Remembering Judy on her 50th Birthday

August 26, 2013.  It was a date we three musketeers -- my BFFs Julie and Judy and I -- used to joked about as we were headed off to colleges 31 years ago. It was a date we thought was EONS away. It was fun back then, to wonder what our lives would be like when the first of our crazy threesome turned 50.  Julie and I would follow, in September and October. We teased that she was the oldest. One thing's for sure...however we'd imagined it in our young minds, we still assumed we'd be together to celebrate turning a "half-century" old. Life, however, has a way of throwing monkey wrenchesi nto your best-laid plans... in this case it was a pink monkey wrench,

Today would have been my dear friend Judy's 50th birthday. Even as recently as seven years ago, as we waited for her to have her latest pet scan, I reminded Judy that in a few short years this nightmare would be over and that we'd all be dancing at her 50th birthday party. She really believed it that day.  Or perhaps she wanted ME to think she did.  Looking back I now know she was staying positive despite the fact that her breast cancer had returned and was now metastasizing at an alarming rate.

I couldn't let today go by without somehow acknowledging Judy's birthday and that of her twin sister, Janet, both of whom are now gone, both having succumbed to breast cancer, only 11 months apart. The only difference was that Judy fought her cancer for six years while Janet, who was diagnosed the same year she lost her twin sister, wasn't able to fight it as long.  I'll never know if Janet ever told her dying sister she also had the disease. 
While I'm sad to think my dear friend and I will never call each other on our milestone birthdays again, the image of Judy and her sister celebrating today together makes me smile.

As I reflected on Judy this past weekend, I was struck by the profound ways in which Judy's life touched mine. It wasn't just the love and laughter shared between girlfriends, but the life lessons she taught me. In hindsight I'd say that Judy affected the trajectory of my life. A few examples:

Stop whining about your curves. To a teen aged girl, being skinny was the most important thing.  At 5'9, Judy taught me that being tall and skinny was just as challenging as being short and curvy.  "At least you don't look like a teen aged BOY," she'd always say as I lay down on my bed using pliers and struggling to zip up my jeans.

Judy Saved my soul: This is one is a biggie.  As a cradle Catholic -- I'd attended both parochial and public school -- I'd become a lapsed catholic teen regarding my faith.  My mom had become increasingly disabled with her lifelong ailment and she never pushed me to attend mass, so I'd stopped going, telling myself none of my "cool" friends went to church anymore. None except Judy, who would NEVER miss mass.  If we went out on a Saturday evening, Judy dragged me along to 5:30 mass at St. Theo's. If not, she'd call me to tell me to get "my butt" to mass the next morning.  I did it good-naturedly, but even after Judy had married and started her own family, I stayed involved in my faith for the rest of my life.   Judy's faith served her well in the years of her trials. If she ever lost faith it was never around me.  I remember anointing her with holy water from Lourdes the year before she died.  She had on a scarf and looked so pale and frail, yet as I dabbed some on her forehead, a bright smile came over her face and she said "See, I brought you back to the church, you brought me holy water."

To this day, nearly five years after the New Years' Eve morning she died, the image of her lying in her bed at home, with the Christmas tree up, a beautiful snow scene outside and candles, rosaries, mass cards and loved ones all around remind me that death doesn't have to be dark and ugly. It can be beautiful when you have faith.

If it weren't for Judy I'd have missed my prom: After breaking up with our high school sweethearts right before the senior prom, Julie, Judy and I were in a panic over not going to THE biggest social event we'd looked forward to since...oh....the fifth grade. :) At a sleepover at my house, Judy and our friend Julie and I hatched a plan to find dates for each other.  We poured over the boys in our yearbooks and decided which ones would make suitable dates. I was looking for a subtle way to ask the boy Judy liked but she wasn't quite so subtle.  She basically cornered the poor young man I had "chosen" while I was still within earshot and told him I liked him and I was free to go to prom with him. End of story.   It could have backfired, but lucky for me the boy was a friend I'd known since my days at St. Mary's, so it worked. But this whole idea was JUDY'S.  Were it not for her, I'd have sat home eating ice cream out of the pint had she not come up with her scheme.  :)
  
One girl's trash....Remember to put your Girlfriends FIRST: Anyone who knows Judy and me from way back knows that I eventually became engaged to Judy's high school sweetheart.  That sounds pretty awful of me until you know that Judy was already dating her future husband when her ex and I, who'd long been buddies, fell in love in our late 20s. Still, I'd broken the code all BFFs share...NEVER date the ex.  Yes, she slapped me across the face at a party and her anger caused us to go almost nine months without speaking. Eventually, though, Judy gave in to my calls and letters and came to realize our bond went deeper than any bond with a boyfriend could go.  She forgave me and became my bosom buddy again.  When that engagement eventually ended, it was Judy who helped me cancel the hall and dress orders and let me cry on her shoulder, all the while reminding me of the many quirks he had that I would have hated to live with, long-term. Years later we'd share private giggles about this man. Even after I'd married my husband, she'd ask me in a  whispery voice, wasn't I glad I dodged a bullet? (For the record that man is still a very dear friend of mine.) :)

Judy appreciated my mom even when I didn't. As a young teen the least cool person in MY eyes was my own MOM. Judy, however, loved my mom and used to say how lucky I was to have a "hip, mod mom."  To be fair, Judy's mom was an older mom and she and her sister were the youngest kids in a large family so her mom couldn't be so "mod." What stands out for me is the first Friday after we buried my mother. I was home alone, deeply grieving and feeling isolated on a sunny spring afternoon.  At 5:30 someone tapped on my door.  It was Judy, pizza and margaritas in hand. That evening we sat in my family room and watched chick flicks as Judy and I reminisced about the many fun times we'd had with my "cool" mom. Judy gave me lost of laughs reminding me how much my mom, a former hairdresser with a flair for fashion and makeup, influenced her sense of style.  By then, Judy had a busy growing family, yet she took the time to comfort me.  It remains one of the sweetest memories I have of a very dark time in my life.

