Red, red wine

I spent my 13^th wedding anniversary wiping blood of my child’s hands. We were playing bocce ball and Truman had thrown himself on Rick’s back, full spread eagle in the air, after I proclaimed war – us against Daddy – in what was shaping up to be an impossible battle. Upon coming down, my precious son landed on Rick’s rear and, swinging his arm around his waist, made contact with Rick’s glass of red wine. The glass bowl shattered on contact, sending a splash of red wine over Rick’s pressed, white shirt, and an icing sprinkle of glass over the green grass. My son melted in tears as a faint red line appeared on his hand. It grew into a drip and then a line that flowed ever so gently over his other hand, into the creases of his knuckle. I wiped it off with the tail of my 30-A T-shirt. If it stained, it wouldn’t matter. Rick threw the box of Band-aids down from upstairs, and I set off to mend a broken spirit with stretchy beige bandage.

He said, “But there is blood all around me,” and it mixed with the rich, red wine that covered his hands. I said blood was good. It is what binds us together. Makes him ours and only ours. Had it not been for that night 13 years ago, when I gave my life to his father’s, there would be no Truman bleeding here, in my arms, in the soft patch green of our backyard. At 6, this is still so strange for him to understand.

We walked to the house to clean the blood, now dried in brown streaks on his hand. Rick stopped him on the deck steps, and there Truman stopped to settle on his father’s knee. I rubbed the wet cloth over my son’s dirty hands, then pressed it against the fresh blood on my husband’s. “He was happy when he did it, you know?” I said. Rick nodded, “Yeah, I know. I know.” And there, with blood and red wine flowing over us, I kneeled down to kiss my husband. “What a glorious anniversary, my love,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “It really is.”

How do you write?

A Pulitzer Prize winner once told me that he hates writing. He does, however, love having written. I’m trying to tell this to 25 Kindergarteners. An hour earlier, while driving my son to school, he tells me writing stories is not what Community Helpers do. Community Helpers, like the ones lined up to speak to all the Kindergarteners at his school this week, do things like put out fires and make sick children feel better and, you know, talk on TV.

I say, “People pay me to write stories for them. This gives us money to buy your lunches and your HotWheels.” He says, “Oh.”

But I am here, with a short stack of books and magazines under my arm, staring at 25 pairs of impatient eyes who would rather I read to them than talk about what I do. I hold up Kate McMullan's book, “I Stink.” She was at the school last week and the kids adored her. Truman says, “She looks like Grandma, but she’s only 29!” Only 29, and already a popular author. What have I done with my life?

I don’t write stories 6-year-olds would find entertaining. I write about sudden and unintentional acceleration. I tell stories about people who had reactions to medications that left them jerking out of control. I write about women who sue birth control pill makers for blood clots and strokes.

And sometimes I write about my son.

“How do you write?” This question comes after a lengthy pause from one of my son’s favorite friends, who had his arm waving in the air from the moment I started speaking. I want to tell him that sometimes it’s easy. That the words spill out of me when I’m trying to sleep or make breakfast for my son. That sometimes I have to run to the computer to get it all out before the words fall on the floor and disappear forever. And this is when writing is a joy.

But sometimes my mind is silent, and I have to listen for the whispers. I have to coax the words to come, like I did when Coco was a scared kitten, hiding in the bushes where she was tossed by someone who didn’t want her. Sometimes they stay hidden, and I have to leave them be until they are ready to be heard.

But instead I look across the room at the little heads before me, futures of promise brimming just underneath their soft hair. “How do I write?" I say. "Why, I type on the computer.”

But, I love him too much

My sister told me it would get easier to handle – that painful, pathetic love I have for my child that debilitates me sometimes. I think I love my son too much, and I am told it is not possible. My sister’s girls are grown now – or close to it. The teenager is old enough to fend for herself and badgers her mother for money and more privileges. (A typical teen?) My sister rolls her eyes at her, fusses sometimes. I said, “Does it stop feeling painful, that love you have for them?” She said, “Yeah. It’ll stop hurting someday. When they get older, more independent.”

I think that’s when I’ll worry about him more. Will he make the right choices? Will he hang out with the right crowd? Will he stay safe for me?

I didn’t always make the right choices when I was a teenager or even a young adult. I’m not sure my choices now are the best, but everything I do has new life because of him. I breathe because of him.

Last night my son had dinner at his grandparents’ house while Rick and I caught a quick bite at Gianmarco’s before Rick went to soccer coach training and I went to a reception to get roped into PTO obligations I both want to and don’t want to jump into. We sat at the bar next to three people, one of whom we were already acquainted. Like conversations at bars often do, our words tangled together and it wasn’t long before we were talking artichokes and brunch and Natalee Holloway. I had watched the rerun of the TLC special about Natalee on TV the other night and, coincidentally, there are new reports that the primary suspect in the case may have confessed on German TV. I shared the same empathy for Natalee’s mother as the woman next to me. I said, “I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t.” And she said she couldn’t either. Not even now that her son – an only child – is in his 30s. She said they talk on the phone or text each other everyday. They always say, “I love you.”

“I thought it got easier,” I said. “I thought that painful, pathetic love for your child got easier when they grew up.”

“No,” she said. “It gets worse.”

