Thank You, Dad, For My Love Affair With Coffee

It’s no surprise to me that caffeine addiction may be hereditary.

Just check out this text conversation I had with my mom this morning: 

I know where I got my coffee addiction: from my dad. I also start longing for my morning coffee the night before.

My earliest coffee memory dates back to when I was 10. My dad got an espresso machine for Christmas and spent the rest of the day perfecting his espresso shots and frothy cappuccinos. The kit came with something I had never tasted before — hazelnut syrup. I loved the nutty new taste and stayed glued to my dad’s side as we giddily bounced our way from lattes to frappes.  

I just remember being really, really excited.

The next thing I remember is watching the sun come up. I couldn’t sleep a wink and didn’t understand why.

“It was the caffeine!” my mom realized when she found me bleary-eyed in bed the next morning. I think she felt really bad. (I didn't.)

It would be a few years before I’d succumb to full caffeine addiction. When I was a junior in college, I transferred to the University of Pittsburgh. I was fresh off a trip to Italy and convinced myself that I really wanted to take a Renaissance Art class, even though it took place at 8am on Saturday mornings.

8am! Saturday mornings!

Worse even, I didn’t live on campus. I took the bus from the suburbs to school, and on Saturdays, I had to get up extra early to account for the weekend’s limited bus routes. That’s when I discovered Starbucks.

I remember marveling at my first rich, bittersweet mocha. The way its fragrant steam seemed to soothe the puffy bags under my eyes. Back then, when I was young and new to the coffee game, I thought to myself, “Why, this is a perfectly good substitute for sleep!” I was hooked.

That was a long time ago. Now I need several coffees just to achieve a state of “mostly awake.”

But getting there, by drinking my daily coffee? It’s pure joy. Every time.

Thanks, Dad!

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Exercise: What is Your "Money Memory?"

I just started listening to a new (to me) book: The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom by Suze Orman. I'm already learning a lot.

The book starts with an exercise. She asks you to think back to your earliest memory about money. She says that everyone has an early memory that holds clues to what shaped your relationship to money as an adult.

For example, she writes aboout a woman who, as a child, had to move every time her dad got a promotion. Every time she started to get comfortable somewhere, she was uprooted again. To this day, the woman associates gaining money with chaos. Other people associate money with shame or early traumas of not having enough.

I thought and thought about it, and couldn't think of a single defining money memory.

I realized, right away, how lucky that makes me. How fortunate I am to have grown up not thinking much about money. I felt secure, and I am endlessly grateful for that.

In fact, I had no idea how much money my parents had or didn't have at any given time ... until we went to the Outer Banks each summer.

As it turns out, my parents worked hard and made smart financial decisions. But nothing about our lives really changed with my parents' income. For much of my childhood, I wore my neighbors' hand-me-down clothes and my parents shared one car.

But when we went to the beach, our accomodations over time went from a hotel room ... to a cabin ... to a beach house ... to an oceanfront property with an inground pool.

The annual vacation splurge was one of the only things that ever changed. For 51 weeks in between, we kept a lean budget.

So I guess my "money memories" are about my family living, day-to-day, below their means. Those are the habits that define the way I try to live today.

It taught me to appreciate things. It was exciting when my mom let me pick out a new school supply, or bought me a new outfit (always at TJ Maxx) that didn't smell like someone else. But it's why I feel so confused (and often defeated) when I see friends living so much more extravagantly than I do. Maybe they make more money. Or maybe they just worry about it less. (Maybe both.)

I still have a lot to learn about money, and this book is teaching me that. It's also inspiring me to dig out the 501k rollover paperwork I have shamefully ignored for 5 years (!!!).

But right now, at this moment, I'm thinking about my smart parents and the habits they instilled in me.

Thanks, mom and dad.

How Happy Are YOU, On a Scale of 1 - 10?

Recently, I joined my mom and dad for dinner at their house.

I looked across the table at my dad.

"How are you feeling?" I asked him. "On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best?" It was a question his doctors asked him a lot when he was hospitalized last year.

My dad thought for a minute before he replied. "Eight," he said, with a satisfied nod.

"That's pretty good," I said, at the same time my mom cried, "Eight?!" 

"What's wrong with eight?" he asked.

"Why not ten?" my mom countered back. "What could be better than this?"

My dad motioned to the room and the plate of Chinese take-out that was getting cold in front of him. "Well, there's got to be room on the scale for feeling better than ... this," he said.

"Not me," my mom said, happily digging in to her noodles. "I've got my family with me and I'm eating my dinner. I'm a ten!"

She smiled at us, her eyes sparkling. And I knew ... my mom was being sincere.

We chatted some more as we ate our meals, and then we rinsed our plates and push them in the dishwasher.

"I think I'll go home now," I said, putting on my shoes.

"Oh," my mom said, her smile fading. "Now I'm an eight."

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I thought about that a lot over the next couple days, feeling happy that my mom was so content.

And I thought about it weeks later, when my mom and dad's sweet dog Winnie got sick and had to be put to sleep. I watched my mom say goodbye. She got down on the floor with her dog, wrapped her arms around Winnie's shoulders, and wept into her fur. On a scale of one to ten, I was watching my mom sink down to a one. It broke my heart.

