The Cleansing, part two: Kale Chips

Day 1 – Tuesday. Starting weight: 176.

Okay, I am ready to do this. Where’s my coffee… oh yeah, no coffee. Water. In great quantities. I make my first fruit smoothie with protein powder and flaxseed oil and set off to face the day.

I’ve given myself some projects to keep my mind off whatever cravings and difficulties I might have. The kids are spending the week with their Dad, so I can be a total bitch if necessary and only Dan will have to deal with me. First thing to do, though, is shop for food. I need fruit that will blend, and veggies… yikes, I’ve never been good at veggies. I’m the mom who steams broccoli past the point of recognition. Maybe a broccoli smoothie?

I’ve been on a sea-salt-and-vinegar chip binge for a couple of weeks, so I decide to make a coleslaw dressing with apple cider vinegar and olive oil. It doesn’t take long for me to appreciate the bite. I try a brown rice and lentil mix, too, but… lentils. Yuck. However, a little olive oil and sea salt perks up pretty much anything. We got some rosemary salt in San Francisco. Super yummy. But I better put Mrs. Dash on the grocery list or I’m gonna swell up like a puffer fish.

Charlie needs new bookshelves so I head off to Ikea. Putting cheap Swedish furniture together helps a lot in keeping my mind off the loss of my beloved coffee.

Around 3:00 I feel tired and a little airheaded (more than usual, ha ha) so I take a short nap, then get back to work on Charlie’s room. And so I make it through Day One - but my email from “Purification Support” warns me of the coming discomfort.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Morning starts out fine – smoothie, water, supplements - and I delve back into my cleaning frenzy. As garbage bags fill with junk he will never miss, and boxes fill with outgrown clothes I am taking down to Once Upon A Child to make a buck or two, the headache starts.

Where is my COFFEE??? The blood vessels in my brain scream at me. We can’t CONSTRICT up here!

Okay, I was expecting this. Ride it out. I call Dan and whine, and he listens patiently. He’s always said I drink too much coffee. Of course, he is one of those vexing people who has never had a food issue: doesn’t crave sweets, never binges, drinks one glass of wine and then stops, insists the Diet Coke he splurged on at lunch is keeping him awake 10 hours later. These people really exist. I married one.

Another 3:00 nap, after which I finally give in and take some ibuprofen. The emails promise the headache will subside, and I am 100% dedicated to this cleanse, so I roast some Brussels sprouts and hang in there. Brussels sprouts! They’re actually tasty! (Again with the olive oil and sea salt thing, though.) The smoothies really help with the cravings. Watching TV, however, does not: that Golden Corral commercial with the Buffalo Wings is killing me.

Day 3 – Thursday

The email from Purification Support says this:

“Don't be surprised if old symptoms you haven't experienced in years begin to return during the program.  They should be of short duration and are considered a beneficial sign that your body is purging toxins and repairing underlying issues with your health.  Old injuries or conditions may resurface for anywhere from an hour to a day or more.  This theory is known as Homotoxicology and was developed by a German medical doctor named Dr. Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg. 

In fact, one patient had an old wrist injury swell up during day two.  The interesting point is that she broke it almost 30 years ago.  There had been no swelling or problem of any kind noted in the 30 years since the original injury, however her body felt it necessary to bring heat, macrophages and other white blood cells in to perform long overdue repairs.  The swelling went back down to normal after a couple days.

If you do experience any reoccurrence of past injuries or symptoms we'd love to hear about it!”

I don’t think too much about this. Maybe the creaky knees are a result of this. The withdrawal headache is pretty much gone, to my surprise. But today’s highlight is that I discover kale chips. Incredibly labor intensive, but so rewarding. I bake a cookie-sheet-ful and eat them standing at the stove. And then another. Yum.

Day 4: Friday

Today I begin to notice an ache in my pelvic floor that radiates down the back of my legs and up into my lower back. It’s vaguely familiar, but I ignore it while organizing my daughter’s hair accessories and jewelry. By bedtime, though, it’s clear this is going to be a problem.

