Proposals

I have never been proposed to. Considering that I’ve never been engaged and/or married, I didn’t think this was at all odd. Proposals = engagements = weddings, right?

Then, I was out with a single friend who mentioned “one of the guys who’d proposed to her.”

“One of the guys?” I said. “How many people have proposed to you?”

“Three, I think,” she said.

“You think?”

“Three sounds right.”

“How long had you been dating this particular guy?” I said, going back to the original proposer to try and make sense of it all.

“A few months, but he had the ring before he met me. He was looking for a wife. He wasn’t necessarily looking for me.”

Fair enough. We discussed the other two proposals, and life went on. 

A few weeks after that, I ran into someone else who talked about her engagement rings. As in plural.

“How many people have proposed to you?” I said.

“Just the two,” she said.

"Just two" still seemed high to me (not in a bad way, just an unexpected way). I mean, having zero proposals under my belt, I’m easily trumped by any number, but still. Two drunken boyfriends (at different times) each said, “I’m gonna marry you,” but I don’t think that counts when you consider how many beers were involved.

Admittedly, my type before the age of 25 was unemployed and emotionally unavailable, but I still had no idea so many men were running around with diamond solitaires out there. (Is this what EHarmony is for?)

Mulling the subject over for the bit, it finally hit me – I had been proposed to! The only problem was that I was nine at the time.

In third grade, our elementary school welcomed a new student, and he became rather instantly smitten with me. (I only wore red, black or white and had a perm. I’m sure you can imagine what a catch I was.) Years ago, I vowed not to use real names in my writing, and you have no idea how much that is killing me right now because this particular boy had one of the most awesome names ever. I hate having to replace a rhyming name (complete with alliteration) with Harry, but a rule is a rule.

What I remember about Harry is that he loved to wear a yellow Starvin’ Marvin t-shirt, and he had no qualms about making his love for me known. He referred to me as his future wife on the playground and brought me lots of gifts like erasers and colorful pencils.

One day, before lunch, he asked me to marry him. Now, before you dismiss this story as not counting as an actual proposal, I need to add one key detail – he had a sapphire and diamond ring with him. And that ring was far more impressive than the plastic happy-faced ring he’d presented me with the day before.

I was all set to give my usual “no” when I saw the sparkles. “That’s nice,” I said, instantly entranced.

“Please, please marry me,” he said.

“I need to think about it,” I said. What I really needed to think about was how to get out of being betrothed before I got to junior high and managing to hold on to that ring. Mulling it over with my best friend, I said, “Can I say ‘no’ and keep the ring?”

Clearly, I was a sensitive child.

While I was still wrestling with whether or not to marry for money, Harry’s mom called the school. It seemed it hadn’t taken her long to connect the missing ring from her jewelry box to her son’s classroom crush. I guess Harry had (correctly) realized he wasn’t getting my attention with the trinkets he could afford – erasers, colored pencils and smiley-faced rings – and stepped it up a notch.

Unfortunately for me, before the end of the day, the ring (which was beautiful) was locked away safely in Mrs. Treater’s desk drawer until it was time for our parents to pick us up. Harry had some explaining to do when he got home, and my dilemma was over.

While I know I can’t count that as a real proposal, I am changing my number to a .5. It seems fair to me, and this is my blog. So there. (Oh, how the sensitive child has matured in the passing years …)  

Save The Skeet

When I was younger, we took a lot of family vacations that were combined with various lawyers’ conferences. At nine, I took my first trip on a plane, and we went to Disney World. It was awesome (and that’s only talking about the plane trip), and since my dad took me with him to pick up some papers in the hospitality area, I had some unexpected and treasured one-on-one time with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

For fourth grade Spring Break, we went skiing. I liked skiing, but what I remember most from that trip is boarding the chartered bus that would take us from the airport to our condos and being surrounded by attorneys demanding a stop to buy booze on the way. (I kid you not when I say there was an actual chant at one point along the lines of “li-quor store, li-quor store.”)

However, it was our trip to the Greenbrier in West Virginia when I was 11 that was my favorite vacation by far. It was July, and I loved everything about the place. There were huge indoor and outdoor pools as well as a bowling alley and movie theater in the hotel. (How is that even possible?) The Greenbrier is also one of the few places I know of where you can practice falconry even though my dad wasn’t handing over the money for that one.

Also, being 11, I was right at the cut-off age for the kids’ activity groups. (At lawyer conferences, it’s very important to separate the children from the adults as soon as possible so that networking and happy hour can commence immediately.) While at first I resented not being able to go with the 12 and older set, once I made a friend, we, armed with our respective sisters, ran the under 11 group. The popularity and power were intoxicating. People fought for the right to sit at our dinner table – where we enjoyed three-course meals and used all of the correct silverware so as not to shame our professional parents.

This was also around the time that the news was beginning to break that there might be bunkers for government officials built in various strategic locations throughout the country in the event of nuclear war. The Greenbrier was a prime candidate, and my sisters and I liked exploring the resort hoping to break the story wide open.

“I think I see a tear in the wall paper over there.”

“Does the wall sound hollow to you?”

Superb detectives we were not. Good shuffleboard players? Yes.

At 16, we went back to the Greenbrier, but it wasn’t quite the same experience. By then, the Greenbrier had admitted to its underground bunker, so it was very cool to actually tour it. On the other hand, trying to reconnect with my lawyers’ conference friends from five years earlier didn’t exactly go as I had hoped, and I was full of the expected teen angst.

I spent most of the week lounging by the pool and reading The Virgin Suicides.

My father did want us to participate in one day outing as a family, and it happened to be skeet shooting. He figured it was one of the safest ways for us to learn to use a gun. (Even though we’re not gun owners, as anxiety-driven people, we do feel compelled to know how to do all things in case an emergency should ever arise. The killer drops his weapon? Be prepared to take charge of the situation. Not that a shotgun is often used in burglary and/or stalker-confrontation moments.)

Anyways, being as I was, full of teen angst and toying with vegetarianism, I was fairly dead set against not going. I looked my father straight in the eye and said, “Doesn’t anybody think about the poor skeet? Why should they be sacrificed for sport? The poor things.”

“Laurel,” my father said, “skeet are clay pigeons. Clay.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I guess you’re coming with us?”

“I guess so.”

I’m sure my father has never been more proud that he paid for all of that private education.

Volvo Off The Court Excellence Award*

*For those of you who don’t just come to my blog for Georgetown/Volvo stuff, I offer you the alternate title “In Which Laurel Attempts To Write About Sports.” I feel like that should provide some potential amusement ... [Read more]

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

I wish I was still this excited on Christmas morning. Of course, I still like gifts (who doesn't?), but there's something to that child-like wonder of not being able to control yourself. For this picture, I'm assuming I was given a line not to cross before a certain hour of the morning and was absolutely tortured by the restrictions.

Isn't the hat a festive, early '80s touch?

Twenty-nine years later, I do still ask Santa for handbags. I also still check the insides just in case someone decided to leave a little cash in there, even though I know it's tacky, so I pretend I'm admiring the lining.

In Which a Young Laurel Attempts to Fish

Last Friday night, I attended an evening of storytelling devoted to food courtesy of DISCO and Birmingham’s Food Summit. While I declined to tell a story (I wanted to give everyone else a chance, you see, it has nothing at all to do with my fear of public speaking, really), it did get me thinking about food and the sources of food. Plus, with it being Thanksgiving and all, it seemed like a fine time for a food-related tale. So, here we go.

Since my father has no boys, he was intent on teaching his daughters many of the skills most dads imparted to their sons. When he (quite admirably) decided to help my Brownie troop earn its sports badge, I remember two primary lessons:

1. Centers need to be tall. (I found this out when I, at fewer than five feet, volunteered to be the center, and my father suggested that Callie, at over five feet, would probably make a better choice.)

