Katy McKenna Raymond  
Personal blog of christian writer Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri


Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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Fun With Kiki Cullen (#1647)

I decided, just for fun, to post the opening scene of a novel I wrote. I used to post excerpts from works-in-progress, but those bits never resulted in a completed manuscript. This one did. I still get a kick out of my main character, Kiki Cullen:

My car hydroplaned through the radio station’s parking lot thanks to a hyperactive sprinkler system, skidding to a halt a fraction of an inch from the Employee of the Month sign. I gasped at the near miss and then beamed at the shiny pole, which bore a rectangle’s worth of affirmation.

It would be a shame to dent the back of a sign I desperately hoped to be parked in front of someday.

No time to wax wistful now, though. The manufactured rain created an arc like a crystal rainbow over the front end of my car, where I sat just long enough to gather my computer bag, my purse, and the umbrella that was wedged under the passenger seat.

Why was I late again? Oh, yeah. Copious numbers of cratered orange barrels and so many tipped construction cones that it looked like scores of drivers had bowled perfect strikes with their SUVs.

And now? A show to host with no prep time at all.

Worse, I’d missed Sweet Talk, the semi-regular pastry-laden meeting during which any broadcasting career might be shaped, sliced, filled, or even turned into a burnt offering.

I shoved the car door open, snapped the umbrella up like a parachute, and splattered my way onto the puddled concrete. I ran around to the other side of the Employee of the Month sign for another look at that name.

No mistake.

The seams of my umbrella nearly split with pride and I allowed myself a moment’s sopping satisfaction, but I couldn’t very well stand there and gloat. I sprinted for the building, regretting my choice of stilettos more with every triangle-toed slosh. When I finally threw open the station’s side door, my show’s call screener greeted me—a girl I must say seemed a tad testy even though she was perfectly dry.

She bit her lip and glanced down to observe her old-fashioned watch’s sweep second hand do its sweeping thing. “Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds.”

“Plenty of time,” I said, impersonating an optimist.

We set off walking.

I gulped stale smoke in the narrow hallway leading to the studio, struggling to keep up with her. A long line of former bigwigs crowded the walls, framed and hung, suspended on black velvet cords—almost by their necks, if you asked me. They alternately scowled and glared, and I could have sworn one winked as I skittered through the mostly-dead-executive gauntlet.
We stopped in the coatroom just long enough for me to ditch my umbrella and the raincoat I made a habit of toting—but never wearing—in October. Autumn’s melancholy outbursts of precipitation mirrored my mood in a soothing way.

Like a friend who empathizes with your blue funk by sharing her own tale of woe.
“You weren’t at the meeting.” She looked me up and down with a stricter appraisal than usual, and a hint of disappointment. “What happened?”

I shrugged and huffed, the huffing being not so much with exasperation as with inhalation deprivation. Short legs are so overrated. “Doesn’t matter now. Catch me up on today.”

“It matters. Gillespie’s watching you.” A timer went off in her pocket. A back-up system for her never-fails second hand. “Four mins, five secs.”

“Watching? I thought we were still doing radio.” I shouldn’t tease her, but sometimes I couldn’t resist.

She made a face, not an amused one. “Watching from the control room. That’s what this morning’s Sweet Talk was about.”

“What exactly will he be watching for?”

While we jogged the final few yards of marble-floored hallway, she held out a document and pointed to a paragraph midway down the page. “It says here, ‘The host’s no-holds-barred attitude during Your Marriage Matters will ultimately make or break the show.’”

“My…attitude?”

“Yeah, and it gets worse.” She pointed even more pointedly, flipping the page my direction. “Market studies show improved ratings on days following one of your…um…rants. Three minutes straight up.”

“The document from corporate used the word rants?” I knew I’d gone mildly hormonal with a few callers in recent weeks, but three days ago the doctor adjusted my meds. Besides, at no time did I think my on-air behavior constituted a bona fide rant.

We skidded around the corner and into the studio. She handed over the sheet. Green highlighter blended with a fleck of icing on the page like food coloring on a St. Patrick’s Day cake.

“Read it and don’t weep,” she said. “This could go either way.”

