A One-Woman Show

We visited Grammy in the hospital yesterday. She introduced us to the nurse and other helpers who visit her room regularly. One of these helpers was Elizabeth, who did something I've never quite seen anyone accomplish before -- speaking about S, our daughter, as if she weren't standing right there, but also somehow ignoring the rest of us, too. Her commentary was like a voice-over, in a little movie she alone was watching. She added grace notes of unsolicited parenting advice and praising S almost inappropriately while behaving as though her brother was invisible. No wonder R started careening around the room like a demented superbouncy ball.

I'm sure this all sounds like the grousing of a woman with a sore foot and shall we say a temporary hormonal imbalance (which it is), but I promise, if you had been there you would have felt uncomfortable with this woman's ravings too. How can you talk AT a room full of people, ABOUT only one of them, and TO none of them?? It was something like this, beginning before Grammy finished her sentence introducing the rest of us: "OH, she [S] is beautiful. So beautiful. Oh, her eyes, she has all of it, her eyes, her face, and her beautiful hair . . ." Incidentally, I feel safe restating this stranger's ranting about S's gorgeousness because after all I don't have any genetic stake in the truth of the matter -- which the interloper pointed out, too -- "she has her daddy's eyes, and her daddy's face, everything of her daddy . . . ." I'm telling you, she wouldn't stop. S leaned with her elbows on Grammy's bed, looking up at this woman with an almost-smile, eyes wide, nearly visible brain-wheels turning, with the same expression she wears when you try to explain something like reverse psychology. Grammy then pressed S into a song (she invited R, too, but by then he was having none of it); she broke into a version of "Tomorrow" that was not her best, but which enraptured the documentarian: "Oh, she has real talent, she does, and is not scared at all, she sings in front of me, who she does not know, and is not scared. And she has talent. It is important to get her lessons in playing musical instruments now . . . " at which point we devolved into the annoying parenting suggestions. You can ask D; I am the consummate band fag/ artiste-wannabe, and I can't wait until I can put violins or trumpets or microphones into the hands of these kids. But I was ready to swear off musical training of any kind just to offend this Elizabeth person.

Finally, without so much as making eye contact with me (although she almost did when she made fun of the fact that R stumbled over my sore foot during one of his wild trajectories), Elizabeth was gone. I'm really hoping that neither of those kids were paying attention to what she had to say -- and what she didn't.

Get Well Soon Grammy!

The kids are on their way! My time of peaceful, if tedious, recuperation is over. D stopped to see Grammy tonight -- she has been taken to the hospital with pneumonia! (That's her dancing w/ D above.) He says they've been frustrated by doctors who do rounds at 7:00 a.m. and no one stopping by to actually explain exactly how she's doing. Then, off to pick up the kids and now they're on their way home. After only a moment of telephone conference it became obvious that trying to choose Chinese food that the kids would eat and that we would want was not happening, so D offered to stop at Five Guys for cheeseburgers. I just want it noted for the record that I *tried* to get "Revolution Shrimp and Scallops" -- steamed with no sauce. Instead, I will have my usual little cheeseburger w/ the fixins. Come to think of it, that's another thing I learned while in the south -- the real appreciation of a good cheeseburger! We girls used to go to the Belk's cafeteria, order huge burgers with everything, and then cut them and only eat half. Not a bad strategy.

Anyway, prayers on you, Grammy, and for Papa too, as he waits. Worst of all? Tomorrow is Grammy's birthday. You can bet I will be pressing the kids into mandatory picture-drawing service tonight in the "get well soon" vein.

My beloved Bit and her family are off to Cancun tomorrow. Never been. Is it nice? I've actually never been to Mexico, oddly enough. A friend honeymooned in Maroma, which seemed gorgeous.

My father complained about a previous post. Dogs smell better than people, he insists. And they also lack common sense, which makes them lovable, I guess. No wonder he's always been such a loving dad to ME.

I haven't watched any news today, so I don't have the slightest idea what's going on out there that could be new. Instead, I'll speak of the old: Northern Exposure reruns are playing on the HD channel, and I just love that. What a great show. I seriously yearned to live in Cicely, Alaska. To me, it was a cultural and intellectual utopia -- and triply wonderful for the fact that (a) it was in the wild outdoors and (b) the New Yorker didn't get it. When I went to law school, I used to tell people that I planned to get a pilot's license and a JD, and move to Alaska to be a prosecutor in the traveling circuit courts they have up there. Strange thing is, I meant it.

So, we'll have from about 7:00 on to do get-well-grammy picture/cards, eat a cheeseburger and probably ice cream, bathe the children, read stories (or, in the case of my stepdaughter, S, listen to her read stories -- last weekend she read the entirety of There's a Wocket in my Pocket!), distribute the pink-eye medicine and Grandma NP's Valentine's cards, sympathize with S's disgusted response to bedtime: but i didn't get to have any fun yet! (tell me about it, honey) and then address approximately 4 "re-entries", where one or the other child appears at the very edge of a doorway like Miami Vice initiating a raid, and in a very small, whispery whine (in the case of S) says, "I just can't get to sleep," or "my legs hurt", or in a rather loud, imperious voice (in the case of my boy, R) says, "I'm HUNG-WEE." If the capacity for hunger this boy shows presages his eventual stature, I might get an NHL enforcer in the family yet.

OK, they'll be here in 5. Show time.

