What a lazy blogger I've become. Sorry about that. I have great intentions but consider sleeping and going to work more of a priority than blogging. That's just how it is.
Today, though, I've got something on my mind. Or I should say someone. Five thousand miles away in a small English village called Wantage in the county of Oxfordshire, my friend Lucy is turning 40 years old. I hope she's still sleeping right now as it's 3 a.m. where she lives, but I find myself imagining how she'll celebrate this milestone. Judging from the birthdays I've witnessed in their home, she'll receive cards (probably homemade, which we all know are the best) from her two kids, William and Ellen. I suspect she'll receive an appropriately sappy card from her husband, Ian. Maybe they'll have a special tea (evening meal) at the end of the day. Or there might be a special family party on the weekend with her mum, sister, brothers, sisters-in-law, nephew and niece.
Mostly I'm wishing I could transport myself across the pond and be there for just a small slice of her day. Maybe just to have morning tea with her and a good chat, as she would call it. Or better yet, chatting over a glass of wine in the evening. Not that we'd stop at just one glass. Here's a picture of us before we dug into our strawberries and cream at Wimbledon in 2003.
A little history...I met Lucy over 15 years ago when I was on a business trip to Holland and England. It was the first time I'd ever been out of the United States and I was petrified. I was to be gone for six weeks and it seemed like an eternity to be away from home. The first week I spent in Amsterdam at a trade show. The next week I was in York, England, with a co-worker, but then it was time for her to go back home. I was left alone in jolly old England for four more weeks learning a computer system from people who didn't want to teach it to me and driving on the wrong side of the road in a rented car. After driving around the city wall in York multiple times the first day with the car, I finally figured out how to drive between work and my temporary flat with no detours.I remember needing my sunglasses only about three times during that four weeks. Lucy was literally one of the only bright spots of the whole trip. She was the only person who asked how I was while I was on my own in England. She would stop in the office where they had me set up and ask if I needed anything and would inevitably end up staying to talk a bit each time.
Lucy asked me to attend a bonfire night celebration with her and her family in their small hometown of Boston Spa while I was there. It was held on a Saturday night and the invitation included dinner with her family and then taking in a fireworks show. That's how they celebrate the plot to blow up Parliament...by shooting off fireworks. I had such a good time that night and felt very much at home among her family and friends, even though I was the token American in the bunch. We're very similar people, Lucy and I, and out of the whole world we met by chance. But I've always felt it was divine intervention.
I have wonderful friends right here in Wichita and all over this country, but Lucy and I have a special bond. We've been friends for 15 years, but have physically been in the same place only nine times. And each time we're together it's like we've never been apart. We pick right back up where we left off. It's easier now with e-mail and the internet, but even before that we wrote letters the old-fashioned way. I still have every piece of mail she's ever sent me.
Here's a picture of William, Ellen, Lucy and Ian on a trip to the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson when they last visited in 2005. A trip to the Cosmosphere and taking this picture have both become tradition when they visit. They're very good sports to pose for me like this!
To the left is a picture Lucy sent me last week of the kids with the snowman they made. They actually had a snow day and didn't have to attend school, which is a rare event for them.I feel very fortunate to be able to call Lucy my friend. I'm terrible at getting things in the mail early enough for her to actually have them on Christmas or birthdays (something she's very good at) but this post will have to act as my card to her.
Here's to our friendship, I cherish it every day. Live long, my friend. And live well. May we see each other again soon. I wish it with all my heart.
Well, it's officially 2009. For those of us born in the magical year of 1969 it's time to turn 40 years old. My birthday is three months from yesterday (it's April 2) and I'm dreading it a little bit. It's not like it's ruling my life or anything, but it's a milestone. And with milestones come reflection. I've been reflective these past couple of days.
As my devoted blog readers know, I've been getting little gifts from my family (although everyone denies it) since April of last year. See this blog, this blog and this blog for more information on the gifts I've gotten. The past couple of months, the birthday fairies have left more things for me. I will share those now.
