Keeping an Eye on the Ball

December 31, 1977. I've never been a fan of science fiction, but I appreciated the brief toasty comfort of a movie theatre, even if I had to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I don't remember being all that impressed. UFO's and aliens and strange force fields going bump in the night don't hold a candle to the other worldly experience that is Times Square on New Year's Eve.

It was one of those bucket list things, back before we had bucket lists. Standing outside in Arctic temperatures for hours, the technological shortcomings of my pre-Canada Goose down jacket somewhat neutralized by the cumulative body heat of the massive crowd. I didn't even see the ball fall; I'm pretty sure I was facing the wrong way. My date whipped out a bottle of champagne and some plastic champagne cups, the kind with the screw-on base. For some reason, I worried it would spill.

If there was a police presence that night, I didn't notice. Those were days of innocence, tucked somewhere between the tumultuousness of the sixties and the scourge of AIDS in the eighties. Our heroine of the moment was a princess with Cinnabon hair and we all still believed that good triumphs over the dark forces of evil. Just like in the movies.

My children are all older, now, than I was on that New Year's Eve in Times Square. They have grown up in a different world, a world where bucket lists are filled with items far less dangerous than being in a big crowd in a big city on a big night. Relatively risk free things like, say, sky diving.

There is much to look forward to this year, even though a few sucker punches in 2016 have left me a bit wary. The princess with the Cinnabon hair is gone, as are many others who seemed to be on the side of the light, and close encounters of any kind are wrought with suspicion. Still, the crowds will descend on Times Square, and forty years from now, some middle aged woman will look back on this night and smile, wondering how she survived the cold but glad that she did it, at least that one time.

I, for one, will be at my friend's house, enjoying what has become a somewhat annual tradition of watching a small crowd of lobsters crawl across the kitchen counter. Talk about other worldly. Mostly, I just feel really bad for them because -- like most of us, I suppose -- they have no idea what's coming, and, unlike most of us, they're pretty much out of options. Talk about a sucker punch.

Inexact Science

Halfway into my first pregnancy, alarm bells were sounded when a routine sonogram revealed a higher than average number for the cranium-to-femur ratio. In that early glimpse into the too-much-information-age, a newly discovered minuscule correlation between such a ratio and serious fetal abnormalities sent my doctor (and me) into a tail spin.

Thanks to the miracles of modern science, I was reassured that I would not have to worry about that one particular (and already statistically unlikely) fetal abnormality, though they were unable to explain the slightly skewed ratio.  Mystery solved years later: the girl with the out sized prenatal skull and the stunted shinbone turned out to be really smart and really short.

In each of my pregnancies, I looked forward to those ultrasound images, craving whatever reassurance I could get that my baby would be perfect. Odd, to hang so much hope on grainy and fuzzy photographs of floating translucent blobs that looked more like prehistoric sea creatures than humans, but Xanax wasn't an option.

No amount of information could be too much, but the truth is, I knew nothing. Nothing of the explosion of love I would feel, nothing of the way my heart could expand each time to accommodate a new explosion of equal magnitude, nothing of the unremitting worry that comes with being a parent. Nothing of how short lived that initial sigh of relief would be, the brief exhale that comes after counting up a total of twenty fingers and toes.

I get caught up in the end of year hand wringing about how bad 2016 was. The deaths of so many talented people who have done more than their share to enrich our world. I had lunch with my good friend yesterday, exactly eleven months after the inexplicable and sudden death of her son, a perfect child with ten fingers and ten toes, a young man who had survived the trials and tribulations of adolescence with flying colors and who had entered adulthood with as much promise as any parent could hope for. The kind of promise that ultrasound pictures can never guarantee, but the kind of promise that comes as close as anything can to allowing us to finally exhale. Close, but not quite.

We confessed to each other our embarrassment at the resentment that bubbles up when everyone talks so much about the famous ones, when our hearts (and I cannot even begin to compare mine with hers) have been so irrevocably broken. Let's just say I was hardly surprised to learn that Debbie Reynolds' heart stopped beating a day after she lost her daughter.

My friend and I tried to sort through it all, yesterday, as we made our way through a pack of tissues, why everything still seems so raw all these months later. Adam died early in 2016, days after his 27th birthday, and we, like a lot of folks, cannot imagine that 2017 will be any worse. But unlike other folks, my friend won't be able to turn the page and close the book when the ball falls on New Year's Eve. The loss just gets more permanent, and continues to defy belief. The ache is different but unabated, more stabbing in a lot of ways.

I feel lucky. I feel lucky each day when my kids are healthy and thriving, but I never exhale. Good riddance to 2016, for many reasons, but, for me, the year was filled with good things as well, for which I feel very blessed. I know my friend will, one day, be in less pain, but one trip around the sun just isn't enough time for that kind of healing.

Gosh, I don't mean to be so morbid. Between tears, my friend and I shared at least a few laughs, and even some snarkiness, as we always manage to do. And we hope for better days for each other and for everyone who has loved and lost, and we look forward to reveling in each others blessings, moving forward.

Put Up Your Nukes

And the demagogue said: Let there be an arms race!

And, heaven forbid, there might be an arms race.

Oh, the power of the word of the demagogue.

Game on, says Uncle Vlad. Oh dear, Christmas dinner might be a bit strained this year. More vodka, please!

It's been years since I've celebrated Christmas in the traditional way, with stockings and trees and ornament hooks buried like land mines in the carpet. Divorce has brought me back to the hallowed Jewish traditions of Chinese food and a movie.

But still, a Jewish girl can dream.

All I want for Christmas is a Trump interview with Rachel Maddow. 

Last night, I watched Kelly Anne Conway, referred to by someone the other day -- quite accurately -- as the "High Priestess of Spin," actually break a sweat as she sat across the table from the left leaning and brilliant and refreshingly unrelenting cable news host. Sitting ramrod straight with her hands folded in her lap (probably stapled to keep her from slapping her interrogator), her fake smile broadening the angrier she became, Kelly Anne denied and justified and filibustered and pivoted, just like she always does. But Rachel kept calling her out. She assaulted her with the truth. She cut her off. She outshouted her in a calm, measured voice -- you know, the kind of voice a mom uses when she really wants to scare the shit out of her kids and then look shocked when they accuse her of yelling. She unspun the spinner. Kelly Anne wobbled like a cheap dreidel.

And -- I have to say my favorite piece was the lecture on the nuclear triad, which Kelly Anne admitted to knowing nothing about while she attempted, in vain, to defend the demagogue-elect's capacity for policy making on the subject. Let's face it; Kelly Anne is smart and evil. Her boss is cunning and evil, but, unlike the Priestess, stupendously uninformed and aggressively proud of it and determined to stay that way. If she knows nothing about something, he knows less.

Yes, I hate to admit it, but my fantasies last night were about the boss sitting in a gilt throne of his choosing and letting Rachel go at him, hold him accountable. Ain't gonna happen. Though he is certainly shameless, he is infinitely less shameless than Kelly Anne is, and it will be a cold day in hell before he lets anybody -- let alone a woman -- make him actually answer questions. In English. Out loud. In more than 140 characters. Not saying it's impossible, but I think I'm more likely to see Santa squeezing his ass out of my chimney.

I know Christmas has become kind of secular, but this year, while I stuff myself with Kung Pao chicken, I'll be deep in prayer. In fact, I'll be praying a lot in the next four years, or at least until the impeachment.

Let there be peace. Let there be tolerance. Let there be no nuclear proliferation. Merry Christmas to all, Happy Chanukah, and pass the vodka, please.

Fishing in Troubled Waters

Just when I thought nothing could surprise me, I read a little teaser on my morning news for dummies  email about two brothers rowing across the Atlantic, naked.

For the life of me, I can't imagine why anyone would want to row across the Atlantic. It's so wet.

Maybe, I thought, they're just doing it because they can, or maybe because they want some attention. I was curious enough to read beyond the teaser, and, as it turns out, they are raising money for cancer research, spurred on by the untimely death of a friend. Sometimes it's a good thing to do something because you can, and because you want some attention. They certainly got my attention, and I'm sending in a donation.

