“Where did you get that bracelet?”, some of my friends  have asked me lately as I’ve proudly worn this jingly-jangly beauty that fits so perfectly on my wrist.

It’s not new. I suppose I could recreate it if I tried very hard, but I certainly couldn’t have bought it as-is.

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My sister had a seizure yesterday. She is now out of the hospital, and having recently become a connoisseur of these local establishments I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Norwalk sucks monkey chimpanzee eggs when it comes to both quality of care and patient services. Having spent most of the past 24 hours there, I feel eminently qualified to give them a good old fashioned Bronx cheer.

More importantly: the seizure isn’t necessarily a sign that things are worse. In fact, she just had a scan early last week that showed no changes with the tumors.

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I’m trying awfully hard not to take the turkey vultures wintering in my yard as portents of doom. I suppose it’s not as bad as having the four horsemen show up in my driveway, but still. Vultures? Circling my house? It could be a little unnerving. Except, well, they’re turkey vultures.

It’s not the first time we’ve had unusual feathered critters nearby. A few years back, a pair of guinea hens broke out of the nearby nature center and lived in our neighbor’s yard, much to the complete annoyance of our dearly departed dalmatian. Oh how he yelled at those birds. And yes, they yelled back. Good times.

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I promise, there will be a real post worth reading soon.

That is, if you’re into pictures of turkey vultures.

Til then, take a listen to this gorgeous song. Silversun Pickups will soon release a new album, which I have no doubt will join their first album and EP on my list of favorites. I love their song Kissing Families, and this  cover by Sarah Luv of Devics (another band worth listening to) gave me serious chills.

zero 7 performs somersault on jimmy kimmel

the words aren’t mine, but i do love the sentiment.

and i sure do love the man they bring to mind.

You’re the prince to my ballerina
You feed other people’s parking meters
You encourage the eating of ice cream
You would somersault in sand with me

You talk to loners, you ask how’s your week
You give love to all and give love to me
You’re obsessed with hiding the sticks and stones
When I fear the unknown
You feel like home, you feel like home

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet, and you were sound
You saved me

You’re the warmth in my summer breeze
You’re the ivory to my ebony keys
You would share your last jelly bean
You would somersault in sand with me

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet and you were sound
You saved me

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet and you were sound
See I had shrunk yet still you wore me around
And ’round and ’round

and yes, that’s sia singing. from, you know, before she was SIA.

He smiled broadly as I led him into our driveway, up the brick steps, inside the gate.

Ten minutes earlier, the phone rang. I quelled my panic from the early morning call, seeing our neighbor’s number on the caller ID.

“Patty I am sorry to call so early but Henry is in our back yard.” I scrambled to get dressed, telling my husband to get up to help in case the ‘doodle made a break for it too. I had let the dogs out shortly before, knowing Henry would bark at the back door when he wanted to come back in.

I still don’t know how he got out. Every night when I pull in our driveway, I reflexively check the gates to make sure they are closed. Did I miss something? Did the wind blow open a gate? Did my dog grow thumbs overnight?

As I put on my shoes, I saw Henry wagging his tail while my husband talked to the neighbors. Staples are holding the incision on his shaved belly closed (yes, it’s cancer), and his ear is still taped on top of his skull as it heals. He saw me and started slowly walking towards me, tail wagging, grinning widely.

I swear, that dog laughed as he slowly made his way back into the house.

I think this was 1977, maybe 1978. Which would make it impossible for the child on the left to be my son, because he was born in 2000.

Besides the color of my hair, let’s dwell on the texture for a moment. I think the word that best describes it is STRAW. We went to Hawaii at the tail end of summer, following months of swim practice every weekday from 10 – 11:30 and 3:30 – 4:30 (on Saturdays we did the morning workout only). The hours between workouts were often spent exclusively in the pool, and sometimes my dad and I would go back to the club at night to cool down for a few minutes. These were the days before I knew to put loads of conditioner on my hair and then wear a cap. And yeah, this was also before my hair curled… like my mom’s.

The memorial service was beautiful yesterday. The four ginormous collages were a hit

And so was the eulogy. I made my mom proud, and I felt her standing right there with me at the lectern in the church.

