To V & K on a Very Important Anniversary

For a chick who sometimes forgets where she parks her car, I have startling recall of certain events.  For example, I remember the warm, sunny afternoon of Tuesday, September 2^nd 2008 with perfect clarity. It was just after the long Labor Day weekend.  I was sitting at my desk, typing an email to someone I would rather have swallowed a cyanide capsule than spoken with, (and I’m pretty sure that sentiment was mutual, because this was back in my lawyering days), when my phone rang.    A woman named Olga called to tell me about a couple in Illinois who expected a baby in early December.  They’d reviewed our “Dear Birthparents” package and chosen us.

First thing I did?  Burst into tears.  Well, first I closed my office door, and then I burst into tears.  Joy, panic, hope, anxiety – I couldn’t hold it all in.  Hubs and I had undertaken the adoption process with cautious optimism.  Our motto?  “Who knows, it just might work out.”  But deep down, I think we both feared we didn’t have a prayer of winning the pageant of potential parents.   I mean, in our birthparent brochure we used our best photos and tried to highlight anything we’d done that could arguably be called an accomplishment, but c’mon, we’re no Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Yet you guys chose us for this incredible gift, which forces me to believe in miracles.  A few days later, we all talked on the phone for the first time, and I could have cried again … this time with relief.   I came to the call 100% certain I would screw things up somehow, and send you running for the hills, but you were both so kind, and funny and human.   During our conversation, and the ones that followed, you taught me a thing or two about complicated circumstances and overloaded plates, and handling a tough decision with faith and grace.  That too was a gift.

In late November Hubs and I flew to Kentucky to spend Thanksgiving with his family, but, before that, to drive to Illinois and, gulp, meet you in person.  There is this little shred of fatalism adoptive parents hold fast to, no matter how well everything seems to be going.   As soon as you’re matched, it seems like you hear every rocky, messy, or plain-old jacked-up adoption story in the universe.  The agency suggests you not schedule the baby shower until after the birth, and keep receipts for all the baby stuff purchased ahead of time.  Just in case.  So, with all the precautionary advice swirling in our heads, words can’t really describe how nervous we were to meet you, and how absolutely petrified that we wouldn’t measure up to your long-distance perception of us.    Every once in a while during the drive Hubs would squeeze my hand, smile and say, “It just might work out.”

It did, of course.  You guys were lovely, and welcoming, and just as nervous as us.  Who knew?  By the time we headed back to Kentucky, I felt slightly calmer.  Then, the day after Thanksgiving, we got your call.  V was at the hospital, and they were inducing labor.  Holy craaaaap!  Pack some clothes.  Put the baby seat in the car.  Go, go, go.  It’s a five hour drive.  For God’s sake, go!

We drove like maniacs and, turns out, got there with time to spare.  Inducing labor took longer than expected, but some things are worth the wait.  The 29^th dawned cold and partly cloudy.  Labor went slow, but steady, (“managed,” according to the hospital staff).   You both had been through the process before and seemed amazingly, reassuringly relaxed.   We sat around the hospital room and watched a Jurassic Park movie marathon on television.  Then, all of a sudden, the doctor and nurses were on hand and ready for action.  K said, “Sam!  Stand here,” and motioned me over to the quarterback position.   And I stood there, rapt, with Jurassic Park dinosaurs roaring in the background, while V pushed six pounds and thirteen ounces of squiggling, healthy, impossibly beautiful baby boy right into my arms.

He’s almost four now, and still the most precious thing I’ve ever held, (and the most squiggly, though at some point during the day he’ll usually say, “Snuggle me, Mommy,” and curl up beside me).

He’s smart, affectionate, and highly active.  He loves to laugh.  He loves to visit the toy stores at the Malibu Country Mart, the cupcake store, the fish aquariums.  He likes his preschool teachers, and Drummer Ben the music teacher, and the Jumpstart Kids from Pepperdine.  He likes cheesy pasta and chocolate milk. 

