The Mountain Comes to Mohammed

I said earlier that we weren't going anywhere for the holidays. And I meant it. And our families have taken us at our word.

Starting with my mom's visit last week for Thanksgiving, we are going to have a run of five straight weekends of visitors, book-ended (is that a verb?) by a visit to Cleveland and a visit to northern Kentucky. Seven straight weekends of being in the company of other people, lots of washing sheets and towels and getting to see all of our family at some point during the crazy time of mid-November to early January.

And it's all good. I'm not complaining at all.

We decided not to travel for the holidays this year because we were just exhausted from doing it the past umpteen years. And I really, really think that as Petunia gets older, we should have holiday traditions in our own house.

But ducking our families was not part of the motivation. They each peddle their own special brand of crazy (some of them moreso than others) but we love them all. It's just that we got tired of packing our car to the gills, fighting traffic for hours and missing our own house on Thanksgiving and Christmas. So part of the stay-at-home holiday plan was extending invitations to our family members to come and visit.

Who knew they would all say yes?

For the most part, it has sorted itself out okay. My mom was here for Thanksgiving, and she was a good help at keeping Petunia busy while I made what one dinner guest referred to as a spread that 'looked like a magazine.' Yay! Double yay! (And btw, I would highly recommend Food+Wine's onion-mustard monkey bread, Real Simple's basic roast turkey and creamy mashed potatoes, Cooking Light's cranberry, cherry and walnut chutney, Recipe Source's southern pecan pie with bourbon substituted for the dark corn syrup, Come for Dinner's roasted beets with orange-balsamic butter and Everyday Food's cider gravy, fresh ginger cake, pumpkin pie, butter-pecan sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts with bacon and apple. If anyone has a good stuffing recipe, please share it because I was not impressed with RS's herb stuffing at all.)

We get to see my sister and brother-in-law this weekend for the Scottish Christmas Walk Weekend festivities, and I think we're going to drag them out to a tree farm in beautiful rural Virginia (OddMix - any suggestions? a friend recommended Snickers Gap) to cut down a fresh Christmas tree on Friday. I also may co-opt my sister into helping me make Christmas cookies because...

We're having a giant open house the next weekend and will be playing host to Yum and FS (so glad you guys can make it!), in which I get to show off the fan-freaking-tabulous new dining room chandelier that I installed over the weekend, with Basil's help. There will be lots of food and friends and booze and music (I have been practicing my Vince Guaraldi furiously!), and it will be AWESOM-O.

The next weekend, my dad and two brothers (technically half-brothers, but whatever) are coming to town and we have three Christmas parties to attend! Dad and the boys will have to cool their heels for a few hours while we attend Basil's family-centric office holiday party on Saturday, but I plan on cashing in on the free babysitting for the two parties we're scheduled to drop in at on Sunday. My dad has been telling me for months that he's on the wagon, but I am still thinking I will need to empty the liquor cabinet into a non-descript box in the garage. Or...all of you that are coming to my open house can just help drink me dry, thereby ensuring that I'll have two successful weekends back-to-back!

For Christmas, Basil's mom will be coming, and this is the visit that excites me the most. I really didn't think she would do it. She is not very independent and since Basil's dad died six and a half years ago, she doesn't get out of her far-flung Cleveland suburb very often. And as the matriarch of her family (two brothers, both married to only children, none of them with any children of their own), I didn't think she'd leave her familiar comfort zone this holiday. But she is coming in just before Christmas and staying til the 26th, so she'll be there for Christmas morning with her granddaughter, which I think is incredibly sweet.

I'm really flattered. I thought that there would be family that we just didn't see this season (and it is a bummer that we won't see my grandmother until our short visit to NoKY over New Year's) but for the most part, everyone has surprised me with their willingness to travel. It makes me wonder why we didn't do this years ago.

Why Is That Man Stuck Up There?

Petunia is now old enough to point out things that sometimes make us blush. Usually, we can explain away her observations or questions without too much dfficulty or embarassment. But yesterday at the end of Mass in my mother-in-law's Catholic church, Petunia asked the question that is the title of this post. Thankfully, she did it in a whisper during communion so there was a lot of shuffling going on, and I don't think anyone else heard her.

