Don't Worry! Be Happy! He is Risen!

Well gang, another Easter is in the books! While our attendance at church this year was fairly strong, several long-time members commented on the good old days, when they needed to set up chairs in the aisles, and park cars on the side lawn, to accommodate all the worshippers. As mainline congregations struggle to attract new members (and keep current ones), there's a whole lotta brainstorming going on. I believe in planning ahead, and so for next spring, I offer the following holiday idea, loosely based on the popular "drive through" Nativity scenes at Christmas. Ah, I can see it all now.....

                               BLESSED ST. MALAISE CHURCH PROUDLY PRESENTS:

                                         “DON’T WORRY! BE HAPPY! HE IS RISEN!”

                                        Our Original Drive-Thru Holy Week Experience

 Experience the agony of this Most Sacred Week from the warmth and comfort of your car! This is truly a meaningful and interactive spiritual odyssey. Perfect for families who want to do more than just show up at church in new clothes Easter morning, but don’t want to do MUCH more. 

 Ready? Let’s roll!

 We begin as Danno the Donkey lumbers along. Jesus (young parishioner, Bobby Jones) clings to his back. The townspeople wave palms in His Holy Path. This is a great chance for the kids to get out, stretch, and join the parade! Palm swordfighting discouraged! And don’t get too near Danno, he bites.

 When next we see Bobby, he is feasting with his friends, the Apostles. The aroma of fresh baked bread and vintage vino wafts through your auto here. You will have the opportunity to purchase a bottle of “Lachrymo Christi” and a fragrant loaf from My Daily Bread (downtown and in the Uptown Mall).

 Don’t miss the dramatic Judas kiss! (your carload can join the chorus: “Booooo, Judas!”)

 From the Garden of Gethsemane (landscaping courtesy of the Northeastville Green Thumb Club) to the windswept hill of Calvary, the Holy Journey continues at a steady speed of 2 mph. Jesus died for YOUR sins. Be sure to thank Him with a warm wave and a toot of the horn as you pass this Sacred Scene!

 Drive on. Not much happening for awhile now. It’s a quiet, contemplative time, but just as the little ones are getting restless…

 Ta da! With a blare of Glad Trumpets through our loudspeakers, it’s Easter Morning! Adorable bunnies hop amongst the colorful plastic eggs and fragrant lilies around the empty tomb. Are those baskets of burial cloth? Oh no! They are filled with complimentary jelly beans and chocolate crosses, handed out by Ladies of Little Lamb Circle at St. M’s. Don’t they (the ladies) look festive in their Easter bonnets?

As you reach our Happy Ending and exit our Drive-Thru Holy Week Experience, keep an eye peeled for the risen Bobby, um, Christ! He, like Waldo, could be anywhere!

 So you better watch out!!

 Have a Blessed Easter, and Drive Safely!!

 So what do you think? Should I run it by the Worship and Music Committee at church? Couldn't hurt!


Don't Worry, Be Happy

Almost Famous

As those of you who regularly read my blog know: I don’t do edgy. You could read my posts to your 90 year old grandmother without fear of ruffling her feathers.  Unless you are personally offended by a boatload of family stories, and my bellyaching about cleaning my house and organizing my office (and maybe you are! If so, I’m sorry and I take it all back!) there ain’t much in my writing to find objectionable. I work hard on my entries, and cherish my faithful readers (the few, the proud).

 But sometimes I dream of going viral, of joining the ranks of the super-bloggers, those giants of the medium who number their fans in the hundreds of thousands. Even though I know my skin is paper-thin, and a lot of the snarky comments I find on other blogs would truly make my heart sink if aimed at me, I’m still jealous. Bottom line: I would love a wider readership, provided all those readers are always nice to me. Is that so much to ask?

Head shot for my nationally syndicated column?

I’ve thought about my yearning to be a little bit better-known a lot lately. At 57 I have a ways to go to become a household word, even in my own household. But I have to say, in today’s culture, it’s really hard to stand out in the size crowd the internet has created. And once you’ve “made it”, longevity in the limelight is another matter. Artist Andy Warhol predicted that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. That was quite a few years ago; nowadays, turnaround time is more like 15 seconds. I love the joke about the rapid show-biz life cycle, voiced by an agent (“Who’s Sally Jones?” “Get me Sally Jones!” “Get me a Sally Jones type!” “Get me a younger Sally Jones!” “Who’s Sally Jones?”)  We seem to go from 0-60 and then back down to 0 at warp speed. 

