Five things I never thought I'd do...until I got pregnant

Lately I've been teaching a lot of writing workshops at the law firm where I work to help improve the legal alerts, event invitations and newsletters we send to thousands of clients. I try to come up with catchy yet non-offensive workshop titles like, "Writing Winning Invitations" and "Building a Better Newsletter" but really I should call them "How To Not Be Boring" and "Think About It: Would You Read This Shit?"

One of my writing tips is to use lists to help organize information and make its presentation more palatable for readers. So instead of saying, "Overview of Third Quarter Developments in Wage & Hour Law" (yawn), I tell them to try, "Five Things You Should Know about Wage & Hour Law this Quarter." Change comes slowly at law firms, where lawyers write like we're stuck in the 18th century before active voice and short sentences were invented. So in the meantime, I thought I'd take my own advice.

I haven't blogged about my pregnancy yet because I wanted to get through my first trimester before going public and frankly I've been too busy trying to get through the day without throwing up. So here is my first entry about the bean, written as a "five things I thought I'd never do" list.

1. Frame an ultrasound photo.  I always thought it was a little creepy to walk into a baby's nursery and see a picture of his or her ultrasound in a frame. There was something so skeletal about the whole thing that made me kind of scared. The frame would inevitably have an engraving that said, "It was love from the very start" or some other cheesy, over-the-top sentiment. But since I got an ultrasound picture of our little one at three months, I've saved it on my iPhone and showed it to anyone standing still. Now the bean looks less like a fuzzy fragment of the Milky Way Galaxy ("Where's the baby?" I asked the technician who did my ultrasound at six weeks, squinting at the screen) and more like a baby with an actual head, torso, arms and kicking legs. I just can't help it – I think the bean is really, really cute.

2. Speak in weeks.  Whenever you ask a pregnant woman how far along she is, she will give you the answer in weeks. Before I never understood why she was forcing me and everyone around her to do mental math. Okay if she's 23 weeks, 23 divided by four is more than 5 but less than 6, Let's see... oh, I got it, she's almost 6 months. Phew. But now I, too, speak in weeks. In fact, I'm 13.5 weeks today (Sorry, do the math). What I've realized is that pregnant women do this because unlike any other time in your life, every week counts. Every week the baby is doing something important like growing eyelids, building cartilage and developing reflexes. You can read about it in excruciating detail online or in 100 pregnancy books. I'll admit, it's pretty fascinating stuff.

3. Keep the sex a surprise.  I never in a million years thought I wouldn't take advantage of modern technology's ability to tell you the sex of your child as early as three months. I'm someone who likes to plan, to say the least. Whenever expectant girlfriends told me they had decided not to find out because "there are so few surprises these days" I had to struggle not to roll my eyes. It seemed pathetically romantic and naive. Yet when the pee stick showed positive for pregnancy hormones, Dave and I talked about how nice it would be to keep the news of boy or girl a surprise. Neither of us felt militant about it, more like it didn't really matter one way or the other and it would be fun to speculate. We live in a one-bedroom condo so there are no big decorating decisions to make like whether to paint the nursery pink or blue. It's more like, "Where should we put the bassinet? In this corner or that one?" I chalk up my willingness to be surprised to mellowing in my "advanced maternal age."

4. Understand my mom's worry.  When I called my mom the day before Thanksgiving to tell her that the results of the scary chromosomal testing showed that everything with the baby was okay, she started to sob. I had barely gotten the words out when I heard her making those squeaky, labored breathing noises you make when you're trying not to cry. I could picture her clutching her cell phone in the aisles of Whole Foods in L.A. trying to be strong. But the rush of relief was too much. "I'm sorry...." she gasped. "I'm sorry...I'm just so happy for you...I've got to go." Later I found out from my sister-in-law that my mom was so worried about my test (CVS) that she had to take Tylenol PM to sleep. I always found my mom's propensity to worry about me annoying as a child. She must have explained a million times in high school that when I missed my curfew, she couldn't fall asleep until I was safely home. I just thought she didn't want me to have any fun. Now, after making my own squeaky, labored breathing noises in the doctor's office when we first heard the baby's heartbeat at six weeks, I finally understand. There is nothing in the world more comforting to a mother than knowing her child is all right.

5. Throw up in my trash can at work.  I'd heard the stories about morning sickness. A girlfriend complaining about how exhausted she was during her first trimester or another talking about how the only thing she could eat was toast. But I never really paid attention to it until it started happening to me. Imagine the worst hangover you've ever had. Now imagine being stuck in that hangover for three months. And that whenever you throw up you don't feel any relief because the hormones that are making you sick are still multiplying in your system. Yes, it's that bad. Not for everyone, of course. I met a woman at a party the other night with a 1 month old who when I asked how her pregnancy was, replied, "Pretty uneventful." I turned on my heel and walked away. The best advice I've gotten, and you get all kinds of advice when you're pregnant, came from my friend Amy. She said just find the things you can eat, go to bed at 7 p.m. and take it one day at a time.

The real me vs. ideal me

Lately I’ve been reading “The Happiness Project.” It’s a book by Gretchen Rubin, a former lawyer turned writer who lives on the Upper East Side with her financier husband, Jamie, and their two daughters, Eleanor and Eliza (ages 5 and 1 yrs). In short, they are loaded and she appears to have a full-time nanny and plenty of time on her hands. She is not depressed, unhappy in her marriage or having trouble disciplining unruly children.

But one day while riding a bus through NYC, she realizes she is letting her life pass her by without enjoying it as much as she could. She wants to see whether she can become happier. So she embarks on a research project as only a Type A lawyer could, reading all the literature and studies on what makes people happy, then launches a yearlong endeavor to focus on one self-improvement theme per month with four to five corresponding action points.

The first month, for example, she starts by boosting her energy (the theme). She decides to go to bed earlier, exercise smarter and clear out clutter (the action points). Her action points are based on research showing that getting enough sleep makes us happier and healthier, exercise increases endorphins and clutter saps energy spent searching for misplaced items amid disorder.

She thus starts logging off of her computer and turning off the TV to go to bed by 9:30 p.m., hires a personal trainer to do weight training three times a week (she’s already an avid runner), and clears out closets. She becomes such a clutter-clearing convert that she can’t seem to stop herself from trying to get her friends to let her come over and clean out their closets too.

All of this Gretchen tracks on a Resolutions Chart. Every month she adds another theme to work on (marriage, parenting, money, work, mindfulness, etc) with corresponding action points to change her habits. Unlike New Years’ resolutions, which tend to be one thing (and if you’re like me, the same thing every year: Lose 10 lbs), these resolutions build on each other, meaning she’s still doing the tasks from the month before while adding more each month.

