One of my friends in Boca had a Facebook status update that went a little somethin’ like this:

“Lea comes home and tells me another kid put a booger and saliva on her arm today but don’t worry she wiped it off with a paper towel! Can you say bleach! Ewwww”

I read this in my room and couldn’t keep from hopping up, off to the playroom to consult with one of Lea’s classmates: Abigail. It was just a gut instinct KNOW.

“Abigail,” I say, “do you happen to know if anyone wiped boogers and saliva on Lea’s arm today?” I could tell by her face the answer was yes. But her mouth wasn’t as quick to the cut.
“What, like did you get a note sent home or something?” Her hand had been on her hip but slid down as she spoke, leaving her looking down into the confused finger web she was about to weave.
“Abigail, did you do that to Lea? You can always tell Mama the truth; you know that right?”
“Yes,” she whined.
“Yes, to which part? Yes, you know you can tell me anything or yes, you were the one to wipe boogies and saliva on Lea?”
“Both,” she said in a low voice. I crouched beside her and asked if she’d like me to wipe my boogies and saliva on her. It was a risky question because depending on the day, these kids might think gross.. but also awesome. There was a possibility that she’d respond, “Yes, may I pick which arm?”

Thankfully, she admitted that she wouldn’t like it, that she was just trying to be funny. That she was only playing. I mentioned germs and hands to ourselves without mentioning lady-like behavior because that term sucks and pigeonholes girls. “So what are you going to do about this, Miss?”

“I won’t do it again.”
Great, but how does your friend Lea know that?
“I can call her or write her a letter to tell her I’m sorry.”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea. Saying sorry isn’t always easy for people to do, but we all make mistakes, every one of us. The best thing you can do is admit what you did wrong, so you can learn from it.” I set her up with her notebook and pencil at the kitchen table, watching as she sounded out her words. “You’re doing a really good thing by being aware of your behavior and working to be better behaved and also by letting someone else know that you care about how they feel. I’m proud of this Abigail. Not of bad manners but for apologizing the way you are. You’re a good egg.”

“Mama, I’m not an egg. I mean seriously.”

Our talk had me thinking about apologies, how I used to believe they were really only good for those doing the apologizing. To be on the receiving end, they can be “just words.” But if you do it right, from your heart, where you truly show how much you wish you could take it back, they have got to know it’s way more than words because they can see the weight of it on you. We should all take that lesson from the sandbox. Be quick to apologize and mean it.

In response to my friend’s status update, I replied: “OMG, I just asked Abigail if it was her, and she said, ‘What did you get a note home or something?’ Yes, dear. It’s called Facebook. Bleach is right. Sorry!”

Friend: “LMAO!! I was not going to give names or say anything ever! Just thought was quite the story. I’m cracking up. No worries, we scrubbed away! :)”

So when the day comes that Abigail can’t believe I posted the contents of this precious apology, I won’t be offering up a sorry. Because this right here is the good stuff.

A few months ago, I wrote about tequila friends. The words that hadn’t made it past my edits went like this:

If we don’t make time for it today, then it’s really not all that important to us. And “it” includes people, too.

I wrote about a double-booking I made, promising to be in two places at once, and I was surprised to find friendship so quickly. Below is what I had not posted:

There was no ego at the table, no judgment (though I was a wee bit guilty, jumping in with some unsolicited “Don’t turn yo’ boy into no mama’s boy” advice), just a give and take of stories from the heart and hurt of us. Goose bumps, some choked back tears. They were the kinds of stories ABC contestants hold back until the penultimate Bachelor episode, for the big reveal, and what will his reaction be? And I knew it then, that I liked these women because they were at ease sharing their hard.

Confession, like tequila, breads intimacy. Want to make closer friends? Put yourself in situations where you get that close one on one time, in a walk around the lake, after a movie, walking to your cars in a quiet parking lot, or in a restaurant where you can hear each other, but can also laugh your tits off without caring if you’re disturbing other diners. Though, falling tits, in general, are gonna be disturbing.

