Lucky 13?

Since I was born on the thirteenth, I have always considered thirteen my lucky number. It would follow then that 2013 should be my lucky year. Just to make things even clearer to me, the universe has arranged for my birthday this year to fall on a Friday.

"But that's an unlucky day," you claim.

"Oh, phooey!" I reply. "I don't believe in such nonsense."

True, I am not superstitious per se, and I have no solid proof the number thirteen has done anything special for me at all that, say, the number four hasn't. (I choose four because a palm reader once told me four would be an important number in my life. I'm still waiting to find out how.)

"Aha!" you say. "You visit palm readers."

"Only once," I answer. "On a lark."

Nevermind. The point is: I really need a lucky year right about now, and all signs indicate this one could be it. Er, except for the eensy weensy fact that I am already in the hole to the tune of more than $3,000, and January isn't even over yet! (More on that financial sucker punch later.)

Anyway a new year offers the chance for a fresh start, a clean slate, and the hope that one's life will improve in all the various ways that really matter. So I am grabbing onto 2013, particularly the last two digits of the number, and testing my theory about the luckiness of a baker's dozen for me.

If the past is any guide, my results will be mixed. When I turned thirteen on a Friday in 1974, I went on a church-group canoe trip for the day with my mother. As we paddled past a man fishing on the banks of the Housatonic, someone called out to him for the time. A few minutes later, the canoes entered rapids, and our boat capsized. Based on the time given by the man, the incident happened at the exact hour and minute I was born on a Wednesday in 1961. My mother and I were fine, but I lost a sweatshirt. Were we lucky not to have been hurt or worse? Yes. Was I unlucky to lose my warm clothing? Yes.

Verdict: A (river) wash. Score .5 for Lucky 13.

Many years later, in 1996, I threw a Friday the 13th party for my thirty-fifth birthday. I decorated my home with broken mirrors, a ladder, black cat, and other symbols of bad luck. I was trying to thumb my nose at the very unscientific belief that causes office buildings to be labeled as missing thirteenth floors and the Super 8 in Tilton, New Hampshire, to refrain from designating a Room #113. (Thanks, Christopher, for asking me about the latter when we stayed there nearly a month ago.) "Hahaha. You can't get me!" I taunted the God of Superstition. Sure enough, nothing terrible happened at the party.

Verdict: A success. Score 1 for Lucky 13.

My milestone 4-0 fell two days after 9/11. The whole world was in shock. I was heartbroken; likewise, my friends. They forgot about my birthday.

Verdict: Not the time to celebrate anything. Score -1 for Lucky 13.

Three months later, feeling a little gypped, I threw myself a belated party on December 13, my quarter birthday.

Verdict: A success. Score 1 for Lucky 13.

Exactly a month after my first son was born, I started dating a man whose birthday is March 13. Since our birthdays are half a year to the day from one another, I thought we might be a perfect yin/yang match. The relationship lasted three years, yet I wouldn't say it was astrologically destined.

Verdict: Score .75 for Lucky 13.

Last month I almost made a submission to a literary agent on the thirteenth. Actually, the plan had been to send in my Mad Mom memoir material via e-mail the day before, on Lucky 12/12/12. Well, things always take longer than expected, don't they? So December 12th turned into December 13th, yet that was fine with me because thirteen is my lucky number, remember?! I had two propitious days in a row to work with. BUT I hadn't planned on technical difficulties. Actually, if I'd thought about it, I would have recollected that I nearly always have computer problems whenever I am trying to send an all-important e-mail/manuscript submission to a literary agent I want to represent me. Murphy's Law every single time! Sure enough, the glitches carried over to Friday the 14th. So much for my lucky two days! Unfortunately, as we all know, the fourteenth ended up being an absolutely horrible day. After I hit "Send" in the early afternoon -- an invisible formatting kink still frustratingly embedded in the text -- I checked Facebook. Several posts from friends alluded to something tragic that had happened in the morning. Immediately, I called up AOL and was bowled over to learn about the second-deadliest school shooting in United States history: the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, my home state.

Verdict: Score -1 for Lucky 13.

I am trying to maintain high hopes for 2013, but I have gotten off to a mighty rocky start. As the clock struck 12:01 of the new year, I was already $385 in the red for not showing up for a pre-paid New Year's Eve weekend in northern New Hampshire. The issue: dangerous driving conditions due to bad weather. (See "Vacation Box of Chocolates: Franconia Fiasco Edition," 1/6/13.) Since then I have been so bogged down trying to catch up from the holidays that I have not yet been able to launch my appeal seeking a refund. What's more, just yesterday I got slammed with a $2,701.66 bill from the Toyota dealership for work to be done on my eight-year-old 4Runner, including the replacement of a leaking timing-chain cover.

Still, no matter what befalls you, you have to be optimistic in January because the year is just starting. Now is the time to set things on a positive course, even if only as an attitude adjustment.

To that end, I took my sons to Friendly's on the way home from our ill-fated trip to the north country and bought each a Vol-Cone-O. Watching them happily gobble down these unique and gigantic sundaes took me away from the frustration and stress of the weekend and steered me in a much better direction.

Verdict: Thirteen, as in 2013, is still my lucky number.

Taming the Beast

It's a new year. Time to make a resolution. Hopefully, one you and I can keep. Maybe it will be one (or both) of the most popular -- getting more exercise and losing weight -- or maybe it will be something else. Like many middle-aged women, I could stand to focus on those two, but my more critical need BY FAR is to gain control over my home. The state of my home, to be exact.

Being successful at keeping a resolution comes down to a matter of control. Control over finding the time, means, and motivation to work out. Control over what one puts in or doesn't put in one's mouth. Being housekeeping-challenged, as I am, translates into control over one's physical space. For me, that space is not only my living environment but also my workplace.

Unless I have told you, you probably wouldn't guess upon meeting me that a beast has taken over my house. That's because I hold it together pretty well in public, and my boys are the picture of health. They are smart; successful in school, sports, and other activities; and simply beautiful to behold. We have our family issues, naturally. What family doesn't? Ours come mostly from the fact that the boys are polar opposites.

Yet what has eluded me for the better part of the past near-decade since I've been a full-time single mother is the ability to keep my residence in presentable-enough condition that I feel comfortable having people over. Maintaining a home is a common challenge for any parent, but it is compounded for a single mother (especially of multiple children) because a second adult is not around to assist with taming the beast of chaos within. Add on the fact that I have no built-in support network -- family members to call on to pitch in -- and you have a sure-fire recipe for one abode in CERTIFIABLE NEED OF HELP.

