Drew & Brownie

Brownie, Drew's new puppy, arrived safely at Boston's Logan Airport on December 22nd with Dorothy as his expert chaperone.

It was absolutely the highlight of Drew's 9-year-old life.

Liar

Every time Bush speaks other things are happening between the lines. So when I found this bit of animated commentary it felt almost as good as watching Comedy Central's Daily Show...where the real news is.

Click the picture to see the video...


I think this will be a format you'll see more and more often on the web and on blogs - running comments alongside streaming video.

Wonderland

Having a little wonderland with our coffee today.

Blackbirds

This poem has always captured me. Perhaps it's because I lived in Washington DC for a time and I know the way the city feels at night - the long boulevards and the lights on the monuments. And in the day when it's full of people, but still feels strangely empty. It's a city full of records where I remember often feeling aware of my heart beating - like the place wasn't real. It's inhabited by ideas - the good, and the bad.

And once when I lived there, Bob called to say he'd suddenly been fired from the first job he ever had in Boston. But he was really happy about it because it meant he could fly down to see me. And he did just that.






The Myth of Blackbirds
by Joy Harjo

The hours we counted precious were blackbirds in the density of Washington.
Taxis toured the labyrinth with passengers of mist as the myth of ancient
love took the shape of two figures carrying the dawn tenderly on their
shoulders to the shores of the Potomac.

We fled the drama of lit marble in the capitol for a refuge held up by sweet,
everlasting earth. The man from Ghana who wheeled our bags was lonesome
for his homeland, but commerce made it necessary to carry someone else’s
burdens. The stars told me how to find us in this disorder of systems.

Washington did not ever sleep that night in the sequence of eternal nights.
There were whirring calculators, computers stealing names, while spirits
of the disappeared drank coffee in an all-night café in this city of disturbed
relativity.

Justice is a story by heart in the beloved country where imagination weeps.
The sacred mountains only appear to be asleep. When we finally found the
room in the hall of mirrors and shut the door I could no longer bear the
beauty of scarlet licked with yellow on the wings of blackbirds.

This is the world in which we undressed together. Within it white deer
intersect with the wisdom of the hunter of grace. Horses wheel toward the
morning star. Memory was always more than paper and cannot be broken by
violent history or stolen by thieves of childhood. We cannot be separated in
the loop of mystery between blackbirds and the memory of blackbirds.

And in the predawn when we had slept for centuries in a drenching sweet
rain you touched me and the springs of clear water beneath my skin were
new knowledge. And I loved you in this city of death.

Through the darkness in the sheer rise of clipped green grass and asphalt our
ancestors appear together at the shoreline of the Potomac in their
moccasins and pressed suits of discreet armor. They go to the water from
the cars of smoky trains, or dismount from horses dusty with fatigue.

See the children who became our grandparents, the old women whose bones
fertilized the corn. They form us in our sleep of exhaustion as we make our
way through this world of skewed justice, of songs without singers.

I embrace these spirits of relatives who always return to the place of
power, whatever the outcome in the spiral of beauty. And I particularly
admire the tender construction of your spine which in the gentle dawning is
a ladder between the deep in which stars are perfectly stars, and the
heavens where we converse with eagles.

I guide your hip home to me with my hand which is more than a hand, rather
a river of effervescent water. And I am thankful to the brutal city for the
space which outlines your limber beauty. To the man from Ghana who loves
the poetry of stars. To the ancestors who do not forget us in the
concrete and paper illusion. To the blackbirds who are more than blackbirds.
And to you, sweetheart, as we make our incredible journey.

Cards?

It snowed lightly all day today, coating the bare arms of the trees. We put the lights up on the bushes and the wreaths on the doors. It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas.

What's the story with Christmas cards? I'm feeling decidedly anti-card now that I've got this blog. Between my blog and email and the occasional phone call, I'm up to date with just about everyone I'd send cards to. Perhaps I'll design a "card" on the blog instead of sending more paper into the world.

Pura Vide

Five women went to Costa Rica. Hammocks were slept in. Drinks were poured. Mucho laughs were had. Food was delicious. Monkeys frolicked. Spanish was attempted. There was a croning. Adventures were many. Certain peril was avoided. New friends were made.

Costa Rica's motto is Pura Vide - Pure Life. It is PARADISE. Unbelieveable. Monkeys waking us every morning at sunrise by throwing around coconuts. Rainforest teeming with life. Tropical fish on coastal reefs. Fresh caught fish to eat each night.