Senate Committee Votes for Mental Health Parity

On February 14, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee (HELP), led by Chairman Ted Kennedy and Ranking Member Michael Enzi (WY), voted 18-3 in favor of S.558, the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007. This legislation would expand an existing 1996 federal law and prohibit employers and health plans from imposing durational treatment limits and financial limitations on coverage for mental illness that do not apply to all other medical conditions. Sounds simple, right?

After the vote, Kennedy indicated that he will push for full Senate action on the bill within the next few months. Please contact your Senator and ask him or her to support S. 558. For more information, check out http://www.nami.org/Hometemplate.cfm

Peaceable Kingdom

It's raining cats & dogs in here. Not outside -- outside it's frigid cold and there's thick ice on the ground. In here, in my house, there is a psychologically spoiled and somewhat feral cat named Oscar (my cat) trying to learn how to share this small space with a very large, gregarious and needy Golden Retriever, Bailey (D's dog), who is not even trying.

[By the way: I am using initials because my friend N made me wonder if it's safe to blog -- will people try to steal your children or your stuff, or start stalking you? So I'm going to keep info about my family and our location vague. Sorry, I know it's annoying -- like those Russian novels where people's last names are always R______ or something.]

Anyway, my new husband's dog has been living with his generous father and stepmother since his divorce. The plan had been to reunite with the dog when we move into our new house in Maryland in a few weeks. (2 weeks from today, actually!) However, Grandbob goes every year on an important dental mission trip to Ecuador, helping indigent people with cleft palates and I think other orthodontia. This year, Mimi was also to be travelling, and so we are dogsitting our own dog.

By way of background, my hubby D and my cat aren't exactly the greatest of friends. He will tell you he was the victim of false advertising because during our courtship I said I was "a dog person who happened to have a cat." I beg to differ; this is absolutely true. In fact, if I had the slightest idea how to deal with cats when I took this stray kitten in, maybe he wouldn't have turned out as he has -- ungovernable. I choose to blame his breed. I think he's at least mostly Maine Coon. He loves water, is proud and very beautifully furry, wants to be in the same vicinity at all times but disdains laps, and for him, prolonged petting becomes an invitation to blood sport. Just ask my friends at St. George's -- they can attest to my bandaged early years with him. No, I definitely was not a cat person. I had grown up with dogs, honestly considered myself a dog person -- after all, isn't that a subjective determination? -- but having spent the past few days in close quarters with Bailey, I suddenly realized how LONG it had been since I really lived with a dog. Roughly 15 years!

Now that I don't need the Percoset as much for my wounded foot, I find myself more tense about the wild kingdom being enacted outside my bedroom door. Not tense enough to open the door, though -- not after the day or two of Bailey's merciless, endless circumnavigation of my bed punctuated by sloppy chins on my forearm and sad doggy eyes begging for attention. No, they can just hang out and learn to deal. My foot hurts. Besides, although Bailey might be going back to Grandbob's for a week or so while we actually accomplish our move, they are going to have to learn to live together in harmony in the new Scott House. The new place, of course, is over 4,000 square feet of space with a small yard and huge parks all around, as opposed to my currently ice-entombed bachelorette-pad townhouse with less than 1300 square feet.

There are many worse things, I'll admit, than being surrounded by feuding animals -- like having no animals at all. I love Bailey's perked ears, which make her look like a puppy, and her deep, authoritative bark and growl so at odds with her girly blonde and her lovey demeanor. And I love watching Oscar pounce on red satin Valentine ribbon, recalling his kitten self, and the genuine joy he shows, rolling and stretching on the floor for scratches when I get home from work or get up in the morning. I even like that Oscar needs to be in the bathroom with me every time I go, and that Bailey thinks my use of an embroidery hoop signals peek-a-boo time. Animals, though they smell bad (the dog) and are noisy and nosy (the cat), are really wonderful. And who doesn't need more avenues for love?

On that note, may Winston, our Grammy's beloved dog, rest in peace, and -- I'll just say it -- may Grammy and Papa bring a new one home soon!!

Welcome!

Have you had someone leave a lasting impact on your life, long after she'd gone from your everyday? One of mine is a gal I'll call N, a friend from my time in Charlotte. Though she is younger than I, and she was just a baby lawyer when I knew her best, N taught me things that I wasn't about to learn in any number of years, if I kept on the way I'd been. How (and why) to make peach cobbler, the true meaning of the word "sassy," what was special about women from Mississippi (a lot), and the benefits of community in a solid evangelical church. N influenced my interior design sensibility and my choices of clothing, devotionals, ceramics classes and red wine.

N is now a mama of two and, apropos to this posting, authoress of a new blog called C___ Family Circus. I had just been thinking of N, in fact writing her some snail mail the other day from my recuperative bed (foot surgery), when she emailed to let a bunch of us know about the blog. Reading it was like sitting on that porch with N and meditatively listening while she commented on being a wife and mother.

This summer, I married a wonderful man with two little ones, S and R. Suddenly, I'm a wife and mother, too, with a daughter aged 5 and a son aged 3, with in-laws and changed relationships to everyone and everything in my life. For the first time, I think, I feel like less of an apprentice woman and more like N and I -- and all of you mamas out there -- have so much to teach to and learn from each other. Even better, we can just sit around on the virtual porch, notice the wonderful quotidian pleasures of life, realize the joy -- the paradise -- that everyday life really is, spend time exploring our reasons for being here, and even praise, give thanks, and pray for each other.

Thanks, N, for the inspiration. :)