The Bunny Saga

Mandy’s love of bunnies began in the fourth grade when her teacher purchased one as a class pet. Mr. Cousins brought in a bunch of animals for the classroom one day: snails, fish, gerbils, a bird, and a baby bunny named Honey. Mandy was determined that at the end of the school year, when the teacher was giving lucky students the pets to take home, Honey would be her bunny.

(this photo is of Honey fully grown)

She didn’t have too much competition for the rabbit. Only one other boy had his sights set on it, since probably not many parents would give their children permission to keep it. So all she had to do was edge out Mario, her arch-rival of sorts during the elementary school years.

Mandy was a ruthless opponent. She volunteered to take the bunny home over the weekends. She brought in carrots and hay on a regular basis. She eagerly forfeited her lunch hour when the cage needed cleaning so Mr. Cousins wouldn’t have the chore of doing so. By the time Mario caught on and began asking to take Honey home over the weekends, he was about two months too late.

At the end of the school year, while names were being drawn from a hat to determine the winners of the frogs and the fish, Mandy was automatically declared the new owner of the baby bunny.

She spent the next several years with her constant companion. Honey learned to use the cage as her litter box, so she was granted free reign in Mandy’s bedroom. They watched TV together, and they sat side-by-side while Mandy played video games.

Sean built a pen-tagon in the yard for supervised daytime romps in the fresh air, and we marveled as the instincts kicked in and burrows were dug and filled with grass.

Honey died suddenly. We are not sure if she ate something which impaired her digestive system, or if she fell prey to uterine cancer as so many un-spayed females do in captivity. It was one of the most horrible things Mandy has ever had to go through. We raced to find an emergency vet still open on a Saturday night while Honey seizured and faded away. To this day I have a hard time thinking about it and it brings tears to my eyes, so I’m sure it does the same to Mandy.

*******
A few weeks later we got Muffin to try to dull the pain. She was an adorable baby, a lionhead rabbit with cute little tufts of fur around her face and her tail.

Mandy and Muffin didn’t develop the level closeness that she had shared with Hon Bun, because by this time Mandy was dating and no longer spending every moment of her life in her room. Although Muffin doesn’t let Mandy pick her up or even pet her much, she enjoys our company, and will come to hang out with us as we sit and chat together on Mandy’s bed. She’s a good little girl.

(full-grown Muffin)

Remember that I said “girl.” This becomes important.

*******
Around Christmastime this past year, we noticed some suspicious behavior. Mandy seemed to be up to something.

She had stopped at home to get her cell phone. Sean called me at work, because he noticed that she had rummaged around in her room and left in a hurry. He looked out the window to see her escaping with some sort of contraband under her coat.

“I’ll call her cell and see what’s going on,” I told him.

When I got no answer, he called me right back.

“I can hear her phone ringing in her room. She said she came home to get her phone, and then she didn’t even take it with her. I know she was hiding something under her jacket.”

By the time she came home later that evening, we both had those raised eyebrows and those questioning looks that most parents perfect when their darling children hit puberty.

“Okay, so do you guys wanna know why I’ve been acting weird today?”

“Ah, sure. That would be great.”

She unzipped her jacket and revealed a white baby lop-eared bunny. “Kurt got it for me for Christmas. I was afraid you guys might be mad. His name is Jack.”

You can see where this is going…

Jack and Muffin fought a bit at first as Muffin learned to share her territory with another rabbit and they worked out who would be the boss. But soon they were fast friends.

And more than friends.

We noticed that Jack was starting to chase Muffin around the bedroom. And although she ran, she didn’t run very fast. We could see that she was just taunting him, flirting with him, pausing and waiting for him to catch up…

We made Jack an appointment right away. But we were too late. By the time he had his required pre-checkup and his appointment for the snippity-snip was scheduled, I noticed something moving in the cage.

“Wait a minute… wait a minute… what was that?”

“What was what?”

“Something moved in Muffin’s cage.”

Mandy was alarmed. “Like a rat?”

“No way. It had a white ass.”

Yes, by the time we had found the two little babies, they were covered with fur, eyes opened, and they were running around the cage. They must have been very obedient little bunnies, because although we spent time with the rabbits every morning and night - feeding them, sitting with them, talking with them - we had never heard a peep from the cage.

