Running Out the Clock

Steve (bless his heart) was vacuuming our bedroom yesterday, and apparently in his efforts to de-dust our ancient clock radio on the bedside table, he hit some button that sped up time. Not literally, of course, but on the clock every minute began to register as a second. I didn’t notice this until the wee hours of this morning, when all of a sudden 5:10 AM was immediately followed by 5:11, 5:12 etc. We’ll have to fix it, of course, but meanwhile….

It seemed the perfect image for the last day of this dumpster fire of a year. We’ve held on as the economy tanked and the pandemic raged, and the stores and schools closed, and there were protests in the streets. We’ve struggled with isolation and fear and loneliness. This shared time of hardship that should have united us, has only pulled us further apart as a nation. Now all we want is to fast forward past the pain. 

I don’t have high hopes for New Year’s Eve. In fact, my prayer for today is that nothing much happens at all. That no further calamity or catastrophe adds to the wreckage before we turn the calendar page. If things don’t get better during this final 24 hours of the year, may they at least not get worse. 

So I’ll spend some time planning and wrapping up loose ends, both with my church job and with my freelance writing. I just downloaded an Excel spreadsheet entitled My Annual Report, with space for listing up to 12 personal goals for the next 52 weeks. It should probably worry me that I could only think of 6 goals, and have no clue how I will achieve any of them. But considering how this past year torpedoed all planning by everyone, everywhere, I’m not letting it bother me much.

We’ll figure out a movie to watch together tonight after dinner (which will be a non-cooking event featuring a nice charcuterie board). We don’t have NYE film traditions, alas, to comfort us. My sister C and her husband Rob watch the heartwarming Iron Will every single December 31^st, and have for decades. My movie memories are of our usually disastrous New Year’s Eve picks, including Barton Fink (I know, I know, genius, but I had nightmares for weeks afterward) and The Champ, a Jon Voight weeper about boxing co-staring Ricky Schroeder (the main thing I recall about it was that a mouse ran across the family room floor at one point and I watched the remainder of the film with my feet up on the sofa and my eyes scanning the carpet). 

Mainly I just want 2020 to end, as quickly as possible. So perhaps we won’t fix that timepiece quite yet. We’re not going anywhere today, so what’s the harm in our running out the clock and pretending? Our “ball” will drop by 11 AM and we’ll be done with it. 

Let me be the very first to say, Welcome to 2021!

Good riddance!

Old Family Recipe

Such handwriting! No wonder she became a nun!

Tis the season for my Facebook feed to be filled with photos of Grandma’s famous cheese dip, Aunt Mamie’s yummy turkey pot pie and Mom Bradley’s never-fail Snickerdoodles—if I’m lucky the actual recipe is attached to the post. It all looks splendid, and I am always inspired to bookmark a few of these heirloom treats to try with my fam. What can I offer up in return for my interweb buddies’ mealtime enjoyment, I wonder? 

The other day I pulled out several bulging gallon-size Ziploc bags, into which were haphazardly crammed recipes from all over. I spent an afternoon sorting them into file folders, hoping to unearth fabulous family culinary treasures to share with the world. 

Most recipes I found were snipped from yellowed newspapers so fragile that they crumbled to dust when I touched them. Some were photocopies of pages from cookbooks THAT ARE STILL ON MY SHELVES (thought process unknown). There was a period back in the mid-1970s when my late sister Mo took it upon herself to scrawl (in green ink on oversized index cards) the magic formulas for Beet and Sour Cream Salad, Chocolate Truffles, etc.  Hostess Extraordinaire Maureen whipped them all up in her tiny apartment, for elaborate dinner parties thrown for her unworthy young adult friends, whose idea of haute cuisine was the Quarter Pounder with EXTRA cheese. 

My mother-in-law Leona is represented by her (yummy) German Potato Salad and her (tooth-breaking) Springerle cookies. The sole offering from my mom Joanie is “Nana’s Chicken,” a concoction (very) heavy on the sherry and breadcrumbs, to the point that you can chew quite a while before getting to the poultry itself. There were a few pages torn from Fanny Farmer’s cookbook circa 1928, with pencilled notes by my Nana Cunningham--which indicate Nan prepared an awful lot of blancmange and other arcane desserts. In the end, except from the bittersweet reward of seeing Mo’s handwriting again, I found there wasn’t much worth saving, precious little to which I will refer going forward. 

