The night that Harriet met Ken.

I love to hear this story and with her permission, I'm sharing.

Harriet is my best friend. She is nearly ten years younger than I am, ten inches taller than me and has legs that go on forever. She and I met when both of our daughters were in Montessori and she and I spent one crazy year volunteering to serve Toddler lunch. It was an insane idea but somehow we made it work, referring to ourselves as thing one and thing two.

Now, Harriet has her own three children, ages 9,7 and 1 and is also raising her dead sister's two children,ages 12 and 10. She used to live three blocks away from me. Now she has moved out to what I refer to as "snotty land"...the western part of our city and she is so crazily busy that we have to settle for sharing a dinner once a month. It's always fun, we always drink just a little too much and end up laughing like lunatics.

This is the story of how she met her husband, Ken.

It was over a decade ago. Harriet had just turned 30 and for some reason this upset all of her friends and family much more than it upset her. They started trying to fix her up. She had more blind dates in one month than most people have in ten years. One particular night she was to meet her date at a local bar and eatery. This guy, Len, taught fourth grade at the school where her sister taught kindergarten.

"Len is wonderful," the sister told her. "He's tall, taller even than you and he looks just like Ricky Martin."

This was during Ricky's Livin' La Vida Loca years, way before he even thought about coming out of any closets. Looking at a picture from a school party, Harriet admitted that he did bear a striking resemblance to Ricky and told her sister that he was either gay or a serial killer, that is just the way these things go. Her sister insisted that neither was true, that he was always going out on dates with women, but had just never found the one. She wanted Harriet to be the one so badly.

Harriet agreed to meet him. She showed up at the bar a few minutes early in her ballet slippers, just in case he was not taller than her 5'11 self. She had slathered hair shine all over her long brown hair and wore a soft blue sweater with a black skirt. Casual. Not too casual. She had tried to put in her contacts but they weren't cooperating, so she settled for taking off her horn rimmed glasses and putting them in her purse and had to resort of squinting to see anything. She walked into the bar and settled at a free table, furtively taking out her glasses and peeking around. She thought she saw him, but no...that couldn't be him. This guy was a Ricky lookalike, but he seemed engrossed in conversation with a girl who looked like she had just rolled out of bed.

"The girl looked like one of those sexy, slutty girls," Harriet told me. "Sort of like Madonna in "Desperately Seeking Susan."

Harriet ordered a gin and tonic and sat at her table. She looked up and there was this guy standing there.

"I don't suppose you're Trudy?" he asked her.

She said no, she wasn't. He sighed. Told her that he was meeting a blind date but messed up and said, "blonde date" instead and then had to correct himself.

"Well," he told her. "My brother did say that she was blonde and that she would be wearing a black skirt. I'm Ken, by the way." He looked around. Lots of black skirts in the room. He asked her if he could join her while he waited and she said okay, that she was meeting a blind date too.

So, you can figure it out. They soon realized that Harriet's date and Ken's date were the happy flirting couple at the table across the room.

"It was obvious," Harriet said. "And to be honest, they were like a few steps up and out of both of our leagues, that much was obvious. You know how you can tell just by looking at someone when they are in a class of better looking than you? Well, that much was clear. Ken reminded me of Dick Cavett. He was in my league. We decided to take the plunge and just go up to the good looking couple and ask them. So, Ken stands up and I stand up and I immediately want to sit down because...fuck it all to hell...he is like 5'7 and I was towering over him like Big Bird. But...he was already on his way to their table, so I followed him. And yeah...we were right. They both acted all innocent and surprised and to Ricky Martin's credit, he stood up and was prepared to go eat dinner with me.

And then, Ken did something that just got to me. He suggested that maybe they should eat together and we should too. He said that he'd already met me and if it was okay with me, he'd really, really enjoy having dinner with me. Was that okay with everyone? Well, Ricky and Madonna looked pleased as all get out and I found that I was too. So, that is what we did. They left the bar, probably went to her apartment to fuck their socks off, she looked like that was a typical date for her. And Ken and I had dinner."

So, I asked her..was it fun? Did stars fall on Alabama?

They did, she said. She said that they sat down and ended up talking for two hours. When she told him that her sister would be mad that she hadn't eaten with Ricky, Ken smiled at her and said, "Hey, he is WAY too good looking. He's either gay or a serial killer."

He said the EXACT same thing that I said to my sister! It was karma. I knew it right from the start.

After dinner, they walked to a nearby ice cream shoppe and split a banana split. Another something in common: they both adored banana splits.

"It kind of bothered me that I was four inches taller than he was," she said. "But, after a surprisingly short time, I barely noticed. And he WAS kind of scrawny, I figured that I probably had at least ten pounds on him, but by that time, it was too late. I was mad for him. He was mad for me. We got married within a year and our son was born exactly nine months later."

They are still together.

They have survived the loss of his cherished brother and her cherished sister. His brother from AIDS, her sister from cancer. They are now raising his brother's three cats: Billie Joe, Bobbie Joe and Betty Jo. They are also raising her sister's two children. He has lost two jobs due to downsizing in the past six years but luckily found new ones. They gave up their tiny little house in Dundee to move into a big ugly new house in West Omaha. They plan to move into another little bungalow once the kids are grown and gone.

Ken was with her for the births of their 2 sons and 1 daughter. He fainted during the birth of their first child and she never lets him forget it.

"Nobody prepared me for how freakin' GORY it would be," he protests.

Ken is the kind of father who doesn't say that he babysits when he takes care of his own children. He is allergic to dogs and still bought their kids a dog because he thinks every kid needs one. He knows how to work the dishwasher and the washer and dryer. He does all the Christmas baking and makes a big Sunday dinner every single week. He is a runner and isn't embarrassed to run with a stroller so that Harriet can have some down time in the evenings after dinner.

