Today is the twentieth

Rene, Harry and Stanley, circa 1942

Twenty years is a long time.
A lot can happen in twenty years.
You could graduate from college.
You could travel in South America for six months.
You could move to Jerusalem.
You could meet the love of your life.
You could travel together around the world.
You could move back to America.
Get a masters.
Marry the love of your life.
Start a career.
Buy a house.
Have a son.
Have a daughter.
Start a new career.
Have another son.
Sell your house. 
Move back to Israel.
Start over.

Twenty years is For. Ever.
And yet it's gone like that. poof.
Twenty years is today.
I was 18.
Eighteen.
Now I'm 38.
It's a long time to be missing your dad.

And an even longer time to be missing your son.
So while I am profoundly sad to have lost my grandmother two weeks ago at age 91, part of me is glad that in my childish vision of the next world, she and my father and my grandfather are together again raising their martini glasses to their legacy. L'chaim guys.

Dear Dad

Stanley Lee Lubell 1939-1992

I had another baby boy. His name is Idan and he's almost seven weeks old. He looks like me! Well, me and mom. That's what everyone says anyway. Sometimes I pull out the pictures I have of you as a little boy and I'm astounded by how much Shalev looks like you. It's your face on my son! We're trying to convince him to take ukulele lessons in the fall with your old ukulele. If there's You Tube where you are, you most certainly will not want to miss out on that.

But more about Idan. He is your typical infant. His intestines are bunched up too tight or something so he's crampy and grumpy for many of his waking hours. Which are few, thank god. He's starting to flirt with the idea of smiling but so far he mostly just stares at the world in complete panic. You can hardly blame him. The world is kind of a scary place, and scarier since you left. He does have the softest angora hair on his head though, so I've decided to keep him. Because he's soft. He's my new wubby. wink wink.

The other big news is that we're moving to Israel. I wonder if you'd be supportive if you were still alive. The truth is it's probably a moot point since my life would have likely taken an entirely different trajectory if you hadn't died. I hate to say this, but I'm probably better for it.  More resilient. More pragmatic. More resourceful. Which is not to say that a day doesn't goes by - really, not a single friggin day - that I don't wish you could know your grand kids (you have five now, not sure if you're keeping tabs) and your son-in-law and me for that matter and that we could all know you.  I'm sure you'd be nuts for these kids. Especially Aviv. She is a pisser. Hard headed. Spunky. Charming. Sweet. Kind. Generous. Devilish. With a head of thick, dark brown curls. She's phenomenal. And she could probably use some extra attention now that we have the baby. She's kind of a pain in the ass lately. Poor girl. Last year when we were in New York visiting your family, she started calling Uncle Peter Grandpa. It was sweet. But made me sad.

Yes, Israel. Packing it up and moving there in the winter. Who knows for how long but we're trying it out. Your mom is a little worried about it but she's not as dramatic as she used to be. She is ninety after all. And mom seems to be okay about it too, although I know she'd rather we stayed put. She lives for these kids as you can imagine.

What else...I had a career switch and I've been selling my artwork the last two years while I wing it as a reluctant stay at home mom. That's also not easy and sometimes I wish I'd become a doctor like you. Because at the end of the day it's pretty high paying shift work for a mom. But I lacked guidance in my twenties and sort of flitted about. Good years, to be sure. But somewhat aimless. Anyway, the art and the business surrounding the art keeps my mind from atrophying too much and allows me to run around dropping off and picking up my kids from a million different places. My big dream these days is to write a book - a collection of essays about navigating mid-life with spirit, creativity and a sense of humor. And a GPS.

That's about it Dad. Nineteen years goes by pretty fast, huh. You can rest knowing your baby girl is doing fine. The kids and I talk about you a lot and what it means to die and how everyone dies and how we miss people. All healthy discussions, thanks to you. Give my love to Pop too.

I love you.
Susie

Eight

 

circa 1998

Dear Mr. Rosen,

Remember that time when when we were getting ready for bed and while you were brushing your teeth I said, oh - you still use that brush? And you spit out your toothpaste all over the mirror and we laughed so hard that at first there was no sound at all because we weren't breathing and then we were so loud we almost woke the kids? And then we kept laughing until we fell asleep? And even the next day? That's one of many reasons why I love you.

Happy anniversary.

xo
mishmish

Thirty Six looks like this

I don't know what it is about birthdays but mine always suck. The last great birthday I can remember was when I turned 14. My friend Andrea and I planned my own surprise party and no one figured it out. Ever. All our friends came over right before school started and we swam and played silly games in the backyard and danced around. There was a big cake and singing and music and it was a FRIGGIN BIRTHDAY PARTY. The kind that celebrates your BIRTH. Best day that ever was. Since then, it's been hit or miss and mostly miss. Last year my plan to spend the day with my husband was quashed when my son started begging me not to leave him at preschool and I had a total come apart in a lovely cafe. Although I did make a list of everything I wanted to change in my life and short of a four bedroom house, I pretty much did everything else (note to self: must make new list for this year).

