A Few Good Times

It took me awhile to recover from Cathie's visit.  Not just from the over indulgence in the Amaretto but from Cathie herself.  It was like she sprinkled fairly dust all around that made me believe that I could do anything I wanted to do and that life was just fun.  

My little decorating business became a sponsor for the New Neighbors league.  I redid a house for a member and presented a slide show at one of the meetings.  Also put our home on a spring house tour and had about a hundred people come to see it.  For some unknown reason I started writing a column for the local newspaper on the happenings in the neighborhood and had to keep up with the residents of over a hundred homes in the subdivision. The biggest event was that I got  letter from the osteopathic medical school in Kansas City that I was on a waiting list for acceptance.  This meant that if some of the applicants turned down their chance to go I may be accepted. It seemed that overnight I became busier and happier than I ever thought I would have.

The down side to the story was that the happier I became the more unhappy Dennis was.  There were a lot of aspects to working for Ford Motor Company that he knew going into the job that suddenly became points of contention.  He had begun travelling around the state of Kansas a few nights a week which he hated.  Although I loved the neighborhood buying a house forty miles from his office was not the smartest move because of the commute time.  Having a new race car chassis to work on didn't really brighten his mood as there were not the group of racers or fans that would hang out in the garage with him on weekends. All he wanted to do was to move back to Dallas as if that was Mecca and all would be well.

It had not taken me very long after we were married to realize that there was no arguing with him.  I was always wrong, dumb or stupid.
My coping skills had always been that I tried to be the perfect wife so nothing upset him. Maybe if the house was immaculate, lawn mowed, food in the cupboards and dinner on the table everything would be alright.  Can't say that worked out so well for me but it was all I knew how to do.

My dear Mother was still floating on clouds with her new boyfriend.  She came to visit that spring and it was perhaps the best we had gotten along in years.  I bought new running shoes and we did three miles every morning much to my dismay and took Wally out to very nice restaurants for lunch and shopping.  She finally got around to asking about Jim, the plastic surgeon whose house I had been working on.  Seems like she wanted a little plastic surgery done. That was pretty easy as I called him up, she went to see him the next day, two days later surgery done and a week to heal and she was off to go home looking pretty good.  Best part was that even though Dennis thought plastic surgery was stupid they got along fine during the visit. Nice to have a happy Mother.

Towards the end of the school year I tried to get most of my decorating jobs completed.  Since I had never had a real job the thought of putting Wes and Wally in daycare didn't appeal to me and certainly not to almost ten-year old Wes. He had his heart set on racing around the neighborhood on his bike, playing soccer and hanging out at the local pool all summer. Maybe I was spoiling the little guys but with my going back to college days and home based businesses that allowed me to be with them most of the time it was hard for me to suddenly start leaving them all the time. Lucky me with great neighbors and lots of kids for them to stay or play with when I needed to work.

 Jim and Lisa's was completed several times and then they would think of something else for me to do. A couple of funny stories there.  Jim had collected about a hundred large framed photographs of the old west around the turn of the century.  I had tried to ignore them but he called one day and wanted me to go to the house and hang them.  Duh?  I put him off for a day to two, took the boys to the library and studied up an all the rules for hanging pictures of which there are a lot.  That job took awhile but everyone agreed it looked fantastic in the end.  The other story was that they needed a mini blind on the back kitchen door. I went over to their house late one afternoon and was putting it up when they arrived home. The sun was sort of setting and Jim asked if I needed him to turn on the lights.  Brilliant me said "That's okay.  I screw very well in the dark."  It took me a few minutes of watching them laughing like crazy before I realized what I said. We stayed friends for years and they never forgot to tease me about that one.

Lenexa planned a big Fourth of July celebration that year.  There was a 5K run in the morning, a parade and then a neighborhood party in our back yard in the afternoon.  Gary, our builder, neighbor and friend talked Dennis into entering the parade with our 1950 Mercury.  The "Blues Brothers Express" was a pretty big hit.  The party was quite exciting.  Gary actually got Ronald McDonald to show up for the kids.  Late in the afternoon I can remember us yelling at Wes to stop throwing ice at everyone. Wes always tended to get blamed for everything.  He pleaded innocent about the time the police car came through the neighborhood telling everyone to take cover as there was a tornado coming. The ice was actually hail which was falling from a cloudless sky.  Everyone rushed into our basement as the tornado passed overhead.  Lucky for us the tornado did not dip down out of the clouds and we only had a picnic mess blown around in the yard.

