Counting my way to the top

I wasn't even at tree line when I thought to myself, "you know, if you just turned around and went home, no one would be the wiser."

For the eleventh annual Emma climb, Christin and I had decided to do Mt. Elbert. The big kahuna. The tallest one in Colorado and the second tallest in the lower 48 (by, like, 65 feet, so whatevs, Mt. Whitney). 

Early start in the dark

Colorado types tend to talk about Elbert being easy (which in local parlance just means it's not a technical climb with too much exposure), but I call bullshit. 

The lack of oxygen makes it so hard for me. It's brutal to try to breathe when there's no air in the air.

But another factor with this one was that the elevation gain was about 4500' - a full 50% more than I've ever done in the past - but over only 4.9 miles, so the average incline grade is around 18%. 

That is really steep. 

And it was. It was relentlessly steep in a way that I hadn't anticipated. 

I mean, I can do math. If I had done the math I would have known that number, but still. Reading a number and actually living it on the trail are two different things. 

And at just above tree line, I hadn't even reached the steepest part yet. 

Plus I was alone. 

Poor Christin injured her leg really badly back in February (skiing accident) and was still recuperating, so she wasn't able to climb with me. I was so bummed to not be able to do it without her - we have done every one together and it's really meaningful for both of us.

Zeke had indicated he was interested, but as it got close he begged off because of homework in his AP Bio class. I think he was also nervous. Greg's family was in town, plus his knees don't really allow for fourteeners anymore.

So it was just me. No one to talk to the whole time, as Christin and I tend to do. No one whose energy I could feed off of when I needed it. 

No one who would know the difference if I decided to bail.

I didn't bail. The idea of bailing sat in my brain for a couple of seconds before I dismissed it. I was never going to bail. 

What I did was count. 

"I'll take 100 steps and then stop and take a breather for a minute."

"When I hit 12,500 feet, I'll stop and take a breather."

"When I've gone another two tenths of a mile, I'll stop and take a breather."

Any metric that seemed managable was all I would focus on, because looking up and seeing how much more there was to go was crushing. 

Bit by bit, step by step, breath by breath.

I'd see what looked like a summit and think, "I just have to get there." 

But I'd get there realize it's a false summit and think, "motherfucker."

I'd look up again and see another crest that looks like a summit and think, "there is it."

But this bastard of a mountain has two false summits, so I'd get there and think, "what in the actual fuck." 

Finally, finally, I reached the actual summit. That's what happens when you don't turn back. 

The view was spectacular. Just unreal. So worth the effort. 

Of all the fourteeners I've done, this view was the most awe-inspiring. 

I ate my sandwich and drank my can of Arizona Iced Tea. I sat and thought about Emma, who would be 28. 

I took out my list - 111 names!!! - and said the Kaddish for all of them. 

I may have shed a tear or two.

After a while, I steeled myself for the descent, which can often be just as punishing as the ascent, but in a different way. 

The relentless effort of the ascent was the down payment. The descent is the interest, paid in exhaustion and lactic acid build-up and aching joints. It's not so much walking as controlled falling on shaking quads, and a desperate dance to avoid a trip or a slide. 

On the long descent, you think, damn, how did I walk up this? 

But again, each step and each breath and each drop in elevation adds up, and then you're back at the parking lot and laughing as you wonder how you're going to manage the step up into the car so you can drive home. 

You have persevered. Your middle-aged body has held up. You can do the hard things. 

You have honored your loved ones and those of so many people who have entrusted you to do this ritual for them, year after year. 

It's an extraordinary feeling.

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

Throughout the eighteen (!!) years that I've been writing this blog - or lately, not writing it - my goal has always been to write the way I want to write, and write well, and write truthfully, and not censor myself. I certainly will respect peoples' privacy and confidences. I've changed names where necessary or altered the details of a story in a way that doesn't make it recognizable while still maintaining the essence of the story, but I always bristled at letting someone else dictate what I write. 

But over the past couple of years, it's been increasingly difficult.

My children are in their mid-teens. They are entitled to their privacy. They would be horrified and furious if I wrote about the details of their lives, or my experiences as a full-time single mother over the last few years, or the specifics of why it has been so, so difficult and draining and anxiety-producing. 

Enough people who read this blog know me pretty well, so there's no way to write about the kids without airing their dirty laundry in a conspicuous way.  

So I haven't.

I'm also in a relationship with someone who, except for LinkedIn, makes a point of having a minimal  online presence. He's not on Facebook or Instagram or any other platform. He's very private.

To my own credit, I have made a point of providing almost no identifying information about him. I have only ever used his first name, which I could go back through the blog and change to an alias. The Dude, perhaps. 

In any event, I have never provided any detail about what he does for a living or anything else that would allow someone to figure out who he is. You know that he likes to ski and hike and bike and see shows at Red Rocks and travel, but that could describe the majority of men in the state of Colorado. 

Still. I'm very careful to the point that I don't write nearly as much as I would if this were an anonymous blog. 

I also work for a public school district with an active and vocal parent community, some of whom have an eye on me and regularly curse my name on private Facebook groups because they think I'm a terrible person whose overriding goal is to make life awful for their children. 

Spoiler alert: hurting kids with disabilities is the opposite of why I'm excited to go to work every day.

The result has been that the things that have shaped my life over the past few years are the same things that I can't write about very much. 

So for the past 8 months, I haven't written at all. 

I've lost my time machine. 

I know I've talked about this before, but I can't emphasize enough how important memory is to me. Some people don't look back fondly on the past. There's a person I went to school with in India who has basically erased any mention or memory of our India life as much as possible, because she had bad experiences and hates thinking about it. 

But I've had the extraordinary good fortune of living a life that for the most part, has brought me great joy. That I love looking back on. It's why I love reunions. It's why when we go to our parents' house, my brothers and I always make a point of looking back through old photo albums (of which there are at least 20). It's why I make photo book after every trip I take. 

I hate it when I can't remember details. 

