Every single Sunday morning of my childhood was spent at church.

I sang in the children’s choir beginning in the 3rd grade and we would sing most Sundays at the 9 am mass which meant my parents would corral four children in the wee hours of the morning, making sure we had some cereal in our tummies and were dressed appropriately, herd us into the minivan and drive to church which was luckily only five minutes away. If we had to sing in the choir, we had to be there at 8:30 which meant my dad would drop me and my sister off early and then save a pew and sit and read the bulletin with his reading glasses perched on his nose and wait for my mother to join him with my two brothers.

Gathering us all together and getting us to church on time was no easy feat as my sister was usually crying about her tights being itchy or how my mother was brushing her hair too hard or how she hates pink today and my mom would snap at her to please stop whining and just get dressed and get in the car. (My Mother 20 Years Later: I THINK YOUR SISTER MAYBE HAD ONE OF THOSE SENSORY ISSUES EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT NOWADAYS? I FEEL KIND OF BAD ABOUT HOW OFTEN I YELLED AT HER BUT HEY THAT’S WHAT THERAPY IS FOR, RIGHT?)

My older brother Paul was already starting, at the age of 10 or so, to think that church was a bunch of garbage and besides, he’d much rather sleep. My parents would often have to wake him up six or twelve times, going into his room the first few and then finally just yelling from the bottom of the stairs PAUL! SERIOUSLY! GET!!! UP!!! before they would hear the bathroom door close and the shower turn on which meant he was actually somewhat alert.

(Paul told me awhile ago that he was pretty certain he was a staunch atheist by the time he hit 8th grade, a position he hasn’t budged from since regardless of the fact that my mom mandated he attend church until the age of 18, which he mostly did except for those few times he slept through it and promised to go later to the parish a few towns over which had late Sunday mass but then he would drive to the Starbucks that had just opened up and kill an hour or so before returning home. Speaking of which, to this day he cannot function early in the morning without approximately 12 cups of coffee so basically what I’m saying is kids don’t change much.)

My brother Jeremy was just a baby around this time so I imagine there were multiple awesome experiences involving putting on all his clothes and shoes for him and strapping him in a car seat and wiping his nose a hundred times and then dealing with him spitting up all over himself or whatever it is that parents deal with.

Interesting to note that anytime I raise a question to my parents of HOW ON EARTH DID YOU DO THAT FOUR CHILDREN THING AND NOT GO INSANE?, they don’t even seem to know or care.

Mostly they think everything that was stressful at the time is hilarious now.

“REMEMBER THAT CRAZY STOMACH VIRUS WE ALL GOT FOR LIKE TWO WEEKS?! OH MAN, GOOD TIMES! KIDS ARE GREAT!”

They just sort of say things like OH SURE IT WAS HARD WORK BUT YOU GUYS WERE SO FUN!

And then my mother usually adds WE SHOULD HAVE HAD ONE MORE! I REALLY THINK FIVE WOULD’VE BEEN GOOD.

But if my mother had had twelve of us, she probably would say the same thing. THIRTEEN! SHOULDA DONE THIRTEEN!

The point of the story is that Sunday mornings for me meant getting in the minivan, singing in the choir which I loved loved loved and then heading down to the church basement for the bagel breakfast.

The bagel breakfast was only offered after the 9 am mass, an activity meant to foster community and gather families together. It mostly worked. Basically adults got to chug lots of coffee and mingle and their kids could smear cream cheese all over their face and just run around screaming and bumping into things because where are crazy loud kids more welcome than at a Catholic church!? Instead of the usual societal attitude of PLEASE SHUT YOUR KID UP AND GET IT AWAY FROM ME, everyone at my church was basically like OH MAN, LOU’S LITTLE GIRL JUST RAN HEADFIRST INTO THAT MARY STATUE AGAIN AND IT SHATTERED AND THEN SHE THREW UP ALL HER CHEERIOS! KIDS ARE THE BEST, RIGHT GUYS!!?!?

