia and I thought, "I'd lay down my life for hers in an
instant." I just couldn't love her more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21;">Loving Lo happened like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-32003716550185344392019-08-29T01:44:00.002+02:002024-02-13T14:20:22.696+01:00Show and Tell<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-2fb521bd-7fff-e0ac-9551-48a0f6e8eaa7" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today was âShow and Tellâ at work. I work in a private school. We get to do things like this. It was our very first back-to-work activity before kids arrive next week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was somewhere in the middle of the group and I had plenty of time to see what others decided to share. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They brought out photos and crafts their kids had made. They showed us recipes and talked about the irony of writing a secret recipe down. They talked about family jewelry and one fabulous story about a family with Welsh origins whose ancestors once burned a castle down. But they got theirs when their family home was burned to the ground in the Revolution. As he told that story, he unfurled a flag emblazoned with his family crest-a castle on fire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I clutched my neon yellow golf ball just a little bit tighter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My turn came. I chose not to stand. Some did. I just held out my hand and uncurled my fingers. It wasn't even a clean golf ball.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I open the trunk of my car, there's a pretty good chance golf balls will come rolling out. Once my clubs shifted on the drive to the course and the whole bag landed in the parking lot. Rookie mistakes. Because I'm just learning how to play. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'd waited all winter to learn how to play. I tried once when I was 29 or 30 but broke up with the guy who was teaching me. I kept the clubs. They were already antiques and he didn't care. I just shuffled them along basement to basement to basement for the next twenty years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But then my brother got sick. Heâs a good golfer. Maybe even very good. Tall and lean with the confidence of an life-long athlete. Some people can make a golf swing look like ballet. He could do that. Not that I'd ever actually seen him swing a golf club at that point. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the winter and his chemo treatments lingered on, we talked about golf. Iâd ask, âIs it time yet?â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">âNo, it's too cold. Let it get to 70 at least,â he would say while he massaged his hands cold with neuropathy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">âTake some lessons.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I did. I took two lessons and then I got some help buying the most beautiful set of golf clubs, a bag that weighs almost nothing and a whole lot of neon yellow golf balls. Unpacking them felt like Christmas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I made a pest of myself at the local driving range. They knew my name. They all knew my name. I had no idea what I was doing but I kept going anyway. I watched golf videos in bed at night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I took a couple more lessons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">âIs it time yet?â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">âAlmost.â He started feeling better. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The weather was getting warmer. The CT scans came back clear. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">âIs it time yet?â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">âYes.â</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We met at his house. My father made the third and we drove to a local course. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We got a cart but I walked. I was in the best shape of the three. My brother tried to get his hands to cooperate. My father sat under a tree on the third hole and called it a day. It wasn't as easy as it had been once. He was tired and couldn't get the ball to do what he wanted it to do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lost a couple of golf balls. Just lost them. Like they evaporated into thin air. I'm not sure how that happens. They were right </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">there</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And then they were gone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I had more. So Iâd put another one down and try not to send it careening into the woods or into a muddy bog. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We finished. All three of us. My dad finished sooner but we all finished. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I golfed some more. I played with friends I hadn't seen in a long while. I played with my brother and father again. His hands cooperating more. I didn't lose as many golf balls and my fatherâs competitive nature had him buying a seasonâs pass to the golf course. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He told stories of being a caddy when he was a kid. Monday nights were Caddy Nights. The caddies got to use the facilities for free. He expressed zero remorse beating kids who wagered their bikes on a golf game and then riding home on the bike he'd won. I enjoyed seeing that side of him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I played golf three times with an aunt that lives 630 miles away. We love everything about this sport. The clothes. The civility. The clubhouses. A martini in the clubhouse at Pinehurst was a summer highlight. Before golf we would go years without seeing each other. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I started my show and tell by explaining I was 52 and at 52, some things can't wait anymore. Sometimes you need something to shoot for, a reason to get up again. And I showed them my dirty golf ball.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summers feel as fleeting as shooting stars. A summer day is something to savor. A summer day sharing a toast with your brother who gets a hole in one? That's perfection. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even if you didn't get to play and actually see it happen because you forgot your golf shoes (another rookie mistake). It did happen and that's the stuff family stories are made of. Castles on fire and crafts your kids made. Family jewelry and yes, golf balls. </span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-size-adjust: auto;" />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-10069882456929850772018-08-14T21:30:00.002+02:002024-02-13T20:34:38.733+01:00Ginnie<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Every once in awhile I hear her catch her breath. Not a whimper- just a sudden small sigh. She doesnât move. Her hospital bed faces the window which looks out to the woods behind her home. Someone brought her yellow and white roses a few days ago. They are beginning to wilt and I am reminded of <i>Beauty and the Beast </i>and I wonder when the final rose petal will drop.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Her house is set up on a hill. A pond and a stream to the side. Her gardens; lilies, peonies, and tall grasses are all waking up but I am not sure she will see them bloom.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">She isnât interested in talking much and I am left to guess who she was and who she loved by what she owned. I see a photo of little girls in bathing suits from the 1920s, maybe. A sister? A pile of well-loved art supplies is on a bench near the front door. She was an artist. I wonder if she liked to paint outside. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I see many books on how to control your weight and then oneâŚ<i>Eat, Drink and Be Happy</i> and I think, finally! Ironically, she mostly refuses food now. Her diet, like that of a young infant, is entirely liquid. As she ages backward, her most basic needs need to be met once again. Though this time, unlike an infant, she is conscious of her need.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">She sleeps nearly twenty-four hours a day. But she isnât alone. She is fortunate. Her family comes and goes. A team of caregivers ready to help her if she asks. Though, she doesnât ask. Instead, she says sheâs tired and wants to sleep <i>forever</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">A lifetime of art made and collected is in this house. The house itself is art. Post and beam, the craftsmanâs art. It was her husbandâs dream to build the house, she tells me. âBuild the damn house,â is what she tells me she told him. She smiles telling me of the time she first saw him. 75 years later, he is still handsome to her. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">When she doesn't need me, I sit in what is surely her favorite chair in the living room. A book and her glasses on the table next to her chair. She hasnât finished the book if the bookmark is any indication. Nor will she. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">The morning sun pours in through the wall of windows that remind me of an altar and I am bathed in light and warmth. The post and beam home creaks when the wind blows, shifting and sighing. Through the monitor, I hear her doing the same. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I check on her and see her eyes moving underneath her eyelids. I wonder what movie she watches, which reel of her life plays for her. But maybe itâs not the past she dreams of.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Shifts are long, usually twelve hours. Yesterday was fourteen. I don't mind. I enjoy the quiet but a cup of tea helps in the early evening. Hating to break the silence, I tiptoe to the kitchen. She loved to cook. Two little dishes filled with salt and pepper, ready to add a pinch to whatever she is cooking, wait on the range. The kitchen, though beautiful, now lays dormant. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face="arial, sans-serif">As I make my tea, I recognize the name of the local artist who painted the picture hanging in the kitchen. Itâs lovely. A harbor. On a slow, summer day. A long strip of lawn draws your eye to the water and then up to the sky, the hem of heaven. The clouds drift by. All the edges are soft, like in a dream.</span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhurgiYYms899sDCya75vkNLQJdp2VqDnd5z5qCj0EY9k5RZHcucJQJfGv_kTEyNnak0L3Pv_N2zJcisZ72ZyYCEv6qYTc_XzpTEE4rOb_rIJeZix7RONjvnG40BWbXZTE7cWvTS9X8fjni/s1600/FullSizeRender+%25288%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="640" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhurgiYYms899sDCya75vkNLQJdp2VqDnd5z5qCj0EY9k5RZHcucJQJfGv_kTEyNnak0L3Pv_N2zJcisZ72ZyYCEv6qYTc_XzpTEE4rOb_rIJeZix7RONjvnG40BWbXZTE7cWvTS9X8fjni/s320/FullSizeRender+%25288%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I tell her how much I like the painting and why. She likes it for the same reasons. It hangs above the coffee station, the perfect piece to greet you before the new day starts, before youâve found your glasses, and before the caffeine kicks in.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I get her ready for bed. Her body is now like the painting. Her edges are soft, her skin like tissue paper. Her hair is white and tufted like the clouds in the painting. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">We do our awkward dance to get her out of bed and onto the commode. Her hands around my neck, we âwaltzâ, a step or two. I lower her and she is exhausted. I change her clothes and then we waltz back to bed. A dayâs work to move a few inches. I shake out the sheet, the coverlet, and the fleece and watch them float down to cover her. Finally, I tuck her in under the cloud of a down comforter. She is content.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">She wakes later. âWhich one are you?â she asks.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I tell her my name again, âJennifer.â</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">âSo, JennieâŚâ she says. And Jennie it is. I ask if sheâd like to watch tv. No is the answer I get but there was one show she did like to watch on tv. There was a western she enjoyed. She struggles to recall the name. It comes to her, â<i>Gunsmoke</i>. I liked <i>Gunsmoke</i>.â</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I offer to read to her. I brought a book that I thought maybe sheâd like. A friend has lent it to me. It is probably out of print at this point. <i>The Shape of a Year</i>, a womanâs reflection on gardening and life. She says no. Back in my bag it goes. Instead, we talk about events long ago. Current events donât really interest her.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I wander back to the living room so she can get busy again with the act of dying. Sometimes I hear her counting, â...21,22,23...â I don't think it's sheep she's counting. Seconds. I think she's counting the seconds. I wonder when the seconds turn to minutes and minutes to hours if she feels disappointed. How long does it take to die?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Her life has been long and from the outside, looks like it was wonderful. But I am in my 50âs now and know well enough very few people live a long life without a heartache of some sort.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Her stamina declines. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">The trip to the commode might as well be asking her to climb Mount Everest. One of the other caregivers explains to me how to change her and stops to tell me about her disabled grandson and how she uses the same technique on him. Everyone has a heartache.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I donât feel the heartache in the house though. I see a young girl who went to 17 different schools. I see the young woman who wore light blue on her wedding day. I see the young mother loving and chasing three children. I see the middle-aged woman who realized a dream and opened a business. I see the older woman who retired to spend time with her husband and now, I see a tired, elderly woman who never complains. Stoic to the end. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">When she wakes, we watch the birds come to the bird feeder her son-in-law and grandson hung outside her window. Itâs late spring. The birds are starting to come and they come in pairs. The cardinals and the goldfinches, the little brown songbirds and the bluejays who just watch from afar. We talk about marriage while we watch the birds eat. She saw her husband for the first time as he boarded the school bus. He wore yellow socks and a yellow sweater.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">âDo you think heaven will be pretty?â she asks later. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">I hope so. I hope heaven is all the colors she loves best, all the people she misses most, and has the best Manhattans sheâs ever tasted. I hope it's like the painting in the kitchen. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , sans-serif">As I drive away that evening, I glance back at the house. The wall of windows that let the sunlight pour in bathing me in light and warmth, were now glowing- lit from within, the light spilling down the hill and into the woods.</span>Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-56216351447623460452018-01-22T14:36:00.000+01:002018-01-24T01:26:15.217+01:00Teenagers and One-Way StreetsI parked in front of the oral surgeon's office. I gathered my things and got out of the car. I got all the way to the office door before realizing my son wasn't trailing behind me. He was still sitting in the car. I could see him taking off his sweatshirt and gathering up his own things but he was in slow motion which I very much understood.<br />
