Tag / sunshine

by Kelly Mattei

Blame It On the Limoncello

Blame it on the limoncello.

After I posted my piece titled Please Drop In, I received a text from a friend telling me she was on the way to my house. This particular friend is funny…hilariously funny…and smart…put those two qualities together, and it makes for an awesome person. In fact, she’s so awesome that, years ago, when she told me she had “people” (that’s Southern for family) in Clanton, Alabama, I told her we absolutely must be related. I have family all over Alabama, so anything’s possible, right? Rather than digging through genealogy, I just went ahead and declared her my cousin. So, now we’re cousins. I’ve written about my “fake cousins” before. I don’t have a lot of them, but when I feel a particular kinship with someone…well, they become my fake cousin. So…when she said she was on her way to my house, I was thrilled!

A few minutes later, she drove up my driveway in her beautiful white convertible, and when she hopped out, she had a bag in her hand. Here’s what it contained: two cups of ice, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of Limoncello, a bottle of Diet Sprite, and some lemon juice. That’s a party in a bag! And yes! As you see…she even brought cups of ice! This cousin was prepared!

I have to admit that when I saw the bottle of limoncello, I got a little scared. I had an unforgettable experience with limoncello several months ago. You’d think at 53, I’d know what not to do where alcohol is concerned, but apparently, I’m not the fastest learner. A friend invited me to go with her to see Kathleen Turner perform in her one-woman show in Greenville, South Carolina. Because I’m a control freak, I offered to drive us there. We made an early dinner reservation for 5:30 or 6:00 at a restaurant near the theater, and we hit the road, arriving at the restaurant at about 5pm. The bar was open, but the restaurant wasn’t open yet, so we bellied up to the bar. My friend ordered an Old-Fashioned, and I ordered a glass of Prosecco. Well, one glass turned into two…never a big deal, because we wouldn’t be getting into the car for hours. But then, the bartender offered us some homemade Limoncello.

Has anyone ever told you how dangerous Limoncello can be? Well, I drank what he poured me, and when I stood up to go to the ladies room, I knew immediately that I was a little drunk. Yes, at 53, I was accidentally drunk before dinner. Fortunately, when I returned from the ladies’ room, our table was ready, so we could go straight to our table and order dinner. After dinner, I was feeling better, and we walked in the cool, brisk air to the theater. The show was great, and we joined some friends of my friend for “drinks” afterward…I just had coffee, thank you very much. By the time we left, it had been six hours since we moved from the bar to our table, and I was sobered up. I had a terrible headache, but I was sober.

The day after that little jaunt to Greenville, I was talking with another friend who said she’d had a limoncello experience too, and she reminded me of a time Danny Devito appeared drunk on The View. Later, he blamed his slurred speech and unsteady gate on the limoncello he’d been drinking, saying, “I knew it was the last seven limoncellos that was going to get me.” Since then, whenever something goes awry in my world, I say, “Blame it on the limoncello.”

But last week, my cousin who dropped in assured me no bad behavior was on the horizon. She assured me we were going to have one very light afternoon cocktail. And I watched intently as she mixed a lovely, summery-tasting concoction using all the ingredients she brought with her. And it was delicious! It tasted like sunshine!

All this was my long way of saying a great big “thank you” to my cousin for dropping in with the perfect treat in hand. Even better, she brought her infectious sense of humor and optimism…just when I needed it most! This whole pandemic has cancelled some of my vacations, and she knew I had the blues. But she cured that! I hope she’ll drop in again soon…or maybe I’ll drop in on her!

Blame it on the limoncello!

 

by Kelly Mattei

Keeping a Coronavirus “Wartime” Journal

Keeping a coronavirus “wartime” journal.

I do think of this pandemic as wartime. We are waging a war against an unseen enemy…COVID-19. When our country has been at war in the past, we could see our enemies, but now…the enemy is all around; we just don’t know where.

We are prisoners in our own homes. Our children are missing out on real school…learning online, but missing their friends, their sports, and their social lives. Those who are supposed to graduate from high school are missing out on more…”lasts,” proms, and graduations, even.

