Nonna to the Rescue

Once Upon a Time (not too long ago) Timothy was following me around the kitchen, worried. 

"I think I've been MOSTLY good. I mean, sometimes I wasn't, but MOSTLY I was. Do you think I've been good?" he asked.

"I think that worrying about this on December 24th is a little late," I replied.

Timothy stopped pacing.

"That's it," he announced. "I'm calling Nonna."

And after he finished talking with Nonna, he handed me the phone and I got a lecture.

#NonnaConnections

When I was Princess (a Once Upon a Time story)

Once upon a time we were sitting around the dinner table when I asked each of my boys (big and small) for one word that described me. I'm not sure why I did this, and in hindsight I see how this could have gone very badly, but I found their answers delightful. 

How my boys (big and small) described me ...

Joe: procrastinator

Nicholas: Italian

Jonathan: helpful

Timothy: a princess

Now, compared to Joe, the ENTIRE WORLD procrastinates, so I didn't take offense with his response, but for the record, I liked Timothy's answer best of all.

Then, a few weeks later we were driving to the beach when I had the following conversation with Timothy:

"Are you a princess?" he asked me.

"Well, actually I am a queen and Daddy is the king," I replied.

"A queen?!" he was indignant. "That's too old. Nope, you're a princess."

And there you have it. A princess. It may have been Once Upon a Time long, LONG ago ... but still. Once a princess, always a princess.

That's how it works in fairy tales.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 7, New Year's Eve with the Celtics!

Whoa. This year we actually have plans for New Year's Eve! With the exception of two years ago when we celebrated New Year's Eve while cruising to Cozumel, Mexico, most years we are home with pizza, a movie, and the obligatory bubbly for midnight celebrations. But THIS year we are headed to Charlotte for a Celtics-Hornets basketball game.

Jonathan is a HUGE Celtics fan, and since Joe was able to get four tickets (more on this later) we decided to attend the game and then, on the way home, spend a couple of hours at Carowinds' WinterFest celebration.

Now, about those tickets. There is something funny about the seat assignments, and SOME of us will need binoculars, but that's okay. Timothy and I are going to have a BLAST. You know ... spying on Jonathan and Joe, eating all the popcorn we want, catching t-shirts, and sending annoying texts to TWO SOMEBODIES sitting court-side.

Happy New Year and ... go green!

Eating and Brushing and Brushing ... Oh My!

 Here’s the routine of my days: eat, brush, eat, brush, eat, brush, brush, floss.

That’s life with Invisalign.

Just to be clear, after every meal not only do I brush my teeth, but I also brush my tray (or retainer, or whatever it’s called).

And yes, before bedtime I have to brush TWICE...once with toothpaste, and once with Gel-Kam.

When I realized that my dental hygiene was more involved (all that brushing, brushing, brushing) I went to Target and bought a cute ceramic mug to hold two toothbrushes, two different kinds of toothpaste, floss, and my tray case. 

I’ve also decided there will be NO MORE SNACKING between meals because I’m not taking out a tray (or retainer) unless I absolutely have to. Otherwise I have to brush my teeth. Again.

But I’m not complaining. My teeth are straightening and I’m losing weight. 

That’s called a win-win situation.

It's All Greek to Me

Last night our son called with the news he passed the first part of his CPA exam. He sounded so happy, and is now studying for the second part which he will take Thanksgiving week. (The test is four parts: Auditing and Attestation, Business Environment and Concepts, Financial Accounting and Reporting, Regulation.) He and some buddies have a pact to pass the entire exam before they graduate next May with a masters degree in accounting. And like always, I am awed at people who are good in things I am not ...

As an English major studying at The University of Georgia, all I wanted to do was take literature classes, write short stories, study Shakespeare, and go to poetry readings. But college doesn’t quite work that way because I also had to fulfill math requirements. It was a necessary evil, so I plowed ahead: algebra was easy, I actually liked geometry, but then there was Trigonometry . . . a class taught by a foreign exchange grad student who had such a thick accent that I couldn’t even determine his nationality.

