Happy Everything

Today

2014

 2013

 2012

 2011

2010

2009 (missing)

2008

2007

Love,

S

Dear Teresa

I wrote down the date today and realized, holy mother of all that is shut the front door, Teresa Guidice is getting out of prison tomorrow.

Where did the year go, Teresa? I mean, can you believe we are here? That we made it? Because we did it, Teresa, the thing we thought we couldn't possibly do. We did it and now we are home, right where we are supposed to be, thank you Jesus. We are home.

Wishing you, Gia, Milania, Gabriella, Audriana and Joe a holiday filled with love.

xo,
S

Dead Mother Sighting @ Pine/Battery: A Text Conversation Between Me and My Brother

I still (always) miss her so much.
xo,
S

Just Another Weekend in December

Friday night I went to a party where I got a super flattering photo of my soul. Okay, maybe not my soul, per se, but my electromagnetic field? Or my blatant need to believe in something mystical, depending on your level of woo. (For the record, I place myself somewhere in the middle of woo and woo.)

Apparently the blue arc means that I lead from the heart, that I'm kind, generous, intuitive, sensitive (so be nice in the comments). The purple points to me being a visionary, unconventional, creative, playful, non-judgmental (the only attribute I cock an eyebrow at, because duh--I am one judge-y bitch). The white orbs are flashes of higher consciousness, my angels, which is good because as I sat down to have my picture taken I closed my eyes and told my mom that she better show up. The rods emanating from my head? Honestly I forget what the aura lady said those were, and now all I can think of is the priest in The Omen, how the photograph of him showed a javelin-like object through his head, and then later he was impaled by the church spire. So if you hear that my skull has been crushed by some multi-pronged sharp thing, you have my permission to shave Ozzy's head and look for the sign of the devil.

So there I am, my energy. Do I believe? After the party I Googled auras and read all about it, the colors, the arcs and energy, Kirlian photography. I definitely believe that we all have energy. Sometimes I meet people whose energy just makes me happy; I like them instantly. And then there are people whose energy makes me close up for no other reason than they just feel off. Of course Google also showed me some articles debunking aura photography. I decided not to read them. 

Saturday I went to a memorial service for two people that I loved. There was a sacred Wiccan dance ceremony with drums, sage, bells. I closed my eyes during the guided meditation and tried very hard to think of nothing.

Sunday I went to a traditional German holiday glühwein & plätzchen party. I drank hot spiced red wine and felt hearty. 

Heart-y.
After all, this is the season to believe in it all.

Hope your weekend was just as...

xo,
S

Not It

It's December now. I'm here. It's just--

It's just that there was a terrible tragedy in my family, something so unfathomably sad that I didn't know how to write about not it because it was not/is not mine to write about. Please know I hate vague blogging, booking, vaguery of any sort. While this is not mine to write about, it also feels starkly wrong not to say that we are going through something. (Then there is also the fact that I am pretty sure I have a reputation as a bit of a downer here on the www, what with the disease and the deaths and the sickness and the fuck?)

So here we are and it's December. I still don't know how to write about not it except to say that it is there, but so is this: we went to the Nutcracker. Had photos taken with Santa. Ozzy likes to kiss my closed eyes, and Zoey, well Zoey asks me to talk to her about everything and I know this will not last forever. Even with my horrible, frizzy, awkward hair Bryan still makes lewd comments when I walk naked from our bed to the bathroom each morning.

So there is that. 
Today is Tuesday. Let's see what Tuesday brings.
xo,
S

All Of It True

It has been a week of cognitive dissonance. Of feeling soul-punched by what happened in Paris but at the same time guilty that I do not have the same reaction to Beirut, angry that I feel guilty, scared of what I do not understand, warmed by the stories on Facebook, the inspirational quotes with the incorrect use of 'your'. It has been a week of feeling too much contradictory shit at once, of thinking about how we strive for internal consistency because contradictory beliefs cause psychological strife; this is what I think about while watching Vanderpump Rules. 