We are Episcopalians, so we don't have crucifixes hanging about. There is a beautiful cross at the front of our church, and there are stained glass images of Jesus and other Biblical scenes around the sanctuary, but no crucifixtion scenes. We don't even have Stations of the Cross hanging up - we use placards during Holy Week.

When we told Petunia the man 'stuck up there' was Jesus, she started to freak out a little bit. She knows something of Jesus, mainly that he loves her and we love him and we learn about him and God at church. So she started to get really upset at the sight of Jesus nailed to a cross hanging in the middle of Granma's church. We told her that it wasn't really Jesus - it was just a statue of Jesus and that Jesus was somewhere else and he was okay. That calmed her down quite a bit. She still didn't understand, but she was no longer freaked out at the idea that the Jesus she'd been learning about was hanging by nails to a wall in northeast Ohio.

Her second question was a lot harder to answer: 'Why we not take communion?' I ducked the question and told her that we just don't take communion at Granma's church and that we would take it next week when we were home at our church.

Petunia has been taking communion for several months, possibly going on a year. Unlike my husband, who has pictures in a suit with his rosary to mark the occasion, Petunia first participated in the Eucharist wearing something that I don't even remember. It was summer, I believe, so she probably had on a cotton sundress. There was no ceremony, no preparation. No other family was there. We had no party afterwards.

Our rector was the one who suggested that we try communion for our toddler. Episcopalians don't have a set age for receiving consecrated bread and wine, and when we went up to receive one unsuspecting Sunday, he asked, 'Does Petunia receive?' And we said, 'Uh, she hasn't yet.' And he said, 'Let's just try.' And she took her wafer and ate it with wide eyes.

Since then, we have instructed her on how to hold her hands for receiving the bread, and to say 'Amen' when she receives and to eat the whole wafer before we leave the altar rail. We haven't let her try the wine yet, mostly because I think she wouldn't like it, and I don't want to run the risk of her spitting it out or making a scene in the middle of church.

But at Granma's church - as in all Catholic churches - we can't take communion because we aren't Catholic. And I think that Petunia's awareness of this distinction is only going to grow. If she picked up on it during a single Mass when she was barely three years old, I think she's going to continue to notice as she gets older. And I think the difference will be even more marked, because in our particular parish, the rector makes a point of saying during every service that he celebrates, 'We want to welcome all those who are visiting with us. We are delighted that you are here and want you most especially to know that what follows in our service is the Lord's Supper. It is God's feast and it is for all of God's people. So whoever you are and from wherever you have come, you are invited to feast with us.'

It's a pretty clear welcome. There's no question as to who can participate. And that was one of the things that drew me to the faith I've embraced as an adult.

I grew up Southern Baptist and attended church every week. I attended summer camps and did mission trips and even preached in church during one youth-led service. By the time I was a teenager, something wasn't sitting right about my church experiences (like the time my Sunday school teacher told me that Catholics worshipped idols because they had statues of saints in their churches) so I vascillated between being a good socially conservative Baptist (where I puppeted phrases like 'Love the sinner, hate the sin,' which I have come to despise as veiled homophobia) and rebelling by drinking and smoking and partying.

By the time I went off to college, I had all but abandoned my teetotaling, slightly fundy upbringing. I went crazy drinking, partying, screwing around and generally having the kind of college experience that I think all kids should have: wild yet ultimately responsible (ie, no drunk driving, no arrests, no STDs)...the kind of oat-sowing that gets it out of your system and makes you appreciate the wonders of hearth and home and a family of your own.

Church did not enter the picture in college, and when I came home for breaks, I hated the church I grew up in for its conservatism - both personally and politically. I clung to the phrase I had heard Molly Ivins utter on campus my freshmen year, 'I don't know where these Christian conservatives get off anyway; Jesus was the biggest bleeding-heart liberal you ever saw!' It wasn't that I had lost my spirituality; it was that my spirituality and the faith I was raised in were butting heads. So I kept my spirituality to myself and stopped worrying about the faith.