I include these cuts here because I now realize their gravity–how fitting they are to this newest endship development, whose story goes something like this:

Once upon a time. Maybe I should save this story for my book. Ooh, isn’t that an evil tease? Evil is in good company then because this story here is evil. I’m so appalled by some people, and yet, so delighted by others. There truly are 31 flavors for a reason. Speaking of which, I’m totally hitting up Baskin’ Robbins later.

Also, I am not that evil. I will post the full story once I’ve figured out exactly how to tell it.

I‘m feeling anti-social lately, and I think it might have to do with holiday “nesting.” While there’s no baby on the way (I’m eating as if there were), I still feel a strong pull to home, to snuggle with my sugarplums, making snowflakes and melting our own chocolate for cocoa. Usually, I’d take a bottle of wine with friends over glitter and craft glue—though ideally, who am I kidding, they’d be two in the same. But, here I am searching for “experience gifts for kids” instead of pulling clothes for a night out.

Tonight I’ve RSVP’d “yes,” to a “New to Boca” dinner, but I feel like staying home instead. Or, like stealing away to the movies. I think socializing, especially when jeans are involved, can take too much effort. Putting on makeup, particularly now, feels like a chore. I’m almost always happy that I go, and I’ve grown quite fond of some of the women individually, so I’m not sure what my problem is.

Maybe it’s this particular group of women. I never feel like I truly connect on these girl nights, probably because there are too many of us, too many different conversations at the table, dipping in and out. Yet the other night, with a different set of six women in pajamas, we had the best chemistry, each of us confiding and growing closer. I guess the difference is that these “New to Boca” nights feel like gloss. There’s no real texture, and we’re in a setting that doesn’t cultivate intimacy. I’m learning that I value intimacy and wisdom over “fun.” And I’m a fun fcuking person. Though, I imagine everyone thinks they’re fun. Maybe I’m no fun at all. I really don’t give five shits.

Pirate’s Cove, Patch Reef Park, Boca Raton, FL

What I do care about, though, are experiences, making new memories. And you don’t go about making new memories by staying home on the computer. You say yes, even if you’re tired and don’t feel like getting dressed. You say yes because anything can happen. It’s why this holiday season, most of all, I want to give our children gifts of experience, for them to unwrap a box full of pirate costumes, with a wooden plank inviting them to a special Family Pirate Picnic at Pirate’s Cove Park (just a public park near our home with a pirate ship playground). It costs nothing but it means everything. I’m on the hunt for more treasures, for under the tree and otherwise.

Chocolate caramel tart with sea salt; it’s what I was going for. A new friend—mind you all my friends in Florida are “new,” though all aren’t “friends,” but we’ll scratch that surface later—invited me to a new tradition at her home: It’s A Wonderful Life Night. Her movie theater room will soon be flooded with sweet friends, salty confections, and booze. She’s invited us for a cozy showing of the holiday classic, with only one mandate: the dress code, much to her husband’s chagrin, is PJ’s, the fuzzy kind, not the “Hopeful Ho” variety.

After shopping for fuzzy pajamas—because no, I didn’t own any—I decided to confront my stack of cookbooks, and leafed my way to the Chocolate Caramel Tart with Sea Salt from The Perfect Finish: Special Desserts for Every Occasion because I could make babies with salt. In truth, I was deciding between this and the Walnut Layer Cake with Apple-Caramel Filling and Calvados Cream Cheese Frosting (I know, right? The best recipes in this book!). Then my mother offered to drop off some meyer lemons from my aunt’s tree, and I considered making my all-star all-time favorite lemon cake (email me for the recipe, if you’re a tart freak). Ultimately, I chose the chocolate caramel tart with sea salt because I judge books by their covers. That, and I left my spring-form pan (needed for the other two recipes) in Texas.

