The Standard Sleepover

As long as I can remember, I’ve had sleepovers with my friends.

The Days of Innocent Sleepovers
In kindergarten, it was mostly Michelle R. and Harve. Our parents would sign bus passes and permission slips (Mom Z. would say aloud, “Permission. P-E-R-M…is it two M’s?” nearly every week), bags would be packed, and Barbies would be played with. Harve could be counted on to leave at least one piece of clothing at my house, which my mom would find later as she did laundry. She’d hold up one of Harve’s socks and say, “Is this hers? Or one of your Cabbage Patch doll’s?” laughing at the mini-sizes of Harve’s clothing.

With our small house, if I had more than one friend sleepover we’d set up camp in the living room (much to my dad’s annoyance, I’m sure). I like to think we slept end to end like neatly paired shoes. Mom Z. has informed me it wasn’t quite so…and in fact, we looked more like a litter of puppies, all arms and legs unconsciously strewn on each other.

I vaguely remember playing “Girl Talk” with zit stickers and “Truth or Dare” at Ryan H’s house. I didn’t have any dark secrets, so I always took Dare. This led to me licking the entire length of a floor and putting my bra in the freezer (thanks for those suggestions, Alison A. So gross.).

By 8th grade, Harve and I had become seasoned sleepover veterans. My mom still wrote out my permission slips, insistent she could finally spell “permission.” I’d ask, exasperatedly, “Why don’t you just find another word for ‘permission’?” And she’d yell back, “BECAUSE. I am going to learn how to spell this damn word, that’s why!”

At my house, Harve and I had devised a system for who would get my bed and who would sleep in a nest of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor. I had an antique purse shaped like a box with two slips of paper in it.

One person would shake the box, the other person would extract a slip. “1” stood for bed, “2” stood for floor. We’d devised the system because too often we’d argue over who got the bed. She’d argue that since it was MY house I should get the bed. And I’d argue that since SHE was the guest, SHE should get the bed.
Sidenote: I should mention that Harve and I have been friends for 27 years and have never had a fight. Yes, we’re that adorable. 


The Sleepovers Ending in Boobies and Hangovers
In high school, it was more of the same, but a larger pool of people with whom to sleepover and with less Barbies and more teenager-y behavior. For New Year’s Eve one year, Deege had a giant sleepover and at midnight we went streaking through the neighborhood (you’re welcome, people of Parkside).

My freshman year in college was a year of continuous sleepovers. Becca, who lived in the room next door, would sleepover because her roommate on the bottom bunk would have sex and shake the bunkbed. Aimdog, who lived down the hall, would sleepover because she didn’t feel like walking back to her side of the building after a night of partying.

After hearing about our plight of not having a place to put these guests, my mom bought Spank and I two giant dog bed pillows, which we put end to end to create an impromptu bed.

Some of my most memorable sleepovers were at The Skunk House, the home of Homer and Kara (and sometimes Jones) in our college town. I was out of college for a few months and working my second “real” job, which just so happened to be located within walking distance of The Skunk House. There was a family of skunks living under their house and despite numerous attempts to eradicate them (humanely), the place fucking stank. Anything leather brought into The Skunk House would leave smelling to high heaven after the leather absorbed the scent. Unzipping an overnight bag would inevitably lead to gagging as all the clothes would have a hint of skunk in them.

It was at The Skunk House Escobar and I devised an ingenius plan. We thought if we stacked 2 airbeds, it would double the comfort. What we didn’t think about, was Esco getting off the airbeds to pee in the morning and catapulting me into the wood-paneled wall.


The History and Philosophy of Sleepovers
Maybe sleepovers are alluring because my sister had them and I was never invited. I was, however, encouraged to pop in once in a while and report back to my mom what was happening and once, even to bring back a sample of punch my mom had made ahead of time and my sister indubitably spiked.
Sidenote: my sister was held responsible for cleaning the vomit out of the carpet and sleeping bag due to Julie M. drinking said spiked punch.

Even before I had friends, my brother Johnny and I had sleepouts.

Since his room was in the basement, it was just different enough to warrant a big deal and an invitation. I’d bring my sleeping bag down to Johnny’s room and sleep on his floor while he slept high above me on his hand-me-down waterbed. In the dark, we’d play catch with a pair of his socks rolled into a ball — sailing through the air and hitting walls or each other.

We also camped out in the backyard together, always awoken by a menagerie of bird noises at 5 am. Once he spent an hour imitating a mourning dove, driving me further and further into fits of giggles, until Mom Z. had had enough and knocked on the side of our tent yelling, “HEY! ENOUGH YOU TWO!” which of course just sent us off into another round of laughter. To this day, I can’t hear the call of the mourning dove without smirking a little.

Once, he and I fell asleep in the car on the way home from my grandparents house and we begged our parents to let us sleep in the “way back” of our station wagon for the night. They did, despite the puzzlement of our neighbors, who must’ve shaken their heads at us tumbling out of the car with our sleeping bags at 7 am.

For Christmas one year, my parents gave all three kids air mattresses and I promptly used mine until it popped, then pilfered Gretchen’s and Johnny’s because for some unknown reason, neither of them continued with sleepovers after high school.

After college, my friends and I moved back to our hometowns or relocated, but it has always been an unsaid understanding that when someone comes to visit, the floor/bed/couch is always open and you are more than welcome to crash.

As we get older, friends offer guest rooms instead of futons, nurse newborns instead of doing shots, and hours are spent catching up over wine and board games rather than primping and dancing until wee hours at the club.

It’s funny though, because at the age of 31, I still think nothing of packing up my sleeping bag and seeing my friends in their jammies. In fact, I think that might be when lines of “acquaintance” turn to “friend”. Seeing people in their pajama bottoms, free of makeup, with glasses instead of contacts really bridges a level of friendship and invites people to be on another tier of closeness.

So to those who have ever seen me in my pjs, sporting my retainers and my overnight eye-firming cream, consider yourselves my closest friends and know that no matter how small my future homes are, you’re always welcome to crash at my house.

Why I See Getting Older As a Gift

At the ripe ol’ age of 31, I have a lot of friends who recently turned 30 and a few on the brink of 40. When my turn came, there was a celebration that spanned across an entire week and several states on the east coast.

There weren’t any tears, sad mumblings about my youth slipping away, or feelings of depression that I was getting older.

Instead, on my actual birthday (July 22, FYI, 8 shopping months left), there were a lot of Sally O’Malley impressions with me shouting repeatedly, “I’M 30! And I can KICK!”
(Thank you, Esco, for being one of the only people who got the joke when I retold the story a few days later.)

The timeliness of this blog entry is obviously not due to my birthday, as it’s currently November, but because last month marked the 10th anniversary of my cousin Josh’s death from leukemia. He was only 14 when he died, but he had been sick for about five years leading up to that. A lot of time spent in hospitals and in bed rather than running around the playground and sleepovers with friends (or, in the case of my boyfriend, throwing rocks at friends).

