NYE

in palm desert with this mashaganah group of friends that we have.
it's a house of nuts, i tell you.
but it's the same group who was together last year, the year before, etc.
kids are up to their shenanigans and definitely plan to stay up way past midnight, which may be much later than the adults here.
my only big loss for the night is kissing glenn in 2014. 
i guess that is just how it is going to be forever.
but that doesn't mean i won't be kissing someone digitally tonight.
xx

friday

girls and i are starting to talk about friday.
we sat together last night talking about what friday could look like for us.
we definitely know that history will not repeat itself, and that this january 3rd will be so very different from the last.
so, that being said, how do we want friday to look for us.
first and foremost, we decided that it doesn't have to be a day of mourning. nope.
we have mourned all year long.
i'm/we're hopeful that friday will be the start of something new for us. while we have no idea what is in store for us on jan 4 (or thereafter), we plan on having another day in our lives.
we threw out a lot of ideas for friday: disneyland, hollywood wax museum, the beach, movie, shopping, cha spa, game night, dinner with friends...i guess we'll see what we feel like on friday.

Circuit Works 7a/Kinetic 8a

another yartzheit candle

not my first go round with this one.
resented every moment as i bought it.

CW 7a tomorrow.

359 days

and it is still eerie walking into the house alone after a night out, returning home from a trip or in and out through the mundane.

back to kinetic @8am.

a picture is worth 3 letters....

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Picture will not load....

Stay tuned.

Amex and Jeffrey Wallace

For the last year I have been using (and paying for no doubt) the Amex card of Glenn H Cooper.
I think at the beginning of the year it was a fucked up way for me to feel like Glenn was taking care of me. I charged some of the bigger house expenses, Sara's Hawaii airline tickets, some big dinners out, and Netflix. Each month that I received the statement and it was addressed to him, my brain knew that I ultimately was responsible for the bill, and that I could afford these expenses, but my heart so badly wanted Glenn in my life still.
Today I was out shopping with Hollye, and I gave the gray card to the salesperson, and the card was not accepted...declined.
I had a MasterCard, which I used.
I quickly phoned customer service, and while I knew and gave his passwords the representative asked to speak to Mr Cooper. Uh well, "he is dead."
"Sorry to hear about your loss Mrs Cooper."
"Thank you. He died in January."
"Please hold on while we transfer you to another department."
There is a card in my name, but Glenn only really used his for business and traveling.
Jeffrey Wallace, the dept rep, introduced himself, expressed his condolences and proceeded to help me move Glenn's account into my name (successfully done, by the way, after 10 minutes).
When he told me that I was all set, and that I could continue to use Glenn's card until I received my card, now in my name only, I broke down and cried to Jeffrey.
I explained that this is the final name/account change, and I didn't realize how emotional it was going to be for me, how final it felt, and just how "on my own" I really am.
Thank you Jeffrey.

Going to run on the treadmill tomorrow, and do some ab work.

Smooth

I am really hating Glenn especially because now I have to shave my legs and underarms everyday.

winter camp & christmas eve

girls are at alonim winter camp this week.
drop-off was so easy, for all three of us.
knowing they are in the hands of carrie ungerman and josh levine and the whole alonim family gives me peace.

my christmas eve has been spent reflecting.
watching it's a wonderful life.
eating cereal.
chatting with my favorite people in DC.

it's a wonderful life gave me pause.
like mary and her love for george, i believed glenn and i would get through the tough times, the mundane and the journey of life together.
i still shake my head that glenn didn't believe he could live this life.

hanukkah 2013

hanukkah didn't exactly fall at the most convenient time of the season for us. girls and i decided earlier in the year that we would postpone the gift part of the holiday until after finals. 
we definitely wanted to celebrate, we just needed the space to make it our own. we were clear that we did not want to just do it without thought or follow another agenda or feel like we "should." 

for the most part, i was always in charge of shopping for morgan and sara, and i think it was (and is) very appreciated. wrapping the gifts was easy. signing my name alone on the gift tags was not. 

every now and then, glenn would come home with a random daddy present. cleaning out drawers and closets this summer, i found 2 in my "hidden gift cupboard." tonight i gave Morgan her engraved "Morgan Cooper" silver pen (I think that was an American Express special), and for Sara, he picked a cute little panda iPhone (not really sure how to describe this) plug thing. all from daddy. they giggled, and were touched by these last presents from him. 

so, all said and done, we had a very nice hanukkah. we did it out way. with sushi and eggnog (for me) and pinkberry for dessert, we made this holiday ours this year. they loved their PJs, and books, and new workout gear, massages, iTunes, jewelry and some more. they bought me the new Giada cookbook (yay!). and, i bought myself a massage gift certificate too. 