Gillespie planned to choose one program for much wider distribution across his expanding network of stations. Either Your Marriage Matters would break out, or the following hour’s show would prevail: a knockdown, drag-out, he-said, she-said, liberal-conservative shout-fest.

Like that’s what the world needs now.

“So what happens to the other show?”

“Didn’t say.” Fiona glanced over my shoulder into the control room.  “But you’d better put on your headphones. Gillespie wants to talk.”

I shivered, though my blouse had completely shed the sprinkles. “You mean, before I go on?”

She gave me one of those looks and nodded.

Two minutes and small change. Good thing I could skip out on wardrobe check, hair, and make-up. Radio does have its plusses, but having a pre-show conversation with Gillespie?

So not one of them.

“By the way,” I said, meeting her eyes. “I missed it, didn’t I?”

Her lips curved into the most modest of smiles. “Yeah, Kiki. I really wanted you there.”

My heart melted. What would I do without this girl? “You’re the best Employee of the Month ever, Fiona Carmichael.”

And then she grinned outright and I hugged her with all my might.

Posted by Katy on 07/20/11
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Stuck On Mom (#1646)

At Mom’s house, family photographs are prominently displayed in one of three places. The refrigerator is the logical landing spot, but the fridge is now 18 years old, and some of the photos have hung there that long. Once a picture has secured a position on the fridge, it’s for life. Even if the subject of the photo is now hanging in the post office, he knows he’ll be wanted on the fridge, too.

These snapshots are lovingly interspersed with such treasures as her copy of “When I Am Old I Shall Wear Purple” and a twelve-year-old announcement promising, “MRS. McKENNA, you may have already won!” Magnets bearing advertising slogans are the cohesive elements of her refrigerator-door art. “Pizza Hut” delivers the connection between the grocery list and the picture of my dad in a two-year-old’s party hat. “The Channel 41 News Team” provides a smooth segue between the “Better Than Barry Manilow Muffin” recipe and a running tally of her bingo winnings since 1973.

The glass front of the china cabinet, its wooden lattice providing a natural framework, has accumulated dozens of pictures over the years. If she took down the photos, guests could admire her Waterford crystal, but she’s unpretentious.

“Oh, the kids have new school pictures?” she exclaims. “Let’s make room on the china cabinet!” No gilded frame could make a grandchild feel more special.

Finally, Mom creates elaborate montages by fastening pictures to the inside of closet doors. These are private collections, not to be shared outside the immediate family. Represented here are kids in their underwear, kids sitting on potty chairs, and anyone having a bad hair day. Every shot of someone with a full mouth is in one of these discreet groupings. Come to think of it, most pictures here are of my brother, John.

As essential as this photographic timeline is to our family’s history, the even greater importance of newspaper clippings cannot be overlooked. Clipping is where Mom’s true passion lies, where her artistic sensibilities blossom.

When my sister won a trip to Hawaii through a Kansas City Star contest, Mom carefully clipped articles for the sake of posterity. When my son became a National Merit semi-finalist, she scavenged 17 copies. I think she treasures the newsprint wedding pictures of her children as much as the professional portraits gracing the grand piano.

Once in a while, one of us actually does something mildly newsworthy, or is accidentally standing near someone who does, and a picture with accompanying caption makes the front page (even if it is just the local shopper). The unexpected thrill is almost more than she can take.

Her most treasured clippings have one unifying characteristic, one value-added element that sets them apart from the typical snippets found in kitchen junk drawers everywhere. Each has been bestowed with the highest honor my mom can imagine, one that earns it a certifiable space in the family annals.

Mom isn’t sentimental in a showy way. But what could be better than having her lead me to the bathroom mirror, point to the clipping of me with a kraut dog at the Price Chopper Grand Opening, and say, with admiration in her voice, “See, honey? You’re laminated!”

At Mom’s house, the pride of accomplishment is never more than a plastic coating away.

Posted by Katy on 07/14/11
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Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered (#1645)

“Doug, can we honestly provide a ‘religiously neutral’ home environment?”

