http://maggiemayall.com/news.html Maggie Mayall: News Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:42:56 -0700 http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#22 Let's have some fun!
You only live once
And when you're dead, your done
So let the Good Times Roll!

Thank you, Louis Jordan.

Have started the New Year off with a bang. We were in Maui as the clock ticked down. John was sitting in with Mick Fleetwood and his band featuring old friend Rick Vito. It was a lot of fun. Alice Cooper was there and rocked us into the New Year. They treated us great at the Mala Restaurant in Wailea.

Last year, sadly, MadAsHellClub went defunct. It went dark. I was enjoying writing my monthly column called "The Tour Bus Is On Fire," about what it's like to live in my shoes--usually funny, sometimes messy, sometimes sad, sometimes kind of normal and sometimes weird. And I was enjoying reading what the other writers on the site were getting up to as well. Ah, well...While I try to figure out where to put my writing energy next, I think I will post some of the 35 essays I wrote so far here, on the News/Journal page.

John and I celebrated our 28th year of wedded bliss on Jan. 8. Yes, I know it's also Elvis' birthday, but we actually didn't pick the date for that reason, it just worked out that way. Actually, I have an essay about it called "The Ice Storm," the title of which is a clue to how our wedding date came to be changed to Jan. 8. Anyway, this year we celebrated with some friends at Cozy's Bar and Grill in Sherman Oaks, listening to John's former guitar player Coco Montoya. John sat in, which was planned. Just as I was thinking Coco was going to have a hard time getting John off the stage, Coco called ME up! Boy that was a surprise! I was quite flustered at first. I could use at least 5 minutes warning. But in the end, professional that I am, I think I pulled it off with some semblance of sanity.

But Coco was awesome. We stayed and enjoyed ourselves as just plain ol' audience members for the 2nd set. His performance was actually mind-blowing.

Anyway, welcome to whoever out there reads this. Can't promise how much I'll be filling you in. Keep checking.

And Let the Good Times Roll for 2010!

love, peace and serenity,
Maggie]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#22 Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#19 by Maggie Mayall

The Bluesman and I were planning to renew our vows in January to commemorate our 25th wedding anniversary. It sounded so romantic.

I thought it would be meaningful to restate our vows and our love for each other—and to celebrate the weathering of storms. It feels like we’ve become different people since January 8, 1982. Wouldn’t anybody be after all that time? We’ve both changed a lot, apart from the usual signs of aging, and we’re still together. So I booked a minister (my yoga teacher) for a non-denominational ceremony, reserved a small chapel, ordered a cake, bought some decorations and invited a small group of friends and family.

We still have the bride and groom ornament that graced our first wedding cake and I planned to use it again. A patina had formed over the happy couple. Dust, soot and even some cobwebs had accumulated on them. I decided to leave it as-is, as a metaphor of our survival.

We were married at the Registry Office, in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, on a cold January morning during an ice storm. It had rained the night before, turning to sleet and then ice. On our wedding morning, the world looked like it was made of crystal. It was beautiful but treacherous, kind of like a long-term relationship. A handful of important folks that made it to the wedding had just missed the railroad, airport and road closures. John’s eldest son Gaz and John’s mentor, Alexis Korner, came up from London with his wife Bobbie. My mother and my Aunt got there all the way from Chicago.

For safety reasons, we hired a bus to take our party to the Registry Office and then on to Sportsman’s Arms, a 17th Century coaching house in the small English village of Pately Bridge in the North Yorkshire countryside. While the storm raged, we ate and toasted and celebrated around a cozy fire and cut the cake, starting our new chapter as husband and wife— he, the dashing English Bluesman; me, his wispy American backup singer. It was a magical night.

Twenty-five years later, as we prepared to celebrate our silver anniversary, the ice storm returned.

First, it snowed.

It was a beautiful but unsettling sight. I’ve lived in California since 1979 and I don’t remember anything like this: big globs of slushy snow falling like heavy mud coming through a giant sieve. The snowstorm went on for more than 30 minutes and stuck. The back lawn, the outdoor barbeque and the patio furniture looked as if it had been slimed.

The next morning, this odd reminder of our global warming climate change had passed. The sun was out, the air felt warm, back to the normal 70° California winter’s day, so I thought.

Stepping outside on a warm, sunny January morning in Southern California, I did not expect to slip on ice.

Me, a Chicago girl—having grown up with snow days, with mittens, earmuffs, shoveling driveways and scraping windshields at dawn—did not expect ice on my back patio by the pool in California.