My lower abdomen is tender and bloaty, but I chalk that up to all the cruciferous veggies. I mean, really. Cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts! It’s a wonder I’m not farting myself across the room. I will spare you the details of the bowel movements.

Otherwise, though, I feel good: no cravings, and my energy level is way up. I mean, not like bouncing-off-the-walls, but like hey-I’m-not-tired. Dan is so great. He makes me a salad every night, chock full of veggies of every color. And I make more kale chips.

I’ve been taking a medication called Trazodone for about ten years, at bedtime to help me sleep. I take too many damn meds. So in a fit of over-confidence in the program, I decide to stop. Tonight.

Lying down, the ache in my lower body is just awful. I pop half a Vicodin from my emergency stash and try to sleep.

Day 5: Saturday

Oh, my God. I did not sleep last night. I tossed so much that, at about 4 a.m. after maybe 3 hours of sleep, I crawled into Claire’s bed, where I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to bring on dreams from sheer will. No luck. At 6 I finally gave up, but the thing is: I’m wide awake. I don’t feel tired at all. I’m up with my early-bird husband and I tell him about my night and the pelvic pain.  He says for the twenty-seventh time “I can’t believe you gave up coffee.” That’s when I realize I don’t really miss it that much.

The pelvic pain, however, is getting worse. As the day goes on I find it hard to bend at the hips. I try lying down on a heating pad but that makes it worse. What could this be? “Old injuries or conditions may resurface…” Pelvic pain… pregnancy? A-ha! That’s exactly what it feels like: those endless last few weeks of pregnancy, when the baby is crushing your pelvis and you feel like there’s a bowling ball inside you. Am I healing those places? Charlie was a huge baby who tried so hard to come out the front door that my right hip joint suffered an injury, one I’ve been dealing with since he was born. (SI Joint Dysfunction is the formal diagnosis. That’s why I have Vicodin. And he came out through the window, as my OB put it.)

The kids are coming back today at 10. At 9, I lie down for a bit and nab maybe 45 minutes of sleep. But when I’m up, I’m all the way up. Not groggy. It feels so different.

Once the kids are home it’s back to the mom business. We talk about all the work I’ve done in their rooms and how we are going to keep it nice from now on. I know, I’m a dreamer. Charlie likes his new bookshelves. The girls and I go grocery shopping together. The pain in my lower body makes me wince. 

(Now that the kids are home, my ability to write is dramatically affected…)

Day 6: Sunday

Another sleepless night. I was determined to get off the Trazodone so I didn’t take it again last night. But I wake up cheerful – why is it I can sleep from 6 to 9 a.m? There’s my early bird hubby again! Lovely to see him in the morning! He once again expresses his support. As for the pain, I can bend at the hips today, but there is still a dull ache down there.

We are having a heat wave and the house’s temperature seems to fluctuate between too hot and too cold; can’t get the AC just right. I notice again how easily I sweat. This is supposed to be a good thing: sweating out those toxins! Half a yam for breakfast. Actually yummy.

Day 7: Monday

Sleepless, and yet I wake up energetic and bright. So strange! Pain is going away. Very busy day with kids; Charlie started as CIT at day camp, took Emma to orthodontist, then shopping to get ready for Camp Fox.

Day 8: Tuesday

I saw my shrink today. He says take the freakin’ Trazodone and get some sleep.

Day 9: Wednesday

Remembered to weigh in this morning. Down 2 pounds to 174.

Last night I took extra meds – 150 mg. vs. my usual 100 – and woke up horribly groggy, craving coffee. Also not a very restful night. Sleep is a real issue; the eating part is not. I feel really good. Two more batches of kale chips. All mine.

Day 10: Thursday, July 4th

Tried 50 mg. last night. Still didn’t sleep. Felt logy upon waking. Everything else is going well, though. Overall I feel an enormous improvement in fatigue, focus, and mood. I feel better than I have in a long time.

It’s the Fourth of July, so Dan and I go to the hometown fireworks event. I’ve never wanted to go before because I kind of hate crowds, but there were food trucks and I knew Dan would like that. I ate before we went.