My friend L who had a last name that sounded kind of like broccoli was a hyper child and we would hang out and eat bagels and sit on these carpeted steps and talk about which boys we thought were cute. L. Broccoli would often linger too long by the coffee table, either trying to sneak coffee (at the age of 9) or conduct experiments like how many Sweet N Lows she could dump in her orange juice and still drink it. (I believe the record was something like 22.)

My mother loved the bagel breakfast because she could hang out with all her friends and talk and talk and talk plus eat a bialy. My dad was not a particular fan of the bagel breakfast for the exact same reason: my mother would talk and talk and talk and he kind of just wanted to go home and read the paper. He would try to be social but really he was just too shy so he would come hang out with me and L. Broccoli. He would sip his coffee, check his watch a few hundred times and finally say something like WE TOOK TWO CARS SO…YOU TINK YOUR MUTHA WOULD BE MAD AT ME IF WE LEFT?

We usually said no even if the answer was sometimes yes and my siblings and I would pile into the car with my dad and head home. I would sit next to him at the kitchen table and read the comics and then the Dear Abby column which I particularly loved, until my mom walked in the door, sometimes a few minutes later, sometimes over an hour.

“I HAD THE GREATEST TALK WITH ANN MARIE!” she’d say (or FATHER TOM or THAT GUY WE KNOW WHOSE KID HAD LEUKEMIA BUT HE WAS CURED BUT IT MIGHT COME BACK HOW SAD IS THAT!?) and hang her purse on a doorknob. Then she’d kick her heels off, ask for a section of the newspaper and lay down on the couch reading which only lasted a few minutes because then she’d fall asleep, glasses perched on her nose.

I thought of these Sunday mornings recently when I grabbed a bagel from the cafeteria at my job. I’ve had bagels since childhood obviously but for some reason this one triggered the memory and after just one bite, it all came flooding back to me. The shrieks of the kids running around the church basement, the muffled sound of the organ playing from the mass upstairs, my dad wearing a tie and his dress up shoes, hearing my mom’s voice in the sea of people HI! HI! HI!, her loud cackle when someone made her laugh, L. Broccoli dumping Sweet N Lows in her orange juice, the taste of my poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, a strong sense of comfort and belonging.

Maybe I like to eat bagels sometimes because New York bagels are the best ever.

Or maybe I like to eat them because they, like so many things, remind me of home.

Me: Hey, I’m just calling you with my new work number.

Him: Oh great! I’ll add it to my phone.

Me: Awesome.

Him: How’s your first day?

Me: Great! It’s great. I’m so happy to be working again.

Him: Your voice is kind of weird right now.

Me: Is it?

Him: Yeah, is this your work voice?

Me: I don’t think so.

Him: I’ve never heard this voice before.

Me: Oh, I’m just being quiet because there’s lots of people around.

Him: Ah, so this is your quiet voice.

Me: Yes.

Him: Well then it makes sense that I’ve never heard it before.

HEY YOU GUYS!!!

It’s my mom’s birthday today!

Let’s all raise a glass (of seltzer because my mom doesn’t really drink) and say HUZZAH RITA!

In 1957, Rita Marie graced the world with her presence. My grandmother confirms that Rita was the happiest, most energetic loveliest child ever from the get go. One of my favorite stories from Rita’s childhood concerns a bunch of company coming over and milling about in the house and little Rita barreling down the stairs determined to make an entrance. She basically struck a pose (with what I imagine to be fierce jazz hands) and screamed, HERE ME AM, FOLKS!!!

In case there was any doubt.

(And no, since you asked, I still have no idea where my flair for the dramatic came from. Ahem.)

One of my more recent favorite Rita stories occurred why, just last week!

We had been throwing the idea around of throwing my father a big surprise party in March. My mom wanted to be able to thank all the people who had been so helpful and generous when my father was sick and in the hospital and then home and unable to walk, etc. so she thought it would be great fun to THROW! A! HUGE! PARTY! And invite the world!

