is really unfair to the rest of the world.

But I’m gonna go with title number one.

Kia, this one is for you. Here’s hoping you have green lights all the way.

This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations
to waste a moment on yesterdays.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

(h/t L. Black to whom, along with B. Lawrence, I send my thoughts today)

And now…

Such was the case last week when my mother and I boarded a flight together to mark the passing of one of her closest friends, a woman integral to my upbringing.

To say the journey was dirge-like is an inaccurate portrayal of what went down. Of course there was sorrow, but viewings and cemeteries just aren’t how my people roll. I come from celebratory stock, and there was no funeral. There was instead a celebration at an art gallery with several hundred people recounting memories of way back when.

I visited with the people my mother calls “the village of fools” that raised me, some of whom I hadn’t seen in decades. I caught up with people I never thought I’d see again, and some who, to be honest, I never thought about once I’d left: I chatted with old neighbors, parents of friends, friends, friends’ kids, former teachers, a woman who used to babysit me and even a woman I used to babysit.

“You showed me Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the first time and—Whoa!” she said as we toasted. “It scared the crap out of me, but it blew my mind!” I had no business caring for a child back then. Perhaps I still don’t.

Of course, parts of the trip were dreadful: We come from Utah, after all, where the only thing more dreadful than not being able to get a cocktail before noon is not being able to replenish the alcohol supply at a memorial service because the state-run liquor stores all close at 7 p.m.. That kooky old Beehive State. It makes Arizona look progressive.

As sad as some moments were, my trip to the homeland was a real-life version of The Twilight Zone, an adventure in the surreal. The heaviness of the experience was lightened by good stories, really good people and I think, if I remember correctly, some seriously good weed. Moral supremacists can pass all the laws they want, but people will find a way. Suck on that, prohibitionists.

Many things have changed since I left Salt Lake City nearly 20 years ago.

The (still small) downtown is unrecognizable, with ongoing development causing us to take several detours as we strolled. Same goes for my high school, where Disney’s High School Musical series was filmed. There’s a stunning library—boasting architecture worthy of a city like Chicago—that was not just open, but filled with people.

My grandparents’ home was razed and replaced by a McMansion with three garages and a whole lot of black roof. And my beautiful, turn-of-the-(20th)-century childhood home that my mother worked so hard to restore, had a notice of condemnation taped hastily to the front door. This was especially unsettling, mostly I think because it seemed to mirror the implosion of my parents’ marriage and the unraveling of my nuclear family.

But other things were so unchanged that I felt as if I’d never left, an equally disorienting feeling.

Mrs. Backers Pastry Shop, where my mother used to buy all of my birthday cakes, was as explosively pink and kitschy as always. The old glass cases were packed with cupcakes and cookies, and the smell of sugar as I pushed through the big glass door brought me to tears.

I wiped my eyes and told the girl behind the counter about how I used to freeze one flower—perhaps a dahlia or daffodil made of the world’s best butter-cream frosting—from my birthday cake each year and save it for a sweet tooth emergency. She just stood there and looked at me like I had 10 heads. But I didn’t care, because she had stiff claw bangs, which is way more permanent than my public display of nostalgia. Clearly, she did not fully appreciate the spectacularness that is Mrs. Backers’ butter-cream frosting.

Also unchanged was a popular restaurant where my family used to celebrate special occasions (Mother’s Day, graduation, the day I got my first period, what have you). The people on the wait staff looked vaguely familiar in a ruddy-ski-bum, college-y sort of way.

I ordered the world’s best eggs Benedict to a soundtrack of “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, followed by The Cure’s “In Between Days” and then “Big in Japan,” by Alphaville. I had to check my Swatch watch to see what year it was. I even checked my reflection in a nearby mirror to make sure I wasn’t wearing acid-washed overalls with one strap undone, pants legs tucked into two pairs of brightly colored socks, layered and scrunched down into lace-up ankle boots. Eighties attire must die.

Speaking of dying, I’m not super-experienced in dealing with death—a lucky streak I’m happy to maintain—so I’m still sort of wide-eyed from the shock of seeing how time can fly and also stand still.

For the moment, I’m suspended in the life-is-short awareness, an acuity that will dissipate in a few days. I’ll be distracted by the minutia again soon enough, but not before I serve my husband and daughter Mrs. Backers’ cupcakes for dinner.