Although he and I weren’t very close (I was in high school and college when he was in grade school), I thought (and think) of him often when faced with new adventures. Sure, I would go on a cruise with my friends because it seemed fun, but I would also go because a little boy would never get to go on a cruise with HIS friends. It’s sort of my way of saying, “You didn’t get the chance to do this, so I’m doing this for both of us.”

At some point along the way, I became grateful for simply being alive, regardless of the ups and downs, the heartbreak, the sadness, or new wrinkles. I consider myself fortunate to have adopted this mindset, as it’s really made getting older a much wiser, more positive experience rather than one fraught with fear and panic about jiggly Oprah arms and chin hair.

So every year on my birthday, I spend time (there is at least one, 6-hour-drive so I have the time) thinking about new friends I’ve met over the past year, the adventures I’ve had, new restaurants I’ve tried, places I’ve been, lessons I’ve learned, and how much I’ve leaned on my closest friends and family (and they on me).

I’m not only not upset about getting older, I’m proud of it. Because it means for some reason, I’ve been given the gift of another year of life to see what kind of shenanigans I can get into and so one day, when it’s my time to go, people will say, “Man…that Heidi…she really lived each day to its fullest.”

Ooooh! A Penny!

I am a direct descendant to penny-pinching parents. And by “penny-pinching” I mean “penny-picking-off-the-ground.”

As long as I can remember, my parents have been in a constant competition for who can find more money on the ground. ON. THE. GROUND. So we’ll be walking through a parking lot and you’ll hear my dad yell, “HEY! (thinking it’s a heartache, I’ll whip around) It’s a quarter!” As if he just found a 50-dollar-bill on the ground.

And it’s not like they pick up the coins and forget about it. No, no, my mom will find a nickel and dangle it in front of my dad to show him her prize only for him to say in return, “Yeah, well last week outside of the TGI Fridays I found 2 dimes, remember?”

With all this work, you’d think maybe there’s a “Found on Road” giant jar with all this roadway coinage. But no, they just put them in their wallets and pretend to be normal people again.

There are two reasons I haven’t adopted their penny-picking lifestyle.

1. I live in a city. With homeless people. They should be all over that shit. On my parents’ recent visit, my mom spotted a homeless woman scouring the ground for what had to be a treasure of change. As my mom walked by the same spot, she bent down to see what the woman had been eying. When she fell in step with my dad and I again, she said dejectedly, “Just cigarettes.”
2. I dread following in my mom’s footsteps. When I was in high school, I swung between two places: completely embarrassed and completely confident of my lunacy. On one particular day, I was deeply entrenched in the world of embarrassment when my mom and I decided to take a trip to the mall. Walking past the food court, my mom shrieked, “HEIDI! LOOK!” At her feet was a smattering of pennies, nickels, dimes, and even a few quarters. A veritable cornucopia of booty. As she bent down to pluck said coins off the mall floor tiles, I glanced a few high school boys laughing their asses off that my crazy mother was going apeshit over the change they had SUPERGLUED to the ground. I was yelling in a stage-whisper, “MA! STOP IT! THEY’RE GLUED!” But she couldn’t hear me over the roar of adrenaline and went from coin to coin, thinking that at least one of them could be freed.

I think the crowning moment of my mom’s scavenging came when all three of us were on a historical tour of Boston and had stopped in one of the oldest cemeteries in the country.

As my dad and I were in the front of the group, trying to absorb historical facts, I glanced back to see my mom bent over at the waist in front of a gravestone. When I beelined over to her, she offered up her palms full of change, her eyes twinkling at her good fortune.

Yet again, “MA! What are you doing?!” Apparently she had no knowledge that people left coins on graves as tributes, or to bring luck, or to even be used as passage into the underworld. So I forced her to return the coins to their rightful homes, much to her disappointment.

Maybe the next time I’m home, I’ll throw some pennies down in front of their house so they can feel like Scrooge McDuck.

Not Your Average Piercing Pagoda

In college, my friends and I decided to “get pierced.” Where on our bodies? It didn’t matter. Why? Because it was a bargain.

Someone got word of there being a BOGO (Buy One, Get One) sale at the local tattoo/piercing place, so naturally, we paired up and set off to get our bodies’ adorned.

Even before I started drinking beer heavily, I had a little Buddha belly, so a belly-button ring was out of the question. Lip ring? Nah, because I reasoned, “when I apply my Chapstick, I’d have to do half a lip at a time.”

People with nose piercings always looked like they were picking their nose, so I opted instead to keep the focus where I wanted it — at eye level. And that’s how it was that Esco, Kara, and I all ended up with eyebrow rings (since Spank already had one and we needed a 4th to get the BOGO discount, Homer got her belly button pierced).

Part I
The day we went, fate decided my friends needed a life experience.

As I lay face-up on the piercing table, I could hear a fellow patron chatting my friends up about the tattoo she just got and then I heard her ask if they wanted to see it. Not thinking anything unusual, I bore down and had my eyebrow pierced, paid my half and we all walked out.

Only to realize later, when she said “it” she meant her clit piercing she ALSO just had done recently.

My friends, too curious to look away, couldn’t just “Say No.” So they got an eyeful of her vaginal piercing. Sidenote: I was pissed I missed it. Let’s be serious, how often does that kind of opportunity present itself? Once in a lifetime, I tell you. Because it’s never happened to any of us again.

Part II
Now my parents…are like the mom and dad from “The Wonder Years”. A gruff, blue-collar father, and a sweet, cookie-baking, ”Let’s keep our voices down because Dad’s had a hard day” mom. So I knew neither of them would take kindly to my fashionable act of rebellion. Nor would my brother, who later remarked, “You get into a fight with a tacklebox and lose?”

Which is why I withheld information until the day my mom came to visit.

As she crested the hill and came toward me, her Crest Toothpaste smile slowly dissolved into a puzzled grimace, akin to the Christmas Grinch.

All she could say was, “Heidi…Your beautiful eyes…What did you do to your beautiful eyes?! (as if I had lost an eye from a hot poker)” And all I could reply was, “Mom, but look I chose a blue ball in the eyebrow ring to match my eyes!” The grimace held fast, her eyes suddenly steely.

We went out for a tight-lipped brunch, all the while she stared me down disappointedly.

As I waited for her outside the diner, a giant wasp flew by and stung me in the thigh, swelling to the size of a peanut butter lid. When she arrived later with some ice in a cup, I thought, “Oh good, the tension is broken…she’s still the tender caretaker. Here to help her baby heal.” But I was wrong. Because when I said, “Why? Why did this happen to me?”

She replied merely, “THAT’s what you get.”

As if Mother Nature were on her side and they were both in agreement about my stupidity.

