How to make me happy

He turned 18 today. I miss him but he's where he should be, in an environment that secures his future, with people who are guiding him in ways we were unable to. This time last year, I wasn't sure he'd see his future. Now I know that sometimes we have to start over and sometimes those times come just in time. That's his case.

We spoke yesterday. His voice was clear, strong, happy. He said to me that he made me a garden stone for mother's day. He went on to say that even though I'm not his mom, he appreciates everything I've done for him, and he loves me. On my end, I held the phone and wiped a tear from my eye. A happy tear. Our conversation skimmed across the surface of other things - school, pizza, his sister, Cheyenne - and then landed on his birthday. We talked about his decisions now being on his own shoulders of responsibility and he talked about how it sounded frightening at first but now it's starting to feel good. I reached to wipe another tear. When we were getting ready to hang up, he said, I love you Aunt Alison. Happy Mother's Day.

I speak with him every Sunday, but yesterday, the last Sunday of his 17th year, that was a special conversation.

Consider this

My strength and my weakness race against themselves. Strength is winning but weakness draws its need, wants the voice, wants the attention. Weak is powerful, but strength is enduring. Weak has the voice; strength the wisdom. It's hard but not impossible, easy but not simple. Repeating in my head are the words, Slow and steady wins the race. I want to speak to my father. His number is still programmed in my cell phone, Dad Cell. Does that mean he's still here in some way? No. It means he was here. I cannot delete the number. I've asked friends to delete it - no one does. Probably that's best.

There are other issues going on, other brewings fighting for attention. I roll my eyes. Life is too short to listen to the wind.

She's upset with me. She cannot remember the details, says I chose against her will. Why would you do that? She's forgotten the reasons. I made the right choice but to tell her why, to go over it again, might be necessary to clear my name but it would hurt her. So I take the knife. She doesn't know it's his birthday, and she doesn't know how hurtful her words. I promised him, so I let it slide. Off my skin, but not my heart. It lands, I cannot deny.

It's times like this, when everything is clouded and muddy, when conjecture muscles into the mind as fact and conclusions and opinions are drawn, times like this that I doubt myself and I doubt my heart. I want to go to him. Father, I need some advice... what would you do? What would you say?

I pause and listen. Silence.

Figure it out, I tell myself.

Blow it off. That's what he would say. Don't let your wings get weighed down.

Zero Five One Zero, Five Ten, Tenth of May, May 10th

At Walgreens I’m buying the cards of May. Mother’s Day, the Boy’s 18th birthday, my brother’s birthday. I stand before the selection of cards for Fathers. Today is his birthday. He would have been 82 today. Would have been.

He used to shake his head and say, Save your money, when I would ask him what he wanted for his birthday. When I was a child, I’d make him coupons out of construction paper and crayons: On them I’d write Good for One Car Wash, or Good for Raking the Yard, or Good for one Back Rub. The one that said, Good for a Kiss and a Hug, all over which I'd drawn happy faces and hearts, that one he saved. I decorated a box for him one year, by deco paging images I’d cut out from his magazines. He didn’t say a word about my cutting up his magazines, instead he made a big deal about how much he loved the box. I beamed with pride. That box stayed on a shelf in his office for the rest of his life. It’s still there.

I used to give him paintings I’d painted, words I’d written, decorative clay bowls I’d make in art class or at camp. These are the gifts I remember, the gifts I gave him when I was a child. Of course as I got older, I would buy him things but it’s still the gifts I made that he cherished and displayed. As my interest and abilities in photography developed, I returned to making him his gifts, framed enlargements of photos he admired, pictures of his dog, his hunting property, or the self-portrait I took years ago. Those too were displayed in his office; the self-portrait he carried in his suitcase when he traveled. In its silver 8 x 10 frame. When I asked Mom why Dad traveled with a photo of me, she said, He’s proud of you; he likes to show it off.

In New York last weekend, Mom awoke in the middle of the night and asked, Is Dad here? I told her that he was not. She was confused and a bit upset that night, said the she guessed he couldn’t make it. I stayed with her until she fell back asleep, holding her hand, telling her it was okay. I felt him close by, and I promised in words unspoken, I’ll take care of her, Dad, I’ll take care of her.

