for the love of madonna.

I went to church this morning on my way into work. Last night, I tried going to the small, neighborhood church that is affiliated with my daughter's school, but I couldn't get into the sanctuary, so I chose to go to a different one this morning that I thought might have a better chance of being open.

St. Joe's is a large, beautiful Catholic church built on a hillside in a dense residential area minutes from downtown. The whole site is really a compound taking up an entire city block with a large K-8 school attached. The sanctuary itself probably holds several hundred people and it's stunning with two-story high, rough hewn wood ceilings, stone walls, luminous stained glass and of course, well-worn dark wood pews. It is the church that I went to when I first moved here in college, and the church where my daughter was baptized eleven years ago. It's affiliated with the Jesuits, which has a history of social justice, so they were respectful of our decision to select Jewish Godparents, provided my mother, a lifelong Catholic, stood with us during the ceremony. I honestly, no question could feel God in the moment the priest made the sign of the cross on my daughter's head with holy water dripping down her cheeks.

I heard on the radio this morning that the other Madonna (Ciccone), is opening up a string of ultra-luxe fitness gyms around the world called Hard Candy. None of them, initially, will be in the US. Once again—way to go Madonna. Ingenious. Make us hungry for it instead of letting us be the first to trash it. The first one is opening up in Mexico City on November 29, then other places like Argentina, Russia, Brazil and of course Europe will follow. Another reinvention, she rocks. So here I was, sitting in traffic, on my way to church, reading my horoscope on my phone and thinking about two Madonnas.

The sanctuary visit was my mother's idea. About ten years ago, when trying to sell my house in the downturn after 9/11, she came over and buried a small St. Joseph figurine in the backyard, upside down. We got an offer within a week. Today, I'm trying to finally put my divorce to bed, and in light of the tears that I cried over the disappointment of it all the other night, she said, quite simply, "go light a candle." So I'm sitting in my car, the taillights in front of me glowing red in the reflection of heavy rain drops, the sound of the wiper blades cutting through Madonna's Hard Candy news report and reading my horoscope on my phone, which had the ominous advice to not let myself be 'emotionally blackmailed.' I never like horoscopes that have good advice but imply that something will happen that requires the advice. Ugh. Will someone try and emotionally blackmail me today? That sounds fun.

What would Madonna do?

I am a very spiritual woman. I was raised Catholic, my mother even taught my Catechism classes (!), and I love that I share this cultural background with 1.1 billion other souls on the planet. Ok, ok, let's be honest, it's the most culture a white girl from a small'ish agricultural community in the Pacific Northwest is ever going to achieve (well, technically I have a Jewish step-family with a Japanese sister-in-law, and I'm twelve and a half percent Cherokee, but that is definitely another blog entry...stop laughing, you know who you are).

I love that you can go to a Catholic church in a different city and the mass is still essentially the same. I believe in the meditative quality of the rituals and I absolutely believe in God. I believe in the concept of worship and the intellectual study of religion and faith. I was raised a Jesuit, which is anchored in the aforementioned concept of social justice, as well as humility. I am decidedly not the most humble person I know, but I do try and I whole-heartedly believe in the Big Idea of humility as it plays out in and around our lives. Therefore, I am not interested in tackling the issue of priests and celibacy, but I strongly respect the notion that they have humbly reduced their lives to the very simplest of devotion, and thus, this is a person that I am comfortable talking to me about God. I believe in a lifelong investment in your own spirituality, which for me means it's highly personal, grounded in the humility of accepting what we don't know, and working hard to have faith. I am on the farthest end of evangelism as you can get. So much so, that I would venture to say that most of my friends do not know how spiritual I really am. That being said, I am always interested in discussing faith, religion or spirituality, but I often listen more than I contribute.

I'm a fan of both Madonnas, having grown up with both of them, but the modern day holder of the moniker had me thinking this morning. About disappointment, about reinvention, about survival. For as incredibly strong as she is, I bet she's been emotionally blackmailed a time or two, but she survived and thrived. So did the original Madonna. Both of them are survivors and both of them reinvented themselves. Mary went from being Joseph's wife to, well, you know the rest of her story and Madonna Ciccone went from being Madonna Ciccone to, well...Madonna. How dare I compare the virgin mother of Jesus to an oversexed single mother, you ask?...humility. I think you do the best you can and I think the Virgin Mary would agree with that.