Mandy named them Kyle and Sweetie.

Kyle is a skittish bunny, running away if you try to pet him or if he hears an odd sound. But he’s warming up to us.

Sweetie is just the opposite. She enjoys being pet, comes running to see us when we enter the room, and even enjoyed sleeping with Mandy up on her pillow when Mandy was still sleeping in her own room (I’ll get to that…)

What was most alarming was that Muffin was already weaning the babies, and Jack hadn’t even been snipped yet. Jack’s doctor agreed – Muffin was probably already pregnant with the next litter.

Luckily, the next litter was just one little baby, who we very creatively called Baby.

After Jack’s appointment, we figured we were set. Five bunnies. And Mandy wanted to keep them all.

(big daddy Jack)

But guess what? Jack must have hit Muffin up one more time before the surgery. One night at around midnight, Mandy found two naked baby bunnies back behind her bed.
And because Muffin kept climbing up on her bed to get to the babies, and because all the bunnies were becoming noisy in the night chewing on school papers and books, thumping little warnings to each other and running around, Mandy moved into the guest room.

She still wants to keep all the bunnies, but she wants them outside. So she begged her grandfather to come in for a visit from Ohio and build her a large, secure bunny enclosure in the back yard.

He’s due to visit in a few weeks. I’ll keep you posted…

Believing in Santa

(I know I'm a little late, but I'm still in the Christmas spirit...)

I grew up believing in Santa.

One Christmas Eve when I was very young, my brother and I heard him knock over an ashtray in the living room. We didn’t get out of bed though – we were too afraid. We knew he only came once we were asleep, and we didn’t want him to catch us awake.

So we just laid there frozen in our bunk beds until we finally dozed off again. But for years, that was proof that he was real.

****

Throughout elementary school, I had the hardest time falling asleep on Christmas Eve. I would just lie there, wide awake in my brand new footy pajamas (every year we received new pj’s so we’d look presentable in the Christmas morning photos). Every once in a while I would turn over and look out the window above my headboard.

No reindeer on the roof.

No sight of them in the sky.

I would lie there waiting for him for as long as I could, but I’d eventually doze off sometime after midnight.

In the morning when I ran downstairs to check under the tree…

“He came! He came!”

And I would wake everyone in the house.

One year it was my brother who woke me. It was about 3:30 in the morning and sure enough, the presents were overflowing from beneath our twinkling tree. Duane woke me up first, and then the two of us ran to wake Mommy and Daddy.

“He came!”

“He did?”

“Yeah! Can we open presents? Please??”

“You can each open one, and then we’re going back to bed until the morning.”

My mother chose two from the pile that looked identical. One had my brother’s name on it, and one had mine.

Inside we each found tape recorders and three-packs of blank cassettes.

My parents went back to bed, and Duane and I set out to master the buttons and record our voices onto the tapes.

“Well… it’s Christmas morning,” Duane announced in a voice that was scratchy from a winter cold. “Mom and Dad went back to bed, and me and Tam are playing with our new tape recorders that Santa brought us.”

“I wanna talk!” I whined from the background.

“Okay…”

My brother slid the recorder over to me, and I sang a song I learned from Bugs Bunny:

“I wiss I was in Dixie... Hooway! Hooway! I wiss I was in Dixie… Hooway!”

Lots of giggles followed, and then the loud click of my brother stopping the tape.

We stayed awake playing with our tape recorders until the sun came up. And when my parents finally got out of bed and made some coffee, we were allowed to see what else Santa brought…

****

When I was a little older, we used to call a phone number advertised on TV to hear a story read by Santa. I’ll never forget the year we called at around 9 o’clock on Christmas Eve. Santa didn’t answer – it was Mrs. Claus:

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “What are you still doing awake? Santa is on his way to New York right now!”

I think our eyes shot out of our heads and ricocheted around the room like superballs. “Santa’s on his way here right now! We gotta go to bed!”

****

Duane was in 5th grade when his friend John caught his parents putting the presents under their tree. And he told Duane, and Duane told me.

“There’s no such thing as Santa, y’know.”

“There’s not?”

“Nope.”