Like many of the folks I hang out with, I am far too attached to creature comforts (not to mention lazy and out of shape) to spend days on end exerting myself in a never changing seascape. But, I suppose, it's not really about doing what those guys can do, or about getting attention. I'll set my sights lower, try to push my own version of the envelope. For some, it's extreme physical exertion. For others, it's trying to land a tough job that most sane people don't want anyway. (Just sayin'.) For me, on my worst days, it's dragging my ass out of bed, but on a garden variety half decent day, it might just be about staying alert and doing something good in the smallest and most unnoticeable way. I can do that; most of us can.

And, though I admit I have dashed out on an occasional minor emergency mission without a bra, I will try my best not to paddle around naked. The waters, these days, are troubled (and ugly) enough.

As to the two brothers rowing naked? Who cares? It's not as if any of the sea creatures wear clothes, though some do have very large and sharp teeth. But, I would imagine if one of those creatures gets close enough to the family jewels there are (no offense intended to the handsome brothers) bigger fish to fry.

Pros and Cons

Pros and cons. Professionals and Con-men. Well, con-man. 

This morning, I gave CNN yet another chance, and again I was disappointed (though certainly not surprised). A panel of giggling journalistic professionals pondered whether Trump the campaigner turned president-elect would somehow change when he actually becomes president, granting him yet another extension of time in which to become somebody he has never shown himself to be. Everybody weighed in -- on the impulsive, illiterate, and incredible tweets, on the master cabinet builder's glitzy Trump Kremlin, USA, on his unrepentant insults and his public discrediting of U.S. intelligence and security.  The pros' consensus: he sure is different. 

Different. As in vive la difference. Or dare to be different. As if the prospect of a White House filled with folks who are no doubt looking forward to a few celebratory toasts with Uncle Vlad (if he can take a break from killing children) is simply a point on the spectrum of normal. Vanilla versus chocolate (no racist implications intended). 

I'm not a journalist, and I suppose I cannot imagine what it feels like to try to remember everything I learned in journalism 101 while covering a career con-man who was cunning enough to win the presidency on an electoral technicality by knowing exactly whom he could con with promises of great fortune and assurances that this land is their land and he will help them take it back from all those other folks who have stolen it. And all the while keeping ratings up. Exhausting. 

Nope, I'm not a journalist, but I'm a person who has made a fair share of mistakes, and I'm a friend and a mother who has handed out advice freely about dealing with folks who tend to make life unbearable. Let's just call those folks different, for argument's sake. My advice: you cannot change their behavior, but you can certainly change how you react to them. 

So yes, a crass, bullying, self-interested, self-aggrandizing, race baiting (I didn't say racist), woman groping, impulsive buffoon who will stop at nothing to win and then stop at nothing to turn the presidency into yet another profit generating business venture is certainly different. Some might say scary, even terrifying. Certainly, a majority of those who voted said no to the con, and the continuing protests are a testament to the fact that this is not a new normal, and should not be treated as such. I prefer chocolate ice cream, but I can tolerate vanilla. Just don't ask me to eat arsenic. 

Journalists: This is not simply different. This is horse shit, and should be treated as such. 

Rules of Engagement

Life isn't always more about the journey than the destination, but sometimes it should be, if only because the journey is filled with much needed distractions,

Yesterday, a bit before noon: Landed!! The double exclamation point is key; I wanted my mother to know that I was gleeful after getting up to fly to New York City at the crack of dawn and, more than words can express, looking forward to the interminable drive from La Guardia to Syracuse.

Her response was slightly less perky. Get out here ASAP -- without any attempt at punctuation to soften the blow. Still taxiing, in Row 25, in a window seat. I despaired. My prospects for a peaceful drive were looking grim. The folks in front of me must have received warmer texts, retrieving suitcases from overhead bins at their leisure and strolling off the plane, completely unaware that I was headed for quite the tongue lashing at passenger pick up area B.

To make a long story short, there was no time for niceties, though there was ample time for my mom to ignore my pleas, shake off my grip, and march through a few lanes of chaos to attempt to slip the nice police officer who had let her linger there for more than an hour a twenty dollar bill. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the long drive ahead, but the prospect of spending the afternoon trying to bail my mom out for attempting to bribe an officer was not all that appealing. The cop must have seen the look of horror on my face, and poked his head in the window to assure me he had not taken anything from her.

Finally, we were buckled up and ready to go. I'm never picking you up at the airport again. Sigh. It's always so good to be home.

The ride was as interminable as I remembered. I used to make the trip often, back when I went to college in upstate New York in the late 1970's. And, just as I remembered, the clouds became dark and thick as I came within 60 miles of my destination, dripping some kind of hybrid precipitations that I always thought of as snow without the charm.

We are blending families in these last months before my oldest daughter's wedding. The central players have, for the most part, met, but still, there are missing links. This weekend, I would meet my daughter's future mother-in-law's sisters and mother for the first time, and they would meet me. And my mother. To be sure, my daughter was nervous, with good reason. The meet and greet would be coming on the heels of my having spent about six hours alone in a car with mom.

Distract and deflect. We have all learned a lot about that this year, and it's not a bad way to make it through life's challenges. A harrowing trip had driven me to distraction -- and made me forget my worries and lose a few inhibitions along the way. Okay, the glass of champagne handed to me at the door by my daughter's future father-in-law helped. As did the greeting from her new grandmother-in-law, who at first thought I was the bride's sister. Oh how I love the dark days and dim lighting of upstate New York in early December.

We all probably had good reason to worry. We are all, to some degree, loud, argumentative, opinionated, easily frustrated by loved ones, and exhausted by the simple fear of making a bad impression. And we are all, I think, relieved that the worst thing that happened last night was me knocking over a glass of red wine on the tablecloth. There was much common ground -- large appetites, large personalities, and, more than anything, an unshakable love for the young couple that has somehow made our worlds collide.

Emerald City, USA

Twenty days ago, I posted my despair. Words flowed from my grief like teardrops, like the blood dripping from the picture I had included of a mortally wounded American flag. My only solace was that it was over. The new abnormal was upon us, the unthinkable had happened, but at least I could go back to my life, stop watching the carnage.

The good news is that I haven't had to watch any more Trump campaign pitches, listen to ratcheted up (albeit inarticulately expressed) hate designed solely to inspire the basest instincts within a hateful and vocal base that I have to believe is not representative of my country. No more discussion of emails (in fact, emails and the actual release of classified information to a lover, as it turns out, is a big fat non-issue), no more chants of "lock her up," no more infuriating self-righteous evasion (no evasion necessary when you can just flip everyone the bird and declare that you are free to enjoy and profit from as many conflicts of interest as you want), no more incendiary lies (do tweets count?).  I vowed to reflect, to emerge from the bubble that has had me believing for so long that prejudice and hate -- in deed or by association -- would be a deal killer in this country, no matter how legitimate your woes about your paycheck.

Okay, well I guess the best news is that I don't have to see or listen to our president-elect directly while he holes up in his glitzy tower or at Mara Lago and tries to figure out his new job without reading the employee manual -- or anything. And, with any luck, Kelly Anne has truly gone rogue and might disappear from the air waves, because she is just incredibly annoying.

Yesterday, a crazy person mowed down some people on a major college campus and then went at some others with a butcher knife. All I have heard, this morning, on that minor topic, is that "they" are trying to figure out whether this was an act of terrorism. I'm sorry, am I missing something, or have we all now bought into the idea that a terrifying and terrorizing act is only terrorism if it is carried out in the name of Allah?

Yep, the conversation on all the news shows is about the latest episode of "The Apprentice," as we all stay tuned to find out who gets hired. It's a veritable circus, with supposedly respectable government figures parading in and out of the gilt trimmed lobby for meetings with the boss in hopes he will pick them. Behind the closed door is the incoming buffoon in chief, the mysterious and all powerful wizard. He may not know much, but he is savvy enough to know he doesn't want anyone ripping open that curtain. Dorothy, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore.

