Now this is friendship. Chris drove up to Clarion from Pittsburgh on Saturday morning to pick me up for the Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick concert in Scranton 3.5 hours east of Clarion. Halfway into our road trip, Chris said, “Can I ask you a question?” Our conversation had been rather serious and so I said, “Of course. You can ask me anything,” and I braced for a tough question.

“Who are we seeing tonight? I thought Heart was one of the bands, but I don’t remember who else.”

She had no idea where we were going, either. Chris figured I had directions and would tell her how to get there. When she got the email from Dana and me weeks ago asking her if she wanted to go to a concert, it didn’t matter to her who we saw or where. She just looked forward to a weekend with her friends.

And what a weekend it was. We pinky swore we’d not get in another car with an unlicensed taxi driver (see the blog "Riding In Cars With Strangers In Hershey" for details on our adventure at last year’s Nickelback concert), so Chris drove to the venue. You’d think they’d never had a concert at the Toyota Pavilion before. It took almost an hour to drive two miles, and the parking lot attendants had no idea what they were doing. Cars were parked in lovely mosaic designs, but it made for a nightmare getting out of the place five hours later.

Once we parked, we walked a half mile downhill to our seats. Knowing we’d have to walk a half mile uphill to get back to the car kept me from drinking more than one Molson, which most of it spilled under my seat halfway through Heart anyway, and at $8.75 a glass I wasn’t going to replace it.

Even thought the venue seemed really full, the two rows ahead of us were mostly empty. People ahead of us were standing, so in order to see, we had to stand, too. No problem, until a woman behind me pulled on my shirt and yelled, “Sit down!” She didn’t yell at Chris, who was on my left, or Dana and her sister Ann, who were on my right. Just me. (She’s inadvertently in the photo below of Chris and me before the concert. Looks like she’s ready to party, doesn’t she?)

I looked at her and yelled back, “Stand up!” for which I got the evil eye.

I turned around and started singing again, but I felt kind of bad, kind of obligated that since someone asked me to sit down that maybe I should sit down. And so I did. Chris asked me what I was doing and I told her what happened and she yelled (because the music was so loud, not because she was mad), “This is a fucking rock concert! You’re supposed to stand up!” So I stood up again. Everyone else was. At one point, Ann turned around and suggested to the woman and her friend that they move to the rows ahead of us. I thought this was excellent advice, but they merely stared at her like she had a third nostril. Oh well.

Sometime during the Journey portion of the concert, a very amorous couple took their seats next to Chris. They immediately offered us whiskey from a flask and invited Dana and Chris to smoke a joint with them later. They practically had sex during “Open Arms,” and they grabbed Chris and the three of them danced to “Only The Young.” Chris laughed and went with the flow, but neither she or Dana took them up on their drug offer. Or the whiskey, either, now that I think of it. Twenty five years ago we’d have been all over that. Now, in our late 30s and 40s, not so much. When did we grow up?

Despite the massive crowd of women in line for the bathroom, the wait time was fairly short. No dawdling. Girls were just dropping their pants, doing their business, and zipping up as the exited the stall. I like efficient women.

Cell phones were used en masse, including mine. I texted my daughter throughout the concert, giving her reviews of various songs and of the new Steve Perry, aka Arnel Pineda. That's not how I watched concerts back in the '70s, that's for sure.

While I loved Journey and Cheap Trick and thought they rocked well, my favorite band of the evening was Heart. Ann and Nancy…man, they’ve still got it. “Barracuda” was hot, and the song I liked best was “Love, Reign O’er Me,” a Who song. What an obscure little surprise.

The moon was full, the place was packed and a cool breeze kept us comfortable. Everyone except the ladies behind us seemed to be having a good time. Around 11, Journey came out for an encore and sang “Any Way You Want It,” then the lights came up, and several thousand people filed out what I think was the only exit. After walking up the hill and (surprisingly) finding Chris’s car, we started the hour-long two-mile journey back to our hotel. The crickets and beetles sang in the woods and the air smelled remarkably good considering all the carbon monoxide wafting above the parking lot and road.

We didn’t think to bring after-concert snacks or drinks with us since we were “only” a few miles from the hotel and we assumed the bar would be open until 2. How disappointed were we when we got back at the hotel around midnight and walked to the bar only to be greeted with a “closed” sign. Dammmit.

The girls weren’t in the mood for pizza delivery and the Waffle House just isn’t the same unless you’re inebriated, so we shuffled up to our room and Chris and I broke out the food we brought with us, namely hummus, whole grain crackers, sugar snap peas, cucumber salad, grapes, cantaloupe, a half bottle of chardonnay and what was left of her zinfandel. By 1:15, we were all asleep.

When we got up at 8, we drank some coffee, ate some more cucumber salad and found some oatmeal down in the lobby. We took a few photos, talked about life and solved some problems, then parted ways around 11. Our voices were no worse for wear, although I won’t be singing any arias for awhile. Like that matters. I sound MUCH better when I’m singing with 30,000 people. The palm of my hand at the base of my thumb was bruised and sore and I wondered how that happened and I surmised that I need to take lessons in clapping from Paula Abdul to avoid future injuries.

As Chris, Dana, Ann and I said goodbye, we promised to keep our eyes open for another concert, sometime around January. We agreed we needed something to look forward to after the holidays and when the harsh reality of winter sets in. We might just go hang out in Dana’s Jacuzzi and make blender drinks. That would work, too. After all, when you’re with good friends, it doesn’t matter what you do together. As long as it’s not in a car with a scary woman named Clara in Hershey.

 

Group hug!