“Well I’m not telling Mom and Dad that I know.”

“Why not?”

“Cuz then I’ll only get half as many presents.”

You see, about half of ours were labeled “From: Mom and Dad” and the rest were labeled “From: Santa.” I figured if I let on that I knew, there went half my stuff.

I was no dummy.

****

Christmas isn’t quite the same once you don’t believe. It’s fun to get all the presents, of course, but it’s more fun when you believe that something magical happens while you’re sleeping.

I was fourteen when my little brother was born and the magic was rekindled in our house.

When he was eight years old, Mandy was born, and so the magic continued on.

It wasn’t easy with her though… she was an extremely inquisitive child. I had to have very creative and consistent answers to her questions, consistent handling of such things as wrapping paper and handwriting, and even some serious acting skills.

“Mom….. this present says Santa, but it’s wrapped in YOUR wrapping paper.”

My face looked shocked, then even more shocked, then a vision of pure amazement…

“He… touched… our… stuff??? Oh my gosh! I wonder what else he touched!!” I started looking around the room.

“You think he used our tape and scissors too?” I asked. “I wonder if we can fingerprint this stuff?!”

She gasped. “You think he could have done it without his gloves on?”

“I don’t know! This is so cool! Are there any others he wrapped with our paper???”

And so another hole in the amusing charade was filled in, and the magic lived on. Mall Santas, flying reindeer, how the dogs sleep through it all… I creatively explained every piece of the puzzle, or at least presented a sound hypothesis. And when I just didn’t know how to answer, I’d say, “You know, I’ve always wondered about that too. What do you think?”

In the fifth grade she figured it out after seeing a movie on TV. And with that, all the magic collapsed liked dominoes, one after the other – the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny – everything gone in one fell swoop.

She was even a little annoyed that I had lied to her.

Of course, the holiday isn’t really about presents or Santa, and my daughter knows that.

But every year Mandy says to me, “You always made Christmas so great, Mom. I miss when I used to believe.”

And I tell her someday, when she has a child of her own, she can revive the magic all over again.

****

"Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved." -Augusta E. Rundel

Wild Horses

It was the middle of the night, probably 2 in the morning, and Mandy was on her way to the bath house to use the restroom.

Our campsite seemed to be equidistant from the two closest bath houses, so one day I counted my steps to each one: 96 steps to the one on the left of us, 96 steps to the one on the right. But for some reason Mandy preferred the one on the left.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, the light from the full moon reflected so brilliantly off the white sand on Assateague Island that we never needed to carry flashlights. One could easily distinguish the narrow roadway, the other campsites, the bushes and the dunes no matter what time of night.

So Mandy was walking alone in the dark without a flashlight, heading for the glowing building 96 steps to the left of our campsite. The salty breeze made her blond hair billow as she walked.

She could hear the waves crashing on the other side of the dunes and the occasional sanderling flying overhead. We had never realized that these little sea birds hunt both day and night, racing toward the retreating waves to feast on tiny crustaceans and sea life left behind on the sand.

But otherwise, the night was still and very peaceful. All the campers were sleeping soundly, their bodies weary from another day in the sand, surf and sun, their campfires finally reduced to glowing red embers.

Mandy became aware of a gang heading toward her from up ahead on the roadway. They weren’t speaking, but the moonlight informed her that there were quite a few of them. Teenagers, she supposed.

She continued on in the direction of the bath house, the light from it silhouetting the silent parade as it approached and creating long shadows which now touched her feet.

Within moments she was completely surrounded. They looked her over. They nudged her, obviously curious to know who she was and why she was walking alone down the road that apparently belonged to them.

As Mandy’s eyes focused, she came to the delightful realization that she was completely encircled by a group of wild horses.

After a few more nudges and a snort or two, they were off. Their meeting was brief, but it was the sort of magical encounter that makes you smile and wonder if you’re dreaming.


****


One of my favorite memories from our first trip to Assateague five years ago was the time I woke up early to use the restroom and decided to steal a quick peak over the dunes. I’d wanted to see the beach completely uninhabited, but what I’d found was even better.

The weather had been quite hot and humid that week. And so before the campers had arisen from their tents to brew some instant coffee and shake the sand from the beach towels drying on their picnic table benches, the horses had decided to overtake the beach.

