Making An Entrance

The kids were all here for dinner and Maggie was telling us about her friend who has become a doula.  “Doula,” Will said.  “What’s a doula?”  Maggie and I filled him in on the deets, and then she told us that this long-time friend of hers is considering going back to school to become a midwife.  I cannot think of a better person to do that job.

From there we had a generic conversation about birthing babies and epidurals.  “Who the heck wouldn’t want one of those things?”  Maggie said.  “I don’t want to feel a thing.”

Well, I had one of those and I really didn’t like it.  When I couldn’t feel my legs my anxiety level went into overdrive.

“No way,”  Mags said.  “Which one of us did you have it for?”

For you girls I had a painkiller.  For Will I had the epidural.

That got the boy’s attention.  

“What???  Are you kidding me????  I’m the only kid of yours that you didn’t feel coming out your vagina?”

More or less.  No wait, it was definitely more.

Source: twitter.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Concealed

There has been a lot of opinions voiced in the last month regarding our gun laws.  Or lack, thereof.  I paid attention until the NRA declared “a major announcement” was coming, and then in all seriousness said we need an armed guard in every school.   Good guy with gun kills bad guy with gun, snipers on the roof, tanks in the parking lot, tear gas in the nurse’s office and really, people, what could possibly go wrong when everybody’s armed and ready when the kids come in the door?
 
Here in Kansas we have recently had some cities adopt Conceal and Carry so I guess you never know who or where somebody is packing heat. 

Lenexa, that’s where.

Husband takes wife out to dinner at steak place.  Husband reaches into front pants pocket which has his pistol.  Pistol goes off in restaurant.  Wife shot in the knee.

The good guy shot his own wife with the gun that was supposed to be used for shooting the bad guys.

Who is supposed to carry the gun to shoot idiots?

Safe & Sorry

***Man, if Mom finds out about this “rant” you are going to be on the s(&% list, but don’t worry, it’s safe with me!   Love your Bro J ***

Many years ago, Mark (he wasn’t The Big Daddy yet) and I celebrated New Year’s Eve with some of our friends and siblings.  It was one fun party, but as soon as we walked outside and I got a deep breath of fresh air, it became apparent that I was smashed.  I thought it might be the orange roughy I had for dinner, but my fellow partygoers said it was the hours of mixing beer, wine, rum and coke and champagne.  Allegedly.  As I staggered to the car I said something about “not feeling so good”, so Mark and my sister-in-law got in the back seat and I sat in the front next to my brother should we have to pull over………..

………and we did.

Three times.

The last time was on an embankment where I hurled up more of my New Year’s Rockin’ Eve while sleet was hitting me smack dab in the face, and then I climbed my drunken self back into the car.  I wouldn’t close the door for fear of falling out of the car and so my brother got out, came around to my side and closed it for me.  Mark tells me that at this point he and Nancy were laughing so hard in the back seat they were crying.  I kept apologizing to my brother for causing so much trouble and he said, “Ah, Kath, don’t worry about it.  We’ve all been there.  Nobody needs to know anything about this.”

Jim, you’re a great guy.  A really, really, great guy and big brother.  Sniff.  I’m such a lucky girl.  Well, not at the moment with all the puking, and maybe not tomorrow with the hangover, and maybe not the day after that if I can’t get this barf off my coat, and maybe not the day after that if I ruined these shoes, but after that I’ll be lucky again.  Won’t I, brother?  Won’t I be a lucky girl again?

We made it back to their house where I fell into bed (literally) and slept until 4:00 the next afternoon.  I got up and changed out of my party clothes and Mark and I went to my mom and dad’s house to get the rest of our stuff before heading home.  I wasn’t at my parents’ house five minutes when Mom said, “Your brother called.  Said you made a real ass out of yourself last night.”

***Bro J must have forgotten that I stopped believing anything I said or did was safe with him since January 1st, 1984.***

A Club

The Big Daddy started riding with a group of guys every Saturday morning a couple of years ago.  When the weather turned colder, they’d retreat to the warmth and comfort of their suburban homes and put the spandex away until spring.

But not everybody.