When Basil and I started dating, we didn't go to church. But when we started talking about getting married, I really wanted to find a spiritual home. I wanted to be married in a church, and I wanted to be part of the church where I was married. I didn't just want the pretty pictures. Even though I knew that I was not a Southern Baptist, I appreciated the general values and stability of being raised in a church. If I could just find something that matched the Molly Ivins sentiment a little better, I'd be all set.

Basil was raised Catholic. He had lapsed quite a bit during college and after having moved to DC, despite having an aunt who is a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, a father who almost became a priest himself and an old-school Italian grandmother who walked her kids to Mass four miles each week and taught catechism. His formerly Presbyterian mother had converted to Catholicism when he was a baby, and Basil's parents even worked regularly at the parish social hall.

We tried a couple of different Catholic churches in Alexandria, and I bought and read an excellent book (would recommend it to all Catholics and anyone interested in the Catholic faith) on the seven sacraments. I grew to love the liturgy, even if I didn't know all the words or exactly when to stand up or sit down or hold my neighbor's hand. And St. Joseph's in north Old Town almost sealed the deal, with its Irish priest and gospel choir.

But I had problems with the dogma. I tried to get on board with the Catholic church beyond the beauty of the Mass, but I couldn't get past the idea of going through RCIA and being 100% Catholic before being allowed to participate in the most important part of the Mass: communion. No other Christian religion required such a commitment of me, and the you're-either-in-or-you're-out feeling flew in the face of my personal spirituality and ideas about Jesus. I always saw Jesus as a tearer-down of walls, a uniter, someone who could care less about your race, stature or conformation to social norms. That's part of why I don't like the Southern Baptist Convention; I think it often exploits Jesus in the name of hating people who disagree either in word or in lifestyle.

The Episcopal Church was the perfect fit for me and Basil. My open-arms idea of Jesus, the mostly liberal social leanings (during our pre-marriage weekend, one of the women priests in the church talked to the group about sexuality and how a couple she had known had problems after their marriage because the husband was a whips and chains guy and the problem was not the whips and chains but the fact that he hadn't been open about his desires before he and his wife got married) and a beautiful liturgy that was eerily similar to Catholic Mass.

When we got married, the priest at our new church was so wonderful to the Catholic priest from Basil's home parish who co-officiated the wedding, I just knew we had made the right choice. Our priest picked Father K up at his hotel a few hours before the wedding and took him to dinner to get to know him. At the church, our priest made sure the aging Father K had everything he needed...a stole for the service, a chair to rest in on the altar and a familiarity with the physical layout of the church.

That was what I wanted in my church. Respect and inclusion of everyone, no matter what their background or belief. A belief system (we're sayers of the Nicene Creed) and a mission to welcome and treat everyone well, but a decision to leave the judging of in-ness and out-ness to God.

In the version of the Prayers of the People that we most frequently use, we regularly pray for 'all who work for justice, freedom and peace' and 'those who minister to the sick, the friendless and the needy.' We pray for 'the peace and unity of the Church of God' and 'all who proclaim the Gospel and all who seek the Truth.'

So it is hard for me - very hard - when Petunia asks why we can't take communion at Granma's church. And I don't think it's just because Petunia's too young to understand.

I love and respect Basil's mother and the rest of the family, and I really like the priests in my mother-in-law's parish. They're wonderful people who have done so much for Basil's family. I know that the denial of our full participation in the Mass is not an individual decision based on how anyone feels about us. And I know that being part of a religion that denies our participation is not a decision based on how anyone feels about us. It just makes me sad that there is this wall up, that we can't all worship together in one place.

It nearly tore my heart out six and a half years ago when I couldn't take communion at Basil's father's funeral Mass. I was aching so much and I needed so much to be comforted by God, and I hated, hated, hated the fact that I had to sit in the pew and not commune with my God because I wasn't Catholic. I don't even want to think about how Petunia will feel if she can't take communion at her grandmother's funeral Mass.

When Basil and I got married, we did pre-marriage counseling at his family's parish as well as our own church. Basil's family priest talked with us a lot about the similarities between the Episcopal and Catholic churches and the chance that in our lifetime, the Catholic church could have some sort of reciprocity with the Episcopal Church for communion, confirmation, etc. He thought there was a good chance that this could happen in our lifetime.

I hope so.