When people say, "don't you remember the crazy bus ride to Rishikesh when we went white-water rafting at the beginning of senior year? It was terrifying." 

And I don't remember that detail, and the not remembering upsets me.

I bring all of this up because my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Fortunately, he is still highly functional. His short-term memory is pretty much nonexistent, and he repeats himself constantly, but he knows his life. He can still drive to familiar places, like McLean Family Restaurant to have breakfast in the morning, or to the gym. He walks the dog and reads books.  

He knows who he is and where he is and when he is. He knows who we are. And his love for us is boundless. 

He's never been much of a phone talker. He's always been loving and affectionate, but conversations consisted of, "how's everything? Are you ok? How are the kids? How's your car? Do you need money? Ok, here's your mother."

Not much has changed, except the statements are more overtly love-y.

"Hi sweetie. How are you? How are the kids? I just want you to know how much I love you. I love all my children. And I love my grandchildren. And I have the best wife. I'm so lucky. I've had a great life. Ok, here's your mother."

He has doted on me from the day I was born. 

He repeats that over and over. But those are repetitions that I don't mind at all. 

I'm thankful that he hasn't shied away from the diagnosis. He's not in denial. He's been proactive about seeking medical care, and recently started participating in a clinical trial for a drug that may help to slow the progression of the disease. 

I have a number of friends whose parents are also dealing with Alzheimers, or whose parents had it before they died. Some of them absolutely refuse to acknowledge it or talk about it. They won't go to a doctor. They are in complete denial. 

Not Barry.

He understands that in all likelihood, the disease is going to kill him. He has said, in so many words, "if this is what takes me out, I have no regrets. I wouldn't do anything differently. I've lived a life of adventure, had the best kids, the best wife. All of it. It's ok." 

We know what's ahead. We know that he will start forgetting more than just what he had for breakfast, or where he left his keys. 

Throughout my life, he has been such a force of nature. So funny, so smart, so crazy, so cool. 

Check out this cool mofo. "Effete Snob for Peace." Heh.

But he is noticably slowing down. He seems frail. It breaks my heart. 

It breaks my heart for my him, and selfishly, it also breaks my heart to think it will probably happen to me. 

So I am determined to continue making a record of my life, for myself and my family and my children.

I read back over this blog and it brings memories to the forefront. They stay in my brain rather than fade away. It means that my sense of myself is more comprehensive. I want to keep that going as long as possible. 

Which is why I need to start writing again. On a going-forward basis, and also to try to backfill events from the last 8 months. 

And that's where I am. 

The Evergreen Thanksgiving

Remember Wheel of Fortune? 

 My first year of college, we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy most nights with the guys in the suite down the hall. To clarify, it's still on, so I'm not suggesting it has gone anywhere. But I haven't watched it in a million years, so it feels like a dinosaur to me.  

Anyway, in the Olden Days, when the winner got to the final puzzle, they got to choose five consonants and one vowel that would populate the clue, and then they had to figure it out from there. Without fail, they always chose R, S, T, L, N, and E. 

The evergreens. 

At some point, those were automatically populated and the contestant got to choose 3 additional consonants, which always made it more fun. 

But the evergreens were the evergreens. Always relevant, always reliable. 

Which brings me to Thanksgiving.

Specifically, the ubiquitous Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table so that everyone can say what they're thankful for. It's a lovely exercise that embodies the spirit of the holiday. 

And the things people are grateful for tend to be the same, at least in my house.

Family. Friends. Health. 

Always relevant, always true. Evergreen.

I think it was last year when we were going to start going around the table that I was like, let's each of us come up with something in addition to the the usual stuff. 

I wasn't suggesting that the usual stuff isn't great. Just that I'd love to hear about something else that people are thankful for. 

Eyes were rolled and I was quickly shot down. 

And I get it. The evergreens are evergreen for a reason. 

We went to Virginia a few days earlier than usual because Kristin was in the U.S. and she and Lisa and I planned a mini-reunion. We are in regular communication via WhatsApp, but we haven't all been together since 2016. I love these women. I miss them so much. 

So we met up at Lisa's house in D.C. and spent the entire day talking and laughing and being ridiculous. We squeezed Lisa's new boobs. We chatted with Kristin's son Lorenzo, who is a jillion feet tall and adorable and who may be the only 17-year-old on the planet content to sit around gabbing with a bunch of middle aged ladies reminiscing about high school in the 80s. We had yummy Mexican food and gelatto. 

Then we asked Lorenzo to take some photos and all hell broke loose. I have no idea when it got so crazy but by the end of it we were groping each other and laughing uproariously and at one point I was half squating in this weird way that looked like I was about to poop standing up. 

Now, to be clear, this is not surprising. We were supremely silly when we were in high school. We used to refer to each other as Lisa-Pisa, Wendy-Pendy, and Krissy-Pissy. We referred to the Bananarama song as "I'm Your Penis." If we were excited about something, we would say that we were getting a BH - Kristin's phrase for "boob hard-on." And on and on. 

So not much has changed, and I wouldn't want it to. It was the absolute best.  

Lisa and her family then came to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, which was lovely. We had such a big crowd that we moved everything to the living room. It took a long time to go around the table for the "I'm-grateful-fors." 

The number of people allowed my mother and me to go wild and mix and match
her impressive collection of glassware, napkins, and pottery. 

I tried to go rogue on my list, but in the end defaulted to family. And friends. And health. I'm grateful for my life.  

You know. The evergreens. 

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day with my girl

When I was pregnant with Josie and found out she was a girl, I was worried that when she became a teenager, she was going to turn on me. 

The cliche´ of the teenage girl gremlin is so entrenched in the parental ethos. I know I was a little bit gremlin-ish when I was 14, though my mom says that it was more mood-swingy-ness than anything else. Being happy one minute and then crying the next. And it was short-lived. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I haven't really had a fight with my mom in almost 40 years.

As for my own daughter, all I ever wanted was for her to be sweet and smart and funny and happy. 

