This Moment

Punch, 4, and Figgy, 15, last week.

Figgy helped Punch raid my closet.
She was even wearing my French perfume.
Those are my Tory Burch silver shoes
[snagged on sale at Bergdorf's a couple of years ago].

The beautiful outdoor Easter planter from Bartlett's Greenhouses & Florist in Clifton--
I can bring it back and have it replanted with fresh blooms
 for a small planting fee and flower charge. The
women there are incredibly talented.

Punch in all her glory. I love her so much,
but she does wear me out.
Last Thursday when she visited, she took off her shirt at the dinner table,
screamed at the top of her lungs until H. had to put her in a time-out,
tried to dive off the edge of the tub, and refused to let us detangle her hair after her bath.

This moment. This is it. It's what we have, and we have to use it.

It occurred to me while raking today, channeling Dad, who always did a lot of yard work. He transplanted the irises, grew tomatoes and zucchini in the garden, coaxed furry peaches from a little spindly tree.

The moment is now. This is my time to be healthy and strong, to do and be and accomplish. One day, I trust, I will be old. When Dad was sick, that was the moment to be with him. Now my parents are gone, but I am still young. I have time to do things. Dad must have felt that way after his mother died, I thought as I raked up muddy leaves to reveal grassy ground around the Easter-chick-yellow forsythias [Dad had those, too]. He must have poured a lot of his energy into taking care of things. My grandmother died in December 1972. Dad was four months shy of 50. How strange, just my age. He seemed so much older.

TCOY

1. Walked two loops at Edgemont Park.
2. Raked for about 45 minutes--want yard to look good for Easter, when Sis + Don come for dinner. [BTW, we have so many mounds of leaves because after the tree fell on our house last March, we lived at the condo for 8 months and weren't here for fall raking.]
3. Once around the block with Sug.
4. Shampooed.
5. Private Benjamin. That's going to be my new code word for therapy--we've been going as a family, and as a couple. It's hard, but definitely counts toward taking care of yourself. From now on, though, all I'm sayin' is Private Benjamin.
6. Pear--it counts if it's in a pear crisp, right?
7. Stared down Entenmann's soft mini cinnamon donuts and sprinkled holiday Pop'ems [donut holes] in Shop Rite. Can't say it wasn't hard. They're on an end cap, right near the registers, perfect for impulse junk food lovers. Picked the boxes up, put them down, reminded myself I already had a dark Kit Kat bar today. This is a step, b/c that wouldn't have stopped me before.
8. Bought lots of fresh veggies--pepper, pencil-thin asparagus, a bunch of sweet carrots. Now if only I eat them.
9. Washed three denim skirts. Was down to baggy skirts and that doesn't work for me. If it's fitted, you kind of feel what you eat. Too loose, and you don't. Plus it looks sloppy on me.
10. Made chocolate almond biscotti.