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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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Recent Posts

• Try
• Becoming Brenda Starr
• Off Beat
• Scattered
• That’s It
• So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
• The Spoon
• Sciatica
• Sweetheart
• A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
• However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
• After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
• As with everything in life, balance is key.
• Slow down, you move too fast…
• Yeah, I know. I have issues.

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E me at katy @ ngenius.com

(No Title) (#622)

Two trees are competing outside my bedroom window. One entered the race many days ago, with much less to lose than the other. My years' experience on the sidelines at these events tells me it'll cross the finish line before noon. Yesterday, the second tree hadn't even decided if it was going to play this year. As I watch it now, it is full and green and lush in the sunny, windless day. Unbelievably, hundreds of leaves per minute are pouring from its branches. It'll be stripped clean within the hour. Kind of reminds me of NaNoWriMo. Oh, yeah, it's November 1: everything reminds me of NaNoWriMo.

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(No Title) (#623)

Last year at this time, I committed to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), during which participants attempt to write 50,000 words toward a novel during the month of November. I actually got down my 50,000 words of, uh, something, so technically I won. Along with several hundred others. I'm in a major funk this year (and I don't just mean this time of year, I mean this whole year!), so I've decided to attempt to write my way out of it by doing NaNo once again. One thing I can attest to is that I have a much better idea of how to novelize than I did last fall, and have a few chapters of a half-way decent story to prove it. No, it's not the story I was beginning last NaNo, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that NaNo got me started. www.nanowrimo.org remains a terribly unreliable website as of today, but hopefully they'll get it together if you're curious about the progress the many wannabes are making. Some will post excerpts, and others just updated word counts. Last year, I posted excerpts at fallible. We'll see what happens this time. If you want to sign up, it's not too late. Why should I have all the fun?

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(No Title) (#624)

I guess when you find out the most often-used key phrase that brings people to your website is "glycerin suppositories," you know it's time to move on. "Come, let us go up from here." (Jesus)

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(No Title) (#625)

Ran across this quote today, and got a chuckle out of it: "To have the unthinking masses accept all that I say would be calamity." Charles Darwin To say nothing of the thinking masses.

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(No Title) (#626)

We've waited a long time for the special delivery that will be arriving tomorrow. We've planned for this day, and saved, and invested. We've set aside resources in anticipation of the big event far beyond those we've delegated to equally momentous occasions. Sacrifices were made. We've accumulated odds and ends to get ready for the new arrival, not to mention warehousing garage sale furniture, accessories, end-of-season hats, gloves, sleepers, blankets, white-sale linens, and bric-a-brac. We have a couple of cribs, a baby swing, a trike and a big-wheel, a scooter and six or seven lunch boxes. There's a tooth fairy pillow, bumper pads, and even a few jars of baby food and a container of powdered formula. But, tomorrow! Ah, tomorrow, the special delivery of a lifetime, the one we've waited for until way overdue. Finally, a dumpster.

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(No Title) (#627)

The lady in front of me at Kmart was buying 3 containers of grape juice. The sale price was 2 for $1.98, but apparently the computer didn't have the sale price entered, or else couldn't figure out the price for the single. The sales clerk and the lady had a whispered, lengthy discussion. Time passed. A lot of it. The clerk called over to the next clerk for help. The next clerk could not be interrupted, and said so. More time passed. "What's the problem?" I finally asked. "What's $1.98 divided by 2?" the clerk asked, pleading. The lady purchasing the juice looked just as plaintive. "99 cents," I said, and started to say a few words describing how I'd arrived at my conclusion. The clerk thanked me for the answer, but shrugged off the explanation. "I'm just not a mathetician," she said. At first I thought I'd heard her wrong, but when she said it once more with feeling, well--let's just say I took her word for it.

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(No Title) (#628)

I haven't led a life of faithlessness, but I've had my moments. Many of those moments have happened recently, catching me unaware, ganging up on me until they've begun to accumulate into hours, and sometimes entire days. But always, the very thought of God consoles me, the remembering how unlike me He is--how faithful He is. For even if we are faithless, He remains faithful, the Scripture says. And He is not just faithful in a generic, impersonal way. His faithfulness extends even to me, the doubting one. The very thought of Him brings me back to the truth: I do believe.

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(No Title) (#629)

When Mom moved to the assisted living place, she took only enough possessions to furnish a one-bedroom apartment. Now she's happy she included the stiffened-fabric-and-resin Scottish Santa Claus my son gave her last Christmas. She displays it, as I do mine, year round. "What brand is that one?" I asked last night, during our short visit. The two well-known makers are Fabriche (pronounced like the French would, with a long "a" sound at the end) and Possible Dreams. I took a peek at the tag. "Fabriche," I announced. "Faberge?" my mother asked. "Fabriche," I repeated, with a perfect 4-years-of-French accent. "Faberge!" she exclaimed, with joy. I kissed her then, and left, and smiled all the way to the parking lot, happy she felt so enriched by our little talk.

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(No Title) (#630)

The way this year's gone, I finally decided to keep a packed overnight bag in the car, just in case. And I'm not talking in case we decide to stop off at a quaint B&B for the night. The bag has served me well and often, including when the doc at the ER decided to admit me a couple of Sundays ago. I knew I had the basics with me, the most basic of basics being underwear. I'd gotten my hair cut a few days earlier, which was good since I went combless and brushless for the ensuing five days. I'd forgotten to pop a brush into the bag. I'm thinking God gave us five fingers on each hand for a reason. The underwear situation was OK for a couple of days, which gave Doug some time to get his bearings before I came begging for a supply from home. The laundry was all caught up, with properly folded piles and everything. Furthermore, as I'm the only woman currently residing in the home, I couldn't imagine he would find this assignment difficult. "Bring me three pairs, just in case I'm here a while," I said. The next day, when he visited, I inquired after my underwear, already knowing in my heart of hearts that he'd forgotten. For that very reason, I'd kept one pair in reserve. "I knew I was forgetting something!" he said. Technically, of course, he was forgetting everything, since underwear was the only thing I'd requested. He made up for it the next day. "I brought four pairs," he announced, proud that he'd overcompensated by a full pair. I pulled them out of the plastic bag. One pair of panties, two bras and a girdle. He claims he mistook them all for panties. I'm not that kind of girl.

