Happy Birthday, Leigh

I’m a whiner. I admit it. Not about the big stuff but the middlin’ stuff like shoes that pinch and birthdays that end in zero.

So I spent most of 2009 whinin’ and complainin’ about turning 50, which I did last December 26^th. I shoulda just kept my trap shut since I had the best birthday ever thanks to my wonderful friend, Leigh Limerick Rosenecker, formerly of North Carolina, currently residing in Morgantown, West Virginia.

As I wrote last year in this space Leigh, “mom extraordinaire, ace cake decorator and one-day Jeopardy champ, set up a Facebook group to secretly gather 50th birthday greetings for me. She printed the messages out, cut them into strips, punched holes and stuck multicolored birthday candles into them before mailing them off to my husband.”

Once I stopped crying, I had simply the best birthday ever. New friends gathered to help me celebrate as my cake with 50 candles blazed, the greetings from family and old friends more warming than the flames.

Tonight when the clock strikes midnight Leigh hits one of those ‘ends in zero’ birthdays. And I want to wish this extraordinary friend an extraordinarily happy birthday.

We met one summer nearly a decade ago in room three of Martin Hall, home to the school of journalism at West Virginia University, in a reporting class I was teaching. She was an ‘adult student,’ along with our still-friend Steven. Her presence left one classmate ‘star struck’ because he’d grown up listening to her father, Doug Limerick, a longtime radio newsman /sometime replacement host for Paul Harvey.

Her presence immediately enriched my life. Some people tell stories; Leigh is the story. When she started talking in her rich voice ripe with traces of her North Carolina-ness, I never wanted her to stop. Whether it was about making biscuits on an old cast-iron stove or covering a story for her then employer about antique firearms, I wanted to hear more.

Leigh’s heart is as big as her talents, which include writing, baking, being smart (‘Nice girl but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice,’ is the self-effacing Foghorn Leghorn quote she embraces & uh, Jeopardy big bucks winner!) and mothering. She has two adorable towheads, Colin and Charlie.

Because it’s your birthday, Leigh, I won’t make any comments about Alton Brown-like hairstyles! Leigh is not a fan of Mr. Brown and should probably be the next Food Network star, though she shuns the spotlight.

This woman is stunning and funny and warm and sincere and ribald and clever and the best friend, the kind you can just pick up with after months of only conversing via a social media site.

If you were the 21^st century equivalent of the little match girl, Leigh would take you in, warm you up, introduce you to her goldfish, and feed you cookies.

And if you were a whiney, cranky woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown over a date on your birth certificate, she would gather up words, your most cherished thing (besides your own children) and shower you with them.

Thank you again, my dear friend. And Happy Happy Birthday!

P.S. Your real present will be in the mail…

Change is gonna do you good…not!

According to recent news reports, the social media network Facebook is trying to replace LinkedIn as a professional connection service.

Okay, did you or did you not find that paragraph borrrring?

That first graph exemplifies what is happening to Facebook, a wonderful amalgamation of a ‘globalvillagecoffeeklatch- sixdegreesofkevinbacon’ experience.

As a former journalist I have nothing against the sacred five w’s and an h, but I don’t want the first thing I see on my friends’ ‘profile’ pages to be where they went to school, who they’re married to, and what their occupation is.

Borrrring.

Instead, give me a ‘personal’ barometer about how they’re feeling, the ‘h’ being the most neglected of the journalistic canon.

Yes, it’s just trading one kind of egomaniacal labeling for another.

But it’s that connectedness of the non-professional kind that makes social networking ‘social.’

I am not an advocate against change, having gone to three high schools and two colleges and having lived in five, count ‘em, five states.

Normally I embrace big changes, though I must admit smaller ones like a new pair of shoes or spectacles throw me.

Being a child of change is the very reason I adore Facebook. Or did. On any given day Facebook ‘newsfeed’ tells me how one of my very best friends from elementary school days in a frigid Great Lakes state is faring during a cold spell in her adult home in the south or how special former students of mind are doing in the ‘real world’ of marriage, parenthood, and work. Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild (his movie pretend girlfriend was right; he is a jerk) allows a connectedness and interaction that transcends geographic and historical boundaries.