So what am I doing to broaden my fan base, as it were?  My Rose, she of the hilarious (and super-edgy) Facebook posts, thinks I’m playing it way too safe, literarily speaking. I don’t think she’s hoping I’ll pen the next “50 Shades of Grey,” but she’d love me to take on more wow topics sometimes, to make a bold stand in print. I always promise her I’ll try, and then my next article comes out and it’s Mrs. Namby Pamby again. Why am I so leery of saying anything that could possibly be polarizing?

One of these days (but not today), you’ll get my opinion on universal health care, gun control, capital punishment and gay marriage. You’ll learn that I support three out of four of these things.  You’ll also find out whether or not I’m a big fan of war. Or a safety net for the poor. Or more tax breaks for the 1%. For now, I’ll leave you guessing!

Whew! All this sharing is exhilarating! Who knew controversy could be so much fun?

Huffington Post, here I come!



"Remember My Name" from the movie "Fame"

Throw Back Thursday

Elise, C and Mo 1962

Elise, C and Mo 1979

Back in the day, the Cunningham sisters had our, ahem, differences of opinion. My little tiffs with my sibs would begin with a snarky comment or a "borrowed" dress, and escalate into screaming matches, complete with doors slammed so hard they almost came off their hinges, and rivers of tears. We always made up quickly, though, and I well remember how good and right the hugs felt at the end of battle. In later years, when we lived apart, misunderstandings over the phone were common, as were squabbles upon reuniting after a long absence (here, I think it was the ridiculous expectation that every second would be perfection, that caused the trouble). Again, though, sorrow and forgiveness were never more than a few minutes away.

 As for the little Seyfrieds, Sheridan and Evan had a brotherly love that even strangers commented

Ev and Sher--the dynamic duo

upon. They rarely argued, about anything. It was a simple dynamic: Sheridan called all the shots, and Evan adoringly followed along. When little Ev would be asked at dinner about his preschool day, big bro would unfailingly chime in with, "I used to have Evan's teacher, so here's what he did in school! Circle time and show and tell and playground time and he practiced for the show!!" We'd turn to tiny Evan, who would merely smile and nod.

Happy Evan and baby Rose--a rare moment!

Evan and Rose got off on the wrong foot. Rose's main fault? She was born. Who needed a third party to break up The Perfect Partnership? And Rose didn't help matters much, with her infant fussing and her toddler tantrum-ing and her school years' angst. Down the pecking order, Rose and PJ got on all right most of the time, though they too had their tough moments.  PJ and Julie went from hearts and flowers when she was a baby, to bickering their way through the teenage years and beyond.

But here's the blessing: they have all gotten to a place where their love and loyalty always trump their disagreements. Years ago, I imagined grown Evan and Rose would drift apart permanently. Yet here they are, talking online often, sharing favorite bands, traveling great distances to visit. Julie and Rose have celebrated joys, nursed each other through heartbreaks, and look forward to being together in NYC next year. A highlight of Julie's recent European adventure was a week spent with PJ in Marburg, Germany, where he was an exchange student. And Sheridan gets along well with everybody, as he always has.

Evan and Rose in Hawaii

 Do I take much credit for how close they are now? Nope. But I often told them, as my mom often reminded me: "These will be the longest relationships of your lives, longer than marriage, longer than your time with us. So treasure each other. Make every effort to like each other, and value each other. You'll never be sorry."

On this Throw Back Thursday, I share some pictures of my favorite brothers and sisters. May they always love each other even half as much as I love them.

 

PJ and Julie, then and now

Bao's Big Bash

Look at me. Do I look like Martha Stewart? I didn’t think so. I have in my possession a book by interior designer Alexandra Stoddard, Living a Beautiful Life. Lord only knows why I thought I could implement ANY of her suggestions ("Make the inside of your refrigerator a feast for the eye...try keeping a small bunch of flowers in the refrigerator. Surprise pleasures delight the most.") The only time flowers would ever make their way into my messy, overstuffed fridge would be if I absent-mindedly put them there instead of on the table. That would indeed be a surprise, if not a delight.