I’d like to say out loud, Happy Birthday, Daddy-o. And there’s no reason I cannot, but for not wanting the words to go unheard. But still I'll give him something, something I’ve made: A promise. I will take care of her, Dad. I will always take care of her.

We heart New York

Dear New York,

As I sit here in this pretty hotel room with pale green and cream striped wallpaper and thick green flowered curtains and pretty English prints of pugs on the walls, I should confess that I've poured my coffee out and am now drinking a glass of Veuve Cliquot. Why should today be different than any other day we've been here just because we're leaving in a couple hours?

I'm still coming down from this morning's rush of being starstruck over someone other than Stevie Nicks but seeing Katie, Matt and Al in person was, well, pretty damn cool. Giada de Laurentiis was an added bonus. That's what I kept saying, anyway. Sharon could only nod because her eyes were transfixed on the goings on at the Plaza so really I think she was more starstruck than me. Mom couldn't have cared since she prefers not to see the hour of 8:00 in the morning and only mumbled, Have a good time, when we set out for our adventures.




Hands down though, the coolest was going to the top of the Rockefeller Building, or Top of the Rock, as you like to call it. We both agreed that the views were more spectacular than the Empire State Building, since you can see the Empire State Building and then walk to the other side and see all of Central Park. Plus, that elevator ride up, with the glass ceiling, that was pretty wonderful, except for the part about it also being terrifying because I'm not sure that I ever again want to see the inside workings of an elevator shaft when I'm traveling 76 stories. Still though, with only five other people up there with us, it was quite a treat and we felt as if we had our own private showing.





All in all, you've been a lovely host and we've enjoyed every minute of our visit. I just have one question for you. What is your secret about the french fries that you serve with everything including breakfast and that are the most delicious, most magical, crispy and yet still soft french fries we've ever had? We'd like to know that secret. Unless, of course, it's that you fry them in goose fat or horse fat or something equally disgusting. That, we'd not like to know.



Sincerely,

A Texas who'll return

Molly, Gucci, Tiffany, and a nice surprise from Waldorf

Molly is her name. She's about 16.5 hands, wears a coat of white and has a broad chest to match her broad haunches. Her mane is long, her nose soft and her eyes dark. Our coach driver told us that Molly is quite the lady, a great horse. Molly pulled our white carriage through Central Park, past the skating rink and the carousel, around the hill by the dairy, past all the tulips and daffodils, and down the path across from the homes on the Upper East Side. A clear and sunny Sunday afternoon in New York, and everyone it seems went to the park. Not only did we enjoy watching the roller skaters and bike riders, the sun bathers, the children on the swingsets, people walking their dogs and the couples strolling together, but we relished being part of the scene itself. Mom smiled and pointed out certain spots she recalled from her childhood while we hung on her every word feeling lucky she was sharing her memories, and that we had our own personal tour guide.




The cab driver that drove us to Tavern on the Green read the newspaper WHILE HE DROVE. This time it was my turn to be sitting in the front seat fearful for my life. I don't know what Mom was doing but I'm sure she was holding on tight just because she knows what cab rides are like in this city. Sharon found a pair of Gucci sunglasses in the back seat and was too busy nodding to her good luck to be aware of the danger that we were in. The sunglasses she found ROCK in the way that only Gucci can do, which is to say with bling, but an understated, sophisticated bling. Sharon has found three things on this trip: a dime, a dollar bill, and the Gucci sunglasses.

At Tavern on the Green, we were seated on the patio at a table beneath an enormous Sycamore tree with planters of tulips at its base. I couldn't believe that we got that table from reservations made on the internet but there we were sitting outside with the sun shining down on us and our Mimosas. We were as giddy as the group of girlfriends at the table next to us and as happy as the little girl we gave our balloons to when we left the restaurant later in the afternoon.




After brunch of Eggs Benedict and Mimosas, we took a cab to Tiffany's and wandered three of the five floors with about five hundred other people and two elevator operators, a job that just yesterday Sharon and I discussed as being one of the most boring jobs someone could have. Well, that and toll booth operators. The operator in one of the elevators was a woman who had a handkerchief in her gloved hand and when she pushed the buttons, she used the handkerchief to cover her hand, though I'm not sure why. She didn't seem to be too happy a person but then again it could be her job.