Now Facebook wants the first thing I see about my friends on their homepage to be where they went to school. I need my media scholar husband to explain the particulars to me, and I’m sure the ‘newsfeed’ will still feed me pertinent news, but in the end, I don’t want resumes.

I want the first thing I know about the boy with the curly hair and wool sweater whom I never kissed but probably should have 30 years ago, is that he’s having a good day with his son.

Professionally that knowledge is useless, but personally…it’s priceless.

Counting one’s blessings

Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday mainly because I have a love-hate relationship with turkey and stuffing. I love to eat it, and I hate to get on the scale the next day! Why I weigh myself the day after is a different story…. After last year’s eating season I decided to stop dieting and make a lifestyle change instead.

The good thing about a lifestyle change vs. a temporary diet is I can keep climbing back on the wagon after I’ve fallen off. I may be battered and bruised, but I’ve stopped beating myself up for being a diet ‘failure.’

It’s an ongoing process, and that’s how I want to view being thankful. A special day set aside to be grateful for our blessings is wondrous and gives us time with family and friends. But saying thanks for the people and things enriching our lives should be something we do on a continuing basis.

So, in the spirit of gratefulness, here’s my list of what I’m thankful for this holiday and year-round:

1. The fact I’ve never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner. I hate to cook (RIP Peg Bracken). Now I’ve baked many a pie over the years, including our first year of marriage when, in frustration, I lobbed a lumpy batch of homemade crust at the ceiling. I’ll do dishes til the cows come home, but I’m always thankful on the last Thursday of November and year-round for a husband who cooks.
2. My children. I like and love them. What more can mother ask for?
3. My mother. She’s my best friend and writing partner. She never hovered, allowed all four of her kids enormous independence, yet was always there if any pieces needed to be picked up. She still is.
4. My siblings and their families. Admittedly I did try to lose my youngest brother at Disneyland when he was just a preschooler and once my sister and I did tie him to a tree (there’s home movie proof), but we still love him. Happy Birthday, Mark!
5. Friends. Through all the years and all the places I’ve lived, I’ve truly been blessed, and continue to be blessed, with the best friends in the world. Seriously.
6. All the ‘boys’ I’ve ever crushed on, from teenybopper icons to the real deals. They were all precursors to the man who cooks, and how can I not be grateful this season and year-round to those who made my heart go pitter-patter?
7. Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends. Yes, I’ll eat too much and want to toss the scale just like that long-ago pie dough. Then I’ll climb back onto that ‘wagon’ the following day, grateful for hearth and home…and the people I love.

Now it’s time to think about pies…I’m also thankful this year for Pet-Ritz!

P is for Procrastination

Note: Planned to post this Tuesday…but take note of the title.

November is officially halfway over, and I’m just now packing away my summer clothes. “Packing” may be pushing the definition. So far I’ve taken about half a dozen shirts off hangers, folded, and tossed in a clear plastic bin. At the rate I’m going, it’ll be spring by the time I finish the job.

I wrote those words yesterday but am tackling the job anew today. The container is filling up, and soon I’ll be ready for a second one. Putting sweaters into drawers is a job that can wait for another day. Soon I’m heading out to meet my neighborhood walking pal.

Folding haphazardly…I never worked retail and that’s probably a good thing…I’m blinking back tears. Summer, like the rest of this year, was filled with soaring highs and dipping lows.

As the sun begins to set on another year, I’m filled with infinite joys and sorrows for reasons I can’t even articulate.

Never did I think a pink polo shirt would have the power to render me mute. Years ago almost-twenty-year-old Erik and I had a spirited discussion about whether a pair of athletic shorts that he and his dad had just purchased fit properly. I’ve long since forgotten what was really bugging me, but it wasn’t the sizing of a pair of nylon athletic wear.

Since then the phrase “It’s like the shorts” has become a permanent part of the lexicon around here. When someone gets upset about a seemingly silly thing, and it’s really about something much deeper, we dredge out that phrase and somehow we all know to back off and let the subtext subside.

So later when I place the rest of my summer clothes in the sterile containers and the tears start to flow, I’ll remind myself "It’s like the shorts" and snap the lid on the subtext.

