Category: Uncategorized

Most Sundays around here there is football playing throughout much of the day.  Mark will say that he hardly watches any football and this is true.

When he’s asleep.

I wander in and out of the room and in and out of the games.  I know enough about the sport to follow it, but there are some things I just can’t get past.

If somebody barreled into me with their big, sweaty body and knocked me to the ground I would cry.  If all eyes were on me and I dropped the ball I would cry.  If I got off the field, sat on the bench and hurled in front of t.v. cameras I would cry.

For the most part I keep these things to myself.  Or rather, Mark has heard all of these thoughts a thousand times and doesn’t want to hear them in the middle of a game.

Again.

Despite my efforts, when I see a hard hit (which is all the time) I will wince and say things like, “This is such a violent sport.  Why do you like to watch men getting their brains rattled around inside their skulls?”

Mark must think this is one of those philosophical questions that the universe has pondered since time began because he never answers.

This week my mom, sister and brother-in-law were in town and we all went to a soccer game.  Sporting KC.

There were hits and wipeouts and tumbles and plenty of injuries.  I sat next to Maggie (who is a season ticket holder with her hubs) and she explained to me that these players weren’t really hurt but rather milking it to stop the game and to give their players a chance to rest.

I didn’t think so.  There was grimacing and rocking back and forth in pain, knees that looked wonky and bloody noses.  There were lots of body parts getting sprayed with some sort of numbing painkiller because after a few shots of that the injured player would slowly rise to his feet, straighten up and play would resume.

If an injured player required a stretcher (which was about four times that night) the crowd would chant, “BRING OUT YOUR DEAD……….BRING OUT YOUR DEAD.”

Bring out your dead?  Really, people, is that necessary?  Especially when the team is from Nicaragua and probably doesn’t comprehend Kansas and its people who seemed to need a sympathy check.

After ninety minutes of play the game ended in a tie.  There was no winner.  There was no loser……..

………..but there was me and I discovered another sport that troubles me about the future of all mankind.

My Girl Card is intact, shiny and loaded with empathy for the weekend when the Chicago Bears vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday night.  I’m already feeling some deep thoughts emerging that I feel compelled to share with a man.

A Bear Man with a beer can.

Before I started A Speckled Trout, I toyed with the idea of making it a home decor blog with cool pictures of our house and projects I’ve done.  Then I just started writing stories and it never materialized into that, but once in awhile I tap into the interior decorator in me and want to share the results.

At the start of summer I painted our bedroom.  Mark painted the ceiling because of my bum shoulder.  He is always reluctant to board the decorating train with me – this one especially so.  I’m not sure why.  No, wait a sec.  There was this one night early on in the project when he was just about to drift off to sleep and I let out a big sigh and said, “I don’t know…..maybe all of this was a gigantic waste of money.”  I think that might have been the game changer for him.

Now we are headed into fall and it is still not done.  The Big Daddy joined was forced into the project and installed some bamboo shades and declared when he was done, “You know, this is really hard on my hands and wrists.  There’s going to come a day when I can’t do these kinds of projects around here any more.”  That’s because we don’t have a power screwdriver like normal people.  We do it the old-fashioned way like the Amish.  In fact, the Amish often come by in their buggies and ask us what’s the hardest way to do something around the house and we say, “Well, we’ve heard that if you use a tool that plugs into an outlet and makes the job easier you will burn in hell.”  And they say, “That sounds about right,” and clip-clop away.

Anyhoodle, when he said that I was all like, “Wait just a minizzle, Lance.  Didn’t you just stuff your hail-damaged ass into some spandex and ride forty miles on a bike this morning?  Now you’re telling me you’re weak in the wrist and can’t do this?”

And he was like, “Oprah, you’re busting my chops like I’m some kind of lying cheat low on testosterone.”

And I was like, “Un-huh.”

