A Portrait of a Girl at Nine

Today, while I was out running a few errands, I saw a little girl in Target. She looked about nine years old. She seemed to be right at that age where her independence moves her to try to do her own hair, with less than stellar results. She was wearing jean shorts, rolled to just above the knee and a bright green shirt. And, nestled under her arm, was a well-loved stuffed dog.

As she beebopped through the store, chatting with her mother, looking at other merchandise, that stuffed dog remained in the crook of her arm.

I have been thinking about her ever since I saw her. I wanted to run up to her and tell her what she was doing was right. Nine-year-olds should love their stuffed animals. They should be enamored of their dolls, their stuffed animals, pretending and creating elaborate scenarios for them to exist in. I wanted to wink at her mother as if to say, "Way to go. Your little girl is being a little girl."

But, that would just come off way creepy.

I used to work at an elementary school and some of the conversations of little girls I would hear worried me. When I was nine years old, I talked to myself incessantly, inventing tragic situations that I and my stuffed animals would somehow have to survive (i.e. I was often an orphan, a child of the pioneers, off at boarding school, etc.). The little girls I worked with discussed fashion, cute movie/music stars, and even weight loss. (what?!)

But, today I saw a little girl unabashedly carrying a stuffed dog. And it gave me a little hope.

Now, if she's still carrying that stuffed dog around Target at 14, we'll have a chat. But, for now, it's all good.

April 24th

So, tomorrow is my 30th birthday.

(I don't actually feel freaked out about this fact, but this little picture of 7-year-old me just seemed like a good one to add to the post tonight)

It is an interesting thing to look back over the past decade and realize all that has changed, all that has been accomplished, all that has remained the same.

In the spirit of decades of living, I give you a glimpse into who I am, where I've been, and all that other poetic mumbojumbo. I give you Exhibit A--Katy Turns 10. This is an authentic journal entry from my very own pen...er...pencil. Prepare for greatness. Written two weeks before I turned ten years old. *ahem*

4-10-90

Today, it's excatly 2 weeks untill my birthday and I'm excited. I have a big honkin' list too. Let's see. I want a fanny pack and I want some fabric paints and T-shirts and I also want Olivia and a lot of other things too. Today we also went a little shopping for Andria and we haven't found a present yet. Well my arm is getting tired.

Good Night

We must get just one thing straight: Fanny packs were cool at the time. I swear it's true. :-) And by fabric paints, I meant puffy paints. I wanted the puffiest, neon-ist, sparkli-est puffy paints known to man. As I recall, though I don't have the journal entry to prove it, many of these dreams came true. I did get a fanny pack (it was a neon salmonesque color), my very own set of puffy paints, and Olivia. The stuffed orangutan. Life was very good.

Fast forward ten years. I was about to turn 20 years old.

Although there is a journal entry on my actual birthday that year, it's not terribly interesting. I use the word "anyhoo" no less than three times, too-ta-loo, and seem very fond of the phrase "what in heck am I doing". This was a confusing time in my life for me. I still lived at home and yearned for adulthood yet felt woefully underqualified to be a grownup. Solid, old friendships were changing at a time when new friendships were not abounding in my world. I was nearing the end of my sophomore year in college, ever closer to the ominous end of spring quarter when I would have to declare a major.

That quarter, I was taking a career development class (this was one of two classes in college I had with my brother and we had a delightfully cute little career teacher...what was her name...Carol? I think her name was Carol. I remember she had nervous little mannerisms and was intimidated by things like running the overhead projector). We took personality quizzes that suggested career options befitting of our traits, talents, and skills. I found the suggestion to be a "vending machine repairman" less than helpful.

Although I remember the uncertainty I felt about the future ahead of me, I also remember feeling that surely in the next few years things were going to pan out and someday, somehow I would feel like a real adult. Oh...how cute I was.

And now, here we are. I am turning 30 tomorrow.

Who knows what I will see in me today when I look back in ten years. I like to think I will see a me that despite uncertainty about the future (a me who realizes there is never certainty in the future...), is happy about what lies before her.

And seriously, fanny packs were totally in.

