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Our Beautiful Daughter, Carrie (#911)

I can’t resisting posting the body of the email we received from our daughter Carrie last night. She’s in Jamaica, volunteering at an orphanage outside of Kingston. She’s into week two of a five week stay. Read her story, and let me know if you can figure out the parts that make me nervous. (Hint: All the rest of the parts make me nothing but proud!) And if you don’t mind, I’d sure appreciate prayers for my little girl.

Hey, everybody! Greetings from 4,000 ft. up in the Jamaica mountains!

What an amazing week I have had! I’ve done everything from build a cement staircase down a steep mountain slope, to door-to-door ministry in Trenchtown (highest murder rate in the world!), to trying to get the attention of 49 attention-starved children at the same time.

The team from Mizzou that I was with left this morning, with the exception of one girl. At first it was quiet and lonely. I honestly didn’t know if I could last 4 weeks on my own. But I quickly got over it when I saw the kids’ faces again this morning.

They are so beautiful! Most of them are here because they were abandoned and abused. Some of them have been here since they were babies, or small children. There are 3 “houses”. The blue house is the older girls’ home. There are 9 girls that live there and I think the oldest is 13 or 14. I now live in the upstairs part of that house. The yellow house is the boys’ home at the bottom of the property. I haven’t been in it yet.

The green house is the toddler house. I’m not sure how many toddlers live there, but it feels like a trillion at times. I am actually lying in bed at the green house right now. I am a House Mother tonight for five sisters in one of the rooms here. Even though they are not all toddlers (range from 13-newborn), they all stay together in one room. I kind of like being the house mother! Except that their nightlight is massive, so I’ll have to sleep with a blanket over my head.

When I came in, I looked around the room as they were sleeping and I thought to myself, “I’m the nice Miss Hannigan (from the movie, Annie)! My dreams have come true!” This room is connected to another room where one little boy sleeps. His name is Joshua.

Let me tell you about Joshua. He is an emergency case who just got here a couple of weeks ago. His arm is in a huge cast up to his armpit because his father broke it. Joshua is by far one of the most angry and hostile children I have ever known. He lashes out at everything. Somebody looks at him crosseyed and he starts punching them (with his cast, of course).

Joshua is so handsome. When he does smile (too rarely), it lights up the room. I think he’s about 4 years old. I really love him and am trying to express that love however I can. If I see him about to get angry, I run up to him, pick him up, give him a big hug and tell him I love him. I really feel like he’s been denied true love for so long that he doesn’t even know how to respond to it. He just kind of has this look on his face like, “you do??” I really hope to see a big change in Joshua over the next month.

______________

What a morning! Five of us girls went to help out with the toddlers. Man oh man they’re a handful! Seriously, it almost drove us to insanity. Hitting, biting, screaming, kicking, punching, crying, hitting, crying, biting, hitting, hitting, hitting, screaming. It’s interesting because I know that when they realize I am here for longer than a week, they’ll start respecting me.

I’ve been told they’re like this with all of the short-timers. They test test test. And it takes longer than a week for them to start looking at new people as a disciplinarian. It’s so hard because you’ll see one kid hit another, so you go over to stop the fight and to take the “bad” kid away for a talk. The “bad” kid turns limp (the ol’ “I suddenly forgot how to walk” trick)...so it turns into a “Stond oop. Stond oop! STOND OOP NAWO!” (stand up. stand up! STAND UP NOW!) war.

By this time you see another kid across the room spitting in the baby’s eye while beating the sick kid with a wooden stick. So, you have to leave the limp kid to go make sure the baby and the sick kid are ok, and then try to remember to go discipline the culprit…well, the two culprits, if you count the first. All of the offenses start piling up and pretty soon you can’t remember who did what to who. It’s insane!

My schedule during the week will go something like this:
6AM wake up
7AM breakfast in toddler house
8:30AM staff devotions
9-11AM teaching school
11-12 toddler playtime
12PM lunch
1-2PM free time!
2-5PM tutor big kids and playtime with everybody
5 PM dinner
6 PM baths, getting everybody into PJ’s
7 PM toddler and big girl devotions
7:30 PM, bed for the kiddos, and me if I want to. :)

I will be free on some weeknights and every other weekend. I really don’t know what I’ll do when I’m off. Sleep and journal and make phone calls, I guess. I won’t go down into the murder and weed capital of the world unless there is a group going down.

Here is a nice little comparison I made on my first night here:

United States: Some roads are hard to deal with. We complain when I-70 is under construction (again) and traffic during rush hour can definitely be a mess.

Haiti: Four main “highways” that look more like mud pits than anything else. But not too curvy or up and down…just some slip-sliding around and a trillion pot holes to dodge.