After that I brought home three different pairs of lamps.  Disclosure:  I worked in a lighting shop for two years.  My job was to help people pick out lamps.  I liked the second pair but Will made a face like he’d just seen that new wrecking ball video and so they went back on the shelf at Home Goods with Lamps #1.  After I left with another pair, #1 and #2 said, “Best of luck to you Brushed Nickel Lamps.  That freak couldn’t decide between paper and plastic if the grocery store was burning down around her.”

Then I went next door to T.J. Maxx and bought two tops because I had Acute Decorating Stress.

It was time for a craft project.  I painted a clock that we’ve had forever.  First I painted it gold, then bronze, then gave it a sanding and a coat of wax and that’s when it was official.  I turned a perfectly good clock into a ticking piece of shit.  I also didn’t tape it off to touch up one little spot because I knew I’d be extra careful, and so its face was splattered with a mist of spray paint which resembled Al Roker doing beach coverage during hurricane season.

I hated looking at all the bare walls but when I looked down that was even worse.  Have we been wiping our butts on the carpet?  We went to Lowe’s and got a quote for new flooring that was $2777.15 which was quite a surprise, much like the “guess how much our health insurance is going to be” surprise that we’ll be getting on October 1st.

The scenes from the crime…………….

The bed………  Not sure about the baby beluga because, after all, we do live in Kansas.  I tried hot-gluing wheat and soy beans up there but they kept dropping into my hair and crowding out the acorns.

The nightstand with the latest lamp, still wearing its tags in case it goes buh-bye like the other two.  And what’s that by the frame you ask?  Why that would be my drooly mouthguard which you won’t see on most any decorating blogs.

Here’s the wall that was supposed to be a cool Pinterest inspired mix of prints and photos but is neither because big prints and photos cost too much to frame so I repeatedly use small ones.  This repeatedly looks cheap.  And stupid.

                                

The Craft Project Clock which looks like it belongs in Liberace’s house (or around the neck of Flava Flav), and when I ask The Big Daddy what time it is he says, “Why, it’s half past that metallic monkey’s ass.”

And here is the real reason I have no business having a decorating blog………..the photo with the hand held massager (is that what the young people call it these days?) that my neighbor lent me for my bum shoulder.  Holy shit…….how’d I let that get into that picture?

In the design blogosphere this is referred to as “that unexpected touch of whimsy.” 

Alrighty then.  I got me a design blog.

The summer my dad died was a slow and steady march towards the end.  I had last seen him in July and when we came back six weeks later his thin, gaunt appearance was so startling to me that any attempt to hide my reaction was surely in vain.

By then he was under the care of hospice which was a very new thing back then.  A couple of times a week a nurse would come to the house, and no kidding, this one would sit in her car parked on the curb and have a cigarette before she came in.

Mom, who was desperate to make Dad comfortable, would look out the front window, shake her head and say, “She’s the one who’s going to need hospice pretty soon if she keeps that up.”

The last time she came she gave Dad a sponge bath and when she was done declared, “You’re all good now.  Eat, drink and be merry.”

He barely ate.  He barely drank.  There was no merry to be had.

When his pain became unmanageable at home he got admitted to the hospital.  He was only there a few days when we got the call at 2:30 a.m. that he had died.  Mom and my brother, Jim, and his wife, Nancy, had been there all night and were with him when he passed away.   Jim called the other five of us and we all drove to the hospital with our spouses to be together with him one last time.

The days that followed were a blur of abundant love and overwhelming sadness.

When some time had passed, I asked Jim what it was like at the end and he said, “Oh, you wouldn’t have wanted to be there, Kath.  He fought until his very last breath.”

And when I heard that I was so angry at my dad.  The man who fiercely loved his God and believed in a better life after this one put up a fight and did not go gentle into the night.

Fought against what, Dad?  That’s not how it was supposed to be. 

And I stayed mad about that for a long time.

Twenty three years have passed since then, and long ago I had a change of heart about those thoughts that swirled over and over in my head about my plan for how Dad should have left this earth.  The “I know what I would do” of my more youthful years has lost its luster, replaced by a more frequent and pensive “I don’t know.”

