The Trip South

The road trip with the weary 10 year old van with no air-conditioning in 90* weather was a success! I did not need to call AAA, I did not need to stop a drive-by tourist and ask for help along the way, I did not call any of my 11 married children, 2 single sons, or even my daughter with a boyfriend who is promising her a ring!! NOPE! Not me and my van, we needed nobody at all, just that car radio,my windows rolled down and an occasional cup of McDonald's new and improved coffee!!



Motivation was strong-I had not seen my bobbing beauties since March at their 2 year birthday party where Elmo came to life before I had a chance to say Sesame Street! Happily, when I arrived after these 10 hours on the road, the little sweeties didn't care about Elmo at all and Dolls Baby Caroline and Baby Abigail have taken his place. I was a clearly called 'Grammy' and they took to me after only a few hours of grinning and bribing.

Grandchildren are my current favorite topic of conversation, but I have noticed that rarely does another grandmother ask about someone else's babies. I haven't completely figured the politics of this out yet, since Eliot is a mere 7 years old, but I think it may be becoming clear. Recently I heard Democratic Presidential candidate-to- be Barak Obama say he was raised by his single grandmother and she was the most important person in his young life. Clear as Saran Wrap I realized that all of these grandmothers are potential future Presidential Hopefuls Acceptance Speeches waiting to happen!! They must remain loyal to their grandchild until the time is ripe for his or her(now that Hillary has made it an unremarkable event) candidacy!
Asking about MY grandchildren may be cause for mixed messages!!


In the meantime, I also have noted that since I have 10 (ten) grandchildren, women in particular sigh with great relief once this statistic is mentioned. It seems, and I almost missed it during the course of my children giving birth , in particular in 2006 when 4 daughters had 6 children in the same year, the more grandchildren there are, the less stress you cause people!! They don't NEED to ask the names and ages of the kids because clearly you have more than your fair share and certainly you can't even recall the names of the latest ones, let alone their birth dates and ages. Heaven Forbid you should be audacious enough to remember Their grandchildren and inquire about them by name!

All this was to say that when I drove to North Carolina to visit Isabel and Ava, desperate to hold them in my achingly empty arms after a long 5 months since I had seen them, barely a clamor was made when I returned as to how the trip was, how much had my grand babies grown, did I have recent pictures? etc...! I felt the reality sharply this afternoon at work when I asked my co-working friend how her trip to see her only nephew had been last week. She gave intimate details and promised me pictures to see, and smiled radiantly and readied to depart, as if I had not mentioned more than once how I was similarly excited to see my twin granddaughters on the trip to North Carolina last week,sharing the idea that we could compare notes upon our return. Hmmm, it would seem she forgot I went.


The joy of Blogging is that I can tell someone somewhere that those two little sweethearts in North Carolina are as unique and delightful as any Grammy could
imagine.The hours on the highway, sitting alone in high volume hot traffic as I crawled around Washington DC , snapping random photos as I went by impressive monuments very far away,(see it?)
was worth every second to hear them say 'come here Grammy'. Listening to Isabel recite the alphabet to me saying 'Elmo Pee' when we got quickly to LMNOP, then grinning madly as if it were our best kept secret in the world! or Ava saying to me, 'let me see dat picture Grammy' when I posed her for yet one more picture to take home with me, these were the moments I drove for. After all, the pictures are my memories, the pictures are the tangible pieces of these babies that I can touch and hold when my arms feel so empty, alone watching the Democratic Convention and realizing that maybe it will be Isabel that will tell America her Grammy was special or Ava as somebody's choice for Vice President.
Now that I am thinking of it, Eliot has that somber yet intelligent way about thinking things through, he is a very smart 7 year old...and Simon, well anyone who knows anything can see he will go far with that sassy sense of humor and sly little grin , ...and Jesse, oh my is he ever the smart one with 2 sisters below him and 2 brothers older than him -he is already learning to be an independent thinker. Nora has the power at 3 to keep 3 brothers at bay so certainly she is a contender for the Presidency! and Bianca , well, Bianca is amazing at 22 months, let alone as she grows into a woman. I have never seen anyone so stubborn at such a young age, and that can be a good thing.


Ethan is charming and quiet, rarely getting riled up at age 2, the temperament of his dad, the Independence of his mommy.

Aidan is so well loved at 21 months and so gentle in spirit we need a President of his calibre,or perhaps Evelyn can be President and Aidie can be her Vice president because they really work well as a team.




