The Odd Broad

Bleekers, morsahs, and mamingish

Seeing as Bret Michaels thankfully appears to be on the mend, I'm going to devote this Friday's post to a different topic entirely...

About a year ago I went to see a dermatologist at Mass General and she found a mole she "didn't like the looks of".  That one?  I wondered.  But what about this one?  Or that one?  Surely these were much more sinister and ominous.  (I'm a bit of a backseat patient, if you can't tell.)

No, she insisted, the others looked perfectly normal.  This specific one was her main concern.  It was in a delicate spot though; and rather than biopsy the little bugger she had her nurse take a picture of it.  I was instructed to monitor it and come back in a year.

It was my first topless photo shoot.  (Tasteful, classy, yet edgy.)  The least she could have done was poured me a chardonnay first. 

I didn't think much about it, until the other day when I returned for my annual visit.  Dun Dun DUN!  I focused my eyes on the ceiling as the doctor furrowed her brow, peered closely at my bare chest and told me: no, she still didn't like the looks of it.  (Hey, I've been telling myself that very same thing since Jr. High!) 

The mole was going to have to come off.  Did I mention this mole is on my breast?  (I never really use the term breast, so it feels kind of foreign for me to be posting it on the world wide web.)  In my family we've always referred to that area of a woman's body as "mamingish," which I naturally assumed was Portuguese for breasts; seeing as that's what my Portuguese grandmother taught us to call them.

It doesn't mean breasts.  It means tits.  And I just found that out by doing an internet search.  Thanks, Google!

Every family has their own particular terminology for private parts, do they not?  Nanny, my maternal grandmother, was 100% Portuguese and she married my grandfather, Pa, who was 100% Irish.  (Incidentally, my own father's family is of Irish and German descent; so all in all, I'm a bit of a mutt.) 

The only thing any of us know how to say in Portuguese are obscene words and phrases.  My cousin Stevie and I always giggled whenever he'd come to visit me in New York and we'd pass by Bleeker Street.  (Bleeker, you see, is how we in my family refer to a man's privates.  I am not able to decipher how this word translates from a Google search, probably because our Massachusetts accent makes it sound more like "bleekah" and I have no idea how to spell it.  One thing is for certain, I'm fairly sure it doesn't mean penis.  Just as the term Nan taught us for vagina (morsah?) probably doesn't mean vagina.  (But what does it mean?  I wonder.)  I can't find that one through Google, either.)

I suppose I had an inkling these terms weren't kosher when I worked on an assembly line in New Hampshire the summer after my Freshman year of college.  My co-workers were a lively crew.  (An OB post in and of itself, really.)  One of them in particular had an impressively dirty mouth, and when I recited for her the few words I knew in Portuguese, taught to me by my grandmother no less, it inspired her to declare, eyebrows raised:

"Oh!  You're speakin' dirty filthy Spanish."

Was I?  Huh.  

And...I digress.  Basically, all I was trying to tell you is that I have a mole on my mamingish and it needs to come off.  (Ouchie!)

My doctor is a pretty, soft spoken woman with an Italian last name.  Her online Bio says she went to Harvard.  (Not too shabby.)  I listen as she tells me: "We can take off a little of it, and do the biopsy, and then if we need to remove all of it we can go back in later...or we can just remove the entire thing and be done with it.  Either way, it should only take half an hour." 

She drew a diagram of what the cut would look like, and also the scar, which will be a thin line.  I noticed my palms were beginning to sweat against my blue paper dressing gown.  "We'd do this today, you mean?  Like, right now?"  (I had to be back at work in 45 minutes!)

She then went on to explain that if I preferred to have a plastic surgeon remove it, that would be okay, too.  She wanted me to be aware of all my options. 

"What would be the point of having a plastic surgeon do it?" I asked, tentatively.

"Oh, some people feel better about going to a plastic surgeon, because they feel it minimizes the scarring."

Scarring, huh.  Seeing as my days as a topless go-go dancer are far behind me, not many folks are staring at my rack these days.  I didn't think scarring would be an issue.  But still, I scheduled the appointment for a later date.  (May 20th, to be exact.) 