The Transportation Safety Authority apparently gets suspicious of luggage containing a hand weight, tennis ball and Trader Joe’s corn tortilla crackers. When I opened the bag I checked when I got home from Minnesota, there was a note inside that said, in essence, “X-ray showed you travel with some weird shit, lady, so we opened your bag and dug around. Sorry if we packed it back up wrong. XOXO, TSA.”

Hope they liked the pink lacy thong laying on top.

Minnesota was amazing – warm, sunny, humid. Just the way I remembered. Except for a few mosquito bites on my rear end (I swear I was clothed in public the entire time) and a few mysterious bruises, I suffered no injuries or traffic accidents, something I always worry about when I’m driving a rental car. I’m never sure if I really actually have that rental car coverage on my insurance policy, but I refuse to spend $30 a day for the rental car company’s insurance coverage. My bad, I know.

Minnesota is a complicated place for me because I spent the most formative of years there and I have a really good memory. I remember who did what to me and others when and where, and in vivid detail. It’s a gift and a curse. I can recount details most people forget, like what I was wearing the first time a boy French kissed me (jeans and a purple hand-me-down short-sleeved empress cotton shirt, boys basketball sneakers and a navy blue windbreaker). I was in 7th grade, his name was Ricky, and when I saw him again last weekend at our school reunion, he actually remembered our failed attempt at lust. Too funny.

There were other people I saw, visits I’ve tried to put into words since I’ve been home, but I’m afraid I can’t do it. For instance, I can’t adequately discuss my visit with my friend David, who was my former pastor, because there are really are no words to describe our four-hour visit that involved completing the circle of him and me and my late husband Bruce. We are so intricately connected that it’s almost too precious and private to write about or even breathe the words in a conversation.

The same holds true for Pam D and Pam F; Todd and Wendell and James and Lisa; Dean, Rhonda, Robin, Jeanine, Scott, Jim, Mavis, Mavis, Norma and Bob. Because of violent vomiting, I didn’t get to see my friend Val (a major bug went through her household of several children and adults) and that made me very sad. But otherwise, the vacation was spot on. I slept in 8 beds in 9 nights and I’m still trying to catch up on sleep three days home.

Today is my birthday and I can’t think of a better gift than the gift of visiting my Minnesota friends and family. Oh wait, I’m also going to the Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick concert this weekend in beautiful Scranton, Pennsylvania. Another b-day gift to myself.

Do you do this, too? Get so involved in a visit home or with a friend that you can’t digest it all? I’ve had several emails from folks saying they want details about the trip, but this is all I can give. It’s all I’ve got. The rest is in my head. And in the photos. Here are a few more from the trip. Thanks for understanding about the words part.

Me and BFF Pam D. Her 5-year-old son Jack gave up his bed for me, but Pam was the one who paid the ultimate price since Jack and his fourteen legs and arms slept with her that night. Thanks for taking a few bruises for the team, Pam.

The house I used to live in. My bedroom I snuck out of on occasion was on the top right. Thank god I never broke a limb. Although if my parents found out, they might done the honors. Just kidding Mom and Dad! Confession is good for the soul, right?

This is my friend Scott and his wife Marian. I've known Scott since I was in 5th grade. Initially he was my older sister's friend, but he quickly became part of our family. When my husband died, he never left me. He came over every morning and night to do chores, and when I moved back to Minneapolis, he always checked up on me to make sure I was OK. Scott is the poster child for friendship.

This is Carlene with my daughter Carlene. She is who Carlene is named after. Bruce (my late husband and Carlene's father) and Carlene were good friends. When we talked about what we'd name our baby if it was a girl, Bruce wanted Carlene and I wanted Miranda. After 13 hours of labor and delivering our ginormous baby girl, I was a little tired. Bruce said, "So what do you think, honey? Is she a Carlene?" I was in no position to argue, especially with a doctor between my legs administering 35 stitches to make me whole again. But in hindsight, Carlene is a Carlene. I'm really glad she got to meet her namesake last weekend.

This isn't the best photo in the world and I apologize, but it is a photo of the best choir director ever. Bob Jones taught both Bruce and me, and he became our friend after high school. Watching him direct the all-school choir on Sunday made me so happy I cried. Bob can coax music out of anyone, even me. He recognized Bruce's god-given talent - he had a silky smooth tenor voice that made girls weak in the knees - and spurred him on to win national awards and to travel abroad with a national chorus. I cried when I heard the choir because I know how much Bruce would have loved to be a part of the group. Watching Bob direct again was a poignant and unique reminder of my past. I'm very glad he and Carlene finally got to meet. I'm pretty sure, judging by the tears in his eyes, that he was glad to meet her, too. For in her eyes, you see Bruce.

The weekend started out strange enough. I pulled into the driveway of my cousin’s farm a few miles out of Jasper, and two women were sitting in a car. Thinking they were Haraldson’s in town for the goat races and all-class reunion (yes, I said goat races), I introduced myself.

“Hi, I’m Lynn Haraldson. Don Haraldson’s daughter,” I said as I shook one of the women’s hands.

She looked at me funny and said, “I’m looking for Dean.”

“Oh,” I said. “He’s in Pipestone with his son and will be home in an hour.”

“Well, we’re burying my brother tomorrow and I need to drop him off with Dean,” she said.

Um….OK.

“We have his urn in the trunk,” she continued. Dean is the custodian of the Rose Dell Cemetery across the road from his farm. My mother’s family and the Haraldsons went to church there, when there was a church, and many of our relatives are buried there. I knew Dean and his sons mowed the lawn and kept up the place, but I had no idea he was a grave digger, too.

