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Rahul Walking

I wrote an published this piece several years ago, but its one of my favorites so I thought it bore repeating...

As I stepped out into the cold April night I was aware that my son was not wearing any shoes.  When he turned back and saw me following him, he took off running down the poorly lit street.  My heart had already been pounding, now it felt like there was enough electricity pumping through my veins to launch a rocket.  I don’t know how this is going to end, I kept thinking.  I had only moved into this neighborhood two months earlier and did not know all the shadows and driveways and if Rahul ran off the street I would never be able to find him.  I caught up to him quickly and he slumped his shoulders when he realized I was going to follow him wherever he went tonight.  Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he stared straight ahead, determined to out-walk me, if nothing else.  Neighbors passed by us, but didn’t notice that he had no shoes on, or that he was breaking down.  I whistled a tune so he would think I was calm and in control.  When we reached the first intersection he started to dart across the street, not understanding the traffic lights or the “don’t walk” signal.  I grabbed him and pointed to the oncoming traffic to show him that I didn’t want to stop him from walking, just from getting hit by a car.  He pulled out of my grip, enraged that I was trying to hold him back, and charged ahead as cars drove toward him.  I jumped between him and the cars and held my hands up to stop them as we crossed the street together.  I prayed that they would see me and stop.  I hadn’t stopped praying since his tantrum had begun.

Rahul had only just come home with me from India a week or so earlier.  He was angry and irritated and uncomfortable most of the time since we had met, and a few times he had erupted in such rage that he would try to run away from me.  He would start by putting his shoes on, the ones he had worn home from the orphanage, then he would carefully remove anything I had given him—a watch, a shirt—and try to leave my NYC apartment.  He was trying to run back to India.  Back to his house—his orphanage.  Away from me.  I stopped him the first few times.  A few days earlier he had gotten so angry at my stopping him from leaving that he lashed out at me to the point where I feared I couldn’t control him.  He was small for his age, but he was still a 7-year-old boy, and a strong one at that.  I have never claimed to be very strong myself, physically at least.  He spent several hours kicking, scratching, screaming and biting me, until finally he passed out on the floor in a heap.  I fell into a heap myself that day, in tears, scared by what I had taken on.  Unsure how to handle his emotion.  But after that incident I decided that the next time he tried to leave I wouldn’t stop him, I would just go with him.  I would be his shadow as he discovered that India is too far away to walk to.  So that night, when he started walking out the door, I stood aside and let him go.  As he struggled with the locks he got so angry that he threw his shoes across the floor.  I looked in his eyes and said, Wow, you are angry!  Then I unlocked the door and opened it.

Once we made it safely across the intersection I could see Rahul’s eyes scanning the edges of the street lighted area for somewhere to dash to.  We walked another two blocks, then turned north.  We were no longer walking on the sidewalk or the road, but balancing on a small curb.  I prayed that there was no broken glass to cut his feet.  And I prayed that this night would end well.  We walked a few more blocks and Rahul turned right, crossing an overpass over the Henry Hudson Parkway.  Where is he going? I thought. Then he made one more turn, down the entrance ramp.  My heart raced as I realized his plan was to walk onto the highway.  Did he think it led back to India?  My brain was spinning as I followed alongside him.  I knew if he made it to the bottom of the ramp I would have to physically restrain him and I wasn’t sure I could do it.  My God, what would that look like to people driving by?   Then, just as we reached the bottom, he stopped and turned around.   I took a deep breath.  Did this mean he was done?  As we reached the top of the ramp and turned back over the overpass, without looking at me, he whispered, “House.”  It was one of the few English words he knew and at that moment it was the most beautiful word I had ever heard.  I said, “OK.”  I could see that he didn’t know how to get home and his little body was shivering.  I said, “ Can I carry you?”  I wasn’t sure I could carry him very far, but I couldn’t let him walk anymore.  He stopped dead in his tracks and lifted up his arms.  I drew him up into my arms and tried to help him mold around my body.  Having not been held much in his life, he was awkward in this position, with his neck stiff and his limbs just hanging limp.  I placed my lips to his ear and said, “Rahul, I love you.  I am not going to hurt you.” It was the first time I had told him that I loved him, and until this moment, I wasn’t even sure that I did.

The rest of that night was happy and there have been so many happy times since then.  That night I began to trust my maternal instinct, which has guided me more surely than any advice or instruction.  That wasn’t the last time Rahul ran away from me and it certainly wasn’t the worst night we have shared since he has been home with me the past two and a half years.  But that night was the beginning of our very special relationship.

Rahul circa April 2008 in his favorite outfit!

What I Did For My Summer Vacation

Leading up to Rahul's adoption I prepared a lot.  I read books, I shopped for supplies, I found doctors, dentists, Hindi translation services, I even moved to a new neighborhood with a better school.  One thing that I was completely unprepared for, though, was summer.  Rahul came home with me in April 2008 and I immediately put him in school.  But it wasn't until there were only a few days left of school that I came up with any type of plan for what he was going to do during summer vacation while I was at work!  Not surprisingly, that summer was a bit of a mess.  And in fact, it took me a couple of years before I came up with the perfect combination of activities to fill his time without killing me financially and over-scheduling his vacation.  But, seriously, this summer (our fifth together) was by far the best!

Last winter Rahul began asking me if there were places where one could dig for gems, fossils, minerals, etc. so I turned to my good friend Google for some ideas.  The first thing I found was this amazing dinosaur dig in South Dakota that seemed perfect (http://www.paleoadventures.com) .  Then I realized that South Dakota was a great place to dig for other treasures like gold and gems, so I built a vacation around traveling there.  Then I learned that Rahul's best friend Justin, who moved to Japan last year, was coming to NYC to visit for several weeks over the summer.  So Justin's mom and I coordinated our schedules so that Justin arrived just as we were returning from our South Dakota trip.  We arranged for him to stay with us for a week and for the boys to travel together to my parents' house of Lake Ontario for a week.  My parents are retired and live in an amazing place and they are unbelievably generous, so each summer they watch Rahul for a few weeks at their place while I come back to NYC to work and catch up on a year's worth of missed sleep and social activity.  So when Justin returned to Japan, Rahul stayed at the lake and fished, swam, and had all kinds of adventures with his grandparents for a few weeks.  And our very last activity of the summer was to visit one of our favorite places on Labor Day weekend:  Libby's Beach (which is actually the Jersey Shore, but my bff Libby's family lives there...)!

Enjoy...

Mother's Day

I remember the first Mother's Day card I received.  I was in India adopting my son and my bff Libby was with me, and she had brought a card all the way there so she could give it to me on the day I met my son for the first time.  She wanted to be the first to wish me Happy Mother's Day!  I had been so completely focused on preparing everything in my life for Rahul and making sure I had everything he would need that I hadn't really thought about how my own role in life was changing.  I remember thinking, Oh yeah! I'm a mother now! 

As someone who came reluctantly into motherhood I had to wrestle with feelings of fear and distain toward joining "the mommy club".  I hadn't dreamed of becoming a mother my whole life--in fact, I hadn't dreamed of it all.  I remember once, on an ill-fated date, being asked how many children I wanted to have.  Zero, I said.  My date looked at me in absolute horror.  He literally stood up and paced and nearly left (good riddance) until another friend talked him down.  And you may be surprised, but I've received many similar reactions throughout my life when I have said I didn't think I wanted children.

It wasn't until about two years before Rahul came home with me that I began to have stirrings that I was supposed to be doing something more with my life.  A friend who had a similar lack of desire for children (and had been taken to a psychiatrist by her mother-in-law who thought she was a lesbian because she didn't want any children--seriously, has she MET any lesbians?) had experienced a life-changing yearning when she held her nephew in her arms for the first time and was now expecting a child with her husband (a second marriage--the first one dumped her because of the "no kids" thing).  She advised me to seriously reconsider my ideas about motherhood.  And I did.  I thought about it seriously for the first time, but could not wrap my mind around becoming a single mom.  Then a few months later I experienced a big heartbreak and in the pits of my despair I realized I was yearning for something more than what that relationship could have given me.  I was yearning to be meaningful to someone.  To create family.  To use the blessings my life was overflowing with to help someone else.  Adoption.  The idea gelled completely in my mind and I knew it was my life's purpose.  And a few weeks later I was filling out adoption papers!

