Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“What are you doing?”
“I have a ton of these of you dancing. I play them whenever I need a little happy during the day.”
“You do?”
He chuckled. “You think you’re the only one who has a husband they’re crazy about?”
“How do you know I’m crazy about you?”
“Oh I dunno, could be how often I catch you staring.”
I nodded. “Yeah. That could be it.”
“C’mere.”
I got to end my night being twirled around my kitchen by the man I loved. Now that was a good Valentine’s Day.
Have a wonderful rest of February, all. I’ll see you in March.
MARCH 2025
Hello, all. Welcome to March 2025, He Said, he said. I thought I would be telling you all about St. Patrick’s Day, but it turns out that’s on the seventeenth, so I will save that for next time.
Now, I don’t know if this happens to other parents, but for me, my people will try and take care of whatever the situation is themselves before they will involve others, which includes friends, significant others, and finally me or Sam. And while I applaud trying to take care of a situation yourself, I think it’s important, that if you need help, you ask for it. No matter how awkward you feel.
Normally, the area that everyone clams up over is getting hit on. And I understand. It’s so uncomfortable that it’s hard to know how to react. Unless you’re my daughter. Because it’s happened to her so often, and continues, she is one hundred percent clear on how she deals with unwanted attention. Of course it’s because she’s a woman, and now, at this point in her life, when a man asks her out, she doesn’t say, I’m sorry, I have a boyfriend, she simply says no. Without giving a reason. Simply no.
This does not go over well.
I can’t tell you how many texts, emails, and voicemails I’ve seen and heard of hers that begin with, “I don’t know why you’re being such a bitch, you were so nice at first.” It’s really sad, and a couple of times I’ve been worried for her. How far will these men take their anger toward her? At this point, the only time someone stepped over the line was a guy who followed her back to her dorm on campus after a study group last year, only to find himself face-to-face with a very annoyed George Hunt, there to take her to an event. Hannah had never even seen the guy again. He dropped the biology class so they would not cross paths. Yet another reason I appreciated her bodyguard and friend. But even though she was uncomfortable, because she didn’t want to get the guy in trouble, she’d resisted reporting his behavior to her professor. Once he was gone, several other women had shared that he had spooked them as well. It was important to normalize speaking up, but that was hard for a lot of people.
Just recently, Kola was the one on the end of what he had brushed off as no big deal. A guy in his study group, Piers, had missed three classes, and Kola had copied his notes for him and taken them to his apartment with some chicken noodle soup and dropped both off. It was thoughtful and kind, which was basically my son, and after that, suddenly, Piers was everywhere. As they were both studying medicine, at first Kola saw nothing out of the ordinary. But when Piers showed up with takeout from a very high-end restaurant downtown to thank Kola, apparently my son had to have a difficult conversation with his classmate and explain that he would love to be friends, but that was all it could be. Apparently, Piers Robertson came from a very wealthy family from New York—his father was the CEO of their company that was in petrochemicals, oil and gas—and so no was not a word he was used to hearing. And because Kola had said no, like Hannah, not no, I have a boyfriend, Piers had tried to be charming and pushed gently. At which point, when he had shown up on the doorstep of the apartment, a shirtless, sweat-covered Finn Murray had answered the door.
When Kola told me about it, he felt terrible, but they had just finished a run. Kola was on the floor in the living room, heaving for breath, which left Finn talking to Piers.
“Oh, Pa, you should have seen him,” Kola told me on the way to a dinner at Sandy and Michael’s house. Sandy was trying hard to bring her friends and Michael’s together, and everyone she invited had to bring their kids along. She thought getting to know families was really the best way to break the ice. I couldn’t fault her. She was looking to create a new community between her and her new husband. It was a nice idea. My husband, of course, thought it was terrible. He was also pissed that no one else—neither of his sisters nor his parents—had agreed to show up but us. “I felt so bad for Piers because Finn’s standing there with his sculpted six-pack and chest with all his muscles on display like he’s carved out of––”