Yogahop at 9:15a, with Morgan, Rachel & the Jacobs

kinda like a rebirth

not to overstate the obvious, but this was the worst year in my life.
when i think back to that horrific night and my mind scans throughout the year, i (sometimes) can't believe i'm standing on two feet.
i've recharted, took steps and made decisions to help me become the best new me.
i'm not sure if january 4, 2014 will bring a sigh of relief, an angst that i have another year ahead of me or a numbness. i guess i will have to just see.
that is how i spend most of my hours and days and weeks....taking what comes. not the school, cheer and gym scheduling of it all, but all of the emotions, and whims, and i guess everything else that just is out of my (our) control. i am relieved that i gave up trying to control "all of it" months and months ago. it was the most challenging thing i have ever done. and i'm certain there will be times that i will try to grab the reigns, which aren't even there. 
so all this being said, i'm a very different person than i was a year ago. someone i hardly recognize. i do love when i see glimpses of the old me. i miss the old me. but i think it is time to let her go.
CW at 7a (holiday hours)

"Let Her Go" by Passenger

Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go

Staring at the bottom of your glass
Hoping one day you'll make a dream last
But dreams come slow and they go so fast

You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you'll understand why
Everything you touch surely dies

But you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go

Staring at the ceiling in the dark
Same old empty feeling in your heart
'Cause love comes slow and it goes so fast

Well you see her when you fall asleep
But never to touch and never to keep
'Cause you loved her too much
And you dived too deep

Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go (oh, oh, ooh, oh no)
And you let her go (oh, oh, ooh, oh no)
Will you let her go?

'Cause you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go

'Cause you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go

5 LIES YOU WERE TOLD ABOUT GRIEF VIA ALISON NAPPI

{source}

“What if we never ‘get over’ certain deaths, or our childhoods? What if the idea that we should have by now, or will, is a great palace lie? What if we’re not supposed to? What if it takes a life time…?”

~ Anne Lamott

It isn’t true that you have to get over it. It isn’t even true that you have to want to. No one else can understand what you have lost. No one else can bear the burden of your tribute to a love, to a life, to an identity now gone. What a privilege it is to feel deeply.

Something happens when you entwine your fate with someone else’s. If they go somewhere you cannot follow, part of you goes with them, and it is like birthing a baby who comes out of you: still and limp.

You are helpless as you watch the labor of your deepest love, your most sacred creation disappear under the dirt without you.

You want to hold it in your arms and join it in a sleep that never ends. You want to claw at the boundary of the earth between the two of you with your fingernails, but someone grabs you and pulls you away, and all you can do is wail.

You become hollow. You are missing a chunk of yourself, and no one can really see it once you put on your creamy lipstick and your designer dress, and you pluck your eyebrows and paint your fingernails and toenails to match. No. No one can see what you are missing; you look so well put together.

“The worst type of crying wasn’t the kind everyone could see — the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me… our souls contained more scar tissue than life.” ~ Katie McGarry

Maybe your closest friends think you are lonely, but it is worse than that: you have lost the part of yourself that you loved most. The last period has been stamped onto the page, and yet somehow you were left behind, running your fingertips over a leather bound cover slammed shut.

You are a character in a story that is over, and since this never happens in the fairy tales you were fed in your most formative years, you are lost. You no longer fit in the world, and there is no star that can grant your truest wish.

And yet there is hope, but it is not the hope you want. Your sadness becomes all you have left and you begin to cherish it, to worship at its feet so you never forget the most important thing that ever happened to you.

You hold it in your body and you feed it all your love, all your light, so that it stays, so that you can be closer to death. It will never sneak up on you again, because it never leaves your doorstep.

And they will tell you that you’re expected at the office by nine. They will recommend that you still go to church. They will expect you still to celebrate at birthdays, and pretend it doesn’t pain you when you must change your grocery list. No, you mustn’t cry when you have to put back the soy milk because the only one who drinks it is gone.

