Homesick

Still on vacation, still loving it.  Awesome food, awesome things to do.  Went on a ghost tour last night, was sufficiently freaked out.  This is formerly Nicholas Cage's property, now supposed to be Johnny Depp's, and is THE most haunted site in the French Quarter.  It is considered so terrible that locals won't even walk on the sidewalk next to it--they cross the street:

When I was little, my brother, sister, and I frequently grieved the fact that we did not go on family vacations.  "Why can't WE go to Florida?" we would whine accusingly at our parents.

"Because," said my father, barely giving us a second look.  "Those people who go to Florida and anywhere else don't have what we have.  We have the beach."

"The beach" is what we call the family cottage at Lake Erie.  It is a beach, in fact, and every summer we stayed there for two weeks in July.  All other Saturdays and Sundays, we made the twenty-five minute drive out to the lake, already wearing our bathing suits and listening to oldies of my dad's specific choosing, to spend the day.  On special days, my mom brought or cooked dinner out there.  My aunt and uncle came, too, and all of us spread out big blankets on the white sand and laid in the sun all day long, until we were crispy and sandy and completely drained of any more energy.  We did not play volleyball.  We did not wear water shoes.  We did not even wear sunscreen (I was supposed to on what my uncle calls "the old Michalek nose," but always refused).  We sat in the sand eating chips, drinking Coke, and swimming in the waves from morning until night and then we went home.

As a kid, I wondered what I missing.  So many other kids got to go away and see places and do things I had never done.  "What about summer camp?" I once asked my dad.  "Can I try summer camp?"

"I've been to summer camp," he'd said.  "Trust me, all you'll do is wish you were here at the beach."

I didn't really pout over this canned response, though it was dismissive and didn't dissuade me from believing I was missing out on something.  But I LOVED the beach, and when I was there, even on those Saturday and Sunday day trips, I definitely did NOT want to go home.  Ever.  Something about being beside the shore of the lake made me breathe more evenly, or my heart beat more steadily.  Or something like that.  It felt more at home to be there than it did to actually be at home.

The first trip I ever took on my own without my family was to London.  I went with my school when I was seventeen, and I cried the entire first twenty-four hours I was gone.  An angsty girl, I never anticipated how much I wished they were there beside me.  But I think what set me off was that the Thames was so NOT Lake Erie.  It was not blue and vast and twinkly, and it did not make my breathing easier.  So I wished for what would...for the lake, and my family all around me, and Coke and chips.

Once, for the Fourth of July, Joe whisked me off to Toronto for the weekend.  He paid extra for a room facing Lake Ontario; it was considered a prime room in the hotel and he was so proud of himself for managing it.  I was thrilled until I stood in front of the wide windows overlooking a blue sparkly body of water that was not mine.  How weird is that?  And because it was actually summer and I knew I COULD be at the beach, it physically hurt.  My dad had been right years before: all I was doing was wishing for the beach.

On this trip that I am on now, today, in this moment, Joe made sure I was somewhere warm.  As someone who loves the beach and the summer, I really do suffer from some form of the Winter Blues.  I am looking out an old, old window right now into the bright sunny skies of New Orleans, and I have been wearing t-shirts for days and breathing clean, warm fresh air.  And I am super excited to be here, because it's some place I've always wanted to experience and because at home it is freezing and snowing...or snow is coming?...I'm not really sure and don't exactly care to know, but still...I miss my summers at the beach.  I miss my sister next to me on a blanket, smelling like coconuts, and my brother wiping sand off his feet (because despite the fact that all three of us love the beach as much as my dad, Pauly feels serious disgust over sandy feet), and my mom looking like someone of "exotic descent" (that's what the nurse described to my sister when my mom tried to get in the hospital to see my nephew, who was a summer baby), and my Dad, with a rum and coke in his hand and his "ball cap" perched atop his head.

I guess he was right.  Anyone can take a vacation, and they are GREAT (this one certainly is)...but some things are just better.

I resolve...

My resolution is completely vague and foggy, but altogether warm and fuzzy. ;)

This is the first New Year of my life I have spent away from my actual life.  Joe and I are on vacation over a thousand miles away (I think) and I am using this time to now consider the idea of one or more resolutions.

I view New Year's resolutions as seriously as I do Lenten resolutions.  Having been raised "old school" Catholic, resolutions have ruled a lot of my life and from what I figure must be some amount of Catholic angst, everyone takes a little joy in breaking them all.  My mother would always give up sweets and desserts, but find secret little ways to indulge herself.  Frozen yogurt, for example, never counted because it was "healthy," therefore not a dessert.  For me, keeping resolutions has always been akin to keeping secrets.  Impossible. (Seriously, do NOT confide in me.  I know I appear earnest and concerned, and I AM, but I'm also wholly untrustworthy.)