When we got back to our hotel, what we were quite surprised and very pleased to find waiting for us was a bottle of champagne on ice, a plate of chocolate covered strawberries and a birthday card to Mom on behalf of the Waldorf Staff. Perfect and apropos, as has this trip been.

Of cab drivers, Barbaro and birthday gifts bought under the influence

In a city known for its particular brand of rudeness and hurry, we have not dealt with one bartender, waiter, man on the street, person in an elevator, attendant, cashier, or person in general who has been anything less than friendly. Well, okay, there was the one cab driver who drove us to Sardi's for dinner and when we first got into the cab said he had never heard of Sardi's and when I told him it was in the theatre district, snapped at me that the theatre district is a very large area, and tossed a book of restaurants in Sharon's lap so that she could look up the address - which, by the way, is as ridiculous as a cab driver in Houston not knowing how to find Reliant Stadium. But what's the fun of a cab ride in this city if you don't get to experience the surly personality or the speed-demon, horn-honking drivers? We got the later on our return home last night. That guy got us to our hotel in about two minutes, taking the same roads that the earlier driver had used on the 10-minute drive to 234 West 44th (which, by the way, is where Sardi's is, in case you need to tell a cabbie some day). Mom gripped the door handle with one hand, and my hand with the other, and Sharon later told me that she was too afraid to look where we were going and had to look at her feet the whole time. I'll admit that I held my breath at certain points. That cab driver didn't say a single word to us, which I think is due to the supreme level of concentration necessary to drive like he does.

I was trying to think of a MasterCard ad to describe what it felt like to watch the Kentucky Derby in the upstairs bar at Sardi's with my arms around my mom and my friend standing beside me, but all I can come up with is the Priceless part. Certainly, it was one of those bubble-to-the-surface moments of happiness I'll not soon forget.

When we arrived home last night, after Mom went to sleep, Sharon and I were overtaken with the need to drink wine and champagne in one of the numerous bars here at the Waldorf. And then we were overtaken with a need to go shopping. And in a strange turn of events, I did not buy anything for myself. What I did buy was an Escada outfit for mom to wear to her birthday brunch today. And what's priceless about that was when she woke up this morning, she asked me, What do you think I should wear today? I picked up the gift box and said, How about this?

Four hours as a tourist in New York on a Saturday morning

At the New York Public Library, we sat at a table with our coffee, and said profound things such as, I can't believe we're sitting here drinking coffee at the New York Public Library.



A sign in the lobby of the Empire State Building told us that visibility was 25 miles and from how excited we got when we read that, one might have thought we had just been told that Santa Claus himself was up there waiting for us.




Flowers at Rockefeller Center



Around Central Park, and at Strawberry Fields

The new address is 301 Park Avenue

I started out my day with coffee, Cheyene, a tennis ball and a swimming pool. Six hours later, my mother, my friend, Sharon, and I would hopefully be at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. I haven’t mentioned anything here about these plans because I wasn’t at all sure it was going to happen, and it almost didn’t. Getting my friend to say anything nice about George Bush is more probable than getting my mother to get out of bed at 8:00 in the morning. With our flight scheduled to leave at 10:50, at 9:15, Mom was just getting up and by that I mean sitting up in her bed and telling me that she was tired. My niece sat upstairs keeping company with the internet and giggling at my panic when I’d say to her, I don’t think Mom is going to make this trip, and then yell downstairs, Mother PLEASE get up. To which Mom would groggily reply, I just need one minute more.

She did get up though, and we left the house at 9:46 - plenty of time if I can drive 85 mph the entire way. When we arrived at Departures, Sharon stood waiting for us with a Sky Cap, a wheelchair, and somehow our printed boarding passes and luggage claim checks for our as yet to be checked luggage. That alone was worth ten bucks on the spot. It’s 10:30 and our flight leaves in 20 minutes. As Sharon jumps in my car to park it, she heroically says, Don’t worry. If I miss this flight, I’ll catch the next. It was a scene from a movie, though I don’t know what one or if it’s really in a movie, but it should be.

