Susan Christian Goulding

Accolades

     “In 12 years as People magazine’s West Coast Bureau chief, I dispensed assignments to hundreds of correspondents. Through all that time, Susan Christian Goulding was a fixture on my short list of go-to performers.

     “Tell Susan what you’re after and she delivers. On time, on point, with no need for hand holding or nudging. She is a personable, probing interviewer, a fluid writer and a versatile, careful reporter--a completely reliable pro.

     “I recommend her without reservation.”

Jack Kelley
Former West Coast Bureau Chief
People magazine



     “I have worked with Susan Christian Goulding on several occasions and have found her a creative, thorough, professional, flexible and fun writer. Susan can write in a number of styles, from straight consumer-style reporting to conversational-style features.

     “Susan always hits her deadlines and needs little editing. The rare times that I have asked Susan to reword something, she has proven very open to fitting her ideas to the needs of the publication and has made revisions swiftly. Her accuracy is impeccable. Other editors at the Register who have worked with Susan also find her an outstanding professional with a knack for writing in a smooth but unpretentious style. Her best work reads like an energetic chat with a smart friend.”

Gary Warner
Travel Editor
The Orange County Register

     “In the seven-plus years I have worked with Susan Goulding, she has consistently demonstrated what a wonderfully talented writer she is and has exhibited the utmost professionalism. She’s been an absolute pleasure to work with.

     “Her columns for the Daily Breeze features section have been witty, intelligently written and clean--they need virtually no editing. She writes about her life and family in a way that appeals to a wide range of reader demographics, always maintaining a freshness and timeliness to her articles. Pairing that with subtle humor is no easy task, but Susan manages to do it. She’s unafraid to tackle just about any subject.”

Leo Smith
Features Editor
Daily Breeze
Torrance, California

     "The annual report, written by Susan Christian Goulding and photographed by Michael Goulding, will serve as a model for our future years and will undoubtedly help us in our fund-raising efforts. I would recommend their services to anyone."

Douglas D. Harding
Chief Development Officer
Turning Point Community Programs
Sacramento, California

 "I thought your columns were exceptionally good, superior to what I see by a lot of people who are a lot more celebrated.”

Russell Baker
Columnist
The New York Times

Copies of letters and contact information provided upon request.

Services Offered

• Corporate brochures
• Website writing and editing
  
• Annual reports
  
• Press releases
• SAT prep and other tutoring
• Ad writing
  
• Book editing
  
• Proofreading/copy editing, including high school and college papers
  
• Speech writing
  
• Travel writing
  
• Features writing
  
• Autobiographies and biographies
  
• Textbook writing

Corporate & University Website Writing

   

    Susan Christian Goulding works under contract with University of California, Irvine, writing features for its website.

    For example:

http://www.today.uci.edu/features/profile_detail.asp?key=357

    She also writes and edits corporate websites.

    For example:

http://www.enviroplumbing.com/index.html 

SAT and Essay Tutoring

In today's competitive college market, high school students need to approach the SAT with well-practiced strategies. Susan Christian Goulding has helped dozens of students raise their SAT scores by 200 to 300 points with both small-group instruction and one-on-one tutoring. She also can assist in honing college admission essays, research papers and other writing assignments.

Professional Photography

Contact Michael Goulding:
mgoulding@ocregister.com
PHONE:  714.932.1710

    Michael Goulding, is an acclaimed photojournalist who’s won more awards than he has wall space to hang--among them, the Harvard University Goldsmith Prize. As a staff photographer for the Orange County Register, Mike has circled the globe shooting everything from Olympics Games to Academy Awards ceremonies to Super Bowls--yet he prides himself in capturing the “smaller moments” close to home.

     Extremely versatile, Mike also specializes in portrait photography. He has shot five annual reports for Freedom Communications, a university textbook and brochures for a variety of companies. He and his wife enjoy working together on public relations material and travel stories.

    See examples of Mike's work at: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=4570

   

Public Relations Writing Sample

Ameristar Casinos brochure published in 2007: Download community_relations_brochure_2.1.pdf

RIDING TO THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

    Hour 1 of spring break vacation: I spot Sean Penn at our American Airlines gate. Surreal coincidence--the very night before, we watched his movie “Into the Wild.” I seize this excuse to march over and share our rave reviews. “Thank you,” he croaks--looking as though his next words might be, “Now scram.”

     Hour 4: My husband mopes at the Hertz desk upon realizing that our designated car is a Sienna--same boring van we tolerate when not on vacation. Mike fails to appreciate my two bits about rip-off third-party “discount” websites that don’t allow flexibility. Insult to injury, our rental dons California plates--in TEXAS!

     Hour 5 (midnight): My sister and her hubby serve up martinis and wine. And more martinis and more wine. Erin and Matt happily attach themselves to their adored and adorable cousin, Alex, a cool college coed.

     Hour 18: Wishing we’d celebrated just a little less, we board our jejune jalopy for an incredible journey. Backing down the driveway renders me motion sick.

     Hour 19: We plug in a library CD of “Water for Elephants,” about a rinky-dink circus during the Great Depression. (Jumping ahead of myself here...  That book made the miles fly by.)

     Hour 23: Matt notes that drab, bunker-like Waffle Houses along the Louisiana highway seem to warn: “I wouldn’t come in here if I were you!”

     Hour 25: Our Lafayette motel is so unloved that no one bothered to cover the carpet before replastering walls. I again question Mike’s penchant for travel websites.

     Hour 38: Mere minutes from our dump, enchanting swampland awaits us. We putter around in a little boat with Butch, a wisecracking hillbilly scholar. Draped with Spanish moss, tall trees mystically poke through the water’s mirrored surface. We see gators!

     Hour 46: After waltzing through a plantation, we check into our French Quarter hotel. Hush my mouth about Mike’s website surfing. Quite surprisingly, we are staying in a plush $400-a-night suite--for one-fourth that price. Grilled oysters, a stroll down Bourbon Street and a peaceful night’s sleep follow.

     Hours 63-73: Cafe du Monde, the flea market, St. Louis Cathedral. New Orleans can feel like Paris, but without all the museums. So what do you do with your time? You listen to a free jazz concert, that’s what. And eat a fabulous dinner at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen. (Unbeknownst to us, famed chef Paul Prudhomme was grazed by a stray bullet at an outdoor charity event just that morning, and kept right on cooking.)

     Hour 86: We meet up with my cousin Adam’s spunky wife Cheri at their cute “uptown” home. Cheri gives us a tour of Katrina damage--so close yet so far away from the tony neighborhoods scarcely impacted. Erin puzzles over ramshackle houses still bearing spray-painted memos--most cryptic but some straightforward, such as, “11/1--2 dogs rescued.” We wonder how those dogs survived a whole month. We also wonder what might become of this petrified devastation--so notorious and, simultaneously, so invisible.

     Hour 89: Another celebrity sighting! Back in uptown, Erin recognizes Jessica Biel lunching at a table near ours. Weird. This time, I curb my stalker instincts. But Matt surreptitiously photographs her, thinking TMZ will pay big bucks for the image.

     Hour 92: Adam comes home from work, then returns--to show us around stately Tulane University, where he teaches environmental law. That evening, we feast on Cheri’s massive pot of jambalaya.

     Hour 105 (6 a.m.): Groggily, we split for Galveston, oh Galveston. (I can’t say that word without breaking into song.)

     Hour 110: Going with the flow through a tiny town near Galveston, oh Galveston, we hear a siren. A young policewoman writes up a speeding ticket--45 in a 35, sez she, adding that Mike’s court date is May 5. As though he’ll be there. I suffer a meltdown, accusing her of cynically targeting out-of-state license plates. My mortified kids envision me in handcuffs.

     Hour 112: Beach boy Mike declares he could relax in Galveston, oh Galveston, for an entire week! Or maybe a weekend. We chill by the pool, especially whenever clouds block the sun.

     Hour 138: Some 1,200 miles later, we’re back in Austin getting gussied up for the fancy debut of the Long Center--a performing arts auditorium my mother helped shepherd. She observes that we all “clean up well.” How did my brothers score such gorgeous wives?

     Hour 166: The middle-aged youngsters (meaning, everyone but Mom) return to the Long Center for an unforgettable Lyle Lovett/Willie Nelson/Asleep at the Wheel concert. My Lyle crush reignites.

     Hour 177: We’d gladly hang around a spell longer, if not for our mutts. And school. And jobs. And the fact we’re recycling dank clothes. So go, we must.

(2008)

INSTRUMENTAL LESSONS OF LIFE

     First came the piano. (Triumph, then rebellion.) Next, the drums. (Noise.) Next, the guitar. (Silence.) The recorder. (Unqualified, grin-and-bear-it success.) The clarinet. (A work in progress.) And now: The violin.

     Damned the torpedoes, Erin and Matt are going to learn to play a musical instrument.

     Five years ago, my parents--perhaps guilt-ridden that they didn't do anything to develop my hidden musical talents--gave us a used piano for Christmas. Knowing nothing about pianos, I chose one whose distressed blonde wood fits in nicely with our Mexican decor.

     Much to her mother's delight, Erin took to the piano like a dog to a sock. For about two years. Then she decided she would rather eat broccoli than practice. Lucky thing the piano fits in nicely with our Mexican decor.

     Thankfully, the music program at Erin's elementary school had not yet been chopped in half (grrrr) and she learned the recorder in fourth grade. So far, that $6 recorder by far has been our least expensive and longest lived endeavor into musical awareness. Name a song, any song. Erin instantly can toot it by ear--like one of those underrated bar pianists who takes requests from sloshed patrons.

     The music teacher selected Erin and a few other kids for the “recorder band.” Did you know that recorders sound almost pretty in concert? Hard to believe, if you've ever had a child walk around the house blowing “Happy Birthday” on the plastic flute.

     Meanwhile, Matt got old enough to pursue his own standing as a child prodigy. In kindergarten, he viewed himself as a future rock star, so we indoctrinated him with a drum set purchased at Target. Within a week, one of his buddies accidentally had slashed the biggest drum with a snorkel. Duct tape can only do so much. After the floor pedal fell off, it was a slippery slope from educational toy to piece of junk.

     Soon afterward, my sister shipped Matt a guitar that her daughter had outgrown. For Matt, its arrival was more exciting than a trip to Disneyland. But the guitar was a little too big for Matt, so we postponed lessons for a year or two. Or three, or four...

     Erin's pushy parents pushed her into the middle school band, meaning we all have to wake up an hour earlier for the “zero period” elective. Fortunately, Erin's friend Emma got drafted, as well. Emma, likewise a master of the recorder, and Erin both decided on the recorder-esque clarinet.

     E & E are the proud owners of the band's only clarinets made by First Act, a company best known for those $6 recorders. Emma's parents, esteemed members of Costco, secured them at a reasonable price. The band teacher has questioned the quality of these instruments, but based on the probability that Erin will have moved on to the accordion by summer, we're committed.

     Back to Matt's parallel life. A couple of months ago, Matt, who tends to fixate, suddenly became fascinated with the violin: “Violin, violin, violin. I'm desperate to play the violin!” This obsession had something to do with a classmate named Parker demonstrating his violin to other third graders.

     When its thumb rest fell off, we took the clarinet to an instrument store for first aid. While the repair guy smirked about the cheesy construction of our clarinet, Matt sampled a violin. Pure ecstasy. The shop owner produced a slightly used violin that he'd sell us for only $100. And it's not even a First Act.

     Talk about impulse buy. Now comes the real expense--lessons.

     At this moment in his evolution, Matt is the happiest boy on Earth. He'd, uh, “play” his violin in his sleep, if he could. His friends don't get the attraction. (You can't shove it into a PlayStation.) His parents think this means he's the next Itzhak Perlman.

     On with the parade.

(2003)

SECRET LETTER

    This much my friend knew:

     Her father served in World War II from 1942 until 1945. He fought in hand-to-hand combat at Guadalcanal--something that those of us who have lived only in comfort and peace cannot fathom.

     This much my friend extrapolated:

     In 1944, her father and a woman also stationed in the South Pacific (perhaps as a nurse?) fell into a fervent love doomed from its very beginning. She already was promised to a man pining for her from afar, either back in the States or (perhaps?) from a battlefield in Europe.

     After my friend's father died, her mother decided to move from her home of 50 years to a retirement community. So my friend flew east to help weed out decades of canceled checks, warranties for long-gone appliances and such from the papers worth saving.

     One box contained her father's war correspondence. There were letters to his parents, letters from family and friends, an address book, newspaper clippings. It is a box resting beneath a layer of dust, undisturbed yet unforgotten, in the basements and closets of old soldiers everywhere.

     While her mother sorted through Nixon-era tax returns, my friend skimmed some of the missives--catching glimpses of her father as a young man, so brave and scared and, by necessity, mature beyond his years. Then she opened the envelope postmarked March 6, 1945, South Carolina. Inside she found on U.S. Navy letterhead a message that stopped her breath.

     “Yes, I married the guy last Saturday,” read the feminine handwriting. “So much I want to tell you, but I can't, I can't. It will have to be enough to say thanks for letting me know you, for letting me love you. ‘'Twas a year of heaven. I love you, always.”

     This much my friend knows:

     With the help of a VA loan, her father became the first in his family to attend college--where a pretty coed walked into his economics class and sat down next to him. They would marry and enjoy a good life together, raising their four baby boomers in the freshly paved suburbs.

