Thank You for Asking

Bed Jacket

2012-02-14T14:45:56-08:00

How dark a girl’s life would be without best friends. I don’t know what I would do without my daily updates, chats and coffees with Barb and Micki. Well…probably learn a new language or something useful. But how lonely I would be, speaking French all by myself! When I think about the support they have shown me, through ups and downs, I feel so fortunate. When our house was for sale and I was afraid someone more fun would buy it and have dinner parties, Barb and Micki assured me they would not darken the door of my house, let...

Conversation

2012-02-09T06:00:00-08:00

I try, if I can help it, never to say anything of interest in front of my children. Just keep it simple. “Eat your breakfast. Brush your teeth. Go to bed.’” But sooner or later you slip and says something that piques their curiousity and the interrogation begins. “Mommy, when you were talking with Barb just now you said she was your best friend. Is that true?” “It was sort of a joke.” “So she’s not your best friend?” “Hmmm? No. I mean yes. I mean, I was asking if she could do a favor for me since we were...

Micki's Father

2012-01-31T14:00:00-08:00

“Have you packed your lace veil?” I ask Barb. “ummm, I’m not sure they still wear…” “Well, you can do as you like, but I for one will not disrespect Micki’s father by waltzing into the Cathedral bareheaded to his funeral!” I hang up the phone and lovingly finger the beautiful antique black lace veil I have been saving for just such an occasion. For someone slap dash in so many areas of her life I am more than prepared, attire-wise, for events such as Catholic funerals or celebrity weddings in St. Tropez. In fact, I could go to up...

Unconditional Acceptance

2011-06-28T11:35:31-07:00

Sitting in the car, waiting for the boys to finish tennis clinic at the Cal Club, I listen to Eminem’s, “I Love the Way You Lie” over and over. The song shows how crazy a man can get when he is madly in love with a woman, which makes me feel very annoyed with Beloved. Why can’t he be more wildly passionate?! Not in the physical sense, which I didn’t mean to infer because that would be gross, but in the hard-core rapper sense, which isn’t. I get a little thrill every time his girlfriend (Eminem’s, not Beloved’s) says she’s...

The Morning After - Part II (or how tequila ruined my reputation)

2011-06-03T23:04:34-07:00

Barb and I sip our steaming cups of tea and recount the events from the night before. The party had started out tame enough. We both agree the cute couple was charming and attractive. We note how sweet it was for the millionaire husband to make sure the anorexic billionaire wife was fed a well-balanced meal. We laugh at the late-night-antics of the guests which make me uneasy as dim memories of the evening come to the fore. I think the trouble started with Barb and I rushing to the kitchen to get another place set for Sabrina. She had...

The Morning After - Part I

2011-05-26T22:52:38-07:00

I climb carefully, so as not to spill my big mug of steaming hot tea, into Barb’s big cushy bed. I like her ex-husband, but at times like these it’s really more convenient that he’s no longer here. Barb and I bear remnants of last night’s mascara. Our hair is tousled and looks a bit like street walker hair (why is street walker hair wasted on the morning after?). We are wearing big cushy socks, sweat pants (they're James Perse!) and cozy sweaters. Everything one needs for a lie-in-bed, re-hash of the party the night before. Heaven! Leaving my house...

Focus

2011-05-18T20:39:35-07:00

I once read that a writer I admire reads 3-4 newspapers a day. I didn’t know there were that many, but in my determination to become a serious writer (serious Romance Novelist) I decided to give it a go. I start with the The New Yorker, yes I know it’s not a newspaper, but I thought I could read an article or two, feel very learned and be entitled to throw out New Yorker bon mots at dinner parties. Thirty two pages into the article, with no end in sight, I decide to try The New York Times. This is...

Market Street

2011-05-16T18:43:23-07:00

I understand why we do it, but it seems so embarrassing. I mean the habit at charity lunches of trotting out some poor woman (a man would never subject himself) to tell us about her tragic life and how with the help of some very good (white) people she turned her life around and now has all her children back (except one, unless I miscounted). Then we in the audience cry and give money. I know it's important to help, and the recipients are commendable. It just seems like there might be a better way. Since I'm not clever enough...

On-Line Portal

2011-05-12T15:09:06-07:00

When things get too overwhelming, and I feel I can’t wrap my head around it all, I go to my happy place…decorating my sister’s home. I don’t want to decorate my home because that is boring and stressful. Arranging for Jose to paint the boys’ closet is dull and not what I consider decorating. Scheduling someone to hang the pictures that are sitting on the floor of my office reminds me I have to decide where they will go…which makes me want to cry. Gluing the mirror pieces that have fallen off the arches in my garden means I must...

Alone

2011-04-23T12:36:58-07:00

Now that Beloved is gone he seems, in memory, almost perfect in every way. No, no! he hasn’t died!... instantly and painlessly, after leading a long, happy and productive life; leaving the children and me intact here with nothing to divert our interests but a wealthy and handsome new widower neighbor from Texas who is very masculine due to cattle round ups and such; though not such a hick that he doesn’t know his way around a good Gevrey-Chambertin …but I digress. No, Beloved has taken the younger boys back to Florida for Easter break. Oldest and I have stayed...