In review: 2012

Posted on January 3, 2013 by 8junebugs

This was a much more exciting list for 2011, I think. I made Big Moves in 2011. In 2012, I think I was staging the Big Moves of 2013. Even so…onward:

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? Bought and wore maternity clothes. AND I LIKED IT.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? The word for this year was Home. Given that we’re on the path to real estate and we’re bringing a child into the world, I think I got there.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes — welcome, Ryder! But really, almost all the babies I know about – and they are LEGION — are due within the next five months.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No, but a very young woman, a friend of a friend, died at the very end of 2012 after kicking lung cancer’s ass for two years. I didn’t know you could miss someone you’ve never met.

5. What places did you visit? Oh, dear. We didn’t venture much off the beaten path this year. We visited family and went to Santa Monica for a couple of days, but that’s pretty much it.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? A place to live for longer than a year at a time. (Yes. This again.)

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? September 24, because the start date of a new job is sort of critical to accessing benefits.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Nailing down a full-time job that I love and that supports my weird little family in all the right ways.

9. What was your biggest failure? I signed up for a half-marathon that I didn’t get to run.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I strained the hell out of my hip training (badly) for the half-marathon that I didn’t get to run.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Tie: Kindle Paperwhite and two hours of housecleaning at the holidays.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Rodney. He’s a GOOD BOY! Good boy, puppy!!! Who’s a good boy?!?!

Wait, what?

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? John Boehner, et al. Also Mitt Romney and just about everyone who voted for him.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent. Good god, I am so done with renting.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Making a whole new person.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012? ”Some Nights” by Fun.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Even happier.

b) thinner or fatter?  Pregnant.

c) richer or poorer? About the same, although on more solid financial footing.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Beach time. I’m pretty sure we didn’t get out there once in 2012, which is just dumb.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worrying.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2012? Cooking dinner for four (see also: “Home”). Graham’s parents came here this year to prevent me from getting stranded in the snowy Sierras with a pregnant bladder. We also had a bunch of family over on Boxing Day, which I think I could love as a new tradition.

21. Did you fall in love in 2012? Yes. There’s something about knowing that your kid will be half you and half the person you love the most that shines a spotlight on that love.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Downton Abbey…at least up through the 2012 Christmas special. Oy. HAVE YOU NO SHAME, WRITERS?

23. What did you do for your birthday in 2012? Took a walk in the city. Ate some cupcakes.

24. What was the best book you read? Ugh. I read a lot, but not much that I’d keep on the shelves, were I still keeping books on the shelves. The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs was entertaining. I also read Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds, which was nice and validating.

25. What did you want and get? A second term for the president. Also a new shredder.

26. What did you want and not get? Not much. I want for little and am very, very lucky most of the time.

27. What was your favorite film of this year? Les Mis pretty much blew me away, although I thought they did an excellent job adapting Hunger Games.

28. Did you make some new friends this year? Yes! Yay!

29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? More respect for certain rules and property rights — I now hate middle-of-the-night hot tub parties, especially the ones thrown by non-residents. I am also not fond of dog owners who do not pick up after their pets. You don’t have to get off my lawn, but you damn sure better not leave poop on it.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012? If it’s not stretchy and soft, I want no part of it.

31. What kept you sane? Nothing. I’ve spent the last six months ruled by hormones run amok.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I’ve got a soft spot for Cory Booker, but Elizabeth Warren is my homegirl. There aren’t many politicians who make you think, “Damn, I wish I lived there so I could vote for her, too.”

33. What political issue stirred you the most? My own right to my own damn body. Attention legislators: This pregnant woman would like you to know that there’s no way in hell I would go through this against my will.

34. Who did you miss? Mom, Grand, and Memere — all the women whose experiences of childbirth would most relevant and useful right now. Given the way I would like to birth this child, I suspect Memere would be the most valuable resource…also the least likely to think it was an appropriate topic of conversation.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. I can do this.

Filed under: Book of Me, Home, Old Enough to Know Better | Leave a Comment »

Snow what?

