Anyone who knows me well knows that I am the world’s worst secret keeper. It’s not because I don’t want to keep secrets — it’s literally that I forget. I just forget that they’re secrets. So, generally speaking, it’s probably good that I’m not a spy. Or in charge of KFC’s secret recipe. 

If I had the KFC recipe, I can totally see myself making a batch at home for dinner. When one of my daughter’s friends said, “Oh this is soooo good,” I’d be right there texting her the recipe. In like 5 minutes, KFC would need a new secret recipe and a new secret-keeper. 

My lack of secrecy skills is why it should surprise you that I have managed to keep from blurting out THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. Personally, I’m amazed that I haven’t. But here we are and I can finally tell you what I’ve been keeping to myself for more than a month. 

I had to wait for the contract to be signed but signed and delivered it is so here we go ….

My daughter sold a story to a literary magazine, 34 Orchard. 

Isn’t that fantastic?

I believe the journal publication date is November 10th but you don’t need to keep that date in your head. Trust me; I’m going to get really annoying about this.  It’s exactly the kind of story Haley would write but not at all the kind of story people would expect Haley to write. As such, I’m excited to see what people think of it. It’s really the only reason to look forward to November, in my opinion.  

And now for something completely different ….

Today was the first day of school for my 10th grader. He’s thrilled to be back in school again. Hahaha. We’re actually still homeschooling this year. His doctor doesn’t want him back in the classroom yet. It’s fine — not for the faint of heart — but entirely do-able with patience and practice. This year, he set his own curriculum. It’s heavy on art, mostly digital since he prefers that to drawing on paper. I keep trying to get him to use pencil, charcoal, watercolor but he just prefers digital media. 

He’s also doing a college-level psych class with his therapist. They’re using The Noonday Demon and Behave, two massive tomes. He absolutely loves her and I think he’s looking forward to the class. Personally I find her rather terrifying. 

My favorite thing about her is how she occasionally calls me into her office to scold me and then dismisses me. It’s so deliciously grandparent-like. (She’s 78 years old.) You know — when your child tells their grandparent on you, and you get that phone call? Well, Ian has never really had any grandparents. The last one — my MIL — died before he turned 4; and since she had dementia, they weren’t able to form any relationship. So, instead of telling his grandparent, he tells his therapist and I get a text (or the visit to her office). 

I often wonder whether my grandmother ever called my parents when my sister and I sought her out. Her apartment was an oasis — loving, warm, accepting. But my grandmother and my father were not close. When my father was stationed in Germany (by the way, he was a fantastic secret-keeper, one of the few things I did not inherit from him), he frequently wrote to his father and some of the letters include complaints about his mother. 

Complaining via letter certainly suggests that the mother-son relationship was not even good in his young adulthood. After my grandfather died (when I was 2 years old), Grandma worked to take care of herself but she had no savings. Once she retired, she was entirely dependent on my father. Would she have risked him cutting her off (a thing he would absolutely have done) to defend her two grandkids? It seems unlikely. 

Perhaps, in fact, the scolding grandparent is something rare. I was regularly scolded by my MIL, who knew exactly who I was and often called me out on it. But she was a very balanced woman, really lovely actually (I was abnormally blessed with a wonderful husband AND a wonderful MIL), and just as likely to scold her son as she was to scold me. That’s not to say we didn’t fight. We did but we always managed to work through our differences without any collateral damage.

Before Ian was born, when his siblings were maybe 6 and 4, I planned a Disney trip. Ken had zero interest in going and was happy with the thought that he’d have the whole house to himself for a couple weeks. My MIL, bless her, didn’t like that he wasn’t going. She gave him the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. Of course, he decided to go to Disney with us, where he proceeded to have the worst vacation he ever had. 

The first, and worst part for him, was that it was a driving trip. I actually like to drive (another thing I inherited from my dad) and had a whole exploration vacation planned. He did not like to drive, found car rides quite confining, and was absolutely bored to tears. In addition, on day one, literally, he had an allergic reaction to our Cracker Barrel breakfast. On day three, he nearly got carried off by mosquitoes when we visited the alligator farm in St Augustine. Okay; he actually just got swarmed by them, not actually lifted off the ground. On day four, he pulled a hamstring during his morning run on Disney property. On day five– I’m not making this up — he got heatstroke. On day six, he got food poisoning. 

We left on day seven. What other choice did we have? It was clear he was going to succumb to something horrible if we didn’t get him back home again. All-in-all, it was not a great trip. For the rest of his life, he referred to that vacation as a death march, while the kids and I worked to keep Granny from bullying Ken into doing anything else.  

I did make another trip to Disney a few years later and yes, my MIL was still alive when we went. Ken did not go with us. Everyone was happy, no one more so than Ken who joyfully spent our entire trip at home doing whatever the heck he wanted to. 

And now, because I live next to a college campus and, I don’t know, because it’s Tuesday (?), I need to go outside — there’s a car fire on my street and the police are here. And no, I’m not joking. I think the car owner is like 15; is that possible? Probably not. I must be getting old.

Coming soon … more reminders about my daughter’s story.

Stay safe. Check that fire extinguisher in your car. You never know when you might need it.