The young and restless

I've just spent a week watching my brother with his 4-year-old daughter, my niece. My mom was along for the whole ride -- and I felt like I were 4 again, being cajoled into being in a good mood or else I would be punished. Or is that how you discipline 4-year-olds?

What is the message we're really giving? That it's not okay to be in a bad mood? That's the part that resonates with me. Oh, the threats of childhood: my mom's "parenting techniques," in current vernacular -- she went in for bribes, whether in cash, opera glasses (how someone got me to believe they were better than sucking my thumb is beyond the adult me), or simple threats, i.e., I'm going to crack your skulls together. Or, my favorite: "I'm going to break every bone in your body,"

"How many bones would that be?" I used to ask. 206, I knew. 211 until the last few bones knit together, at what point I don't remember. How did I know? My mom's favorite suggestion if we asked her a question and she didn't know, "look it up." A little knowledge was a lot of protection, and it was fun to use her mandate against her.

Sometimes being a smart-ass kid pays off. Sometimes it didn't. Must say, though, every chance I got to come back with a clever remark, one that made the grown-ups laugh, I took it. If my parents, my-mom-the-disciplinarian in particular, broke out laughing, chances are I was way ahead of the game.

That is, to my eyes, a lot of what child-raising and disciplining is all about: while parents rule the young and restless, once the restless acquire a good vocabulary and sense of what brings ironic laughter to the parent, it's a whole new ball game.

Between my niece's mother sharing my sense of irony and humor and what she'll pick up from my side of the family, I suspect my niece will be firing back some really funny remarks, sooner rather than later. She's a bright kid, reciting "Madeline" from memory. She already knows about the Eiffel Tower.

So my Auntie Mame-ism, begun at my niece's last birthday, when I picked the book to read her to sleep and try to interest her in Paris -- is already working: five months later, she's drawing pictures of the Eiffel Tower. Show me another child from Tiny Town, Sleepy Southern State who is learning about Paris as fast as she's learning about Wonderland from all her trips here.

I'll bet she makes it to Paris before her mother, my ex-sister-in-law (what is a better description of my niece's mother?) leaves the U.S. Or is that just my projecting the happier part, the not-at-home portion, of my childhood onto her? I can't tell.

The ex-wives club

Since the papers have been signed, I count four ex-sisters-in-law, only one of whom I care about. Ex #4, A., is the mother of my niece. Despite the not-so-surprising end of the marriage, I want to stay on good terms with her. I need the connection.

A. has physical custody of my one and only niece, Kay, who is my link to the next generation. How to make nice with A. without disturbing my brother? Friends say, send Kay postcards (not that a 2 1/2 year old can read), presents, and so forth -- just to keep my name in the air in her mother's household.

When Kay gets a little bit older, I'll start sending family photos, with lengthy captions explaining who's who. I'll write her stories about my dad, the grandfather she will never have met. I'll write stories about my brother, about my mom. I will be the witness, Kay's link to a family she otherwise may know only when we die and she inherits.

In the meanwhile, I have befriended A. on facebook. We have the occasional chat -- about her school, work, and my niece. FB is good for keeping in touch from a comfortable distance. When I'm typing instead of talking, I am more deliberate in what I say.

In some ways, that cuts down on the misinterpretation factor, but at the same time, so much is left out: the body language, the facial expressions, any visual clues. This is always the problem with e-communications; here, it's exacerbated by the speed with which a typed chat occurs.

I keep clear of any mention of my brother. Today, however, I'm wondering how to interpret A.'s status. A. "is happy that things are looking up. for a change:)." Dare I ask why? I think not. I'm curious, but at some point I have to be an observer.

Occasionally I wonder: what would happen if all the ex-wives got together? Each one took my brother's last name. It might be confusing: "Mrs. Uptown, this is Mrs. Uptown, this is Mrs. Uptown, this is Mrs. Uptown."

Did they revert to their previous surnames? From Social Security to the DMV, Department of State (ex # 1 was the sole passport holder), the IRS, and whatever other government institutions in the need-to-know loop, that's a lot of bureaucracy to contend with. Each one said, "I do," then after fewer than three years (each) said, "I don't."

Hard to know why any of my brother's marriages ended: we are not a family to ask for details best left unspoken. All I know is, each time he says, "I should never have married her." That's four "hers" now, and we hope he won't take the plunge again.

Honestly? I want to take all of his divorce papers and hide them in New York, so the next time he has the urge to merge, he has to get on a plane to fetch the papers. At least it would buy some time. He may be over the marriage thing, finally, though his track record suggests otherwise.

After wife #2 didn't pan out, I stopped getting invested in my brother's partners. I assumed he would always have one, but that she was subject to change. No point in my even knowing the maiden names of the women in the ex-wives club. I do have some recollections, however, not just of their names:

Ex #1 was Smith (sic) ; ex #2, not a clue; ex #3 was Cluck or Gluck or something to that effect, courtesy of her first husband; ex # 4, Kent. Looks like surnames of one syllable have been popular. And what would Emily Post say? Not sure she covers that territory.

A quarter of a century ago, Miss Manners did: "the truly correct style is to combine Mrs. with your maiden and [married] last name...but few people use it nowadays." By that rule, ex # 1 would be Mrs. Smith Uptown. However ex # 1, like her successors, was not the type to have heard of Emily Post or Miss Manners.

Ex #1 was, to put it mildly, a bitch on wheels. (Another epithet comes to mind, one rhyming with "bunt.") Of the group, she was the most educated -- and the one who lied on her financial aid application for law school, saying she was single to get a scholarship.

If she hadn't known so many family secrets, I would have made sure she got had gotten hit by payback. But I couldn't. What I know is, payback's a bitch unto itself. Perhaps karma will take, or have taken, care of her. My brother left her on Christmas day, the best present he ever gave me.

She made out like the proverbial bandit: after she and brother were through, my brother, who should have had a prenup, had no nup left to pre. Her list of parting gifts was extraordinary: a house, a car, law school tuition, a set of sterling silver my brother had inherited, and a lot more that I can't remember, seeing that the marriage ended in 1991.

Her father was an Episcopal priest. At the wedding, someone dug up a rabbi to hold up our family's end of the heritage. I was pressed into service as a bridesmaid. (I wanted to set fire to the acetate dress, but refrained.)

My father, who was the best man, forgot his cuff links and had to sew buttons onto his shirt. We were late to the ceremony, and you don't need Freud to figure out why.

That was brother's only church (did I ever say we were religious Jews?) wedding; the rest were City Hall specials that sounded about as exciting as renewing a driver's license.

Wife #2? That was more of a drive-by than an actual marriage. They pledged their troth (tell me, what is troth?) after eight weeks together, and divorced two years later. She was the daughter of Jehovah's Witnesses and had even been christened or baptized or what have you herself.