Are we happier yet?

Along the way, she develops “12 Personal Commandments.” The first one is “Be Gretchen.” Part of becoming happier, she explains, is giving up her idea of who she wishes she could be. She admits she doesn’t like going to jazz clubs, jetting off to Paris for the weekend and prefers children’s literature (i.e. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter) to Tolstoy and Joyce.

Although I found the “Be Gretchen” phrase Pollyannaish and annoyingly self-involved, she did make me think about the gap between who I am and who I wish I was — an eternal struggle for many of us, I assume, and the reason her book became a bestseller.  

When it comes to “Being Laurie,” I’m pretty good at it. I don’t typically pretend to like things I don’t to protect my rep. I readily admit that I dislike plays, get bored at the symphony, hate Indie rock and pass on plenty of artsy, independent (typically depressing and slow) films that Dave wants to see. I’ll never forget the reaction of one of Dave’s Princeton-educated cousins, Pete, when I told him I didn’t like Shakespeare. “Not many people will admit that,” he said.

If anything, I’ve had to learn to tone down my opinions about right and wrong, coolest thing ever and overrated, which is really just a sad attempt to make myself feel better about not following the crowd. The easiest way to save face is to make other people wrong.

I was, however, impressed with a few things that Gretchen got herself to do. She stopped snacking on what she calls “fake food,” kept up her new exercise regime, stopped nagging her husband, started a blog and formed a children’s literature book club. Whenever I try to change a bad habit or establish a good one, I have to tread lightly. I’m a rebel at heart and tend to resist anything too rigid — even if I’m the one imposing the discipline. There’s a reason my mom had the book, “The Strong-Willed Child” on her bedside while raising me and now I’m left with the job of navigating my own belligerence.

When I was a teenager desperate to lose weight, for example, I’d draft elaborate calendars of plans for what I would eat each day, how much I would exercise (20 minutes on the exercise bike, 20 min. on the treadmill, 10 min. on rowing machine) and how much weight I would lose by such and such date based on an estimated 2-pound weight loss per week. Then I’d proceed to eat five microwaved quesadillas and a loaf of heavily buttered cinnamon toast while laying on the couch watching “The Phil Donahue Show.” Needless to say, I didn’t lose weight and hated myself even more.

So how to change ourselves without hating ourselves? The 12-step adage says acceptance is the answer to all our problems today. So when it comes to my shortcomings, I try to ease into changes rather than summon my inner drill sergeant. The trouble is, progress is slow and inconsistent. I’m often left feeling undisciplined and dissatisfied, dreaming of a future in which I would magically develop the willpower to do all the things that would make me a better me (with thinner thighs and a daily meditation practice).

When I was in my 20s, I remember telling a therapist about my struggle with body image, that I was certain I would be a happier person if I just lost 10 pounds. She shrugged and said, “It must not be that important to you.”

What??? Of course it’s important to me.

“If it was truly important to you, you would do it,” she said. “Think of all the other things that are important to you: family, friends, making a living. You have no problem nurturing and pursuing those things.”

Shit.

And that’s what she was essentially telling me: Shit or get off the pot. Do something about it or let it go. Maybe “Being Laurie” means being 140 lbs instead of 130.

No! Stop! Unacceptable!

So is it time to start my own Happiness Project? To see if like Gretchen, I can stop doing the niggly things that create an undercurrent of dis-ease? I’m not sure yet. But if I were to set upon a 365-day course of action to move closer to the ideal me, here are some of the things ideal me would do:

1. Cardio for 30 min 4 X wk

2. Yoga 3 X wk

3. Meditate 15 min / day

4. Cut out junk food, soft drinks, snacking

5. Floss

6. Wash, exfoliate and moisturize every day

7. Wear necklaces (love buying them, never wear them)

8. Blog 3 X wk

9. Refrain from family gossip (but it’s so delicious!)

10. Speak directly to the person I’m upset with (rather than everyone else around them)

11. Complain less

12. Be more accepting of others (See No. 9)

13. Wear only clothes I love, feel fashionable in

14. Form a karaoke club

15. Stop checking email 300 times a day

Okay, okay. You get the point. Thanks for indulging me being me. And if you suddenly notice I’m a brighter, shinier me, you’ll know what happened. I either exfoliated or let it go.

Remembering Grandpa

My grandpa was 92 years old when he died last month. The only reason he didn't die sooner is that he was too stubborn. For years he'd been telling anyone who would listen that he was ready to go. Yet he kept hanging on, as he dwindled to 130 pounds, lost control of his bodily functions, saw his kidneys start to fail and slept for more and more hours. My family had rushed to Kaiser Hospital for months, thinking this time was really it. But he'd always pull through and be sent home.

Me and Grandpa

Grandpa's mind was sharp until the end, although he was always a man who worked with his hands. After growing up on a farm in Kansas, he borrowed $25 from his father to buy a train ticket to California, where he lived in a tent in the backyard of some relatives for four years until he landed a job at a construction company in the middle of the Great Depression. His cross-country trip has long been a part of our family folklore, although my favorite part is that he used half of the $25 to go up in a two-seater airplane along the way, money his father berated him for spending so foolishly. But Grandpa didn't care. He was 18. Young. Strong. Invincible. Seduced by the thrill of adventure.

For most of his life Grandpa, my dad's father, ran his own company, Cunningham Building Specialities, that installed lockers for clients like Dodger Stadium, Miller Brewing Company, Westin Hotels and L.A. County Jail. I remember getting a postcard of a kangaroo when I was 9 years old during one of his jobs in Australia. His tight cursive detailed his trip and wished me health and happiness, which was always his sign off. He probably also told me to be good for my mom and dad, which got increasingly difficult as I approached adolescence.

Grandpa and me (8th grade)

When Aunt Cathy, my dad's sister, called me at work last month to tell me he was gone, really gone, I cried quietly in my cubicle. She recounted how she, her husband Tom, Grandpa's wife Pat, Pat's son LeRoy, Grandpa's baby sister "Red," and Red's son Paul encircled his bedside recounting old stories as he lay unconscious on a hospital bed in the dining room of his home in Claremont, Calif. The hospice nurse said the hearing is the last to go, so they filled his ears with love and laughter until his chest grew still, then joined hands and said the Lord's Prayer over his body. What an utterly beautiful way to go.