There was a herd of white horses with dark brown patches walking through the surf.

There was another mixed herd farther up the beach doing the same.

There were groups of two or three horses standing here and there, squinting in the hazy sunrise.

There was a mother standing guard as her foal rested on the sand.

And standing there with her eyes wide and her mouth agape was a fool who had gone up to the top of the dune in the early morning without her camera.

It’s hard to run in the sand. It’s even harder to run in the sand at 6am when you haven’t even sipped that cup of instant coffee yet. But there I was, running urgently yet sloppily with sandaled feet and no caffeine, back to my tent to retrieve my faithful companion of those days, my 35mm camera. I tried to rouse little Mandy, but she wouldn’t budge.

By the time I'd returned to the beach, some of the herds had moved much farther down the shoreline or back to the dunes. But I was able to capture the mother and her foal, as well as a few other groups of horses that had remained for a while longer.

This was the sort of scenario I had been hoping to duplicate on my next trip to Assateague. I was ever-vigilant, checking the view over the dunes at all times of day, and my camera was always on my shoulder.


*****

But it never happened that way on our recent trip. For some reason, the wild horses were scarce during the day.

I was able to track a few to the mosquito-infested marsh on the other side of the island and get some photos, but I didn’t see the herds like last time, and I didn’t see them on the beach.

They seemed to mainly come out at night like bands of hooligans dominating the campground. Campers carefully secured their food and hid their coolers, but the ruffians knew where to look.

In fact, a cooler with a tough latch is no match for a wild horse with his sights set on a midnight snack. We discovered this our very first night.

We awoke to the sound of whinnying, of pans crashing on our picnic table, and of incessant banging on the cooler. Even in my dazed state I knew they were focused on the cooler, the one with the latch that was on the ground next to my father’s truck. “They’re not getting into that thing,” I thought.

I thought wrong. They’d eaten all the tomatoes and all the carrots by the time my father’s girlfriend Jackie got up to investigate. Other, less desirable food was strewn around on the ground with holes ripped in the packaging by probing teeth. Henceforth, the coolers and all snacks were kept in the truck. We were much more prepared for their subsequent nighttime visits.

They were entertaining to watch though, exhibiting playful, almost frisky behavior at night. They chased each other up and down to dunes and whinnied and stole food. It looked like fun.

*****

Our time at the campground was over too soon, and we packed up and headed for Ocean City for some boardwalk time and one night in a hotel.

Of course, there was still the problem of my car's battery light. The alternator was history, and it was just a matter of time before my battery was too. Luckily, it lasted all the way to our hotel on 26th Street and died there in the parking lot.

There was an auto parts store in town and my father is handy, so it didn’t take long to get my little car working again (once we had the right tools, that is). So after some food, some shopping for school clothes, and a good night’s sleep, we were on our way… home sweet home, here we come…

But it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Being someone who drives an older-model car and accustomed to checking the gauges, I noticed that the car was running hot about an hour into the 5 ½ hour trip. Hmm, that was strange, especially since I had my oil changed and all fluids checked before setting off on this journey.

I pulled over and bought some coolant, refilled the reservoir, and set off again.

Half an hour later the gauge was almost up in the red. As it turned out, there was a leak. I found some empty jugs around the next gas station and filled them up with water – no sense wasting money on coolant that will end up on the roadway like a trail of breadcrumbs to my house. If only I could make it all the way home…

Well, I couldn’t. I made it most of the way, within an hour’s drive. Triple A got me the rest of the way there, but the whole ordeal took about 12 hours total. A flatbed towtruck lowered my car into the driveway at about 5am.

I had the old car repaired, and it will wait in the garage for Mandy’s 16th birthday. It will be fine for around town.

And as for me, I’ve got something new – brand new, with that new car smell and everything. I haven’t had a new car in 10 years, so I'm pretty excited!



I may even have to plan another road trip...

Camping at Assateague

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned road trip… just kicking back, seeing the sights, chatting, laughing, and eating. No deadlines, no responsibilities, no work. Just the excitement of the journey and the anticipation of reaching a destination.

Fresh-baked muffins from Hannaford, and coffee coolata and chai tea from Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.