When I heard about her religious background, I hoped no offspring were forthcoming -- because I didn't want to have nieces or nephews raised as little door-knockers offering up copies of the Watchtower.

#2 took Oprah as gospel, which I didn't realize when started pondering aloud about the power of the media and how warped it could get. Whoops. Put my brother between a rock and a hard place. I remember telling him I would get on the next plane out of town if it would keep the peace.

Prior to marriage #3, my brother's mother-in-law to be took me aside and asked about my brother's "intentions." Excuse me? Intentions? Of a 35-year-old man with two ex-es already to the good?

Wife #3 came with two children, though motherhood was not her forte. The elder daughter turned into a teenage terrorist who proved incorrigible, not that her mother helped. Elder daughter got locked up in juvie jail, and upon her release, had to have "piss tests" whenever the authorities wanted. This put a crimp in wife #3's style, or so she bitched to me.

If we had national health insurance, I suspect wife #3 would not have gained her position. Sure, my brother liked to get married, but this time, it seems, his employee benefits were a major attraction.

The third segued into the fourth, who was half my brother's age. Now he says he married her to give his child a father. Okay. Wife #4 hadn't had a legal father of her own, that I knew of. And that marriage did produce my one-and-only niece, whom I adore. Still, was the paperwork necessary? Couldn't he just have put his name on the birth certificate?

For various reasons, including the fact that gay marriage isn't legally recognized by the IRS, I have never been formally married. What amazes me is, my brother and I grew up in the same household, saw the movie of our parents' lives unfold together.

Perhaps one of us saw the director's cut and the other saw the dailies. In any case, marriage never struck me as a good deal, though it struck my brother as the best thing since, yea, sliced bread. Our adult lives have unfolded in such different directions that I don't even feel I can ask, why marry? Or maybe I don't want to know the answer.

What I do know is, I have a niece, and I want her to know me as more than Aunt Alice swooping in from out of town for a few days a year. I don't know how I'll achieve that, but I'm hoping my current strategy will be the right one.

Alice va a Buenos Aires para aprender español

So far, that's about all of Alice's Spanish, but she's off to another hemisphere to wait out the freezes of February, keep her mind occupied and her skin warm, and reactivate her hiatus from responsibility.

January has been another month of travel and health crises: last month Brother had spinal cord surgery; this month, The Best Friend, aka Clover's Companion. Brother recovered quickly enough to return to Sleepy Southern State, where Alice went to celebrate her niece's second birthday.

However, back in Wonderland, Alice returned to find TBF still in serious condition, two weeks after her six hours under the knife. Alice trusts the visiting nurse, but the friend chosen to babysit TBF? Not so much.

Said babysitter's technological incompetence exceeds Alice's: yesterday Alice gave a magic show, what with turning on the cell phone and pushing the button to allow the thermometer to operate. Alice and TBF go back a long way, close to three decades on. If Alice were running the show, TBF would have a practical nurse from the time TBF's husband-the-doctor -- an actual practicing M.D.-- leaves the house until he returns.

When it comes to health care, Alice wants the pros. The cost is pretty much irrelevant. TBF is receiving all her nutrition from a feeding tube in her stomach. Fuck the friend/babysitter: TBF needs someone with real training. TBF is also attached to an antibiotic infusion, whose computer speeds the meds into her veins every four hours.

In another time, no M.D. would have dared consider her a home-care possibility. These days, it's let's cut, sew, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. If you can fog a mirror, apparently, you no longer qualify for a hospital bed, even if you have a staph infection that needs 24/7 antibiotics and you can't even swallow.

This is scary stuff: if Alice had her way, the amateur would have long since been dismissed, but she has no standing here, just her hopes and her prayers that husband-the-doctor (heretofore known as HTmD) takes damn good care of TBF, who is Alice's nearest and dearest.

Alice is equally powerless at home or 4000 miles away, and since TBF's babysitter is acting as guard dog, and HTmD is short on details, she has opted to leave town.

She is running for her life and praying for the life of TBF.

Y'all come back now, ma'am...

Five days in Tiny Town, Slow Southern State, where brother (the bro), sister-in-law, (A), and niece, Kayanna, reside. 120 hours with my mother, including hours of one-on-one transit and ho-motel time. (119.5 hours too many for my nervous system.)

We went to celebrate Kayanna's first birthday, and to meet the relatives on A's side. (While the bro's previous wives never earned the title of sister-in-law, A is the mother of my niece, so regardless of what happens to his marriage, which I hope is stable and lasting (previous evidence to the contrary) she will always be related to me, always have a special place in my heart for making me Aunt Alice.

Fortunately it was a big party, first birthdays being more of a celebration that the parents survived a year than that the child did, so we didn't chat much with A's relatives, mostly nodded and stayed on the level of introductions. Surprisingly, my mother didn't drink until after Kayanna's Tinkerbelle-themed fete was over.

(We must thing alike, A and I. Knowing nothing about the party's theme, I had brought Kayanna the perfect complement: a DVD of Peter Pan.)

My niece is perfect: her temperament is serene; she has huge blue eyes, fine blonde hair, incredibly soft and unmarred skin, and the smile of an angel. Sure, I am biased, but my next-door neighbor in Wonderland (with no vested interest) says if Kayanna lived in Wonderland, she would make a great baby model, on the cover of American Baby or its current equivalent, as her daughter was.

Tiny Town is not much to write home (or here) about except for a few details. Unless hearing a Japanese chef with a Southern accent counts for racial diversity, Tiny Town is in the clear on that account. I did, however, notice upcoming observances for Martin Luther King Day, so perhaps the town, all 50,000, did get the integration memo.

It is not cosmopolitan by any stretch of the imagination. The inhabitants are, per Southern custom, exceedingly nice and polite. Shockingly polite to those -- and apparently I am one -- whom they perceive as their elders. Several of the guests at the birthday party said, "yes, ma'am" to questions I posed. Ma'am? Moi?

I'm not sure how long my Yankee mouth and I would last there, but, as Scarlett said, "tomorrow will be another day."

And I shall return (sans mother), to dote again.

Ghost of Christmas Past

My family has a history of being clever or cute about the to/from tags on presents. This year my mom sent gifts from "the laundress" and from "Mr. Claus." The laundress referred to her having browsed her building's cache of give-away books in the downstairs laundry room, and wrapped up one she thought I would like. (I suspect I've read it already.)

The other gift was labeled "From Mr. Claus." I said, prior to opening it, is this from Daddy? Yes, it was. He's been gone almost 17 years, and my mother thought it appropriate to regift me with something she had never used that he bought for her.

