20 years later

dear daddy,

one month ago would have been your 80th birthday, but you didn't even live to see your 60th. you were involved in my life more when i became an adult, but your impact on me as a child was huge. 

recently i've had the most vivid memories of some of our time together...everything from the giant stuffed pink dog and tropical fish you bought to meeting the monkees (especially davy jones) to seeing "death wish" to your up beat wake up calls in europe every morning. each evoking such a different side of you. i know there are many more memories, but these are the ones that have surfaced.

it's also hard to forget your temper and easy frustrations with parenting. having now been a mom for 15 years, i think i understand you better. we're very different parents, different people with some striking similarities.  we both love the art and challenge of selling ideas. we can be generous to a fault.  and we can appear positive when we don't feel so positive.

wwcd: wish i understood the impact of our relationship 

a view from my small city

i left work at 4pm last thursday and was home, changed clothes, and lucy and i were in the park at 4:25. it was a perfect fall day and the light was beautiful. the leaves are beginning to change and the air is a bit crisp. we entered the park on 80th and fifth and got about 100 feet into the park when i ran into an old friend. little did i know she would be the first of 4 friends roaming central park.

my old friend and i share more than just the school we attended, we're parents there too. we hadn't seen each other in quite a while and fell into many conversations about teachers, kids, life. we talked for so long that when i looked down at lucy, she was shivering from the cold. time to make our way to the great lawn and the sunset.

i was able to squeeze in 2 miles before the sun began going down and i started on my way home. before i was even off the track that surrounds the great lawn, there was friend #2. and even though we moved the conversation along since it was getting dark, we had a nice little visit. as happy as i was to run into friends #3 and #4, time wasn't going to allow for much. a smile and hello - i was a little distracted and focused on getting home. but the smile was sincere and even though my plan had gotten derailed, this was fun...truly, unexpectedly fun.

walking in the park lets me feel like i'm living in the country. spending my whole life in ny and i've always thought about living in a small town. what it would feel like to know people in town and how comforting that would be. but to have those country feelings in this city is unexpectedly even more comforting.

wwcd: enjoying the irony of nyc feeling small

granny

i have a friend who is going to be a grandma soon. i have another friend who is going to have her 4th child. they are only a few years apart in age and i thought i'd be a lot older or younger before saying either. it's gotten me thinking about what a grandparent is or can be which in turn has gotten me thinking about what a parent is. the old story about the grandparent spoiling the child with gifts and candy only to hand them back to the parents doesn't really resonate with me.

i just heard debbie boone describe how her mother-in-law, rosemary clooney, beamed each and every time her grandchildren entered the room. unconditional love - that's one of the links a parent and grandparent can share. parents of course need to be disciplinarians, time out givers, "no" deliverers, homework enforcers, curfew cops, and also love unconditionally, but grandparents need only be the good guys. what a great person to be in a child's life. what a great opportunity to impart knowledge, foster an interest, be a hero, enjoy sports or theater, all the while having a great time. and then bring them home.

i've been thinking about what kind of grandma i'd like to be (many years from now!). i don't think i'm the grandma walton or granny clampett type. too stodgy or too crazy. i have always had an affinity for auntie mame and would imagine i'd like to be the eccentric grandma with just a toe grounded in reality. what a great adventure life would be. and the best part of all will be the special chance to see it all through the eyes of a child again.

wwcd: i'd like to open an new window, open a new door, travel a new highway...

the 4 r's

with all the news about teens committing suicide, especially gay teens, what has struck me is how so many people have spoken up. i cannot imagine anything more important than preventing another child from being bullied, let alone killing themselves. feeling alone and not accepted...many say they've shared those same feelings in middle or high school. but to think about killing yourself...really killing yourself, there are no words that people should say to cause those feelings.

councilman joel burns from fort worth spoke out and from his heart. his speech is so personal...for 12 minutes it's hard to watch him and not feel some of the pain he's felt. i dare you not to be angry after you watch this video...angry that mr. burns experienced so much pain and angry that the children he spoke of are dead because of other children who didn't think about their words and actions.

how are we raising children who think it's ok to cause such pain?  it's unacceptable to me that another child should die because they feel alone or different. parents and schools need to recognize that respect may just be as important as the 3 r's to learn and maybe we need to make it the 4r's.

wwcd: find and share more heroes like joel burns

bio sat ii

i've got 3 posts i'm writing at once and this is the least emotional topic. and since this so completely emotional, you can imagine what the other 2 must be like...

even though it's odd to think about and even talk about, college is looming. not for me, but for zach. i know, he's just started high school and has 4 amazing years ahead of him, but it seems that for all his school's efforts to suppress college talk, it's happening everywhere with students and parents. sats, sat iis, acts, tutors, applications, course choices, classroom chatter, and on and on.

and yesterday it all became a little more real. one of his substitute math teachers talked to the kids about the bio sat ii. this is the one i've heard about for the last several years - if zach is good at science, have him take the sat ii after 9th grade bio and one test is done. so the substitute confirmed this and then recommended signing up for the june test now.

now? you mean like right now, today? that leads me to my introduction to the college experience. i set up an account with collegeboard.com...it's official...he's official. i didn't bother filling in the parts about gpas, interests, courses...that seemed a bit premature, but i did sign up for the sat question of the day. i'm 2 for 2 and feel like i'm ready to take them again. i'd probably enjoy the process now much more than i did in the 70s. but luckily for me, it's zach's turn. and, fortunately for zach, he's better suited to the whole process.

wwcd: if you're on a train that's traveling south at 50 miles per hour, how long... 

tolerate this?

what's been interesting to me since i began writing this blog last october is how the tone of it changes. it seems to depend on the news or my mood. it also depends on how brave i'm feeling at that moment.  this blog can make me feel very vulnerable. putting my thoughts out there on this page, facebook, twitter or linkedin puts me out there in a way that takes me out of my comfort zone. i know, so why do i do it? i like the challenge it presents.

i enjoy the days when i feel so strongly about a topic that i don't hold back and over think what i write. having conviction about something....anything makes me feel human. i don't understand apathy, indifference or mental laziness. i don't understand not having an opinion. you either like it or don't, think it's right or wrong, believe in it or not. i love the gray areas in discussion, but not too much of it it in a final decision.

i don't understand why more people aren't outraged by the suicide of tyler clementi and with all of these news stories about bullying. why more people don't stand up and say - i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take this anymore - is beyond me. bullying or discrimination should not be tolerated and as long as people accept it and don't say anything....well, it will continue and more lives or souls are put in jeopardy.

ellen degeneres has put herself out there again and hopefully more people will follow her lead. you don't have to be famous, you just have to care.

wwcd: i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to tolerate this anymore