He likes his science book, which includes renderings of a woman growing a baby in her womb.  He says, “That’s V, growing me in her tummy.”  Because to him, right now, that was all pre-ordained.  He won’t appreciate the gift of what you (V & K) did, and this anniversary, the way Hubs and I do, for some time.  But he will.  He’ll learn that two people with complicated lives and full plates loved him enough to try to give him a less complicated situation in a loving, stable family with the bandwidth to focus on his needs.  Some days we get it right, some days we don’t, but every day we are grateful for the opportunity. 

We love him.  You are our angels, for bringing him to us, and “Thank you” seems hardly sufficient, but Thank you.

November 2012 is National Adoption Month.  I’m no expert, but if you’re thinking about adoption as an option for your family, I say, “Who knows, it might just work out?”

Lessons Learned from A Bachelorette Party Weekend

The weekend before last I attended a b-party at the bride-to-be’s cabin in Big Bear.  Loads of fun, but I also came away with two profound observations you might find useful as you head into the Thanksgiving Holiday.  First, “Magic Mike,” staring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, is an awesome DVD you most definitely do not have to be sober to enjoy.  Second, I discovered a new law of physics.  Commit this to memory, ‘cause it is right up there with E=mc².  Ambien + alcohol + sleep loft = brain damage.

So, “Magic Mike” … to be honest, I have no idea what this movie is about.  We watched it with the sound off and fast-forwarded through any scene that didn’t involve a ridiculously gorgeous man doing a next-to-naked bump- and-grind.  Still, the parts I saw?  Two thumbs waaaay up.   I was really impressed by the actors’ range.  Whether portraying firemen, construction workers, cowboys or soldiers, these guys totally pulled it off.  And by, “it,” I mean 99.9% of their clothes.  Mercy, those lads are limber!   Whatever yoga class they’re taking, sign me up.

Sometime during the movie, my friend LMG disclosed she recently sat next to Channing  Tatum on a flight from NY to LA. She disappointed us by reporting he chose to keep his clothes on the entire trip.  According to LMG, who bitterly regretted not getting red carpet ready for her flight about three seconds after her seat-mate showed up, People Magazine’s 2012 Sexiest Man Alive is polite and friendly, but takes up a little more than his fair share of the leg room.  After watching “Magic Mike,” I can see why.  LMG forgave him.  She’s a very forgiving person, especially if you happen to be the Sexiest Man Alive.

Nothing much connects my second epiphany, about Ambien and brain damage, to my first epiphany, regarding the cinematic genius of “Magic Mike,” (except, of course, the gratuitous amount of red wine I’d consumed during the evening).  Let’s start by saying I love Ambien.  Looooove it.   If I ever meet the chemists who devised this insomnia cure, I will kiss them full on the mouth.  This drug brought quality back to my life.  Sleep had been a little bit of a problem for several years, but in 2009, after my son came along, sleep became a major problem.  Once I woke up, (which you do several times a night when you have a little one), I couldn’t get back to sleep.  Let me tell you, your life goes to hell in a hand-basket PDQ when you’re only getting eight hours of sleep – a week.  After three years as a zombie, trying sleep journals, cool rooms, warm rooms, guided meditation, Melatonin, and Tylenol PM, I finally surrendered and talked to my physician.  A sleep aid good enough for Seal Team VI was good enough for me.

And it works.  Like a … well … like a dream.  I can still wake up and function if the little guy needs me, but I get can right back to sleep too.  Heaven.  However, the Sanofi-Avenis folks are very clear that you shouldn’t mix alcohol and Ambien.  Why?  The technical answer seems to revolve around the amount of GABA in the brain, but, short answer, alcohol intensifies the effect of the Ambien.   Yet when my friend turned to me and said, “Let’s take our Ambien now!” I didn’t think, No, the manufacturers tell us not to use their drug as a chaser for a bottle of Cab.  My thoughts were more along the lines of, WTF, I take this stuff so I can fall asleep.  Anything that gives me an extra nudge into dreamland -- how wrong can it be?