Years later, a group of my high school girlfriends and I were only too happy to return the favor, as we became her "Christmas decorators" for the next few years, opening countless boxes of nutcrackers and bulbs and decorating as we drank her husband's special margaritas.  Judy had enough decorations to rival Bronners!! This became a tradition we continued until she died and beyond.  After her death, Judy's husband gave us all the opportunity to take home some of Judy's many ornaments.  I now keep her glitter deer on my mantle. 

D-R-A-M-A was Judy's middle name: If anyone put the D in drama, it was my friend Judy.  no matter WHAT was happening, Judy had a distinct way of telling you about it in a way that made it sound like a tabloid shouting out details in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. True-to-form, even the way I learned about Judy's breast cancer diagnosis was not a tear-soaked declaration but a dramatic proclamation.  Here's how the call went, as I sat in my office at work:
PHONE RINGS:
ME: Hello?
JUDY: I have CANCER. Can you BELIEVE it? CANCER!!!!!
ME: What? Cancer? WHERE?
JUDY: In my BREAST!!!
ME: Impossible, Jude, you don't even HAVE breasts! (bad joke, I know) to which she shouted:
"I KNOW!! If ANYONE has plenty of boobies to spare it's YOU!"  Even on that awful day, she managed to make me laugh.

One thing she focused on for years even before her cancer was the fact that I was over 35 and STILL.NOT.MARRIED. I would cringe when I’d hear her voice on the other end of the phone asking, in her breathy dramatic way, what ARE we going to do to get you MARRRRRRIED????  My own Italian mom never fretted about me, yet there was Judy, reminding me I’m not getting any younger.  It used to infuriate me. I can’t remember  which publication caused chaos when it infamously stated that women over 40 were more likely to be hit by lightning than finding a husband but I will never forget the dramatic phone call by Judy one night at 11:15 to read it to me. "I laughed. She was dead serious. WOMAN WE GOTTA GET YOU MARRIED!" was her (LOUD ) battle cry.

To that end, the shout heard at the other end of the phone was equally LOUD the day I called to tell her I was finally TRULY engaged to my now-husband.  It was as if she didn't have to worry about me anymore.   I SO wanted her to be a bridesmaid but by then she was undergoing chemotherapy. She bravely attended my wedding, bringing along her then very young daughter to the church.  I can proudly claim I was Olivia's first wedding! Once in a while, I'll pop my wedding DVD in to catch Judy, her white-blond spiky hair just growing in, standing up with my girlfriends, doing a comedic bit they'd choreographed. I'll treasure that  video forever.

Judy led me to my fertility doctor: Of course now that I was married, Judy was on BABY WATCH, 24/7.  EVERY.SINGLE.MONTH. she called to see if I was yet pregnant.  When I lamented that nothing was working, she called me back five minutes after we ended our call and told me to "call this number NOW."  It was her endocrinologist, Dr. Maria Hayes, who had helped Judy to have her second child, Olivia.   After exhausting every effort short of In Vitro, Dr. Hayes told us to take a month off and then she'd do Ovarian surgery.  Imagine the great joy when she had to halt the surgery seven weeks later because I was pregnant! From then on, Judy always referred to our impending blessing as "Baby Judy."

Judy saved my daughter from certain starvation: As a new mom, I was going by a rather strict regimented book that suggested you feed your baby EVERY FOUR HOURS and not a moment sooner.  The book's premise was that in this way, YOU are in control of your child and not vise-verse.  There was only one problem with this method.  Babies will still cry.  Judy came over one evening after hearing my exhausted voice on the phone trying to talk over a wailing child and told me to feed my daughter NOW.  I looked at my clock and quickly pointed out we still had 18 minutes before her next feeding. Judy was having NONE of it.  SHE announced I was STARVING my child and she ordered me to get a bottle immediately.  Turns out she was right. The minute she picked up my daughter, then just 12 weeks old  and popped the bottle into her mouth, Marlena stopped crying and became content!  I threw away that book and decided Judy was right….you go by the BABY, not by some book.  She also had a conniption that Marlena was still sleeping in her bassinet.  I said I preferred keeping her in there because the baby was too small for that huge crib.  She was born six weeks early, after all.  Not one to back down, Judy stuck my daughter in that crib and my child started sleeping through the night that very night.

So you see, Judy was a valued presence in my life. I'll always be grateful for her friendship and all I learned from her along the way. Tonight, I will raise a glass to my friend, and maybe put on some Debbie Harry or REO Speedwagon, hearkening back to days spent tooling around in our little cars, looking forward to all the wonders of life that stretched out in front of us in our glory days. 

Happy Birthday, Judy and Janet.  I know 50 would have looked damned good on you both. One thing's for sure...you both taught me to CELEBRATE my 50th, rather than mourn my youth. After all, not everyone makes it to this milestone birthday. Plus, I've got added incentive .... since you two never had the chance to celebrate, I've gotta do it for all of us! I hope they have lots of your favorite strawberry margaritas in Heaven, and plenty of REO blasting on the boom box. :)

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A Different Generation, A Different Culture, The Same Worries for Parents

To my parents, the summer of 1968 had been a long, tumultuous one. In retrospect, I marvel at how many seismic events I'd breezed through that year. While I learned to ride a bike, chased the ice cream man and hung Bobby Sherman and Brady Bunch posters on my wall, I had no idea about the world-changing disturbances cropping up around me, even as events played out out on the Nightly News.  How was I to know anything about racial division, war protesters or civil disobedience?  I was not yet five years old.