 I hadn't told anyone except Barney that I received the letter from the Osteopathic School of Medicine in Kansas City in May.  His rewriting the application was probably the reason I got a spot on the waiting list  and he was pretty proud of himself but also very happy for me.  Since I had gotten his house all decorated he had a very interesting couple for me to go see about doing some things at their home.

Why is it that when things are going to so good that all of a sudden disaster strikes?  I had always been pretty good at springing back from hurt or disappointments but could not see how I would ever recover from this one.

Surprise! It's Cathie!

Coming down my street on that beautiful spring day and noticing a strange car in the driveway and two girls on my porch made me wonder who it could it be?  Those thoughts run through my head that I didn't have time for visitors, how bad did the house look and various other negative thoughts.  As I pulled into the driveway I realized that it was Cat and I couldn't get out of the car fast enough.

Cat, actually Cathie, had been my room mate at Stephens College.  Some how through the fifteen since years college Cat, Pam who lived next door to us and I had all managed to keep in touch.  I always found it interesting that the three of us did connect in the first place as we were really different personalities.  Luckily we were good at letters and long distance phone calls when the need arose so the friendships grew through the years.  Now, Cat, who I had not seen since her popping up on my porch in Carrollton, Texas five years ago was sitting was here.

Wally was a little bewildered at all the hugging and carrying on over this person he had never seen at first but became rather smitten when she scooped him up, kissed him and told him he was the cutest thing ever. Wes arrived home from school to find Cat there and instantly grew a few inches taller as Cat hugged him.  On the only visit Cat had made five years before Wes had decided, at the age of five, that he was going to grow up and marry "Aunt Cathie".  It was a good thing Dennis was out of town as he had a very dim view of my best friend.

So what had brought on this visit.  Cat and her friend Elizabeth were on their way to St. Louis to march in a Women's Lib parade in their white dresses.  The method of travel for Cat was to strike out to where ever she wanted to go and hopefully find a place to sleep at some one's house.  If none could be found on her route she simply slept on a picnic table in a park or a rest stop although she always had a tent in the funny little cars she drove for inclement weather. Perhaps that may sound like a strange way to travel but you had to know Cat to realize it was quite logical actually.

Her current home was a commune in South Texas which is where she had met Elizabeth.  In the five years since she had last visited and we took her out for a steak dinner Cat had become a vegetarian. When she asked Wes what he wanted for dinner he announced that a banana split would be good.  It was a riotous group that invaded that ice cream parlor that evening. During our two hour stay I think Cat met everyone who worked there or entered the door. With her blond hair and her huge blue eyes people just gravitated to her and she never met a stranger.  Our table for five became a table for ten or fifteen as she invited everyone to join us.  Even Wes and Wally who finished their ice cream long before we finally left never complained or got bored.

We finally headed home and I got the boys to bed although it was a fight since they wanted to stay up to be around Cat.  I don't remember where the bottle of Amaretto came from. Maybe we stopped at a liquor store and bought it on the way home but it was certainly not anything I had or had ever drank before.  I did put Amaretto on my list of things never to drink again.  The fifth of Amaretto was finally empty about 2:00 in the morning and even though there was a lot more girl-talk we could have done we called it a night.

I was up at 6:00 the next morning with a pounding headache and a slightly queasy stomach.  As I got the boys up I realized that I had a small wallpaper job to do that day. I had told Cat the night before that I needed to leave early that morning and to just make themselves at home and lock the door when they headed for St. Louis. The last thing I wanted to do was to go wallpaper and wished I had called and cancelled the appointment.  By the time I got to the house to hang the wallpaper my insides were actually shaking.  Hmmm....going to be hard to wallpaper so I left the lady who was already at work a note and told her I had an emergency and would be there the next day. Then I called home and Cat answered the phone.  She and Elizabeth were ready to go but were going to go to a Mexican restaurant for Chiles Rellenos for breakfast since they were good for hangovers.

I agreed to meet them at a Mexican restaurant at the Plaza as I needed something for my hangover.  I wondered on my way to the Plaza how they picked that restaurant as it was a long way from my house but with Cat you never questioned how she just knew things and it was one of the best in town. Walking into the restaurant I suddenly realized how they had chosen it.  Sitting at the table with them was Barney.  Leave it to Cat to pick up the phone book and call him for advice on where to eat and of course he couldn't miss the opportunity to see her either. I do have to admit that once again the number of people at the table expanded, chairs were pulled up out in the aisle not only with people who were drawn to the laughter at our table or people that Barney knew.  By the end of lunch somehow all signs of a hangover were gone.