Last weekend Dave and I flew to Los Angeles for Grandpa's final send off. An avid fisherman, he wanted his ashes buried at sea. So we boarded a yacht in Long Beach harbor, drove the required 2 miles offshore to lower a basket containing his ashes into the Pacific Ocean. My dad held one end of the rope attached to the basket as Aunt Cathy and LeRoy held the others. When it hit the water, one of them pulled up on their rope, tipping the basket and pouring what remained of Grandpa into the sea.

Grandpa

The powdery white ashes formed a milky, amorphous shape against the blue backdrop of the ocean, like pouring Epsom salt into a large bathtub. We threw white roses on top of the ashes and stood in silence on the deck, struggling to keep from toppling over as waves lapped against the bow. As I stood surrounded by my family, Dave's arms encircling my waist, I was struck by how right it felt. That we were returning Grandpa to wherever he had come from. Completing the circle of life. Much like a coffin being lowered into the ground, it signaled a finality that was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Sobs welled up in my chest as I watched the current take Grandpa and our flowers farther and farther away.

For me, death offers the opportunity to reflect on what someone meant to me, what they symbolized in my life without even trying. The phrase that best describes Grandpa is "just show up." He was unwaveringly supportive of me, both in action and in words. "Whooooweee!" he'd always say whenever he saw me dressed up. "Whatever blows your skirt up" he'd say when I recounted my latest adventure.

He attended every birthday, every graduation, every major milestone. He slipped crisp $100 bills into my birthday cards that included not only well wishings, but instructions like "Don't vote for Hillary Clinton" and "Eat red meat." At the time I was living in New Jersey and tried to explain that Hillary was running for senator in New York so I couldn't vote for her even if I wanted to. But that didn't matter. He said it anyway if for no other reason than to goad me. Much like how he always called me in January to ask what the temperature was in Chicago and to report that it was 75 degrees in L.A.

Three generations: Grandpa, Helix, Eric

One example of how he demonstrated his support was when I was working at a small legal newspaper in Miami. He got a subscription to the paper so he could read my stories every day, learning more about the Florida courts and real estate market than anyone living in L.A. would ever need to. He'd discuss the articles with me and grouse about how the Los Angeles Times was becoming nothing more than a rag filled with advertisements as though I could do something about it by virtue of being a journalist. A year after I left Miami for a job in Chicago, I found out he was still reading the Miami paper. It kept coming, so he kept reading.

Saying good-bye is never easy, even when someone is old, frail and ready to go. Yet what I've learned from this experience is that Grandpa's not entirely gone. Not now. Not ever. Whenever I show up for a friend, put in an honest day's work, keep my word, show up on time (or God forbid, early), laugh at a dirty joke, balance my checkbook to the penny and crush my nephew into a bear hug, Grandpa lives on. That's the beauty of legacy.

Some people

Since I've lived at the Marlborough, a beautiful pre-WW II brick building with 110 units, I've been stealing Internet access. With a hefty mortgage and monthly condo fee of more than $500 a month (that inexplicably includes cable but not Internet) I couldn't take one more bill.

For the past five years that I've lived here, I've always been able to get online through an unsecured network. But throughout the years, the network I was using would suddenly disappear from the list of "open networks" that show up whenever I turn on my AirPort.

For a few days, I'd consider getting my own account and have actually called Comcast a few times to do it. But they're such assholes, saying that it will cost $125 just to set up the line, then $65+ a month, I always hang up. Then suddenly, beautifully, another unsecured network will pop up and I'm in business again.

Yet about a month ago our trusty network connection disappeared again and Dave and I have been struggling to get online ever since. Dave found that if you sat on the edge of our bed and held your laptop slightly above your lap, you could get a faint connection. But who wants to live like that?

Dave then followed the connection out our front door, much like a man tracking a metal detector across the beach, and found that if he walked up the stairs outside our door to the ninth floor landing, you could get a strong signal. We've been going up to the ninth floor and sitting in the hallway with our laptops to write email, check the address of a restaurant, or buy something on Amazon ever since. (Yes, I am sitting in the hallway as I write this blog post.)

This is slightly inconvenient, no doubt, but not terrible considering we both have iPhones now and full-time jobs with access to the Internet Monday through Friday at our desks. But the other day I found out just how inconvenient it was for one of our neighbors who berated me for being in her space.

Yesterday I was sitting in the hallway looking up news stories for an international news website I've been moonlighting for when a neighbor came out of her front door, scowled on her way past me to drop her garbage into the trash shoot, muttering that I could get free Internet connection at the Starbucks down the street.

I looked up from my laptop, saw she was the same older woman who had demanded to see my key before letting me follow her into our building even though I had recognized her for years, and shrugged. I went back to my work. I quickly cut and pasted the latest news on the debt ceiling debates into a word document and went back into our apartment to work.

A few hours later after I had written the stories, I went back up to the ninth floor landing to post them to the site. Again, her door opened.

"Oh you again," she said. She paused, glaring at me. "You know, this isn't an office."

I looked up at her unneighborly face, studied her round physique, short cropped hair and guessed she was in her late 50s. A shot of hot anger filled my chest.

"I know," I said. "But our Internet connection isn't working and the only place I can get a signal is up here."

"Well don't you think you should get that fixed?" she said. What a bitch!

"We're working on it," I lied. "Jesus, I didn't think it would be such a big deal."

"There are plenty of other landings where you could work," she said, going back into her apartment and slamming the door.

I finished posting my stories and went back into our apartment to recount the story to Dave. His take? "She's probably one of those bitter divorced women," he said. "Some people get really sensitive about their privacy."

That I understood. But the thing is our carpeted hallways are really long and wide. It's not like I'm blocking the walkway or I'm some riff raff being loud and leaving my trash everywhere for her to pick up. I don't have children who are bouncing balls and yelling down the hall. It's just me and my MacBook sitting cross-legged in the hall for 30 minutes stretches at a time. Geesh, what's the big deal?

Which got me thinking about how we all choose how to react when confronted with a situation that may be a little unusual. Whenever our building manager sees me sitting in the hallway with my laptop, he teases me that Dave has kicked me out. Another neighbor who lives in that hallway struck up a conversation and ended up showing me the new windows she had installed. Yet another has invited me inside her apartment to use her connection from the comfort of her couch.

It doesn't have to be this way! I want to scream to the crabby one who no doubt is going to report me to the front office. Then we'll all get a letter from the office manager saying we aren't allowed to sit in the halls, much like the one we got this winter saying we couldn't leave our snow boots outside our front doors.

Ah, communal living. Some of us embrace it better than others. For now, I've found a pocket in the eighth floor hallway that gets a signal. Just don't tell the woman on the ninth floor. She's sure to call the police.