      My friend's father never discussed the war in any kind of detail. But he regularly had nightmares about it--bolting up in bed and flailing his arms to fend off phantom enemies.

     He was a jocular, fun man--yet at the same time, reserved and difficult to figure. He relished the role of husband and dad. He was honest, decent, hard working, religious and, it seemed to my friend, prudish. She never once spied him in his underwear. He seldom kissed his dear wife in front of the children.

     In this letter, she saw her father as a swashbuckler, almost. Dashing, romantic, even sexy. Living each day as though, truly, it could be his last. Putting on hold the social mores he was so steeped in back home, and would be again.

     But also as vulnerable to heartbreak as he was to bullets. My friend pictured her father sitting in his barrack, absorbing this good-bye that arrived as no surprise yet shocked him to the core. She pictured his fingers trembling and his eyes watering. She pictured him so lonely that his every cell ached. And, in a flash of spite toward the woman who came before her mother, she thought, “Good riddance, you flake, else I wouldn't be here today.”

     My friend remembered her own passionate letters from boyfriends of ages past. She wondered if she should retrieve that shoe box from the attic and toss it, so her children would not discover evidence of her pre-them adventures. No, she concluded, those, too, were valid and formative chapters in her life. So be it.

     And she silently slipped her father's treasured memory into her pocket and offered to make her mom a sandwich.

(2007)

COWBOY SPURS AND ANGEL WINGS

     After my husband’s father died 16 years ago, we inherited a trunk and a heavy file cabinet chockfull of his writings. Jack, the prototypical big-city newspaper editor--cigar-chomping, taciturn, wry--moonlit composing true-crime paperbacks and articles.

    These metal mausoleums idly consume prime real estate in our garage. We never delve into Jack’s parched manuscripts nor seek entertainment from his yellowing stories. It’s all we can do to stay abreast of current events, much less dig up the past.

    Still, we can’t possibly bring ourselves to haul away the archives. This stuff meant a lot to Jack. Surely, chucking it would slight his memory.

    And so the souvenirs of a life passed will rest in peace indefinitely--until the next generation becomes responsible for them. Then our kids, no doubt, will dump the rusty furniture without a second thought.

    My own father left behind a pair of ancient cowboy spurs. No one but him, presumably, knew to whom they originally belonged. I reluctantly adopted them because, well, they must’ve been some ancestor’s. For a while, they sat on a bookshelf. In a fit of brazenness, I decided to trash the ugly, anonymous things. Nope, couldn’t do it. To a shoe box they went.

    Such musings that cross my mind as I attempt to organize my home office. At present, the floor is an anxiety-inducing junkyard of contents let loose from a closet: aging newsprint, photos both published and personal, magazines, contest plaques.

    Who will ever again read my 1995 Cosmo feature about mainland bachelorettes looking for love in Alaska? Certainly not I. What’s on all these film negatives? Mike doesn’t even use negatives anymore. But they’re keepsakes, one and all!

    As the walls close around me--with miscellany tucked into every nook and cranny--I have vowed to take control. If I can’t discard, at least I can crate.

    Vastly underestimating, I purchased a half dozen plastic bins at Target. The next day, I went back for more. And I swear I could use another 20 to whip this place in shape.

    Hmm. Christmas card photos of other people’s kids, many of whom I’ve never even met. Into a Rubbermaid tub they go. Gobs of letters I wrote my grandmother, from first grade up. How cute that she saved them all. Better carry the torch.

    Little books of meaningful prose gifted me by various high school friends. Rod McKuen. Remember him? Desiderata... “You are a child of the universe.” Remember that? College essays. Cardboard angel wings I wore in a preschool nativity scene. They’ve lasted this long--I can’t get rid of them now!

    My husband’s childhood memorabilia pales in volume next to mine. Report cards on which nuns tattled, “Michael talks too much in class.” Birthday greetings to and from his parents. None of this holds the historical significance of my biographical material. However, it might hurt Mike’s feelings if I preserve my artifacts while jettisoning his. Not that he’d ever notice.

    Then there’s the unwieldy, unsentimental non-paper items: empty camera cases, nameless cords, cellphone accessories--probably for phones long gone. Ink cartridges definitely for printers long gone, but they weren’t cheap--shouldn’t we give them to someone? Much as I’d like to, I just can’t chuck this dreck.

    Of course, we’re obligated to retain the dreariest   information on Earth: tax records. Office and school supplies comprise other boxes, one of which is devoted purely to large envelopes--a surplus resulting from my failure to take inventory.

    Most precious and prodigious are the CURRENT children’s documentation: artwork, fiction, funny notes, band programs, team photos, Santa Claus wish lists, Valentines, poetry. No way any of those treasures go. Erin and Matt already get a kick out of a short trip down memory lane--and probably still will as the lane grows longer.

    Theirs are the only mementos destined to survive beyond Mike and me--unless our children, as do we, suffer a pack-ratish sense of duty. If so, someday their lucky kids will be sorting through 75-year-old Daily Breeze columns and a mysterious set of cowboy spurs.

(2008)

CHARITY CASES

     It has been a lovely day of giving and caring and sharing.

     Movie, television and sports stars converged at this private estate to help raise money and awareness on behalf of a worthy organization. They spoke in reverent sound bites about the importance of today’s crusade.

     The generous celebrities have served their purpose well--drawing media to a cause that, in the mountain of causes, might otherwise be overlooked in the mountain of press releases.   

     These sorts of star-studded benefits take place regularly in Southern  California, where the needs are as great as the riches.

     Now attendees stand in a long line, under a hot and shadeless sky, waiting for their valet-parked cars. They are tired, sweaty, thirsty, bored, drained of small talk.

      People start to get grumpy. Prickly comments fly. This is so annoying! I’ve been waiting here for 20 minutes!

     A foursome of young, handsome TV actors strike up conversation with another young, handsome TV actor a couple of bodies ahead of them. “Is this ridiculous, or what?” they complain.

     And in front of all of them, a well-known television star, whose wife pushes a stroller, joins in: “What is the deal here?”

     Suddenly, everyone freezes, stunned as a famous movie actress is whisked past the crowd by an usher. Hey, how come she gets to cut?

     Someone yells out to her: “How do you rate? We’ve been in line for half an hour!” She smiles sheepishly as she floats to the head of the class.

     “I’m going up there, too!” announces an antsy member of the foursome.

     “Nah, let’s just wait with everyone else,” his populist friend responds.

     But revolution stirs the air. The celebs bristle with insult and impatience.

     “Hey, don’t I get to go up there?” the well-known TV star barks at an usher, some guy earning minimum wage. The usher laughs awkwardly, not quite recognizing him. “That wasn’t a joke, it was a question,” says the actor.

      Wow, he was so earnest and gracious only an hour before.

     The antsy member of the foursome decides to take action, but he is rebuffed by an usher. More restrained, the solo actor quietly mumbles his own discontent.

     Puleez! Now an usher guides a television superstar to the curb, trailed by her husband, kids and nanny. And there goes a really big movie idol! Under different circumstances, the onlookers might be pleased to see him.

     That’s it! Rebellion!

     “What about us?” implores a foursome fellow. “We’re so-and-so on such-and-such and so-and-so on such-and-such...”

     “Oh, OK, just because I like your TV shows,” the usher relents. “How many in your party?”

     “Four.”

     “Make that five,” adds the solo actor. Might as well jump on that gravy train.

     Whoosh, off they go--leaving those without TV shows to ponder their immediate futures, just made less certain by the contagious cutting trend.

     The well-known television star--better known than those pip-squeaks!--is not about to suffer in silence over this latest indignity. “Come on!” he says to his wife. He grabs the stroller from her hands, steers it out of the line in a huff, and vanishes with his family.

     Uh, what was that fundraiser all about, again?

(2006)

OLD MARRIED COUPLES

   For the better part of their time together, my father and mother spent their time apart--their prime time, that is.

     As old married couples will do, they fell into an immutable routine that no man, woman or grandchild could put asunder.

     Every night after dinner, Dad would roost in his recliner to multitask between channel surfing and fussing over the same half-completed Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.

     Mom would retire upstairs to absorb a tome about some 14th century duke no other living human has heard of, while simultaneously processing “CSI.”

     At about 10:15, right at the climax of “The Magnificent Seven” or whatever old movie Dad had stumbled upon, Mom would alight in the kitchen directly overlooking the den and start grinding coffee.

     “Honey, knock off that racket!” Dad would bark.

     Ignoring his pleas, she would run the disposal and, for good measure, fire up the dishwasher. Defeated but clinging to his pride, Dad then would demand that she bring him a bowl of cereal and, for good measure, provide a six-letter word meaning “shrill insect.”

     I exaggerate not. Every night. Every single night.

     Well, now I understand how such ruts happen. Every night after dinner, every single night, full moon or no, my husband and I transform into... George and JoAnne. Suddenly, we lead separate existences--a wall, or three, between us.

     George, AKA Mike, plants himself on the sofa with our complex arsenal of channel changers. I head for bed, though not to sleep. Many chores await me there, beginning with the most tedious one: clearing space for myself by filing away the multiple piles of folded laundry neglected since my last burst of energy hours before.

     Then my son joins me with his latest Hardy Boys book, which we take turns reading aloud. Matt chortles over the brothers’ endless jabs at hapless Chet--their “stout chum” who eats his way through every adventure. (Definitely not a politically correct character by modern standards.)

     Afterward, I drift into the kitchen, like an apparition from the other side, to refill my water glass--just when the “West Wing” prez reveals his hush-hush disease. “Your timing is impeccable!” Mike moans, as the ice maker clanks away.

     Next, if the moon's full, I might sandwich in a few sit-ups on our all-purpose bed until my daughter appears requesting homework assistance. This facade lasts for about 10 minutes because she doesn't really want help anymore--having long since learned that my only forte, proofreading reports, comes with the high price of way too many “suggestions.”

     What Erin wants is to gab and giggle for a while. We're often deep into some inside joke, laughing uncontrollably, when Mike obtrudes to claim his parcel of the bed.

     One night, Erin and I were having so much fun that we accidentally bristled at his arrival. “Oh, shoot, Dad's here,” Mike intoned, sensing that his presence was unwelcome. (More truthfully, in place of “shoot,” he used a four-letter word meaning... Never mind.)

     Absence makes the heart grow fonder. But only when it occurs at distances greater than a wall or three.

(2005)

FORGET NOT GETTING FORGOTTEN

    I always return from trips poised to detail every sumptuous moment, made all the more ideal by a warm and forgiving afterglow.

     But then it hits me once again: To bask in a vacation’s reminiscence, you had to be there. A little goes a long way when it comes to someone else’s travel log.

     So forget Paris.

      Forget the bright flowers in bloom everywhere and the cute chocolate Easter chicks peeping from boulangerie windows. Forget picnicking in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower as worshippers marked the stations of the cross. Forget the cobalt blue skies, the cobblestone streets, the magnificent or quaint buildings that have survived dozens of human generations.

      Forget how that final surprise step into Sainte-Chapelle felt like waking up inside a jewel box. Forget Musee d’Orsay, Musee Rodin, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre. (OK, we DID forget the Louvre.) Forget how Notre Dame at night appears, as a lantern, illuminated from within.

      Forget our French friends persuading the kids--who normally shun anything mildly unfamiliar--to sample snails. Forget crepes au fromage and cassis sorbet on Ile St. Louis. Forget croissants and Nutella and profiteroles and kirs. Forget $10 expressos at Les Deux Magots just because it was a Hemingway haunt.

     Forget our silly recurring “voila” joke, so sidesplitting in context. You REALLY had to be there for that.

     Forget it all, for now, except this: A macabre reminder of our certain fate and ultimate insignificance.

      Paris is a spectacular city not only above but also underground--with its intricate metro system, quirky sewer tours and bizarre catacombs. It’s a wonder the external masterpiece doesn’t collapse into that maze of tunnels below.

      We spent an afternoon spelunking through a mile-long section of the 186-mile(!) network of abandoned limestone quarries--now home to millions of old bones. They ended up there due to practical rather than sinister reasons. In the late 1700s, the city started clearing out church cemeteries--some of which posed health concerns--to make room for the living.

      This may seem a little TOO pragmatic to a young nation that still strives to treat ancient burial sites with respect. Yet imagine a burgeoning metropolis competing for space amongst several centuries of ancestors. What’s a real estate developer to do?

      Artistically arranged femurs and skulls line the passageway in tightly stacked piles. They are grouped by cemetery, but otherwise bear no identity.

      These bones once belonged to fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, people who were loved by other people, people who did something of note in their lifetime, people with unique fingerprints and diverse personalities.   

      Now they all look exactly the same--fleshless faces, hollow eye sockets, toothy grins. No one mourns them or even knows their names. They may as well be grains of sand on the beach.

      Whether in the mausoleums of Forest Lawn or the guts of Paris, all but the Marilyn Monroes and Napoleons among us are headed this direction: eternal anonymity.

      If ever you start feeling a little more important than the fellow standing next to you, consider this massive tomb beneath the world’s most fashionable city.

      Then giggle over a dumb joke, slurp a scoop of ice cream in the sun, tell someone you care, and make the most of your nanosecond in the universe.

(2007)

TALKING ALLIGATORS

     Everyone's talking about talk of layoffs at their workplaces. But enough of depressing talk. Let's talk about Talking Alligators.

     Matt had endured enough talk about his annoyingly competent big sister's latest coup--as a lead in the upcoming school play, “The Mikado.” Would he never hear the end of it? Dad and Mom calling family members to boast, Erin this, Erin that, blah, blah, blah. What was he--chopped liver?