Yet, by summer's end, America was still reeling by the death of two giants in the civil rights' movement, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. The night of Kennedy's assassination, I played Barbies on the living room floor as my mom ironed pillowcases while watching the Senator's victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel. Suddenly mom gasped and dropped her iron to the floor, shouting "Oh, God not again!" as the image of a slain Kennedy lying on a cement floor burned into my head.  Normally one might not remember that far back once he or she is my age but such a traumatic event is not easily forgotten.




Add to that a summer filled with psychedelic music, images of bloody combat in Vietnam and long-haired war protesters burning flags. I can only imagine what my parents thought about the world around them as they tucked my little brother and me into our cozy little beds.

Most adults barely remember their very early first days of school but I do.  In fact, I specifically remember the night before. I've been tested twice for a photographic memory. I have images in my head from so far back I swear they must be in my hospital crib. But that's another blog. :)

The last night before my first day of Kindergarten, my little dress was laid out as I said my prayers and Mom tucked me in. With a sad smile, Mom brushed hair from my eyes.  I asked why she was sad. Was she going to miss me?  Mom's answer was  something most parents today would shudder to hear.  Mom revealed she thought our world was "falling apart" and she wondered aloud what life might be like by the time my brother and I were grown-ups. Mind you, this was a pretty heavy sentiment to unload on a mere kid but back then, kids were not nearly as shielded from real life events as they are today.  I wasn't traumatized by her statement although I admit I was scared.  After all, when I'm afraid of anything I look to my parents for protection.  What happens when the grown-ups are afraid?

Flash forward more than four decades later.  I found myself in that same spot Monday night as I kissed my eight-year-old daughter goodnight.  She knew there had been an explosion at the Boston Marathon but we didn't tell her someone actually planted bombs, we just held hands during grace as we always had and prayed for the victims during dinner.
 
Children seem to have an innate sense of when to ask specific questions. I pondered how to answer my daughter if she asked HOW the explosion happened. Sometimes she'll ask a profound question at a time when I'm trying to figure something out and brilliantly, her question leads me to my answer. I believe this is God speaking to me. Last night, she did not ask anything profound.  She just asked me why I told daddy I was worried about her future. Apparently, she hadn't gone directly upstairs to brush her teeth...

I explained that sadly, the world is a dangerous place.  Sometimes people are sick and do bad things to harm others. As I sat on her little bed, I told her that when I make her check in with me from the yard or I get mad when she plays near the street or doesn't answer me when I call her, it's only because I want to protect her.

"I feel sad that our world is crazy and that I can't always be around to protect you from the things that happen," I told her.

With all the faith and confidence of a toothless eight-year-old, she sat up from her bed, grinning and said,

"But mommy, that's why God gave me a Guardian Angel! You have one too, ya know. So you can just STOP WORRYING now!" :)

So there it was, a simple answer to an age-old question posed by parents from generation to generation, continent-to-continent.  I'm now certain that, during that wild summer of 1968, my parents could not have even imagined the world we children would go on to inherit. But guess what? We're still here, now parents in our own rights. We're now the protectors, not the protectees.  We are the comfort during storms, we provide the shoulders our children cry on in times of disappointment. 

Is this world ideal? Definitely not.  I wish it were, as do we all but here's the thing. We can choose to dwell on the bad... and perpetuate it... or we can pick up the pieces yet again, crisis after crisis, attack after attack and move on,  ever mindful of one more notch of experience in our nation's collective belt. I choose to put it in the back of my mind and continue to be the safe haven for my child. 

Meanwhile, the world will keep spinning.  Horrific things will continue to happen.  Parents will shield their babies and despair over their children's futures. Then suddenly, just as we're about to lose all hope, these children....these beautiful, untainted, unjaded little creatures, will always restore our faith in Humankind.  And the beat will go on.  Keep the faith my fellow Americans.  God put the children on this earth to remind us that He will always be there to deliver us in the nick of time.

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Sandy Hook Tragedy Forced Me to Slow My Frantic Pace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a difference a week makes.  Only seven short days ago, I, like most mommies in the USA, raced against the proverbial north pole clock, trying desperately to get it all done. My mind was reeling with visions of EVERYTHING dancing in my head. The words shopping,baking, wrapping, packing looped through my head.

 

I peeked at next week's calendar with apprehension, realizing my sprint to the finish line included a dance recital and a Christmas pageant, knowing that on Friday, Dec. 21, the date of the Mayan-predicted Apocalypse, no less...we needed to be packed, wrapped & shoved into a van headed north. My stress levels are always UP but I remember feeling especially dismal on this particular day.  Why are we going up so early? Why can't we have Christmas here at home and THEN head north, this will buy me extra time and let me relax...HOW.WILL.I. BE. READY?  I berated myself for not being a supermom. I'm always amazed at moms who work full time and still seem to be cheery despite the stresses, while I feel anything BUT...