Well-meaning friends and family will repeat the lies repeated to them in their hours of need, but they will not reveal the truth. They will not tell you how angry they were when this trite advice was handed down to them, how they took it with a joyless, tight-lipped smile, and an insincere “thank you,” just as you will do.

They know no other way. There were things they valued more than their grief: unsmudged eyeliner, making their friends feel comfortable, staying unemotional at work.

Their platitudes won’t help you at all, but you’ll hear them so often from so many directions that you will begin to wonder why you can’t heed them. Instead of realizing the obvious truth: that the advice is terribly flawed, your conditioning will tell you that it is you who are flawed, adding the burden of guilt to a heart already gasping for air.

There are many lists of trite advice you can read about grief, but they will only add to your confusion about why you can’t seem to sync your feelings with the grief map sanctioned by your culture.

This map is supposed to tell you what is normal, but that map was not made for you. It was made to keep the engine of our cultural machine running. It requires your numbness. Refuse, my friend. Refuse with all your might to be numb.

I have no trite advice for you. I have nothing prolific to say. I’m not going to tell you to get therapy or accept how life has changed. I offer you this in the spirit of “you-are-not-aloneness” and “there-is-no-scheduledom.” I give this freely from a place of “I-don’t-know-how-you-feel-but-I-sure-as-shit-know-what-it’s-like-to-be-devestatedism,” and “This-is-how-I-feltity.”

Can anybody hear me?

1. The Lie: You should be over it/him/her by now.

The Truth: No one has the authority to tell you how you should feel, when you should feel it or for how long. Do you hear me? There is no normal when it comes to grief. There is no quantifiable estimate of how much value who and what you have lost has added to your life or for how long you should be sad about that loss. You are not a machine. Numbers: days, weeks, months, years are meaningless.

Death and aliveness are inextricably linked. You may stop weeping (or not), but you will never forget the love, the adventure, the grandiosity of the effect that your beloved lost has made upon your life, and your character. In this way, death will guide you for the rest of your days.

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly — that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” ~ Anne Lamott

Your life has changed forever. The touch of death is a part of you now, woven into the tapestry of your new and unfolding experience.

2. The Lie: You should stop talking about him or her / Stop living in the past.

The Truth: The only people who cannot bear to hear you speak of your beloved are those who cannot accept their own mortality. They are people who have never grieved. They either don’t know loss, or they buried themselves with their loved ones. Trust me when I tell you, they have their own mountains yet to climb.

Those who would have you silence yourself, choke on the words that you must speak, are people who do not know their own souls.

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” ~ William Shakespeare

I’m not a psychologist. I’m a writer, so you must know by now that I am having a love affair with words. I know how to make them sharp and pointy. I know how to make them sing like music. And most importantly, I know that they keep me connected to everything beautiful in this world, and the next.

Speaking of your loved one can keep their presence with you from far across the boundaries of the point where life meets death. It is a way to honor them, and a way to honor your feelings. It keeps their love alive in you. It extends the meaning of their life into the world in powerful and meaningful ways. It gives them back a voice in a world hell-bent on forgetting.

It’s okay to speak of them, to them, and even for them when there is good that can be done by you because they have lived. What better way to honor a life, than to extend this love to others?

3. The Lie: You have to move on with your life (right now).

The Truth: This advice is an act of violence against a grieving heart. It is a kick in the ribs while you lie hopelessly seized by despair. Whatever it is your loved one would want, it is unlikely that he or she would want an avalanche of guilt entombing you with your grief. You have enough to climb out of, enough rebuilding to do.

In many ways you are restarting your life from scratch, especially if your beloved lost was the central pin you’d built your life around. For many of us, there is no life to get on with; the lives we were living are irretrievable.

We must begin again, and we don’t want to begin our new lives on a foundation of unacknowledged, disrespected grief.

Being with your grief may require you to sit amongst the rubble. You may have to watch a city crumble. You may have to let go of who you thought you were, in order to make meaning out of the meaningless tragedy of death. Someday you will rebuild this city, but it will be new, updated, your tastes will have changed, you will be more wholly yourself and your kingdom will reflect that.

4. The Lie: You could have prevented this tragedy.

The Truth: If your loved one passed in a sudden or unexpected way, somewhere inside you is a voice asking what you might have done differently that would have changed the course of events that led to the death of your beloved lost.