I should elaborate on that statement, I think. I am not depriving myself on this cleanse. In fact, I feel like I’m eating all the time. There are no limits as to when or how much. It’s what I’m eating that is making the difference.

A couple of years ago I became obsessed with finding real honest-to-god soft-serve ice cream in this town. Not frozen yogurt. That’s how I found out about the King Kone truck and for a while I stalked them on Twitter, trying to figure out how I could get to where they were. They were always on the West Side or in Santa Monica, way too far away. So imagine the emotions I felt when I saw the King Kone truck at the fireworks – in the middle of my no-sugar, no-dairy cleanse.

(heart sinking)

I asked Dan to get a swirl cone and cheated a little to have a taste. Couldn’t resist. If I ever find their truck again, I’m definitely gonna get me some.

Next up: MEAT!

The Cleansing, part one (not a horror story... yet)

Bleah.

That’s how I felt most of the time. Occasionally ugh - meh on good days - but mostly bleah. Tired, even though I was in my bed at night for eight hours, sometimes more, and always bleary in the morning. Waking at 2 a.m. to pee and have a snack was a regular thing for me. Only the promise of a strong cup of coffee got me out of bed. Most afternoons, the kids were used to me saying “I’m going to go put my feet up for a while.” They knew that meant a nap. Then I’d wake up, and have more coffee, or an iced tea, or a diet soda, hoping the caffeine would keep me going.

After meals, my stomach would ache, or I’d be super gassy and bloated, or I’d become exhausted – sometimes all three. Food cravings were a vicious circle: I’d eat something, feel like crap, then eat something else to try and soothe myself. Usually sweets. I’ve always said that I thought Chips Ahoy cookies were baked with heroin, because I always wanted more, more, gimme the bag already.

Then there are the numbers. My cholesterol had been an issue for about fifteen years, and I also had about 20 extra pounds to deal with. I was cranky, fat and sick. One day, not too long after my 51st birthday, I woke up and said to myself, I don’t want to feel like this for the rest of my life. It was that simple. So I made an appointment for a physical.

Dr. Yoshi Rahm is what you call an “integrative physician”. He’s the best of both worlds: board certified in traditional “western” medicine, but also a holistic practitioner. He looks at the whole picture. Where a regular MD might look at your cholesterol numbers and scribble out a scrip for Lipitor, Dr. Yoshi looks at everything – especially diet and physical activity level – and will have you try Red Yeast Rice, Omega-3s and Chia Seeds before talking about statins. (Plus, his name is Yoshi. For real.)

When my blood tests are back, we sit down and look at the results. This time total cholesterol comes in at 223. Worse, my LDL (bad cholesterol) is 151; it should be around 100. Other numbers show an increased risk of coronary disease, "adverse cardiovascular events," metabolic syndrome, and pre-diabetes.  
He asks me how I feel. I tell him about feeling crappy all the time.

“So the question is,” he says, “what do you want to do about it?”

I’m two inches from the end of my rope. "I need you to kick my ass," I say. "I’m not good at moderation. I need a plan, I need structure. I can’t just do it on my own – I’ve tried."

“Okay.” He gets up and grabs a brochure. “I really think you would benefit a lot from a cleanse.” The brochure is for a 21-day program, which he would supervise, and which comes with online support. He goes over the details.

No dairy.

No grains or starches.

No sugar or alcohol.

NO CAFFEINE.

Nothing but fruits and veggies and brown rice and lentils for the first 7 days. Then add lean protein. Take supplements to aid the detoxification, and protein powder to add to fruit smoothies. A plan. Structure. Twenty-one days.

Now, let me digress here for a moment. You may have picked up on the fact that I see a holistic doctor and thought, hmm, okay. Well, she lives in California after all. Let’s just look at the facts, and you tell me if Leanne will decide to go on a totally awesome holistic detoxifying cleanse.

