Snapshot: Three pretty girls and one tall boy

So the husband and I took the urchins to see Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center recently and had as swell a time as you can have while your heart is being wrenched by the poignant sadness of a story that is all about how these people are willing to die for those people, who realize too late how much these people loved them -- and then they all sing about how miserable life is now but how it will all be better when we get to heaven. And how "to love another person is to see the face of God . . ." Hang on. I need a tissue.

But!

SHE came to see the play with us! And we were giddy with excitement, because although the tall boy clearly thinks SHE is all that, we couldn't wait to see for ourselves.

Turns out the tall boy is right.

Do something!

So I have gotten myself into a little bit of a state these past couple of days because I read this article about our local food pantry. I must say I feel a little overwhelmed with sadness and frustration and a modicum of angsty rage that this food pantry -- which for many people in our neck of the woods has been the only resource standing between their family and a kitchen filled with nothing -- has been forced to temporarily close its doors.

In our family the ACTS Food Pantry holds a special place because we have been participating in food drives to support it for over twenty years. The sunny girl and the girl in charge have both helped sort food during the food pantry's annual Operation Turkey drive in November. And the tall boy organized a neighborhood food drive for this food pantry as his Eagle Project. To prepare for the food drive he spent quite a few hours at the pantry, shelving food, helping to organize donations, and talking to the pantry director about his goals and dreams for the food pantry.

Of course for all of us, the dream is clearly that we can live in a community where an emergency food pantry is no longer necessary. But until that day arrives, the Food Pantries, Community Kitchens, Bread For the City drives and SOME (So Others May Eat) programs are nothing more or less than a rope that we can throw to our drowning neighbors.

We all MUST support these programs.

Please. My friends. Go to your community's food pantry right now. Yes, now. Get up, go to your cupboard. Grab that can of beans, that Top Ramen, that peanut butter, those pasta noodles. Get in your car right now and go to your food pantry. They need it so very badly -- they won't even care that you are still wearing your pajamas and bunny slippers.

My mother would tell you you are earning stars for your crown in heaven.

Thank you so much.

Sister love

Here are my beautiful girl urchins,beautifully lit by the television. I adore these two chicks so much, and I find it such a cool trick of genetics that I gave birth to two people who in many ways could not be more different. One is logical, literal, and organized -- while the other is creative and poetic, with a lovably goofy sense of humor.

The girl in charge is a terrific time manager, and guards her precious free moments zealously. Among the many things I admire about her is her embrace of the afternoon nap. I'm not kidding; this girl has always known when she's had enough.

True story: Last January, she starred in her high school's One-Act Play, which is a district-level competition, and she rocked it totally. After every school performed, all the performers were manic in their adrenaline-fueled excitement, so while they waited for the judges to return and give out awards, one hundred high school drama geeks stormed the stage and spontaneously started playing improv games. Well, the girl in charge was right in there with them, pretending to be an angst-filled cactus or whatever -- until she was done. Just . . . done. She politely excused herself and went to an empty classroom to take a nap. The best part is -- she planned for the nap! She brought a pillow and a blanket with her and staged them in the empty classroom. Do you see what I'm dealing with here, people?!

In contrast, the sunny girl wants to cram everything into every day. She is always trying to figure out how to add one more dance class or club or movie date into her schedule. And nap? Please -- she would skip sleep all together if it were biologically possible.

Actually, when the sunny girl is approaching the end of a hectic day, she gets a little frenzied -- hurrying, hurrying, hurrying to get everything in. I have seen her literally spinning around in circles as she tries to prioritize all the things she wants to accomplish, before her dad and I loom menacingly, glaring meaningfully at our watches and saying, "What time do you need to get up tomorrow, sunny girl?" We have plans to go see a swanky play at the Kennedy Center, and the sunny girl is so looking forward to it. But when I told her she would need to miss a dance class so that we can get to the theater on time, her face fell two stories: "Can't I at least go to half the class? Can I change clothes at the theater? Can we skip dinner?" It's classic sunny girl: "I don't want to miss a thing!"

But as these two totally fabulous and totally different girls have grown up, a totally cool thing has happened along the way: they totally dig each other. And in a weird way, they complement each other perfectly. While the sunny girl is quick to crack with the jokes, the girl in charge is her biggest fan -- laughing like a hyena at the sunny girl's antics. If you know the girl in charge you'll understand that this is a miracle; the girl in charge is more of a Mona Lisa smile kind of person -- it takes some work to crack her up. And as the sunny girl has started high school, she has really turned to her big sister for advice and guidance.

They bond over "Doctor Who" and "A Very Potter Musical;" the girl in charge defends her sister's right to the front seat, even when another senior is in the car; they roll their eyes at their mother's failings as a housekeeper. And I am not even kidding when I say that any mention of a tyrannosaurus rex makes them weep -- weep -- with laughter.

Sisters are so cool.

Snapshot: Happy birthday, sister!

Today is my baby sister's birthday --

-- and I love her so much!