We can just pause right here and observe that just the idea of doing this is what makes my mother incredible. She is so full of gratitude and energy and excitement that she can’t just say HEY THANKS FOR GETTING OUR MAIL! VISITING MY HUSBAND! SENDING A CARD! She freaking decides to throw a party for everybody. HERE YOU AM, FOLKS!!!

Anyway, she finally chose a date and last week she sent out a mass e-mail to me and my siblings with some ideas and questions in a lovely bulleted list.

It’s a surprise!

We rented out the Polish Hall!

How should we decorate it?

Here’s what I’m thinking about the food!

Whose phone # should I put for the RSVP so dad won’t get suspicious of mom fielding a lot of phone calls?

Etc. Etc.

Apparently, after she sent this e-mail, she dashed out to the laundromat. (This is the piece of the puzzle I still don’t understand. I assume the washer and/or dryer broke? Last I checked, my mom never ever ‘ran out to the laundromat’. Maybe she was already performing secret undercover surprise party duties!?)

She returned shortly and my father met her at the door with a sheepish smile.

“UM, I GOTTA TELL YOU SOMETHING,” he said.

He continued:

“YOU SENT DAT INVITATION ABOUT MY PARTY…TO ME.”

And thus it was confirmed that my mom sent out an e-mail about my father’s surprise party to my father.

A fun little detail about this is that this is the second time that Rita has spoiled a surprise party for my dad. She attempted to throw him one for his 60th birthday a few years ago but left the guest list on the desk next to the computer in plain sight.

As you do.

Anyway, my mom was pretty bummed out about giving away the surprise (AGAIN) but my dad reassured her that HE REALLY DOESN’T LIKE SURPRISES ANYWAY, which is true. (My dad and I both prefer ‘know what is going on at all times to the point of intense control freak anal retentiveness’ to SURPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISE! BETCHA DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING!)

We tried to cut my mom a break (both my dad and brother have the same first name so when she pulled up PAUL in her e-mail, it selected her husband instead of her son) but the opportunity to poke fun of her was just too good.

My sister quickly replied all to the e-mail chain: WHY DOESN’T DAD JUST TELL US DIRECTLY WHICH KIND OF DECORATIONS HE’D LIKE?

I picked up the phone and when Rita answered, I asked her if I could please speak to dad for a sec, I had a surprise party for him I wanted to tell him about.

My mom couldn’t stop laughing and finally just was like, “LAURA. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!? I can’t believe I did that. But your father said he loves me anyway.”

And this is why I love my mom.

She was immediately laughing at herself, all CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? and of course we all could because Rita does things like this constantly. And the best part about it is that she easily forgives herself and laughs it off because what else can you do, really? And she is correct that my father (and all of us) love her anyway.

Not even ‘anyway’. We just love her. Period.

So, our surprise party has been amended to ‘party’.

And it doesn’t matter in the slightest because there would be no party without Rita’s enthusiasm, without Rita’s ideas, without Rita.

MOM!!! We love you so much!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Cue the line of tap dancing girls! I am done talking about how I didn’t have a job for awhile! HUZZAHHHH! Well. After this post I am. GOTCHA.

Three things I have not addressed but want to before I shut up about this already!

MONEY!!!

1. Interestingly enough, while employed, I had MORE credit card debt than I have now, after being unemployed for 10 months. WHYYYY!? Well, obviously I had to be more conscientious with my cash once I was out of work. Unlike at my job where I (stupidly) told myself I’LL GET PAID NEXT WEEK AND PAY THIS OFF!, I could no longer make those impulse out-of-my-budget-anyway purchases.

But surprisingly enough (AKA not a surprise to anyone), the more money I made, the more money I spent. The American Dream! I also had my previous job’s work e-mail subscribed to all those discount sites. GROUPON! GILT! GIMMEYOURDOLLARZ.COM/SRSLY/HANDITOVER!