I have a fairly impressive tolerance for pain (minus the fact that I detest veins and swoon at the very mention of them), but all the same, I can't say I'm looking forward to the big day of breast scraping.  (Even if it does mean I'll get out of work early.  And even if my mommy is taking a half day out of work to be with me and hold my hand while the pretty Italian lady cuts me.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you see me walking around Boston clutching my right mamingish, now you'll know why.

xoxo

Odd Broad Disclaimer: My mother would like you to know that she firmly believes that my grandmother knew not what she was teaching us, in regards to her colorful anatomical terminology.  I suppose we'll never know...

The Educated Consumer

Baby chicks on conveyor belts getting their furry yellow heads scanned by a nonchalant assembly line worker is the stuff that nightmares are made of.  (Can you tell I'm part way through watching Food, Inc.?)  

Reader, if you get the chance, watch this insightful, Oscar-winning documentary, which in its opening sequence states: "The companies don't want farmers talking. They don't want this story told."

And they sure as hell don't want us tuning in!  But this is America, is it not?  Land of the free, home of the brave, and all that jazz?  Why are we allowing big business and our elected officials to bamboozle our taste buds?  We consumers have been deliberately kept in the dark, but we can certainly speak with our wallets.  In that respect, I'd like to kick them where it counts.  Dirty bastards. 

Have you seen this film already?  If so, what did you think?  xoxo

PS: I am also seriously hooked on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  What a lovely bloke he is.  Two thumbs up.

PPS: Hubby just set down a plate on my desk, containing broccoli, a salad, and a veggie burger on a whole wheat bun.  God bless that omnivore.   

My Life as an Artist

My mother has been asking me to clean out my child bedroom for the past decade.  I find it almost physically painful to throw certain things away; and to make matters worse, I'm compelled to peruse every little scrap of paper I ever saved before I do so.  This sort of behavior is not conducive to Spring Cleaning.  In light of an upcoming neighborhood yard sale, last weekend I went home to help purge.  Sissy didn't want to come.  "You can throw away everything of mine; I don't care!" she spat.  Hmmm...

Ma joined me in my bedroom and we began to sort through thirty one years worth of crap.  A cabbage Patch Kids table high chair.  (And I can take that one step further.  I kept the original packaging...as well as the manual.)  I barely made a dent in sifting through my memorabilia, such is the mania of my sentimentality. 

I found creepy things, like my old pal Lester, the groovy ventriloquist doll who in 1992 became possessed by a unholy, non-human entity.  Not really.  (Yes, really.  Call the police.  And do NOT refer to him as a dummy, for f*ck's sake!)  I found neat things, like my Michael Jackson hand held microphone, still in its box.  I found odd things, like a paper I wrote for school in the Fall of 1988, which would have made me nine years old.  The assignment was to detail a day in my life, sometime in the future.  The piece was entitled, My Life as an Artist. 

"I just woke up, and I'm ready to start my day.  My name is Sarah and I am 25 years old.  This is the year 2005."  (Admittedly, math was never my strong suit.  Hubby was the one to point out the error in my calculations, seeing as in the year 2005 I was actually 27.) 

"I guess I'll go downstairs.  My husband has breakfast on the table for me as usual.  He doesn't work, he is a house-husband.  I am an artist."

I then go on to detail the specifics of my day; I apparently own a chain of art supply stores and need to go check on my inventory. 

"I'm going to take a cold shower and go to work." 

I stopped reading at this point and turned to my mother.  "Why a cold shower?"

"I dunno," she shrugged, "You were a weirdo."

"I said bye to my husband and went in my car.  The supplies came in, so I decided to walk around the streets to see what I would paint today.  I decided to get out my easel and pallet and paint a particular building.  I have places to go, so I guess I'll finish this up now.  I do get paid pretty much if I say so myself.  Every day I have to go see how business is going in most of my stores, and call and hear how business is going in the stores that are far away.  So I'll go to the one in Lowell, New Hampshire, Bradford, Dracut, and call the ones in California, Dover, Harrisburg and Denver (Yes, I'm mixing states in with towns and cities; wanna make something out of it?), and don't worry I have a lot more to call and see."

(I'm sure my teacher was very worried.)