This year as I view my life from a distance, I see that many of the things I'd like to change about myself are not completely difficult.  Smile more.  Complain less.  These were actually on my list for 2011, and believe it or not I think I had some success in keeping them.  This year I also add, "Stand up straight" because my posture is a bit of an issue and I have back problems.

But I'd also like to be less quick to anger.  More likely to laugh--at situations and at myself.  I'd like to fear less.  I'm afraid of EVERYTHING.  Germs, mistakes, embarrassment, pencils.  I need to work on that--do I want my children to hang back in the shadows because they are like me or do I want them to hold their arms out to the world and take it all in because it is wonderful and so are they?  I'd like to be more like the person I want my children to become.  Why shouldn't I?  Every day we tell children in one way or another that they can be anything, do anything, become anything...can't we do it, too?  SHOULDN'T we, in fact?

This year, unlike any other year, I have been given OPPORTUNITY.  I want to take it and make myself worthy of the gift.  I have had to be very strong in my life--at certain points--and some days I wonder where all that has gone?  Surely to potty-training, and battle-choosing, and holding my tongue (a particular challenge).  But why should there be nothing left over?

So here is to being the best me I can be, and making the most of myself for the good of everyone else.  In the spirit of my children, my current trip, and the New Year, I'd like to say FAREWELL to THIS person:

and embrace THIS one:

Happy NEW YEAR, whatever you wish it to be!

Confession of My Idiocy

I’m  an idiot.  

Have you ever seen the movie “You’ve Got Mail” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks?  Well, first of all, if you haven’t, you should.  Secondly, there’s a scene where Meg Ryan’s character Kathleen Kelly is in a supermarket.  She finds herself in a situation that makes her miserably uncomfortable (not unlike most of my own life), and becomes so flustered she enters a  Cash Only checkout line with only a credit card and one dollar.  Everyone in the line, especially the cashier, is unforgiving and angry.  Kathleen Kelly’s archenemy (played by the affable Tom Hanks) descends on the scene and manages to charm everyone in the line and rescue the unfortunate Kathleen.  But not before the cashier gives her a severely menacing glance and demands her pen back.  That’s just a day in the life for me.

I blame it on the fact that I really can be a total idiot.  To people who know me well, this may not be a surprise.  You may even be thinking, “Good God!  You’ve only JUST figured this out?”

Well, of course I’ve always known, but what I really don’t think is fair is that I try so very hard NOT to be an idiot, and always come up wanting.  I do think most people who know me would acknowledge I’m pretty intelligent, and thus it seems further unjust that I am so prone to both moments of total lack of common sense and moments where what I’ll call my basic humanness seem only to aggravate people. 

Today I was on an airplane.  In the midst of the requisite fears that I was going to die, never see my children again, and/or become an angry ghost haunting my loved ones, I needed to use the restroom.  It make shock you that I’d use an airplane bathroom at all, being THE Germophobic of the Century.  However, resulting from my several bouts of kidney stone trouble, my bladder (and I suspect my kidneys, too, though the urologist smirks and hints that perhaps I’m imagining it) gets weak and achy fairly quickly.  So as soon as the  “Seatbelts Fastened” light went off, I climbed over Joe and made my way to the front of the plane.

Since 9/11, this makes me really nervous.  I have a general fear that I’m unwittingly breaking a rule or entering a place I am not allowed (this makes Joe either laugh out loud or sigh exaggeratedly in exasperation), so as I approached the front of the plane I anticipated an angry flight attendant leaping in front of me and shouting, “Terrorist!” when all I am is a girl with a weak bladder and a need.

I looked left and I looked right, but because this was also Flight Attendant Headquarters, there were more doors and latches than I expected and I was unsure which was the bathroom.  Not wanting to make a wrong choice, I approached a flight attendant who was reading a magazine whilst leaning against a cabinet. 

“Excuse me,” I said, polite as can be.  She did not turn her head from her magazine (an apparently riveting copy of US Weekly), but looked at me over the top of it with her eyes only.

Undeterred, I said, “Is the bathroom up here?”

She glanced then at what was obviously the bathroom.  Sheepishly I noticed the clearly displayed man/woman symbol.  Feeling foolish but wanting NOT to look stupid, I tried to joke off my mistake.

“Sorry,” I said, chuckling.  “I just wanted to make sure I was in the right place.”

The flight attendant put her magazine down and faced me squarely.  When she spoke, she had a thick Southern accent and her nose wrinkled at me.  “Why don’t you just go on and stand in the corner over there and wait your turn.”  It was far more a dismissal than a gentle suggestion,  and her lilting accent did nothing to soften the blow.