Posted on January 28, 2011 by 8junebugs

I may, in fact, be done with snow.

For the first 14 of my 33 years, I was in Vermont and didn’t really even think about snow. All that mattered in the winter was whether it was cold enough to freeze the pond and whether I could con an adult into shoveling it so I could skate. (I didn’t shovel snow in my youth. Ever.) (I don’t know why.)

These last few years in DC, I’ve shoveled enough snow to fill that pond…which, okay, wasn’t even deep enough to drown Grandpa’s heifers, but still. A lot. And I have a tiny shovel that I purchased from the local hardware store because it was the only one left in a 50-mile radius after last year’s storms really kicked in.

It is not a back-friendly shovel. Building management loans out bigger, better ones.

On Wednesday, I listened to the only weather team I trust and left an hour and a half before the office’s announced early closure, although they pulled that closure back another hour after I left. It takes me almost an hour to get home in regular traffic, you see, and the weather team said the storm was going to come up fast and furious. WE CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH, the said, HOW FAST THIS IS GOING TO GET DANGEROUS. Or something to that effect. In all-caps and/or bold.

They were absolutely right.

I drove out of Reston through thunderhail. I spent a little more than an hour carefully commuting by my usual route, driving through virtually every form of precipitation, some at the same time. I got home just as the snow showers started, and just as some of my team members were trying to leave the office…and the weather in Reston got worse faster than it did in Alexandria. One of them decided to have dinner by the office and still didn’t get home until almost 3 a.m.

It’s not the snow’s fault. It’s that we don’t respect it, and I think we’re all still a little bitter about all the shoveling and missed work and school last winter. We don’t want to be the first to leave the office because of the weather. Gawd. Because of my New England background, I get picked on for paying such close attention to the forecasts and taking precautions when everyone else is like, “Well, what if they’re wrong?”

Well, if they’re wrong, I still get work done, just from a different location. And if they’re right, I spend my evening safe and warm at home and you spend it on the toll road.

I have no problem driving in snow and ice, even with my wimpy little Honda, but this region doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with more than a couple of perfectly timed inches of fluffy snow. When we get thumped with 1-2 inches an hour before, during, and after an already ridiculous rush “hour,” it’s a disaster. And it’s not predictable enough to increase the infrastructure, so…manage your expectations, I say.

Sure, Vermont schools and offices have tougher inclement weather policies. But Vermonters also buy 4-wheel-drive vehicles and put proper winter tires on every single year. You live there, it’s what you do. If you grew up there, moved to California, started driving there, then moved back, it’s what you re-learn to remember to do. Expectations.

Even though it’s not the snow’s fault, it gets a little less fun every time, even though I’ve become a bit of a snow junkie down here. It’s pretty! Lot plowing is included in my rent! There’s bread, cheese, wine, and friends in easy walking distance! I don’t even mind shoveling out my car. But the DC reaction and response to the inclement weather just isn’t worth its weight in cocoa.

Snow, I think I can totally quit you.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, No place like home, Old Enough to Know Better | 2 Comments »

Long-distance relationships for dummehs*

Posted on November 21, 2010 by 8junebugs

At an event last week, a grad school friend (who is not a dummeh) asked for advice about long-distance relationships. She’s in one, see, and knows I’m in one, so she thought maybe I could share something more insightful than, “Yeah, sucks, doesn’t it?”

It’s not on our resumes or anything, but G and I really are champs at this. I mean, I don’t want to brag or anything, but we’ve got a long, strong history of being AWESOME at a distance equal to or greater than 2,000 miles.

One could argue that our relationship falters when we’re only a couple hundred miles apart and then disintegrates entirely when we’re only separated by three stops on the red line. But one could also argue that living with my mother for 10 months in my early 20s drove me to the brink of a breakdown. So it wasn’t geography’s fault AT ALL. (We hope.)

(No, really. Because that would totally suck, wouldn’t it? Thankfully, we really do like being in the same place…certainly more than we like buoying Delta’s stock price.)

