The Mighty Fly

We're big fans of Nickelodeon's "The Mighty B!" cartoon. The main character, Bessie Higgenbottom (voiced by the adorable and completely manic Amy Poehler), is a Honeybee scout determined to collect every single badge in Honeybee history. Honeybee folklore implies that in doing so, she’ll become a superhero called the Mighty B. Bessie often enlists the help of her dog Happy, her brother Ben, and her best friend Penny.

Flynn recently discovered that "if you take the two n's off my name, it spells fly." I guess that's her new nickname at school, though the boy who's asked her to marry him has started calling her Flynnise (rhymes with Denise).

And Monday while I was watching her swimming lesson, I realized that with her goggles on (which are a little big for her but she insists on wearing them) she looks an awful lot like Bessie.

A Week's Worth Of Years

Seven years have passed since my dad was stolen from me.

And, yes, I do mean stolen. He did not, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, go gently into the good night. His life was taken. And certainly not gently.

Yes, that initial raw-nerve pain is still there. Most likely, it will be there for the rest of my life. And, yeah, it hurts like a mother. Sometimes it knocks the wind out of me, it's so strong. It's something I've, unwillingly, become accustomed to. Some days, it's not in the forefront of my mind. It's always there, though. Lurking. Coloring every happy moment. Tainting.

There are days like today when I look at my children and I would give almost anything to have my dad here so he could enjoy them as much as Frank and I do. He loved being a grandpa. He knew two of his grandchildren, my son and my sister's first born, for only a brief time, but anytime he saw them his face would light up and he would just marvel at their simply being there. He always had a present of some sort for them. He gave Evan Christmas presents before he was even born (to Evan these are now priceless treasures). This picture is my favorite of them together. They have the same ears. And at the time, practically the same hairstyle.

I miss his physical presence in my life so terribly. I miss his contagious giggle, his wit and wicked sense of humor (as children my sister and I would beg him to tell us jokes), his razor-sharp intelligence, his hugs (he hugged you like it would be the last time; like he was trying to concentrate all of his love for you into this one hug), his smell (a singular mixture of cherry pipe tobacco, Listerine, fresh air, dirt, vet hospital and musty basement), the way his eyes changed color from blue to grey. I miss talking with him. We shared a love of Thoreau, Emerson and Twain; British comedy (his absolute favorite was a show called 'Allo, 'Allo); Get Smart; the Marx brothers; music; food; playing 20 Questions. He could stand on his head longer than anyone I've ever known.

So I have a cry (like I'm doing right this very second).

I listen to the Beach Boys (his favorite band, other than the Kingston Trio). Pet Sounds is playing in the background.

Last night I had a slice of key lime pie from Perkins (certainly not as good as his, but it'd do in a pinch).

I may watch an episode of 'Allo, 'Allo.

I will remember.

Love you, Dad.

Miss you.

Has It Really Been A Week?

It doesn't seem like a week ago I was reuniting with college friends. The days have flown by, chained together with the mundane tasks of workaday grown-up life: minding the children, tidying the house, laundry, paying various and sundry bills, whatever volunteer work needing to be done at school, I taught the 7th & 8th graders for a day this week.

And in many ways my silence here has been my way of savoring those brief hours with far-flung friends. Friday night we regrouped at one of the two hotels in Charleston and poured over old photos, talking about old times and catching up, laughing a lot. Figuring we'd be a might bit too noisy for other hotel patrons we adjourned to a local establishment for dinner and beverages. We traipsed up and down 4th street from Roc's to Friend's and back again, once we found out that Friend's (our no. 2 hang-out back in the day) was due to undergo renovations and the patrons (and bathrooms) were a little frightening. We did mosey back to the old part of the bar, where we used to hang, and took some pictures. The place looked, and bizarrely smelled, exactly the same. Friend's has an adjoining space with a stage where local bands, that some of our friends were in, used to play. The graffiti on the wall from those days is still intact and brought back tons of occasionally hazy memories.

My friends and I learned a valuable lesson that night: we are no longer 20 and really can't stay up until 3 a.m. and not pay a hefty price the next day. I was hung over for the first time in my life. Yep. I never had a hang over in college. Never. And, boy, could I drink, drink, drink back then. But I powered through the day, happy to suffer through a little dehydration, headache and some vomiting in order to spend time with some of my very favorite people in the world.

The people I came to know in my years at EIU are some of the most talented, creative, smart, funny, caring, and amazing individuals I know. I'm so thankful to be able to call them my friends. My life is blessed.

So it's taken me about a week to come down off that high.

But at least we're connected through Facebook and are already making plans for October.

The Momcation, Part 2

Last October I ran away for the weekend with some of my college buddies to see the very last play directed at EIU by our teacher, director and mentor Clarence Blanchette.

The play was nothing to write about, but the five of us had a blast and agreed it certainly didn't last long enough.

So.

This weekend Charleston is hosting Celebration: A Festival of The Arts and we decided it was as good enough an occasion to get together as any. And thanks to the modern miracle of Facebook, we've more than doubled our ranks. (We're also celebrating a birthday, a doctorate, and the retirement of our beloved acting teacher, Dr. Jerry Eisenhour).