I don’t know what my final moments will be like but it is human nature to hold onto life.

I don’t know if I’ll surrender or be a fighter like Dad.

I don’t know if my children will be mad at me if I don’t depart on their terms.

I don’t know……..

My father would not have wanted any of us to stay angry about the most unheard of cancer out there, his misfortune in getting it, or the way in which his story ended early.  He was a man that was always grateful for the life he had been given and that has remained the beacon in my own life.

My brother and I never had another conversation about that night again. 

I know that the ending wasn’t the end…………

I took a break from the 50+ section of the Huffington Post on how to look, feel, appear, deny, accept and embrace the midness of my lifeness, and instead read an article about goals and how to achieve them.

The piece was inspired by Diana Nyad, the relentless dreamer of the Florida-by-way-of-Cuba-by-way-of- the-freestyle 60-something that is the It Girl for Never Giving Up.

On that Saturday I kept checking my phone to see if she made it and was silently cheering her on.  And when she did………..holy speedo and swim goggles……..the fifth time was finally her lucky charm.

That night when I saw the news and her looking dazed and staggering out of the water I thought differently.  This is what achieving your goals look like when you’re sixty?  You can’t talk.  Your lips look like intertubes.  You’ve got the shaky shakes.

She thanked everyone, told the crowd to never give up on their dreams and be sure to drink your Ovaltine.  Or something like that.  I had a hard time understanding her before she was whisked away to the hospital for observation.

Wait.

What?

The hospital for observation?

For a dream?

I’m not that kind of a dreamer.

For the last few months at our local grocery store, when the checker has handed me my receipt I have been informed of the number of  points I’ve accumulated for the cookware promotion.  I never paid attention until I hit the 80 mark and then I took a long look at these Promo Pots and Pans and saw one I fancied.

While Diana Nyad was swimming in the gulf and her team kept watch over sharks and the dreaded box jellyfish, I was at the Hen House in hot pursuit of my own dream.

The.  Stock.  Pot.

It was mine for FREE once I made it to The Promised Land of 120 points, so this week I loaded my cart for the final attempt, pushed down the pain and made my dream a reality.  By my calculations (# of $$$ needed per one point) it only cost me $2,520.00, but I may be a little off on that. 

But not much.

When Extreme Dreamers strap on their extreme gear and proclaim, GO BIG OR STAY HOME, I know they are taking pity on the likes of me.  The ultimate stay at home girl………happy that fall is in the air, that the football gods will sometimes smile on us and televise our beloved Chicago Bears in Kansas City, that my big, fat sweaters can come out, and chili will be simmering in my freeish stock pot.

A little dream.  A little victory.  A little of the shaky shakes.

After a year of the dating life, Mark and his parents invited me to vacation with them at Horsehead Lake in Big Rapids, Michigan.  It was a six hour drive from the Chicago suburbs.

I packed my shorts and swimsuit, plus a couple of sweatshirts for the cool nights and happily made the trek with my boyfriend’s family for a week at the lake.

When we arrived at our designated cottage, I met Marv.  He was the caretaker of these vacation homes and year-round resident of Horsehead Lake.  Mark’s mom would say to me, “Marv’s been here for years.  I can’t imagine coming here and not seeing him taking care of everything.”

He seemed like a nice enough guy and I would later learn that every morning for breakfast he would pour unpopped popcorn kernels in a bowl with milk and crunch away.

Every morning.

For years.

After we settled in I was told about the toilet.  Because of the close proximity to the lake and the possibility of a regular toilet accidentally causing contamination in the lake, Marv installed toilets that burnt waste via a propane tank.  It looked like a regular toilet but there was no water in it and it sounded like a jet taking off when you flushed it. 

I used this odd contraption the first night and then went to bed.

The next morning I was the last one up.  Mark’s mom made oatmeal.  I didn’t want to be “that girlfriend” with picky food issues but I hate oatmeal.  She offered to make me scrambled eggs and while she was doing that I went to the bathroom.

