Before and After

I have just dug up and dusted off pictures from my Lydiaohlydia archive just in time for Valentine’s Day. Here is me and my boyfriend Dave 12 years ago at a friend’s wedding. This is how we looked before marriage, a house, kids, and a dog. We look so young and care free. Then a picture of us a few months ago. Look how haggard we look.  What the heck have the kids done to us? Okay Dave is still a  little sex kitten. Infact he has gone from being foxy to being a silver fox. He gets better looking as he ages. I see all of the women ogling. Sorry girls, he only has eyes for me. Ok and he has no idea that you are flirting. Enough about him. What have the kid's done to me?

I would like to wish my silver foxy sweet a happy and early Valentine's Day. Thank you for letting me put our life under a magnifying glass for all to see.

Me Myself and Martyrdom

Valentine’s Day is a few days away and I am not feeling very Valentineous. I am feeling overwhelmed frustrated and battle scarred. My life with my beloved family is a constant roller coaster. A roller coaster that feels like it has broken tracks and not seat belts. I am terribly worried about each member of our clan, Alice and her tantrums, Dylan and his drama, Dave and his job, I spend so much time trying to make their lives easier, better less stressful. I orchestrate life to fit everyone’s personal needs. Everyone except my own of course. I am an afterthought. Why is that? I am the one on the front line. I am the mom; the mom who throws herself in front of the SUV to save her child, and then crawls home on broken legs and makes a healthy homemade dinner. Should I be bragging? I am not being a mother. I am being a martyr. I need to throw down my cross and pick up a good book and a glass of wine.


The only one who I can blame for my current state is me. Stewardesses all over the world have been warning us all for years to put the oxygen mask on ourselves before we help the children. Right? Because this distressed momma needs oxygen before I asphyxiate. I need to find my own darn oxygen supply. You and I know that the other people living in this house aren’t going to give up any of their breath for me. I have to find my own supply, preferably away from this house. I need something that is just for me. That is the main reason why I worked at Target; to have some breathing room.

What I want to do for Valentine’s Day is go away for a romantic weekend alone in a nice Inn with a comfy bed and expensive sheets. I dream of spending a weekend napping, reading, and enjoying the fresh air. Maybe I will start by arranging more time to go to the gym? I know at first I’ll feel guilty, but I also know when I go to the gym I feel so much better, after a good workout my head is cleared and my lungs are filled. I enter the gym like a tired breeze and I surge out like a mighty Nor’easter.

The whole family benefits when I am taking care of me. They may whine, complain, or stand on the porch sobbing as I drive away. But my husband has to understand that a happy mom is a happy family. As of today I am not happy! For the good of my family I am throwing down my cross, and going to Curves 3 times this week! Even it means that my family has to eat McDonalds crap food for dinner I am going at least 3 times next week too!

The Snow Storm That Cried Wolf

Okay people. I am seriously confused here. I am sitting in my living room in the middle of a school day and Dylan and Alice are here in their pajamas watching cartoons. Why are my kids here and not in school? Obviously because of the snow at least that’s what the recording said at 5am this morning. That school was closed today because of the huge dangerous snow storm. I am looking out of my front living room window right now. I see brown grass, trees, and bushes. No white. No flurries. Not a white speck. Did I tell you that it is eleven fifteen in the morning? My son would have had morning meeting, special activity, reading, snack, and math, honoring and in fifteen more minutes he would be at lunch. He would not be here! Seriously people this kid and all of the other thousands and thousands of school age kids in town could easily have had a half day today. I mean that is if it snows at all?
If you are not from New England let me tell you what happens when the Weather man predicts a massive snow storm. First all of the moms run screaming into the grocery store and buy enough, milk, bread, toilet paper, and wine to last for three years. You know in case we are trapped in our houses. Then when we get home we locate all of the sleds, igloo making blocks, kid’s shovels and put them somewhere where they won’t get buried. We then run around the house looking for snow pants, boots, mittens, scarves, hats, and sweaters and leave them by the front door. This way when the kids get up and want to run out in the snow n their pajamas we can easily dress them shove them outside and go back to bed. The men prepare by running out to Home Depot buy shovels, ice melt, snow blowers, snow shoes, skis, and then to the package store for beer. You know in case they get trapped in the house with their wife and kids.

This morning the call came in at 5:00am. No school! My husband was kind enough to get up and answer the call. I stayed in bed for another hour until Alice came in and jumped on the bed.

Jump jump jump “Dylan no school!” jump jump jump “Snow today!” jump jump jump.

After a few minutes of bed quaking I got up and opened the curtains at our back bedroom window. The window faces the woods and I love the magical effect of fresh snow on woods. My snowy woods are own glittering white paradise. I open the curtains and see brown. Brown trees, brown ground, littered with brown decaying fall leaves, and brown fire wood. Where’s the snow?

