Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Rocky Recounting

I share pretty much anything that pops into my brain. This sharing can be my thoughts on today's top news stories, my opinions on the relative lack of merits of popular culture, or a funny or neat thing I learned.

Usually my dog is the lucky recipient of my stories. The other evening, it was my parents who were sitting, riveted, (immobile?) by my newfound knowledge of Catholicism.

"So I'm reading this murder mystery," I began. "It's about this crazy guy who kills catholic school girls based on the Rosary. So, I asked Annette (resident Catholic in my life) about the Rosary."

"And what did you learn," mom asked in between bites of dinner. She knows if she just asks, my story will get over quicker, thus with less pain.

"The beads each stand for a 'decade.'"

"What's a decade?" My dad asked.

Great. He's always got to poke holes in my newfound knowledge.

"I don't know," I said. "I thought it represented each decade of Jesus's life, but he apparently died at the age of 36, according to Annette. And she's old enough that she would probably know. Anyway, there are five decades, and some of the beads are bigger than other beads, and on the bigger beads you pray one thing, and you pray something different on the smaller beads. On certain days, like Mondays and Wednesdays you say one prayer on the small beads, then on Tuesdays and Thursdays you say a different prayer."

"Wow," my mom said. "That's really..."

"Confusing," I supplied. "Then, you get down to the wooden cross, and you say The Apollo Creed."

My parents' silverware stopped. They looked at me. I looked at them.

"That sounds wrong. Apollo Creed," I said to myself. I brightened. "Wait, that's 'Rocky'!"

I learned yesterday that the thing you say when you get to the cross of the Rosary is the Apostle's Creed. The creed probably has nothing to do with eyes of tigers, but beyond that, you'll need to look it up for yourself.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Baby 1, Cat 0

Dearest (friend who shall remain nameless due to the embarrassment that 1)I am actually a friend of hers and 2) I actually sent this card to her on the occasion of her baby shower):

I am so terribly sorry I cannot be there today to share in the joy of
your impending loss of all independence, peace, and quiet. You should
take solace in the fact that the baby will not make her appearance
through your sternum as in "Alien." And while you will be busy soon
cleaning up bodily functions that will make you think you are,
actually, in "Alien," rest assured knowing that you now have an
insurance policy against ending up in an old folks' home. There are
some people such as myself who have all the independence, peace, and
quiet in the world, but a child is a much better way to go. Teaching a
cat to empty a bedside commode is going to be difficult.

You are going to make an excellent mother. Your baby is lucky to have
you. Take a good look around this room - you are looking at a support
system that will be available for advice, support, and free babysitting.

I, on the other hand, am in no way, shape, or form offering to babysit
as these selfless people have. I will babysit your dogs, however. If
you need any advice on babies, don't hesistate to ask! I was one
myself not 28 years ago.

I miss you, and have FUN! I am far more excited about the idea of you
and Brett multiplying rather than a 15 year-old crack whore and her
baby daddy bringing more people into the world.

Katie

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Say it with Assuredness

I love the movie "Catch me if you Can." The book is even better (isn't it always?) Frank Abagnale Jr details his exploits as a pilot, pediatrician, and lawyer, all professions usually requiring a licence, none of which he had. The key to his success was good old-fashioned panache.

I usually speak in such a way that I sound like I know what I'm talking about.

This is a ruse.

(For the record, I make a mental note to look up my assertions later.) Once, my family and I were driving through flat acreage of farm land known locally as "the Palouse." My grandfather asked me what the word meant. Without missing a beat, I said, "It's a Native American word for 'rolling hills.'"

My father almost drove off the road. "You are so full of bullshit. It's a French word!" he said, laughing.

"Wow. She really sounded like she knew what she was talking about, too," my grandpa said. I couldn't tell if it was reverance or disgust I heard in his voice. (For the record, I was sort of correct: "Palouse" is an offshoot of the French "pelouse": land with short, thick grasses.)

I'm not much of a salesperson, which is unfortunate. I could harness my evil for good. Or more evil, depending on your position on acquiring filthy wealth.

The other day, a coworker approached me at the copier. "Hey, Katie, catch!" she said, miming like she was about to toss a foodstuff toward my mouth.

"Oh my gosh, don't!" I said, slapping my hands protectively over my mouth.

"What's the matter? It's only an M&M," she said, confusion clouding her face.

"Do you have any idea how many people die each year from choking to death on M&M's?" I said. "Seventeen. Google it."

Her eyes grew wide, having fallen awestruck under my spell. "Wow. How do you know all this stuff?"

(For the record: M&M's lawyers seem to have gotten to Google, as I am unable to double-check my educated-guess statistic. HOwever, it seems that thirty people die in elevators each year. So while you might choke to death on an M&M, you're more likely to die in an elevator. So take the stairs.)

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Knock, knock - Destiny calling! Oh, wait. Just kidding.

Yesterday at about 11am, my cell phone rang.

Exhausted from trying to scale the wall of Validation for my writing, I sighed to myself, "Let it be an agent, please...even if they're calling to personally tell me 'thanks for wasting my time.' I need something..."

I dug in my purse and fished out my phone. The screen was blue, not a picture of my dog (Mom's caller ID photo) or my cat (Doug's caller ID). Instead, there was writing on the screen. "Call from...N..e..w..Y..o..r..k."

Holy crap.

I flicked the phone open and steadied my voice. "This is Katie."

"Oh. I, um...you said 'Katie'?"

"I also go by Elizabeth," I said. "Elizabeth, Katie, one and the same."

"Oh. I think I must have the wrong number."

"Who are you looking for?" I asked, hoping that by keeping the staffer on the line an extra five seconds, he'll realize that he was looking at the wrong name on the Excel spreadsheet in front of him and it was in fact Katie that he was looking to tell that his agent boss wants to buy the rights to every word that ever comes out of her head.

"Tessa," he answered.

"Tessa what?" I asked. (I have no idea why I kept pressing this.)

"Um, Pina..."

"Oh. Well, I guess that's not me."

"Nope. Sorry for wasting your time," the guy said as he hung up the phone.

"That's okay," I said. "Maybe next time." For all I know, he was calling on outstanding warrants and was looking to make sure Tessa Pina kept her standing reservation at Riker's.