I can no longer skip, a milestone that tripped me up without realizing it. I mean, I knew I could not really run anymore. The damage caused by MS pulled at me slowly, like how when you're swimming in the ocean and look up to realize that the tide has pulled you down the beach. You look for your umbrella on the sand. Where? So the running--whatever. I can't really run, I say weakly to my kids when we play. Stop. But skip. I tried to show Ozzy how to skip the other day and it was gone. More of a lurch. A huh? The myelin sheath apparently scarred over on my skip neuron. Okay then. The list of things I can still do is so much longer than what I can't, the can't hopefully halted. I am okay. It will all be okay. When's the last time I skipped anyway?

A friend of mine at work made me this shirt that I will love forever, although I have yet to figure out the best place to wear it. The office, yoga, school drop off--what's going to come of all of this?

The spirit in me honors the spirit in you, motherfucker. Contradictory and true.
Xo,
S

4th Grade and Pre-K, Inspired by Pablo Neruda

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays, and the week with the whole year. Time cannot be cut with your weary scissors…

How I love Pablo Neruda.

I seem to have glanced down at my lap for a moment, and when I looked up my children were grown. Not grown grown, certainly, but Pablo had it right when he said that Time lost its shoes. A year is four centuries. Suddenly Zoey has eyes that are a little bit far away, and Ozzy, well, Ozzy says things so true that they burn like a coin in my hand. 

That is what parenthood does to you; it takes time and wraps it like an errant hair around its little finger, sometimes its middle finger. It points at you and tells you to shut it. There is nothing linear about this business of being their mommy. You will always be my baby, I whisper into their necks because they always have been, before any of us were even here.

Pick a number and I will count to it. If I could do nothing for once then perhaps a great silence would interrupt this tangle of me trying to understand how fast it's going, where it's going, how much I love them like a small dry star in my mouth.

Any number.

xo,
S

If You Have Something To Do With City Ordinances Or State Laws, Whatever, Then This Didn't Really Happen, For Reals

I went shopping with my mom today, which is only strange because she has been dead for a little over two years.

For better or for worse, that was our thing, shopping. As I was growing up, she joked that when she died she wanted her ashes spread in Macy's. Only that was the Macy's of the '80s, the Macy's where she bought Norma Kamali while I hid inside racks of clothes. No offense to Federated, but today's Macy's is not the Macy's in which my mom wanted to be scattered. 

Her ashes have been in my underwear drawer for two years now. At the funeral home, intimidated by too many choices of urns, I chose a large, thick, envelope to put her in. Apparently you can bury the envelope and it will biodegrade, and seeing as how we didn't know exactly where we were going to scatter her ashes, I chose a pretty lavender envelope, which is where she has been ever since. I put the envelope in my underwear drawer because I had terrible visions of the cats getting to her, and as the years go by, I've been having even worse images of the envelope biodegrading right there. Each morning I become increasingly tense as I reach for my undies, fearing I will find a fine dusting of my mom on all of my skivvies. 

Don't worry. She would find this funny.
I hope.

Zoey has been wanting to honor her Grandma Glitter, so I thought we would celebrate her today, on the Day of the Dead. We drove into the city and went to all of the stores we used to go to with her, stores I won't name here because I maybe might have scattered a few ashes in them. Just a teaspoon or two. It's amazing really, the heft of ashes one person becomes, something I discovered when I finally opened the envelope. Surreal does not even begin to describe how I had to tell Ozzy that no, he couldn't play with the sand as I scooped a little bit into a portable Ziploc snack baggie. I didn't tell him it was Grandma Glitter. At 4, he couldn't possibly understand. At 43, I still can't. That was not my mom in that envelope, but what was her, what was so perfectly honoring who she was and she will forever be in our hearts, was the act of covertly dusting just a teeny pinch near some Betsey Johnson jewelry. Behind a rack of sparkly sweaters. On the floor of the store where she bought Zoey her bear named Marshmallow.