     He'd get his chance to shine, by golly. The second-grade musical skit waited just around the corner, a full month before ”The Mikado.” Titled “Once Upon a Lily Pad,” the hour-long extravaganza stars Freddy, a frog who wishes he could fly.

     Matt determinedly and optimistically tried out for Freddy. Alas, the casting director--failing to recognize raw talent when it hopped in her face--passed him over. Thus Matt became one of 20 alligators--the species assigned to his classroom.

     Hope still flickered. The assistant casting director--Matt's teacher--now would select six breakaway alligators for speaking parts. A few nerve-wracking days crawled by. Matt woke up talking about Talking Alligators and went to bed talking about Talking Alligators, and talked about Talking Alligators at numerous junctions in between.

     At last, Matt returned home from school forcing all the bravado he could muster: “Good news, Mom. I'm a Talking Alligator substitute.”

     He had the math all figured out. One of the chosen Talking Alligators was simultaneously a substitute for the child playing Freddy's Mom--a girl who, according to Matt, misses school a lot. Therefore, he reckoned, that kid would be a no-show, her understudy would be drafted into service, and her understudy's understudy--none other than Matt--would step up to the lily pad. A domino theory, of sorts.

     “Poor Matt,” my husband and I wistfully confided in one another. “He's grasping at straws.”

     Ah, but events took a delicious--I mean, sad--turn. Quentin--an adorable, loud, 100% boy boy--got fired from his job as a Talking Alligator for talking too much in class.

     “I'm not a substitute Talking alligator anymore,” Matt reported with subdued enthusiasm. “I'm a for sure Talking Alligator.”

     His sought-after line: “Hey, Freddy, didn't your parents ever tell you to stay away from there?”

     As awkward coincidence would have it, we bumped into the fallen Talking Alligator two hours later at Target. Excited to spot a classmate, Quentin revealed no grudge in the least. Of course, no one mentioned the words “Talking Alligator.”

     “What a nice guy,” I commented as we walked away from Quentin and his mother.

     “Yeah, but it's not my fault I'm taking his place. He shouldn't have gotten into trouble,” Matt priggishly responded, as though he needed both to defend and to convince himself.

     That evening, Matt quietly brushed off my husband's congratulations. “But I feel sorry for Quentin,” our Talking Alligator confessed, his victory now bittersweet.

     Layoffs have that effect--even when you're left standing.

(2003)

LEAF BLOWER

     You know Leonardo. He’s the guy who drives the old pickup truck loaded with the tools of his trade--a well-worn lawn mower, a leaf blower, an edger. He works at your house, and your neighbor’s houses, and all those other houses on all those other blocks.

     Leonardo hails from Mexico. He understands more English than he speaks. Other than that, you don’t know much about him. You can’t even guess his age. His face is weather-beaten yet boyish.

     It takes Leonardo 30 minutes to do what would require you three hours of precious weekend time. He always has a smile and a wave for you. He beams at the sight of your children. They have a natural affection for him, and tag along behind as he goes about his business.

     He hauls his heavy equipment around, he sweats in the sun. But he never seems tired or agitated or disgruntled with life--as you do now and again, even though your job is much less labor intensive and much more lucrative.

     Leonardo is a real deal. You can’t imagine how he makes rent at the end of the day. Occasionally, you pay him tips. You give him a Christmas bonus. However, these little gestures don’t erase your middle-class guilt.

     Back when you leased an apartment, before a tidy lawn was your responsibility, you hated leaf blowers and wondered why the loud and intrusive devices were even legal. Whatever happened to raking leaves the old-fashioned way? Indeed, some cities have banned leaf blowers, slashing Leonardo’s slender hourly wage in the process.

     My husband and I hooked up with Leonardo soon after buying our first house. He was across the street pruning hedges. We asked if he had an opening in his schedule, and he did.

     In brief glimpses, Leonardo has witnessed our lives unfurl. He was edging the grass when we returned from the hospital with wee Erin. Two and one-half years later, Mike whisked Matthew from his bassinet to share our latest progeny with Leonardo, and proudly offered a cigar.

     Leonardo admired our new van, critiqued the fresh paint on our house, watched Erin practice riding her bike sans training wheels, chatted with our housekeeper, playfully taught Matt a few Spanish phrases.

     Sometimes, Leonardo brought along a boy about 8 years old. I assumed the friendly kid was Leonardo’s son. I pictured Leonardo with his sweet wife and, perhaps, another child at home.

     But eventually, through confusing conversations tripped up by our language barrier, I ascertained that the child was Leonardo’s younger brother. Leonardo, it turned out, is not married. He comes from a family of nine children whose ages span a generation.

     After six years, we bought a slightly bigger house on a slightly smaller lot. “It would be really lazy of me not tot mow the lawn myself here,” Mike commented, surveying the patches of grass that qualify as our front and back yards.

     We told Leonardo we wouldn’t need him anymore. Mike bought a push mower and edger at Sears. He spent half his Saturdays sprucing up the great--well, petite--outdoors.

     That lasted for about three months, until our liquid amber trees started shedding their autumn leaves. We had lost Leonardo’s phone number, so we solicited the help of a neighbor’s gardening crew. They were OK--but they weren’t Leonardo.

     A while later, I discovered Leonardo’s pager number in a desk drawer. We hired him back. It was great to see his truck pull up to our house--like encountering a friend so simpatico that, even after long periods of time apart, you reconnect without missing a beat.

     Not surprisingly, Leonardo proved as steady and good natured as ever. So when he failed to show up or even call for a couple of weeks, we feared something was amiss. Sure enough, he told us after reemerging, he’d been ill.

     “What is it called?” he attempted to explain. “Fever? Heart?”

     “Rheumatic fever?” I replied with alarm. I don’t know much about rheumatic fever, except that it can harm the heart.

     “Yes,” Leonardo answered, but I’m not sure if he had exhausted his English and simply wanted to end our strained dialogue. I inquired whether he had seen a doctor, and he said he planned to do so--soon, any day now.

     Shortly thereafter, Leonardo disappeared again. Weeks went by. I tried paging him--no response. I don’t have his street address, only a post office number.

     One morning, I expressed my concern about Leonardo to a neighbor. “I’m afraid he is very sick,” I said, silently adding, “or worse.”
     “I’ll set you up with my gardener,” proposed the well-meaning man, utterly misconstruing my point. “He’s so reliable that he even works on Thanksgiving.”

     Leonardos, after all, are interchangeable.

(2002)

WHY IS SWIMMY FLOATING ON TOP OF THE WATER?

     Our critter-free days ended with a birthday party. Joy, joy, the favors were goldfish! Bowls not included.

     Erin, 5, and Matthew, 3, left the fete each clutching a plastic bag that contained two tiny fish--the kind, I suspect, that normally are used as vittles for bigger fish. "Our first pets!" Erin gushed. Which meant that this was also my children's first lesson in treating pets with respect.

     “After Matthew's nap, we'll go to a pet store and buy bowls and food," I said. Erin named her varmints Swimmy and Lazy, and Matthew christened his Sammy and Thomas.

     At home, we poured the fish into mixing bowls as a stopgap measure. Erin planted herself by Swimmy and Lazy and watched them in awe.  "Mom," Erin called a while later,  "why is Swimmy floating on top of the water?" 

     I checked it out. Swimmy didn't look too hot. "Honey, I'm afraid Swimmy died," I pronounced. Erin didn't seem to react to my diagnosis, so--in a horrible lapse of judgment and sensitivity--I assumed she took Swimmy's passing in stride. "You know what you do with a dead goldfish?" I cheerfully said. "You flush it down the toilet."

     With that, Erin burst into tears, wailing, "No! No!"

     I carried her to the couch, cradled her and murmured how very sorry I was over her loss. She was inconsolable. She cried in a way I have never heard her cry before. It was not a "I'm mad at the world!" cry. It was not a "I stubbed my toe!" cry. It was not even a "my feelings are hurt" cry. It came from new depths. This cry was the sound of a broken heart.

     All of which moved Erin's stalwart mother to tears as well. There we both sat, pathetically sobbing. What is my problem, I thought, bawling over Swimmy the inch-long goldfish?

     Then it occurred to me: I'm mourning Erin's future sorrows, the real ones that are sure to come. For Erin, Swimmy marked the first shock of losing a loved one--either by separation or worse. Someday, a loutish boyfriend would dump her for another girl. Someday, a cherished relative would die. I longed to protect her from all that pain so part and parcel to life.

     I suggested that we give Swimmy a proper burial in the back yard. I told her about the pet cemetery my sister and I dug when we were kids--one that was inhabited by frogs and tadpoles and lizards and, yes, goldfish. I also made the blunder of telling her about the fancy pet cemetery in Huntington Beach, the grandeur of which, in her estimation, Swimmy more than deserved.

     After some 30 minutes, Erin managed to compose herself enough for a viewing of the deceased. She went into the infamous stage of denial when I recommended we remove Swimmy from the bowl. "In five days!" Erin demanded. At last, she concurred that Lazy might be better off without the company of a cold fish. In Swimmy's absence, she hugged the bowl "so Lazy won't be lonely." I promised we would find Lazy a buddy at the pet store.

     We commenced to the back yard, where we located a flat rock suitable for a headstone. Using a felt-tip pen, Erin engraved it with, simply, "Swimmy." And we laid to rest the faithful fish.

     "Swimmy was lucky to have an owner who loved him so much," I said, choking on my words. Geez, I scolded myself, enough already with Swimmy!

     Matthew, having peacefully slept through all this drama, awoke from his nap. (I might add that my husband was at work and never even got to meet Swimmy, much the less grieve for him.) The kids and I proceeded to a pet store, where we bought three more goldfish for 20 cents each. And two bowls, decorations, food and water for $30.   

     After Erin went to bed that night, I discovered a fish listlessly bobbing. My heart froze; I could not bear so great a tragedy on the heels of our first. Then I came upon a slippery solution. I sneaked the corpse out of Erin's bowl and replaced it with a live donation from her brother--knowing that he had not bonded so intensely.

     The next morning I told Erin that one of Matt's fish had died. Usually, she relished those moments when Matthew meets some sort of defeat, but this time Erin actually teared up. We had neglected to name the newcomers, so Erin wrote "Mr. Nobody" on its tombstone and we buried our unknown soldier six millimeters under.

     The graveyard soon saw more traffic. Matthew's original two were the troopers who held on longest. Erin adopted Sammy and Thomas one evening when she had a friend over. "I want to pretend I have pets," she explained. Matthew never missed them.

     By the third fatality, the funerals were old hat. Erin became so blase about the fishes' deaths that she lost interest in her tombstone factory.

     Poor Sammy and Thomas, the strongest and bravest of the bunch, got flushed.

(1998)

SECOND CHANCES

    I've always avoided reading child care literature. I'd rather remain blissfully ignorant about all the irrevocable mistakes I commit on a regular basis.

     But sometimes, just to pass the wait in our pediatrician's office, I flip through one of those magazines with a kissable baby face grinning from its cover. And then I cringe.

     I have discovered that the older my kids become, the more the articles act as a reminder that I'm way behind in molding the perfect angels I once envisioned.

     How to encourage your picky eater to enjoy vegetables? Start young! Emulate rather than ridicule those mothers who puree fresh carrots for their two-teethed wonders while you simply open a jar of mushy spinach. Else you might find yourself five years later still serving Gerber's sweet potatoes--behind closed doors, and only in the privacy of your own home.

     How to raise an independent child? Start young! By the age of three, he should make an honest attempt to dress himself. Refuse the role of personal stylist just to keep things moving smoothly in the morning. If you insist on garbing your little prince from head to toe, don't be surprised when you end up with a first-grader who lies naked on his bedroom floor constructing Lego towers after promising to ready himself for school. Not to mention a first-grader who yells down the hallway, “Mom, wipe my bottom!”

     How to teach your children good housekeeping? Start young! Avoid picking up after them as though their servant--having decided that plucking  underwear that dangles from a ceiling fan is far less stressful than nagging endlessly. Otherwise, you will develop a chip on your shoulder and they will develop the sensibilities of a rat.

     How to promote responsibility? Start young! Assign chores; let children suffer the repercussions of their dereliction. Whisking up the homework your daughter left sitting in a puddle of syrup on the dining room table and hand delivering it to her classroom probably is not advisable.

     Sadly, I could go on. And on.

      But now I have a second chance, a chance to vindicate myself as a parent. It arrived in the form of two mischievous puppies.

     My husband purchased a Dr. Spock for canines kind of book titled: “American Kennel Club Dog Care and Training.” We assume it applies to our mutts as well as to dogs of more refined ancestry.

     The book has earned a permanent spot on my bedside table, as I read it and reread it with hopes of finding a magic solution--or, at least, credible excuses--for our new family members’ bouts of misbehavior.

     “Without proper training,” our book warns, “the cutest puppy will grow up into a terror, either unmanageable, messy in the house or both.”

     Hmm. Makes me think about a couple of two-legged pups I know.

     “You must be committed to doing a thorough and proper job of training right from the start, before you let problems get out of hand.”

     Again, the mind wanders.

     “If you don't train your dog, you are at fault. No one else. In fact, if you're not prepared to properly train your dog, you probably shouldn't get one in the first place.”

     Harsh!

     “Vacillation is the deadliest enemy of good training.”

     Does this mean I shouldn't say things like, “Get in the bathtub right this minute! OK, in 15 minutes!”

