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Everything I Know About Money. Were You Afraid To Ask? (#951)

I could definitely write a boatlload of books with those titles that start with “Don’t Know Much About…” You fill in the blank.

In high school, I competed in speech tournaments nearly every weekend. I loved debate. We had the same topic for an entire year, something like “Resolved That The United States Should Not Be Unilaterally Involved In Vietnam” or “Resolved That Abortion Rights Should Continue To Be Determined By The Individual States.” You get the idea.

Debate topics reflected the times we lived in, but my personal opinions didn’t matter one whit. All that counted was my ability to debate both sides of any issue (with a poker face) and prevail against worth opponents. I got pretty good at this. My all-girls’ school (St. Teresa’s Academy in Kansas City, MO) often came up against the neighboring all-boys’ school (Rockhurst High School). Those boys were being prepped for not only the most exclusive universities, but also for high-powered professional careers. They could talk circles around us.

But I’ve got the pics to prove that my debate partner, Beth Bowen, and I beat their socks off at least once. Nearly seven years ago, I contracted Dr. Brad Thedinger to remove my brain tumor. When I recalled that he’d been one of those infamous Rockhurst debate boys, I felt enormously relieved that the fellows usually whupped us good.

You don’t want the loser of a crummy debate tournie doing your head. After all, sometimes it IS brain surgery.

My favorite category in the speech tournies wasn’t debate, though. It wasn’t extemporaneous (in which each contestant is given a random topic and 20 or so minutes to prepare a five minute speech, with access to research materials), either. No, for me it was impromptu all the way.

For an impromptu speech, the entrant drew a topic out of a hat. Believe me, these were the most obscure subjects a 16-year-old could possibly imagine, maybe something like “Discuss the effect that the Japanese government’s investment in Icelandic treasury bills will have on the stability of the Swiss franc.”

I’d pull that sucker out, read it once, head to the front of the room, and bull my way, unflinching, through a three-minute speech. Whoever can persevere to the end without twitching, sweating, obsessive blinking, or weeping—wins.

Which brings me around to today’s topic: Tell Us Everything You Know About Money.

I’ll admit, sometimes this topic reduces even me to knee-knocking, and I am trained in this sort of thing. But now that the topic’s been pulled, there’s no turning back.

The first thing to avoid in personal finances is having a plan. Or a budget. Or even a plan to develop a budget. These types of artificial constraints only breed resentment, stinginess, and boredom. Why should you impose so many financial rules upon yourself that you can’t spend at Starbucks all the money you should be saving for retirement, if you so desire?

Trust me, when you retire, you are going to be surrounded by oldsters who for decades have had the codes for their drinks of choice embedded into their wrists so that—Alzheimer’s notwithstanding—their ever-more-juvenile-looking baristas can scan their orders. You’ll have all that money, with Starbucks still on your mind after years of sacrificial deferred gratification, but you’ll have NO CLUE about how on earth to choose a beverage. Is that what you want?

The second thing is to spend more than you make—way more. If you spend just a little bit more each month, what do you have to show for it? Nothing, plus you look to all the world like just another Average Joe. Really, how much imagination or even forethought does it take to only go a little past the point of no return? But if you go all the way, and spend as much more than you earn as humanly possible, you’ll have a LOT to show for it. And, I’m sorry, a lot is always better than a little.

The third thing is to permanently lose the checkbook. You know the old joke, “How can I be overdrawn? I still have checks left!”? I don’t get that joke, because I don’t get checkbooks.

Of all the ways to torture yourself, “finding that last penny” so you can balance your checkbook every month has got to be the worst. If you spend an hour looking for the penny, and your time is worth, let’s say, $25 per hour….um, you do the math.

Now, taking a peak into your account online every couple of days, that’s a good thing. Don’t worry: No matter what, the bank WILL let you know when you run out of dough. Why should you spend your high-dollar-value time sorting it out?

The last thing I know about money is this: Eat out every meal. I know, I know. You’ve probably heard that if you only eat out on that very special occasion, you’ll enjoy it more, plus you’ll save TONS of money by preparing the bulk of your meals at home.

Baloney! I’ve never met a meal out that I didn’t FAR prefer to anything I’ve ever fixed at home and besides, eating out can be significantly cheaper in the long run. I can guarantee you that the “you must manage expenses!” crowd isn’t factoring in that when you cook at home, you risk causing traumatic wear and tear on your stove, oven, BBQ grill, refrigerator, freezer, disposal and diswasher, thus causing the value of your home—your biggest investment—to plummet.

And not only that: What if you were to start a grease fire frying up those sopapillas that you should have purchased in the comfort of your local Chipotles? That $3000 wallpaper job that you only thought you couldn’t afford will look pretty shabby after you unleash the extinguisher on it.