My mom didn't often go by the rules. And she loved to shop. Never and always really, if you knew her. So today, for the first time in a long time, I felt like she was with me again. Of course I didn't take any photos, and there isn't exactly any stock photography of scattering ashes in retail environments. (Seriously, I just looked. It's all beautific images of people holding hands as they toss puffs of people across green lawns.) So I chose the image above because this is what it felt like, finally scattering just a teaspoon of my mom--it's like building a road where none exists. You look around and you see all these roads carved into mountains and you forget that someone had to do that. Make it happen. Forge ahead full of hope because there is no other way for that road to be built. So many deep thoughts, onward and upward, but really, what I'm trying to say, is that it wasn't comfortable getting a fine sediment of my mom stuck beneath my fingernails. It was scary. But it was also amazing, profound, it was progress, and yes, it was uplifting to go shopping with her again because I know she was with us as we sprinkled bits of her across pretty things, things as glittery and magical as she was.

xo,
S

The September Sessions (A Month Late)

I was thinking about Grape-Nuts yesterday, I have no idea why. The cereal. Something about October makes me more nostalgic than usual, and I was thinking that I want to get some Grape-Nuts. I haven't had them in probably 20 years, and though I remember them being pretty gritty terrible dry, I also remember loving the sound of eating them, how it sounded like footsteps on gravel, how that was enough.

It is October and Zoey is officially cooler than I am. This year she started guitar lessons and skateboarding at the ramp. I look at her and the 9 year old inside of me wants to be her friend. So does the 15 year old inside of me, the 43 year old, though I also know I have to be her mother first. I look at her and I remember October as the beginning of everything, at Ozzy planting little seeds in Dixie cups waiting for what to grow. I am lucky in that I had a happy childhood, safe, a childhood in which the sound of footsteps on gravel was a pretty noise. This weekend we will have Grape-Nuts for breakfast.

Goiter

This is not a sad post, or a depressing post, but it is a post to say that I feel like I got punched in the throat. Probably because I just got stabbed in the throat with a needle 3 times, but that's cool. I liked it.

Which is to say I have thyroid nodules. I've known about them for a few years now--they discovered them on my first MRI. Yep, I was diagnosed with MS and then told I had nodules that might be cancerous, so that was a fun week. But they were not cancerous. Just nodules. No biggie. I get them ultrasounded every 6 months and am always told to just come in if anything changes.

Last week I noticed a big lump on my throat. Bryan said it was just my Adam's apple until I told him that women do not have Adam's apples. 

*sigh* 

I should also say that someone left me a mean comment on my last post, something about how I need to call 1-800-hypochondria, which isn't even a clever diss since hypochondria is not 7 letters. They also said that too many high risk medical procedures can ruin my health and well being. Well. Being that I was called a hypochondriac for 15 years because I thought I had MS, only to be diagnosed with it years later, I did not like that comment. And colonoscopies are not unnecessary, particularly if you have a family history of colon cancer, which I do. They found a polyp and removed it. Win/win, FTW, WTF.

I deleted that comment.

So the lump in my neck scared me. But I was calm. I made an appointment. And Googled the hell out of thyroid lumps only to find that they are called goiters. Guys. I have a goiter. Is there an uglier word than goiter? Don't even with the moist. It's too easy to hate moist. Turd is bad, but not worse than goiter. I think the only word worse is anus. At least I don't have a goiter on my anus right next to the bunion that causes me gout. 

But I digress. Whatever you do, don't Google goiter. Because the internet is full of what-the-hell-is-happening-on-that-person's-neck. 

So rather than put pictures of goiters in this post, I am putting in photos of my family. Because that is why I am so afraid of goiters and colon cancer, of MS, of driving too fast and not chewing my food. These silly people who I come home to every day.

This is not a sad post. Or a depressing post. This is a post about how much I need to stay alive and healthy to be there for my family. 

It is also a post to say that I just had my appointment for my goiter, and the doctor ultrasounded it and said she is not worried that it is cancerous. Nevertheless, she did a fine needle aspiration and we will know in two weeks. However, she's not worried, so I'm not worried.