We stayed at Aguila de Osa. The people were fun, knowledgeable and incredibly kind. We were simultaneously in the wilderness and totally spoiled spa-style. The food was delicious and the rooms gorgeous. It was heaven.

Here are all the pictures.

Off the grid

I'll be off the grid for a few days, exploring the rainforest of Costa Rica.

I'll be back Wednesday, November 30th, assuming there are no serious snake bites or perilous drops from the cables of the canopy tour.

High Fidelity

All time best movie about this issue.

We are music junkies. We can't even let go of our old paraphernalia. We have 10 boxes of albums in the basement. We haven't played them in years, but we have moved them, unplayed, from house to house four different times. The last time we moved, they were so heavy and we were that much older, that we should have rented a forklift. Next to the albums in the basement are 50 lbs. of custom-created cassette tapes in various tape holders. We only listen to a few of them now in the car on road trips.

Our current stereo system operates from a CD jukebox that holds 400 CDs. When we last moved we hooked up the stereo and discovered to our horror that all of the programming for the jukebox had been wiped out. So we laboriously re-programmed and re-entered all of the CDs. Then a month ago during a power blackout, the jukebox AGAIN wiped out it's programming. That was the final straw.

That, plus the advent of iTunes. So we're going all digital at Christmas. We're getting a family iPod for everything. 5,000 songs should do it. Bob's copying all the CDs from the jukebox into iTunes on his computer in anticipation of the arrival of the iPod.

It's amazing the lengths we go to for music. But hey, what's life without a sound track?

Brownie

Pretty soon our lives will be all turned upside down. Say hello to Brownie...our new cockapoo puppy. Dorothy is flying up with him on December 22 from Florida. He will be about 20 pounds when he's grown.

Many thanks to Dorothy for finding him!

OK all you dog people out there...send me any advice I need on raising a puppy or books we should read. I've heard it's like having a baby in the house. Oh boy!

The Ferry

That could be me in the red bathing cap on the dock. When I spent summers at Chautauqua Lake in the 1970s the greatest thing was the ferry.

Our cottage was right down the street and we'd pay - what? a quarter? to ride the ferry over to the Casino - the big building in the background.

There was no gambling at the Casino but it did have greasy fries and pinball machines. We played innumerable rounds of shuffle bowling and bought penny candy.

The ferry is still there, but just for show. A huge bridge and highway now crosses the middle of the lake. When they were building it, my cousins would ride their motor boat by the pilings and throw firecrackers at them. I loved that.

The bridge isn't right. The ferry is the spirit of the place.

Lucky 13

Cousins Dan, Jim, Jon, Mike, Matt, Dylan, Drew, Kate, Abby, Ryan, Jessica, Gavin and now....Isabelle.

Isn't she beautiful?

Vote for Kelly

I first met Kelly in high school. We shared liberal politics, progressive moms and a desire to get out in the wide world.

We saw each other briefly in college when we were both in D.C. suffering through Reagan's America. I was doing an internship in the Senate. She was fighting the good fight for various progressive causes. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. But Kelly was already doing her thing. She was where the action was.

Kelly found her place in Los Angeles fighting hard for all the right things, especially the environment and women's rights.

I don't know anyone more perfectly suited for the kind of job she's going for now. Kelly will be great in the California State Assembly. But I have no doubt she will go far beyond that. Kelly, we need leaders like you. Thanks for always going for it.

To my Los Angeles friends...not only must vote for her, you must somehow sneak in a vote from me.

Halloween

My nephews are awesome.

I love chocolate. So I don't give it out at Halloween or I'd eat too much!

I give out bags of Cheetos and Doritos. They're always a big hit.

Time

The first snow of the year is drifting down outside my window.

Marty says, " Time is the fire in which we burn..."
But if we're lucky, the flames are fueled by what we love.

Mary Oliver says it for me:

The Deer

You never know.
The body of night opens
like a river, it drifts upward like white smoke,

like so many wrappings of mist.
And on the hillside two deer are walking along
just as though this wasn't

the owned, tilled earth of today
but the past.
I did not see them the next day, or the next,

but in my mind's eye -
there they are, in the long grass,
like two sisters.

