Category Archive

Although it is now late summer 2009, the salon is called Nails 2000. It is modern enough, and seems hygienic. I’ve been going there once a month, more or less, since a friend took me there for a birthday pedicure several years ago, when the name was just a couple years out of date.

Most of the women there recognize me. They ask about my daughter since they saw me through nine months of pregnancy, when pedicures were a particular relief, and the two and a half years since, when the nail salon becomes a sanctuary where someone takes care of you instead of the other way around. No one asks you to do anything except raise or lower each foot.

They ask me about my sister, who I took, along with her other bridesmaids, for pre-wedding pedicures and manicures. They ask me about my father, who I took for a Father’s Day pedicure, which he enjoyed tremendously, much to my delight and his surprise. I should take him again.

They know I almost always choose variations of purple for both toes and fingers and that I read books I bring instead of magazines they offer and that I like designs on my big toes. They know my feet are very ticklish.

A new owner recently took over the salon. The first clue was the man who offered me wine after I chose my colors and sat down to wait. I declined.

I noticed a few new faces. I asked the woman who was working on my manicure, who used to wear braces and has a little boy who’s six, if the shop had changed hands. She said yes, that there were new girls, and others had left. She looked like she could have said more, but wouldn’t.

The second time I was there since the new owners took over, someone I had never seen before took me back to wax my eyebrows. Afterward, when I settled into the pedicure chair and pressed all the massage buttons, a familiar face sat down at my feet. I was relieved. She did my pedicure and manicure and all was well.

Then the waxer came back to paint the design. Tiny white daisies on the field of plum. Lovely. Then it all came undone. As I was about to get up from the chair and go home, the waxer/painter asked “Would you like a shoulder massage?”

I was caught off guard. This is not a spa. It is not a fancy place at all. It is a nail salon. They don’t give massages. I was confused. At the same time, massages are something I love and desire on a daily basis. I would choose a massage over most other activities, provided the giver is skilled. And I was relaxed from my manicure and pedicure. I must have been in a weakened, vulnerable state.

Despite the fact that I have never received a favor at any nail salon, and that I always pay for the services I receive, for an instant I thought she wanted to give me a massage just to be nice. I couldn’t figure it out.

So I said yes.

A decision I came to regret.

Suddenly I was out of my pedicure chair and she was whispering in my ear “$10 for 10 minutes.” I nodded, feeling a little intimidated at this point. Seeing my compromised mental processing, she egged me on. “You want 15 minutes? You want 15 minutes?”

I regained a small amount of sense. “No, no. 10 is fine.”

While this conversation was happening I saw the owner, or at least the man who had offered the wine last time, standing in a back hallway with another man. There were never two men there to run the salon before. What was going on? What were they talking about? Were they congratulating each other on sending one of their new girls to find the first massaging victim?

I was led into the back room, in fact the same one where this woman had, only hours before, applied hot wax to my face and ripped it off again. But this time there was going to be ambiance. She turned down the lights, turned on new age music, and cleaned up the waxing table. It was quickly transformed into a massage table. Or at least the blanket was removed, a clean sheet spread out, and medical grade paper spread over the hole where you rest your face.

Then she said “Let me help you off with your shirt.”

At this point I felt really weird. I have had many massages before, at chiropractors’ offices or spas, all given by certified and trained massage therapists. And I have removed my clothes on all of these occasions. So I am not at all afraid of being naked. But on none of these previous occasions did the person about to give the massage ask to take off my clothes. It was terribly awkward.

But, because I eschew confrontation and hate the thought of making someone feel bad, I just kept going. I laid down on the table and tensed up. She unhooked my bra strap. This was so much worse than any bad date.

She put on a kitchen timer (always a relaxing sound) and immediately slathered some sort of oil on my back. Then she went to work pounding and chopping and whacking me from every angle. She wrapped her fingers around my neck as if trying to relax my muscles through muted strangulation. She dug her palms into my lower back and rubbed as if she was trying to erase a tattoo that isn’t there. She was attacking my back so vehemently that my head was rattling around in the hole in the table. It occurred to me that she wasn’t necessarily certified or trained in anything. Or at least not in the type of massage I am used to. I have heard that some massage technique in Asian countries involves beating people with brooms or something to that effect, and can be quite painful at the time but beneficial after the fact. Perhaps, I thought, this was the kind of tradition she was used to. But certainly if you’re going to wail on someone rather than relax them, shouldn’t you warn them first?

