Exhibit A: Chicago, IL, July 2009

Exhibit B: Fairfield, CA, November 2011

Bucket list item...CHECK!

I think I can...I think I can...I think I can...

Annnnnd....we're back.

 I adore you. Both. I always have.

I remember you sprinting up and down the bleachers at your uncle’s football games before I knew your mom, Papa, Nana, or the many others in your life who love you. In fact I can honestly say that, perhaps behind Scoot, you were the first people in your family that I fell in love with.

Lil, as you figured out how to talk, you’d call out to me, “Emmmmmmmmm,” with the same wry smile I see you flash today. You’ve always known just what inflection to put into your voice, just what glimmer to put into your eye, just what to say to make me melt at your feet and do whatever I could to protect you and show you how awesome you are.

Lid, you’ve always been one part stoic plus a bit of goofy, a smidge of responsible, a dash of childish and a pinch of mature. Your dimples show your lightheartedness while your eyes tell the tale of someone who is intensely driven. You’ve spent your life balancing your fierce independence with your intense loyalty.

I’m so incredibly proud of the men you’re becoming. You make your share of mistakes. I know you expect me to tell you that. (I’ve never been much of a bullshitter.) But you’re learning, growing, changing, evolving. And I could not be happier. 

Though I know you’ll accuse me of getting too sappy (You? Accuse me? Of sap? Never!!!), I do feel the need to tell you a few things that have been sitting on my mind for a while, things I don’t ever want to regret not telling you.

Most importantly, your family (including me) loves you very, very much. Your mom, no matter how much of a “mom” she may seem to you now, has given her all to put you first in her life. Maybe you “get” it now, maybe it’ll take a few years, but you are everything to her. Sure she isn’t perfect…I trust you know by now that none of us are…but you are lucky to have her in your corner.

Your Papa and Nana have both given much for you – of themselves, their homes and their time. They love you with an intensity that could move mountains.  They’ve needed you in their lives this year more than ever. Continue to be there for them. 

Your uncles have, at different times, shown you how to be goofy boys, responsible men and loving husbands and fathers. I hope that you see the roles they play not only in your life, but in others’ lives and that you’ll take them heart, not just today, but for many years to come. 

I can’t speak for any of these people, or for your other family members who take you to the movies or to dinner, who make you quilts or *cough* let you beat them at video games *ahem*, but what I can tell you is that you are surrounded by love. And really, that’s sort of all that matters in life. Love. 

And that leads me to a subject I’ve long wanted to talk about but haven’t ever really been able to broach. What is love? What does it mean? How do you know if you’ve seen it? It’s quite hard to tell you, really, because love is a whole lot of words and no words at all. And the real answer is, you don’t. But let me tell you how I’ve experienced it. 

When I first met your uncle, he was a high school kid living with his mom and sister who recently had twins. After waking up and getting himself to school, he’d head to basketball or football practice, come home, do his homework, play some video games, go to bed, and then wake up in the middle of the night to help his sister, not much older than him, to feed his infant nephews so she could carry on with the difficult task of finishing college while taking care of newborns and performing as a high-caliber athlete. That? Was love. Of your mom and of you. 

I’m not sure how else to say this…If you ever enter into a relationship with a girl who doesn’t “let” you engage in that type of role for someone in your family, run as fast as you can away from her. Never let a girl talk disrespectfully about your mom. Any girl worth your time will see what your dedication to your own family portends for her own future. If she doesn’t honor your family, she will not honor you. It’s really as simple as that. (In fact, it was because of the role Scoot played in your lives that I knew, at your age, that he’d make a great dad. And I have to say, I was quite right.) 

Yet your uncle was one of the many people who wanted to play a positive role in your lives. It’s a role that, while obviously different, correlates closely with the role that you, as the eldest cousins, now play in the lives of three little boys who look up to you. When you were younger than “Baby Quinn” is now, your uncles and Papa all were given this picture of you along with the following poem. 

There are little eyes upon you

and they’re watching night and day.

There are little ears that quickly

take in every word you say.

There are little hands all eager

to do anything you do;

And a little boy who’s dreaming

of the day he’ll be like you.

You’re the little fellow’s idol,

you’re the wisest of the wise.

In his little mind about you

no suspicions ever rise.