I sat filling out an application to become a host family to a pair of teenagers—one Catholic and one Protestant—from Northern Ireland. Until coming across this particular requirement, which the literature repeated several times for emphasis, I imagined we’d be perfect sponsors. My husband and I had grown up Catholic, but we’d raised our own family in a non-denominational Christian church.
We empathized with both sides in the Irish “troubles,” but did that make us religiously neutral? I wanted to make sure that, according to the guidelines provided by the Children’s Friendship Project for Northern Ireland, we fulfilled the letter of the law.

My husband’s answer caught me off guard. “Religious neutrality’s easy. We’ll just avoid favoring either kid’s denomination. It’s not like the organization’s asking us to be spiritually complacent…”

I winced. If we hadn’t exactly grown spiritually complacent, we were certainly comfortable. Our family’s spiritual comfort had been the precise reason I felt we could risk inviting strangers into our home. Our own kids (then 22-year-old Scott, 19-year-old Carrie, and 16-year-old Kevin) enjoyed growing relationships with the Lord, great friends, and positive outlooks. Even if we ended up hosting two Irish kids with serious attitudes, we would still emerge, I hoped, comfortable.

Was that such a bad thing?

I put the signed application in the envelope, sealed it, and prayed for the teens God would send us, all the while feeling more uncomfortable than I had in a long time.

Out of Ireland

“Are you out of yer cotton-pickin’ minds?”

Our entire family—each of us holding cheesy signs bearing the girls’ names—burst out laughing as Sheryl Heaney and Chloe Faulkner, their fresh-off-the-plane faces beaming, delivered their well-rehearsed line in unison. Never had we been victimized by such a horrible rendition of a Southern drawl!

Once again, I was caught off-guard. I’d expected all of us to go through a period of shyness, but awkwardness in the presence of these girls couldn’t achieve even a toehold. We were out of our cotton-pickin’ minds, all right, but in very good company.

In County Tyrone, the girls’ religions dictated where they shopped, the sports they played, the schools they attended, and even whether they entertained a belief in leprechauns. In day-to-day life, their paths weren’t likely to cross. We determined that while in our country, they’d spend every waking moment together—and every sleeping moment, too. If by some miracle they succeeded in becoming true friends, who knew how big an impact they might have on their communities back in Northern Ireland?

For now, though, Northern Ireland would have to wait. For the month of July, 2001, Sheryl and Chloe belonged to Kansas City, and the whole city belonged to them.

To get things rolling, we threw a huge Fourth of July party with friends, family, and fireworks. The organization warned us that fireworks might frighten the teens, but instead they were thrilled. Within days, the group’s thoughtful warnings fell by the wayside, as Sheryl and Chloe embraced regulated sunbathing, strange foods, and distinctly American entertainments.
 
More than anything, they desperately longed to see cowboys in ten-gallon hats and pointy-toed boots, riding vicious livestock in a good old-fashioned rodeo. Before the opening act started, though, the Irish girls and our kids headed off to buy soft drinks.

Had they lost interest already? “Hurry back. You don’t want to miss the bulls.”

I should have known their innocent smiles meant trouble. By the time we realized they’d been gone too long, they returned with sheepish grins—and Sheryl sporting a limp. If only someone had warned us about the mechanical bull!

Spreading the Word

As the weeks went on, Sheryl and Chloe accumulated so many shared experiences and touched so many lives—whether hammering with Habitat for Humanity or cruising in a police car with my brother-in-law cop—that the Kansas City Star decided to print a front-page story about them. The reporter and photographer shadowed the girls, along with our kids, for a couple of days, following them into shops on the Plaza, treating them to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and even accompanying them to church.

Rather than attend their separate denominations on Sundays, the girls insisted on experiencing our church, Great Plains Community, together. They found Pastor Tom Blasco’s messages entertaining and meaningful, the music energetic and engaging, and the youth group welcoming.

In other words, even at church, they found common ground.

Once back on Northern Ireland’s soil, the girls remained close. They continued posting entries to the online journal Doug helped them set up, and looked forward to attending university in Belfast in the fall of 2002.

Imagine our shock when Sheryl once again made the newspapers—this time for her death. Just one year after we fell in love with her, she and her sister Tara lost their lives in a car accident on a treacherous piece of road in County Louth.

