February's Flowers

They're purple and grey and green with a little orange and made of cotton. And they're sewn together with lots of love and a super soft minky backside. Then they're mailed to a city on the eastern seaboard, a city still cold and snowy and deep into winter. To my cousin Jodi who needs to know that her California cousins are thinking of her and wishing they were there to make her matzoh ball soup to nourish her during her chemo appointments.

For now February's flowers will have to do.

Moving Parts

I've not blogged much lately. We've been too busy living.

Here are some highlights:

Peter Kuper visited from Boston.
Since his wedding in Newport three summers ago, Peter has been busy overachieving in the child acquisition department. He and Sarah added one to the one he already had and their second will be born this summer. They also adopted a child in need. It's a wonderful story and I'd share it except that my keyboard will stop working with the amount of tears that fall every time I think about it. The only downside to Peter's much expanded family is that they will not be coming with us to Italy this summer. And that's a bummer because his oldest daughter is the same age as our gemelli and they have a blast together.

Kathy Lunetta visited from Boston.
Mark did the marathon then they were here for the week. I had dinner with them in the city. Note: even if you show up at Slanted Door right when it opens you have a snowball's chance in Siberia of getting a table. And I was dressed very well that night!

The Klevatts visited from Chicago. David is my first cousin and we grew quite close when I was in undergrad and he was in law school nearby. Maybe I took advantage of him because he was my escape when my roommates made me nuts? I dunno. I'm very fond of him. He has a wife and two daughters, roughly the same age as our own. His eldest daughter does classes at The Second City. If you do not know what that is, look it up fast and get yourself to Chicago pronto. David, my brother and my father have the same sense of humor. My abs are still sore from all that laughter.

Michael and Riley Mailman visited from LA. Yes, Mailman is really their last name. Spring Break = college tours. Michael and Dave met freshman year in the dorms. We warned Riley that the people you meet in college really do become your life-long friends. I look at Michael and see a 21-year-old.

There is still skiable snow at Tahoe and it irks me that I do not have time to get up there to enjoy it. I'm perhaps the only person in the Bay still doing a rain dance.

My client work is frenetic. And then my husband bought another publishing company, which I would like to participate in more than just listening to him talk about it for 30 seconds before I fall into my coma at night.

The rabbi at our synagogue (also known as The Cousin) is departing. I did not expect to take this as hard as I have. While he may no longer be the right rabbi for the larger part of our congregation, he was for us and now we've got some serious thinking to do about our affiliation. It's one more moving piece. All would be right in the world if his next job was at the synagogue two 'burbs north. But think that the rabbi there still has a few years in him. Oy!

I'm looking forward to the weekend, and to celebrating a family friend's Bat Mitzvah. I'll also be checking out that synagogue for future membership in a clandestine sort of way.

Bat Mitzvah - DONE!

It's Sunday night. The Superbowl crowd just left. It's just me, Dave and the kids in the house now, left with the memories of a fabulous simcha and a lot of mess.

This will be a short post as I need to pick up enough so that the housekeeper can do her job tomorrow.

In a nutshell, this weekend was everything we'd dreamed. Although I thought it would rain, as it does on all of our important family occasions (the day we were married, the days our children were born), it was in the mid 70s and sunny. To no one's surprise, Paris brought tears to our eyes on the bimah and was poised, gracious and thoughtful the rest of the weekend.

Of course we were thrilled for our daughter's religious milestone, becoming a Jewish adult. However, having the room filled with friends and extended family from as far away as Cayman and the east coast made the weekend incredibly special. Friends met friends. We sang, we danced, we ate. We laughed. We prayed. We tried to leave the world a better place. More on that in another post.

Biggest surprise: the number of 13-year-old boys who came up and introduced themselves to us, and thanked us for having them. Wow!

Tim Gunn would be proud.

The eight-year-olds turned nine this week and Liberty had a Project Runway birthday party!

The Challenge: to create a fashionable evening look using Old Navy pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt.

The contestants rose to the occasion and we saw some serious and thoughtful design from these aspiring designers!

The models had their makeup done by our resident glam guru, Paris. Then the fashion show and judging were followed by a pizza and Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.

