G is for Garbage (by Janine Kovac)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.

Photography by Mary Allison Tierney

I never thought about garbage trucks before I had boys.

I never stopped to admire how the green trucks really do look like mechanical dinosaurs.

My heart never jumped to hear a double-axle vehicle backing up one block over.

I didn’t put the bins out the night before and think, “Tomorrow is trash day!”

I never woke up at 6 a.m. to draw the blinds and wonder which trash collector I’d see. Would it be the one who makes his baby food from scratch? (“I don’t know how long it’s been on that shelf,” he told me. “And besides, how hard is it to smash a banana?”)

I didn’t rearrange my day to make sure that I’d be home for the recycling truck at noon.

Or drive half a mile out of my way because I knew it was trash day in that neighborhood.

I certainly didn’t have a favorite kind of garbage truck (the ones that lift the garbage overhead and dump it in the back).

Or a second-favorite garbage truck (the ones that have little arms to pick up commercial dumpsters).

Or a third-favorite garbage truck (the ones that churn garbage in the back).

And since I never thought about garbage trucks, it never occurred to me that one day I’d draw the blinds on Wednesday morning and be the lone fan waving to the trash collector who makes apple-sauce from scratch because my sons—at the tender age of three—had moved on to jet airplanes.


Janine Kovac is the program coordinator for the Write On, Mamas and database architect for the literary festival Litquake. If she writes something she likes, she posts it here. And if she doesn't, it goes here.

F is for Doggy Does Facebook (by Marianne Lonsdale)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.

 

 

Photography by Mary Allison Tierney

I’m not sure if my family’s Facebook habit is getting out of hand or if our doggy love has gone over the deep end. But Kashi, our oh-so-adorable white fluff ball of a dog, has more friends on Facebook than I do. He hit the 200 mark weeks ago. I don’t even look at the count anymore – why make myself feel like a reject? I’ve been on Facebook way longer than he has. His profile picture is awfully darn cute. He is irresistible while I, apparently, can be easily resisted.

Not only that, but his friends actually pay attention to what he’s doing and comment on it. I’ll post something that I think is sure to grab interest or be worth a chuckle and I get zip comments. Kashi posts something pithy like “Wish I had a chewy treat right now” and ten friends pipe in with what they’d like to give him.



Kashi

Don’t even get me started on how many girlfriends he has. “Wanna play with me this weekend?” his bud Indigo asks. And some cute little mutt who goes by the name Poppy Fluff Flower pretended they were married for awhile to keep other bitches away. His pleading dark eyes shine a light into the vulnerability behind his machismo. 

We left him with his sitter this weekend. We were barely out of town when on his page is posted “The family just left!  Time 2 party!” He was sacked out when we returned Sunday evening. He’d obviously seen plenty of action during our absence. Hardly glanced at the new winter sweater and anti-itch shampoo we brought home to him. And today his post says “So tired from the weekend. Just gonna sleep all day long.” Me too buddy, but I still made it into work. Get a grip, or a stick or a bone or something.


Marianne Lonsdale lives with her husband, Michael, and son, Nicholas, in Oakland, California. She writes personal essays and short stories, and is now focused on developing a novel. Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Literary Mama, Fiction365, The Sun, and Pulse.

E is for Existence thru’ Exercise (by Cynthia Rovero)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.

Photography by Mary Allison Tierney

One day an image crosses the television screen of your dream body. You look at yourself in horror and wish for a miracle cure that can give you the same sexy allure. Having tried all kinds of touted miracle cures, I have decided to live with a much simpler solution, such as shutting my mouth when that extra helping is staring at me in the face. I also push myself out the door to join in with the many feel-good exercises. In doing so, I find myself losing weight, feeling sexier and, best of all, enjoying better health.


The epitome of learning to enjoy what I have is celebrated exponentially with every new step I take in this direction. Yes, there are pitfalls to trying to maintain a positive outlook within a mass media society. Still, for my health the choice to continue on this path of eating veggies more and junk food less works. Also, continuing to go out into the world, where I can enjoy the physical exertion of bike riding, swimming, and walking is a huge plus. Most of all I adore the look on my hubby’s face when my healthier attitude pays off in weight loss. Then, I too beam with pride at how far I have come from giving in to unhealthy temptations.

Cynthia has enjoyed creative writing for 30 years. Over the years she took writing classes to hone her skills. Sharing her thoughts has helped to keep her fulfilled in life.

D is for Dog (by Lorrie Goldin)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.



Photography by Mary Allison Tierney

My husband and I are cat people, but our daughters failed to get the memo. Despite a menagerie of two felines and an assortment of rodents, the lobbying for a dog began in earnest when Emma, our eldest, was in second grade. In between constant replays of "Homeward Bound" and "Milo and Otis," Emma vowed to take care of all things puppy if only we would grant her wish. She even promised to pick up poop.