You know, I don’t feel old because I learned the Dewey decimal system or because I had a rotary phone until my teens. I don’t even feel old because I remember when seatbelts were optional. I feel old because I know what long-distance relationships used to cost.

In fact, I think I just figured out where my UPS salary went. No wonder I didn’t have any savings…

We make this work with much more robust versions of what we had in the 90s:

  • Email (more accounts, easier access)
  • Trillian (uberchat)
  • Smartphones with unlimited minutes and texting
  • Facebook (and/or Twitter)
  • A decent income to afford flights, which are not necessarily cheaper than they were before, but are WAY easier to price and schedule
  • Practice — we’ve done this…(P-town/NYC; Cornwall/NYC; DC/Nevada)…three times, NOT TO MENTION the summers apart while he toured with the Blue Devils, back when regular people didn’t have cell phones
  • Deeply held, frequently discussed, fervent belief in the rightness of us. It’s not that it wasn’t there before — we’re just better at talking about it now.
  • Certainty that we’re temporarily apart for acceptable reasons and are not content to live this way forever. Put another way: I’m never putting my kid(s) through what I went through, wondering why Vermont was more important to my mom than her husband and kid(s).**
  • The knowledge that this used to be a lot harder (which will sound trite to a baby boomer to whom love letters became lifelines)

I’m not saying it’s for everyone or even that I would recommend it, but… About once every month or two, someone says, “OMG, that sucks! How do you manage it?” and I have to stop myself from shrugging my shoulders and saying, “It’s not that bad,” because that’s akin to saying, “Please judge the strength of our relationship.” In the grand scheme of things, though? It ain’t that bad, it’s easier than it used to be, and it’s a short-term situation in a long-term plan.

Plus, I’ve got plenty of stuff I could complain about, if anyone’s interested. My boyfriend’s nowhere near the top of that list.

(more…)

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Happily ever after, Old Enough to Know Better, Rearview Mirror | 2 Comments »

Still here

Posted on April 25, 2010 by 8junebugs

To whoever submitted this secret this week:

That you are still there is not your fault. No matter how much you know about verbal and emotional abuse, it works through slow manipulation that makes you unsure of what you know.

And then, even though you know what’s happening to you, leaving is scary. When you know you’re being abused and you know other people know it, leaving requires that you acknowledge what’s happening — whether you talk about it or not — and that it has been happening for some time.

You’ll wait for someone to ask you why you stayed so long (someone will). You’ll wonder if they all think you’re not as smart as they thought you were (someone might). You’ll question whether they’ll still respect someone who let someone else abuse her (they will…most of them).

There is no “letting.” Emotional and verbal abuse are perpetrated on you, against you, just like physical abuse. You are not an accomplice in abuse — you are the victim. This is incontrovertibly true even if (especially if) the person abusing you insists that he or she is the victim. It is true even if he or she is sometimes loving or thoughtful.

You’ll try to think of a way to explain that you stayed because you didn’t want to believe that whatever you fell in love with was gone or a lie. You’ll try to recall some good times to prove that you’re not crazy or stupid, that there’s a reason you stayed as long as you did.

In case anyone asks.

You suspect that walking out without visible bruises will lessen everyone’s sympathy for what you’ve been through. If you’re strong enough to leave, will it make you less of a victim?

It won’t, and it will.

You are, and you always will have been, the victim of someone who said they loved you and then tried to control you…how you felt, what you said, how you acted, how and where you spent time, money, and effort…even how loudly you laughed. Collateral damage may include friendships, family memories, and opportunities.

But once you leave, you will not be that person’s victim anymore. You will have started down the road toward just being you, and knowing that that’s enough.

And although it won’t feel like it right away, anyone who loses sympathy because they can’t see any scars doesn’t have any place in your life anyway.

There will still be times when you question yourself — it’s hard to trust yourself when someone has systematically torn down your sense of your own worth, and the abuser in your life will not let go of control easily. He or she will call you a quitter and put the blame for the killing the relationship squarely on your shoulders.

