Outside it is winter. But in here it’s so hot.
Every night we have to battle with the girls to keep
them from taking off all their clothings. So don’t go
away. Who knows? Tonight we may lose the battle!

And now presenting the Cabaret Girls!
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret!

Well, kind folks, that some day is here. And this is how this little Caberet thing became #6 on my List of 57 Things in 52 Weeks…

I was minding my own business last Tuesday evening while attempting to master my pole dancing skills. Just to let you in on pole dancing techniques, they get more difficult each week. Yep. And we not only must memorize the moves but incorporate the old moves into the new ones. OK. So I was bopping and spinning and elevator-ing and all that good stuff when one member of our class of 10 asked Jennifer, our instructor, the question to end my nice conservative little life with a little pole dancing on the side. Her voice was all energized and happy and youthful. All exuberant and confident… and did I mention youthful? Anyway, she asked Jennifer, “Can we do a Caberet for an audience?”

My heart stopped beating, and no, not because I was trying to grip the pole with my ankles and not fall on my head. “What?’ I thought.

I had heard correctly and all the class members were dizzied with excitement at the prospect of a Caberet for their friends and guy friends and guy friends and young friends and guys. Jennifer had no problem with this little project, but Jennifer did say that every member of the class had to agree because we would be taking some class time to learn two CABERET PERFORMANCE DANCES… to be performed the week after our last class.

Should I mention here that all 9 of my polemates looked directly at me? My first reaction in my head was “NO. NO. NO. NO WAY.” But before the NO escaped, I said, “Sure. Why not?”

So this is how DANCING IN A CABERET WITH A POLE AND A GROUP OF ENERGIZED YOUNG WOMEN became #6 on my List of 57 in 52. Because sometimes the things on the list come looking for us.

I don’t have a heck of a lot of details yet… but there will be boots. Costumes. Music. And guys. Young ones, I’m sure. And oh yeah, Barry, my husband… who, by the way, thinks this is just as awesome as do those 9 young women in my class. Thanks, Honey. But you ain’t seen nothin’ like this before!

So this is what I’m singing these days…

What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play. Life is a Caberet, old chum. Come to the Caberet.

Put down the knitting, the book and the broom. Time for a holiday. Life is a Caberet, old chum…

It sure is!

I sat at my computer… and began to sob uncontrollably, so moved by the thought of such a brave little boy who has been through so much seeing dozens, hundreds, even thousands of Christmas cards delivered to his home in South Lyon, Michigan. Mail. Cards and notes. Stamps and stickers. Squares and rectangles of love and joy and wishes and blessings. It’s such perfect and simple love… but one that brings with it the joy of helping a little guy. Taking the time to create or select the perfect card and write the perfect note and lick the perfect stamp. Loving hands dropping the card in a mailbox and sending the love from one heart to another. I think it’s the simplicity of the request that so grabbed my heart and my throat… and I began to think of all the simple things in life that bring great big hope.

Thinking of Noah, I began my way to a nearby store to buy my card… but I wanted to stop at Audrey’s first and give her 4 little guys great big hugs. It was early, and the sun was beginning its great ascent over the trees on one of my favorite streets in my town. I noticed how the golden sun enhanced the golden New England leaves and made them even more magnificent. And I thought of Noah. I saw the wind whipping the colorful leaves as they cascaded to earth and then soared toward the sky in one last playful moment… and I thought of Noah. I stopped my car and took my old and worn camera from my pocketbook and snapped a picture. I never wanted to lose this moment of Noah… all golden and windy and perfect.

Then I turned my car up the street to another of my favorite streets in the whole entire world - Love Lane. Love Lane is bordered on both sides with tall and stately oak trees, and it’s the way I go to visit Audrey and her family. I could see the blue sky peeking through the oaks and I remembered, that on hot summer days, Love Lane is where you go for shade… cool, cool shade. Not today. The blue sky peered right in. And I thought of Noah.

Maybe I was looking for something. Something. Because I do believe in angels both in heaven and on earth. And I believe that angels send us wonderful things to see. To see. To remind us of the everlasting life of every creature and the very reason each of us is here. And then I saw something as blue as the sky, only more bright and more bold and more beautiful. It was a lone hydrangea, stretching its blueness way, way up over the top of its Fall leaves… the only summer color left in God’s great cycle. And I thought of Noah. How beautiful. How simple. How perfect. How bright and bold and beautiful one life can be that it touches the hearts of thousands… tens of thousands of people.

HOPE on Love Lane. The HOPE of love and life and courage that one little boy can bring to each of us, to help us on our journeys and remind us that life is strung together moment to moment… moments we can enjoy and moments in which we can help others and moments to stop and reflect on the beauty of life, as long or as short a string of moments we are given.