Benefits of Entering Writing Contests

Three years before my midlife crisis swelled up and pushed me out of my torturous day job writing press releases for a nonprofit, I sat in my office with a girl I helped hire to raise money for our organization. We were throwing out crazy dreams we had failed to accomplish in our 30-something years. It was mostly she who was doing the talking, telling me how her “old money” upbringing was to have landed her at The Club every day playing tennis and lunching, but she felt compelled to stoop down and lift up those of us who had to work for a living. I leaned back in my office chair, there in the windowless office I affectionately called “the cave,” and admitted that my long lost dream was to write again.

Perhaps it was naive of me to think she would be impressed or even slightly supportive. Instead she perked up and yelped, “Me too! And I know the book I would write. It would be about growing up in Mountain Brook and how I thought we were poor because we had to go to The Club to go swimming.”

That was the very moment I realized that in order to be a writer again (I had written for newspapers for 10 years before getting sucked into PR), I would have to write again. And as long as I remained closed in an office tracking media impressions, I would be just the same kind of writer as my shallow coworker – a writer wannabe.

I have a lot of resentment for writer wannabes. Writing seems easy. We all have ideas and dialogs that float through our minds while showering or trying to sleep. We think one day we’ll get around to recording those thoughts. But it is not until we actually sit down to compose a story that we realize just how difficult it is to capture that voice, that nuance, that feeling you got when that story floated freely through your thoughts.

To make a long story short, I quit my job in August 2007. (It took another 6 months for me to leave the joint, but mentally, I was already gone. And in that time, my freelance business was slowly beginning to take off.) What I quickly realized is that though I had worked as a writer for 10 years, the following 10 years stuffed in an office writing drab press releases about the walk-a-thon-du-jour sucked the creative writing juices out of me. It was like riding a bike, though. Those first few pedals felt clumsy and I wavered a bit, but the basics gradually came back. What I realized then was that my writing had been pigeonholed by the same newspaper editors who hammered traditional newspaper writing style into my brain. Magazine writing required a more gentle hand, and to learn how to broaden my style I sought out the master of beautiful writing, Pulitizer Prize winning author (and visiting professor in creative narrative nonfiction at the University of Alabama) Rick Bragg. As a student in that class, I was able to sit next to Bragg and have my stories critiqued line-by-line. I also welcomed other editors’ comments of my work whenever they were willing to offer it. And I submitted my published magazines stories (there was only one in the calendar year 2007) to a local writing contest. I entered one of the most populated categories, knowing I likely wouldn’t win or even place. What I craved was the comments from the judges. Sounds strange, I know, but I was – and in many ways, still am – hungry for any opportunity to become the writer I always dreamed of becoming. After all, I had lost 10 years on my writing goal by swimming in the sea of public relations. (And Lord knows, I am still far from obtaining that goal.)

Needless to say, I didn’t place in that competition. And when I got my entry back, the only comment the lone judge offered was, “this sucks.” OK, maybe not that exactly. More like “doesn’t make sense.” It left me both baffled and frustrated. What part didn’t make sense? The lead? The same lead that Rick Bragg had called “beautiful”? (I had rewritten that story as one of my papers in his class, but kept the lead.)

This is the second year I have been saddled with heading up a writing competition for the group I’m affiliated with, Alabama Media Professionals (AMP). First-place winners from this local competition move up to compete in the National Federation of Professional Women (NFPW) contest. Last year I floundered trying to figure out the process. This year I have a better idea what I’m doing and I’ve initiated some changes.

The first was convincing our president to look at the competition as a professional development opportunity. Our members are all writers – most of them freelancers. Just as doctors are required to take continuing education credits, we should be, too. Lord knows the media business has changed tremendously over the years. And with that, so has writing styles to conform to different audiences and new platforms, like the Internet.

With our president’s blessing on changing the perception of the contest, I went to work on the judges. First, more than one judge will review each entry. It makes no sense for one judge to be the sole voice in deciding whether an entry is or is not qualified to compete in the national competition. Secondly, the judges are strongly urged to offer a written critique of every piece they read. Meager comments like “this sucks” just won’t suffice.

I realize by doing this I may be scaring away some participants. Constructive criticism isn’t easy, but how can we be expected to grow as writers – or in any field – if we don’t open ourselves up to other opinions and perspectives?

The contest deadlines February 11, 2010, and so far I’ve received no entries. Surely members are saving them up for our next meeting, which coincides with the contest deadline. We’ll see.

Whether or not you are a member of AMP, or even if you don’t live within the great state of Alabama, you are welcome to enter our writing competition. The more entries, the more opportunity for us writers to learn from others. For more information about the 2010 Alabama Media Professionals Communications Contest, visit the official Web site at AlabamaMediaProfessionals.com.

She married at the courthouse!

My sister got married today. There was no white wedding dress or gauzy veil. No overdone bridesmaids or hung-over groomsmen. No lavish rings or candlelit church. Just the two of them – my new brother-in-law and my sister – with the justice of the peace. She wore my mother’s wedding band, but otherwise, none of us were there. Not our father. Not me. Not her two daughters or his son. They even drove separate cars to the courthouse.

And I believe it was perhaps one of the most beautiful ceremonies.

My father called it “lovely.” This, the nuptials he didn’t see. I had to agree. It was a second wedding for them both. They had each married the wrong person before. Those unions gave them darling children. There is nothing to regret with that. And because Craig is the father of my nieces, I will always have a special bond with my sister’s ex-husband even though we almost never speak.

