Author: Kathleen Fisher

Kathleen Fisher is a Chicago girl at heart though she moved from there many years ago when a handsome scientist swept her off her feet. What started as a light-hearted blog about life, marriage, and kids turned more serious in September of 2018 when her husband of 35 years ended his life. A new journey began that day and she now writes about unexpected loss, grief, and finding a path towards healing.

Madam Speaker

When the kids were in grade school, I was asked by the PTA to be in charge of the all-school reading program.  I said I would but only if I could change everything about it.

Prior to taking it over, the reading program was a contest between classes to see who could read the most minutes over the course of a week.  The winning class would get a pizza party.  There were two problems with this.

#1.  Kids cheated so their class would win.  I know it’s a damning accusation but it was true.

#2.  I don’t believe reading is a contest.

I started an all-school book club with activities in the lunchroom every day geared to all age groups.  The first year we did Charlotte’s Web.  Swoon.  By week’s end we had set up a mini county fair on the first floor with blue ribbon pies, quilts and dioramas that the 3rd graders made.

I knocked it out of the park.

After that success, the PTA asked me if I would be the chair of programs for the following year.  I knew that doing this would require me to get up in front of an audience each time to introduce the guest and I couldn’t do it.  Couldn’t stand up in front of others and talk like a normal person.

I declined but said I’d consider being the treasurer as I was a loan officer in my before kids life and could manage a budget.  This is one of the hardest jobs to fill and they must have been high-fiving each other when I offered to take it without even being asked.

It wasn’t the most well thought out decision.

#1.  People would show up at my place of employment looking for a PTA payout and get pissy when I couldn’t give them their money because I didn’t carry the checkbook with me.   To my job.  Where I was being paid to work not run an ATM.

#2.  It’s a two year gig.  After being treasurer for a year you become VP of Finance which is a mentoring position for the new treasurer.  TWO years of regular PTA meetings followed by PTA board meetings.

#3.  I had to give a budget report each month.

I’d shot myself in the foot but good.

Every meeting I’d get up in front of an audience in the cafeteria and give a shaky voiced report on the status of the money.  While I rarely strayed from my printed report, once in awhile I’d wing it and look out at an audience who seemed to be showing outright pity over my anxiety.  I would try to calm myself and regroup but usually ended up gagging on some wayward spit.

For the last two weeks, we have watched both the Republican and Democratic conventions and geez…………..where do these women come from?  These powerful, eloquent women who can speak to thousands of people in a convention center and millions of people at home and never skip a beat.  Never have a crack in their voice that induces sympathy.  Never continually rub their forehead as anxiety induced pain roars through their bodies.  Never have armpit stained dresses or beads of sweat on their newly waxed mustaches.

They came from somewhere but it sure wasn’t the PTA I was in.  That produced somebody like me who exhibited all of the above when speaking in front of thirty people and that was after a bathroom run due to a case of The Nervous Poop.

The Super Bowl

Labor Day weekend may be about celebrating the American worker, but in my part of the world it’s about the Sparks Flea Market.

Sparks Kansas.

Yep, it’s in the middle of nowhere.

Last year we took Will and he thought it was all kinds of fun.  This year we took Maggie and Nate.  Prior to leaving, Nate told the siblings, “Kids, this is your mother’s Super Bowl, now don’t do anything to spoil it.”

Yeah kids, don’t make me get out a can of whoop-ass.

The siblings got along.  They bought stuff, they survived ridiculously hot temps, they ate corn dogs and sat in a tub that a farm boy cut in half and made into a loveseat.

 The Farm Boy is not married.  He’s never even dated which led to some awkward silence on our part.  If I knew a guy who was that talented I’d snap him up in a heartbeat, but I didn’t say that out loud as you never know the sketchiness of the kind of guy who would tell complete strangers that he’s never dated.

We came home with an old trellis, a rusty blue tool box, a green oar, a bowling pin, birdhouse, some locker baskets and a shelf made from an old piece of luggage.

And just before we left, we ran back to buy one more thing from the farm boy.  That’s when we discovered that he may have some issues with gas. 

 

Go Tell It On The Mountain

The first time I ever saw a protest was in the sixties when we were piled in the family station wagon headed to see our grandparents.  It was a civil rights protest that we passed and it made The Queen Mum really nervous.  Dad said they were standing out there to make a point and weren’t interested in bothering anybody.

A few years ago, our church organized a walk to join a protest in Kansas City against the Iraq War.  I told The Big Daddy that we needed to put our money where our mouth was when it came to this and so the whole family went.  He and I might have been more effective protestors had we not both been suffering from A Massive Hangover.  As I was walking with a friend, she told me she was suffering from the same affliction, and that church of ours wasted their best intentions on some of their slacker parishioners who thought the prep was to get shit-faced the the night before.

When the Westboro Baptist Church showed up at the kids high school with their “God Hates Fags” posters, every man, woman and child within twenty miles came to that protest to drown them out and send crazy packing.

Last week in New York City, two dozen women protested their right to go topless.  One woman said that her dog has six nipples that anybody can see, but if she were to show her two she’d be arrested.