I started peeing and was instantly burned by hot steam from the propane tank that engulfed my bare butt.  I hopped off that fiery toilet and finished peeing in the shower but it was too late.

I was injured.

Injured real bad.

I hobbled out to the table with tears in my eyes.  Mark asked what was wrong.

“It……it……..it was that toilet.  It started steaming and then it…..it……it burnt me.”

And those Fishers tried to look sympathetic but they couldn’t help themselves from bursting out laughing.  They had forgotten to tell me that after the toilet had been used a couple of times it needed to cool off for awhile or it would be like peeing on a hot radiator.  “You’ve been christened,” Mark’s dad howled.

Really, Tom?  Are you sure about that?  Because where I come from a christening requires water which that effing toilet doesn’t have a drop of!!!

From that moment on I made sure to ask how many flushes had been before me as I wasn’t taking any more chances with that beastly propane toilet.  By mid-day when the sun warmed things up I peed in the very lake that Marv was trying so hard to keep clean.

After that summer Mark’s dad decided that Horsehead Lake was too far of a drive and so they started going to a lake that was a little closer.

No mention was ever made that a toilet that had the ability to incinerate your ass was a factor in their decision.

Or that a crusty, old guy named Marv could spend a lifetime eating popcorn kernels in a bowl of milk every single morning and not shatter every one of his teeth.

I will blame my friend, Mary.  The friend with the dining room that made my heart fibrillate years ago when I first saw it.

Oh, and Pottery Barn.  That relentlessly prolific company that sends a catalog of creative mojo once a month that I study like The Beatitudes in 4th grade.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for decorating ideas for they will be filled.  Financing available. 

Between the two of them I have become obsessed with antlers.

I have a few of them within The Man Cave, but I have been on the hunt for more and The Sparks Labor Day Weekend Flea Market is my annual ticket to some horns.

The Fisher kids developed a fondness for the flea market when they went with us last year so they were up and at ’em with us at 7:30 a.m. for the ninety minute trek to the middle of Nowhere, Kansas where vintage reigns supreme.

The Sermon………Kids, trust your eye.  You’ll know when you see it.  Do Not Pay Full Price.  Everybody deals.  Be nice and smile when you ask for their best price.  We can always backtrack if you can’t stop thinking about something.

We wandered and wandered and wandered.  Prepared with sunscreen, a box of Cheez-Its, water and the rolling metal cart The Big Daddy insisted we buy a few years ago which has been the best twenty bucks we ever spent.  While the kids were on the hunt for cameras I moved ahead…….and like a stairway to heaven There Were My Antlers.

A whole stack of them.  The singles (how ’bout two bucks, Ma’m?) and the pairs (ten work for ya?) and oh my goodness, it was like winning the World Series.

And while I was deciding which ones I liked best, and The Big Daddy was saying “Really?  You really want more of those?”, a country guy was watching all this unfold and shaking his head.

“You know, lady, that you can get those for free?  The deer shed them and they’re all over the woods.  You just have to get out there before the bugs get to them.”

So I’ve heard, but I’m not sure exactly sure when I’m supposed to go into the woods to find them.

“Well now let me see.  Hmmmmm……….nobody’s ever asked me that before.  I’m gonna say before winter you should go out.  Yeah, that’s when I would go.  All you want for free.  I sure wouldn’t pay for those things if I were you.”

I thanked him, smiled, ignored him, closed the deal on my antlers.

Fifty feet away at another booth I picked up a skull for $8.00 and could have used a paper bag to breathe into to calm my thumping decor heart down.

The Sermon Updated………Kids, we’re city folk.  We don’t mind the flea market, the curb, the dumpsters, the garage sale or the dimly lit back room of an antique store to rummage for what we want to replicate on the nature inspired pages of the latest Pottery Barn catalog.