Holy shit, did I ever hit the jackpot. I keep waiting for the gremlin to appear, but she never has, and I'm getting the feeling that she never will.

I know I overuse the term "delightful" to describe her. Out of curiosity, I checked the thesaurus to see if there was something else that captured it. And the answer was, not really. 

She gets up for school in the morning without a fuss. She is sweet and agreeable in her demeanor - for her to get fussy with me is incredibly rare. She has a tendency to drape herself over me like a sloth. We'll be at the grocery store and she will put her arm around my shoulders and sort of hang there. She has cool taste in music and movies. She studies and gets good grades. She is truly, truly one of the funniest people I know. She surrounds herself with lovely friends. 

She is also beautiful, but to me that is the least interesting thing about her. 

She is extraordinarily sensitive and self-aware in her relationships with people. Last week she came into my room one night, crying and upset about a situation and needing advice. She felt that she was involved in something that wasn't good for her, but also didn't want to give it up. She talked about going back and forth between the two positions in her head and her gut. Her friends were telling her she was messing up and needed to take certain action, but she was at war with herself about what to do.

We talked and I told her that her friends needed to calm down. She wasn't messing up or putting herself in a bad situation. There was nothing about the situation that required any particular action at that point in time. If and when it got to that point, she could figure it out then, but right now, everything's fine. 

I can say with absolute certainly that I never had that level of emotional intelligence when I was her age.

She calmed down and I made her laugh. Then we watched the Barbie movie together.

This past Sunday, it was her 14th birthday. 

A while back, Greg and I had talked about going to Crested Butte for the weekend to do some mountain-biking and hang out at this festival that struck me as supremely silly. When he suggested it, I said, please tell me that we would be attending this ironically, because I am 100% certain that I will find it ridiculous. I took to calling it Woodland Fairy Burning Man. 

Anyway, the weekend coincided with Josie's birthday. Crested Butte is six hours away, and we wouldn't have returned until late afternoon. Josie had made plans to do something with her friends, and I asked her if she wanted me around or if she cared if I was gone that weekend. 

Initially she said it was fine. She said this repeatedly. 

But as the time approached, there was something that felt off to me. Maybe it was my own feelings of guilt. Maybe there was a vibe I was picking up. Maybe both. 

So last week I said, "I want you to be completely honest with me. Would it bother you if I went out of town and didn't make it back until 6 or 7 on your birthday? It will not upset me at all if the answer is 'yes.'"

She was quiet for a second and then said softly, "I want you to stay here. I only said that before because I didn't want you to feel bad."

"Then I will stay here and have a great day hanging out with you," I said. "I can't wait." 

And she gave me a big hug. 

On Sunday a few of her friends came over.  One of them made a piñata for her and filled it with candy. Josie is the absolute queen of trashy snacks - her favorite is Flaming Hot Funions, which should tell you everything you need to know.  So I bought lots of junk food. The girls jumped on the trampoline. They listened to Josie's vinyls (apparently nobody calls them "records" anymore). They gabbed about everything and nothing.

One of her friends stayed for the night. We had birthday cake and Chinese food and watched Some Like It Hot, one of Josie's favorites. She loves Marilyn Monroe movies.

It was a super fun night and I was thrilled that she wanted me to be a part of it. 

Happy birthday, my darling girl. You are one of the great blessings of my life.

School's out for summer

I got home from work last week and found Zeke chilling on the couch eating popcorn and watching TV. 

"Heeeeey Wowie," he said, using his pet name for me. 

"Heeeeey Zekey," I responded. "What did you get up to today?"

"I went to the park with some of my friends. We did some skating."

"Nice. Bratwurst dogs and salad OK for dinner?"

"Sure, sounds good."

"Josie? You home?" I yelled up the stairs.

"Hi Mumsie!"

"Good day?"

"Good day!"

Our days are good right now. 

Because my kids attend school (most of the time without an argument) and I work for a school district handling the student matters, summer is a mellow time for all of us. The day after the last day of school, my workload drops off dramatically. June and early July are deader than disco. The teachers and staff are off contract for the summer, the administrators take vacation, and things slow. way down. It's lovely.

For my kids, they are at an age when they can hang out with their friends and fend for themselves, but aren't quite old enough for summer jobs. And after a year that was stressful for a number of reasons, Jason and I decided that with the exception of some overnight camp for Josie and an amazing three week bike ride for Zeke (Portland to the Golden Gate Bridge), they could have an unstructured summer to chill out. 

So for all of us, we're relaxed and happy. We have things to look forward to. Colorado in the summer is amazing. We can have beach days on the lake with the paddleboards. We can go hiking in the mountains. We can go to any of the myriad festivals popping up around the city. I've got two Dead & Company shows next week, and then Greg and I are going on an Alaska cruise in which we have to get dressed up so that we can have dinner with Captain Stubing. Then in late July, we go to the Outer Banks.

In one respect, however, I will not be chilling out. Because I have decided that I'm going to try to ride the Triple Bypass after all. 

When I busted up my knee and particularly when I had my surgery, my assumption was that there was absolutely no way I would be able to do it. The early stages of rehab were painful and difficult. The swelling took a long time to go down. My hamstring ached where they took the graft. 

But then I started getting stronger, and from there, the progress was dramatic. 

The surgery was a little over two months ago. As soon as I was able to, I started a weight lifting program and was doing rides on the Peloton. I started small - 5 and 10 minute rides with almost no resistance. I increased the time and the resistance as I felt stronger and more comfortable. When the PT said I could work out of the saddle, I did that. 

Three weeks ago, I had my 6-week follow up with my surgeon, He said that everything looked great and that I could do as much on the bike and with weights as I could tolerate. 

"Can I ride on my real bike outside?"

"Not yet. Give it another month or so. The ligament is still weak. If you fall or somebody hits you, if you have to stick a leg out to catch yourself, it could be really bad. But inside, go for it. The rule is, if it doesn't hurt, you can do it."

