Ugly Betty

My brother Kevin and I were speaking in Spanish with each other for about one minute this afternoon until our entire repertoire was depleted.

K: Hola!

Me: Hola! Como estas?

K: Asi asi, y tu?

Me: Muy bien, gracias.

K: Estas una cabrona.

Me: Que?

He primarily remembers the expletives from high school. I remember the following.

My brother Mark agreed to paint my unfinished bedside table/bookshelf for me. He chose a crisp shade of white. What a kind and caring gesture! It wasn't until I moved it to go to college that I noticed he hadn't painted the entire backside; instead, he painted one word (all caps): FEO.

Brotherly love at its finest. And, if you know his personality, you'll know that it was really funny to discover the hidden gem years later. Can't be all sweetness all the time with your little sister, huh?

OMG GNO!

Flew to DC for my girlfriend Kim's bachelorette party, stagette night, or more simply: girls' night out (i.e., GNO). It was great to meet her friends and even more awesome to (finally) meet, and spend some time with, the man of her dreams -- who is setting the bar a bit high for other men on this planet. Very thoughtful, intelligent, caring, handsome, normal, attitude-less and so on. What the ? Sensitive without being uh, how do you say, a sellout? Or wimpy? Definitely a hard balance that he's somehow perfected (at least more so than your average bear).

Even when we were getting ready to go out, they were covertly trying to figure out how they could somehow meet up later that night. Reinterpreting the whole GNO theme, I daresay.

Anyhoo, we had a really, really, really nice weekend. Totally chill. Sightseeing and shopping in Baltimore. Buying faboo new dresses at an edgy boutique: Form (hey mine was marked down to $129 from almost $500 -- score!). Hanging out at a couple of DC neighborhood bars. Relaxing over breakfast at an amazing restaurant that is part groovy lounge (old couches/crystal chandeliers) and part Polish diner (e.g., Kielbasa and egg breakfasts). Laughing a lot. Um, not to mention getting a little (!) emotional over their upcoming wedding. Chicks & love . . .

But my favorite line of the weekend came from Kim who toasted herself and her upcoming nuptials by happily exclaiming, "Here's to sleeping with the same guy for the rest of my life!"

Awesome! All of the married women at the table, perhaps me more than the others, were laughing their heads off.

Spirit in the Sky

Two nights ago, a bunch of kids from the neighborhood were hanging out in our tent -- best investment ever -- that the hubby put up in the side yard by the fire pit. They had the Coleman lantern in there and were playing Battleship and Stratego. I was relaxing in the house.

At some point, seven panic-stricken kids came flying up to our front porch. "There are noises outside the tent! It sounds like someone knocking all over the tent but when we look out, nothing is there." I, being the awesome parent that I am, ignored them. "I'm sure it's nothing." I assumed that, as kids do through ghost stories and such, they were just freaking each other out.

A few minutes later, Son #1 came home crying. He had run outside, tripped over a tent stake and scraped his elbow. Through his sobs he said, "While I was lying there, it was raining nickels." Huh? "Nickels were coming down from heaven." He opened his fist and, sure enough, there was a nickel nestled in his palm.

Son #2 nodded his confirmation, "It's true."

I gave him a big hug and said, "Well that's pretty cool. Raining nickels!"

What a beautiful vision for a kid to hold onto, I thought to myself, never really thinking more of it. And never, for whatever reason, linking the two episodes together.

The next day, a long poem appeared taped to the tent. It was written by Nicholas (Nick) Nickels who was asking if he could live in the tent and offering his coins as part of the rent.

Last night (and most of the day from what I've been told) was a frenzy of the same kids, back in the tent, trying to figure it out. "I think he's a spirit or an angel." "I ran into my teacher today and she said Nick's probably a leprechaun." "I'm scared, will you come in there with us?"

The mayhem quickly escalated when another little girl came from across the street and scared everyone -- some to tears. Everyone was trying to figure out what clues may have been left in the poem itself. "What's a pun?" "Hey, it says 'set up' for the tent -- I think we're being set up. That's a pun, right?"

This led to some super sleuthing and an attempt at a trial.

"Was it Mr. R?" Answer: No we don't have a) a color printer or b) any money.

"Mr. S, it was you, wasn't it? Your computer has this font on it!" Answer: No, I'm an accountant not a writer. I couldn't have made that poem up.

"An accountant? That means you count nickels!"

And so on and so on . . .

