Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Read more Katy at...
LateBoomer.net
Most Recent Posts
- Not For The Faint Of Heart
- New Math
- International House Of…..Watch Out!
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Colonoscopy!
- Spell Check
- You Are Not Alone
- Don’t Know Much About The Big Three
- Why, Oh Why Didn’t I Take Home Ec?
- Really, Really Fun While It Lasts!
- In Defense Of Good Old-Fashioned Books
- Things I’ve Said That I’m Happy Someone Else Didn’t Say First, One In An Ongoing Series Of Several
- Do Depression Meds Work For This?
- The T-Shirt Off Our Backs
- For The Fallible Record
- Long Time, No Blog
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
(No Title)
Normally, I don't do fashion commentary, but I just can't help myself. The prosperous county in Kansas which adjoins my tax-disadvantaged county in Missouri sometimes attracts my business. We go to the movies over there, my favorite Walmart is there, and all the best garage sales are there. By best, I mean the hosts of the garage sales "change their colors" every six months. I am the happy beneficiary of newly upholstered couches and wing chairs, and rooms full of solid wood furniture purchased for a fraction of their value because they'd fallen from fashion grace. I haven't been privileged to visit the inside of more than a few of these homes, but many of the subdivisions restrict the colors of outside paint to white and three shades of beige. Shutters provide a little more excitement, all the way from sea-foam green to Williamsburg blue. Whoopee. I've always told myself these folks express their creativity in other ways, perhaps through their work, or through their dress. Until today, when I happened upon a women's clothing store called J. Jills. Doug and I stood mesmerized, window notshopping, and could see the entire store from our vantage point on the sidewalk of the upscale shopping center. Every item, from pants to skirts to tops to accessories, was one of three colors--white, pale aqua, and Johnson County beige. All I know is, if J. Jills'customers get in the mood to change their colors, they'll be out of luck.(No Title)
One thing about my mom: her mind--and especially her memory for details--is intact. An unfortunate series of medical mishaps over the past four months led my mother to decide to move into an assisted-living place this past weekend. If asked to list all the experiences that led to this decision, she could give you an accurate, minute-by-minute, chronologically ordered account of her travails. Since Saturday afternoon's move, she could tell you exactly what time her phone service got hooked up, when she first met Ginger, one of the head nurses, and that fellow-resident Jean has two sons, one of whom lives in Norway. No one knows why, not even Jean. Mom and I met a lovely woman, Bea, during Mom's first breakfast in the dining room. Mom learned Bea's whole life story over one meal. Later that afternoon, I dropped Mom at the main door while I went to park the car. "There's Bea up on the patio," she said, and she walked up to join her. By the time I got there, the two of them had chatted. "Bea doesn't remember me from this morning," Mom said, almost as if her feelings were hurt. "Well," I said, as philosophically as I could, "that WAS a long time ago." I looked down at my watch, and my mother looked at her own. "Oh, yes," Mom said, "it was a VERY long time ago." Bea smiled, clearly vindicated by our ability to tell time. So much--and yet so little--happens in the course of any given day. May my mom's given days be filled with the joy of remembering, and may Bea know the peace of those who forget.(No Title)
If you've seen Niagara Falls, you've really seen something. But for a wonderful town, travel another twenty minutes to Niagara-On-The-Lake. Doug and I enjoyed a leisurely couple of hours there on our family's vacation, and I thought I was in heaven. Picturesque Victorian homes and shops decorated with maple trees, lilac bushes and window boxes bursting with petunias. Orchards and vineyards and wine-tastings and antique stores. Not to mention Bed and Breakfast places. "It's too perfect," I said, on our way back to plain old Niagara Falls. "Mark my words, there's an ax murderer living in the shadows on one of these farms--there has to be." And then I saw the sign posted by the winding lane leading to the most beautiful farm of them all. "Cold Drinks, Maple Syrup, Pure Honey, Fudge." So that proves it, then, doesn't it? Niagara-On-The-Lake really is the most perfect place on earth.(No Title)
I saw the stringy-haired blonde asking a clerk a question in aisle four of Walgreen's. Thirty seconds later we met personally in aisle three, where I was looking at small appliances and she at a display of electrial power strips and extension cords. "Have you seen the glue?" she asked. I looked around. She was talking to me. "I don't think it would be here," I answered. Just then she reached up and grabbed two tubes of Super Glue. "Have you seen the fake fingernails?" she asked. I became frightened. Today, in the historic Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri, some poor woman has received her final manicure.(No Title)
Things I Wish I'd Said: Third or Possibly Fourth In a Series "I have found that the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it." Harry S Truman, from a television interview on May 27, 1955 Since I was only a baby when Mr. Truman made his comment, I can be excused for not coming up with it first. Still, with kids ages 23, 20 and 17, I sure wish I'd had a thought even reasonably close to it a little earlier.(No Title)