      “Occasionally, a dog will need to be offered some sort of food reward.”

     Finally, I'm doing something right! In our house, Baskin Robbins works well as a bribe.

     “One thing that all dogs have in common is a desire to please their owners.”

     I guess dogs and kids aren't similar in every way, after all.

     “There is no truth to the adage that ‘you can't teach an old dog new tricks.’”

     Whew! Hope springs eternal!

(2002)

JOHN YOUNG’S OBIT

    If John Young crossed my mind at all in recent years, which I don't believe he did, I probably assumed him long gone.

     But there he was in the obits, dead at 85. Oh, dear. As a child, I perceived him to be verging on elderly--yet he wasn't all that much older than I am now.

       A Texan, Congressman Young served in the House of Representatives. I'm not sure whether he was an old or new friend of my father, who has worked behind the scenes in Texas politics for half a century.

     Our family had just moved to Arlington, Virginia. We would live in the Washington area for the next two years. Specifics have faded--I remember
better what I felt than what I did. A sense of euphoria permeated my entire Washington experience.

     We rented a sprawling, split-level home three times the size of our Austin house. I quickly buddied up with some fun neighborhood kids. My busy parents suddenly loosened their tight grip--and I came and went with, in hindsight, a risky breadth of self-determination.

     One morning that first magical summer, my mother announced that we were invited over by friends to lunch and a swim. She loaded her five children into the station wagon and headed for the Youngs' house.

     They contributed another four kids, ranging from toddler to teen. I didn't latch onto any one of them in particular. The girls were either too young or too old for me, and the boy was a boy. So my sister and I entertained ourselves just fine.

     A back yard swimming pool was an uncommon thing in Virginia, and the Youngs had a great one--as well as, like us, a big house with a basement/recreation room where kids could hide out.

     Except for that pleasant introduction, I don't recall either of my parents as part of the scene during other visits to the Youngs'. Mom would drop us off there on her way to business trips with Dad.

     I can't imagine why Mrs. Young, even with her nanny, agreed to the enormous favor of taking on nine kids for three or four days at a time. But this was an era when children weren't guarded like intensive care patients, perhaps making the situation somewhat feasible. My three brothers, all under the age of six, splashed merrily in the pool with little supervision.

     My memories are vague: watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on TV in the darkened rec room; eating the best hot fudge sundae I've ever tasted to this day at an ice cream shop (how did Mrs. Young transport us all there?); giggling with my sister over the English nanny's pronunciation of "Patty"--"Potty!"--the child still in diapers; Mrs. Young, a slender, good-natured, ever-in-motion firecracker.

     And then there is my only solid image of Congressman Young, who seemed barely to notice our presence. He was sitting at the kitchen bar--well after the rest of us had eaten dinner, as usual--while Mrs. Young reheated food.

     "I'm so hungry my stomach is sticking to my backbone," he commented in a gruff Southern accent. To use the fad phrase of the moment, it sort of "grossed me out." I found Congressman Young intimidating in general--although he must've been a tolerant man to shrug off all those extra kids.

     After we returned to Texas, I never saw the Youngs again. Nearly a decade later, I heard on the news that Congressman Young was caught up in a scandal. Allegedly, he demanded sexual favors from his secretary in exchange for higher pay. About a year later, Mrs. Young committed suicide.

     John Young's obituary took me back to a sweet chapter in my life--a time of climbing high in apple trees, sledding down snowy slopes, and picnicking with my best friend in the daffodile-dotted woods.

     "Potty" was 12 or 13 when Mrs. Young succumbed to the public humiliation that many a politician's family has endured. I wonder how her children fared. The obit doesn't say.

(2002)

NOT MY JOB

    One evening a few days after Thanksgiving, I came home to find a shiny green pole of unknown origin propped against my door. Upon closer inspection, I realized the mystery object was a Christmas tree tightly wrapped in plastic.

     In a Grinch-like way, I puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore, then I thought of something I hadn't before: Oh, our big-hearted brother-in-law, Dan, sent it.

     A couple of weeks before, Dan took his son to visit relatives in Montana. He wanted to share with four-year-old David his romantic family tradition of trudging into the snowy woods and chopping down a perfect fir for holiday adornment. Then he would ship the tannenbaum to his home in Pasadena.

     Dan planned this adventure for months. Back when the trip was merely a glimmer in his eye, he mentioned its possibility to his wife's brother--my husband. "Cut one down for us, too!" Mike said. I thought he was joking. Surely Mike didn't expect Dan to go through the hassle of bundling up a second tree and mailing it to us.

     Long after Mike and I had forgotten about the conversation, Dan--being Dan--felled us a Christmas tree.

     Naturally, my first reaction to Dan's thoroughly thoughtful effort was, "How sweet!" Then it dawned on me: Mike will be out of town for the next few days. How am I going to handle this thing by myself? Putting up the Christmas tree is his job!

     I manage the bills and other money matters. In fact, I oversee every shred of tedious, eye-straining paperwork holding our house together--from Christmas cards to thank you notes to our kids’ book reports. The scheduling of doctors’ appointments, dishwasher repairs and birthday parties--also my domain. Mike says he's the "big picture person."

     For his part, Mike takes charge of anything mechanical, whether it's loading film in the fax machine or piecing together the Hot Wheels Shark Park. Automobile tune-ups--also his area, even for the car he seldom operates. Retrieving suitcases from the attic? Mike. Dragging in the Christmas tree (normally from the hood of our van) and anchoring it in a stand--a 100 percent Dad chore.

      Funny. In my premarital life, I proved quite capable--if not expert--at disassembling my computer setup when need be, and then replugging all the right cords in the right places. Now I feel paralyzed when my husband fails to reconnect the printer after borrowing it for his laptop.

     And guess what? I hung pictures--loads of them. Nowadays, I summon Mike to drive in nails, as though I can't possibly swing a hammer myself for fear of breaking one of my own nails.

     Every December, I traipsed through a Christmas tree lot, picked a beauty, erected it in my apartment, and garbed it while sipping eggnog with friends. One winter when I lived in France, I dragged a tree for blocks through the sidewalks of Paris and up three flights of stairs.

     Before he hooked up with me, what's more, Mike must've grasped the concept of writing a check and dropping it in the mail.

     How is it that, once united, Mike and I each shed some formerly possessed skills? Perhaps the answer lies in the ancient rules of gender identification: The little lady assumes the clerical tasks, her caveman does the heavy lifting.

     Which brings us back to my recent dilemma. Figuring the cold would keep it fresh, I left the poor tree on our porch overnight as I contemplated its fate. When the sun beat down the next morning, I considered sticking the tree in a bowl of water and leaving it out front until Mike showed up. Then I worried that its limbs would become permanently flattened if I didn't free them from their straight jacket.

     So I ascended into the attic--all the while certain I would fall, break a leg and lie helpless in the dank garage waiting for one of my children to discover me. I rifled through boxes until locating the stand. I tugged the tree inside, snipped off the plastic and (do wonders never cease?) actually sawed off several obtrusive lower branches. With my daughter's help, I situated the tree in the stand and tightened all those screws.

     The branches eagerly unfolded like an umbrella released. There before us stood, almost straight, an elegant Noble fir--the most magnificent and special Christmas tree we've ever possessed.

     It would have to go bare for a while, until the traveling patriarch returned for our tree-trimming festivities. But even undecorated, it gave our house the scent and the warmth of Christmas.

     And it gave me a little something more--a reacquaintance with the fact that--yes, Virginia--girls can do the heavy lifting, too.

(2003)

ANOTHER KIND OF FREEDOM FIGHTER

    Tijuana is mostly poor, we all know. But I am in a very, very poor area of this dusty border town--30 miles and a million miles south of the spectacular seaside homes bejeweling La Jolla's cliffs.

     How many times have I driven past the roadside hovels on my way to a tropical vacation without really seeing those who dwell inside? On her first trip to Mexico, my daughter, then six, was fascinated and horrified by the endless display of destitution en route. When she asked why, I simplistically explained that the Mexican government did not run its country as well ours.

     As we pulled up to our fancy--in a child's view--resort, Erin exclaimed: “The government did a great job with our hotel!”

     Now I come on a work assignment, not holiday--tagging along with Sonia Valdez, a saint among mortals. Every Saturday for the past decade, save the weekend of her son's first communion, the Orange County nurse has made this journey--often alone--to distribute food, vitamins and minor medical care to people who have virtually nothing.

     “How is your baby?” Sonia cheerfully asks a 17-year-old girl. “He got pneumonia and died last month,” she solemnly responds. Her sad news shocks me more than Sonia, for whom it is not uncommon to hear about children dying of treatable illnesses.

      It's a warm morning, yet many of the youngest children arrive bundled up--as though, to their parents, the tattered jackets represent some degree of armor against the elements.

     Sonia's sister acts as my translator while I converse with one shy, cute child after another. Few attend school, which is neither free nor required. In another 10 years, these same kids will be standing in line with their own kids at Sonia's makeshift soup kitchen, where she serves bags of rice and beans.

     Afterward, Sonia, a delicate beauty with soulful green eyes and waist-length hair, shares lunch with me at a colorful downtown Tijuana restaurant. A few hours later, I am back amongst my ordinary American comforts, loading clothes into the drier.

     Poverty kills innocents, hope and freedom as surely as dictators do. If we are looking to help liberate the downtrodden, we need look no further than our next-door neighbors. And we wouldn't have to drop a single cluster bomb.

     But the United States can't rescue and rebuild the world. We have our own problems aplenty.

     So how do we do the right thing when there are so many right things to be done--without doing more wrong than right? How do we sleep at night when so, so many suffer?

      While the rest of us sort through those trick questions, Sonia Valdez charges ahead--one Saturday at a time.

(2007)

35,000 FEET ABOVE THE PACIFIC OCEAN

        While I am tempted to outline in excruciating detail my magnificent Hawaiian vacation shared with dear and amusing friends, I respectfully acknowledge an odd phenomenon of the human mind. People would rather hear about your latest trip to the grocery store than your trip around the world.

     Eyes automatically glaze over at phrases like, “And then we climbed to the top of a volcano”--which, for the record, we did not in fact do.

     So I will ungratefully cut straight to the only trying leg of our week-long journey--the flight home. Not that the flight there was a barrel of yuckles, but at least Oahu and Maui awaited us rather than bills and mildewed laundry.

     I compose this on hotel stationery at a creepy, don’t-think-too-hard-about-it 35,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. I have a child at each elbow and an absent husband who stayed behind on the North Shore to complete his business assignment. Yeah, yeah, tough job and all that.

     Our jumbo jet is crammed, quite literally, with more warm bodies than a fire marshal would ever allow in a restaurant of this size. But, hey, which is safer--a monstrous vessel hurtling through space or a Denny’s bolted to earth?

     A flight attendant squeezes along the narrow slit comically referred to as an “aisle.” He peddles headsets for a film with Richard Gere playing, surprise, a commitment-challenged hunk wooing, surprise, a much younger woman in the form of Winona Ryder.

     Question: When will Hollywood recognize that every shred of this worn formula is altogether unappealing?

     Question No. 2: Why do flight attendants always ask for exact change? Can’t the airline spare them some change? I mean, what other enterprise requests exact change, as though it didn’t anticipate the prospect of customers?

     Matthew, my five-year-old, wants a headset. I cave in, because he broke my heart during takeoff sobbing, “I need Dad!”--moving my daughter to tears, as well.

     Erin, 8, listens contentedly to the Beatles on her Walkman. “You’re fine without a headset,” I suggest. “You don’t care about the movie, anyway.”

     Silly me to pretend that Erin might this one time say, “O.K., Mom. No need to waste $5 just so Matthew can never, ever get something I don’t get, too.”  Especially when, moments before, she inquired, “If the oxygen masks come down, will you put mine on first, or Matthew’s? Just wondering.”

     We are trapped between the dinner cart and the beverage cart, the latter of which provides drinks 15 minutes prior to the arrival of meals and again 15 minutes afterward--assuring that passengers must consume their roast chicken and cold bread without the benefit of liquids.

     Music to the ears: “Where’s my barf bag?” Matt suddenly feels a little queasy. I prop up the bag and we wait it out.

     Onward to another crisis. “I really, really need to go potty!” Matthew plaintively announces. He is situated in the middle seat of the middle seats in this horrid two-five-two row configuration. Of course, we remain blocked by the dinner and beverage carts. Furthermore, trays heaped with half-eaten food and sticky cellophane dangle over our laps.

     I press the flight attendant button. No one hustles to our aid. Finally, I hand off trays to my friend across the “aisle,” as well as to the patient single guy sitting beside Matt.

     ’Scuse us, ’scuse us! Sorry! Could you let us by the cart? He’s desperate!

     Turbulence hits the second we lock the restroom door. “I don’t need to go anymore!” determines Matt. I try, unsuccessfully, to persuade him to follow through.

     ’Scuse us, ’scuse us! We’re baaack! Bing! No more turbulence! No more “fasten your seat belt” warning! ’Scuse us, ’scuse us!

     We are standing in line outside the restrooms when turbulence strikes again. ’Scuse us, ’scuse us! We’re baaack!

     We undertake this obstacle course three times, until Matt proclaims himself magically free from the urge for relief--obvious self-denial that perhaps pains me more than him. By the way, a flight attendant has yet to answer our call.

     Both kids deem the movie boring--but not so boring that they will relinquish their headsets long enough for me to ascertain what fatal disease ails Winona Ryder, who inexplicably passes her final days in the company of a cad twice her age.