“Well, I guess you should bring him in the house, then,” I said and I led her up the back steps. She set the urn down on the kitchen floor, said thank you, and left.

I stood there for a moment looking at the dead guy in a box and thought, ‘Welcome home, Lynn.’

I’m a redneck, literally and figuratively. Literally in that I have a sunburn on my neck, compliments of the hot Minnesota sun and a t-shirt. Figuratively in that I am friends with good-time people who have fun riding in a small town parade on a flatbed with picnic tables on top and drinking Bud Light, throwing candy to children, and hootin’ and hollerin’ at their aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, and grandmas and grandpas lining the streets. While I had pinot grigio poured into a water bottle, I also drank a Bud Light. And I’ve got the photo to prove it. The woman next to me? She’s a doctor in Florida. We were the flute section in junior high band. Good to know we’ve grown up, isn’t it?

I’ll be on a plane for Pittsburgh in a few hours. I’ll disect the week into smaller blogs as soon as I wrap my head around all that happened, but for now I thought I’d share a few photos from my week in Minnesota.

Robin, Lisa and Bryce. I have no idea what I said, but it must've been good.

Boy, did Jeanine and I get in trouble when we tried to climb in the kiddy cars. Some woman read us the riot act. I haven't been yelled at like that since the last time I hung out with Jeanine.

BFF Lisa, who was my maid of honor when I married Carlene's father, Bruce; Terry; James (a groomsman at our wedding); me; and Carlene, who is still recovering from riding on the float with the class of '81. She knows her mother (and her father) in a whole new light now. Not sure that's such a good thing!

 

There’s a reason why I don’t sleep on a chair and ottoman all night like I did Sunday night. My body woke up on Monday saying, “What the hell, Lynn?” Crack, crack, pop. My back sounded like a fireworks display.

I was in Pittsburgh to meet a friend for a few drinks at Station Square. Afterwards, I stayed at my daughter’s apartment. Her former boyfriend took his bed when he moved out, so she’s sleeping on her childhood double bed these days. I could have crawled in next to her and slept somewhat more comfortably, but me and the chair have a great history and so I thought I’d sleep on an old friend instead.

My life history in furniture is on display at both my children’s homes. Along with the chair and ottoman, Carlene has another one of my large ottomans, a dresser, a vanity I got at an auction for a few bucks, and some of my mother’s end tables. Cassie has my old couch, a rocking chair and ottoman, an armoire, a few book shelves and the plaster ducks my mother used to keep in her living room. I think Cass has my roaster and folding chairs, too.

The chair and ottoman I slept on the other night had a matching couch, but it went to the big furniture store in the sky after her last move. There were holes in the fabric so large that her cats would crawl inside and get stuck in the springs. The wood frame was visible and little fabric staples poked out along the seams. It was its time to go, but it was sad to see it sticking out of the Dumpster at the apartment complex.

I bought the couch, chair and ottoman with husband #3 in 1990. It was long and black with overstuffed pillows that served as the back rest. The seat was so wide, almost like a twin bed, that my feet didn’t reach the floor when I sat back against the pillows. It could seat four adults or several small children comfortably. I had no problem offering it to guests as a place to sleep because it was more comfortable than any bed I’d ever owned.

We played board games on it – Monopoly, Life, backgammon – and watched movies huddled together under blankets. I spent many nights doing my college homework there, papers and books spread out everywhere. It’s a good thing it was black because it took its share of grape juice, orange juice, milk and wine spills. The Scotchgard wore off years ago, but the stains were never apparent.

The couch saw a lot of action, too, over the years, but I’ll just leave that to your imagination.

When Carlene and I went to Minnesota last year, we drove through Chicago and stayed with our friend, Heather. We’d never been to Heather’s before so imagine our excitment when we went into her living room and saw our black couch! Same design, same fabric, same overstuffed pillows. Only this one was completely in tact. No holes, no stains, and the fabric hadn’t starting pilling. That’s because Heather only had one child at the time who was still really little. Heather had another baby recently so now there are two and I’m sure very soon that couch will start aging the way a good parent ages – with patience and tolerance of the sweet abuse of children.

Carlene starts grad school next month and so will be moving into a studio apartment on campus. She asked me if I wanted the chair and ottoman back and before she could get the words out I said, “Absolutely!” I have the perfect place for it, too. And I will sit on it faithfully, probably even spill some wine on it and more than a few crumbs. It might also get some action. Who know?

I do know I won’t be sleeping on it, at least not a full night. Like its counterpart, the old couch, I am frayed and torn and aging not-so-gracefully. I just hope I don’t find myself head first in a Dumpster some day!

Children really do live in our neighborhood, but you wouldn’t know it this summer. Every day is quiet. No one’s out riding bikes or playing kick the can or running a lemonade stand. I drove past the municipal pool yesterday and it wasn’t very busy, either.

Where did all the children go? It’s like the plot of a Mary Higgins-Clark novel. Have they all been turned into TV-watching, Wii-playing, Cheetoes-eating zombies?

I sit outside on the porch every evening and the only person I usually see is the mentally challenged man from the group home at the end of our street who walks up and down the sidewalk drinking Coke or Mountain Dew, hour after hour, stopping to clap and laugh sometimes when he sees...well…I’m not really sure. But whatever it is makes him darn happy.

Allow me to be an reminiscing old bitty for a moment.

When I was a kid, I spent most of the summer outside, mostly because I wanted to, but sometimes because Mom kicked me out of the house (especially if I used the “b” word – bored). “Go play!” she’d say pushing open the screen door and locking it behind me.