So when I found myself facing my first Mother's Day I thought it might be fun!  A day to celebrate me!  Well, my first Mother's Day was so completely horrible that I literally wore sunglasses all day because I was crying and didn't want Rahul to see.  People called me all day long to wish me well, which should have been encouraging, except that Rahul was miserable and unstable and totally hated me.  Every time I got a new "Happy Mother's Day" phone message I wanted to throw the phone across the room.  It wasn't a day much different from any other in those first few months, except that I had people congratulating me all day.  And to me that created a chasm between myself and everyone else.  I was prepared for Rahul's difficult transition. It was incredibly hard, but I didn't have expectations that it would be easy.  I think it was hard for most of my friends and family to understand how painful and traumatic it was for Rahul.  Most people pictured a much happier situation than it was in reality.  But  I wasn't crying that day because Rahul was making me sad.  I was crying because I felt like no one understood what I needed that day.  Not well wishes and congratulations.  I needed a hug, comfort, a visit, support.  I realized that day that being a single mom to a child with special needs was incredibly lonely. 

Subsequent Mother's Days have gotten increasingly better.  Rahul is happier each year and he has expressed so much gratitude and love to me on Mother's Day and every day that I don't feel like there is anything I need from a special holiday.  And being a mother is my favorite thing in the world.  It is the most amazing experience and I've never regretted it once.  But I still feel a familiar tug each year on my heart at the beginning of May.  A reminder of the chasm that I still feel exists between myself and so many others.  Do people really see me?  Do they understand how treacherous my motherhood journey has been?   Do they realize how different my life is from theirs?  My side of that chasm is much more crowded now--with people who have held my arms up and remembered me and taken care of me.  Friends who have loved me and listened to me and supported me.  Friends who have had similarly crazy journeys through motherhood.  Family who have laid down their lives so Rahul and I could make it through the past four years.  It takes a village to raise a child.  And it takes a village to keep mom standing.

Women Who Throw Phones

I'm starting a club.  It's kind of like the First Wives Club.  But its called Women Who Throw Phones and you can only join if you have done at least 5 of the following:

1. Thrown your cell phone across the room, picked it up and thrown it again
2. Spoken to your children in an "exorcist voice" and later felt ashamed
3. Cried so hard you've thrown up
4. Experienced an actual hallucination from lack of sleep
5. Missed your child so much when they are with a caregiver you spent all your "me time" crying
6. Walked the dog, taken the children to school, done all the household chores and worked a full day--all with a fever of 102 or higher
7. Caught your child's vomit in your hands while driving 
8. Wanted to scratch out the eyes of any number of women who post this on Facebook: "Hubby is taking me for a much needed getaway this weekend. Beach and spa, here we come!!!!!!!"
9. Been at a loss for words when a friend says, "I don't know know how you do it!  My husband went away for the weekend and I had to do everything myself!"
10. Have built shelves, haggled with a mechanic, taught your son how to pee in the toilet, and received Father's Day cards.

One time I went to a parenting class at my church.  And as I sat there hearing advice that did not apply at all to single parent families or children with special needs I began to realize that I didn't belong there.  I needed to be able to talk with people who had problems bigger than Little Johnny Is Not Obeying His Parents or How To Carve Out More Time To Have Family Dinners Together.  The subject of children's anger came up and as people shared anxiously about the (relatively mild) scenarios they were dealing with I thought, "My God. I don't think you would last one day with my child."

One day my best friend Libby and I were at the beach with Rahul.  We had just come through a particularly bad patch, and I spent the day telling her all the latest.  It was pretty "life or death" and she is one of the few people on the planet who knows some of the most excruciating details.  As we left the beach we passed a family bargaining with their toddler to let go of their beach towel because she was dragging it on the ground.  Something like, "Betty, if you let go of Mommy's towel you can hold the sand pail!  Come on Betty, let go!  Betty, do you want an ice cream?  I'll buy you one if you stop dragging the towel!"  Libby and I rolled our eyes at each other I said, "I look at families like that and wonder how long they would last with my child."  She laughed and created a quick shorthand I have used many times since:

"LESS THAN"

"TWO"

Less than two minutes.  That's how long they would last.


I am in Maine right now with one of my best friends and we are totally serious about starting our club.  She is a widow with 3 young children and helped me create the above list from her own experiences.  Her children are extraordinary--one is in the gifted and talented program, one has special needs and the third is an Indigo Child.  She lost her own father when she was a young girl and is now helping her children navigate the same situation.  She is the most amazing mother.  Another friend who I asked to join our club is a divorced mother of three young children who recently had to sit at a court hearing and hear a judge tell her the upside of her new 50/50 custody agreement (which my friend had spent years fighting to prevent) is that "Mom will finally get some 'me time'!"  She is working 3 jobs and has to regularly hand her children over to a man who I wouldn't let in the same state as my child. 

We need each other.  Every once in a while we need to be able to talk about our lives, say "You know what I mean?" and hear someone say, "Yes.  Actually, I do."

You know what I mean?

Remembering Mr. Doyle

I moved to Riverdale (Bronx) about a month before I adopted Rahul.  I had worked here and knew the neighborhood, but the month prior to Rahul's arrival was chaotic to say the least, so I had no time to meet my neighbors or make friends. 

When I went to India to get Rahul, my best friend Libby and my Dad came with me.  It was an incredible trip and when it came time to move Rahul out of his orphanage and get him set to travel, he was incredible distraught.  Several thousand blog posts couldn't accurately describe his anguish and my terror.  I was beyond grateful that my Dad and Libby were there to help me.  It was at the very least, a three person job to soothe Rahul and get him on the plane in a happy state of mind. 

Rahul loved my Dad right off the bat.  He felt comfortable with him and trusted him, so I asked my Dad to stick around my place for a few extra days after the rest of the family (visiting to welcome Rahul) left.  When he finally packed up his bags to go, I snuck him out the door with vague directions to the train station (my mom had taken the car).  We didn't want Rahul to notice he had left --which, of course, was a terrible idea.  I distracted Rahul and my Dad went out the door to fend for himself.  He asked the first person he saw how to get to the train station (I think I had given him the number for a taxi service--what a terrible daughter I am!!!!).  Thankfully, the first person he saw was someone who was to become one of the most cherished neighbors I have ever had.  He introduced himself as Mr. Doyle and that is who he has always been to me, despite his many attempts to get me to call him Dennis.  When my Dad asked him for directions, Mr. Doyle offered to drive him to the train. Now, in other cities, this may be a typical act of neighborly assistance, but in New York City--in the BRONX--not so much.  My Dad was certainly blown away by this act of kindness, and he got a chance to tell me all about it a half hour later when I called him crying because Rahul was freaking out at his absence.  I made my poor Dad get in a taxi and come all the way back to my place for a few more days.  Those were some rough days. Thanks Buzz:)

Mr. Doyle quickly became a trusted friend and neighbor to me.  I have always described him as a displaced beach bum, although he never lived on the beach.  He wore shorts until the weather dipped below zero, was incredibly laid back and always seemed like he might be just a little bit drunk.  He was one of those people who miraculously appeared to me whenever I was in need.  When I was shoveling the snow off my car, he was there to lend me a hand.  When I was late to pick up Rahul from school he happened to be driving by me and drove me to PS 24 in half the time it would have taken me to walk.  He had jumper cables at the ready when my car's battery petered out, and in fact, several days after charging up my Jeep, he knocked on my door to tell me he had just bought me a new battery and put it in my car for me!!  When a tire was low, he'd knock on my door.  When my radiator fluid was running low, he would appear, then disappear to "borrow" someone's bottle of radiator fluid from our garage, then reappear and replenish my supply.