Post-Election Bliss

Love or hate the election outcomes (and in our house, one of us loved them and one of us hated them), you gotta show some respect for the people that toil days and nights for months churning out incendiary attack ads, front-page worthy polling data and campaign events that end up on YouTube. Oh, sure, by the end of the campaign season, you grimace when another one of those ads comes on, and you're totally tired of seeing red-and-blue pie charts in the newspaper. But you know you appreciate the backbreaking work of the campaign staff and consultants that keeping our twisted democratic process running.

Basil loves his work, and I love seeing him happy. But the wives of campaign consultants aren't called 'election widows' in even-numbered years for nothing. For the past two months, Basil has been working two shifts at the office and spending the rest of his time with his Blackberry in hand. He did conference calls at 1 pm on Sunday afternoons and 8 pm on Friday nights. He went to bed at 3:30 am and woke up at 7:30 am for 8 am calls with clients.

And while I've definitely gotten accustomed to the grind of the 0/2/4/6/8 years, I don't like it. It's hard on all of us. This year, I really didn't lose my cool over the long, obsessed hours until the last week. I think I did well.

So to celebrate Basil's freedom from the ball and chain of democracy and my success at having been a good supportive corporate wifey, we went out and painted the town red this weekend. Well, techincally, half red and half blue, given our political leanings. So...purple. We painted the town purple.

I want to personally encourage all my readers to dine at Cityzen before they die. It was absolutely unparalleled. I have had good meals before. I have had good service before. But I have never, ever had a restaurant experience as superb as ours was on Saturday night.

Upon arrival, our waiter, whose subtleties and personality I really grew to appreciate over the course of the next two and a half hours, asked if we wanted to start our evening with a cocktail. I asked for what has become my signature drink - a Knob Creek Perfect Manhattan (Thank you to Dr. Hugnkiss for introducing me to this drink a year ago).

The Perfect Manhattan is no pansy drink. It is a drink that will put hair on your chest and numb your throat in a couple of sips. When I ordered one at 701 a couple of weekend ago, the bartender told me later that he was completely impressed and felt under the gun to churn out something fantastic. He said, 'To have a classy lady come in here and order such a classic, old-fashioned drink, well, it's really...wow.' I have to tell you that Mo at 701 makes the best Perfect Manhattan I've had - and that includes a bunch of fancy places in Vancouver and Victoria BC.

At CityZen, my drink was expertly mixed. I had a minor quibble with the fact that the glass was not chilled enough, and I asked for a small portion of ice a few sips in. But still, it was a solid beginning to a remarkable evening. And after a few minutes of relaxing with our cocktails, our waiter pal gave us menus, which offered us three choices - a three-course prix fixe, a chef's tasting menu or a chef's vegetarian tasting menu.

Basil and I opted for the whole enchilada - the chef's tasting menu with the sommelier's wine pairings. If we were going to do this and pay a fortune in the process, it might as well be the best anyone had to offer.

We got a couple of amuse bouches to start our experience - a cocoa-encrusted mushroom in a porcini sauce and a smoked salmon roe-topped beet in horseradish cream sauce. WOW. We knew after those two bites that this evening was going to be worth every penny.

We both agreed the first course - slices of foie gras in something sweet and vaguely gelatinous - was the weakest of the evening. It was delicious and interesting and it was paired with a Riesling that went down way too fast and easy, but it didn't transport us to another place.

The next course was our favorite - seared scallops in a tarragon broth, paired with a Chenin Blanc. They set a fork, a knife and a spoon for that course, and I was not embarassed to use the spoon to scoop leftover broth out of the bowl when I had finished the scallops. I would have taken two fingers and licked it like it was brownie batter, but I think that would have stretched the limits of decorum.

The third course was beef fillets with a tiny slice of brisket and some sort of apple/celery root confit. I can't remember the red wine that was served, but it was divine. And it was during that course that we had perhaps the tastiest single food item of the entire meal - itty bitty Parker House rolls that we deduced with brushed with an egg wash and butter and sprinkled with fleur de sel before baking. I mean, melt in your mouth, earthshaking good. I can't explain how a tiny little puff of bread dough could make me feel faint, but it happened. Thank goodness they were so small that we each got five of them.

