Justice!

The last picture taken of Nick Markowitz

Today, a jury convicted Jesse James Hollywood of first degree murder and kidnapping.

This conviction comes nine years after the crime: the murder of 15-year-old Nick Markowitz.

He will be sentenced next week, and the only options are life in prison, or the death penalty.

Given those options, I can say just one thing:

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the way on the opposite end of the country from the courtroom in California, I couldn't be there. Instead, I stayed on the computer, with 85 tabs open so I could refresh, refresh, refresh every potential source that might break the news first. A woman on the Honoring Nick Markowitz group announced it first... I cried when I saw the word "Guilty."

Nick's parents, Susan and Jeff, have had to wait nine long years to talk about this publicly; all that time, either a judge or the DA's office had asked them to remain silent. There were four other trials before this one, all resulting in convictions. The shooter, Ryan Hoyt, is on death row. The gag order will be lifted as soon as the sentence is pronounced. It will mark the final trial, the final step in the quest for justice for Nick.

Now they get to move on to the rest of their lives. Now that the "justice" part is done, they get to honor Nick's memory without the constant weight of courtroom trials hanging over them. I'm not sure that Susan even knows what "normal" feels like anymore-- I hope it's a time of positive rediscovery for her.

Sharlene Martin is representing the book deal for Susan's story. I'm hopeful that we'll have the manuscript finished in a few months. You'd think that this would be such a depressing subject to write about, but Susan is such an upbeat and funny person that it makes it much easier. Even though I make her talk about difficult things a lot, we still spend most of our conversations laughing.

I'm just thrilled to have a bit of my faith restored in the justice system. The jury got it.

So in case any of them read this post at some point, I want to thank the person who informed police about Jesse's whereabouts in Brazil, the DA's office, the detectives who were there in the courtroom nine years later, the victim's advocate who has been so good to Susan, Susan and Jeff's family and friends who've been there with them in court and in spirit, and everyone who works to keep Nick's memory alive.

I hope today brings you all a sense of peace.

Honoring Nick Markowitz

Several months ago, Susan Markowitz contacted me to ask if I'd help her write her memoir. Her only son, Nick, was kidnapped and murdered when he was 15 years old. This was the basis of the movie Alpha Dog, which starred Justin Timberlake, Sharon Stone, and Bruce Willis. After seeing the movie and reading about her story, I knew this could be the most important book I'd ever write.

Susan spent several years in and out of mental hospitals and attempting suicide. As she explained it, each time she told her story in a group, suddenly everyone else realized they didn't have any real problems. Susan's first letter came to me one day after I was in court fighting for custody of my daughter, and I was very down. It was as if God was flicking me in the head and saying, "Here's some perspective for you."

I hate that Susan has to be that perspective. But nine years after losing her son, she is remarkably strong and put together, and ready to do great things.

This week marked the end of the murder trial of Jesse James Hollywood. Jesse was a drug dealer who had a falling out with Nick's half-brother, Ben. He and his cronies snatched Nick for revenge, and held onto him for three days before executing him and buring him in a shallow grave on a hiking trail in California.

After Nick's body was found, Jesse ran off to Brazil. The other kidnappers and murderers were caught and convicted, but Jesse stayed on the run for 5 years before someone turned him in for the reward money. While in Brazil, he fathered a child, believing he could not be extradited if he had a Brazilian-born child.

The trial lasted a month and a half, and it's in the jury's hands right now.

I created a Facebook group to honor Nick and to provide a place for people to show support for his family. I'd love it if you'd join: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=99705960901

We just accepted a book deal from Berkley and will have details soon about when the book should be released. I hope to do it justice, because I think this is a story that might just change a lot of lives.

I gardened.

Why does no one use the past tense of the verb "garden?" Seriously. No one says, "I gardened today." Everyone says, "I did some gardening today." Well, because I am a linguistic rebel, I shall tell you that I gardened.

And what I did when I gardened should truly astound and impress you, enough that I expect at least a few "ooohs" and "ahhhs" at the end of this post.

I removed a shrub using nothing but a pair of old kitchen scissors and my bare hands.

This is the shrub.

These are the scissors.

These are my bare hands.


While I was performing this undeniably astounding feat (don't deny it, you denier), some form of beetle crashed into my ear, so hard that it drew blood, which I did not notice until I tried to pull my hair into a ponytail later and wondered how I got blood all over my ear. Furthermore proving, of course, just how much of an action-adventure heroine I am becoming.

I am considering retitling this blog "Adventures of One Bad-Ass Momma." But I so rarely curse, and "Bad-Butt" lacks the proper punch.

She learned her "l" and that makes me sad

You remember how, just a few posts ago, I said my favorite part of the song "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" was when Sarina sang "I'm never gonna stop the rain by compwaining?" Well, without even warning me, she decided to start pronouncing her "l"s correctly now, so it's "complaining." It took all I had not to tell her she was saying it wrong and should go back to saying "compwaining." Darn you, progress! Darn you to heck!

Her new favorite is when I sing "Anything You Want (You Got It)" to her. The other day, my dad said "You can have anything you want" when asking her what she wanted for a snack, and she said, "Roy Orbison sings that."

