Ask Cathy!

Good Morning America recently completed their nationwide search for their new Advice Guru, an actual paying job on network TV.  To enter, viewers submitted  photos, answers to three knotty problems, and essays explaining why them - why they should be the next Advice Guru.   I thought my destiny was to schmooze with George Stephanopolous while solving the problems of your everyday Americans.  I even scheduled a hair appointment, so I'd have no grey roots the day they announced the winner.  I was camera-ready.

I am not the next Advice Guru. 

Here's my essay explaining "Why Me?"  And screw them anyway.

I don’t have all the answers (though until I was about thirty, I thought I did).  I do, however, have some amazing people in my life who’ve taught, and continue to teach, me so much about how to live in this world.  My friend Elizabeth reminds me that we never know what burdens people carry, so we need to give them the benefit of the doubt.  She also, handily enough, gives me free legal advice.  My friend Mary believes the only person who gets in the way of us achieving our dreams is ourselves.    If you need a kind but firm kick in the backside to get moving, she’s there to provide it.  Sharon has showed me that the key to popularity is to truly enjoy the people around you.  I’d always thought I had to show how terrific I was, instead of just appreciating how terrific they are.  Because of my sister, I know that it is never okay to eat your groceries in the car.  From my mom, easily the kindest person I know, I’ve learned the most.  She believes in family, forgiveness, and affection.  Her early life was so different from mine that she has a perspective I often lack.  But I know where to find it.  One of the most important things she’s always told me (paraphrasing the Buddha) is, “Always be kind to people.  Just remember, you’re a people too.”  That and, “Never underestimate the male ego.”

El Sancho: Why I am a Mexican Man

I was listening to an NPR discussion on life insurance in minority communities (because NPR can make even this subject interesting to me, which is why I should donate some cash).  The insurance expert explained that a major reason Mexican men won't buy life insurance is El Sancho.  El Sancho is the guy your wife takes up with after you're dead and who will spend all your life insurance money.  I've always been bothered by the possibility that a second wife could spend IRA money I accrued before I got married.  Now I have a name for it!

Halloween

Every Halloween, I think about this woman I never knew. I've linked to the piece she wrote on seeing her third-grade daughter off on Halloween night, the last Halloween of this mother's life.

I bought this book for my then eight-year old daughter so that, if anything happened to me, she would know. Marjorie Williams would tell her how being a mom feels.


The Woman at the Washington Zoo ... - Google Books

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

I always keep a pack of matches in my jacket pocket.  Nothing else is permitted - no ponytail holders, no Kleenex, nothing that is used for the care and feeding of someone else.  I haven't smoked for years and have no desire to do so now.  The matches just remind me of me, when I didn't have to take care of anyone else* and I could smoke because I was never going to die.



*Standard disclaimer:  Of course taking care of my children is the most wonderful thing in the world to me, blah blah blah.

Tales of a Smarty Pants

I found an old journal of mine, one of many that have the first twelve pages filled followed by a hundred that are empty.  One of the few entries was from five years ago, and the memory made me laugh.  Also, I'm too lazy to think up anything new, so here it is:

I saw my eight-year old self at the playground last night.  As Belinda and Bill threw and swung at T-Ball practice, Julia and I hit the playground equipment.  There, I saw the kid I'd have been if I were a boy.  Just the tiniest bit chubby and with the short, puffy hair I know so well, he was playing Frisbee keepaway with three other boys (and I could tell they were only playing with him because it was his Frisbee).  He (who could have been me) fell and said, "I think I hurt my cranium."  One of the normal boys asked, "What's that?"  My silent answer was, "Head."  He (who could have been me) answered, "It's a part of the skull.  You know....cranium, maxilla, mandible..."  Later, sitting next to the normal boy on the playground mountain, he (who could have been me) asked, "Did you hurt your phalange?"  The other boy looked disgusted and said, "Why do you say that?  It sounds dumb."  It took me thirty years to learn that people don't particularly like it when you have all the answers. 