The eyebrow ring lasted less than a year because of my summer waitressing gig at the Cracker Barrel. My options were either to put a Band-Aid on it (personally, the last thing I want to see when I’m about to order food is facial gauze) or to take it out due to it not aligning with the corporate motto of ”Country Fresh.”

I still have the little blue ball. And when I see it, I smile at its power to unleash fury in Mom Z.

My Mom, The Punisher

For those who have had the pleasure of meeting Mom Z., they know how sweet and good-natured she is. How kind and creative, even a little cheeky. Less known, is her effectiveness as one of the world’s best punishers.

Link Sausage
One summer morning, my mom made my siblings and I pancakes and sausages. Only problem was, I had a hang-up about eating link sausage. Patty sausage? Done deal. Link sausage is a different story. I dunno, maybe it was the gray color. Maybe it was the little balloon knot ends. Maybe it was the little slippery casings.

Whatever the reason, I adamantly refused to eat the sausage she spent minutes out of her day cooking over the stove for us. And that pissed her off.

So much that she figured the only way to get me to eat my link sausage would be to threaten canceling my playdate with Sharon C. that afternoon.

The funny thing is that my mom and I had played the game of wills before and she always lost. I remember many nights sitting at the dining room table refusing to eat my green beans/baked potato/peas/broccoli/spinach only to hear “You will sit here all night until you eat your green beans/baked potato/peas/broccoli/spinach (not all at one meal, mind you). You’re not going to play or go watch TV. You will sit here, at this table, until you eat your vegetables.”

And so I’d sit.

And sit.

And sit.

Until finally at 9 pm (keep in mind, we’d eat dinner between 5:00 and 5:30 pm every night), she’d be completely disgusted and say, “FINE! GO TO YOUR ROOM!” And I’d consider it another willpower win.

But I digress, back to Sharon C.

My mom assumed she was calling my bluff because of my sincere love of Barbies.

But 30 minutes later, after wailing and pleading [to do anything BUT eat link sausage], I called Sharon and told her through choked sobs that “I can’t come and play today because I didn’t eat my sausage.”

Today, at the age of 31, I still refuse to eat link sausage. But nice try, Mom.


Three-O’clock-Brock
The real test of wills was the never-ending battle between Mom Z and my sister, Gretchen. To this day, when I question why she never beat the living hell out of my sister, my mom simply replies, “I didn’t want to crush her spirit. I wanted to tame her a little, but I always admired her spirit.”

My sister is the oldest, and notoriously, the trouble-maker out of the three of us. In high school, she hit her stride of rebellion.

I think it was the summer before her junior year that was the most memorable. The legend is:
While tending to her flowerbeds, my mom noticed clumps of newly mowed grass up the siding of our white house. When she looked closer, she saw a hole the diameter of a finger in Gretchen’s bedroom window screen. That night, she slept in the living room recliner and at 3 am heard a car outside our house.

Now, my parents’ house is backed up next to a cornfield, so needless to say, they don’t see a lot of late-night traffic. When she peeked out the front door, she saw my 16-year-old sister scamper across the lawn and into a black Camaro. About 30-45 minutes later, my sister scampered back across the lawn, through her bedroom window, and into her room, where my mother was waiting for her.

The next day, the wrath of Mom Z electrified the air around the breakfast table. At the ripe age of 8, I had no idea what was going on. But I could sense something bad was about to happen.

My mom interrogated me, asking if I had known about Gretchen’s late-night rendezvous’ with (who would later be named) Three-O’Clock-Brock. Again, at 16, my sister never shared secrets with me, an 8-year-old.

Her punishment? For the foreseeable future, my mom wouldn’t trust my sister by leaving her alone. Ever.

For the rest of the summer (and fall) (and winter), Gretchen escorted my mom everywhere she went. My soccer games, my brother’s soccer games, my brother’s Boy Scout meetings, grocery shopping, visits to my mom’s friends’ houses, doctor’s appointments, etc. Nor was she allowed to talk to friends over the phone or hang out with friends.

She finally lifted the ban in January, so my sister could attend a friend’s birthday party.

Now THAT is how you give a punishment. And possibly why I was so well-behaved in high school.

City Folk at the Rodeo

Unlike my own parents, my best friend Harve’s parents were always traveling. Luckily for me, Harve and her siblings were allowed to bring a guest on most of these outings. And since she and I were almost scarily inseparable, I could guarantee myself a spot.

One of the yearly outings was to a place called the Cowtown Rodeo.

No, I’m not joking.

COWTOWN RODEO. Located in NEW JERSEY.
{I’ll wait while you digest that.}

It is a little over two hours away but when we were in the back of their minivan/Le Sabre listening to “Car Talk,” it felt like eons.

The first thing we’d do when we arrived was stop and pick up our tickets (so as to avoid the craziness of the line immediately before the rodeo) and set up seats on the bleachers. We’d tie blankets or trashbags to save our seats for later (kids were the first bench right up front, the adults were the last bench right in the back).

Then…it was on to mass chaos — the flea market.

Now, for 10-year-old girls, this was the greatest thing ever. Our parents would give us $10 or $20 and say, “Go. Have fun.” We bought bulk sour watermelons. Glittery purses. A doll that talked and cried (and never seemed to quiet down — I’m talking to you, Harve). There were people haggling, a giant pair of underpants hanging over the $1 underpants bins, cowboy hats, cowboy belt buckles, and the jeans! Enough Lee and Wrangler jeans to outfit everyone in the place.

It was hot. It was loud. And I loved it.

The crowning glory of the flea market was their rotisserie chicken with seasoned potatoes. Every year Harve’s parents would buy it and Mrs. H would pull all the chicken off the bone and cut all the potatoes in half so we’d have enough to go around. It was smokey, peppery, salty, it was red-orange and is kind of giving me a food boner just thinking about it.

Once we’d feast, we’d check in at our hotel and swim for a few hours until getting dressed and heading to the main event: The Rodeo.

As I mentioned, the kids (me, Harve, Harve’s brother and guest, and for a while Harve’s cousins) sat right in front next to the chainlink fence. The appeal of sitting so close was that when broncos would buck or bulls would crash into the fence, you’d be showered with dirt. This was exciting stuff.

At the Cowtown Rodeo, they also have a band: Dave and the Wranglers. These guys have been around as long as I can remember and they play the same tunes every Saturday night — ber der der DING DINGA DING DING, DING DINGA DING DING. It’s hokey, it’s southern, and I wouldn’t change it a bit.
Like all rodeos, they have rodeo clowns who serve a dual purpose:

1. To keep the cowboys safe. 
2. To entertain the crowd with corny banter with the MC.

One year, they asked for volunteers to play a game before the rodeo started. Harve and I were terrified of being noticed, but her brother wasn’t and got picked along with 2 others.

With all eyes on them, the three contestants were blindfolded.