I ascribe to the blitz-clean method before company arrives (you know, shove the pile of newspapers under the sofa,  pray no one needs to use the upstairs bathroom, light some candles and dim all the other lights.) I do not line our drawers with special scented paper. I do not have granite countertops. I do not have a mud room (unless it is raining. Then every room is a mud room.)

So what makes us think we can throw Ya-Jhu a baby shower? Probably the same brand of insanity that made us think we could have a DIY wedding for Yaj and Sher almost two years ago. Back then, while the food and decorations were all loving hands at home, the site of the festivities was Gloria Dei Church--no need to scour and scrub Chez Seyfried! But wait! We had the rehearsal dinner here, a lovely evening of thunderstorms (no chance of being out on the deck)  and 80 degree-plus temps (we have no air conditioning). It all came off fine, but I still awaken in a cold sweat remembering our frantic prep.

 Yet here we are again, mere days away from the Big Event for Bao (Mandarin for baby). Julie, Rose and I are ostensibly co-hosts, but to be honest Julie has done most of the work to date, coming up with the theme, planning the menu. We have the unenviable task of squeezing our guests into our none-too-palatial home, a task made even more challenging by the arrival of Sheridan's grand piano from New York City last week. At this writing, the huge Kawai is sharing the family room with our old Yamaha upright. If we don't move one or the other by Saturday, the shower will have the ambiance of an afternoon in the Jacob's Piano Showroom.

Yaj remains serene, a tiny Asian Madonna. She tells me (often) that she will be happy with whatever we pull together, and I believe her. I want to relax and enjoy the day, truly I do. So I have decided to relegate Living a Beautiful Life to the attic, as we write our own book, Living a Good-Enough Life.

Bao, we’ll do our best for your mom. Can’t wait to see you!

Ya-Jhu, eating for two!

Never Too Late

Lent starts with Ash Wednesday this week, March 5th. That means Easter is April 20th, about as late as it can possibly be. Daylight Savings Time begins on Sunday, and by Holy Week we will be in the heart of spring, flowers and robins and all. And it has me quite unsettled.

You see, Lent was supposed to be my gloom-and-doom season, when I examined my (guilty) conscience and fretted over my (innumerable) sins. As a Catholic child, I was encouraged to give something up each Lent, something I really enjoyed, like TV or Coke. So skipping the ice cream and Pop Tarts for six weeks just added to the general misery.

Mo the Picky Eater

My sister Maureen was in the cafeteria at Epiphany School in September of her first grade year. The cafeteria ladies were brutal—no recess until everything on your tray was eaten. As her classmates finished and went outside, poor little Mo remained, glumly contemplating the slimy stewed prunes on her plate.  As the time ticked by, she couldn’t swallow a spoonful . Finally, inspiration struck. When the cafeteria worker commented on her uneaten prunes, Mo smiled and said, “Oh I’d LOVE to eat my prunes, but I can’t. You see, I’ve given them up for Lent!” When Mrs. Lunch Lady stopped laughing, she allowed Mo to leave her prunes and go out to play.

When I grew older, I stopped giving up (it was kind of absurd; I’d give up desserts, honestly, just to lose five pounds), and started giving more more more…more volunteering, more praying, more general good deeds. And that was better, but I still had the nagging feeling that my positive actions were kind of selfish at root (“Look at me, God! I’m really super duper, aren’t I?”)

So I settled into a mood of mild depression, as I felt befit the 40 days. The nasty winter weather helped my blues along, with bitter cold and early darkness.  But this year! How will I be able to stay “down”? The elusive sun will be shining again, and all around me will be signs of new life. Wait—that’s not supposed to happen til Easter at the earliest! Who ever heard of a Happy Lent?

But maybe…

God never meant for us to spend Lent in a funk. Maybe it would be better passed with a sense of peace and hope and, yes, even joy. After all, to dwell only on the sadness of Jesus’ death, to beat ourselves up over our faults and scramble madly to win God’s favor-- is to miss the whole point. The point is Christ’s amazing life and His resurrection promise.  The point is that God loves us, just as we are, and we can grow to be our best selves because of that grace-filled love.

