I Am My Valentine

Some people on this planet do love me,  but none are racing out to choose a card, candy or flowers for me for Valentine’s Day. That’s why I use February 14 to assess my personal Pamper Patricia Program, which operates year ‘round.

How do I love me?

I’ve listed five ways here. Feel free to help yourself any time you need to be your own Valentine.

1. Borrow a Bathtub

For a dozen years, I had the bathtub of my dreams, a huge soaking tub in a spa-like bathroom in my condo. I always said that if I ever moved, I would carve out that tub and take it with me – but I didn’t, and my current standard-size tub annoys me.

Even my grandson, who is 3, finds it wanting. One evening after splashing around in it with too many tub toys, he asked, “Nana, do you have a bigger bathtub?” I do not. But I know someone who does. My plan is to rent it from time to time. I‘ll take my heart-print bathrobe and of course it’s Bring Your Own Bubbles.

2. Schedule a Facial

We all greet the world face first, so why not make the most of that face, which is assaulted day in and day out by grit, grime and air pollution? A professional facial offers deep cleansing, dead skin removal and intense moisturizing for dry, aging skin. Also, I pick up tips for more effective skin care to help me combat fine lines, brown spots or puffiness.

Plus, the time spent on the table is supremely relaxing. If you’re on a budget, you can still work in an occasional facial. Call a local beauty school and ask if the students need clients to practice on. For instance, the Cinta Aveda Institute in San Francisco offers facials for just $40. Such a deal!

3. Attend a Matinee

Even though the senior discount does not kick in at most movie theaters until the evening shows, nothing beats the delicious decadence of seeing a movie in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe it’s because I spent so many afternoons at the office wishing I were at the movies, or maybe it’s just a reminder of one of the privileges of being retired. (If you’re not yet retired, consider taking half a personal day sometime and sneak off to a movie theater.)

For lunch, it’s popcorn and a refreshing beverage. Maybe a box of Junior Mints for dessert. And yes, the snacks likely will cost more than the price of the movie ticket, even at the matinee rate.  I am worth it!

4. Make a Date

Where do you like to go to get away, breathe more freely, put down your day-to-day worries? Been there lately? Me either, though my list of favorite spots includes the botanical garden, a local diner with the best milkshakes ever, a cozy bookstore built for browsing and a hilltop with a beautiful view.

I also have a list of places I’ve never gone, and I seem to put off those expeditions as well. Why do I so often allow opportunities for new experiences pass me by? This Valentine’s Day, I am making a date with myself to get to a comedy club or jazz concert, places I have long wanted to go, meant to go and can’t believe I’ve never gone. I’m going!

5. Plan a Lovely Dinner

Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest nights for restaurants – why fight the crowd and compete for the attention of the crazed kitchen staff trying to serve all those couples? It’s a great night to feast on my favorite food in the comfort of my home, go beyond the usual low-key dinner for one.

Once a month, often on a minor holiday like Valentine’s Day, I give myself permission to splurge on my favorite food, either a prepared item or a special cut of meat that I cook just the way I like it. Dungeness crab is in season right now in San Francisco and an upscale grocery sells exquisite crab cakes for $4.99 each, a fraction of the cost at a restaurant. I may steam some asparagus – or I may just buy two crab cakes and a lemon and call it dinner.  

Happy Valentine’s Day to me – and you!

Wrestling with Aging

I’m 16, sitting in the kitchen at my boyfriend’s house, talking to his mother, while Joey gets ready for our bike ride. Adele Lawton  -- Mrs. Dr. Roger Lawton – is very nice. She offers me lemonade and asks me questions about school. She wears a dress, a dark print, with stockings and flats. I figure she is just a little older than my mom, maybe in her mid 50s.

Joey tells me his parents go to a lot of costume parties, whoop it up and drink and dance. That’s not the woman I see sitting across from me. In a moment of panic, I wonder if Mrs. Lawton suspects that Joey and I spend more time necking than riding bikes. I open my eyes wide and flash my most innocent virginal smile. She doesn’t notice. That’s not what’s on her mind.

Mrs. Lawton leans across the table.  “You’re 16. You look at me and you see Joey’s mother, an old woman. That’s who I see when I look in the mirror, too,” she says. "But inside, I am 16, like you." She settles back in her kitchen chair. “I remember 16," she says. "I remember 25. I remember 40. I do not feel the age I am, the age I look.”