Which got me thinking. 

On the Peloton, I can do power zone rides and climb rides and HIIT training. There are rides that mimic mountain climbs from stages of the Tour du France. There is a 5 hour series of climb rides based on going up Mt. Haleakala in Hawai'i. I can do short rides and long rides, and I can string rides together to get used to being in the saddle for long periods of time. Off the bike, I can lift weights to increase my strength and stability on the bike. 

"The Triple Bypass is on August 20," I thought. "I have 12 weeks. Why not train inside until I can train outside?"

The only thing missing would be getting in some rides at altitude - the Bypass is all above 7,000 feet, with the mountain passes over 11,000 feet. But if I can start riding outside by early July, I'll have enough time to do some long rides in the mountains.  

Why not?

I couldn't think of a reason. So I put together a training schedule and got to work. 

The day after we get back from the cruise, I have another PT appointment. My hope is that I will get the go-ahead to start training outside. And then I will be on my way. 

I'm nervous and excited about it the same time. Which is one of my favorite feelings. Let's fucking go. 

Day Ten: Humility, and why it's good to have a brother who is an athletic coach

 From an intellectual, left-brained perspective, I was and am fully cognizant of the road ahead of me, and prepared to walk it. From emotional perspective, reality kicked me in the gut.

Friday was my first physical therapy appointment. I walked in with my brace and my crutches, and was encouraged and energized by the room full of equipment. 

Let's go.

I lay on the table while Matt, my PT guy, manipulated my leg. First thing was to measure my range of motion.

"One week out, we want to see knee flexion at 90 degrees. And when you extend your leg straight we want a bend of less than 10 degrees. The extension is the thing we really want to focus on first, but you're going to be working on both. Your bend is at about 85 degrees, and your extension is at around 11 or 12. So you're in good shape. You're doing well."

The numbers are everything to me. I thought to myself, dude, you have NO idea how task-oriented I am. There's no way I'm walking out of here without hitting those targets. 

I was lying on my back with my left knee bent. I scooted my heel back towards my butt in small increments. 

Scoot scoot. Rest for 10 seconds. Scoot scoot. Rest for 10 seconds. Scoot scoot.

"Where is it now?"

He measured again. "Ninety degrees. Nice job."

Then he put a bolster under my Achilles heel so that my leg was extended as much as possible. I tried to focus on relaxing the muscles to let gravity work to pull the back of the knee down. It was extremely difficult and uncomfortable. I couldn't hold the position for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

"You're going to need to do this multiple times a day, trying to hold it for longer and longer as you can tolerate it." 

We did that for a while.

"Where's the extension now?" I asked.

He measured again. "Nine degrees. Excellent."

I mentally patted myself on the back.

We worked on a few other things. He unlocked my brace so that the knee would bend and I could start trying to use a more normal gait, bringing my left leg up to take a step and then landing with a proper heel-to-toe.

They use a digital system that sends exercises to an app, so he loaded up my account with exercises for the week. The app is great - it tracks your activity and includes video so you can follow along and imitate the movements.

I left feeling good. 

The next day, I did a PT session on my own, and I broke down and cried.

It was so hard. It was so humbling. I can barely lift my leg up from a lying-down position. I can't contract my quad muscle. There's one exercise that involves lying face-down on the floor and lifting the leg up, and it took all of my concentration to be able to lift it a tiny bit.

The dreaded leg extension

I felt like a baby learning to walk. 

I had a vision of the next 6 months. Limping along. Constantly being uncomfortable. Not being able to do anything. Feeling weak and puny.

It reduced me to tears.

Greg came over to help me move my ice machine down the stairs from my bedroom - basically, a little cooler filled with freezing cold water that flows through tubes into a pad that I can wrap around my leg. It's on a timer that I can set, so I ice the knee for 10-15 minutes every hour. It is my new favorite thing that I own. But I use crutches to get up and down the stairs, and I can't use the crutches and carry the ice machine at the same time. And if I can't get it downstairs, I'm stuck in my room all day, which is a drag.

When he came in, I lamented that I felt awful and weak and helpless. I hate that my muscles won't do what I tell them to do. I hate that I have to ask people to come help me with basic tasks.

He gave me a hug and assured me that I would get stronger and more self-sufficient. He said that it was ok to ask for help, and that I have many people in my life who love me and are happy to help me.

Later that day, I called my brother Josh. Josh had this same surgery about eight years ago, so he's a good resource and sounding board. He is also a high school lacrosse coach, so he's good at motivational pep talks. 

We talked about the rehab timeline and the experience he had. He said that full recovery would take many months. But I can't focus on the end goal or how long it will take me to get there. 

I have to take it one workout and one day at a time. Don't worry about increasing your knee flexion by 30 degrees. Try to improve by one degree. And then one degree the next day. It feels insignificant but it adds up. After a month, you've improved by 30 degrees. Treat the PT like any of the other exercise programs I've done. Do what's on the calendar for today, and then don't worry about it. Tomorrow, do the same thing. By the end of the program, you'll see the results.

I know this. Of course I know this. I've used those same principles to motivate other people. When one of the kids is overwhelmed by the fact that they're supposed to have read eight chapters of the book but are only on chapter two, I tell them, "just read one chapter. You can do one chapter. And when that's done, you can focus on the next chapter." 

But I needed to hear it from someone else, because I wasn't listening to myself. 

"Will you coach me through this?" I asked. "Could you send me a text or some kind of meme or whatever to help me stay motivated and on the ball? That's never really been my thing, but I think I need it."

"Absolutely," he said.

After we hung up, I ordered a whiteboard to put up in my workout room. I can track each day's workouts and write motivational quotes. 

I told Greg about this and he told me I was a nerd. 

"You like that I'm nerdy," I responded, laughing.

"I totally do," he smiled. 

On Sunday morning, Josh sent me an audio of clips of different motivational speeches by coaches. I did my PT sessions on Sunday, and felt good about them.