Mercifully it was over quickly, and I fumbled around for my glasses and got dressed as fast as I could while she stood there and watched. She said I should have an hour next time. I fled the room.

As I paid up front for my mistake, the woman at the cash register asked “How did she do?” “Um, it was nice,” I mumbled as I edged toward the door. “Next time, you do half hour!” she suggested. I smiled the smallest smile.

On the way home I tried to shake the feeling of being violated and recapture the relaxation I had achieved earlier. When I got home I started to change out of my oily clothes when I realized I smelled something strange. I sniffed around the bedroom, looking for dirty laundry or a diaper in the trash. I asked my husband to consult. “Do I smell like mildew?” I asked. He sniffed carefully and answered diplomatically. “Something smells a little odd.” I jumped in the shower for a literal and metaphorical cleansing. No next time, thank you. I will stick to the purple polish.

Tonight I drove home from my parents’ house in my brother-in-law’s 1999 Honda Accord which has a tape player. I found a crate of mix tapes in the back seat and popped in a mix I made for my sister in the 90s, featuring some excellent tunes I had completely forgotten about but still knew all the words to: All I Want Is You by U2, Stay by Lisa Loeb, There She Goes by the Las, featured in one of my sister’s favorite films So I Married an Axe Murderer.

The opening song was “To Sir with Love,” as sung by Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe. Although this song is from an old movie that I haven’t even seen, it always reminds me of my sister because her initials spell SIR. And it’s a lovely song about growing up and moving on.

The reason I was driving my brother-in-law’s Honda home is that he and my sister are moving to Taiwan less than eight hours from now. Aaron will be a professor at a university in Hsinchu, about an hour outside Taipei. They will be living in Taiwan until December when they come home for Christmas vacation. They’ll go back in February and finish out the school year in June and then travel in Asia.

This is an adventure for sure, but one about which my sister is rather apprehensive. After five years of reporting for the Los Angeles Times, she was laid off this spring (after 364 other employees were laid off over the course of a couple years). She and Aaron spent the summer criss crossing the country to visit friends and relatives and attend and participate in weddings. They spent last week at the beach with us. And now they’re off, but my sister has no idea what she’s going to do with herself for the next year. She’s going to blog. She’s going to try to freelance from Asia. She’s going to travel. But she has no office to go to, no paycheck to expect, no official responsibilities. So she is nervous. Despite the encouragement and reassurance of me, our parents, and all her friends that she can and should relax and have fun and not worry so much about her career for the next several months, she seems more like someone sentenced to hard time in Siberia than several months in a highly developed Asian nation where she doesn’t have to work.

I’m sure I would be nervous too. I was nervous before I studied abroad in England for a semester during college. But Susannah is much more adventurous than me. She studied in England too, and Spain, and has traveled all over the country and the world with remarkable flexibility, curiosity, and agreeableness. And she writes excellent travel narratives. Still, venturing into the unknown would make anyone nervous. Aaron does not seem nervous at all, but I don’t know him as well and it’s quite possible that he doesn’t demonstrate his nervousness as such. And Aaron has a mission–to be a professor–so perhaps he’s focusing all his energy on that and doesn’t have time to worry about anything else.

I hope Susannah will be ok. I trust that she will. Once she gets there and settles in she will find things to do. She will make friends. She will explore the city and write funny things about strange edible animals for sale in the open market. I hope some good things happen for her. I hope she makes some good things happen too. I will miss her a lot. I’m going to buy a webcam tomorrow so we can Skype. I’m going to show Zoe where Taiwan is on a map. And I’ll listen to the mix tape I made her as I drive Aaron’s car. That will keep her close.

Zoe has a new friend. Her name is Dee Dee and she lives in a crack in the concrete in our backyard patio.

Dee Dee evolved from Zoe’s affection for nonsense words a couple months ago into a full-fledged girl in recent weeks. Dee Dee came on vacation with us to the Outer Banks last week. Dee Dee shares many, if not all, of Zoe’s tastes and interests. She takes baths with Zoe, goes swimming with Zoe, and gets her diaper changed when Zoe does. Dee Dee is brave when Zoe is brave. Dee Dee also has parents and sometimes goes places with them. Or Dee Dee’s parents follow behind us when we’re taking Dee Dee on an excursion. I gather Dee Dee’s parents prefer to drive their own car.