What was it? A very expensive, very pretty, not-very-practical wallet from Cartier. It probably cost hundreds of dollars 17+ years ago. All it did was remind me that my father is gone, and no one is going to give me gifts like that again. To top it off, the wallet was empty.

The symbolism hurts. To me, it's a reminder that my father left, for all intents and purposes, no money to his children. (He did in his will, but his estate didn't have the cash, so my brother and I had to sign what are legally called "disclaimers," meaning we accepted that we wouldn't receive a cash inheritance from him.)

An empty wallet that my father bought to please my mother: Merry Fucking Christmas to you, to, ma. It makes me weep just to think of it. Sure, I wanted a wallet -- mine is old and fraying. But this -- a regifted present from a man who tried to make his wife happy -- all this does is remind me, more sharply than most years, that my dad is dead, and my mom is cheap and has neither an ounce of sentiment in her nor a clue that this would make me so sad.

She is supposed to know better: she knows on good days I cry at the drop of a hat, and she will never discuss my father, unless it's in the context of a funny story from years ago. Somehow she has inured herself to the emotional pain of losing him, and failed completely to remember that I have not. While he may not have been the best of husbands, he was my father -- and as I recently noted, you only get one, and try to make your adult peace with the person who he is/was.

I had made peace with my father as a person six months before he died. I suppose I should be grateful for that -- that the promises he failed to keep were not due to any meanness of spirit, but simply because he could not provide what he had hoped to offer. That's real life. That's being an adult.

In a good year, the holidays have become something to be survived. I'm not sure this ghost will ever fade, or that I will ever ask my mother for anything other than good, hard cash again. If this is her idea of creativity, spare me. Please.

An empty wallet from a ghost, a man who never got to meet his granddaughter, Kayanna Rosalie, whom he would have adored and showered with all things pink and pricy, a man to whom I never got to say a final good-bye. I love you.

This is my mother's idea of a holiday celebration. It is not mine.

Darkest before the dawn

As we hurl toward the winter solstice, Alice seeks comfort she cannot find. The holiday season is never her favorite, but this year it is darkened by another death in the family -- Clover's Companion's father had a massive heart attack and died at home over the weekend.

Alice's own father met the same end, and while it was many years ago, everytime someone's father dies the same way, Alice relives the days following her own father's demise. Each time she remembers something different -- she remains foggy on many of the exact details -- but a girl only has one father, and Alice knows the ache of losing that one suddenly and without warning.

It was winter, too, when Alice's father died, when she received the phone call she couldn't believe, when she had to call back to make sure her mom said what Alice had thought. The memory alone makes Alice shake with sorrow.

So, it's not happy holidays around here. Christmas lost whatever luster it may have retained after Alice's father died. He was a master of celebrations -- the food, the gifts -- it was his time to shine. No one in Alice's family has the same high spirits; no one makes us feel that good, makes Alice feel adored as the daddy's girl she was.

And, face it: after a certain age, any present that anyone is willing to buy for you is probably something you could easily obtain yourself. Basically, it's letting your friends and family run the errands you are too lazy to do. The stores are crowded; the streets full of tourists, and midtown isn't fit for New York natives between Thanksgiving and New Years.

If you felt like shopping online, it would be a simple matter to type in the credit card number you've had the opportunity to memorize. Then, you could get whatever is in the $50 and under department without the gift wrap, delivered straight to your door. You still get to open a box.

The newest element is credit card recitation seems to be sharing your so-called secret code to verify your identity. It seems like as much consumer protection as the T.S.A. offers passengers in the way of airport "security."

As it is, all our shopping seems pretty much a wash. Sure, the shiny paper and bows adds an element of surprise, but more years than not, Alice would just as soon go from Thanksgiving to Groundhogs Day, without making stops for the rest of the politically correct "holiday season." The only exception to this desire is Alice looking foward to exploiting her role as Aunt Alice to niece Kayanna.


What would Alice like for Christmas? Her dental aspirations include retaining her two front teeth and the rest of the matched set in her mouth. A pony wouldn't fit in the living room, and Alice is too old to believe in happily-ever-after. She would like to see her father. She would like to see CC's father. She would like to see Dona. But as Jim Croce sang 30+ years ago, she has only "photographs and memories...all that I have are these, to remember you."

Frequently it is the intangibles, the memories of what once was, or the stories Alice has created to match the memories that may or may not be factural -- or the idealized hope of what might be. Failing that, she wouldn't mind enough money so that she could live off investments for life. (Alice will never understand the people who define themselves by their jobs; she is looking forward to being able to answer the "what do you do" vocational question with, "I'm retired.) The work place is way overrated as a place to absorb her energy, or most people's, she thinks.

To top it off, the sky is pitch-black (inasmuch as a Wonderland can be, given the ambient lighting that abounds here) by 5 pm, maybe earlier. For whatever reason, it tends to be much easier to get though the day when the actual daylight sticks around. S.A.D. lamps give Alice migraines, something she would rather avoid, thankyouverymuch. In short, come winter, Alice's brain chemistry can't win for losing.

So, she apologizes for the melancholy tone of this post, but warm and fuzzy are not how Alice is feeling at the moment.

They say it's always darkest before the dawn. Alice will be very appreciative when the sun rises again.

A high chair in the dining room

My brother, sister-in-law, and niece came to New York for the week. It is the first time my sister-in-law, "A," has been north of, say, Washington, D.C. My niece, Kayanna, 10-months-old, had her first airplane ride and encounter with the T.S.A.

I wonder if they looked in her diaper for a concealed weapon. I think the odor of a ripe diaper would have been a perfect way -- and so subtle -- for Kayanna to express what I feel when I am disrobing to go through the metal detector. It would certainly have marked her as a member of Aunt Alice's family. We don't suffer fools easily.

Hard to believe I'm saying "sister-in-law" after my brother has only been married for 14 months. Wives one, two, and three were relegated to the status of "my brother's wife." This one, though, "A," mother of my niece, may be a keeper. Kayanna has my family's bloodline, for whatever that's worth. Meanwhile she's adorable.

I'm hoping Kayanna's gene pool will swim with common sense and high intelligence, and forgo the migraines and depression common to "A's" family and mine. In that sense my brother is brave; I was never willing to take the genetic roulette wheel out for a spin.

I like "A", babe in the woods that she is, more than previous models. She's bright, she's funny, she shares my family's sense of humor, which, if you didn't know us, you would have a hard time following, and not only is she intelligent, she wants her daughter to go to Harvard. She wants Kayanna to have more advantages than she did, and I don't doubt that she will try her damnedest to make sure that happens.

(I don't think "A" realizes that she has married into a family that has the financial advantages to make sure Kayanna gets the best education she can receive, but that is a story for another time.)