It was sad to wave goodbye to her and Elizabeth as they went off on their adventure.  It has been said that in your lifetime you may only have a couple of real friends, ones that you can share every thought with, ones that stand by you through thick and thin and ones that are always there even if you don't see them for years.  I feel very lucky that Cathie, Pam and I have been like that since the day we met.


P.S.  One of my very early blogs was about Cathie and her unique way of dancing through life as she was one of a kind. To find it go to the list of my blogs, click on 2015, then click on August and it should pop up with her picture at the top.  It is worth reading as she was amazing.

A Learning Experience

It was difficult to come home from Dad's funeral and get back into the routine of home and work.  There had been a whirlwind of activity since I got the call that Dad had passed away, calls that had to be made to cancel appointments and plans, getting the family ready to go and making the trip to Muskogee.  As usual we stayed with Dennis's parents where streams of his relatives came by, then there was the argument with my brothers about not wanting to view Dad dead in a box and I can't forget trying to put on the happy face for Wes and Wally as they really did not understand what was going on. 

It would take me years to fully realize that the worst parts of the ordeal were my own fault.  Somehow everyone around me expected me to make decisions on what clothes they should wear, where and what we should eat, where the car keys were, why didn't I pack this or that and a million other trivia things I was made to feel I was responsible for. There was never time to just be by myself, to spend time with just my brothers or even to cry. It was my fault because I had always tried to keep everyone happy and take care of all their needs.  So I stifled the desire to scream and hid my anger.

We arrived home on a Sunday evening after being gone for a week to find a refrigerator full of food and the dining room table covered in flowers. I realized how lucky I was to have wonderful neighbors and friends.  There were nice cards in two of the flower arrangements but not one in the third.  Two dozen red roses was not hard to figure out who they were from.

Shortly after Dennis left for work and Wes was off to school the next morning the phone rang.  I answered it with my "Hey" which got a laugh as I knew it was Barney.  It seemed like a year since I had talked to him when actually I did call him before we left for Oklahoma a week before. When he asked if I was okay I surprised myself by not saying that I was fine but told him I really didn't know as it had been a really stressful week without going into a lot of detail.  There was no hesitation when he said he would buy my lunch the next day if I would meet him. Of course my answer was yes and it seemed to lighten my mood in that I was able to get through the day with friends dropping by to see how I was doing.

I got to the fountain first and Barney arrived and off we went to a new place he had found.  Well, it was a new place but also a place we both knew.  The restaurant that we originally met at that had burned a year and a half before had opened in a new location with all of the original staff.  Louie was very happy to see us, the gentlemen we had decided were the Kansas City mafia were once again in one corner and it felt like life was once again back to normal.

We had a long talk about Dad and the funeral.  Maybe it was easier to poor out my feelings to him than it was to other people, even Dennis or close friends.  Told him how bad the week was for me and that I probably would have done better with out the ordeal and all the people being around.  Maybe funerals were not really for the living as just about the time you are really ready to accept their passing you have to go through the funeral.  I felt like I had to put up some sort of front while I listened to stories from people who really didn't even know him.

To my surprise he agreed with me even though I told him he was just saying that to make me feel better.  No, he said, everyone has their own way of mourning a loss and he had been worried about me about how I handle the funeral.  He told me to let all the negative feelings of the last week go by the wayside and just remember that I loved my Dad, that he adored me and nothing else mattered.  I thanked him for what he had said as it was just what I needed  since part of why I felt bad was that I was feeling guilty. Maybe there was something wrong with me that I didn't think he was in "a better place" or that he looked peaceful or nice dead in a box or any of the other catch phrases people use when someones dies.

I don't know if in his own way Barney gave me permission to finally break down and cry over the loss of my Dad or if I could simply no longer keep up the front up of being okay.  The rest of the week I finally took the time, ignoring phone calls and friends, to finally mourn the passing of my Dad.  Then it was time to get over the sense of loss and count my many blessings.

Winter is my most favorite season since I have always believed a person cannot own enough sweaters or the snow can never be deep enough but Spring was beginning to pop out.  It was time to stop ignoring my clients, time to hang out at the soccer fields with Wes, time to try to answer all of Wally grown-up questions and time to enjoy every day.

I arrived home one afternoon after running errands with Wally.  Dennis was out of town for a few days and my thoughts were on the joyous fact that I did not have to cook dinner as hot dogs would do fine for the boys.  But what was the strange car doing in the drive way and who were the two women sitting on the front porch?