I do know one thing, which is slightly disturbing - I was more shaken up by this mistaken-identity phone call than I am when I'm offered receipt of collect calls from Geiger Corrections Center. And they say television isn't desensitizing.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Purchase Power

I had to go to Walmart the other evening after work. Already drained from a day of, well, work, I had to make some serious withdrawls from my reserve bank of energy to make it through the crowded cesspool of humanity that is Walmart.

A quarter of the way through my shopping trip, I exited an aisle, purchase in hand.

My cart was no where to be seen.

I looked up and down the rows, and finally spotted my cart, being pushed with a baby in the front basket. I didn't recall having a baby while at Walmart, nor did I bring one along for a fashion accessory. I walked up to the cart and faced the woman.

"Hi," I said.

She began to blush furiously. "Is this your cart." It was a statement, not a question.

"It is."

"I'm so sorry," she said, as she started to pull her purchases from it while fumbling for aforementioned baby.

Humanity kicked me in the groin. "Don't worry about it," I said. "I'll get another cart. But if it's okay, I'd like my sweatpants back."

I trekked back to the entrance to get another cart, sweatpants rolls tucked underneath my arm. (When did they start packaging clothing like sushi rolls?) I grabbed an empty cart rather than an unattended cart, and retraced my steps.

My route led me past the prescription and first aid section. An idea dawned on me.

I know exactly how to prevent my cart getting stolen again. I strode down the "feminine needs" aisle and plucked a box of Vagisil from the shelf with the self-confidence of someone not in personal need of the product in question.

I positioned the package front-and-center in the now baby-less front basket and resumed my shopping.

Eggs, yogurt, rice, enchilada sauce, corn tortillas, gluten free Bisquick, necktie for cat, strawberry jam.

I unloaded my cart and paid for my purchases. Once home, I put away all my groceries. I spied a stray bag on the floor. Picking it up, I could tell that there was still something in there.

I don't really need to finish this story, do I?

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Money does grow on trees!

Side note here - I italicized the word "does" in the title using HTML! I am so proud of myself! I didn't use the "italics" key or anything (mostly because it doesn't exist for the title, only for the body of the post). Hah. My $17,000 Masters' brain isn't worthless afterall!

As I was saying, I made the discovery this past week that money does, in fact, grow on trees. I retrieved my mail one evening to find in there a rebate check from our local energy company. It seems that my energy use in the past year was so frugal that I had been overpaying into the "comfort billing" cycle. (I have a sneaking suspicion that overcharging, and resulting overpayments, are built into their billing system. That way they get a steady stream of revenue off of which they can collect interest before returning the original overpayment to its rightful owner each fiscal year. But that's just a suspicion.)

Oh well. I got my $200 back. How exciting!

I went back into the house. Setting the mail on the kitchen table with one hand, I opened the back door with my other. "Go on, Truman. Go forth and annoy thy neighbors."

I joined him outside, taking in the fresh air and beautiful evening sun. I looked to my right. My neighbors across the way were barbequeing dinner. I looked to my left.

There is a gigantic 15-foot tree laying across my yard. I stared at it for several seconds. Tree=upright.

I finally regained enough composure to call an arborist to give me a bid to remove the fallen tree. He came out the next day to survey the damage.

"Yep, you've got bores, that's for sure. All four trees are going to need to come out. See that saw dust piled around the base of the trees?"

I looked.

"That's obviously been building for some time. You haven't noticed it?"

"I thought that was just bark sloughing off or something," I said meekly.

"Bark." He looked at me skeptically. "You have realized that the trunk flakes off in paper, not bark, right?"

"So, how much for all four?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Fifty per tree, so that's...two hundred dollars."

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Memory's death-defying tricks

My grandmother died last week. She was 91 1/2 years old, and I have to admit, there's a little part of me that didn't think she would die, that in a hundred years, she would be featured in a documentary about the world's longest-lived woman, and the documentary would be streamed via antennae implanted in people's molars.

I think that's what she would have wanted, too. The end came fairly quickly, from her normal level of functioning to deceased in about 2 weeks. (Granted, there were many downward steps on that normal level of functioning preceeding her death.) The week prior to her dying, she lamented that she needed to cancel the STA bus to the next day's bingo session. As her family sat vigil, taking turns so that someone was by her side twenty-four hours a day, the oxygen machine whooshing in the background, she vacillated between feeling rotten ("I'm just not getting any better!"), feeling lazy ("I'm just laying here like a bump on a log!"), and feeling withdrawn ("I'm sorry, but I just don't feel I can socialize right now..."), as her family stared at her. What part of this is she not understanding?

There's something about death that I find particularly intriguing. How is it that in the mental transition one goes through from "person exist-ing" to "person exist-ed", we take our doubts, fears, and insecurities about how we interact with other people, and place them on our memories of how we interacted with the deceased?

For me, I doubt that I am very patient with people who aren't as quick-witted as me. I fear that I treat some people like they are very stupid. And I am insecure about people liking me. I almost prefer they not like me, because then there are no expectations that I will fail to meet.

With Grandma now gone, I hear this tiny voice in my head saying, "You excluded her from many of your conversations - you talked to the people around her rather than with her. You treated her like she was too dumb to get what you were saying. And you didn't try to build a relationship with her, because then you might have been held accountable to...something. Someone."

It is awfully difficult to not listen to that voice. There's a part of me, purely emotional, that wants to nod my head vigorously, tears in my eyes, and say, "It's TRUE! I'm an awful human being!" But that voice is not named Reality. Its name is Grief.

Grief passes eventually. However, the potential for allowing inaccurate thoughts, frameworks if you will, into your subconscious, is hideously strong - and permanent.

I'm trying to let Grief talk, to say what it needs to say, without talking over Reality.

Sometimes Grief has prettier things to say than Reality. It's easier to blame yourself than it is to be realistic. "If I had done X, then Y wouldn't have occured." Yeah...maybe...but probably not. That "probably not" holds a truism that human beings don't like to admit: We are Insignificant. If I had (been on United 91 and known how to fly a plane), then (it wouldn't have crashed). If I had (been a slave owner and converted to abolitionism in 1700), then (civil rights would have been achieved earlier). Maybe, but probably not.

My examples seem preposterous due to their scope. I'll apply it to my grandmother, then.

"If I had (been more patient with her/included her more), then (she wouldn't have been so self-absorbed/would have shown more interest in the lives of her family rather than what the retirement community was serving for dinner)."