This morning, the sanctuary was totally empty and very dim. The candles previously lit by other visitors were peacefully flickering in the corner. I stood there for a minute and let the magnitude of the quiet settle over me. I've been meaning to come here and have a talk with God. I wanted to reconcile the disappointment — mano y mano. In that cavernous, dim, empty, beautiful sanctuary, I lit candles for my daughter, for a friend of mine with a child my daughter's age who had a brain aneurysm a few weeks ago, for my friend who is beating ovarian cancer, and one for those struggling with or enduring a loss of any kind, then I sat down in a pew and prayed. Prayers of gratefulness, guidance and reconciliation. I am doing the best I can and whatever drives the Madonnas' resolve and reinvention maybe we will never know, but I'm inspired by it and if someone has the audacity to emotionally blackmail me today—bring it...I'm channeling "Like a Virgin."

pumpkin spice and all things nice.

In some ways, I am still 10 years old wanting to make cookies just so I can lick the beaters. My stomach hurts and I am sure I gained about 2 pounds tonight from doing just such a thing. I was never known to be a good cook. Together with my closest friends from college, we started a dinner club about twelve years ago. For at least six of those years, my contribution was bread, store bought, not kidding. For the longest time, I was the only woman with a child, so I used that as my crutch. To be honest, I don't think anyone, including me, had faith that I could contribute anything that was homemade and edible. Although I think they will cringe when I say this (even though we all know it's true), not unlike a lot of mid-to-late twenty-somethings, we went through a phase where we were trying to impress each other with our culinary skills. There was a whole incident involving boxed brownies that, as the "Bread-Bringer," I found highly humorous. Somehow they knew I couldn't take the heat in the kitchen, pun intended, so they let me out. I was always the butt of the dinner club jokes, but that was ok. I thought they were right.

By that point, we had been friends for years and they knew that I was the girl who went through my entire childhood without ever having eaten a mushroom. My favorite "foods" were white bread and 7-Up. I never, ever recommended a restaurant, and I certainly never ordered something that we all would share. I never once had a dinner party where others didn't contribute the bulk of the food. I categorized foods that I liked and disliked by texture - avocados, out, melba toast, in - and I still to this day don't like mustard or mayonnaise. I also didn't like warm fruit or banana flavored anything, but I did like bananas, although I preferred them to be more green, less ripe. As you can tell, even to date me was a total nightmare because I ordered like Sally in "When Harry Met Sally," minus the fake orgasm scene, which might have helped my case. Nevertheless, I was a food disaster, I know. One of my best friends has a long-standing joke claiming that I never shared my food either. She attributes that to me being an only child, but in reality I think it's because I just didn't like ANYTHING so I was afraid if someone ate my food, the only thing I liked, I would starve. This, coming from a college kid who easily gained the freshman 15 by regularly ordering late-night pizzas that I could down all by myself if need be. Hardly starving.

So I didn't have the best track record of eating, or ordering, or cooking, or sharing good food. When my daughter began eating solid foods, I was in Heaven because it was easy food - no sauces, no spices, everything was simple and separate. Cool. Then as she got older and her palate matured, I reluctantly started to cook.

This is the point in the story when a beam of light starts to grow from behind this computer and a choir starts singing.

I can cook! This was, quite simply, a revelation. I went from stretching myself to pour a 7-Up, to cooking an entire sit-down filet and roasted vegetable dinner with plated crab and pomegranate endive salad for twelve. Hallelujah! Where had this talent been hiding? Cooking, I have found, is creative. It's an art. Timing, intuition, creativity, orchestration and technique. And all of my skill is genetic, there's just no other explanation for it. My mother is an amazing cook. She is the oldest of six and literally churned butter on the farm where she grew up. Sadly, I didn't know what a good cook she was until after she started to cook for my stepfamily, a family of three boys and my stepfather. It was a decidedly tough crowd having raised me prior to that with my dad who loved his pork chops, tomato slice and Ore-Ida fries on Saturday nights. Finally she had some serious mouths to feed and I was blown away. So by the time I started to cook for my daughter, I just tapped into those genes and the "Bread-Bringer" was transformed.

I made my first Thanksgiving turkey last year and I still have a long way to go in terms of planning the nightly meal, but discovering that I can cook opened up this whole world of good food for me. Today, there are very few things I won't try at least once, and I now have an incredible respect for cooks and chefs of all caliber, including my dinner club friends who are amazing cooks and I now know how to appreciate their talent properly. I have picked and recommended restaurants and my palate has matured right along with my daughter's, who incidentally tried escargot and caviar before she was even ten years old. I now have even more respect for my mother's talent and as usual, am humbly grateful that she is passing along everything she knows. I have learned to love food and to love to cook.