I believe we can relax about the Ben and Jerry’s and the Tote Board of Super Duper Deeds.

Lovely pic by my friend Melissa Otterbein--the heart of spring!

I believe we can welcome a late Lent this year, and enjoy every beautiful day of it.

Or Best Offer

Oreland has an “online yard sale” website. Never participated because I still have fresh recollections of many “real” yard sales we have had. We had these every couple of years, because we never learned.

Participants are doing a booming business! More power to them!

We would spend the night before dusting things off, labeling and pricing. We were sure everybody was going to LOVE the assortment of costumes that were donated to us for our theater and we couldn’t use! Who wouldn’t kill for a giant bear suit?  My collection of second-string cookbooks including The Canadiana Cookbook, (which, if memory serves, had rather too many recipes featuring maple syrup) was also up for sale. As the evening wore on, we became greedy and started to price things higher and higher. My mother’s wedding gifts--sterling silver platters so heavy they could double as murder weapons? Ka-ching! Sterling is worth a fortune, isn’t it? The Madame Alexander dolls? $50 each! No, $75!! We went to bed with visions of dollar signs dancing in our heads.

In the cold light of dawn, we set out our card tables and arranged our bounty.  Everything looked a bit shabbier than it had the night before, but we were optimistic!!

As the hours crept by, we were reminded why we always did so poorly with yard sales—our stuff is either no good to begin with, or so badly maintained as to be almost worthless.  In late afternoon, the giant bear suit would go out on a table marked “Free.” My Canadiana Cookbook found a home with my wonderful Canadian neighbor, who most likely purchased it out of pity. No one wanted the Madame Alexander dolls; NO ONE wanted the tarnished sterling silver platters.  In the end, we’d wasted an entire day and made just enough money to get a takeout pizza (no extra toppings) after we lugged things back inside.

My sister C has always made a bundle at her yard sales, perhaps because EVERYTHING she and her hubby Rob own is in mint condition. It seems Julie is a chip off that block, because she’s registered on the yard sale website and is doing very well. The old rabbit pen, costume jewelry, never-opened nail polish (yes!)—all have been snapped up quickly. Jules urges me to sell online as well, and the other day I rounded up some things to photograph and post. Haven’t done it yet, because I’m sure our every knick-knack bears the Seyfried curse and will languish, embarrassingly unsold, forever.

Paris stationery set! $5 OBO (who am I kidding? I'll never get to Paris!)

Someday I’ll go for it and mark down the few items we have that are worth anything, just for the thrill of a successful transaction.  And as we sit counting our cash in our empty dining room (table and 8 chairs! $20! OBO!) we will figure out if we made enough money to go out and re-buy our own table and (8) chairs, which will no doubt have been marked way up by a savvy yard saler.  We will not pay a penny more than $200! We have our pride!

Be Mine?

From a "secret" admirer

Happy February 15th, everyone!  How did you ladies do yesterday? Candlelit dinners in fancy restaurants? Massages at the spa? Diamond bracelets? My sweetheart has never had the income to pull off a big Valentine’s Day treat for me, but that’s OK. My expectations for this rather silly holiday are pretty low.

When I was little, my mom always forgot to buy us those Valentines that came 30 to a box with Daffy Duck and hearts on them. But that was OK, because giving them out in class was hit-or-miss. Sister Vincent couldn’t have cared less about our tender feelings when some of us only got a few and others a brimming book bag full. I used to wish Joseph Grazie (the cute Italian kid who always gave off a faint, exotic whiff of garlic) would give me a Valentine. But no, I only got them from boys like John Albert, who tried to impress me by eating an entire box of Crayolas (he promptly threw up in 8 brilliant colors).

By the time my kids came along, child psychology had been invented. Everybody had to get Valentines from everybody, or no one would get Valentines from anybody. This fair-handed approach to romance was a bonanza for Hallmark, but a pain for parents. Every year I bumped into other moms in the store on February 13th, frantically scooping up 30 to a box cards (still, amazingly, with Daffy Duck and hearts on them) and rushing home to “help” our first graders write out their classmates’ names (a painful procedure indeed). Some overachieving parents upped the ante by attaching lollipops or little bags of M&Ms to THEIR Valentines, while the rest of us just sent in smudged and crossed out wishes for the whole class. 