2. For “real” players, “no blood, no foul.”

While the latter was not enforced, it was still a little on the intense side for a gaggle of nine-year-olds.

My sisters and I were subject to many an action film, the library of all things James Bond and some very “involved” softball coaching. But, what stood out as the food stories were going around was the many times my father tried to get us interested in fishing.

Since we have a lake house, this makes perfect sense. Lake = water = fish. However, when you’re trying to teach three girls to fish, there are a few problems, and while you might think worms would be the worst of it, I think patience was the much bigger problem.

Fishing adventures tended to end shortly after the first or fifteenth, “I’m bored.”

Plus, whenever we did catch a fish, it was always a throw-away on the dumb side of fish life. (I can remember more than a couple holes or hooks already in its mouth.)

One day though, my father came in with some news.

“We’re going fishing!” he said.

Three collective sighs went around the table – especially since we were in Birmingham and nowhere near our lake house.

“This time is going to be different,” my dad said. “We’re going to a special pond. Guaranteed good fishing.”

Reluctantly, we got in the car, drove for about half an hour and came to a stop at the smallest “lake” I had ever seen. But sure enough, nearly a minute after I put my line in the water, I pulled out one of the biggest catfish I had ever seen.  

Soon, I caught two more fish, and my sisters were just as lucky. “This is a special pond,” I thought.

“I think we should only keep three a piece,” my dad said later. “We’ve got to leave some for everybody else.”

I wanted to keep every fish I caught. (Boy, were they biting that day!) But my dad’s logic made sense, in addition to the fact that he was my dad and he made the rules, so we quickly agreed.

It wasn’t until we were leaving, and a man pulled my father aside to weigh and pay for our fish that I realized we weren’t quite at a “special pond.” We were at a stocked pond, and this little adventure was costing my father quite a bit of money.

It was an especially expensive outing when you consider that later that night, after my father had prepared and cooked a full fish meal (with a freezer full of catfish to spare), we each responded with, “I don’t like catfish,” and opted for other dinner options instead.

That’s just my dad though – always going out of his way and doing his best to make sure that his girls were never disappointed. Whether it was making his daughters think of themselves as star fishermen, attending every softball, soccer and volleyball game or enduring hours at the mall, he always made us feel like he wanted to and enjoyed just being there. (I can imagine that it wasn’t always the dream of a “no blood, no foul” kind of guy to spend hours watching a fashion show after shopping.)

So, this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for my dad, and all of the ways he made us feel special and cared for. I’m also thankful for my mom, who is equally awesome and attentive, two great sisters, a new brother-in-law, a kid my sister dates who feels like a member of the family, my own SO and the rest of the crazy bunch I’ll get to spend tomorrow with.

I’m also incredibly thankful we’ll be enjoying a meal full of glorious carbs and sugar – catfish not included. 

The French Connection

2003 was a rough year for me, and it had nothing to do with a boyfriend or a job or even poor fashion choices I'm forced to relive in tagged Facebook photos. 2003 was particularly rough because of our feud with the French.

You see, while as an adult I can't say I really have strong feelings about the French in any way, shape or form, being forced to order "freedom fries" did remind me of my desperate childhood obsession with the French. (Did we go so far as to call it "freedom kissing"? I'm just curious.) And while I shouldn't have cared anymore, the little girl in me really, really wanted to make up with our beret-creating European neighbors.

When I was little, I wanted to be an actress, a lawyer and French. The first two were going to require more education and resources than I had access to at the time, but I figured the latter might be something I could actually work towards.

I knew there wasn’t much I could do about actually being French in the present, having been born in Alabama and all, but I was willing to settle for French ancestry. Also, after the disappointment of learning that my middle name was not actually "Fame," I figured Fain might be able to work for me in other ways.

“What are we?” I asked my mother one day. I was hard at work on a first grade family tree project, and she was trying to get dinner ready.

“We are a family,” she said.

 Not what I was hoping for. “No,” I said. “Where did we come from?”

“Montgomery,” she said, continuing to devote her attention to pork chops or something similar.

“No,” I said, “before that?”

“Troy.”

This was not going well. “No,” I said. “What countries did we come from before that?”

“Our ancestors? Is that what you’re asking about?”

I nodded, wondering if I would ever get this project done. Even at six, my mother and I had a history of communication problems. At four, I asked her how it was possible that God made the world in seven days if dinosaurs were around for so long, but there weren’t people when there were dinosaurs. She told me that Adam and Eve had dinosaurs as pets, but when they got kicked out of Eden, the dinosaurs became extinct. This might have worked out OK until I could advance further in school and learn about the Big Bang theory, evolution v. creation, etc., except for an incredibly embarrassing Sunday school incident when my drawing of Paradise included Eve walking a triceratops.

“Scotland, I think,” she said, still struggling with my questions. “But Mills is definitely English. I'd focus your project on Great Britain.”

“What about, oh, I don’t know…” I said, trying to seem as if this thought had just occurred to me, "France?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Isn’t it possible anyone in our family came from France? Maybe one of those Scottish people married someone from France?”

“I don’t think so, Honey. Could you set the table?”

“Couldn’t ‘Fain’ be French?” I said. They did start with the same letter after all.

“I really don’t think so,” she answered. “But I suppose you never know. Do you want to call your grandmother?” I didn't want to make any phone calls, and the truth was, and is, I come from a long line of WASPs, and there's very little that can be done about it.

So, instead of preparing a project about my brilliant French ancestors, I had to settle for pretending to be French. I couldn’t imagine anything better than being part of a long line of people with accents and great clothes. After all, they had an Eiffel Tower, restaurants called cafes, and they were too good for water – only coffee and wine for the French.

When I had tea parties with my stuffed animals, we only spoke in French. And, we ate pretend croissants rather than muffins or cupcakes. Of course, we didn’t actually speak French; I simply spoke in a long string of nonsense syllables that I substituted for a foreign language, but it was enough for me. (Although, I was pretty jealous of every single kid in my class who got to present a family tree that involved French ancestors.)

Within a few weeks of my family tree work and the made-up language gatherings, I'd moved on to other pursuits -- begging for a kitten, trying to finish The Boxcar Children before the rest of the kids in my class, convincing my parents I deserved a later bedtime because of my incredible maturity -- and that desire to be French was buried somewhere far beneath a love of Jem and the Holograms and a need to get the attention of my elementary school crush. I went on with my life, and I even survived that pesky 2003 international disagreement.

But, every so often, my little Francophile does rear its ugly head.

A few years ago, my sister and I were riding in the care discussing our extreme WASP-iness.

"Being Scottish works for me," I said. "We gave the world Scoth and bold plaids. You're welcome Universe."

"Yeah," she said, "but I don't think we're really completely 100% WASP."

"Rachael," I said, "our entire family tree is Scottish, English and Irish. We're Episcopalean, and you and Sarah are the only people in the family capable of tanning."

"I'm not sure," she said. "What about 'Fain.' I'm pretty sure that one's French."

Where had that kind of conviction been 20 years before when I really needed it?

Worst Pet Ever*

There are pets that are good ideas -- dogs, cats, parakeets. (Some people might argue for the ferret, but I'm not one of them.) Then, there are pets that are bad ideas -- rabbits, mice, anything that could become dinner if you live on a farm. (If you would pay someone to remove it from your home, I also contend it does not fall into the "pet" category, so I've never understood the market for mice, rats or snakes frankly.)

Of course, as a child, you have no idea what constitutes a good idea pet or a bad idea pet. And while my mother was in her "we're not getting a dog" phase, I'm pretty sure I begged for every pet under the sun -- chicks, kittens, bunnies and birds included. I started with fish, had a hamster and eventually, around the time I turned 12, graduated to birds. But somewhere in between, I had the worst bad idea pet there is -- the hermit crab.