And what if in the process of cleaning the kitchen sink after prepping enough vegetables that people will think someone died and left YOU in charge of the Salad Bar, you scratch the sink’s surface so badly that you need to replace it to the tune of eleventy gazillion bucks?

How far ahead do you think you’ll be then, hmmm?

So there you have it—my three-minute off-the-cuff presentation, during which I’ve told you Everything I Know About Money.

Yes, it’s true. Everything I know about money I learned doing impromptu.

Posted by Katy on 06/08/06
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Picky, Picky, Picky (#950)

Have you ever heard of Self-Injurious Skin Picking Disorder? Yeah. Me, neither.

The tendency to pick must be hereditary. My mother and grandmother were both zit pickers, and so am I. I just didn’t know the disorder had a name.

Now I know. Lucky me.

I went to the doctor, sure I had skin cancer or something worse, whatever that might be. After all, it’s been 18 months, and I just can’t get my face to clear up. Just so you know, this is the only part of me that still looks sixteen.

“You need to stop touching your face,” Dr. Craemer said.

“Oh, I’ve stopped picking it,” I assured him. “Five whole days ago. But I do find my hand running across the surface of my face all the time, just to see how it’s doing since I stopped picking it…”

He looked down at my chart, clearly avoiding eye-to-zit contact. “Katy, I think you might be a little bit…” The good doctor hesitated then, but as usual, I didn’t.

“What? OC?”

He nodded. “I could send you for a few appointments to learn some behavior modification techniques—”

“No, please! I’m fine. Besides, I’m too old to modify anything, honestly. And compared to Doug, I’m not OC at all. Can’t I just try this on my own?”

“Sure, you can. You know, OC can work in your favor on occasion.”

“You mean, if I can somehow become obsessive/compulsive about not picking my face?”

“You got it.”

I’ll just go on record here as saying that I have a brand new, positive OC behavior. How’s that for progress?

Posted by Katy on 06/07/06
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Extreme Home Takeover (#949)

I never thought this would happen to me, but it has.

You’ve all met folks who turned their kids’ rooms into veritable shrines after the little darlings left home, right? My mom was like that. When the first three of us flew the coop, it was good riddance, baby. But when Bridget and John left? Shrine City.

My kids still talk about the feeling they got from going into Bridget’s shrine—the good vibes. There were her ‘80s jigsaw puzzles, stuck on backboards with puzzle glue, hanging on her bedroom walls. Her prom dresses and dance costumes filled the closet, and I’m pretty sure the dresser drawers contained teenager-frozen-in-time secrets that fascinated my young children.

Doug’s mother, until 2004, lived in the same house he moved out of in 1971. His bedroom remained a shrine, too, in the sense that the wall decorations—all Jesus freak campy stuff that might sell for a gazillion bucks on eBay, or then again, maybe not—was never altered.

“If you feel far from God, guess who moved?”

Well, Doug might have moved, but his stuff didn’t. And not only that: His mama turned his room into a Where Broken Furniture And Pieces From Things We Can’t Identify Go To Die Room. In addition, the woman became incapable of tossing even an old Price Chopper ad, but filled grocery sacks with junk mail, opening his door just far enough to toss a fresh bag upon the pile.

Doug’s room became a shrine with plenty of flameable material, in case anyone got in the mood to offer a random sacrifice in there.

Is it laziness that keeps parents of adult children from lowering the boom on shrines? Or is it that they’ve got other stuff on their minds, and don’t have the time to devote to reclaiming their own space which they purchased at interest rates possibly as high as (in the late ‘70s) 15%?

Or is it that dreaded Something Else?

Until now, I’ve maintained (Ha!) that it’s probably laziness more than anything else. But you know what? That was before Carrie and I started going through her room and all its artifacts some ten days ago. She admitted then that until she went to Jamaica to work in the orphanage for five weeks, she probably would not have been able to deal with all her childhood stuff. She wanted the shrine, and I can understand why.

Sure, she’s been living away from home for seven years, but it took a complete change of perspective—seeing things through the eyes of children who don’t have many attachments to physical objects—for her to be ready to lose some of her baggage.

I’ve got to admit, she and I did some ooohing and aaahing over pictures and letters and awards and stuffed animals. We boxed up her china dolls, in case she has a little girl someday who might love them. We kept all the stuff of importance, and pitched the rest. There was a whole lot of pitching going on.

Since then, Doug and I have kicked in big-time. Carrie had a penchant for attaching posters to her closet walls with Scotch tape. Dang, that stuff works great! Much better, in fact, than whoever hung the dry wall. Our beautiful daughter also used sticky-tacky-gooey stuff to adhere Anne Gedde pics mounted on foam core around the top of her walls, like a border. It was darling at the time, but not quite as darling on this end.

Remember this, All You Who Refuse To Build Shrines: Sticky-tacky-gooey stuff, after it is scraped off, must be covered with Kilz or it WILL show through the new paint, no matter how many coats you use. I’m just sayin’.