Are YOU a New-Age California Hippie? Take this test to find out! Do you:

• Practice yoga? Check.
• Practice meditation (bonus points if it was on a red rock in Sedona)? Check (several bonus points).
• Study Eastern Philosophy? Check.
• Wear Birkenstocks (and call them "Birkies")? Check.
• Own any clothing made from hemp? Ooh, no… does a purse count?
• Ever visit psychics (bonus points if it was in Sedona)? Check (two bonus points).
• Drive a Prius (bonus for hippie stickers)? Check (plus 3 bonus points).
• Buy organic food and fair-trade coffee, use cloth shopping bags, contribute to an environmental charity, own a pair of Toms shoes, etc. Okay, okay, we get the point already. 

(note: if you now hate me because I am apparently a total stereotype, you can head on back to Facebook. Thanks for hanging in there this long.)

So, of course, because this is who I am, I tell Dr. Yoshi I’m in. We arrange for me to start the day after Dan & I return from our long weekend in San Francisco, a trip that turns out to be a real bacchanal, punctuated by In & Out as my last pre-cleanse meal. At home we haul the 15 bottles of wine we bought in Sonoma into the house, and I am a little sad, because I will miss them.

Coming soon: will she survive Week One? Or are Chips Ahoys the most powerful force in the Universe? Read Part Two here!)

(p.s. I don't own any Toms. I need more arch support.)

How to make a lemon drop, if you are me.

1) Take out vodka, triple sec (because you are out of Cointreau), and sweet & sour mix.

2) Oh wait, you don't have sweet & sour mix. Look up recipe for homemade sweet & sour mix online. You need a cup of lemon juice.

3) Go outside to lemon tree, where all of the ripe ones are at the very top. Climb lemon tree, get scratched all over your arms, get only three lemons.

4) Go to garage where the citrus-picking-thing is stuck behind lawn equipment. Knock gas trimmer over on your foot. Yell.

5) Take citrus-picking-thing out to lemon tree, get some more lemons, bring them inside and wash them.

6) Squeeze lemons until your arm is sore because you are too lazy to get the electric juicer out. When lemon juice gets into the scratches on your arms, curse quietly, because the kids are watching Adventure Time in the next room.

7) Boil 1 1/2 cups of water. Add 1 1/2 cups of sugar, dissolve. Stir in 1 cup lemon juice and 1 cup lime juice (which, luckily, you have in a bottle. No lime trees here).

8) Realize that you have to wait for your homemade sweet & sour mix to cool before you can enjoy your delicious adult beverage. Allow steam to escape ears. Pour some mix into a cup and stick it into the freezer.

9) Meanwhile, spend two or three minutes contemplating your collection of martini glasses. They are dusty. Wonder why. Choose one and wipe it out.

10) Juice one more lemon for the recipe. Dip your finger into the juice and lightly moisten the rim of the martini glass. Take out the baker's sugar, pour some onto a plate, and dip the rim into the sugar. Now we're cooking.

11) Get cocktail shaker from cabinet. Try to remove the top. Realize it is stuck. Breathe deeply; twist and twist and twist. Become increasingly vexed and begin pounding it against the kitchen island, where a well-placed towel dulls the noise. Open and add ice.

12) Add 3 oz. vodka, 2 oz. slightly warm sweet & sour mix, 1 oz. triple sec, and the juice of one lemon. Shake vigorously; pour into rimmed glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

13) Take a photo and post it to Facebook so your friends think you are super cool and bartendery.

14) Take one sip. Aaah, electric vodka shock. Accept the fact that generic triple sec is a poor substitute for Cointreau. Add Cointreau to the shopping list. Also bottled sweet & sour mix.

15) Sit in the comfy chair with your drink. Look at clock. It is time to put the kids in bed.

16) Fifteen minutes later, return to your lukewarm martini and drink it in two gulps.

17) Go to the freezer where the rest of the cocktail is waiting for you. Re-rim glass, skip the twist, empty the shaker into glass, make sure the kids are out, return to comfy chair.

18) Turn on the DVR and start up those reruns of Friends you've been racking up on Nick at Nite. Raise your glass to the gang at Central Perk. Relax.

19) Hubby comes home from a late dinner with Stepson and makes a snarky comment about the vodka on the kitchen counter.

20) Ignore urge to throw martini at hubby. Make another batch. After all, your sweet & sour mix is cool by now.

Repeat as necessary.