This is the earnest work. Each of us is given
only so many mornings to do it -
to look around and love

the oily fur of our lives,
the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.
Days I don't do this

I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst
Death isn't just an idea.

When we die the body breaks open
like a river;
the old body goes on, climbing the hill.

Face

Question of the day is which head shot should go on Boston.com?

Globe editors prefer serious business journalist face.

While Boston.com editors prefer smiley friendly face.

I went with serious Maura. This process required too much thought and discussion so now I feel totally stalked by my own face. Don't even try to get me to change my mind.

Music

I wrote about Starbucks this morning and something occured to me.

All the actual CDs we've purchased in the last 8 months came from Starbucks. Otherwise we buy everything on iTunes.

Starbucks really has a lock on marketing to lifestyle. They should sell selected books too.

Oh and Radio Paradise is the BOMB.

Teenager

<-- Dylan 1st day

Our baby is a teenager today. I remember when his feet were at my elbow and his head lay in my hand. We're so glad he chose us as parents. He's a star in our universe.

F-f-f-f-ootb-b-ball

Up at 6am to drive to Dylan's football game in Topsfield. It was 36 degrees. When we got to the field, it was covered in a sparkling layer of frost.

We f-f-f-roze. The kids lost and 2 kids on the Marblehead team were carted off by ambulance with neck injuries - high drama at the height of fall. Luckily the injured boys are fine.

It's LIVE

Gack.

- 2 kids sick, trips to doctor
- launching on Boston.com tomorrow - scramble!
- just signed a new client - National Grid Wireless - in collaboration with Doreen
- Bob's closing the Mattel deal
- Bob's taking the Microsoft deal to second level
- the last two bring us closer to a move
- Dad's having CAT scan today to see how chemo has been working
- oh, and the laundry is behind, we're halfway through painting the hall, need to do bills, blah blah blah

Pre-launch countdown

Have been laboring away on the Boston Globe project. It's nearly there. Set to launch Friday (if all goes as planned) on Boston.com and on Halloween in the Boston Globe. Still in cloaked mode - more as it's live...

Coffee

Beth Schultz, all around great trainer at the Y, has gotten me to do stuff I never thought I could do at Boot Camp and Body Pump & Sculpt. But this goes too far. She wants me to stop drinking coffee. She says it with zeal because she just quit and claims that it's pushed her to a whole new level of weight loss/body tone. She claims coffee increases your insulin levels and does something bad to your liver?

Now, I trust Beth in all things. But come on.

I Googled it and found 10 reasons why coffee is good for you. Ah...nothing like a good cup of rationalization to start your day.

In the Hot Zone

I'm deeply moved by the work independent war correspondant Kevin Sites is doing. Sites' blog, www.kevinsites.net, was one of the first to to provide readers with an intimate, behind-the-lines look at the war in Iraq and how it was being covered.

Now Yahoo! has hired him for one year (a first for Yahoo!) to cover every major global conflict for Yahoo! News Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. There is text, video, photo essays. It's amazing.

So far he's been in Somalia (where my Aunt D. was a nurse and aid worker). He is now in the Congo, he writes about the desperate situation but how there is laughter there too.

The project is dedicated to Marla Ruzicka, humanitarian and founder of Civic Worldwide who was killed in Iraq in April 2005 by a suicide bomber. I was captivated by this video of her.

Mom & Charles

I just watched Sunday Morning. It reminds me of Mom and Charles Kuralt. Years ago I wrote this little poem and it makes me happy to read it.


Why I write of the dead all the time

All around me
You follow me
Every step I take
It's you taking it with me
I’m not alone
And thank you
Thank you
All of you

Rainforest Ho!

My friend Marianne - adventurer, scientist, neighbor and fearless companion and support in all matters of parenting, love, life and art - invited me to join a group of remarkable women in Costa Rica to celebrate her birthday. And in the face of possibly moving and juggling the usual demands of family and work, I said yes. It's just like Mari to give me a gift for her birthday.

I just faxed the confimation form to Aguila de Osa so it's for real. Rainforest, dolphins, monkeys, hiking, kayaking, and giant bugs all with a group of uppity, smart women followed by cocktails on the porch? Pinch me...I must be dreaming.