Along with Dee Dee, Zoe had a marvelous time at the beach. What a difference a year makes! Zoe was eager to jump in the pool and swam around like a little beaver in her swim ring, or without it. She is very fond of pool and bath toys and particularly loved a little penguin who swam with her around the pool and who she rocked to sleep and cared for with the requisite pacifier, bottle, and rattle that all beings need when they are crying.

The big theme this week was being brave. “I want to show Fuzzy how I’m being brave! I want to tell Zannah and Uncle Aaron how I was brave!” Zoe bravely jumped into the pool (and into our arms) from various steps and ladders. She bravely showered in the outdoor shower with Mommy and Daddy and let us wash her hair without crying. She bravely swam in the ocean and rode the waves with Mommy (a first!) for a while, even though “the ocean is pretty cold, I think!” While she observed several times that the ocean was very big, she was much more willing to test it out than she has been before. She was especially fascinated with collecting shells and rocks and building things in the sand. Aunt Susannah or Mommy would dig a hole and fill it with water and Zoe would jump inside, splashing for a few seconds until the water receded into the sand.

Zoe continues to try to impose her will on the world as best she can. One day at the beach the biting flies were particularly aggressive. “Go away bug! Don’t bother me! Go back to your little hole!”

Zoe has an emerging interest in cooking, and climbs up on her stool in the kitchen so she can see what we’re doing. I have experimentally helped her bake a bit, cracking the egg and mashing bananas and stirring the batter to make banana bread. She continues to be a ravenous snacker and I think understands us when we spell out S-N-A-C-K. She can spell Z-O-E and sometimes Mommy and Daddy. She can also count to 10, reliably now, in English and Spanish. I have to admit that I have been won over by Dora the Explorer, now Zoe’s favorite show, because she has actually learned a lot from watching, including Spanish words that pop up occasionally in conversation. And I am a fan of Dora as strong female role model, at least as far as cartoon characters go.

This morning’s first activity was flopping into my daughter’s bed after I roused myself from my own, obeying the siren call of “Mommy, I’m awake. Mommy I’m awake. Open the door, Mommy. Open the door, Mommy.” When I come into her room in the morning Zoe is almost always sitting up, smiling, and ready to announce something she’s been thinking about or doing or ask you a question. She might serve you some pretend ice cream, or comment that there wasn’t a thunderstorm last night after all. It’s often an amusing and pleasant way to start the day, a period in which I avoid thinking about the requests, pleading, and negotiations that will surely follow and escalate rapidly. Note that the requests, pleading, and negotiations are from me, not the toddler.

One of the next activities was throwing towels on the bathroom floor and trying to keep Zoe out of the bathroom when the toilet suddenly and surprisingly overflowed (since it was not stopped up, but just started spewing water, which thankfully was clean). Seeing that the water had stopped, I was content to let the towels do the work and we went downstairs.

Downstairs I observed a smallish puddle of water on the carpet surrounded by a damp area, directly underneath a water mark on the ceiling. Zoe said “that’s where I peed on the carpet.” But I told her that no, she hadn’t peed there, that it was water leaking from the ceiling. While she has, in the past peed on the carpet, she was fully diapered when we went downstairs. I’m not sure how she might have thought she peed there, but that’s another story.

So I called our handyman service, which kindly sent someone over pretty quickly. I answered the door in my pajamas. The handyman, Mike, who has done a lot of work at our house, asked if my the green Honda Civic in the parking lot was ours. It was. He pointed out that the front right tire was low. So noted.

He came in and assessed the toilet situation and determined that there was no leak and no ongoing problem. “It was just an event, and it’s over,” he declared. I was relieved.

On his way out Mike inspected my tires further. He decided that the tire was actually nearly flat. He asked if I had a spare. Sure, but I don’t know how to change it. He asked if Randy would know. I said I doubted it, but Randy was at work so it was moot. We discussed possible options. I decided to take it to the gas station a couple blocks away. Mike said it should be fine to go a couple blocks, and that if I wasn’t able to do that I could call him later and he would come change the tire for me. He is a seriously nice guy.