"Well, today I also have to paint a family, a little girl, and believe it or not, a dog!  (I hope he will sit still.)  Sometimes I even do covers for books.  Right when I finished the family painting, it was 1:45.  Already!  I thought.  So, now I'll paint the little girl.  When I was done it was 2:45.  Already!  I thought again.  So I did a couple more paintings, then I sat down. 

Now, by this time anyone would be starving.  I forgot to pick up my lunch that my husband made for me.  So I called him up and asked him to bring it.  It was great.

I got so many calls today!  It's hard to believe.  I have to make a cover for a book that's about a dog and a cat.  I love my job, I really do, but painting is not all I do, I would have been a photographer, but I love to paint more.  (Random?)

Well, I've got more places to go, I have to go see if a company will sell my painting.  (Vague?)  Well, that can wait for tomorrow.  It's 8:45 P.M. and my husband is waiting at home with a hot bath ready for me, while he makes dinner.  I love my life."

I was a female chauvinist, at the age of 9!  I'd forgotten that.  I suspect this piece was one of those early semester, throwaway assignments, (seeing as I didn't bother to spell out the word "and" or try all that hard).  Also, while it was true I did entertain grand notions of becoming an artiste, in the end, despite all of my art lessons, I never possessed the temperament to keep at it.  It was too frustrating when I couldn't get those frigging apples to look like apples, goddammit! 

After this brief yet fucked up disturbing jaunt down Memory Lane, I joined my mother as she attacked my older sister's room.  Sissy's hoarding was far less anal retentive than mine, (plus, there weren't any man-hating essays hiding in her closet), but it was entertaining nonetheless.  A Charles in Charge "novelization" paperback?  Check!  Dylan McKay 90210 pins?  Check!  Rampant New Kids On The Block paraphernalia?  Triple Check.

After a while, we decided to take a little break.  I plunked down on the couch and began texting Sissy. 

"What should I tell her we found in her room?" I asked my mother; thinking she'd say Sissy's hideous Junior Prom dress, or that emerald bracelet from an over ardent, bi-polar ex-boyfriend.  My sweet mother's immediate answer? 

Condoms.

I texted Sissy: Daddy found condoms in your closet.

My mother and I then erupted into uncontrollable laughter; the kind that hurts your chest and makes you choke on your peanut butter sandwich.  (Daddy, however, was not laughing.)

It only took my older sister half a second to text me back: "What????????"  She rang my cell phone a moment later, quite unable to speak from laughter.  She was mortified our father had found something so heinous in her childhood closet; but why would they be in there, anyway, she wondered?

"We didn't find condoms in your closet, you fool!  We're just joking!"

Dear Reader, it was belly laughs all around.  Although Sissy still thinks we are terrible, sonofabitching bastards. 

And now for something amazing...

Lukey the Wonder Nephew loves my new apartment.  "Sissy's new house!  Sissy's new house!" he exclaims, in that impossibly cute little voice of his. 

I know all aunties say this about their nieces and nephews, but this boy is wondrous.  He's the only two year old I've ever met who can identify an automobile from ten feet away.  "Toyo Camry" he shouted one afternoon while we were out on my deck, pointing to my neighbor's car below. 

"Did that baby just say Camry?" the baffled woman asked her husband.  "Hi there!" I called down, "That's my nephew.  He really loves cars."

"Does his mother own a Camry or something?"

"No."

"He can tell the make of a car just by looking at it?"

"Yeah."

What can I say?  He's The Wonder Baby.  He once went stark raving mad in the Panera parking garage, dragging me around so he could point out every automobile in the general vicinity.  "BMW...Mazda...Toyo Prius!!  Hybrid Toyo Prius!"  He touched his pointy finger to the word "hybrid" as he said that last bit.  Luckily for auntie and his mommy, the Hybrid Toyo Prius did not have an alarm. 

My sister has no idea when or how her child became such a motorhead.  One thing is for sure, he's probably the only person these days who feels such passionate affection for Toyota.

I made him up a little basket for Easter, with books and candy, and I also included a box of flash cards I'd found at CVS for $1.  He's only two years old, I realize, but I thought he might get a kick of of it.  After all, he loves his letters and numbers.

