LIKE A JAR OF CHUTNEY

Forest Gump's Momma was only sort of correct when she said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

With a box of chocolates you know, whichever you bite into, it’s bound to be sweet. And if it happens to be a box of Whitman’s or See’s Chocolate (my favorite…hint hint) you know exactly what you’ll get because a full description of each piece is included.

Being older than Forest’s Momma could ever have been, had she actually been, and have clocked more miles, I’d like to amend that. I say:

“Life is like a jar of chutney, sour vinegar, bitter zest, sugar, salt and seeds and spices blended together. With age the flavors meld & mellow, ripen, like memories.”

Usually, I stuff my holiday turkey with a sort of Waldorf salad—apples, oranges, onions, celery, paprika, salt, butter, sage—and slow cook the bird breast down. The turkey comes out juicy and slightly citrus, and the drippings make an especially tasty dark golden gravy. The cooked fruit, however, goes to waste. This year, I decided to try something different. Instead of stuffing the turkey with Waldorf, I stuffed it with the makings of cranberry-apple chutney. In my mind, it was sooooo tasty!

FYI: Cranberries don’t grow in Trinidad, they are imported. And this year, it seems, only a few bags made it. A flurry of text messages went around as frantic cooks in the American Woman’s Association searched Port of Spain for them. One AWA neighbor, Becky, posted that she had a bag of cranberries, thus initiating a bidding war. She ended up selling her bag for TT100 (US$ 16.00). Her teenage son said he’s bringing back a suitcase full of cranberries to sell next fall. The winning bid was not mine (I didn’t even try.)

Canned whole cranberries were available, so I made due by cutting the sugar from my chutney recipe and using the canned. The Turkey Cranberry Chutney looked and tasted great, but… The drippings were too sweet for gravy, so we added more salt, pepper, brandy, but it still wasn’t right. As much as it’s about the chutney, it’s about the gravy.  So maybe life’s like gravy, too. A balancing act.

Going into the holiday season,  we’ve had so much bitter and salty already. On this second night of Hanukkah, with less than a week until Christmas we welcome—and are so ready to add—Spicy & Sweet! A new baby, family & friend time, and maybe some chocolates!

Here’s wishing us all Spicy & Sweet!

Cranberry-Apple Chutney

• 2 cups fresh cranberries
• 1 green apple peeled, cored & chopped
• 1 sweet apple peeled, cored & chopped
• Zest of 1 orange
• Orange cut off the remaining peel, seed & chop flesh
• ½ onion, diced
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup white or apple vinegar
• Salt
• Ginger
• Cloves
• Cinnamon
• Whole mustard seed: yellow, black, white or a mix
• Red pepper flakes
• Nuts: chopped pecans, walnuts, pinenuts

Put all the ingredients into a heavy brassier or wide-bottomed pot, stir, heat to boiling, then reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 2 or 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

Serve warm or cold. Mellows with time.

 

Jar of Chutney Playlist:

• Forest Gump Script (or some of it)
• Forest Gump Chocolates
• We Need A Little Christmas, from Mame

Happy Holidays!

Mashed Potatoes

I've been thinking "Thanksgiving" all wrong. I’d been thinking “Stuffed Turkey, Stuffed People, Macy’s Day Parade, Football, Pumpkin and Pecan Pie” Thanksgiving. Which makes for—especially as we are in Trinidad, where “American Thanksgiving” is just another Thursday—lonely, lots-of-work-for-only-2-people-so-why-bother thoughts. Sigh . . .

Want to learn the Truth about Thanksgiving? 

The original “American” Thanksgiving Day may have been a Pilgrims and Indians Thank you for teaching us and helping us survive feast but it’s since morphed into a Feast and Football holiday.

We change and grow; holidays do—can—too.  It’s natural. That wasn't the problem, I was.

I was preparing for a Thanksgiving feast just as I had for the last 45 years or so—actually walking down the grocery store aisles, tossing items into my cart and crossing them off my list—without any of the enthusiasm of Thanksgiving past, when it dawned on me that things that traditions that change, can change back. It may well have been the potatoes . . .  