I drove to the Texaco and as I pulled in three mechanics who were standing outside the garage, evidently bored, looked at my tire and their eyes widened and they laughed. It looked serious. Turns out there was a nail in my tire. On the one hand, I was irritated by the toilet, but on the other hand, if it hadn’t overflowed and I hadn’t called Mike and he hadn’t noticed the tire and told me about it, I would not have noticed and I might have blown a tire or broken down while driving, or had an accident as a result. So I was relieved.

Of course the mechanic told me my brakes were low and needed replacing, so the minor repair ended up being not so minor, but oh well. Are you really going to say you don’t want your brakes fixed and you’re going to drive your two-year-old around and not be able to stop quickly enough? No.

I walked home from the Texaco and took care of administrative tasks for my family members. If I didn’t have my own business, I would make a damn good intern for somebody else. When my car was ready, I walked back to the gas station. On the way I saw three police cars clustered across Columbia Pike from my house and noticed that a man was being arrested. I realized that his day was already much worse than mine. I was not being arrested, nor was any member of my family. I was relieved.

I ran some errands and stopped for fast food on the way home. As I was in the middle of ordering, a bug crashed into my cheek and I thrashed around, certain I would be stung or bitten. When I recovered and pulled up to the window I saw it was a ladybug that had swooped in, and was now trying to escape again. Ladybugs are lucky, right? I was relieved.

After a very stressful July, maybe August is a fresh start. The problems haven’t all gone away, but there are small things to be thankful for. My sister and brother-in-law are coming to town tomorrow. My dad is coming home Wednesday. We’re going on vacation next week. It won’t be for long, but it’s reassuring that we’ll be together again for a few days. People go away, but then when they come back, it’s that much better. I will be relieved.

I’ve always known, growing up in the DC suburbs, that my hometown is not a normal hometown and that people here aren’t necessarily representative of the rest of the United States. But sometimes I get sucked into this culture that I find myself in and I don’t know how to come up for air. While I’m sure that many subcultures exist in DC and its environs (I’m not, for example, part of the Georgetown or Embassy Row socialite society) I feel like my little world is strongly defined by certain characteristics or expectations. For example, it seems to be expected…

that you eat organic, or mostly organic, and especially that you feed your kids organic food. Even, or perhaps especially, organic baby food. There’s even some expectation that you make your own baby food, but not by everyone. Along those lines it’s expected

that you eschew McDonald’s or other fast food. Ever since Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation, after which I avoided McDonald’s for probably a year, I feel a deep sense of shame and embarrassment when I hit the drive through. But evidently not enough shame or embarrassment to never go again. It’s expected that

you don’t let your kids watch much tv, or maybe any tv at all, or when they do watch tv it’s only educational. While we try to limit Zoe’s tv watching to shows she can understand and get something out of, I feel ridiculously sheepish when I talk to friends who are all excited about the Waldorf school and its tenets, which include a zero tolerance tv policy. I even went so far as to read an entire book about how television affects children of preschool age and younger, so I could understand what to do and maybe so I could justify letting Zoe watch Sesame Street. It’s expected that

you at least consider natural childbirth, or you take a class like hypnobirthing or the Bradley method, or you have a midwife or a doula, or give birth in a birthing center. I know a few moms who gave birth at home, and it was suggested to me that I give birth at home for my next child, because Zoe was born relatively quickly. Perhaps I am alone in this, but I love hospitals and trust doctors. Of course I want to have a voice in my medical care, but I also prefer to leave things that I was not trained in to medical experts who were. And I prefer to take medication when there is significant pain on the horizon. But perhaps that’s just me.

I could go on, but I won’t. All this is to say that I have a lot of respect for people who are more healthy and natural than I am. But I’m not really that crunchy granola. And while part of me wants to do better, I need to be realistic. A few years ago when my husband and I had organic vegetables delivered from a local farm twice a month, we never finished them all. We let stuff rot and felt guilty. When they deliver kale or beets or whatever else it was and you’re supposed to branch out and try new things and learn to cook kale or beets or whatever, I just don’t want to. Is that ok?

Or, why I love Facebook.

