Sign Me A Book

This is 18-month old Jilli being a squiggle-butt. We spent a few days reading every book she could get her hands on and learning signs. She knows how to sign MORE (or her version of it), FINISH and PLEASE, and she recognizes quite a few signs! This week she learned to sign SHOES, CHEESE, and AIRPLANE and was exposed to about 50 other signs like COOKIE, CRACKER, WATER, MILK, STARS, SOCKS, HORSE, CAT, DOG, BABY BIRD, TRAIN, CAR, TRUCK, EAT and tons more. She's fascinated with a deck of sign language cards and loves to point to them and have someone sign them to her. Oh, and she also said "NaNa" (her version of Nancy). As for spoken vocabulary, she's great at "mine" and "nite-nite" as well as "shhh", "mama", "knock-knock", and "what's that?" among others.

I think she got tired of me signing. At one point she came up to me and just flailed her hands wildly in the air pretending to sign for about 15 seconds. It was hysterical! At least she had some elements of the signs I taught her and had great facial expressions!!

She's our little whirling-dervish!

Colorful Summer

Summer comes alive -

hummingbirds buzz, blackbirds sing 

Jilli takes it all in!

Airplanes, baby birds -

summer's here, no time to sleep

peonies bloom, frogs leap!

Outside, play all day -

blue skies end with moonlit nights

Summer comes alive.

(double click on the Michigan Colors slideshow on the right sidebar to see more pictures)

Gypsy Queens

Finally, Steph (right), Nan (center) and Amie get to meet! After communicating on-line on my-calorie-counter.com together for two years, we met face-to-face today in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nan flew in from Tampa and Amie and Steph drove from Ohio. Amie, the twin Queen, Steph, the Gypsy Queen and Nan, the Las Flacas Queen, shown above share drinks at the Barnes & Noble Cafe. We chatted about our pets and partners, saw twins-to-be baby pictures and browsed B&N. After book shopping we went to Whole Foods and had a very healthy meal (not sure the dessert was low-cal, but it came with an folding spork which intrigued us all). We sampled super salty cheese, Steph bought fig yogurt (ewwww) and some healthy cereal (let us know how the cardboard tastes)! A great time was had by all! It so nice to put faces to names and avatars!

May Does Away with the Garden

With mixed joy and sadness, I pulled up our vegetable garden today. The now skinny tomato bushes were struggling to hold on to the last few red bursts of fruit and the onions were splitting at their seams. The peppers were so long, they were standing on their tippy-toes while tethered to their stems. And although pretty, the yellow flowers sprouting from the broccoli only made great places for snails to nest like earring posts.

For now, all that's left growing are fragrant white flowers on the lemon tree soon to be huge yellow orbs. I couldn't help but to plant a few pumpkin and squash seeds today, just to have something to watch sprout over the summer. And, of course, the roses are doing a fine job of keeping the cacophony of colors going as long as the rain keeps coming. Here's a little silly "thank you" ditty I wrote to commemorate the past nine months of the garden fresh food we've enjoyed.

Thank you broccoli, thank you peas,

ugly tomatoes - fill my plate, please!

Thank you onions, peppers, too.

When I slice your skins, I cry boo-hoo!

Squirrels say thank you to the corn.

Where once there were ears they're now all shorn.

Thank you green beans sleek and long.

We ate our fill 'til your rows were gone.

Thank you herbs, oh basil tall.

Mint, dill and chives, I ate you raw.

Rosemary, sage and parsley,

You garnished our platters so nicely.

On this, the last day of May,

I pulled out deep roots and turned the clay.

No more rows of sprouting green,

just pumpkin seeds for next Halloween.

Destination: St. Barts

The Newlyweds

Miss a family wedding? Never! So, when my niece decided to get married on the beach in St. Barts, I of course, said "yes!" St. Where? And, how do I get there? Apparently, if I lived up north like most of my family, I could have easily taken a plane non-stop from Newark to St. Maarten and then caught the ferry to St. Barts. But instead, from Tampa, I had to fly to San Juan, and then to St. Maarten and then hop the ferry to paradise island (or should I say the roller-coaster boat from Hell. But, I'll get to that later after ample Dramamine, Xanax and some liquid pink stuff).