Guess what? If you are spending money on things you wouldn’t normally buy anyway, it’s not really saving you anything. KA CHING!!!

When I lost my job, the only thing I could really think of that made sense to buy at a discount were the things I was going to do anyway but could no longer afford to do for full price. Hence, I bought about 5 or 6 deals to join various exercise programs, gyms and yoga studios.

AND LO, it was money well spent. And I got to try out different things and different places and I grew and changed and Hollywood ending. Also, I fell in love with the pilates reformer and now we are married.

The point of the story is that I learned a lot about money. And me and money. Basically I was in deep denial that I was THAT kind of American living above my means. (I was! Congrats!) If I wanted something, I bought it and told myself I’d deal with it later. (I don’t want to analyze it too much but I assume it comes from so many years just scraping by and not being able to afford anything at all. So when I could, I kind of…overindulged.)

Unemployment would’ve been even more enjoyable had I not had credit card debt to deal with. Credit card debt that I had accumulated…while employed. *SLAMS HEAD INTO A WALL*

I am on a mission right now to pay down what is left over the course of the next few months and banish it from my life forever which brings me to…

WORK!

2. I am back to a full-time job as of last week. I KNOW! YAY ME! Well, not full-time. It’s temp work (4 months as of right now, filling in for a woman who is on maternity leave) but it’s full-time hours at a company I like, in a fantastic location, and it is equal parts Challenging and Learning New Things!/Yet Not So Stressful That I Am Considering Storming Out and Slamming Doors!

I am finding the stability and security completely soothing. There’s something about having a place to go every day, having a steady paycheck to rely on that frees up a lot of anxiety. With this work, I feel much more at ease trying to figure out what to do with my life long-term. There’s no rush to decide. And being in a routine is actually so much more freeing than having none at all.

Basically it’s great! And no one has yelled at me so far! Which is my only criteria for a job apparently.

(This is probably because the first boss I had out of college was a screamer and she often threw staplers at the wall and because I was 21, I was like OH I GUESS THIS IS WHAT WORKING IS!!!)

So I’m feeling grateful for this job and really loving a brand new year in a brand new place with lots of exciting things on the horizon which brings me to the last thing I wanted to talk about:

MAH BOYFRIEND

3. This year was hard in so many ways but the grounding force in my life was my boyfriend. (Who I almost called ‘my partner’ but I never know if that’s going to give you the impression that my boyfriend is a ladyfriend which would be fine but he’s of the boy variety and I don’t know about you but I’m always caught off guard when straight people use ‘partner’ and I am overthinking things right now.)

ANYWAY. My partner. My love. I feel lucky that through the emotional mess and financial stress of this year, I fell flat on my face in deep love with a very amazing someone.

He is all the things I like a whole lot in a person – kind, funny, helpful, calm, he doesn’t really take anything personally, he is constantly encouraging and wanting the best for me and as a bonus, he is awfully adorable.

(Sometimes he runs to the bodega on the corner for a snack wearing his bathrobe as a coat but hey, you know, we can’t have it all.)

So, that’s it. I’m really loved and I feel really happy about that and I just wanted you to know.

2012: Year of Less Debt, More Love, More Clarity, More Financial Self-Control and More Compassion For All

Commence!

When I first lost my job, my biggest fear was centered around how I would survive without a place to be from 9-5 every day.

For the first few days of unemployment, however, this fear flew out the window because AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEE FREEDOM!!!

As time went on though, I realized that I just cannot function in a healthy way without a structure to my day. Places to go, regular activities, etc. As the end of the year came upon me, I began to feel that it was time to go back to working full time. Even if it wasn’t a dream job, there is a lot to be said for a place to go every day, the stability, the routine, the steady paycheck.

BUT FIRST…

Here are the clips from my movie montage from this period of my life, set to an upbeat YOU CAN DO IT! song, probably by a rocker chic.

Behold, 2011!