"A" and I even like the same TV and books. We are House and Law & Order: CI fans. Her favorite book is Pride and Prejudice, which give her the seal of intellectual approval from my over-educated self. (Previous wives were fond of Entertainment Tonight and that ilk, and I don't think any of them touched an actual book.)

Kayanna hasn't quite perfected her crawl: after a few steps on and and foot, she relaxes into the Army crawl, pulling herself along solely with the strength of her arms, and dragging the rest of her 20-pound body behind her. However, she can stand up, and if you hold her hand, she can walk.

This may be banal for anyone who writes a mommy blog or who has had their own children, but I'm the Aunt, and my exposure to babies has been very limited. Judging from my mother's anxiety before the Southern ("A" is from a Tiny Town in the deep South, where my brother had taken up permanent residence) contingent arrived, it would be difficult to tell that my mother had raised two children of her own, and those in the era before the participatory dad.

The stories she tells about us are getting more entertaining. Once, she lost my brother, age 3 or so, in Central Park. Another time she offered him PB&J or caviar for lunch. He was about 4. He went for the caviar. I said, no wonder we aren't mainstream. As a baby, I ditched the house key in another park, so the nanny had to go to the super's office to so we could get into the apartment.

What else happened when my mom was raising us? At Schraff's, circa 1964, I refused to wear a napkin tucked into my chin unless my mother and her friend did the same. They complied. Amazing what power I possessed as a 3-year-old. Then there was the time I tried to drown my brother in the wading pool, a story my mother repeats time and again, as if eventually I will remember the incident. I also don't remember pushing his pram into traffic, but it's another of mom's greatest hits.

Onto the high chair: my brother and "A" came to dinner at my house last night, with the baby. I had invited them in part because my mother has become the take-out queen, armed with menus and her VISA card; no one has seen her apply heat to food since the Southerners appeared. I thought they might like one of my rare home-cooked meals, not to mention a meal without my mom (something I was also looking forward to).

They said they thought they would feed Kayanna in her all-purpose baby seat/stroller seat/car seat, until I said, do you want a high chair for her? Next-door, my neighbor has a grandchild about 2 years older than Kayanna, so I called. In less than 5 minutes we had procured the high chair.

Now it sits, pulled in as close to the dining room table as my grown-up chairs. Kayanna and her parents have returned to my mother's, leaving me with an empty chair that says "your niece ate here."

I hope she comes back for more, soon.

Do it yourself? Whose idea was that?

I guess I'm just an old-fashioned girl. While I am willing to concede some wonders of technology, in the customer-service arena, someone -- just about everyone who works for any entity, private or public -- has decided the customer deserves "care." Not "service." Not, "how may I help you?"


No, these days you speak or punch in your special number for whatever entity you are calling -- imagine an airline, if you will -- then the toneless voice inquires whether you are interested in type 1 (say or punch number now), type 2 (ditto), type 3 (more of the same), or whether you are a type 4 -- one who is more apt to punch O for Operator (pardon me, "representative").


If you are a type 4 person, you may or may not connect to a human voice, depending on whether the company can comply with a simple "help me. I'm the individual; you're Big Brother of the hour, and I have a few questions, none of which comply with the tone-free voice options."


Let us contrast the concept of procuring airline tickets using a travel agent versus directly interfacing (terrible word) with the computer to use frequent-flyer miles. In the first version, you pick up the phone, tell your travel agent of 25+ years where you and your mom need to go and what dates, and he procures the tickets and confirms your seats, and had the tickets in the mail months before we need to debate what to wear and how to entertain ourselves at our destination. One phone call, and you are ready to go.

In the second, more common, scenario, you are doomed from the start. To screw up the system, you want to book the same flight, different seats, for two people traveling together under separate frequent-flyer accounts. The computer lacks any comprehension of how this might be possible for the average traveler, following standard directions, to follow. Thus, we need not one, not two, but three human voices, because each is specialized in one department: the miles, the tickets, and finally, the reassurance that yes, you have achieved your goal.


Two tickets to Dothan. Alabama in January, the vacation spot of the see-and-be-seen, the once-and-again jet set. Sign us right up. It is the one place in the world you would swear no one in the world would choose to go, short of the occasion to celebrate your niece's one's first birthday. Apparently, you would be wrong. People are just clamouring to get on this little putt-putt Atlanta to Dothan plane. Seating is tight.


I hope they have left enough room to wind the rubber bands and that passenger weight is disbursed evenly. Otherwise, some of the overweight will have to get off the tiny craft and push downhill so we can get to the next stop. In Maine, as a child, I rode from point A to point B in a plane that required some of its passengers to do just that.


And that was before deregulation. In the days when the friendly skies bore some resemblance of being such. These days, not so much. Not at all, if you ask me. I suspect the airlines would be just as happy if I never showed my face, my pathetic Zip-Lock bag of miniature toiletries, and my shoeless, coatless, beltless, braless self again.

Not to mention the two checkpoints, 20 feet apart, to determine that my name hasn't changed and my boarding pass not been altered in the wilds of the airport corridor. If I didn't need a mode of transportation faster than a bus, I'd be happy to oblige.

However, this is the modern age, and the above is what is deemed a successful transaction between customer and airline. That is, assuming the planes leave at their appointed hours and the luggage is not lost in transit.

These days, we call that an overachieving act of transportation. Person A got from point A to point B in a close-to-timely fashion, with the help of bar codes, email messages, cell phones ringing at 2:52 am to confirm that the customer will rouse herself by 4;30 to make it to the airport.

For part II, try to call a computer company to figure out what quirks your machine has that the printed guide doesn't cover, and you are unable to get online to read the actual manual to try to troubleshoot the problem yourself.

For part III, try to conduct financial transactions on behalf of another person, over whom you have power of attorney and for whom the only financial transaction that matters is that her monthly check arrives on time, and try to comparison shop municipal bonds on her behalf.

Then, if you have any energy left over, attempt to change a halogen light bulb located where you will have to stand on the sink to gain access to the fixture.

After all this, eat some chocolate-covered pomegranate ice cream, have a cigarette, set three alarm clocks -- the TV, the radio, and the basic battery-operated travel clock -- and hope you make your plane. Then wonder how people with full-time jobs manage to get to pick up their groceries or dry cleaning. Be grateful that you are not among them. You wouldn't make it beyond the first day.

Do it yourself? Not if you can hire someone else to do it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Feeling Jamesian...