As I was married so young, I got to skip the “dateless on Valentine’s” ordeal, but I know plenty of people, male and female, who suffered through years of this nonsense. One friend, I swear, had a string of beaux who all conveniently (for them) broke up with her in late January. Isn’t life tough enough without having other people’s joy thrown into your face for an entire 24 hour period of time every year?

I have to say my children’s cards to me were pretty cute. One of my favorites was signed, “Love, PJ Seyfried” just in case I was wondering who “PJ” was.  And Steve has (almost) always written really sweet notes, often accompanied by flowers.  No card for me this year, though, and the only flowers on the table are a dozen red roses that Julie received from her thoughtful boyfriend.  But I truly don’t care if the loving gestures happen on a precise schedule (Steve is actually cooking me dinner tonight instead), and I wish the world wouldn’t either. 

Flowers for Julie

So Happy Day After a Holiday Named for a 3rd Century Christian Martyr!  I only ask that you lucky recipients keep your diamond bracelets to yourselves. The rest of us don’t want to know.

A Little Bit Testy

One of the things I have noticed since I left school 35 years ago is that I don’t take many tests anymore. Oh, I took the driver’s written test when we moved to Pennsylvania (I barely passed, and I’d been driving in Georgia for 7 years, which speaks volumes about the Georgia DMV), but other than that, and quizzes in magazines (“Are You a Sensuous Woman? Six Sizzling Questions That Reveal All!”), I haven’t sharpened a No. 2 pencil in ages.

And it’s a shame, because back in the day I was a demon test-taker. In Catholic school we were awarded miraculous medals for perfect spelling tests, and I amassed a collection to rival the Vatican’s. In high school, I actually loved taking the SATs ( though I pretended to hate them, to fit in with my grumbling peers). I happily filled up countless blue books with exam essays in college.  There was truly nothing I enjoyed more than tracing the history of the Industrial Revolution in 15 minutes!

Among my children, several of them are also good test takers.  Multiple choice comes easily to them, and they can fill in the blanks with the best. They are proud of their prowess, and rightly so. I hate to tell them, though, that as soon as they leave the halls of higher learning, they’ll rarely test again. Oh, there are some professions that require more testing (medicine, law), but by and large, examination know-how is put in mothballs in adulthood.

Now, I move through my days and and months and years utterly untested (in the academic sense. Plenty of life tests in other areas, of course). But I do wish I was still graded as I was in school. I want a big fat report card filled with A plusses, several times a year! After all, I share, I participate in class discussions, I play well with others.  I can balance my checkbook while cooking dinner for five picky kids without missing a beat.  I’m the Carpool Queen, the Princess of the Pediatrician’s Office, Mrs. PTO America. And I have nothing to show for it all-- no shiny trophy, no papers with “Excellent Work!!” on them, no  Outstanding Student award.  Just the satisfaction of navigating my world fairly well, and who needs that?  I want gold stars, and lots of them.  And I’ll never get them.

I think we probably need to revamp our educational system, to better prepare our children for the Real World.  They should learn, early, that the world does not care if they can diagram sentences, or correctly figure out analogies, or spell “obsession”.  Useless information!  All google-able!  Tests as we knew them will eventually go the way of the dinosaur, and that’s probably a good thing. However, as a bit of a dinosaur myself, when that time comes I will feel a twinge of regret.  After all, where else in life do you get the thrill of putting down your pencil with two minutes to spare?

PJ, future high school teacher--and tester?

Miss You Guys

With my sister C and friend Lisa

Oh my goodness, I am absolutely awash in nostalgia today, and looking back on my life with much regret (of course) but also so many joyful memories. I used to think I was pretty good at keeping in touch, but in fact am pretty terrible at it. Boxes of letters and cards attest to the fact that, back in the day, I must have been a decent correspondent, because so many wonderful people kept up with me. Nowadays (and this is partly attributable to the advent of email and texting and evaporating records of the back-and-forth of old communication), a real physical note from someone is a treat indeed, and this is largely because I rarely write to folks myself anymore. Rarely call anyone, either. If you’re on Facebook when I am, well yay, because we just might connect. Otherwise, weeks, months and even years may pass without a peep.