I generally travel everywhere by car, so I must have had "international travel-newbie" written all over me when some nice guy showed me how to swipe my passport to get my boarding pass. I'm sure my lovely mug is now in some government data base for the rest of my life.


While waiting for my flight, I splurged on a bran muffin and latte from Starbucks and read the New York Times, all the while looking like a seasoned traveler, but feeling like the road before me was never-ending. Once aboard, the guy sitting next to me, Pablo, said a prayer in Spanish before we took off and I somehow, felt comforted. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, another woman crossing herself when we got above the clouds. The first leg of this flight from Tampa to San Juan, I lucked out by not having to sit next to a super squirmy pre-ADHD two-year-old who didn't understand "no", "stop it" or "sit" in any of her native languages. She was two seats down from me so that when she had an "accident" and later tossed up a gazillion undigested Cheerios, my lap was spared. Too bad for the poor guy sitting next to her.


When I got to San Juan, I was making a mad dash to the multi-lingual, multi-symbol labeled, gender-neutral, shower-available-for-$12 lavatory when I noticed a flight boarding to St. Maarten. My flight wasn't for another four hours, so in Spanish, I asked if I could get on. Si! They let me! It boarded outside and one of the flight attendants took my baggage and loaded it in the nose of the plane so I could get up the wobbly, narrow set of steps barely suspended from the exit door to the ground. The flight was ear-numbingly loud and only about 10,000 feet in the air. When we landed, we all waited outside for our baggage, in the pouring-side-ways, spit-ball rain. My baggage was no where to be found. The attendant told me to go to baggage claim. I told him that I had seen my suitcase being loaded into the nose. He looked and said they must have given it to someone else. I stood my pudd;e-forming ground and said it had to be there. So much for my quad-lingual talents. No amount of English, Spanish, Sign Language or Greek would help me. I was at a grave linguistic disadvantage since he spoke mostly French and smiled through his apologetic English. They looked until I was saturated with fear and soaked with pelting rain. Finally, the captain looked and found it. Apparently, they thought it was the crew's baggage since it was small, black and had American embroidered into the cloth. Relieved, I took my soaking self into the airport where a long line snaked from one end to the other with people waiting to go through Immigration. I stood there dripping and thought I heard my sister's unmistakable voice. Sure enough, about 50 people in front of me was my sister Lynn, brother-in-law Ron, nephew Justin, and his wife Cheryl. Reunion! We got through Immigration, ate lunch and waited for four more members of our party (the Bannisters) to arrive before catching a taxi to the ferry to St. Barts (not knowing what was in-store).


Henri, our Taxi driver gave us a bumpy, whirling-dervish, stop and go tour in his French sing-song cadence while negotiating the narrow streets of poverty-stricken St. Maarten. He speaks Dutch, French, Spanish and English. St. Maarten reminded me of Cancun where the sea-side scenery is spectacular with lush resorts and the outskirts of the country were thread-bare poor. He was such a happy guy; friendly and welcoming and explained the history of the island with pride.


The Ferry: We met Francesco's sister, Christina and the photographer, Shiloh at the ferry dock. Then we ate. Big mistake. After having our passports checked for the 5th time, we boarded the ferry. It was stormy and the seas were rough. Cheryl doled out Dramamine to everyone an hour earlier, so we were prepared for the ups and downs of a 40 minute boat ride. I'm lucky enough to be alive to tell you that an entire bottle of Dramamine could not have prepared us for this ride. Most of our party went outside. I stayed below with my sister and Mr. Bannister. Bad idea. He faced front and would preface an upcoming dip by saying things like "holy shit" or "oh my god". My sister and I sat with our backs to the waves. Not five minutes into the ride, Lynn started saying "I'm going to throw up". Great. I tried to comfort her by making her talk about Tammy's dress or her grandchildren, to no avail. And what did I do? I closed my eyes, put my head down with my chin nuzzled deep in my cleavage, hummed some song I made up and rocked the entire time. My inner autism had surfaced big time. At some point, I did look up to see my sister grab a white plastic garbage bag out of one of the attendants' hands just in time to save her outfit. Why they offer white, transparent garbage bags for churning stomachs on churning seas, I have no idea. Forty minutes later, we all said our prayers of thanks and stumbled off the boat. My sister looked like she'd died and come back to life, only barely. She was sweating and cold, shaking and crying, ashen and green - almost. A total mess. We all vowed to take a plane back. I finally stopped humming and rocking but kept wondering how I was ever going to get back home.