We all know how it happens. You're down at the beach. You go into some store with a shark's mouth for a door, and within 15 minutes, no souvenir T-shirt, bag of shells or gull  perched on a piece of driftwood will do. What better way to take the beach home with you than in the form of a tiny hermit crab who lives in a portable, plastic case with sand and plastic green grass?

(I should probably also mention that I was the child who tried to catch minnows at the lake so that they could be my pets at home. I prayed that unsuspecting turtles would find their way into my yard, and I was heartbroken on the day that some other super lucky kid took the class chick home after we had all carefully incubated him/her from egg to hatchling.) 

"Please, please, please," were very common pleas the moment I came within the vicinity of anything that could warrant a name, habitat and feeding schedule. I was an animal lover from the get-go.

But, I digress. My primary point remains that there is no worse pet than the hermit crab.

My sisters and I were always allowed to purchase three of the creatures and take them with us after a trip to the beach. After all, they were cheap and didn't require too much in the way of care and feeding. Plus, it's not easy to take a five-hour drive home with three whining and disappointed girls in the back.

And every year, despite my high hopes for the hermit crab, nothing ever quite worked out the way I planned. I often wanted to "race" them, but considering their speed (and that half the time they hadn't left their shells when I called "go"), I usually forgot about the competition, wandered off to do something else and when I remembered my "pets" three hours later, it was a desperate search to find them in the house before my mom got home and wondered when I'd gotten the permission for free-range crabs.

The other joy I found in having hermit crabs was waiting for them to molt.

"You'll have to keep plenty of shells around," the teen at the shark's mouth star would always explain. "As they grow, they have to leave their smaller shells and move to bigger ones."

This promised transformation fascinated me, and I made sure plenty of shells were on hand, at all times, just in case. I even hand-picked the shells hoping my hermit crab would find an even prettier home than the one it had before.

On the one occasion my hermit crab did decide to move out of its shell, it walked around naked for a few hours before settling right back into its old shell. Then, it stayed curled up in there for the next month, or however long it took for my mother and I to decide that the hermit crabs were probably dead and throw them out. 

Years later, someone told me that hermit crabs actually hibernate, so I probably threw away live crabs every year, but I'm not sure my hermits and I would have had much of a future together anyway. There's only so much entertainment a crustacean and plastic grass can provide, and hence, why I stand behind the hermit crab as the worst pet ever.

I do sometimes wonder if landfills are full of hundreds of recently-awoken hermit crabs along the lines of the alligator/sewer urban legend, but despite my desire for infamy, I'm pretty sure the hermit crab/landfill legend isn't the legacy I'm looking for.

* Yes, I'm in to the absolutes lately.

Worst Babysitting Experience Ever

I spent a very good portion of my adolescence and teen years babysitting. If I do say so myself, I was quite the A-list babysitter. There were mothers who would cancel on other babysitters if they found out I was available. At the time, I thought I was just really good with children. In retrospect, I realize that, really, I never broke into the liquor cabinet and there was no boyfriend to have over once the kids were asleep.

Most of my clients were lovely people, and I had primarily good experiences. I once was humped by the family’s standard poodle, which is kind of traumatic when you’re barely 5’2”, but there was little to complain about. I usually spent at least one night per week and weekend babysitting, I was mostly home by midnight and this “career” provided a lovely cash flow for my ever-deepening love of clothes shopping.

There was, however, one glaring exception.

One of my clients liked to stay out late, and I mean the kind of late that I can’t even make now. I’d fall asleep on their couch, and usually get woken up around three or four a.m. so the dad could drive me home.Other than my being very sleepy, this didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. Except for one night.

I went over to the X’s around six, and it all started to go downhill when I found their little boy putting strand upon strand of Mardi Gras beads down the drain of the bathroom sink.

After I fished those out of the pipes, around eight o’clock, a neighbor started calling about the barking dog. As the babysitter, I had been advised to never go near the dog, since it “only liked certain members of the family.”

“I’m very sorry about that,” I said to the neighbor. “I’ll try to make him stop.”

I went outside, and keeping a very healthy distance from the dog, tried to reason with him that maybe he could be quieter. “Please,” I said, “please, please, please be quiet.”

Even with all of my pleading, two more hours of barking went by. The neighbor called a few more times, and I finally told her I was just the babysitter and didn’t know what to do. (Of course, this was followed by the guilt of breaking the #1 rule of babysitting: Never admit that you are home alone with a small child/children. However, I was a little desperate and figured I could justify it this one time.)

When the neighbor called back for the fifth time, she said, “I know this isn’t your fault, but if that damn dog doesn’t shut up, I’m going to come over and shoot the Gd thing.” (Only, she didn’t abbreviate her swears.)

Did I neglect to mention that I was all of 12 at the time?

I can’t remember how the barking dog situation resolved itself, but there was no canine murder. I think the poor thing finally just wore himself out. Regardless, I was relieved, and after an hour of arguing with the bead-flusher about his bedtime, I was more than happy to lay down on the couch, turn on Saturday Night Live and sleep until whenever the parents were ready to come home.

Around 3:30, they finally did. I climbed into the car with the father, and we started towards my house. Ten minutes into the drive and five minutes from my house, we both heard the siren.

Mr. X was getting pulled over.

"Hello sir,” the cop said.

“Hello,” Mr. X said. “Is something wrong?”

“You seemed to swerve a little over the median back there.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t notice.”

“Have you been drinking tonight sir?” the cop said.

“I may have had a beer with dinner,” Mr. X said. (A lawyer or two has always told me to give this same answer if pulled over because it’s better to tell part of the truth than a bold-faced lie, but I think that “beer with dinner” is a whole lot more difficult to pull off when it’s almost four o'clock in the morning.)

“I think you should get out of the car sir.”

Well, to say that that didn’t go over well with dad would be a bit of an understatement.

“I’m just trying to take the f&*%ing babysitter home,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re harassing me while I try to take the f&%*ing babysitter home.”

Even at 12, I knew this was not the most advisable approach with law enforcement.

“You need to step out of the car sir.”

While I sat hunched in the passenger seat, I watched through the rear view mirror as Mr. X went through a battery of DUI tests including walking a straight line and having to close his eyes and touch his nose. Or, so based on my knowledge of L.A. Law, those seemed to be the tests his actions most resembled.

Also, this being in the days before cell phones, I thought a lot about whether or not the cop would drive me home if he decided to arrest Mr. X or if I’d have to wait at the station for my parents to come get me. Drunk or not, I really just wanted a ride home.

After a few minutes, Mr. X climbed back into the car, slammed the door and we were off. Needless to say, there wasn’t much conversation after that. He took me to my house; I climbed out of the car, thanked him for the ride and went inside to tell my parents I was home.

My parents were obviously groggy from being woken up. “So you’re home?” my father said.

“How was it?” my mother added.

“Oh fine,” I said. “The neighbor threatened to kill the dog, and Mr. X got pulled over on the way home, but other than that, it was fine.”

It was not my smoothest goodnight, but I was a tad stressed and sleep-deprived. And strangely enough, after a few phone calls the next day, I never babysat for the Xs again.

Part 1: My Top 10 TV Tearjjerkers

The other day, over Mexican food, the SO accidentally mistook Scott Bakula for Scott Wolf. While for most couples, this probably wouldn't have been a big deal, being the Quantum Leap fan that I am, this was something I had to correct and assure would never happen again. Somehow, I managed to go from telling him how to never mistake the two again to tearing up over salsa as I recounted the end of the Quantum Leap series and the most pivotal episodes that led to it.

I know.