Note: homemade sweet & sour mix is in the pot on the stove.

New Year's Eve, age 50

The hubby only made it to 11:15 this year. I pour myself a glass of Korbel with a splash of Midori; it’s called a Green Goblin. Sometimes I fix a drink just because it has a silly name. I sit down with my kids to watch New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and the Korean pop star, Psy, comes on to do his gosh-I-hope-so one-hit-wonder song “Gangnam Style”. My daughters, 12 and 10, dance frenetically and I laugh so hard I can barely hold my phone still as I tape them (oh yeah, that’s going on their wedding video someday). I wonder, will anyone even remember this guy next New Year’s Eve?

As midnight approaches, the kids and I watch Train sing “Imagine”, which always makes me choke up, and I resist the urge to tell them about John Lennon for the umpty-seventh time. The ball drops in Times Square – tape delayed, of course, since we live on the west coast – and I hug my beautiful, blessed children to ring in 2013. Then I tiptoe into the bedroom to kiss Dan.

“Happy New Year,” I whisper.

“Mmm phmmmm hmm,” is his reply. Or something like that.

When Justin Bieber comes on for what seems like the fourth time that night, I shoo the kids off to bed and sit down with my Green Goblin, switching to another channel. Emma comes out to kiss me goodnight one more time and knocks over my drink. Brilliant, I think as I spritz the wall with 409, only 30 minutes into the new year and I am cleaning up a sticky mess already. Doesn’t bode well.

            With everyone asleep, I sit on the couch mindlessly adding apps to my iPhone. At this point I am watching Kathy and Anderson on CNN and wondering if I need to be more drunk to really enjoy them. Maybe I should play the “giggling Anderson” drinking game. That would sure do the trick.

            Heaven help me, I love New Year’s Eve. I’m a hopeless optimist. At one in the morning on January 1^st, I decide to start writing my resolutions down. Funny thing: because of my iPhone, I have now started assuming that if I double space in Word, a period will appear at the end of the sentence. Or maybe it’s the champagne.

Anyway, here’s what I write down. And I’m putting it on my blog, for accountability.

• Stop using the f-word so much. (And not by substituting some other swear word in its place.) It’s just ugly and unladylike. My wake-up call happened when I was working my seasonal job at World Market in Glendale. The store is located at the corner of one of the worst-designed shopping plazas ever, in terms of parking. We regularly hear honking at the three-way stop right outside our doors. One day as I rang up a customer, there was a loud series of honks followed by a woman’s voice yelling “You fucking asshole!” After a beat or two, I raised my eyebrows and looked at my customer. “Well, that was lovely,” I commented. But it really stuck. Because not only I was embarrassed for her, I knew with certainty that it could have been me. And I don’t want to be that person.
• Learn some Spanish. Take a class, get Rosetta Stone, something. I live in Southern California, for pete's sake, it just makes sense.
• Take the self-defense class at the Y next month.
• The mundane: clean the garage. Take old clothes to Goodwill. Go to all of Charlie’s home games to see him play tuba in the marching band. Take the dogs to the dog park more.
• The profound: meditate, as much as possible. This may honestly be the hardest one to keep, because that kind of focus is really hard, and it always seems like those 15 minutes are impossible to give up. But it’s so helpful to a scattered brain like mine, and I know it.
• Follow my doctor’s advice for once, and do the things he says I need to do. Let’s face it: the 50-year-old body is a lot different from the 30-year-old, even the 40-year-old body. I have lousy cholesterol and not the healthiest diet. Eckhart Tolle says in The Power of Now, “if you knew a food made you sick, would you keep eating it? Of course not, because that would be madness.” Well, it's time to stop the madness. I want to feel good. Not just in 2013, but all the time.
• Oh yeah: finish draft #2 of my book and get a book proposal out in the world, even if I have to pay somebody to kick my butt. (Cough, cough, writing group, cough)
• Related: write more blog stuff. Okay, just write more in general.
• But most of all, I resolve to slow down, which may seem counter-productive. But I know that if I slow down, I’ll be more likely to remember these things and keep them in my life.