But wait, the rodeo clowns had sneakily dismissed the other contestants, leaving just Harve’s brother wearing a bandana in the middle of the arena. Why him? In his Izod golf shirt, pleated khakis, and loafers, this kid clearly was not one of the locals and stuck out like a…preppie at a rodeo.

And that’s when the real fun started. They had him eat a banana as fast as he could while dancing a jig in a circle. Thinking he was competing for a prize, his antics were as exaggerated as possible — high jumps, clicking his loafers together, the banana hurriedly chomped and chewed.

After a few minutes of this, with the entire crowd laughing, they had Harve’s brother remove his blindfold to reveal that he had in fact been competing against himself for the enjoyment of the entire rodeo audience.

A good sport, he laughed and rejoined us for the rest of the show, happy to have been literally at the center of everyone’s attention for a few minutes. What did he win? Probably just dirt in his loafers and a few fun memories.

Being In Heat

Weddings are fun (for me, anyway). Unless they land on the hottest day of the year and nearly break the thermometer at 105 degrees like last Friday.

I went to a wedding a few days ago and despite having been to 3 other summer weddings in my life, this one was definitely the hottest.

My brother’s wedding (August 14) took place in a beautiful church on his (and his wife’s) college campus. Problem was, there was no AC in said beautiful church. I very clearly remember my brother, renowned for rarely breaking a sweat, reciting his vows in a full suit with sweat beads literally dangling on the end of his stately nose.

My sister’s wedding (August 5) photographer had a tough job. Not only did she try to take classy pictures inside my parents’ home (which looks like the inside of a Cracker Barrel — “Can you maybe move the umbrella stand? And the antique sock stretcher? and the glass tarantula?”), but she also attempted to take pictures outside (which looks like the set of “Sanford and Son” — “Can you move those lawn mowers out of the way? And that tractor windsock?”).

As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, my dad and sister are profuse sweaters.  At one point, I said jokingly, “Want me to towel her off?” And she said, “Yeah, that would be great.” So I was dabbing my sister’s sweaty face with paper towels in between pictures.

My cousin Jeffrey’s wedding (July 20) was outside on a lake. Which would have been great, had it not been 90 degrees and in the direct sun. For an hour. And a half (with pictures).

But THIS wedding, took the cake (har har).

a.) While attempting to get dressed in a semi-air conditioned room (the breaker had blown), Justin's friend’s dad walked in just as I had pulled my shirt over my head. And to that I say, you’re welcome, Sir.
b.) The ceremony was outside, on the water, under a tent and under 15 minutes long. Score. The reception was half indoors, half on the balcony, with a breeze. The problem, is that even when there was a breeze, it felt like someone was standing too close and breathing up against you like in a crowded elevator.
c.) The bride wore a floor-length gown AND left her hair down.
d.) The groom wore a seersucker suit. For those unfamiliar, “Seersucker is woven in such a way that some threads bunch together, giving the fabric a wrinkled appearance in places. This feature causes the fabric to be mostly held away from the skin when worn, facilitating heat dissipation and air circulation.”

Except when you’re getting married and it’s 105 degrees. In that event, the seersucker suit forms wet patches where it brushes the skin, as it did for this groom. Let’s hope the photographer is great with photoshop, because no one should look at pictures from their wedding and say, “WHOA! My SHINS were sweating!”

And with that, I end this post with a plea: For all my friends and relatives yet to get married, October! October is a nice month, right?!

A Gift for My Dad

Many summers ago, my best friend Kristen invited me to spend a week at the beach with her family.

As a 10 year old whose own parents’ idea of vacation was camping at the state park, I immediately accepted.
The thoughtful child I was, throughout the week I bought maybe a bag of taffy and some post cards for myself, but mainly spent my meager savings for souvenirs for my mom, sister, and brother.

My dad is a tough nut to crack. He never wants anything, he never needs anything. So finding him a souvenir was more of a challenge.

Fortunately, on one of our last nights, we went to the arcade. Kristen and I amassed a ton of tickets from skeeball and I set my sights on the prize case.

“What can I get Dad?” I thought. “What would show him that I was thinking of him and that I love him?” BEHOLD, a mini-trophy! Perfect. I showed it to Kristen’s parents, proud that I had finally found a gift worthy of my dad.

Years later, when I was a junior or senior in high school, I stumbled across it and experienced sheer horror when I read the front:
“World’s Best Lover”

I tried to remember back to the day I picked it out of the case and vaguely remembered thinking, “I love Dad, this will show him how much I love him.” And then I remembered the blank, puzzled looks of Kristen’s parents when I showed them the gift I picked out for my dad.

On one hand, it’s still really disturbing.

On the other hand, thanks to him I exist. So yeah, maybe he does deserve the trophy.

A Night at the Roxbury with DJ Bernard

I’ve vented about this before. Taxis in Boston are the worst.

Last night was the perfect storm of awfulness + ridiculousness.

The Captain and I went to dinner downtown and attempted to take the subway back to his house. Only to realize the Sox game had just ended and therefore, every train was packed with people. How packed? As my friend Jess once said, “What is this, India?”

Ok, so the T was out. Next option, a taxi.

After hanging out on the corner hailing numerous occupied cabs (the Boston cabbies lack the courtesy to abide by any kind of light system, so you never know until they drive by if there’s anyone in the cab), we snagged one. Huzzah! [This was a success compared to two weekends ago, when we attempted to grab a cab at 1:30 am. After telling the cabbies our destination, two of them just drove off, not satisfied with the fare they’d receive from our trip.] 

And then it went downhill. Fast.

1.) As soon as we told the cabbie our destination, he responded with, “Aww shit, I just came from there!”
2.) He seemed puzzled by the address, but seemed to know where he was going. That is, until he drove us in a circle.
3.) Then he passed back his GPS and told us to program in the address. Umm, try 666 Trouble St., because that’s where we were headed.
4.) The Haitian news radio was full of static, yet blasting at nearly full volume.
5.) As our cabbie was alternately slamming the gas, then slamming the brake, the Captain and I exchanged skeptical glances.
[here’s the game changer]
6.) The cabbie saw a blonde woman hailing a cab and yelled out, “Where you going? South Boston? Get in!” And so this woman was in the passenger’s seat, cabbin it with us.
7.) At this point, I was so annoyed with the entire experience I debated a jump-and-roll at the next stop light.
8.) The woman, obviously drunk from the Sox game, made small talk with the cabbie. When they exchanged names, she said, “Bernard? That’s a good, strong name.” When she said the Haitian language sounded like gibberish to her, oh how he laughed. When they shared a common love of music and dancing, he changed the station to a hip-hop station, turned up the volume, and started rapping/singing along, while simultaneously pumping the brakes to the beat of the music as she yelled out, “YEAH! You got a new job! DJ Bernard, that’s what I’m gonna call you!”
9.) At this point, the woman had looked back a few times at me with a shrug and an “I have no idea what is happening” smirk. Bernard-the-cabbie had looked back at the Captain a few times with a “YEAH! I’m gonna nail her!” smirk. I looked at the Captain through a sea of tears, which were soaking my cheeks from laughing so hard at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
10.) As we arrived at our destination, we attempted to pay with the credit card machine, but it was conveniently broken (sidebar: cabbies often say their credit machines are ’broken’ so they get fares in cash rather than in credit, which takes 10-15% off their fare to pay the credit card company). As the Captain asked to be driven to an ATM, the blonde woman said, “No, no, it’s cool. I’m just a few blocks from here and I have cash. Don’t worry about it, I’ve got you covered.”