My mind seems stuck on tunes that made me sad 30 years ago, and once again they are exerting a pull toward tears. Responsibility overload, stemming from a myriad of sources, mostly family related and to which I am inextricably tied. Top on my mind's hit parade is Billy Joel's James:

James...we were always friends.
From our childhood days
And we made our plans,
And we had to go our separate ways.
I went on the road --
You pursued an education.
James...do you like your life
Can you find release,
And will you ever change --
Will you ever write your masterpiece?
Are you still in school --
Living up to expectations...James...
You were so relied upon, everybody knows
how hard you tried --
Hey...just look at what a job you've done,
Carrying the weight of family pride.
James....you've been well behaved.
You've been working hard
But will you always stay --
Someone else's dream of who you are.
Do what's good for you, or you're not good for
anybody....James
I went on the road --
You pursued an education...James...
How you gonna know for sure -- everything was
so well organized.
Hey...now everything is so secure,
And everybody else is satisfied.
James...do you like your life,
Can you find release
And will you ever change,
When will you write your masterpiece?

When will I write my masterpiece? That is, as they say, the $64-thousand-dollar question. My friends from college are surprised I haven't managed at least one published volume 25 years out. I start projects -- the most recent being a memoir of my father, Haiti, and our family's careless self-destructiveness -- but it's difficult to maintain my concentration. Life intervenes, day after fucking day.

If you had asked me in 1982, I could not have imagined myself in the position in which I find myself today: putting out all of my family's financial fires, to name one thing that occupies more of my time than I could have guessed. Never seeing my father or Haiti again. Having synaptic lapses made more pronounced by medication I can't change. Knowing my aunt and uncle's hotel in Lake Placid burned to the ground.

They say you can't go home again: between Haitian politics and the demise of where I spend my Adirondack summers, I honestly don't have a childhood place that I could happily call home. My mother sold the house where I grew up 15 years ago, and I was never attached to that house, where I spent a tortured adolescence, then escaped to college, so it hasn't possessed the allure of home that Haiti and Lake Placid have.

My college went on a building spree after I left, so now the campus is strewn with what I presume are considered post-modern architectural gems but which remind me that my architectural aesthetic stops somewhere short of women's suffrage. Any building that has all the charm of an airport lounge and the same amount of character is not one I think of as home.

What no one told me was that as I grew, my brother would grow away from me, from the city where we were both born, that he would marry four times, and with each wife, I would feel he was less and less a part of my life. He has a daughter now, my niece Kayanna, whom I would like to see and get to know. I'm not likely to have another. But this marriage of his is still in its infancy; he lives in Tiny Town, Slow Southern State, and I am old enough to be the mother of his child-bride.

I seem to be more active as Aunt Alice to Clover, my best friend's shitzu puppy. Those of us who don't have children do take out pets rather seriously. Last year, it broke my heart when I had to put the off-White Rabbit to sleep. Clover comforts and entertains even more so than the White Rabbit did, and both pets are considerably more reliable than either of our siblings.

I'm in melancholy mood at the moment. What I have to keep in mind is a lyric from another Billy Joel song, also from the Turnstiles album: "They say that these are not the best of times, but they're the only times I've ever known."

My first meme

This is courtesy of frog, whose blog I can't link to, but you can. Until now, I've never been intrigued by the meme concept (and the tell-it-to-me-tuesdays or thursdays) and the like. This one, however, contains questions that interest me, though I'm not sure what they reveal.

[Spell your first name backwards] ycnan
[The story behind your user name] I live in Wonderland, a city most of the country cannot imagine, except to visit.
[How old are you?] over 40
[Date of birth] 10/08
[Where do you live?] white brick postwar apartment building
[Occupation] paying? financial planning. for love, writing.
[4 words that sum you up] devoted friend, sardonic eccentric

Describe your....
[Wallet] European red leather
[Key holder] Sterling silver with initials
[Jewelry worn daily] gold bracelet, lapis lazuli ring; gold wire ring, diamond earrings -- all gifts
[Pillow cover] high-thread count, white Egyptian cotton
[Coffee cup] travel mug with college logo
[Shoes] summer sandals, winter loafers
[School bag] I’m not in school
[Favorite dress] one I have yet to own
[Cologne/Perfume] Jean Patou's "Joy." If I can't feel it, at least I can wear it.
[Piercing] 2 in right ear, 1 in left ear
[What you are wearing now] cotton flowered dress bought on the street
[Hair] brown
[Makeup] none
[in my mouth] iced coffee
[In My Head] another sleepy day, another day I haven't worked
[Wish] that I will start publishing again
[Eating Habit] a nutritionist's nightmare
[Some of your favorite movies] Holiday; The Best of Everything; The Big Chill
[Do you believe in love at first sight] not so much
[The last thing you ate?] chocolate souffle
[Do you believe in love] yes
[Do you believe in soul mates] yes
[Do you believe in forgiveness] yes
[Three cities you wouldn't mind relocating to?] Paris, and that is only the most remote possibility. I travel; I don't relocate.
[What are some of your favorite foods?] smoked salmon, coffee ice cream, grilled mozzarella sandwiches

Yes or No...
[you keep a diary] had diary, now a blog
[you have a secret you have not shared with anyone] yes
[you fold your underwear] Actually, the housekeeper does it.

YesLast...
[movie you bought] I have no idea.
[song you listened to] James Taylor's "Mexico"
[song that was stuck in your head] "The First Cut is the Deepest"
[song you've downloaded] I’ve never downloaded a song.
[CD you bought] No idea--I haven't bought one in ages.
[CD you listened to] Woodstock
[person you've called] my neurologist
[person who called you] Clover's Companion
[TV show you've watched] Crossing Jordan
[Thing you said] “Where are my cigarettes?"
[Black or White?] black
[Cats or Dogs?] dogs
[Tea or Coffee?] both
[Achiever or Slacker?] slacker
[Leader or Follower?] neither
[Beer or Cider?] cider
[Drinks or Shots?] drinks
[Single or Taken?] single
[Matches or a Lighter?] lighter
[Letters or Emails?] email
[Short hair or Long hair?] long

I want to...
[Go] to sleep
[Kill] Big Brother
[Hear from] The Croquet Player
[Meet] the love of my life
[Look like] I'm as thin as I was in college
[Avoid] pain
[Hug] my niece, Kayanna
[Kiss] TCP
[Loved somebody so much it makes you cry?] yes
[Drank alcohol?] some
[Done drugs?] yes
[Broken the law?] depends on who's asking
[Ran away from home?] no
[Broken a bone?] no
[Cheated on a test?] yes
[Played Truth Or Dare?] yes
[Flashed someone?] yes
[Mooned Someone?] no
[Kissed someone you didn’t know?] yes
[Been on a game show/talk show] no
[Been in a fight?] not physical
[Ridden in a fire truck?] no
[Been on a plane?] yes, and flown one
[Come close to dying?] yes
[Gave someone a piggy back/shoulder ride?] no
[Swam in the ocean?] yes
[Had a nightmare/dream that made you wake up?] yes
[Kissed someone of the same sex] yes

Relationships...
[Girlfriend/Boyfriend] Yes/Yes
[When and who was your 1st crush?]
Sixth grade. A boy named Steven.
[Your idea of a perfect date] anything with someone I love
[Name a moment that you thought was really sweet] Meeting my niece for the first time. A classmate sending me a postcard thanking me for working as 25th reunion co-chair.
[Your first kiss] (real kiss) can't remember who. I was 17.
[Do you have a crush] not at the moment

Are you a...[Vegetarian?] no
[Good Student?] have been
[Good Singer?] fair
[A good Actor/Actress?] fair
[A deep sleeper?] Yes, but also an insomniac.
[A Good Dancer?] yes
[Shy?] no
[Outgoing?] yes

Field trip: to the Wizard off Wall Street

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas, not now, not ever.