"If I had (been thankful for her taking me to the orthodontist), then (she wouldn't have made me feel like I owed her for her kindness)."

"If I had (not been so self-reliant as a child) then (maybe I would have let her feel more needed.)"

"If (my birth father had not died shortly after Grandma moved in with us), then (we would have been one big happy family where no one ever disagreed with anyone because my dad liked Grandma all the time and she wouldn't have gone psycho control-freak on me and my brother)."

Maybe, but probably not.

My Reality says I usually ignored my grandmother, but sometimes I made an effort to change my speech pattern, volume, and subject matter to something she wanted to converse with. I was usually bored with her complaints and imaginary maladies, but sometimes I tried to hide that boredom. My Reality says that we were never very good to each other, but in the end, I held her hand and kept a cool washcloth on her forehead.

When someone dies, we need to be honest with ourselves, knowing that we didn't second-guess our interactions at the time so there's probably no reason to second-guess them now. We need to be honest with our memories, letting Reality tell them, rather than Grief.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Abra-cat-abra

Truman had to pee. For once, he told me, rather than just lifting his little leg one inch and watering the inside of my house. I headed for the back slider to let him out, when I caught movement from the corner of my eye.

Above my kitchen table is a recessed light. From it, a spider was slowly dropping itself down...down...down...toward my cat, Lincoln, passed out on a placemat.

The spider swung gently in the air, and then I saw it - a very red spot in a sea of black, and a very large, very impregnated backside.

Shitshitshitshit where's the damn bug spray? shitshitshitshit

I threw open the cabinet underneath the sink and dug around. Trash can, 409, fire extinguisher. I hesitated, considering the wisdom of using a fire extinguisher to kill a black widow spider, especially when there would be a cat in between the spider and the extinguisher.

Common sense overrulled my panic, and I resumed my search. My darn father probably put the bug spray in my garage, next to the wasp killer and Ortho Home Defense. Sure enough, there it was. I grabbed it, hoping I wasn't too late.

I ran back into the kitchen, and saw the spider dangling inches above my snoring cat, oblivious to the danger that was about to befall itself right into his fluffy coat.

Crap, no time for bug spray. I set the can down hard on the counter and turned back to the cat. "Link, Link, wake up, MOVE."

The cat stirred, but returned to sleep.

"Sorry Linkie..."

I gripped the placemat he was asleep on, and dug my fingers into it. I took a deep breath, and yanked the placemat as hard as I could.

The spider dropped to the table. The cat flew several feet and bonked into the cabinet doors.

I killed the spider, cleaned up the carnage, and went to survey the collateral damage. Link wound around my ankles and looked up at me, his big green eyes gleaming: "That was fun! Let's do it again!"

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Saying Goodbye

I'm not an intimate person. I don't especially enjoy hugs, except from my "inner circle" of my mom, dad, and brother. I keep a solid bubble around me at all times, psychically and emotionally.

Some may say that's a sad way to live one's life. "You're missing so much, the wonderful roller coaster ride that is true love." "You're missing so many amazing experiences, all because you're afraid you'll get hurt!" I can barely get over the pain of losing my favorite ten-cent Bic pen, and I'm supposed to be okay with a man showing me love and then taking it away again?

To fill the void of "other-ness" in my life, I have pets. Lincoln is my little buffalo of a cat, Trumie is my little silly-monkey Dachshund, and Ellie Bean was my sweet, sweet black purr-bucket.

For the two years that our family was complete, I felt like Lincoln enjoyed me, Trumie needed me, and Ellie truly wanted me. Wherever I went, Ellie Bean was on my heels. She treasured our Mom-and-me time whenever I was in the restroom. She loved having alone time with me (neither of the other fur babies were hardy enough to follow me into the restroom). Whenever I took a bath, she sat on the edge of the tub and dangled her tail in the warm water. She occasionally slipped, giving her hind end a dousing. Despite being sopping wet and desperate to get out of the tub, she never scratched me, my vulnerable skin lying inches away from her frantic feet scrambling for purchase against the porcelin.

She had it tough in the beginning. For the first few months of her life, she lived as bribary with a young, single mother and her child who can only be described as a serial-murderer-in-the-making. To get the child to sleep in his own bed at night, she got him a kitten. The young mother fed Ellie (known simply as "Black Cat" to them) dry kibble from the dollar store. She had a plastic cat box full of litter that I wouldn't use to gain tire traction in a snow storm.

The young mother would tell her coworkers stories of the funny things the son did to the kitty - locked her in the toy box, put her in the toilet and closed the lid, pulled her tail...Finally I said, "I'll take her."

Those three words gave me two years of joy watching the kitty flourish into a sweet, gentle soul with a luxurious black coat that Lincoln occasionally helped clean.

We all know that life is a zero-sum game. You start with zero, you accrue, you lose, you build, you gamble, and no matter how successful you are, you will always end back at zero. So what do you have to show for your journey on Earth?

Feelings, I guess. And Ellie Bean gave me feelings of pride, happiness, and love.

I miss you, Bean.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

My cat is a nazi

Poor Ellie Roosevelt.

For several months, she's been straining to pee. Then, one evening while I'm taking a bath, I watch her jump onto the bathroom sink, climb into the porcelin divot, and use it as a bidet.

I took her to the vet, and he thought perhaps she had a urinary tract infection. Two weeks of twice a day antibiotics ("bubblegum flavored" - sure to win her over) and minimal blood loss on my part, she wasn't any better.

Back to the vet. The morning of the appointment, I can't find the cat carrier. Crap. I'm running late. On my way to the car, I call mom and ask if I can use their cat carrier. Sure, no problem. I start to back out of the driveway, and realize I forgot the cat.

I go back into the house, grab Ellie, and chuck her into the front seat of the car.

Not my smartest move.
Her feet never touched the seat, but rather stuck out every claw she still has and dug them into my dashboard. She hung suspended between the dashboard and the lip of the passenger side window. Good thing my parents, and the cat carrier, were only a block away.

I stick the cat in the carrier and prepare to back out of the driveway, when I notice something small rolling toward me, like a bug or something.
I wish it had been a bug.

Miss Ellie, in her stress and fear of levitating over the dashboard, peed. And the pee was rolling in-between ornamental crevices which were making me swear at Ford's interior designers.

At the vet's, she has an xray, and a not-good diagnosis. Bladder stones. Approximately 20 small, rock-hard spindly things that aren't unlike droplets of starfish.