So, in light of the fact that I've already almost started crying this week just telling the story of Quantum Leap's end, I thought I would take on the topic head-on and present my list of the most tear-jerking TV moments. Warning: there will be lots of spoilers. I also had to split this post in two because, apparently, I have a lot to say on this topic.

10. Alf's Special Christmas

It only seems fair to begin this list where it all began. In 1987, I was a big fan of Alf, the Alien Life Form, who lived with the Tanners. (He always wanted to eat the cat!) During that year's Christmas special, Alf somehow ended up in the hospital with a very sick girl named Tiffany. I think Tiffany had leukemia, and I also think she died or was dying. (This is hard to confirm through any Internet sources. It seems that no one has bothered to do an episode-by-episode breakdown of Alf, and I, for one, am shocked.) The idea of a dying child was too much for me, and I just started sobbing. I cried and cried. I cried so much, my father decided to have a talk with me about the difference between fantasy and reality and moving on.

Clearly, it didn't stick.

9. Cheers: The Finale

Even though I was also relatively young when I watched Cheers, I remember loving the show. Woody and his naivete, Carla the sassy waitress and, of course, Sam. Who didn't love Sam Malone, the scamp? And if you didn't, I don't really want to know you.

In the episode when Diane left, my memory is that she and Sam are alone in the bar. She's going, but she just wants to say "see you later" or something like that. Once she left the bar, Sam said, "Have a nice life." At the time, I thought, "How does he know she isn't coming back?" and "Adult life is complicated."

When the show went off the air, and Sam was left alone in his bar -- the implication being that Cheers was the true love of his life -- I, again, cried like a baby.

8. Party of Five: The Intervention

You've got a family of five who has already lost both of their parents to a drunk driver. They have to keep the family restaurant going. Rebellious Charlie has to be a dad, and then you go and throw in the normal teenage stuff like lost virginity, break-ups, drugs and pregnancy scares. On top of all this, sometime in season three, Bailey becomes an alcoholic and begins driving drunk, oh irony of ironies. Of course, the family has to intervene.

All of the siblings are there, and even Sarah, the ex-girlfriend shows up, because she loves him that much. I won't get into all of the lines that killed me because nothing about this episode wasn't a tear-fest for me. But, in the end, when Bailey brushes Claudia aside to walk out on his family and picks drinking over them, there was a breakdown.   

7. House: Wilson's Heart

Sure, for the most part, I didn't like a lot of season 4 (too little Cameron). I also couldn't stand Amber. That doesn't mean it didn't crush me when she died. House has the key to saving her, somewhere in his fragmented memory, only to realize that there's nothing anyone can do. She's going to die no matter what, and so they wake Amber up for everyone to say goodbye.

Oh, Wilson. Twice-divorced, finally-found-love Wilson. It was all too much for me. I just laid on the couch and sobbed. All over that poor cut-throat bitch. 

6. Quantum Leap: Mirror Image

Clearly, if I can'tget through a burrito without crying over this one, it affected me. Thethree episodes that had gotten to me most before this were, of course,M.I.A. (when Sam won't tell Al's wife Beth that Al is coming home tohim from Vietnam, even though Al begs for it, because Sam believes theyshould not use their leaps for selfish reasons), The Leap Home (whenSam leaps into his own teenage self and sees his dead father andbrother again) and The Leap Home: Part 2 (when Sam does change historyselfishly to save his brother in Vietnam, and in the end, also keeps Alfrom being rescued early and going home to Beth).

So, Samspends most of this leap in the series finale trying to figure out where he isand why he can finally see his own reflection in the mirror. It's hisbirthday. He keeps seeing people he recognizes from the past. He andthe bartender banter and argue. Is the bartender God? Sam says thathe's done enough. The bartender asks if he really has, if he's really done. Sam is supposed to accept that he is the one leaping him through time and space. For the firsttime in five years (in a way), Sam will be able to choose where he leaps next.Will he finally go home?

No, he goes back to Beth, and he tellsher that Al will come home to her. "Georgia on my Mind" plays in the background. Theviewer learns that Beth and Al remain married happily for the rest oftheir lives and have four children. Dr. Sam Beckett never leaps home.

Give me just a minute here. The keyboard is a little wet. 

More to come ...

Grover, Horton And The Woman I Am Today

A few years ago, I got into a discussion with some friends about our favorite children's books. After naming all of our favorites, I started to wonder if maybe those early reading choices might have been some kind of sign as to the adults we would all grow into.

One friend named a book about a little girl who wanted to go live alone in her own apartment and her own house (even at five), and twenty-five years later, I can't say that I was all that surprised. Is Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day the pick of a future pessimist? Goodnight Moon the sign of a calm, content child? If You Give a Mouse a Cookie the favorite of a suspicious tot, always wondering what request is coming next?

Personally, I had two favorites. The first was There's a Monster at the End of This Book. For those of you haven't read it -- here come the spoilers. Grover from Sesame Street is the main character, and he begins the book by begging the reader not to turn the page because there is a monster waiting at the end of the story. (Hence the title, although that hardly needs to be said. I just feel like typing today.)

Of course, you have to turn the pages. I mean, that is the point of reading the book after all. And with every turn of the page, Grover grows more desperate. He puts up fences and builds brick walls to keep you from going forward. And every time you do, he screams, "I told you not to turn the page! What about the monster!"

I thought it was hysterical and giggled out loud every single time because at the very end, there is no monster. It turns out that Grover is the monster, and he realizes how silly he's been this whole time. All that worry when he was the supposed culprit all along.

As a natural worrier, it seems quite appropriate that I would have fallen for this one. Constant concern about the future? Worrying about what's coming next only to find that, really, what's most detrimental every time is fear itself? That anyone can be his or her own worst enemy? Not much of a shocker there.

My other favorite was Horton Hears a Who. I was appalled by the injustice of the fact that no one would listen to Horton when all he wanted to do was save a cute, little town full of cute, tiny people. So what that no one else could see them? Horton heard them, and they should have believed him. When they called Horton crazy and tried to tear the flower away from him that was full of that miniature colony, I was beyond distressed. Why wouldn't they listen to him? Why didn't they care?

Horton was right, he was the only one who was right and no one would listen. How couldn't they see that?

Again, I know it's bewildering that a gal with as many opinions and convictions as myself would find herself appalled by the fact that someone so right could be ignored time and time again. That she would want to hear this particular story repeatedly at bedtime.

I just felt all of Horton's pain. It is so hard to be right all the time. Poor, poor Horton and me. 

I'm Going to Learn How to Fly

I get a lot of questions about my middle name.

“What was that you said?”

“Fain.”

“Fain?”

“Yes, it’s just like ‘rain’ but with an ‘f’ instead of an ‘r.’”

“Fain? F-A-I-N. Really?”

“Yep, Fain.”

“That’s interesting. [Beat.] What’s a Fain?”

When I’m not in a hurry, I explain that it’s a family name.When I am rather rushed, I hope the topic will pass and we can move on to thelast four digits of my social security number or my city of birth because thisconversation usually occurs when I’m trying to talk to someone about my gasbill or credit card statement, and it hardly seems like the time to discuss myfamily heritage and naming traditions.

After my sister’s wedding a few weeks ago, I noticed that oneof her friends asked “So, how many last names do you have now?”

It’s true that all of the Mills girls have last names as theirmiddle names.  I have my maternalgrandmother’s maiden name, my middle sister has my paternal grandmother’smaiden name and my baby sister ended up with my mother’s aunt’s married name.(My mother’s own maiden name is Stubbs, and I thank her for leaving that one ofout of the naming equation.) If all goes well, we’ll each have three, and onlythree, last names before all is said and done (knock on wood).