Of course, I could hire someone or a team of professionals to pick up the place. I have done so in the past, though very rarely. That method costs money, however, and money for nonessentials is becoming increasingly harder to come by these days. I could ask a friend for an extra set of hands -- and I have one who's offered hers more than once -- but I have a strong sense of pride and a reluctance to ask for, or even accept, most volunteer help. It comes from a feeling of I chose to become a single mother of two children, therefore, I must accept the consequences. Figure it out for myself, in other words.

Don't misunderstand me. The beast hasn't been a constant for the ENTIRE almost-ten years. I had part-time caregivers and a boyfriend coming in the first few years of single motherhood, so I was motivated to keep my place looking halfway decent. Plus, my living quarters were much smaller: a two-bedroom city apartment. Simply put, I didn't have as much space to maintain. In early 2005, I bought a three-level townhouse with significantly more square footage in a Boston suburb. This enabled me to empty my storage unit and bring all my belongings together for the first time in five years, since I lived on the West Coast. But with the arrival the following year of Charlie, all that extra space got taken up by the additional baby equipment and storage-unit contents. (In case you're wondering how much stuff one unmarried woman could possibly accumulate, let me explain that I've singlehandedly cleaned out two houses.) Oh, I should mention that I had a dog at the time as well, so THREE small beings were underfoot.

We moved again a couple of years later. Finally, it seemed, I had enough room, though my house looks much bigger from the outside. My life was in turmoil for many reasons, including Charlie being an incredibly awful nighttime sleeper and downright nap-resistant baby and toddler. He'd sleep in the car and at day care and later preschool JUST FINE but not in my home when I wanted AND NEEDED him to! Several years into chronic fatigue syndrome by this point, I was in NO condition to gain control over my bigger home.

Things weren't always terrible. I managed during the early years of single motherhood to host playdates, occasional parties, and visits from friends. I remember a housewarming shindig and first-birthday celebration for Charlie in the townhouse. I remember a fourth-birthday fete for him in my present home featuring two ponies giving rides to the kids around our backyard. One mother remarked: "Shelby, you've set the bar pretty high for four year olds' birthday parties!" From the time Christopher was in preschool, I hosted numerous playdates. But it was cleaning the house for one that set off a chain of events that brought my ability to invite people over to a complete standstill . . . DEAD IN THE WATER.

I injured myself almost two years ago from overdoing it with the mop and scrubbing brush. Physical therapy to strengthen my back followed as did my then-boyfriend breaking up with me. (I suspect they were related.) Understandably, it was a pretty low period, and I actually became afraid to clean for fear of reinjuring myself.

When it rains, it pours! Three months later my home sustained what I call an "indoor flood" from a freak, once-in-a-lifetime toilet issue. Since it occurred on the upper level, I suffered damage on both floors after the shooting water (clean, thank God!) seeped through the hardwood floors down to my bed, another bathroom, and a third room. A giant floor-to-ceiling cabinet loaded with family stuff was upended by the water-damage cleanup people, meaning that I needed to find another place to store plates, tablecloths, my mother's first cousin's porcelain horse collection, etc. Well, it's not as if I had ANOTHER floor-to-ceiling cabinet just waiting to be stocked! Where was I going to put it all? On chairs, tables, bookshelves, and the floor.

Before long we were reduced to walking in narrow paths through the house. Fine way to live with five- and seven-year-old BOYS! NOT. And forget about indoor playing space.

It was probably several months before I got around to picking everything up off the downstairs carpets so the cleanup people could return to steam them. Yet the damage, both actual and figurative, had long been done: I now had a MUCH BIGGER job on my hands. I was exhausted, and I was defeated.

Even if I could conjure up the strength to deal with it, I wasn't in a position to at this time because I was racing to finish my book-length memoir to schlepp numerous hard copies to Seattle for a writers' conference. I planned to solicit literary agents for representation. I had paid a lot of money to go, and two families would be taking care of my kids during the five days I'd be gone. My focus was elsewhere.

Fast forward nearly a year and a half: the situation is just as bad, if not worse. I came home from Seattle to follow up on agent manuscript requests -- fyi, it's imperative to act quickly as I was vying against other writers to get mine accepted, and agents can only take on so many at a time -- teach memoir-writing for the first time in my life, prepare a workshop with a friend that has yet to find a home, and start blogging every five days beginning the first day of 2012. Keeping all the (mostly unpaid) balls in the air while, oh, yeah, raising two rambunctious young boys has not afforded me the kind of time I need to tame the beast. As months passed, the teaching schedule (and accompanying at-home work) has fluctuated. My friend and I, disappointed but not deterred, are taking a break from submitting applications to adult-ed centers. And I've pushed my blog-post deadline back to every ten days.

Still, that doesn't mean a gap has opened in my schedule to make any noticeable inroads in dealing with the beast! My older son has been given the opportunity to appear in two movies, and I've done a bit of extra work myself. Besides being fun, these pursuits bring in a little money . . . and I need to follow up on any opportunities that do. They, along with all the sports practices and games and other activities in which the boys participate, take me out of the house. I can't clean if I am literally not home, can I?

With the kids out of school in the summer, I had a lot less time to myself to tend to, well, everything! As much as I could, I chose to take the boys away camping. In fact, we doubled the number of nights spent in a tent from nine to eighteen. Don't mistake my reason for heading out of town. It was not to AVOID the beast. It was because we genuinely love sleeping and cooking outside and engaging in healthy activities such as mountain climbing, kayaking, and lake swimming in a new scenic environment. BUT did I also LOOOOVE not living with the beast? As Sarah Palin would say, "You betcha!"

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND. Don't underestimate the power of the idiom!

Then there's the issue of drumming up motivation to subjugate said beast. Not being able to invite people over has certainly cost me socially. (I've just had to suck it up.) But I need to take back control before my sons start to pay.

As boys, they are a big reason why the house is in this state to begin with. They leave their dirty clothes around. They break toys and scatter pieces far and wide. They drop food into the couch. They spill drinks on the carpet. One stops up the toilet with too much toilet paper. The other slipped a penny through the keys of my grandmother's overhauled upright Steinway. The same child poked a hole in the dining room wall. And on and on and on. Boys may not mean to cause damage, but they do from time to time.

Well, I am happy to say that my cleanup plan has finally begun . . . but only in fits and starts. Several months ago One Call Junk Haul carted away some of my unwanted or broken stuff. Last month, I gave away numerous boxes full of the boys' old clothes and baby/toddler equipment at my single mothers' meeting. Then I walked into The Container Store, newly opened down at the mall, and I was INSPIRED! Three days in a row I visited the store FOUR times, and I spent a pretty penny on colored boxes, watertight plastic containers for documents, under-the-bed containers to maximize space, a hanging shoe holder, a necklace rack, and much more -- all for the purpose of bringing some sense of order to my home.