 

That night, I found myself staring at our lovely Christmas tree and longing for the innocence of a child this time of year. As I fretted about how this was all going to get done before we travel, Marlena put her little hand on my arm and reassured me that SANTA will get  whatever I can't finish by magic. "He always does, mommy, because he's SANTA!" (sigh)

 

I smiled and reminded myself that I am the future prism of my daughter's Christmases past....one day, she will hearken back to HER childhood and recall a crazed mom pulling all-nighters, focused only on getting it all done, minus the joy of Christmas carols and chestnuts roasting on an open fire.  This thought stopped me in my tracks.  Tomorrow, I told myself, I will be the picture of Christmas cheer! I forced myself to bed early and woke up with a renewed sense of joy.  I have 11 days more to show my daughter her mommy is Christmas cheer incarnate!

 

After school drop-off, I raced home, put on Christmas music and went straight to work.  I was amazed how much I knocked off by 10:30 a.m.! Hey, maybe the cheerier we are, the more productive we are, I mused.  Suddenly, I turned on my iPhone and all my news alerts went off at once.  What now, I asked myself, another "fiscal cliff" alert?  I glanced at the headline and read the words "School in Connecticut..." scrolling. I'm shamed to say I put my phone down and went about my business. I honestly thought, oh great, another ACLU fight over a nativity scene on a school ground... :/

 

A few moments later, another updated headline alerted me with a "plink".  I walked over to see "...At least 26 now confirmed dead at Connecticut Elementary School..." OH NO!  What happened? A school accident? Oh no, surely no children were killed?

 

I quickly clicked on it and as I read the first few sentences describing the horror of Sandy Hook I sunk to my knees on the kitchen floor. NOOOO! I knew no one there but this time it felt personal. THERE WERE CHILDREN INVOLVED! My worst fears were confirmed as I read how the tiniest victims were the same age as my daughter....My heart sunk as I imagined the sheer terror in the hearts of Sandy Hook parents when they got word of this horrific event. 

 

Talk about a kick in the ass!  I realized that for 26 families, which only counts those directly killed, not to mention those injured physically and psychologically injured, Christmas was gone.  Those 26 families also had stressed out parents also trying to fit it all in yet now, in the blink of an eye, there would be no more rushing around, no more stress. Only IMMENSE grief. I cried along with the rest of our nation. 

 

That night, as all parents did, I hugged my daughter extra tight and promised her I was NOT going to sweat the stuff that matters little in life.  I felt ashamed for the second time that day, asking myself why it takes such a tragedy to remind us that nothing else really matters but the well-being of our families?

 

There will be much written about this tragic day. There will be a long road ahead for the families directly impacted by this nightmare and sadly, for the parents of the slain innocents and families of faculty and staff members, there will be no closure. EVER. Nothing good can come out of such an epic tragedy.

 

Many TRY to find some "take-away" from any such  event to be sure it did not happen in vain.  For me, that take-away is this:  SLOW DOWN.  ENJOY THE JOURNEY. We hear it all the time but do we really live it?

 

As we close in on Christmas 2012, let us honor those we lost in the senseless tragedy by soaking it all in, look at your child's face before the big day.  Burn it in your heart and draw from it every time you feel challenged or disillusioned.  Children have a way of making us see things the way GOD wants us to see them.

Mark 10:14-15--“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

See Christmas through the eyes of your child or of any given child. Not with gloom and dread or with dollar signs in your eyes but with the same anticipation and magical wonder of a child.  If we all do this one little thing, we can honor those children (and their brave teachers) whose lights were snuffed out all too soon.  

 

Despite the sadness we all feel this season, I wish you and yours a blessed Christmas and I send prayers for a renewed hope in coming year. Perhaps the best way we can keep the memories of  these children is to follow the immortal words Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol:

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

So it's not a Rockwell Thanksgiving...but I still wish I could sit at the kids' table....

 

 

Today, I can almost smell the enticing aroma of my Gramma Lena's Italian kitchen, circa 1970.  For me,Thanksgivings gone by include memories of dinners that resembled the iconic Norman Rockwell picture above...that is, if you add LOUD voices, screams at a TV set during Lions football games and Italian bickering between my grandparents. For my brother and me, Thanksgiving was a blur of going from one relatives' house to the next, satisfying BOTH sides of the Fritz and Battistelli families.

 

First stop was always Gramma Lena's, where we ate earlier and we cousins played simply, by jumping off Gramma & Grampa's porch into their bushes. OK truth be told, the BOYS jumped, while I, being the only granddaughter, loved being in Gramma's kitchen as she, my mom & aunts carried what seemed like endless plates of food to the dining room table. 

 

I was the "lucky" kid who got to sit at the "grown-up " table; for a few years I can even remember the phone books placed underneath my bottom to raise me up. Every 10 minutes, as I sat with the grown-ups, an aunt or uncle would get up from the dinner table to check in on the boys.  Eager to see what sort of hi jinx was taking place in Gramma's kitchen, I'd often glance toward the kitchen to see what "those crazy kids" were up to.  Though I'd NEVER admit it to my male cousins, I silently wished I was in there having what sounded like tons of fun. Food fights. Laughter. Moments of complete silence followed by obnoxious yet funny sounds and uproars of laughter. There was probably even a bit of mockery of me as my cousins made fun of their older "princess" cousin seated with the adults.  Nonetheless, I got to sit in the dining room as the adults raised their glasses of wine and talked about current events, reports of other family members' lives and laughed at jokes that made absolutely no sense to me while my cousins made jokes that I TOTALLY would have gotten!