That’s it. Goodnight, Green Goblin. Time to get started!

The girls decorated a cake for us this year.

P.S. As you can see by the date on this post, I am off to a slow start on that "write more" resolution. I haven't signed up for the self-defense class, either. But the f-bombing has slowed way down. Come on, I've got eleven more months... right?

Priceless (or, Night Of A Thousand "Awesomes")

The girls before the show

Cyrus "Glitch" Spencer came running out of the Nokia Theater about an hour after the show ended, dressed sharp and sporting ear gauges encircled with big rhinestones. Or maybe diamonds, I don't know. He's popular enough, maybe he could afford that. Fans were lined up behind barricades to see the stars of the So You Think You Can Dance tour after the show at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, including my daughters, Emma (age 12) and Claire (age 10). And me, of course. The girls wore black t-shirts they had decorated in puffy neon fabric paint. Emma's said "Cyrus We ♥ You", the heart a bright burst of stripes; she also sported a colorful pair of lens-free nerd glasses. Claire's read "Cyrus Rocks!" in her own unique scrawl. They squealed as Cyrus ran down the long line of fans, hooting and slapping everyone's outstretched hands, and then settled at the end of the line to start signing programs and posing for photos.

Will Thomas, the tall and slightly goofy dancer that the girls also love, was the first to make it to our part of the line. He was lively and energetic with his fans, and my girls held their program out for him to sign. I should add this was their first encounter with celebrities so they were wide-eyed and a little shy. But Will was so exuberant they quickly got over it. I was relieved to see that the dancers carried their own Sharpie markers, since all we had in my mom-purse were Eraser-Mates. Not really ideal for glossy paper.

Will and Cyrus were yelling back and forth to each other down the line. 

"Will!" 

"Yeah man!" 

"I signed a CHEEK!" 

"No way!" 

"Yeah, she wanted me to sign her cheek!" He gestured at his own face and they howled with laughter. 

Will was so sweet! Notice Emma holding her picture for Cyrus.

After Will moved down the line, we watched Cyrus interact with his fans and inch his way closer to us. He was obviously loving every minute of it, talking, posing for photos and accepting hugs. The girls were starstruck.

For those of you who are not familiar with SYTYCD, well obviously: it's all about dance. Young dancers from all over the country audition to perform, American-Idol-style, on the award-winning show. The reasons why it's so much better (in my opinion) than any other talent competition show are many: the quality of the choreographers and routines, the talent and passion of the dancers, and the variety of dance styles performed. When Cyrus auditioned, we had never seen his style of dance, called animating. The animator in motion looks a bit like a cross between a robot and a stop-motion movie, but more fluid and riveting to watch. Cyrus was mesmerizing, and his huge personality quickly made him my daughters' favorite.

Cyrus was also fascinating because, according to the show, he had no formal dance training. I have to confess that I found that hard to believe. How could a street dancer pick up all those styles as well as he did? But if you buy the theory that some people just have dance in their bones, then Cyrus more than qualifies. This video shows his first audition in Atlanta.

And then he was in front of us. The girls handed him their program, and the 8x10 glossy we had also purchased, and I said "Hey girls... show him your t-shirts."

They stepped back a little so he could see them and his eyes lit up. "Oh my gosh! Wow!" he said with a huge smile. "WILL!"

"Yeah man!"

"Will! I got t-shirts! I got T-SHIRTS, Will!"

"No way!"

Cyrus turned back to my girls. "Those are so awesome you guys!"

"They made them themselves," I added, overstating the obvious.

He put his arms around them and I got the picture. Then Emma looked at her idol and handed him the drawing.

"I made this for you," she said. It was a cartoon she had drawn of Cyrus, with the caption "the animator gets animated!"

He gasped and slowly grinned at her. "This is for me? I can keep it?" She nodded. "WILL!"

"Yeah man!"

This time he was really excited and danced around a little while he yelled down the line, "I got a PICTURE, man! I got a PICTURE down here!"

"That is AWESOME!"

Cyrus looked into my daughter's eyes and said, "Thank you. Thank you SO much. I love it."