Suddenly I see her at 16, laughing with friends, dressing carefully for school, flirting with boys. I see her at 25, married to a handsome doctor, starting a family. I see her at 40, dressed in an exotic pagan goddess costume, paying the babysitter when she and Dr. Lawton return home from a party.

Adele Lawton has just told me that inside, she is all these people at once!

Now I’m 66, but I remember 16. I remember 25. I remember 40. And I remember two months ago, when I’m sitting inside a large, round glass column, sort of a tall test tube designed to hold one person. This cylinder is closed at the top, but it has a door and I can see out.

The medical technician is a short, 30-something man, cheerful but professionally impersonal. He explains how I am to breathe into the hoses extending into the cylinder. We practice together, panting in unison, for six or seven breaths.

I’ve got this! It’s like panting during labor! Been there, done that. For 40 minutes, I pant while the technician stares at monitors. When the panting gets tough, he acts as a cheerleader. “Good! You’re doing great! Just a few more minutes now! Keep it up!”

Finally, the test is over. “Look at this!,” the technician says, pointing to graphs on a monitor. “Look at these numbers! You have better lung function than I do!” The test proves, he adds, that I do not have asthma. I exhale, greatly relieved, and turn to flash him a big smile.

Then I hear the technician say this: “When I saw your age and weight on the chart, I didn’t have a lot of hope for you.”

What? I want to slug him, pound on him, make him take it back!

Suddenly, visions of my athletic prowess race through my mind – me, winning a belly dancing contest on a cruise on the Nile. Me, chasing – and catching – buses all over San Francisco. Me, hiking to the top of Angel Island. Okay, I cried a little along the way, but I did it, made it to the top.

Next I mentally gloat over my most recent blood work. I need a button that reads, “Ask me about my triglycerides.” I pat myself on the back – figuratively, of course -- for losing 80 pounds some 10 years ago and keeping 70 of them off.

Yet in that room at that moment with that technician, I am just an old, overweight, red-faced woman – one with clenched fists. I can’t outrun security guards, so I decide to wound him with words. "Don’t you ever make assumptions about people you know nothing about,” I roar. Then I stomp out.

I am still new to being old. I am startled that I have gray hair, but smart enough to know if I color it, I will never get a seat on the bus. The occasional physical limitation conflicts with my self-image, and I now get why I am too old to fall.

As for my hands -- I do remain in awe of these hands, hands that have allowed me to earn a living as a writer for over 40 years. Through the decades, I’ve interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of older people, and now I realize I was on the outside, looking in.

Now that I’m on the inside, I would ask different questions.

How do you like being ignored, overlooked, undervalued -- invisible?

Do you find it hilarious that young people think they invented sex?

Are you angry that so much of what you know, what you worked for your whole life, what you’ve accomplished, is now disregarded?

Just how much do you miss cute shoes?

Are you unnerved because most of your life is behind you?

Do you relate at all to the word “elderhood?” Beware -- it’s coming soon from the mouth of a medical professional near you.

Back to my hands. I have to admit I don’t much like how my hands look.

My right hand now squares off at the wrist. There is a knot on my left thumb. And one of my little fingers is so crooked that it looks like a new mom standing with her hip jutted out to hold a baby.

I look at these hands and I see wrinkles, a few age spots, a weird bony bump. Yep, these are the hands of an older woman. I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.

I’m 26, visiting my neighbor, sipping tea and talking. Anita reaches for my hand. She holds it a minute, strokes it. “Look how smooth and soft your hand is,” she says, “how youthful and pretty.”

Anita – in her mid-60s then, a retired pediatric nurse – compares her hand to mine. “My hand is wrinkled,” she says, “with age spots. My thumb has a big knot on it and two of my fingers have decided to stiffen up and grow crooked.” Anita stares at her hand. “When did that happen?”

Now I’m the one with the old-lady hands. Every day I use them to push away the past, hang on to the present, grasp for the future. They have another use, as well. One day last month, my grandson, who is just three, looks at me and asks, “Nana, are you a grown-up?”

"No,” I say to Max. “I am a girl." Then these girlish hands grab him -- and hold him close.