 

Meanwhile, grown up me....even at age eight, I sat with my cloth napkin neatly folded on my lap and followed my mom for cues as to which fork to use with which entree. I held up my pinkie as I drank my Ginger Ale (it's a Detroit thing) and I listened to the kids playing in the kitchen, sometimes even rolling my eyes like the adults did, despite my desire to be with them.  Even as the "boys" grew into young men, I still sat at the grown-up table and they opted for the kitchen. By then, it was more of a male family tradition.

 

Today, whenever we all get together for holidays, they joke around and sometimes when we're all together I almost feel like I'm outside of an inside joke, but I love that they have that sense of constancy to fall back upon no matter which direction life has taken them.

 

When we moved here to Chattanooga in 2010, I took EVERY excuse to run home to Detroit. Our first Thanksgiving here, living in a little apartment until we could move into our current house, most of my cooking gear was still in storage so we ate at a high-end restaurant overlooking the Tennessee River.  I cried all the way home, fearing our tight family ties were forever severed.

 

Today, I am spending my second Thanksgiving, ever, away from my family. But wait...I DO have a family. It's my OWN family. We live HERE, in Chattanooga, now. Yes, I will miss being with Dad and my brother's family. However, something has happened in the last two years. My daughter is now a second-grader.  She has started to build her own little roots here.  She has friends here now and so do my husband and I.

 

Do I get misty-eyed when I think that my daughter will someday never have the same KIND of "Rockwell" memories of her childhood I did, of annually coming together to give thanks under the same roof as her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents? Sure. Knowing many other children are in this same position, with grandparents living miles away, comforts me. 

 

Maybe Rockwell, himself, knew this when he made his famous "Freedom from Want" portrait, which ironically first graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post March 6, 1943.  Maybe he painted it for posterity, capturing it as a moment in time we shall never again know....maybe he knew as life rolled along, families would spread out across the country....and eventually, even the globe.

Perhaps he hoped we might come together each year to replicate it. Either way, we can all still make our own Rockwell moments to this very day.  It's easy. In homes across the country, travel-weary family members are seated on couches and at tables everywhere. There are likely still kids' tables...the traditions live on.

Even if we are hundreds of miles from our family today, our hearts and prayers are still with them as distinctly as if we were seated besides them. Thanks to technology, we can talk, text, skype and enjoy social networking sites that make us feel as if we are there in real time. You see, we are STILL there.  We can all grumble about how much technology has lessened our ability to communicate but for those of us living hours away from loved ones, it can be a beautiful thing. 

 

To you and yours, from me and mine, I wish you all a bountiful Thanksgiving during which you create magical memories, no matter which table at which you are seated. ;) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 











How Helen Gurley Brown and Cosmopolitan Magazine Shaped My Life



1982, during my most formative years

 It is with great irony and sadness that I write about the passing of the legendary publisher and icon Helen Gurley Brown, who passed away yesterday at the age of 90.  Only two days ago, as my husband and I were checking out of the grocery store, I spotted the magazine rack and as I always do, I began flipping through the various covers shouting at me to bring them home. My husband gave me his usual look, indicating I still had countless magazines I'd not yet found time to read....still, I flipped through everything from House Beautiful and Redbook to People, debating on which one would most speak to me this week.  This has been happening since I was knee-high.  While I love reading everything from non-fiction to literary classics and yes, even the trashy Harlequins, my one weakness has always been glossy magazines, with the strikingly beautiful models on the cover and headlines, screaming how they will improve every aspect of my life from my sense of fashion, career to fitness and most importantly, of course, my love life.
I blame it on my mother and the copies of Photoplay and Look magazines she left lying around the house.  Even at my daughter's tender age of seven, I'd grab them and peruse every page, filling my monthly need of Hollywood gossip.  I learned to make my father's favorite fried chicken from a recipe right out of Mom's Good Housekeeping magazine by age 10.  Once a month, Mom would let me cook an Sunday entire meal by scratch, copied from one of those magazines.  By age 13, I was making amazing meals for my family while telling you the latest fall fashion trends, the newest movies coming out and which Hollywood couples made up or split up.


Cosmo January 2012

But I digress. Back to the other day.  Just as the cashier asked if there would be anything else, I shook my head, then spotted the ever-present Cosmopolitan on the stand, with a beautiful model on the cover as usual and the alluring price of $3.99 in a bright red banner across the top. 

"That's a great price for Cosmo," I mused to myself.

Did I buy it? Of course not, because I reminded myself that my love affair with Cosmo had by now been long over for more than a decade. It was about 12 years ago I first uttered, with great lamentation, that I'd "outgrown" Cosmopolitan Magazine, the glossy companion I'd never missed an issue of since I was 18. OK, if you count the issues I'd snuck past my mother as a young teenager, I guess you can say more like age 15....

I imagine back in those days, Cosmopolitan Magazine, or what I later called "Cosmo," was to teen- aged girls what Playboy was to our male counterparts.  After all, It was Cosmo that first boldly splashed a young, naked Burt Reynolds across its centerfold in 1972.  I was all of nine years old and I remember my mother, my aunts and my mom's girlfriends' quiet giggles over it, especially after one aunt dared to tape it to her wall.



1957

One afternoon, at the age of 15, one of my BFFs from high school brought over a pile of magazines for us to read as we slathered our young bodies in baby oil to "lay out" and tan <insert audible gasp here.>  As my friends read Tiger Beat, I first read Cosmopolitan in my own right.  For the first time, my "mother's" magazine had turned to "my" new favorite read, as many of the articles (OK MOST of the articles) featured the latest hair and make-up tips and ways to tantalize and attract men, all of which appealed to my by-then boy-crazy, fashion-obsessed young mind.

