Those of you who follow MAMMAKAZE read all about the over-the-top Harry Potter party I threw for my kid’s 8th birthday last year.

Well, not to be outdone by myself, we followed that extravaganza with a Pirates of the Caribbean party for her 9th Birthday this year. And while Pirates don’t hold the same charm for me as kid wizards, I still (with the help of MAMMAKAZES Jennie, Angelica, Zadrina and Gloria) put my heart and soul into turning our garage into a pirates’ lair worthy of any Disney imagineer (on a mommy budget that is).

Though some of the pictures are brightly lit, imagine the whole party in low light, which is how it actually was!

ARRGH! JULIA, TONI & RANDY THE PERFEKT HUSBAND

SETTING THE MOOD WITH A PIRATE TABLE FULL OF JEWELS, COINS, GOBLETS & OTHER ILL-GOTTEN ITEMS

SKULLS, RATS, GOBLETS, COINS & JEWELS, OH MY!

DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

OL’ UNLUCKY LUKE IN THE PIRATE QUEEN’S CHAIR. HE’S HOLDING THE BASKET OF PIRATE SKULL NECKLACES (EACH MATEY GOT ON INITIATION) & A BASKET OF PIRATE INSULTS FOR THE PIRATE INSULT GAME!

ALAS, POOR YORICK! OH WAIT. WRONG TALE… 

EACH TABLE REPRESENTED A DIFFERENT SHIP:

DAUNTLESS, INTERCEPTOR, FLYING DUTCHMAN &  BLACK PEARL

TABLE SETTINGS: OLD NETTING, BATTERY-OPERATED CANDLES, COMPASSES, COINS, JEWELS, RATS & MAPS

PLACEMATS. I DOWNLOADED A PIRATE MAP, PERSONALIZED IT WITH THINGS LIKE “TESORO DE JULIA” & BURNED THE EDGES TO MAKE IT LOOK AUTHENTIC. YEP, MY HOUSE SMELLED LIKE  A FIREPLACE FOR DAYS!

THE PIRATE QUEEN & HER BOOTY. PROPS COURTESY OF AL & ZADRINA!

THE CAKE. I DOWNLOADED THE PICTURE FROM ONLINE. ADDED THE WORDS IN PIRATE FONT. EMAILED IT TO A CAKE PLACE FOR THE CAKE ART. AND HAD COSTCO PUT IT ON TOP OF ONE OF THEIR CAKES! A BARGAIN!

MATEYS! Thanks for getting into the spirit of the party Wayne, Cheri, Cathy, Claire & John! (Jennie too but I have no pic of her!)

COMING SOON. A STEP-BY-STEP ON HOW TO THROW YOUR OWN PIRATE PARTY!

A friend called me the other night. She was crying. She had just heard that another friend of hers was in the final days of his cancer battle. She said she wasn’t sure why she had called me. I had never even met her friend. Still, she said, she just wanted to hear my voice. Then she said she was sorry she called and bugged me.

To this I say… Friendship means never having to say you’re sorry. 

Yeah. I know  the REAL saying is “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”. But to me, friendship and love are the same.

There are few things in life that can’t be made better simply by the sound of a good friend’s voice. It’s not a cure-all. But it’s a balm. A salve for an aching soul.

Unlike family, we CHOOSE our friends. And if we choose carefully, these relationships can really help us traverse the rocky road of life. And as we all know, it can get pretty rocky at times.

My friends have helped me through some of the bigger bumps. Heck, in some cases they have held my hand as I crossed a tightrope over a bottomless crevasse. All the while encouraging me to not look down. To keep my eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. Even when that light was nothing but a pin dot.

They’ve been with me through good times too. That’s the easy part. Okay, maybe it’s not always so easy, like the times when I force ask my friends to karaoke on my birthday. But that’s just once a year. I’d do it for you!

The true test of friendship is when the difficult times come. Not everyone can handle those. Not everyone is true friend material. 

I hope that I am a true friend to my friends. I try to be. I try to give as good as I get. 

And offering up some soothing words or just listening is the least I can do. 

So NEVER apologize for taking my time in your time of need. Know why? Because…

Friendship (and by that I mean LOVE) means never having to say your sorry.

It DOES, however, mean that you will occasionally have to karaoke.

Well, here it is. Another year. And no matter how I try to stop time, it simply refuses to bend to my will. Everything around me is changing. Lines form around the eyes. Parents get older. My kid starts asking the difficult questions like “Where did the legend of Dracula start and why does garlic gross him out?”  

