Circling



It was quite the week.  There was a death, a birth, and a wedding.  And I climbed a mountain. 

 

"Was there much color?" my grandmother asked me today.  I have been spending Tuesday afternoons with Grandma, who has just recently relocated from the mountains to the suburban hell that is Greece, NY.

 

"You could write a book about your time spent with Grandma," my dad said.  "You know what you could call it?"

"Tuesdays with Grandma?"

 

"Yes!"

 

He thinks he's very clever.

 

I told Grandma we arrived just a few days past peak color.

 

"You people think you have color around here, but it's not like the Adirondacks," she stated, bluntly.  "You people" is us "city folk."  According to Grandma, we drive too fast, talk too fast, use too much technology, and our grocery stores... well.  They are just obscene.  How is one supposed to make choices in a Wegmans?  And now our leaves are just not colorful enough.  I didn't have the heart to tell her we hadn't reached our "peak" yet.  (Admittedly, brightly colored leaves displayed dramatically on a looming mountain is visually more satisfying than the splash of color from the paltry woods behind her apartment building.)

 

All in all, Grandma is holding up well, disappointing fall foliage notwithstanding.

 

My friend Lydia and I headed north to hike Cascade Mountain, which is the "easiest" climb out of the 46 Adirondack high peaks.  Cascade was chosen because we both have a horrific fear of hiking down rocky mountains in the dark.  Also, Lydia is afraid of black bears.  She will probably refute this, but there was a brief moment where she was considering NOT bringing Snickers bars because they might attract black bears.  I may have to find someone else to hike Yellowstone with. 

 

We made it down with plenty of daylight to spare. 

 

Here is a conversation I heard on the way down the mountain:

 

"Look, when it gets to be 4:00, we'll turn around."

 

"Or maybe someone could just plan better next time."

 

This is why I don't go hiking with my husband.  Lydia would never talk to me that way.

 

We made it up and down in about 5 1/2 hours.  Some seven year olds made it up and down much faster than that; I know because they passed us, unapologetically. As did a black lab named Spike.   

 

Don't even get me started on the Boy Scouts.

 

The trail was crowded, rocky, and very muddy, but ultimately worth it for the view.  I'm a sucker for a good view. 

 

We also went shopping and sightseeing in Saratoga Springs, Lake George, and Lake Placid.  Rather, we ate in Lake Placid and ogled the Olympic sites that dominate the small village as we drove through.  I went into two different Eddie Bauer stores in the course of two days.  The insanity of it all.

 

 

View from atop Cascade Mountain:

 

 

 

View of Mt. Marcy, which is the only mountain I can definitively recognize. 

My bangs- blowing unceremoniously in the wind. 

It smells so unbelievably good there.  In the mountains, not in Eddie Bauer.

As per the death, the birth, and the wedding:

John's grandmother, "Nana,"  died at the age of 93.  We had a family graveside service Wednesday.  She was a sweet lady and, honestly, I can't believe she's gone.  We will be having a larger memorial service later this month.

My stepbrother got married in Colorado, where he lives.  I'm sorry to have missed the wedding.

John's little sister, Mary, had a baby girl just yesterday.  The circle of life! Seriously.  It's all circling like crazy around here. Soon, the kids will get off the bus and I will rush them off to dance class and piano lessons.  They'll probably all grow an inch just this evening.

Sigh.

Life's too fast. Go ahead and climb a mountain.  Preferably not on a holiday weekend. 

May: A Retrospective

May is my favorite month:  it's sunny and flowery and I get to watch my kids get hysterical if a bee comes within 10 yards of them.  Three of them have inherited my distinct screeching while flapping arms move.  Caleb remains stoic under almost any circumstance.  Two weeks ago, he sprained his finger in school and didn't tell me about it until five minutes before his evening baseball practice was over.  It was swollen and a lovely shade of aubergine.

In early May, John and I went to NYC for the sole purpose of checking out the progress of the Freedom Tower.  We had heard rumors a skyscraper was going up, but after ten years, one wants to see such a thing for oneself.  John told me that when it's completed, it will be 1,776 feet.  Two hours later, I got it.  And honestly, I think it's a little hokey. 