And, from behind the safety of his boardroom door and his phone, he tweets with reckless abandon and continues to dictate the media narrative. "Flag burners should have citizenship revoked!" Oh my, what did he mean by that? "Millions of people voted illegally!" Oh dear, did he really say that? I suppose it was amusing, for a while, but now it's kind of scary. Our new abnormal.

A diploma didn't make the scarecrow smart (he actually got the Pythagorean theorem wrong), and a key to the White House does not make this guy presidential. For him, it's just business as usual.

November Surprises

As we have almost every year for as long as I can remember, we sat at the outsized rectangular table, sneaking morsels from our overstuffed plates while we awaited my cousins' opening toast. Painful moments of delayed gluttony, extended this year by a brief debate about exactly how many years we had been doing this. Not the kind of thing you do around my salivating relatives, unless you want to be beaten about the head with a drumstick.

While the threat of political discourse caused some families to skip Thanksgiving this year, that kind of breach was not even on our radar. Yes, we narrowly avoided a food fight when a misguided minority thought it appropriate to have discourse about, well, anything with the aromas of our imminent feast so tantalizingly close, but cool heads prevailed. We shut down the controversy, agreed to disagree, did a clockwise clink of glasses around the table, reaffirmed our gratitude, and dug in. 

There have been different houses over the years, different guests, and always, to our dismay, a handful of absentees. Turkey preparation techniques have evolved, with smoked and fried holding fast for a number of years now. Every year, the side dishes become more obscene -- both in number and calorie count -- but each one is indispensable, at least to somebody. We add, but we rarely subtract. 

Family gatherings and holidays -- those annual events we look forward to with an extraordinarily odd mix of excitement and dread. Because I flew straight to Connecticut this year and descended upon my cousins while they were still in their pajamas, I got the inside scoop on how, after all these years, they have managed to greet us with such grace. Sure, they put me to work with some last minute slicing and dicing, but I got to participate in the pre-game. Ah ha! Well sure, after a large Bloody Mary and this thing called a "pickle back," I practically lifted my mom off the ground with a giant bear hug when she finally arrived. And all this time I thought my cousins actually enjoyed hosting us!

The truth is, though, it's our glue, and we wouldn't trade it for anything. My children have known no other Thanksgiving since they were born, and, though two are in far flung places this year, they still joined via Face Time. We love the constants -- the lame jokes, the wooden pilgrims on the table, the excess, the food comas (interrupted briefly by dessert). Our babies have become grown-ups, and some have had babies of their own. 

When we went around the table to share a picture we had each been instructed to bring (a new and hopefully lasting tradition), my young cousin's husband summed it up best. He had chosen a picture of him and his son, now ten months old, both of them wearing Redskins shirts (his team). What he saw in the picture, he said, was the "him" of not so long ago, who could never have imagined how this little guy would change everything. We were all moved, even the young couples, the ones who don't yet have children and still have no idea, even though they have some idea, if only from watching the rest of us. 

One blink ago, I was the young mom chasing babies, wishing they would take a nap. I miss those days -- sort of -- but watching them grow, and seeing the adults all our babies have become, there's nothing better. This morning, I'm kind of hoping for another Bloody Mary and maybe even another pickle back with my annual bagel breakfast in Connecticut. Buzzed or not, though, I am well aware of how much there is to be thankful for. 

Theatre of the Absurd

Has anybody paused to wonder how Mike Pence managed to snag tickets to Hamilton on such short notice. Or why? One can only assume that Mr. Pence has as much interest in sitting in a theatre jam packed with folks on all points of the color and sexual orientation spectrum as I do in attending a Loyal White Knights rally.

Curiouser and curiouser. Mike "you whipped out that Mexican thing again" Pence, sitting front and center at Hamilton, daydreaming about conversion therapy while he yearns to be sitting at The Nutcracker watching real sugar plum fairies dance. Some boos and a brief lecture -- a small price to pay, I suppose, for new found national name recognition and the chance to be number one on the wait list for a pretty cool job.

Bring on the tweet storm. Insane, unprecedented, infuriating. And brilliant. Once again, he who shall not be named changes the narrative, bumping the real concerning stuff -- white nationalism in the White House, the transitioning of our government into a family dynasty, the defrauding of lots and lots of regular folks with a fake university, a president elect literally hiding in a gilt penthouse bunker while he builds a decidedly un-American cabinet and wishes he could just grab some pussy and fly around in his toy plane and play a few rounds of golf -- and making petty shit the lead story.

So what do you think of your new President? In Paris, as soon as someone realized we were American, the question was raised -- by an Uber driver, a waiter, a chemistry professor from Paris on her way to participate in a symposium at Northwestern.

Our president elect is a lot of things, most of which make him uniquely unqualified for his new job. But one thing he is not is stupid. He is downright cunning, and he loves games; though I really don't know what a "winning temperament" is, I believe him when he says he has it. What better way to incite a bit of alt-righteous indignation than to plunk a diversity-averse white guy into the heart of Broadway. Brilliant.

Ah, so you’re American. That was my taxi driver yesterday morning, when I sheepishly told him which airline I was headed to at Charles de Gaulle. For the first time in my life, I felt embarrassed, certain that this man — an immigrant trying to make a living in Paris — was judging me, and rightfully so. We have somehow handed over enormous power to a man and his minions who are quite frank in their view that only certain lives matter, that discrimination is a good thing, and that big government is bad except when it comes to taking control over women's wombs. 

I get the economic divide, and I’m all for everyone clawing their way out of their insular and non-intersecting bubbles and understanding how the other guys feel. I live in kind of a fringe sub-bubble among folks who think renovating a kitchen is the worst thing a person can go through. That is not to say that privilege and self-awareness are mutually exclusive; a friend once laughed at herself after she claimed her day had gotten all messed up because the landscapers showed up late. I know there are folks outside my own bubble who would happily trade their own woes for my divorce driven economic downturn any day.

We need to beware of taking the bait, letting our president elect provoke us and then distract us with absurd and whiny tweets, lest we miss the point. Frankly, his immaturity and his propensity to say ridiculous things (and make ridiculous promises) is our biggest hope. As President Obama has assured foreign leaders, the new guy is simply pragmatic. Policy is secondary — if that. 

We can mock all we want, but we should be mindful of the nonsense. Fool us once, shame on him. Fool us twice, shame on all of us. There's a lot of scary shit going on in that penthouse -- one wonders how there was even time for an evening of theatre -- and that's what we need to be watching. 

La Vie est Belle

Day one in Paris.

Two and a half months -- the most time my youngest child and I have ever been apart. The fact that I fell asleep and missed by a good twenty minutes the moment she arrived at my hotel to deliver that long awaited hug notwithstanding,  I could not be more thrilled. Well, I could be, but I'm trying very hard to put the prospect of a Trump presidency into proper perspective.

Duly chastised for wasting precious moments of my brief stay in Paris sprawled unconscious and still clad in stinky travel clothes -- boots and all -- in a hotel bed, I rode the brief wave of happy adrenaline into the tiny bathroom to freshen up. Damn, no toothbrush. My daughter gave me two Altoids and a water bottle, and, settling for what she referred to as a whore's bath for my mouth, I grabbed my jacket and off we went.

A cafe au lait. A stroll through the bustling streets of her neighborhood on the left bank. A brief ride on the Metro. When Parisians push and shove unapologetically, it just seems more polite than it does at home. Warm goat cheese salad and wine for lunch. An impromptu ride on the enormous Ferris wheel I have managed to ignore on all my previous visits to the City of Light. A stroll through the Tuileries in a spitting drizzle. A visit to L'Orangerie, just because it was closed for renovation the last time I was here. Paris. My daughter. My other daughter and her fiance on their way to meet us. La vie est belle.

We killed time for a while -- I was supposed to meet up with somebody I have not seen in more than 35 years, and my daughter kept wondering aloud whether that was such a good idea. She practically had to pull my head out of my espresso to convince me to reschedule. We had a quick dinner -- more cheese, more wine -- and we parted ways so I could sleep. Well, that was my intention anyway.

