They Might Have Been Wearing Pajama Pants...

To celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday yesterday we treated her to an early Sunday dinner at her favorite restaurant, Red Lobster. The Henrietta Red Lobster, because that’s the best one, you know! Hey, it’s her birthday. To me, the clientele there are approaching “people of Wal-Mart” amusement but I can eat lobster and that’s always an occasion to be celebrated!


We were providing entertainment yesterday, with the DiCaro clan gathered in full force at a table for nine; mostly wearing Steeler gear...I got slammed for having my son wear a nice plaid shirt and chinos in honor of his grandma. (There was some green in the plaid of the shirt.) The birthday girl was feigning embarrassment at the candled dessert, causing chuckles at our end of the table. (This is the woman who takes her teeth out to frighten small children and explains to strangers at the mall how her granddaughters inherited her big boobs. Seriously.)

Our birthday singing and swooping up all the rolls to take home were interrupted by a slight commotion at the next table. The wait staff and a manager wore expressions of patient concern during the following conversation, reported by the DiCaros sitting at that end of the table:



Customer: “There was some label or tag underneath my shrimp that shouldn’t have been there!”

Manager: “That is terrible, and I apologize...”

Customer’s Dining Companion: “And this steak tastes like cow!”

Manager: (takes a breath) “Well, that’s certainly better than if it tasted like fish!” (laughs a little in a good natured way)

(The table stares at him in stony silence.)

Manager: “OK, I am very sorry and we can do a couple of different things for you...you won’t be charged for these meals...we could remove this food and bring you something different...”

Dining Companion: “Oh, no...”

Manager: “OK, or we could take this dish and re-cook it for you...”

Dining Companion: “No, that wouldn’t work at all...”

Manager: “OK, we can wrap it up for you to take home...”

Dining Companion: “Yes, please wrap it up. Where’s the dessert menu?”



I have crossed off “Red Lobster manager” on my lists of jobs I would ever consider.

Hazy Shade of Winter

“So what else are you finding with the new program that’s better?”

On the first Saturday in January, Jennifer looks around packed Weight Watchers meeting, hoping for some feedback. She is met with blank stares and a few feeble comments. (Although I tend to be an over-enthusiastic group participant, I hold back a little at Weight Watchers since November when she asked what our strategies for dealing with Thanksgiving Dinner stresses are and I blurted out “I drink!”...I sensed some disapproval. Although the little Italian lady in front of me turned around and winked.)

On the way out, I try to tell her, “it’s like little kids...when you go away, (that particular meeting had not been held for two weeks because of the holidays) they will punish you by ignoring you when you come back home.” She doesn’t have children, so she didn’t think that was funny.

Or, I could tell her, it could be because it’s winter and we are blanketed by snow skies and slush, nine hours of daylight if we’re lucky...sure, fruit is now zero points but is fruit what we crave in the dead of winter?

Well, I will try to only speak for myself and I can confidently say “NO”, I love fruit, but that’s not what I CRAVE.

No, what I want when I’ve been slogging through the icy winter wonderland I call home is to put my face into a Panera bread bowl soup.

The Weight Watchers Points for a bread bowl of Black Bean soup (which I love and I believe is also the best WW choice) is 16.

To put that in perspective for you non-WW people, I get to eat 29 points a day.

Which makes the bread bowl soup do-able, but you have to plan carefully and use some of your 49 weekly points...yes, it’s do-able, but certainly not for every day!

And some days I’m just so exhausted from taking my boots on and off that it makes my head spin to contemplate that it’s only Tuesday and I don’t have those extra points to use on bread because I polished off the Godiva truffles that Santa brought me for Christmas. (You don’t even want to know the points for one of those...OK, they are 6 points a scrumptious mouthful...see what I mean? A grape is just so not going to cut it.)