I use Fain often in my own life because Mills tends to be a lot(a lot) more common in the U.S. population than other surnames, and even though“Laurel” is a little on the unusual side, I decided many moons ago that I wouldrather be laurelfain via e-mail than LaurelMills27 or LMills4206. After thatfateful choice, it just kind of stuck. (My guy friends especially seem to enjoycalling out “Laurel Fain” to get my attention.)

Also, with there being the other writing Laurel Mills, I figureFain is a good distinguishing factor to throw in there somewhere.

Nothing bothers me about my middle name – other than having toanswer lots of questions – and I’ve come to accept it just fine. I say “accept”because probably unlike the Sarah Elizabeths, Jennifer Claires and ChristineAnnes of the world, I spent the first five years of my life thinking I had avery different middle name.

Maybe it was a hearing thing, maybe it had something to do withpronunciation or maybe it was the simple fact that I couldn’t read or writeyet, but until I was five, I thought that my middle name was “Fame.”

Now, “Fame” was a middle name I could get behind. Not only didit seem to destine me for greatness, but having grown up during the time of acertain very popular Debbie Allen –led TV show, I felt like my name allowed meto personally share in the show’s success.

There was no song I loved more than the movie and TV show’stheme. “Fame! I’m going to live forever! I’m going to learn how to fly!”

My little tone-deaf self sang it again, and again, and again.As far as I was concerned, it was the greatest song ever, and I had the greatestname ever.

So, you can probably also imagine my disappointment when my momasked me why I was so enamored with the theme song from a show I don’t think Iever got to watch. “Because it’s my name,” I said, sure, confident and proud.

“What’s your middle name?” she said.

“Fame,” I said. “I’m Laurel Fame Mills.” (I really thought sheshould have already known the answer to that one.)

“Oh honey,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re middle nameisn’t ‘Fame.’ It’s ‘Fain.’ From your grandmother.”

Once the initial shock wore off, crestfallen, I found myselfasking the same question I’ve heard so often in the 25 years since, “Fain?!?!What’s a Fain?”

Four Camp Memories* and a Wedding

There are plenty of places I've been that I thought I would never see again. Camp McDowell in Navou, Alabama was definitely one of them. Despite the fact that Camp McDowell is the Episcopal camp in Alabama, and I am, in fact, an Episcopalian from Alabama, one week back in the summer of 1993 was more than enough for me.

There are only three things that I can remember about that week (and the name of my pictured cabin counselor is not one of them, Dawn?):

1. A boy with a mullet had a crush on my friend Leah. He came over to me at the swimming pool one day and asked me if she liked him back. I had to turn him down for her. The next day, we saw the same mullet-ed boy making out with another girl in the pool. It wasn't so much the betrayal that shocked me as much as the seeming lack of hygiene and supervision. All I can remember thinking is, "All of these people in one body of water, and now those two are tonguing each other in the middle of it. This can't be sanitary," plus, "Why doesn't the lifeguard care?"

2. Another boy would come around each night and serenade all of the girls' cabins. He played his guitar and sang Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train." It was quite dreamy. One of his friends would accompany him. I don't think the friend did any singing or guitar-playing, but he seemed to recognize that his friend had figured out the key to getting girls' attention, and he was hoping to pick up the leftovers. (Hey, maybe he, too, could make out with someone special in the pool that week.)

3. We learned the song "Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life." This was a problem for me on many levels -- the title, hand motions and metaphor being just the beginning. Since I'm sure you're all dying to know, here are the lyrics:

Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life/End over end neither left nor the right/Straight through the heart of those righteous uprights/Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

Yeah, I still don't get it either.

It also appears from my seventh grade scrapbook that we had a '70s night that involved dressing up, but what we did that night, and why the camp assumed that a bunch of 13-year-olds would travel with time-sensitive outfits for theme dressing, I don't know.

I do know that what I'm wearing had to be borrowed since this was not from my closet -- now, then or ever.

However, a few years ago my sister ended up working in the Environmental Education Program at Camp McDowell. (No, I didn't visit. Please don't judge my sister-ing.) While she was there, she met another employee of the Environmental Education Program,  and in the classic story of boy meets girl, after they met, they fell in love and decided to get married.

So, this past weekend, I made my first trip back to Camp McDowell in 17 years for their wedding. The wedding was beautiful, and I learned that camp is much better when you can stay in lodges rather than cabins and are of the age to legally drink. 

I even re-visited the same pool, but since I spent most of the time playing with my cousins and their children, I'm happy to report no traumatic make out experiences.

The one thing that was most definitely the same? The heat, but that's just an Alabama summer for you.

I now give you an updated photo of me at Camp McDowell, and in case you have trouble recognizing me, I'm two over from the bride on the right in a sage green dress two other girls are also wearing. (It's probably the tan that's confusing since I'm usually pretty translucent. Don't worry about my skin's health though -- it's a spray-on.)  

 

*Yes, I'm counting the photo from '70s night as a memory even though I don't technically remember it. You have to admit it improved the title of this post.

In Which Laurel Refuses to Leave the Baby Pool

I was not a child who wanted to learn how to swim.

In the first swimming classes my mother ever took me to, every time they made us put our heads under the water, I would go under for about a second, immediately raise my head back up, climb out of the pool and rush towards the nearest dry towel to wipe all of the water off of my face.

(If I had grown up in a time like today when they toss two-year-olds into the pool assuming their natural instincts will take over and cause them to swim or at least dog paddle, I probably would have sunk, at best, and drowned, at worst. Nothing about me was interested in swimming.)

This isn't to say that I didn't like the pool. I just preferred the baby pool, water wings, floaties and any other space in which my feet could be placed firmly on the ground while my head remained free to breathe as much oxygen as I pleased.

Truthfully, I didn't even like the ball pit at Showbiz because I was always a little afraid I might be able to drown in that, too. (What if I became trapped under all those colorful balls and no one could hear my cries for help?) I would walk the perimeter of the ball pit to get to the slide rather than going straight through. On the day I did finally fall in, there were a few minutes of flailing until I realized that I could touch the bottom of that space, too. I calmed down and eventually started to act like something of a normal kid in that token and ticket extravaganza. (You can only imagine what a growing up moment that was for me.)

Nothing my parents could say would get me in the big pool.

"You know that's where all of the big girls are," they said.

I shrugged.

"And you know you can't stay in the baby pool forever, sweetie."

I was pretty sure they were wrong on that one. The baby pool was made of concrete after all; I knew it wasn't going anywhere.

The only word out of their mouth that managed to even get my attention was this: Barbie.

"Barbie?" I said, the first time the subject came up.

"What if we bought you a new Barbie after your swim lesson?"

"Barbie?"

"Yes, a Barbie. All you have to do is go to swimming class."

So, I went to swimming class. And after swimming class, my parents drove me to Smith's (a local toy store) and bought me a new Barbie. What I don't think they realized at the time was that that Barbie was only good for one swimming lesson.

"Are you ready to go back to the pool, honey?" 

"Sure," I said, and I went straight for my floaties.

"But what about everything you learned in swim class the other day?"

There was more shrugging. I still wasn't convinced. So, there had to be the promise of another Barbie.

By the end of that summer, I had quite the collection of Barbies in addition to a wide variety of outfits for said Barbies and even Barbie's dream pool complete with plastic plants decorating the edges of her patio. 

I remember it as a glorious time.

My sisters think I was a "slow learner," as they took to swimming like the proverbial "fish to water," but I tend to disagree. They didn't come out of their swim lessons with nearly as much loot.

A Horse is a Horse, Of Course, Of Course

I think most little girls go through a phase when they're obsessed with horses. I'm not sure what it is about horses that's so fascinating when you have two X chromosomes and are under the age of 10, but there you have it.