They aren't inclined to PDAs and for that, I am profoundly grateful.

But, they love each other. Harriet told me that a few months after she and Ken started dating and it looked like it was getting pretty serious, Ricky called her and asked her out on a date, said that he always regretted their missed dinner.

Harriet told him, sorry...she was taken.

When she got off the phone, she turned to Ken, who had been sitting on her sofa watching a movie with her when Ricky called.

"I just told Ricky that I was taken," she told him. "Am I? Taken?"

He smiled hugely at her.

"Oh, yeah. Definitely," he answered.

And so it went.

I like a good happily ever after. Don't you?

In laws

Most of us have them.

I admit that I am not crazy about my in laws. Bing has two sisters and a twin brother. I have never met the brother, he lives abroad and doesn't visit or encourage visitors. One of her sisters lives in our city and I have a so-so relationship with her. I neither like nor dislike her, really. Bing's other sister, Francesca, lives in Chicago. She is a real life CSI and is one year younger than Bing. Never married. Is fiercely devoted to her cat. Francesca is very difficult to get along with. I am convinced that she, like Bing's mother, is bipolar, but she has never been diagnosed.

Francesca is the kind of person who never likes whatever gift that you give her for her birthday or Christmas. She doesn't even try to fake it. She opens the gift, her mouth turns down and she she immediately proclaims to dislike it. She then offers it up to anyone who wants it. Once, two years ago, when I bought her (because I am the designated gift buyer and card sender in our marriage, there is always one) a candle set after listening to her wax poetically about how much she loved candles a few months previously, she opened it up and frowned. Were these beeswax because she only liked bees wax candles. I said that they were. She wasn't crazy about the color, thought they were too dark, she liked bright, pastel colored candles.

And then she looked at me and said the meanest thing:

"Is this a re-gift? Because I can't believe you picked these out."

I got up as quietly and gracefully as I was able in my state of fury and swiped the candle set out of her hands and put them in our pile. I didn't bother to answer her rude question, just glared at her as hard as I could until she looked away.

So, you can imagine my joy when the phone rang Friday night during the season finale of Caprica and it was Francesca. She was at the airport, here for a weekend visit. Could we come pick her up?

I seethed. She does this frequently. Doesn't warn us of her impending visit, just shows up. Not that we don't have room. We have two guest bedrooms. It's just that...well...okay...my house was...was...was...MESSY. We hadn't grocery shopped.

I had been looking forward to a nice, peaceful weekend.

Bing looked helplessly at me as she spoke into the phone. Told her that she would pick her up. She hung up. I sighed. Asked her why she couldn't stay with Bing's older sister, Mary Liz. She lives in a house with five bedrooms and only one of her children still lives at home.

"You know she doesn't get along with Mary Liz," Bing told me. "And she thinks she has a dirty house."

I looked around, swept my arm out to show Bing that our house was not exactly magazine perfect. I hadn't dusted in over a week, there was dog hair on the sofa.

Bing shrugged. Said the words that sealed the deal.

"She's my sister.

So. We had a weekend guest. Bing just left to take her back to the airport.

I wish I could say that it was a success but I can't. Francesca nearly drove us all crazy. She insisted on taking us out to dinner and when we asked her what kind of food she wanted, she said that she didn't care. Bing suggested a pizza place. Francesca's mouth puckered up. PIZZA? ICK!

I suggested a local diner. Francesca frowned. No. She wanted a RESTAURANT.

Liv suggested a nearby Chinese place. Francesca beamed at her. YES! She loved Chinese food! We trooped to the Chinese restaurant. Francesca wanted to get crab rangoon which was fine with us. But then she had to go on and on about how bad crab rangoon was for everyone but hey, once in awhile, you just had to indulge. She looked at Liv, shook a long finger at her and said, "It is never too early to work on your figure, Liv. If you want a boy friend, don't eat too many crab rangoons!"

Liv is 10. She is reed thin. I worry more about putting weight on her than removing it. And good HELL. She is much too young to think about boyfriends.

I lightly told Francesca this and then ended by saying that any boy that insisted on a perfect figure was a waste of time.

Francesa looked over at me, looked me up and down.

"Well, you don't look too bad for your age, Maria. You're what? 55? 56?"

I'm 52.

"And while you could use a few wardrobe tips, basically you're not bad looking. You remind me of Helen Mirren. But, you are getting those nasty old crow's feet, aren't you?"

I blinked. Crow's feet? I have Crow's feet? Well, okay. I do have them, but how RUDE. I almost made a comment back but feeling Bing's calming hand on my knee, I decided to let it go. I smiled politely and took a drink of my hot tea.

It went on like this all weekend. Francesca didn't like the news channel we watched. She watched the ABC news, not the CBS news. Could we change it? Our cars could sure use a wash, couldn't they? Was this the only kind of oatmeal we had because she liked the kind with flax in it.

She has this really interesting job but refuses to talk about it. Liv is endlessly curious about it, thinks it is so cool that she has an Aunt who is a real life CSI. But, all Francesca will say is that her work is "classified." Like she is a fucking FBI agent instead of a drug specialist. Much of her work is done in a lab where she analyzes drugs. But, instead of throwing Liv a little bone, she lectures her on drugs instead. How dangerous they are. Liv knows all of this. She learns it in school and we have discussed it with her. What she wants is a good story and I know that Francesca has them. But, no. She won't share.

About the only thing she and I have in common is that we both like the television show, LOST. We discuss that for ten minutes and then we are out of conversation ideas.

