Neglect

I've neglected what few readers I have left on the old blog and haven't visited my beloved blog friends, either. I don't know what's happening to me -- I just feel a bit dried up and depressed, I guess. Right now, though, I'm typing these words from my friend Sarah's apartment in...

LONDON!

I'm here visiting her family for a few days before traveling to ITALY to spend a few more with Henry. I haven't been to Europe in many, many years and just couldn't pass up a free airline ticket (based on about five million years of using a charge card), plus the chance to see a bit of England (I've never been!) and join my son in Rome and Florence, two of my favorite cities in the world. Speaking of sons, I just got back from visiting Oliver in Tucson, where he is thriving in his first year at the university. I was so happy to see him.

Portals

I took 24 hours and left with Carl on Sunday morning for Ventura and a boat that took us to Santa Rosa Island, one of the remote, uninhabited Channel Islands. We spent the morning looking at whales and dolphins and the wide-open Pacific, the water choppy and sky overhead gray and moody. It took over two hours to get to the island, but once we were there, the skies opened up blue and we wandered around the fields and explored the deserted buildings of the ranch that had once displaced the native Americans who made the island their home. It was very beautiful.

No one lives on the island anymore, but some people brave its isolation and camp, and there are volunteers who stay to lead tours. Carl and I avoided the few people who had gotten off the boat and made our way alone down to a beach that might as well have been in some tropical paradise, such was its wildness and solitude.

I lay in the sand and read and dozed and we ate a bit of the food that we'd brought -- turkey, crackers, cheese, grapes and plums.

I tried to let everything go, everything.

to be grateful for love and companionship
for whales
for the ocean
for the souls that were banished from this place
for the sand and the breeze that bends
the poppies
for the wide world that still holds us up

the deep world

Since Last Week

Where do I start? I got home from the hospital with Sophie last week on Thursday night and left at 4:30 on Friday morning for my first trip to New York City in about eight years, I think. I got a killer deal on two flights -- took Oliver along because he's just a kick-ass kid with a full-time job, finishing high school early and on to University of Arizona in the fall! Here we are bleary-eyed in the plane just before take-off.

We arrived in Newark and were picked up at the airport by my cousin Paula's husband Jim. We spent Friday night with them and their dear daughter Faith, and the next morning they drove us up to my cousin Philip's house so we could finally join all the other cousins and aunts and uncles for the annual Pittule Day celebration. Pittule is a Calabrian specialty -- basically, fried dough that is either sprinkled with sugar or stuffed with anchovies. Both are pictured above.

Here's me taking a stint at the fryer with my cousin Mary:

Here's a few more pictures from the afternoon:

My mom, 80 years old, Aunt Dorothy, 90 years old and Aunt Mary, 87 years old

My cousins Frances and Mary

The whole Famiglia

Matriarchs and Patriarch

Me and my cousin Philip

That's a lot of beautiful family, and I'm grateful for every single one of them and for the opportunity to get together with them, talk and bond and eat delicious food. I'm so glad that Oliver got to experience it as well.

I should end this post here, but you must know that I also went into the city and stayed with two of my oldest friends, Jane and Phil, in their beautiful home on the Upper West Side. They lit candles for the first night of Hanukkah. I also got to see my very oldest friend -- not biologically but from my junior high years and onward -- Audrey.

Friends for 42 years!

On Sunday morning I took a Lyft uptown to visit Sandra, a woman and fellow caregiver whom I've been close friends with for at least six years -- yet have never met. I could have wept when I finally did get to hug her -- and her son and husband. For any of you social media naysayers, I reiterate that these online friendships have proved to be some of the most deep and profound of my life in every single way.

Speaking of profound connections, I also had the pleasure and nearly unspeakable joy of finally getting to meet Rosemarie. I held on to her for an extra beat as well, just so grateful to find this person as beautiful and graceful in real life as she's been to me online.

I think I'll save the rest of my New York City photos for another post. We flew home on Monday night and on Tuesday I started feeling chills and a general lousiness that ballooned into some kind of horrible flu-like thing -- no fever or congestion but damn, I feel like crap. I haven't been sick in so many years, I guess I was due for something or another, so I'm not complaining.

See ya'll later.

Winter in Southern California and The Guadalupe Valley, Baja

Don't be jealous.

Gray whale breach

My little sister Melissa and I

Old dear friends -- Brumi Winery in Baja

The view from my shower

The Wall (the thing that fucker in the White House wants built higher and wider)