20 years

I just got the invite to my 20 year high school reunion. I knew it was coming, and unfortunately I won't be attending because of a schedule conflict, but it got me thinking about the me I was then, versus the me I am now. Despite it feeling like it has been no where near two decades, more like two blinks of the eye, quite a bit has changed...and definitely for the better. I wish I could write my teenage self a letter, tell her how things are now...I wish if I could she would actually listen. I think it would go something like this:


Dear K,

Well, you made it...you got through, got yourself a diploma, and now it's time to move on, except, well...don't, SLOW DOWN, enjoy your summer.

Get to know your sister, she ends up becoming your best friend, and she needs you now. When you will realize this you not only will feel really guilty, but really sad that you didn't do it sooner.

Instead of just trying to graduate, try to enjoy college...take a few of those classes that you WANT to take, instead of just the ones you HAVE to take. You don't end up graduating on time anyway so you might as well.


Oh, and regarding that, the reason you don't is because instead of trusting your gut and calling off that wedding, you go through with it, and it ends badly...TRUST YOUR GUT, ALWAYS TRUST YOUR GUT.

You aren't Martha Stewart, you CAN'T be perfect, no matter how hard you try. You can't control much of anything, much less everything, and Martha ends up going to jail so stop wasting your time trying to be her.


You aren't super model skinny, but you ARE thin enough and pretty enough, so take off that stupid cover up when you are in Mexico, you will look at pictures of yourself 20 years from now and think "damn, I looked good back then."


You will spend about a bazillion dollars on every cream and serum that advertises a dramatic reduction in the appearance of fine lines and sun spots and you will be disappointed in every. single. one. Save yourself some money, WEAR SUNSCREEN.


Regarding men, if your first instinct is that he is a douche, you are right. He is. Oh, and that guy, that guy that you have been pining over...he is gonna call in about 10 years and guess what? Your heart is NOT going to skip a beat, you are NOT going to run off together into the sunset and have the greatest love affair of all time, matter of fact you aren't even going to know who the hell he is when you first answer the phone...you can stop pining.

The next 20 years will fly by.

You won't accomplish what you think you should, it's ok. Contrary to what you want to believe, you will find out you are more ordinary than extraordinary, but again, it's ok. You aren't as smart as you think, nor as fat. Stop taking yourself, and life, so damn seriously, no one gets out alive so you might as well enjoy it while you can.

K

dad's day

It's Father's Day...the day we celebrate and cherish our fathers, thank them for being our hero's, and if we are lucky, spend time with them. I have two fathers, a biological one, and a real one. My real dad I met when I was 5 or 6 six years old, when he started dating my mom. I was living with my biological one at the time, was a little girl, being raised by a single dad, in the 1970's...It is fairly rare now, back then it was almost unheard of. Looking back on it, I realize how hard it must have been for him, and despite only being in his early thirties, how he did a pretty good job. I have memories of being very lonely and wanting more attention from him, but also of plenty of times when it was just him and I, doing something fun, creative, exciting, or active. I remember him trying to teach me to play tennis, helping him lay a brick patio, accompanying him to work at his office and the hospital. I would have been the age the Pea is now, and as I raise her, and try and balance a full time job and personal life with being a good mommy, I understand how difficult it was for him and how much patience and love he must have had for me. I also remember falling in love with the man who was falling in love with my mom, and feeling very lucky that I could end up with two dads.

When I was eight years old I moved in with my mom and her new husband, the man I now call Dad. I asked if I could...on a whim, one day when I was feeling particularly lonely, I told him I wanted to live with mom and Smash, he agreed, and a few weeks (or months, I am really not sure) later, my father drove me to their house, his old Ford pickup filled with all my furniture, clothes, toys, and books. When we arrived he stopped the truck and before I got out he said "You understand this is permanent right? You can't change your mind, or go back and forth." I hadn't, and while I certainly couldn't have understood the complex legal battle that had taken place for the last 4 years, or all the pain and resentment that had built between my parents, until he said that, I hadn't given it any thought at all. I just knew I missed my mom and my sister and I wanted to feel like a part of a family, but all of a sudden, in that instant, I realized I had made a huge decision, and I wasn't sure if it was the right one. Since that was well before I had my own child, and was able to admit I DIDN'T know everything, I just nodded and said "yeah, I know."

