Mar Mar

My godmother is dying. She has terminal cancer that has spread throughout her body. She is about 179 years old, so she has lived a nice long life. Her name is Marilynne, but I grew up calling her Aunt Mar Mar (pronounced Mare Mare) even though she isn’t really my Aunt. I think I was a teenager when I found out she wasn’t an actual relative.

Mar Mar has known my parents since before they got married. This means she has known my sister and me longer than anyone, along with our folks. My earliest recollection of Mar Mar is around Kindergarten age. Mar Mar loves dogs and she had a shelf full of porcelain boxers on display in her living room. This was next to her portraits of random dogs on the walls. Above the basket of dog toys even though a dog didn’t actually live in her house. The coffee table was covered in oversized picture books of dog after dog. Upon the coffee table rested a jar of dog treats that looked like people treats. I learned to never, ever, ever, grab a handful of snacks from any dishes in her house without asking if it was dog food first.

Since Mar Mar was already 137 years old when I was born, I have always known her as a mostly retired eccentric batty woman living in the Gold Coast of Chicago. She has a condo on the 14th floor and despite being a bigoted racist; she was always generous with the African American doorman.

Mar Mar never married and rumor has it that she had ‘relations’ with one of her lawyer clients. Mar Mar was some sort of assistant/outsourced admin person. She had no family other than ours, her maid, and her two gay neighbors. The McCormick family was a client as well and somehow she had joint custody of a few of their dogs over the years. Hence the dogs never actually living with her other than periodic overnight stays.

Every birthday card and holiday card I ever got from Mar Mar had a dog on it. Presents always included a check and a t-shirt or sweat shirt from the Dumb Friends League. If I had a dog (I’ve had three in my life), Mar Mar would lavish him with awesome gifts such as large baskets filled with toys and goodies. The check and charitable garb were nice, but I was always jealous of the pet’s loot.

One of Mar Mar’s last clients was a priest who went around the world painting murals in cathedrals. His name was Tonelli. I never met him, but he was the bane of her existence for a good five years in the late 90s. It was always, “Eh, Tonelli needs to get his taxes in,” or “Tonelli forgot to give me all his credit card bills,” or “Tonelli needs to sign these forms,” or “Tonelli has to see the dentist.” There was always some innocuous task that Tonelli needed to do that made Mar Mar shake her head side to side like he was going to get run over by a bus at any moment.

Mar Mar wore giant fur coats and smoked like a chimney. She wore enormous round coke bottle bifocals. She was short and had a hump in her back that gave her poor posture. She looked like a furry smoking lady bug. She drank gin. It had to be Smirnoff. She loved hamburgers. I took her to PJ Clarke’s and O’Brien’s countless times for burgers. She was mean to cab drivers. Especially Black ones. Or Arab ones. Or Ethiopian ones. Or any non-Caucasian ones. She was mean to Jewish people. In some sick way, because of her bigotry, I was always proud of her for being best friends with two gay guys.

Mar Mar rarely talked. If she did, it was about Tonelli’s incompetence and her dogs that she didn’t really own. When I lived in Chicago, I’d stop by for a beer (she had gin) and we’d talk for an hour. Which means I had to ramble and ramble, getting not much more than some head nods in return. When I got tired, I’d ask about Tonelli or the dogs, and her face would light up. She’d tell a story and I’d pound my beer so I could get out of there faster.

I never knew much about her past. Nobody does. I never knew much about her present. I just wrote almost everything I know. She wasn’t easy to be around. The smoking and racism were difficult to stomach. She now lies in a nursing home, trying to regain strength so she can go home to die or maybe she will just let it happen there. She says she is fine even though she doesn’t remember the day before anymore and she is weak. Each day is new in her flailing mind. She doesn’t like the Black nurses tending to her. She still has her ignorant wits about her, but not much else.

Her fur coats hang listlessly in her closet. There are no bottles of booze or smokes in her house. The dog toys are gone. She officially retired years ago and hasn’t had Tonelli to blame for the bad weather in a long time.

She has her gay friends, my family and her longtime maid. She doesn’t want any of us to visit. I have only talked to her once or twice a year the last few years. I stop by if I’m in Chicago, but I haven’t traveled there much lately. I don’t know what she does all day.

I want to go see her. My dad keeps asking me why. Mar Mar doesn’t want any of us to visit and she hasn’t been an active and regular participant in our lives for years and years.

Whether she wants visitors or not, she needs to know she is loved and that we care about her. A phone call isn’t enough. I will tell her about my kids and how business is going. I will tell her about my divorce and how that is going fine. I will tell her I love her and that I’m going to go to her condo and drink beer on her balcony while I wear her fur coats. I will tell her whatever I can think of and she will likely just nod her head.