The Sky is Falling

This morning I flipped on Good Morning America. They're doing a segment called "Is God Mad at Us?" and the talking heads are Jerry Falwell, Bill Nye the Science Guy and another guy who is (I think) a comedian. No lie. Given this brain trust, the talk of tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, bird flu pandemic, etc. in the context of a screen caption that says "Is God mad at us?" is worthy of The Onion. Highlight: Science Guy got apoplectic when Jerry Falwell scoffed at "supposed" global warming.

As I write this I'm listening to OnPoint on NPR and it too is about whether we're in the run-up to the apocalypse. And next hour they're going to talk about the coming San Francisco earthquake.

It's never easy to live on earth. It's brutal and hard and filled with conflict. So why do we have this sudden pervasive feeling that the sky is falling? Maybe because our leadership is so lacking that it's frightening to face the present and future. Is the light dawning???

Chick Thoughts

Went to see In Her Shoes last night. It's good Chick-lit that translates well to Chick-flick. It's not for everyone. But it worked for me. Laughed. Cried. The usual chick response. Cameron Diaz is exceptional in the role of the crazed, self-destructive sister. After the movie, met up with Marianne and some other women at The Hurricane and throughout the night I found myself ruminating about getting older.

Bought Jennifer Weiner's latest book, Goodnight Nobody, for Doreen's birthday present today...she'll always be 2 weeks younger than me.

I'm definitely having massive menopausal mood swings.

Make. Me. Shut. Up.

Flying J

Last Saturday we're on our way to Marty and Brenda's wedding. Having just blown into Rochester, NY the night before via a 7 hour drive and a West coast plane trip, we're completely on top of it. The wedding is at 11:00 in Alden and by about 10:50 we're still miles away, really low on gas and I'm just putting my mascara on.

So we pull into the Flying J in Corfu to tank up. Bob starts pumping gas and says why don't I go in and get coffee. I head across the windy parking lot toward the store since we're desperate for caffeine before we hit the Lutheran Church.

The second I open the door to the Flying J, it hits me right in the mascara. We're in the mid-West. Forget that we're in the flats between Buffalo and Rochester NY. No. In America the Midwest starts just after the Berkshires.

First of all, until I came in here, the town seemed deserted. Just a bunch of fields and some prisons. But inside, it's like the Corfu General Store or something. There's the guy lifting up his little boy to get a donut from the case. There's a some truck drivers chatting it up. There's a bunch of people over by the Lotto thing. There's a few men getting coffee from the spicket by the Slurpee machine. Some guy is checking the race sheet. And there's a hard-boiled woman with a tattoo manning the cash register.

And every man, woman and child has just frozen in mid-gesture to look at me.

The thing is, I'm wearing a sleeveless black dress, heels, makeup, my dress-up jewlery. But I think it's the part about blowing in the door, fluffing and fixing my windblown hair and tossing my wispy chiffon shawl over my shoulder that has taken it completely over the top. In this room, in this place, it's like I just walked off the set of Sex and the City.

Soooo...OK then...straighten my dress...clutch my little black bag...and...set off at an East coast pace toward the big silver coffee taps next to the Slurpee machine.

The coffee is scalding hot and smells like burnt sludge. There's a guy with a dull smile blinking at me holding the cream carton, so I skip the cream and totter over to pay tattoo lady. I high-heel it outta there. As the door shuts behind me a giant gust of wind blows my shawl over my face and the scalding sludge drips down my hand.

I get in the car and Bob says "No espresso?"

Falconcrest

One of The Mannicans had a wedding so all the rude boys and girls went. We heathens did not know the words to the hymns at the reception but we did know the way to our favorite backcountry bar. Dear friends, ice cold drafts, hot wings, a suggestive potato, stories from the glory days, some singing. Ahhhhhh...

Margie and Bob - remember that day we went in the river?

Mean Kids

The other day my nearly 13-year-old son was walking to school and ran into a bunch of kids walking to the local charter school in the opposite direction. He had gone to grade school with some of them but hadn't seen them in years. A girl in the group said "Hi Dylan" and before he could say anything back she said "Loser."

Dylan did the right thing. He didn't even remember what her name was. Why would someone he barely knew pass judgement on him? He was stunned, kept walking and didn't say anything.

I know I should take comfort knowing we've raised a nice kid. But I hate going back and re-living all that crap from middle school. Just wait until they all see who the losers become...

Oxygen

My Dad has lung cancer. On October 4th he had his second round of chemotherapy. When we found out about his cancer, Peter Jennings had just died from it. Jennings and lung cancer were in the news so much it made me feel like what would happen to Dad, to me, to our family, was being broadcast.

