Dad & Cordelia

He took her from Susan and started walking her around the restaurant. The next time we saw him he was in the bar surrounded by a group of women. Turns out Cordelia is a chick magnet!

It's kind of sad because this is probably the closest he'll get to having another grandbaby. He actually caught himself saying "come to Grandpa" when he picked her up. Maybe he can be the 3rd grandpa...

Saturday

Saturday morning we got up and tried to take Sofie to the dog park. Sadly it was closed due to the wet weather (it's not a real dog park, just a school's fenced-in baseball field that is a dog park from dawn to 1pm on the weekends). We ended up driving down to the gravel-filled dog park that Sofie doesn't really like then over to work so she could be off-leash for a bit out behind the building. When leaving we decided to do a bit of exploring and went down to Castle Island and walked around the fort. A man fishing off the pier caught a huge fish while we watched and we met some good dogs. I hope to go back soon.

The husband and I then walked over to the Museum of Fine Arts, where an old man and his wife cut the line in front of us (and yes I did call them out on it). We bought the City Pass which would have been a better deal if we'd thought about it before we went to the aquarium, but it still saved us money. Anyway, we didn't pay extra for the special exhibits but the regular museum was enough. The ancient seals were just about the coolest things, very intricately carved.

After the MFA, we drove up to doggie day care and dropped Sofie off for the afternoon so we could do some shopping. We hit the cd shop, a bookstore, Trader Joe's, a Flag Day carnival and got lunch before picking her back up.

Saturday night we walked over to the Prudential and went up to the 50th floor to the Skywalk Observatory. I had wanted to go to the restaurant on the 52nd floor but heard it wasn't very good and since it was mostly about the view and not the food and since we had tickets from the City Pass, we did that. It was cloudy out but it didn't obscure the view of the city at all. It was just getting dark and was very pretty. It's always amazing to see what a small town Boston really is. I know the suburbs go on for quite a distance, but the city itself is compact.

We decided to get some dinner on the way home and stopped off at a restaurant we'd walked past several times. It was loud but the food was good - salt and pepper calamari and lobster mac and cheese.

My Brother's Pets

Scarlet the parrot

Carmen the dog

My Sister's Car

Maybe now she'll buy a new one that doesn't beep randomly...

My Mom

I am up way too late considering I have a 5:30am flight but it's been hard to part company with my mom. I've known for a while she wouldn't be around long but since Ma died, I've been feeling it even more. My mom is going to be 85 in August and I still don't think I know her that well. I'm glad she has seen me succeed in my career, but I regret that she'll never see one of her daughters have a baby. There's a lot going through my head right now and I thought writing it down would help, but it's just making me want to cry. So I'll call it done and hope that I have enough time to learn who my mother really is.

Barbara Elizabeth Lomonaco

Ma passed away this morning around 6am. She got to meet her granddaughter and had her family around her.

I last saw her in person in March when she was in the hospital. She looked pretty good but we didn't get to talk like we both had hoped. I'll never know for sure what she wanted to talk about but I know I said what I wanted to say.

We Skyped in April after Cordelia was born and I was visiting and helping out. It felt like old times.

Ma always seemed to be about style, but she had the substance to back it up. If you got to hang out with her it always shone through.

Apparently I'm going to be responsible for helping to tell Cordelia about her Grandma Barb and making sure she knows about all the stupid things her mom did growing up.

I think I'm also going to take on the responsibility of buying Cordelia all the super-girly things Grandma Barb would have bought her. It may even be fun.

I'll miss you, Ma. I'm glad I knew you and I'm sorry you had to go so soon. I've had the privilege of having 3 moms in my life and now I've lost 2, both to ovarian cancer. I don't know what else to say. It's just not fair, which sounds childish, but it's not fair.