We're bad parents: We said no. So Emma brought out the heavy artillery: Begging. Whining. Pitching fits. After a solid year of this, our firm "no" turned squishy. Not only did we fail to hold the canine line, we also failed Parenting 101 by caving in the face of her atrocious behavior (unsurprisingly, this soon became our m.o. for dog-rearing as well).

Of course, I was the weak link. If it had been up to my husband, we never would have accepted even one of those "free" goldfish foisted upon families at school carnivals. But after Emma went to work on me, I went to work on Jonathan. On a long, romantic hike I outlined why we should overthrow reason and do something crazy, like get Emma a dog for her ninth birthday. "Besides," I concluded my pitch, "Maybe we could surprise ourselves and let in new love."

Jonathan, who pays attention to research saying that marriages fare best when husbands agree with their wives, knew he was doomed. But at least the birthday girl was thrilled with the promise of a puppy as soon as we got back from our summer vacation.

Button

Upon our return, we headed straight to the Humane Society. Emma was in heaven when she saw their brand new litter. Who knew that Rottweiler-Pit Bull puppies could be so cute? Still, it was not the mix I had in mind, even though Emma saw no need to look any further. This time, I did not cave, resolutely removing my screaming, betrayed child from the premises while simultaneously saving my marriage.

Fortunately, the next day there was an ad in the IJ for a litter in Woodacre. We knew we'd found our puppy as the mellowest little black-and-white guy yawned and waggled his tail. Thus Button entered our lives and our hearts.

Emma and her younger sister, Ally, were enthralled as Button waddled up and down the stairs after them. They were less enchanted by his needle-like puppy teeth, and spent Day Two climbing into the lower branches of a tree to avoid his nipping enthusiasm. Many days thereafter they ignored him completely.

In his intemperate youth, Button chewed through one sofa, a set of seatbelts, and two pairs of Jonathan's glasses. Neither girl picked up any poop, either.

But one promise was kept: We could, after all, let in new love.

Lorrie Goldin is a closet dog lover and mother of two grown daughters. She is a psychotherapist in private practice in San Rafael and Berkeley. Lorrie's writing has appeared in the New York Times' "Motherlode" blog, skirt!, Underwired Magazine, the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Marin Independent Journal, and Harlots' Sauce.

C is for Cindy, my sister (by Teri Stevens)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.



Photography by Mary Allison Tierney

Adopted a son.

 

Benjamin.

 

Cindy is a first-time parent. 

 

Dad, John, her husband, is too.

 

Emotional rollercoaster is what they rode throughout his gestation, which ended with an emergency Caesarian. 

 

Fortunately Ben is a healthy, beautiful boy.

 

Grandparents met their new grandson in the hospital.

 

Holli is Ben’s birth mother. 

 

I met him when he was just eight days old.

 

Joseph is his middle name, in honor of our Stepfather who passed.

 

Kelly will host a shower now that Ben has arrived.

 

Low income housing is where Holli is living, made possible by Cindy and John who hope it will help her get back on our feet.

 

March 19, 2013 is Ben’s birthday. 

 

Nephew to hug, hold and watch grow and learn.

  

One-night encounter is how our family was blessed with Benjamin’s presence.

 

Patience was necessary throughout the 72 hour waiting period during which Holli had the option to change her mind.

 

Quite a relief when she signed the paperwork, finalizing the adoption.

 

Reno, Nevada, the city of Ben’s birth and where he lives with his new family. 

 

Social worker, Linda, calmly guided Cindy and John through the adoption process.

 

Three of his cousins also met him on his eighth day. 

 

Underdeveloped he was not, weighing in at 9 pounds, 20 inches.

 

Verbal commitment from Holli was all they had to go on while they waited for his birth, that and faith.

 

“Waiting is the hardest part,” chorus line from The Waiting by Tom Petty.

 

X , the twenty-fourth letter in the alphabet, which Ben will someday learn to recite.

 

Yellow congratulatory flowers were delivered to the happy parents.

 

Zoo animals from my son’s baby room decorate Ben’s nursery and watch him thrive in his new home with the parents who dreamed him there. 

 

Cindy with Benjamin

After receiving a BA in Journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno, Teri Stevens moved to northern California where she held numerous marketing director positions in the Shopping Center industry, most notably Ghirardelli Square. Amidst the joyful chaos of raising three five-year-olds, an adopted son and twin daughters, Teri makes time to write.

B is for Bug (by me!)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.