     At long last, the plane begins to descend. From our perspective, it looks like we are slicing through a layer of clouds. Then, thunk, we touch down in a blanket of fog.
    
     “Yay, we’re home,” I sigh.

     “Why ‘yay’?” says Erin. “I’d rather be in Hawaii.”

     Understandable. Just don’t tell anyone what we did there.

(2000)

AN ECCO OF GOOD MEMORIES

     Ecco was the first, and still only, perfume I ever called my own.

     So, so many years ago, I happened upon Ecco while casually whiffing samples at the West Los Angeles May Company--back before it got folded into the Westside Pavilion, back before it married Robinson's.

     I wasn't then nor now one to splurge on clothing and cosmetics. Stuck in my drug store rut, I've yet to graduate from the same brands I used in high school--Maybelline, Revlon, Cover Girl.

     Yet for that bottle of the most exquisite fragrance ever to captivate my senses, I plunked down $40--nearly a fortune in the eyes of a 22-year-old newspaper clerk.

     From that milestone forth, I never left home before dousing my wrists and throat with Ecco. It became such my trademark that Mitch, a blind coworker, could recognize me 30 feet down the hall by my aroma.

     Maybe, just maybe, I applied the stuff too liberally. In my defense, however, it's not like I wasn't encouraged to overindulge.

     On a regular basis, strangers would approach me at the supermarket and inquire about my eau de toilette. Men scribbled down the words “Borghese/Ecco” with their wives in mind; women sought to dab the proboscis-grabbing scent on their own pulse points.

     Several years into my addiction, I learned from a Borghese saleswoman that, for reasons inconceivable, Ecco had been discontinued. I desperately stocked up, buying two bottles here and three bottles there. Even my grandmother contributed to the effort, shipping rare gems she'd located in Texas.

     Alas, my stockpile eventually dwindled, as finite resources will.

     I've yet to sniff out an almost perfect alternative. Pleasures by Estee Lauder is nice. Happy by Clinique is nice. But they miss the magic of Ecco.

     So, so many years later, I discovered in the mailbox a small package from Patti, my close friend and soul mate during my Ecco-hording chapter. Twice, Patti and I giggled our way through Europe--Eurail passes our only blueprint. Now we live separate lives an hour's drive from one another, managing husbands and children and jobs and so forth--meaning, we may as well reside in different time zones.

     Inside the padded envelope was a forgotten but instantly familiar sight--a shiny white box labeled “Ecco.” The attached note read: “I found this on eBay. I hope it brings good memories.”

     In a rush of nostalgia, I sprayed on the vintage cologne and waited to fall back in love. I couldn't exactly remember Ecco's bouquet--but I'd know it if I smelled it.

     There was a hint of my old flame--the suggestion of roses and jasmine, or whatever that intoxicating recipe entailed. But only a hint. I gave it a second chance the next day, and then a third. Reluctantly, I concluded that this remnant from another era was past its prime--like a fine wine turning to vinegar.

     All is not lost. The priceless antique now stands on my bathroom counter alongside its pleasant but less remarkable kinfolk.

     Every once in a while, I'm sure, I'll squirt on a bit with hopes that it has grown fresh and pure and luscious again. And when I'm reminded that time marches only forward, I'll appreciate my souvenir for what it represents: A token of true friendship, an Ecco of good memories.

(2005)   

SOCIAL CLIMBER

     “I’m going to put you in Cotillion so you’ll learn some table manners!” I warned my daughter as I plowed through another flurry of rice in patches beneath her chair.

     “Nooo! Nuh-uh! I’m not going to that place! No way!” Erin responded in horror.

     I didn’t know much about Cotillion, other than it teaches etiquette--something that Erin’s mother has not managed to impress upon her to a satisfactory degree.

     Time passed. I continued to bring up Cotillion with Erin, though the subject became more of a joke or a threat than an honest proposal. She reacted with such amusing revulsion that I didn’t sincerely consider enrolling her.

     Then one of my friends--the mother of one of Erin’s friends--asked if we were interested in Cotillion.

     I instantly ruled it out: “No, Erin refuses to get anywhere near Cotillion.”

     “I was selected to invite a few third graders, so let me know soon if you change your mind,” my friend responded.

     You mean, you have to be invited? Suddenly, this Cotillion thing gained a whole new allure for me. Wow! It’s an exclusive club! And we’ve been invited   to join!

     That night, I reopened the topic--once more with feeling. Converting to a Cotillion salesperson, I named the friends and classmates of Erin who would be attending. “It’s now or never,” I pressured. “You have to be invited, and our slot will go to someone else if we don’t take it.”

     Invited. I loved throwing that word around.

     “All right, I’ll try it,” Erin agreed, to my relief.

     I fully recognized that my newfound fascination with Cotillion amounted to fodder for a psychoanalyst. I recognized that the simple word invited   had flicked some dormant switch in me, illuminating the pathetic social climber within.

     But I couldn’t stop myself. We were invited  to be part of an exclusive organization! And one that we could afford, no less!

     On the afternoon of her first Cotillion, I zipped Erin into her green satin dress, dabbed gloss on her lips, hooked my strand of pearls around her neck and adjusted her lacy white gloves. In full uniform, Erin at 8 gave me a breathtaking glimpse of Erin at 18.

     Let me tell you, it’s one adorable sight--dozens of little boys dressed in suits so crisp and untried that the pockets are still sewn shut, dozens of little girls in Grace Kelly attire.

     And they actually dance together! In no time at all, they’re one-two, cha-cha-chaing! Then gentlemen offer the ladies their arms, and the ladies accept. There they sit beside their partners, thinking up chitchat with all their might--white-gloved hands a motioning, freshly barbered heads a nodding.

     For one hour and 15 minutes, the opposite sex doesn’t have cooties.

     Suffice it to say, our Cotillion adventure has been good fun for both Erin and her stage mom--exclusivity irrelevant to that outcome. Besides, Cotillion doesn’t even feel snooty. I suspect that anyone determined to sign up can find a sponsor and do so.

     With some chagrin, I’ll always remember the moment I discovered that secret corner of my ego yearning to play a character in “The Great Gatsby,” yearning for a chance to be elite.
    
(2000)

CHELSEA THE DOG /DENNIS THE MENACE

        This is the story of a dog. Her name was Chelsea. It could be Ruff or Princess or Spot by now.

         Wait. Let’s back up. This is the story of a family:

     Randy, Barbara, Colin and Adam moved from Arkansas to the house across the street two summers ago. We found them instantly endearing. A Mississippi native, Randy speaks with a friendly drawl--often about how he feels like a fish out of water in Southern California. Barbara adapted more easily.

     Both work long hours in law enforcement. I think they would agree with the observation that two demanding jobs and two feisty boys stretch them thin.

     About those feisty boys. They’re as cute as a button and as rascally as a rascal. “I call Adam ‘Dennis the Menace,’” notes Barbara. Indeed, her precocious, freckle-faced first-grader looks, acts and talks like he belongs in a sitcom or comic strip.

     Maybe it’s because they come from a more rural, trusting and spontaneous environment--where a kid actually can do something like climb a tree without adults hovering nearby. Fearless, Colin and Adam tackle life like a couple of wild puppies.

     For months after their arrival, they would crawl out a second-floor window and sit on the roof’s edge, feet dangling over the driveway below. Eventually, their parents persuaded them this was a bad idea.

     On school mornings, the brothers gleefully scamper about ignoring demands to board the car--just in case their office-bound parents weren’t already frazzled enough.

     OK, this is the story of a dog: Just in case they weren’t already frazzled enough, Randy and Barbara adopted a year-old boxer-lab mix.

     Chelsea was (is) the sweetest dog imaginable. She loves grownups, loves children, loves other dogs. When our mutts, half her size, so much as grumbled at her, she rolled on her back submissively to signal she came in peace.

     Her only fault: Chelsea was (is) mischievous.

     My husband and I couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw Chelsea wiggle out the upstairs window and survey her kingdom from on high. I tell you, she was a virtual extension of her littlest masters.

     For the first two weeks, Chelsea lived with us during the day. That’s because she could climb her six-foot wall like a cat. Then she’d prance over here, certain that Chester and Pepper would be thrilled by her company. With her owners gone for the day, I'd take her in--a pattern that became quite annoying to her presumed “pals.”

     As a solution, Randy hammered a trellis to the side wall, extending it four feet. Next, Randy and Barbara installed an expensive doggie door so Chelsea could have the run of the house in their absence. They really, really wanted her to settle in happily.

     Randy returned from work recently to the sight of foam rubber scattered in the entry hall. “I guess Chelsea tore up a pillow,” he thought. Rounding the corner, he realized, no, not a pillow. The sofa. The new sofa. The entire new sofa.

     So the next day, Chelsea's exasperated guardians locked her outside. Where, in nine hours flat, she proceeded to dig up the plants. Not just a few plants. Every single plant.

     “She’s a great dog, but she needs to be with a family that’s home most of the day,” Randy decided. “She’s too social for our schedule.” Sadly, back to the shelter went Chelsea.

     But that’s not the end of the story. A few days ago, while paused at a stop sign in our neighborhood, Matt and I suddenly noticed a familiar, darling face--that of Ruff or Princess or Spot or, as we know her, Chelsea. She looked us straight in the eye with cheerful recognition, yearning to bestow one of her heartfelt kisses.

     In the distance, her new owner trotted toward her, leash in hand, like a cowboy about to rope his calf. He’d better add a trellis to that corral.

(2007)

THE PLAIN-WRAPPED TEACHER

My son landed in Mr. Michaels’ second grade classroom by default. Originally, Matthew was assigned to Ms. Gill--whose youth, effervescence and attractiveness did not go unnoticed by him. But the second week of school, Matt got shipped elsewhere due to uncooperative enrollment numbers.

     I'd heard nothing about Mr. Michaels, other than his penchant for making kids jog off excess energy every day--earning him the reputation of an eccentric drill sergeant. Somewhat invisible to them, Mr. Michaels is not a “most requested teacher” among PTA moms.

     After a couple of years of high-stakes elementary school politics, everyone figures out the system. The principal sends home a letter in the spring claiming not to accept parental demands for specific teachers. Then in September, children of campus activists randomly and coincidentally end up clustered together in a handful of super-decorated classrooms--while the masses are relegated to less coveted instructors.

     Favored teachers luxuriate in the perks of seven attentive room moms, Starbucks coffee served by fawning admirers each morning, theme quilts stitched by crafty parents, and a steady stream of volunteers willing to laminate students’ poems and produce hundreds of flash cards from difficult to cut poster board.

     By contrast, not a single person signed up to adopt Mr. Michaels. In desperation, the school's room parent organizer drafted me into service upon our transfer.

     It's the easiest room parenting job I've ever held. Mr. Michaels is, to say the least, undemanding.

     Every morning, Mr. Michaels marches his students into his room and shuts the door, subtly signaling parents that he'd rather not spend the first 10 minutes sipping latte as he chats with its donor. In fact, he'd rather not deal with yackity parents, period.

     His classroom is bare bones. Just the facts, ma'am. Spelling tests and book reports, all un-laminated, plaster the bulletin boards--nary a colorful self-portrait in sight. No cute mobiles dangling from the ceiling. No book-reading stuffed monkey propped in a corner chair.   

     Mr. Michaels doesn't ask for help in the classroom--only outside the classroom. He asks us to read with our kids. He asks us to check their backpacks and look over their school work. He asks us to initiate real conversations about what they learned that day--not just the obligatory how-was-school stuff.

     He may not bring in a crock pot and show the kids how to stew applesauce. But he does share unforgettable personal stories--about, for instance, attending Martin Luther King's “I Had a Dream” speech with his parents as a youngster.

     At back to school night last fall, Mr. Michaels--who put his own daughter though medical school--told the audience: “We concentrate on reading in this class. Your child will not have a successful academic career if he or she cannot read well.” 

     Matt started the school year reading below second-grade level. He is about to end the year reading at third-grade level. He used his fingers to add eight plus seven. Now he easily calculates double-digit addition problems in his head. “Mr. Michaels is the coolest teacher in the world,” he says.

     Sometimes the best gifts come in plain wrapping.

(2003)

WHAT WAS KEVIN THINKING?

     Kevin lay gasping in pain, his life drastically different from what it had been mere minutes before. Already, his entire face was purple inside the helmet that saved him.

     A handful of people suddenly had materialized. “How did they get there so quickly?” my daughter later would wonder. Neither of us saw them show up.

     “Do you know your name? Tell me your name!” a woman, bending over him, demanded. She glanced up at me and said, as though eager to explain herself, “I'm trying to keep him alert.”

     In every crisis, I've come to realize, there's that one person who figures out something to do besides hang around feeling powerless.

     Barely conscious, Kevin fumbled for the photo i.d. pinned to his denim jacket. Somehow, I found this automatic gesture, this human instinct, heartbreaking. Even now, terrified and writhing, he seemed to say, “I'm Kevin and I work for a big aerospace company. My job is me.”

     Mere minutes before, Kevin was just another selfish jerk, zipping along on his motorcycle without regard for those he so easily could harm. It was a Friday evening and perhaps he was in a celebratory, weekend kind of mood.

     Simultaneously, Erin and I were driving back from her last softball game of the season. As we prepared to turn right from the winding thoroughfare that leads into our neighborhood, a motorcycle in the left lane jetted past at double the speed limit.