She smiled back. I think she might have said you're welcome, but I was a little emotional so I don't remember. Instinctively I went in for a hug, which he gladly gave me, and I said something inane like wow they're going to be tired at school tomorrow but it was worth it, thank you. And Cyrus moved along to his next group of fans.

Look at those smiles! Priceless!

The girls looked up at me, their expressions full of delight. "Wow!" I said to them. "THAT was awesome, huh?" They nodded. They were genuinely speechless. After a moment we headed down to see some of the other dancers: Amelia Lowe, who had (with Will) danced one of Claire's favorite routines to "Lovecats" by the Cure (did I mention that the show is also excellent because of the music? I couldn't get my daughters to listen to the Cure for anything; they would think it was lame if it came from me); Cole Horibe, the intense martial-arts style dancer with the great abs (yeah, I said it); and finally, Eliana Girard, the female winner from this season, who was the girls' other favorite. They were all so sweet and generous. Eliana saw Claire's shirt and grinned, "Cyrus DOES rock!" She asked them their names and said they were adorable. "I love your glasses! Those are awesome!" she told Emma.

Amelia was so beautiful!

Cole was one of my favorites. I love those Hawaiian guys. :-)

Eliana rushed out right at the end of the meet-and-greet. She apologized to everyone for making them wait. The photo I got of her with the girls was not very flattering, and she's so lovely I just picked this one instead.

Before we left, the girls went back to say goodbye to Cyrus. He was still holding Emma's picture. I told him that she was really excited that he still had it.

"Awwww," he said, "this is so great. I want to put it on my blog*. We have a special place on the bus for stuff like this." He looked back at Emma. "I love it. Thank you so much!" And she got a huge hug. Which I captured in a terrible blurry photo on my phone... but we know what it is.

"I can't believe it," Emma murmured as we started the walk back to the car. "That was awesome."

Claire agreed. "That was the coolest thing that's ever happened to me!"

It was 11:20, and the girls had school the next day. Maybe another mom - most other moms - would have gone straight home after the show. Ten o'clock is already way past bedtime, much less midnight, which is when we finally got home. Claire slept in the car, but Emma shuffled through the photos on her phone and talked excitedly about everything that had happened.

Tickets: $... who cares.

Souvenirs: $... who cares.

Refreshments: $... who cares.

Memories: oh yeah. 100% Priceless.

And one more thing: next year, I'm springing for better seats.

*I haven't found his blog yet. I am following him on Twitter, though, so if anything shows up about Emma's picture I will update immediately. I'm not holding my breath... but it sure would be awesome.

Cigna, United Healthcare To Provide Coverage To All Americans

Insurance monoliths Cigna and United Healthcare announced today that they plan to provide affordable and thorough coverage to all Americans who are in need.  According to Cigna CEO David M. Cordani, “We just ran the numbers and decided it made sense. In 2010 I received $12.5 million in compensation, plus $8.4 million in stocks and stock options, just for running an insurance corporation. Do you know how many people we could cover with that money?”

Cordani added, “When the health of Americans turned into a Supreme Court dog-and-pony show, that’s when we decided to step up. It shouldn’t come to that.”

Stephen Hemsley, United Healthcare’s CEO, added “between the two of us, we paid lobbyists $3.8 million dollars during the 2010 election cycle. We thought that actually providing healthcare with that money would be so much better. Plus, now we won’t have to pay those lobbyists anymore.”

Early reports indicate that a number of lobbyists will be placed in the five states with the lowest percentage of covered Americans – Oklahoma, Florida, Alaska, Mississippi and Texas – and trained to provide information and assistance to the neediest in the population. We could not confirm this with any of the lobbyists, who refused to comment for this article.

Cigna’s profit in the 2^nd quarter of 2011 was $408 million. “I’m very proud of our generous stockholders for backing us on this endeavor. It truly shows that we have the best interests of our fellow Americans in mind,” said Cordani.

United Healthcare showed a 13% increase in profits for the same period.

Said Hemsley, “Let’s face it. More than 17% of people in our country are not insured, and too many are suffering needlessly because the corporations have only focused on their bottom line. It’s time for insurance companies to get back to what their mission really is: providing healthcare.