This is a post to tell you that I have a goiter, but it just looks like a small, off-center Adam's apple. I already knew I had balls, but now I also have an Adam's apple. 

But I also have this.

And this.

And because of that, I am the luckiest wobbly-walking, goiter-y swallowing, clean colon'ed non-hypochondriac woman who will keep pressing boobs, glands and buttons if that means I get to raise these big-eyed people well into their adulthood.

So there it is. I have a goiter. Just don't stare at it, thanks.

No, seriously. Don't look at it.
xo,
S

Friday: My Most Revealing Post Ever (Note The Use Of A Colon)

There are so many ways to start this post, none of them mature, so let's just get it out of the way because shit's about to get real around here. For years I've been nagging my doctor to schedule me for a colonoscopy because my uncle passed away from colon cancer at 40, but my doctor said I could wait until I was 50. The thing is, I didn't want to wait. They say that death begins in the colon. Now, I'm not sure who "they" are, but that's a pretty shitty thing to say. Not that I necessarily want a camera snaked up my bum, but I also know that shit happens. 

Everyone who's ever had 5 feet of surgical tubing inserted into their colon will tell you that the prep you have to do the night before is the worst part, and I am not about to argue that point. (Seriously though--it's 5 feet; I asked.) I jokingly thought I would live-blog the event, or at least do a mock live blog, so I took this pic of me with the mixture of the stuff you have to drink before I even tasted it. Here I am perky, trying to be cute, happy if a little hangry from having to fast for the entire day. Looking back on this pic I see what an asshole I was being, no pun intended, because...

The stuff you have to drink is heinous. Like the spit of a mean person heinous. And you have to drink 2 liters of mean person spit within 2 hours, which basically means you're chugging something you can barely choke down. (Pay no attention to the unintentional placement of Zoey's chalk drawing behind me.)

After this picture, i.e. after the very first glass, everything went dark. As in the mean person spit started to work, and holy fire hose, people. I think we can all agree that my trying-to-be-funny idea to "live blog" the event was beyond fucking stupid. There are simply no words to describe what occurred in my bathroom for the next 8 hours, except to say that Bryan slept on the couch that night and there was a point sometime past midnight that I thought for reals that I was probably going to die from the sheer velocity of it all. I mean, if I didn't shit myself forward, cracking my head on the tile floor, then surely there was a very real possibility of me falling off the toilet because I was so dizzy from the medicine and the not eating. And the shitting. Did I mention the shitting? 

You guys, believe me when I say I am someone that has gone 4 decades without admitting to ever having gone poop. So the fact that I am even writing this post is a testament to a.) my absolute disbelief that colonoscopies are a thing we should all do, and b.) that I want people to be less afraid of shitting themselves to death via colonoscopy than shitting themselves to death via cancer.

Because I didn't. Die, that is. The next morning I woke up and had to drink yet another 2 liters of the mean person spit. Only this time it was less violent as there was simply nothing left to vile. Except bile. Out of my butt. Too much? Please, we've come this far. Bryan drove me to the hospital with me clenching the whole way there while Googling on my phone "do people ever poop on the doctor during a colonoscopy?" (Surprisingly, there were not that many direct hits to this inquiry, which I still think is a valid question.)

I had wanted to Sharpie something on my butt for the doctor beforehand, but in the throes of prep I forgot to be funny. Instead I just asked him if anyone ever did that, and he said yes, once he had a guy write Go Giants on his ass. I laughed, and thought for a second that I should probably tell him that when I was little I had swallowed a Weeble Wobble once, that he might find it in there because I don't remember it ever coming out, but then I thought that maybe he would think that I had put it IN my butt, so I didn't say anything, suddenly ashamed of that 35 year old stomach-acid-eaten Weeble Wobble, and then they put something in my IV and all of a sudden it didn't bother me at all that someone said they were going to insert the camera in my rectum now. There was a power ballad on, and I was awake but also not, as I usually am when listening to power ballads. I guess my eyes were closed; I guess some time went by. All I know is that there was some tugging and pushing and then the doctor said there was a small polyp, and I opened my eyes and looked at it on the screen. Yes! I said out loud, which was maybe a strange thing to say, strange to say anything at all, but I was happy that there was a reason for being, or a reason for shitting, a raison de la merde, I don't know. Just yes?