Sip, don't gulp

On Saturday I woke up with a splitting headache. It was no surprise, considering Dave and I had spent the night before drinking with some of his law school friends. I'll admit, I had six to seven glasses of wine within five hours of lively conversation and Thai food. When I went to bed and closed my eyes, the room was spinning  — much like the night in college when I drank too much cheap vodka and cranberry juice and kept tripping out on my friend's lava lamp as I tried to sleep it off on her futon.

I thought it was something to endure with liters of water and a fistful of Aleve, but when I still couldn't keep food down three days later and felt nauseous every time I tried to sit up, I knew I was dying. At least, that's what I told Dave to evoke more sympathy, which was more of a joke than anything considering he would sit behind me and rub my back every time I ran to the bathroom and threw up the yogurt, bananas and water crackers he tried to feed me.

I kept thinking I'd wake up and feel better, I mean how long can a hangover last? But by Monday, when I lay on the couch whimpering and sweating, my stomach burning and my head pounding, I called my doctor, who told me to go to the ER. The ER? Was that really necessary? Yes, she said. I needed fluids and tests.

I eased myself off the couch, took my first shower in three days and gingerly pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I called Dave at work to tell him where I was going and hailed a cab to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. For two and a half hours I sat in the packed waiting room with all of humanity.

An elderly man in a wheelchair had a gash on the top of his balding head. Another woman sat moaning over a plastic bucket she clutched in her lap. But my favorite was the drunk panhandler they had strapped to a wheelchair and parked near the flat screen TV. "Turn that down!" he yelled."I told you, turn that down," he said over and over. Apparently he hated "Everybody Loves Raymond" as much as I did.

An ER nurse finally called my name and took me back to a cold examining room (why are hospitals always freezing?), handed me a backless gown and told me to undress. She took my blood pressure, a vial of blood and hooked me up to a bag of saline. She was 30ish and slender, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was also eight months pregnant.

"Please tell me this isn't what pregnancy feels like," I told her.

"Oh yeah," she said. "I was sick as a dog from 5 weeks to 15 weeks." (Pregnant ladies always talk in weeks, which always throws me off because I have to mentally divide by four to convert them to months for the time frame to mean anything.)

"Oh my God," I said. "And you were working here?"

In the waiting room, I'd had to move seats twice, once when a guy who reeked of smoke sat down next to me and the second time when they parked another drunk next to me who had a tube of urine peaking out from under the blanket on his lap. The smells made me even more nauseous, and I feared I would lose it right there in the waiting room. Why would anyone want to work here? I thought, as I watched the haggard hospital staff rush around attending to the sick and wounded. 

"Oh yeah," the nurse said. "It was awful. I had to run out of the room constantly to throw up."

Oh God. I couldn't imagine anything worse. 

Thirty minutes later the resident doctor showed up, asked me a stream of questions, poked around on my stomach and sat down on a chair to be at eye level with me and said I probably had gastritis — inflammation of the stomach lining. It wasn't the flu, he said, because I didn't have all the symptoms (I'll spare you the symptoms that were missing). The alcohol likely irritated my stomach lining, causing acids to build up and make me nauseous. I felt like a stupid college kid. Why the hell had I drunk that much?

On the list of foods to eat to soothe an upset stomach that Dave had downloaded from the Internet shortly after I fell sick, it said to avoid fatty, greasy or spicy food and steer away from sweets. It recommended eating clear-broth soups, oatmeal, rice, toast without butter, bananas and plain pasta. That seemed straightforward enough, even though I couldn't even keep those down. But then I got to the last paragraph:

Take small sips of clear liquids, such as 7-UP, Gatorade or ginger ale. SIP, DO NOT GULP. Larger amounts of fluids may cause you to vomit again.

That, for me, was the hard part. I'm not one who likes to sit around and sip my way through life. I walk fast, talk fast and eat dinner in three bites. I have to consciously remind myself to breathe and slow down, feel the pavement under my feet as I rush to the bus stop to get to work. I don't have to do everything at once. And what's the hurry anyway? Where do I think I'm going so fast?

That's why it's challenging for me to be sick. I don't like to slow down, which is really the only thing you can do to help it pass. Slow down and wait. And in this case, go to the ER and wait.

After getting fluids, anti-nausea medicine and drinking some God awful chalky antacid, I started to feel human again. By the time Dave joined me in the hospital room in his suit and tie from work, I was chatty and craving 7-UP. We sat for another three hours waiting for the results of my urine and blood tests, which I guess in the the end, was worth it.

Diagnosis: I wasn't dying, just dehydrated.

A is for anglo

I'm pretty sure I scared my friend Alina. The other day I sent what I thought was a harmless email asking if she was going to be around in March. Alina lives in Miami and I wanted to make sure she'd be there if Dave and I booked plane tickets to visit my old tropical stomping grounds over his spring break next year.

Her answer:

I'm processing this at several levels, all of them good, but indeed, your message has filtered through several layers of understanding:

1. I have a very special dear friend Laurie, who's a lot of fun

2. My friend Laurie is Anglo

3. Like all true Anglos, Laurie is organized and plans ahead, for better results.

4. Laurie plans ahead, way ahead

5. Laurie's plans, luckily, sometimes involve me

6. Laurie plans ahead

7. She's coming to Miami, cool!!

8. She's coming to Miami next year.

9. She's planning to come to Miami next year.

10. She's planning.

11. Laurie plans, sometimes like a year in advance.

12. It's really smart to plan ahead, you do get better results.

13. I admire the way that some people plan.

14. If I planned ahead, I'd get much better results.

15. Why do I find it so difficult to plan?

16. Gosh, I have no idea what I'm doing this summer.

17. Do I really have a planning-deficit problem?

18. Probably

19. Laurie...Miami...

20. I guess so, yes, I think so, would love to see you, come to Miami!!

I laughed aloud when I read her email, immediately realizing my mistake. I had sent an email in June 2011 asking a Latina what her schedule was like the third week of March 2012. Obviously I had been away from Miami much too long. I'd forgotten that every meal must end with a cafecito, women's heels should be at least 4 inches high and vacations are supposed to be spontaneous. (Two years ago Alina called me on a Tuesday saying she was leaving for Ireland on Saturday, her husband could get me a discounted ticket and did I want to go?)

I've long known that I'm Type A (also known as "anal," "control freak," "rigid" and "high strung"). Planning is one of my favorite things to do. All those empty days of the calendar just waiting to be filled with lunch dates, movie nights, long weekends away. Years ago I vowed to visit a new country every year. Since then, I've racked up frequent flier miles traveling to the Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and yes, Ireland.