I love my brother.

I woke up this morning and did another session. I lifted some weights for shoulders and arms, and then got on the Peloton and did 5 minutes of partial revolutions back and forth (I can't yet do a full revolution in either direction). I use my right leg to push the pedals in each direction, getting as far as I can and then holding it for 10 seconds before going back the other way. I do this at least twice a day, and try to move a little further each time.

Giant nerd alert

I took the ice machine downstairs by myself and started work (I'm working from home after taking last week off). The whiteboard will arrive later today. I've got my set of colored dry-erase markers ready. 

Keep the motivational quotes and memes coming my way. I am in full dork mode and I am here for them. 

A conversation

Saturday afternoon. The family is sitting on the sofa watching football. Susan and Wendy are folding laundry.

Me: What should we do for dinner tomorrow night? We could order in or cook something.

Mom: We could do one of those things.

Me: Yes, we could. Why don't we cook something easy?

Mom: It's supposed to be chilly tomorrow. Maybe a stew?

Me: That could be good. I've got salad stuff. We could have salad to go with it.

Mom: Barry, you like stew, don't you?

Dad (incapable of not being a smart-aleck): Who's Stu?

Me (looking to the heavens and starting to chuckle): Good lord, it's fucking relentless.

Dad (also laughing): Which Stu?

Me (pulling a random last name out of my brain): Jones.

Dad: I like Stu Jones! He's a good guy!

Me: Maybe he likes stew.

Mom: Or something with chicken thighs? The New York Times cooking app has those sheet pan recipes where you cook everything on one pan. (Reading through recipe names) Chicken thighs stuffed with chard ... sheet-pan chicken with squash and dates.

Dad: That manages to combine two ingredients I hate. 

Me: Ew.

Dad: Susan, didn't we serve with Stu Jones somewhere? El Salvador, maybe?

Mom: Yes, that's sounds right. 

Me (confused): Wait, who are we talking about?

Dad: Stu Jones! We worked with him in an embassy somewhere. 

Me: He's a real person? I was just making that up.

Dad: No, he really exists!

Mom: Yeah, we know him.

Me: So random.

Mom: How about sheet-pan chicken with potatoes, scallions and capers?

Me: Ooh, that sounds yummy.

Mom: Let's do that. We can go grocery shopping in the morning. 

Me: Maybe we could add some vegetables to the pan to roast along with the other stuff? Maybe some broccoli or brussel sprouts?

Dad (making a face): Broccoli?

Me: What's wrong with broccoli?

Mom: We can see what looks good at the store.  Barry, does the chicken thigh recipe sound OK?

Dad: I thought we were having stew?

Me: I'm done.

I'm just spitballin' here

When we were in New Hampshire this past weekend, I was on driving duty. We had a bitchin' Chrysler minivan because the rental car company was out of SUVs. 

The lady at the counter said, "are you OK with a van?" 

Initially, we all thought she meant a utility van, like a big Ford Econoline or something like that. 

I was like, "umm, I guess?" 

I mean, I can drive a big van, but didn't exactly relish the thought of schlepping everyone around in one all weekend. 

Then I thought to ask, "do you mean a van like a plumber might drive, or a minivan?" 

"Oh, a minivan," she laughed.

I was relieved. 

Anyway. 

On Sunday my mom and I took a bunch of kiddos (mine, Josh's, their friends) to Exeter to walk around, go to the bookstore, get some ice cream, that sort of thing. Before heading back to Josh's house, I need to stop at Walgreens. 

As we were driving, I heard giggling from the back seat. 

"Mom! MOM! Look at the mirror!"

I looked in the rear-view and saw a spit-ball. Then another. And yet another. 

Earlier in the day, we had been telling funny family stories, and I told the kids about how Josh and I used to goof off in the car when we took road trips. Even after Sam was born, Josh and I were the perpetrators because Sam wasn't allowed to sit with us in the back seat.

This made him irate. "Why?" he wailed to our parents, who had him between them in the bench seat in the front. (This was in the early 80s, before people cared if their seat-belt-less children were launched through the windshield in the event of a crash.)

"Why do I have sit up here with you when Josh and Wendy get to be in the back seat having fun?"

"Because you always end up fighting with anyone you're sitting with," she replied.

When we were living in Israel, we were in the US during the summer of 1982 on home leave. I was 12, Josh was 10, and Sam was 5. We were heading to Cape Cod to spend time at the beach with family friends. To keep the peace, Josh and I were in the back, Sam was in the front. 

After we had a pit stop at a McDonald's, we took a stash of napkins and those big fat straws that McDonald's carries - perfect for launching spitballs. Soon they were flying around the car. Josh and I were laughing our asses off. My parents chucked. Sam complained because we were having fun in the back seat and he wasn't. 

After we tired of that, we had the bright idea to make ourselves sneeze by sticking the ends of our shoelaces in our nostrils. 

"Ah-CHOO!"

"God bless you!" my mother would exclaim.

"Ah-CHOO! Ah-CHOO!!" 

"Gesundheit! Bless you!"

Tittering from the back seat.

This went on for a while.

"Ah-CHOO!"

"Oh my goodness! Barry, I think the kids are sick! Should we take them to see a doctor?"

At this point we started laughing until we were crying. When she turned around to look, we showed her what we were doing. She rolled her eyes but seemed amused. Sam fumed that he wasn't in on the action.

My kids found this story to be delightful.

So when I saw the spitball on the mirror (and discovered more on the windshield and the dash), I cracked up.

Beforehand, the kids had apparently been talking to my mom and asking her how she thought I would react. 

"Kids, your mom is the best, and she has a great sense of humor. She'll think it's hysterical."

And she was right. 

Here comes the sun

The philosophy of Colfax Avenue

When the COVID craziness started over a year ago, it felt weird and somewhat scary and a little bit like an adventure. We'll create an in-home movie theater, complete with tickets and concessions! We'll bake things! We'll do zoom calls all the time! Whee!