     “Oh my God,” I heard myself say--a split second before registering that the cyclist had lost control, jumping the curb of the center divider. 

     He skimmed bushes for half a block, hit a tree and flew off his bike--which careened into the right-hand curb. Dazed, the man crawled directly in front of my stopped van and collapsed on the sidewalk.

     For a brief moment, I weighed what to do first--call 911 or check on him. He needed paramedics more than he needed me, so I summoned help with forced calmness. I curse the ubiquity of cell phones--but, well, they can serve a purpose.

     Then I left my car, grabbing Erin's water bottle to offer the victim a drink. As soon as I got a better look at him, I realized my naivety. Taking the lead of the woman asking his name, I reassured the guy: “You're fine, you're fine, you're going to be fine.”

     An ambulance, a fire truck and police cars arrived. Officers interviewed Erin and me, the witnesses. I marveled at my 12-year-old’s grace under pressure, then silently ridiculed myself for trivializing the situation with sappy maternal pride.

     Paramedics (what important, important people) carefully loaded Kevin onto a stretcher. Bystanders could see that the skin beneath his shirt had been scoured raw. No doubt there were injuries not visible to us.

     “Someone should call his wife,” Erin commented, noting his wedding ring.

     Kevin is no kid. Kevin is in his forties. What was Kevin thinking when he roared down this stretch of civilization where joggers jog and dog walkers walk and mothers drive their children home from ball games?

(2005)

LAST OF THE MATRIARCHS

     The matriarchs of our various family fiefdoms are either well into their eighth decade or no longer with us.

     On my father's side, there was his mother, Ruby. She died in 1995 at 95, and with her went “the hub,” as a son-in-law aptly dubbed Grandmom years before.

     Grandmom kept tabs on everybody--children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren sisters, cousins, cousins twice removed, friends of cousins twice removed. Whenever I dropped by, she'd dial up some relation I couldn't remember ever meeting and say, “Lola, guess who's sittin’ in my livin’ room with me? Sue! Here, Sue, tell Lola hi!”

     Even after I relocated to California, Grandmom followed my whereabouts like a cat on a bird. Then she dutifully reported back to my myriad kinfolk what I'd consumed for breakfast that morning. And, of course, I in turn politely listened to mundane details of all their comings and goings.

     My world felt mighty quiet when Grandmom, with great reluctance, bid farewell. Her last words to me, at a point she'd become generally incoherent and too weak to speak, sought stats regarding my two-month-old baby: “How much does that big boy weigh?” If she'd possessed the strength to gab, she would've called half the people in her address book with a fascinating update on Matt's poundage.

     The glue holding together my husband's tribe is his unassuming yet dogged mother. Like Grandmom, Carolyn frets about her loved ones’ well-being much more than her own. And, another prerequisite for matriarch-hood, she monitors her children's (and et ceteras’) lives with the intensity of an air controller monitoring planes.

     Finally, my mother's large, extended family looks to Aunt Myra as matriarch extraordinaire. A West Texas frontierswoman, she had just raised three children when her husband died of Parkinson's disease. Aunt Myra seamlessly took the reins of his small oil company and cattle ranch, both of which she still runs.

     She dotes on her 11 grandchildren, tends to a menagerie of pets, travels the globe with friends, plays the organ at church. Aunt Myra can cook up the best meal imaginable--all from scratch, even the bread--without breaking a sweat or, to the naked eye, dirtying a dish. She can stitch together five enchanting Halloween costumes before lunch and nurture a prolific lemon tree in desert soil.

     For each and every relative, in celebration or crisis, Aunt Myra is there, always there--crying tears of  joy, crying tears of sorrow, bursting at the seams with her love.


     As a throng of admirers sung Aunt Myra’s praises at her 85th birthday party, I foolishly compared myself: “I bet Aunt Myra never told Uncle Bob, ‘Make your own damned sandwich,’ or left his favorite shirt hanging empty in the closet all year for want of a button. I bet Aunt Myra never thought, ‘I really should get my kids back into the church routine, but these Sunday papers are too interesting to put down.’‘’ The list goes on.

     I also wondered: Who will carry the matriarch mantle when Aunt Myra moves on? Or when Carolyn steps aside? Who succeeded Grandmom? Who among us has the energy, the passion, the selflessness, the deep reverence for ancestry and posterity and blood?

     Perhaps no one really fits the job criteria. In this family, at least, matriarchs seem a dying breed--extinguished by the hyperactivity and scattershot focus of modern life. Their shoes are too big to fill--and their big hearts too full.

(2004)

ARE YOU SISSY SPACEK?

     After a lovely spring break in Santa Fe, my family sat on Albuquerque tarmac waiting for the jam-packed Southwestern jet to return us to our dogs.

     My son beside me, my husband and daughter behind, I blankly watched passengers file down the aisle. “Is this seat taken?” a woman's voice inquired. No, I responded, then glanced sideways as she settled in.

     “Are you Sissy Spacek?” (How many times has she heard that?) “I'm a journalist and I interviewed you and your husband for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner years ago,” I babbled. “You both were so nice and so normal.” She grinned and stuck out her hand.

     I introduced her to Matt: “This is Sissy Spacek, a talented actress. She was the girl in ‘Carrie.’” (Disclosure: I'm a bad parent who allowed my nine-year-old child to see a horror flick inappropriate for his tender years. And he loved it.) Sissy shook his hand, too, then Mike's and Erin's.

     After all the friendly “nice to meet yous,” I suddenly noticed a stab of trepidation, claustrophobia.

     How weird to have a famous person five inches away--for one and a half hours--listening to me self-consciously entertain my son while toiling to give her privacy. Undoubtedly, she'd rather not small-talk with strangers the entire flight to LAX.

     Was I wrong. That Sissy is a chatterbox.

     When we initially crossed paths (not that Sissy remembered me), she and hubby Jack Fisk, a director, were promoting “Raggedy Man.” “I was so young and serious then,” she chuckled. “My career was everything. Then I had a baby and my priorities completely changed.”

     Those overriding priorities are daughters Schuyler and Madison, raised by their down-to-earth parents on a Virginia farm. “You know what's cool? They grew up to be my best friends,” she said.

     Sissy was filming a movie in Santa Fe (playing Charlize Theron’s mother--more evidence of time under the bridge). With a few days off, she decided to zip to L.A. to visit Schuyler, also an actress.

     Motherhood is the great unifier. We exchanged funny kid stories (like how Madison delicately confessed embarrassment that her doting parents still drove her to high school). “She's our baby,” Sissy said. “I don't know what we're going to do, all by ourselves on the farm, when she goes off to college.”

     We worried over the demands of unbridled materialism and media's glorification of promiscuity. (When I suggested that her children probably dodged some Hollywood-proximity pressures, Sissy said, “No, no. Kids everywhere watch TV and read magazines. They're all  exposed.”)

     Still, we agreed that we'd rather buy trendy clothes for our pretty little girls than for ourselves these days. “I see you and I have the same style,” Sissy laughed, as we looked over one another's comfy jeans and clogs. Yet even with her hair pulled back in an unfussy bun and her sculpted face devoid of makeup, the woman is a timeless beauty.

     Texas was another common bond. We share an affinity with Luby’s Cafeteria, and can't possibly go through the line without ordering--as if on automatic pilot--fried okra and cornbread.

     Lest it seem we ignored my son as we gushed over maternal joys: Much of our conversation revolved around Matt. Sissy quizzed him about sports, computer games, school, guitar, his sister, his cousins in Texas. (Meanwhile, I later would discover, Erin stewed: “Not fair! I’m   the one who likes acting!”)

     Matt had his own questions: “Was that real pig's blood on you in ‘Carrie’?” (It was Karo syrup with red food dye.) “Have you ever been to the Academy Awards?”

     “She won an Academy Award--for a movie about a country western singer!” I interjected, as though boasting on behalf of a modest pal.  “She sang the songs herself!” (It must be odd for celebrities when reminded that their bios are public domain.)

     What goes up must come down. As we disembarked the plane, Sissy and I wished each other well. “You two women have gabbed nonstop like you've known each other your whole lives!” my husband commented to us.

     Indeed, that's how I felt. For 90 delightful minutes, Sissy Spacek was my bosom buddy.

(2005)

ANNIE IS A POET

    Annie wants to be a poet when she grows up. Annie already is a poet.

     She carries around a spiral notebook, jotting down whatever strikes her as interesting. Her words snap pictures of the ephemeral moments and moods that most of us plow through daily without serious reflection. Some of them are carefree, others fretful--the stuff of life.

     Poets, true poets, do not sugar coat. Poets neither fear pity nor solicit envy. They stir our souls by connecting with those secret emotions we labor to masquerade.

     One day, Annie, then a fifth grader, entered into a heated property dispute with her younger sister. Her frustrations were compounded by her parents’ insistence that she practice her harp. Still seething, she poured her anguish onto paper.

     For a poet, hurt and anger can be useful. Annie saw she had created something quite special.

     So she asked her mom if she could send it to the Los Angeles Times, which occasionally runs children's poetry. Her mother read the poem with silent dismay. You write so many upbeat poems, she reminded her daughter. Why not submit one of those? But Annie liked this poem.

      She's a poet, conceded her mother. I shouldn't censor her, shouldn't squash her creativity.

     Half a year passed. Annie graduated to middle school. Even she forgot about her stab at publication. It's a competitive world out there--so much poetry, so little space.

     Then, as though out of the blue, the poem appeared--identifying Annie by first name, city and old elementary school...

     I am alone
     I am a silent gray cloud floating
     Around
     I am a figure in the black night sky
     I am a person that is not one
     I am used only to yell at, and nothing
     More
     I am alone
     I am invisible to all
     I am used only to entertain
     I am not anywhere, but where I am
     I am unimportant
     I am alone.


     Annie was rightfully ecstatic over her achievement. Her parents, though, felt wary. The poem makes Annie's home life sound so gloomy, confided the dad to the mom.

     Now, what can I say to assure you that Annie is a happy, well-adjusted child? That I look to her parents, both teachers, as role models? That they are sensitive and kind and calm and wise and loving? That the entire family is delightful?

     The next day, Annie's mom received a jarring telephone call from the elementary school. We need to talk to you, the principal said. It's urgent.

     She hurried off to Annie's former school, where she found herself in a sober meeting with the principal and vice principal. We have been inundated with calls and letters about Annie, they informed. Concerned people want to rescue the poor child from her bleak environment. What was the impetus of this poem?

     Unnerved, Annie's mother muddled through an explanation that bordered on a defense. What could she say to assure them that Annie is a happy, well-adjusted child? Somehow, she managed. By the time she left, everyone acted more at ease.

     It was a disarming page in the book of parenthood. Yet how touching, Annie's parents realized, that so many hearts reached out to help a little girl they didn't know.

     As for Annie--well, she's a poet. And a published poet, at that. Her readers can interpret as they will, think what they may. That's the power of poetry.

(2005)

THE POPULAR GROUP

     “Guess what happened today,” my nine-year-old daughter said after school one afternoon. I was all ears. Usually, I have to coax information out of her.

     “I got into the popular group.”

     There was a puzzled pause as I waited for details, which she didn't volunteer. “Uh, how do you know?” I finally asked.

     “They told me.”

     They who?

     Erin ticked off the names of about five girls in her classroom. All of them already were her friends individually. I had no idea that, as de facto royalty, they held the power to crown others “popular.” Or not.

     Then Erin began listing the various cliques of fourth grade. (Fourth grade!) The Cool Group, The Roxy Group, The No Fear Group...

     Oh, I see! It's not the popular group, it's The Popular Group.

     “I hope you know you're a very cool girl whether you're in The Cool Group or The Popular Group or the whatever group,” I offered.

     That went over big. Like, Mom's opinion counts for diddly squat.

     “I'm not really cool,” Erin shrugged--mercifully, with a degree of indifference. She identified the card-carrying cool-ists--one of whom has been her inseparable best friend since first grade.

     “How are they any cooler than you?” I snapped, suddenly experiencing pangs of competitiveness.

     “Well, to get into The Cool Group, you have to, you know, BE cool, and you have to dress cool. You have to own 10 Roxy things and 10 Limited Too things.”

     I could contain my geezer-ness no longer. “That's, that's ... silly!” I stammered. No wonder my daughter avoids these sorts of conversations.

     Erin herself owns negative two Roxy items: The sweatshirt she lost last year and the sweatshirt she lost last month. “No more $40 sweatshirts!” decreed her cruel mother.

     To Erin's credit, she doesn't beg for trendy labels. I can't even say why not, since she loves them when she gets them. Nor has she ever chased after the fickle status of “popular.” She's much too self-possessed to grovel.

     “Emma (her other best friend) and I are thinking about starting our own group,” Erin allowed. “I wonder what we should call it?”

     “How about the Target Group?” I suggested, hilariously pronouncing it a la mode francaise: Tar-jay.

      “No!” shrieked Erin, mortified--as though these walls could talk. Perish the thought!

     I hate to admit it, but a weak, wannabe bubble in my brain fancied taking Erin on an emergency shopping spree--to gobble up $500 worth of Roxy and Limited Too clothes she'd outgrow within a year.

     Back when I was a youngster, style had to do with a look--not a logo. Mary Jane shoes. Miniskirts. Hot pants. Cutoffs and halter tops. (Don't blame teen immodesty all on Britney Spears, who wasn't even born yet.) But it mattered not whether we bought our platform sandals and hip huggers at Fashions Galore or Neiman Marcus.

