A Letter to Maddie in a New York Minute

Dear Maddie,

On Valentine's Day, 2010, Pop Pop gave me a trip in a card. It was to be the get-away trip to New York City that I have been requesting for years and years.

And it was to be just around the time your Mommy and Daddy expected you to arrive.

But everyone knows babies don't come just when they are expected, so no probs.

The time came quickly for us - April 8th - no time at all....for your Mommy - a whole other story! She thought it took forever....she thought it was high time you made your appearance!

Pop Pop and I took the day slowly, we did odds and ends and savored being on no time schedule, and we didn't get to Hamilton train station until afternoon. The train ride to the city was terrific, we felt relaxed and a bit excited to finally be getting to the Big Apple. My secret thoughts included you - wondering if I would be home before you arrived.
We took a taxi from Penn Station and were really quickly whisked to our hotel. We stayed at the Manhatten Centre Hotel - and we would never want to stay anywhere else! What a super location and a perfect facility. We had what amounted to a little apartment of our own, microwave, kitchen sink, fridge....just across from Radio City Music Hall, just around a short corner from the famed skating rink, and we could just see a bit of St. Patrick's Cathedral from our window...(the place I have always felt God really lives on earth!).
Because we had missed lunch, we decided to get an early dinner and opted for the Terrace Restaurant in the hotel. Wow! were we glad of that choice! The Terrace actually has a glass enclosed section of the restaurant right over the street, as well as a small section which is open air - mostly used by smokers. It was very warm that day, so we chose to eat inside. The meal was amazing...I had lamb chops which were some of the best I've ever had, and Pop Pop had steak...says it was wonderful.

Here's a view out of our window.

Our first meal in NYC

After dinner we took a stroll through Rockefeller Center, and snapped a few pictures. As it was not long since Easter, there were so many floral displays, lillies everywhere, and lots of bunnies and things. I was relishing the personality of New York, everyone was happy to be there, as were we.

After some sightseeing, we went directly to St. Patrick's and recaptured the feelings I've always had there, and have been able to share with Pop Pop. I recall being a very young girl and going there for the first time. I can still feel the sense that the presence of God is palpable, that you can almost hear the angels singing. I so love it there. My first stop was with St. Jude. The cousin of Jesus, he has always been my go-to "guy" and he has always seemed to help me with my "impossible" causes. I talked to him about our cousin Rita who is in a fight with cancer, and about all my family. As we proceded through the church, we discovered that the Blessed Mother's Chapel was open - I don't know that I have ever gotten back there before, so we stopped there and I had a chat with her about Rita, and I asked her to be with you and your mommy as you were about to enter this lifetime...to bless your family and to help you grow strong and bright and beautiful.

During the time we were in the Cathedral, of course we had our phones turned off. Shortly after leaving, we turned them back on and discovered by a text from your Daddy that you had gotten things started on your birth just as we'd been praying for you! We were very excited, although I have to admit, I'd have liked to be there when you were making your entrance. But we both sent you lots of love and were happy that mommy was going to have her little girl in her arms very soon.

Happy Easter and Passover

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/23/35-high-quality-pics-for-spring-inspiration/

Going to Great Heights

Seems to take more and more to impress myself as I get older.

I have been terrified of heights for most of my life. It started on a class trip in high school. We went on a trip to a steel manufacturing plant. We were chatting away, and suddenly I looked down and having not been aware we were on an open grid walkway, I saw molten steel below me and had the impression I was falling.

Never got over it.

Until a couple of years ago when I was actually able to climb up on our garage roof to clean the siding and roofing.

I was the mom who several times went up the ladder with her kids on a slide and then needed help getting down.

I was the woman who once climbed a ladder to clean her kitchen window and didn't get down for about an hour when I got someone to help me!

But now I have realized that a number of my fears have gone since I no longer have little ones depending on me.

I still don't hang out in high places, but I can actually talk myself up a ladder - which I did again today....to clean our siding.

Taking "clean the house" to greater heights!

And I am both impressed at myself and glad it's done!