So, a long weekend. She is finally gone and you know what? I think I will go back to bed and sleep for a few hours. Hostessing wears me out righteously.

What I am curious about, though, now...are YOUR stories about in laws, family members, etc. Got any good ones? Because misery loves company. Do tell.

Gobsmacked indeedy

The phone rang at work yesterday. I picked it up, using my nicely cultured professional voice.

It was Bing so I dropped the pretense.

"Hi, what's shakin"?" I asked.

Well...a lot, it seems.

She was hesitant at first, as she always is about her accomplishments.

"Well, umm..guess what?" she asked, sheepishly.

In general, I dislike guessing so I just asked what.

I um...well...I got the Fulbright," she said.

Dead silence for about ten seconds and then I found my voice.

"WOW! OH, HONEY! That is so GREAT!!" I managed to spit out.

And it is. Great. Truly.

I am now living with a Fulbright scholar. Who is going to spend the summer in Africa.

This is wonderful news, of course. She worked so hard for this, wanted it so much.

But...yes...I am selfish. The first thought after WOW! was:

I am going to have one quiet summer. No Liv. No Bing. This will be what I have pined for too many times to say.

Completely alone. No responsibilities other than my job and house/yard upkeep. No wifely or motherly duties. Just me. My books. Socks. Television cooking shows.

It isn't as if I have never lived alone. I lived for decades alone. And loved it so dearly that when I had to share my time with others, I was a bit resentful. I almost didn't let Bing move in for fear that I would miss my alone time too much. I waited until I had practically zilch eggs to work with before I decided to become a mother. And all for one reason: I loved being alone.

So, now...well...why am I blanching?

I've grown accustomed to sharing my life, my space, my everything.

So, I was thinking last night. I can either embrace this situation as a gift or act like a selfish cretin.

It's going to be a good summer. Yes. It. Is. Wanna come along for the ride?

New discoveries

Don't you just love it when something new reaches out and grabs you?

Yesterday, I was sitting on the sofa reading and Bing came in and turned on the television. I gave her a look. This is one of those ongoing arguments that occur in the love nest known as the Bing/Maria residence.

I HATE having the television on unless we are actively watching. Bing, on the other hand, has a maddeningly frequent tendency to come into the living room, turn on the television and then walk out and get busy in the office or outside, etc. and leaves the damn boob tube on.

I can't tell you how many times I have come into the living room to find no one watching the television, so I turn it off and promptly hear a disgruntled noise from the office telling me that "HEY! I was watching that!" I then remind her that she is in THE OFFICE. And she retorts with the dumb ass comment that she is listening to it.

Snort. A big snort.

So, when Bing turned on the television, my eyebrow shot up and it was unsaid but written all over my face that she better fucking sit down and WATCH the thing if she was turning it on.

She did. She said that there was a marathon of the show BREAKING BAD on AMC and she had heard it was excellent. She and I had been mourning the loss of The Sopranos for a very long time and while we watch Caprica together as a family on Friday nights (with take out pizza or Chinese...a family tradition now), we hadn't been able to find anything to replace our quest for a show with true grit, teeth.

I shrugged, commented that I already watched too much television as it was, that I had no desire to add another show to my list. Bing didn't answer, just sat back in the recliner and settled in.

And little by little, I was TOTALLY and COMPLETELY beguiled by this show.



It was so bad that when I had to get up and leave at 12:45 to go to a long planned luncheon with my cousins and sister, I was sorely tempted to call and cancel. Of course, I didn't...but only after Bing assured me that we would buy the DVD of all the episodes that we missed and catch up together. And the new season premiere was on Sunday, so...I would get another fix soon.

I can't tell you how this show pulled me in. Within ten minutes, I was hooked like a junkie. And like another show that I thought I would NEVER enjoy (DEXTER), this one had a premise that, initially, I found unpleasant (a meth dealer).

So...sighing...add it to the list. And you know...it is sort of, well, exciting, to have something new to look forward to.

And then, just days later, another discovery!

I was with Bing again, in our car..on the way to pick up Liv from somewhere. Our rule is that the driver gets to pick the music. Bing almost always picks country western, which I used to snicker at, but now that she has introduced me to Lady Antebellum and Sugarland, my mouth is shut. I tend to favor NPR, which she says makes her feel sleepy in under five minutes.

At any rate, she had it tuned to a country western station. So, I was stuck listening. And then this song came on and then a few minutes later, another on a different station.

I asked Bing who it was.

Zac Brown Band, she told me.

Well, now. I liked this band. So, I went to U Tube and listened to a few of their songs and decided that yes, I certainly had found something interesting. And although they are a bit too corny for me at times, their songs nestle down into my heart.



So...wow...two discoveries in one week. Cool. Isn't it a great feeling? And it is even better when it is a surprise. Like when my niece begged me to read the Twilight books and I grudgingly did so and then decided that okay, the writing was merely so-so...but those characters? KICK ASS. They flew off the page and hit me square between the eyes.

It is good to feel the newness of a discovery isn't it? So, how about you? Any movies, television shows, music that reaches out and smacks you good and hard?

Because, it's like a gift, you know? To get gob smacked like this, yes?

In praise of trashy novels

Bing was sipping her morning sludge drink of something green and vegetabley and good for her as she stood at the kitchen table, looking out at our yard in the early morning darkness. She glanced down at the book laying on the table and picked it up, smirking a little, as she leafed through it's pages.

I sighed. Waited.

"I don't get it," she finally said.

I asked her what she didn't get, might as well get it over with.

"Well," she went on, her lips twitching, "Last week, you were reading Beckett's Endgame and this week, you're reading...what? Let's take a look." She picked up the book again and held it up for my perusal.