The truth is that the factors that influence the course of our lives are bigger and more mysterious than what we did and did not do. To hold yourself accountable for any reason is to deny the greater context in which life happens, and that is a dangerous choice to make, because it will eat a hole in your spirit that you can never fill without asking much scarier questions. Bigger questions.

How will I live with this loss? Will I survive this sadness? Will I ever love again? Who am I now? In what manner will I go on? How do I want to spend what’s left of my life? How can I honor my loved one’s life? And death? Is there more? What is the meaning of living? How can I find fulfillment now?

Why the fuck am I here?

“Watch the ones whose only option left is to lean into the questions. The ones who are uninhibited by the unknown because they’ve jumped into that gaping hole and found themselves, by grace, unswallowable. Watch the ones who willingly stand with Feist and say, “I feel it all” even when it scares the shit out of them. It’s not brave to have answers.”

~ Mandy Steward

Girl in the Rain by Autumn Ann

5. The Lie: Time heals all wounds.

The Truth: The truth is there are losses you never get over. They break you to pieces and you can never go back to the original shape you once were, and so you will grieve your own death with that of your beloved lost.

Your grief is your love, turned inside-out. That is why it is so deep. That is why it is so consuming. When your sadness seems bottomless, it is because your love knows no bounds.

Grief teaches us about who we are, and any attempt to crush it, to bury it with the body is an act of vengeance against your own nature.

If everyone felt, honored, respected and trusted their true feelings, this world would be a different place. Instead of reacting, we would respond. Instead of judging, we would see ourselves in everyone. Instead of consuming, we would notice that we cannot fill the gaping wounds inside of us with trinkets.

If instead of pretending we are okay, we would take the time to wail, to weep, to scream, to wander the woods day after day holding hands with our sadness, loving it into remission so it doesn’t turn cold inside of us, gripping us intermittently in the icy fingers of depression. That’s not what grief is meant to do.

Grief has a way of showing you just how deep your aliveness goes. It’s a dagger shoved down your throat, its handle bulging like an Adam’s apple protruding from your neck, edges pressed against both lungs, creating a long, slow bleed in your chest that rolls down the edges of your life, and you get to handle that any fucking way you want.

If you have been sitting on old grief from your childhood, your failed relationships, the loss of a family pet when you were nine, and any other losses you were unable to honor in the past, this left-over grief will also come through the broken damn. Let it.

“Grief does not change you… It reveals you.” ~ John Green

And herein lies the gift that cannot die. It changes the course of your life forever. If you allow yourself the chance to feel it for as long as you need to — even if it is for the rest of your life — you will be guided by it. You will become someone it would have been impossible for you to be, and in this way your loved one lives on, in you.

 *****

{No one can tell you how}

Ned Vizzini

Morgan shared this Entertainment Weekly article with me today. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is one of her most favorite books, and she was devastated to hear of Vizzini's suicide. "It's all too close," she said. I think now that finals are over, and with the news of Vizzini, her brain has the space to to once again deal with her daddy's death in a different way. Her tears were of deep sadness and loss.

'It's Kind of a Funny Story' 

author Ned Vizzini dies at 32

By Hillary Busis on Dec 20, 2013 at 1:43PM  @hillibusterr

Ned Vizzini, the author of YA favorites It’s Kind of a Funny Story and Be More Chill, died Thursday in New York City. According to the Los Angeles Times, Vizzini committed suicide. He was 32.

Vizzini, a Brooklyn native, began writing professionally for New York City newspapers as a teenager in the late ’90s. His first book, a “quasi-autogiobraphy” called Teen Angst? Naaah…, collected several of Vizzini’s columns for the New York Press and shared its title with an essay Vizzini had published in the New York Times Magazine when he was still a junior at Manhattan’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. The book hit shelves in 2000. His first novel, Be More Chill, was published in 2004.

That same year, Vizzini experienced depression and suicidal thoughts, which prompted him to call a suicide hotline. Vizzini subsequently spent a week in the psychiatric ward of Brooklyn’s Methodist Hospital. Vizzini would later fictionalize this experience in his acclaimed second novel, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, published in 2006. The novel was adapted into a film starring Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis, and Emma Roberts in 2010.

Though Vizzini continued to publish books — his teen fantasy The Other Normals came out in 2012 and House of Secrets, the first of three planned collaborations with director Chris Columbus, was released earlier this year — he also branched out into television work after moving from New York to Los Angeles. Vizzini co-wrote two episodes of MTV’s Teen Wolf and served as a story editor on Shawn Ryan’s short-lived ABC drama Last Resort.(Ryan was one of the first people to report Vizzini’s death, via Twitter last night.)