But my new brother-in-law, Dave, is the “meant to be,” that missing piece that completes lives. I know this; I married mine. My friends know this about me, about us. That Rick closed a drafty window in my heart. It has sheltered me from cold and wind and has been my shield against the intermittent pains that have rained down on me through the years. My father knows this completeness, too. My parents had this bond, and when my mother died, my Dad floundered until he found Anni. She grounded him again.

I had sensed it a million times since that year my sister admitted trouble in her first marriage and through all the inadequate men that blew into our Christmas gatherings and Easter dinners since. She still hadn’t found it, her “meant to be.” That’s the thing; You know when you have it.

The month before she met Dave, Heather sat on my couch and said she was giving up. She was taking her profile off the Internet dating site. She was going to take a break from men, heal her heart, find her soul, be her own missing piece, because sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we can make that fit. And then came Dave. It seems love always happens when you least expect it.

I used to think all good weddings deserved big church productions and extravagant parties. I now know better. Love surpasses crinoline and lace and cases of champagne. It lasts longer than something old and something blue. It grows in hearts and minds and souls, and when it is right, it fills all the in-betweens.

And that, well, that is just meant to be.

Calgon, Take me away!

We had barely cleared the house of pine needles and fake cranberries that my cat had bitten off the garland when Rick says he wants to buy me something. He has just set the iPod to play some sexy jazz, made a fire, and is sauntering up to me with dreamy eyes and a low-ball of three cubes of ice and a splash of Christmas-gift, single barrel, aged appropriately bourbon. He looks like one of those old-time actors who’d wear smoking jackets and grip cocktails and sit in rooms with cozy fires and flanked with bookcases. Well, three out of four isn’t bad – Rick’s wearing a Gap hoodie. I am saddled up to the kitchen counter making a dinner of I-don’t-remember-what and trying to keep Truman away from raw meat juices and sharp utensils. He says he wants to make dessert and he is pulling my largest pot out of the cabinet, lid and all. He sets it on the cooktop and then opens the pantry, stands in front of it like I often do, wondering what he can use for his masterpiece. This is when Rick glides up to the kitchen island. He says he wants to buy me something and I have to put him on pause or else Truman would try to rappel the pantry shelving and grab the sugar, and we all know what a disaster sugar on the floor makes. I pull out some jumbo marshmallows and some sugar sprinkles, and that satisfies him enough. He pulls the stepstool over to the (unlit) stovetop and starts dumping. Rick starts to speak again and Truman interrupts that by banging through the ultra messy spoon-and-spatula drawer and pulling out three items to stir his mixture.

“I want to do something nice for you for Valentine’s Day,” my romantic of a husband says.

“But you got me everything on my list,” I say, which is true. Everything, except for the bike, which he, understandably, said I’d have to go to the bike store and select on my own, and maybe I should wait until spring and he’d get one, too.

“No, I..,” he says, and as I try to tell him that between Christmas overindulgences and the unexpected four-figure car repair and the six-month car insurance premium that's come due, we need to engage in some financial recovery, but Truman is grabbing my arm now. Seems he’s been trying to get a word in edgewise (imagine!) but Rick and I just keep talking. He needs something for the dessert he’s making. He’s pulling my arm, wailing at the top of his lungs, “I need something from the oil group, Mommy. From the oil group! I need something!”

And Rick says, “… want to get you something…,” and Truman is pulling and I drag him to the pantry, and Rick pivots as we pass, and I pull out the olive oil bottle which is almost empty. I hand that to Truman and turn to Rick and Truman is pulling my arm again. “Not olive oil!” and I say, “but it’s from the oil group,” and Rick is saying, “…indulgent,” and just then it hits me like a ton of bricks. What I want. No, what I need.

“Spa,” I manage to say above the John Coltrane coming through the speakers and the 6-year-old tap-tap-tapping on the edge of the pot and the simmering veggies that need sautéing and the ice clicking in Rick’s low-ball and the wine glass next to me that must be refilled. “Spa gift certificate, please, and at least two hours to sit in the quiet room and eat that almond-and-cranberry mixture and drink sparkling water and sip that herbal tea that tastes better there than at my home and read a book and be away from everything. Like, ‘Calgon, take me away.’”

And Rick nods. I think he understands.

Finding a reason for the season

In the days just before the birthday-Thanksgiving-Christmas chaos we like to call the Celebration Season, I got a most touching letter that helped put the spirit of these holidays into perspective for me. The story of the letter dates six months earlier, when I was trying to decide how to recognize the 10-year anniversary of my mother’s death. For some reason I felt it should be marked by my doing something that kept her memory here on earth. I mentioned this to a friend whose mother had died a few years ago. She said she called the anniversary of her mother’s death Dead Moms Day and did things her mother loved – like eat ice cream and drink her mother’s favorite wine.

I couldn’t think of a favorite food of my mother’s, and wasn’t in the mood to sip Beafeaters. I think it was Rick who suggested making a donation to a nonprofit in her memory. But which one? My mother was a juvenile defender in Memphis. That means, she defended kids whose families could not afford a lawyer. She assisted with custody battles and misdemeanors. She even defended kids against murder. She called the ones she defended, “my kids,” and she truly cared about them. She mentioned several times wanting to invite some over for Thanksgiving dinner, and my sister and I in our ignorance would simply roll our eyes. She never got the opportunity to make that dinner for “her kids.”