That’s the last thing I remember about the evening.  There was apparently a little more to the night, but I couldn’t tell you about it.  I don’t remember saying nighty-night to anyone.  Don’t remember going upstairs to the sleep loft and settling myself into a twin bed tucked under the tight angle where rafters met wall.  All I remember is waking up at 3:00 a.m. with my bladder ready to burst.  Naturally, I sat up to get my bearings – and slammed my head into a roof rafter so hard I actually saw God.  He was laughing his ass off.   I staggered to the bathroom to inspect my shattered my skull.  Happily, those bones are still pretty hard.  Everything stayed intact and … surprise, surprise … my brain wasn’t dribbling out my ear.  But then I was afraid to fall back to sleep in case I had a concussion, so I got myself a diet soda and laid there in the dark, quizzing myself on multiplication tables until sunrise.  This led to a third epiphany.  I suck at math.  But I kinda knew that already.

So, to reiterate the lessons learned:

1)       “Magic Mike” – Best movie I’ve ever seen where dialog and plot were totally superfluous.

2)        Ambien – Don’t mix with alcohol and sleep loft unless you wear a helmet to bed.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

In Sickness and in Health

In honor of Veteran’s Day, thank you to all the men and women who serve, and have served, in our armed forces, including my dad, (Navy, WWII), my father-in-law, (Army, Vietnam), and my brother in-law, (Marines, Iraq, Part Deux).  Without the bravery of our vets, and their commitment to protecting the freedoms I pretty much take for granted all 364 other days of the year, it’s possible I wouldn’t be sitting here today writing my stupid blogs.  So, thank you.

My weekend represented an entirely different celebration of freedom … a little ritual known as the bachelorette party. A bunch of the girls … (uh, sorry M) …a bunch of us friends took off to the bachelorette’s cabin in Big Bear for a last surge of single-girl madness.  Though, to be honest, we were all really happy for her upcoming nuptials.  And not just because our bachelorette looks like a young Marilyn Monroe, is smart, funny, successful, and generally the type of woman the single ladies of the world would just as soon see with an inactive profile on Match.com.  More because our bride, and her husband-to-be, took such an unusual route to “I do.”  One that makes us all ask ourselves, “What would I do?” in that situation.   After everything that went down, I’m fairly sure the whole “get married,” response is the right one for them.

Our bride and groom met years ago, in one of those love-at-first-sight scenarios.  They’ve been together ever since.  But our bride had tried married life in her early twenties and gotten a big dose of heartache for her trouble, so, when it came to marriage, she was in the “Been there, done that, no need to do it again,” camp.  She wore her old married name around like a drunken tattoo, I suspect to remind her not to repeat past mistakes.  So, instead of exchanging vows, our happy couple quite elegantly lived in sin.  They bought a beautiful place in a South Bay beach city, traveled together, bought a vacation cabin in Big Bear, and supported each other through life’s professional and personal transitions. 

Like all good, smart women with a family history of breast cancer, our bride got regular annual mammograms.  This year, however, while she was away from home on a business trip, her doctor contacted her to say the mamo revealed “several masses” in one of her breasts and they needed to schedule a biopsy right away.    After a hellacious night alone in her hotel room, grappling with the information, the unknowns, the specter of the BIG C, she did something she’d never done before.  Admittedly in a bit of a fugue state – she texted her boyfriend:  “Will u marry me?” 

He texted back, “Yes.” 

It gets even better.  When she got home, he sat her down and told he was in, no matter what, but asked her to take some time to think about what she wanted, because he knew her history and her philosophy, and didn’t want her making big decisions about their future based on fear over a potential diagnosis.  Good guy.  Good call.

She thought.  She soul searched.  Nothing changed.  He was The One – had been for a long time.  She wanted to make that proclamation to God and everyone … “for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part.”   He said, “Me too,” and they started planning a wedding – a small ceremony as classy and unique as the couple themselves.

Now comes an interesting development.  Our bride goes in for her biopsy and … the masses are gone.  Not gone like smaller.  Gone like they never existed.  They can’t find anything to biopsy.  Maybe the lab made a mix-up with the films?  Maybe it was some kind of miracle?  We’ll probably never know.  Believe whichever explanation makes the most sense to you.  But, in a nutshell, medical crises averted.

With the instigator of the nuptials suddenly out of the picture, (thank you, Fate, God, Universe, or what have you), we had to wonder if this changed their plans.

Absolutely not.  They’re tying the knot next month.  Congratulations, S & E.  I wish you a lifetime of health and happiness.