Three Thoughts for Thursday

Okay, so it's not Thursday, but Three Thoughts for Sunday just doesn't have the right ring to it. And, chances are I was thinking about at least one of these things on Thursday, so we'll go with it.

a. I recently learned that some people dream in third person. This has been a shocking revelation to me. I assumed that all people dream like I do--it's basically a bizarre version of real-life consisting of my brain's amalgamation of the events of my life. I dream from my own perspective--just like real life--with the constant stream of consciousness flowing through my mind--just like real life. But, it turns out that some percentage of the population has dreams that play out like a movie, where they watch themselves maneuver through the events of the narrative. I have talked with two friends who do indeed dream in third person (as an interesting side note, both of these individuals remember their dreams with remarkable clarity...perhaps this is why). Do you ever dream in third person?

2. Today I realized that tomorrow is March 1st. Glory be! This winter has been a doozy here in Nebraska...very cold...very snowy...very icy.

(image courtesy nebraskaweatherphotos.com)

For the first time in my life, I dislike snow. I have had to come to terms with the fact that as opposed to feeling giddy and excited about snowfall, I sigh with disappointment and frustration when the skies open and snowflakes fall...again. And again. I'm hoping that a spring, a summer, and a fall can reconcile my relationship with snow and we can be on friendly terms again.

d. My roommate mocks me because I'm not a crier in movies. I'm just not. She says that my heart is cold. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I don't typically get that tied into something that is not real. On the other hand, the Olympics have made me cry more than once this time around. I'm not an athlete. I'm not emotionally tied to these athletes. But there is something so emotionally poignant about someone competing with the pride of their nation on their shoulders. Tears came as the Chinese pairs figure skaters finally won Olympic gold after YEARS of competing together. They're married now and can celebrate this life achievement together. Tears came as the Canadian figure skater who unexpectedly lost her mother two days before the start of her event skated beautifully and at her best whilst bearing the heavy weight of that burden. Tears came as I learned about the Australian snowboarder whose parents managed to travel to Vancouver to surprise her after her gold medal run even when she'd told them not to come so they could save and come to see her get married in the United States instead. Tears came as I watched Canadian mens' hockey team come back from a loss to the United States to win the gold medal in front of their country on their home soil. This is what I love about the Olympics. Yes, there's national pride and all that. But, more importantly the Olympics remind me (and all of us) that, in the end, humanity is the same the world around. Even that thought brings tears to my eyes.

See? I'm not coldhearted.

Confession

I am embarassed to say how old I was before I was straight on which finger was the forefinger.

Let's just say I may or may not have been over the age of 25 before I had that figured out. (In my defense, in childhood it IS almost exclusively called "the pointer" or "the index finger". Forefinger?! Forefinger?! Shouldn't that be your ring finger? That is the fourth finger...fourfinger...forefinger. The confusion well into adulthood seems totally justified. Totally.)

There have been several (and I mean several) other "basic" bits of knowledge that I have failed to pick up on until well beyond one might believe.

Has anyone else been the victim of delayed enlightenment? I'm curious to know what you didn't know you didn't know...before you knew it.

(Seriously...forefinger? So confusing...)

Another reason to love home

My parents have a vat of M&Ms in the hutch in their kitchen.

I don't even really like M&Ms (unless they're peanut butter M&Ms....then that's another story) and rarely do I actually indulge in said vat of said M&Ms.

But, there's just something AWEsome about the fact that you could use a ladle to scoop out M&Ms...if you wanted to. And for the record, no such vat existed while I was growing up. This vessel of M&Ms showed up about the time my parents had their first grandchildren...

But, so long as we're on the subject, here are other things I think my parents should have vats of in their kitchen:

-the creme inside Krispy Kreme glazed creme-filled doughnuts

-the chocolate peanut butter frosting from Babycakes (in Kansas City)

-Red Robin's Campfire sauce

-my Dad's homemade fudge (but not the maraschino cherry fudge....gross...)

-almond and/or cashew roca

-rolls and cinnamon butter from Texas Roadhouse

What would you put in the vat?

Go Team Go

Every New Year's Eve, there is an annual cutthroat hockey matchup celebrating the bitter rivalry between the Tri-City Americans and the Spokane Chiefs. While I am not a diehard fan for either team (I've spent about the same amount of years living in both cities), I do enjoy watching me some good hockey. Last New Year's Eve, some friends and I wanted to attend the aforementioned festive New Year's Eve event, but the tickets were sold out (boo...hiss.).

Long about October of this year, I woke up thinking, "I want to go to the hockey game in the Tri-Cities on New Year's Eve." And, not to worry, we got tickets. (phew...)

I went with my friend Kendra.