It is your fault…for recognizing your own worth and refusing to let someone else tear it down any longer. This is your basic right as a person, and no one else’s rights — real or imagined — trump that. So go ahead and take the blame — it’s better than taking the abuse for the rest of your life.

And maybe, two years later, just maybe, you’ll look back and see a lesson learned the hard way, but learned nonetheless. You’ll know you’ve been through your own personal hell, and you pulled yourself out of it. Maybe you’ll see your life swing back into a balance it hasn’t had in 10 years, and you’ll see a future ahead that fills you with joy instead of dread.

Please, please leave. You don’t have to be there anymore.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Old Enough to Know Better, Rearview Mirror | 2 Comments »

Childhood lessons

Posted on April 4, 2010 by 8junebugs
  1. Always have school clothes and play clothes. Change out of one and into the other before you make dinner, especially if dinner involves tomato sauce and school clothes are made of silk or cashmere.
  2. Naps are essential to a pleasant attitude.
  3. Most chocolate candy is better cold. Peppermint patties, peanut butter cups, and M&Ms…all taste more like treats from the fridge.
  4. Have a savings account, but also have a piggy bank. An ATM deposit does not make a satisfying *clink*.
  5. An open window is better than air conditioning. (None of us ever had “allergies.”)
  6. “God made dirt not to hurt.” I’m pretty sure that was my Grand.
  7. The best place to spend an afternoon is in a hammock or on a porch swing.
  8. “You don’t have to finish it — just take five more bites” is good advice for kids eating vegetables, young adults buried in college reading, and grown-ups struggling to be perfect in an imperfect world.
  9. Boys can cook.
  10. Everybody farts.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, If it's not one thing, it's your mother, Old Enough to Know Better, Rearview Mirror | 3 Comments »

Benefits of membership

Posted on March 21, 2010 by 8junebugs

Here’s one of the most valuable things I’ve learned about being a grown-up:

If you take responsibility for yourself and your decisions, particularly the ones that only affect you, you can actually avoid outside guilt. Much as “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent” (Eleanor Roosevelt), no one can make you feel the kind of guilt you might have felt as a kid if you’re honest and you own your shit.

My periodic example of how this works is my semi-annual dental cleaning.

I have a rocky dental history. I had fillings as soon as there was something to fill. I had extra teeth in both jaws and had to have four permanent teeth pulled so that my braces could pull the extras into use. My dad still wants to hang the molds from my pre-braces teeth over his mantle, either as some sort of big game trophy or evidence of where my college fund went.

After eschewing dental care in my late teens and early 20s — partly because Dad didn’t enforce it, then partly because I couldn’t afford it, and partly because HOLY GOD I NEVER WANTED TO HEAR A DRILL AGAIN — I went through some work to repair the damage. A handful of fillings, a root canal…nothing drastic, and probably less than I deserved.

The thing is, I had rotten brushing habits. My mother had an excuse for it, but the story I leaned on growing up has been totally debunked by my dentist (who, by the way, is made of awesome). The fact is, I hated brushing my teeth, I don’t remember being forced to do it anyway, and I do not remember ever learning to floss. I still hate brushing my teeth, but I do it.

(I was stunned to learn that I had wisdom teeth and that they were in perfect working order — I never even felt them come in. It still makes me laugh that I went through so much dental trauma as kid, only to totally avoid wisdom tooth impaction and extraction.)

And I would always feel so bad at the dentist’s office. They’d cluck about me needing another filling or…well, mostly that. I felt sorry for them because they had to deal with my rotten teeth. And I felt sorry for Mom and Dad, who got to pay for all of the work. I remember being thankful that I never had to wear head gear with my braces, or change the rubber bands myself. Because I would be an UTTER FAILURE at it and RUIN EVERYTHING.

Here’s how a conversation with the dental hygienist goes, now that I’m a grown-up who owns my shit:

Hygienist: How are your teeth? Any sensitivity, any pain?

Jen: No, everything’s fine. /or/ Yes, a little in the upper right, toward the back.

Hygienist: Are you brushing every day?

Jen: Yes, every morning, but sometimes that’s it.