She had a couple of surgeries and a week in the "cat hospital", and facing another surgery, before I could bring her home.

I let her out of the cat bag (newly acquired from Walmart), and she stepped carefully into the livingroom. Her body was shrunken from the stress of the hospital and from not eating well. Her long legs stepped gingerly to the sofa where she started to rub the antiseptic smell off of her.

It was then that I noticed her legs. At about where a human's elbow would be, she had two bright white bands shaved into her lush, black fur. She walked stiffly, each movement obviously causing discomfort. If cats can grimace, she was doing it.

The stiff legs, the bands, the grimace...I had a sudden urge to watch a World War II movie where good prevails over evil, and kitties prevail over bladder stones.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Leapin' Lizards!!!

Portland was my latest stop on my seemingly endless quest to garner myself an agent for my books. Mom came along, never one to miss an opportunity to buy unique fabric here-to-for unseen in this neck of the woods.

We came home loaded with bags of fabric, boxes from Ikea (that is a dangerous place for fairly-new homeowners!), and bags of books from Powell's. Mom dropped me off at my house, and went home to examine her treasures.

She sat on the floor of her sewing room and spread the fabric out around her. Cute swatches of teddy bear fabric, Christmas elves, kitties and pawprints, next to coffee prints, from under which shoogled a nasty little florescent blue lizard. It shimmied across the floor and found repose between the television and a fabric cabinet.

Mom flew to her feet and ran upstairs. "Doug Doug Doug there's there's a a come now!"

Doug figured out that something icky, and alive, was downstairs, so he donned his leather work gloves and brought a towel.

The lizard was still sitting in its hiding spot, further defining why it's an insult to be called "lizard brain." Doug reached down with his gloved hand and grabbed the squirmy bugger.

The lizard freaked out and dropped its tail. The tail bounced around on the floor for several moments, curling and straightening and curling again as it tried to make sense of being displaced from its body.

Somehow Mom's foot ended up on the glove which still held the very-much alive lizard body, Doug having removed his hand at some point prior. She stayed standing on it, fear paralyzing her.

"Are you going to move your foot?" Doug prompted her.

"Not until I'm sure it's good and dead."

"I think it's dead."

After Doug took care to shake out each piece of fabric individually, I ventured downstairs to see Mom's new stash. I was a little disappointed there was no chalk lizard outline on the carpet.

"Well, I suppose we got lucky," Mom said.

"How so?"

"Can you imagine if it had gotten loose on the car ride home?"

Monday, August 9, 2010

Officially Unamerican

While in NYC, Jon and I saw the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and of course, Macy's at Herald Square. Nearly everything about the city is iconically American, and our itinerary reflected it.

Except for Ground Zero. We never did get there, and I feel hideous admitting this, as if I'm renouncing my own mother, but: I'm not sorry that we missed it.

Why do we feel compelled to pay homage at sites of extreme sadness? We know it happened. We're in a city celebrating our freedom to move freely about the country. Why make a point to stop somewhere that is only going to make us feel awful for having fun? Heck, it'll make us feel bad for even being alive.

My hypocrity is further evidenced by my planning for my next big trip in a couple of years - I want to go to Germany and Poland, and do the World War II thing. Is it that Ground Zero is still too fresh? The wounds too raw to hold up to examination?

We went to the NYC Police Museum. I'm especially drawn to things I cannot do, such as police work, spy work, and cook decently. What should have been a bit of a lark on the itinerary ended up being both Jon's and my favorite stop. The artifacts on display were fascinating, heartwrenching, inspiring. Coming face-to-face with the twisted metal remnants of the lights of a destroyed police car was hard. It brought immediacy to the experience that, before, was something that happened clear across the country from me. Standing in a warehouse building, looking at the blackened shoulder radios and dirty work boots, I began to understand what a devastating violation 9/11 was.

While Jon and I didn't journey to the actual site of Ground Zero, we left NYC with a renewed respect for emergency service personnel. Politics aside, the remembrance of sacrifices that were made that day was tucked into our suitcases alongside our books on the history of the Empire State Building and NYPD T-shirts. We brought those sights home with us, and our world became a little bit smaller.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Wrong Way, Corrigan...

The weather was 100 degrees and rising, the sun relentless, the humidity difficult to breath through. Jon and I had already walked seven miles and it was only three in the afternoon.

To give our tennis shoes a break, we descended into the bowels of the NYC subway system. The platforms were littered with miniature Gucci princesses and Armani princes, cell phones glued to their ears and who knows what other body parts. The system is a perfect example of how someone who eats overly-rich food and too much of it can get blocked up and need to take a serious crap.

"So we need to take the N train south. This dark green line here."

"Where are we trying to get to?" Jon asked.

"Union Square, right off lower broadway."

"We can't get there from here, Kate," he said. He went over to the two-sided plexiglass map in the center of the platform. He traced the route on the map kind of sadly - not unexpected, given my remarkable history of misdirection.

I whipped out my personal map. "But I triple-checked this," I mumbled to myself. Jon pointed to the plexiglass map and showed that I was, indeed, incorrect with my subway directions.

We found the platform that would take us south, and waited for the subway. After a few minutes, a blistering gust of wind blew in ahead of the high-speed rail car. The breeze against my sweat-soaked body was a relief, as was finding the right subway car. I had always hoped my lack of directional sense would be something I'd outgrow, like conspicuously picking my nose.

The subway car itself was blissfully cool with air conditioning, one of the few excesses of NYC that I will not complain about.

After a few moments of rocking back and forth and enjoying the rest break, Jon slowly turns in his seat.

He turns his head back to the wall of the subway car, and whispers in my ear.

"Kate. I think I was looking at the bus map."

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Pitch me into the trash

I went to NYC earlier this month with my brother. The incentive for going was a writers' conference that was specifically geared toward thriller writers (commercial fiction books that are full of suspense, some blood, but not gratuitously so). Along with worships given by big-name authors such as R.L. Stine and Lisa Scottoline, there was the opportunity to pitch work to agents.

Let me start with the good parts.

New York is a vibrant city, almost a country in and of itself, with things going on around every corner. More on that later. It was highly enjoyable exploring the city with my brother. We spent more time together than we have in years, and more time just the two of us than I think we ever have. Warning: Cliche ahead: I have a newfound respect for him. It was really good for both of us to relearn that we can always count on each other and we've got each other's backs.