He believes in you devoutly,

holds all you say and do;

He will say and do, in your way

when he’s grown up just like you.

There’s a wide-eyed little fellow

who believes you’re always right;

and his eyes are always opened,

and he watches day and night.

You are setting an example

every day in all you do;

For the little boy who’s waiting

to grow up to be like you.

I hope that as I pass this poem onto you, you’ll find joy in having your younger family members look up to you. I hope you’ll find pride in living your life the way you want them to someday live it.

KNK, I love you. I have to believe it’s tough to have a sappy auntie like me always saying it, but it’s absolutely true that I’m always here for you if you need me.

I hope you had an awesome 17th birthday.

Love,

Your Auntie Emmie

We went to the store and picked out a pair. Knowing nothing about this boy, it was tough to figure out what size to get (DJ himself is often between sizes). I suggested that we get a slightly larger size because flannel pajamas were likely to shrink when they were washed.

“But, mom, I don’t think they have a washing machine,” he said.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“They might live in a car. You know, some kids don’t have houses like we do.”

We’ve been working to teach DJ about giving to others who don’t have access to the things we do. Each year, he goes through his playroom and donates his toys to kids who aren’t as fortunate. He sets aside one-third of his modest allowance to give to charities of his choice. It’s not easy giving on a budget. That has become all that much more obvious over the past few years as we’ve had to cut back our own charitable giving budget. That is exactly why I was so impressed when Megan told me about Feeding America and asked me to help.

The programs offered by Feeding America are vast – from a nationwide network of supported food banks, to programs to supplement government poverty programs that are constantly on the chopping block given our economy, to disaster relief for those facing an unforeseen emergency. These programs help the nearly 49 million Americans – including an astonishing 1 in 5 American children – who go hungry every day.

With just $1, Feeding America can provide 8 nutritious meals to those in need. EIGHT!!!! $5 = 40 meals! $25 = 200!!!

DJ and I talked about how much we feel comfortable giving. What about you? You can click here to donate. When you’re done, head on over to Undomestic Diva’s blog, leave her one comment for every $5 you donate and you can win a $50 gift card to Starbucks.

And if you need help, you can head over to Feeding America’s site to find out more.

May you all have a very happy Thanksgiving.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking about what scares me, what fears I’m ready to overcome. The more I’ve thought about it, and worried about whether I’d be able to accopmlish what feels like 30 daunting tasks, the more I’m reminded of one of my favorite sayings:

Those who wish to sing always find a song.

No excuses. I’m just going to do it. I will overcome my fears – some big, some small. But I will show myself that I can. I won’t blog about all of them (for instance, I can’t write about today’s as it’s work-related) but I expect to check in and let you know how it’s going. Ready? Set. Let’s go!

This conversation about which ‘hood he claims goes back a few weeks when he inquisitively asked which rappers were from Virginia as he failed to connect with 2Pac and Dr. Dre’s “California Love” the way his parents do. He moved from the Commonwealth to California when he was just three and, while he’s as much of a Cali boy and the next kid in my mind, he feels drawn to the place he was born.

It’s a feeling I understand well as I moved away from the state of my birth as a toddler and then, again, moved in the middle of elementary school to California. In the years since I’ve tried to figure out what I consider to be my “hometown.” (Imagine the angst when Facebook asked me to make such a public declaration.)

For me, my “hometown” claim as a sports fan was complicated by the fact that, just two months after I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, the SF Giants met the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. I was raised on Cardinals baseball (and football, by the way…why they’re in Phoenix and the L.A. Rams are in my town still baffles me). My earliest baseball memory was being allowed, at a month shy of four years old, to stay up to watch the Cardinals win the 1982 World Series at our townhouse in the St. Louis suburbs. (It’s also the first time I remember my mom being mad at my dad. Heh.)

In the years between then and our move west, my dad took me to Busch Stadium to see the likes of Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee while teaching me how to score a baseball game and heckle an opponent. My pet mouse was named Whitey Herzog.

When the Cards played the Giants, I wasn’t sure just who to root for as the new kid trying to fit in with a school full of Giants fans. Luckily I had little to do with the fate of either team. Yet somehow, I gave myself the leeway to root for the triumphant Cards as they faced the Twins in that World Series, the Oakland A’s as they faced the Dodgers the following year, and then the Giants as they met the A’s in ’89 in the Bay Bridge Series (a series memorable not only for baseball but the earthquake that literally rocked the local fans to our core).

