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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Finally (#365)

Not long ago, a side-walk sale at Wal-Mart compelled me to haul home no fewer than a dozen Barbies to add to the stuff in the gift closet. Last night, I opened five of them and made them my own.

It's a difficult thing for a woman of my age and feminine sensibilities to never have had a real Barbie. Barbie was introduced in 1959, I believe, when I was in kindergarten. By 1963, when I was allowed to have an anatomically correct (tee, hee) doll, fake Barbies were already on the market.

I got a platinum blonde, pony-tailed unreasonable facsimile, and my life was changed forever.

It's like what they say about cravings: No amount of filling your stomach with a crummy substitute takes the place of a small amount of the real thing.

I have spent decades purusing the Barbie aisles, showering other children with the Barbies I never had, drooling over the gilded designer Barbies the Franklin Mint now sells to over-aged Barbie-deprived women with bucks.

It's pathetic, really. My poor mother tried to save fifty-nine cents by purchasing the fake rather than the shockingly expensive $2.48 authentic, and she instead caused a lifetime of Barbie angst.

I had no choice but to give myself the gift of Barbies last night. I had to have something to fill my new Barbie dollhouse.
Posted by Katy on 12/08/03
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Click, Click (#366)

My techie husband changed my life today.

Until now--and I'm embarassed to admit this to lifelong computer users like you--if I wanted to cut and paste within a document, I'd print out the entire 235 pages, cut it up with scissors, and tape it together in its new, improved order. Only then would I feel secure enough to reassemble the doc on the computer.

Oh, I'd done a little minor copying and pasting. A sentence moved into the previous paragraph, perhaps, or an accidentally Germanic word order repaired to standard English.

Never cut and paste, mind you. Cutting scared the socks off me. And never even copy and paste, if the section to be moved had to be out of my sight after copying for even the second it took to scroll to the spot in which I wished to paste it.

My years at the computer have been long, cruel, and without short-cuts.

Today, though, I have mastered Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, plus an additional command that involves using the Alt key before one of the four arrows.

Just when I had learned the exact series of short-cuts necessary to organize my novel scenes into a program which will help me bring 90,000 words into submission, Doug showed up at my right hand.

"That new program you're using? I just found a way to save you two more clicks."

It took me fifty years to save the clicks he's saved me today, and I've only managed it by the skin of my teeth. I am grateful beyond words for his kind tutelage, but I can't possibly incorporate one more short-cut into my repertoire without losing the ones that have only so recently taken up residence there.

"You know how much that don't impress me?"

It's the fear talking, really it is.

"How much?" he asks.

"I could be Shania."

So what if I'm two clicks short of mastering a new technique? Just think how far I've come.
Posted by Katy on 12/06/03
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Age Before Disputy (#367)

Doug's mother and I sat next to each other at Thanksgiving, so that we could read each other's lips at close range, I guess. Sheesh.

Part way through dinner, the subject between the two of us switched to holiday gift-giving. (My sister-in-law's fiber-optic tree had worked its magic.)

"All I want for Christmas," my mother-in-law said in certain terms, "is a picture of the three of you."

I did a quick mental head count before responding.

"Which three?"

We had a meeting of the eyes, if not the minds. I stared into her face, and saw the intent deepen in her jaw line as her brow furrowed. I concentrated on her lips, determined not to misunderstand her forthcoming reply.

"You, Doug, and the kids."

Alrighty, then.
Posted by Katy on 12/05/03
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Bereft (#368)

Some women are golf widows, others are hunting widows, still others are football widows. They may not see much of their husbands, but I'll bet they can tell you what the guys do for a living.

For almost twenty-seven years, I've been a new-media widow.

It all started with a 35mm camera back in the late seventies. I couldn't even use an Instamatic without decapitating my witless victims, so there was little chance I would understand the intricate workings of his new love.

He took a continuing ed class for six weeks or so, shot exactly one roll of film, had it developed, and starting hawking himself and his portfolio. He got an entry level job doing something at a company that was just beginning to get into multi-media slide production.

And the rest, as they say, is his story. To tell you the truth, he lost me at slides.

He's been a photographer, a corporate filmmaker and director, a video producer, a project manager, a digital editor, a graphic artist, a website designer, a creative consultant, and a new-media business owner.

His latest reinvention of himself involves implementing portal systems, incorporating integrators, and
making sure he continues to position himself as the value-added man who can make it happen.

Last night, we tried to talk about it all, and the conversation ended as usual.

Katy: "I don't understand one word you just said. Exactly what is it you do for a living? My mother keeps asking..."

Doug: "It's simple, really. I ,,$#%gtp*&. Then, #$)*@!!__)*&/<> $*:!!)>??*&/%."

Katy: "I don't get what you do, but you understand completely what I do. You could so write a novel..."