But your dog isn’t picking the kids up from school, making a deposit at the bank or digging in the freezer case at the Winn-Dixie for the Green Giant Sweet Kernel Corn that’s two for one.

My years of living make me believe that if we all gave peace a chance we’d be better off.  And while I appreciate the right to protest and wouldn’t hesitate to do it if I believed in the cause, I’d rather passer-bys just be looking at my sign.

Open House

Twenty years ago when we moved to Kansas we rented a townhouse.  Coming from the D.C./Maryland area, the idea of actually buying a home was absurd.  It didn’t take long for us to figure out that here in the heartland, home ownership was a real possibility.

The Big Daddy was all about scouting out a new homestead, and so we’d map out the Sunday open houses, pack up the kids and snoop in other people’s lives.

We argued a lot in these open houses.  The Big Daddy, enamored with the bells and whistles, and me not so much.  I’m not hauling groceries up a flight of stairs to a kitchen that some idiot put on the second floor.  Another time we were in a house with gold-flocked wallpaper on the entire first floor and when I said I’d seen enough he told me I was being too negative.  When we got to the backyard with the above-ground swimming pool coated in algae, we both barfed a little in our mouth.

On the way home from one of our shopping trips we passed an Open House sign in a neighborhood we weren’t familiar with.  We stopped anyhow and oh, how we could see ourselves living in those digs with the wide open downstairs “great room” that the kids were already running around in.

We likeyed that place.

When we inquired about the price it was $450,000.00.  Hmmmm…….that’s several hundred thousand dollars more than we intended to spend.

The realtor nodded knowingly and wished us well as she pointed us and our sweaty kids to the proper exit.

She stood in the doorway and watched us pull away in our Oldsmobile Firenza, and I bet it was the faux wood paneling on the side of our station wagon that was a dead giveaway that we had stumbled into the wrong neighborhood.

The Teacher Girl

When Maggie was little, she liked to play school.  As is often the case with the bossy first-born, she was always the teacher.  She’d gather her brother and kids from down the street into the basement to educate them, and why they put up with it every day when they’d already spent all day in school is beyond me.

When she went to college, she decided to go into journalism with hopes of being the next Katie Couric.  When the greeter at Costco told her that her smile was so pretty she should be on t.v., that sealed the deal.  After one semester, she decided to change to media relations.  Her father said, “Oh, so when a company recalls a drug that makes people sicker instead of better, you’ll be writing the bullshit to make it look like they weren’t really in it for the money?”  They may have sealed the deal on that major being short-lived.

Her second year of college, she listened to the universe and became an education major.  

She is now a 3rd year teacher and at 25 years old, she’s worked harder than I have my entire life.  She chose to work in the inner-city and this is her second year as an ELL (English language learner) teacher.  Throughout the week she works with every kid in the school whose home language is not English, the goal being to fast-track these kids ability to learn.  It is daunting.

This year her student population has gone from 60 to 100.

One teacher.  One part-time aide.  Lunch on the fly.

While her father and I have instilled social justice and awareness in all of our kids, this bossy first-born has walked the walk, and all those years of playing school in the basement was a precursor for the seismic shift she would make in the lives of hopeful families.

The Reverend

My favorite priesty friend came blowing into town last weekend, and geez, he’s like a light in the dark.  While higher-up Catholics are all about the uterus, he’s about loving your neighbor.

Go figure.

These past two years he’s been in South America and he sees more than his share of despair every single day.  His homily was about food and the lack, thereof.  In his world there’s no such thing as not finishing your plate in contrast to here where people think little of dumping half of it in the garbage.  Perhaps, when we eat, he said, we can do so with gratitude, and be ever so mindful that many, many others aren’t so fortunate.  Food, literally, for thought.

When the after-party was winding down, some of us were outside and he started talking about heaven.  How upon our arrival he thinks Jesus sits us down and says, “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking when you said that.  I mean c’mon.  I gave you a brain, but you sure didn’t use it that time.  And what about the time you did that?  That’s the thanks I get for giving you this life?”

And when you’ve listened to him bitch about you and point out all your screwups, you can say, “JESUS, what were you thinking?  Seriously, the lesson bullshit wore my ass out.  Here’s an idea…..you could have made things a little easier once in awhile.”   

Jesus would mull this over and say, “Well, you might have a point.  Maybe I did go a little overboard with the power thing.  C’mon in and take a load off.”

Admittance that’s based on an honest conversation, and hopefully, my favorite priesty friend’s line of work gives him some insider information.

Oh Taylor

Before Mallie Bee went off to school, we were in the car and a Taylor Swift song came on.  Oh Lordie, I really can’t take her.   After the song, they were talking about how she writes her own stuff and wow, really?  She might consider turning that over to somebody who’s interesting.

When a new song of hers comes out, the internet is buzzing over what boyfriend did her wrong that she had to write about, but does anybody care?

Every time I hear Bonnie Raitt sing “I Can’t Make You Love Me” it kills me.  When I hear Taylor Swift sing anything I want to kill the radio.

She’s young, attractive and wealthy, but talented?  Meh.  If I were this chick I’d sue for theft of character…………….