And so down I went, right onto a brick planter, fracturing and displacing my 10th left anterior rib.

We’ve postponed our ceremony as I convalesce, unable to drive, garden, cook, sing or even type. I’ve had to be completely dependant on him, which is awkward for us both. But this has given me time to reflect.

We don’t need that ceremony to re-declare our vows. Renewal exists each time my Bluesman picks up the kid at school and chauffeurs me to the doctor. When he attempts the shopping or the dishes and I bite my tongue. Our intentions and commitment are reaffirmed in the day-to-day minutiae, especially when it’s unromantic—when I’m feeling unattractive and humorless, but make the effort anyway.

For a quarter century, time and again, we’ve weathered plenty—births, deaths, success, mistakes, sadness and joy. There have been good and bad tours, creative bursts and draughts, parenthood trials, road closures, fires, earthquakes and, yes, ice storms. We just carry on, through laughter and tears, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better or for worse.

And I can thank the ice storm for reminding me that we are blessed.

©Maggie Mayall (Originally posted in 2007)]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#19 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#20 by Maggie Mayall

We decided to stay home for the holidays this year. In years past, we’ve braved the holiday travel season for ski trips and snorkeling trips, battling whatever travel nightmares came our way, coming home exhausted and needing a vacation from the vacation. I pulled my back out at Jackson Hole one Christmas and walked with a cane for the following January. Last year, our plane broke down on the way to Hawaii and we had to fly back to LAX with a smoking engine. We quickly deplaned and waited at gate 23A for a new plane, losing a whole paid-for day at an expensive resort.

So this year, we decided to play it safe. This year, we’d stay home and have a “Stay-cation.”

It was going to be great. We were going to relax and chill, get some serenity, keep it simple and small. Maybe save some money. Downsize. It sounded like a very sensible, practical plan.

About three weeks before Christmas, as we were sitting around smugly marveling at how unstressed we were because were weren’t making arrangements for a big trip, John and I started talking about the big cracks in the stucco on the outside of the house. Lil’ Dude had kicked out the wall when he was about five (could it be nine years ago already?), making a small 12-inch crack into about a 15-foot gorge. And the front door was sorely in need of attention. And the gate to the breezeway was hanging off. And we had skateboard gashes on the back doors. And the list went on, ad infinitum.

So we discussed: if we were going to have the house patched and painted, when should we do it? Rainy season was coming and then The Bluesman will go on the road in the springtime and I don’t want to be the sole supervisor on another big house project (see my October essay called “Ball Of Confusion”). So why not start the project now, while it’s dry and warm here in SoCal?

So, before I knew it, I was talking to Robert-the-painter who was so glad to hear from me in these tough economic times that he practically jumped through the phone and kissed me. His Christmas had arrived in a big package from The Mayalls. He started the next day.

You know that children’s story “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”?

My version would read something like this: If you give a mouse a Christmas cookie, she’s going to sit back and put her slippered feet up and notice the crack in the wall needs patching. If the crack in the wall needs patching, she’ll notice that the siding has to be replaced. If the siding gets replaced, she’s going to want to have the whole house patched and painted. When the painter comes, he’s going to ask, “What do you want to do about those bent and broken rain gutters?” If the man from Rain Away Gutters shows up, he’s going to say “I can remove the old ones, but we can’t put the new ones on until next Tuesday.” If he takes the old gutters away—not only will he break a light fixture, it will rain before next Tuesday. If it rains, Mrs. Mouse will need to ask Mr. Mouse to get on a ladder and put something temporary on the eaves to catch the rain and keep it from flooding the newly painted front door. Then Mrs. Mouse will realize she’s always wanted to replace the outside light fixtures anyway but shopping for light fixtures wasn’t on her holiday to-do list. And in the meantime, the weather turns un-California-esque cold and the painters have to take two weeks off until the sun comes out again—so they won’t be finished by Christmas. At this point, Mrs. Mouse needs a nap.

After waking from the nap, Robert-the-painter peers in the window again—because the sun has come back out—and asks, “Can we wash our paint brushes in the laundry room utility sink?” If she lets them wash out the paintbrushes in the utility sink, the paint water will back up into the guest bath on the other side of the wall. If the paint water backs up on the other side of the wall, she’s going to have to call a plumber.

And if she has to call the plumber, well, please don’t give that mouse a cookie again.

Happy New Year.