Finding The Container Store was an epiphany for me. A Eureka! moment. Seeing all the attractive receptacles for organization helped me get psyched and envision what is possible for my home. Separating my stuff in an eye-pleasing way would keep me going through the drudgery of cleaning; putting away; and putting aside for disposal, donation, or a different outcome.

Unfortunately, the holiday season loomed shortly after I got on a roll. I stopped sorting papers and wading through the boys' schoolwork and artwork and, out of necessity, shifted gears to prepare for Christmas. So the challenge has now become getting back my drive, mustering up the energy to tackle this gargantuan house project, and carving out the time in my schedule to do so.

The calendar says January 2013. Watch out. I'm going after the beast!

Vacation Box of Chocolates: Part I (Franconia Fiasco Edition)

"Life's a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you're gonna get," Mrs. Gump explained to her son in the movie Forrest Gump.

Vacations are certainly like that, even more so if they involve children. Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE chocolate (a little too much, if truth be known), a box of chocolates (preferably multiple boxes), and the variety of flavors within.

As for the sweeping metaphor, yes, I enjoy the unpredictability of life as well. Routine has always seemed rather boring in my book. Vanilla, stagnant, tedious. Since I have a desire to shake things up, I have frequently sought out change -- in jobs, homes, areas of the country where I've lived, etc. Change keeps me engaged, motivated, and on my toes. It's just how I operate.

But there does come a point at which ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Exhibit A: Our holiday vacation.

For the past few years, we have had practically nothing to do over the long Christmas/New Year's break from school. With no family to visit -- parents, siblings, or aunts and uncles -- our calendar has been WIDE open. Most of our cousins who are still living don't reside close by, and they are busy with their own families anyway. Having no family plans is just par for the course for us at any holiday time.

The onus is on me to create plans to fill up the TWELVE AND A HALF DAYS so we don't all go STARK, RAVING CHARLIE SHEEN with nothing to do for such a long stretch. Unlike previous years when I was behind in my scheduling, I had booked a couple of activities this time that would occupy seven consecutive days, a whole week.

I was pretty proud of myself. We were in good shape.

Before Christmas I didn't have to come up with anything really because I had my hands full scrambling to get ready for the holiday: stringing the outdoor lights along the railing in the front, putting up the tree for the boys to decorate, hanging the stockings near the fireplace, and purchasing and wrapping presents for them. Racing against the December 25 deadline, several tasks went unfinished -- taping up Christmas cards arriving in the mail, composing our year-in-review newsletter, and mailing out seventy-five photo cards with the newsletters.

We went to a friend's house Christmas afternoon, and the next day Christopher was scheduled to take a three-day ski racing camp at Bradford Mountain thirty-eight minutes away. Problem was: no snow but some rain. First and second days canceled. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded it at all if the third day, Friday, was also nixed because I needed the time to get us ready for our trip to New Hampshire the following day. But it was cold enough to make snow the night before, so the third day of camp was held. With Charlie in tow, I dropped Chris off at the mountain and returned later to pick him up. Total driving time: 152 minutes.

Now before I launch into the story of the NEW YEAR'S WEEKEND TRIP FROM HELL, let me mention that one other activity involving a part of two days and two more drives of varying length materialized during this period. This was the audio and film recording of the 26 Angels video
dedicated to the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims. Created to raise money to build and
beautify a memorial park, it has now been seen by more than 11,000 people on YouTube. I wrote about it in my last post, and it was clearly the high point (VERY HIGH!!!) of our vacation.

Now onto the fiasco.

On Saturday afternoon, we were due in Franconia, NH, at a rustic lodge. (For the uninformed,
 witFranconia is way up there, not far from Vermont -- the northeastern section of the state -- and not such a long way from Canada.) We would stay three nights with an Appalachian Mountain Club family group. The trip cost me $385 for accommodations and meals during that time for the three of us. We would ring in the new year with these people, the rest of whom (or almost all of them anyway) had arrived the previous afternoon. I hadn't wanted to stay four nights due to the higher cost, and that option conflicted with the ski camp anyway. Two nights felt too short for such a long drive, considering that we'd be attempting to fit in skiing, skating, and/or sledding during the days. I was afraid of wearing myself out -- always my primary consideration whenever we go away.

Three nights, on the other hand, felt Goldilocks just right . . . until I saw the weather forecast: a SNOWSTORM! The snow we hadn't gotten in time for the ski camp was coming in time for my THREE-AND-A-HALF-HOUR drive! Just my luck. I would have preferred to have arrived around noon to avoid the afternoon storm, but check-in was at 3 p.m. It looked like we might get caught smack dab in the middle of the swirling white stuff.

And that, of course, is exactly what happened! We hit the storm at the I-93 tolls in Hooksett. No warning flakes, just full-blown snow as I rolled down my window and reached into my purse for $1.00. The driving was slow going until it came to a complete stop just south of Tilton after a pickup truck slid off the road. I was not enjoying this driving, and there would be plenty more of it as I had MILES to go before even REACHING the White Mountain National Forest. (Franconia is just beyond it.)

Did I mention that I've crashed two cars in winter driving? The first: my post-college-graduation Nissan Sentra (totaled on black ice near Killington, Vermont, in a 140-vehicle, four-mile-long chain reaction). And my second -- my brand new Toyota 4Runner (rendered undrivable on New Year's
Day '98 after my then-boyfriend yelled at me to change lanes on a snowy/icy highway in British Columbia). Thanks a lot, E!

So, feeling unsafe, I got off in Tilton and checked into a Super 8. It would have been foolhardy to continue to drive to Franconia in those conditions and downright negligent with my two young sons in the back! In fact, I learned at KFC -- we trudged there through the snow for dinner -- that twenty cars had crashed earlier in the day on the highway in New Hampton just north of where we got off. Twelve in the northbound lanes and eight across from them heading south.

The next day I decided to take the boys to Gunstock Mountain in nearby Gilford. We were too far from Franconia to arrive in time for breakfast at the lodge. Since sandwiches were going to be packed then as well, we would also be missing lunch! My room charge at the motel included breakfast, so we would take advantage of that and grab lunch at Gunstock. We would leave the mountain early to make the Franconia check-in before dark -- twenty-four hours late.