If no friends were around and I was stuck playing with my little brother, we’d hit the sandbox or the swing set and talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up. But usually our friends’ mothers had kicked them out of the house, too, and together we’d find all kinds of things to do.

We’d catch butterflies and bugs and put them in Mason jars with holes poked in the lids with branches and leaves stuffed inside. If enough kids were around, we’d organize a kickball or softball game. Sometimes we’d set up the badminton net or a croquet course. On really hot days, we’d fill big galvanized pots with water and “swim,” or hook up the sprinkler and run through it until we were shriveled like prunes.

No matter where I was in the neighborhood, I always knew when it was time to go home. No one’s dad had a whistle like my dads. Snappy sharp and piercing like a drill sergeant’s, Dad’s whistle all business. My call home was three whistles because I was the third child, and my brother was four whistles. It didn’t matter what we were doing, if we heard our whistle we were to come right home. No “Just five more minutes?” or “Do I have to?” but NOW, as in "Drop everything this very second. It's time for dinner or bed."

I don’t hear whistles like that in my neighborhood. I don’t even hear parents calling their children home. That is, when there are children outside. I assume they use cell phones now.

It’s a shame. I miss the laughter of kids playing around here. Sure, I’ve got Mr. Happy Clapper, but it’s not the same.

Have all neighborhoods become void of games and bikes and butterfly collectors? Do kids run through sprinklers anymore? If this is the case, Claire and I have to have a serious talk. I’m buying the kid a sprinkler and a galvanized pot, a croquet set and badminton birdies. We’re gonna have fun outside, gosh darn it, just like when I was a kid.

When I was a kid and a friend said something hurtful or I felt bad because I’d struck out during a softball game or even when I had cramps,  my mother would always say, “This, too, shall pass.”

Mom understands impermanence. The weather, the price of gas, the baseball season, our joys, our sorrows and especially our bodies – nothing stays the same. Everything is in a constant state of change.

Since being introduced to the writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn and subsequently discovering Pema Chodron and other Buddhist teachers, I’m learning to observe and live within the present moment. Meditation and other mind practices cultivate change in how I adopt and express compassion and loving kindness toward myself and other sentient beings, even (and perhaps especially) the person I used to be.

I’m working on a project that has me poring over my journals from the early 1980s to now. I’ve spent hours reading about feelings I had in response to specific incidents and feelings in general about my life in that moment. One day I’d be on top of the world and the next day not. I have to constantly remind myself that I’m reading about my life as a 20-something- or 30-something-year-old woman from the perspective of a nearly 45-year-old woman, and to cut my younger self some slack.

Those times passed. They were impermanent. And I built, year after year, upon those experiences, those working out of problems and feelings – perhaps not always in the healthiest of ways, but the only ways I knew how at the time – to become the woman I am today, who, I’m sure will frustrate the 65-year-old me when I read today’s journals in 20 years.

The lighter side of my journals are the entries about my kids, particularly the things I’d forgotten – small things like I couldn’t remember how old they were when they got their ears pierced and poignant things like the at the hospital a few days after I had Cassie. She’d developed jaundice and was being  treated under bright lights for several hours a day. I couldn’t have her in my room as much as I wanted, but one night, after the nurse brought her to me for a short visit, the fire alarm went off and all the doors to the ward were shut. For 90 minutes I got to hold Cassie all alone in my room before the hubbub ended and they came to retrieve her and put her back under the lights.

There are entries about spelling tests and arguments, boyfriends and birthday parties, how unfair I was to not let Cassie shave her legs until she was in sixth grade, how awesome I was because I let Carlene go to homecoming in 10th grade…this, that and everything in between 

One of the funniest entries I’ve read to date was written November 23, 1990, when Carlene was 7 and Cassie was almost 6.

“Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Carly was going to take a picture of me across the table from her. There was a candle between us and, very seriously, she looked at me and asked if the camera would blow the candle out!

“Cassie said that the turkey was talking to her inside her tummy. She said he said he didn’t like to get eaten.”

I called Carlene last night and read this to her. I was laughing so hard I was crying. She laughed, too, and couldn’t believe she was such an air-head. I reminded her she was 7.

Laughter shall pass just as sorrow shall pass, but some things from the past are worth bringing into the present moment, whether it is for a good laugh or a chance to learn from our mistakes. Without my journals, these experiences would be permanently erased from memory, and I doubt I’d have this chance to learn to accept with loving kindness the person I was 5, 10, 25 years ago. It’s probably the nicest gift I’ve ever given myself.

My husband slept in a funny position Saturday night and still has a nasty crick in his neck. He can turn it a little to the left and a little to the right, but it’s obvious his neck isn’t working right. He’s got a smile on his face, thanks to Tramadol, but he’s still in pain.

Due to this neck mishap, we missed our weekly biking date yesterday, so I fell back on my typical summer Sunday workout: a bike ride around town and a walk around the university track.

I only ride my bike in town on Sunday because the traffic is light and the crazy drivers are all in church or sleeping off  a hangover. (Disclaimer: I’m not suggesting everyone who goes to church is a crazy driver. I’m just wary of little old men wearing thick lens glasses driving the large Cadillacs parked in the Presbyterian church lot.)

When I got to the track, I walked the first quarter mile the same old way I always do. Then I remembered the dream I had again the night before. It’s a recurring dream I have every few weeks of running around an obscure track being timed by a coach I’d never seen before. I got to thinking about that dream, and how as a kid I used to love to run just for the sake of running, and how long it had been since I’d run anywhere. Would I even remember how? It occurred to me that if this was thousands of years ago and I was one of the early humans who fell out of the trees and stood erect and went hunting? Yeah…I’d have been one of the first ones eaten by a predator.