And so, they sped off leaving us on the sidewalk, bent at the knees trying to recover from laughter.

The Start of Camping Season

Maybe it’s engrossing myself in nature, maybe it’s the taste of a smoked hotdog, or maybe it’s a throwback to childhood (in lieu of any actual vacations, my parents took us camping a few times each summer), but I love camping.

Now that I’m mostly an adult with my own camping excursions, I’ve accumulated almost all the necessities for a successful camping trip — quality tent, quality sleeping bag, lantern, flashlights, tarps, and a comfortable campfire chair (still need: cooler, grill, pop-up canopy for over the picnic table. hint: my birthday is in July).

Of course, those are just the necessities and make up about 20% of what I actually pack and bring with me.

The rest really just make the outing more relaxing — tubs full of snacks and meals, lots of blankets, games, bottles of wine/beer (depending on how cold/warm it will be when camping), music, etc. Aka the other 80% of stuff in my car is all non-essential.

Since this weekend was the first camping excursion of the season (and with my boyfriend, the Captain/Justin), I was excited to showcase my organizational skills and general preparedness.

I requested that he bring an iPod, a pan, a grill, and a water jug. Oh, and Scrabble. “I have everything else!” I proudly exclaimed. Two giant, hot pink rubbermaid bins labeled with their contents and in plastic sleeves, were my pride and joy.

And despite the weather, a gross 52-degrees, misting and foggy, we were on the road by 6:30 pm with an arrival time um…yeah…9:00 pm. Not good.

But I was still excited to get there and finally crack open the tent I received for Christmas and had been waiting to Christen with the first campout of the year.

…….That’s kind of when it hit me.

At about 8:07 pm, I realized I had never even opened my tent to make sure the pieces were all there, let alone that I knew how to put it together. And at 8:07 pm, when the fog was soupy, the weather was nasty, and I knew we’d be using my car’s headlights to illuminate the process, I broke the news to my boyfriend.

While his reaction didn’t have the same ring as my dad’s ”Dammit, Heidi…,” it was definitely noteworthy: “Seriously?! That is the WORST news you could have given me!”

A classic (circa Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball) camping mistake.

But with my handy lantern, flashlights, and Gertie’s headlights (not to mention a healthy mix of communication, humor, and perserverance), we got the tent up in less than an hour and neither of us were maimed in the process.

Sidenote: of the 4 items he was responsible for, he forgot a pan, so I felt less bad about my initial fluffheaded mistake. But then he made me chocolate pancakes on a borrowed pan and all was well with the world.

Things I Would Rescue if My House Were on Fire

1. My retainers — I had braces for 2 years in high school and as my way of saying, “Thanks Mom and Dad for saving me from a life of jacked up toothery,” I wear my retainers twice a week.
2. My journals — I’ve been writing in a journal since 6th grade, so I have a stack of them.
3. My giant box of photo albums.
4. Snuggles and my green baby blanket — The former was a gift from my brother, Johnny, when I was 5 and the blanket, um, I kind of stole from him when I was a wee tot because I liked it better than my own.
5. My passport and birth certificate — I used to keep this at my parents’ house, but after witnessing a candle left burning (and nearly catching a shelf on fire — twice), I prefer to keep these important documents with me. The irony in this situation is that I’d be grabbing said important documents because my house would be on fire.
6. My KU sweatshirt — Oh, you nasty, gnarled frayed sweatshirt. So many Natty-Ice-laced memories. Even though I should let you burn, I will save you from the wreckage. Mostly because I’d already be wearing you.
7. My writing samples — I did not intern an entire summer at the Express-Times newspaper for fun.
8. My binder of recipes — Forget Betty Crocker. I’ve been accumulating a binder of recipes I’ve found from recipes sites, friends, my mom, and Granny B.

A Reversal of Roles

Traveling with my mom, who is in her mid-60s, is a bit like traveling with a 7-year-old. Like I said, 90% of the time we got along splendidly. The other 10% of the time, well, kind of painful.

Check. Double check. I nearly had a stiff neck from checking that she was still behind me. Before we left, my dad gave me the Robert DeNiro-to-Ben Stiller “I’m watching you, Focker.” Except he said, “Heidi…watch her.” No pressure, Dad.






A lot of the time I offered up my arm, which she thought was sweet since her knees bother her and she sometimes has trouble walking. But really, I just wanted to make sure she was hanging on and not getting run over by any of the million bicycles, mopeds, and taxis.

I’m not lying when I say that I grabbed her little butter-yellow quilted backpack (Vera Bradley, nay. This came directly from a craft show.) by the handle to yank her back onto a sidewalk. 

Snacktime. She’s always ready for a snack. Preferably ice cream. Or candy. Or Belgian waffles.



She takes a lot of naps. We watched a 15-minute movie about building some crazy water blocking system and my mom snored.



She also has no filter. Case in point, the Van Gogh museum. As we looked at the masterpieces of Van Gogh, my mom looked kind of bored. Flowers, scenery, meh.

Then she spotted one painting of some onions on a kitchen table that he had painted and her eyes lit up. She exclaimed, “See Heidi? And you say that the pictures I take of the kitchen sink aren’t art! See? He painted onions! My pictures of strawberries and apple peelings are just as good!” I had to say quietly, “Mom, I can assure you, the pictures you take of FOOD SCRAPS are not equal to a VAN GOGH painting.”

 

She wanders. Despite my best efforts, my mom occasionally thwarted my watchful eye. One day, we walked around the Keukenhof Gardens. 32 hectares, 4.5 million tulips in 100 varieties, and we walked almost all of it. As we were about to leave, she wanted to stop in one last souvenir shop.

While I tried on a sweatshirt, I saw her walk out of the shop, through the exit turnstile, and out of the park. Knowing she was headed to the meeting spot with the rest of our group, I stood in line, blood boiling, dejected, and paid for my purchase.

When I exited the park, I saw my mom standing immediately outside the gate looking like a small, relieved child who sees her parent and immediately scolded her. I found myself saying, “Never leave the park! Never leave without me! If I hadn’t seen you walk past, I wouldn’t have known where you were. Stand at the gate and look for our group, but NEVER go through the turnstiles!”

All she could say was, “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I got worried that you left, I don’t know what I was thinking.”