     While in Hawaii, I considered picking up some authentic, made-in-the-islands surfwear for my numerous teen nieces. Then I thought, nah, it's not Roxy--it might not appeal to them.

     Alas, Erin headed off to school the morning after her promotion in Tar-jay bell bottoms and Payless tennies. That cool kid--she didn't utter a single complaint about her generic attire.

     Yet somehow, some way, she’d nabbed a place in The Popular Group. For the time being.

(2002)    

HOSPITAL VISIT

     You knew it would come to this someday--unless, God forbid, he outlived one of his children, which in itself would kill him.

     The various scenarios spin endlessly through your thoughts. Your entire family could fly out at Christmas... But that might be too late. You and your brood could visit next week... But even that might be too late.

     Finally, you settle on going solo, just long enough to quell a sudden passion to look him in the eyes. You are tugged in two directions. Your kids need you here; your father, despite his protestations, needs you there.

     “No, honey, don't, don't,” he insists in a weak but still omniscient voice. “That's a huge hassle for you.”

     But you remember too well, six years back, when his mother helped talk you out of hurrying to her side. You were nursing a newborn baby--it all seemed so complicated.

     On the morning of her death, she called you--her mind magically clearer, just for those few minutes, than it had been in days, relatives reported afterward. She was a bundle of love. And you still have those weird dreams that you were with her then.

     So you hug your kids hard, again realizing that, however insignificant you may be in the larger picture, you are critical to them. Your husband drives you to LAX and you board a plane, although you'd really rather not.

     Fellow passengers smile at one another as if to say, “We'll be fine.” You're all on this thrill ride together. “Is this your first time since...?” asks the young Australian woman sitting next to you, her question incomplete but thoroughly understood.

     The flight is uneventful, even pleasant. You have gotten back on the horse that threw you.

     A friend plucks you from your hometown airport and deposits you at the hospital. Determined not to cry in your father's presence, you steel yourself as you push the elevator button.

     A week ago, you broke down on the phone when he nonchalantly told you that his recently diagnosed cancer was advanced. He reacted to your sobs with silent horror. He had hoped his bravado would fool your emotions.

     You breeze into his room with effervescence profuse enough to reassure him that you will not mope. He beams at your sight.

     His longtime buddies file in, one after another. At first you feel annoyed--they infringe on your precious time with him. But they are amusing and kind, and you quickly learn to enjoy their company.

     Flowers, too, constantly arrive. In his 74 years, your father has collected many good friends.

     And there you take root for the next three days. When you leave for a while to eat or sleep, all you can think about is returning.

     You stay over in his room one night. He is in pain, which pains you, and sleeps fitfully. You walk the hallway together at 3:00 a.m., wheeling along the tubes connected to him. “Growing old is a crock,” he complains, still ornery and humorous. You both laugh at his understatement. Oddly, these surreal nether hours are very special to you. You will treasure this night.

     It often has been noted that when parents develop the ailments of age, roles reverse. You tend to his needs with the love and devotion you lavish on your children. What once would have mortified him for you to witness--a hospital gown untied and such--he now shrugs off, because you are his caregiver.

      He admits uncertainty about his goals at this point. Chemo that might, perhaps, buy him another two years? Or peace? You find it touching that, in the midst of such profound decisions, he requests your assistance in hobbling to the restroom to shave.

     It is time for you to get back to his Californians. You wish you could be both places simultaneously.

     “I  sure will miss you,” he says. You choke out a good-bye. You've been so strong and cheerful.  But as though on cue, the instant you step into the elevator you collapse.

     “What's wrong?” inquires the woman sharing your small space.

     “My father...” you stammer. “I’ll miss my father.”

(October, 2001)

LOOKING UP, LOOKING AT

 Back when reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated--to paraphrase Mark Twain--my father got to hear his own eulogies.

     Dad spent most of the fall and early winter going batty with pain and tedium on what seemed to be his death bed. He was diagnosed with lung cancer last September and, a 75-year-old diabetic, did not suffer chemotherapy gladly.

     In the dark days, before Dad kicked chemo and bounced back--then refused to stop bouncing within his doctors’ four-month deadline, so to speak--everyone scrambled to tell him good-bye. Of course, we didn't tell him we were telling him good-bye. We just did things like fly to Texas from all corners of the country for impromptu visits and throw thinly disguised wakes featuring sentimental toasts and biographical obits--I mean, slide shows.

     For his Christmas gift, my sister spent weeks compiling dozens of letters from family and friends. She asked us to put into writing our special memories of Dad.

      I sat down with pad and paper and contemplated the assignment. And contemplated it, and contemplated it some more. I realized that I have many sweet big-picture recollections of my father, but few terribly specific ones.

     When I think of Dad, I think of his presence, his character, his humor, his quiet charisma, his wisdom, his concern for others, his aura. I think of how I adored him as a child and adore him still. I think of how I always have recognized a little sadness in Dad and longed to make him happy. To this day, I hurry to call him with good news about my kids or work, and I avoid sharing any personal travails.

     But I don't think of the time he taught me how to snorkel and we spotted a cool sea turtle. I don't think of the time he grabbed me in a sudden downpour and whisked me outside in the rain for laughs. Nor do I think of the time he took me fishing off the pier--and when the morning proved unproductive, stopped at a supermarket on the way home to purchase a trout designed to fool Mom.

     I don't think of all the times he sat in my room for hours building transformer robots or piecing back together, yet again, a fragile Hot Wheels track. I don't think of the times he played alphabet bingo in my classroom, or helped school mates construct “gingerbread” houses out of graham crackers glued to milk cartons.

     I don't think of the time he rode cable cars to nowhere with me all afternoon in San Francisco just for the fun of it, or the countless times he's zoomed along roller coasters strictly at my behest.

     I don't think of those times, because they weren't mine. They belong to my two children and their father.

     This is not to imply that I never experienced wonderful moments with my own father, or that he was an absent dad. I did, and he wasn't.

     But Dad was very much a man of his generation. He enjoyed his youngsters immensely--though sort of from afar. He didn't challenge us to a game of hide and seek, or pretend he was a shark in the swimming pool, or coach our soccer teams.

     Oh, how I admired Daddy.

     My children don't put their father on quite so high a pedestal. He's too accessible, too eye-level.

     Under pressure, I came up with one of many cute Dad anecdotes for my sister's scrapbook. It had to do with a touching and funny exchange we shared when I was a young adult--not a child.

     They both are good and loving dads, my father and my husband. Their children look up to one--and at the other.

(2002)

THE OVERDOSE

     She was a Capricorn.

      She was exceptionally cute. She was very popular. Her eyes were strikingly blue. She liked a lot of the same bands my daughter likes. She lived in an affluent Southern California neighborhood and attended a private high school.

     She died a senseless death three weeks ago.

       I learned this last tidbit from her mother’s friend’s friend’s friend, also my friend. An e-mail written by the mother’s friend currently is making the rounds among people like me with no connection at all to the family.

     It’s a cautionary tale about the secret life of teens. No matter how much eyeliner they wear, no matter how many four-letter words they spew, no matter how low-cut their tank tops, they are still just children.

     “The pain that her family and her friends are feeling right now is indescribable,” the letter says. “(She) was always laughing, smiling, hugging everyone. She was loved by the girls as well as the boys. A super soccer player. Just beautiful.

     “(She) took 24 ‘Triple C’ pills, the new high for teenagers. Triple C is a slang term for plain old cough and cold medicine. She was not angry, unhappy or anything else. She just wanted to get high and heard this was a fun and easy way to do it.

     “When she began vomiting the next morning and couldn’t stop, her parents took her to the hospital. Although she had text messaged a friend the night before about what she had done, she didn’t tell the doctors, nurses, or her parents. Neither did her friend, or any of the other friends who were forwarded the text message.

     “For four days, test after test was done to figure out what was wrong. Still no one said anything. Then she slipped into a coma and was given last rites. Her liver had completely failed. She was 16.”

     Poor judgment did not stop with the girl’s whimsical overdose. It extended to her friends, who balked at sharing important medical information with adults. I suppose they didn’t want to “get her in trouble,” and assumed she’d bounce back from her illness. Of course, maybe nothing could have saved her.

     I googled the girl’s name to see if any newspapers had covered her death. Surreally, her myspace page appeared. Feeling voyeuristic, even morbid, I clicked on it. Up came those ubiquitous myspace photos of her and her buddies--darling teens strutting their stuff, often in poses that would make their elders cringe. You see these faces everywhere, including your own home.

     Friends continue posting messages, as though she can read them. They missed her at the homecoming dance. School isn’t the same without her. They’ll reunite in heaven.

     I bet her grieving parents aren’t even aware of the eternal flame memorializing their baby. Her secret life lives on.

     “These kids think they are invincible,” her mother’s friend concludes. “They just have no idea.”

(2006)

JOHN ORR TO THE RESCUE

    Southern California may be home to a zillion people--but the longer you live here, the smaller it becomes.

     On an almost regular basis, I can pick up a newspaper, or even a national magazine, and see mention of someone whose path I've crossed. And for a moment I feel, how ever remotely, like a part of the story.

     My strangest shrinking-world experience began in the early 1990s, when a familiar name glared at me from the headlines: Glendale arson investigator JOHN ORR charged with setting a series of fires, including one in 1984 that claimed four lives.

     The heart-stopping name recognition struck me again a dozen years later while browsing in a bookstore. There, on display, was best-selling author Joseph Wambaugh's latest endeavor, “Fire Lover,” about the man I briefly encountered on the most bizarre morning of my life.

     John Orr. To this day, I cannot speak his name without silently humming the jingle my friend and I composed a decade before his infamy: “John ORR! John ORR! John ORR to the rescue, John ORR!”

     It had been a way of injecting dark humor into the frightening episode we shared as starry eyed immigrants from Texas. Buddies since childhood, Meg and I rented a little hillside house in a beautiful Glendale neighborhood. One good sneeze could've sent that glass shoe box tumbling off its stilts, but it was a very cool pad for a couple of ingenues with entry-level wages.

     A few months after we moved in, I awoke at around 3 a.m. to discover flames eerily illuminating the hallway through a window. I barged into Meg's bedroom yelling, “The house is on fire!”

     We started to run upstairs and out the front door--then realized the hanging carport, which also served as the only bridge to the street, was ablaze. So we exited through the downstairs door, scurrying beneath the burning carport to the enclosed patio, where we ripped down a tall wooden fence with a surge of adrenaline-fueled strength and escaped to the neighbors’ back yard.

     While Meg and I stood shivering in the street, firefighters arrived and onlookers congregated. Our now unrecognizable cars were the obvious points of origin. Firefighters extinguished the flames before they reached the house, which was left coated with soot inside and out.

     At the break of dawn, after the firefighters and audience had departed, a lone ranger appeared on the horizon. He identified himself as John Orr, arson investigator. As he poked through the charred remains, his macho, take-charge manner somehow amused us. Within minutes, he pronounced the fire suspicious, suggesting that an arsonist had tossed incendiary devices into both Toyotas. Case closed, he rode off into the sunset.

     Meg and I looked at each other uncertainly--then burst into sidesplitting, tear-wiping laughter incongruous to the situation. Our spontaneous John Orr ditty summed up his visit, which seemed right out of a bad TV show.

     Obscene, threatening telephone calls claiming credit for the fires ensued. Police surveyed our house and tapped our phone to no avail. A month later, we moved elsewhere.

     I mailed Meg, who since has returned to Austin, a copy of “Fire Lover.” Oddly, I kept avoiding the book myself, but Meg couldn't put it down. So I finally checked out my own copy at the library.

     It came as no surprise to read that John Orr had an eye for vulnerable young women. And I recalled from news stories that he apparently suffered a hero complex, where he thrilled in expertly sifting through the very ashes he'd created.

     Can we assume our true crime mystery at last has been solved? No. The only thing the sordid tale of John Orr proves is that, indeed, even Southern California can be a small town.

(2005)

FAMILY AS MUCH AS FAMILY

     I didn't really think we'd pull it off two consecutive years. But there we were again, at the second annual reunion of my teenage clique--six of our original eight converging at the same Salado inn 45 miles from our hometown, Austin.

     There we were again, gabbing until 3 a.m. and almost missing the breakfast part of our bed and breakfast by sleeping past 9--like we once did routinely way back when.

     It's a great group and always was. We may not have been the “popular” set, but we held our own. “We were sort of invisible, weren't we?” commented Liz--overlooking the fact she herself, a super gymnast, won a cheerleading spot based on actual merit at a time students did the choosing.

     Half of us walked the plank at that silly “beauty review,” myself not included--although John Campbell, wherever he may be today, carved a permanent place in my heart by nominating me. Stephanie, who served as senior class vice president, coolly delivered an impressive speech at our graduation ceremony.

     Not bad stats, all in all, for girls generally ignored by the football players.

     Those were the days, thankfully, when you didn't need a straight-A average, a 1500 on your SAT and a Nobel Peace Prize to get into college. We all proceeded to the University of Texas, where our clique naturally dissolved into sub-cliques and gave way to sorority sisters.

     In adulthood, Meg became a marketing analyst, Liz a travel agent, Gayle a physical therapist. Kathy left teaching to work for Ross Perot's EDS. Stephanie, our resident overachiever, earned a law degree and then garnered celebrity as anchorwoman for an Austin television station.

     We soon or eventually married nice guys and bore children--some now in high school, others in preschool.