Happy Anniversary, Dear Blog (two weeks late)

One year my husband and I were so busy with work and children, etc. that we forgot our wedding anniversary. Please note sometimes the ‘etceras’ push you over the edge. The date just kind of slipped our harried minds.

Since we moved to the prairie, my life has moved at a slower pace…one I enjoy. This fall things are speeding up, which is good, but my multitasking skills are a little rusty. I used to juggle a full-time job at a large university, writing deadlines, and all things children-related in addition to trying to be a decent wife and a good daughter. Not worth delving into how successful I was at any of these.

Fortunately multitasking is like riding a bike...the ability comes back to you after you crash.

But it hit me tonight I missed another anniversary. It was a year ago this month that I started blogging about my sons and my fear of turning fifty, etc. Please note other times the ‘etceras’ are just fine.

The boys are good, fifty is more fabulous than frightening, and I’m still plugging away at holding on and letting go.

Happy Anniversary to me.

Momz in the Hood

I wore the following to book group last night: faded black capri pants; awesome lime green t-shirt with an orange ‘Catstronaut’ imprinted on it, (made by Alex, one of son Erik's best friends, a sophomore at Rhode Island School of Design); sandals; and a sweater ‘purloined’ this summer from my friend Karin, columnist extraordinaire for the Charleston, WV Sunday Gazette.

Note to Karin: I will return it and the adorable peasant blouse but will keep the ‘hoochie mama’ dress you gave me, which I am too chicken to wear.

Because I couldn’t find my black zip-up hooded sweatshirt (bought specifically to wear with hideous black wide-legged sweat pants on the plane for our flight to Germany three springs ago), I grabbed (gently, Karin, I promise!) the sweater.

A combination shrug/capelet garment with ¾ length sleeves, it’s adorable, and chi-chi and, sadly, not me. My book group pals agreed with me, in the kindest possible way. A friend, nearly 20 years my junior (clad in an adorable short colorful trench coat) said it was definitely the kind of thing she’d wear. Columnist Karin, several inches taller with patrician cheekbones, would look stunning in it too. If I ever get it mailed back to her.

Karin is an expert bargain hunter and a trip several years ago to a Coldwater Creek Outlet store yielded some amazing finds for me, thanks to her. And she’s similarly gifted in her surroundings. Like my dear friend Gwen (who single-handedly transformed her backyard into something out of House Beautiful, pond included), Karin has the interior design ‘touch.’ Both women are frugal, uber creative, and talented.

Me, I once had a friend tell me my design style was ‘house mediocre’ and years ago had a colleague earnestly offer to nominate me for TLC’s What Not to Wear due to my summer teaching ‘uniform’ of capris (I think the same pair I wore last night), Tevas, and polo shirts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know I have other ‘talents’…well, at least one. But just once I’d like to be able to accessorize a room or an outfit, heck, even decorate a Christmas cookie with panache!

But I can’t so I’ll just bask in the glow of having wonderful friends who can…and try to remember to return articles of clothing I filch from them.

Dear Pen Pal

Long before Hello Kitty and stretchy bracelets, having a ‘pen pal’ was all the rage. A magazine, the name long forgotten, matched up pen pals..sort of an eHarmony for the elementary school set.

When I was ten…the age I decided I wanted to be a writer (or the First Lady, or Mrs. Donny Osmond, or save the seals and the environment) a girl named Diane and I started corresponding.

She was a couple years older and lived in Pennsylvania, a fact that just now comes back to me all these decades later. We hit it off and even spoke on the phone several times over the years. We never met but the written word cemented our friendship.

One summer night after my sophomore year in high school (the grade my youngest son is in now), I came home from my job at the ice cream/sandwich shop run by a local pain-in-the-keister businessman. The pay was low, the work was mundane, and at the end of the night we had to make the restrooms hospital-clean.

My mom, my Rock of Gibraltar, told me Diane’s mother had called. Diane and her boyfriend had been killed in a van accident that evening. If my pen pal had lived, she would have been a vegetable.

I sobbed into my mother’s arms, my sophisticated 16-year-old bravado dissolved.

Since then I’ve lost friends to the ravages of disease, but never one whose only connection to me was words.

Cherish the power of words. They have the ability to bind, to wound, to wrap us in a cocoon of love and warmth or shatter our illusions and make us no longer whole.