This One's For the Girls!

Here they are! Meet them and love them -- the amazing women in my life!

There's Mary, my auntie, my Godmother, my friend, with whom I chat and laugh and scrap. And Jeanne, my younger auntie, who I stayed with in San Francisco so many high school weekends, who gave me freedom and trust to run all around the city.

I wouldn't be the same without my sisters: Amy, smart and beautiful; Erika, ambitious and resourceful; Brigit, big-hearted.

Mo's been my bestie since kindergarten. I still remember her peeking out at me from behind her mom's legs on the first day of school. Mo and me, we've played socccer and survived Catholic school, and when we get together like we did last month at the American River to catch minnows and tadpoles with our babies, it's like no time has passed at all.

Andrea made it through St. Joseph's with us. She had the whole collection of Strawberry Shortcake dolls, and she didn't get mad when I took them swimming the summer of second grade and they lost all their smells.

Lisa W. had a knack for making papier mache. She zipped Kristen, our deep and wise gal pal, and me all over in her brown Toyota. And Lisa A. had an infectious giggle and superhuman algebra ability.

Wendi was Dave's friend first. They lived in the same neighborhood, and Wendi got her first speeding ticket with him in the passenger seat. Twenty years after long, lazy summers of lifeguarding, Wendi and I have kids 10 days apart, and we live 12 minutes from each other.

In college, Stephanie lived on the other side of my wall. We both ended up teaching middle school.

Karlee, from the college days, is a part of my every day. She is one of the kindest, hardest-working people I know.

Then there are the writers: Christy, Julie, and Anjie: insightful and bright, and right more often than not.

And Daney, who I haven't known a long, long time, but who I've known the very best: my daughter, who I'll have a rich, deep love with forever and ever.

And many, many more sharp and talented women: Maddy and Miah, my nieces; my cousin, Heidi; Genny; Aunt Nancy; Polly, Linda, and Leslie. Kim and Amy. Daney's bestie, Gracia, and Gracia's mom, Becky. Dominic and Rees' friends' mamas. Holly Root, agent extraordinaire! And all you super cyber-women.

I'm a lucky, lucky, lucky girl.

Mini (Mom)Me

"How did Grammie used to do your hair?"

"Who was your best friend in second grade?"

"Did you ever get in trouble with your teacher?"

Daney wants to know all about her mommy as a Little Girl. She reads the books I read, dresses the dolls I dressed, asks me to describe the matching Holly Hobbie bedspreads my sister and I shared.

It was a lovely thing when Daney came home from a trip downtown yesterday and presented me with a perfectly wrapped gift.

Inside the silver box was this:
A little woolen angel with sequins and straw hair. Exactly what I would've bought myself when I was that age.

I don't know if Daney is just curious about her mommy's youth. Or if she wants to see how alike we are.

But I love that she loves the Little Girl in me. And I completely agree with her when she asks me if we'd be best friends.

Gas & Groceries -- Days Three Through Five

For the last three days, we've been mostly on track.

If it wasn't for that darn fruit stand again, I'd have spent almost no money.

And yet, we've spent a whole day at the incredible American River canyon catching minnows and tadpoles, and jumping off rocks, and riding rapids. Again, we'd packed up a picnic, and my sister Amy and I set our beach chairs in the water while we sipped Diet Coke and watched her 8 year-old, Maddy, splash around with my water babies.

We've dug out a bunch of old toys from my dad's house, and the kids spent hours rummagine through boxes. The boys' treasures were mini Star Wars figures and an almost new GI Joe and his ten billion guns.

We've gone swimming at Maddy's house, and to her birthday party at some indoor trampolines, and my dad has taken us to Mel's Diner and Chevy's. MMmmm...

I've made my own mocha every day, and there's been afternoon time for reading and resting and even doing a little math.

Today Mackie is home from his orientation at UC Santa Cruz. Bacon is sizzling on the stove, and I'm already whipping up a pasta salad to take to the Folsom city pool this afternoon, where Daney will meet up with her best girlfriend, Gracia.

And I don't think I've said yet that Daney had strep throat our first couple of days here. $42 went to the Target pharmacy, but cheerfully, to get my girl back on her feet!

Sickness. Penny-pinching. It's a lot of work down here.

When I get home, I'm treating myself to a day of vacation in Ashland!

Out. Of. Here.

I'm running away from the Chicken Pox. With my kids, who have the Chicken Pox.

But if we can't change their virus, we can change the house we're stuck in all day.

We're packing up and heading to my dad's, near Sacramento.

I love my Big Family. They make me laugh. And I get to be a daughter, a sister, an aunt, along with being a wife and mom.