I decided to go back to the root of Thanksgiving: Thanks. Giving. Starting now, going forward—whether cooking or not—I am setting aside this day to give thanks. (And wow, do I have soooo much to be grateful for.) To christen my new-old Thanks giving tradition, I’m sharing a schmaltzy-poignant perfect song from my must watch every year holiday move. You’ll have to wait for it. Because first, I need to share a story about a family and how a family—our Tulsa Village—was made.

Back in the before time, due to circumstances and choices, I found myself far from family, friends, the ocean and all things familiar, in the smack dab middle of the United States—Tulsa, Oklahoma—with 2 small children, few friends and too many jobs.

Far far away in the center of the continent...

Max was 3; Lexi was 1; I was 26. Back then, I wasn’t the “fancy free, successful picture book author” I was a sometimes cook-waitron-bartender-bookkeeper of a restaurant my husband and I owned called “The New Harvest.”  

And, as it happened (I won’t going into how it happened, now, as that’s a story for other times and a Lifetime movie), a man-boy named John (about 23), at his mother’s urging, answered a “Chef Wanted” ad we’d placed. In short—for it was a quick decision—John sign on as the chef and, along with his younger sister, Rhonda, moved from their hometown of Muskogee, Oklahoma.

The red line heading southeast from the pin falls off the page just before Muskogee . . . 


Although Muskogee, about an hour southeast of Tulsa, isn’t as far away as California, it may well have been. For the first time, John and Rhonda were away from their family and friends, just as I was away from mine. For whatever reason—maybe because making friend with a chatty toddler and a chubby 1-year-old elbow deep in a jar of baby food plums was easy, and said tots were adorable—John took a shine to Max and Lexi at an all-employee spruce-up the restaurant day. What’s more, Rhonda, not yet 21, so she couldn’t work in or frequent the restaurant bar, could babysit—and did those nights I had to work. Thus, as strangers in this strange new land do, we banded together.  Before long, John & Rhonda were more like Unk and Auntie, Brother and Sister—family.

Fast forward to when—I don’t know how or why, exactly—John took Max and Lexi home to Muskogee—for the weekend! Imagine yourself as John and Rhonda’s parents, Don & Bonnie: your 23 year-old son drives up with 2 strange tots in tow??? What must the Briscoes, a traditional two parent, small town family have thought of us? Of me as a mother? Sending her babies off to Muskogee for the weekend?  This is pre-cell phones, pre-email, pre-instant info anything. . . (Calling DHS!)...

Whatever Bonnie & Don thought, it’s what they did that matters. On that weekend, and many that came after, they loved those babies up. Bonnie and Granny fed them; “Those babies love to eat! And that Lexi sure loves her mashed potatoes,” Bonnie said—still says—whenever we talk about those visits. Don, and brother Ron, when he was home, played and watched sports with Max, “That Max sure could talk!” Don says of those weekends. It wasn’t babysitting. It was more. The Briscoe family drew a circle and pulled Max and Lexi (Me and Steven by extension), Chelsie and her mom, Barbara—who came with the restaurant and stayed—in like, well, kin: Family.

Bonnie & Don Briscoe

And now, 30 years later, spouses, children, grands . . .  It’s easy to understand how we “kids” in Tulsa became friends. The part others don’t understand is the Muskogee glue. How Bonnie & Don, who knew us only by extension, who had all the family and friends right there in Muskogee they could ever need or want, made room for more. Why bother?

Just looking at Bonnie, anyone could get how she'd pull us all in. She's 100% mama, soft and sweet as marshmallow. Don, however is the "EF Hutton" type: when he speaks, you listen. As patriarch of the family, he could have told John and Rhonda not to bring Max and Lexi to Muskogee anymore. "He could have said "too much of a liability" "What if something happens" "Why the heck should we be fussing over those kids? They aren't ours, aren't blood.  Why didn't he?

Maybe because Don knew lonely and homeless and what it feels like not to have family. An orphan and only son, sent to live with a grandmother, who died, then shipped to California to relatives, teen Don, in search of a home, returned to Oklahoma. He met Bonnie, wooed and won her. Together they made their own family. Anywhere they were became “Home." A home filled with love, room for a more, and plenty of mashed potatoes. 
 

