While it might look like he is contributing BIG IDEAS to this meeting, it is getting harder and harder to have Milo at the office with me. He wants — and deserves — more attention than I am giving him, and I think maybe my work does too.
So, in a couple of weeks, he'll start "school." The thought of it makes me ill.
In the mean time, I will bask in the popularity that Milo provides. Walking around our campus with him is like having a small celebrity strapped to my body.
My great Aunt Patricia died today. She was 83. She had the most amazing life, full of adventure and love. There is a picture in her kitchen, yellowed by the sun streaming in from the windows that overlook the Bay Bridge, of Patricia in her 30s, dancing on the bar of a Greek restaurant. She looks like Doris Day. If my memory of the photo serves, Uncle Bob looks on, bemused.
She was from Nocona, Texas, but she went to Stanford Law School. She had friends and adopted "children" from all over the world: celebrities, clerics, doctors, socialites. She and Uncle Bob traveled the globe, and even after he died three years ago, she kept traveling on her own. She cruised the South Pacific this Christmas. She was a brilliant, accomplished person with more verve than anyone I know.
When we last saw her in April, she took us out to an evening of cabaret, then we drove to a favorite restaurant of hers for a nightcap. When we pulled up to Firenze By Night, the parking situation was San Francisco laughable, as usual. When we suggested we should just have a nightcap at home because the parking was too bad, she said, imperiously, "They save a spot for me." And sure enough, as soon as they noticed Aunt P's car, a handful of strapping Italian men came out and began rearranging vehicles to accommodate us. The best-looking of the bunch, Paolo, who was younger than me, kissed Aunt P on both cheeks and said, "Where have you been, bella?" She and Paolo made teasing plans to meet in Milan for Easter. They treated us like kings in the bar.
When I am old, please let me be like Aunt Patricia. Hell, let me be like her when I am young.
Tonight on our way to House Pizza, as we were driving down North Loop, we encountered some kind of exotic fowl — a guinea hen? — wandering around the middle of the street. After some initial concern about where the animal might live, should we take it to a shelter, etc., Lucy started laughing. "It's like the joke! That chicken was actually crossing the road." We still don't know why he was crossing the road, but we did have a good laugh.
Lucy is newly obsessed with fame. Yesterday was "Scottiewood Red Carpet Day" at school, which meant the kids dressed up (or dressed up like movie stars?) to build excitement for some kind of event this weekend that involves some of my money. An aside: Lucy's school doesn't cost anywhere near as much as private school, but what with all the boosting and raffle tickets and sales of various kinds of wrapping paper, we pay.
So I had to explain Hollywood. And being famous. Which I explained wrong because Lucy determined that she was famous for singing and for art. And I corrected her by saying she was talented at singing and art (and left out a snide remark about being famous for talking too much and bossing everyone around).
I said that famous was about being known by a lot of people. And she said, "I thought that was being popular." I said that they were very similar words. She asked, "Which has more value?" They are studying money in school, so this incisive question is not out of the blue.
I answered "famous." And she said, "Well, I am already popular, because a lot of people know me, but I guess I am not famous."
Then tonight, as we watched Olympic ice-dancing on TV and she twirled around the living room, she asked, "Can only famous people be on the Olympics?" Which brought us back to the discussion of fame vs. talent (to say nothing of the teeny tiny marketing window for Olympic athletes).
We watched the story of Apolo Ohno and his dad, who locked Apolo in a shed after he did badly in the Nagano Olympics when he was 15. His dad made him choose to be excellent.
I don't know how, or if, or when, to do that for Lucy. I want to be the kind of parent who helps her find Her Thing and supports her in the pursuit of it. Not for the sake of being Famous. For the sake of my beachfront retirement home.
We had Lucy's spring conference with her teacher, Ms. P. There are so many things I could brag about, but I won't. I mean, I want to really, really badly, but I won't. Because that would be unseemly. What I will share with you is the bit of praise that has made me smile, that tells me more than her, ahem, exceptional math and reading (see the unseemly way I worked that in):
"Lucy is amazing in the way she makes connections about how the world works. It's rare that students as young as Lucy show signs of being gifted and talented in social studies, but I'd love to see Lucy working on the world's problems."