The real purpose for the trip was to attend a wedding reception at The Players Club in Gramercy Park, which is where I'm going to live after John dies and I land me a millionaire.  Gramercy Park, not the Players Club.

The Players Club is not as risque as it sounds.  I was disappointed, too.  Apparently, it's the place where Mark Twain went to play pool.  I know this because they had his pool cue on display above a fireplace.

The next day was Mother's Day.  John took me to a Yankee's Game.  On Father's Day, we're going to the NYC Ballet, because that's how a marriage works.  It's all about give and take. 

We hate the Yankees, but were well behaved and impressed with the beautiful stadium.  We were also surprised to find that the Yankee fans seemed like normal individuals; none of them wore pants made out of one hundred dollar bills.  We ate hot dogs and wrinkled our nose surreptitiously when A-Rod went up to bat.  The Mariners won, so that was nice.

This is the last picture I took of Kiah before her accident:  She's with her boyfriend, Charlie the Chow Chow. 

The twins and their spider hats!  (They won't go in the bathroom if there's even a remote possibility a spider is in there.  Shrieking and flapping if they see one.)

I accompanied Ben on his class trip to the zoo!  We had some important Ben and Mommy time.  And Ben and Mommy and sea lion time.  And Ben and Mommy and polar bear time. 

                                                 Hello, you.

The twins had their end-of-the-year school picnic! 

On Memorial Day weekend, we met friends in Olcott and rode the carousel and threw rocks in Lake Ontario.  My kids could throw rocks into Lake Ontario for the rest of their lives and feel they'd lived lives full of joy and purpose. 

The next day, we had a barbecue at our friends' house.  They have a pool. Ella and Dan floated for a long time.  This picture is taken after Daniel started to sink.  I was successfully fishing him out of the pool when my husband dashed across the patio and plunged into the water, soaking me and ruining his iPhone.  He dubbed himself a hero.  I dubbed him... something else.

Ella cut her own hair this month.  I bought some headbands to hide the problem areas.  This is how she likes to wear her headbands.  She also likes to wear socks in the summer.  Those are not bruises on her arm, but sticker residue.  Sticker residue is the worst.

And that was May.  Where are the pictures of Caleb?  This is a good question.  I'll ponder that over the course of June.

Holly Attends a Writing Conference!

The Festival of Faith and Writing is held every two years at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For those three days, “faith” encompasses pretty much anyone who believes there is a world “beyond the veil”: spiritualists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc.- basically all the people Richard Dawkins makes fun of. We share that thin but strong thread that ties us to one another – belief.


The entire time I was there, I had Cee Lo Green’s infamous song stuck in my head- albeit the PG version. I think I heard it playing in Wendy’s.

I didn’t take as many notes as I meant to. I’m a terrible note taker. My spiral pages are full of names of authors mentioned and short statements like, “Fiction is the art of lying! Huzzah!” and “I am trapped in the prison of my own dignity.” There are some pithy quotes: “Story is a country where you can both stand for a while,” and “Violence is a failure of the imagination.” And then, in flamboyant, swirly letters, I wrote the words of the great poet Cee Lo: “Yeah I’m sorry I can’t afford a Ferrari.”

I went to get inspired, or rather, like Billy Crystal in City Slickers, to “find my smile.” The love of my life all but pushed me out the door with the hopes that getting away would be just the thing I needed. So I left him with heaps of laundry and a teary goodbye and two brand new gel pens to listen to the likes of Jonathan Safran Foer, Kevin Brockmeier, and Marilynne Robinson discuss the writing process, the realm of imagination, and how, exactly, they become “inspired.” Inspiration, I’ve found, is a tricky business. It’s one of those nebulous things that I’m sure there must be some secret, probably discovered by Oprah, to attaining.

There isn’t, or if there is, it’s different for everyone.

One novelist shared that she writes early in the morning and late at night because that’s when she’s closest to dreaming.

Ann Voskamp’s husband built her a cabin at the edge of their corn field for inspiration. Good grief.