I not only make New Years Resolutions, but divide my resolutions into six categories: financial, work, family and friends, health, home projects and fun. Each category gets its own page in my notepad. Under financial you may find things like:

1. Max out 401K
2. Set up monthly automatic deposits from checking account to savings
3. Read 'Smart Women Finish Rich'

Under family and friends:

1. Visit Sarah and her new baby in Colorado
2. Attend Megan's wedding
3. Be in California for Helix's birthday

Under fun:

1. Blog once a week
2. Take a wine tasting class
3. Learn the Charleston

Then I sit down and schedule when I'm going to complete each task, my internal clock ticking loudly, telling me that life goes by fast and if I don't map out my goals, it's going to pass me by. That's why if you casually tell me, "We should do lunch sometime," I'll probably respond with, "How's Thursday at 1 p.m.?"

What this all amounts to is I get a lot of shit done. I also get tight shoulders, tension headaches and impatient in long lines. A psychologist once told me, "If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you are pissing on the present." Many days, I am guilty as charged. At least for some of those days nine months from now, I'll be on a beach in Miami, sitting under a palm tree with my friend, Alina, who taught me the true meaning of Type A.

Just call me Mrs. Leisure

This month I confirmed something I've always suspected about myself: I could totally be a lady of leisure. I could wear tennis skirts and make lunch dates, muse over fabric swatches, maximize our closet space and plan extravagant vacations to exotic places I'd only read about in magazines. 

In the past few weeks, I've taken some time off work just to relax, breathe and get my bearings. With Dave working all day at his summer internship, I've been free to rattle around our one-bedroom condo, read novels in the park, shop for ties to match his new gray suit, try out a new gazpacho recipe and organize spontaneous dinner parties.

I bought pussy willows from the farmer's market, arranged them in a vase and put them on the shelf in our bathroom. I went to yoga three times a week. I attended meditation services at the neighborhood Buddhist temple. I visited my friend, Amy, three days after she had her baby and held him for three hours while she recounted every detail of her birthing experience. All during weekday afternoons while regular people were working.

Relaxing in our hotel in Vietnam during our honeymoon.

Like most Americans, I've long defined myself by my work, my job title, my "transferable skills." A few years ago, when the journalism industry started to free fall and I lost my job as a magazine editor in the height of the global recession, something inside me shifted. There was no longer a clear career progression: local newspaper to regional magazine to national publication.

I had made it to the regional level but just as I may have started making my move to the national scene, the ladder was kicked out from under me. There was no place safe to climb. Newspapers across the country were undergoing mass layoffs. Magazines from Gourmet and Vibe to Portfolio and Men's Vogue folded. Even Playgirl went out of business. (If you can't count on porn to sell magazines, what can you count on?)

At the time, I was devastated. After 10+ years in the industry and a fancy degree, I could no longer tell people at cocktail parties, "I'm an editor at Crain's Chicago Business" to approving nods and affirmative glances. I was a nobody. My life was over. Or so I thought as I drank copious amounts of red wine and cried into the phone to helpless family members in California.

What I didn't realize was that I had been granted a rare freedom. I've always been someone with outside interests, but now I had plenty of time to step back, reevaluate, think about what I really wanted to do without a deadline looming over my shoulder. It enabled me to go to parties like the salon in Hyde Park where I met my husband, who was drawn to me even though I was no longer a big shot.

When I think about it now, it's scary to me how much time we spend at our jobs each week and how much we're willing to sacrifice to keep them. There has to be a better way to make a living.

These days I'm back at work, commuting to a skyscraper downtown where I swipe my access card to take the elevator to my cubicle on the 34th floor where I write and edit web content from 9 to 5 for a global law firm. It's fine for now. Really. But I've had a taste of freedom. I know what I'm working toward. And I'm sure I'll look damn cute in that tennis skirt.

Still my valentine

Two weeks after my wedding, my friend Heather emailed me. "So how does it feel to be married?" she asked. "AND DON'T SAY 'THE SAME.'" Under strict orders, I stopped and thought about it.

When Dave moved in after we got engaged, it was a pretty seamless transition (sorry, Heather). There were no wagon wheel coffee table arguments like in "When Harry Met Sally." And Dave quickly took over all the cooking, including making my lunch every day. I haven't met a woman yet who doesn't cock her head to the side and say, "Ahhhhh..." when I tell them that.

But upon further reflection, I realized something did feel different. For the first time in my life, I was officially off the market. When I talked to male coworkers, I noticed I no longer sized them up or wondered what they thought of me. At parties, my head chatter about my perceived sex appeal stopped. Not that I didn't care about my appearance anymore. I assure you, my vanity is well intact. But I was free from the mental circling and sniffing of the dating/mating game. It was a welcomed relief.

One of my biggest fears about getting married was that once you made the commitment, all the love, levity and compatibility you felt during the courtship would somehow wear off. That we'd start taking each other for granted, getting on each others nerves, bickering in front of other people, wondering where we'd gone wrong. The product of a 15-year union that ended in a bitter divorce, I feared that some unforeseen force of life would derail us.

The other night Dave and I watched such a derailment in the movie, "Blue Valentine," a story of unraveling passion and love. Starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, it's like watching a car accident in slow motion and not being able to avert your eyes. The movie juxtaposes the happy beginning of their courtship with the tragic ending of their marriage.

In a series of flashbacks, he serenades her with a ukulele, she tap dances for him in the doorway of a shop. They kiss passionately on the bus, in the back of a taxi and walking along the Brooklyn Bridge. They run backwards down the street together, giggling. He is holding a sign that says, "Is this you???"

In the present day, he has a receding hairline, paints houses for a living and starts drinking by 8 a.m. She has dark roots, drives a minivan and wears scrubs to her job as a medical technician (she'd aspired to be a doctor but an unplanned pregnancy put an end to that). She cringes when he tries to kiss her. He busts into her work and punches her boss. They rent a room at a themed hotel and drink to oblivion. But no amount of vodka can bring back what they had or get them out of this mess.

As the movie ends (badly, of course), Dave and I sit frozen on the couch, shell shocked. When the credits end, Dave turns towards me and envelopes me in a hug.

"It's not us," Dave says as the screen goes dark.

"What?" I say, not getting his reference at first. I realize I've been holding my breath. "Oh...yeah."

We kiss.

Slowly, I let my breath out. I shake it off. I look into his trusting eyes and know he's right.

This one goes out to Uluru

There’s something wrong with Uluru. I’ve noticed it for a few years now. Whenever I take him on a walk, he gets really tired about halfway around the reservoir. His back legs start to shake and I can hear the toenails of his back paws scraping the cement with every step, like he doesn’t have the strength to pick his feet up. I feel the increasing drag on the leash, as he walks slower and slower until he stops. I look back and see him frozen, panting.