And I might as well tell you this: I’ve bawled up there in that Temporary Shrine, paintbrush in hand, meticulously covering the material evidence of a little girl having ever spread her creative wings under our roof.

It’s the little things that got me, the things I didn’t expect. Like the one strand of stencilling Carrie attempted behind her closet door without our permission, a long gangly vine of tendrilled ivy, so gloppy and smeared that she must have despaired when she saw it, and then gave up the effort.

If she’d given up on other efforts, if she hadn’t gone on to grow into the amazing young woman God made her to be, I might have rushed out of the room, paintbrush in hand, and left the vine to wither for another day. But she’s a woman now, and so we, too, must continue to grow.

Her room was a shrine for a little while, for a few reasons, I’m sure. She wasn’t ready—until now—for us to perform an Extreme Home Takeover. And while I don’t think of Doug and me as lazy, and I’m not sure we have so much on our minds that we can’t keep up around here, there really is Something Else that must be faced.

Ah, Something Else.

Now I’m heading into Kev’s old room. Wish me well.

Posted by Katy on 06/05/06
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Emptiness (#948)

You know it’s bad when you catch yourself squinting through the narrow slot on the opaque lid of your latte, hoping against hope to spot even three more drops, elusive dregs that stubbornly refused to cross your lips when last you tipped the drained cup into your craven mouth.

We live in desperate times.

Posted by Katy on 06/01/06
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Progression Or Regression? (#947)

You may have noticed, if you’ve read the past few posts, a trend either developing or unraveling—depending on your vantage point, I guess. Even I’m not sure which one it is, or—for that matter—which one it needs to be.

The deal is, by the time Doug and I had spent a couple weeks in the Old Country, I’d become convinced that I’d been going about my life all wrong. That I’d been concentrating too much on my mom’s needs, over and above what was beneficial for her well-being. I decided to make some changes when I got back home, and I’ve managed to do just that.

I’m spending less time with Mom, and while I’m still aware of her complaints, difficulties, and deficits, I am not behaving as if I am God’s Gift To Moms. I am allowing her the opportunity to make more decisions on her own behalf, even if she chooses unwisely.

For example, I could have hustled over there to examine her injuries when she fell out of bed the other day. (Her phone on her end table has stopped working and she decided to “make a run for it” to the living room phone, which she knows better than to attempt….) The only thing she mentioned at first was that her finger might be broken, but now she says she’s black and blue over much of the old bod.

There was a time I might have chastised her for her indiscretions before spending a day with her in the ER over such a fall. I’d have her examined from head to toe against her will, just because I could. Now, I figure the nurses at the Funny Farm (Mom’s words, not mine) will call me if they need me.

Sounds insensitive and cruel? Maybe. But, hey, Mom bruises easily and I’ve just spent more than fifteen years overreacting to a pesky adrenaline buzz. I’m just sayin’.

So I’ve backed off a bit. Then I announce to the Internet, God, and everybody that my new conviction will give me the time I need to really get down to some potentially publishable writing. Sounds logical, right? For you, it probably would be. But for me—the one with the serious avoidance issues—it’s not that simple.

No, I have to immediately fill the Mama slot with another all-consuming project. Like weeding out the whole house—again. Huh?

The truth is: I don’t have any horrible disasters going on in my life right now (in the lives of my extended family members, though?—whoa, baby!), at least not ones that I’m willing to buy into emotionally. And that leaves me with a big hole in my life. Not a bigger one than I should have had available to me all along, you understand, if I’d only had the strength to resist getting over-involved—but a big hole, nonetheless.

Why don’t I just forget the cluttered house and write a book, you ask? Um…fear of rejection, maybe? I don’t know.

All I know is this: If you’re thinking of taking a nice long trip, watch out!

Posted by Katy on 05/30/06
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The Mysterious Case Of The Chronic Crap Manager (#946)

As most of you probably realize by now, I have a very short resume.

Before Doug and I got married 29 years ago (when I was 23, if you’d like to do the math…), I’d been employed as a data recorder for Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals. To put it into terms you young folks might understand—but then again, maybe not—I was a keypunch operator.

Our large corporate office only had one mainframe computer, and only Margaret was smart enough to run it. Helen and I sat at twin keypunch machines directly in front of Margaret and Moses (the mainframe). Every hour or so, Margaret would arrive at my desk to retrieve the stack of perhaps 200-300 cards (each one about the size of a playing card) that I’d processed since her last visit. Each card held only a small amount of information pertaining to an order we were filling: one card might represent a pharmacy or hospital’s name, address, and phone number, and then the following cards would each hold approximately 3 line items of the actual order.

So, a large company’s order might require the keypunching of 50 cards—some more, some less. In order to be a fast and accurate keypunch operator, it was essential to memorize the product number of each item sold by Parke-Davis. By the time I was eighteen years old, I’d committed 5000 product numbers to memory, each item being represented by 6-8 numerals.