Once we found our land-legs and our stomachs, and showed our passports yet one more time, we were greeted by the rest of our party. Tammy and Francesco (the wedding couple), Jason, Aschley and Aiden (my nephew and his family), best man John, Francesco's mom and his aunt Teresa. Hail, hail, the gang's all here with the exception of Evan, my other nephew, who would arrive tomorrow via the same ferry. Poor thing. I would have texted him, but once in St. Barts, I had no Internet or cell service. I do think someone warned him, though. He arrived in much better condition than we did. So, let the wedding begin!


After a hair-raising drive above daringly high cliffs on what seemed like one-way-only roads, we found our stunning villa, dipped in the pool, watched the sunset and readied ourselves for another spin on the crazy French blacktop. Dinner started at 7 and lasted until 11. Euros were converted to dollars and at the end of the night, 18 of us had dinner for $1400. I was too tired to wrap my brain around my $100 dinner, but giant shrimp on steroids, grilled to perfection may have been a good bang for my hundred bucks. As I discovered, six pounds later, meals are late, long and luscious on St. Barts.


Christina and I were the first up and the first to find coffee and pastries on our first morning there. We spent most of the day on the beach and driving around the island. While floating in the Caribbean, we saw a complete rainbow circled around the sun; we were awestruck. In town, I bought little bottles of vanilla, spiced and coconut rum at a great little "rhum" shop only to have customs confiscate it in St. Maarten. I was not a happy camper, but I am sure the customs agents had a great happy hour on my dime (or my 87 Euros).


The wedding was sweet, simple and classy. Tammy's dress was entirely vintage lace and entirely stunning. The happy couple was married against nature's backdrop of blue skies and a peach sun dipping into the Caribbean. The wedding dinner was an eight course feast that seemed never-ending with delicious blends of island flavors, laced with lots of love and laughter.


The last day was spent traveling. We all were dreading the ferry ride back, but it was a beautiful morning and the waves were calm. We said our good-byes and skimmed across the sea without incident. This time, we all went up top and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.


At the airport, everyone scattered off to their respective flights home and I felt a little orphaned as I watched my sister fade into the airport crowd. Family is a nice place to visit. I got to meet my nephew's son, Aiden for the first time, I saw the last of my sister's children get married and I even learned that my father had a twin who died when they were two years old; a tidbit of family history that escaped my knowledge for all this time. I also learned that no matter how exotic a destination, there is no place like destination: home.

Think we're sisters?? We drove way too fast past this place in St. Maarten.

Most of the gang (Ron, Aiden, Jason, Aschley, Jason and Aiden
Aschley, Nicole, Jason, Tammy, Mr. B.,
Cheryl, Justin, Christina.

An everyday view. A critter on the path.








Heading into a storm on the ferry. They call this a road?


Ron, Tammy and Francesco, Lynn. At last!





Sunset view from our villa. Justin & Aunt Nancy

White Flight

flutter, flutter, flap

wings-on-white take graceful flight -

spring's brightest color

Homing Pigeon's Rest Stop

white bird

rests feather-light

after soaring  blue skies

leading a lost spirit toward home -

peace dove

This albino homing pigeon seems to have found a new home between our neighbor's backyard and ours.  It's quite large and has bright pink feet and a lighter pink beak.  It seems to be traveling by itself and I'm guessing it may have lost its way. Click on the picture to enlarge its image. I know, it's just a pigeon, but it's unusual and has caught my attention. 