Hey, I remember 3!

Popular Pumpkin Bread

PUMPKIN BREAD

¾ cup margarine (1½ sticks)
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (if nuts are too pricey, skip 'em)

With a mixer, cream margarine and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Add pumpkin and water, starting on slow speed, and mix until combined.

Add the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves.

Starting on slow speed (otherwise you will be wearing the flour mixture), mix well, increasing the speed as the flour mixture is absorbed. Add nuts and give it a whirl again to mix them in.

Grease and flour pans or squirt them with baking spray. Pour pumpkin mixture into either two regular loaf pans or six mini loaf pans. Fill pans about two-thirds full.

Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for about an hour. Large loaves take a little more time; small loaves take a little less.

This bread is not as sweet as cake (I reduced the sugar from 2 1/2 cups), but it’s so much more flavorful than dry, boring zucchini bread, and requires no butter or cream cheese on top. The pumpkin bread freezes wonderfully when wrapped in plastic wrap and topped off in foil.

FUN FACT: I found this recipe in Cosmopolitan magazine when I was 16 (!) and have been making it ever since. The original recipe called for chopped maraschino cherries as well, which I thought then (and agree now) is WAY too much trouble. Enjoy!

WARNING: Once you hand out mini loaves of this great bread, people start asking for it every November.

The Joy of Solo Shows

Why am I learning how to develop a solo show?

A better question might be why aren’t you? Everybody has a story, and with coaching and direction, we all can learn to tell the best parts of our story.

That’s why Gene Gore, 82, developed and performs “Cheesecake and Demerol,” her award-winning solo show, which runs through Oct. 19 at Stage Werx Theatre in San Francisco.

“I like being part of the theater community, I like connecting with the audience, with new people, and I like telling my story,” Gene said over tea Friday at Café Reverie, one of my favorite places to sit around and hear stories.

“At last Sunday’s performance, I really hit my stride, was in that place where I could tweak some lines to get laughs I hadn’t gotten before.” (See genegore.com for info on future performances.)

A retired nurse and mother of four, grandmother of three, Gene has been working in theater for about a dozen years. She has appeared in a handful of plays and another handful of movies and done some commercials. Gene has studied acting, voice-over work and improvisation. She also has taken workshops in solo performance with David Ford, where she says she found her voice, and has been directed by David and most recently by Wayne Harris.

Here is one review from her performance at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2012: “Attending Gene’s show is like having strong coffee with your gracious, vivacious and very witty grandmother. Documentaries and fiction can’t compare with the rare opportunity to experience history through the eyes of a woman who lived it all and tells it like it is. Plus, she’s funny as hell.”

That she is! Gene has fans of all ages, including a 14-year-old who was inspired to take up acting after seeing “Cheesecake and Demerol.” When I saw it earlier this month, I thought it was funny and profound, a mesmerizing look back at the important choices Gene has made in her life -- and those that were made for her.

At the theater, I also leaned in a little to study how Gene “shows” instead of “tells,” how she uses a few props to flesh out important points and how she paces the stories in the show for maximum impact. All those are things I need to learn as I work on developing a solo show.

In August, I attended an intense three-day workshop conducted by Alicia Dattner, who also has won awards for her solo shows. Alicia has performed in San Francisco, New York, Hollywood, Bombay, Chennai and London. (See aliciadattner.com) I saw her amazing show "The Oy of Sex" last week.

At the workshop, for three days we talked, performed, wrote, did theater exercises, wrote some more and performed some more. By the end of the workshop, I had seven pages of material that included several of my stories about aging, about how older women being underestimated or disregarded, all strung loosely together.

Here’s how I started, and yes, I sang the first line. Of course, as I continue to revise the material, the current beginning may end up deleted, replaced by something else.

“I am 16, going on 17 – I know that I can’t sing. A few lines later in that song comes this: I need someone older and wiser, telling me what to do. That works! I am 66, going on 32 - -the perfect age to tell my 16-year-old self what to do. 

Just so you know, I am not upset that I am old. I have made a point of collecting plenty of experiences that I can use to startle and delight people on the porch at the nursing home as we sit rocking, rocking, rocking.

What I am upset about is how some people perceive me based only on my age and the life they presume I am leading. I am concerned about the disconnect between what I feel inside, who I see in the mirror, and the person others see. When they notice me at all.” 