Now, today, this Thanksgiving, Don and Bonnie, John, Rhonda, Ron and Sherry, and their 4 grand babies are together in their retirement home on Fort Gibson. 

Don isn't well. He has cancer. Hospice volunteers are helping. Our Tulsa Village, while scattered, is with them, too, via text, via email, in spirit. Even as a teen, Don knew what we—with him and Bonnie as our models—learned: There is always room and food and love enough for a few more. 

Mashed Potato Playlist:

 Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) from “White Christmas,” written by Irving Berlin, sung by Bing Crosby

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Unfold Fate

"There is something in me maybe someday
to be written; now it is folded, and folded,
and folded, like a note in school." -Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds, the first woman to win the T.S.Eliot Prize for Poetry wrote that. It made me think of so many grubby folded notes I confiscated after having rescued them from the dirty clothes pile. Max, especially, was an avid note collector. Out of self preservation, I never read any of those confiscated notes. Not because I was respectful of my children's privacy, but because I was protecting my innocence. What I didn't know couldn't hurt/worry me. . . 

Looks like she like she wore an Ali   Magraw's Love Story-ish crocheted caps, no?

The award was for a poetry collection entitled "Stag's Leap." (Yesterday, Nov. 19th, is Sharon's birthday, which is how the "folded notes" came to my attention--a Goodreads gift) She's a California girl, too, born in San Francisco, maybe that's why she feels familiar.

Folded notes, strips of words, pluck one and see  . . . 

A Guardian article noted the title refers to "her husband's leap for freedom." (If you Google "Stag's Leap," even with the possessive, a link to the winery of that name--sans possessive--pops up.  I have a sign about that too, it reads, "No good story ever started over a bowl of salad".... I'll leave you to take that leap.

Stag's Leap was also awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Penned while/after going through her own divorce. Fab interview about it in the Huffington Post.

 Did Sharon dash off notes before? Scribble them during? Crunch them in anger? Frustration? Maybe even hurl them in anger? Were they--those reminder notes--tear stained? How many other ran through the wash? Dryer Confetti?

While searching for the origin of that Sharon Olds quote, I googled "folded note" and up popped a post by John Findura called "Simple Twists of Fate."  The "note" in it turned out to be a folded doctor's note in his father's pocket when he went for his induction physical. His father didn't want to go to Vietnam and fight, he wanted to be a teacher. Though the contents of the note wasn't revealed in the post, I imagine whatever was in that note determined his fate. 

Notes of mine that spring to mind are not all on paper. Some are: to-do lists, story ideas, groceries to buy. Others are piles of stuff mounded and waiting on my desk, the work bench, heaped in the basement closet. More are "want tos" "bucket list" items, waiting...

The mounds of stuff, the lists, the bag of notes can be promises...but are also, often weights. Grounding? Or pinning us down? To keep us from flying? Or keep us from flying away?

What if we pick one from the pile. Uncrinkle it. Spread it out flat. Consider it, and then . . . 

Unfold Fate Playlist:

• The Way We Were, Barbara Streisand
• Theme from Love Story 
• Simple Twist of Fate, by Bob Dylan (sung with Joan Baez)

Guts, Not Buts

She was bashing her forehead against the wall. 

It was the January VCFA Writing for Children & Young Adults MFA residency in Montpellier, Vermont. Ice, cold, snow, fraught with plagues: illness, broken bones, death, disease . . .  

In her post, Uma writes:

Uma's newest title...slightly heroic is something she knows about . . . 

Give yourself a boost and read at least as far down as that quote in Uma's post. You'll be glad you did.  Here's the link:

“Encouragement is something everyone needs all through life. Encouragement is just a damn nice thing to do for another person.”

— Uma Kirishwami in her post

Writing, Encouragement, and “Poetry” on Write at Your own Risk blog post. 

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Back to A Future

I was my mom’s date at the Class of '54 Reunion recently.  Any of you who dip into My Fishbowl regularly know being able to write that is INCREDIBLE! (This time last year, we were ready to call in Hospice—yes, that scary bad.) So of course, when Mom called to tell me she’d received the reunion invitation, I said “Yes!” If she could go, I would take her.