For instance, if Skagg’s drug store ordered 3 bottles of 100 pills each Dilantin 100mg, I knew to keypunch 15-362-4, and then a 3 in the quantity column. If they wanted bottles of 1000 pills each, the code changed to 15-362-11. If they needed Dilantin with Phenobarbitol capsules, I knew to punch 15-365-4. Or 11. You get the idea.

I didn’t want to do keypunch for the rest of my life, you understand—or any of the systems that were destined to follow. I am not a numbers girl. Or a machines girl. Or an office politics, corporate culture girl. You can mark me down officially as “none of the above.”

So after we’d been married nine months, I quit. We figured we’d be pregnant soon, and we didn’t want me to work while I had little kids, so that was that.

Since then, I’ve only had a few jobs outside the home. I worked in a yarn shop while I was pregnant with Scotty, just a couple days a week. Have you ever become violently ill because of a gorgeous array of amazing colors? I have. The yarn shop, combined with morning, afternoon, and evening sickness, did me in.

Then there was the grocery store. I checked when Carrie was a baby, a few nights each week. Made a whopping $2.50 per hour. We could have qualified for food stamps back then, but we never applied. I didn’t stay at the grocery store long, but I guess that little bit of money made a difference. Man, I hated that job.

I’ve worked as an assistant to an insurance agent (yawn….) and as a circulation clerk for an agricultural magazine (Can you say “Pork”? I’m not kidding. That was the name of the mag!)

I’ve done a lot of work for love and no money, and those have been more satisfying occupations in lots of meaningful ways. I make a fabulous patient advocate, assuming I’m passionate about the patient. So far, no one’s died of something stupid and/or preventable on my watch, and I enjoy helping out like that when I’m able.

Freelance writing and editing has been the ONLY paying job I’ve ever been suited for. And maybe the editing portion of my suitability should be called into question, since I should have written “for which I’ve ever been suited.” Sigh.

But now I’m going to admit to you what I’ve spent WAY TOO MANY MONTHS—yes, even YEARS—of my pathetic life doing: Crap Management.

How may times have I written here on fallible about conquering the clutter that overtakes us here on Rolling Hills Road? How many times have I pledged that it won’t happen in the future, that we will never again permit ourselves to be overrun with overstocks? That we won’t cave in to clearance racks, succumb to specials, or be roped in by rebates?

Honestly, people. I’ve had it. I just spent another Memorial Day remembering ridiculous purchases as I sorted through wasted what-nots and bagged up crummy cast-offs.

If I got paid even $2.50 per hour for the time I have spent scouring ads, accumulating coupons, mapping out my shop stops, picking up bargains, garage saling, trying on clothes I don’t need to begin with, gathering unto myself the craft stuff necessary to begin a new hobby I never end up learning, purchasing what I think I want and then disposing of it at some later date—well, I’d be one rich chick.

Of course, I’d probably spend the extra dough on more stuff, huh?

Why do I keep doing this to myself? It’s got to end, here and now. As soon as I finish this latest round of weeding, I’m hanging up my Crap Manager’s hat once and for all. No more purchasing of useless junk, period. I refuse to spend of the rest of my short years on earth processing purposeless stuff into and then out of my life.

“Only a few things are needed,” Jesus said to his friend Martha. “Really only one.”

If Martha’s sister Mary could choose the Better Part, maybe there’s hope for me yet.

Posted by Katy on 05/29/06
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Two Witnesses (#945)

There’s a Scripture verse that says something like, By the word of two witnesses let everything be established. I’ll tell you this: that’s just what I did.

My pastor, Tom Nelson of Christ Community Church in Leawood, Kansas, and my good buddy, author Lisa Samson, both recommended the movie “Akeelah and the Bee.”

Because I thought the bee was a bumble bee, I had resisted even the notion of going to this movie. What’s the popular fiction title with the word bee in it? I have such a strong aversion to bees that I can’t even think of the name of the book!

Yeah. It’s like that.

But when I heard from these two witnesses (both people I trust very much) that the bee is a spelling bee, and that Akeelah is a little girl, well—that changed everything.

Please, please don’t miss this movie. We thought we were showing up in time for the twilight hour price, since the show started at 5:30. The girl said, “That will be $17.” I said, “I am going to try to behave like a grown-up about this, but that’s a freakin’ lot of money.” Then I told Doug that no movie was worth $8.50 per ticket.

But I was wrong! I can’t wait till Akeelah comes out on DVD, so that I can watch it again and again.

I think I’m finally cured of my fear of bees.

Posted by Katy on 05/26/06
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As Well As Can Be Expected (#944)

I am probably one of the slowest learners you’ll ever meet. And one of the most stubborn, as well.

(I promise that very soon I will stop ending half of all my sentences with the words “as well.” It’s just that in Ireland, 99% of everyone’s sentences end with those two words, and the same is largely true in Scotland, as well. Sheesh.)

