Interview Follows Review of Staying Alive: A Love Story

A lot going on this week! After review of my memoir Staying Alive: A Love Story,  I was interviewed.


Click here for interview.

Click here for  review .

Reviewer Calls STAYING ALIVE: A LOVE STORY a Beautiful Reminder of What Really Matters

OK. It's pretty satisfying getting a memoir published. It's even more satisfying getting a good review.
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-staying-alive-a-love/

Season's Greeting - Finally!

I like to take on the season gradually, but this year, late autumn took one step forward and two steps back. After Storm Alfred blew Halloween off the calendar,Thanksgiving seemed misplaced, the Macy’s Parade - premature. Thanksgiving Weekend temps rose to 60 degrees. 

Seasonal spirit continued to slip more and more out of reach – until a friend posted a call to help stuff stockings for wounded soldiers at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio TX. as a token of appreciation for what our troops sacrifice everyday: their time, their safety, their well-being.

Together with my friend Lisa and her Facebook friends, join me in gathering  items that make a difference in these brave men and women’s  daily lives. I’ll be bringing filled stockings and stuffing donations to New Haven, CT Thursday, December 8. If you can’t visit me with your contribution before then, visit  WWW.SoHuNewHaven.org to donate towards shipping costs.

Appropriate donations are:

DVDs, CDs, Walmart and Target gift certificates, body lotion, Microwavable popcorn, soap/ body wash, puzzle books, tooth paste, disposable cameras, tooth brushes, decks of cards, Mouthwash, individually wrapped snacks, paperback books, deodorant, pencils, pens, stationary, magazines, hair brushes, chap stick, lip balm, tweezers, shampoo, conditioners, shaving cream, razor blades with a minimum of THREE blades (very important), hand made cards or letters (unsealed), board games, nail polish, boxed tea, wool hats, and baked goods.

What Was I Thinking?

Silly me, thinking life would calm down after Em and Ry’s wedding. Slow its pace a bit. Dish out more expectation than surprise.

How could I have forgotten what I learned years ago? "Normal" is an over-rated myth. The road to everyday, as in paths common and ordinary, is more of a slippery slope. I mean, really – just three weeks after the wedding, (a time frame within which I had fooled myself into believing life would begin to follow a predictable path) storm Alfred blew in through one overnight, reminding little ol’ Mommy-of-the bride me, NOT to take Mother Earth for granted. The she-god’s point, via stormin’ Al, could not be taken lightly, not after the snowy intruder ushered in over a week of no heat, no electricity, and no work (since the community college where I teach was shut down from Monday right through Friday).

I was one of the lucky ones. I had hot water through the powerless week. I could handle the debris in my yard as opposed to not-so-fortunate neighbors who required tree removal services – some  before the electric company could reattach their power lines. I did have one casualty, though, my favorite tree out back below the kitchen window. A dull stump the thickness of two fists now sits where a hundred-year-old wisteria stood three weeks ago. It's sawed just below  the bough that broke from the weight of the single-night’s storm, a break that continued to split into the twisted trunk. The damage would have rotted the tree to death, for sure. This way there’s hope, according to my good neighbor, the one with a chain saw.

Come to think of it, during that short time between Em and Ry's brilliant wedding day (the second week in October) and the wintry October anomaly (the last)  my sought-after normal got interrupted by capricious highs and lows: a surprise letter (snail-mail even) from a long-absent pal, two cancer diagnoses of close friends - both of whom had surgery in that time, news of two engagements, a perfectly healthy woman's passing followed by the surprising recovery of an elderly neighbor, the rise and fall of three presidential nominees, record-breaking volatility in the stock market, and one European crisis after the other. Reminds me of a poster I had on my college dorm room forty-plus years ago: Not to Decide is to Decide. Today’s equivalent would be  Expect the Unexpected.

Mother Nature's Trick: No Treat

Been  just over three weeks since Em and Ry’s “ I-dos.” Thank goodness  the date is that far behind us because, had  the wedding  taken place three weeks later, Mother Nature would have wrecked havoc on the event. I’m not talking about just dampening the spirit of the day with rain, or a bit of inconvenient snow. I’m talking  about how, if the wedding was the last weekend in October, Mother Nature would have crushed the party with a freak October blast of a foot of heavy snow. The party would have turned into a non-party because the conditions would have been too much for mid-autumn’s foliage to manage.