The flash cards have a picture on the back, and words only on the front.  Without letting him see the picture on the back, I pulled a card from the deck and showed Lukey the word.

"Milk" he read, and grabbed the card with his meaty little fist, inspecting it as he sipped from his juice box.

"Fish" he read the next one, then: "Box," then "TOY!!"

I pulled out a card with the word "STAR" on it.  "STAH" he declared in his Boston accent, almost bored. 

"Oh, here's a tough one," I said to my sister.

"Cwayon," said Lukey. 

"What the fuck!" my sister mouthed.  "He doesn't know crayon!"

"Hubby!" I called, "COME QUICK!  Lukey's being freaky!"

"House...Mouse...MOON"  We wondered if perhaps our grandmother was coming to Lukey from beyond the grave and teaching him words.  Indeed, he's often awake during the night, flipping through his books and reading aloud in his crib to his bevvy of Match Box hot rods.

Luke went on to astound us by reading several other words he'd never been taught, "ComPUtah!" being one of them.  In the end, he read every word in that entire box save two, without looking at any of the pictures until he'd read the word, I might add.  After announcing each word, he'd take it from me and turn it over to look at the picture.  He seemed very pleased with himself.  He then gathered the entire pile together and threw them up into the air, making a fantastic mess and terrifying the cat.

I love afternoons with my best buddy.

The next day was Easter, and my mother asked Sissy to bring along the flash cards.  "No, I'm not bringing them!  Everyone's gonna think I'm drilling my two year old!"

She brought them anyway, and Luke wowed everyone within earshot, his face smeared with chocolate cake.  "House...Mouse...Apple...Ice Cweam..."

I tell Sissy not to worry about what anyone thinks.  Who gives a crap?  Furthermore, why make a problem out of something so amazing?  So her two year old can read; he loves books, after all!  And she spends all day reading to him, per his adamant request!  "Again!"  he demands.  "Curious George goes to the mooseum!" 

I just got off the phone with Sissy and she told me they took a family trip the other day to Flo's Clam Shack.  Lukey looked at the sign and sounded out, "Flo...clam...sss...snak."  She said the "h" in shack was lower case, so he probably thought it was an N.  Yes, the child sounds out words.  But he also enjoys digging around in the sand, playing with his cousins, and a million other things!  Screw anyone who would be snarky about it!  (And I'm thinking of two Nasty Nelson's (and one Nasty Nellie) in particular right now, who do not read this blog, which is a shame because if they did, I would insert something fantastically obscene right here.)

In lieu of their past comments, which obviously sprang out of jealousy, and the random remarks Sissy regularly receives like, "Do you teach him to read or something?" she feels hesitant about Luke revealing his marvelous talents in public.  She doesn't want anyone to think she's drilling her child with phonics!  Which is certainly not what she is doing anyway.  She simply reads to him all the time!  Sissy doesn't like to brag, but I have no problem bragging, because I am his auntie, and that is precisely what aunties do.

This child is a frigging genius.  Case closed.  xoxo

The Wonder Cat does it again!

I wanted to post an addendum to last week's post on Kittie (our sassy eleven year old, Sagittarius, polydactyl tuxedo cat.)  Her dormant feline diabetes was threatening to once again rear its ugly head, and there was no way I was letting it come back without a fight.

After speaking to our kind doctor at The Boston Cat Hospital, I learned my instincts were correct to take Kittie off of the dry food and to begin feeding her only wet.  Her hope was that Kittie's sugar would continue to plummet, and as of this evening, I'd say it has!  It was 112, to be exact.  GO KIT! 

She already seems to be feeling much more like herself, ie: sitting upright like a human and chasing her own tail.  Mommy's little monster.  Honestly, Reader, I don't know what I'd do without her. 

In noshing news, last week Hubby and I went to Home Depot and bought ourselves a propane grill.  We've actually gone a little nutty grilling; it's skewer central in Odd Broad Land!  As it should be.

