* * *
Back home, spring was frisky. All the alpacas that we inherited from Sunny are boys and are gelded, with the exception of Zeus. He’s a pure black alpaca, and even though he’s a little guy, he’s real sure of himself; he’s always the first one to the trough. He’s the Joe Pesci of alpacas. When I give them their monthly shots, Zeus is the one who likes to make it tough for me. He’s antagonistic, and when I’m not careful, he backs me into a corner. He’s not any nicer at shearing time either.
The boys’ fleece goes to Sunny, who sends it off and gets it made into the softest, most beautiful yarn you’ve ever seen, and then she just gives it back to me saying, “Oh, well, you knit more than I do. You take this.”
The first couple of years shearing the alpacas was terrifying because the shearing business around here is a cutthroat game of who you know. Shearers are booked up from early spring through summer, and if they don’t know you and they don’t recognize your phone number, they’re not coming over. The first spring on the farm I called around and got recommendations from local farmers, but no one would return my calls. Not a single person. Once, I actually got a guy on the phone and he said he’d come out the following Thursday. He never showed. Finally, we found somebody to help us. He barely spoke. He was in a hurry. It wasn’t fun.
It’s all hands on deck for shearing, and the animals don’t like it one bit. Alpacas, for the most part, won’t spit at you the way llamas do; they’re pretty hard to piss off. But boy, when they’re getting sheared, it’s a shower of bile. So while two guys are shearing the animal, I go through and pick up all the fiber that’s being sheared before it gets a spit shower. And this spit is no normal drool; it’s the nastiest, greenest vomit you’ve ever seen. There was no way Jeffrey and I could handle shearing on our own.
The second year, the shearer who had helped us before disappeared, and we had another bad experience finding someone. So that spring when we got a call from our contractor-hero, Mark McEathron, about some alpacas, I was intrigued but knew I needed to play hardball.
He and his wife, Jess, had an elderly neighbor who was looking to downsize her farm. “She has these award-winning beautiful alpaca girls,” Mark said. “Would you guys be interested in taking them? She wants them to go to a good home.”
These girls Mark was talking about were really pretty, with great pedigree, and their fiber was fancy. But adding more alpacas with no shearer contact in sight wasn’t the smartest plan. “I’d be happy to take the girls,” I told him, “but only if your neighbor shares her shearer contact with me.” It was like a drug hookup.
The deal was made.
Not long after, these gentlemen drove up in a big white pickup truck with their name—Twist of Fate Spinnery–on the side of it. They were pros. The animals stayed calm. There was minimal bile. The process was fast. And not only did they shear the animals, they also had the ability to process the fleece for you so you could get it turned into felting or yarn, or you could have it washed and then spin it yourself.
So the boys got sheared, the girls got trailered in, and we gave them a pasture on the opposite end of the farm from the boys, so they wouldn’t get all rowdy. You don’t want your alpacas getting riled up. But I guess that pheromone must’ve traveled across the entire farm, because all of a sudden Zeus lost his mind. He was trying to climb fences just to get the attention of those girls. And they weren’t paying him any mind. It was like watching a high school boy in love.
Jeff asked the natural questions: “What should we do now? Should we breed them? Is that our next step?”
Now, these girls are a big deal. It’s like the difference between getting a mutt in a Waffle House parking lot and getting a purebred poodle that won Westminster. They are supermodel alpacas, with beautiful straight teeth and perfect fiber. Our boys all have crooked teeth and knobby knees, so when I figure out how to get them together, it will be like Freaks and Geeks.
I can envision Zeus hanging out with the girls and then coming back to the other guys, like, “You guys have no idea what you’re missing.”
* * *
Spring also meant it was time to put my money where my mouth was when it came to the renovation of the Astor building. Our fundraiser had been successful, and we now had the money needed to start tackling the first wing of the residential center. Kate and Lawrie and Sonia were all systems go. I’d certainly completed my fair share of home improvement projects over the years, but this was different. If you fuck up at home, no biggie. At a clinical children’s home? Big problem. Huge. I knew I needed a professional skill set to pull this off.
Remember how heartbroken and hurt I was when I came home and found the addition in shambles? It would appear that everything really does happen for a reason. To my absolute delight, Mark and his crew, the Stanhopes, our new plumber, Tim, and a buddy of Ed’s named Frank all volunteered to help with the difficult task of renovating an entire wing of Astor in five short days. We could work on the space only while the kids were in school, so coordinating all the volunteers and doing the labor in a timely fashion was a monumental task. Mark took a tour through the unit and called in a master painter friend, Mike Diblasi. Mike is a quiet guy, and he looked around the space seriously. “Oh no,” I thought. There were huge cracks in the wall and chunks of plaster falling down around the doorways. “He’s gonna tell me this is not doable.”
But instead, he put his hands on his hips and said, “Yeah, I know a material that can smooth all this out.”
Had the original addition plans at the farm worked out, I never would have met most of these guys. It was inspiring to have all these craftsmen who’d helped us at the farm give up paychecks for an entire week because they saw the same thing I saw—a place devoid of hope and childhood liveliness—and they wanted to help fix it.