I will think of Noah each time I see a blue hydrangea for the rest of my life. I will tell the story of Noah and of the blue hydrangea to as many people I know. That blue hydrangea stretching, stretching way, way up… strong and courageous, floating like the longest Tiger home run there ever was, even as the winds come and the earth turns and everything is getting ready to rest.

I wish Noah and his family the greatest Christmas there ever has been in the whole wide world. I wish great joy and laughter and the simple beauty of family. I wish great blessings and miracles. I wish for more Christmas cards that could ever fit into any post office… anywhere… ever.

And I HOPE Noah knows what great and magnificent courage and meaning and love he has brought to total strangers who are strangers no more. God Bless..

Ah, a light bulb moment. Or, at least, a sweeping moment.

In a conversation with my Mom a couple of days later, I mentioned that Janie needed a vacuum cleaner. Well, say no more. My Mom is the queen of clean, the princess of purifying, the duchess of dusting. I’m not kidding. When someone mentions the “eating off the floor” thing… well, we could do this in my house when I was growing up. Even going on 85, my Mom’s apartment in her senior complex is the epitome of cleanliness. And tidiness. And vacuumness. I could see the brushes turning in my Mom’s head as a giant smile crossed her face. “I’ll buy Janie a Bissell,” she said.

“A what?” I asked.

“A Bissell,” my Mom repeated. “You know the one,” she went on. “The one I bought at Benny’s. I LOVE that vacuum cleaner.”

I thought for a moment or two. Then I remembered. Yes. The Bissell. How could I have forgotten? After all, my Mom has tried… and discarded… one too many vacuum cleaners for me to count. My Mom is tiny. Very tiny. And she has arthritis in her arms and wrists and fingers, making things like vacuuming very difficult with heavy, cumbersome vacuum cleaners. She needs something small and light and easy to store. She finally stumbled upon the perfect vacuum cleaner when we were in Benny’s looking for a tub mat for her tub. What is it? The Bissell Lightweight Vacuum Cleaner… with its bagless feature. My Mom doesn’t want to fumble with vacuum bags anymore, and she needs something that easily cleans both carpets and hardwoods… and she LOVES that it includes the ultimate crevice tool. You know the one… that little flat thing that cleans in all the hard to reach places (yes, my Mom actually uses this thing!). And how does my Mom remember all the details of this little number? She saved the box so she’ll be able to replace it if anything ever happens to it. Yes, alas, this Bissell is that important!

And as we were talking, my Mom pulled the box from her closet… explaining to me that I simply had to buy that exact one for her to give Janie for her birthday as she was shoving $25.00 cash into my pocketbook. I tried to explain that I would buy it for Jane for her, thinking that I’d probably be into this small, light, easy to store vacuum about $100.00 or so. My Mom would hear nothing of the sort. She insisted that I take her money, buy the Bissell at Benny’s and bring it to NYC on Jane’s birthday from her.

And I did. Go to Benny’s, that is. Purchase the perfect vacuum cleaner for, yes, $24.99. And bring it to Janie in NYC for her birthday, from my Mom.

The result? Barry had assembled the Featherweight Bissell while we were waiting for Janie to come home from work… and when Janie opened the door and saw the vacuum cleaner… she actually began VACUUMING before she even took off her coat and hat. Now this is a first, because Janie has never stood in line to vacuum (with coat and hat on or off!)… but Janie took to that lightweight Bissell like a bee to honey.

I shook my head and wondered where this vacuum cleaner was when all my kids were growing up!!??

But let it be known that my Mom is the hero of the vacuum cleaner. Yep. The Queen of Clean. But better yet, she is the Queen of the Birthday, too. I love it.

29 years ago this morning, at 10:07 am, our little baby girl, Jane Hillary… who would forever be “our baby,” came into our world. Every moment since has been filled with laughter, delight, loveliness and LOVE!

Back in “those day” it wasn’t common to learn the gender of your baby before the actual moment, so I very clearly remember the words, “It’s a girl!” The name Jane means “God’s precious gift,” and our baby girl is that precious gift of God. My heart still soars when Janie enters a room or throws her arms around me. My eyes still dance at Janie’s great big smile and bright blue eyes. My mind still sees the great gift of life that we were given those 29 years ago.

I wish our Janie the happiest birthday ever, ever, ever! Barry and I are driving into New York City today to take our baby girl to dinner and celebrate the magic of our beautiful daughter and all the gifts she has brought to us…

I love you, Janie. I love you with all my heart and soul! Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday a million times over!

But still I tweet. And I follow.