R.L. Stine is a very odd little man. He's this hunched, grizzled man of about 65, like an Italian Woody Allen. He riffed on regretting never learning how to type.

"I still type by hunting for each key. And I don't even use two fingers. I just use this one. I've typed all of my books with this one finger."

"Look how ugly it is."

It was wonderful being in his presence for an hour. I would stick his books in any young readers' hands.

I also had the good fortune of sitting in on a talk by Lisa Scottoline. She writes female John Grisham-type legal thrillers. It's not really fair to call them "female," even though her protagonists are women. They don't employ any gaggy "I am woman, hear me roar" tone. As a teacher, she was exceptional. She had a really thick packet of writing tips for each of us, and within that packet, was...

photocopies of rejection letters addressed to her.

Here's this NY Times #1 Bestselling author sharing the source of what is surely some of the worst feelings she's had in her life. (Any writer who says it's "just another rejection letter" is lying. Each one is like having your boyfriend dump you. So why keep at it? It's like going to a ton of proms, hoping the Prom King will ask you to dance and maybe, just maybe, date you until you are popular enough to stand on your own.)

She was an absolute highlight of my trip. Buoyed by the confidence she instilled in each of the attendees, I approached the pitchfest with the highest of hopes.

We lined up in the hallway of the ballroom, about 200 people churning and teeming with nerves. Today might be the day that changes my life.

Yeah, that's also an attitude that can kill your soul. If you look at any one thing and think, "This is it, I have to achieve this or else I will consider myself a complete waste of oxygen," then you remove excitement from the experience. If you succeed, you're not excited because you preset that expectation for yourself. If you do not succeed, you're upset not just that you didn't get what you were striving for, but you also let yourself down.

(I figure if I tell myself that enough times, I'll embody it. It has yet to happen. I'll keep you posted.)

So the doors open, and we all line up at different tables bearing an agent on display. The agent looks weary at the prospect of listening to three hours of constant pitching.

The bell dings, and we go. I pitch well to my first person, and get a business card offering to read my work. Excellent. On to the next table. Business card. Great. After five business cards, I start to lose my mojo.

I tend to tailor my speaking to the listener's interest. If I think your interest is sagging while I'm talking about the architecture of the Empire State Building, I'll segue into the pushy "elevator men" trying to sell maps at every turn, and how the elevators dumped you out in the gift shop. Lovely coincidence.

I found myself veering off script, tailoring my pitch every time I saw the agent's eye wander. And wander they did. Someone yawned in the middle of my pitch. Agents checked their watches. Sipped their water. Doodled. By the end, I wasn't getting cards, but rather, "Why did you set your book in London? Have you ever lived in London? Don't you think that's a little brazen, setting your book in a place you've never lived?"

And Robert Ludlum lived in eastern Asia before writing The Bourne Supremacy. Thomas Harris really ate people before writing "Silence of the Lambs."

Was it New York? Agents in Portland were far more attentive. Did agents feel more free to maintain their agressive persona being on their home turf?

All in all, it was great incentive to make sure my book is ready for anything before I send it off to the five who expressed interest.

Lord knows I'm not going back for a second try.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

The road to Hell is paved with big intentions

Mom was out of town and I offered to take Grandma clothes shopping with me one afternoon. This had two benefits: it helped out Mom by getting Granny out of the old folks' home for an afternoon, and I got to drive Mom's awesome SUV for the day (Grandma's wheelchair doesn't fit in my car. It's weird calling it 'Grandma's Wheelchair', considering it used to be mine. That is one belonging I'm glad to relenquish.)

I pick up Grandma, get her loaded into the chair, and listen to her fret about how I"m ever going to lift such a heavy wheelchair into the back of Mom's car.

"It's okay! I've got it," I said, shooing her back to the passenger's seat. "Sit down, Grandma. You'll fall."

I loaded the chair and got behind the steering wheel.

"Turn off the air conditioning. It's cold in here."

I sighed as I looked out the window at the 95 degree heat beating the landscaping into submission.

At the mall, I unloaded the chair. One must do this quickly, before Grandma decides to "help" and try to meet the chair halfway between the passenger seat and the trunk. This is much less burdensome for the chair driver, you see.

I beat her to it, and plopped her into the chair. We wheeled into Macy's, who had apparently not gotten Grandma's memo that air conditioning has no place in midsummer weather.

As we browsed the racks, Grandma leans back in the chair and asks me, "So, what size of clothing are you looking for?"

Kind of a weird question. As if one goes to the grocery store just to get "food."

"Well, um, I'm looking for nice clothes that I can wear to New York City to pitch my book. Sizes ten, twelve-ish."

"Ten or twelve?" She cranes her neck to try to look at me, but only succeeds in resembling the thing from "The Exorcist."

"HOW'D YOU GET TO BE SO BIG?!"

Monday, May 10, 2010

Relative worth

I think I'm a decent writer. Better than a lot of stuff I read, that's for sure. But that could mean I read total crap.

I'm hard at work on my two books - mystery thriller and middle-grade reader about weiner dogs run amuck in a retirement home. Mom read the weiner dog book yesterday. "It's good! Really. It's good."

I'm being oversensitive, I know. I don't think it's all that good (what writer does?), so I look for affirmation of that in other people's responses. But can it BE good? I seem to need other people to tell me my books are worth working on, improving, before I can find the enthusiasm to actually work on and improve them.

What was the point of this post. Nothing, really. I was going to try to make some comparision between me thinking my writing is good, and my grandma cheating the local Meals on Wheels out of money.

My grandma eats a Meals on Wheels at the senior center once a week. She dubtifully sticks two dollars into the money bin, the money bin clearly labeled "Suggested Donation: $3.50."

I asked Mom about the discrepancy later. Mom rolled her eyes.

"Grandma seems to think that since she only eats about $2.00 worth of what they serve her, she only owes $2.00."

The pure, insane illogic of that hung in the air like a cloud of escaped flatulence.

I guess it really doesn't matter how good or how not good I think my writing is. I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy doing it to the best of my abilities.

As for the cheap bastards known as "The Greatest Generation", I hope Meals on Wheels prices their meals with the assumption that they're not going to be paid full price, so they ask for more and get reimbursed for what the meal actually cost in the first place.