The fourth course was our opportunity to choose from the cheese cart, which was roughly the size of our kitchen table. I'd say there were about thirtysomething cheeses displayed, ranging from sheeps milk to cows milk to goat milk to bleus. The cheeses were served with a selection of three microbrew beers, which was interesting. I think we would have preferred another wine, but I will definitely hunt down some Brooklyn Brown Ale based on the little taste we had.

The final course was a close second to the scallops. It was a chocolate chip dough souffle and milk ice cream. It tasted like a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of cold milk. But the texture was that of an airy, delicate souffle and rich, creamy ice cream. It defied reality. I don't know how they turned a classic dessert on its head like that and still maintained its playfulness and integrity, but they did. Basil contended that the ruby port they served wasn't a great match, but I loved it.

We finished up the evening with some coffee (I spiked mine with Bailey's) and smiles. We were absolutely over the moon at the flawlessness of both the privacy and attentiveness of our waiter. We were floating on probably the most incredible meal we'd ever eaten, and we deeply appreciated the fact that we had been allowed to linger for as long as our dinner took.

The good vibes followed us around all evening, as we enjoyed some champagne at Hotel Monaco and some wine at the Tabard Inn. We relaxed, we connected in ways that Basil's schedule hadn't allowed in the past couple of months. It is amazing what getting a babysitter (thanks again, J.R.!) and spending a month's grocery budget on dinner will do for your mental health after a long, hard struggle. Hopefully the cloud nine feeling will last until the next big election rolls around in 08.

Bad Doggy Mommy

Basil, Petunia and I are going out of town next weekend, keeping with our 'not traveling for the holidays' plan. We'll be on the road the weekend before Thanksgiving, thereby missing some of the heaviest travel days of the year. While everyone else is enjoying a random mid-November weekend, we'll be taking advantage of the empty roads to visit famly in Cleveland. Ha, ha, suckers!

However, we are not taking Lilah. And thus, we have been trying to figure out what to do with her while we are gone, hoping that we can find a solution that (a) keeps her from peeing in the house and (b) keeps her from going crazy with loneliness and neglect.

We have had Lilah for just over nine months. In that time, we have had to go away from her two times - only for a night here or a weekend there. Most of that travel was in the spring/early summer, when we were all still settling into each other. We didn't want to board her in a kennel, given that we just got her from a shelter environment where she lived for two months in a big cage.

One trip, we had friends come and walk her over the weekend. Another trip, we had someone stay at our house for the night or two we were gone. I think during one of those trips we supplemented our friends/acquaintances with a paid dog walking service.

This time, we decided we were ready to board Lilah, especially because we had heard good things about cageless boarding. So I made an appointment for a local doggie daycare/cageless boarding service for Lilah to have an admissions interview. (I am totally not making this up. They screen the dogs that participate, and I think that's a good thing so they can ensure there won't be any bloody fights. 'Bloody' as in blood, not the quaint British adjective.)

She and I went down the Poochie Playhouse today and Lilah hung out in the front lobby with me while the caregiver there copied all her vaccination and health care information. Then, Lilah went back for her 'interview' with the caregiver to the daycare room, where I could hear lots of dogs barking.

I wasn't privy to the play session, but I definitely heard Lilah woofing (as Petunia says) several times. She has a HUGE bark, and it's easy to pick out. When she came bounding out of the 'employees only' area with the caregiver, Lilah looked excited and happy to see me. The caregiver, not so much.

'She does NOT like other dogs,' the young woman informed me. 'She barked when the other dogs tried to sniff her and play with her, and she growled at my dog when he tried to play. She didn't lunge or bite and when I yelled at them to stop the barking and growling, she did. But it is clear that she just isn't used to being around dogs.'

I explained Lilah's story - as much as we know of it anyway. She spent the first ten months of her life on a farm. Presumably some of that time was in the house, as she came to us housetrained. But the reason the previous owner took her to the county shelter was because she 'kept getting off her chain' so clearly she didn't spend all her time in the house. After a month at the county shelter, a very sweet woman who rescues dogs came and got our Lilah (then named Reba - bleaaack) and took her to Friends of Homeless Animals. I think FOHA is about as good as dog shelters get; every dog has its own indoor/outdoor run, and volunteers walk all the dogs on the weekends. But it's still - as the caregiver at the Playhouse said today - 'poverty-level living' for dogs. So even though the notes on Lilah's entry into FOHA say she is good with dogs, I think it's obvious that she wasn't socialized with other dogs very much in the first year of year life.