I did some research and learned that in Birmingham the Department of Youth Services has a campus dedicated to rehabilitating young men who have gotten into trouble. I called and talked with several people there, explaining that I wanted to make a small donation, and finally reached Kennedy, who was almost speechless at my offer. Vacca Campus isn’t a “charity” in the true sense of the word and its funds are greatly restricted. But donations, while rare, were accepted and appreciated. He said he would find a way to put mine to use. I mailed the check on June 18, 2009, the 10-year anniversary of my mother’s death, and while Kennedy said he would let me know how the money was put to use, I didn’t expect to hear from him. I knew his work and that of the others at Vacca Campus was hard and often under appreciated. He owed me nothing but a promise that he would make my donation mean something special for the boys. That was all I needed I needed to know.

Just days after Thanksgiving, at the height of our Celebration Season, in the midst of Christmas parties at my son’s school and in our home, I received a letter from Kennedy. I expected it to be an acknowledgement of my donation, but it was so much more.

On behalf of the students and staff at Vacca Campus, we would like to express our appreciation for your generous contribution in honor of your mother. We would like to apologize for our delay in sending you a letter of appreciation. Man people outside of this line of work will never know who challenging, dangerous, and frustrating a career with youth can be with oftentimes limited results. With resources stretched thin and prorated budgets, your donation could not have come at a better time.

We immediately began debating the best use of the funds you provided. One thought was an outside volleyball court but we already have a gym where we can play volleyball. There were other discussions as to the best use of the funds. Finally we decided to use the money to help fund our yearly Fall Festival held in our school gym on October 30, 2009. I regret that we were unable to invite you due to legal restraints but I can assure you that all the students enjoyed the festival. Your donation went toward an eventful day including a basketball tournament between dorms, which the winning dorm received a pizza party. Also we were able to buy popcorn for our popcorn maker and provide the students with barbecue chicken and all the fixings. Our students rarely get charcoal grilled chicken. Also, the dormitory with the best decorations won a pizza party.

The festival was a big success and the students were very grateful. On behalf of the Department of Youth Services and especially the 80-plus students on our campus, we want to thank you again for the monetary donation you gave in honor of your mother.

I read the letter out loud to my husband, breaking up a bit because I’m pathetic that way. My mother never got to host a handful of “her boys” at the house for Thanksgiving, but in a way she was able to give those 80-plus boys at Vacca Campus some holiday joy. And that was worth every penny of my small donation.

The raw truth about cookie dough

We made the Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies last night because that’s what my family did during the holidays when I was a girl. In years past since growing up I’ve tried to replicate the tradition but there was always some wrench that would get thrown into the plan, like my son’s hands. So I’d settle for some of those slice-and-bake Nestle chocolate chip cookies, which looked better and tasted just as good but weren’t based on principal, just because no one in the house had actually labored over each and every ingredient and made a mess of the counter in the process.

So this year I laid out all the ingredients and I even set out two separate bowls - one for the dry ingredients and one for the wet, though when I was a kid we just started combining the wet and then threw in the dry ingredients without regard to mixing them first. This year, before the wet ingredients were thoroughly combined, Truman asked if he could lick the “spinners” He said, “Ashley and Mollie (my sister’s older girls) let me eat the batter when I made cookies with them last year.” Rick and I answered at the same time. “Yes/No.” It was I who said yes. Rick looked over his shoulder. “You sure?” Well, yeah. I mean, this is the man who eats carpaccio and ceviche and sushi and raw oysters and who orders his meat and fish medium rare and his eggs with runny yokes. (What’s that called? Over easy? Sunnyside up? I never learned that.) He even laps up the Old-Fashioned Walker Family Egg Nog, which is nothing but raw eggs and booze. I said, “Haven’t you ever eaten cookie dough?” He said, “Uh huh. I guess so.” You guess so? Guess so? If you have to guess, you obviously haven’t because any cookie-dough-eater knows that the dough actually tastes better than the actual cookies. (Maybe that’s why they were named “cookies,” so that those who made the confection would carry through to the last step and “cook” them.)

Rick raised his lone Jack Nicholson eyebrow at me and shook his head as Truman lapped up the batter that contained raw egg. That was his warning that if Truman spent the entire night hugging the porcelain god, it was my job to sit by and manage it since it was I who got him into that mess. Fine. I’ve been consuming cookie dough probably yearly since I was old enough to walk. Never once did I get salmonella poisoning. What, exactly, changed in eggs to make them more lethal than when I was a little girl?

A risk? Sure, but to even the playing field I swallowed down a few wads of dough. I figured if Truman spent the next morning throwing chunks, rather than sitting by feeling bad about it, I could join in on the misery.

Fast forward to this morning. I’m not sick and neither is Truman. We’re going to make gingerbread men today. Not sure that batter is any good, but we’ll taste-test it to be sure. Rick? Well, he can just stand by and wiggle that Jack Nicholson brow.

Cookbooks make the best gifts!