Here I am five and a half hours later and I ask again. The kids snow clothes are sitting saddly by the front door. Their sleds abandoned on the porch. Where’s the snow Mr. Weather man? Is this snow storm a tactic to stimulate the lagging economy by elevating grocery and hardware sales? I can hear the six o’clock news…”In local news the big nor’easter (blizzard) seemed to have passed us by. In related new toilet paper and beer sales are through the rough.”

Talk Show Part Two

After the show the manager gave us vouchers for our prizes and thanked us. Then we were done and went out to lunch and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. She told me that she had contacted the show and asked them to give me a whole dream wedding. But we both agreed that a free honeymoon was awesome. Also we were excited to have this time to hang out together. Then we went back to our hotels to pack and she flew up to Santa Cruz and I flew home to Massachusetts. On the flight home I was still not sure if any of the events of the last 72 hours actually happened or were just a dream. Did I seriously just fly to Hollywood and kiss Richard Simmons on TV? He gave me a honeymoon. I don’t know where, I was so excited up there on the stage that I couldn’t concentrate. I knew that the name of the place was on the voucher that they gave me. Or at least I hope so. A whole honeymoon? I couldn’t wait to tell Dave Richard Simmons! I couldn’t wait to tell my friends!


I arrived home and told Dave that we had won a honeymoon somewhere near an ocean. Then I called all my friends and family. However by the next week the whole trip seemed more like a dream. A month went by and I was busy planning a wedding and starting a new job at Wellesley College. I had worked at Wellesley for three days when the show called me at home and left a message that my show episode was airing the next morning, Thursday at 10:00am. I called my family to let them know. I was planning to tape the show and watch it when I got home from work. I wanted to make the right kind of impression on my new colleagues. I mean this was Wellesley’s College; they couldn’t know that I was on a cheesy talk show.

The next morning I was running late and turning the house upside down looking for a video tape. How could I not have any empty video tapes? Then I remembered that Dave had tossed out all of my old worn out video cassettes after the Patriot’s Jet’s game debacle the week before. Dave taped the game and sat down with his beer and chips only to see a choppy fuzzy picture with unintelligible audio. I guess The Oprah show even faded in and out a few times before the second half. Poor Dave he quickly gave up and collected all of my way too over used videos and tossed them in the trash. Why did I not remember this until this morning? Darn it! I have no time to go buy another one. I can’t be late my first week at a new job.

I drive to work and have no idea what to do. I have to see my show. I get to the Stone Center and go into my office. Michelle is training me for her job. She is taking a new Job for the College’s Computer Tech Support Department. She is training me on I watch the clock tick away. Eight, nine, nine thirty. I can’t stand it! I have to see my show. I confess to her about the show and how it is airing in 15 minutes. She is thrilled. We run downstairs to the conference. As she set up the TV I told her all about the phone call mix up, my trip to Hollywood, my birth mother, and the show.

We are sitting there and the show starts. I had goose bumps and kind of felt like I needed to throw up. Richard came out in his little vest looking so cute and told the audience that he has a surprise for my birth mom. She thinks that she is on the show to talk about adoption. But, he has found me, her birth daughter, and is reuniting us on the show. He introduced my birth mom. She walked out on stage and proceeds to tell him all about her pregnancy and my birth. She tells him about my birth father and I notice that they have edited the show to sound like she has never met me. As she is talking about “the baby” that she gave away they are showing me back stage in my little room. I am smiling my Miss America smile into the camera. Gosh I look fat. The camera has added ten pounds to my face. After that I cringe as I see myself walk on the stage with my box of tissues. I am wearing my best dress and I look like a flowered couch in heals. We are all hugging and Michelle is crying. Then the door bursts open and the executive director Pamela comes in and says, “Michelle? What are you doing? Are you watching TV?”

The show is back on and Pamela, Michelle, and I are glued to the TV. There I am sitting now between Richard and my birth mom and, I oh no! I look much wider sitting down. I see myself looking uncomfortable and I am speaking in a fake high pitched nervous voice. Now I am smiling because Richard is telling me about my honeymoon. The screen is filled with a beautiful hotel in Freeport, on the Grand Bahamas Island. WOW! That’s so cool! Michelle and I squeal with delight. Pamela smiles and shakes her head. The show goes to commercial and my segment is over. We turn off the TV and chit chat about the show as we walk up the stairs back to the office. I know that I am going to like working here.

After watching the show I joined Weight Watcher’s. Joined up the following week and lost 50 pounds by the wedding. Dave and I had a lovely wedding and enjoyed our Honeymoon in the Bahamas.