Kevin Brockmeier printed us a list of his 100 favorite books, his top ten favorites highlighted, that inspire him.

As for the sessions themselves, some writers give brilliant speeches; some do not. The lovable and brilliant Brian Doyle spoke passionately and fluently yet his hands shook the entire time. The session ended and I just wanted to give him a hug and say thank you.


Jonathan Safran Foer, whose novel Incredibly Dangerous and Extremely Smelly (or something like that) I didn’t particularly love, was a brilliant speaker. Tall, dark, handsome, funny, and handsome and tall.

Marilynne Robinson, who won the Pulitzer for her novel Gilead, ended at least half of her spoken sentences with, “Ya know?” Alas, she didn’t tell a story, but gave a rather vague talk about politics and fear and how certain news conglomerates seems to despise liberal college professors, ya know? I later read that her most recent book, a series of essays, is based on speeches she has given to conservative groups. She seems to blame Fox News for the fact that people carry guns. She did not once mention the creators of that show The Walking Dead, which would give anyone reason to want to own a gun, or at least a crossbow.

Adam Schutema, author of the short story collection Freshwater Boys, gave an informational talk about fiction and place. A lot of what he said resonated with me: he compared writing without giving your fiction a strong sense of place to watching actors talk in front of a plain white screen. Thankfully, if there’s one truly good thing I carried home with me from this conference, it’s that it’s okay to scribble out a story and then go back and fill in the trees and busses in the background and birds tweeting outside the window. Everyone has their own process.

Other highlights from the festival: Jana Riess’s controversial memoir session, where she insisted that our children’s stories are not our stories to tell, and that we should leave them out of our memoirs. Or our blogs. Or our Christmas letters. A later session had three other memoir writers defending their reasons for writing about their children. I asked Caleb what he thought, and he said, “You write about me? Where? Is it embarrassing?”

Gary Schmidt, who won the Newbury twice, read letters from his incorrigible young fans. He was the festival’s first, and perhaps most poignant, plenary speaker.

Bethany Pierce, whose novel I purchased at the festival, reduced all plots to six biblical stories:

• Satan falling

• Paul on the road to Damascus

• Exodus

• The first and second coming of Christ

• David and Goliath

She challenged us to think of another plot line, and I couldn’t.

The most discouraging discussion was the one on building a writer’s platform, which entails building Twitter followers and getting speaking engagements BEFORE you get your novel published. I swear, I felt the whole room participate in a collective sigh.

I came home to sleet and rain and snow and wind. Any hopes of retaining a modicum of inspiration were dashed when I stood, this morning, in the freezing rain, encouraging Kiah to not play “chase me around the yard, you human fool!” I had a smile, but perhaps I left it in that McDonald’s outside of St. Catherine’s. I’m sure it will catch up to me.

In the meantime, I am still processing what it was like to spend so many days with people who are far more creative and accomplished I will ever be. My favorite moments of the festival were when I was read to: whether it was from a novel, a group of poems, a memoir, or a short story. Scrawled in one corner of my spiral notebook is the question: Do you like sentences? I do. I like sentences. I like stories. I like being read to, because it’s true, a story really is a country where I can stand with people I don’t know, will possibly never see again, for a while.

It’s a beautiful while.

Philadelphia in 12

Well, this was supposed to be a post containing 12 pictures from our brief trip to Philadelphia, but as you can see, Blogger is still not allowing me to post pics in their intended upright position. 

I am frustrated. 

I'm thinking of moving to Wordpress.  Is this too big of a pain? Thoughts? Blogger's interface is more straightforward, but Wordpress has fewer gliches, I believe, and I think it looks better. 

Ack.  What does it matter.

I'm in a mood.

Here are some pics from our whirlwind trip to Philly.  No, I did not eat a Philly cheesesteak.  I don't think I've had a cheesesteak since I was 18. 

Flowers made out of container tops. 

View from art museum.

Cezanne is my favorite.