P.S.

This Easter morning, white pigeon #1 was sitting on a wire with white pigeon #2. 

Going Green

The first harvest of 2009 is sprouting Spring happiness, making for luscious salads, veggies, garnishments and spices. This spring there's a cornucopia of culinary herbs including basil, chives, dill, oregano, lavender, mint, parsley, rosemary and sage. The rhubarb is huge! Its leaves are four-hands big and the stems are thick as a pre-schooler's crayon. Green tomatoes are on the vine now, but will soon turn to ripe redness. Two varieties of peppers are sporting shiny green jackets, and the green beans are slender slivers hanging side-by-side. The peas are just peeking through the soil, along with the lettuce, beans and broccoli and are greener than green. At the end of the row of lettuce, there's one volunteer head of red-leaf lettuce in the bunch. Bringing up the rear are cucumbers and corn competing for space with the black beans. Lastly, and most impressive are the two rows of onions, one row of white and the other sweet yellow with stems two feet long. Bring it on, Spring time, we're ready to fill our plates green with envy!

Summerizing the Pool

In under a week, our 25-year old pool got a complete face-lift. Bebe entertained the contractors by dropping her tennis ball into the waterless well and watching it roll to the deep-end's empty belly. One guy finally had to hide her ball in his back pocket so he could get his work done without having to fetch her ball for her every two minutes. Now that the pool has been resurfaced and refilled, summer can begin! Although, I heard a cold front will be making winter's last visit by Tuesday.

Springing Red

ruby
red velvet rose
blooms while cardinals break fast
under the new moon's pale shadow -
springtime

Caption Needed

Jilli and Carmen enjoying a rare 60 degree winter day in Michigan. Anyone want to take a guess as to what Jilli is doing? Your guess is as good as mine. Click on the photo to get the full effect. Go ahead, caption this one for me! I'll put up the most creative captions on the right.

A Round of Applause for Love

I have this funny cartoon that goes on in my head and pops up like Garfield's bubble, especially around Valentine's Day. It goes like this. First frame: Everyone is walking around wearing their hearts inside-out. Second frame: From each person's heart hangs a retractable extension cord, and it seems everyone is searching desperately to plug their extension cord into another person's heart. Third Frame: With trepidation, they approach others and try to plug in to that person's heart, only each time they plug in, the cord snaps right back. Last frame: after walking around and around and unsuccessfully plugging in to other people, they finally get the picture, and pull their plug out just a little bit and plug it right back into their own hearts. Moral of the cartoon: You are your own power source. Your love comes from within. I learned this lesson early on, when I was perhaps six or seven years old.

When I was a child, we lived in a small beach community where the houses were built fairly close to each other. The man who owned the house behind us, Mr. Woodman, lived alone. He was well over six feet tall. He had a lone curly sprig of hair that jutted straight out of the top-center of his shiny, bald and misshapen head, and on the sides were indentations where forceps had made their marks. His ears were disproportionately large and his nose was bulbous red, and off-center. To make matters worse, one eye looked directly at you while the other wandered off somewhere to the left. I never knew which eye to follow. People shunned Mr. Woodman because of his presence. His gait was lopsided and his smile was one-sided due to a long-lasting case of Bell's Palsy.  He was the only loan officer in our one-bank town, thus, people had to be nice to him. I was always nice to him. I was too young to understand his role in the community, but I knew I adored him.  Every morning, our paths would cross as he walked to the bank and I walked to school. He would always stoop down to my level and ask me how I was and what I thought I'd learn in school that day. If I'd see him later on, he'd ask "What did you like about school today?" or "What didn't you like about school today?" or "What would you change about school today?" To this day, I find myself asking those three questions and can tailor them to just about most things. 