"Here Comes Trouble by Donna Kauffman," she read out loud. The cover of the book sported a man laying in a bed, obviously post-coital, with a bewitching half smile on his I-could-use-a-shave face. Bing looked quizzically at me. "Can't seem to find anything um....meatier...to feast your eyes upon?"

I held up my hands in submission. Guilty as charged. Once in a while, I like to read a trashy romance novel. I just do. Shoot me. I can't help it. I like a good read and sometimes this qualifies as a good read for me.

"Sorry," I told her, blithely. "No apologizing for my reading choices. Sometimes, I just need to wallow in some heat."

Bing shook her head, a little judgmentally, I thought. I didn't much care for the smirkiness on her face either.

"It's just," she went on, "It's just that you can do so much better if you want to read some steam, honey."

I strode over to the table and picked up the gauntlet she had thrown down, unwisely, I thought. I am a good debater and I wasn't in the mood for smarminess or cutting remarks.

I picked up the book and gazed fondly down at the male model on the cover. I sighed happily. "Sorry. No apologies for my book choices. Sometimes I just need....this," I answered, pointing at the dimple in the man's cheek. His facial cheek.

Bing didn't push it. She had already let me know her opinion. Her job was over. She left for work, kissing me on the cheek and telling me, tongue in cheek, that she would be happy to act out any fantasies I had at the end of the day. I didn't answer. No need to.

Because no way in hell is she going to be believable as a champion poker playing hot dude who dresses in jeans and black leather, rides a motorcycle and happens to stumble upon my inn in a remote area of Vermont. Not going to happen soon. Sorry, dawg.

I know it is silly. I know this.

This book is fluff. Silliness. A piece of easy pleasure that is not impeccably written and will win no awards.

But, so the hell what? I LIKE it. I NEED it. On a cold March day when work is over and I am laying in bed, once in a while I just need to read about hot sex between two almost strangers who decide to graze on each other over a kitchen table. And of course, the man has no problem with long, long, long periods of cunnilingus. His penis is large and according to the author, "pulsing with the need to slake his thirst for her mouth"."

Ok. I'm good with that. Actually, I'm not all that picky. I don't need it to be a poker playing man. It could be a poker playing woman, I'm up for that. It is the personality that draws me in neat as a pin. The quiet, well endowed, thirty something stud, who is weary of his Las Vegas ritual of winning millions on a daily basis across a poker table. He wants to get away, to travel and rest his mind, get away from the glitz and the glam of the painted women who keep throwing themselves randily at his manly self. He gets on his hog and rides off into the unknown, ending up at a quaint bed and breakfast in Vermont, run by a tall, quiet, classy but plucky forty something woman with a sad past and a need to be by herself.

Oh yeah. When their eyes meet, it is just a matter of time. They spend a few days lusting quietly for each other as they rescue kittens from trees and prepare dinners together in the inn which has no guests because Vermont is having a spate of unseasonal snowless weather. The first two sex scenes are in predictably real-life horrendous places to have sex: once in the kitchen with him slamming her up against the kitchen wall while she wraps her legs around his waist and the next one, in the shower. I have no idea why this scenario seems to play out over and over again in trashy novels, but it does and it works. Now, in real life...we are talking about major back and butt bruises for the woman and a hellacious backache the next day for the guy. And honestly...does anyone REALLY enjoy shower sex? Really? The only up side is that the clean up process is a snap. The rest of it is a scary slope of trying not to slip and fall or slam your arm through the glass shower door. And no one ever talks about how fun it is when one of you throws their arm up in the air and hits the cold water faucet and suddenly...yep...the proverbial cold shower. Or worse...the hot water faucet faucet and getting third degree facial burns. But...in these novels, it works.

And then, well...the heroine always end up crying in the shower because she never intended to let him see her so vulnerable, so open and aching with the need to get the life fucked out of her. And does the hero roll his eyes and think, "Oh, fucking great....she's bawling...what the hell do I do NOW??" Nope. He is touched, charmed by her womanly weeping and it makes him want to dry them both off with a big fluffy towel and go make her dinner.

Right. Bull shit. But...anyway. Sometimes I just need this nonsense and I am not apologizing. Just like I don't apologize for watching SURVIVOR, AMERICAN IDOL and THE AMAZING RACE, or for liking velveeta cheese or peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches. Or marshmallow fluff. Or some Barry Manilow songs.

Never apologize. Unless you are a Republican. Then, yes, you need to say you are sorry. RIGHT NOW.

I am only half way through the book and I would bet my mortgage that pretty soon some dark evil thing will cloud up their delicious fuck nest. Some creepy person from one of their pasts will show up with a loaded gun and take her hostage, causing our hero to lose all control and nearly kill himself trying to protect her virtue, or what is left of it now that he has pretty much plundered her fields all to hell.

The ending will be happy. I am pretty sure that they will get married. They usually do. You would think that this alone would snap me out of my need to keep reading these books. I mean, I am a married person. Just because you are married, it doesn't give you a license to a blissful life. Nope. It can sometimes boomerang on you big time. Because, as the other half of a couple, you now get to see that whole person that you married, not just the side that plays nice all of the time. You get to see those warts up close and personal. And show yours too.

The romance trash books make it all seem like this could happen to you too and you could easily own an inn in Vermont and get fucked standing up in your kitchen by a stranger who rode in on a motorcycle and paid for his room with a wad of hundred dollar bills and didn't blink twice.

It is called escapism, I believe, and we all need it now and then. Well, at least I do. Just like that grilled velveeta cheese sandwich that I ate for dinner. And the oreo cookie for dessert.