The trip to the museum was worth it just for the ENTIRE ROOM dedicated to the artwork of William Blake.  Blake is of course best known as an early romantic poet  He was also a painter and a printmaker.  The museum was showcasing a series of his illustrations of the Book of Job and Milton: A Poem. 

Bitters!  Made in Rochester, NY!  Cool.

 Liberti Church, where my brother-in-law is a pastor, holds services in the First Baptist Church, which has a very long and illustrious history in Center City, Philadelphia.

Mimosas for Breakfast

NYC at 100 degrees is only fun if you go with your best girlfriends. I know. I was in NYC this weekend with my girlfriends while all the smart people were leaving Manhattan in hoards. Thankfully, in NY there is always a shop or a café with air conditioning to patronize or a window air conditioner dripping condensation from above.

The weekend is a little hazy because the weather was hazy, and also perhaps because I started off each morning with mimosas for breakfast. I sweat a lot. On Saturday, I didn’t go to the bathroom between 1pm and 8pm, despite drinking over 40 ounces of water and one diet coke. This was shocking to me because I pee, on average, every 47.5 minutes.

My friend Lyd and I drove this time, hoping to save both money and Holly’s stomach, which is still funky after her flight back from Dallas. We didn’t even make it to Geneva before we got stuck in a 2 ½ hour traffic jam. We were upset about it. There was complaining. And then we found out a tour bus had pulled out in front of a tractor trailer, was immediately set on fire, and that the tractor trailer driver perished.

We felt a wee bit bad about complaining.

I have a love/hate thing going on with the British woman on the GPS. I love her because she knows where I am when I have no clue, but I hate her because she’s bossy and takes me through the Holland Tunnel when the George Washington Bridge is the better route.

We did find free parking one street away from Christine's apartment for the entire weekend.  This is a miracle akin to turning water into wine.  Or mimosas.

It took us ten hours to drive to the Upper East Side and six hours to drive home via the George Washington Bridge.

Lyd and I are not quite assimilated to the Big Apple, though we try to fit in. Lydia is, strangely, single. Otherwise I WOULD NOT be checking out handsome men in uniform on the street because I am happily married to a suit.  I'm trying to help out a friend. 

Holly: Lyd, did you see that cute pilot over there?
Lyd: Ooooh, yeah. Danny!
Christine: That’s a doorman, guys.

I was also concerned about how crowded all of the coffee shops were.

Holly: Is it always this crowded in these places? Even in the dead of winter?
Christine: Yes.
Holly: (Deeply concerned.) But then where can all of the writers go to pen their great novels?
Christine: It’s the stupid writers that make it so crowded in here. They sit and they don’t move for days. (Glares at girl sitting at table with laptop.)
Holly: Oh. I feel sheepish. (I did not say that. But sheepish is just how I felt.)

I took fewer pics than I usually do, but here are some of them with commentary:

On Saturday, we ventured out to Governors Island, which is located at the bottom of Manhattan near the Statue of Liberty.  Formerly a military base, the government is in the middle of preservation efforts, turning the island into a sort of park/ historical destination.  You can access the island via ferry (the port is right next to the Staten Island Ferry port.)  The island was pretty dead; of course, it was 100 degrees out.  Once on the island, you can rent a bicycle, fly a kite, enjoy a free game of mini-golf, eat lunch, and appreciate the view.  Here's me and Lyd at one of the many modern sculptures located throughout the island. 

A tourist boat sailing by the island.  The orange boat is the Staten Island Ferry.

View of lower Manhattan from Governors Island.

View of Libby from Governors Island

Castle Williams located on Governors Island

On Sunday, we had Brunch at Cafe Lalo, which is the cafe from You've Got Mail.  (Which I wrote about recently, right here. Tom Hanks goes to meet Meg Ryan, who sits waiting expectantly with her rose and a copy of Pride and Prejudice.)  The cafe is renowned for their vast dessert menu.  They offer an "Around the World" brunch.  Christine got the New York brunch.  Holly stupidly got the Irish brunch.  If you ever have the choice between a New York brunch and an Irish brunch, go with New York.



At Cafe Lalo.

  

I love corner flower shops.