Jamaica: The actual roads aren’t too bad at all. It’s the drive up the one lane road that goes up the mountain. Yes, one lane. I look to my right, I see rock. I look to my left, and can’t even see the bottom of the valley. Oh, and did I mention that the tires of the van are RIGHT on the edge and there’s no guardrail for a lot of it. Oh, and did I also mention that the driver isn’t necessarily going slow and takes curves like there couldn’t possibly be cars coming from the other way. Oh, and yes, there are always cars coming from the other way. Wild stuff…but what an adventure!

_______________

OK, I wrote that first part a couple of days ago, and just haven’t had a chance to be on email since then. The past couple of days have been good. I started teaching the preschoolers today. I decided to keep a theme for the week, weather (guess I was thinking of Marc). So, I incorporated shapes into a weather picture that I made for them to color. Then we had a memory verse and Bible story about when Jesus calmed storms.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about hurricanes and tornadoes and tie that into learning our numbers. Wednesday will be colors, etc. It’s been a lot of fun! We had to weed out the kids who were disrupting class, which took a good while. But once they were gone, we got a lot accomplished. Joshua (the little boy I spoke about earlier) was the best student, believe it or not! He listened, memorized the verse quickly and sat quietly. He’s very smart and creative.

One thing that I get so frustrated with: The kids try to steal food from the small toddlers and babies—after they’ve already eaten themselves! It’s hard b/c obviously they’re still hungry, but it’s also not right to steal. So, here I am trying to pry 20 little hands off of the highchairs. After about 15 minutes, I think I’ve got in under control. Then I notice they start coming in the kitchen on their hands and knees, picking up crumbs off of the floor. Once again, sad but wrong.

Anyway, it’s still pretty hard to get their attention, being the new girl who (according to the teens) looks like a teenager. But I’ve been told that by the end of this week they will start to recognize my voice and my firm tone and will start listening and obeying better. Lord, I pray this is true. It’s extremely challenging, but amazing at the same time. I look around the room sometimes when I’m frustrated and I think “They are all so beautiful…who would want to abandon these children?”

That’s what keeps me going….knowing how starved they are for attention and for love.

That is all for now—we’ll see how many of you actually got to the end of this. :)

Thanks for all of your support and prayers and please continue to pray for this home and these children.

Love you all!!

Carrie

Posted by Katy on 04/04/06
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Thanks To My Scottish Father (#910)

This morning, I did something so very extremely fun that it deserves its own blog entry.

I put into the post a manila envelope stuffed to the gills with all the documentation necessary to prove my British citizenship and sent it to the Bristish Embassy in Washington, DC.

Unless I’ve taken a misstep along the way (which would be easy to do considering the convolutedness of the instructions), I should receive back a British passport in the not distant future—perhaps in time to carry it with me to the Old Country.

“But what will this get you?” my sister Liz asked. She’s trying to decide if she wants to piggyback her way to a passport by virtue of my efforts. (I hope she and all my siblings do!)

“Becoming a British citizen makes it so you can live and work anywhere in the European Union without visas or work permits.”

“Can you get their free health care if you live there?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said, “and I know I can vote in their elections, too.”

“Would you really do that?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m kind of afraid I’d get called up for jury duty.”

So far, that’s the only downside to multi-citizenship I can see. And today, even British jury duty sounds like a thrill.

Yeah. I’m kind of excited!

Posted by Katy on 04/03/06
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Tacky Home Repairs 101 (#909)

Some of you may be relatively new to home ownership. You may have heard that keeping up with all the maintenance will end up costing you everything you’ve got, that it will eat up the home equity you want to be building to the point that you might as well rent and save yourselves the heartache.

But there are others like me out there, I’m guessing. Older, more experienced, worldly-wise home owners. Those who’ve come to realize that you can live your whole lives in a house and manage to never figure out how to do even the simplest tasks.

Doug and I are having company for dinner tonight, and I’m afraid I’m digging too deeply today. Do you know what I’m talking about? I should be doing a once-over, and instead I’m pulling out all the stops—actually removing items from shelves instead of dusting around them, vacuuming the upholstery, and paying more attention to grout than a woman my age should have to.

I needed an Ibuprofen and Starbucks break, and Doug was more than happy to join me for a ride down the road. As we left the house, I noticed the bottom piece of a downspout had become detached during last night’s storm. It lay there on the walk, and out of its middle poured what looked like the remains of a bird’s nest.

“You haven’t cleaned the gutters for years,” I said, matter-of-factly.

“I have, too,” he answered.

“Doug, look.” I pointed to the twig and straw clog. “That’s why the water pours in front of the door when it shouldn’t, and off the corners of the roof instead of through the gutters. You need to clean the gutters…”

“I clean the gutters almost every year,” he said. “Well, maybe not last year. But the gutters are not the problem.”