At five, my favorite show to watch after school was Black Beauty. (At least, I think that's what it was called. There was a horse. It was black. It may or may not have been the main character, but it came on after Today's Special, and that's what I called it.) I had many My Little Ponies in addition to a score of off-brand plastic horses that I also liked to gallop across the living room floor. I even did my own horse impersonation that involved neighing. (I can only imagine now how annoying that must have been.)

A few years later, my horse obsession still strong but no longer My-Little-Pony-focused, I was a dedicated viewer or Mr. Ed on Nick at Nite. I watched that crazy talking horse every single night, and every single night, I hoped for Wilbur's sake that someone else would just hear that horse talk. Oh, that wily Mr. Ed -- he was a stinker.

I dreamed of owning my own horse and brushing its mane. I wanted to be so good with horses that I'd be like one of those shaggy-haired dudes who played by no one's rules but his own but could tame a wild mustang like you would not believe. (I either wanted to be like that person -- but a girl, how crazy! -- or marry him. At eight, I was still torn.)

For years, I thought that I couldn't love anything more than horses. That was until, of course, I actually rode one.

It was summer camp, and horseback riding was one of the class offerings. I was beside myself. What color would my horse be? Could I feed him carrots or oats? How long would it reasonably take until we started jumping gates together? Three days? Four?

"You're up," the counselor called on the first day after a couple of girls had gotten on horses in front of me. "So, just swing that leg on over."

That was the first problem. Being less than five feet tall and all torso, it's not exactly easy to throw your leg over a horse's saddle -- even when a ladder is involved.

"That's OK," the counselor said after another counselor had to come over and help her pull me on top of the horse. "I'm sure you'll get it next time." While I appreciated her optimism, I also knew that two weeks was not enough time for me to grown another six inches. 

Once we had all mounted our horses, we started off down a trail. Everyone else seemed to have no trouble staying in line, but my horse had little interest in staying on the trail. So, not only was I hit with the occasional twig, I was also being reprimanded by my counselor for deviating from the path. (I did not like to be reprimanded at that age. I was the kid who thought that the lifeguard hated her for the entire rest of the summer if he or she had to tell me not to run around the pool. I much preferred to be the good one.)

And when I did try to tug slightly on the reins to keep my horse with the others, it threw its head back -- a gesture I found mildly terrifying. (Horses were far larger and more powerful in person than I had imagined in all my years of cartoon-viewing and neighing.)

My horse did the same extreme head-tossing when I tried to pet its mane. It seemed to me that my horse disliked human contact, and I can only imagine that the forced contact of having to carry small people on its back six hours a day, five days a week, was an indignity it did not want to bear in its golden years. 

I also didn't count on horses being so sweaty. Rather than being on an adventure in the woods with a beautiful and majestic creature, I felt like I was trapped on a large, smelly, overgrown thing that wanted nothing to do with me.

It was one of the longest hours of my life.

After that, I don't think I ever rode a horse again. I gave up any thoughts I might have had about the life equestrian and moved on.

I moved on to bigger dreams, dreams of theater -- musical theater to be exact. Surely, my Broadway fantasies would turn out better than the whole horse thing, even if I was tone deaf ... 

Where To Go From Here?

I remember applying to colleges as one of the most stressful periods of my life. It seemed like so much -- my future career, earning potential and even life mate -- hung on the decision I made then. Not to mention the fact that I had tied my self-worth directly to the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the school(s) that accepted me.

Seven days before one round of applications was due, I had an emergency root canal (one the endodontist called the worst he'd seen "in ten years" of oral surgery). Full of painkillers and Valium (I do not do well around the sound of a dentist's drill), I called my best friend and insisted that she drive me to my closed-for-the-Christmas-holidays school, so that I could use the typewriter in the library to put some finishing touches on the common application. 

I was a little obsessed.

When the large and small envelopes finally started rolling in, I was devastated to learn that my first choice [Stanford] didn't want me. Despite my poor attempt at a brave face, I was crushed and spent more than a few afternoons in my car crying.

(Before I sound like too much of a whiner, I would like to acknowledge that I was accepted into some wonderful and amazing schools, and I absolutely believe I ended up right where I needed to be. But, hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.)

The only people this period of my high school career might have been more stressful on than me were my parents. Not only did they have to accept that I seemingly refused to apply anywhere with anything near a reasonable tuition cost, I was anxious, constantly tired  and insecure. Being parents, the moment my rejection from Stanford arrived, they went into protective/consolation mode: "We love you no matter what. This is just a bump in the road. You're brilliant. You're special. You're going to get into so many other schools."

But, I wouldn't have any of it. Every time they tried to console me, I just got more upset. "You don't get it," I said. "I'm not special. I'm just like tens of thousands of other kids out there who make good grades and join clubs and think that it's going to matter."

"You're always special to us."

"Well," I said, "when it comes down to it, I look like everybody else on a sheet of paper, and I'm not special to them. And they're the ones that don't want me."

(I was kind of dark in addition to being a little obsessed.)

If only I had known then that there would be days I feel a lot like that now, too.

I am a writer with dozens of clips -- many from national magazines. But, I'm also an unemployed writer and editor in an era when print media is dying. And thanks to the dire press market in Birmingham, you can't really throw a rock in this town without hitting someone just like me -- many with more experience and better clips. It's a small pond full of writers and editors with great resumes and no magazines or papers to write for. 

So, the thought recurs: I'm not special.

I have been a blogger for five years now, but now I don't even think I know anyone without a blog, and as an unmarried, childless 30-year-old, I don't even have a blog category. I am no longer "young" by most standards -- as in I don't write about clubs, drunken escapades or school. I haven't given birth, so that keeps me out of the "mommy blogger" set. I don't have a wedding in the works, so there's no way to write about flower vendors and mother-in-law issues. Food? I like it, and I occasionally cook it, but I don't have anything to say that you can't find on far better web sites like Food Revival, Cookthink or Simply Recipes (check my favorite sites).

Without a category, I don't have a market share, and without a market share, this blog is never going to make me much more than the $.26 my one ad has brought in in recent weeks.

My market share possibilities? Former party girls who can't afford shoes that don't come from Target? Pet lovers with an extensive collection of Spanx? Those of us who have accepted boxed wine as a party staple?

Not special and without a market share, I keep filling this blog with what I have -- my stories, my voice, my bouts of depressive thinking. I use it to make myself write. I try to remember to exercise the skills that I need -- showing v. telling, using dialogue, setting scenes and avoiding the empty words and phrases that have no examples or illustrations to flesh them out.

When I started this blog, I wanted to write 365 blog posts, so that I'dhave 365 stories/anecdotes written down. (I also started this blogbecause my friends seemed tired of my mass e-mails detailing what Ithought about that day's episode of Cheaters, but I digress.) Plus, atthe time, I never imagined I wouldn't have something else to take up mytime long before I hit that far-off and absurd number of 365 posts. This is my 402nd post, and thanks to my tendency to write aboutCheaters and what Tori Spelling wore to her second wedding, I'm noteven sure I have 365 stories to go along with it. Sigh.

One of my teachers once told me, "Most of the stories have beentold. The only difference is that there's never been a you to tellthem."

I tell my students this. I try to tell myself this. If Iwere to have a mantra, I think it'd have to be something aboutbelieving in my own voice.

At least when I finished high school, the gave me a copy of Oh, The Places You'll Go. (At least it was optimistic.) I think I could use the sequel now.

P.S. Oddly enough, I sort of love Tori Spelling these days. I blame the Oxygen network.

The Yard Sale Aficionado

My grandmother is a yard sale pro.

Sure, sure, you might think one of your relatives is a yard sale expert, but trust me when I tell you that your grandparent/aunt/long-known family friend has nothing on my grandmother.

