"I have to think these things up, you know"

The kids and I spent the weekend with my mom, helping her do things like open jars and wash dishes because she had surgery on her thumb and her arm is wrapped up like a burrito, a giant, gauzy, arm-y burrito.

The weekend has been an opportunity to take over and secretly throw away some of the papers my mother passively collects. So far a bunch of coupons for carpet cleaning, a stack of 30 or so catalogues for cheap crap (singing Christmas bath mat anyone?), and a pile of brightly colored pamphlets about Honduras she picked up at some political rally have met their fate in the recycling bin.

I dutifully kept the newsletters from every non-profit she's ever given money to, and made a neat pile of the remaining 143 mail order catalogues (self-warming toilet seat anyone?)

My fever to sort through her junk mail started last night, after we watched Grey Gardens and I started to get a creepy feeling. My mother is about a 100 cats and as many marbles away from being even close to Big Edie. But still, a stack of expired coupons and a collection of old real estate listings is a slippery slope. Pretty soon we could be wearing old sweaters on our heads, sharing a tub of melted ice cream and throwing our cat food cans in the fireplace. I'm just saying.

Love!

This is the most recent letter from my friend h., who lives in another country and has been quite sad and lonely lately.  She just—like a month ago—fell in love and the crazy, unabashed joy in this letter makes me smile every time I read it.  I mean, damn!  Falling in love is such fun.  All us old married folk should just take a minute to remember that feeling.  You will grin.  I promise.

samantha, 

i just want you to know that things are so, so good.

t. is great. great, as in kind, smart, interesting, caring, tender, funny, honest, original and talented. and he is TOTALLY completely NUTS about me. and he shows it all the time, and i love it and i am super kitty-meow-meow girl and just kiss him constantly and purr with delight. the other night, after dinner, we met my friend e. for a drink before she goes off to india for a month. then we caught a taxi back home and when it stopped we got in and we were talking about going to rajistan together the next time he has to go for work (he goes maybe twice a year) and we just kept talking and at some point the taxi driver said, "India sounds great, you two, but where are you going NOW?" we had completely forgotten to tell the driver where to take us, so absorbed in our little smoochy love bubble world. we are utterly SICKENING in public. 

and i no longer think he's kind of ugly. i think he's the SEXIEST most SENSUAL man in the whole world. isn't that amazing?

yesterday i also met his daughters, a. and o. we went to the marionette theater for cindarella and then took byron out to the park. i think they were more thrilled with byron than they were with the marionettes. during the intermission, o, the 5 year-old, climbed up on my lap and stayed there for the rest of the show. then when we went to go get byron they saw my fuschia kitchen and all of them approved. even a. the 10 year-old, who is much more introverted and serious than o. was really eager to tell me all about the philip pullman series, the Golden Compass. we also had a long, serious discussion about which cookies are the best for breakfast. 

t. and i were careful not even to hold hands in front of them, but later, when his daughters were walking ahead of us with byron in the middle of them he took my hand and kissed it and told me he felt like the luckiest man in the world. i feel so different samantha. it's so odd. it's like my neighborhood feels like the most magical place and i feel like i just got awarded some crazy life-long sweepstakes award prize jackpot thingy. 

just wanted to update you. because you said not to be remiss in the correspondence department and so here i am corresponding. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! 

ha ha HA! AND the best part, is that because bryon was so fundamental in getting us together (as the dog was the focus of our first conversation) t. wants to do something nice for him. i really think that byron would love a kitten as a friend. so when t's house is finished (he hopes march, i think it'll be may) he says he'll get a kitten for byron. and i can choose the name of the kitten. i think colette sounds good, don't you?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

LOVE!

remember when i thought i would literally DIE from lonliness? i won't.

h

Something sweet in the world

Although she does not capitalize and this is one of the things that really bugs me about the internet, I still love Andrea at Hula Seventy.  She is so kind and humble and she has great taste. I think I have a girl-crush on her.

This post, about her 14th wedding anniversary at Old Navy, made me weep.  Read it if you are married or if you are in a relationship or if you ever hope to be and you will be left feeling all sweet and refreshed and like maybe people are good and you are like them and they are like you.  And that, my friends, can be very comforting.