Category: Uncategorized

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…………….

The first time I ever rode a bus was when I would visit my Grandma.  She didn’t drive and counted on the bus to take her everywhere.  She let me sit by the window so I could watch the scenery, and when it was time to pull the cord to ring for our stop I had the honor.

For a few years before I started taking the train, I was a daily bus rider from the suburbs into Chicago.  My friend, Pat, got on about a mile before me and would save me a seat in the back.  Every morning we had the same driver whose job it was to get his riders into the city and to our jobs.  If the expressway was a hot backed-up mess, somebody up front would pass the hat to pay the tolls so our driver could take the Skyway and get us downtown faster.  He wasn’t supposed to do this, but he did.

The bus was full of interesting characters.  There was the guy that Pat and I went to school with who was an epileptic.  He was working at a bakery making donuts when he had a seizure and burnt both his hands so badly in the hot oil for making donuts that they had to be amputated.  Another guy watched people sleep and if your head started bobbing, he’d straighten it out for you.  The pervy old guy who checked the girls out every morning.  It didn’t occur to us that we were better than these people.   We were just trying to get to work.

Mark and I were discussing the disconnect in society these days, the lack of empathy for the less thans, and even outright disdain.

That didn’t happen on the bus.  We all paid the same fare, we all had someplace to get to, and when the hat was passed it didn’t matter how much money you threw in so long as we all got where we needed to be on time.

On those occasions when weather wreaked havoc on the buses for the return trip, sometimes you would run into a rider from your morning bus and things would seem better……..for making your way home in the dark during a storm can be frightening, but isn’t that what we’re all trying to do every day? 

As if the universe couldn’t have timed this any better, I started working this week.  I had an interview more than a month ago for a place I previously worked at that is opening a second store.  I think I’ve become an expert on interviews and if I ever wrote a book it would be about that.

Kathleen, tell us a little something about yourself.  Well, first off, I’m questioning whether applying for this job was a good idea.

What about ________________ interested you?  It was the only legitimate listing on Craigslist in the last week.

How do you handle criticism?  Isn’t there some sort of honeymoon period before we jump to that?

What do you expect to get paid for this job?  Trick question.  Not playing.

I’m approaching shift #3 of the week and have already been on the hunt for new-standing-all-days shoes.  Next week I’ll have twice as many hours.  I’m not sure how much I’ll be writing given my new working life, however, I’m a frequent mind wanderer and an-in-my-head-story-writer……..which I intend to keep on the down low from my new employer.  

At least until they bust me.

A couple of weeks ago, I looked up the campaign website for Claire McCaskill.  She does not represent my state, but the Missouri border is a mere five miles from my house.  Since Kansas is a lost cause for electing smart representatives, I thought I’d volunteer for one even if I couldn’t cast a vote for one.  I have always liked Claire, but millions of dollars were being spent to defeat her and keeping her Senate seat was not going to be easy

Up until Sunday.  That’s when Todd Akin handed her a present when he said that we women have some heebie-jeebie magic up our girl parts that can expel rape semen and prevent pregnancy.  Who actually wrote a check to this idiot?

Later on Sunday, it was reported that my representative in Kansas was on a trip to Israel with other members of Congress when he got himself likkered up and swam nekked in the Sea of Galilee.   Not for very long, he said, as if that makes it any more professional behavior.

The last few years have been a constant attack on women and in one weekend we’ve seen some sterling examples of what dumbing down the vote gets you.  In more upbeat news, Condoleeza Rice became the first woman invited to be a member of Augusta National.

A barrier was broken and the chairman of the club said, “It is a joyous occasion.”

They were only ninety years late to the party, but kudos for finally succumbing to that pesky suffrage movement and joining the rest of the country.

By the way, your newest member raised the I.Q. of the entire club just by walking in the door.

On Friday morning, we arrived on the Campus of Higher Learning and Mallie Bee’s new home.  Since this is my third time moving a freshman into a dorm room, I know what to expect.

We loaded the car the night before and it seemed to me that it was the smallest load we’d ever had.  From what I remember of Time #1 and Time #2, the car was packed, with barely enough room to cram in the student who was expected to arrive with all this stuff.  BD, don’t forget to leave space for the kid.

Move-in day, despite the best of intentions or planning by the higher-ups, is always a cluster and we spent 45 minutes creeping inch by inch to the dorm entrance.  Two lines to make it go faster?  Nope, and chatting it up with campus security during the process found him in agreement, “Ma’am, they don’t ask me my opinion, but I’ll be damned if that wouldn’t make a whole lot more sense.” 

Directly ahead of us was a family with a U-Haul.

A U-haul.

It took them twenty minutes to unload their rented trailer and Target must have met their daily sales goal every time they walked down the back-to-school aisle.  It just kept coming with a shoutout to Costco for the cases of bottled water, snacks, Gatorade and Propel, toilet paper and paper towels.  Then they took pictures of it.  The crammed U-Haul, the pile on the curb waiting for the volunteers to load it up, the student with the pile, Mom and student with the pile, brother and student with the pile, Auntie and Grandma and student with the pile, and then finally the empty U-Haul.

I. Was. Losing. It. 

When we finally reached The Promised Land we had our car unloaded and out of the way in five minutes.  Five.

We forgot a few things, but Mallie Bee’s a smart one and she’ll figure it out, make do, borrow or get it next time she’s home.