We also celebrated the birthdays with an immediate-family-only outing to Sky High, a warehouse with a trampoline-lined floor. You can bounce off the floor and walls, and even play games like dodge ball and jump into a foam pit. This was a blast even for me and Dave. Of course his uterus didn't feel like it was going to fall out.

From there we had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen with my MIL and the cousins. And then Liberty tried to stay up until 11:46p so she could gloat to her sister that she was older. No such luck. Maybe next year.

Lucky Seventeen!

Seventeen years ago today Dave and I got married in a torrential rainstorm. The last time it rained in the Napa Valley on May 30 was 99 years prior.

"They" said that it's good luck if it rains on your wedding day. "They" said that it means you'll have lots of children. We laughed. And moved our outdoor winery wedding into the cellar. It was more intimate than we'd anticipated but the end result was the same -- we got hitched.

Apparently "they" were right as we've had three children together, something I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined. It's been a heck of a ride and I'm glad Dave and I are in this together.

Happy anniversary, Sweetie. You are truly my better half and I am grateful for you every single day.

Friends and Family -- any memories to share from this day?

Happy Birthday Dave!

It's my better half's birthday. Isn't he adorable?! He's taking one for the team today (hopefully it's not too much of a sacrifice!) and playing in The Pinks' elementary school golf tournament fundraiser.

Here are ten things you may not know about him:

1. His favorite ice cream is Loard's peppermint.
2. He is smart. Really smart.
3. He is an exceptional, loyal friend.
4. He thinks camping is when you don't stay on the concierge level of the hotel.
5. He, his mother and his grandmother were born at the same hospital in Oakland.
6. He makes the best guacamole! This may be a residual from going to school in San Diego.
7. He has only lived outside of California once, and that was during a college summer when he went to school in Hawaii.
8. He is very proud of his high school friend Bill, who hates climbing and is attempting to climb Mt. Everest this month.
9. His daughters are his whole world. Giving up that sales management job paid off because they are very attached to him. In addition, they tell me, "We prefer the lunches Daddy makes us."
10. He always knows what to say and what to do, and he says and does them. He is my best source of advice, both business and otherwise, logic and sanity.

I've been thinking a lot about breast cancer lately.

One of my colleagues has just begun her battle and a recent college grad I know is already a survivor.

Today was a very special day. It was the day my mother-in-law celebrated her life 20 years after beating her own battle with breast cancer. Almost 40 of us came together at a local country club to fete her. My MIL was wearing her V necklace, a gift from my late FIL. The V to celebrate her five year anniversary and the seven diamonds set in the V to celebrate the years up to 12. As my SIL said, I'm sure her dad is looking down on us all from above, smiling.

Breast cancer will visit one in eight of us. Most of us have been touched by it already. To that point, my MIL put teddy bears wearing t shirts with the breast cancer logo on the tables to toast the number of women there today who had fought it.

This gathering was my MIL's closest friends, her Pan and Mahjong friends, her family members, her longtime friends, the people who have walked beside her all these years. Some of them I had not seen since my FIL's funeral nine years ago.

My MIL mentioned how there are two kinds of families -- those whose immediate family has been touched by breast cancer and those that have not. My MIL is and her mom was a survivor, her mom a two-time survivor. I'm sure my SIL and Aunt Janice think about this. And I think about it for our three daughters.

I can see clearly now.

Actually, it's Dave that can.

He got Lasik today! He's wanted to do this for several years and finally his vision had been stable long enough to do so. The doctor he picked has done these for 20 years and claims to have done more than 65,000 pairs of eyes. Dave put it this way: I'm not as much interested in the number of times he's done the procedure, I'm more interested in him having seen all the problems it could possibly cause and knowing how to fix them.

The procedure room has floor-to-ceiling glass facing the waiting room. I didn't watch, though. Just the thought of it made me queasy.

Dave joked that he needed a personal assistant to manage the recovery. He wasn't kidding! Two different kinds of drops for five days at different intervals, another set of drops once an hour when he's awake for six weeks. Goggles so he doesn't scratch his eyes nor get any dust in them -- different ones for indoor and outdoor, no swimming or hot tubs for a week, and no contact sports for six months.