McDonald’s fish sandwiches and French fries for lunch.

Skittles to snack on in between.

Wrappers and crumbs all over the car.

But there’s nothing like new technology to make the trip more enjoyable… Mapquest tells me how long I’ll be on each highway so I know when to start looking for the next junction. EZ Pass works from Maine to Virginia so I don’t have to mess with quarters or even slow down for tolls. And satellite radio saves me from the insanity of long stretches of thoroughfare through which no radio signal can be detected.

Still, it’s the company that makes a road trip enjoyable, and long talks with Mandy are a truly pleasurable treat. Especially now that she’s a teenager, and her time expenditure with family has decreased as time with friends increases (as it should). But it’s nice that she can still enjoy a weekend away with me and appreciate the place that I have circled on the map…

****

We have been there before. It was about 5 years ago that we first camped on Assateague Island.
The first three days of that earlier trip were spent running around Washington D.C. visiting all the usual attractions. Traffic leaving the city had delayed our departure quite a bit, and we had been lucky to arrive at the front gate of the state park just before closing time. The tent had to be erected by the beams of the car headlights. We could hear the ocean but not see it as I drove the extra long tent stakes into the sand. Sleeping bags had been unrolled, and two weary campers had quickly passed out in the fresh salty nighttime air of the undeveloped island.

The next morning we had been so excited to finally view our surroundings. Unzipping a tent flap, we had our first glimpse of the wild horses grazing right outside our window. It was the first of many encounters with the wild (yet semi-tame) inhabitants of that sandy tract of land off the coast of Maryland.

Between the amazing photo opportunities with the wild horses and the curious deer, the uncrowded beach and awesome boogie boarding, I’d always hoped to return.

So when my father and I began discussing where we would meet up for our summer excursion together, I mentioned Assateague. Although it isn’t anywhere near either one of us, he and his girlfriend living in Ohio and Mandy and me in New York, they were up for the trip.

****

Sometimes, no matter how much you plan, things can go wrong while you’re on vacation.

You envision relaxation, quality time, summer sun and summer fun, and you get them. But every now and then you also get some tests thrown in for good measure, just to see how badly you want that summer fun…

Like when I started to erect the tent, and I realized that there was a pole missing. You know, the one whose sections won’t come apart anymore, so it doesn’t fit into the tent bag? It was still at home, of course, leaning indignantly against the corner of the garage, arms folded, eyebrows raised – yes, I admit it, completely forgotten.

So I got into the car and drove up the road to the camp supply store to buy a new pole, and while I was driving the battery light came on. The battery light, of course, should not come on while I’m driving. (Dad would need to replace the alternator before I made the trip home).

And when I brought the replacement pole back to camp, I quickly discovered that there was just no way it would work in conjunction with the other poles.

In the meantime, the ocean wind was transforming the tent into a wild, unruly parachute. And as I tackled the disobedient mess to prevent it from escaping down the beach, I snapped one of the smaller fiberglass poles and finally admitted defeat.

So I bought a new tent from Wal-Mart, because I refused to entertain the thought of sleeping in the same tent with my father and his girlfriend. Besides the fact that both Mandy and I value our privacy and personal space, I just couldn’t imaging sleeping shoulder to shoulder with the man who snores a song only a warthog could appreciate.

We put up the tent by the light of the moon.

Yes, this was how my first night of vacation began.
Tent? Broken.
Car? Broken.
Oh and by the way, Mandy? Major cramps, so she was broken too. But at least we had Tylenol with Codeine.

And hey, the new tent was cool, and we were camping on the beach and the weather was glorious.

So we took long walks on the sand, tiptoeing past the scurrying “ghost crabs” and occasionally reaching down to collect some small treasure offered up by the waves.

We built sand castles and took naps.

We rode our bikes to the camp store for scoops of soft ice cream.

I loaded up on bugspray and ventured into the marsh on the other side of the island to photograph the horses grazing on the tall grass.

The nights were incredible. There was a thick blanket of stars overhead every evening; not a cloud in the sky. And since the full moon reflected so brightly off all the white sand, we never needed to carry flashlights.

We roasted hot dogs over the fire my father proudly built every night, and later we toasted marshmallows for dessert.