Handbags and Gladrags

I admit that I have absolutely no perspective here; I gratefully welcome the guidance of those who do.  As my older daughter enters middle school, one of her Top Ten Issues of the Day is the Vera Bradley backpack.  For those who don't know (as I did not until my daughter enlightened me), the Vera Bradley backpack is a quilted, floral concoction that puts me in mind of a Laura Ashley (is she still around?) throw pillow.  The price tag, of course, is ridiculous.  (It's a backpack!  For a sixth-grader!)  My daughter knows that she has absolutely zero chance of getting one (and since her after-school job is to badger me for a cell phone, it's not a battle she picks).  Still, this damn backpack comes up in her conversation more often than is remotely interesting.  Leading me to my quandary:

I realize that, as far as fashion spending goes, I'm a reactionary.  At this moment, I'm proudly wearing capri pants and a t-shirt that are new-to-me from Goodwill.  I'm free with the information that my purse is a Target ($17).  Perhaps this is just as obnoxious as sporting logos that broadcast the fortune someone else paid for theirs.  I also appreciate that since (clothing-wise) I could have pretty much whatever I wanted while I was growing up, it's not an issue to me now.  I don't carry that handbaggage from my past, if you will.  I know for a fact that a label can't make you popular or get you a boyfriend, the only things that really matter (and I wish I was kidding).  So I need answers to these questions:

1)  If I have a blanket embargo on these Items of Label, will that just make my kid obsessed with what she's missing?  Will she believe that everything would have been different/better if I'd just let her wear the same stuff as All The Other Girls?

2)  What if she uses her own money?  Even if I think it's a horrible choice and I fear it will only spawn more of the same, is it a choice she's allowed to make?  Part of me worries that the damned Vera Bradley backpack will get attention enough to bolster her skewed perceptions of what's important.

3)  What if the Item of Label is on sale?  Here the issue is more the shirts from Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch.  I'll certainly not spring for full retail, but what if it's on clearance (my own personal kryptonite)?  Though price is not the issue here, it's still supporting the idea that we want our clothing to send a very clear and precise message.  I realize that all clothing does that, but I just hate for the message to literally be spelled out across her chest.

Got answers?

I've Completely Changed My Mind

Screw this whole idea about growing older = gaining a valuable wisdom that, in the end, makes it worth it.  I'm starting to see that growing older = hearing news that gets progressively worse. 

My dear aunt got some bad medical news.  My friend's father is struggling more and more with his Alzheimer's.  A neighbor is facing bankruptcy because of the costs of her husband's mental hospitalization.  Another friend just buried her mother, who was laid waste by Huntington's.  Yet another friend's cousin, a youngish mother of four, has seen the return of her Stage IV breast cancer. 

Now, someone who sees each day as a gift would point out that, number one, I am blessed with friends and family in the first place.  The same person might say that with each breath there is hope and in death there is peace.  He/she might add that the joy is in this journey.  To all this I reply, "Well fuck that."

I would very much like someone to change my mind about this.  Personally, I don't think it can be done.

The Girl on the Plane

Flying back home from our summer vacation, we squeezed ourselves into one of those planes so small even I almost hit my head on the ceiling.  I sat next to my older daughter, with my husband and younger daughter in front of us; next to me sat a girl I used to be.  In many ways she was foreign to me:  her purse was heavily logo-ed, her skin tanned, her hair blonde.  Most notably different was that, despite being a good size or two larger than optimal, she had no qualms about scarfing down a Wendy's burger and fries right before take-off.  (For us problem eaters, such public feeding is reflexively avoided.) But, as I listened to her talking at her friends seated behind me, I recognized her as myself when I was, like she, in my early twenties.

Apparently, she and her friends were returning from a friend's wedding.  Among other things I learned during the trip, she loves her job, she's miffed that her mother posted a family portrait that was rather unflattering, and she golfs.  She was me because she was certain her glittering young life both charmingly fascinated and inspired twinges of envy.  She spoke as though to the room (or the cabin), neither lowering her voice nor allowing interruption of her performance.  I so remember being her and my certainty that any sane person would want to be me - young, pretty, smart, my life ahead of me - and even more certain that a captive audience would be appreciatively amused by my ruminations.

Now, as the captive audience, I know different, since I wasn't charmed as much as mildly irritated.  Even my eleven year-old, who had at first been watching the show with undisguised fascination, became bored with the self-absorption.  Since I often recall the girl that I was with a great deal of wincing, I didn't mind being reminded that the behavior of many, many girls that age is worth wincing over.  On the other hand, knowing that she viewed me either a) with pity for my bland existence as a middle-aged mom or b) not at all because to her I'm invisible just made my cranky (it had been a long travel day). 

When I was a freshman in college, I wrote an essay for English about how awful aging would be.  I got an A on a treatise discussing the loss of passion and vitality that each decade of life would bring.  I preached that I was enjoying the best time of my life (when I was in fact not all that happy) because the highs would never be as high (despite the lows not being so low), and all the true adults I knew seemed so lacking in intensity.  My roommate, who didn't even like me particularly, asked to make a copy of it, because my realizations were so tragic and so true. 

