Sunday, May 11, 2014

44 Things About My Mother

She taught me that you catch more bees with honey.  The easiest way to get what you want/need is to smile and be gracious.  

When I was a young child, maybe 5, I broke a ramekin of hers that had little blue, red and yellow flowers on it.  It was part of a set.  She used them a lot.  I thought I had broken the equivalent of a family heirloom.  When she came home and I told her, teary-eyed, what I'd done, she gave me a big hug and kiss and told me that she loved me more than she could ever love any dish.  My little heart swelled.



She was my first and greatest example of a strong woman.  This is not something that came easily to me as a young person, being strong.  But it was always there, in my blood, and in my eyesight, because of her.  Thank goodness that tree branch eventually grew within me.  

She loves the beach more than anyone I know.  Especially in the late afternoon when it's cooler, and the light is low before the sunset.  




She has told me my whole life how strong and capable I am.  Where would I be without that?  I truly have no idea.

She was a cheerleader at the University of Alabama and has had me cheering for the Tide since I was in utero.  I remember her screaming so loudly for an Alabama football game in our Texas living room that my baby brother ran away crying. 



She ran into Bear Bryant on campus at Alabama.  Literally, was running late, walking quickly, and ran smack into him.  He called her "little lady" or something like that in his deep, gravelly voice.  


She snuck in bourbon with me to an Alabama football game.  Security doesn't check mom purses.  

One of my best childhood memories:  I am swinging on the swing set in our backyard at dusk in the summertime; I am with my sister and my dad is pushing both of us.  My mom leans out of the pass-through window between the kitchen and back patio and calls us to dinner.  There is nothing more wonderful and safe than how I felt at that very moment.  

She was adopted.  I have always known this.  To me this was never a thing to learn to understand.  The fact that she was adopted has always given her a shiny golden hue of specialness.  She was plucked out to be my grandparents' daughter, my dad's wife, and my mother.  There is nothing more wonderful on this earth than that.

She always made sure I ate nothing but the healthiest of foods when I was young - applesauce on whole wheat pancakes (instead of maple syrup), lots of veggies, whole wheat pasta with a little cheese for macaroni and cheese… when I went to a friend's house to spend the night and they made Kraft macaroni & cheese, I asked what the "orange stuff" was and refused to eat it.

Tami Taylor reminds me of her.

Her given name is Cynthia Jane, but she decided in her youth that "Jane" was too plain and started spelling it "Jayne", something that she continued through college.  Her mother didn't say a word and indulged her by putting "Jayne" on the invitations to her Sweet 16 birthday party. 



Her cure-all for a chest cold is a hot toddy - hot tea with lots of lemon and honey and a good dollop of bourbon.  She gave this to me as a child (in very small doses!) which tasted strange but it worked, and she still tells me now to drink it as a thirty-something-year-old.  

My senior year of college, when I found myself in some personal trouble, she and my dad drove all day the next day after our phone conversation from Texas to Alabama.  That night in a random parking lot in Tuscaloosa, she gave her hurting daughter a big hug, just as soon as she could get to me.  I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved yellow shirt.  I could have been on Jupiter and they still would have come.

I had my first boyfriend in middle school.  I was too shy to tell her.  But after we broke up, I couldn't keep it from her and when she asked me what was wrong, I told her that I'd had a boyfriend but he was no longer around.  After a conversion with me, listening to my story, she gave me 3 little golden rings of hers.  To me those little golden rings represented all of her love and I couldn't have been happier.  And screw the boyfriend.

When I was approaching puberty, she gave me several books on the subject and had me read them.  And then had discussions with me afterwards.  This is an awkward situation for a preteen girl, but it was one thousand times better than the alternative of not knowing anything!  Thank you Mom for having those talks with me!   

My mom and dad drove to Tuscaloosa for my 21st birthday and threw me a surprise birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant (DePalma's).  She bought pastel colored votive candle holders and had them lining the table, all of my friends took one home at the end of the evening.  I did too, mine was purple.  At the end of the night my mother cried because they had to leave the next day and were going to miss my actual calendar birthday.  As if that mattered to me, they had already given me the perfect birthday.

She taught me to take care of my skin at an early age.  She had me washing my face before school in elementary, and wearing sunscreen before most people even knew what it was.  My skin today thanks you for it!!



When my sister and I were young and fighting like crazy, she would aways end her interventions with, "I wish that I'd had a sister when I was your age, you are so lucky to have each other!"  Lauren and I would just look at each other like she was crazy.  But she was right.  My sister is one of the most delightful creatures on this earth.



Her favorite color is red.  She had a red car for a while and called it Red Hot Mama.  Just like her.

She taught me that driving a stick shift was cool.  I can drive any car!

She taught me that a little lipstick will always help you look better in photographs.  



She forced me into typing lessons, which I fought, and which made the rest of my computer life from that day on easier.  

She brought me to a life in Christ on the floor of my bathroom in our old house.  She used the example of what I had done wrong, whatever it was, to show me how all of man was sinful.  And the only way to salvation was through Him.