I've been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms lately. And as much as I agree with everybody who loves Raymond, I can only read the Ray Romano cover story on the Ladies' Home Journal so many times. So I've invested in a 1.9 pound keyboard that runs for 500 hours on 3 AA batteries. Whatever I write while I'm away from my desk is easily dumped onto my computer later. Who knows? If I can turn out some decent writing, maybe someday people will love seeing this Raymond's story in print, too. It's worth a shot.(No Title)
One minute your doc calls to say the MRI of your head is completely normal (in spite of the swollen optic nerve the opthamologist saw), the next minute you decide to go ahead with your planned trip to New York in spite of FBI warnings, and the next minute your whole family is packing bags and hi-tailing it to KCI. MRI, FBI, KCI. As Ricky Ricardo would say, "I, I, I, I, I..." Only with an accent.(No Title)
Wouldn't you think in this day of cell phones and email and instant messenger, you'd never feel the need to be chained to your house, waiting for an old-fashioned, the-doc-only-calls-if-it's-bad-news phone to ring? Waiting for iffy medical news feels just like waiting for a crummy boyfriend to call: You know the phone's going to ring eventually, but it'll be too late to go to the movie, and his car's broken down anyway. So why do I sit here? I'm waiting by my old home phone because there's certain stuff you only want to learn about while sitting in your recliner sipping a cup of coffee with whipping cream and sugar-free vanilla syrup. I'm waiting here because I've got a whirlpool tub I can retreat to at the drop of a phone. I'm waiting here because too many accidents are already attributed to drivers on cell phones. Why should I be one more statistic? As it is, I'm waiting and praying not to be one in 50,000, or one in a gazillion, or whatever. Wouldn't you rather do that at home?(No Title)
So I'm writing this novel. Why did I imagine that I already knew these characters, and that they would just start doing stuff and saying stuff and I'd take dictation? When you know people, after all, don't you almost know what they're going to say before they say it? Or, if they're exceptionally unpredictable, you can at least be sure they're about to do or say the exact opposite of what you should be rightfully able to expect--right? I swear I've never met these people in my life. Before I can predict what they're going to do or say, and before they'll feel comfortable enough around me to let loose, we have to get to know each other. In the real world, that can take a while. One thing for sure: Christie, David and Julie are a threesome, and I'm an interloper. I hope they learn to trust me soon.(No Title)
A couple of half-way interesting movies were on TV last night, during the same time slot. "Let's do Armageddon," said one of the kids. "No," I answered, "we can do the end of the world any time." Did I say that?(No Title)
"Some people decide to follow the devil," said my five-year-old niece, Logan, as we sat at her kitchen table, coloring. "But we've decided to follow Jesus." "Yes, and someday we'll go be with Him forever in Heaven," I said. "I wonder what it will be like there?" She picked up her purple crayon to apply some broad strokes inside Barney's rotund lines. Her eyes gleamed. "It's going to be the world's biggest Chucky Cheese!" she said. And with her there, it's going to be a blast!(No Title)
Yesterday, I unplugged my laptop, stuck it in a bag, and hightailed it over to my closest Starbuck's to write among the bohemians. OK, so I'm not Hemingway or Fitzgerald, and Starbuck's isn't exactly a bar in Key West or a cafe in Paris. Still, the men play chess, and the women have their tete-a-tetes, and the fragrances of exotic coffees and a dozen different delectable pastries permeates the air. Ah, Paris! That is, until I looked up from my reverie and spotted the Oreck vacuum store and the Mail Boxes, Etc. store across the SUV-filled, devoid-of-vegetation parking lot. I'm thinking of trying the Starbuck's on the Plaza.(No Title)
I've been thinking a lot about how our "religion of origin" stays with us for a lifetime. When I was a child, I was taught that one is to receive the communion wafer into one's mouth, let it partially dissolve, and swallow it without chewing. To defile the body of Christ by allowing it to come into contact with teeth or lips or jaws was considered sacriligious. I must admit I've done my share of gossiping, back-biting and believing the worst (aloud) about my fellow members of the body of Christ from my earliest memory. I can chew them up and spit them out, and sometimes feel pious in the process. Funny, though. I still handle communion as carefully as the first time I received it. I'm praying the day comes when everything I do with my mouth will be done in remembrance of Him.(No Title)
As a result of three encouraging meetings with editors (and a fourth with an agent) at the writer's conference mentioned below, I am completing a full-blown proposal for a contemporary women's novel! For those of you who read excerpts from what I wrote during National Novel Writing Month last November, don't cry for me! This is a different story all together. Can't quite say how excited I am to be attempting this "for real." I covet your prayers!(No Title)
My son Scott invited me to go to Michigan with him to a writer's conference! We're leaving today for a five-day trip. Spending time alone with an adult child is just like when I spend time with my mother, only in reverse. For example, I must allow Scott to snicker when I obsess over silly travelling details, and realize that, of course, he's right--I need to chill. I would be snickering at my mom, too. And while I've taken to asking my mother if she needs to use the bathroom before we leave the house, I must resist asking Scott if he needs to go potty. Please, dear God, don't let him ask me!
copyright 2008, ngenius media inc.