Then I will show her a picture of my friend’s dog Mickey. I will tell her how Mickey has my friend trained by kind of barking but mostly whining at her until she picks him up to toss him on the bed; even though he can jump up there just fine all by himself. I will tell her how Mickey howls like a sick walrus when he hears sirens. I will tell her how Mickey chews on little stuffed animals known around the house as his baby.

No matter how Mar Mar is feeling, I expect a picture and stories of a friend’s dog will give her some light. She will crack a smile and shake her head like she would when Tonelli forgot to send a check for the electric bill. Maybe she will reminisce about Prince Nickolas the III, one of her glorious part time pets. Maybe she will recall all her charity work with the Dumb Friends League and rest easier knowing she made a difference.

Maybe for a moment she will forget she is leaving us soon. She may hang on a few weeks or a few months. We don’t know how long it takes for cancer to overwhelm a surly 179 year old woman. I want to see the light in her eyes one more time. Not for me. I’m feeling okay about this. This is all about her. She isn’t happy right now. How can she be?

So I told my dad I need to see Mar Mar and show her some pictures. He thought I meant my kids. Instead she is getting the Mickster. I’d love to show her more. I know I don’t know most of you. But in a bloggy kind of way, we are all friends. I’d love to show Mar Mar some more pictures of dogs doing silly things from people I “know.” Don’t overwhelm me. But if you have one picture with a short short story behind it, feel free to email me. My addy is in my profile.

Cheers to you Mar Mar. You are loved by your family, the gay guys and the maid. You are loved by all the dogs in all the land. Please carry on wherever your next adventure takes you. Just be nicer to the cab drivers no matter where they came from. This Smirnoff’s is for you Aunt Mar Mar. I love you.

Savor the Moment

Did you know that if you have a crown, you are a king (or queen or prince or princess) and you get lots of fringe bennies from your constituents? My seven year old told me this information. He didn’t use the word ‘constituents’ but he did cross his arms while making peace signs and said something about the peeps gotta show you some ‘spect. Or maybe he did a ballerina twirl. You decide.



This conversation happened on the beach. I like deep conversations on the beach. I asked what the king gets and he gave me a list of the top three things people do for the king.

1 – They rub your back
2 – They clean your toilet.
3 – They pull out your nose hairs for you.

Ho-lee shit! It’s good to be king. I asked Will if nose hair is already plural or if it’s necessary to say nose hairs. At that point Drew crashed the party and my boys improvised some sort of sun baked mind altering tribal dance that scared the sea gulls and made me laugh.



I told Will I’m pretty much king of the family so he better give me a really good back rub. I told him I’d need to drink a few Mission Street Pale Ales before he pulls out any of my nose hair(s) but that I looked forward to tidying things up around there. And then I said I actually felt sorry for him having to clean my toilet.

He accused me of not being the king and instead claimed he was king. I was going to say, “What the fuck are you talking about,” but I don’t swear around my kids (very much). So I responded with, “Uh uh. I am the king.”

He said, “Noooo, I am.” And then he spread out his arms like he was displaying his great kingdom for all to savor.



I said, “What in the name of Pinocchio’s lying arms are you talking about? I thought only the nose grows when you lie. You have longer arms than I do!”

And then he ran up to me and smacked my ass. So I chased him and Drew the court jester into the surf.



After hours of playing at the beach, we capped off our perfect day with ice cream while we watched the sun set. We sat there on the ledge discussing whose ice cream was best, what exact time the sun would set and who would win in a fight between a killer squid and killer whale if they are both killers.



The powerful ocean, so majestic and magical made the ice cream taste so much better than it does anywhere else. A big old king with a soothed back, clean toilet and manicured nose hair(s). A big old king with his two beautiful angels. A big old king with no worries, if only for a moment.

Little did the big old king know that within 24 hours he would find out his godmother has terminal cancer and his best friend’s dad had a stroke. One will die soon and the other lives, but not without new challenges.

The big old king looks at pictures taken with his little angels just two days ago and already feels like they were a lifetime ago. The big old king knows living in the moment isn’t always a sunset on the beach. The ocean can lull you to a peaceful state of being one second and smash you to pieces the next.

It is life. Embrace it.

IT Guys Are So Fun

The server is down. I haven’t been able to send or receive email for a couple hours. Rather than do one the bajillions of other things I could do that don’t require emailing, I’ve stopped working. I called my IT guy. To protect his identity, I will call him Mike. Mike may or may not be his real name though. I could be playing a chess game with your mind. A little poison in the goblet a la Princess Bride.

Mike has been our outsourced IT guy since day one. I am loyal to a fault. He isn’t loved by everyone here. IT guys are a lot like the accounting people. You tend to deal with them only when there are problems. So you often have a negative association with whoever is in the role of Accounting Nazi or IT Asshole.