My work made people in the class laugh, made them think and made them say really nice things about my writing. They also seemed impressed that I’m not afraid to stand up and perform. That said, Alicia pointed out that what I have is more of a narrative than a script, and that I need to pull apart some of the paragraphs so I can develop characters and write dialogue for them so that I show, rather than just tell.

I haven’t done that yet. This has been a busy month – my new book with Eve Batey is just out (see 100thingssf.com or facebook.com/100thingsSF, where we’re posting great photos!) and some in-depth freelance work came my way. But that’s okay.

Procrastinating is okay because in mid-October, I will begin an eight-week workshop on solo show development with Charlie Varon (see charlievaron.com), who has been writing and performing for over 30 years. Since 1991, he has created award-winning solo theater work in collaboration with David Ford at The Marsh (themarsh.org), where I have seen half a dozen wonderful solo shows since I moved to San Francisco.

I was familiar with the genre long before that, of course. For me, solo performance seems like another way to tell stories, something I’ve been doing for over 50 years. “It’s expensive,” cautioned Gene when I told her I was just beginning.

“Often, you pay for the space, you pay for tech and you pay for publicity,” she said. Gene is tackling that problem by researching grants and launching a crowd-funding project on Indiegogo. (Read her amazing story at www.indiegogo.com/projects/gene-gore-s-cheesecake-and-demerol). She’s way ahead of me!

A dear, generous friend did pay my workshop expenses (corporate sponsorship, this early in the game!) but I haven’t looked any farther ahead. Right now, for me this project is about joy, about learning something new, about being determined to live an interesting life while I’m still here.

Stay tuned!

Party Talk in St. Louis, Jimmy Fallon & Phyllis Diller

A chorus of tree frogs after dark. Laughing with Judy. A cardinal chirping just after dawn. Gathering with the Five Favorite Female Friends. Surprising Edward at a coffee date. Squealing with glee at seeing Ellen. Delivering drive-by hugs to dear friends who answered their doors. Coping with 100 degrees one day and then basking in a night cool enough to open the windows. Being entertained by stories from Gail and Gail. Reveling in the company of the Wise Women Book Club. Eating fabulous meals with Judy and Scott.

These are just some of the highlights of a recent quick trip to St. Louis. Though I lived there for 62 years, I don’t call it home anymore. Four years ago I headed west, and I’ve been around long enough to know that dwelling on the past does not serve me well. So when a guest at Judy’s wonderful birthday party asked me whether I miss living in St. Louis, I said no. His face registered shock and dismay.

“Don’t misunderstand,” I said to the man, someone I do not know well. “People I love live here and it means a great deal to me to be with them again. But I don’t miss St. Louis.” When I left town, I felt as though I had interviewed everyone (at least three times!) and been everywhere and done everything multiple times. I was ready for a new city, new people, new experiences. I have embraced that every day in the City by the Bay.

A friend in St. Louis told me when she mentioned my name to a woman she knows, the woman immediately brought up the column I wrote in the Post-Dispatch when my son went to college. That column was so popular that it ran in August for several years in a row! How nice to learn that someone remembers it.

In that column, I wrote that it’s important to take responsibility for living an interesting life. It’s certainly easier not to -- and yet, at 66 I am even more certain that the only way to avoid confronting sameness on a day-to-day basis is to generate change, to expand, to reach out, to learn something new, to go a little crazy now and then.

I’m taking my own advice. Here is an excerpt from an email I sent recently to about 70 women:

“Here, in the cocktail hour of my life (thank you, Ken Page, for naming it so perfectly), I have decided what I want to do next!

I have enrolled in a three-day workshop in August and then an eight-week workshop in October on how to develop, write and perform a solo show. Both workshops are with experienced professionals and opportunities are available if I want to go further. Added bonus: A friend believes so strongly in this venture that she has covered my class fees -- my first corporate sponsor! 

Jimmy Fallon, here I come! (Oh no, what to wear???)

Back to reality: My theme is the chasm between what we expect of ourselves at this age and what so much of society expects, and how those expectations influence how we think of ourselves. I used to be on the outside looking in, personally but also professionally, as I covered aging and Boomers and interviewed many older adults for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Now I find the view from inside is so different!