Tonight I went to see The Real Jane Martin, a Chicago-based band whose frontman Allen Rein is a friend of mine from college. They were playing at St. Elmo’s, a little coffee shop where I sometimes go during the day with laptop in tow to work. I downloaded TRJM’s cd Simple Math when I heard about it from Allen on Facebook a few months ago. I love music and love new music and love the chance to support someone I know doing something they love, so I bought it without even listening first. And it’s great. And now that I’ve heard Allen (and his excellent musical other half, Mark Burns) live I will enjoy the music even more. That’s always what happens.

I used to be a groupie. I used to hear live music ALL THE TIME. I saw Eddie from Ohio (of whom I was a groupie) more times than I can count, mostly at Bad Habits, a divey venue where the only safe thing on the menu was the grilled cheese sandwich. I had bootleg tapes and cds of Eddie from Ohio, and lively debates with friends about which band member we thought would be the best kisser. I was once asked out by someone selling merchandise for the band, and went on one of the worst dates of my life, during which the guy professed that he preferred women with red hair who wear Laura Ashley sundresses. I also saw a lot of EFO shows with a former boyfriend, who was also a groupie, perhaps more intensely than I was. He was also a big fan of live music in general, and that was an era when I went to a lot of shows.

I’ve seen the Indigo Girls many times, with many different groups of friends and once with my husband. I’ve seen HEM several times, all with my husband. HEM was one of the groups that brought us together, since we both thought no one else had ever heard of them when we met. Mostly I’ve gone to rock shows and folk shows. I’ve spent many evenings at the Birchmere (another great music venue with awful food) with all kinds of company.

But most of these musical outings were pre-Zoe. Sure, we have gone out plenty since Zoe was born. We’re not afraid of babysitters and we have two sets of local grandparents and several grown-up childless friends willing to hang out with Zoe. But we are also busy people with a lot of stuff going on, so we have to choose our date nights very carefully. We have gone to concerts, usually planned and tickets purchased months in advance. And it’s always fun. But there’s something different about just going to see a band, at a coffee shop, where someone you know is singing and playing lead guitar.

Tonight I was sitting in a chair a few feet from Allen, wiggling to the music and watching people walk by outside. I encountered another college friend (Allen’s college roommate) who I hadn’t seen in years. I was joined by a new friend whose daughter goes to preschool with Zoe. And I met new friends, a couple whose kids also go to our preschool, the husband of which I was just asked to co-chair a committee with this week. I had just googled him and it turns out he’s friends with Allen.

That’s why I love Facebook. It proves that it really is a small world and you always find someone who has a connection to someone else surprising and you learn something interesting about your friends and acquaintances and random people you end up friending.

But back to the point, it was so enlivening and fun to see a band, be out on my own on a weeknight, not have to rush home to relieve a babysitter (Randy hung out with Zoe tonight and apparently they were making up their own songs and cracking up all night), to socialize and hear music and be a person in the world. It gives me a little more energy, and a song in my step.

I suppose it had to happen eventually. Naively, I hoped that it never would. Does every mom secretly hope that her child will magically be the exception to every childhood trial and tribulation? Obviously, I do. But it is official. Zoe has tantrums.

Thankfully (so far) they are not the 20-minute-lying-on-the-ground-kicking-and-screaming-till-you’re-blue-in-the-face kind. But they’re loud and strong enough to make us a wee bit insane. They mostly happen when she doesn’t want to get in her carseat or have her diaper changed. Thanks to wise advice from lots of experienced parents, we are trying a variety of strategies, with some success, to head them off. But sometimes you have to have your diaper changed, whether you like it or not (and it turns out you do not like it—at all) and sometimes you don’t have the luxury of 30 minutes in which to leisurely decide to get your diaper changed. So there is screaming and kicking, and then eventually you have a clean diaper. Then suddenly, like a passing shower, you are back to your old sweet self, asking politely for a cup of water and saying thank you when you receive it. Thank God you’re so cute.

One thing that’s funny is she’s very upfront and matter-of-fact about it all. A few nights ago I had been trying to put her to bed for a long time and was at the end of my rope, so Randy came in to relieve me. After I left Randy asked her what had happened. “Mommy told me to get into bed. But I said no. I was crying because I didn’t want to go to bed.”