But this was a Sunday morning in 2008. No one was around to critique or eat me. (Another  disclaimer: What I’m about to tell you is top secret, so please, I beg you, don’t tell my orthopedic surgeon, Bob, and especially not his assistant, Steve, who’d never call me “buddy” again and would jab me with my next injection of Synvisc rather than easing it in like he does so well.) I…well…kinda decided to run. Not far – a quarter to a half mile tops, and only in 100-yard spurts – but it was far enough to make me completely change my opinion of running and runners.

My husband’s been running for 30 years. Some of my best friends are runners. I never understood their passion. To me, running was nothing more than sending your knees and feet to an early grave. I walk a 12-minute mile and I figured that was close enough to running. Wrong!  Running is so much more than walking. It’s child-like! It’s a rush! Walking’s got nothing on running. Things rush by faster, the wind hits your face more sharply, you smell the air more readily and it’s so fresh as it hits your nostrils. I have a good idea now of what runner’s mean by a “runner’s high.”

Sadly, I’ll never get there completely. Ever. …*insert big sigh*… I won’t experience a true runner’s high because, while my knees and toes did just fine and I feel no lasting repercussions today, I know realistically I won’t be able to run more than a mile without my knees giving out. I felt every single ounce of my 128 pounds pounding my poor arthritic knees and toes.

But knowing I feel good today, I KNOW I’ll do it again next time. Why? Because running, for me, is like chocolate. A little taste goes a long way.  

One of my life’s simple pleasures is painting my toenails. My feet may not be the most attractive part of my body, but I owe them some respect, especially after that whole 300-pound ordeal.

Think about your own feet for a second and what you demand of them every day. Whether scrunched into 3-inch heels, molded into sweaty work boots or tennis shoes, or left barefoot to walk on concrete, these small physical marvels support us when we stand over the sink eating a peach while dinner heats up in the microwave and when we stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night. At least that’s a few of the demands I put on my feet without thinking about it. The least I can do is be nice to them.

And so, on a beautiful evening last week, I brought outside to our back deck all the accoutrements necessary for an in-home pedicure – file, buffer, cuticle trimmer, base coat, color, top coat, quick dry spray and cotton balls to stick in between my toes.

I pulled my left knee up to my chest and started working on the left foot while talking to my husband who was sitting at the table across from me drinking a martini. I filed and buffed, got the crud out from under the nails, and proceeded on to the right foot. After carefully painting and sealing the color, I rested my legs on another chair and admired my work.

“There’s nothing like pretty toenails,” I sighed.

“But you don’t wear open-toed sandals, do you?” Larry asked.

I stared at him for a few seconds. 

“Um, no,” I said with my right eyebrow raised. “And your point is…?”

“Well, who’s gonna see them?” he said innocently. I think he might have actually laughed a little.

Larry and I talk about world politics, the upcoming election, his sons, my daughters, aging parents, how to treat our Golden Retrievers’ cyst, everything under the sun. You’d think by now, after 12 years together, we’d know each other inside out. And still, he asks about my toenails?

“Babe,” I said. “Stepping out of the shower and drying my feet and seeing my painted toes makes me smile. When I go to bed at night and I rub lotion on my feet and I see my painted toenails, I am happy. I don’t care if I’m the last person on this earth to see my toes. They are ruby red and look like a little party on my feet. That’s enough. That’s why I paint them.”

“OK,” he said, kind of tossing his hands in the air like I’d just told him his mother wears Army boots.

Is it all men or is it just my husband’s brain? I’m thinking most guys would not understand painted toenails. But I do know Larry probably filed away what I said for future use. He’s a Ph.D. by day and a husband by night. Painted toenails are hardly scientific. But if they make your wife happy, just smile and nod your head. I’m sure that’s what he told himself.

I have my computer on the deck right now, writing to you from a comfy chair with cardinals singing in the background. Larry is at some dinner meeting with some chemistry VIP. I’m barefoot and admiring my toenails. He’s knee deep in BS, no doubt. If he had pretty nails, he’d have something to distract him. All I have to do is look down. Reason #2,495,931 why I’m glad to be a woman and not a right-brained man.

Call me shallow, but I’m content.

-------------------------------------------------
I want to send out a very big THANK YOU to my friend Gail Gedan Spencer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for thinking of me on her trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. She emailed me a few photos of Minnesota Twins memorabilia. Does she know me or what?

 Ah…the Twinkies. I don’t know a single one of them now since I live so far away, but back in the day….man….they rocked. I still have my Homer Hankie from 1987. I dug it out in 1991 when they did it again (won the World Series, that is). I was living in PA by that time and married to the wrong husband. I was all alone in our bedroom watching game seven. The kids were in bed, my husband was probably watching Nova or something in the living room. Maybe he was asleep. Anyway, the Twins won and I called my mother back home and celebrated. I was happier than painted toenails.

So thanks, Gail, for that memory today. It is a sweet one and it made me smile.

Sitting on the porch last night and thinking about the day, I could still smell Claire on my arms – her wonderful Desitin/apple juice/cereal/baby smell. I spent three hours with her, half of it alone and the other half with my daughter Carlene. Cassie was working and Matt was at a funeral and so Grammy Lynn and Aunt Carly took a Claire shift.

We started by taking her poolside. I hauled three buckets of water to Claire’s blue and yellow blow-up pool while Carlene changed her into her bathing suit and lathered her up in sunscreen.