During the “greatest generation,” people wrote letters…snail mail, real letters with pen and paper. For lots of people, that is their historical record of what happened during those days. People don’t write a lot of snail mail these days, so it’s not likely we’ll have that type of historical record of this “war.” And then there was Anne Frank, who wrote in her diary about her days in hiding with her family during the war…an historical record, for sure.

I was talking with my teenage daughter today and told her she needed to start keeping a daily journal of her thoughts, her feelings, and her activities during this pandemic. She likely thought it was a weird mom idea, but she agreed, nonetheless. At first, I was searching through the house for an unused composition notebook or spiral notebook for her to used as a journal, but after having no luck, I realized she doesn’t need a notebook. All she needs is her computer. She’ll be more likely to keep a journal on her computer. And her private thoughts are probably safer there anyway. I’m planning to keep my own journal on my computer too, simply because I know I’d be likely to misplace a journal, but I’m not going to misplace my computer. We can print our pages daily and bind them later.

Journaling, in my opinion, is a good idea anyway…in “normal” life. It’s relaxing, and I have found, in my past, that it was therapeutic. Sometimes, if I write down my feelings, I can get some clarity. Maybe I realize what I’m feeling is ridiculous, or maybe I realize my feelings are justified, but either way, it is helpful. As for journaling during this pandemic, I suggested to my daughter that we write something every day. It doesn’t even have to be meaningful…just something. But I reminded her we need to count our blessings. Sure, we can complain and write the facts about the pandemic…how many are infected, how many have died, all the restrictions to daily life, the shortages…but we need to write about the things we enjoy too and how we feel every day.

Take, for example, how fortunate we are that today is a beautiful day…75 degrees and sunny…in Charlotte. We are fortunate to have a backyard pool, where we can lounge and soak up the sun…something that is very good for improving mood, by the way. Roses are beginning to bloom on the back patio, and trees are growing thicker with bright green leaves every day. We are fortunate to have plenty of food in the pantry. And yes, plenty of toilet paper and Clorox wipes. And as far as we know, we do not have the dreaded coronavirus. Digging deeper into our situation, I might write that I’m beginning to feel really uneasy about the way the world is now. Will our economy ever rebound? Will we forget who we are while we’re all hunkered down in fear of the invisible virus? Will we be fearful of each other after this? Will we be afraid to travel?

Hopefully, my daughter will join me in journaling these crazy days in world history. I told her it’s likely her children won’t believe what we have been doing and will likely continue to do for the next few weeks, possibly months. Hopefully not months, though…seriously…hopefully not months. Her kids likely won’t believe people were hoarding toilet paper, paper towels, and groceries. They will likely be perplexed when she tells them airlines had to cut way back on flights, and people were wearing all kinds of crazy getups to “essential” stores. Hopefully, she will laugh when she tells them we made regular trips to the Krispy Kreme drive-thru, since thankfully, doughnuts are considered “essential.” Oh, I hope my daughter remembers to write all the funny stuff.

And after we write our own little historical records, I will say a prayer of thanks and forgiveness, and I will ask Him to keep us safe and end this pandemic as soon as possible.

by Kelly Mattei

A Picture Tells a Story

A picture tells a story.

At the end of every year since I got an Instagram account, I go back through all the photos I posted for that year. Recently I went back through my Instagram photos for 2019, and I truly realized that some of the pictures really tell stories.

My first post for 2019 was a photo at the Charlotte airport…not much of a story except that we were starting vacation…meeting friends from Ohio in LA. But the next picture, a photo of me and my friend from Ohio, Jenn, tells a real story.

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Sure, looking at the photo above, all you see is two friends on a chilly day with the Pacific Ocean in the background. But what I see is love. Having just survived the first anniversary of my mother’s death (she died December 30, 2017), I was still reeling. I was feeling lost. And then we arrived in Los Angeles, and Jenn and her daughter arrived. After telling her what a terrible day that first anniversary on December 30 had been (there were additional factors at play)…and crying…Jenn made me feel better. Jenn, the perpetual ray of sunshine, hugged me, listened to me, and made me feel loved. So every time I come across that one single photo that looks completely nondescript and meaningless to everyone else in the world, I remember how much better she made me feel. I can look at my face in that picture and see the pain melting away. I see the relief in my eyes and in my face. That picture reminds me that good friends are hard to find. And that picture reminds me that when we find good friends like Jenn, we need to keep them.