Nighttime walks on the beach were an entirely different experience, something magically eerie. The moon illuminated just enough to show the way, but the night still cloaked enough of our surroundings to make it feel mysterious and exhilarating. And with the view slightly veiled, our other senses came alive, soaking up the sound of the waves and of the birds hunting for crabs in the silvery darkness, the smell of the salty ocean mist, the feel of the cool sand massaging our feet as we walked.

We could see the lights from Ocean City twinkling in the distance, a reminder of just how far we were from the crowds of the boardwalk...

(Next post: more about the horses)

Camping

Throughout my childhood, going on a family vacation meant one thing: Camping.

My parents never had a whole lot of money, so there were no flights to tropical locales, no tours through bustling city streets, no visits to distant lands.

We owned a tent. We would pack up the car with sleeping bags and pillows, peanut butter and jelly, bug spray, flashlights, fishing poles, jiffy pop, a propane lantern and the camp stove, a Frisbee and a deck of cards. And, of course, the dogs. And we would set off for a campground in the Catskills to reconnect with earth, water, air and fire.

Camping trips took place every Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend. Often we’d go together with my Uncle Mike and Aunt Ronnie and their 6 children, which meant my brother and I would have cousins to play with. They had a pop up camper, which we thought was the epitome of luxury. When they upgraded to a bigger camper, my parents bought their little pop up, and thus we moved up in the world.

It seemed to always rain on those holiday weekends, so there would be 2 kids and 2 dogs and 6 cousins slopping around in the mud for 4 days and bringing it all into the tent and the camper. Everyone and everything would be dirty and wet and cold.

And we loved it.

We’d bring bikes to ride around the campground, and there were enough of us to furnish the feeling of being our own little gang. We’d play tag, or maybe play catch with a softball and our well-worn dusty mitts. My cousin Jenny and I would get lost for a while to explore a mountain creek or a rocky bluff, and occasionally the campground’s game room with our pockets full of quarters.

Of course there would be the usual teasing and fights and sibling rivalries among the kids, but at night we’d converge to toast marshmallows on long thin sticks over the campfire, eyes and smiles illuminated by the flickering orange flames.

It was exciting to be outside after dark, surrounded by the sounds of crickets and frogs, by campfire smoke, by the twinkling fireflies and a sky full of stars.

We would giggle and tell stories and make up new lyrics to the “Diarrhea song” as our bouncing flashlight beams headed up the dirt roads and paths, moving erratically toward the mosquito-filled bathhouses. After one last pee, a quick brush across our teeth and a splash of water over our faces, we were off to snuggle deep down in our sleeping bags and doze off to sleep.

Those were the vacations of my childhood.

********

I never had a whole lot of money while I was raising my daughter. I brought Mandy on her first camping trip when she was two years old.

We’d practiced in the middle of the living room under tents made from sheets and couch cushions, so she was elated to finally be camping “for real”. She sang to herself as she collected buckets full of pinecones and acorns from around the campsite. Doing things outside – eating, sleeping, even peeing – made them that much more fun. For my little nature-girl-in-training, camping was the perfect vacation. And we took many perfect vacations.

And even when we had the resources to take flights to tropical locales, tour through bustling city streets and visit distant lands, we still took camping trips too. There’s just something about camping, the reconnecting with earth, water, air and fire, that can’t be duplicated in a hotel room.

And so over Labor Day weekend, Mandy and I packed the car with sleeping bags and pillows, peanut butter and jelly, bug spray, flashlights, fishing poles, jiffy pop, a propane lantern and the camp stove, a Frisbee and a deck of cards.

And we went on vacation.

(to be continued...)

Through Thick and Thin

I just started walking. What else could I do? One foot in front of the other; that doesn’t take any thought. You just do it. You walk.

My feet were transporting me up Main Street.

I don’t recall paying at the counter as I left the building, or coming out into the light of a day that was going to be different than all those that preceded it. Things would be different from here on out. I think I was calm and polite to the woman who handled the transaction and handed me the receipt, but it was all a blur now.