If I were bright, I would have submitted my finished novel to the no-less-than-six publishing houses that asked to see the complete manuscript at the writers conference I went to in Nashville last fall. Instead, I totally lost my nerve, shoved the manuscript in a drawer, and handed my life over to my mother.

Granted, she did need me for a while there. Actually, for a large part of the past five years. Just not as large a part as I’ve let myself believe.

Dr. Laura said something on the air yesterday that clicked with me. She was speaking to a couple who are worried about their children. The poor tykes are being treated unfairly by their grandmother, who showers expensive gifts on the other grandchildren but ignores these.

Dr. Laura tried to explain that the situation—while bizarre—could be turned into a fertile training ground for their children, if the parents handle it well. “You have to get these kids ready to face the real world,” she said. “Your job is not to protect them from the world, but to prepare them for it.”

I’ve got to admit, I’ve spent years trying to protect my mother from reality: pain, old age, disappointment, fear, illness, death, and yes, maybe even God. As if she was a child, and a fragile one at that.

So I’m pulling back, cutting her some slack, giving her a much wider berth, letting the rope out a little—choose your cliche.

With the time I’ve reclaimed, I’m writing again. I’d almost decided to ditch the completed novel in the drawer because I’m not quite pleased with it, but I think instead I’ll work on it before I move on to another project. And after I work on it (or maybe while I’m working on it…), I’m going to start shopping it around.

I’m not getting any younger here, people! And just in case you’re in denial as well, you might as well know that you’re getting another day older today, as well.

I’m still a slow learner, but this is about as well as I’ve been in a very long time.

Posted by Katy on 05/24/06
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No Comment? (#943)

My cousin John McKenna in Scotland just emailed me to thank me for the very handsome picture I posted of him in the post below entitled “John McKenna.” Actually, he questioned whether I’d successfully captured his “good side.” I am here to say that as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have a bad side.

He also said that he tried to leave a comment on fallible, but wasn’t allowed to. If anyone else has had this problem recently, could you please email me to let me know?
It’s katy at ngenius dot com .

You can also contact me by email just to say hi, if you’d like! I’d love to hear from you.

Posted by Katy on 05/20/06
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Bare Naked Mamas (#942)

OK, here’s the deal.

My mom did great while I was out of the country. So great, in fact, that it got me to thinking—a lot.

Had I accidentally created a kind of dependent-Mama-underclass, in which I was micro-managing every detail of a woman’s life who was still able to handle quite a few of those details on her own?

In addition, was there something about my own life (or about, um, me…) that I found so uncompelling that I’d rather be about my mother’s business than be about my own?

Yikes!

In the old days, before the Old Country, I’d often arrive at Mom’s and find her sound asleep, mid-morning, naked. She’d say, “Come on in. Sit in that chair over there and talk to me.”

But, you see, the thing is I don’t like chatting up naked ladies. Never have, never will. I like my women with their clothes on, plain and simple.

I’d finally gotten up the gumption, a couple of weeks before we left, to tell Mom that No, I wouldn’t sit across the room from her naked booty and shoot the bull. She’d have to get dressed and come out to the living room, and then we’d talk. She went along with me, but she was clearly disgusted with my standards.

Now I’m raising them even higher. Yesterday and today both I arrived at Mom’s for a visit, opened her apartment door, and saw her naked rear end beaming up at me from the bed in the next room. Instead of waking her up and imploring her to cover up her stuff, I shut the door, retraced my steps to the car, and headed for Starbucks, where all the baristas and the customers have most of their goods artfully dressed.

The facility where she lives in assisted living says that because she’s in a private apartment, she can do whatever she wants within her own walls. And I understand that in theory. In practice, though, doing your own naked thing and expecting that folks won’t find it offensive is, well, kind of antisocial, don’t you think?

What would you do if this was your mama? Engage her on your terms or on hers?

Give me the naked truth, OK?

Posted by Katy on 05/19/06
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Altar (#941)

So, it took losing the contact info on my cousin John to send me on a wild-McKenna chase through the Internet, until I found Plunkett, a tour guide in County Monaghan who agreed to show us around the McKenna sites.

There was only one small hitch to meeting up with him, in my mind—the possibility that we’d find out definitively that Grandpa Bernard was a bigamist.

“Whatever you do,” my mother warned before we left Kansas City, “don’t tell the others.” The others are my seven girl cousins in Scotland. Mind you, they are girls to me, but they range in age from 63 down to 48.

“Why would I keep it from them?” I asked my mom.

“They’re getting older,” she said. Um, yeah. And this makes them exceptional exactly how? “And when you get older, you don’t want to know everything. Especially if it’s bad. They won’t want to know, Katy. Just let it lie.”

“OK, Mom,” I said. “I will be sensitive to their advancing age. I promise to divulge information only if they seem to wish to know the truth.”