Of course, I'm still vegging, (over nine months strong, with the exception of the occasional bit of seafood), and Hubby has been happy to grill me up veggie burgers and kebabs to my heart's content.  I could literally eat these vegetable kebabs every night.  Add a nice salad, some couscous, a little crumbled bleu cheese on top of the steaming hot veg...on Tuesday night Hubby even whipped me up some homemade tzatziki.  (You can take the broad out of Astoria, but you can't take the Astoria out of the broad.)

Now I'm getting hungry all over again.  I shall deem this: The Summer of the Skewer!!  (Yes, I've gone completely mad.)  

Happy Friday, Dear Reader.  xoxo

Hmmm...

So the man downstairs and his wife are away on vacation, and he left the door to the back entrance ajar, presumably so the three stray cats he feeds can come and go as they like.

At the risk of sounding redundant, I'm going to repeat that last bit: he left the screen door and the storm door WIDE OPEN, so these three morbidly obese stray cats can come and go at their leisure. 

I don't mean to sound unkind, but these cats are quite possibly the most corpulent felines I have ever encountered.  (And this is coming from a woman with a cat so overweight she developed feline diabetes!)  This is also coming from a lifelong animal lover.  And even I find this door situation a little nutty.

Hubby shut the door.  Hubby locked the door.  Someone keeps opening it.  Each time we lock it, someone comes back and opens it.  (Literally, leaving the door wide open!)

Now, before he left, our neighbor did come upstairs to tell us his sister-in-law would "probably" be stopping by to pick up his mail; what he failed to mention, however, was that she'd be leaving the back door open for any Tom, Dick or Harriet to saunter through.

Is it me?  This is a bit unusual, no?

I feel I should add, other than this small hiccup, our new apartment is a dream come true: in a great area, close to the beach, less than ten minutes away from Sissy and Luke, and it has a front and back deck!  We're loving it!

But the neighbor downstairs seems a little...peculiar.  Not that I'm a stranger to living above odd ducks.  (It's still too early to tell if this man will match the eccentricities of my former landlord, Smeagol, of Lord of the Rings fame, but I certainly look forward to finding out.)

That's Kittie (with an "ie")

As much as it bothers me to write this, I have some distressing news to report concerning The Wonder Cat.  After turning a blind eye to some of her recent erratic behavior (demanding entry into the bathroom at all times, especially when it's in use), it suddenly dawned on me that this isn't Kittie's usual M.O.  This girl's default personality is demonstratively lovable companion, not pain in the arse.  I know this is what every mother says, but the truth of the matter is Kittie only behaves badly when something is very wrong.  I discovered that when she got sick last Fall.

We've been so preoccupied with the move lately, but now that we're all settled in I couldn't help but take notice of her litter box.  She was peeing an awful lot, which is a telltale sign of a diabetic cat.  Crap.  Then again, maybe it was nothing.  (Perhaps the glass of Riesling was half full?)

On Friday night I asked Hubby to prick her ear so we could check her blood sugar.  It was 320.  (A normal level is somewhere between 80-120.)  I remained uncharacteristically calm, taking her off the dry prescription food and only feeding her wet, but on Tuesday and Wednesday her sugar was even higher.  I'm not sure what it means, but the doctor at The Boston Cat Hospital asked that we monitor her sugar levels twice a day until Monday and take it from there.  It could be we were just overfeeding her?  The wrong sized scoop had somehow found its way into her jar of food, so I'm hoping that's all it was. 

My poor little baby!  These past four months of remission from feline diabetes have been so blissfully triumphant!  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel somewhat crushed.  It's deflating, being back here again.  But I'm rallying for my little furball.  She beat this bastard monster once, and by God she can do it again!  Whatever that girl needs, I'm here to give it to her.  Even if it's a needle filled with insulin.  Sigh.

The wind beneath my wings

Maureen Hancock can speak to the dead.  (Oh, what a deliciously pagan way to begin a post written on Easter Sunday!)

Some friends and coworkers have been to see her, and all of them had the same positive feedback to report: this woman is nothing short of amazing.  Not that I'm the type of individual who needs much convincing when it comes to matters like this. 

I called my mother to see if she'd be in.  "Ma, do you want to go see this medium?  Everyone who's been to see her says she's incredible..."

My mother's tone was swift and decisive: yes.  My auntie Kim didn't need much convincing, either; and though my auntie Donna wavered for a split second, her answer too was ultimately affirmative.  Woo hoo!