I honestly don’t know why I follow some of the people I follow. Sometimes I follow a recommendation. Other times I follow someone who is followed by one of my followers or followees. It can get complicated.

Still, I tweet… and every once-in-awhile an intriguing set of 140 characters strung together catches my eye. This happened this past Sunday evening at 7:34 PM when I read this tweet by @yummymummyclub:

My 9 year old son is asking: Why are beautiful people treated nicer than people who aren’t as beautiful? Send us your answer!!

“Hmmmmm,” I thought. And “Hmmmmm,” I thought again. This was a formidable question for anyone, never mind a 9-year old boy. And if questions truly are “diamonds we hold in the light”… then this diamond of a question deserved more than an impulsive 140 characters. I tweeted back @yummymummyclub at 7:37:

Interesting question. I’m curious as to what prompted your son to ask this question!?

And at 7:44, I was tweeted back by the 9-year old boy himself:

My name is Josh. I asked the question because of the paper bag princess. Why the prince didn’t like her in a bag.

“Ah,” I thought. “All of life and time and wisdom and culture and love all wrapped up in this question about the princess in the paper bag.” I assumed that the princess and the prince were characters in a book… characters who had so moved or surprised or disappointed Josh enough to send his inquiry out to the world through his mom. I googled paper bag princess and tweeted back to Josh through his mom at 7:56:

Hi Josh. I haven’t read The Paper Bag Princess. You have me very intrigued. I will read it and answer your excellent question.

Early yesterday morning, I called my local bookstore and inquired about The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko. There was a copy available and I hopped into my car to go purchase it. It’s a picture book, first published in 1980 and now in its 60th printing. I honestly cannot believe that this book has escaped me all these decades. After all, I am a mom of 4 grown children, a grandmother of 9… and I am a retired English teacher and Reading Specialist. And as I sat and read and turned the pages, I saw the most brilliant, imaginative, industrious, funny and lovely princess emerge through the words and exquisitely humorous illustrations. And I met the most pompously undesirable prince on the second to the last page!

Ah, ha! I clearly could see the question of a 9-year old boy. Or more accurately, the tweet of the 9-year old boy’s mom. And even with my smile at the book’s ending, as a woman, a mom and a grandma… I better see the seeds of wisdom being sown into the brilliant mind of Josh.

I wouldn’t have seen or known any of this without Twitter.

(And one more thing. My last tweet to Josh was written at 8:01. It said:

One more thing, Josh. You have inspired me to read The Paper Bag Princess with my two 8-year old granddaughters! Thank you!

I can’t wait to share The Paper Bag Princess with Taylor and Maddie. And I’m also going to read it with my grandsons Andrew (almost 7), Jake and William (5), and Alex (4).  Benjamin (2),  and Henry and Dylan (1) are still too young for discussions of this magnitude!

JOSH… I will share with you their answers, and my answer, to your diamond of a question! I’ll tweet your mom when I write that post!)

There’s the team meeting, pulling in the concentration and skills of energetic 6 and 7-year olds…

There’s the running, with the yellow flags of “play” whipping in the wind of a beautiful autumn morning…

And the team and individual strategies…

There’s the character of each boy in the competition, the concentration, the skills, the running and the strategies, both team and individual.

But if we are to believe that “a man’s real character comes out best in the asides,” then this aside, on the sideline, of my grandson Andrew extending his helpful hand reveals everything I need to know…

Thank you, beautiful Andrew, for bringing us all the great fun of your Flag Football game and for maneuvering the landscape of great humanity. I love you!

But I am trying to be positive about the whole “winter approaching” thing. I’m thinking how nice it will be to wake up to glimmers of daylight. I’m thinking about fires in fireplaces. I’m thinking about snowflakes, the rumbling sounds of snow plows in the middle of the night and snowmen. I’m thinking about warm hats and mittens and fur-lined boots. I’m thinking about down comforters. Hot chocolate… with marshmallows. Sleds and tobaggons and tubes. I’m thinking about ice skates, sharpened skis and snow shoes. I’m thinking about how the moon looks so big and so close to earth on still winter nights. I’m thinking about ice crystals shimmering in the morning sunlight. And I’m thinking about candle lights and the magical shadows they cast…

I’ve always been a summer kind of girl… but now I’m happy to welcome the blessings of each season as the earth rotates its gifts.

Yep. I’ll take the extra hour on Sunday and all the “light” that winter’s darkness has to offer.

Stops.

What the?

And that’s when Jennifer, our pole dancing drill sergeant, turns up the lights, stops the music and hits us with a lesson in “the elevator.”