When I was little, my grandmother would give me and each of my sisters $1.00 on Saturday mornings, and we would head out to garage/yard sales. We could spend that dollar however we wanted, but it was the only money we were getting for the day. You might think you had fallen in love with a stuffed unicorn at the first sale, but if it took your whole dollar, you could easily spend the rest of the day full of regret. 

"I like this red teddy bear, but it's a whole fifty cents."

"If you like it, you should probably get it. I heard that we're only hitting up two more sales after this."

Thanks to one great aunt who owned an antiques stall (often full of garage sale finds whose owners didn't know their worth), I can also spot reproductions, silver plate and long-past-their-prime collectibles from an impressive distance.

My grandmother didn't just visit yard sales. She also held three of her own when she was downsizing her home. After attending a class at the community center, she learned that all yard sale signs should be neon (better visibility), to hold sales after the third of the month (that's when most people cash their social security checks) and that dragging a large, nice piece of furniture to the curb is necessary to attract the "drive-bys." (This piece of furniture does not actually have to be for sale, but it lures in the iffy shoppers and a simple "sold" sign keeps you from having to talk about it.)

From the time my sisters and I were ten, seven and five respectively, we could add our own items to the sale if we wanted. Of course, we were also responsible for pricing and bargaining when it came to our personal things. (Don't ever ask my sister about the bike she sold for $12. She's still bitter someone talked her down from $20. To her credit, when you think that the woman was taking eight dollars from a seven-year-old, I can see her point on that one.)

And when we weren't peddling our own items, my sisters' and my primary job at each sale was to help my grandmother and another great aunt watch the perimeter for anyone with sticky fingers.

It was a thrilling time in all of our lives.

So, for those of you who might be planning your own garage/yard sales in the near future, I'd thought I'd offer you a few tips from my years of experience:

1. Everyone loves a good tabloid. It doesn't matter how old the rag is, I watched my grandmother sell each and every one of her National Enquirers within the first half hour of every yard sale.

2. The most common move for stealing from any garage/yard sale is to put on a hat or sweater like you're just trying it on and then waltz off with the item. Watch out for the ones who "just want to test it out."

3. Mark everything with a plug or run by batteries "as is." It'll save you a lot of grief down the line.

4. Get lots of change in advance. Most people bring a $20 but spend about fifty cents.

5. One man's trash really is another man's treasure. Unfortunately, this also means you'll never know what you can sell and what you can't. At a friend's garage sale, I assumed my Queen Anne chair would be a popular item. It ended up being donated to charity at the end of the afternoon, but I made a dollar on the plastic gazelle figurine someone used to decorate my place setting at a safari-themed party.

Wow -- all that, and you don't even have to enroll in a night class at the community center. Feel free to thank me when you're rolling in soiled one dollar bills and the occasional fiver.

The True Spirit of Easter

In honor of Good Friday, here's a little look at Easters past from a 2010 post.

The Mills are a competitive bunch.

We pull out rule books when there's a question of awarding points in board games, we do not believe in do-overs and we never, ever let anyone win. In general, it makes us a tough, formidable lot when it comes to a game of Balderdash or charades. It does not, however, always make it fun to be a kid in our family.

When I say that we don't let anyone win, I really mean anyone. It does not matter if you are three or thirty, if there's a chance to take you in tic-tac-toe, Scrabble or even Candy Land, we seize it. Once during a game of bocce on my great aunt's lawn, I thought that maybe I should change my throws a little so one of the children could win. (I was twenty-eight to their five, six and eight after all. And, yes, they all probably could have taken me on their own, since this particular game did involve throwing and sports stuff, but let's leave that off the table for now.) Then I looked over and realized that my cousin had just knocked his own son's ball out of the competition, and I figured it was our usual "no holds barred" approach to all gaming.  

My father thinks it's character-building. Does life ever let you win? No. Do you have to work hard and earn your victories? Yes. So, the rules are uniform and the same for every one.

Since I could talk, I have never beaten my father in a game of ping pong, Monopoly or Gin Rummy. 

My friends often ask me to join poker games, but I always turn down the invitation. They assume it's because I can't play. "I'll teach you before the game," usually follows my "no thanks."

I can play poker just fine, and I'm actually kind of good at it, but playing poker reminds me of sitting around the kitchen table playing with my dad and sisters when we were much younger. Not only did my dad always win, but he also made us turn over our hands after every game. "Now, Laurel, why would you ever have held onto that eight? What good was that card to you?"

We didn't just lose, we also had to evaluate why we lost. There were times it was a tad excruciating. On the down side, I can't stand poker. On the plus side, it's nearly impossible to beat me in Gin, and I can almost count cards.

No reason or extenuating circumstance could temper this competitive edge -- even on some of the holiest of holy days. And the Mills family Easter egg hunt was one of the most blood-thirsty events of them all.

See that cute picture up there? Those sweet smiles are just facades to hide the plotting we'd already begun. ("There were an egg above the door frame last year. Check there first.") Two minutes after this photo was taken, hair-pulling, pushing and diversionary tactics ("Is someone eating your chocolate bunny over there?") were all fair game as we grabbed Easter eggs from their hiding places like they were pieces of pure gold or coupons for unlimited Barbie dolls.

My middle sister still claims injuries from the hunt of '91. I say I was ten feet away when she fell into that sticker bush.

And even though we're too old to hunt Easter eggs now (I was undefeated when I retired at 13, by the way), it's a tradition we've tried to pass on to our younger cousins. For better or worse, we've given them many of our old tricks, and I look forward to seeing how this Sunday's festivities play themselves out.  

Whatever your leanings/beliefs are, Happy Easter, Happy Passover or just enjoy the weekend! I can't wait for mine -- potential injuries and all.

The New Age

When I was 10 or 11, I went through what can best be described as a "New Age" phase. Now, being a pre-teen from the suburbs with limited means as well as transportation, my "new age phase" probably pales grossly into comparison to anyone else who's ever truly embarked on a different spiritual path. (I never even got to burn incense.) But I did develop a rather unhealthy obsession with The Nature Gallery catalog (crystals and wrapped-dolphin rings) and dream interpretation. (At the time, all I dreamed about were tests that I had forgotten to study for, so it really wasn't worth the seven dream dictionaries, but I suppose bygones are bygones.)  

Also, and I say this with a little more shame, during this time I decided that I really needed to explore my past lives. (Side note: this is what happens to an impressionable younggirl left alone with daytime television. Between guests of Phil Donahue andSally Jesse Raphael and the musings of Shirley Maclaine, I had a lot ofunanswered questions.)

Since, my parents always let me read whatever I wanted(“She’s reading, what more do you want?” as my father would say), after my last tome on dream interpretation, I switched to books with titles like Uncovering Your Past Lives and How the Worlds You Lived Before Affect The World You Live Now.

In my imagination, I was a princess or incredibly sassy innkeeper's wife along the lines of the character from Les Miserables. (I was obsessed with musicals, too. And as I've said before, and as I'm sure I'll say again, yes, elementary school was not easy with these kinds of interests.) I also figured I was bound to figure out my fear of heights once I discovered which of my past lives had led to a disastrous fall off of Mt. Kilimanjaro or a horrible push from the Brooklyn Bridge.

(These days, I imagine my fear of heights came from falling out of a tree house at nine and breaking both of my arms, but past lives were so much more romantic.)

One of the books I picked up at this time had very detailed instructions on to how to hypnotize yourself and discover the mysteries of the "soul's journey." (Having to stop, open your eyes and read the next step in the quest for deep relaxation and inner exploration of the mind seemed a tad counter-productive to the goal even then, but I gave it many a go anyway.) For at least a week, I dimmed the lights of my room, sat in the quiet and tried to access the hidden corners of my brain where these past life memories were stored.

The closest I ever got to a past life "revelation" was a recurring image of a red-headed woman in a gauzy white dress who bore a striking resemblance to the cover of another book I was reading at the time.