Sheesh.

We just watched a relatively new movie called "According to Greta" with Hilary Duff and Ellen Burstyn.  Hillary Duff is Greta, a teenager with the melancholy self-absorption that first arouses empathy but then just exasperates.  Ellen Burstyn is her grandmother.  Greta assumes that life is downhill after seventeen, because nothing will be as exciting as it was then.  Her grandmother explains that when she herself was seventeen, she didn't even know who she was, that it's the learning you do each day of your life that makes the next day even more valuable.   I've learned enough to know I could never tell that to the girl on the plane because a) no one asked me (and you wouldn't believe how long it's taken me to learn that my wisdom is not appreciated when unsolicited) and b) you can only really believe it by living it.

Father's Day

I'm always touched when really bad people show a glimmer of a soul.  In this case, Glenn Allen Jeffries, a fugitive from drug and assault charges, saved his 11 month-old daughter from their burning home.  Perhaps also relevant to his character, he served time more than ten years ago for shooting, dismembering with an axe, and burnng the torso of John Keane (for reasons I cannot find, although one could argue there really isn't a good reason for such behavior).  He and his father were convicted, each pointing the finger at the other.  Dad got 30 years, son only 10 for third-degree murder.  Not germaine but intriguing to me is that Dad, at the time of the crime, was living in a cave.

Anyway, Glenn Allen was released early from prison in 2002.  Since then, he's run afoul of the law and ended up on the lam.  He was staying with his wife and baby daughter when their wood-burning stove set the house ablaze.  Glenn Allen saved his baby girl and, along with his wife, made it out safely.  After being assured that his daughter would survive and although burned himself, he ran.  The baby's burns were so severe that she needed to be airlifted from the Pittsburgh area to the Shriner's Hospital for Children in Cincinnati, a five-hour drive away.

Despite being the kind of guy who, following some home butchery, can pick up a torso and shove it into a wood burning stove (not the same stove that turns up later in the story), he's a daddy who loves his baby girl.  After saving her life and then fleeing, he couldn't bear to be away from her.  Knowing he was wanted (and presumably bright enough to realize cops would be watching the hospital, though perhaps no level of brightness should be presumed), he still made his way to Cincinnati and visited his little girl.  There he was captured. 

Perhaps not enough to be Father of the Year, but at least he deserves a card.

PSA

If you can't remember the last time you changed the toothbrushes, do it today.  You might be thinking, "Hmmm, good point.  But why should I change his toothbrush?  Can't a grown man be responsible for the basics of his own personal care?"  The short answer is, "No."

Turkey on Your Birthday

As my birthday neared (after which I could still be considered middle-aged but just barely), I was getting my hair colored and cut, so I could face the world with a dazzling smile.  I'd been sporting a coif reminiscent of a dowdier Laura Bush (I know) but was updating to what I term a Full Pelosi.  That was when I saw it.  The turkey wattle.  Now, I'd been noticing that my dear husband has been hanging low around the jawline for a while.  I felt a little bad for him, because I knew he'd be upset if he realized, though I couldn't care less.  Since I'm younger than he (by nearly 1000 days), I also felt a little smug, proud of my taut mandibular.  That was then.

As I sat before the salon mirror, I could have gasped.  Normally before I catch my reflection, I arrange my face and stretch my neck.  At a quarter profile and without my glasses, I look like I have for the past twenty years (I thought).  Once you're wattled, though, that's pretty much that.  This is how old I now am:  after my horrible discovery I (no lie) thought, "Oh well, maybe I can get a quick nap before she needs to wash out my color."

Later, while in line at Kohl's, I studied the woman checking out in front of me.  She was probably 80, with bleached blonde hair, lots of make-up, a newsboy cap, and leather pants.  Leather pants!  I snickered to myself, because a) at least I'm not that old, and b) what a get-up.  Then it hit me that she got up in the morning and made a bit of an effort.  Though my hair was freshly done and I do wear eye make-up every day, I pretty much have thrown in the towel.  From then on, I've been trying to keep that towel picked up.

I've always liked this quote by Isaac Mizrahi that I clipped from a magazine in 1998.  He said:

I don't care.  I don't judge.  Like, I was at a dinner one night and somebody said, "Look at her," and I said, "She's having fun, what's wrong with her?"  She looked a mess, but she was having a lot of fun, and she thought she looked great.  And I wasn't having a lot of fun, and I thought I looked great too.  So there was something she was doing that I was doing wrong.  And this guy said to me, "We are men of taste."  And I thought, "Not me, honey."