But there was one singular “find” that I am excited about—a homemade cherry pie recipe. This was from a babysitter, Stephanie Schultz, who watched us for five days in 1969, the only time my parents ever went away. “Stevie” was a marvel who cooked and tidied and quickly organized our lives like Mary Poppins, and her pie was a revelation. Shortly after her stint with the Cunningham girls, Stephanie entered the convent. You may draw your own conclusions.

So next week, while I should probably wait for George Washington’s Birthday, I will attempt to make Stevie’s cherry pie for my gang. And whether or not it really is as good as I remember, it doesn’t matter. Every mouthful will spark happy memories of years long gone, which I believe is the whole point.

Merry Christmas my friends. Enjoy those old family recipes, and may they bring comfort, and hope for happily un-masked and crowded post-pandemic meals someday, with the ones you love.

One of the last Christmases for the Three Cunningham Girls

Pandemic Pageantry

 

Looks like the Star decided to walk to Bethlehem!

This is the time of year at church when I put on my Cecil B. DeMille hat and direct the Christmas pageant. I really should wear a traffic cop hat instead, because that’s more what the job involves; preventing angel and wise man collisions has become a specialty of mine. We’ve used the same, minimalist script for eons, and frankly I was very tired of it. 

So, when the pandemic precluded an in-house production this year, I decided to ask our young families to film themselves acting out short scenes, which would then be assembled into one YouTube video. Since things were going to be unusual anyway, I saw it as a good excuse for a re-write. Not to worry! I did not change the essential elements of the Nativity Story, but I did try to inject a bit more fun than Luke saw fit to include in his gospel (Scripture as a whole is not exactly a laugh riot, as we all know). 

My shepherds, for example, are so transformed by their Christmas Eve experience that they decide to change their line of work, and become yodeling goatherds. The angels prefer to sing “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Frosty the Snowman” instead of their traditional, sacred musical numbers. The Magi have no clue what frankincense and myrrh even are, and comment that Legos might have been a “wiser” gift choice. You get the idea. 

Well, the videos are finished, and “Joy to the World: A Pandemic Pageant” is ready to be put together. There’s still work to do before posting, but the most important part was a big success: my cast did me proud. The parents were the narrators and held everything together, but I must say even the littlest kids were also really terrific. What I discovered was, they may have stepped on a few of my “clever” lines, but they more than made up for it with their hilarious improvisations. A tiny performer fell over at one point, and her big brothers just ignored her and kept right on going. Another family decided to have the father play the part of a sleeping shepherd, lying out in the field for the angels to awaken. At the magic moment, one of the adorable angels yelled, “Wake up, Daddy!!” 

I am keeping it ALL in. 

What kind of baby present is myrrh, anyway?

We are interspersing the scenes with some carols to (hopefully) be sung by viewers. I will post lyrics, and a talented musical parent has recorded piano accompaniment. Not sure if anybody really will sit at their computer and bellow “Silent Night” to an audience of none, but maybe. It just seemed mandatory to include, in a year when so much has been denied us, even singing together. 

Christmas Eve of 2021 we will, please God, be back in church, and I will once again be directing “live” pageant traffic. But you know what? I think I’ll miss our YouTube presentation, and the joy of watching 17 families making this decidedly different Holy Night, very special.

Things Could Be Worse

Uh, yeah. I'd rather be here

3,000 American deaths daily right now. The pandemic seems to have decided that, with the vaccine being rolled out this week, it had better step up its efforts to sicken and kill as many of us as possible. With the help, of course, of those who eschew masks and social distancing and other common-sense precautions for their own strange reasons. At this writing there is no further federal aid coming for small businesses, the unemployed and other hurting folks, so, for many, “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents” (to quote Jo in Little Women). Add in the vast array of natural disasters and terrible incidences of racial injustice, and I’d say 2020 has been one for the books (if the books were written by Stephen King, that is).

But I am reminded that things could be worse. 

One of Aiden’s current favorite books is one that his father, uncles and aunts had also read, back in the day. It is written for young people, but the title has undoubtedly kept it off many tot’s shelves (and I frankly question our judgement in purchasing it). Pompeii: Buried Alive! tells the gruesome tale of the day in 79 AD that Vesuvius erupted and turned the city’s inhabitants to sudden ash-covered corpses. That true story was one of the horrors of my childhood memory, seeing those photos from archeological digs of the diners at table, the masters, slaves, children at play—all petrified in place. So yes, that was a pretty bad day (at least for Pompeii).