Not only did she/we go, but Mom, who not long ago couldn't walk 3 steps without resting—or falling—walked herself into the luncheon. Her girlhood friends, a table full who’d grown up together—friends from 4 years old—were waiting to greet “Mary Ellen!!!”

Truth is, I was looking forward to the weekend—for Mom. It was her 60 years since High School graduation? Six-O??

 The movie Cocoon sprang instantly to mind.  You know, the opening scene? With all the oldsters from the nursing home fading like milky mashed potatoes?

I didn't enjoy Cocoon the first time, I definitely didn’t want to spend a weekend living it.

I know that sounds unkind, but . . . Truth is, my mom is one of the most vibrant people at her assisted living and she doesn't interact much. I'm sure others living there have fascinating stories to tell—if they could/would tell them.  But many can't hear and beyond "hello," don't seem to have much to say.  This one's for you Mom, I told myself.

As soon as we arrived, my mom’s BFF, June, pulled me over to introduce a “former beau” of my mother's, Tommy. “Your Grandfather scared the hell out of me once,” Tommy blurted out. 

Poppy must not have scared him too badly, Tommy still has his hair . . .

Tommy recalled how he brought mom home a few minutes late from a date one night and my grandfather charged out of the house hollering at the top of his lungs.

I knew—everyone knew—how strict my grandfather had been.

I asked Tommy. "So, what did you do when you saw Poppy charging the car? 

“What do you think . . . Put it in reverse and got the hell out of there!”

That, and other stories like it, were for me, Class of '54 reunion highlights—who doesn't love imagining their parents as naughty kids? But this wasn't about me.  This was an occasion for Mom and her classmates to play a game of  “Remember when?”  and "What ever happened to?" Great fun for them trying to remember. For me? Come now . . . (Insert huge sigh.)

I tried sneaking out my phone so I could disappear into Facebook, but Mom caught me and gave me “THE LOOK” (How old must we be before we can ignore “THE LOOK”?)

What saved me from diving headfirst was a photo display and Class of ‘54 memorabilia. As luck had it, one of mom’s classmates volunteered at the Pajaro Valley Historical Association. The display included the beloved Coach’s bronzed hat, one student’s class notes, sports uniforms, etc. Leather football helmets. Personal aside: while I was reading the notes, one of my mom's classmates came up to me, peered intently at my chest-badge, then said, "You look familiar, who were you?" Just what I needed to hear. (Note: more wrinkle cream...facelift?)

During introductions, someone mentioned how for him watching Happy Days was like reliving high school.

(I wondered which character he fancied himself: the Fonz? Richie Cunningham? (Mom, & her friends: June, Marcia, Betty, Carolyn, Gracie were way too cool to be LaVern or Shirley, weren't they?)

The memorabilia display better than visiting the Happy Days set.

Was I looking forward to Sunday brunch? For Mom, sure. For me, ah . . . yes and No. 

If I ask mom a question. About anything, anytime. She claims not to remember and snaps: "Don't ask me!" I couldn’t see how, after the long Saturday lunch, she, or anyone really,  would find more to talk about.

Then it happened.

Maybe it was the rare Watsonville drizzle, Dana, the brunch hostess's zen backyard, the carrot cake, or some elixir in the mimosas and coffee. . . . 

Before my eyes, in the same way Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn and the rest of the oldsters in Cocoon were youth-enized, Mom and her classmates came back to the present and gave me hope for the future in a  League of Their Own way.

Rosie O'Donnell told Alec Baldwin she got the part because she knew how to play baseball. 

Joyce Hill Westerman, one of the real Ballplayers. Read more on her!

You know the part at the end of League of Their Own where the former members of the Woman’s Professional Baseball League gather at the Baseball Hall of Fame to celebrate the opening of their exhibit?

How as the women begin recognizing each other, swapping stories, rediscovering their younger selves, the years seem to roll back until, by the end they’re hollering “Play Ball!”

That same magic happened at the Sunday Class of '54 Reunion brunch as “way back when” morphed into “present day."