Several thousand miles from home, and the realities I had so hoped to escape, at least for a brief while, collaborated with the time change to keep me awake. Were the CNN anchors really trying to coerce a rational, intelligent guest to equate Kelly Anne Conway with Hillary Clinton? Were they really trying to get her to acknowledge the enormity of the crack Kelly Anne made in her own glass ceiling, simply by virtue of helping an unqualified and disrespectful man lay claim to the presidency? Was I really listening to someone explain the unfairness of liberal protests against the appointment of a White Supremacist to a position of power in the White House? His rationale for saying Steve Bannon is not a White Supremacist: I am not familiar with Breitbart. Ignorance -- feigned or real. Our new version of expertise.

At L'Orangerie, there was an exhibit devoted to American art during the 1930's. The Age of Anxiety. I looked at the paintings, some of which were familiar, and I read the narratives. I watched footage of the joyful celebration on November 8, 1932, of the election of FDR to his first term. I bought my daughter a copy of The Grapes of Wrath, in French. I could barely sort through my thoughts in English, much less in French. Despair. Social injustice. Progress. War. Change. New world orders. New deals. The Age of Anxiety, indeed. 

Day one in Paris. Dark and rainy, but still the City of Light. Far from home, riding a silly Ferris wheel with my daughter. I gaze out at a beautiful city scape that has gone through so much. And I sort through my thoughts, and I settle on resilience.

Lost in America

Last night, before I turned off the television in disgust, I listened to a reporter somewhere in Michigan press a young white woman on why she voted for Trump. She babbled about American values, about getting our country back. Like her candidate, she was vague and adamant in her repetition. For a moment, she even looked confused, as if she realized the words she spoke had no meaning. The moment passed.

Last night, I forced myself to sleep for a bit, hoping I would wake up to find it had been a particularly bad dream. I refused (and will continue to refuse) to watch television coverage of -- well, whatever you call this. I couldn't bear to watch Trump speak back when it seemed impossible that anybody rational would take him seriously. I will not ever watch him speak, ever. In two and a half months, he will be the leader of the free world, and I will cover my eyes and ears, and I will hold my nose. And I will hold my breath until we come out, somehow, on the other side.

American values. Getting our country back. Top of the ticket, down ballot, the digital maps of the United States were covered in a skewed shade of red last night. Bleeding out. Mortally wounded. I watched, heartbroken. For me, for my children. For what I thought were American values. For what I thought was my country.

My panic had reached a fever pitch by yesterday afternoon. Strangers where I ate lunch assured me I had nothing to fear. That his path to victory was too narrow. He needed to turn a lot of states. I remained nervous while I fantasized about the pantsuit I would buy to honor Hillary's inauguration. If he could make one bluish state bleed, why not ten? And here we are today.

I still hold dear what I thought were American values, though I despair knowing they are indeed not shared by the majority of American. And I despair that the country in which I have always taken so much pride has been stolen. Stolen by a strange orange man who values nobody and nothing but himself, a man who made vague and adamant promises to angry people who were happy to have scapegoats. At the very least, I hope our resilience has not been stolen.

I take no pleasure in knowing these angry people will, at some point, figure out they made a terrible mistake. I will take comfort in hoping that all who were complicit in allowing this catastrophe to play out will search their souls, if they have any left, to help stanch the bleeding.

Sugar and Spice and Shattered Glass Ceilings

When I was young, I had a recurring dream about a woman in pink. Not pale pink, but not fuscha either. A pink jacket, and pink pants.

She was always standing on the same corner, catching my eye, strangely familiar but just out of reach. Her gaze was steady, but I had the sense she was not so much watching me as watching over me. Protective. Not unkind but serious, nurturing in a businesslike sort of way. She looked a bit like my mother, though I don't recall ever seeing my mother dressed in pink.

I thought about the woman in pink when I woke in the wee hours this morning. I thought about the woman in pink when I flipped on the television, saw Hillary in her red pantsuit, just where I had left off, several hours earlier. My friend had texted me a little after midnight, to tell me Hillary had won the kick off vote in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. Eight people had voted. A good sign. Only 146,310,992 to go, give or take.

My friend -- she of the midnight news bulletin -- and I, and maybe one or two others, will be gathering later today to watch election returns, something I have often tended to think is like watching paint dry, without the suspense. We have yet to decide on the menu, but we have agreed on the dress code: pantsuits. Well, the closest thing we have to pantsuits, which would be flannel pajamas; probably, if I were to hazard a guess, pink.

Do I think the woman on the street corner of my girlhood dreams, the woman in pink pants and pink jacket, was Hillary? Of course not. She really did look a little bit like my mother, but she could have been any woman, maybe even me. Anything's possible. She was intimidating and enticing, a tad out of place but somehow sure of herself. Any woman, every woman, beautiful, strong, smart, competent, in a place where I would not expect a woman in a pink pantsuit to be.

My friends and I are hoping with every fiber of our beings -- every fiber of our flannel pantsuits -- that we will raise our glasses tonight to the sound of shattering glass. The dreams of little girls, everywhere.

Swinging States

It was refreshing to wake up in Chicago today.

My television was still set to the local channel, where nothing matters other than the Cubs' miraculous win last night. I had gone to bed scrolling through wide-eyed Facebook posts from Chicagoans who have waited all lengths of lifetimes for this day and dozens of heartfelt congratulatory messages from folks everywhere who just appreciate a good old fashioned miracle.

What can be more American than baseball? My kids, all native Chicagoans, watched and weighed in from far flung places, celebrating with non-natives, while I watched with a friend who has shared  more than a quarter century of life with me in these parts, for better and, this year, for worse. Worst. From the time our oldest children were our only children, we have shared each others' joys and cried on each others' shoulders, celebrated milestones and endured tragedies. Mostly, we have simply journeyed together, first through tedious afternoons in basements with stir crazy toddlers, zillions of appetite suppressing lunches where mountains of greasy French fries dulled our senses to the bickering and the food fights and the constant cries for attention (Mom? Mom? MOMMMMMM?), birthday parties with blue cookie monster frosting everywhere, the move to the suburbs, report cards, sporting events, dances, college visits, the high school graduation party we threw jointly for our first borns as we prepared for the first big launch. Unremarkable slices of life, with a smattering of overwhelming joy and unbearable grief. All if it, though, shared.

Last night, we watched together, just the two of us, with our dogs. We talked occasionally, stuffed our faces, got lost in our thoughts. We tried our best to break up the tussles between our dogs, both of us feeling oddly protective of our own but loving the other -- well maybe tolerating is a better word -- as one of our own. We seized upon teachable moments, silently chastised the each other for our undisciplined and spoiled pups, felt the same sort of solidarity we had felt for all those years, viewing everything through a mother's prism. Enjoying the moment while we tried to push away the crazy.

We high fived, we groaned, we held our breath, and we held hands through the seeming eternity of the last out. I whispered her oldest son's name to myself, hoping he could wield some influence from wherever he has been since he left us so suddenly last January. I called my daughter in New York to share a post game Woohooooo. My friend and I danced around my living room like school girls, and we both knew, without speaking, how bittersweet this moment, and all good moments, have to be.

This morning, I flipped momentarily back to CNN, just to check whether there was any new news. Still the same maps, fluid color wheels of blue and red and purple. Still the same heads talking. They seemed not to have heard that all is temporarily right with the world, that the Cubbies had won the World Series after 108 years. That Ohio is not a particularly swinging state today, and that no amount of polling can quantify the thrill of victory today.

Talkin' 'Bout My Girl

 With a hug and a "my girl," Michelle Obama managed, in one moment, to sum up all that is good about people in general, and my gender in particular. Oddly, with the most ordinary gesture, she transformed Hillary into a thing of beauty, elevated her out of the muck where the best she could be, for some, was a lukewarm alternative to a very nasty man. To put it mildly.

Facebook is filled with images of just that kind of solidarity, the uniquely female energy that helps us to transcend our shortcomings. We somehow look more beautiful when we come together, boosting each other into a whole that is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. Not that the parts are anything to sneeze at. Look at any picture of a group of women of any age; it glows. 