Organization? What organization? My mom prides herself on her organization. When she moved Granny B 6 times in 2 years, she had a system. Everything would get wrapped, placed in a box, and written on a piece of paper. The box and paper would get labeled (Box 2), so she had a record of exactly what was in every box.

 This…is not the case when she travels. “Where’s my passport?” “Where’s my keycard?” ”Where’s my boarding pass?” By the end of the trip, it had been decided that any important paperwork would reside with me and I would present both my mom’s and my ID at the security gates.

She does not like beer. On the trip, I was present for my mom’s first beer at the Heinekin Brewery tour. She was not a fan.

You know how everyone’s first beer is pure dreck and they eventually get used to the taste? Well…by the time of the Belgian beer tasting, she was still not a fan. Maybe next time. I did get a great picture of her enjoying hot tea while I enjoyed an ice cold Belgian beer, though.

 





LOST (and found). Each day our cruise director would provide a local map of the area as well as an itinerary of activities and meals. Each day, I would grab these and fold them into my bag. Anyone that knows me, knows I rely heavily on my GPS in the car. But when walking around a foreign town, I can rock the shit out of a basic map and get us from Point A to Point B.

So when my mom said, “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” followed up 10 minutes later with, “I don’t think this is right. Excuse me, sir, which way to the….” only to have him point us in the direction I was taking us, I became infuriated. One day, I couldn’t take it. I handed over the map and said, “If you think we’re so lost, here, you take it and find our way back to the bus.”



Of course she was immediately flustered, turning the map upside down, head twitching back and forth like a pigeon, saying, “I can’t read this. What street are we on? Where do we need to go?” Only for me to say, “I don’t think this is right. Are you sure you know where you’re going?” as soon as she picked a direction. It wasn’t pretty.

But we found an ice cream shop, I took over the map reading, and she was happy again.

Mom Z. Hits the Red Light District

I just returned from a two-week vacation. Or whatever you would call 12 days with my mom on a river in Europe with literally a boatload of 55+ passengers.

This all started about a year ago when I was chatting with my mom and my aunt in LA buzzed in her call waiting. My mom said simply, “Oh, that’s probably your Aunt Karen asking if I want to go on that riverboat cruise in Holland. I’ll call her back later.” Um, riverboat cruise? Holland? Hold up.




To which she replied, “She wants to know if your dad and I want to go. He doesn’t, so I guess we won’t go.” Aghast, I asked if she could bring anyone else and she said, “No one else wanted to go.” To which I asked in a high-pitched voice, “No one? Who did you ask?” She said, “Well your dad….and Brandy (her friend) ….and…uh…well I guess that’s it.” In an even higher pitch, I squeaked, “And me? What about me?”

So she said, “Oh….you? Would you want to go?” And in a ranting torrent I replied, “YES!YESIWOULDWANTTOGO! SIGNMEUP! SIGNMEUPNOW!”

And that’s how I joined the 55+ Tulips and Windmills Viking Cruise.

Afterwards, I began to have doubts about the trip, such as:

• My mom and I BOTH get seasick. We can barely handle the log flume, let alone an actual ship. I had been on a Royal Caribbean cruise a few years ago and despite everyone saying “you can’t even feel the rocking,” I could DEFINITELY feel it. And so could my stomach. I spent the first few nights in bed by 9 because I had overdosed on Dramamine.
• My mom (and aunt) have terrible arthritis in their knees. And in the schedule of activities, there were walking tours nearly every morning.
• I love my mom. But I tend to love her more when I’m living 6 hours away. Not 12 days straight.
• This cruise was specifically for the 55+ age group. There were good odds I would be the youngest person on the cruise, aside from the staff. So I’d be raring to go out and the AARP group would be tucked in bed.
• My mom snores and I am a light sleeper. I had shared a room with her before and, despite listening to an mp3 player, having driven 9 hours, and taking over-the-counter sleep pills, I slept for maybe 40 minutes.
• Country mouse/big city. My mom had never been to Europe. Or out of the country (minus Aruba last year). When she had been to Boston, it was an effort to keep her from walking into traffic when she was “just trying to take a picture.”
• We have separate interests. Hers involve lace museums, mine involve beer tastings.

Despite all these things, we had a wonderful trip. Turns out:

• With a river cruise, you really CAN’T feel any rocking. The only time I needed my SeaBands (wrist bands with acupressure points to help with motion sickness), was on the flight home when I felt my stomach drop with each drop in altitude. I was sweating like a hog in August next in line for the chopping block. Not cute.
• My mom was a champ and not only walked with the rest of the group, but insisted on walking to the top of castles, windmills, and the Anne Frank house. She said more than once, “Heidi, I didn’t come all the way over here NOT to go to the top!”
• I’ll admit, there were times when I snapped at my poor mother. Luckily, that was only 10% of the time, the other 90% of the time we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

• Due to all the walking, my mom and I were BOTH in bed by 10:30 every night. The AARP crowd, on the other hand, was doing line dances and playing poker until 2 am every night.
• I slept. By going to bed 30 minutes earlier than her, wearing Bose noise-blocking ear buds, listening to a white noise FM station on full volume on my mp3 player, and prescription sleeping pills.
• Ok, my mom was nearly run over. Several times. By several types of transportation. Luckily, her butter yellow quilted backpack (from a craft show, not a Vera Bradley) had a hand loop, which I used to pull her back from catastrophe.
• We compromised. I went into lace shops with her, she had her first beer at the Heinekin Factory Tour with me.

Of course, aside from visiting the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museum, one of the highlights of Amsterdam is the Red Light District. Which we visited. At her request.

As we walked down the street into the first section of black-lit windows, I thought to myself not “This is inappropriate. She shouldn’t be here.” I thought, “Wait for it….wait for it…she doesn’t see them yet….”

Her response was classic: HOLY SHIT! THEY’RE REALLY IN THERE!

Mouth agape, she pronounced, “And they’re pretty! I thought they’d be all skaggy! But they’re really very attractive!” I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

Please note, my mom is licking her lip lasciviously and seductively unzipping her Tinkerbell sweatshirt.



When I asked her what her favorite part of the trip was, she said honestly, “Golly gee Heidi, all of it! The architecture! The people! The food! The tours! Just all of it!”

Just Your Average Trip to the ER

About a year ago, I had strange chest pains anywhere from one to three times a day. Chest pain that would just come on, STAB! then go away. No rhyme or reason.

It had been going on for about a week or two when my best friend Harve, saw me clutch my chest and wince in pain for a few seconds when she declared my need for an ER visit and attempted to whisk me off to the nearest hospital.

But in typical Zengel style, I insisted everything was fine and that eventually it would just go away. In typical “I studied nursing in college” style, Harve insisted everything was not fine and that if it happened again during my visit, off we’d go.

The next morning, just as we were about to leave the house to pick up some delicious bagels, STAB!, once again. I tried to hide it, or pretend it was part of a really painful yawn, but to no avail. So, with a small pit stop at the local bagelry, off we went.