Two years later Mom, Dad, Smash, our two dogs, and I, moved to the other side of the continent, about as far away from our old life as we could get without leaving the country. The relationship with my biological father disintegrated after that and I haven't seen him in 25 years...haven't spoken to him in 17. He doesn't wish me Happy Birthday, I don't wish him Happy Father's Day...he didn't see me graduate high school or college, get married (either time), become a mother, become a single mother, he wasn't there to check out my house when I bought it, he has never said "I'm proud of you". I won't be the one who takes care of him when he is too old to take care of himself, or the one who stands up at his funeral to tell others what a fine man and father he was.

I have learned, both by having, and being, a flawed parent, that good parenting (and some days, when it is all you can manage, good enough parenting) is about choosing, every day, to BE a parent. It isn't enough to just be, to just love, to just live...you must choose to SHOW that you are available, open, loving, caring, committed, and grateful. Some days it is easy, you feel good, stress is low, they are cute and sweet...other days it is work, it feels like your world is collapsing, they are out of control, mean, or bratty. For some it comes easy, those that have great partners, great support systems and families, plenty of money, and ample opportunity...for some it comes naturally, those that had great parents themselves, are in a good place in their life, and are genuinely happy...for the rest of us, it is a constant fumbling, stumbling, and learning, punctuated by moments of brilliance and joy.

My real dad had his share of stumbling and fumbling, but he was there. He made a choice to BE in my life, and in the life of my daughter. He will get a phone call today, a wish for a happy day...not the other guy...and the pain I feel today, the little piece of my heart that breaks because of it, reminds me that in order for my daughter to not feel this way, ever, I need to choose love, choose forgiveness, and choose a life that allows her have both her parents, and any subsequent step parents, in her life, always.

For those of you who can't pick up the phone and call, or spend the day with, your dad, for whatever reason, I'm sorry...for those of you who can, make sure he knows how much you appreciate him. For all you guys out there who have changed countless diapers, run many a bath, kissed a million boo-boos, read a story so many times you have it memorized, who don't consider watching your kids babysitting, who can't imagine your kiddo graduating or getting married without being you being there, who take your grandchildren any chance you get, not just when you are asked, who show strangers pictures and beam with pride: Happy Father's Day!!

To my dad, Poppi: thanks, Happy Father's Day, I love you.

To DH: thanks, Happy Father's Day, I think we are doing a pretty good job.

yummy

I'm home from a lovely weekend with The Boy. We went out of town and spent our time at a most amazing resort, The Umstead. We had THE best meal either of us had ever had (granted, a five star restaurant you should not walk out of thinking "meh" but still). It got me thinking about some of the best food I had ever had and as a bit of a nod to the show on the Food Network "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" I thought I would share.

Well, obviously, the meal on Saturday...but the highlight was the cauliflower chowder. I have never had cauliflower chowder, must admit, never even heard of it, but now I want it for every meal for the next oh, twenty years or so. It was amazing. We started the meal with the apricot and mascarpone scones and I loved them so much I got the recipe. The Boy couldn't believe they gave it to me, but I suspect they are so confident in my ability to NOT be able to recreate them that they were like "sure lady, knock yourself out...moohhahahahahhaha." For our second course we both had the Caesar, it was by far the most interesting presentation ever, and I loved that they give you a whole anchovy on the side...I could have done with another 3 or 4, but since most people don't like them, I could see how they would mostly go to waste. I had the chicken, The Boy had the steak, both were phenomenal.