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I gave him a few more moments before I went to check him in. When he joined me, he was upset and angry with me he'd forgotten his earbuds. Music had been his plan to transport himself away- to wherever rappers hung out-while the surgeon did his thing. But recently I've realized when he is at his worst, he is also at his most anxious. </div>
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Earbuds or no earbuds, he was going in. The doctor assured the both of us he would be fine and well looked after. I put in my own imaginary earbuds and opened the book I'd brought. How I hated handing over my children for things they surely would find painful or uncomfortable. The first day of a new daycare, a shot at the pediatrician's office; all of it made little pieces of my heart break off. I know these things are for their own good but it's still hard. </div>
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The first time I handed over my newborn to the nurse, it was because his umbilical cord was still stubbornly attached and they felt they needed to remove it. I seriously felt faint. "Cauterize." The word even sounded horrible. I handed him over and stepped into the hall. I listened to his "white cry" (I'd named his cries-white was for pain) and I cried too. Eighteen years later and here we are another doctor's office.</div>
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The intervening eighteen years have been so fast. Lightning fast. It's hard to believe he's standing on the cusp of adulthood. Two more weeks between me and tattoo parlors, joining the military, signing contracts, and getting married legally (I would just drop dead if he came home married. Get all the tattoos you want, Buddy, save marriage for another decade). </div>
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When his surgery was all done, I was invited back to join him. Now for anyone that has ever raised a child, you <i>know </i>how a teen can look at you. Eyes hooded, barely looking you in the eye. Body language guarded. We have been living this dream for a few years in this house. I missed my son in his younger years. Climbing into bed for a snuggle, this perfect little face looking up at me, trusting what I had to say. And smiling. Where did all the smiles go? </div>
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Having a teenager is like driving down the street and finding out it's now one-way. Yesterday it was a perfectly normal street. Traffic went in both directions. You panic, pull over and turn around hoping you don't get killed or kill anyone else before you can get out. Everything about a teenager screams one way.<br />
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"Where are you going?"</div>
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"Out." </div>
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"What are you doing?"</div>
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"Nothing" </div>
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"Who are you meeting?" </div>
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"No one." </div>
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Sam was given a combination of laughing gas and novocaine. We'd decided against full-on anesthesia and rejected novocaine only as unnecessarily barbaric.</div>
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Laughing gas is bad, evil, addictive, neuron-killing, brain damaging, and to be avoided unless you are getting your wisdom teeth out. Because when he had laughing gas, his smile was as wide as when he was six years old and he has a beautiful smile (orthodontist approved). His gorgeous green eyes were wide open and trusting when he was looking at me. (Me!) It was a two-way street again. He was funny. I was even funny. I asked questions and he answered. Louis Armstrong even showed up singing, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzrABouyeE">"It's a Wonderful World"</a>, birds were chirping, and the sun was out. </div>
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And I thought, "Oh, thank God, he is still in there." He's just a teenager after all. I think he might have gotten a little lost in all those one-way streets too. It happens. Being a teenager is hard. Being a mother of a teenager might be even harder. But I'll be here. Waiting for those streets to open up again. </div>
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Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-1780198001200697592017-08-26T20:30:00.002+02:002017-09-03T22:27:13.987+02:00A Million Stars<br />
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Photo credit: <a href="http://thenightskyobserver.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html">The Night Sky Observer</a></td></tr>
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The Sagittarius teapot was bright in the sky. A few more degrees to the right and it would appear to tip enough to shower the earth below. The Milky Way, its steam, rising as it pours.<br />
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Despite the summer sky, Maine was cold earlier that week. We needed a fire in the woodstove to warm up the house. I didn't know it at the time but not too far away a friend and his family were also in Maine.<br />
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Hikers from all over come to Baxter State Park, home to Mount Katahdin, the tallest mountain in Maine. The land was a gift from a suspicious former governor unsure who he could trust to preserve the land. Not even the federal government has a say in what goes on there. Three people control what happens in that park; the Attorney General, the Commissioner of Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Director of the Maine State Forest Service. It belongs to the people of the State of Maine (as much as a mountain can belong to anyone).<br />
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It was a good night to huddle around a camp fire and then hunker down in a well-used sleeping bag. A good night to be with your two grown sons. A good night to be alive. </div>
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If anything can make you feel a pile of paperwork, a load of laundry or that the worries of today can wait until tomorrow, it's tramping through the woods. The Japanese call it "shinrin yoku" or forest bathing. The ultimate stress reliever. If anyone could appreciate a moment in the woods, it was him.<br />
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He had already summited. His last, though he didn't know it and he was on his way down. He died on the trail, doing what he loved in a place as close to heaven as he could get. I hope he didn't suffer. I'd like to think that in his final moments, he closed his eyes and saw the sky from the night before, imagined the constellations, the teapot, and the Milky Way, and he used them like explorers of old, letting the light from a million stars show him the way. </div>
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A friend called the next day. As is the way of the Universe, a baby is coming and she's on her way to her first delivery as a doula. The baby, a girl, won't be born under the exact same sky. This night sky will be hers and the light of a million and one stars will surely show her the way.</div>
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-40621380633493927982017-08-25T01:48:00.000+02:002017-09-03T22:34:58.311+02:00Senior Pictures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"This is the last time I am going to ask. When is your appointment for senior pictures and what are you going to wear?"<br />
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I got the date out of him but not what he was going to wear. Days go by. Two nights before, I couldn't take it and I asked yet again. Old habits die hard.<br />
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"What are you going to wear?" I said. I was slightly less nice this time clearly enunciating every vowel, every word. I closed my eyes to concentrate on delivering the sentence. I could even see the words behind my eyelids. Times New Roman 14 font. They were all in capitals. With periods between each word. I took a deep breath after the last word and opened my eyes.<br />
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"Can I wear that black shirt I wore to the semi-formal?" he said.<br />
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"No."<br />
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"Can I wear the striped one?"<br />
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"No."<br />
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"Can I wear this one?"<br />
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"No."<br />
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"Can I wear one of Dad's?"<br />
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"No."<br />
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I no longer even needed to look away from watching <i>Call the Midwife</i>. (I love how midwifery is pronounced.) I knew how this was going to end but it had to be his idea.<br />
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Last year, I spent hours as his personal shopper. I knew all the sales people at American Eagle and Hollister. I had begun to enjoy the ambiance in Hollister. They are masters of the beach theme. The mood lighting, the painted wood floor. The leather chairs. I liked it all. I had begun to think about applying for a job. Maybe Hollister does what casinos are rumored to do, confuse you. There's no night. No day. No seasons. Time stops. No Right. No wrong. Just you and 7,000 pairs of pre-ripped skinny jeans. Slot machines. Skinny jeans. Free drinks and cologne. I drank the Kool-aid.<br />
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I went home and everything was the wrong size.<br />
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I also once waitressed. I got really tired of waitressing. Wednesday nights were lobster night. I could hold a tray for eight. A tray of eight lobsters leaving the kitchen is very different from a tray eight lobsters coming back in. Eight lobster carcasses. Eight dried up baked potatoes skins. Eight barely nibbled ears of corn. Eight small bowls of left over butter. Eight crumpled lobster bibs.<br />
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And about a quart of lobster juice swishing and swashing all over the tray and eventually down the sides of my neck. Seeping in between my white collar and black bow tie. Trickling down my chest to mingle with the beads of sweat. Lobster night was very popular with everyone but the waitresses. I vowed to never, ever waitress again once I graduated from college. I felt oddly the same about Hollister and personal shopping now.<br />
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"Can we go shopping?" And there it was- his idea. <i>We </i>were going shopping.<br />
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"Yes."<br />
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Two ties, two shirts, and a trip to a Sonic later, we were home. The next morning, I woke him up and rushed him into the shower after taking mine. We needed to get going. I ironed his shirts and his ties worried about the time. I still needed to dry my own hair. Sam came in asking me to put his tie on.<br />
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Fumbling with the knot, I thought what am I doing, startling myself. I don't <i>need </i>to go. Was he supposed to do this alone? He probably wasn't even expecting me to go. He should do this alone. Ten months from now he will do everything alone (assuming he ever completes a college application). Do other mothers go? I couldn't remember...<br />
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"Okay. That looks pretty good. My keys are downstairs. Hurry up, you'll be late."<br />
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"Aren't you coming with me? You're coming, right?" he said. He has huge green eyes. When he was a tiny baby, I let him sleep with me. I couldn't bear to hear him cry. One morning, I woke up to see this tiny baby already awake staring at me. Checking me out. Quiet as a mouse. The two of us still getting to know each other.<br />
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He knew I'd go. My hair barely dry, with no makeup on, I went. I was the only mother there.<br />