I'll probably never sell a ton of books. But at least I can always count on senior citizens to keep the "overstock" shelves empty of my 75% off books.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

A green pinky finger

My legendary cheapskateness brought me to try to plant tomatoes from seeds this year, rather than almost grown in Jiffy pots that you can just plop in the ground. I bought the teeny jiffy pots, seed mix, and have hovered over them like a mother hen. I gently mist the dirt several times a day, as it basks in the warmth of my laundry room (and new boiler). I started tomatoes, canteloupe, zucchini, basil, and catnip.

Seeing the first green shoots sprout from the dirt is a potent feeling. Like creating something out of nothing. Every day I rush home from work to see how the sprouts did today, what measurable growth there is.

I never thought I'd enjoy something as pedestrian as gardening, but I'm actually kind of good at it. All of my seed pots are sprouting something, even if I have no idea what it is. Mom's right - should've labeled things. I've got the basil mixed up with the catnip. Might make for some interesting spaghetti. I've got tomato stalks in an old bundt pan. Alyssum in egg cartons. I'm not planning on eating the Alyssum. The only pots not growing are the ones I think I forgot to put seeds in. Other than that, I have to say - my fingernails look much better with a little dirt under them.

Score one for the little guy (or gal)

I haven't wanted to blog on this for the past six months for fear that me and my big mouth would jeopardize it. But now it's over.

What is it? "It" would be me, all 5'3, 120lbs of me (okay, in my imagination I weigh 120 lbs) suing a local heating and air conditioning company, and winning. Through mediation, I got approximately 2/3rds of what I was asking for.

This might seem like a defeat. But alas. Defeat is in the eye of the beholder. Or something. Defeat is saying, "Man, it really blows that a company took advantage of a lucrative building contract and chose to install a crappy boiler in your house that almost killed you." That is defeat.

I spent the past six months gathering anything I could that might act as evidence against the company - new heating estimates showing my boiler was too small, all of my many service receipts, photos of rust and condensation buildup on my boiler. I put them in neat ziploc baggies to present during the mediation. Evidence A) Katie watches too much TV.

It was actually kind of fun, playing a game where there were real stakes, and no real losers. My remuneration was never going to result in someone losing their job, nor would it make much difference in the company's bottom line. It did, however, make a difference in my bottom line. You shouldn't have to replace a boiler in a 6yr old house. I certainly wouldn't have chosen to spend my money on that, provided that my house wasn't leaking carbon monoxide. I'm such a tightwad that I haven't even replaced my 6 yr old retainer. Evidence B) Why Katie is Still Single.

I succeeded in keeping my cool, even when the company representatives were trying to make this my fault. Even when the company representatives were refusing to meet my bare minimum settlement offer. I took their bare minimum settlement offer when they stopped keeping their cool. I could hear their voices raise against the mediator in the other room and decided that perhaps the extra few hundred dollars isn't worth having them yell at me to my face in court. Plus, they intimated that I would have to involve a collections agency to get my settlement from them. This plus that minus those equals "Okay, sounds good, please let me know when they have exited the building so I can sneak outside to my car."

I still took a good-sized hit in my finances for a mistake that I still believe was made during the construction of my home. But my home is now safe for habitation. Ellie Bean is as hyper as ever (maybe a little carbon monoxide in the kitty would help her sleep at night?). And I chose my battle. A very scary, overwhelming battle, but I chose it. I stuck with it, and I emerged victorious.

Note to Fate: This still doesn't make up for me losing that beauty pageant in high school. But it helps.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Dandelions

Dandelions were so pretty to my five-year-old eyes. Vibrant yellow, poking persistantly from green (or brown...) grass, they never failed to perk up an otherwise plain, boring lawn. Twisting them into crowns, and smooshing them against my hands made my fingers glow yellow.

Fast-forward twenty-three years, and dandelions are no longer beautiful. They are a menace, a menace akin to meth in our neighborhoods. Perhaps not that bad. But I bet under a bridge somewhere, someone who can't afford meth is smoking dandelions.

I took my dog on a walk this evening. My cigar-smoking neighbor, who I am slighly afraid of, was out washing his car. "Evening," I said. He nodded at me. "Looks like the dandelion crop is nice and fertile this year," I said, gesturing to the neighbor on the other side of his house.

"Ugh," he grumbled. "I can't keep the damn things out of my yard!"

I smiled in commaraderie and brought the dog inside.

When did this happen? This invasion? I'm not talking about the invasion of dandelions in my yard, but rather...the invasion of adulthood into my worldview.

I went out front and spent an hour digging the dandelions from my front yard. Lest my cigar-smoking neighbor start to have it in for me.

Back in my kitchen, I drank a glass of 7up and rubbed the ache from my digging shoulder. I looked out the back slider at my yard, and noticed a few dandelions poking their heads up.

We've got to make a lot of concessions to adulthood. Conform to societal expectations. That's the way it should be; that's what keeps civility and order in the world.

If I leave a few dandelions in my backyard, just for a little color, I don't see the harm. My dog will probably eat them anyway.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Breathe, Grasshopper

I'm afraid of chemical smells. Not Weed-B-Gone or fertilizer smells or interior wall paint or Elmer’s glue-type smells, but rather industrial solvent smells.

I have an…interesting history with chemical solvent smells. There is an outside possibility that industrial chemicals caused my bone marrow failure.

Given that I had to have a bone marrow transplant in order to remain among the living, I’m a little leery of things that might cause a need for another transplant. Rational? Yeah, about as rational as people who install unsightly lightning rods to the side of their houses, attracting the lighting toward their house to save…their house.

Today, someone at work used Goop-off or some other chemical to get something off of their desk. Within five minutes, the smell permeated the entire building, the harsh chemically scent driving straight to people’s temples. Driving fear straight to my heart.

While coworkers complained of the stink and the headache, I sat at my desk, willing myself not to breathe. Understandably, this method of avoidance did not work in the long run.

I was forced to breathe the minute quantities of a commercially available cleaner. My heart raced. My palms sweated. (They always sweat, so I suppose that doesn’t prove anything). My mind fuzzed, awash in the possible harm the smell was doing to me – invading my nostrils, tearing down my esophagus, slowly killing me from my innards to my hair follicles.

A door was opened, and relief flooded into my workspace in the form of 34 degree air.

I am pleased to report that I survived. I met a fear head-on, I maintained my sanity at all times, I kept things in perspective, and I am a stronger person for it. I didn’t even put on the sweater hanging from the back of my desk chair.