Naturally, the proud mother interprets this as a prediction that Lucy will save the world. Her father thinks she will use this complex understanding of the world TO BEND IT TO HER WILL.
Sorry for the radio silence from Lucyandmiloland. We are good. These past couple weeks, our life has been a Jenga game outside on windy day. We haven't blown over yet.
Milo news:
Milo discovered the existence of his feet last week. He can get the left one in his mouth. This week, he realized his hands are attached to his body. He'll hold one hand out in front of him and gaze at it, kind of horrified, the way you would if you'd grown a third one. He can roll over, but sometimes gets too upset to roll himself back. There's a particular squeal that means turtle boy needs a flip. Oh, and spit-bubble-blowing. Little animal is a font of spit.
Lucy news:
Lucy is awesome. On Sunday, I took her on a Girl Scout outing to the family dance workshop at Ballet Austin. When the woman with the microphone asked an auditorium full of people if they had any questions, Lucy raised her hand and got called on TWICE, spoke clearly and asked very incisive questions. I would have needed a beta blocker to come off so cool.
This morning, she came and got in bed between me and Jason and said, "If Milo were in here, we'd have a family sandwich."
Oh, and her favorite vegetable? BRUSSELS SPROUTS. You heard me.
Sigh. Life is hard, but it is good.
Last week, we got an email from a parent of one of Lucy's classmates. The subject line was "Bite." I started laughing before I could even open the email. Apparently, there was a scuffle over a seat and some shoving and biting ensued.
Lucy came home with this note:
The note said "Please sign and return," but I asked Ms. P. if we could keep it.
I went on my first business trip since Milo was born and I survived. I pumped breast milk in an airplane bathroom, but I survived. We all did. Jason was Super Dad (with some help from Super Granny). Lucy was amazingly helpful and cooperative, and Milo was a peach, I am told.
While everything went very smoothly without me, I think they missed me. When I went into Milo's room to feed him at 2 a.m. he gave me the biggest grinningest "GUH" ever. Lucy kept wanting to sit or lie down next to me all tonight, stroking my arm. She even told me I was beautiful, which kind of made me want to cry. And Jason's been shmoopy too. I should leave more often if I'm going to get this kind of welcome home.
Learn Portuguese? Write novel? Be more organized? ACHIEVE WILDEST DREAMS?
Have made and flubbed all those.
This year, my new year's resolution is to Be Happier. I will undoubtedly be discussing this in greater detail in some overly wordy and sentimental tome, but until then, I can only say, I am off to a good start. Why? Because I got a phone call from Pie on a Sunday afternoon.
"Come over for spaghetti!"
"But we are going to Annabelle's birthday and we won't be able to bring anything and we don't have any pajamas and I think we better go home."
"Why? It's just spaghetti. Frank is bringing some guitars and I have the cello and I already made the spaghetti and come over!"
So we did. After a perfect birthday party WITH A CLOWN AND BALLOON ANIMALS AND WINE, (thank you, Annabelle), we had a perfectly low key dinner with some of our dearest friends. Who played the cello and the guitar to some Avett Brothers songs (beautifully, but perhaps imperfectly?). And to think, I almost said no, because it wasn't just right. But I said yes, because Pie always says yes (for which I give her endless grief).
Resolved: greedily, mercilessly seek out those things that make you happy and DO THEM. But it might take some sussing out and seeking before you realize what they are.
Yesterday, I found peanut butter in my eyebrow, presumably from my hastily-eaten breakfast.
I have taken to sleeping in my workout clothes in an effort to speed the process of getting to the gym before everybody wakes up in the morning. It is not working.
I have ordered all of Christmas off of Amazon. At least what presents I remembered to buy. I apologize in advance for forgetting you.
My lunch today? A brownie and a cupcake, both stolen from random boxes/trays of sweets I encountered around the office.
Ed. note: I wrote this post last Wednesday and forgot to actually post it. See what I mean?