We picked Truman up early from school Friday and headed to Memphis for the annual Walker-Warren Christmas dinner. We had much cause to celebrate – my sister got engaged. “The missing piece,” my father said. Translation: we don’t have to worry about her anymore. Well, I suppose we’ll always worry about each other, but you know … So we load Truman in the car with his backpack and his rest towel (home for washing) and his Spiderman lunchbox and he is talking nonstop, like he does when he is truly excited. He is thrilled about seeing the family and the presents he will receive later in the evening, but most of all he is excited because he has made us a gift and, he says, “It’s Ok, I decided you can open it now.” Meaning right now, because he cannot even wait for me to get buckled, so I reach around to the backseat and grab the package that’s wrapped in paper he decorated himself. I’ve seen my share of daycare-made gifts before so I was expecting to gush at whatever adorable painting or photo or ornament it was, but by God, his teacher flat-out floored me with this one. It was a cookbook made up or recipes thought up by each child. The kids wrote out their recipes, then typed them into the computer and then drew a picture to accompany it. The teachers did some minor translation. It was just about the cutest and most heart warming thing I believe I’ve ever laid eyes on. Honest.

Some recipes were for Froot Loops (which, thankfully, the teacher had translated to be spelled correctly rather than by the name on the box) or Lucky Charms. Some had hamburgers or spaghetti. My darling son’s recipe was for Marshmallow Mash.

We were told during Kindergarten orientation that they would be teaching the kids to spell phonetically and that we may not understand what our children have written, but this phonetic spelling helps them become better writers and readers. Considering I never learned phonics as a child and I am a severely poor speller, I thought the practice ingenious.

My son was so truly proud of the cookbook that he had me read the entire book – recipes and all – to him right then and there in the car. He also pored through it a few dozen times before we made it to our destination. Then he took it straight to Grandma and showed off his fine work, and later showed the book off to the rest of the family. He had us read it to him as a bedtime story, and the minute we got home he wanted to make a recipe from the book. “It will either be my recipe or someone else’s,” he said. And, big surprise, he landed on Marshmallow Mash. Amazingly, we had all ingredients on hand and I let Truman prepare his super sweet concoction. He devoured proudly.

We’re going to tape him on the Flip the next time he makes it because it’s just about the cutest damn thing you’ll ever see. And yes, I’m being frightfully biased, but it’s a mother’s license to gloat and your right to ignore it.

Happy cooking.

Victoria's Secret for kids

Rick got a call from a former co-worker. She said one of her new co-workers had seen him in Victoria’s Secret with a little boy. The woman was mortified. As if my husband, who, by the way, is somewhat recognizable in the community, is some pedophile. By taking him into a popular lingerie store would taint him. (Never mind that a former and now re-elected councilman in my town once tried to get VS to take those naughty panties out of its display windows!) Truth be told, Truman wants every Christmas, for whatever reason, to buy me fuzzy, furry pajamas and Rick always takes him through VS. I always end up with sweat/PJs outfits with PINK on the leg or bum. Love them. I don’t see how my son wading through VS is an issue.

Rick asked if I had a problem with it. If it was a bad thing to do with a 6-year-old. He said they stayed in the PJ area and at one point Truman trotted off to another table where he leaned over the rainbow of thongs and pulled the blue ones – because blue is his favorite color – and yelped loudly through the intimate apparel store, “Daddy! Let’s get this for Mommy! This is so awesome!” He had a blue thong stretched out across two thumbs and was eyeing them with incredible wonder, and my husband, that recognizable figure I mentioned earlier, demanded he drop the thongs and march right back to the PJs. No amount of “but Daddy”’s swayed my husband, and ultimately they moved on. Or I think they did. There is a rather large box under the tree from Truman and I suspect my husband is smart enough not to gift a pair of panties to me from our darling son. Only time will tell.

So he is wondering if it was so bad for a 40-something man to take his 6-year-old son into VS for a shopping trip for Mommy. I say no. What say you?

Why you should stop bitching and be thankful

I have another reason for feeling good about life in general right now. (See previous post.) I’m healthy. I may not look healthy, as I’ve got plenty of pounds to shed and stuffing my face with holiday confections and gallons of wine isn’t helping matters. But I have no major health concerns. I suppose I was taking it for granted when my friend Robin, on the way back from Target to pick up one of her prescriptions last week, said, “You’re not fat. You’re healthy. And you’re so lucky for that.” God, did I feel like a pig or what? Robin has pancreatic cancer. The “good kind,” if that even makes sense. She’s at the three-years-post-diagnosis mark and while she has remained cancer-free since surgery to remove half her pancreas (and some other assorted, somewhat unnecessary organs), the past three years have been littered with various health complications. When I was driving her around last week she was one-day post some sort of freaky down-the-esophagus procedure to drain fluid buildup in her liver-pancreas area. The fluid was making what was left of her pancreas miserable (she says, “you would be pissed, too, if you had been sitting in a bath for three years,”) and was pushing against her stomach causing a kind of gastric bypass effect. Essentially, she couldn’t keep much food down. While good for the diet, it was not so good for overall health. She’s lost what I’ve gained these past 10 years I’ve known her. Anyway, she couldn’t drive for 24 hours, and I was ahead on my weekly workload, so I chauffeured her around to two different Targets to fill a prescription while she wobbled a bit and carried a plastic shopping bag just in case she needed to puke what little she had eaten that day.