Having reminded themselves and each other who they’d been, Mom’s friends began sharing their who we are NOW selves: Vibrant, interested, active in the community, volunteering at food banks and shelters, rabid football fans, jokesters, gardeners, grandmothers, greats. . . 

“As much as they were Mom’s friends, they could have been mine. I wanted them to be mine.”

While I listened, and laughed, I thought of myself and my friends, my classmates, my writing buds:  Some of them young—young enough to be my daughter, young; Some my age; Others of them old—old enough to have played, smoked straws on the roof, ogled boys, gone to grammar-high school-this reunion with Mom, old. Future me, old.

Rather than making me feel sad, it gave me hope. OLD ISN’T MANDATORY!

I could become like them. This is my time. But, tomorrow can be—will be—my time too, with all the possibilities!

At the end of the weekend, everyone bid farewell, calling “See you next time!” Me as loudly as the rest. 

Back to the Future Playlist :

• Middle Age Boogie Blues by Saphire 
• Young at Heart sung by Frank Sinatra   

Thanks for reading! 

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Riding a Bike? or Yoga Schmoga!

You know that saying about riding a bicycle? How, once you know how to ride a bicycle, you’ll always be able to ride a bicycle. Folks—friends—say it to reassure us that whatever IT is we used to be able to do (FILL IN THE BLANK) we'll still be able to do at some undetermined future date. 

It’s a nice thought. In the same way Harold Hill’s If-you-think-you-can-you-can “Think System,” is an sure-fire way method for learning to play a flooglehorn. 

How to play a flooglehorn: Step 1, Think middle C; Step 2, push down key and blow. It's that easy!

Much as I—we?—wish it were, life isn’t a musical. 

“Remembering how to do something, even something we used to be able to do well, does not mean we can do it now.”

It could, in fact, make it worse:  Having ridden a bicycle before, also means we know how tough it was to learn to ride in the first place.

And what about those falls we took? We fell then, we can fall now, harder.

The knowledge can make:

• The thought of doing something you haven’t done in a while scary.
• The thought of doing something you haven’t done badly in a long time, even scarier.
• The thought of trying to do something you used to be able to do and failing now, scarier still.

“Out of fear, we put off, avoid, resist trying to do IT again.”

Last week, that rusty bicycle I tried getting back on is called Yoga.

This is YOGA!

After more than 2 months absence, I had planned to start back the week before. (Honest!) But, the yoga studio was closed for summer holidays. I feigned disappointment, while muffling relief:

It’s not my fault, I told my aching back.

I was up for it, I told my creaking joints.

Then, last Tuesday morning, the first day the Yoga studio was open, as I was taking Curtis to work so I could have the car and drive to yoga, I told myself, I really should stay home today; it’s not as if I haven’t been exercising; I've been walking and take the stairs; I’ll walk tonight; it’s a short week anyway; I’ll start yoga next week. . .

I had myself nearly convinced, then Curtis asked, “What time is yoga?”

Mistake #1: I told him about my plan.

Mistake #2: I went to Yoga!

This was a mistake! is definitely what I thought when it turned out I was the only student who turned up. It was just me and the instructor.

No one to hide behind. Nothing between me and that huge mirror. No one to follow.

You expect me to be able to do what????

The worst part was waiting for class to begin.

To make it worse, while I waited, my eyes wandered to the Astanga Yoga Chart on the wall.

I might have feigned a tummy attack and left. But I was afraid, with me being the only student there, Katherine might follow just to be sure I was all right. (My yoga instructors, Katherine and Erica, are that nice and caring.)

This is not! Okay, so maybe I forgot a few things . . . 

Then it went from bad to better: Going back to Yoga felt like going back to school. New but familiar.

Sure, there was a lot I didn’t know and some stuff I’d forgotten over the holiday.

But that was to be expected, wasn't it?

Then it got bad again.

You know that bicycle thing? It’s all about the rider. No one mentions the bike.

When they talk about it being easy as riding a bicyicle, no one ever talks about the bike . . . 

If the bike is new, jumping on a riding away might be a possibility. But . . . 

