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I love “discovering” things.  I’m one of those annoying people who like to be the first to try something, buy something, whatever-it-is before it gets big.  In high school and college it was mostly about music and being on the cutting edge.  I was the first person I knew to get into The Sundays in college.  And I may still be one of a very few Americans who love the band Japan.  I love knowing about shows early on and watching from the beginning; I remember reading about Family Ties in TV Guide (my parents had a subscription and I read it cover to cover) and asking if we could end dinner a little early so I could watch the pilot episode.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, dork.  And TV addict.

Here are a few other things I feel I was really ahead on:

• Netflix - I was down with Netflix in the early days.  This was in 1999 before they perfected the system as a subscription movie rental thing.  Yes, really, that far back.  Todd and I had just moved in together and I distinctly remember running outside to pop the movie in the postbox on Comm. Ave. before the mail pickup.  They’ve come a long, long way, baby.  I heart Netflix.
• Kate Spade - I bought my first Kate Spade bag at Jasmine Sola in Harvard Square believing I’d finally found the perfect black bag - not unlike the perfect little black dress.  The year of this purchase had become hazy in my mind; all I knew was it was a while ago now.  Enter Johanna, my friend and stylist.  She remembered when JS got Kate Spade because she knows the buyer and it was the first store outside fashion-forward New York City to sell Kate Spade bags.  The year was 1998 - that’s right, a full twelve years ago.    Here’s a website shot of the Claire, my first KS bag.  I still have it, I still use it. Classy doesn’t go out of style.
• Target - luck of geography, really.  I’ve had “Tar-szhay’” in my life since 1982.  Mom would drive me there to get my new Trapper Keepers, pencil holders,  and other back-to-school supplies for 7th grade.  It was in Lion’s Head in Nashville/Belle Meade and actually, it still is.  I think it’s great how cool Target has become after a seeming slump of about 10 years.  My problem is that I can easily (EASILY) spend two hours just wandering around and then spend spend spend all my money.  My friend Greenwald has a certain amount she says she always ends up spending without fail.

• Jo Malone perfumes - I love perfume.  You know this.  So when I read an article about Jo Malone’s line of fragrances coming to the US and sold exclusively at Saks Fifth Avenue I ran over there immediately.  And I sniffed.  And I fell in love.  JM’s line of perfumes are made to be mixed together to create unique (somewhat) fragrances and she puts out approximately two new scents each year.  It’s fun to mix them and I’ve discovered many concoctions I wear for different seasons and occasions, but the first one I fell in love with, French Lime Blossom, is still my go-to perfume and has been for 10 years now. And the packaging is so classy!
• The last thing I know I was ahead of the curve on is my photobooth addiction.  I’ve been lurking around those for 22 years and still love them, especially the Japanese ones where they put you in different Sanrio-type scenes and print out as stickers.  Mac designed their Photo Booth program with me in mind, I swear, because they even have that Warhol effect.  The movie Amelie spoke to me in ways many may not have heard.  I’m desperately jealous of the weddings where I hear the couple rented a photobooth.  I wish I had one in my apartment - the Mac thing isn’t quite enough.  But it’s nice to have, I will say that.  Case in point.

Moi editing blog entry.

Moi annoyed with editing.

  Well, ok, I guess this will have to do.

So far this week I’ve stayed late at work every night.   Only by an hour, but time is … time.  More valuable than money to some/sum.  ha ha

Tonight I very leisurely made my way to the red line at South Station via the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.  It’s a public “green space” -slash- park that exists where the old giant ugly green highway overpass once hulked over the city.  It encircles downtown by the harbor and breathes new life into that area, thanks to the Big Dig.  (This really is my city now; I’ve lived here for 22 years!!!)

So I’m walking slowly along the paths because it’s beautiful out and I’m in no hurry as I’ve got no plans.   There’s a lot of green in the Greenway, shocker, and I’m looking at all the grass when I remember a story I heard on NPR a week or so ago about a physicist who has a knack for finding four-leaf clovers.   For whatever reason, she finds them incredibly easily.  Finds them so often she gives them away as gifts, slips them into library books for people to discover, she’s filthy with four-leafs!!

Her story warmed my little heart and I realized I’ve never found one.  Believe me, I’ve searched.  I love clover anyway, and as a child I spent inordinate amounts of time sitting in the grass in my backyard or Vandy campus scanning the clover for a lucky to no avail.  How is it this woman finds them all the time?