We are, however, one state over -- a vast plain known for cattle and corn and for capitalism. Alice came to hear the Wizard off Wall Street, capitalist par exellence, the second-richest man in the U.S., the majority stockholder in Capitalist, Inc., a well-known company in which Alice and her mother a own large portion of a fraction of a share.

The Wizard has announced plans, upon his death, for a nonprofit foundation founded by the richest man in the U.S. to receive his shares of Capitalist, Inc., as his own offspring are already well provided for. Making money, good; inheriting it, apparently not so much. Alice has been known to sing a different tune.

Less that half a share was the price of admission, so Alice decided to land in the midst of flyover country (can't get there from Wonderland without at least one change of plane, unless she were to charter a share in a Capitalist, Inc.-owned fractional-airplane-share firm) to see why others make this pilgrimage yearly.

She planned to hear the great man speak and see the wares owned by Capitalist, Inc., some of whose wholly owned subsidiaries offered discounts during what some call "Woodstock for Capitalists" -- the annual Capitalist, Inc. shareholders meeting.

There was no tie-dye, no mud, no drugs, but plenty of port-a-potties and shriekingly wide, bright, casual-clothing-for-the-millennium at this Woodstock. (Black is the color of Wonderland.) The only music was a bad cover band at a reception, blessedly rendered mute by the Wizard's melodic and well-harmonized melodies at the following day's meeting (or circus-tent revival?).

Alice wouldn't want to see most of its invitees naked under any circumstances; still this is Wizardville, a place that shares only a vague semblance of a common language with the inhabitants of Wonderland, and no commonality of place or space. Here, the Wizard's guests amble; none whiz through these flyover country grounds.

The only guests who appear at all like Alice -- those speak who a different language, have a different religion, are conversant with a multitude of cultures, wear the clothing of their home country, walk at a brisk pace without taking up the entire road -- are the international ones, who get their own special reception. Given that Wonderland is off the coast of America, Alice thinks she should be invited as well.

Toto, Alice knows she's not in Kansas. We are in Wizardville. The whole town has tarted itself up and welcomes us with open arms (the better to whisk away our credit cards) for Capitalist, Inc.'s annual festival in this location. Alice has heard that the home state of the Wizard has, in its entirety, fewer than the number of people who inhabit the island of Wonderland. She is convinced all the natives congregated just to see the Wizard, if only on a jumbo-tron outside the main arena.

Here to see the Wizard, and Alice forgot one just one characteristic about herself: she hates crowds. Stays as far as she possibly can from them in Wonderland itself, yet she flew -- door to door -- almost six hours to an incoming crowd of 25,000, which itself takes up all the hotel space in Wizardville, Flyover Land, and fills its Civic Center Auditorium with other shareholders who wish to hear the great man speak.

During the three days during which the crowd descends annually, the Capitalist, Inc.,-owned jewelry store does more business than it does throughout the Christmas season; another subsidiary, Capitalist, Inc.,'s home furnishings extravaganza, sells more of its wares than in any two-month period.

Beside the Civic Center is an Exhibitors' Hall, several football fields of space, where Alice could have purchased anything from discounted auto insurance whose best-known spokesman is a lizard, to cowboy boots, to a books from a store whose selection belies the Wizard's modesty, to some discounted-for-the-occasion children's clothes. Alice dares not send these to her niece, imprinted as they are with the Capitalist, Inc., name.

Last week Alice mailed a T-shirt from her college, considered by Alice and her mother as enough irony to last a 3-month-old baby girl quite a while. Kayanna is less likely to inherit shares of Capitalist, Inc., than she is to go to the brand-name, prestigious college from which Aunt Alice graduated. Kayanna's father is sophisticated enough to understand this slight, although his wife, from Tiny Town, Slow Southern State, is probably not that cosmopolitan.

There were discounts on an encyclopedia Alice remembers from her childhood, or, rather, remembers its overlays of a frog and a human being, with all parts named. (More parts are given names on the human in the 2007 edition than in the one 40 years its predecessor, which Alice owned, and which she was meant to update annually, with "See update, page 123," stickers. The stickers went by the wayside long before the annual updates stopped.)

Then there were genuine Ginko knives, which Alice thought had vanished into TV advertising heaven, but they were slicing and dicing and for sale in sets of eight knives in a wooden block. In addition the floor was filled salespeople peddling all manner of equipment for folks in middle America -- from RVs (sorry, manufactured homes, awnings sold separately) to home-party kitchenware to a $1300 vacuum touted as an "investment."

If the vacuum came with its own operator, 7 days a week, one who also did windows, laundry, changed linens, and shopped, cooked and cleaned up after making dinner, then Alice would give it a call.

Alice knows no one who would buy these items -- neither precision machining equipment nor rug shampoo cleaning products makes her must-buy list, nor does either make the lists of anyone Alice knows, but she is right pleased these middle-Americans, homeowners in flyover country, take such a strong financial interest in her welfare with their purchases.

Not owning a car, she is not sure what Lizard car insurance can do for her, either, but if it can make her a profit without undue harm to the planet, she is too cynical to care much about other aspects of the product. If Gigolos R Us did a land-office business, Alice would look into their stock as well.

The Wizard gives off an "ah, shucks; all my pal and I did was look for the right businesses at a discount to pull together this company here for all of us" air to those awaiting his special secrets. Guess what? He didn't get to be where he is by being any one's fool -- the only way we share in his secrets is through purchasing Capitalist, Inc.'s stock.

Make no mistake: the Wizard is genuine, and Alice will tag along on his coat tails for as long as she's getting a great ride. Toto can tug on no curtain to reveal the Wizard, for he is no con artist. Some call him a Seer; others, the Princely Prognosticator.

The Wizard's successors have yet to be named, but Alice figures, if the Wizard, age 76, anoints them, he will find the best available talent from sea to shining sea and beyond, leaving them to seduce him with their knowledge and business acumen, to follow in his place as Seer of Capitalist, Inc.