I am not an easy person to take care of.  I have been on my own since I was 17 and am incredibly independent.  Mr. Doyle knew this about me and I always felt he respected me for it, but at the same time, he was always looking out for me.  He was often at the door of the building to open it when I had my arms full.  I remember taking my dog out for a walk one day when Rahul was particularly struggling, running into Mr. Doyle and just crying and telling him my woes.  Once, I came home to find that my lock had broken and needed to be replaced. I called a locksmith and settled in the lobby to wait for him.  Lo and behold Mr. Doyle walked in the door and waited with me for the hour or so it took for the locksmith to come.  On Christmas there would always be an S&S Cheesecake hanging on my door with a card signed "Mr. Doyle". 

I loved talking with Mr. Doyle--I called him the Mayor of Riverdale.  He knew everybody's story.  Riverdale had seemed like a bland place until Mr. Doyle started telling me stories about some of the people here.  I could name anyone in the neighborhood and he could tell me something about them.  He was good-natured--all stories were told with a wink and a smile.  His way of letting anything roll off his back helped me to let go of some frustrations I had with people. 

And for all his knowledge of other people, he was a very private person.  I never exactly knew what he did for a living, although I asked him outright several times.  I invited him to every gathering I ever had at my house and he never came.  I knew that he loved going to the races.  He loved riding his bike all over creation.  Nothing could make me happier than when he would quote Bible verses to me verbatum.  He would pop them out at the least likely times, and despite the fact that he meant them in jest, they were actually very meaningful to me.

The last time I spent time with Mr. Doyle was when I was in my mad race to get to Disney this past August (see blog post on the subject).  I went to him when I needed a ride to the dog kennel to drop Baby off.  I knocked on his door, asked him for help, and his reply was, "What time do you you need me?"  Of course he was there for me, and drove us through the Hurricane Irene flooding to get Baby to the kennel.  I told him about my crazy plight over the weekend and he just laughed and quoted some Bible verse and sent me on my way.

Unbeknownst to me, a few days later he was diagnosed with an illness that took his life on December 16th.  Our whole building reeled at the news.  What he was to me, he also was to everyone else.  He was a neighbor who didn't just live in proximity to you--he also became a part of your life.  He will always be a huge part of my story.  A reminder that good, loving people still do exist.  That everyone has a story.  That its better to let trouble roll off your back.  That there are needs all around, every day, and by meeting them, you can change someone's life.

How Fragile We Are

On September 10, 2001 my grandmother died.  Of course, this was a big loss for my family, especially my father.  We were rallying in Ohio, where she had died, on September 12 for her funeral.  This was going to be a little tricky for me, because I was starting school at Aveda (cosmetology school) on September 11th.  I decided I would attend school the first day and then drive out to Ohio that evening.  I rented a car and reserved a hotel room, but when I called my parents to tell them, they hated my plan.  They really wanted me to fly out there, because they thought the drive would be too difficult for me.  I was offended that they felt I was incapable of driving from NYC to Ohio, and although my parents and I never fight, I couldn't let it go. We had it out.  Several phone calls later they informed me that I was flying and that they had already bought my ticket.  I was so angry that I hung up on them.  Then I called the airline and spent several hours negotiating a "bereavement" fare, so at least they would not have had to spend hundreds of dollars for a flight I didn't need to take.  I went to bed incredibly bitter.

When I woke up on September 11th my first thought was of the fight with my parents and my stomach churned.  I was still nauseous with anger when I got on the subway to head downtown to school.  Luckily, when I got to the 1 train I ran into my friends, Alake and Suzy, also boarding the train.  Alake's birthday had been the day before (9/10) and Suzy's birthday was September 11!   So they were both in a very celebratory mood (Suzy was covered in glitter) and they cheered me up.  I had a long ride to school--from Washington Heights to Soho, and when I got to my stop (Varrick Street) it was about 8:50am.  As I came up onto the street I immediately noticed crowds of people lining Seventh Avenue and looking up and down the street.  I was beginning to wonder if this was what people did every morning in Soho when a caravan of firetrucks came roaring down the avenue.  Everyone on the street cheered and as I looked down Seventh to see where they were heading I saw giant flames leaping out of an enormous gash in the World Trade Center's North Tower.  It was about a mile directly ahead of me.  I was alarmed, but nothing in me thought it was anything more than an accidental fire.  When I got to our classroom, news started coming in about a plane having hit the tower, and within 30 minutes a hysterical Aveda staff member came to the room telling us that both towers had been hit by terrorists and we all needed to leave the building so we could call our parents. (Many of the students were only just out of high school.)  I left the building, shaking, and called my parents.  I got through pretty quickly to my dad who was beside himself.  He told me the Pentagon had also been hit and I immediately had the idea that whoever was behind the attacks was not done with NYC yet and there would be more to come.  We were supposed to go back to class once we made our calls, but just when we got back the South Tower collapsed, and the staff told us to get to safety.  They suggested we team up and all head somewhere together.  I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and my thought was," I do not want to die with these strangers."  I had the idea that there would be more attacks on landmarks around NYC and mentally made a map of them in my head.  My plan was to walk uptown, taking a route that would avoid as many of them as possible.  I felt that if I could reach 72nd Street and Riverside Avenue I would live.  I couldn't think of any significant landmarks further uptown than that.

As I walked quickly north I noticed that it was eerily quiet.  Many people were just silently transfixed on the remaining tower.  Most cell phones weren't working anymore and people were very patiently and orderly lined up to use pay phones.  The only sound came from news reports playing out of car radios--the cars parked on the street and surrounded by listeners.  I headed up 6th Avenue from Spring Street to 8th Street and the whole way I was very aware that the drama was playing out directly behind me, but I didn't want to turn around and look.  I never once looked back at the towers that day.  I knew thousands of people were dying a mile behind me I didn't want to see.  At 8th Street I cut west across Greenwich Avenue and realized right away that my view of the tower was now blocked, even if had wanted to look.  I started to panic and felt incredibly alone, as everyone had deserted the side streets for the better view the avenues afforded.  And as I walked toward Seventh Avenue I repeated over and over, "I'm ready, I'm ready..."  I thought I was about to die and it comforted me to know I was ready to meet my Maker.  Then as I looked ahead of me the crowds of people on Seventh Avenue began to scream and run north.  The second tower had just fallen.  I couldn't see what they were running from, though, and I thought there had been a new attack right ahead of me.  My heart stopped and I quickly turned east to backtrack to Sixth Avenue and saw the same scene of people screaming and running there, too.  I felt trapped and terrified.  I looked down at the ground and my legs began to give out.  Everything slowed down and I knew I was about to pass out.  I wanted to just sit down right there and have it all be over, but just as I was lowering myself toward the ground, something in me turned back on and I knew I needed to just put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.

When I got to the avenue I walked a few more blocks north and along with everyone else, was in a complete daze.  Then I heard someone calling my name, and a car pulled up next to me.  In the driver's seat was a friend and I just walked over his car and got in.  He hadn't invited me to ride with him and was actually en route to pick his mom up from work and get her to safety, but I told him I was riding with him as far as he was willing to take me.  I don't remember talking to him at all, but when we got to 34th Street he told me he needed to drop me off.  I got out and headed west--away from the Empire State building--and started zig-zagging uptown, avoiding the Lincoln Tunnel, Port Authority, Times Square, Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center.  I began to notice that already, everywhere I looked, there were American flags.  There was a feeling on the street of being very united with everyone else.

My only focus was to reach 72nd Street and Riverside Drive, and once I did I began to feel that I would live through the day.  I still had about 80 blocks left to walk in order to make it home, and just a few hours later I was walking in my door.  The next few days are a blur.  I knocked on doors all over my apartment building to see if everyone was OK and hosted a prayer night that many neighbors came to.  Two of my best friends married each other September 15th, and I know we had parties for them throughout the week.  (I can remember looking out the window at their rehearsal dinner and seeing the fighter planes circling the city.)  My parents came in for the wedding and I remember my mom choking up as she held me, telling me she was never going to tell me what to do ever again.  The nightmare she had been envisioning that week was "What if Renee's flight, that we insisted she take, had been one of the hijacked ones?".  And my 30th birthday was September 16th.  I think I spent most of it in bed.  As the days, then weeks went by, I began to find life's rhythm again.  Of course, September 11th changed me forever.