 If the bike is old, the chain’s rusted, the tires flat and worse for wear, it’s a whole different story . . .  I’ll leave it at that.

Enough said . . . 

Then it got really bad:

Once I limbered up a little and ground off some of the rust so I didn't have to worry about IF I could move, I began to worry about how I looked doing the moves. When I looked, I judged, then came disgust, then revulsion, then collapse—literally! Concentration lost, focus gone, I wobbled.

Then, I quit.

Not yoga. I quit trying to be MORE and accepted what I was. I let myself be a beginner again.

Following the advice my British choir director gave just after threatening to give me the boot: “Just sing the notes. That’s all I ask, just sing the notes.” Or in this case: Assume the position as best I could. It is called practicing yoga, so I did. I practiced.

And day two, I returned for a second class. And you know what?  

“I was the only person in class again. I was still rusty. And it wasn’t easier. ”

But, I was easier on myself. Instead of worrying about what I couldn’t,  I did what I could. Until, about 1/3 of the way through the class, when Erica told me to move my hand farther around my back into an even tighter pretzel, I tipped my head back and howled:

“Mimi! Julia! Pablo-Paco! Help! Save me!”

And we laughed, which must have dislodged some of the rougher bits of rust because after that class was: not prettier, but better, enjoyable even . . .  in a Mr. Beanish painful to watch way.  And while I didn't relearn all-most-many moves on the Yoga chart. I learned this:

There are tricks to getting back on the bicycle (whatever that bicycle might be). Maybe they’ll work for you, too:

• Tell someone your plan: It makes it harder to back out
• Set a timer: Set the time for the minimum allowable time. For example, one 50-minute yoga class; 15 minutes of writing. If you do more, great.
• Look ahead not back: Don’t think about what used to be or what you used to be. Start from now, ground zero, and go forward.  
• Fake it till you make it:  My mother always said “Give it three days!” That magic 3. She maintains it takes 3 days/times to break or make a habit. Three may not be enough, but the point’s the same, give it time.
• Be nice to yourself: Laugh. Holler if you want. You showed up! 

In case you want to sing along, here's The Post Playlist:

• 76 Trombones by Meredith Wilson, from The Music Man 
• Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, B.J. Thomas 
• Bicycle Built for Two, Nat King Cole 

I couldn’t resist sharing some bicycle quotes for motivation. (No I didn't google motivational quotes for yoga; yoga is all you need!)

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

— Albert Einstein (It’s said, he thought of the Theory of Relativity while riding a bicycle)

“It never gets easier, you just go faster.”

— Greg LeMond

“What do you call a cyclist who doesn’t wear a helmet? An organ donor.”

— David Perry

“Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race.”

— H.G. Wells

“In down times I do things like go for a long bike ride or run. The other thing I’m doing in that quiet time is just observing”

— Robin Williams

These quotes and more can be found here: 

•  http://www.desicomments.com/quotes/subject/bicycling_quotes/
• http://theargonauts.com/bicycle-quotes/

Thank you for reading!

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Granny's Plea: Help Me Off This Bench!

With Grandparent’s Day this coming Sunday, I’m taking stock of what I have and what I haven’t. So far, there's not much on the credit side. 

Whooooooooa there! Hold your retort! That observation has absolutely not one thing to do with my grandboy, Ben.

Ben peeping out  his birthday teepee from Great Grandmadele

Why, just thinking of him makes me bust out singing: My boy, Ben, he’ll be tough and as tall as a tree, will he! Ben’s truly . . . well, GRAND!

The deficit is mine. And Grandparent’s Day—curse those Holiday Maker-uppers—has me keenly aware of what’s wrong. 

When it comes to the whole Granny-Mimi-Nanny-Magah-Oma-Nana-Gigi-Grandmother thing, I’m a Rookie, fledging, novice, newbie, minor-leaguer—definitely lacking in credit and credibility. Especially when compared to friends like Marty with 6 grans (two under 6 months) and 13 years practice; Beverly (whose granny name is Grandmother, as in Would you care to dance. . . ) she's clocked about 8 years experience with both kinds of gran; Marcia, with 3 grands she sees all the time even though they live hours away, and Mimi (not her granny name), with 4 grands—2 sets of each same kind, same age. 