Fancy Seeing You Here!

Having taught high school social studies for ten years before my older daughter was born, I often run into former students.  Even if I don't remember the name, I almost always feel a familiarity for the face.  I see these kids everywhere:  one was a server at our favorite restaurant, one worked at Walmart, another at Pier One, another is now a teacher at my daughters' school.  One girl (woman) even got my attention at a red light, rolling down her car window to give me a shout out (which is one of those trendy terms that I might not be using quite appropriately).  Now normally when I run into a student, they give me the whole, "Hey, Mrs. Howland! I loved your class!" kind of deal (okay, not always the "loved your class" part, but there's always definite enthusiasm).  But not last week.

I'm at the gynecologist's, ready and in-position for a Pap smear. The doctor calls the assistant in, and I recognize her as a former student, though I don't remember her name.  Let's call her Suzi Slackjaw.  I chirp, "Did you go to Lincoln High School?"  She flatly replies, "Yeah, you were my teacher."  "Chilly" is a word that could be used. "Uncomfortable" works on many levels.  Needless to say (and I say it anyway), it's humiliating enough to be greeted with less than apathy when you're fully dressed and standing up.  Splayed and covered in paper, it's quite the vexation.  Moral of the story:  Be nice to everyone you see on the way up, because they could end up seeing way more of you than you ever imagined.

On the other hand, Bruce (last name not remembered) who works at Pier One was happy to see me, reminding us all it's always better to be a customer than a patient.

Honey, I Wrecked the Kids

My sister has ruined two of her three children.  I know this for a fact because she's told me so.  And the only reason the third one hasn't been wrecked yet is because, as the youngest, there hasn't been enough time.   I have wrecked my kids as well, and it can all be traced to the game Hot Potato.

This past Christmas while I was volunteering for the holiday party in my fifth-grader's classroom, I had to direct the kids in a holiday game based on the whole Hot Potato idea, where an object is passed around the circle until time is called and whoever is left holding the object is out.  At eleven years of age, almost none of these kids knew how to play, including my own.  This is why:  when the girls were little, I would have their birthday parties at home, which always included a craft, games, and cake.  Because parties are supposed to be happy and because I couldn't bear to make a kid sad (and, let's face it, because it's annoying when kids cry), I'd always plan games where everyone was a winner .  And that meant no games of Hot Potato.

Fast forward five years filled with trophies given for showing up and games where everyone's a winner, and you get a bunch of kids afraid to fail because they didn't learn to fail when the stakes were low.  Or you get a bunch of kids thinking they're good at lots of things that they're not.  Or sometimes both.   As the old saying goes, "My bad."

The Last Last Supper

I finally solved the riddle of my continuing struggle with weight (a struggle of the 20-lb. variety):  I have Last Supper Syndrome.  The scales (get it?....) fell from my eyes as this miserable month nears its end.  I had decided that I'd use the last week of February to jump start the old weight-loss jalopy by being Queen of the Spartans until March 1, when I'd hew to a healthy and calorically reduced regimen.  Then I thought it might be better to just wait until March 1 (fortuitously on a Monday) and start then, enjoying a personal Mardi Gras beforehand (which I guess would actually include not just a Fat Tuesday, but a Fat Wednesday through Sunday as well).  This is when the scales (get it?....) actually fell.  Since I've been vowing to start a diet at the beginning of each month for the past, oh, ten years (and that's 120 different vows, all made like they're the first one) and since I've succeeded about three times (for my 25th high school reunion, for a summer vacation I knew would involve being photographed, and another time I can't actually come up with but I'm giving myself credit for anyway), the Big Diet thing probably wasn't going to happen.  In and of itself, that's probably not such a big deal.  What is a big deal and is directly related to my big ass is the 120 Last Suppers. 

You don't have to be Judas or the apostle Paul to have enjoyed a last supper, that smorgasbord of leftovers and snacks, drinks and desserts that is ritually consumed the night before.  Under certain circumstances, the Last Supper might include the Last Lunch, the Last Breakfast, the Last Supper before the Last Supper, and so on (circumstances to be decided by whim).  And this is what's killing me (not really, because I'm sure I'll drink myself to death before I eat myself there).  So I've hereby vowed to not have a Last Supper again.  I'd also like to get back to my four basic rules that I used to live by:

a)  Don't eat in the car in case, God forbid, there's an accident.  You don't want to be found dead with french fries in your mouth.

b)  Spaghetti costs a dollar a pound.  Shove the leftovers down the garbage disposal instead of down your throat.

c)  You are not a garbage can and any food left on your children's plates is garbage.

d)  Never leave the house in sweatpants.