So this was my day yesterday. I wake up and the house is having post vacation stress syndrome. Everything is everywhere. I have the kids for the the last day of summer before they start their new school (which was today and went fairly smoothly). We have to be at the new school by 9:00 for some meet and greets with kids and teachers. I hustle the kids into the car and we're off. Instead of playing with the other kids and exploring their new surroundings my kids play with each other and even that is a lie because that mostly fight over who gets to put the doll in the oven over at the play kitchen. No big deal. I hadn't expected much more than that. Then we go over to the JCC membership office and I have to fill out some paperwork. Meanwhile my kids are running up and down the stairs throwing my daughter's rat Julio at each other. I call them to go and my son hucks Julio way up and he gets stuck on a beam that crosses the window about 14 feet off the ground. Fabulous. So I climb the stairs and hoist my 36-year old ass up on top of this beam and walk across to get the goddamn rat. I can't even describe what I'm talking about because it is so ridiculous. But instead of just laughing it off, which would have been fine, I get annoyed with my son and tell him as much. Now he's unhappy. We leave and they fight over who gets to push the elevator button and I let both of them have it in the car. So it's only 10:30 and I've already lost my temper twice today. Nice.

Now we go to Starbucks because at the very least I deserve to have some coffee. We run into two of my kids' teachers from the old school who they were thrilled to see but instead of being cute and charming they start acting squirrely and whining (chanting actually) about wanting vanilla milk and a morning bun, which Starbucks has run out of. We finally leave and head north because I have a rush order to drop off at a shop in San Francisco. Both kids sleep on the way which affords me 50 minutes of much-needed quiet after essentially three weeks straight with my kids. And I have the pen in my eye to prove it.

We arrive and deliver the goods. I have a second cousin who works there so we meet her for a few minutes. After about ten minutes my daughter wants to leave so we say our goodbyes and in the elevator on the way down they have another fight about the button so I lose my temper AGAIN. At this point my threshold for ridiculous behavior is at an all time low. And even though I've promised to take them to the big carousel by Yerba Buena Gardens I tell them we're going straight home. So they wail for about five minutes and then stop crying long enough for me to reconsider. We find a place to park and even though I have $39 in change, that only buys me twenty minutes of parking so we run as fast as we can up three flights of stairs and across the park to the carousel. They ride twice and I get some more change so we can book it back down to the car and feed the meter another $47 so that I can have thirty more minutes for my kids at the park.

On the way back up the three flights of stairs my daughter tells me that she has to pee and since it's been about six hours since she peed last I waste no time lifting her dress and pulling down her undies as I scoop her up and over a bush in a secluded corner of the park. She pees and pees and pees for a very long time and what ever doesn't land on the bush has landed on my shoe. Not a problem. I wipe my foot on the grass and roll my eyes. I've reached that point in motherhood that piss on my shoe is totally unremarkable. I'm not even sure why I mentioned it.

We finally head back to the car and I drive home with kids but midway through the journey my daughter tells me that she wants to hear her favorite song on the radio. She doesn't understand that I don't control the radio. And who can blame her since it's true that I control everything else in the universe. Just not the radio. I frankly don't even know what her favorite song is though I have a feeling that it is Happy Birthday since she makes me sing that every day to everyone we know while I'm putting her hair in a ponytail. It's the only way she'll let me touch her hair. And since Happy Birthday was not on any station, I just left Lady Gaga on the dial to which my daughter made clear this was NOT her favorite song and for the next 15 minutes, no matter what I did - open the windows, blare the music, explain patiently about this whole radio concept, she shrieked over and over again: MY WANT MY FAVORITE SONG!

We finally get home and no one wants to nap. I feed them and then try to get some work done while they're
fightingplaying. At 5:00 I take them to the car wash, an activity that is satisfying for all because the car gets clean, the kids get to ride the penny pony (a much better deal than metered parking in San Francisco) and everyone gets popcorn. It's really the best show in town.

We drive home around 6:00 and my husband is waiting for us. I give him the "take these kids before I kill myself" look and he asks how my day was. I tell him it was fine and burst into tears. Then I see the half dozen roses he bought me. Pretty. I leave and go to Target to buy my kids thermoses for their first day of school and some other stuff we need for the house. Then I get my eyebrows waxed so now my eyebrows are as red and puffy as my eyes and I'm looking my most gorgeous. By the time I get home it's time to sing my kids to sleep, which I do. And while I'm doing that my husband makes me an (amazing totally delicious) omelet. We spend some time with each other which helps to erase a lot of my crappy day and then we go to bed. And that's how I turned thirty-six.

Next year I'm throwing myself a surprise birthday party. Don't tell anyone.