Vizzini is survived by his wife Sabra Embury, a book critic for The L Magazine, and their 2-year-old son.

“What I would like young adults to take away from It’s Kind of a Funny Story is that if you’re feeling suicidal, call a hotline,” Vizzini said in an interview with Strength of Us, an online community developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, after the film version of Funny Story was released. “Suicidal ideation really is a medical emergency and if more people knew to call the suicide hotline we’d have less suicides. One number, as related in the book (and just verified on Google), is 1-800-SUICIDE.”

Update: Alessandra Balzer, co-publisher of the HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray — which published both The Other Normals and House of Secrets — has released a statement about Vizzini’s death:

“I was devastated to learn of Ned Vizzini’s death today. Ned was a preternatural talent — a brilliant, insightful writer and a dazzling storyteller who was one of the leading pioneers of YA literature as we know it. I have had the great privilege of working with Ned on his novels since his debut, Be More Chill, which he wrote when he was still in college. He created characters who were outsiders trying to find their way, and he did it with such humor and empathy. He was also incredibly kind and he adored his family and friends. At his signings, countless kids would approach him to say that he changed their lives — he gave them hope. And he was always generous to his fans.  Ned’s books will be read and beloved for generations to come. This is a tragic loss for all who knew him and were inspired by his work.”

Alfonso Cuarón and Bad Robot Productions, the company behind the upcoming NBC series Believe — on which Vizzini was working before his death — have released a statement as well:

“We are incredibly saddened at the loss of our dear friend and colleague Ned Vizzini. On behalf of everyone in the Believe family, we offer our deepest condolences and heartfelt best wishes to his friends and family, especially his wife and son, at this most challenging of times.”

more change

so many changes this year, and from what i can foresee, so many more to come in 2014.

finals are over. relief is in the air over here.
just had a successful first night of hanukkah! gifts were enjoyed. one for me too.
i bet if i let morgan sleep as long as possible, i wouldn't see her until monday.

yoga, soulcycle, marais, paula and more tomorrow.

good night.
ps - get your adobe flash player on to see these links! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR_DFMUzX4E)
"and i don't even know how i survived.
...i don't even know if i'm alive...
without you now...this is what it feels like."

witching hour part 2

i remember those early days and nights after glenn's death when i hated the 4p-7p witching hour. that time of day was so very lonely. and cold. 
with the help of my friends and family, i was able to transition and be okay enough to live through those hours. i worked out. my friends came over. i caught up on mindless tv and read people magazine.
eventually those hours became precious. i made dates, i cooked, i caught up on work, sipped spontaneous lattes with friends, drank wine or scotch with my pals, caught up with my east coast people, and most importantly spent time with the girls (in the car, dropping off or picking up, at dinner, during homework, therapy, girly time). 
over the year i found new ways to fill those hours. sometimes productive and often, not. 
it's strange for me to write this, but i think i have learned to really bask in that time. even when i have to be in two places at once, and i'm spiraling. i have learned how to manage it.

morgan has latin final tomorrow.
sara has science & algebra.

circuit works @5:30a and kinetic at 9:30a.

finals, a postponed hanukkah and looking to 1/3/14

finals are here.
girls are working hard and studying diligently.
when the week ends, the three of us will finally celebrate the holiday with gifts and favorite foods, 9 candles in our hannukiah, and time together.
we're pushing along to january 3rd.
i'm definitely beginning to get flashbacks - mostly in the late afternoon, when i made that call to todd asking him if he knew where glenn was.
on a very intellectual level, i know history will not repeat itself (how can it?), but the thoughts and images that run through my mind sometimes transport me quickly to that horrible afternoon and night. right now, i'm just getting glimpses. not sure what to expect over these next several week. i will continue to be as open as possible, and welcome my feelings.
after finals and our holiday celebration, the girls and i will pow wow about the upcoming anniversary. what we want it to look like for us in this new world we continue to build.
i never ever thought i would say this...glenn is becoming a (distant) memory.