And temporary. When the closures started, it was communicated that we would reopen in two or three weeks. We just needed some time to "flatten the curve."

In hindsight, it sounds adorable. 

Some people said that we would be living in lock-down for at least a year or more, which struck me as horrifying. I felt like I couldn't live like that for a year or more. I would rather die.

Which is obviously ridiculous. It was a year or more. And I didn't die.

But the novelty definitely wore off. I got tired of baking. I got tired of doing mountains of dishes all the fucking time. I discovered that doing a Passover seder via Zoom was the most depressing thing ever.

I worked from home and the kids did school from home and we muddled along as best we could. Much of it sucked, but knowing how hard the pandemic hit so many people, I'm very fortunate. None of my close friends or loved ones died. I suffered no financial hardship (except the lightening of my wallet because I staved off boredom by shopping online like my life depended on it). 

Some of it didn't suck. I had an amazing ski season, which went a long way toward keeping me feeling happy. Being active and outside feeds my soul. 

Towards the end it felt like such a slog.  

But now it's summer. We're vaccinated. We're ready to go.

My kids have been out of school for two weeks. Two weeks of not having to fight with them to get up in the morning. Two weeks of not saying to Zeke (who continued to do school remotely because he couldn't be bothered to get up, and I let him because notwithstanding all of his school-related fuckery, he made the honor roll), "let's have one day when I don't get a 3:30 p.m. tardy call, OK? Just one?" 

The end of the school year also lightened my load considerably, both in terms of stress and actual work. Much of what I do involves student-specific and school administration issues. When school isn't in session, the phone calls and emails drop off immediately and significantly. 

The weather is beautiful. I've been doing some mountain biking and hiking. Restaurants are open. We take the SUP to the reservoir. We see friends and are out and about.

In a week, I'm going to Iceland with a man-friend (I don't date boys). After going in 2015 (when it was winter and freezing), I've wanted to go in the summer. We'll be there for the summer solstice, which is celebrated with a big party in Iceland. We're doing a road trip around the entire island - it looks fabulous and I can't wait. 

Next month is the annual trip to the Outer Banks. While I'm there, I'll do a little jaunt to Richmond for a girls' weekend with my UVA buddies.

And tomorrow, the kids and I head to New Hampshire for the high school graduation party for one of Josh's kids. The whole mishpachah will be there. It will be the first time since Thanksgiving of 2019 that we will all be together. The thought of it makes me choke up with happiness. I love them and have missed them so much.

Y'all know how much I love reunions and family gatherings.  

The feeling I have reminds me of when Jason and I did our road trip across the country when we moved to Hawaii. We spent a number of days driving through the desert in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, before descending from the Sierra Nevadas down into Sacramento. We had spent so much time in dry air looking out at brown desert landscapes that when we got to California. all of the warm air and green grass and flowers and trees were startling. Especially because I don't like deserts - give me humid air and lush vegetation any day.

We have wandered in the COVID desert for far more than 40 days and 40 nights. Science is now delivering us to the promised land.

(How's that for a tortured metaphor?)

 It feels amazing.

Ain't no mountain high enough

It has been five years.

Five years is a milestone. It feels like a significant amount of time, when memory of an event, or a person, starts to fade.  It becomes part of history.

I was thinking about this over the past week with the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard about those planes hitting the towers, I watched them crumble live on TV, I experienced the aftermath. But for a generation of children – including my own – it’s a historical event, before their time. They know about it but don’t feel it. The way I might look back on the Kennedy assassination or the moon landing.

That’s why a yartzeit is so powerful – it’s a deliberate remembering of someone every year. You think about them. You talk about them. You celebrate them and their life and their legacy. You recite the Mourner’sKaddish, which doesn’t mention death at all – it talks about the future.

By doing this climb every year, for Emma and for others, I do what I can so that the memory doesn’t fade. And I do it in a way that is out in nature, and that requires intense physical and mental effort – it’s life-remembering, and life-affirming for me as well.

Christin and I had decided to do our yartzeit hike on Saturday, September 7. Zeke said he wanted to do it too, so the plan was that we would all meet up in Breckenridge on Friday night, spend the night there, and then do the climb Saturday morning.

But then the highway was shut down because of a rock slide, and all efforts to find alternate routes around it were unsuccessful. We were rerouted on secondary roads through canyons to no avail, and ended up having to stop in Central City – home to Colorado’s low rent, tacky-ass casinos – so that poor Zeke could get something to eat because he was feeling sick from hunger. Defeated (though nourished by the casino buffet), we ended up back at home four hours after we left.

At the time, I obviously had no idea that that rock slide would eventually lead to one of the best climbs of my life. That, and my Peloton bike.

Christin and I decided to try again the following weekend. The kids weren’t with me this past weekend and their Australian relatives are visiting, so I didn’t mention the re-do effort to Zeke and decided that if he wants to do a 14er with me, I’ll take him to do another one.

My feelings leading up to the weekend were as they always are – excitement and anticipation mixed with anxiety about the difficulty of the climb. Fourteeners are hard for me. I struggle with the intense exertion at high elevations. Christin is seemingly impervious to it – she clearly has some kind of genetic predisposition to performance at altitude, like she was Tenzing Norgay in a past life or something like that. She’s climbed Kilamanjaro (which tops out at over 19,000 feet), for god’s sake.

I will never climb Kilamanjaro. (I did see Mt. Everest from an airplane a month and a half ago, but I will write about that another time).

Anyway, I was excited and a little nervous. But also curious. Because physically, I am in vastly better shape than I’ve ever been leading up to a climb.

Last Thanksgiving, I was at the tail-end of that miserable time when Zeke was suffering and I was suffering along with him. A woman in my office recently remarked to me that as a parent, you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard truer words in my life. I was unhappy and I wasn’t taking care of myself. I had gained 20 pounds. It astounds me to even read those words, but it’s true. I felt awful.