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It was just me and Sam for a few minutes and then some of his friends came in. Sam joined them leaving me at a table alone.<br />
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I looked around and thought, I need to go<i>. I need to let him go.</i><br />
<i><br /></i> But it needed to be my idea.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-51033820114919925902017-07-12T17:21:00.001+02:002017-07-18T01:47:33.548+02:00When She Was Mine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Remember holding your brand new baby and being mesmerized? This baby was yours. Yours to take home. Yours to keep. You knew everything about this baby- every dimple, every roll, you knew what each cry meant. You wondered what she would look like all grown up. You see your face in hers, his eyes.<br />
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That baby grows. Still yours. But she begins to take on a look all her own.<br />
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She grows some more. She's both messy and compulsive, sensitive and funny and every once in awhile, pops out these made-up words. And then she'll laugh.<br />
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She gets a little taller. She can almost look you in the eye, so it's easy to see her roll hers. Her own look. Her own way of doing things. Sometimes you roll your eyes.<br />
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You still wonder what she's going to be like when she grows up.<br />
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Then she goes away for an extended period of time. It's the longest period of time you haven't seen her.<br />
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And she sends you a picture. Of herself. Except, you need to sit down.<br />
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Because you don't have to wonder anymore what she will be like all grown up. There it is. She's on a beach and it's that golden hour when everything seems to glow- her skin, her hair. She's luminous. She looks confident and happy-even though she is thousands of miles from home.<br />
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And you are reminded of when she was born and she was yours. Because she's not yours anymore.<br />
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Oh, you'll get to keep her a little while longer but that's all, that much you know. It's like checking your favorite book out of the library. You only get to keep it so long.<br />
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Except she is the best book ever. She's all your favorite stories rolled into one that will too soon begin with, "A long time ago, when you were mine..."<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-58745552772914965112017-07-11T15:22:00.000+02:002017-08-07T14:41:17.658+02:00The Cost of College"I thought I did everything right. I insisted on academic rigor. I insisted she join a sport, volunteer, and then drove her back and forth to a part-time job. I went to parent/teacher conferences, joined the PTO, and baked more cupcakes than I want to think about. She held up her end. She got honor roll and made good choices. We started looking at colleges. And it all fell apart."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Yale College Tour- was fabulous. No one in this house is going to Yale but was a beautiful day with loads of information given by a top notch college admissions officer</i>. <i>A great place to kick off the college search.</i></b></td></tr>
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That could be any parent. Could just as easily have been me. The reason it isn't is because I knew we were in trouble a long, long time ago.<br />
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I've been a high school guidance counselor for years. I've been watching and listening. I can find the stats that show just how many kids from each high school go to college. But that's much less telling than the stat that says how many kids go to college and then <i>actually </i>graduate.<br />
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Most kids aren't even graduating in four years. The average four-year graduation rate for Maine public colleges? 28.3%. Find out all the stats you want using <a href="http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/state/#state=me&sector=public_four">The Chronicle for Higher Education's website</a>. Try six years. Six years only to graduate with crippling debt hoping they find a job instead of coming home to live in their 10x12 bedroom and jockeying for position in the driveway. Average debt for the graduating class of 2016? $32,000 and change. Average monthly payment? $351. Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. For more scary facts, check out <a href="https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/">Student Loan Hero</a>.<br />
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But before we even have to deal with the debt a college education brings, first we need to figure out how to finance college. A summer job is nice. Good life experience. Good for developing that sense of responsibility in a teen. But don't expect the earnings to cover much of the college bill. At best, they might save enough for spending money for the year- assuming they can even find a job.<br />
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How about scholarships? Must be plenty of those around, right? Some, there are definitely some. Check your high school guidance office for the local scholarships. Competition is much less fierce for these. Usually, the competition is limited only to the immediate geographical area versus the national scholarships.<br />
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How about merit money? A lot of colleges offer merit money. The catch here is your child will most likely need to be in the top twenty-five percent of the applicants at that particular college to be eligible. Check the freshman profile for that college (profile usually means GPA, rank, and SAT/ACT scores). Look on sites like <i><a href="http://www.collegedata.com/">Collegedata</a> </i>for that information. Curious about the University of Southern Maine? <a href="http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=66">Here you go.</a> Google "merit scholarships University of Southern Maine". Here's what you can find...the <a href="https://usm.maine.edu/scholarships/presidents-scholar-award">Presidential Scholarship</a>.<br />
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Want to know if there is any possibility of this earth you can afford that college? Try using the college's Net Price Calculator. Every college and university is required to have one. The reliability depends on how good the calculator is that the college has put up. <a href="https://bowdoin.studentaidcalculator.com/survey.aspx">Here is Bowdoin's.</a><br />
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You can also fill out the <i>FAFSA4caster</i>. Everyone should fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)- even if you think you won't get federal aid. By filling out the <i>FAFSA4caster</i> you can get an early idea of aid eligibility; grants, loans, or work-study. If you aren't sure of the difference between a loan or a grant or what work study means, here's a <a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/glossary#Federal_Student_Aid">glossary</a>.<br />
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By the way, if you have a senior, the FAFSA can be completed beginning October 1. You'll need your tax information and a <a class="" href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out/fsaid">FSA</a><a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out/fsaid"> ID</a>. You can apply for these now (one for you and one for your child- you both need one to electronically sign). If you feel overwhelmed already and that's pretty normal, <a href="http://www.famemaine.com/education/topics/filing-the-fafsa/">FAME</a> (Finance Authority of Maine) can help. Outside of Maine, there is probably something similar in each state. Connecticut, for example, offers <a href="http://www.collegegoalsundayct.org/">College Goal Sunday</a>.<br />
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You may also need to complete the <a href="https://student.collegeboard.org/css-financial-aid-profile">CSS Profile</a>. It asks for more detailed information than the FAFSA and it's not free to fill out (bummer, right?). But a lot of private colleges will insist they receive it in order to decide how to disburse <u>non-federal</u> aid.<br />
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Here's a golden nugget of information...if your child qualifies for free or reduced lunch there are PSAT, SAT. ACT, CSS Profile, and college application fee waivers available in your high school guidance office. Ask for them! Don't be shy.<br />
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Look for the deals. Maine residents apply free at USM and sometimes if you attend a college tour, you may get the application fee waived. Ask.<br />
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Help is out there. Join a Facebook group. <i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/PayingForCollege101/">Paying for College 101</a></i> is a great one for tips and support. You are not alone. Parents all over are struggling to make this work.<br />
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You will need to be your child's advocate. You will need to be involved. You will need to understand what you can afford. Your child will need to understand what you can afford. It will save so much heartache when you feel it's all falling apart.<br />
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The cost of college is out of control. But you don't have to feel like you have no control. You do. Community college, in-state colleges, generous private colleges- investigate all of them. Throw a wide net and always, always have a backup plan.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-62882845128137325402017-07-03T18:04:00.002+02:002017-07-06T02:47:59.669+02:00{the} Lost Kitchen: An Adventure for the Soul<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
I'd never heard of a supper club until I spent a few years living in Switzerland. I stumbled across an article about Jim Haynes and his supper club in Paris. For thirty years, he's been taking first come, first serve reservations for his Sunday dinners. I dragged along eight skeptical people, my kids being the worst of the skeptics, and showed up at his garden gate on an Easter Sunday. </div>
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But his dinners were clearly more about the chance encounters with dinner guests from all over the world than the food. Instant friends for a night. The dinner itself was average but add in fairy lights, a garden in Paris behind a locked gate, people of all ages and from all walks of life and it was magical. </div>
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Even misplacing my youngest briefly who had gotten tired and solved the problem herself, didn't dampen the magic.</div>
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It just became part of the story,<i> "I couldn't find you. I looked all over. It was Dad that saw you asleep in some else's garden, all curled up on a bench with his jacket as your pillow. We said our goodbyes and then Dad picked you up and carried you, still sleeping, through the quiet streets to the metro on an Easter night in Paris."</i></div>
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So when I heard about Erin French and the original Lost Kitchen secret supper club in Belfast, Maine, I was intrigued. I read that dinner was announced by flicking on her porch light on a Saturday night. Donations were taken and she cooked for whoever showed up. Except, her supper club <i>was </i>about the food. A little mystery and intrigue that only an underground supper club could provide didn't hurt and her reputation grew. She opened a restaurant.<br />
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But no one can sustain working twenty hour days, while also a wife and a mother, and a crash followed. An epic crash; divorce and the collateral damage that brings, The Lost Kitchen- gone. </div>
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She's since dusted herself off and found her feet back where she first learned to run, in Freedom, Maine. It appears she has all the support she needs this time. A proud and protective family singing her praises to anyone who wants to listen, the local community who believed in her and offered her a second chance-redemption in the form a new space in a restored mill, and the farmers- many of whom are women, many of whom also work at the restaurant. </div>
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Erin French's story reminds me of Cheryl Strayed's, author of <i>Wild: From Lost to Found</i>. Smart women, hurt and unsure how to move forward. And then they do. And it's big and it's bold. </div>
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But it's the lingering traces of vulnerability that makes these women so appealing. I don't know what it is like for them alone in the dark with only their heartbeat and their most private thoughts, whether they still doubt the truth of who they are or if they question whether their truth is in the dark or the light, but I hope they look toward the light. </div>
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I was looking north. Five and a half hours north. I drove and drove. Past all the familiar sights until they weren't anymore. Until the roofs were more steeply pitched and the roads rolled up and down. Cresting one vista and then another. Cell service would come and go. </div>
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Where Jim Haynes' supper club is all about <i>who </i>shows up for dinner, The Lost Kitchen is all about <i>what's </i>for dinner. Because this is no longer a supper club. It's Erin French's heart and soul. </div>