Meanwhile, I had been in sporadic cell-phone contact with the trip leaders and was feeling agitated from discussing the lost night and lost meals (read: LOST MONEY). For example, I had suggested that the group save meals for us. Like leftovers from a restaurant, I could take the food home at the end of the trip. Very simple. But the trip leaders were not amenable to my idea. First it wasn't understood that I was talking about the meals AFTER preparation, not the separate ingredients BEFORE they became various dishes. Then the roadblock shifted to the containers. "We have nothing to put the food in," I was told. So I volunteered to pick up some containers on my way, my head spinning with thoughts of using our KFC trash (and that from breakfast at the Super 8) as containers to avoid spending any MORE extra money. Well, the trip leaders pooh-poohed that suggestion as well, saying they didn't think sending me home with "soggy eggs" was the way to go.

Hey, LISTEN UP! Since I PAID for those soggy eggs, I'LL decide whether I want to keep them or not. News flash: I WANT TO KEEP THEM!!! But no. The trip leaders wanted to send me home with nonperishables. I could just see it now: "Here, Shelby," one of them would chirp as she handed me a giant can of green beans as some kind of supremely lousy $385 consolation prize!

Well, nothin' doin'!

My stress only grew worse at Gunstock. We got a late start to the mountain. (I was enjoying breakfast too much.) The drive over took more time than expected. It was VERY cold and windy, and six-year-old Charlie was unhappy with the long walk from the parking lot. It would be a really short ski day, but after all that effort I couldn't exactly say no to the day's plans. After obtaining Charlie's rentals, a helmet for Christopher, and three tickets, we hiked uphill to the quad chair taking us to the trails named Upper Smith and Smith. Though they are blue squares, I felt confident Charlie could handle them. He'd been on intermediate trails before, and the few inches of fresh powder would make it easier and slower to ski . . . not to mention more fun!

Alas, again things didn't turn out as hoped for or expected. Since it was now afternoon, the snow had been skied off in the middle of the trails, and it was tough moving to the side with the skiers and boarders of all stripes whizzing by at breakneck speed. Charlie grew frustrated fast after taking a number of tumbles and getting snow trapped in his mittens and boots. I've skied the Smiths before but certainly not with a first grader (or third grader). So what I found not steep myself suddenly felt like a double black diamond (expert trail) now that I was responsible for my own young children!

Halfway down, Charlie staged a revolt. He screamed and -- like Bill Murray in Moonrise Kingdom -- threw a mitten at me. (It was a loafer in the movie.) Then he took off his skis and began stomping his way down the mountain. No amount of cajoling could change his mind about skiing, and the fact that the only green circle (beginner trail) was a LOOOOONG walk away certainly didn't help matters. He was done for the day. DONE. I carried his skis the rest of the way then headed for the ticket booth. I got my $108 back for the three lift tickets and $34 for the rentals. We then snagged a quick lunch and ride to our parking lot via a shuttle van.

The driver directed me back to the highway for our second attempt at reaching Franconia. But a lot of time was lost because she sent me THE LONG WAY. In heading west, I was also traveling south back to Tilton instead of north through Weirs Beach! Crap. Why didn't I check the map first instead of blindly taking her word for it?!

In the late afternoon of Sunday, it was very windy on the highway as I raced against daylight. I needed to arrive at our destination as soon as possible because I didn't want to be ALONE WITH TWO CHILDREN on the SNOWY roads in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE searching for the lodge in the DARK. With each passing mile and minute, I was growing increasingly tense and anxious as it looked more and more likely that I would not achieve my goal for the SECOND time this trip.

And then . . . the nail in the proverbial coffin: a neon sign overhead reading BLACK ICE POSSIBLE. Are you $&@?@ kidding me??? No, it was not a joke. Let me tell you: there is nothing that sign could say that would freak me out more. SERIAL KILLER AHEAD? Scary, but I could drive past. TORNADO ZONE? Turn around and drive south. AGENT ORANGE ATTACK? Lock the windows, kids! Okay, exaggeration yet you get my drift. Black ice terrifies me! I totaled a car on it. I will not drive on it, so I got off at the next exit in Lincoln. Comfort Inn: booked full. A hotel/resort whose name I've since forgotten: too expensive, though we could have stayed there for free if I'd been permitted to sit through a two-hour presentation the next day. I would have done it, but I was disqualified because I'm not married. (No comment.) EconoLodge: just right. Feeling like Goldilocks again. (Insert smiley, happy face.)

Let's get real.

I'd found a place for us for the night. However, that meant MORE money escaping my wallet like BP oil out of the Deepwater Horizon and many MORE trips from the car to the room and back transferring all our stuff -- three pairs of skis, three pairs of boots, two pairs of poles, two small backpacks or larger bags per person, snack bags, and extra coats that didn't fit in bags. Bags, bags, bags! It was a nightmare. I really couldn't believe it was happening, not to mention how mortified I was to have to place yet ANOTHER call to the trip leaders. I felt like a big fool, a giant wimp (new title for my blog: Diary of a Wimpy Mom), and a major Loser.

Yes, with a capital "L."

I envisioned the people in Franconia laughing at me. "Who is this bimbo who can't get to the lodge in TWO days from only ONE state away?" Needless to say, I'd lost my motivation to spend New Year's Eve with these "meanies." NYE is a special night -- meant to be shared with a person or people in your life you are close to. I knew one of the trip leaders from my single mother's support group and the AMC of the early '90s when I took courses, got certified to be a hiking/backpacking trip leader (she was one of the instructors who signed my certificate!), and flew out to Wyoming with her and two other hardcore AMC-ers to climb Gannett Peak. But I did not know the rest in Franconia, though I believe the other leader also ran the family camping trip we took to Cape Cod three summers ago. That adventure was noteworthy for Charlie getting lost on crowded Dennis Beach. Yet I do not remember this woman. If anything, she probably had a negative view of me/us from my wild then-preschooler's behavior at that time.

The Franconia Families had been bonding since Friday night. Showing up on Monday for one night only would feel AWKWARD. Temperatures hadn't risen before breakfast to even make me feel confident I wouldn't hit black ice during the remaining twenty minutes of driving. Plus, I was exhausted from all the moving around, lugging of SUV contents, intense road conditions, confrontational conversations with the trip leaders, waiting for callbacks from them for messages I left, and refereeing of my rowdy boys away from home. NO energy remained to accommodations-hop yet again to a lodge even FARTHER from home and where a ONE YEAR OLD (maybe a poor sleeper) was part of the group.

By Day 3, the idea of pushing on to Franconia SHATTERED my cardinal rule of single-mother traveling: Will taking this trip make me more wiped out than before I left? YES!!! It was settled. We stayed NYE as well at the Econolodge, swam in the pool, soaked in the jacuzzi (ahh!), and went to a movie.