As horrible as we felt, we couldn’t deny God’s grace in the midst of tragedy. Sheryl, a Catholic, had engendered such respect among Catholics and Protestants alike in County Tyrone that a local Protestant parade—a recurring thorn in the side for Catholics—was canceled in her honor. Not only that, but her parents, Michael and Gwen Heaney, invited a Protestant minister to join the Catholic priest in presiding over the funeral of their daughters, setting an unheard-of precedent.

Against all odds, people from both sides of the conflict came together in genuine sorrow to mourn the community’s loss in a way rarely witnessed in Northern Ireland.

Sheryl and Chloe made a difference not only in their world, but in our world, too. In the end, Doug was right. Whether or not we were religiously neutral didn’t seem to matter much to our girls. But it would have been sad indeed if—given such a wonderful opportunity to touch a pair of lives—we’d been spiritually complacent.

In the end, two young women became unlikely friends, lured us out of our risk-free existence, and ultimately caused us to lean, once again, on the God of all comfort.

Posted by Katy on 07/13/11
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The Thrift of Grief (#1644)

Of all the ways I’ve meandered my way through grief since Mom died four months ago, none has proven more surprising than the new joy I’ve found among the dusty treasures in thrift stores.

In a thrift store, you’ve got everything that good old-fashioned grief requires.

First of all, no matter which way you turn you encounter items—-whether pieces of apparel from the ‘80s, salt and pepper shakers, or bronzed baby shoes—-that remind you of the dearly departed. So you shed a tear and no one in the shop is any the wiser. They all imagine, if they notice you at all, that you’re rabidly allergic to mold and mildew, commodities in ample supply in most thrifts.

You let the tears roll down your face and don’t even bother to wipe them away, because to do so would leave huge streaks of dirt in their stead. Dirt acquired from touching stuff, the kind of stuff people donate to thrift stores, stuff that’s been in basements and attics and garages for years, maybe decades. Dirty stuff.

Second, once you get past the fact that it seems you just donated half this junk when you cleared out your mom’s possessions and now you’re facing the temptation to buy it all back for sentiment’s sake, you’ll take a closer look at your fellow customers. One young mom has your mother’s same high cheekbones and lightly freckled nose, her dishwater blonde hair pulled back with a nape-of-the-neck barrette. Her clear blue eyes are made even brighter by the (obviously) thrifted clip-on sapphire rhinestone earrings that are exact replicas of ones Mom wore in the ‘50s. Rhinestones in the light of day! With shorts and a halter top and espadrilles!

This long-legged gal could be your mom some fifty years ago, and you the little girl holding her hand, clutching in the crook of your other elbow a Bobsey Twins hardback.

Next, you spot the old woman, the one wearing scuff house slippers, whose feet are so swollen she’ll never find a pair of second-hand shoes—-even among the men’s selection—-to fit her. She smiles a waif-like smile, considering her overall girth, and gives you almost an apologetic look, as if she owes you an explanation for her disability, for the untold effort it takes her to shuffle to the side so you can pass. You smile back and greet her with a kind word because of course, she owes you nothing. And neither, neither does your own dear mother.

Finally, you make a few choices among the peasant blouses and the jeans with the brand-new tags still on them and then study the prices. Suddenly, it’s 1958, and your mom has taken you on a thrilling shopping trip to the Jay Kay Shop in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City. Mrs. Jay Kay is showing you her latest merchandise, an outfit that will become your favorite of the season. Your mother is not a bargain shopper. She pulls out her billfold and counts out the dollars to Mrs. Jay Kay. Counting is your strong suit, and you carefully consider the price your mom is paying, as she places into the shop owner’s hand the exact amount you’ll be paying today.

Grief can be the greatest extravagance you’ll ever know, and on many days, it is. On some days, you have no choice about the emotional toll you’ll pay merely to get from morning until evening, like the charge to cross a bridge in questionable repair.

But on other days, grief is thrifty. It doles itself out bit by bit, 25 cents’ worth at a time, and you end up with a greater number of treasures than you started with, and for a price you can actually afford.

Posted by Katy on 07/08/11
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