Things I Did While Unemployed

Took a yoga class at 11 am on a weekday with…a bunch of other people without jobs? Or stay-at-home moms whose kids were in school? Or freelancers? Or actors? Actually probably just actors.

I walked down to the Lower East Side one March afternoon to find the bakery where my favorite cupcakes were baked. I bought four.

I went on lots of trips.

I called lots of people to see if they wanted to catch up.

Did lots of physical therapy and fixed my knee and ankle!

I reorganized my closet, donated all the clothes I don’t wear, gave away some shoes, threw out a bunch of other useless things.

Did the same with nearly every room in my apartment.

I went on exactly one audition. It was awful. I didn’t go on another.

Watched my dad get better, watched him stand up for the first time in 9 months, watched him take his first steps. Like a baby! BUT BETTER!

I thought about things I wanted to write.

Sometimes I made time to write those things.

I thought about jobs I might want to pursue long-term.

Went to lots of regular therapy to fix…my brain!

Joined Facebook.

I made lists of projects I could tackle.

I got my car inspected.

Learned how to become a savvy grocery shopper.

Stuck with Italian lessons for awhile.

Was a Maid of Honor! Wrote a Maid of Honor speech! Threw a wholesome bachelorette party! Walked down the aisle in a church in front of lots of people! CRIED FOR DAYS.

Became addicted to Friday Night Lights, watched the entire series from beginning to end. Cried when it was over because all my ‘friends’ inside the television were gone.

Spent a lot of time falling in love with my boyfriend.

Took a bunch of improv classes! Got on a house team. Got on another.

Wrote and shot a short webisode with my cousin Tom in LA.

Things I Did Not Do:

Edit that webisode. It’s still on my video camera.

Become a professional figure skater.

Go to the DMV. (I put this on my To Do list every week of last year, meaning to get a new picture taken and renew my license which expires soon. As of this post publishing, I still have not gone to the DMV.)

Write a book. Or anything of substance.

Enjoy a lot of the free time I had. After awhile, I started to get restless and the vastness of the free time started to overwhelm me and I rarely had the money to do all the things I wanted to do.

Continue Italian lessons. I ran out of funds.

Find out the meaning of life.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

But, that’s pretty good, yeah? A fulfilling year! I didn’t make any crazy decisions, I didn’t really figure anything out. But more importantly maybe, I spent a lot of time doing things I really enjoyed, being with people I loved and I was able to have space and time to work on a bunch of messy things.

And you can’t really ‘figure anything out’ or make any permanent life decisions until you start wading through the murkiness and stirring up some things underneath.

Tomorrow! One last (important) blurb about my time as an unemployed person! And then we move on! To 2012! And stuff on the horizon which, huzzahhhhh!

When you lose your job, you have free time.

When you have a boyfriend in his early thirties, you can use this free time to go to all of his friends’ weddings.

You can also visit your cousin Tom in LA because your plane ticket roundtrip with tax was $256. (You will never find that fare again, though you will continue to search frantically for it the rest of the year.)

You can also take your first ever solo trip with your mom to Miami in the middle of March, alliteration WHAT’S UP.

I traveled a lot this year.

And this, oh this, I loved.

I feel so happy and so grateful every time I look at any of these pictures, not to mention how overwhelmed and lucky I feel to look at them all.

Miami, March:

Los Angeles, April:

Amelia Island, May:

Manchester, July:

Litchfield, July:

Nashville, July/August:

Chicago, September:

Los Angeles, November:

So much love and luck in my life, you know?

I thought I would write a series of sorts on ten months of unemployment this past year. If you like it, that’s great. If you don’t, go away.

In February of 2011, I was laid off from my long-term temp job in finance. I was surprised but not exactly wrecked. My job up until that moment was ‘only’ a survival job to me, something that allowed me to audition and pursue an acting career while paying my bills. Aside from the people I worked with, most of whom I loved very very much, I wasn’t sad to go.

Or at least I thought.