©Maggie Mayall (Originally posted in 2009)]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#20 Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#21 By Maggie Mayall

John and are not “cruise people.” We both hate big crowds. We once smugly made fun of the way cruise ships look as we lolled on the beach in Hawaii, also noting how they are not natural or ecologically responsible. And he gets seasick. And I get claustrophobic.

But last year, we took a cruise to Mexico and actually had fun. Our travel agent just about had a heart attack.

So this year, I booked us on a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska.

We set sail out of Vancouver harbor, on a beautiful sunny Saturday, wind in our faces. The scenery was beautiful, and the kids—we brought Sammy, 14, and his friend Eric—immediately disappeared with the teen club, thank you Royal Caribbean. We took pictures of each other on the deck at the bow. See? I know my boat talk! Later we had a romantic dinner at the table that was reserved for us for the week, a perfect spot in the back with our own window.

Our second day at sea, there was still not much sign of the kids, though they occasionally answered our walkie-talkie calls, so we knew they hadn’t gone overboard.

We explored the ship. Waiters hawked Mai-Tais in a party atmosphere with Caribbean music, which seemed a little odd considering we were in Canada in sweaters.

Then we discovered the indoor pool—now we’re talking—called “The Solarium,” a take on a Thai-Cambodian-ancient-ruins jungle motif. Two giant gold elephant heads flanked the rope bridge across the pool, stone Buddha heads spouting water, with fake potted plants and ivy framing the sky-lit ceiling. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in “Apocolypse Now” when Martin Sheen finally gets to where Marlon Brando is holed up, only as if Disney came in and waved a magic wand. It was very opulent and relaxing, with recorded birds twittering, and no kids were allowed before 3 PM. I had my Kindle, John had his books, and we just chilled. Then we had lunch on the stern, watching the wake fan out behind us. Ah, bliss.

We convinced the boys to join us for dinner for “dress up” night. I wore my new dress and John wore a sport coat and we got corny photos taken: the photographer made John and I hold hands in an unnatural way and put our cheeks together. The boys took a goofy photo with their backs together, arms folded. Then they disappeared again ”˜til 1 AM.

Day Three: We stopped in Icy Straight Point, dropping anchor—now this is Alaska, baby—whales feeding on krill in the little bay outside the fishing village of Hoonah. We took a bike ride around the village with a local native Alaskan guide, in the misty rain. I saw 2 bald eagles just sitting on a post. Awesome.

They try to sell you things on board, to keep those “extras” mounting up on your room bill. On deck, while we were marveling at glaciers and icebergs, they were out there hawking alcoholic hot chocolate. Maybe it was to warm you up after the Mai-Tais earlier? They also try to sell you stuff that you would never consider buying on land, like: who decides to buy diamonds on a cruise? How about “Art” auctions of paintings that are either very good reproductions and prints or the famous (groan) Thomas Kincaid line? Skip that.

I did work out in the “Ship Shape Center” once. There were two bald Austrian guys giving a lecture on their special: “The Body Composition Analysis Package” with a fat percentage assessment and green algae supplements to “lose more fat, increase metabolism, reduce water retention and boost your energy!” Wow. That’s a lot to promise. A $200 value for $150! On my way out, they remind mind me of the teeth whitening and “Mesothermia to reduce cellulite.” Put me down for that and then direct me to the feeding trough in the cafeteria.

Just kidding!

The entertainment in the Tropical Theatre was surprisingly good. I’m hoping one singer, named Sarah, will go on American Idol and win it all.

We took a helicopter ride to Mendenhall Glacier, where we walked around (carefully) and tasted the glacier water that flows in bright blue rivulets on a surreal frozen moonscape.

So we basically did our own thing and I got me some glacier action. And he never got seasick and I never got claustrophobic.

And maybe our hybrid cars will offset the carbon footprint.

©Maggie Mayall]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#21 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#18 By Maggie Mayall

I have a confession to make: I don’t go to rock concerts. Even though I’m married to a “Blues Legend” and I spent over 20 years of my life belting it out onstage myself, sitting in the audience with throngs of people is not my cup of tea.

I have several reasons: First, I don’t like to be around pot smoke, which is a given at almost any show in our culture. I make no judgment about other people in this matter; I just don’t want to be around it. It’s different with drinkers. They can drink all they want around me and it doesn’t affect me—I DON’T HAVE TO INHALE IT! Second, after spending so many years on the other side, it’s hard to sit out in the audience, period. Standing onstage (or in the wings) is so much more fun. Sorry.

I’m just a grizzled refugee from the road wars.