Mimi and Brian with their 4 grans sang in Mimi's Milestone Birthday Aug. 11th.

Numbers-wise (Not that being a grandmother is a competitive sport or that I’m comparing….), my sis-in-law, Liz (aka Oma) with 2 grangirls, isn’t far ahead of me. Soon (come the end of the year), I’ll have 2 granboys of my own.

Liz with her newest gran, Felicity, born July 19th, 2014

But, in terms of  time on the field, in the trenches--Play Time--Liz, and my other gran-friends are days-years-diapers-hugs-highlights beyond me. Real Pros!  

The other night, coming out of the movie theater, Curtis and I met up with another expat couple we hadn't seen for months, Graham and Kerri. Most every expat in Trinidad vanishes over the summer, so come September, there’s lots of catching up to do. During our catch-up, Kerri, asked, “Have you adjusted to being a grandmother, yet?” then leaned over and whispered, "I know how worried about it you were.”

Worried, me? You bet! 

Now, with another grandboy from different parents in a different state, coming soon, make that Gran worryx2!*

Like a 47th round draft pick, I had been stressing over being a grandmother. Still am. Not because I wasn't ready to be one, but because I know great grandparents. And being a great Gran takes commitment, practice, effort, time! 

My grandmother, Nanny, at my baby shower for Max, July 81. I'm sorry to day I don't have any pictures of my grandfather

 I only had one set of grandparents, my mother’s parents, Nanny & Poppy, who took the job seriously! The time—play and otherwise—they lavished on me and my brother, is the reason we are the adults & parents we are today. (BTW: Wholly deserving of their own holiday.)  

However, Nanny & Poppy lived close, in the same house, or a few blocks over for our early years, a day away after that. about 2000 miles, oceans, borders, schedules lie between me and my gran. I can't just pop over for a quick visit, recital, ball game, etc. the way my grandparents did. 

Is it any wonder I worry? How are me and my grandbabies supposed to bond with all that's keeping us apart? 

“What’s my Grandparent Wish? That one day, after my grandson stops trying to eat the phone, he’ll pick it up and say, ‘I’m telling Grandma on you,’ the way my kids did.”

Grandma Lee never lived close by, but that never kept her from being close to Lexi & Max. This is in Phoenix 1985

When Gran worries hit hardest, as they have with Grandparent's Day--the annual time for Gran self-appraisal--looming, I calm myself by thinking of these Gran-friends, Mom and my 2 mothers-in-law.  They never let distance or technological difficulties come between them and their grans. 

Grandma Lee called herself "The Coat Grandmother" because she always gave coats for Hanukkah. She could write with either hand, backwards, forwards and both at the same time. 

Gramadele used to live in Texas. Now she divides her time between there and Montana. She's up for anything!

Gramadele is "the Birder Grandmother". Sort of the Auntie Mame of the bunch, always going off on adventures, and laughing about them later. 

Having come into the Max and Lexi Gran game when they were 8 & 10, she's proof that starting late doesn't matter. What really counts with grans is heart.

Post Disneyland adventure with Grandma Mary, Max, Lexi and their Wonka pops collapsed in a heap.

My mom, Grandma Mary, was "the Toy Grandmother." Infamous among friends, known for huge sunglasses and a passion for chocolate!

When the kids were small, she never failed to send goody boxes of decorations & treats on holidays. And every school holiday and summer break, she'd send herself to visit us. 

She and Nanny invented what our Watsonville neighbor, Donna (now a Gran to 2--both kinds), called the "30 mile vacation." We'd load up the car for a road trip, 1st stop might not get us out of town, drive over the pass, pull in at the first hotel with a pool (often Anderson's Pea Soup), stay a few nights, then return home. Total trip: 30 miles, tops.

Grandparent's Day is Sunday.  In honor of the holiday, I'm getting off this bench and into the Grandparent game. I aim to score some big league Granny-to-Gran bonding time. I've started a HOW TO BE A GREAT GRAN list. Suggestions please: 

“How can we long-distance Grandparents get in more Gran-to-Grand Play Time?”