I didn’t understand Trigonometry. I didn’t understand my professor. Combine the two and there you have it … a disaster of epic proportions. I stayed after class, I went to tutoring in the Math Lab, and I asked questions, but by exam time I was headed for a big, fat F . . . my first, ever. So I threw myself at the mercy of my professor:  “I am an English major! This is my LAST math requirement!” And just for good measure . . . “If I have to take this class again I will die.” (English majors have a flair for the dramatic.) The professor barely spoke English so I know he didn’t understand half of what I was saying, but desperation has a language all on its own. In the end, he gave me a D in the class (and I have no doubt he was being very, very generous).

As someone who was always an A student, I REJOICED in that D. I called my parents with the news. “I got a D in Trig!” They were (understandably) confused. “But a D is bad, isn’t it?”

I paused. “Well, yes. I mean no.”

Whatever. I got a D, and I would gladly take it thank-you-very-much.

So, taking into account that I don’t have a math gene in my body, I am awed at those who do . . . not because I think they are smarter, but because they are smarter in something different. And every day I am awed that this English major, Italian speaking, bad poet, and sometimes writer has sons – three of them – who are good in everything that I am not.

When I listen to my husband discuss a physics problem with our son, a problem with so many steps that it takes an entire sheet of paper to solve, it takes my breath away. When I walk past my son doing his homework and all I see are numbers and scientific notations, I marvel that writing something can include equations. I have one son studying computer engineering, another who will be studying math and accounting, and a third who is all about engines, architecture, and creating. Sometimes I think, “Who are these guys?”

And then I’ll think, “These are my math guys . . . and I’ll write a story about them.”

with my math and engineering guys

(at Nicholas' Clemson graduation two years ago)

What time is it, really?

It's that time of year when time gets all weird when we move the clocks back one hour. I know it's only one hour, but boy does it mess things up. And I'm not kidding. This conversation actually happened not too long ago, and we still confuse ourselves.

Joe: Tonight we move the clocks back one hour.

Timothy: That always confuses me because when does it happen? I mean, how do the earth and the sun know?

Clearly he's thinking too hard.

Joe: Look, tomorrow morning when you wake up and it's seven 'o clock, it will feel like eight.

Timothy: But what time will it be?

Joe: It will be whatever the clock says, but it will feel like it's an hour later.

Timothy: Does this mean I get to sleep late Monday morning?

Joe and Maria: NO!

Joe: It will be easier to wake up in the morning, but you will probably feel more tired in the evening because it will be dark earlier. So tomorrow night when it's 8:00 and it feels like 9:00 ... you'll be ready to go to bed.

Timothy: I'M NOT GOING TO BED AT 8:00!

Sheesh.

This morning, he wakes up and the nightmare conversation continues.

Timothy: What time is it?

Joe: It's 7:15.

Timothy: Then why is it so light outside?

I mean, really. We want to educate our children, but sometimes (for sanity's sake) it's best just to move on. He'll figure it out someday ... maybe ... when he has kids of his own.

The King of the Art of Chill

A few years ago when Nicholas was an engineering major at Clemson University, he asked if I knew who Bob Ross was. Well, of course I did, but I was surprised that my son knew of him.

"When I'm studying for a big test or a final exam, I like to have one of his PBS shows playing in the background," he explained. "It's very soothing."

And I totally understood. I could see how the soft-spoken voice, the references to fluffy clouds and happy trees, and the low-key commentary provided a calming backdrop to engineering textbooks, group projects, and all those math disciplines.

A few months later, Nicholas asked for some Bob Ross instructional books, paints, and drawing pencils for Christmas. He always had an artistic talent for drawing but wanted to teach himself how to paint.

Fast forward to today and Bob Ross is experiencing a resurgence. He's everywhere! Over Thanksgiving we played the board game, Bob Ross the Art of Chill, this past Sunday a character on the show, God Friended Me, was wearing a Bob Ross t-shirt, and yesterday I purchased a box of Bob Ross band-aids for stocking stuffers. Then, a fellow blogger listed that very same board game as a gift idea for office coworkers, and a quick Amazon search revealed Bob Ross bobble-heads, lunch boxes, puzzles, Pez dispensers, and even a Bob Ross Halloween costume.