There is a Food Emporium located under the 59th Street Bridge.  Wegmans has a nice ambiance, but this makes grocery shopping quite elegant. 




We went to Tiffany's because Christine had a return to make.  So, there you go.  The inevitable Holly Goes Lightly at Tiffany's pic, sideways, because she can't seem to fix the Blogger pic problem.  I'm wearing my brand new Angel Batista hat. 

  If you happen to go to Tiffany's with a same-sex friend in the next few months and want the Tiffany salespeople to simply fawn over you, pretend you and your friend are getting married, and you're both getting 5-karat engagement rings.  I swear, they will go nuts.

We did not do that, of course. 

Christine, by the way, lives one street away from Holly Golightly's fictional apartment building.  I failed to get a snapshop, yet again. 

We did too many things to list.  Some stops:  The GreenFlea Market, Zabar's (where I got Lydia a bag of coffee because John drank the last two brought home from NY for her), The Strand, of course, Pylos Greek Restaurant, etc, etc, etc. 

It was good times and noodle salad, despite the heat.

Walking around with my girlfriends, I don't feel like a 33-year old mother of four.  I feel fifteen again, wandering about with no resonsibilities, feeling a tiny bit rebellious having a mimosa with breakfast even though I'm of age.  For three days, it felt like no time had past between now and the tenth grade. 

Today, I feel very much 33.  Daniel is waiting for me to open the garage.  I better do that.

No one has their very own garage in Manhattan.  Poor saps.

Dallas!

I currently serve on a board of reference at my alma mater, which basically means that I run the school now and all questions regarding academics/ fundraising/ staff concerns should be directed to me.  It also means that my husband I flew out for a board meeting held in Dallas, Texas this past weekend.  Which means, of course, that it's time to update my puke map. 

Why Holly is the Most Funnest Person to Travel With

Is it because she is the person most prone to motion sickness in the world?  Is it because she likes to try and sneak her virulent pepper spray through security?  Is it because, while in Cape Cod with two girlfriends, she inadvertenly threw her Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme into reverse while going 60 MPH?  (In her defense, she momentarily forgot she was not driving a stick.)  Is it because she has a habit of leaving her purse behind on various restaurant benches and sales counters throughout the country?  Is it because, if she is not suffering from motion sickness, she has somehow contracted a vicious strain of bacteria that renders her completely incapacitated?  Nay!  It is because she likes to arrive at the airport 45 minutes before boarding a plane only to announce that she has left her identification at home, in a coat pocket lying somewhere on the upstairs carpet.  Because how else would her husband find an excuse to drive 90 MPH down 490 or squeal his tires while turning on exit ramps?  (Don't be jealous.  If you want, I'll take a trip with you, too.)

Holly Does Visits Dallas!

Dallas is a land of flat, brown landscape and excellent Mexican food.  It is a sprawling metropolis.  I prefer my cities more compact, like New York or Toronto, but everything is bigger in Texas.  The city and its extending suburbs spread for miles and miles, bridging the gap between Dallas and Fort Worth. 

Texas is the libertarian's dream state.  Here's the difference between Texas and New York in a nutshell:  in the bathroom of our hotel room, there were no signs that pleaded with us to hang up our towels in order to conserve energy.  I have no doubt that if we had hung up our towels, they would have been washed anyway.  We kept the maids out of our room so that we could fling our towels wherever we pleased, thereby conserving energy and taking the opportunity to be messy at the same time.  (We are eco-conscious libertarians.)

Our gracious and benevolent hosts took 15 of us all around town, where we proceeded to eat our way through Dallas.  In fact, at this moment, I can think of little else but greasy, buttery, southern-style rolls and this most wonderful invention called "fried guacamole."  Just when you think guacamole can't get any better. 

There are Pictures!  (Or- Highlights of Dallas)

Somewhere behind that sign a man invented Dr. Pepper.  God bless that man.

White Rock Lake.  The big oil moguls build their houses along the waterfront, which was the original freshwater source for the city of Dallas.  Now they all drink Evian.

We ate here at the Dixie House. 