Mike eventually gets things working again, but it is usually at the cost of something else going wrong. Kind of like me and plumbing. I may stop a leak but then the garbage disposal stops working. But Mike takes it to a whole other level. He might get the server going, but then the toaster will break. Or he’ll revive a laptop and suddenly all the lights in the back of the office go out. Or he’ll fix someone’s Outlook problems but then their car won’t start. It is just the way it is.

So I called him about the server and he is going to try to work on it remotely. One of the gals just yelled up that her computer froze. Mike must be working on the server already. Somebody else just spilled coffee. Mike is definitely working on our server.

I can see the monitor right now. He is scrolling through files. I wonder if that is why I hear the toilet running. Oh, now the radio signal on the stereo is all fuzzy. Mike must be really busy getting the email going again!

One time, at band camp, Mike told me we needed a new backup drive. He started quoting me numbers and product features. I can’t believe he didn’t see my eyes glaze over. I was in a land far far away. Mike’s words became an irritating noise that I managed to tune out with my wandering mind.

I was thinking about how my mom sent me a handwritten note stating that eggs are good three to four weeks after the expiration date. I guess she thought it was wasteful for me to let the boys throw the eggs down the garbage chute one at a time because the carton sell by date was two weeks old. Mike said mainframe and I thought about membrane. What a strange word. Biology is weird. Mike said log in and I thought he was being a nut log. Which reminded me of nuts which reminded me of Snickers which reminded me of this post. Then he asked me which option I wanted to do and I think I said Skittles before I snapped back to reality.

I told Mike I don’t care what backup drive we get and that he is here to tell me what we need to do and then do it. So he got us a new backup drive and the dishwasher started wigging out.

I just checked my phone and all my email has disappeared. Nice. Mike is really busy today. I’m not signing back in to Outlook because I don’t want my iTunes to start playing in Spanish. Other than cerveza, playa and banyo, I don’t know much espanol.

Another time at band camp, Mike the IT guy had to replace a smoldering backup battery in the server room. Yes, our place nearly caught fire from some of his handy work. Now I keep marshmallows in the IT closet just in case. When he put in the new battery backup, I recall stubbing my toe and the refrigerator shorting out the kitchen electrical socket.

A lot of the peeps here wouldn’t mind if we got a new IT guy. Mike has been helping me for the last ten years. He has two kids. He never raises his rates. He is a nice guy even if I don’t listen to him very much. He cares. He takes a long time to fix stuff and other things go haywire. But eventually we are good to go.

My head says fire his ass. Good thing I always follow my heart.

Fairies and Moaning

I’m the best daddy in the world. That is what Will told me after I said we could go to the bookstore and buy the four missing books he needed to complete his weather fairy series. What, you don’t know the weather fairies? You need to put down Harry Potter and the Twilight stuff, dude. The fairy books take about a half hour to read out loud and that includes periodic questions and discussions about Jack Frost and those pesky goblins. Oh, and it also includes finger pointing at fairy belly buttons and pretty hair.

I have a house rule. I haven’t really articulated it to the boys yet because I know they will abuse it. But the rule holds even if they don’t exactly know it. The rule is, I will never say no to buying books.

Yes, we have library cards, but I like to own my books. I take them with me, I dog ear them, I lend them out, I snuggle with them, I spill stuff on them, and I like to keep them. Even though I probably have about 100 unread books in my house, I buy new ones all the time. I can’t help it.

So when Will asked me to read book six of the weather fairy series (I believe it was Goldie the Sunshine Fairy), I asked him what happened to books three, four and five. I had last read him number two. Turns out he didn’t have three, four, five or seven (the last one) yet. I asked him if he’d like to read them in order and he said he couldn’t because he already has six and he wanted to read it. When I asked him if he wanted to go get the others and read them in order, he threw me a ticker tape parade, gave me a key to the city, and he even baked me a cake that Scarlett Johansson jumped out of while wearing a fairy costume.

We picked up the extra books and he carried all seven with him everywhere this weekend. He stared at the covers. He talked to his books. He flipped through pages looking at the line drawings and admiring the fairy outfits. He ranked the books in order by his favorite fairies and commanded Drew and I to give our opinions.

We read three of them together. Will would either sit in my lap or curl up next to me resting his arms on my leg. He has picked up an interesting new habit. As I was reading, I thought I heard a soft moaning. I wondered if Drew was making noise in the other room. I kept reading and the moaning continued. I stopped reading and the moaning stopped. I read and the moaning started. It was Will!

I asked him if he was okay and he said yes. I asked him if he was moaning and he said yes. I asked him why and he said he didn’t know but it felt good. So I’m reading about Kirsty and Rachael helping the weather fairies while my seven year old boy moans and groans softly. Will this be the last time he looks at a publication with pretty girls in it and moans and groans? Considering he is into fairies, dresses and sparkly shoes, I sure hope not! Whatever trips his trigger, man.

As long as when he hits puberty I’m not still reading to him while he moans, I’m good with it.