Lisa isn’t my former daughter-in-law (not even approaching it), but I feel she needs some sort of designation. There should be a name for a son or daughter’s ex-significant other—the one you apparently liked more than your kid did.
October 31, 2006
October 30, 2006
285/365 My Cousin Dottie
I remember her making a dress, trying to sew as well as her sister but putting the zipper in backwards. Her fiancé died in Vietnam. Pretty, sweet, and kind, she tried, but life was never all that great after that.
October 29, 2006
283-284/365 Harold and Mary
Elegant and rather formal—she always in heels, hat and gloves, he in the masculine equivalent—but affectionate and witty. They praised me for driving to their private hotel with “the kiddums.” I don’t think we’ll see their kind again.
October 28, 2006
282/365 JHK
Given her warmth, wisdom, and womanliness, I suspect she is an old soul. But she looks like a new one—clear eyes, graceful posture, shiny hair, lips quick to smile, pen at the ready—and I imagine she always will.
October 27, 2006
281/365 Ronnie
She’s my cousin, but we look nothing alike. We think nothing alike, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t admire her political acumen, outspokenness, and clout. The City of New York admires it, too. She breathes Manhattan’s most rarefied air.
October 26, 2006
280/365 Dr. C.
He was the new, hip pediatrician in town. I was the grateful breastfeeding advisor, happy to sing his praises to mothers. Later, I heard he pointed me out to a new colleague and said, “She’s trouble. Stay away from her.”
October 25, 2006
279/365 Dr. P.
I had just had a bad-from-the-start short pregnancy. He was my physician, from a country in another part of the world. Perhaps that explains his response to my decision to stop trying. “No, keep getting pregnant. We can always abort.”
October 24, 2006
278/365 The Infertility Doctor
He had an Eastern European accent that made his request, “Now you should take off your panties,” sound threatening. He wanted me to describe the sex act. What?? He explained: Some couples fail to conceive because they fail to connect.
October 23, 2006
276-277/365 Dott and Karl
They bred our first German Shepherd (still missing you, Thunder) and remained our friends long after the money changed hands. They called my baby Suzanne “a Hummel come to life.” Two kind, quietly well-read people in a peaceful second marriage.
October 22, 2006
275/365 Renee
What an irony—that the pretty, fashionable family friend I chose to model my first pair of heels in front of was also a mother who made her daughters undress in the dark of a closet. Poor daughters! Poor mother.