     Missing were Cindy, a nurse, who did join in last year, and Karen--pro-golfer Tom Kite's little sis, I'll have you know. Karen moved away after marrying at 19, and we've all lost track of her.

     Our clan patched itself together in eighth grade, 1968. This girl was a grade school buddy of that girl, who hung out with another girl. Eight was enough, we arbitrarily determined. We each developed close friends outside the ring--in some cases, even better friends than those within. But, when it came to slumber parties and Christmas gift exchanges, only the founding members constituted this specific circle.

     Liz and I bonded in home ec class while stitching gathered aprons. We both were new kids at an extremely uncomfortable juncture to be new kids. Not only did I bear the burden of changing cities and schools at age 12, I also had a pregnant mom. Very embarrassing. No one else had a pregnant mom.

     The baby would be the sixth child in our family. Dad stayed behind for a while in Washington, D.C., to finish up his job, then toiled to launch a completely different career in Austin. Needless to say, my home life was a bit chaotic.

     On the other end of the spectrum, Liz was a doted upon only child who found a ready companion in me. Virtually every weekend, her parents invited me to tag along on picnics, drive-in excursions and fun-filled trips. We remained inseparable until 10th grade, when she met up with Chet--her cute future husband.

     No hard feelings. Karen instantly stood in as my new “best friend,” and, later, Meg--the pal with whom I moved to Los Angeles after college. Relationships inside the clique periodically reshaped themselves, while the clique itself stayed the same.

     I went to my first concert with Gayle--Bread. I didn't even like Bread, but, hey, it was a concert. Kathy was my first Jewish friend. With grace and spunk, she showed a pack of sheltered Protestants that it's O.K. to worship differently. I accumulated so many firsts with Liz and Meg that I can't even begin to enumerate them.

     Sipping champagne and reminiscing about our youths on a rainy afternoon with these women so historically familiar rekindled my deep appreciation--not only for them, but for the guardian angel that introduced us. They made my adolescence smoother and lighter and giddier. As much as my family, they were my family.

     It takes a village to raise a teenager--and sometimes the villagers are mostly peers. That's how teens can get themselves into trouble.

     By luck and circumstance, I landed in a clique that conspired to bolster rather than misguide this middle child of parents stretched thin. My friends weren't goody-goodies, but they sure were good.

(2001)

CARPOOL VIP

     Six kids.

     Three nineish-year-old girls. Three six-year-old boys.

     Two teachers with the summer off. One full-time office manager. One registered nurse whose schedule varies. One work-at-home mom.

     Two vans that seat five kids. One SUV that seats five kids minus the space occupied by Melanie’s little sister. One sedan that seats three kids. One station wagon that seats three kids minus the space occupied by Emma’s little sister.

     Two routes: One to sports camp, the other back home from sports camp.

     For me, two carpools: boys, girls.

     If Kid A chews bubble gum on Wednesday, and Kid B wears red shoes on Monday, and Kids C and D have a middle initial “P,” and Kids E and F both hate grape jam, who rides in whose car today?

     And if Carpool X gallops out of the stable at 12:35 traveling 37 miles per hour, and Carpool Y at 12:29 traveling 33 miles per hour, which will arrive at its destination first?

     I was always bad at those kinds of word problems. And I’m not much better at making sense out of my complicated and convoluted summer carpool, partly because the mathematical equation changes daily.

     It goes something like this...

     Monday: Blake’s grandmother kisses him good-bye at our house around noon. Matt and Blake total Matt’s room while I’m applying Erin’s sunscreen. Emma’s mother zooms Emma over from vacation Bible school at 12:15. Emma inhales a sandwich in the seven minutes allotted her. I abandon Matt and Blake at Jakob's house, near Melanie’s day care facility, from which I pluck her and then shuttle the girls to sports camp. Meanwhile, Jakob's mom hauls the boys.

     Four hours later, I herd three sweaty boys--who yap and nip at each other like a pack of wild puppies--out of sports camp. Emma’s dad nabs the girls on his way home from work. (Without Emma’s little sister, he has room for the trio.) I retrieve Erin and Melanie from Emma’s house, where they have been held 10 minutes without bail while I ran Jakob to his home in a nearby neighborhood. Blake and Melanie hang out at our house until their parents can repossess them.

     Tuesday: Emma’s mom calls to report that Emma is skipping sports camp that day. Uh oh. Gotta recalculate the system. OK, since my van seats five children, I can handle the boys and the girls together. I tell Jakob's mom I’ll drive both ways, partly because I owe a favor to her for cheerfully adopting Blake--a kid she’d never laid eyes on before this wacky carpool, and whose mom can’t participate. Erin and Melanie cruelly tease the boys about belonging to the “baby” league at sports camp. Blake shoots a plastic water bottle from the back of the van, conking the chauffeur on her head.

     Wednesday: Melanie’s mom has the day off, so she goes to and fro with the girls. Jakob's mom collects Matt and Blake at my house since I have no need to be in Jakob's neighborhood springing Melanie. Hallelujah! I’m free of sports camp! For now. Four hours later, I corral the boys. They rifle through their backpacks for leftover snacks, then pass the trip bartering three Gushers for two Teddy Grahams and so on.

     Thursday: The first half of my carpool offers the usual chaos, the second half doles out chaos doubled. Erin and Blake have their debut soccer practices--both in Jakob's neighborhood, although in different fields. I grab Erin and the boys. Erin already has missed a third of her practice, so I deposit her first--after becoming mildly lost in transit--then Blake, who also is pretty late at this point. Finally, I return Jakob to his parents, who frantically greet him with, “Jump in the car! Your piano class starts in three minutes!”

     Friday: I have been choreographing this day all week. I need to work in Los Angeles during the afternoon. Due to my VIP position in our carpool, my impending absence required logistical charting more complex than putting a man on the moon.

     Got it figured out. Emma’s mom will manage the girls after finding someone to watch her other daughter, freeing up a seat. Jakob's mom will take the boys. Blake’s mom will sneak out of work early and procure the boys. Matt will temporarily reside at Blake’s house. Erin and Melanie will stay at Emma’s. My husband eventually will recover the two kids who belong to us.

     Jakob's mom calls that morning as I am brushing on mascara for my Los Angeles mission. Jakob doesn’t feel well, she says. My house of cards collapses.

     The best laid plans of mice and moms...

(2001)

ONE WEIRD WOMAN

      Late one night, in the midst of my husband's lengthy business trip, I went mad. While adding the finishing touches to my California mission project--I mean, my daughter's California mission project--I suddenly found myself stroking our walls with swaths of acrylic.

     The next morning, Erin arose to streaks of glowing blue, yellow and orange in our halls and entryway.

     “Moooom,” she said, cautiously digesting the message of my artwork, “you are one weird woman.”

     Fortunately, my mortgage mate and I had been planning on an interior facelift, anyway, so my damage was somewhat short-lived.

     Well, now my jet-setter is down under the globe, about as far away as physically possible, for two weeks. Lock your doors, hide your Magic Markers. It's the return of: One Weird Woman.

     While the cat's away, the mouse will play.

     For months, I viewed Mike's impending absence with dread. But once I started realizing the opportunities at hand, my separation anxiety eased into anticipation.

     Hey, I can baste my teeth with that unkissable Crest Night Effects goop every bedtime and awake 14 mornings later to pearly choppers!

     I can put the plates on the kitchen floor after dinner and let the dogs do the initial cleanup with nary a complaint!

     I can read magazines in bed past midnight, never once hearing a groggy and exasperated, “Honey, turn off that light.”

     Best of all, I can explore my cheap and cheesy home-improvement ideas without the hindrance of oversight and second guesses!

     Before Mike's plane even touched down on Australian tarmac, I was at Stats scooping up stencils, stamps, watercolor brushes and little bottles of paint.

     My goal: To spice up our boring white floor in the back bathroom for under $30. Considering that we're still paying for the other bathroom's update, something a bit more professional seemed out of the question.

     I've since spent every free moment--most of which shouldn't be free--inking the ugly gray grout bright blue, outlining each tile in yellow and stamping flowers everywhere. I'm telling myself that, from a distance, it looks Mexican or Italian or whatever--and not like an eight-year-old’s ceramic effort at Color Me Mine.

     The thought has occurred to me: Why not extend the floral theme to the toilet seat? I've already revisited Stats to purchase seashell rubber stamps with the brainstorm of spreading my creative genius to the circa 1969 fake marble countertop. I can't make it look worse than it already does!

     Oh, and while I was at it, I picked up a leaf stamp to beautify our clunky, blah dresser. Now I'm eyeballing the ceiling fan, thinking sunflowers.

     These tile/glass paints claim to be permanent and waterproof. Their claim remains to be seen. I may never mop that floor again. Or step on it. Public viewing will take place from 5 p.m. to 5:10 p.m. every other Tuesday.

     Boy, is my husband in for a surprise when he returns. His wife's teeth will be whiter--and his bathroom less so.

(2003)

Rocky Mountain play

Rocky Mountain play
A Popular YMCA camp in Estes Park, Colorado

By SUSAN CHRISTIAN GOULDING
Special to the Orange County Register

     As my daughter approached her first year in high school and my son his first in middle school, I felt a deadline moving in.
     Our best times as a family have been spent on the road. There are huge swaths of the United States I've yet to see. But how much longer would our children find trips with Dad and Mom such a blast?
     Part of the frustration was the limitations dictated by real life. Most of my family is in Texas, so our travel plans tend to take us back to the Lone Star State. Our family trip last summer had to be to someplace new that was close enough to keep up old ties.
     We decided on Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Neither of us knew a lot about it. But Colorado was one of the many locales I've never visited, and close enough to the Texas Panhandle that we could work in a weekend there with relatives.
     I got busy combing my "Fodor's National Parks of the West" for hotels around Estes Park, the gateway to the park. The stately Stanley, which famously inspired Stephen King's novel "The Shining," proved too expensive for us. I tried a few hotels, motels and bed-and-breakfasts. No vacancies.
     As a last resort, I called the YMCA of the Rockies (sounded a bit too rustic for my sensibilities). All 204 two- to four-bedroom cabins were booked – not surprisingly, given their reasonable prices ($109 to $334). So I nabbed a room in one of the lodges: two queen beds, $129 a night. It turned out to be the absolute best last resort I've ever resorted to.
     We flew into Denver on a sunny mid-August morning, rented a car and headed out. On the 65-mile drive to the YMCA center, we stopped for lunch at the Stanley. If we couldn't justify its $400-a-night price tag, we at least could experience the century-old hotel over soup, sandwiches and salad.
     The 138-room manse was, of course, lovely, the grounds beautiful and the cuisine delicious. Still, we expected it to feel more remote – perhaps because we were under the influence of "The Shining," shot at a different location. If Shelley Duvall had been holed up with berserko Jack at the Stanley, she could've quickly escaped to a nearby fast-food joint.
     Thus, we were delighted and relieved to pull into the 860-acre YMCA compound. No Golden Arches in sight – just breathtaking mountains and wide-open space. We checked into our comfortable, no-frills, typical motel room – typical, that is, but for its spectacular view and lack of a noisy TV.
     Then we struck out on a walk. Immediately, we wished we'd scheduled more than two nights and one full day at this retreat. There's enough to keep you busy – or relaxed, if you prefer – for a week or more. It's a sleepover camp for the entire family. And with three eateries, a general market, a library, a post office, Internet access, a pool and a playground, you need never set foot off-site.
     Our first stop was the activities office, where visitors register for group programs – most of them free. Erin and Matt requested archery ($2 per person), but the next day's sessions already were booked. (Advice: Get an early jump on that sign-up sheet.)
     Other options include hikes, basketball, volleyball, biking, fishing, a climbing wall ($10), scavenger hunts, crafts and campfire singalongs. We decided on an afternoon kickball game.
     Eventually, we wandered over to the miniature golf course, which is free to guests. It's a charming, well-maintained course that kept us laughing and challenging one another to rematches until nightfall. We had so much fun that we missed out on the cafeteria, which closed at 7 p.m., so we munched on hot dogs at the snack bar.
     The next morning, we breakfasted on cereal and pancakes from the all-you-can eat buffet ($6 for adults, $3 for children), then trotted off to the stables. (Luckily, it had occurred to me to reserve saddles a couple of months prior; one-hour rides are $30.)
     Two dozen or so folks – most of us nervously chattering about our low-level skills – mounted gentle horses and followed our leader up a steep trail into the Rockies. The sure-footed animals guided us through sparkling fresh air and a fairytale forest to beautiful panoramas.
     Afterward, the kids played pool in the game room while my husband and I relaxed on the balcony outside our room. Lunch in the cafeteria that day featured rather bland Asian fare and a bottomless platter of irresistible brownies.
     A spirited game of kickball ensued, with our family splitting between the two teams. The competition, involving mostly preteens and teens, was overseen by one of the obligatorily wholesome college-age camp counselors. Once again, we shared many a hearty laugh – mostly at bumbling Mom's expense. Next, we just HAD to play one more round of miniature golf.
     That evening, we drove into Estes Park's cute little village for a change of scenery – and a long wait for mediocre pizza. We would've been just as happy back at the cafeteria. Who needs a change of scenery when you're in paradise?
     Lickety-split, it was time to head off to see Uncle Tom and Aunt Lucy in the teeny town of Clarendon, Texas. Also unforgettable, but probably not worth a detour for you.
     I'd gladly retrace our vacation's footprints from start to finish. But there are so many other places to go. And I'm on a deadline.