As a Carolina gal I have had my fair share of BBQ, and yes, I have been to Memphis, and had it there too, but THE BEST BBQ on the planet, as far as I'm concerned is at Dinosaurs in Rochester NY. NY BBQ you say?! No way...YES WAY, and it's worth the trip. Fly up for a weekend (preferably in the summer so you don't have to deal with the absurd snow or wind), stay at the Sheraton Four Points, and walk over to Dinosaurs. You will know the direction to head upon walking outside cuz you can smell it in the air. They cook the meat outside and it makes you want to come and eat it. Get the Carolina plate, which laughably is not even close to Carolina BBQ, but is the best none the less. They pair it with the most amazing slaw (again, nothing like Carolina slaw, but awesome) and baked beans. Orgasm on a plate, happy times.

Regarding pork...there is one other way that I love it, on a Cuban sandwich. Usually my notorious clumsiness brings me nothing but misery and embarrassment. Strolling through the streets of South Beach, it scored me a sandwich. I stumbled upon a little hole in the wall Cuban joint...literally stumbled, on a crack in the pavement, and bit it. As I was picking myself up and dusting myself off I looked to my left at the assorted Cubans staring back at me from what appeared an outdoor bar, only inside. I know that sounds crazy, but it was one of those places with the big open window and lots of fans, and a dirty floor, and SOMETHING smelled incredible. To this day, I don't think I could find my way back to it, or even if it still exists, but I was hungry, and tired, and had just eaten the sidewalk, so I figured a beer and a bite of some real food was needed. My graceful gringo ass was the only white one in there and no one spoke English but me...I somehow managed a beer ("uno, dos, cerveza, tequila, gracias" pretty much sums up my Spanish, but comes in incredibly handy) and their special, which as it turned out was the Cuban. Just the sandwich, no fries, not fancy. It was the most perfect combination of pork, ham, mustard, pickle, and cheese on to die for bread. I'm sure at any little Cuban place in South Beach you can get a great Cubano, but for me, that was the best, and if I am ever stumbling around in Florida I hope to get another one.

I couldn't possibly write about food without mentioning doughnuts, now could I? No, of course not...for the record, the best I have had came from Duck Donuts in Kitty Hawk, NC. They make them fresh when you order them and you pick the topping. They are cake style, so if you are a Krispy fan, you probably won't like as much, but I LOVED them. Last, but not least, well before my travel days, back in the day when the only cheese we had in the house came in a big white box and resembled Velveta, but wasn't, if you grew up in the 70's and were poor you know all about government cheese. When spaghetti was a half of a box of noodles, a can of tomato paste and water...yeah, I shudder when I think about too, and we only had eggs if the chickens laid some and we stomped our happy asses outside and collected them, we got one treat, once in a blue moon, that I MUST share. This is one of those treats that you must not think about, read the labels on the ingredients, or monitor your intake...it is junk, plain and simple, it is terrible for you, and it is terrible for your kids, but they were a little taste of heaven as far as I was concerned, back in a period in my life when food was not in abundance, and I was hungry all the time, and we rarely got anything sweet, and they made my little heart sing.

Go to your nearest, local neighborhood, grocery. Buy one can of whompom biscuits, you know, the ones that come in a can, that you whomp on the counter to open, they are like 3 for a dollar. One little thing of vegetable oil, the cheapest they have, it will probably be like 85 cents, and a small bag of confectioners sugar. Make sure when they bag them they put it all in a small PAPER bag. Take it all home, heat up the oil, get all the biscuits out of the can and cut out the centers with a tiny cookie cutter, or knife if you don't have one. Fry up those bad boys, the outer rings and the little centers, and when they are golden brown dump them in the paper bag with the sugar and "shake 'em like a Polaroid picture." There you have it, my mama's doughnuts, and my mama has a hard time boiling water, so you know they are easy.