Hygienist: Are you flossing?

Jen: Not often.

Hygienist: You should be flossing every other day, at least.

Jen: Yes, I know. I hate flossing. I don’t do it regularly.

Hygienist: You should floss more.

Jen: I’m aware.

I’m totally calm through the whole thing, even though any guilt attempts tend to come from the hygienist.

Here’s how it goes with the dentist:

[chitchat about how life's going -- he's a friendly guy]

Dr. Awesome, DDS: Your teeth look fantastic. You’re doing a great job. Anything going on in there?

Jen: No pain, I don’t floss enough, and I have not yet yanked that wisdom tooth with the cavity in it — it doesn’t hurt, and I haven’t gotten around to it.

DA, DDS: No biggie. Get in there as soon as it starts to twinge, though.

Jen: I will.

DA, DDS: How much are you flossing?

Jen: When I remember to or when something gets stuck.

DA, DDS: I’ll take it. Seriously, whatever you can do is better than nothing at all, and, like I said, your teeth look great. If they stop looking great, then I’ll get on you about it.

Jen: Deal.

He also explained that he can see some spots that look like they tried to be cavities a long time ago and never made it. “Really?” I asked. “My body didn’t welcome every possible cavity with open arms? Because it sure as hell felt that way.”

“Nope. Cavities are basically bacterial infections that target your teeth. At some point, these spots were ‘attacked’ and your body fought them off. They’re fine — they never became decay, but I wanted to let you know that I can see ‘em and we’ll just keep an eye on them.”

***

Here’s why I think he doesn’t bother hounding me about the flossing, aside from the fact that his income goes up if my dental hygiene goes down: It doesn’t reflect on him, one way or another, if I don’t take care of my teeth (as opposed to my parents — ahem). That’s liberating for both of us…and perhaps something to remember for other relationships, professional or otherwise.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Old Enough to Know Better | 2 Comments »

Uncharted waters

Posted on March 8, 2010 by 8junebugs

I’m about to do something for which I have no childhood roadmap.

I’m about to book international travel. I’ve got flight itineraries saved and a quote for a hotel room with a view of the Sydney Opera House. I’m readying my documents to (finally) get my passport corrected.

Mom never had a passport. I’m willing to bet my dad doesn’t, unless the crackdown on Canadian border crossings prompted him to get one. I don’t know about KidBrother…some time ago, he said he wanted to see Australia, but I’m not sure where that came from or how serious he is. We were raised primarily around the side of the family that doesn’t travel far, and that’s how we rolled. A “vacation” in my immediate family meant school shopping in tax-free New Hampshire — for the extended family, the radius expanded to include Florida, Vegas, Maine, Massachusetts and…well, that’s pretty much it.

My folks went to San Francisco in the 80s with my aunt and uncle, but then a man hit on my uncle (so the story goes), and he hasn’t crossed the Sierras since.

Travel and vacations just weren’t part of my upbringing. You know how, when you go back to school in the fall, the teacher asks you what you did for summer vacation? “We went to Disney World!” “We hiked the Long Trail!” “We went camping in the Catskills!”

“I swam a lot and read this book and that book and these other books.” “I worked weekends making snowcones. Lots and lots of snowcones.”

And that was fine. There was nothing wrong with how I spent vacations. What came out of that, though, is that I have no real framework for vacationing as a verb. “Vacation,” since I was 15, has meant visiting family or attending weddings.

The Obligation Vacation.

I should note that the Gingras side has some world travelers. There’s the one who got married over Labor Day — formerly an Army cook and/or something-more-dangerous-that-I-don’t-want-to-know-about, he’s been…well, everywhere we’ve had a war in the last 10 years, plus some other places for work and for fun. Then there’s the one expecting twins this summer — she’s been to India twice, I think, to spend time with her husband’s family. Her sister, the quiet one, has been freaking EVERYWHERE, and usually on a ship — she’s in her last year at Mass Maritime. (As she’s the quiet one, though, I never know where she is or has been until someone tags her in a photo on facebook.)