Nothing against men; there are some I truly adore. Who else but a woman, though, could pull off what Michelle Obama has? No matter what ulterior motives she might have -- and let's face it, we all have them -- she has done, for Hillary, what my friends have done for me so many times. What I hope I can and will do for them in return. When the going gets so tough we think we can't go on, sisterhood pushes us forward. Gets us through the roadblocks at home and at work, the impossible juggling of motherhood and career, the self-doubt that plagues us no matter what we do. Most of us will never crash through the ultimate glass ceiling, but we endure our share of bruising obstacles. And, more often than not, it is the women -- "our girls" -- who get us through. 

History will be made this November, when we elect our first woman President. This is something for all of us to celebrate, women and men and everyone in between. The misogyny and sexual assault that have become central issues in this surreal campaign are not just women's issues, no matter how the media and political strategists try to frame them. And Hillary's shattering of that final sheet of glass -- well, it's about fucking time. Though our founding fathers might not have imagined this day would come, it is the logical result of what they created. We were an experiment in equality and endless possibility, and we have discovered, along the way, just how infinite those possibilities are. 

He's come awfully close, this nasty man, to undoing everything we stand for. But there is no mistaking his insincerity; he can (and will) talk until his orange face turns blue, but he is neither interested nor capable of lifting anyone up but himself. Again, this is not a gender issue, and most men I know are as offended by his words and deeds as I am. 

In the end, though, it takes a woman. A strong, bright, beautiful woman, kind of like the women I call my friends. "My girls," always ready with hugs -- and a bottle of wine and some chocolate -- to lift me up over the hurdles and nurse my wounds if I get cut by the glass. Kudos to Michelle, and, in all fairness, a shout out to the not too shabby guy who stands behind her. 

Land of My (Surp)rising Son

Seen one shrine, seen 'em all. Not really, except maybe to my untrained eye.

On this, my fourth trip to Japan, I travelled within a much smaller radius than I had in the past. And, for the first time, I felt at home in this faraway place, a place my son calls home, at least for now.

For the first time, I did not make it to Tokyo, though everyone has told me I must see the fish market. I did not make it to Kyoto, though I have been known to tout it as a fascinating and picturesque juxtaposition of ancient and modern Japanese culture. No Hiroshima, which has taken my breath away several times, and no Nagasaki -- still to be checked off on my bucket list.

For the first time, I visited Japan in the fall, not during one of my son's summer vacations. The oppressive heat of August was gone, as was the awkwardness of descending upon my grown son while he juggled the temporary disappearance of his normal schedule and the temporary intrusion of a jet-lagged mother trying to make the most of every moment on her journey halfway around the world.

Left to my own devices for a couple of days, I wandered the streets of Kobe alone, learning about the city in the way our kids first figure out the layout of their neighborhood when they get their drivers' licenses. I walked when I could, took taxis or trains when I had to, becoming increasingly familiar with the ever changing neighborhoods. I took wrong turns, and experimented with paths not yet taken. I overcame my abject fear of gesticulating wildly in an attempt to communicate with people who have no reason to speak English.

And when I spent time with my son, it reminded me of what it used to be like, when we would share mundane moments together, doing ordinary things. We played tennis in the rain. We compared notes on how startling it was to be caught in an earthquake, each of us in different locations somewhere not too far (in the grand scheme of things) from the epicenter. We ate greasy hamburgers outside a non-descript shack in a Kobe suburb, and enjoyed countless delicious and inexpensive meals in crowded, seemingly nameless joints in the heart of the city. I met his friends, watched his band play. I did not set foot in a shrine or a temple, did not purchase any souvenirs.

On my last day, I visited the school where my son works. I met the young children who adore him, the coworkers who respect him for his competency and have no idea he once tried to boil an unopened Pepsi can while he was supposed to be watching his younger sister. I relished being Matt's "mommy," wanted to explain to the children who, at first, eyed me with suspicion, that he is my baby, my little boy. That I used to drop him off and pick him up at school, that I am as thrilled each time I  catch sight of him now, when he is 26 years old, as I was when he was their age. I wanted to tell them that he wasn't always so tall and lean.

I leave with light luggage after a shopping free week, counterbalanced by a heavy heart. I hate that I won't see him again for months, and that we will both slip comfortably into our own lives, where my daytime is his nighttime, and where it just isn't easy to share a mundane thought or an ordinary, inconsequential laugh. But, having seen him as he lives and works over there, I can't help but feel proud, and even a little happy that he is in a place so magical, doing such good things.

A Fish out of Water

Only for my son would I stand at a tiny wooden table, much of it protruding onto a busy sidewalk, popping fleshy little slices of mystery fish into my mouth. No thick pillow of rice to mute the taste, no neat seaweed packaging to disguise the shimmer of a life lived all too recently. Well, I'd do it for my daughters, too, but that kind of dare would be utterly inconsistent with their vegetarian palates.

It's my fourth visit to Japan in so many years. I have been here for a little more than 12 hours, and though my body craves dinner, I have only just eaten breakfast. My son is not with me now; with nothing to prove, I happily passed on the offerings of raw fish and stewed fish and fried fish and things that just looked fishy at the buffet and zeroed in on more familiar fare -- eggs, bread, bacon, fruit, and coffee. Note to self: skip the bacon next time. Maybe I've just been spoiled by the maple glazed slabs I had in St. Louis a few weeks ago.

It should come as a surprise to nobody who knows me even a little that my first official post from Japan is all about the food. It's always about the food, even when it's not. After sheepishly returning three times to the buffet to double and triple down on the croissants and onion loaves -- everything here, not only the shoes, is doll-sized -- a sign next to a tiny toaster caught my eye. Himeji almond toast. A specialty from the little town of Himeji, a town that never seems to make the cut on western maps.

Oddly, I had just been thinking about Himeji (bet that's something most of you have never said). Yes, I had just been thinking about Himeji as I read the newspaper and watched one kimono clad large Japanese man after the other emerge from the hotel elevator, feet swollen around flip flops and hair pulled up into a tight bun. What a difference a day makes. On my last visit to my suburban Starbucks, I had stared at amazement at an impressive albeit run of the mill boob job. Note to self: you ain't seen nothin'.  Yawn.

Anyway, Himeji. Himeji is noteworthy for an ancient castle that somehow survived devastating air raids in June and July of 1945, just before the atomic bombs were dropped nearby on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is noteworthy for a modest memorial to the victims of those World War II air raids and a museum documenting the carnage of war in the area during the 1940`s. And it is noteworthy, to me, because my son lived and worked there during his first year in Japan, and it is the first place I visited here. In the three years since, he has lived in Kobe, a city a bit closer to Chicago geographically as well as culturally, though still worlds away on both counts.

For four years, though, my son has held out on me. He never told me about Himeji almond toast. I agonized for a moment, feeling conspicuous in my Caucasian skin and after downing enough miniature croissants to feed a Japanese family for a week, but finally decided I had to give it a try. I followed the instructions next to the tiny toaster carefully: select a slice of bread, cover with almond butter in the dish below (I read that as slather), toast until slightly brown on top, and enjoy. I have always had a soft spot for Himeji, but I suddenly have a yen (ha) to go back.

But, alas, there is much to see and do right here in Kobe. As luck would have it, I realized when I arrived I had screwed up my hotel reservation -- right chain, wrong city -- but I managed to cancel it for a small fee and book myself into a surprisingly nice place in a section of Kobe I have never fully explored. As I strolled through the area last night with my son, he warned me there was not much to do. He said this as we passed a gleaming Gucci store on our left, Chanel and Hermes just across the street. As Donald's third ex-wife says (and forgive me if I paraphrase), boys will be boys. So silly.

The day is my own today, to get some work done and maybe do some exploring in the awful area surrounding my hotel. My son is worried I'll be bored. Only for him would I make such sacrifices -- standing around popping chunks of fish flesh and popping in and out of designer boutiques. A mother's love runs deep.

