Special highlights of the SUPER-newsy end-of-year issue included an update on our bullying workshops, fun with sports and pastry, some quotes about me by my husband, and some quotes BY me in an article ABOUT me.
Then there was another great link to a Moya Stone article about The Souls of Her Feet.
And some sad and silly goodbyes to my dear friend and dog-daughter, the lovely, elegant goofball Maddie Moose Maddyson Maddog von Caven. Or however she spelled it.
A.k.a. Mad-tilda, Madison Square Garden, Madagascar, Madeline Albright Caven.
Love song for Maddy Caven, 1997-2013 ~ apologies/gratitude to George & Ira Gershwin
There are many, many crazy things
That we’ll always love about you, And with your permission May I list a few?
The way you’d get the cat. The way you’d run so free. The memory of all that - No, no - they can't take that away from me.
The way you’d fill the bed.
The way we fixed your knee. The way you’d shake and shed. No, no - they can't take that away from me.
We may never, never meet again
On that bumpy road of life
Still I'll always,
Always keep the memory of...
The way you filled my lap (do-do-do-do do-do).
The way you’d lick your pee.
The way you changed our life.
No, no - they can't take that away from me.
No, they can't take that away from me.
I was raised to raise my nose at spectator sports. Our family would DO things while others were sitting on couches, drinking beer, drooling, screaming in unison like an idiot choir. We'd garden, draw, hike, read, or go visit grandma. But I married a sports fan, and in loving him, I have learned to love the ball seasons in my own way.
This weekend, I made a video based on my Walk-off Pie recipe from last year's streaky baseball season. My son, the aspiring filmmaker, was a very useful Techie. He helped me figure out how to turn the kitchen into a studio, held the camera on the tricky shots, and did a great a walk-on at the end.
The most annoying thing was not the way batteries ran out on the second-to-last shot, but the clicking noise the expensive fancy HD video camera I borrowed made a clicking noise when it zoomed. It was a tough call but in the end I took my own advice not to be a perfectionist but to get it out there. Life is short.
There were a few best things... the magic of editing (thank you, Adobe Premiere), being creative with my kid (his favorite scene was the table-clearing...), and the best surprise of all: THE PIE WAS DELICIOUS! We left it in the freezer and ate it the next night as the Broncos whipped up and up on the Raiders.
My crazy cook friends and I have always dreamed of doing a variety show. Maybe this is my opening salvo. (Mmm, salvo.)
Oh, and here's one more factoid. The shirt I'm wearing is homemade, too. It's a relic from our early days of parenthood, when I couldn't afford the licensed variety for a father's day gift. To avoid complete licensing failures, the child-sized one said "A-Ok-land" on the back. This one, which my husband has kept, says "Auckland A's" on the back, since Oakland doesn't start with an A....
In SUMMER, 2013, Hazelden published The Bullying Antidote, culminating a 2-year writing adventure with my mother, and kicking off another one: publicity.
Writing and publicity require two opposite states of mind. One is introverted and quiet; the other is extroverted and chatty.
Here's a link to the Zorgos blog, where I'm chatty about bullying a few times a month.