In one of those 12-seater golf carts, Mom and I were driven to Gate E16 which just happened to be in Terminal E and not Terminal C which is where you check in for Continental domestic flights, and which is about five miles away and exactly how it should be when you’re in a hurry and only have 20 minutes before your flight leaves and one of your group is circling the airport in your car looking for a place to park.

When we got to our gate, I asked the attendant if Sharon had already boarded. She raised an eyebrow at me and said, No, is she planning on coming? This plane will be leaving soon. As we wheeled Mom down the jet way, I called Sharon. She was breathing heavy and I could hear her footsteps running, I’m at Gate 10! As Mom got out of the wheelchair at the end of the jet way, I asked the attendant to tell the gate agent that Sharon was at Gate 10 and to please wait for her. Having been with us the whole time, he smiled a smile that said he believed in us and we could make it happen.

From that point on, all we could do was hope.

Just as Mom and I got settled in our seats, here comes Sharon, the last one on the flight, sweat pouring from her brow, an ear-to-ear grin spread across her face. We made it. And really, that’s how I like it: No time to spare, walk right onto the flight, sit down and go.

How to kill the thrill of discovery in six easy steps

When I moved into my first apartment after two long years of campus dorm life, what I looked forward to, in addition to the obvious thrill of independent living, was starting and feeding my very own junk drawer in the kitchen. The kitchen junk drawer was standard in each house we lived in when I was a child. Everything I needed and couldn't find elsewhere could magically be found in the junk drawer, and I have fond memories of my mother saying, Did you look in the junk drawer? when I was whining over being unable to find a single battery, thumbtack, stamp, tape, rollerskate key, a rubberband, the Playbill from a musical my parents attended two years prior.

I think junk drawers are perfect in their messiness, that's the whole idea behind them. But not everyone agrees with me. Both Martha Stewart and Real Simple provide guidelines on organizing your junk drawers with separators or small plastic containers perhaps color-coded for, say, batteries, rubberbands or paperclips. Basically, their advice can be boiled down to this:

1. Dump out the junk
2. Throw away what is trash
3. Sort out the rest
4. Buy drawer dividers
5. Sort the items in the dividers
6. Enjoy your new drawer

Well, hats off to you for your organizational genius - and thank you for scaring me with the realization that some people might not be able to figure it out for themselves and will actually benefit from those instructions - but I think we should be allowed at least one place in our homes that is a total disaster. I think we need a break from this ever expanding kudzu vine of organization. The truth is, I don't want to open the drawer and see what I'm looking for right there in its own color coordinated slot, I want to dig a bit so that I can feel excited and successful when I find it. Rewards, even cheap, are nice to have on occasion.

I opened my junk drawer the other morning looking for Cheyenne's heartworm pills, which I didn't find because I'd forgotten that they were in her junk drawer which is right beside mine and for her things only. Staring at all the crap in my junk drawer, I couldn't help but smile at the goods I've amassed since moving in here five years ago:

Sample of Penhaligans perfume, scissors, six Ace Bandage fasteners, two yellow highlighters, four decks of cards (two opened), shoe polishing sponge, Labello lip protection, red ball that lights up (to attach to Cheyenne's collar at night, and since moved to her drawer), small umbrella, Star Pizza menu, two binder clips, several notecards, pocket knife, photo loop, clothespin, three lighters, Cheyenne's first Rabies tag (since moved to her junk drawer), sunglass lanyard, manual to my cell phone, manual to my old cell phone, bag of Halls cough drops, Ipod headphones, Ipod manual, guidance document for my new Nikon, manual for my first digital camera, as well as the digital camera, clear plastic refrigerator frame, two glue sticks, polarized sunglasses, lined notepad, cell phone cover, tape dispenser, a pack of matches from a hotel in London and a pack of matches from a restaurant down the street, two sleeves of negatives, cables for image transfer from camera to computer (old and new cameras), tape measurer, seven Sharpies - three black, two red, one green, one silver, and one red pencil from the W Hotel.

That's a well-stocked junk drawer, if you ask me. And I am blissfully content with the mess I find there.

Realizing

that the things I love most about weekends are the light, the trees and the dogs.