Today is my turn! I decided to write a limerick and I also recorded an audio too. Enjoy :)



Photography by Mary Allison Tierney

My recording of Bug Poem (download)

A British divorcee called Claire

Sent an email one night for a dare

To her first love at school

Who’d been horny and cool

And no man since then could compare.

~~~

When they first met he had a nickname

She wondered if it would be the same

He quickly replied

Bursting with pride

He was still known as Bug, he proclaimed.

~~~

The years apart had been more than thirty

But they found that they both were still flirty

She’d forgotten that Bug

Was not like a slug

Coz when it came to romance he was dirty.

~~~

Two years later in a town by the sea

He declared his love and proposed on one knee

She jumped up and down

With the ring he had found

And with no thought accepted with glee.

~~~

 From her family it was very hard to part

But she needed to follow her heart

To live in the sun

Sounded plenty of fun

Bug had always been Right From The Start.

~~~

A is for Antigua, Guatemala (by Jessica O'Dwyer)

For this year's A-Z Challenge, I am organising my writing group's participation for the first time. So I am posting each entry here as well as on the website, Write On, Mamas! who are a writing group based in the San Francisco North Bay area. We will have 25 Mamas and one Papa writing on a different letter of the alphabet during the A-Z Blog Challenge. Comments are always so appreciated, but would be lovely if you would comment on the Write On, Mamas! blog so the author will read your comment. Thanks and look forward to reading your blogs.

Photography by Mary Allison Tierney



A is for Antigua, Guatemala, by Jessica O'Dwyer

Jessica and Olivia at their front door in 2003

I’m writing this in Antigua, Guatemala, a UNESCO heritage site that’s considered by many to be Central America’s most beautiful and authentic colonial city. It’s insane how much I love this place—the cobblestone streets, the churches, the handicraft markets, the ring of volcanoes that define Antigua’s perimeter. Ten years ago, I lived in a small casita here with my then-15-month-old daughter, Olivia, a Guatemalan baby my husband and I were trying to adopt.

At that time, the adoption system teetered on the brink of implosion, and we didn’t know from one day to the next if the courts would grant us permission to bring Olivia home with us to California, or take her away forever, to be lost somewhere in the country’s labyrinthine orphanage system. The experience of fighting for Olivia during that emotional roller coaster ride affected me so deeply I wrote a memoir about it. The book’s title, Mamalita, refers to the name Olivia birth mother calls me: “Little Mommy.” Adoptions from Guatemala closed permanently in December 2007.





Jessica and Olivia March 2013

Olivia is now almost 11, and every year since our first one together, she and I return to Antigua. Our first stop, always, is to visit our former casita, and take a picture of ourselves at the front door. I cherish these pictures, proof of time’s passage and how much we have changed and grown, not only physically, but as mother and daughter.


Jessica O’Dwyer is the author of Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir (Seal Press). Her essays been published in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle magazine, Adoptive Families, Marin Independent Journal, and West Marin Review. She lives with her family in Northern California.

Nerd is the new cool

Like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory my son, Tom, has always been a square peg in a round hole, stubbornly refusing to follow his peers no matter the consequences. As a human being I am full of admiration of his insistence to be himself, but as a mother it is agonizing. 

When we were in the UK, he was horribly bullied at school for being weird and nerdy, with his unfashionable clothes (he refused to wear anything but too-short elasticated trousers and long-sleeved tops. Sadly, this was pre-Big Bang Theory), almost-but-not-quite Harry Potter glasses and ahead-of-his-time obsession with Doctor Who (a few years before the new series when no-one knew what it was all about). But the worse sin of all was that he hated football. He would tell me, quite matter of factly, that everyone ignored him at lunchtime when he wouldn't join in the game and he just walked around the playground by himself. Every time I imagined this poor lonely little boy, all by himself, wandering around with nothing to do and no-one to talk to for an hour, it felt like I was being violently stabbed in the chest.  

One of the best things about moving to live in California is that he is now seen as merely a wonderful English eccentric and is loved for his idiosyncrasies, rather than attacked for his nerdiness and slightly strange dress sense. He now has a large group of equally nerdy, but lovely friends, a busy social life and is doing extremely well academically. He still likes Doctor Who but now everyone else has caught up.

Tom as Mr Bean

So far this year he has twice found himself in the local papers, being celebrated for being geeky. The first occasion was for his Mr Bean impersonation! 
He was actually dressing as a witness as part of Novato High School's Mock Trial team. They beat all the odds as the underdogs, only being pipped to the post by the very posh school of almost-lawyers in the final of the county-wide competition. Because this is America, The Mayor of Novato gave them a Proclamation recognising their success even though they came second. You can see and hear this on the link above (it was broadcast on Novato Public Access TV. For some unaccountable reason, Tom decided to do an even worse Cockney accent than Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins when he introduced himself.