For the past few years, I've thrown these rules by the wayside.  I think I need them again.  And I'm wrestling with myself to start right now and not wait until March 1st.  I'm also trying to remember that what's (probably) more important is that I'm a woman with a heart as big as this ass.

To Stalk or Not to Stalk

My friend who broke up with me (let's call her Michaela) has a birthday coming up.  I haven't seen her for two years now, though she lives only fifteen minutes away.  (For details on my being dumped, please see http://suchpotential.blogspot.com/2009/10/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do.html) Michaela made it pretty clear to me that she's just not that interested, but we used to be such good friends and then the kind of friends who don't see each other often but can pick up where they left off (in my head, anyway), and it's not like we had any sort of falling out.  Over the past few months, I've posted a few comments on her Facebook page (which went unremarked).  When I found an old email she'd written to me (which I'd saved because I thought it particularly insightful), I forwarded it to her with an "it's been too long" note.  She did respond, with a kind but dismissive reply.  (And now reading what I've just written, even I think I'm a little pathetic.)  Still, I'm thinking about sending her a birthday card (which I've done every year but the last one).  Yes or no?

Classic Cathy

Since I've just discovered I have a loyal following of THREE people, I feel that I must post after such a long lapse.  Unfortunately, I got nothing.  So I've combed the archives and have found this email exchange.  In 2008, my sister forwarded to me a burning question she'd received from her friend Amy regarding the TV classic "thirtysomething" (which has just recently been released on DVD).

The question:

Howdy! The Melanie Mayron character. She was perpetually single, right?  And she was the one who was still single at the end of the series, because the curly-haired girl got married, right?


My answer:
I'm so proud! I know the answer! Curly-haired Ellen Warren married Billy Sidell near the end of the series. At her wedding, the ghost of Gary tells Michael Steadman how it will all turn out. When doing so, he foretells that Melissa (Melanie Mayron) and her beau Lee (the painter/artist who is much younger than she) will have a daughter (though he doesn't say they wed).  FYI, in addition to "thirtysomething," I can do "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and "My So-Called Life."

I'm always thrilled to be an expert in something.  If anyone needs more expert advice, I'm aces in the following areas:

*Pimple popping [I can tell at a glance if it's ready to go, if it needs to be primed a day ahead, or if it's (as my husband calls it) subterranian]
*Meat expiry [how long it can be stored, cooked or raw (factoring in refrigerating vs. freezing, date of purchase vs. sell-by-date, and other items of concern only us experts would know)]
*The use of brackets and parentheses.

I admit that my areas of expertise might be considered pathetic by some.  What would be, I'm sure, considered pathetic by all is that I archived a two-year old email that showcases my near autistic recall of defunct TV shows.  We take what we can get.

Those Were the Days

So there I was, checking my email and planning my next snack, when I see this Facebook message:

Pretty sure this is you. We went out once in Nashville, long long ago when I was in my early 20s. You sent me a postcard from Italy afterward and that's what made me remember your name. It just popped into my head now. LOL Hope you're well. :)

Now, I didn't recognize the guy's name or his ID photo (or whatever you call the picture that goes with your Facebook account), but since a) I did go to Vanderbilt a long time ago, b) I frequently had only one date back then and c) I would be pathetic enough to send someone a postcard (why would I have his address?) even if he had never called again.  (In those years, I took an unreasonable amount of solace in the lyric "If you never hear from him, it just means he didn't call" from Van Morrison's "Domino".)  Still, despite the reminder of a dating past I can only describe as "sorry-ass," it put a spring in my step that someone had remembered me.  I even felt shyly boastful when I told my family about the message at dinner (where the only comment was from my 11 year-old who said, "Mommy, just remember that those Facebook people are kind of..." and she raised her eyebrows.)  Even though I'd just told everyone, I still felt like I had a secret only for me and my 20 year-old self.

I think my 11 year-old and I are at the same stage.  We're both feeling a little reined in by the restrictions of how our family defines us.  We're both starting to flirt with the idea of creating an identity outside of the four of us.  Of course, she'll need to break away to do that, and I have no intention of doing so.  Sometimes I just need to be reminded that the me that I was is still a part of the me I am now.  While I treasure having so much of my identity tied to this family, I'm thinking there might just be more to me than that.