Bob Ross the Art of Chill

The King of the Art of Chill is, evidently, very cool right now. And in this busy week leading up to Christmas, I will leave you with some of his quotes. Go ahead and smile. Just let it come.

Bob Ross, In His Own Words ...

As my son Steve says, just 'smoosh' it in there. It's not a real word, but people seem to know what it means.

Maybe in our world there lives a happy little tree over there.

That's a crooked tree. We'll send him to Washington.

We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents.

You need the dark in order to show the light.

Every make mistakes in life? Let's make them birds. Yeah, they're birds now.

This would be a good place for my little squirrel to live.

I can't go over 30 minutes, because we have a mean ol' director with no sense of humor.

Well, the little clock on the wall says we're just about out of time. God bless you my friend.

Cappuccino and Cake

I'm coming to you in the darkness of the early morning because it's a special day.

It's a day which celebrates one of the things that is a source of daily joy for me, something which also happens to be the best  accompaniment to a good book, early morning prayer time, a rainy afternoon, and cozy chats with friends.

Today is National Cappuccino Day!

Oh, cappuccino, how I love thee! The daily ritual of firing up the espresso machine, frothing the milk, brewing an espresso, and then combining the perfect balance of thirds--1/3 espresso, 1/3 milk, 1/3 froth--keeps me grounded. It may sound melodramatic, but a cappuccino is a little smidgen of magic in an otherwise perfectly ordinary day because--and let's be realistic--although my cappuccino may be balanced, daily life can be anything but.

Which brings me to THE CAKE. The Confirmation cake I ordered for TIMOTHY, but with the words Happy Confirmation, Jonathan! (yes, the wrong son). When I shared this story, I received all sorts of helpful advice: take the cake back and have the bakery fix it, scrape off Jonathan's name and put lots of candles in the blank space, or change Timothy's confirmation name from St. Francis to St. John. Two people even offered to come over and share their professional baking skills to fix the problem.

But you know what? As I was enjoying my cappuccino the morning of Confirmation, I had an epiphany. Life is crazy. Life is wonderful. Life is funny. Life is a hodgepodge of the insane. And that cake, which had become a topic of conversation, a source of laughter, and the reason for a flurry of text messages and emails, was a metaphor for life. Our life. So it was absolutely fine--wonderful! great! fantastic!--to have a Confirmation cake with Jonathan written on top when it was Timothy's Confirmation.

In a strange, wonderful way, it made perfect sense.

So, on this National Cappuccino Day, I wish you a day filled with the zany, the wonderful, the messy, and everything in-between.

All of which pairs very nicely with a expertly frothed cappuccino.

Two for One 'Brffed Day'

Our son, Jonathan, is coming home this weekend.

It's his BIRTHDAY weekend.

Except, it's not really his birthday. It's later this month. But he has plans on his actual day that don't involve mom and dad (say what?), so he's coming home now so we can celebrate with family.

But yesterday, as I planned meals for the weekend, wrapped presents, cleaned his room and bathroom, and spent over an hour at the grocery store to stock our pantry, it dawned on me that I have a very smart son.

You see, as much as we will celebrate this weekend, as much as Jonathan will be pampered and coddled and loved on over the next few days, I will still feel the need to acknowledge his actual birthday later this month. I mean, he can't get nothing on his actual birthday!

So I will send him a care package.

On his birthday.

Which isn't this weekend.

This sweet little guy will turn 22 years old on his brffed day.

The Big Fat Fall Fib

It's fall, y'all!

I keep seeing that cute southern expression everywhere--on t-shirts, in coffee houses, on yard flags, at grocery stores--and let me just say that it is one big, fat lie. A fabrication of epic proportions, a falsehood, falsity, fib, prevarication, and untruth. A whopper.

