The blue.

Dear friends,

I’m flying into the wild blue yonder today. I’m practically giddy with excitement. I have my camera, sunglasses, a visor, industrial-strength sunscreen, cute summer outfits, and an assortment of sandles. What more could a tennis-spectating mother need for a trip to Phoenix?

Kate sent me a text message as she boarded her flight yesterday: I’m about to get on the plane. Love you.

Like her mother, flying makes Kate nervous. I tend to send messages and make phone calls to loved ones right before and after flights, too. I can’t wait to join her under the big blue Phoenix sky this evening, where we’ll both be happy to stand on terra firma.

Speaking of the blue, I received a hand-written note yesterday from a friend. It was completely unexpected and thanked me for my “advice, counsel, humor, mentorship and friendship for the past seven years.” It mentioned a mutually challenging experience and closed with “When the turkeys get you down — just wanted you to know — someone is in your corner.”

Any day is a good day to receive such a kind affirmation, but I can’t think of a better time than when I’m flying out for an adventure and some much-needed R&R. I don’t anticipate any difficulties but, hey, you never know. I might need bail money.

With gratitude {for May junkets and unexpected greetings from the thoughtful souls who enrich my life},

Joan, who’s lucky indeed to have so many dear friends on speed dial

Who’s the boss?

Dear friends,

I don’t ever blog about work.  The reason why can be found in the words of the famous blogger, Dooce, who was fired for writing about her boss and later declared”Be thou not so stupid.”

However, I am the boss in my particular work situation and so I figure maybe I can get away with writing about myself just this once.

Anyway, yesterday was Boss’s Day. Or is it Boss’ Day? Or Bosses’ Day?

Let’s just say it was The Day Of the Boss (for those who don’t know the exact rule for plural possessives on words ending in “s,” which I’m ashamed I cannot cite from memory, grammar snob that I am).

Anyway . . . look what I found on my desk yesterday . . .

A basket full of food stuffs from “The Hill” in St. Louis!

If you know anything about St. Louis, you know The Hill is an Italian food lover’s dream. And tucked among the cheese and the salami and the sauces and the LaFlorentine Torrone candies was a gift certificate for my favorite Italian restaurant on The Hill, Charlie Gitto’s. (Dear Charlie, please reserve a table for six Saturday night. We’re bringing friends for dinner. Love, Joan)

Do I work with the coolest (clearly most generous) people or what?

And besides their lovely and oh-so-thoughtful gift, the four women and two men responsible for this gift wrote the kindest sentiments on my card. When I moved to Missouri 18 months ago to take this job, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. What I got into was a team of some of the hardest-working, talented, and kindest professionals I’ve ever known. I’ve had some hard days, no doubt. But never because of my “direct reports.” They’re champs and they make me look good every single day.

While I’m on the subject of me looking good, I’ll tell you a funny story I may never live down. My staff teases me because of what they call my “large vocabulary.” I’m constantly using words they ask me to define. (Sometimes I make up words just to jack with them. One day I said a person we all consider to be a blowhard was “speechifying.” I normally would say “pontificating” but I worried it might be too obscure and figured speechifying was self-explanatory. Turns out, not so much.) Anyway, one day not long after I arrived, we were meeting about a problem that was long-standing, complicated and exceedingly frustrating. As the meeting wore on, I wore down. Whereas I normally would have asked “Who in our organization has the authority to change these policies?” I simply blurted out (out of frustration) “Who’s the boss of this?!”

My staff didn’t know me well then, so they all looked down, stifling their laughter, while one brave soul spoke up and said quietly, “Uh, you are, Joan.”

Ever since then, they remind me (with a wink) “You’re the boss, Joan. Whatever you say, goes.” As I wrote to them yesterday in a thank you note for their gift: “I hate the label “boss” — but on this day, I am more than happy to wear the mantle if it means serving beside all of you.”

With gratitude {for the best colleagues this working mother could ask for},

Joan, who stumped a few folks in a recent memo with the word “impracticable”  but wishes to argue it’s the perfect compromise word between a course of action that is not quite impossible but also not merely impractical

A few thoughts for the chicken-buyers and the chicken-boycotters.

Dear friends,

I’ve spent the last 48 hours alternately enraged and saddened. And disgusted and angry. And puzzled and introspective.