Have a non-traditional love story? A roundabout route to "I Do?"  Care to share?

Next week:  A helpful warning on the dangers of mixing Ambien and a sleep loft.

To Spank or Not To Spank – NOT A Blog about Parenting Techniques

Just to be doubly cautious and avoid any nasty-grams, if you’re looking for a post about how to discipline your kid, keep right on blog hopping, desperate parent, this is not the place for you.  If you have an opinion on how much “slap” should accompany the “tickle” in a good love story, park yourself here and read on.

Okay, now that it’s just us, here’s my deal:  Is it me, or is there a whole lot more light BDSM going on in supposedly mainstream romantic fiction these days?  I mean, even Roarke has given Eve an occasional playful swat on the ass, which, granted, doesn’t exactly qualify as boundary-pushing, but at the time, it caught my eye.  The erotic upswing kicked in several years back, so I attribute the trend to more than everyone wanting to go Greyer, Deeper or Free-er.  And I’m not complaining about the overall shift, mind you.  For me, the best journeys to happily-ever-after include lots of vicarious thrills.  But part of me wonders … are there new rules for mainstream?   

I guess the short answer for a writer is to check the submission guidelines for the line you’re targeting.  But that doesn’t always yield a clear answer.  Brazen by Entangled, for instance, says this about their line:

We want stories that focus on the hero and heroine’s physical relationship as it pertains to their developing romance … We will not consider erotica, but explicit sex scenes and erotic elements or kinks organic to the characters’ sexual tastes are musts.

Harlequin Blaze offers the following explanation of their story requirements: 

Harlequin Blaze is Harlequin's sexiest romance series, yet there's more to these books than simply sex. We ask our authors to deliver complex plots and subplots, realistic engaging characters and a consuming love story you won't be able to forget. Blaze stories are fun, flirty and always steamy! 

Harlequin Blaze is not erotica. While our books are very sensual, they deliver on the Harlequin promise of one hero, one heroine and an implied committed relationship at the end. Blaze books give readers a glimpse into what it's like to be young and single today.

In either case, a fastidious read of the guidelines takes only a handful of situations completely off the table, right?  Each of the guidelines makes it clear the magic number is two, and by virtue of the reliance on the terms “hero” and “heroine,” both ought to be human beings, of the opposite sex.  Both imprints also make it clear in other parts of their requirements they seek heroes and heroines safely above the age of consent.  Both lines want a fully developed romance by the time the reader reaches “The End,” or, as Blaze puts it, “… an implied committed relationship at the end,” which I take to mean some version of the happy couple riding off into the sunset.

Other than these mandates and hints, we’re left to our own devices as to how far the characters can go with each other and still stay within the boundaries of a, “fun, flirty and steamy,” love story.

No worries.  I can fill this, (ha!), gray area with inspiration drawn from an arsenal of Cosmo articles featuring toys and positions I’m way too uncoordinated, un-limber, or unadventurous to try in real life. I’ll try ‘em in fiction.

Ideas really aren’t the problem.  If you read enough or the genre, you’re going to be brimming with ideas.  I think the problem comes when trying to create, as Brazen puts it, “erotic elements or kinks organic to the characters’ sexual tastes.”  I’ve read a lot of category romance and, sometimes, it seems like those erotic elements or kinks come out of nowhere.  For example, in the final sex scene of one novel, the hero suddenly whipped out a vibrator and went to town on the heroine, (which was hot, of course), but until that point, I hadn’t seen the man display any proclivity for, or interest in, gadgetry, so it kind of felt like a different guy than the one I’d spent the last 45,000 words getting to know.  Same deal when an early sex scene involves a specific erotic nuance, (bondage, spanking …whatever), that then that aspect disappears without a trace from the rest of the novel.

Like any writer, I want to keep the action exciting and inventive.  I want my characters to grow during the course of the story and I want their physical relationship to reflect an intensifying emotional connection … and deepening trust.  A surprisingly difficult balancing act.   
Any favorite scenes or stories where you felt the author hit the elusive balance between a crazy, wild, can’t-wait-to-see-what-they-do-next sex, and a heart-gripping, cry-my-eyes-out-in-a-good-way love story?