The broom and ironing board that the U-Haul family brought?  Will never be touched.

Today is move-in day for the Beester.  The Big Daddy is out of town and Nathan has oh so kindly offered to help us haul stuff up to her dorm room.  Last night, he and Maggie came by and he told us how he started bawling on his move-in day of freshman year and “it turned into a shit show.”

The new son-in-law is a perfect family fit.

One of the many things I will miss about not having the kids around is the videos and music they show me.  I feel like it keeps me hip to the youngins.  Except nobody hip would say that.

Mallie Bee told me about this one.  Blogworthy, she said, you’ll like it.

Yes, Beester,  I do love this video.  Now go off and meet new people, expand your mind and your world, call home once a week and make good choices.

When my cousin, Kerri, was thirteen years old she passed away.  On Thanksgiving Day she was at my Mom and Dad’s house, and after our big turkey dinner I sat and talked to her.  She was much younger than I was so we weren’t especially close but I remember that talk.

The next day she went into cardiac arrest and was airlifted to Childrens’ Memorial in Chicago.  She remained there until her death in February.  At one point, the doctors told her parents that the best they could do was manage her symptoms as they had no idea what was causing her to continually go into cardiac arrest.

That was when anorexia was just becoming known.  She was teeny tiny for her age so they sent in a psychiatrist to talk to her.  She would have no part of it and would turn her head away from the doctor when she would come in to discuss it.  From the doctor’s viewpoint, this only confirmed that she had been starving herself to death.

An autopsy revealed that she had Freidrich’s Itaxia which attacks and weakens the muscles around the heart.  Her funeral was so, so sad and when it was over my siblings and I all came back to my parents house.  Mom and Dad went into their bedroom and closed the door.  They had been incredibly strong for my aunt and uncle through the months of Kerri’s illness and death and not once had I seen them cry.

All these years later, I think they came home from that cemetery, closed the door and sobbed.  My dad emerged awhile later and said to all of us sitting at the table, “I don’t ever want to hear one of you kids go to a funeral and tell someone to call if they need anything.  Somebody they loved just died.  Their life has been turned upside down and it’s not up to them to pick up the phone to ask for help.  It’s up to us to pay attention and figure out what they need.”   Then he walked back into the bedroom and shut the door. 

I never forgot those words of his.  He meant them and he expected his kids to heed them.

Kerri was so pretty.  Her eyes were big blue saucers and she had the longest lashes I’d ever seen.  Even in the hospital hooked up to a dozen machines, she smiled and whispered and her eyes shone.

She needed so much that was out of the grasp of all of us those many months in the ICU, but if I could have done anything for her it would have been to tell that psychiatrist to leave our girl alone.

I’ve posted this song once before.  I love it.  I could listen to it over and over and over.  Well, I have actually.  Mallie Bee introduced us to this song when she did her first solo to it, and all I can say about that is………….oh my, that girl dances with her whole heart.

The Teacher Girl is starting her school year off on very shaky ground……..over a hundred ELL kids and her only aide is on medical leave for cancer.  She’s had a long week complete with a shoe getting flung at her and somebody else I’ve come to admire has had a long year.

May it get better.

Soon.

We have been addicted to the Olympics.  We usually are, but this year especially so, and Kansas City is ranked #2 in the country for most watched viewers.  What better way to spend a couple of weeks than admiring athletes whose training and dedication combined with power, skill and speed exceed us in every way. 

We had a boy who lived on our block who was Will’s best friend.  His forearms were about half their normal size causing multiple problems especially with his hands.  Everything from unwrapping a popsicle to writing was difficult for him, but his parents raised him as if there was no difference between him and his brother.  They moved many years ago, and every now and then he will show up at our door and the house rejoices at a Kevin sighting.

When he was in 4th grade he had to fill out a get-to-know-you paper on the 1st day of school.  The person he’d most like to be when he grew up?  His friend, Will Fisher.  His teacher had Will the year before and called to tell me that in twenty years of passing that paper out, no kid had ever put another student’s name as an answer to that question.

They were the best of buds and ran the street like little hoodlums.  His parents taught him that nothing he wanted to do was off limits.  His friend taught him how to pee outside so precious play time during summer breaks and after school wasn’t wasted in the house. 

Here’s to overcoming the odds…………and getting by with a little help from our friends.

Sunday is the day The Boy Child packs up his summer and moves back to the bustling metropolis of Manhattan, Kansas.  The Little Apple, although it bears absolutely no resemblance to the big one.  He will be a senior and good Lord, that went fast.  His focus this year will be finishing with a bang, and hopefully work, talent and luck will get him a design job when he’s done.

Next Friday, Mallie Bee moves into her dorm to start pursuing her passion for dance full-time.  Based on her siblings before her, four years from now we will wonder again at how the years have flown.

On Saturday, Mark and I will start a different stage of our life without the daily presence of kids.  The tick of days has been slow through most of those years, and then we blinked and each of them were flinging themselves out the door in a burst of energy and excitement.

I am thrilled and thankful that they have the opportunity to go to college when equally talented and passionate kids do not through no fault of their own.  I tell my kids that all the time.  You have no idea how lucky you are.

But this house that was too small for so many years will feel rather empty without their smiling faces around.

We could all use a little of this as we adjust to the changes before us……………..

Especially me.