Later, after it was over and I was dressed, the doctor came out to shake my hand (dude, I know), and to tell me that they had taken one small polyp that was probably nothing but they would biopsy it. So it was small? He said yes. Like small and dainty, a pretty polyp? He said it was not dainty per se, just small and probably nothing, and then he told Bryan that I was not allowed to drive for 24 hours, or cook or go on social media, that I should probably just stop talking because I was still under conscious sedation, which seemed very modern and fair. The rest of the day had rounded edges and was pleasant.

So there it is. In 10-14 days I will find out that my polyp is most likely nothing, but if I had waited until I was 50, who knows? The bottom line (groan): if I can do it, me--someone who barely acknowledges pooping--then you can do it. Please, get a colonoscopy.

And because you stuck with me this long, this, just for shits and giggles...

xo,

S

R is for...

I'm just going to leave this here.

Yep.
S

Over...Alls

If you know me in real life then you know I've been trying to make overalls happen for the last year or so. Not like I'm a trendsetter-- No, more that I had such a good time in overalls circa 1993 that I really want them to work on me again. Screw the fact that I was 21 in 1993 and not 21 now (you do the math). I think I should look like I did then, or at the very least like an overalled Winona Ryder back in the day. You know, because I have short hair now and all. Twinsies!

I mean, right? Totally could be me.

Except it's not. Couldn't. Isn't and never was. It wasn't in the first pair I bought from Madewell that were supposed to look good on everyone. (Lie.) And it wasn't in the 3 vintage pairs I bought from Urban Outfitters. It wasn't in the stupid expensive ones I bought from Anthro either. (I can't even link to those, I am so ashamed of how much I was willing to pay, i.e. how much I wanted 1993 back.)

Every time I ordered, tried on, and sent back overalls I told myself that was it. It just isn't meant to be. 1993 is gone. I have a muffin top and naso-labial folds now. Naso-labial folds and overalls are simply not meant to go together outside of a pottery studio. But then I would see another pair on a blog and feel like maybe I just hadn't found the right pair. And I would order them again.

And again. Today I got the latest maybes, another Madewell find--the Flea Market Flare. I mean, you guys, I love flea markets! Surely these would work. I had ordered two sizes and went about pulling the smaller pair on. They were...stiff. Snug. Not like 1993 overalls which had been faded and soft, floppy. These were fitted. Sharp. Intentional overalls. I'm not sure overalls are meant to be intentional? But I also know that all things get updated. So I sucked in my gut. Thought perhaps a different shirt underneath? With heeled boots? Maybe...?

That's when Bryan found the larger size and tried them on to show me how ridiculous I looked. How ridiculous 2015 overalls are, how I am not a 21 year old Winona or even a 40-something Gwen Stefani rocking a pair with a crop top beneath. No, I am more like an SNL Pat.

(I admit--at this point I thought still, maybe they could work. Until Zoey took our picture and showed me just how dowdy they looked.)

To some degree, Bryan actually looks better in the Flea Market Flare than I, something about his slim hips, perhaps. Or maybe it's the camel toe.

After I saw the pictures, I knew. I'm definitely returning these. Which is nice in that I am saving $$$, but also nice in that I can stop stalking 1993 now. You know, don't go chasing waterfalls, and all that.

(Although maybe? If I find a super soft vintage pair? Shut up. Why can't I stop?)

Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to...

xo,

S

September the You-Know-What

Today is September 11. Tomorrow is September 12.

The first date makes you pause. Tense up. Remember and feel bad, vaguely heavy and where were you? Last week I noticed that my milk was due to expire on September 11. It took me a second, but then that date looked strange stamped all nonchalantly on a gallon of milk like that.