What I think about most from that day was that moment where I almost gave way to terror and sunk to the ground on Greenwich Avenue.  Coincidentally, my church now meets on that block and I walk that same stretch every Sunday.  I went there today and sat down with a friend and prayed.  I thanked God for giving me the last ten years.  So many blessings have come to me in the past decade, especially the blessing of being Rahul's mom.  That same sinking/I'm-not-going-to-survive-this feeling has come to me a few times in the journey of loving and helping him, and that same "something" has clicked on inside me each time.  Urging me to keep walking.  To survive. 

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, a Hurricane and a Dream

Let me start by saying, I never had any intention of going to Disney.  Ever.  I'm just not a "Disney Person" if you know what I mean.  But then last Thanksgiving, as my niece and nephew were talking about their trips to Disney with Rahul I saw the look in his eyes.  He wanted to go.  He would never say so, but I could tell.  My mom saw it too.  She looked at me sternly and said, "You know you have to take him." And so I began concocting a plan.

By Christmas I had enlisted my cousin Kathy to come also, with her daughter Gabby.  We could share a room and cut down expenses and the kids could ride all the roller coasters together!  I am severely motion sensitive, as is Kathy, but our kids are daredevils.   And I have enough friends who LOVE Disney to know I wouldn't have to plan anything.  I would just do what they did!  My sister and brother-in-law had taken their kids 2 years in a row during the last week of August and had found Disney to be low on crowds and less expensive.  Its off-peak since kids in the South are back to school by then.  So Kathy and I settled on traveling down there the same week and staying only 4 days (for my sanity).


The cost of the whole package was a lot less than I thought it would be, but it was still a stretch for me. Between paying for Rahul's day camp at the beginning of summer and Disney at the end of it, I worked my butt off all year.  I finally paid for the last piece of the trip about a week before we left, leaving just enough money for us to spend on vacation.

Then Hurricane Irene loomed.  We had tickets to fly out of NYC the Monday morning after it was supposed to hit (on Saturday and Sunday).  Saturday I had to drive up to the Catskills to pick up Rahul from sleep-away camp.  My Jeep has been breaking down all summer and I have been stranded more than once.  Honestly, I think it has spent more time with the mechanic than with me lately.  I plan on trading it in for a new, RELIABLE car, but just haven't had the time between repairs to make it happen.  So I was just hoping it would keep running until I got Rahul back from camp.

(Oh. Sidestory that brings context to this whole tale: The week before Rahul's camp I drove out to my parents' house where he had been spending the first three weeks of August.  Its a 7 hour drive and when I was just past the halfway point in the drive the traffic slowed to a stop and black smoke drifted into the air ahead of me: a tractor trailer had caught fire and the section of the thruway I happened to be on was a parking lot for three hours while they put it out.

These are the kinds of things that frequently happen to me, especially when it comes to traveling.  Seriously, if I had been 15 minutes ahead or behind myself I would have avoided it completely.  But, of course, there I am peeing in a cup in my back seat while the contents of the Family Dollar truck burn to a crisp.)


So as Rahul and I were winding our way down the Catskills in the rain that Saturday before Irene, my main concern was making it home without incident.  We did, but as soon as I walked in the door I got a call from JetBlue informing me that our flight was cancelled.  My heart stopped and I settled in at the phone for what I knew would be a long call.  To their credit, the "on hold" music at JetBlue was "The Tide is High" by Blondie. They had a whole playlist of hurricane/flood related music, and believe me, I heard it all.  I spent six hours on the phone with various airlines, trying to find SOME way out of town.  The whole time, though, I saw our vacation slipping away.  My final game plan was to book a flight out of Rochester (6 hours away, but in the opposite direction from the path of Irene) departing Monday evening.  Rahul, Baby Fish Mouth (my dog) and I would drive up to Albany Monday morning and meet my parents (coming from the Rochester area) at my sister's place.  I'd leave my Jeep there and drive to Rochester with my parents.  They would drop Rahul and I at the airport and take BFM back to their place for a few weeks.  (I'm a fiercely independent person, but I couldn't be nearly so without the help of my family.)  I booked the flight out of Rochester on a Delta plane and got an Amtrak ticket to Albany for the Saturday we'd be back from Disney so I could pick up my car and drive it back home.  Rahul and I would arrive in Orlando one day late, but it would be better than nothing.  With that plan firmly in place, Rahul and I went to bed Saturday night and slept through the hurricane's arrival.  In the 22 years that I have been going to my church it has never been cancelled before.  We had 26 inches of snow fall one Saturday night and the city was virtually shut down the following Sunday.  We still had church.  But for Hurricane Irene we cancelled our service.  So I slept until 9am--probably the latest I've slept in years. 


I spent Sunday packing and when Monday morning arrived Rahul, Baby and I  got ready to set out.  I pulled up whatever traffic information I could, because I knew there was flooding.  The hurricane had hit, but had not impacted NYC as much as expected.  A lot of roads were closed and on our way out the door I learned that the NY State Thruway was shut down on both sides of Albany.  I called my sister and my parents, eventually deciding to bypass Albany altogether and head directly to Rochester across NJ and PA through Binghamton, NY.  I could not get reliable information about the condition of Route 80, but it seemed to be open, so I headed out, hoping I'd manage to get to Rochester at some point before 6pm.  We got about halfway across NJ and the traffic was bad, but the highway was open so we were feeling pretty good.  We stopped for gas and I pulled the car over to the side of the parking area so I could use the restroom.  And when I got back in to the car to leave, it didn't start.


My heart sank.  Because of all the other trouble I've had with my car lately, I knew this would be a major repair, and because of all the flooding, I knew it would be hours before a tow truck would be able to get us to a mechanic.  There was nothing we could do, but sit and wait.

Three hours later, a tow truck came and took us down the road to the mechanic.  Everyone who looked at our car that day had been dealing so exclusivesly with flood-related issues that they didn't beleive me when I told them my car had not been sitting in water.  One mechanic pulled me over to the side and threatened me, saying "You've got to be honest with me.  What really happened to your car?"  Somehow, I convinced him I wasn't lying, and they went to work diagnosing my Jeep.  As Rahul and I sat there waiting I looked ahead of me at the gas pumps and started laughing.  We were supposed to be boarding a Delta plane right around that time...

Technically, God DID get me to Delta.  Then I asked to use the restroom.  The attendant gave me the key and I started laughing again.

NOT the Disney I had imagined.


Anyway, a while later they informed me that my car would need a part that they didn't have in stock and wouldn't be able to get until the following day.  I had heard them manually start my car once or twice so I proposed instead of trying to find a place to stay overnight with my kid and my dog in the middle of rural NJ during a major flood, that they manually start the car and let me drive it back to the Bronx.  They agreed to do that, warning me not to stall out (I drive a stick) and teaching me how to hot wire my car if I had to start it in an emergency.  Rahul and I held our breath all the way home, but we made it safe and sound.  I had been holding it together remarkably well all day, even as I was promising Rahul that I would take him to Disney someday and thinking about all the money I had worked so hard for going to waste.  But when I called my parents to tell them we made it home I lost it.  I didn't have any food in the house and had no money left to buy any for the week, and I couldn't wrap my mind around how depressing our week was going to be, while Kathy and Gabby were having fun in sun without us.  I needed to get back on the phone with JetBlue to process my refund (thinking that was some money that might get us through the week) and when I spoke to the reservationist I cautiously asked if they had added any flights that we might be able to get on.  And yes they had.  And yes, they had seats.  My first instinct was to just let it go.  I was exhausted and didn't want to set myself up for disappointment, but then she offered to change our returning flight for free so we could stay one day later.  That would give us the 4 day/4 night vacation we had booked and would only mean adding one more night to the hotel reservation.  I had JetBlue on one phone and AAA Travel on the other and was speaking to both at the same time ("JetBlue, how many seats are on that flight?" "AAA, does Disney have any rooms for Friday night?" The JetBlue lady thought it was adorable.  The AAA lady wanted to stab my eyes out with her pencil.)  Miraculously, it worked out.  We got one more night at the hotel and got the last 2 seats on both flights with JetBlue.  And Delta and Amtrak both refunded our money!