Sometimes I encourage him, I call his name, pull the leash and try to get him to keep pace. Other times I stop, bend down over his haunches and massage his quivering legs until they stop. Typically he gets better over time. During my many extended visits to my brother’s house in California, Uluru would seem to build up stamina. He got stronger with each walk.

Ayer's Rock / Uluru

Uluru is my brother and sister-in-law’s dog. He’s named after the word the Aborigines use for Ayer’s Rock – the big sandstone formation in the middle of Australia. It’s just like my brother, Eric, and his wife, Sonnet, to name him something so obscure. People in L.A. tend to do that. Eric and Sonnet are also architects sensitive to shape. The contours of Ayer’s Rock reminded them of the folds and wrinkles in his face and skin.

When they got Uluru from the pound 10 years ago, he was so funny looking that he was cute. He had rust-colored fur, a long skinny body and a big blockhead. My Aunt Cathy, who has a fondness for nicknames, called him, “The Head.” He was one of those dogs that people always stopped to ask, “What breed is he?” They’d pet his head and stroke his ears as they asked. He was a magnet that way. We always said we didn’t know, that we guessed part Shar Pei but weren’t sure of the rest.

Uluru was a clumsy dog, never good at catch. As a puppy, he made a half-hearted effort to chase a ball, but would give up halfway and you’d end up fetching the ball yourself.  He wasn’t very coordinated and seemed just fine with that.

That’s the thing about Uluru. He has a royal air about him. Like he used to guard castles in China during the Ming Dynasty. He’s an alpha male, but not in an aggressive, menacing way. It’s more of a quiet composure. Whenever I take him to the dog park, he loves seeing the other dogs. He rushes in, sniffs a few behinds but pretty soon wanders off by himself. Other dogs often join him, lapping the dog park in step with his leisurely, long-legged pace.

He doesn’t have much patience for the hyperactive little dogs that scurry to and fro, kicking up dust and riling up the other dogs into a frenzy of chase, nipping, barking and scuffle. Uluru steers clear of all that. Whenever a dog invades his space, he fires off a warning sign: a big ferocious bark.

I never worry when I hear Uluru’s booming bark across the dog park. He is the embodiment of the cliché – his bark is bigger than his bite. Then again, I’ve never seen a dog challenge him once he has resorted to his warning bark. They all back away and Uluru resumes trotting around the dog park by himself, then spots me watching him from across the yard. He runs to me with slobber dripping from his heavy jowls as I grab his big head and embrace him, scrubbing my hands down the shank of his body toward his haunches while he looks up at me like I’m the embodiment of heaven.

Uluru and Koi

Much to Uluru’s dismay, he isn’t an only child. Six years ago, Eric and Sonnet decided to get a companion for Uluru since they worked such long hours and worried he was lonely at home all day by himself. So they went back to the pound and came home with another mutt. This time the puppy was part pit bull and something else, possibly Dalmatian because she was all white with black spots on her underbelly and some black spots on her flank and one over her eye like the dog from Our Gang. They named her Koi, after the exotic fish.

In the beginning, Koi was a high-energy menace. She chewed everything, including the expensive plants Eric spent hours using to landscape their backyard. She jumped on Uluru and tried to play. Uluru wanted none of it. He nipped and barked to keep her in her place. Soon they settled into resigned coexistence. Uluru tolerated Koi and Koi idolized Uluru, following him everywhere and mimicking his every move – even peeing on the same bushes and trees after Uluru had made his mark.

One thing I have always liked about Uluru is that he likes baths. He and Koi spend a lot of time in the backyard rolling around in God knows what. So whenever I arrive for my semi-annual visits from Chicago, it’s one of the first orders of business before our daily walks. Eric and Sonnet now have two kids – Helix and Arya – and not much time to take care of the dogs while juggling demanding full-time jobs, preschool, play dates and household chores.

Helix, Uluru, Koi

The dogs are relegated to their pad in the backyard, which makes me sad. I understand why it happens and have seen it many times before. A couple gets together, gets a dog. The dog becomes their baby. They take it for walks, feed it organic dog food, and let it sleep in their bed. Then they have their first child and all hell breaks loose. The dog knows, deep in its haunches, that it’s not the baby anymore.

So whenever I visit, I try to pick up the slack. I fill the tub with warm water, take off Uluru’s collar and he jumps right into the tub. Thank goodness because he’s so big, I would have a hard time hoisting him in. He closes his eyes as I use Helix’s bath bucket to pour the water over his legs, back, neck and face. I put on rubber gloves, squeeze squiggly lines of flea shampoo up and down his back and start scrubbing as suds and dirt and fleas float on the top of the bath water.

When I’m done, I rinse him twice to get all the shampoo out. Then I gingerly guide him onto the bathmat, where I rub him down with a towel from head to toe.  I put his collar back on and lead him 15 feet to the front door, praying he won’t shake. But he always does, splashing water all over the hallway walls and wood floor. Out in the backyard, he continues shaking out the water. I bring a clean towel and rub him down again before repeating the same routine with Koi.

After the bath, you can tell that Uluru feels so much better. He prances around and becomes super affectionate, rubbing his clean fur against the side of your legs. Then we head out on our 3-mile walk. Koi, who’s six years younger, has a ton of energy and can always keep up. Uluru gets winded the first few times out, but eventually gains strength.

***

Uluru today

A few weeks ago my brother called to say that Uluru’s hind legs have given out and he can’t stand up. He’s been wetting and pooping on his pad. Eric took him to the vet, who said it appeared to be nerve damage in his spine, likely the result of old age and being a larger breed. With nerve damage, there’s apparently not much you can do.

My eyes welled with tears as Eric told me that he now has to carry Uluru up and down the stairs to get him from the backyard into the house.

“How was he when you took him to the vet?” I asked.

“Oh you know Uluru,” Eric said. “He was stoic.”

That broke my heart. I cried as my mind flashed to him lopping around the dog park, his head held high and his chest pumped out so that everyone knew just how important he was. But not in an arrogant way. More like an inborn confidence that comes from somewhere so deep inside you don’t have to flaunt it, you just know it.

“So what’s next?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” Eric said.

We both sat in silence.

“He’s such a good boy,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Eric, sounding detached.

“Well let me know what happens,” I said.

Then we hung up.

