katiedid

happy birthday (week) mom

i love you mom. i love that you made all seven of us volcano-shaped mashed potatoes "erupting" with red colored gravy that destroyed the broccoli trees and cheese-cube houses on it's way down. i love that i can't count how many times i've seen you laugh until you cry. i am in awe when i think of throwing a wet, dirty dish rag at bobby, missing and hitting you in the face instead; you were so calm as you peeled it off your glasses and slowly handed it back to me. i love thinking about the hours you spent patiently helping me with my third grade robot project. i love the power you had over us with just one look. i love, though will never really understand, how you rarely have a recipe for something, you "just make it." i love all those songs you were constantly humming, singing or whistling and the fact that you are, to date, the best whistler i have ever heard. i love that you gave us each our very own box of sugar cereal each christmas. i love the motherly pride that frequently beems from your face and how you have always been so quick with your praise. i love that you seem genuinely pleased to talk with me, even if it is the third call full of questions that day. i love the absolute confidence you have always had in dad, yourself and all of your kids, no matter what. i love that you are still one of the very first people i want to talk to about news in my life, good or bad. i love you for always being able to help me see the good and hope in hopelesness, that you have always been a safe haven to come to.

i love realizing more and more each year how much of you is in me. and how much happier my life is for it.

happy birthday week mom. i love you. a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.

california, i'm comin' home

that joni mitchell song ran through my head and out of my mouth every time i was in the car and driving through the golden hills of my california last week. i lived all of my life in california and all but the first 8 months in the little town of placerville. it was my home. then i went to college in utah and hawaii, got married and moved to new york. while i was busy doing that my parents sold the house (along with all the dirt, bushes, trees, barbed wire and star thistle) that all of my childhood memories revolve around and moved away. i haven't been back to placerville for more than 12 hours in more than five years and i haven't come near my old house since a couple years before it stopped being home to porters.

but this trip things were different. this trip i had time to spend in my old hometown and time to drive the winding roads through the gorgeous golden hills i love. i had time to cry while i was doing it. maybe i cried because i missed it, or because i mourn the loss of the little girl i was when i lived there, maybe because i can no longer call those hills and roads mine or maybe just because of all the sweet memories they hold for me. or something else entirely. . . i'm not sure. but i cried and sang to my california and felt more at home driving through that country than i have in years.

and while i was driving i remembered that that little town with all its hills and oaks was my first love. the best kind of first love. the kind that helped me grow, slowly and gently. the first love that made me feel sure and capable and appreciated. the kind that now makes me teary because of all the sweet and young feelings that surface when i think of it. the love i would never want to reclaim because i have become someone new and so has it. but it will always be my first love and for that reason, i will love it forever and part of me will always be at home with it.

wkrp in cincinatti

a show i watched a lot when i was younger. probably as a re-run directly following afternoon cartoons. i don't remember much about the show (blonde hair, big bosoms, cool shades the most prominent). but i do remember the immense satisfaction i felt with the fact that my initials were the exact same as the radio station's, minus the "w." in fact, it was even a source of pride for 8-year-old me. anytime the show came up in conversation, (which my memories lead me to believe happened fairly frequently. although thinking about that now, it seems just weird for 8 year olds to be discussing that show ever) i was always very quick to point out the fact that my initials were KRP. i mean, i practically was that radio station. it must have been impressive because i was really proud of that for a long time.

and even still, there remains a strange little flutter of something, some tiny little residual surge of that pride, whenever i am reminded of the show. of course, i'm only reminded of it about once every six years (a fact i consider a good reflection on my life). but last night chip flew to cincinatti for work. naturally, i had my weird 8 year-old pride and the little theme song and jingle running through my head all yesterday afternoon. today i'll be making up different words to the song and trying to get the girls to sing along. by tuesday, eve will be telling me she doesn't like that song anymore. i'll agree, but won't be able to stop myself from singing it over and over and over until chip finally gets home. at that point i'll be completely disgusted by it and ready for the burial. . . but deep down inside that little bit of pride will swell as i lay the song to rest. and maybe in six years when eve is 9 and ruthie almost 8, (the perfect ages, if my memories aren't completely fabricated) i'll tell eve and ruth all about my ridiculous and secret glory, that i was once KRP. just like the pretend radio station in a tv sitcom that aired 30+ years earlier. then they'll know how cool i really am.

i am still that girl

several days ago (long before the street exploded in front of chip's office) i found myself driving home from the pool with two sleeping girls, crying. and why was i crying? because i was imagining how sad i would be and how sad the girls and chip would be if i died. and then i imagined how sad the girls and i would be if chip died and cried more, and then if one of the girls died. . . really? was i really driving home, crying about these made-up scenarios? yes, yes i was. why do i do this to myself? why do i let myself get so upset about something completely imagined? i don't know why, but i have done it for as long as i can remember.

as a child i would stand by the window sobbing as i imagined my mother in a car accident, dying. i would cry myself to sleep imagining life if jeanie died, or dad or sarah, bobby, david. . . in fact, there was a good period of time where i don't think i ever went to bed without first crying about some fake death scenario running through my head. i thought i had gotten over that. i really thought i had progressed past this strange self-indulgence. . . nope.

so now i wonder, have i progressed at all over the last 28 years? if i played risk with sarah would i throw the board and its millions of pieces everywhere at the end of it, screaming that i would never play again? if i forgot about the soup i was making and it got scorched on the bottom of the pot would i stand by and let sarah get in trouble for it? if i wore jeanie's shirt without asking would i hide on my way home when i heard her voice, take the shirt off, shove it in my backpack and then insist that i went shirt-less to third grade that day? would i just try to stir up the cool whip a bunch to try to cover up the fact that i ate some without asking? would i let wonderful friends go just because of distance and time?