Mr. Woodman had a secret that I'm guessing only a few knew. Since our homes were so close together, I could hear him get ready for work in the morning; the squeaky closet doors, the click-creak-click of the medicine cabinet, and the rush of  water in the bathroom sink. Every morning his routine would be the same. Squeak, click, water rush, then these words would belt out of his crooked mouth "Bob, I love you!" and applause. Yep, applause like clap-clap.  I felt bad for him knowing he had to tell himself that he loved himself because no one else loved him. Then, I got to wondering if all adults did this? Was this something I should be doing? One morning, I went into my own bathroom, climbed up on the toilet seat, open and closed the medicine cabinet, turned on the water and then said "Nancy, I love you!" and I stood there and applauded myself! My mother rushed in asking me what I was doing. She had heard Mr. Woodman's words every morning as well and thought I was being a clown. I had tears streaming down my face because I loved Mr. Woodman and would never make fun of him. She assured me that Bob had found a way to feel love for himself since he didn't have other people to tell him.  The "applause" my mother told me, - the clap-clap I heard, was him splashing after-shave on his face.  I'm certain it took years for me to process Mr. Woodman's message, but I secretly went into the bathroom every morning after that, ran the water and whispered "Nancy, I love you."  And, still do so to this day, applause and all. Guess I'm pretty well plugged in thanks to Mr. Woodman.

A Brooklyn Sunday Memory

The old Brooklyn Brownstone where I used to live, keeps a Sunday morning secret tucked deep in the corner of its massive master bedroom. I sometimes wonder if the person who lives there now does what I used to do every Sunday morning. This memory trickled through my brain like warm honey today, as I caught the chorus of a church choir drifting on the wind's tail.

It is February. My mother died three days ago and the cold is etched on my bedroom window like fine French Pineapple lace. I ease it open enough to hear the branches shiver. I see my Jewish reflection; I am the blood of my mother and now, I am orphaned and left to my father, a Roman Catholic. I am the blood of my father; I have his thick hair and olive skin. I have her wisdom and wit, and no one's caramel eyes. I have his unconditional love and memories of her.

This morning, I am going to church before I follow my mother’s body down the New Jersey Turnpike. No one knows, but I go to church  every Sunday. In my bedroom.

My friends go to real church on Sundays, but I don’t go with them. I am the Jewish friend left behind to cook brunch for when they return. Knishes, kugels, bagels, lox, onions and tomatoes; latke recipes from my mother’s side. Fresh eggs cracked over sweet onion-fried potatoes and shredded Parmesan cheese, toasted Italian bread, salted butter and rich percolated black coffee, from my father’s side.

Little do my friends know that I have been to church and back. In my bedroom.

The table is set, the kugel baked. Eggs sweating, are waiting for their one-handed crack. The New York Times waits to be divided and read by my peers. I get the obits. I always get the obits first, no questions asked, but from the corner of my eye, I see perplexed second-glances peering at my unusual interest in strangers' obituaries. It's their stories, I tell my friends; little memoirs. I want to read the how, and who is left to cope and remember.

Ten bells echo from the rear of the Brownstone, beckoning me to  retreat to my bedroom. The windows have tear drops now and I open them like wide mouths ready to inhale. The sounds of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir fill my room; my backyard, their sanctuary.

I swing with the bosom of the soloist.

I tremble with the fear of the sopranos.

I clap with the Amen corner.

I belt it out with the altos.

For one glorious hour I am Black.

I am saved.

I am not Jewish.

I am gospel music.

I am mourning.

I rejoice.

By the time my friends arrive, I am revived. With mouthfuls of kugel, there is no talk with their Jewish friend about church. Dare I tell them I've been there and back? Instead, we celebrate my mother’s cooking, her quiet, disturbed life, the memoir her daughter may one day write.  The dishes are cleared, the paper neatly stacked with the puzzle on top for when I return. My friends send me across the Brooklyn Bridge to the New Jersey Turnpike alone. 

The only music I heard at my mother’s funeral was the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir playing in my head accompanied by my father’s wailing.

Amen.