I know you see it too. Maybe not on your milk but on your cheese perhaps, all of our Facebook feeds full of when our worlds stopped 14 years ago today. Never forget. So we don't. Can't. Because forgetting would be somehow rude to those that died, their families, though I don't know that they care. I am pretty sure that when I die I will want to be remembered for how I lived, celebrated for my life and not for the way I died. 

I am strangely afraid of how you will read that, but I stand by it. Instead of the day-long zeitgeist of sadness and vague fear, what if every September 11 we eat kale salad with warm panko-crusted goat cheese, drink Slurpees, watch reality tv, gossip, debate politics, embarrass our children by dancing stupid in living rooms across this great nation of ours? What if we turn the day into a celebration of each of those 2,977 Americans who died, into a celebration of us all? Because fuck terrorists. They don't get to have every September 11 forever and ever, amen.

September 12. Apparently my milk will be sour by tomorrow. It is also the 2 year anniversary of my mom's death. Zoey has her first soccer game. When I got the soccer schedule I looked at the date thinking wait, I have something else to do that day. And then I remembered. Of course. September 12.

But do I? Have something else to do? What do I do? Such a strange thing to commemorate, a death day. I feel guilty not spending the day mourning my mom, remembering her, creating some sort of ceremony out of her death as a way to control the uncontrollable. This day two years ago. Where were you?

I think we can all agree that cancer is a terrorist, and conversely that terrorists are a cancer. They took September 11, 2001, and for me, September 12, 2013. But what if we took back those days in the future? I mean, if Bin Laden were still alive and on Facebook, I'm pretty sure he would love the fact that our feeds are full of images of the planes crashing into the towers. Fuck that. Fuck Bin Laden. Fuck cancer. Let's fill up our feeds with American mundanity: pictures of sunsets and stories of period panties, videos of Jimmy Fallon's lip sync battles. Tomorrow I am going to Zoey's soccer game. I will bring snacks and a blanket to sit on. Afterward we might get fro-yo. We might not. Then the next day will be September 13. And I will still love and miss my mom.

Happy this day to you, and tomorrow, too.
xo,
S

The Boy

The photo of the dead Syrian boy who washed up onto a beach in Turkey.

I can't stop looking at it. Like I see an article and even though I already know the story, saw the photo, I click on it, click past the warning of a graphic image, and I see it again and again and again.

There is nothing I can say that others haven't said better. Something about his shoes. His body heavy with the sleep of a 3 year old boy. Every parent knows that repose. Except of course we don't because this boy is dead. 

I go in at night to look at my own children sleeping. I am in disbelief that the world has given me this love, this luck, this burden of knowing how hair trigger close I am to losing it all, the difference only in where I was born.

Something still different but also the same: I read somewhere that Sandy Hook marked an end to the war on gun control in the US once America decided killing children was bearable, and yes. I am still friends with The Brady Campaign on Facebook, but I am also friends with Chipotle and Kate Spade.

What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? I donate to the Refugee Crisis. I read more articles. I click on the link thinking that making myself look at the photo honors the boy, humanizes him, maybe wondering if at a certain point it will no longer shock me, the photo of a little boy so much like my own, face down dead in the sand. 

Thousands of people pushing to get on a train that doesn't move. Other than that, inclusive of that, I don't know.

Image here.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I stopped eating gluten. Developed a taste for ghee. I learned the fine art of pomade and we swam in the pool, the lake, the ocean. (Not that those things are necessarily related.) We watched Charlotte's Web and Stand By Me, both of which took some fast forwarding. I told Ozzy to say please when he yelled at me from the bathroom to wipe his butt. I did this 243 times.

This is the slow end of that particular montage, and while I know sentiment is cheap, I can hear the music rising.

Today was the first day of school. It slips in quietly surrounded by noise, and before you know it you are taking photos of a 4th grader and your son in Pre-K, standing on your lawn brown from the drought.