Last year, when my Mom was dying of ovarian cancer, we spent her last days listening to her breath. And now, with Dad, it's his very lungs that are failing him.

When things happen in your life, it's never long before you read or hear about how it's happening to other people too. Yesterday I opened up a new issue of the New Yorker and found this incredible poem by Mary Oliver.

OXYGEN

Everything needs it; muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine

stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a

stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your

right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a

beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know

where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except

everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles

to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.

- (c) Mary Oliver, The New Yorker, October 10, 2005

Blue Sky

It's one of those amazing blue sky fall days that make you appreciate the planet. I guess I'll ignore the desperate state of world affairs and breathe it all in.

So on that note, here's a way to stop and smell the roses...er...well, the plants that came out great this year at my house...

NASA? We’ve Got a Search On.

In January my husband got word from his company that they were going to shut down their offices in Boston and Los Angeles and consolidate everything in New York City. Naturally the company handled this change with the utmost pre-planning and professionalism. The CEO sent out a hastily worded email a few seconds before he did a live earnings call announcing the decision to the public.

“Some of you will be offered relocation packages. Thank you for all your years of service I wish you much luck in the future. Cryptically yours, The CEO just hired a few months ago.”

We knew this was coming …but just like death, when it actually happens you’re never prepared. So we were thrust into the chaos of a large-scale cross-country and international job search. My husband, still working even harder at his current job (now that they laid everyone off), has now added job search and interview travel to his schedule. And I’m finding that piloting the home front during this search is a lot like being a part of a NASA ground crew…except that the funding has been cut for the mission…so I’m manning the headset solo.

As NASA ground chief, which is in addition to my regular jobs, I’m forwarding calls from headhunters, checking email accounts, monitoring vitals to gauge the candidate’s mental health as well as his clothing and equipment needs. I’m juggling travel plans so they dovetail with his need for sleep and various scout meetings and band concerts that are held in sacred trust by two unsuspecting young staff members, that do not yet know that the precious cargo we’re tracking through space is about to reposition our ground coordinates dramatically.

Thanks to modern technology, minute by minute reports and queries are issued by Blackberry:

“What would premium health care cost us if we paid on our own?”

“Check out the schools in Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Montclair, New Jersey.”

“There's NO good food at the United Gate. SUCKS!!!!!”

“OK, I figured it out. The rooms at this hotel remind me of Twin Peaks. Freaks me out!”

“Seriously - London or Paris ...for a 3 year contract?”

After the first few interviews I gave up picturing myself in these new cities…San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris. Because as soon as I started getting used to the idea, the spotlight would suddenly fall on another part of the world.

It’s a mind warp to spend one moment trying to grok Manhattan and the next a Los Angeles suburb. Especially when you’ve spent the last 15 years happily ensconced in the cultural bubble of Boston…where liberal, educated provincialism is the norm and the city is small enough to still feel like a town. And as much as I despise the clubby, Yankee mentality, I have to wonder if I’m really cut out for the LA suburbs. If they all look alike how do you find your house? And what do you mean there’s no town center? If not, does the center hold? Will the falcon hear the falconer? Will anyone have read Yeats?

All of this feels like juggling multiple juggling acts. And that has got to be what those guys at NASA go through. Go too fast and the candidate will burn out, or burn up. Pick the wrong thing and the cabin may lose pressure and the inhabitants suffocate. Chart the trajectory and time it exact or you may miss the target by a lightyear or so. Is the target inhabitable? Will the life forms be friendly?

We’re stressed. We’re excited. We’re sad. Not just because we’ll miss our friends and our city. But also because our ability to consider relocation, is due in large part to the fact that, sadly, I no longer have my mother to care for. So I’m free to go anywhere, even though saying so doesn’t make me feel all weightless and optimistic. And that’s because for me, my mother has always been my NASA ground crew. So along with everything else I’m busily rewiring myself and patching in coordinates I’ve never used before, so that I can make this new voyage.

I know we’re embarking on a huge enterprise, but it will also be a grand adventure. So while we’re navigating these tricky, harrowing months, we maintain constant radio contact. Like today while I was cooking dinner, and simultaneously advising a client through the phone tucked to my shoulder and making meaningful eye contact with my son to get off his butt and start his homework, my email beeped with an incoming message…from a Blackberry somewhere outside London…

“Couldn't be doing this without you.”

