Cousins

Occasionally my family will get still enough for me to capture a moment like this one. My daughter and niece were simply sitting at the kitchen counter listening to family banter on Thanksgiving day and enjoying the fact of their easy, playful sisterhood.

The Usual Posture 2

If you know a teenager, you know this pose.
This is my beautiful niece, at lunch in a restaurant. 

Family Resemblance

My niece is living with us for the summer. My brother's daughter, she is said to look just like my mother, her grandmother, did at her age. The elder aunts, my mother's five sisters, remark on this all the time. "She has the same spoon face," they say, affectionately cupping her chin. Here are photos of them, both at 19 years. What do you think? I think they are both extraordinarily beautiful and precious to me. 

The House is Full Again

My son and my niece L are back from college. My son's best friend E just graduated from boarding school and in the fall will be headed to the same college that my son and niece attend (it's really becoming a family affair). They and others of my son's friends, fresh from their first year, are often hanging out in my living room. My daughter's friends are also coming through to say hello to the college kids. My daughter asked if five girls from her high school could stay over next weekend. I said yes. I always prefer the party to be happening in my house where I can see what's going on. On the car trip back from picking our son up from college, she informed him of the sleepover plan.

"Thanks for the heads up," he told her. "I'll make myself scarce."

"No you won't," she informed him. "You're the reason they're coming."

At which point he declared how offended he was that she was using him as a "trophy brother."

It's so hard being beautiful.

My son will working at the sleepaway camp he's attended every summer since he was 11, but that job doesn't start till June 12. He's a full-fledged counselor this year, instead of a counselor assistant, as he's now 18. He'll make at least enough to buy his books for sophomore year. A lot of close friends from his camping days will also be working, including some who live as far away as London and Rome. The camp, located by a lake in the Connecticut woods, is very much "their place." I think when my son looks back on his youth, it will be enormously significant in terms of friendships, mastery of self, and survival skills, both social and wilderness.

My niece L is working as a photographer's assistant, a job that is turning out to have quite a few perks as the photographer does many celeb shoots where there is beaucoup swag. My magazine hires him sometimes to cover events, and he'll say to my niece, "Your aunt hired me to do so and so, please tell her thank you." They both know I have nothing to do with the hiring of photographers! We're tickled that my niece, who is very petite, is doing this job, which requires her to cart all the photo equipment and do set ups and set break downs. But she's a strong girl. She's the number two ranked women's squash player back home. She has muscles!

With all the activity in the house, my daughter, the only one still in school, is challenged to keep her homework going, but she seems to be managing. Last year was the same thing, and she ended the year very nicely, on the honor roll. I hope she'll be able to do the same this year. She has also once again negotiated what now seems to be an annual Greenport trip with her longtime friends from elementary school, despite impending finals. It worked out okay last year. In fact, she studied harder for finals to prove I hadn't made a mistake in saying yes.

She was looking up the schedule for the Hampton Jitney last night, and assured me she would pay for it with her babysitting money. There are a couple of adorable little girls upstairs who keep asking their parents if my daughter can babysit them again. And, I will admit without shame, I also hired my daughter to do the laundry weekly. Yes, I pay her. That way she is obligated to do a good job and carry on through from start to putting-clothes-away finish. It works out well, because I passionately hate laundry and she doesn't mind it. And she likes making money. She buys her own clothes these days. So grown.

Our friend Jax from Antigua, who introduced my husband and me, was also in town for a few days. We dined out, did Broadway (we saw Fela! with my daughter and my niece, then had a late night Japanese dinner), grooved in jazz clubs, shopped and just walked the city sidewalks. It is such fun to do the city with Jax. She is so excited by it all. She gives you the experience of seeing it anew, and getting excited again, too. New York is electric. We take for granted how alive it is at all hours of the day and night. Being with Jax reminded us. It also helped my husband and me plug back into "our story," the magic and romance of it, and that always makes everything shimmer just a little but more.

I also love when the house is full because my husband and daughter get inspired to create in the kitchen. They love an audience, the more the merrier. Last night my husband made ropa vieja and jasmine rice, specially requested by our son, while our daughter experimented with a raspberry jam crumb cake, which was beyond heavenly and did not last the night.

A Day At a Time

Let's see. Here are some of the posts I didn't write.