Under the heading of ADDING INSULT TO INJURY: the last time I spoke to one of the trip leaders, she informed me that we could have arrived BEFORE the designated 3 p.m. check-in time the first day to avoid the snowstorm that started the chain reaction of problems! Again, I ask, "Are you &@$?! kidding me?!" The e-mail clearly stated the check-in time, and NOWHERE in the information provided did it state anyone would even be at the lodge at other times during the day to let us in! It seemed to me that everyone skedaddled right after breakfast to go skiing, sledding, and skating and didn't return until late afternoon. Well, I was understandably PISSED, and my head was splitting from the most intense headache of my life consuming the entire right side of my skull.

"Happy New Year!" said this trip leader as we concluded our last frustrating conversation.

"Happy New Year," I gritted through my teeth, the angriest new year greeting ever uttered.

I returned to my room and collapsed on my bed. I spent the day under the covers succumbing to my paralyzing headache and worrying that I was having a brain aneurysm like Sharon Stone when she was married to that journalist whose foot was attacked by a Kimodo dragon. My boys, meanwhile, were happy as clams catching a coincidental double dose each of Nanny McPhee (the original and Nanny McPhee Returns) and The Fairly Oddparents (the animated TV show and live-action movie called A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!) over the course of the ill-fated weekend. Weird. In the afternoon, I felt well enough to take them to Parental Guidance. (Hey, we had to do SOMETHING fun out on NYE!)

It was at the movie theater that I met a couple who had spun out and crashed on the highway black ice just before reaching the neon warning sign and about ninety minutes after I came through that area. "You did the right thing," they assured me about getting off the next exit. The sentiment was repeated by our waiter at dinner. Like the couple, he said the roads were worse that night than he'd ever remembered them in twenty-five years.

I may have been a punchline up in Franconia, but I feel good about the decisions I made under very trying conditions with the information I had at the time. I kept my sons safe, and that's all that really matters.

As I try to recoup $385, let's just hope the top brass at the Appalachian Mountain Club agrees. What a way to start the new year!

"26 Angels"

I had planned to write a Christmas blog post, or maybe even two. The stress of holiday preparations, perhaps. Creating family traditions, definitely. That post was under way.

But then a severely troubled young man with access to his mother's cache of guns unleashed his fury on twenty-six innocent lives at the purest of places: an elementary school. Twenty of the Newtown, Connecticut, victims were children -- first graders, in fact, just like my son Charlie.

Like the rest of America, I am heartbroken. These were six and seven years olds just beginning their lives. They were playing soccer, drawing pictures, building with Legos, drumming, baking cookies, and buying toys for needy kids. They were in their first year of Daisy Scouts and Little League. They adored their parents, helped their younger siblings, and loved school. Looking at my son, I cannot fathom the depth of the pain the families are experiencing right now and during the Christmas season to boot!

Connecticut is my home state. I grew up only thirty-five miles south of Newtown -- in the very same county, by the way. So I have wanted to help. Well, this week I got my chance.

As part of my ongoing networking effort on behalf of my older son, I joined a Facebook page on Friday for parents of child actors in the area. Immediately, I saw a notice seeking children for a tribute video for the victims' families that would be posted on YouTube. All monies raised from the video would be donated to build and beautify a memorial park at the site of the shootings. I contacted the video's director, and Christopher was accepted for the project that evening. Less than two days later, we headed to Manchester, NH, for the audio recording in a studio atop an old mill building. And today the video was shot in the Andover, MA, High School auditorium.

My eyes welled up with tears as I listened to the brave boys and girls assembled from across New England sing the chorus to 26 Angels, a song written and performed by Justin Cohen and accompanied by five other musicians. Boston filmmaker Ben Proulx directed the children as they represented the twenty youngest victims. Each child sang while holding a sign dedicated to a Sandy Hook Elementary School student.

Christopher decorated the sign honoring Chase Kowalski, a blond-haired and blue-eyed boy just full of life. By all accounts, he was an absolute dynamo -- very much like Charlie. He loved watching the New York Yankees, riding his bike and a four-wheeled quad, being a Tiger Scout, playing baseball, swimming in a lake, and enjoying the outdoors in any and every capacity. When he was six, he won his first-ever triathlon. Yes, triathlon! If Chase wasn't a star, I don't know who is.

Now he and his equally beautiful and impressive classmates are angels forever.

Psychologically Protecting Kids: One Size Does Not Fit All

The most important job of a parent is to protect his or her child in every way possible, both physically and psychologically. The latter half of this duty has been severely put to the test by Friday's horrific acts of violence at a Connecticut elementary school.

Should parents tell their children about the mass killings of adults and first-graders? If they don't, will the kids hear about the tragedy at school from friends and become afraid that the same thing might happen to them? If parents do, will the children grow too fearful to return to school? It's been hard to know what to do.

In my case, I had some precedents. I had to put my nearly fifteen-year-old bichon frise down when Christopher was three. Sparkplug had become blind, had fallen off my back deck, and could no longer control his bowels. He was having frequent accidents on the carpet where Charlie was learning to crawl. Sparky was in bad shape, so I had to make a tough decision. Since Christopher naturally adored Sparky and had always lived with him, I needed to address the subject of death with my preschooler. I was torn about how to approach the matter, but then I found a beautiful children's book called Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant. It describes a joyful place where dogs live after they have left Earth. Showing the book to Christopher was the perfect way to let my son know that his precious doggie was gone. Later, I occasionally discovered Christopher looking at the book on his own. He was missing Sparkplug and seeking comfort.

A couple of years later, I was faced with another dilemma when a friend of his and Charlie's from preschool died from a brain tumor. This boy, only five at the time, was in between my sons in terms of age. So when we had C over once to our house, the three-way playdate worked really well. I was devastated by the news and again stymied as to how to handle it with my boys. After much thought, I decided not to tell my sons. C lived in the city next door and had graduated to kindergarten there, so he was no longer in school with Christopher and Charlie at the time he died. He had basically moved off our radar screen by virtue of living in a different community and attending a different school. It's one of the most common rules in the book: You simply lose touch to one extent or another when your commonality (in this case, the preschool) is no longer there. My boys knew he had gone to kindergarten, and they had plenty of other friends to occupy their time. I could avoid the situation. They were far too young to learn of a peer and friend having died, I felt. Hence, I kept my mouth shut, and it never became an issue . . . other than eliciting from the preschool director and her assistant assurances that C's death would not be spoken of at all in front of the children.

This time around I had several factors to weigh in making my decision about what to do. And, yes, I did make a decision that I followed through on just tonight. As the Newtown incident happened on a Friday, I (and other parents) had all weekend to mull the situation over before sending our little ones off to school tomorrow morning.