I can handle anything.

(PS – I work at a computer all day. As do my coworkers. I kind of want to know what it was that got so stuck to a desk in the first place to require Goop-Off. A lunch of leftover casserole?)

Friday, March 12, 2010

Just save it, would you?

Just when I think TV shows can’t get any more stupid, network executives surprise me with offerings such as “Undercover Boss.” The premise was interesting enough – the CEO of a major company goes undercover as an entry-level within his own operation, ostensibly to discover the things that are going wrong with his company, and the things his company is doing right.
I watched the first episode for want of anything better on TV. And I watched the second episode. The second episode was almost a verbatim copy of the first, only the company was different and the front-line employees were different. At the end of both shows, the CEO “revealed” his true identity to the few employees he worked alongside, and awarded them with various surprises. One of the employees was a young man wanting to be a chef. So the CEO awarded him a $5,000 scholarship.

Five thousand dollars. The CEO of Whitecastle Hamburgers couldn’t afford more than a $5,000 scholarship? It was a token gift of appreciation that I found insulting to entry-level workers everywhere. This CEO is spouting off concerns that employees don’t see a future for themselves at the company, and yet all he can find in his deep, vast pockets is $5,000?

You know how sometimes you don’t know what to say to someone, and you end up saying the wrong thing? Like, two years after you accidently back over your neighbor’s cat in the driveway, you see them coming out their door and you holler, “Hey, sorry about that one thing awhile back”? That’s what this scholarship offer was. “Sorry about all the hours we make you work in stressful conditions for crappy pay and no benefits.” (I wonder how much extra cost would truly need to be added to a McBurger in order to partially fund health insurance for the employees? Would you be willing to spend an extra 50c?)

If you can’t offer someone enough to acknowledge their humanity, their dignity, sometimes it’s better to offer nothing at all.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

You're Fired.

My medical history is kind of scary. Not to me. To me, it’s kind of boring. I’ve had enough occasion to talk about it with family, friends, and in speeches for this or that so now, frankly, the story bores me.

But looking at a list of my medical history on paper, yeah, I can see how that would be overwhelming for a normal family doctor. Thus, most of my medical problems that aren’t flu-, cold-, or prescription refill-related have gone through my oncologist.

My oncologist has changed a couple of times in the past ten years, but for five years or so, it has been the same guy. We never really saw eye-to-eye on most stuff, but we tolerated each other. As if in a bad relationship, I was too aware of the risk I ran if I decided to look for greener pastures.

He didn’t push me on the stuff most important to me, and I yielded on the stuff I could tell I was going to lose on anyway. It wasn’t a symbiotic relationship by any means, but I made do. All of a sudden, he has decided he no longer wants to be my “point man” for medical issues. He only wants to deal with Aplastic Anemia issues. Not even issues directly related to the Aplastic Anemia or the bone marrow transplant fallout.

Well, that’s lovely, I say. What do I tell the regular doctors who see my history, see that I’ve got an ongoing upset stomach for the past month, and they freak, telling me to talk to my oncologist? I am a medical orphan. After feeling powerless and frustrated for several days, I came to a conclusion. Actually, the oncologist’s office helped me come to this conclusion when they called me with blood test results, and proceeded to read the results to me backwards – X value meant my prescription should be lowered, when in real-life medicine, X value means my prescription should be increased.

I took back the power. I harnessed my inner Donald Trump and told the nurse to please tell my oncologist that I will no longer be in need of his services. As he obviously only wants to deal with my blood disorder, a disorder that I’ve technically been cured of for the past NINE YEARS, I’ll look him up if there’s ever a blood problem. But in the meantime, he can cut me from his patient roster.

I thought I’d feel like I was tempting fate to fire him. I mean, Murphy’s Law, right? In reality, I feel in control again. I no longer have to sit in an office once a year with a room full of bald old people staring at me, wondering how sick I am, what with my full head of hair. Am I waiting for a diagnosis? Am I at the beginning of my treatment? Wow, that poor girl doesn’t have a clue what’s coming.

They don’t see the bald patches at my scalp, the thin spots above my ears. They don’t see the scars, real and emotional. I’ve been there, and I’ve had the blessed fortune to come back from there. I hope all the bald old people in the office have the occasion to one day fire the oncologist.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

All in.

I love watching the Olympics. All that skill, dedication, exhilaration...seemingly normal people doing extraordinary things. But it's the "seemingly" part of the athletes that tends to get overlooked.

These young people dedicate every waking moment to the sport they love, for better or for worse, like when your sport involves hurling yourself down an icy shute while balancing precariously on a toboggan.

I could never be an Olympic athlete. Yes, I own a mirror and can plainly see that my lack of muscle definition would probably ban me from being a spectator let alone a competitor. But I couldn't forsake all other things in my life in the pursuit of one thing. I don't find that healthy. So do I find it admirable?

Life is about hope. About chances. About redemption. These are common themes throughout the Olympic stories as well. Bode Miller blows his chances at Torino, and seeks redemption at the Vancouver Olympics. That means Bode Miller has dedicated the past four years, FOUR YEARS, striving mindfully (mindlessly?) toward a state that will be achieved, or denied, in thirty seconds. Thirty seconds. Not to be a complete skeptic, but his achievement or denial of redemption/his dream might be forgotten by the majority of the public in the ensuing thirty seconds.

So what makes "it" worth it? I really want to know. I want to know what the elusive "it" is that will make me lay my head on my pillow each night and say, "I did good."

Friday, February 12, 2010

Usefulness

I work in a medical setting, poring through patient charts day after day after day after day after...where was I.

Sometimes the transcriptions for the chart notes gets outsourced to other countries, such as India. This can make for some entertaining malapropisms.

One caught my eye this week. The doctor surely meant to say, "The patient has outlived the influence of their genetic history." The transcription report that I read said:

Patient has outlived their genetic usefulness.

That made me think. Is there a point where we outlive our usefulness? Does it matter?

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Love in all the wrong places

Last night, I went on yet another first-and-last date. This one actually scared the crap out of me, and I'm pretty lucky to be sitting here writing about it, and not recouperating from injuries on the hospital, or worse, adding to the nitrogen content of a cemetery's soil.