I'm taking off in a little over an hour or whenever my friends arrive - I'm hitching a ride down with the folks from Chicago. Frank will join me tomorrow after dropping off the kids at my sister's house.

I can't tell you how excited I am to see friends I haven't seen in person in seven months, and some in over 15 years.

My bag is packed and waiting by the door.

Later, taters.

So Cool I Couldn't Keep It To Myself

This morning Frank told me about the episode of Mythbusters he watched last night. Apparently, it involved a million Legos:

The ball fell apart into, literally, a million pieces.

OK, so that's cool in and of itself (we are, of course, a Lego-centric household). But what grabbed my attention was that the Mythbusters team borrowed the million Legos from Nathan Sawaya, a NYC-based artist whose medium is, you guessed it, Legos.

This is some of his amazing work:

Pretty damn cool, no?

This Ain't St. Elsewhere

A week or two ago, I downloaded The Empire Of The Sun's debut compilation, Walking On A Dream. It was one of those $1.99 daily deals on Amazon. I've been grooving to it off and on since. The first single, the title track, sounds like David Gruesin's theme for St. Elsewhere, the awesome Dr. drama from the 80's (which I loved), or Vangelis's Chariots of Fire - lots and lots of synth. Very, very 80's with a modern twist in the vocals (some critics compare them to MGMT but I find them softer and not as nihilistic as MGMT).

Empire Of The Sun hail from Australia and, to me, they look like Kajagoogoo rejects or David Bowie's Goblin King in Labyrinth. And even though they don't have the vocal power behind their lyrics, I can't help but mentally compare them to fellow Ozzies, Air Supply. Maybe it's just because EOTS sound like they just stepped out of 1983.

But I dig most of the songs on their album, especially this one. They're pretty dancey.

Enjoy.

Of Cults and First Communions

Because my kids attend a Catholic school, special Church occasions like receiving certain sacraments (Reconciliation, Holy Communion and Confirmation) are built into the school calendar. My son's first communion was one such occasion. For those of you non-Catholics out there we take communion every time we can get it (some people attend daily Mass, others like my family and I attend Sunday service). And Church doctrine states that the priest actually transforms the host and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. So receiving the sacrament of communion for the first time is kind of a big deal. The boys get dressed up and the girls, well, they look like little brides dressed all in white, veils and all.

Evan's first communion was last Saturday.

And my mother blew it off for a singing competition.

A few months ago my mom asked me when Evan's first communion would be held. I told her it had been on the school calendar since August and was scheduled for Saturday, April 25th.

"Oh, well, I won't be there. That's Sweet Adelines competition," she said.

What?

At the time I was too gobsmacked to say anything. I figured she'd see how ludicrous she was being to ditch her only grandson's big day for her singing group's competition.

Nope.

My mother's been singing with the cult of Sweet Adelines for about a decade or so. At first my sister and I thought it was great: it gave her a hobby, kept her off the streets. Her favorite aunt, Dottie, was a director for an internationally-known Sweet Adelines group and I think this is where my mom got the idea. Music has always been part of her life and I'm happy that she found an outlet for her creativity.

But now it's a bit too much. Sweet Adelines has slowly, but surely taken over her life and totally brainwashed her. I don't know, maybe she's been hypnotized by glare coming off all the sequins on their spangly costumes. I mean, really, choosing the choir over family just pisses me off. And I even tried to enlist the aid of one of my mom's friends, a teacher at my children's school and fellow Sweet Adeliner. "Mrs. W, I need your help. Could you tell my mom that first communion is more important than competition?" I asked her at lunch one day. Wanna know what she told me? "Take pictures." Yeah, this from a Catholic school teacher! See? Cult.

And Evan was let down that one of his grandmothers wasn't there. "Doesn't she know that family's more important than things?" he asked me in the car on the way home from school one day. I told him I agreed wholeheartedly with him and that he should take it up with his grandmother.

But even though Evan was disappointed in his Nana, he was happy the rest of our family was there for him: my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her family drove down from Chicago and Frank's cousin and her family were in town for the Science Olympiad state finals and were represented by their oldest daughter (their son was competing), my sister and her family were there as well as my step-brother and his family (including my new niece, 4-week-old Nicole).

Evan looked rather dashing in his suit and signature red bow-tie. My mother-in-law does not throw things away. Case in point: she still had the suit Frank wore for his first communion. Evan wore it, too. He looked straight outta '78 in his 3-piece Pierre Cardin blue polyester suit. The pants were a little too flared for my personal taste, but Evan was happy. "Three-piece suits aren't in vogue anymore?" Frank asked.

Uh, no. I tried to get Evan to pose like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, but he wouldn't.

My son's first communion went very well, though he said afterwards, "The communion wine tastes horrible!" (and he was very relieved to hear that he does not have to drink it every Sunday).


So we're good until the next big deal: Flynn's first communion in two years. And you know she'll be all kinds of decked out.

I'm hoping there won't be a Sweet Adelines competition scheduled for that weekend as well.