As I was half asleep in bed this morning, sorting through the Fellini-esque territory of my dreams (where does this stuff come from?—oh, from my mind!—that’s pretty scary) and feeling like the proverbial addict—“I’ll have a nice big salad for lunch today, won’t that be great!”—I so realized how much I just wanted to hibernate. For me, that feels like wanting to turn inward, an unusual impulse for the “raging extrovert” I think of myself as.

And doesn’t that make sense, physically? And mentally? If you accept that everything is cyclical, that winter prepares for the spring, for the summer, for the fall, again for the winter...that you can’t have growth and blossoming without rest and reflection. Our world is so hooked in and turned on, I feel very distanced from natural rhythms and truths.

Being in the present, being still, and allowing myself to rest and rejuvenate are not natural talents for me. Maybe that’s why I reach for my comfort foods. Maybe winter can teach me to be still, just a little bit more. Small steps!

Oh, and if you see me at Weight Watchers, let’s not mention the Godiva truffle thing, OK?

Don't pray for me, Mark Hare

After reading this column:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011101200331

this started playing in my head:

(sung to “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” with apologies to Andrew Lloyd Webber:)



Don’t pray for me, Mark Hare,


The truth is my God is still with me—


Even if I vote Republican.


In your liberal fashion


you wrap your condescending


in a thin veil of compassion.



I’ve always defended you, Mark, because I thought you were an excellent writer (one of the few left at the D&C) who could move people. You lost me with this one. Time to let go of the metro government idea as being morally superior! Pray on humility a little, hmmm?

Conversations from my life, #1

Heard at the “Jive and Dine” fundraiser at the Middle School cafeteria last week:

Evelyn: (a rather long description of some grievance or ailment, expressed in a dramatic fashion that I can’t replicate because I was half-listening while wondering when the fresh coffee would arrive)...


Joe: smirk and eye roll

Jason: a bemused yet loving look and smile that says, ‘OK, really, now, Ev’

Evelyn: smiles good-naturedly and laughs


Me: “See, that’s why I love Jason, he can just look at you and bring you back to reality, if one of us tried that...”

My husband: “YEAH, Ev, if I tried that, you’d be giving me the black thought cloud look...”

Evelyn: “Hey, Dad...” stares intently

Joe: smirk "Ev, are you going to eat your breadstick?"

The art of letting go

“Where did the teddy bear pictures go?”


I smiled when Evelyn called this out from the bathroom yesterday. Her brother had asked me the same question earlier. It made me feel good that they even noticed.

Today there is a big burgundy tin star on the downstairs bathroom wall. It was 50% off at Joann’s and I like those big stars, even though I’m sure they are “out” now that they’re appearing on the sale racks. The color is good for our downstairs bathroom; moreover, I thought it would be a good exercise for my “letting go” muscles.

John and I moved into our house in 1986 and those pictures have adorned that room for almost that whole time. One little teddy bear is unraveling toilet paper; the other pouring a mischievous pile of talcum powder. I remember the day we bought them so vividly that I’m sure that is one reason why they have hung there so long.

We were probably in Bed and Bath for some necessary item for the new house when we saw the pictures. John and I looked at each other and smiled. Why they were so captivating to us initially, I can’t really tell you, but I know that we were very thrilled to be trying to have children. Maybe the teddy bear’s antics held the promise of the crazy kind of fun you have with little ones. Maybe we could smell the baby powder and the promise of the new stage in our life together.

During the next eight years the little bears seemed to mock me as we struggled through infertility treatments, pregnancy loss, more infertility treatments, and the maze of adoption efforts. I kept them hanging there, stubbornly insisting to myself and the universe, that there would be children’s messes in the house someday.

Sometimes not being able to let go can work to your advantage. I kept myself busy by mailing hundreds of letters and contacting anyone I had ever met to find adoption leads. Even with all these efforts, we felt lucky to be chosen by two brave and loving women to parent their babies. Birth is a miracle, but being able to let go of your own needs and do what you think is best for your child is beyond miraculous.