While contemplating how I’ll work Zuzu’s petals onto the dessert plate, I’m here to tell you this. If you over-whip a fragile homemade mayonnaise, it breaks into pools of oil and water, and yolk by yolk, you must coax it back to health (relative health; it is mayo). Overworked mascarpone mixed with heavy cream meant to construct a creamy tiramisu can instead create a curdled dump, rescued only by patience and another container of mascarpone.You can’t unscramble an egg, and there’s no, I realized tonight, rescuing bitter caramel. It’s good for flan, but it doesn’t suit much else.

Friendship can work the same way. You can see it progressing, thickening in a pot, then without explanation, like an overworked emulsion or an unattended sauce, it can turn into something unrecognizable.

I have been blown away by the high school crisis of friendship in Boca Raton. It takes more real estate than a single post to cover the damages. It takes a book, or at least a chapter or five. Chapters I’m now writing, or, more pointedly, chapters they’re writing for me. Because you can’t make this up any more than you can turn shit into shine-ola.

While we’re on the bitter, my burnt caramel has been painted onto buttered crusts, each an individual tart. Tomorrow I plan to flood each tart with an eggnog custard that makes flan faint and brûlée boil. Island rum whipped cream. Because all in all, life really is wonderful. Even the mess of it, the Potters and burnt pots, it’s really nothing in the face of family, in the face of friends who come as they are, and who act as they appear, jammies and all.

Tonight was good. I had planned to meet a few women for drinks and dinner, then I’d race off early to make it to the new book club I was invited to join. Love nights like that, where you get to up and switch, like musical chairs, but with different chairs, and different music, and well, no. Sorry.

But that’s a lot of girl bonding to race through, which even for a seasoned over-sharer like me, still takes time. Before my first sip of the margarita, I knew. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hoo city that I’d be making it to book club.

Mind you, as much as I love to read, the types of books I have stacked bedside are written by shrinks and chefs. Right now, on my nightstand: Your Child’s Strengths, Pasta Harvest (it’s my bible, seriously), Defusing Angry People, Working the Plate, Nigella Christmas, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, Bullies, Tyrants & Impossible People, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, and obviously, Around My French Table. Because that Dorrie Greenspan can end anything—even this list!— on a high note. Also, now on my to-buy list: Out of Our Minds.

For me to miss the very first meeting of the club, especially after reading the book? And by “reading,” I don’t exactly mean “completing,” and perhaps “reading” isn’t the right verb either. “Mostly listening to most of it,” is more fitting. No, I didn’t join a book club with the intention of reading. I joined for the social aspect. Which, given that I missed NIGHT ONE, would be a FAIL. I digress. I purchased the AUDIOBOOK of The Paris Wife and even that I wasn’t able to finish on time. And yet, I’ve still managed to successfully paw my way through self-help and help-yourself-to-food books, no problem. Know what that says about me? Me. Me. And yes, Me. Interesting that I choose subjects that pertain to me and my life and my interests over wanting to escape all of it in the pages of fiction. No judgment (either way) on that observation. I think I just really like to learn.

What surprised me most about the night was the depth of our girl conversation. We spoke about such real topics, things for whatever reason people don’t usually disclose until they’re on sure friend footing. Death, abortion, adoption, fertility, marriage. And it wasn’t the tequila. It might just be that later in life, we rip through the light and get into the grit, straight off. I liked it. Though, next time, I won’t be double booking. Next month’s book: The Hunger Games.

I‘m cranky and tired and don’t feel like adventure, which isn’t like me. Today I went into a Forever 21 inside the Town Center mall, and I found myself letting out a little whine because the Forever 21 here in Boca is a quarter the size of each of the two in Austin. Mind you, I realize a 35 (almost 36) year old woman shouldn’t be shopping at Forever 21, but still. I do. They make great tank tops and accessories and, surprisingly, fantastic shoes. I digress. It just felt like the small store was the straw.