But one of my new favorite Sarina moments came when we went to what was supposed to be a consignment sale at a community center, but when we got there, all the doors were locked. I had her in a carrier, facing me. I spotted a dad and young boy playing ball in the field nearby, and told Sarina that we'd go ask them if they knew what was going on. When we were about 20 feet away, she turned herself around and called out-- I swear--

"Excuse me! There seems to be a problem. We are lost in the parking lot, and every single door is locked."

She just turned 2.

And I've heard it said before, but I'm only just experiencing for myself the way you will say things as a parent that you cannot imagine ever saying in any other context, such as yesterday's topper: "I cannot paint your toenails if you keep sticking cheese between your toes."

How I entertained myself before her birth remains a mystery to me.

If I were to lose my ability to write

...here are the jobs I could do instead:

-Personal sticker applicator. I am tremendous at applying decals to things that need decals. I got this train table set yesterday, and it came with about 8 thousand stickers to put all over the board. Depending on your point of view, it's either impressive or scary how anal I am about getting those stickers exactly right.

-Children's audio book narrator. I inherited this gene from my mom. We read children's books with great enthusiasm, voicing all of the dialogue with appropriately timbers.

-Expiration date checker at the grocery store.

-Chocolate chip cookie taster.

-The person who happens to be standing around at tourist spots so people can say, "Excuse me, can you take a picture of us?" and hand me their cameras. I really like doing this. I take great shots, and I imagine them later saying, "We totally asked the right woman to take this picture. Best picture ever."

-Baby hugger.

-American Idol judge. What? I can get qualifications. I can't possibly do worse than Randy. ("It was just aiight for me, dog.")

-Professional hula hooper. As a child, I beat the Guiness Book of World Records and no one even knew it. I told my mom, but I don't think she believed me.

I fixed the dryer.

I fixed the dryer today. Well, not so much the dryer as the dryer door. And not so much "fix" as just realign it and screw it in properly, which the repairman failed to do when he made it stop sounding like someone was lighting off fire crackers in it.

Sometimes, it's the simplest things that cause the most consternation about getting divorced. You sit there on that first day after the big decision, thinking, "How am I ever going to do this? I have never put air in my own tires. I don't know when recycling day is. How do I make sure my pipes don't burst over the winter?"

And it all looks huge and overwhelming, and then you just close your eyes and trust that you're going to find a way. And day after day, you do. If you let yourself feel it, each thing-- each stupid little thing-- feels like a victory. It shows you that you're more capable than you knew.

Maybe especially if you have kids, there's the extra impetus to become more capable. I want Sarina to know her momma as someone who gets her hands dirty-- someone who can change a tire, fix a boo-boo, plant a garden, assemble do-it-yourself furniture, and play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the guitar.

Yesterday, I put air in my tires. Today, I fixed the dryer. Tomorrow, I'm considering re-shingling the roof. (Er, just kidding.)

I'm Sarina's momma. I rule.

A little about Sarina

She thanked me today...
for changing the sheets on the bed
for removing her socks
for changing her diaper
for taking her out to play

"Thank you, Mommy," she says. "Thank you for changing the sheets."

She wants to know what rhymes with "Joe" and "Blue," and where Meatball the Lion went, and if Aunt Peeka will come to our house soon. She wakes up from her nap and recaps her day for me down to the last detail-- such as that she was sitting on the Skee-Ball machine when she did poopies in her diaper.

"I need to be held in the carrier," she says, and "I need my hair"-- which is actually my hair, which has been her security blanket since she was born. She tugs on my hair and wraps it around her fingers while she sucks her thumb when she needs comfort. So I haven't used hair products in almost two years.

She made her public singing debut at my brother's 30th birthday party, using the Elvis impersonator's microphone. She sang "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and didn't want to stop, so she just kept repeating all the verses. "I'm never gonna stop the rain by compwaining" is my favorite part.

She recites her own versions of poems and stories. "This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had chicken nuggets..."

When she bounces in the inflatable bouncer with her 8-year-old friend "Miss Gina," she likes to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" at the top of her lungs. I've never seen her be physical with another child anywhere except in this bouncer, where she actually grabbed a little girl by her waist and tackled her backwards because Sarina was having too much fun with her and didn't want the girl to leave. "You get back in here, Miss Ashley!" she said, giggling. She believes that everyone who enters the "Mommy and Me" building is "Miss" Somebody, even when that person is 4 years old.

Her favorite colors are pink and purple, and she's also growing a fondness for red.

She likes songs about rain and night. When she watches the tap dancing number for "Singing in the Rain," she exclaims, "That's Gene Kelly!"

She likes to strum my guitar when she sings, and she's delicate enough that I can let her do so.

Lately, she begins every other sentence with "Actually." "Actually, let's go to the bakery." Nearly every story she makes up involves a bakery. Every now and then she switches it up and makes the setting a deli or a diner instead. You'd think this means she's a big eater, but she's not. I go through every trick I know every meal just to get her to eat a decent amount. But she has a serious sweet tooth that I have to keep in check.

She likes to climb hills, play with Play-Doh, paint, wear lip gloss, jump on the bed, comb my hair, pretend various large and small household objects are Mommy and Sarina and make them "hug," and make snowballs.

After using the big girl potty for the first time, she announced, "I need a crown."

Several times a day, she tells me, "This is gonna be great!"

She is the coolest girl I've ever met.