When my turn did come, I embarrassed myself even more by not being able to open the door, close it properly, or then lock it.  It took me a full sixty seconds to figure out how to flush, and then to turn on the sink.  The entire time, I imagined the evil flight attendant pressed against the other side of the door, pointing and laughing with the other flight attendants.  And of course I couldn’t escape the feeling of indignation, the rampant thoughts that they had all been honest, normal mistakes that anyone could have made.

But, alas.  It was me.

And if you’re doubting whether this seemingly inconsequential event is truly representative of my general self, ask me about the day I met my new boss two years ago.   Or about the anesthesiologist who administered my epidural.  Or the time I asked my grad school professor where she bought the awesome paper we were using for group work.  Or any time I speak in large groups of people.  I’m telling you it’s true.  And you know what makes it worse?  My nervous TALKING.

It reminds me of an important lesson my mom taught me growing up.  “Honey,” she said, “just PRETEND you’re a quiet person.  People will like you better.”

P.S.—Understand that this is self-deprecating humor.  I’m not only my biggest critic; I’m also the person who thinks I’m the most wonderful, too. ;)

Memory Lane: My Christmas Wish

This year I had a lot of wishes come true for Christmas.  Noah pooped on the potty of his own volition, and I have to believe it was because I had told him that was the only gift I wanted this year.  Creepy.  Gross.  Totally true.

I also received a gift from Big Joe, as we in our house call my husband, stemming from his weird and somewhat Polish penchant for keeping/conserving things most people throw away.  Like hotel mini condiments.  When he came home from Pittsburgh last week, his suitcase was crammed with room service-sized jars of honey, ketchup, you name it.  My kids exploded into giggles this morning when we discovered a hotel-sized grape jelly had landed in my stocking.  I did not explode into giggles.  On the contrary, my eyes misted up and I looked at my husband with cheesy, gag-inducing amounts of fondness.

Joey said, "Why did Daddy put that in your stocking?!"


I said, "Because grape jelly is very special to us.  Daddy used it to ask me to marry him."


Joey yelled, "WHAT?  THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!"

So I explained the whole story.  That Mommy and Daddy have known each other a very, very long time. That when we were much younger, we weren't in love at all, but just good friends.  And one time, to be silly, Daddy gave Mommy a grape jelly as a "present."  We were in a restaurant, the kind where people might order toast and might want a little grape jelly packet to go with it, and Daddy thought it would be funny.  What Daddy didn't know was that even back then, Mommy loved him very much.  And so she kept the grape jelly.

Then, after a long, long time of being friends, and then after a time when Daddy went away and Mommy went away and we didn't talk for awhile, we fell in love for real.  And one day, Mommy said, "Remember that time you gave me a grape jelly as a joke?  Well, I loved you so much that I kept it all this time."  After that, any time we were in a restaurant that had little jellies, Daddy would find a way to give me a new one.  He gave me so many, that pretty soon I had over a hundred grape jellies!  They were ALL OVER my apartment!

The first Christmas we were together and in love, Daddy gave Mommy a stocking filled with all kinds of special treats.  There were markers, crayons, Post-Its, new pencils and a pencil sharpener, fancy gel pens...the kind of gifts that make Mommy really excited: School Supplies! (just what every teacher wants--seriously!)  And in the very, very bottom of the stocking, stuck in the toe, was a grape jelly.

Mommy loved the grape jelly best of all, and smiled and let it drop back into the stocking with the other gifts.  But Daddy got upset.  He said, "Um, maybe you should open THIS jelly."

"Why?"  All I could think in my head was, "I'm not having toast."  It didn't seem to matter.  Daddy reached into the stocking and pulled out the jelly.  He said, "You really need to open this one."  And suddenly he got down on his knees, peeled back the foil wrapper, and inside, it wasn't jelly at all.  Daddy had scooped it all out, and put in a diamond ring instead.  He said, "Mary Pat, I don't know how long I've loved you.  I think I always have, and I KNOW I always will.  Will you marry me?"

After I'd finished the story, I looked at Joey and Noah, who were staring at me expectantly.

"So that's it?" asked Joey.  "THAT'S how Dad got you to marry him?  With JELLY?!"

"That's it," I said.  I guess I was an easy catch, but of all my Christmas memories, it's by far my favorite.  Christmas Magic for me isn't just seeing my children and my family so happy and in love and together on a special day.  To me, it's the fact that I've been lucky enough to have this family at all.  Lucky that Joe chose me--even though he knew everything about me--and gave me all the things that make up my life as I know and love it.