Not that being part of a couple in reality is not great. It is. Sex with someone whom you love deeply and know well can be pretty damn nice. When you are making love and one of those funny sounds comes sliding out of you, you can laugh and whisper, "I swear that wasn't a fart, I swear it!" You can both laugh and go on and nothing is lost or ruined. It's just all part of that soft nest you share, the comfortable one that you depend on whether you admit it or not. You don't ever have to worry about your partner wanting you to dress up like a nurse unless you are both into that (which I am so not, sorry) or endure a long sweaty nasty dance on a sandy beach, because frankly, sand up your crack is not pleasant. You can be yourself and there is a great luxury in that.

But...something in me, in you, in most of us, likes to close our eyes and escape a little bit into a fantasy of boy meets girl or girl meets girl or boy meets boy. It's the human condition and we are all forgiven for being just that: human.

So, tonight, after Idol, I have a date with a book. Do you?

The Monkees to the rescue

It was a tough decision but it felt good when it was made.

Tinton, Liv's father, called me last week. I knew that it was a big deal because he called at a time when he knew Liv wasn't home, so...yeah...a discussion just for the grown ups.

His voice was hesitant, as it always is when he wants to ask me anything concerning Liv. He started out by reminding me that he was going to take the summer off to do some research on the volcanic rock in the Appalachian mountains. He's been wanting to do this for years, I was well aware and I was glad that he was finally just biting the bullet and doing it.

Until he asked me if Liv could spend the summer with him and Nirand.

To his credit, he didn't try to glam it up. He told me that they would be be living in a small two bedroom cabin up in the mountains. The selling point was that Liv would have her own room, he and Nirand would bunk together. The cabin was not far from a small mountainside town that had a doctor and even a small cafe. The cabin also had electricity and working plumbing...meaning a bathroom. There was iffy internet and phone connections, though, but the cafe in town was set up for it, so they could make a trip at any time for it.

Mostly, though, they would be spelunking quite a bit and rock collecting. The experience would be good for Liv, he thought, and a chance for them to connect and nurture their father-daughter bond. He felt that Liv was finally old enough to be without me for a long period of time and he promised that he would keep a sharp eye on her at all times.

I wasn't concerned about that. Tinton has proven to be a doting parent and a trustworthy caregiver with Liv. I knew that she would be well taken care of. I also knew that she would get the joy of eating Nirand's Indian cooking on a daily basis.

So, why was my first thought that I wished that I had never let Tinton back into her life?

I thought of that day so long ago shortly after her third birthday when he came back into our lives requesting a chance to be a good father. I thought of how I had thought carefully about that and decided that there should be no shortage of love in my child's life and the more I could provide for her, the better. I thought of his baby steps back into her life, our lives and how he had proven over and over again that he was a wonderful father.

And I selfishly wished that I had denied him this. Denied her this.

I asked Tinton for a detailed description of the cabin and the town near it. The weather conditions from May though August. And also a description of what he planned to do and how she would be assisting him, if at all. He complied. I told him that I did not want him to say one word to Liv about this until I made my decision. He complied.

His plan was that he would pick up Liv the day after her school let out for summer break in late May and he would not bring her back until two days before it started again in late August.

She would be here to see the garden put in but not be here to enjoy it's bounty. She would miss the growing period and the canning. She would miss her eleventh birthday at home, Memorial Day, Independence Day and a host of balmy summer nights under the prairie sky. She would miss a summer of swim team, a slew of girlish slumber parties and seeing Sven arrive for his last summer home before he graduated college. Baseball games. Taking Socks to the park with the pond. Slurping up popsicles and root beer on the back steps while the sun pounded down on us.

But, really....it would be me who would miss those things much more than she would. She would be having a summer spent with her father, growing brown and sure footed like a baby mountain goat.

She had much more to gain than to lose. It was my selfish heart that was standing in her way.

I talked to Bing. She sat for a long time before she answered and then she reminded me of all the travel that she had on her plate this summer. The nearly month long trip to Japan. The two week trip to Jamaica. The week long Apple camps in Colorado and New Mexico. It would be a lot of alone time for me this summer, unless I decided to join her on a few of her trips. Which we knew I couldn't. We had planned a big trip in October to visit Sven and watch him play in his last senior games. I had already told my workplace that I had no plans to take off any big time this summer, but to keep October open for me.

She gave me a rueful smile. "Remember all those times you used to call me when Liv was a baby and tell me that you wished you could just have a few days, a few hours by yourself? Well, better late than never, honey."

I thought of those days, Liv's seemingly never ending battle with colic that lasted from her first month to her fourth. The days of her toddlerhood when she went through that clingy stage when she barely let me go to the bathroom by myself. The first scary days of kindergarten. The long nights of helping with homework, feeling like I spent more time in the car driving her places then doing anything for myself. How I ached for time to myself back then. Time to read more than one page of a book before my eyes would stubbornly start to shut. Days of waiting for her fingerpaintings to dry before I stuck them under magnets on the fridge. All those long hot hours sitting at swim meets waiting for the sliver of a few moments when it came her turn to swim. Now, I would have time to burn.

Lastly, I sat down with Liv and talked to her. It was unmistakable, her excitement at the thought of spending a whole summer in the mountains with her father. Her eyes shone with happiness at the thought of it until she caught the catch in my throat.

"But, maybe...you'll be too lonely without me?" she finally asked, her eyes downcast on the bedspread. I knew that all I had to say was that I didn't want her to go, that I would miss her too much and she would find a way to do without. For me.

I swallowed. Told her that yes, I would be lonely, but that I thought I could spare her for a few months (and yes, my mouth could hardly form the word months) and if I felt too bereft, I could always fly to see her, licketty split. We agreed that she could call me several times a week and share all her news. It would be fun. It would be educational. It would be doable.