I have to admit I get a little thrill when he uses his authoritative voice.

“So what’s the problem?”

“The downspouts. I don’t get to them quite as often.”

Right.

On the way to retrieve our drinks, I mentioned for the umpteenth time in a very non-nagging kind of way that both sinks in our master bathroom are completely clogged, to the point that it’s becoming challenging to run water for even an abbreviated tooth-brushing.

“But you can’t take them apart today,” I said, “because I’ve already cleaned in there, and I don’t want it messed up again.”

“I understand,” he said, and really that’s the thing I love best about him, you know? He’s so wonderfully understanding. “Try to remember to remind me sometime when the sinks are already filthy, OK?”

Isn’t he the best?

We got home with our iced Americanos just now. Iced because I’m working up a serious sweat and while it’s more than pleasant outside, it’s stuffy as all get-out in here. Why? Because the shutter door of our attic fan will not stay open, so the fan is doing us no good whatsoever.

I heard a home-repair-talk-show guy addressing this very problem a few weeks ago. He said it’s because the vents on top of the roof are clogged up. Why am I not surprised? Apparently, Clogs Backwards R Us.

Doug has already tried sticking the long tube from the inside of a roll of wrapping paper into the shutter, forcing it open. Last week, when he used this method, I actually caught a brief breeze. Turns out it wasn’t because of Doug’s handiwork, though. Just a passing tornado.

I decided to forget the gutters (I mean downspouts, of course…) and sinks and concentrate my limited powers of pursuasion on trying to catch a cool breath.

“Try to get the fan going for me, will you?” I asked.

The next thing I knew he appeared before the open window in our bedroom, where I was huffing and puffing my way through a dusting regimen. He held his hand in front of the window to brag.

“Hey, babe,” he said, “the attic fan is pulling air really well now.”

“You fixed it that fast?” I said. “Wow! I’m really impressed.” I believe in giving praise where praise is due, after all.

“Yeah, I doubled up on the tubes and that did the trick.”

It figures.

Posted by Katy on 03/31/06
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Reverting To The Mean? (#908)

I sprang Mom from the nursing home day before yesterday. She’s back in her assisted-living apartment.

I’m feeling a little ticked-off right now, so I thought I would share. I’m hoping that any of you who have spouses, children, parents, friends, or pets will understand.

For a month in the nursing home, Mom was on her best behavior. The PT had her walking in the halls up to what must have been several blocks at a time, and she cheerfully cooperated with every task a health care worker assigned to her. She complied with using her walker at all times, washing her hands after using the bathroom, and even agreed to remaining dressed when all of us and even God knows she prefers stark nakedness.

I’ve been laboring under the misconception that Alzheimer’s or some other form of serious dementia had kicked in with a vengeance, and of course, I’m not going to get after someone who doesn’t have the mental wherewithal to remember something like panties, but guess what?

A revelation has dawned: my mother is not demented! Once they made some seriously overdue and desperately needed adjustments to her medications, she’s as clearheaded as we are! (Maybe I’m assuming something about you, I don’t know…)

Anyway, I got her home on Tuesday, and the VERY first thing she wanted to do was climb into bed. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, since I know that these moving days are quite stressful and exhausting. I even helped her get all tucked in before I left, but it all felt so darned familiar. Surely this wasn’t the beginning of her former bad habits, was it?

Yesterday I didn’t see her, but my sister Liz did. She emailed to say she’d gotten there at 4:30 in the afternoon and Mom was sound asleep. Of course, it was nearly time for dinner, and Mama don’t miss no meals, so her nap was about to end by the time Liz arrived. Still, I didn’t like the feeling I was getting.

This morning, I showed up unannounced at 10:30. I opened the door to her apartment and could see her naked legs sprawled out in her bed one room over. I walked into the bedroom, past the blaring TV which had been left on in the living room.

“Hello,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Just listening to Judge Joe.”

I stepped back into the living room and flipped off the judge. Judge Katy was about to take the bench.

“Are you sick, Mom?” If my mother is ill, I will do everything in my power to excuse all kinds of behaviors and assist her in every way I can.

“No,” she said. “Although I did have one terrible episode of diarrhea at 4 am.”

“That was then,” I said. “And this is now. Your panties are in such a bundle it looks like you’re wearing a thong. You’re not wearing a thong, are you? And your blouse is mostly unbuttoned and exposing your entire stomach. Not only that, but there are three days worth of dirty clothes in a pile on the floor.” I started gathering up the laundry. “Mom, you need to get out of the bed and get dressed.”

“No, just sit down over there on the chair and talk to me.”

See, folks, this is where it gets dicey. I’ve spent years of my life sitting down on the chair over there and ignoring the squalor of the dirty Kleenexes and the plates of half-eaten food shoved under the bed and the smell of…you don’t want to know.