Oh wow, now I am hungry again, and I just had dinner and need to go to bed. Sweet dreams.

booowing

I know I promised once a week, and I just wrote last night, but it is quiet in my house, I just finished a book, and I'm a little sad. See, the reason it is quiet is the Pea is at the neighbor's house. The neighbor's house is kid paradise. There is a trampoline, a swing set, a playroom, and most important, lots of kids, four actually. I was so proud of myself, sacrificing a garage and a nice big house to instead buy in a prime school district and so happy when I realized I lived in one of those neighborhoods where you could let the kids out the back door and say "go play!" and now, unfortunately, it is pissing me off. I'm glad the Pea has neighborhood kids to run with, and the run of the block, and I am glad I know she is safe and will be sent home to eat or if she misbehaves...what I don't like is that she would rather be at any other house than ours, and with any one but me. Apparently our house is boring...matter of fact she flat out said it, when I went over there to make sure she was ok and ask her if she was ready to come home "NOOOOOOO mommmmm, I wanna stay heeeeeere...pleeeeeeease, our house is boooowing."

We don't have a trampoline, or a swing set, or a play room, a wii or an xbox or koolaid, and we don't have any other kids. The Pea has finally reached the age where mom is not the coolest person on the planet...and mom is having a hard time with that. It is also contributing to my desperately wanting another baby...except not really, cuz when I think about the 9 (10) months of pregnancy, the year of breastfeeding, the potty training, the mess, the chaos, the lack of sleep, the exhaustion so deep you feel it in your bones, the terror of all things bad that you envision happening to your baby every. single. moment. of. every. day...oh my God, I need a nap just thinking about it...but then again...

Once it was fairly well decided (by whom I am still not sure) that the Pea would be my one and only I became acutely aware that I must savor every single moment and not once try and rush through a stage or utter the phrase "It will be better when she..." and yet it is STILL going by waaaay too fast. As I sit here typing what I really want to do is go outside and yell over the fence for her to come home, but then what? She is right, our house is boring...it is cozy and lovely and I love it, but I am not 5 and she is not as entertained by books without pictures and vodka as I am. Grown-ups love my house, kids, not so much. It doesn't help I have (or rather had) white sofas and a no jumping, eating, drinking, or wrestling with the dog, in the living room policy.

I want to be one of those adults that kids love...ya know the ones that can play, really play, get dirty, and have fun, but I'm not...when I think play and get dirty there are absolutely no children involved and my sense of humor is more sarcasm driven than bathroom joke driven. My kid doesn't get me at all, the only time I can make her laugh, really belly laugh anyway, is when I hurt myself and cuss. She finds all manner of "grown up words" HI-larious. I have tried to temper my potty mouth, since it is by far one of the worst on the planet, but to no avail. I have kind of given up and explained that cussing, like drinking booze and eating dark chocolate, is reserved for mommies and daddies, and since answering her question of "How did I get out your belly?" honestly, she wants no part of any of it. Every once in awhile she will ask for clarification on what constitutes a "mommy word" but for the most part she knows anything I yell after stubbing my toe or breaking something is off limits until she passes a tiny human out her lady bits. And, cuz I know you are thinking it, to the question of how she got IN my belly in the first place, I answered "God put you there after I prayed for you." I try and be as honest as possible with her, but there ARE limits.

So here I sit, in my boring house, even the dog looks bored for cryin' out loud, thinking of ways I can be more fun so that my kid will want to hang out with me. *sigh*

Oh hell...I'm gonna make a martini and watch her play in the neighbors yard from the comfort of my deck, and then when she is good and worn out I will call her home and put her to bed and watch her sleep. Every parent knows that their kids are at their absolute best and cutest when they are sound asleep. I may be boring, but I ain't stupid.

magic

The week turned out to be pretty good. Having to work for only 4 of the 7 days contributed to the fabulousness, but so too did the Pea. She was particularly well behaved and neither of us ended up a puddle of tears on the floor, as is usually the case at least once a week. We are in full swing planning our next Disney vacation and I allow one video (who knew youtube had videos of the parades and shows? not I, until I was desperate to find ANYTHING Disney to bribe her with on a particularly difficult night, many moons ago) each night that she behaves and gets ready for bed on her own without too much trouble. We have been immersed in Disney magic every night.