Even if we just focus on the virus, we realize that things could, indeed, be worse there too—we could be living in 1918, when the Spanish Influenza carried off millions, and, with no vaccine, had to run its deadly course for two years. And I’m imagining the medieval bubonic and other plagues were no strolls in the park either. 

I play the “could be worse” game often, to soothe my soul and help make the miserable present more palatable. And for sure there is no dearth of examples of times in human history that were pretty darned horrible. Hard to compare the relative hardships of no indoor restaurant dining and being buried alive, right?

I think by dwelling on those “worse” times, though, I may be missing the point. Maybe what I should be focusing on is: things could be better. Because that’s where I, where we, have some agency. Unlike the doomed Pompeiians, we are not rendered mute and immobile. We can fight COVID, and honor the sacrifices being made by our front-line workers, simply by wearing that mask, even if it’s stuffy and unflattering. We can pause our traveling and our visiting for one holiday season, to protect our loved ones and ourselves. We can do more to save the planet from man-made destruction. We can treat our fellow humans with respect and kindness.

Things could be better, much better, my friends. And if we all do our part, things will be. 

part of my mask collection

Shelf, Elf-less

The Elf That is Not on Our Shelf

We’re heading into what has traditionally been, for me at least, The Most Wonderful(ly Stressful) Time of the Year. The ticking clock seems to tick ever louder, the way a timer on a bomb in an episode of MacGyver ticks. I mean, you know the bomb’s not going to explode, but it’ll come darned close. In the same way, I know I'll never have a total Holiday Meltdown (but I’ll come darned close). Christmas is a mere three weeks away, and our only decorations so far are the handful of Yule cards we’ve received, festively arranged in a pile on the hall table with the Acme circulars. Par for the Seyfried course, actually, pandemic or no pandemic.

But, thanks to Ya-Jhu, I’m not flipping out this year. She has NOT given in to the temptation to do what millions of moms and dads have done: purchase an Elf on the Shelf for Aiden and Peter’s enjoyment. I have nothing personally against the winsome gnome, but the labor involved in pulling off this bit of Christmas magic sounds quite overwhelming. Seems Mr. Elf moves around the house, observing the kids being naughty/nice, and (I guess) files a nightly report with Santa. Since he is a toy, the elf-moving is left entirely up to the adults, and must be accomplished without the cherubs seeing. 

This amount of follow up has never panned out for me, because I am forgetful. One year I decided it would be lovely to move the figures in our Nativity scene a bit closer to the stable every night, and finally plop little Jesus into the manger late on 12/24. However, by 12/23 the shepherds and Magi were still on the far side of the mantel; this necessitated a rushed maneuver to get them all properly situated for the Big Night. Come Xmas Morn, my offspring didn’t even glance in the direction of the creche, so focused were they on the loot under the tree. I made a mental note never to bother with THAT ritual again. 

Along those lines, while once I filled the stockings with a fortune in little trinkets (we did stockings on Saint Nicholas Day, Dec. 6^th), as soon as we gave up that tradition, I never remembered to put candy in them until Christmas morning. Just before the kids woke up, I would hastily grab whatever Halloween candy was left over and stuff it in each jolly red sock. I learned that, as long as it was chocolate, it didn’t matter a bit if the wrapper had a picture of a ghost saying Boo! on it. 

Clearly, any Elf in my charge would be left in one spot all season, and the boys would quickly learn that they could wreak havoc in any other room and never be detected. 

Since our shelf is blessedly Elf-less, I will try to relax and enjoy this very different Christmas. 

“The stockings were hung with face masks and hand sanitizer!” has a nice ring to it, right?

Not this year (you can tell because Steve has a short haircut)

Half Life

Peter pardons some pine cone turkeys: Thanksgiving 2020

Our local meat market came up with an ingenious idea, when their huge turkeys were languishing un-purchased due to the smaller Thanksgiving celebrations this year. The butcher cut them in half, and they sold like crazy! This seemed to me the perfect image for our current, really weird holiday season (and don’t kid yourselves, my friends, Christmas will be very similar). I pictured sad, sawed apart poultry being eaten by half the usual revelers, accompanied perhaps by a half can of cranberry sauce and a mini pumpkin pie. Even the NYC Macy’s parade shrunk to a mere block in length! 

