Honey Bear

I am working Comic-Con this week and we had to come up with a bunch of story ideas.

An idea I loved (but no one else did) was to go to the vendors area and find the absolute, most ridiculously cute item. Last year I got Marina that Totoro doll. And this year, since the creator of Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki, will be attending for the first time and promoting Ponyo, I am sure there will be cute overload.

(What the hell? When did I get all geeky about Comic-Con stuff? But, see, there is a point behind my story idea even if no one else quite bought it.)

Anyway, the reason for this long story is because, no matter how hard I look, I don't think I'll find anything as cute as Ella feeding Greek yogurt to the honey bear.

Hey Jack Kerouac

I've been to Massachusetts many times, but I never had a chance to see Lowell.

Lowell, of course, is where Jack Kerouac was born and raised. I already saw the San Francisco house where he wrote On the Road. And I spent a week at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado. So, yes, you can say I was once pretty obsessed with him.

Once I got older, though, I realized that he was a drunk and sort of a misogynistic jerk. But I still felt I had to see the park built in his honor. So during our recent trip to Boston, I made the family get in the car and go to a random, working-class neighborhood in Massachusetts.

When we got to Lowell, it was exactly as I imagined, with brick buildings and few trees and random storefronts, which, of course, is a testament to Kerouac's writing.

That made me like him all over again.



The park, however, was a bit small. Just some marble blocks with passages from his work, most of them Lowell-related. It had just rained, so everything was slick, meaning you couldn't sit on the bench and read as it was obviously designed for you to do.

Also there were some people, maybe homeless, maybe not, sitting around drinking at 10 a.m.

It was all kind of endearing, though. It was exactly what it was supposed to be: a little place in a crummy part of town instead of some shiny, commercialized tourist trap.

There was an empty bottle of cheap vodka on the ground and I'm not sure if it was genuine or some sort of plant, you know, for extra "Beatnik" authenticity.



We stayed for a while, reading the different excerpts but Marina was upset there was no playground. Plus she kept saying she wanted to go back to Friendly's.

And then Ella got a hold of the vodka.



Yeah, time to go.

Dear Marina,

Remember when you were crooked in my belly and you were pushing on my back until I cried and felt like I could have died?

Remember when you had newborn eye gunk and when your hair stuck up like a tiny rooster?



Remember when we'd go to the movies in a theater full of other freaked out new moms? And remember how you'd sleep through all of them until we went to see Marie Antoinette and the colors and music had you fascinated and you stayed awake the entire time even though you were only four months old?

Remember when you got the stomach flu and then gave it to me and your dad and none of us could move for 24 hours?

Remember the first time you got ice cream at Mariposa and how we'd go there when I was pregnant with Ella and drink chocolate and vanilla shakes?

Remember when we went to Ensenada and you played in the pool and ate guacamole?


Remember how that's the trip where you became best friends with your dad?



Remember how you were obsessed with the graduation song and we'd listen to that tune three times a day for six months?

Remember how you were the loudest singer at your school recital?

I remember all those things and so much more.



Happy Birthday, my big girl.