Snapshot(s): Back Bay friends and neighbors

The weather is changing now, and you all may remember that I really dread the fall. So to perk myself up a little bit, I thought I would remind myself and you of my fabulous beach-filled summer in Sandbridge, Virginia. In addition to spending cherished time with some of my favorite people . . .






. . . I shared my Back Bay beach vacation with some more exotic neighbors:






I'm ready to go back!

" In keeping with tradition, the bride wore scarlet . . . "

So the husband and I attended the most lovely wedding earlier this month. A former colleague who worked with my husband invited us to participate in her wonderful day, which involved not one but two wedding rituals -- one Christian and one Sikh.

Now I must admit at the outset that we both were . . . I think nonplussed is the word . . . to learn that the Eastern ritual would require that we enter the room without our shoes, cover our hair and (can you hear the creak of knees and hips?) sit on the floor for the two-hour ceremony.

It was easy enough for me to find a lovely scarf to complement my western dress, and Coleen was confident that as long as I had a fresh pedicure the no-shoes situation could hold no fear. But the husband was . . . I'm going to say hesitant. Yes, hesitant, and -- because he rarely wears headgear other than a ball cap on a Boy Scout camping trip -- concerned that he would offend either our hosts or his own sense of dignity. (Men . . . .) He ended up wearing a patriotic red-white-and-blue bandanna that, while perfectly appropriate, also gave his charcoal grey suit a dashing biker dude air. He wouldn't let me take a picture.

And I'm telling you people, the lovely if virginal white wedding dress that we Westerners are accustomed to pales in all ways to the opulently beautiful traditional wedding garb of an Indian woman.

This is to say nothing of the fact that in the Indian and Sikh tradition, the groom dresses like an exotic Eastern prince. I will never swoon over a man in a tuxedo in the same way again.

Now don't get me wrong -- the Christian ceremony that followed was lovely. The lakeside setting and the adoring gaze of the groom were enough to make any grandmother a little teary-eyed. You do see that he shaved in between the two ceremonies, right? For me this just proved what I have always suspected: beards really are that itchy, and he really must love her a lot.

As the bride appeared with her father for this second ceremony, I was vividly reminded that this woman is really such a gorgeous blending of two worlds -- all rolled up in one brilliant and sophisticated package: a savvy computer engineer who also founded an e-zine for young and modern Indian-American women, who want to embrace every aspect of both their cultures. No wonder her dad looks so proud.

I think I know what's going on here.

So it's been a while since I checked in with all of you here, and I do apologize. I have to say, the school year for the college kids snuck up behind me, and then jumped out from behind a tree and scared the bejeezus out of me -- so I had to go lie down. The college academic calendar meant that not only did the tall boy go back to school last week, but so did a gaggle of besties and cousins. It seemed like every time we turned around we were saying good-bye to someone. In addition, I myself headed back to school, teaching again this semester at the community college -- which I am realizing more and more is what I was meant to do.

But here's the weird thing: all those college kids have been reporting bizarre natural phenomena, which have forced them to evacuate -- like the girl in charge's bestie (an 18-year-old freshman), who was in residence at the College of William and Mary for a whole week before Hurricane Irene came for a whirlwind visit and she was told, " Get out. Oh -- and if you get a chance, tell your folks where you are." I paraphrase, but only slightly.

In contrast, the tall boy was not evacuated -- he was told to hustle to his college campus as soon as ever he could. The tall boy, who had plans to move in to his new dorm room last Saturday, was sent a text from the college doo-dahs: "OK, so remember how we told you don't even think about showing up to college early? Well -- forget that; get your ass here as soon as possible."

I'm paraphrasing again, but it turns out that between the hurricane (due to hit us on Saturday -- right in the middle of hauling a refrigerator and a carpet remnant across the hilly Catholic University campus) and the earlier damage caused by the earthquake (the National Cathedral was supposed to host a big and important Martin Luther King, Jr. event that was moved to the CUA campus because the Cathedral was so damaged), there was no way in hell the tall boy and his dad were going to get a car on to the Catholic University campus. His actual text from the nice Campus Life people said, "If you plan to arrive on Saturday with a vehicle of any kind, you are so screwed." Paraphrasing again . . . .

What does this mean? It means that the tall boy and his dad were unloading the boy's shit at his dorm in Washington, DC at 11:30 on a Friday night. Now tell me that's not a great dad!

Just a little word about our earthquake (summary: I was driving, so never even knew there was an earthquake -- while at home, the hellhounds freaked out). Californians mock us for our measly 5.8 quake but I would respectfully say to each of my west coast friends, "Back off, bitch!" We live in Virginia, y'all. We have some experience with hurricanes (I would submit Camille, Agnes and Isabel -- who all were very cranky ladies ). But we don't do earthquakes.

We don't do uncontrollable wildfires either -- and yet the Great Dismal Swamp has been burning since mid-July. That just looks like a beautiful sunset, but it really is smoke -- I took this picture at the beach in early August, on a day the wind was blowing from the west.

Add to all of this bizarreness the fact that just last week my friend Wendy's teen-aged son took out the trash without being asked, and I think it's pretty clear we are looking the Apocalypse dead in its gaping maw. Not that I'm worried.