She spanked me, and my siblings, herself.  There was no "wait until your dad gets home" in our house. We had to deal with her immediately!  

She calls her parents "Mother" and "Daddy".  Which I just love.


She has compared me to her mother, which is just about the highest compliment I have ever received in my life.



When I was in college and about to drive home to Texas, she would FedEx me her cell phone to use "in case of emergency".  I didn't have one yet, hardly anyone did, but she made me call her at every state line so she would know I was okay.

She has the most beautiful turquoise jewelry, influenced by the time she spent in New Mexico.  

She made up the best songs when we were kids.  My favorite was about brushing your teeth… "'Cause Old Mister Tooth Decay is so mean, but he won't get Megan's teeth if they're so clean!"

She sings songs to Merci, her granddaughter.  Merci is so lucky!



When I was in the 7th grade, she busted me out of school in the middle of the day and told me she was taking me to see "Doctor Zhivago".  It was about *that time* for me and I thought she was taking me to see a gynecologist for the first time, I had no idea who Dr.  Zhivago was or what she was talking about.  It wasn't until she pulled up at a movie theater that I started to relax.  The theater was showing a revival of one of her favorite movies and she just wanted to share it with me.  

She introduced me to soul music at a very early age.  She listened to Anita Baker tapes in the car until I knew every word.

She was the first sound of a woman my ears heard - the sound of sandals on feet and gold bangles on wrists first came from her.

She tells me she loves me in sign language.



She called my grandmother, her mother-in-law, "mother-in-love".  And she now calls my husband and my sister's husband her "sons-in-love".



She can talk to a wall.  She has called me from work on multiple occasions saying, "I just met so-and-so, and his sister's husband's daughter went to Alabama two years after you.  Do you know her?"  

Her nickname for me was "Meffie" because of my initials MEF.

She hand painted little flowers on barrettes for my hair.



She was almost named "Ernestine", the combination of her parents' names of Ernest and Wylline. 


She married and gave me the absolute best dad.


When I was in high school, summertime at the beach, and she'd caught me after I had sneaked out of our beach condo one night, the first thing she asked me was, "Did you have fun?"  And she was serious.  She really wanted to know if I'd had fun, there was no punishment in her voice.  I answered, "yes".  

I cannot fathom where I would be without her.

She raised three children.  I cannot even imagine.  All hail.  



*I shamelessly stole this blog idea from this article.  

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Mardi Gras, Circa 1998

Happy Mardi Gras!  Mardi Gras isn't widely celebrated in NYC, nor was it celebrated in Texas where I grew up.  But I was surrounded by it when I was in college at the University of Alabama - all those New Orleans and Mobile students brought the party with them!  (Little known fact:  Mardi Gras originated in the U.S. in Mobile ["mo-BEEL"], Alabama, and not New Orleans!)  

My sorority big sister, the amazing Casey Cole (Hemard Palascak), grew up outside of New Orleans in Houma, Louisiana, and for Mardi Gras 1998 (I think?) a bunch of us drove from Tuscaloosa to New Orleans to her parents' condo for the weekend.  (Thanks, Dr. and Mrs. Hemard!  Did you know we were there?)

Side story:  Once while I was visiting home with Casey, we went to the property where our friend, Genevieve, grew up.  It was an old sugar plantation, complete with very old slave quarters still on the property.  "Interview with a Vampire" filmed scenes in that area and on their property, and Casey and Genevieve remember Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise coming to town.  

Anyway…

Mardi Gras was a lot of fun!  And very crowded.  I'm glad I did it when I was 19.  Here are a few pictures from that weekend:

Me and Casey:

Most of the group:


Out in New Orleans one night:


I remember driving in the night, home from New Orleans at the end of the weekend.  I was riding with another sorority sister and her friend.  They had a mixed tape (yes, tape, remember those?) playing on the stereo and when this one particular song came on, they wouldn't let anyone talk in the car and they would turn up the volume.  And rewind to repeat it.  (Rewind!)

Warning:  Listening with 2014 ears, this is not that good of a song.  This is not even a good band.  But it's one of those songs from the past that just takes me right back to that moment… driving through the night from New Orleans back to Tuscaloosa, windows down (in February), Spanish moss hanging from the trees, and being 19 without a care in the world.  

Third Eye Blind, "I Want You"

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Summer vs. Winter - Song on Repeat

There's a song called "See You in the Spring" by the Courtyard Hounds (Martie Maguire and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks).  It's a duet with Jakob Dylan about two people who are in love but kind of living different lives in different places.  It's also a debate about which is worse - winter in Chicago or summer in Texas.  Right now I'm firmly on the side of winter is worse ("that wind/it just ain't right"), but the argument that summer in Texas can be brutal is a valid one ("that heat/feels like I'm on fire").  

Whichever side you come down on we can all agree that spring is the best!


(P.S. I miss the Dixie Chicks.)