Suddenly I realized another important fact and I almost missed it! I was dreaming of my 10 grandchildren in the future, seeing how easily their names flowed from my mind onto paper, ages, faces, dates of birth as if by magic, when before my eyes came the faces and ages and birthdates of my children! I was blessed with 7(seven) and now 4 are married so I consider 4 more to be mine as well, and none of them is even old enough , by typical standards to be President yet! There is still time for my children to proclaim to the world that their MOM was the wisest person they knew, the one who inspired them for better things, the one to whom they turn when life gets complicated...oh my, so many possibilities are ahead. I believe the odds are definitely in my favor , so no wonder nobody wants to ask how MY Children/grandchildren are. Jealousy. That's all it is.

Summer, half over! or is it half still to come?

There is a saying that there are 3 good things to being a teacher...June, July and August!

Having just lived happily through June and July and beginning August with a trip to see my Isabel and Ava ready to begin , I may agree. It has been about the slowest and most leisurely summer I have experienced in years, and I am certain the remainder will be just as lovely. When I realized that there was still another month left until work officially begins, i.e. school starts, I thought that perhaps I had the dates wrong. How could this be when I have already read 6 novels, 2 self-help books and have 2 more laying on the nightstand on the 'reading now' list?

My summer began with the two week vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey and graduation party. That rolled into a decidedly casual month at home, alternating between watching grandson Ethan, scrapbooking, driving to Boyertown to chase twins around their back yard,taking a kazillion pictures, and taking one grandson at a time for his official "Grammy time alone" overnight. Eliot and Grammy watched the movie Wall-E,
Simon and Grammy went to the Hagley Museum
and Jesse and Grammy watched Animal Planet on TV and had Friendly's Restaurant food.



As I was writing that paragraph(and I am not kidding here!) the phone rang and a soft voice said "Grammy, hi, I am excited about my turn to come overnight" It seems maybe the granddaughters are getting equal time since Nora seemed pretty sure she was packing her blankie and pillow in her new birthday suitcase and coming here -today. As I weaseled my way out of that dilemma, my heart nearly burst with happiness that these little creatures want to come see me and spend time here!!
Guess who piped in her hello shortly after Nora said Bye? Bianca Margot ready to participate!



Well , what was the point of this particular Scribbling Session? My Summer! The wonder of time standing still and being so Daily rather than rapidly speeding by leaving me and my lists and plans in it's wake.
I have reached the age when I look back over the years past and am able to say , well I did OK, I worked hard and I prayed harder, the agenda of raising children is over and the husband is gone. I can just BE. Just me, just Be. My Year of Jubilee!

I think I am looking forward to the second half of my summer, marking time by taking pictures of beautiful people I love and flowers I stop and smell, by eating fast food if I feel like it or skipping lunch and replacing it with a Grande Latte if I so please. Maybe I won't read any more self-help books at all and instead I'll read Shakespeare. OK, well that isn't going to happen, but at least I am considering such out of character options!

The one thing I wish could still happen is for me to become brave, take risks, go out on a limb without imagining the loud crack of a branch breaking...I was sure it would come this Year as I celebrate the single life, the Jubilant Year, the barriers being torn down. Thus far it isn't happening, but one risk I am willing to take and I'll let you know how it turns out. That is the risk of driving my minivan with no a/c all the way to North Carolina in weather that resembles the desert, alone, AAA fortified and camera chip ready to fill. That is what I call fun.

Happy Birthday Friend

Yesterday was the birthday of a Very Important Person!



She will never be written about in famous books, or seen on the evening news, unless she decides to throw a brick in her neighbor's window to keep the music from blaring through their paper thin row house walls. She is called friend by many and MOM by my three nephews by decree. We decreed a very long time ago that she would be Aunt Judy and I would be Aunt Sue to whomever we both ended up raising as children. It just seemed better that way.


She laughs so loudly that people often look at her and wonder what the joke is. Usually she is just amused at some mundane daily event and it has struck her as hilarious. One cannot help but join her in laughter because undoubtedly she has begun crying and rolling on her side by the time you figure out what the funny thing is....



Her name is Judy. I call her Meatball. You figure it out.