Today I have the confidence to be a rather good baker and of course, cookies are high on the repeat-offender list. I like to experiment with recipes and a couple of years ago, my daughter and I started making our own Halloween shaped sugar cookies that taste like pumpkin pie - a seasonal favorite of hers. This year I added a maple glaze to our concoction and since it seems fitting to share a recipe for this blog entry, here it is (below). Give them a whirl and if you don't like them...keep it to yourself. Fragile chef-ego over here, still in development. (Wink)

(Side note - the last time I publicly shared a recipe, I was in junior high and I had a lead in a local production of the musical, "Babes in Toyland." As a result, the local newspaper featured me, in my costume, as a 'Guest Chef' and they printed my picture with one of my own recipes. Of course, I didn't have any, so on the advice of my now stepfather, I modified a traditional Rice Krispie treat recipe to make it more seasonal - peppermint Rice Krispie treats! Brilliant. Only...I never actually made them. Turns out, when you crush up the peppermint and then stir it into the hot marshmallow mix, the candy melts, only to turn as hard as a rock when it cools down again. If anyone actually made my published recipe, they could use the squares as doorstops. Dozens of years later, when I could actually cook, I just added peppermint oil and, well...sometimes success comes later in life.)

Pumpkin Spice Rolled Sugar Cookies

by...Dot & Dot.

Whisk together and set aside:

3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*

Beat on medium speed until fluffy and well-blended:

2-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

Add and beat until well-combined:

1 large egg

1 tablespoon of milk

2-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

*That's the "I'm in a hurry" method, which is my preferred route, however if you want to go all-in, substitute 1 cup packed light brown sugar for the sugar and add 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice and 1/8 of a teaspoon of ground cloves to the flour mixture.

Combine the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mixture in three parts, mixing each until well-blended and smooth. Divide the dough in half. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut with Halloween shapes.

Position rack in center of oven. Bake at 375 for 6-9 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

While the first set of cookies are baking, make the glaze.

Maple Glaze:

1-1/4 cups confectioners' (powdered sugar)

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine all the ingredients until smooth.

Set up a cooling rack with a paper town underneath to catch drippings. When the cookies come out of the oven, transfer them to the cooling rack and immediately brush the glaze onto the cookies while still warm. Sprinkle with clear decorator's sugar before the glaze hardens.

Happy Halloween and happy cooking! Oh and if you need a doorstop, here's that recipe:

love, love.

A friend of mine's daughter started Kindergarten last month. A big transitional time for any kid, any family, and so far their transition has had the relative ups and downs that are to be expected. More ups than downs, but regardless, he started adding a little bit of predictable fun into the morning routine whereby they run around the playground together for a few minutes before he kisses her goodbye at the classroom door. Occasionally the fun also includes a bit of a race and of course, my friend lets his daughter win. Just the other day, however, she looked up at him after the race and said, "next time let's hold hands so that it will be a tie." Insert audible, heart-warming sigh.

What she said struck a chord with me. First off, I love the demonstration of compassion and desire to include her dad in the win, and secondly, let's be honest - that's damn smart for a five year old to come up with the idea that holding hands would be the perfect strategy to prevent one person from winning, which means you would tie, which means the fun will be fair. I like this little strategic, yet compassionate thinker. I like strong-willed girls who have ideas. Bravo! Ever since my friend told me the story, I also can't shake the analogy of it. The idea that when you love someone, you don't always want to win, that sometimes you'd rather hold hands and tie.

I'm a tennis player. Tennis is a sport that goes in and out of fashion and currently it's back on the rise, which honestly I have mixed feelings about. When a sport like tennis (that requires very specific playing surfaces, weather protection and equipment) gains in popularity, there is an increased demand for courts and time, and this can ace out people who maybe can't afford it or who don't have the time or wherewithal to navigate the complicated lottery systems, waiting lists, etc. I am not naive, I know how tennis is perceived in many circles, but it drives me crazy when it is considered to be a "rich kid's sport." I grew up classically middle class in a small town. We could not afford the local private tennis club, so I learned how to play tennis from this quirky, energetic and talented young guy who offered lessons out of a converted apple warehouse. It. Was. Awesome. I loved it! In order to get on the (one) court, you had to hit a ball up against the smooth concrete wall 100 times with only one bounce, or you had to start over until you did. That was only the start of the crazy, competitive drills we feverishly endured, and we genuinely loved it. He put us into regional tournaments and these scrappy kids that came out of the warehouse typically fared pretty well. In the summers we moved to the public courts by the community college and came home sunburned and sweating, with iced towels around our necks. He really believed in competitive play. He believed that we would learn more about how to win by playing as many matches as possible, reminding us that all the technique in the world couldn't give you a "W" without strategy, experience and mental toughness. He drilled into us that each match is like a new start: Love, Love. Each time we stepped on the court, it was anybody's game.