What complicated the matter was that I lost my survival job, my stability, my schedule, and then I simultaneously began to question what I was doing artistically. I started to lose my drive creatively. I probably could have handled one or the other, but the combination of the two sort of pushed me over the edge of what I could reasonably handle. It was as if everything in my life was up in the air, not just what to do for work but what to do with my LIFE’S work.

Along with those two major stressors:

I had injured myself the previous October and well into January, I still couldn’t walk properly, nor did I have health care to seek out a professional’s help. In a bigger way, there were also some demons lurking around my heart last year, hurtful things of the past, confusion and anxiety and fears that I had successfully ignored for oh, I don’t know, a number of weeks years of my life. At the same time I was oh, I don’t know, QUESTIONING EVERY SINGLE LIFE CHOICE AND LIMPING AROUND IN A JOBLESS HAZE, I met the man I am now dating, who I am pretty sure is It for me, who I am pretty sure I love in a way that I have never loved before, world without end, amen.

And while that last piece is the sweetest piece, really, the only sweet piece (peace), it also seemed to ignite a frenzy in my mind, where all these factors came together and I felt very happy but also very lost.

A sample of my brain activity at this time at any given moment:

How would I spend my days?

How would I fill up my time with meaning?

How would I pay my bills?

How would I fix my bum knee and ankle?

If I don’t want to be an actor anymore, then what am I doing?

How much of a failure am I, actually?

If I have found the man I want to love forever, I feel somewhat ashamed because what must he think of me that I am unemployed and meandering through life without a purpose?

What could I possibly bring to our relationship? He is so much better than me.

Where is the balance in romance between leaning on someone for support and leaning on someone like a crutch?

When will I feel like a grown up?

Why are other people so grown up and I am barreling towards 30 so fast and what do I have to show for myself and I never thought a number mattered to me but I suppose it does and I have been pushing this down for so incredibly long that I am afraid to be older, to be alone, to wreck things, to be unimportant, to not be special, to have no one clap for me, to not be perfect, to not do everything right, I cannot do everything right, I just cannot hold it together anymore help help help.

And thus, I erupted like a volcano.

Not all at once, of course. Not in broad daylight in the middle of Park Avenue.

Mostly in private.

I bubbled over quite consistently in a brand new therapist’s office. Week after week, we scratched the surface until we hit something deeper and on and on it went. Sometimes I would show up and talk and think and leave feeling so much better. Mostly I would show up and cry for nearly all of my fifty minutes. And when it was over, I would walk down Central Park West crying harder. There was just so much inside that I hadn’t let out. So much inside I didn’t even know was there.

Physically, I was saved by a dancer’s clinic, a part of NYU Hospital. They granted me full financial aid to cover my injuries and so they x-rayed me and poked me and sent me to physical therapy to rehabilitate my knee and ankle joints.

And that’s what I remember most about the early days of my unemployment, in the late winter and spring of last year.

I was just very slowly starting to look at the things that had fallen apart because I didn’t have the option to look away anymore. I was stripped of a job and of direction and so many things came shrieking into the sunlight demanding that I take notice.

So I looked.

And it hurt.

But I started to talk.

And I started to stretch.

And bit by bit, every day, I tried to love myself as much as I loved everyone else around me.

I’m still working on it.

Not a lot of camera pics this month and almost all of them are enhanced to be as BRIGHT! AS! POSSIBLE! I’m a sucker for Christmas lights, you feel me? Anyway, here are some more photos and I’m looking forward to coming back here soon to talk about this past year because it was one of the craziest in recent memory. And maybe talk about what I’m thinking about for 2012. LET’S BE HONEST, both of these conversations are probably about what I’m having for lunch.

Here is December!

When I was little, we had a large loud insane Christmas Eve dinner with my mother’s extended family and though the numbers drop every year for one reason or another, we still do this. We show up and hang out and then my dad says a blessing before the meal, usually adding a silly story or two and then he says some Polish prayers and asks my mom to forgive him for any hurts he has caused her over the past year and then we sort of turn to each other and do the same.