I knew it would take her a long time to climb back up to ten. I know she's still working on it.

That's what makes my mom's heart so beautiful and so brave. I love my mom, and her great, big feelings. And I love the way my mom loves. She loves with all she's got.

If you're lucky enough to be loved by my mom, you get all of her. On a scale of 1 - 10, my mom gives a 10 every time.

When Banjos are the Sound of Silence

Last night, I took my dad to see Steve Martin and his bluegrass band, the Steep Canyon Rangers.

We had lots of fun.

I think my sense of what's funny was born from my early exposure to Pee Wee Herman and Steve Martin. My parents used to play Steve Martin's stand-up comedy on their record player, and I remember laughing at my mom quoting it long before I understood what was so funny (or so brilliantly unfunny) about the jokes themselves.

A request like "Please pass the pepper" could result, at our dinner table, in a giggled "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you! Like this:



But while I grew up appreciating goofy humor, I didn't appreciate bluegrass music. There was simply too much of it around.

My dad played bluegrass music, loud, all the time. He played it on CD's, DVD's, tapes in the car, and he'd claw hammer it out on his own banjos right in our living room--always oblivious to whatever was going on around him.

I remember sitting in the back seat of the family car, eager to get in on my parents' conversation in the front, but not making anything out over my dad's tape recording of Flatt and Scruggs' My Long Journey Home, blaring out of the car speakers. 

My dad even went through a phase in which he believed that playing music at your musical instruments could condition their wood, or something like that, so he he would line up his instruments in an attentive row and play bluegrass at them when he wasn't even home.

There was no escape. In my house, bluegrass was the sound of silence.

Meanwhile, I craved electric guitars. I hated bluegrass. My mom said she did too, but joked that she wouldn't be a "bluegrass widow" and actually followed my dad to concerts.

I didn't start to soften on bluegrass until I was 24, and briefly moved from one dinky apartment into the one located above my dad's music shop. By then, my dad was successfully running his guitar, banjo, and mandolin store, and I rented a place just up the stairs over his storefront.

On quiet afternoons and evenings, the sounds of finger-plunking and jam sessions would filter up through my floors. Suddenly, I'd feel almost as safe and soothed as I did decades ago, when my mom had a pot on the stove and my dad played Earl Scruggs for the instruments in our empty basement.

And now, I have Steve Martin -- and my dad, also named Steve -- to thank for a fun night last night, one in which I tapped my toes and chair-danced and enjoyed the bluegrass tunes every bit as much as Steve Martin's goofy jokes in between.

Best of all was spending time with my dad, who almost never allows himself any fun outside of his music store. When I asked him, as we waited for the curtain to go up, what his favorite concert of all time was, he said he didn't know. I rattled off lists of my own -- best set list, best performance, most fun at a show.

Then, this morning, I received an email from my dad.

"The show was funny, and the music was very good. But most of all, being with you was special. You asked me which was my favorite concert? Last night was."

Aw.
My dad.

And, it turns out bluegrass tunes can play the songs in my heart, too.

If this wasn't on the Internet, I'd have more to dish about. But anyway....

This is what it's like to work at my laptop.

Hey. You. Down in front.

Today I went to the first of two doctors to try to get a handle on my hideous migraines. I also visited my dad at his guitar shop and took a picture of this sign. Clearly, I get my marketing skillz from him.

The sign reads, "Like...totally tubular guitar stand. $14.95."
It is tubey.

Now I'm playing with photos of my cat.

Her water bowl. It's green.

And finally...
last night, a wise and endlessly patient friend talked to me about being sad. While I've gratefully lapped up advice from just about everyone I know, his advice was the most comforting to me because I've watched him tumble into the darkest depths of depression. I asked him how you find your way back out...or even just keep going. He said, first of all, you do it for the people who love you. And then, you do it because you never know what will happen the next day.

And today really was a nicer day.

Dinner at My Parents' House

Dad: You're looking better today.
Me: I got a haircut.
Dad: No, I mean you look good. Your Zeitgeist is better.
Me: What are you talking about?
Dad: Nothing. I'm using the word wrong. There were Germans at work today.
Mom [eating candy]: Here. Look. I found the United States of America.

The end.

A Just World

Tonight I told a wise friend that I'm angry about my dad's diagnosis. I'm angry at the world. I'm mad at my life. I'm angry with every person, co-worker and bad driver who brings me a problem that doesn't solve the only problem I care about: my dad's tumor. I am a bitter, angry person.

My friend told me to ask four questions.
Is my anger warranted? Yes.
Is my anger justified? Yes.
Am I entitled to this anger? Yes.
Can I afford to sustain my anger?

Not really. Because it won't bring me much good.

But it seems like such an aggregious lack of balance. How dare the universe strike both my parents? How dare cancer creep up on a family that's already so small? We need each other; we three are all we've got.

So we talked about a Just World. The Just World exists only in our collective unconscious. We believe that the world should meet us halfway. If we go to college and get good grades, the world should have a job waiting for us because it's only right. If we love, we should be loved. If we lead a healthy, productive life, we shouldn't get sick.

But the Just World, as real as it is in our minds, isn't really promised to anyone.