I kid you not. I spent a good part of yesterday while we were shopping/returning  telling her the history of Vlad the Impaler which then led to a whole discussion of how the fear of the atomic bomb influenced 1950s filmmaking resulting in movies about giant spiders and the like. She was shocked to learn that the original “duck and cover” was a safety drill in case of an A-Bomb attack  and not prep for the big earthquake.

Anyway, it’s little milestones like my kid asking me if the Egyptians believed in mummys coming to life or if it was more of a  20th century idea that makes me keenly aware of  the infernal passage of time.

Thing is. I don’t FEEL like I’m getting older. Well, except when I have to bend to get the tupperware out from under the cabinet where I put it when my knees where 6 years younger. And it’s not so much that my knees hurt or anything when I bend to get it. It’s more that I SIMPLY DON’T HAVE THE DESIRE to bend.

I think that’s where it starts. The whole aging thing. It affects the desire first. Then it moves on from there. I’m noticing I’m having a lot less desire for a lot of things I used to eagerly do. Like jumping out of bed and exercising first thing in the morning. Or cleaning out the crumbs from the corners of my kitchen drawers. Or lying on my back on the grass on a chilly night to watch a meteor shower. Or staying up until midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Yeah. I stayed up. But only because my kid did. It’s still a big deal to her. She’s only 8. SHE STILL HAS THE DESIRE.

Truth is. She’s what’s keeping me young. She’s the reason I stroll Disneyland for 14 hours at a pop. Heck, she’s the reason I go to Disneyland at all. She helps me to see things the way I used to. With the excitement and awe of a newbie. I owe a lot to her.

For the other things in my life for which she cannot inspire the DESIRE, I shall have to find it on my own. And that brings me to my New Year’s Resolution.

I resolve to rediscover my desire.

My desire to engage. To laugh. To enjoy. To see things in a fresh way. My desire to better myself. To continue to learn new things. My desire to see the glass half full instead of empty. My desire to work everyday to make everything around me better. My life. My marriage. My friendships. My earth.

The thing I know about desire. Is that while it may not be evident. It is there. Sometimes buried under a pile of work, or laundry or exhaustion. But if you make the effort to find it, it quickly reawakens. And then you wonder why you don’t make the effort more often. Because desire feels good! And so do its results.

So this year, more desire!

But first… a quick nap!

HAPPY NEW YEAR MAMMAKAZES!

MAMMAKAZE Will sent this video. Julia loved it and so did I. It put a smile on my usually jaded and cynical face. So…

Just to kick off the week and simply for the sheer joy of it! 

ENJOY! AND HAPPY MANIC MOMDAY!

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MAMMAKAZE Jennifer posted this on her Facebook. She didn’t make it up. Someone else did. I guess it’s been around a while which means that of course I’ve never read it before. In case you’re like me – completely out of the loop – and/or if you’re feeling the need for a little mommy appreciation – either directed at you or to a mommy you know – read and enjoy.  

It’s about how we look at mothers at various ages/stages in our lives. I’ve lived these stages with my own mom. I’m reliving them as we speak with my own kid, only now the tables have turned and I’m the one being judged. But I can handle it knowing that one day Julia will be in my shoes.

It’s all about PAYBACK, baby! Eer, I mean, it’s all about the beauty of the natural cycles of life repeating themselves endlessly through time. See how I spun that? Now you think I’m a nice mommy. I’m clever that way.

THE EVOLUTION OF HOW MOMS ARE PERCEIVED

4 years: Mom knows everything!

8 years: Mom knows a lot!*  

12 years: Mom really doesn’t know everything!

14 years: Mom knows nothing!

16 years: Mom, what mom??

18 years: Mom is outdated!

25 years: Maybe mom knows!

35 years: Before deciding let’s ask mom!

45 years: I wonder what mom thinks!…

75 years: I wish mom was here to ask her!

* (Note: This is where I am with my kid, with some eye rolling thrown in)

Aw. Isn’t that lovely?  And so optimistic that we older moms will actually be around long enough in our kids’ lives that we’ll live to see them eat their words appreciate us again.

In any case, I thought it was a nice piece. And since I already admitted to crying four times during Ramona and Beezus, it can be of no surprise to you people that I have a sentimental side – albeit one with a sarcastic underbelly.

So sue me! And have a nice Labor Day Weekend!

Ever heard the saying “looking at life through rose-colored glasses”? Then you know it refers to someone who looks at life with a rosy optimism. I wish I was guilty of that. I’ve always envied people who manage to be endlessly upbeat and full of optimism and hope. You know them, they’re the ones who make lemonade when handed lemons. When I get handed lemons I suck on them and make a sour face.  Anyway, Melanie in “Gone With The Wind” was one of those lemonade-making characters. No matter that the Civil War stripped her of everything, no matter that she was starving, no matter that Scarlet was so mean to her and secretly on the prowl to steal her husband Ashley – although heaven knows why she wanted that man pansy when she had Clark Gable  – that Melanie, she could find the good in everything and everyone. I hated envied her.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point is that I’m guilty at looking at life THRU something all right.  But it isn’t rose-colored glasses.

I’m guilty of looking at life through a Canon digital camera viewfinder. And as I only recently came to realize, there’s nothing rosy about it.

I was at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of weekends back. It was the first trip for my daughter Julia (who is eight) and we took her to the Bugs Bunny show where the L.A. Philharmonic plays along to the cartoons projected on big screens. And as I was videotaping the fireworks finale at one point I turned the camera toward my daughter, you know, to capture her expression. I could see her there, in profile, her wide eyes lit by the flashing fireworks in the sky, her face filled with awe and the joy of the moment. I paused for a moment, sort of taken aback by the utter rapture  she seemed to be experiencing. I mean, what we were doing was cool, but was it truly that amazing? 

At first I attributed it to the fact that she was only 8 and at 8 one is experiencing so many things for the first time. And as we all know, the first time is the most exciting. After all, it had been that way when we took her to Disneyland for the first time. So thrilled was she by the sights, the sounds, the magic of it all that it even rubbed off on jaded old me who had been to Disneyland too many times to count – for whom the magic had completely worn off.

But when I put down the camera that night at the Bowl and I looked at what she was looking at, I mean REALLY looked at it, through my very own eyes, not the viewfinder of my camera – I realized, her feeling of awe had nothing to do with being 8. I looked up at the fireworks in the sky, big and beautiful and sparkly, shattering light over the dome of the Bowl. At the crescent moon that hung in the distance on that crystal clear summer night. At the 18,000 upturned faces all experiencing this moment together. And you know what? To my amazement, it truly WAS amazing!

And I realized, I hadn’t been seeing it. I mean, I was  seeing it on the tiny video display but I wasn’t seeing  it seeing it.

And in that instant, it also occured to me that this has been the case for the last 8 1/2 years of my life! Why 8 1/2 years exactly? Because that’s how long my daughter’s been in the picture – figuratively and literally.

Since she was born and I got my first high quality digital camera, I have chronicled every move, burp, smile, gurgle, and later dance recital, talent show, piano recital, etc.  It’s the reason  Randy the perfekt husband gave me the nickname MAMMARAZI. And while I have recorded all these moments in her life for posterity, I never really experienced them first hand because I was separated from these events  as they were happening – by the camera!  So busy was I  making sure the images were centered, that no one was walking across the frame, that the focus was right, that there was enough head room – that I never truly got to enjoy them. Because I was never, not once,  in the actual moment – watching my little girl sing joyfully at the top of her lungs, tap dance to the perfect rhythm of a song, or even smile shyly as she was handed an award for being an exceptional student.

And suddenly I was very sad. Suddenly, the loss of the last 8 1/2 years hit me like a ton of bricks.

And I realized we have become photo obsessed, we parents these days.  That’s right. It’s not just me. There isn’t a single birthday party or school event I go to that doesn’t feature dozens of parents jockeying for position to get the perfect picture or video of their kid.  It’s such chaos and madness you’d think Brangelina was on the red carpet announcing another adoption! One MAMMAKAZE joked about the fact that whenever her one year old heard the word SMILE, he immediately struck a pose, even if there wasn’t a camera around! This is how conditioned our kids have become to having a camera in their faces.

I mean, my stepdad was a professional photographer and he never took as many pictures of the four of us kids the whole time we were growing up as I have taken of my one, single, only child in the past 8 years!  

I don’t know if it’s the ease and cheapness of taking pictures now – the fact that we can immediately see what we’ve taken and delete what’s bad without having to wait a week and pay a fortune for images that feature closed eyes, a partial thumb over the lens or some wise-acre sticking two fingers up behind someone’s head.

Whatever it is, we’ve created a whole generation of parents that will have a lifetime of memories of taking pictures of their kids , but not of the moments themselves. Very sad.

So I have VOWED that next time Julia gets an award or does a performance or blows out a birthday candle I will sit back, relax and take it in, burning it forever on that brilliant little hard drive known as the cerebral cortex.  Well, I mean, as long as Randy is taking the pictures with the Canon. Oh. And my brother John is doing video on that amazing Nikon he has with the super long lens. That thing captures images like nobody’s business!