59 xmas lights.
CW 5:30a.

me

my friend and neighbor called ME today, and asked me if i could help her out this afternoon. of course, i could. it made my day that she thought of me.
the call of it all reminded me that i am a good friend, a helpful neighbor, and for the first time this year, it made me feel a little bit like me again.

i am sooooo sleeping in tomorrow.
staying up late to catch up on scandal.

key of courage

in february, i received a "key of courage" necklace. it is made by The Giving Keys www.thegivingkeys.com. the idea is to wear the necklace and at some point to give it away to a person who is in need of the message. 

i wore it a lot in the first trimester of dealing with glenn's suicide.

in part because it did remind me that i have courage to make a brand new life for myself. also to show my daughters that in the worst (or best) of times to have the courage to feel every range of emotion. to have courage to know that "this too shall pass." the courage to wake up and have a day, even if the day is crappy. the courage to say no and to say yes. to have the courage to be weak and strong, and to ask for help. the necklace was symbolic as well. the key gave me something to literally hold onto. the key didn't hold the answers, but it allowed me to know i could seek out and discover a new world. 

i've been thinking the last couple of month about who to give it to next. i just put it in the mail and it will travel across the country to one of my very dear friends. i hope she finds it as useful as i did. 

CW again 5:30a.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usIHENAXuag

shy of midnight

at danielle and jason's wedding the girls and i made guesses as to what time each of us would be in bed. i said 12:10am. i'm thrilled to write that i have touched down and am in bed already at 11:58pm.
wedding was beautiful, and our family and friends were extraordinarily excited and appreciative for witnessing love and a future for this couple.
62 xmas lights.
8am circuit works.

past midnight

a late friday night (early saturday morning) celebrating our cousin danielle's wedding weekend.
the day was full with signing papers, another visit to the bank, and good friends/family today: mm, cp, mp, rp, sc, jc, c&er
a newer friend asked me to make a list of things i am grateful for...and not to just list the obvious stuff, but to really be mindful as i make the list.
i'm going to see what to put on that list, mindfully. hmmm.
tomorrow (later today) is danielle and jason's wedding. the girls are bridesmaids.

26 xmas lights.
no workout tomorrow.

christmas lights

when my sister and i were growing up in simi valley, during the holiday season, we loved counting the houses with christmas lights. and there were aplenty in simi.
we had so many rules to our game (you can only count houses, not businesses, but churches counted, and some individual apartments, and if you saw a christmas tree in the window, well that counted too). this game turned competitive but, as we got older (up until last year) we played as a team. some nights we counted over 100 houses. and sometimes, we would drive around our neighborhoods to count lights, and listen to xmas music, but really it was another excuse to spend time together and talk. often we forgot what number we were on and one of us would make up a random number and begin counting from there. we really knew how to amuse ourselves. lol.
jen and i, of course, taught the four girls how to play our game. 
this year, i've had no energy to play, even though sara has been counting from the passenger seat on her own. 
that was until tonight. sara and i counted lights. we only got to 60...perhaps it is still early in the season. 
sara's spirit is contagious. and tonight i caught her counting christmas lights fever. not sure i will feel it again, but i'm only thinking about right now. and right now is where i am.

going back to the CW early a.m. class.

our aunty andy

girls and i had an early dinner at rosti with aunty andy. 
it is just so easy with her. we all have incredibly close relationships with her.
it is honest and authentic and being with her comes with great ease.
we can all say what we want, and be ourselves.
morgan, sara and i treasure the kahns.
i really thank the stars that she is in our lives. i am grateful to glenn for her.

circuit works 5:30a, and yogahop 9:15a.

bette

she shined at the geffen tonight, and ostrom and i beamed in the audience.
it feels good to go out with friends and laugh and forget.
bravo!

burn60 with beth and crew at 6a.

r+d with brinley

the r + d house dip duo with extra chips sure doesn't solve any of life's problems, but the indulgence alone makes us feel better for at least the here and now.

cw 5:30a
kinetic 9:30a

sunday night

collapsing into bed now.
cw at 8:30a tomorrow.

the words to this song are haunting.

happy sweet 16 morgan

what a treat today to see morgan with her friends (SAMO, the Village, SSWT, NFTY, WTY, and of course Alonim) and family (great-grandmother, grandmas and aunties, sisters and cuzzies) and special people (special auntys, "other" mothers).
we celebrated her sweet16 today and she received so many compliments and toasts from here and there, and sweetness (from Soph & Barbara)

circuit works tomorrow morning!