I’ve been abroad before, although the travel was arranged for me. Over winter break my senior year, the Foothill Marching Band and Color Guard spent about a week in London and a night in Paris (HAR!).

For reals, though, we somehow got into this Guinness Book of World Records thing — we started playing in France, played throughout a Chunnel ride, then marched in London’s New Year’s Day parade. (And by “play,” I mean the band — particularly the percussion squad — played. The guard napped…I mean, the previous night was New Year’s Eve. In Paris.) It was supposed to be the longest distance over which a marching band had played continuously, but I’m not sure if the achievement was ever recorded in the book. I suspect not.

(Addendum to that story: Because I was required to spend a week in Vermont for Christmas, I had to fly back to the East Bay, spend one sleepless night, then fly back over the East Coast the next day on the way to London. Worst. Jet lag. EVER.)

Either way, I got to see Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford, Windsor Castle, the Champs-Élysées, and the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower (from a distance) before I was old enough to vote. And I got to see them with Graham, who by that point was Foothill’s marching instructor.

(Ours is not a Hot For Teacher case — we were together before he took the job. I just walked into rehearsal one morning and there he was, in charge of teaching me to stand up straight. “Surprise!”)

(His surprises always sucked.)

(Like the one about how my previous boyfriend had become his roommate. I found that out on my way over to his apartment in 199something.)

(See?!)

(They thought it was hilarious.)

(Anyway.)

So the thing about planning a trip to Australia when you were raised in a non-vacationing family is that the cost seems staggering. It’s not that staggering (thanks, Expedia), I have the money for it, and it’s worth every penny…and this is why we earn money, right? I mean, above food, shelter, and clothing needs. We earn and we save and we budget so that we can pay for experiences that enhance, enrich, and embolden our lives. Otherwise, what good is it?

Such is my philosophy, anyway. Still, there are times when the ways in which that philosophy differs from the one I was raised in become violently clear. For the last 15 years, cross-country travel has just been a fact of life, not the event it was when I first boarded a plane. International travel…well, it’s been a long time.

Technically, you could call this trip an obligation vacation. We’re heading to Sydney in May to celebrate the wedding of a very dear friend. But Sydney is not Providence, Rhode Island — you can’t get there and then turn around and come right back. I mean, you could, but why would you? We’ll be there less than a week but more than a weekend. It’s not ideal, but the travel alone will take nearly three days, and I do need to go back to work eventually. I’ll be looking to a couple of Aussie friends to help us do the most with our time there…I trust they’ll help us do just enough that we’ll want to go back and do more. (Hi, Cat!)

(@sportik, this means we’re coming. Probably. Paper RSVP to follow.)

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Old Enough to Know Better, Rearview Mirror | 2 Comments »

Nostalgia, Vermont edition

Posted on February 1, 2010 by 8junebugs

This Saturday, I left for yoga as the snow started. The snow that meteorologists were afraid to put numbers around, the snow that quickly blanketed my car so effectively that I felt TOTALLY GUILTY for not brushing off the whole car before pulling back out into my neighborhood’s main drag.

I was one of “those people” today. Sorry, neighbors. I hate “those people,” too, but I was not equipped for the extent of the snowfall, for which I point the finger at our wishywashy DC meteorologists. (Seriously, guys, you’ve done an awesome job this winter, UNTIL NOW. A-holes.)

After yoga, though, I had a coffee date with that friend that I mentioned from my days at MUHS, that friend I most often saw as a rival, undoubtedly because adolescents frequently seek out and then target the people who, in one way or another, have something in common with them. Under normal circumstances, she was friend material. Under adolescent rivalry standards, she was an adversary, a pre-internet frienemy.

And I knew that. I knew then that we could be Les BFFs. Thirteen-year-old me was totally aware that this was a person I liked quite a lot, but I regarded her suspiciously.

See, there was this boy…

To be fair, he was QUITE a boy. If I’m being honest, I’d say he was undoubtedly the model for “My Type” — the sardonic, sarcastic, skinny-ass male who understands every goddamn lecture but will only participate if the mood strikes him.