There are other photos from 2019 that stand out for me. In fact, any photos I post on Instagram, I share for a reason…maybe I think they’re funny or cute…maybe I want to share something cool…or maybe there’s another meaning behind the picture. Of course, when I posted the picture of me and Jenn, I had no idea how powerful the picture was for me. It was only when I was looking through pictures a few months later that I saw it again, and the meaning behind it floored me. Instagram photos certainly tell stories…maybe not to the casual observer, but to the originator of the post. Most of my photos tell stories of family, friendship, and love. And then there are some that tell different stories…like this photo of me and my daughter in front of Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The story? In 2015, I took a crazy road trip with my friend, Mary Ann, and our kids. We spent a few nights in Chicago, and while we were there, I had hoped to get the kids up to Wisconsin…just so they could add another state to their list of “states visited.” There was a Six Flags amusement park we could have visited just over the line, but that would have taken too much time, so instead, I suggested Mars Cheese Castle, a giant cheese store shaped like…you guessed it…a castle. We never made it in 2015, and I regretted it. So in 2019, when I was in Chicago with my daughter and one of her friends, we made a quick trip up to Kenosha to visit Mars Cheese Castle. You can see how happy I was!

Those are just a couple of examples of how pictures tell stories, but I can look at every picture on my Instagram account and remember stories and conversations behind them. Right now, though, I keep going back to that picture of me and Jenn. I need to call her and thank her for being a good friend.

 

by Kelly Mattei

I Am A Perfect Social Media Mom

Last week, a friend mentioned in her blog how she hates perfect social media moms…you know, the ones who can do every Pinterest project perfectly while holding triplets on both hips and working a glamorous job?

Well, I’m not that person. I’m a stay-at-home mom who totally flies by the seat of her pants. I don’t have a glamorous job, and I don’t want one. I only have one child, and as easy as that may sound, she’s a teenager, so no matter what, it’s not easy. I don’t have a perfect, color-coded closet. In fact, I can barely see the floor of my closet after getting dressed to go somewhere, because I try on different outfits and drop them in the floor when I move to the next one. I’m terrible at Pinterest projects. I cook sometimes, but my family doesn’t eat it. Sometimes, I have a perfect manicure and pedicure, but most of the time, I’m hoping no one looks at my hands and feet. I love a good tan, but I’ve resorted to sunless tanning, because it’s cheap, easy, and it doesn’t require me to sweat. I still spend a lot of time outdoors, tending my garden, but I choose to be out there before 10am and in the evenings. Since I mentioned my garden, I should tell you it’s not worthy of photos this year. The tomatoes might have southern blight or black speck disease or black spot disease…they aren’t producing like they should. The first few I picked were fantastic, but now, they’ve just stopped growing new fruit. The tomatoes are “organic,” but if they don’t produce, my family won’t get any organic foods this summer. And I’m not even sure I know what GMO means. My suitcases from my recent road trip are still not completely unpacked. In fact, my carry-on bag from my trip to LA in June still isn’t unpacked. But I’m not putting pictures of that on social media!

But am I a perfect social media mom? Sure I am, but it’s not because I’m perfect. It’s because I’m not perfect. That’s what makes me a perfect social media mom. Sure, I try to post flattering pictures of myself and family, but sometimes, I just have to post pics of bad hair days or no makeup or terrible outfits that I thought looked great when I put them on, but noticed later they were major fails. And if I do manage to post a great picture with people in it, it’s probably the only one out of 75 that I took that was presentable. Or maybe I didn’t realize I had black beans in my teeth, or a terrible panty line, or muffin top.

Here’s what everyone needs to know. Our imperfections make us perfect. Should we make an attempt at putting our best foot forward? Of course. It’s human nature. But when you see a picture of me with ill-fitting sunglasses or a bad angle, it’s because there is something about that picture I wanted to save. In fact, there is a picture of me on Facebook and Instagram right now with a friend from 4th grade. It’s a terrible picture of me, but it’s the only picture we took. So you can see me standing funny with my pants doing something weird…plus, I look really tall next to my friend, because I had on wedges and she didn’t. But the imperfections make it perfect, because I loved spending time with my childhood friend.