Doug: "Yeah, except for that one part."

Katy: "The blank screen?"

Doug: "The blank screen."

So I'm a new-media widow. As long as I never have to face a blank screen, I can handle it.


Posted by Katy on 12/03/03
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Ornaments (#369)

A pleasingly plump evergreen sits just outside my bedroom window. It's beginning to look a little like Christmas, the sky holding at least the promise of snow, if not the reality.

The bare tree reminds me of my total lack of preparation for the season. No decorations yet, very few gifts purchased, no party invitations either given or received.

I'd almost decided to plunk down $38.88 at Wal-Mart for a tabletop fiber-optic shrub and call it Christmas.

Then the birds arrived. Not just any old brown birds, but stunning cardinals and blue jays, a dozen all told.

For the better part of an hour, they flitted and sang and danced their way in and around my evergreen, landing on branch tips often enough to look like the richest of ornaments, and then darting off to play again.

They crossed paths around the tree like a liquid garland being wrapped from top to bottom, braiding themselves across its wide expanse until they finally rested, satisfied, from their holiday decorating extravaganza.

Fiber optics just lost their lustre, and I saved a chunk of change.
Posted by Katy on 12/02/03
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Word Order (#370)


Novelist T.C. Boyle says this about writing:

"First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or smell or taste, you have something."

Some days, I look at what I've got and think it's still nothing. But then I remember author Jean Auel, who said she'd writtten over a million words towards what would become "Clan of the Cave Bear," but still didn't have a story.

Then I remember what author and humorist Liz Curtis Higgs says. "I can talk two hours without a subject." What if I can write eight months without a theme?

So. I don't exactly have nothing. Of course, it remains to be seen if I have something more than 80,000 words that just happen to have never been put together in this precise order before.

Oh, well. Back to ripping and betraying...
Posted by Katy on 12/02/03
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Short List (#371)

When I was young, and by that I mean until last week, I had a running list of the things that I would never allow to happen to me in my old age. I still have the list, but it's getting shorter.

As a child of eight or nine, I felt that our family was living in deprivation since I had decided that a happy home should never be without an unopened bag of chocolate chips--just in case. (I believed similarly about cases of 16-ounce bottles of Coke, and cartons of Eskimo Pies, but for some reason those items never made it onto my actual list.)

I moved out when I was eighteen, and there has never been a moment when my household has gone wanting for chocolate chips. I haven't touched sugar in four years, but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it? The presence of chocolate chips is a constant, something I can depend on, a certainty.

Until recently, I felt that way about eyebrows.

I had told myself, in my innocent youth, that I would NEVER become one of those ladies who has plucked out all of her own eyebrows for some reason known only to her and God, and then is forced to pencil in a totally artificial looking pair.

Why would a woman do that? WHY?

I will turn fifty in a few short weeks, and I am wiser now than I've ever been, if by wisdom one means an accumulation of knowledge and experience that might help someone else not be as idiotic as I've been.

Here's what happens to eyebrows, and I will spare you none of the horrific details:

Eventually, if you pluck your brows, they will stop growing in that area, which sounds like a deal. It's really OK, as long as you have defined your brows exactly as you wish them to be shaped for all eternity. But--and this is a big but--on the day that you accidentally misplace all your prudence and fashion sense and, out of a crazed overzealousness, pluck those puppies too narrow or too thin, THAT WILL BE THE DAY your eyebrows decide to stop growing in that area.

Mark my words. Or my eyebrows. Take your pick.

And that's not all.

You may believe, as I did, that the only goofballs who end up with gray eyebrows are the ones who plucked their brows to pieces, and the new ones (assuming they were lucky enough to get new ones) came in gray.

You may believe that if you just act with sanity as regards your eyebrows, you'll be OK.

Here's what really happens: When you get close to fifty, whichever brows haven't been plucked to death will start growing so fast and so long that you'll be running to the bathroom mirror every coffee break to check on them. And soon you'll realize that one of the reasons God made curved manicure scissors is because they work marvelously at trimming brows down to a respectable and manageable length.

BEWARE! One day, when you lean into the mirror and innocently trim those long brows that--if the world were a fair and just place--would be long eyelashes instead, you will be horrified to find that what is left of those few eyebrows that you haven't plucked and have carefully trimmed is completely GRAY.

So now you have a real dilemma, don't you? If you trim those two-inch long brows, you'll remove the only color that remains, but if you don't, well. You'll have two-inch long brows.

Once the crazy growth begins, the gray takes over. Trust me on this.

If you still have a list of things you've decided will NEVER happen to you when you get old, you can go ahead and cross off "I'll never put myself in a position of needing to pencil in fake eyebrows."

At least now I know what everyone's talking about when they say "grow a pair."