Making friends here feels like a race. Like, you have to time that friendship right, and make sure “she” whomever she is, is as friend-open as you are, that she, too, is looking to open herself up to new. Because there are plenty of people who aren’t looking to make new friends—it’s hard enough keeping up with the friends we already have. I think it feels like a race here because I know so many new people who are in the same boat. You’d think that would draw us closer together, faster, and with some it really has, but in so many ways it feels like this strange unspoken competition. I’m sure it’s just me and my insecurities, and that no one else feels it. Which actually makes me feel it all the more.

If she makes plans with her first, if they’re close first, I’ll just be the “sometimes” friend. I guess I’m looking for a replacement of you. Not that I could, ever, obviously. But I was always able to open up to you, in part because you were just so much fun, so confessional, so… sister-like. And I find myself here, now, asking myself how you’d act. “If she were here,” I tell myself, “she’d get out of her car and wait with the other mothers at early dismissal. She wouldn’t be sitting in her car, waiting in the carpool pickup line instead.” And then, I sit in my car. Because, I suppose, I’m just too tired to race off and get me some friends in a hurry.

It might also have to do with circles. Aside from the ones beneath my eyes, the circles in Austin were big, like, Texas big. It didn’t feel incestuous on any level, and when I’d bring friends together they never knew one another outside of knowing me. Our worlds were wider. In Austin I had friends without children, single friends, mom friends, foodie friends, dinner party friends, photography friends, let’s mock The Bachelor granola friends, craft night scrapbooking / sewing friends, friends who’d host baking orgies, older friends who had better wine and better wisdom, country club let’s cozy up to the bar friends, live music scene friends, writer friends, game night friends, and best of all, drinking friends who’d sometimes conceive children in our guest room.

Boca feels crowded with people who all know one another. I think that just means it’s time for me to branch out beyond Woodfield, beyond the preschools and playgrounds. I need more touch points. I think we all could use more diversity. In fact, I think we can create our own. Here’s my plan. I’m making a list of the things I love. And I’m going to join a group for it, a class, whatever it takes to widen my circle. Mostly, I’m going to do the things I love. Because it’s just too incestuous having so much overlap. Like, you know you’re all seeing a movie together tomorrow night, so who do you call to hang out tonight? If you had a completely different set of friends who you adored equally, you’d have an answer.

Tears for Fears (and for the quilt of love)

Tonight Phil is off in Ft. Lauderdale until 10pm, and it’s 4:50pm here now, and I could be getting together, drinking some mama wine, watching chick TV, or meeting at some kid-friendly dinner destination. Instead, I’m on my sofa, shoes off, hair up, glasses on, typing at the computer about how lost I feel. Only, I know that this is temporary, that I need to rest. Holy shit, seriously, don’t I sound exhausted? Moving is stressful. Marriage, kids, all of it. Abigail goes in on Thursday for her chin “revision,” where they put her under. It’s way worse on me, I already know. I wish I had a stay-at-home friend here. A pajama friend. A no makeup, no bullshit, let’s tell it like it is and live it like it’s not friend. I guess I’m just feeling blue. Think it’s about time to crack open that green little notebook* I’ve been saving.

I love this photo above because that, right there, is my “I love you” face. You can’t fake that face, that emotion of watching someone across the room and just being so in love with who they are as a person that it makes you want to cry. And “you” is so many of the genuinely sister-like friends of mine in Austin. Many of them mark these pages and stud these photos, and others, some of the closest, weren’t able to make it on this particular night. I miss the details of your lives, your voices, and our casual touches throughout a day. Now, I’m crying and wiping my nose. Which is a good look with the glasses and hair bun. I miss you. For real.

My two talented friends Erica and Lisa made this quilt just for me. I don’t know if I could feel more loved. Do you know what a bitch it is to make a quilt? That’s lots of love right there. Turtle Dove Love…. notice the personalized turtle detail (below)?

I’m pointing to the turtle with my finger. It’s a symbol that holds so much weight for me. We should all have our own power animals and power friends that somehow channel strength to us, wherever we are.

* The green notebook was a gift from a Give Get friend, who invited my other friends to write me love letters. I haven’t cracked it open yet; I’ve been saving it in my bedside table for moments like this.