And, I must confess, we have not been great about taking Lilah to the dog park in the past few months. We were never terrific about it, but we have been really bad in the past couple of months, with the pregnancy, miscarriage and Basil being a campaign consultant who worked 14 hour days.

The caregiver said she thought that Lilah was not a lost cause - that she just needed more practice. She advised us to take Lilah over for playdates with a dog that she gets along with and then expand the group so Lilah gets used to big groups of dogs. The young woman at the Playhouse said we could try again after Lilah had a little more work.

Well, I left feeling like a lazy asshole dog owner. I know that she needs to be socialized, but I had fooled myself into thinking that meeting up with other dogs on our morning walks and sniffing the next door neighbor's Jack Russell terrier through the deck was enough. But clearly it's not. And our dog won't be allowed into doggy daycare until we do a better job of getting her used to other dogs.

So we're going to have to use the dog-walking service while we're gone next weekend, which is not ideal because I think Lilah will be a basket case of loneliness. But I think that's better than boarding her in a kennel someplace, where she'll be forced to be around other barking dogs (can't believe that would be good for her socialization) and confined without human interaction, which I think she'd hate.

In the meantime, we're going to be diligent about taking Lilah to the dog park several times a week so she can get socialized and - hopefully - be admitted into daycare sometime soon. (And, Elizabeth, you thought tales of getting into private kindergarten were astounding!)

NaBloPoMo from the Stands

You may have heard of National Blog Posting Month, the blogger's alternative to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I first heard of NaBloPoMo when those catchy Yoda icons started popping up on a couple of the blogs I regularly read, Raising WEG and Caloden. I thought it sounded cool but not quite my speed. Some days, I just don't have anything to say to the world, and I didn't want to just barf up junk. I'm not one of those people who has a thousand posts swirling in my head. When I've got something to say, I blog. Period.

But I thought it was a really great concept - getting people to write more, inspiring people with awesome prizes (scroll down for the shirt) and reinvigorating the blogosphere, which I think has gotten a little tired lately.

So I decided to start a cheering section. While I'll be rooting for Jody and Heather as they blog to keep the wookies away, I've decided that this NaBloPoMo thing is a good opportunity to meet some new blogs. I know that not everyone cares about their Sitemeter stats or tries really hard to drive traffic their way, but I think that most bloggers write to be read.

I browsed through the list of participating blogs on Fussy's page and clicked through a dozen or so to see who was out there. I've picked five new blogs to follow for the month. These are blogs that I'd never visited before yesterday, though I may have seen one or two of their names as commenters at Sweet Juniper. I chose to read and root for these bloggers this month because something on their homepage spoke to me - where they lived, a clever turn of phrase, a stunning photo, an interesting eye for the world.

For lack of a better phrase, I give you my fantasy team for NaBloPoMO 2006:

• The Cheeseblog - A Vancouverite! The best city on earth! Tortured Potato hates Nickelback, has an adorable baby and thinks and writes fast. She's very witty, and she likes poetry. I think I found a drinking buddy!
• her able hands - Kelly pulled up her stakes from the fast paced city life and moved to northeastern Ohio, ancestral home of Basil's people. With categories like 'Eat Local,' 'Food and Nourishment' and 'Little House in Ohio,' I'm already looking forward to seeing what Kelly throws up each day.
• Less of Paige - Everyone should know by now that weight is always on my mind. It's hard losing weight. It kicks your ass. So if I can lend some support to someone who is on the journey - and who writes as well as Paige! - then I'm happy to help. Plus, I'm really interested in hearing about Paige's job as a foster care social worker.
• Peach and Pearl - The beautiful photographs and the soul-bearing post about the abortion Peach had while she was in high school hooked me. Instantly. Anyone who can write so beautifully and take such stunning photographs has my attention.
• Vindauga - Anyone who has categories for 'Things My Kids Will Talk About in Therapy One Day' and 'Be Quiet. Mama is Watching Her Doctor Story' (Grey's Anatomy) makes me smile. While I'm sure Lisa will make me laugh, I'm sure she'll also make me think as she writes about adoption, miscarriage and infertility and religion.