Shock and confusion were like a warm liquid seeping through my body, from the area right behind my eyes, down my neck and my back, through my extremities and right to my fingertips and toes. I was alone and numb. It’s a good thing my feet knew what to do. They walked…

Main Street was humming with cars and people scurrying about. It was a sunny day, and I enjoyed, as always, contemplating the flocks of birds that ricocheted across the sky between the brick buildings of downtown. What made them change direction so suddenly? And how did they all move in unison like that, maintaining their tight formation through abrupt movements? Was there one bird leading the others, redirecting the energetic mass of fluttering wings this way and that? Or were they merely dancing across some hidden currents of air rising up through the bricks and concrete?

Ah, yes, this is good. Distraction will get me home. One foot in front of the other…

But then what will I do?

I know. I’ll call my mom.

My mom… hmm. I smiled in spite of myself. My mother is an opinionated, thick-headed Irish woman, and if she’s had a glass of wine she can get downright belligerent on you.

Oh, and she is never wrong. Not a chance. She will argue a point until the cows come home, even if halfway through the dispute she realizes that her argument is complete folly.

And she must have the last word! It’s enough to make you need some wine of your own.

But let me tell you something, my mother is truly awesome.

I will never forget the day I made that call to her.

I was just beginning my senior year of college, a time when I was enjoying every minute of my life.

I had befriended an entire cast of strange and entertaining characters at the bar where I was a cocktail waitress four nights per week, and it seemed a new misfit joined our odd little play every night.

Other weeknights plus Saturdays and Sundays, I worked for the local newspaper in a cluttered, disorganized office that pulsed with energy as we raced against deadlines, worked into the night, and stole snippets of sleep here and there on the threadbare green couch in the middle of the studio.

By day I was absorbed in my classes, traversing the grounds of the university from one lecture hall to another, occasionally hitting the campus gym for a spin on the stationary bike, sometimes stopping in the food court for a snack to enjoy on the grassy hill outside.

I enjoyed my friends. Since it was senior year we were all living in apartments off-campus around town, most of us within walking distance of each other. The house I rented with two friends on Cleveland Avenue had a front porch and a cute fenced yard in the back. I used to lie on my belly on the lawn reading Ann Rice novels while my guinea pig “Wheatie” munched grass in a tight line around my perimeter. When he was done he would climb into the sleeve of my t-shirt and take a nap.

My life was good. And it was all about to change.

It wasn’t an easy call to make, that call to my mother. I’m sure she could hear the shakiness in my voice, the hesitance in my words.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Um… ah… I’m pregnant.”

I was thankful that I had someone I could turn to for help, or even just advice, because being the only one that knew, even for the hour that it took me to walk home from the clinic downtown, made me feel so alone.

There was a reason she was the first person I called. My mother has common-sense, and she’s level-headed and calm. And I knew that she would be there for me, without missing a beat.

I wasn’t wrong. She spoke very calmly as she laid my options out on the table. They were the options I’d already been mulling over in my head all the way up Main Street, down Grand Boulevard and over to Cleveland, but they became more tangible once she uttered the words. Hearing them spoken aloud made them more manageable somehow.

She said if I didn’t want to go through with it, she would help me. If I chose to welcome a new member to our family, she would help me. Of course there was adoption as well. She said the hardest part is making a decision, and once I made up my mind about what I wanted to do, we would take it from there.

Hearing her voice on the other end of the line, the voice that had quietly guided me my entire life, I felt brave, and strong, and capable. She had given all those qualities to me.

The most important thing my mother told me that day was that everything would be okay.

And she was right. Six months later, I gave birth to my baby girl, the light of my life.

Thanks, Mom, for being there for me during the biggest decision of my life, and for all the years after. A single mom needs a guardian angel, and you are mine.

A mother is the truest friend we have. – Washington Irving

Hello?

I dialed again. Panic was starting to overtake my normally calm demeanor. It was 10:30 at night. Why hadn’t I heard from her yet?

Ringing… ringing… ringing… ringing… ringing…

“Hello?”

Damn it! I hung up the phone.

I sat. I stewed. I hit redial.

Ringing… ringing… ringing…

“Hello?”

My jaw clenched. My eyes narrowed. I tried to control my breathing.

Deep breaths, that’s it. You know everything is okay.