Then I saw my friend Ali at Thanksgiving, and she looked and felt amazing. She had lost 50 pounds using Weight Watchers and regular exercise, and she raved about it.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” I thought.

I signed up for Weight Watchers in December and immediately started losing weight. Around the same time, I felt like I wasn’t getting enough cardio work, so I bought myself a spin bike and started doing Peloton classes via their digital app. I thought about buying the Peloton bike itself, but it’s super expensive and I thought I’d save myself some money.

I diligently did the classes. I enjoyed them and felt myself getting into better shape. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that bike. There are certain metrics that you can track on the Peloton bike that I couldn’t duplicate on my setup. I wanted to be able to track those metrics. I wanted the smoother ride. I wanted that fucking bike.

So in May I bought the bike, and it ended up being some of the best money I ever spent. As with most things that are worth the money, when I climb on the bike – which I do 4-5 times per week – I never think about what I paid for it. I only think about how much I love it and how happy it makes me. I have lost the last of the 20 pounds I gained a year ago.

I started doing a very structured form of training that focuses on power output and that helps  strength and endurance. I do a functional performance test every month or so to track my improvement, and it is steadily going up up up. So in getting ready for the climb, I was curious as to how that training would affect my strength and endurance on the mountain.

We set out for the trail head at about 5:30 a.m. I think we both knew it was destined to be a good day when, independent of one another, we had both chosen to wear Dead & Company concert t-shirts.

The full moon over the trailhead

The plan was to climb Mt. Bross as an out-and-back. Bross is a shorter climb in terms of distance, but having less distance to reach the summit just means that it’s very steep. No gradual uphill walking before hitting the hard stuff – you hit the trail and you’re climbing right away. 

We knew that going in, and we were prepared. The hike was immediately intense. But I was fine. I was astoundingly fine. I didn’t struggle with the altitude at all. We would stop occasionally to have a snack, or to figure out how to pee somewhat discreetly on a totally exposed ridge, or to take a short breather to stretch out our calves. But at no point did I ever have to resort to the 50-steps-then-50-breaths that I’ve had to do in the past as a way to keep myself going. At no point did I feel like I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs, or that there wasn’t enough air in the air. 

No, the problem wasn’t my conditioning or my ability to physically handle the climb. It was that the climb was so steep, with nothing but loose rock and very narrow ridges to navigate, that the thought of descending the same way we went up was utterly terrifying. I had visions of losing my footing and tumbling down with nothing but rocks to break my fall.

Looking down from the ridgeline. It's hard to capture how steep this incline is. It scared the shit out of me.

Up on the ridge, looking back towards our ascent route. Narrow path with steep inclines on either side. No thanks.

So we changed our plan.

Bross is part of a canyon that includes four fourteeners - Mts. Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross, commonly referred to as the Decalibron loop. There is a saddle between Democrat and Cameron that has a trail leading down from it that provides a manageable descent back to the trailhead. We didn’t feel like doing Democrat again – its descent can be as nasty as Bross’s – so we decided to go from Bross to Lincoln to Cameron, down the saddle, and then down the trail back to the parking lot. And in the process, bag three peaks instead of just one. 

The Decalibron loop as seen from the trailhead. We started on the right side and went around to the left.

Our route (in yellow)

It turned out to be a fantastic decision. It was a stunningly beautiful day – perfect temperature, clear bluebird skies, very little wind – and the views went on forever. We could see all but one of the summits we had reached in previous years. Through it all, my lungs and heart and legs felt strong.

At the summit of Bross, we talked about Emma and what she was like. We talked about Josh and the grace he has shown in building a good life for himself since Emma and Lori died. We read the names of loved ones who had been given to me by friends and family – parents, children, siblings, friends, students lost to suicide or accident or cancer or old age. I recited the Kaddish for all of them. We cried and talked about life and pain and resilience.

And then we walked. We felt the sun on our faces and the strength in our bodies. We talked about books and told funny stories. We settled on Mexican food and beer for our post-climb meal. We planned future climbs and future trips – the Camino in Spain, perhaps? I nixed the idea of doing Kilamanjaro, but if I continue to train and feel as good as I do now, who knows? My legs are a little sore and tired today, but when I get home from work I will climb on the bike and do an hour-long endurance ride, because I can. Maybe 19,300 feet is a possibility for me after all.

Summit of Bross

Close to the Lincoln summit. That dude over my head is holding a bike. Welcome to Colorado.



Heading up to the summit of Lincoln

Mt. Lincoln summit



Mt. Cameron summit

View back towards the trailhead from the saddle between Mt. Cameron and Mt. Democrat

View of our descent route between Mt. Democrat on the left and Mt. Cameron on the right.



Toasting to an amazing day of hiking

As ever, we were grateful for our health, our friendship, and our lives. It breaks my heart that Emma will never have the types of experiences that I have had – traveling, children, adventure, loss, pain, love, all of it. Maybe doing this yartzeit climb every year, keeping her alive in my memory, is my way of having those experiences for her.

Happy birthday, beautiful. In the fields of this day, hear a song.

My dearest Emma,

You would have been 22 years old today.

Everything is making me cry.

Zeke was Charlie in his class's production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. He worked really hard to memorize his lines. Josie and I have run lines with him over the past few weeks. I have helped him on the singing part - how to do some of the harder transitions to the high notes. How to think about what his character is going through in the moment so that his actions and reactions feel more authentic.

And he nailed it. The whole performance was so cute - all the kids were great. Their energy was amazing. Zeke hit the high note at the end of The Candy Man. We were all so proud.

I cried. Such naches.

My parents flew in for the performance, because that's what we do in our family. We show up for each other. They cried, too.

Assuming all had gone according to schedule, you would be graduating from college right about now. Maybe you would have ended up at the Naval Academy. Maybe you would have taken another road altogether. Whatever your choice, I know you would have done great - with your work ethic and your zest for life, you would be successful at whatever you decided to do.

We all would have shown up. We undoubtedly would have cried.