You are now entering the Househunting Zone

So you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. You’ve socked some money away and your house value has skyrocketed. It’s time to buy a better house. Simple? You have no idea.

Let’s just say it’s no more than $500,000. Now to get this number, you and your partner on a Sunday before you’ve had a shower, have made an Excel spreadsheet of your life, argued about priorities and determined what you wanted to spend. So when you say “no more than $500,000,” what you really mean that at $500,000 you could still make the payments with the help of prescription medication. So, with acute stress symptoms aside, let’s say 500,000 is your number.

That number doesn’t matter. Because your realtor will always turn to you and say…”Hmmm…well, can you go into the 6’s?”

So there you are with more money than you ever imagined you’d have and for the life of you, it feels exactly like it did when you had no money. You can’t afford anything. The realtor takes you to these appalling little hovels and with a straight face hands you a sell sheet for a cool half million. You look around the place. You start tallying up all the work that needs to be done to make it feel like half million dollar house. And right there before our very eyes, the house becomes a three quarter million dollar house.

On your way out of this spectacularly expensive house, you have to really work to pull the animal fur off your sweater. You can’t close the door right because it’s falling off the house. On the way to your car you start flapping your arms to work the smell 50 years of cigarette smoke out of your coat.

OK. Some of you reading this may think it’s rather charming, rather quaint to have these problems. You’re the ones that drive around in $100,000 SUVs so it’s possible to make that perilous, rocky, up-mountain climb to Starbucks each morning.

I have a friend – a really sweet person, heart of gold. And she was born into money. A lot of it. One night over drinks we were talking about my latest househunting experiences. At the time I was sweating over an offer I made for a house that from the outside was absolutely the ugliest house I have ever seen.

I talked about how we were amazed at the fact that there are no contingencies anymore. In other words…you cannot make your offer contingent on using the proceeds from the sale of your current overly-inflated-value house. To have a chance at swinging the deal, you just have to have a ton of cash up front, a stomach of iron, and take out a ridiculously large mortgage. Then you fix it later after the sale of your house…which you hope will sell for what you hope it will sell for.

My friend, her Pinot Grigio paused in mid-air, looked at me truly shaken. “You need to have a mortgage?” she said with her eyes widening.

Well, we never got the ugly house, which is probably a blessing. I mean, if you have to have a mortgage, shouldn’t the house not make you want to retch?

Improbable States

So I answer the phone and it’s my Aunt D. She’s calling to tell me that owning property is absolutely ridiculous. All these things are absolutely weighing her down. She has just got to purge. In fact, she’s made an important decision. She’s going to give up her apartment in Boston and sell everything. Then she’s going to take that money, plus her remaining life savings, and buy an Airstream motorhome. It’s a perfect plan, she says, because she’ll have limited space and won’t be able to accumulate things. After all, there are only a few essential items in life: books, diet Coke, her computer, the cats... This way nothing will tie her down and at long last, she’ll be free of the tyranny of things!

In fact, she says, she‘s found the most perfect, most marvelous, cutest 1987 Airstream Motorhome on eBay. And she’s already talked to the owner and it’s a great deal…one that she can’t possibly pass up. I ask, “Wow. Well…what’s it like? Have you driven it?” She replies breezily that no, she hasn’t. But she’s got that covered because she had the nicest man (a nearby Airstream dealer) go over and inspect it and he gave it two thumbs…way up! And furthermore, she says she needs to act fast, because the dealer told her that if she doesn’t buy it, then he will! You see, it turns out she can’t take it out for a test drive. And that’s not just because she’s never driven a motorhome before. It’s really because, well, the motorhome is in… Oklahoma.

And that’s what’s so great about D. She can simply take your breath away. Her manic plan of the moment is so all-encompassing, so exhilarating, so audacious and so free-spirited, it just makes you feel like you’ve copped a buzz off of whatever it is she’s smoking. So even though I had put my head in my hands when she said the word “Oklahoma,” I find that I just can’t help it. I lift my head and burst out laughing and exclaim “Wow! That’s incredible!”

Of all the things D. might have called about this morning, this has got to be the absolute most improbable topic... joyously telling me she spent every last dime she has on eBay, buying a 20-year-old motorhome that she has never touched or driven, that is currently parked in some guy’s driveway in Norman, Oklahoma. You just can’t make this stuff up.