The lovely young man who won my heart early in my college years? The one who said “homunculus” in philosophy class and let me catch him reading Catcher (RIP, J.D.) in the stairwell? That he caught my fancy at all relates directly back to this boy in my junior high class — this brilliant, polyglot son of a college professor who wound up god-knows-where, but who, in my adolescent eyes, was torn between me and this smart, unusual, skinny brunette.

She’s still smart, unusual, and skinny. And because I don’t think she wants to be boyfriend-girlfriend with the boy I want to be boyfriend-girlfriend with (and because I’m not 13), our coffee date was way more fun than any of the classes we had together.

I feel like I knew her mom died before mine, like I’d heard it somewhere. That didn’t really matter, though. What mattered was listening to someone from my class, someone my own age who’s known me at my awkwardest (GAWD, the bangs and the bracelets…), talking about that kind of loss in words that were…so true to me that I nearly cried at the bald honesty. The thing is, you go through a lot of emotions when you lose a parent, and maybe there’s a special set for women who lose their mothers kind of early. And it’s hard to be honest about all those emotions with someone who hasn’t gone through it.

It’s hard to admit that you don’t feel devastated every single day, is what I’m saying. That relationships are complicated and that you can alternately feel devastated and relieved and empty and open, and it’s not. just. you.

What I might also have known, had I not been a twerp when we had our whole lives ahead of us, is that her experience of MUHS was much like mine. We’ve both now been gone a long time (and have each spent a lot of time in California, actually), and it seems like our perspectives, looking back, are more aligned than 13-year-old twerpy me would ever have expected…to say nothing of who we are, now, and how we think and see the world.

In short, I think she’s swell. I hope we get a chance to be the friends we never got to be when we were teenagers.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Friends Like These, If it's not one thing, it's your mother, Old Enough to Know Better, Rearview Mirror | Leave a Comment »

The newest Gingras

Posted on September 11, 2009 by 8junebugs
Mr. and Mrs. Stephan and Rachel Gingras | September 6, 2009

Mr. and Mrs. Stephan and Rachel Gingras | September 6, 2009

Check out my gorgeous cousin and his gorgeous bride on their wedding day. I can concur with my aunt, who still lets me call her Aunt Cookie, for some reason: This is the perfect woman for Steph.

That beautiful background is The Ponds at Bolton Valley Resort in Bolton, Vermont. No color correction necessary for this event.

While we’re at it, meet KidBrother, in his capacity as best man:

The boys, all growed up

The boys, all growed up

They look a little less like twins than they used to.

In my eyes these days, after sifting through piles of family photos and getting to know my first cousins again, we all look pretty much alike — depending on the angle and the light, we all look just like our grandparents.

With Boo, pre-cocktails

With Boo, pre-cocktails

You can tell Boo and I apart by my Whipple chin and crow’s feet – I do have a couple of years on the girl. (I’ve started letting the curls do what they want, by the way. Most of the time they make good decisions.)

I squint when I smile, and here I’m halfway there. I hope Boo’s dad’s camera caught us 10 seconds before this one.

What’s funny to me about this photo is that we never looked much alike as kids. Her sister and I, yeah — people invariably thought we were sisters or even twins. Boo just looked like herself, the little blonde angel amid a bunch of rowdy little boys.

(At the after-party following the reception, three of those little boys were quite determined to protect her honor amid a rowdy bunch of young men.)

There are 14 of us in my generation. Leslie was the first grandkid, then me…I think about seven years later? After that it was a kid a year: Casey, Katherine, Bailey. Then the boys: Brian, Stephan, and Chris, in rapid succession. Then the order gets a little fuzzy for me: Laura (Boo), Bradley, Aaron, Jeffrey, Lauren, and, quite a bit later, Adrianna.

God help me if I’ve missed anyone. Like I said, we all look alike.

There are already four in the next generation: Alexis (who is older than Adrianna) and three little ones whose names I don’t know. I once told Memere, under pressure to produce a baby after being legally wed, that she couldn’t have another great-grandchild until she could keep track of the ones she had.