And so, as it has been since, I rooted for the Giants as they made their way to the World Series last year. Now that they’ve imploded, however, I will admit that I “liked” the breaking news from CNN on my FB News Feed that the Cards, my first baseball love, had made it to the World Series (a “like” I gave despite not being able to name a single player from their team.) How’s that for fickle?

But it’s hard out there for a kid…a kid who, for a third of a century, has felt disconnected from all geographic ties of her own. And it is with that experience that I try to cut my own child, a kid who likes the SF 49ers and the Miami Heat, the Sacramento Kings and the Stanford Cardinal, the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers and…the Virginia Destroyers, a  bit of a break as he tries to figure out his own definition of “hometown” and which hometown team belongs to him.

Like you, I have a story.

Mine started on September 7th. Our friend Dave dropped me and Scoot off at Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport for a flight to San Jose. It was our first trip back to California after moving to DC two weeks after our wedding. Scoot was to be an usher for his friend, Terence, at his wedding in Monterey. I remember thinking BWI had the longest security line I’d ever seen. (If I only knew.)

On Saturday morning we arrived at the hotel and, despite being very close to Terence since T was a kid, Scoot’s dad was nowhere to be found. We found his wife who told us that he was in the hospital. We had no idea. Scoot was worried. The bride and groom jumped the broom, Scoot performed his duties but we left the reception early to go up to the Bay Area and visit his dad. We spent as much time at the hospital as we could but on Sunday we had to get back on a plane and fly home.

The next morning, we woke up and went to work. I had a temp position near GW hospital working for my mom’s former employee. Scoot was an assistant manager at an Electronics Boutique and was being trained in a nearby mall. After work I got a phone call. The internship I had applied for was mine! That night we called to check in on Scoot’s dad. He was heading home from the hospital! We turned on ESPN and heard that rumors were flying that Michael Jordan was about to come out of retirement to join the Wizards. Our gamble on using our college graduation money to buy season tickets in hopes we’d get to see the greatest player of all time play in person had paid off!

September 10th. What a day.

“Today was too good,” the always superstitious Scoot said as we readied for bed and he set the alarm. “Something bad is going to happen tomorrow.” I rolled my eyes, rolled over and faded off to sleep as Jay Leno cracked jokes on my TV.

I awoke the next morning in a panic. I turned over. Shit! I was late! How did that happen? I checked the alarm. Someone else was talking but I couldn’t make out who it was or what they were saying.

“Hey, Scoot! Remember when you said something bad was going to happen today?” I asked as I shook him awake and he grumbled something. “Yeah, we you forgot to turn on the alarm, genius.”

I realized the TV was still on from the night before. I heard Katie Couric’s voice but the image was a building with smoke coming out of it. Matt Lauer then started talking. Still groggy, I was confused. What was happening? “Scoot, wake up!” I implored.

As we tried to process what was going on, we both turned and saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center on our TV screen.

The hours, days and weeks to follow come to me in photographic flashes much too frequently. Not yet knowing the Pentagon would be next, we rushed to get ready and get in the car so I could try to get to work on time. We talked about one of our favorite movies, Independence Day. The announcer on the car radio said the whole (Capitol) Mall was on fire. There was mass confusion and real news was hard to find. We decided, just before getting on 395, to turn around and go home. Had we continued, we would have been on the road the goes right in front of the Pentagon around the same time American Flight 77 would hit it. I found out hours later that an assistant dean from my grad school was on that plane with her husband and two girls nearly the same age that DJ and Bop are now. :: shudder ::

We got home and turned on the TV, confirming that the Pentagon was in fact hit. Scoot commented that the South tower of the World Trade Center was going to fall. I scoffed, noting that the buildings were designed to withstand airplane impacts. “Look at how it’s leaning,” he said. Not long later, we watched it fall, again on live TV.

We were glued to the television.

Scoot still had to report to work. He wouldn’t leave me alone at home, so I brought my textbooks and hung out at the mall where he was training. When we arrived, I noted an advertisement stand outside of the store. It showed a picture of the Pentagon taken from above, a target in a video game where players commit aerial attacks. I suggested that perhaps they should bring that stand inside. Not long later, the store and mall closed. We went home.