But without a doubt we leave a forest full of blood-sucking ticks to the hunters and gatherers and lay the cash down for the suggested retail.

Lust is a full-priced sin.

The kids pretending they’re listening to the sermon.

Now I need more turtle shells.

A couple of years ago, we started taking a new route to Illinois.  We bypassed Iowa, Interstate 80 and its traffic for the soothing Route 36 with its similar speed limit but minus the screaming 18-wheelers, construction or detours.

Because of its tranquil ways, it does not offer the amenities of the interstate.  If you have to pee you’d better do it at the gas station when we fill up as there are no rest stops.  There also aren’t any restaurants along the side of the road………no Culver’s, Taco Bell or Buffalo Wild Wings.

The lunchtime stopping point for us is in Hannibal, Missouri.  Every time we’ve been there I must say out loud, “You know, this is where Mark Twain grew up,” as if nobody remembers me saying the very same thing six months ago.

Hannibal has seen better days.  It looks a bit run down, likely the result of a lousy tax base and a hit or miss tourist season.

When we stopped there last month, we took a chance on eating lunch at a bar.  We walked into the dark place with the mounted deer heads on the walls and there was but one occupied table.  Hardly a ringing endorsement.

We all ordered.  Mark and Will got sandwiches, Mal and I split the burger.  We got a few orders of fries because they were a buck apiece, and how big could they possibly be at that price?  While we waited for our food we entertained ourselves reading the quotes of Hannibal’s famous citizen on the walls while the t.v. blared The Talk with one of reality t.v.’s infamous citizen, Kris Jenner.

What in the world would Mark Twain think of somebody like her?

We got mounds of fries and the burger was the best I’d ever eaten.  I couldn’t figure out what made it so good and so I asked the waitress if there was some kind of secret.  Worcestershire sauce brushed on the patty and lots of seasonings.  We all ate for thirty bucks, left a big tip for our lonely waitress and headed to the car.

One last gaze of the Mississippi River with a movie reel in my head of days long gone, and then we drove out of Hannibal until the next time.

“I hadn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens—there ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right—and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good time….”               

My dad was a member of The Serra Club.  It got its name from Fr. Junipero Serra and its mission was to promote the vocations of priests and nuns in the Catholic church.  Once a month on a Thursday night he would attend their meetings, and on occasion he and Mom would go to the yearly convention.  You don’t hear much about them any more, but back in those days it was a very active group.

Shortly after Easter each year the club would host a family breakfast at a private country country club that some of the members attended.  The group was predominately upper income – lots of doctors and dentists living in big houses.

And then there was us.

Mom would be a nervous wreck prior to this event, making sure we had nice outfits and that we knew to mind our manners.  “And you boys better not try any funny business,” she’d sternly tell my brothers.  “I’ll be watching you the whole time.”

On a Saturday night prior to our annual pilgrimage, Mom wanted us girls to try on the dresses she had sewn for us one more time.  She got one whiff of Jean and said, “What in the world………..?”  Jean had a fondness for garlic salt and had been pouring it into the palm of her hand and licking it over and over.

I thought Mom was going to cry.  Her sure bet – The Girls – had just thrown her for a loop.  “Look at me,” she said to Jean.  “Don’t you get to close to anybody tomorrow, do you hear?  You and that garlic need to stay next to your brothers and sisters and nobody else.  You’re going to reek for days.”

Mom was right.  Jean smelled like a garlic farm, but we scarfed down the hash browns we only ate once a year at the swanky, members only club while The Boys crammed their pockets with dessert mints. 

******************

In the group’s promotion of this line of work, they would put on pageants at local churches which my dad was in charge of for years.  Stacked in our utility room were boxes of the miniature habits of priests and nuns that kids would get chosen to wear for The Parade of Vocations.

It was Toddlers and Tiaras for The Catholics.

When it was our church’s turn to hold this event, my dad (who with my mom shlepped those boxes around the Chicagoland area for years) made sure I was picked to wear the habit of the nuns who taught at our school – The Congregation of Notre Dame.