Which, come on! WHO IS BETTER THAN MY DAD? What a tradition!

Anyway. On Christmas Day, we would go to church in the morning and then drive west to spend the day with my grandmother, my father’s mother, in Brooklyn. I have barely any recollection of this and only know it because I asked my sister recently how on earth we spent Christmas Day as small children and she reminded me. My dad’s mother died fourteen years ago which means I have been alive without her for exactly as long as I was alive with her. For many of those years I was a small child so I barely have much of a sense of her at all.

Anyway, this is not about my sweet grandma Agnes. (Though, come on, I kind of totally want to name one of my kids Agnes. POLISH CATHOLICS REPRESENT!) This is more about the fact that the lovely lady died (at almost 90! GET IT!) and it came to be that on Christmas Day, my family just…stayed home.

And it was just us.

And we sort of just sat around. And it was amazing.

So this year we more or less did that and I thought I would describe how it went this year as the years now sort of blend into one another and it’s hard to tell them apart for lo, I am old and also, a child was born in a manger in Bethlehem.

On Christmas morning, I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for the first time ever which took approximately four hours because the dough had to rise for about one thousand years and I did not check that in advance.



We ate breakfast around 11.

We ate cinnamon rolls around 4.

Everyone had one except for my father who apparently hates cinnamon rolls, another thing I didn’t research before making them. I must say this is possibly the one thing that leads me to doubt my father’s perfection. THE MAN HATES CINNAMON ROLLS? Who are you!? What!

Somewhere in between breakfast and cinnamon roll snacking, I went for a run and then we all opened presents which is why in every photo, everyone looks nice and showered except me.

So, there is that.

My family decided to stick to a one-gift-per-person rule this year as we had/have tentative plans to go on vacation together and decided we should save our money for that.

Naturally, my mother blatantly ignored that mandate and so instead of getting a few small gifts, I got a few small gifts and then a ton of gifts from Rita and even though I was like MOM YOU SUCK AND DIDN’T PLAY BY THE RULES, I was simultaneously all THANK GOD MY MOM SUCKS AND PLAYS BY THE RULES!

Also, Rita is adorable. She bought herself this blue lounge outfit or maybe she got it as a gift? It’s VELOUR. I don’t remember but I have NEVER seen my mother wear anything like it so she put it on Christmas morning and my sister and I high fived her and told her she looked like a smokin’ Westchester soccer mom.

At some point, I finally took a shower. (6 pm?!)

Then we decided it was high time to bust out Paul’s scotch for cocktail hour. I like to call it “Just In Case We’re Not WASPY enough!”

Scotch! How quaint! Now let’s put on our sweater vests and head out for some golf!

We…do not play golf.

BACK TO THE ACTION:

How cute is my older brother!? He ran his first marathon this year. No big deal, dudes.

Also: sorry, ladies. He’s taken.

Cheers!

My sister Debbie wears some variation on this outfit every year, pretty much ever since her boyfriend’s parents bought her this ridiculous apron. Which she wears as a dress? To be festive? Regardless, it is the best in the world. I love my brother Jem’s expression in the background like ARE YOU CHECKIN’ THIS OUT?

So, the seven of us sort of just sat around quietly in front of the fireplace and then decided we should order some takeout, as is our custom, Chinese or Indian. This year we chose the latter. Takeout can be tacky but we do eat it on the precious Christmas China which my dad bought while he was in Japan. So yes. On Christmas Day, my family ate Indian food on the Japanese China.

We are a diverse family, you understand.

After dinner, we decided to watch a movie, deciding on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which I announced would probably be depressing but not THAT depressing, having been the only one in the family who had read the book.

Welp. I was incorrect. It was actually more depressing than I thought.

My dad fell asleep halfway through and for the rest of Christmas vacation, he thought every movie we sat down to watch was about 9/11. Including Moneyball. And some British detective series on PBS.