A Sign of Maturing?

I am going to take this as a sign I may be maturing.
A dear friend asked me to read a book. He actually sent the book in question.
And he asked that after reading it, I tell him frankly, without fear of losing our friendship, what I think.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it?
But the book is about a topic I have feelings about - though they are vague, unformatted feelings, helter-skelter feelings - feelings I have only thought about on a shallow level.
I took the book from its wrapper today, took it outside to sit in the welcome sun and read.
And for the very first time ever, except for when I read the Bible, I couldn't bring myself to open it until I'd said a prayer. I have asked God to be with me as I read this book. I've asked Him/Her to open my eyes fully, to clear my mind, to soften up my heart so that I might see the truth of it - if truth there be.
I think I read somewhere something about the tendency we all have to cling to old beliefs, to hold fast against theories and ideas that conflict with what we have long believed.
So I will take it as a sign of maturity that I am both willing to read a book that might very well challenge what I have long believed, and that I have asked God to enlighten me.
I am rocking my mental boat, as it were.
I'll let you know more as I read.
Maybe.
If nothing else - I'll have ventured and I'll have tried. Not so bad for an old dog.

Timing is Everything!

Timing is everything.

Our back neighbor has a young magnolia tree. And every year we watch it come to bloom just in time for the rains to come. For a few, brief moments, the flowers look magnificent and they emit the sweetest perfumes. And in the next moment, they are tattered and strewn upon the ground.

This year the rain pounded the tree's tight buds.

They held.

And the rains have stopped. And the buds have opened.

They look like spring. They look like Easter.

The timing was perfect....we are due to have about 4 or more days of sun and warmth and no rain. Congratulations little tree.

Timing is everything.

Nerves and Learning Curves

I've been taking piano lessons from a really wonderful teacher at NJ School of Music for 6 months or more (have lost track) and Lar confirms that I've been progressing....I am much more comfortable at the piano now, and loving every minute of practice.

At practice.

It's the classes that are killing me! I get a song so I am very comfortable in thinking that by George, I've got it....keys are right, tempo is getting there....I feel good about it. And then I get in front of my teacher. OMG! Is it possible that I, who have really never had any trouble with stage fright....can get up in front of any crowd and "talk" cannot get 5 notes in a row right in front of David? I make what I feel is a total fool of myself. And I blather "but you should hear me at home!" and he pretends to believe me.

Trouble is, I haven't even been able to record myself because I'm almost as bad when the recorder is going.

But today I gave myself a good talking to. I sat myself down and got er done. And I sent this to my teacher.

And I'm posting it too.

I really am learning. I just don't seem to want anyone to know.

Days Off

    When you are living with your best friend and love, it is easy to think about retirement at my age. He has pretty much learned to read when I need space, when I need to disappear into a book (he does the same), or when I need to "create" and have to have my hands on something with which to do so (paper, fabric, photos, whatever), and he gets when I need comforting presence. He's even come close to learning when I burst with need to chat. He comes very close to tolerating that.

We took Friday off and had such a good day - in a rhythm that isn't always there, but when it is, it is perfect. We "chilled" with books in the morning. I played the piano a lot. We went to the gym, I think only because if I didn't get back to the gym soon, I was going to - oh I don't know - maybe go insane. We took a leisurely lunch at Subway and then returned home. We each did our various tidbits of things for a while and then we went to the movies.
We thought we might see Alice in Wonderland in Imax 3D. Turned out, the Imax version was gone, and the 3D one wouldn't show for another hour. So we sat in the sun-warmed car and read until time to go in. We loved the movie!
It was such a lovely, relaxed, companionable day.
Would retirement give us more days like that?
The next morning I went to the dentist. We've been going to the same dentist for about 42 or 43 years. He knows us.
He said, "so, how is Lar? Not thinking of retiring is he?"
He continued, "if he retires, it will be very bad for you. Either, you will be a widow very quickly, you will be a nursemaid, or you will be in prison. You will have killed him!"


Ummm, maybe we better cherish days off here and there.


What do you think dear readers?