“No, Mom, you’re not sick. So I’m not going to sit down in here and talk to you and pretend like you’re not naked. Sorry. If you want to visit with me, you will need to get out of bed, get dressed, and come into the living room.”

And that’s exactly what she did.

The jig is up, folks. I’m going to hang tough with my new policy. Now that I know what she’s capable of, I refuse to be disrespected by (my sister Mary loved my word choice here) her bizarrely nasty behaviors.

I don’t know if that’s mean of me, or not. It’s just the way it’s going to be.

Posted by Katy on 03/30/06
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Why (#907)

“I don’t know why I was born.”

Frightening words to hear come out of anyone’s mouth, I think. Maybe especially when they are the opening words to a conversation, before even the small-talk niceties of “Hi, how are you?” and “Just fine. How about you?” have been exchanged.

Instead of sweet-talking lies, only the visual of walking into her apartment and seeing her sitting on the couch with her head buried in her hands, and then those stark, mono-syllabic words, each one standing on its own jagged edge, like brittle bones without marrow.

I don’t know why I was born.

Doug and I looked at each other and knew this was an answered prayer. All we’d asked for, really, was a simple opportunity—a chance to speak to Mom about the way of things between her and Jesus. A chance to point her toward the One for whom we were each made.

“You were born for God, Mary,” Doug said.

I gasped and prepared to be told that she did not want to talk about religion, that she hadn’t meant to imply that a spiritual discussion would be welcome. Instead, she looked at him and waited, as if she’d been waiting to hear those words forever.

Mom asked a lot of questions that day, nearly five weeks ago, before her most recent fall, hospitalization, and nursing home stay. We tried to answer in ways we hoped she could comprehend in her agitated and despondent state.

Mom finally turned to Doug and said, “I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”

And then Doug said something so profoundly true that to think of it even today makes me weep.

“It’s OK, Mary. It all comes down to four words, really. Do you want to know what they are?”

“Yes.”

“God loves Mary McKenna.”

Mom looked stunned to hear the news, the good news of the gospel, the bare-bones truth about the Savior’s intimate affection for her. And for once she didn’t argue with the messenger.

When we were getting ready to leave that day, Doug asked Mom if she would like us to pray with her.

“No,” she said.

“That’s fine,” Doug answered. “Because you know what, Mary? You can talk to God anytime you want, just like we’re talking here.”

A few days later, I told Mom how I was going to have to have an MRI again. She knows I’ve hated going into the tunnels with a passion, so severe is my claustrophobia.

When we were about to hang up the phone, Mom said, “Do you remember my friend Mary Jo, from when you kids were little? And how she used to end every conversation by saying, ‘I’ll pray for you’?”

I giggled, figuring Mom was about to make fun of poor, old Mary Jo. “Sure, I remember.”

“Well, would it help you if I said I would pray for you?”

Yes, Mom. It would help me. More than you could know…

In the space of a few short days, Mom went from “I don’t know why I was born” to “Let me pray for you.”

Sometimes, I have to admit, I’m not quite sure why I was born, either. If we’re honest, I guess we all feel that way from time to time.

But on that beautiful day when my mother gathered the strength of soul to utter those weak-sounding words, I remembered a bit more of the reason.

Posted by Katy on 03/24/06
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Miracle (#906)

It’s been nearly a month since I posted the entry called “Move Over.”

I was pretty frantic when I had that dream, and even more freaked out the next morning as I made my way to the hospital at day break. But God gave me a peace about my mother’s situation that felt so real, so true, so…unfamiliar.

All I could think was that my mom was dying, and that God decided to have mercy on me in advance of her demise by relieving me of my overactive sense of responsibility for her. It would have been a kind thing of the Lord to do, but evidently that’s not what He had in mind.

Mom’s been three weeks in the nursing home now, after a week in the hospital. These have been the best three weeks Mom’s had in years. One explanation for her huge improvement is that the hospital screwed up in a big way. For the week she was an inpatient, they neglected to give her one of her seizure meds, Neurontin.

No wonder she freaked out in the hospital! Turns out she was going through withdrawal—complete with fever, puking, high anxiety, disorientation, paranoia, and the shakes—and no one knew it.

I mentioned on an earlier post that Doug and I got to pray with Mom several times during her ordeal. My sisters Mary and Bridget prayed with her also—at her insistance.

They tried to go home from the hospital late one night and Mom couldn’t settle down enough for them to leave.

“Katy says you can’t go until you pray with me,” she said, in a spiritual panic the likes of which they’d never witnessed.

Of course, I had said no such thing.

“Um…okay,” one sister said. The three of them held hands and Bridget began.

“Dear Jesus, help the doctors figure out how to help Mom, and help Mom get better.” She looked to Mary for sisterly support.