                                      Let's hear it for Grands!

*How do grans with more than 2 children in different places, do it? (I've asked Marty, just back from the birth of her sixth, but she's too jet lagged to answer.) 

Here’s this blog’s playlist:

• I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning from Annie Get Your Gun
• Billy’s Soliloquy from Carousel
• Getting to Know You from The King and I
• Dance Little Sister by Terrance Trent Darby

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LISTEN!

/I’m not at home in my own home/

MY Life Is A Musical! Yes, it's true, Songs play in my head all the time. Almost any phrase suggests a song, or a line from one, sometimes an entire score. 

And it's the title of a new musical comedy. I’m not like Parker, the lead in the show. No one  around me burst into song or busts out dancing. I’d love that! Unfortunately, singers, dancers or otherwise, there is no one near. I am alone. Alone at a crossroad . . .

Cast from the play belting out a song in Parker's personal musical.

 I saw My Life is A Musical at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. (You can see it too, if you hurry; show runs until Aug. 31.) That title is what drew me to the play--that and because my visitor Dawn suggested it. (That’s the Truth About Visitors…can’t deny them.) Here’s the blurb:

“MY LIFE IS A MUSICAL is about Parker, who isn’t like anyone else. When Parker wakes up in the morning and leaves his apartment, he hears people singing, he sees people dancing - and no other person on earth knows this is happening. Because Parker’s life is a musical. And Parker hates musicals.”

This morning, my fourth day back in Trinidad after being gone for more than 2 months, that line: I’m not at home in my own home/ from that song Listen sung by Beyonce in the movie version of Dreamgirls, is cycling in my head I’m not at home in my own home/

Have you ever noticed how, as soon as you share a problem with certain someones, they respond with a solution? Usually the perfect fix! Exactly what you need to do! According to them… and without you even-ever-asking for their advice, expert though it may be. (I know--squirm, squirm--I’m guilty of jumping in with the quick fix, too.)

Then why share our problems if we don’t want answers? Why not keep it to ourselves?

The answer is the title of that song; we want you to Listen! 

Maybe more than that, we want to/need to talk it out. We know something wrong. But it’s all tangled up in other stuff. First, we need to figure out exactly what is the problem. And in order to do that, we often have to pull a situation apart, study it, turn it over, dissect it, chew it up and spit it back out in order to break apart to find out what it’s all about, Alfie. . .

Hashing out a problem with someone else is easier, more fun, maybe less painful, definitely more social acceptable than talking to ourselves.

But, but, but, all we want you to do is Listen, not solve.

This crazy life I’m living—bouncing from home to home, Tulsa and Texas, Westhampton Beach and Port of Spain—sounds exciting, but the truth is, it’s strange. I'm not feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys, but I'm close . . . 

Wait! James was helping me pack in Vermont. Did he take it?

Have you ever been on vacation, and woken in the night and not known where you are? Walked the wrong way to the bathroom? (One long ago Christmas, my brother turned left instead of right, opened the door and peed on the furnace.) Looked everywhere for a certain blouse or dress, but couldn’t find it?

With part of my wardrobe there, the other part hanging here, and more still stuffed in my suitcase, that’s every day for me. It's frustrating, but it’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is, it's lonely. Unlike the song, I am alone in my own home/

STOP! – I feel your wheels turning, already thinking up solutions to my aloneness. Thinking how much better off I am that someone else—just, Listen!

I know I’m one of the lucky ones.  I’m not alone, alone. I have somebody, lots of somebodies. . .  Yeah, but. . . . But, I’m alone—now—and it doesn’t feel good, so . . .

See, this is what we do: Writers. This is why we write it: to figure it out. Folks are called CRAZY for talking to themselves. But, when we write to ourselves, it’s called work.

That being said, er, written, on with the song: Now I’ve gotta find my own . . .

Just in case you want to be like Parker, here is today's playlist:

• Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1P8SEJyaME
• Dreamgirls: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443489/
• Alfie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCZNzydsLzU
• Luckenbach Texas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXYsLhTUvBo
• Crazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na5Y9FxR0lg

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