Kate had called for a meeting, and I presented the design plan to the group. I turned photos I had of the space into black and white and then printed them out and painted over them—the same way I’d worked on the color scheme for Samuel’s. It was amateur, but it got the idea across. The first unit was all boys, so I wanted to do a camping theme. To me, it was frustrating that these kids had been moved to the Hudson Valley, a place renowned for its beautiful outdoors, and they were stuck inside this building. Bringing the outside in made sense. With sky blues and greens, I added tree decals to the design, wanting to create a forest for them to daydream in. All the rugs and pillows and art added to the scene. When I presented the design to the group, I expected clinical feedback or pushback on what was allowed in the space. With the exception of my curtain suggestions, which James the building manager informed me weren’t up to fire code, the plan was met with excitement.
Phase one of fundraising had gone well. Phase two of designing was approved. Now we just had to do the renovation!
I’d drop Gus off at school and then race around town like a madwoman, securing supplies or trying to get donations. The wonderful folks at Davis Furniture in Poughkeepsie had been so nice when I was looking for dressers for the new addition at our house. I sheepishly went back and asked, “Could you maybe spare a desk or chair from your back discount room?” To which they said, “No, no, no,” and pulled out all their furniture catalogues for me to pick out something brand new for the space. It was incredibly generous. Williams Lumber had been my and Jeff’s go-to for everything since we had moved to the area. Sharagim’s husband, Sean, introduced me to one of the owners, Kim Williams. “We’re doing this project over at Astor . . .” I didn’t even need to finish the sentence.
“Whatever you need,” she responded. Then, going the extra mile, she referred me to Rob Hunter, the local Benjamin Moore rep. All of a sudden we were getting all of our paint donated! Samuel’s sent over coffee, and one of my favorite crystal shops offered to do chakra cleansing for the staff and volunteers. Friends picked Gus up at school so I could stay later with James and get more done. Our community rallied and connected over this heartfelt effort to improve the lives of the
se kids.
Mike Diblasi single-handedly rebuilt and painted all the walls in that wing, carrying around a tray of heavy cementlike compound as if it were nothing. Mark and his team created shelving for every bedroom so each kid could put together a little shrine of their prized possessions. They built benches for the dining room and replaced all the molding in the unit, sanding down all the edges to make everything safe. Tim, the plumber, tore out and redid the rundown kitchen and repaired the bathrooms. The Stanhopes came in early in the week and replaced every lighting fixture with bright new LED units that transformed the space. And then they returned every day after to help with odd jobs like decals and painting trim.
Each night I wrote a note to the kids. I figured it must be odd for them to have strangers in their space making a mess and moving everything around. I hoped it wasn’t traumatic for them.
Late in the week, while the army of moms, led by Kate and Lawrie, made beds and treated each child’s bedroom as if it were their own kid’s, I talked with Sonia. “I’m not sure the crew should stay for the reveal with the kids,” Sonia said, gently. “Some of them have a lot of emotional walls up. I’d hate for any of them to have a bad reaction and the crew to not understand.”
“I totally get it,” I said. I knew some of these children were nonverbal. It wouldn’t be like those makeover shows on TV. The chances of someone being upset by the change were high.
So we had a private reveal on Friday, with our entire crew and our donors and members of the press. Astor had been shrouded in secrecy for so long, it was important that we spread the word about the good work being done there.
The space looked amazing—with animals and inspirational sayings covering the walls. With Mark’s wife, Jess, the local artist Tom Cale had painted a fabulous mural in the living room. The unit shined with the love that had been put into it.
Everyone hugged and shed a few tears. I thanked them after the cameras left. “For those of you who don’t know, I got involved with Astor because I’d had a miscarriage, and it left a big gaping hole. Working on this with all of you has meant so much to me personally.” I was having trouble getting the words out. But I wanted them to know. They didn’t just fix this space for the children. They’d done me a great service as well. From the guys who worked on my house to Lawrie and Kate and the staff, I’d made a whole new circle of friends. Good people.
After everyone left, I stayed and wrote notes for each of the kids who lived on the unit. For each bedroom, we asked them about their favorite colors, favorite sports teams, favorite cartoons. Gus had helped me pick out rugs and sheets and pillows and stuffed animals. I was nervous as I waited for the kids to come up. James and Sonia waited with me. Then suddenly, from the staircase in the hallway, I heard whooping and laughter and little boys shouting. “Oh man!” “Lookit, lookit!”
I peered around the corner, and the group of boys who lived in the unit were darting from room to room. They were bursting with excitement like it was Christmas morning. Sonia and James and I all looked at each other. We hadn’t been expecting that. One by one, the boys came up with pillows or toys they’d found on their beds. “Is this really mine?”
“That’s all yours, dude.” And then they wrapped me in hugs. They pulled me down to hang out in the living room on the camping-themed carpet we’d put in. It was a dog pile of affection. I cried the whole way home.
Jeff made it back home for a short weekend toward the end of May. He’d been tapped to drive the pace car for the Indy 500, so we were going to make a family adventure out of it. I have a picture of Gus greeting him when he got home that day. We were all so happy to see each other.
