Fall Leaves and Frog Stickers: My Pen Pal, Aunt Laurie

My sweet aunt Laurie is one of my favorite people, and she and I have been exchanging cards, letters, and other little "love notes" through the mail since I was a kid. The photo above is of our November correspondence from last year--she always makes collages and includes them with her letters, and I pass along pretty fall leaves that I know she'll appreciate. Her Halloween card, collage, and letter in response to my own arrived in Monday's mail, and although I just saw her in July for my brother's wedding, her words made me miss her even more than I already did. I have been missing my family a lot lately, as I had told her in my letter, and I wish I could be in at least three places at once. "I'd love to just appear at your door and offer some dinner and hugs," she wrote in Monday's letter. "'Sending hugs through the mail."

When my best friend died in 1995, Aunt Laurie was having a traumatic week of her own with one of her children, and I sent her a card a couple days after my friend's death to check in with her and to send love to my cousin. "Oh how I wish I could hold you and tell you everything will be okay," her letter back began. It is one of the things I remember verbatim from the haze of those first few weeks without my friend.

Knowing how I love holidays and seasonal meals, Aunt Laurie added an illustration to her Christmas letter's collage a few years ago of a woman studying a cookbook titled 10 Festive Meals You Can Make with Canned Peas. It still makes me laugh. :)

Aunt Laurie's a lover of all things Victorian, lacy, and pretty.

She writes poetry, loves to take nature walks and sew, and makes amazing Civil War reenactment costumes.

She is more than a little psychic and has amazingly vivid spiritual dreams. The pictures she takes often have orbs of light in them.  

She is soft-spoken--a bit Jackie Kennedy-ish--speaks slowly, and has a way of seemingly moving in slow motion, as well.  Her handwriting has the same almost-fragile quality. She has gentle brown "doe eyes" but can only be pushed so far before proving she's tougher than she appears.

She likes peanut butter and doesn't like chocolate. She sometimes drinks tea but adores coffee. She loves doughnuts but tries not to eat them since my uncle is always watching his weight and is too easily tempted. Her homemade bread is to die for--light and sweet loaves that come to loved ones covered in pretty dish towels.

She wraps presents beautifully. Her Christmas package is the biggest treat, since there are always linen snowflake doilies as package decorations, lovely fabric ribbons and rick rack with tree ornaments tied into the curled trims.

Her favorite color is green. When I was little, I told my mom we should start collecting something green for Aunt Laurie, and Mom asked what I thought we should collect for her. All I could think of that was green was frogs--poor Aunt Laurie!--so ever since, it has frogs and frog-related things for her. When her times are hard, I am sure to mention that "It's not easy being green," and "Have I toad you lately that I love you?" candy boxes have been known to appear in her mailbox on Valentine's Day.

She is the only person in my family who calls me "Valerie" instead of "Val."

She lives in a gorgeous old white farmhouse with her husband of 42 years and one of my cousins, she loves to garden, she gets a kick out of gnomes, and Lily of the Valley is her favorite flower.

The first gift I remember ever receiving from her was a lavender unicorn-covered diary I got for Christmas in the third grade. I still have it. For my birthday last May, she took me and my mom out for breakfast and presented me with a Rose afterward. While I was home in July, she threw me a mini bridal shower in the dining room with my mom and cousins present.

Aunt Laurie hates to be called "cute," always envisioning herself more like a sexy Ann-Margret, of whom she used to keep scrapbooks. (Aunt Laurie was thrilled when I performed in my high school's production of Bye Bye Birdie, and she and Mom reminisced all that spring about the songs and movies from their own high school years.) Aunt Laurie really is adorable, though, and even now that she is retired and has a granddaughter in high school, she still gets called "Honey" and "Sweetie" and "Sweetheart" by sales clerks and other strangers and has that air about her that makes people want to pinch her cheeks and cuddle her.

She lived across the street from my family for a few years while I was growing up, and I remember one Christmas, my mom, my cousins, and I were sitting in her living room while my mom read some silly magazine personality quiz to Aunt Laurie. "You want to go Christmas caroling with the neighbors," my mom read aloud, "but you know your singing voice isn't the greatest. Do you A.) go anyway or B.) stay home?" "Well, shoot, I'd go!" my aunt cried out in a surprisingly indignant tone, shocking my mom and making us all laugh at her unexpected response. "What do I care what they think? They don't have to like it!" It is probably twenty-five years since that conversation and I still can't hear mention of Christmas caroling without remembering Aunt Laurie's uncharacteristic outburst (and her younger sister's surprise at her boldness) and smiling.