Aside from the dramatic increase in demonstrations of fierce independence and willfulness, Zoe has had and been a lot of fun in recent weeks. During the last week in June we went to Deep Creek Lake in Western Maryland for vacation with friends, which was fabulous. Their daughter is nine months older than Zoe, and they’ve certainly played together before, but they were mostly playing next to each other. Now they’re actually friends! They spent hours on the screened porch serving each other and us tea and various pretend meals. Zoe likes everything to be flavored vanilla: tea, hot dogs, garlic, eggs, etc. I’m not sure why there are always large heads of pretend garlic in kids’ toys, but there are. Anyway, Zoe will accommodate with chocolate or strawberry on request. They also built a variety of structures with lego blocks, including houses, castles, cars, big-girl beds, cradles, and monsters. They played in the sand together and did remarkably well with the whole sharing thing. Zoe loves to collect rocks (she calls them treasures) and there were plenty at the beach to satisfy her. One moment that made us proud was when Nora wanted some rocks in her bucket just like Zoe had. Completely of her own volition, Zoe gathered a bunch of rocks and put them in Nora’s bucket and brought the bucket to her over on the towel where she was having a snack with her mom.

Thanks to the calm waters of Deep Creek Lake, Zoe was totally excited to swim and not afraid of the water at all. She wore her life jacket (this is the trendy swim accessory for kids now—it’s a little cooler than the ones you would wear to go boating) and her fish swim ring (which she named Leslie) and eagerly ventured out with Randy and me. And then she decided to ditch Leslie and did a pretty close approximation of swimming and floating with us, laughing all the way.

Although Zoe has napped in the same room as her friends at daycare for a long time, last week was the first time she shared a room with someone her age at bedtime. We weren’t sure how it would work but both sets of parents hoped it would. The first night we read stories together tucked our respective girls into their respective beds, sang a few songs, and crept upstairs. We listened in on the monitor, wondering what would happen next.

“What did your Daddy sing to you?” … “My mommy doesn’t know that song.” … ”Does your Daddy know the words to “Amazing Grace?” … “What’s your doggie’s name?” …“My doggie is named Ralph. What’s your monkey’s name?” … ”What are the names of your dollies at home?” … (in unison) “TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR…” “OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM…” … “Zoe, what are you doing?” … “I don’t know!” and lots and lots of giggling. And eventually, from Nora, “Zoe, be quiet. It’s time to go to sleep!” Every night one parent or another would go down, usually at least twice, to encourage the girls to go to bed. Eventually they slept. We weren’t too upset. We were pretty happy and amused to listen to them chatter. Every morning began the same way. They would wake up and start talking and singing and wondering when we would come get them.

This past weekend we celebrated my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary, happily joined by my sister and brother-in-law who are in town for a few days on their cross-country sojourn preceding their move to Taiwan in the fall (Aaron’s going to teach for a year at National Hsinchu University). Zoe is delighted to hang out with Zannah and Uncle Aaron again. Sunday afternoon she was exploring my parents’ newly cleared out (from its previous overgrown to jungle proportions state) back yard. She found pine cones, rocks, sticks, and various creatures. She was wandering around under the supervision of Uncle Aaron and they made it to the front yard. I wondered what they were up to. When we were ready to leave we walked to the front and discovered that Aaron had been instructing Zoe in gardening techniques. Her clothes were soaking wet. I asked her what she had been doing. “I was playing with Uncle Aaron and spraying myself all over with the hose!” she exclaimed proudly. “Were you watering the plants?” I asked. “I was watering the plants too,” she said.

Do you know anyone who knows how to make cheese? I would really like to observe a day of cheesemaking. While we were on vacation at Deep Creek Lake we stopped at a wine shop/deli called Fireside, where they sold all kinds of fancy cheese, including cheeses with mango in them and cheese with herbs in them and white stilton with blueberries. How does that work? If you know anyone who makes cheese and wouldn’t mind showing me around where they do it, let me know. I will write about it for the blog and publicize their cheese-making enterprise.

Yesterday we celebrated my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. My husband and daughter and my sister and her husband and I hung out with them on their porch, went out to my mom’s favorite Italian restaurant, played Taboo, ate strawberry shortcake, and took pictures. We gave them a book that we made (designed by my friend Annie) by soliciting stories and congratulatory wishes from my parents’ friends since childhood and various family members. We managed to keep a surprise, which was a real achievement. They were very excited about the book, which included some really funny stories I’d never heard before and some poignant essays by some of their best friends. My parents give me an excellent example of how to make a marriage good. Thanks, guys.