Quiet Night in with Patsy

I am sitting in the corner that is our computer room .. Stephen is asleep on the couch with Oli and outside.. soft snow flakes are floating down to rest on the tops of cars and giving our little corner of the world a magical flare.. right now my lurkers are all thinking the same thing.. "Wow.. almost a full month with no posts and now this Limburger !?!?" Well... I am blaming it all on the ladies.

Lady number one: Ellen

Ellen had her baby on Friday.. I just checked my voice mail and there it was... a message from David giving a few details.. Seth was born at 1:59pm on Friday at 7 lbs 5 ounces and 20 inches long. She ended up having a planned C-Section because he was breach so I knew when she was having him I just.. guess I am so used to my friends having babies all the time and I never call them or anything because they are drowning in new additions and family members .. I guess I don't want to get in the way so I stand in the shadows until such time when I feel like they might be more ready to hear from friends. Sometimes I forget to move back into the light and by the time I get to meet the kid they are like.. 2. But this is different. This is my sister having her first "chitlin" (as a good friend of mine would say).. so why the cheesy mood ? Well I guess just getting that voicemail meant so much. It meant a lot because it made the whole thing very real - Ellen and David have a son. They get to see what the mingling of their genes looks like at long last :) Also.. it just was like a tiny lifeline... to keep me from diving headfirst into the "baby blues" ...as in.. my best friend just had her first baby.. guess that's that. What an awful way to feel right?! Can't help it folks. We have spoken on this baby stuff before, if you will remember. As the one on the other end of the situation.. it's kind of hard to know just how to be really.. you are happy and SO excited for them .. thats a given.. but is it still ok to talk about the tourist that accidentally clocked you with her Eastpack on the train this morning? Its big to me because after the third whack I was ready to go in fighten'.. but it sounds pretty meaningless to those who have diapers to change and lives to nourish.. hmmm.. I am suddenly very conscious of just how surface my day to day concerns can be when I am conversing with my mom-friends. At any rate....that voicemail meant more to me than just 7lbs and 5 ounces.. it meant "Don't you disappear on me Diana!!!" I only wish I had gotten it earlier today because I would have loved to hear everything..there is always tomorrow. Thanks for the message guys.. sorry I dissected it in public like this. Which brings me too..

Lady number two: Patsy

Thats right folks.. Patsy...Patsy Cline. On a snowy night in Brooklyn. Why? Well.. I really don't know .. but she just felt so right. Patsy Cline always make me feel nostalgic and I love that feeling. My Dad used to play Patsy Cline in the on the way to the our summer camping trips at the beach. To this day "Crazy" gives me a warm safe feeling. Such a sad song really when you listen to the lyrics. But when you are 11 - you don't listen to lyrics. When you are 11 it's just this background music as you lay looking up at the stars wizzing past in the night sky from the backseat of the Wagoneer. The feel of your sleeping little brothers feet pressed into yours to keep warm in the A/C. The smell of the coffee your dad keeps stopping to get so he can be awake to set up the camper when you get to the campground - hopefully before midnight. I always felt so safe on those trips to the beach. Everyone was so happy and it felt like we could go anywhere with Dad at the wheel. There were no chores or homework to worry about.. just family and freedom. We always got to come and go as we pleased while we were at Salter Path Family Campground. There was more food than we could eat and we could choose to drift on rafts in the sound or hang out on the beach and brave the waves. We could ride bikes all over and as much as we wanted. There was no phone so that meant we could hang out and talk without any interruptions from people needing light bulbs changed or flooded basements pumped. Just Dad and Mom.. right at your fingertips. Through it all.. there was Patsy. I think she loved the beach almost as much as we did. Even now the sound of her voice melts the tension from my body. I can almost smell the red snapper on the grill and hear the splash of John's net in the bay, catching shrimp. So I guess she brings out my cheesy side but I sure wish Mom and Dad were here right now. Another thing that makes me nostalgic is snow... being from the south the sight of it has always meant staying by the fire and everyone being home for sledding, hot chocolate and fresh cookies. In New York it just means that you better be ready to trudge through some nasty grey sludge in the morning. Still... as long as it's dark out there and those pretty flakes are floating down.. I can listen to Patsy and enjoy the nostalgia.

So now..if you are still awake after all that... here a few random pictures from the last few weeks and months ..



The famous Coney Island Polar Bear Club!! It was so cold out last Sunday that my fingers hurt from being out of the gloves long enough to take this picture.. those people are nuts and I don't mean pecans. ( help - I am typing cheesy things and unable to delete )



Before Christmas..Abigail and I went to a concert at Carnegie Hall - it was a choral show and the sang Mozart's Requiem - one of my favorites. It was amazing.



Also before Christmas.. David (Stephen's brother) had some work in a show in New Jersey. So there you have three of my favorite men in the land - Stephen - David - and Jeff. I think this is David's first appearance on this blog.



another picture from the show in NJ... there is the back of David's head.. I have more but they are all of art and honestly I am not in the mood for art speak right now so.. g'nite folks.. much love to you all.. especially the tiny new Bragdon..