Mom didn't, at first, have a problem with a few issues she'd let me pick up at the store, until the day she almost fell over in the kitchen when I waltzed in and asked her what the word "Orgasm" meant.  I was not yet 16!  She hurriedly grabbed the magazine from my hands, told me Cosmo had turned to "smut" and said I was never to bring that trash into her home, again.  (Hence the smuggled articles from then until I turned 18...)

Once I was a college girl, Cosmo was no longer smuggled into the house in a brown paper bag even if my mother still shuddered over the headlines which became ever bolder through the next several years. I'd even read HGB's daring books from the 1960s, Sex and the Single Girl, and Having It All in the 1980s, which reinforced my notion to grab life by the horns. NOW. By the time I was ready to graduate college with a degree in journalism I announced I had sent my resume to none other than Helen Gurley Brown, herself.  My mother was not surprised. 
"You know you'd have to move to New York, don't you," she asked.

Without such things like the Internet or even e-mails back then, relocating to New York was a writer's only hope to work at such a prestigious magazine like Cosmo.  That, to me, was a problem, since by then, my mother's lifelong joint disease had morphed into an affliction that would keep her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.  Mom and I had always been extraordinarily close and there was no way I was going to move away from her, especially now that she couldn't come and go as she once could.   So....I went to work in TV news, followed by stints at local newspapers and the like, maintaining both my love of writing and my family ties.

Cosmo, however, remained in my life and became tantamount to the bible to me, a young career woman of the 1980s who was busy trying to break glass ceilings, dating multiple men and not yet ready to settle down and marry.  Every year, my BFF Julie, who has as many bumps and bruises from her past love life as do I, would call me in January to be sure I'd picked up Cosmo's annual "Bedside Astrologer," which we'd pour through like schoolgirls well into our 30s.



1927

Looking back  think about the many affirmations I received from Cosmo during those years.
Aunt at family wedding: "Dear when will you settle down and marry?  You've been out of college for five years, your mother wants grandchildren!"
Me: "You know, Cosmo magazine says women do not need to marry before 40 and they can STILL have children."

I took to citing facts from that wonderful magazine to ward off many an inquiring mind through the next several years.
I was once involved in a long-term relationship I finally ended, in part, thanks to Cosmo's article and tha magazines monthly "quizzes" urging women to be sure we weren't "settling."  While all my closest friends were getting married and I would feel that gnawing sense deep down inside that maybe I'd never have children, Cosmo ran an article about the growing trend of women postponing motherhood for their careers.  That soothed me through many a stint as the unmarried bridesmaid.

Subsequently, I was engaged twice, before I met and married my husband, at age 39.  When I finally did so, I felt like maybe I'd somehow mirrored Helen Gurley Brown, who married her husband in her late 30s. 

Just as Cosmo predicted, I did, indeed, have a baby after 40 and the universe did not tilt. By then, I was more than READY to be a mom unlike so many of my close friends who were frazzled young moms in the years that I earned my own money, bought my own cars and traveled in and out of the country on a whim.  Thanks to Cosmopolitan Magazine, I've lived a vivacious,fun-loving life without the pressure of having to do "certain things" by a "certain age."  I pursued my educational and career goals and to boot, I finally did what I knew I'd ultimately do on MY terms.... marry and become <another audible gasp> a housewife.  Only this time, I'd say I'm anything BUT a "desperate housewife" thanks to Helen Gurley Brown's non-conventional wisdom.

I chuckle when I stop to think how I'm more "Family circle" than "Cosmo" these days....but somehow I think the now late, great HGB would approve. In fact, as I approach my <gasp> 49th birthday this fall I think I will be snatching up her final book, "The Late Show: A Semi-wild But Practical Plan for Women Over 50," so I can go boldly into the next phase of my life. Somehow I feel she'll still be with me for several years to come and I've a feeling the "wild child" within will not be tamed by my "Fab 50s"  Rest in Peace, HGB and a special thanks from your "Cosmo Girls," everywhere.









Summertime? There's an App For That!

Here in the south, even though it's only June 26, children have been out of school for a month already.  That's one of the hardest things a Yankee like me has had to get used to down here....school starting in August and ending in May.  My mind is still automatically programmed to the September-through-June mode. I moved down here two years ago next week and STILL I can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that by Fourth of July summertime is halfway over. 

Which leads me to the point of today's topic.  I've witnessed a phenomenon this summer that both saddens me and stings me with shame and blame: I call it "Virtual Playtime." 

Thanks to the folks at Apple who've created as many "fun" applications as there are humans and of course, thanks to my own guilt of giving in to it, my seven-year-old daughter has become addicted to my iPhone.

The question is no longer "Mommy I'm bored what can I do, it's become "Mommy, can I play Cookie Maker?" or " Can you pleeeeease download XYZ app that [so and so] told me about?  It's reeeeally cool." 

When we're driving to a destination, instead of reading one of her books, she now wants my phone.  If I'm at the grocery store, or doing errands during the day, I admit to giving in and letting her play away because selfishly I can focus on getting my own things done more quickly.  It sure beats having to pack coloring books and crayons. 

I first became painfully aware of this a few weeks ago when my husband and I were enjoying good food and conversation with a group of friends and their children, all approximately the same age as our daughter.  I glanced over to the "kids" table and noticed that, while they were engaging in usual child banter, they also sat next to one another with only  the tops of their heads showing as their fingers moved fast and furiously about their parents' smart phones. 