Nobody else wanted to come, not even Sissy.  It was too scary, too creepy, they decided.  Indeed, Sissy and her husband agreed that the last thing I probably needed was to visit a medium.  I corrected them and told them the last thing HUBBY probably needed was for me to visit a medium.  (Sissy admitted they'd already arrived at that conclusion five minutes prior.  Smart asses.)

I was resolute.  I wanted to visit my grandmother.  Moreover, I wanted my mother and her sisters to get in touch with her, since I sensed some unfinished business lurking in their hearts.  My friend Gregg warned me not to get my hopes up: "Don't be disappointed if she doesn't come through, okay?"

"I won't be!" I lied.  (Oh Nan, please, please come through!  I'm giving you advanced notice and all!)

Maureen Hancock dubs herself the "Comedian Medium" and I have to say, she had us in stitches all evening.  She began by asking everyone to uncross their legs, as keeping them crossed blocks the energy and makes it more difficult for our loved ones to come through.  "Don't worry, sir," she said to one of the four men in the room, "I won't make you use any stirrups..." 

She's a practicing Catholic who works with a number of charities.  "I'm a good Catholic girl," she quipped, "I don't read palms or anything...I just talk to dead people."  She even mentioned a priest who regularly brings grieving parents in to speak with her.  "Of course," she notes, "he's wearing a turtle neck sweater to cover up his collar..."

I'd been anxious all day, though once she begins I notice that I'm not afraid whatsoever.  In fact, I'm strangely calm.  Although my left leg does keep twitching.  (Nan, we're here!  Are you?)

Maureen explained that her gift was like having the Verizon Wireless team behind her.  It was similar to being in a football stadium, she said, with everyone chattering away at once.  Her challenge is to get the voices to speak one at a time, although they don't always cooperate.  (At one point in the evening, a younger spirit who'd just passed three months prior kept interrupting, and Maureen explained that his crossing was so new that he hadn't yet learned "spirit etiquette.")

Maureen's backstory is a fascinating one.  As a child, she developed lead paint poisoning and was in and out of Boston Children's Hospital and in a coma for a year.  It was a miracle she recovered; and when she was released, she tells us, she saw dead people.  This gift was suppressed until adulthood, when she was in a serious car accident which left her with a broken skull and many broken bones in her face.  When the ambulance arrived, they asked her how she'd gotten out of the car, which had been totally crushed.  She told them she'd just opened the door, although it was apparent that this was definitely not possible.  Miraculously, she went on to make a full recovery without the need of any surgery.  She said this time she could hear the dead people (known as clairaudience.)  After 9-11, she decided to turn her gift into a full-time vehicle for helping others. 

The first person to have a visitor that evening was an older woman in the corner of the room.  "Wow", Maureen remarked, "Normally a person has maybe two people come through, but you have a bunch!"  She then proceeded to dub this woman a spirit whore.  The spirit whore had a loud mouthed sister who continued to come through for the remainder of the evening.

I sat there mesmerized as I listened to each person's story.  Mothers and sisters and fathers and daughters...all of them were coming through.  Whenever it got too heavy, Maureen lightened things up with a joke.  We had tears in our eyes from laughing so hard.  But I have to admit, I was starting to get fidgety.  (Nan, where are you?  No pressure or anything, but...)  Someone's dog came through.  A bragging mother came through.  Someone came through who was described as the "mayor of Heaven."  It was wondrous.  But where were my people?

"Steve?  Where's the Steve connection?" Maureen asked the room.  Auntie Kim nudged her older sister.

"Um, Steve is my husband's name...and my son's name..." Auntie Donna was getting a visitor!  It was her mother-in-law of all people, whom her sisters had been teasing would come through.  And she did come through, and told her some amazing things.  I listened raptly and started to get anxious until Maureen finally said, "I also have mom here, too..."

My heart leapt into my throat.  I knew she'd come through!  It wouldn't be like Nan to miss a party!   

Was this really happening?  It was a surreal moment.  Nanny was here.  And so was my grandfather.  "He wants you to know he was there to meet her, just like you all said..." 