A Flight of Fancy

Thirteen years ago yesterday, my son became a bar mitzvah. He was in the midst of a growth spurt, and the sleeves of the tuxedo jacket he had been fitted for only a month earlier did not quite cover his forearm.

Today, armed with instructions to obtain his measurements for a tuxedo for his sister’s wedding, I am off to Japan to visit that same son. He is years past his last physical growth spurt, but still, I wonder if I will hesitate when I first see him. It has been ten months since we have been together, and so much has changed, for both of us. Small changes, for the most part, but the kinds of changes that can reveal themselves in our faces, if we pay attention.  In Japan, though, it will be easy for us both to pick each other out of a crowd. A tall young white man with unruly hair and green eyes, and a short middle aged woman without any pretense of cool stoicism and with feet far too large to squeeze into locally made shoes.

This is my fourth trip to Japan. I am flying solo, without either of my daughters to tote me around as if I were an unruly toddler with an uncanny instinct to slow things down and walk the wrong way. I feel a tad self-satisfied, knowing I will manage, on my own, to navigate the somewhat familiar but increasingly mystifying world in which my son lives. I aim low; mostly, my goal is to get where I need to be without offending anybody or losing my internet connection.

I cannot help but wonder whether by sheer virtue of my Americanism I will be viewed with suspicion when I land on the other side of the world. In a society where a distinct ethnicity creates at least an appearance of an absence of the sort of diversity that inspires prejudice,’will the pervasive crassness of our political season, the loud voices of a vocal minority (I hope) of people who hate or mistrust anybody who is not like them, make me unwelcome? Does my son ever feel ostracized or misjudged by association? Will every polite bow be counterbalanced by a raised eyebrow? I cannot help but wonder.

As I often do when I am in Japan, I will feel as awkward as, say, a thirteen year old boy in an ill-fitting tuxedo. Or, frankly, a 26 year old young man being fitted for a tuxedo for his sister’s wedding. Our reunion will, at first, be just as awkward. But, though the place itself will always remain unfamiliar and a bit intimidating, it should not take long for us — my son and me — to reacquaint. No matter what he wears, no matter what he says, and no matter how comfortably at home he seems in such a faraway place, he is still the boy who grew before my very eyes, who could be unrecognizable from one moment to the next but, underneath it all, the same.

He lives a world away but always in my heart, a virtual hug away. My arms are as long as they need to be.

Reaching Across the Aisle

I was raised to be a die hard Mets fan. 

The baseball itself was secondary. I loved our family outings to Shea Stadium -- the old guys with the orange mittens to wipe off our pale yellow seats, the regulars a few rows in front of us who showed up at every game, armed with signs, the hot dogs and pizza that dulled my disinterest in the game.  On school nights, I would disappear into my room to do "homework" with one eye on the little Sony television my dad had gotten through some bank promotion. No hot dogs, but still, the Mets were my team. 

The loyalty barriers in New York are a not as sharply defined as geographical divide between Cubs and Sox fans, but I don't recall knowing any Yankees fans. For years I thought there were only two kinds of beer -- Reingold at Shea ("my beer, the dry beer"), and my father's green bottles of Heineken at home. And my brother was the coolest big brother ever, with his weathered mitt at the ready and his laser focus on entering every stat in the free program. More hot dogs for me. 

My thinking on a lot of things has changed over the years, but despite having lived most of my adult life in Chicago, and even acknowledging a split in my loyalties, I still refer to myself as a Mets fan. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. The sparkling Citifield may have good eats, but it doesn't hold a candle to the old, gritty Shea. I can still remember the '69 roster, but probably couldn't name a 2016 Met without phoning a friend. I can still taste the hot dogs, still hear my mother warning me I was going to get sick. 

This year, though, I am feeling the pull of my post-childhood nostalgia, stoked, to be sure, by the Mets' untimely elimination. I can still hear the not too distant roar from Wrigley Field outside my apartment on Chicago's north side. I remember the excitement of attending the first night game. As always, the baseball itself was secondary. It was more about the hot dogs, and even more about the news I had received that day, that I was pregnant with my first child. A child who, coincidentally, has always had Cubbie blood running through her veins. A child who is flying in this Sunday to attend a post season game, with me. 

Sure, I am excited about the game, and the prospect of the Cubs finally winning the World Series, and even the hot dogs. I can and will embrace the Cubs without ambivalence. But forgive me if it's not really about the baseball, and mostly about spending this day with the young lady who, 28 years ago, as a small cluster of cells filled with endless possiblity, attended the first night game with me, her dad, and her uncle, the die hard Mets fan who has always found a place in his heart for his nieces' and nephew's beloved team.  

Endless possibility. That little cluster of cells has exceeded my wildest dreams. Maybe this year, Cubs fans, my adopted team will do the same. 

Don't Look Down

Gaze is up. I heard my yoga instructor's gentle reminder each time I lowered and lifted myself through chaturanga, the breath driven transition between upside down and right side up. Still, my head hung like a bowling ball, my gaze fixed somewhere between my naval and my toes.

Transitions are never easy. The Jewish High Holidays are here, again, falling  -- by design -- during that odd period of seasonal equinox. Those neither here nor there days, when light equals dark, when the waning sunshine outside beckons for last hurrahs and the un-airconditioned cool inside beckons for an early jump on hunkering down. My closet feels the tug-of-war between summer and winter as I place sandals and tank tops tantalizingly out of reach and bring boots and sweaters to the forefront. My outerwear, my inner thoughts, it seems, all coexist in an awkward alliance to carry me through from Point A to Point B.

Gaze is up. I was still contemplating my naval, no matter how many times she said it. Though it did not feel quite right, it felt safe. I could tell she was singling me out when she said it,  but I ignored her, content to look down until I was ready not to. Yoga is about looking inward, not gazing up, dammit.

Yoga is also about letting all your thoughts go, which is something I have been unable to master in the almost twelve years since I embraced the practice. A reluctant convert, I became addicted to the idea of a mind/body connection, but have always struggled with the concept of leaving my stresses outside the door with my shoes. At least, while I am on the mat in the yoga studio, there is no CNN.

The quiet and contented camaraderie among yogis is a welcome diversion for me, particularly these days. And particularly on this day, Yom Kippur, when I cannot help but think back to, well, everything -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I cannot help but think ahead, hoping for a lot less of the bad and the ugly in the coming year, which doesn't seem too much to ask after a year in which the bar has been set pretty low for many of us. It's not that I don't recognize or appreciate the extent of my good fortune; I'm just a bit selfish.

Nice Lisa!!! Halfway through the class, I decided it was time to lift my gaze, and it was duly noted. I smiled at my yoga instructor, who encourages but never chastises, and I somehow drew my thoughts away from my naval. Fasting is not in my repertoire, but penitence is; I will give up non-stop election coverage for a day. And I will contemplate how we all got from there to here, and will think about how best to get from here to there, as we all coexist in a fragile and awkward alliance through breathtaking transitions. 

When the Circus Comes to Town (Hall)

They say bad things come in threes. 

Last night, while many Americans watched what was billed as a town hall debate between two human beings seeking the presidency, I screwed up and watched a circus. A three ring circus. A very bad three ring circus. 

There were lots of elephants in the room -- with no offense intended to elephants. Most horrifying was the untamed elephant in chief, empowered by the freedom of having nothing to lose, running amok and spewing venom and stalking his enemy like a rabid tiger. I searched for the remote, wondering where the debate was. 

Threes. Three women who had long ago very publicly accused the elephant's opponent's husband of sexual advances, and who have long hated his wife for not reacting well to their plight. Never mind her plight, or the fact that that particular circus rolled out of town a long time ago. Never mind that displaying these women like, well, circus animals, is abusive in its own right. Maybe this wasn't a circus. Maybe this was a National Geographic special, a virtual safari with the animals coming right up to the window, pressing their noses into my living room, wondering why we were all staring at them. 

