Turn That Frown Upside Down: The Blix Fix

 ' "Whatever happens, love that." '  That's the legacy of Blix, the woman who drives Maddie Dawson's A Happy Catastrophe without even being in it.  Bohemian, colorful, and larger than life, Blix had a gift for uniting soulmates, and it's this second sight that told her Marnie and Patrick were meant for each other.  So what if Marnie's a freewheeling extrovert who fills their brownstone with strangers, and Patrick's a set-in-his-ways introvert who avoids people?  Not to get all Jerry Maguire, but they complete each other, their differences striking a balance.

Still, all isn't rosy.  Marnie yearns for a baby, but the mere idea sends Patrick into a panic.  Then again, Patrick has his reasons for fearing change.  Years ago, he failed to save his girlfriend from a fire.  Haunted by survivor's guilt and the scars that disfigure his face, Patrick clings to his routine of walking his dog, watching game shows, and, when he feels like it, painting.  But then two things happen to upset his carefully curated apple cart.  An old contact from the art world insists he put on a comeback show, and a one-night-stand -- excuse, me two-night-stand -- from nearly a decade ago shows up with his until-now-unknown-to-him daughter.  Marnie couldn't be happier about the oddly named and even more oddly behaved Fritzie.  Patrick, however, remains ambivalent, consumed by the very art show that's plunging him into a depression.  Yet the further Patrick drifts away, the harder Marnie tries to save him -- and them.  And that's when "whatever happens, love that" heals them, however slowly.

I don't know if it's the newish mom in me, but Fritzie really pulls at my heartstrings.  What kind of a mother dumps her eight-year-old on a stranger?  Even if that "stranger" is, as Fritzie calls him, her biodad.  It's bittersweet to watch Patrick try to bond with her, probably because I too am an introvert who once worried about a little person turning my world upside down.  But I'm learning that the only way to appreciate -- and, indeed, truly live -- life is to let it get messy.  And I like to think that Patrick is learning that too.

Well, that and never leave an eight-year-old alone with a pair of scissors.