Adventureland

My husband loves coming-of-age stories.  He also likes movies shot in Pittsburgh.  A great evening it was, then, when we watched the indie film "Adventureland" (available On Demand).  The movie followed recent college grads who were working at an amusement park for the summer.  Because they're young and biologically primed to mate (as opposed to me, whose eggs have definitely passed the "use by" date) and because it's so much easier to persuade other people to join you if you throw in a drink or two, sex and alcohol (two things I've traditionally supported) also played starring roles.  As my husband and I drank wine (see:  my support of alcohol) and snuggled (see:  my expired eggs), we watched this story of overwhelming desire and seemingly limitless possibility, and I remembered living in that time myself.  I didn't start teaching until I was 25 or get married until I was 29, so I had many of those moments where my story had yet to be written and really anything could happen.  Of course, much of that time involved despair over what would I be and would I end up alone, but a lot was quite simply thrilling.

As I was enjoying the movie with my husband, in our home with our children in bed, I knew I wouldn't trade this time of my life for the time before.  Nonetheless, you can't help but be nostalgic for when you were young and brimming with all different kinds of passion.  That's when it hit me.  This movie wasn't written for me.  It's written for my older daughter and who'll she be five years from now.   And that just made me sad. 

Of Mice and Men (or Gerbils and Girls)

I'm always amazed by how differently my two girls have turned out.  Case in point:

My niece's gerbil, Larry, died over the weekend.  He had a proper funeral with just the immediate family and words and tears at graveside.  My daughters were acquainted with Larry, having spent some time in the summer and just this past Thanksgiving with him.  After I told them, my 11 year-old daughter gasped and asked the circumstances, his final resting place, and if she'd be able to pay her respects.  I swear she was on the verge of asking where donations could be made in his name when my 9 year-old broke in and said, "Eh, that's life."

Mamma Mia

This past Christmas was one of the smoothest of holidays between my mother and me.  I had challenged myself to just shut up for a change, instead of lashing back at every perceived provocation.  Even my kids noticed that I was doing better.  But I guess the karma in my house requires a certain level of maternal confrontation because, as I eased up, my husband (for the first time) laid in.  Normally my husband and mother love to chatter away (most often about my failings, but who cares), and he treats her with the respect and love she has earned.  This Christmas found him irritable and rude, overall much prickier than his usual self (not a typo for "pricklier," but an adjective meaning "more of a prick").  He ended up snapping at my mom several times, even raising his voice in annoyance.  I was so embarrassed (for myself and for him) and hurt (for my mom).  On the day my mom was leaving, after my husband had gone to work, I apologized for his behavior.  She told me that he'd already done so and that they'd had a good talk.  She finished with the pronouncement, "Body of Work, Cathy, Body of Work" in which she is a true believer.  With my mom, she can forgive specific injustices if a person's overall behavior is decent.  When she forgives, as she did my husband, she forgives.  I envy her inability to hold a grudge.  She seems to think that one bad moment should not ruin an entire day, whereas I can sulk it out for an entire weekend (and I can't seem to grasp that this ruins my weekend, too).

When the whole mother/daughter dynamic starts making me a nutcase, I flash back to a moment last Thanksgiving.  (The background:  when my dad left after 36 years of marriage, she was devastated and alone.  After a few years, she began a romance with a friend whose wife had died after a very long marriage that spawned thirteen children.  As the whole email thing was taking hold, she pushed her friend to send out a daily email to his kids, just as a quick update of things going on in his life.  On occasions like Mother's Day, she would push him to mention his wife in his notes, because she's like that.  As she's said many times, "Why on Earth would I be jealous of a dead woman.")  We're sitting at the breakfast table Thanksgiving morning as my mom checks her email.  She says, "Awwww," with that face that shows you think something is sentimental and sweet, and starts reading an email aloud.  It's from her friend/partner/boyfriend/whatever-you say-when-someone's-over-70.  He writes in his note to his kids (which he also sends to friends, my sister and me, and other relatives) that Thanksgiving was his and "mom's" anniversary, and he goes into detail about their wedding day, their hopes and dreams, and their good life together.  And my mom tears up a bit.  Not because she's jealous (see:  me), but because she thinks it's such a kind and loving note that will mean so much to his kids.  That's how she is. I (and my husband and kids) should be so lucky if I became more like her.