She and I have been Best Friends Forever(BFF), which in human years translates to before she was married and I was a young mother of 3. We both were attending the same church in Ithaca, New York where she went to college majoring in music and I was born and raised, majoring in motherhood. It was an odd friendship to start, she so young and silly coming from a really messy home life, and me the more mature and stable one with the normal background and family life.(well I thought so anyhow).
There would be no way we would be more than passing friends, I thought. How could we be? She is so immature, laughing all the time, screaming so loudly, acting so young.

Furthermore, one year as time plodded on and we would see each other occasionally, she asked if she could come to my daughter Becca's birthday party, Number 6 , as I recall. Even now I am remembering how much I was angered by her thoughtless and foolish forgetfulness. She came , to my daughter's Birthday Party, without the cake!! As I recall, she mumbled some apologetic words of nonsense and dashed away to the local supermarket and purchased the fanciest cake she could find, spending way too much money to be even remotely sensible and brought it back to the party grinning from ear to ear.


Why does a person become your BFF?



It is an interesting question and one that surprises me even as I think it through.

I am blessed with many good friends, many acquaintances, and even a larger than average batch of really, truly, special friends. But the BEST one? The one that you think of before your husband and children and family? The one that truly can annoy the living daylights out of you and yet you cannot bear to go through more than two life- altering events without asking her to hash out the nitty gritty details with you? You absolutely MUST see her SOON??!! And by life -altering I am talking about the wrong color of a dress you purchased on sale, or a missing coffee mug or a piece of juicy neighbor gossip you need to convey. That kind of life-altering.

When my husband told me he had decided he had made a mistake marrying me 7 years ago, Judy was the one I called sobbing into the phone to, after I walked out the front door and collapsed at the kitchen table of my daughter's house in shock and disbelief. "Really?", she quipped, so amazed that it only took him 30 years to fully realize this mistake...."He must be crazy or have gone insane or something!?" she screamed, "I'll come kill him! " Now that's a best friend.



Aunt Judy has never forgotten one of my children's birthdays intentionally. As all of the 7 children know full well, she may forget it, and probably will, unintentionally, but it makes it all the nicer. In her remembering she will outspend and out apologize anyone on the planet with the coolest most fashionable, most 'in' present the stores have to offer. She is the one who took the kids to see the latest movie, always buying the Large size popcorn and of course a Coke at the theater. She is the aunt who had to have the boys come for overnights so they could play the Nintendo games we couldn't afford to buy.



Judy loved my son Danny too.The Danny that died at age 9 months and a long 24 years ago, son. She was with me when he came home , babysitting our 4 children who we needed to leave suddenly in order to drive out to Pittsburgh and retrieve him within 24 hours from his birth mother. She was with me when we discovered he wasn't going to live any longer than February 1, 1984. She told me that day that because of Danny she and her husband were going to have a son and name him Danny someday(and they did) and she and her husband were going to adopt a handicapped child someday (and they did).



My BFF is outrageous. I am orderly and organized. She is disorderly and disorganized.
I buy cards, remember occasions, send people notes on time, write my newsletters and stamp them and send them off. Judy buys the cards, for sure, she buys the stamps, for sure, she remembers that friends and relatives have special days, to be sure. But she still has the stamps and cards and I know this because yesterday , at her party for her own birthday that she threw, I saw some of them. They were under the pile of papers I was looking through to find where she put the birthday napkins.

Oh, and speaking of Judy's Birthday Party....Judy called me yesterday morning and giggled, "want to come up for a birthday lunch today?" "Sure",said I, knowing I had blocked the day off for just such a last minute invite. After all, we have been friends for 30+ years and a BFF knows the ropes. " What shall I bring?" I foolishly queried. "Oh I am going to the store now and I have it covered, just bring Margie and her 5 kids!"


So we traveled to Great Aunt Judy's house, kids in tow, presents wrapped and ready, to a deliciously and lovingly prepared Birthday Lunch. We had appetizers because she loves appetizers, we had yummy food on birthday plates and napkins, and we had birthday cake that she had made when she awoke early at 4:00 am unable to sleep that morning. The kids bounced around her small row home, scampering past the piles of papers and unused stamps, digging out the special Hess trucks from Danny's bedroom, and chasing the cat(oh, she has my cat's kitten Sunny because I couldn't bear that he went to a stranger...)out from his hiding place.



Have you been able to tell yet why Judy is my BFF?
She is one in a million, she makes me laugh when I want to die and I have never ever heard her say a single negative thing about any member of my family, even when I want to kill them.
She's a keeper and I love her to pieces, even if I can't think of a single thing she was ever on time to. Being on time is overrated anyhow.