A drive-by shot of a Frank Lloyd Wright House on historic Swiss Avenue. 

Dallas is the 9th largest city in the states, and the third largest in Texas after Houston and San Antonio.

Another Swiss Avenue home.

Downtown Dallas.

Shiny!

Right in downtown Dallas is this little cabin, which belonged to one of Dallas's very first settlers.

So, I was there when JFK was shot.

It happened this past Saturday, and it was terrifying. 

But I got over it and snapped a pic of this church.

If Dallas is Xanadu, then Jerry Jones is Kubla Khan

(I wonder what Jerry Jones' last words will be?)

The Cowboys Stadium, I hear, can be seen from Mars.  It is a colossal architectural pheneomenon- a structure supported by two massive steel arches longer than the Empire State Building would be if it were placed on its side. 

Since I hail from western New York, I feel nothing but contempt for the Dallas Cowboys.  I'm not even really into football; this contempt seems to be a deeply rooted intrinsic feeling I was born with.

(Buffalo Bills fans might want to opt NOT to take the Dallas Cowboys stadium tour, because it certainly compounds the feeling that Ralph Wilson Stadium is... shabby.) 

Still, it was a wonder to behold.  On the private tour, we were privy to the locker rooms, the private suites, the press rooms, the tippy-top of the stadium, and of course, the field. 

Pictures- not edited at all because I lack the time and energy:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree

11,200 square-foot LCD television- largest in the world.  As large as four long buses parked from end to end.

The top of the dome, which does open.

These tiles were purchased because they have specks of cowboy blue in them. 

View from the newspaper and magazine press room.

Most of the light fixtures are shaped as footballs.

Modern art commissioned by Jones.  This is called "Line of Play."  Tony Romo has allegedly tried to steal it twice. 

We had an enthusuastic tour guide.  John is trying to be soooo happy about this place.

View of the Rangers stadium from top of the dome.

Even the drains are in the shape of stars.

Cowgirls locker room.  If you ever want to see a bunch of respectable, grown men open their mouths yet remain mute, take them here. 

The wood for the Cowboys lockers was imported from Africa. 



On the field.




Still mustering up that enthusiasm.



Cotton Bowl Exhibition





It was a whirlwind of a weekend.  I was blessed to make several new friends, and I already miss them very much. 

Flying with John is such an experience, because he is the world's friendliest flier.  He has a policy of immediately introducing himself to the stranger sitting next to him.  When flying solo, I  turn on my headphones immediately and immerse myself in a book, only speaking to my neighbors to inform them that my puking up lunch is imminent, and they better move their butts fast if they don't want regurgitated airport food on their laps.  Thanks to John, on the way to Dallas, we conversed with a med student about to start his residency- a neurologist who listened with interest about Ella's ADP.  On the way back, I got into a heated discussion with an English professor about Shakespeare authorship; we made up, and I almost had him willing to pen my masters thesis.  Because we had established a sort of relationship, he was definitely less ruffled when I went to barf somewhere over Lake Michigan. 

As much as I occasionally long to get away and enjoy peace and solitude, after about twelve hours, I miss my little ones desperately.  I begin to stalk little kids in hotels which concerns not only the kids, but their parents and my fellow companions.  I start to hear the pitter-patter of little feet when there are no little feet around.  It's all very depressing.   There's nothing like burying your face in your kids' hair after a few days apart, and kissing their soft cheeks right before they drift off to sleep. 

Home again for a while- still feeling "off."  Will refrain from complaining about the utter inhumanity of air travel, from being forced to take naked pictures to being stuck in a tube where they dare to charge you $39 for five extra inches of legroom.  Even worse- viewing the same episode of "The Big Bang Theory" four different times. 

Inhumane.

Glad to be home with the kids, my unsettled stomach, and my identification, which is currently safely located within my purse, just in case anyone should wonder where my "papers" are. 

And it's warm here!  These were the thoughts going through my head this morning:  SPRING!  SPRING!  SPRING!  WIND!  SPRING!  (Same thoughts, I think, as Kiah the Wonder Dog.)  

Happy spring!