Now granted, we parents all noticed it, shaking our heads and commenting how times have changed from the days when we were kids, engaged in rowdy horseplay. To be fair, our kids still chased each other about, whooping it up and making the usual ruckus. In between that, though, there was a lot of begging on the kids' end, as they pleading their cases for us to download the latest app they just "had" to have, according to their little playmates. 

I am ashamed to admit I found myself "bowing" to virtual peer pressure as I robotically entered my password for the app to keep the peace in the interest of being able to continue on in my conversation with my adult friends.  I justified this by telling myself it's only a little bit of harmless fun here and there as I speak with other adults or do my daily chores. 

Meanwhile, every ten minutes or so, there is a "plunk" or a "whoosh" sound indicating I've got another text, email or Facebook comment. What do I do?  I stop whatever I am doing and READ IT.  *hanging head LOW *

My two "aha" moments came a few days ago as I sat outside at a community pool with the sound of happy, screaming children playing and splashing about, piercing my eardrums.  Suddenly my daughter and her little friend, still dripping from the pool, came over and asked my friend and me for our phones so that they could play with them.  Outside. On a summer day. While playing with a friend! 

My brain percolated as I glanced around the pool to see nearly EVERY ADULT was either talking 'live" on their phones as they basked in the rays or they were texting someone.  I am equally guilty of letting my daughter see me do this.  I'll answer a quick text here or there.  I'll Google or You-Tube something to better illustrate something about which my friend and I are talking. 

The next day, during a block party, as the neighbor kids were running about from yard to yard, my daughter and another child raced up to me, abuzz with excitement.  I braced myself for what my daughter might ask me for this time. To run across the street and swing in someone else's yard?  A sleepover? Nope.  She asked me for MY PHONE so she could show her neighbor this "really cool app" she uses. Really.



Admittedly, I am as attached to my iPhone as is my daughter.  My husband, only half joking, calls it my "other husband." (Admitting it is the first step...)  The good news is I am NOT a gamer.  But I can tell you what's happening in most of my friends and families lives at any given moment thanks to facebook or constant texts from them. But at least I finally recognized the problem and I know that something must be done. NOW.  I am going to BECOME the change I want to see in others.The old adage that WE are our children's best example still holds true.  How can we teach our kids to play "live," in the here and now rather than a virtual life when we adults are doing the EXACT same thing?

EXAMPLE:  My daughter LOVES "Cookie maker."  Solution:  We can bake cookies together.  She loves Skyview, an APP that shows the constellations.  Solution:  We find books to read about them and we stargaze at night from our veranda.   Anything virtual on an iPhone or iPadcan be done LIVE.  Gee, now there's a novel idea!!

This being said, I'm trying something new and I encourage other parents to do that same.  I've turned off all unnecessary technology and now only check in every couple hours (OK... or whenever my daughter ISN'T looking

"Oh sure, that's easy to say, Janice," I can hear you all saying, as you roll your eyes.  "My iPhone is my only contact with the rest of the world." Oh really? 

Try it.  The first day or two is TOUGH.  I admit to my addictions to Facebook and "checking in" from wherever we might be for fun and I'll probably not stop using social networking...it helps me stay in touch with my friends back home in Michigan without having to be on the phone all day long.  I do still use my ear buds to listen to Pandora as I breeze through housecleaning or my currently-lapsed 5K training.

Believe me when I say that even those who have dropped their landlines needn't be completely bound to time-sucking technology.  I've switched my settings on my iPhone to only announce new Facebook responses every few hours.  I've edited my sounds to only allow my phone to ring and texts because I realize many of my friends and family use this in lieu of actually calling me during work hours. Texting has saved lives, it actually saved my sanity during the spring tornado that wiped out my city earlier this year.  I LOVE texts!

What's the return on this trade-off?

I'm living in the here and now and more importantly, I'm focused solely on whomever is with me at any given moment. I'm cherishing EVERY moment my sweet seven-year-old wants with ME and only ME because I know that window of time is limited.  My daughter hasn't said so but I can already tell she feels she's gotten my attention back, it shows in her actions.  I definitely know my husband's response to having his wife back 100% makes him happy.

One last thought.  Remember how so many of us felt like call-waiting was a rude interruption on our current phone calls when it was first introduced into our culture?  How about applying that same premise to the fact that our childrens' real life experiences are being interrupted by "virtual" experiences.

Lets' spend the remainder of our lazy days of the summer of 2012 enjoying the people who are present TODAY!  Meanwhile I am off on a nature walk with my daughter on this 88 degree day, the only day this week that will fall below the 90s.... the one part of living in the south to which I will NEVER be accustomed.  >:-{



 

Two empty chairs for Grandparents' Day remind me what I miss the most

Dewey and Lena Battistelli, better known to me as Gramps & Gram, ca. 1970-something

It was 1977 and I was 14 years old (Disclaimer: DO NOT DO THE MATH.) 
I was backstage in the auditorium at  Stevenson Junior High School, preparing to go stand on those uncomfortable little wooden stage bleachers alongside my choir mates, most of whom I'd sung with since I was knee-high. By then, choir was my LIFE.  My music teacher, Miss Wendy Wheaton, had bestowed upon me a very important honor.... I'd been selected to perform a solo for the mid-winter concert.  The song she selected for me was a very popular song of the day, Evergreen, sung by none other than the incomparable Ms. Barbra Streisand.  (No pressure there.)