It's been fun tending to him today. In all our years together I've nearly always been the patient: two challenging pregnancies, a spur-of-the-moment Achilles tendon surgical repair and the removal of my appendix and gallbladder. I'm glad to be able to give back, at least a little!

My babies

These are my daughters, the three young people that have most changed my world. They have taught me how to function with very little sleep, belly laugh at things most people would find disgusting, and set aside my selfish tendencies.

Sherman Chu shot this picture, among others. We were very lucky to be the high bidder for his services at an auction last year. His niche is high-end weddings and I love to read his blog. It transports me to exotic celebrations on foreign soil and reminds me of the promise of marriage, of the way I felt when Dave and I tied the knot. A former news cameraman, his point of view is incredible, too.

Here's the backstory: Eldest Daughter is flexing her adolescent muscle by nixing the sweater I bought her for the photo shoot in favor of a top of her own choosing with high-topped Converse. Thing 1 is wearing a skirt, impervious to the cold at 8:30a on a November morning. Thing 2 is in a shag vest, reminiscent of my parents' Golden Retriever, whom she loves more than anything, with patent purple boots.

This photo makes me happy.

Happy Birthday Michelle!

The second November birthday in our family is my sister-in-law Michelle's. Michelle and I have been friends since third grade. Sixteen years ago I married her older brother and got the sister I always wanted.

Michelle is the great entertainer. I can't tell you how many good times we've had at the home she shares with her husband and two daughters in Southern California. Her husband is named Phil and the littlest Pinks nicknamed him Uncle Fish when they were just learning to talk. If he dislikes that, he keeps quiet about it.

Michelle is a people magnet. She's the Kool Aid Mom and is always surrounded by friends and more friends. She makes life fun for herself, Phil and my nieces.

I'm grateful that her daughters are older than mine because she always knows how to counsel me on girl things. And when my girls drive me nuts I just stick them on a plane down south and she welcomes them with open arms.

Happy Birthday Barry!

Dear Barry,

I remember when you were born. Well, I remember mom after she came home from the hospital. I don't much remember you until you were about six months old and I fed you a Popsicle at our annual 4th of July Party.

On the occasion of your birthday I forgive you for the following things:

1. Your cushy college experience. How come Mom and Dad didn't pay for me to spend four years in Santa Barbara?!

2. The perfect weather on your wedding day. As you'll recall, it poured rain on mine, forcing an outdoor event into a wine cellar.

3. The fights we had over sharing the car once you turned 16. I get it now. I returned home from college for the summers and messed with your routine.

4. You breaking your leg, thus delaying our planned trip to Disneyland. I've been at least a dozen times now and would be happy to never go again.

5. Your daughter cracking her head open right before we got into the car to return her from an overnight stay here. I was never so scared in my whole life. Blond hair shows blood a lot more than brown does.

6. Marrying a girl who can snowboard faster than I can ski. What's up with that?!

7. Being in a place without cell phone coverage when our twins were born. Granted, they were born over a holiday weekend ...

8. Reading my diary while we were on The Deadliest Catch voyage from Alaska to Washington. What else were you going to do? One can only watch so many cleaving glaciers and killer whales.

9. Not coming with us to Spain last summer. We missed you but really, the food sucked.

In all seriousness, though, you are such a mensch and I am so proud of how I raised you. You gave me an amazing sister-in-law who shares my adoration for shoes and ice cream. You had two beautiful, fun daughters for me to spoil. And trust me, no child ever died from eating Krispy Kremes for dinner. You are generous with your time and resources. You mix a good drink and grill a good steak.

You are 14 or 15 in the first picture. It was taken on Lake Washington, I believe, during the summer of 1987 on the aforementioned Deadliest Catch trip. The second picture is one of my favorites. You're with your 15-month-old on the couch at about 8am in the villa we rented in Siena, Italy. You've been up with her a long time. You're a good father and a good husband because you dealt with my perfect niece while my Ice Cream SIL got some shuteye in preparation for the marathon shopping trip we dragged her on that day.

Although it's your birthday I'm feeling like the one who got the gift. And after all, it's all about me since this is my blog.

Many happy returns, Barry! Love you!

Leslie