“And dear Jesus, help Mom to sleep good. Amen,” Mary finished.

The two of them looked up to see a disgusted look on Mom’s face and one of the girls said, “What? Doug’s prayers are better?”

“Yip.”

I love this story not because it makes Doug look good, but because it marks the moment, at least in my mind, when Mom began to get her life back. She made a strong declaration about a personally held opinion, and it wasn’t based on fear or weakness or dwindling acuity.

Mom has been with the program ever since. She’s had three very productive weeks of physical and occupational therapy, during which she’s made astonishing progress. Yesterday, she and the PT walked through the huge complex where Mom’s staying, taking only occasional short rest breaks.

“Do you mean Kathleen pushed you in the wheelchair?” I asked, knowing that Mom hasn’t walked more than 20 feet at a time with her walker since August.

Mom made a dismissive gesture with her good hand and said, “Pfffft…what wheelchair? I don’t need that thing.”

All this to say, thank you. I know many of you have actually prayed for my mother, and I think God has answered in a wonderful way.

I talked about it with Mary last night, and she said—in a voice that sounded like a cheesy ad for a goofy TV program about dogs who save their owners from certain death—“It’s a miracle!”

I said, “Well, actually, it kind of is, you know…”

And she said, “I know! That’s why I said it’s a miracle!”

So many miracles happen every day, really, when you stop and add them up. Some people say if they’re common, they’re not miracles, and they’d probably say my mom’s turnaround is just an ordinary occurrance—nothing to write home about.

But you know what? I’ve been there every day for over four years now, in the trenches with a woman on a steady decline, and if this isn’t a miracle, then I’ve never seen one.

And I just had to write home about it—to you.

Posted by Katy on 03/22/06
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Identity (#905)

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that the mark of a Scot is that “there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation.”

I don’t know if that quote gives you shivers, but it does me.

Because, you see, I’ve been to the cemeteries, even the ones in County Monaghan, Ireland, where if the sunshine holds or you’re not afraid of the grey rain falling upon the greyer tombstones, you can date the McKenna clan back eight hundred years.

And if a generation is forty years or so, eight hundred years is twenty generations.

In the year 2000, before I’d begun to make any sense at all of my father’s family history, Doug took pictures of me at the grave sites of every random dead McKenna we could find, and in Monaghan, McKennas are legion.

When we return to the auld sod next month, I’ll be armed with enough pieces of the puzzle to locate the graves of not only my grandparents (buried in Scotland), but my great-grandparents in Ireland, as well.

I left off this project two years ago or more, when my mother’s devolving health situation cried out for all my attention. Now I’ve resumed sending for certified documents so that hopefully, with just a bit more work and the luck of the Irish on my side, I’ll soon have accumulated everything I need to obtain both my British and my Irish citizenships.

I’m smiling through tears as I write this. I can’t tell you why, exactly. I don’t know myself why this is so important to me, but it is.

Maybe it’s because my father’s father drowned in the River Clyde in Scotland when my father was just a wee lad. Maybe all my life I felt like Dad was missing someone, and by virtue of his wistfulness, he imbued me with that same missing-someone feeling.

All I know for sure is this: There burns alive in me a sense of identity with the dead, even to the twentieth generation.

Posted by Katy on 03/21/06
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Me, An Irish Princess? Say It Isn’t So! (#904)

Earlier today, BJ Hoff commented on my previous post and recommended a book called “Paddy’s Lament,” about Irish immigrants in the 1800s.

I’m a sucker for the word “lament,” probably because I’m SO Irish and well, lamenting is one of the things we do best. And since Doug and I had already decided that our St. Patrick’s Day celebration would consist of making a run to Barnes & Noble to use the 15%-off coupon they sent me in the mail as well as my preferred-customer 10% discount (OK, I’m Scottish, too), and that we would purchase a book about Ireland, BJ provided the perfect segue to our outing.

Man, that was a long sentence. The Irish are like that, you know.

Anyway, Doug dropped me at B&N so that I could preview a few selections while he went to a brief business meeting. When he found me a little while later, I must have been beaming. There I sat, a latte in one hand and one of those Ireland On A Whole Lot Of Bucks A Day books in the other.

Since my latte addiction may present a few pesky problems when we land on the auld sod, I was thrilled with what had just jumped off the page at me.

“Look, Doug, it says ‘coffee shop’!”

I pointed to the page, which had an oddly-placed picture right above the caption of a terribly run-down looking boat.

“Um, Katy,” he answered, “it says ‘coffin ship.’”

I really need to get over myself.

Posted by Katy on 03/17/06
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In The Name Of All That Is Holy, Especially St. Patrick… (#903)

Please, if you love me, don’t use the ill-begotten term “St. Patty.”