My truest epiphany was learning to spend my weekly allowance on The Babysitter's Club books instead. If nothing else, Claudia offered better fashion tips.   

As a Mule*

I have been known to be a bit stubborn.

I won't shop at stores if I learn that they don't have a bathroom for customers. (Not only is this one practical, but I firmly believe that if you're willing to take someone's money, you should be willing to let them use your toilet as well.) I think gift certificates should not have an expiration date, and have had chats with many a manager over this. (They still have all your money, right?) And I do not share desserts unless the terms of the dessert sharing were agreed upon before said dessert was ordered.   

While some people might see these habits as idiosyncrasies, or just kind of odd/difficult, I think it's my commitment to these rules that pushes me into the stubborn territory. No bathroom for customers? You really will never see me in your store again -- unless of course I hear a change in policy has occurred.

But, perhaps the best example of my stubborn streak is what happened in my computer class from the fifth through the seventh grade.

Once or twice a week, we had to go to something called computer class. (I've honestly tried to block this particular part of my elementary education out, so the details on time might be a bit off.) There wasn't much to the curriculum -- we did typing tutorials for 45 minutes. Each and every time. For three years.

We learned absolutely nothing else about computers, and the only incentive to complete the typing tutorials was that if you finished early, you could play computer games.

Now, it just so happened that computer class was taught by one of my least favorite teachers. I thought he was cocky, condescending and seemed far more interested in what the boys had to say than what the girls had to say. For this last reason alone, he was really at the bottom of my list.

When we started our typing tutorials, I found it incredibly boring to pick out "sad," "fad" and "dad" on the keyboard over and over again. Plus, we'd had a home computer since I was much younger (my mother is an engineer by training, after all), and I was used to using the complete keyboard all the time. I was one of the fastest two finger typists you'd ever seen. I'd finish my tests for the day in about 10 minutes and play games.

The problem, of course, was that my teacher could tell I was using the two-finger method rather than actually typing. So, he approached me one day.

"Laurel," he said, "you have to learn to type."

"I can type," I said.

"No, you have to type the new way," he said. "My way." (Like he'd invented it?!?!)

"Why?" I said. "I'm just as fast with my way."

"But you can't use your way forever," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's not how it's done."

That was hardly enough of an explanation for me, and I'm an explanations kind of gal. I needed to know how an egg was made at the age of four and nearly drove my mother crazy trying to find an adequate answer.

(Plus, my fifth grade self figured that I'd be a lawyer or actress with an assistant anyway, so why even bother with the mundane tasks like typing?)

The teacher then made me take higher and higher level tests. Each time, I earned what would have been A's with my two-finger method, and since we were only graded on our test skills, we were at a bit of standstill: I didn't like him, and he didn't like me.

So, for the next three years, I refused to learn how to type. I decided it was a skill that I wouldn't take up because I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking he had taught me anything.

That, my friends, is stubborn.

When I changed schools in the eighth grade and had a typing workshop with a lovely woman who smiled often and treated everyone with respect, I picked up real typing in a week and have never gone back.

In many ways, those were some very wasted three years (except for the computer games), and really mature people would probably have moved past the typing debate quickly and never thought of it again. These people probably are also good at letting go, don't stay angry and have really low blood pressures.

I have a lot to learn from these people. But, I also can't completely lie -- a big part of me still takes some pride in being able to say that that man never taught me a thing. And when this here blog really takes off (did I mention I can be stubborn and delusional?), he won't be getting any of the "thank yous" or credit. 

Then again, this same approach could lead to me having a heart attack at 40, so he might get the last laugh after all. 

*My metaphor here is clearly "stubborn as a mule." But this story might make me look like more of an ass. And then the only public domain picture I could find was of a donkey, so the animal metaphors here, or lack thereof, are all a mess now, and I apologize. Please mentally picture the four-legged creature of your choice to go along with this here post.

Birth Order

For most of my life, I took incredible pride in being the oldest sister. (I have two sisters, one three years younger, and the other five and a half years behind me. Yes, my mother had three kids in less than six years. She and my father both worked full-time, too, so she does admit that most of our collective childhoods are "something of a blur.")

For many, many years, I equated "oldest" with "wisest," "most powerful," and "most entitled." (My middle sister is currently thinking that last sentence shouldn't be in the past tense.)

When we moved into a new house, who should have the biggest bedroom? Me, of course. And why? Because I was the oldest. Last piece of cake? Oldest. Right to check the mail, swim in the deep end of the pool and first shot at all gifts simply labeled "for the girls"? Oldest. Oldest. Oldest.

My middle sister still resents the "trades" I talked her into whereby somehow she ended up with my old pack of playing cards missing three Jacks, and I got her newest stuffed animal or Barbie doll. And my youngest sister spent about two years as my personal gopher because every time I wanted something from another room or part of the house, I simply said, "But I'm timing you. Don't you want to know how fast you can go?" (In my defense on that last one, two years? Seriously? You have to admit she had plenty of time to figure out what I was up to.)

Anyone out there who isn't an oldest child (and maybe even some of those that are) is probably having the exact same thought right now -- "Wow, she was evil." But, at the time, it made the most perfect sense to me. After all, I'd gotten to the world first, by the accident of birth sure, but I was still first. These created perks seemed like quite the fair trade for the attention-grabbing and parent-stealing both my siblings had been up to since entering the world.

(One of my favorite home movies is shot right after my middle sister was born. Obviously, my parents were making a tape because they wanted footage of their new daughter in her infancy. It is also quite obvious that this did not go over very well with me. My father holds the camera while my mother shows off Rachael and they talk to each other about how beautiful she is, and blah, blah, blah. In the meantime, I change into every conceivable outfit I can come up with, finally ending up in a leotard and tap shoes so that they will film my dance instead of the baby. I won't even refer to Rachael by name -- in that video she is only "the baby" to me. My father tries to placate me with comments like "how nice" while still keeping the camera most definitely pointed at Rachael. You can also see the wheels turning in my head so clearly, "I can sing, make up stories and tap dance, and all they want to do is stare at 'the baby' who can't do anything yet? What happened to my world?")

Despite the occasional downside (blame for any and all physical altercations, regardless of whether I started it or was even involved), I loved being the oldest sister.

But, as they say, what comes around, goes around. I might have inflicted plenty of abuses on my younger sisters in the past, but their time for comeuppance has arrived. Ever since my third 28th birthday, it has been absolutely no fun being "the oldest sister."

No matter who you are, where you go, or how many years go by, for some reason, people still care about birth order. "Where do you fall?" or "Which sister are you?" are common questions when my family attends an event or I'm with my parents and we run into someone they know from years ago.

And always, before I can get out one of my answers like "somewhere in there," or "the youngest, of course," my mother someone else quickly states, "She's the oldest." (I'm still struggling with whether my mother's other answer of "the unemployed one" is better or worse than "the oldest." I lean towards better because I do think unemployment is associated with youth, but if the conversation happens to reveal that I am both the oldest and the unemployed one, I tend to hide under the covers for a few days afterward.)

Then it hangs there: oldest. Just floating above all our heads -- like crows have just flown out from the corners of my eyes and I should have good advice on whether Clairol or Nice 'n' Easy is better for covering grays. Based on what I see with my grandmother and her sisters, I also know this will never end. God willing I make it to 90, people will still feel perfectly comfortable referring to me as "the oldest one."

So, younger sisters, I think we're finally even. In my mind, having to acknowledge my comparatively advanced age for next 30-50 years more than makes up for all those Barbie dolls and cookie-retrievals.

In fact, maybe I should even get a few more considerations (foot rubs, valet parking, cash) for all the reminders you'll both get about your youth because of it. When it comes to that valet parking, I'll even time you.