(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)

I think she would have loved it.

They Loved Paperclips

by Lisa Jarnot

They loved harmony they loved ant hills they loved food and cookies and harpoons they loved the sound of laces of the shoes and snow they loved the snow on Thursdays in the rain and when they met they loved that too and igloos and the trees and things to mail and chlorine and they loved the towels for the beach and hot dogs and the pool and also when the wind rose up they loved the ceiling and the tide and then they loved the sky.

Our neighbors down the block have had their tree up since before Thanksgiving, and a house just a few steps from there has had lights twisted through their porch hand railing since 1274 AD.  Ruby knows this habit of displaying holiday accoutrements of any kind, outside of the month in which the holiday they celebrate takes place, is against my by-laws.  She therefore screams as we drive down the street, “A CHRIS! MUS! TREE!?! IT’S NOT CHRISMUS YET, STINKY!”  Someday, she’ll swear like I do—something more like, “IT’S! NOT! FUCKING! CHRISTMAS! YET! DIPSHITS!”—and I will applaud her.  It’s comforting to know my neurosis is being successfully embedded.

So patiently did my child wait through that long last week of November—excited and yet, forlorn that other people were breaking the rules and she couldn’t—that we broke down and went for the gold last night, on December 1st, about two weeks before we normally procure our Noble Fir (and, as it happens this year, on the first day of Hannukah, which consequently took a back seat for these Jews. Or perhaps I should say, “Jews”.)

To set the mood, I put on a little Sufjan Stevens holiday music, Ruby had some hot spiced cider, Sam and I enjoyed hot toddys and then we went to work. I always seem to forget during the other 11 months of the year, that putting up a tree is a lot of work.  And with a five-year-old assistant, things tend to be a little skeewompus:  Beads don’t gently droop like dew drops, but strangle like string around a brisket; many branches remain empty, while others bend with the weight of six precariously hung ornaments; and all 40 candy canes are positioned within arms reach of a 47-inch person.  This type of disorganization drives me batty, as I like my tree to be Just. So.  But dang if it doesn’t look pretty when I’ve taken out my contacts.

Thank the sweet baby Jesus that this only happens once a year.  And believe me when I say, come New Years Day? That thing will be naked and curbside while our neighbors cling to their decorations through Valentines Day.

ADOPT A TREE! At school, we have adopted a tree to observe through the seasons. You can do the same with a tree in your neighborhood.  A good tree to choose is one that you can easily visit.  Maybe there is a tree that you walk by every day.  Get to know your tree.  What shape is it?  Feel its bark  Can you reach around the tree?  Look at its leaves.  Does anything fall from your tree?  Are there any clues that any animals life in or visit your tree?  A piece of yarn or string can mark a twig on your tree, so you can look for any changes that happen to the twig in the winter, spring, summer, or fall.  Enjoy your tree; no other tree is exactly like it.

The thing is, my daughter’s class is not adopting a tree, the Sigma Pi fraternity did not adopt a highway and pet-lovers around the country are not adopting animals. You can choose a tree, sponsor a highway, and rescue a dog from the pound.  But adoption is the serious process by which families are formed, creating a bond that is the very same—though so many can’t seem to fathom it—as a biological connection. Adoption has nothing to do with a certificate given when you purchase a doll at FAO Schwartz and it has nothing to do with group visits to the perennial around the corner.

The insistent co-opting and trivializing of the terms “adopt” and “adoption” is insulting to families touched by adoption and, more particularly, is confusing to young adoptees. And their friends, too: Just try explaining to an inquisitive 5-year old why your skin doesn’t match your child’s skin and then tell them they’re going to adopt a Ficus.

I am disappointed in the language of this particular homework assignment and want to say something to the administrators, but I really do not want to be That Mom. I’m going to think on it for a spell. In the meantime, please excuse me while I go water my kid.

Ruby had her orientation last Friday. We visited her new classroom, met her new teacher and some of her new friends. She was one cool cucumber. ,I on the other hand, was not. Sam told me as we walked down the street toward her school, to pull it together at least while she’s around. Then he went for the jugular: “Don’t be my mom.” (Hey, Marsha! ) Suffice it to say, I wore my very big, very dark sunglasses, which I will be wearing again on Tuesday. Ruby was none the wiser.

I’m a writer, but I cannot formulate the words right now. So photos will have to do for the moment….