In November while at my mom and dad's house, I received a bag of Happy Birthday Hershey's
Kisses. The significance of the Kisses goes back a long way. When I was a kid, my grandpa (dad's dad) would bring me Hershey Kisses anytime I was sick. He said they were medicine and they'd help me feel better soon. He was a chocoholic and loved Kisses. He never brought a whole bag or anything, but five or six at a time, maybe everyday that I was home from school. I remember it most when I was sick for a week with the chicken pox when I was a freshman in high school. The fact that I got this bag of Kisses in November may have been planned, but the significance of it was not lost on me. My grandpa died in November of 1988 and it was the first death in the family that I was old enough to remember (my mom's dad died when I was two). Grandpa's death left a huge hole in our family and I still miss him 20 years later. Right before the funeral, my sisters and I put some Kisses under the pillow in his coffin. When I pay my respects at the cemetery, I don't take flowers for grandpa's grave, I take Hershey Kisses. I line them up on the headstone and I know that somewhere he's laughing and slapping his knee like he always did when he was alive.
The next gift arrived (coincidentally) right after my sister Teresa was at my house in late November. I got a bag with three pair of underwear (the granny-panty kind although they're pretty colors) and some Poise pads. The note says "For those times when laughing may cause you to wee your knickers...Always be prepared!" This is going to be embarrassing and I'm not sure why, but I'm going to share the story anyway.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, my sister Jenny and I went on a trip. We flew to Boston and spent several days with a high school friend of Jenny's who lived on an army base with her family in Natick, Massachusetts. We toured that area and then hopped on the Amtrak and went down to New York for a couple of days. New York was interesting for us, but that will have to be in another post sometime. The Poise pads and underwear are related to our time after NYC.
After those two days and nights in New York, we boarded the Amtrak again and went south to Washington, D.C. Neither one of us had been to the area before and only had one full day to see 
what we wanted to see. So we started bright and early that August morning and walked from one side of our map to the other. We went from the Capitol building down along the reflecting pools to the Washington Monument and then continued to the Lincoln Memorial and right across the bridge and into Arlington National Cemetery. As we were walking around the base of the Monument, Jenny was pondering her map then she said, "It says the Washington Monument is supposed to be here, but I don't see it." She was really disappointed. I looked at her, thinking she was joking, but she wasn't. I told her to look up. She argued with me about whether or not it was the actual Washington Monument. She finally (grudgingly) agreed that it could be. Later in the day, we bought some drinks in souvenir cups and they had pictures of all the D.C. landmarks. What do you know, the Washington Monument was on it! I razzed her about this all day. I couldn't believe she didn't know what it was. After we watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, we filled our souvenir cups with water from one of the spigots that are typically in cemeteries for the purpose of putting water in the flowers mourners bring. We had to jump a fence, but we got our water. More laughter ensued because by this time we'd walked all the way across our map and we were tired, sweaty and punchy. Then we discovered the subway system in Washington, D.C. Tired and weary, we boarded the train and started making our way back to our hotel. We ended the evening by eating Chinese food at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. It had definitely been a long day. When we got back to our room, we called our parents to let them know we were all right and had survived touring the area. I was talking to my mom, telling her about our conversation at the base of the Washington Monument and I was laughing so hard I could barely talk. Tears were streaming down my face when I suddenly realized I hadn't gone to the bathroom all day. And by then it was too late. I threw the phone at Jenny and made haste to the bathroom, but it really was too late. The laughter had been the last straw. Now Jenny was laughing so hard she couldn't talk, but managed to relate the story to mom, who was confused at all the chaos and laughter. After the trauma of the wetting incident and exhausted from the day's sightseeing, I laid down to sleep. Apparently (this is according to Jenny) I was snoring so loudly that she had to move closer to the television to hear it. But I'm not sure I believe that. After all, she didn't even know what the Washington Monument looked like!
I got this gift quite a while ago, in fact on my last trip to Ellinwood to see the family. It's another one of the long list of things I've gotten to commemorate my upcoming 40th birthday. To see what else I've gotten, click here and here. It took me a while to figure it out, but I think I've done it. Those who are responsible for the gifts, you will have to correct me if I'm wrong.
Summer vacations when I was a kid were few and far between. My dad is self-employed and getting away was always a bit of a challenge, not to mention that money was sometimes very tight with five kids in the house. But when we did go somewhere, it was usually to Colorado. My dad always drove. Window rolled down. Left arm resting on the door of the car. His arm always got incredibly sunburned on those summer vacations. I believe this story comes from the summer of 1978, but again, someone will have to correct me if that's not right.