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{the} Lost Kitchen reimagined is simple food at its finest. Erin French is part<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"> artist, part conservationist, but all Maine when she talks about locally sourced ingredients...</span></div>
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<i>Squash flowers picked fresh that morning. The first of the season from a local organic farm. Squash blossoms are open in the morning making them perfect for stuffing, in this case with a smoky ricotta, that are then deep fried.</i></div>
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<i>Don't try that in the afternoon, says Erin. Open squash flowers are fleeting and like all of Spain, their work is done by 2:00 p.m.</i></div>
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<i>Dandelion greens. Kohlrabi. Red and white radishes to be smeared with butter. Goat cheese made that day.</i></div>
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<i>And oysters she probably plucked that morning from whatever saltwater habitat oysters live in.</i></div>
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<i>Pigs raised on farms where they can smell the sea and baby lettuce too sweet to cut up, so everyone must get their own.</i></div>
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<i>Dessert. </i></div>
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<i>Shortcakes disguised as scones or maybe scones disguised as shortcakes with grated lemon zest and candied ginger mixed in, then under-baked by one or two minutes. Shortcake rafts on a sea of strawberry compote which then gets buried under an avalanche of fresh Maine strawberries and whipped cream topped with edible flowers.</i> </div>
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(53 words to describe strawberry shortcake, I know.)<br />
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Though Erin is far prettier, she and Jim both share a ready smile and a willingness to share what they have with others. A supper club in a Paris garden or dinner hosted by Erin in a restored mill, both charming, both worthy of the trip. </div>
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If you want to have <a href="http://www.jim-haynes.com/">dinner with Jim</a>, you just need to email him and hop a flight to Paris. If you want to have dinner with Erin, set your alarm for 12:00 a.m. April 1. Then call. And call and call. She takes reservations until there aren't any more to be had. This year reservations closed by 11:00 a.m., April 1. </div>
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Be persistent. 10,000 people are also calling (no, really). The switchboard shuts down. It's lunacy.</div>
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But it's worth it. Adventures are also soul food.<br />
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<i><b>If you'd like to read my original blog on dinner with Jim, i<a href="http://weavinginandout.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-girl-named-rouge.html">t's here</a>.</b></i> </div>
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Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-40597451015451896442017-06-15T04:52:00.002+02:002017-06-19T04:44:19.832+02:00It Just Wasn't in the Plan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I heard from a friend I hadn't spoken to in awhile. She mentioned she divorced last week. I threw out some flip comments. What is there really to say she hasn't already heard or thought herself but then the next morning, I found myself still thinking about her. So I sent her another message of support. She responded, "I'll be okay. It just wasn't in the plan."<br />
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I think at some point most people find out that what you plan, may not always be what happens. And sometimes, it's a rather unwelcome surprise. Unemployment? That will screw up your plan. A sudden, life changing illness? Better come up with a new plan in a hurry. A baby born with issues you neither understand nor may be ready to cope with? Buckle up because you may not be the one doing the planning.<br />
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I recently reconnected with a college friend. I hadn't heard from him since 1987 or 1988. Last I knew he was young, single and his biggest concern was most likely finals. Now, he's the dad of triplet toddlers. One of whom he visits with a handful of flowers to place on her grave.<br />
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All three born too soon- but one tiny little girl was frailer than her sisters. He says it's changed him to his core. Now his Facebook feed is dominated by stories from the NICU or tales of triumph. A daughter who eats. One who handled a sleep study like a champ. Bonding with his babies came a finger touch at a time. They couldn't be held for a long, long while. His plans probably change every day,<br />
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So what do you do when your plan is suddenly stamped "REJECTED"?<br />
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Everything is planned. College plans. Wedding plans. Buy a house plan. Baby plans. Buy a bigger house plan. But life has a funny way of interfering with plans. I miss my friend Sara. She was a crazy one. Wild and hard working. Vivacious and athletic. She died in her back yard. A brain aneurysm in her early forties. That was not in the plan.<br />
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How do you let go of a plan? Takes courage for sure. Resilience helps- hope you have some. Maybe prayer helps. Maybe friends help. Maybe a nice glass of wine helps.<br />
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Today I read a few chapters of <i>Number the Stars</i> to fourth graders. It's a young girl's story of coming of age during World War II in Denmark and her role in helping to smuggle Danish Jews to Sweden away from the Nazis who controlled Denmark.<br />
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In one scene Annmarie watches as a group of Jews gets ready to be smuggled out. The Jews were bundled in tattered quilts and worn coats from strangers before getting on a boat in the darkest of night. But a young mother has no coat for her infant. Annmarie's mother disappears and comes back with a sweater belonging to Annmarie. It's much too big but it's made of red wool and can be wrapped around the baby probably twice keeping the newborn warm. Annmarie watches her mother bundle the baby and then fasten the heart shaped buttons.<br />
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Crossing the sea at night without knowing what your future holds, getting a divorce, losing a child, those all require a faith in the unknown. Faith might be just as important as a plan. And a little heart can't hurt.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-9159530082427119632017-06-06T04:31:00.001+02:002017-06-07T00:55:58.378+02:00Garden Rain<br />
A 4:15 text and suddenly, I am all kinds of motivated on a Sunday afternoon.<br />
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I've been thinking about this tag sale for months. I'd already counted all the holes in a perennial garden and figured I could use another eight or ten plants. I tried seeds. The May rains had washed them all away I think. Some neighbor might find lupine, delphinium, hollyhocks, and a few other treats popping up in their yard. Hope they like them.<br />
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I raced through my last two errands of the day hoping the rain would hold off just long enough for me to get there and pick out a few new plants. I pulled into her driveway relieved to see the potted plants still out. I ignored the "Beep for service" sign and got out of my car. I browsed the selection and tried to remember what I needed. My gardens frequently end up looking like a sample sale with one of everything. Multiples. I needed multiples. Multiples of what though? Anything that wasn't purple is what I decided.<br />
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I had already set aside a few white irises when I noticed the woman next to me. It was her. We've met before. Her eyes were the exact shade of blue-gray as her sweatshirt. She had garden pruners in her back pocket and she is always smiling. She asked what I was looking for. She joined me in the hunt. Pointing out things I might want to consider. But I was distracted. I kept glancing behind her. Where her gardens were.<br />
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Her gardens, even in early June and even in the rain, are a riot of color. Salmon colored poppies dominate the center of one garden. It's hard to take your eyes off them. She was still pointing to plants and making suggestions and then she said, "I have some planted over there. Want to go see it?" Yes, please. I didn't even care if my mint green Keds got dirty. And I love my mint green Keds.<br />
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She let me stop here and there. Letting me ask whatever I wanted. Touch whatever I wanted. We wandered over to those salmon colored poppies. She pointed out a flower her mother had given to her. It's spread like mad. But a good mad, not all Jack Nicholson mug shot mad. Then she pointed out a plant native to Connecticut that is a favorite of the Monarch butterflies- milkweed, I think. Monarchs need it. There isn't enough of it. So, she planted a buffet of milkweed for them.<br />
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A tall arching yellow rose with blooms the size of crab apples, towered in the distance. She said, "You can smell it, can't you?" It's a Yellow Rose of Texas given to her years ago by another gardener. Though apparently, it's not from Texas nor is it a rose. But oddly, I knew of the gardener friend she spoke of.<br />
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I remarked on a stunning double iris. That was her first iris ever and she is so worried about losing her irises that she makes sure she plants them in multiple locations- the gardener's equivalent of a designated survivor.<br />
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I admired a delicate purple flower with a ferny leaf- <i>Love in the Mist</i>. Sounds very romantic. All Heathcliff and Catherine- though if they had a flower it would probably be called "<i>Moor Drama.</i>" It came from a clipping she was given at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum recreating life as it was like in the early 1800's. No one ever offered me a clipping when I was at Sturbridge Village.<br />
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I admired a tall plant with flowers the color of sunset orange, "That's G-E-U-M," she said. I appreciated the fact she spelled it. I filed geum away on my brain's Pinterest Board under "Buy Some."<br />
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<i>Geum- photo credit to JParkes.co.uk</i></div>
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She must have five different colors of columbine- I have one. She has four-foot tall purples and pinks with double flowers but she said, "The hummingbirds don't seem to like those as much." And smaller ones that she stooped over to lift their heads up so we could admire the contrasting colors; pinks and yellows, purples and blues.<br />
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Her gardens are thriving and sprawling. Creeping out of their original beds and invading others sometimes. But she doesn't mind. She just keeps an eye on them and reigns them back in when needed.<br />
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She thought I might like a low growing plant and then described it. She explained she doesn't really care for the flowers on it- small, insignificant tangles of yellow- but the leaves.<br />
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The leaves have a velvety texture with a scalloped edge and when it rains, the raindrops bead up and hang on to the points of the scallops and because the center of the leaf dips, a drop is cradled there too. She walked down another path to show me and sure enough, enough rain had fallen that big fats drops sat on the leaves just as she described. Garden jewelry.<br />
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It finally began to rain with purpose. I put my new plants in my car, started driving home and I thought about how much I like people who garden. In general, I have found them to be patient, optimistic, and generous. What else do you really need?<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-69009303732808585912017-05-23T02:51:00.000+02:002017-05-23T21:08:50.591+02:00Five Reasons I Love YouWashington, D.C., May 20, 2017<br />
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I sat on the steps of the Carnegie Institution for Science with a drink called "Bee's Knees" (alright, it was my second but it had been a really long day and they were so delicious). I took off the sandals I'd bought three hours ago and stretched out my legs. </div>
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The music thumped behind me as the hugely tall doors were open to the rotunda which was doubling as the dance floor. Music, light, and laughter spilled out and down the steps onto P Street. I watched as the wedding coordinator set dozens of flame-less candles on the steps leading down to the sidewalk. A passer-by asked if a wedding was inside. I nodded.</div>
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Tanya and Jason had married the hour before. They had gathered up their closest friends and family, made a whole bunch <i>groomsmen </i>and <i>bridesmaids</i>, and rented a building smack in the heart of D.C. (a great big, glorious building with columns, marble floors, that marvelous rotunda, and a sweeping curved staircase). Of course, they did this all months- maybe years prior. He is an engineer and graduate of Penn State. She is a statistician and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. We can assume they are very, very organized. When I got married, on the other hand, we had not considered how to get from the ceremony to the reception, and we had to ask the best man for a ride.<br />