Seven or Eight

Yesterday was my anniversary. My husband and I have been married for seven years. And even though it's plain as day on our family calendar, neither of us remembered. Well, that's not true. I remembered at around 9:30 pm and my husband remembered when I told him that I remembered. What a couple of dopes. But then we decided it was OK because we have the back-up anniversary on the 15th, in which case it will be eight years. Maybe I should back up.

My husband and I got engaged in April of 2001. We were backpacking around the world for eight months before I started graduate school. We had been together for about four years and I was thinking at some point on this trip we'd get engaged. But as the months passed and still no proposal or even suggestion, I was losing patience. In April we were in Nepal doing a three week trek around the Annapurna range and we actually almost broke up which I will blame on the altitude so no one's feelings get hurt, namely mine. After the trek we stayed one final night in a one star guest house in Kathmandu before flying to India for the final leg of our trip and the next morning my boyfriend proposed. He had invited me to the monkey temple and asked a monk to perform a traditional engagement ceremony where we drank holy water and they put saffron powder in our hair. OK, that's a lie. In fact, that morning I came out of the bathroom of our seedy hotel after a very successful output (not always the case when traveling in Southeast Asia), climbed into bed and my boyfriend said, I think we should get married. Just like that. First an outstanding bowel movement and now this? Someone pinch me. And so we were engaged.

Fast forward four months and we're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina finishing up some summer prerequisites and it comes to my attention that married students can apply for in-state tuition in their second year if their spouse is paying North Carolina state tax and you can make a case that you are planning to stay even after graduation. That's a $15,000 savings. We have just reserved a date for our wedding for the August 11, 2002. It's August 15, 2001. I say to my fiance, listen we could be saving a lot of money so let's get hitched.

And that's how we came to get married on August 15, 2001. I went up to my friend Ali after statistics class and said, we're getting married after accounting. Can you and Eric be our witnesses? So she and her husband, whom we have known for two weeks, follow us to the Chapel Hill police station. We pay the $30, say our I dos, sign some papers and it's a done deal. Ali is crying. My husband and I are a little stunned. Eric says, Sushi? We indeed went out for sushi and Ali and Eric are two of our best friends to this day.

And that's why, on the 15th, we'll be celebrating with sushi.

Seventeen

I mentioned that over the weekend my friend and I saw the movie Away We Go, which, if you haven't seen it, is worth the $10.50 plus the price of popcorn. There's a scene where two sisters, one who is pregnant, are sitting in a giant bathtub (in a bathtub showroom) talking about their parents who died when they were in their early twenties. And the younger sister makes a comment about the pregnant sister "bringing them back" in a way, referring to this yet unborn baby girl. The next day on our hike my friend asked me if I think about my dad very often. Every day. That's the deal. Your parents die when you're of a certain age and you think about them every day. Every single day. And especially today - the day he died seventeen years ago. And it occurred to me that I've been living without him almost as long as I lived with him.

It's true what they said about "bringing them back". My son looks just like my dad and he knows it too. You ask him who's eyes he has and he'll tell you my grandpa's. And so he feels connected to the grandpa that he'll never know and we feel reconnected even as the days and years continue to pass.

Happy anniversary to me

I just happened to look at my blog archive today thinking I've been writing in this thing for nearly two years. I thought I'd started in July. Turns out I started exactly on June 29 of 2007. So there you go. That's today. Happy Anniversary to Me! I'm surprised I made it this long. I usually get bored of activities after a few weeks. Maybe months. But two years is EPIC. And more than ever it is true that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Which is why I will celebrate with my usual: Nutella in a pita.
xoxo

Birthday

My brother called me today at work and completely caught me off guard. Do you remember Dad's drink? he asked. I hadn't thought about my dad's drink in years. Stoli Gibson straight up, not to dry, with a twist. It rolled off the tongue. What a random question for a random Thursday in August. But then I checked the date. It was (is) his birthday. My brother was in DC for a short business trip and out to dinner with a friend. So he ordered my dad's drink, said a l'chaim and swigged it. He would have been 69 today. But he died when he was 52. And I was 18. And I was thinking about college, not preschool.

I was startled when my brother called because I actually hadn't thought about my dad all day, which is weird because I usually think about him a few times a day. My son looks just like him. Unfortunately I mostly think about everything he's missed and how he would have enjoyed being a grandpa. I'm not sure how much he enjoyed being a father though I have no way of really knowing. I tell myself it was a different time. Fathers were less involved. Less engaged. He provided for his family. But he spent his free time playing golf. At least that's how I remember it. My husband spends his "free time" at the park.

But I think he would have really loved being a grandfather. That would have felt just right for him. He would have been silly and made up words and sang songs. He loved show tunes. And sometimes I can just picture him doing a puzzle with my son or reading a story to my baby girl. Or I'll see her toddling through the park with her crazy brown curls bouncing and I'll think he would have really loved this crazy girl. Thankfully they don't feel the loss. Just me.