She hugged me so tightly when I told her that I had decided that she should go then, that we both toppled over on her bed and made Socks bark. We discussed the possibility of her taking Socks, but decided that his curious nature would make him difficult to control up in the mountains and that he should stay home to keep me company.

I gave her permission to call her father and tell him the good news and there was no denying the joy in her voice when she sputtered out, "Dad? Daddy? Guess what? I'm gonna come spend the summer with you this year!" There was delight in his voice when he asked to talk to me after a lengthy talk with Liv about what she needed to bring and he thanked me over and over for this opportunity.

It was the right thing to do.

I knew this in my heart. So why was I crying at stoplights? Taking my finger and tracing her photo on my desk at work, feeling as if she was leaving for the moon?

It is just the beginning of what is to come. I know this. She is taking her first baby steps away from me and one day she will be taking giant ones. And part of my job is to make sure that she feels good about doing just that. Leaving me.

Liv and I stopped at the library a few days ago to pick up books for her on the Appalachian mountains. On the way out, we passed by the cd section and my eye caught on an old Monkees cd. The Best of the Monkees. I must have been Liv's age when I listened to them, I surmised. On a whim, I snatched it up.

I popped it into the cd player when we got to the car. And then the music came over the speakers...

Here we come, walking down the street
We get the funniest looks from ev'ry one we meet
Hey, hey we're the Monkees
People say we monkey around
But we're too busy singing
To put anybody down....

I looked over at Liv. Her nose was wrinkled up. I burst out laughing. I told her how I used to love this song, how I knew every single Monkees' song on every single one of their albums. She didn't have much to say to that, just laughed and finally joined me in singing all the rest of the way home.

And you know, it helped. I don't know how or why, but it just did. I suddenly felt like this was all going to be okay. That yes, I would miss my little girl, but it wasn't the end of the world. She would spend a summer away from me having a wonderful time. I would talk to her as much as I could.

And maybe my summer would be good too. It would be quiet and gentle, a soft reprise from this long cold Winter. I would learn to be with myself again, re-connect. I could read all those books I had waiting for me on my shelf. I could spend long evenings in my garden after long days of work. I would remember what it was like to make just enough oatmeal for one. I could lay out under the summer stars in my adirondack chair with Socks in my lap and a glass of dripping ice tea by my side. I'd watch for lightning bugs and listen to the cicadas. Look at the moon and know that maybe, just maybe, Liv was doing the same.

This would be a good summer for all of us. Maybe I would get all the Monkees albums on tape and listen to them one by one.

It would be a good summer for all of us. For Liv and Tinton up in the mountains, for Bing in Japan or Jamaica and for me and Socks, waiting at home for them and keeping the home fires burning.

Bring it on. No bawl baby heart is mine. Bring it on. Mike, Peter, Davey and Mickey and I would be just fine.

Because, hey, hey, we're the Monkees....

Curious

I have been deluged with e-mails from people who read my last post and wanted to tell me that I wasn't alone, that something similar had happened to them when they were young. And I noted that several of the comments noted the same thing.

It made me wonder. I'm curious. Is this something common to many of us? So...a request. And please feel free to comment anonymously. Did something like this shape your childhood too? If it's too painful, don't touch it. But, if you can...I'd be interested to know just how many of us are out there. Maybe it was like me...a near miss of an awful ending. Or something similar, but not really that close. As I said...I am thinking that there may be a lot of us out here. Care to share? No need to give grisly details, I don't want to put anyone through anything traumatic, but...judging from the response I got to this post...I am thinking that this is not as uncommon an occurrence as most people believe.

I'm listening. Well..reading anyway.

What could have been

I was ten.

It was an early April morning on the farm in Iowa where I lived and grew up. It was a day that started out as most do, a chance of this or that or the other. Like most days that could end in tragedy, there was no warning. The sun was out but the early morning frost was stubbornly clinging.

My Da had died in December, four months previously. Everything felt all wrong. Spring was peeking, my grief was still spilling all over my insides, invisible to all except me. I was a quiet child, had always been a quite child, so my pain was not readily noticed by anyone.

Saturdays were tough. Saturday mornings had always been for pancakes. My Da would get up and open the fridge or check the fruit basket, hunting down something interesting to throw into his pancake batter. Sometimes he made chocolate chip pancakes. More often, he made apple or walnut, or both, pancakes. Once he had tried to make watermelon pancakes. They had not been a success. But, I loved our Saturday pancakes. I would slip into the kitchen in my long nightgown and find my way into his arms. I'd press my cheek into his big silver belt buckle and he'd lean down to hug me with one arm while stirring bananas into batter with his other one.

"Tell me a story," he would command me and then give me a three topics to insert into the storyline. A rat that could read, a box of matches and a silver thimble. A telephone book, a chunk of colby cheese and a rhinoceros.

I would sit on the counter while he worked around me, weaving my story around us cozily as the pancake batter began to bubble and the scent of thick cut hickory smoked bacon filled the air. He would hand me a dainty glass of orange juice, whisper into my ear that I was his brilliant child, his wee fairy come down from heaven just for him.

Those days were gone now and in their place, I had a mother with a determined set to her jaw and no sense of whimsy to speak of. My baby sister, Jessie, a toddler, was the only one who could make my mother smile. The rest of us were just furniture that she navigated around, barking out orders, trying to keep all of her plates spinning in the air.

I woke up early and stood in the kitchen for a very long time before I decided that I would take a walk outside. I shoved my arms into an old black sweater of my Da's and headed out and down our lane. At the end of it, I could go either right or left on the old dirt road that was ringed on one side with a dark green forest that still held mounds of snow here and there.