And when I feel this way, I only have one solution: write.

This is not a topic I particularly want to tackle, but it’s surely on my heart and my heart is heavy. So here are the best words on the topic I could manage to write.

I have 343 “friends” on Facebook. They span all ages (from friends of my teenagers all the way to friends of my parents). They span all religious beliefs (I can think of no less than four faith traditions represented among my group, and likely dozens of denominations.) Both genders, many races, single and married, straight and homosexual. Right wing, left wing, in the middle.

And, over the last two days, a good number of my 343 friends carried the divisions in our political and civic life to the pages of Facebook in a silly skirmish over the beliefs of a man who heads a chicken restaurant. How in the world a culture war (ideological war?) ended up being fought in the parking lots of Chick-Fil-A’s across America — while Facebook pulsated with battle updates — makes no sense to me.

But what I do understand is that my friends are divided, and some of them were downright gleeful in staking out their positions on Chick-Fil-A at the expense of those on the other side. And I’m talking about “the other side” both ways, folks.

I don’t want to rehash the whole story. I have an entirely different point I want to make that has nothing to do with Chick-Fil-A. But first, just so you understand, I fully support the civil rights of homosexuals. And I don’t find homosexuals or their lifestyles worthy of condemnation.

But that’s not my point either. My point is I support the rights of homosexuals, but some of my friends and family don’t. We have honest differences. I have a hard time understanding their point of view (to be frank, it feels like bigotry to me). And I’m sure they have a hard time understanding my point of view. (I can only guess it feels to them like I’m willfully disobeying God, which is a sacrilege.)

But whether they’re bigots or I’m unfaithful to God is not the point. The point is — do we really have to stake out our territory on Facebook with snarky, self-righteous posts that do nothing but inflame and diminish us all?

When a chicken-buyer says he just stood up for families and God’s word (with four exclamation points after the announcement), does that help the other side move toward any increment of respectful dialogue or reconciliation?

When a chicken-boycotter declares the chicken-buyers are bigots (in all caps) and responsible for perpetuating hate in our world, does that help?

Of course not. So why do we do it? It feels like we are afraid, but I can’t figure out what the chicken-buyers and the chicken-boycotters really have to fear from each other. We’re “friends” for Pete’s sake! (Not to mention neighbors in many cases.) If God will stand in judgment of heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, can’t we just let God be the judge? And until that day, can’t we agree to disagree, can’t we remain friends or at least respectful acquaintances, without hurling our blatant fear and/or disgust for alternative viewpoints at each others’ faces on a social networking site?

I’m as susceptible as anyone to the tendency to jump on strident, bandwagon posts about social issues. I made a couple of Facebook comments in support of the chicken-boycotters to friends who share my viewpoint. But when I couldn’t think of a single conciliatory thing to say to the chicken-buyers, I was suddenly, startlingly stopped in my tracks. Facebook is an interesting and powerful forum, but it’s no place to have a serious discussion over deeply held beliefs with my “friends.” Because last time I checked, I’m not snarky with them in person. I don’t bait them, and I don’t gig them just to gig them. I don’t peer down my nose at them, and when we disagree, we respectfully disagree. Somehow, all that gets lost on Facebook, where political and ideological posturing is rampant. And isn’t it sad . . . the posturing among “friends?” We must be doing it, I think, because we feel powerless to be heard elsewhere. I could probably make an assertion here about Washington gridlock and partisan politics as contributing factors to our feelings of powerlessness, but that train of thought clearly won’t get us anywhere. If it would, we wouldn’t be throwing tomatoes at each other on Facebook.

So I’m going to close with one more thought. It is from my heart and I’m trying as hard as I can to express it with love and without enmity for those whose views are different from mine.

A few months ago, I started reading a blog called Raising my Rainbow. It’s the first “Mommy-blog” to chronicle the “daily joys, struggles, and, sometimes, embarrassments” of raising a gender-nonconforming son. What that means is the author has a little boy named CJ who wants to be a little girl. At age 5. Is he gay? CJ’s Mom doesn’t know. And through her candid, heart-wrenching posts, I’ve learned the differences between sex, gender and sexuality. As CJ’s mom says, “Sex is what’s in your pants, it’s your genitalia. Gender is what’s in your brain, it tells you that you are female or male. Sexuality is what’s in your heart, it tells you who you love.”

