Road to Happy
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: Joined at the Heart, Mouths of Babes, Writers Write | Tags: Albert Brooks, Dancing With the Stars, family, Happiness, violin, writers, writing 1 Comment »
“What’s your happy road, Daddy?” Dancing With the Stars went to commercial, and my ten-year-old daughter hit mute on the remote.
“What?” Bacon’s head was in the latest Albert Brooks’ novel.
“Your happy road,” she said.
“What’s that? I asked.
“The thing that makes you happy.” She closed her decorated composition book. Coco makes notes on the couples’ performances and judges’ evaluations on DWTS. I figured the comment had something to do with movie theme night on the reality show.
“Did you think that up or hear it somewhere?”
“Made it up.” She looked at her dad again. “Mine’s the violin. If I’m sad, I play, and I feel better.”
Bacon said, “You, your sister, and your mom are my happy road. You make me laugh.”
Satisfied, she opened her book again. The commercial break was over.
Extreme Home Makeover: Cherry’s Room Edition
Posted: June 20, 2011 Filed under: A Zany Life, Housekeeping, Joined at the Heart, Mouths of Babes, schnauzer follies, Writers Write | Tags: family, writers, writing Leave a comment »In the midst of pestilence and disease, I made over Cherry’s bedroom. New paint, curtains, light fixture. I pulled up the Berber and painted the concrete slab a glossy chocolate. The thing about painted concrete, besides the fact that it’s cheap and trendy, is it has to cure. Six days. You paint yourself out of the room and close the door. Or not. I couldn’t resist a peek. Or two.
Day four, I’m checking the sweaty surface. Will it ever dry? The seventy percent humidity isn’t helping. The phone rings. I turn my back for a millisecond. Talk. Hang up.
“Jasmine? Jazzy?” Where’s the puppy? ”Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit . . .”
She’s yaps from the middle of the shiny floor. “You can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Schnauzer.” Dance. Dance. Dance. Puppy paws on concrete.
Smack. Smack. Smack. “Shit.” The sound of black flip-flops on wet paint. “Jazzy, come. Jasmine, come.”
“Let’s dance, mom.”
“Damn it. Jazzy come.” She bounces. I stick. Her little feet float above the surface. Weighing less than three pounds is an advantage when walking on wet paint. She doesn’t dent the surface. My BMI leaves size seven footprints. ”Gotcha.” I grab the little rat and deposit my shoes in the trash.
On day four, the floor the gets another coat. Hence I live with the expression, watching paint dry.
Flipped Switch
Posted: June 17, 2011 Filed under: Joined at the Heart, Mouths of Babes, Writers Write | Tags: family, perception, Trusting Your Instincts, writers, writing Leave a comment »“Mom, I have butterflies.”
“You’ll do fine. Just do what you practiced.”
Coco was the youngest musician in the warm up room. She watched a teenager in a tulle dress play Bach. The girl sat her viola on a chair and knocked out Ode to Joy on the grand piano. Returning to the strings, she twitched. The instrument hovered and crashed to the floor. The bridge splintered.
Coco lifted her bow and played A Simple Gift. The butterflies melted. Seconds earlier, I wondered, would she balk? Run away? Freeze? Now, she understood, nerves are universal.
When Coco’s name was called, she marched out of the room like she was twenty instead of nine. Later she said, “This was the best day of my life.” She won a position in the orchestra.