When I was twenty years old, I mentioned during one visit that I had a small success to report. I had finally stopped biting my nails, was all, but before I could go on to explain that, Aunt Laurie quietly said, "Ah! That's good, Valerie. Small successes are good." :) She was proud of me for losing a lot of weight a few years ago but was happier to hear that I was happy and loving my life again after a number of years of not loving it very much at all. "Oh, Valerie, that's WONDERFUL!" I can hear her exclaim at every mention of something that I'm excited about.

Neither she nor I can easily stop laughing once we get started, and Aunt Laurie starts slapping her knee when she really gets going, which makes everything even funnier. In 2003, the subject of hair dyes came up while she, Mom, and I were hanging out looking at magazines over tea and coffee, and I mentioned that when Marilyn Monroe had been asked if she minded that people thought she was dumb because she was blonde, she had responded, "No, because I know I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not really blonde." Aunt Laurie loved that, being a brunette-turned-blonde herself, and laughed and laughed.

She adored her grandparents, has been with my uncle since high school, and is best friends with my mom, who rightfully calls her "Lovey."
 
Although there are phone calls and visits, as well, it is the letters that have kept us close over the years, each parcel of news and magazine clippings and recipes and dreams and quotes and fall leaves and frog stickers tying our ties a little tighter. My pen pal since childhood, Aunt Laurie can always be counted on to stay in touch, and that is no small thing to say about someone. Her jack-o-lantern-covered Halloween mail is smiling at me from a bookshelf this morning, and this year's November mail will soon be winging its way across the state to her, Kermit the Frog Macy's Thanksgiving Day Day Parade float pictures gracing the envelope. :)

Sweet Stuffed

I love, love, love this cat. ♥

Laughing with Mom and Dad

I returned yesterday from a weekend at my parents' house. Mom's health is a continuing concern, but she told me Friday night that she knew when her health troubles began that she could either freak out and fall apart or just hang in there and try to find the humor in it wherever she could. She chose the latter, and this visit, like most of ours, was again one of (much-needed) laughing and teasing between us all.

Mom told me that as the medical staff prepared her for her first MRI, they reminded her to "stop moving," as she would have to stay still during the exam, and my poor mom, suffering from severe tremors and muscle spasms, dryly noted, "If I could do that, I wouldn't be here." The MRI technician then asked her what kind of music she'd like to hear during the exam, and Mom said, "Oh, just anything relaxing." Moments later "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" began to blare all around her at full volume. We laughed so hard together over that Friday night, we were almost crying. We would start to settle down again, and then one of us would start singing the "Uh-weem-oh-weh! Uh-weem-oh-weh!" part and we'd break up again.

Making it even better, Mom said the next song on the MRI playlist was "Eye of the Tiger." What on earth were the MRI staff thinking?! Ohhh, we laughed so hard. I told her she should be grateful they didn't continue with the theme and blast "Welcome to the Jungle."

She said that while she has been stressed over the major medical bills that have been coming in, Dad has been pretty cool about it, just looking at it like, "We'll pay what we can every month, but these won't be paid off in our lifetime, so what can we do about it? Just focus on getting better," but that even his cool broke a couple weeks ago, when he opened yet another "THIS IS NOT A BILL!" notice. Exasperated, he told my mom he wanted to make a copy of one of his blank checks and mail it back to them with "THIS IS NOT A CHECK!" printed across it. :)

While assembling an apple crumb pie for Sunday's dinner, Mom and I reminisced about some of our kitchen mishaps over the years. She brought up the Easter visit that was Mike's first to her and Dad's house and how I'd made a big production out of making a big Edible Arrangements-style fruit bouquet for dessert but hadn't made it right, so the entire morning's work fell off the counter onto the floor. Mike and Mom had just watched in silence and continued to stare at the mess and then at me, waiting for my reaction (and momentarily too stunned to laugh) until Mike commented, "Your cooking show was just cancelled." :) This weekend when she brought it up while rolling out pie crust with trembling hands, I told her that her cooking show was called "Shake and Bake," and Dad groaned from the living room while she and I snickered.

Mom said her beloved aunt Ann had always loved the anecdote of Mom's horrific experience when my two brothers and I were all sick with pneumonia at the same time as kids. I was almost hospitalized over it, never having had that strong of an immune system, and my brothers were seriously sick with it, as well. One morning while she ran from room to room checking on each of us, frazzled and near tears, there was a knock at the door. Mom opened it to find a Jehovah's Witness smiling at her. "Have you ever heard of Armageddon?" he asked her. "Heard of it?" my poor mom cried out. "I have three kids here with pneumonia. I'm LIVING it!" I had never heard that story before and howled. 