Turns out the Greenway has approximately a billion clover patches, so I stopped and hovered and looked.  Three patches.  Full five minutes.  No luck.  But I tried and I’ll keep searching.  At least our physicist shares her finds and pays it forward.

Lately Lucycat has been expressing more and more interest in the door I go through when I do laundry.  So one day recently I decided not to shut the door behind me.  I got to the basement and was sorting through what could be dried in the dryer and what I needed to hang in the bathroom when I saw her tentative paws and giant eyes at the top of the last set of steps.  Since I didn’t want to frighten her any more than she already was, I let it play out and waited for her to reach the bottom.

Soon as she did I turned around and asked her what was up, as I am wont to do.  She started heading for the real basement and I made an attempt to grab her, but she took off into the depths of the mounds of storage my landlords have stacked down there.   “Eh, fuck it,” I said. “You’re an old gal and if this will make you happy, so be it.  I’ll leave the door upstairs open for you.”

Ten minutes later she was back in the apartment and a little dirty, which was understandable.  I was excited for her that she got to have an adventure.  Within five minutes she was mrowling loudly at the basement door clearly wanting more.  So I let her down again and she was gone for 15-20 minutes.  “Wow!” I said as I cleaned her cobweb-strewn whiskers when she finally returned.  “Who’d ever believe you’re a 15 year-old kitty?”

Right?!  In two months she’ll be 16.  Sweet Sixteen!!!  I want to have a party for her and she’s totally getting that bitchin’ Camaro.  She’s been asking for years….

Now it’s part of our routine; I let her down whenever she gets itchy for it and she always comes back.  She’s my girl.

It’s taking me a long time to deal with losing my dad.  In the midst of editing a post about the memorial service we had for dad last month I remembered an email I wrote to  John Ryan, one of dad’s ex-students and a close friend.  John and I always had a good rapport and I consider him a friend, too.  He was with dad at a sociology conference in Boston and came to see me and my band over that visit.

First, John’s email to me:

Dear Ruth,

I am so at a loss for words.  Where would I have ended up without Pete?  I am so sorry for your loss.

Best,

John

I wrote this reply sitting at dad’s computer in his office at home.

John,

It is so nice to hear from you.

More than likely we all would have ended up “in a van, down by the river!” without dad.  I, too, am beyond sad, but feeling incredibly grateful for the few days with him at the hospital in late January to say goodbye.

Frankly, it’s all still a little surreal right now.  Things, literally his things, are sort of frozen in time.  It feels as though he merely got up from his desk to feed Nino and maybe take a nap, but he’ll be back at the keyboard any minute to continue whatever he was working on.  The many things he was working on.  The many things that, I believe, kept him going.  There was always a project in the works and another on the horizon.  His work ethic, his unbelievable intellectual curiosity, and his concerns and worries about his family members’ futures pushed his heart to continue beating.

As you know, he felt a constant thrum of pain somewhere in his body at pretty much every minute of the day for the past, oh, at least 5 years.  He was quite the trouper and didn’t complain much outside the family, but I feel comforted knowing he no longer feels pain.

I love him dearly, am more like him than I sometimes care to admit, and I will miss him forever.

I’m using this theme for now.  It’s a default wordpress theme that exists in my system.  Soon I’ll get some hand-held help and change to the theme I really want.  This should work for the time being - I was interested in something simple and clean.

And while I’m here I’ll say how funny it is to me that every June 8 I think of Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran because it’s his birthday.  Sheesh, some facts just won’t leave one’s head once they’re there, eh?

xoxo

I may have visited this topic before, but I’d like to address it just the same.

I type faster than I write.  Most people, I imagine, who know how to type, do.  The editing process involved in word processing is convenient and makes things so much simpler than ever before.  And you must know how I love to edit.   The fact that computers can contain and maintain what could be reams of work in a small space is also pretty amazing and awesome.

That said, I love love love paper and pens.  I love all the different fun pads of paper that exist, the variety of journals to choose from, the innumerable pens of all colors and styles and ink.  Not to mention the satisfying feel of pen in hand, making your mark on the page - instantaneously glorious.  I guess it’s really a feel thing.

Books are the same; there’s nothing like the feel of a book in my hands.  It’s a great feeling to break the spine of a new paperback, showing how much you love it.   I do prefer paperbacks, but I do like hardcovers when they’re books I consider reference books.

I’m also a big gadget fan, so the convenience of the Kindle definitely intrigues me.   More and more of my fellow commuters on the T in the morning have them.   At first I thought the iPad looked ridiculous, like a giant iPhone.  But the more I explore it, the more I want one.  Go figure.