The BD found out that one guy continued riding every Saturday morning, regardless of temperatures, and decided to join him.  For The BD does not let anybody outman him without a fight.  Off he’d go to meet his biking buddy, and even if he came in stiff as a popsicle wrapped in lycra, he’d say that he and Joe had a great ride.  Or at least that’s what it sounded like he was saying.  It was hard to make out because his lips didn’t move until he’d stood under the vent for a spell.

Before long, they named themselves The Polar Bear Club and he’d set the alarm every cold Saturday to go meet “the club.”   I was confused.

Just how many people did you say are in this club?

Well, there’s two of us.  Me and Joe. 

That’s not a club.

Yes it is.

No……….a club is a group of people.  

We’re a club. 

The Shriners are a club.   The Loyal Order of The Buffalo is a club.  The International Order of the Friendly Raccoons is a club.    Captain Kidd and the Mateys?  Club.  Two guys on a bike in January?  Not a club.

Two people can make a club.

Yeah, but it’s not really legit since a club is a group of people.

A club is in the eye of the beholder.  We’re beholding The Polar Bear Club.

And so it’s gone these past winter months this year and the year before.

This weekend, five bikers showed up to ride before the sun came up with a temperature at 35 degrees.  Some snow.  Some ice.  Some wind.

Some crazy fools on bikes getting their club on with no lodge in sight.


Preheating the Oven

We just got back from a trip to see The Queen Mum and the family.  For the last few years, The Big Daddy and I split up for the duration.  Mallie Bee and I sleep at Mom’s house, Mark, Will, Maggie and Nathan sleep at my sister’s.

Trouble in Paradise?

The Big Daddy and I used to sleep together on our visits, but The Queen Mum likes her house nice and toasty throughout the year.  She keeps her thermostat at 72 degrees in the winter.  Just like Florida.  In the summer, she keeps her air conditioning at 80 degrees.  Just like not turning on the air.  Sometimes she’ll get a chill and say, “Is anybody else cold or is it just me?”  It’s just you, Mom.  Then she cranks up the heat some more and we all lounge around like animals in the zoo waving our tails once in awhile to feel a breeze.

The Big Daddy and I would try to sleep in a bed with flannel sheets and sweat, while every few minutes the furnace would blast more hot air into our already stifling room.  Some nights we’d open the window, regardless of the frigid Chicago temps, just to feel some fresh air.

By morning we were zombies.  Sleep-deprived, baked zombies and so he moved across town to the digs of my sister and her husband who like their house a little chillier and a lot more internet accessy.

Mal and I stay at Mom’s where there is no limit of good snacks and a remote that jumps between QVC,  Say Yes To The Dress and the soaps.

While it is still too warm for my menopausal self, The Mum always keeps at least two bottles of her homemade moonshine……………Irish Cream in the fridge.  A couple of shots of that, a closed vent and a wobbly ceiling fan and it’s just like vacationing at your favorite sweat lodge.

The Grandmas

This is a repeat from awhile back.  We went to Chicago for a few days and I saw my aunt and uncle – the brother and sister of my dad.  My aunt moved to Florida and so it is rare that her and I are in the same place at the same time.  She says she reads my blog and this one is her favorite, so this is for my Aunt Alice.  She took me and my sister to our very first movie………….Mary Poppins, and that’s when I started believing in magic.

The first time my mom went to my dad’s house she thought his family was rich because their house was so nice.  Not even close.  My grandpa was a mechanic for the city bus line.   My dad used to say that my mom’s mom could make a ten course meal at the drop of her hat.  Not so, but she was able to pull things out of her fridge and put them in little serving dishes so that lunchtime looked like a tapas restaurant.

I have no idea how financially secure either one of them were but like most women of their generation, they had the ability to make something out of nothing.  A long time ago, that virtue was tossed aside so we could dive headfirst into consumption which doesn’t seem to be giving anybody great results.

I keep pictures of both of my grandmas close by.  Like one, I love to decorate.  Like the other, I can make something little look like something big.  They left this earth many years ago but their spirits remain nearby, teaching me that making do has always been about making a life.

A New Year

I have never been one to make New Year’s resolutions.   This is due to a combination of arrogance (what do I possibly need to change about me????) to laziness (there’s so much wrong with me I don’t know where to start).  I’ve been thinking a lot about resolving some things and so my 2013 mantra is………..

Pay attention.