This year is the first year that I’ve noticed this on banners and ads and even, Saints Preserve Us, on greeting cards. There may be a Saint Patricia out there, and if there is and you want to give the old gal a nickname, then St. Patty would work just fine.

But Patrick was a man, and the nickname for Patrick is “Paddy.” In fact, Irishmen of all stripes are prone to being called “Paddy” in the same way my father and all his brothers when they emigrated to this country from Scotland were automatically nicknamed “Scotty.”

Just so we’re clear on this, “St. Pattie” won’t work, either. Unless you want to reduce my favorite saint of all time to ground chuck.

Have Mercy! And Erin Go Bragh!

Posted by Katy on 03/17/06
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Leave Of Absence (#902)

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I don’t get out much.

OK, if you count ER runs, well then, yeah. I know right where the only working blood pressure cuff is in every ER in town. I think I may even be on the payroll of a few Kansas City hospitals. In fact, by now it would be only fair to have a big fat 401K with my name on it, to which St. Joe Hospital, or maybe Research Medical Center, or possibly Menorah Med Center are contributing 3% per month just because I keep showing up.

I haven’t told you about last Thursday’s trip to the ER because it keeps occurring to me that you might not find my life as hugely exciting as I do. And to keep things interesting, I’m not going to tell you about it now, either.

Suffice it to say that nobody got admitted, so I didn’t get to perform my usual duties as a medical records clerk, respiratory therapist, physical therapy tech, orthopedic consult, and chaplain-in-training.

I can only hope the 3% still got kicked in.

The truth is, we all need a change of scenery now and then, even if we lead thrilling and fulfilled lives as almost-full-time non-professional caregivers.

And if I’m not going to see the green of a hefty retirement fund with my name on it, I might as well see the fabled forty shades of green as the airplane Doug and I are flying in breaks through the clouds and lands in Ireland, don’t you think?

We booked the flight yesterday, just in time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. We leave (and when I say “God willing,” I really mean it) on April 25, and won’t be back until mid-May.

I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks, I’m sure. And I hope to blog from Ireland and Scotland because, well, I want to share the happiness in every way I can.

If you happen to be a visitor at any of the hospitals in Kansas City while I’m gone, don’t let on that you miss me, OK? Maybe they won’t notice that I’m not showing up for work.

And I’d really hate to lose that 3%.

Posted by Katy on 03/16/06
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Brush (#901)

Here’s a fun Thursday question for you: Have you had any so-called “brushes with greatness”? Or degrees-of-separation from greatness which you’d like to tell us about?

I just left a comment over on Michael Main’s site about my close familial relationship with David McCallum. Remember him, from the TV show “The Man From UNCLE”? Yeah, well, we’re cousins! It’s true! He has not quite acknowledged me at this point in time, but my father and he are from the same dinky town (Kilsyth, Scotland) and Dad explained the relationship in detail to me when I was a kid.

I had a lot of pen-pals back then, and I just KNEW that when David McCallum found out that he had an American cousin he’d never met, that he wouldn’t be able to LIVE WITH HIMSELF until he established a life-long connection with me.

Let me tell you this: I’m a LOT closer to Dave Barry!

As for me, I get my biggest thrills at book signings. I met Dr. Laura at Barnes and Noble here in Kansas City a couple of years ago, and I’m still excited. And Jan Karon, who wrote the Mitford books? I’ve met her on three different occasions, including in line in a ladies room. She is a doll.

I’ll throw Doug’s brushes in here, too. I have to say, they’re pretty impressive, and I’m a tad jealous. He used to help line up entertainment for corporate meetings, so he’s gotten to meet Dennis Miller and Bill Cosby. In addition, he sat in a restaurant booth in Santa Monica back-to-back with King Hussein of Jordan. The king’s wife, Queen Noor, was also enjoying lunch, along with his two adult sons, and (Doug loves this part) Maria Shriver!

When Doug and his work buddies got in their taxi after lunch, it so happened that Maria was running out of the restaurant to hop in her car, which was parked directly in front of the taxi. She ran between the two vehicles just as the taxi started to move forward, and Doug screamed out to the taxi driver in what can only be called an act of heroism, “MARIA!!!!!!”

The cabbie slammed on his brakes, Maria and Doug’s eyes met, and she flashed him that amazing Kennedy smile. What had just happened was not lost on her, and we are certain that she still recounts the tale to the Governator to this day: Doug Raymond saved her life.

You might as well know that ever since this happened, my guy has had a little crush on Maria. It’s OK, I understand. After all, how many regular guys get a chance to be a knight-in-yellow-armor to Arnold’s woman?

Still, I guess I’d feel like Doug and I were even in the brushes-with-greatness department if only David McCallum would acknowledge my place on his family tree. Maybe I forgot to include a self-addressed-stamped-envelope?