Plunkett and I, thankfully, did not appear to be talking about the same Bernard McKenna. None of the dates matched up to make it likely that Grandpa Had Two Families and, hey, it was nice to let the old fellow off the hook on at least that count.

But Plunkett really wanted us to find out as much about my family as possible, so he drove us out to Henry’s Pub in Scotstown, Co. Monaghan. Henry, he said, would know someone. After seeing the main (read:only) drag in Scotstown, it occurred to me that Henry might only know “someone.” If I remember right, Scotstown is a one-pub town, and that’s unheard of in Ireland.

Doug and I waited on the street and Plunkett came out after a few minutes. “You’re in luck. Henry told me how to find a 90-year-old woman named Catherine McKenna, who’s lived all her life in the same house she was born in, in Feebaghbane. She knows everything there is to know about that area.”

Feebaghbane? Plunkett had already told us he didn’t know how to find the tiny piece of property (called a townland) which consisted of perhaps 200 acres on a larger piece of land called the Rose estate. I knew that my grandfather was born there, but that’s all I knew.

“Do you mean we’re going there?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we call her first?”

“Get in the car. She’ll be happy to meet you.”

Catherine McKenna opened her door to us and served us tea and brown bread till we were stuffed. She told us stories of all the different branches of McKennas, and who lived where in Feebaghbane.

“We’ve figured out,” Plunkett said, “that Katy isn’t a Red Paddy Frank McKenna at all.” The first thing I learned when I got over there is that if you can’t establish your McKenna family’s nickname, you won’t get anywhere in finding your ancestors. “I thought she was at first,” he continued, “because of her flaming red hair.”

“But then I told him it’s fake,” I explained to Catherine, who laughed. “We’re pretty sure I am of the Barney Neds.”

A Barney Ned McKenna is one who’s great-great-grandfather (circa 1850) was Edward, who came to be known as the “Ned” during a period when McKennas proliferated so rapidly in that area that each family needed a sub-name in order to keep them all straight. The “Barney” refers to my great-grandfather Bernard, son of the Ned, and then again to my Grandfather Bernard.

“Oh, the Barney Neds,” mused Catherine. “I remember them well.”

“You do?” I asked, incredulous. “What do you remember?”

“The Jimmy Neds ran the farm when I was a wee girl,” she said, only she pronounced his name “jammie,” which was so adorable I could hardly bear it. “And his brother Edward used to come back and forth from Scotland to visit quite often…”

As soon as she offered this bit, I knew we were talking about my family. Edward was the brother of my grandfather. Both of them had moved to Kilsyth, Scotland, as young men, presumably because the Jimmy Ned—their oldest brother—had inherited the farm and there was no work for them in Ireland.

“Catherine,” Doug said, “do you know where their property was?”

She gave him a sideways glance and pointed out her window. “Right over there. Did you bring your wellies?”

Just then, her nephew Podge came in from working in the fields and said he’d be happy to drive us around the land in his truck. Podge now owns 50 acres of Feebaghbane, including the sixteen acres that would have been farmed by my great-great-grandfather Edward and my great-grandfather Bernard before passing to the Jimmy Ned.

Podge drove us through his 300-sheep farm and straight to the remaining walls of the Ned’s cottage. “This is the place,” he said, as if he got requests from Americans to see their ancestral lands every day of the week—and I feel certain that he doesn’t.

We took a lot of pictures that day, of Podge and Catherine and Plunkett and us. And especially of the stones that are piled up in remembrance of the Neds and of the walls that still stand as a testament to their lives.

I carried home two rocks that had become loosened from the mortar. There were a hundred more I could have taken, because who knows how long Podge will leave the structure standing? But somehow I couldn’t—I just couldn’t.

Leave them lie, I thought. But even so, make sure you tell the others.

Posted by Katy on 05/19/06
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The Get-Up (#940)

I don’t get men. I like them, I just don’t get them.

Especially one man, as you might have guessed. Maybe you can help me out here.

The house got a little cool in the night, because I had the attic fan turned on high. I figured it’s going to get up in the 80s today, so why not cool the house down as much as possible in advance of the heat? Pretty excellent strategy, right?

I’m still not on Kansas City time. I’ve been up since four—again. By six, I’d grown impatient with my n’er-do-well, lazybones husband and went in to wake him up.

“But I was up late last night,” he said, stumbling from the bed and into the bathroom. While he was in there, I took the opportunity to make the bed, just in case he imagined he might take a short stagger back into it.

The next time I saw him, he was dressed—if you can call it that—in a heavy, long-sleeved, maroon-and-tan pullover sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and a pair of red-white-and-blue, stars-and-stripes-forever (purchased in the $1 clearance bin after last year’s frantic July 4th shopping season) boxer briefs. Unless I’m mistaken, I spied a pair of orange knit mittens clipped to the cuffs of his hoodie.