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Tanya chose bouquets of white and and barely blue hydrangeas, yellow crocuses, and yellow and white roses. The white roses had petals so big and velvety soft you <i>had </i>to touch them. The groomsmen wore yellow rose boutonnieres and green and white polka dot bow ties. Rumor has it only one in seven could tie a bow tie- even with YouTube to guide them (between them I bet there were at least a dozen degrees-none of which were useful at the moment). But they managed and dressed in light gray suits, with the groom wearing dark blue, they were ready.<br />
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The bridesmaids wore short teal chiffon gowns and carried hydrangea bouquets with stems wrapped in white satin. The best man, the groom's twin, didn't lose the rings but may have stolen the box the rings came in. It turns out the box is a perfect fit for his and his husband's ring. He did however, give what I assume was a tongue in cheek toast urging Tanya to reach out to him in times of need as he "knew Jason best." I predict Tanya will decline the invitation as she seems to have a pretty good idea on how to handle her new husband.</div>
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The maid of honor told of meeting Jason for the first time. Assured he loved dogs, she let her two one-hundred pound dogs out to greet Jason. As it turns out, Jason is a cat person and two hundred pounds of wagging tails was two hundred too many. But she suspected Tanya saw a future with Jason and that future included meeting her friends- even the friends who owned dogs, and even if Tanya had to tell a little white lie to make it come together.<br />
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The Reverend Kiana Hebron officiated. The traditional <i>Here Comes The Bride </i>was the bride's cue to begin her descent<i> </i>and Jason looked mighty glad to see her. The bride wore a floor length, sleeveless dress of white English lace with a deep V back. Personally, I think watching the groom watch the bride is one of the best parts of the whole wedding, don't you?<br />
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Warm and engaging, the Reverend set a tone both intimate and sweet, a feat considering the grandeur of the setting. The vows were both traditional and modern, like the reception. After she explained how the couple met (A bar crawl- no judgment, folks- they are young and living in D.C. I'd be at a bar crawl too if I was 30), she surprised both the guests <i>and </i>the bride and groom by reading from an exercise she had given the couple.<br />
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The couple was asked to separately write down five reasons why they loved each other. Among other things, the bride loved that Jason saw her as an equal and always, no matter the reason, if she was upset, he did his best to try to help. Jason wrote (and wrote and wrote- if he'd been asked to write ten reasons, I am sure we all would have missed dinner). He wrote of her willingness to give of herself to others and her ability to confront new situations with confidence. The reasons were funny and sweet and clearly showed the love between them.<br />
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After the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. were announced for the first time as husband and wife, they disappeared. I am not really sure where they went but I heard a lot of cheering coming from the Carnegie Library. That was when I had my first Bee's Knees. I didn't have my glasses but a very nice young woman with either perfect vision or contacts read the ingredient list to me. It was a winner.<br />
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The lemon raspberry cupcake was also a winner.<br />
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But I do wonder if maybe we should all think about five reasons. Five reason why you love your spouse, your most difficult child, your dog. Maybe five reasons why you're grateful to be alive.<br />
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While you are thinking about that, you might want to make a Bee's Knees.<br />
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<br />Bee's Knees</h3>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin</span></li>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">3/4 oz fresh lemon juice</span></li>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">3/4 oz honey simple syrup 1:1</span></li>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garnish with a lemon twist</span></li>
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Add all ingredients to your shaker except for the garnish. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist. Recipe courtesy of Post Prohibition Handcrafted Libations website. </div>
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<i><b>Best served someplace with beautiful view, great music, and surrounded by friends and family. </b></i> </div>
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-59139403672236940622017-05-16T03:24:00.000+02:002017-05-18T13:02:50.411+02:00 We Were Fourteen<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", "Bitstream Charter", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
With less than a month left of school, summer is just around the corner. Last summer, my fourteen-year-old daughter was invited to join a friend in Florida for a week. I really had a hard time deciding if I should let her go. I relented-mostly because she was relentless. A fourteen year old and a terrier have much in common-neither one ever lets anything go. </div>
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We arranged for her to fly down with two other friends. We got up at 3:00 a.m. and I drove the three to the airport. I bought them donuts and stood in line while they checked in. The airline check-in person offered to let me accompany them to the gate- to my daughter's horror. She vehemently assured me she could manage. She <u>did not</u> need me to walk her there. I proposed a compromise. I would stand in the TSA line with them and <i>then </i>disappear not-so-quietly into the sunrise.</div>
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Before I did, I trudged out my favorite airport related cautionary tales. I got their interest, at least briefly. It was almost enough. I wasn't done yet though, so I talked even faster. <em>Stick together. Pairs to the bathroom. No wandering off to shop. Don't leave your bags unattended.</em> One of the three said I sounded like his grandmother. Ungrateful kids. Did I not just tell them some of my best 'traveling alone in Europe' stories? I bet his grandmother didn't spend the night at Heathrow because it was cheaper than getting a hotel room (I don't know maybe she did, in which case, I'd probably really like her). That was a quality story. Incidentally, it was not the best idea I ever had but that was also part of the story.</div>
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I forced a kiss on my daughter and slipped under the ropes and out of line to watch the three navigate the x-ray things from afar. I sipped my coffee and watched like Miss Clavel from the Madeline books. I saw the first one show his iPhone with his electronic boarding pass to the first TSA officer. He got by. Took three steps. Then he spun around and waited for my daughter. She did the same. Three steps, then she spun to watch for the third traveler to get through. So, it wasn't second nature but they eventually remembered to wait until they were together before moving on to the next step.</div>
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And then without a backward glance, they were swallowed up in a sea of travelers.<br />
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I wandered back to the parking garage wondering if perhaps she was a bit spoiled, too indulged. Should I let her do these things? Seems extravagant. But maybe that's because when I was fourteen life was a little different.</div>
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I picked tobacco. Driving home along the highway, I passed the same tobacco sheds the kids were bused to all those years ago. At 6:00 a.m., with the morning sun shining on them just right, they looked beautiful-quintessential New England.</div>
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<i>Traditional New England. However, I'm pretty confident the entrance to hell is through one of those sheds. But first, you'll have to put on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt because that tobacco is sticky stuff. </i></h4>
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<i>The fact that it flowered was lost on me as a teen.</i></div>
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<i>The gauze unfurls for a canopy- which just made it hotter.</i></h4>
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That was a long summer. Get up at 5:00 a.m. Walk to the church parking lot to meet the chariot to hell. Stop at a convenience store for a burrito breakfast- only a fourteen year old can eat a burrito for breakfast. String up the tobacco. Fall asleep on the bus. Repeat. If you were competent, you were promoted to working inside the shed where the picked tobacco dried. Your job there was to string the tobacco along lathes, that when full, were hoisted to the rafters to dry.</div>
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A friend and I signed up to pick tobacco together. No idea exactly how many weeks we lasted. I have blocked much of it out. I do remember it was the same summer Lady Diana married Prince Charles. Always seemed ironic somehow to me. She was only a few years older than we were but it was more than an ocean that divided us.</div>
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This morning, there wasn't anyone in the fields. Maybe it was too early. Maybe machines do what teens used to do. Maybe NPR and a report from the Human Rights Watch citing nicotine poisoning in kids slowed the buses of kids to pick tobacco and that's good thing.</div>
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I got back in my car and drove the rest of the way home. I was grateful. I don't mind that I did pick tobacco. Picking tobacco just became part of my story. But I'm also glad she didn't pick tobacco. She has her own story to write. And maybe somewhere in it, there's a story about the time I let her fly to Florida by herself.</div>
Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-8223789844982382402017-04-27T16:20:00.000+02:002017-09-12T23:45:06.534+02:00"We're moving to Sweden?"How do you tell your children you're moving (possibly far, far away)?<br />
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I'm not sure I have the right answer but I definitely have the wrong answer.<br />
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Don't let a stranger tell them at a party. I know it's very exciting news and you are just bursting to tell someone- anyone. You settle on that cute little old man at the fundraiser you're attending. What's the harm, you think. You probably won't see him again anytime soon-after all you worked together a really, really long time ago and it's been years since you've seen him. Pat yourself on the back, he was so excited for you! An international work assignment and the whole family is going! Such a nice old man to wish you well.<br />
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Until you see him across the room speaking to your son on his way out. Your son looks at you, looks at the man, and then back at you. <i>And you know</i>. Goodbye, Little Old Man, who just spilled the secret of the decade.<br />
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Your son makes a beeline straight for you and says,"Mom, that man said to have a great time in Sweden and I am going to learn to speak Swedish! Mom, WHY DID HE SAY THAT?"<br />
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Accuracy first, transparency second. First things first, let's correct the country. It's Switzerland and a disturbing amount of Americans think they are interchangeable. And no, you assure him, he will not be learning Swedish, settle down. He will learn GERMAN. Oh, and this is going to be our secret for two more weeks until we tell your sisters (complete transparency still noticeably lacking).<br />
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Not our family's finest moment. Other families probably discuss things as adults and plan a date to unroll the news to the children and pets first- not sweet, little old men who can't keep a secret.<br />
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But the reality is, once you accept an overseas (or for that matter a domestic one) assignment, things happen very, very quickly. Many people are calling and decisions need to be made pronto. And that sweet moment where you are all at the dinner table with the grandparents on speaker phone spreading the good news, just never seems to happen.<br />
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Once I told the girls (my husband was off somewhere else, Sweden I think), they stormed off in a puddle of tears. I'm sure the youngest had no idea <i>why </i>she was crying but her sister was, therefore, she must. Sister solidarity.<br />
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We were lucky and my husband's company was generous offering us cross-cultural training; one day for me and two days for the kids, My husband was already living in Switzerland at this point and he forfeited his training but the kids and I enjoyed three full days of learning about the culture, looking at maps, and having a conference call with a really lovely family who had kids similarly aged living where we were going to live.<br />
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The trainer offered me useful tips like "invest in a good purse" as she looked at mine. I ignored that tip. You can also reserve the right to ignore advice (I bought hiking boots instead).<br />
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But if your company doesn't provide these benefits and you're forced to wing it, here is a do-it-yourself plan.<br />