Logistical challenge: transport my scallop puffs to Rose in Brooklyn (sadly, I couldn't)

We were missing four of our five children, and Zoom proved a poor substitute for their companionship around the festive table. Even our traditional after-dinner charades tournament had a distinctly different vibe, as two of the main participants were ages 4 and 6. I must say it was rather restful—usually we play for keeps, arguing over 14-word-long titles of obscure Bollywood movies and the like. But last evening we just played “animal charades” so it was one of the six of us crawling around on the floor, the others wildly guessing, “Elephant? Monkey? Horseshoe crab?” If a winner could be determined, my vote was for Peter, whose turns were a kind of strange interpretive dance (joyful if incomprehensible). 

As we near the nine month mark of Pandemic Life, I realize some people have managed to carry babies from conception to full term during this stretch! What do I have to show for March-November 2020? I haven’t even moved the suitcase I’d carried down from the attic for the European trip that was cancelled eons ago! My theory: eventually I WILL use the suitcase, so why on earth put it back in the meantime? Steve yesterday confessed to feeling some anger (not about the dust-covered suitcase in our room, though he’d have every right to be irked). No, he was angry that almost a year of full living had been taken away from him, from all of us. At 71, he told me, he didn’t have any time to waste, and keenly felt the stalling of the children’s theatre company he’s worked so hard to build for 40 years. 

I read an article about people living what could be called half-lives, lives in a kind of limbo: folks on the international space station, at a remote science outpost in Antarctica. While productive, they nevertheless are missing out on vital things like daylight, time with family and friends, etc. Their consensus for maintaining mental health? Change (lower) expectations! Don’t expect a night on Broadway right now; be happy when a colony of Emperor penguins waddles by your hut, so to speak. 

I can look at it my half-life this year as still full: full of love, of small achievements,  of laughter. Coronavirus doesn’t have to rob of me all that makes existence sweet.  

After all, not everyone gets to see Peter acting like a cheetah. Or was it… an Emperor penguin?

Blog-a-Versary

Searching the old journals!

As a former journal keeper, I have fully embraced blogging, for several reasons. For one, accountability! Knowing other people are reading forces me to be a) somewhat coherent, b) sometimes clever and c) occasionally heartfelt. When I scribbled for my eyes only, I really didn’t care about grammar or syntax or legibility, much less enthralling content. Another plus for the blog column: my written history is right at my fingertips! When I want to recount a cute saying from one of my toddlers, I have to haul out my old handwritten journals and re-read EVERY entry until I find the gem I seek (only to discover, often, that it ain’t quite as gem-like as I remembered). 

On the minus side: I realize that I am at the mercy of my platform (the inventively named “Blogger”) and that at any moment, with a gentle “poof”, the whole shebang could disappear. I do keep copies of my posts on my computer, but still…it would be a ton of work to re-do the entries with the accompanying photos, audio files, etc. and, knowing me, I might not bother. What a loss that would be for my biographer someday!!

At any rate, we are nearing the ninth anniversary of my first post. When I wrote Take a Hike about an after-Thanksgiving outing with the fam, I truly expected it to be a flash-in-the-pan, like so many of my other ventures. At some point, though, it took on a life of its own, and now I wouldn’t quit blogging any more than I’d decide to quit brushing my teeth. I average three or four posts per month (rest assured, I brush my teeth rather more frequently). Once a year, I rev up the engine and crank out 30 entries in a row (usually in November), after which I subside, exhausted, with nouns and verbs scattered on the floor all around me. 

Since Turkey Day is tomorrow, I thought I’d “peep” (or  “gobble” to imitate the appropriate bird) at Posts of Thanksgivings Past…

2012: Surprise! Another after-holiday outdoor family activity, which included the first (and only) time I successfully threw a frisbee AND made a basket at the neighborhood courts. Like many a savvy athlete, I quickly retired, resting on my laurel.

2013: It’s The Thought That Counts?: Focusing on my friend Mary Ellen’s VERY thoughtful present that year (tickets to a taping of The Rachael Ray Show in NYC). 

2014: Whaddayaknow?: The Thanksgiving Evan had us all deliver five minute presentations about subjects we knew well. Conclusion: I guess I don’t know much well.