Threes. The holy trinity of role models -- Hassan Rouhani, Bashar al-Assad, Vlad. The ones we can count on to obliterate ISIS. Huh? Threes. The elephant's heroes. I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do. I have tremendous respect for women. If you repeat it three times, it must be true. She'll be in jail. He only said it once, but that was enough. When I was flipping channels, had I missed our descent into third world authoritarianism? 

Three zillion. The number of times he used the word disaster, which is one of his three favorite words. The others are "bigly" and "massively." Compelling. 

When the circus ended -- I never found the town hall debate -- three CNN commentators told me, in rapid succession, that Trump did well. I was watching something else, so I'll just have to take their word for it. 

Poll Dancing

Someone told me there's a new poll out there: can a woman be funny and beautiful?

First of all, Duh! Hellooooo! 

I haven't bothered to check on the results -- what little faith I have in polls was pretty much obliterated when I found out Mike Pence "won" the vice presidential debate -- but it occurred to me that many folks would say no. That funny and beautiful do not go together, that they cannot coexist on the same double helix.

Worse still -- as if ignorance isn't scary enough -- if the nays have it, reputable news anchors would suggest it is so, that beauty and humor are mutually exclusive, and that only beasts can make you laugh. Scary indeed, and so not funny.

We live in a world where a pig (no offense intended to pigs) is within a snout's length of the White House, and where a smarmy politician who advocates discrimination in the name of religious freedom can lie and deflect on a national stage without spewing green vomit, without leaving a single strand of hair out of place, and be deemed a winner. Where a guy who claims he is a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order, seems unable to channel anything other than political ambition.  Well, except when it comes to real issues, the things that threaten our very way of life, like gay marriage. And stem cell research.

I only have a handful of true friends, but I've met lots of women over the years -- lots of beautiful women who have made me laugh. Laugh not in the way that, say, some grown men might laugh in a locker room (which is a euphemism for anywhere), but in that full-throated way that makes me put life in perspective and gets me through hot flashes and reminds me not to sweat the small stuff. Like back fat, and wrinkles, and gravity. The women in my life are all beautiful -- sometimes in that traditional, photogenic way, but always, I think, because they make me laugh, and think. And because they enrich my world, even if only for a moment.

Can a woman be funny and not beautiful? I think not. No margin of error.

Made in America

My daughter felt compelled to tell me, yesterday, that because she had failed to "mind the gap" between the train and the platform, she made quite an entrance onto the Metro. Mon Dieu! An American in Paris.

As soon as I realized she had actually made it on to the train -- albeit gracelessly -- and not slipped through the gap, I chuckled. That's my girl. Why not be the person people notice when you walk into a room, even if you have to do a face plant to get everyone's attention.

There's a new Parisian in America. In suburban Midwestern America. She has swept into our little town, ever mindful of the gap between her and the rest of us, the ones who are far more likely to attract attention for face plants than grace. Bonjour, bonjour. I marvel at her entrance at our Starbucks each morning. Without spilling a drop of the foamy brew in the mug she has brought from home, she bends to dispense continental double kisses to the regulars. She is reed thin and tall, taller still in her three inch wedges. She is stylish no matter what she wears; her outfits are calculated, whether built around sweats or a leather jacket.

The men are smitten, and I am fascinated. Okay, maybe a little bit smitten. With her arrival I have become a tad more invisible, which is a good thing, I think, as I gaze down at my early morning get-up and vaguely recall the tired look on the face that gazed back at me from my bathroom mirror. Mon Dieu, indeed. As overwhelmed as I am with "chic envy," I want her to stay. Her je ne sais quoi is infectious, somehow. I find myself retrieving what little high school French I have managed to retain, and I pinch my cheeks to give my decidedly "un-chic" Brooklynese a French flare. I hold my chin up a little higher. I imagine that the distinctly American sludge in my disposable cup is a lukewarm cafe au lait. I cannot help but wonder whether our new neighbor's je ne sais quoi fades into something more predictable and mundane when she is back in Paris, on her own turf.

My daughter can pass for French on the outside, at least before she speaks. Boarding the Metro, she could easily blend. But Parisians can wear high heels and balance uncovered mugs of steaming cafe while they bend to dispense kisses. My daughter, like me, can be wearing gym shoes and carrying nothing and still walk into walls and stumble over our own feet. Which may not be all that impressive here in suburban Chicago, but can sure make us stand out in Paris.

By the time I visit my daughter in Paris next month, she will no doubt have assimilated a bit more. She might sound French, and she might even know how to walk gracefully onto a train, feet first. She remains, however, vigorously defensive of her American-ness, no small feat at a time when a strange man with cotton candy hair has fueled a widespread misconception that we are, all of us, irrevocably crass. Our stumbles and pratfalls notwithstanding, I like to think we are not all that bad.

She will learn to mind -- or not to mind -- the gap. But there ain't nothing better than good old-fashioned American je ne sais quoi. 

Three Cheers for Monday Night Football

Last night, I became a football fan.

Nobody refused to honor our flag. No kneeling, no fists raised defiantly against our national anthem. Nobody took advantage of their employers' very public letterhead to denigrate the things that symbolize our hard fought greatness and our best intentions. Nope. Instead, every member of two football teams locked arms in a circle of solidarity, speaking volumes in one silent gesture about what is right with our country, and how we can make it better.

Like a lot of football fans, though, I switched over to the great debate, the Superbowl of America's newest spectator sport that is the 2016 presidential election. The culmination of a seemingly endless flag burning in which we have chosen to take seriously a candidate who denigrates everything and everybody and values only himself. For ninety minutes, I entertained myself by sharing incredulity in multiple text conversations and trading audible gasps and occasional punches in the shoulder with my viewing companion.

Here's why I am a newly minted football fan:
(1) some awkward and tasteless attempts to make a point have led to soul searching and even some better ways to make a point; and
(2) even though one team will win and one team will lose, both opponents know how to play.

And to think I used to be troubled by W's grammatical issues. Or a little bit of pandering here and there. Oh, how I yearn for the dignity of old fashioned politics and strange bedfellows. How did we get here? As I drove past Springfield, Illinois yesterday on my way home from St. Louis, I nodded in silent apology toward Lincoln's profile on a billboard.

The biggest difference between Mark Cuban and Gennifer Flowers is not that Mark Cuban is still good looking. This a season of false equivalencies and non sequiturs, and I hate myself for paying attention. My only explanation? Fear, with a healthy dose of despair.

I am learning to love football. Big League.*

*In all fairness, he did not, as many of us thought, use the word "bigly." That would be silly. 

Sittin' at the Ritz

I had a dream the other night that my father, who would be turning 97 next month, was driving me around in his Cadillac. He was as nimble as ever behind the wheel, his senses as sharp and his reflexes as quick as they always were.

It's always good to see him. Every time, we laugh about how the doctors told him he didn't have long, and here he is twenty years after they said that, full of life, with no end in sight. The joke's on me, a little bit, when I wake up and realize he's not here, but still, I'm grateful for the visit.

This weekend, an old friend's son is getting married. I am remembering the kindergarten playground, tucked away on its own side of the building, away from the bigger kids. The start of my life in suburbia, still alien to a girl who grew up in concrete playgrounds without jungle gyms resting in beds of wood chips. My children would grow up protected, in a place designed to soften their falls.

We hovered over them back then, when they were in kindergarten, before we had any clue about how they would turn out. No clue, just lots of dreams. We hovered less as the years went by, but still we watched, and raked the wood chips, and prayed for soft landings.

They are starting to get married now, those kindergartners in the playground on the safe side of the building. I search their faces, all these years later, often struggling to match them up with their younger selves. I laugh when I think about how important everything seemed back then: timed multiplication tests, birthday party snubs, spelling bees. My friend and I reminisced last night about the word that knocked his son off the stage one year. Background. We wondered, that day, how he would amount to anything when he couldn't even spell background. Somehow, he has managed.

This is new territory for us parents, those of us lucky enough to be launching our children into this next phase. We revel in each others happiness almost as much as we revel in our own. We are as powerless as we were back then, in the schoolyard, but we still watch and hover and hope for the best. And we hope that our children have not yet figured out how powerless we really are. (Stupid, yes; powerless, no.) As grown up and independent as they seem, I like to think they still believe we can help soften blows. I still count on my father, who visits me in my dreams and still manages to make things see all right.