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<ul>
<li> Go to the library and find some age appropriate books about your new home country. My kids were fascinated with a little book I found full of Swiss trivia (a Swiss engineer invented Velcro-who knew). </li>
<li>Reach out and use social media for all the powers of good it possesses. Find out who knows someone who knows someone who is living there. Think Kevin Bacon and the Six Degrees of Separation game. It works. Trust me.</li>
<li>'Leaving Parties' are important. Have one for your kids, Consider buying a notebook for kids to write their farewells to your children in. Use the same notebook, if there is room, when you leave to return to your permanent home (if your move is temporary).</li>
<li>Pack 'comfort foods' that will last for a few weeks if possible until you find acceptable substitutions in your new country.</li>
<li>Discourage well-meaning family and friends from indulging children in a 'pity party'. It won't help. Been there. Done that. Be firm and if someone isn't supportive, consider limiting contact- at least temporarily.</li>
<li>Reach out to other ex-pats. They are there and loads of them are so very friendly. It might feel like on-line dating but it works. You and your kids are most likely not the only lonely ones out there. You will need to step out of your comfort zone and pay attention, the kids are watching you. Your bravery will be contagious.</li>
<li>Google Earth! Find your new address and zoom way in. Go for a virtual walk in your new town. The level of detail is stunning.</li>
<li>Skype, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchap- all free ways to stay in touch but beware of what's age appropriate for your children.</li>
<li>Pack your sense of humor, You are going to need it.</li>
<li>Pack the tissues. I guarantee you'll cry when it's time to leave. Tell the kids it okay to cry. It's normal. Really messy but normal. Mop up all the tears and then lock the door. </li>
<li>If you won't be returning to the same house, let the kids write the house a goodbye letter. And if they can muster up the good will, a welcome letter to the new family. </li>
<li>Take pictures of all their favorite places; the hospital they were born in, the park, their school, the ice cream parlor- whatever places will tell of the story of them having lived there. </li>
</ul>
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Remember, it's an adventure. Adventures have their ups and downs. Each child will react differently and in their own time frame. And someday, sooner or later, the move will become part of their history- the story of them.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yhlL98iVt4-kXC1149wjPPWDw9yhCJbT9FCCyI1PxO6FrzRb51vZzWRXWuWVlIc86Tzt4r3Mftkg9XGmQJeDTd9GQG3pHOxa_UT9zer7Ob8WNO1nB075KQOHwL4ZogbYZG0EnlKa256W/s1600/Moving+Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yhlL98iVt4-kXC1149wjPPWDw9yhCJbT9FCCyI1PxO6FrzRb51vZzWRXWuWVlIc86Tzt4r3Mftkg9XGmQJeDTd9GQG3pHOxa_UT9zer7Ob8WNO1nB075KQOHwL4ZogbYZG0EnlKa256W/s400/Moving+Day.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It got better from here, I swear. JFK on the way to Switzerland.</i></span></b></div>
Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-30708107849235431602017-04-12T23:43:00.005+02:002017-06-18T03:23:33.505+02:00Family on the Fly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If I fold the third row of seats down (which was a complete waste of money as an option because no one will sit there anyway) an extra-large dog bed can fit in the back of my car. And if I curl up tight enough, I can fit on the extra-large dog bed. And if I am tired enough, I can nap. Anywhere. I tested this theory last fall at Schoodic Point.<br />
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Despite the fact it was the middle of the day and Schoodic was rather lively despite the lousy weather, I drifted off and woke up needing to wipe the drool from my chin. But I didn't unfurl right away. I listened to the passers-by and even overheard someone admire the interior color scheme of my car which I thought odd. I'm sure they would have thought it odder still knowing the owner overheard the compliment as she lay on a dog bed in the rear.<br />
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If you time it right, Schoodic is church on Sunday, a place of quiet contemplation to watch a sherbet sunset from your pew of pink granite. But it wasn't sunset and I didn't even get out of my car. I watched the misting rain bead up and drip down the windows I unwrapped a granola bar and chewed as I considered my current state. Granola bars are perfect for this. They require a serious amount of chewing. I heard the waves on the rocks and the chatter of tourists. And I wondered what to do next.<br />
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What brought me there is a story for another day but the long and the short of it is I was having trouble figuring out where I belonged.<br />
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I needed to sort it out. I called ahead to make sure <i>The Family Cottage</i> was vacant. Directions are fairly simple including "left at the flagpole" but I didn't need directions. I packed up some leftovers, a duffel bag of ill-thought-out clothing and channeling Cheryl Strayed, I headed north.<br />
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There were a few logistical issues- that I had no idea how to build a fire was the primary concern. Apparently, this thought had occurred to at least one other as well and he had a different idea about me staying in a cold cottage alone. I considered my predicament very, very briefly. So, goodbye Cheryl Strayed and hello Elizabeth Gilbert of <i>Eat, Pray, Love</i> fame as I willingly peeled off my clothes in the guest bedroom in <i>The Cottage Across The Road. </i>I climbed up and into bed slipping between ironed sheets and pulled a six-inch thick down comforter over my head.<br />
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I awoke to a view of hydrangeas outside the window of my bedroom. Their summer pastels had given way to the soft browns of fall. I heard the click of dogs' nails on the wooden floor and heard them come padding down the hall only to be disappointed by my closed bedroom door. A few quiet sniffs then they turned and padded away. I smelled coffee and considered the Maine morning in front of me.<br />
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What to do today? What to do for the next 100 days, for the next 15 years. How do I solve this problem? What can I live with? Which is how I found myself napping at Schoodic. Those are big, giant questions.<br />
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The windows started to fog and my legs started to cramp. I climbed over the seats and landed in the driver's seat with a thud. I looked to the left just in time to see four women climb into an enormous truck with a <i>Sisters on the Fly </i>logo on the side.<br />
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A little googling led me to their website. Once upon a time, a brave unconventional mother used to take her two girls out. As in outdoors to the rivers and the mountains where they learned how to fish and camp and a multitude of other outdoorsy type of things. Mazie, the mom, passed away but the sisters kept up their adventures eventually deciding this was way too much fun not to find a way to share the joy with other women. They came up with the idea of a group called <i>Sisters on the Fly </i>and for a nominal yearly fee, you get to band up with other women all looking for adventure. There are a few rules; <b><i>No men. No kids. Be nice. Have fun. </i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b> I cheered up. I made a mental note to join. The <b><i>Be Nice</i></b> part had some real appeal at that moment.<br />
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Then I went back to <i>The Cottage Across The Street</i>. I tried to help with dinner but my offers were mostly refused. Instead, I sat in a rocking chair in front of the windows and looked out over the bay. Geraniums lined the window sills ready to winter indoors, though a few plants were still thriving and hanging on to their last blooms on the deck. The dogs claimed the couch and I rocked in my chair. And I was told stories. Stories of choices made and stories of those without choices. Stories of what it takes to walk away, stories of what it takes to stay, and stories of what it takes to reinvent yourself.<br />
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The stories paused as dinner was mostly prepared. I tied my sneakers and went across the street. I was looking for something left behind last summer and returning something I hadn't meant to take home. Though my grandparents have been gone a long time their cottage remains.<br />
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I opened the door and stepped back in time. To last summer when I came with my girls and we saw the seals basking on the islands and pulled angry lobster from the ocean. To the day we went to Campobello and had <i>Tea with Eleanor</i>. To the Thanksgiving when I was 14 and I fired a shotgun for the first time. To walking through the door with one baby, then two, then three.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Tea with Eleanor</i></td></tr>
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I pass from the living room to the kitchen. The kitchen door jamb is crowded with markings. They start about at two feet up and go well past the six-foot mark. Names and dates next to lines marking the height of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They remind me of the growth rings of a tree. A family growing both in numbers and size.<br />
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And I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 1:9<br />
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<i>What has been will be again,</i><br />
<i>What has been done will be done again;</i><br />
<i>There is nothing new under the sun.</i><br />
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I am tired, weary even but not discomforted by that thought. Instead, it feels reassuring. Circular. Many of the best things are circular like pizza and wedding rings, sunflowers and the moon.<br />
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And I am reminded I do belong.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-81745096242327020942017-03-27T00:36:00.004+02:002021-12-26T20:46:13.668+01:00The True Cost of a Dog"How much did Fisher cost?" one of my kids asks. $350? $400? $575?<br />
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That all depends, I think. Fisher cost us $350. He was neutered, vetted, and transported. But that was a drop in the bucket in April, 2005.<br />
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Because by May, the price had gone up considerably.<br />
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What's a Mother's Day Brunch cost for 12? Because he ate it all. Right off the dining room table.<br />
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But then he'd lay on the floor and let the baby crawl over and lay her head on his stomach so she'd have a comfortable place to drink her bottle. Let's call it even on the brunch thing.<br />
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$2000 for an underground fence plus $99 unlimited training- mostly for me. We gave him the whole yard. One and a half acres. But if I crossed the street, he was coming too. Shock or no shock. I learned to stay in the yard and shout at neighbors from the fence line.<br />
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Two dozen cupcakes. All ready for a child to take to school. Gone. Cupcake wrappers and all. I learned to store things on top of the refrigerator or in the microwave. But not before at least another cake or two disappeared. I never learned about loaves of bread. Fisher loved a loaf of bread.<br />
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Oh, the Barbies. Dozens of Barbies were left a limb short when Fisher was teething.<br />
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He cost me a new Christmas stocking because the one my great-grandmother made was eaten to get to the chocolate surprise.<br />
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I saved the price of a watch because I was told when breakfast and dinner were to be served, what time to let him out, what time to let him in, and what time we were going to bed. He'd announce bedtime by starting up the stairs and waiting for me to follow. I knew the routine.<br />
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$275 is what the car rental company will charge you when they find fur in the rental.<br />
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What does it cost when your heart stops as you hear him falling down the stairs after what became his last attempt to come sleep next to you? A year of your life. Maybe more. And finding out you're too chicken to see if he died? That was expensive. I made my husband check. Because I knew I wasn't ready for that yet.<br />
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It cost weeks of decent sleep for the youngest who volunteered to sleep next to him downstairs as he adjusted to sleeping on the first floor.<br />
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What's it cost every time you open up the door and let him out hoping he doesn't break a leg going down the two stairs?<br />
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Your needed a fire in the fireplace after he insisted on going out the back door even though you knew the steps to the yard and the snow would be too much. You were right, he got stuck. You shivered and wondered just how many minutes you had in the pre-dawn dark before you died of hypothermia as you lifted a hundred pound lab up the stairs in your pajamas. I forget what propane costs.<br />
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And you're gonna need a new dog bed every few years as he goes from medium to large and then extra-large.<br />