I went to my right, headed to the old wooden bridge. A few birds were twittering. I didn't notice really. I was thinking of pancakes, or rather the absence of them. I collected rocks as I walked and then threw them off the bridge one by one, their plunks loud in the quiet air, the ripples in the water spreading into perfect circles. I shivered, it was still chilly in the early morning. I decided to head back to the house, have a bowl of cheerios.

I heard the car before I saw it. Our old country road was winding and twisty but the loud engine made itself known. I watched until I saw it, putting my hand up slightly, curious. Who would be on our road at 8 in the morning?

It was an old blue car, rusty and sounding like an old mattress on wheels. Music was blaring but the driver cut it off as he stopped the car a few feet from me. He had long, dirty blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail and his eyes were dark and flinty. Later, when I saw my first photo of Ted Nugent, I would immediately look away because it looked so much like this man. I didn't say anything. Didn't recognize him or the woman with long dirty blonde hair to match his that was sitting next to him, a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, one eye squinted shut to keep out the smoke.

I wasn't scared. I had grown up in this small town of Iowa. We didn't lock our doors at night. I didn't know these people, but didn't know enough to be frightened. I wondered if they were hunting or maybe came to fish? I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater and stood quietly waiting for them to speak first.

The man did just that. A big smile broke out across his face. His teeth were awful, bad enough to be noticeable by a ten year girl who wasn't feeling particularly observant.

"Well, now. What sort of alley cat do we have here?" he said in a voice that was neither friendly nor unfriendly.

I tilted my head towards our lane, now a long way up the road. I said my name and that I lived in the house down the road a piece.

"You been out partyin' all night, little angel?"

I rolled my eyes. It was the wrong thing to do. It seemed to irritate him.

"Are you rollin' your blues at me, girlie? I hope not, cause that would just be fuckin' disrespectful, now wouldn't it?"

I took a step back, finally feeling the fear that warranted the situation. I didn't answer, glanced across the road at the barbed wire fence that kept the wildlife from wandering too much out into the roads. I tensed.

He must have sensed it because he smiled again, this time ingratiatingly, coaxingly.

"Aw, now no cause fer you to go on lookin' like a jack rabbit looking for a hole, angel," he drawled, slowly and carefully. His smile didn't reach his eyes, though. My Da had always told me not to trust anyone who didn't let their smile go into their eyes.

I looked at the ground, nudged a sand bur with the toe of my sneakers. Looked up. The woman moved closer to the man, rubbed his chest. She looked jealous. Gave me the evil eye before she slipped the cigarette out of her mouth to place it in his. He took a long drag and then pushed her back to her side of the seat.

Run, baby. Sweet fairy girl, run. I started at my Da's voice, then swallowed hard. I looked behind me. The ditch was deep and full of water. Not that way.

Before I could collect my thoughts, the man in the car smiled again at me, this time taking extra care to make it sweet and unassuming. His eyes took me in slowly, up and down, in a lascivious way that didn't really register in my ten year old brain. I just knew it didn't feel good.

"Man o' man, you're young, but one day you will be one fuckin' gorgeous lady, you know that? You got a smile just made for suckin'. I always like nice full lips on my girls."

I was frozen now, unable to move. Instead, I carefully moved my eyes from one side to the other, gauging how much room I had. Hoping that my legs would find a way.

"Crystal Lee, you crawl back into the bag in the back seat and see if you can find a candy bar for our little Britt Ekland lookalike here,"

Crystal Lee was not amused. She laughed disparagingly and said in a nasally whine, "BRITT EKLAND my asshole. More like Hayley Mills. And I ain't wastin' our stash on this baby bitch in trainin'."

In response, he shoved her hard into the backseat, slapping her rear end as she went flying over the back seat. "I SAID GIT HER A CANDY BAR! DO IT!!"

"Okay, okay!" Crystal Lee whined, "No need to fuckin' shove me, fucker!"

He and I stood with eyes locked as she rummaged through a big brown bag and finally her hand emerged of the back window with a Nestles Crunch bar attached to it.

Something took over. To this day, I have no idea what it was but I don't think it was me. I smiled at him and made my eyes go as wide as they could.

"Why, thank you!" I heard my voice say, almost giggly girlish. I was playing him and doing it like I did this every day.

I took a step towards the girl's outstretched hand and the second I saw the muscles relax in his arm that was perched on the open car window, I sprang behind the car and ran like a gazelle towards the barbed wire fence. I half fell down into the drain ditch and then sprang up the other side of it in less time than it took for me to hear him yell, "FUCKIN' CUNT!" and hear two car doors slam.

My heart was pounding in my ears, but I heard my Da's steady voice say, "Remember, always place your hand in between the barbed wire and then push down hard and jump right over it, licketty split. That's the way!"

I was over the fence.

But my Da's sweater wasn't. It caught and held. The two of them were sliding down into the drain ditch, but I didn't have enough time to untangle myself before he was up on his feet and charging up the other side of the ditch towards me. I frantically slid out of the sweater and ran as fast as I could into the dark green protection of the forest. I ran fast and hard to the nearest fir tree and ducked under it, it's needles slicing across my cheeks and legs. I stood as still as my trembling legs would let me and wrapped my arms around the knobbly bark of the tree. I peered out but couldn't really see anything. I just heard him.

He was cawing.

"Li'l angel pie! L'il, hot cunt! Looks like you left your sweater back here. C'mon, you little trick. I won't hurt a hair on yer fuckin' head, promise. Come back and get your sweater. Now."

It made me sick to think of him holding my Da's sweater but I didn't move. I knew enough to know that I was in a safe place. I heard him calling again a few times and then her nasally whine answering him, saying something about it was fuckin' cold and the bitch probably had some big dumb ass brother who would be coming for them if they didn't get out now.