Now, one of the only other times I was in the ER was 20 years ago with Harve when she broke her arm during our 6th grade Halloween dance. She went as an 80s rockstar (complete with silver, tinsel wig, and garish makeup, a la the Misfits) and I went as a gypsy (complete with loud head scarves, garish makeup, and tons of jewelry).

As tears smeared her crazy makeup, Harve hobbled into the ER tenderly supporting the sling Mom Z. (always a chaperon) fashioned out of a Saltines box and a classmate’s mummy costume (shout out, Seth C.).

Knowing how strange we must look to the other ER patients especially considering our Halloween dance was 2 weeks before the holiday, Harve and I found a way to laugh through her tears.

So, considering our first ER visit was so memorable, we figured our second ER visit together would be much more tame.

Right.

Armed with bagels, we sat in the ER waiting room awaiting triage, followed quickly by gowning up and awaiting some good ol’ doctoring.

This ER had an open floor plan — beds with curtains around them, everyone facing the nurses’ station (and other patients). The nurse who took my EKG was ultra nice and had a quirky sense of humor. I liked him immediately.

In between doctors stopping by to ask questions about my pain, the nurse would stop by and trade quips with us. Once he stopped by and saw that I was nearly finished with the bottle of apple juice I bought at the bagel place earlier and a look of pure mischief passed over his face.

He asked if he could steal some and when I agreed, he hurriedly poured a little into a urine sample cup. With a wink, he set off for the nurses’ station.

He chatted with them for a few seconds, raising up the urine sample cup so all could see, then started to drink from it. Harve and I stifled laughter as some of the other patients looked on horrified as the nurses shouted disgusted exclamations.

It only lasted a few minutes until he confessed what was in the cup, but the ruse got everyone in the ER laughing, including the people on the other side of my “privacy curtain” who congratulated us in playing a part in it.

Sidenote: I am fine. Still have no idea what the pain was caused from, but sure enough it did just go away. Mostly.

Caution: I May Strip in My Sleep

I’m heading to Holland with my mom, aunt, and uncle on a 55+ river boat cruise for 10 days. While I’m excited, I’m also terrified. How long can I take 3 of my loved ones before I start snapping back at them? How drunk can I get without suffering judgement? How am I going to sleep next to my mom who snores like a linebacker wielding a chainsaw?

At least I now have the answer to one of these questions: Ambien.

I asked my primary care doctor for a prescription and her response bordered on concern. I assured her I wouldn’t get addicted and that I only needed a 10 nights’ supply.

I picked up my prescription today and the first thing on the warning label said:
CAUTION: After taking this medication, you may get out of bed while not being fully awake and do an activity that you do not know you are doing. The next morning you may not remember that you did anything during the night. You have a higher chance for doing these activities if you drink alcohol or take other medicines. Reported activities include:

• driving a car
• making and eating food
• talking on the phone
• having sex
• sleep-walking

Um. So you’re sending me into Amsterdam with a medication that could cause me to have sex while I’m sleeping?

I am suddenly WAY more excited to see how this turns out.

Heidi+Math+History=Failure

I was never very good at math. Alternatively, my brother graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and went on for a master’s degree in fuel science, so yeah, he’s pretty good at math.


When I was in about 4th grade, my dad noticed my math skills were lackluster and needed a boost. So he bought a math workbook from the book section in our local grocery store. Then he bought another one.

Eventually, he had to start buying them at the local teachers’ supply store because we had exhausted the grocery store’s supply. And even when that wasn’t enough, for one whole summer vacation, I’d wake up and sit down for breakfast only to see a yellow. legal. tablet. Two to three pages of hand-scrawled math problems that my dad created while drinking his morning coffee.

And his excessive good parenting didn’t stop there.

For years, my parents would load all three of us up every Saturday to visit my grandparents who lived about 45 minutes away. My dad would pass a box to my brother, as sneakily as a high-roller palming the doorman a tip, and say, “Here. Practice with Heidi.” And my brother would be doomed to spend 45 minutes quizzing me on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division flashcards in the back of the station wagon.

Now, aside from the fact that my brother is a supergenius, he’s also 5 years older than I am. So imagine a 14-year-old quizzing a 9-year-old on basic math when he’s doing high school, honors-level algebra. Yikes.
As if that wasn’t enough torture for either of us, my dad also noticed I couldn’t grasp the concept of counting money. Which meant…when we’d load up in the station wagon, he’d palm my brother some dollar bills and a handful of change and say, “Here. Practice making change with Heidi.”

After a few years and dozens of trips to Dra and Pop’s, thankfully I eventually got the hang of it.

Then I started bringing home unacceptable grades in social studies (a C-, if anyone is curious), which warranted long talks about how I wasn’t “reaching my potential.” Ironically enough, my sister is now a social studies TEACHER, so back in the day, I wasn’t getting any sympathy from my parents or sister about how hard social studies was either.

Fearing another dreadful family intervention, I attempted to take it in my own hands and try to study with the most patient person in the house.

I’d bring home my social studies book and, while my mom folded laundry, I’d whisper, “Mom? Can you help me study for my test tomorrow?”, hoping against hope that my dad in the next room wouldn’t overhear and step in.

And time after time, my mom would yell, “JOHN! Heidi needs help studying.”

Throwing me to the dogs, just like that.

And so, an hour of pure torture would start. My dad would find the chapter and start reading aloud. From the first word to the last word of the chapter, he’d read. Would I be taking copious notes? Suddenly absorbing information that previously hadn’t stuck in my head? No. I’d be counting the keys on our piano. Playing with the tassels on the rug. Noticing how many sentences it took before my dad cleared his throat in a serious of three eh-eh-HEM coughs.

I vividly remember looking longingly at my mom and her giant laundry piles, pleading with my eyes to make this stop. She’d wink and be off, free, walking around the house without being shackled to this stupid history book.

The worst part is that, inevitably, my dad would come to the end of the chapter and see the review questions.

I should note that unlike my dad, I don’t have a nearly-photographic memory. Hearing something or reading it once is never enough. I need to read, repeat, understand, and find meaning to what I’ve read. I need to use pneumonic devices and memory tricks to remember names/dates/places/terms. Alternately, if you ask me about a conversation we had 8 years ago, I can tell you what was said and what you were wearing. But that’s hardly helpful on a 4th grade social studies test.

So it would go that my dad would ask me a question, I’d stare dumbly like a goat, and after some insistent prodding, shrug my shoulders and say dejectedly, “I dunno.” Then my dad would say, “Heidi…I just READ IT TO YOU. ” Then he’d go back, reread the paragraph, I’d zone out again, and the cycle would continue until I’d end up crying and running to my room saying, “I DON’T KNOW, DAD!”