Four more weeks have passed and Eric is still carrying Uluru down the stairs each day to put him in the yard before he goes to work, and bringing him up the stairs into the house once he gets home. He and Sonnet are deciding whether to put him down at home – there’s a special service that will do it but it’s twice the price – or take him to the vet. Last weekend Sonnet was ready to make the appointment and asked Eric, “Saturday or Sunday?”

Eric couldn’t do it. He couldn’t decide which day he should kill his dog. It’s a terrible choice to make when Uluru is alert, eating and soaking in the extra attention he’s getting in his final days. If he were human, we’d just put him in a wheelchair or something. But he’s a dog and nobody wants to see him lose his dignity or struggle through the day with too much pain.

It’s a tough call. One I know many of my dog owner friends have had to make, especially those with big dogs, which tend to die much younger than the little ones. I remember when my friend, Aixa, who had a series of Great Danes, had to put one down. It was really hard. She loved that dog. The final straw came when Portia could no longer lift her head. Aixa put her in the car and drove her to the vet for the last time.

Uluru, Arya, Koi

“I think you’ll just know when it’s time,” I told Eric over the phone a few days ago. “For both of you.”

I asked him to let me know when it happens. So far I haven’t gotten the call. Regardless of when the end comes, I’m forever grateful for the brief period that I got to wash, walk, rub and sit quietly with a member of royalty who was never too full of himself to lick our hands and love us with all of his heart.

Battle hymn of an aggravated reader

Endings are hard for us mere mortals. The end of a job. The end of a relationship. The end of summer.

It’s no different when it comes to writing. After wading four-fifths into a feature story about growing organic coffee in Brazil or a personal anecdote about how I hate my hair, I often find myself thinking, “Okay, you’ve come this far, now how the heck are you going to end this thing?”

In journalism, we call it a kicker — that last sentence of a news story or broadcast that ties it all together, leaving you with one last thought or sentiment. It’s like you’ve brushed, flossed, rinsed and spit. The kicker is what leaves the minty taste in your mouth. It’s the reader’s reward for sticking with a writer past the jump in a newspaper or magazine article or through all 225 pages of a novel.

It can make you smile, make you cry, make you think. Sometimes it leaves you wanting more. But in a good way. They’re hard to write. Even harder to write well. But that’s a writer’s job.

That’s why I was aggravated when I got to the last chapter of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Have you heard of this book? Sure you have, it’s all over the talk shows. The author, Amy Chua, even went on The Colbert Report to recount her memoir about trying to raise her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, the “Chinese Way.”

When Chua, a first generation Chinese immigrant, married a white Jewish guy named Jed, they agreed that their children would be raised Jewish but parented Chinese. As a Chinese mother, Chua instituted rules like no sleepovers, no playdates, no TV or video games, no school plays and no grade less than an A. It also meant they had to play either the violin or the piano and practice six hours a day — even on vacation.

Ever wonder why the Asian kids do better at math? Why they’re always the child prodigies playing Carnegie Hall? Well, here’s your answer. It’s because they had a Chinese mother standing over them, threatening to donate their beloved dollhouse to the Salvation Army piece by piece until they had mastered a complicated piano composition (a true story in the Chua household).

Harsh by Western standards, which is why it struck a major nerve among American parents and shot to No. 4 on the New York Times Bestsellers List. 

It’s a rich, timely topic: Eastern vs. Western parenting styles. I don’t begrudge Chua’s ranking on the bestseller list for a minute. What I do take issue with is that the final chapter of the book is a total cop out.

I liked the story well enough. While taking us through her reasons for being a Chinese mother, what that looked like on a daily basis and the effect it had on her daughters, both good and bad, Chua raises some very important issues about the purpose of parenting and the meaning of life (is it to strive for excellence in everything we do?)

But after Chua’s younger daughter, Lulu, refuses to submit to her will in a dramatic, climatic scene, Chua loses steam. She agrees to let Lulu, then 13, quit violin and play tennis instead. It’s a monumental victory for Lulu and a major strike against Chinese parenting (and widely recounted by Chua on the talk show circuit so don’t blame me for giving away anything).

After that happens, Chua is at a loss for words. Literally.

Her last chapter basically goes like this: "I don't know how to end this book so I'm going to tell you what it was like for me to write this book, recount conversations I had with my daughters about the fact that I don’t know how to end this book, tell you their reactions to drafts of the manuscript I circulated before publishing this book, throw in something about my dying sister, say I don't know the meaning of life and then try to make a joke about getting another dog."

Yuck. Talk about failing to bring it home.

Plus, it’s a major violation of the Sausage Principle. People love sausage but they don’t want to know how it’s made. In the book itself, I don’t want to know how hard it was for Chua to write the ending. I don’t want to hear about her daughters' reactions. That’s the backstory behind the story — the one she can recount in interviews on the Today Show, but not to readers who have come this far with her on her journey only to watch her stall the car.

I get it that writing the ending was hard. I really do. I’ve been busted by members of my own writing class for speeding up to the end because I didn’t know how to wrap things up or leaving the ending “artfully” vague (only French filmmakers can do that well).  And I’ve deserved to be busted. Readers know when they haven’t gotten their money’s worth.

I’m just surprised that Ann Godoff, Chua’s editor at the Penguin Press, let her get away with it. Clearly, she isn’t a Chinese mother.

All I want is Jennifer Aniston hair

My hair is the great unfinished business of my life. Not to be dramatic or anything. For years I’ve worn it long and straight. In high school, I ratted my bangs, using a comb, mousse and a curling iron to make them look like a wave just about to break on the shoreline (which in this case was my forehead). My hair was pretty blonde because I spent my teenage years in the California sunshine but sometimes I tried to help it along with Sun-In, giving it an unnatural orange tint.

After college, when I was waiting tables and trying to figure out what to do with my life, I cut it off and had it layered like Jennifer Aniston’s. It was the mid-90s and “Friends” was the most popular show on TV. A lot of women in their 20s were getting “The Rachel” cut, including me. 

It was like when every woman in America got the Dorothy Hamill wedge cut after she won the gold medal in figure skating at the 1976 Winter Olympics or when British women drove their hairdressers crazy requesting the “Princess Di Do” after she married Prince Charles in 1981.

At the time, I thought my Rachel cut looked fabulous. It was much easier to maintain than my longhaired surfer girl look. Cheaper too. Just think of all the money I saved on shampoo and conditioner. My grandpa, however, did not agree.

I was over at my grandparents' house, sitting on the couch in the den. Like always, golf was on TV and my grandpa was playing solitaire at the card table, glancing up to watch the golfers swing. I felt his gaze on my profile.

“What did you do to your hair?” he asked.

“It’s the latest style,” I said, beaming and touching the back layers, flattered that he’d noticed.