I was nine, but since my siblings are so much older than I am, they were all busy with summer jobs. It was to be the last summer my oldest sister, Teresa, would go on a family vacation because she got married the next summer. On the drive out to Colorado, Teresa punched me in the nose for no reason. My mom was quick with the camera (she'd actually remembered it on this trip, usually she forgot the camera) and she snapped a picture of me after the punch, obviously shaken and surprised. And then she got a picture of Teresa after the punch, clearly jubilant and celebratory. I wish I had them to post but I don't. That's how the trip started.
Later on that trip, Teresa and I felt there was some unjust occurrence between our parents and ourselves. I can't even remember why we were mad at them. I do know that it was after a stop at a Sonic or similar drink stand along the way. Our method of annoying them and making them pay for whatever transgressions they'd carried out against us was to eat the lemon wedges out of our drinks. For some reason we thought this would teach them a lesson to never cross us again. We laughed and giggled for a long time in the backseat of that Thunderbird while our faces reacted to the sourness of the lemons.
Good times.
I may have forgotten to mention in my first 40th birthday post that as I get these gifts I'm to tell the story behind them. If I get them in a group (like the rooster magnet I got while vacationing in Montana), I have to tell the story right there. But this latest gift was left on my porch in a gift bag last week. I found it shortly after my sister, Jenny, had been here for an overnight stay. Coincidence? I don't think so. But nobody's taking credit yet. If you have no idea what I'm talking about but want to know, click here.
Anyway, here's a picture of the gift and then the story of the horse. The note taped to the package said, "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to Ned's we go!"
Growing up, I spent a lot of time at my aunt Ruthie and uncle Ed's house. Their kids were more my age than my own siblings. Scott, Mike and Danny were my most frequent playmates as a child. Scott is two and a half years older than I am, Mike is almost a year older, Danny is a couple of years younger, and Jason was born about a month before my tenth birthday. When Ruthie didn't have us doing chores (she was the master of the Chore List, especially on Saturday mornings), we were playing "Jacques Cousteau" or "school" or "church" (I was never the priest) or "house" (I was always the mom). Some of my favorite memories include being at their farm, which at the time was where their grandparents, Susie and Pete, and uncle Paul lived.
On the farm, they had a horse named Tonka and he didn't look anything like the horse pictured above. He was light-colored and was a pretty mild-mannered and tame horse, but he had his moments. I loved riding him because it was different and exciting to be on horseback. Once when I rode him, Mike saddled him up for me. He didn't get the saddle cinched tightly enough around Tonka's belly. We got as far as the driveway (which isn't that far from the barn) when the saddle slid sideways. And so did I. Once I fell off (I clung to the saddle horn for a long time before I finally gave up and landed on the ground), I looked back and all three of the boys were standing behind me doubled over in laughter. I was not happy. After they quit their guffawing, they finally cinched it up tight enough and I went on my ride.
Another time, the boys and I had just returned from a week of summer church camp and I was out at their house after a brief visit at home with my own family. I wanted to ride Tonka, as I did every time I went to the farm. Someone finally saddled him up for me and I got on to ride. As luck would have it, Tonka hadn't been ridden in several weeks. He was ready to run and no amount of coaxing with the reins convinced him to slow down. I was bounced around in the saddle and terrified of falling off when he finally slowed down and allowed me to have him stop. By that time I was over a mile away at the nearest neighbor's house. That would be where Ned and his parents lived. Ned was the scary neighbor who embodied all the stereotypes of a hillbilly. Once I got Tonka stopped, I got off and stood for a moment weighing my options. I decided to hold the reins and walk him back to the farm.
I'm sure I rode him again after that, but I don't remember. I probably haven't been on a horse since I last rode Tonka. I'll have to ask what eventually happened to him, I don't recall if he was sold or given away. It's rare that I visit the farm when I go back home. Every once in a while I get the urge to ride a horse again, but then my childhood memories come to the surface and I change my mind.
It's tradition in my family to relentlessly torture each other prior to the milestone 40th birthday and follow it up with a surprise birthday party. When my oldest sister Teresa turned 40 about nine years ago, we took it to the limit. I'm not sure how it all came about, but we started anonymously sending her note cards each month on the sixth (her birthday is August 6) of each month counting down until she turned 40. We started this 18 months before her birthday. Overkill? Perhaps.