Well that’s the story of my fifteen err, ten minutes of fame. The show was aired and over. Or so I thought. My mom Alice, and my aunt Carol, both taped the show. The show was shown at Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, Ground Hog’s Day, and on occasion that I needed to be humiliated at for many years. I am sure that the tape is still floating around to this very day. No, I don’t have a copy of it. So no you can’t see it!

Talk Show

In 1999 Dave and I were engaged and in the beginning stages of planning our wedding. Dave and I were living in Braintree in a little rented house. One night the phone rang at 11:30pm and woke me out of a sound sleep. Dave was travelling for work and had already called; I answered the phone thinking perhaps that he had some kind of emergency. The unfamiliar woman on the other end of the phone said something about me being on a TV show. I was half asleep but I snapped awake.


“Ohhhh a TV show?” I sing sarcastically into the receiver. “Carol come on a TV show? You woke me up.” Carol is one of my friends who is notorious for playing practical jokes.

“Carol? No Miss Gormley I am really calling from Hollywood…” The voice started to say.

“Listen Carol” I cut her off and said in a more sarcastic voice. “If you are really calling from Hollywood call me at work tomorrow. I need to go back to sleep.” Then I gave her the number and hung up.

The next day at work the lady called back and the next day I was on a plane headed for Hollywood to be on Richard Simmon’s new talk show Dream Maker. Richard was having everyday people come on his show and he was making their dreams come true. They told me that I was going to surprise my birth mother and be reunited on the show. I had no idea what dream the show was fulfilling? I had seen my birthmother a few months before in California; we had been reunited for a few years. But who am I to argue a free trip to Hollywood was fine by me. When the plane landed I was whisked away via black limo to a hotel in a much dirtier face of Hollywood than we see on TV. I spent the evening walking around the walk of fame and seeing the modest sights. Then I went to bed early so I could look my best on TV the next morning.

The next morning I was picked up again and brought to a TV studio. Which looked like a boxy office building. I was escorted into a side door where I was met by an assistant producer who explained the set up to me on the way to make up. I was to hide in a special holding room and there would be a camera on me. my birth mom would be brought in after I was hidden and then I would surprise her on stage.

A bout twenty minutes later I find myself in a little room that looks like a little hotel room without a bed or a bathroom. What if I have to pee? No facilities, but a camera. Yes a camera on a tripod is on me and I am supposed to act natural. I plaster on my best fake smile and suck in my stomach. I was told that we were the first segment. But for some reason I felt like I was in the little room for hours. Then when I couldn’t smile a second longer and my abs were burning the same assistant manager come in and gets me out of the room and hands me a box of tissue. I am escorted out into a hall way and then I see bright lights and an audience. Then realirt hit me. OH MY LORD! I AM GOING TO REALLY BE ON TV? Maybe I should have thought more about this? I thought as I was pushed on to the stage. OH MY GOSH THERE IS RICHARD SIMMONS! Everything started to move in slow motion. My birth mother’s back was to me so she couldn’t see me. I scanned the room. The room was the size of a small school auditorium or community theater. I panned the small audience, I estimated about seventy five to a hundred people mostly women. Then I looked up and saw lights, then I looked down and saw and camera men. Then I looked around the stage and saw a huge sign that read; Dream Maker, then under the sign sitting down in a blue chair was Richard Simmons again. Richard flipping Simmons! He was dressed in a cute vest, with a white shirt, pants, and of course his signature afro.

I heard Richard say “Can someone please bring her some tissues?” The assistant pushed me out on to the stage and I float out and everyone applauds and I think I hear Richard yell. “Here is Lydia! She is here!”

My mom turns around and we hug and she is crying, Richard is crying, the audience is crying. I am fighting my instinct to run back off stage and hide out in my little room until it’s time to go home. After she and I hug then Richard joins in and we all hug and cry together. Then we have a commercial break and we are miked and asked to sit down in chairs. Richard introduces himself to me and I hand him the box of tissues and he takes one to wipe his tear drenched eyes. Then he gets up and starts running around the audience. He is running up and down the aisles and singing Broadway tunes. Then he come back, a makeup artist comes to wipe the sweat from his brow and powders his face. Then the stage manager counts down and we are back on TV. Richard tells me that my birth mom wrote to him and told him that she wanted me to have a dream honeymoon. Richard told me that he was sending me and Dave on a seven day trip to the Bahamas. I was in shock. He was also sending my birth mom plane tickets to fly to Massachusetts for the wedding. The whole audience clapped and cried again. Richard, my birth mom, and I kissed and hugged again and the show went to commercial. Richard wished me well and hugged and kissed us goodbye then she and I were escorted off stage and we were done.

Continued tomorrow….