As the day wore on and the winds changed, our apartment – with its inexpensive air conditioning that rarely worked, forcing us to leave our windows open throughout the hot Washington, DC summer – filled with smoke from the Pentagon less than 10 miles away. That smell is burned into my memory, a reminder of the day and the moment I finally allowed myself to flee from the fear of the world I lived in to the much safer confines of sleep.

The remainder of that week flashes back to me as well. I took the Metro into work on Friday, September 14th. As I disembarked the escalator at the Foggy Bottom station, I turned to walk to the offices on N Street. Normally I’d walk straight through Washington Circle but it had a ring of Humvees enclosing it. I flashed back to 8th grade U.S. history when I learned the layout of the streets in D.C. were designed to protect our nation’s most sacred establishments. I walked by men in uniform with an “MP,” on their biceps. It took me a few moments to realize that it stood for Military Police.

I sat at my desk and used Google to find the nearest Methodist church. I spent my lunch hour doing what my fellow Americans were doing, praying and remembering. I soon learned that the pilot of Flight 77 was a member of the Foundry United Methodist Church, the nearest church to work. At the service, the pastor asked for a moment of silence, then invited those in attendance to call out the names of people who were lost a few days earlier. And I sat for minutes – frankly, it felt like HOURS – as name after name after name after name was called out from a standing-room-only crowd. I could do nothing else but cry.

I left the Metro stop on the way home and boarded the bus to our apartment. Others who rode the bus with regularity were on as well, including a young man who I knew worked at the Pentagon. It was the first time I’d seen him since Tuesday and he was in fatigues. I asked about them. “We’re at war,” he replied. “We’re required to be prepared for battle.” I could do nothing but gulp.

Later, I was watching the memorial service at Yankee Stadium and saw a face on a “Missing” poster that looked familiar. I was an early reality TV fan. The Murder in Small Town X final was a week before September 11th and I had watched every episode. The winner, Ángel Juarbe, Jr., was fresh on my mind when I learned he was one of a number of fire fighters in New York who had yet to be located by the time of the Yankees Stadium memorial. Later, his body was found, another of the hundreds of public servants who lost their lives.

As the days moved on, people in other cities talked about their fears. There is never much good that can come from trying to compare fear, tragedy, or nervousness. But as Scoot says, when you lived in DC at that time, you didn’t have to be in the military to feel you’re at risk. September 11th didn’t pass from our minds. It didn’t go away. The tragedy of 9/11 and the many changes it made to our lives smacked us in the face every day. When I visited New York City last year, it hit me in the face once again. I stood on the edge of Ground Zero. And I cried. And I remembered.

Like millions of Americans, I’ll spend today paying my respects to those who lost their lives. I pray for them and their families who are missing them. I pray for those who risked their lives to save others, and who still feel the physical and psychological impacts of their rescue efforts. I pray for our nation’s leaders, that they have the wisdom to keep us safe while upholding the ideals that are the essence of our nation. I pray that those of us with the responsibility to raise post-9/11 babies teach our children to respect this day and the many lessons learned from it. And I pray that none of us ever forget where we were when the world stopped turning on that September day.

The girls who were my age were trying to get as far away from their parents as possible while I was devoting my entire being to keeping alive my long-distance relationship with Scoot, whose mom lives just two miles from my own. They were planning for their post-college travels around the world while I was planning my wedding in our hometown. They were renting apartments with roommates in Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco while I took out a mortgage on a home in the suburbs with room for a nursery for my young son. I had a very hard time relating.

Women who were in a similar life stage to me were planning their weddings while shuffling their meeting schedules at work. They were spending $1600 a month on nannies while I was making grocery shopping lists to include ramen, Hamburger Helper and macaroni and cheese so I could afford the $200 per week I had to spend on daycare. And at work, when I sat down for my annual review, it was they who would evaluate me on my performance throughout the prior year. I had a very hard time relating.

Recently, in large part because of what I discovered when I was introduced to the world of online social networks, I have established friendships. With genuine friends. The kind with whom I can gossip about that girl. The kind with whom I can lament about my day. The kind with whom I can share my frustrations and fears and tears and hopes. The kind with whom I laugh. And laugh. And text. And laugh.