Three weekends  after the Hayden/Mullen wedding, an unseasonal storm did arrive and trees throughout  most of the state cracked, split, and fell upon power lines so forcefully that, not only were lines downed, but transmission stations blew  and substations malfunctioned. Just short of 850,000 households in CT lost power for more than seven days.  Some, including 25% of my town, along with more than 80,000 homes in the state, still haven’t had power restored. Since the power went out  Saturday, October 29 and, in over half the state, continued to be out Saturday, November  5, two weekends of weddings, sporting events, and get-aways from the work week in Connecticut were impacted by the  freak storm and its aftermath.  Massachusetts had a similar toll. Halloween was virtually cancelled, along with  more than a week of school and some workplaces.

 These photograph were taken on a walk around my neighborhood the day after the storm, The landscaped remained unchanged for five days. Now, 10 days laters, 25% of the town still does not have power.

My first real shocker on the walk - just around the corner.

This branch dangled amid power line for days

Common front yard sight

Close up, a scary sight

Power lines scattered on every sidewalk

Cars skirt under wires for days.




Vehicles drive onto sidewalks to avoid felled lines.

An almost entire shut down of life-as-we-Nutmeggers-know-it ensued. Thankfully, mild daytime temperatures kept  pipes from freezing. My home averaged 45 degrees through each heatless night.

Yet, we were lucky  and we know it. We of the wedding and we who  -- just over a week after the quirky storm --  are starting to get back to normal. Other wedding planners  weren’t.  The press hasn’t even had a chance to cover the "fluffier" inconveniences of the storm – like rescheduled ceremonies and parties – as opposed to the  critical scoops of the day: restoring power, removing brush, branches, and limbs from major roads and neighborhoods, CO2 poisonings, storm-related car accidents, smashed roofs and porches, emergency housing, and power politics.  The state population has, basically, been camping indoors or seeking shelter elsewhere for about as long as a family vacation. The anti-family-vacation.

May we all move closer and closer to our wonderfully ordinary days and eventually, rescheduled red- letter days, through this second week of post-storm recovery.

Back Interest

Where was I

·    before the most brilliant week of fall weather in New England history ushered in and then ushered out Emily and Ryan’s wedding day 
·    before those present and those passed became fully invested in their moving ceremony

·     before the sky bore a message of everlasting love

·     before the groom’s mother graced us with a  lullaby

·     before the bride’s brother pulled off a powerful toast –    with a case of Milwaukee Light

·    before we danced and danced and danced and danced?

I was getting out the sewing box, - remember?  Trying to figure out , at eight in the morning, how to secure a loop on the back of Em’s gown, by which to lift its bustle to the lowest satin back button,  so she could dance without tripping over her lace-scalloped train.  

And I was worried. The seamstress’ loop had snapped during the first “dress” rehearsal. The wedding was just a week away. With no time to head back to her– 2 hours away –  to replace it , it was up to me – Ms. MOTB.  How could I mend better than a dress designer with an MFA in Textile Construction?  Really!

Then I remembered, Em’s grandmother Mimi had always been a wiz with a needle and thread (and crochet hook, and macramé yarn, and knitting needles, and quilting stitches and. . . ) 

I thought : What would Mimi have done?

Mimi would have addressed the need for a bit of stretch in the fastener, as well as strength (Em’s gown was beaded – therefore heavy).  Mimi always had elastic thread in her box of sewing doodads, the same box I had open before me. I also remembered how my mother would strengthen  thin crocheting yarn by crocheting it into a chain, using as tiny a hook as she could find.

I took the elastic thread that still remained in her box, dug out a hooked needle from deep within and  crocheted away. Not sturdy enough I decided. So I chain-stitched that chain into a thicker chain. Liked the thickness – but not the give. Wrapped around the satin button, the weight of the skirt  s t r e t c h e d  the loop like an elastic band, which, in fact it was!

I felt defeated. Needed a break. Went to brush my teeth, a  ritual I hadn’t gotten to – due to the long morning mend-fest. A failed mend-fest.  I went on to floss. Floss  as in using  a soft, strong, waxed thread, made of nylon. Sturdy, unbreakable nylon.

 I broke off a piece of floss, threaded it through a  needle, and wove the floss through my morning's handiwork - the elastic loop -  to inhibit its stretch. Sewed the loop onto the lower back seam of the gown. Lifted the skirt up to the lowest back button. Secured  loop .

 IT WORKED.

No matter how big the wedding – it’s the little things!  

Some Pics Are Worth 1000 Blogs!

Didn't even have to bring a camera. Various folk took various shots - all night. Here are the links to what our friends and family captured from Emily and Ryan's Big Day

Ceremony starts

Ceremony ends . . .

. . .with a surprise from the groom.

.Click the links below for more.

ASA Photography

Cousin Amy's awesome photos
                    

Even the DJ snapped the night away

six minute video

(to be continued)