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What does it cost when the first snow falls and you realize he still likes to travel? You see his footprints- the three paw prints are easy to see but the fourth- that right rear leg that he had to drag along, now that was distinctive. Even the neighbors knew who was sneaking in their yard. It'll cost a few irritated emails from the neighbors even though you silently cheer his cross-country shenanigans. Not bad for an old guy.<br />
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But when I came down the stairs on Saturday morning all I wanted was a cup of coffee. My throat was killing me. He didn't greet me. He lay on his bed. One glance told me how sick he was. I thought, I can't. Not yet.<br />
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I started to make the coffee. I couldn't make the coffee. Fisher and I needed to talk. It was his idea. I just needed convincing. A friend said her vet told her she'd know it was time because her dog would tell her. I was getting the message loud and clear. He was tired. Too tired to stand. Too tired to eat. It was too hard to breathe. There was nothing to do but agree. I woke up my husband. And then I made the coffee. Because then I had to tell the kids.<br />
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What's it cost when you tell two teenagers, "It's Fisher and he's sick." That's a big one. That's gonna cost a lot. A bucket load of tears.<br />
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It'll cost a $1.22 for half a gallon of gas plus half a gallon of tears to get the middle one from a sleepover so she can say good-bye.<br />
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It's another half gallon of gas and this time a couple of gallons of tears as ten hands pet him and tell him,"You were the best dog. It's okay. Don't be scared."<br />
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You watch the tears and the tissues drop to the floor in the vet's office.<br />
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It's another $1.22 for a half gallon of gas to bring Fisher home to find a place under the pines.<br />
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So, what did Fisher cost? A lot, you think. But not nearly what he was worth.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-43463768332844759972016-11-18T01:42:00.000+01:002016-11-29T14:02:58.002+01:00Never ReadyI saw the note on Facebook. She'd lost her dad which meant he'd lost his dad. Then a few months later, they lost their mom. I loved him once- a long time ago. I was swallowed up in his family for a long while. A big, boisterous, proud family.<br />
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I never had a meal last as long as I did in his parents' home or a Christmas Eve like I spent with him at his brother's home. Food. The food. Oh my God, the food.<br />
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His parents were older than most parents our age. They lived through the depression and his father fought in World War II. They wasted nothing and saved everything. They were DIYers before the catch phrase DIY was coined. They budgeted. They had coffee and cake at the ready always. They were both open and closed, formal and casual.<br />
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When I moseyed into their lives, I was 22 or 23 and they were in their 60s somewhere. Still vibrant. His father the more reserved of the two. His mother was more opinionated, more demonstrative, and I slightly feared her.<br />
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He and I lived in NYC for awhile as we tried to decide what to do with ourselves and whether we would do it together. The ultimate answer was decided close to Thanksgiving one year and I spent the Wednesday prior crying in a diner with my own dad. We weren't meant for each other- we knew that but it didn't make it any less miserable.<br />
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His parents didn't approve of our living arrangement and only visited once. I understood and while she didn't give me a seal of approval, she did tell me the bathroom was clean. I held on to that.<br />
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We visited them often spending weekends in their home (in separate quarters, of course). Typical for me was going to bed early and getting up early. I liked that arrangement. I'd creep down to the kitchen to find his father already there enjoying a cup of coffee at a small table. He'd offer to make me an egg and then he'd tell me a story. He stole bananas for his younger siblings when food was scarce in New York City in the 1930's. He shared some of the less harrowing stories from the war. He was a firefighter in the Bronx but got hurt and retired early.<br />
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Eventually, everyone else would wake up and it would get loud again.<br />
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His mother had so many names I couldn't keep them all straight. But I loved getting her to recite them. It was fun to listen to her roll the long sequence of first and middle names off her tongue.<br />
She wasn't soft and cuddly but she was strong and brave and the best cook you ever met.<br />
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I convinced her that a set of her recipes would be a nice thing for a future daughter-in-law to have. So, she wrote her most frequently used recipes in longhand and made multiple copies. I was not the future daughter-in-law but I still have my copies and every time I go buy tomatoes to make sauce, she's there. "Buy the best you can afford, Jen."<br />
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I don't make a lot of sauce, I barely cook. But I know that her cooking was how she said, "I love you." She loved to feed people. It was a cycle. She fed them, they came back. They brought friends. They brought lovers and then brought spouses. And eventually grandchildren. Seems like she knew what she was doing.<br />
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He died first- the seemingly healthier, though older, of the two. She followed within a few months. Fiercely independent to the end. Though no longer strong and suffering from dementia, she got out of bed and fell. A few days later she died.<br />
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I pass their house frequently. While it's not directly in my travels to the grocery store or town, it's only a small detour to drive by. When they bought the house, they didn't move in immediately but he was given a key. We snuck in one weekend and spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor. But once again, there's no one there. Our secret will stay in that house.<br />
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"I wasn't ready to lose them." he said.<br />
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I think he already knew everything they had to teach. Love your family. Hold it close. Be fierce. Be brave.<br />
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He was as ready as he ever could have been. Much as I can hear his mother's voice in my head, I hope he can hear his father's reassuring him that perhaps they aren't so far away after all.<br />
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His father is there in the quiet moments he shares with his own kids. They are there at every family gathering. Paul, I can hear your mother laughing, can you?<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-64431408230167184602016-05-09T02:20:00.003+02:002018-07-07T16:44:17.698+02:00It's Just Temporary It all feels temporary. Everything. The weather. Your friends. Your car. Your home. The body you inhabit. Size six today. Ten tomorrow. All temporary.<br />
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Some things are a longer kind of temporary- a marriage or your children. Maybe your children most of all. The pregnancies that seemed to last until you just 'can't do-it-one-more-day' abruptly end. The newborn that kept you up all night. The sore and cracked nipples from breastfeeding, just temporary- excruciating but temporary.<br />
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Preschool days, summers, bad haircuts, the car that smelled like sour milk- all gone. The jobs that come and go. The friends that flit in and then out, all controlled by the passage of time and destiny, in other words, temporary.<br />
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Lovers, mothers, and fathers. Babies and grandparents both sliding along the same continuum. Babies aggressive and uncompromising in their demands to walk, talk and then run to toddler hood are oblivious to time. Grandparents are well aware of the bittersweet thing called 'time'. Some days it's a friend and some days a foe.<br />
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I looked at a co-worker nearly twenty years my junior last week. I watched her profile. She's newly married and her face is unlined. Ready to cast a jealous eye, I dismissed it almost as soon as I was aware of the thought. Was I? No. Not jealous. Not even envious. Curious.<br />
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Does she know yet? Has she felt it? When will she realize she's temporary? Maybe not until she sees her own child crawl, stand, and then walk away from her. Maybe then. Maybe when she's the mother on Mother's Day. Someday she will see a picture of herself and think, "How did this happen?" And then maybe.<br />
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Maybe only some people feel temporary and others are so firmly rooted, it takes them by surprise. I don't know. I'm firmly in the camp called "Temporary". Always with the same thought not too far from the surface...It isn't a wolf (or maybe it is in disguise) but time and a few of his buddies-fate and destiny, that will threaten and eventually succeed to "...huff and puff and blow your house down".<br />
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There's a comfort in knowing everything is temporary. It softens the blow and opens the doors to different tomorrows. Maybe better tomorrows.<br />
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The only thing that feels permanent to me is that stupid tattoo I got five years ago. That is definitely permanent. Regrettably, unalterably, permanent.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-47009462364446537392016-04-24T00:00:00.000+02:002016-05-10T02:43:35.265+02:00Twenty minutesI found out what kind of mother I am today. I am the kind of mother that will drive for exactly twenty minutes wondering if a spider is in her pants biting her. Not 19 minutes. Not twenty-one. I will do this for my daughter. Because I love her and because it is very dangerous to take off your pants while you are driving. And because there was nowhere to pull over. But mostly, I was afraid to take off my pants.<br />
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Twenty minutes of tortured driving wondering how this could happen. Twenty minutes of feeling the lump under my jeans on my thigh. Biting me. Because it had the most unfortunate luck to be hiding in my jeans when I got dressed and now it was semi-crushed but fully pissed.<br />
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I am that kind of selfless mother who does not think of herself for twenty minutes in order to get her daughter where she needed to be on-time. Except it was a two-hour drive.<br />
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I remember the spider that had crawled into my shorts while driving the DC beltway. I was screaming. The good news was I wasn't driving. I remembered all the sea moles my brothers stuck in my bathing suit as a kid. Sea moles are like shell-less snails. Which is why I cracked and pulled into a Dunkin Donuts and announced I was taking off my pants in the parking lot. Lauren paled.<br />
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I went in- there was a bathroom. That I was afraid to take off my own pants is not the point. That it only turned out to be a piece of glass is not the point. The point is that I thought it was a spider and I kept it together for twenty minutes. That is a long time without crashing.<br />
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That is the kind of mother I am.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-42402015493544947402016-04-11T22:44:00.000+02:002017-09-12T23:54:37.616+02:00SundayWe got an invitation to go to a christening. I love babies. I love lunch and I love cake. Off went the email saying we were going. I asked what kind of gift card the baby preferred. The baby suggested a local wine shop. I knew this christening would be fun.<br />
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However, poor planning on my part meant I allowed my son to go to a friend's house for a sleepover the night before. Too late to say no, I warned him the 8:00 a.m. pickup for church at 10 was going to come awfully early. He said he'd be ready. He wasn't. So, we left him behind. A chaotic start. Feeling angry and tired of teen shenanigans, we drove to the church in the center of Hartford.<br />
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We'd been there a few times before, once for the wedding of a friend and once for the wedding of the couple now about to christen their baby. We found seating and settled in. The girls looked at me with pleading eyes, "How long will this last?" Two hours was my answer. I had no idea. I just make stuff up.<br />
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The girls settled in. I looked around. Half-listening, I noticed the parishioners; the older couples, the moms holding babies, the man sitting by himself holding his head in his hands, and the little boys leaning into their dads. I saw the choir and the organist who even with his back to us worked up an enthusiasm for playing the organ that Billy Joel himself would have admired. And I thought, "This is not a bad way to spend an hour or two a week."<br />