So, again we went to bed in the hopes of making it to Disney the next day.  Early Tuesday morning I got my mechanic to tow The Green Nightmare to the garage.  Then I got the kennel to let us bring Baby in (they had been flooded in the day before).  Then I got my neighbor to drive Baby and I to the kennel.  Then Rahul and I grabbed our bags and started out to the airport.  I had no money for a cab, and obviously no car to drive us there, so we took the subway.  Which meant we had to take the bus from Riverdale to Inwood, then catch the A train, literally, from one end of the city to the other.  It took a little over 2 hours.  Strangely, and admirably, Rahul was a perfect angel through this whole ordeal.  We even decided we would take the A train to JFK airport from now on!


Well, from there the story gets much happier.  The plane took off.  We were on it.  It went to Orlando.  And somehow, despite every element seeming to be against us ever arriving at Disney, we made it there. 


And it was magical.

Our Summer Vacation Playlist

After a week with my parents at their house on Lake Ontario, Rahul and I are full of song.  Well, actually, just song titles.  I doubt we'll ever get around to writing the lyrics, but I'm pretty sure we'll always remember the subject matter.

Don't Hook Your Mommy (This is what I kept saying to Rahul as I followed him various fishing holes.  I did actually have a couple verses of this in my head, about different friends who have had to go the emergency room after getting a fish hook stuck in various body parts.  Luckily--and probably because I kept repeating this title unendingly--no fish hooks got stuck in mommy.)

I'm Never Going Canoeing Again (This is what Rahul said after a rather eventful canoe trip he and I took over to a nearby harbor--for some fishing, of course--that nearly ended with a coastguard rescue.  The lake was fairly calm on our trip to the harbor, but by the time we were heading back home the waves had whitecaps and the wind was against us.  Rahul and I were heaving and hoeing with all of our might and literally staying in one place.  So I called it and we turned around, nearly capsized and headed for the shore of a private beach.  Later that day Rahul got introduced to a Smith family classic, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  Its a lovely song documenting the death of 29 boatmen on the Great Lakes.  Sample lyric: Superior, its said, never gives up her dead.  Lovely.)

Grandpop, What's a Redneck? (One can only imagine the lyrics of this song and, believe me, its better that it not get written!  Rahul heard me say the word, and when he asked me I was so embarrassed/ashamed that I had used it that I told him it was a bad word.  So he asked my dad the next day, and I'm sure he told him ALL about it.)

Marchiano Diablos Caca Poopoo Means I Love You (Marchiano Diablos Caca Poopoo is Rahul's latest catchphrase.  He usually has a new one each week, usually a random line from a cartoon, and throughout any given day will insert it in different types of sentences.  This is the first time his catchphrase has had an Italian accent.)

Pickup Trucks Don't Float (This would be quite a song.  Every year my parents put a dock in the water at the beginning of the summer and take it out again at the end by attaching it to their pickup truck and driving down their right-of-way.  This year Rahul was sitting on said dock as it was being loaded into the water, and when my dad stopped the truck to adjust something, I had Rahul get off. While my dad held his foot on the brake I adjusted the ramps that fit behind the large iron wheels of the dock. When I was finished, I moved aside and as my dad prepared for the final descent into the water the trucks brakes gave out and the dock and the entire truck went crashing into the water.  The back end of the truck landed on the front end of the dock, where Rahul had just been sitting.  Nightmares have been had by all, imagining all the possible outcomes of that scenario.  This would definitely be a Country song.)

By All Means, Bring Your Coffee! (After we learned that pickup trucks don't float, we also learned that AAA doesn't cover towing vehicles that are in the water, even if they are only 18 inches from shore.  So emergency recovery vehicles had to be brought in.  And while extremely helpful, they are not discreet.  My parents live on a dirt road.  Until a few years ago, it was only known as Fire Lane 44.  3 or 4 huge towing vehicles, covered in flashing lights, parked in my parents' front yard at midnight caused quite a stir in the neighborhood.  Personally, I'm not a big fan of many of my parents' neighbors.  Much to my peace-at-all-costs mother I have had words with several ill mannered people in her neighborhood who have crossed the line in various ways over the years.  I know it upsets her, so I REALLY made an effort to hold my tongue while scads of neighbors she has never met flocked over to see what all the hubbub was about.  Most of them began with, "Is there a fire?", which would have been fine if it was uttered with concern, not hopeful glee.  And I noticed that all of them except the one neighbor who is actually a dear friend were holding travel coffee mugs.  In case they needed a little refreshment while they watched tragedy unfolding.  I was inside the house watching all these people flock around my mom and her friend, while I knew she was holding back tears thinking of all the money they were losing by the minute.  Finally I had to emerge and join them and my icy stares shushed them right back to their homes. )


While creatively inspired by the events of the week, I am also feeling like I need a vacation!

Album Cover? Baby Fish Mouth is standing in the spot where the dock eventually was placed.

The Boy Who Lived

Last month, Rahul and I finished reading the Harry Potter series together.  We just started it in November, so basically I was reading at least 2 hours to him a day for about four months.  And we had a BLAST reading it!  Oh my gosh, those books are good. 

Harry is a hero everybody can relate to, but Rahul has a LOT in common with him: birthparents gone, suffered as a young child, suddenly as a tween whisked away to a new place by a big hairy creature (seriously, I tweeze a LOT)...  He is known from Book One, Chapter One as The Boy Who Lived because he was the only person to every survive a "killing curse".  And Rahul, also, has survived against incredible odds.  Aside from the fact that he was one of about 13 million orphans in India, he also survived a physical accident as a young child that could have killed him.  When he refers to it, he often follows with, "I wonder why God saved me?" (In other words, he has a bit a hero complex and I am happy to say that I encourage it.)

I also found myself identifying with Harry.  So much was asked of him and he was often so alone in feeling the weight of the challenges on his shoulders.  Single parenting a child with special needs can feel like that.  The themes in the books were very deep and I found it interesting to talk with Rahul about which characters were his favorite and why.  We talked about fear, death, evil and friendship and so many times I found myself enlightened by what he shared with me and surprised by what he drew from the text.

Reading is such a huge part of my life, and I was anticipating the day when Rahul would love it as much as I do.  I have always read to him, but lately he has just devoured books.  Last Fall we were reading The Secret Garden  (another orphan who moves--from India, no less--to a new world as a tween!!) when he said the words I had been waiting to hear, "Keep reading!"  I love when he begs me to read one more chapter.  And honestly, what better thing is there to do with your child?  Toward the end of the Harry Potter books we were reading 4 hours a day and he preferred to sit a listen to me read over watching TV and playing video games.  And we laughed and cried together (sometimes I cried a bit TOO much and he had to ask me to pull myself together) and even the dog joined in as we would snuggle on the couch every night before bed to read. 

And we're still going!  After reading a few "rebound" books (It's hard to follow Harry Potter!) we are now reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder series.  It's nice to read a series that is true and features a healthy, happy family.  Last night we got laughing so hard over one part of it (where Pa beats down a stump that he thought was a bear) and Rahul kept telling me that part over and over as I put him to bed and the first thing he said this morning was, "Mom, remember that part where Pa..."

I hope that Harry and Laura and Mary Lennox and many others will continue to live inside Rahul as walks though life, and that they will always remind my Boy Who Lived what living's all about.

On Becoming an American

Last week, my son became an American.  Honestly, I didn't attach much meaning to the event, other than celebrating the fact that I would now be able to properly claim him on my taxes and travel outside of the country together.  It was only when I told my friends about it and witnessed their huge positive reactions that I realized what a great thing it was.  Part of me had been feeling sad and guilty about Rahul becoming an American, because it meant he had to give up his Indian citizenship (India doesn't grant dual citizenship).  I started the day with him by saying that he would always be Indian, no matter what any piece of paper says.  But now he would also officially become American. 