2015: What Not to Wear: Binging a TV “comfort” show with my girls 

2016: Attention Black Friday Shoppers!: Savvy holiday bargain hunters…versus me

2017: Curve Balls: The swell day the furnace chimney collapsed.

2018: Our Brooklyn Thanksgiving:  Fun at Julie and Gil’s.

2019: NaBloPoMo--NoMo?: Of blog-a-thons and trying new dessert recipes.

Nine years hence, will I still be blogging? Who knows?

But I plan on sticking around to find out.

Telling the Bees

"The Bee Friend"  by Hans Thoma

My Grandma Berrigan used to describe a chatterbox as someone who “could talk the hind legs off a donkey,” using an old Irish phrase. It seems donkeys rarely sit down on their behinds; therefore, talking on and on to one would cause the poor standing donkey to collapse. When an acquaintance of limited means came into money and began acting snooty, Grandma remarked, “Put a beggar on horseback and watch him ride!” When an annoying person left a gathering, she would say “glad to see the back of her!” Now that I think of it, most of Grandma's colorful idioms were pretty critical, but that’s the Irish for you.

I recently heard someone mention “telling the bees,” and I was intrigued. For someone who is a real “donkey-hind-legs-talker-off-er” type myself, it has never occurred to me to chat up this particular member of the animal kingdom. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid bees completely. While I acknowledge their vital role in the food chain (which is why the decline of honeybees is so alarming), I always assume any encounter with them will end with a nasty sting. Maybe it’s the memory of yellow jacket swarms that used to attack me on the soccer field as I prepped the orange slices for the boys’ team snack, but I just don’t trust ‘em.

Apparently, bee-telling is an ancient custom, still observed in some parts of Europe. It may have originated in a belief that bees provided a bridge to the afterlife. When a household member died, you had to go out to the hives and inform the bees (in a low, mournful tone). You would say something reassuring like, “The master’s dead but don’t you go; your mistress will be a good mistress to you.” Failure to do so would guarantee that the bees would scram, and the family fortunes would soon decline. These buzzing buddies were also to be let in on the news of marriages and births, and in some places hives were even placed indoors for the celebrations. Talk about social butterflies! I mean bees!

While this superstition sounds quaint, and even silly, it’s long been part of the fabric of life, and has set minds at ease for centuries. The concept of inviting bees to a wedding may seem ridiculous to me, but I’m the first to leap into action when someone puts their hat on a bed (Bad bad luck!! Another Irish gem!!) So, really, which idea is sillier? 

The world is spinning rather more out of control than usual these days. Maybe things would improve if we kept the bees in the loop? Life would certainly be sweeter (sorry). And a little harmless ritual or two might be very reassuring to us stressed-out, anxious people. 

My friends the Uehlings keep bees. I think I will I send them a message to pass along to their tiny hive-dwellers: “Things are tough, but please stick around. We all need each other.” 

Couldn’t hurt.

Reflections on the Twinkie

Boo! Hiss! (Really?)

I recently watched Eating Twinkies with God, a delightful video about a child who travels into New York City in search of The Almighty. He finds an older homeless woman sitting on a bench, and they chat. The boy has packed Hostess Twinkies in his satchel, and offers his new friend a cake. I have to say one plot element bothered me. And it was NOT an eight year old riding the subway all by himself. I was far more disturbed by the Twinkies. I mean, it’s one thing to send your kid off alone into a major city on public transportation, but to make those nutritional nightmares readily available to him? What kind of parent DOES that? 

 Answer: Me.

 Or at least, I did once in a while, back in the day. I had grown up on an abysmal diet where prepackaged sweets and TV dinners were the norm, so my food pendulum swung in the totally opposite direction when it came to raising my own brood. However, the exhausting reality of having 5 kids under age 10 set in soon enough, and with it many a dinner of fish sticks and that weird day-glo boxed mac and cheese. But I always felt appropriately guilty when I slipped up. For every Yodel they gobbled, I made sure there was an apple or banana chaser, hoping the Healthy Food Group would neutralize those empty calories. 