When Teresa's 40th birthday rolled around, it was on a Friday. For various reasons, we scheduled her surprise party for the following day. Boy was she surprised when she came home from getting a pedicure that Saturday and walked in the door with six gallons of milk to find 70 people standing in her house waiting to scream "happy birthday!" to her. At this point she still didn't know who was sending her the cards. They were never in our handwriting and they were always mailed from Ellinwood by my dad on the 5th of each month so she'd get it on the 6th. Teresa never mentioned the cards to us and we never mentioned them to her.
Her final note card contained a Polaroid picture of my mom, dad, sister Jenny and I. It really was the perfect execution of the torture. With it being the first one there was no precedent. Since then we've done similar but different things to the other sibs. Mark got little snippets about his life for a poster board before his surprise party. I can't remember at all what we did for John, other than have a party for him in my dad's welding shop in the dead of winter. For Jenny the memories are more vivid. We scanned 12 pictures of her at different stages of her life and we made posters out of them. Every month they showed up in weird places, like the convenience store where she goes to get her Diet Coke fix every day. During that year she was on the school board and I contacted the people at the school and arranged for one of these 8x11 posters to show up every pre-meeting packet but hers. She was definitely surprised at that meeting when they all had pictures of her.
Now that you have some background, you've probably figured out that my torture has begun. It started back in April. It was the night of the Final Four to be exact, the same week I turned 39. I
was at my friend Joyce's for a KU basketball watch party and Laurie presented me with a gift bag. Inside was a cloth diaper and some rubber pants, but no note. Apparently the story of my life was going to be told through gifts that have some meaning in my life.I was a little confused at first what the diaper and rubber pants really meant. I've been told since by my mom (even though I know exactly who's doing this, nobody's admitting to anything) that maybe it's because when I was a baby my sister Jenny was told to change my pants and she poked me with a diaper pin so hard that I ended up bleeding. Her punishment kept her from going to spend time in Salina with our cousins and she's never forgiven me for that. Because of course it was my fault.
My other gifts so far have included a ladies slip (yes, there's a story there but I'm not telling it right now), a letter from my invisible childhood playmates, a rooster refrigerator magnet and some super-cool
sunglasses. When I was a teenager I got a pair of sunglasses that had one of those cling-on plastic sticker things that said "Duro lenses" and I thought it was the thing to do to leave that sticker on. My sisters teased me about it relentlessly until I finally removed the sticker in disgust. I didn't do it soon enough, however, because a new nickname was born. Any of you call me Duro, I'll deck you. That name is reserved for my sisters only. My latest gift was the sunglasses pictured here with some bling that spells out "DURO". These are much classier than the sunglasses of my youth. And believe me when I tell you that the letters aren't cheap cling-on material. They're glued on to stay.
When I was in Bozeman, Montana, earlier this year my cousin Angie presented me with a gift that she said came to her anonymously for me. Gee, I wonder how. It was a rooster refrigerator magnet. Yes, another story. I'm quite famous for this story in my family. My nephew Christopher wrote a paper about this incident for a class once in high school. I think he got an "A" on it. When I was little my 
family had lots of animals including pigs, chickens and a rooster named Pinky. We lived out in the country (where my parents still live) and I would frequently visit the pigs in their pen and then bop out to visit the chickens. Pinky didn't like me at all. And he was a mean rooster. More than once on my visits out to the chicken coop, he'd peck me on the behind. Most of the time it just scared me, but I guess more than once it caused me great distress and tears. He never really bothered anybody else. Let me just end by saying that Pinky's hatred for me caused his own demise. My dad got sick of him always pecking at me and he took the matter into his own hands. Pinky ended up on the menu in the pig pen one night.
Four years ago when Jenny moved into her house in Oakley, she found this sign left behind by the previous occupant. It was only natural that she give it to me.
So now you're up-to-date on the birthday shenanigans. I'll keep you posted as the rest of my "gifts" come rolling in.
A little history...
To the left is a picture Lucy sent me last week of the kids with the snowman they made. They actually had a snow day and didn't have to attend school, which is a rare event for them.