In the midst of all our busy-ness, we had another project up our sleeves. The year before had been a test for our relationship. I had been the worst version of myself. Jeffrey had been distant and unreachable. And yet somehow we had found each other again, and we wanted to seal the deal.
We had called each other “husband” and “wife” throughout everything. But we had never actually gotten around to getting married. In the English language there is not a word for what we are. I’ve always felt like “fiancé” is a pretentious word. I most certainly wasn’t gonna call him my boyfriend. “Baby Daddy” felt like I was trying too hard. He wasn’t my husband, but the title would have to do. We did all the legal stuff. We were each other’s next-of-kin. We could pull the plug on each other. (That’s romantic, huh?) We owned property together. We owned businesses together. We owned homes together. We had a child together. We’d literally done everything together except have a wedding. I kept saying let’s just go to the courthouse, but Jeffrey is a romantic person, so we planned a wedding—a destination wedding on St. Maarten in the Caribbean.
We planned the whole thing that weekend. I found a dress. We picked flower arrangements and food. We invited a very small circle of friends who all RSVP’d yes and booked their villas at a beautiful resort on St. Maarten for January the next year. We put down a deposit. We were getting married!
A few days later I was at a dinner for Lawrie’s birthday. I had a glass of wine and thought, this doesn’t feel good. The next day I took a pregnancy test. It was June 4, 2017, and I was pregnant again. I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I didn’t even go to the doctor. But I sent Jeff a picture of the positive test.
“Okay,” he responded. “Let’s see what happens.”
He felt that after I’d gotten pregnant before and he’d told me how badly he wanted a baby that he had jinxed it. So, we’d developed a weird report:
I’d say: “I’m pregnant.”
He’d say: “Oh, babe, you’re so pretty. Let’s see what happens.” And then he’d change the subject. It was like he was afraid to put any pressure on me. I could appreciate his sensitivity.
For Father’s Day in June, I got Jeff three mini-donkeys. He had wanted donkeys forever, and I like to tease him about being an ass man. There was a pregnant mother donkey who was due in a couple of weeks, a yearling named Princess, and the mother’s best friend, Ally. The donkeys’ owner wouldn’t sell me the mother without selling me her best friend too. So the three donkeys showed up.
A week later, the mama donkey gave birth. We watched as the big-eyed baby with a fuzzy Mohawk of hair teetered around, taking his first steps. He was enormously cute, and we wanted him and Mama to have some quiet time together away from Princess and Ally. We waited till he seemed steady on his legs, and then we carefully harnessed his mother and walked the two of them over to the barn, where a fresh bed of hay was waiting for them. We stood in the barn, leaning on each other and watching Mama and her baby for a good long while. This is why we moved here. The foal was stumbling around on new legs. When he started to nurse, Jeff took my hand and we walked back up the driveway talking about what to name him.
“What about Paxton?” I asked.
He turned and smiled, “I was just thinking that.”
I laughed, “Bill would have the biggest chuckle about us naming an ass after him.”
When we visit the donkeys, they’re like big dogs, bursting with affection. They’re such lovers. It’s like a Puppy Bowl, with the animals piling on top of each other, only the animals weigh 150 to 180 pounds and have hooves and teeth. But they still want to crawl all over us and have their heads and bellies scratched.
Paxton and Jeff have a very deep bond. They are wild about each other, and Paxton is obsessed with Jeffrey. He can hear his voice from across the farm, and he’ll come running up to the fence. A couple of weeks after Paxton was born we were swimming, and I saw a huge, god-awful black bruise on Jeff’s ribs. “Jeffrey, what happened?!”
“Uuuhh, Paxton bit me. He wanted a kiss, and I was petting one of the other donkeys.”
* * *
Gus finished up school for the year and then we went off to Los Angeles, where I was shooting another season of Lethal Weapon. They had an awesome storyline written for me, and I was going to be doing all these cool stunts, but now I had to sit down with sweet Matt Mil
ler and do the whole pregnancy song and dance again.
Cooking for Martha Stewart
While I was pregnant with George, Allrecipes magazine asked me to do a presentation.
I said, “Okay.”
A few days later they called back: “Oh, by the way, it’s going to be a cook-off with another person.”
I said, “Okay.”
They called again: “Oh, by the way, we need you to do a recipe that’s totally your own.”
I said, “Okay.”
They called yet again: “Oh, by the way, the other person is going to be Dorinda Medley, of Real Housewives. Famous for her elaborate dinner parties.”
And I still said, “Okay.” But now I was nervous.
So my mother came and we hit the local farm stands and bought in-season local ingredients. Adding in my own eggs and jalapeños and blueberries from the garden, we laid everything out before us and brainstormed.
Allrecipes reached out one more time.
“Guess who’s going to be judging? Martha!”
Say what? Martha Friggen Stewart would be judging the contest. (Side note: I was the teen who did not subscribe to Vogue or Cosmo; I had Martha Stewart Living delivered to my college dorm.)
Martha Stewart was everything I dreamed she would be. Immaculate, formidable, and gorgeous. I swallowed any pride I had and asked for a photo with her. Dorinda made me do it.
The Rural Diaries Page 18
