I heart stalking Carla.

Check out my friend Carla’s blog here. Her site meter recently hit 10k and to celebrate she’s asked her readers to send in photos of us stalking her blog. We’ve been friends since college and she now lives in her hometown of Hartford, Conn.

Carla is a Wonder Woman (she even has two tattoos in homage to the other Jaime). She’s an incredible person, fantastic photographer and proud mama of two adorable monkeys. Her blog includes it all.

She went to my father’s funeral with me two years ago in Long Island, New York and I always giggle when I think about that day. I know it seems strange to laugh about death but it truly helped me at the time. A week before the funeral Rabbi Lawrence Shuval asked me if I wanted what he called “a mound of earth” at the gravesite so we could each take our turn and cover the casket. I said no to the mound. He also asked if I wanted to identify the body and I said no to that, too.

Carla and I get there and someone who is not a rabbi (he actually looked like the devil smoling in the cab of a hearse and sporting a satin Yankees jacket with a matching cap) opens the casket and asks me to identify the body. I start to bawl and Carla jumped forward and said, “Yep, that’s him.” She had never laid eyes on my dad before that day.

We got to the gravesite and a mound was waiting for us. I turned to the funeral director and said, “I didn’t want a mound of earth” and I bawled some more. Carla stepped in the middle of us and looked like she was about to start swinging, “she DIDN’T want the mound.” I said it was OK and I’m glad I did. What I didn’t know is that it’s a Jewish tradition to toss dirt on the casket and all of my relatives would’ve been dissappointed.


Carla shooting a self-portrait at her wedding with our friend Mary (who still looks great). Connecticut, 1999.



Carla's youngest monkey, Georgie. Poor thing had bonked her face. Upstate New York, 2006.


Me shoveling the "mound of earth." New York, 2006.


Hamming it up with the bride and groom at a wedding we shot together. Mexico, 2006.

And finally, beer for breakfast (it's the Central American way). Costa Rica, 2007.