Celebrity Sighting

This is my biggest celebrity sighting to date... and it's a double combo.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z sitting courtside at a Brooklyn Nets game.

Here are my pictures from my phone...



And a better, "real" picture...


Wow, she is gorgeous.  God gave with both hands to that woman.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Winter Blahs


Blah.  That's really all I have to say right now.  I am in winter survival mode.  I dream about sunlight.  I actually had a dream that I was sitting in the sun and just soaking it in.  I feel like a vampire missing the sun.

Actually, I feel like the little girl in "All Summer in a Day", a short story by Ray Bradbury (one of my favorite authors).  The short version of the story is about a school of children on another planet, Venus, where there are constant rainstorms.  They never see the sun, except for one hour every seven years.  None of the children remember what the sun was like, except one little girl named Margot who moved to Venus from Earth just five years earlier.  Margot tries to describe the sun to the other school children, but they don't believe her and they bully her and lock her in a closet.  While she is in the closet, wouldn't you know, is the one hour that the sun appears after seven years of rain.  The teacher rushes the students out to enjoy the sunshine, not knowing about Margot locked in the dark closet.  It's not until the rain starts again an hour later that the students remember her, and let her out of the closet.  She missed the sun completely.

Isn't that a happy story?

I feel like I'm in the middle of seven years of rain, only instead of just rain it's snow and wind and below freezing temperatures.  And of course very little sunshine.

Blah.

Here are some pictures I've captured over the winter… even if they are pretty you should always keep in mind that I am FREEZING while taking them (yes, I will complain through this entire blog).

If you don't live in a walking city where it snows in the winter, you are more likely to think snow is pretty (like I used to!).  And it is pretty while it's falling.  But in big cities like New York with all of the commuting and pollution, the snow quickly turns into slushy sludge.  Imagine a mudslide, only colder.  It's like that.

Puddles are always deeper than they look:


A woman trying to push a stroller through a slushy intersection:


It has been so cold that Hudson River has frozen over more than once.



Little G exploring in his snow day outfit:


Snow coming down overnight on Greenwich St. in Tribeca:


Bicycle snow sculpture:


Sidewalk down Greenwich St. alongside Washington Market Park:


Washington Market Park:


Rockefeller Park next to the Hudson, another snow storm rolling in at dusk:


Grady and I climbing snow piles on an afternoon walk:


These pictures are from the same afternoon that we climbed the snow piles.  Stephen was out walking with us and on our way home we stopped at a coffee shop.  Stephen had gone in and I was waiting outside with Grady when I looked down and could see true snowflakes landing on my clothes.  I took these pictures just with my iPhone, they were huge!  And so beautiful! 




Ok, so winter does have something cool going on with those beautiful, magical snow flakes.  But then they turn into piles of frozen sludge.  

Lounge chairs surrounded by snow, not sand… my neighborhood is in the background:


This past weekend we had FABULOUS weather.  It hit 50ºF and was sunny and it felt like spring!  It was our one hour of sunshine in seven years of winter!


Walking down Bowery:


But I'm back in my dark closet now, it snowed today, there is more snow and temps in the teens in the forecast, and when I ask Siri about the weather she actually says, "It doesn't look good…".  Yeah, thanks Siri.  Very helpful.  I hate you.


Thursday, January 16, 2014

Golden Marriage Therapy

Did you watch any of the Golden Globes this past Sunday night?  My husband usually hates that kind of thing, but for some reason we had the TV turned on to that channel and watched part of it.  (Well I did, Stephen looked at cars online.)  

There was a moment in the broadcast that I wasn't expecting.  It was a bit of marriage therapy.  Did you notice it?  It came out of the mouth of one of Texas' golden boys, Matthew McConaughey.  The free marriage therapy starts at 2:08, but here is the whole speech just so you can hear his drawl.


Basically, he thanks his lovely wife.  Not just for being his lovely wife, but for "kicking" him out the door each morning to work on this big project for 3 years (the roll he just won for, and lost 45 pounds for).  Kicking him out the door saying " 'Go get it!  Go get it my man, my king!'  Yes, ma'am!"

I loved this.  Not only did it display a strong and loving marriage, it showed the importance of supporting your spouse.  Verbally and otherwise.  Without a doubt, I believe in you and I believe you can do this.  Now go show the whole world. 

I would like to say that I am an expert at this, but I know there is definitely room for improvement.  I try, but I doubt I get it right all of the time.  But look at what that kind of support can do!  He noticed, the whole time of filming, he noticed.  He remembered.  And he thanked her publicly for it.  

Your partner may not be able to stand on a stage on national TV to say thank you, but it's not felt any less when that kind of support is given.

Marriage therapy from Matthew McConaughey.  All-riiiight, all-riiiight, all-riiiight.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Foggy Day

This was New York this morning:


Looking from Brooklyn:



I was walking Grady at almost noon and the fog was clearing, but still so thick I thought there was a big fire somewhere.  

So pretty!