I suppose being around Robin somehow reminded me of Melisa Waller. I had found her blog while Googling recent news on the blood thinner heparin and cancer for the blogs I write for Beasley Allen Law Firm. Her blog is hosted by EmpowHer and the picture of her shows her lying in a hospital bed. I would read one or two of her posts before heading back to my heparin searches. Melissa started writing in February 2009, just weeks after she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. She was 31. Since I had moved on to other subjects from researching heparin for the law firm I hadn’t encountered her blog lately. Last weekend, after my Target excursion with Robin, I thought of Melissa and started to worry about her. Freaky to worry about someone you never met. Anyway, she had said in her blog that the average lifespan for someone with her type of cancer at stage 4 is 14 months. So I think my concern was with merit. When I finally located her on EmpowHer, I saw she had a recent post, so that was a relief. Then I started reading her blog, beginning with the first one she wrote in February. I’ve been reading it these past few days on my iPhone at night when I can’t sleep, in carpool line, and when I have fragments of time during my day that I need to occupy. For someone who’s facing a life sentence, Melissa sure doesn’t seem very oppressed by it. I swear I think I’d cry everyday and then try to blame everyone and everything. I’m not sure what fascinates me so much about her blog (and I went so far as to visit her personal Web site, theMellisaWaller.com), but this girl is in quite a fight.

I’m about halfway through her blog and when I catch up to current time, I’m going to send her a message. Not sure what I’ll say. What do you say to someone you’ve been stalking simply because you find her personal story so compelling? Hope she doesn’t think I’m a freak, but since I have stalked her, I feel like I need to, you know, fess up. But also let her know I’m thinking about her, pulling for her. And, frankly, hope never to experience what she is going through. Since February, she has been in the hospital more than a month, maybe more. Had several visits to the emergency room. Been doubled-over in pain, daily. Had two blood clots. Three surgeries to “cement” her spine back together. Fluid drained from her lung. And numerous setbacks in her chemotherapy sessions, treatments that could extend her life but yet are postponed because her life keeps getting kicked in the ass by cancer.

Last night I read several of Melissa’s postings on my iPhone as Rick slept quietly next to me. In the May 26^th post, titled “Staying Strong,” Melissa finally expressed what I was feeling for her. “I was talking with Wes today and I was just telling him how I miss my old life. I miss the fast-paced lifestyle that I used to live. I miss planning for the future. I miss being intimate. I REALLY MISS driving! I miss eating a meal without having to give myself a shot in my stomach or taking a cupful of pills. I miss working out and doing pilates and yoga at the Village. I miss being able to go to Postino's and having a couple of glasses of wine without worrying if I am going to wake up the next day. There are many, many things that I miss about my life prior to lung cancer.”

And then she said, “That’s why I hope you as you read this don’t take for granted all the wonderful, daily things that seem simple.”

There. It hit me right at that moment. Reading those words and feeling guilty for bitching about being fat and having to do laundry again and that we have too many Christmas parties to attend this year and not enough time to just sit in a lump of leaves in our backyard. God, I’m so selfish.

I read a few more posts last night before turning off the iPhone. But first, I checked the date, just in case my iPhone cache blanks out and I need to locate my place on her blog. The last post I read was published on June 18, 2009, the 10-year anniversary of my mother’s death. I’m not sure that’s significant. Maybe just coincidental. But whatever. It meant something to me.

The Celebration Season

It’s been a while since I posted – my first since leaving BlissTree. It’s been crazy around here. We launched the holiday season as we have for the past six years – with Truman’s birthday party (or birthday, whichever comes first). This celebration of sorts continues for a month … longer, really. Until New Year’s Day. And I am so eager at that point to tear down this messy garland and pick the ornaments off the floor. (I can thank my cats for that this year. Previous years it was partially Truman’s fault.) But we’re halfway through the celebration season and other than suffering a financial blow due to an unexpected four-figure car repair, I’m in great spirits.

I kicked off the celebration season by wallowing in a little pathetic self-pity. My Memphis family was enjoying Thanksgiving together, no doubt spending the evening eating a lavish meal, drinking bottomless glasses of wine, talking loudly about current events and how there is some hope for the miserable economy. Instead, I spent the holiday hosting my husband’s family. They are dear, refined people, and while I love them deeply, we’re just a small group and our midday meal isn’t littered with off-color jokes and talks about how the Republicans are ruining our great country.

And my mother is gone. Dead 10 years now, and I like to throw in some jabs to my already bruised ego by kicking around thoughts of what the holidays would be like if she were still around. I can’t call Anni, my father’s wife, a stepmother. She entered my life when I was too old to need a surrogate one. But she has been a lifesaver to my father, my family. And loves my son as if he were her own. That’s priceless.

So, it was Thanksgiving day and I was wallowing around in that self-pity crap and I had this epiphany. I realized one day Truman would be in college or beyond, and he will call (or text?) and say he will be spending the holidays with his girlfriend or whatever. I’m telling this to my mother-in-law as the turkey I undercooked was back in the oven. I said, “And you know what? It’ll be OK.” She said, “No, it won’t.” I said, “Yes, it will. Because, you know what Rick and I will do? We’ll go to New Orleans. We’ll spend the holiday there. And we’ll look back on days like this when Truman was a kid and we were all together and we’ll remember how special this time is.” And I meant it with such a fever that I swear I almost ran to Google “Thanksgiving in New Orleans” to find the best places to dine and stay. But that can wait. Thing is, I don’t want to spend my entire holidays wishing for what is gone and will no longer be. I want to appreciate the here and now.

And so, this Thanksgiving day the six of us – my family and my husband’s – lined up at the table, and I wasn’t sad for what I was missing out on up in Memphis. (OK, maybe a little jealous.) And I sent a little message to my Mom, sort of a “Thanks for teaching me to love the holidays,” because I must have gotten it from someone. And when everyone went to bed, I grabbed my laptop and Googled “New Orleans.”