I try to imagine being CJ’s mother, raising a boy who wants to be a girl and probably doesn’t yet know his sexuality. And at the very moment I imagine being CJ’s mother, I can’t imagine wanting anything for him except all the love and respect in the world. I don’t even know CJ. But after reading about him for a few months, I still want all the love and respect in the world for him, whether he grows up to be gay or not.

Isn’t that what we all want?

It’s what I want. It’s what I believe Matthew Shepard wanted and Tyler Clementi wanted. I bet it’s what Dan Cathy wants.

And instead of talking about ways to grow love and share it all around, we’re bellowing and sniping and posturing and pronouncing our way to a world where CJ and his family has to duck and cover.

Did the entertainment on Facebook yesterday feel worth it to you? It didn’t to me. And that is why I stopped commenting and started thinking.

With gratitude {for love, in whatever small doses it is shared, anywhere it is shared, among friends or strangers},

Joan, who takes friendship seriously, apologizes if she has seemed condescending to any of her friends, and invites respectful comments from all viewpoints toward the goal of greater understanding

Love is a verb.

Dear friends,

The view from my friend’s back porch in Oklahoma.

I got home late last night from my trip home.  It made my heart ache and it made my heart full.

As I was standing outside St. Catherine’s Church a few minutes before the funeral, the father of my friend Janet passed me on the sidewalk. He’s been divorced from Janet’s mother for many years now, but he looked as heartbroken as anyone. He gave me a big hug and said “How are you doing, Joan-Marie?”

Without thinking, I said the first thing that popped into my head: “I’m happy to be back in the place where people call me Joan-Marie.”

And so it was that in less than 24 hours, I hugged half my hometown, cried a few tears, tried to follow along with a Catholic rosary service and funeral, whispered and giggled under my breath with the Js on a church pew as if we were 17 again, caught up with former neighbors and friends and teachers, told  Janet’s children how proud their mother was of them, snapped photos at the burial as if it was a class reunion, gave thanks during the Lord’s prayer for all the souls around me that I’ve loved for so many years, pigged out on the first decent Mexican food I’ve had in a year, and stood on the back porch of my friend’s house and breathed in the Oklahoma prairie that calms me.

It was a whirlwind trip, made better by the fact that Kate went with me and did all the driving. She also chose the playlist and John Mayer’s “Love is a verb” seemed an apropos anthem for our pilgrimage. All that driving and talking and hugging and crying and laughing and whispering and praising and photographing and eating and the breathing, too — that was our love in action.

I’m tired today from all the loving. But I’ve got a lot more to do because Kate graduates tonight.

So I’m off — to love us all right through it.

With gratitude {for these days the Lord hath made},

Joan-Marie, who knows you can always go home

Never been to heaven.

Dear friends,

Since I’m back in my hometown today (unfortunately, to attend a funeral), I’m offering an encore presentation of an essay about living in my favorite little town.

I’m feeling nostalgic. And teary, as you might imagine. I think this will perk me up.

With gratitude {for happy memories},

Joan, who’s glad to be home, even for a day

Never been to heaven.

First published May 10, 2009.

I get a strange feeling sometimes that I can’t quite explain.

In an instant, time rolls back 30 years and I’m transported. Wait, that’s not exactly right because 30 years ago I was precisely where I am now. It’s more like time doesn’t exist, the years and miles never intervened, and I am transfixed in a place where I’ve always been.

It’s not quite deja vu, because instead of feeling a compelling sense of familiarity or repeated experience, I feel an odd sense of time standing still. It’s not that I’ve experienced the moment in the past, but more like the moment never passed.

In December 1978, I turned 16. A few months later, my mother and father pooled their savings to buy me a 1968 Mustang with a price tag of $900. With a 289 engine and a three-speed on the floor, my little pea-green, notchback pony was a fast ride. The only problem was it took me months to figure out the clutch. During most of the summer of 1979, I could be seen killing my car on hills, railroad tracks and at stop signs all over Mayberry. My neighbor Steve, who I mention often in this space, was at that time my friend Steve. And after a few weeks of seeing me repeatedly pop the clutch, he nicknamed my car “the Frog.” I didn’t get it at first but then he explained: it’s green and it hops around town.