Yeah, I’ll bet that’s it.

Anyone you’d like to mention here? Let’s drop some names, people!

Posted by Katy on 03/15/06
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Mute (#900)

OK, even when the TV’s on mute (and you really only have it turned on at all so that you can keep up with the tornadoes blowing through Missouri and Kansas) you can learn more about the crazy world in which we live than you ever thought possible.

Last night, Doug and I half-watched a PBS fundraising show which featured the guy who wrote the Rich Dad Poor Dad books. His wife also spoke, and related the story of how she became financially independent by the age of 37. Evidently, her hubby pushed her out of the financial nest by encouraging her to begin to purchase real estate on her own, and she now controls millions of dollars worth of property.

“I want my husband,” she told the audience, “but I don’t need him.”

I understood what she was saying. She emphasized the importance of a woman being able to stand on her own, and mentioned the frightening statistics about women of all ages and how often they fall into poverty. I told Doug I wouldn’t mind a chance to develop some holdings, like the Proverbs 31 woman who “considers a field and buys it.”

No sooner had Doug agreed that some financial independence on my part might be a very good thing, than it was time for the fundraising portion of the program. I almost clicked the mute button, but something told me to keep listening.

A woman in her thirties was the emcee, and she sported the biggest, blondest hair since Farrah Fawcett. She held up the DVDs that were being offered for a generous donation, and said with a non-PBSian sultry expression, “Isn’t THAT what we’d all love to have? A Rich Daddy!”

Doug and I almost died laughing, and I swear the emcee licked her lips. A Rich Daddy? Did she mean a Sugar Daddy? Had she been listening to the presentation at all?

The skies are still stormy this morning, and so the TV is on—tuned into Montel. The volume is all the way down, but I looked up a few minutes ago and saw the captions running across the screen. (Sometimes, it pays to be deaf.)

“My average date with a Sugar Baby runs me about $2000,” said the man who calls himself a Sugar Daddy. “My most expensive date set me back around $40,000.”

I had to turn up the volume. I know, I’m weak. But I had to know: How could a single date cost the man 40 grand? Turns out he bought the woman a car.

Sugar Babies, in case you don’t know, are “ambitious” women who want nothing more than to “be taken care of” and “pampered.” Sugar Daddies are successful men who want to “cut to the chase” because they don’t have a lot of time to spend dating women who aren’t going to put out. The Daddy gives the Baby EVERY SINGLE THING money can buy and in return, she gives him the one thing money isn’t supposed to buy.

And to think I felt a little guilty yesterday because we went out to breakfast and spent $16.

“You’re very lucky I’m a cheap date!” I called out to Doug, who was in his office preparing for a conference call and completely oblvious to my muting of Montel.

“Thanks!” he called back.

It’s not much, but I think we understand each other.

Posted by Katy on 03/13/06
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Ashes For Beauty (#899)

“When is Easter this year?” Mom asked me yesterday. “Your sister Mary is already planning her menu.”

I figured I’d throw a little math test Mom’s way, just to see if two plus two still equals five.

“Well, Mom, Lent is the forty days leading up to Easter, right?”

“That sounds right, I guess.”

“And last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, so that means—”

“We’ve already had Ash Wednesday?”

“Mom, we got ashes together when you were in the hospital, just like we did last year when you were in the hospital.”

“I don’t remember.”

That’s the thing about ashes, isn’t it? We’re scared of them, really, maybe even a bit superstitious. We put them out of our minds as soon as we submit our foreheads to the sign of the cross, hoping against hope that we haven’t somehow hastened our own return to dust.

“Thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

As the day of ashes wears on, we glance in the mirror once or twice and wonder if we should cleanse ourselves of the smudgy mark of faith that stopped looking like a clear statement of belief hours ago.

We stop remembering why remembering the fragility of our mortal state is so essential to apprehending the grace of Jesus to carry on.

I don’t remember, either, Mom. After a lifetime of ashes, how quickly I forget.

Even so, something happened to us in those hospital rooms, something stronger than death and as eternal as love. We’ve gone down to the grave together twice now, Mom, and we know something of the power of His resurrection that we couldn’t have known otherwise.

Beauty for ashes, ashes for beauty. Till the end of our days on earth, when the ashes forever blow away.

Posted by Katy on 03/08/06
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Cradle Attraction (#898)

Who knows how these things happen.

One day, you’re a sexy young chick with handsome suitors whose attentions you don’t appreciate at all, because you don’t have the good sense God gave asparagus.

The next day, you’re a soccer mom, too busy to even notice that men besides your beautiful husband might still be looking. And even if they are, you don’t care. It would take more energy than you can spare to have an affair, and besides, you’re just not that kind of girl.

And then the next day—and believe me when I say that it seems like the VERY NEXT DAY—geezers are vying for your company.