My sister bought all of us these crazy flannel hunting hats and I vowed before the day was over, we would stand together in front of the fireplace, STAND UNITED AS A FAMILY OF DLUGS and have our picture taken while wearing them, care of my dad’s camera and its rockin’ automatic timer.

And so it was, that the Dlug family had a blissful Christmas Day.

Cinnamon rolls, a roaring fire, beating my dad on Words with Friends, taking a family portrait in fuzzy hats and watching a movie that may or not be as depressing as I thought it might be.

We wish you a merry Christmas (Rita reminds you that Catholics are very much still in the Christmas season! It lasts through the Epiphany! HEY YOU WHY ARE YOU TAKING DOWN YOUR TREE? GO TO CHURCH! I LEAVE MY LIGHTS UP UNTIL FEBRUARY!)

And a happy new YEAAAAAAR!!!

Hey you guys! What the heck is up!?

I hope your holidays were merry and that you have many exciting plans for New Year’s Eve, hopefully they involve wearing something with sequins and kissing all the boys!

My Christmas was wonderful! There was a fire going in the fireplace every night, lots of generosity all around in terms of gifts and hugs and heartwarming chats and my grandmother only made one or two racist jokes at the dinner table instead of her usual six or seven. SUCCESS, DUDES. I’ll take it where I can get it.

I am flying down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina this morning to spend New Year’s Eve with my favoritest person in the whole world who happens to be my boyfriend which makes me the luckiest.

SPEAKING OF FAVORITE PEOPLE. It’s my other favoritest person in the world’s birthday today.

My father turns 67 years old today which is just too old if you ask me. (GIVE ME A GRANDCHILD, my mother screams at me in the background.)

One year ago, my father finally received his final hip surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC. After nine months in a wheelchair, in constant pain and frustration, everything started to turn around. A year ago today, my dad began again. New hip, recovery, re-learning how to walk. He started all over.

A year later, the man has barely a limp. He spends all afternoon raking leaves on the hill in the backyard. He joined a gym for the first time in his life and goes religiously three times a week, still rehabilitating his body with the exercises he learned in months and months of physical therapy. He drives, he can shower and dress himself, he goes up and down stairs, he is the dad we all remember. Taking out the garbage, going for long walks, doing ridiculous dances in the kitchen for no reason.

But he’s different of course.

My dad’s emotions are more raw, I think and the way he views the world will probably never be the same again. He knows how lucky he is. He has been incredibly humbled by his experiences and sees beauty and God in all of it which is absolutely miraculous to me.

The other night before dinner, dad volunteered to say grace. He talked about being sent to South Korea when he was in the army, an engineer in charge of building bridges. He was warned that the river’s current often changed direction and to build accordingly as the last engineer’s work had been washed away as soon as the tide turned the other way. (**By the way, thumbs up for the US Army, right? Some guy built a bridge incorrectly so it just UP AND WASHED AWAY!? I digress.)

Dad recalled laying in his hospital bed last year with a beautiful view of the East River. Every day he spent hours in bed, watching the current and he noted that it too often changed direction.

This is life, he said, close to tears at the dinner table. Things change for us, sometimes overnight and we rarely know why. All we can do is go with it. Follow the current until it turns again.

And all the good people around us?

They are our life rafts for when the water gets too choppy.

So, happy birthday to my sweet, sweet father. I apologize publicly on my blog for making so much fun of your accent over the past week. You have to understand that I imitate it because I love it.

Because I love you.

BECAWSE I LOVE YA, YA CRAZY POLACK.

Here is a picture of my dad from a few months back with my sister, the first time he was able to bend down and put his sock on which ended up being the hardest piece of the puzzle after surgery with a new hip. (WHO KNEW?)

TA DA.

Dr. Dlug is a rockstar.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

And Happy New Year everyone! I’ll be back in 2012 with a lot to say! YEAH YOU GUYS!