So get out there and be the perfectly imperfect social media mom, and enjoy every minute. One day, our kids will be grown, and we will enjoy the memories we have saved for ourselves through social media.

You can find solace in knowing that even the perfect social media moms aren’t perfect. They’re just posting their most perfect pictures. So don’t have FOMO (fear of missing out), and don’t have Facebook Envy. Your life is perfect just as it is…because it’s yours.

by Kelly Mattei

I Ordered The Summer Reading Book

It’s almost August, so I finally broke down and ordered the book my daughter, who is a rising high school sophomore, has been assigned for her required summer reading. I didn’t assign it. Her school did, and I’m not gonna lie…I resent it.

First, summer is my time. I’m not complaining. I love our daughter’s school, but summer is my time. I don’t want to receive school emails. I don’t want reminders. I don’t want to see her schedule or her school supplies list. I don’t want any of it, because frankly, I don’t even want to think about school. This is summer. It should be free time… and I’d appreciate it if I could keep it that way.

Alas, I can’t. Every year, we have to do health forms. I took her for her physical early this year, in June, so I wouldn’t have to keep seeing the emails from school, requesting the information. I got her physical done, got the forms signed by the doctor, and sent them in early! Done! I eliminated those weekly “reminder” emails about the health forms. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful our school requires them. I’m grateful that they want all her health info, in case they can’t reach me when something happens. But I want to do it all while school is in session. I don’t want to ruin the peace of summer with health forms.

Recently, apparently, there was an email about high school students at our daughter’s school picking up their iPads before school starts. A mom came by my house today, and while she was here, she asked if my daughter is picking up her iPad tomorrow. I hadn’t seen the email, because it is summer, and I don’t check my email very regularly in summer….so ummm…no, she won’t be picking up her iPad tomorrow. It’s July 28th. School doesn’t start till August 21. She would likely misplace the damn thing before school starts if she picked it up now. Aside from that….I don’t want to think about the school iPad yet! Truth be told, I wish she didn’t even have a school iPad.

It’s times like this I wish the whole world could be more like the 1980s. When I was in high school, we had cheerleading practice all summer, but we didn’t talk about school stuff till school was about to start. Summer was for lounging by the pool; eating French fries in the clubhouse; going to the beach, where we walked to Dairy Queen every afternoon; family vacations; watching soap operas (Dr Noah Drake, anyone?); and just hanging with friends. And we never had summer reading!

It is a pain in my butt every…single…year. I know some people have kids who love to read. They love any book they can get their hands on, and I admire that. But mine isn’t that kid. She would rather be running around a field hockey or lacrosse field, hanging out with friends, going to the beach, eating French fries at the club…or other stuff I did in the 1980s. I ordered the book today, though, and it will arrive by the weekend, and she will read it when she reads it. And I will resent it.

I just want her to be a kid while she can be a kid! These kids have so much more pressure on them than we had as teens. As early as seventh grade, parents at her school, in meetings, were asking about curriculum paths for their kids to get into the “right colleges.” Honestly, I don’t give a crap where mine goes. She will go somewhere. But I don’t want her worrying about that, because guess what? She is in 10th grade. She doesn’t know squat. And do you know why she doesn’t know squat? Because she is a kid, and she shouldn’t be having to make life decisions at 15. She should be thinking about teenager stuff and enjoying the lazy days of summer.

Plus, I think kids learn a lot in summer, in a different way. I think they learn about scheduling. If they travel, they learn more about the world in which they live…even if they just travel to a neighboring town. They learn that the world is a big place. They meet new people and hang out with people with whom they don’t go to school. They grow. They play. They learn how to do things on their own. When our daughter was a toddler, any time we traveled…even just for a weekend…I noticed she was different when we got home. She had learned something that made her a little different. Has she ever been changed like that by a book? Maybe, but this was every time we went somewhere…she came home different. Being exposed to different places and people is a different kind of education.