About too close to Kansas: strong tornadoes are forecast, on stations available only on local TV news and radio. The Weather Channel does not even mention whatever the largest city is in this state as a place for which to issue a forecast. Saturday night's two-hour thunder and lightning storm, complete with jagged forks of light and thunder to shake the hotel bed, barely makes the news, and doesn't register for anyone who is not trapped in it.

In Wonderland, such a storm would be, at the very least, worthy of a crawl across the bottom of the TV screen. Alice believes she is in the largest city in this state adjoining Kansas: still, its weather is of no consequence or interest to anyone beyond its boundaries, nor, apparently, within them.

Flyover City does yield some surprises: steak prices that would do a New York restaurant proud, albeit with considerably less overhead and considerably more proximity to the animals. If there were a steak sauce praised by the populace, it would A-1, not Bordelaise, Bearnaise, or other popular Wonderland offerings.

Alice couldn't help observing a restaurant salad bar, circa 1971 in the state where Wonderland is situated, circa 2007 in the state next to Kansas. Nor can she avoid mentioning that no lettuce other than iceberg has been seen within the state's borders, and vegetables are what they feed to the animals, not what they consume or attempt to use in the derivation of fuel.

There is novelty for Alice: in strip-mall city, the "coffeehouses" are drive-thrus, which seems to defeat the purpose of their names, unless caffeine is Flyover-City fuel, and even then, Alice thinks self-service has gone too far. Perhaps that concept with the "manufactured" housing, the house paint, the carpet- and floor-covering making companies and its cohorts at the Capitalist, Inc., revival sales hall.

(The Wizard's cohort -- akin to a co-chair -- suggests feeding the corn to the people, not turning it into fuel, in the interest of starting at the beginning. It is a feeling Alice shares, though she had not heard it so succinctly elucidated previously.)

However, Alice does not own a car, and she doubts the trucks that deliver nutrients to Wonderland would be eligible for an ethanol subsidy. Feed 'em first, then sell the cars and fuel and insurance and upkeep. Otherwise, the size of the carbon footprint will remain in the double digits, Alice suspects. She herself wears a size 6.

Alice has owned common stock since shortly after she was born in an L&D room in Hell's Kitchen. Yet this is the first time she has taken sufficient interest to see what a shareholder's meeting is all about. A solid 98% "yeas" for what the directors recommend and less than 2% "yeas" on any shareholder resolutions. She's not surprised. She just hopes the Wizard will keep subsidizing her expenses, and, with that, she is off to sleep.

Brother's Little Dividend

Coming soon to a theater near you.

(This film is not yet rated.)

Above the Mason-Dixon line, it's got aspects of G, PG, PG-13, and R. This post is primarily PG-13; expletives that would make it an R have been deleted in print, albeit not in Alice's mind. Below the Mason-Dixon line, it seems to be for anyone and everyone, for no one there is inclined to say, WTF? In Wonderland, we can't help thinking anything else.

Aunt Alice has previously celebrated the birth of her niece, Kayanna Rosalie. For Kayanna's 3-month birthday, Alice's brother has announced that their family will be relocating, back to Tiny Town, Slow Southern State, from the relatively sophisticated Florida town to which they had decamped last fall. Tiny Town is Alice's sister-in-law's hometown. Alice hopes her niece will get to see more of the world, long before the age of consent.

It appears that Brother's Little Dividend will grow up in Tiny Town, Slow Southern State -- far, far from Wonderland and its influences (Alice and her mom?). Once again, brother changes venues: just yesterday, Alice and mom were attempting to count the number of addresses crossed out in each address book -- roughly a dozen, in the years between his five engagements and four marriages. Brother has been relegated to post-it note status in Alice's book; even a mortgage has not proved a guarantee that he will remain in one place for more than two years.

Alice doesn't consider herself overly materialistic, but she can't help noticing that over the years, brother has left behind his father's watch and inherited cookbook collection, their grandmother's good silver and their family's photographs, not to mention a good chunk of their mother's money, lost to various investment schemes, alimony, and house payments for places from which he had moved on.

Alice's mother grew up in what was a comparably Large Town in a Semi-Slow Southern State. When she turned 18, she crossed the Mason-Dixon line and never looked back. How ironic, isn't it, that Alice's brother should deliberately choose what Alice's mother eschewed.

Alice has never felt more like an only child. Surprised, too, to have this feeling at age 46. She has often heard, "a son's a son 'til he takes a wife (or four); a daughter's a daughter the rest of her life." Never has she been so keenly aware of the truth of the adage.

Meanwhile Alice, she of the six continents of traveling, has moved once in the past 25 years, keeping the same telephone number, and, until July, the same zip code. Thanks to the post office, in July Alice's street becomes declasse -- her mother retains the family zip code, but Alice's new zip will leave any New Yorker clueless as to her locale. She suspects the letter carrier will be as well. Alice is clutching her area code with both hands.

Two-one-two, now and forever. Or was that Cats? Some other Broadway show has since supplanted its run. Alice hopes her area code changes only if she has a change of venue of more than 100 feet. Given real estate prices and her relationship with Wonderland, this does not seem a likely prospect in the foreseeable future.

What is foreseeable is the demise of the last public horse-and-pony show in Manhattan: the Claremont Riding Academy is closing May 1, probably to make way for another 30-story condominium on what was, until recently, not a block considered fit for such residences.

Alice's cousin is a Central Park Ranger, who has procured her horses from Claremont for Saturday volunteer cantering around the park. Alice wonders, where will the ponies go? She doesn't wonder where to bet on them -- a family tendency she has managed not to inherit; she is simply curious: where they will live and breathe won't be in Wonderland, but where will it be?

Four things about me...

(a) Four jobs I've had in my life:
freelance editor/writer
financial planner
wine glass washer at Adirondack hotel
real estate agent

(b) Four movies I could watch over and over again:
almost anything with Katherine Hepburn or William Powell/Myrna Loy
The Big Chill
Boys on the Side
Rocky Horror Picture Show

(c) Four places you have lived:
In an apartment in Manhattan
In people's homes in Paris
In a dorm in Bennington, VT
In my parents' house in Westchester County, NY

(d) Four TV shows I watch:
Brothers & Sisters
House
Grey's Anatomy
C.S.I. (the original)

(e) Four places I have visited:
Rotorua, New Zealand
Capetown, South Africa
Xian, China
Galapagos Islands, Equador

(f) Four places I visit daily:
My email
The menu drawer
My pill box
My apartment building's lobby

(g) Four of my favorite foods, not in order:
Chocolate souffle
Roast filet mignon with roasted new potatoes
Asparagus with Hollandaise
Wild raspberries

(h) Four places I would rather be right now:
In bed with a lover
In Europe at a great hotel with room service and a spa
On the beach in Haiti, if the political climate weren't an issue
With my niece, Kayanna

(i) Four favorite songs
Mexico -- James Taylor
White Rabbit -- Grace Slick
Summer, Highland Falls -- Billy Joel
Twisted -- sung by Joni Mitchell

Aunt Alice heads south

My niece, Kayanna, is adorable. Of course, I am biased. And I've never bonded with an infant prior to this trip to Florida. I cuddled her, I fed her, I made funny faces at her, I talked to/at her. (I did not, as you may gather, change her diapers, but I learned to recognize the look on her face that preceded the need for a diaper change, so I could hand her off in time.)