Saturday night, Dad was working on a crossword puzzle in the living room and came into his and Mom's room where Mom and I were watching TV to ask for the four-letter name of the band that sang "Mr. Roboto." "You remember that one?" he asked and then quite unexpectedly started singing the Japanese part of the lyrics and doing the Robot. Dad! Dad can do the Robot?! Mom and I were (already giddy and) so distracted by his impromptu song and dance that we never answered his question, and it wasn't until I called home after getting back to the apartment yesterday that I remembered to say, "...Styx, Dad. With a 'y.'" :)

And I found Sunday's "For Better or Worse" comic in the paper especially funny and took it out to Mom and Dad on the deck after reading it. Even when Mom and I said goodbye to each other yesterday morning, we pulled apart with a cheerful "Dite, dite, Hodey!" that made us all start giggling again.   I doubt I'll be lucky enough to have both Thanksgiving and Christmas off from work again this year, but I'll get home at some point both next month and in December. In the meantime, we have memories of a happy weekend--and of course, a letter ready to go out in tomorrow's mail. "Dite, dite...." :)

All the Way from Scratch

Monday's "Frank and Ernest" comic hit the spot and made me cackle. In an email yesterday, one of my aunts described herself as not being able to get out of her own way lately, and I thought, "You too?! That's it exactly." I often feel like God is bemusedly watching me and thinking, You know, you have everything you need, if you could just figure that out and get it together. That's likely the way it is for all of us, but I am feeling it pretty acutely lately.

In one example, I have completely blown off running since May's half marathon but decided to get back to it last week and ran a 5K over the weekend. Run-walk-run-walk-jog for ten seconds and walk again-run-walk-walk-walk. . . . I saw Mike waiting for me around the halfway point and berated him for not having thought to bring his phone to take a picture, since I was actually RUNNING that part of the race talked with him for a minute, and his first words were, "Are you the last one?" Apparently, he couldn't see any runners behind me. Correction, now that I know the race results: Apparently, there was only one runner behind me--I came in next-to-last in a race of 700-some people. And that's what I get for gaining back the weight I'd lost and taking off six months from running. (Don't call it a comeback. . . !)  This is when I join God in shaking my head and saying, Why didn't you just keep up with it?! Why must you always make things so hard for yourself? And I don't know, but I hope I at least get credit for trying and always coming back for more. Sigh.

Last Day of September

Temps in low 50s. Blustery. Now raining. Stuffed curled up under afghan. . .now under chair entirely. Tiny yellow-veined crimson Maple leaf waiting to be pressed into a book. One newly-painted-red bookshelf almost dry enough to be ready for books. Banana bread-scented candle crackling. Spaghetti for supper. "Seinfeld" with Mr. Mike. A night at home.  ♥

Home Sweet Apartment

I look around our new apartment and see chairs I want to re-cover, furniture I plan to paint, curtains I need to make, and lists of projects that are waiting for my days off and paydays. Stuffed sees a place to relax and call home. Stuffed's outlook is worth remembering. He, the "other" Man of the House, and I are all quite happy here, and I'm so grateful. It is important to love your home, and it had been awhile since we'd loved our last place. This little apartment already feels like home to us, and that is a sweet, sweet thing. 

Yankees-Red Sox = Best! Fight! Ever!

Swistle recently asked her readers about recurring arguments they have with their loved ones that would seem stupid to people outside the relationship. Boy howdy! Can we all say "Yankees-Red Sox" in unison? Tonight's game is the last of the teams' series this week, and I am just grateful I missed even one game due to this week's work schedule. Mike is a Yankees fan. And that is all the necessary back-story for what became our first fight. One night a few months after Mike and I had started dating in 2007, Boston beat New York and Mike ranted so much post-game that I felt like I was suddenly living with a stranger--and a crazy raging stranger, at that. "Why can't you just be happy for them?" I asked. "They went how-many-years without doing well and they're such a good team now. Why can't you just be happy for them and their fans?!?" Mike goggled at me speechless as if he'd just watch me sprout a second head. Apparently, my question was The Dumbest Question Ever, and upon seeing his reaction to my own, we were off to the races!