Posted by Katy on 11/24/03
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The Onion Publishes Sad Truth (#372)

Let me start by saying that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of the f-word. Nevertheless, this article has come to my attention, and I must pass it on to my readers.

If you are a child of mine who happens to have his or her own blog, please forgive me for laughing my head off.

And remember, I have a mom, too. If she found my blog, I would just die.
Posted by Katy on 11/13/03
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Trading Spaces (#373)

I have three desks in our home.

The built-in desk in the hallway is wonderful, custom-designed for me by Doug when we worked with the architect on the house plans. I absolutely love looking at it, and have decorated it with purses and high-heeled shoes and pearls and gloves, but I don't work well there. The distractions are too many and too frequent. My plots end up revolving around characters who do dishes and transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer, because that's what I end up doing when I sit there.

My desk in Doug's office is more industrial looking. I hate it, which is good. That way, when I am forced by concerns of both our business and personal finances to sit there and make hay, I stop at nothing to get the job done efficiently. It's a real get-in-and-get-out kind of desk.

The desk in my bedroom is my current desk-of-choice. It is large, with three file drawers and three smaller drawers. It has plenty of space for my laptop and a lamp, a vase, clock, piggy bank, stacks of books, framed pictures of my husband and kids, and my collection of ink wells.

It sits squarely inside the middle two windows of a four-window bay, looking out on our own three-acre wood. On sunny days, the curtains hang down to block the brightness. But on my favorite days, cloudy ones like today, the curtains on the middle two windows are each gathered and draped as smoothly as liquid on the side edges of the desk.

I've never had a canopy bed, though I've wanted one my whole life. What I have now is even better, because I'm wide awake to enjoy it.

I have a canopy desk.
Posted by Katy on 11/04/03
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Give Me More, More, More! (#374)

I'm heading out to do a little Christmas shopping. It's a challenge at the moment, because we're having, I'll just say, significant cash flow difficulties. Doug and I have agreed to not spend what we typically would on each other this year, but he's feeling bad about it.

"I love you," Doug says, as he's hugging me good-bye, "and I just want to give you much more."

"Ooohhh," I say, "that's really sweet, but I don't want much more."

I say it in a way that clearly means, "I have everything I want already."

"So," he says, eyes twinkling, "just a little more?"

I've been set up.
Posted by Katy on 11/02/03
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Brenda Starr and Me (#375)

Brenda Starr and I go way back. I knew just enough about her by December, 1961, to know I wanted to be her when I grew up. I wanted the career in writing, the fabulous clothes, the glamorous bedroom, the amazing long, red, flowing hair, and the cleavage.

Sure, she had a wacky dysfunctional relationship with a guy named Basil, but I hoped they had some semblance of a spiritual connection, since his last name was St. John. A name like that should be able to cover a lot of sins, don't you think?

As it turned out, he often disappeared for years at a time into some distant jungle, where he was forced to develop a rare serum from an exotic breed of orchid in order to prolong his own otherwise useless life.

Then he'd ingest or inject the serum, and use the cubits that had been added to his miserable existence to trek back to the big city, where Brenda would forgive him in an implied session of passionate lovemaking.

In December of 1961, Basil was away. I was eight years old, and anxious for his return. Wouldn't it be better if Brenda and Basil lived out his few remaining days together, making happy memories? What good was it if he hung on another ten years separated from his one, true love, in exchange for a couple measly episodes of making-out?

Even at eight, I had lost patience with Basil St. John.

And if it weren't for what happened on that fateful morning in December, 1961, I might have given up hope for Brenda, too.

I was spending the weekend with my grandparents, and by five o'clock Sunday morning, my grandpa let Grandma and me know he was having a terrible heart attack. She told him it was just heartburn, and to go back to bed. She was snoring within seconds, but I knew the truth.

My grandpa, just like Basil St. John, wouldn't be coming home anytime soon.

The doctor made a house call, and an ambulance took Grandma and Grandpa into the city, where Grandpa lived in Intensive Care for the next five weeks. I was hustled to the next-door neighbors, people I did not know, but who had an enormous white Family Bible on the coffee table.

I took great comfort in the physical presence of the Bible--although I had never opened one and didn't that day, either--but I instinctively reached for the Sunday funnies.

What I found there disturbed me almost as much as witnessing my first heart attack.
Evidently, Brenda Starr had been drugged by very bad people who, as the ultimate insult, had shorn her hair. Really shorn. Brenda Starr with a frickin' pixie cut.

"You can get through this, Brenda. Things aren't as horrible as they seem right now. It will be all right, you'll see. Hair grows back, really it does. Basil will still love you, no matter what. You are not alone."

Okay, I admit it. That morning, I played Brenda Starr's shrink, her counselor, her pastor. And in helping her, I pulled myself through a very scary time.