So there you have it! That's my team. I'm going to be reading and rooting for all five of them to make it through NaBloPoMo, and I hope one of them wins the 'I fuck like a girl' T-shirt.

I've never been tagged for a meme before, and I've certainly never created one, but I would encourage all my readers who aren't doing NaBloPoMo themselves to go browsing the list of participants, put together a fantasy team of their own and read/root for the next 29 days. It's a helluva lot easier than actually posting each day, and you're sure to find some great new writers beyond your usual social circle or comfort zone.

Good luck, bloggers!

The Sweetest Treat

Last night may have been the most fun Halloween I have had since my Athens, Ohio days. For starters, I was at home for the festivities instead of in Orlando. We decorated the house with purple lights and spider web lights and bought gobs of candy.

At long last, we live in a neighborhood that is crawling with kids on Halloween night, remniscient of any movie rendition of the holiday. Last night, there were decorations everywhere, lots of lights on and kids roaming the neighborhood in packs. Many adults were parked on their steps with glasses of wine, doling out goodies and scoping out costumes (note to self for next year!), and it felt very idyllic. I loved it.

But mostly, it felt good just to be with my family, especially with Petunia. At age three, she finally truly gets Halloween. She has been excited about her costume for weeks, and she has been loving all the lights, pumpkins, spider webs and costumes on display in our neighborhood or on any shopping trip. When we were in the party store one night, she was not the least bit freaked about the gory, adult-sized zombie-doctor costume on a mannequin. She liked it. I think she has the October thing in her blood.

Petunia was the most adorable Mary Poppins you've ever seen. We kind of white-trash made her costume with separates we purchased from TJ Maxx (skirt, shirt and blazer) and some craft supplies (red bow tie, dressing up a plain black hat we found while shopping). She carried an adult-sized black umbrella with a wooden handle and a purple quilted trick or treat bag. Petunia also asked specifically for rosy cheeks, so I obliged with blush applied liberally.

She was the cutest thing out there. In a sea of store-bought princess dresses, my little nanny inspired coo's and compliments from almost every house she visited. At random doorsteps, when I would remind her to say 'Trick or treat' when someone answered and 'Thank you' when they gave candy, Petunia would just look at me and say, 'I going to sing Spoonful of Sugar.'

With her ruddy little cheeks and black hat perched precariously on her head, she would pound her tiny fists against the door and then start singing quietly, 'Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.' And my heart just melted into the gutters at the sight of her, so confident and yet so small, singing quietly while an adult inside opened the door and looked down to see her standing there. I don't think that most of the adults who were treated to the most precious Halloween sight ever even realized that she was singing or what she was singing. But she did it. She was Mary Poppins to a tee.

Petunia also took great delight in handing out candy to the neighborhood kids before and after her own trick or treating time. At the end of the night, she stood by the bowl and asked one little girl, 'What do you want?' She held out a couple of different kinds of sweets to give the girl a good look. She yelled 'Happy halloween!' down the stairs at everyone who paid a visit to our house.

At the end of the night, she pored over her own candy to choose which three pieces she wanted to have for her treat. She picked a Kit-Kat, some Milk Duds and candy corn. She was very pleased with these and with how much candy was still in her treat bag after making her choices.

My only regret is that I did not take the camera trick or treating with us. But perhaps it's for the best as sometimes the pictures don't come out the way you see the image, and I will forever have one composite memory from Halloween 2006 burned into my brain: Petunia, with her umbrella in one hand and holding either handle of her treat bag with both hands, coming slowly but sure-footedly down the brick steps of a neighbor's house, pleased with her latest haul but laser-beam focused on the next stop. I will remember her as being so little compared to the big, bounding elementary and middle-school aged children going at a much faster pace around her, yet so independent and grown-up handling her accessories while navigating those stairs all by herself.

She felt still like my baby but very much like a little girl, and was - like Mary Poppins herself - 'practically perfect in every way.'