Like most 16-year-olds with wheels of their own, I spent every spare moment in the Frog, often accompanied by the Js. When gas shot up to 50 cents a gallon, my mother tried to put a moratorium on my excessive driving, but I somehow found a way to drag Main more often than not. And somewhere along the way, I developed a dangerously leaden foot.

One of my friends dated a boy who lived just a few doors north from the home I live in now on Pecan Street. And one evening while cruising in the Frog with the Js, we decided to drive by his house after a Sonic run. For reasons I don’t now recall, I cruised down Pecan at 80 miles an hour. A slight crest in the road just south of the boy’s home sent us airborne. Back then, nobody wore seat-belts, so a split second after our fannies landed back in our seats, our drinks landed on our heads after having splashed off the Frog’s headliner.

Some days when I sit on my porch and watch the lazy traffic roll past Magpie Manor, I try to imagine what I would do if a car full of young girls drove down my street at three times the legal speed. At those moments, I feel alarmingly old.

But sometimes, when I’m driving my current low-slung coupe with its quick clutch and six-speed manual transmission, the strange feeling of time standing still envelops me.

Once it happened on a snowy night while driving home from work. At a stop sign two blocks south of my house, the heel of my sling-back pump caught on the floor mat and I accidentally popped the clutch. With my left hand on the steering wheel and my right hand on the stick-shift, I was suspended in a moment of silence after killing my engine. There was no one else on the street. It was just me, lulled in the moonlit hush of a town taking refuge indoors on a winter night, watching the faint sweep of snowflakes on my windshield. And in that hypnotic moment when I didn’t even breathe, I was not 46 years old with a husband and two kids awaiting my arrival at home. I was 16, and stopped at the intersection between my mother’s home and the 30 years that would carry me to big white house on Pecan Street.

Last week it happened on the long stretch of blacktop that runs north from Tulsa to Mayberry. I was driving home after Fleetwood Mac and it was nearly midnight. I rarely listen to music in the car, but in my post-concert exuberance, I turned on the radio and found it was already tuned to a ‘70s station. The music brought back memories of the many days and nights I burned up that same highway in the Frog, including one late night when curiosity got the best of me and I pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor until my speedometer was pegged.

As that memory flooded my mind, it crowded out my better sense. And inexplicably, an old favorite song — Never been to heaven — came on the radio. I rolled down my window, turned up Three Dog Night, shifted into sixth gear, and pressed the accelerator all the way down to the floor until my speedometer was pegged.

I’ve never been to heaven. But I am living — deliriously and dreamily — in a place called Oklahoma.

An endless cycle of gorgeous.

Dear friends,

The cards and gifts for Kate’s graduation started rolling in yesterday.  (Bonus! said the sweet CupKate)

Among the most adorable packages was one from my friend Maridel, who’ve you’ve met before in this post. Her gift was enclosed with the card above.

I won’t speak for Kate but I will say it makes a girl feel good when somebody understands our personal burdens.

An endless cycle of gorgeous . . . yep, that’s me, all right. And I have the shoes to prove it.

With gratitude {for sweet friends who are wishing my adorable Kate well},

Joan, or you can call her Imelda of the Midwest

From tears. To smiles. To oh crap. To cardiac arrest. To laughs. To epiphanies. Holy cow what a day!

Dear friends,

Yesterday was one wild ride.

It started with tears at home because, you know, I got all choked up over my own post even as I was posting it. (Yes, I’m a goofball.)

But then things started looking up as I read your very kind and insightful and empathetic comments, both on this space and on my Facebook page. (I can’t thank all of you enough for sharing your stories and bolstering my spirits.)

Then on my lunch hour I finally got around to booking our trip to NYC — er, Hoboken — for Kate’s graduation gift. I had been procrastinating because — while I’ve been to NYC four times in my life, I don’t know it all that well — and I was fearful of making dreadful, regrettable mistakes. On the other hand, I wasn’t about to pay $500 a night for a hotel room, so I eventually had to just pick one and go with it.

So I chose a little “boutique” hotel on the Upper West Side. (I don’t know why, maybe because it was close to the subway, and I stayed in Times Square once and didn’t find it all that appealing, and I didn’t think I wanted to be downtown, so I just, you know, went with the one with the pretty pictures and the good price.) And after I picked the hotel and prepaid for it, I realized it’s so “charming” and so “historic” it doesn’t have an elevator. And some of the reviews said it sometimes doesn’t have hot water, either. So lord only knows what I’ve gotten us into in the name of frugality.