And immigrating to America is hard work. let me tell you!  International adoption involves more paperwork than a graduate thesis, and in my case I had to have every document triple notarized, which meant standing in line over and over again at the notary's office, the police station, the county clerk's office, the apostille's office, and several federal buildings.  And most of that time in line I was waiting alongside people who were at some point along in the process of immigrating to America.  It was disheartening.   Security guards wrangled us like cattle, shouting orders at the crowd of us, containing mostly non-English speakers.  People who were supposed to be guiding and serving us never looked us in the eyes, and I often startled them by looking straight at them and speaking to them in perfect English.  They clearly were used to pushing people around, and if there's anything you can say (however stereotypically) about white, New York women--we DON'T like to be pushed around.  I often wondered how anyone, especially those who didn't understand English could understand where we were supposed to go or what we were supposed to do, the instructions often being implied and assumed.  Many times I found myself nearly in tears, hurting for the people who were confused and trying their best to follow the proper procedures--totally at the mercy of people who were bored and bitter-hearted in their jobs.  One horrifying encounter with the nastiest of the New York county clerks (they seemed to hate their jobs more than any other people encountered on this journey) had me facing off with her while she insisted that the document I was asking to her to verify was improperly notarized--it was the original and only copy of Rahul's orphanage record.  She held it in her hands seething with anger at me for having had it notarized contrary to her standards and I thought she was going to throw it back in my face or rip it into pieces as she went on and on about how wrong it was.  And when she completed her lecture, I stared back at her, speechless, with tears in my eyes, and finally said, "OK...So, are you going to verify it or not?" She paused for a moment then without taking her eyes off me, she stamped the document and shoved it across the counter at me without saying another word.

Once Rahul's adoption was officially complete, almost 2 years ago, he should have automatically become a US citizen.  But the law has not caught up with the relatively new phenomena of international adoption, so we adoptive parents have to shell out another $450 to apply for our children's citizenship.  And I didn't have $450.  So the papers sat on my desk in a folder awaiting the day when I had the money to spare to start the process.  Then one day, a friend of mine pulled me over in church.  She handed me an envelope and I was confused.  Her father had just passed away very unexpectedly and she had just returned from his funeral days before.  She was so young to be losing a parent and I had been praying for her for weeks.  I couldn't understand why she was giving ME a card.  After church I opened it.  Rahul and I were buying a brownie in a coffee shop and I embarrassed him immensely by blubbering like a baby as money poured out of the card which described how she and her siblings had had some money donated to them at the funeral and her siblings were giving their money to their children.  She however didn't have any children yet, so she thought of me and Rahul and decided to give it to us.  She thought her dad would be happy to know that's where it was going.  I decided right away that it would go towards Rahul's citizenship.  Within days of hearing this story my sister called me and offered to donate the remainder of what I would need to process the paperwork from some extra money she had earned.  And so, like so many pieces of Rahul's story--amazing, generous people got us where we needed to go.


The morning of the citizenship hearing was one of those crazy rain/ice storms and the traffic was terrible.  When I finally found a place to park I stepped out of the car onto pavement covered in ice covered in rain and the parking attendant jumped out of my way so I could slip and rip my knee open.  With a hole in my tights and blood pouring from my leg, I muttered under my breath something about not being aware a blood sacrifice was required for US citizenship.  When Rahul and I got to the building our appointment was in, we saw a line wrapped around the building, standing in the rain that was now pouring sideways, and I recognized them immediately--the huddled masses.  We took our place in line and entered the building a half hour later, soaked to the bone (so much for the cute outfits I insisted we wear).  An hour of waiting later we were ushered into an office, sworn in, we signed a few papers, then we waited for another hour.  Then someone brought out Rahul's certificate. And that was it.  No confetti, no flag waving.  I think what Rahul will always remember about the day is that he got to watch Monsters vs. Aliens in the waiting room.


But I think when you have to work hard for something, the earning is sweeter.  And knowing that Rahul and I, and all those people who stood along side me, endured the process, I feel victorious.  God bless America.

My little American

Recycle the Review

So, if you don't live in Riverdale, NY, you may not know what I'm getting so incensed about.  But if you do, you know how one of our local papers has been attacking PS 24, where my son attends school, for years.  The parents at the school and others in the neighborhood have created an organization called Recycle the Review (the paper is the Riverdale Review) in an effort to bring it down.  Freedom of the Press! you may say.  I agree, but I also say we need to protect the reputation of our school.  So along with many other parents at the school I have written a letter to several elected officials who support this paper.

Here's my letter:

January 5, 2011

Dear Elected Officials,

I am writing to voice my concern over the Riverdale Review’s frequent articles demeaning PS 24.  I understand that you recently placed a congratulatory full-page ad in this paper and I’m confused about what there is to congratulate.

I no longer read this paper and in fact, I have begun to recycle the entire stack that is periodically left in my lobby.  But one recent headline stopped me in my tracks as it mocked PS 24’s reading program as producing “ding dong” students who can’t read.  This article particularly offended me, because my son, who is in fourth grade at PS 24 does not read at grade level, so I assume to Mr. Wolf would regard him as a “ding dong”.  However, the reason he does not read at grade level yet is because I adopted him at age 7 ½ from an orphanage in India, where he received very little education.  Before I completed his adoption I moved to Riverdale, specifically to live in the PS 24 district.  In fact, we live 2 blocks away.  The past 2 ½ years that he has attended PS 24 have been incredible and I have nothing but kudos for our school.  Because of his learning delays and some mental health issues he suffers as a result of trauma, he could have easily have proved too difficult a student for any public school.  But the educators at PS 24 across the board have been unbelievably willing to do whatever it takes to help my son.  He has thrived in the school as a result of many people working very hard, compassionately and creatively to get him up to speed.  

The “ding dong” article not only was offensive, it was poorly reported.  I write professionally for several publications, including CBS NY online, and my editor would never approve such terrible reporting.  The only “expert testimony” cited in the article came from Mr. Wolf himself, who apparently deemed himself an expert because of his experience editing the education section of his own paper.

I am deeply disturbed by the Riverdale Reviews blatant hatred of our school and your support of this paper.  What’s more, I run a business in Riverdale and many of my clients have recently asked me what is wrong with PS 24 and have begun to assume that Mr. Wolf’s articles are founded.  However, I do have some clients who, even though they do not have children that attend PS 24, have begun “recycling” the Review as well, because they feel that real estate values are being driven down in our neighborhood because of PS 24’s damaged reputation.  One such client went so far as to call all of the advertisers in a recent edition and ask them to stop supporting a paper that is destroying our neighborhood.

I would like to request an apology for your previous support of this publication and your promise that will no longer do so.

Respectfully,

Renee Smith

Parent of Rahul Smith, 4-213, PS 24

Rahul in the Earth Day TShirt he made last April at school (and our dog, Baby Fish Mouth)

Somebody Needs a Band Aid

 I'm feeling particularly snarky tonight--I think the overwhelmingness of this overwhelming season has, well, begun to overwhelm me.  So with all the bitterness and Bad Santa I can muster, here's my dissection of the worst, most creepy and disturbing Christmas anthem ever recorded:

DO THEY KNOW ITS CHRISTMAS--by Band Aid


It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid 

• OK. Right off the bat I have a problem with this song.  The people who usually say, "There's no need to be afraid" are usually people who are about to mug you or hurt you in some way.  Of course we have no reason to be afraid!  Its Christmas!  And that's all you've said so far! What's scary about that?  Are you referring to the death gongs we're hearing in the background?

At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade 

• So, not to be critical, or anything.  But has anyone ever said, "Oh its Christmas time--let's make sure we banish shade!"  I'm mean, what did shade ever do?

And in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy!
Throw your arms around the world at Christmas time 

• Boy George, I have no problem with you. Yes, let's.