Because of these extraordinary mothers, I have experienced so many joyous and messy moments over the past sixteen years. Now the tiny hand that once gripped mine is shifting the gears of the car as she drives me home from the grocery store. I hear a deep voice in the family room and realize that no one else is visiting, it belongs to our thirteen-year-old son. My body’s own biological changes are obvious when I look at the little teddy bear and tears well up, unbidden. Losing the job that I found fulfilling for the past five years is undoubtedly heightening my emotions.

Sometimes holding on is appropriate. Sometimes you have to let go gracefully and with great love. Am I failure at my letting go exercise because the teddy bears are still in my house, stored downstairs where I can look at them if I want to? The past sixteen years have flown by compared to the agony of when we were waiting to become parents. Everyone’s journey is their own, and I will just have to listen to my heart—it hasn’t let me down yet.

Merry Little Christmas

Yes, my decorations are still up...purposefully so...I wouldn’t dream of taking them down before January 6, the traditional Epiphany, or what we referred to growing up as “little Christmas.”

Today if you hear about Epiphany traditions, most likely it will be coverage of various Latino countries and peoples’ celebration...where it is known as “Three Kings Day” and in many families, when the children receive their main holiday gifts.

A little research uncovers many different incarnations of the celebration of the Epiphany, varying from country to country. There are April Fools activities in England, where it is known as “Twelfth Night”. In Germany and other northern European countries, children go door to door as ‘star singers’ and receive sweets. In Italy, Befana the old woman or witch brings sweets or coal by riding her broomstick and coming down the chimneys!

Another Epiphany tradition is blessing of the house, and I think this must be why we always recognized, if not celebrated the feast day when I was young. I distinctly remember our parish priest coming by with the chalk and holy water. (Visitors were a big deal in our house...not too many outsiders ventured into our zoo of six children aged five and under...our family doctor blessedly made house calls, and that’s the only other person besides aunts and uncles that I remember actually coming across the threshold.) I would have probably been helping with the cleaning process in preparation for the blessing, so the memory would have been made more vivid by the build-up as my mother assigned us tasks to help her suitably prepare the downstairs rooms. Let’s just say it would have been a LOUD process.

We attended a Polish parish, and I do remember Father Bruno—large, bald, accented; his image and voice is burned in my memory not from the house blessings but from when I later attended St. Hedwig’s School and he would visit the classrooms and tell us stories of how he was tortured in Nazi Germany. With a thick block of yellow chalk, he marked the wall above each threshold:

19 + C + M + B + 63

Father Bruno’s writing, like his enunciation, was rather exotic, and I’m sure he blessed the house in Latin, so the whole process was rather intriguing and a little bit spooky. It wasn’t until recently that I learned that the letters C, M, B come from the traditional names for the three kings—Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar—and can also represent “Christus Mansionem Benedicat” or “may Christ bless this dwelling!”

Remembering the house blessings and how important the ritual was for my mother helps me understand my irritation at the Catholic Church’s moving the Feast Day to January 2 this past year. I guess I hadn’t realized that this move has been going on for a while, and while doing Internet research, I found one poster who called it, “fast food mentality, move everything to Sunday for convenience.”

That opinion resonated with me; what exactly, is the rush? Where are we all going?

Today I was driving back home after having my car repaired at the same time that the elementary busses were picking up their passengers. As I stopped and waited, I found myself near the Tim Horton’s that Joe and I used to visit on Friday mornings before his elementary school day began. It was a ritual that I treasured, the almost-start of the weekend and a time to just talk about nothing. I often verbalize to friends and family “I wish I was there to have a cup of coffee with you!” And they say back, “I know, me too!!!” whole-heartedly, because we both know what kind of time we’re wishing for. We crave gentle conversation and just soaking up each other’s company.

Reading about the Epiphany, I found out about some traditions that I had never heard of. In Ireland, January 6 is known as “Nollaig na mBan” or “Little Women’s Christmas”. Begun in rural counties, it’s a day when women finally get a break, and the men take over the housework. Mothers get special gifts and get to go out with other women to relax. Now that sounds like a Merry Little Christmas to me!