When temps hover in the mid-90's day after day it is most emphatically NOT fall.

Living in the south for so long, I should know by now that simply flipping a calendar page doesn't mean a new season has arrived. I should know that just because the kids are back in school, doesn't mean it's sweater weather. And you'd think I'd now that just because it's football season, doesn't mean we can wear festive, striped scarves and huddle under stadium blankets.

Honestly, this is the time of year that really drags me down. This heat. I'm so over it. It drags on and on, beating down relentlessly, the same ol', same ol' with no relief in sight.

You might think I'm being a tad melodramatic, but I live in the south and have earned the right to be a  drama queen.

But gosh darn it, yesterday afternoon I was determined to at least make it look like fall. I pulled out my autumn candles, the yellow ceramic owl, the fall wreath, and ... I just couldn't. I wasn't feeling it and had to stop.

It's no fun decorating for fall when you are sweating buckets and the sun is blindingly bright and the air conditioner drones nonstop.

So even though it's mid-September (but not fall) I'm going to be Ebenezer Scrooge (although it's not December) and say, "Bah-humbug."

One sad little pumpkin. 

Monday Funday

Fun? 

On a Monday? 

Absolutely. If there is ever a day that needs to be fun, it's Monday. 

So ... since this has been the summer of art museums, let's play Art Interpretation. Look at this panel series hanging in The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and tell me what they are depicting.

This is the first panel ...

here's the last panel ...

and these are the ones in between.

Go ahead, take a guess. I double dog dare you.

While you're thinking, here is a blue rooster on the rooftop of The National Gallery of Art. Why is it there? What does it mean? Why the color blue? 

And now that you're brain is frazzled, here is the answer as to what those panels depict:

See? Now wasn't that fun? 

Monday Funday.

It's real.

How many clouds do you have? (or, the Misadventures of Nonno and Nonna with their iPhones)

Last Friday evening Joe and I made a quick visit to my parents. We let ourselves in the front door and discovered my parents sitting at the kitchen table huddled over their iPhones.


"We are downloading all our photos from the clouds," says my mom, wearing her reading glasses and using an index finger to jab the keyboard.


"Um, Mom. You do know it's a CLOUD. Just one," I reply helpfully.


"Oh no. I have hundreds of photos. I definitely have more than one cloud."


She jabbed away. I thought about the time my mom purchased an iPhone specifically for an upcoming cruise. She was proud to have entered the modern age! She took classes at the Verizon store. She learned how to text, take photos, and send an email. She asked Nicholas to set her screen image, Jonathan to increase the font size, and Timothy to edit her address book. She was ready for their trip.


After their cruise to Scandinavia, I picked them up a the airport and right away my mom wanted to know why I never -- in the entire two weeks! -- replied to any of the texts and photos she sent.


"Your sister answered my texts. Your brother did, too. But not a word from you," she complained, making it clear who were her favorite children.


I had no idea what she was talking about. But upon investigating further we realized that she did indeed send me photos and texts. Lots and lots of them. To our home phone ... our LANDLINE.


Evidently, the Verizon class didn't make that part particularly clear.


So, standing there in my parents' kitchen, I figured a cloud by any other name (whether plural or singular) was still a cloud. I left it at that.


EXCEPT ... except my father, who up until a month ago sported a tiny flip phone clipped to his belt, now has an iPhone.


Consider yourself forewarned.

Surprised, shocked, and totally dismayed
The world is in complete disarray.
Things like this don’t happen every day …
For Nonno bought an iPhone today.

-from the files of very bad poetry by bia

Speak to Me Sunday, vol. 16 (I know nothing about parenting, but I will tell you the nothing I know)

With our two older sons out of the house, my husband and I are grateful we still have the bambino, the caboose, my baby. Except, the bambino-caboose-baby is 14 years old and taller than I am. He’s also venturing into that vast wasteland of mood swings and attitude better known as the teen years. But this time, after having gone through this twice (and survived!), we know what to expect. We are better prepared. We will know how to handle everything from caveman speech to missed curfews. Right? RIGHT?  Help me out here, because when I stumbled upon this old post I'm not so sure …

After a week of enduring what I referred to as Caveman Syndrome from the older boys – grunts, monosyllabic words, slouchy posture – I embraced my limitations and browsed several Catholic Parenting Web sites for advice.