First, I thought about Christopher. He is a nine-year-old third-grader with a broad understanding of the world as well as past and current events. He knows John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while president. He knows terrorists masterminded and carried out the deadly 9/11 attacks. He knows Michael Jackson died from prescription drugs. He knows about the day-after-Christmas earthquake/tsunami, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster, and the H.M.S. Bounty replica that he toured on September 1 going down in Hurricane Sandy. He knows about the big news events because he has seen or heard about them on TV or from me.

Christopher is the little man in my house. He is smart, mature, sensitive, and grounded. From a very young age, he has shown interest in, well, just about everything. I made a conscious decision not to talk down to him or baby him when he was clearly beyond that. I exposed him to Harry Potter at age five, and he immediately loved hearing me read the books to him. We watched the films as soon as they came out, and now we own every single one. I took him to Hugo, and he wants to see Lincoln next.

Knowing Christopher as I do, I felt strongly that he would be able to handle the news of Newtown, Connecticut, with just the right amount of concern, sensitivity, and anger -- and, yes, I believe it is completely appropriate for a mature third-grader to feel, and be instructed to feel, anger toward senseless gun violence. I resolved to tell him. But when? And would he have already heard the news?

Christopher was performing in a holiday show all weekend. Five performances in four days, to be exact. I needed to find the time to tell him, but I also needed to avoid rattling him before he went on stage. Then there was the issue of all the other children in the show, most of whom were older than my son and more likely to have learned about the carnage. Would Christopher overhear kids talking about it? Or might he stumble upon the news at his brother's well-attended basketball clinic Saturday morning?

Fortunately, neither scenario panned out, paving the way for me to break the news early tonight when I took him aside in his bedroom after returning from the last performance. I didn't want to upset his sleep if I could help it, so I spoke to him sooner rather than later. This was the best I could do under the circumstances because explaining the situation tomorrow morning right before sending him off to school, of all places, would obviously be far from ideal!

Well, I am relieved to report that Christopher handled our talk just as I expected he would -- and even asked me afterward if we could drive down to Newtown to support the grieving families.

What a great boy! I am so proud of him.

Next up: Charlie, my tough-as-nails six year old. Even though he is only twenty-nine months Christopher's junior, I couldn't simply lump them together by sitting them down for a one-size-fits-all family explanation. I felt I must respect the fact that Charlie is younger and, therefore, less mature in every way than his brother. The child shooting victims were, tragically, Charlie's age -- one of them only three days older, in fact. So how would it feel to hear that your exact peers in the state next door were gunned down in their own elementary school? Downright terrifying and confusing, I would imagine.

Thus, while Charlie also has had early exposure to Harry Potter, the fate of the H.M.S. Bounty -- I wanted both boys to know because it was personal to us -- and some other rather grown-up or unfortunate real-life stories, the slaughtering of these sweet innocents in the Nutmeg State crosses the line of being WAY TOO MUCH for Charlie or any other first-grader to hear about. If my son happens to learn something from someone else, I will deal with it with him at that time. But the principal of his school has assured parents via e-mail that no staff members will provide information about the situation with students.

Wise move.

Sayonara, False Threat Queen!

I've turned over a new leaf. I'm playing hardball. I've said goodbye to the False Threat Queen. That's right! No more giving in to bad behavior.

Now I can't say I won't allow certain privileges, like use of a Nintendo DSi XL, that help mitigate a particular situation -- in fact, I have already done just that since changing my ways -- but I will say NO to the big treats the misbehaving child doesn't deserve.

Let me explain. Last Saturday I was planning to take my boys to Rhode Island for a fun overnight with friends. We hadn't been away for a night since the summer, so we were way overdue. We always have a great time with these people but, due to distance and busy schedules, do not get to see one another often at all. Until a month ago, we hadn't managed a face-to-face since the end of June 2011 when Christopher, then seven, was cast as an extra in "Moonrise Kingdom." Our friends put us up for one night as we needed to spend two days in their state while Chris got fitted for his costume, was given a '60s-style haircut, and shot his scene in a Newport church. Then, with schools closed on Election Day last month, we rendezvoused in Boston at the Museum of Science. The visit lasted only a couple of hours because we had to hightail it to Gloucester (one-plus hours away) for Christopher's afternoon holiday-show rehearsal. Not time enough to get through either the special SHIPWRECK!: Pirates and Treasure or Mammoths and Mastodons exhibits.

Argh.

Yet these people are much more than friends to us. They are family. Not the family I was born into but the family I created when I chose to become a mother in an unconventional way. My friends' children are half-siblings of my boys through their anonymous-donor father. S is one month to the day older than Christopher, and N is two years to the day younger than six-and-a-half-year-old Charlie. (March 25th is quite a milestone day, indeed, as it is also the anniversary of my mother's death.)

The kids get along great, and I am very fond of their two fun moms. If I met them in my town or in any other way, I would want them to be my friends. I consider myself very lucky to have them in my modern family.

Since not all of the moms are on board yet with disclosing to the kids our connection to one another, we just refer to each other as "friends." It has been tough for me to keep the secret from my boys, but I have parceled out hints. Christopher and Charlie know they have half-siblings scattered across the U.S., and they know they have met one family of them. I haven't revealed which one. "It could be a family in our town, a family we know out of town, or a family we know out of state," I've said cryptically.

Then I have asked each boy to guess which family it might be, and they both guess this family. Perhaps it is because I have described this family as "special" to us. Perhaps it is because this family, like ours, has no father in it. Or perhaps it is because my smart boys sense a different kind of kinship with the daughter and son. Indeed, part of our enjoyment in spending time together is watching the children interact with one another -- how they immediately fall into good-pal mode despite not seeing one another for a long time and how Charlie (my rambunctious one) leads N in fun, boyish physical activities like a sweet big brother.

It is beautiful to watch the four of them together.

Now in order for me to make the ninety-minute trip down to their house in Rhode Island and return the next day, I need to feel fairly rested. The problem is: I frequently don't feel this way. I suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome for about four and a half years, so I have to pace myself. Or I will seriously regret it.

When it comes to the Rhode Island family, however, I have pushed myself beyond my limit because I haven't wanted to cancel plans once they are finally made. But last Saturday, a new problem arose: it was SNOWING! The first real snow of the season, though it didn't accumulate in our area and barely stuck on the ground at all. I even forgot to pick up a handful, and now I've lost my chance. Driving in the snow is NOT one of my favorite activities, especially at the very beginning of the season when I (and everyone else) are out of practice. Still, I was willing to do it that day because I needed the happy break that visiting the family always provides. I envisioned watching the daughter play basketball then going back to their house for a pizza, beer, and salad dinner; relaxing with good conversation, heaps of laughter, and a child-friendly animated movie -- it was "Despicable Me" last year -- and retiring for the night with my boys on the carpet of their renovated basement floor. (I like camping, whether it's outdoors or indoors.) In the morning, we would all eat a big, leisurely breakfast then leave in time to make it back to Gloucester for that show rehearsal at noon again.