I'm going to abridge this as, judging by my mom's reaction to the entire story, it's not something that should be posted for public digestion. So why am I posting at all. I can't believe that I am the only person stupid enough to find myself in situations such as this, and if another girl (or guy, for that matter) can learn something from me, then this awful experience was worthwhile.

Long story short, a dinner date gets extended into a date to go see a movie, and I allow near-stranger into my car. My car. Oh well, I figure, we're going to the mall to see a movie, right? No, he wants to go to his cousin's house to watch movies that the cousin rented. I made sure the cousin and cousin's girlfriend would be there. Okay, can't be too bad, right? Only later did I remember that the murdered girl in the "Foxy Knoxy" murder had another girl present, too, and that didn't turn out too well for her.

We get to the cousin's house, and let's just say I should have turned around on my heels and left. I didn't. Why not? What the hell was I thinking?

I know exactly what I was thinking. I got stuck in between two societal norms: Be unfailingly polite, and be true to yourself. Sometimes, like last night, those two go head-to-head. Why was I so quick to sacrifice myself in the name of politeness, then?

My upbringing actually played a role in my wrong decisions. (When I say "wrong decisions", please don't let your mind go there, because that's not the case. The "wrong decisions" are all about hanging out with and spending time with people that are just absolute scum of the earth and were very, very disrespectful toward me.)

I in no way, shape, or form am blaming this on my parents or my brother. But my brother, being who he is, has sort of desensitized me to things that would normally be red flags to other people. There's a big, serious difference, however: for all the outside accoutrements that made my brother and his posse appear dangerous and menacing, there were always good souls in these people. Probably better souls than my own, as if I had a dollar left, I would keep it for myself, and my brother and the people he associates with would rush to give it to someone who needed it more than they did. I think I stuck around so long and allowed myself to be pulled into increasingly dangerous situations with this date because I was waiting for the revelation of the good, true soul that I've been taught to assume is in every human being.

As I pulled into my driveway at the end of the night, I almost started to cry. I've come too far. Too, too far. Society tells us we are nothing if we have no one to share life with. Everyone, myself included, assumes that "someone" to share life with is a romantic connection, husband, wife, etc. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to find the perfect someone, and when that someone is the wrong someone, we feel like failures in the eyes of our friends, family, and society.

I actually did find someone last night to spend the rest of my life with. This person is smart, cute, funny as hell, entertaining, original, and full of hope and optimism for the future.

And I was right here the whole time.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

A foreigner in a sea of white hair

Last night my parents and I went to see a great musical revue called "In the Mood." It was a celebration of all things big band, and a buffet of nostalgia for the 40s.

Still somewhat pining for my days in high school jazz band, I enjoyed the evening immensely - even if it was sponsored by Brookdale Living Communities, known for their spectacular Alzheimer's care units. Music is an undeniable connection to our past lives. Its ability to transport us back in time is quite amazing. That being said, could the Brookdale Alzheimer's community sponsor a more dangerous event? Perhaps a monster truck rally, letting Aunt Bessie have one last go-round with the car keys?

At intermission, the lights came up, revealing a sea of white. White hair, interspersed with no hair. I felt like an interloper, a guest at a fraternity party where I was never extended an invitation to join. My dad reached into his pocket and pulled out a stick of gum, only to be promptly chastised by an usher for bringing food into the auditorium. Gum isn't food. And for pete's sake, my dad doesn't exactly look like the type to stick his gum underneath the seat when he finished with it.

The show resumed, and segued into a sing-along, some song about rolling a barrel over your girlfriend. The entire audience sang along. I couldn't even pretend to know the words - who in my generation has ever rolled a barrel over anything?

I was brought back to my first day in Catholic high school. The entire class stood at the beginning of the class time. I stood too, and faced the flag. While I began reciting "I pledge allegiance, to the flag..." I realized that that was not what the rest of the class was saying.

"...hallowed be thy name...thy kingdom come, thy will be done..."

I mumbled along until they got to the one part I knew.

"...OUR DAILY BREAD..." (I've always been a fan of carbohydrates.)

I mumbled my way through the rest of it, and made a mental note to ask Mom what they were reciting.

The classtime came to an end, as did the group sing-along.

As we left the theater, Mom asked, "So, did you enjoy it? What did you think?"

"That brought back so many memories I never had."

Usually the parking lot is a mess to get out of. Cars lined up from every side street, trying to converge onto the main highway into town. As we left the lot relatively unobstructed, we watched the older crowd amble toward their vehicles.

'Being young and fast on your feet is worth something,' I thought to myself. 'We got out of here a lot quicker than everyone else.'

We hit the highway in record time, which was good. I was probably the only person in the entire audience who had to go to work in the morning.

Maybe there is something to be said for being old after all.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Symmetries of Life

I'm not a huge fan of my grandmother. In my defense, I do feel compassion for her: I feel the same compassion I feel for all human beings, like the homeless people panhandling. I make a point to make eye contact and smile, showing that I recognize their humanness. I never give away my money, but that's because frugality trumps humanity every time. It's a scientifically proven fact. Look it up.

Grandma is a little dingy in the head. This is not something that can be attributed to old age. She has always been a little dingy. We had drop pendant lighting installed in our living room when I was younger (and thus, she was younger, negating the rationalization that she's in the "it must be dementia" demographic). The lights dropped down from a runner that was installed into the electricity wired through the ceiling.

"Those are so pretty!" Grandma said, complimenting my dad on his handwork. "How interesting! How do you get them to light?"

Instead of explaining the complexity of indoor electricity to my Grandma, Dad responded:
"Batteries."

Grandma nodded knowingly. "Oh, I see. Very pretty!"

Grandma is now 91. The other day, she demanded to know where my Mom had put her box of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies.

"I left them underneath my bed! By my shoes! Now I can't find them."

Mom was left wondering why someone would store their cookies by their shoes. I was left wondering why she has a box of Girl Scout cookies, an annual treat normally sold in April, underneath her bed in January.

Mom told me this story at dinner last night. After dinner, I had Trumie in one arm, my water bottle in another, and my car keys in my hand. I wanted to take home a handful of dark chocolates from the candy dish on the counter. No pockets. Dog, water bottle, no free hands...I set the dog on the counter and got my handful of candy. I bent down and stuffed them around my ankle inside of my sock.

Mom looked at me questioningly.

"It's not a long drive home," I said. "They won't melt."

"No, it's not that," she said. "I was just wondering why it is you think you're so different from your grandmother."