Even Yankees Get the Vapors

it's snowing and cold today but there are 6 very plump robins chirping away happily in the tree right outside of my window. Who are these foolish birds and why aren't they in Fla where I want to be?

Yes, no, dither, dither. Finally Kate turned up with two school friends and said yes they would stay for dinner. So I cooked and actually it was more fun than cooking for her because as I've said so often she eats virtually nothing in terms of quantity and variety. So I cooked away. Roast chicken, rice and then for me the piece de la resistance was trying a recipe for some sauteed cabbage with fennel seeds and lime juice. Very indian and very yum. I went on and made a red bean curry thing. I was cooking with gas. Literally

And that's probably when Kate stopped eating for the weekend because I don't always insist. Maybe she had a slider on Saturday which I forced her to finish. How much food is in 3 oz of beef? Yikes I eat breakfast and lunch and then I don't care a whit, whatever that measure is, about dinner. So last night after a long and langerous hot bath Kate fainted dead away in the bedroom and just barely missed taking her eye out on the drawer knobs of the desk. She has a pretty red bruise between her eyes which should become violet and blue quite quickly. Why did she faint. Well, I'm not getting mother of the year awards today and probably because she had two little brioche buns for breakfast and some bok choy for lunch. That's it. But the issue is that she doesnt feel hunger.

I suggested this morning that she was like those people who don't feel pain and can seriously injure themselves with this lack of feeling. She has to eat at least twice a day, even if she doesn't feel hungry.

Last night I pumped a peanut butter sandwich and high protein shake into her. No words that she felt full.

See it's not just southern bells who have a case of the vapeurs...

Animal life

Sunday night Kate looked me squarely in the eye and complained  that Miss Murray didn't love her and she was lonely, so she wanted a pet that would be hers and hers alone.

"I want a rabbit."

A rabbit?

It took me a day to work through that request. I know it should have been an instant, Hell, no not a dirty stinking rabbit but sometimes I try and be accommodating, however,  it never works out the way I imagine it.  Besides I read that they live for 5 to 10 years which just might be longer than i might live.

Well, at least a cat, she said because I don't want a ferret, a gerbil, guinea pig, or hamsters. They die. 

Well yes, they do. 

So what about a cat, Mom?

So I consulted with Corinne on introducing a cat to Miss Murray and to our household.  I hope she doesn't write back immediately.

It's been damp and foggy here with crazy temperatures around the country. It was far colder in Los Angeles this morning than New York. It's the new weather but  I often feel as if I've stepped into a scene from Blade Runner however the smells right now are of crushed Christmas tree which makes everything really wonderfully pungent.

Kate and I went to an open house yesterday at the Carlysle Hotel for her Summerfuel language immersion program in Nice. Oh, my god, her July is going to be so golden and every adult who knows about the program just starts salivating. I think she began to understand that it isn't going to be Maine in french when we stepped into the lobby of the Carlysle. Now she worries that everybody will be rich and snobby. I reminded her that in some circles she might be considered snobby...if not rich.

Went out to lunch today with some folks from the Middle School downstairs which was one of my first purely social outings..We went to the Jerusalem cafe which I knew would be small but I had no idea it would have only 8 seats and they would all be taken which made it imperative that we sit at the counter or run back to the school and try to find a quiet place to eat. Hummus, hummus and more baba ganoush. Everything that I like but eat so rarely. And why is that?

Christmas past and Christmas future

I was seriously fretting about Christmas this year, the weather, the plum pudding, oh forget the lies,  it was all about the personalities. Mostly I was worried about Kate's experience with her cousins. Arnie had decided to approach the visit as a visit to a movie set with appropriately deviant characters and because of that, I think he had a good time. But for Kate the ages were all wrong this year. Lucy Banks is 22 or 23,  Mckay was in Europe leading the high life which left Andrew closest in age to her at 18.  We deliberately shaved a day off our trip and  arrived when the cast of characters was assembled and waiting for us to make our entrance.  Lucy Banks came in from Los Angeles where she is struggling to be ACtress which is all fine and good. Unfortunately she has also become a militant vegan which I think is an oxymoron. And Andrew who is now a freshman at Mercer College in Macon, Ga is turning out to be a very nice looking albeit tongue tied guy. well, tongue tied unless his parents are out of the room and it's all very kick back.

We made a stop in Atlanta for lunch and then arrived in time for supper to be followed by The Brunch the following day, Christmas eve gumbo dinner and church which I bailed on this year in spite of my love of christmas carols. Big Lucy and I have agreed to go to the Family/children's service next year.When we first started going to Columbus for Christmas, Kate was  4 I think and they made a huge effort to included her in everything including the Christmas Pageant. Kate outfitted in white gowns and wings or some other costume always looked adorable but oh, my god, you really got how homogenous the crowd is and  she was the only non blonde in the crowd.

Columbus is a relaxing place for me and I often wonder how my father became the man I knew  growing up there.  But I understand  why he left pretty quickly and never went back. I like afternoon napes punctuated by the sound of the train whistles, random dogs barking in the night and this time I had a replay of a childhood experience: I got locked in the bathroom. Every grandchild who visited Mothers' parents in Roanoke, Virginia got locked in the bathroom. I don't know why but it was a rite of passage with a worried parent kneeling in front of the bathroom door trying to stay calm and coax a crying child to follow directions and take the key out of the lock and slip it under the door. This happened  in the middle of the brunch so I knew someone would have to use the bathroom and luckily when I knocked, there was someone there to rescue me.  John Sheftall's friend Tom King.


We left the day after christmas and had another one of those trips back to New York. Snow in New York which slowed down LaGuardia..planes backed up at Atlanta..cranky...could only get 1 seat on the earlier plane so that wasn't an option...kept hoping that we wouldn't end up in Harrisburg, Pa. god help us and then  have to take the train into town. That was disaster thinking at its finest. We got back with only a 4 hour delay. When she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid. Well, the same could be said of plane travel.