And there’s a new generation, this summer. Alexis has a baby girl of her own now, making Leslie a grandma and Memere a great-great-grandmere.

My last night in Vermont, Dad and I took some pizza over to Memere’s for dinner, joined later by my aunt and uncle (who are also my godparents). Memere has the most wonderful black and white photographs up in her living room — her wedding picture, a four-generation picture showing her as an infant, family photos from her side and Pepere’s, and one of them with their seven children… (Photos of my generation are relegated to the front hall.)

At Stephan and Rachel’s wedding, I got the tiniest tingle of a sense of how my Memere must feel, watching all of us dance and laugh and sing together. If I can look at my cousins and see her and Pepere, what must she see? They started this whole family from scratch, this enormous and still growing family of smart, stubborn, creative, funny, loving, world-traveling people — so different and still so alike. Everything we’ve done, everyone we’ve touched somehow…all that started with them, a young couple on a farm in Weybridge, Vermont.

Bit staggering, that. To me, anyway.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, G-Clan, No place like home, Old Enough to Know Better, Shutterbug | 2 Comments »

Playing house

Posted on August 4, 2009 by 8junebugs

I hate the term “out of pocket.” It got co-opted somewhere along the line — it used to mean paying for something personally, something that was usually a business expense. Now, somehow, it means a bunch of different things, including “away from the office and other responsibilities” or “on vacation and physically separated from my lifeline Blackberry.”

Doesn’t the reverse then imply that you’re in your employer’s pocket most of the time? Blech.

Anyway, G is here for a nice long visit, and I’m feeling on the border of the current definition of out of pocket. We had a fair bit of running around to do right off the bat – I’ve had my classes, we’ve been visiting friends that I haven’t seen since their wedding 10 years ago…that kind of thing.

He’s here, of course, for Shotgun’s wedding. There’s still a bit of running around to do where that’s concerned (if that bridal salon screws up my alterations, I may light someone on fire), but by 3 pm on Friday we’ll be safely ensconced in the wedding hotel and relaxing in the joy of the occasion.

(And then my final papers are due. Might should have started in the fall term after all…)

Last night, I got to play personal shopper – G needed new suits and I was overruled only once for the sake of expediency (shirt/tie combos that match two suits do trump those that match only one). I only got twitchy with the salesman once or twice. We were expecting aggressive selling and that’s what we got, but we’d planned to take advantage of it. After all, I’m no expert in men’s fashion — I have a decent eye, but these guys are trained to match up patterns and colors that scare the bejesus out of me, and they know where everything is, which makes the process go faster.

(But oh, I do hate aggressive salesmanship. If you want me to trust you, don’t tell me everything looks “perfect.” And once we’ve said we’re interested in Suit X and Suit Y, do not hand us Suit Z for fitting.)

For the most part, though, this trip is very much a day-in-the-life experiment. I still need to work and attend classes and do homework and worry about the estate and fart when I eat too much edamame. This is less of a vacation for me than a hazy preview of what our life will look like eventually…how We work in the long term. G’s learning that I store glasses right side up instead of upside down (which is a switch for me, but makes more sense in my cabinets). I’m watching Red Vs. Blue, he’s trying my teriyaki salmon and my quesadillas dipped in pizza sauce. (Why are boys such picky eaters?)

We have not yet discussed the direction in which toilet paper rolls best.

For all the history we have, though, today is the first time, ever, that I’ve gotten an email from G noting some things to add to the grocery list. Which made me smile.

Sure, this isn’t a dress rehearsal (you can’t have that ’til you know when the show will open). There’s no puppy waiting to be walked, no parents or (nonfurry) kids needing time or attention… We face certain challenges as a couple, though. They’re not exactly unique, but they do take some special maneuvering, as well as practice and patience…and a lot of openness that I don’t think we were ready for when we were younger.

If this summer is any indication, I think we’re doing all right so far.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, No place like home, Old Enough to Know Better | 5 Comments »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.