Up for Grabs

Fall of 1976. Freshman year, my first college football game. Though I'd venture to say we lost, I could not tell you who we played. Still, the memory remains vivid.

Security guards back then worried about the little things. Literally. Like me, the little thing who suddenly got hoisted into the air by her new sophomore (and sophomoric) friends and passed up to the top of the stands, handed off from one row of outstretched arms to the next, gripped and grabbed by total strangers. The original deflated football. When my nightmarish journey finally ended -- the guys in the back row were at least sober enough to let me down rather than toss me over the back railing to my death -- the security guard at the top lectured me about how I shouldn't do that. It's dangerous he told me. Today's me would have said something sarcastic; that day, all I could muster up was a blank stare. 

I soon realized why passing girls up the stands had become a pastime at my school, the school whose football team regularly jockeyed for position at the bottom of the Ivy League. The only school in the League whose marching band had missed the memo about not taking itself so seriously, a school where football was simply a good excuse to enjoy a beautiful fall afternoon in upstate New York before the early snows fell. Where the massive stadium was only filled to capacity one day a year -- graduation day. Assuming the snow had melted by then. 

Today, I am in Ann Arbor, sporting maize and blue nail polish, and I am going to the Big House for the first time. My first Big Ten football game. A non-Michigan grad among thousands who, as one friend who went here admits, never stop drinking the maize and blue Kool-aid. I am a little nervous. Not about reliving the nightmare of my first college football game -- the folks I am with, no matter how vigilant they are about their workouts, would have no interest in throwing their backs out just to grab and grope a squishy 56 year old. I am nervous about my historical lack of school spirit, my lifelong lack of enthusiasm for football. About how I will fit in. 

I am nervous because it is supposed to rain all day, and not going to the game (or the hours long tailgate beforehand) is not an option. I am nervous because my perfectly blown dry hair will be soaked, reduced to frizzy strings, which would not ordinarily bother me, except I am paying a visit to my mother-in-law tomorrow. Ex-mother-in-law? I'm not sure what the proper term is. 

Though I have never been to the Big House, the long drive to this neck of the woods is hardly unfamiliar. I came here every Christmas, and every summer, and many times in between. My oldest child learned to walk in a hotel room in Kalamazoo, where we were stranded by a snow storm. I spent every July Fourth holiday at a cottage in Canada, celebrating my Scottish mother-in-law's birthday and watching fireworks across the lake in Ohio. The Irish Riviera, we called it. I liked to think of it as our family's version of a compound. I learned to love Steak n Shakes, toured the cereal factory in Battle Creek, knew which McDonalds' had the cleanest bathrooms. 

It's been years since I last made this journey, or saw my mother-in-law. Ex-mother-in-law. We had been friendly and close, but life got in the way and, almost like being passed up the stands, though it wasn't my fault, I feel as if I am somehow to blame. Or, at least, that it was a bad idea -- no matter whose idea it was. 

I am hoping she remembers me, hoping she doesn't make any comments about how much older I look, or how bad my rained out hair looks. I am hoping for the outstretched arms that always awaited me after that long drive. But first, Go Blue!!!!

Lost in the Weed

Acronyms are fun. I was thinking about "S.H.I.T." as an acronym recently, and, for "i,"  I came up with "irrevocably spongy." A revelation about the state of my body going forward, and my new excuse for giving up on exercise.

A.L.E.P.P.O. "A" is for "Are you high?" As in Gary Johnson, riding in on his independent and self-righteous white horse to save us from our other choices, looking like a deer in headlights when he was asked what he would do about Aleppo. Not because he wasn't sure what he would do, but because he had no idea what it was. 

"L" is for "Oh Lord!" I admit, when I listen to friends and family members agonize over fantasy football picks I feel woefully ignorant when I don't recognize most of the names. I admit it: I am ineligible; I cannot participate. I admit I don't know the names of every world leader and I find it difficult to keep track of the ever-shifting borders in the Balkan States. It's just one of many reasons I'm not running for president. 

"E" is for "Ex-lax brownies?" Johnson claims he has not smoked weed for months, which is commendable, I suppose, but if he wants to save face without contradicting himself, he might want to blame it on some laced desserts. I'm willing to bet his little snafu sent him on more than a few trips to the bathroom, so it's an airtight defense.

"P" is for "Pathetic." The other "P" is for "Poopy." The metaphorical kind of poopy, as in this was probably the most pathetic moment in an altogether poopy election season. A poopy and pathetic and particularly unprecedented unpresidential presidential election. If the immediate past is any predictor, Johnson's poll numbers will probably get a boost. "P" is for "puzzling."

"O." "OMG." I'm moving to "Oaxaca" for the summer, and "Ontario" for the winter. How I yearn for the end of October, when this will all be almost over.

Back to my "S.H.I.T." acronym. Here's hoping the country is tougher than my body, and the damage isn't "irrevocable." 

A La Carte

Wednesday arrives, my new friend told us, and sometimes I just think where are those damn women?She is ninety years old, my new friend (and soon to be family member). Those damn women are her two sisters, her two older sisters, both of whom passed away this year, within a few months of each other. 

Roz doesn't look like she's ninety, certainly doesn't act like she's ninety, except to the extent that she pulls rank on all of us and makes us follow her rules, at least when we are in her home. She is an accomplished cook, an impeccable hostess, and a self-proclaimed chocolate addict; only a fool would turn down an invitation to lunch at Roz's. Even when I know she will ask me, every time, how I managed to have two such beautiful daughters. Rare good luck. That's her current theory. She is smart as a whip, a probably right.

Wielding a sharp knife with shaking hands, she demonstrated for us how she single-handedly transformed a bowl full of radishes into a bouquet of intricately cut flowers. She assigned us our seats around a table set for royalty, and disappeared for a while into her small kitchen to prepare individual plates for her assorted vegetarian and lactose intolerant and unabashedly omnivorous (that would be me) guests. Obeying instructions, we did not even attempt to help, even as she emerged, holding one precariously tipped plate at a time, to serve us. 

The ostensible recklessness of the sharp knife and the radishes notwithstanding, Roz is acutely aware of her age-related limitations, but still, they continue to surprise her. She told me once that she doesn't know how she got to this place, to being ninety and unable to do things as well or as quickly as she once could. I get what she's saying, though when I look at the bouquet of radish flowers I imagine that a younger, unlimited Roz must have been quite a force of nature. At fifty-six, were I to attempt even a fraction of her culinary or vegetable paring feats, I would be missing at least a few fingers and sporting at least a few third degree burns. 

Though nobody, least of whom Roz, was caught by surprise by the passing of her two older sisters, the pain of the loss hangs heavily over Roz's beautiful table. On our way down for lunch, my daughters and my future son-in-law and I talked about family and staying close and about how fleeting everything is. We are still reeling from the excruciating and untimely loss of somebody dear to us, and we find ourselves, still, holding on to those we love with a bit more urgency. We know how quickly life can change, and we know not to take things, people, or time for granted. We are afraid to blink, sometimes. 

In Roz's eyes, we are relatively young, my children and I. We cannot possibly imagine what it's like to blink and realize nobody lasts forever. She had a good run, we say, as if that kind of conventional wisdom somehow diminishes the hole left by a friend or a parent or a sister who has always been there and now just is not. And as acutely aware as Roz is of the inevitability of loss and limitation, she is just as acutely aware, if not more so, of new gains and new possibilities. She is excited about her grandson's upcoming wedding to my daughter, thrilled that her family, recently shrunken, is about to grow again. 

My baby is off to Paris today for a semester, and there's a chunk of me that wants to handcuff her to her bed and make her miss her flight. I felt the same way when my son left for Japan, and I will feel the same way when my older daughter and her fiance return to New York on Monday. I feel the same way each time I let any of them go. I will simply learn to channel my inner Roz, who never ceases to find joy in the good stuff. I will make flowers out of radishes.