My kids have grown up with “the road” as part of their vocabulary. Our older one, Zak, was definitely a road warrior as a kid, as we went on tour with John a lot. It was easier with one child, then, when I was younger. I remember his pre-school teacher complaining that he knew more about how to set up a guitar rig than his ABC’s.

Even so, Big Teenage Dude (Sammy) has been complaining that he never gets to go to a concert of HIS music. I guess growing up around his father’s music doesn’t count.

The boy’s taste has evolved from that hip-hop from a couple of years back, thank God, and we’ve switched to the local rock station, KROQ, which we listen to whenever we’re in the car, which is a lot. I’m sure there are some die-hard John Mayall fans out there who would be interested to see this family car scenario: The Bluesman and his family bobbing their heads in unison to Offspring, Linkin Park and White Lies. You gotta go with the flow, man. But I digress.

The last big discussion/argument we had with Big Teenage Dude on the rock concert “issue” was about why I am not willing to take him to the Coachella Festival, a 3-day music extravaganza out in the desert here in California. Not that there weren’t some acts I’d love to see—but three days in the desert? With a lot of drunken, stoned people? Camping? $5 bottles of water and crappy food that’s not on my diet? Long lines for port-a-potties? It hurts just to think about it.

I also added that if he applied himself to his schoolwork as much as he obsessed about going to a rock festival”¦ad nauseum. Is there a “nagging mother” gene that kicks in when your kid reaches adolescence?

Well, a couple of weeks ago, while listening to KROQ to-and-from school and to-and-from the baseball field, the kid became “Caller Number 20” and won two tickets to the KROQ Weenie Roast Concert.

So Big Teenage Dude took his jaded former road-warrior mother to HIS rock concert last week, finally getting what he wished for (and me thanking God it was just a one-day event).

We had to be late, because he promised to play the first half of a 12 PM baseball game, hitting two homeruns before leaving. Also, at the last minute I called in a favor and we picked up some VIP passes from Universal Music in Santa Monica (which helped us jump the 2-block line at the gate). On the way, smartass that I am, I told Sammy not to worry about being late. I know how these things go, because I’m such an old pro, don’t you know. “30-minute sets are way too ambitious. There’s no way it’ll be on time.” Only to discover that they had a rotating stage and everything was run to-the-minute and on-schedule.

“Hah! You were wrong, mom.”

I’m happy to say it was a really great show, well produced, with some great musicianship and performances. So, I rocked out with my teenage son that day and into the night—a new era of bonding experience—singing along to all the tunes I’ll have imprinted into my brain forever (because KROQ has about 40 tunes in constant rotation). I think I surprised him—and myself.

Airborne Toxic Event, Silversun Pickups, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kings of Leon, Weezer...

And I wore a bandana to put over my face when the guy next to me inevitably lit up a joint.

But I danced my ass off.

©2009 Maggie Mayall]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#18 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#17 By Maggie Mayall

Oh, the men in my life are such marathon-ers. My husband John is on the road for a marathon tour, making me a road widow again. I try to help him keep it together, but it’s hard. Last weekend he played the New Orleans Jazz Festival and the Memphis Beale Street Festival, and he forgot to pack his trousers. He had to wear his tour manager’s trousers on stage rather than his travel shorts. Thank God they’re the same waist size! Maybe that should be a job requirement for all tour managers from now on: they must wear the same size trousers as the boss.

I sent him to go buy some more trousers so that he’s sure not to run out on his 4-week run of German one-nighters with no days off. He came home with hip, sexy jeans so now I have a new requirement for the road manager: keep all those aging hippie chicks away from my man!

A Betty Everett lyric from the 60’s: “Take your hands off of him, he don’t belong to you”¦. He’s mine all mine, no matter what you do.”

So me and the big teenage dude will stay home and have marathons of our own: school runs, baseball, homework, baseball, baseball and more baseball until the season runs out. Then it’ll be football (American), to get ready for high school (yes, the school he interviewed for WITHOUT the tie).

They played a 15-inning game the other day. That’s a record at our league. It lasted 4 ½ hours. I was the official scorekeeper, as we were home team. Go Dodgers. By the 10th inning I was seeing double from looking through the chain link fence window up in my booth and filling in little boxes with my .5 mm mechanical pencil. Me and the visiting team mom were getting a bit slaphappy up there. Whitey, the field umpire, a guy who works a lot of our games, who’s as old as dirt and who’s been umpiring around these parts for probably 30 years, says he’s never worked a game that long, even high school games. He said the longest running game he’s ever worked before was 13-innings.