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Kids were pried away from their devices. Families were forced to get dressed and out of the house. To do what? If nothing else, to spend one quiet hour a week together. One hour where babies slept on their moms and their moms had nowhere else to go, no work emails to return, no multitasking. One hour where someone told stories many centuries old, then deciphered them for you. One hour to whisper. One hour of sitting together on the same pew. One hour.<br />
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The service ended and we left to drive to the luncheon at the family's home. My family's home. Filled with cousins, aunts, and uncles. New babies and their bigger cousins.<br />
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My daughter worried about homework said, "How long will we stay?" In my head, I was imagining myself as a gas tank with only 1/8th of a tank of gas in it. And I thought until I'm feeling peaceful and connected (and I've had cake). "Until I'm full," was my answer.<br />
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I chatted and laughed. Got tips for visiting D.C., invitations to hike, a baby to hold. I complained about my oldest to an aunt, "Don't worry. He will turn 30 eventually." She raised three teens on her own. She's been through it all; teen drivers, teens gone AWOL, exploding microwaves, it's hard to rile her up anymore. She's right. Thirty will arrive eventually.<br />
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I listened to my daughter ask my cousin's daughter, "How are we related again?" My cousin said, "It's complicated." But I disagreed. It wasn't complicated. They just <i>were- on a DNA cellular level</i>. A few hours passed in a blink.<br />
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I saw my cousin's wife sit on the stairs and take a breath- a moment in what had been a long weekend full of family and friends. I remember that level of exhaustion as a new mom. I don't miss it. But I hope in the frenzy of throwing a beautiful party, she looked around and admired what she'd done.<br />
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My daughter came around again, "Are you full yet?" Yes, I was full. We could go home.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2723877543710638339.post-75884749345517748332015-03-20T21:22:00.001+01:002015-03-21T09:45:07.322+01:00Classical Dim Sum<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"The real world is cooperative, not competitive." says Lily. Lily offers cooking, sewing, and piano lessons. Her musings on how the world works are for free.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Meet Lily. A pint sized, energetic, <span style="line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">Ăź</span>ber talented Chinese woman who taught me how to make dim sum today. She advertised cooking lessons on a local expat website. I convinced a friend to come along and reserved two spots.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We were late. Two other woman had beat us there. That made five of us; an American, a Scot, a Spaniard, an English woman, and Lily. Lily had all the ingredients out and was trying her best to break down a recipe she learned how to make as a child into something the rest of us could follow. Know this, dim sum takes a long time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Dim sum is what the southern Chinese say. It literally translates to 'snack'. It's a complicated snack. Lily says it's the Chinese equivalent of the Sunday roast. Buckle up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Her mother taught her. She can remember the whack of her neighbors' knives on Sundays as they chopped pork for dim sum- food processors aren't (or weren't at that point) common in China. Whack went the knives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lily's knife of choice is a meat cleaver which brings her to another story of growing up in China. She always wanted long hair. Her mother didn't think that was a good idea and would occasionally brandish a meat cleaver in an attempt to illustrate just how much Lily needed the occasional hated haircut. Lily's husband thinks it is just plain prudent to hide the meat cleavers when his mother-in-law visits. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Back to the dumplings. Pork makes the traditional filling as chicken would be saved for something else. Another Lily'ism...old hens make good soup, old roosters make a fine stir fry, and young hens lay small eggs. She fed assorted vegetables through the food processor as she explained why some were suited to a food processor and some were not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Garlic chives are not. Hand chop garlic chives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvWNq-2VZ37DP_LVbd6uVZ5y54TevqkotEgg3AXe6-l1AqZpfFQPAafYeT62c3sUzczTUGVAynB8K3uGS4E-iyQ8VrOgxbNbQe_p68CbjGh6M4Dun3CgEu0d0xTIDKVSHOD0StwAzKG4R/s1600/20150320_095945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvWNq-2VZ37DP_LVbd6uVZ5y54TevqkotEgg3AXe6-l1AqZpfFQPAafYeT62c3sUzczTUGVAynB8K3uGS4E-iyQ8VrOgxbNbQe_p68CbjGh6M4Dun3CgEu0d0xTIDKVSHOD0StwAzKG4R/s1600/20150320_095945.jpg" height="400" width="225" /></a></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Garlic chives</b></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Why? Because they are quite juicy and will be mushed in a food processor. Mush is bad. Creamy dim sum is bad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">B<span style="line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">ä</span>rlauch can go in a food processor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5t81iQNY4DeEnffmRvCtbsf-fOWIErQKRPGyn_tBT4b88b6aDgDKZQ67hZgMx4t_rDle-dF2dj3JHs3HEPwUgQS4sPMx5opmofi9viTOiz037y9P74p_Pvl-RZJKG8FfHBr1GBwYrVlT0/s1600/20150320_101017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5t81iQNY4DeEnffmRvCtbsf-fOWIErQKRPGyn_tBT4b88b6aDgDKZQ67hZgMx4t_rDle-dF2dj3JHs3HEPwUgQS4sPMx5opmofi9viTOiz037y9P74p_Pvl-RZJKG8FfHBr1GBwYrVlT0/s1600/20150320_101017.jpg" height="400" width="225" /></a></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: start;">B</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3999996185303px; text-align: start;">ä</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: start;">rlauch</span></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">B</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">ä</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">rlauch</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> translates to 'bear leek'. Why is it called b<span style="line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">ä</span>rlauch? Because when bears come out of hibernation, they eat this and it makes them happy. I'm going to believe this, mostly because I don't know a single bear to ask. And she did such a great impression of a bear delighted to find b<span style="line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">ä</span>rlauch, who am I to argue?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">B<span style="line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">ä</span>rlauch is also a good choice environmentally. It grows wild and it's free. Garlic chives, are not but they taste amazing. These were imported from Thailand unlike the parsley which was bought from the local farmer. Winter parsley is tough with woody stems. Into the food processor went the carrots, zucchini, Chinese cabbage, and b<span style="line-height: 23.3999996185303px;">ä</span>rlauch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lily was simultaneously making a chicken filling just because. That filling had the addition of shiitake mushrooms. You must first soak the mushrooms over night. That enhances the umami flavor. Don't throw out the liquid the mushrooms were soaking in. That will be added later.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Did you know there are five basic tastes? Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. Umami is the taste of Parmesan cheese, the tomato sauce on pizza, seafood, and soy sauce. Umami is also the taste of breast milk. Moving along...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In went the two kinds of soy sauce, oil, and spices including Szechuan pepper. Szechuan pepper is not spicy like you might think it is. Instead it makes you numb, not whole body numb like a good vodka and grapefruit can, just your lips and tongue. Seems like an odd spice to add but when paired with something spicy it is supposed to be a marriage made in heaven. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't know about that but I did eat one and yes, my tongue felt...odd. It got stuck in the way back of my throat and I had to go hang out in the bathroom and try to find it. I did. Then I had to go find something to eat to make my tongue happy again. Apparently, I wasn't supposed to chew it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Way before all of the Szechuan pepper nonsense, Lily had made a ball of dough and left it to rest while the fillings were prepared. It doesn't need to rise, just rest. Like my tongue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">While my tongue was resting, I checked out her apartment. A beautiful Steinway grand piano took up a third of the living room. 'Do you play?' Since she was four was the answer. I asked if she would play. She would definitely play. She would happily play. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The piano was a hundred years old and had recently spent a year being refurbished at Steinway in Hamburg, Germany. Only two original parts remained; the gorgeous wooden shell and something metal I've already forgotten. She said the mix of old and new gave it a unique sound. I started jumping up and down on the inside thinking I would get to hear it. Underneath the piano were about nine million Legos.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyxkY9oC6AuMvRVIKklbdClzRqm6KfGz0ufRBSE5dDRV1ErzHOCjVnmHUjkgQ2z35uTylmOjzPjyZwYLFvwRFO7MnEsko7-6DKOr-LD7sTb47NpAUtj_sfXhPgQcNOQD8I29VTxMmeq1PX/s1600/20150320_110124.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyxkY9oC6AuMvRVIKklbdClzRqm6KfGz0ufRBSE5dDRV1ErzHOCjVnmHUjkgQ2z35uTylmOjzPjyZwYLFvwRFO7MnEsko7-6DKOr-LD7sTb47NpAUtj_sfXhPgQcNOQD8I29VTxMmeq1PX/s1600/20150320_110124.jpg" height="400" width="225" /></a></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><b>Her two year old must like to play there. Seems like a good spot to me.</b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She once played at a party and showed up without a coat. She thought she was playing <i>inside</i>. Instead, she was playing <i>outside</i>. The host told her to pick out a coat. She picked out a mink. Evidently, if you play piano like she does, people give you mink coats. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She does give piano lessons but not to children. When she teaches a child piano (she will teach them to cook or sew- yes, she's good at that too. Did I mention she was a mechanical engineer?), she goes to bed unhappy. Kids can make some pretty harsh sounds on the piano. My son took piano lessons for four years. She speaks the truth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The fillings were done. We moved on to rolling out small, thin circles of dough. Not too big, not too thin, not too thick. Don't get filling anywhere near the edges. Seal the top closed first, then the sides. Side pleats are ideal because then they will sit up in the pot for cooking. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIb-i_qQXcmz41IsghsSArUI0P7Sl_eO8zKhH6zU_2QNS2eXbKOxz6bseeoocGlHWGkTY3Bz5cg6USPbbn-HeyAnB3Yoi0bnYWrMg1Q2ntu9By9yAnLYbsTB-pmFBf14LkVnpqhX9CbFQD/s1600/11041479_10155306672795652_1604484607_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIb-i_qQXcmz41IsghsSArUI0P7Sl_eO8zKhH6zU_2QNS2eXbKOxz6bseeoocGlHWGkTY3Bz5cg6USPbbn-HeyAnB3Yoi0bnYWrMg1Q2ntu9By9yAnLYbsTB-pmFBf14LkVnpqhX9CbFQD/s1600/11041479_10155306672795652_1604484607_n.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She showed us how her mother sealed the dim sum. I filed it away in the 'Advanced Cooking Skills' section in my brain. Typically, that's a one way journey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Talk turned to schooling in Switzerland, China, and in the US. In a nutshell, China is hypercompetitive, Switzerland has a more laid back, play centered approach in the first few years, and the US has a lot of tests and not enough outside time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That sorted, Lily talked about the pressure and the intense competition to always be in the top ten percent and how the indignity of failure (or perceived failure- less than top ten percent) is public. She did well. In college she wanted to major in environmental science but there weren't enough university spots for applicants. Instead, she was offered a spot in a military school as a civilian but with a major in mechanical engineering. She cried when she opened the letter. But she went. Her father was happy, she was decidedly not. They made her cut her hair. She began her planning in earnest to leave China. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There's an art to rolling the dough. Roll towards the center. Never let go of the dough. Turn it, pressure on the roll towards center, release it back to the edge. Repeat. Lots of sprinkled flour helps. Her mom taught her and she taught us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmCvpE5BJcj9CuK9vpgw2G5z1tb03MEnSM9-8s65uuyzgFVJ5KFrnI6A3WRPnihhLjLHdQKDzGGCrCHDbQgI2FUdyBSL0LXlti0vG6LeR4MrP690-o1W-05p7JMDUX5oiDdLCqV6Cmuo4/s1600/20150320_112526.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmCvpE5BJcj9CuK9vpgw2G5z1tb03MEnSM9-8s65uuyzgFVJ5KFrnI6A3WRPnihhLjLHdQKDzGGCrCHDbQgI2FUdyBSL0LXlti0vG6LeR4MrP690-o1W-05p7JMDUX5oiDdLCqV6Cmuo4/s1600/20150320_112526.jpg" height="400" width="225" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Lily said it was perfect!</b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It is a cooperative world. I think she's absolutely right. Thank goodness for the Lilys of the world.</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lily playing piano...she is amazing. My video skills, not so much.</span></b></i></div>
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<br />Jennifer Weaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199806759584035959noreply@blogger.com2