But, it gets better. She goes on to explain that buying this motorhome isn’t just good for her, but it’s good for me too! Because instead of imposing on my family's hospitality when she comes to visit, she can just park her motorhome right in front of our house…and stay as long as she wants.

Cold Pizza

When my brothers and I were kids my family ordered pizza every Friday night. It was really good pizza with thick chewy crust, loads of small pepperoni slices, thick sliced mushrooms and sweet sauce. The pizzas were huge pies sliced into squares, so that along the outside there were always four rounded small pieces. We loved grabbing those little pieces on the edge.

We could never eat the whole pizza, so there were always leftovers in the fridge on Saturday morning. And that was perfect. Because, next to Friday night, Saturday morning was by far our favorite time of the week. Our parents stayed in bed and slept in. And my brothers and I padded down the stairs in our jammies, turned on Saturday morning cartoons, wrapped ourselves in the afghan our Grandmother made, and ate cold pizza. It was heaven.

Tom and Jerry. Bugs Bunny. Scooby Doo. And the Roadrunner. The rule was that we couldn't wake up our parents until the Roadrunner came on. It was Dad's favorite. And when we were having a truly perfect Saturday morning, we'd succeed in rousting Dad out of bed and he'd come grumbling down the stairs and snuggle with us under the afghan, his hair all messy and his stocking feet sticking out. And it wasn't long before we were all laughing at the utterly unfortunate Coyote. Acordian-Coyote. Hanging-in-the-air-before-falling-Coyote. Flat-Coyote. Holding-a-sign-saying-Help!-Coyote.

It was usually winter. We were huddled in front of a 9" black and white TV. The pizza was cold. We were warm. No one was bickering. The cat blinked at us with her usual superiority. And there we were under the afghan, laughing out loud at jokes we all understood. We were happy.

My Life with Crazy People

I’ve always been surrounded by crazy people. Now, I’m not talking about the severely mentally ill. No, these are just crazy people and there are all types. On my short list are the addictives, the manic-depressives, the self-aggrandizers, the passive-aggressives, and my favorite...the eccentrics. Crazy people can be great. They are, after all, really fun. They’re unpredictable. They’re unfailingly smart. And they are everywhere.

The trick is not to marry them or hire them. And I have a rule: only 2 crazy people at a time. More than that and it’s too tiring. They wear you down. They are just too much work. But the crazy people that are really tough are the ones you were born into. They are a whole new order of magnitude...not just crazy people...these are your crazy relatives.

I’ve been trying to write a book about my crazy family. It’s a great story. They really are remarkable, special and unique. The wackiest, most poignant, most incredible things have happened. It’s better that fiction. But here’s the problem. I can’t seem to get through the book because my crazy family keeps getting in the way.

For example, right now my Aunt had to go away for a while and she left me with two 19-year-old elderly cats that shed the equivalent of a down comforter every day. One is deaf and meows at the top of its lungs because it can’t hear itself. One leaves little bits of poop and pee around because it’s too old to make it to the litter box. So while I’m dealing with my anger about that, it’s a little hard to settle in to my office and bang out a book about my crazy family. It violates my rule. If I add up the real crazy people in my life and the slightly fictionalized crazy people in my book...that’s more than 2 crazy people. And I get worn down. And suddenly I find it much more important to do something mind numbing...like play Tetris or worry or clean the house. So at the end of my day I’ve done essentially nothing. And it’s all because of crazy people.

Now here’s the biggest truth about living with crazy people. None of them are aware of the effect they have. They don't notice that the gravity created by their persona and the material things that they surround themselves with, sucks other people into their vortex. In their vortex you have moments of alarming clarity. You suddenly realize you just wasted a whole day of your life enmeshed in some crazy piece of their crazy lives, usually taking care of some material object or need they have. And then when you get straight and realize you have just got to put some distance between you and them, they get mad. And then they think you’re crazy. You rarely win with crazy people.

So I have a new tack. I experience crazy people episodes every day. Whether it’s volunteering at my son’s school, buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks, answering a phone call or visiting my mother. So maybe if I write some of them down they will grow to become a collection of vignettes called “My Life with Crazy People.” And that can be the book.

As for me, I make no apologies. I’m not crazy. Really.