I went 36 years without a single trip to Disney World (other than a ridiculous night on Paradise Island in Downtown Disney back in the day...oh to be young and hot again, and have the energy to dance all night *big sigh*). I was so excited I was pinging, and upon arriving in "the World" last year, to celebrate the Pea's birthday, I became an addict, it was everything I had built it up to be, and more. Turns out, Magic is worse than heroin. I can't get enough. I think I was home a week when I booked our trip for this year. As we are approaching the 6 month out mark, and can soon book our dining reservations, the planning is in full swing. See, and just one short year ago I knew NOTHING of this, in order to get the "good" dinners (those with characters and such) you have to book SIX MONTHS OUT...yeah, you read it right, SIX MONTHS. I don't know what I want for breakfast tomorrow, much less in December, but because I will not have my baby girl denied the opportunity to dine with the princesses, my usually lazy (and tired) ass will be signing on at 6a.m. the morning of the 180th day out, to book us reservations. Yes, I am crazy...but you already knew that.

Well, in order to know where you want to eat on any given day, you must decide which park, and in order to decide which park there are all kinds of factors to take into consideration: whether or not they have certain shows or parades, whether or not there are extra hours, historical crowds, etc, etc. I have a spreadsheet it is so damn complicated. It is a good thing my job requires so little brain power on a daily basis or I wouldn't have the reserves to keep my Disney shit together. I must admit, however, I love it...and just thinking about what we will do when, and what we will eat when, makes me smile. Again, it's like heroin, and I'm an addict. Smash is completely disgusted, she tried an intervention last year (as she and her family were along on my crazy spreadsheet carrying "fun filled" ride) but finally gave up and just decided instead to stop enabling. She declined (if I remember correctly her exact words were "f*&k no...no way, maybe a couple years from now") my offer to join us this year.

Now, I realize there are some who wing it, and it turns out fine, but those are people who don't mind standing in line, and also have the patience of Job, I am not one of those people. We waited on one line last year and I nearly LOST. MY. MIND. The Pea and I waited one hour to ride the Peter Pan thing because it was one of those "must do" rides and upon exiting I was PISSED. The line itself was absurd...I so wanted to just collapse, like all the two year olds were doing, and lay on the floor crying, but since the Pea was quietly standing and proceeding like a big girl, I didn't want to give her any ideas. Well, then the big hairy guy in front of us farted, and with no where to go (at least a hundred people in front of us, a million or so behind us, and no way in hell I was gonna lose our place in line as I was pretty sure I had been there at least a year) I had no choice but to just stand there and gag...on the bright side, HE was the one with the very good chance of shit in his pants, and as bad as it was for me, I wasn't the one who would have to deal with that later. Every time we got to where I was SURE we were next, another row of people appeared out of nowhere and were ushered in front of us (I later found out these were the smart people who took advantage of Fastpass...I am now one of those people). We finally, got to the front of the line, in the little car that will take us on the ride of all rides, the best ride EVER, the reason we have endured all we have, and we are off. FOUR MINUTES later we stumble out into the light. Never, again...I now have a rule...if the wait is more than 15 minutes, we don't need to do it. I can't imagine waiting for an hour to eat, or to shake hands with a character. NO F*&KING WAY. The magic fades when mama, or Pea, is pissed and hungry.

Speaking of pissed, the Pea is getting that way now, as I promised her a video before I started writing and it has taken me longer than the 30 seconds she was counting on. I better go and let her watch so we can both get some sleep. Tomorrow is National Doughnut Day, and anyone who knows me or the Pea knows, we likey our doughnuts...it is probably best we be well rested before we cram ourselves full of the little fried cakes, spin ourselves into a sugar rush tizzy, and then collapse into food comas. Enjoy your weekend, try to stay cool, and eat a doughnut, or three.