We were in Nashville last weekend for my dad’s memorial and Chris asked my mom if she knew where my love, nay obsession, for pens and paper came from.  She said the fact that she and dad were both intellectuals they both had a lot of pens and paper.  We went up in my dad’s office and I opened the top drawer of his desk revealing what must have been about 80 pens.  “Does this answer your question?”

Last night I watched Twilight.  I’d never seen it before, though I was familiar with the storyline and the characters.  Frankly, I wasn’t expecting it to be very good, which I think is the best place to start.  (Chris gets annoyed with me that I rarely get excited about things.   But if I get all worked up like he does there’s a strong possibility that I’ll come away disappointed, so I try to maintain an even keel.)

Well guess what?  I liked it.  A lot.  And was I surprised.  The entire look of the movie was sumptuous, the soundtrack was amazing and the feel of the whole thing was spooky, seductive and hypnotic.  Who knew?  I guess everyone but me.

I can’t imagine any girl who wouldn’t want to be Bella.  She’s experiencing the ultimate female teenage fantasy, getting the attention of the handsome, brooding boy who doesn’t talk to anyone outside his small group.  Finding out he’s a vampire?  Bonus.  Maybe that was just my own teenage fantasy.

Since I’m all growed up now, ha ha ha, my vampire obsession from youth has faded.  For that reason I’ve been both surprised with the recent (fairly) resurgence of interest in them as well as annoyed by it.  Annoyed in the selfish way of someone gets when they’re “over” something, a real been there, done that feeling, you know?  I read the Anne Rice vampire books in the 80s and had my “goth” phase.  (Fortunately with my pale complexion I never needed that white pancake makeup I hear post-goths refer to these days.)  The curmudgeon in me mentally shakes my fist at the new wave/goth/punk kids and yells, “You’re not inventing anything, you know!!!  We did it first!”

Still, the vampire thing remains interesting and is retold again and again.   I’ve not watched True Blood, but the friends of mine who follow it tell me it’s amazing.  Then there’s Vampire Diaries on TV and I’ve never seen that.  Let The Right One In is one of my favorite movies now.  It’s a stark and haunting story about a child vampire set in a bleak Scandinavian suburb.   I’ve been lent the book and plan to read it, too.

It’s cool how people retell and reimagine the myth, too.  In Twilight the vampires never sleep; how amazing would it be to not need sleep?  Think how much more you could get done!  And daylight just makes them appear to be gold flecked and shiny.  In Let the Right One In, the vampires sleep during the day and incinerate if sunlight touches them.  This is much more in the traditional vein.

One final thing, the house the vampire family has in the woods is my dream house.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  Reminds me of my friend Doug Schatz’s parents house in high school in Nashville.  It was beautiful and cool and I coveted it like crazy.

Whatever happened to the little girl who loved the humid summer weather?  I used to really dig the heat; days at the lake swimming by the dock, running around in my shorts and swimsuit, and oh, those summer nights.

Sadly I grew up.   And because I did so much of my coming-of-age up here in New England I doubt I’ll ever change back.  It’s true.  My birth father, Johnny, wonders if I’m really his spawn because he likes it hot.  The hotter the better.  Hot and sunny, if I’m not mistaken.  Which is weird to me.  I never did worship the sun.

Anyhoo, Spring arrived Saturday (at approximately 1pm est) and Tony, knowing it was going to be beautiful weather, invited me for walkies.  YAY.  Tony (”Anthony”) being now a full-time working lawyer and me being a full-time loser we’ve had precious little time together.  This was going to be one big uninterrupted stretch of catch-up time.

Actually, we DID have drinks a few Friday nights ago downtown and it was a blast.   But there’s always more to talk about, iddin’t there?  Plus I missed he and Sean’s Oscar Party thanks to a bellyache (or was it bellyachin’…?) and I know it was a great time.  blurg.

He came all the way to Davis to meet me.  We walked through Somerville to Cambridge, got bubble teas sans the bubbles (sometimes they just get in my way).  Ambled down Mass Ave to skirt Harvard Square and continue to Central, through which we utilized a parallel back street to avoid the crazies.  Down along MIT, across the smoot bridge with a left onto Newbury Street.  That was until we realized how stupid it was to deal w/all the other pedestrians when we had no real shopping or dining intentions so we veered over to the Commonwealth Mall.  To Arlington Street, through the Garden, up Charles Street in Beacon Hill where we stopped to eat appetizers the size of entrees.  We got polenta w/tomatoes etc,… and it tasted like polenta pizza (yum!) and risotto with asparagus and mushrooms.  This was a lunch that ended up being my dinner.