Picture this. Arms wide on the now sardonic purple pole. Left hand way up. Right hand just below the chest. I’m listening to the instruction to whip up my right leg way up above my left hand. Hook my foot around the pole. Leg straight. Almost simultaneously grab my left foot onto my right foot. It gets better. Then slide down the pole slowly. Upside down. Like, you know, an elevator.

Did I say slowly?

Let’s go back to the part of whipping up my right leg. Straight.

Can you hit me baby with something a little easier at my second class? But as I look around, most of the other girls are upside down on the pole. OK. I try. And try. And try. Oh baby give me a sign that I shouldn’t run now while I still have an ounce of dignity. Ah, here comes Jennifer. She tells me to start at the floor. Kind of sitting nice and low to the floor and easing the legs into the straight, sexy, easy oh baby baby pole I shouldn’t have to let you go feeling that I think I can do this thing. I’m not gonna give up. No way. Not now.

I look around the room to see upside down “dancers” and realize that most of them have the boots. The boots. I don’t have those low and sexy pink and black pole dancing boots. Are the boots the elevator’s secret lift? Oh how was I supposed to know that something wasn’t right here with my sneakers. Of course. It’s the sneakers, all practical and grounded.

Hit me baby one more time. Please. Then I do it. I do it. I do it! My legs are up and over my feet and I just hang there… since I am already on the bottom floor, so to speak, and I am so low to the floor that there is nowhere to elevator to.

But I do it.

And by next week I will have my boots. The boots. I’m gonna buy them today.

Hit me baby in one more week. Stay tuned for a real elevator ride.

All of the boxes in our minds are meticulously alphabetized and labeled. I am sure of it.

And the box that tipped its own little cover this morning must be labeled in nice bold letters: Tucking Them In.

This is how the box opened its contents to me. I woke up early. Like 6:00 am early. It was still rather dark, but I could see a glint of light trying to peek through our bedroom sheers. It was still. Peaceful still. All I could hear were the comforting sounds of Barry’s breathing next to me. This is a bit different because Barry is an early-riser and he’s always up before me. But I guess the the drive to Washington DC on Saturday, the running around the great city of DC on Sunday catching Jane, Nicole and Keith running their Marine Corps Marathons… and the drive home at 5:00 am yesterday morning may have finally caught up with him.

I carefully crawled out of bed… then quietly headed to Barry’s side of the bed and tucked him in. I pulled the sheet and comforter way up to his neck… and as I did, I remembered my Mom quietly tip-toeing into my bedroom and tucking me in. I slept in the same room as my two brothers until I was 8 years old, so I remember the sounds and touches and smells of my Mom as I was half asleep, pulling up the covers and always, always kissing our foreheads. I remember my Dad patting the covers and brushing back my long hair. I remembered Keith and Adam under the quilts that Barry’s grandmother had made with her nimble hands and fingers. I remembered pulling those quilts up to their chins… Adam on the bottom bunk and Keith on the top and kissing their foreheads. I remembered the radiators singing in that bedroom as Barry and I made that last tuck in of the night. I remembered pulling up the pink and white quilts to Audrey and Jane’s little faces and tucking in the sides snuggly under the mattresses… and kissing their little foreheads as they slept.

I now tuck in my grandchildren when I am babysitting. Pulling up blankets to cover the little ones and bedquilts to cover the older ones who know what kind of quilt they want!

Tucking Them In. It’s the simplest of things. Pulling up the covers. A gentle tuck at the neck. A kiss on the forehead. But it means everything. Each of these moments is carefully tucked into that box that is carefully labeled at birth and stored in our minds. And when these boxes are opened, even decades and decades later, they make the simple moments miraculous moments.

ps  I did kiss Barry on the forehead this morning!

#5 is more of a window into my mind and heart. It is WRITING. And #5 is Writing a Children’s Book Series that has been living in my head. This is one thing on my list that requires the revealing of oneself… with all the wonder in the words and all the self-doubt that accompanies it. This is a very big one for me.

I’ve been writing my entire lifetime. My Mom still has little poems that I wrote to her when I was very, very young. Birthday poems. Anniversary poems. Little rhyming stanzas from a very little girl. There were verses here and there from the angst of the teen… but my writing took a hiatus of sorts until I had children of my own. Then, little moments and circumstances and lessons tugged at my mind, my heart and my pencils. I began to write again. Poems. Stories. Little rhyming stanzas from a Mommy to her children.

Then the grandchildren began to arrive and my mind just SOARED with ideas as my heart multiplied its love more than I could ever have imagined. Poems. Stories. Little rhyming stanzas from a Grandma to her grandchildren.