“Did you get into a fight with a pair of hedge clippers?” 

I sighed. He’s too old to understand fashion.

Like most trends, “The Rachel” cut came and went and I grew my hair out again. Not down my back like I had it in high school, but a couple of inches past my shoulders. Since then, I’ve never been quite happy with it. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for having long golden locks (I pay a small fortune every two months to keep them golden) but the truth is, I have too much of it. Every time I go to see a new hairdresser I warn them.

“I have a lot of hair.”

“Ok,” they say dismissively, rummaging through their drawer looking for that fat, round bristle brush they all seem to use.

Halfway through my blow dry, when they’ve lost all feeling in their arms from pulling section after section of my hair toward them with the round brush and running the blow dryer over it, they say the same thing: “Wow, you have a lot of hair.”

Told you.

The problem is, my hair doesn’t grow straight out of the top of my head, cascading down my shoulders like a lion’s mane. No, the bulk of it grows straight out the back ridge of my noggin. And it’s wavy, giving it this very unattractive poof.

The fact that I have curl in the back drives me crazy. Even when I blow dry it, losing the feeling in my own arms as I try to extract all the moisture out of the sections in the back, I end up with mushroom head. It just doesn’t lie flat. Even using a flat iron, it’s not entirely straight. During the humidity of Chicago summers, it’s at its worst.

So what do I do? I pull it back into a messy bun or ponytail. I think that look is more slimming on my face than letting it do its puff-mama thing. But it always looks unfinished. I could be wearing the sharpest designer suit for work or the perfect dress for a spring wedding and my question always is: What am I going to do with my hair?

I’ve got my makeup routine down and I know which styles of clothing look best on my figure. Years of trial and error really have gotten me somewhere there. But my hair? Forget it. Most of the time I’m in the bathroom trying to straighten it enough to wear it down, or pulling it halfway up, then giving up and pulling it all the way back like I always do — exasperated.  

And don’t try to talk to me about product. I’ve tried them, believe me. Anti-curl shampoo, anti-frizz conditioner, straightening styling cream, relaxing gel. I once paid $500 to have my hair chemically straightened. It looked great for a couple months until the curl started growing out in the back again. It was pretty damaging for my hair, which I was already treating with chemicals by highlighting it to keep it blonde instead of its "natural" dishwater color. I may have too much hair, but I wasn’t interested in going bald. Plus, talk about expensive.

So back to Jennifer Aniston. Her hair looks great these days, doesn’t it? Long, straight and healthy looking. The perfect compliment to her tailored, feminine style. Whether she’s wearing jeans and a tank top around town or a silver Valentino gown on the red carpet, her hair is simple and elegant. Polished yet effortless. Oh how I wish my hair could look effortless.

Come to think of it, my hair does look effortless. Effortless in the sense that I don’t put any effort into it. But I want it to be the other kind of effortless. Has anybody seen my hedge clippers?

Don't mess with Mother Nature

We're having a blizzard in Chicago. Maybe you've heard? My grandma, who lives in Southern California, sure did. She called me earlier today to thank me for the wedding photos (so glad that project is done) and to ask if I was safe. I assured her that I was home on my couch, watching the snow drifts through the living room window as the wind picked up speed.

The blizzard reminds me of when I lived in Miami and I used to lay on my bed and watch the thunderstorms. My studio apartment, barely 500 square feet, had floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls, which gave it the feeling of living in a fish bowl. But in a good way.

The windows overlooked thick bunches of palm trees and the clear blue Florida sky (except when it was raining) so I never had to worry about catching a neighbor naked or putting on an inadvertent show of my own. I had both privacy and sunshine, a winning combination in my mind. 

My studio apartment wasn't much to look at, but it was cheap and on South Beach within walking distance of the ocean and nightlife. It had white-tiled flooring that made it look like an over-sized bathroom, shower doors that were rusted and screeched and a kitchen you couldn't really call a kitchen. It was more like a couple feet of counter space, some cabinets and a sink.

Oh, and I had cockroaches. At first I thought it was gross and squealed like a girl when I saw one. After awhile I got used to them and would interrupt phone conversations for mini assassinations.

"Hold on a sec," I'd say, pulling off my flip flop. I'd hover over the intruder, take aim, then SMACK! I'd wipe it up with a paper towel, toss it in the garbage, put my flip flop back on and sit down.

"Okay, I'm back."

"What was that?" the friend or family member I was talking to would ask.

"Oh nothing, just a cockroach," I said. "If they're going to live here, the least they could do is pay rent."

But anyway. Back to the rain. The storms in Florida were amazing. It never just rained, it poured. That tropical rain that is a force of its own. I'd listen to it thwack the leaves of the trees outside my windows and watch the lightening flash across the technicolor sky. Thunder would follow with an ominous boom. I'd lay there for an hour, my hands tucked behind my head, humbled by the beauty and power of it all.

Weather has a way of doing that, you know. Putting us in our place. We humans think we're so powerful with our cars, computers and big fancy jobs. But when it comes to weather, real weather, Mother Nature is still in charge. Floridians learned that the hard way when Hurricane Andrew blew through in 1992. From what my Miami friends told me, no one paid much attention when newscasters started pointing out a fiery red ball making its way up the Atlantic Ocean toward the Gulf of Mexico.

But ask Miamians about Hurricane Andrew now and you'll see them exhibit sure signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. It leveled entire neighborhoods, causing mass destruction everywhere. One friend told me she rode out the storm in her bathtub, where she had pulled a mattress on top of her and clutched her radio.

The only company she had was the voice of a meteorologist at a local radio station. The meteorologist, Bryan Norcross, became famous for his 23-hour marathon broadcast during the storm, when he guided South Floridians through the worst of it with his calm, steady instructions -- their only lifeline to the outside world. 

By the time I experienced my first hurricane warnings in 2002, Floridians weren't messing around. There were long lines at Home Depot to buy plywood (to board up windows) and runs on the grocery store for bottled water and canned goods.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of watching the storms from my bed. Each time I had to evacuate, especially during the crazy hurricane season of 2004, when they just kept coming one after another: first Charley, then Ivan and a bunch of others whose names are a blur.

The best part of the hurricane, of course, was getting days off work. It was sitting with friends watching the storm approaching on TV with nothing to do but make a sandwich, pop open a beer and hope the storm windows hold. There was nothing to do but wait until it hit, wait until it passed, then go outside and assess the damage.

It's the same with this blizzard. Sometimes there's nothing left to do but sit on the couch, let Mother Nature do its business and wait. At least this time there are no cockroaches in sight.