Though I have never taken an acting class, I am comfortable on stage, and not just dancing in red sequins and fringe. (Long live Voluptua!) I've given hundreds of speeches to audiences large (650 at the Ritz) and small (eight women in a church basement) and I know how to tell a story, get a laugh, maybe help someone think differently.”

I asked my friends to send me stories about their experiences (troubling or funny) when they thought they were being underestimated because of their age. Now I am asking a broader audience, so please share this blog post with any likely suspects.

Thinking about being funny (and profound) on stage has brought to mind time spent in Phyllis Diller’s house in Webster Groves. In junior high, I was friends with her daughter Stephanie. We took the family-leased cab to a shopping mall and McDonald’s, we tried on Phyllis’ costumes and, with Steph’s siblings, we played musical instruments in the Dillers’ basement. Sometimes, Phyllis asked us to sort through jokes sent to her, and recommend which ones she might want to incorporate into her routines. I tell myself now that that part of my past proves I can move forward in this new adventure with confidence. 

Voluptua’s sequins seal the deal.

Lesson Learned: Want What You Have

Announcement: I am not getting new eyeglass frames, and it’s my mother’s fault.

I got glasses when I turned 14, glasses that I didn’t want and was prepared to despise. When I put them on, for the first time I could see the neighbor’s back fence from our kitchen window. (Hi, Cheri!) I decided it was okay to wear glasses after all.  After brief flirtations with contacts (hard and soft) in college and later on, I have enjoyed wearing glasses ever since.

Early on, my mother told me to take good care of my glasses, to protect them from getting bent or broken or otherwise abused. So I did, and I always have. I don’t wear my glasses pushed up on my head where they may fall off and I don’t let them ride around in my purse or tote unless they are in a hard case.

In the past, I bought new frames every four years or so when I needed new lenses -- and what a collection of fun frames I’ve had: big red round glasses, studious horn rims and lovely malachite-colored frames.

A week ago, a frame I did not seek out caught my attention. These glasses sang to me, called my name, lured me in, even though I was not in the market for new ones. These saucy frames were in a locked cabinet (never a good sign) at the ophthalmologist’s office, where I had an appointment to find out why my left eyelid kept twitching.

The twitch was nothing, the ophthalmologist said, but he recommended I have an eye exam, as my last one was two years ago. At that appointment last Thursday, the optometrist said my vision had barely changed; if anything, it was slightly better than it had been four years earlier, two appointments ago.

Doctors rarely tell anyone my age that any body part is improving, so I decided to be pleased. “What about my frames? Do they look okay?” I asked. The doctor said my frames looked brand new. They are not – they are seven years old. My sunglasses are even older, but she said they look great too.

Rats! Even though I didn’t need new lenses and my current frames are in excellent shape, I marched down the hall and into the office where frames are sold. “I am here for a budget meeting,” I told the receptionist. “I need to know what new glasses would cost.” The woman nodded and signed me in. Then she looked at me more closely and said, “I L-O-V-E those frames you have on! They look great on you!”

I thanked her. Then I confessed that I wanted to try on the frames I liked so much, the ones locked in the cabinet down the hall. “It’s the $400 Tiffany Lux frame,” I said, “beautiful horn rims with flashes of turquoise.”

The receptionist said, “I know them -- that’s the most expensive frame in the shop, but they are pretty!”

The optician who waited on me calculated the cost of new lenses and factored in the amount my insurance would cover. Then she fetched the Tiffany frames. I took a deep breath and put them on.

Whoa -- they were all wrong! Suddenly the song they had sung became discordant. Oh, the color did indeed look good on me, but the top of the frames covered my eyebrows and the sides extended out too far. I was thrilled and despondent at the same time because although I was saving a ton of money, this also meant that I was not going to walk through the world wearing these magnificent glasses.

Then the optician asked to examine my current frames, which I have loved since the day I bought them, the day I went in to have my burgundy rectangular frames adjusted and accidentally came out with the glasses I now wear.

“This frame looks brand new,” she said. “I see no scratches or stressed places or any damage at all. Why did you think you needed new glasses?”

I told her I had not intended to shop at all, but had been captivated by the Tiffany frame. I also told her that my hair (gray and silver with a smattering of brown) often seems neutral to me and my current glasses echo that color scheme. I told her that maybe I needed more color in my face. I also told her at least three of my friends had suggested an inexpensive solution: lipstick.