“You look funny,” I said.

I wasn’t laughing, mind you, because lately I’ve said “You look funny” quite a few times and, honestly, I’ve stopped laughing somewhere along the way. Laughing, I’ve found, only reinforces naughty behavior.

“Thank you,” he said, and he sincerely meant it.

People, he thinks I was complimenting him! If I’d said he looked as handsome as all get-out, he couldn’t have been more pleased.

If you can answer “What’s up with that?” there’s a funky pair of mittens in it for you.

Posted by Katy on 05/18/06
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Plunkett and Podge (#939)

If I hadn’t lost John McKenna—albeit temporarily—I never would have found Plunkett McKenna. And if I hadn’t found Plunkett, well, I’d have never met Podge McKenna.

John McKenna of Kilsyth, Scotland, a man I found on the Internet, has turned out to be my second or perhaps third cousin. You tell me: he is the grandson of my grandfather’s brother. We kept up pretty well online for a year or so, and then he told me that he was going to be moving to the Inverness area. He gave me his new email address, a precious commodity to my way of thinking, the occasion of which prompted my computer which contained that information to utterly and forsakenly die.

About a month before we left for the old country, I decided to search the World Wide Web until I found John McKenna again. I hummed a few bars of “It’s A Small Web After All” and hoped for googling success. I almost got lucky, too. I found a fellow’s business site. He looked like I remember my John looking, so I emailed him.

He said, Sorry, I’m not your John McKenna. Have you thought about trying the online UK phone book? So I tried it, to absolutely no freaking avail. But somehow I found a man named Plunkett McKenna, who advertises online as a tour guide specializing in County Monaghan, and focusing even more particularly on all things (and sites) McKenna.

I emailed Plunkett and he agreed to meet Doug and me on a certain day in Emyvale, County Monaghan, a town known as “McKenna Country.” Plunkett couldn’t possibly make up for the loss of John, but I figured meeting him might provide links to other branches of the family.

He likes to help people with their genealogical puzzles, he said, so I offered a few details about my father’s family—the only few I knew.

He wrote back in ten minutes flat. “Strange that your grandfather Bernard drowned in Scotland. My great-grandfather Bernard drowned in Scotland, as well.”

I wrote him back in ten seconds flat. “Did your great-grandfather perhaps father a child, who would be your grandparent, before moving from Ireland to Scotland?”

Five seconds later came the reply. “No. My Bernard McKenna married and raised a large family in Ireland. But when he drowned, the family received a letter from the priest in Scotland stating that the old man was known to have two families.”

Yikes! I’d imagined a lot of stuff about Grandpa Bernard, but it never occurred to me that he might be a bigamist. Were Plunkett and I related also, and how exactly do you refer to a “cousin” who’s from the “other” family your grandfather had in secret? The correspondence died off after that brief exchange, and I didn’t hear from Plunkett again until I arrived in County Monaghan and dialed his cell phone.

By then, I was ready for anything. Even a man named Podge.

Posted by Katy on 05/17/06
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Eileen Walsh (#938)

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Eileen Walsh greeted Doug and me as we stepped out of a shop in Louisburgh, County Mayo, and onto the sidewalk. We’d arrived in town the night before, eager for the start of the traditional music festival which began that morning. Eileen had said she’d try to drive into town from Westport for the concert that night, but we didn’t know if she’d actually make it or not.

And then for her to find us easily in a town crowded with a couple of thousand extra visitors, well. It seemed unlikely, but then—in much the same way that around every bend in Ireland is an entirely new vista—everything about Eileen is a surprise. After all, we’d only met her for the first time the day before.

She’d overheard us talking at the Internet cafe in Westport and approached us. “Where in America are you from?”

“Kansas City,” I said, and she volunteered that her home is in Boulder, Colorado. At least, that’s her permanent address.

“I’m in Ireland for a year,” she said. “I just got here two weeks ago. I don’t have a job, or a place to stay long-term. I have to turn in my rental car in a few days, so then I’ll be walking.”

“Is your husband here, too?” I asked, feeling grateful all of a sudden that I had one of those by my side.

“Nope. We decided years ago that we wanted to spend a year in Ireland, starting now. I steadily planned toward it, but then as it got closer, he said he couldn’t leave his clients. I had to come, though.”

Eileen Walsh is a woman on a mission to make it on her own merit, her own steam, her own hard work and perseverence. She and her husband agreed that she needed this time in Ireland, and she says he fully supports her emotionally.

But financially, at 58 years old, she’s on her own.

“I’ve never lived by myself, ever. I went from my parents’ home to having college roommates, to being married. I’ve never had to support myself. So I’m looking for a job—I’ll do nearly anything. Hair styling, housekeeping, waitressing, upholstery. I just need to earn enough to pay my expenses.”

“Did you bring a lot of stuff with you?” I asked. I was wondering about furnishings and housewares, that kind of thing.