1. My daughter, husband, niece and I had a wonderful meal at Colicchio and Sons, where the waiter made sure that the birthday girl, who follows chefs the way other girls follow movie stars, felt like the princess of the culinary world. Tom Colicchio was actually in the kitchen cooking that night, and he sent out a sumptuous amuse bouche for our table, courtesy of the house. And my daughter's dessert plate arrived with the words "Happy Birthday" tastefully scripted in thin chocolate sauce on the edge of the plate. My girl was practically levitating. (Below: My daughter and my niece tackling the dessert course.)

2. My husband did the flowers for Easter Service at our church, in tribute to his mother, who used to teach floral arrangement classes and who often did the flowers for Easter Sunday service at St. Johns Cathedral in Antigua. This was my husband's first Easter without his mother, and he wanted to honor her memory. So he got up early on Saturday morning and went down to the flower district and arrived home just past noon with long boxes of anthuriums and palm leaves and other greenery in his arms. He sat at our kitchen counter and created two beautiful large triangle arrangements for the sanctuary. It was clear to me that each flower had been carefully and individually chosen, in shades that ranged from deep red to shell pink to white. He chose anthuriums because they were his mom's favorite flowers and they also evoke the place he is from. Our minister told the church we had an artist in our midst, and he went on to tell the congregation who did the flowers and why. Everyone praised my husband's talent, and everyone felt the love that had informed the placement of each flower, palm frond and leaf. The arrangements were exotic and perfect on the wood paneled altar, a fitting tribute. Somewhere, his mom was smiling. (Below: The arrangements before transport to the church.)

3. Our son injured his achilles tendon, and was on crutches. But he was cleared to return to track practice yesterday, and is working his way back in. He is supposed to run the shuttle hurdle relay at Penn Relays next week! We will be in the stands cheering. I hope he is healed enough. (Below: My son, sunglasses on head, at a track meet at Ichan Stadium last year.)

4. My job. I am churning with anxiety over the unknown. I tell myself, a day at a time. I tell myself that no matter what transpires, I will find my way through.

Spring!

My son and my niece arrive tonight for spring break. Both will be in town for a week. My son is bringing a friend, a young woman, who will be with us for the weekend. They get in around 8 tonight. I'm still at work, waiting for final proofs on one last story, and then I'm out of here. Excited!

Playing with Sevita

The president and his niece Sevita during the family's Martha's Vineyard vacation last summer. Babies and children love this man. Look at the trust and delight in little Sevita's pose. (Photographed by Pete Souza on August 25, 2009)

$3.49 Part Two

Earlier this year my 90-year-old aunt (above with my niece and my daughter) received a notice saying that she was making $3.49 a year too much to qualify for home care services. This excess, by the way, was the result of a cost of living increase to her social security, which is mandated by law.

For upwards of $1,000, we engaged a lawyer to defend her case at a fair hearing with the state, at which it was decided that the state would just bill my aunt for the $3.49 and she could maintain services (which she desperately cannot do without). Now the state is asking for another hearing in her home, which is apparently the law when a person is homebound and the decision in the case is not "fully favorable" (as in, they're going to make her pay the $3.49 a year).

The eldercare lawyer advises me to write a letter saying that she will simply pay as directed, rather than have him prepare for another hearing on her behalf, at $400 an hour. He says he suspects the home care agency will not even bother to bill her. I did not say, because I was too tired right then to entertain it, that this is going to come up again next spring, when the next social security increase kicks in.

I find I am dragging my feet in writing the letter. I realize I am so incensed at the lunacy of the state, at the lack of common sense, that I'm having a passive aggressive response. I wish the lawyer would just write the letter for me but that would be another $400. The state sure keeps eldercare attorneys doing a thriving business!

In related news, my son seems to be moving towards a future in some area of health care. He went to his college orientation last week and selected his classes. He's carrying a fairly heavy load for his first semester, which makes me worry since he has to maintain a B+ average. But he says he's totally stoked about his courses, two in particular: Anatomy and Physiology and Emergency Care for the Health Professional. The latter teaches hands on, in-the-field emergency techniques like splinting, etc. My husband said, when he heard his program, "Does he realize he's heading more and more in the direction of medicine?" Shhhh.