I Googled: “What was the longest running youth baseball game?” Answer: 1975—A game played between San Lorenzo High school and Hayward High school, went 25 innings spread over 2 days. Wow, that’s one long game. Who won? I guess by that time it didn’t matter. Everybody just wanted to go home.

Sounds a bit more like a game of Cricket.

Back to our game: It was ugly. The two teams tied 7-7 in the 6th inning, so it went scoreless for 9 more grueling innings. Batters were being picked off one by one. Pitchers were dropping like flies. Nobody was giving in. There were injuries, even tears at one point, but nobody conceded. Ice packs were delivered to the dugouts. One mom whipped out a tube “Icy Hot” from the bottom of her purse and the boys manned-up and carried on.

We ran out of room on our scorebook pages. The official scorebook only has 9 innings, so we started a second page. The scoreboard only has room for one digit on the innings, so inning 10 was a zero, eleven was a one, and on and on. And on. And on.

At the bottom of 15th, with two outs, Sammy hit a clean single and got on base, taunting the pitcher with a steal to second. The next batter came up and hit into shallow left and Sammy took off. The left fielder fumbled it, so the shortstop picked it up and threw it to the catcher, who was crowding the plate just as Sammy was running to home. Sammy got down for a nasty headfirst slide, knocking the catcher up into the air, barely getting his middle finger to touch the plate while the catcher came down on him with the ball.

There was a moment of silence. The red dust flew, and, through the cloud, the umpire stuck his right hand out, fist clenched. For a second there, it looked like that elbow was going to bend, which would mean starting the 16th. But, as the dust was settling, the umpire’s left arm also came straight out, miraculously. He called him safe! 8-7. Game over.

Was he going to call him out but decided to just put us all out of our misery? I guess we’ll never know.

©2009 Maggie Mayall]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#17 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#16
On April 8th, I put some backup vocals on a couple of tracks for my husband's new album (as yet untitled). I've put some photos of both events up on my photo gallery page. Note: I've grown my hair out!

Don't forget about my monthly column at MadAsHellClub.net. This month was about losing 35 pounds and all the feelings that come up around that!]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#16 Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#14 by Maggie Mayall

John Mayall, my husband, and The Bluesbreakers (his band) were on the bill at the Long Beach Blues Festival over this past Labor Day weekend. John and I arrived early to take advantage of what was a stunning Saturday afternoon—hang out backstage and catch up with old and new friends. The Long Beach Blues Festival just celebrated its 29th year—almost as long as John and I have been together.

This year, the festival was held at Rainbow Lagoon Park. It was a beautiful place to hold the festival, although a little cramped on the grassy lawn and lagoon. Due to the limited space, the second stage was placed right next to the main stage. I wouldn’t like to appear on the second stage, because while the second stage was on, the bigger act on the main stage was setting up. The second stage had to compete with drummers, keyboard players, horn players and guitarists checking their sound.

But, other than that, it worked.

John and I arrived early enough to set up at the merchandise stand and sell CD’s. I brought my own CD’s to sell as well, since—lucky me—I was appearing as a guest artist with The Bluesbreakers. We laid out our wares and stood there for a while, but nothing happened. The music was grooving and people were walking past, smiling. But they weren’t stopping and buying.

Then I realized a lot of people didn’t recognize John, like as if they still expect to see John Mayall as the long-haired hippie of 1969, and as if thinking “Oh, there’s a good looking older gentleman with white hair over there.” As we were standing there baking in the late afternoon sun offering the chance of a lifetime for people to come and buy a CD from John Mayall himself and have him sign it personally on the spot, it occurred to me that a good marketing strategy was in order.

So I got out my marker, grabbed a concert poster, turned it over and made a sign: “John Mayall Right Here, IN PERSON!” With arrows. I took off my shoes and got up on the table and taped the sign to the awning of the merchandise tent. That got their attention. We sold out in a matter of minutes.

The sun went down and the band went on. They played great. The sound was fantastic, even from the side of the stage where I was sitting.