Throughout it all we chatted and enjoyed the sun and clouds and people-watching.  Good times, I tells ya, good times.  Afterwards we took the red line at Charles going our opposite directions. I had a feeling I knew the length of walk we took since I’ve done pretty much the same walk before, but I gmap pedometer’ed it anyway and it was 6 miles.  I knew I wore the comfy sneakers for a reason.

Headline on boston.com.  That cracks me up.  Is smallish even a word?  Not according my Webster’s, but I think it’s only the 10th Edition.  Time to update.

It’s nice of that storm to pay us a visit, too.  I know how busy they can be, always on the move and waving a big wet hello to us terrestrials.  Hope it stays long enough for a cup of this interesting tea mom gave me called Eggnogg’n, “An Exceptional Winter Tea” by Bigelow.

Wow, I just looked it up on Bigelow’s website b/c I’d never heard of it before and mom only had the bags sans box.  Now this is adorable packaging.

Those penguins are having a blast!

It’s true I’ve not been writing much on here or elsewhere.  No wonder I feel so groundless.  What’s going on with my family, in particular my dad, is a subject I’ve been avoiding.  I guess I’m figuring if I don’t tell people anything, they won’t ask me about anything and therefore I won’t have to talk about it.

Dad’s been in and out of the hospital since Dec. 16th for various reasons; complications from congestive heart failure, his defibrillator firing multiple times, fluid in/around his right lung compressing it and making it extremely difficult to breathe).  As I write he’s in.  At 77 years old he’s not ancient by any means, especially in this day and age, but my dad’s had health problems since he was a child.  This spate of hospital stays has been weighing on me and has taken up a lot of space in my mind.

Last Saturday I got a call from Michael, who’s been in Nashville with mom and dad for a while, saying dad would like us to come to his bedside.  “Us” being me and David, who lives in Kirkland, WA.  The previous Thursday dad had a procedure to attempt to remove the fluid around his lung, but it had filled back up and they weren’t sure about the cause.  I had asked on Thursday night if I should come down and he said let’s wait and see.  So when I got that call on Saturday (fresh my 2.5 hour ass-kicking at the gym) I ran home, went online, got tickets for a flight home 3 hours later and started packing.

I was in Nashville from Saturday night (1/24) through Wednesday morning and if I wasn’t with dad and the family at the hospital, I was on my way there or on my way from there to get something to eat.  My apologies to all the people I’d like to have contacted and seen, but dad was my priority and I couldn’t handle any distractions.

Michael and I got a short walk in Centennial Park where I took this shot.  I do love Tennessee clouds.

I wasn’t sure how long I should book my ticket for because I really didn’t know what was to expect  or what was going to happen.

I stayed at the hospital the first two nights because dad wanted me nearby.  By the third night I needed some real sleep so, despite dad’s mild protestations and after promising to return early morning on Tuesday, I slept at home in the guest room with my niece Elizabeth in the other twin bed.  Getting to be around her was one of the highlights of the trip.

There were discussions between dad and his doctors about various surgeries to remove the liquid around his right lung.  My feeling was that unless they could figure out what was causing the liquid to form and put a stop to it, surgery would be too risky an option.  And in his weakened state, I wasn’t sure his body could handle something so aggressive and intrusive.  By late Monday morning it had become apparent that the fluid was the result of an infection and the decision had been made to operate on Tuesday.

We had the last of our family meetings so that dad could make all his wishes known and get his ducks in a row before his surgery.   I made plans to fly back around the same time as Dave and Elizabeth so there’d be only one trip to the airport on Wednesday.  Here are David and EClaire in the lovely atrium as we waited out dad’s operation.

When we said goodbye he was still coming out of anesthesia, but I saw him eyes flutter when I kissed his forehead and he nodded his head when I squeezed his hand and said I loved him.

Michael called me on Thursday night to let me know Dad had eaten some and it sounded promising.  He’s seriously underweight and needs to pack on the calories so he’ll have strength to get around when he goes home.  The doctors told us he’d need about ten days of recovery in the hospital.  I’m crossing my fingers that my next visit to Nashville will be my loosely-planned trip in late March.

This entry is essentially an outline sketch of what’s been going on and I just want to apologize for any glaring omissions in my account here.   Mom mostly kept to herself during this visit, but she seems to be holding it together quite well.  Her leg has healed up nicely and she’s moving around at a faster pace than I’d expected with only a slight bit of a limp here and there.  She’s really amazing.