Given the snow, I needed to be EXTRA rested for the drive. I expressed that sentiment to the boys that morning. In other words, DON'T GIVE ME ANY DRAMA! But Charlie The Younger lives in his own world, so he ignored my plea and launched into his usual routine of tackling Christopher in too rough a manner. The protests erupted; the tears flowed; and the retaliatory fighting ensued, prompting more protests and tears. And it escalated. I got mad and separated the boys.

I CAN'T STAND this behavior of Charlie's. It is my single biggest problem with the boys when it comes to family dynamics. It would be one thing if Christopher liked the roughhousing. Then it would only be a matter of making sure they kept it under control so no one got hurt. But that is not what I have on my hands. I have two boys pretty close in age who are opposites in terms of their personalities and interests. I am perpetually being put in the position of having to referee these skirmishes, physically break apart the boys (not easy to do without reinjuring my fifty-one-year-old back), and punish the offending party (Charlie, always Charlie).

Then there's Christopher. He also HATES it when Charlie invades his space and won't leave him alone. He runs to his room (well, their room) and starts to scream, "I hate you! I wish I didn't have a brother! I can't go on like this!"

The truth is: NEITHER ONE OF US CAN GO ON LIKE THIS.

And that is why I decided on Saturday that the buck stops here. I was going to set an example. I would lay down my iron fist. I canceled the trip to the Ocean State. I announced my decision in the car on the way home from Charlie's basketball clinic and the bank. "As much as I wanted to go to Rhode Island, I agree with you that you have to cancel the trip," said Christopher, who is mature way beyond his nine years.

"Snow, snow, snow," said Charlie, trying not to take responsibility for his behavior and instead blame my decision on my not wanting to drive in the snow.

NOTHIN' DOIN'. I was not about to let Charlie believe for ONE SECOND that he wasn't the cause of the change in plans, "NO, Charlie, YOU ruined our weekend with your bad behavior this morning. I would have driven in the snow if I had felt rested enough. But you WORE ME OUT before 10 a.m. You made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to be able to make the drive," I said.

"Snow, snow, snow," Charlie kept muttering.

Frustrated, depleted, and depressed, I informed the boys back at the house that I was off duty for the rest of the day, and they had to entertain themselves without fighting -- in the house. Yes, they could use technology. It was a very quiet afternoon and evening as the severity of what Charlie had done sunk in. I retreated to Facebook to reach out to my friends, and they responded in full force with praise for my decision. It seems it is very common among mothers to threaten to cancel impending fun plans when a child is misbehaving . . . but it is equally common to fail to follow through because the parent wants the fun plans to happen, too! One friend summed the problem up by calling herself the False Threat Queen. Then she gave me permission to borrow the catchy moniker. I was very grateful to be able to communicate with my friends under our stuck-in-the-house circumstances. They made me feel much better, though I by no means felt good.

As the afternoon progressed, photos of an event occurring in our town began to pop up on my Facebook page. It was Santa's arrival by boat. He was accompanied into the harbor by stand-up paddleboarding elves. I kid you not. Only a quaint coastal town such as ours could dream up such a unique Christmas festivity. Well, I couldn't exactly reward a badly behaving child with a trip to the park to meet Santa now, could I? Certainly not. If I'd had more time between returning from the bank and the start of the event, I might have thought to call the mothers of some of Christopher's friends to ask if they could take my obedient son. But I was still processing what went down that morning. My head wasn't clear enough for me to come up with an alternative plan. Besides, I didn't know how Charlie would take it if Christopher was allowed to leave the house. He might have staged some kind of a revolt -- a possibility I was not willing to risk given the fact that things had calmed down since we'd gotten home.

Instead, I made a point of showing Charlie the Facebook photos. "See? This is what we ALSO couldn't go to because of your bad behavior," I said. Charlie is a tough kid. Looking at the photos did not faze him, at least not outwardly. It was only after I'd scrolled through quite a few that he finally pulled the red blanket on his lap over his head. For his part, Christopher continued to support my efforts to drive the point home with Charlie that what he did had consequences and would not be tolerated in the future.

It has been five days since I canceled the trip to Rhode Island, and I have to say Charlie's behavior has improved considerably. Just to be sure my clamping down has made an impact, however, I have followed it up with two more actions designed to keep him in line.

The first is setting up an Elf on the Shelf in the family room, the room where we spend most of our time. According to Christmas tradition, the slender, red-suited male doll watches the behavior of children in the home by day and reports back to Santa by night. This is how he knows who's naughty and who's nice. When the elf returns from the North Pole each morning, he plants himself in a new location in the home.

We have named our elf Larry. Charlie's choice was Mike but -- in a rare and most-welcome show of giving in (good boy, Charlie!) -- he agreed to Christopher's pick, which was the name Lily on "Modern Family" gave her baby brother when it looked like her two dads Cam and Mitch would be getting one via a surrogate. Christopher and I, of course, love "Modern Family" and watch it religiously together every week.

The second additional step I have taken is to make a clear, bold sign delineating the house rules. The collection of NOs, now prominently displayed on a family-room wall, covers the gamut of Charlie's bad behavior at home from just-for-the-heck-of-it screaming to unwanted roughhousing that leads into fighting in all its various forms both verbal and physical. The sign will remain on the wall permanently as a constant reminder of what is not allowed.

Something tells me Larry will be sticking around through the off season as well!

Why I Love My Thanksgiving Angels

I have the best Thanksgiving angels.

I don't know who they are going to be each year until they appear, and sometimes they don't appear . . . but that's okay. In case you're wondering, a Thanksgiving angel is a loving, generous person who steps forward before the holiday and invites you and, if you have them, your children over on Thanksgiving.

For the past sixteen years, I have needed Thanksgiving angels because I have had no plans on Turkey Day, no place to go. Thanksgiving is the penultimate family holiday, and I no longer have my birth family. My father died in 1986 and my mother in '95. Oh, and I am an only child. I am aware this is a pretty unusual situation for someone my age, but this is MY situation so I accept it.

What choice do I have?

When I was growing up, things were very different for me on Thanksgiving. We had concrete plans just about every year. First, we would stop at my paternal aunt's house in the Connecticut town next door to our own. I'd stand with the adults sipping my Canada Dry ginger ale like a small grownup while my first cousins once removed who were my age ran around and played with all manner of toys in the large house atop a long, winding driveway. I wanted to stay and join in the play, but we were off in no time to another destination, leaving me with a palpable feeling of longing and regret.