“It’s just the right thing to do.”

Ha ha! Gotcha! April Fool!!!

(a girl can dream, right?)

     

Because I was lucky to have her at all

My best friend Karen Dunaitis has been gone for five years and one day. She had breast cancer, and she died. 

Karen was a lot of things to me, but I don't think she ever knew what an inspiration she was. She always nudged me to try new things, to think creatively, and most of all to seize every minute of joy and fun that life gives you. Sometimes she was the devil on my shoulder, other times the angel who wrapped me in her arms and let me cry. I loved her like a sister, and I don't think I'll ever know anyone quite as luminous and free-spirited again. 

Because I was lucky enough to have her at all, I've decided to go way out on a limb here, and share something from the little book I'm working on. This is one of my favorite memories. For those who don't know the backstory, we met when Disney opened their animation studio in Orlando in 1989. Her husband Aaron and my future husband Alex (now my ex) both worked there.

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I was still waiting tables at the fancy-pants Hyatt resort near Disney World and finishing up my art degree in the early years at the studio, and then my first job was late shift paste-up at a printing company, so I often had time during the day to drive out to Kissimmee and hang out with Karen. We had a few essential background things in common which cemented the foundation of friendship. One: we were both Midwestern girls who found ourselves living in Central Florida. Karen had bolted for the beach as soon as she got out of high school in Ann Arbor. Two: we were both art majors. She had studied art at Ringling, where she met Aaron, and was a talented stained-glass artist. Three: we liked the same music. Four: we had both spent years waiting tables, or in Karen’s case, cocktailing. Five, and probably related to Four: we liked to party. And of course, there was the whole animation thing, which our men had in common.

            I felt ridiculously comfortable around her. Waiting tables, you have to put on this act for your whole shift, especially in an upscale Italian restaurant in a hotel full of stuffy (and often foreign) tourists. The acting is almost more exhausting than the schlepping of tableside Caesar salads. Karen was home all day with her two little ones and welcomed my company. We would drink Diet Cokes and play rockabilly or Tom Petty and just slide into each other’s company like old flip-flops.

            The house was small, but the yard made up for it. Sunny and spacious, thick with coarse St. Augustine grass and no landscaping to speak of, but it didn’t matter because your focus always went to the dock down by the creek. There wasn’t a boat there, just the canoe dragged up on the grass next to it. But the dock was the thing that drew you in, and you could see why they didn’t care that the house was little more than a firmly planted double-wide.

            All along the creek, the trees grew up and over like so many old aunts and uncles with outstretched arms, welcoming the water and the people traveling on it. Karen and I would sit down there on old Adirondack chairs listening to it run, watching Austin and Dustin splash in a wading pool or ride their Little Tikes cars through the grass. They had white-blond hair and their brown eyes were huge and round like anime characters.

Karen was a natural mom. I don’t just mean she made it look easy, I mean she was an earth mama before I knew what that meant. If the kids’ feet weren’t filthy at bath time, it hadn’t been a good day. When they fell she didn’t run to them in a panic. Her voice stayed calm and consequently so did they, almost all the time. I seldom heard her talk baby-talk, but she made them laugh and called them silly names, and was quick with kisses and I love yous. She taught the kids who their friends were and so they were always comfortable around me, and their hugs were my adrenaline. Dustin was shy, but Austin was a clever thing from the start, with a truly impish glint in her eyes. I adored her.

            One time I was there, Austin couldn’t have been quite three, and there was an issue of Rolling Stone magazine on the dining room table. It was a “year in review” issue, and had a mashup of photos of the year’s newsmakers on the cover.

            Austin eyed me closely; I wore my hair very short then. She pointed at a photo on the cover and said, “That looks like you.”

            It was Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Back when he had hair, of course. Karen raised her eyebrows and busted out laughing.

            “Bu-but that’s a boy, Austin,” I said, pouting.

            She gave me that winky grin and ran off.

            “A very pretty boy, though,” said Karen.

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I love you and miss you, Karen. You inspire me still. Thanks for everything you gave me, and all of us. You were one swell broad.