And then I checked the price of Broadway tickets and had a heart attack. I really want to see Book of Mormon but I really don’t want to pay $600 for two tickets, so I’m trying to decide whether it makes sense to just stand in the Times Square discount ticket line and take our chances when we get there. (Thoughts, anyone?)

Then I sketched out our itinerary for all five days and couldn’t decide if Little Italy or Chinatown was the better bet. MOMA or Met? NBC Studio Tour or TV and Movie Sites Tour? Fifth Avenue or Garment District or SoHo for shopping?

Then I found this — a handy little map of all the shopping in Soho and it pretty much sealed the deal.

Then I got dizzy trying to decide if we could tour Ground Zero and Liberty/Ellis Island in one day, so I abandoned trip planning until I can get my wits about me.

Then I came home, where my entire family dog-piled into the kitchen because we were all starving. And, for once, I made supper while my kids made lists of the friends they plan to invite to our Memorial Day float trip. And Parker — who’s not my most decisive child — was really having trouble narrowing down his extensive list of social contacts to fit into an 8-man raft — causing me to lose patience.

And Kate finally stepped in and said “Parker! Have tryouts and make cuts!”

Which made every last one of us laugh out loud, even Parker. And in that moment — that moment where we were all together and laughing and eating and having fun — I remembered what so many of you said to me about savoring every moment.

And I did.

I surely did.

With gratitude {for the clarity to put down my hanky and embrace your wise words},

Joan, who knows even if the hotel she picked yesterday is a flea-bag, it still won’t be her biggest travel blunder ever, because her friends still tease her about the time she purchased Royals vs. Yankees tickets for their girls weekend in Kansas City only to get to Kauffman Stadium and realize the game was at Yankee Stadium

My big fat Easter bonus.

Dear friends,

Despite what could have been a melancholy day, I had the most lovely Easter in a very long time.

It started with this:

My family patiently posed for me. (Isn’t Ed a ham?)

Then we went to lunch where my Easter dinner looked like this:

Have you ever seen lamb chops more gorgeous than these? (I’m still enforcing a 4-oz limit per day on meat, so I ate one small chop and brought the other two home.)

Once home, Kate napped and the boys disappeared, so I retreated to the deck with my favorite reading material — a home decor catalog.

I love a sunny day on the deck and my legs went from milk white to . . . um . . . slightly darker than milk white. (Hey, I’ll take what I can get!)

Before long, the solitude of my sunny corner was broken by the commotion of happy and boastful boys.

Holy cow! I’m not sure who was prouder: Mr. Mom who showed the boys where the secret fishing hole was, the boys who caught the impressive string of bass, or the dog who supervised the whole outing.

While Ed rested (management responsibilities are taxing; Ed and I speak from experience) . . .

Mr. Mom cleaned and fileted our fish . . .

And the boys posed with their trophies . . .

Then I hightailed it in the house to heat up the cast iron skillet and make mashed potatoes and green beans. My hard-working fishermen deserved a good supper.

And the fish filets . . . they were a sight to behold. And to taste.

I promptly broke my 4-oz meat limit (just this once!) and ate two filets. My fishermen ate two platters of filets and about five pounds of mashed potatoes, with a handful of green beans thrown on for color. It made my heart (and their bellies) full.

Then after supper, my happy campers retreated to the den for an evening of . . . nothing strenuous.

Meanwhile, I received the sweetest message via Facebook from my friend Cindy. She had posted a beautiful photo of her 88-year-old mother dressed in her Easter finery and I had commented that she should treasure these days. She wrote me a long and thoughtful message about mothers and daughters and grandbabies and empty-nesters — and all those sweet and sympathetic thoughts old friends share.

I smiled.

And I counted my blessings which, this Easter, were most bountiful.

With gratitude {for a lovely day by all measures, especially in inches of fish},

Joan, who counts her lucky stars that she lives with two very resourceful and strapping men who’ve been known to bring home fish, rabbit, turkey, squirrel (Eeeek! Not my favorite!), venison, and wild hog and who always clean and cook their varied catches

Ped-ewwww-cure.