But it is important to me that I say that I miss you. All of you. And I miss me, too. The precocious and (truth to tell) insufferable child, writing reams of poetry and prose and angsting all over the place. The grown-too-soon teen, escaping a challenging home life to leap into engagement at age 17, luckily with the enduring love of my life. The shattered 20-something, losing one sister and clinging to the other. The young actress. The mom of five, living a blur of diapers and feedings and time-outs and bedtime readings. All those Elises, now gone forever.

As I slog on into my late 50s, missing all the versions of me, all the memories of you, I want to send a message. I know I will forget to mention many people but here’s just a sampling…

Here’s to my childhood buddies, especially to Lisa. I’ll never forget reading Life with Mother Superior on the playground at St. Jude’s. Shout-out to my high school friends, including John, Nancy, Molly, Jeff and Paul. We have shared so much beyond our Pius High days, meeting in Atlanta and New York and Philly over the years. Closer to now, I miss Shelley and Sue and Colleen and Monica and feel stupid that we aren’t in better touch. You may not always be geographically near me and I can’t take you for granted. We raised our kids together and that is no small thing.

Besides my sis, I miss my extended family, my sisters- and brother- in- law, and their families. I miss my cousins in New York, all the time. Why don’t we get together more often? I don’t know, and time ticks inexorably on.

In the winter, I miss all my Delaware shore friends.  I also really miss Sher’s composition teacher (former Rehoboth resident), Jim.

With Becky and Dennis in Lewes

You are all so dear to me, and today you all feel very far away, as do the days memories of you evoke.

Missing is an ache that reminds me that I’m alive and, I pray to God, there’s still time.

See you soon, everybody?  Please? 

Faking It

I am just about totally unqualified for anything I do in this world. As a child, I taught myself to read, to cook, to type (with two fingers, the ridiculous method I still use). I received no formal training in writing, acting, or church work. I married my first boyfriend at age 20, with no experience whatsoever in being out on my own.  And parenting? Forget about it! I remember the many bouts of postpartum weeping (me and the babies) as I frantically tore through my copies of Dr. Spock and Penelope Leach for advice.  That the kids turned out well is a miracle for which I take very little credit.

For so many years, I plastered a big smile on my face and faked my way through life, ignoring physical ailments and mental illness alike as I pretended to have it all figured out. Even now, at age 57, when you’d think I’d know better, I am still a master of disguise. Ask my psychiatrist how I’m feeling on my current dosage of meds. He will probably say I’m doing great, when in reality I hate my numbness and lack of emotions. Heck, I recently walked around for four months with a torn rotator cuff and denied the pain!

day of my injury--smiling through

There is value to faking it sometimes, I believe. Steve’s dad used to say that when people asked him how he was he always answered “fine” because that’s what everyone wanted to hear. We all have our miseries; do we really need to bring each other down by complaining about them?  And I have definitely experienced times when the false impression I’ve given of being happy has eventually morphed into the real thing.

So now here I am, on the verge of another role to play—that of grandma. I am genuinely thrilled for Ya-Jhu and Sheridan, and am quite sure they will make fantastic parents. I feel excited and a bit scared about this new little one coming into the world. I have no idea what kind of grandparent I will be, and once again feel as if I’ll be faking it, at least at first. Will I be helpful? Hopefully. Will I spoil the baby? Probably. Will I have the energy to really participate in his or her daily life in a positive way? Who knows, but I will definitely give it my best shot.

Mom and Dad to be!

And if someday my precious grandchild asks me for advice about living, I will say that we none of us are ever really prepared, ever feel truly adequate for all of life’s challenges. Even with a lot more training than I had.  I think that’s a secret we all carry inside of us: that we’re pretending every day. Smiling when we don’t feel like smiling. We need to keep on keeping on through the tough times, and fake it till we make it. Because God knows we’re trying, every one of us.  And maybe trying is the best any of us can do.