Over the years I've had some memorable moments on the court. I had a drag-out 2-1/2 hour match where I ran to the back fence, jumped up to reach the ball with my racket, and proceeded to slide down the hard grey cyclone with my face as the buffer. I once played a Japanese duo that didn't speak any English, but grunted "YUH" every time we served. Yep, when we served, not them. I totally McEnroe'd it one time when my ex slammed an overhead into my shoulder — surprised we didn't get divorced right then. Conversely, in another match, I hit my partner in the back of the head on a serve, which required her to get an MRI. Thankfully not until after our win. I lost a mixed doubles match to a guy who used a wooden racket...no, not in 1978, in 2008. I've played with a sprained ankle, a sprained knee, a sprained wrist, one contact missing, a bloody toe, blisters, overused muscles and even a plantar's wart right in the middle of the ball of my foot. That required about six Advil for the pre-game warm up. I nearly always have at least one intentional racket drop per match - just for self-deprecating, bad-shot comedy - and I'm known for the basketball-esque bum pat after a quick strategy talk with my partner. I played a singles match on Court One against a girl about 15 years younger than me and endured her family cheering at every winner, which was nearly every point because she was creaming me. And one time in a tournament, I was losing badly and a girl who was a much better tennis player, yet my peer, kept mouthing to me "popcorn feet, popcorn feet!" which is the grade-school term for "keep moving." Humiliating and ultimately...didn't work.

I've had dozens of razor-thin wins and losses, great excitements and frustrations, gallons of Gatorade and beer, varied partners, courts, clubs and coaches and it continues to be one of my passions. I still play competitive tennis today. I'm a marginally above-average player with a decent record and I'm known to play hard, develop solid on-the-spot strategies, talk a lot of self-promoting and deprecating smack, all while scrapping my way through some solid match-ups. Sounds just about like my personality summed up in one sentence. I am often an evangelist of the sport - wanting to win, but loving the camaraderie of the sport and still glowing even after a loss. The things that I learned in that drafty apple warehouse are still true today and of course the ideals spill over into my personal and professional life. That's what happens when you invest in anything in your life, right? I feel lucky and grateful that my mother sought out that coach so long ago and it's no wonder that I can still smell the faint scent of fresh-picked apples when I walk on a court.

Tennis aside, we are a competitive society. I'm of a competitive generation and I'm also the product of the 1970's/80's ideal, "women can do anything." I am admittedly competitive with myself, wanting to always have that internal voice (and let's face it, my mother) say that no matter the outcome, I did my best. That I came onto the court highly optimistic with grounded confidence — Love, Love.

So what I love about the story of my friend and his daughter is that I think it can be a hard thing to balance a strong, competitive, confident spirit with compassion and empathy. With the willingness to try hard and develop skills, but also love the game and want to invite others to join the fun. That there is much to be gained just for showing up. And life is the sum total of all of our experiences, right? No doubt my friend's daughter will play sports, or be in the school play, or enter an art contest, so the opportunity to continue to develop these skills will continue throughout her life, but how fantastic that they exist for her today? So I applaud my friend for doing what many of us forget to do - stop, take the extra ten minutes and be present for our kids in a predictable and meaningful way that is clearly giving her an opportunity to demonstrate the complexities of her developing personality. It means something. And in turn, his daughter is learning more than just that her dad loves her, or to outrun him, she's learning that it's great fun to see him with her at the finish line. And all before the bell even rings...love, love.

Oh and by the way, my daughter is learning to play tennis in a converted airplane hangar.

happy anniversary.

Today was my 14th wedding anniversary and Sunday is my 38th birthday. The last time I celebrated my birthday as a single woman, I was 23 years old (technically, I was 22 because I met my ex shortly after my 22nd birthday). Yep, that makes my jaw drop too...all the way to the ground. No longer (quite) that young woman, I will be celebrating this milestone birthday with my best girlfriends this weekend, and when telling the plan to another friend of mine (male), he laughed, saying we were cleverly disguising a divorce party behind a birthday and he's sure it will likely turn out more like a bachelorette party. (Which in our case is more of the "dance party" variety rather than the male-models-jumping-out-of-the-cake variety, just to be clear.) Of course, if that were the case, this time I am being sent out of marriage rather than into it and therefore, there are some mixed emotions. It's nearly the perfect scenario in which to use the word, 'bittersweet.'

