Catching up

I've missed you. It's been more than a year.
You don't love me, don't call me, don't need me, don't pay me…
You've a heart of stone. You look terrible.

 I love this line that Faye Dunaway delivers as “Vicky” in the original Thomas Crown Affair, as she gets off the plane and greets the investigators, having been summoned to catch the oh-so-clever mastermind behind the bank robbery. The remake of the movie was not bad, but why mess with a classic? The original is right up there near the top of the list of my favorite all-time movies.

I think if my blog could talk it probably would be saying something similar.

I have been neglecting it lately. I admire people who can mange to write something interesting every day or nearly every day.

Except I don’t think I look all that terrible. Last week I actually went in to see my new beautician to have my hair trimmed before it got out of control after the last amazing haircut she gave me. I think I used to frustrate my old beautician (who retired) because I would wait sometimes a year between appointments, and in the meantime, I would hack at my bangs and the front part of my hair with scissors to keep it out of my eyes, while the rest of it kept on growing, and thus destroying her careful layering around my face.

I tend to write marvelous things when I wake up at 4 a.m. and lay there waiting a while before I disturb my husband’s sleep by starting work, but by the time I do fire up the computer, I have switched gears and am thinking about organizing my day and which manuscripts I am going to work on first.

I don't want to write about the grieving process all of the time, but it is unavoidable at the moment. 

 

January 13 is looming in our minds.

Friday the 13th.

Not all anniversaries are cause for celebration.

Last week we ate at one of the sub-sandwich shops that are springing up in our towns. Coming in right behind us was a young mother with her little boy – maybe 3 years old. He knew the routine. As she told them what she wanted on her sandwich, he went over to the high chairs and began trying to drag one over to the table where they would eat. She sat across from him. The little guy was loud and laughing and playing an eating game with her. We smiled and laughed at him, remembering our own son when he was that age. We were not able to take him into a restaurant until he was about 4 years old – he was just too loud and disruptive as a “toddler.”

There was a memorable trip with my parents when he was about 18 months. We moved from Los Angeles to Oregon and my mom and dad came along to help us with him. When we stopped to eat, one of us inevitably ended up gobbling down his or her food and taking him out to the car so the other diners in the restaurant could have their meal in peace. 

And then after we stopped laughing and talking about it, I sat there crying quietly and eating my Southwestern wrap – fortunately there was only one other person in the restaurant who could see me, I am not sure she noticed.

There was so much I wanted to say to that young woman.