“One suitcase and a trunk,” she said. “But it’s too much. I’m shipping the trunk back home. I’ll find a furnished flat and I only need a few changes of clothes. I don’t want anything to weigh me down.”

We Irishwomen have something of the hardscrapple imbedded in our consciousness. We don’t need much to get by. Like me, Eileen has an Irish-born grandparent, and she has become an Irish citizen because of it.

Eileen taught me a lot on our first meeting in Westport, and even more when she found us on the street the next day. Though she admitted to being daunted by the circumstances she’d placed herself in, I saw no fear in her eyes. She’s a woman who’s determined to follow the course she’s chosen (even the course between Westport and Louisburgh on the iffy roads in the rain is challenging to me), and if she falls flat and ends up conceding defeat—in other words, if she finds she can’t make it in Ireland for a year—she’ll go back to Boulder with a sense of accomplishment she’s only beginning to gain.

We sat together at the concert that night, Eileen and me, tapping our toes in time to the jigs and horn pipes and reels. Even though we’ve embraced different paths at this season of our lives, our hearts were attuned to each other and to the pull of love for Ireland.

Eileen, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that I think of you every day, and that I’m praying for you, too. May the road rise up to meet you.

Posted by Katy on 05/16/06
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John McKenna (#937)

I guess it was about four years ago that I took to googling myself.

I know, I know. It’s a silly waste of a half hour, but every once in a while, it’s fun. I loved experimenting with parts of my name, and then with different combinations. Even simply the word “Katy” brought up fallible higher in the search than I believed possible.

It was the surname “McKenna” that opened up my world, though. You see, when I was growing up in Kansas City, there were only a few McKennas in the phone book, and they were all my aunts and uncles. Each time the new white pages came out, I’d sit with the monstrosity upon my wee lap and open to our page. Our column, actually. OK, our per-column-half-inch, to be exact.

There we all were: Robert Baillie McKenna (my dad), Uncle Bernard, Aunt Mary, Aunt Cathy, Uncle Eddy, and Uncle Francis, their names scrunched together in print rather like the lot of them appeared in person—huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

The only one missing in the whole wide world from our little enclave (that I knew of) was Aunt Rosie, who had stayed behind in Scotland when her sibs emigrated during the 30s and 40s. She and my dad talked long-distance every Christmas, so that was kind of like finding her in the phone book in my mind.

Except not. Because you see, when a branch of the family stays behind and exists only in a telephonic brogue thick with both static and emotion, you end up being drawn to that limb your whole life long. The break with the past isn’t clean like it might be with some immigrant families, you don’t forget those who came before with their unfinished stories and their unsung songs—you can’t.

At least, I couldn’t.

Four years ago, a casual google search for the name McKenna led me to the genealogical coup of my dreams, although at the time I hadn’t dared to imagine that there was another McKenna out there on the same search as I.

When I clicked on the McKenna discussion forum, a fellow named John claimed to seek relatives from Kilsyth, Scotland, where my father was born. John was born there also, in the 1940s, and offerred that his grandfather was a man named Edward, who came to Kilsyth from County Monaghan.

Probably not my McKennas, I thought, since I’d never heard of Edward, who would have been my grandfather’s contemporary. Besides, I remembered my father’s words on the day I first realized he was half Irish, that his own father had been born there and then married a Scottish woman.

“Where was he from in Ireland?” I asked. I was perhaps ten or eleven at the time, and only knew about the Scottish side which was pretty difficult to dismiss since I was surrounded by broad brogues.

“Ulster.” My father was famous for his one-word answers. Usually, I understood the word, but I’d never heard the term Ulster until that day, didn’t know about the border counties or the civil war or the fact that my father’s nickname as a young man had been “Dev,” after DeValera, the much-loved hero of the Free Irish Republic.

“Ulster?” I asked. I knew to expect another one-worder, but I felt like I really scored that day. Four words, then seven more in disclaimer.

“Near Belfast. County Armagh. But we don’t talk about that side.”

I let it go, because I had to. If you could have seen the look on his face, you would have dropped it, too. He squinted in concentration as if looking through a camera’s viewfinder with the glaring sun defying his vision’s best efforts. And then he said as little as possible, or possibly—who can say for sure?—all he recalled.

Dad wasn’t talking, and a ten-year-old kid can only get so far with the Golden Book Encyclopedia. But I never forgot those eleven little words, and wondered when I found John McKenna’s message on that genealogy board just how far I’d been misled.

County Monaghan? Just over the border into the Republic from the county Dad specified, a border whose blood-drawn lines were disputed during my grandfather’s time, one of the three counties of Ulster which ended up in the Irish Free State at the end of a very long day.

I left a message for John McKenna four years ago, and with a few tentative emails, the family mysteries began both to unravel and to profoundly deepen.

And now, finally, I’ve met the man.