Even though I used warm water, Claire isn’t old enough to realize when she’s about to be set down in water, and the shock of it caused her to shudder and no doubt pee her diaper. She looked at us with her big brown eyes like she was studying her insides to understand what her body was feeling and then the light clicked. “This is water! I love water!” 

I put my feet in the pool and splashed her. She grabbed my big toe. I played peek-a-boo with her, hiding behind the blue and yellow tubes that form a tent above the pool. She could see me, but thought it was hysterical because my face was blue and yellow. I wish everyone was so easy to amuse.

Forget swimming and splashing. Claire’s all about standing in her pool. She stands everywhere now because she can. Well, she thinks she can. She doesn’t understand that blow-up plastic is flimsy and that water is slippery. So Carlene held her up when she was on her side and I hung on to her when she was on my side. Even though she wasn’t standing by herself, this arrangement made Claire happy.

 (FYI: This butt is really cute on an 8-month-old. It wasn’t so cute on Grammy Lynn a few years ago.)

It was soon time for Claire’s lunch so we brought her inside and got her dressed. Carlene left to do some shopping, so I put Claire in her highchair and started feeding her a jar of fruit and cereal.

Claire is a fancy pants with her three new teeth (two on the bottom and one on the top) and loves to grind them together. She decided to show off her new talent by skewing her face up like a bulldog and making a noise worse than fingernails scraping a chalkboard. It’s spine chilling but it mesmerizes Claire.

Halfway through her food, she decided she no longer wanted to sit in her highchair, but preferred to dine on Grammy’s lap. No problem. When the jar was empty, she laid back and enjoyed a bottle, and when she’d had enough of that, she sat up without making a sound and stretched her body straight – Claire’s way of saying “Put me on the floor, I’ve got an appointment with my toy box.”

Matt had picked up the living room before he left and the place looked great. Claire crawled over to the blue fabric box of toys and proceeded to dump the entire thing on the floor. She didn’t stop there. She spied three books on the bookshelf and had to see how they tasted before throwing them on the floor, too. She got a few things out of her diaper bag before crawling back to the toy box and the VCR tape/DVD stand behind it.

She’s so busted in this photo. 

A few minutes later, I smelled something really stinky. Claire thought I was a pretty mean G-ma when I picked her up and took her away from her toys, not understanding that the stinky culprit was in her diaper and squirting up her back. No sooner did I get her diaper off and was reaching for a wet wipe when she flipped herself over to a crawling position with her dirty bum in the air. Poo went everywhere. Wrestling her back to a reclined position, I managed to get her cleaned up, all the while laughing so hard I thought I’d choke. Safely back in a diaper and sans the dirty pants, I put her back on the floor where she entertained herself with a rubber spatula and a 1-quart saucepan.

When she decided she’d rearranged the living room the way she wanted, Claire crawled over to me and stood up near my legs.  I picked her up and gave her a nook. We turned on her mom’s computer and went to the Noggin website and watched Moose E. Moose videos.

Claire loves Moose E. Moose. She started off leaned over the arm of the couch with my arms wrapped around her chest so she couldn’t nose dive onto the computer, and she danced and laughed and sucked on her nook. Then she leaned back and rested in the crook of my arm. Sometimes she’d press her cheek against my mouth because I was softly singing. I don’t know the words to Moose E. Moose songs and I can’t sing my way out of a box, but she didn’t care. I rubbed her cool little thighs and kissed her head and told myself to never forget that moment. I don’t think I ever could.

We chilled on the couch for about 45 minutes before Carlene came back from shopping. Claire was pretty close to sleeping, and so I said goodbye and went home. It’s 24 hours later and I haven’t stopped smiling.

This grandma gig just keeps getting better all the time.

I received two letters today, the kind with stamps on the front and everything; real mail delivered to my house by our mailman Butch who has hot legs and who wore shorts even on the coldest winter days because he made a bet with another mailman over who would chicken out first and put on pants.

Anyway, not only did I get letters, but the senders sent pictures, too! Not links to Kodak or Snapfish or attached in an email, but real hold-‘em-in-my-hands pictures.

The first letter was from my mom. She sent photos of their rearranged living room. Since they live so far away, it’s important to me that I visualize where Mom watches her soaps and where Dad naps before going to bed. Like Archie and Edith Bunker, they have their own chairs – identical La-Z-Boys that you wouldn’t be able to tell apart except for the popcorn hidden in the cloth folds between the foot and arm rests. That would be my dad’s chair.

No one’s in the photos, but the furniture is like looking at family (not that my family physically resembles ready-to-assemble entertainment centers). Even though most of their furniture is new since I lived with them, it still has that Mom and Dad feel and I like seeing it from time to time. Sitting on end tables and the TV stand are photos of the grandkids and greatgrandkid, a few trinkets and knick knacks that Mom hasn’t passed on to the rest of us, and some candles and other familiar reminders of home. On the walls they’ve hung the scary drawing of Jesus my sister Emily sketched in high school, the painting of a crane my brother made in high school, another painting of my grandmother’s childhood home in Norway, and two handmade Norwegian tapestries.

When my parents moved out of the big house and downsized, they kept the things that mattered to them the most and sold or gave away the rest. I love the little surprises I find in their townhome when I visit, those things they chose to keep. Nothing is wasting space. Everything there has a purpose or meaning.

I can’t wait to see their new arrangement for myself when I visit them in August. For now, the photos will sustain me.