Birthday cake tragedy finds happy ending

You should have seen the birthday cake Rick’s friend made our son for his sixth birthday. We held the party at an indoor soccer field and centered the party on a sports theme with game ticket invitations and goodie bags with miniature soccer balls, footballs, baseballs and basketballs. Rick’s friend made a ball-shaped cake decorated with black and white icing to look exactly like a soccer ball. Way cool. My husband brought the cake home Friday and we left it on the kitchen counter, since he said we didn’t need to refrigerate the cake. We should have known the fate of that cool cake was in jeopardy, as we are prone to mini-disasters whenever we entertain – like dumping the entire bowl of the main dish pasta on the floor or covering guests with fresh-made buttermilk dressing. True to form, when we woke up Saturday morning, that cake was completely covered in ants.

I still didn't get a picture of the cake, but I did capture the chaos of present-opening!

My husband is far more of a germ phobe than I, but he desperately tried blowing on the cake to get the ants off. “Can we save it? Oh, please say we can save it,” he said. I just put my hand on his shoulder and shook my head. Even I knew that we could not win back the cake from 12 dozen tiny ants. So we waged our war by shoving that beautiful and aromatic chocolate fudge cake down the garbage disposal as my son wailed in the background, “Is my soccer ball cake OK?”

This is where my husband and I looked at each other and found a freaky calm. Not to sound preachy, but we have so much to be thankful for, like jobs to pay for a replacement cake. And a happy, healthy little soon-to-be-six-year-old. That’s more than I can say for a lot of people we know.

We were not about to call Rick’s friend to remake that cake. It is our plan for him to never find out. (Wise putting it up on this Web site, eh?) Instead I gave in and called a couple bakeries. I say “gave in” because I’ve been boycotting the first bakery, let’s call it “E’s,” because they fired some longtime baker (who I did not know) because customers had found out he was gay. Yeah, the lawsuit’s pending. Since there are three “E” bakeries in town, my call was routed to a central number to place my order. I gave up on the 3D cake, hoping just to get a round cake with a black-and-white soccer ball pattern colored on the top with buttercream frosting. But this was too high a demand for “E’s,” as I would have had to pick it up that afternoon. Besides, the woman said, those little octagon shapes are too difficult to do in icing? Really? I thought bakers could do anything. At least those wedding cake artists you see on TV can! She said I was welcome to walk into any of the “E” locations and they would be happy to write “Happy Birthday Truman” on a cake already decorated with flowers or balloons. Nah.

I called a second bakery. This one, “S’s,” is actually in a more convenient location for us but parking there is a bear and the sales staff act as if you are annoying them whenever you dare speak to them. But the lady on the phone was nice enough and said they would be happy to do the soccer ball cake, no problem. She said, just so I knew, that the soccer ball design was a rounded pop up. A rounded what? What’s a pop top? A pop top is a plastic top that sits on the cake. You remove it before serving. Not that it really mattered at this point, but the thought of some big plastic pop top on my son’s cake didn’t sound too appetizing to me, so I told her I’d get back to her.

And then my husband suggested I call Publix. I’m not a fan of that whipped icing they put on their pre-made cakes, but my friend Rhoda told me just last week that you can request buttercream when you order a cake there. So I called our local Publix bakery and sure enough the woman who took my order said it was perfectly fine for them to make the top of a 10-inch round cake look like a soccer ball with black-and-white buttercream icing. The only thing is that the cake had to be vanilla, which was fine, but they did put a glob of chocolate fudge filling in the middle, which sufficiently sufficed. The best part is that the bakery is open on Sundays so we arranged for the cake to be picked up on Sunday (unlike the two other bakeries I called, who are not open on Sundays) on the way to the soccer field. That way, cake number 2 wouldn’t even see our house before the party and the ants couldn’t exact revenge on us.

When we unveiled the cake at the birthday party, my son glowed with pride. The cake was devoured. The party went off without (another) hitch. All was well. Still, I can’t help but wonder how truly good that 3D soccer ball cake must have been. I hope the ants enjoyed it. It was, after all, their last supper.

Photo, JWJourney, BlissMom.com

Best Egg Nog Recipe in the World!

When my mom died and my sister and I divvied up her belongings that my father did not need, I ended up with the coveted “The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.” It was profoundly sentimental to me because it was the duct-taped book that my parents had used to prepare our world famous Holiday Egg Nog. While the fabulous Walker Family Christmas Eve Party dated back to the early 1970s, the addition of the Holiday Egg Nog did not come to be part of the tradition until I was in high school or college. I’m going to take full credit for adding it to our lineup of Midnight Rum Balls and the Green family’s peanut butter chocolate thingies. I simply said what a great idea it would be to make our own egg nog than buy that nonalcoholic stuff they sell with the milk at the grocery store. And thus the tradition began.

This old Fannie Farmer cookbook was actually my father’s mother’s book. She died, ironically, on Christmas Day when I was a wee kid, but judging from the photos I’ve seen of her, I’m sure she would have enjoyed having a cup or two of the Walker family nog.

There is a science to this egg nog recipe. For starters, it uses raw eggs. I remember when I was a kid and it was OK to lick the cake batter out of the bowl without someone freaking out about salmonella poisoning. I’m not sure what happened to eggs between now and then. But my father, the immunologist, says that the alcohol in our egg nog is enough to kill just about anything in its path. Honestly, this recipe uses enough booze that even my family would warn guests not to smoke near it.