Merry Christmas to all!

Committed to Santa

A few days ago, I posted on Facebook: "I am committed to Santa.  I am committed to Santa.  I am committed to Santa."  My sister replied, "Well you should be committed."  I took this at first as affirmation of my choice, but later wondered if she meant, No, you should be committed.  Like, to an asylum.  Because it's making me that crazy.

It all began like it does for most other people: I wanted Christmas to be magical for Joey, and then, for Joey and Noah.  But now that they are growing older, and unfortunately more astute, remaining committed to the lie is becoming quite the tangled web.

First of all, there's the issue of the wrapping paper.  As a child whose mother tossed gifts in plastic grocery bags with Post-Its toward her later teen years, I can't remember wrapping paper being a big deal.  However it was pointed out to me once I had Joey that the wrapping paper used by SANTA can't be like the wrapping paper used for gifts to the rest of the family.  The SANTA wrapping paper cannot be visible anywhere in your house, because then it couldn't possibly be from the North Pole.

Flaw in the Lie #1: Other people shop for wrapping paper where I shop.  The children are likely to see the SANTA wrapping elsewhere and ask questions.

This year I went so crazy as to choose separate wrappings for each boy, so they could easily tell their gifts apart.  This seemed like a convenient and practical idea because it helps me visualize the equality of their growing piles.  But, alas, when you are down to that one scrap of Toy Story paper and the only gift that will fit is for the OTHER CHILD, you're kicking yourself.  Such a small detail in the lie, but one my boys would surely pick up on.  Or would they?  I don't know, and can't take the chance because I am committed to the lie.

I mute the TV during Christmas movie scenes meant for grownups.  Movie scenes I myself never picked up on as a child (but I really wasn't all that astute), like in A Christmas Story when Ralphie and Randy scramble up to bed and the parents pause dramatically, then say, "Let's get 'em."  I ask Joey loud and overt questions when Buddy the Elf is questioning how people could really not believe in Santa.  It is that moment when I say, "JOEY, WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN SCHOOL TODAY??" and I am sweating bullets and trembling inside in case he hears Buddy the Elf say, "People think parents give the presents to the children?"

Happy, our Elf on the Shelf, is another source of extreme pain.  I have run out of shelves, and I can't perch him too low or anywhere he might fall because, dear me, the magic might be lost.  But I cannot give up, because the lie would be ruined and, more importantly, my children would be crushed.

And the worst part of all.  Oh, the very, very worst.  As I tucked Joey into bed tonight, he whispered excitedly, "I know Santa's watching closely tonight!" and I realized...he's six.  This might very well be the last Christmas Eve Eve that he feels this thrilled, this enchanted by Santa Magic.  Next year, assuredly there will be questions.  In fact there were a few this year.  Things he's overheard on the bus or that kids at school with older siblings have planted in his sweet ever-working mind (I seriously wanted to beat up a kid at one point).  But nothing yet has been able to crack his thick resistant loyal-to-Santa skin.  The skin I have so carefully molded and tended.  I felt horrible as I kissed him goodnight, then, realizing that it will not be long before he realizes that his mother has told her a lie.  The first he will ever know of, and from then on, he will doubt me.  Do I really have Mommy Magic that keeps him safe at night?  Is my older brother really the actual Superman (that's a lie spun wildly out of control now, to the point where my brother emphatically says before leaving, "Gotta fly--oops! I mean, go to work!" and my children get red-faced and giggly and whisper, "Don't say it!  Don't tell his secret!"), or did Mommy lie about that, too?  Worst of all...we'll never have that bond again, I don't believe, where he sees me as the omniscient and omnipotent Mommy, whose word is Law and who will always, always save him.

I know this happens with all children, but Joey is...well, he's Joey.  He's My Joey, and I became so sad tonight as I pulled out the Mickey Mouse wrapping paper and the sparkly silver Sharpie marker (because elves label gifts in silver, didn't you know?) and re-committed myself to this lie that is going to end up biting me big time.

But I'm committed.  As committed as I was to the lies I told my parents in high school ("I was at Alice's house the WHOLE TIME...."), I am committed to Santa.  Because...it IS pretty wonderful, isn't it?

The Gingerbread House

Every year my uncle sends us a gingerbread house.  One year, my sister said, "Please don't send us a gingerbread house."  He sent it anyway.  I must admit, gingerbread is not my favorite thing to eat.  And once you "dig in" to it, it doesn't look pretty anymore, but nobody actually likes eating it, and then you have to throw it out.

This is the first year Noah noticed the gingerbread house at all.  It arrived in a glittery red box and Joey recognized the label immediately.