The second letter with photographs was from my friend, Pam (happy birthday!). Pam is my age, albeit two months and seven days older, and has a 25-year-old (same as me), a 23-year-old (same as me) and a grandbaby (same as me). However, Pam also has a 5-year-old son named Jack, who was a BIG surprise for her and her husband back in 2002.

Jack is the most articulate child I know. He’s like a 5-year-old Woody Allen with a little naiveté. Pam recently found a lump on Jack’s neck. Thinking it was leukemia and scared out of her mind, he assured her, “Mom, I’m going to be fine.” (Jack is fine. It was a reaction to a bug bite.) When I saw them last summer, we went out for lunch. We sat inside the restaurant, but on the patio were two women and a baby in a car seat. Jack politely asked our server if she would bring him the baby. “I have a baby nephew,” he explained. “I just want to see what that baby out there looks like.” He also asked me, when I got up to go to the bathroom, “Do you have to poop, Lynn?” He has a million more one-liners. I told Pam she should publish a book called “Jackisms.”

Like my parents, I can’t wait to see that kid in August.

Pam sent me photos of Jack and her grandbaby Robert. Robert’s life is so enriched because Jack is in it. Jack was a surprise, yes, but the best surprise I can imagine. I won’t, however, be enriching my own grandbaby’s life with a new aunt or uncle. I love Claire, but as Meatloaf sang, “I won’t do that.”

Unrelated to real photos or mail, there’s a photo I’ve been wanting to share with you all but I never remember to post it until those 3 a.m. nights when I can’t sleep.

When I was in California, my sister drove Carlene and me past “The Brady Bunch” house. The show wasn’t filmed there, but it’s the house they used for pans of what they wanted us to believe was the actual house. I’m such a back-end baby boomer and I reacted like that house was a celebrity. I was like a 10-year-old taking photos of the place, thinking my nasty little pre-teen thoughts about Peter yet knowing I was Jan and never Marcia. A woman was bent over and weeding the front garden and I wanted to yell out, “Are you Alice?” But I didn’t. I just took my photo and got back in the car.

This was a good day. Letters, photos, “The Brady Bunch”…just like the days of *gulp* old.

When I woke up, the signs were all there: low humidity, light wind, no rain, and it wasn’t Wednesday. The moon must be in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars because today was the day to go to the DMV. 

Don’t hate me, but I was the only one there. In fact, it was after 11, they’d been open since 8:30, and I was the first customer of the day. I was in and out in seven minutes. It would have been four, but I got to chatting with the lady about politics. More on that in a minute.

My license expires this August, but I begged the DMV gods to issue me a new license in 2006 after I’d lost 140 pounds. I was having a hard time buying liquor, and even the cashier at WalMart was beginning to doubt I was who I said I was when I’d try to cash a check. God knows if I’d tried to fly anywhere with my 300-pound photo I’d probably not make it past the first security check point.

Unfortunately for me, though, karma wasn’t on my side and I didn’t plan that trip to the DMV real well. First of all it was a Wednesday – the only day 16-year-olds and people wanting their license back after serving time for DUI can take their road test. Second, I was wearing a flannel shirt. Third, my hair was in bad need of a color update. It wasn’t one of my better moments. Sadly, though, the photo that was supposed to reflect my metamorphosis from morbidly obese to normal looked enough like me that security personnel at O’Hare, LAX, and LaGuardia had no problem letting me through when I traveled recently. I’m such a boofer. Oh well. At least I stopped getting hassled when I tried to buy the Two Buck Chuck.

Back to today. I was ready for the photo this time. Dressed in a teal colored shirt and coiffed just the way I wanted, I started the computerized process of getting a new license. Did I want to be an organ donor? Yes. Did I understand I was signing up to be an organ donor? Yes. Are you sure? Yes.

Do you want to change your political party affiliation at this time?

“Really?” I asked the lady. “I can do that?”

Remember how I changed my party affiliation from Independent to Democrat back in April so I could vote in the primary? I’ve been meaning to get up to the courthouse to change it back, but I keep forgetting now that Barack and Hillary don’t call me anymore. How handy is it that I got to change it back at the DMV today?

“Yes,” she said. “What do you want to be?”

When I told the lady I wanted to be Independent, she asked, “Independent, Independent Democrat, Independent Republican, Independent American, or Independence party?”

“I guess just Independent,” I said. “I didn’t realize there were so many.”

“Oh honey, let me read you a few,” she laughed. “There’s the Good Neighbor, Halloween, Christmas, Birthday, Internet, Idealistic, Fusion, Guilty, Global Justice, Feline, Freedom…”

“Wait,” I stopped her. “Feline? Cats have a political party?”

“Ma’am, you’d be amazed what people believe in.”

I sat down and smiled at the little white dot. In three seconds, my photo was on the screen.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Like it? Can I get that in an 8x10 for my parents?” I asked.

It was by far the best DMV photo I’ve ever taken. My eyes were open, I had no gunk in my teeth, I remembered to take out my gum first, I had no zits, and none of my gray showed through. I must have done something really good in a past life.

I tucked my new license in my wallet on top of the old old one, the one of me at 300 pounds. It keeps me accountable. Whenever I’m tempted by Krispy Kreme’s or some such food disaster, I just look at that driver’s license and step away.

Maybe I should keep the one from 2006, too. Next time I’m tempted to wear flannel or wait 12 weeks to have my hair colored, I’ll take it out and change my clothes or call Ashley for an appointment. A girl can’t have too many reminders.

I take a lot of photos of my granddaughter Claire, but some moments deserve to be preserved in words and memory only.