Because this is one of "those" fights, it couldn't have ended easily or quickly. Oh, no. At least an hour later, we were still at it, not getting much further than my "Why can't you just be happy for them?" and his "Because I hate them." Mike got more and more red-faced as I elaborated, "I know they're not your favorite team--I get that. But after they've been the underdogs for so long, why can't you just think, 'Well, yeah, I'd be happier if the Yankees had won, but good for them! They played well, and this has to be sweet for their fans'? Why can't you just look at it like that?" Mike continued ranting and raving in disbelief, intermittently shouting winner comments like "You just don't get it!" and "I just can't talk about this with you!" until I really thoroughly disliked him and went to bed crying in frustration. And I hadn't even cared who won, if this is unclear. I was just stunned by his adamant hatred of a group of ball players, for goodness sakes, and with his complete inability to articulate it beyond, basically, "I just do." So I retreated to bed and lay there crying and thinking that we were going to break up over this and wondered which other neighborhood I could move to in this new-to-me city, and then I would cry harder imagining scenes of bumping into him around town and the awkward post-breakup conversations we would have. . . .Mike and I had been friends for nine years before we'd even started dating, mind you, so the idea that I thought we'd break up over a Red Sox victory is ludicrous, but so it goes.

He felt bad that I was crying, of course, and came to me, and I took that as an opportunity to try once more--!!--to "resolve" this between us. ("Why sleep on it when you can drag it out until you can't stand each other" was my motto in the early days of our relationship, apparently.) So I started again: "Even if you don't like them, can't you just enjoy watching them play? I don't like football, but I can watch a player run fast or make a good catch or throw the ball what looks like a mile and be impressed by it! Can't you just forget about who they are or who they're playing and just enjoy their talent and skill and power?" Mike looked like his head was about to explode by this point, and likely only because I was working as a breakfast cook at the time and had to get up just a few hours later, we finally dropped it and went to sleep, although probably not without making a few energetic neck-wringing gestures to the other's back.

Tonight, I just say "Oh boy" and otherwise ignore him when he yells at the TV during the game, although there are nights I randomly yell "Gooooooooooo, Red Sox!" just to liven things up around here. :)

Cats are connoisseurs of comfort. ~ James Herriot

♥

Soup Days

Soup is the simple winter meal from days at Papa and Grandma's house. It is the sign of a quiet and thoughtful day. Soup means no racing to the store and back for ingredients. Soup means time at home. Mom's potato soup on Fridays as a child meant it was Dad's night to work late. (Soup can "keep.") Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice means a school musical in the first grade. Stone Soup is later in elementary school and laughing with my friends on the library carpet. Campbell's chicken and stars soup means pneumonia in the fifth grade and blearily seeing Mom hovering over my sick-bed on the couch. Bubbling red/purple cabbage soup is the eighth grade and we are all gagging around the table as we tease Dad about his newest recipe. Mom forced me to eat vegetable soup in the days following my friend Sommer's death my senior year of high school. "You haven't eaten in days, Vally. You need something. At least drink some of the broth." Ramen-style chicken-mushroom soup is the taste of loneliness: It is my freshman year of college and not yet having friends to eat with in the cafeteria. After we begged her to eat something--"anything"--the day Papa died, Grandma requested plain chicken broth with crackers. "I bet you never thought," she dryly murmured to my younger brother as we sat beside her at her lunch table in the rest home that day, "that you would be invited over to Grandma's and not be offered anything to eat." When I restarted grad school in 2002, friends from my program gave me belly laughs and tough love and a recipe for tomato soup made from ketchup packets. Tomato soup today means I'm trying once more to learn to love it. Maybe if I add more basil, maybe if I add mozzarella.... To have a bowl of vegetable soup before me makes me happy. To have a pot of vegetable soup simmering on my stove makes me content. Homemade chicken noodle soup means I am 25 and sitting with my newly-ex-boyfriend in my first apartment, hoping that this bowl of broth and carrots and mushrooms will make him love me as-more-than-just-friends once again. Asian chicken soup with greens means I am in the city working as a cook and had time between orders today to jot down a recipe to try at home. Tortilla soup and egg drop soup mean I am in my 30s and dating Mike now. Lasagna soup was one of the bright spots in 2011. Dill pickle soup is my friend Tom and his goodness and kindness. Seinfeld's "No soup for you!" gets shouted in my home whenever we face a disappointment. Tonight's vegetable soup means that I have today off from work and thus will get to enjoy a simple supper of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with now-husband Mike. It means that life is good. It means that despite all the craziness and coldness out there in the world, there is still and always warmth in my home and love in my heart and everything is okay. 
 

Pink Rocking Chair

Stuffed is quickly claiming this chair, but it is supposed to be mine. Mike and I decided just to enjoy the new-to-us spaciousness in this apartment and thus to hold off on getting a couch until we have a house someday. (Remember our sweet red gingham couch? It broke too many times, so we have been without one for awhile now. At least I learned how to faux-reupholster one if I want to in the future.) In the meantime, we have "his and hers" arm chairs, a wing chair for Mike and the pink upholstered rocker for me--except that it's more like "his and his," since Stuffed is always curled up on one of them. His latest favorite spot is the pink rocker. When he's not asleep on it, he's asleep behind it.