The other odd thing is that this recipe is to be made a week before it is consumed and “store in cool cellar.” We live in Alabama. Our cellar holds wine and is climate controlled, otherwise it would be about 75 degrees this time of year. But, the refrigerator is a fair substitute. And we make room.

I have had two different excellent chefs taste the Walker Family Egg Nog and they both agreed with anyone else who has ever been brave enough to try it. It is excellent. And for those skittish few out there – not a single person has come down with salmonella or any other illness from consuming the raw eggs in this nog. (Think Rocky Balboa in Rocky, the first one.) As for alcohol poisoning, well, I can’t vouch for that.

I’m going to share this recipe, and you’ll thank me if you try it. (I’m not going to type it in because that’s probably a copyright issue. So I’ll just shoot the page.) But if you really want to thank me, then you can visitBlissMom.com after Dec. 1, because at the end of the month I’ll be moving on from the glorious BlissTree. Bittersweet. Meantime, let’s toast to this, the best egg nog recipe you will ever try.

Can You Influence Your Child's Choice in Teams?

Last weekend we hit another milestone. Truman went to his first Alabama football game. We were offered some posh seats in a skybox with a steady line of tasty snacks and a bottomless cooler of beverages. I suspect our son has been spoiled senseless. Wonder how he’ll react next time when he is forced to sit in the bleachers.

Alabama is my husband’s team. He grew up during the glory days of Bear Bryant, and he still remembers seeing the mighty coach standing on the sidelines or watching him eat Golden Flake potato chips on TV. If you think Alabama fans have put the Bear years behind them, you haven’t met my husband.

My son is an LSU fan. We’re not sure how it happened. Truman pledged his allegiance to the purple-and-gold a few weeks before the 2007 football season. That was the year they took home the national championship. This was when my son was his most clairvoyant. He almost always picked the winning baseball team or Nascar driver. When he predicted Obama would be president long before the Democratic primary, well, it was just freaky.

Here’s how much my husband loves our son – he bought Truman an LSU jersey. Truman wears it from time to time, especially when he and Daddy play football in the yard. Rick is willing to be most any team Truman makes him be, except Tennessee and Auburn. Last week Rick was Iowa. (Truman pronounces it eye-OH-uh.)

Sure, we bought Truman Alabama caps and jerseys even before he was born. We assumed we would raise an Alabama fan simply through osmosis. But for some reason, our son preferred choosing his own favorites. As much as it pains Rick, he is willing to let Truman be his own man when it comes to choosing sports teams. Rick is an avid New York Yankees fan; Truman prefers the Red Sox. Rick loves the Lakers; Truman likes the Celtics.

When we told Truman last week that we were going to see Alabama play LSU, Rick told our darling son that he could wear any jersey he wanted, including his LSU jersey. Truman said, “That’s OK, Daddy. I’m going to wear my Alabama jersey just for you.” My husband gushed with pride.

Those words alone from my psychic son led me to believe that Alabama would continue its winning streak. But at times it was hard to keep the faith. Thankfully, Alabama pulled off the win. Roll Tide!

We drove home that evening with our son strapped in the backseat. He was wearing his Alabama jersey and ROLL TIDE eye blacks, holding a crimson-and-white shaker and a paper hounds tooth hat fan, and shouting “Roll Tide” to passing cars. My husband turned to me, a proud papa, and said, “I think we’ve finally made him a Bama fan.”

Truman suddenly paused from his Bama chants. “You know, Daddy,” he chimed in. “I like Alabama, but I still like LSU more.”

Photo, JWJourney

When to tell Kids about Santa

When I was 7, I learned the truth about Santa. Sort of.

My friend Emily said Santa was not some jolly old elf who appeared in the night and left presents under the tree, but was really my father who would crawl out of bed and pull toys from the closet. I suppose I knew Emily was telling the truth, but inside I wanted to believe Santa was real.

It was back when my family and I used to eat dinner around the dining room table that I made the announcement to my parents. “I know the truth about Santa. It’s you, Dad. You’re Santa.” My father put his fork down, placed his hands on the table and sighed. “You’re right, kiddo. I am Santa. And it is extremely exhausting getting up late at night, calling together the reindeer, and hitting every house in the world before daylight. But know that you know, perhaps you’ll go to bed a little faster on Christmas Eve so I can leave the house on time.”

It was not the answer I was expecting, but it was a welcome one. I wasn’t ready to let the mystery of Santa fade so quickly. And while I knew deep down that my father wasn’t Santa to the entire planet, it was nice to know that the magic wasn’t gone.

At some point, all kids whose families practice Santa Claus will question the tradition. So, when is the best time to let your kids in on the big secret?

“There’s really no one right time to tell kids that there’s no Santa Claus,” says Glen Elliott, Ph.D. Elliott is an associate professor and the director of the department of child and adolescent psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, in an interview with CNN. “The important thing is to take your cues from the child, and not try to prolong the fantasy for your own enjoyment when they may be ready to give it up.”

Yeah, maybe so. My son will be 6 this Christmas. He hasn’t questioned Santa, but I’m sure that will change now that he is in school. And when he does begin to question the whole idea, I think I’ll go my father’s route and choose the non-denial denial method.