My brother is shaping up to be a devoted and bonded dad, in the way I've heard men of his generation can be. My new sister-in-law, when I left, was feeling sleep-deprived, and I don't know quite what she thinks of me. We do, however, laugh simultaneously at the same sights: our reaction to the customer in red sequins in my brother's restaurant required no verbal communication between us.

She was unnerved by the prospect of meeting my mother, the presumptive grandma. Did we paint such a terrifying portrait of my mother? I don't know what my brother has said or left unsaid, but I suspect I was pretty unsparing the few times she came up in conversation. Alice's mother lives in her own, unique version of Wonderland, and it has even less bearing on reality than the Wonderland in which Alice resides.

I did tell my sister-in-law that everyone likes my mother; that the only person who seems to be troubled by her is me. I am also the only daily recipient of her domestic-related phone calls, many of which involve retelling me about a purchase she has made, even shown me, then forgotten she ever mentioned the item. She also constantly updates me on the weather, as if I couldn't open a window, turn on the TV, or check it on line.

It is the little things that drive me insane.

I spoke to my sister-in-law after my mother returned from Florida. Apparently she was looking over some pictures with my brother, and, presented with one of a woman about my age holding my niece, my mother said, "the baby looks cute, but the nurse is ugly." Said nurse was, in fact, my sister-in-law's mother.

If I had explained my mother as Sophia on The Golden Girls, a woman without the ability or interest to censor herself, my sister-in-law says she would have understood that completely. My mother is of the, don't-ask-me-what-I-think-unless-you-want-my-honest-answer school. It makes her to be described as "interesting."

Well, she does keep things lively.

Welcome to the world, Kayanna Rosalie

At long last, Alice has become an aunt, an honest blood-relative aunt. She is, granted, the age of her niece's grandmother (not Alice's mother, who is a generation older than Alice), but an aunt nonetheless. Looking forward to the fun parts of parenting while not having to get her hands dirty. (If there's one adjective that doesn't describe Alice, it would be domestic. Thumb splints aside, she has not and does not plan ever to change a diaper.)

On the morning of the 16th, Alice's brother's wife's 22nd birthday, the phone calls started at 8 am, and continued through to the birth announcement at 6 pm -- she got the obstetric blow-by-blow from her 42-year-old (and only) brother. It started with "we're" in labor, a notion she finds rather odd. After all, he wasn't; she was. Big difference in the pain factor. But Alice will grant that if it's a harbinger, it's a good one. Next up, full dilation. Two hours later, Kayanna emerged.

Wednesday evening my brother emailed me a photo from his cell phone. (Love that modern technology. Don't have a clue how it works.) I know all babies are beautiful, but this one really is adorable. Did I mention Kayanna shares Alice's gene pool? In what she prays is a good way? Alice did have a happy babyhood, or so she has been told.

Alice's mother is happy the baby is healthy, but not exactly bubbling over. She said, several times: "I'll go [to visit] in April, when the baby is less of a blob." I wouldn't have expected her to say anything different to me -- but apparently she repeated herself verbatim to my brother, tact-be-damned. Her lack of enthusiasm is underwhelming. I suppose it's fear mostly: my brother has had three marriages fail, but none of them involved progeny of his own.

Still, it would be nice if my mother could at least be happy for Kayanna, for the genetic legacy she would not otherwise have seen. I used to say I wanted to be a grandmother, but I could skip the hands-on, character-shaping mother part. As an aunt, it seems I have my wish.

Physically, reproduction was not an option for me: this is a fact that I have acknowledged since I was about 18. First, there was the smoking. Not much later on came the antidepressants, and I wasn't willing to risk my sanity to continue to replicate a gene pool of depressions and migraines, one about which I was ambivalent at best. I gather my brother didn't let that influence his sudden desire, at 42, to be a father.

Truth be told, my brother and I watched the same movie that was my parents' marriage, and we reached different conclusions about whether to enter the theater again. I haven't crossed that threshold, and he can't seem to stop.

I am hopeful that he has walked across it carrying a bride for the last time. He has a child now, my niece, Kayanna Rosalie. This time, the stakes are higher. This time, he's in the game for good.

I've known my niece's name for as long as I've known her gender (i.e., since September or so, two weeks after my brother called to announce his girlfriend was four months pregnant).

Kayanna, per the web, is a variation of Kaye, an English name with no discernible meaning. Rosalie was my grandmother, whom my brother and I loved very much. She died in 1985, a year that major family upheaval was the norm. (Matriarch dies, her son goes to rehab, her daughter gets breast cancer, and those are only the headlines from June to November.) I used to go visit the cemetery on the date of her death.

Once, as I was getting back on the subway, I saw a rainbow (unusual for NYC, even for Brooklyn), which made me think she knew I'd visited. Since my dad died, however, I haven't made that trip more than once or twice. Next week will mark the 16th anniversary of his death, a date that never gets easier for me.

Rosalie, his mother, was a very strong, determined woman, who urged me to go "to business," not to stay at home being a housewife. My grandfather was a traveling salesman who didn't drive -- grandma did all the driving. She worked as an editor and proofreader in an attorney's office prior to marriage, and they wanted her to read for the bar (this was circa 1920, before law school was mandatory), but her parents wouldn't let her because they didn't want her to scare off potential mates with her education.

She also waited until she was 29 to have her first child, my aunt, and was 33 when my dad was born. She was the kind of grandmother who, into her 80s, could close down a bar at 4 am. She was good at a few things domestic -- baking, for example -- but better at delegating the details. (My father had a German nanny who took him to Bund meetings pre-WWII, until she was deported for being a Nazi sympathizer.)

Grandma Rosalie was also terrified of infants, and I was the first -- not my aunt, not my father, not my two older cousins -- to whom she gave a bath. So I'm glad her name carries on. Kayanna, well, it's unusual, and I know my brother's wife selected it, but I don't know why, or where she'd heard it. I'm not asking.

I'm about to search eBay for a sterling silver baby cup, then start finding airline schedules so I can see Kayanna sooner, rather than later. It is a singular occasion, I believe, that I will meet a child who will call me Aunt Alice. I'm looking forward to it.