But say a prayer - pray for the other ones 

• Yes, we should say a prayer.  Thank you for reminding us, George Michael.  What "other ones" are you referring to?  And are they in some way connected with a creepy guy named Ben?

At Christmas time
it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window 

• For a minute here I feel like I'm gonna like this song.

And it's a world of dreaded fear 

• And here's where the song starts to go downhill for me.  And its not that I disagree that a large part of the world lives in fear.  Its just so First World of this song to make it seem that the whole world--except us--is living in dreaded fear.  Yes, there are some parts of the world, even today--many years after this song was recorded (!) where people are living in extreme poverty.  And I believe our lives, if we have any means at all, should be spent working towards eliminating that poverty.  But to paint the picture that everyone in Africa is miserable and only with money and power can you find the true meaning of Christmas, seems to be the underlying message of the song.

Where the only water flowing is a bitter sting of tears 

• Aww! Sting sang the word "sting"!

And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom 

• What?????? Clanging chimes of doom??? "Sorry, you impoverished, suffering person.  You may think those lovely Christmas bells are meant to represent the hope and promise of Jesus' birth.  But actually they are signaling your doom.  Just wanted to let you know."

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you 

• OH. MY. GOD!  What??!!! What is THAT supposed to mean????!!  I'm sure whenever Bono hears that he wants to throw up just a little.

And there won't be snow in Africa this christmas time 

• There's NEVER snow in Africa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (except for the Atlas Mountains in Morocco).  Is this supposed to imply that because many countries in Africa are suffering economically God changed the weather on them?  Just to drive the nail in a little further??
  

The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow 

• Nothing? Nothing ever grows?  No rain? Ever?  The picture being painted here is less an accurate.  It seems like they are trying to say that everyone on the continent of Africa is lucky to be alive and all the land is a barren wasteland suffering drought.  I mean, the suffering in parts of Africa is beyond our ability to even imagine.  But if I were an African hearing this song I would be offended. Can anyone say Broad Generalization?

Do they know it's Christmas time at all? 

•  Well, 47% of Africa is Muslim, so I'm pretty sure they don't care if its Christmas. 

Here's to you
Raise your glass for everyone 
Here's to them
Underneath that burning sun

• All right.  So let's say I'm moved by this song.  I've realized that I've been taking my abundance for granted and I'm ready to do something that will make a difference.  "What should I do, oh 80's pop stars?"  Their answer: Have a drink.  Cheers, "other ones"!

Do they know it's Christmas time at all? 

• Once again, just saying. Only 40% of the continent is Christian.
  

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's christmas time and
Feed the world

• Hey, Bob Geldof is OK in my book.  He did a really cool thing and has spent a lot of his life trying to do SOMETHING for the poor and that's more than most can say.  ( Bob, please tell me the money DID go to the poor.  Some say it went to buy weapons for Ethopian rebels.  Oh whew!  The BBC retracts that claim! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11688535) So to his cause and his idea I give an A+++++.  To the lyrics of this particular song, D-.

Wow.  I feel so much better.  Thanks Band Aid.  I now will pour myself some wine and raise a glass to you!

Marathon Ready

December is a marathon and Christmas is the finish line.  To gear up, I decided that I need a better fuel than Diet Coke.  That has been my go to energy source for the past 3 years, and honestly, I think I'm starting to flatline.  I guess my body has built up a tolerance, because it doesn't seem to work quite as well as it used to.

One day, three years ago, I was sitting around a conference table at a lunch meeting and I was about to open my mouth to say, "Yawn, I'm soooo tired!" when I stopped myself and instead started a conversation with myself (yes, it was out loud).  It went something like this: "Oh, shut up Renee.  You're always complaining about how tired you are. " "Yeah...I am!  Why is that?  I don't hear my coworkers complaining about how tired they are all the time!"  Then I looked around the table and realized that everyone at the table had either a Diet Coke or a cup of coffee in front of them.  And I had an aha moment!  Caffeine is the answer to all my problems!

Before that day I rarely ingested caffeine.  I didn't drink soda, had never had a cup of coffee in my life, and only sometimes drank tea.  And I was always tired.

So I started drinking Diet Coke and seriously, I felt so much more focused and energized.  And then I adopted Rahul and my Diet Coke intake tripled.  I know it sounds awful, but I really don't think I could have made it through without it.  I'm down to 1-2 cans per day, but I know its evil and rotting my stomach lining and giving me all kinds of diseases.  And please don't tell me how horrible it is for me unless you want to hear my rant about all the things I abstain from in life and how this is truly my one and only vice and you're prepared to lay all your vices out on the table, because that's the kind of conversation it would be.  I'm very defensive.

Then the other night I was thinking about December.  I've got a lot to do this month.  Lots of work, lots of holiday stuff.  And that on top of an already full life/schedule.  And my financial situation is such that one bout of illness could wipe me out completely--I can't miss a day of work.  So it occurred to me to get a better plan than Diet Coke.  So here's my plan: 1. Go to bed earlier.  2. Get up earlier and work out in the morning (its about time I incorporate that into my routine).  3. Drink lots more water.   4. Eat more fruits and vegetables. 5. Drink less Diet Coke.

Pretty good, right?

I've actually done it for two days now and both days have been insanely full from morning to night.  But I've had energy to get through the day and I haven't felt the urge to take a nap while I'm driving or anything.  So I guess its working so far!

Wish me luck:)

Rahul and my sister after running an actual race last week

The Great Turkey Debacle of '95

It all started with the turkey.

The restaurant where I was working when I was, like, 24 years old gave us all free, frozen turkeys as a Thanksgiving present.  So my roommate, Kara, and I decided to make a night out of setting each another up on dates, eating said turkey in the context of a fancy dinner, then going out to Lincoln Center for a concert.  I had always wanted to attend a Handel's Messiah concert, so we got tickets and we got dates.  Then our friend Mike (and neighbor--he lived one floor above us in our apt bldg) heard about our plan and wanted to join us.  He got his own date.

My job was going to be preparing the turkey/stuffing.  Kara (who was a vegetarian, BTW) was going to make soup--a family recipe.  That left Mike in charge of dessert.  Kara and I were unsure of Mike's comfort level with baking, so we looked up a few recipes and offered suggestions.  We thought something light and fruity would be appropriate pre-concert.

He chose to make a Betty Crocker chocolate cake.

The day of our event I woke up and went to the freezer to take my turkey out.  That's right. I hadn't thawed it.  It was frozen solid.  And our guests were coming over in about 8 hours.  In a panic, I read the packaging on the turkey and it said something about a "quick thaw" method that involved soaking it in a cold water bath.  Whew! I thought. Crisis averted!  I put the turkey in a cold water bath, then left to go on an audition.  When I came back 2 hours later, the turkey was still frozen solid.  I chipped ice off it and tried to scrape the gizzards out of the cavity, but my fingers were getting frostbitten.  I was beginning to think the turkey miiiiiight not be ready to serve in 6 hours.  So I called Kara at work to alert her.  She worked in a wall street office and offered to go around to the executives and pilfer bits of fruit and crackers from the Harry and David gift baskets they had all gotten from their clients for Christmas.  Then she told me she would have to work late and would only be getting home in time for the dinner.  Uh, what?  What about your soup, Kara?  No problem, she assured me.  She said all the ingredients were in a grocery bag and all I had to do was open all the packages and dump them in a pot on the stove.  I said, Uh, Kara?  I can't cook. (Obviously.)  So when you say, open the packages and dump it in a pot, that is LITERALLY what I am going to do.  I don't have any method of discerning if I should perhaps add some water or some other soupy ingredient.  I'll try not to burn it, but at this point, that's all I can promise.  She was OK with those odds and said goodbye, leaving me again to my turkey dilemma.  I set up another cold bath for the little guy and went about preparing the table.  I had place cards, floral arrangements, china...table setting was my strength and really, I should have just stuck with that.