At nine years old even I knew it was an honor.

I was dressed in the starchy, uncomfortable habit that made turning my head impossible.  Being a nun required putting this on every day?   Sheesh, no wonder The Serra Club had its work cut out for them. 

I whined to Mom as she and the other helpers got the kids ready in a 4th grade classroom.  She would have no part of it.  “You get out there and smile and do your best.”

“But Mom……”  I cried.  “My butt really hurts.”

“What???”

“My butt.  It hurts when I walk.”

“Oh for God’s sake……..,” Mom said as she marched me to the back of the line with the other miniature priests and nuns for the big clergy parade.  “Act like a nun and pray.”

When it was my turn I smiled and tried to look in the direction of the audience but that starch was stiff as a board.  I couldn’t see a thing on either side of my head, but the audience seemed to love the pint-size version of that familiar habit.  Unbeknownst to them was the fact that I was miserable with a delicate problem underneath the heavy, black robe.

I followed Mom’s advice and prayed to Mary to miraculously heal my burning butt, but with each step I took around the gym another revelation unfolded before me.

I knew that I was born into a family that had no business trying to get into the convent or the country club.

                                      

Well, haven’t we had a nice full week of lewd comments, lewd texts, lewd pics, lewd behavior, lewd men?  Although, in the case of Anthony Weiner who is running for NY mayor and Bob Filner, the mayor of San Diego, lewd is a rather tame word for their blatant, offensive crimes against women and civility.

They’re not the only ones.  I would recommend staying off of Huffington Post during your lunch hour seeing as how they had a story this week about employees of Subway putting their penises on the bread of the sandwiches they were making.

I know.  I didn’t even read it and still it caused my to lose my appetite.

When I was 19, my friend and I used to go biking a couple of times a week out to the forest preserve and back.  While stopped at a traffic light some guy hung out the passenger side window and smacked me on the backside so hard I nearly fell off my bike.  The car full of boys drove off laughing.  Since my friend was ahead of me she didn’t know what had happened to me until we stopped.

I still remember the sting – physically and emotionally. 

I have never been on the receiving end of anything so physically blatant since then, but there have been comments and touches that have made me uncomfortable and that I have passed off as “you know how he is”………

………..the message being that it is okay even when it is not.

Ever.

Nobody said it better this week than Helen Mirren.

“If I’d had children and had a girl, the first words I would have taught her would have been “f*** off” because we weren’t brought up ever to say that to anyone, were we? And it’s quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say, “No, f*** off, leave me alone, thank you very much.” You see, I couldn’t help saying “Thank you very much,” I just couldn’t help myself.”

I used to work with this darling, young girl who waited on a customer once and who became so enamored with her that he frequently came in asking for her.  The manager devised a plan to get her off the floor when he came in the door because she was so freaked out by him.   Obviously, we weren’t able to tell him to f*** off, but in hindsight I have to wonder why any business has to be polite to a predator and why we women are so hesitant to say the two words that will change the game.

The other night before I went to bed, I checked the news online and read that 19 fireman were missing and presumed dead.  I didn’t think that was possible.  Surely by morning they would be found and safe at home.

The morning brought no such news and I watched a wife talk about her husband and their four children who are too young to even comprehend what their future will be like without their father.  Like everyone else, the enormity of the loss has weighed heavy on me these past few days.

There were also stories about Edward Snowden, George Zimmerman, Paula Deen and Kim and Kanye’s baby.

Voting rights and marriage rights.

I suppose there is an audience for the former in a culture that is enamored with the celebrity of the moment, regardless of the unseemly behavior that got one there.  There is also an audience for the politician who vehemently opposes or supports the latter, although those opinions are strikingly predictable.

Thankfully, though, the majority of us live in the middle and avoid the fringes.  Mildly amused, irritated or angry with the daily news or the state of our country, but very well aware of the people in our communities who run towards the very things we run from, and whose claim to fame breaks our heart.