But where was she? How did I know she was okay? I’m not normally one to worry, but let’s face it - I was just hoping, trying to convince myself that she was alright. The truth was, I had no idea because I couldn’t speak to her.

I hit redial. I waited.

Her voice, converted into small packets of binary data, traveled from her cell phone to a nearby wireless antenna, switched from our wireless carrier to the landline phone system, sailed over the traditional phone network, into my house, into my ear…

“Hello?”

I hung up.

I think I’m gonna lose it.

I hit redial again. I waited.

“Hello?”

It was maddening. I probably called 30 times over the course of an hour.

I dialed again.

“Hello?”

Pause.

“Mandy?” I asked hesitantly.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Adam’s.”

“I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

When she got into the car, I asked how her day was. She told me about the mall, and who was there, and how they walked to Burger King and then to Adam’s house. I listened. I commented. I wasn’t going to slam her with a barrage of frustrations and scoldings and punishments the moment I saw her.

“By the way, where’s your cell phone?”

“In my bag.”

“I called about 30 times.”

“Sorry. It was downstairs. We were upstairs eating ice cream.”

“Listen, you know I need to be able to contact you. I need to know where you are.”

“I know.”

“And another thing…”

“Yeah?”

“You need to change your message.”

Laughter.

“Oh you think it’s funny, do you?”

More laughter.

“You have no idea how close that message had you to getting grounded.”

Roaring laughter now.

“I mean, the voicemail wasn’t even triggering consistently. Sometimes the message kicked in after 5 rings, sometimes after only three. And you always answer the phone the same way, so I kept thinking it was really you when I heard the Hello. And then when the Hello finally was real, I almost hung up on it because I thought it was the fake Hello.”

Choking, doubled-over laughter. “I wish I could record this conversation!”

“Have you noticed that every time I’ve called you recently, there’s a pause after you say Hello? I never know which freakin’ Hello I’m getting, you or your stupid message! I don’t know whether to speak or not. It’s making me insane.”

“But it’s so funny!”

“Change it. Every time I call you I feel like a damn fool.”

“Mom, admit it. It’s the best voicemail message ever.”

“Change it. I’m not kidding.”


Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years. ~Author Unknown

Special Memories

In celebration of her 25^th birthday today, my friend Silverneurotic is hosting a blog carnival. Her blog buddies were invited to share their most “vivid or special memories of the past 25 years.”

Hmm… 25 years ago I was 12 years old. A skinny tomboy of a kid with a love for Nancy Drew books, her various pets (cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, fish… you name it) and building forts in the backyard. I’ve been trying to record lots of my childhood memories here.

But what would qualify as the most special from the past 25 years?

Although I have lots of happy memories from the decade between 12 and 22, the best adventure of my life began 3 days before my 22^nd birthday, the day my daughter was born.

One of the many advantages of being a single mom is that your precious little offspring ends up being a lot like you.

If mine didn’t come into the world with an innate love of nature and sense of adventure, she developed both qualities soon thereafter.

I remember taking her to the local pool when she was three months old. I set up her little bouncy seat in the shade under a tree, and she wore her little pink sunglasses and beach hat, and she had a blast watching the leaves blowing above her head in the breeze. A woman approached to tell me how brave I was to take my baby out by myself. She said she was afraid to do much of anything with her kids when they were so young because she didn’t think she could handle everything by herself without her husband.

Geez, what would she have thought of…

All of our roadtrips to Maine...

and Massachusetts...

and Rhode Island...

when we didn’t even know where we were going to spend the night, and many times ended up sleeping in the car. We always brought our pillows just in case.

Or what about traveling to New Mexico, and hiking in the middle of nowhere, or driving our trusty rental car over 70 miles of dirt roads to explore the Anasazi ruins?


Or the white water rafting in NM and Colorado...


Or all the camping?? We camped along all 105 miles of Shenendoah National Park...


and so many other places in Colorado, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania...

Even now, we love to set off and drive, just the two of us, and explore some local trail or historic site we haven't seen yet...

But probably the greatest thing about the past 15 years is watching her grow from an adorable, chubby-cheeked and curious baby into a beautiful young woman.

I can only hope that the next 25 years (God willing...) will be just as awesome, filled with more special memories made with my daughter, and now with my husband too :)