In return, they’ve shared their loves, their losses, their triumphs, their sorrows. I hear about what they ate for breakfast and minutes later, the one thing they want their kids to know about them if they meet their end prematurely. I hear about the guy who tried to talk to them when they’re happily married. I get advice about health matters. I advise them on their resumes. I get drunk texts. With pictures!

I’ve been kept company in the hospital for 48 hours through a small device that meant constant conversation. I’ve watched a minor illness turn into a major health problem. With IVs. And surgeries. And tests. And uncertainty. I’ve seen pregnancy test strips and ultrasounds and newly born babies and crawling toddlers. I’ve celebrated romance and birthdays and New Year’s Eve and just because. I’ve watched them jump out of airplanes, and jump into love. I’ve watched doubt and despair and divorce. I’ve seen them hurt and healed.

I’ve felt. I’ve felt friendship. I’ve felt all that it can be. I’ve felt all that I missed during that decade or so when I just didn’t feel like I could relate to my peers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fears that I’ve deluded myself. Certainly the friend ending her relationship, that was never married, that makes more than I do, that makes less than me, that! has! nothing! but! girls! …certainly we will find something that divides us. And yet, thankfully, they’re still here. I’m still here, a believer in friendship.

I’m about to head out on a weekend away with one of my dearest friends with our four!!! boys all under the age of 9 (unfortunately, Bop can’t make it because of school). I’m looking forward to it for selfish reasons, and not so selfish ones. And when I come back I have another friend coming to visit, one who just moved to the area and who I hope to see much more often. And six weeks from now I’ll be celebrating yet another’s birthday with friends from around the country.  

Ends up, I’m kind of digging this friend thing. And as simple and easy as that sounds, I have a very hard time explaining just how happy it makes me and how sincerely appreciative I am to be able to say it.

10 Things I Smiled About Today

1. The # I saw on the scale this morning.

2. Achieving my goal of getting up without hitting the snooze button.

3. DJ choosing to do his homework this morning (rather than tomorrow night) without any prompting.

4. Scoot baking cookies for the Mother-Son Dance Friday night.

5. Having enough calories left today to help be a taste tester of the aforementioned cookies.

6. Catching up with an old friend/colleague.

7. Seeing a new friend/colleague achieve well-deserved satisfaction.

8. Getting an email from my friend who seems to make it her life’s work to have me in stitches on a daily basis.

9. Looking at a calendar and realizing I will be seeing a bunch of my friends real soon.

10. Straightening my desk before I left the office for the night.

What made you smile today?

So, since you’re my very best friend in the whole wide world (you are, right?), I thought you might be interesting in following this fun little project.

Here’s where we’re tweeting: @CalVoteImpact

Here’s where we blog: Virtual Vantage Points

And here is my first post: Boxer v. Fiorina: Five Trends to Watch

I hope to see you over there and please excuse me if I’m not hanging out wherever you’re used to seeing me. It takes a whole lot of brainpower to keep from accidentally tweeting about my kids’ ear infections and silly sayings from my work account, ifyaknowwhatimean.

But something compelled me to post. See, a couple of my friends have been writing their “30 Days of Truth,” but for some reason I’ve most closely followed Adam’s. He’s not actually posting over 30 days but rather is using the prompts when he needs them. (I’ll note that I’m pretty sure Adam hates lurkers and yet I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve commented on his posts. Sorry, dude.)

Today Adam posted about “Something I Hope to Do,” and that – combined with my drive to and from the Bay Area this weekend – just made me feel compelled to put this down on paper (or, the internet) so that I never forget it.

I hope to travel around the country with my family in an RV.

I know, it’s random. There are a million reasons for why I want to do this. The idea actually started when Scoot and I spent the days it took to move our family across the country fantasizing about quitting life as we knew it and taking up driving trucks. But that idea seemed a little impractical.

Our move across the country coincided with the release of Disney-Pixar’s Cars and, in the DVD special feature section, the director John Lassiter talks about the trip he took with his family in an RV. That seemed a little more realistic.

I have no idea if I could ever convince Scoot to do it. I know absolutely nothing about RVs (as a kid, my family camped the “real way” – in a tent) but it’s something I hope to do someday and so I’m using this post to make sure I don’t forget it.

Thanks for humoring me. I miss you more. I promise.

The. End. (for now)