One site emphasized how the responsibility for developing a healthy parent-child relationship rests primarily with the parent; that (like it or not) it's really up to us to keep the peace and maintain open lines of communication.

Okay, I get that. We’re the adults, we’re mature, we need to take the higher road. In other words, we are bigger than they are. So then, I would keep my communication lines WIDE OPEN.

Then there were the Old Testament references to the "rod of discipline” (Prov. 13:24; 23: 13-14) which, in the New Testament, becomes the staff used by shepherds, not as punishment, but as a way to corral and guide wayward sheep.

What a beautiful image. That’s exactly what my husband and I are trying to do as parents – guide our son in the ways of the world. Be a shepherd to sheep.

Unfortunately, as I was letting this beautiful image run through my mind, I happened to glance at my watch. The time in which my son, who had gone out with friends, was supposed to call home to check in had come and gone.  No phone call whatsoever.

It’s hard to keep open lines of communication when THEY FORGET TO CALL HOME.

Truthfully, in that very moment, I just wanted to take that rod, or shepherd’s staff, or whatever, and whack my son over the head with it.

How's that for a title? Not Sheep in the Meadows or Frolicking Sheep.

No, just ... Sheep. 

Haiku Who?

It started when my-brother-the-doctor, who should have been busy doing doctor-ish things, sent my sister and me the following text ...

to which I replied: Oh my gosh! I need that t-shirt! I'm always writing haikus ... it's my favorite form of poetry.


To which my sister replied:

And then they ganged up on me ...

Well. Well.


Ever since high school, I've loved writing haikus. Fast forward a few years when I met my blogging friend, Laura (Catholic Teacher Musings), who hosted a weekly haiku fest entitled Bad Haiku Friday which covered everything from Frito Bandito to Bunions. She got me thinking in haiku. She even sponsored a haiku competition; here was my entry and I'm PROUD that this snotty one won a category (grossest?). She even mailed me a prize.

Little boy sneezes

long, slimy, strands of grossness.

Where are the tissues??!!?

Then one year I instituted Haiku Summer with my family in which every Friday during family night everyone penned a haiku about ... whatever they wanted. The haikus were taped in the kitchen and it was so much fun reading about our summer in a progression of haikus.

Going up, up, and then up

while on a roller coaster.

Please! I change my mind.

Nonno and his shirt,

Yikes! a tourist from Hawaii.

We do not know him.

Also, during a family reunion/picnic that very same summer, I passed out 3 x 5 index cards and made encouraged everyone to write a haiku. This was my sister's:

Bia is the boss.

We do whatever she says,

Or else we don't eat.

Oh, haiku how I love you!


Back to my brother and sister, both of whom I love, but STILL. They have insulted the haiku, so like a good sister I'm going to haiku the heck out of them ...

This is my brother

who is also a doctor?

He is, really, I promise.

He's smart but also

fond of the poop emojii ...

so I wonder.

This is my sister

she is a librarian.

You have to whisper.

My travel buddy

who doesn't know how to read

so uses the men's restroom.

What does David know?

Or Laura, for that matter?

Nothing. Just ask me.

So this is my ode

the five-seven-five format

in Haiku. The end.



How Popeye-with-the-Harley-tattoo helped deliver an early Christmas present

Once upon a time (a few days before Thanksgiving) Joe and Maria had the brilliant idea to get Timothy his very own workbench for Christmas. So they took advantage of a Black Friday deal at Lowe's and snuck out to purchase it; in fact, the deal was so fantastic that they decided to use part of the savings and have it assembled simply for the wow factor on Christmas morning.


That was the last time anything went according to plan.


