That’s what a friend of the family said to my mom and I today, in the hospital. My stepfather, Gil, looks very much like he’s in the end game with his most recent cancer, multiple myeloma. (“End game” may not be the right analogy; it might be “overtime” or “extra innings” at this point, but [...]
Last night, unprompted, Piper started reeling off some stories of her own. I grabbed for my recorder and got several of them down. Recurring themes: a little girl going to bed, snuggling with her polar bear, curtain rods, drinking juice. Piper Tells a Story: 1 (01:57) Piper Tells a Story: 2 (01:09) Phrases that I’ll [...]
Sometimes unremarkable times are actually the ones I find myself wanting to remember. I picked P up from her day care late this afternoon, whistling as I walk in the door. Any time I walk into a space in which Kate or Piper can hear me, I give the same little three note whistle I’ve [...]
We’ve moved since last I updated here, one and a half times. The one time took us from our apartment in upstate Manhattan to my mom’s farm near Barneveld, Wisconsin. Along the way, we moved through the traditional Seven Stages of Moving: Packing the Books, Acquiring Liquor Boxes, Sorting the Crap, Dumping the Drawers into Boxes, Running Out of Tape, Eating Take-Out, and Sweeping. We had a tearful good-bye with Dawn, the sparky actress who had been taking care of Piper for most of the past year, and then Kate and P got on an airplane while I packed the cats, catboxes, wine, computers and other breakables into our blue car and hit the road, heading for Wisconsin.
The mounds of snow that NYC got over the last month are melting down: first into icy slabs, and then into the crushed water bottles and dog turds hiding, like beans in the King Cake, since the last blizzard. While we didn’t get nearly as much snow as those further north (hello, CT!), the shape [...]