We were headed to my maternal cousin B's house in Greenwich, one more town over and just a fifteen-minute drive from our home in Darien. B is my first cousin yet, like all of my first cousins on both sides of the family, he is much older than me. His four children -- my first cousins once removed -- are my age. B's sister attended this Thanksgiving celebration as well. She lived in Manhattan with her husband and four daughters, also my age. Headed by another cousin of B's, a third family with four sons also my age came as well. Other stray relatives showed up from time to time such as my widower uncle in the early years or an elderly single woman whose exact relation to the family I can't quite place.

You can only imagine how I, the lone only child in the younger generation, felt about these gatherings involving three families of four children each. I LOVED them. TWELVE girls and boys in one fell swoop! TWELVE. For one day nearly every year, I was surrounded by all these relatives my age. It was fantastic. I got to talk to them and play touch football with them like the Kennedys. Then there was the feast -- my favorite meal of the year -- laid out amidst an array of polished silver candlesticks, delicate glass serving dishes, and a beautiful seasonal tablecloth. Turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and side dishes galore including the absolutely yummy sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top. Martha Stewart would have issued her stamp of approved and then some.

Unfortunately, Thanksgiving Day was also bittersweet for me because it came to an end, and I literally didn't see these people again till the following year unless someone in the family got married or died. My parents didn't socialize with the adult relatives and not residing in our town, though two out of three of the families lived within a fifteen-minute radius and the third just an hour away, they did not come into contact with us unless something was planned. Invariably, it was not.

I attended this gathering, which changed homes as B's family moved within the same town and B's sister was able to accommodate the group once her family moved out of the city to Connecticut, from as early as I can remember through the deaths of both of my parents. A couple of years thrown in there the party didn't happen (or perhaps we weren't invited) as I remember one or two Thanksgiving meals eaten at local restaurants. (My mother wasn't a cook.) Then in 1982 -- thirty years ago this year -- my father suffered a near-fatal aortic aneurysm at home on Thanksgiving Day. My father and I didn't make it to the party, though my mother did, briefly. (Don't ask.) Other than these few aberration years, the gathering of cousins was a steady gig I looked forward to all year long.

It was SO important to me, in fact, that I planned to keep on attending even after moving across country to Seattle following my mother's passing. The year she died I delayed my move until after Thanksgiving, and the next year I took a trip back East to coincide with the holiday so I could see my cousins. However, the following year B's wife pulled the proverbial rug out from under me during a long-distance phone call to Seattle. Her family had decided not to host Thanksgiving that year, she said. The three families would be celebrating separately . . . and that was the way it was going to be from then on is the way I understood it.

Alas, Thanksgiving as I knew it had come to an end. Just like that. My favorite day had suddenly become my least favorite day as I wondered how on earth I was going to spend the rest of those Thursdays in November and be happy about them. So began my sixteen years of fending for myself on America's premier family holiday.

Incidentally, I learned some years later through one of the families that the three had NOT gone their separate ways after all, at least not every year. Two of the families were still celebrating together regularly, and I suspect the third joined in from time to time as well since that family was actually the closer one in terms of familial relations. Liars.

What's this? An eleventh-hour invite to a gathering one other aberration year came my way many years later when B's wife let it accidentally slip in a birthday card to me something to the effect of "Hope to see you at R's house on Thanksgiving." (R is B's eldest son and the person who had taken up the mantle of holding the holiday get-togethers). Was I actually going to be invited again? Well, no, I wasn't supposed to be. R inferred as much when he placed a call to me just days before the holiday telling me what time to arrive "according to the written invitations that went out to everyone" else. I suspect I was proffered the backhanded invitation because I had mentioned B's wife's comment in the card to me to another first cousin of mine along with the information that I had been shut out of the party for the past seven years. I asked the other first cousin -- a kind and well-intentioned man -- if he was behind me getting the phone invite. He denied it, but I don't believe him.

Honesty is the characteristic I value most in a person.

Not expecting an invitation from the cousins, I made other plans for the holiday that year. Well, it just so happened that our Thanksgiving angels lived only one Massachusetts town over from R. How about that for a coincidence?! So I told R we could stop by for a little while. And that's exactly what my son Christopher (then only a baby), my boyfriend at the time, and I did.

However, R decided to humiliate me in front of everyone as we excused ourselves to go to the home of our Thanksgiving angels as planned AND as I had told him on the phone about THREE times. (He had called me back repeatedly to make sure we were coming, and I had each time reminded him that we were eating dinner at the other house per our first invitation). "You're LEEEAAAVING???" R bellowed, as we said our goodbyes and thank yous and made our way to the door, to which the others -- not privy to the fact that I had made our plans CRYSTAL CLEAR to R -- piled on with disparaging harumphs and outright abuse. My boyfriend, who had never met these people, was justifiably horrified! As was I.

I have neither seen nor spoken to R since.

If you're thinking to yourself at this point, wow, what shitty people, let me say just two things: 1. You haven't heard the half of it. 2. You're not the first to come up with that particular descriptive adjective in this context. My former psychotherapist in Seattle beat you to it by about thirteen years.

I can't recall what I did every single Thanksgiving since 1997 when B's wife placed that call to me in Seattle. I know I spent a few of them alone, maybe eating frozen pizza or going to a movie. One year a friend from a writing class invited me to her friend's celebration because she was estranged from her own parents. Lo and behold, the friend of the friend decided at the last minute to disinvite me because she'd never met me.

But more often than not, I have happy stories to tell surrounding the holiday, and many of them involve my Thanksgiving angels.

Here is a sampling of some of these wonderful people: Ju is a hilarious cousin once removed on the paternal side of my family. Ra is a friend from my Christian Science camp in Maine growing up. (Also hilarious). We were somewhat subversive cabin counselors together. The party at Ra's house, which happens to be located in my very first hometown of Katonah, New York, was highlighted by the setting off of very cool radio-controlled rockets. Christopher, then a preschooler, was allowed to press the button. We went to Ra's house a couple of times, but it was very far away. Re is a woman from my single mothers' support group. My boys had fun playing with her young twin daughters. Ja is a lovely woman who lives in my town. With her parents and brother visiting from the Midwest, she opened her home to my family and another from the elementary school. T was my Thanksgiving angel this year, inviting us to her beachfront home with many others: Ja's family, another third-grade mother whose children spent the holiday with her ex, a Guatemalan exchange student, members of T's extended family, and her husband's water-polo-playing nephew attending Harvard.

The gorgeous day turned into a starry night and the warmest I ever remember for a Thanksgiving. We went outside to the beach after a scrumptious dinner and stood around a huge bonfire built by T's husband.

My Thanksgiving angels mean the world to me.