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(No Title) (#631)

I jotted this impression to myself two weeks ago. As soon as the movie ended, I became ill enough to need five days in the hospital: Doug and I may watch the movie "Iris" tonight, the story of the English novelist Iris Murdoch and her eventual decline with Alzheimer's. I'm a little worried about the theme, am not sure I want to witness the diminishing of Murdoch's gifts right in front of my eyes. Maybe it's that I know I'll be confronted with making sure I'm using the gifts I have, while I have them, and while it's still called today.

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(No Title) (#632)

Latent musings of a woman stoned out of her mind on Demerol, from a couple of weeks ago: It would be lovely if we could truly know everything we've seen, if nuances whispered their meanings to us in the light where we could at least read their lips, rather than in the darkness where we must also depend on interpreting their touch. It would be lovely, but too easy. I am more impressed with a deep knowledge than a broad one, even if that which is fully known by me is not unlike what is known by any other man. I would rather read one phrase which aptly captures love, and about which anyone might say "that's it!" than a library full of poetry which almost touches my soul. The one beautiful thing about the "almosts," though, is the way they challenge me to try the thing myself. To try myself to fashion the one apt phrase which, after it's written, I might read again, and sigh and say, that's it.

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(No Title) (#633)

The old house is looking good, Mom, except it's just so empty. We finally got all the stuff moved out, some to each of our houses, some to Goodwill and, I'm sure you know, quite a lot to the local landfill. It's been painted, spruced, cleaned and dolled-up no end. No one would ever guess you'd lived there for forty-one years. No one but us. The last time the place looked this good was the morning we moved in, while our furniture was still tumbling piece by piece out of the moving van onto the terraced lawn, wondering where in the world we'd dragged it to. The morning we moved in, when three little girls clutching teddy bears and blankets and library books scampered up the fourteen stairs to claim the spots in the "dormitory" where their new twin beds would line up in single file. The morning we moved in, when the house stopped being empty and started being filled with young life, promising life, raucous life. You didn't know it that day, Mom, but soon found out you were pregnant again, this time with a boy, John Vincent. The old house sure knew how to expand and grow and change to suit our demands, didn't it? I walked through it this morning, alone--or so I thought. I encountered no lingering demons or unfriendly ghosts that needed exorcising. I suspect we've taken all those with us as we've moved on, one by one. Still, there is a life in the old place that wasn't there the last time it was empty, when I was only seven. Only in that house can I ever look at the rotary wall phone in the breakfast room, and remember the moment you called from the hospital to say that another new baby was finally here. "Shall we name her Bridget Colleen, Bridget Maureen or Valerie Jane?" you asked. We'd never gotten to vote on anything before! "Bridget Colleen!" we all agreed. It was January, 1967. It was there, over dinner, that nearly every nightly conversation ended with Dad's proclamation, "Bring me the dictionary!" A good dictionary, he believed, put an end to all disputes. I claimed that dictionary from among the old cookbooks and recipes, where it lived, and passed it on to Scott, who knows the "Bring me the dictionary!" stories well. There's a sign in the yard now, Mom. I remember the sign from forty-one years ago, but this one's different. The agent's name is Liz, but that can't be. Lizzie just moved into this house, and she's only five, right? She's playing school on the basement steps with Mary and me, isn't she? Or instigating tickle fights she always wins? The old house is looking great, Mom. It's empty, yes. But still full of a life only we could have brought to it, a life we'll carry with us wherever we go. Thanks, dear house, for bringing us together under your roof. And thanks, dear Mom, for keeping us together with your love.

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(No Title) (#634)

I've been thinking about how in art class you learn that white is the presence of all color. So, a white canvas starts out with every color and every painting already represented there, right? The artist's job is to use the brush and the individual colors to transform everything into something--something new and unique and personal. I feel the same way about writing. The blank page doesn't frighten me, or intimidate me. The only thing wrong with it is that there's just too much there. So I start with one keystroke, and then two, until the everything begins to become nothing more than background for the distinct, new something. Until the everything becomes the true thing, the thing that must be said. I'll never be able to understand everything, or even to cast my eyes upon it for long without needing to make merely something out of it. Just one word, two words, three words at a time. Suddenly, the white page isn't everything anymore, and some might think that's a pity. Still, it's something. It's something.

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(No Title) (#635)

You know how they say a bear market isn't over until everyone finally stops asking if this is the bottom? It isn't over until the last person who's going to get out, gets out? Today, the market's up wildly for the second day in a row, giving us the opportunity we've been hoping for to cash in some chips. "Hey, baby," Doug says, in his most beautiful, deep, sexy voice. "Let's capitulate together, you and me..." He still knows how to get me going.

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(No Title) (#636)

There is much I could, and will, share about the past ten days. But for now, only this: Doug and I stopped at Walmart a few minutes ago to pick up one item, which I hoped would remain unmentionable. What was I thinking? When you live with a teenager, nothing is sacred. "So, wha'd ya get?" Kev asked, as soon as he saw the bag. "Glycerin suppositories," I said, still hoping. "What's that?" OK, then. "You stick it as far as you can up your rear end, and it makes you have a bowel movement." "Sweet." Easy for him to say.

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