It was silent for a while and then I sank in relief as I heard twanging music blaring and the loud smearing sound of wet sandy prairie soil giving way to the sudden movement of a tire tread. They were gone.

I sat back against the tree trunk for either five minutes or two hours. No idea how long. Shivering. Crying. Shuddering with pain and ache and the realization of what could have been. I cried for my Da. I said his name over and over until it was no longer a consonant followed by a vowel, but just a long high pitched croon. It became my mantra and I rocked back and forth with my arms around my knees, my face hard against my jeans.

At last, it was over. I carefully ventured out of the sheltering arms of the fir tree and wiped my snot on the sleeve of my shirt. I tiptoed to where I could get a look at the barbed wire fence and the road, hoping against hope that my Da's sweater would still be there. It wasn't. I took a deep breath. I had thought not.

I didn't take the road back to the farm but kept to the side of the woods until I saw the end of the lane that went to my house. Then, I gingerly pulled apart the barbed wire fence and ducked under it, deftly making sure that my shirt didn't snag.

I walked on shaky legs up to the farmhouse and went into the wash up room where I splashed water on my face and rubbed it clean with the towel that hung on the nail next to it. I walked into the kitchen. No one was there but I could hear my mother coming down the steps. And then there she was, her face a mask of tight resignation. She was holding Jessie and nuzzling into her hair. She stopped on the last step down when she saw me.

"Where in the world have you been, Maria?" she said, her voice thick with exasperation. "Good heavens, are those fir needles in your hair? And is that a scratch on your face? Are your feet muddy? Don't you dare be walking into this kitchen with dirty shoes, that is all I am going to say."

She shook her head and then walked swiftly over to me and handed me my little sister, like a sack of potatoes. "Can you get Jessie some cereal please? Make yourself useful, why don't you? And stop shivering, put on a sweater. Only you would be fool enough to go out gallivanting in the woods in the morning without so much as a sweater. You do know that there are snakes out there this time of year, don't you? They are just coming above ground and they don't like strangers tromping around their home! God, use some of the sense that God gave you just once, won't you?"

I took Jessie and put her in her high chair, averting my face as she tried to grab my nose. I brought down two bowls and shook cheerios into them. Poured a dash of milk on them. Sat down next to her and pried cheerios out of her hand and gave her a baby spoon. I picked up my spoon and dipped it into the cheerios and then laid it back down when I realized that my stomach was not going to cooperate. I looked at my mother rushing around making coffee and putting bread into the oven to toast. I opened my mouth once and then shut it again.

No. I wouldn't give her anything else to worry about.

The day went on. Every hour or so, I would have to stop whatever I was doing because my hands were shaking so hard. I wouldn't cry again until I was safe in my bed that night, holding one of my Da's pipes tightly in my hand.

I never told my mother or anyone about what happened at the bridge that Saturday morning. It took me several years before I let myself even walk outside by myself on our road. What was once a beautiful roaming place was now a dangerous event waiting to happen. To this day, I have no idea who Crystal Lee and the Ted Nugent lookalike were. I didn't see them in any of the surrounding small towns. If I had told my mother and notified the police, maybe we would have caught them but in my ten year old mind, I had set myself up as the one who did wrong, the one who was to blame. It was my fault for walking alone. My fault for having pretty lips.

Instead, as so often happens, I became reckless in my teenage years. I took chances with men over and over again, tempting fate, as if to snicker at the finger of chance. I was an adrenaline junkie. By the time I got to college, I was known as someone who was fearless, who liked walking just a little bit on the edge. I put myself in danger over and over again, enjoying the triumph I felt when I beat the odds yet again.

It wasn't until I was a mother myself when I finally understood what I had been doing and realized that I no longer needed to tempt fate. When I finally understood my little girl self and let her off the hook, when I finally went in my mind to that little girl huddled under the fir tree branches and took her in my arms and stroked her hair and whispered that it was okay, she was safe now. To praise her for her strength and resilience, her ability to think her way out of a crisis and to tell her that she was just a little girl who missed her Da and pancake Saturday and that there are very bad people in the world and she had done nothing wrong.

My daughter is ten years old. I look at her and it infuriates me to think that there are people out in the world who could harm her and not care. I want to protect her from pain always. I won't always be able to do that so I must simply hope that the world will be kind to her.

Life is beautiful. Life is terrible. We all get burdens that are too heavy for us sometimes. And sometimes, we are spared from horrible turns of events.

I was ten. My Da had died four months earlier. I woke up one Saturday morning and was missing my pancake breakfasts with him.

It was a day like a lot of others....

Pimping myself out

Excuse a moment of indulgence. My editor over at Our Big Gayborhood.com has written some lovely words about my blog. Plus, we could really use the readers over there, so if you get a minute...take a look see?

Or I could just be hallucinating. My ears are so plugged up that I am staggering around like a drunkard at a wedding. Bing is almost back to normal, as is Liv. But me? Nope. I like to hang on to my colds for weeks on end...can't decide if I am freezing cold or burning up. I had the television up so loudly last night that Bing said she felt like she was living with a 90 year old....

Down for the count

Bing decided to bring home a present from Chicago: a nasty cold.

Liv and I both caught it almost immediately, so we are all tucked in our beds. This sounds almost cozy, but it is not really. Bing is missing parent-teacher conferences (a huge no-no unless one is sick as a dog, which she is), I am laying in bed thinking about all the work that is piling up at the office and poor Liv, she was finally back at school full time after a bout with mono and now is officially knocked off of her feet again.

The sun is shining brilliantly and the air feels like Spring but, alas, none of us can smell it.

So, back when we all find our sea legs...