The second occasion was for running around with a gun in a local school playground. No, don't panic. It's not another Sandy Hook. He is part of Novato Nerd Nerf Nation. He and some friends get lots of fresh air and exercise at the weekends shooting foam bullets at each other. Think the picture says it all ...

Novato Nerf Nation

But those two examples of weirdo-ness pale into insignificance with his latest idea. He recently got a new iPhone 4. He loves it, but keeps leaving it at school, in his bedroom, in cars and so on. So he ordered a cover for it, one of those ones that strap around your arm so you can play music while jogging. For a while I thought he needed it for some strange Nerf war reason, but I then found him busily cutting and sewing (yes, sewing, wonders will never cease) as he adapted it for a special purpose. The next day I found out what.

Tom showing off the very first iWatch

He had created the very first iWatch!

I didn't see it til the end of the day and couldn't help bursting out laughing. "What on earth did everyone say? Did they tease you?" I asked, part of me fearful that he had really pushed the boundaries of British eccentricity too far this time.

"No, actually they didn't," he replied smiling. "Most people just said Oh, cool when they saw it. I was a bit surprised myself when only about 10% went You knob-head!"

"What did the teachers say?" I asked. "I thought you weren't allowed your phones in lessons?"

"Well, that was the best bit," he said, looking a bit triumphant. "They couldn't really say anything as it's my watch."

Hilarious. What ingenuity. But totally nerdy. I would never in a million years have dared to do something so completely uncool.

So there you have it: Nerd is the new cool.

Happiness is a choice

 

I was talking on the phone to my close friend of over 40 years (yikes, that dates me) and was expecting the bright, hopeful person I had spoken briefly to the day before. Instead, she was morose, sad and depressed. She is in the middle of a break-up with her boyfriend of a few years and was having a bad moment. As I listened quietly to her for a few moments (a new skill for me) I thought about a story someone told me a while ago.

Tony Robbins, the well-known author and motivational speaker, was helping a woman who was in a deep and seemingly bottomless pit of depression with the grief of losing her husband. She had tried everything, she said, and nothing seemed to work. She had been talking for a few minutes on stage, going on about how terrible her life was without him and how nothing, not even medication, helped with the misery of her life.

Suddenly, quite out of the blue, Tony Robbins took a step back and asked her loudly if she had just farted!

To read the rest of this blog, please go to The Kindness Project, where I am posting today. Thanks.

Valentine Surprise

My first Valentine’s Day with my husband was a rather strange affair, made all the stranger by the fact that I hadn’t seen him for over 30 years! We were high school sweethearts, but had lost touch. After reconnecting we found we were on opposite sides of the world– he had moved to live in sunny California and I was in England.

We were communicating via Skype and webcam and to celebrate our first Valentine’s Day, I thought I would make an extra effort. It’s pretty difficult to conjure up a romantic atmosphere being 5,000 miles apart, but I was not one to be daunted by petty little problems like not being on the same continent. Stupidly, I had forgotten to add in the eight hours time difference. Blissfully unaware of my error, I spent ages having a shower, putting on make-up and even getting dressed up in a skirt to the amazement of my kids. For some unaccountable reason, I even shaved my legs.

We had arranged to talk around 9pm UK time so I had put the kids to bed with strict instructions not to disturb me except in a case of dire emergency, like their leg falling off or something. Excited and looking forward to spending a few hours being romantic and lovey-dovey, I sat down at my computer and gave myself one final check in the camera for any stray bits of spinach in my teeth, butterflies of anticipation fluttering in my stomach. After the first five minutes, however, it was clear that he was distracted with work and not concentrating on anything I had to say, let alone noticing how sexy and beautiful I was looking.

I was gutted.

Here I was, all dolled up and nowhere to go and he couldn’t switch off from work for even a few minutes to focus on me. We ended the call soon afterwards and I ran upstairs in tears, tearing off my outfit in a fury before slumping in front of the TV in old jeans and a sweater. So much for my best laid plans. It was a stupid over-commercialized holiday anyway, I thought miserably.

The next evening I was still feeling hurt and rejected, so when he tried calling me a few times I decided not to answer and give him the silent treatment. An hour and a half and five begging texts later, I finally cracked. I decided to speak to him, even if it was just to give him a piece of my mind.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when his webcam started working. There he was, standing well back from his computer in his freezing cold garage which doubled as his office, with a huge grin on his face, wearing a very silly Cat In The Hat tie and … absolutely nothing else.

Yes, that’s right. He was stark, bollock naked!

And apparently he had been standing there, patiently waiting for me to come online, praying that his kids didn’t come home from school, for one and a half hours!

How could I be cross with him after a gesture like that? He really was my Valentine.


© 2013 Claire Hennessy