As I said to my husband yesterday, if I could write and then deliver my mother’s eulogy in front of a church packed to Easter Sunday capacity, I can do anything.

Maybe this was taken in August, when I came home from the hospital, and developed in October. Maybe it’s from my baptism.

Regardless: holy guacamole. I was little.

It’s been a punishing and fun and awful day, going through all these pictures. So many memories. Wait ’til I whip out the pictures of me when I was 11 (and hello, I looked exactly like my oldest son, just replace my platinum blonde hair with his copper hair and we’re flippin’ twins) in Hawaii.

I scanned pictures, I cropped them, I learned the hard way that the kiosk at Rite-Aid will make any ole picture 4×6 whether you want it to be 1×3 or 42×87. Oops. I re-scanned pictures, I re-saved them as JPEGs rather than TIFFs, I may have lost my shit once or twice.

I did everything.

Except.

Write.

The.

Eulogy.

But – before I go. Check out this picture of my mom. And look at that little puppy trailing behind her. Bonus points to the 3 people who read this blog who know where it was taken.

I’m listening to The Joshua Tree, scanning photos of my mother to make two ginormous collages for Saturday’s service, and writing the eulogy in my head.

When her films arrive by FedEx later today, I’m taking my sister to an East Fucking Coast Doctor Who Knows His Ass From His Gamma Knife, It’s About Fucking Time for a consultation.

I’m planning tonight’s dinner for my family. I’m overjoyed my goodest good boy survived his emergency spleenectomy on Tuesday. I’m wondering if I’ll ever want to go back to work. I’m giving the other pets new and even goofier nicknames. I’m wondering if my new highlights are warm enough. I’m telling my boys it’s ok if they come to the service and it’s ok if they don’t, that I feel Nana with me every day, that Nana wants them to laugh and be happy and it’s ok to have fun. I’m picking what I’ll wear (in case you’re wondering, I’ll be the harlot in the front; we’ll see if the church combusts when I walk in). I’m wondering if I can get the doodle to the dog park today in this bitter cold. I’m steeling myself. I’m imagining what I’ll feel like speaking of my mother’s love in front of a church-full.

And I’m ok.

One of the top 10 happiest days of my life: the day I received my hard-earned MBA

Whirs and tubes and beeping machines she hated. IV drips.

This is not how I want to remember my mother. Let’s go back…

The ER. Call the priest. Get him here. It’s time for him to pray. It’s time for me to pray.

No. Go back.

My husband calls, telling me to come because she was having so much trouble breathing. I get to the house. Convincing her to go to the ER, I see fear in her eyes. Helping her to the car because she refused the ambulance. Mom, breathe. Slow it down mom. Breathe.

No. Go back.

A call the morning before, telling her I left dinner on the front porch while she was sleeping, and it’s chicken paprikash. Through the labored breathing, clear delight in her voice. “Oh, I love your chicken paprikash.”

It’s not even been a week since the end began. And everything is different now.

My mind is addled. I forget what I’m doing, unable to finish a thought or a task. I miss her so much.

I can’t write. I chop the ice in my driveway, looking for peace. I’ll swim this week and try to clear my mind. I don’t know when it will come. But it has to. Even now I write reluctantly. But I have to. I have to find the perfect words.

I’m eulogizing her on Saturday.

Go back.

A trip up the Merritt with precious cargo in the back seat. Lovingly, my mom and I take it out of the car and into the house. The silk is beautiful and so strong, miraculously close to intact. Yes, I can do it, the woman tells us. What color was it originally? It will be beautiful again. This time, a beautiful ivory.

The warm November sleeves become caps on my broad shoulders, a nod to the oppressive July heat. The beautiful button-back becomes a deep V. With a wider back and ribcage, I am seven inches taller than my mom.  Thanks to the acres of crinolines she wore so many years before, on my taller frame it’s long enough to graze the floorboards on the beach-side deck where I’ll marry the great love of my life.

I take out my wedding pictures the day after she died. We rejected this picture, my mother and I. We didn’t want it in the wedding album. It’s the only one of just the two of us together that day.

I’m wearing our dress. Our faces are together, tilted, a bit shiny from the oppressive heat. We’re smiling widely. I can’t remember why we didn’t like it.

It’s the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen.