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“OK, Boomer “

“OK, Boomer “

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Sometimes a phrase hits the zeitgeist so squarely that it becomes the mantra of a generation. For mine, it was “don’t trust anyone over 30.” For the Millennials, it seems to be “OK, Boomer.”

Twice within the last two days I’ve heard or read about “OK, boomer,” the dismissive reply young people make to “olds” who don’t get (fill in the blank) climate change, student debt or how to rotate a PDF.  The phrase lit up the Twitterverse, the editorial pages and will be featured on a radio show I occasionally listen to. There are retorts and retorts of retorts.

Here’s how millennial Morgan Sung ends a Mashable essay on the topic: “Saying ‘OK, Boomer’ now is even funnier because of how pressed the Boomers get. And you know what we say to that? OK, Boomer.”

If I’m aware of something like this, I figure it’s probably on the way out. But just in case it isn’t, I will refrain from generational preaching. Because that would just be playing into their hands, you know.

Tissues

Tissues

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If I ever doubt I am my mother’s daughter, I need look no further than my pockets … or my purse … or the sleeves of a cardigan. For in all of those places, I am sure to find … tissues.

I was just downstairs washing a pair of Mom’s pants that I have decided to give away. I will snap a photo of them before doing so, a new practice I’ve been told works wonders in the quest to declutter. But before putting them in the washer, I checked the pockets — and there, of course, I found a Kleenex.

Mom kept them everywhere. Her pocketbooks were full of them and so were her bedclothes. It was probably the problematic sinuses that have come to plague her children as well, and the lung condition she suffered certainly didn’t help.

But to me the tissues are endearing — and I hope I never come to the end of them.

Remembering Mom

Remembering Mom

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I’m remembering Mom today on the fourth anniversary of her passing. So much has happened since she died, so many changes in my own life and the life of our country.  I often wonder what she would make of them.

She would be surprised by my “new” job, not so new anymore. It’s strange to think she knew nothing of this chapter of my life, a chapter I didn’t anticipate, with its travel to faraway places and writing about some of the world’s neediest people. She would approve … to a point. But she would also be encouraging me to write another book.

As for the life of the country, Mom (a lifelong Democrat who grew more conservative with age) saw enough of the 2016 campaign-to-come to offer this pithy observation of the Trump phenomenon: “It’s the right message but the wrong messenger.”

I’m thankful that both she and Dad were spared having to live through the rancor and divisiveness of these times. In that sense, their exits were perfectly timed.

But of course, I wish they were both still here. And today I especially miss my strong, beautiful, intelligent, inspirational, one-of-a-kind mother.

(Mom at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C. )

Letting Go

Letting Go

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A number of suitcases have been piling up in the basement, suitcases lacking the kind of easy-rolling wheels or with other defects that leave them out of the take-along sweepstakes.

Two of these bags belonged to Mom and Dad. They’re older models, of course. And no one else wanted them when we were going through things a couple years ago. So I used them to pack up books and memorabilia that I was bringing back from Lexington — then, after emptying them, tucked them under the basement stairs, where they stayed for at least two years.

But the bags have recently been unearthed and deemed extraneous, so I just moved them up from the basement to the garage. Next step: the Purple Heart pickup.

They’re in good shape and will come in handy for someone else, I hope. But it’s hard to see them go. I tell myself that things don’t matter, that it’s the intangibles that count. But each time I get rid of something that was Mom and Dad’s, a little bit of them goes, too.

Weekend’s End

Weekend’s End

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Usually I celebrate the beginning of the weekend. Tonight I celebrate the end.

Well, maybe not celebrate, but savor.  Because I don’t want it to end. I want it to continue.

It was well-balanced: There was time with family and friends, time to read and write, walk and stretch, mow and weed, cook and clean.

What more do I want?

More of the above.  That’s all.

Small Fry

Small Fry

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I tore through Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ memoir Small Fry in a few days. It’s honest and it’s titillating, since Lisa’s father is Steve Jobs, and his paternal behavior is quite strange, to put it mildly.

Steve has little to do with Lisa and her mother (who he never married) in the beginning, and only acknowledges paternity under duress. Eventually, he has a relationship with Lisa, albeit an unusual one. They skate together, have dinner together and in high school Lisa even lives with Steve and his wife and son. But it’s a relationship fraught with uncertainty and even meanness. Steve won’t admit he named his Lisa computer after his daughter. He belittles Lisa and refuses to pay for her last year of college. Lisa has the final word, though, in the way of all memorable memoirists.

What I liked best about Lisa’s writing was when she described the California of her youth, the sights and smells of the land she came alive to: “Here the soil was black and wet and fragrant; beneath rocks I discovered small red bugs, pink- and ash-colored worms, thin centipedes, and slate-colored woodlice that curled into armored spheres when I bothered them. The air smelled of eucalyptus and sunshine-warmed dirt, moisture, cut grass.”

It reminds me of George Eliot’s line: “We would never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.”

Oodles

Oodles

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Last night we went out to dinner — a friendly, chaotic Thai place. It was just the five of us, a rare occurrence in these days of married and otherwise partnered daughters. It was a lovely reminder of what started it all.

I’m so fortunate to have in my life the lovely men my daughters love. But I also treasure hanging out with the original us.

Layers of family, levels of family, oodles of goodness all around.

(The girls many years ago. It must have been after a band concert, which is why Claire, right, is in formal attire.) 

The Boys in the Air

The Boys in the Air

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Today, as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, I think not just of the boys who stormed the beaches but also of the boys who flew above them. One of them was my dad.

Frank Cassidy was 20 years old when he took the trip of a lifetime, courtesy of the U.S. government. It was an all-expenses voyage to and from what Dad called “Jolly Old” England. He was stationed at a base outside the village of Horham in East Anglia.

On June 6, 1944, Dad had just turned 21. He had become adept at crawling into the tail-gunner’s seat of a B-17 bomber and firing the gun when necessary. That day, he and his crew would fly two missions, softening up enemy defenses, backing up the infantry, the men who were landing and dying on the beaches of Normandy.

Dad always insisted that what he did was nothing compared with them. “I don’t think the American people appreciate what some of those men did,” he told a newspaper reporter in 2009. “Those guys, they deserve all the honors.”

With all due respect, Dad, I disagree. I think you deserve the honors, too.



This Old Kitchen

This Old Kitchen

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The wallpaper is original, the cabinets, too. The countertop is Formica and the appliances don’t match. Storage is minimal and opening the refrigerator door blocks off the entire room.

Yet, more than 11, 000 meals have flowed from this room and countless family conversations have occurred in it. It’s been the scene of celebration, jubilation and consternation.

It was put through its paces this weekend, with all the meals prepared, dishes washed and leftovers crammed into any fridge nook and cranny I could find. And of course with the girls together making coffee, slicing fruit — and hanging out.

Though we took a few “formal” family shots over the weekend, it’s candid ones like these that I appreciate the most. They capture the allure of the kitchen, the craziness of it, the love and laughter it has known.

Will we ever renovate it? I doubt it. But if we do, I hope all the good vibes remain.

Shark Week!

Shark Week!

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I don’t think it’s officially Shark Week, but it was shark week at my house yesterday as Celia and I took in last summer’s “The Meg.”

Imagine the largest Great White you can, multiply it by 10 and you have a megalodon, a prehistoric shark-like creature that was thought to be extinct but which (in this rousing tale) lives on in a hidden part of the ocean floor below a layer of gas.

When a band of explorers finds a way to permeate the barrier and descend into an eerie place deeper than the Mariana Trench, they find a shark so large that it eats the explorer’s roving pod for breakfast.

Celia and I had great fun trying to figure out who would be eaten and who would survive. We were right about half the time.

Wow, it’s good to have her home!