So, am I going to badger her about her required summer reading? Nope. I’m not even going to “remind” her. She will get it done on her own terms, but mostly, I hope she enjoys the last few weeks of summer. I hope she hangs out at the pool with friends, goes to concerts, hangs out some with me, listens to music, eats as many French fries as she wants, floats around on a giant inflatable pink flamingo, and doesn’t even think about school.

Maybe I’m the slacker mom, but I know she is going to be OK. I know she would be OK without summer reading, and she will be OK with it too.

But most of all…I hope she enjoys the last few weeks of summer…like kids are supposed to do.

***If you’re wondering, the required summer reading book is called A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah. I’m ordering one for myself too, just so I can see what makes it special.***

woman lying on pink flamingo bouy on body of water

Photo by LRM Exterior on Pexels.com

by Kelly Mattei

I Need A Vacation From The Rain

My cousin, Patti, and I were talking on the phone this morning. She lives in Florida. She was sitting on her back porch like she does most mornings if it’s not raining.

Every time I talk to her when she is on her back porch, she talks to the cardinal that flies into her yard. She’s not crazy. Well, maybe she is crazy, but talking to the cardinal has nothing to do with that. She looks at the visit from the cardinal as a visit from my mother.

Patti used to visit my mother regularly. Sometimes she would stay for a couple of days, and sometimes she would stay for three weeks. Mother loved every minute of it. She always sounded happy when she answered the phone during Patti’s visits. They would talk and laugh…oh, how they laughed. Mother had a wicked sense of humor, and Patti is hysterically funny…always has been. Whenever I was there at the same time Patti was, my stomach would hurt from laughing.

Patti wasn’t laughing this morning, though. She told me she was “all up in my feelings,” meaning she’s emotional.

Patti lives in the Florida Panhandle, in an area that was hit hard by Hurricane Michael late last year. Fortunately, she didn’t have a lot of damage to her home, but all the trees around her house, for miles, are gone. She lives near a wooded state park that I remember visiting as a child; there were lots of trees. Almost every tree is gone, she says…snapped off by the wind. She has sent me pictures, and I’ve looked at pictures on Google Earth. It looks terrible…still. She says it looks like a war zone.

And lately, to add insult to injury, they’ve had a lot of rain…just like the rest of the Southeastern United States.

So when she said she was all up in her feelings, I said, “Patti, of course you are…it’s all this rain!” We’ve had the “mulligrubs” at our house too, because of all the rain. *The definition of mulligrub from Merriam-Webster is “a despondent, sullen or ill-tempered mood.”* Mother used refer to the blues as “the mulligrubs.”

My personal cure for the mulligrubs? A vacation.

Spring Break can’t get here fast enough for me. Admittedly, the sun has come out for the last couple of days in Charlotte, but I want real sun…the kind you can only get in a tropical location. I’m leaving Sunday for Mexico with a friend, my daughter, and a friend of hers, and we can hardly wait. I plan to sit by the pool or in the beach cabana, enjoying the beverage of my choice (champagne) and laughing with my friend.

And as soon as I get back from our Spring Break, Patti is going on a much-deserved Caribbean cruise with her sister. Hopefully, some time in the Caribbean will brighten her outlook for a while. I’m sure they will laugh a lot, since Patti makes everybody laugh. She was always the funny one in our family…well, my brother gives her some competition there.

I won’t even get into how funny the two of them together are.

So, I just have three more days till I get on that plane to Mexico. Can you tell I’m counting down? I’m saying some prayers that it doesn’t rain the whole time we are there, but even if it does, the change of scenery will be fun, and I’ll have good company. I’m sure my daughter and her friend will avoid us as much as possible, but they will be required to have dinner with us.

And Patti just has nine more days till her cruise…pray for sunny skies for her too.

If you’ve had the “mulligrubs” or been “all up in your feelings” and you live in the Southeast, maybe it’s all the rain. Maybe you need some sunny days…even fifteen minutes of sunlight can lift your mood.

Rain, rain…stay the heck away!

***If you live somewhere that it’s gray and rainy a lot, you might want to invest in a Verilux HappyLight. Amazon has them, starting at $39.95, here. It’s supposed to provide good light therapy to improve your mood. It was recommended to me by a physician, but I’ve just ordered it.***

 

 

 

 

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