Don't. Stop. Don't. Stop. Remember how Popeye would say that in the old cartoons when Olive Oyl was kissing him? The joke being that as he said it faster it sounded as if he was asking her not to stop. I thought that was so funny when I was a kid. Don't. Stop. Don't. Stop. Don't. Stop.

4th grade and Pre-K. This is the first day.

xo,

S

Jenkins

I am so in love with my family. And I'm not just talking about Bryan and the kids, although yeah, I have to watch how hard I hug them, because sweet Jesus, they are squeeze-y. No, I'm talking about my family family: aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins once removed, removed from what, I don't know because I love them so.

When I was in Israel, which--well let me just back up. I kind of hate starting anything with when I was in Israel because I don't want that to be my thing. I don't want that to be the most interesting thing about me. Whatever. Moving on. Love. My family. When I was in Israel I felt terribly far away from everything that made me me. So I pulled the chemo card and sent an email to my extended family to initiate a family reunion. It had been too long since we had all been together. I didn't want to wait for another wedding or god forbid a funeral to see them.

My Aunt Eleanor offered up her farm in New Hampshire along with a family summer cottage 20 minutes away, and after months of exchanging emails it was set.

So last week we traveled from San Francisco, Boston, Denver, Phoenix, Oregon, Nebraska and Santa Fe and spent time teasing each other, laughing, swimming in lakes, kayaking, looking through old photos, and staying up until 4am to talk. It was one of the best vacations I have ever taken.

The farm, aka Uplands.

Oz walking from the cider press barn with all the tractors to the original barn with the chickens.

He was more than a little infatuated with the chickens. In fact, I am trying to figure out if I should do the whole urban-chicken-thing, although cleaning cat litter is already too much for me.

Me and my cousin, Tess. She is my sister from another mister, although that other mister is my uncle so technically that means she is my cousin. But she may as well be my sister. One of my favoritest people on earth, and the only one who likes to do bad accents as much as I do.

Zoey and cousin Ian chilling in the hammock. Some of my best childhood memories are with my cousins, and I so hope Zoey and Oz have the same experiences.

Speaking of cousins, mine are tall. Farish, 6'8", Lucas 6'6", and Georgia, 6'. Not pictured: Oliver, 6'4". I got the hair that flairs red with the sun, freckles, brown eyes and the twisted dark humor, but sadly I did not get the tall gene.

Lake swimming! So much lake swimming. It was a first for my west coast kids, but they loved it, hard. 

How could they not? There was a Sunfish, kayaks, a canoe, a row boat, a rope swing over the lake, and a thousand water skeeters that stopped no one.

Zoey and Ian in the kayaks.

Ozzy was pumped on jumping into lakes.

He also loved the tractors. So chickens, lakes and tractors = his new favorites.

Also...children of the corn. Or El Hombre of the corn. Whichever.

We stayed at Tip Ridge, my aunt's summer cottage on a lake and it was straight out of On Golden Pond. Here are the cousins reading a book. I mean, right???

The sun porch might replace a remote beach on Mykonos as my special place I go to in my head when I am getting my blood pressure taken. So. Freaking. Peaceful.

Forget freaking. It was FUCKING AMAZING.

Back at the farm we went to the frog pond, picked apples and played field golf.

And this happened. But I don't like to think about it because creep-to-the-New England-eee.

On the last night we had dinner in the barn and watched old family videos including one that all of us older cousins made on Christmas 19 years ago called The Real World, Santa Fe. I hadn't seen it since we made it in 1996. We were 24 and drunk and stupid and wow, it was embarrassing. But fun. Fuck, we have fun together.

You know, chemo sucked. I cried, I puked, I even pooped my pants a little, but goddamn if it wasn't worth it to remind myself of the importance of family. I love these people, my tall freckled witty smart family who not only reminds me of where I come from, but where I can always go.

Do me a favor and call a cousin today. ;)

Love you all,
S

And a special thanks to my Aunt Eleanor for hosting, and to Susan for organizing.