i'd like to think that i have evolved, that i've matured at least a little in life. but if tuesday's morbid imaginings are any indication, i haven't made it far up the evolutionary ladder. so, all my short-comings aside, thank you family and friends. thank you for the second chances, the love, and the over-looking of the fact that i might still be that girl. rest assured that at some point i will cry over your imagined death. sure, it might be an immature outlet for handling emotions i can't otherwise process, but let's just say that those emotions are my overflowing love and appreciation; my special tribute to you.

belated to chipper

i love you chip. i love that you can make me laugh in any situation. i love (although it really does drive me crazy) your constant paranoia that one of us is going to choke. i love that the first four thoughts i ever had about you were "his name's chip?" "he's skinny" "i like his hair" and "wow, he's so friendly." i love that on one of our first dates you got lost and we ended up just driving for over and hour, listening to music and laughing before finally finding our way. i love the memories of going to your studio and reading my psychology textbooks on the balcony while you painted. i love that you are the most honest person i have ever known, and consequently, the worst liar. i love how you become completely obsessed with ideas or projects that "could be so great." i love that you are constantly wanting to make everthing around you better. i love that you are so complete in your forgiveness. i love the way you hit your hand to your chest and hold it there when you laugh really hard. i love your strange knowledge about the classic rock genre. i love, really really love, thinking about the time you thought you broke your ankle. i love your unreasonable fear of rats and sharks. i love thinking about what a terrible apologizer you are. i love that you can sleep anywhere. i love imagining us old together. i love watching you dance with the girls. i love that you love them so much, and that they adore you in return. i love the stiff-arm stance you get whenever your are trying on a jacket or shirt. i love that you talked me into marrying you, because you were just sure it would be great. i love it that you were right.

happy birthday, chip . . . two days late.

artwork by ethan

the new banner was drawn five years ago by my nephew ethan. my sister, sarah, husband and two kids came to visit us in brooklyn for nearly five weeks during the hottest july known to man. to date, that is one of the best months we've spent in new york.

five adults (mim was also staying with us for an internship that summer) and two kids crammed into our 700 square foot railroad apartment in windsor terrace without an air conditioner. it could have been horrible but it was so great. i love remembering that month. . . chip was in art school taking one or two summer classes, i was in-between jobs, eric was on summer break from dental school, and sarah and mia (2) and ethan (4) were game for anything and everything. so we all just hung out together, wandering through the city. parks, bridges, coney island, museums, shops, regis and kelly, dana carvey, chinatown, broadway, bakeries, trains, zoos, massages and plays in central park, playgrounds, stoopsales, driving tours. . . we were able to do so much and were never rushed or anxious, just hot, exhausted and happy.

i really, really loved that time. i loved that we were really able to share our world with them. it is sad to know that it will never happen again. everything lined up perfectly just for that one month of our lives. but i'm so glad we took advantage of it, before life and bigger responsibilities carried us away.

back to the drawing. here is the explanation (and subsequent inquiry) as recorded by sarah on the back:
"7-21-02 by ethan. this is a picture of the subway. brown spots are gum. [after being told all the spots he was seeing on the subway platorm were gum] ethan asks 'so, long time ago people chewed black gum?' there's the train and mom, dad, kate, chip, miriam, mia and ethan standing behind the yellow line."

we've been in love with this drawing for more than five years, always trying to display it but never in a way that has really done it justice. so, i'll hang it here for awhile. of all the pictures i've seen capturing the city, i don't like any nearly as well as i love ethan's portrait of new york life and the family we were for that one summer month.

dad

i love you, dad. i love that when bitten by a rattlesnake you killed it, sucked the venom from your hand and kept right on working. i love that you were in a band called "wildfire." i love that you get choked up. i love your loud laugh- the chuckle is nice too, but i prefer the loud laugh and how it is only lasts a moment. i love that you called us "knuckleheads." i love remembering you pounding on my bedroom floor (your celiing) when i was talking too late and too loud on the phone. i love your wheat pancakes. i love your chopped off finger and wish, oh wish, i had real memories of looking for the tip of it before mom rushed you off to the hospital. i love that you played the guitar for us to sing to. i love your donald duck impression. i love that very, very loud clap of yours. i love the many memories of playing volleyball or performing in a concert or a play and hearing that clap in the crowd. i love that i can't buy buttermilk without imagining you putting a little pepper on it and gulping it down. i love thinking of those talks you used to have with me when i was punk teenager . . . oh, i hated them then, but thinking of your concern now makes me teary-eayed. i love that you have always encouraged us to be happy in life, and that success is not a word with narrow meaning. i love your self-control, your incredible example of hard work and patience, and the fact that i've always known that you love me, even when i was at my worst.

so, thanks dad, for all the reasons you've given me to love you. happy father's day.

happy birthday bobby

i love you bobby. i love that you let me dress you up as a girl over and over and over, makeup and all. i love that you made a "treasure hunt" for the family by drawing dollar signs on the all the walls and carving even more into the window sills. i laugh every time i think of mom making you run laps around the house with the hope of calming you down. i laugh even harder when i think of you walking down the hall complaining to mom that none of your "panties" were clean. and i secretly love, although it is completely disgusting, to remember all the meals you created with ranch dressing as the main course.

it is hard for me to think of you and not immediately picture the chubby 13 year old i left at home when i went off to college. . . but now you're all grown up. you're married (to someone i'm legitimately looking forward to being friends with) and have a life all your own. but you're still so fun to be near. you are so easy to laugh and joke with. and you still have the amazing gift of making people feel welcome and at ease. i'm lucky to have you for a brother and even luckier that you've forgiven me (you have, haven't you?) and like me after all the torture i put you through as a child.

happy birthday bobby. come to visit us soon.