Last night, I fell asleep while Son #1 was still excitedly putting together his court case. "We don't have enough evidence to convict Mr. S. except the laptop."

This morning, Son #1 was up early. "Can I go out to the tent and see if Nick left another note?" Sure enough, there was another poem left on the tent and today's even contained a claim that Nick is, indeed, a spirit.

I must say, it's a pretty exciting end to the summer and one they may never forget.

Days with My Father

Days with My Father captures in gorgeous photos and compelling yet heart wrenching text a son's loving journey through life with his elderly father who is suffering from short-term memory loss.

(Note: Click on the screen and use your mouse to scroll through the photos and captions.)

It's sad, captivating, touching, charming and beautiful.

Defying the Odds

I went to dinner at JoJo again last night because they have the best hummus on the planet (never mind the garlic). My girlfriends were asking how my niece, who just started her freshman year at Rice this week, was doing because they knew I was nervous for her. We started talking about the college experience including that initial fear/sadness that quickly dissipates and the wonder of co-ed dorms.

We were trying to remember if Day Hall at Syracuse University had officially sanctioned co-ed bathrooms after midnight or if that's just how it panned out (due to laziness) during the middle of the night. I commented that, on a co-ed floor of 80 kids, there were only eight girls my first year so the bathrooms were pretty much co-ed all the time -- not much you could do.

My girlfriend Christine responded, "Wait, there was a 72:8 ratio and you still never hooked up?"

Holy cow! Seriously, I've never thought about it like that before.

72 dudes and eight chicks and I never had a single date. Defying the odds, once again.

Vintageous

My new favorite site: Vintageous! Chock full of evening gowns and cocktail dresses from the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Seriously, at less than $300, what bride wouldn't look fabulous in this?



Where was this site when I was getting married? Instead, in those pre-Vera Wang days, all of the dresses had gigantic bows, puffy sleeves, huge trains, etc. After countless failed efforts at finding reasonable dresses, the saleswoman at a local bridal store actually called my roommate Bae and me "the most conservative girls she had ever met." We preferred to think of ourselves as tasteful.

When my dress maker fell asleep on the job, I ended up buying a somewhat more-girly-than-myself number off the rack at the last minute but it had a sweet tulle skirt like the image above with daisies on it. Not all bad except that I had to have the sequins removed -- which the girl in the dressing room next to mine asked to have sewn onto her dress. Knock yourself out, they're all yours! (Sight unseen, I bet she had the proverbial big bangs that were popular in those days.)

Yet, when I picked the dress up, a number of sequins were still on it. Why? Were they load bearing? Nope, the tailor at the store simply couldn't imagine that I really wanted them all removed. Just unfathomable.

Whatever.

Rockin the Suburbs

I just read, or rather attempted to read, Restless Virgins, a story presumably about a sex scandal that rocked Milton Academy in 2005. The book is, more accurately, a one dimensional chronicle of teen hook-ups (I'm too old to care) and tracks a number of kids through their sexual exploits and/or teen heartaches. And the "scandal" -- which is nested in the center of the book and barely makes a dent in the reading -- seems like just another day in the life of these kids except that they got caught. Rather, the whole scene is scandalous and belongs in Penthouse Forum Junior (if there was such a thing).

I put down the book midway through and thought to myself, "I'm so glad that I never had to compete with my friends sexually." Things really were so much more innocent 25-30 years ago. Yes, I had some promiscuous friends but they were more the exception than the norm. I think.

Then I went out for a quick cocktail with my neighbors last night. Women who live in all of the homes surrounding mine but who, with the exception of a couple, I really don't know. Women who, I just came to find out, dine naked with their husbands IN THEIR BACKYARDS wearing nothing but red pumps. Women who apparently howl so loud with their husbands from their hot tubs that they caused a lot of laughter at the table last night. Women who boast about breaking their headboards.

I can't compete at that level. With the exception of my classically dressed next door neighbor and a couple of slightly more casual friends, I was also the only one not (as her husband later put it), "cougared up." My green t-shirt with bright pink belt on white cotton shorts was no match for all of the black-on-black ensembles I was seated with. Which also begs the question: Was this a casual night out for the girls or were they headed later to the Academy Awards? I somehow missed that portion of the invite.

Anyhoo, I'm thinking I should climb up into the tree house over the weekend to make some crazy noises. As Bonnie Rait once said, "Let's give 'em something to talk about."

Or maybe not.