Julie and Julia

It's raining in California. Raining for days and days. Who knew it did this? The first day it stopped after a few hours, embarrassed. The kids got home from school all excited just as the sun came out.

"Bubbie, come outside! A rainbow!"

Even the rainbows, dear friends, are better in California. Imagine, all across the sky, all the colors of the . . .

But I live in Chicago, and I work in Chicago, and on Monday, all things being equal, I'll be back on United returning home to Chicago. My patients know that this hasn't been a vacation, not in the usual sense of the word, and my parents, the flip side of the sandwich, understand. Sometimes you go where you're needed most.

Anyway. This run to the west coast is keeping me busy, care-taking a little, baby-sitting some, car-pooling, playing catch, eating more than usual, playing a lot of SORRY (I'm learning to hate this game, am thinking when they knock off my piece they should say SORRY and mean it).

"Bubbie! Let's play hide and seek!"

"Sure."

"I'll hide, you seek."

"Okay. But wait. First you have to tell me where you're hiding."

He wasn't born yesterday.

Somehow the days fly by when you're up for the 5'oclock shift. Morning hours are best for me, is the truth, and it seems same goes for the little guy, 8 months old. We g-vid FD (some say Skype, as in Kleenex, as opposed to tissues), munch on bananas, throw a few Cheerios on the floor.

Babies make blogging impossible. I can barely get the coffee made. No idea how you Mommy Bloggers do it. Hats off, or is that, shoes.

Last night we sent the male gendered (except for the one under one) out to see Cirque du Soleil, free tickets, gratis their aunt and uncle. Under such circumstances, house to ourselves, infant asleep, 45 minutes for sure, no make that an hour, we had the DVDR warmed up and popcorn popped, the type you pop in oil, a real pot, no pre-bagged microwave weirdness, please. Tonight's pick, Julie and Julia. Empath Daught has read the book,* but all I know is that this is a true story and that Julie Powell blogs and whips up Julia Child recipes.

A film about a blogger and food. We're there, right?

Meryl Streep, Amy Adams. Pretty fabulous, is all I can say. So much cooking, whipping, melting, chopping. Blogging. It made me miss this, blogging, blogging like old times, every day, or almost every day. Watching Julie blog makes me miss the process, the writing, the obsessing about it.

You know how it is, your mind wanders to what you'll write about, in my case whether or not it will be about therapy, or me, my life, FD, maybe some shtuss in the news (shtuss rhymes with "moose", Yiddish for stupidity or foolishness) or an opinion I just have to share, some bias, or rant, maybe a book, a film. Could I get back to this every day?

Nah. Not for a while. But I can see it happening someday.

(Risk of spoiler coming up if you haven't seen Julie and Julia.)

As much as this ridiculousness, the blogging, has the power to take over, become central in our lives, what we look forward to above all else, the pastime of pastimes, make that the mother of all pastimes, it doesn't have to take us from our real face to face relationships, assuming we're lucky enough to have these. It really shouldn't.

Sure, it's important to put our deep thoughts out there, and it's not narcissistic, despite what people think, rather writing in this venue is a craft, an amusement, and definitely therapeutic. Associated with relationship destruction, too? Shouldn't be.

Thousands of great writers with terrific blogs, none so incredible, so interesting, so important that writing and publishing can't wait. If the loved ones are grumbling, not feeling the love, then this should be a red flag, if there is such a thing, about the place of blogging in our lives.

You know we can be hypo-manic (or hypo-caffeinic) when it comes to this. Who are we kidding. We'll get up early tomorrow, or stay up late tonight, or pop out of bed at three a.m. It can wait until then. Those of us who read online are a patient, loving lot. We'll wait our turn.

And every good draft is better with a little editing the next day, imho.

Thanks Colombia Pictures and Nora Ephron for a wonderful film, and to Julie Powell, for your book and blog, and to Julia Child. We watched her all the time when I was a kid. Save the liver, don't throw it away. Thanks because there's nothing better than watching a terrific chick flick with your daughter and your grandson (she let him stay up late), almost nothing. The guys, for those to whom this applies, have their equivalents-- football, the Bourne Identity, Ultimatum, whatever blast 'em up thing it is they prefer to watch.

Throughout the movie the baby kept saying,

"Am I ever going to get to eat that stuff she makes? She's amazing, isn't she? It's the teeth. The teeth. When do I get these? They seem so useful."

To think I introduced him to butter just the other day, so ironic.

Needless to say, it may be difficult to get his parents to trust me alone with him again any time soon.

therapydoc

* Julie Powell has a new book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession . She talks about it 0n DoubleX