Dear friends,

I got a pedicure yesterday. My first in a very, very long time.

And since I have spent the last two and a half months publicly expressing my gratitude every dadgum day, I wish today to express a little ingratitude.  I trust you’ll indulge my rant.

You see, back home, my best friend did my nails. For 20 years.

She is a college graduate. She is an insanely talented and accomplished artist who just happens to do nails for a living. She’s funny as hell. She kisses me and hugs me every time she sees me. Her salon is as clean as her home. She doesn’t wear gloves because she’s not icked out by my feet and I’m not icked out by her hands touching my feet. She doesn’t wear a mask because she doesn’t use hazardous chemicals. We don’t make small talk because we’re used to big talk. I love her so much and enjoyed the company in her salon so much I used to hang out there even when I didn’t have an appointment. It was my Cheers, in a way. She let me take naps on her sofa, even when she had other customers. She gave me bites of her lunch. She was the Matron of Honor in my wedding. She is the first person to change Kate’s diaper. And beyond all that, she happens to be the most talented, most thorough, most skilled nail technician in all the world.

So I’m guessing you’re getting it that I miss her. And I don’t like her replacements.

I mean, all I can say is getting a pedicure by anybody else is like kissing your elderly neighbor when you miss your husband. Ewwwww.

And if you were tempted to say “Ewwwww” when you saw that photo of my feet, I blame it on yesterday’s nail tech. My feet used to look much better when Alisa took good care of them.

And Alisa didn’t criticize me. Yesterday’s nail tech declared “You cut nails too short.”

“I don’t cut them,” I deadpanned. “I pick them.”

“Too short.”

“Yeah, I know. I also bite my finger nails. It’s a bad habit.”

“You stop.”

“No. I don’t think I will.”

I know. I was being snotty. But come on. A woman comes in with trashed toes because she clearly has a nervous habit and you really think you’re going to convince her to stop with two words of broken English?

I’m being terribly uncharitable. I think it’s a reaction to the grief of losing not only the world’s best nail tech but also my weekly, scheduled, therapy sessions with my best friend. It’s a lot to deal with.

Alisa used to take one look at my toes and say “Oh my. You’ve been stressed lately haven’t you?” Then she’d give me a hug and a glass of wine and massage my feet and ask about my kids and compliment my hair and invite me for dinner. I guess I don’t really expect anyone else to live up to that soul-filling standard, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be crabby about it now and then, does it?

Many years ago, Alisa contemplated running away and marrying a man in another state. I was young in my career back then and I contemplated buying her salon. She taught me all her secrets, and the result is I can now perform a better manicure on myself than any other nail technician besides her. (Heck, I could perform a better manicure on you than anybody besides Alisa.) So the problem is, I am terribly picky and I don’t do my feet well. The angle is tough and I’m ticklish, even to my own touch. So while I have resorted to doing my own manicures, I’m kind of stuck when it comes to pedicures.

And that makes me very, very sad. And my feet very, very neglected. I mean, what kind of tech doesn’t shave the tiny hairs on your feet, which are embarrassingly visible on that photo? I’m both deprived and humiliated.

Without gratitude {for the skilled and loving care of my feet by anyone but my best friend},

Joan, who apologizes for this self-indulgent break in programming but clearly desires your sympathy

Cheers to nineteen.

Dear friends,

We had a party last night. Best I can tell, it was a hit.

As was the cake.

I got a little nervous about running out of cake when kids kept showing up, but my four-layer beauty fed the hungry teenagers with one piece to spare. Whew!

The whole evening made my heart full. I couldn’t have been happier that so many friends showed up to help Kate celebrate. It’s been a tough year for her as she noted on a recent Facebook post: Eighteen was one heck of a year for me, but I made it through it. Cheers to nineteen and all that it brings me!

Our new little town has welcomed us at every turn over the past several months, and the kids have been especially kind and friendly. My debt of gratitude grows every day with each new gesture of friendship.

With gratitude {for strength of family, resilient kids, and the gift of new friends, which is one of the best reasons of all to celebrate},

Joan, who impressed a kitchen full of teenagers while making Pioneer Woman’s Baked French Toast (for Sunday breakfast) with her one-handed egg cracking technique