Then there was a knock on the door and it was Mike, stopping by to show me that he had purchased his Betty Crocker cake mix and was heading home to bake.  Uh, Mike, don't bother me.  I'm thawing a turkey.  After he left I went back into the kitchen and searched through my cookbooks looking for some miracle cure for the chunk of ice and flesh taking a bath in my sink.  Then I saw it.  At the bottom of the page in one of my cookbooks it read:  Questions about cooking your turkey?  Call the TURKEY HOTLINE!  It listed a 1-800 number and I ran to the phone to call it.  Unfortunately the lady who answered my call was moving at a non-New York City pace.  I think she was from, like, Alabama.  Even the way she said hello was slow: Heeeelllllllllloooooooooo-oooooooooo?????  Before she even got to the lll's I had screamed hello!!!! In about 2.7 seconds I detailed my crisis to her and awaited instructions.  She paused.  For a long time.  Then she said, Sooooooooooo.  Yyyoooooouuuuu'rrrrrrreee ffffrrrrrooooooooommmmmm  NNNNNeeeeewwwww YYYYYooooorrrrkkkkk CCCCCCiiiitttttyyyyyyyyyy????????  Another long pause.  I edited what came to my mind so that what came to my mouth was, Yes.  And I really need some help.  RIGHT NOW!  Then Super Slow Turkey Hotline Lady came through and told me that I could actually cook the turkey while its still frozen, I would just have to add a half hour of cooking time for every pound.  I quickly did some math in my head and realized that if I put the turkey in the oven right then, it would be ready at 10:30 pm, just about the time we would be getting back from the concert.  I was elated!! I thanked SSTHL and got off the phone.

Then there was another knock on my door.  It was Mike again.  Renee, do you have a bowl I can borrow?  I was about to criticize him for not having a bowl when he was making a cake, then I remembered that my turkey was still solid as a rock.  Sure, Mike.  Let me get you a bowl.

I put the turkey in the oven and called Kara again to check in when there was another knock and the door.  It was Mike again.  Do you have a measuring cup I could borrow?  Ran through my own cooking failure in my head again and edited my comment to, Sure Mike, Let me get you a measuring cup.

Then I set about finishing up the cleaning and opening all the packages for Kara's soup, when there was another knock at the door.  Mike.  2 eggs?  Oil?  I gave him a look that said everything my brain was thinking and after I silently passed him the eggs and oil I slammed the door in his face.

Our guests were about to arrive, so I went in the bathroom to get ready and Kara came home from work just in time to greet them with her pears and crackers.  She stopped in at the bathroom to see how I was doing and I was just sitting in a heap crying.  I was so stressed out and felt like such a failure. She talked me through it, gave me a hug and got me on my feet again.  I asked, Did the soup come out OK?  She averted my eyes and said, No, it hadn't, and quickly exited.  A few minutes later she came back in the bathroom.  She had tears in her eyes and she was holding back a huge laugh as she asked me to come out into the kitchen.  I followed her out and greeted all our guests, who were pretending to like their Harry and David castoffs.  And when I got to the kitchen, she gestured to Mike's "cake", which was sitting on the counter.  Actually, it was kind of sliding off.  He had attempted a layer cake.  And I'm pretty sure he was waiting at the oven door for the cake to finish baking with a spatula full of frosting.  Because the cake was still steaming hot and the frosting had turned to "icing/liquid" and was running down our counter.  The top layer of the cake had slid off and was at a 45 degree angle.  And cake was on a cheap Kmart plate.  I loved it.  I laughed so hard that I had to sit down on the floor.  Our elegant dinner was such a flop and we were all losers in the kitchen, but it really was starting to strike me as incredibly hysterical.

After our hors d'Oveures we set off for the concert, with the plan that after the concert we would come back and sit down for our "feast".  The turkey remained in the oven, causing approximately 7 fire hazards.

The concert was very nice.  But I have a bit of a sensitivity to people making noise around me in theaters.  I can hear someone sucking on a hard candy across a room full of 300 people.  And unfortunately, the women behind me had just purchased some fascinating opera glasses at the gift shop.  And unfortunately, they were wrapped in what sounded like 13 layers of crinkly, plastic wrap.  And UNFORTUNATELY, they chose the very quiet, sad, alto solo, "He Was Despised", about Jesus' crucifixion, to unwrap their new goggles and chat all about them loudly right in my ear.  Kind of wrecked it for me.

Anyway, after the concert we went back to my place, where the turkey STILL was not cooked.  It was now late and we were all cranky and starving, so we decided to eat the only piece of food in the house.  The cake.  We sat down at the fancy table I had set up and set the "cake" in the center.  Then we all grabbed our forks and just started hacking away at it.  It was too lopsided and slippery to actually cut, and we were too tired to try anyway.  So we just ate like pigs in fancy clothes.

Then Mike left to take his date home.  And my date went home.  Then Kara said goodbye to her date and went to bed.  At 2:30 am Mike returned.  He was hungry and the turkey was finally done.

So we carved it up and the two of us ate, what I swear to this day, was the most delicious turkey I've ever eaten.

The Green Monster

Rahul on The Green Monster

Four years ago I bought my dream car.  Ever since I was little and I would see the neighbor's yellow jeep whizzing down Thrall Road I loved Jeep Wranglers.  And when I bought it I had just said goodbye to my very boring Ford Something-or-Other car.  Does anyone else (besides my family) name their cars?  I've had a "Chuckie", named after the Chuckie movies, because that car was a little possessed.  Then of course I had the famous "Putt-putt".  I bought that car for $100 from a friend and it was a 20 year old Audi that had no working air/radio/odometer/radiator.  It made the putt-putt noise whenever I drove it.  That boring Ford was named Bruce.  I don't know why--it just seemed like a Bruce.   (Sorry to Libby who's Bruce is nothing close to boring!  If I'd known him then I would have name my car something else.  Like Bob.)  

When Bruce died I was in a bit of a pickle because my job at Aveda required me to drive to salons every day and I was suddenly renting cars and taking long bus rides to the Hamptons to do my job.  I had a boss at the time who was, like, oh, How can I describe him?  Totally incompetent.  I tried to explain to him that when I had been hired, owning a car was not in my job description; over time I had inherited some accounts that I was able to take because I happened to have a car.  I was trying to argue that Aveda couldn't force me to buy a car and instead should rent me a car twice a week.   He didn't buy it.  He told me to go buy a Jetta.

Instead, I decided to buy a car that would make me happy.  

I named it The Green Monster.  I was on a bit of a Red Sox kick at the time.  (My nephew Jack, who was 3 at the time and is a premium member of the Red Sox Nation was a bit scared of my car because it was a "monster", but imagining the Green Monster running over Yankees in New York made him feel more comfortable around it.)  The Green Monster really makes me happy.  I LOVE driving it and my hearts swells every time I see it.  I paid it off before I adopted Rahul and when times have been lean I've thought of selling it, but I could never bring myself to do it.  And I was juuuuust saying 2 weeks ago that it has never given me a day of trouble. 

Then it suddenly developed 5 separate and expensive problems, and it has spent the last week in the shop.  The repairs cost a large chunk of dough, but thanks to Don Glo Auto (if you need a mechanic in NYC, I highly recommend them) it was a much smaller chunk of dough than the first place was going to charge me.  When Rahul and I went to pick up TGM last night, I hugged the car when I saw it on the street and when I got in I scolded it and told it to never do that to me again.  I was so busy last week and my business revolves completely around my car (I'm a mobile hairdresser).  Sans car I was lugging about 30 pounds of hair stuff all over creation, and although I didn't miss one appointment I was late for about 75% of them.  I was late coming home every night and I missed 3 church services.  And I was pooped.

This morning I had to take Rahul to the doctor, and although the office is right in our neighborhood, we usually drive there.  As we walked past the car, Rahul asked why we weren't driving.  I told him I had learned the value of walking last week.  And I told him he needed to train for a race he's running.  But I realized that in actuality I had some unresolved feelings toward TGM that were making me reluctant to drive it.  So this afternoon I took it for a spin and we made up.  It runs so much better now.

And I know its really sorry for inconveniencing me.