"Where to begin?" my grandmother was saying.  Maureen told us Nanny hadn't been afraid.  "Does she have a strong faith?  She wasn't at all afraid."  She told us Nan had been surprised, that she hadn't realized how sick she'd been.  But she was ok.  She was there with her brother, his name was a J sound, a J-O sound...John?

"Uh-huh," my mother confirmed.  "Oh wait, she wants you to know she's here with all of them, all three of them..."

It wasn't like Nan to leave anyone out.  Maureen pulled out a necklace from under my mother's sweater, her crucifix.  (I could hear my grandmother saying, "Fix your necklace!") 

"Hi!" Maureen kept repeating, her eyes wide, an enormous grin on her pretty face.  "Hi!" she grabbed my cold fingers and gave them a squeeze. 

"Hi" I said back, my heart pounding.  It was just what Nan would be doing. 

"Okay, she's saying, I am really enjoying this" Maureen told us.  Nanny also told auntie Donna, "And you didn't even want to come!"  (She hadn't wanted to come; she almost bailed out earlier that day!)

It was time for Nan to step back, and Maureen was giving each of us a "hug from Heaven," but when she got to auntie Donna, Nan called something out.

"Whoa," said Maureen, "Okay, she just said, It's not right!  It's not right!"

Holy shit. 

"Is there another sibling you're fighting with?  Is there someone who's not speaking to the rest of you?  Because she's saying it's not right."

Reader, this is what I'd been waiting for.  All along I knew my grandmother would be less than pleased if she knew her youngest son had stopped speaking to his four siblings after she passed.  

"She's saying he's made it up, that everything he's mad about is in his head, that he's created it himself.  You've tried and tried and tried, but ultimately, it's up to him."

Holy guacamole.  "Oh, she's pissed!" Maureen told us.  "She's saying, if she were alive this would NOT be happening!"  And she was right, it wouldn't be.  We were totally airing our dirty laundry in public.  But everything she was saying was so very true.  Nanny knew what was happening, she knew everything.

I think the main thing I've taken away from all of this is that I'm not crazy.  It's real.  I feel validated in a way I've never felt before.  I listened as Maureen told a woman in the row in front of me, "You've seen your mother, she was really there when you saw her that time in your bedroom...when you wake up at 3:00 am, that's her..." I'd read online that Maureen believes the time between 3 and 4 am is when the veil is thinnest between this side and the other side.  That night she also suggested we not be frustrated when our loved ones can't talk to us in dreams, because as it is, it takes an enormous amount of energy for them to even appear to us while we're asleep.  My eyes welled up with tears when I heard her say that.  My dreams...all of those dreams I've had...

They were real.  It was all real.  I'd known this in my heart, but how comforting to actually hear someone say it.  When I'm at work and see a dazzling light sparkling on the Charles River and all of a sudden I think about Nan, and wonder if she's there...all of those dreams I've had about her, the one where she'd been hugging me tightly and I woke up with tears on my cheeks...all of those times I've been awakened at 3:15 am and didn't know why...

She was there.  Our loved ones don't leave us, after all.  Not really.

That night I came home in a dreamlike state.  I relayed every detail to Hubby.  "What are you thinking?" I asked.  "Do you think I'm crazy or something?"  "It doesn't matter what I think," he answered diplomatically, the skeptical, supportive Scorpio that he is.  But do you know something?  He was right.  It honestly doesn't matter what anyone thinks about what happened that Thursday.  My world feels different, somehow; changed, more magical.  I awoke in the middle of the night that evening, like always, and when I glanced at my alarm clock it was 3:45 am. 

"Hi, Nanny.  I love you."

I wasn't afraid.  For the first time in my entire life, probably, I was not afraid.  I rolled over onto my side and went back to sleep.  Go figure. 

Oh, what a night!

I'm disappointed I don't have time for a post today, Dear Reader, but I was up pretty late last night.  My mother, aunts and I went to visit...a medium!  And the person I was hoping would come through...came through.  I cannot wait to tell you all about it!  But for now, it's back to work for me. 

PS: Yes, I'm writing about talking to dead people on Good Friday; get over it.  At least this year I won't be eating any meat. 

xoxo