These days, Aiden and Peter are being raised totally Twinkie-free, a decision I applaud. For them, their multigrain fig bars are THE snack time treat, and when they occasionally eat chocolate it’s usually the good stuff. But I’m trying to stop being judgmental about those who don’t have ready access to/can’t afford what Whole Foods has to offer. I think of the little ones living in urban “food deserts,” where the local bodega has zero fresh veggies. I recall my time on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, where the feeding program depended on the largesse of companies like Walmart to fill tummies. All too often, the big trucks would unload two liter bottles of whatever nasty soda flavor wasn’t selling—and people would line up for it! 

All around the world, cultures have food traditions. Some, like the Japanese, live extra-long lives with their fish and seafood, and Greeks, with their olives and greens. Others, often by necessity, succumb to the lure of cheap, preservative-laden food, and their health suffers accordingly. 

The Twinkie is not inherently evil. What’s needed is the concept of balance--but that assumes there are attainable wholesome choices that can be made. In this Land of Plenty, during this season of Thanksgiving, maybe we can focus on ways to level the playing field for everyone. Let’s work on turning those food deserts into food gardens, and restore the health of our brothers and sisters in poverty. And maybe someday, junk food will take its small, rightful place in the world’s diet. 

And all of God’s children will eat well.

                                                               "Eating Twinkies with God"

Shadow Elephant

 

Mo, not that long before her death 

I’m not so good at sitting quietly with grief—mine or anyone else’s. Patty Problem Solver wants everything to be better, quickly—and if I personally can MAKE it better, bonus points! This was true in the mourning periods of my life:  following the deaths of my sister and parents, after my miscarriages, during my bouts of manic depression. I would pour my sorrow onto the page, I would jabber on to anyone who would listen—all in the hopes of speeding the recovery process. I was so vocal in my misery that I now feel terrible for the poor souls who had to endure me at my saddest. 

In recent years, there have been more losses: two friends to suicide, friends close to my own age. Another friend just lost her husband, much too soon. I have assisted at funerals at church. And as I look at the grieving, standing in their pews with their red-rimmed eyes, my fervent prayer is for them to feel happiness again, soon. I know from experience that it is a long and painful journey back to hope and joy, and I truly wish they didn’t have to walk down that road. So, when they talk to me, I tend to…talk right back to them. I share my story, however irrelevant it might be, ending with, “See? I came through and you will too!” I’m finally recognizing that this message may not be one they are ready to hear.

There is no magic wand to wave away the time it takes to deal with loss (I believe you never “recover”). Meanwhile, after floral arrangements wilt and casseroles are consumed, the endless weeks and months stretch ahead, living in a world empty of that special person. I do my best to check in regularly, to share my memories of the ones they lost (just hearing my sister Mo’s name spoken is still the sweetest music to me, 39 years later.) 

But I’m too eager to fill silences, I know. And our American culture is, as well. The stages of grief are to speed through, because otherwise we have to think of our mortality, and that’s just not acceptable. 

I just read a wonderful book—I hesitate to call it a children’s book, because its message is universal. It is called The Shadow Elephant, and is about an elephant who is sad (literally, blue in color). His animal friends frantically try to cheer him, but he only sinks deeper into sadness. Finally a tiny mouse arrives, and just sits silently with the elephant. They cry together, and, slowly, the shadow elephant begins to heal. 

Our country is grieving right now. We mourn the toll of this devastating pandemic. We mourn a way of life that won’t soon return: travel, big celebrations, human touch. There are so many conflicting voices rising up as we struggle to cope. So much noise.

I propose, for starters, a moment of silence. Then let us weep together. And start to heal.

Rehoboth Beach 2019 and 2020-what a difference a year makes

Author Central

 

Ya-Jhu just placed an online order. This is no shock, as Yaj--just like her mother-in-law--LOVES to shop on the internet.This order, however, was for a case of copy paper for our household’s favorite author: Aiden Jacob Seyfried. Aiden whips through the writing and illustrating process at the rate of 2-3 finished volumes per day (Mama staples multiple sheets of paper together for the books.) The way we’re going, the case will be finished up in no time, and we are thrilled. 