Pay attention to…………………

1.  What I spend.  If it’s on sale or at the thrift store and I am madly in love with the price point then I need to walk away. 

2.  What I eat.  My tank is compromised with sugar.

3.  What I say.  Though snarky runs in my blood, it’s not necessary to haul it out for every occasion. 

4.  To creative urges.  I have traded the joy of being creative for a paycheck.  There is a balance to be struck and I need to find it.

5.  To wasting time.  When I have a day off, I need to not surf the computer most of the day and instead work on #1 thru #4.

6.  To listening more than talking.

A new year, another dance around the sun and a fresh start…………lucky be thy name.

And The Children Shall Lead Us

We always go to the children’s mass on Christmas Eve at 4:00.  It has a lot more to do with the great time of the day it is than the kid part of it.  I was supposed to work until 5:00, but managed to find somebody who was looking for a legit excuse to get out of a commitment and offered to work the end of my shift for me.  That in itself was a miracle.

We got there about twenty minutes early, and all those kids………  I started tearing up the second we sat down because across the country in a little town in Connecticut, their celebrations had twenty less kids and that……….  Well, that still doesn’t seem real to me.

For the children’s mass, there is a multi-generational choir, and if you can hold a note or your attention for a hot minute you’re in.  Nobody in our family is good at either of those things.   A young one of about fourteen sang between the readings all by her nervous little self.  She’d sing the psalm and everyone would sing the refrain…………

All the ends of the earth have seen the power of God.

She would sing her part and look over at Pat, our choir director, and Pat would smile and she would smile back.  And you could see her get more confident, and as she got more confident the refrain would get louder.

She rocked it.  Oh my goodness, did she rock it.

When she finished, she went racing up the side steps of the altar, disappeared behind a door and then reappeared two minutes later to be an altar girl, and I was better after that because in the brokenness I had seen a great light.


Festivus 2012

We have sent out a Christmas letter for twenty years and for a girl who writes every day, this year was tough.  Every time I sat down to do it, I’d write five minutes of crap and then surf for crap on the time-sucking net.  I found out that the Kardashians photoshop their card, Michael Jordan got kicked off a golf course in Florida for wearing cargo shorts and the way to make your crinkly, aging neck seem more youthful is to wear a scarf.  Drrrrr……………… 

But I got it done in the nick of time………………a Festivus miracle.


So…………we had a little party this summer.  We cleaned up and invited the whole clan to come celebrate the day that Maggie and Nathan got hitched.  Contrary to what you may have heard about Kansas and our peoples, in this case the new Mr. and Mrs. are not cousins.  Near as we can tell.   

In August, Mal bid the parents adieu (that’s French for I can’t get out of here fast enough) and departed for college.  She rarely makes a home visit for the obvious reason that we are here.  She is a dance major and had her first gig at the new performing arts center this fall.  We paid admission to get a glimpse of her, bought her some dinner afterwards and then returned her to the dorm and her pretend family.

Will is a senior at K-State and working in a grocery store as a bagger and weekend food demonstrator.  He may have found his college job passion with an electric skillet and vast refrigerated bunkers of food at his disposal.  He is a weekend warrior at the Hy-Vee (where there’s a helpful smile in every aisle) and when he finally made it home for Thanksgiving, he smelled like tortilla-crusted tilapia.

Maggie and Nathan (and their little dog, too) are happy and living about a mile from us.   Maggie is in her 3rd year of teaching and Nathan is still at Sprint, thus providing a Friends and Family Entitlement for our cell phones.  Unlike the other two, they show up around here often to eat dinner while their dog roams around snacking on wayward underpants.

This was the year that we became empty nesters, which was quite sad for about three days.   It didn’t take us long to figure out that cooking and picking up after ourselves wasn’t nearly as labor intensive as when the house was full.  We’ve had grand plans to travel abroad (or maybe to Omaha) but with two kids in college we instead walk the dog, go to work, come home, yell at the t.v., go to bed, rinse and repeat.

Whether to carry on with this letter or not has been the dilemma of the weekend in the wake of so much grief and sadness in recent days.  We decided to continue with what we hope to accomplish every year, which is to remind you that you are loved, that you are the shiny ornament in our tree of life and that more than ever, we wish you and those you love a merry little Christmas.  Until next year………