Then, at the end of “Congo Square,” John gave me a little introduction and called me up to the stage. Buddy Whittington jumped right in and counted off the funky chinka-chinka song I do called “Howlin’ At The Moon” and I shook my tambourine and sang, “Tonight is just another night—Howlin’ At The Moon!” It was an honor and a privilege to be backed by those guys. Joe Yuele and Hank Van Sickle make up one of the most solid rhythm sections in the blues world today. John soloed on keyboards and Buddy took a couple on the guitar. The crowd roared with approval. Then it was time for the John Mayall signature tune, “Room To Move,” and he asked me to stay and sing along. It was then that I made this little announcement to the audience, give or take a few words:

Thirty years ago on Labor Day weekend in 1978, when I stepped onto the stage of a big outdoor concert in Stone Lake, Wisconsin, I was a 24-year-old singer in guitarist Harvey Mandel’s Band. It was the biggest concert I had performed at so far (18,000 people). Rick Derringer, Luther Allison and an early version of Berlin were also on the bill for a big, campout party weekend in the beautiful woods of Northern Wisconsin. John Mayall did not bring a band—he was just “sitting in” and jamming with all the other bands. Onstage that afternoon, Harvey introduced John. With a drum roll. I raised my tambourine and shook it in salute. I thought he was coming stage left but instead he snuck up behind me on the right and I actually whacked him on the head with my tambourine.

That is the story of how we met.

So, on Saturday I gently gave John a 30-year commemorative tap on the head once again with my tambourine onstage. And, once again, Joe kicked off “Room To Move.” And we caught each other’s eyes.

And, once again, the spark was still there.

Unless it was the whack.

© Maggie Mayall (originally posted Sept. 2008)]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#14 Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#13 http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#13 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#11 by Maggie Mayall

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday. A lot of people will be taking their mothers out to brunch. That’s what we do around here in America. Cards are being sent, flowers are being arranged, commercials are playing for Mother’s Day Special Necklaces at the local malls and there are no games scheduled at my son’s baseball field.

They may or may not remember that I don’t wear necklaces. And I’m on my 1,473rd diet so don’t take me to a big buffet, thank you very much. And bring no chocolates to tempt me, either.

Last year, we took my mom out for her last Mother’s Day here on this planet. About two days before, I asked her what she wanted to wear for Mother’s Day. She told me “My red dress!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her she didn’t have a red dress, so I made a mad dash to the mall. It’s funny how when I have a specific thing to look for, I can’t find it. It was difficult to find a red dress that met our criteria—something easy to put on her frail frame that she could wear in a wheel chair. Oh, I found plenty of red dresses all right—dresses with buttons and waistbands and short hemlines and tight sleeves—nothing we could use. I walked from end to end of our huge neighborhood mall, east to west, north to south, in every store until my feet began to burn. I finally found a red dress in Sears, but it was about three sizes too big and way too long for her little body. I bought it anyway and took it home, dusted off my sewing machine, and went to work.

By Mother’s Day last year, I was getting very good at how to manage with my mother’s dementia. I’d learned that it was best if I gave her a heads-up only about two days before. She wouldn’t exactly remember it, but she might be a little prepared. The caregivers at her place would also gently remind her—not too much though, because she could get agitated and paranoid because she wouldn’t be able to comprehend too much information.

I arrived late morning on that day and she’d been bathed and her hair was fixed and one of the girls had painted her nails and put a little makeup on her. She didn’t quite know what was going on, so we kept it short. “Look, Mom, I brought your red dress!” She looked at it a little blankly, but said “Oh, that’s very nice”. We slipped it over her head. It was still way too big, but it had a tie in the back so we made it work. She looked lovely in the color.

By that time it had become a big deal for her to leave her board and care home. I learned that it was best to not take up too much time and keep the outing organized and short. She couldn’t really move or stand much anymore as if there was a short-circuit from her brain to her body, so it had become quite a chore to take her out—she was stiff dead weight to get in and out of the wheelchair and in and out of the car.

But we worked together as a family and it went smoothly. It was a gorgeous southern California spring day—the sky was breathtakingly blue like my mother’s eyes—and I knew that she was happy to be out.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants for Sunday Mother’s Day Brunch in the suburbs, just like thousands of families all across the country. It was noisy and she looked a little bewildered at times, but smiled lovingly at our boys and me and John. I let her take a few sips from the free champagne and she had her last eggs benedict—in her “favorite” red dress.

So, this Mother’s Day, my children will bring me trinkets, my husband will give me flowers, and we will go to a healthy place for lunch. And for the first time, I will not have my mother.

I kept that red dress. It reminds me of our last Mother’s Day together. And it’s a symbol of how I always was with my mother—she envisions a red dress and, by God, I’m going to try to make that red dress come true.

© Maggie Mayall]]> http://maggiemayall.com/news.html#11 Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700 The Official Maggie Mayall Website - Maggie Mayall - News