On Monday Maria went to the service department to pick it up and a few minutes later a Lowe's employee wheeled out a HUGE, fully assembled workbench on a trolley. Now before you ask if Maria had looked at the measurements before ordering, please know that, yes, she had looked at the measurements beforehand. But you know Maria and math; numbers don't translate into the real world for her which is precisely why she married an engineer. She leaves all the math stuff up to Joe.


"Gosh, will that even fit in my van?" Maria asked the Lowe's employee.


He was willing to try so they walked outside, opened the back of the van, and contemplated the space. It was obvious that ALL the seats would have to be folded down. No problem! Maria knew how to do this! She folded one, two, three seats, but couldn't get the last one down even after she crawled in the back of the van to get better leverage. After a few minutes of huffing and puffing she crawled back out to let the Lowe's employee give it a try. He huffed and puffed and couldn't do it either.


They stood in the parking lot wondering what to do when suddenly a behemoth of a man walked out of the store. He was Popeye with a beard, Harley tattoo, and leather boots. His biceps were the size of Sequoia trees (and he didn't get that way from eating spinach). Maria and the Lowe's employee looked at each other and then he timidly bravely asked Popeye-with-the-Harley-tattoo for help.


Popeye-with-the-Harley-tattoo (who seemed even bigger up close) looked at the seat, looked at the strap, and with one finger ... JUST ONE! ... pulled up on the strap and the seat folded down. Just. Like. That.


Later that night when Timothy was in the shower, Joe and Maria went into the garage with the intention of taking the workbench out of the van and carrying it upstairs to the attic until Christmas morning.


Except, when they pulled it out of the van they realized (again) how big and cumbersome it was. And then they thought about having to carry it up the front porch steps, through the front door, up the steep steps to the second floor, and then up another flight of steps to the third floor attic. Joe couldn't do it alone and Maria ... well, by then she was kind of tired of that workbench.


Where was her Popeye-with-the-Harley-tattoo when she needed him?


In the end, here's what they did: Timothy finished his shower, came downstairs, and on a Tuesday night the last week in November and exactly five weeks ahead of schedule, Joe and Maria took him to the garage and yelled, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"


The End.

The Nonno who always said No! No!

I wrote this fun story for my father on his 70th birthday. Last week he turned 75, so I thought I'd pull it out of the archives ...

Once upon a time there was a Nonna and Nonno who had opposite ideas. For example, when Nonna said they should go this way ...

Nonno thought they should go that way.

Nonna liked to walk fast,

but Nonno didn't. At all.

Nonna liked to visit art galleries and museums,

but Nonno would rather go fishing.

Perhaps the biggest opposite thing about them was this: Nonna liked to say Yes! Yes! to trying new things,

but Nonno always said No! No!

One day Nonna had an idea. A perfectly wonderful, exciting new idea. "Let's take ballroom dancing!" she announced.

Nonno was horrified. The Tango? The Jive? The Waltz? Nonno thought ballroom dancing was a perfectly awful, no good, very bad idea. And just to be sure he said,

Well Nonna wasn't going to listen to Mr. No-No. She thought about Nonno's personality and realized three things:


1- Nonno used to be in the Army. He was used to be told what to do -- when to march, sleep, stand in lines, stop, and run.

2- Nonno like John Wayne. He liked cowboys, stampedes, and barns.

3- And the third thing Nonna realized was that Nonno wasn't very graceful or hip; in fact, he was stodgy and ... adorably square.

So one day Nonna told Nonno (remember, he's used to following orders) that she signed them up for SQUARE DANCE LESSONS!


"Square dancing is perfect!" she said. "They tell you exactly what to do; you get to walk in a square; and even John Wayne knew how to square dance!"


(She wasn't exactly sure about the John Wayne fact, but she was pretty sure.)

Nonno thought about it. And an amazing thing happened. For the first time, Nonno who always said No! No! decided to say ...

To be sure, he didn't say Yes! Yes! But one Yes! is better than No! No!


And that is the story of Nonno who changed his No! No! to a Yes! and became Nonna's cowboy. They've been dancing through life ever since.

THE END