Maybe you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about. But trust me: you will.

I arrived at Starbucks today with an entire fifteen minutes to spend alone, just me and a good book. There were lots of empty tables, so I didn’t feel a bit guilty about plopping down in a brown velvet chair, next to an empty chair and an empty couch. I figured if some people came in who needed the space, I’d happily move to a little table.

But like I said, the place was loaded with open space.

I hadn’t taken a sip and read two sentences before a bona fide geezer—albeit a nice looking and well-groomed one—stashed his hardback novel in the cushion of the couch and went to get his coffee. I felt a bit embarrassed because in the adjoining room, I could see my pastor and all the associate pastors having their Monday morning Starbucks meeting. I sure wouldn’t want them to think that I had a geezer on the side.

I didn’t start up a conversation with the old fellow, because well, I’m shy. He seemed content enough to bury his nose in his novel, and I breathed a short sigh of relief. Until, that is, the next geezer entered the store.

You guessed it. He got his coffee and made a beeline for the upholstered chair right next to mine. I had placed my drink and my keys on the table between our chairs, and he added not only his latte but his keys, too. Just so I’d get the message right off the bat that we have a lot in common, I’m thinking. And perhaps to give notice to the other geezer that he’d marked his boomer chick territory. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Once again, I kept reading my book about learning to live a generous life, but I gotta tell you, I was feeling pretty stingy about entertaining these guys with my sparkling personality right about then. And I’m sure I saw Pastor Nathan point and then Pastor Tom look over his shoulder at the small crowd their erstwhile parishoner had gathered unto herself.

I stayed in my chair only long enough not to hurt the feelings of either Geezer Number One or Geezer Number Two, because I’m sensitive that way. And then I made my escape without a single word.

Anyway, I thought you’d like to know that even though you think of me as eternally young, apparently it’s official: Katy Raymond is a Geezer Magnet.

I have a feeling there’s no going back.

Posted by Katy on 03/06/06
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Recap (#897)

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

Several of my readers have emailed me, just to make sure I’m alive. That is so sweet, and yes, I am. Alive, that is. Sweet? Not so sure about that one!

But this one thing I have done, for what it’s worth: I’ve included the dragon in my calculatons.

These past ten days have been as bizarre as any I’ve lived through, and it’s a good thing God kind of gave me a heads-up on the level of insanity I might expect from the Mama front, or I wouldn’t have made it through.

Let’s just say my mother completely melted down upon admission to the hospital. I guess maybe she had some kind of mild flu bug, which caused a fever and vomiting for 24 hours, but should it have also caused unabated weeping for 48 straight hours? Should it have caused her to scream out for help when her call button was right there on her lap? To panic like a lost child when I left the room for three minutes to use the bathroom?

“I just wanted to see your face,” she sobbed upon my return.

Believe me, these days my face ain’t much to look at. I jump every time I pass a mirror. I call it aerobics for old tired chicks.

In her five days as an inpatient, she became the phone terrorist from Hello. She couldn’t figure out how to dial the phone, but she had all of our numbers on a sheet of paper and she prevailed upon nurses, respiratory therapists, lunch tray passers, and housekeepers to burn up the lines.

The calls came first thing in the morning and late at night, but the theme was always the same. The callee had to come NOW. She couldn’t explain what was wrong, or how she felt, or what kind of help she needed. But she was frantic, and desperate, and generally off her rocker.

They finally decided they didn’t know what to do with her. On Wednesday she was told that Thursday she could go home, to her assisted living apartment. I spent an entire day making sure that didn’t happen. Thursday afternoon, while I was in an MRI machine, my sister Bridget got her moved into a nursing home, for therapy and hopefully to get her medicines figured out further.

An endocrinologist really took on her insulin problems in the hospital, and I think she’s on a better track now. She was having far too many low blood sugar episodes, and at high risk of a hypoglycemic coma.

Since she’s been in the nursing home, she’s acted saner than at any time in the past year. She is speaking coherently for the most part and has calmed down considerably from her high anxiety levels of just a few days ago.

I love the doctor who will care for her in the nursing home, whether she’s there just a short time or for the long term. He is very on board with trying to continue to get her off of unnecessary and harmful prescription drugs. He thinks medications are the likely culprit in her overall condition, and I agree. But getting a doctor to take on such a “project” is nearly impossible outside of a geriatric psych setting.

We’ve already tried that route, by the way. Three and a half years ago. Eleven days in the psych ward. They got her off of four or five narcotics, but no sooner was she out in the “real world,” than she was able to add to her stash again. It’s an ongoing battle.

One wonderful thing: We’ve gotten to pray with Mom more in the last ten days than ever before. It’s been encouraging.

That’s all I’ve got. It’s not much, I know. Thanks for hanging in there with me.