Aiden’s main characters are a duck, a skeleton, and a guy named Ted. Mo Willems is Aiden’s literary hero, so the Pigeon frequently appears in the pages as well. We follow their adventures with bated breath, in A Very Ghosty Halloween, Ted in Taiwan, Duck Finds Friends, etc. It’s easy to figure out the inspiration for some of these tomes, but sometimes there’s a stumper. Recently he wrote Ted and the Deed Secret. Deed Secret? Turns out he’d noticed on our bookshelf a copy of Wilkie Collins’ classic The Dead Secret, and slightly mis-read the title. Honestly? I’ll take The Deed Secret any day, if only for the accompanying drawings. And speaking of, I recently reminded Aiden that his Nana was a published author too, and proudly showed him my four books. Aiden looked through one, then handed it back, shaking his head regretfully. “No pictures!” Deflated, I had to agree that my output was definitely sub-par. 

Like all good writers, Aiden possesses a great imagination—but he’s also keenly observant of his surroundings, including every detail. This was borne out the other day when I was reading his exciting new book Driving. When I turned to the back cover, I saw that he had drawn pictures of 14 (!) of his previous books. He added this “Also by Aiden” feature after noticing the back covers of other writers' books. 

Not to be outdone, four year old Peter is getting into the act. Peter’s masterpieces are wordless, and his drawings are mostly scribbles at the moment. But he is so delighted with himself to be “writing books” just like his sibling. There are times when Steve is in his office polishing a script for Family Stages, I am penning a new essay in my office, and the Brothers Seyfried are writing stories at the dining room table, all at once. It feels like a harmonious writer’s retreat house! Until one writer has a fit when his magic marker dries up! (No, not Steve).

What will the future hold for our young authors? Maybe they’ll keep at it professionally, like Nana and Pa. Maybe writing will become an enjoyable side pursuit, as it is for Evan and Rose. Whatever they end up doing, my little guys are experiencing the joy of creating something brand new, something they can share. And I believe that special kind of joy will stay with them forever.

We are taking advance reservations for MANY upcoming Ted books! Check us out on Amazon!

Aiden's Collected Works! Quality AND Quantity!

Dining Out

Restaurant breakfast with dear friends-those were the days!

Goodness, have I missed sugar packets.

And menus.

And the hustle-bustle of diners and waitstaff.

It’s been well over eight months since I have set foot in a restaurant of any kind. The last time I ate out was the evening of March 3, a birthday dinner with my friend Holly at a delightful Italian bistro in the East Falls section of Philadelphia. Little did I dream, as I polished off my tiramisu, that I wouldn’t even be going to Wawa for a hoagie in the foreseeable future. 

I have never been a regular diner-out. In childhood, my clearest memory of such excursions was our annual dinner at the Normandy Inn in Normandy Beach, NJ. My Nana Cunningham would treat, and as I recall the “house dessert” was—wait for it--The Sailboat, an obviously labor-intensive creation consisting of an ice cream sandwich stuck with a lollipop sporting a construction paper “sail.” Later, as parents, between our limited budget and our seemingly unlimited number of children, Seyfried restaurant meals were rare celebrations. It got to the point that I actually looked forward to treks to McDonald's for Happy Meals with the kiddos, which at least provided a change of scene (mind you, that changed scene was Mickey D’s “ball room” filled with screeching toddlers). 

But I’ve always adored being served a lovely meal, in a civilized setting, where I did not have to care about the number of plates needing to be washed afterward. And in recent years Steve and I did have more opportunities to sample the cuisine at quite a few fine dining spots in Philly, New York and even Paris, Barcelona and Rome. 

Well, it all came to a crashing halt in mid-March, and I have really missed having the option of restaurant dining. We’ve gotten some takeout from time to time, but have been very leery of entering an actual eatery while the virus is still raging. Our Patrick doesn’t have the luxury of avoiding Victory Brewing Company, being the chef and all, and I worry about his safety every single day. I take my cues from wise Dr. Fauci, who wouldn’t dream of eating at an indoor establishment right now. 

But as the months grind on, I do regret not availing ourselves of chances to sit outdoors at a restaurant last summer, when the weather was still balmy. We’re heading into the season where sidewalk dining would involve eating with mittens on. So it is with joyful anticipation that I await this coming Sunday, when I will join three friends for lunch (outdoors) at a local café. The temps should be in the mid-60s, with plenty of sunshine. Protocols will be very different I hear--disposable cutlery, no printed menus, socially distanced tables. I am deciding on which face mask will best complement my outfit, and polishing up the old credit card. It feels like Party Time (2020 version at least)!

Post-COVID, remind me never to take life’s little pleasures for granted again. 

Even Happy Meals.

Awaiting a fabulous dinner in Venice 2018