Brenda's hair grew back so fast, I couldn't believe it. Within a few short weeks--before my grandpa was even in a private room--her auburn tresses were as long and voluptuous as ever.

Boy, did I ever want to be Brenda Starr.

The next Halloween, in 1962, I got my chance. My mother bought me a wonderful Brenda Starr mask, and I had a costume to die for. (No cleavage, but still. Heck, I was a kid. There was plenty of time for that.) It was my favorite costume ever.

I must have had Brenda and Halloween on my mind in my sleep last night. Toward morning, I dreamed of having her gorgeous hair, which was growing exponentially like one of those dolls with a little crank that makes her hair cover her rear end in seconds flat.

I awakened with a huge smile and ran to the mirror to see if my hair would turn red and grow big before my very eyes, but no such luck.

Still no cleavage, either.

Posted by Katy on 10/31/03
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Real Life (#376)

The entire transcript of another very weird conversation:

Katy: "Honey, I love you..." (Her voice trails off.)

Doug: "But...?"

Katy: "Oh. My. God...BUT."

Doug: "Okay. What?"

Katy: "It's the tapping. It's got to go."

Doug: "Oh, yeah. That."
Posted by Katy on 10/30/03
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Progress Report (#377)

Okay. I just want to let you know that yesterday I passed the 60,000-word mark on my novel-in-progress. That's about 220 pages, double-spaced.

The contest I'm entering has a deadline of February 1, leaving me a full (and otherwise extremely busy...) three months to finish the first draft and revise. The finished book can be as short as 50,000 words so, believe it or not, I might actually finish!

That's just so unlike me in every way.
Posted by Katy on 10/28/03
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The Immigrants (#378)

One side of a conversation overheard in Starbucks on the Plaza, between the boss--an Irishman with a thick brogue who seemed uncomfortable with his position as employer--and the young Hispanic man he was trying to woo back to work:

"George, I still don't know why you walked out. I haven't seen you for three days."

(George speaks.)

"I know, I know. Jose got a raise, from $12.80 to $14.60. Yes, sometimes he works overtime. But other times, he doesn't even work fulltime. His paycheck fluctuates--
do you see? If there's no work, he doesn't get paid."

(George.)

"Okay, I see. But you know what, George? People take advantage, don't show up. They use fake names because they owe back child support and Missouri is strict. No, I'm not talking about you, George."

(George.)

"Yes, yes, I know. It's true that I gave Wes a cell phone. He couldn't qualify to get one of his own."

(George.)

"All right, George. If you want to go back to hourly, you can. But there are advantages to being on a salary--you can budget. Think of the bigger picture. You have children. Christmas is only two months away. There's more than just today..."

(George.)

"Whatever you say, George. What else do you want? Okay. I'll get you your own cell phone. Take some time off, but then come back to work on Monday."

I don't know why I felt that both these men were struggling to become authentic Americans, struggling to understand the way of things, but I did.

Maybe it's because I was just speaking with my cousin who was raised by two immigrant parents--a mother from Scotland (my father's sister) and a father from Norway. She told me how she wanted to live in my family when she was a kid, because I only had one immigrant parent, and we must have been like a "real" American family.

She felt better after I assured her that immigrant status is a dominant trait in a family, one that can't be easily overcome even if your mom is a Daughter of the American Revolution.

I was happy I could help.
Posted by Katy on 10/27/03
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Oneness (#379)

You know the kind of toothbrush holder that has four holes in the top, so the average American family can share it? That's the type Doug and I have in the master bath.

Two toothbrushes, four holes. Lots of space to stake a claim. Perfect, right?

When I place my wet toothbrush in the holder, I put it directly opposite his, with the bristles facing out, on the side closest to my sink. Kind of like when I turn away from him in a queen-sized bed, and prefer to face my end table.

When Doug puts his brush away, he snuggles it into the vacant hole right next to my brush, even if mine is still dripping wet, and he points the bristles squarely in my direction.

What's more, I am gathering evidence that he even turns my brush's bristles to face his so they're nearly touching, almost kissing.

It kind of freaks me out. It's like our toothbrushes have boundary issues.

The thing is, our toothbrushes are identical, having been free gifts from the dentist in exchange for giving him our retirement money every six months. Sometimes, if they're nestled too close together in their little spot, I cannot tell them apart. The older they get, the closer they come to resemble each other, even though he is much harder on his than I am on mine.

My little brush struggles in vain to hang onto its identity. They're a great couple, but sometimes this oneness thing can be overwhelming.

There's a brand new purple toothbrush in the linen closet that I'm thinking of using. If I do, I'll sidle it up nice and close to that white one in the next hole over, and lose my fear of confusing one with the other.

And then I'll hop in bed and roll to the middle to kiss the man I love.

Posted by Katy on 10/21/03
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