This afternoon, I heard Claire fussing just 25 minutes into her nap. I was in the guest room writing, but I knew my daughter Carlene would tend to her. An hour later, I checked to see where everyone was and I found Carlene asleep in the rocking chair in Claire’s nursery as Claire laid asleep in her arms, wrapped in her fuzzy green blanket and her head resting in the crook of Carlene’s left arm. It was a perfectly awesome moment of peace and stillness, but most of all, love.

When I write about Claire, I often mention her mother (my daughter Cassie) or her father (my son-in-law Matt), but Aunt Carlene is probably the third most important person in Claire’s life. It’s been interesting watching my oldest daughter interact with her niece these last 7 months. I’ve not witnessed her interact with anyone the same way before. Carlene is not one for public displays of affection, but that credo flies out the window when Claire is around. She puts seasoned baby-talkers, neck-kissers and peek-a-booers like me to shame.

Carlene has always been forthcoming about her feelings for Cassie and me. The three of us are a tight little enclave and we trust each other explicitly. She loves her grandparents and aunts and uncles, but she’s not as gushy with her love as Cassie and me. She’s not stoic, but she’s an awful lot like her father, even though he died when she was a baby. She’s as much a product of nature as she is nurture.

One way you can really tell Carlene loves her niece is her tolerance of Claire’s bodily functions. Carlene detests puke, snot, pee and poop. When she was little and had the stomach flu, she willed herself not to throw up. Absolutely rejected that idea. She also refused to cough a good hard get-up-the-phlegm cough when she had a cold. I’d beg her to cough and she’d simply say no. And getting her potty trained, well, that’s a whole other story and one I’ll never tell because she’d never speak to me again.

Carlene is more than I ever deserved, and watching her today with her niece in her arms, so soft and tender, I thanked God I did something in my life to warrant such a moment as that.

With my apologies to the Apostle Paul, I’ve rewritten his famous passage on love from his first letter to the Corinthians because, to me, Carlene is the embodiment of what he describes love to be.

"Carlene is patient. Carlene is kind. She (usually) does not envy and she almost never boasts. Carlene is proud in the right way. She’s not rude (except maybe on a really bad PMS day, but she always apologizes). She is not self-seeking, it takes a lot to get her angry, and she’s never thrown something I’ve done wrong back in my face. Carlene does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Carlene always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Carlene’s love never fails.”

My mom teases my daughter Cassie whenever Cassie sends her weekly, sometimes daily, photos and video of grandbaby Claire, saying Claire is the most well documented baby in history. It’s true we take tons of video and photos of Claire, but it’s only because everything she does is new and cute and we don’t want to miss a thing.

We also do it because we can. Our cameras take photos and serve as mini video recorders, and we keep them near at all times.

Want to see Claire laughing at dandelions? Click here. Claire crawling and pulling out her daddy’s leg hair? Click here. Claire playing with the Musical Band Stand (and baby monitor and Thighmaster) and attempting to dance? Click here.

The earliest video I have of my children was from Carlene’s 5^th birthday party. Cassie was 3. There might be two or three other videos of them after that, otherwise they are documented through photographs only. However, I was given the gift of the past – the voices of my children as babies – earlier this week from my sister Debbie.

When Debbie and her husbandn moved to Washington DC, my dad tape recorded every family Christmas from 1978 to 1991 so they could “share” in the festivities. Debbie recently had all the tapes converted to CDs and sent them to my parents and siblings. When I was in Pittsburgh last week, Carlene, Cassie and I listened to Christmas 1984, and I heard a memory that was fogged over in my brain. For the first time in 24 years I heard my children’s tiny baby voices, and while I recognized them immediately, I’d forgotten what they sounded like because I only know them as I hear them now, as grown women.

Carlene and Cassie loved hearing their voices, too, since no one remembers what they sounded like as babies. (Except, perhaps, Jill Price.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen my kids more mesmerized as they were listening to themselves for the first time.

This morning I listened to Christmas 1978 and 1983. In 1978 I was 15, my brothers were 25 and 12, and my little sister Emily was 3. When Emily sang “Away In A Manger” in her little toddler voice, I remembered that moment so clearly, along with other things from when she was 3, like playing Barbies with her and being awakened early every morning to the sound of her Toonyville Choo Choo. It was fun to hear my own voice, too, an awkward and kind of dorky teenager talking into a tape recorder. I laughed when I heard my dad exclaim after my sister opened a gift, “I think she digs that train all right!” Ah, Dad. Ever the hip lingoist.

In Christmas 1983, our first Christmas after Bruce died, Carlene was a little older than Claire is now – about 9 months old. Carlene’s laugh is so sweet and heavenly. Its sound reminds me so clearly how I felt that evening – a little sad, but mostly happy, loving Carlene and my family and missing Bruce, but apparently dating some tall skinny guy named Tim that, even after hearing his voice, I can’t for the life of me remember in any way. I can hear myself in the tape, too, talking to Carlene so casually, like a mom does, and giving out instructions to my brother who’s holding her. These are memories I’d never have so vividly without the audio recall to coax them out of my head.

While I’m grateful we have the technology to document Claire’s life so minutely, there is something really profound about hearing a voice you never expected to hear again. It dusts off the corners of your mind and takes you on a surprise escape to the past. These CDs document times that I sometimes remember differently. They are the truth and they are helping reform my memory so that I don’t recall the past in a revisionist way.

Thank you, Debbie, for the priceless gift of the voices of my children and our sister and brothers and parents, frozen in time, in good times.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. I hope your memories of loved ones are as rich and vivid as the ones I’ve been blessed with this week.