Years later, I asked my mom, a terrible student herself, about it and she said, “Oh Heidi! I had no idea how to study! To pick out the terms and ask you about them. To go through the questions at the end and find where they related to the text, that was completely beyond me. I’m so sorry. I’d hear you in the other room with dad and I’d just cringe because I couldn’t remember what he just read either!”

Luckily, spelling and English were my saving graces. I’d bring home my spelling words and ask my mom to review them with me, which she would. Looking back, I have to laugh because she’s an even worse speller than she is a student of social studies, so who knows how many I actually got right.

Moral of the story, try to have kids consecutively smarter than the last one so THEY can tutor each other. Or so that you think you’re just doing a really, really great job contributing to the gene pool.

An Ode to Granny B

My 95-year-old grandmother passed away on New Year’s Day. And in the typical, laughter-through-tears style of my family, my mom called to say, “Heidi, Granny partied a little too hard last night.”

We had services on Saturday and my sister and I took turns telling stories about our beloved Granny B. The strange thing was that I had to tell stories about Granny during the first half of my life, rather than the most recent half because during my college years, Granny started losing it.

And again, rather than be sad about it, we all just laughed and shrugged to say, “Well, that’s Granny for you.” But rather than tell them at a memorial service, where people may not understand the love we had for her even when she did things that didn’t make too much sense, I’ll share them here.

• Granny, the Nurse: As a nurse in the ’30s and ’40s, she was taught that a healthy digestive system resulted in 3 healthy bowel movements a day. Therefore, she checked on and actively assisted with patients’ stool production. This led to two generations (my mom and my siblings) being chased around by my grandmother trying to give them an enema. Thankfully, this never happened to me.
• Granny, the Con Artist: The thing about Granny was that she sounded compleletely lucid. When you asked about her day and what she ate, she answered you with very reasonable responses. However, sometimes they were completely fabricated. The nursing staff at her care facility would ask what she did during the weekend and she would say she took the car out for a drive (which had been sold 10 years earlier) and had seen her sister (who had already passed away). She also told the nursing staff about her lovely cruise to Sweden (she had never been on one). For a bit they thought she had been misdiagnosed, until my mom assured them none of those things had happened. They may have also caught on when she told them about her nursing days when she assisted with the first brain transplant and had undergone a uterus transplant.
• Easter Basket full of Mischief: One Easter, my college roommate Spank visited with us along with Granny B. Same Easter my parents’ hot water heater broke and leaked all over our very-packed-with-junk basement. My brother and I ran to evacuate all the sopping rugs/toys/junk when we heard a “thunk” above us. Turns out Granny had fallen off one of our dining room benches. When we arrived on the scene, she was on the floor, blue hands reaching up for help. Yes, blue. She had steadfastedly been dyeing 2, maybe 3 dozen eggs robin’s-egg-blue in our absence.
• Granny’s Nude Scene: When my grandfather was still alive and my gramma had all her senses, they used to take me on lots of camping trips. One such trip, we trekked to the bathhouse and Granny went into one of the shower stalls only to find the shower head didn’t work. So she very nakedly walked out into a crowd of fellow naked camping grannies and walked into a few stalls before finding one that worked.
• Depression-Era Granny: As a product of The Great Depression, my grandmother kept reserves. When we moved her from her house into her first care facility, we found boxes and boxes of Jell-O (which she used to make her infamous “Jell-O salad”) and canned goods. Around the same time, she started hiding her checkbook. In cereal boxes, in the toilet tank, in the freezer, etc. You gotta give it to her, those are great hiding places.
• Granny the Inquisitor: Since I was largely single for most of my grandmother’s life, she always asked about my dating life. More specifically she’d ask, “How’s your boyfriend? What’s his name?” After saying repeatedly, “Granny, I don’t have a boyfriend” and feeling depressed, my mom suggested I just play along and make up boyfriends so I would have an answer for her. So I did. Every 15 minutes. She’d ask about what their major was, how old they were, if they came from a good family, and more importantly if they went to church. She also gave me two nuggets of advice: “Don’t get married so young. Date. And remember, safety in numbers,” and “Look for a guy who is motivated and has a sense of humor. It doesn’t matter if he’s attractive.” Noted.
• Hootin’ Nanny Granny: She used to sleep over at my parents house occassionally so she wouldn’t get lonely. One night, as I slept soundly in the room next to hers, I awoke to what sounded like some sort of Great Horned Owl. I went running to fetch my mom and she calmed me down saying, “It’s ok, it’s ok, just Granny. She hoots in her sleep.”
• Granny, the Sweettooth: My mom visited my grandmother a lot when she was in a care facility. She’d decorate her door and room with seasonal items, so Granny would know what time of year it was and what holidays were coming up. Once for Valentines’ Day, my mom dropped off a two-pound box of chocolate only to visit a few days later and the entire thing was gone. When my mom asked her what happened to the chocolate, Granny replied, “I guess I ate it!” One of my favorite moments was turning a corner at my parents’ house to see Granny leaning over the candy dish, hand on fist, thinking about which piece of candy she wanted to take.  
• Granny Clause: After my grandpa died, Granny slowly started to become, well, like Aunt Bethany from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” She’d wrap her groceries, like corn muffin mix and Jell-O that expired two years before, and give them to us so we’d have something to open (along with a check or gift certificates sometimes). The kicker is that in my family, we are required to write thank-you cards. So I’d have to write Granny a nicely worded thank-you card saying how much I love to bake and how much I enjoyed making the corn muffins.
• Granny Everlasting: Despite my concerns and warnings about sending Granny into cardiac arrest, several years ago my mom threw her a surprise 80th birthday party. And when we asked Granny, “How does it feel to be 80?” she replied, “I’m not 80! I’m 75!” Throughout the party we asked her how old she was and she’d say a different number each time, which just proves age is just a number.

I’m grateful to have known and loved Granny for as long as I did. And I was always happy to answer her “How’d I get such good looking grandkids?” with, “Granny, I look just like you when you were younger, so I must get it from you!”

A Tearful New Year's Eve

This weekend I played host to four friends (new and old). The cast of characters included:

• Spank - my college roommate through all 4 years; one of my closest friends
• Jess - a college friend; one of my closest friends
• Fe - Jess’ cousin, ergo my adopted cousin
• Cassie - Jess’ roommate’s cousin/Jess’ friend, ergo my friend

Having 5 girls under one roof and traipsing all around Boston is kind of like herding cats. Very long-haired cats (I vacuumed before everyone arrived, and yet had Texas-sized tumbleweeds rolling through my house last night).

In September we set the plans in motion to attend a legit New Year’s Eve ball. Having said that, I think New Year’s Eve is the perfect holiday for 5 girls to be together. It requires alcohol, pretty dresses, makeup, fun accessories, cute shoes, dancing, and champagne. The only thing better would be a national holiday dedicated to cosmopolitans, and the opening night of “Sex and the City” came pretty close to that.