I’ve had an idea in my head for awhile now about a story about grandparents babysitting for grandchildren. If you’re a grandparent, you’ll know what I mean. If you’re a parent of young children, you’ll know what I mean. And if you’re a child, you’ll know what I mean, too. It’s about adult children giving grandparents detailed, specific, minute, cataloged, meticulous instructions on how to care for children… like we’ve never done it before! Ah, yes. But we, as grandparents, just wanna have fun. Kind of like Cyndi Lauper, except with grandkids. But we also want to enrich our grandchildren with marvelous, unforgettable adventures…

And this is where my book series comes in.

#5 on my List of 57 in 52 is to complete 4 books in the series of grandparent adventures. And I know that I had to complete ONE before I could proceed. I put my mind and my heart into writing the first book, and I am going to put it out there now. For you. For me. I’ve been working on it every day since I turned 57 on October 6th… researching, writing, editing, revising… little rhyming lines to share with you. I wanted my story to be both whimsical and mischievous, wild but filled with information… like the names of animals, birds, rivers and continents. I wanted the grandparents to be responsible but daring and fun. And I want each book to end similarly… with the quiet, well-behaved grandparents and grandchildren sitting nicely back at home, but with something amiss - Grandma’s hair (”a telltale sign that they had been SOMEWHERE.”)! But the adventure secret is always safe between the grandparents and grandkids.

I am both humbled and terrified to do so… but here is my first story in my series (of course, you must imagine the illustrations!):

AFRICAN SAFARI

Grammy and Grampy sat quite still while Mommy and Daddy bustled and filled their heads with “where” and “when” and “that” and “this”, of “do’s” and “don’ts”… and one last kiss.

But in the time it took to say, “Bye, bye,” Grammy had whispered, “African Safari.”

Then tucked in a snuggly and packs on backs, with Puppy and sunscreen and Cracker Jacks… Harriet, Esther and Oliver, too, readied for their rendezvous.

Then whirlwind, tailwind, lickedy-split, in leaps and bounds off they went…

To a land enchanted with mangrove swamps, with ferns and orchids and parrots that talked.

And as they tiptoed further through, zebras and cheetahs leaped into view.

But as Grampy fetched his telescope, thunderous stomping of antelope shook the land beneath their toes, causing the Limpopo to overflow… tossing the travelers quite upended, downstream, swiftstream, as ringhals with venom writhed and wrapped and whipped and hissed…

Until Grammy grabbed the tail of a yellowfish. Then laughing, swirling, fancy-free, she called, “Hey, everybody! Grab onto me!”

Swishing and swashing and swiveling hogwild, they swam with the carp until a crocodile winked its eyes and snapped its teeth… ready to devour this unexpected feast.

But suddenly Grampy, with no hems nor haws, hooked right onto a cormorant’s claws… lifting Harriet, Esther, Oliver too, and Puppy and Grammy with her new hair-do.

And much like that of a meteorite, they flew high among songbirds, vultures and eagles in flight.

When lo and behold, the cormorant stopped… abruptly, suddenly, on a Drakensberg top. It folded its wings with effortless grace, creating a magnificent hiding place for Grammy and Grampy and all-aboard from baboons and hyenas who squealed and explored, and from lions and leopards and jackals who roared.

But more stentorian than all of this, a prodigious sneeze escaped the lips of Puppy, who then, sneezed and sneezed and sneezed again… propelling the travelers to disembark into the den of a sleepy aardvark, who opened his eyes and stuck out its tongue, thinking the intruders were ants on the run.

Now all sticky, all gooey, all uncomfortably damp, Grammy announced, “It’s time for a bath!”

So into the Orange they vaulted and rushed, to the irksome dismay of a hippopotamus. And sooner than soon, in multitudes, cape buffalo and elephants stomped into view.

But more perfunctory and more swift than one can surmise, Grammy leaped upon a giraffe’s backside… checking her watch and charting her charts, calling, “Hop up! Hop on! It’s time to depart!”

So whirlwind, tailwind, lickedy-split, in leaps and bounds home they went.

To do the “do’s” and “that’s” “whens” and “this’s”… just in time for homecoming kisses.

But the strange metamorphosis of Grammy’s hair was a telltale sign that they had been SOMEWHERE!

*********************************************************************************************************

My goal with #5 is to develop 3 more stories of Grammy and Grampy and their adventures with their grandchildren… the next one taking them on the Iditarod Race.

So there. #5. Not stepping off a plane at 10,000 feet or twirling around a pole to heart-thumping music… but opening myself to constructivity. Frightening? Yes. Oh, yes! But my series is a goal that I want to accomplish, and putting it on my List makes it that much more concrete. Now I’ve gotta go run a couple of miles and think about my characters!