We found our seats, looked around in dismay, checked with the guy in the row behind us (he and his wife were 25-year season ticket holders), looked around in dismay again and sat down. Our seats, Section B-Row 3-Seats 5 and 6, were directly behind the Americans' bench. Directly behind. I have only watched hockey games from crazy nosebleed seats. I have never sat near the ice and have never sat near the team. This is what I learned whilst sitting there:

1. Hockey players swear a lot. While this shouldn't surprise me, I suppose, it did get old. Sheesh, be a little more creative yeah?

2. Those hockey guys are babies. Seriously, the vast majority are valiantly trying to suggest the peach fuzz clinging to their upper lip and chin is bonafide facial hair. It's not. I assure you, it's not.

3. For real, there were a lot of potty mouths on the team. Although, thanks to the indestructo plexiglass, we couldn't really hear it. But, as a professional-grade lipreader, I knew what they were saying and did wonder if they kissed their mothers with those mouths.

4. The backup goalie has a bum deal. I don't even remember his name. The poor guy got all suited up for the game (who knows how much that gear weighs) and he stood there at the door of the box and opened it for the players coming off of the ice. The whole game. Open the door, shut the door, open the door, shut the door. He practices with the team, does the drills, suits up, and is relegated to the job of door opener for the entire game.

5. I am a pansy. One guy, this guy, Lazo,somehow got injured and was gushing blood out of his chin and kept playing. It wasn't until the blood was dripping all over his jersey that they pulled him out, took him to the locker room, butterfly bandaged him up and then sent him back out on the ice. I have never gushed blood out of my chin, but I'm pretty sure if I did the rest of my day would include lazing around on the couch while sipping a smoothie. It would not include heading back out into an icy foray to be pummeled again, and again, and again. I'm still trying to decide if I find his courage admirable, or just plain stupid.

6. Watching the fans is just as fun as watching the players which is just as fun as watching the game (maybe more fun....). There we were before the game enjoying the luck of our seats when a rowdy man came down the aisle bellowing that we were in the wrong seats. Huh? After showing him our tickets ("That's no proof! You can't prove it!"), talking in a soothing, calm voice ("aazhhhhh, aazzhhhhh, daddy be home soon."), and with the additional cajoling of the 25-year-season-ticket holders, he conceded that we were not the devil's spawn sent to take his seat and sat himself down next to Kendra. Ray, it was apparent at 'hello', had some cognitive disadvantages.

So, we watched the game with Ray. He was a wealth of information. He chatted it up with the assistant coaches and water boys throughout the game which is how we got the updates on the player who was hit in the ear with the hockey puck ("He's laying down because he's really dizzy still!"). He yelled with appropriate fan passion when he disapproved of a call (his favorite phrase being, "What game are you watching?!"). At the end of each period, he jumped up out of his seat and declared, "It's walking around time! I love walking around time!" Although we were slightly concerned when he meandered back up to the aisle at the beginning of the third period with a hard lemonade (Should cognitively impaired individuals ingest substances that would further impair their cognition? A deeply philosophical moral dilemma...), Ray turned out to be a fun addition to the game-watching. Although, Kendra found his staring a little creepy.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Home

Home, home, home. How I love home.

It's been a lovely visit home.

This holiday, we have put together two jigsaw puzzles. We busted out the first one the night after I arrived. It was a 1000-piece conglomeration of Hershey's products. We started at 9:00 Saturday night with the intention of having it available to work on it piecemeal-like for then next few days. We finished it five hours later at 2 a.m.

That out of our system, we meandered our way through the second puzzle for the next week and a half and got to reap the benefits of puzzle-putting-together.

The conversation meandered from one unrelated topic to another as we sat there trying to put together the figures.

We celebrated with each other when someone finally found the piece with the fox's eye.

As my sister rifled through the remaining pieces in the box, she kept saying with unvaried enthusiasm, "Ooh, now this looks like something." And I would remind her, "mmhmm, I bet it is something."

We did the puzzle at the kitchen table which was perfectly suited for stopping for a break to peel an orange or grab a handful of nuts to munch on ("Hey, can I have one?").

The best part of puzzle-putting together is just the being together doing it. Hunting for a piece with a white tip while your sister/mom/brother/dad nearby hunts for their piece. I like being there at the old, worn-out kitchen table talking, or not talking. We don't have to talk to say, "Hey, I like this. This being here with you." We just know.