The woman laughed. Without stopping to put on lipstick, I headed off to catch a bus. Riding home, I grumbled that other people get new frames all the time. So why not me? Because, I realized, I take really good care of my glasses, just like my mother told me to over 50 years ago.

So it's her fault, at least in a round-about way. 

Of course the entire experience reminded me of something else I already knew: Want what you have.

P.S. Realized I already have something besides lipstick -- Susan, my co-madre (her daughter married my son) gave me a bonus blush she got at a cosmetics counter that did not suit her. It's called Alluring Rose. C'est moi! 

Oops, It's February Already!

Zoom zoom zoom – that was the last couple of months, zipping by on their way to future calendars depicting different years. See you later! Here is a recap of recent highlights from the City by the Bay.

What would I write just for myself if I had the time, and no paid work to do? People ask me that often. Early in January, when work was slow, I had a chance to find out. After three weeks of focused work, I am now ready to enter a memoir contest. Those three weeks weren’t all about writing, of course. First, the contest rules ask for just the first 5,000 words of a memoir. Second, I spent at least a week arguing with myself about taking on the project, even as the words I needed danced in my head and taunted me for having doubts.

Overall, the work was fun and easy except when it was frustrating and hard. That’s how writing goes. “I guess I am doing this,” I said to a friend over lunch. She pointed out that whether or not I am named a finalist (if I am, I get a short time to complete the manuscript) I can always give the work to Milo, my grandson, when he is older. Good idea!

I did not start with my great-grandparents, worthy subjects though they may be, and I did not write a traditional narrative. Chronology is not always an interesting approach, in my opinion, and the research, the fact checking and the required drilling into the memory bank all seemed too overwhelming. I chose instead to tell stories, out of order, with slender threads tying them together.

A slight digression: I once went shopping for a couch with my five favorite female friends because I wanted to buy new furniture that all of us found comfortable. I approached the memoir project in a similar way. A few friends, mostly randomly selected, read different drafts of the piece as I worked. They all provided encouragement and some offered insightful critiques, especially the “hired gun,” a former copy chief at the newspaper where we worked. With each bit of feedback, I wrote more and the manuscript grew and breathed more freely.

One friend, no slouch when it comes to writing himself, posed an interesting question. After offering several compliments, he said, “My question is: Where is this going? This is a great beginning -- I can't imagine the readers will not be hungry for more. Just be sure you know what that more will be. If they ask you how this memoir is going to end, what will you say?”

As it turns out, I do have an ending, a perfect ribbon to tie it all together, ready to go. Tomorrow I will turn in the initial entry, and then wait to hear if I am chosen as a finalist.

On Saturday, I was a clear winner. My friend Emmeline Craig threw a party to celebrate the first anniversary of The Blissful Gallery, her serene art space in Stinson Beach.  (See www.emmelinecraig.com/the-blissful-gallery/) Emmeline was my first new friend in the Bay Area, and I happily volunteered to take photos at the party. My son recently helped upgrade my camera equipment, and I was excited about working with the new stuff. I packed a little pouch with lenses, a back-up battery and the flash and headed out for the gallery. When I got to the party, I realized I had left the actual camera on my desk. Oh well! I shot pictures with Emmeline’s camera instead.

Patrons of Emmeline’s are really interesting people, and it was fun to mingle and meet new friends. Kelsey and Ben overheard me tell another guest that I moved to San Francisco from St. Louis, and they wanted to discuss Midwest roots. She is from St. Louis, and he is from Cape Girardeau. Kelsey’s grandmother lives in Chesterfield, and sends her stories about the Bay Area that are published in the Post-Dispatch – including one I wrote about the joys of West Marin! (If you missed it, see www.stltoday.com/travel/west-marin-for-the-wild-at-heart/article_889acf23-3f9a-5c7d-a6be-5bade0a75220.html)

One more note: Milo just turned 2, and we have dinner together at least once a week. One recent evening, I said, “What would you like for supper?” His response? “A quesadilla.” Though I was impressed with his perfect pronunciation, I didn’t have tortillas on hand, so we settled on another dish. Maybe next time, Milo will cook.