I have had a number of photos printed out to put on the wall next to my staircase. It's mostly pictures of my own kids, from trips that we have taken, but I also have one of my grandparents at my wedding, and one of you and your sisters when Hazel was a baby. You were 11 - Zeke's age.  My parents and I were looking at it yesterday, missing you and mourning your loss.

The school district where I work experienced a school shooting this week. A young man who was 18 years old, who was three days away from graduating, died when he rushed the shooter to try to disarm him. He was his parents' only child, and by all accounts he was a wonderful person. A great kid.

I know what they are going through because I watched my brother, your mother, and your sisters go through it. It makes me cry to think about it.

You were a wonderful person. You were a great kid.

We don't always remember you with sadness. We frequently remember you when we're telling funny stories. Like the time when we were at the Outer Banks when you were three. Your parents went home early and you stayed with my parents for a few extra days. We were driving back to their house and we stopped at a diner for some food.

You were delightful and adorable. You had a super cute (and totally developmentally normal) speech tendency in which you mixed up hard consonants that were made with the back of the throat with those that were made at the front of the mouth. "K" became "t." "G" became "d." "Come" became "tum." "Girl" became "durl."

We were finishing lunch and getting ready to go when you said, "where are you going?"

"We're going back to Virginia," I said.

And you responded, "can I tum?"

I laughed and scooped you up and gave you a kiss. "Of course you can tum, silly."

I would have taken you anywhere you wanted to go.

We all miss you and think about you and talk about you. We won't ever stop loving you.

Love,

Wendy

So fill up your cups, your loving cups, as full as full can be

Late last year my Virginia girlies and I made a plan to have a mini-reunion girls' weekend in Florida. It's the 50th birthday year for many of us - not me, yet, as I liked to remind them - and that provided us with as much a good reason as any to plan a trip when we could hang out on the beach and eat and drink and sleep and relax and get caught up.

We picked a weekend in mid-March. We found an AirBnb in Boca Raton with a pool, plus it was close to the beach. We determined that giant pool floaties of the unicorn-shaped variety were a must. We were super excited to see each other.

Then we just had to wait for the day to arrive.

Of course, because Colorado's weather in the spring is batshit crazy, a monster bomb cyclone snowpocalypse blizzard had to hit the day before my friend Jen and I were flying out.

The weather forecasters weren't wrong. The storm was a beast. That Wednesday the kids and I hunkered down in the house the way we've hunkered down for Category 1 hurricanes on the Outer Banks. I pulled the chairs in from the upstairs porch and secured the garbage cans and that sort of thing. Then we watched movies and drank hot cocoa and listened to music. The wind was whipping hard, blowing snow all over the place.

The kids were nervous.

"Are we going to be OK? Is the house going to be OK?"

"We'll be fine, guys. This house is 123 years old. It has survived many storms. It's tough."

The power went off at one point for about 5 minutes. When it came back on, we resumed watching whatever we had been watching.

The girls and I had been texting about the trip.

"Is it going to mess up your travel?"

"Nah, it should be fine. Flights are all cancelled today, but the weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow, so I don't think it'll be a problem."

(NARRATOR: It was a problem.)

On Wednesday afternoon, I received a text from United that my Thursday morning flight had been cancelled. But hey, feel free to rebook on our website or our mobile app!

Feeling sick to my stomach, I tried to rebook. Nothing was available. No direct flights (which is what I had), no connecting flights, no flights into other airports around the Miami area, nothing.

I was in tears. I couldn't bear the thought of not going on this trip that I had been looking forward to for so long, I called United. I was on hold for an hour before I was connected to a person.

Finally, finally, a lady picked up and began a 45 minute process of working her ass off to try to find me a flight that would get me in Thursday night (instead of Thursday afternoon) or, at the latest, Friday morning. She was tireless and patient, and got me onto a flight that got in late Thursday night. Instead of direct, I had to connect through Houston. But I would get there. Poor Jen was not as fortunate, which totally sucked.

Of course, the travel was not without its drama. My flight from Denver was exactly as late as the length of my layover in Houston, so I got off the plane in Houston and literally (literally literally, not figuratively literally) sprinted from one end of the Houston airport to the other in order to make my flight.

Which, going from sitting for hours to a full sprint, is not a good look. I'm more of an endurance athlete, not a sprinter. And I was wearing boots with heels and the wrong bra for sprinting. So I was teetering through the airport pulling my suitcase with one hand and holding my boobs with the other. By the time I made my connecting flight I was wheezing and coughing so severely that I feared I would puke. Literally.

But I didn't puke. And I was on the flight. I arrived in Fort Lauderdale and then took a Lyft up to Boca and everyone was awake and waiting for me when I arrived just after midnight.

I immediately relaxed and felt the love. Y'all know how much I love reunions.

The house was beautiful. The pool was beautiful. The beach was beautiful. My friends are beautiful. We relaxed and ate chips and salsa and watched basketball and swam. We hung out at the beach. We took a mellow booze cruise and went stand-up paddle boarding in Lake Boca, which is basically a giant tailgate party with boats. We floated on unicorns.

 

If I were any more relaxed I'd be dead

Susan brought souvenirs for everyone - personalized to-go cups with our initials in UVA colors, perfect for beer or wine or whatever else we wanted to carry around. We took them everywhere we went.

There is something so amazing about being with girlfriends that you have known for 30 years. We feel so comfortable around each other, and we know each other so well, and all of the bullshit anxiety that we carried around as 19 year olds - about fitting in, being cool, looking and dressing the right way, all of that shit - is gone. We own and embrace our flaws because they contribute to who we are, which is something to be celebrated. We can just talk and laugh and be honest with each other. It's the best.

After we had all returned home, I got a notification from AirBnb that Bob, our host/property manager, had left a review.

"Loved having these young women at our beach house!"

I don't know that we particularly feel like young women anymore. But maybe we keep each other young.

In any event, we'll take it for as long as we can get it.