My dad will show me things he's bought off E-bay and clips from "Little Rascals." Mackie will tell me where he's planning on going to college. Erika and I will share a good cry. And Amy will make us pancakes at her house before we head back.

So, bye Blog!

I'll check in from California!

One-Fourth of a Whole (Lot of Crazy)

It's not the best picture of us. But we're all there, almost, except for Amy, who was hiking.

In the background, you can see the hutch where Steven (in the light blue shirt) keeps his clay.

***

I've been revising this short little memoir about my dad. It's my first time in this genre, and my dad is such a fascinating character, I thought I'd try it with him at the center.

Because there are eight of us kids, though, that's way too many secondary characters, especially for a short piece. Out of the eight, then, I picked two.

One of the siblings I'm including is Amy, my sister who comes right after me (I'm the first). She is strong yet vulnerable, and I've always been interested in her explosive interactions with our dad. At seven, Amy went through a phase of dumping her dinner milk on my dad's head every night. And he took it from her! He laughed over it -- all one hundred times!

Amy is absolutely gorgeous, and dresses impeccably. Her interior design skills are topped only by her culinary wonders. In some ways, she is my dad's opposite. And yet, the two share the same fundamentals; both work for the same county in law enforcement, they've both kept their faith, they are both ambitious.

In this memoir is Amy's engagement party on a dock on Lake Tahoe. It was Greek-style, and we were all wearing white. Except for our dad, in his orange and brown Hawaiian shirt.

Through Amy, I could show that my dad likes to keep his kitchen complete. He never lets up about the mixer dough-hook that went missing a decade ago. Like the San Francisco Fire House Cookbook. Like my mom's best recipes.

Through Amy, I could show my dad's frustration and compassion. And his acceptance.

On the other hand, Dad has been trying to straighten out Steven for 26 years.

Steven is like the family cat, or Sea Monkey. We never know what he's going to do, but it's always fun to watch. Steven lives in Portland with his girlfriend two deaf cats, and sells insurance, and crafts papier mache skeletons in skeleton costumes in his spare time. My boys love Steven for his elaborate Lego creations. And over the years, he's filled my dad's kitchen hutch with all kinds of clay people: a businessman, a skeleton, Darth Vader.

When I left for college in San Francisco, Steven was heading to kindergarten. He and I stood on the front porch, crying, and he told me he was worried about his big step. Because he didn't "know how to know things."

When he could barely talk, Steven asked how ants can eat, if they don't have fingers.

On his second grade homework of fill-in-the-blank adages, he wrote "A rolling stone gathers no .... FANS."

If a tool is missing at my dad's house, it's because Steven took it. If the house is loud, it's because his friends are playing "Rock Band" tournaments.

Steven has pushed and continues to push our dad's patience to the limit.

I use him in the memoir, not only because anyone who knows him (and everyone knows him), could see how much color he adds, but because of what he brings out in my dad. Through Steven, I can show my dad's blood boil, but also his tender side that comes from Steven's purity, love, and hilarity.

There are five other characters, and I mean characters, that I wish I could use in this piece. It seems untrue to me without them.

But they are for another chapter: their tattoos and straight As, their obsession with the 49ers, their love of justice, their slovenliness and cleaning compulsions, their husbands and wives and daughters,their time in jail or law school.

We are all really different, but we all love our dad, and we all love each other, and when we're together, it's magic.

Second Best

All the fun people are packing for L.A.

I'm not going, because it's my 20th high school reunion (shout out to all Falcons!).

But when Dave laid out his fire and contracting schedules the other day, I crammed the kids in the car and we headed for Sacramento.

First stop: the Lego exhibit at Turtle Bay aquarium and museum in Redding. I'll tell you, that Nathan Sawaya is a real artist of The Brick!

Since we were the only ones there, (everyone else must've been in the Sue dinosaur exhibit we'd seen in Portland), the guide gave us a personal tour. He showed us the optical illusions: an eye in the middle of some Lego people, and the word "Tomorrow" written sideways into a computer screen.

After that, we hit up the Lego-building classroom. For two hours. Dominic left behind his signature pirate skeleton skull, Daney made a chair, Rees had a space craft going on, and I put together a frog face.

Then we checked out the butterfly room. Instead of celebrating the thousands of winged creatures around us, my two littles were inconsolable over one dying moth.

So we drove to Auburn, where we checked out the limit--50 library books (hee hee, I've kept my card all these years!) And after belting out a few rounds of Rock Band with my brother, Mac, my sister, Amy, and her daughter, we hit the hay, Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" playing for eight straight hours through my dreams...

All this, not quite as fun as mixing with the YA heroes in L.A. But way better than scrambling up eggs for three starving kids all day. For sure.