"Mom!  Mom!  Mom!  C'n we open it?  C'n we open it?  Huh?  Huh?  Can we?  Can we?"

I picked up the box and set it on the counter.  "Later," I said.  I just wasn't ready for the battle of, "Can we eat it NOW?  Can we eat it NOW?"  I wanted it to look pretty for a little while, at least.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwww!" Joey whined.

"But what IS it?" asked Noah, not wanting to be left out.  He hopped from foot to foot, trying to see around Joey.

"Oh, Noah," Joey answered, rolling his eyes, "it's SOOO cool.  It's the awesomest thing."

"But can we open it?" asked Noah.

"Not now," I said.

I was able to get away with this for about an hour.  It was then that Noah was actually using the potty properly and I caught Joey picking at the packing tape on the glittery red box with a Batman pencil.

"Joey!" I gasped, shocked at his disregard for my final word.

"But Mooooooooooom," he whined.  I sighed.  I put his Batman pencil in the drawer and reached for the scissors, cutting the box open in one efficient swoop.   "Awwwwwesome," Joey breathed.  Yeah.  I rock those scissors every time.

"What's going on??" Noah shrieked from the bathroom, realizing something was indeed going on.  Just what a nervous pooper needs: people opening mysterious packages at inopportune moments.

"Just opening this box," I called.

"Wait!  Wait!! Wait!" he cried.  I heard a bit of a clatter in the bathroom and he emerged, pantless and breathless.  "I want it!  I want it!"

I knelt down in front of him and helped him put his pants on.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"That!" he cried, pointing at the gingerbread house.

"Oh, that," I said, snapping the little snap on his jeans.  "You don't even know what it is."

"I do!  I DO!" he insisted, yanking at his zipper.  "Joey told me, and we are BROTHERS, so we tell each other stuff, and it's IMPORTANT, and--"

"Then what IS it, Noah?" I interrupted.  He was on a such a loyalty tangent I think he forgot about the gingerbread house altogether.

He blinked, looking at the gingerbread house, and then at me.  Then he closed his eyes in feigned exasperation and said knowingly, "Well, it's a BIRD house, of course."

Of course.

Just Can't Help Believing

Today, Noah started our day by refusing to wear clothes.  He ripped off his pajamas and streaked through the house in all his glory, screaming all the way, "You won't LET me wear my pajamas!!!"  When it came time to drive Joey to school, I was able to wrestle Noah into a pair of Joey's pants.  He had one arm in his Christmas turtleneck.  I said, "We have to drive Joey to school now.  You have to put on your clothes."  He said, "I WON'T.  You can't MAKE me."  So I wrapped him in a blanket and put him in the car, which had been warming up (thank God).  I buckled his seatbelt and he looked at me and wailed, "I'm COLD!!!!!!!"

Days should never have to begin that way.

On the other hand, my day ended with both boys going right to sleep, and me lying on the couch listening to BJ Thomas' "I Just Can't Help Believing."  It makes me feel gooey inside because everything about this song is my husband, from the breezy rhythm to the humility of the words.  It's one of our favorite songs to dance to--and we do love to dance.  I think it's one of the signs that led me to know he was perfect for me.  He'll stop and slow dance and sing in my ear just about anywhere, and he has.  On the beach, in the kitchen, at the mall.  He sings along (or just sings, because sometimes there's no music), looking into my eyes, and bopping me side to side and in circles like he's Prince Charming. And at actual events where you're supposed to dance, well...look out.  He can dip me and flip me.  And if no one has ever done that to you before, guess what.  It IS that cool.

So as I listened to BJ Thomas (on repeat, because Joe is still away and I miss him), I went and dug out the special photo album I put together for him the first year we were officially dating.  It was nine years after we'd first met, and I'd really botched his birthday present.  It was one of those situations where you want to get it soooo right, so you can't do anything but get it wrong.  I felt crushed when I realized he didn't "get" my efforts, so I went home and pulled out my Memory Box and created a montage of our whole relationship.  It began with a poem entitled, "He Didn't Call," and ended with an email he'd sent me that day.

We keep it up on a high shelf now, because it's filled with all kinds of memorabilia we don't want wrecked, like the napkin from my junior prom and a card he'd had delivered to me at school senior year that had only a solitary cryptic question mark written inside.  But one day not long ago, Joey spotted it.  The featured photo on the cover is from when Joe and I were sixteen.

Joey pointed at it, squinting, and said, "Hey, Mom.  Who are THOSE kids?"

I guess we DO look a little different these days.  Anyway, tonight it was this picture and BJ Thomas that made the perfect ending to...another day.   Well...more than just a day.  ;)