Even though he worked afternoons, my dad arranged to go into work later that evening so he would not miss my "debut."  I peeked from behind the stage curtains to see where he, my mom and my little brother were sitting in the audience. Good.  They were in the second row.  Beside them were two empty seats with my mother's purse placed on one and my brother's coat on the other. Those seats were reserved for my grandparents.  In fact, two chairs were always reserved for Dewey and Lena Battistelli, who had attended every choir concert, dance recital and school play or musical production I'd been a part of dating back to my first school play in Kindergarten, where I'd played a pilgrim's wife and even had a speaking line which I still remember ("Oh, mercy me!")

Understand that to them, we lived waaay "out there" in the suburbs and making that drive from their lifelong bungalow in Detroit was considered no small feat.

I was a bundle of nerves, understandably. All the backstage chattering about who will go where and which order our songs were to be performed was nothing more than white noise to me as I obsessively peeked out from the curtains three more times to see those empty chairs still unfilled.  There had been a winter storm with at least 6 " of snow  the day before and Mom worried Gramps and Gram might not be able to drive in for my concert.  She'd prepared me not to be too disappointed if they did not show up.   

The lights flickered and went dim.  Onto the darkened stage we all filtered one-by-one.  We did our opening number, my stomach churning inside, NOT because of my impending first time in the spotlight but because it felt unnatural to NOT see my grandparents out there. Mom later told me she was even given some nasty looks for "poaching," a practice still frowned upon today....

After the third song was to be my solo.  We were already through the second stanza when I'd realized they would, indeed, not be there to catch my first solo.  This was before technology, folks.  There were no iPhones or even the bulky camcorders of the 80s that preceeded them....

Finally Ms. Wheaton gave me the nod to approach the microphone next to her piano.  As I stepped toward the mic, I saw the auditorium door swing open and in rushed my two favorite people in the world, my GRANDPARENTS, who made no attempts to be subtle as they raced toward their seats way up front. Now here's your visual: Picture a short, stocky balding man, as outgoing as they come, wearing a wide smile showing the gap in his two front teeth and as always, his signature hat  in hand as he waves to folks glaring at him with mild annoyance.  As per usual, he was rushing way ahead of his wife, my poor Gramma, wearing a winter coat over her usual house dress, practical black shoes with the inner toe cut out to accommodate her aching bunions (even in 6" of snow!) and a bright ORANGE... babushka...  < cringing >.

Taking no notice that there was a concert already in progress, they loudly bickered back and forth in Italian, their entrance making such a bustle that Ms. Wheaton paused and coached me for a few moments to give them a moment to settle in. I made eye contact with Gramps who's sparkly smile and knowing wink lit up my world. Suddenly, all pre-performance jitters melted away.  As Ms. Wheaton turned away from the audience to play the first piano chord, Gramps stood up and, as my mother hid her face in her hands, pointed directly at me, informing audience members within earshot exactly how he was related to "that little girl at the microphone."  Any other teenager would have been mortified. Instead, I felt FORTIFIED and I went on to perform the song to the best of my abillity.  It would not be my last solo performance but it certainly made for my most memorable one.

I am reminded of that evening today because this Friday, my daughter's school will mark Grandparents' Day with much fanfare. There should have been a Grandparents' day when I was a kid.  Especially now, given the amount of hands-on help today's grandparents give to their offspring throughout the year. I see grandparents at drop-off and in the carpool line, I see them volunteering at school and serving at masses.  I see them in attendance at events during which a parent must be at the office.  This is definitely a well deserved day for Grandparents. 

This year, I am also reminded of the void I feel living so far from my only living parent, my father in Michigan who will, sadly, not be in attenance on Friday.  Given the fact that his granddaughter will be singing a small solo, I couldn't help but draw a parallel with my own story about waiting for Grampa & Gramma to come.  My father loves his grandchildren.  He just happens to be that dad who simply doesn't travel, whether he's feeling well or not.....so I've resigned myself to it.  My mom's brother and his wife, Uncle Gene and Aunt Shirley Battistelli, had planned to step up in Dad's absence but emergency back surgery on my uncle put a halt to that.  All the same, the gesture is appreciated more than they can ever know.  And so, rather than stew over Dad's absence I'll focus on the fact that my in-laws, now 81, will once again make the 12-hour trek from Chatham, Ontario, along with their son, my brother-in-law, to see their youngest granddaughter proudly show off her school, her work and her teacher to Oma and Opa. I can predict that, as was the case last year, they will love it. 

But that day, as I help other parents set up and serve food to our visiting grandparents and stand in back to watch the show, I cannot lie.  I'll likely fight back pangs of sadness.  I always miss my mom, that's nothing new, but days like this just magnify her absence, making it bittersweet for me as I silently wish she'd lived long enough to see my brother and me become parents.  Even knowing she's  in a better place, selfishly, I'd prefer to see her wheelchair parked next to other grandparents, not only to watch her granddaughter that day, but to introduce her to the amazing group of moms with whom I've become very close, down here in Chattanooga. Maybe to tell Mom I now understand what she did all those years as she carted me from activity to activity and to show her I am trying, every single day, to become all she hoped I'd someday become as a mommy.

Sadness aside, this week is about the Grandparents and the kids.  So Friday, I'll give my daughter two flowers representing the seats left empty by her "maternal" grandparents and remind her that actually, Gramma Mary has the best seat in the house, and I'll urge her to belt out that solo loud enough for the Heavens to hear. 

In closing....to all of the Pop-pops, Nanas, Oma & Opas, Mimi and Poppy's here at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and to ALL  grandparents across the country who love your grandchildren all year long, I bid you a heartfelt, Happy Grandparents' Day!   It should go without saying just how deeply you are loved by your children and their own children.  ENJOY YOUR DAY!