My wedding anniversary and my birthday have fallen in the same week for all of my adult life, so it shouldn't have come as any surprise that these two milestones would once again butt up against each other this year, but honestly?...I nearly forgot. And I definitely didn't appreciate the significance of the two events until today. Five days separating the last anniversary that I will officially be married and my first birthday on my own. Surreal. I had several friends pause in their day to send me encouraging messages, and of course my mother went above and beyond, leaving flowers on my desk before I even got into the office, and I was once again finding myself grateful and humbled by their affection. But what does it all mean, all of this emotion? To say goodbye to a significant part of your life and turn around and celebrate all that remains, and all that is still ahead? What an odd paradox, but I'm also finding it oddly comforting to address both things back-to-back.

I watched a movie recently that was set in India and there was some brief discussion about Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Destruction. If you've ever seen her, she can be deemed as a fairly disturbing image. In one hand she wields a macheté-type of sword that she uses to hack off the heads of men, many of which she has strewn around her neck in a form of gruesome garland. She is standing over a conquered soul and in general, she emanates terrifying power and strength, with blood dripping from her sword. I started reading and then thinking about Maa Kali and the idea that maybe sometimes we have to endure the destruction of something to make room for something new—a better way, a more enlightened path. Like how a forest fire ravages a hillside, but we also know it's a necessary cycle to life, to the re-birth and the very sustainability of the forest.

Maa Kali is indeed the Goddess of Destruction, but she is said to represent the death of the human ego, of all that is evil, false and phony. She is depicted with four arms, two of which she is using for this great battle, and two to bless her devotees. She is seen as a mother figure and is one of the few goddesses that never married and renounced all worldly pleasures. It's said that those who look upon her image and tremble, do so because they are egotistical and attached to worldly pleasures. If you find the sweetness and compassion in her image, you can be released from your ego and can more easily reach spiritual enlightenment. But who among us divorces ourselves from our ego and worldly pleasures that easily? Exactly. Thus enters Maa Kali.

I know what has been destroyed in my life to make room for the change that is needed. Change in myself, change in my life. Some of it painful, as a proper 'destruction' promises (insert tongue-in-cheek emoticon), but not without the awakening that is inevitable from such a drumming. And this idea of Maa Kali battling it out to bring forth a better path translates to everything I can think of in the human experience - nature, death, society, science, the economy. This is a universal idea, but ironically such a tough, tough thing to accept. We fight fires, we fight death, we build stronger sea walls and bail out banks. Trust me, I'm not suggesting that we stop doing any of those things, and I'm not even pretending like I understand what we should and shouldn't fight for, but I do find the concept of accepting destruction as a means to a better thing as illuminating. Think of the incredible ingenuity that often comes from destruction, like houses being built above the high-water mark that are affordable and easier on the environment, and a return to the power of the small business operator, after the fall of large national companies, on who's backs we are re-building our economy, just to name two from recent memory.

Don't we learn more from our failures than our successes? Don't poignant, beautiful things often develop from the ashes of destruction?

I remember exactly one year ago sitting at an incredibly over-priced restaurant, arguing with my ex and eventually crying at the table on what was then, our 13th anniversary. But all couples fight. Someone ends up crying some of the time, right? I don't think that meant we were destined for failure, but it is interesting to fast-forward one year and to be sitting here at midnight, penning a blog entry about destruction. Choosing it, enduring it, accepting it and letting it unearth a new path.

I have no plans to celebrate the end of my marriage, that would be totally disingenuous to who I am as a person and what I really believe about marriage and my marriage in particular, so I am honoring today's milestone with humility and appreciation for the life in those years. For the good that it did bring, most especially our daughter. And in five days I will celebrate my birthday and be truly grateful for all the years of my life, including how good I feel today and how optimistic I feel about what is to come. That, I am comfortable celebrating and honestly, I can't wait. Maybe it would be fitting if I were to buy myself a Maa Kali statue and have THAT come out of the cake?! That would be a destruction that would be utterly painless...my friends and I would devour that cake bite-by-bite, I am certain of it, and maybe I'm onto something...